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Friday, August 17, 2012

Peace Caravan Albuquerque Testimony


The Caravan for Peace – A Godsend  John Randolph

Buenas Tardes – Bienvenidos a Senor Javier Sicilia y todas las Caravanistas. Thank you to Global Exchange for your efforts in supporting the Peace Caravan and international human rights.   Here in America we have not yet created our version of an Arab Spring.   I hope your efforts here will help pave the way. 

My testimony is that of a retired US Border Patrol/INS/ICE agent.

Early in my career on the San Diego Border I remember thinking to myself “Why do we chase human beings around like animals in the night when many of these people we are chasing are the people who harvest our food?”   
I also remember experiencing and knowing at a gut level that the vast majority of the people who I encountered were decent, hard working people who were simply looking for work in support of their families.

I remember wondering why other nations’ governments, especially the Mexican government - did not provide decent living wages and equivalent social services like those found in the US.   

I know today that the immigration problems of the US, Mexico and the world, are caused by greed.  I know today that our mutual problems concerning illegal drugs are also caused by greed.    

This Caravan for Peace is a godsend.  It creates the opportunity for us to connect, meet face to face, and discover solutions to common problems that our governments refuse to address.     

When I say “us” I am referring to the decent, hard working common people from both sides of the US/Mexican border.

When I say “they” I am referring to the bi-national 1% super rich who run both governments.  It is “they” who try to brainwash us into believing that both governments are democracies run by and for the   people, when in fact they are both 1% oligarchies run by and for the enrichment of the 1%.     
I bet they do not want us talking together.  I bet they know we will get to know and love each other.  They know we will see through the lies that their politicians and border wall hides. 

They profit at our expense.  And as far as the insidiously failed US-backed Mexican Drug war is concerned, the bi-national 1% has profited at the loss of over 60 thousand lives in Mexico alone.

How else do they profit while exploiting our ways of life?

o   From blood and sweat of Mexican labor – legal and illegal   
o   From illegal drugs, distribution, and money laundering
o   From weapons sales  
o   From the decades long enforcement of failed drug/immigration policies
o   From the militarization of the border
o   From 1.25 billion dollars a day of cross border trade
o   From Mexican oil
o   From billions of dollars in remittances
o   From money laundering
o   From unjust NAFTA policies

I believe that deep down in their hearts they know they are wrong.  I believe that they know that their greed will destroy the world.  Deep down they hope that we will bring them to their senses.

2 comments:

  1. You have to read this. Obama and Calderon....

    http://www.thenation.com/article/169076/wikileaks-and-war-drugs#

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  2. Javier Sicilia to Americans: Don’t Leave Us Alone
    Tom Hayden
    August 31, 2012

    The Mexican-led Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity passes through Fort Benning, Atlanta and Louisville this weekend before heading north to Chicago and finally east towards its September destination, Washington, DC, the seat of power for the War on Drugs that has claimed at least 60,000 lives south of the border since 2006.
    More than 100 activists are traveling from the Mexican border to Washington, DC, to push the US to reconsider failed drug policies.

    This is a far different peace movement than the ones American officials and media are used to seeing. For the first time in memory, a caravan of Mexicans have crossed the border north to demand that the US government take responsibility for its major part in the mayhem, which escalated to a ground war with US advisers after a disputed 2006 election that installed Felipe Calderón as president, with the eager backing of the Bush White House. The killing of two American CIA agents in Mexico this week again revealed the spreading and secretive presence of US advisers, drones and counterterrorism units south of the border.

    see more http://www.thenation.com/article/169689/javier-sicilia-americans-dont-leave-us-alone

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