The Tragic Truth About Immigration in the USA

Let’s start with the fact that unless you are from South America or are Native American your family at some point in history immigrated to the United States of America or was brought here by force. Many people came over in ships from Europe before it was even a country. At which point there was no legal work to come to this continent. Millions of Native Americans were killed by these first immigrants. 

One of the first horrors was the killing of Native American to make way for the new immigrants. The children of Native Americans were taken away and placed in boarding schools. Their entire identity was destroyed. Everything was taken from those children. Their parents, their culture, their language, and their place on this continent. Still we cannot begin to understand why their descendant are so dysfunctional in modern European based society. 

Next came the African slaves. Again the European culture ripped children from the arms of mothers to sell them off like livestock. Again their language, culture, and sense of place was destroyed by the European culture. And yet again we wonder why the descendant of these people are so dysfunctional in modern European based society. And yes we still put their descendant in cages and create laws to make it legal. 

Next came the Japanese. Once again these individuals were treated as slaves. They were worked hard to build the rail system that would connect our country. They were mistreated just like all the others before them. They were put in camps during World War II out of fear that they might turn on the dominant European culture. Again we wonder why the descendant choose to stay in areas where they do not interact with the modern dominant European based society. 

Lastly came the Spanish from South America. We destroyed their government to make sure that our idea of the correct form of government controlled it. We forced their countries into chaos. We developed a need for drugs and bought those from the South American countries encouraging the growth of gangs that murder, rape, and enslave the local population. When they flee to our borders we put them in cages and take away their children. Promising them they will never see them again as we did many of the other cultures. 

We have built this country on the backs of many different cultures. With each generation we have abused those individual for our own benefit. Some of them like many of my ancestors have learned that the only way to survive is to integrate and hide their children within the modern dominant European based society. Often teaching those very same children to hate anyone that does not look European. Others hate and despise that dominant culture and develop small areas that recreate the culture their ancestors came from in the first place.

This is the "Great America" that everyone in the white dominant European based society so desperately wants to defend and continue. They don’t want to know that their DNA often carries the blood of the people this country has stepped on to build the greatest nation in the world. None of us from this country have any moral high ground to stand on.  The best we can do is resolve that this type of treatment will never happen again. Never again means more than just not building camps to put a disadvantages culture in to keep them under the control of the dominant European based society. It means welcoming immigrants and helping them to build a better life for them and their families. Fear of other immigrants cannot rule our country. We are all at least part immigrant in our DNA.      

This election is not about Trump

After this primary election you can see that attacking President Trump is not what the voters want. Neither is the call for unity without reconciliation. What matters to voters are the issues. The candidate that can give a safe message of moving New Mexico forward is going to win this November.

The top issue will be jobs. This state in not doing well even though the states around us have growing economies. We need a governor and state officials that have a jobs plan. The candidate needs to be careful about placing too much weight on exports. President Trump is all about trade wars currently and a jobs plan based on trade could lead this state into a dead end. On the other hand, green energy jobs will produce work for the state. Technology will also produce jobs if small businesses can get the capital to expand therefore creating new jobs.

Next is the state’s environment. With the lack of rainfall, we are facing fights with Texas about water rights. We need to stand firm about this issue to protect our small farming communities in the southeastern part of the state. We need to look at corps that can produce income and at the same time not take up as much water. Again green energy is a way to protect the environment while producing jobs and income. It is also great for the environment. The labs should be put to work in developing new technologies that can protect the environment while also producing new jobs in our state. 

Women’s rights need to be an issue were most of the voters that turned out in the primary were women. The #metoo movement cannot be just a political ploy to end the careers of male politicians. We have to develop fair and honest proceeds to investigate claims of sexual harassment in state government. The good old boy’s acceptance of the past cannot continue. The progressive wing of the party needs to start vetting their candidates to prevent sexual predators from being supported by them. If not, then the state will be faced with paying out large settlements for that type of behavior.

We need to be able to talk through our issues over the next few months otherwise the result will just be a repeat of 2014 and 2016.

Election Turnout

When just 28.33 percent turnout for an election you know that the voters have pretty much checked out of the system. And to think that could be a record.  A small amount of very rich people are funding expensive elections that will continue to support their goals on both sides of the political spectrum.

In the next four years no matter which candidate wins the election little will change in this state. Small changes will occur around the edges but big change has not got a chance because of who the rich elected to the state government and the federal government.   

This year was the first in many that a few candidates traveled around the state providing free events to the public. The problem is that normal voters have come to expect that their voices don’t matter in this state when it comes to who gets elected. Citizen’s United, a supreme court ruling, told the American public that corporations were more important than individuals when it comes to electing who runs their government.

For the most part normal voters don’t see what is being taken away from them because they are too busy in the daily struggle to get through life. It is a matter of Maslow’s theory where basic needs have to be taken care of before people can care about issues of social justice and government control.

The republicans are more engaged because for most of them it is a matter of survival. In red states drug companies have caused the addiction to hard pain killers to surge into areas where it is destroying the fabric of their communities. Environmental rights have taken away their jobs. They are poorly educated because most of the well-educated individual have long since moved away leaving a disproportionate number of difficult to educate individuals within a smaller area of the country. As long as this is a fact of life for these individuals they keep voting for the republican because of the lies and false promises made to them. 

Real ideas like community centered education with mentoring are liberal democratic values. Quality vs quantity style of education that teaches critical thinking skills is also a liberal democratic concept. The idea that low level crimes that can be solved through treatment rather than incarceration is not going to get funded when the big drug companies control the candidates elected.  

With all of this continuing to affect American voters why would they care to take the time out of their own lives to show up at the polls?