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Screwed, Glued and Tattooed
Abstract. This article contains information about the TransTexas Corridor, NAFTA, toll roads, the North American Union, how it all came about and how if we ALL don’t work together to stop it, well….refer to the title.
The leaders of the three countries in North America started meeting secretly in 2003 to work towards building a partnership enhancing security, prosperity and economic cooperation. Unfortunately this relationship has developed into a system where foreign corporations can profit off citizens’ tax monies and land taken by eminent domain while the citizens just keep paying more taxes and fees. Unlike our beginnings in the US, this constitutes taxation without representation, as none of this was ever presented to the US Congress for approval. In Texas it represents nearly a half million acres of land and water ruined to toll roads built with tax money and again charged to those of us who paid those taxes. The end result will be a North American Union like the European Union.
Although the environment was quite different, I was pleased with the information presented and the attitude of the audience. They are in accordance with us. “They” were the local Republican Club and “we” are the local Democrat club. I am very happy to see that the majority of the Republicans who are aware of this major fiasco are also against it. The problem is that this whole thing has been kept under the radar until the 2003 Texas legislative session. However, even our legislators didn’t know that much about it. House Bill 3588 of 2003 passed with legislators thinking it was to build more Texas roads. What it actually did was to allow public-private partnerships to buy Texas infrastructure. Even now, there are many of us with great passion to scream against this, but still not enough to make state and federal politicians shake in their boots. Believe me, you think George W. Bush has just screwed us seven ways from Sunday? There isn’t a calendar in the world that can handle all the ways you haven’t even learned about yet.
The first informational meeting I attended on the NAFTA which begat SSP which begat TTC which is begetting the NAU and begetting taxpayers’ financial loins to be sucked dry, was on September 29, 2007, when the Fort Bend County Democratic Party brought down Hank Gilbert to inform us about the history and the latest developments of the toll road issues and TTC. He has been researching and lobbying for years against it. It was one of the reasons he ran for Texas Agricultural Commissioner in 2006 on the Democratic ticket.
I became so riled from Hank’s presentation, that when I heard the Republicans were generally against it and were having a conservative speaker who has been doing what Hank has, I wanted to hear her also. Cathie Adams spoke on Oct 3rd. She is also a fireball like Hank and not afraid to curl the upper lip of her political colleagues to fight for what she believes is right. My kind of woman!
Hank and Cathie and their colleagues have pried and spied, searched and researched, and sweated and fretted to ferret out all sorts of information that your current US President and Texas Governor Perry (affectionately called Mr. 39 Percent by some of us) do not want you to know. Things that are so bad, so evil, that even both political parties concur CANNOT be allowed to progress any further. We may look a bit differently at why these things are evil, wicked, mean and nasty; but the bottom line is the citizens of the USA, Mexico and Canada (the very citizens which were to be oh so very helped by this NAFTA) are being sold out to a non-North American country, while the fat cats of North America and any other country that wishes to play, are getting fatter and our higher-level politicians’ pockets are getting heavier. Meanwhile, whatever hope we’ve had of securing our borders, say from whatever your pet concern(s) may be, is going down the drain quickly.
First of all, the whole thing starts with NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA, is NOT a treaty, as it sounds like it should be. It is LAW. It was voted in with a “2/3 majority” of both houses of the US Congress when Bill Clinton was president. Now THIS is what the Republicans tell you and consequently why they blame President Clinton for NAFTA. However, what they fail to tell you is that it was actually George H. W. Bush who signed the agreement with Mexico and Canada under his fast-track prerogative in December of 1992. This forced Clinton to promise during his campaign that he would have to review the agreement that was so wanted by conservative politicians and their supporters. In the end, Clinton saw the light and made the politically expedient choice to keep the agreement as signed, but added the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC). These were established to prevent rampant pollution and to promote collaboration among trade unions and improve labor conditions. This form of the agreement passed in both houses---2/3 in the Senate, but in the House, it was actually 234-200. The Republicans seem to continually confuse the NAAEC and NAALC with NAFTA, which I guess explains the Clinton blame.
When searching for information about NAFTA, En.Wikipedia.org/ has a good synopsis. Unfortunately, it really leaves out much of how the average US/TX taxpayer and Texas citizen is affected and why we cannot let this continue any further. For instance, why was this whole agreement started?
As labor and other costs began to rise for manufacturers, U.S. and Canadian companies started to out-source their manufacturing plants to Mexico’s unsafe, sweat-shops (maquiladoras) where it was more economical and there were fewer costly regulations. Then, they became greedy and wanted to do away with the import tariffs they were required to pay to bring those products across the borders to sell. Consequently, the companies using the maquiladoras lobbied heavily for borders that would be open financially, intellectually (intellectual properties) and customs-wise and NAFTA was created.
