Blog to discuss the book "The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation" and current events that point to the events described therein.
It would be easy and a bit cliche to listen to this speech and fall into the trap of limiting the warning to the current administration and the restriction of civil liberties due to the so-called war on terror. Rather, we must broaden the idea to encompass the complete corruption of both political parties, government institutions and public corporations. We are in perilous times. JFK saw it coming. Very it likely, it led to his demise.
U.S. State DepartmentWASHINGTON -- A largely unreported meeting held at the State Department discussed integration of the U.S., Mexico and Canada in concert with a move toward a transatlantic union, linking a North American community with the European Union.
The meeting was held Monday under the auspices of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, or ACIEP. WND obtained press credentials and attended as an observer. The meeting was held under "Chatham House" rules that prohibit reporters from attributing specific comments to individual participants.
The State Department website noted the meeting was opened by Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs Daniel S. Sullivan and ACIEP Chairman Michael Gadbaw, vice president and senior counsel for General Electric's International Law & Policy group since December 1990.
WND observed about 25 ACIEP members, including U.S. corporations involved in international trade, prominent U.S. business trade groups, law firms involved with international business law, international investment firms and other international trade consultants. No members of Congress attended the meeting.
The agenda for the ACIEP meeting was not published, and State Department officials in attendance could not give WND permission under Chatham House rules to publish the agenda. The meeting agenda included topics reviewing the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP, and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council, or TEC.
The SPP, declared by the U.S., Canada and Mexico at a summit meeting in 2005, has 20 trilateral bureaucratic working groups that seek to "integrate and harmonize" administrative rules and regulations on a continental basis.
Several participants said the premise of the SPP is to create a North American business platform to benefit North America-based multi-national companies the way the European Union benefits its own.
Others noted the premise of the TEC is to create a convergence of administrative rules and regulations between Europe and North America, anticipating the creation of a "Transatlantic Economic Union" between the European Union and North America.
Participants pointed out that transatlantic trade is currently 40 percent of all world trade. They argue that trade and non-trade barriers need to be further reduced to maintain that market share as a framework is put in place to advance transatlantic economic integration.
Still, some participants argued that many corporations in North America already have moved beyond a North American focus to adopt a global perspective that transcends even the Transatlantic market.
"Supply chains and markets are everywhere," one participant asserted. "What's to stop global corporations from going after the cheapest labor available globally, wherever they can find it, provided the cost of transporting goods globally can be managed economically?"
Other participants argued regional alliances were still important, if only to put in place the institutional bases that ultimately would lead to global governance on uniform global administrative regulations favorable to multi-national corporations.
"North America should be a premiere platform to establish continental institutions," a participant said. "That's why we need to move the security perimeters to include the whole continent, especially as we open the borders between North American countries for expanding free trade."
One presentation on the agenda identified four reasons why administrative rules and regulations need to be integrated by SPP in North America and by the Transatlantic Economic Council, bridging together European Union and North American markets:
Standardization - to keep prices low and productivity high;
Investment - for every $1 traded, $4 is invested; right now 75 percent of investment in the U.S. comes from the EU, and 52 percent of the investment in the EU comes from the U.S.;
Productivity Improvements - to lower production costs and stimulate trade; and
Open Borders - to facilitate the free movement of labor to markets where employment opportunities are available.
The discussion pointed out the SPP trilateral working groups and the Transatlantic Economic Council were being supported by top-level Cabinet officers and the heads of state in both the EU and in North America.
Progress in EU-U.S. regulatory integration was noted in financial market coordination, investment rule cohesion, trade security measures and efforts undertaken recently to preserve intellectual property rights.
Before the meeting began, concerns were raised informally by participants worried that the Ohio Democratic Party primary had prompted both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to talk of renegotiating NAFTA.
Participants at the State Department meeting pointed out U.S. political candidates could be expected to argue "protectionist themes opposed to global economic integration" as a tactic, without necessarily being committed to taking aggressive steps once in office.
"The political dialogue misses the point of economic reality," one participant argued. "There is a J-curve correlation between when a currency like the U.S. dollar depreciates and when exports kick in to increase. We should accelerate the J-curve and our discussion about it, to help the local politics catch up with the international reality."
Part of the discussion was devoted to concerns that national regulators in North America and Europe were too reluctant to abandon provincial regulatory advantages.
"Regulators by nature are advocates, and they are hard to move," one participant grumbled. "What we need is more diplomats and negotiators to identify solutions, otherwise the bureaucrats will bog down the progress we need to see coming out of the SPP and TEC."
"North America is already an integrated continental economy and a continental-wide business platform," another said. "What we need now is more regulatory convergence. 'Harmonized' should mean that once approved, the same set of administrative regulations and procedures ought to be ready throughout NAFTA, SPP and the TEC."
