the current state of the NAU

[oldpaganfreak]

SPP: Updating the Militarization and Annexation of North America


By Stephen Lendman

URL of this article: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=12696

Global Research, March 13, 2009


The title refers to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), also known as the North American Union - formerly launched at a March 23, 2005 Waco, Texas meeting attended by George Bush, Mexico's President Vincente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. It's for a tri-national agreement, below the radar, for greater economic, political, and security integration with secret business and government working groups devising binding policies with no public knowledge or legislative debate.

In short, it's a military-backed corporate coup d'etat against the sovereignty of three nations, their populations and legislative bodies. It's a dagger through the heart of democratic freedom in all three, yet the public is largely unaware of what's happening.

Last April, New Orleans hosted the last SPP summit. Ever since, progress may have stalled given the gravity of the global economic crisis and top priority need to address it. Nonetheless, what's known to date is updated below plus some related information.

Last September, the Army Times reported that the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade Combat Team in Iraq would be re-deployed at home (October 1) as "an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks."

"This marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities."

Then on December 1, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon will deploy 20,000 troops nationwide by 2011 "to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear attack or other domestic catastrophe." Three "rapid-reaction" combat units are planned. Two or more others may follow. They'll be supplemented by 80 smaller National Guard units trained to respond to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, high-yield explosive, and other domestic "terror" attacks or disturbances. In other words, homeland militarization and occupation are planned using troops trained to kill.

The pretext is national security. In fact, they'll be on-call against another major terrorist attack, real or contrived, as well as civil unrest given the gravity of the economic crisis, its affect on millions, and likelihood that sooner or later they'll react. Armed combat troops will supplement militarized local police in case security crackdowns are ordered or martial law declared.

"Catastrophic Emergency" procedures are in place to react to situations, "natural or manmade," according to DHS/FEMA's March 2008 "Preparedness for the Next Catastrophic Disaster" policy paper. Should conditions warrant, initiatives to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law are in place, but militarizing America for business is also at issue.

Last October 1, the Canadian Action Party posted a "COUP IN USA ALERT" after the Bush administration announced the homeland deployment of troops with "$100 billion (bailout) dollars" to do it.

What's Likely in Prospect

SPP efforts paused during the Bush to Obama transition, but "deep integration" plans remain. On January 19, Ottawa's Carleton University's Centre for Trade Policy and Law outlined an agenda for America and Canada going forward. It called for "early and sustained cooperation" at a time of continuing global crisis, to include security, defense, trade and competitiveness.

It said the "most pressing issue is the need to re-think the architecture for managing North America's common economic space (including) trade liberalization." It used language like "re-imagining (and) modernizing the border" that reads like erasing it and doing the same with Mexico. In a similar vein, it recommends "integrating national regulatory regimes into one that applies on both sides of the border." It called the arrival of a new Washington administration "a golden opportunity" to forge a "mutually beneficial agenda (that) will define global and North American governance for years to come."

It mentioned the specter of protectionism and need to avoid it given the current economic climate. It advocates a "more ambitious Canada-US Partnership" beyond NAFTA," in co-partnership with Mexico.

Titled "North America Next," a recent Arizona State University North American Center for Transborder Studies report called for "sustainable and security competitiveness" and deeper US-Canada-Mexico integration through "sustainable security and effective trade and transportation (to) make (the three nation) North America(n partnership) safer, more economically viable, and more prosperous."

Both Carleton and Arizona State University project participants want SPP initiatives invigorated under a new Washington administration, especially in a climate of global economic crisis when addressing it takes precedence.

Other Issues in Play

"The Canadian's" Mike Finch "North American Union (NAU) watch" reports that US and Canadian organizations want to end free flow Internet information. He cites an "net-neutrality activist group" discovery of "plans for the demise of the free Internet by 2010 in Canada," and by 2012 globally.

Canada's two largest ISPs, Bell Canada and TELUS, are behind a scheme to limit browsing, block out sites, and charge fees on most others as part of a 2012 "planned full (NAU) launching." Web host I Power's Reese Leysen called it "beyond censorship: it is killing the biggest (ever) 'ecosystem' of free expression and freedom of speech." He cited big company inside sources providing information on "exclusivity deals between ISPs and big content providers (like TV studios and video game publishers) "to decide which sites will be in the standard package offered customers, leaving the rest of the Internet unreachable except for fees."

