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Good Fences Do Not Make Good Neighbors
Some of our most dramatic quotations come from walls. Who could ever forget, "Mr. Gorbechav, tear down this wall!" Or, "You can see the Great Wall of China from the moon." (Which turned out to be false.) Or Robert Frost's "Something there is that doesn't love a wall."
I was rereading Frost's poem, "Mending Wall," the other day. Between the ruckus over the immigration bill and the Dept. of Homeland Security's determination to begin building a 135-mile wall in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, walls are in the news.
Conservatives are furious that we have something like 11 million illegal aliens in the United States today. "Keep 'em out, wall 'em out!" is their rallying cry.
Liberals accept their presence, worry over their children's health care, and want to rebuild, say, the economy of Mexico so America no longer looks like a promised land.
In Frost's poem, he makes the conflict personal. Ostensibly, he's describing a New England ritual, the stone fence repair he and his conservative neighbor carried out every Spring.
The "something" that does not love a wall - Frost impishly suggests "elves" - causes frost heaves to spill boulders. It attracts hunters who tear apart sections looking for a rabbit in a burrow.
Why have the wall at all, Frost asks. He's raising apples. His neighbor is growing pines. "My apple trees will never get across and eat his pine cones," he chides. His neighbor just huffs, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Frost wonders, "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know/What I was walling in or walling out/ And to whom I was like to give offense." It's a fair question.
When the Chinese built the Great Wall, it was an attempt to keep out marauding Mongols. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't.
The Maginot Line was an attempt to stop the Germans from attacking France. Instead, the Germans went around it.
The Berlin Wall was an affront, designed to keep a captive people inside the Iron Curtain. The world rejoiced when it was torn down.
The Isreali-Palestinian Wall, besides meandering here and there to steal a little more Palestinian land, bristles with barbed wire, cameras, electricity, sensors, watchtowers and sniper posts. By building it, Israel is giving the world a lesson in cold brutality.
In the latest issue of The Nation, Naomi Klein spotlights another aspect of that particular wall: it is helping the Israeli economy. The creative intelligence of the country has been poured into "selling fences to an apartheid planet... Many of the country's young entrepreneurs are using Israel's status as a fortressed state, and its occupation of Gaza and the West bank, as a kind of twenty-four-hour showroom."
Who would have dreamed, when we optimistically faced the millennium, that the world would bend towards enriching itself with barbed wire, electricity, sensors, watchtowers and sniper posts?
At the Mexican-American border, Homeland Security is on a mission.
"We have a mandate from Congress and the public to secure our borders, and we are going to be steadfast in fulfilling that mandate," said spokesman Russ Knocke on NPR's "All Things Considered" a few days ago.
I question that "mandate." In 2006, just before the mid-term election, the Republicans, borrowing an ugly page from the Israeli playbook, passed the Secure Fence Act. It authorized the Dept. of Homeland Security to build 700 miles of fence on the U.S.-Mexico border. The estimated cost was $2.2 billion. The president signed it happily.
The bill was intended to be a "wedge" issue, one that would bring the Republicans more votes. The tactic didn't work. Now we're stuck with the bill - and if we don't loudly protest, the wall.
Arrayed against this wall are farmers and ranchers on both sides of the border, environmentalists who warn that entire ecosystems will be disrupted or destroyed, mayors of border towns on both sides of the river, and the Mexican government. Walls are useless things. Most illegal immigrants don't come here with wet backs; they overstay their student or travel visas. Cuban refugees, blocked from entering the U.S. in Florida, go to Mexico to cross the California border.
Every time a southern crossing is made more difficult, dedicated immigrants take more dangerous paths. They don't stop coming. False papers, tunnels, coyote smugglers - human ingenuity, like human veniality, is extraordinary creative. Remember Prohibition?
During the years since 9/11, the federal government has obsessively focused attention and money on border control. The Canadian-American border is a mess. The American passport system failed this summer. So if illegal aliens are still flooding in, either our government is incompetent or it has an impossible job. Either way, how will a fence help?
