Airbus drove Lockheed and McDonnell-Douglas out of the business of commercial aircraft and almost took down Boeing. And like indolent buffalo munching grass as they are shot one by one, we let it happen.

Lost U.S. jobs should not be our primary concern, said McCain, "I've always felt the best thing to do is to create the best weapons system we can at minimum cost to taxpayers."

But if McCain thinks cost trumps all in building weapons of war, why not outsource the building of U.S. carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates and submarines to the foreign shipyards that construct America's merchant ships? Why not hire and train foreign sailors as crews?

Why not outsource the scores of thousands of U.S. government jobs handling Social Security checks and tax returns to Bangladesh and India? After all, the neocons want to hire foreign mercenaries to fight America's wars and reward them with U.S. citizenship, as the Romans did in the last days of the empire.

What does it mean to be an American anymore?

It took 20 years to wake up blockheaded Republicans to the social insanity of open borders. Only the collapse of his candidacy last summer jolted McCain into realizing that the 80 percent of Americans who reject amnesty and want a border fence are not all "bigots," as his Tonto, Lindsay Graham, said they were.

Is it going to take 20 more years for Republicans to awaken to the economic disaster they have created and the political ruin they are inviting with this fanatic faith in "free trade," while the rest of the world loots our country through mercantilism?

When Europe imposes a 15 percent value-added tax on U.S. imports and rebates the VAT on exports to the United States, that is not free trade. When China devalues its currency 45 percent, as it did in 1994, and bolts it down to suck jobs and factories out of the United States, that is not free trade. When Japan manipulates its currency, preaches economic nationalism to its people, and shelters its market for TVs, autos and steel, while dumping into and capturing ours, that is not free trade.

McCain admits to knowing almost nothing about economics and is now being advised by my old friend Jack Kemp. In a Wall Street Journal essay bemoaning my views, Kemp concedes, "I'm on the advisory board of Toyota North America and now drive a hybrid Lexus."

Nor is Jack the only pol who has found happiness in a foreign employ. Ex-secretaries of state and Cabinet officers, ex-senators and congressmen, and ex-White House aides are getting rich working for foreigners who are carting off American jobs, American technology, American markets, American factories -- and America's future.

Yet retribution may be at hand for our multinational GOP. In Ohio, NAFTA is a five-letter word with a four-letter meaning, as Ohio lost a huge slice of the 3.5 million manufacturing jobs that vanished under the McCain-Kemp-Bush policy of unilateral disarmament in the trade wars being waged against America. (emphasis added)

Look at the Bush-McCain record: $4 trillion in trade deficits, $2.5 trillion in manufactures alone. One in every six manufacturing jobs, 3 million, gone. With America borrowing $2 billion a day to pay for foreign goods, we have seen a collapse of the dollar, the price of gold quadruple to $1,000 an ounce, oil soar to $107 a barrel (now $140 and headed higher – emphasis added) and gas heading toward $4 a gallon (looking through the rear-view mirror, more likely $7 a gallon – emphasis added).

Where Bush created an average of 46,000 new private-sector jobs a month, Bill Clinton did five times as well, creating 220,000 a month.

Hillary won Ohio denouncing the NAFTA deal Bill Clinton cut. The lady gets it. McCain remains a loyal NAFTA man. Good luck in Ohio and Michigan.

As the Great Peer said, "The commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcass of dead policies."

by Patrick J. Buchanan
03/11/2008

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After handing the Red Coats a one-way ticket across the pond, the Founders capitalized on their industrial independence by creating an economic system predicated on the commonsense principles of protection and preservation of domestic industry, especially manufacturing. Such was the key to unshackling America from the constraints of global dependency.

For two centuries, Americans embraced an America First policy - one that placed the interests of Americans before foreigners and country before commerce - and the harvest was plentiful.

