Posted on 07/05/2006 5:21:34 AM PDT by conservativecorner
NASCO has altered the organization’s website homepage, apparently in direct response to the North American Union series we have published here, including discussion of NASCO and NAFTA Super-Highways.
NASCO appears to be reacting from recent publicity deriving from our argument that NASCO actively supports the goals of their members, including the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the Kansas City SmartPort. TxDOT plans to start the first segment of the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as early as next year and the Kansas City SmartPort plans to house a Mexican customs operation within their Inland Port design. These are new infrastructure developments along the North American NAFTA Super-Corridor that NASCO as a trade organization was created to support.
A box has been inserted to the left of the NASCO map on the homepage, emphasizing the following:
This map is not a blueprint or plan of any kind. The Infrastructure depicted on this map is not drawn to scale. The highways shown EXIST today, and have been enlarged to highlight the NASCO Corridor focus area. The rail lines have been placed on the map to show NASCO’s multimodal approach.
The subtitle on the home page still reads “Secure Multi-Modal Transportation System,” evidently referring to the automobile, truck, and railroad nature of the “NASCO Super-Corridor” described in the top title on the page. By so adding to the homepage, NASCO appears engaged in a public relations marketing effort to defuse concerns that the organization supports any new NAFTA Super-Highway development that would include TTC features.
This modification to the homepage echoes an email the author received from Tiffany Melvin, NASCO’s Executive Director, on June 23, 2006, in which she wrote:
If the map were drawn to scale, it would be very difficult to see our focus area. The map is designed for marketing purposes, to highlight the highways we are focusing on. It is for our Coalition. That’s it.
An insert box has been placed on the homepage in the Atlantic Ocean area east of Massachusetts, reading “NASCO Myths Debunked.” We understand that our articles are among the “myths” intended to be “debunked.” The first line of text in the 4-page document linked to the “debunked box” reads: “There is no new, proposed ‘NAFTA Superhighway.” The next paragraph seems to say the NAFTA Super-Highway already exists -- it is evidently the current I-35:
As of late, there has been much media attention given to the “new, proposed NAFTA Superhighway.” NASCO and the cities, counties, states and provinces along our existing Interstate Highways 35/29/94 (the NASCO Corridor) have been referring to I-35 as the “NAFTA Superhighway” for many years, as I-35 already carries a substantial amount of international trade with Mexico, the United States and Canada. There are no plans to build a new NAFTA Superhighwary -- it exists today as I-35.
The “debunked text” even wants to de-emphasize the “Super” in the NASCO “Super Corridor” name. As Ms. Melvin expressed in a June 22, 2006 email to the author:
We have been using the name “SuperCorridor” since 1996. It does not mean huge, mega highway. We use “Super” in the sense of “more inclusive than a specialized category” (dictionary definition). Like Superman was not a huge, giant four football field wide man. He was MORE than a man. We are MORE than a highway coalition. We work to promote the use of multiple modes of transportation. We work on economic development along the corridor. We work on environmental issues. We work on networking inland ports. We work on developing business relationships for our members.
Perhaps NASCO would be well advised to review the Trans-Texas Corridor website of its member TxDOT agency. There the 4,000 page Environmental Impact Study (EIS) clearly describes the 1,200 foot new Super-Highway that TxDOT plans to build parallel to I-35. Page 4 of the EIS Executive Summary shows an artist’s rendition of the full build-out of the TTC-35 concept, an automobile-truck-railroad corridor with a utility space for energy pipelines and electronic circuits, along with tower electricity strung out on the perimeter. No artist’s conception of the TTC drawn by the TxDOT bears any resemblance to the current I-35 in Texas or anywhere else.
This TTC-35 description belies NASCO’s contention that the organization does not support the constructing any new Super-Highway infrastructure.
Perhaps NASCO wants to advance the argument that no state north of Texas will continue the TTC-35 project to connect through Oklahoma City with the Kansas City SmartPort, continuing north toward Duluth, or that TTC-35. As we have already shown, the investment bankers and international capitalists who are funding the development of TTC-35 can be expected to develop extend this NAFTA Super-Highway north, whether NASCO or the states north of Texas have the funds or current plans to do so.
From a public relations point of view, NASCO’s emphasis that the “NASCO Super-Corridor” only involves existing highways, truck routes, and rail lines is a strategy consistent with a desire to stay below the radar of public awareness, so as to avoid criticism that might otherwise stop or impede NASCO’s true mission -- to support the development of a NAFTA Super-Highway, either through enhancements to the existing north-south corridor along Interstate Highways 35/29/94 (the NASCO Corridor), or any Super-Highway enhancements its members initiate, including the TTC and the Mexican customs facility in the Kansas City SmartPort.
Today, there are some 5,000 miles of interstate highway in the U.S. and the TxDOT is proposing a full build-out of the TTC network that will build some 4,000 miles of TTC Super-Highways in Texas over the next 50 years. The TTC project at full development will involve the removal of as much as 584,000 acres of productive Texas farm and ranchland from the tax rolls permanently, while displacing upwards of 1 million people from their current residences. The 11 separate corridors planned will permanently cut across some 1,200 Texas roads, with cross-over unlikely for much of the nearly quarter-mile corridor planned to be built. Our research shows that dozens of small towns in Texas will be virtually obliterated in the bath of the advancing TTC behemoth. Reviewing statistics such as these, we can see why NASCO might prefer a low profile, preferring to stay below the radar of public scrutiny.
We also note that George Blackwood, NASCO President, attended the January 10-11 meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, held by the Council of the Americas and the North American Business Committee to conduct a “Public/Private Sector Dialogue” on the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. A key finding of this meeting was that associations in the U.S. organized to promote particular corridors needed since the dawning of SPP in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005, to coordinate their efforts in a less provincial style, more reflective of the North American regional orientation of SPP itself:
For instance, conversation at the Louisville forum raised the potential for commonalities and/or synergies between disparate transportation efforts in the US Midwest (the “SuperCorridor” initiative), the North American West (“CANAMEX Corridor”), and in the Southeast United States and Mexico (the “Gulf of Mexico Trade Corridor” initiative). Before SPP, there was no obvious mechanism through which to promote coordination of these discrete activities.
The Louisville SPP meeting also advised “the establishment of bilateral or trilateral commissions to facilitate border and cross-border infrastructure.”
While the NASCO “debunking text” is correct in asserting that NASCO is a trade organization, not a government organization, NASCO officers appear deeply involved in working with federal and state departments of transportation, local and state governments, and regulatory agencies in promoting the goal of developing a “Super Corridor” structure for “integrating” the U.S., Canada, and Mexico into a corridor-dimensioned transportation system to promote NAFTA trade. NASCO trade organization professionals evidently are much more comfortable working in professional SPP conferences and dealing with government bureaucrats in the closed confines of their offices than answering the questions that public citizens are openly discussing on the Internet.
The NASCO “debunking text” continually asserts that a primary NASCO concern is transportation security, much as SPP itself asserts that the North American Partnership is put in place to promote security and prosperity, two goals SPP could assume no one would object to pursuing. The idea seems to be that NASCO wants to present itself as only concerned about security and efficiency as the volume of traffic on the existing “NASCO SuperCorriror” of existing interstate highways gets expanded under NAFTA.
NASCO’s “debunking text” asserts that the organization’s mission is “develop (NOT BUILD) the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.”
Given this, we have a challenge. Let’s see NASCO come forward and repudiate the TTC-35 plans of their TxDOT member, because clearly the TTC-35 plan to build 4-football-field-lengths wide of NAFTA Super-Highway corridors is inconsistent with NASCO’s goal as expressed in the “debunking text” of only using existing transportation infrastructure. We also challenge NASCO to come forward and repute the Mexican customs facility plans of its Kansas City SmartPort member. Otherwise, we will assert that NASCO is continuing to say one thing for public relations effect, while doing something quite different -- quietly supporting their members as the members build the “new and improved” NAFTA Super-Highway infrastructure along the NASCO Corridor.
By all means update our roads, but don't fill them with Mexican trucks that make the vehicles used by Cubans to cross the Straits of Florida look like a new model.
I am not going to argue the fact that we don't need news roads in certain areas. Should they be toll roads, I don't know. My main problem is that they are to be built by foreigners.
