Progressive Calendar 07.27.07
From: David Shove (shove001tc.umn.edu)
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 01:11:05 -0700 (PDT)
             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     07.27.07

1. Stillwater vigil 7.29 1pm
2. KFAI/Indian      7.29 7pm
3. Coldwater walk   7.29 7pm

4. Amnesty Intl     7.30 7pm
5. G8 protest rpt   7.30 7:30pm

6. Venezuela/CTV    7.31 5pm
7. Iraq4Sale/film   7.31 6:30pm
8. Impeach4Peace    7.31 7pm

9. Stephen Lendman - The militarization and annexation of North America
10. ed             - Monkey ultimate concern haiku

--------1 of 10--------

From: scot b <earthmannow [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Stillwater vigil 7.29 1pm

A weekly Vigil for Peace Every Sunday, at the Stillwater bridge from 1- 2
p.m.  Come after Church or after brunch ! All are invited to join in song
and witness to the human desire for peace in our world. Signs need to be
positive.  Sponsored by the St. Croix Valley Peacemakers.

If you have a United Nations flag or a United States flag please bring it.
Be sure to dress for the weather . For more information go to
<http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/>http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/

For more information you could call 651 275 0247 or 651 999 - 9560


--------2 of 10--------

From: Chris Spotted Eagle <chris [at] spottedeagle.org>
Subject: KFAI/Indian 7.29 7pm

KFAI¹s Indian uprising for July 29, 2007 from 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. CDT

VIVIAN DELGADO (Yaqui/Puebloean) has written a significant amount of
literature that has appeared as articles, essays, research and chapters,
including curriculum; many of them about Native America and its occupants.
As a professional educator, she has served on and currently sits on
numerous educational committees and boards, all of which deal with equity
and people of color. Her doctoral work was in Education, with two
cognates: Native American Philosophy/Multicultural Education and Higher
Education.

One of her significant accomplishments is ³Free the Spirit Day,² which
took place on September 22, 2006. From this day forward, September 22 has
been designated for the purpose of returning incorrect vital records
information to the Health and Environment Office. Although the directive
was for Colorado, it certainly could be applied in any state where
indigenous people have been subjected to deliberate and systematic
destruction of race, culture and politics.

You¹re Not Indian, You¹re Mexican by Dr. Vivian Delgado, Ph.D., Turtle
Island Press, paperback, 214 pp. www.geocities.com/drviviandelgado.

³American Indian history to the east followed a pattern of genocide and
removal westward.  However, upon the arrival of Indigenous people from the
east to the western states, genocide continued; but an arid landscape
coupled with violently hostile Native Americans who had been sharpening a
specialization in violence upon Spainish, French, and even other Native
American forces for centuries, gave rise to the mythical and legendary
wars of the west. An important aspect of this was the rise of the mestizo
nation, members of which have been commonly identified as Mexicanos.
Mexicanos formed a ubiquitous and integral part of any frontier
settlement -  nearly all of these Mexican people were ultimately of Native
American ancestry and formed a substratum at all levels of society²

³This study is intended to showcase the lack of information or
misinformation that some Native Americans and Indigenous Mexicans have
long held about each other. It is not an attempt to downplay any
interaction that has already taken place on a political, social,
emotional, or spiritual level both good and bad. The intent is to
highlight the contributions and similarities and differences that binds
them together, perhaps consciously and unconsciously in a way that brings
them together and keeps them apart.²

* * * *
Indian Uprising a one-hour Public & Cultural Affairs program is for and by
Native Indigenous People broadcast each Sunday at 7:00 p.m. CDT on KFAI
90.3 FM Minneapolis and 106.7 FM St. Paul.  Producer and host is volunteer
Chris Spotted Eagle. KFAI Fresh Air Radio is located at 1808 Riverside
Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55454, 612-341-3144.

For internet listening, go to www.kfai.org <http://www.kfai.org>  and for
live listening, click Play under ON AIR NOW or for later listening via the
archives, click PROGRAMS & SCHEDULE > Indian Uprising > STREAM.  Programs
are archived for two weeks.


--------3 of 10--------

From: Sue Ann <mart1408 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Coldwater walk 7.29 7pm

Dog Star Walk
Full Moon Walk Around the Coldwater Area
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Gather 7:00 PM, south end of Minnehaha Park.
Walk begins at 7:15 PM.

Celebrate "the dog days of summer" - defined as the period from July 3
through August 11 when the Dog Star, Sirius, rises in conjunction (or
nearly so) with the Sun. The association of Sirius with a celestial dog
has been consistent throughout the classical world; even in remote China,
the star was identified as a heavenly wolf. We'll honor Sirius with a
group howl!

Sunset 8:43 PM-Moonrise 8:55 PM

Meet in Minnehaha Park, in south Minneapolis, from Hwy 55/Hiawatha, turn
East (toward the Mississippi) at 54th Street and circle around to your
left into the pay parking lot or park at the meters on the Highway 55
frontage road.  Free street parking is available on the west side of
Highway 55. (Please do not park in the unmetered spaces in he parking
lot--we don't want you to get a ticket!)


