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Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway
- Text size
Steven Higgs / Counterpunch | July 1, 2008
The day after John McCain flew to Canada to glorify the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 73-year-old Rosie Edwards repeatedly laughed about her flood-ravaged home in Martinsville, Ind.
“I’ve cried all I can cry,” the grandmother of 55 grand and great-grandchildren said on June 21 in her moldy, now-gutted home of six years. “I’ve lost everything.”
Just across State Road 37, which Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels and his Democratic opponent Jill Long Thompson envision as an extension of the Interstate 69 NAFTA Highway, Bill Bergman likewise chuckled. He became a minor media star after painting “Mitch, Make Me an Offer?” on the side of his home and signed it “I-69 Backer.”
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“If I don’t hear from him soon, it’s going to be ‘Ditch Mitch’ on the roof,” said Bergman, who sees I-69 as “part of progress.”
In response to the flood and declining economic conditions, long-time highway opponents argued the I-69 NAFTA Highway is now even more economically unfeasible in a state where the transportation research group TRIP says 32 percent of its “major roads are in poor or mediocre condition” and 22 percent of its bridges “are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.”
On June 20, the day McCain spoke to the Economic Club of Canada, Daniels also sicced state and local police agencies on I-69 NAFTA Highway opponents in Gibson County, dislodging two from a tree-sit protest.
In response to the arrests, youthful protesters engaged in civil disobedience around Indiana that led to at least six more arrests. About 50 took over the streets of downtown Bloomington on June 21, carrying torches, banging drums and chanting anti-authoritarian incantations such as, “You can’t put our friends in jail, we will drive the final nail.”
***
The Martinsville flooding only amplifies the arrogance that underlies the mindset of McCain, Daniels, Long Thompson and NAFTA Highway supporters, according to Tom and Sandra Tokarski from Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads (CARR).
I-69 currently runs from the U.S.-Canada border at Port Huron, Mich., to the north side of Indianapolis. The highway lobby’s plans are to extend it from Indianapolis’s southwest side to the U.S.-Mexico border at Laredo, Texas.
Consistent with Daniels’s life’s work — from his career as a drug company executive to his role in bankrupting working-class investors at the Indianapolis Power and Light Co. (IPALCO) to his stint as George W. Bush’s budget director to his three-and-a-half years as governor — his interest in I-69 is reactionary.
“He wants the big money from the highway construction lobby,” Sandra Tokarski said. “That is the bottom line. If there weren’t big highway construction lobby money coming in to all these politicians, especially Mitch Daniels, this thing would have been dead many years ago.”
Tom Tokarski argued that an array of factors, of which the flooded highway is but one, have converged this summer to highlight the arrogance behind Indiana’s determination to build I-69.
With gasoline surpassing $4 a gallon and no prospect of coming down, citizens are driving less, which means the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) is receiving less revenue from gasoline taxes, the state’s primary source of funding for highway and bridge construction and maintenance, Tokarski said.
“We think INDOT’s funding levels are away down,” he said.
And as with fuel, food and everything else, highway construction costs are skyrocketing.
“Everybody is saying the costs are just through the roof,” he said.
But, even though the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates the cost of crude oil has jumped 68 percent from 2007-2008, Daniels, the highway lobby and Indiana media continue using five-year-old INDOT propaganda that estimated I-69 construction costs at $1.8 billion.
“It’s a miracle highway because the cost never goes up,” Sandra Tokarski said.
***
With the now-undeniable proof that State Road 37 — the planned I-69 corridor through Martinsville — is in a floodplain, the NAFTA Highway’s real costs have risen again, Tom Tokarski said.
To avoid becoming a “dam” that would exacerbate flooding, the highway will have to be elevated, perhaps built on pillars, he said.
“I can’t imagine what that’s going to cost,” he said.
INDOT spokesman Andy Dietrick responded that the flood will have no impact.
