Traditional combustion-energy paradigm is over-represented at secret high-level negotiations under North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). Scheduled to begin to exercise power authority by 2007, the SPP will place three nations in the continent under “harmonized” laws and a unified administration. If that is not stopped – and we appear to be past the tipping point – will any of us recognize our society? And will it still be possible to shift the energy paradigm under such a political paradigm shift?
The North American Energy Policy
In recent decades, with government cooperation, a business-supported bias has enforced use of combustibles as the primary form of energy for transportation, heating and to a large degree, electrical generation as well. When oil prices rose far enough to cause the public to gripe, the government would step in, providing rebates and subsidies – out of the taxpayers’ own money of course.
On this archaic technology we have built an entire system of infrastructure and interconnected business that resists change. In addition to this obvious publicly-known bulwark in favour of the oil industry, there was an undeclared “North American Energy Policy” in effect. To nip in the bud any technologies that might reduce its dominance, certain highly-placed individuals would intervene to ridicule the inventions, and to block even proof-of-concept experiments. (Ref. 1)
In a process underway for decades in secret, and more recently coming to the brink of emergence, the three nations currently occupying the continent of North America are to be merged economically, and, to a greater extent than any of their respective populations yet realize, politically. This is known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). On March 23 in 2005, the SPP agreement was signed formally by the three government leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. (Ref. 2)
Political Tectonic Plates Shifting
Whether it is “only” a new layer of government that will be overlaid on top of existing ones, or whether the unified administration will ultimately replace the existing three governments in Ottawa, Washington, and Mexico City, the SPP represents a violent shakeup of the ground we thought we had under our feet. A tsunami of daily-life consequences will flood over everyone as well, as all areas of financial and social law are to be “harmonized” to make it easier for business. To those setting up this continental administration, borders are simply a hindrance to commerce. Modeled on the European Economic Community (EEC), the North American Union (NAU) seeks to minimize and ultimately to eliminate such inconveniences.
Because elected officials participate along with the CEOs of oil businesses in the working groups and councils which are finalizing the details, the official stance is that the push toward this union is a “democratic” one. All that is missing from their apparent working definition of that word is a mandate from the electorates of the three countries. Many Canadians voting in the January 2006 election were led to believe, based on the campaign slogans of Steven Harper, that they were voting for a nationalist leader. He claimed he would “stand up for Canada” – all the while clearly planning to do the opposite.
Under working groups and the “North American Competitiveness Council” (NACC), a single administration for the continent is already being set up, with ministries and secretariats of its own. It is not yet publicly known exactly what form this will take, but the political and social traditions of each country are on the table — or maybe the chopping block. The plans are to be completed by the end of 2006. Within one to four years, residents of all parts of North America will be facing a monolithic administration – most likely without any of our original constitutions, and possibly without our familiar political party setups and legal systems.
This is not a wild conspiracy theory, nor is what little has been published based on guesswork. The union of North America is the official policy of the U.S. government. (Ref. 3)
Government Secrecy: U.S. Administration’s Misinformation
The U.S. government describes this incoming merger in neutral, non-threatening terms as a co-operative partnership (ref. 4), but many observers are suspicious that it involves a tighter union than what has been described in official communiqués. The SPP actually establishes a “totally new state corporate rule over the entire North American Continent.” (Ref. 5)
With great effort, some individual Americans have ferreted out the background and ramifications of the agreement, comparing public announcements with what is actually happening in Congress and in verifiable news reports. These individuals accuse the government of covering up a traitorous agenda to eliminate the constitution and the nation itself. The government’s own myth-debunking website (ref. 6) alleges that no agreement was ever signed.
In refutation of that official misdirection, Tom DeWeese’s (ref. 7) article about the cover-up lists news reports of Bush, Fox and Martin in fact signing the SPP agreement in 2005 in Waco, Texas. And on March 31, 2006, a second agreement was signed in Cancun by Bush, Vicente Fox and Steven Harper, the new Prime Minister of Canada. The politicians’ photo-op and signing were a formality; the real negotiations had been ongoing among high-level government and industry representatives in the preceding years. Only a brief summary of the agreement was announced, stating six priorities to ensure that the union would be in place by the end of this year. Notably, the agreement calls for “collaboration” amongst business executives and governmental agencies for “energy security” as a continental policy exercise.
DeWeese lists more examples of how the government’s official statements are contradicted by the facts. For example, to counter the claim that the SPP “won’t change our court system or legislative process and that it respects the sovereignty of each nation,” DeWeese outlines the total lack of Congressional oversight as indicating that the SPP is not respecting the existing system.
If the existing system were being respected, why would the planning and implementation be so secretive, and government statements not supported by facts? And if it’s for our benefit, why aren’t politicians, who love to show how much they are achieving for their constituents, promoting it in glowing terms?