--------4 of 10--------

From: Gabe Ormsby <gabeo [at] bitstream.net>
Subject: Amnesty Intl 7.30 7pm

Augustana Homes Seniors Group meets on Monday, July 30th, from 7:00 to
8:00 p.m. in the party room of the 1020 Building, 1020 E 17th Street,
Minneapolis. For more information contact Ardes Johnson at 612/378-1166 or
johns779 [at] tc.umn.edu.


--------5 of 10--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: G8 protest report 7.30 7:30pm

G8 Protest Reportback and Discussion
Monday, July 30 - 7:30 PM
Jack Pine Community Center
2815 E. Lake St., Minneapolis

This past June, thousands of activists from around the world converged on
Heiligendamm, Germany for a week of actions protesting the annual summit
of the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrialized nations .

Join us for a reportback by a Twin Cities activist who participated in the
massive protests. There will be a talk with photos followed by time for
questions and discussion.

Snacks and childcare will be provided.


--------6 of 10--------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: Venezuela/CTV 7.31 5pm

Revered St. Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN 15) viewers:

"Our World In Depth" cablecasts in St. Paul on Tuesday evenings and
Wednesday mornings.  All households with basic cable can watch!

7/31 5pm and midnight and 8/1 10am "Jorge Martin of Hands Off Venezuela"
(Part 2) plus: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (Part 1).
 Martin answers questions on politics in Venezuela plus part 1 of a
dramatic documentary film shot during the 2002 coup in Venezuela.


--------7 of 10--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Iraq4Sale/film 7.31 6:30pm

Tuesday, 7/31, 6:30 to 8:30 pm, Peace Salon shows film "Iraq for Sale" about
mercenaries and contractors, Madd Hatter Tea House, 943 W 7th, St Paul.
pattypax [at] earthlink.net


--------8 of 10--------

From: Impeach <lists [at] impeachforpeace.org>
Subject: Impeach for peace 7.31 7pm

Impeach for Peace
We meet Tuesdays at 7pm at Joe's Garage (Restaurant along Loring Park)
1610 Harmon Pl Minneapolis, MN 55403 (612) 904-1163


--------9 of 10--------

The Militarization and Annexation of North America
by Stephen Lendman
July 20, 2007
ZNet [note source]

Besides the Bush administration's imperial aims and permanent war on the
world, add the one at home below the radar.  Its weapons include the WTO,
NAFTA, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), FBI, CIA, NSA, NORTHCOM,
militarized state and local police, National Guard forces, paramilitary
mercenaries like Blackwater USA, and all other repressive instruments of
state power and control.  They target the people of three nations slowly
becoming one headquartered in Washington.  That's the apparent aim of
those in power here wanting one continent, "indivisible" minus
old-fashioned ideas like "liberty and justice for all" we used to believe
in when, as kids, we recited our "Pledge of Allegiance." They now have a
whole new meaning.  They're just words drummed into young minds hoping
they'll still believe them when they're old enough to know better.

There may be a greater scheme for the planet ahead, but this article only
focuses on what we know about and how it's unfolding so far.  It has a
name, in fact, several, but they all aim for the same thing - one nation,
indivisible, where three sovereign ones once stood, headquartered in
Washington.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) or "Deep
Integration" North American Union

SPP was formerly launched at a March 23, 2005 meeting in Waco, Texas
attended by George Bush, Mexico's President Vincente Fox and Canadian
Prime Minister Paul Martin.  It's a tri-national agreement hatched below
the radar in Washington containing the recommendations of the Independent
Task Force of North America.  That's a group organized by the powerful US
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Canadian Council of Chief Executives
(CCCE), and Mexican Council on Foreign Relations.  It advocates greater
US, Canadian and Mexican economic, political, social, and security
integration with secretive working groups formed to devise non-debatable
agreements that, when completed, will be binding beyond the power of
legislatures to change.  It's also taking shape without public knowledge
or consideration.

>From what's already known, SPP unmasked isn't pretty.  It's a
corporate-led coup d'etat against the sovereignty of three nations
enforced by a common hard line security strategy already in play
separately in each country.  It's a scheme to create a borderless North
American Union under US control without barriers to trade and capital
flows for corporate giants, mainly US ones. It's also to insure America
gets free and unlimited access to Canadian and Mexican resources, mainly
oil, and in the case of Canada water as well.  It's to assure US energy
security as a top priority while denying Canada and Mexico preferential
access to their own resources henceforth earmarked for US markets.

It's also to create a fortress-North American security zone encompassing
the whole continent under US control in the name of "national (and
continental) security" with US borders effectively extended to the far
reaches of the continent.  The scheme, in short, is NAFTA on steroids
combined with Pox Americana homeland security enforcement.  It's the worst
of all possible worlds headed for an unmasked police state, and it's the
Bush administration's notion of "deep integration" or the "Big Idea"
meaning we're boss, what we say goes, no outliers will be tolerated,
public interest is off the table, and the people of three nations be
damned.

