Lockjaw, The Mexican Problem and The Profit of Controversy
by Glenn Disney
by Glenn Disney
The subject on Mexican illegal immigration is monopolized by elite analysts sitting behind sparkling clean capitalistic windows, none of whom have ever eaten a goat-taco and and think that Cancun is a model of what all Mexico should be. The narrow perspective we're given of Mexico and illegal immigrants by Daddy-Media keeps us glued to everything except healing, and indeed separates us from those real human solutions which are obfuscated by Fox News' neocons and other right-wing media outlets. To them it's all about patriotism, standards of living and money! To the Mexican illegal immigrant, it's about survival, land reclamation and pursuit of happiness upon earth, originally without borders and fences. Deep within the border-crosser is a sense of unalienable and natural permission to enter and inhabit the continental U.S.. That consciousness stems from history. Americans, pleased to whine, condemn and demand as they watch hordes of third world humans flock into their backyard, are ignorant to that important fact. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since the 1840's. It's outlandish to suppose that we need to start from the beginning to understand and then reconcile the Mexican illegal immigration problem. History is always the beginning. Starting from the beginning of a problem to solve it only applies 99.9% of the time. The "Mexican" problem is apparently exempt from this method.
We're propagandized to believe that's it's about "national security", yet existing immigration laws remain slack. It's ludicrous to assume that a sealed Mexican-U.S. border will keep al Qaeda out! Al Qaeda has heard of Canada. Al Qaeda also knows how to walk through the North Woods and cross imaginary border lines.
We're warned that our medical system will fail due to Mexicans flooding our emergency rooms, stressing available resources. Yet our current health system is legally allowed to cheat its insured clients for profit and bankrupt patients caught off financial guard by a medical emergency. We yawn and keep voting for the healthcare lobby-bribed politicians. We should have revolted by now! We're defending a corrupt healthcare system while demanding that non-citizens stay out of it!
We're asked to believe that the Mexican border problem started in the 1980's and that Reagan dropped the ball with an amnesty-cloaked answer. Dig deeper, however, and discover that we unofficially begged Mexicans to cross the border during both world wars to replace our millions of absent agricultural workers, turned soldier and factory worker. Our massive agri-industry realized what a labor savings this happened to be and so quietly and lucratively kept it going in the 50's, 60's and right on into 2007.
We don't want to dig deeper. We just want a quick explanation, a quick blame, and a quick solution. It fits our "quick" lifestyle! Right-wing media realized a market for frustrated, hurried and history-challenged Americans and rushed in with an inoculation of nationalism, patriotism, and self-righteousness - thus Fox News and the likes were born!
We're quite a busy society. We don't have time to dutifully study the illegal Mexican immigration dilemma beyond the few minutes that Sean Hannity ambushes an invited interviewee who happens to lean on the human side of the issue. We're bound by lifestyle to grab the drive-thru version of the border problem, bagged and handed to us at the window by a smiling and famous media "commentator-expert?" Finding an American willing to delve into our nations' respective histories is difficult. Linking our own history with any culpability to today's transmigration problems is taboo.
If one could be lured away from media's slim pickings on the subject, perhaps Ulysses S. Grant's profound and uniquely qualified statement that, "[The Mexican War] was one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation," would be a good appetizer. The meal would include: a good helping of (1) Manifest Destiny, a splendidly prepared portion of (2) Pretext for War, involving U.S. troops ordered to march up and down the border to incite an attack, and (3) Congressman Lincoln's specifically and unnerving outlined opposition to the war, served on the side.
The U.S. Mexican War was blatantly manipulated; a war of aggression to the extent that we quickly paid the crippled nation 15 million for California and New Mexico and acquired vast territories, later to become states. "We take nothing by conquest" was our pompous conclusion. The facts are voluminous supporting the case that the U.S., marauding on the 1800's spirit of 'Manifest Destiny', essentially stole several states from a newly independent Mexico. Mexico really never recovered economically or politically, experimenting with revolutions and monarchies thereafter. And so, standing proudly as Americans, thinking that we owe them nothing, is to stand on backs. To think that the average, uneducated border-crosser is ignorant of his Mexican history, is to be ignorant. The stories of Miguel Hidalgo to Antonio L?pez de Santa Anna are written on their hearts and in their version.
Should we ever experience the blissful calm resulting from lockjaw setting in on Minutemen's Jim Gilchrist, State-endorsed Fox News' Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Bill Cunningham, we could begin to ponder some of the more human alternatives to the border problem with our southern neighbor, Mexico. These famed right-wing pundits, waving flags and scarring the public with selective, and diversionary illegal immigration statistics, get richer and richer with TV and radio appearances and publications on this and other issues. The controversy is calculated and cultivated to stir emotion and stuff cash in their pockets. Americans, more than most, need to recognize the "business" of controversy and the media. Were it not for our gullibility and contribution to ratings and marketing, the Hannitys, Coulters and such, would be little better than superb used-car sales people. Then, at least, their honesty index would improve.
Left up to common people on both sides of a future "open" border, and after some initial growing pains, a natural economy and society would evolve, abrogating the need for trade agreements to enrichen only the corporate leaders and politicians, as does 'NAFTA." Political commentators and so-called experts on immigration would also go by the wayside, forever exposing their incompetence and uselessness.