From 1869-1913, a pivotal era of economic growth, protectionist America displaced free trade Britain on the global stage. Beginning the era with half of Britain's production, America, thanks to high tariffs, ended the era with more than double that of Britain. The verdict was in and free trade was headed for the guillotine.

Thus, it is no surprise during the era of protection, which lasted until the close of WWII, free trade was a third rail of American politics. It was during this period that politicians treated free trade as a plague, and when Grover Cleveland got tagged a free trader during the 1888 election, he did everything he could to dodge the dogma.

"It is a condition which confronts us, not a theory," Mr. Cleveland quipped. William McKinley and John Sherman, an Ohio congressman and senator respectively, would not relent and, under their direction, the Republican Party became an America First party, and that ended, as Mr. McKinley put it, the "great free-trade shadow dance."

"Protection which guards and develops our industries is a cardinal policy of the Republican Party," read the 1904 GOP platform on which the Rough Rider rode back into the White House.

So deep were the roots of protection in the Republican Party, Mr. Sherman believed Democrats were the greatest threat to his America First policy, causing him to warn if the Democrats had their way, "It is the protective industrial policy built by the Republican Party they would break down."

How was the GOP rewarded for connecting protection to prosperity? From the Civil War to the day Woodrow Wilson took the oath of office, there were only eight years a Republican was not sitting in the Oval Office.

More than a century later after his warning, Mr. Sherman would be surprised to see a number of free trade foxes had set up shop in the GOP hen house.

"I am an unabashed supporter of free trade agreements," thundered presumptive Republican nominee John McCain last week as he called for a free trade agreement with the European Union. Juxtapose such a comment with Teddy Roosevelt's proclamation "Thank God I am not a free trader," and one wonders if he is in the same party.

How was Mr. McCain's departure from traditional orthodoxy met by the defenders of the faith? With open arms.

"In an increasingly protectionist and demagogic atmosphere, it is encouraging to hear a voice of sanity on this issue," said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey. Tell that to TR, Bill McKinley, Abe Lincoln and Alex Hamilton.

How is a policy that has exported American jobs sane? How is it encouraging hearing the man leading the party that once protected American industry to swear allegiance to a policy that has devastated Ohio, Michigan and countless other states and has placed discount sneakers over national security?

Free trade promotes peace and cheap goods, argues the free trader. The only problem, China is no more peaceful today than it was prior to joining the WTO, the reduction of the tariff paved the way for the income tax, and, as Mr. McKinley stated, "Cheap is not a word of hope... it is the badge of poverty; it is the signal of distress."

In delivering his "Report on Manufactures," Alexander Hamilton handed the nation an economic blueprint that is just as relevant today as it was over two centuries ago.

"The wealth ... independence and security of a country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures," stated Mr. Hamilton. "Every nation ... ought to endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials of national supply. These compromise means of substance, habitation, clothing and defense."

Today, soybeans, corn, wheat, rice, cigarettes, meat, hides, waste paper, fertilizers and cotton are among America's top exports. Industry, on the other hand, has been gutted, mines have closed, factories have been boarded shut, and America's labor force has declined over 20 percent since 1950.

Twenty-five percent of our steel is foreign made, as is a third of our cars, two-thirds of our clothes, and practically all of our basic electronics.

Two hundred years later and, in terms of trade, America is right back where she started. So are the spoiled fruits of free trade.

By Joe Murray
The Bulletin, Philadelphia’s Family Newspaper
April 5, 2008

http://americaneconomicalert.org/news_item.asp?NID=3139040

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It is bad enough that the United States has been hemorrhaging millions of manufacturing jobs that are critical to sustaining our middle class. It's even worse that government policies are deliberately outsourcing jobs that are critical to our national security.

All during the Clinton and Bush Administrations, U.S. negotiators signed trade agreements that allow foreign competitors to create and maintain unfair border-tax schemes that massively discriminate against U.S. manufacturers and service providers, and give foreign competitors a dramatic advantage in the U.S. market. The principal border-tax scheme used against us is the Value Added Tax (VAT).

