Recently, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) administrator Anne Milgram appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on fentanyl. Facing a grilling from United States Senator John Kennedy (R-Louisiana), Milgram said:
Senator, I have been very vocal in the whole of government setting on the importance of fentanyl and all of us using every single effort and authority that we . . .
Milgram was rudely cut off by Kennedy before she could finish speaking.
Why hasn’t President Biden done it? I mean, this is the way the American people whose sons and daughters are dying. Look at it. Our economy is $23 trillion. Mexico’s economy is 1.3 trillion. Ours is eighteen times bigger. We buy $400 billion every year from Mexico.
Without the people of America, Mexico, figuratively speaking, would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback. So why don’t you and the president embarrassing no one, get on the phone and call President López Obrador and make him a deal he can’t refuse to allow our military and our law enforcement officials to go into Mexico and work with his to stop the cartels. Why don’t you do that?
I wonder if Kennedy knows that most of the fentanyl entering the United States comes from China and India — not Mexico. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s website states:
Currently, China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States. Seizures of fentanyl sourced from China average less than one kilogram in weight, and often test above 90 percent concentration of pure fentanyl.
I wonder if Kennedy knows that Mexico is a sovereign state; that many of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels come from the United States. Imagine Mexico saying to President Biden that they want to put troops on the American side of the border to combat illegal firearm traffic. Sovereign states are responsible for what happens within their borders. We need to stop using the military as an arm of the DEA and Customs and Border Control. Congress needs to give the DEA and CBC the funding and tools necessary to do their jobs.
I wonder if Kennedy realizes how much of our produce comes from the Mexico and the states bordering our southern neighbor? Is he aware of the thousands of Mexicans who legally cross the border each day to pick produce; people who spent millions of dollars of money on the U.S. side of the border before returning home?
I wonder if Kennedy is aware that Mexico has a rich history; that Tijuana, Nogales, and other border towns are not representative of Mexico at large, any more than certain economically depressed communities in the U.S. present America as a whole. Sadly, many Americans have embraced an ugly, racist stereotype about Mexicans instead of educating themselves about the country and its citizens.
Here’s what I know about Senator Kennedy: He is a jingoistic, xenophobic bigot. I hope the good people in Mexico realize that the Kennedys of America don’t speak for all Americans. Yes, we collectively need to do something about fentanyl and immigration. Kennedy doesn’t care about either of these things. Much like Ted Cruz, all Kennedy cares about is exacerbating problems at the border so they will make Biden and the Democrats look bad.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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It’s a disgrace how a lot of Americans view Mexico.
Perhaps there will be some blowback on Kennedy (and Republicans) during the next election cycle. By blatantly insulting Mexico with his “eating cat food” remark, Kennedy is also insulting US citizens of Mexican descent.
I live in a border state( California)and have had some interesting talks about just why Mexico has the issues it does. Mexico has a Catholic economy. They inherited it from the Spanish Conquistadors and the Roman Catholic Church that they brought with them. The Aztecs had a much higher living standard,though without the tech the Spaniards used against them. Poverty under the Spaniards became entrenched,and has dominated Mexico to this day. If Mexico was willing to adopt the Scandinavian economic system, they wouldn’t even need the U.S., not for anything. The Catholic church gets it’s power from those whom they indoctrinate and bully,using superstition, into submitting and being loyal to them. Mexico would change overnight if they got a clue and threw out the Catholic hierarchy ! You should not have to leave your home country just to live an average life. Which works greatly in U.S. employer’s favor, because they pay minimum wage or less. This keeps workers everywhere from having living wages, unions have been gutted, our own living standards have plunged,along with lifespans. But this IS what the corporations have always wanted,to get rid of the middle- class. So it’s in their best interest for countries like Mexico to be in a constant state of distress and turmoil. Why do you think there’s all those people lined up on the border ?? Like my former landlord,who lost his drywall business because his customers preferred non- Americans to do those projects. My landlord charged American prices, but he did quality work ! Even did projects for the town. In the end, it’s the Yanks who want non- Americans to work for them, because they endure any conditions,and accept low pay. They usually do slipshod work as a result. But these corrupt employers are okay with this. And always vote Hard Right. I saw it myself, everyday. Neoliberalism in it’s purest form.
Yulya, you make a great point about Mexico’s Catholic economy. How can an system of fealty to a man who supposedly said, “The poor you will always have with you” (Matthew 26:11) produce anything but inequalit?
Although Mexico wasn’t directly colonized by the US, it has become a de facto vassal state. Many of the problems for which it’s blamed are, directly or indirectly, results of what the US has initiated, or aided and abetted, there—as well as this country’s appetite for cheaper produce and labor. If anything, Mexico has far more of a problem wirh addiction to opioids than it contributes to the flow of fentanyl or other drugs to the US.
Thanks,MJ ! Yeah, I see the results of the decades- long policies toward Mexico held by the elites in the U.S. daily. There’s a huge cathedral right in the downtown area of Los Angeles,that was presided over by Cardinal ” Mahoney the Phony,” as he’s known by many. He came to the defense of known pedo- priests in that vast parish. No surprise there ! He had his foot on the necks of those people for way too long. When the stories started coming out about what these priests and nuns did to the now- grown survivors, oh how the congregation in most of these churches closed ranks around those degenerates !! To the point of standing outside the doors waving guns, daring the police to come and arrest the perps ! Oh yes,I still remember those incidents. And gang members, and others with skeletons in their closets have a real investment in such people. They hold a lot of secrets, and are counted on to ” pray the criminals out of purgatory or hell, the families they come from pay the nuns and priests to to this, like clockwork. They are actually seen as martyrs for ” the culture.”. Soldiers of the Vatican,and Mary. So they get away with too much. It’s absolutely DESTROYED Los Angeles, I’ll tell you that. Most of Cali for that matter ! Our previous governor, before Gavin Newsom, who was a ( fake) Democrat was Jesuit Jerry,aka Jerry Brown. He did anything the Vatican wanted, while totally ignoring the disabled and homeless citizens ( yes, homeless people ARE citizens). Put us on the road to more ruin as our jobs hemorrhaged overseas. The 70’s were a great time,in most ways. Even though Reagan ended free community college 🤨. I’ll always hate those guys ! You’d be amazed and horrified, if you knew who plays footsie with the officials in Mexico,since at least the Nixon era. Los Angeles is the main hub for this activity. On foot you’ll see so much that driver’s don’t ! Corrupt religion plays the major role in all this ****. The physical beauty of this place makes all the more painful ! If Mexico’s people were left alone long enough to think,and consider it, voting to go Scandinavian would save that country from those Narcos,and everything else that’s wrong with it. It’s no accident that the top hierarchy is composed of Spaniard descendants of the ruling families from the 1500’s. You’ll see nary a Mestizo, much less an Indian in such positions. Ditto for their TV networks like Telemundo,etc. I’d watch those telenovelas for fun when I had cable. You do learn a lot that way,for sure ! 🤮