China, China, China. What will we do with Chinese imports?
After thousands of pets in North America became ill or died, from the use of tainted Chinese wheat gluten why would China not be more careful about the quality of their exports?
One could get the idea the China may not care how many people become sick or die from poisons contained in their products. Can this actually be the case? Why then are they sending Scallops and Sardines coated with putrefying bacteria to America?
Why are they shipping toxic cosmetics, tainted dietary supplements or dried apples preserved with cancer-causing chemicals to the rest of the world?
I get the message the Chinese are sending.
US inspection records show that China has been flooding the US with foods unfit for human consumption for years. The crime is that these products where simply sent back to China where they were, shipped right back to the US once, twice or three more times in an attempt to send the same poisoned products to American consumers.
Have we become so dependent upon cheap Chinese goods that we cannot live without them? It looks to me like many of us will stop living if we keep using them.
Canada exports $10 billion in FDA-regulated food and agricultural products to the US each year, of which, 56 shipments were rejected. By comparison 298 shipments from China’s $2 billion imports were rejected. Horror of horrors, only less than 1 percent of regulated imports from China were even inspected by the FDA.
In the past year the USDA has seized hundreds of thousands of pounds of Chinese meat being smuggled into the US. No meat from China is approved for import into the US. Apparently ‘dried lily flowers and prune slices’ are allowed, because that is what Chinese exporters have labeled their pirate shipments of meat.
China is aiming for certification so that they can legally ship poultry into the US. I don’t want a Chinese chicken legal, or otherwise, on the entire continent. I will never believe what they send will be safe. I think the US can grow more than enough chicken to meet American demand.
I think we have enough problems here already without importing new ones.
There is a story about a scorpion walking along the bank of a river, wondering how he would get to the other side. He saw a fox preparing to swim cross the river and he asked the fox to give him a ride.
The fox said, “no, if I do that you will sting me and I will drown.” But, the scorpion sold the fox on the idea by saying, “If I did that we would both drown.”
That logic made sense to the fox and he agreed. Half way across the river, the scorpion stung the fox. As the fox began to die he asked the scorpion, “Why did you do that? Now you’ll die too.”
“I can’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”
What is the ‘nature’ of the relationship China wishes to have with the US? I won’t apologize for asking.
The danger of pesticides is a three-way merge onto a dangerous roundabout.
While Canadians are worried about the dangers coming their way from the US, Americans are worried about the dangerous pesticides being imported from Canada. Meanwhile the US exports banned or unregistered pesticides to Mexico.
25 % of all fresh and frozen produce in the US is imported, 50% of which is imported from Mexico. Canada is the second largest market for US agricultural exports and US exporters are the dominant suppliers of produce exporters to Canada.
In March of this year The US EPA and the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency gave the first joint approval of a NAFTA ‘harmonized label for pesticide.
The first product called Avadex in Canada, and Far-Go in the US is an herbicide that “Warning labels state that it should not be applied directly to water, to areas where surface water is present, or to intertidal areas below the mean high water mark.” “The use of this chemical in areas where soils are permeable, particularly where the water table is shallow, may result in ground water contamination.” “Have a high potential for runoff into surface water where there are poorly draining or wet soils with slopes toward adjacent surface waters, frequently flooded areas, areas over-laying extremely shallow ground water, areas with in-field canals or ditches that drain to surface water, areas not separated from adjacent surface waters with vegetated filter strips, and areas over-laying tile drainage systems that drain surface water.”
Is there any type of land being farmed that doesn’t fall under the above classification?
It defies logic that the US and Canada, known for ‘feeding the world’, now depends on importing food from the world to be feed?
Importing and exporting, and shipping and receiving. Fast tracking, highway building, and labeling. NAFTA, SPP, NAF, NASCO, CTCS and the rest of the alphabet look strangely like a perpetual motion profit machine. A machine engineered by a basket full of corporations that walk hand-in-hand into the sunset with our good will, our health and our money in their pockets.
Road expansion construction is already underway on miles and miles of the NAFTA superhighway.
NASCO repeatedly insists they are not now, nor have they ever been behind building a ’supercorridor’ and that the ’superhighway’ already exists in the form of the north and south running I35.
So much conflicting information surrounding this superhighway must certainly come from all the secrecy surrounding this colossal NAFTA project.
Interstate 35 does already exist, but the path it takes may be the only thing NASCO recommends leaving the same.
