Band-Aids Don't Work Alone
America - this land of the free and home of the braze; this place where people seek out life, and liberty; where folks come to pursue happiness; this home to millions of proud patriots - has over the centuries developed a reputation of being a sanctuary for the hard worker. People around the world believe that America is a place were the underdog is cheered for, and where the downtrodden go to find a leg up. Even I have been brainwashed into believing that the Great U.S. of A is the greatest country ever created on earth simply because of the notion that peoples of so many different creeds and colors could come here to have equal opportunities at success.
What a pity that after all this time this reputation is still one of our boldest lies. We clam to care about the downtrodden. The Lady Liberty herself has etched into her finery that she will light the way for the tired, poor, homeless, and wretched. But when actually put into action we discover a totally different set of ideals shouldering the door closed to those who ask for help.
We did it to the Irish during the potato blight; we did it to Jewish children during Hitler’s rain of terror and now we’re doing it again to Latin Americans and Mexicans who seek asylum from the dangers of their homeland - and who knows what other groups we’ve systematically shut out due to some unjustified territorial fear that they’ll somehow change our white washed way of living.
I'm not saying that that I advocate for illegal immigration of thousands of undocumented persons into the country. Nor do I advocate breaking the law and ignoring the strict process put in place to initiate new comers and prepare them for American life. I do believe that is important that it not be too easy and that if we’re not careful overpopulation will mess up our economy.
However, putting up walls, and blocking gates isn’t the only answer. Raising the bar for American citizenship and knocking ladders from under desperate people are ideas of bred from fear and ignorance. If we really want to decrease the number of people trying to cross the boarder we need to ask ourselves ‘what are they running from?’
No one runs away from home, risking death, imprisonment or the lives of their children for fun. Regardless of how run down their house, pitiful their job no one abandons the life that they know to try and restart in a totally knew country where they don’t even know the language unless there is something seriously wrong with where they came from. People don’t abandon the ship unless the ship is going down.
The way I see it putting walls around the Mexican border and shipping them all back home is like sticking a Band-Aid over a dirty and infected wound without cleaning it first. Without the proper antiseptic to go in and kill the germs the wound will just fester getting worse until the entire limb is damaged. The lands south of that boarder are infested with poverty, violence, and hunger. Without help it will only get worse. It’s only a matter of time before the infection spreads up to us. We are all connected.
These are human beings we are talking about. Humans that have no means by which to live their lives because they’ve lost their liberties and come to us in pursuit of happiness. By erecting this Berlin style wall we are demanding that they starve their own families and that they suffer under the weight of mounting bills and waning money. We are damning them to death and sending a message to the world that America does not care.
What follows this argument is usually the complaint that we can't help everybody. All sorts of countries are suffering and begging for American help and besides we’re fighting a war. To this my answer is a bitter ‘ha’. We’re fighting a war in a country that doesn’t want us there over principals a majority of the American people neither understand nor care about. Most of us don’t know why we’re still there and those that think they do will only spit the same tired propaganda the politicians have been feeding us for the past ten years. “We’re fighting terrorists and fear. We’re fighting them because they don’t like us. We’re fighting them because they raised oil prices. We’re fighting them because if we don’t show them whose boss they may try bomb us again.” Bull. It’s about oil and money. We’ll probably never know what really and truthfully happened in cases 911 and we’ll probably never truthfully understand why our government fights that country with such fervor. But we all know that they want us gone, and I’m must obliged to do so. We should focus our efforts building allies not enemies and our greatest allies may be the neighbors that we’ve ignored.
As for those other nations who do need help, I am inclined to agree that we can do everything alone. I feel that America should become a more active member in the United Nations for just that reason. We don’t have to be lone rangers. Whenever we try to we end up being ridiculed anyway.
But conditions south of our borders are different. For one we share an entire hemisphere with them. At best we are separated by a river in Texas and a canal in Panama. Why not take more interest in their well being?
