Illiana Expressway: Does Illiana Fight Signal A Right & Left Alliance?

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Does the fight against the Illiana Expressway Toll Road signal an alliance between the right and left wings of American politics?

Environmental and urban core issue advocates seemingly have teamed up with people wary of a large new government project that has ties to international interests in a battle against what they see as a common foe.

The environmental and urban issues concerns are obvious. Roads could cut through wetlands and increase auto and truck traffic, causing more pollution. Urban issues advocacy groups fear new development could cause greater decay in more established cities as people and businesses move away from the urban core.

Here's where it gets interesting for some on the right who oppose interstate highway construction.

Some on the right fear a loss of U.S. sovereignty to multinational forces who seek increased Mexican and Canadian trade along so called NAFTA highways.

From John Newby, publisher of the LaPorte Herald Argus:

Is this entire project just a cover for another agenda, the NAFTA super highway?

While the maps for both the proposed Illiana and the NAFTA project in this area appear very similar, we should at least know and understand those issues as well.

If they aren’t related, that is fine. If they are related in anyway, Americans ought to have chills running down their spines. I’ve seen many remarks and comments concerning the NAFTA superhighway project.

However, most the comments I’ve seen are made out of ignorance of the facts and the agenda behind this massive redistribution of wealth.

For those wanting a brief education on the NAFTA superhighway, visit conservative Republican Congressman Ron Paul’s website located at www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst103006.htm.

It’s quite the eye-opener!

Here's what Rep. Paul (R-TX) writes:

The proposed highway is part of a broader plan advanced by a quasi-government organization called the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,” or SPP.

The SPP was first launched in 2005 by the heads of state of Canada, Mexico, and the United States at a summit in Waco.

The SPP was not created by a treaty between the nations involved, nor was Congress involved in any way. Instead, the SPP is an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments. One principal player is a Spanish construction company, which plans to build the highway and operate it as a toll road. But don’t be fooled: the superhighway proposal is not the result of free market demand, but rather an extension of government-managed trade schemes like NAFTA that benefit politically-connected interests.

The real issue is national sovereignty. Once again, decisions that affect millions of Americans are not being made by those Americans themselves, or even by their elected representatives in Congress. Instead, a handful of elites use their government connections to bypass national legislatures and ignore our Constitution-- which expressly grants Congress the sole authority to regulate international trade.

The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated North American Union -- complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union. Like the European Union, a North American Union would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether.

I bet everyone in this coalition of diverse viewpoints allied against new highways is always careful to not bring up the sovereignty implications of the United Nation's Kyoto Protocol.

Copyright (C) 2007, Christopher C. Hedges, ChristopherHedges.com, All Rights Reserved.