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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 7/6/10

Revolution Both Sides of the Border

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The New York Times this Tuesday morning writes about the appalling attempt by the drug lords of Mexico to have their way with the elections in that "country." Their "way" is to disrupt and terrorize in order to destroy Mexicans' sense of citizenship, to further enserf them under and into the exceedingly wealthy and well-armed cocaine baronies. The Times was kind to the concept of there still being a Mexican polity, but two-thirds of the way up the eastern seaboard provides less perspective than you would hope. It is more like anesthesia!

Were the Times published in Arizona or Texas or New Mexico ... not just printed, but actually published with the immediacy of the situation in its face ... the kind comments about how Mexicans voted despite the bodies hanging from bridges might have taken a different slant, an understanding that the voters's votes will be for officials whose very lives depend on doing the business of the drug cartels.

The tipping point from a rule of law to one of outright criminality and feudal narcokleptocracy was passed years ago. Mexico is a petri dish of the brazen and toxic. The failed state below our borders is not confined to its national territory, however, it exports drugs and hideous crimes over the borders with impunity. In days of yore we would have long since sent a General Pershing across the border after these latter-day Pancho Villa wannabes, but Pershing was unsuccessful at last, and times change.

Instead, Arizona and about 20% of the rest of the states are moving toward filling the vacuum of executive responsibility created by a series of feckless Congresses and paralyzed Presidents. Rather than chasing Pancho all over northern Mexico, Arizona is saying, "ola, mister/seà ±or, you sure act like you are here illegally, let's see if you are muling drugs into our country to feed the music industry and high schools across the length and breadth of the land."

Whoops! Now everyone thinks that every Hispanic looking person in Arizona will be harassed out of their minds by profiling police bent on instigating a guerra del la raza, as if they had nothing better to do and people to do it with in a state with more debt per capita than almost any.

Washington is saying, well Phoenix, Tucson, Nogales, Yuma, Casa Grande, yes, you are being invaded. We can see that. But, you all know, the Army and the National Guard is busy right now. You should take the burden gratefully, because we are winning in Iraq and Afghanistan. No?

No! The feds are not saying that out loud. They are saying: okay Arizona you have stepped over the line and are doing what we feds are supposed to do but are deliberately not doing. We are not defending Americans on American soil against incursions from foreign countries, because we do not want to. And, accordingly, we are going to sue you Arizonans on what the Washington Post describes as "constitutional" grounds that our failure to perform is no defense of your willingness to take up the slack.

Actually, Hillary and Barack, embarrassed to death that the kids of illegal drug-bearing immigrants might not eventually vote Democratic, if they are hassled as illegals as a matter of national policy. They are also afraid that Mexican-Americans who cannot afford to sponsor family members and relatives for legal entry into the U.S. will revolt against the Democrats and choose--of all things--the political party of agribusiness that hires migrant Mexican workers at subsistence wages, including children in the fields against other U.S. laws that are also not being adequately enforced.

Down here in Arizona we are more than a little suspicious of the motivations in Washington that keep open a cheap safety valve on dissent within Mexico, a safety valve that provides an opportunity in the U.S. for the poorest and most oppressed where, without that safety valve, the Mexicans would realize their own responsibility to overthrow the "plantation" economy of Mexico. Of course that would create an embarrassing political instability where now we have merely social, legal, and criminal instability to contend with along and deep inside our borders!

The court case against Arizona will be a pyrrhic victory for the plantation-class in Washington. The grounds for the suit is "the locus of responsibility." If won on those grounds they must finally at last take the responsibility. But, to relieve Arizona of the responsibility to assist (as the Arizona law plainly states) in the apprehension of federal fugitives, federal criminals, federally illegal immigrants is nonsensical and utterly moronic.

Frankly, I don't see Obama standing up to all of this issue, and as I have already written, Hillary has committed political suicide over it. The court would be wise to give equal notice to the causes of the disagreement and for just one moment consider what the opposite of a people defending themselves might be!

JB

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James R. Brett, Ph.D. taught Russian History before (and during) a long stint as an academic administrator in faculty research administration. His academic interests are the modern period of Russian History since Peter the Great, Chinese (more...)
 

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