I did some research about the toll roads around Houston which were built in the eary 80's by the taxpayers. They have recently been approached to sell the toll roads. So here is some of the research.
On June 20,2006, the Harris County Toll Road Authority announced that the toll road system around Houston is not for sale or for lease. September 29, 2005
Monetizing Harris County's toll roads
snip...
This deal is NOT about Harris County finding a private outfit to operate the toll road system more cheaply. It's about selling off the taxpayers' financial interest in the toll system to a private investor. "Monetizing" the toll road system means finding a way to trade the future cash revenue of our toll road system for cash today. The problem is, no private entity can afford to pay the County what it's really worth. Here's why:
1. The Harris County Toll Road system generated ~$318 million in toll revenue during the last fiscal year. This cash cow currently belongs to Harris County taxpayers. As Harris County tax payers, we are essentially shareholders of HCTRA. We taxpayers already receive the financial benefits from public investments like the Sam Houston Toll Road, and we will for years to come. Some of that revenue is spent servicing HCTRA’s $1.8 billion in debt, and the rest is spent to improve and expand the toll road system.
2. In order for the County to receive up front today as cash the benefit of 30-75 years of future toll revenue -- the "multi-billion dollar windfall" referred to by Judge Robert Eckels -- taxpayers will have to pay a significant premium, either in the form of increased borrowing costs, increased tolls or both.
3. Harris County is already in the business of borrowing against future toll revenue (i.e. floating toll-backed revenue bonds) to get cash today to pay for road projects. As long as the county's bond rating remains investment grade, the county enjoys a lower cost of capital than that of any U.S. for-profit entity (e.g., bank, hedge fund, toll consortium, etc.).
4. An investor (i.e. Cintra/Zachery) will be interested in this deal based on the profits they expect to be able to extract from the toll roads, which must more than cover the price they pay to Harris County and whomever is providing the capital to purchase the tollroads.
Personally, I think he's just trying to hype his new book that'll be out soon.
There's another conservative at Human Events who also thinks Corsi has jumped the shark. His name is John Hawkins and this is what he had to say said about Corsi and NASCO:
But, little did I know that Corsi's column was to be the first in a series of similarly ludicrous articles by Corsi. Worse yet, the articles turned out to be very popular. Last week, 3 of the Top 10 most read articles at Human Events were part of the Corsi series. [selling books?] I've now gotten multiple emails from my readers asking me about things Corsi has written. Earlier this week, I turned on the radio, and Corsi was even being interviewed on the Michael Savage show.
Yet, Corsi's series is complete nonsense from beginning to end.
So, I guess you can still be a conservative at Human Events and think, like I do, that Corsi is a head case.
More about the Hawkins response to Corsi here.
Sept. 2005 was the date of the article.
On June 20,2006, the Harris County Toll Road Authority announced that the toll road system around Houston is not for sale or for lease.
This should have been at the end of the article.
Explaining it would be bad for sales.... Corsi is writing a new book with Gilchrist.
I have lost all respect for Human Events. There is practically an article a day, with the same tripe over and over from Corsi. Are they publishing his book or sumpin'?
I think I plan on becoming richer writing books on this nonsense. After all, the moon-barkers are just so easily manipulated by this phony manufactured red-meat that is thrown at them. None of them can think (or research the truth ) with any common sense, or for themselves. You have the same moon-bats on the left. Same moon-batty dysfunctional thinking.
"How many column inches can someone produce about a completely fictional merger of the United States, Mexico, & Canada? Especially when it's based on flimsy evidence like:
1) We're building a freeway!
2) The "Building a North American Community" report, which was produced by a Council of Foreign Relations-sponsored task force, not the US government. Let me make sure everyone is getting this. The "Building a North American Community" report is not US government policy, it's just a report produced by a think tank-sponsored task force.
3) The fact that President Bush, Vicente Fox, and Paul Martin met back in 2005 and pledged to try to cooperate more in a meeting so nefarious & secret that you can read the transcript of their press conference afterwards on the WaPo.
Jerome, I appreciate some of the good work you've done in the past, but you're leading a lot of people astray by building all these innocuous events up into some sort of New World Order plot to, "dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union."
