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Andrew Bell
 I recently was granted a Mellon foundation scholarship to go and examine the U.S. Mexico border, and spent last week, meeting with everyone from border patrol to coyotes. For me, in many ways the trip was earth-shattering, as it opened my eyes to the poverty, death and quasi-warfare that exist on the border.
The delegation consisted of visits to three distinct and important cities on both sides of the border; Tucson, Altar and Nogales. In Tucson, we watched an immigrant court case, spoke with border patrol, and were lectured on the effects of NAFTA and stronger immigration policy. In Nogales, we were introduced to border crossers; stayed with Mexican families and visited both a migrant aid station and the heavily enforced wall itself. Lastly, in Altar, the hub for immigrants, we stayed at a Catholic aid home, and visited the local coyote and immigrant scene.
I have always been extremely moderate on the issue of illegal immigration. I know the risk of a tremendous influx of immigrants into the United States, and as such have defended both the patrol and wall passionately. However, I also know of the floundering economic situation in Latin America, and the tremendous need for cheap labor within the United States to sustain the economy. My experience, however, opened my eyes to the true scene on the border, and the urgent need for politicians to address it in an honest, but immediate manner.
The wall has done little to decrease the flow of undocumented workers. Instead it has done much to increase the amount of deaths, and in the process completely obliterate the Sonora dessert. Due to the wall’s placement, it has forced immigrants to cross the scorching hot dessert, and force border patrol to create new roads and paths to capture them there. Since 1998, 5000 people have died crossing the United States-Mexico Border, many of them women and children. In the decades before this previous one, the total accumulation of deaths was considerably lower. At the same time, the wall has completely violated the wilderness act of 1964, damaging the dessert in ways many scientist believe irreparable.
The wall and increased anti-immigrant sentiment within the United States will not solve this international crisis. Until some form of economic sustainability is established in Latin America, immigrants will continue to cross, risking death, to find better lives. In order to solve this problem, the United States must stop pursuing economic and military goals within Latin America which directly provoke poverty and as a result migration. Military support and training of genocidal rebels in El Salvador and Guatemala have had ghastly effects, and Trade agreements, such as NAFTA and CAFTA, have proven ineffective. Until the United Nations and other important IGOs are utilized, Latin Americans will continue to cross the border, and the only numbers that will increase, will not be apprehensions, but body bags.
I want to discuss immigration this month, because the situation on the border transcends politics, violates human rights, and calls to action the support and input of both the spiritual and religious community. Whether you are in favor of increased security or a major decrease in migration, or whether you believe anyone should be allowed residence, we must all agree that the policy of the United States should be in an effort to solve this problem, minimize deaths, promote freedom, and in the process protect our endangered environment.
 Break the Spell—Wake up
I have been writing Blogs for a few months and am on the radio weekly at www.margaretwendt.com discussing how so many of us are under a spell to celebrities and all their nonsense, as well as to a lot of spiritual hocus pocus that does little to take you on a journey within yourself.
Included in my caveat today is a caution against sitting in front of the television day after day letting anyone—whom you overvalue and possibly revere and whom you think knows better than you do—tell you what books to read, what “ism” is in today that’ll be “out” tomorrow, what candidate for public office is good and which is a scoundrel because they say so, and who is on his or her hit parade of movie stars they would like to be like or emulate and whom they think you ought to know as close as a television set can let you. As the old 50’s hillbilly song says, “Aint that a shame?” Utter nonsense and not worth the time you are giving them and their platforms.
There was a book written in 1995 entitled Snapping: America’s Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change by Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman in which the authors warned against falling under the swoon of people and ideas that can impede one’s ability to discern and choose what they believe and what doesn’t hold water. In my language I counsel clients and those who read what I have to say, “Snap back. Take your power back. I think you ought to watch who you are beginning to sound like and act like.”
If you think that television personalities and radio pundits are smarter than you are, know better than you do, think again (the operative word here is “think”). If they are smart enough to cause you to grovel like Ned in the First Reader, then why is the world and all its supposed elevated consciousness devolving faster than the speed of light? Perhaps, these pearls of wisdom that you are being offered up don’t hold water because they don’t give you the strategies and tools to change the only one you can—you! And for God’s sake and your sanity, get out of line with the unwashed oohing and aahing over books and movies and ‘big-pieces-of-stuff people’ because they are of the inane currency—‘what everybody is doing.’ As Nell Carter would say if she came back from the dead, “Give me a break!” Wake up. Come out from under the ether.
The only way the world will change is when you change your world. The only kinder, softer, gentler, interrelated and interconnected you will feel is when you clean up the trash in your heart and soul and not how many of the books of the month you read and do absolutely nothing to change your inner tapestry.
If I hear one more powder puff, “Dr. Feel Good” supposed authority sprinkle his or her dogma all over the sound waves with absolutely no substance I am going to throw up or better still, begin to have a DO NOT READ THIS BOOK category in this SI Newsletter, and write more and talk more about who is standing in your way and adding to your trance state.
The only way you will get to the promised land of clarity and self-esteem as who you really are is to leave the un-you—the inauthentic self—behind by changing your behavior.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
 The Sun moves into Gemini May 20th at 9:01 a.m., PDT. All you Twins can celebrate for (give or take) the next thirty days because no sun sign has more fun than a Gemini.
There will be a New Moon at 13 degrees of Gemini on June 3rd at 12:23 p.m., PDT. This means that those good twin/bad twin types must decide which one is going to drive the car, speak up and be heard and which one is going to “reform school” to change his or her ways. And this New Moon benefits all other air signs, Libra and Aquarius and fire signs, Aries, Leo and Sagittarius.
Mercury goes retrograde at 22 degrees of Gemini on May 27th so don’t sign documents or contracts, leave or take a new job, and if you are traveling, expect delays and possible cancelled flights. Mercury will go direct on June 19th. Mercury retrograde is a good time to review material and plans you have in the works—make changes and refine, but stick to what you have. Do not sign on for any new schemes or ‘too good to be true’ plans, particularly that someone else has dreamed up.
There is a Full Moon on June 18th at 27 degrees of Sagittarius at 10:30 a.m., PDT. Full Moons are about endings, so all you Archers had better pay attention to what needs to go—stop gripping things too tightly—it makes letting go virtually impossible. This lunation also affects other mutable signs, Pisces, Gemini and Virgo. And, need I remind you that Full Moons can make you nuttier than a fruit cake? Hide the knives and put away the heavy artillery. We are in the 21st century when we are trying to end war, not start one, even at the local level.
The real deal for the Gemini cycle is to see where you can cut back. Strategize to see how to save and not spend, and when you do open your purse, see how much you can give to help others. With gas sky-high and other indexes faltering, perhaps it would be smart to act as if we have not been living as if there were no tomorrow. Today and every day this month is time to be conscious of where to spend and when to save, no matter what your sign or how easy or stressful your aspects. |
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Remember when we were little kids growing up, we had our special pals first in grade school and then in high school. In our innocence we would promise to be connected forever—some of us even became ‘brothers’ by forming a special handshake about which only a select few friends knew. In our naiveté we were committing to a life long friendship.
There is a new commercial for Windex on television these days. It features the Fisk Johnson, the CEO and Chairman of SC Johnson (the company that makes Windex) talking about the new Greenlist version of the product. In an earnest voice he tells consumers that they have a right to a product that actually works; the implication being that many of the other, smaller companies that produce “green” cleaning products don’t actually work. Taken at face value, one would think that the economic process is working. Consumers are more aware of the need to use products that don’t poison the environment, not to mention themselves and a major producer of those products has altered their offering to contribute to the common good and recapture market share.