WHAT’S UP WITH THE SITE?
I figure that a lot of people have been wondering where we’ve been and when we’re coming back. The facts are, due to illnesses, family matters, the holidays (coming and preceding) we have not been able to continue the in depth posting on this blog as we would have liked. That said, we WILL be back.
Once we have the upcoming holidays out of the way, we are planning to come back strong with new, in depth posts; the continuation of the series that have already been started; and new and interesting op-ed pieces from our friend Freedom6. I am also hoping to get some guest posters here after the first of the year offering differing and, hopefully, interesting perspectives for our readers on this issue that has consumed so much of everyone’s time, emotion, and energy for so long.
Don’t give up on us but look for us again after the first of the year. For people who have not visited us before, you may want to do some catching up with the previous posts on this site. I believe you will find them heavily researched and attributed with multiple links to resource information which you may find interesting, educational, and perhaps even surprising. In the meantime, we wish everyone…
A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HANUKKAH, HAPPY KWANZAA, FELIZ NAVIDAD…
AND A VERY HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!
Recent Commenters Should Be Aware…
There was a period of time recently when I was not checking the site on a daily basis. During two or three days of that period I was hit by an enormous amount of spam…pages and pages of it. Not having experienced that before, I thought I could go through it page by page and delete as I went…that was not the case. When I hit the “delete” after reviewing the first page, it ALL got deleted and I had no way of bringing it back.
I have, on occasion, successfully rescued legitimate comments from the spam filter and am very concerned that I may have deleted some when I hit that delete button. If your comment was, indeed, deleted I sincerely apologize and invite you to come back and repeat it or, at the very least, chastise me for my carelessness…I deserve it. It shouldn’t happen again as I have resolved to check my spam content on the minimum of a daily basis. Once a comment is approved, the spam filter “learns” and you should have no further problems.
Again, my sincerest apologies.
Anke Cheney
The City of Lost Girls: Femicide In Latin America
One of the videos that I featured on my last post, The Merida Intitiative, was “The City of Lost Girls,” a shocking indictment of not only Mexican law enforcement, but a deadly culture of corruption which is re-created in many forms throughout Mexico, and runs up through the highest levels of government…and tends to prey upon the Mexican citizens, particularly the poor, with impunity. No one, however, is totally immune. Because few people have viewed that particular post, I decided to repeat it here and give the subject greater coverage:
This film was shot in November of 2003 in and around the city of Juarez, Mexico in the Mexican State of Chihuahau, formerly known as El Paso del Norte. The estimated numbers of dead girls/women, most between the ages of 16 to 23 (although an average age of 16 has been cited) has ranged from 380 to 550 since 1993…and there are still an estimated 4000 girls and young women missing in this area (Amnesty International’s estimates are far lower than those of the local citizens). A great deal of attention has focused on the problem in Juarez, given its proximity to El Paso, Texas, as well as the large number of “NAFTA” factories which have located there. As a matter of fact, the draw of these factories for young women seeking work is often attributed as a major reason that this area provides such a fertile hunting ground for the predators who are perpetrating these crimes.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/pdf/Juarez_Guatemala_Action_kit.pdf
Excerpt from Amnesty International report from 2006:
“Since 1993, almost 400 women and girls have been murdered and more than 70 remain missing in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua, Mexico. All the evidence seems to indicate that these young women are chosen by their killers because they are women who have no power within Chihuahuan society, itself characterized by high crime rates and public insecurity due to the fact that drug trafficking and organized crime operate in the area. The women are often workers from the maquilas, or export factories, set up by the multinational companies that control the economy of Ciudad Juárez as well as waitresses, workers in the informal economy, or students. Many of them live in poverty, often with children to support. They are women who have few options but to travel alone on the long bus journeys that take them from the poor suburbs surrounding Ciudad Juárez to their place of work or study.”
The greatest difficulty in attempting to determine the TRUE numbers of dead and missing girls is a direct result of the corruption of the state authorities in Juarez and Chihuahua, who are believed by most to actually be complicit in not only the cover-up, but the crimes themselves.
The Merida Initiative
The Merida Initiative, as is the case with most of the negotiations between Mexico and the United States, is again one of those deals which was struck behind closed doors between President Bush and President Calderon, so it is unlikely that a great many of you are familiar with it, or have even heard of it. Even its first year funding was tacked onto a funding bill for the war in Iraq in order to expedite, and essentially sneak through, its implementation. This lack of transparency has been the case with this Initiative from the beginning:
An excellent source for information on various aspects of the Initiative is to be found at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars website, Merida Initiative Portal:
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=5949&fuseaction=topics.item&news_id=407349
For instance, according to the overview of the Initiative…
“Congress is currently considering a proposal to provide $1.4 billion in equipment, software, and technical assistance to Mexico over three years as well as a smaller but still unspecified amount to Central America over the same period. The first year of the initiative is part of the Iraq Supplemental, while the second and third years will be discussed as part of the regular FY09 and FY10 appropriations process.
The Merida Initiative is actually more than an assistance package—rather it is one element in a broader strategy of growing cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico to address a shared threat presented by organized crime involved in drug trafficking. The U.S. and Mexican governments have increased joint efforts significantly in recent years in order to protect communities on both sides of the border. Moreover, both countries recognize the need to engage Central America in broader regional efforts.”
…which confirms those “rumors” mentioned by Glenn Beck of CNN in the previous video.
NAFTA, Part 1: Free Trade Agreements
I had originally planned to do my first NAFTA post on the impact upon Mexico, however, one of my sources required permission for publication, to which I applied but have not yet heard back. Therefore, I thought I would start with an examination of Free Trade Agreements in general and NAFTA in particular so that we may form a foundation for what is to come.
