Welcome, Welcome Emigrante

I am absolutely sick at heart, a mi corazon, with the reports of the mass migration of children from Central America….and how the United States of America is dealing with it.

The United States (EEUU) is reaping what we sowed through years of repression and intervention against movements of the people of Central and South America and the Carribean for liberty and social justice which have continued all the way through tacit American support for the overthrow of President Zelaya in Honduras; our deportation of our gang problem (MS-13 and 18th Street) to El Salvador which did nothing but exacerbate the problem to what we now legally define as “Transnational” criminal organization proportions; and so many other ripoffs in the name of American neo-colonialist/imperialism.

Smedley Butler, “The Fighting Quaker,” commanding general of the Marine Corps, on Interventionism

- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents. [Emphasis added]

The most brilliant book ever written about the universality of the trials and tribulations of undocumented immigrants was “Flotsam” by Eric Maria Remarque. This is precisely how emigrantes are treated, as flotsam.

Buffie Sainte Marie

Perhaps the most intelligent thing ever said about the subject though was actually sung, by Buffie Sainte Marie:

So welcome, welcome, emigrante
To my country, welcome home
So welcome, welcome, emigrante
To the country that I love

I am proud, I am proud, I am proud of my forefathers
And I say they built this country
And they came from far away to a land they didn’t know
The same way you do my friend

I am proud, I am proud, I am proud of my forefathers
And I sing about their courage
For they spoke a foreign language and they laboured with their hands
And the work they did was lowly and they dirtied up their clothes
And they came from far away to a land they didn’t know
The same way you do my friend

So welcome, welcome, emigrante
To my country, welcome home
So welcome, welcome, emigrante
To the country that love

To hear it:

http://music.whosdatedwho.com/tpx_20901688/welcome-welcome-emigrante/

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Jan Tucker