It's also the next step in what GHW Bush had in mind when he delivered his
"Toward a New World Order" speech to a joint session of Congress on
another September 11 in 1990.  At the onset of the "crisis in the Persian
Gulf," he said "We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment
(offering) a rare opportunity to move toward....a new world order" free
from "the threat of terror....and more secure...."  He spoke of a "new
world....struggling to be born....quite different from the one we've
known."  He masked his intentions in language of peace and the pursuit of
justice while preparing for war on Iraq and the region that's gone on for
over 16 years with no end in sight.  A new Bush administration is bringing
that "New World Order" to the North American continent.  Unless it can be
stopped, the streets of Boston, Baltimore and Buffalo may one day look
like occupied Baghdad or Bogota when drug barons clash and Colombia's
US-financed military and paramilitaries step in.

SPP Unmasked

Establishing hard line security initiatives is key to making SPP's "deep
integration" trade agenda work.  It's being planned at a time of
Washington's cooked up "war on terrorism" scheme unleashing imperial
dreams not possible without the public traumatized enough to go along.
Intended is a ramped up militarized police state of enhanced border and
homeland security.  It's based on the phony notion that doing business and
protecting the national interest and public welfare require tough measures
in place to secure them at a time of threatening global terrorism.

As outlandish as it sounds, the scheme is moving ahead toward
implementation.  It threatens Canadian, Mexican and US national
sovereignty and priorities, and their people and ours are none the wiser
about it.  NAFTA is a glimpse of what's ahead.  It's record in 12.5 years
has been disastrous with huge numbers of job losses and growing insecurity
in three countries.  SPP guarantees more of the same on steroids with
small businesses hurt as well. They continue being trampled by corporate
giants they're no match for.  Many go under or are bought out if they
survive.  They and working people aren't part of the SPP process, and
their concerns aren't being addressed and are guaranteed to worsen as this
initiative advances.

Its doing it at secret meetings like the one from September 12 - 14, 2006
in Banff, Alberta, Canada. It was co-chaired by three former high
officials of the participating nations including a leading US cold warrior
as Reagan Secretary of State, George Shultz.  He has all the credentials
SPP needs as a former Bechtel president and current board member also
holding memberships at the hard right Hoover Institution and American
Enterprise Institute, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, and the
Committee on the Present Danger military lobbying group.

They were part of a high-powered group of present and former government
officials; top military-industrial complex representatives, Big Oil and
other corporate executives; leading policy analysts; high-ranking military
brass; and a single Wall Street Journal self-styled Latin American expert
editorialist known never to let facts conflict with the state and
corporate interests she represents. She's a frequent target of this
writer, and by now likely knows it - Mary Anastasia O'Grady.

Except for O'Grady, no journalists attended, and no press releases
followed the meeting with its carefully scripted agenda and controlled
media blackout.  Yet veteran Canadian publisher, author, activist and
former political candidate Mel Hurtig managed to get hold of the attendee
list and published it online.  He also posted topics discussed including:
"A Vision for North America" (but not a people-friendly one), "A North
American Energy Strategy" (for US energy security at the expense of Canada
and Mexico), "Demographic and Social Dimensions of North American
Integration," and "Opportunities for Security Cooperation" (aka Pox
Americana).

Washington dominates the planning at all meetings with its interests
getting primary attention.  Along with what's mentioned above, efforts are
to create uniform business practices and standards, ease the flow of US
products into Canada and Mexico, remove labor constraints, and eliminate
unwelcome environmental standards or restrictions interfering with the
primary consideration of profits.

Also on the agenda is getting Canada and Mexico to allow more
privatization of state-run enterprises like Mexico's nationalized oil
company, PEMEX, and eventually open up Canada's medicare health care
system to private investment. The US can't negotiate this way with its
western European, Chinese or Japanese trading partners but can easily
pressure most developing nations to go along with policies harming their
own people, and neighboring accommodating ones like Canada, so long as
their elite leading players share the benefits.

In February, 2007, a set of SPP private sector priorities were laid out by
the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) that serves as an
official tri-national SPP working group.  It was created at the March,
2006 second annual SPP summit in Cancun, Mexico.  The group is composed of
representatives of 30 giant North American companies, with powerful US
ones like GE, Ford, GM, Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin, Merck and Chevron
running things the way Orwell described in "Animal Farm" where "All
animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

NACC's recommendations centered on "private sector involvement" being "a
key step to enhancing North America's competitive position in global
markets and is the driving force behind innovation and growth."  It
mentioned "border-crossing facilitation, standards and regulatory
cooperation, and energy integration (with a top priority of) improving the
secure flow of goods and people within North America."  These issues and
others were discussed above explaining what they're really all about, not
the usual code language hiding their real purpose.

Without using the word, NACC stressed the importance establishing policies
for maximum profits.  Its report said "Every measure that adds to the cost
or time to cross borders within North America is in effect a tax on
enterprise, a tax on investment (fair taxes in both cases), or a tax on
jobs (a slap at high wages) across the region, which ultimately results in
incremental costs for the consumers in all three countries (untrue as cost
savings accrue to bottom lines, not consumer pockets)."  Also mentioned
was the need to make the North American economy "work better (and
strengthen) the security and well-being of citizens" without mentioning
the "citizens" NACC has in mind are dominant corporate ones and the
privileged only and doing it means hard line restraint on the public.

