CE Week #15: “Highway To Hell?”
Ron Paul’s worked up about U.S. sovereignty.
By Gretel C. Kovach
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 3:37 PM ET Dec 1, 2007
Ron Paul wants you to be scared. There’s a conspiracy in the land—what he calls a “conspiracy of ideas”—to give up America’s sovereignty. It’s a shadowy scheme that begins with the NAFTA “superhighway,” a road as wide as several football fields that will link Mexico, the United States and Canada. “They don’t talk about it and they might not admit it,” Paul said at the CNN-YouTube presidential debate last week. He didn’t say exactly who “they” are, but perhaps one can guess. “They’re planning on [taking] millions of acres … by eminent domain,” warned the prickly libertarian. But elected government officials aren’t acting alone. There’s “an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments” pushing the idea, Paul wrote in October 2006. “The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated North American Union—complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union.”
Only it’s not true. The main purveyor of this broad conspiracy theory is Jerome Corsi, coauthor of “Unfit for Command,” the book that helped Swift Boat John Kerry’s presidential ambitions. His latest offering is “The Late Great U.S.A.: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada,” which became a best seller on The New York Times’s business list this summer. Corsi plays on growing nationalist fears. He sees a scenario in which a North American Union is born and shares a currency, the “amero.” Even some right-wing standard-bearers regard the fears as over-blown. Jed Babbin, editor of the conservative newspaper Human Events, says: “I guess there are people who believe in [the plan for a North American Union]. But there are people who believe in Bigfoot.” “The evidence is out there,” says Corsi.
Like all good conspiracies, the NAFTA superhighway is a strange stew of fact and fiction, fired by paranoia. There is a big road planned. It’s called the Trans-Texas Corridor. The idea was unveiled in 2002 by GOP Gov. Rick Perry. And it’s true the corridor was originally designed to be 1,200 feet wide, including a highway for vehicles, railway lines, petroleum pipes, electricity and water lines and broadband fiber optics. (It’s since been scaled back slightly.) A considerable swath of Texas land, perhaps as much as a half-million acres, will be taken by eminent domain.
It’s also true that more than one organization wants to improve commerce between North American countries. The “unholy alliance” Paul speaks of is the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). It was launched in 2005 by the heads of state of the United States, Mexico and Canada. Part of the SPP mandate is to increase security cooperation against terror threats. It also aims to improve trade. But much of the home page of the SPP Web site is devoted to “Myth vs. Fact.” It dispels tales about a “secret plan” to build a superhighway.
Texas officials are still trying to convince locals their $180 billion idea was not hatched to undermine American sovereignty. Controversy stalled the project for several years, but now construction could begin in 2009. Perry has had to explain repeatedly that no federal funds will be used to build the project, and that Texas turned to private firms to finance the road because they could build it quickly without taxpayer money. (The contractor, Cintra-Zachry, is a Spanish-Texan consortium that expects to earn a profit by collecting tolls. Critics, even those who don’t see a conspiracy, say the state is mortgaging its infrastructure to foreign investors.) Texas Transportation Commissioner Ric Williamson says he’s startled by superhighway fears. He tells NEWSWEEK he had never heard of a North American Union until people started badgering him about it. “They say, ‘Is this part of the NAU and the amero?’ … And I say, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ ”
National politicians are facing similar questions. According to press reports, campaign aides have said that anxieties about the supposed scheme are the second most popular topic Mitt Romney is asked about in New Hampshire. Rudy Giuliani, whose law firm represents Cintra, has also taken questions about it. Ordinary people may be taking the conspiracy seriously because mainstream news organizations—and countless blogs—have. CNN newscaster Lou Dobbs, a trade protectionist, has featured the superhighway on his show as if it were a fact.
Corsi is only too happy to stir things up. When the Eagle Forum, a conservative association, presented him with an award in September for “courage and leadership in protecting America’s sovereignty,” Corsi offered a warning: President Bush’s supposed determination to force North American integration, he told the audience, could cost the GOP the 2008 presidential election. Corsi may have a conspiratorial bent. But he sure knows how to spin stories that shake up an election—and at least one candidate seems happy to help him.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/73372
As a side note to the cost and size of the Texas (not national) superhighway, has there been any response from environmentalists on the issue?