When foreign manufacturers export their products to the United States, the Value Added Taxes they paid are generously rebated by their governments. Isn't that cool! General Motors, Chrysler and Ford would surely be in better shape if the U.S. government rebated the heavy U.S. taxes they have paid.

But that's only half the story. When U.S. manufacturers try to sell their products in foreign countries, they are required to pay border taxes not only on the value of the product itself, but also on the value of all transportation, insurance and other costs.

The bottom line is that these border-tax schemes heavily subsidize the products other countries sell to us, while erecting a high tax barrier against our goods when we try to sell overseas. The combination of foreign governments' export subsidies and import taxes amounted to a $428 billion disadvantage to U.S. manufacturers and service providers in 2006.

My late good friend, the well-known Senator Everett Dirksen, used to quip about government policies by saying, "A billion here, a billion there, and soon we'll be talking about real money."

The border-tax problem does, indeed, involve real money. In 2006, it was four times as costly as the Iraq war (VAT: $428 billion; Iraq war: $101 billion, according to Congressional Research Service figures), and two times greater than the U.S.-China trade deficit ($232 billion). The United States has no mechanism to stop or offset this foreign border-tax racket, which creates a severely unlevel playing field. Our complaints and petitions to the World Trade Organization have fallen on deaf ears.

But how could we expect any better treatment? We are only one vote out of 152, and most of the other countries don't like us anyway. This border-tax subsidy started shortly after World War II. U.S. officials, steeped in a Marshall Plan foreign-handout mentality, agreed to allow France to protect its domestic market, going and coming, by border-tax subsidies and taxes. What followed was monkey-see-monkey-do. Other countries found they could play the same anti-American game. Today, 149 countries use the border-subsidy-and-tax scheme to discriminate against U.S. products. In addition, the foreign border-tax rates have grown and grown. France's border tax rate of 2 percent in the late 1940s has risen to 19.6 percent today, and the average for all 149 countries is 15.5 percent.

These figures show that the push for the United States to lower or eliminate our tariffs is one of the costliest con jobs ever perpetrated on Americans. We cut our tariffs in the name of "free trade," but 149 foreign countries simply replaced their tariffs with approximately equivalent border taxes benignly called "Value Added," and then doubled the indignity by handing out subsidies to make their products more saleable in U.S. markets.

The American people rose up with a mighty roar a couple of years ago to kill the Bush Administration deal to outsource control of 22 East and Gulf Coast port operations to Dubai Ports World, which is controlled by a Middle East government. We are looking for a similar grassroots uprising to kill the deal to outsource the building of aircraft essential to our national defense.

America's industrial base is a vital part of our national security. We can't afford to put it under the control of foreign governments. The French tanker-aircraft deal should be a Red Alert about the unfair treatment of Americans by various trade agreements and contracts. Then, perhaps we can build momentum to protect what's left of our manufacturing base and middle-class jobs by establishing a level playing field for foreign trade.

by Phyllis Schlafly
April 2, 2008

http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2008/apr08/08-04-02.html

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Today, the American trucker is faced with upcoming emissions controls which will force them to trade in their older trucks for the more expensive, emissions compliant ones. Since my start in the trucking industry, equipment costs have more than doubled, the cost of maintenance, paying taxes, insurance and complying with Federal regulations has tripled, and fuel prices have quadrupled. However, not everything has risen for the American trucker: our miles per trip have been cut in half while freight rates have remained steady, right where they were in 1987. Not a day goes by that we do not receive an e-mail, read a blog or a newspaper article relating the story of yet another independent owner/operator having to park his truck permanently, unable to pay the fuel bill.

