http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/jos-can-you-see-bush-s-trojan-taco
Jose' Can You See? Bushs Trojan Taco
By Greg Palast
Monday April 21, 2008
Psst! George Bush has a secret.
While you Democrats are pounding each other to a pulp in Pennsylvania, the
President has snuck back down to New Orleans for a meeting of the NAFTA
Three: the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico.
Youre not supposed to know that for two reasons:
First, the summit planned for the N.O. two years back was meant to
showcase the rebuilt Big Easy, a monument to can-do Bush-o-nomics. Well,
it is a monument to Bushs leadership: The city still looks like Dresden
1946, with over half the original residents living in toxic trailers or
wandering lost and broke in America.
The second reason Bush has kept this major summit a virtual secret is its
real agenda. More important, the agenda-makers, the guys who called the
meeting, must remain as far out of camera range as possible: The North
American Competitiveness Council.
Never heard of The Council? Well, maybe youve heard of the counselors:
the chief executives of Wal-Mart, Chevron Oil, Lockheed-Martin and 27
other multinational masters of the corporate universe.
And why did the landlords of our continent order our presidents to a
three-nation pajama party? Their term is harmonization.
Harmonization has nothing to do with singing in fifths like Simon and
Garfunkel. Harmonization means making rules and regulations the same in
all three countries. Or, more specifically, watering down rules on
health, safety, labor rights, oil drilling, polluting and so on - in other
words, any regulations that get between The Council members and their
profits.
Take for example, pesticides. Wal-Mart and agri-business dont want to
reduce the legal amount of poison allowed in what you eat. Solution:
harmonize US and Canadian pesticide standards to Mexicos.
Can they do that? Can Bush just say, Eat your peas even if theyre
radioactive? Under NAFTA, at least the way George Bush reads it (or has
it read to him), he can. At any rate, he does.
The three chiefs of state will meet privately with the thirty corporate
chiefs where they are also expected to legally erase more of our borders,
to expand the NAFTA highway. Technically, the NAFTA highway is a set of
legal rules governing transcontinental shipment. Some fear NAFTA highway
expansion will allow a new flood of cheap Mexican products into the US and
Canada. Not so. Their hunger to expand the NAFTA highway is to bring in
even cheaper Chinese goods.
Say what?
As trade expert Maud Barlow explained to me, the new NAFTA highway will
allow Chinese stuff dumped into Mexico to be hauled northward as duty-free
Mexican products. Thats one of the quiet agendas of this Summit for
Security and Prosperity, the official Orwellian name for this meet.
Think of the SSP harmonization as the Trojan Taco of trade.
Barlow is Chairwoman of the Council of Canadians. She is known as the
Ralph Nader of Canada (not Nader version 2.0, The Spoiler Candidate, but
Nader version 1.0, the consumer advocate). Because Americans are too
distracted by the Punch-and-Judy primaries to complain about this
lobby-fest on the bayou, Canadian Barlow is leading street protests
against this greed-grab.
I caught up with this courageous Canadian (Ive seen her face down
corporate bullying we cant imagine in the US) on her way down to New
Orleans. Barlows particular concerns are first, the NSS agreement
promotes a five-fold increase in the mining of Canadian tar sands for
import, as liquid crude oil, into the USA, an idea filthier than a re-make
of Debbie Does Dallas. This is an insane model of development, she
says, especially given Bushs recent claim that he wants to slow global
warming.
Bush himself is pushing his Canadian and Mexican counterparts to adopt
US-style Homeland Security measures so that, says Barlow, well all be
zip-locked together in one security bag.
There will be other anti-SSP protesters in New Orleans as well, from
Americas populist Right. They are concerned that the Security and
Prosperity Summit is worse than the NAFTA on steroids that Barlow fears.
The populists see in the SPP a nascent North American Union, and the
elimination of the good old US of A.
Theyre wrong, of course. The U.S. of A. has been long eliminated, at
least economically. The Competitiveness Council is a multinational crew,
with one shared set of country clubs, beach homes, art collections, union
busters and lobbyists knowing no borders.
The populist radio hosts railing against the coming North American Union
dont realize that these CEOs wont take away their flags or Fourth of
July or Star-Spangled Banner. The rags and flags will always be kept
around to con the schmucks along the Yahoo Belt into donating their
children to the Iraq Occupation or other misadventures. A billionaire
like Carlos Slim, the richest man on the planet (sorry, Mr. Gates), didnt
buy the Mexican government to protect his nation from Gringos but to
protect his media monopoly.
So there is no United States of America nor Canada nor Mexico - at least
as we like to imagine ourselves in our national fairy tales:
self-governing democracies run by we the people or nosotros el pueblo.
Theres just the diktats of the North American Prosperity Council. Get
used to it.
Barlow said that the US Ambassador to Canada told her the legal changes
wrought in New Orleans will not be put before the three national
Congresses for a vote. We dont want to open up another NAFTA. So,
theyll skip the voting stuff. Democracy is so, like, 20th Century.
Is Bush just a reluctant participant in this harmonizing of our economic
fate? The meetings are secret, so I cant say for sure. But I note that,
at the opening ceremony, if you read his lips, you can see our president
singing the national anthem as, Josi, can you see?
