One 77-year-old’s search for the truth: 9/11, election fraud, illegal wars, Wall Street criminality, a stolen nuke, the neocon wars, control of the U.S. government by global corporations, the unjustified assault on Social Security, media complicity, and the "Great Recession" about to become the second Great Depression. "The most important truths are hidden from us by the powerful few who strive to steal the American dream by keeping We the People in the dark."
Dearest
friends, Catherine and I wish you a very joyful Christmas and a Happy New
Year.The pix below are from our home photographed
today on Christmas Eve.
I haven’t
posted a blog since last Friday because I think that more Americans should first read that
one.Apropos, as a kid our teachers
would have drills where we would dive beneath our desks supposedly to save us from a
nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. Fortunately Ronald Reagan, after having
termed the Soviet Union “the evil empire,” negotiated a truce based on “mutually
assured destruction.” This happy event was almost broken due to the Cuban
missile crisis, but it was solved by John Kennedy negotiating a deal with Nikita
Khrushchev, once again saving the world from nuclear annihilation.
Now the US
neocons that have full command of the US government have broken the
Kennedy-Khrushchev truce and are plotting to have a nuclear war with Russia
come hell or high water.Most of you won’t
believe this because you can't believe that our government lies about everything and that the “mainstream”
media repeat these lies in order to keep their jobs. For example, the mainstream media scares the pants off Americans thinking of coming to Mexico, whereas we have lived in Mexico for 10 years now and have made around 100 6-hour round trips on the north-south highway to the US without being once stopped by the police, much less being shot by a cop. It's being in the US that scares us...
In fact, the US has now become the “the evil
empire,” while Russia (1) has vastly superior nuclear and non-nuclear weapons
but (2) is ready to negotiate a truce with anyone thinking of having a nuclear war.While the mainstream media make Vladimir
Putin to be a monster, I’ve watched a 3-hour “state of the union” address to
his entire government plus members of the press whose questions he answered thoughtfully
in the last half hour.I was able to
follow Putin’s discussion thanks to a near simultaneous English translation,
which even if faked, contained no bluster by Putin, and both his government and
the press showed no signs of agitation.
Dave Tip: Once you have played Putin singing on the blog that I provide above, move past the bottom of that blog and find and click on the word "Home". This will return you to where you started. Then you may scroll down to my re-post of the previous Friday, which explains what would happen if the US should ever start a nuclear war with Russia.
Safety in Mexico: Reality vs. Sensationalist Media Hype By Cathy Brown / Dec 12 • Categorized as Living OverseasOriginal Here
In the last few months, I have had the good fortune to visit Mexico a
couple of times. For a single mom whose family and friends have no
problem with me romping around Buenos Aires, taking my young kids to the
Amazon, or climbing mountains in Africa, I cannot say that I was
sufficiently prepared for the distinct reaction I got when people heard I
was going to Mexico:
“You are going where? But what about the cartels?”
“Wow. I wouldn’t go there even if someone paid me”.
“Pretty irresponsible to be going there. You’ re a mother – you shouldn’t be putting yourself into situations like that…”
To which my response was: “Have you ever been to Mexico? Oh, you
haven’t… Well then, please at least tell me specifics as to what this
violence is where I am going. What area is it in, and what specifically
should I be on the lookout for?”
And, shocker…they have no idea. They just know it’s for sure really,
really bad and I am totally going to get kidnapped/raped/shot/then
probably beheaded for good measure.
Let’s work off facts here, not just blatant, misguided, baseless
fear. The US government advises against visiting very specific places
where drug cartels are warring over the billions of dollars made yearly
trading illegal substances into the United States, and the efforts by
the Mexican government to put an end to the drug traffic. Problems come
in when, after hearing “warning” and “Mexico,” all too many Americans
perceive the advisory for the country as a whole, which it clearly is
not. Leslie Bassett, Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in
Mexico City, declared that the intention of the alert is to inform
people of some violent acts that are taking place in specific states of
Mexico. She clarified that in no way does this alert seek to negatively
portray the tourist destinations.
I can’t exactly sense the fear in my friend Fernando here,
who recently visited Mexico for the first time.
Mexico is roughly the size of Western Europe. Of Mexico’s 2,500
municipalities, only 18 have been considered to be a security problem.
Please read that sentence again. Pretty sure that leaves you with a 2482
very safe options if you want to travel to Mexico. Yes, there are
places in Mexico that have had problems with drug violence. But the
majority of Mexico’s organized-crime killings last year took place in a
mere three of Mexico’s 31 states: Chihuahua, Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. I
am not here to dispute that there has been and is drug violence in
Mexico. I am here to point out that those specific places are likely
nowhere near where you as a tourist or expat are planning to go.
