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WORLD AFFAIRS BRIEF Aug. 23, 2001 Copyright Joel Skousen. Quotations permitted with attribution. Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief, Website: http://www.joelskousen.com MEXICO’S VICENTE FOX TO BE NEW POINT MAN FOR NAFTA EXPANSION For the first time in modern history, a Mexican president is being positioned to play a major role in the NWO plans to turn the NAFTA agreement into a European style regional government of the Americas. Fox has plans for more than just a Mexico-US-Canada free trade zone. He has taken a strong stance in multiple high profile interviews promoting his vision of a grand community of states under one regional government in North and South America. He knows that integrating all the nations of the Americas into a borderless, dollar-based regional government, will require leadership not only from the US, which is expected to provide the economic muscle to make it happen, but from someone within the Spanish culture, with globalist ties to the NWO leadership, who can overcome the resistance of Marxist leaders in Latin American universities and governments--where there still exists much suspicion and even hatred of US motives. Harvard trained Mexican President Vicente Fox is perfect for this role. He’s fluent in English and Spanish, a former head of the Mexican branch of a huge international corporation with insider links (Coca Cola), and is a "Third Way" socialist (like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton) who constantly talks about "free market" incentives but whose real interest lies in promoting the control agenda of his globalist partners. In a recent interview with the London’s Daily Telegraph, Mr. Fox laid out a vision of an American continent without borders that the Telegraph claimed, "has already caused shivers in Washington and cold sweats in Ottawa." Hogwash! This pretended resistance is merely a ruse by willing participants playing hard-to-get. The US and Canada are already holding private talks on eliminating border control stations between the two countries. If ever there was a restrictive border that could be viably eliminated, it would be the border between Canada and the US, which share a common language and heritage. Canada also has a welfare system with vastly higher benefits than the American system, so there exists no welfare magnetism inducing poor Canadians to immigrate to the states--at least to receive welfare. The real danger behind open borders with Canada concerns Canada’s fairly open immigration policy. Canada allows a wide variety of immigrants to enter that nation, many of whom do not qualify for entrance into the US. Open borders would serve as a massive back door of US immigration for unqualified persons. In contrast, open borders with Mexico would create both an open door to unqualified immigration from Mexico and elsewhere, and also a welfare system disaster for the US. Keep in mind that even though Mexico has always been a socialist country, it has such a large compesino class of peasants that it would be economic suicide to provide direct welfare payments to the poor. Instead, the government subsidizes the cost of subsistence foods (beans and rice) and housing as its preferred welfare system. Thus, the US, with its lure of direct welfare payments as well as the much coveted US citizenship to any foreign child born here, represents a strong magnet to poor Mexicans. Eliminating restrictions to Mexican immigration would result in a huge influx of poor welfare-class people seeking handouts courtesy of the American taxpayer, creating an unmanageable drain on the US economy. Elsewhere in the interview Fox stated his admiration of the European integration experience. "In trying to see where we should go with NAFTA, one experience which has been very successful would be the European experience." I disagree. So far only the expanded free trade portion of the European experience has been successful--and that success has been stifled by deeply entrenched labor laws and production subsidies. The control agenda underlying the EU mechanism has been largely unreported in Europe, though more and more horror stories of tyrannical edicts emanating from Brussels are beginning to leak out. Establishment media have colluded with European socialist leaders to issue a steady stream of propaganda encouraging European union, one fatal step at a time. The big issue now in the EU is the changeover to the single currency (the Euro). The EU globalists keep trying to sell people on the benefits of a single currency while carefully avoiding the control agenda hidden in the background--that each nation loses an essential part of its sovereignty: national control over the value of its money and the rate of inflation. But resistance to the Euro is high due to another important reason as well. The changeover is in essence a currency call-in which threatens to uncover the huge underground economy that has always existed in Europe. Tax evasion in Europe has reached epidemic proportions, and much of those unreported earnings or sales taxes are stashed away as cash (in local currency). Suddenly everyone is having to look for novel ways to convert these hoards of undeclared currency