I was listening to a little news radio today. I sometimes listen to Fox News or CBS or any of the mainstream news sources, just to hear what they are saying. Lars Larson comes on the radio and says that he is visiting Israel and "our friends in Israel" have an answer to our immigration problem. He is joking, right? I can't believe that there are people who are actually advocating a wall.
Lars goes on to talk about the effectiveness of the "separation fence" in Israel. It only cost the government $2 billion to construct thus far. It has prevented many "terrorists" from coming over into Israel to suicide bomb and kill Israeli civilians. Lars points to the building of the wall having caused a decrease in the number of terrorist attacks by Palestinians on Israel. This is simply false and poorly researched.
First, like Americans, the supporters of the wall are completely ignoring the reasons for the "terrorist" attacks. Why are Palestinians attacking Israelis? The answer to that is much too long for this blog but it is a result of how Palestinians have been treated since there lands were given away and stolen by the Israelis. It has as much to do with that as terrorist attacks against America have to do with our constant killing and occupation of the Middle East. Also, if you look at the statistics, for every 1 Israeli that has been killed since the 1930s, 8 Palestinians have been killed.
Okay, now parallel this too the illegal immigration problem. Why are they coming here? Well first because there is much more opportunity. We all know this. But let's not ignore the fact that huge corporations, specifically in the agriculture and construction business, have been actively recruiting people from Mexico and bringing them in to the US for cheap labor. Also, the same sorts of companies welcome immigrant workers because they can be exploited. Then these workers are treated like criminals, no matter how long they have been producing our food, building our homes etc... We still propose walls, and throw them out of the country. We don't even consider that they made it possible for us to have cheap goods and allowed CEOs to stuff their pockets full of cash. Why are they held to account for this problem? Why isn't the system? If you put up a wall, then these companies will just find another population to exploit or they will outsource.
Capitalism, has caused most of American jobs to be sent to other countries. In the strive for money and power, companies have found populations that can be exploited so that they can maximize profits. These populations are mostly oversees. And as a result of the system, Americans are losing jobs. We want to blame the immigrants, but come on, how much impact has that had? All of our production jobs, manufacturing and agricultural jobs have been moved or changed so that they can be done in factories which employ cheap labor. A wall will never change that problem. That is a problem of the system and our priorities.
Let's look at Israel again. Does Lars Larson think that the military occupation of Palestinian territories has anything to do with the decrease in attacks? The constant surveillance and destruction of Palestinian culture and life. Does Lars think that Tanks in the street, blowing up homes, killing civilians acts as a deterrent? Probably not. And it is that type of ignorant that would suggest a wall between us and Mexico to fix our jobs problem. This is straight insanity. The machine of politics has turned a terrible, a monstrosity of an idea into a possibility. We again have ignored the causes of "the problem" and only looked to search for ways to eradicate "the problem". There needs to be a serious discussion about the systemic practices that have caused the severe problems in America and the world. Putting up some barrier to shield us from the truth, from reality is just an insult to us that really care.
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