SPP wants "to cut red tape and give consumers better access to safe, less
expensive, and innovative products" that only "red tape" can help assure.
Regulations, it says "impede the efficiency and competitiveness of
businesses in all three countries" except ones giving them a competitive
advantage and even though regulations, in fact, serve (or should serve) to
protect consumers, not harm them.

Recommendations in the report call for specific action in these sectors in
the order the report listed them.  It placed last the one of greatest
importance, energy, but here's the order priority given: food and
agriculture, financial services, transportation, protection of
intellectual property rights and lastly energy integration specifically
emphasizing Canada's vast oil sands that make its overall reserves second
only to Saudi Arabia.

Canada aims to triple its oil sands production by 2015 to three million
barrels daily to feed America's insatiable energy appetite these resources
are earmarked for.  Mexico's oil is also targeted, but the report hides
NACC's aim for state oil company PEMEX to be opened to private investment
saying only while the country is "blessed with abundant reserves, (it)
faces major challenges in attracting capital" needed to realize their
potential.  NACC wants Mexico to "increase the competitiveness in (its)
energy sector" without saying it wants it privatized so foreign investors
can plunder them for profit.

It also wants governments and the private sector to "work together
effectively in strengthening the competitive position of enterprises" in
all three countries saying, in effect, end all restrictions on how we do
business even if it harms your nations, people and environment.  It made
50 total recommendations it wants mostly accomplished before the end of
2008 with some longer range ones targeting 2010. They cover the range of
issues discussed above and specific ones listed below:

-- developing "national critical infrastructure protection strategies"
with rules providing for legal protection;

-- enhancing emergency management and disaster planning;

-- implementing planned land clearance projects, meaning less for the
people and more for corporate predators;

-- putting in place more business-friendly border security practices,
meaning militarizing the border;

-- further simplifying NAFTA rules-of-origin requirements, meaning no
restrictions on regional trade even for unsafe products;

-- simplifying the NAFTA certification process and requirements aiming at
their total elimination;

-- ending the consumer-protective US Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service (APHIS);

-- removing regulatory standards and practices that impede trade even if
doing it harms consumers;

-- working toward a goal of uniform global regulatory standards and
practices regardless of the consequences or concern about national
sovereignty;

-- easing cross-border tax burdens forcing consumers to pick up the
difference;

-- cooperating in identifying common financial regulatory concerns, then
work to eliminate them;

-- agreeing to unrestricted air cargo transport services between the US
and Mexico;

-- completing a coordinated Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Strategy
aimed at protecting them and keeping their prices high;

-- developing an initiative against counterfeiting and piracy; and

-- collaborating on expanding the supply of highly skilled people in the
energy sector throughout North America and building a model to be applied
to other knowledge-intensive sectors such as financial services.

NACC denies what's pretty clear about about its aims. Saying its
recommendations aren't meant to "threaten the sovereign power of any of
the three countries," there's no doubt that's the central objective.  It
wants a North American Union headquartered in Washington with policies in
place benefitting corporate giants at the expense of working people.
They'll be hammered by greater job losses, fewer social services, and a
loss of personal security under militarized police state conditions in the
name of "national (continental) security" in the age of concocted global
terror threats.

North American Future 2025 Project

This is another secretive effort with the same objective run by the
US-based conservative Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS).  It held closed-door meeting roundtables of Canadian business
leaders in Calgary as part of a project by this name.  CSIS former
American political heavyweights are involved including Sam Nunn, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Harold Brown, William Cohen, Henry Kissinger and others.  The
agenda involves preparing a final report to the US, Canadian and Mexican
governments by September 30 expected to recommend the benefits of
integrating the three nations into a single political, economic and
security bloc.

What's known has activist groups upset including the Council of Canadians
and Coalition for Water Aid.  They're protesting what they say amounts to
a sub rosa effort for corporate interests to control Canada's huge fresh
water supply, estimated at one-fifth of the world's total. They want
Canadian energy and other resources, too.

LIke NACC, CSIS carefully states its aims in what it's made public so far,
showing the goals of both efforts are the same.  CSIS's North America
Future 2025 Project is its research effort to help policymakers "make
sound, strategic, long-range policy decisions about North America, with
emphasis on regional integration." It cites "six areas of critical
importance to the trilateral relationship: labor mobility, energy, the
environment, security, competitiveness and border infrastructure and
logistics."  This is all familiar terminology to be discussed in "seven
closed-door roundtable sessions (with) 21 (to) 45 individuals - with an
equal number from each nation."

They kicked off in Roundtable I discussing "Methodology of Global and
North American Projections" followed by each of the above listed six
"critical" areas.  Protesters are planning to be at the third trilateral
SPP summit Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper will host August 20 and
21 in Montebello, Quebec.  They'll target SPP overall as well as the
Harper government's efforts to advance the corporate-friendly "Trade,
Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement" (TILMA) as one more nail in the
coffin of Canadian national sovereignty.

The agreement between Alberta and British Columbia took effect April 1,
2007 and mandates harmonizing regulations and standards between the two
provinces, removing barriers to economic development.  Saskatchewan is now
being targeted to sign on as efforts advance overall for a borderless
North America with schemes like TILMA being used as stepping stones along
the way to achieve it.  TILMA for all Canada will allow Canadian companies
the right to challenge any provincial laws conflicting the NAFTA
provisions.

SPP North American integration will go much further, of course, and Joseph
Watson reported "Globalists to Formally Propose Merger of US, Canada (and)
Mexico" in his July 5 Prison Planet web site article.  In it, he says CSIS
"political heavyweights" will formally propose a North American union to
Congress at summer's end after the conclusion of their seven secret
roundtable meetings to devise it.  It will contain provisions explained
above that spell doom for the sovereignty of the three participating
nations.  Their leaders want them to become one in service to corporate
giants' strategy for greater profits at the public's expense.  A further
aim is to harmonize regulatory standards with the European Union (EU) in a
new transatlantic economic partnership that moves things closer to
corporate America's dream of a militarized borderless world run by them.

The North American SuperCorridor Coalition (NASCO)

This is another organization set up to facilitate the designs of NACC and
the North American Future 2025 Project for continental integration.  It's
a trilateral provincial, state and local government coalition aligned with
the goals of corporate giants in three countries.  As its name suggests,
it aims to develop an international, integrated, secure superhighway
running the length of the continent.  If built, it would extend from
Winnipeg, Manitoba; Edmonton, Alberta; and Windsor, Ontario, Canada
through Kansas City, San Antonio and Laredo, Texas into Neuvo Laredo,
Guadalajara, and the ports of Manzanillo, Colima and Lazaro Cardenas,
Mexico.

It's planned to be a comprehensive energy and commerce-related jugular
vein-sized artery for transportation, trade and strategic resources like
energy. According to NASCO documents, DHS will be in charge of monitoring
the entire system through high-tech sensors and trackers as a further step
to securing the continent for business at taxpayers expense.  This is part
of the massive infrastructure planned for North American integration.  If
completed, it'll be a boon to business at the expense of the environment
and working people throughout the continent, always the ones to lose from
grandiose schemes like this one.

Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP)

Mexican President Felipe Calderon wishes to revive former President
Vincente Fox's PPP that flopped but didn't die. It's a multi-billion
dollar development scheme to turn Southern Mexico and Central America, all
the way to Panama, into a colossal free trade paradise displacing
indigenous people, destroying their culture and sacred corn, and harming
the environment for profit. Fox earlier and Calderon now want to induce
private investment by shamelessly handing over to them the region's
natural resources, including its oil, water, minerals, timber and
ecological biodiversity.

The idea is to rip into the area with new ports, airports, bullet trains,
bridges, superhighways, 25 hydroelectric dams, new telecommunication
facilities, electrical grids, and a new Panama Canal - for starters, with
more development to follow.  Also envisioned is opening the country's
wildlife reserves for bioprospecting with a huge giveaway to giant seed,
chemical and drug companies and connect everything with new highways
linking Mexico to Central America and no doubt would connect to the
proposed NASCO superhighway.  The idea is to develop and facilitate
business throughout the region - meaning indigenous people have to leave
to make way for it, like it or not, which they don't and will fight it.

The area planned for development is enormous and so far stalled.  It
covers 102 million hectares with 64 million inhabitants in eight
countries, few of whom will benefit from a naked scheme to exploit. It
masquerades as infrastructure, private development and more without
consent of the people the way it's always done.  It's the reason the plan
went nowhere so far.  It's irrelevant to the poor, rural South who'll lose
everything so corporate predators can take their land and livelihoods for
private gain.  They then want to sell back to the people what's already
theirs like Chiapas' fresh water.  It's 40% of Mexico's total and the
reason Coca-Cola is dying to get hold of it.  It would also destroy the
last significant tropical rain forest in Chiapas' Montes Azules Integral
Biosphere in the Lacandon jungle where the government wants to remove
native Mayans from lands belonging to them.

Enter Felipe Calderon.  On April 9, he held a one-day conference in
Campeche, Mexico attended by the presidents of all Central American
countries except Belize and Nicaragua, who sent their prime minister and
vice-president respectively.  Washington no doubt is pushing this scheme
as it would be a development bonanza for US corporations if implemented
and a huge opportunity for many others if ever completed.

Militarizing A Continent As A First Step

No nation is more militarized today than America.  It spends more on
national defense and homeland security than all other nations combined.
Add to those budgets all others related to defense, still others for
intelligence and covert actions, plus the net interest cost attributable
to past debt-financed defense outlays and it totals over $1 trillion for
FY 2007 according to one analyst's estimate and heading way above that in
FY 2008 if current budget proposals pass and become law which is almost
certain.

Canada and Mexico are expected to share the load as part of Washington's
"war on terrorism" and are doing it. Supporting Washington is central for
Canada's Stephen Harper conservative administration.  It includes adhering
to the 2002 Binational Planning Agreement allowing US military forces to
enter Canada on its own discretion, set up shop, and exercise authority
over Canadians in their own country.  Harper's more hard line than his
predecessors.  He believes Canadian political and business interests
depend on it, and he's committed to serving them no matter how ordinary
Canadians feel about it.  He's submissive to Washington and has been
massively ramping up military spending with plans to increase it over 50%
above 2005 levels to $21.5 billion annually by 2010.

That's chump change by US standards but a major commitment for a nation
traditionally spending at far lower levels.  Canada faces no outside
threat so spending hugely on its military, unlike in the past, defies
tradition and public consensus favoring social spending that's being cut
to pay for it.  It's also contrary to Canada's traditionally eschewing
militarism and foreign wars unlike its southern neighbor's thriving on
them since the nation's founding.

Business interests, not national security or the public welfare, drive
Harper's agenda.  America accounts for 87% of Canada's exports, and
Canadian businesses are closely allied with US ones.  In many instances,
it's as subsidiaries with US corporations owning 20% of Canada's
non-financial sector, 33% of its oil and gas industry, and many Canadian
defense companies linked to US ones as subsidiaries or in a
sub-contracting capacity.  Canada's influential Department of National
Defense (DND), its new Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier and
defence minister Gordon O'Connor are on board with Harper as well. They're
committed to ramping up the nation's military spending and linking with
America's "war on terrorism." It gives them more power to lock in even
more as SPP advances and outlines a plan for it across the continent.

Mexico has its part to play as well.  With threats and fear-mongering,
it's using drug-related violence as a pretext for cracking down on
simmering unrest wherever it surfaces with plenty of US military aid to do
it.  The scheme is to quiet and cow millions in the country opposing
democracy, Mexican-style.  It made National Action Party (PAN) Felipe
Calderon president in a process decided before people ever voted last July
2 the way it's always worked in Mexican politics.  It's got parts of the
country, like Oaxaca, in open rebellion against its state governor, Ulises
Ruiz Ortiz (known as URO).

It also made the country a tinderbox of discontent with growing numbers in
it fed up with sham elections, decades of repression, deepening poverty
and an entrenched system of privilege for the rich and powerful.
Mega-billionaire Carlos Slim just passed Bill Gates by $8.6 billion to
become the world's richest man in a country with the second largest number
of billionaires in Latin America after Brazil and among the top ten in the
world with the greatest number of them. The US tops all nations by a wide
margin with far more in New York and Los Angeles alone than anywhere else.

Calderon to their rescue to make his own richer.  He's got 30,000 troops
stomping on the people and fighting Washington's wars on Mexico's streets
and along its near-2000 mile northern border.  He also has to protect
state oil company Pemex after a series of July explosions attacked the
company's gas pipelines in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato.  It
affected 800 companies incurring losses of $5 - 10 million a day and
caused 5000 people to be evacuated from 20 surrounding communities.

A group called the Popular or People's Revolutionary Army (EPR) claimed
responsibility saying it demands release of two men detained unjustly in
Oaxaca in May and held as political prisoners.  The group's communique
also said the attacks were part of a "national campaign against the
interests of the oligarchy and of this illegitimate government (in power
from the stolen 2006 election) that has been put in motion."  It's another
sign how polarized Mexican society is with those losing out in it striking
back.

In the US, poverty is growing and the wealth disparity is unprecedented.
However, things are much worse in Mexico.  It has the world's fourth
largest number of millionaires, but poverty's been rising since the 1970s,
and since the mid-1980s the nation's poor have been reeling under the
affects of IMF-imposed structural adjustment policies mandating
large-scale privatizations and wage restraints.  Then came NAFTA in 1994.
It devastated millions of Mexicans, forced many north to survive, and may
by one estimate eventually displace 10 million small farmers from their
land (plus their families) into poverty assuring they'll head north in
desperation.

Today nearly one-third of Mexicans live on $2 or less a day, and millions
can't afford basic needs like enough food, decent shelter and medical care
when sick.  It didn't help that Felipe Calderon allowed staple corn prices
to skyrocket causing tortilla prices to spike by 50% in most regions
devastating impoverished consumers.  They can't afford the staple they
rely on, and small Mexican corn producers are even less able to compete
with subsidized imports that wasn't possible post-NAFTA.

These are the issues generating mass civil unrest and disobedience that
simmer beneath the surface when they're not visible on the streets like in
Oaxaca since last May, 2006.  It's gone on in spite of harsh efforts to
crush it violently with Federal Preventative Police (PFP) and military
forces launched against it on the pretext of fighting drugs traffickers
and terrorism.

Calderon's 30,000 Mexican troops are also in a third or more of the
nation's states, civil rights are suspended and widespread abuses are
reported because the military got a mandate to "use all necessary force to
resolve disturbances and return peace to society." That's just a hint of
what's coming across Mexico and the continent under full implementation of
SPP that won't tolerate opposition and will crack down hard against it.
Mexican law now allows it after passage of the draconian "International
Terrorism Law" criminalizing dissent, calling it terrorism, and imposing
harsh sentences for using "violence against persons, things, or public
services that spread (enough) alarm or fear in the population....to
threaten national security or pressure authorities to take certain
determinations."

