The Small Idea of a Big Wall

Jim Hightower Author, Commentator, America’s Number One Populist

The Small Idea of a Big Wall

Billions of our tax dollars have already been wasted on the fantasy that America can wall itself off from the people of Mexico and Central America. It's a fool's errand, but the fools of the Republican right wing – Trump, Cruz, Rubio, et al – want to throw many more billions at a higher, longer, and meaner barrier. They claim it will save us Anglos from being swarmed by brown-skinned migrants – or, as the venomous Ted Cruz snidely labeled our southern neighbors, "undocumented Democrats."

Of course, Ted himself migrated into our country from Canada – and he's turned out to be such a political pest that his very presence here argues for erecting a wall on our northern border. He and the rest of the wall-builders are xenophobic political opportunists who know nothing about the long, common bond that families on both sides of the Rio Grande have had for generations. They should listen to border residents like John Ferguson, mayor of Presidio, Texas – right across the border from Ojinaga, Mexico. A high school counselor, Mayor Ferguson says, "We are one community with a river running through it." His daughter's boyfriend lives in Ojinaga, and the Ojinaga's mayor's son attends high school in Presidio. "We don't consider ourselves two separate communities," Ferguson says.

But Cruz, Trump & Gang put their own political ambitions above the needs, desires, and wisdom of the families, businesses, and harmonious society of the locals living on the border. So these faraway and far-out Republicans want the federal government to shove these natural, cross-border communities apart with a grotesque wall.

Yet, these macho interventionists are the same hypocritical politicos who claim they value local control and will always stand against the arrogant intrusiveness of federal power. Trust us, they say. But why?

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This has been reposted from the Jim Hightower's website.

National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be – consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks. Twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Hightower believes that the true political spectrum is not right to left but top to bottom, and he has become a leading national voice for the 80 percent of the public who no longer find themselves within shouting distance of the Washington and Wall Street powers at the top. He publishes a populist political newsletter, “The Hightower Lowdown.” He is a New York Times best-selling author, and has written seven books including, Thieves In High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country And It’s Time To Take It Back; If the Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates; and There’s Nothing In the Middle Of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos. His newspaper column is distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate.

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