Posted on 03/30/2006 10:24:28 AM PST by neverdem
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
March 30, 2006, 7:23 a.m. We’re Thinking About Tomorrow Illegal immigration hits home.
Tuscon, Ariz. I got an e-mail today from somewhere in southern Arizona ranch country that captured the uncertainty, anger, and fear that illegal immigration brings to border residents every day.
The message told of a wildfire in the Chiricahua Mountains, probably started by illegals. It's common. A group busts the line, finds a secluded spot to cook a meal, and then, because they don't live here and have no stake in what they might destroy, they don't put the fire out when they continue trekking north.
My home state has had many such blazes over the years. Right now, after one of the driest winters on record and with fire season looming, everybody awaits the inevitable, hoping to get to the flames before they burn out of control.
This is what people elsewhere in the country don't understand. This is what politicians in Washington, presently in such an uproar over the issue, don't understand. On the ground in Arizona, illegal immigration isn't about long-term fixes like a guest worker program. It's about tomorrow.
It's about getting up in the morning and making sure that the property you've acquired over the course of years, and sometimes generations, remains intact. It's about praying that your possessions are still in your house when you come home.
Susie Morales lives west of Nogales in a remote canyon crisscrossed by smuggling trails. From her kitchen door, she can look out and sees burreros drug mules backpacking marijuana into the country. They're close enough to wink at her.
Her house has been broken into many times, and she had to protect it it looks like a fort, with security doors, window bars, and an expensive alarm system. At suppertime, when her husband is outside talking to passing illegals, she keeps a rifle on the table while she cooks.
As maddening as that insecurity is, what bothers Susie most is that she can no longer live the way she was raised. For generations on this border, residents have shown generosity and kindness to passersby. But rampant drug-running and illegal immigration have driven a stake through the heart of that way of life. The invasion has brutalized border country, and for Susie, who is fifth generation, that means making the heart-breaking decision to stop offering food and water to illegals. They come in hordes now, and the danger has grown too great.
"I can't describe how upsetting it is to have to change who I am," says Susie. "Why, after 50 years, should I have to face this moral conflict?"
In Cochise County, rancher John Ladd fights to keep what he owns. With 10 1/2 miles of land abutting the Mexican line, he watches the border war every day through his living room window.
In the early 2000s, the Border Patrol averaged 350 arrests every 24 hours on his property, including 700 in a single night. One morning Ladd walked into his living room and found a Oaxacan Indian girl on his couch. She'd walked in his front door and gone to sleep.
Last month a delegation of congressmen came to Ladd's ranch for an up-close look at his nightmare. They saw Border Patrol lights that don't work and cameras that are frequently broken for lack of a $15 circuit board that keeps blowing.
The agency used to keep a supply on hand, but a Border Patrol official told them they couldn't do that anymore, and must buy them as needed. This takes weeks, so cameras sit idle.
How can a bureaucracy that can't change a light bulb so to speak run a massive guest-worker program?
It gets worse. Along wide stretches of Ladd's land, the international fence is simply gone, either washed out by floods or cut down by invaders. The congressmen stared slack-jawed at the site.
It mostly makes Ladd angry, because the Swiss-cheese barrier allows Mexican and American livestock to mingle as never before, and that means they can spread disease that could put him out of business.
A migrant beginning in Brazil, where foot-and-mouth disease is active and spreading, can arrive at Ladd's fence in two days. If he's carrying a meat snack that harbors the highly contagious and destructive FM virus, Ladd could be finished.
This scenario would affect much more than the livelihood of this one rancher. If the wrong disease migrates north, either accidentally or through bio-terrorism, the whole country stands to suffer. An FM outbreak, for example, would require the overnight shutdown of America's beef export market, which has the potential to cause an economic and social catastrophe.
In the face of this real threat, and in the face of ten years of Ladd's complaints, the feds have been utterly paralyzed, unable even to decide which agency has the responsibility to fix the fence.
"I've got a great life," says the 50-year-old Ladd, whose family homesteaded his San Jose Ranch in 1896. "I'm proud of it and I cherish it, but this crap is driving me nuts. I feel cheated by my government, the country I love. They're telling me to go screw myself."
The great illegal immigration debate consuming Washington has done little to raise the hopes of people like Ladd and Susie Morales. They know that the uncertainty, anger, and fear they've lived with for years will likely continue, and that surviving on the Arizona border, and living on the land to which they were born, means having to worry about tomorrow.
Leo W. Banks writes from Tuscon.
|
|
|
|||
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/banks200603300723.asp
|
The next step will be that fed-up taxpayers STOP PAYING TAXES!
***deploy the troops.
make the border one continuous live-fire FTX.
rotate units through.
it is not as though our military has no use for desert ops practice.***
I wouldn't argue with that, Your Highness. But can you just hear what the MSM and the Dems would have to say about "murdering, poor, innocent, starving" people who just want a better life and to support their "poor, innocent, starving" children? BUSH A MASS MURDERER! would be tomorrow's headlines all over the world.
