The NAFTA Blueprint

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  The Kansas City Rail Project was drafted as a non-profit organization supported by public and private interests. What this meant to me―nothing in particular, nothing at all, just jargon. A non-profit for profit slogan labeled and cloaked in secrecy. This was typical of business practices, masking lucrative opportunities behind non-profit status, but still applying the corporate labels behind their names, like this ambitious project.

  The main goal of this port, which I discovered was an inland port, serviced through rail freight rather than ocean freight, was to facilitate the transportation of national and international goods through the Kansas City inland port, via the Lazaro Cardenas seaport in Michoacán, Mexico, to the middle of the country through rail or superhighway service, along the Missouri River. Effective, economic, and efficient, is what the port offered to investors of multiple industries that would benefit from this new proposal.

  Most international cargo passed through the Kansas City inland port anyway. The fact that it was located near significant national highways made it prime real estate. I kept thinking of the board game, Monopoly, it appeared as though the Kansas City Rail Project was making strategic plans to purchase existing land, or use eminent domain to expropriate current owners to maintain territory. The federal government had the right to exercise eminent domain, so it appeared that this company would work with government officials on this. But whom, that was the question? I couldn’t prove any of it, it was all speculation.

  Furthermore, the Kansas City Rail Project was trying to buy the utility and railroad lines, thereby creating a monopoly on utilities, transportation, and infrastructure. Perhaps NAFTA set up the Kansas City Rail Project as an extended branch to deny involvement in the monopolizing agreement. Wasn’t setting up a monopoly illegal though? Unless it was a government granted monopoly, which was worse. I became disgusted, I wanted to regurgitate. According to good governance, the welfare of the people was priority, but in the United States, the citizens weren’t even informed of significant changes affecting their day-to-day lives. What had we come to in this modern age? Maybe we were just jaded citizens juxtaposed as herds of cattle numbing ourselves to rampant ignorant political behavior.