In The Progressive Populist ( www.populist.com ) April 15, 2008 edition, I noticed the following ad from www.thealliancefordemocracy.org, phone: (781) 894-1179. “Join Alliance for Democracy members in saying NO to the Corporate Coup d’Etat, Exposing the Security and Prosperity Partnership for what it is….the Stealth, Profit, and Power Corporate Take-Over of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.” “Show some defiance….Join the Alliance.”

Located at P.O. Box 540115, Waltham, MA 02454, the Alliance for Democracy ad piqued my curiosity, given that I had contributed several articles to CommonSense2 using the term “corporate takeover of America.” Additionally, the April 1 Progressive Populist, p. 10, featured Ruth Caplan and Nancy Price’s superb article on the SPP, ‘Security and Prosperity Partnership’ subtitled, “The Stealth, Profit and Power Corporate Take-Over,” and their subsequent article, “What the Corporate Takeover Means for America’s Heartland,” in the May 1 TPP edition, p.10. (Note: not all Progressive Populist articles are on-line. I get my copy by U.S. mail.) Caplan and Price are associated with the Alliance.

Caplan and Price write that “SPP is a stealth agreement finalized without approval of the US Congress, the Canadian Parliament or the Mexican Congress. Rather, it was agreed to by President Bush, former President Fox of Mexico, and former Prime Minister Martin of Canada with only a handshake in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005.”

Now, do we suppose Bush and these leaders were so clever as to devise this plan themselves–especially Bush? Or were corporations behind the scenes? Rhetorical, I know. And is this a further expansion of fascism as noted in previous CS2 columns? Who runs this “government” anyway? Certainly not the people, as implied by the word “democracy” and specified by the U.S. Constitution!

SPP, sometimes called NAFTA-Plus, is likely everything it has been rumored to be. Yes, it involves superhighways from Canada, through the U.S. to Mexico, according to Caplan and Price. Does it involve a “North American Army” and North American Union like the European Union? How about spy planes and surveillance? How about loss of our democracy and our sovereignty–all replaced by corporate dominion over our lives- making a mockery of democracy and elections and local control? Yes to all these!

Naomi Klein wrote in the September 10 issue of the The Nation an article titled “Big Brother Democracy” stating that SPP was a “merger of the North American Free Trade Agreement with the homeland security complex–NAFTA with spy planes,” according to Caplan and Price.

Of course, all of this constitutes the new face of the corporate-inspired military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned against. The corporate takeover has now advanced to another level, and the American Empire builders are on their way to their vision of supra-national corporate one-worldism. Funny thing, the right-wingers thought the UN was going to take over the world and create one government! We can now be sure progressives were correct all along when they said making the world safe for “democracy”(Wilson) and spreading “democracy” (Bush) was cover for what was really going on.

American policy makers define terms by their exact opposites in meaning. As with Orwell, “democracy” means fascism, wherein multi-national corporations, not governments, run the world. Governments and nations are simply the front for the corporate enterprise. Making the world safe for democracy meant making the world safe for corporate interests–corporatization and privatization at the point of a gun, our guns and our soldiers doing the dirty work and all paid for by our tax dollars– a nifty racket as General Smedley Butler observed decades ago!

And, “security” is the fear-laden buzzword that sells the TAKEOVER to the people. Now we fully understand that Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC, had it right back in the 1930s when he said, as a military man, he was a gangster for capitalism who helped make the world safe for United Fruit and other corporations.

What can you do, besides joining the Alliance for Democracy? Email this article to friends, news media, and legislators. Talk about the corporate takeover. Learn more about corporate “personhood” and how this flawed concept passed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1886(Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad) has created corporate “super-persons”, non-living entities which now dominate our political system and operate with impunity above and beyond any political system, as in the secret SPP deal.

For more on the corporate takeover of our lives, communities, and nation see: The Hidden History of Corporations at www.ReclaimDemocracy.org. Educated citizens are one way of defeating ignorance and passivity, which the corporate takeover artists depend on to do their deals.

www.thealliancefordemocracy.org,

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