The Notebook of Carlos Moore

A contact within the Attorney General’s office notified me that there’s going to be a major press conference in the morning announcing the results of Operation En Fuego, a multi-agency investigation that’s supposedly made some major arrests in the field of human trafficking. That would be a good thing, except i’ve had my ear to the ground for months watching for exactly this sort of thing, and haven’t heard a word. i know who the major drug smugglers and human traffickers in Southern Arizona area, and there hasn’t been a peep along the grapevine that anyone significant has been arrested. None of my contacts in the Border Patrol, the DEA, or Mexican Law Enforcement said a peep to me either. I understand playing something like this close to the vest, and I wouldn’t expect all or even most of my contacts to hear anything, but to hear nothing at all makes me suspicious. Given that this happens only days after the FBI contacts me, via the DEA, looking for intel on the OMM, and I have to assume there’s a connection.

Operation En Fuego could be a dog and pony show for the taxpayers, for political reasons admittedly beyond my understanding. Let mister and missus taxpayer feel like we’re doing something about those nasty filthy immigrants. Maybe bolster confidence that those evil drug murderers aren’t about to come over the border and start killing gringo tourists in their RVs. Given other things that I know, I’m wondering if it’s a smokescreen. The MDO have been gathering toxic materials and buying up hazmat suits. If I can put those pieces together, I’m sure the best and the brightest our government has to offer can connect the dots too. There’s no way they’s want the citizens to know what’s really going on or what potential danger their in, but they need to explain the increased activity by Federal agents somehow, so they can conduct their investigation and get their PR fix in one swoop.

All of this is pure speculation, of course. I have no idea what’s really going on.

When I was in Kuwait during the Gulf War a buddy of mine had all these cyberpunk novels. I’m not a big science fiction fan but when you’re in the middle of the desert and bored you’ll read anything. These books were all about how in the future corporations run everything, and the government is really just a puppet for the corporations’ interests. Government has always been in bed with big business so I found it kind of a stretch. Liberal anti-yuppie propaganda from the 80s is what it is.

This morning I got online to check the news and read that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has busted 14 trucks full of counterfeit toys. The mandate of the agency since they got reorganized under the umbrella of Homeland Security is supposed to be stopping terrorists, drugs, and illegal aliens. Instead they’re devoting huge resources to protecting the intellectual property rights of large corporations. This wasn’t done for product safety, to protect the public from dangerous, substandard, or toxic goods. It was done to protect trademark holders.

As I read this news off of a computer feed and write a journal entry on an encrypted thumb drive, I realize I’m living in a bad cyberpunk novel. It’s no wonder I feel an affinity for the rural communities of southern Arizona and norther Mexico, where life is slower, the corporations haven’t taken control of everything, and technology is at least 50 years behind the times.

I obviously have personal opinions regarding narcotics that extend beyond the official stance of the Drug Enforcement Administration, even though we largely sync up. Drugs are harmful to both individuals and society. Drugs are evil, period. I also have opinions on the related issue of illegal immigration that don’t necessarily sync up with either popular opinion or law enforcement. I do agree with the general decision to focus law enforcement efforts toward drug trafficking rather than policing immigration, as resources are limited and drugs are obviously a much higher priority.

The major problem I have with popular opinion is that it’s very easy to rant and rave about the horrible illegals from a distance. It’s easy to make assumptions about their motives, to assume that they’re all horrible criminals with malicious intent, like rats or cockroaches invading your home to spread pestilence. It’s easy to forget that these are human beings.

A recent article in the Tucson Weekly, the local “alternative” newspaper puts a human face on several illegals by telling their stories. They’re still criminals and it may not sway your opinion of immigration policy, but if you read the story you will be forced to see them as human beings.

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Currents/Content?oid=oid:118133

Why am I including this in this journal? Because just as the article tries to help people understand the illegals, understanding my stance may help clarify some of my methodologies. Understand me, and you may understand why I have done what I have done.

No one ever places the blame for illegal immigration where I feel it should be placed: with the Mexican government. their economy is largely dependent upon the money that illegals wire back home. It’s also dependent on U.S. trade and tourism. Mexico’s poorest come up here looking for work and better lives, and the crappy, bottom-of-the-barrel jobs they take here are drastically better than what they have at home. Why does the United States not put more pressure on Mexico to fix it’s own economy and create better jobs for it’s own people?

If we want to try something drastic that hasn’t been tried before to stop illegal immigration, why don’t we close the border going the other direction?No direct flights into Mexico. No cruises. No U.S. citizens allowed to go into Mexico. No old folks going down to but cheap scrips. No college kids going down for cheap liquor, cheap weed, and spring break parties. No families headed to Mexican beaches. no rich folks headed for Mexican resorts. No American trade good, what few their are, going into Mexico.

Then we embargo Mexican goods coming into the United States. Don’t buy Mexican.

Then, cut off wire transfers of money to Mexico – we do it with suspected terrorists, and we stop cash transfers to some foreign banks and online casinos, so we could do this. Keep the illegals from easily sending the money back home.

Will it work? I don’t know. It could have the reserve effect, tanking the Mexican economy and driving even more illegal up here looking for work. But if it really tanks the Mexican economy, it will sting the rich, who might get off their fat, complacent asses and do something about it, and it will sting the very small but vocal middle class, who will hopefully put up enough of a fuss to pressure the government to take action.

The United States has the reputation for not taking shit from terrorists or foreign governments whose policies we disagree with, but for some reason we’re okay with taking it in the ass from Mexico. Border Security is a dog and pony show. The U.S. government really doesn’t care. The Mexican government encourages it, and the U.S. government doesn’t object to that. The people coming in from Mexico are coming here for many of the same reasons your ancestors and mine came here – to escape poverty, and to try to build a better life.