Mainstream Media Opinion

Bet your bottom amero that U.S. sovereignty is safe

The John Birch Society staked out some turf in downtown Seattle last Saturday, holding flags and carrying signs. The signs read, "Preserve the Traditional Farm," "Stop Benefits to Illegal Aliens," "Keep America Sovereign" — and a curious one, a slash through the initials "NAU."

[...] The U.S. government has a Web site, www.spp.gov, in which it says that "in no way, shape or form" does it plan "the creation of a European Union-like structure" in North America. That appears to be so — but denials don't matter to a certain type of mind, which assumes that appearances are false and truth is concealed.

[...] The Birchers might have an argument if they said NAFTA could, over a long time, prepare the American mind for continental government. It would be something to think about. But it would not be potent enough to bring out protesters on a Saturday afternoon.

So they overreach. They warn of such fantasies as the replacement of the U.S. dollar by a new currency called the amero. No politician proposes this. A professor of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver published "The Case for the Amero" in 1999. But it was one book, and the Canadian dollar was below 70 cents at the time. The loonie has since revived, and the Canadians are not about to discard it.

Sovereignty, for the moment, is safe.


Source: Seattle Times