Robert Pastor - Making A Competitive Continent (Barf Alert)

The election of a Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress and the inauguration of Felipe Calderon as president of Mexico offer the two countries an opportunity to reinvigorate a deteriorating relationship.

To do so, the new leaders must change the agenda from illegal immigration to North American development and resolve to narrow the income gap between Mexico and its two northern neighbors.

Early in their presidencies, George W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox made the mistake of putting immigration at the top of the agenda. Migration is a net cost to Mexico and a net benefit to the United States, but conventional wisdom in the two countries begins with the opposite premise. Many Mexicans see migration to the United States positively as an “escape valve” and a source of remittances, while Americans exaggerate the costs to the United States.

The main reason that emphasizing immigration was a mistake is that the United States won’t do the two things necessary to stem the flow of migrants: strict enforcement of employer sanctions for hiring illegal workers (because business wants a cheap, docile workforce) and creation of a fraud-proof national identification card (because it is expensive and some view it as intrusive).

Migrants come to the United States for higher income, and so the only way to stop them is to narrow the income gap between Mexico and its northern neighbors. The North American Free Trade Agreement stimulated the economy of northern Mexico because of its proximity to the United States. The north grew 10 times faster than the south, but it served as a magnet, pulling labor from the south. Part of the solution to Mexico’s development problem should be to extend NAFTA to the south with new highways. Jobs would follow.

Bush and Calderon should work with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to create a North American Investment Fund to invest $20 billion a year for a decade in infrastructure — roads, ports, railroads, communications — to connect the southern part of Mexico with the lucrative North American market. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has introduced a little-noticed bill for such a fund.

The United States is unlikely to give any aid to Mexico unless Washington is convinced that the funds will be well spent. That is why we should take note of Calderon’s comments to Bush at their meeting Nov. 9 and hold him to them: “I did not come to the U.S. looking for the Americans to solve Mexico’s problems. We have to solve them on our own.” If Mexico undertakes needed reforms on energy, electricity, education, labor and taxes, and puts up half the money for the North American Investment Fund, the United States and Canada should pledge the other half.

Such an initiative would stimulate the second-largest, but potentially fastest-growing, market for U.S. goods.

Although it would not stop illegal migration soon, if the initiative succeeded in doubling Mexico’s growth rate, the income gap with the United States would be reduced by 20 percent in a decade, and Mexicans would begin to think about their future in Mexico rather than seek jobs to the north.

The United States, Canada and Mexico should stop debating NAFTA and begin collaborating to make the continent more competitive.

In case you want to know more here is the Arizona State University website for Building North America.

http://www.asu.edu/clas/nacts/bna/

The “Building North America” project began with a website, originally launched in 2000 and hosted by the Americas Society-Council of the Americas, which provided links (with editorial comment) to hundreds of sites of interest to the growing community of “North Americanists.” This site was inspired by the notion that economic integration in the NAFTA Triad (Canada-U.S.-Mexico) was advancing despite the lack of press and public attention it received, and that a presence on the web would allow those of us in the Triad countries, and beyond, to “link up” to a growing body of research and, by extension, to one another as professional colleagues in the academic, business, and policy worlds. In this same vein, the PanAmerican Partnership for Business Education launched a consortium of four North American business schools to promote a new generation of entrepreneurs with a deep knowledge of these integration trends in the region, while also generating more research and case studies regarding how businesses, governments, and organizations were shaping, and adapting to, the evolution of a shared economic space.

Nearly a decade later, and more than a decade after NAFTA, we are now bringing together the fruits of this research endeavour in a new, updated and redesigned “Building North America” website, generously hosted by the North American Center for Transborder Studies (NACTS) at Arizona State University and with the cooperation of our Partners, the Americas Society-Council of the Americas, and the Kansas City, Missouri International Affairs and Trade Office. We are still faced with a regional integration process that advances and deepens without the kind of attention – either within the academy or in government circles, let alone the general public – enjoyed in Europe; at the same time, we are betting on the continued existence of scholars and policy practitioners who would benefit from a site which would consolidate the research and data we are all generating, and thereby build community among us.

