George,

As I passed John's essay on to friends it was SO easy to think, "Rey, this time you're passing on bunk." But then I remember a few decades ago when people said these same outlandish things about the nations of Western Europe - France, Germany, Spain, and so forth.

"They will give up their Francs and Marks and Guilders and use a single Euro currency instead." Nonsense.

"They will place their nation's courts under a more powerful court system." Yeah, right.

"They will revise their individual constitutions to suit the wants of the other nations of Europe." In a pig's eye they will. The French will accede to the Germans? The Germans will do what the Spanish demand? Balderdash.

But of course all that did come to pass because it made a huge difference in the economic pie. The European Economic Community (Economic has been dropped from the formal title) is now largely one nation and its corporations are much better able to compete with us and with the 500-lb gorilla of international trade, Japan, and the coming 1,000-lb gorilla, yu-kno-hu.

So much better able to compete that frequently the US loses to the EC. When the Euro first replaced the Mark and the Franc in 2002, five years ago, it was worth 79 cents US. Today 1 Euro is worth $1.37.

That's a 73% gain. They won; we lost. To Americans with big money and big power, that spells crisis.

Is there a movement in and around the US to stem our international business bleeding by uniting this nation with Canada and Mexico, and maybe other neighbors eventually? Is anyone thinking of forming a super government here, a North American Economic Community whose government would be superior to the governments of the individual nations?

Evidently there is, and John Whitehead tells us that Junior George Bush is among them.

The potential economic gains to major corporations in North America are vast, so it's a given that virtually all the corporate power of North America will unite behind this. We would see a repeat of what happened in Europe: the major corporations pushed the governments into something 99% of the people were not only against, but aghast at. And in the end the people were brainwashed by floods of PR that this was in their best interest so they voted for it.

One can argue (I won't) that the PR effort needed to sell this to jingoistic Americans could be even more than the PR needed to sell it to nationalistic Germans and xenophobic French. Perhaps, but there can be no doubt whatever that PR can get the job done.

What would Congress do? That's easy. Follow the money. Ask yourself: "What is Congress's record on opposing the largest PACS?"

Rey Barry (Electronic mail, July 26, 2007)