Manufacturers are reluctant to pay trucking companies a fair price to haul their goods, fearing public outcry when prices skyrocket to offset the increase in transportation costs. Tensions are rising as frustrated truckers attempt to renegotiate contracts for some type of fuel surcharge that will cover the rising cost of fuel. They see their livelihood – their Freightliner, Peterbilt or Kenworth – driven away by the repo man. They see Congress bailing out banks and Wall Street speculators and giving hard earned tax money to illegal aliens for free health care and education, yet Congress is silent on the plight of the American trucker. Department of Transportation head Mary Peters is so self-absorbed in convincing the American public we need Mexican truck drivers, she is ignoring the very lifeblood of the American trucking industry – American truckers. Is part of Peters’ mindset the same as that of the produce and construction industries? Is there an effort to convince the public we need Mexican drivers, who get paid considerably less than the American truckers, so they can bring in low-wage workers to replace us as we park our trucks? With fewer American truckers on the road, the argument seems to take a life of its own.

Congress, believing in and/or profiting from an Al Gore-inspired global warming hoax, can only come up with such solutions as biodiesel, ethanol and other technology that does absolutely nothing in the short term. For years, they have grabbed their ankles and bent over for militant environmentalists, refusing drilling in ANWR and other domestic locations. Their appeasement has given us a dangerous dependency on foreign oil, giving terrorist-supporting countries a measure of control over the U.S. economy that will have disastrous consequences. With every barrel of oil we buy from the Middle East and Venezuela, we fill the coffers of those very countries who are giving arms to the Islamic enemy I faced while driving a truck in Iraq. All the while, the lunatic, progressive Left still will try to convince you the war in Iraq was “fought for oil.”

As truckers struggle with less-than-minimum wages, the concern in Washington is for ensuring illegal aliens have free health care, free schooling and decent working conditions. Yet Congress ignores the company driver who works 70 hours per week, unable to take time at home because, as fuel increases, his company is cutting back on loads. He is driving less, his “off time” taken in some far away city away from his family. Industry publications pay lip service to the issue by advising truckers to “slow down” to save fuel, as if “slowing down” will alleviate the problem of high fuel costs. Most of us maintain the legal speed limit due, in part, to speed governors on our trucks and general safety. Once again, rather than standing up for the American trucker, Congress and the industry itself toss out cute slogans and “feel good” press releases, while the American trucker must decide between paying for fuel and paying his mortgage.

News stories have increased in recent weeks about talks of “shutdowns” and “strikes,” much as they have in years past. Some desperate truckers have resorted to using “off-road,” “non-taxed” diesel, which is the same fuel used in over-the-road trucks without the added taxes, to fill their tanks. The fuel, which is dyed red, is sold for farm and construction equipment. While legal to use in the fuel tanks of refrigerated trailers, it is illegal to use this red “off-road” diesel in the truck’s fuel tank. The trucker will ultimately get caught and fined outrageously, as DoT officers increase inspections and enforcement.

In addition, locking fuel caps are becoming a necessary security item, as unscrupulous thieves (especially in larger, urban areas) siphon fuel to sell to the highest bidder/trucker desperate for a break from the highway robbery at the pump. This, too, is to the detriment of the trucker if he gets caught buying stolen fuel. Violence is always a possibility, as truckers with no tolerance for such thuggery vigilantly watch for potential fuel thieves.

One of the places truckers can explain their plight and give vent to their frustrations is the blogosphere, as there are few organizations representing the independent trucker. The Owner/Operator Independent Drivers’ Association (OOIDA), born out of the trucker strikes in the 1970s, with lobbyists in Washington, has refused to advocate a strike or shut down, as it would, according to their website, violate Federal anti-trust laws. Their members are getting frustrated as the organization has been unsuccessful in assisting them in obtaining fair freight rates. Bumper stickers proclaiming “Just Say No to Cheap Freight” plaster members’ trucks, yet bumper stickers do not pay the fuel bill and for every trucker who refuses a load at $1.00 per mile, there are three more who will take it. None of them will stay in business long in this climate.