Leysen called his source "100% reliable" and cited similar information from a Dylan Pattyn Time magazine article, based on Bell Canada and TELUS sources. Plans are for "only the top 100 - 200 sites making the cut in the initial subscription package," likely to include major news outlets at the expense of smaller, alternative ones. "The Internet would become a playground for billion-dollar content providers," like cable TV providers, unless efforts are made to stop it.

Leysen thinks US and global ISPs have similar plans that include free speech restrictions and privacy invasions. The stakes are high if he's right. Yet the profit potential is huge and friendly governments may oblige. Also involved are "deceptive marketing and fear tactics" (like citing child pornography threats) to gain public approval for subscription services masquerading as online safety. The time to stop it is now.

Earlier Plans to Rename SPP/NAU

Last March, Canada's Fraser Institute proposed it in an article titled: "Saving the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership" at a time of mounting criticism. It recommended discarding NAU in favor of the "North American Standards and Regulatory Area (NASRA)" to disguise its real purpose. It called the "SPP brand" tarnished so changing it was essential to continue where NAFTA left off by combining security with quality of life issues like food safety, global warming, climate change, and pandemic diseases. It also wants better communications to sell it to the public. Their idea is to fool most people until it's too late to matter.

Rumblings in America at the State Level

Running counter to "deep integration," News with Views (NWV) writer Jim Kouri headlined on February 23: "Individual States Declaring Sovereignty." He cites political strategist Mike Baker saying "Americans are becoming disenchanted with the federal government's lack of perspective on" matters like: "illegal aliens, crime, (and) economic turmoil - while intruding into the private lives of citizens with gun-control laws and other intrusions," issues our Founding Fathers "relegated to the individual states." Bothersome also are unfunded mandates that states can't handle given their over-stretched budgets and need to cut back. In addition, Washington's intrusion into local law enforcement is a big issue.

So far, nine states have declared sovereignty and another dozen or more are considering it. Enacted or proposed legislation varies from all states' rights to selective ones like gun control and abortion.

As of January 30, Washington State is one of the former under House and Senate bill HJM-4009 stating:

"The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States specifically provides that, 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people;' and The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being those powers specifically granted to it by the Constitution of the United States and no more."

Earlier in January, New Hampshire enacted similar legislation (HCR-6) "affirming States' rights based on Jeffersonian principles." Other states doing it totally or in part include California, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Georgia. In addition, the following states are considering similar measures: Colorado, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Arkansas, Idaho, Alabama, Maine, Nevada, Hawaii and Alaska, and reportedly, Wyoming and Mississippi may as well.

Besides states rights issues, driving the current movement are:

-- the grave and deteriorating economy;

-- Wall Street's harmful control over policy;

-- its effects on checks and balances;

-- excessive bailouts for an insolvent and corrupted banking system at the expense of local state budgets and rights; and

-- reckless and unsustainable spending and national debt levels driving the nation to bankruptcy and placing untenable burdens on states.

Overall, concern is that Washington is complicit in driving the nation to ruin, and they want out or at least lean that way. If this movement gains strength, at the least it will slow "deep integration," stall it for a considerable time, but won't likely halt it. Corporate America wants it, and most often what it wants, it gets.

It may just take longer than planned, much longer given the gravity of the global crisis, how hard it will be to resolve, and how long doing it will take. Some experts predict another Great Depression as bad or worse than the first one and far worse than Japan's "lost decades" - from 1990 to the present.

Top priority in world capitals and corporate boardrooms is preventing it if possible. Except for "national security," other initiatives are secondary.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=12593


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hi oldpaganfreak,

I've wondered whether Telus's transition to 10 digit dialing has anything to do with this NAU stuff. The corridors in Alberta/BC are resource-rich, for pipelines and communications networks. I wonder if any other jurisdictions in North America have 10 digit dialing? The whole data platform seems different now.

How's things with you?

[Dantheman62]

We have 10 digit dialing here in north Georgia.

