An article by Robert Pastor in the July-August 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs may well signal the next steps toward regional integration. In “The Future of North America — Replacing a Bad Neighbor Policy” Pastor purportedly offers advice to the new president who will take office in January. But such articles in the CFR’s Foreign Affairs are often policy leads rather than suggestions. We should keep in mind that CFR members have staffed key positions in both Democratic and Republican administrations for decades.
The summary for Pastor’s article states: “It’s time to integrate further with Canada and Mexico, not separate from them.” So it is difficult to understand how pro-sovereignty advocate Jerome Corsi could allow his very neutral review of Pastor’s article for World Net Daily to be titled: “North American Union: The dream ‘is dead.’” Pastor merely suggested that President Bush’s attempted incarnation of that dream — the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) — would likely be cast aside by the next administration.
There is simply no basis for suggesting that CFR elitists have altered their successfully deceptive strategy of building world government through the creation of supranational regional blocs. These regional blocs are designed to steadily subvert national sovereignty and be easily subordinated to a world government. If a new political thrust with the next administration is the best way to overcome mounting resistance to earlier steps in that direction, it is a mistake to interpret that change as a change in either the objective or the strategy. Let us learn from the long and continuing development of the European Union. While resistance to the deceptive intermediate steps in that development has risen from time-to-time, the internationalists continue to overcome the resistance by disguising the real intent of their power grab (e.g., with promises of increased prosperity).
Responding to the criticism of NAFTA, Pastor argues that it’s time to go beyond NAFTA bashing: “The new president must address the full gamut of North American issues not covered by NAFTA, as well as governance issues arising from the successful enlargement of the market.”
But Pastor is not offering a new vision, merely new finesse for a long-standing objective. NAFTA’s architects have always viewed that agreement as merely a steppingstone toward further integration. For decades the internationalists have talked in terms of “broadening and deepening” the NAFTA agreement. “Broadening” meant an increase in the number of participating countries while “deepening” referred to an expansion in the areas of federal, state, and personal activity in which a regional authority would claim a compelling regulatory interest.
When Congress approved NAFTA in 1993, the agreement represented a milestone for the internationalists. NAFTA established the precedent that areas of U.S. legislation could be subordinated to unelected regional authorities unaccountable to the people of these United States, in violation of our Constitution. The internationalists are not likely to retreat from that milestone, unless compelled by an informed and organized public to do so.
Pastor denies that a 2005 CFR task force, which he co-chaired, had proposed a North American Union, only a North American Community of sovereign nations working more closely together.
But this is typical world-government doublespeak. Pastor advocates steps clearly leading in the direction of political union as is happening in Europe. The internationalists are not stupid. They know that they cannot implement their schemes without disguising their intent. An open admission of the globalist contempt for public opinion and the constraints of the U.S. Constitution can be found in the 2002 “Special Davos [International] Edition” of Newsweek. In “Death of a Founding Myth,” CFR heavyeight Michael Hirsh wrote:
“[T]he internationalists were always hard at work in quiet places making plans for a more perfect global community. In the end the internationalists have always dominated national policy. Even so, they haven’t bragged about their globe-building for fear of reawakening the other half of the American psyche, our berserker nativism. And so they have always done it in the most out-of-the-way places and with little ado.”
And so the internationalists often publicly deny, for example, that they are advocating world government, only world governance. Prominent internationalists, such as Zbigniev Brzezinski and Strobe Talbot, would nevertheless attack the concept of national sovereignty as a relic of the past.
Pastor calls for North America’s leaders to “deepen economic integration by negotiating a customs union.” And “[t]o educate a new generation of students to think North American,” Pastor advocates that “each country should begin by supporting a dozen centers for North American studies.”
Not surprisingly, Pastor’s entire essay reflects the collectivist attitude that progress must be driven by government (e.g., government must provide a safety net for those groups hurt in the short-term by “progressive” government policies). Understood, but not stated explicitly, is that international elites must develop and direct these progressive policies.
Reflecting the Insider mindset, Pastor brazenly boasts: “The genius of the Marshall Plan was that the United States used its leverage not for short-term gain but to encourage Europe to unite.” Of course, neither Congress nor the American public, let alone the people of Europe, were told that a united Europe was the object of the U.S. post-war aid.
While holding genuine public opinion in contempt, the internationalists love to claim that public opinion is on their side and that they are driven by that opinion. In that way they hope to undermine public resistance to their schemes. And to that end they cynically manipulate and misrepresent public opinion. Currently, they regularly imply that the Left’s propaganda of concern for the environment and labor standards stems from the people.
Following that pattern, Pastor refers to public opinion surveys in support of his recommendations: “Thirty-eight percent of the people in all three countries identify themselves as ‘North American’ and a majority of these publics would even be in favor of some form of unification if they thought it would improve their standard of living without harming the environment or diminishing their national identities…. A majority of the publics in all three countries would prefer ‘integrated North American policies’ rather than independent national policies on the environment and border security…. ” Really?
Pastor also tells his readers: “One [voice] is the strident and angry voice…. Another voice represents those who welcome integration and are willing to experiment with new forms of partnership. Public opinion surveys suggest that the latter voice represent the majority, even if few leaders speak for them today.”
Pastor’s Track Record
In judging Pastor’s latest essay it is helpful to recall his earlier essay in the January/February 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs entitled “North America’s Second Decade.” Pastor argued that our security fears born of the 9-11 attacks should “serve as a catalyst for deeper integration. That would require new structures to assure mutual security, promote trade, and bring Mexico closer to the First World economies of its neighbors.”
In that earlier essay, Pastor even suggested that “the Department of Homeland Security should expand its mission to include continental security — a shift best achieved by incorporating Mexican and Canadian perspectives and personnel into its design and operation.” [Emphasis added.] Imagine including security personnel from the corrupt Mexican regime that historically has so admired Fidel Castro!
As President Carter’s National Security Advisor on Latin America, Pastor reportedly said to President Daniel Oduber of Costa Rica, “When are we going to get that son of a b**** to the north out of the presidency?” Pastor was referring to pro-Western Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza, soon to be replaced by the Sandinista Communists, creating a new security problem in the hemisphere. And prior to his post at the White House, Pastor (Robert McNamara’s son-in-law) had been a member of a working group on Latin America organized by exposed K.G.B. agent Orlando Letelier. So we should be slow to accept Pastor’s leadership regarding national security.
Pastor’s latest essay argues for moving beyond NAFTA rather than renegotiating it: “The alternative approach needs to start with a vision of a North American Community and some institutions — quite different from Europe’s — designed to pursue a bold agenda that includes a customs union, a North American commission, a North American investment fund, and a common team of customs and border guards to man the borders and the continental perimeter.”
Pastor supports Obama’s call for greater participation of “civil society” in the process of preparing plans for the North American continent. Pastor says such participation is needed to address issues such as health, environment, energy, and labor standards.
But the vocal NGOs among so-called “civil society” are funded by and serve the Establishment while providing a useful but phony illusion of an independent popular voice. Many of the issues Pastor claims are on everyone’s mind, such as the environment, are invented “topics of concern” depending wholly on Insider-orchestrated propaganda campaigns. So-called “civil society” can be counted on to feed back (i.e., supply pressure from below) exactly what the Insiders have programmed their “representatives” and the major media to say.
The Insiders continuously pursue this tactic of revolutionary parliamentarianism in response to problems that they have created or exacerbated: Unnoticed, they instigate pressure from below for collectivist solutions to those problems, and then they argue that we must respond to that pressure. In short, what we have here is a big scam.
To overcome that scam, America desperately needs the leadership of an organization with the proper focus, such as Freedom First Society.