Will 2008 see a repeat of the 1970s, when the striking union truckers shut down factories and nearly brought the nation to its knees? Without the organization of the labor unions, it will be a daunting task, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility. Many of us will refuse to shut down, a lesson in futility that will do more damage to the economy than any election year propaganda piece the mainstream media can spew in support of one candidate or another. Renegade organizers, some reliving the nostalgia of CW McCall’s Convoy, are holding rallies across the country, encouraging truckers to “shut down” with dates ranging from March 24th to April 3rd. While the news reports and blog posts claim the shutdown will “call attention to the plight of the American trucker”, there are few, if any, clear cut answers or solutions to bring to the table. This is not just an election year issue. With military vehicles, first responders and the transportation industry that fuels the American economy struggling to service the needs of the nation, we cannot wait for a Clinton, Obama or McCain to wave their magic wand and walk on rivers of diesel fuel in November. November will be too late.

It will take more than empty rhetoric and nonsensical, make-me-look-good sound bites. It will take immediate and instant solutions, such as permanently lowering fuel tax rates on over-the-road diesel, lowering of tolls and other Federal and state taxes on all truckers – whether the one truck owner/operator or the large fleet owner. The country can afford this – standard business practices dictate that you cut where necessary to absorb immediate costs. We can start by completely cutting funding for National Public Radio and anything named after Robert Byrd (D-WV). Every trucker, every motorist, every family needs to demand we open our lands to domestic drilling – Montana, Alaska, and off the coast of Florida, California and Texas. We must end the reliance on hostile nations to provide oil for our nation. Call the White House; call fax and e-mail your representatives and senators. Demand they take action – NOW. We have the technology – do we have the will?

With more operating funds, the trucks will continue to roll. The stores will be filled with food and other goods. But without an immediate, plausible solution, there will be no need for a $600 rebate check. There will be nothing in the stores to buy with it.

Mark R. Taylor

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/homeland.php?id=1387042

Mark R. Taylor served in Iraq from January 2004 to May 2005 as a civilian convoy commander. His commentary has appeared in Landline Magazine, American Daily and Townhall.com and he has appeared on The Captain’s America and other radio programs. Mark Taylor’s website is: www.americantruckersatwar.com.

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When President Bush criticized these comments as tantamount to threatening a U.S. withdrawal from NAFTA, he said that “It’s not good policy on the merits and it’s not good policy as a message to send to...people who have in good faith signed a treaty and worked with us on a treaty.”

But it was not treated as a treaty in the U.S.

Clinton submitted NAFTA as an agreement, requiring only a majority of votes in both Houses of Congress for passage, and not a treaty, requiring a two-thirds vote in favor in the Senate. NAFTA passed by votes of 234-200 in the House and 61-38 in the Senate.

Clinton did it this way because he didn’t have the votes to pass NAFTA as a treaty (requiring 67 votes) in the Senate. But how did he pull off such a blatantly illegal and unconstitutional move?

Although the strict text of the U.S. Constitution includes the treaty clause as the only means by which the U.S. can enter into such international agreements, there’s a growing body of mostly liberal-left “legal opinion” that holds that “congressional-executive agreements” like NAFTA can serve as substitutes for treaties.

Clinton’s move was seen at the time, even by some on the left, as an effort to bypass constitutional processes and the United Steelworkers challenged NAFTA’s constitutionality in court. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001, after lower courts had thrown the case out, saying it was a political matter between the President and Congress. The Bush Administration sided with Clinton and the Supreme Court declined to get involved.

The Bush Administration’s support for the unconstitutional Clinton approach could easily backfire on conservatives if the Democrats take the White House and hold Congress in the fall elections. Citing NAFTA as a precedent, liberal Democrats could submit and pass treaties by a simple majority vote.

