SPP Could Mark the Single Greatest Threat to Our National Security

Hello there - allow me to introduce myself. I'm Joe Small Business Owner - Mr. Middle Income American Tax-Payer. Remember me?

I am not a Xenophobe nor am I under the mistaken belief that no-one but an American can build a quality product.

I believe and practice the theory that "Global Trade" should mean that everyone benefits - and that markets are open to goods from both directions. Sadly this is not the case most of the time...maybe I am a bit of a pollyanna.

This is the point in the commentary that I must tell you that I am engaged in import and export of products that cannot be competitively manufactured here in the USA because of the lack of industrial base and economic incentive to keep the manufacturing and technology here at home. As a security technology provider, we have to look to other countries to produce most of our solutions because our politicians have sold our souls and our technology to multi-national corporations and foreign governments under the mantra of "economic development".

Although, because of our ability, focus and our expertise, we even export our solutions to countries around the globe. Fortunately a growing number of our solutions will be made or at the very least assembled in the USA. We are working with our partners to grow this list of solutions daily. Thankfully we still employ a local sales force and support staff here - not in a third world sweatshop. We try to keep as much of our focus on people and their benefit, but damnit, it is getting more difficult.

I know we live in a Global Economy, with vast and furious market forces and a cross-border ebb and flow of capital that must be managed through cooperation and collaboration not simply a sell-out, especially a sell-out that has been going on quietly for the last several years in the deepest corners of our government. Welcome to the SPP - The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. http://www.spp.gov - that's right .GOV! The United States Government under the guise of the Commerce Department has quietly and unilaterally without the approval of Congress or the States has instituted a program that quite simply put plans to "eliminate all borders" between the US, Canada and Mexico for the purposes of their so-called "Prosperity Agenda"

Item one on the Prosperity Agenda - Improving Productivity - Whose productivity are we actually going to enhance? The United States is already losing American Jobs by the thousands daily to our dear friends in Mexico and other third world nations because of their low wages, rampant corruption, environmental abuse and lax government regulations. Although Mexico is not a member of OPEC, Mexico has some of the world’s richest deposits of Oil and exports of petroleum account for over 10% of Mexico's export earnings, yet even with these riches, the Mexican economy is so bad that their citizens are over-running our borders looking for minimum wage jobs. With regard to productivity in Mexico, the Maquiladoras (or "export processing zones" as they are known) have been operating since 1965 all along the border with the USA. These zones produce consumer products by US Companies who pay their employees in these sweatshops as little as $6 per day for distribution to the USA under NAFTA with little regard for the environmental, personal or economic tragedy they are inflicting upon both nations. The Maquiladora allows the US Company to take advantage of low cost labor, lax regulations, brutal enforcement of its agenda and minimal oversight to cut costs which in this case means cutting their number one expense - Labor (That means PEOPLE) - yet like we're jacked up on this heroin and looking for our next fix we are injecting this crap as fast as our politicians can give it to us. These politicians are quite literally sacrificing our families, friends and neighbors on the altar of increased profits as soylent green for the corporations and placating a voting block to solidify their own lust for power.

The US Department of the Treasury's own website points out some of the chief benefits of this program by lowering costs of labor and heck, our government even gives the companies a tax break for exporting the machinery and raw materials to make the products - what a bargain! Does any rational human being believe that these multi-national corporate interests focused on the "bottom line" will improve people’s lives or improve productivity at the expense of investment in PEOPLE, PLANET and PROSPERITY? This gift to the corporations is simply a shell game to hide their greed and cloud our vision. Move the shell again, we got a glimpse of where the pea is hidden. You remember the mammoth American companies like Bethlehem Steel and others that used to have high paying manufacturing and engineering jobs for folks here at home? - Well, they don't exist anymore or at the very least are on life support. Most of these companies have a DNR order faxed in from their Bermuda, BVI or Cayman Headquarters.

These high skilled and high wage jobs are "outsourced" to the Maquiladoras dotted along the southern US border just far enough inside Mexico to avoid US Law. These factories are usually run by the US Company in concert with a Mexican contract partner that actually manages the factory. This way the US Company can feign ignorance when their "partner" beats an employee or violates a minor safety protocol that kills or injures a worker. Some of these partners are brutal or even criminal in the way they treat their employees, the environmental negligence that is creating "a virtual cesspool and breeding ground for infectious disease" that lines our national border to the south and an society rife with corruption, influence peddling, intimidation and yes, even murder.

Let's look at their second objective - to reduce the cost of trade through the "Efficient movement of goods and people". I doubt anyone would deny that the US/Mexico border already is anything less than extremely efficient at moving people and goods, especially when it comes to traffic in illegal aliens, drugs, fake gucci's or other contraband. Now the US Government is quietly implementing "six FAST/Express lanes at the US-Mexico border, a new lane in Nogales, and (they) are working on a project for a lane in Matamoros" to move these people and products faster into the USA without any serious regard for national security, legality or social morality. While the working people of our country are clamoring for the government to put up a fence and patrol the border to protect our national soverignty, our government is going behind our back and putting in a super highway as wide as two football fields from Mexico to Canada to expedite the invasion.

And for the final objective of the program - this is laughable - to "Enhance the quality of life". If working at W__Mart for minimum wage, 31.5 hours per week without paid benefits, buying cheap, foreign made consumer goods is your idea of an enhanced life - brother, you got your dream come true! Always at a low price and high cost - Siempre! The focus of this program is to provide quick access to the US market for cheap labor imports that compete directly with goods made in this country and to make it easier for the US to rationalize illegal immigration through the "strengthening (of) the integrity and security of asylum and refugee status" from Mexico ... or maybe they were talking about the refugees from Canada?

Which reminds me - Even when we get done with a very menial examination of our Mexican partner, we haven't even looked at our rock solid ally to the north - Canada. Canadian government policy is directly responsible for lax immigration that allowed Ahmed Ressam to come to our shores to try to blow up LAX in 2000 and many other breeding grounds for terror. Canada is the preferred destination of those wanting to set up a terror cell. For an interesting read about these policies and effects within our neighbor to the north, a country that exports more than just Celine Dion, Hockey and Maple Syrup, read this report from the investigation arm of Congress. And please, please don’t let us forget the Language police, Merci.

This SPP program is bad for business, bad for Americans, bad for our national identity, bad for our national security and bad policy for BOTH of our neighbors - except the VERY wealthy and of course the politicians that have again divided us and solidified their voting block for the next National Election. But hey, we junkies did just get a new syringe.