Several years ago I shouted out to whoevever cared to listen about the growth of drugs and drug violence along the US-Mexican border. It seemed to me at the time that although the public may have cared, few of their leaders did. In my town we lost numerous lives to drugs and many more to drug violence. At the time I questioned why our state and national leaders seemed to not give a damn. As our local children died, I publicly and repeatedly questioned how many more would have to die in order to get some relief.
Fast forward several years, with the congressional and presidential election cycle fast approaching, some within the country's political elite are stumbling over each other to get in front of the issue, but now with a slight twist. The New York Times examines the new, issue du jour in this well written story.
The twist of which I speak, is that although we here in the affected communities complained about this country's ineffectiveness in dealing with a growing drug trade on the border and the lack of local infrastructure to deal with the growing problem, politicians of the Machiavellian sort, saw and have now fashioned a finer more useful argument. Not of course to deal with the root problem but rather to see that they, and their ilk, are re-elected.
You see our argument of drug violence and corruption of our local youth got transformed, it got personalized, into a fear of the illegal immigrant. Sure this country has an illegal immigration problem and one that needs to be rationally and compassionately addressed, but what about the human toll that results from the original problem of drugs and drug cartels infecting our border states.
No, I fear, that politicians (of the deroratory sort) fear that the drug problem can never be resolved and providing local communities the tools, namely drug treatment centers and other grassroots supports, are simply too costly. Why do this, they must think, when our real objective of finding a re-election issue can more easily achieved by personalizing the fear of the border, or the other, on the illegal immigrant.
As an American of Mexican ancestry, I fear the damage by such demagoguery that will result to a fiercely loyal and patriotic segment of our country. Should anyone question that loyalty, come, take a visit to my Deep South Texas home where I'm sure we bury loyal patriotic Americans serving in Iraq at a faster rate than other parts of this country.
As this journal documented months ago, notes leaked out of some of the hands of Washington political insiders, clearly show that we can expect, as we see today, a growth in the demagoguery on the issue.
As we noted back then, let us not be divided as some prey on our innermost fears of each other. Let us find the solutions that provide maximum benefit to our fellow man. Let us not be deterred from doing the important work that confronts us, but let us do so with concern for the greater good rather than a fear of each other.
Such is our challenge.
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