The press is also targeted with prohibitions against "publish(ing) or
distribut(ing)....photos or images without the express consent of those
featured," a condition impossible to meet.  Social protests may be
criminalized as well with resistance movements like the Zapatistas and
Oaxacan Popular Peoples' Assembly (APPO) labeled terrorist organizations
and their leaders subject to 40 year mandated prison terms if charged and
convicted.  And President Calderon wants Mexico's Congress to pass an
amendment giving him constitutional powers to tap phones and search
private residences without first obtaining court-ordered approval under
any conditions he claims is "urgent."

Mexico's hard right Supreme Court of Nacional Justice (SCJN) is
supportive.  Last year it declared Mexico's military can aid police in
cases of public security that can be anything the state says it is.  The
Court also ruled law enforcement officials need no court-ordered warrants
to search and seize in "flagrant situations" that can also mean anything
and that violates the American Convention of Human Rights adopted as
Mexican law.

Then there's Calderon's war on drugs and the cartels that's, in fact, a
war no different than Colombia's war on dissident resistance groups like
the FARC and ELN.  Like Plan Colombia, Washington has a similar one for
Mexico, so call it what it is - Plan Mexico with tens of millions in
funding, equipment and technology to back it up.  Also call it
US-supported and funded state terrorism in a grand scheme to militarize
the country and crack down on dissent and resistance to authoritarian rule
at the federal, state and local levels.  It's partnered with Washington in
its phony "war on terrorism" to maintain order, crush opposition and
incarcerate anyone interfering or in the way.

US military elements already operate inside Mexico freely and covertly,
and a 1994 Pentagon briefing paper, declassified under FOIA, hinted at a
US invasion if the country became destabilized or the government faced the
threat of being overthrown because of "widespread economic and social
chaos" that would jeopardize US investments, access to oil, overall trade,
and would create great numbers of immigrants heading north.

Plans are in place and are playing out to snuff out trouble before it
spirals out of control, and the proposed US immigration bill was to
provide funding for it through stepped up militarization.  But even with
the bill defeated, the money's coming and US forces will follow if needed.
Congressional budgeting calls for millions in Mexican military aid and
massive new border detention centers for up to 30,000 detainees for
starters with two notorious ones discussed below already operating. What's
planned on the border will also likely show up anywhere in all three SPP
countries to defuse social discontent by disappearing a large new
political prisoner population into black holes of repressive
incarceration.  That's SPP's promise and scheme to create police state
North America making the continent safe for corporate interests by
revoking ours.

Raymondville and Hutto Texas Immigrant Prison Detention Centers

The Willacy immigrant detention center at Raymondville, Texas, is
oppressive enough to be called "Ritmo."  It's run by the private
for-profit MTC Corporation and is currently the largest immigrant prison
in the country in the remote southern tip of the state.  It cost $65
million to build, is a "tent city," and is ringed by barbed wire and
14-foot high chain-link fences.  It currently holds over 2000 immigrant
detainees under repressive conditions including 23 hour a day lockdowns in
10 windowless hothouses.  Entire families are incarcerated there, fed poor
or insufficient food, given inadequate and delayed medical care, and
treated inhumanely in unsafe conditions for extended periods lasting
months.

Conditions overall are abusive, disciplinary punishment harsh, with
detainees having to put up with no partitions or doors separating five
toilets, five sinks, five shower heads and eating areas where some days
detainees lack utensils and eat with their hands.  Lights are kept on
round the clock, clothing is inadequate, and on cold days detainees are
kept outside for an allowed daily hour in short-sleeved uniforms with no
warm protective clothing like blankets, sweat shirts or jackets.

The Hutto Residential Center is another immigrant detention center in
Taylor, Texas currently holding around 400 prisoners including 200
children and infants. Few detainees here or at other immigrant prisons
committed crimes or were charged with any, yet they're treated like
criminals because they were forced here to survive NAFTA and DR-CAFTA
inflicted job losses.  They're victims of US repressive trade policies but
are treated like criminals made to suffer retribution for exploitative
state practices committed against them.

Post 9/11, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 was passed establishing the
repressive Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and in March, 2003 its
largest investigative and enforcement arm - the US Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency (ICE).  It's charged with protecting public safety by
identifying and targeting "criminal" and "terrorist" threats to the
country that include Latino and other desperate for work undocumented
immigrants forced to come here to survive.

ICE was established to apprehend them at the border or hunt them down
relentlessly once here.  It has four integrated divisions, one of which is
policing our southern border and conducting terror-raid undocumented
immigrant worker roundups with those apprehended headed for abusive
detention at facilities like Raymondville and Hutto.  There and at other
facilities like them, ICE-detained immigrants number around 28,000 on an
average day with totals heading for 30,000 or more by year end.