Latin Americans are workers, not apple trees out to eat our pine cones - or our lunch.
Who are we walling in, Frost asks? Who are we walling out?
Clearly, it's ourselves we're walling in. We're creating our own jail. We're walling out fresh people, fresh ideas and fresh labor. We're walling out the world.
If we let the conservatives win this fight, we turn America into one large gated community. And no matter how we feel about illegal immigrants, we will all be deeply injured by the results.
Frost's neighbor, clutching his stones, is "like an old-stone savage armed/He moves in darkness as it seems to me/Not of woods only and the shades of trees."
Walls create darkness. Eventually, they collapse. Historically, when have they ever make good neighbors? They must not be built. Joyce Marcel is a journalist and columnist based in Vermont. A collection of her columns, "A Thousand Words or Less," is available through joycemarcel.com. And write her at joycemarcel@yahoo.com.
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32 Comments so far
Show AllI only regret that the fence dose not go from SEA TO SHINNING SEA. Illegal immigrants might have a better chance trying to make something in there own countries and avoid being exploited by our own greedy illegal employers.
As I've stated before:
...fences make good tunnels...
Until the real issues are addressed that force people to take drastic measures to try to improve their horrifically difficult lives, they will continue to move into areas perceived as more opportune- come ON, it's basic history, part of the timeless tale of human migrations.
Why are they leaving? The USA builds walls that are mere bandaids covering the pus-filled wounds of NAFTA (etc). Fix that nasty problem, save a lot of money on useless walls.
Good fences around the jail where all the scum employers who HIRE illegal aliens should be would make great neighbors.
2.2 billion for 700 miles? sounds a little low to me, what with surveillance, patrolling, upkeep, repair, etc.
it's also indicative of the US solution to most everything (drugs, terrorism, etc.): more walls, more police, more security, more surveillance, more prison, etc.
when they say there's not enough money to do something, just remember: there's ALWAYS more money for militarized solutions to social problems.
Where are the contractors going to get cheap laborers to build this 700 mile fence in the desert at a profit?
As long as conservative and mainstream groups in the US support fascist candidates in Mexico, those candidates will continue to win and Mexico will continue to ignore the problems of its poor and they will continue to stream across the border. Fox and now Calderon both count on that money coming in, relieving pressure on the social problems they cause with their fascist programs to enrich the already wealthy.
Progressive and other non-fascist Americans should look for ways to help the progressive candidates in Mexico who will help the poor of that country find training, education, and employment there, which they certainly would prefer to do.
Come to think of it, the history of human economic and technological advancement has been a history of progressively increasing walling. From barbed wire on the American range lands to gated communities to, yes, gated enclaves within gated communities to walled nation-states. Fear of loss; fear of losing some part of our gaining; hell, fear of sharing plenty, dominates our world. Sad.
Good Americans made good neighbors. But bad American government has made us bad neighbors. Instead of building fences Americans should be trying to learn something about the world. They don't need any more barriers to what little information they are now given about the world. We've had the Ugly American and the Quiet American. And now it seems our government wants to make us the Invisible American.
Hoa binh
POWERSLAVE is right - the problem is the employers who use and abuse the workers coming from south of the border, not the lack of a fence. But in the discussion on immigration, rarely does anyone discus why the immigrant workers keep coming, and what we should or could do about that. Indeed, a lot of the effort appears to be about how to keep the workers coming so that employers can continue to exploit them. And why do we think we need to change the rules so that more highly skilled people can come to the U.S. when obviously, according to most reports, we need all of these low-skilled workers to "do the jobs Americans don't want to do"? Shouldn't we be keeping the highly skilled people out so those jobs can be filled by Americans - aren't they the jobs Americans do want to do?
I recently spent six months in Australia. There is a lot of seasonal agricultural and tourism work in Australia, and those industries depend on backpackers and other Aussie's touring around the country to fill those jobs. And it appears that most jobs do get filled, probably because the wages are very good indeed, compared to the U.S. Aussies (and others) want to do those jobs.
