Here in the Kansas City area, immigration officials are tenaciously pursuing the deportation of a 31 year old Mexican named Myrna Dick. Myrna is married to an American and has a child with him.
Also in Kansas City, a law abiding 38 year old father of two has been victimized by anti-immigrant laws. Adam Hernandez lived in the United States for 26 years and is married to an American citizen. Last week our federal government deported him to his native Honduras because he stole a car when he was a teenager. Human compassion in action.
On 4/24 Missouri state senators voted to empower state troopers to enforce federal immigration laws. If you have brown skin and are in Missouri, you better be able to prove you are a "real American" or you may find yourself "south of the border".
Interestingly, our fellow imperialists across the Atlantic are coping with their own influx of people they have abused for centuries.
Each year, tens of thousands of desperately poor Africans make a perilous journey of 2,000 miles or more to seek better lives in Western Europe. However, Europe is also in the throes of xenophobia. 4,000 victims of the fallout from the colonization of Africa have been detained by Spain so far in 2006. With increasingly zealous enforcement of immigration laws, Africans are forced to take more dangerous routes to enter Europe. At least 1300 have died at sea so far this year.
Many of the African migrants attempt to gain entrance to Europe through Morocco in North Africa. To counter what it claims to be a tide of millions of African immigrants, Morocco has militarized its border, built high fences and dug deep trenches. Despite these measures, tens of thousands of African migrants make it into Morocco. Many of them are unable to make it to Spain, their ultimate goal. They remain stranded in Morocco where most live in abject poverty.
Like their counterpart in the United States, the French National Assembly is now debating immigration legislation. They are considering severe restrictions on the entry of unskilled laborers from African nations. Several French human rights groups and churches have denounced this measure. They recognize that such laws would lead to a flood of educated African professionals immigrating to France. Those left behind in Africa would find their situations even more dire as their doctors and engineers left for greener pastures in France.
In South America, two indigenous leaders have risen to power through legitimate popular election. Following the lead of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are boldly defying their Neocolonial masters. Much to the chagrin of Western imperialists in Washington and in the European Union, Chavez is committing such heinous acts as utilizing Venezuelan oil revenues to provide education, housing, medical care, and food to the poor. Morales recently nationalized Bolivia's vast fields of natural gas. Perhaps Allende has been given a second chance through a double reincarnation.
In a Homeric tragedy, the Middle East has been the epicenter of a maelstrom of venomous hatred, brutality, subjugation and war dating back to the Crusades. While instability and conflict have plagued the region for many years, the demand for oil has taken the unrest to new heights. Western support for brutal, tyrannical regimes, like that of the Shah, Saddam Hussein and a continuous parade of Israeli leaders, has fueled an intense and understandable hatred amongst many of the indigenous people in various Middle Eastern nations.
Committing egregious acts of terrorism and murder "justified" by the warped notion that military personnel simply cause "collateral damage" when they kill innocent civilians, the United States, Israel, and their European allies have triggered a violent backlash from the denizens of the Middle East. While the violence committed by both sides is abhorrent, the violent reprisals of the Iraqi Resistance and groups like Hamas represent a rational response to invasion, terrorism, murder of civilians, and acts of genocide committed by avaricious and powerful invaders.
Aside from the obvious moral imperatives, we have several pragmatic impetuses to change our malevolent ways and redeem ourselves. Our victims out-number us. They possess both the will and the means to do us grievous harm, both militarily and economically. The days of their meek submission are long past. Iraq, Iran, nuclear proliferation, oil addiction, a notable increase in the percentage of minorities in American and European populations, and fears of "homeland" attacks are painful reminders of the increasing inability of the Caucasian-dominated West to dominate the world as it once did.
How do we in the United States finally shoulder the real White man's burden?
If we implemented the following social and political policies/strategies, much of our debt would be repaid to those we have abused and exploited, our creditors whom we victimized would leave us alone, and humanity would no longer be on a path to self-destruction:
1. Slashing insanely bloated military budgets by at least 2/3 and using the savings to balance the budget, fund domestic social programs and to increase foreign aid. (It is delusional to believe that the US needs to account for over 50% of world military expenditures per year to protect 5% of the world's population).
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