A realization must be made, and agreed upon by the people, if ever there is going to be a correction of the course that we are on as a nation. This realization is that, in order to achieve a world government in which the United States is a part, the rights, liberties and freedoms guaranteed in the constitution must be violated. Studies have been conducted by multiple -independent organizations systematically detailing point by point, the rights, liberties and freedoms that will be and already have been violated as we progress every so steadily towards a one world government.
In this paper I intend to discuss the four most important acts of legislation, which have been or are in the process of, being implemented with the goal of one world government. These four pieces of legislation are as follows:
1. NAFTA- North American Free Trade Agreement. This is a treaty that was passed under the Clinton Administration and was implemented on January 1, 1994.
2. WTO- World Trade Organization. This is a treaty that was passed under the Clinton Administration and was implemented on January 1, 1995.
3. DR-CAFTA- Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement. This is a treaty that was passed under the Bush Administration on March 1, 2007.
4. FTAA- Free Trade Areas of the Americas. This is a treaty that is still under development. This treaty has been underway since the Clinton Administration.
According to Mark Engsberg of the Hauser Global Law School Program treaties are defined as: A “formally signed and ratified agreement between two nations or sovereigns. It is a record of the terms of agreement between two or more countries, and is governed by international law. But, treaties or treaty-like instruments go by many other names as well, such as:
· Accords
· Pacts
· Conventions
· Agreements
· Covenants
· Final Acts
· Charters
· Protocols
· Constitutions for international organizations
Regardless of the various terms used to describe them, apart from some minor differences, they are all basically the same thing.
It is crucial for us to understand what the definitions of a treaty and a trade agreement are, in order to understand whether the document in question is constitutional or not. The United States Constitution states, a treaty has to be passed by the Senate with a two-thirds majority, and then has to be signed by the President. This is the ratification process for a treaty as stated in the treaty clause of the constitution.
The constitution has a different ratification process for the passing of a trade agreement. The constitution states that a trade agreement is to be passed by the senate with a simple majority and then the signing of the document by the president.
Another element that one must look at when researching treaties and trade agreements is what is known as “fast-track procedures.” What is fast-track? Fast-track is a procedure that was first introduced to the federal government back in 1973 by then President Nixon. This was seen as a power grab, taking power given to the legislative body, and transferring it to the executive branch. The term “fast-track” gives one a sense of usurpation of power that is easily noticed by the public. This lead to the changing of the term fast-track, to what President Bush called “Presidential Trade Promoting Authority” or TPA. The legislative act that became TPA is the “Crane Bill (HR 2149)
With this basic knowledge we can now begin to examine these agreements and treaties. I will start my examination with the treaty known as NAFTA. The NAFTA treaty was implemented just two years after President Clinton took office. The goal of NAFTA was to open trade between America, Canada and Mexico by instituting uniform rules and regulations. It is these rules and regulations that are causing violations of the constitutions of all three nations. We already had trade agreements with Canada and Mexico, but NAFTA would expand these trade agreements into a treaty. What NAFTA did was to open the borders of these countries to increase the free flow of trade between nations, thus increasing the flow of goods. NAFTA, as it is presently governed, is controlled by “trade tribunals” made up of members of the three nations named in the treaty. This tribunal operates on what is known as international law. This ruling body may issue decisions on cases brought by member nations. This is where the problem lies. The sovereignty of all the member nations can and are being violated by the legal decisions of the tribunal. Examples of these sovereignty issues are covered in a paper written by a group known as Public Citizen. This organization has written a paper titled “The Ten Year Track Record of the North American Free Trade Agreement: Undermining Sovereignty and Democracy.” This paper touches five main issues that have come to light after having 10 years to study the effects of the NAFTA treaty.
The five main issues touched on in the blog will be:
1. Foreign Investors Property Rights in the U.S.
2. Secret Tribunals
3. Federalism under attack
4. Natural Resources
5. Trade Tribunals
All of these issues carry heavy consequences for all three member nations. The most basic and universal of these consequences is the violating of sovereignty of all signatory nations. I wish to discuss only two of the issues that the paper raises if for no other reason than brevity.