Congress is making a royal mess out of the Immigration Reform law, but isn't that what they always do? As usual, nothing substantial that makes sense will be done, big money will be served, and the American taxpayer will have to come up with bazillions of dollars for the fence and other inforcement actions which will inconvenience all and accomplish nothing.
Joyce Marcel writes: "The Israeli-Palestinian Wall, besides meandering here and there to steal a little more Palestinian land..."
--Methinks the Israeli greedy, leader-fanatics are about stealing more than 'a little' land?
and:
"Who would have dreamed, when we optimistically faced the millennium, that the world would bend towards enriching itself with barbed wire, electricity, sensors, watchtowers and sniper posts?"
Well, - 'tis only to be expected, (unfortunately).
For as long as Troglodytes are elected into office by a meagre-minded and sorely duped electorate, our crazed leaders will continue to build (externally) what they already build internally...
In the minds (and what almost passes for hearts) of the cavemen -and women- in office, there are already many walls and barriers.
These craven degenerates are ridden with fears and paranoias; they are besieged with their lack of love for their fellow beings, and are filled with separative, hate-filled thoughts.
Naturally enough then, this attitude is then subsequently reflected in their outer actions: they do as they think: They build walls of every sort, at every opportunity.
Our main challenge now is to help our fellow beings to think and feel differently, then walls will be demolished and fences will come down, -showing that we have learned, -at last, 'to love our neighbors as ourselves'.
I was extremely disappointed to learn that Ron Paul supports the Mexican border wall.
In one of her last columns, the late and greatly missed Molly Ivins said "Show me a 50 foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder." Right on, Molly.
SO! What are we going to do with a bunch of non-English speaking people with low paying jobs who want what our ancestors fought and died for and for what we pay all our working lives.
I suggest they be encouraged to go home and fight for rights in their country where they all have the same heritage and language.
And let our greedy employers do without for awhile. In England, young men have been known to go haying after work with their friends...bringing in the hay. Some consider it a good exercise. Some college age girls work as au pairs and nannies. Perhaps we're rearing an effete future citizenry.
I'm pretty tired of paying the cost of illegal immigrants in this country...costs their employers won't pay. Such costs include hospital and emergency room charges, more schools, more teachers, more texts, special teachers, Section 8 Housing, etc. Meanwhile employers are given tax breaks.
So, Kivals, how exactly is Calderon a "fascist"? Has he shut down unfriendly TV stations a la Chavez? Well, no. Has he shut down newspapers like La Jornada that daily spew venom his way? Well, no. To be sure, Calderon does not have an army of welfare recipients and pirate taxi drivers that he can call into the streets of the Federal District (but NOWHERE else) to cause problems, but, does that make him a fascist? Or does that just make you an intolerant pig who cannot deal with differing points of view?
Good fences are not the issue. If the U.S. wants to allow anyone in fine. We could have Congress debate in the open and hammer out an agreement.
Merely ignoring the problems of Mexico and the U.S. that causes this displacement or making a back door deal with the rich and powerful exploiters of the poor is what is happening now.
I do not blame poor people trying to improve their life. I blame the governments who fail to function. I also blame the small % of criminals who are taking advantage of the disarray and the poverty to enhance their cross border crime spree.
The US is also building a wall with it's largest undefended border.Canada. We now need passports to go to US and because of the rush,my wife's renewal was greatly delayed and our planned trip to see our grandchildren fell through. But US citzens can go another year without need of passports to come here or reenter.
It seems that the uS tries to do everything to alienate it's friend's. Maybe the US no longer needs us.
Maybe the world needs to organise a boycott of USA goods ,nobody go visit as we did with South Africa in the 90's.I'm all for it.
Get Mozilla and goodby Microsoft.
The National boundary Fence is not intended to keep out all the foreigners clamoring to enter the land of liberty and freedom. Rather, it will serve the same purpose as the Berlin Wall if it is ever finished. With the no-fly lists, and the hi-tech passports that record our every thought, it will enable the feds to see to it that only those approved by the Home Land Security boys will be allowed in, or out...
