Mexican Invasion? The Only Illegal Aliens Are US!

Just a few days ago, a Mexican army convoy of 45 vehicles accompanied by 200 soldiers and around 270 tons of aid - which includes two mobile kitchens that can feed up to 7,000 people a day, water treatment equipment, blankets, food and water, crossed the US - Mexican border at Laredo Texas on their way to bring aid to Hurricane Katrina survivors who have found shelter in that great state.

It made few people uneasy though, to see Mexican troops crossing the border - even if this is a peace mission. The BBC NEWS World Edition reported that "US troops and Texas officials will accompany the Mexican convoy to provide security." That got me thinking, security, for whom and why? Then, later, after I started reading other accounts and opinions on this generous gesture by the Mexican people I figured it out - what the worry must be about - Mexican government troops have not set foot on "US" soil for 159 years, when they advanced north of the Rio Grande into Texas, which at the time was still Mexican territory and set off the US - Mexican War.

Other people, see Prison Planet, got really upset by the whole convoy affair and went as far as categorizing the Mexican presence as, "Armed Mexican Troops Invade US" with a caption stating, "Under cover of aid, combat ready soldiers roll into Texas, Congressman Ron Paul says Mexican troops in US period is "illegal, unconstitutional" and if that weren't enough the authors asked people to, "call the state police to interdict and determine if these forces are indeed armed and if their guns have ammunition or if their weapons are ceremonial (which is doubtful)". Wow! (This, my favorite word lately...)

As another aside, in the same BBC article about the Mexican convoy, Condoleezza Rice was quoted as saying, "... no offer that will ease victims' suffering will be refused." Though today, I read that in yesterday's White House press briefing by Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, when asked the question, "Cuba offered help to the United States. Are you considering taking any of this help? They offered medicines and doctors? What's the situation with that?" among other things McClellan stated, "... When it comes to Cuba, we have one message for Fidel Castro. He needs to offer the people of Cuba their freedom."

I thought that's typical, but definitely not in keeping with what Rice said or what should happen. Aid is aid. If the people of Cuba want to change their political system or leaders they will do it on their own, because they want to, like when they took Fulgencio Batista out of power in 1959. Again, if we stopped being the police force of the whole world and took care of our own, the USA would be a different place to live altogether and the horrible scenarios of the past week would not have had to unfold as they did, bottom line, we are too busy trying to control the whole world. Hands off Cuba! It's a sovereign nation with intelligent people who can make up their own minds if they are free or not!

So back to the supposed Mexican Invasion, and what the fear about seeing Mexican troops rolling into Texas might be about... In 1848 at the conclusion of the US - Mexican War both countries signed the Treaty Of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The treaty stated that Mexico would give up almost half of its territory, which included most of Aztlan - California, Arizona, Nuevo (New) Mexico, Texas and parts of Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. In exchange, the US paid 15 million dollars in war-related damages. (There's that 15 million dollar figure again - see my entry on the Louisiana Purchase.)

The other contents of the treaty outlined where the border would be placed between the two nations - at the Rio Grande, but it's most important provisions provided for the protection and civil rights of Mexican nationals, who chose to stay living on what would now become US soil, many of whom elected to become American citizens. Of course, if we've learned the real history of our great nation we know the track record it has in honoring treaties - just remember what it did with the many treaties signed with Native American Nations.

Keeping true to form, when the US Senate ratified the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo it watered down Article 9 - which dealt with citizens rights and totally eliminated Article 10, the one that guaranteed the protection of Mexican land grants. In Texas, Mexicans were not allowed to vote, and California passed discriminatory laws, some known as the "Greaser Laws".

This government-sanctioned anti-Mexican sentiment made ripe the conditions for serious civil rights violations against the people: violence, torture, rape, murder and yes, the good old land grab. By the end of the 19th century most Mexican-Americans living in the areas supposedly protected by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had lost their lands either by force or by fraud...and so it goes.

It's no wonder some gringos got a little nervous seeing Mexican troops coming across the border - armed or not - after all, it's not like Americans are used to having any other nation come into police what their government is doing with its citizens or if they are truly free. So, there you go, it just looked to them like it might be a Mexican invasion dressed up as aid to Katrina survivors.

The last thing, when I asked a friend of ours who lives in Rosarito what his thoughts on Mexican aid to the US were, he said he thought it was great that Mexico was able to help its neighbors and countrymen from the affected areas who have suffered so much in the aftermath of Katrina. And on the subject of the US's fear of a Mexican invasion, he said, "Well, they [the US] promised we could keep our land but they stole it and after all these years we've slowly been getting it back, a little piece at a time," and then just smiled knowingly at me. c/s



See: Web Poster Exhibition - Zapata vive! Mexican Posters for peace in Chiapas.
For more information on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and Reies Lopez Tijerina's struggle to recover stolen land grants.

(c) 2005

THE NEW LOUISIANA PURCHASE

Well, it looks like I have to jump on all the things that keep making me angry about this monumental tragedy before I start to cry again. Some of the new debit cards, that are being handed out to the survivors of Katrina, are called of all things "The Louisiana Purchase!" They're blue and have these words emblazoned on them. When I saw that (on the Spanish language news on Telemundo) I thought to myself, isn't that funny, not as in funny ha! ha! but funny as in, do they really think people are that unaware of what's going on and are they just gonna keep rubbing our faces in it? More on this in a minute...