“An analysis of the flood plain pertaining to the I-69 corridor in the Martinsville area was conducted long before the recent flooding, as part of the Tier 1 environmental study,” he wrote in an e-mail to the Alternative. “The latest flooding validates the data gathered during that study.”
Tokarski responded that the Tier 1 study offers no guidance.
“The Tier 1 Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) says that existing SR-37 will be used through Martinsville,” he said. “State Road 37 washed out during the flood. If that roadway is used, as it exists, for I-69 then INDOT will be building in a known floodplain that has already washed out once. The FEIS also says a raised urban section through Martinsville would be ‘considered.’”
The FEIS says the proposed route from SR-39 south of Martinsville to I-465 in Indianapolis may require reconstruction of existing SR-37, Tokarski said.
“This tells me that the corridor through Martinsville has not been evaluated to handle the now-known flood threat,” he said. “Bottom line: Andy Dietrich is mistaken. The plans are not fixed, and the cost is not known.”
***
Bergman, who said his home is situated at a planned highway intersection, pointed to his kitchen sink to illustrate how high the flood was without a highway dam.
“The spigot, it’s got mud on it,” he said. “That’s how high it was in here.”
And while Bergman doesn’t use the term “ignorance” while explaining how water got from nearby Indian Creek into his sink, he doesn’t mince words.
“I’ll just be blunt,” he said. “The city planning department and the city engineers, they’ve built a slab of concrete and pavement from the top of the hill all the way down.”
Specifically he referred to the sprawling development along SR 37 that includes Martinsville High School, Wal-Mart, two car dealerships and “all those restaurants.” With nothing to absorb the flood water, it overfilled the Sartor Ditch that parallels the roadway and flooded homes for hundreds of yards on both sides.
In response to Bergman’s highly publicized offer to sell his property to the state for I-69, INDOT issued a news release on June 17 saying, “Governor Mitch Daniels has asked the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) to begin purchasing homes along State Road 37 in Martinsville that will eventually be impacted by the construction of Interstate 69.”
INDOT said it would begin making contact with homeowners whose properties would be impacted by I-69 construction “by the end of the week.” But Jeff Hurst, whose home may be in the I-69 right-of-way, said he hadn’t heard anything.
“They’re supposed to buy 25, but we haven’t heard what 25,” he said on June 21. “Rumor has it’s just across the street.”
Dietrick said INDOT representatives were in Martinsville on June 18 to assess which flood-damaged homes would be eligible for early acquisition.
“Twenty-eight homes were identified, and coordination has begun on the optional acquisition process,” he wrote. “Inquiries from other homeowners in the Martinsville area, and throughout the I-69 corridor, are being reviewed on a case-by-case basis.”
The homes, he said, “will be appraised on pre-flood condition.”
The Tokarskis question whether INDOT will pay the homeowners what their properties are worth and see the move as little more than a cynical, public-relations ploy.
“What will INDOT offer to pay for them?” Tom Tokarski asked. “An appraisal is not the same as an offer to buy. Their appraisals tend to be low in regular situations. What will they be here?”
Sandra Tokarski said Daniels will make a few Martinsville voters happy in an election year and send a signal that the I-69 NAFTA Highway is moving forward.
“It’s a public relations coup for him, if he can pull it off,” she said.
***
After 18 years of high crimes and misdemeanors being perpetrated upon Indiana citizens by politicians from both political parties, someone finally went to jail over the I-69 NAFTA Highway.
Not surprisingly, it wasn’t anyone from Democrat Frank O’Bannon’s administration for brazenly ignoring the public will while giving millions of taxpayer dollars to an Evansville engineering firm that gave back 10s of thousands in campaign contributions.
Nor was it anyone from the Daniels administration for effectively giving the people’s most valuable assets — its transportation infrastructure and natural resources, for example — to multinational conglomerates and using the short-term profits to confiscate private property, destroy average citizens’ lives and further his own political career.
