The Little Lines Separating Us

When I was in high school in 1974, I was our school’s representative to Boys’ State, a simulation of state government run by the American Legion. Most of the instructors were military officers, and military recruitment was one theme. One of our guest speakers was an astronaut who brought a prepared speech, but when he saw us, he threw down his script and just answered questions. Some wiseass asked him if, from orbit, he could see the little lines separating the countries. He said no, and that he couldn’t see the lines separating race and religion either. He got an ovation from that. Remember that this was back before the fundamentalist culture wars in America, and back when race relations were more strained than they are now.

During my recent visit to Big Bend (where I studied botany and evolution; see my evolution blog entry), I came right to the edge of the Rio Grande. It was not a grand river at this time; it was more like a large creek, only about thirty feet wide in some places. The challenge to rafters was to find water deep enough to float on. This is the little line that separates the U.S. and Mexico. Technically, the border runs down the middle of the river bed; the river ran in a narrow channel right next to the cliffs of the Mexican side, while on our side there was a wide rocky floodplain. Therefore, I must have actually been standing in Mexico. I reflected on how porous the border actually is, despite billions of dollars spent by the federal government to repel any Mexican who might venture (or any American botanist who might wander) across the border. Commerce is what happens when people try to make a living, and commerce is going to happen across the U.S.-Mexico border whether regulated or not.

Such was my conceptual view, but then something happened that put a human face on it. I met two entrepreneurs, trying a creative way to earn money for their families. “Jesús the Singing Mexican” stood under a tree on the Mexico side of the river and sang folk songs he thought Americans would recognize. He had a donation basket (actually an old plastic bottle) on the American side, and a canoe with which I assume he would slip over to empty it occasionally. His friend Ventura had some trinkets, rocks, and fossils on the ground near the trail. They were labeled in pencil on cardboard or rocks. I was about to walk past them when Ventura came running down to greet me and talk me into buying something. Had he seen any federales, I assume he could quickly have gathered his stuff, called for Jesús to bring the canoe, and retreated to the Mexico side very quickly. While I have no desire for trinkets, I really wanted to reward this entrepreneur, who might have been a Mexican and who had not had any business that day, and it was a very hot day. (Note to Border Patrol: I do not actually know Ventura was a Mexican national.) I bought some items, which did not include drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or firearms (please note, ATF and DEA) but which included a couple of wire sculptures for my wife and daughter. My $20 bill must have been dynamite on his side of the river, assuming he was Mexican. He said he had walked a couple of miles to set up his wares. He said that now he felt like running home. (To protect these two men, I will not mention the exact location.) Ventura was a really nice guy. When he found out I was a botanist, we talked about the trees on the tops of desert mountains. We formed the kind of close relationship that people want to have with their customers.

Of course, I have no proof that these two men were Mexican nationals and that our business transaction was illegal. For aught that I could prove to the contrary, they were Hispanic Americans sneaking into Mexico. But assuming that our activity was illegal actually made it more enjoyable. I have frequently commented in my blogs about the state of abject chaos in the American federal government, especially Congress. (The same may be true in Mexico.) I have no respect at all for our government. The feds could have, had they seen us, self-righteously denounced the illegality of our business—the same feds who cannot get anything done except to waste money. That is, assuming that Ventura and Jesús were actually illegal Mexicans.

There is only a thin line, even thinner than the drought-stricken Rio Grande, between me and Ventura and Jesús; there is a deep gorge between me and Congress. I actually respect Ventura and Jesús.

I suddenly realized that I was alone with them, with a pocketbook and an expensive camera. Of course, if they had taken anything, it would have become an international incident and brought their business to an end. But I never felt uneasy in their presence. I am distinctly uneasy in the presence of the IRS, which has still not given me my tax refund, after over two months since filing, and which admits its own horrible work. (The ousted IRS chief said to Congress on the very day that I met Ventura and Jesús, “We provided horrible customer service.”) I have given up expecting IRS to do anything right. I’ll choose Jesús and Ventura any day.

The last thing Ventura wanted was water. Alas, I had only a mouthful left. I wished I had thought about filling my leaky half-gallon jug at the hotel before I left, then I could have just given it to Ventura—whom I, of course, had not expected to encounter. Jesus (not Jesús) said that if all we have to give is a cup of water, to do so. All I had was cash. If I also had water, what nice symbol of mutual respect it would have been. Technically, it would have been illegal for me to give him that water, even if he had been dying in the desert. All he wanted was to not have to drink the green water in the Rio Grande.

Meanwhile, the U.S. federal government considers people like Jesús and Ventura to be dangerous enemies of the United States. I can just imagine the helicopters descending on “The Singing Mexican.” Or more likely a drone. (Okay, I’m exaggerating.) Federal documents say, “Mexican merchants will be arrested for illegal commercial operations which may result in a find and/or additional incarceration while awaiting adjudication prior to deportation.” For poor Jesús, this would undoubtedly mean a very long time sitting in jail before trial, especially since “the sequester” gives the federales an excuse to keep him locked up and leave his family without income for months.