DeWeese concludes, “The United States is the most unique nation on earth. We were created out of a radical idea that free people, with their freedoms protected by the government would be happy and prosper beyond imagination. The idea worked. Now, the Bush Administration is ignoring this historic fact to “harmonize” us with Canada and especially Mexico, which is not a free country; has no [right of] property and has just proved its unworthiness of conducting free and fair elections. At risk are our culture, our wealth, and the once proud American way of life.”
In short, the same lack of honesty which Al Gore ascribed to both Democrats and Republicans in not telling the public enough about energy policy (Ref. 8: speech text) has also been at work to hide the nature and effects this trilateral negotiation that is bringing the NAU into effect. The public in three countries are not being told enough about the process (in as many languages) to know whether to take action against it, and if so, of what kind.
American Media: Very Few Voices Raised
On June 21st, 2006, viewers of CNN’s Lou Dobbs’ program, would have heard this chilling announcement: “President Bush signed a formal agreement that will end the United States as we know it, and he took the step without approval from either the U.S. Congress or the people of the United States.” (Ref. 9) Given that statement’s tone of doom, it’s not hard to see why the government’s website is issuing soothing denials.
This is quoted in “Creating the North American Union” by Dennis Behreandt, which appears on The New American website as well as in its current issue of the Magazine.
On the invited list of participants at a secret planning conference in Banff, Alberta, September 12-14, 2006, was one Mary Anastasia O’Grady, described as a “Journalist for Wall Street Journal (Area Specialist)”. (Ref. 10: list of attendees) Apparently the business-oriented readers of that publication may be treated to some future reports that might reflect tips obtained as inside knowledge. But this doesn’t amount to disclosure of the NAU agenda in any broad sense. We may see some Wall Street insiders being touted for their very astute market “predictions” about what is going to happen with resource stock prices, but they will not be discussing the politics of union or its social implications, other than the usual talk of how borders and “protectionist” laws get in the way of business.
No other journalists were present either inside that meeting or outside the hotel making observations at a distance, or at any other of the meetings since the SPP signing was announced at the press conference in March. The silence from the media is deafening.
Despite having an overtly and publicly pro-NAU website, the spokesman of the North American Forum which sponsored the event, John Larson, excused the secrecy on the grounds that because attendees were promised privacy, reporters could not be told about the conference. And for the same reason he refused to confirm who had attended, let alone what they discussed in secret. (Ref. 11)
The strongly right-wing John Birch Society, which continues to sound alarm bells, regards supporters of the NAU as communists and enemies of freedom. They might be surprised to find that their allies in Canada who also strongly oppose the continental union are doing so because they see it as too right-wing due to its avowed purpose of terminating Canadian social programs such as universal Medicare. It’s the far-right-wing Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), currently in power, which is promoting the NAU. Its officials who attended the conference are toeing the secrecy line; and its leader co-signed the May 2006 agreement.
This “strange-bedfellows” aspect of the issue puts the usual left vs. right dichotomy into perspective. The old concepts are nearly irrelevant when it comes to whether people support the continental amalgamation or not. It’s all about concentrating power over larger and larger areas into fewer and fewer hands, and theories from all parts of the left/right spectrum are advanced both to justify and to attack the monster country that is being created. We need new language to discuss this, and on a different level.
Government Secrecy: Canadian officials silent
Organizers of the event in Canada were the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, an elite club of Canada’s richest CEOs, and the Canada West Foundation, a very right-wing and pro-SPP think-tank based in the Alberta oil patch.
We Canadians have been encountering total stonewalling from our own government on the subject. Even recent and current Prime Ministers, who know perfectly well what is going on, have refused to discuss it. And because they have not permitted the issue to arise during any recent election, there is certainly no mandate from the Canadian public to negotiate an agreement to terminate the country.
Stockwell Day, a former leader in the Conservative (or as it was then called, Alliance) party, and now Minister of Public Safety in the Conservative federal government, was an active participant in Banff. His office is flatly refusing to answer questions from journalists.
This was disclosed by the founder of the citizen watchdog group Council of Canadians, Maude Barlow, who has pointed out that it’s the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) which lobbies the government and continually pushes the notion that because the economies of the two countries are already partly integrated, Canadian “domestic laws are essentially redundant.” (Ref. 12). Her concern is that the idea of redundancy of our laws will be extended to the government itself, and that because its government is seen as redundant, Canada itself will be made to disappear.