The 3 respective Governments seem to be signing on for 1 Nation of super colossal proportions, which will certainly change our lives.
Envisioned by the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) task force report were: a North American court, a North American inter-parliamentary group, a North American executive commission, a North American military defense command, a North American customs office and a North American development bank.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership office (SPP) has formed working groups comprised of representatives from the largest North American corporations.
These groups are operating behind doors sealed so tightly that the list of membership has never been published nor has any of their work product.
The SPP lists some 20 groups and does disclose the ‘nature’ of their assignments. Harmonized Pesticides (labeling) aviation policy (no-fly coordination) borders and immigration are just a few of the assignments for which these working groups are drawing up blue prints.
Now we know why all the secrecy, but the offices of the SPP inside the NAFTA office of the USDC wants the public to believe something different. “We did not want to get the contact people of the working groups distracted by calls from the public.” Geri Word SPP.
Word, suggested the work products were ‘described on the SPP website, so publishing actual documents did not seem to be required’.
Canada’s Foreign Affairs and International Trade (FAITC) invites Canadians to ‘add your voice to the discussion’ on its website, while in the US meetings have been held in buildings able only to hold only a small number of citizens leaving in some cases hundreds upon hundreds of opposition voices locked out of these so called public meetings.
It sounds like NAFTA will be the end of soverinty for these 3 nations.
If you feel like you’re at a square dance that’s being called in a foreign language, it’s because you are. Welcome to the NAFTA Dance. Where the power elite is the belle of the ball, and the public, that’s you, is the whore in the hall.
Mexico, Canada and the US have joined hands and are now forming a circle that is becoming impossible to penetrate. Impossible to penetrate because as more of the public is becoming aware of exactly what affect NAFTA is going to have on our futures the heavier the veil surrounding NAFTA becomes.
Among a litany of fast-track recommendations the Council of the Americas recommends being implemented by the end of this year are:
1. Establish a set of rules that provide legal protection for companies that conduct risk assessments and share information on vulnerabilities with the appropriate government entities. (Protection from litigation resulting in bad risk assessments resulting in harm to the public?)
2. Implementing preclearance pilot projects. (Well underway, this moves customs processes further inland from actual border crossings. This move constitutes moving potentially catastrophic events into the hearts of Canada and the US rather than keeping these events in the nation in which they originate.)
3. Improve the benefits of voluntary business participation in security programs. (Little needs to be said regarding business doing anything voluntary as it applies to anything much beyond the profit margin.)
4. Further simplify the NAFTA rules-of-origin requirements. (US$30billion in trilateral trade has already been simplified to the point our health protection is becoming virtually non-existent.)
5. Simplify NAFTA certification process and requirements. “The long-term goal should be to eliminate the NAFTA certificate on shipments.” (Eliminating the administrative burden on producers of finished goods)
6. Withdraw or suspend the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. (US and Canada should lower their standards by mitigating legitimate risks while minimizing disruption to legitimate trade.)
Potential meaning: Lower your health and safety standards as it pertains to imports.
Raise the potential for dangerous cargo getting past the borders and moving inland.
Leave border crossings free from congestion so that goods can still move freely across the border should there be a catastrophic event inland.
Spend all resources necessary for the promotion of trade rather than finding innovative, safe and secure ways of protecting and feeding our own citizens.
Those yellow bricks paving the NAFTA superhighway appear to be made of gold. Who is financing the fancy footwork of the NAFTA dance?
The same way water seeks its own level; NAFTA seeks to level the field between Canada, the USA and Mexico.
Under the guise of creating a seamless commercial endeavor between the three countries, it appears NAFTA will in fact create a North American Union similar to the way the European Union was created. Smaller less economically developed nations could share in prosperity and economic growth by becoming members of the larger ‘Nation of Commerce’. NAFTA will certainly lead to the same situation on the North American Continent. This scheme, for better or for worse, is rolling full steam ahead.
I can think of no other country that may guard its sovereignty more tenaciously than Great Britain, who did not sign on to the EU.
So why are people in Canada and the US only now starting to take a look at what may become of their sovereignty? The answer is simple answer is much of the nuts-and-bolts of this agreement have been parsed out to the people one tiny bite at a time, with many of the facts being concocted in high-level secret meetings where the public has not been made privy to these facts.
NAFTA has been served to the people in small bites that are easily swallowed, digested and passed. The pile of facts surrounding these digested pieces is now beginning to smell.