Kansas City is the entry point, or hub,
that will allow us to become an even bigger part of your economy.
You have everything that a major distribution center needs-
air cargo capacity, highways, and railways.
All are in a great place here in Kansas City.
It is the best place for us to be.
Luis Ernesto Dérbez, Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs
Very true. Hence the expression: Laughing all the way to the bank.
One of the protectionists will be along shortly to explain that working groups and task forces are not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution therefore they present a direct threat to our sovereignty.
Also, Hawkins enters Round 3 with five *great* questions for Corsi. I wonder if Corsi will have a better come back this time.
*ping*
So you're not opposed to to the new highway/transportation system like Corsci is. It's good we agree that Corsci's objections are as goofy as say, opposing an O'Hare airport expansion because Mexican airplanes fly there.
Are you taking issue with existing safety laws or with their enforcement? Also, why not post an article shows traffic accidents being disproportionately caused by Mexican trucks-- or haven't you seen any?
"My first response is to agree that at least he is right to agree with me about Harriet Miers and that GWB's policy regarding the border is a disaster. If he thinks I was right about John Kerry and about Harriet Miers and that GWB's border policy is a complete failure, why does he think I am so wrong about GWB and the NAU? Go ahead and post that and let's hear his explanation of why he suddenly thinks I have become delusional."
Corsi, if you're here, go read what Hawkins wrote in #49. You're delusional! But the John Birchers love ya!
Twice now Jerome (here and here), I've shot enormous, gaping holes in your series of conspiracy theory columns about the merger of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico and twice now you've offered up "non-response responses." Still, I'm a gamer and I'm going to give it one more shot because someone needs to pound this ridiculous concept until it's "stepped on dead" and I'm just the guy to do it.
So, let's try this. Jerome, I am going to ask you five simple questions, all of which will be based on things you have written. If your columns have any validity at all, you should be able to easily give great answers to these questions.
Ready, Jerome? Here we go...
1) You've claimed that,
"President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the President is quietly forming, much as the European Union has formed.
The blueprint President Bush is following was laid out in a 2005 report entitled 'Building a North American Community...'"
One problem: that report was produced by a Council of Foreign Relations task force, not a governmental entity. Set aside the fact that the report doesn't even call for abrogating, "U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union," and explain the evidence that this is a blueprint George Bush is following. Has he mentioned the report at all? Has he said he'd like to, "dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union?" Where is the hard evidence that George Bush is using this specific report as a "blueprint?"
2) Jerome, you claimed in another column that George Bush wants to, "supplant the dollar with the Amero." Your evidence for that nonsensical assertion was merely that Robert Pastor, vice chairman of the CFR task force called for the creation of an, "Amero; a currency that is proposed to replace the U.S. dollar, the Canadian dollar, and the Mexican peso."
That is evidence that Robert Pastor supports an Amero, but certainly not evidence that George Bush does. So, do you have any evidence that George Bush wants to create an Amero? Has he mentioned wanting to combine the US dollar with Canadian and Mexican currency? Has the word "Amero" ever come out of his mouth?
3) Over at NASCO (.PDF file), they've pointed out that the "Nafta Superhighway" isn't "new" or "four football fields wide" as you've asserted in a previous column. Will you admit that you got your facts wrong? Also, can you explain what exactly is supposed to be so scary about expanding a highway?
4) Obviously, Bush couldn't, "dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union," by executive order. It would require a complete rewrite of the Constitution...or do you think that's not the case? Do you believe Bush can just give a press conference one day and announce, "By the way, the United States has merged with Canada and Mexico," and that's it? How would that aspect of the plan work?
5) You've said that the North American Union is scheduled to, "become a reality in 2010." However, Bush isn't going to be in office in 2010. So, how can Bush implement his "secret" plan when he's not going to be in office when it's supposed to be happen?
How about some answers, Jerome -- or better yet, a column explaining to your readers that there is no, "secret agenda...to dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union?"
I don't think a link to the site is allowed, but I'd be happy to freepmail anyone who wants to see for themselves. (Or Google "Abolishing the USA?")
The JBS must be thrilled with their new street cred.
I wonder if Corsi will credit their work in his soon-to-be-released book.
They sure have a lot of followers on FR.
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