Washblog

I do not believe that we will be able to keep imports out of this country and I fear that we will continue losing jobs to off shore manufacturing. However, the Tran Texas Corridor /Kansas City Smart Port is definitely an initiative which is targeting American and Canadian longshoreman jobs. The Corporate powers behind this are targeting union jobs and are working to cut corporate labor expenses by shipping goods destined for the US and Canada from Asia to the Mexican ports. Instead of shipping to American ports, they are sending them to Mexico and shipping them north by truck or rail into a transit hub in Kansas City, Missouri. They could send these containers to an American or Canadian port and not pollute our air trucking them through Texas and Oklahoma but they prefer to use cheaper Mexican labor instead of better paid Union labor! I advise that you identify other interested activists, join with people such as representatives in the Longshoreman's Union, write letters to the editor and work with us as we blog to make people across this nation aware of this issue. Share links to stories on the blogs with your friends and neighbors.

Another way that The TTC is impacting American jobs is in the loss of prime agricultural land. Corporations and many law makers think that farm land is not as important as urban land because it is "undeveloped". It is necessary from many of us in the cities to begin uniting with our rural neighbors and standing up for them. In Texas for decades we have allowed urban dwellers to dominate the state election process, electing non-agricultural people as Agriculture Commissioner, and leaving the farmers and ranchers with an incompetent person in that key office who works counter to the best interest of the ranchers and farmers. We eat their food and drink their milk and fail to support them as they put the beans and potatoes on our dinner table. We must become allies with the farm communities in our states. If they try to implement transportation corridors east to west similar to this North-South TTC corridor, they will wreck havoc on the farm economies of every state in the nation!

The Trans Texas Corridor is only the first leg of a NAFTA transportation corridor that they want to criss-cross this nation. The first leg is Texas. Before many citizens in Texas became aware of it there had already been TTC enabling legislation passed in the Texas State Legislature. There was a constitutional amendment passed in 2001 allowing for the construction of toll roads. Most of us thought that was in reference to regional toll projects which previously had been initiated by local citizens, had much citizen input and was approved only after local vote. We did not dream that the purpose behind that amendment was for state/private toll roads which would not require local voters approval and would include private foreign owned corporations financing and receiving generous 50 year concessions and collections of toll fees set by those corporations without further governmental or local citizen oversight! We never imagined that it would also include utility pipelines which would run through most of this state's rivers and aquifer! We never dreamed they were envisioning freeways which are the width of 12 football fields! We never dreamed that private 501c6 non-profit organizations would be used to as great an extent to lobby and co-opt local, county and state leaders while leaving the public completely out of the loop on this massive re-engineering of the private property and transportation infrastructure of this state. WATCH ANY PROPOSED AMENDMENT OR LAW THAT INVOLVES TOLL ROADS, MULTI-MODAL TRANSPORTATION, OR PRIVATE/PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP IN PUBLIC WORKS PROJECTS. If they propose private parties investing in public works projects and operating it for fees to receive a "reasonable return on their investment" scream holy murder! That means that you are agreeing to go in debt to a private company and allow them to charge you many times more over a long period of time what the actual cost of the investment truly is. It is only REPUBLICAN CODE for passing the debt on to future generations and allowing private corporations to make a killing at citizens' expense.

I urge citizens of all states to watch for proposed changes to the Transportation Code of your state. Watch for financial contributions to elected officials and candidates from rail road companies and contractors who perform public works projects. Watch for members of NASCO who are elected officials on various levels of government in your state. Study the 501c6 transportation related non-profit organizations, visit their websites and examine their members, officers and board members, especially looking for elected officials and members of your state's transportation agencies. This is how they move these initiatives forward. At this time Washington State is not the next leg of this network but if they get the TTC built, they will begin planning their national network.