And guess what. The Feds consider me to be an enemy also. “Items purchased illegally will be considered contraband and seized by officers when encountered.” Of course, I do not actually know whether my purchase was illegal or not.

To all this, the U.S. government gives a really bizarre justification. Why are Jesús and Ventura so dangerous? Because when they walk on the trails they will “crush plants along the river and cause erosion of riverbanks, and an increase in garbage and contaminants along the Rio Grande watershed.” What? The government document almost seems to be saying, “Them dirty Mexicans are contaminating everything, their footsteps will hurt the crabgrass and salt cedars, but it’s just fine with us if Americans pull their canoes and rafts up over the riparian vegetation.” By the way, salt cedars are invasive trees that the government spends a lot of money trying to eradicate, and I did not see any garbage that these two men may have left. Maybe they peed in the salt cedar bushes, which is something that Americans never ever ever do.

What advice do the federales give to Americans? They point out, “Lack of water is a life-threatening emergency in the desert.” (I would not have known this had not the wise and benevolent government pointed this out to me.) So what are you supposed to do if Jesús or Ventura asks for water? Jesus (not Jesús) would say, give him some. The U.S. government says to inform government officials of their location. This command comes not in a general location in the park newspaper but in the specific bullet point about what to do if one of the Mexican nationals asks for water. Of course, the nearest officials are many miles away and cell phone reception is poor. So you are supposed to leave Jesús and Ventura behind and drive off quickly to report them so that friendly federales can swoop down and arrest them, then give them water.

As I report in other blog entries, I had plenty of reason to be disgusted with my government anyway. Reading these federal instructions to park visitors filled me with the last full measure of disgust.

Immigration reform is not going to solve this problem. (I refer to the problem of the federal government, not the problem of Jesús and Ventura.) The problem is that our federal government considers us American citizens, as well as Mexican nationals, to be unworthy of basic dignity.

This assumes, of course, that these men really were Mexican nationals. Note: they were not immigrants, just visitors.

The lines separating us are so little that I cannot resist crossing them. They are certainly too small to see from outer space.

So here’s to “Jesús the Singing Mexican” and to Ventura the trinket vendor and to our common humanity.

Do conservatives really care about the poor?

Conservatives claim to care about the poor, and one of their criticisms of Democrats is that progressive policy undermines the “social safety net.” This is, to say the least, very strange. I have no doubt that conservatives think they care about the poor; few if any actually wish the poor to just go away and die. But they do not care enough to endorse meaningful action.

Consider, first, that many of them refer to progressives as “bleeding heart liberals.” They intend this as a criticism, even though the term refers to the bleeding heart of Jesus. They scorn the kind of concern that Jesus felt. I have written about how Studs Terkel pointed this out.

Second, who can forget what Mitt Romney said during the 2012 presidential campaign, about how the 47 percent of Americans who receive some public assistance (even if it is not their entire income but just supplementary help) see themselves as dependents and victims. He simply dismissed them as being lazy. Of course, the memory of this statement is already fading.

But there is one way in which conservatives really do care about the poor. The poor are, for them, political capital. Republicans believe they can gain political capital by talking about the poor. In this sense, they resemble the antebellum Southerners who used slaves as political capital.

The Southerners before the Civil War did not want their slaves to be free, or to have rights and receive fair wages. But neither did they want to harm their slaves. Slaves were the most expensive part of running a plantation. Prices for slaves ran from about $50 for old men up to almost $1000 for a nubile young female, according to a museum display I saw a couple of years ago. This was big money at the time. The slave-owners would have to be crazy to beat their slaves. Of course, some of them were crazy.

During the Constitutional convention, the delegates from Southern states refused to consider an end to slavery. They did, however, consider two limitations upon it. First, they agreed that the importation of slaves would end in the future. They did not, however, foresee any eventual goal of ending slavery. Second, they insisted that slaves be counted in the population census.

This second point makes it look like the slave-owners considered their slaves to be people rather than property. But this is not true. The only reason the Southerners wanted slaves to be counted in the census was so that their states would have more representatives in Congress. The compromise they reached with Northern delegates was that each slave would count as three-fifths of a person. Slaves were political capital, nothing more.

Southerners also used slavery in their propaganda against the North. They loved to point out that Northerners, and the British as well, condemned slavery while profiting from trade in the goods that slaves produced, especially cotton. Sometimes Southern propaganda went to extreme lengths. A tract written by George Fitzhugh, Slavery Justified, claimed, “We love our slaves!” I think he sincerely meant in the fraternal, not carnal, sense. He pointed out that Northerners could just dismiss their servants, and allow these servants to sink into poverty and disease and death, at any time. In contrast, Southerners were obligated to keep, feed, clothe, and house their slaves. Southern black slaves were treated better than Northern Irish servants: this was Fitzhugh’s message.

Of course, Republicans care more about the poor even than the Southern plantation owners did about the slaves in which/whom they invested so heavily. But the process is the same: Republicans use the poor, as slave-owners did their slaves, mainly for political capital. Their message is that making rich people richer will help the poor, a claim that has been repeatedly disproven.