When Will They Ever Learn?

Today’s paper carried really interesting story about the fence we are building along the Mexican border. Well, to be accurate the story wasn’t written about the fence. It was about the hostility that is going on along the fenceline with border patrol agents firing tear gas and pepper gas canisters over the fence in retaliation for the rocks, bricks and bottles that are thrown at them by Mexicans infuriated by the insult the fence represents to them. But that makes the fence the story.

There was a picture, too, of this ugly orange fence running alongside the ugly little shacks impoverished Mexican families must inhabit. And now everyday, besides having to live their hardscrabble lives, these folks must come home and see this symbol of their banishment from even looking across the border at the land of plenty. Instead, their window reveals only this incredibly ungainly orange barrier that speaks constantly of our hostility toward them. Is it any wonder they throw stones?

I was reminded of the wall going up between Israel and Palestine. There it isn’t just stones and bottles that come flying over. It’s rockets and missiles and launched grenades. But I remember when it was the Israelis with guns and the Palestinians with rocks and stones and bottles. Then it was Palestinians with Molotov cocktails and hand grenades. It took the Palestinians years to develop to the point of missiles and rockets.

How long do you suppose it will take the Mexicans?

“When will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?”
-- Where Have All the Flowers Gone, Pete Seeger, 1961


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle