How to educate someone as bigotry like Lou Dobbs?

Well, Lou you are on my agenda for Immigration and History classes because you won't change you uneducated language and your Anti Journalism.

Clarissa Martinez De Castro, director of immigration and national campaigns for the National Council of La Raza, says that money inspires the anti-immigration rhetoric of talk radio hosts and CNN’s Lou Dobbs. She took part in a panel discussion at an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) conference in Washington, D.C. on Monday.

The thing about Lou Dobbs is you can’t educate somebody like Lou Dobbs,” Martinez said. “Because what guys like Lou Dobbs does, or what he did at some point, at this point, I’m not sure if he’s lost it completely. Continue reading here:

US citizens scramble for food aid - 11 Feb 09

The number of unemployed Americans continues to rise and some are now struggling to put food on the table, becoming increasingly dependent on food stamps to help them get by.

Food stamps are a state-subsidised programme that helps people with a low income buy food at lower prices. But for many US citizens it may not be enough to help them weather the economic crisis, as Lucy Keating discovers in the US town of Knoxville in Tennessee.

You are on Indian Land.By Mort Ransen 1969.

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The film shows the confrontation between police and a 1969 demonstration by Mohawks of the St. Regis Reserve on the bridge between Canada and the United States near Cornwall, Ontario. By blocking traffic on the bridge, which is on the Reserve, the Indians drew public attention to their grievance that they were prohibited by Canadian authorities from duty-free passage of personal purchases across the border, a right they claim was established by the Jay Treaty of 1794.

History of Mormons in California.

This is from the video "More Precious Than Gold." The Mormon Battalion was the only religious "unit" in American military history serving from July 1846 to July 1847 during the Mexican-American War. They provided funds from their salaries and allowances to assist the Mormon exodus west, such as part of their clothing allowances they provided to Brigham Young to help finance the Latter-day Saint's move to the Salt Lake Valley.
The battalion was a volunteer unit of 500 soldiers, nearly all Mormon men with regular army officers in command and key staff positions along with Mormon company officers. The battalion made a grueling march from Council Bluffs, Iowa to San Diego, California. The Mormon Battalion were mostly members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who were fleeing religious persecution in Nauvoo, Illinois. The battalion's march and service was instrumental in helping secure new lands in several Western states, especially the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 of much of southern Arizona. The march also opened a southern wagon route to California. Veterans of the battalion played significant roles in America's westward expansion in California, Utah, Arizona and other parts of the West.
President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Brigham Young, sent Elder Jesse C. Little to Washington, D.C. to seek assistance from the federal government for the Mormon trek west. After several interviews with President James Polk in early June 1846, the offer to enlist some 500 men after the Mormons arrived in California was accepted. Yet, orders through military channels were misread and an army officer went to the Mormon camps in Iowa to enlist men into a battalion consisting of all Mormons.
The battalion was mustered into volunteer service on July 16, 1846 by Captain James Allen of the famous 1st U.S. Dragoons. Dispatched by Colonel (later Brigadier General) Stephen Kearny, Allen met no success in recruiting until Brigham Young and other members of the Twelve gave public approval. Eventually some 500 men volunteered into this unique "federal" unit, which was not structured as a more typical militia or state volunteer organization. Several large families, some soldier's wives and a number of teen age boys accompanied the battalion, making it appear more as a pioneer party than a military force. The Mormon Battalion would be part of the Army of the West under General Kearny, a tough and seasoned veteran, that would have two regiments of Missouri volunteers, a regiment of New York volunteers who would travel by ships to California, artillery and infantry battalions, Kearny's own 1st US Dragoons, and the battalion of Mormons.
The Mormon Battalion arrived in San Diego, California on January 29, 1847 after a march of some 1,900 miles from Iowa. For the next five months until their discharge on July 16, 1847 in Los Angeles, the battalion trained and also performed occupation duties in several locations in southern California. The most significant service the battalion provided in California and during the war, was as a reliable unit under Cooke that General Kearny could rely on to block Fremont's mutinous bid to control California. The construction of Fort Moore was one measure Cooke employed to protect legitimate military and civil control under Kearny. Some 22 Mormon men died from disease or other natural causes during their service. About 80 of the men re-enlisted for another six months of service.
A few of the men escorted John C. Fremont back east for his court-martial.
A few discharged veterans worked in the Sacramento area for James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill. Henry Bigler recorded the actual date, January 24, 1848, in his diary (now on display at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA) when gold was discovered. This gold find started the California Gold Rush the next year.

A trail of a Joke comes to a Reality. Canada deports disabled U.K. Citizen.

::: BREAKING NEWS :::
In 2009 the government will start deporting
all the mentally ill people.
I started crying when I thought of you.
Run my little crazy friend, run!

Well, what can I say?? Someone sent it to me, and I'm NOT going alone !!

I receive this email that it may offend some people like me but many found it to be so funny. You will said that I do not have a sense of Humour but you are wrong; I believe we should not be laughing on behalf of the people who needs us the most, people who needs our care, our compassion, our support, our understanding and we needs to change our inmoral behavior to be more Humane. I understood from the beginning that Canada was a Green, tolerant, modern thinking, progressive nation....how wrong. Shame on you Canada.!!!! This is why I am ashamed and disgusted from this joke comes to a reality for people who needs us the most. See for yourself and do not forget about Pedro Guzman mentally disabled U.S. citizen who was mistakenly deported to Mexico.

Canada deports disabled U.K. citizen

A British man who was injured while working in Canada has been deported because authorities concluded keeping him in the country would be an economic burden for taxpayers.

Chris Mason, 36, was ordered deported to the United Kingdom after Canadian immigration officials determined that granting the wheelchair-bound man permanent resident status would create an undue economic burden.

Border services agents took Mason to Winnipeg's James Richardson International Airport on Monday and put him on a flight to Manchester. Several of Mason's friends were at the airport to give him money and his belongings — but they were barred from seeing him. Mason had been in detention since last Wednesday.

Mason said he had no desire to return to England where he hasn't lived since he was a child. He lived with his father in Greece before coming to Canada in 2001.

Once here, he began working as a truck driver in Ontario and British Columbia before settling in Winnipeg. The long-haul trucker became a paraplegic after damaging his back on the job.

Mason was further injured in 2007 when he was hit by a taxi while leaving hospital and has been unable to work since.