And then there is the fact that the U.S.A is actually half the reason conditions in South America, Latin America and Mexico are so poor anyway. It’s the American demand for cheap imports and fruits that keep the Latin American farmer earning 5 cents an hour. It’s the American drug market that keeps Mexican gangsters supplied with ammunitions while youth on both sides of the boarder fall victim to dysfunctional, dangerous, and unhealthy life styles. It’s the 1st world billionaire that wants to hide his riches and secrets in untaxed banks that keeps the living conditions of tropical cities looking like slums. Our country started a war over bananas that ruined the economy of small island nation few of us have ever even heard about just because they asked to be paid for their work.
If we, as Americas, are so concerned about the flood of illegal immigrants entering our country then we should take steps not to stop them from coming, but to stop them from wanting to come. We as concerned citizens of the human race should
1. Pressure our government to pressure their government into making the changes necessary to give their people a better way of life. Oh, there is that word again. Cha-cha-changes. We must face the fact that some of those changes may need to be done on our side of the boarder. Some goods, such as tropical fruit, may need to be more expensive to give those workers decent wages; banks may need to be *gasp* taxed so that that tropical towns, and cities can come out of the dark ages; and this alone may put some stress of the growing drug train as young boys on their side get jobs beside growing and selling cocaine to gangsters.
2. We, as Americans, need to become more aware and more concerned of global issues. We are not an island. What happens on one side of the invisible line does affect us. So the mentality that their governmental decisions are not our business is ignorant. Journalists need to investigate and expose what’s really causing the ship to sink and we as consumers should pay attention.
3. We need to learn from the past so we can have a guilt free future. Asking people to starve to death in their countries does nothing but tarnish America’s good name. Citizens must desire and seek out information from beyond our shores and actively vote on our principals with our dollars.
Finally, we must recognize that people move, and mix and mesh. It’s natural. Publishing ignorance and fear in the news media does little more than spread ignorance and fear. The changing wave of colors experienced by our country is just another change in the waves of American life. When has that ever turned out to be a truly bad thing?
Sources:
http://nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2009/03/images/bop_frank_mexico.jpg
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://thebsreport.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/usa-mexico-border.jpg&imgrefurl=http://thebsreport.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/border-apprehensions-drop-for-3rd-straight-
What a pity that after all this time this reputation is still one of our boldest lies. We clam to care about the downtrodden. The Lady Liberty herself has etched into her finery that she will light the way for the tired, poor, homeless, and wretched. But when actually put into action we discover a totally different set of ideals shouldering the door closed to those who ask for help.
We did it to the Irish during the potato blight; we did it to Jewish children during Hitler’s rain of terror and now we’re doing it again to Latin Americans and Mexicans who seek asylum from the dangers of their homeland - and who knows what other groups we’ve systematically shut out due to some unjustified territorial fear that they’ll somehow change our white washed way of living.
I'm not saying that that I advocate for illegal immigration of thousands of undocumented persons into the country. Nor do I advocate breaking the law and ignoring the strict process put in place to initiate new comers and prepare them for American life. I do believe that is important that it not be too easy and that if we’re not careful overpopulation will mess up our economy.
However, putting up walls, and blocking gates isn’t the only answer. Raising the bar for American citizenship and knocking ladders from under desperate people are ideas of bred from fear and ignorance. If we really want to decrease the number of people trying to cross the boarder we need to ask ourselves ‘what are they running from?’
No one runs away from home, risking death, imprisonment or the lives of their children for fun. Regardless of how run down their house, pitiful their job no one abandons the life that they know to try and restart in a totally knew country where they don’t even know the language unless there is something seriously wrong with where they came from. People don’t abandon the ship unless the ship is going down.
The way I see it putting walls around the Mexican border and shipping them all back home is like sticking a Band-Aid over a dirty and infected wound without cleaning it first. Without the proper antiseptic to go in and kill the germs the wound will just fester getting worse until the entire limb is damaged. The lands south of that boarder are infested with poverty, violence, and hunger. Without help it will only get worse. It’s only a matter of time before the infection spreads up to us. We are all connected.