"I notice this clown appears in the Napa Valley Register.
Yeah, no agenda there, right, Sparky? Free access to cheap illegal grapepickers for the winemakers?
I'm sure Nancy Pelousy would agree wholeheartedly with this guy."

Unfortunately, Bush has already signed on to the NAU/SPP agenda and with the powerful OBL behind it, is bipartisan. What is said in Napa Valley Register is no different than what Pastor has testified to before our Senate Foreign Relations Committee The agenda for the future of our country may be found in this transcript and the passing of CIR is but the next step, but a very important one in the NAU/SPP agenda. It doesn't include the securing of our borders, it never did:

http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2005/PastorTestimony050609.pdf

One by one, as members of our leadership become aware of this 'plan' they are speaking out in order to alert both the general public and those lawmakers who are still 'in the dark'"

Johnson: Three-hundred Miliion Blind Mice

Senator Karen S. Johnson (R) AZ

I just returned from a week in Washington, D.C., with a group of concerned women where we learned about the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), also known as “The North American Union.” This partnership was agreed upon at a private meeting held in Waco, Texas, March 23, 2005, between then-President of Mexico, Vicente Fox, U.S. President George Bush, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada. The SPP is an agreement to merge our United States of America with Mexico and Canada.

I am outraged about what the Bush administration is doing with this partnership behind Congress’s back. (See www.spp.gov)

With virtually no mention in the mainstream media and no oversight from Congress, Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez is pushing forward, through his department, the “working groups” that are currently implementing this plan. Government bureaucrats and business leaders are “harmonizing and integrating” our laws with Mexico and Canada on a broad range of issues such as E-Commerce, Transportation, Environment, Health, Agriculture, Financial Services, and National Security just to mention a few. Do we want our laws “harmonized” with Socialist Canada and corrupt Mexico?

If you are concerned about terrorism in our country just remember that enlarging our borders, merging our security functions with one of the most corrupt nations on earth (Mexico), and giving up sovereignty and constitutional protections does NOT make us safer.

Dr. Jerome Corsi, a Harvard Professor, who has spent months researching this issue was recently able through a Freedom of Information request to obtain about 1,000 pages on SPP/North American Union, which clearly reveal that the Bush administration is running a “shadow government” with Mexico and Canada in which unelected bureaucrats are crafting a broad range of policy changes. The SPP is truly rewriting U.S. administrative law, all without Congressional oversight or public disclosure.

The government watchdog organization, Judicial Watch, obtained many of the same documents that Dr. Corsi has received, including the organizational chart and a listing of trilateral Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. administrative officers who report on multiple cabinet-level “working groups.”

The SPP.gov web site has now put up a “Myth vs. Fact” document posted for public relations purposes to begin the “whitewash” in which they think they can hoodwink the American public. One of the ways the administration has been able to go around Congress is by not having the three countries sign a treaty or “law” on SPP. I want to know - and the American public should demand – where does the Bush administration get the congressional authorization to invite two foreign nations to the table to rewrite U.S. law?

The Bush administration is trying to create the infrastructure for a new regional North American government in stealth fashion, under the radar and out of public view. Congress has unequivocally been asleep at the wheel.

It is incredible but, if this template is followed, just four years from now the United States may cease to exist as an independent nation. Its laws, rules and regulations – including all freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution – will be subject to review and nullification by the North American Union’s governing body (unelected). There will no longer be a Canadian or Mexican border. Transnational transportation corridors will crisscross the United States delivering the cheapest goods possible from China and Vietnam with Mexican truckers who will work for a pittance of what our U.S. truckers earn. Thousands of middle- class jobs will be wiped out, and the U.S. will become nothing more than a province in an emerging North American superstate.

The American people have got to be alerted and we must contact our members of Congress to put a stop to this. Most Representatives and Senators are largely unaware of the SPP/North American Union. I am certain that an aroused and deeply concerned electorate would have little trouble gaining support to block what is planned and retain our nation’s hard-won independence. Please help stop this insane move towards a North American Union."

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