I would hope you would find it downright silly if you heard a Mexican
saying that they would never, EVER, consider going hiking in Oregon nor
go golfing at Myrtle Beach because they heard reports of there being
drug-related gang violence in South Side LA. Well, you know what? Where
you most likely would be going in Mexico is perhaps further from the
violence, distance-wise, than Oregon is from LA. The bandits are not
going to travel 800 miles to come after you, American tourist drinking
margaritas on the beach or taking pictures at Chichen Itza. They actually
don’t care about you, I am sorry to inform.
Three problem areas to be avoided (Tijuana, Juarez,
and Nuevo Loredo),
and how far these places actually lie
from main tourist areas.
Don’t be stupid. Don’t buy or sell drugs in Mexico. Don’t flash large
amounts of money or jewelry. Don’t visit the specific border towns
notorious for violence. That is a given. Use common sense and you will
be as fine in Mexico as you would in most other tourist destinations
around the world.
Let’s look at some actual statistics from the UN Office of Drugs and Crime: In drug offenses, Mexico recently ranked 12th in the world, and the US 4th. When it came to homocides with firearms, the US ranked 7thand Mexico 17th,
(39.56 per 100,000 vs. Mexico’s 20.6). Yes, that means the US has 92%
more homicides with guns than Mexico. So all of those people in the US
telling you that you will get shot and killed in Mexico should be more
worried about themselves.
Recent FBI statistics show the murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants in
Baltimore is 43.3, Washington D.C. is 29.1 and Detroit is 47. Mexico,
however, which suffered an especially violent year in 2008, recorded a
murder rate of about 10 per 100,000. You do the math…
Travel writer Kyle Ellison put it perfectly when he said: “While I
could rattle statistics off from a slew of different sources, the bottom
line and the main point which needs to be made is that traveling to
Mexico is no more dangerous than living in any major global city. Of the
60 countries I’ve wandered through and after 20+ visits to Mexico, you
know where I’ve felt the most in danger (including when I thought I was kidnapped in Borneo)? When I got lost on the south side of Chicago.”
In the last couple of months, I have personally visited Mexico City,
Queretaro, Puebla, Mazatlan, Baja, and Veracruz. I have had nothing
except phenomenal experiences, met some of the warmest, most welcoming
people, and not for one moment did I feel unsafe in any way. I have
enjoyed scuba and snorkeling, I have rafted, climbed, and hiked to
hidden waterfalls and caves. I have explored archeological ruins, I have
seen gorgeous art and architecture, and I have eaten some of the most
memorable meals of my life. To have missed out on any one of these
experiences because of what I heard from some media outlet needing the
next sensational story would be sad and senseless. I would travel to
Mexico alone, and I would travel with my three small kids. No second
thoughts on that whatsoever.
There was a distinct lack of drug cartel activity as I recently
snorkeled here on the very tranquilo Coronado Island
in the Sea of
Cortez…
Mexico ranks tenth as an international travel destination in the
world and, regardless of the negative media hype, remains the number one
international tourism destination for North Americans traveling abroad.
Many tourists to the country are repeat visitors, which demonstrates
that the vast majority of tourists are satisfied and leave with
overwhelmingly positive impressions.
The Mexican government is expecting 2012 to be a good year for
tourism. In fact, Mexico is expecting 52 million tourists to visit its
five southern states – that compares to 22 million foreign visitors to
all of Mexico in 2011.
If you choose to not visit Mexico in response to media hype, that is
obviously your choice. But just know that there are millions of other
Americans out there living life to the fullest and exploring an amazing
country full of warmth, culture, natural beauty and history, right in
the backyard of the US. I hate to say it, but if you sidestep Mexico due
to fear, it is your loss. As Mark Twain put all so well, “Twenty years
from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do
than by the ones you did do." So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from
the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Discover. Give Mexico a chance – I am willing to bet you may just end
up falling in love with the country as so many other travelers and
expats have.
Blogger's Notes: (1) My wife and I have lived in Mexico for 8 years now. (2) If you should want to compare the murder rates in Mexico with those in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, go here.
Injection Wells The Hidden Risks of Pumping Waste Underground Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink
Mexico City's mayor and general director of the country's National Water
Commission watch as a geologist takes a drink of water from an
exploratory well into an aquifer underneath Mexico City, on Jan. 23,
2013. (Dario Lopez-Mills/AP Photo)
Mexico City plans to draw drinking water from a mile-deep aquifer, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
The Mexican effort challenges a key tenet of U.S. clean water policy:
that water far underground can be intentionally polluted because it will
never be used.
U.S. environmental regulators have long assumed that reservoirs located
thousands of feet underground will be too expensive to tap. So even as
population increases, temperatures rise, and traditional water supplies
dry up, American scientists and policy-makers often exempt these deep
aquifers from clean water protections and allow energy and mining
companies to inject pollutants directly into them.
As ProPublica has reported in an ongoing investigation about America's management of its underground water, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued more than 1,500 permits
for companies to pollute such aquifers in some of the driest regions.
Frequently, the reason was that the water lies too deep to be worth
protecting.
But Mexico City's plans to tap its newly discovered aquifer suggest that America is poisoning wells it might need in the future.
Indeed, by the standard often applied in the U.S., American regulators
could have allowed companies to pump pollutants into the aquifer beneath
Mexico City.
For example, in eastern Wyoming,
an analysis showed that it would cost half a million dollars to
construct a water well into deep, but high-quality aquifer reserves.
That, plus an untested assumption that all the deep layers below it
could only contain poor-quality water, led regulators to allow a uranium
mine to inject more than 200,000 gallons of toxic and radioactive waste
every day into the underground reservoirs.
But south of the border, worsening water shortages have forced authorities to look ever deeper for drinking water.
Today in Mexico City, the world's third-largest metropolis, the
depletion of shallow reservoirs is causing the ground to sink in, iconic
buildings to teeter, and underground infrastructure to crumble. The
discovery of the previously unmapped deep reservoir could mean that
water won't have to be rationed or piped into Mexico City from hundreds
of miles away.
According to the Times report, Mexican authorities have already drilled
an exploratory well into the aquifer and are working to determine the
exact size of the reservoir. They are prepared to spend as much as $40
million to pump and treat the deeper water, which they say could supply
some of Mexico City's 20 million people for as long as a century.
Scientists point to what's happening in Mexico City as a harbinger of a
world in which people will pay more and dig deeper to tap reserves of
the one natural resource human beings simply cannot survive without.
"Around the world people are increasingly doing things that 50 years ago
nobody would have said they'd do," said Mike Wireman, a hydrogeologist
with the EPA who also works with the World Bank on global water supply
issues.
Wireman points to new research in Europe finding water reservoirs
several miles beneath the surface — far deeper than even the aquifer
beneath Mexico City — and says U.S. policy has been slow to adapt to
this new understanding.
"Depth in and of itself does not guarantee anything — it does not
guarantee you won't use it in the future, and it does not guarantee that
that it is not" a source of drinking water, he said.
If Mexico City's search for water seems extreme, it is not unusual. In
aquifers Denver relies on, drinking water levels have dropped more than
300 feet. Texas rationed some water use last summer in the midst of a
record-breaking drought. And Nevada — realizing that the water levels in
one of the nation's largest reservoirs may soon drop below the intake
pipes — is building a drain hole to sap every last drop from the bottom.
"Water is limited, so they are really hustling to find other types of
water," said Mark Williams, a hydrologist at the University of Colorado
at Boulder. "It's kind of a grim future, there's no two ways about it."
In a parched world, Mexico City is sending a message: Deep, unknown
potential sources of drinking water matter, and the U.S. pollutes them
at its peril.
Mexican Farmers Protest the Entrance of GMO Corn Thousands across Mexico demand their government reject permits for GMO Corn while Monsanto defends their patent on life in U.S. Supreme Court
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
. .
Mexico Officials: Allowing GM Corn Will Devastate Crops November 22, 2012 | Original Here
Despite growing worldwide concern over the health and environmental
risks inherent in genetically modified crops, the government of Mexico
is toying with the idea of growing GM corn. This is the opposite of what
other nations such as India are doing, where scientists gathered in New
Delhi to discuss the need for the Indian government to ban GMO trials
in their country. The gathering was a media briefing organized by Aruna Rodrigues, “the lead petitioner in a public interest litigation” seeking the ban. “Every indication shows that a decision could be taken in the coming
weeks,” says Silvia Ribero, spokeswoman for Canada-based ETC Group (an
ecological impact monitor). Ribero adds that although legal paperwork
remains to be prepared in full, President Felipe Calderon could
authorize the motion before leaving office in December to reduce
Mexico’s food imports.
Destruction of History and Humanity
All the big players—Monsanto, DuPont, and Dow—are waiting for the
go-ahead from the agriculture ministry to plant their poison in natural
corn’s indigenous soil in an area roughly the size of El Salvador (2.4
million hectares).
“We are talking about damaging more than 7,000 years of indigenous
and peasant work that’s created maize,” says Veronica Villa from the
Mexico branch of ETC, “one of the world’s three most widely eaten
crops.” It is because of this crop’s versatility and prevalence in the
contemporary human diet that so-called philanthropists like Bill Gates
have invested so much into GM technology. In 2010, he purchased 500,000
shares of Monsanto, claiming that GMO crops were the answer to starvation.