Jose' Can You See? Bushs Trojan Taco
By Greg Palast
Monday April 21, 2008
Psst! George Bush has a secret.
While you Democrats are pounding each other to a pulp in Pennsylvania, the
President has snuck back down to New Orleans for a meeting of the NAFTA
Three: the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico.
Youre not supposed to know that for two reasons:
First, the summit planned for the N.O. two years back was meant to
showcase the rebuilt Big Easy, a monument to can-do Bush-o-nomics. Well,
it is a monument to Bushs leadership: The city still looks like Dresden
1946, with over half the original residents living in toxic trailers or
wandering lost and broke in America.
The second reason Bush has kept this major summit a virtual secret is its
real agenda. More important, the agenda-makers, the guys who called the
meeting, must remain as far out of camera range as possible: The North
American Competitiveness Council.
Never heard of The Council? Well, maybe youve heard of the counselors:
the chief executives of Wal-Mart, Chevron Oil, Lockheed-Martin and 27
other multinational masters of the corporate universe.
And why did the landlords of our continent order our presidents to a
three-nation pajama party? Their term is harmonization.
Harmonization has nothing to do with singing in fifths like Simon and
Garfunkel. Harmonization means making rules and regulations the same in
all three countries. Or, more specifically, watering down rules on
health, safety, labor rights, oil drilling, polluting and so on - in other
words, any regulations that get between The Council members and their
profits.
Take for example, pesticides. Wal-Mart and agri-business dont want to
reduce the legal amount of poison allowed in what you eat. Solution:
harmonize US and Canadian pesticide standards to Mexicos.
Can they do that? Can Bush just say, Eat your peas even if theyre
radioactive? Under NAFTA, at least the way George Bush reads it (or has
it read to him), he can. At any rate, he does.
The three chiefs of state will meet privately with the thirty corporate
chiefs where they are also expected to legally erase more of our borders,
to expand the NAFTA highway. Technically, the NAFTA highway is a set of
legal rules governing transcontinental shipment. Some fear NAFTA highway
expansion will allow a new flood of cheap Mexican products into the US and
Canada. Not so. Their hunger to expand the NAFTA highway is to bring in
even cheaper Chinese goods.
Say what?
As trade expert Maud Barlow explained to me, the new NAFTA highway will
allow Chinese stuff dumped into Mexico to be hauled northward as duty-free
Mexican products. Thats one of the quiet agendas of this Summit for
Security and Prosperity, the official Orwellian name for this meet.
Think of the SSP harmonization as the Trojan Taco of trade.
Barlow is Chairwoman of the Council of Canadians. She is known as the
Ralph Nader of Canada (not Nader version 2.0, The Spoiler Candidate, but
Nader version 1.0, the consumer advocate). Because Americans are too
distracted by the Punch-and-Judy primaries to complain about this
lobby-fest on the bayou, Canadian Barlow is leading street protests
against this greed-grab.
I caught up with this courageous Canadian (Ive seen her face down
corporate bullying we cant imagine in the US) on her way down to New
Orleans. Barlows particular concerns are first, the NSS agreement
promotes a five-fold increase in the mining of Canadian tar sands for
import, as liquid crude oil, into the USA, an idea filthier than a re-make
of Debbie Does Dallas. This is an insane model of development, she
says, especially given Bushs recent claim that he wants to slow global
warming.
Bush himself is pushing his Canadian and Mexican counterparts to adopt
US-style Homeland Security measures so that, says Barlow, well all be
zip-locked together in one security bag.
There will be other anti-SSP protesters in New Orleans as well, from
Americas populist Right. They are concerned that the Security and
Prosperity Summit is worse than the NAFTA on steroids that Barlow fears.
The populists see in the SPP a nascent North American Union, and the
elimination of the good old US of A.
Theyre wrong, of course. The U.S. of A. has been long eliminated, at
least economically. The Competitiveness Council is a multinational crew,
with one shared set of country clubs, beach homes, art collections, union
busters and lobbyists knowing no borders.
The populist radio hosts railing against the coming North American Union
dont realize that these CEOs wont take away their flags or Fourth of
July or Star-Spangled Banner. The rags and flags will always be kept
around to con the schmucks along the Yahoo Belt into donating their
children to the Iraq Occupation or other misadventures. A billionaire
like Carlos Slim, the richest man on the planet (sorry, Mr. Gates), didnt
buy the Mexican government to protect his nation from Gringos but to
protect his media monopoly.
So there is no United States of America nor Canada nor Mexico - at least
as we like to imagine ourselves in our national fairy tales:
self-governing democracies run by we the people or nosotros el pueblo.
Theres just the diktats of the North American Prosperity Council. Get
used to it.
Barlow said that the US Ambassador to Canada told her the legal changes
wrought in New Orleans will not be put before the three national
Congresses for a vote. We dont want to open up another NAFTA. So,
theyll skip the voting stuff. Democracy is so, like, 20th Century.
Is Bush just a reluctant participant in this harmonizing of our economic
fate? The meetings are secret, so I cant say for sure. But I note that,
at the opening ceremony, if you read his lips, you can see our president
singing the national anthem as, Josi, can you see?
