notes from the underground

Hi folks, sarah and I are both hiding underground now. Please vote for us and we will pop up like groundhogs for the inauguration.

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William/Wm Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn, terrorists-turned college professors. That's some education, ya think?

Do your research, people. All kinds of stuff is out there without political endorsements.

President Bush is pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada. This was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration's true open borders policy.

Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada.

President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the President is quietly forming, much as the European Union has formed.

The blueprint President Bush is following was laid out in a 2005 report entitled "Building a North American Community" published by the left-of-center Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR report connects the dots between the Bush administration's actual policy on illegal immigration and the drive to create the North American Union:

At their meeting in Waco, Texas, at the end of March 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin committed their governments to a path of cooperation and joint action. We welcome this important development and offer this report to add urgency and specific recommendations to strengthen their efforts.

What is the plan? Simple, erase the borders. The plan is contained in a "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" little noticed when President Bush and President Fox created it in March 2005:

In March 2005, the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States adopted a Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), establishing ministerial-level working groups to address key security and economic issues facing North America and setting a short deadline for reporting progress back to their governments. President Bush described the significance of the SPP as putting forward a common commitment "to markets and democracy, freedom and trade, and mutual prosperity and security." The policy framework articulated by the three leaders is a significant commitment that will benefit from broad discussion and advice. The Task Force is pleased to provide specific advice on how the partnership can be pursued and realized.

To that end, the Task Force proposes the creation by 2010 of a North American community to enhance security, prosperity, and opportunity. We propose a community based on the principle affirmed in the March 2005 Joint Statement of the three leaders that "our security and prosperity are mutually dependent and complementary." Its boundaries will be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter within which the movement of people, products, and capital will be legal, orderly and safe. Its goal will be to guarantee a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America.

The perspective of the CFR report allows us to see President Bush's speech to the nation as nothing more than public relations posturing and window dressing. No wonder President Vincente Fox called President Bush in a panic after the speech. How could the President go back on his word to Mexico by actually securing our border? Not to worry, President Bush reassured President Fox. The National Guard on the border were only temporary, meant to last only as long until the public forgets about the issue, as has always been the case in the past.

The North American Union plan, which Vincente Fox has every reason to presume President Bush is still following, calls for the only border to be around the North American Union -- not between any of these countries. Or, as the CFR report stated:

The three governments should commit themselves to the long-term goal of dramatically diminishing the need for the current intensity of the governments� physical control of cross-border traffic, travel, and trade within North America. A long-term goal for a North American border action plan should be joint screening of travelers from third countries at their first point of entry into North America and the elimination of most controls over the temporary movement of these travelers within North America.

Discovering connections like this between the CFR recommendations and Bush administration policy gives credence to the argument that President Bush favors amnesty and open borders, as he originally said. Moreover, President Bush most likely continues to consider groups such as the Minuteman Project to be "vigilantes," as he has also said in response to a reporter's question during the March 2005 meeting with President Fox.

Why doesn�t President Bush just tell the truth? His secret agenda is to dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union. The administration has no intent to secure the border, or to enforce rigorously existing immigration laws. Securing our border with Mexico is evidently one of the jobs President Bush just won't do. If a fence is going to be built on our border with Mexico, evidently the Minuteman Project is going to have to build the fence themselves. Will President Bush protect America's sovereignty, or is this too a job the Minuteman Project will have to do for him?

At their meeting in Waco, Texas, at the end of March 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin committed their governments to a path of cooperation and joint action. We welcome this important development and offer this report to add urgency and specific recommendations to strengthen their efforts.

In March 2005, the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States adopted a Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), establishing ministerial-level working groups to address key security and economic issues facing North America and setting a short deadline for reporting progress back to their governments. President Bush described the significance of the SPP as putting forward a common commitment "to markets and democracy, freedom and trade, and mutual prosperity and security." The policy framework articulated by the three leaders is a significant commitment that will benefit from broad discussion and advice. The Task Force is pleased to provide specific advice on how the partnership can be pursued and realized.