[Northern Boy]

Currently the list has grown to 33 states declaring or in the process of declaring their sovereignty. we have had 10 digit dialing here in Ontario for over a year now

Thanks for the info. The population base in AB/BC is seems meager compared to other areas. I wonder if Europe has 10 digit dialing too!

[Humble Janitor]

Originally Posted by Northern Boy

Currently the list has grown to 33 states declaring or in the process of declaring their sovereignty.

I support this now. I think we need to stand our ground here.

[orthodoxymoron]

Thank-you for posting this excellent summary of some very scary stuff! Why do the architects of a supposedly better world...insist on creating hell on earth? Get ready for a tangential rant! It seems like reptilian-inspired bs to get us to destroy ourselves...so the reptilians can have the outer earth as well as the inner earth. Supposedly they claim they own Earth. Supposedly they are smarter than us...and rule us. If this is true...they have blown it big time in my book. Perhaps they should all go to Mars...where there is supposedly a large reptilian population...and leave us alone. I don't know if any of that snake stuff is true...but it would sure explain a lot of the inexplicable actions of leaders for thousands of years, perhaps. Oh, I'm sure we would have screwed things up royally on our own...but not as bad as what we see in the history books...which are quite sugar coated. If reptilians do exist within Earth...I don't want them harmed or killed. I just want them all to leave. I keep thinking of the New World Order as the Old World Disorder Reptilian Theocracy. NWO = UFO? No ET has revealed anything to me. I haven't been taken for a ride to another planet. I don't do channeling. I'm not an insider. So I don't really know. I just smell a snake.

Here's an essay via newsletter today from David Orchard, about sovereignty etc. As well, there's a conference in Quebec - GMO debate and NATO intervention in Yugoslavia - in a couple of days. Here's David Orchard's bio:
http://www.davidorchard.com/online/2do-index.html

A modest proposal to stand on our own feet
By David Orchard
http://www.davidorchard.com/online/2do-index.html

For over three decades we have been subjected to an unrelenting promotion of “deregulation,” “free trade,” “privatization” and “globalization.” Canadian ownership of its corporations became passé. Institutions and programmes serving Canadians were swept away. “Free markets” were the future and any “barriers” inefficient relics. Government itself was best dismantled as far as possible. Canada should integrate its economy into that of the U.S. and, for greater efficiency, adopt the American dollar.

Those who objected were ridiculed as “Luddites,” “socialists,” “protectionists” and “xenophobic.” Liberal Leader John Turner, leading the fight against the 1988 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, was vilified for challenging the prevailing dogma.

Now some of those just yesterday preaching the gospel of an unregulated, borderless world have turned 180 degrees. A Newsweek cover announces, “We are all socialists now.” Prime Minister Harper and Minister of Finance Flaherty, who until recently promoted further deregulation of our financial sector and led the sneering attacks on “protectionists” and “socialists,” now brag about Canada’s independent banking and financial institutions. Separatist leaders, who once told us they didn’t need the Canadian market any more, are expressing alarm that almost 80% of Quebec’s exports depend on a U.S. economy in free fall. Former advocates of adopting the U.S. dollar now laud Canada’s financial system as a model for the world.

We who fought to maintain our sovereignty and the independence of our institutions are watching in disbelief.

Yet, incomprehensibly, the drum beat for even deeper integration into the U.S. goes on. Its promoters see the election of Barack Obama as a golden opportunity. Former Foreign Affairs Minister, David Emerson, says Canadians are “less defensive” now. Decrying the “tyranny of small differences” remaining between Canada and the U.S., he says now is “an opportunity to really carry a much bigger vision… of North America as an economic and environmental and security entity.”

What Emerson and his colleagues are brazenly proposing is a border around North America, adopting U.S. foreign policy, and the end of Canada’s sovereignty.

Handing our resources and our corporations to foreign owners has cost Canadians billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Now we learn to our surprise that the “globalized” world has not followed suit, that 77% of the world’s oil belongs to national oil companies — not the multinationals. While the U.S. has a national energy policy aimed at self-sufficiency, national energy security and domestic control, Canada does not. Our leaders seem terrified at the very idea. So Quebecers, Atlantic Canadians and almost half Ontarians are dependent on imported oil and all Canadians pay an outrageous “world price” for a resource we own in abundance.

And the bottom line of this policy?