He had been living in Canada illegally without a visa for more than two years and had been collecting social assistance while battling Manitoba's Public Insurance Corp. over injury benefits when his application for permanent resident status was denied.

"You'd think he was a terrorist," said his mother Gillian Kilford from Manchester. "He was injured during the course of this work. After a period of readjustment he went back to work. He paid taxes in Canada."

She said her son would face hardship finding wheelchair accessible accommodation in Britain. Her son would not be able to negotiate the stairs in her home, she said, adding she had no idea Monday where or when Mason would arrive back in the U.K. since no one from the Canada Border Services Agency had contacted her to make arrangements to greet him at any U.K. airport. "I expect they'll just dump him at immigration," she said.

Advocates for the disabled have been lobbying for Canada to amend the Immigration Act, removing a clause that says anyone who might cause undue economic demand on the social welfare system can be denied the right to live here.

Refugees, who can be injured before being admitted to Canada, are excluded from the "excessive demand" clause in the Immigration Act, but the clause applies to everyone else.

"The Immigration Act frankly prohibits people with disabilities from immigrating to Canada," said Laurie Beachell of Disabled People's International. "The effect would mean people like Stephen Hawking, world-renowned physicist, brilliant man, could never become Canadian

The Challenge of Liberty, Morals, Freedom and Humanity.

Now if you want a president by his speeches, consider Herbert Hoover. He is among the greatest Americans ever to be president. Perhaps only George Washington, among the 44 who have held that office, did more good in the world both before and after his White House service. And Washington’s immortality is as much based on what he didn’t do. Jimmy Carter’s hammer-taps don’t come close to what Hoover did in organizing, managing, and impelling efforts that saved literally millions of human lives.

It was his peculiar fate, like that of John Quincy Adams a century before, to have run an administration that failed in the midst of a life of hard-won triumphs in the service of his nation and humanity.

Hoover’s vision of America, of hope and work and public spirit, is much like the one Obama invoked Tuesday. More like it than the words of Lincoln, FDR, JFK — the presidents who popped into the media’s mind on the occasion.

The problem with Hoover is, his vision now is tied up in his prose. Literally. he’s not a good writer. He writes like a businessman, with a clunky voice and an inability to resist the temptation to use a hollow cliche if he finds one in his path.

So he’ll never be Lincoln, or Obama, but if you simply pay attention to the words and ideas, it’s the best elucidation of Americanism I can find.

Hoover is under no illusions about big business and the sort of crooks that will be parasites on the financial system. He also forcefully asserts the need to have the federal government play an active role in the game as an umpire and enforcer of the rules.

Most of all, he believes in the American people. Or he tells them he believes in them, which is just as important. If they think they are what he sees in them, if they strive just a little every day to live up to the ideal, if they keep this American way fixed in their minds, they will be better than they ever could be without that ideal.

Here is something he wrote in 1934 in a book called “The Challenge to Liberty” [pp.30-1]:

No civilization could be built to endure solely upon a groundwork of greed or even upon the enlightened self-interest of the individual. It is out of the altruistic and constructive impulses that the standards and the ideals of the nation are molded and sustained.

Our American System is not alone an economic method, a definition of rights, a scheme of representative government, an organization to maintain order and justice, a release of constructive instincts and desires. It is far more than that, for it is a system of stimulation to higher standards, to higher aspirations and ideals.

While we have built a gigantic organized society upon the attainment of the individual, we should not have raised a brick of it but by the stimulation to self-restraint and by drawing upon those high aspirations of men and women expressed in their standards of truth and justice and in their spiritual yearnings.

These ideals are never wholly realized. Not a single human being personifies their complete realization. It is therefore not surprising that society, a collection of persons, a necessary maze of instincts of individuals, cannot realize its ideals wholly.

This is not a “_______, but …” statement. There is no taking it back. It is what he believes.

While his work during and after World War I is notable, it is his less-known work after World War II, in the immediate years when starvation stalked Europe and Asia, that impresses me most. He had been in the political wilderness as long as Roosevelt was in office — Roosevelt deliberately and pettily cut Hoover out of participation in anything that would have reflected credit to him. Truman didn’t have that pique, and the two Midwesterners quickly got along and worked well together.

The war laid waste to the world. The channels of commerce that had fed humanity collapsed. Hoover took charge of buying or coaxing food from nations that had it and getting it to those that didn’t. Distribution, not supply, was the problem. And, again, as a conservative estimate, millions were saved that otherwise had perished.

Again, he took the case to the American people, and rallied their sense of what was right in plain language. After he toured the world’s capitals and took stock of the relief efforts, he came home and made a major U.S. radio address on May 17, 1946, to raise awareness and sympathy for the plight of world famine victims. Part of what he said was this:

On this journey I have seen much which I could criticize as to the management of the famine relief. I criticized such matters to many officials in the world frankly. I could criticize them bitterly. But, after every boiling of inward indignation at men and at nations, I come back again and again to the fact that millions are in grave danger of starvation. To explode into public criticism in this crisis would only weaken the amount of support and diminish the food they will receive. Criticism can wait for history. I only want to record that all has not been perfect in the world that I have witnessed. It all adds emphasis to the fact that today the vital need is unity and cooperation now, so that we may master this crisis.

Frank acknowledgment that the system has many gross defects and shady corners and outright waste. A desire to make it work better rather than have the mere glory of the critic and whistleblower. Give me more of that in bureaucrats.

Then a plain argument for feeding the enemy:

There are Americans who believe it right, and a duty, to feed women and children even of a surrendered enemy. No one is the enemy of children. There are others who believe that the only hope of a peaceful world is to save the enemy peoples from starvation and thus start building them into peaceful, cooperative peoples. There are others who, remembering the immesurable crimes the enemy has committed against all mankind, believe in “an eye for an eye,” a “tooth for a tooth.” To these, let me say that to keep five hundred thousand American boys in garrison among starving women and children is unthinkable. It is impossible because, being Americans, they will share their own rations with hungry children; it is impossible because hunger brings the total destruction of all morals; it is impossible because of the danger to American boys of sweeping infectious diseases, which rise from famine. It is unthinkable because we do not want our boys machine-gunning famished rioters. It’s unthinkable because we do not want the American flag flying over nation-wide Buchenwalds.

Americans will listen to that sort of appeal. If not, we’re no longer worthy of the name.

The strength and wealth of America was its people and its ideals. Hoover prefered that that strength and wealth act directly on the problems, rather than waiting for the government to make rules to force it. He knows large organized efforts must be made and only governments can accomplish them. But he felt the tendency to rely on the government to do everything sapped the power and will of the people. He wanted the public to know it was doing the essential ground-level work on its own.

And here is where he sounds a different note than Obama (or, when you get past the mere rhetoric, any other modern president of either party). Here is his press statement on President Truman’s appeal to save food, New York, Feb. 8, 1946:

I am convinced that it is entirely possible for us to meet this need of increased food exports by voluntary action to eliminate waste and unnecessary consumption and to do it without compulsory rationing. We have now had experience with both systems. In the first World War we placed food consumption on a moral and Christian appeal and voluntary organization of the housewives, eating places and food trades. We have now, in this war, had experience with compulsory rationing, and an examination will show that the consumption over capita was no greater and probably less under the voluntary system

.

Hoover had a Quaker spirituality. He supported a war but was aware of its toll on the victors’ souls, and the need to restore and repair not just infrastructure but national morals and dedications to truth and liberty, both of which necessarily are impinged in war.

[B]efore the war we protested in deep indignation the bombing of children, women and civilian men by the Japanese at Nanking, the Russians at Helsinki, the Germans at Warsaw and London. We said war must be confined to clashes of armed men, not the killing of civilians. Yet did we not wind up the war by killing tens of thousands of women and children at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Even if we grant that it was necessary, it is not a matter to exult over

The two needs, post-war self-redemption and charitable expression, dovetail in the relief effort. Here is part of an address he gave in Madison Square Garden Sept. 21, 1947, to “rally for another winter American moral and spiritual forces engaged in voluntary relief to a distressed world.”

Primarily, this meeting is concerned with charitable programs. While the broader bases of economic action such as I have mentioned are necessary if we shall solve the world situation, there is no less need in the world for private effort and charity. This earth is indeed in need of spiritual and moral stimulation. Charitable action and the voluntary reduction of consumption to save human life are among the highest of moral and spiritual inspirations to mankind. We must call upon these forces of the spirit if we are to succeed in our economic as well as our charitable programs. Indeed, the great charitable organizations in the United States which will be putting forth their efforts to save the individual cases of destitution and hardships, as distinguished from broad governmental programs, have a great work to perform — not only in the service they give, but in the moral and spiritual stimulation they can lend to the American people in these efforts.

The fundamental law of our civilization is based upon compassion and charity. And compassion and charity do not ask whether the sufferer has always been good or bad, whether he has brought his misery upon himself, or is the innocent victim of forces beyond his control.

It is sufficient that there is suffering and that we possess the means to alleviate it. The key to our hearts can always be turned by little children, by mothers, by the aged and the destitute. We are, thank god, sentimentalists. We know that the great bounty that has been placed in our keeping must not be hoarded while others starve and are in pain. We dare not, even in this age of gross and abject materialism, forget that our consciences were forged by tender women and strong men who have built for themselves a world to their liking, always setting aside a mite for the charity that they knew God enjoined upon good people.

And we are a good people. We have in the past responded to every call for human aid.

I hope that the day never comes in this country when all our good works are done through taxes, for then the moral strength that comes from compassion and charity is lost to us

Human Rights Declaration under Threath.

All human beings are born free and
equal in dignity and rights".

It is now years since the signing of the universal declaration of human rights.

Translated into more than 360 languages and incorporated into many national laws, the document condemns discrimination, slavery, torture and arbitrary arrest.

But six decades on, many of those principles are under threat around the world.

Rosie Garthwaite's report contains images that may disturb or offend some viewers.

Add a new Crisis. Food prices risen to the tip of the Iceberg.

What a relief to see gas prices falling - some places are selling as low as $1.80 a gallon. There are a number of factors that can effect costs, including long term contracts, weather conditions, even global demand for different foods. Retail food prices have jumped on average 6 percent this year — triple the normal inflation rate of around 2 percent. The economics of the food business are partly to blame. Though crude oil is the main ingredient of gasoline, processed foods like cereal, crackers or cookies use only a small amount of corn, wheat and other grains, limiting manufacturers' pricing power. So why aren't food prices falling as well?

Add another economic worry to inflation and deflation: ecoflation, the rising cost of doing business in a world with a changing climate.

Ecoflation could hit consumer goods hard in the next five to 10 years, according to a report by World Resources Institute and A.T. Kearney, a global management consulting firm.

Companies that make fast-moving consumer goods, everything from cereal to shampoo, could see earnings drop by 13 percent to 31 percent by 2013 and 19 percent to 47 percent by 2018 if they do not adopt sustainable environmental practices, the report said.

The costs of global warming are showing up now in the form of worse heat waves, droughts, wildfires and possibly more severe tropical storms but they are not yet reflected in consumer prices, said the institute's Andrew Aulisi after the report's Dec. 2 release.

Instead, these costs are paid by governments and society, Aulisi said in a telephone interview. That could change if President-elect Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress push for a system that puts a price on the emission of climate-warming carbon dioxide, Aulisi said.

This is unlikely to happen next year in time for a December 2009 deadline to craft an international pact to fight climate change but it is more likely to happen in 2010.

These rising costs and possible tightening regulation of greenhouse gas emissions are not necessarily a bad thing, he said.

"The message we don't see in this study is that regulation is going to cost ... a lot of money," Aulisi said. "We think the analysis is a catalyst to convince companies to take greater action on these important issues."

LESS PLASTIC

In fact, some companies are already looking at ways to cut their emissions in advance of any new regulation, said Daniel Mahler of A.T. Kearney.

One example is consumer giant Procter & Gamble (PG.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which has a team looking across the company's varied laundry, hair-care and health-care businesses to see how they can use less plastic, a fossil-based material, Mahler said by telephone.

But the changes may need to go deeper and wider, he said, spreading to the basics of how supply chains are managed.

For instance, companies that presumed U.S. transportation costs would be low and U.S. labor costs would be high had their goods made in countries where employees would work for less. But a new cost to the carbon emitted by long-distance transport could change that equation, making foreign manufacturing less attractive, Mahler said.

Within the United States, there could be a move away from big, centralized manufacturing plants to smaller, more widely dispersed ones, according to Mahler.