However, now they have set the scene for more freedom than most of us wish across those borders. Now, instead of having customs agents, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary is making the electronic sensors that will be placed all along the superhighway from the Mexican ports to Canada and in the sea containers coming in to Mexico. Trains and trucks, just like cars going through the E-Z tag lane at the toll way, will barely slow down at the borders. These are simply tracking devises. Forty-nine percent of that subsidiary is owned by a Chinese company that has close ties to the Communist Chinese government. This sensor devise system is termed SENTRI, for Secure Electronic Network for Travelers’ Rapid Inspection.
The acting assistant secretary for policy from the Office of Policy, Planning and International Affairs testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship (Senator John Cornyn, Chairman, R-TX) that as of December 2, 2005, over 75,000 SENTRI cards had been issued to individuals to cross the Mexican/US border. To receive one of these cards, a person must show proof of citizenship and an identification documentation, then undergo a background check.
The fear is that we currently have enough illegal Asians, or illegal immigrants, sneaking across our borders in trucks or into our ports in sea crates modified as living quarters. Some don’t make it alive. But now, with rapid transit over the border and then deposition to a huge rail terminal in Missouri that will become sovereign Mexican land, how easy will it be for Chinese or Mexican “coyotes” to pop a SENTRI on a sea crate and a fake SENTRI pass in the pocket of each illegal immigrant? Also, if no one is looking into the containers, heaven knows what they can put in there to destroy half the state with pinpoint accuracy with GPS. Dirty bombs don’t take up that much space. You can put an entire army and its equipment on one long train. After all, it won’t be inspected by anyone until it reaches the SmartPort which is manned by foreigners on their own land with diplomatic immunity. With the thousands of acres of underground warehouse space under the SmartPort being built in Kansas City, that army and its weapons of mass destruction could feasibly slip out one at a time and we would never know until it was too late. OK, so it’s a worse case scenario, but just like little kids…..they aren’t going to think of it until you present the opportunity to their faces.
Wait, you say. Why am I talking suddenly about China? Why did I jump from the Mexico/US and US/Canada borders to China? Good question. NAFTA started so Canadian and U.S. companies could hire cheap labor in Mexico, build or rent company buildings cheaply in Mexico, have fewer safety laws to fund and not have to pay costly benefits to employees. Then, they didn’t want to pay import fees to bring the products across the borders to sell those products in their countries. Then big companies like Mattel, Walmart, etc., learned that an even cheaper place to do all this existed: China. So, with a bit of manipulating and wheeling and dealing with Mexico still getting a piece of the pie, China starts building a huge sea port called Port Lazaro-Cardenás on its Pacific coast. Plans are made to ship the goods cheaply manufactured in China by rail and truck from the port up through Mexico, through Texas and California, and into three major arteries to the rest of the United States and Canada. The portion that goes through Texas is called the TransTexas Corridor or TTC.
Those arteries are a product of secret meetings between the heads of state of the US, Mexico and Canada. Those meetings were the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America agreements, where the leaders decided to turn over all “work” to private contractors. Those arteries are to be built by private companies using tax money. The roads that cars will be able to use will charge tolls and those tolls will go to the construction company that built those roads. In Texas, that represents 4,000 miles of roads that will make citizens lose 580,000 acres of private land. Not to mention the water permanently lost when mixed with cement from China to make concrete. Visualize these major arteries: the land they will occupy will be the equivalent of four football stadiums wide, consist of six automobile lanes (three each direction), four truck lanes (two each direction), with rail lines and utilities down the middle. One of the selling points to these arteries is that they will help relieve traffic congestion in major cities. I don’t see how as they will bypass those cities. They won’t intersect but with a very few major highways that will enter those cities. Probably most counties in Texas will have only one exit/entrance. Now that’s superbly convenient for most motorists! If the roads are mostly for trucks, why are there more lanes for cars? Hint: they’ll be charged more, again, after being charged once for the gas tax.
It’s now even gone so far as to the United States paying for most of the expansion and widening of the Panama Canal and China buying land on either side of the canal. Haven’t you wondered why the Port of Houston suddenly is getting bigger? It’s not just for those cruise ships. In Rosenberg, two rail road lines have purchased land and are building large rail terminals for crates that will be coming in from Mexico and China (or China via Mexico). Kansas City Southern Railway (which is one of these railways) has purchased controlling interest in three Mexican rail lines that now allow KCS to have the rail lines the entire way from Port Lazaro-Cardenás to Kansas City Missouri, via Laredo, Houston, Dallas and Oklahoma City. They have plans to purchase 190 new engines from General Electric during 2007-2008. Some have already been seen on the Union Pacific hazardous chemical line that parallels highway 90A east of Richmond. KCSR now markets itself to potential clients as the official NAFTA Railway.