After decades of resource wealth being pumped south from Alberta — at give-away royalties — the province is in deficit, about to tap its small heritage savings fund of $14 billion, while Norway — in a similar oil rich position — has saved its oil profits (some $400 billion in its heritage fund) and kept its industry in Norwegian hands. Are the Norwegians — whose standard of living exceeds Canada’s — “Luddites,” “protectionists” or simply good managers?

For years I have advocated for a Canadian industrial policy built on our needs — including our own ship building industry, east-west energy security, a domestic farm machinery and manufacturing base and a cutting edge Canadian automobile sector. (Instead of fostering a clean Canadian car, our government is preparing to give billions to bail out the foreign owned industry, which we don’t control and whose track record is neither cutting edge nor clean.)

No great power has arisen relying on foreign ownership, yet hard on the heels of the disastrous giveaway of our steel industry our government is ready to give away more industries including — by destroying the Canadian Wheat Board —delivering the western grain trade to foreign hands. Already over half the country’s manufacturing profits go to foreign owners. Instead of continuing the weak-willed giveaway of our economy under a thoroughly discredited ideology of globalization, we should enhance and expand control of what we have. A first step could be constructing an east-west electricity super grid to allow existing Newfoundland, Manitoba, BC and Quebec hydro to flow across Canada. This would result in cost savings, attract industry, make new nuclear stations unnecessary and help bind our country together with a greater sense of security and independence. There would be no more Ontario blackouts.

Our parents built Trans Canada Airways (Air Canada), the world’s third largest shipping fleet and the world’s fastest jet interceptor, the Avro Arrow. Their parents constructed the country’s great railways and national infrastructure. Canada’s founders conceived of a powerful country, nobody’s satellite. Louis Riel spoke of Canada as a visionary nation where the oppressed of the earth could come. Georges-Etienne Cartier and John A. Macdonald saw Canada becoming a continental power. What would they say to those who have allowed the sell-off of Canada’s companies, dismantled its institutions and now go cap in hand pleading to bid on bit pieces of U.S. contracts and beg to become part of a “North American entity”? All this precisely when U.S. power has peaked and is fading fast, while ours, with a spark of leadership, could begin to emerge.

*************************************

Conference info:
Monday, March 23, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
Vanier College, Auditorium (A-103)
821 avenue Sainte-Croix, Saint-Laurent, PQ
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=12572

Unearthing the truth
Dr. Joe Schwarcz debates David Orchard
Is organic food better for you and for the environment? Are GMO's part of the problem or part of the solution?
Dr. Joe Schwarcz is a well known science populariser, author, broadcaster. David Orchard is an organic farmer, author, national political figure.

Humanitarian intervention challenged
Panel discussion commemorating NATO's 78-day bombing campaign of former Yugoslavia

James Bissett, former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia
David Orchard, national best-selling author, environmentalist, farmer and politician
Scott Taylor, publisher, author, war correspondent and ex-Canadian soldier

Part of an all day conference:
8:30 a.m. Lili Petrovic, "The decriminalization of aggression"
10:00 a.m. Film, "Kosovo: can you imagine?" with director, Boris Malagurski present
12 noon Panel discussion with James Bissett, David Orchard and Scott Taylor
2:30 p.m. Film, "Yugoslavia: the avoidable war," with director George Bogdanich

Also: this was in today's anti-war.com
newsletter re Serbia >> Death squad leader ‘was top CIA agent’
SERBIA: Gabriel Ronay
http://www.sundayherald.com/internat..._cia_agent.php

THE LATE President Milosevic's secret police chief and organiser of Serb death squads during the genocidal ethnic cleansing of disintegrating Yugoslavia was the United States' top CIA agent in Belgrade, according to the independent Belgrade Radio B92.

The claim that from 1992 until the end of the decade, Jovica Stanisic, head of Serbia's murderous DB Secret Police, was regularly informing his CIA handlers of the thinking in Milosevic's inner circle has shocked the region.

Stanisic is said to have loyally served his two masters for eight years. He is facing war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

In the terrifying years of Yugoslavia's internecine wars, he acted as the willing "muscle" behind Milosevic's genocidal campaigns in Croatia, Kosovo and Bosnia, including Sebrenica.