Not a journalist with a job to protect, Barlow is nearly the only person to crack the barrier of media silence. And because her “Op-Ed” piece was published in only two Canadian newspapers (though undoubtedly it was offered to many more), that didn’t amount to much more than a squeak. Her article is hard to find online unless you are a paid subscriber to the Calgary Herald; at the time of writing the complete text was available in full only by email and within a frame article on a Toronto-based independent blog site. (Ref. 13)
Because Barlow is determinedly “non-political” in that she has never joined or endorsed a political party, perhaps this tiny chink in the stonewall of silence was permitted in order to imply that it’s only the “fringe” that worries about national sovereignty, and thereby to suggest that it’s not something to worry about. .
Currently, the political scene in Canada is occupied with electing a new leader for the Liberal Party. Most candidates for leadership started out blissfully unaware of the impending continental union, which could render their party superfluous within four years. After many attempts to reach them through their campaign teams, and buttonholing two of them in person, I got one candidate, Bob Rae, to agree that Canadians should be able to vote on this, and to promise to look at the information about it. Another, Gerard Kennedy, has issued a campaign message on September 27th by telephone to the party members calling on them not to go down the same road as the Harper conservatives. A third candidate, former Environment Minister Stéphane Dion, gained the endorsement and campaigners of David Orchard, a former leadership candidate who perennially calls for Canadian independence. (Ref. 14)
But the leading contender for head of the Liberal Party is still considered by the big-money “party machine” to be Michael Ignatieff. In policy he’s a clone of former leader Paul Martin, who signed the SPP in 2005. Ignatieff, who has lived south of the border for about three decades and reflects in his writings the opinions of the Bush administration on continentalism, returned to Canada for no other reason than to keep the NAU on track by means of a leadership bid. He’s the one who gets the promotional write-ups in the print media, and lots of air-time for his campaign slogan “nation building”.
Exactly which nation Ignatieff is building, he has not specified. He is letting his followers assume that this is Canada; our only hope is that nationalist candidates at the convention will be willing to raise the spectre of continental merger and make it the key issue. Only if Canadians can get to vote on whether to keep our country might it be possible to derail the NAU juggernaut, at least for a while.
Canadian Media Complicity
The Canadian media has been completely silent on the issue, including the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which used to investigate stories the privately-owned media ignored.
In a revealing phone message, award-winning CBC news producer Mark Harrison told a Canadian-sovereignty activist that previous coverage of negotiations toward continental integration had triggered “national self interest” that appeared to stop it. And since the CBC didn’t think this continental agenda was going ahead, it didn’t see a reason to cover the story, he concluded. (Ref. 15) The fact that Harrison also brought up the “One World Government” indicates that he’s assuming it’s all a “conspiracy theory” which can by definition be ignored.
It’s not out of line to read between lines here, and wonder whether the news directors were told to keep the SPP quiet until it’s already a “fait accompli”. Then their role would be to tell us that this union is for our own good. Given that journalists are naturally curious people, one wonders how journalists in a news organization worthy of the name can ignore all these high-level meetings and the signed agreements. It’s inexplicable, unless there have been orders come down from above.
More recently – perhaps after receiving complaints like the one above — the CBC did briefly and belatedly mention the Banff conference. Because no Canadian journalists were notified about it beforehand, there was no possibility, after it was all wrapped up, of obtaining statements from attendees, or even photos of the bigwigs arriving and departing. However, an anonymously-authored report on the CBC website quotes a taxi driver in Banff as expressing outrage that this “assault on democracy” was taking place in his own backyard. (Ref. 16)
Internet Activism in Canada
Some Canadian activists belong to splinter parties which arose due to frustration with media silence in the face of the rapid erosion of national sovereignty. These people have been working to discover the facts, and are circulating by email and on websites what is being carefully excluded from mass-market news.
A group called “Vive le Canada” (French for “long live Canada”) cites polls showing that Canadians want more distance from the Bush Administration and its policies, especially foreign policy. However, the preceding Prime Minister ignored what the public was saying in many polls, and even borrowed the name of the agreement signed in 2005 from the Canadian financial establishment’s “Security and Prosperity Initiative”. Their plan, and the process of “deep integration” have gone ahead rapidly while Canadians, like Americans, mostly remain in the dark.
A task force has created a continent-wide customs union with a common approach to trade, energy, immigration, law enforcement and security that would virtually eliminate existing national borders. As of 2002, military integration was implemented. Although officially the war in Afghanistan is now being called a NATO operation, Canadian soldiers are under American command there. Harmonization of all other areas of law and commerce is already going ahead as well.
Quebec’s civil law is based on Napoleonic code which they value as part of their perception of themselves as culturally unique, while English common law which is the basis of law in other provinces. Quebeccers, some of whom support the NAU, have not yet been told about the harmonization of laws. They make take a dim view of this if their language, culture and legal system are not going to get special protection in the unified North America.
A comprehensive timeline of the progress of deep integration and the creation of the North American Union (NAU) can be read at the Vive le Canada website. (Ref. 17).