The first issue I wish to discuss is the sharing of resources. NAFTA has a provision that creates a system that they call “Proportional Sharing” this grants the member nations of the treaty, rights to a share of another member nations natural resources. One example of this is provided in the Public Citizen paper. “If Canada were to suffer a natural gas shortage (if a pipeline blew, for example), it could not cease or substantially cut back exports to the U.S. in order to give priority to domestic needs — but would have to reduce domestic use and other exports so that the U.S. would maintain its share of the smaller remaining volume.” The paper then goes on to point out a loophole in this “proportional sharing” system stating “Giant water corporations are ravenously eyeing Canada’s massive freshwater supply held in its lakes, rivers and underground reserves, because if any Canadian province “opens the spigot” by agreeing to sell bulk water to a foreign country, then all Canadian water is automatically considered a traded good, not a natural resource over which Canada has sovereign control.” Now, one can change out the country “Canada” and replace it with Mexico or United States, and we can all agree that this is not fair, let alone constitutional for any of the nations involved.
The second issue I wish to discuss is the Trade Tribunals. The trade tribunals enforce the rules of NAFTA. The rules of NAFTA have a de-facto supremacy clause to them. The laws and rules of NAFTA trump the constitutional laws of the separate signatory nations. Several examples of this are found in the Public Citizen paper. “Most recently, a Canadian mining company, Glamis Gold Ltd., filed a claim that their NAFTA investors rights have been violated by California regulations that they argue undermine their ability to mine a southern California site. In another case, the Canadian chemical company Methenex has demanded compensation for California’s ban of the gasoline additive MTBE, a suspected carcinogen that renders water foul tasting and undrinkable when it leaks out of gas storage tanks. MTBE was banned in California after numerous cities had to begin trucking in water after their ground water was contaminated, and is prohibited in 15 other states. Residents’ property values crashed in contaminated areas, but under NAFTA, only Methenex, which produces a chemical used in MTBE, can demand compensation.(NAFTA supporters are eager to make this politically explosive case go away and a preliminary ruling suggests that it may well be dismissed on a technicality.)The record of completed NAFTA Chapter 11 cases demonstrates what is at stake. Canada reversed its ban on a gasoline additive called MMT, which destroys catalytic converters and is a suspected neurotoxin, after U.S. Ethyl Corporation filed a NAFTA Chapter 11 case for $201 million alleging the public health policy violated its NAFTA rights. Canada also paid the corporation $13 million in compensation for profits lost when the ban was in place and issued a statement that MMT posed no health threat for U.S. Ethyl to use in advertising. In Mexico, the government was required to pay U.S.-based Metalclad Corporation $16 million in compensation after a Chapter 11 claim that the denial of a municipal construction permit for a toxic waste facility in an environmentally sensitive zone near the city of Guadalcazar violated its NAFTA rights. The Mexican company from which Metalclad bought the land also had been denied the same permit after local residents raised concerns about drinking water contamination and the local government conducted a study. U.S.-based S.D. Meyers Corporation, which shipped toxic waste from Canada to its Ohio treatment plants, obtained a $5 million payment from the Canadian government in a NAFTA Chapter 11 case after Canada banned exports of the extremely toxic substance polychlorinated biphenyls (commonly known as PCB). Canada signed an international environmental treaty (called the Basel Convention on the Trans-boundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes) committing not to trade in toxics and to dispose of such materials domestically. Yet under NAFTA, S.D. Meyers had to be compensated for its lost profits during a period when the U.S. permitted the company to import PCB-tainted waste but Canada had blocked such exports under the environmental treaty.”
If each nation is not free to enact and enforce their own rules and regulations laid out in their respective constitutions and subsequent laws, then we must ask ourselves the question, are we really free? Each nation’s constitution is a legal document that does more than just define them as a sovereign nation. It defines them as a people, as a culture. Each nation has different beliefs and values on life and liberty and the rule of law. When we take away the very laws and constitutions of many peoples, then we water down the pool of diversity that has been maintained by the individuality of each nation of people.