In an article in the liberal American Prospect, Thomas Geoghegan lamented that the Kyoto global warming treaty and the International Criminal Court “are among the great global projects of our day” but are not getting through the Senate because of the two-thirds majority required for passage. “So what’s the way out of this bind? It’s the same way out we used for NAFTA or for fast-track free-trade agreements. That is, we just pass a simple law,” he said.
Geoghegan says the reason liberals can’t get these measures currently passed in the Senate is because this body “overrepresents” states like “Wyoming, Idaho and America’s backwoods.” In other words, Red State Senators have too much clout under the Constitution. They are obstructing the “progressive” vision.

Geoghegan says legal justification for this new approach can be found in an article in the American Journal of International Law by Steve Charnovitz, an associate professor of international law at the George Washington University School of Law. The article complains about Senate inaction on such treaties as the feminist Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the anti-parent U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, Convention on Biological Diversity, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, and various U.N. human rights treaties.

Since this article appeared, in October of 2004, the Bush Administration has been trying to pressure the Senate into ratifying the Law of the Sea Treaty. It now awaits full Senate action.

Charnovitz admits the approach of pushing these treaties as mere agreements would be controversial. But he finds comfort in the fact that the legal action against NAFTA was thrown out.

It would make a good issue for John McCain, except for the fact that he’s for NAFTA and most of the U.N. treaty agenda.

By Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
March 3, 2008

http://www.aim.org/aim-column/bipartisan-crimes-against-the-constitution/

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We had a total trade deficit of $764 billion in 2006 — a new record. With China, the trade deficit was $233 billion — the largest ever with a single country. For the last five years, the U.S. trade deficit with China has increased by 20 percent each year.

Trade is necessary for America to prosper, but it must be balanced trade. Our total national debt is $9 trillion. About $5 trillion is owed to foreign countries and $1.3 trillion of that to China. All three numbers are pointing to economic crises.

The United States is living beyond its means — borrowing $2 billion a day from foreign countries to maintain our standard of living.

A nation with a large trade deficit is similar to a person living above his means. If you have a successful career but lose your source of income, you still may have credit available on credit cards and ownership in your home and car. Thus, you can continue to maintain your standard of living for a while by increasing debt on your credit card or refinancing or selling your home and car.

But just as a person cannot continually increase debt, neither can a nation. The key difference between a nation and a person is that a nation can print money and delay the day of reckoning. Eventually, foreign countries will not accept pieces of paper with pictures of our past presidents on them of decreasing value for their products or in payment of debt.

The U.S. dollar in the last seven years has lost 50 percent of its value in relation to the euro and will continue to decline in value. At some point, the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency will be replaced.

In addition to the $5 trillion we owe foreign countries, they also own or control more than 8,000 U.S. companies with a value of $8 trillion. Many of these companies were bought with the intent of gaining global control of key technologies and raw materials needed to produce advanced weapons, such as airplanes, computers, satellites and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

When blindly following the ideology of free trade, many Americans fail to see the connection and damage caused by the predatory trade policies that result in huge trade deficits and a huge national debt — a portion of which is owed to foreign countries.

Most Americans believe we are a superpower. It is only our military that is a superpower. Our economy is second- or third-world class. Most Americans don’t see or understand the emerging economic disaster.

Our government officials continue to encourage companies to offshore research and development, engineering and manufacturing.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Dec. 20 that the U.S. Treasury Department once again declined to designate China as a currency manipulator. All of the numbers indicate the yuan is 20 percent to 50 percent lower than its true market value when compared to the U.S. dollar. This is no accident. The Chinese are currency manipulators. This provides exports from China with large price advantages when competing with U.S. companies. This causes many U.S. companies to fail or be so weakened they permit foreign companies to buy them at a large discount.

China also promotes exports and discourages imports. It keeps wages low, rebates value-added taxes on its exports and charges value-added taxes on imports. It counterfeits and steals copyrights, trademarks and patents. It provides domestic industries with local tax incentives, offers special financing and charges tariffs on imports. It targets specific industries to monopolize.

No U.S. company can compete with these predatory practices. All of the above violate the World Trade Organization regulations. Even with what appears to be numerous violations, the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments fail to take action against China.

