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February/March 2007 Trans Texas Corridor
The Governor of Texas has claimed that the Trans Texas Corridor project(s)1 will be the answer to all of the Lone Star State’s transportation problems.
Closer examination of this project reveals what many feel is a much larger concern. On the surface the project looks to be all sweetness and light; new, highspeed roads to alleviate congested commuter traffic, nonstop commercial truck lanes and high speed rail. Best of all, it’s paid for by others, but, as a wise man once said, the devil is in the details. This is not your everyday political pork project, even by Texas standards. The overall plan will involve the confiscation of approx 584,000 acres of privately owned Texas agricultural and rural land. Estimates of over a million displaced persons could be possible by the build out of the project. Let’s set aside what that will mean to the overall state agricultural economy and look at the price of the project. The cost is staggering. According to the Executive Summary the costs will be as follows:
THE PROBLEM Limited access highways may be good for long range freight traffic, but will end up being a financial disaster for local farms, ranches and businesses. Bisected farms will make already cash strapped agricultural enterprises almost impossible to manage, let alone turn a profit. Hometown businesses dependent on the trade from these interstate roadways will be cut off from the increased traffic flow and slowly disappear due to lack of business. In contrast, the vendors which will serve those traveling the corridor will be approved and licensed by a foreign corporation. The hotels, gas stations, restaurants and other services will all be built within the corridor right of way, and all subject to contract agreements with the leaseholder (Cintra). The state of Texas will hold title to the land and as such may be exempt from taxation. Guess who gets the privilege of picking up the tab? Another issue will be one of providing emergency services on this limited access “corridor.” Local jurisdictions will be required to provide those services … the local taxpayers get to foot that bill too! THE DEAL Even more astounding is the way in which contracts were assigned to the Spanish corporation Cintra Concesiones de Infraestrusturas 3 and their Texas partner Zachry Construction 4. Negotiations were conducted behind closed doors and not subject to normal bid procedures. Cintra will be granted a lease contract with TXDoT for a term of 50 years, and in return will design, build and administer the corridor and give to TXDoT $1.2 billion to use as they see fit. This consortium will purportedly recoup its investment through the levying of tolls and lease of service facilities. The lessee, Cintra, would determine the toll structure, not your elected officials. Their price guidelines will be whatever the market will bear. In simple terms, we are selling the infrastructure of our economy and our internal supply and defense system for a few pieces of silver. What the long term ramifications will be are anyone’s guess. The I-35 section of this super highway corridor begins at the Mexican border cutting the state in two and ending at the Oklahoma border. A number of different routings have been proposed. The right of way would be more than a quarter mile wide and include 10 traffic lanes, two commuter rail lines, two freight rail lines and two high speed passenger rail lines as well as a 200 ft. wide utility corridor for water, oil, gas, communications, data and electricity; all of which will be under the control of a foreign corporation for the next half century. Roads through the state of Texas would normally be considered a local issue; decided on, paid for and of benefit to its citizens and of no concern to outsiders save those who want to drive through the state. This project, however, is anything but normal. The TTC is but a small section of what has been dubbed the North American Super Corridor, some call it the NAFTA Superhighway. This corridor begins in two western Mexico port cities passing through Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri on north through to Winnipeg, Canada. Many varied businesses, federal and state governments and non-profit organizations have joined to ramrod this proposal from border to border. The amount of money is huge, and the stakes for the United States are even higher. The TTC in Texas is the linchpin to the overall goal to link the US, Mexico and Canada through the NAFTA Superhighway. Taking the TTC in a broader context reveals the scope of the plan as well as the pivotal role that this Texas section holds. Without the complicity and approval of the State of Texas, the project is doomed. The map tells all. The main beneficiary of this new silk road, or better put, tortilla road is of course China. The savings to retailers such as Walmart and other big box stores will be enormous. The costs of unloading in U.S. ports where the Longshoreman’s union protects wages and working conditions are considerably higher than the poverty level wages offered in Mexico. The same is true of the trucking and rail costs in Mexico. Mao and Santa Anna must be dancing till dawn. New information as we go to press indicates that a subsidiary of Macquarie Corp. of Australia, a sometime partner of Cintra, HW and COSCO 7 (the