The SPP - disaster or solution?

The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) - disaster or solution? It is a Question of Direction.

For those of us opposing Deep North American Integration, the SPP negotiations, August 20 - 21, at the Chateau Montebello near Ottawa, are a nightmare. Nevertheless, as long as Growth (the expansion of monetary activity) is seen as society's primary goal, efforts to stop the SPP will be an uphill battle. Mass production and economies of scale have long served expansion. The SPP would accommodate both by providing uninhibited access to natural resources, labour and markets for businesses with continental operations. The problem is that growth for growth's sake is past its "best before date."

To reclaim local governance with its hands-on appreciation of environmental and social impacts, we have to challenge the legitimacy of perpetual economic expansion.

Climate change, peak oil and all manner of other natural resource and pollution problems are aggravated by ever expanding human activity. Like a child who has grown to maturity, humanity now faces adult responsibilities. And now that we face planetary limits, we can no longer disregard the natural laws of resource limitation and tolerance to accumulating waste. Any species that fills its habitat and breaks these laws is dealt with in the "court of natural selection."

While simple mathematics clearly show that getting bigger makes resource and waste problems worse, customs and institutions from our historic and prehistoric past encourage and compel continued growth. For tens of thousands of years before we filled the Earth, growth served us well. The SPP answers the familiar call -- to our peril.

To put out a fire one throws water at the source of the flames. To stop growth inducing trade deals, we need to question the legitimacy upon which they are based. It is a Question of Direction.

More on shifting the focus of legitimacy can be found in "The Challenge and the Goal" at:
http://www.SustainWellBeing.net/challengeandgoal.html

Best wishes as we work for a better world.

Mike Nickerson
Author: "Life, Money & Illusion; Living on Earth as if we want to stay"
http://www.SustainWellBeing.net/LMI/lmisummary.html

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Air, Water, Soil and Energy are essential to all life.

"To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standards by which our acts, our economics, our laws, and our purpose must be judged. No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy."

Starhawk; from "The Fifth Sacred Thing."

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More information on the Security and Prosperity Partnership:

Green Party of Canada
http://www.greenparty.ca/en/releases/16.08.2007

Council of Canadians
http://www.canadians.org/integratethis/summit/forum.html

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