Nor was it any of their co-conspirators in these abuses of state power and law — the 150 men and women in the State Legislature who are beholden to the highway lobby’s interests, especially the NAFTA Highway’s. Among the most guilty: State Sen. Vi Simpson and former State Rep. turned Mayor Mark Kruzan, both Bloomington Democrats.
On June 20, two weeks to the day after Martinsville became a lake, two activists who occupied a tree-sit protest just off the highway’s path in Gibson County were arrested. At least five more protesters have been arrested in actions in the Evansville and Bloomington areas since police destroyed the tree sit.
The Evansville Courier & Press reported on June 21 that INDOT asked the police to remove the tree-sit protesters from the public land because “groundbreaking on the initial segment of I-69 (is) scheduled for mid-July.”
“Officers used a cherry picker to pluck the pair from the trees early Friday and lowered them to the ground to arrest them on trespassing charges,” the paper reported.
The “criminals” ranged in age from 20 to 25 and came to Southwest Indiana from across the country, signaling that the I-69 NAFTA Highway is a focal point for populist resistance against global corporations and their political enablers who will destroy anything, including citizen property and lives, in pursuit of wealth and power.
The tree sit, which had been manned by a variety of activists since May 19, was just south of State Road 68, where the Daniels administration has destroyed the first four of 400-plus homes and businesses that will be demolished by the I-69 NAFTA Highway.
The Roadblock Earth First! Web site described the protesters’ removal.
“One protester was not attached to a safety line during the eviction but was still hostilely handled by the Conservation Officers. As they reached her with the cherry picker, they pulled her, unattached to anything that would have prevented her tumbling to the ground, putting her life in great danger.
“After evicting the first sitter, officers moved on to the second. They raised the cherry picker below the platform to threaten the sitter and then lifted the platform with the cherry picker. They proceeded to cut the support line that was holding it in the tree. This protester had locked himself onto the ropes using a ‘lock box’ device intended to help him evade eviction. The officers cut that rope, leaving this protester also without any form of safety.”
In addition to the Bloomington march, where another protester was arrested for taking pictures of a police car, the resistance spread to Northwest Indiana, where a “solidarity” march to an INDOT district office was held in Gary.
On June 25, protesters shut down operations at the Gohmann Asphalt & Construction Co. in Princeton, also in Gibson County, after locking themselves to a truck leaving the facility. Gohmann has contracts to work on the I-69 construction.
“Repression only breeds resistance,” the Roadblock EarthFirst! Web site says
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July 2nd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
They are gonna have this road no matter what and they don’t care who dosen’t like it Period. There is gonna be NAU and amero. Europe went through the same thing way back when, even though mass people fought it tooth and nail. They’ll just keep pushing till its done. Do you actually believe us mere low life sheep even matter to the pieces of s--- that are running the show? We don’t even exist in their world. Like so many soap bubbles,blown away with the wind. They would just assume kill us all then to even see us. We make their skin crawl if they happen to catch the smallest glimpse of us. We’re lower then insects. They go into a sweating gag just to be walking on the same side of the street. We sound like nails on a chalkboard to their ears. They want to eradicate us and thats exactly what they are doing. For them its just not fast enough.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:25 pm
The fact that this superhighway goes right down over the former FLDS ranch and Mt. Carmel is the biggest F you I’ve ever seen in my life. If they are willing to kill and unlawfully imprision women and children over this thing, then I guess the will of the people is patently irrelivant to these bastards.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:47 pm
F*%k those guys…
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:00 am
Indianans’ are really nice folks but, JFC WTF is Mitch Bitchin’ em’ down for$$$???