As WND previously reported, the Transatlantic Economic Council, or TEC, was created by President Bush at an April 30 summit meeting at the White House with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the current president of the European Council, and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
WND also reported the Transatlantic Policy Network, a non-governmental organization headquartered in Washington and Brussels and advised by a bi-partisan congressional policy group chaired by Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, has called for the creation of a Transatlantic Common Market between the U.S. and the European Union by 2015.
ACIEP members include corporate officers from General Electric, Exxon Mobil, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Archer Daniels Midland, United Parcel Service, Citibank, Proctor & Gamble, Hunt Oil, CMS Energy, Boeing, 3M, Goldman Sachs and Cargill.
Note: As I said, i never held much stock in "one-world order" conspiracy theories but it does seem things are headed that way. Look how easily the British folk have lost their historic national sovereignty via a small group of EU enthusiasts. If it can happen there...
UK to Hand Sovereignty to EU without Referendum
"One thousand years of British history have been extinguished without a shot being fired." By Hilary White
LONDON, March 6, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Britain's MPs voted yesterday to deny the public a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Union's substitute for the Constitution that failed in 2005 after being defeated by Dutch and French plebiscites. The House of Commons vote, 311 to 248 - a majority of 63 - defeated a Conservative amendment that would have allowed the British public a say in whether the treaty would come into effect in the country. Commentators and activists fighting the issue have called the vote yesterday in the House of Commons the effective end of British sovereignty.
The Conservative opposition are planning to reintroduce their amendment in the House of Lords later this year. The Lords, however, have little power to defeat legislation.
The vote followed closely on the heels of ten local "mini-polls" held last week in Labour and Liberal Democrat constituencies that resulted in 88 per cent support for a referendum. In the 2005 election all three major parties promised a referendum on any attempt to revive the defeated Euro-Constitution.
The Lisbon Treaty will see the creation of a permanent EU president, foreign minister and diplomatic service that are not subject to scrutiny by Parliament or accountable to the electorate, and surrenders nearly 50 national vetoes to Brussels. The new EU president will be a full-time Brussels official, serving a two-and-half-year term and will be chosen by Europe's leaders. A Brussels-appointed foreign minister will be able to make foreign policy, binding upon member states, without a full British national veto.
Critics charge that the Treaty, signed by Gordon Brown last year, will restrict Britain's ability to police its borders, control immigration, fight crime and domestic terrorism, reject EU regulations on employment law and energy policy, and leave it dependent upon an outside power in foreign policy decisions. The Treaty is to come into force January 1, 2009, in time for the 2009 European elections later that year.
The Daily Telegraph, the paper that led the charge for a referendum, called the vote "a singularly squalid example of bullying and gerrymandering that has left even hardened participants in the Commons open-mouthed at government cynicism".
Iain Martin wrote, "When the entire story is told by historians, future generations will be surprised that the Euro-fanatics who plotted to sell out British sovereignty and democracy avoided being sent to the Tower for treason."
Melanie Philips, a columnist for the Daily Mail and the author of "Londonistan", wrote that the process of the Treaty through the House of Lords is a mere formality. She wrote, "At a stroke, much of what remains of the UK's power of self-government will now be negated and the rest will surely follow in due course."
When the Treaty of Lisbon surfaced as a political issue last year, Tony Blair's successor, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, refused to allow a plebiscite, claiming that the Treaty was "substantially different" from the defeated Constitution. He made assurances that British sovereignty in key areas such as criminal law enforcement and anti-terror measures were protected. His assurances were widely rejected and have become the focus of widespread discontent with Labour's policies and the increasing power of Brussels.
The Treaty's authors and some of its European political supporters have admitted that the document is little changed from that rejected in 2005. Only ten of its 250 proposals are different from the original Constitution and the Treaty's critics say those ten are of little consequence. The author of the Constitution, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, said, "All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way."
The Spanish Prime Minister Jose Zapatero admitted, "We have not let a single substantial point of the Constitutional Treaty go." German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, "The substance of the Constitution is preserved. That is a fact."
Melanie Philips wrote, "One thousand years of British history have been extinguished without a shot being fired." She says that the only possible recourse now is to remove Britain entirely from the European Union: "There is not one good reason why it is in Britain's interests to continue to stay in. We should come out in order to save British democracy. End of story."
John Redwood, MP for Wokingham, a senior Tory and political theorist, wrote that the vote had emboldened the Labour government to push forward with universal ID cards, a scheme that has been promoted as a means of combating terrorism, but that many outside the Labour party have condemned as a step further towards a police state in which innocent citizens are closely monitored by the state. Redwood wrote, "Everywhere we hear the smack of autocracy, as an out of touch government continues its battle against the British people and their liberties...The visceral hatred of democracy and liberty emanating from the government is now nauseating."
