Fifteen years ago our countries launched the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Since its entry into force, trade and investment flows have increased, investment has grown, and our economies have become more competitive. The benefits of expanding trade have flowed to businesses, farmers, workers, and consumers.... Today we met to celebrate our achievements and to lay a course for the future.

Yes, you have just read something produced by government bureaucrats working in the ministry of propaganda — the NAFTA Free Trade Commission (FTC) to be exact. For those with a stomach for it, you can read the full version of the FTC's joint statement of October 19 here.

Force is the operative word in the "Free" Trade Commission's opening statement. NAFTA has nothing to do with real free trade. It has always been about managing the flow of money and wealth into the coffers of those who wrote the agreement for their benefit.

If you weren't at the negotiating table you were on it. The players at the table were not negotiating away their own wealth, they were negotiating away ours.

So, 15 years later now, how does it feel to have been forced to be more competitive by NAFTA? Were you one of those fortunate farmers chosen by the free market in the United States, like Conagra, that used your massive government subsidies to put real subsistence farmers in Mexico out of business?

Maybe you were one of those consumers in Canada who bought one of those big SUV's still assembled in the United States out of component parts made in Mexican factories pouring toxic chemicals into the ground water without fear of the EPA?

Or, maybe you were one of the lucky landowners in Texas who got the government price on your land that was seized under eminent domain to build the Trans-Texas Corridor?

NAFTA has been such a wonder it is hard to count all the ways it has blessed us. The authors of the FTC joint statement must have truly struggled trying to get it all in.

Here is the most important thing to take away from Monday's press statement: NAFTA isn't going away. It's being expanded.

The well-compensated government worker bees toiling away to dissolve our country into a regional economic suzerainty controlled by a cabal of supranational oligarchs are steaming ahead full speed to further shackle us with the chains of NAFTA. The list of areas the FTC announced it is working on include, but are likely not limited to:

Eliminating unnecessary regulatory differences (i.e. Harmonizing/making the laws the same for all three countries)

Coordinating a solution to address climate change (Think adoption of the Kyoto/Copenhagen Treaty)

Working to liberalize the NAFTA rules of origin (No doubt at the request of the biggest creditor to the U.S. and cat's paw of the multinationals; yes, more goods from China — textiles and steel — being brought duty free through Mexico under the cover of NAFTA)

Instructing nameless "officials" to report on how NAFTA can benefit small and medium sized enterprises. (Give lip-service)

Expanding the authority of the unelected and unaccountable NAFTA working groups (The essential element in the process of disconnecting NAFTA citizens from representative government)

Training judges to recognize the authority of NAFTA tribunals (Those called on to enforce the rules are almost as important as those who make them)

Establishing an ad hoc Working Group on Communications and Outreach to promote greater understanding of NAFTA and its benefits (Without propaganda, how else can commoners understand the benefits of "free" trade?)

If you remain one of those people not yet sold on the advantages that will accrue to you and your family as NAFTA morphs into a full fledged regional government like the European union, you do have options.

Think about teaming up with The John Birch Society and it members who are waging the battle to re-establish representative government and the rule of law under our Constitution.

Stop the North American Union. Save your country. Give your kids a future.