My main issue with NAFTA is that it violates the Constitution. The language the federal government uses when making trade agreements and treaties is deceptive, to say the least. NAFTA is a treaty, and as such, is bound by the United States Constitution rules of ratification. Article II, Section II, Clause II of the United States Constitution states: “He (President) shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.”
NAFTA did not meet the two-thirds majority that the constitution states is needed to make legal and binding the treaty. In fact, NAFTA barely passed at all. The media was nowhere to been seen when this treaty was making its way from concept to creation. No one in the senate saw to it that this treaty was put to rest on the simple argument that the congress does not have the power to pass any treaty that can make laws that the congress itself cannot.
Stay tuned for the next installment of this ongoing blog, in which I will cover the World Trade Organization.
I woke up this morning, the same as I always do. I open my eyes, thankful to be alive, only to discover to my dismay that I am a slave! My family comes from Sweden originally. It was my grandfathers parents who came here in late 1800′s. They were seeking a new life, in a new country, a republic if you will. I sometimes close my eyes and try to imagine what it must have been like to live in America at that time. The state that you lived in made the laws of that land and was run by common men who used common sense to solve problems of their time. Freedom abounded, commerce was brisk and people cared about and helped their fellow man. The federal government did as they were told and stayed out of the everyday affairs of the people. While I try to imagine all of this, I find myself asking the question, “why could not I, have been born back in those great and wonderful times?” Yes I am just like other people,don’t get me wrong, I would most definitely miss my regular tv shows, my music, cars, and every other creature comfort that I currently enjoy. These creature comforts go right out the window, when I think of the freedom that I would have had back then, to live my life as I saw fit. I could go down to the lake or stream and catch some fish, without having to produce an identification, and pay my hard earned money for a “fishing license” I cannot believe how stupid and invasive that is. I was born on this land, and I feel that I should have the inherent right to fish in any lake or stream that I so choose to without the consent of my state or federal governments permission, Am I a child? Children need permission from parents or other adults to do things, this is because the child is not yet learned life. As adults we have learned life, we have been educated and instructed by our parents. I have a free and intelligent mind, and I should not have to ask permission from a government that is no more knowledgeable than I, permission to do something. Now when I go out into the world everyday to live my life, I have to comply to federal laws and regulations. These laws and regulations do not help me, nor do they make my life better, quite the opposite actually. I live in a prison. I was born in a prison. We call this prison America.
Super-Congress Kills the Constitution
Tuesday the second day of August 2011, the day our republic took its last breath. With the passage of the debt bill put forward by House Majority Leader John Boehner, our lawmaking body known as Congress, has been murdered. The Constitution of the United States created the Congress and gave to it the power to create laws according to the rules that it laid out. Bills will no longer be put forward by the House of Representatives. The Senate will no longer be able to filibuster a bill. A super majority will be needed to kill a bill put forth by the “Super Congress.”
This gutting of the Congress cannot be good no matter the angle you look at it from. The founding fathers knew a lot about power and corruption. They made the rules of the congress with the knowledge that over time PUBLIC SERVENTS would seek to control the people. The fact that bills could only originate in the House of Representatives was intentional. The House of Representatives is what is known as the “people’s house” and provides the best representation of the people. They gave the filibuster power to the Senate for the express purpose of making sure that a bad bill could be stopped dead in its tracks. They also made it so that a simple majority vote could kill a bill. All of these checks and balances put within the creation of the Congress are now gone, we have no way to stop the executive and legislative branches from a complete and total takeover of our country.
The Super-Congress will now be able to push an agenda upon the people with no way to stop them. The only redress of grievances now will be armed insurrection.
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on September 8, 2011 at 11:34 pm Leave a CommentTags: Budget, congress, constitutional issues, govenment, Obama, op-ed, Political, political commentary, political policy, Politics, senate, Taxes