WHO INVITED BUSH TO CANADA?
No one uses the “L” word up here in Canada .. liars.
We may make bad talk about our politicians being greedy and corrupt, but we are light years behind the US at labeling our government as crook$ and LIAR$ on that grand scale.
The spectre of the Security and Prosperity Agreement summit to come to Montebello, Quebec (1/2 way between Ottawa and Quebec City) may change all that. From a mass deception about what is going on, we may find Our Leader, Stephen Harper, a member of the Three Amigos, having to tell some pretty tall ones very soon as the summit is booked for 19-20 August.
Sometimes it is good to learn from our mistakes. Start with avoiding the alphabet soup proposed by the neocons and their academic apologists and business allies.
A classic example would be to learn from North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that some things do not work. However, this doesn’t seem to be part of the process going on today in Canada – and it isn’t going to benefit the citizens of the world, that is for sure.
It’s right hard to stay a GLOBALIST, that is care deeply about the entire planet, when digging into the backwaters of Ruling Class strategy without reverting to arguments pro the Constitution or in Canada’s case, pro Confederation. This must be done however IF we are to get a sane world.
Nationalism has proven, largely, to be a disaster as dispensed by “planners” at the CIA in the past few decades .. a major thrust of US policy has been to push for Arab nationalism, African nationalism, and any nationalism at all that would keep people divided, their people “conquered” and their resources ripe for picking. But any discussion on the Strategic Protection and Prosperity Agreement means we must take a real hard look before plunging into a quarmire Progressives might fall into. This complete disregard is based on one simple premise:
Security and Prosperity for WHO ....?
Whether this coup goes through in a neocon-generated business paradise for the rich becomes a new way of life or even if it falters, an understanding of North American integration is due right away.
Our problem begins with the duet sung by Reagan and Mulroney signing the NAFTA. Mulroney attempted to provide the motivation for signing by citing that protectionism and starvation would be waiting in the wings if Canada did not meekly agree to the US terms. Little bit players, entering the stage, suggested that Canadian pride and manhood (!) were on the line if Canada did not enter the glorious struggle in the global marketplace.
So the rich get richer, the poor remain poor, maybe poorer .. if a person could find three jobs (and many did) a middle class person could stay afloat.
Suddenly Canadian steel companies were sold .. Dofasco, Algoma Steel and Stelco (back in the news this week!) are no longer Canadian .. but not to worry.
Under NAFTA, the US has secured their oil industry by a GUARANTEED share of Canada’s oil resources. Canada becomes the major supplier to the US (gas guzzling) war machine. In 2007, 65% of Canadian oil and gas are now shipped to the US, but Canada has no reserves. Funny, the Mexicans don’t sign away their oil. Maybe they know something about the gringos we don’t.
The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) is put on the table, but due to the mass of non-ignorant FRENCH people and their government, this is avoided. My, my, the rich are finding out that perhaps they cannot find a good way to protect the “international” investors.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) was exposed in Seattle when a mass protest of citizens, many of them union members, filled the streets .. the WTO meeting was shut down and future meetings were held FAR from the very angry MAD crowds. The
Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA) was given a death blow by the massive protest and police brutality in Quebec City.
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A long time ago -- back in April -- the Bilderbergers had a little confab in Turkey. The items of interest were Canada and Turkey. The Canadian Prime Minister is cleverly NOT going to these parties as he knows that progressives and radicals and his other political opponents are watching him. Last year, the meeting was held outside Ottawa and even the mainstream media reported it because Canadian security forces slipped up and arrested Alex Jones of 9/11 fame and held him captive (looking for porno they said) for 15 hours. This gave the media time to come and have a look at the heavy security the Canadian taxpayer was footing for the high and mighty hanging about the place.
Since then we've been perusing papers and ‘net sites to guess what they confabbed about THIS spring. The US fleet is now in the Gulf. Turkish troops massing around the Kurds. Turkey’s playing hanky-pankying with Russia. These things get reported.
But eh? How is it Canada has been slipped in among these world hot spots?
