February 15, 2001
© Invisible America
This week George W. Bush will hold his first meeting as U.S. president with the recently elected president of Mexico, Vicente Fox. According to The New York Times (*), key issues on the table are electricity and immigration. Bush is seeking more electricity from Mexico, and fewer Mexicans.
The original slogan for the summit was set to be "Less immigration, more illumination," but the president had a hard time pronouncing the string of long words and proposed the alternate "Less wets, more watts."
BUSH ON FIRE, FOX IN HOLE
Bush is preparing to demand that Mexico open its state-owned petroleum industry, Pemex, to private investment in order to facilitate the export of energy to the United States.
However, state control of energy is written into the Mexican constitution, and according to the New York Times, Mexico is in no position to export electricity, given that Mexico is having a hard enough time meeting its own energy demands and will need at least $200 billion of investment to meet that demand over the next 15 years.
A MODEST PROPOSAL
Keen to the challenges facing the Bush plan, key members of Bush's cabinet are testing the waters for a different solution to California's 'double brownouts.' The program is being dubbed 'Operation Wattback,' and would apparently solve both California's immigration crisis, and it's lack of electricity.
An unidentified source in the Bush cabinet was quoted as saying "The idea is to capitalize on the crisis- too much unused Mexican Labor, too little electricity in California...the solution is simple, use Mexican labor to generate electricity." The proposal apparently is based on the deployment of thousands of electricity generating treadmills to Tijuana.
"Would-be migrants will find gainful employment in Mexico, generating electricity for California," the cabinet member explained.
When questioned as to whether or not 'Operation Wattback,' was simply a method to maintain the failing free-trade policies of deregulation, and the post-NAFTA militarized border, the cabinet member shot back "Ain't no power like the power of the people."
© IA NEWS 2001
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