Posted by
Bert Chapman on Monday, August 20, 2007 12:53:35 PM
This week's meeting between President Bush, Canadian Prime MInister Stephen Harper, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon should be seen as a normal meeting between North American leaders to discuss issues of mutual concern. Instead, the meeting has been greated with histrionic foolishness by the antiglobalist left and some xenophobic isolationists on the right who see this meeting as some sinister form of imperialist globalization or an assault against U.S. sovereignty. Such claims are patent nonsense and reflective of utter stupidity by these critics.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America that these three countries have formed is a result of normal efforts to promote effective policymaking and collaboration between these countries whose economies are increasingly interlinked by NAFTA. This partnership is also important because our countries must work together to cooperate on issues such as the environment, energy, immigration, and anti-terrorism matters. Each side can choose how much cooperation they will engage in and no one's national sovereignty is jeopardized. The partnership's website
www.spp.gov/ provides a variety of informative information resources.
As Europe increases its level of cooperation and China and East Asia become increasingly important economic and political power blocs in international affairs, it is in the best interests of the North American countries to collaborate together to promote their interests against the Europeans and the Asians when such interests are in opposition to each other.
It's natural to see the loony left oppose this agreement, but disappointing to see some Conservatives oppose this out of sheer ignorance of how domestic and international government organizations work. Some of these Conservative isolationists and protectionists need to quit living in fear and get their lazy posteriors on to the websites of government agencies, their congressional oversight committees, and those of their foreign government counterparts to learn how these agencies and international agreements work or don't work effectively. If they have concerns about how the Security and Prosperity Partnership is working, they should interact with officials from those agencies and their congressional representatives and make constructive suggestions for improving such agreements instead of spouting ignorant nonsense in oped columns or on their websites. If they take more constructive approaches, they might actually get invited to serve as consultants or on committees these organizations establish to deal with problems they're confronting.