As a long-time advocate of Free Market economics, I am not totally averse to the concept of Free Trade Agreements. On the contrary, I can see where, if properly negotiated with countries with whom we share similar economies and cultures, bilateral agreements of that sort could be highly beneficial to both trading partners. However, an examination of our growing list of Free Trade partners shows a serious lack of economic common sense…and NAFTA is the worst of them.
Probably the least informative government site to utilize for an investigation of Free Trade Agreements is the very site which would most likely be the first traversed for information on these agreements:
The International Trade Administration of the Department of Commerce
This site is largely devoted to the promotion of FTA’s, and tends to skew the facts toward its own end. As an example, their front page actually heralds a SURPLUS in the trade balance between the U.S. and those trading partners with whom we have implemented agreements:
- For this release, manufacturing products are defined as all products that fall under NAICS classifications 31-33. This data will differ from other sources that use a manufacturing definition based on an SITC standard.
This couldn’t be further from the truth! Let’s take a look at the reality. Read more »
Apology
I apologize to my readers for having such a long dry spell. I once more had some computer problems (looks like I’ll be ordering a new one shortly), and also have been occupied by some family business. I faithfully promise to have a new post up no later than Monday, even if I have to take my husband’s computer away from him to get it done. Thank you for your patience.
Anke Cheney
North American Union, Part 4: The Canadians
Although the vast majority of our own government and mainstream media persist in denying, and actually ridiculing, the strong evidence that a North American Union is in the future of our nation, the issue is quite openly, and seriously, being discussed, opposed, and promoted in Canada. Our neighbors to the north have been much more persistent in looking at the ramifications of the ties between NAFTA , the North American SuperCorridor Coalition (NASCO), the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), and the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) toward the ultimate development of that North American Union.
Particularly since the Montebello (Canada) meeting of the SPP between Bush, Harper, and Calderon, large numbers of the members of the opposition parties, as well as an enormous number of Canadian citizens all across the country, have taken an active stand against the policies and the conspiratorial nature of the negotiations potentially leading to the establishment of a NAU in which they have absolutely no desire to participate. Unfortunately, it is also leading to a good bit of anti-American (U.S.) sentiment among people with whom we have gotten on exceptionally well for the greater part of our history.
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2284.shtml
“It won’t work. For one thing, the Canadian people will never accept that Canada become a colony of the United States, and the current minority government of Stephen Harper could pay dearly politically if it continues pushing in that direction. Canadians do not want their armed forces and their foreign policy to be de facto merged with those of imperial America. Moreover, they do not want their natural resources to be placed under U.S. control and exploited nearly completely by large American corporations, which have little regard for Canada’s sovereignty and little concern for the welfare of Canadians. Also, they do not want the Canadian dollar ditched in favor of a less and less attractive U.S. dollar, as some have suggested.”
Open Discussion
I’ve put out a great deal of information over the past three weeks…and I’m having some computer difficulties again with my technical expert currently unavailable. It occurred to me that this might be a good time for readers to catch up on all this information (most of which ties together), and perhaps use it to do some of their own research, then come back here and do some brainstorming. Call it an open thread, open discussion, or whatever…it could prove interesting.
[UPDATE: I had intended to get a new post out today (actually, I should say "yesterday"), however, circumstances made that impossible. I hope to have one out, properly researched, by end of day (the 21st). This open discussion is definitely not getting a lot of interest, probably because everyone is looking for new information which takes a LOT of time to put together, so I also needed a break. By the way, if anyone has any suggestions for future posts I'm quite open to them.]
North American Union, Part 3: The Amero
Given the recent developments in our economic situation in the United States, and the resulting increasing interest in this particular post, I felt that it might be appropriate for me to move it to the “top of the heap,” so to speak, with some minor additions. It contains some very relevant information to our current situation.
In the North American Union, parts 1 and 2, we briefly examined the systematic path toward socio-economic convergence of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico through various treaties, trilateral organizations and projects, much like the beginnings of the European Union. The “Open Borders” posts and the “Social Security Totalization Treaty” post also have very distinct relationships to this issue. What should be noticeable throughout, particularly in the “Totalization” and “EU” postings, is that convergence is very dependent upon a state of parity between the three nations…and financial parity is a key element.
One of the mistakes that the European Unionists made originally was not positioning themselves to impose a single monetary system throughout the EU. Not all EU nations have adopted the Euro as their sole currency which means, of course, that they have not yet fully invested themselves in the centralized banking and financial functions of the Union. Great Britain happens to be one of those countries. That is one of the matters that the Treaty of Lisbon is designed to correct. It is very likely that the architects of a possible North American Union have learned from their mistakes.
As we witnessed in the aftermath of “9/11,” an atmosphere of fear is a necessary element in the willingness of the American people to concede their liberty in the name of security for such anomalous concessions to government intrusion into our lives, and the abrogation of many of our individual rights, as was imposed upon us through the Patriot Act and the creation of Homeland Security. Fear is an equally necessary element to create an atmosphere whereby the American people would permit our government to thoroughly abdicate the very economic principles which made this country such an economic power in the previous century.
New World Order?
One of the commenters on the previous thread (EU), Red Dawn, posed an interesting question:
Question,
So if there is the Eu and possible NAU, what is to say that it is not in the name of a ONE world order? (talking about conspiracy theories)Or am I missing something? What other reasoning would there be?
Comment by Red Dawn | July 14, 2008 6:56 pm
So I decided to go to YouTube and see what I could find there…out of the “horses’ mouths.”
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