Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
NAFTA Superhighway: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions
Friday, June 22, 2007
If we thought the FTAA was going to send us up the river, we may want to hang on to our oars.
NAFTA is coming to a neighborhood near you.
If you are a “superpower”, or “any variation” on the superpower theme, such as Canada, Mexico and the USA you’re going to be thrilled over what is in store for you.
If, however, you happen to be an ordinary Joe, you’ll want to sharpen up your focus. Business and Industry is asking us to leave on our rose colored glasses. I suggest we take them off and have a good look at what NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) is going to do for us.
To put things into perspective I’ll quote and misquote Shakespeare. “Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.” Sounds pretty good. Sounds fairly right. Still, something about that quote sounds just a little wrong, doesn’t it?
That’s the way the NAFTA agreement sounds. It sounds pretty good. It sounds fairly right, in it’s concept, anyway. A free flowing exchange of goods from Canada to Mexico with the US looking a lot like the ‘middleman’. Hey, someone has to broker the deals. Still, something sounds just a little wrong.
In reality the correct Shakespere quote is “The lady doth protest too much, me thinks”.
The supporters of NAFTA seem to be protesting a bit too much. For example the people at North America’s Supercorridor Coalition,INC (NASCO) state they have a “fervent devotion” to transport efficiency. I don’t mean to call anyones idea of devotion into question. But, Devotion? Fervent? Transport efficiency?
I’m really fond of ice cream. Sometimes I honestly ‘desire’ ice cream, but fervent devotion just seems a little over the top to me. Maybe a bit ‘too much’.
The people at NASCO also seem to be more than just a little ticked off at their ‘critics’. NASCO says, “Critics are attempting to exploit this ‘misunderstanding’ to disrupt federal, state, and local projects aimed at propelling our communities and countries foward”
NASCO doesn’t state what those ‘misunderstandings’ may be. Explaining those misunderstandings would be the right thing to do, given the context of their statement. Maybe they don’t want to bring them up, call more attention to them, maybe even expose more issues inadvertantly.
The NASCO doth protest too much, me thinks!
Why in the world would anyone want to ‘disrupt’ federal, state and local projects aimed at propelling our communities and countries forward? That seems to be a resonable question. Why would anyone want to do that?
Why indeed. Perhaps “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”.
We’ll be spending several days trying to get to the bottom, or the top of this complicated issue starting with the ’superhighway’ on Monday.
Labels: Canada, Mexico, NAFTA, NASCO, Speak no Evil, Supercorridor, Superhighway, USA
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NAFTA Superhighway: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions