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:19 am
I am from laredo, texas and TXDOT claimed that the trans texas corridor was being scrapped after txdot was met with overwhelming opposition by the people who’s lands would be confiscated to build this toll road super highway. TXDOT claims that it is now dead, but we the people know better!!! TXDOT said that the toll road would not be built, but that instead would use existing roads for this superhighway. How ever the the voice of south Texas was heard loud and clear when the people were enraged with the idea that TXDOT would consider privatizing exisiting highways that were BUILT WITH TAXPAYER MONIES!!! People in the white house have gone completely MAD!!! To those in Indiana… keep fighting!!! You have power in numbers. And everytime you are harrassed by the opposition use as much video as possible to document these events to let the people know what our government is doing!!! This will be the only way to prove to all the non believers out there!
It is a sad, sad, day in these United States of America when Americans will just stand by and mourn the death of the bill of rights, and our freedom, instead of taking action to secure our rights for our children and their futures!!! WAKE UP AMERICA!!! TAKE THE RED PILL!!! The NEW WORLD IS OUT TO GET YOU!!! Those of you who are still in disbelief about our government and about what is taking place before your very eyes…..APATHY=SLAVERY!!! IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS!!! It’s like we are a herd of cows and we all think that when the BIG RED TRUCK comes by once a month that “US COWS” get taken to a greener pasture or perhaps on vacation. Then a FEW of us come DISCOVER that the BIG RED TRUCK DOESN’T TAKE US TO GREENER PASTURES or ON VACATION, but in fact THEY TAKE US TO THE SLAUGHTER HOUSE!!! But the rest of the HERD doesn’t believe these “LIES” because THEY CONVINCE THEMSELVES THAT IGNORANCE IS BLISS!!! Now ask yourselves, is it REALLY that HARD TO BELIEVE that a government that experiments with LSD, mind control, brainwashing, Manchurian candidate, and infecting the U.S. population with dangerous germs in order to understand how fast populations become infected during germ warfare (all carried out by CIA) would try to brainwash you into believing that we are free??? Some one here posted a comment that THE WAY TO KEEP SLAVES HAPPY IS TO CONVINCE THEM THEY ARE FREE. This is very true! Americans have to snap out of this MATRIX OF DISTRACTIONS that deceive us from the very truths that are happening before us. These elitist, globalists are counting on the fact that we prefer to watch dancing with the stars than too watch the news or Congress passing laws on CSPAN. THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!! THE BUSH FAMILY LIVE THEIR ELITIST LIVES BY SPENDING THE BLOOD MONEY THEIR FAMILY HAS AMASSED OVER THE YEARS. SINCE THE TIME OF PRESCOT BUSH LAUNDERING MONEY FOR THE NAZI’S, TO GEORGE H.W. BUSH’S INVOLVEMENT IN THE DEATH OF JFK TO KEEP HIM FROM OPPOSING WAR WITH CUBA, TO THE INSIDE JOB OF 9-11 ORCHESTRATED BY “DUBYA” AND HIS WAR MONGERING, FEAR MONGERING, MONEY AND (MAINLY) POWER HUNGRY NEW WORLD ORDER! I am from LAREDO, TEXAS – the port of entry to Mexico in south Texas where the TRANS TEXAS CORRIDOR is being built. We encounter violence on the border more often than not! People are dragged out of Target during broad daylight by henchmen of drug lords battling it out for drug distribution power over this port of entry into the U.S.. Innocent bystanders have fallen victim to this border violence!! If the Trans Texas Corridor is completed then this will build on the NAFTA groundwork to establish the North American Union!! Once in place I AM CONVINCED THAT BORDER VIOLENCE WILL MOST DEFINITELY INCREASE BY LEAPS AND BOUNDS!!!
I SAY DOWN WITH THE NEW WORLD ORDER, BILDERBURG, CFR, ROCKEFELLER, WARBURG, ROTHSCHILD, THE FEDERAL RESERVE, RFID CHIPS, HOMEGROWN TERRORISM ACT, PATRIOT ACT, MASONS, SKULL & BONES, BOHEMIAN GROVE, EUROPEAN NOBILITY, ENGINEERED WAR, 9-11 LIES, MONOPOLIZING OIL COMPANIES, NAFTA, TRANS TEXAS CORRIDOR, AMERO, NORTH AMERICAN UNION, BIG BROTHER, AND USING RELIGION AS A FORM OF MIND CONTROL!!!