In Kansa City there is to be a massive, super (SmartPort) terminal that will branch out to deliver crates from and to rails, trucks, planes and barges to the rest of the U.S. and Canada or from there. After this SmartPort has been built with taxpayer and corporate money, it will become sovereign land of Mexico (see paragraph 11) and all employees working there will be employed by Mexico under their labor laws, not those of the U.S. Missouri is not to be the only SmartPort. It will be the largest; but not the only. This SmartPort is to be a total of 10,000 acres with facilities for rail, truck, air and water (Missouri River) transportation and exchanges of freight. Part of the port includes the new Richards Geraud Memorial Airport which was built on the former Richards Geraud Air Force Base. The SmartPort has been in construction since 2001.
So how did all of THIS come about??
A secret meeting between President George W. Bush, President Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Martin of Canada that took place on March 23, 2005, at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. In a joint statement made that day by the three, it was stated that “...in the past decade we have taken important steps to create economic opportunity for our people and create the most vibrant and dynamic trade relationship in the world. Since September 11, 2001, we have taken significant steps to address threats of terrorism and enhance security of our people.. But more needs to be done…”
This secret meeting, by the way was never submitted to Congress for debate; either before or afterwards. Republicans blame Bush’s Secretary of Commerce Gutierrez for the success of this meeting, simply because he speaks Spanish.
Then a year afterwards in a follow-up meeting to discuss progress, suddenly instead of this all being a combined project of three governments, it became a combined project of private industry and government. Private industry was to build and operate the entire operations while the governments were to fund and oversee everything and make sure that established guidelines were followed. Note that the NAAEC and NAALC have literally disappeared. The SPP, if it has its way will have its own tribunal of sorts which makes its own laws which trump the laws of each country. If it happens that the SPP laws concerning truckers and their trucks are not as safe for truck drivers and other vehicle drivers on the roads, that is just tough, until someone can get through to the tribunal to get it changed. You think our Supreme Court is difficult to reach? My money is on the paper that states the tribunal will be next to impossible to access unless you have connections. It will be a law unto itself. Sort of a governmentally-sanctioned mafia.
As the SPP has grown and is emphasized more and more as an entity of the “North American Community” to provide financial, trade and border security for the three countries, it is becoming more and more like a North American Union. Indeed, one of the vice-chairmen of the SPP, Robert Pastor, has advocated that the North American Community develop its own common currency called the “amero” which in concept, would be like the European Union’s “euro”. To date, there is no check or balance system to deter this out of control boulder rolling downhill.
The target date for all to be completed by the heads of state is 2010. At that time the borders between the three countries will be erased and the new border will be around all three countries together….or North America. This is frightening to the countries of Central America and the Caribbean, not to mention me. I hope you find it equally frightening.
So, now that this heinous crime has been committed against each and every one of us average citizens, how do we go about getting rid of it? At this point in time, all we can do is influence our federal Congressmen and Congresswomen as well as those at the state level. But we better do a better job than we have in the past. This past state legislative session had 11 House Bills and 19 Senate Bills to help make toll roads more difficult to take advantage of citizens. Only a total of three passed and were signed by the Governor. I find that pitiful.
To date, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is against it. George W’s lapdog, Senator John Cornyn is in favor of it all. Guess he needs a retirement fund when he gets bumped out in 2008.
- Phone your US Congressman at the Congressional switchboard (202-224-3121), and ask him/her to co-sponsor HR 40 that would require discussion and debate of the SPP (the Security and Prosperity partnership of North America) that was secretly signed by the highest leaders of the US, Canada and Mexico on March 23, 2005, at Baylor University). Follow-up with numerous emails. Get your neighbors, friends and relatives to do the same.
- When our state Legislators meet in 2009, let us start asking them to pass another eminent domain bill to protect property owners from unfair grabbing of land and another bill to require the Attorney General Abbott to study the impact of federal laws, i.e. NAFTA and the SPP, on our state. The Texas Capitol switchboard is 512-463-4630. Follow-up with numerous emails. Get your neighbors, friends and relatives to do the same. Urge them to offer more bills like the ones that didn’t make it last time and help them lobby other congressmen for those bills.
- Press candidates for US Senator, US Congress, State Senator and State Representative for their stand on NAFTA, the TTC, tollroads in Texas and other issues like unsafe trucks and their drivers in our states taking jobs from American citizens. About more of our capital leaving our state and nation and going overseas. About our tax money being used to build roads and then we must pay tolls to use those roads. For selling our future to another country. For trying to make our country part of a North American Union such as the European Union. For open and fair government.
- Join a group that is against the SPP and all its components. Keep up with the publications and news on the subjects. Visit www.TexasTURF.org. Donate to them so they can help get the word out.
- Be vocal and be vocal often and loudly.
- Write lots of letters to the editors. Remember, Oklahoma doesn’t want the TransOklahoma Corridor. So if we work hard enough, they can’t be forced to connect to something that isn’t there.
