From the April 2006 Idaho Observer:

Ripped into pieces: People as pawns

by Don Harkins

History has shown that different types of common people, if left to their own devices, live fine amongst one another. To common people, life’s priorities are not complex: We just want to live decent lives and provide a safe community in which to raise our children. Those who aspire to loftier perches than having a decent life and happy children compete for the spoils of greed in the quest for power. They maneuver for every edge that could help them succeed, that is, to take what would not be available to them by moral means. One of history’s sharpest edges for the cunning, is pitting different colors and cultures of common people against one another. In this regard, all races and cultures in the Americas are equal: They are all being pitted against one another for the advantages to be realized. Our task here is to analyze the evidence and find out why. If we can determine an answer to why, we can respond intelligently to this manufactured crisis.

Blacks

The world was led to believe that the 13th amendment freed the Negro slaves and the 14th made them citizens. The truth is that the 13th Amendment freed the Negro slaves and closed down the southern plantation; the 14th Amendment opened the federal plantation and created the U.S. citizen—making us all work the soon-to-be incorporated plantation as slaves.

The 1960s and the 70s mark the period in which state and federal governments expedited the process of legislating social equality to blacks by giving people like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King political power. Then, the same forces in government that facilitated the civil rights era to equalize the opportunities for blacks to succeed in America, supplied the demand for what all but destroyed black families, children, communities, faith and culture: Crack cocaine.

It used to be that white Americans commonly complained about "quotas" and "reverse discrimination" policies that caused them to lose an opportunity to a "black" person. Now whites and blacks both complain that they are being denied opportunities that are given to Hispanics and handicapped people of all races and genders.

Indians

By 1900, all the tribes (except the Seminoles and Alaskan natives) had been conquered, the land of their ancestors changed "ownership" and the great white fathers in Washington D.C. had moved them to "reservations." A century of fighting off the white soldiers had decimated the Indian gene pool as their warriors were killed in action and what remained were the old, the weak and children that had been forced to grow up in native cultures that were dying and dependent on the U.S. government.

The Indians were powerless to prevent whites from moving in, setting up homesteads and towns.

But in the 70s the great white fathers began loosening cultural taboos against legal gambling. By the 90s, special laws were evolving that have given Indians a distinct marketplace advantage for casino gambling.

An elite core of tribal leaders and organized gaming establishment managers from Las Vegas and Atlantic City have enjoyed immensely profitable joint ventures by collaborating on the operation of gambling operations. This wealth is creating a political power that gives a ruthless cabal increasing amounts of dictatorial authority within reservation boundaries and the resources to expand the scope of those boundaries.

Whites

Within a few decades of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620, whites had taken control of the eastern seaboard and began expanding westward.

By the mid-1800s, Americans were encouraged to continue westward expansion with the Homestead Act and mining laws giving them the right to locate, claim, harvest and market mineral wealth. By 1900, whites had built cities from coast to coast that were connected by roads and rails; fortunes were being made from the harvest of natural resources.

Whites received preferential treatment over all "minorities" until the 1960s (except in the post-Civil War south during "reconstruction"). It would seem that they were used to brave the wilderness, endure the harsh climates, subdue the Indians, steal their land, find the natural resources, build roads to them and establish outposts of commerce to bring the resources to market. Now that those tasks have been accomplished, they are no longer receiving preferential treatment.

Mexicans

There are political conditions in Mexico and other central and south American countries that are causing primarily working-class people to leave the places of their births. The promise of jobs, welfare and eventual amnesty in the U.S. has compelled millions of Latinos to risk sneaking into the country as undocumented illegal aliens. Their own government encourages this illegal entry by printing documents to help them; the U.S. government encourages them by not punishing them as criminals if caught near the border, nor making it difficult for them to make it working in this country as illegal aliens.

The numbers of illegals coming in each year have been steadily increasing since the 80s and became an exodus shortly after President Bush took office in 2001 with the announcement of his plans to grant amnesty to what he estimated to be 3 million primarily Mexicans living illegally in this country. Today estimates of numbers of illegals in the country range from 12 million to 30 million.

By the 90s, U.S. colleges and universities, particularly in the southwestern states, began funding the publishing of student newspapers for Spanish-speaking students. The newspapers began teaching about Aztlan and that the land in the American southwest belongs to Hispanic people.

Today, several million Hispanic people, many of them here illegally, many of them citizens of the U.S., are infused with the idea that white Americans stole the region they have been taught to call Aztlan from the Indians and Hispanics and now they are taking it back. They make a lot of babies and now comprise the racial majority in many areas. They are encouraged by the U.S. government, the California government, the Mexican government and the news media to gather en masse, in front of cameras, under the Mexican flag and demand amnesty.

Well-planned and organized rallies and marches that took English-speaking Americans by surprise beginning March 25, 2006, are continuing in various locations throughout the country.

HR 4437, which would build 700 miles of security fence along the border and fortify border guarding operations, passed from the U.S. House of Representatives Dec. 16, 2005. The bill was being hotly debated in the Senate, which could not get the controversial and treacherously pro-amnesty bill passed before adjourning for spring vacation. It is uncertain at this time whether or not it will be revived for committee debate sometime during the remaining 2006 legislative session or be tabled indefinitely.

There are thousands of painful details here—on both sides of Rio Grande. One inescapable conclusion is that all the governments involved have nurtured these events along to the point they are now: Violent clashing of cultures; civil war is inevitable—and it will be impossible to police the carnage.

Why was friction between Latinos and English-speaking Americans created? Why is the friction being coddled into a flame and who benefits?

I’ll leave you with your own thoughts here with two guiding questions: Do you believe heretofore illegal working class Hispanics will ultimately prosper as legal citizens in the land of the free? What do you think is going on in Mexico that could compel so many people to leave their homes?

The point

Gays/lesbians v. straights; rich v. poor; public employees v. private sector; pro-life v. pro choice; big endians v. little endians are more examples of Americans who are continually being pitted against one another in an ever-evolving political/commercial world that has only one goal: Maintain the optimal environment for a privileged, colorblind class of elites to enjoy efficient/profitable exploitation of natural resources (including people).

In this light the world’s people are divided into two categories: Exploiters v. the exploited. The exploited are used to perpetuate the pattern of conflict that describes human history. Failure to recognize this core reality is to remain in constant conflict—to the death and misery of the many; for the immense profits of the few.