Mr. Obama...build up that wall!!!!!

Goodness, how times have changed! It seems like just yesterday Ronnie Reagan was telling Mr. Gorbachev to "...tear down that wall..." thus, ending communism as the world had come to know it. As if it were that easy.  Now, the party of Reagan wants a wall built on the southern border of this country! Walls used to be bad. Now they are good? What the Hell happened?

I think maybe one party has construction contracts? Maybe Haliburton  is in the wall business now that the wars have pretty much played out?

The current crisis is children from Central America crossing the border hoping to find humanitarian aid in the United States and finding republicans' instead. They are not exactly cheery, Walmart greeters.

The border is no more a crisis today because of these children, than it was five or twenty years ago. In fact, I think building a wall is less important now than it was twenty years ago. We have better border security now than then and we have better methods for controlling immigration both legal and illegal. But first, we have to understand why (mostly) Mexicans' came here in the first place. The answer is, money and a better way of life. See: "Why did all other people's emigrate to the US?" The story of Mexican immigration is not much different from Italians or Irish. Mexicans are just closer. No ships or planes were necessary.

Mexican migrants have been crossing legally for as long as  we've had immigration laws. For decades they have picked fruit and other crops- the jobs that most Americans' didn't want to do. Though the work didn't pay well, it paid better than was available in Mexico. For generations, Mexican workers have gone back and forth between home and America and no one really cared. It was how the lettuce got picked. And from my personal experience in the bar and restaurant business it was how tables got cleared and dishes got washed. Beginning in the 80's when Reagan was president and tearing down walls was the thing to do, illegals started coming over in greater numbers. Both parties including the republicans noted that the illegals "(were) doing the jobs that Americans' didn't want to do..."

For the most part, that is bullshit, political rhetoric. Is there any other kind?  In the case of construction, for example, illegals were willing to work for far less pay than Americans.It didn't take long for companies all over the country to replace American workers with untrained but eager and cheap illegals. This helped expedite the erosion of unions and across the board hindered the pay of tens of millions more Americans. Well, did you think they were going to stop at the Trade Unionists? Why stop there?

So, now many of the same folks who welcomed illegals with arms open at arms length the past few decades, no longer want them around. Illegals served their purpose. Unions are well in decline, wages are stagnated for millions and while some are calling for an increase in the minimum, many in the GOP are calling for ending the minimum. They are doing that with straight faces, I might add.

So- a wall? Now? I don't know that it's personal. Seems more like business. I bet some very influential people would profit from the walls construction, just like they've profited from the actions that caused the wall to be...necessary... to be deemed as necessary....