Raising Arizona.

I don't care if you are a rabid teabagger or a marxist rabblerouser (we all know that there is no longer a middle ground), when the bullshit rises to a certain level, it is incumbent on you to yell bullshit. This week the Arizona Governor made the totally unsupportable statement that the majority of undocumented workers entering this country are carrying drugs.

"We all know that the majority of the people that are coming to Arizona and trespassing are now  drug mules," Gov. Jan Brewer told the Arizona Republic Friday. "They're coming across our borders in huge numbers. The drug cartels have taken control of the immigration." "They're coming here, and they're bringing drugs." Illegal immigrants looking for work are being "accosted" by drug cartels, she said.

I have lived in a farm community near the mexican border for the last thirty years and have met plenty of undocumented workers. They tend to be extremely focused and hard working individuals that keep their nose clean. I signed green card papers over two decades ago for a family of guatemaleños that came back to work in my avocado grove year after year. I have never known a single undocumented worker that had anything to do with drugs.

Ms. Brewer panders to the most virulently bigoted segments of her community. Unfortunately a large portion of the nation's population will believe her. No matter that the head of the Border Patrol Union finds her allegations unsubstantiated. This governor clearly loves to be in front of a camera. Which is courageous considering, (see picture at left).

"The majority of people continue to come across in search of work, not to smuggle drugs," Border Patrol Spokesman T.J. Bonner said. Brewer's comments, Bonner said, don't "comport with reality -- that's the nicest way to put it."

According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 61% support Brewer in her race to win the Republican nomination for Governor. Further bolstering Brewer, 89% of GOP voters support the immigration law.

***

I was discussing the Prescott Mural situation last night with a friend who moved to the Arizona community several years ago. If you are unfamiliar, the townspeople got irate about a school mural celebrating diversity, egged on by a city councilman. The mural artists were subjected to a continual stream of foul epithets and were eventually forced to lighten the shade of the dark children's faces.

City Councilman Blair mistakenly complained that the most prominent child in the painting is African-American (he was hispanic), saying: "To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?""You have changed the ambience of that building to excite some kind of diversity power struggle that doesn't exist in Prescott, Arizona. And I'm ashamed of that."


Psychiatrists would have a field day with this one. Rather than seeing a bunch of multihued children playing together in harmony, the white residents of town frame it as a diversity power struggle.
So the enlightened residents of our neighbor to the east have a problem if the white child isn't the biggest face on the mural. I see. I asked my friend about this. I was a bit shocked at his response.

"Hey, it would have been one thing to have an Indian or Mexican kid on the wall but we got Kunta Kinte instead."

Do you think this could have anything to do with us having a black president?

**

Of course, not to be outdone, Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C. is really smoking the crack. She wants Homeland Security honcho Janet Napolitano to investigate the hordes of Hezbollah militia members massing on our southern flank, in league with the drug cartels. Of course, she has no real evidence of this, but it might just manage to inflame the looneys that inhabit the kindred red sister states. How's this for fear mongering:

"Former intelligence officials have pointed to the terrain that makes up our border, especially in the San Diego border sector, as a reason why drug cartels have been partnering with Hezbollah. This terrain is very much like the areas around Israel's borders. As we well know, Hezbollah is extremely skilled in the construction of tunnels,"said Myrick. "Likewise, these intelligence officials say that the drug cartels, in an effort to dig larger and more effective tunnels, are employing the expertise of Hezbollah. For their expertise, Hezbollah could be receiving a cut of the drug money or even be helping put cash up front to assist in the overall drug operations."

Yes, Iran has made inroads in Venezuela and possibly Paraguay. In 2006 Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, the brother of a Hezbollah member, illegally came through the Mexican border on his way to live in Detroit.

But I would doubt that a nexus can be established placing a vanguard of islamic invaders at our back porch.

Nothing has to make sense any more or be rooted in the slightest tether to what actually exists in the real world. A bullshit soundbite creates its own existential reality. And who really has the time to figure out the difference?