"That is not a little tactical change," he said. "It is an infrastructure change that we see companies ... addressing much more aggressively than they had been in the past

Under the ecoflation scenario, the world's major economies are likely to set a price on carbon emissions of $50 a tonne, Aulisi said.

That is between five and 10 times the price of carbon being traded on voluntary markets in the United States now. There is no mandatory U.S. carbon market, though the first regional market will begin trading in January

The Trail of deportation Continue against Mexicans.

Almost two million people were deported from the United States during the Great Depression. It is estimated that 60% of those deported were U.S citizens and legal residents. They were deported for one reason: The looked Mexican.
Before we commit the same mistakes we have to learn from "A Forgotten Injustice". Uncover the truth.

U.S. museum returns Mayan jade pieces to Mexico

Announces the director of Harvard's Peabody Museum, which he intends to deliver to the country about 50 figures carved in stone green to nearly one century of years have been drawn from a sacred cenote at Chichen Itza

The director of the Peabody Museum of Harvard wants to return to Mexico some 50 pieces of ancient Mayan carved jade green, almost a century after a U.S. consul took out the one sacred cenote near the ruins of Chichen Itza.

The devices were part of hundreds of items carried by the U.S. consul Edward Herbert Thompson, who drag to the bottom of the cenote a sink flooded between 1904 and 1910 to recover the offerings deposited there by the Maya.

William Fash, director of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said on Tuesday that the idea has yet to be approved by the authorities of the university and the museum, but found that the return of artifacts would help the Mexican specialists to better understand the artistic and religious significance for the Mayans had these pieces of jade stones and the like.

"I think it is important that many of the jades are studied here in Mexico for people who are making careful study of jades," many of whom were brought in from distant sites by ancient pilgrims to Chichen Itza in the Yucatan peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, said Fash.

These pieces could say a lot about trade, exchange and artistic models of pre-Hispanic world.

With the return of artifacts, many of which were reconstructed from pieces by the famed researcher Tatiana Proskouriakoff before his death in 1985, could also assemble an exhibit in a museum near the site where they were originally found, said Fash.

The director explained that the planned return is part of a growing trend in which museums make arrangements to return artifacts to their countries of origin in exchange for short-term loans of other artifacts. "This way both institutions earn," he added.

Thompson's collection has been the subject of dispute for a long time, along with other important artifact: a feathered headdress is five centuries old? old who allegedly belonged to the Aztec emperor Moctezuma. The headdress is in the Ethnological Museum of Vienna, which never has agreed to return to Mexico

In the 10th century the site was re-settled, and a new culture was born, a mixture of Toltec and Maya. This was the period when Chichen Itza was at its greatest. Some time afterwards, a Mayan leader moved the political capital to Mayapan while retaining Chichen Itza as the religious capital. Chichen Itza went into decline, and was eventually abandoned in the 14th century, although it remained a site of Mayan pilgrimage for a long time afterwards.

The centrepiece of the site would appear to be the main pyramid, called the castle by the Spanish. 25 metres high, it was originally built before 800 AD before the Toltec invasion. Nevertheless, it shows the plumed serpent along the stairways and Toltec warriors on the door carvings in the temple on top. This has supported counter-theories that Tula was influenced by Chichen Itza and not the other way around.

The pyramid actually embodies the Mayan calendar. The nine levels are divided in two by a staircase, making a total of 18 sections, representing the months of the haab, the "vague" year. The four stairways each have 91 steps; adding the top platform makes a total of 365, the number of days of the year. Each facade of the pyramid had 52 flat panels, representing the number of years in the "calendar round". The Mayan calendar actually had two types of year: the tzolkin ("sacred" or "almanac" year) consisting of 13 periods of 20 days; and the haab, consisting of 18 months of 20 days and the uayeb, a five-day "portentous" period. These two types of year completed a 52-year cycle called the calendar round, within which any date could be located precisely. These two counts were common to all of Mexico's pre-Hispanic civilisations. However, the Maya also had a third system, known as the long count, using units of 1, 20, 360, 7200 and 144,000 days, which could be extended indefinitely. Mayan inscriptions show the number of Long Count units which had passed from a starting point, the Mayan creation date, corresponding to August 13th 3114 BC.

During the equinoxes (March 21 and September 21), the sun makes a pattern of light and shadows along the steps of the pyramid, creating a series of triangles which appear to form the shape of a serpent crawling up the pyramid. We didn't visit Chichen Itza at the right time for this, but we saw pictures and it looked pretty impressive. The pyramid also contains another pyramid inside, containing a jaguar throne and a Toltec-style chac mool figure. To visit this inner pyramid, you have to wait in a long line in the heat with no shade, and then you only get to glimpse the throne from behind a metal fence for a few moments before you have to move on to let other people see.

One of the most impressive sights at Chichen Itza is the so-called Group of the Thousand Columns, named after the many pillars, which presumably supported a roof originally, in front of the buildings. The group consists of the Temple of the Warriors, with similarities to Tula's pyramid B, the Temple of Chac Mool inside the Temple of the Warriors, and the Steam Bath, which was used for ritual purification. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to see the Temple of Chac Mool, or climb the Temple of the Warriors, and had to be content with viewing it from a distance

The main ball court is the largest in Mexico at 135 metres in length, and has temples at either end and stone hoops high up in the side walls. The side panels of the court have panel carvings representing the ball game which suggest that the game changed over time - some of them show players with knee- and elbow-padding, while others show players using bats. The theory is that if a player hit the ball through one of the loops in the wall, his team was declared the winner. There are seven other ball courts located around the site. The temples at either end of the ball court and on one side appeared to have impressive, well-preserved carvings and decorations.

Nearby is the Tzompantli, "temple of skulls" in Toltec. It is believed that this platform held the heads of sacrificial victims. All along the walls on every side are many carvings of skulls.

About 300 metres to the north along a paved Mayan road is the sacred cenote. Cenotes are natural limestone sinkholes containing water found all over the Yucatan. Some were used for drinking water (indeed some still are), but the Sacred Cenote, 60 metres across and 35 metres deep. The sacred cenote has been dredged and explored on a number of occasions, and human remains as well as artefacts and valuable gold and jade jewellery were found.

Veterans Day.Thank you

They give so much so that we may live free. Thank you isn't enough.

And they have earned nothing less than the highest respect, praise, and thanks from our entire country.

This Veterans Day, we pause to remember the brave men and women who have sacrificed so much in the defense of our freedoms.