American politicians made a terrible mistake in 1996 when they voted to join the WTO. They gave Third World country bureaucrats control of U.S. international commerce.

It is very difficult for the United States to win a case at the WTO. Most foreign Third World country bureaucrats dislike the United States. Also, many are as corruptible as the bureaucrats at the United Nations have proven to be. The chances of the U.S. getting fair treatment at the WTO are remote.

The U.S. Constitution states: “Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations.” But Congress gave control of foreign commerce to the WTO. Congress must do what the people elected its members to do, and what they were sworn to do — “regulate commerce with foreign nations.”

Congress must immediately cancel U.S. membership in the WTO. If it doesn’t, Asian countries will continue their predatory trade practices, continue destroying or buying U.S. companies, continue financing our debt, and continue buying our country. They will do this until we have nothing left to sell — no industries, no real estate and no natural resources.

The U.S. government will then have additional trillions of dollars of debt. If a government could be bankrupt, it would be. Social Security, Medicare and pensions will be without funds. All of our wealth-producing industries, mines and farms will be foreign-owned. The government’s ability to tax will be significantly reduced along with its ability to defend our country.

The career politicians we sent to Washington still don’t see or understand the coming economic crisis. None of the leading presidential candidates from either party seems to be aware of the coming economic crisis.

Wake up America, our day of reckoning is coming.

Jack Davis is the founder and owner ofI Squared R Element Co., the largestU.S. manufacturer of heating elements.He has 53 years of experience in manufacturingand foreign commerce.

Find this article at:
http://www.buffalonews.com/248/story/250576.html

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This vision of economics as the supreme judge of long-term national interest does not, however, take into account that in a war, we are unlikely to have the co-operation of (or even simple access to) the overseas factories that crank out the mundane items of civilian commerce today. We will not have jeans factories that can suddenly make uniforms. Our farm implement manufacturers cannot be counted on to begin making tanks. Our soap manufacturers cannot be tapped for explosives production; our motor fuels sources cannot be diverted to war use; and the factories that make pots and pans cannot make canteens and bedpans -- because many of “our” factories are located in foreign nations, staffed by foreign citizens, and they could -- quite possibly -- be busy making supplies for our enemies in some future war.

Although the United States makes some effort to maintain a high tech manufacturing base, as well as some specialized military manufacturing capacity capable of providing our tiny peacetime defense needs (and this is worth doing), what really matters in a war is having the capacity to rapidly convert a substantial civilian manufacturing capability to military use. America can make the best military equipment on Earth right now, but how much of it could we make in some future large conventional war?

America should be especially attuned to this possibility, since manufacturing is how we won World War II so decisively. More than strategy, or righteousness, or bravery, or sacrifice, we won with factories. And they were not weapons factories. They were mundane manufactories of boring household goods: sewing machines, plumbing pipe, furniture, pleasure boats, automobiles, tractors, hosiery, toys, and toothpaste -- you name it. At the outbreak of war, they were then converted to make everything from rifles to oilcans to parachutes and cleaning kits.

Our boring factories provided our every need and much of our allies’ needs as well. We became the celebrated “Arsenal of Democracy.” The Axis was drowned under our converted manufacturing capacity. American citizens worked overtime and applied decades of experience to the wartime conversion. Patriotism and creativity was unleashed from the design bureaus through to the factory floors. Were we to need to do this today, could we make even a shadow of the effort we had in World War II?

Trade creates not just commodities and goods, but capacities and knowledge as well. These latter two items do not seem to figure prominently in any of the calculations of net good that are made regarding instant free trade with low wage nations. In a world in which all labor is an interchangeable commodity, the patriotic orientation of the laborers is not considered important. This is an oversight that might become painfully obvious to us one day, when we find that a factory that makes cheap plastic toys can also make cheap plastic mines -- but who these mines are made for will not be determined by open bid.

