The NAFTA Superhighway: Anatomy of a Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy theories don't brew overnight.

It was a little more than a year ago that Human Events journalist and right wing whisperer Jerome Corsi began slinging a series of accusations at President Bush in an article about an alleged "NAFTA Superhighway." Corsi said the president was secretly planning to build a giant twelve-lane highway using millions of acres of private land between the Mexican border and the Canadian; he said it was part of a broader plan to merge the three nations into a North American Union; he also said a certain planned highway -- the Tran Texas Corridor -- was only the beginning.

Human Events isn't a terrific place to turn for news, and Corsi isn't the sort of writer on which to rely, but the topic was seductive. No one in mainstream or left wing media took much interest in these stories, but over the next months articles began piling up on the web's most conservative sites: Human Events, World Net Daily, The John Birch Society.

Several months later, in September of 2006, Representative Virgil Goode authored a bill opposing the highway, among other things. Representative Ron Paul, Internet darling and current candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, signed on as a cosponsor and issued a statement to his constituents expressing his concern over the highway.

The bill earned a mention on Wonkette, but all the other media attention was rants and raves from the aforementioned websites and bloggers with names like patriotsteve and joeblogusa. They were bilious over the erosion of U.S. sovereignty, terrified of this new conduit for illegal immigrants, and indignant over the proposed government land grab. Over the course of the winter and spring, the NAFTA Superhighway was making noise only in one very small corner of the Internet.

Two things have happened during this frenetic campaign summer. One, everyone seems to have suddenly noticed the NAFTA Superhighway. And two, it has become very clear that it doesn't exist.

This new wave began back in May, when McClatchy became the first mainstream media outlet to address the topic, eliciting at least one official denial in an the article that failed to take a position on whether the entire endeavor was a rumor or not.

Between then and now, Google Alerts for "nafta superhighway" went from one or two a day to more like six or eight: more editorials in local papers opposing the highway, more blogs from more or less anonymous bloggers. This month, the dam burst. Corsi reported an official denial from Dick Cheney. A piece on The New York Times' Caucus blog reported that constituents in Iowa were posing questions about the highway to Republican candidates. A segment on the Colbert Report poked fun at an author convinced not only that the highway will be built, but that it will destroy the American way. Finally, just as I sat down to write this blog, the final word. Christopher Hayes' article for The Nation appeared online last week, putting to rest the rumors, the whispers, and the doubts. The left-leaning media agrees that the highway doesn't exist, which is not entirely a surprise since the right has long taken ownership over this particular conspiracy theory. Townhall.com, a conservative website whose contributors have repeatedly declared opposition to the NAFTA Superhighway, this week published an editorial that outed the Superhighway as a conspiracy -- one that right wingers were orating about but failing to address as a decoy.
For most of us, this is over. But discussion about the NAFTA Superhighway isn't going to disappear.

It won't go away, partly, of course, because it's self-perpetuating in a media world where every blog post means three circular blog posts about the first post. It's also pre-elections jitters, and there are perhaps more political questions being asked than during the average vacation month.

Most significantly, it isn't going away, and it won't go away, because the highway has never been the point. For every journalist, blogger, politician, constituent and lonely heart that has raged about this highway, the anger has never been about the highway itself as much as about fear for the future of America and anger at what has happened to the country under this administration. It's no great mystery that many conservatives feel betrayed by Bush -- on immigration, on spending, on the economy. Many Americans on the right thought the Christian Texan might make their nation feel more like their own again, but he's failed them. Which might also explain why the right has been so seduced by this particular conspiracy. The left are no happier with Bush, but they had fewer stairs to fall down.

The left won't let it go either. This is the inverse of the 9/11 truth movement: it's the evidence for the non-conspiracy-prone left that the other side has a fringe they would rather disown. It is with unbridled glee that the left leaning media outlets are starting to pick up on just how deep the NAFTA highway conspiracy river runs.

During these blurry dogs days of August the "highway" has been a method for getting into madness of American politics: how fractious we have become, how uncertain the future is, and the degree to which we can be forgiven for failing to trust our current government.