to real goods. Spending them into circulation by buying foreign goods is the method of choice since foreign purchases are not yet traceable by the taxing authorities. Customs officials across Europe are reporting a huge increase in cross border transfers of cash as well as attempts to bring back large quantities of foreign goods in return--all to avoid the tax man. The changeover to a uniform currency in the Americas is probably not something that Fox will have much to do with, except as it concerns Mexico itself. I do expect Fox to make some proposal towards dollarization of the Mexican peso sometime during his term of office. Dollarization of all the Latin American economies is an important precursor to future integration into a single regional government. This is the primary motive behind luring Latin American countries into accepting more and more IMF and World Bank loans--it sets them up for future default. The ensuing collapse of monetary values in debt ridden countries allows their leaders to sell their own people on the benefits of accepting the US dollar as the official currency. Sadly, it appears that Latin America’s two biggest economies, Argentina and Brazil, are going to be the first to fall. Mexico’s financial problems can be masked for a time with its oil revenues, but look for Fox to take the first opportunity to promote some form of linkage between the peso and the dollar when economic hard times hit Mexico, which is sure to happen in the wake of the coming US recession. In terms of ultimate ambitions, I don’t believe Fox intends to challenge the US role as de facto leader of NAFTA--nothing goes forward in NAFTA without US approval. However I do see Fox serving as a instigator of new ideas and conflicts to which George W. Bush will be only too happy to react. Bush, as a pretended conservative, cannot push hard for a further diminution of US sovereignty in deference to NAFTA, though he is completely willing to do so as long as it can be obscured by touting the benefits of free trade. As for the tough unpopular issues, I think the PTB want Fox to take the lead, so that President Bush need only respond and compromise to fulfill the hidden agenda. For example, Fox brought up the US failure to allow Mexican trucks free access to US markets, as NAFTA requires. Bush responded with appropriate legislation, which was rejected by Congress. Fox called for open borders, which Bush could not accept, so Bush countered with an amnesty proposal for Mexican illegal aliens. Fox is scheduled to make his first official state visit to the White House in September. I believe this visit is carefully timed on both sides in order to promote this regional government agenda. Look for Bush and Fox to make major announcements about "working together" and about a further integration of our two economies. Legislatively the honeymoon is over for Fox in his own country. The entrenched opposition lead by the PRI still controls a large majority of municipalities and the largest bloc votes in Congress. Mexican politicians have a long history of buying votes with state/municipal jobs as well as paternalistic government policies, so Fox has trouble competing in the benefits game. Fox’s attempts at incorporating Third Way type free market reforms have met with heavy resistance in the Mexican Congress, still controlled by the PRI, which favors more direct socialist solutions. Even though many of Fox’s Third Way bait-and-switch tactics include privatization reforms reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher’s actions in the UK, Fox has tried to distance himself from the venerable "iron lady" of Britain. "I would more take Tony Blair's philosophy of the Third Way, than the neo-liberal conservative position of Thatcher, " he declared to the Telegraph. He further described himself in the Telegraph interview as "center-left" in his policies, not center-right as his own party (PAN) depicts itself. NEW AND DANGEROUS FUNDING SCHEME FOR TAKING OF PRIVATE PROPERTY Environmentalists and conservationists have long desired to tie up and restrict private property by land-use controls rather than outright purchase. Their wish list has always been too extensive to afford even if they had near unlimited access to the public purse. In the past 40 years we have seen the phenomenal growth of alternative forms of regulatory takings through land use planning and zoning. We have also witnessed the egregious practice of forcing developers to sacrifice large portions of developable land and hand it over to local jurisdictions for parks or open space as a condition of development on other owned parcels. This is a not-so-subtle form of extortion that should be ruled unconstitutional. Governments at the state and local levels are also getting more aggressive in the use of eminent domain to confiscate private property (supposedly for purely public purposes). Trouble is, after the Supreme Court ruled that almost anything could be construed as a public purpose, cities can now use eminent domain to take one person’s private property and hand it over to a another private development corporation at little or no cost, ostensibly to induce new growth and a supposed broadened tax base--which never works out as promised when all the