Kansas City Southern Rail Road has an agreement with Canadian National Rail to service a port just north of Washington State. I cannot prove it, but having seen the aggressive nature of that corporation, I do not think they will be satisfied with that for long. Currently they have the shortest route from Mexico to Kansas City. However, they have fought to straighten that route and cut off rail miles by going directly through the richest farm belt of this state. They do not want to travel their current route that cuts from Dallas to the Louisiana border near Shreveport La and up through Arkansas. I suspect that they will want to gain access to the pacific ports. Currently they have access to all of the Texas ports, all of the Louisiana ports, Biloxi, MS and Atlanta, GA. Kansas City Southern Railroad now owns 100% of the largest railroad in Mexico and is a partner in the Panama Canal Railroad which runs parallel to the Panama Canal. I They have agreements with most of the other railroads in the USA. It probably won't be long before they try to figure out how to serve the Pacific Rim without having to ship up through Canada. They'll want to cut direct along the Pacific shore and will want access to all the Pacific Ports so that they'll control them along with the southern ports on the Atlantic side. This corporation wants to dominate transportation in this hemisphere. am sending you a link to the presentation their Vice President gave in January 2006 at a transportation conference in Dallas. It shows the expansion of that corporation since 1992.

http://www.texasrailadvocates.org/Conf-Jan-2006/Presentations/final/Warren_Erdman_-_KCS/KCS.htm

The link to all the presentations at that seminar are located at:
http://www.texasrailadvocates.org/Conf-Jan-2006/registration.html

In Texas Democrats sold out to the Democratic Leadership Conference - pro corporate middle of the road Democrats - when Reagan was elected. Our state has been dominated by Republicans ever since. This year the grassroots has waken up and we are fighting to take our state and nation back. I hope that the candidates in your state who will really LISTEN to the people and who will BE HONEST and CONSISTENT will get support. It is not the size of a candidate's wallet that matters. QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE JOB and ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE PEOPLE is what matters. For too long too many have been way too unaccountable.

I truly hope that the citizens of Washington State do not have to let things get as bad as they have become here for them to be alert and on guard. We have too many of the same political party in office here. There are not enough people keeping watch over the opposite party to give us the needed checks and balances. Unfortunately most of the few Democrats we have in office here have taken campaign contributions from the same corporate backers as the robber barons supporting Republicans! We have to clear out most incumbents of both parties.

Thank you for supporting David Van Os in his challenge to unseat Greg Abbott. David will fight for every citizen in the USA if he succeeds in winning in November. His opponent has 100 dollars to ever dollar David has. David has people behind him. Greg Abbott has corporations behind him. Most of David's campaign is funded by small contributions from folks on limited income and who are barely making ends meet. This year all of the challengers on the Democratic ticket are reaching out to the people, listening, and telling the truth. It is a very different election cycle. At first the media refused to take any of the Democratic ticket serious. Now they are beginning to realize that the size of the bank account will not necessarily mean who will win this November. We have to identify honest people and fight to get them elected to public office in every town, county, and state in this nation. That is the only way we will be able to reclaim our nation. We tend to think that city and county offices aren't that important. It was a real wake up call when I read the language of the TTC enabling legislation which stipulates that PUBLIC FREEWAYS CAN BE CONVERTED TO TOLL ROADS WITHOUT PUBLIC HEARNG OR VOTE IF THE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS" COURT APPROVES. The County Judge elect in my county is on the NASCO BOARD OF DIRECTORS and is a strong backer of the TTC! He ran unopposed in the primary! I knew nothing about him except that he was a county commissioner serving a different part of the county and that his name appeared on the Republican Primary Ballot! We let him slip by!

Watch your county judge! The pattern is to get the County Judge's to join these 501c6 non profit organizations, get them to take offices in them, and then they are part of the organization that "thinks" they are "formulating the transportation policy". Actually they are buying into the positions of the KSC and other backers of the transportation corridors. When they return to their counties (or cities or state) bodies where they are supposed to represent the people and give fair and unbiased consideration to issues that come before it, they return as opinion leaders and stakeholders pushing to get the initiatives passed!

If there is any way I can be of assistance, please contact me.

Faith Chatham
Steering Committee David Van Os and Hank Gilbert Campaigns
DFW Coordinator David Van Os and Hank Gilbert Campaigns
TTC-NAFTA Research Group - Hank Gilbert Campaign