Chinese government’s Merchant Marine) and the parent company of MIG which has designs on bidding on other parts of the Texas corridor system), has purchased the U.S. newspaper publisher, American Consolidated Media Inc. ACM publishes 40 local newspapers which serve all or significant portions of nine regional communities in the states of Texas and Oklahoma. Most of these media outlets just happen to be along the TTC route. So much for any balanced dialog about the TTC. Coincidence, I don’t think so. CUSTOMS, WHAT CUSTOMS? The planned transportation and economic integration of the U.S., Canada and Mexico starts here. Ultimately, under plans created by the SPP (The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America) 8 working groups; these trucks and truckers, trains and engineers will not stop at the border. Customs checks will not be mandatory under some reports until the freight reaches Kansas City, MO. But, wait! Don’t we have an immigration problem, aren’t we building a wall, haven’t we sent National Guard troops to seal it off, what about terrorist infiltration…that’s right… no real hands on inspection or checkpoints from the ports of Communist China to the Midwest U.S. IT GETS WORSE Documentation obtained through FOIA requests shows that parts of the huge terminus in Kansas City, MO, otherwise known as the KC Smartport 9, will have to be designated sovereign Mexican soil 10 with the same sovereign protection that foreign embassies enjoy. Supporters attempt to justify this obvious concern by inferring that this will only be used for shipments to Mexico. At last count it seems the only major export to Mexico has been American jobs. What these plans create is an uninterrupted and unmonitored mainline for Chinese produced goods (built by the same slave labor that has decimated almost every sector of our manufacturing capability) which will be completely out of our control. Cargo will be brought to Mexico in Chinese ships, unloaded in Chinese controlled Mexican ports, loaded on to Mexican trucks and trains, monitored by electronic systems produced and managed by companies with Chinese controlling interests and conceivably stockpiled in Mexican warehouses with diplomatic protection in the middle of the United States. Drugs, weapons, terrorists and illegal immigrants can hardly be excluded as freight in this scenario. The Trojans and their wooden horse are no match for this Chinese operation! Our collective greed drives this monster, and the cost may well be our destruction. To paraphrase a quote by Lenin, “when the last Capitalist is gone we will have sold him the rope from which he hangs.” END GAME - THE DEATH OF SOVEREIGNTY The final insult comes at the hands of a publication authored in part by Robert Pastor: Building a North American Community 11. In case the name is not familiar, Robert Pastor 12 was the mastermind behind the giveaway of the Panama Canal. This treatise is the blueprint for The North American Union (NAU) and the SPP project (different names same bird), which would signal the destruction of America as we know it by merging the United States, Canada and Mexico into a single economic and political entity. Using the European Union as a template, and even creating a new currency, the Amero 13, Mr. Pastor envisions the final humiliation and assimilation of the once great United States of America. Once only considered a conspiracy theory, the NAU is dangerously close to reality, with timetables set for partial completion in this decade. With the SPP now in place, signed by the president (without congressional oversight or approval) and the implementation already under way through the Departments of State and Commerce, the train has left the station. Although the Trans Texas Corridor and the NAFTA Super Corridors 14 are not specifically mentioned in the plan, their existence makes it easier to implement the integration goals. By the de-facto opening of the border it makes it easier to pose the argument to eliminate it. By lessening the obstacles to financial transfers to “enable seamless trade” the argument to consolidate currency is more easily approached. The mere fact that the 20+ SPP working groups operations are not open to the public, nor has the work product of the groups ever been published, raises concerns. The denial by the White House and the reiteration of that claim on the SPP website, that no agreement has ever been signed, is countermanded by a published statement 15 by none other than the Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin after the “SPP creation summit” in Waco, TX on March 23, 2005. The Prime Minister states, “Thus on March 23, President Bush, President Fox and I signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America that establishes the way forward on our continental agenda…” When you compare the available SPP documents with Pastor’s publications and observations on the NAU, the similarities are obvious. These scenarios are assumptions using the information available as the real detailed plans have yet to be made public. However, let’s not forget that if it looks like a skunk, walks like a skunk and smells like a skunk the chances are it is one. Follow the resource material here and on the web and arrive at your own conclusions. At any rate the smell is pretty bad and it’s getting stronger every day. |
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