Wednesday, May 31, 2006

NASCO - Paving the way for stuff


According to their website, NASCO is "a non-profit organization dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America."
For "quality of life" here, read "stuff".
Expanding the wealth and power of corporations at the expense of people and the environment.
A ten lane corridor almost a quarter of a mile wide with gas, oil, electricity, and water pipelines running up either side, extending all the way from Mexico to Winnipeg.
Containers from the far East to be offloaded at Mexican deep-sea ports and transported by truck to the new $3 mil Mexican Customs Office - in Kansas City!
Texas has already been given both federal funding and the go-ahead to begin their section of this toll-road, and the second "Hemispheria" summit to discuss this project was due to happen in Winnipeg earlier this month.

What could possibly go wrong?
Oh yeah... Terror, Terror, Terror! Big fences! Passports and tighter border security! Bad Canada harbours terrorists! Canadians are naive! says Harper. Beef up Canada's spy network! Get under the Ballistic Missile Defense Umbrella! says the Canadian Council of Chief Executives."
Hemispheria" was cancelled due to security concerns, over the objections of the mayor of Winnipeg and the (so far laughably small) Winnipeg arm of NASCO, after the Manitoba government evidently deemed the $8 mil cost of providing security for the expected 600 CEOs and US governors to be prohibitively expensive.

So the real issue is profit vs security then?
No. The real issue is profit and their security, how to free up the movement of capital while simultaneously controlling the movement of people.
Terror! Terror! Terror! is merely one way of getting us to agree to it.
We haven't yet, but they'll be back.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Senate endorses leaky umbrella


A senate defence committee report released Thursday says Canada should sign on to the U.S. ballistic missile defence program.
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Because signing on to a program that can't even pass its own tests on a good day under ideal conditions in that sink hole of escalating pre-emptive militarization and weaponization of space that is the flagship of U.S. diplomacy just seems like the right thing to do.
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Here's a better test of Canadian security for you - How many Canadian students travelling abroad sport a US flag on their backpacks?
.To be fair, the Senate Defence Committee also advises doubling the amount of money we assign to foreign aid :
"The likelihood of reducing world turmoil through military responses is a mug's game. Force won't work on its own."
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Yeah, well, they got the first sentence right.
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Link. Much better coverage of this at No BMD, eh?

Thursday, May 4, 2006

The Media is the Massage



Flag by Scout over at Harper Valley
Great, isn't it?
Would be a good backdrop for the magic act appearing in the (I kid you not!) 'Grand Scheme Ballroom' tomorrow.
American NeoCon funnyman Frank Luntz will be up in Canada teaching a select group of Canadian Con polis and Con media how to perform his Newspeak dog and phony show, aptly titled "Massaging the Conservative Message For Voters".

Some highlights from his previous shows down south : "September 11 changed everything.
So start with 9/11….Without the context of 9/11, you will be blamed for the deficit….The trick is then to contextualize the deficit inside of 9/11."
"No speech about homeland security or Iraq should begin without a reference to 9/11"and who could forget : "Never say 'drilling for oil', say 'exploring for energy'."
"Hotter Than Hell" quasher Rona Ambrose is already retelling her own version of this one :"Instead of using the term "global warming," substitute "climate change" because while global warming has catastrophic communications attached to it, climate change sounds a more controllable and less emotional challenge."
Some of his older stuff, like "Contract With America" which he co-authored with Newt Gingrich, has gotten more than a little stale, but tomorrow the Cons will be learning how to retell those old jokes in their own inimitable comic style.

I can hardly wait. I'm sure I won't have to.