Mar 10 2008
North American Union Myth Gains Popularity on Right and Left
GUEST: Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas Policy Program in Mexico where she has worked as a writer and political analyst for two decades
This May the Canadian city of Montreal will host the annual North American mock parliament called “the triumvirate.” Organized by the North American Forum on Integration, the event will bring together students, academics and members of the business community to explore commercial integration between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. For some, this regional gathering is seen as a dress rehearsal for a “North American Union” along the lines of the European Union, that includes the creation of an actual North American Parliament, a non-elected regional government, non-existent borders, and a common currency. But such a union is no where close to being a reality and yet has become an imagined conspiracy in the minds of millions of Americans. The North American Union conspiracy theory has websites and popular documentaries devoted to it, and has even entered the mainstream with best-selling author and CNN pundit Lou Dobbs, and presidential candidate Ron Paul raising the specter of a borderless region from Canada to Mexico. Even some on the left believe the theory, with the chief protagonists being shadowy, all-powerful elites. According to analyst Laura Carlsen, the theory taps into deep rooted xenophobic trends in the United States to obfuscate real challenges posed by corporate globalization. It confuses real debates over existing agreements like the “Security and Prosperity Partnership.”
Read Laura Carlsen’s article here: http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5023
One Response to “North American Union Myth Gains Popularity on Right and Left”
I live in El Paso and am very familiar with border problems–including land grabs on both sides of the border and the impending dispossession of residents in Lomas de Poleo, a district of Juarez, where big money interests in Mexico with US connections are pushing to develop lands around El Paso, Sunland Park, NM and Santa Teresa, NM and the push on the US side by big, land developers to dislodge residents of El Paso’s oldest and most historic district, the Segundo Barrio. I have viewed the violence in Juarez since the beginning of the year and the current Mexican Army occupation of Juarez. There was an assassination of a rural agricultural leader, Armando Villarreal in Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico and some other agricultural leaders have been “detained” by the Mexican Army. They are viewed as anti-Nafta and seen as agitators against the coming privitization of energy in Mexico….so I do believe that the North American Union is coming. I DO NOT AGREE WITH LAURA CARLSEN