I just came across a very interesting article from the right-wing “Human Events Online”. If you needed more evidence that a lot of right-wingers were pushing themselves far from Bush, look no further.
This piece is a spectacular piece of paranoia focussed around Bush’s supposed desire to dissolve the United States and merge with Canada and Mexico into the “North American Union”.
Just more evidence of people working themselves into a tizzy over the “problem” of immigration…
Please share widely!
that the author of this article is Jerome Corsi, one of the leaders of the Swift Boat liars? He’s a genuine nutcase.
I have actually thought something like that would be a really good idea, if a real NAFTA was created, where citizens of all three countries had equal rights to reside and work in all three countries as they do in the European Union, and then Homeland Security was treated by all three as if it was one country, to unify the protections. Obviously not a union to replace the sovereign nations, but a close to similar relationship exists with Canada (especially in regards to security) and inviting Mexico into the fold would create one less giant border. And pretty much solves all the problems of Mexican illegal immigration (which is the dominant form that is complained about due to the long open border).
Perhaps someone with a more extensive educational background than myself can put a name on it, but there is a theory for this in international relations. I know it makes the folks over at “Human Events Online” sound clip and clean crazy– and they probably are for believing it in this case– but the idea is not so far-fetched.
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Essentially some IR theorists posit that the first step in establishing a unified political community is an economic-centered IGO. A good example of this is the European Coal and Steel Community, the forefunner to the EU. The argument goes that these organizations build up political capital through their ability to apply expertise to a tightly focused issue area. In the European case, it was the very wonkish context of policies regarding tariffs, subsidies and other issues surrounding coal and steel. In other words, not the sort of issues that the average Joe gets worked up over in the abstract. However, the organizations also form bonds between important political actors and bureaucrats, as well as epistemic communties (really smart people). Eventually these tightly focused groups become more generally oriented, a good example being the European Economic Community. The final step of course would be some kind of political union, and the surrender of some degree of sovereignty.
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It makes some amount of sense then to suggest that as the direction we are headed in. Of course, the political realities of the situation make it absurd. And there are plenty of examples of IGOs that don’t lead to unity of any kind.
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As a side note, I hate Human Events Online simply because its editor, who I am pretty sure is Terry Jeffrie, regularly appears on “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer”. I consider this show to be the worst thing on CNN, mainly because everyone awkwardly stand around this high table, because apparently they are men and women of action ready to handle the situation. Foolish.
The problem with the idea that we need to create an EU here is that the EU was formed to more efficiently deal with the United States..in other words, we /already have/ a unified political community made up of 50 states. There is no way in hell that the U.S. would “surrender some degree of sovereignty” (!!) in order to tack on Mexico and Canada. Hell, right now they’re scrambling to build a wall to keep Mexico out! I understand why conspiracy theories of every sort are inspired the Bush administration and its penchant for secrecy and bizarre constitutional interpretations to justify over-the-top power grabs, but this one is for the birds.
I agree with what you have to say, I just don’t think you read what I wrote. Maybe you were just responding generally, but I don’t anywhere state “that we need to create an EU here.” I do not think that the US would “surrender some degree of sovereignty.” Maybe I wasn’t clear in my initial post: European countries surrendered sovereignty for assistance in very specific areas, in part as you say to counterbalance the US. I also state that the political realities of the situation make it absurd to suggest that this is anywhere near happening. All I was stating was that theoretically, there is some logic in the argument. I think my post makes that pretty clear.
I know you weren’t promoting the idea, and yes I was responding generally to the wackiness of the story. The idea seems to be that this is something that Bush is secretly putting into effect, which is nuts. Whatever is theoretically logical in allowing free flow of people and economic activity between Canada, Mexico and the US is not at all likely to happen anytime soon.
It is certainly just a red herring that they’re using to get people excited. I think it is interesting because it shows the fissures in the GOP. There are still plenty of small-government libertarians who aren’t comfortable with the neo-Wilsonian stuff. That said, I don’t think that the Pres. et al. are pursuing anything anywhere near this.
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Apologies if I sounded nasty, I was tired.