You can trace this current disrespect for America, borders and citizens way back to the decision citing Free Speech in flag burning. You can bet Mexico smacks down anyone burning the Mexican flag. If we don't value the flag and what it stands for, then others (Mexicans), may be excused for believing we're stupid and don't care. They walk in and take over. Bush and Fox call it 'integrating', and suggest that the US needs to 'invest in Mexico's infrastructure' to make stay at home Mexicans happy. In other words, rebuilding Mexico. Same thing as rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan, but without initial bombing.
Not to worry, the illegals (or as Fat Teddy calls them, 'our neighbors'), will soon grow impatient with the slow pace of free handouts and start bombing/fires, etc.. How long before other nations in the hemisphere demand that the US rebuild their infrastructure? Count to ten.
It isn't just the southwest. They're in every state of the union and don't plan to leave anytime soon.
yeah... so what? they already say that.
I know - but the destruction of national cohesion is notable only in the southwest at this time.
That struck me immediately, as well. Imagine a congressman slack-jawed at the sight of broken border fence. "Dang, I didn't think they could do that!". What do you expect from a clown that went to law school and probably never worked the land in any form his whole life.
No. But he sets the tone of his administration.
We are now one of the largest Spanish-speaking nations in the world. We're a major source of Latin music, journalism and culture. Just go to Miami, or San Antonio, Los Angeles, Chicago or West New York, New Jersey ... and close your eyes and listen. You could just as easily be in Santo Domingo or Santiago, or San Miguel de Allende. For years our nation has debated this change -- some have praised it and others have resented it. By nominating me, my party has made a choice to welcome the new America. As I speak, we are celebrating the success of democracy in Mexico. George Bush from a campaign speech in Miami, August 2000. |
Here is an excerpt of a good critique of that speech:
In equating our intimate historic bonds to our mother country and to Canada with our ties to Mexico, W. shows a staggering ignorance of the civilizational facts of life. The reason we are so close to Britain and Canada is that we share with them a common historical culture, language, literature, and legal system, as well as similar standards of behavior, expectations of public officials, and so on. My Bush Epiphany By Lawrence Auster
The illegal aliens and the criminals who hire them and the criminals who harbor them are getting out in the street making their desires known. It is way past time those of us who support the rule of law and secure borders did the same.
Join Veterans for Secure Borders, The Minuteman Project, Latino Americans for Immigration Reform, Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, and other groups protesting amnesty for these criminals, and demanding the government protect our borders.
http://www.areckoning.com/
FReepers should be at this rally in strength. Saturday, May 6, in Crawford, TX.
Isn't Cancun in Mexico?... and isn't it considered some to be a wonderland? Or are you just another pro Bush apologist, spokesman and heckler? You get a Grade D +. When you report back to your handlers tell them their prescibed methods of persuasion are not working this time around.
Posted by Supernatural to abigailsmybaby; TheForceOfOne; Jo Nuvark; All
On News/Activism 03/30/2006 11:36:57 AM PST · 124 of 138
RE: MILLION AMERICAN MARCH ON WASHINGTON
I just emailed Rush, Jim Quinn and Rose from the Quinn show.
Email addresses are:
Rush: rush@eib.net
Quinn: quinn@warroom.com
Rose: rose@warroom.com
Savage: paulreveresociety@yahoo.net
Savage is next on my list. Here is what I have already told the others.
Hi, Rush (or whichever one the email is to).
A bunch of people at the FRee Republic (www.freerepublic.com) are trying to organize a national protest of the illegal alien situation at the Washington, D.C. Mall on the Sunday before Memorial Day.
Events there would include the burning of the Mexican flag and guest speakers denouncing the illegal alien situation. Hopefully some politicians can be persuaded to come and speak.
We are hoping that you could announce this on your radio show to see what kind of support it would generate.
If 500,000 illegals and their supporters can gather on the streets of L.A. we should be able to do much better.
Thanks for any support you can give this idea.
Name
address
phone number
I think we have enough talent available on FR to pull it off.
***Isn't Cancun in Mexico?... and isn't it considered some to be a wonderland? Or are you just another pro Bush apologist, spokesman and heckler? You get a Grade D +. When you report back to your handlers tell them their prescibed methods of persuasion are not working this time around.***
Ahhhhh, now I know why YOU'RE here. I'm not falling for your insults, and I have better things to do than respond to them. Here is my one statement:
I AM pro-Bush. I thank God every day for this wonderful man who came along just when we needed him. Yes, I'm a Bush-bot, and proud of it. So here's your chance: Insult away, and keep making it obvious to America-loving Freepers why you're REALLY here.
THE NO ILLEGAL ALIEN LEFT BEHIND ACT
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/
Read the news.
"I can't describe how upsetting it is to have to change who I am," says Susie. "Why, after 50 years, should I have to face this moral conflict?"
Whatever you reinforce, you get more of...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.