Freedom of Speech on the Internet
For those who do not have the habit of automatically believing what they see or hear from the mass media, there is “Indy-media” – a concatenation of mostly individuals whose small voices have been accessible on the internet – so far – but only if you know enough to look for them. Although there is often an admixture of paranoia and far-out or left-field ideas, there are also well-founded warnings and reports of opposition activity from these sources.
Some propose, and take, specific political actions of the traditional kind. Suggestions range from impeaching the current president, or running for office on a ticket for doing so, to organizing an independent local economic system based on issuing “scrip” as a means of exchange – if you don’t want to use the new “Amero” dollar that will replace the three national currencies. (Ref. 18) Don’t laugh. That is exactly how the original thirteen colonies functioned economically; they issued their own “scrip” (notes exchangeable for goods), which is what ran afoul of the colonial power’s desire to control all banking, and triggered the famous American Revolution.
The feisty gadfly Alex Jones has been warning his radio listeners and internet readers for several years about the decline of democracy and future tyranny, and in the darkest terms. He argues that the “security” the new powers want to establish means “police state” and Nazi-like abuses by those in authority. (Ref. 19) Jones encountered this sort of treatment himself in spades when he crossed into Canada to try to get first-hand reports of a meeting held by the “Bilderbergers” at a hotel in Ottawa, Canada in June of 2006. That group consists of wealthy power-brokers and bankers, and the top-level politicians who apparently receive their marching orders from the international financial leaders.
Because of a complaint by the Bilderberger group against him, Jones was detained and interrogated by Canadian customs officials. They acted more like security cops, throwing wild accusations of drug dealing or porn trafficking at Jones and screaming at him. It was only when some journalists arrived to interview Alex, and vouched for him, that he was finally released. (Ref. 20) Those journalists got questioned as well. And none of those mass-media journalists was in evidence when “indy-media” videographer and retired economist Jeremy Wright (ref. 21) arrived to meet Alex, and recorded part of his monologue delivered in a lonely vigil in front of the closed face of the swank hotel.
The internet itself is mostly owned by the same huge corporations that control the mass media. It is already extensively surveilled, and sites which provide alternative news inconvenient to those in power, or which explain alternative energy theories or inventions, are often spammed or subjected to hacking or other forms of interference. A few independent site managers have the smarts to monitor who is monitoring them by studying visitor logs. (Ref.)
Since most people go online chiefly to search for entertainment news and bargains, to play games or gamble, and to engage in frivolous chatter, the few who engage in serious alternative news analysis have so far been tolerated as preserving the illusion of free speech. And because they are also often dependent on donations even to maintain their websites, they don’t have much ability to promote their viewpoints.
If a unified continental administration turns out to be more police state than benevolent dictatorship, that laissez-faire attitude could change. The concern is that harassment could develop into total censorship, blocking the ability of political dissenters to voice their opinions. To prevent this loss of freedom, national constitutions and amendments supporting personal rights must be upheld. Because the NAU process is so secretive, the status of existing national constitutions is in question, and the tendency to favour big corporations well established. Some phone and cable companies AT&T, Verizon and Comcast have already proposed to “gut” this free exchange of ideas, seeking “to remake the information superhighway into their private toll road.” (Ref.)
Web inventor and copyright-holder Sir Tim Berners-Lee advocates “Net Neutrality” as “essential to democracy” as well as vital to economic productivity. (Ref. 22) Various “net freedom” groups have formed to defend this basic principle.
Leaked Document: the Participants
A long-time activist in the Canadian independence movement, Mel Hurtig, publisher of The Canadian Encyclopedia, apparently used his own connections to obtain an early version of the agenda for that high-level SPP meeting that took place in the luxury Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, September 12-14, 2006 in Banff, Alberta. The hotel is known as a spectacular (and pricey) tourist resort in the mountains near the famous jewel-like, green-tinted Lake Louise.
Vive le Canada activist Susan Thompson has circulated this document widely through email networks such as that reached by the nationalist Canadian Action Party. In the view of CAP leader Constance Fogal, a lawyer, this SPP group is already functioning as a “government de facto” (Black’s Law Dictionary page 824), or
“a government of fact. A government actually exercising power and control in the state as opposed to the true and lawful government; a government not established according to the constitution of the state, or not lawfully entitled to recognition or supremacy, but which has nevertheless supplanted or displaced the government de jure. A government deemed unlawful or unjust, which nevertheless receives presently habitual obedience from the bulk of the community.”
Due to the secrecy and exclusion of the public from the process, she further suggests that the participants are operating as traitors to the electorates who put them in office. Again she cites Black’s Law Dictionary, which defines “Traitor” as “One who, being trusted, betrays; one guilty of treason.” (Ref. 23)
The leaked document obtained by Hurtig contains along with the agenda of topics, for the first time a comprehensive list of the movers and shakers who are re-writing the political map of the continent, and who are by-passing the political systems of three nations to do it.
