Why we need to pay attention to the SPP

Because it circumvents any input from affected citizens in any country. There is no oversight and it hands power straight to U.S. corporations.

Via Creekside, Zapagringo:

Summary: This bulletin is intended to be a first introduction to the topic of the SPPNA (hereinafter SPP), initials of a very undemocratic alliance between Canada, Mexico and the United States. On August 201, 2007, the presidents of Mexico and the US and the Canadian prime minister met in Montebello, Quebec, to discuss the SPP. Showing total indifference for democracy, the three governments are reaching crucially important decisions with no prior consultation or consent of civil society. The summit received almost no press coverage in the US, but got reasonably good exposure in Mexico and Canada. We present herein reasons why the citizens of all three countries need to follow SPP developments.

1. What does SPPNA mean?

The initials stand for the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, a fairly new regional integration initiative that dates formally from March 23, 2005 when the presidents of Mexico and the United States, and the Canadian prime minister met in Waco, Texas.

2. Is the SPP related to NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) that Presidents Carlos Salinas and Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed in 1993?

Yes, it is related and some analysts even call the SPP "NAFTA plus". But there are important differences.

One crucial difference is that the SPP is not an "agreement" as is NAFTA. If it were, it would be subject to scrutiny by the federal legislative branches in the three countries. But under the SPP, the chief executives are signing so-called regulations, hundreds of them, according to some reports. These are similar to presidential decrees and are therefore exempt from legislative review. Civil society has been given very little information.

3. Why is it important that I know something about the SPP?

Citizens of all three countries are concerned because our democratic rights and sovereignty as nations are being ceded to the US government and large corporations. At the behest, or insistence, of the Bush administration, the governing elites of the other two countries have worked rapidly to "securitize" the region which, at least in Mexico, has translated into increased militarization. The SPP is also part of the growing corporate takeover of activities and functions that used to lie in the public sector. Changes are being made in laws, norms, standards, regulations, practices, to facilitate international trade and so increase the profitability of certain corporations, but which in some cases weaken labor, consumer protection and environmental standards. Finding out about the SPP is a necessary first step in detaining its corrosive effects on democracy and national sovereignty.

Read the post for 20 Q+As. It is vital that we keep informed.

And then we get this:

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The former top lawyer from the federal agency responsible for trucking safety says the recent backlash against a pilot program that will allow trucks from Mexico to gain greater access to highways in the United States is unwarranted. On Thursday the Bush administration brought its case to a federal appeals court, arguing that to do otherwise could strain diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Attorney Brigham McCown is the former general counsel for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration who helped negotiate and design the new program while serving as a senior Bush Administration official at the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C.

The FMCSA program will allow approximately 100 registered truck carriers from Mexico to travel beyond the current restricted U.S. border zone. The Teamsters Union has asked a federal appeals court to keep the program from going forward.

"The last-minute attempts to block the program are just the desperate efforts of a few people who want to protect their own turf," McCown says. "We've been over this for two decades. What they fail to tell you is that trucks from Mexico that were grandfathered before a moratorium in the 1980s travel down our roads -- without incident -- every day, and have done so for years."

Government lawyers said that the trucks enrolled in the program meet U.S. regulations and that the program is a necessary part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

[snip]

NAFTA stipulates all roadways in the U.S., Mexico and Canada to be opened to carriers from all the three countries. The disparity lies in the fact that Canadian trucking firms have full access to U.S. roads, while Mexican trucks can travel about 20 miles into the country and then only at certain border crossings, such as San Diego and El Paso.

When you decide to sabotage a peaceful anti-SPP protest with undercover provocateurs

Change your fricking Canadian police issue boots.

Chet Scoville at Vanity Press catches the video:

OTTAWA – Protesters are accusing police of using undercover agents to provoke violent confrontations at the North American leaders' summit in Montebello, Que.

Such accusations have been made before after similar demonstrations but this time the alleged "agents provocateurs" have been caught on camera.

A video, posted on YouTube, shows three young men, their faces masked by bandannas, mingling Monday with protesters in front of a line of police in riot gear. At least one of the masked men is holding a rock in his hand.

The three are confronted by protest organizer Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Coles makes it clear the masked men are not welcome among his group of protesters, whom he describes as mainly grandparents. He urges them to leave and find their own protest location.

