The official website of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) states:
The SPP is a White House-led initiative among the United States and the two nations it borders--Canada and Mexico--to increase security and to enhance prosperity among the three countries through greater cooperation.
Why then did thousands of protestors clash with riot police in Ottawa, Canada on August 20, 2007, at the third SPP meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. President George W. Bush, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon? After all, a meeting between the heads of state of three neighboring democracies to "increase security and to enhance prosperity" should be a good thing, shouldn't it? These are the democratically elected leaders of the three countries that comprise North America, and we would expect them to strive to do just that--make us safe and prosperous.
So, again, why did protestors dressed as clowns and guerillas chant "Bush go home!" and wave "No to Americanada" signs at this global summit?
The answer becomes more apparent when one looks closer into the innocuous-sounding SPP initiative. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, "the SPP [recognized] they would benefit from direct advice from the private sector. So they encouraged business leaders from all three countries to form the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC)." U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, at the launch of the NACC in May 2006, stated:
The priorities you identify will set the stage for our work going forward in the SPP. The private sector is the driving force behind innovation and growth, and the private sector's involvement in the SPP is key to enhancing North America's competitive position in global markets.
The Council of Canadians, who rallied against the August summit, noted that "All ten Canadian appointees to the NACC are members of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), a powerful corporate lobby group and Canada's most vocal proponent of a North American union. Four of the U.S. member corporations--Chevron, Ford, Lockheed Martin, and Wal-Mart--were on Global Exchange's 2005 list of worst corporations. Their involvement begs the question of whose security and prosperity the NACC is looking out for. According to a 2006 Council of the Americas report, the objectives of the group, which presented proposals to Harper, Bush, and Calderon during the two-day summit, include "marrying policy issues with business priorities," and engaging "substantively and pragmatically on trade and security issues without undue deference to political sensibilities."
A summit of North American political leaders where priorities are set by corporate representatives mandated to be without undue deference to political sensibilities? How does this make sense?
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, politics is "the art or science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs." Yet this summit appears to be more about a secondary definition of politics: "Intrigue or maneuvering within a political unit or group in order to gain control or power."
It's a sad, but apparent truth that these politicians view their leadership as having nothing to do with the science of governing a democracy. Turning again to the aforementioned dictionary, democracy is defined as "government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system."
How is it that the leaders of these three democracies believe that the people they were elected to represent should be caged, according to Agence France Presse, in a fence "three meters (10 feet) high and running 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) around the meeting place," where "police with dogs, in aircraft, and on river boat patrols far outnumbered protestors," while they themselves dine at the Chateau Montebello and get briefed by the "Chosen Thirty"? What paths did these three take to arrive at a place where they believe this is how democracy is supposed to work? Do they look to Marie Antoinette for inspiration?
Imagine how we would shake our heads in pity if we were to read about the heads of state of three developing countries barricaded in a luxury villa with the wealthy ruling class elite while the people protested behind the barbed wire. "If only they could live in a democracy," we would say with a regretful sigh.
Well, no need to look far from home. We have our very own grotesque modern day reenactment of the court of Louis XVI going on right here in North America. And we need to do more than just shake our heads and sigh about it.
As Humanists, we aspire to the greater good of humanity, and we proclaim a civic duty to participate in the democratic process. While we all can't (or perhaps won't) dress up as clowns and guerillas to protest such farce, we can and must pursue the ideals of democracy that have become lost in the peddling of money and influence. We need to quit believing in the rhetoric that "politics" is a dirty word, and focus on what the late Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) said about politics instead: "It has to do with trying to do right by people. the future will not belong to those who are cynical or those who stand on the sidelines."
It's certainly all too easy to become cynical reading about the "Three Amigos," closeted in a resort with the heads of Merck, Chevron, Lockheed Martin, and Wal-Mart and guarded by attack dogs and police helicopters from the people they were elected to represent. You half expect to hear them announce, "Let them play with lead-painted toys!" However, as laid out in the Humanist Manifesto III, we believe that "humanity has the ability to progress toward its highest ideals. The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone."
So like it or not, it's time to (at least metaphorically) put on our clown and guerilla costumes and protest the SPP and every other undemocratic policy initiative designed to enhance the agenda of the elite few while locking out the voices of the many. As Senator Wellstone said, we can do right by people if we choose to, and we can choose not succumb to a defeatist "politics-as-usual" attitude.
Ed Johnson is the assistant director of operations for the American Humanist Association. A former advisory neighborhood commissioner in Washington, DC, he was recently featured in a series of articles in Roll Call for his work to make quasi public-private development corporations in the nation's capital subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