Officials of the Country of North America
At this secret convention, co-chaired by George Schultz, former Secretary of State (U.S.), Peter Lougheed, a former Alberta premier, and former Mexican Minister of Finance Pedro Aspe, were many leaders and CEOs from oil companies, universities, pro-business think tanks, and the military. (Ref. 24: participant list)
A few names and their associated titles indicate that a continental proto-government has already been set up. A Mexican, Gerónimo Gutiérrez, holds the title of Deputy Foreign Minister for North America. Under what authority could such a position be created, other than by the as-yet-unveiled Country of North America complete with its own head of state and cabinet?
Who’s the “Foreign Minister for North America?” Who’s the President? There has been speculation on some websites as to which individuals have been named to other posts in the administration of “North America”, but so far, none has supplied references to support these assertions or guesses.
There is also a secretariat for “Western Hemisphere Affairs”, suggesting further planned econo-political consolidation, probably over the heads of, and without the consent of, the nations in South America.
Mock Parliament for Youth Promotes NAU
Sponsor of the secret Banff conference was the North American Forum, a group specifically dedicated to bringing about unification of the continent in one political body. Their website describes their pet project to bring the next generation on board: a simulated North-American parliament called the Triumvirate. The first annual “interparliamentary simulation of North America” took place in the Canadian Senate Chambers in Ottawa, May 23-27, 2005. The second was in Mexico City, May 21-26, 2006. (Ref. 25).
According to the plan for rotating the event among the three existing nations, the next “Triumvirate” will be in Washington, D.C. in May of 2007, and they will be inviting 100 university students. The site describes it thusly: “The Triumvirate is a unique parliamentary exercise that annually brings together a hundred university students, from Canada, Mexico and the United States, in order to simulate, during five days, a parliamentary meeting between North American national and sub-national parliamentarians, joined by journalists and lobbyists.” (Ref. 26) Presumably the “sub-national parliaments” referred to on the NAF promotional web page are the currently-sovereign governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, which will become sub-parliaments under the NAU.
Can this North American Union be Stopped?
Without an immediate and overwhelming groundswell of political will from a MAJORITY within the general populations of each of the three countries, it is difficult to see how the already-far-advanced union of North America can be disentangled. The corporate media’s silence seems calculated to make sure that no rumbles of disturbance will wake the sleeping giant of public opinion and derail the union this time. News might stir up the emotions of people who cling to old and, according to the planners, outdated loyalties.
No matter how many credible and high-level individuals oppose an official dogma (ref. 27), if the mass media does not report their testimony, the public can be kept in a state of acquiescence with the policy or situation they are trying to challenge.
And the mental laziness of many who believe only what’s been on the nightly TV news, and reject every other idea remains the majority opinion, the massive popular political awakening required to stop the NAU may not occur in sufficient numbers, if at all.
Too many people still associate their love of country with support for Big Oil. Due to Canadian soldiers dying in Afghanistan, the Harper government is using the slogan “support our troops” (against alleged foreign terrorists) in the same manner as the Bush Administration. The Canadian Action Party is countering by adding “bring them home” to the slogan. (Ref.)
Knee-jerk responses buttressed by anomalous emotional intensity are routine against any hint that the elected government might not be acting for the best interests of the nation. To a suggestion that long-term manipulation of the system for their own benefit by certain wealthy families and individuals (ref. 28) has been able to override the famous checks and balances on which the American constitution has always depended, there is usually an apoplectic reactions from the complacent media consumers. They are simply unable to believe that this could or would happen, and because that belief is unassailable, may not be exercising the needed vigilance to ensure that the system does not become perverted.
Media giants have, of course, spent big bucks hiring very convincing and handsome news anchors, and heavily promote the notion of placing trust in these individuals. A servile philosophy has grown around the idea of the news anchor as the source of all truth, even if it’s based on sloppy reasoning. (Ref. 29) Intellectual sleaze is a foundational principle of the billion-dollar business of selling news, or “infotainment”. As long as the news sells, it doesn’t even matter whether it’s true.
The ideal of journalism as serving the public and their right to know is often held up as the highest expression of the human right of “free speech”. However, corporate ownership of the media is now so concentrated that “free speech” has become “expensive speech”. Some analysts have shamelessly argued that it’s only the owner of the means of disseminating the news who has the right to decide what is published therein. The “human right” of freedom of speech is derided as a “communistic” belief, and free speech upheld as a property right.