OTOH, I fenced my yard, including a gated driveway to keep the neighbor's Rotts from killing my Welsh Corgis. I filed charges etc. and eventually prevailed in the legal system, but a vicious dog needs only to get out once a month to kill your pets.
It is only 4 foot high, and there is a gate for neighbor kids to use at will - I really didn't want to fence myself off from the neighborhood, just a couple of specific deadly dogs. On a human level, to fence or not to fence, presents a dilemma for thoughtful people.
"Good Fences Do Not Make Good Neighbors"
I disagree.
Workers that come to this country illegally are at the mercy of those who hire them. Labor laws do not protect them. When I was younger I worked at a horse race track where large numbers of workers were working illegally. Some were paid well, as much as $150 a week. Others though were paid as little as $40 a week and subsisted by living in the tack room and eating tortillas and beans. Everything was at the complete whim of the person who hired them. Those who advocate ignoring the illegals are as guilty as the employer of subjecting them to that whim.
Those who advocate open borders also ignore the fact that not all who come here come here just to work. There are the MS13 gang members, the drug trade, human trafficking, cross border car theft rings, home burglaries, and other crimes against persons and property. The pollyanna view by those who are not affected by the worst the border has to offer is just that, an unrealistic view of what is actually going on.
Another legitimate concern is national security. Like it or not since 9/11 it is a fact that there are people that want to do us harm, here in this country. When you don't know who is entering the country, how many are here, where they are, and what they are doing, how can you claim we are safe from terrorists?
Now there are some that I'm sure would like to or will try to label me as a racist or a xenophobe. Before you do you should know that I am married to a Mexican national whose family immigrated legally to the U.S. and I have relatives in Mexico by marriage. And guess what, they are against illegal immigration too.
There is certainly noting wrong with legal immigration. In fact it is good for the country and should be encouraged to the extent we fill the needs we have here. We need to determine that the needs are genuine though. That employers truly can't find people to do the job. That they are not just exploiting the immigrants and ignoring the law to fill their own pockets by paying substandard wages. I question whether it truly is a case of Americans being unwilling to do the jobs since many of the categories I see that they say thay can't find workers for are jobs that I did after school and during the summer as a kid.
Lobo Gris
Xntrk: I get the same scenario playing in my head that you do, and it's not a pretty one. With this band of never-elected power-corrupting-absolutely neo-cons eviscerating law as if its their personal plaything, venues of recourse falling away like so many pillars in a temple during an earthquake, one must become quite imaginative in potential ways to deal with the closing of borders. Sci-fi is now playing in the USA theater of war for hire.
I hae to tell this.. I have been advertising for a receptionist position in my office. I have had several, as in more than 4, kids, right out of highschool, apply. They require a starting salary of 35,000 +. One even asked for 45,000.00.
Now I'm not saying they woul dbe interested in working in a slaughter house but, what are we teaching our kids if they honestly think they can graduate high school and earn that kind of money? I think the whole problem is we are raising our kids so they feel they are entitled to a free pass.
Congress voting to erect a fence across our southern border is just another knee jerk reaction for a problem, then of course they didn't bother to vote the necessary funding to build it. As Collidingrivers points out, good fences make good tunnels and one could add, or tall ladders.
We must secure our borders and there are practicle means of doing so, walls and fences are not the answer. Of course if Haliburton or one of their hidden subs should get the contract? Gotta help Cheney every chance we get.
We need to cut off both supply and demand. It's a two step process:
1. Enforce the laws that are already on the books - If someone is employing illegals, THROW THE BOOK at them. You make examples of some employers exploiting illegals, and they suddenly become a lot more careful checking the W-9's. I don't mean fines, I mean JAIL TIME. This reduces the demand for illegal workers, and increases the cost of hiring them - jail time for the employer costs more than just $s.
2. Enforce the laws that are already on the books - If someone is here illegally, arrest them and deport them. It increases the opportunity cost to enter the country illegally. Further, if the illegals are being regularly deported, employers will be put in a position where they have to pay more, which would be better for American workers.
