Broadcasters and pundits don’t have time to discuss serious policy issues. Civil war stuff is what sells the laxatives and erection medicine!

Civil War!

Now that’s the stuff that raises eyebrows and catches the attention of … well who?

Media conservatives attack critics of Arizona immigration law by invoking idea of civil war

So … are these thoughtful Konservative Kommando faux intellectuals suggesting some sort of north/south, conservative/liberal, whites/non-white, capitalists/socialists conflict as the single most important problem facing this country?

Or is the focus still an unreasonable fear of an exaggerated invasion of armed and dangerous platoons of illegal aliens?

According to some of the urban stories that I’ve read, it seems that all along the American Mexican border hundreds of platoons of modern day bandido-types armed and loaded with drugs and criminal minds are assaulting every weak spot on our borders. (Apparently few if any are on horses like Pancho Villa rode when he was just plain raiding the ranches 100 years ago.)

No, according the some brother-in-law of a cousin who’s aunt was married to the grandfather of a retired border patrol agent, these new enemies are entirely and without exception criminals, robbers, murderers, rapists, etc. etc. etc. - apparently dragging their reluctant women and children along as unwilling aiders and abeters in this criminal assault.

It seems to reflect a willingness among the gullible to believe in some kind of deliberate act out of Mexico not unlike the Castro government releasing its criminals from prison and forcing them out of Cuba and in the direction of Florida.

Now I know there are dangerous places along the border. I used to missionary in El Paso and sneak into Juarez (sorry president McKay) – something you could not today force me to do for love nor money.

But all along the border?

So … having read these assumedly truthful rumors, I’ve done some undercover work in my own community which is home to a large number of human beings who might be considered “suspicious” if they walked  the streets of Tucson wearing only their oyster-opening clothes. And boy would they smell like something unfamiliar in dry desert.

In assessing my list of non-white acquaintances without the help of an official Arizona- State-Suspicious-Alien-detector chart, I so far  haven’t detected many robbers, murderers, rapists, etc. among my hard-working circle of non-white friends … but you never know. 

Their children – more of whom will graduate from high school this year than the same proportion among the pure-white families, should be suspect.

There are many young children among them who call me “abuelo,” but I’m not falling for that … criminal minds can be indoctrinated at very young ages you know.

For all my paranoid white mind knows, those kids could be wearing those old over-the-shoulder ammo belts under their rain coats – belts you can still see in the old Hollywood border westerns.

This new civil war fear got me to thinking about other folks, not the nefarious non-whites, but whites among whom we have in this country a similar if not more horrendous criminality. 

In the early 1990’s, flush with the foreign policy triumphs for whom the sole credit supposedly belongs to his predecessor, the first Bush president authorized the entry and acceptance of refugees from the old Soviet Union.

Among them came those who also belonged to what the TV programs today portray as the Russian Mafia in this country. Many of those particular criminal minds arrived here wearing the cloak of Christianity – hiding among  Russian refugees fleeing godless persecution from the atheist communist government.

As a Russian interpreter in my state agency, I met these families, became their case worker and got to know many families quite intimately. In those jubilant and trusting families I perceived the same earnest and opportunistic belief in the American Dream in locales mostly along the I-5 corridor the same belief that is alive and well today among the Hispanic families here in Pacific County.

But a few Russian immigrants – as I said – only pretended to be believers as a way of getting out of the Soviet Union at a time when the getting our was still difficult.

As a contractor, I also performed Russian interpreting services for city and county police in Vancouver, interrogations in the middle of the night, court testimony, etc.,  and got to see first hand the sort of criminality – but this time from legal white aliens - that has the underwear of today’s propagandizing Konservative Koir in a bunch.

NO,  I’m not trying to pull a Sheriff-Arapaio attack on innocent Russian families.

But how would you profile a suspicious-looking white possibly illegal immigrant in Tucson?

What draconian Constitution-cracking law could your panicked  mind construct to protect the community from an equally evil white criminal menace?

And what sort of civil war talk would that generate from all those “non-racist” white faces on Fox News and talk radio?

Who’s to blame for all the difficult times we’re having?

And how is it that so much energy is expended chasing the wrong problem (well the right problem for those who would climb back into the driver’s seat)?

With the end of unemployment extensions, Pacific and Grays Harbor Counties are about to move into a more serious economic circumstance. The estimate is 2000 families in a community whose total population is less than 100,000 about to lose their only source of income.

Can’t blame the Mexicans for that.

The bulk of those unemployed were laid off by timber-related industries. The economic loss of those unemployment checks has reduced cash in both counties from upward of 10 million monthly to less than 5 million.

Many of those families, bereft of their savings, unemployment and help from relatives possibly equally distressed, will come to my office where the only cash benefit left to them remains. ($661 per month for a family of 4)

More businesses will fail … more will be newly laid off and the vicious cycle will continue until the economy changes.

The culprits are not the illegal aliens.

Naw … you start with banks, bankers, and Wall  Street.

Then of course you include big business - in these counties – Weyerhaeuser, who owns more land here than any private ownership of property.

You can’t blame the Mexicans for what ails all of us economically.

Our crisis is home-grown. We didn’t need any outside help to do this.

If a civil war comes, it most likely will be “have’s” versus the “have-nots”, regardless of color and origin.

Those too lazy all along to participate in a civic manner

… those content to let talk radio and Fox News issue the correct opinions to its loyal listeners

… will have it coming.