Looking for any Haven
The End of a 140-year Waltz
The Cartels have It
By Stephen L. Wilmeth
Let your conversation be always full
of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
Col. 4:6
Looking for any Haven
The Westerner is reporting the illegal
cross border arrivals are reaching 4,000 per day. Of course, that is the publicized
number. The Border Patrol folks tell us that number is nowhere near what the
real invasion figures are. That is the way it has always been. Those that deal
with the crisis shake their heads and talk about the numbers while the
opposition either says nothing or condemns the message as racist.
We are hearing way too much
about this racist nonsense.
A school
board member from the Bootheel told me Tuesday Lordsburg is receiving 100
illegals a day from El Paso to be processed and turned loose. The outcome is
they are standing in line one last time before they melt away into the woodwork
of the I-10 corridor.
“I am glad
I live on the border,” were his words. “The folks in Illinois and elsewhere are
going to find out about all this mess when these people seek the welfare
handouts in the heartland.”
Certainly,
his point is taken. One study shows that fully 70% of the illegal arrivals
ungainfully populate the permanent welfare rolls.
In El Paso the crescendo of arrivals is now eclipsing all the impact of then Border
Patrol Chief, Silvestre Reyes’, Operation
Hold the Line which was designed to halt illegal urban crossings in that
border city a generation ago. It forced the illegal flows out into the rural
areas where interdiction was enhanced.
It worked.
In fact, it
worked so well similar programs were instituted in Arizona and California.
Today, the new-found loophole of crashing entry barriers in the urban centers
by sanctuary seekers is likely causing the reverse to happen. Evidence can be
found in the closure of checkpoints on major traffic arteries because the
agents manning them are being reassigned to process the hordes of urban
arrivals.
The drug
cartels must be smiling.
El Paso is
also showing the affects of simply ignoring all concern for biosecurity. There
are three cases of measles now at the city’s Andress High School. While
American families are being criticized by the Center for Disease Control for
forgoing childhood vaccinations, this government is opening gates to allow
known populations of unvaccinated humans into our society.
Is up
really … down?
The Cartels have It
One of
those CBP checkpoint closures is on I-10 west of Las Cruces.
I know it
very well. I pass through it on the way to the ranch. It has become part of the
routine, and it isn’t just mine. Yesterday, I noticed a good number of the
orange cones used to direct traffic flows have been decimated by trucks in the
habit of exiting into the truck lane side of the facility. Being caught by
surprise, those drivers have nailed many of those markers before correcting to
stay in the normally vacant bypass lanes.
Watching
their reactions as they pass, those truckers invariably gaze northward at the
near empty checkpoint no doubt wondering what the deal must be. What the public
should have their eyes on is southward toward the border.
It is there,
from this most important drug infrastructure route of travel, this single
checkpoint tacts as a beacon of warning when it is open. For there looms the Potrillo
Mountains, America’s newest designated wilderness area.
For those
who follow this column, you should remember why these mountain ranges
along the
border can become so dangerous and act as a magnet to cross border
violence and
illicit trade. Cartels love them. They form protected smuggling
corridors with
their north/south natural drainages. They all have high points of
observation. They are vast and largely owned by the federal government
hence there are too
few American eyes and ears permanently attached to the landscape. They
are
bounded on their north and south sides by hard surfaced access roads,
and they
have vast areas of sanctuaries of lands with restrictive access and land
use
dictates.
What makes this
one infinitely worse is the fact it is now designated wilderness. That means no
legal vehicular traffic. There are 72 miles of “ways” in the Potrillos. These
roads and two tracks have been continuously used by the public in mechanized
and unrestricted access for generations. That equates to problems for drug
runners who cannot afford to be observed. In this highly applauded gift by the
Environmental Cartels to the Mexican Drug Cartels (and blessed without any
debate by Congress), that now changes.
The combined Cartels have it.
The End of a 140-Year Waltz
We look at this with abject incredulity.