As in so many other areas - we already have laws on the books that will address the problem. ENFORCE THE DAMNED THINGS.
Speaking about immigration, earlier today I saw a video of a group giving a seminar on how companies should do their recruiting in order to "prove" that no American was qualified for the job that the company wanted to get a cheaper foreigner for. These were technology type jobs with companies like MicroSoft, HP, etc. The strategy was to adverise where applicants were unlikely to see the advertisement, and then go through the CV's that did arrive and fine comb them for some reason to discard them. The applicant had to meet all of the qualifications that were in a secret list. Then for those who did get an interview, there was almost assuredly some way to disqualify them. Thus the company legally could ask for a green card for someone who would work a lot cheaper.
The link is http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17909.htm
"Nader4prez June 22nd, 2007 11:38 am
I hae to tell this.. I have been advertising for a receptionist position in my office. I have had several, as in more than 4, kids, right out of highschool, apply. They require a starting salary of 35,000 +. One even asked for 45,000.00."
Whatever happened to advertising the salary you are willing to pay for the position in the want ad you place? Kids just out of high school brand new to the job market have no idea what to ask for as salary. If you don't advertise what you are willing to pay you really have no complaint when they ask for some outrageous amount. And if you get one that feels that they really do deserve $35,000 or more they won't bother to apply if the job is offered starting at minimum wage or slightly above, therefore not wasting your time or theirs.
Lobo Gris
"Evelyn Smith June 22nd, 2007 12:44 pm
Congress voting to erect a fence across our southern border is just another knee jerk reaction for a problem, then of course they didn't bother to vote the necessary funding to build it. As Collidingrivers points out, good fences make good tunnels and one could add, or tall ladders.
We must secure our borders and there are practicle means of doing so, walls and fences are not the answer."
I notice you don't describe what the practical means of doing so are.
I live on the border and there are multiple areas where there is no barrier at all. People can easily just walk across or even drive. The idea of having a fence, which btw I support, is not to stop illegal immigration but simply to slow it down to a trickle rather than the flood we now have. So let em dig tunnels and use ladders, not that many will get through, and those that do will be easier to deal with than the between one and three million that cross illegaly every year now. Couple that with stiff laws and actual enforcement and the problem will be solved for the most part.
Lobo Gris
Hi Lobo Gris:
I live about seven miles from the Mexican border and I do agree with some of your comments. However I do not believe that a fence will slow down the illegals to any great extent. There are several large areas of the border which are already fenced and illegals cross there in droves. (near Naco and Douglas AZ and the San Diego area are just two examples of usless fencing, unless there happens to be a border patrol in the immediate area. We do not catch ten percent of them and some are caught two or more times in three days, they just keep coming back, fence or no fence. Hell they tear fencing down and build dog and cattle pens out of the material. I do like the ones that will stop vehicular traffic, those made from old railroad tracks, that helps to impede drug dealers from just driving through and migrating animals are not impeded. Even the Governor of Arizona is for border security, but totally against buildi;ng a fence or awall. Just a very expensive and ineffictive tool.
I did not go into a long dissertation of ways of means of securing our borders, I could, but it would be a very long blog and I doubt many would bother to read it. One excellent method is to use many more of the unmanned survielance aircraft, which are extremely quiet, can monitor a huge land area, have a long range, of up to twenty hours and are extremely effective both day and night. We have the means right now to have them operating 24-7 from the West Coast to the Gulf. If any group or even one or two are crossing an area of the border, they'll be easily detected by that method, then we dispatch agents to intercept them. Of course we can not just use one method, many other affordable options are available to compliment one another if we would just do it.
Finally, I doubt we will see any effective fence or wall being built anytime soon, at least not one that will cover even a third of the border. First, congress has to allocate the funds. I'd much rather our country use high tech surviellance methods in conjunction with the border patrol.
To dkm
Yeah, saw that and on the news this afternoon, a US Senator was jumping on it. We'll have to see if he continues to jump. Big issue on the Lew Dobbs program. It's Friday so it will be broadcast all weekend. (Unless someone kills the story.) Nahh, they wouldn't do that, not here in America. Free Press and all.
