Posted on 06/12/2006 6:23:16 AM PDT by conservativecorner
Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.
Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.
As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming “North American Union” that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.
Just examine the following websites to get a feel for the magnitude of NAFTA Super Highway planning that has been going on without any new congressional legislation directly authorizing the construction of the planned international corridor through the center of the country.
NASCO, the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., is a “non-profit organization dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.” Where does that sentence say anything about the USA? Still, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan the NAFTA Super Highway as a 10-lane limited-access road (five lanes in each direction) plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongside pipelines laid for oil and natural gas. One glance at the map of the NAFTA Super Highway on the front page of the NASCO website will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. into one transportation system.
Kansas City SmartPort Inc. is an “investor based organization supported by the public and private sector” to create the key hub on the NAFTA Super Highway. At the Kansas City SmartPort, the containers from the Far East can be transferred to trucks going east and west, dramatically reducing the ground transportation time dropping the containers off in Los Angeles or Long Beach involves for most of the country. A brochure on the SmartPort website describes the plan in glowing terms: “For those who live in Kansas City, the idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but later this month that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality.”
The U.S. government has housed within the Department of Commerce (DOC) an “SPP office” that is dedicated to organizing the many working groups laboring within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to create the regulatory reality for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005. According to the DOC website, a U.S.-Mexico Joint Working Committee on Transportation Planning has finalized a plan such that “(m)ethods for detecting bottlenecks on the U.S.-Mexico border will be developed and low cost/high impact projects identified in bottleneck studies will be constructed or implemented.” The report notes that new SENTRI travel lanes on the Mexican border will be constructed this year. The border at Laredo should be reduced to an electronic speed bump for the Mexican trucks containing goods from the Far East to enter the U.S. on their way to the Kansas City SmartPort.
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway. A 4,000-page environmental impact statement has already been completed and public hearings are scheduled for five weeks, beginning next month, in July 2006. The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain. As a consequence, the TTC will be privately operated, leased to the Cintra consortium to be operated as a toll-road. The details of the NAFTA Super Highway are hidden in plan view. Still, Bush has not given speeches to bring the NAFTA Super Highway plans to the full attention of the American public. Missing in the move toward creating a North American Union is the robust public debate that preceded the decision to form the European Union. All this may be for calculated political reasons on the part of the Bush Administration.
A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.
I'll be specific, for all the good it will do, since you never read any of the links that are posted to you.
http://www.worldforum.org/Commission-On-Globalisation/homelinks/CommissionFinalReport.htm
STRATEGIC PURPOSE
The purpose of the Commission on Globalisation was to undertake an inclusive and comprehensive multi-stakeholder inquiry into the nature and character of globalization; and to develop integrated thought and action leading to specific recommendations for governance and policy-making at a global level that promoted greater social equity, environmental stability, enhanced security, and sustainable economic growth.
The Commission served as an incubator, catalyst and integrator for innovative leaders and institutions working to bring greater equity, democracy and accountability to globalization and global governance.
"The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming 'North American Union' that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality."
Welcome to Pan America. Your country is officially no longer your country -- It's been sold!
Can we get it back?
Watched reruns of "brave-heart" the other day. I think William Wallace had it easy compared to what we face. Our modern "Nobles" could care even less about America than the ones in his time.
In a strict sense, globalization is inevitable and not a bad thing. But it all depends on how you want to define the word.
Clearly, advances in technology have made the world much smaller, and transportation and electronic advances allow for goods and capital to get around the world extremely rapidly.
That's a good thing and we should take advantage of it. Nations benefit from trade, both as buyers and sellers.
The problem is that one segment views sovereignty as an obstacle to globalization. But that's because their view of globalization is one big happy planet where we all share equally in resources and we govern with human rights as a top priority and there are no winners and losers.
But that's not globalization. That is some utopian BS from the left.
I don't dispute for a second that "globalization" is being seized as a method of reducing sovereignty, with the main focus being the USA. That must be opposed.
But that doesn't mean that we should oppose the benefits of what is true globalization, the efficiencies of the free market and the modernization of the entire planet. It would not be helpful to isolate ourselves from that and return to the Middle Ages.
The truth is that we can enjoy the benefits of globalization AND retain our full sovereignty. It will require some effort, but it is worth it.
You don't think taking people's property doesn't trample the constitution? I do and the supreme's were wrong last year with that decision. Do you think everyone in the path of that super highway, as it runs through Texas, is going to be thrilled to sell?
And I'm still waiting for you to tell me how long you've been off of your meds.....
And it would ALSO be nice for hedgehead here to explain WHY he has an alter-ego on DU....
Or explain HOW he doesn't know what DU is although he's been on this forum for over 5 years now....
That's great, especially since half of them aren't me and the other half are from articles on here...
Still doesn't explain why you have a name on DU though.
bump.
That's a fundamental misconception. Globalization is the effect of modernization and technology. The internet has forever changed the way we conduct business and allows us to be in touch with practically anyone in the world with a few keystrokes.
A road is just a road. We've been building those with tax money long before globalization was even a concept.
You have been RUDE and OBNOXIOUS, calling others names, impugning their reading comprehension and IQs and their supposed behaviors throughout this entire thread. Your projection complex is in full throttle, with you accusing others of the very traits that you keep exposing, but which none of them nor I have.
It is, in fact, your abject and abysmal lack of reading comprehension and short term memory ( not to mention your hysteria ), which is on public view.
I was late to this thread, which I was pinged to, and to which you have taken irrational and illogical umbrage with. As far as being a "BORG", it is YOU who yearn for 110% agreement with your positions and comments. You can't stand the fact that you have any opposition and have now been reduced to mere ravings and tantrum throwing. Pity that.....
Your tinfoil hat is on far to tight and has cut off the blood supply to your brain! Lighten up Francis..... :-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.