[twilight zone] america in chartered territory

["Chartered" is not a mistake in the title.]

1. The U.S. economic downturn

Take your pick of sources on this issue and this is happening just as the the second factor below comes into play.

2. The SPPNA

From the SPP site:

"The SPP does not attempt to modify our sovereignty or currency or change the American system of government designed by our Founding Fathers […] The SPP is a White House-driven initiative."

It only regulates these areas:

a. defense

b. the judiciary

c. education

d. social security

e. opens the borders and creates access and egress via the state constructed NAFTA Superhighways

f. creates a free economic zone within NA shores

g is advised by the North American Advisory Council [CFR appointees - p53]

In real terms, NAFTA has had this effect already:

The big beneficiaries of NAFTA and the application of the neoliberal model have been the transnational companies in the U.S. and the sectors of the Mexican oligarchy whose wealth has increased substantially. The world’s second-richest man is no longer Warren Buffet of the U.S.; it is Carlos Slim of Mexico. The big losers have been the farmers and the working people, who have seen a substantial drop in their wages and standards of living.

... and ...

[T]here is an additional detail, not to be sneered at. As Alberto Arroyo, member of the Mexican Action Network Against Free Trade, said at the Sixth Hemispheric Conference Against the Free Trade Area of the Americas held in Havana in early May, [2007], the SPPNA’s objective is "to strengthen the military and security schemes to deal with the resistance of the people." The idea "is to try to create a close coordination (with plans concerted among the governments) to improve schemes of security that serve to confront social movements as if they were criminals."

As stated by them, nothing was signed by Bush, Martin and Fox on March 23rd, 2005 and yet this "advisory role" is set down to begin in March, 2009.

3. Barack Obama

Ross Fountain observes:

Obama has been lucky so far that his novelty as the first serious black candidate for the office of President of the United States has caused people to overlook just how wearisomely familiar his brand of faded radical chic mixed with elitism is.

Which is not to say Obama will get in - there's a long way to go and the McCain factor of course. One of the commenters at The Swamp wrote:

What Mark Silva won't tell Swamp readers: Republican John McCain is leading both Clinton II and Obama in the latest Gallup Poll. And the LA Times/Bloomberg Poll. And the Rasmussen Poll. Guess the Democrats at the Swamp only cite Gallup if the Gallup numbers look bad for Republicans.