Again thank You isn't enough, and I think the next best thing we can do is to support them, honor them and respect them for what they do and have done. past, present and future! God Bless You All!!!! God bless America!!!!!!!! thank you to all the Veterans, we will never know what it feels like to experience what you did. but you will never know how much it meant to us and how thankfull we really are. they really did pay the supreme sacrifice. I thank you Veterans everywhere.

America rejected the GOP rethoric language.

From a major party to a divided and Regional party. I wasn’t at all surprised by the generosity of spirit reflected in McCain’s speech last night, but it immediately made me wonder: what awful character deficiency made McCain put his campaign in the hands of such human filth as Karl Rove, William Kristol, Adolph Guiliani, Charlie Black, and the rest of the thugs whose jobs consist of whipping the authoritarians of the Republican base into a foaming-at-the-mouth racist mob.

America rejected their rethoric language. And I for one will not simply forget how The Republican party and; McCain supporters so quickly went to calling areas of the country un-American, hinted the PRESIDENT ELECT was friends with terrorists, and sought to label different views on tax policy as unacceptable, terrifying socialism.

Mistakes has been made and opting for money over love; lies over truth; status over service; and power over wisdom. He wanted everything he felt his name and status was about, but he overlooked the honor and service they were really about in favor of superficialities. There comes a point where all that catches up with you, where there is no going back, and no salvaging what you've done. The ancient Greeks would say McCain made the kind of mistake the Fates don't forgive. But his real tragedy is that he will never realize that until way too late.

Though McCain is touted as a "maverick" who knows how to reach across party lines and evince a degree of clarity and sane non-partisanship in American politics, there was little evidence of that during his campaign, including his concession speech where loud "boos" and nasty comments came out of the crowd. In contrast, members of the Obama rally kindly applauded McCain and his campaign efforts. The difference in each crowd's reaction made it clear to me what kind of campaign each candidate has run and how vastly different the country would be under each administration.

Obama has proven that he is the better man to help end the nation's divisive and petty habits, a potential he's shown by pulling more young people to the polls than ever; a millions of middle-aged voters who never thought they would go for this untried and unestablished candidate; and even the most small-minded among us who saw some potential in his cool, intelligent approach to the nation's troubles. Well changes has been made.

The Republican party suffered greatly last night and will likely not win another election until it undergoes a vast transformation. The era of the culture war must come to an end: it must win back its intellectual establishment -- the articulate urban "elites" who helped to build the party's ideology, like William F. Buckely -- and show itself as a party with strong socially conservative values while remaining articulate and sympathetic to every citizen's ills, as was the case during the Eisenhower administration half a century ago. It must also distance itself from self-aggrandizing zealots who espouse racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and sexist propaganda that do nothing but alienate more potential supporters. Only then will their journey continue. Now it's time to take a deep breath, stop looking back, and move forward. McCain did the best he could with what he had to work with - end of story. Another page of History open and another one closed. Amen.

Acorn: The same song but different election year.

Like you I believe that Voting and elections is a critical issue that must be discussed around every dinner table and lunch counter in America. It is a discussion that concerns who we are and who we will be as a nation. It is a discussion that must be based in truth, fact, and honesty. Watch the video; the same song but different election year.

Annexation of Hawaii: Teaching with Documents.

The 1897 Petition Against the Annexation of Hawaii. See picture.

Hawaii's government was overthrown on Jan. 17, 1893, by a relatively small group of men, most of them American by birth or heritage, who seized control of the Islands with the backing of American troops sent ashore from a warship in Honolulu Harbor. To this "superior force of the United States of America," Queen Lili`uokalani yielded her throne, under protest, in order to avoid bloodshed, trusting that the United States government would right the wrong that had been done to her and the Hawaiian people.

Who were this group of American men and why did they overthrow the government? Oil? Nooo. Something similar Sugar!

Sugar was by far the principal support of the islands, and profits and prosperity hinged on favorable treaties with the United States, Hawaiian sugar's chief market, creating powerful economic ties. The plantation owners were, for the most part, the descendents of the original missionary families who had brought religion to the islands in the wake of the whaling ships. As ownership of private property came to the islands, the missionary families wound up owning a great deal of it!

When the Hawaiian islands were formally annexed by the United States in 1898, the event marked end of a lengthy internal struggle between native Hawaiians and white American businessmen for control of the Hawaiian government. In 1893 the last monarch of Hawaii, Queen Lili'uokalani, was overthrown by party of businessmen, who then imposed a provisional government. Soon after, President Benjamin Harrison submitted a treaty to annex the Hawaiian islands to the U.S. Senate for ratification. In 1897, the treaty effort was blocked when the newly-formed Hawaiian Patriotic League, composed of native Hawaiians, successfully petitioned the U.S. Congress in opposition of the treaty. The League's lobbying efforts left only 46 Senators in favor of the resolution, less than the 2/3 majority needed for approval of a treaty. The League's victory was shortlived, however as unfolding world events soon forced the annexation issue to the fore again. With the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine in February of 1898 signaling the start of the Spanish American War, establishing a mid-Pacific fueling station and naval base became a strategic imperative for the United States. The Hawaiian islands were the clear choice, and this time Congress moved to annex the Hawaiian islands by Joint Resolution, a process requiring only a simple majority in both houses of Congress. On July 12, 1898, the Joint Resolution passed and the Hawaiian islands were officially annexed by the United States.

The Hawaiian islands had a well-established culture and long history of self-governance when Captain James Cook, the first European explorer to set foot on Hawaii, landed in 1778. The influence of European and American settlers quickly began to alter traditional ways of life. Originally governed by individual chiefs or kings, the islands united under the rule of a single monarch, King Kamehameha, in 1795, less than two decades after Cook's arrival. Later the traditional Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown in favor of a constitutional monarchy. Eventually, the monarchy itself was abandoned in favor of a government elected by a small group of enfranchised voters, although the Hawaiian monarch was retained as the ceremonial head of the government. Even elements of daily life felt the social and economic impact of the white planters, missionaries and businessmen. The landholding system changed, and many aspects of traditonal culture were prohibited including teaching the Hawaiian language and performing the native Hula dance.

