Thread: Border Governors' Conference Sponsored by General Electric!

The Los Angeles Times reports that the 26th Annual Borders Governors Conference which just closed in California "was sponsored by General Electic, which owns Universal Studios, and more than 20 PRIVATE COMPANIES, including AOL, the University of Phoenix, Pacific Power and Light and Anheuser-Busch." (caps mine)

Two possible monumental "joint trans-border projects" with Mexico emerged from this conference and were announced publically by Calif. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, its host:

1) He and other governors "are exploring the idea of public-private parnterships to construct vehicle toll lanes at entry points between the United States and Mexico."

"Schwarzenegger raised the issue at the closing of the 26th annual Borders Governors Conference, a three-day summit that drew four governors from the United States and six from Mexico."

The purpose given for adding these vehicle toll lanes entry points is to facilitate tourism and commerce by cutting down on the waiting time to cross the border.

"Schwarzenegger said U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY MICHAEL CHERTOFF, WHO ALSO ATTENDED THE CONFERENCE, SIGNALED A WILLINGNESS TO EXAMINE PARTNERSHIPS WITH PRIVATE COMPANIES TO DEVELOP NEW POINTS OF ENTRY." (caps mine)

"Schwarzenegger said the governors' repesentatives WOULD MEET WITH FEDERAL OFFICIALS SOON TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO CREATE SUCH PARTNERSHIPS without drawing criticism that 'you're selling the border' or giving up control."

2) "The states also hope to draft a memorandum of understanding that would permit them to send help in the event of a natural disaster in the other country, such as California wildfires."

This "Memorandum of Understanding", which was covered in another post here, between the U.S. states of Calfornia, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and six Mexican states would "promote an expeditions formalization to provide cross-border preparedness to all types of natural disasters."

It certainly is handy that the private companies which sponsored this conference and stand to profit from the opening of our Southwestern Border with Mexico also made sure that our "chief federal representative" in this area, Sec. Chertoff, was on hand to give his immediate "OK" to the "public-private arrangements" which would give added access to our country both to Mexico and to private enterprize without any imput from representatives of the citizenry!

I wondered if anyone had access to the complete list of private sponsors of the 26th annual Border Governors Conference, and if any sort of organized protest was of interest here?


Quotations through item 2) taken from "Schwarzenegger hopes to speed border crossings" written by Los Angeles Staff Writer Michael Rothfeld, "Los Angeles Times", August 16, 2008.

We need a source link please and it needs to be placed in Other Topics.

If you have the source link provided I can move it for you.

I wrote it using quotations from a Los Angeles Times article of 08/16/2008 which is fully credited at the end of the entry. Your moving it to "Other Topics" would be appreciated.