costs of city growth are factored in. Now it appears that controls are not sufficient. Environmentalists want to be able to take back property that has already been developed--existing property rights be damned. They also want to be able to start buying up, on a much larger scale, inholders’ property situated within the boundaries of federal lands. Inholders are those who own property that pre-dates federal takeovers of state lands for parks, national forests and scenic area designations. Inholders’ rights are grandfathered and supposed to be exempt from federal land regulations, but slowly the Forest Service and other agencies are restricting access and prohibiting further building on such lands. Another popular tactic has been to use quasi-private conservation funds to buy up development rights, which has the effect of prohibiting landowners from further development, while not halting existing uses of the property. California is beginning to force property owners to accept these kinds of restrictions as a condition of development. A building permit for a home is only allowed if the owners forever forgo any right to future development on other parts of their property. This is a clear violation of property rights--to make the free use and enjoyment of property contingent upon accepting "voluntary" restrictions of property rights, forever more. It’s hardly voluntary. The latest scheme, labeled the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), is being proposed by two US representatives, Don Young, R-Alaska, and Billy Tauzin, R-La. It involves establishing a $45 billion trust fund whose proceeds would give conservationists a huge annual budget to engage in property acquisition. Worse, by using only the accrued interest of the fund to finance acquisitions, but not touching the principle, it would effectively become an endowment fund, "off budget" and effectively free from taxpayer scrutiny. It offers a significant amount of federal dollars to each state so as to entice representatives to vote for it. The act claims to protect existing property rights, but it does no such thing. NewsMax.com did a fine analysis of this legislation in process. The sponsors are scrambling to disguise the dangerous purposes of their proposal as much as possible. NewsMax spoke with Don Young’s spokeswoman Amy Inaba, who assured them, "It does not provide for condemnation of private property...it provides money to the state and local governments who buy property from willing sellers." But as NewsMax cogently observes, "On closer inspection, the term ‘willing sellers’ turns out to be a disingenuous ‘selling point’ on the part of CARA’s advocates and causes nothing short of purple rage among many opponents." Quoting opposition leader Henry Lamb, the article continues, "The ‘land grab’ rebellion in the Western states was prompted by the come-on that said, in effect: ‘Oh, sure, you can make the decision as to whether you’re willing to sell your property and the amount of money you are willing to accept. No problem. Of course, if you don’t make the right decision, well, you can get along without roads or water, can’t you? Or perhaps you won’t mind if we take actions that zap your property values down to zero. You won’t mind that, will you? After all, there are trade-offs in life. But, hey, it’s your decision.’" The legislation is full of exceptions to the private property rights protections it claims. According to property rights activists, these include powers for state and local jurisdictions to buy out unwilling property owners in cases of historic preservation, wildlife preservation, parks, and for any other land and conservation purposes. These exceptions represent an unlimited extension of government power to take private property. Remember what Clinton did with the historic "antiquities act." It is clear that property rights mean little in the face of this land confiscation agenda. RUSSIA TESTS NEW MANEUVERING REENTRY MISSILE WARHEAD In a dramatic demonstration of the fallacy of the assumption of Russian military impotency, US intelligence officials leaked the news that they tracked a Russian missile test of the SS-25 road mobile ICBM that showed amazing capabilities to maneuver once it reentered the upper atmosphere. In an article by Bill Gertz of the Washington Times (who seems to be the preferred recipient of leaks from the few patriotic intelligence agents we have), he states that government officials are convinced the Russians used scramjet technology to achieve this breakthrough. Scramjets allow the warhead vehicle to burn high-altitude oxygen at hyper speeds, and avoid the weight penalty of normal exo-atmospheric rocket fuel (which has to carry its own oxidant supply. The most disturbing factor about this test is that it clearly demonstrates that the Russians already have the technology to make the current US ABM proposal ineffective before it reaches deployment in 2006. It also means President Bush’s proposed unilateral dismantling of our powerful MX missile in exchange for Russian permission to build a limited ABM system is even more ludicrous. Russia gets a massive reduction in US firepower, and we still can’t stop their incoming missiles.
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