To that end, the Task Force proposes the creation by 2010 of a North American community to enhance security, prosperity, and opportunity. We propose a community based on the principle affirmed in the March 2005 Joint Statement of the three leaders that "our security and prosperity are mutually dependent and complementary." Its boundaries will be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter within which the movement of people, products, and capital will be legal, orderly and safe. Its goal will be to guarantee a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America.

The three governments should commit themselves to the long-term goal of dramatically diminishing the need for the current intensity of the governments� physical control of cross-border traffic, travel, and trade within North America. A long-term goal for a North American border action plan should be joint screening of travelers from third countries at their first point of entry into North America and the elimination of most controls over the temporary movement of these travelers within North America.

NOTES FROM NEW ORLEANS: A Hard Head Makes A Soft Behind

By now, you�ve heard the election results � Mayor Nagin against Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu in the run-off, the mayor coming away with the a large number of the Black vote, including those of my Black friends who swore they were done with him. As one brother later told me, �At the end of the day, I had to go with my own.�

Forcing the issue of having a Black mayor for New Orleans, even when all his actions demonstrate an inability or unwillingness to make issues important to the Black community a priority, in the hopes that it will help us reclaim our �Chocolate City�, strikes me as, well�hard-headed.

I went to the Sheraton Election Night to cover Nagin�s speech. The room was filled with nothing but Black faces, so shocking considering just two months ago, you couldn�t hardly find a Black person with a New Orleans driver�s license who had anything nice to say about our Mayor�s on-the-job performance. I looked into those faces, faces of friends and people I�d met out at rallies and neighborhood planning meetings, all of whom openly discussed their dissatisfaction with the current leadership. But this mayor�s race was no longer about the future of New Orleans. This race has become about race.

At Nagin�s Election Night party, there was a distinct feeling of Black people welcoming the prodigal son back home, of redemption of the husband who strayed. Once it was clear his White majority supporters were backing anyone but him, he started out on the �Back To Africa� tour so many of our prodigal sons and daughters have performed in � OJ Simpson, Mariah, Vanessa�and was successful in securing a large number of Black votes. There were literally tears in the eyes of many of the women there, cracked voices calling out �We love you!� �Speak your truth!� They loved that he said �Chocolate City� and pissed White people off.

The room was electric and his speech had some profound moments. But then� the classic Nagin kicked in and he said something that fell like a bad note in his otherwise melodic song.

�This economic pie is getting ready to explode. And it will be shared equally. I want the community to get more comfortable with the Ray Nagin type. The Joe Canizaro type...�

Joe Canizaro is a local land developer and one of President Bush�s biggest campaign contributors. When Nagin tapped his choices for the �Bring Back New Orleans� advisory panel that would create a rebuilding plan for New Orleans, he followed Canizaro�s advice and stepped over local talent and intelligentsia and hired consultants from Los Angeles called the �Urban Planning Institute�, of which Canizaro was a long time board member. Many New Orleanians were upset they had so little representation on the BNOB panel. And the ones that were included on the panel, like City Council President Oliver Thomas, voiced frustration at being dis-included from many a luncheon and social gathering were decisions and deals were made about the rebuilding plan. When the plan was finally unveiled, it was clear to those watching why the planning lunches were secret.

When the BNOB committee presented it plan to the public at the Marriot Hotel last November, we saw a map of New Orleans on the overhead screen that had large green swatches over areas that the ULI recommended for permanent closure -the Ninth Ward, New Orleans East, and Gentilly. These areas are predominately Black communities. Even more telling about the agenda of the planners was the fact that the plan made no mention of where else in New Orleans the residents of these closed Black neighborhoods could move to.