Comments

[notanutcase]

it's funny that in all of this passionate criticism of the author we only serve to prove her assertion that all of this frenzy over the highway isn't so much about the highway, but our concerns for our country and ourselves as citizens, and human beings.

she never said she went to texas with a badge and a magnifying glass...

she said, well, maybe there is no highway, but it gives us a reason to speak up, and to start meaningful guided discussions about the way we feel (betrayed and helpless) under our country's administration...

that's what i read anyway, and whether we agree or disagree, here we all are talking about it...

[InofTouch]

More business for my town in the end of the road that for sure...and with majorty of trucks and I mean trailers off the Major I Highways, less stress on the road and easy repairs

[PC]

And frankly telling us not to listen to the "fringe" on both sides is stupid. People on the left and right fringes are more united right now than anybody, while the Busheviks and the Clintonistas are bickering about small stuff and agreeing on warrantless wiretapping, indifferent on habeus corpus, war funding, etc., the so called "kooks" are taking these issues head on. Why is a person who has a consistent political philosophy called a "kook"? The opposite of fringe is moderate. A moderate compromises their principles for political expediency. Frankly "moderate" is a perfect term, because both Party leaderships moderate these partisans and point them in whatever direction they want. So far when the right and left moderates come together we get trade agreements, crappy immigration bills, and wars. If you ask me those who are moderated by their respective party leadership are kooks.

[scooperss]

after reading all the posts on this subject I think it's safe to sat that all these people from different states know more than the author what's happening in their individual states.
And I agree.It's either already being built under different names or is here already and just needs to be hooked together.
This administration has a history of not quite telling THE WHOLE TRUTH. Lies by omission are it's best strategy. You have to ask the EXACT right question to get the most honest answer. May not be the complete honest truth but.....that will probably never happen.

[GoodbyeKitty]

The Texas portion of it is already under construction. It is a 12 lane superhighway that will run near parallel to IH35. This is just the Texas chunk.

[L. Rozner]

The bigger picture is how this is the wedge issue that is driving conservatives at each others' throats. Think of it: right wing commentators blasting ultra-right wing commentators and vice-versa. Don't any of you realize this is the issue that we can seize on in order to destroy any chance the Republicans have at controlling the White House? In lamen's terms, we could pull a "Karl Rove" on the Republican party the way they pulled the gay marriage issue on the Democrats in 2004. All we'd have to do is convince the campaign managers for the Democratic candidates to bring up the NAFTA project, only it would be to our advantage. It would be like using the Republican candidates' secret weapon against them.
If you think what I'm saying is crazy, then you haven't paid attention to the announcement of Jerome Corsi, founder of WorldNetDaily,as the leading candidate to the Constitution Party, which traditionally siphons off Republican voters. He's the gift that keeps on giving, particularly to us.

[takemeaway]

Kinda like what the right-wing radio guys did to Bush's immigration bill?

[peterg76]

The "highway" symbolizes the core idea of NAFTA - trampling the rights of citizens to benefit narrowly-focused business interests, while by-passing environmental and labour laws.

*Some* highway expansion was always anticipated as a consequence of NAFTA (jobs can't just walk to Mexico on their own), but the "superhighway" myth doesn't make the least sense from a transportation engineering perspective.

Still, nothing could be more NAFTA-esque than Americans paying, financially and environmentally, for a road system whose only function is to take away their jobs and lower their living standards.

[TroubledTexan]

Katharine P. Jose,

Not sure what the point of your article is here. You jump from one extreme to the other.

I'm sorry you haven't done your homework. Or, was that your intention in the first place?

The NAFTA Super Hiway is very real, ask people in Texas.

The Super Highway through Texas is the initial leg of the NAFTA Super Highway.

I challenge you to a debate on this very subject. Put up or shut up!

Troubled Texan

[Whooliebacon]

Check for facts with the Texas department of transportation and who in Spain is paying the tab on this and you will come away with a different view.
Another meeting on the SPP was scheduled for today. Who paid for this story to be written?