These are human beings we are talking about. Humans that have no means by which to live their lives because they’ve lost their liberties and come to us in pursuit of happiness. By erecting this Berlin style wall we are demanding that they starve their own families and that they suffer under the weight of mounting bills and waning money. We are damning them to death and sending a message to the world that America does not care.
What follows this argument is usually the complaint that we can't help everybody. All sorts of countries are suffering and begging for American help and besides we’re fighting a war. To this my answer is a bitter ‘ha’. We’re fighting a war in a country that doesn’t want us there over principals a majority of the American people neither understand nor care about. Most of us don’t know why we’re still there and those that think they do will only spit the same tired propaganda the politicians have been feeding us for the past ten years. “We’re fighting terrorists and fear. We’re fighting them because they don’t like us. We’re fighting them because they raised oil prices. We’re fighting them because if we don’t show them whose boss they may try bomb us again.” Bull. It’s about oil and money. We’ll probably never know what really and truthfully happened in cases 911 and we’ll probably never truthfully understand why our government fights that country with such fervor. But we all know that they want us gone, and I’m must obliged to do so. We should focus our efforts building allies not enemies and our greatest allies may be the neighbors that we’ve ignored.
As for those other nations who do need help, I am inclined to agree that we can do everything alone. I feel that America should become a more active member in the United Nations for just that reason. We don’t have to be lone rangers. Whenever we try to we end up being ridiculed anyway.
But conditions south of our borders are different. For one we share an entire hemisphere with them. At best we are separated by a river in Texas and a canal in Panama. Why not take more interest in their well being?
And then there is the fact that the U.S.A is actually half the reason conditions in South America, Latin America and Mexico are so poor anyway. It’s the American demand for cheap imports and fruits that keep the Latin American farmer earning 5 cents an hour. It’s the American drug market that keeps Mexican gangsters supplied with ammunitions while youth on both sides of the boarder fall victim to dysfunctional, dangerous, and unhealthy life styles. It’s the 1st world billionaire that wants to hide his riches and secrets in untaxed banks that keeps the living conditions of tropical cities looking like slums. Our country started a war over bananas that ruined the economy of small island nation few of us have ever even heard about just because they asked to be paid for their work.
Click to viewIf we, as Americas, are so concerned about the flood of illegal immigrants entering our country then we should take steps not to stop them from coming, but to stop them from wanting to come. We as concerned citizens of the human race should
1. Pressure our government to pressure their government into making the changes necessary to give their people a better way of life. Oh, there is that word again. Cha-cha-changes. We must face the fact that some of those changes may need to be done on our side of the boarder. Some goods, such as tropical fruit, may need to be more expensive to give those workers decent wages; banks may need to be *gasp* taxed so that that tropical towns, and cities can come out of the dark ages; and this alone may put some stress of the growing drug train as young boys on their side get jobs beside growing and selling cocaine to gangsters.
2. We, as Americans, need to become more aware and more concerned of global issues. We are not an island. What happens on one side of the invisible line does affect us. So the mentality that their governmental decisions are not our business is ignorant. Journalists need to investigate and expose what’s really causing the ship to sink and we as consumers should pay attention.
3. We need to learn from the past so we can have a guilt free future. Asking people to starve to death in their countries does nothing but tarnish America’s good name. Citizens must desire and seek out information from beyond our shores and actively vote on our principals with our dollars.
Finally, we must recognize that people move, and mix and mesh. It’s natural. Publishing ignorance and fear in the news media does little more than spread ignorance and fear. The changing wave of colors experienced by our country is just another change in the waves of American life. When has that ever turned out to be a truly bad thing?
Sources:
http://nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2009/03/images/bop_frank_mexico.jpg
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://thebsreport.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/usa-mexico-border.jpg&imgrefurl=http://thebsreport.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/border-apprehensions-drop-for-3rd-straight-