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:32 am
When I first saw the proposed plan for NAU it sparked my interest that port huron was on there. Now having looked further into it, it’s starting to develop into their plan.
as a Canadian I want to keep looking for the facts on what is happening, but this information is even more hidden here than it is for americans.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:03 am
What is missing in this story are some monetary facts. Indiana has $3.8 billion from the sale of the toll road and is seeking $500 million for the South Shore rail expansion.
Money is always put to some other use in Hoosierville so the NAFTA highway – is unfortunately – going forward!
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:11 am
Check out http://www.documentarywire.com to watch 100’s of documentaries for free!
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:33 pm
To them we are the obstacles.
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
no way in hell am I allowing nau nafta superhighway totaly erode our nations sovereignty f that not when I am alive grab your guns and take it to the streets the gov fears that the most anyway so let’s do it now!!!!!! everybody!!!!
July 5th, 2008 at 8:55 am
…beware of anything foreign owned…maybe it’s too late…
July 6th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
my comment to Lizajean, I sent a responce and it is not on the screen ,please help me to find this comment. joedr@theriver.com
July 7th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Costs? Just look at the Boston BIG DIG for cost overruns. Predicted at 2.8 billion, the final 3.5 mile long tunnel has a final price tag of over 14 Billion! The repairs alone cost in the 100 millions, and its brand new. Highways in a flood zone? Hide your wallets people.
July 8th, 2008 at 4:28 am
We all need a place to converge, discuss, and organize. There are millions of us who are against what our governments doing, and we know that they are organized against the people, yet we are not organizing. Wearechange.org IS NOT ENOUGH!. Though we will try, our aims will not be accomplished with peace. They will turn us into terrorists before we can do it ourselves!!! We MUST organize before that happens. We need a united forum/website that WE ALL GO TO and share ideas and information as a backup for bringing the feds back to their true role in our government. We need all states to declare sovereignty from the feds. We need state militia’s. Scaring them won’t be enough, since the same groups have been offering the solutions to the problems they cause. They will just offer us ANOTHER BULLs--- SOLUTION! WE MUST TAKE THIS COUNTRY BACK, not ask for it back. Asking will only delay the problems, not solve them. We need a way to organize us all, and it’s right here on the internet. They can’t tap us all! I’m not just talking America either. I’m talking about the whole world. We have the means right here, yet we can’t seem to find one place that is common ground for us all. WE ALL NEED THAT, WORLDWIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We must unite through this amazing medium called the internet! WORLDWIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Most of the worlds problems stem to the private banking system. We teh people of the world must destroy that system in such a way that it can never come back!
July 8th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I hate to point out a mistake in this story but I live in Detroit and the Hi-way is I-96 not 69
And to up date our war on the NAFTA super hi-way the Detroit city council just sold the rights to our side of the tunnel to Canada. I want to know when in the Hell they had the right to lease out a road way my taxes help pay for. And heres the Kicker Jenni from the block Granholm wants to lower the speed limit here to 55 MPH to save on gas like her dumb ass pays for my damn gas. Now that is just a talking point to distract the sheep from the fact they sold our road to Cintra. It really won’t matter what the hell the speed limit is when the roads are no longer ours. God I wish some one would drag her to the river and throw her globalist ass in and tell her to go back to Canada.
July 9th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Not only will it be our tax dollars funding this illegal crap, then we will have to pay every time to drive on it….but just keep sitting on yer asses…no worries, head in the sand, it can’t happen to me, not here, not in my backyard people..vote barak and let him lie to you to sleep at night…once again, we get what we deserve…
July 11th, 2008 at 2:50 am
it is I-69, I live in Bloomington.