In his comprehensive article “Personalizing the Impersonal: Corporations and the Bill of Rights” Carl J. Meyer analyses how the notion of corporate personhood has insinuated itself into the law, and how rights once regarded as “inalienable” for human beings have been pried away from people and given to corporations. (Ref. 30) It is within this distorted, but officially-sanctioned legal context, that the “Competitiveness Council” and other private working groups and think tanks are developing the plans for a corporatized North America – without that pesky Constitution and Bill of Rights.
If only a minority protests against a powerful police state, the dissenters could find themselves classified as terrorists, and treated accordingly.
A Harmonized Energy Policy for North America
One main objective of the NAU negotiations is to create a single energy policy for the continent by “improving transparency and regulatory compatibility.” (Ref. 31) “Regulatory compatibility” is easy to understand as “harmonized” laws; i.e. everyone has to follow the same rules. The part that’s less clear is the “transparency” referred to in this statement. Of course it’s transparent to the CEOs and politicians who are working at that level, but is the other side of the coin that complete opaque secrecy we are seeing at present?
Creating such a harmonized energy policy falls to the Working Groups and Councils which are setting up this unified continental administration.
In the absence of policy statements being issued, we have to infer – by logical reasoning from available evidence – what would be the probable outcome of a panel discussion at which the chair is Clay Sell, Deputy Secretary of Energy, the Moderator is N. Murray Edwards, Vice Chair of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (a lobby group for the oil and gas companies), and in which the panelists include high-level representatives of Suncor and Pemex. Also participating was David Victor, Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at the Center for Environmental Science & Policy. (Ref. 32: Text of Leaked Document – Meeting Agenda – sent by email )
Yes, there’s one guy on that panel to speak for sustainability, and his organization makes a friendly noises toward wind and solar energy. (Ref. 33) Though that sounds hopeful, it’s not convincing.
Note that it’s a panel discussion, not a debate between opposed parties. In this genre of meeting, how far could one person tilt the discussion in the direction of magnetic symmetry, or any other non-fuel or zero-emission energy? The answer would be “not much” if you can see that the personnel scale is heavily weighted toward the consumable-resource end. My experience of attending various panel discussions staged by government and representing the corporate world’s agenda is that panelists routinely spout the dominant philosophy of the meeting’s sponsors. The minority representative is present only as a foil for that; his job is to convince any doubters in the audience to get on board by arguing himself into compliance.
And if you add to this unbalanced scale the understanding that the oil industry as a whole has latched onto the idea that “sustainability” is best expressed by sequestering carbon dioxide, you get “no possibility” of cutting-edge technology being permitted to enter a marketplace controlled by the NAU’s single harmonized policy, let alone becoming widespread or standard.
What is meant by “sustainable” in their lexicon is liquefying CO2, trucking it to the oilfield, then pumping it into the ground. (Ref. 34) This tactic allows the owners to squeeze out more oil from wells with diminishing output, thus extending their profitable life. Meanwhile, the practice simultaneously allows the petroleum vendors to claim that they have cleaned up CO2 – thus achieving “zero emission” or close to “carbon-neutral” status for their industry. Of course sequestering applies only to large fuel-burning operations such as power plants. Collecting CO2 from fuel-powered vehicles would be much more complicated and expensive.
This sanguine theory is meant to give everyone the message that we cango right on burning oil with climatic impunity, according to cheerleaders for the technology.
One such is Dr. Mark Jaccard, a professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University, a name that encapsulates the association between the wholesale harvesting of fuel resources and of “managing” the environment, which the oil industry wants in impress into the public mind through its feel-good environmental self-promotion. (Ref. 35) Jaccard’s book Sustainable Fossil Fuels has received a lot of friendly media attention, such as an interview on CBC Radio (Ref. 36) , and was awarded the Donner Prize for its contribution to public policy.
(Ref. 37)
Sustainability through sequestering CO2 is a public-policy winner according to the corporate worldview, and the oil business is cheering all the way to the bank.
This Banff session “Toward a North American Energy Strategy was to feature a keynote address by Donald Rumsfield, the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Rumsfield is noted for his close cooperation with the Bush administration’s agenda of going to war for oil. Given who he is, and who his audience was, what are the odds that Mr. Rumsfield treated his corporate cronies to a rousing speech demanding that the nation turn to alternative, non-combustion forms of energy on a rapid and large scale? Somewhere between nil and zero, perhaps?
It’s highly unlikely that the North American Union being promoted by oil executives and politicians will represent any shift toward the myriad of clean energy modalities as understood by the “free energy” researchers (including more conventional solar, wind, and geothermal free energy sources, as well as more exotic sources such as from magnets or zero point energy).