Evelyn Smith June 22nd, 2007 8:06 pm
"One excellent method is to use many more of the unmanned survielance aircraft"
The problem with surveilance aircraft, remote cameras, even satellite images is that they don't physically stop anyone or even slow them down, which is the purpose of a fence.
"There are several large areas of the border which are already fenced and illegals cross there in droves. (near Naco and Douglas AZ and the San Diego area are just two examples of usless fencing, unless there happens to be a border patrol in the immediate area."
I disagree and so does the Border Patrol
San Diego Fence Provides Lessons in Border Control
Before the fence was built, all that separated that stretch of Mexico from California was a single strand of cable that demarcated the international border.
"It was an area that was out of control," Henry says. "There were over 100,000 aliens crossing through this area a year."
Today, Henry is assistant chief of the Border Patrol's San Diego sector. He says apprehensions here are down 95 percent, from 100,000 a year to 5,000 a year, largely because the single strand of cable marking the border was replaced by double -- and in some places, triple -- fencing.
The first fence, 10 feet high, is made of welded metal panels. The second fence, 15 feet high, consists of steel mesh, and the top is angled inward to make it harder to climb over. Finally, in high-traffic areas, there's also a smaller chain-link fence. In between the two main fences is 150 feet of "no man's land," an area that the Border Patrol sweeps with flood lights and trucks, and soon, surveillance cameras.
"Here in San Diego, we have proven that the border infrastructure system does indeed work," Henry says. "It is highly effective."
Lobo Gris
I find the immigration debate driven by either the moralist, like Marcel, or the ubiquitous neoliberal operatives who co-opt the progressive agenda. It's apparent that whenever the immigration issue comes up, either on this website or even in the streets, most regular working Americans are against illegal immigration, want to see employers punished and want the borders secured. As I've mentioned before, I live in a border state and here in the SW we're seeing the demographics change. All I can say is, if you've ever spent any time in Mexico, not the resort towns but inside Mexico for any length of time you'll get a pretty good idea what many parts of the US will become when the Mexicans "retake" many parts of the US West.
It's not paranoia, it's math, the nearly 3.0 fertility rate for Mexican women coupled with overwhelming belief in the Vatican and Holy Roman Catholic Empire.
Well Lobo Gris and habanero, sounds like you both may be absolutely correct, hope not. I'd really hate to see a fence built like that, stretching from San Diego to the Gulf, when I honestly believe the surviellance aircraft, along with an increase in border patrol agents would be acceptalble and would indeed work quite well. But maybe I'm a dreamer.
The fact that the Mexicans may somday take their land back, very possibly in a violent manner, would be good for the Mexicans, bad for Americans. However, if our nation's leaders maintain the current policies and race us down the road to self destruction, it could very well occur. We'll see. Enjoyed the debate, makes one think.
"Evelyn Smith June 23rd, 2007 12:23 pm
Well Lobo Gris and habanero, sounds like you both may be absolutely correct, hope not. I'd really hate to see a fence built like that"
It's a shame that a fence is needed but it is. As I've stated before I am for legal immigration and am for bringing in as many as we can accomodate as long as we aren't being boondoggled into just bringing them in to lower the wage base for the profit of the companies that hire them.
The situation though is akin to the lifeboats on the Titanic. At some point somebody had to say no as tough as that was because taking even one more would capsize the whole boat and then no one would survive. We cannot allow people to continue to flood into the country until we reach the point where we capsize and the whole thing sinks either.
You should also look at the link to the You Tube video which will open your eyes even more as to what is going on in this country. View the video and please pass it on.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17909.htm
Lobo Gris
Illegals are depressing US wages and displacing US workers. The exploding US population is undermining smart, sustainable growth. No true enviornmentalist can possible argue otherwise. The problem is that corrupt foreign governments aren't talking care of their own people. It's not the responsibility of the US middle-class taxpayer to subsidize them all!