War is a constant of human behavior. America will be involved in another major war one day -- a fairly easy possibility to imagine currently. Iran’s population will surpass that of Russia within a generation. China is a nascent superpower very open about her ambitions in Asia. North Korea can field an army of millions tonight. A militaristic neo-Marxism grows in Latin America. The number of nuclear nations increases as never before -- eliminating the unilateral nuclear option America has long had as a panic button in the event of a worst-case conventional war.

If America had to fight -- really fight under a military draft with millions of men in a sustained war against a constellation of united enemies -- with what would we fight? There are many benefits to free trade. But we need to admit also that free trade, like all other philosophies, breaks down at the extremes and carries with it costs that cannot be readily determined by the short term self-interest of a business transaction. In the end, every nation needs to reserve to itself certain minimum capabilities as a form of insurance, and all nations need to remember that there are moments when the loyalties in a man’s heart are worth far more than any economic enticement. In war, there is no global labor market.

The above was an excerpt of the original internet posting on 2/28/07, modified only for length.
http://www.mindspring.com/~macjohnson/

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As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming “North American Union” that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.

Just examine the following websites to get a feel for the magnitude of NAFTA Super Highway planning that has been going on without any new congressional legislation directly authorizing the construction of the planned international corridor through the center of the country.

NASCO, the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., 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.” Where does that sentence say anything about the USA? Still, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan the NAFTA Super Highway as a 10-lane limited-access road (five lanes in each direction) plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongside pipelines laid for oil and natural gas. One glance at the map of the NAFTA Super Highway on the front page of the NASCO website will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. into one transportation system.

Kansas City SmartPort Inc. is an “investor based organization supported by the public and private sector” to create the key hub on the NAFTA Super Highway. At the Kansas City SmartPort, the containers from the Far East can be transferred to trucks going east and west, dramatically reducing the ground transportation time dropping the containers off in Los Angeles or Long Beach involves for most of the country. A brochure on the SmartPort website describes the plan in glowing terms: “For those who live in Kansas City, the idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but later this month that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality.”

The U.S. government has housed within the Department of Commerce (DOC) an “SPP office” that is dedicated to organizing the many working groups laboring within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to create the regulatory reality for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005. According to the DOC website, a U.S.-Mexico Joint Working Committee on Transportation Planning has finalized a plan such that “(m)ethods for detecting bottlenecks on the U.S.-Mexico border will be developed and low cost/high impact projects identified in bottleneck studies will be constructed or implemented.” The report notes that new SENTRI travel lanes on the Mexican border will be constructed this year. The border at Laredo should be reduced to an electronic speed bump for the Mexican trucks containing goods from the Far East to enter the U.S. on their way to the Kansas City SmartPort.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway. A 4,000-page environmental impact statement has already been completed and public hearings are scheduled for five weeks, beginning next month, in July 2006. The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain. As a consequence, the TTC will be privately operated, leased to the Cintra consortium to be operated as a toll-road.

The details of the NAFTA Super Highway are hidden in plan view. Still, Bush has not given speeches to bring the NAFTA Super Highway plans to the full attention of the American public. Missing in the move toward creating a North American Union is the robust public debate that preceded the decision to form the European Union. All this may be for calculated political reasons on the part of the Bush Administration.

A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.

Link to the above article: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15497

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Red State Patriot commentary: It makes you wonder what happened to the Constitution? Where does Congress fit into all of this? What legislation or treaty specifically authorized this action? What do the state governments have to say? What do the labor unions have to say? Who consulted with the American people to see if they wanted to become part of a North American Union? Any guess who is paying for all of this?

The best thing you can do now is become informed by reviewing each of the following linked articles:

Texas Segment of NAFTA Super Highway Nears Construction http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15682

North American Union Already Starting to Replace USA http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15233

President Quietly Creating 'NAFTA Plus' http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15059

The Plan to Replace the Dollar With the 'Amero' http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15017

North American Union to Replace USA?http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=14965

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