When a leading scientist at NASA, Dennis Bushnell, can muse publicly about detonating a super-volcano to stop global warming in a last-resort scenario, (Ref. 38) it suggests a kind of brinksmanship or cowboy mentality toward the environment on the part of people in such responsible positions. Are they willing for the combustion paradigm to continue to dominate the economy until the climate problem worsens so far that such a destructive act would even be contemplated? Common sense would dictate adopting fuelless energy systems long before the problem progressed that far. If common sense based on what is good for humanity were basis of present and future choices about energy technology, well and good. Under the NAU, which principle will predominate? Given who’s in charge of it, the oil-company bottom line is more likely to be the deciding factor in energy policy. It’s not surprising that the NASA Chief Scientist would also assert, “there’s no government conspiracy.”
I’m a skeptic about that statement.
The Eleventh Hour
In general it seems that it’s still only a few individuals who are willing to face potential jail terms, loss of employment, lawsuits (ref. 39) and other penalties not yet specified for opposing the continental unification agenda. This does not bode well for the future of energy technologies that arise from outside of, and could potentially reduce the profits of, the powerful oil interests which have involved themselves at the steering level of creating the North American Union.
Will we see “more of the same” from the new Bush-Administration-on-Steroids? Or will there be an intensified crackdown against alternative technologies as an alleged threat to national security (i.e. a threat to the political and economic ascendancy of oil companies)? This might make past suppression of new energy inventions and inventors (ref. 40) look like a polite tea-party.
Little time remains in which implementation of the SPP continental administration could even be challenged legally or politically. By next year, even the court systems and laws may have changed. Will the people we have known as Canadians, Mexicans, and – yes – Americans exit the world stage, “not with a bang but a whimper”? (Ref. 41: Poem by T.S. Eliot.) Those who don’t want that fragment of lament to be their epitaph will have to shift gears now, and hit the ground running.
It would make the ultimate political face-off if a serious attempt were to be mounted to defeat the NAU. On one side are middle-of-the road greenies like Al Gore who accepts the idea of sequestering CO2 while advocating a total freeze on carbon emissions. Aligned with him on this issue would be the fringed edge of research: tinkerers who make Joe Cells, fiddle with magnetic motors, and theorize about zero-point alternatives. These people usually do not have the resources to build prototypes let alone to to hire engineers for design optimization and for securing independent certification of performance.
Arrayed against them are the media-and-oil conglomerates who have politicians in their deep pockets, along with the resources to fund whatever they want.
In contrast, the independent researchers with shallow pockets will find themselves on a collision course with the new and even more powerful continental administration. It is capable of putting a damper on alternative clean-energy technologies which might be able to avert the onrushing climate disaster and eliminate any need to toy with the idea of setting off super-volcanoes.
The trend toward seeking and embracing clean energy certainly is gaining momentum. Is this North American Union an act of desperation by an industry that’s been feeling threatened? A sort of final hurrah of big oil and corporate government?
What the inventors and clean-energy researchers also have in their shallower pockets, however, is eternally-springing hope. And passion. This passion for freedom and for the health of the planet’s biosphere may yet rise up in a tidal wave to carry them forward. It won’t happen without everyone’s making a personal decision to get involved in the issue. It will take setting aside personal rivalries and combining the efforts of all who want to see a cleaner environment achieved through creativity and new science. There may be a personal price to pay for taking a stand, but even people who don’t feel courageous can draw strength joining with others of like mind.
Let’s seek an outcome that is for the highest good of all.
# # #
REFERENCES:
Ref. 1: http://pesn.com/2006/08/03/9500295_wireless_transmission/ – See especially Act III, scenes 4 & 6, and Act IV, Scene 3.
Ref. 2: http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20050408203411606 – The three leaders cannot all be referred to as “head of state” which applies only to Presidents Bush and Fox. Although recent Prime Ministers have been acting nearly as if they were head of state, in Canada officially this status still belongs the Queen, via her representative the Governor-General.
Ref. 3: http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_4213.shtml
Ref. 4: http://usinfo.state.gov/wh/americas/mexico/trilateral_meeting.html
Ref. 5: http://www.safehaven.com/article-5480.htm
Ref. 7: “The Bush Administration’s efforts to cover up the North American Union: Myths, Facts – Truth? (Federal Observer; Sept. 20, 2006)
Ref. 8: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/9/18/154846/236 – Text of Gore’s speech, and reader comments. See also coverage at PESN.com: Will Carbon Freeze Be Enough?
Ref. 9: http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_4213.shtml
Ref. 10: List of participants at the Banff Conference.