Also, will alternate routes to the freeway still exist or will roads be filtered into it? I may not live in Texas anymore, but it still seems a bit asinine to have a toll road and no alternate routes. Not that the article implied this would be the case, I’m just wondering.
But on the subject of the conspiracy, mostly sparked by the internet it seems (Does anyone else find it ironic that one of Ron Paul’s greatest concerns was snowballed by the internet, as was his success in the polls?), this is a prime example of how easy it is to get misinformation in the information age. I don’t agree with government censorship but when people are getting the wrong ideas on important things like this it’s really quite frightening. It seems like we’re entering an age in which the blogger, perhaps because he is the common man, is more trusted than the newscaster. Granted, even the newscaster provides us with what they want us to know (or what their company wants us to know) but at least there is some level of reliability there. It perplexes me that people would read something like that and not have some question in their mind about its truth.
In response to Frances’ question, I Googled the NAFTA superhighway plus environmentalism, because it was the first thought that came to my mind when I read this article. There is very little government information online regarding the environmental impact this superhighway could have, although supposedly a 4000-page EIS (environmental impact statement) has been drafted. However, a variety of pro-environment organizations (including, hilariously, the Alliance for a Paving Moratorium) have been conjecturing for a while. Their statements are the norm for any industrial project: millions of farm and forest acres destroyed, vital wetlands paved over, wildlife rerouted, increased air and water pollution, rise in wildlife and human casualties, an increased dependency on oil, etc. Two things caught my eye. First, when you Google the NAFTA superhighway, you have no idea how many conspiracy websites pop up! I agree with you Frances; it will be interesting to see the impact of blogging in the future. Second, what I found most interesting was the catastrophic economic impact this project could potentially have. While the superhighway is supposed to benefit trade (obviously; that’s why it’s NAFTA’s brain-child) the impact it will have on communities situated near the highway is terrible. Has anyone driven through George, Washington recently? It’s absolutely barren. The community has almost completely dried up. The reason why so many rural farm communities are dying is due to corporate and industrial expansion. Now, imagine hundreds of George, Washingtons spread across the heartland of America. The NAFTA superhighway has the potential to reroute local economies to narrow strips along the highway. Many farm communities will no longer be able to attract economic prosperity and will slowly shrivel up and die. The North American Union may be something to laugh at, but this certainly isn’t. Forget about the environmental impact; the economic displacement this highway could cause is the real tragedy.
I don’t know whether I am behind the curve here, but I had never heard of the “superhighway” or any mention of it until I read this article. I googled it, as did Amanda, and the amount of conspiracy websites that come up really is interesting. In one article, I found this insertion to be rather “illuminating” about the whole situation: “This will require coordinated federal and state eminent domain actions on an unprecedented scale, as literally millions of people and businesses could be displaced. The loss of whole communities is almost certain, as planners cannot wind the highway around every quaint town, historic building, or senior citizen apartment for thousands of miles.” — Really makes you smile inside, don’t it? NOT! As Amanda mentioned before, there isn’t a whole lot of talk about environmental repercussions, however, the details about economic impact and the displacement of entire communities is shocking! And to address Frances’s question regarding alternate routes, “This superhighway would connect Mexico, the United States, and Canada, cutting a wide swath through the middle of Texas and up through Kansas City. Offshoots would connect the main artery to the west coast, Florida, and northeast.”
Also, on many websites, it mentions the issue of sovereignty. The NASCO website provides an informative “fact vs. myth” document, and it answers any key question, mostly destroying all claims that it is a secret plan or that the a North American Union is in sight. However, who is to say that this information really is the truth? Maybe the Superhighway will be yet another U.S. government secret destined to be thrown into our giant “conspiracy vault,” right along with Roswell and the JFK assassination.