This ranching community, that has
created the only permanent water availability in the length and breadth of this
desert environment, is on the verge of extinction. Dudley, Bill, Chip and the
rest of us who are doormats in their absence are, to put it simply, walking
dead men. We have made our case, but the reality is, we have no more ears to
talk to or representation to depend upon.
It is clearly apparent this
government has deemed our presence expendable.
That is a very difficult thing to
get your mind around. I have an email from a Western Caucus staffer who
explains that Chairman Gosar leads the charge against “opposition to (things
like this)”, but “the train was moving on that bill and (they) didn’t have much
support for stopping it”.
The train was moving!
There is no safe haven is there?
Ours is a world that is no longer on any verge of chaos. It has fully been
condemned to that state.
The end of this 140-year waltz is
upon us.
Stephen
L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “The view of the border to
the south is now a borderless view to the south.”
Frank DuBois
Where does Wilmeth get the phrase The 140 Year Waltz? I believe it is from the tune The Last Cowboy Song, the opening lines of which are:
This is the last cowboy song
The end of a hundred year waltz
The tune was recorded in 1980, so now becomes an 140 year waltz.
Over at Vinyl Record Memories, Danny Sandrik wrote this about the song:
The Last Cowboy Song Lyrics was written by Ed Bruce and Ron Peterson and made it to #12 on the country charts in 1980.
Is this the Best Cowboy Song ever? Maybe not but it is an unforgettable sad song and tells a real cowboy story.
These lyrics, I believe, are some of Ed Bruce's best. The song discusses the disappearance of the American Old West and the values associated with it, and if ever lost will make us much the poorer because of it.
Let's hope the words in this song will always be remembered by someone who cares.
I've embedded the tune at the close of my remarks.
For me, however, the waltz is not over. The music is still playing and I'm still fighting. It may be while riding a wheel chair as a mount and using a computer as my weapon, but I'm still going to throw blows for what I think is right and on behalf of those people and principles that I respect.
Check around and you will find I was nobody to mess with when I could stand. Now all I can pound on is computer keys and on some days that is only one-handed, but rest assured I will keep pounding and entering the fray.
And I'm breaking in a new weapon. It's called a podcast. It will be me talking and interviewing others on current events. I may even have a co-host. I figure my mouth will be the last thing to go. 67 million people a month now listen to podcasts. They download them to their phones and listen in their cars or trucks, at home and at work. I can embed the podcast on my blog, on Facebook, Twitter and on various sites that host podcasts. It is especially popular with the younger crowd and I am going take a shot at it.
Now back to the song. How do you define a cowboy? I could try, but nothing I could write can explain it better than this classified ad from the June 6, 1994 Austin American American-Statesman:
- Nature of Job: Worker's primary responsibility will be feeding, grazing and care of cattle and other livestock, as needed, and will be on call 24 hours/day, 7 days/week, Sundays & holidays included.
- Worker will also perform related ranch work such as: gather livestock; assist load & unload feed; scatter bulls; check, repair, rebuild or maintain fences, water facilities and other ranch improvements; sort & ship livestock; assist with calving, castrating, branding, ear marking, vaccinating, administering medications, examining animals for diseases, parasites & injuries;
- Check for and destroy noxious plant; and cut, transport, stack and burn prickly pear as forage for cattle.
- Worker may also clean barns, tend horses or mules and chop & control brush.
- Must be able to ride a horse in a safe manner and work livestock from horseback. Must be willing and able to live on ranch and to perform work with minimal supervision, alone or in small groups of other workers. Must be willing and able to work in all types of weather and must at all times be on call when not working. Must have basic working ability with fence tools, rope, tack and other common ranch implements.
- Must be able to find and maintain bearings to assigned work areas on the ranch. Must be reliable.
- Salary And Benefits: Gross: $910 per month. Employer provides free housing, groceries, utilities, tools, supplies, equipment and worker's compensation insurance coverage. Generally, worker will prepare own meals. Reasonable transportation and meal expenses to the work site will be reimbursed....
- Please enjoy the song:
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