Proponents of the NAFTA, nearly without exception, are large corporations who stand to rake in even more profits and smaller business that hope to become larger by this agreement.
The battle cry for the seamless integration of these three nations is Security and Prosperity as the name (SPP) Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America would indicate. But, it isn’t clear what part of our security will be enhanced by this plan. What is clear is that the Security OF Prosperity will be enhanced.
Does the seamless transportation of goods from Mexico to Canada through the USA make us more secure?
Is prosperity the definnition of security? According to the CEO’s of industry and the Politicians the answer is yes.
International laws without teeth are useless. Unless and until we can find a way to enforce laws protecting our oceans, our seas and their habitat the rapid decline or our planet will continue.
Our representivites and our governments work for us. Think about that for a moment. We are in charge, we need to demand that when a law is passed there also is passed a way to enforce that law, and to fund the enforcement of that law. Passing any law without funding or a plan for enforcement should be illegal.
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.
By now we’ve all heard the story about the woman in Ellsworth, Maine that dropped a Compact Florescent Light bulb (CFL) on her daughters’ bedroom floor.
Brandy Bridges realized the bulb contained mercury and called the store where it was purchased. They recommended she call poison control who referred her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection which directed her to call an environmental clean up crew that gave her a $2,000.00+ estimate to clean up the mercury mess.
So how much mercury does one of these bulbs contain? So much that the broken CFL left 6 times the safe level of mercury in the Bridges’ bedroom.
Each CFL contains 5 milligrams of mercury, at the Maine “safety” standard of 300 nanograms per cubic meter, it would take 16,667 cubic meters of soil to “safely” contain all the mercury in a single CFL.
Given the fact that we already know that mercury is dangerous and highly toxic, that it can cause brain damage and leaning disabilities, what is creating this Herculean push to install literally 10’s of billions of these bulbs across the globe?
The move to ban incandescent lights in favor of CFL’s is being considered in California as well as Canada, Australia parts of the EU, and many other states in the US. The Capitol Hill complex in the US is currently in the process of replacing 20,000 incandescent bulbs with these CFL’s. These account for only the ‘desk lamps’.
What is going on? These CFL’s have been on the market for nearly 30 years. It is unrealistic to imagine consumers will dispose of these bulbs at hazardous waste collection sites. How will all the consumers be educated on the safe use and disposal of these bulbs? How many of these CFL’s will be purchased after the consumer realizes the hazards involved?
If our incandescent bulbs are banned we won’t have a choice. What really is behind this push to create more mercury hazards after so many years of trying to eliminate the mercury hazards?
Only two possibilities jump to my mind. Either global warming is moving far more rapidly than we are being told, or the monetary profits associated with these CFL’s is beyond imagination.
We looked at Wal-Mart’s drive to sell 100 million Compact Florescent Light bulbs by the end of 2008 yesterday. Although these lights have been on the market since 1977 and they produce 450 pounds fewer greenhouse gas emissions than incandescent bulbs why haven’t they taken off?
These bulbs sound like a good idea to me, yet only 6% of homes today are using CFL’s. Saving $30.00 in energy costs over the life of each bulb sounds like a good idea too.
My mother, who grew up during the depression always said, “waste not want not”. These bulbs certainly aren’t wasting any energy. I can still see my mother standing in the middle of my room, pointing a long bony finger at the light burning in my ceiling, asking one of her favorite questions,”did you turn off the light when you left the room?”
Dear mom was by no means a conservationist; she was however highly tuned into conserving her money. Now when I leave a room I always turn off the light.
I like to think I’m a conservationist. I know I do less than some, but I’m pretty sure I do a lot more than others to keep my presence on this earth a small one.
Today I am satisfied to please my mother posthumously. I also enjoy feeling like I’m ’sticking it to the man’ by not paying him unnecessary electricity money and I’m doing my part to reduce my carbon footprint. Besides all that, I’m just plain cheap!
It really isn’t clear to me how much money I’m really going to be saving by using the CFL’s since I’m already a miser in the 3rd degree. I’m not clear on just how many pounds of greenhouse gases my lights are actually contributing to the planet either. Like I said, I’m a tightwad.
There are some drawbacks as well as payoffs in using these CFL’s in spite of their reduced energy use. They contain Mercury.
This begs the question of how much mercury are we going to leave in the landfills when millions of us throw these CFL’s away?
Tomorrow we will look at the mercury and disposal issues surrounding these nifty little money and energy savers!
