The North-American Community "Myth"

I've been hearing about something called the "North American Community" for a couple of years now. The history behind it is that in March of 2005, President Bush, the Prime Minister of Canada, and President Vincente Fox of Mexico had a meeting and decided to start us on a road that will push us toward the goal of becoming a "North American Community", something similar to the European Union.

I have to admit that when I first heard this, I thought, "Sounds a little 'grassy knoll' to me," and I didn't think that much about it. However, if you "google" the term "North American Community", quite a few articles pop up. Sometimes you will hear it called "The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" (SPP) -- there is even a website at
http://spp.gov/.

There is a local radio talk-show host in our area that has poo-pooed all of this; his idea is that there are conspiracy geeks that sit in their underwear at their computers until the wee hours of the morning making this stuff up, all while wearing tin foil on their heads.

I took a look at the "thomas" website today (http://thomas.loc.gov/) and searched through what the Senate is presenting this week as our "new" immigration bill -- Senate Bill 1639. Everyone seems to read the first few sections of this legislation; no one seems to care about all of the hidden things they stick in these bills towards the end. I usually start reading somewhere in the middle and work my way to the end, then hit the beginning sections last. In Section 413 (a) (9) it says, "The Partnership for Prosperity is a bilateral initiative launched jointly by the President of the United States and the President of Mexico in 2001, which aims to boost the social and economic standards of Mexican citizens, particularly in regions where economic growth has lagged and emigration has increased."

Section 413 (a) (10) says: "The Presidents of Mexico and the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada, at their trilateral summit on March 23, 2005, agreed to promote economic growth, competitiveness, and quality of life in the agreement on SECURITY AND PROSPERITY PARTNERSHIP OF NORTH AMERICA."

Section 413 (b): "SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING PARTNERSHIP FOR PROSPERITY - It is the sense of Congress that the United States and Mexico SHOULD ACCELERATE the implementation of the Partnership for Prosperity to help generate economic growth and improve the standard of living in Mexico..."

If you keep reading through the bill, you will see that we (translation: the US taxpayer) are going to pour untold amounts of money into Mexico to help with loans for farmers, to assist Mexico in establishing better banking, to help Mexico "strengthen education and training opportunities" in Mexico, and the US will help Mexico improve health care for the people still living in Mexico.

So the Senate's answer to illegal immigration is to pour billions of dollars into a country where corruption already abounds, without knowing how much of it will actually end up doing any good for anyone other than the corrupt leaders. My first question is, why do we have to basically pay what ends up being "extortion" money in order to solve illegal immigration? Where are we going to get money for schools in Mexico when we can't seem to find it for so many rural and inner-city schools that don't have enough in our own country? We can't have health care for all American citizens, but we have enough money to help Mexico with their health care? I feel my taxes going up every second!

More importantly, if the "SPP" is just a myth, why is it in black-and-white in a Senate bill under consideration?