If you haven’t heard of Marfa, well, maybe it’s time you did: a little town in the Texas panhandle less than an hour from the border of Mexico, it’s become famous as an artists’ retreat and now as a stage for a couple of Academy Award winners (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood).

It’s also becoming ground zero for one of Mr. Bush’s NAFTA deals, made back when he vas guvnah. Apparently, the idea is to build a super-highway that will run right through the center of town, connecting the Midland-Odessa inland port with the US border at Presidio with western Mexico. It’s called La Entrada al Pacífico, or the Corridor to the Pacific. It has its very own website with a picture of the guv, by the way. Just on the face of it, it sounds like one more case of BIG BUSINESS BUTTING IN where no one wants it and at the expense of everyone around it. Big Business with “B” as in “Bush.”

Of course they’re up in arms in Marfa, as well they should. However, according to the article, not much on the Mexican side has been done to connect to this super-highway. If you look on the MOTRAN website, the latest news is that El Sauzal roadway to the deep-sea port of Topolobampo (in Sinaloa) is “currently being constructed by private business interests in Mexico… Completion of the road is scheduled for 2004.” (Oh, and they misspelled “Topolobampo” in the site, calling it “Topolobompo.” Nice.)

Here’s an update from Wikipedia:

“The trade route begins in Topolobampo, Sinaloa, and travels along Federal Highway 23 to Choix, Chihuahua. From there, the route goes to San Rafael, Chihuahua, on currently non-existent roads that are supposed to be finished by 2010. From San Rafael, the route goes to the state capital, Chihuahua City. The corridor then follows the newest section of highway to the border crossing of Ojinaga/Presidio.”

So, the good news is, it doesn’t seem like anything’s moving forward too quickly so their still might be time to stop it. To quote my buddy Simmonds “It’s all an effort to create a North American Alliance similar to the European Union. I personally like the concept of separate, diverse nations…it makes the world a more interesting place. Big Biz obviously wants it to move all manufacturing to a country with a $5 a day minimum wage. Adiós middle class America.”

IMHO, I totally agree.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1713476,00.html