[oldpaganfreak]

Originally Posted by no caste

Here's an essay via newsletter today from David Orchard, about sovereignty etc. As well, there's a conference in Quebec - GMO debate and NATO intervention in Yugoslavia - in a couple of days. Here's David Orchard's bio:
http://www.davidorchard.com/online/2do-index.html

A modest proposal to stand on our own feet
By David Orchard
http://www.davidorchard.com/online/2do-index.html

how nice to hear from david orchard!! he could have been a hope for canada, but he was sold out by his 'fellow conservatives'. do you remember the conservative leadership convention? david orchard put his support behind lyin' peter mackay, since petie gave his word that he was not for joining with the reformers. he lied, of course, because immediately after orchard removed himself from the race, mackay threw his support behind stephen harper. and we now have the mess we're in.

the conservative party also owes a lot of money to orchard, which they have refused to pay. they are not only liers, but they're thieves as well.

nice....but they say that people get the government that they deserve.
so we have a lying, thieving, american government butt-kissing government.

do you think that's what we deserve?

hi oldpaganfreak - yes, I do happen to remember that one. what a bunch of super-BS. Lie, break agreements to get the national power prize? This is Wikipedia today:

Progressive Conservative leadership convention, 2003
"...The results of the race produced immediate controversy when it emerged that winner Mackay had signed an agreement with David Orchard in order to get elected. This deal promised the party would review the Canadian-American Free Trade Agreement, and that it would not cooperate or merge with the Canadian Alliance. This controversy continued when MacKay ignored the agreement, and signed an agreement to merge his party with the Canadian Alliance to form the new Conservative Party of Canada. The merger was approved by party members in December 2003." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=1460081

Now Peter MacKay was (until 4 hours ago??) being considered for a top civilian NATO position too.

-- ----------------------------

Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay backs off NATO head campaign
http://www.google.com/hostednews/can...4-zGKoW0qzyBJQ

4 hours ago

BRUSSELS — Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Sunday that he is more interested in keeping his job than becoming NATO's next secretary-general. His comments suggested that Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is gaining more support among the alliance's 26 member states to be the next head of NATO.

More: These kinds of 'dumps' of public assets go to private interests, so... what?

Harper promises to relax foreign investment rules (Sept 12, 2008)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...tory/politics/
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is vowing a Tory government would open up Canada's corporate sector to more foreign investment, including relaxing rules for outsiders buying into its airline and uranium industries.

and -

Surprise names on Crown assets selloff list, Candidates include Canada Post, Via Rail and Mint (Feb 18, 2009)
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/busin...144/story.html
The government signalled its intent to sell Crown assets last fall, but it was only in the federal budget that it identified the four ministerial portfolios to be reviewed first: Finance, Indian and Northern Affairs, Natural Resources and Transport and Infrastructure. Some of the Crown corporations that fall under the authority of those departments have been known to be on the block for some time, such as Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.

and -

Flaherty says Canada might sell assets to avoid deficit - but not CN Tower (March 22, 2009)
The government of Canada owns trillions of dollars of capital assets, from office buildings to residences and machinery and equipment.
http://www2.canada.com/saskatoonstar...9-448df03370c7

and -

Who gets a say in the SPP? (Aug 20, 2007)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/spp/

The Canadian government SPP website says that "consultations occur at many levels," although the only specific group it mentions having presented recommendations to it is the North American Competitiveness Council. The NACC is a group of 30 CEOs from each of the three North American countries, representing some of the biggest corporations in the world. Most of the Canadian representatives are members of D'Aquino's group, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

[oldpaganfreak]

Originally Posted by no caste

Now Peter MacKay was (until 4 hours ago??) being considered for a top civilian NATO position too.

------------------------------

Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay backs off NATO head campaign
http://www.google.com/hostednews/can...4-zGKoW0qzyBJQ

4 hours ago

BRUSSELS — Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Sunday that he is more interested in keeping his job than becoming NATO's next secretary-general. His comments suggested that Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is gaining more support among the alliance's 26 member states to be the next head of NATO.

well, he's proven that he can lie with the best of them, first in the convention and then as defense minister, saying that canada is doing good things in afghanistan. he'd be perfect for the head of nato, one of the most dishonest orgs in the world.