"Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot" - Unknown
As we roll into a beautiful May, I look forward more than usual to arising in the morning and looking out over our gorgeous Rocky Mountain view. Spring in the Rockies is especially fetching as the aspens unfurl their leaves and everything turns green for a few months anyway, until July and August leave us eating their dust.
But this May, instead of reveling in all of our splendor, many Coloradans have chosen to engage and embroil themselves in a controversy that is sweeping our nation: the Immigration Issue. Now I'm no expert on this issue, far from it. In fact, I purposely have chosen to basically ignore it altogether and I'm urging you all to do the same. Normally I wouldn't condone lack of information, for I realize that information is power, but in this particular case you've got to ask yourselves: why is our government suddenly making such an issue about immigration when these problems have existed for decades and they're not even enforcing the current immigration laws they ALREADY HAVE on the books?
Hmmmm. OK, my theories? To perhaps divert our attention from the war and G.W.'s inability or lack of desire to bring our troops home? To get our focus off of current gas prices that are estimated 2B $4.00/gal. by this summer? To keep us looking the other way long enough so that we'll be distracted and not realize until it's too late how oil and pollution are contributing to global warming to the point where our children have no real environmental future? To get us so pissed off and outraged over illegal aliens that we'll forget how our government treated and are continuing to treat LEGAL citizens of this country down in New Orleans and Mississippi who still have no decent housing, water, jobs, roads, food, or assistance of any kind? Talk about a third world country!
I mean, c'mon people. Don't we have enough to focus on of a far greater nature than who's sneaking over our back fence? Yeah, yeah, I've heard the arguments. 1) They're a threat to our national security. If that were REALLY true, there would have been far more done about it B4 now and certainly since 9/11. 2) They're stealing our jobs from decent, hard-working, LEGAL residents of this country. No, actually you can blame corporate America, our government, and upper-class America for that one. It's a fact that there are currently less jobs in this country than 30 yrs. ago because corporate America has realized that they can outsource labor to other countries and pay those people less, thus ensuring themselves more profit. And until minimum wage gets increased in this country, our government is basically guaranteeing that the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. Also to blame are the American-owned factories who hire illegal immigrants at lower wages than anyone else will work; they're actually CREATING the market that draws illegal immigrants to this country in the first place, along with all of the upper class households and hotels who are hiring illegal immigrants at below minimum wage to clean our houses, be nannies to our children, and change the sheets in all of those hotel rooms in Las Vegas. Am I supporting illegal immigrants or their plight? No. I realize it's a problem and that they're breaking the law by being here. But I'm also a realist. Building higher, longer fences and enacting more laws is not going to solve the issue. To solve a problem, you must solve what is CAUSING the problem, not the aftereffects that the problem creates. It's a simple law of the Universe. For every action, there is a reaction, cause and effect.
So let's call a spade a spade people and see the REAL problem here. All fingers are pointing at the little guy when we need to pay attention to the man behind the curtain who's creating all the smoke and mirrors. We need to all stop acting like a bunch of lemmings and following the lead lemming to our death and instead stop and start thinking for ourselves. It will only be through raising our collective voices and not depending on our government, in which true change will occur.
A man I frequently admire for his music and opinions, Charlie Daniels, has recently written his take on this whole thing and it's been circulating the Internet for some weeks now via those "Check this out!" emails that we all get. And while I don't agree with his comments leveled at Hispanics because, again, I don't believe they are the cause of the problem, I DO agree with his comments leveled at our government in which he calls them "lily-livered, gutless, and gonad-less". I know you're Pro-America Charlie and so am I, but you really missed the mark on this one, I do have to say. I might have to throw out this pic of the 2 of us together; you're sounding more like a uninformed Southern redneck everyday. But heck, I still love ya.