This couldn’t be more alarming. We’re supposed to be in an economic boom! All hunky AND dory! Harper and the RCMP graft (our major source of intelligence gathering) notwithstanding, every little thing is ship shape (even with the coming "investment" in six icebreakers capable of cutting through one metre of ice). Russia has declared parts of the Arctic (read: Arctic oil) as THEIRS, but there’s no way to protect it without the assistance of the US’ Northern Commnand …
The media honeymoon with Harper has been fey from Day One. It’s plain that Harper used his western Canada oil money backers to buy a political position that no one envies. Who’d want to be PM of Canada today? Strategically, logistically, and politically we’re in an international hot seat.
Does Canada have a plan for its future? Is it even likely to get one?
Nope. Years of graft, corruption and lethargy have left the Liberal Party inert to deal with the future now upon us. The Conservatives couldn’t pull together under Preston Manning. The complacency got so rusty and cruddy, the Liberals got the boot only after the Gomery report on corruption.
We Progressives prayed Harper’s days be shortened to a few months. God proved unbountiful here, though Harper had booted the press sufficient to be targetted and skewed daily in the press for all to see.
Worse, there is no one in place to assume leadership. We do have a damned fine opposition, but insufficient numbers for a coalition government. Instead the NDP (New Democratic Party) gets hauled out in a crisis to do deal making; then we get just a dab of progressive legislation and budgetary discretion to let off some political, budgetary steam that should have been released years ago. It’s the Canadian way to not get too riled about things ….
Harper has successfully dodged calls for a new election. To the progressive way of thinking this is surprising. Our press is practiced at investigative journalism; the press corps aren’t prudes when it comes to exercising a bit of rumpy pumpy in the editorial and analysis pages. Why, we even have GOOD military and political commentators on privately held TV stations, who are just plain folks like us wanting social spending that no one is seeing. Why are all now being so kind about the boiling cauldron Canadian Government is preparing to toss us into? I think the trees have blinded them to the forest and they can't see the inner ecology of things as they are now, although cries for a reduction in warmaking troops falls on deaf ears.
Canada's true problems stem from complicated relations with the crank “New American Empire” with Prince George Bush and Cardinal Dick careening intoxicated at North America’s steering wheel these seven years. Inherited headaches from bastard parentage of the BritishEmpire, to boot, don’t help. We have a myriad of issues from this un(w)holy family system.
Unsettled land claims with First Nations peoples grow more difficult, day by day, to negotiate as aboriginals become increasingly unwilling to take money for land maculated with uranium runoffs and dirty water. Plus, the refusal by the goverment to ratify the UN agreements on aboriginal peoples is being attacked by the Liberals, who spent years themselves ignoring them ... providing them with an excuse to not ratify UN proposals.
There are the headaches about regional variations on taxation and transfer of tax payments to the Provinces. For years, rich Provinces were paying to support those less fortunate. This was bad enough, but now as the western Provinces pipeline precious resources into the US -- and they get provided to Israeli fighter jets -- people take to the streets. Why SHOULD Atlantic Canada be importing oil ..? Why are there no gas and oil reserves there? Harper's own party has been shouting at him and his paper-thin coalition of Conservative forces are at each other and him.
It's a paper thin coalition because it only exists on paper . these guys have never worked together before, it's all ink, no controlling the back benchers who are only too willing to get up and walk out and try to start their own little power ploys against the West all over again. Being a Conservative backbencher is the most thankless job in Canada and totally frustrating. They are expected to be a chorus line to Harper's stoic dance which no one fancies.
Then there is the headache of being mired in Afghanistan. This is not a popular conflict. And most importantly, we like to think of our troops as . gasp! .. peacekeepers, not pawns in a bloody US imperialist game to gain more oil resources in the Middle East.
Unlike the US there is a definitive military family tradition in Canada, handed down generation after generation. There is at rock bottom a true loyalty to Canadian troops. But the images of the body bags are displayed on television here; nothing is covered up. The report that the US had killed Canadian soldiers is something one never forgets. We know, too, that the US pilots were on speed when they did it, too. So every death is weighed carefully and they register with "the masses". When the vote was up for extending the commitment to the conflict, I think many people were surprised.