I mean, forget that I am still trying to pick my chin up off the table after reading Barbara Bush's comments, well-meaning as she may have thought they were - they were stone cold racist in many people's minds. Yes, I know, a lot of people in this country hate that word - racist, so what if I said instead that what Ms. Bush said was at best super insensitive - would that feel better?

For those of you who don't know what the heck I am talking about, during a tour of the Astrodome in Houston, TX with her husband George Bush Sr. Barbara Bush had this to say: "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." As if living in a cot space in the Texas Astrodome with thousands of strangers, with no privacy and a myriad of serious problems hanging over their heads (like how to rebuild lives, jobs and homes) was better than living their underprivileged lives back in New Orleans, before HK hit, just because of some good old Texas hospitality and now, a 2,000 dollar debit card!

And by the way Babs I wonder what is it that scares you so, is it the sheer numbers of people or their skin color? By the way, that Texas hospitality goes only so far, I know, I was born there. For more on this see Barbara Bush comments on survivors spark outrage.

Now back to the Louisiana Purchase. The Louisiana purchase was a treaty signed between the United States and France wherein the US paid France more than $15 million for approximately 800,000 square miles of land which extended from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. That was a lot of francs back in 1803 even if the French only received around $11,000,000 in cash for all they handed over - the rest went to pay off debts of the French to American citizens. The thing is, there had been a secret deal back in 1800 wherein Spain receded Louisiana back to France thereby making it part of Napoleon Bonaparte's booty, you remember him - another famous land grabber from back in the day.

Upon learning of this, the Americans got nervous, even President Thomas Jefferson was quoted as saying, "The day that France takes possession of New Orleans ... we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation." Control of New Orleans was tantamount to control of the Mississippi River, probably the most important waterway with regard to commerce - getting products to market etc. Yes, Napoleon Bonaparte having control of the Isle of Orleans would not fare well for the American economy should he decide they could not use the river or charge them big bucks to do so. The US had to figure out a way to buy it or get it away from France. So to the bargaining table, they went and in the bargain, the US got all of the old Louisiana, see map above, and for more details about this history see Louisiana Purchase (and I thank them for the loan of the map).

Yesterday I was reading an article by the Black Commentator entitled, New Orleans Population has the Right of Return which is really from the text of Radio BC audio commentary for September 8, 2005. This commentary discusses how the population of New Orleans has the right to return to their city, "... before newcomers benefit from the tragedy of the previous population's displacement." It also states that it is not too early to start discussing this issue - and many agree. The real scary fact is that many survivors may choose to abandon their city and make Houston or other places their home instead of having to face going back to the ruins of New Orleans. That would leave New Orleans wide open for the 21st-century land grabbers, those that would come in after the levees are fixed, and after Halliburton has come in and rebuilt the city in its own vision of a modern port.

This New Louisiana Purchase is going to cost a lot more than the thousands of lives that were already lost, or the two thousand dollar debit card which is supposedly going be given out to over 100,000 folks. Which can't even begin to cover their loss - these people whose lives have been disrupted at best, destroyed at worst.

All of the displaced people of the Gulf Port States should have right of return and should be encouraged to do so, once it is safe. They should also have the right to assist in the planning stages - to map out how their hometowns are going to look now, after this tragedy. A tragedy that probably could have been mitigated but instead, was allowed to unfold in the way that it has.

No I am not blaming George W. Bush for the hurricane, I am not giving him that much power, but call me a conspiracy theorist - that's theorist not terrorist, please - because I do blame him for a lot of things among them, for not allowing New Orleans to have the money to shore up its levees and instead diverting this money to the war in Iraq. I blame him for not allowing New Orleans, the Big Easy, to be strong enough to stand up to a hurricane above a 3.0, and for not wanting or being able to respond as quickly as we did to the Tsunami, which was also a horrific tragedy but one that we were able to respond to within 2 days - not five, six or even seven! And I hope against hope that I won't have to blame him for a 21st-century land grab - for a New Louisiana Purchase.

(c) 2005

Who is Bush Kidding?

Our country can and has responded to many emergency situations across the globe in record time so now all of us are asking the same question, why did it take almost a week to respond to our own emergency right here at home?

The feds are pointing fingers at the state and city governments, in turn, they are pointing right back but the bottom line is, that the shameful lack of response was tantamount to NOT CARING. Why didn't the federal government care enough to respond rapidly or even in a timely manner? Could it be because the hurricane of poverty had already hit and held so many of New Orleans' people in its grip? Could it be because as always, poor people (especially people of color) are expendable in the eyes of a government made up of people who have what they need, and those in need can just wait until someone gets around to helping them? This experience is a wake-up call for so many Americans on so many levels and as my fellow writer friend says, ¡Abre los ojos! Open your eyes! If you haven't figured out that this is just the beginning of days like these then you'd better... we'd all better.

Many of us sat glued to the tube trying to figure out what we could do besides praying because it sure looked like no one in the gvmnt was going to ride up in white hats to save the day... others of us headed out for the affected areas to try and make a difference.

There have been many good people around the country who have opened their hearts, wallets, and homes to the survivors of Katrina and in the months to come we are all going to have to do more to help our fellow citizens who by the way, are not refugees!

Go to http://www.nola.com/ to see the open letter to Pres. George Bush from the Times-Picayune a mainstream media daily newspaper in New Orleans, even they are fed up with the treatment their city received in their time of greatest need.

(c) 2005