In 1887, the struggle for control of Hawaii was at its height as David Kalakaua was elected to the Hawaiian throne. King Kalakaua signed a reciprocity treaty with the United States making it possible for sugar to be sold to the U.S. market tax-free, but the haole - or "white" - businessmen were still distrustful of him. They criticized his ties to men they believed to be corrupt, his revival of Hawaiian traditions such as the historic Hula, and construction of the royal Iolani Palace. A scandal involving Kalakaua erupted in the very year he was crowned, and it united his opponents, a party of businessmen under the leadership of Lorrin Thurston. The opposition used the threat of violence to force the Kalakua to accept a new constitution that stripped the monarchy of executive powers and replaced the cabinet with members of the businessmen's party. The new constitution, which effectively disenfranchised most native Hawaiian voters, came to be known as the "Bayonet Constitution" because Kalakaua signed it under duress.

When King Kalakaua died in 1891, his sister Lili'uokalani succeeded him, and members of the native population persuaded the new queen to draft a new constitution in an attempt to restore native rights and powers. The move was countered by the Committee on Annexation, a small group of white businessmen and politicians who felt that annexation by the United States, the major importer of Hawaiian agricultural products, would be beneficial for the economy of Hawaii. Supported by John Stevens, the U.S. Minister to Hawaii, and a contingent of Marines from the warship, U.S.S. Boston, the Committee on Annexation overthrew Queen Lili'uokalani in a bloodless coup on January 17, 1893 and established a revolutionary regime.

Without permission from the U.S. State Department, Minister Stevens then recognized the new government and proclaimed Hawaii a U.S. protectorate. The Committee immediately proclaimed itself to be the Provisional Government. President Benjamin Harrison signed a treaty of annexation with the new government, but before the Senate could ratify it, Grover Cleveland replaced Harrison as president and subsequently withdrew the treaty.

Shortly into his presidency, Cleveland appointed James Blount as a special investigator to investigate the events in the Hawaiian Islands. Blount found that Minister Stevens had acted improperly and ordered that the American flag be lowered from Hawaiian government buildings. He also ordered that Queen Lili'uokalani be restored to power, but Sanford Dole, the president of the Provisional Government of Hawaii, refused to turn over power. Dole successfully argued that the United States had no right to interfere in the internal affairs of Hawaii. The Provisional Government then proclaimed Hawaii a republic in 1894, and soon the Republic of Hawaii was officially recognized by the United States.

The overthrow of Lili'uokalani and imposition of the Republic of Hawaii was contrary to the will of the native Hawaiians. Native Hawaiians staged mass protest rallies and formed two gender-designated groups to protest the overthrow and prevent annexation. One was the Hui Hawaii Aloha Aina, loosely translated as the Hawaiian Patriotic League, and the other was its female counterpart, the Hui Hawaii Aloha Aina o Na Wahine. On January 5, 1895, the protests took the form of an armed attempt to derail the annexation but the armed revolt was suppressed by forces of the Republic. The leaders of the revolt were imprisoned along with Queen Lili'uokalani who was jailed for failing to put down the revolt.

In March of 1897, William McKinley was inaugurated as President of the United States. McKinley was in favor of annexation, and the change in leadership was soon felt. On June 16, 1897, McKinley and three representatives of the government of the Republic of Hawaii --Lorrin Thurston, Francis Hatch, and William Kinney-- signed a treaty of annexation. President McKinley then submitted the treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification.

The Hui Aloha Aina for Women and the Hui Aloha Aina for Men now organized a mass petition drive. They hoped that if the U.S. government realized that the majority of native Hawaiian citizens opposed annexation, the move to annex Hawaii would be stopped. Between September 11 and October 2, 1897, the two groups collected petition signatures at public meetings held on each of the five principal islands of Hawaii. The petition, clearly marked "Petition Against Annexation" and written in both the Hawaiian and English languages, was signed by 21,269 native Hawaiian people, or more than half the 39,000 native Hawaiians and mixed-blood persons reported by the Hawaiian Commission census for the same year.

Four delegates, James Kaulia, David Kalauokalani, John Richardson, and William Auld, arrived in Washington, DC on December 6 with the 556-page petition in hand. That day, as they met with Queen Lili'uokalani, who was already in Washington lobbying against annexation, the second session of the 55th Congress opened. The delegates and Lili'uokalani planned a strategy to present the petition to the Senate.

The delegation and Lili'oukalani met Senator George Hoar, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the following day, and on December 9, with the delegates present, Senator Hoar read the text of the petition to the Senate. It was formally accepted. The next day the delegates met with Secretary of State John Sherman and submitted a formal statement protesting the annexation to him. In the following days, the delegates met with many senators, voicing opposition to the annexation. By the time the delegates left Washington on February 27, 1898, there were only 46 senators willing to vote for annexation. The treaty was defeated in the Senate.

Other events brought the subject of annexation up again immediately. On February 15, 1898, the U.S. Battleship Maine was blown up in Havana harbor in Cuba. The ensuing Spanish-American War, part of which was fought in the Philippine Islands, established the strategic value of the Hawaiian islands as a mid-Pacific fueling station and naval installation. The pro-annexation forces in Congress submitted a proposal to annex the Hawaiian Islands by joint resolution, which required only a simple majority vote in both houses. This eliminated the 2/3 majority needed to ratify a treaty, and by result, the necessary support was in place. House Joint Resolution 259, 55th Congress, 2nd session, known as the "Newlands Resolution," passed Congress and was signed into law by President McKinley on July 7, 1898.

Once annexed by the United States, the Hawaiian islands remained a U.S. territory until 1959, when they were admitted to statehood as the 50th state. The story of the annexation is a story of conflicting goals as the white businessmen struggled to obtain favorable trade conditions and native Hawaiians sought to protect their cultural heritage and maintain a national identity. The 1897 Petition by the Hawaiian Patriotic League stands as evidence that the native Hawaiian people objected to annexation, but because the interests of the businessmen won out, over the coming decades most historians who wrote the history of Hawaii emphasized events as told by the Provisional Government and largely neglected the struggle of the Native Hawaiians. Today, there is a growing movement on the Islands to revive interest in the native Hawaiian language and culture. Primary sources such as this petition bear witness that there is another side to the story.

The annexation petition with its voluminous signatures, along with many related records, is filed in the Records of the U.S. Senate, Record Group 46, at the National Archives and Records Administration. The petitions are available on microfilm as publication M1897.

The Trader Game. The root, Cause and Effect.