A plan for a new New Orleans. �Oh, we don�t know where �those� people went�� Residents were absolutely livid. So much so that the ULI returned to the community months later with a revised plan that said the neighborhoods proposed for phasing out would be given four months to prove they could repopulate and be viable or the city would begin a forced buy-out program. There still seemed to be a lack of understanding on the part of the from-out-of-town panel that people have not been able to repopulate their neighborhoods because their houses are destroyed, the insurance companies are denying claims across the board, landlords are price gouging the rental market, and FEMA�s STILL not provided even half the trailers requested.

Just as the BNOB panel began to take public comments after their presentation of the revised plan, a huge Black man bellowed out like a sonic boom from the back of the room:

�You�re not taking my land!! If you come trying to take my property, you�re gonna have a baby Iraq on your hands! Nobody worked the jobs I�ve worked, taking crap from employers I didn�t wanna take, to make my note every month to sit here and have you tell me I can�t rebuild MY own home!! That�s my house and if you thinking �bout coming to take my land, you betta come heavy. And Joe Canizaro � I HATE YOU!�

Mr. Harvey�s explosion was a pivotal moment in this early phase of our reconstruction. His face made the front page of the paper and he�s since been interviewed by dozens of media outlets. His roaring outburst exposed the stifled anger, disgust, rage, pain, and grief so many homeowners felt at the slap in the face by these Los Angeles-based, Nagin-Canizaro sponsored planners.

Blacks here have an over-arching mistrust of Canizaro. And the moment Nagin uttered his name on Election Night as someone we need to be checking for, we witnessed the first signs of the prodigal son returning to his old ways.

I looked at the Black faces around me, their responses to his Canizaro remark, and saw frozen smiles � and determination. Determination to go forward, against all the signs and track record of what they knew they didn�t want, for fear of losing our Black foothold in local government.

�Don�t we even get to keep that?�, we ask ourselves here in the New Orleans. �We lost our homes, every last stick of furniture, every appliance, photo albums and grandmother�s jewelry and all our files and the dog too and family, friends, neighbors we grew up with � everything that give context and meaning for even being here in this life�� The only thing many Black people got out of here with before the levees broke, besides our memories, was their Black skin. And a feeling is alive here that if we lose our Black leadership, the only thing that survived in New Orleans, we won�t have a future here.

When I first moved to New Orleans, I was saturated in blackness and I loved it. Black people were everywhere and it really felt like another country, other than the United States. One of my favorite jaunts then, and still today, is to go to City Hall and revel in the family vibe where �my folks� are running things. No other public office have I ever felt so comfortable, so�relevant. And so included.

I, too, am still constantly wrestling with strong emotions about being a Black public figure, a Black woman, tearing away from the fold, away from �the Black man�. I�d love nothing more than to be wrong about Mayor Nagin�s ability to lead us out of darkness. But�you know - especially you ladies - how you know something deep inside that you don�t want to be true, so you say to yourself, �Maybe I�m wrong�� But later on, when the sh-t hits the fan, you realize how foolish it was to doubt what your wisdom and intuition told you.

New Orleans can�t afford false pride based on race. Our empire has been completely demolished. Sometimes, there�s so much to do, so much wrong here that needs addressing, and you get so overwhelmed trying to hold it together, you just sit back down and start crying. Crying for the old days.

And that�s when faith comes in. Faith that if we walk on what we know is His truth, that He�ll provide the best outcome. And if we force things to be our way, moving from a limited, human mentality of fear, we�ll just end up with more of this hard knocks life.

My grandmother used to tell me whenever I was cutting up, �A hard head makes a soft behind!� Her words came rushing to me when Mayor Nagin finished his speech and the DJ fired up the room with a song from the Gap Band:

Deborah Cotton is a freelance journalist and public speaker based in New Orleans, covering on-the-ground stories of the city�s recovery and chronicling the rebuilding efforts of the historic Ninth Ward. She can be reached at Deborah.cotton@gmail.com.

* From now until May 7th, check out her election/Jazz Fest coverage in her daily blog �The Second Line� on http://blackvoices.aol.com