Ref. 11: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2006/09/21/secret-meeting.html
Ref. 12: http://www.canadians.org/…
Ref. 13: The text of Barlow’s article “Integration talks kept in the dark” is within an independent blog article about censorship at http://chandrasutra.wordpress.com/2006/09/23/welcome-to-it-red-shirts-secret-meetings-and-censorship/
Ref. 14: http://www.davidorchard.com/online/2do-index.html
Ref. 15: email 1 September 2006, circulated in Canada by leader of Canadian Action Party. Transcription of recorded call (listen):
“Hi there, it’s Mark Harrison from the CBC calling; you’d sent a note asking for a call back about why we are not doing anything on the North-American Union and the NAFTA Highway. Ummm. Several years ago there was a big push to a, sort of a broader union, and it died on the, sort of on the shoals of national self-interest. And I don’t imagine we’ll be doing more on this one until there is an indication that this will be moving forward.
“Ummm… and that… doesn’t…. seem apparent at the moment but if there is any indication that it is moving forward and anything towards a One World Government under the United Nations we’ll certainly be doing something on it but… ahhhh… we are not there yet in our opinion… ahh hh… thanks for the call. Take care. Bye now.”
Ref. 16: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2006/09/21/secret-meeting.html – this link is also live from the New American site current-issue index.
Ref. 17: http://www.vivelecanada.ca/…
Ref. 18: http://educate-yourself.org/lte/savingamerica13sep06.shtml
Ref. 19: http://www.infowars.com/police_state.html
Ref. 20: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2006/…
Ref. 21: In a meeting that evening between some visitors from out of town and Wright, who calls himself a “recovering economist”, I was able to see this footage. Alex expressed his objections to secret meetings loudly through a bullhorn, asserting that he doesn’t fear the powerful. The police remained out of the frame, and no faces ever appeared in the hotel’s windows. Jeremy Wright produced the video “Celsius 911”, which is available from http://www.globaloutlook.ca/videos2.htm.
Ref. 22: See article “Web Pioneer: No Internet Without Net Neutrality” posted September 28th, 2006, by tkarr
Ref. 23: “Whistle Blower Releases Secret Agenda of NAU meeting in Banff, Alberta, Canada Sept 12-14, 2006” – Email from C. Fogal to mailing list of Canadian Action Party, September 20, 2006 5:57:23 EDT.
Ref. 24: Participant list at NAU meeting in Banff
Ref. 25: http://www.fina-nafi.org/eng/fina/presentation.asp?count=eng
Ref. 26: http://www.fina-nafi.org/eng/triumvirat07/…
Ref 27: http://patriotsquestion911.com/
Ref 27b: http://www.canadianactionparty.ca/…/CAP_Truth_Shirts_Movement_for_Peace.asp
Ref 28: http://www.freedomisforeverybody.org/skullandbones.php
Ref. 29: http://peswiki.com/index.php/Review:David_R._Hawkins:Truth_vs_Falsehood
Ref. 30: http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/mayer_personalizing.html
Ref. 31: http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_4213.shtml
Ref. 32: Text of leaked document – Banff NAU working agenda.
Ref 33: http://cesp.stanford.edu/
Ref. 34 http://www.oread.ku.edu/Oread03/Dec12/oil.html – Also reported on Discovery Channel Canada 27 Sept 2006 is a pipeline-fed oilfield using sequestered CO2.
Ref. 35 Canadians are currently being subjected to a particularly lame PR ad which extols the virtues of the Shell Oil company for its intention to serve humanity’s need for energy by removing the oil from the Alberta Oil Sands and then “returning the land to nature” by “putting the sand back.” They pat themselves on the back for “reclaiming the land for tomorrow”. The high-sounding blather omits mentioning that the result of that process will be to create a sand desert in place of the brush ecosystem that exists there currently. Well, I suppose a sandy desert is “natural” in their minds; after all, it’s the kind of setting where oil is found in the Middle East. But it’s not natural in the Canadian landscape.
Ref. 36: http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/05-06/mar04.html
Ref. 37: http://www.emrg.sfu.ca/sustainablefossilfuels/
Ref 38: http://pesn.com/2006/09/26/9500240_COFE_report
Ref. 39: http://www.alternet.org/story/24293/
Ref. 40: http://peswiki.com/energy/Directory:Suppression
Ref. 41: Famous conclusion of T.S. Eliot poem from which Al Gore quoted lines at a transitional point early in his speech. The complete text can be found online. Does that poem summarize how our civilization will be remembered (if it’s remembered at all)?
See also
- Energy Suppression – index at PESWiki.com
- More stories by Mary-Sue Haliburton
- PESN (Pure Energy Systems News) – Feature stories on cutting-edge energy technology.
- Free Energy News (.com) – Daily, cutting-edge energy technology news from around the world
- PESWiki Latest – Newest pages in the publicly-editable energy directory.
- Free Energy Now™ – 1-hour, in-depth, live interview, each Saturday, 4:00 – 4:55 Mountain.
- This Week in Free Energy™ – Seven-minute blurb each Sunday, 7:53 – 8:00 pm Mountain.