As the Dow continues to plummet (down over 778 points at this point) due to the failure of the bailout bill, The Failure of the Banking Industry, I find myself wondering what this will mean for the people of America?. Investors game or trade game?.

While I don't own stocks myself, a plummet like this will affect me (and you) very soon. Add in the takeover of another bank (Wachovia, after the failure of Washington Mutual) and we all need to start looking at what this will do to our lifestyles.

Things are different now than in the 20's and 30's or either 80's or 90's. Very little is owned by people. Almost everything is owned by corporations. If you rent an apartment or house, a person may let you slide a bit on back rent. If a corporation owns it, no sliding will be possible. Many of us don't have the option to move in with parents or other family members, as they have the same problems.

Gas prices may be going down at this moment, Food prices continue high, And we are heading for a depression - that downward trend won't matter. If you don't have the cash to pay it, you don't have the cash.

Instead, I want to get the conversation going. What does today financial news mean to you and your family? and who's continuing playing the profitable stock game? The smaller is the stock price the most money the investor will make. Again the Richer get more Richer$$$$ and the poor get more poorer.

U.S/Mexico War. An Illegal Invasion?

Did you know that until 1848 California, New Mexico and other portions of the Southwest were internationally recognized provinces of free Mexico, until the U.S. decided it wanted those provinces, declared war on Mexico, and stole them?

And How were the United States' actions to fulfill its perceived Manifest Destiny viewed by outside nations?
The attitude of Europeans and other observers was one not of fear of the United States, but a combination of lack of respect and a conviction that Americans were essentially hypocrites to talk about ideals then aim at expanding their land holdings.

This conviction developed, in part, out of American propaganda and publicity. The Americans did a great deal of talking and writing about liberty, but at the same time, they expanded the idea of Manifest Destiny. It was their destiny to expand across North America. The people poised in the way of that expansion, were aware of this, especially the Mexicans.

Mexicans were torn between two conflicting attitudes about the United States. One was an attitude of admiration, the other was an attitude of fear that the Americans would try to detach border territories from Mexico's lands.

Many Mexicans wanted to imitate the United States—its prosperity, the development of its economy and its agriculture. But they wanted to do so without losing land in the process.

Read on for the chronology of these events, and then ask yourself : "Who are the real illegals in California,Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Texas?"

Prior to 1822

What is today Mexico, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and California are all Spanish colonies.

1822

Mexican colonists, following the American revolution, rebel against Spain and win their own revolutionary war, making Mexico a free nation just like America.

1844

James Polk campaigns for the U.S. presidency, supporting expansion of U.S. territories into Mexico. February,

1845

James Polk, on his inagauguration night, confides to his Secretary of the Navy that a principal objective of his presidency is the acquisition of California, which Mexico had been refusing to sell to the U.S. at any price.

Early 1845

The Washington Union, expressing the position of James Polk, writes: "...who can arrest the torrent that will pour onward to the West? The road to California will be open to us. Who will stay the march...?" "A corps of properly organized volunteers...would invade, overrun, and occupy Mexico. They would enable us not only to take California, but to keep it."

Early 1845

John O'Sullivan, editor of the Democratic review writes it is "Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent ...for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."

Early 1845

James Polk promises Texas he will support moving the historical Texas/Mexico border at the Nueces river 150 miles south to the Rio Grande provided Texas agrees to join the union. "The traditional border between Texas and Mexico had been the Nueces River...and both the United States and Mexico had recognized that as the border."

June 30, 1845

James Polk orders troops to march south of the traditional Texas/Mexico border into Mexican inhabited territory, causing Mexicans to flee their villages and abandon their crops in terror. "Ordering troops to the Rio Grande, into territory inhabited by Mexicans, was clearly a provocation." "President Polk had incited war by sending American soldiers into what was disputed territory, historically controlled and inhabited by Mexicans." (John Schroeder , "Mr. Polk's War")

Early 1846

Colonel Hitchcock, commander of the 3rd Infantry regiment, writes in his diary: "...the United States are the aggressors....We have not one particle of right to be here....It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on a war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses....My heart is not in this business."

May 9, 1846

President Polk tells his cabinet: "...up to this time...we have heard of no open aggression by the Mexican Army."

May 10, 1846

Violence erupts between Mexican and American troops south of the Nueces River. Of course Polk claims Mexicans had fired the first shot, but in his famous "spot resolutions" congressman Abraham Lincoln repeatedly challenges president Polk to name the exact "spot" where Mexicans first attacked American troops. Polk never met the challenge.

May 11, 1846
President Polk urges congress to declare war on Mexico.

May 12, 1846

: Horace Greeley writes in the New York Tribune: "We can easily defeat the armies of Mexico, slaughter them by thousands, and pursue them perhaps to their capital; we can conquer and "annex" their territory; but what then? Who believes that a score of victories over Mexico, the "annexation" of half of her provinces, will give us more Liberty, a purer Morality, a more prosperous Industry...?

1846

Congressman Abraham Lincoln, speaking in a session of congress "...the president unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced a war with Mexico....The marching an army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other property to destruction, to you may appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, un- provoking procedure; but it does not appear so to us." after war is underway, the American press comments:

February 11, 1847

. The "Congressional Globe" reports: "...We must march from ocean to ocean....We must march from Texas straight to the Pacific ocean....It is the destiny of the white race, it is the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon Race." The New York Herald: "The universal Yankee Nation can regenerate and disenthrall the people of Mexico in a few years; and we believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country." American Review writes of Mexicans "yielding to a superior population, insensibly oozing into her territories, changing her customs, and out-living, exterminating her weaker blood."

1846-1848

U.S. Army battles Mexico, not just enforcing the new Texas border at the Rio Grande but capturing Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and California (as well as marching as far south as Mexico City).

1848

Mexico surrenders on U.S. terms (U.S. takes over ownership of New Mexico, California, an expanded Texas, and more, for a token payment of $15 million, which leads the Whig Intelligencer to report: "We take nothing by conquest....Thank God").
(date unknown)
General Ulysses S. Grant calls the Mexican War "the most unjust war ever undertaken by a stronger nation against a weaker one."

Primary source: "We take nothing by conquest, Thank God", in A People's History Of the United States, 1492-Present, Howard Zinn.

The History of the U.S. and Mexico War by Manuel Payno. Book published in Mexico in 11 of August of 1848.