Coles also demands that they put down their rocks. Other protesters begin to chime in that the three are really police agents. Several try to snatch the bandanas from their faces.

Rather than leave, the three actually start edging closer to the police line, where they appear to engage in discussions. They eventually push their way past an officer, whereupon other police shove them to the ground and handcuff them.

Late Tuesday, photographs taken by another protester surfaced, showing the trio lying prone on the ground. The photos show the soles of their boots adorned by yellow triangles. A police officer kneeling beside the men has an identical yellow triangle on the sole of his boot.

And here is the photo:



Chet has more links listed.

When globalization hurts us

Is when corporations take over and negate the citizen's right to chose the laws he is governed by.

Chet Scoville explains over at Shakesville:

Hello, all -- I'm Chet Scoville, author of The Vanity Press. I used to be known as the Green Knight. Melissa asked me to contribute this post about an issue that a lot of progressives up here in Canada are deeply worried about, but one that not a lot of American progressives know about yet: the SPP, or Security and Prosperity Partnership. This, basically, is an ongoing attempt by the three NAFTA governments to complete the process of corporate hegemony over the continent, at the expense of democracy. Some call it "NAFTA on steroids."

Chet then explains in detail, starting with the history and the development of the SPP and warns us: (my bold)

Well, the problem is this: there are Americans who have noticed the SPP and realize that something bad is happening. Unfortunately, they're not people to whom American progressives are likely to listen. They are people like the John Birch Society, Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Jerome Corsi, and Phyllis Schlafly. They are mixing in a good deal of insanity, racism, and just plain dopiness into what they're saying, thereby poisoning the well ("Oh noes! A NAFTA Superhighway! The Mexicans are invading! Ahhhhh!"). American progressives, naturally, don't want to touch any issue that such people have claimed as their own; and, not knowing about much beyond their own borders, are unaware of the work that Canadian progressives have done to uncover the SPP. And Canadian progressives in turn are growing increasingly alarmed at that fact. As Alison put it recently,

I've just spent the better part of several exasperating days arguing with American "progressives" about SPP.

Shorter US Progs : If the John Birch Society et al say the sky is blue, then we say it isn't.

I thought we were all pretty well agreed on both sides of the border that while Glen Beck, Jerome Corsi, Lou Dobbs and the John Birch Society have their own bizarre agenda to use the SPP to promote their New World Order paranoia, the rest of us should get on with the actual facts at hand. Right?

Nuh-uh-uh, say the American progressives.

John from Dymaxion World puts it like this:

I don't know if there's a way for Canadians to convince American progressives that the SPP is genuinely a concern. That well's already been poisoned, and the Democratic party still belongs to the centrist wonkosphere when it comes to domestic issues -- meaning, in this case, an uncritical assumption in favour of anything labelled "free-trade".

In the end, it comes down to this: despite the embellishments that the rightists are guilty of, the SPP is real. It claims to be nothing to worry about, but its negotiations are happening behind closed doors, and have been for two years and counting. It is affecting life throughout the continent at the most basic levels. It is a process of subjecting all North Americans to corporate rule in as many remaining areas of life as possible, and stripping citizens' abilities to set their own standards through their legislatures.

The people have never been consulted on it. No politician has run for election with the SPP as part of their platform; nobody has a mandate from the people to put it in place. American progressives should be demanding that the process become open and transparent. Instead, they have ceded the issue to the crankiest of right-wing cranks, who are mingling the facts with their own paranoid fantasies. And with no American progressives on board, Canadian progressives opposed to the SPP find themselves alone in the fight -- for there's no way they could ever make common cause with the John Birchers, and the animosity would surely be mutual.

Divide and conquer is of course an old strategy. The frustrating thing, though, is that when it comes to the SPP, American progressives have done the division part all by themselves.

Fortunately, it's not too late. The process is ongoing and largely behind the scenes, but we still ultimately have the power to force it out in the open. But it will take an effort by both Canadian and American progressives to get it going. The links I've included in this post have lots of good information (especially this one), albeit largely from a Canadian point of view. There's lots of work to be done on the American side.

I urge you, don't let the John Birchers be the only Americans talking about this, and don't get distracted by their crazy talk. Do what progressives do best: find out the facts, make lots of noise, cause change. Canadians will help, but we can only do so much. We need you.