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Certainly they government and war profiteers weren't gonna to get carte blanche; it is apparent, again, to even the inexperienced eye that Iraq is a dismal and utter failure. The high cost of today's genocidal wars will not be allowed here ... this past week even the TV commentors are having a feast on Harper’s apparent misunderstanding of what the Canadian people will allow. They do not want their tax dollars being spent on military equipment or troops in some international hotspot; they want dollars for social programs. The last budget saw $8 billion dollars paying off the debt, while thousands go without doctors. Big mistake, Mr. Harper. Our cities go down the drain. Big mistake, Mr. Harper. Our tuition to schools of higher learning go way up. Big mistake, Mr. Harper …
No one is trusting Harper these days .. his recent visit to South America to do Bush’s dirty work blew up in his face as he rationalized doing business with known human rights abusers. It just didn’t work. Meanwhile, on Canadian soil, a US military presence has been detected, just prior to the SPP summit …. Who invited THEM in ..?
See: The Militarization and Annexation of North America
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6359
What to do?
The Stop the SPP committee is probably the oddest coalition of groups EVER assembled in Canadian history. Unions, climate activists, the respectable Council of Canadians, rightwingers, a new national party (the Canadian Action Party) opposed to the SPP/NAU, anticapitalists, the usual anarchists, refugee organizations and groups who say no one is illegal, and the list is broadening daily.
Headlines proclaim that no one KNOWS about the SPP; this is not the case, fighting back against it – a big business, government alliance – is not the uphill fight it is made out to be. Getting a coalition to work together is another story. We are doing what Parliament cannot do -- work together.
Although things might have started peacefully enough with activist progressive holding a quiet soiree at a public hall in Papineuville, Quebec the day before, the government, aided and assisted by the US Army has set a 25-km security perimeter around Montebello.
This prevented even the staid from discussing the SPP and caused headlines. The hall was made unavailable. Scholars and concerned citizens were prevented from speaking – but the realization that the US Army, in league with the RCMP and the Quebec local police, was calling the shots got people’s dander up. Vehicles with over five people in them are banned from the area. But the rich, the corporations will be inside the perimeter conducting business as usual.
The numbers who are bussing into Ottawa grows daily. New plans for bike caravans, river launches and canoes up the Ottawa River are proposed. The US government has Harper closing down the river for the duration. No less than 40 other supportive demonstrations around Canada are planned. This has a momentum that can only be understood by reading THIS:
http://canadians.org/integratethis/backgrounders/index.html
The threat to public discourse and free speech will not be tolerated in Canada.
Crucial issues at the heart of this "partnership": the accelerated extraction and delivery of Canadian oil and water resources to the US economy; a deepening of economic partnership with the US conditional to a war-driven foreign policy; the pretext of "national security" to justify the secrecy surrounding the precise nature of the discussions and the deals made.
Guaranteeing and increasing the profits of the largest corporations In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, George W. Bush declared "[E]ither you are with us, or you are with the terrorists". That year, the only directive given to Paul Celluci, as he became US Ambassador to Canada, was to do whatever he could to bring about a major increase in Canadian military spending. And Harper has now made a huge commitment to this.
Harper is not loved in the Canadian press; he has made it so by playing martinette .. making himself PRIME Minister to the demise of his own cabinet. He is not loved, nor charming. His ties to business become clearer day by day.
There is a menacing tone to all this: unless Canada adopted the same "security" agenda as the US, our trade relations would suffer. Thus security trumps trade. Canada is falling quickly into the trumps game in which Bush and Cheney have been the masters …
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In August two unelected Presidents and a minority Prime Minister meet in Quebec (we think, maybe not? maybe Ottawa? the people are being "toyed with") with their royal cortege of business princelings, attended by high level bureaucrats who have decided to remain mute will hold court in Quebec.
Who invited THEM …? They are about to find out we do not want them HERE.
Letters are being written, the media at all locales contacted, plans are laid.
Phone calls made nonstop; people are learning to work together.
Stay tuned as the US attempts to highjack and annex Canada ...
See www.yaya.ca to see how we are faring. And edujumacate yourself on the SPP .. it will effect you, too and most of the globe if we let its legacy prevail after 23 May 2005 in Waco ..