Another Secret War Underway.!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't agree with anything we've done in response to 9/11. I have cried for all the deal Iraqis that have been killed because of Bush's bloody oil war.Yet, we still can't tell the difference between corrupt American corporate interests and good, ethical, real America people. Ashamed. I am wonder why John McCain said that we will fight for in War for another 100 years.

Enforcing the Law doesn't give Authority to Violating Human and Civil rights.!!!!

Enforcing the Law doesn't give Authority to Violating Human and Civil rights.!!!!!!


Immigration Laws continue to spreads as an Inhumane Laws violating peoples Human and Civil rigths. There is a lot of cases of pregnant woman who's lost the fetus or unborn baby do to the unfairly and inhumane treatment for their conditions.

Lawyers Say Fetus of Deported Pregnant Woman Considered Citizen Under Unborn Victims of Violence Act

Lawyers for a pregnant woman who was deported earlier this month have said that she should be allowed to return to the United States because her 32-week-gestation fetus -- which was conceived in the United States -- is guaranteed equal protection under criminal law as a result of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 and therefore could be eligible for U.S. citizenship rights, the AP/Seattle Times reports. Maria Christina Rubio was deported on July 16 after immigration officials determined that her residency request had been denied two years ago and that she previously had been deported after illegally entering the United States. In addition, immigration officials last week denied Rubio's request for a humanitarian visa to return to the United States because of pregnancy complications that are putting the health of her fetus at risk; Rubio was hospitalized during her fifth month of pregnancy and has reported severe stomach pains throughout her pregnancy, according to Luis Carrillo, Rubio's husband's attorney. Carrillo said that because Rubio's fetus would be viable outside the womb, it should be treated as a U.S. citizen because the Unborn Victims of Violence Act grants a fetus equal protection under criminal law (Wides, AP/Seattle Times, 7/29). President Bush in April signed the act, which makes it a separate crime to injure a fetus during the commission of a violent federal crime against a pregnant woman. The legislation applies only to federal crimes of violence, crimes committed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice or crimes committed on federal land (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 6/1). "The child was conceived in the United States and would have been born in the United States except that the mother was deported," Carrillo said, adding, "Through no part of his own, the unborn baby is in Mexico." According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Virginia Kice, the U.S. Constitution defines a citizen as "[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States," not "all persons who were conceived in the United States" (AP/Seattle Times, 7/27).
Similar Case In May, U.S. District Judge Scott Wright in Missouri temporarily prohibited the deportation of a pregnant Mexican woman who had falsely claimed U.S. citizenship, saying that her fetus is a U.S. citizen and may be protected under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. Wright ruled that Myrna Dick, who was married to a U.S. citizen, could remain in the United States temporarily and told the prosecution and defense teams to prepare for a possible trial (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 6/1). Lawyers for the U.S. attorney's office in Missouri had argued that although a fetus may be protected under criminal law, the statute does not restrict the government's immigration authority, according to the AP/Times. Although the Missouri case does not set a legal precedent, immigration attorneys said it may provide them with a "new angle" in deportation cases, according to the AP/Times. "You can say this argument is a stretch, but these are the types of arguments that attorneys have to make to get into court," Alan Diamante, an advising attorney on the Rubio case, said. Carillo said he is considering filing a suit against ICE for unlawful deportation of Rubio (AP/Seattle Times, 7/27).

Are you Smarter than a Naturalized Citizen?



This video will demostrate how Naturalized Citizen assimilated to this Country on History, Knowledge, Moral, socially and Country Values.

Border Towns against The Fence, The Barrier, The Wall..








The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency plans to build a nearly 700-mile fence along the southern border of the United States to curb Undocumented immigration. The fence, which could be completed by year's end, would split border towns and alter the relationships between U.S. border communities and their neighbors in Mexico. Eagle Pass, Texas, Mayor Chad Foster, a proponent of border control without physical barriers, has worked with other border communities on the issue as president of the Texas Border Coalition. American City & County talked with Foster about how a physical barrier could affect his community.

Q: What is Eagle Pass' relationship like with the neighboring Mexican community, Piedras Negras?

A: If there's a fire in Piedras Negras, the Eagle Pass Fire Department responds to it. If there's a fire in Eagle Pass, the Piedras Negras Fire Department responds to our needs. Mexico endured their first tornado in the history of the country on April 24, 2007. I called Piedras to see what their needs were. There was an older neighborhood [that] needed chainsaws and generators to [remove debris]. [The] tornado [came] from Piedras, jumped the river and hit Maverick County, Texas. The governor of Coahuila, Mexico, [went] to Piedras Negras with resources to help [the city] with their cleanup. [Then], he sent manpower and equipment and helped us with our cleanup and never asked for a dime. That's the way we work on the border. We're two countries that have historically worked as one community.

Q: How would the proposed border fence affect Eagle Pass and other border communities?

A: In the lower Rio Grande Valley, there's 69.9 miles of fencing to be done. With that fencing done, we're, in actuality, ceding 2,400 acres to Mexico [that] are going to be on the wrong side of the fence. We're going to see [our historic] Fort Duncan Park, the basis for the existence of Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, fenced out. Our municipal golf course, which goes to the river's edge, and our city park will be on the wrong side of the fence.

Q: What alternatives do you propose?

A: We're not advocating doing anything less than securing our border. The Texas Border Coalition [advocates] security as our priority, but one size does not fit all. In Texas, we have a bamboo-like plant that will grow 30 feet high and in some areas of the river, [it] can be as deep as a half a mile from the river's bank. Any illegal activity that gets into that cane is out of sight. So, we're advocating the eradication of [the plant]. That facilitates line of sight for border patrol agents. [Along] the Texas border, we have camera towers along the banks of the river, and we have border patrol boats that are physically patrolling the river. We've seen a 70 percent decrease in apprehensions with no physical barriers. We feel that we can secure our Texas border without the need for any physical barriers.

Q: Why would the fence not be an effective way to secure the border?

A: Border Patrol has admitted [that] this fencing will only slow an illegal entry down three to four minutes. We just don't think that's good enough when the Congressional Research Service [studied] the expense of building 700 miles of fence. Maintaining it for 20 years will cost the taxpayers in excess of $49 billion. It makes no sense, especially when we have technology available to secure our border rather [than using] the antiquated solutions that haven't been used since the 16th century. No one knows our border better than those [of us who] live and raise our families