READ THESE LYRICS from the band Groundation, the voice of the revolution
July 11th, 2008 at 2:50 am
it is I-69, I live in Bloomington.
READ THESE LYRICS from the band Groundation, the voice of the revolution
So they want to burn up Zion – Gate, the entrance to my home
Look us inna foreign country – inna modern day ghetto
And it’s we dem a rob – upon our heads them a
Oh if them need a pot at rain time – it’s you them utilize
you them criticize, you dem scandalize
you dem use again, you de man call friend
And if that man should fall – upon the ocean they will call
All Jah musician’s – in Irration
To all those heroes dem cannot enter into the gardens of life
No thou shall not enter into the garden of life
So they want to teach young lions – yeah, with them bag of lies
They’ve take my heart and soul – they trade a moutain of gold
Inna a dis a feeling home – All a dem man, dem haffe go, uh-oh
uh-oh, man haffe go – oh my Idren should have known
Who a dem a dep up in I yard? – who may take my soul
And who a left a dem a gate open – go on in, what I say
All of dem may take my yard – and all that they take they owe
But still they want to be angels – so man say
To all those heroes no them cannot enter into the gardens of life
No them cannot enter into the garden of
Life… Well is there a hero among ya?
No, not today, and not by tomorrow
They’ve servicing the highest kingdom of Babylon
No man seems to know… For this is a silent war
How could they know?
So they want to burn up Zion – Gate – panya de man
So block headed they don’t know and if so they
Can’t see Jah mount Zion, Iron sharpen Iron
And they build a road block in I man town
Hold dem up in country – Hold them up in Tivoli – I man say
We a de, chant a de, Iya call! Jah-Jah will answer
We a de, chant a de, dem a call! Jah-Jah will answer
We a de, never gwan, pass away! Jah-Jah shall guide you
And to all those heroes them cannot enter into the valley of life
No thou shall not enter into the garden of life
Gonna rock dem rock dem all, Gonna beat dem beat dem all
Now the war is over children, ans we shall go onto
Now the war is over people, and we shall live on, give on (3x)
Inna a dis, a dis a jungle Idren, inna dis a, dis a foreign land yall
Across the oceans we shall stand
United, undivided, undivided, still united
Oh lord we shall, we shall trot on, we shall trot on yes
On, and on, and on yes we shall, we shall, we shall…
July 16th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Today (16 July 08) I was invited to the I-69 (Indiana Interstate component of the NAFTA super highway system) groundbreaking ceremony today in Evansville Indiana. Governor Mitch Daniels, and others, were present.
Outside of the obvious, I wanted to bring this to your attention because of the INTENSE police and secret-service type presence at the ceremony. In fact, the event’s date and time have been purposefully hidden from the public (search local print and air media for the event and you will see this to be fact). Our tickets were serial numbered to us, and checked multiple times as we approached the barricaded venue. Military-style police units abounded, and “secret service types” where omnipresent INSIDE the facility. A few brave souls (protesters) were held behind the barricades by the intimidating presence of the police.
This event was supposed to be a celebration (I went not to participate, but because I wanted to be an “insider” so I could report the event to you….so hopefully you can spread the word about the government’s agenda to link Mexico & Canada thru the United States), but the atmosphere was Orwellian. It very much felt like a rally on the motion picture “V for Vendetta”.
Please research this topic, and make people aware that the heartland of America is mobilizing for the NW) and dissolution of our sovereignty. In fact, during the presentation, the jumbo monitors had a very brief clip depicting the “super corridor” from Mexico to Canada, and one of the speakers specifically mentioned how great this “connectivity” would be for our region. ** The uninformed applauded uproariously **
At the end of the ceremony we were given small trees, and beakers filled with dirt. I was also given a label pin that is in the shape of an Interstate sign with “69″ on it.
Thank you for spreading the truth, and awakening the uninformed. Hopefully we will be able to stem the tide of a one-world-government/banking system and restore Constitutional law and principles to this once great nation.