Hutto is run by Corrections Corporation of American, the largest
for-profit private prison operator in the country.  It has 64 facilities
in 19 states and the District of Columbia with a capacity for
incarcerating over 69,000 inmates.  It's reputation is unsavory based on
former prisoner accounts of severe abuse, inadequate medical and
educational services, poor or noxious food and overall inhumane conditions
including rat and roach-infested cramped centers, inadequate basic
hygiene, rapes, beatings and deaths at their facilities.

The Hutto facility in Taylor, Texas houses immigrant detainees.  It's
particularly notorious for treating young children no differently than
adults, including some too young to know where they are or why and older
ones with no idea why they're detained at all.  Conditions are made worse
by abusive guards and uncaring officials.

The daily routine is stultifying and cruel.  Families are awakened at
5:30AM and allowed 30 minutes to bathe and dress.  They then get 20
minutes to eat food that's often poor quality, inedible, and/or
inadequate. If children haven't finished in time, their food is thrown out
and they're left to go hungry.

Following meals, prisoners are returned to their cells, aren't allowed
out, denied sleep during the day, and forced to sit and endure boredom to
pass the time.  No books are allowed, and frequent head counts are taken
throughout the day to assure no one escaped.  Educational facilities for
children are pathetically inadequate at one hour a day in which
practically nothing is taught, and conditions and treatment overall are so
bad the ACLU sued DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff on March 6 on behalf of
10 abused children at Hutto.  The US District Court judge hearing the
case, Sam Sparks, set an expedited trial date for August, agreeing with
the plaintiff that detainee treatment at Hutto fails to meet federal
standards.

Homeland Security Police State Justice for Everyone

Post-9/11, Muslims and Latino immigrants have been targeted by the Bush
administration, falsely charged with terrorism and other crimes, and
subjected to abusive harassment and persecution.  They've been victimized
by mass roundups, detentions, prosecutions and deportations the result of
baseless claims they threaten national security.  If full-blown SPP
security measures are implemented, anyone challenging, or seen
threatening, state authority may henceforth be subjected to similar harsh
treatment.  It's practically that way now, but expect lots worse ahead.
The rule of law will be weakened or ignored, civil liberties and essential
human needs further eroded, and state and corporate power tightened enough
to be in full control.

Dissent no longer will be tolerated, and anyone seen as a threat in an age
of a "war on terrorism" will be targeted, just as Muslims and immigrants
are today.  Preparations are in progress for mass detentions with
Halliburton the beneficiary of a DHS contingency contract worth up to $385
million to build US-based detention centers.  Their stated purpose is for
"detention and processing" in case of an "emergency influx of
immigrants....or to support the rapid development of new programs (for
planned) expansion facilities (able to hold 5000 or more persons)."

This language provides cover for planned concentration camps targeting
anyone for indefinite detention as a perceived enemy of the state or
threat to national security any time henceforth.  The idea is to have
facilities ready in case martial law is declared for any reason.  It might
include the kind of major "terrorist" attack DHS Secretary Michael
Chertoff practically signaled is coming later this summer to a Chicago
Tribune editorial board July 10.  ABC News also hyped the story citing a
new FBI analysis of Al-Queda messages warning of "continued messages that
convey their strategic intent to strike the US homeland and US interests
worldwide (that) should not be discounted as merely deceptive noise."
The rest of the corporate media jumped on the story as well to prepare the
public for full militarization of the country if what Chertoff and a
number of intelligence analysts believe is virtually certain ahead.

The Pentagon is ready if it comes with an action plan prepared in a DOD
document called "Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support." It
envisions an "active, layered defense" both within and outside the US
pledging to "transform US military forces to execute homeland defense
missions in the....US homeland."  It lays out a strategy for increased
reconnaissance and surveillance to "defeat potential challengers before
they threaten the United States."  It also "maximizes threat awareness and
seizes the initiative from those who would harm us."

These are ominous developments signaled with very dangerous language. It
suggests the likelihood of an impending terror attack severe enough to
warrant suspension of the Constitution followed by martial law.  It means
anyone may be considered a threat to national security and detained
indefinitely with or without evidence to prove it.  It further empowers
the state, through the military, to act preventively through mass roundups
and detentions.  No one will be safe or spared if targeted and will be
subject to police state justice granting them none.

A full-scale militarization of the country can be implemented any time on
what a 1988 Reagan era Executive Order 12656 called any "national security
emergency" defined as "Any occurrence, including natural disaster,
military attack, technological or other emergency, that seriously degrades
or seriously threatens the national security of the United States."

Other repressive legislation's already in place as well. Under Patriot and
Military Commission Acts justice, constitutional rights are severely
weakened, and we're all "enemy combatants" stripped of our habeas and due
process rights, subject to indefinite detentions, denied our right to
counsel and at the mercy of military tribunal justice with no right of
appeal.

Welcome to North America's Security and Prosperity Partnership
guaranteeing it to elitist interests by denying it to the people of three
nations.  They're to be parts of the new "united continent of America," or
North American Union, run by dark forces in Washington that won't move out
when a new president moves in January 20, 2009.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen [at] sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve
Lendman News and Information Hour on The MicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon
US central time.


--------10 of 10--------

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 ba ba bana nababa
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   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
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