[WIpatriot]

Why is it that people who can add 1+1+1 and arrive at 3 are labelled conspiracy theorists?

The administration are professional liars. That they deny SSP, NAU and the NAFTA Superhighway is a double negative, therefore true.

[scooperss]

Indeed.

[shecky]

Our Dept. of Transportation has signed on to this,,,the states are following Bush's lead, continuing to declare tax cuts, and instead raising short term profit,,,in a couple of years, they and their buddiesw ( follow the money, always...) will have had their taxes covered ( they will haver bought and sold a few bank mortgages, to other banks, and they pass around some more $$$ ), and they will be out of office, the toll roads done deals, and the tolls will just keep on going up - they are privately owned. How about bringing back the WPA ???and the C__? Conservation Corp? Let's put people to work, and repair our infrastructure??? No, let's lease them for 50 years...let someone else fix them...And if they don't fix them??? This BUSH crowd is sprinting for the last year here, and will be looting you down to your underpants....be prepared to pay for the rest of your life fo in the courts, the congress, and the churches....but forget about the schools, the colleges, the board rooms, and the banks....Bush and Cheney - truely the Trolls of the Toll Roads...

[takemeaway]

Bush and Cheney - truely the Trolls of the Toll Roads. How apt. I wonder if Jenna could use it in her new children's book?

[realitytrumpsbull]

Nevermind the road, the real deal is the North American Union. Bush and company want to build an equivalent to the European Union in the western hemisphere, and free trade or whatever you call it is on the menu. So, brush up on your spanish, you'll be needing it, if he has his way...

[talak]

The article in The Nation actually points out that there is indeed movement towards upgrading the existing Mexico-U.S.-Canada highway corridor. Whether this construction is termed a Nafta Superhighway is irrelevant. What matters is the impact such construction will have on working Americans.

From the proposed construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor with substantial help from corporations in return for the right to collect tolls, to the betting by the Kansas City Southern Railroad that the port in Lazaro Cardenas will supplant the ones in L.A. and Long Beach, to the proposed plan to use Mexican trucks and drivers to haul freight within the U.S. instead of U.S. trucks and drivers, the whole idea of a "conspiracy" falls into the territory of "if it walks like a duck".

BTW, The Nation article contains at least one error. It refers to the pilot truck program as one that is being pushed by a "business improvement group called Kansas City SmartPort". Indeed, the pilot program was pushed by the U.S. Dept. of Transportation. To claim that this proposal was just a product of an obscure group is plain sloppy.

http://www.teamster.org/action/political/NAFTA/nafta.asp
http://murray.senate.gov/news.cfm?id=269631
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=269704&&
http://transportation.house.gov/news/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=81

[mommadona]

EXCELLENT coverage of this on LOU DOBBS-CNN right now.....

Christopher Sands, CSIS "not official - just ideas"

yeah.....r­iiiiiiiigh­t.

[NABNYC]

The big picture is that Bush and the neocons view the government as existing to serve corporations only with no regard for the citizens of this country. There are Bush-sponsored changes in the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico which are radically reducing the rights of Americans. Unrestricted cheap labor is just the tip of the iceberg.

For example, it used to be that Mexican truckers could not come into the U.S. and travel our roads and highways except in a narrow area close to the border unless their trucks met our highway standards. You know, little things like brakes, smog control. The Bush regime wants to give Mexican truckers the right to travel throughout the U.S. regardless of unsafe conditions of their trucks.

For another example, you know that nasty little union called the Teamsters? Just think if all the ship cargo to the Southern California area could be dropped in Mexico instead of Long Beach, then trucked into and throughout the U.S. with no nasty unions at all. That's the plan.

Nothing against the people of Mexico, but I would prefer that vehicle rules be applied equally to everyone, no exemptions. And I would prefer keeping longshoremen's and truckers' jobs here in the U.S., instead of seeing them sent to Mexico.

[mommadona]

"Do you believe the Security and Prosperity Partnership threatens our sovereignty?

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/