Why GMOs Don’t Fully Address Starvation
None of us here likely know who Bill Gates truly is at the end of the
day. But let’s be frank: at best, he’s yet another one of the billions
funding biotech and Big Ag propaganda. Does he truly believe that
genetic modification comes without consequences. At worst, however, Gates, Monsanto, DuPont, and Dow simply do not care that farmers across the world commit suicide in the thousands after going bankrupt thanks to overpriced, ineffective GM seeds. They do not care that Monsanto’s insecticides are creating resistant weeds and insects, forcing farmers to spray more insecticides that pollute soil and therefore ground- and still therefore drinking water. They do not care that our GM food has pesticide residue contributing to countless diseases in both animals and humans (and humans who consume animals), and have the gall to hide their dirty hands deep in their cash-lined pockets.
Loneprotestor has done it again. Check out her poignant video about recent deaths along the US/Mexico-- in honor of the Day of the Dead.
Eight days after Border Patrol agent Nicholas Ivie was killed by friendly fire on the U.S.- Mexican border, a sixteen year-old boy was shot seven times through the border fence by a Border Patrol agent. Yet - in spite of involving the murder of a child across international lines - one incident received national attention for weeks, but the other was largely unknown except in the town where it happened. On November 2, the Mexican Dia de los Muertos, both sides of the border in Nogales, Arizona, walked to honor Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez and the sixteen others killed by Border Patrol in the last three years, and called for an end to Border Patrol immunity.
Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, left, and Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton,
center, are hoping to lure trade through Arizona. Rogelio Granguillhome,
a Mexican international development official, is at right.
Overshadowed by drug violence, Mexico's emerging economy surprises many.
Forbes
Magazine reports that Mexico is "the little darling of emerging market
investors" and poised to become Latin American's largest economy,
surpassing Brazil.
"Stars appear to be increasingly aligned for an
economic outperformance" by Mexico, says a report by Nomura Securities,
cited in The New York Times. "A changing of the guard is slowly but
surely taking place."
Most headlines around the globe for the past
six years have focused on outgoing president Felipe Calderón's war with
the drug cartel.
"The sight of miles upon miles of factories
outside the industrial capital of Monterrey attracts far less attention
than the image of nine bodies hanging from a bridge in the border city
of Nuevo Laredo," the Times wrote.
In his final state-of-the
nation report earlier this month, Calderón defended his war and cited
the government's programs that helped turn Mexico's economy.
A
huge investment in infrastructure - from airports to seaports, highways
and railroads - boosted trade and caught the eye of manufacturers from
around the world.
With better infrastructure came better manufacturing jobs.
Calderón said more than 2 million jobs were created during his six years in office.
The
economic downturn in the United States and anti-illegal immigrants
sentiments in states such as Arizona also sent many Mexicans home.
That
boosted the middle class, analysts say, as those workers put their
U.S.-learned skills toward opening businesses or working in
manufacturing plants.
This, in turn, attracted retailers such as Walmart, Costco, Home Depot and Sam's Club to open stores in Mexico.
"Not
only is Mexico doing better, macroeconomically speaking, than the false
stereotypes would have us think, Mexico is actually doing better than
the United States," Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve
Bank of Dallas told The Washington Post.
In their report, "Mexico:
A Middle Class Society, Poor No More, Developed Not Yet," economists
Luis De La Calle and Luis Rubio of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow
Wilson Center for Scholars, discuss the impact of this growth.
"The
implications of this change are immeasurable, and among its
consequences is the appearance of a society that values stability and
demands more accountability from its authorities," they wrote. "The rise
of the Mexican middle class is the most relevant development of the
last decade in the country.
"Therefore, the consolidation of this sector is perhaps the most important issue on the agenda for the future."
Porfirio Lopez Miranda is part of a construction crew that is building a
planned community of middle-income homes in Guaymas, Sonora, that
includes underground utilities. Similar housing projects are going up in
Nogales, Sonora, and Hermosillo.
It is the fastest-growing state with the fastest-growing middle class in Mexico. In 2011, its economy grew 7.5 percent and a housing boom - unlike anything seen in the region for decades - is under way. Now
Sonora's aerospace, medical, automotive and produce industries are
being wooed by Arizona's neighboring states with promises of faster and
friendlier entry into U.S. markets. Faced with the threat of
losing a vital economic opportunity, Southern Arizona political and
business leaders are trying to build relationships and secure deals in
Mexico. Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild recently conducted a
trade mission to Mexico, determined to show his southern neighbors that
the city and region want to be business partners. "We have got to
stop dithering," the mayor said after his visits to Guaymas, Hermosillo
and Mexico City. "We're going to see our community shrink and our
economy shrink if we don't work on every economic advantage we have …
such as being the closest large city north of Sonora." Rothschild
said it was "eye opening" to visit the manufacturing sites in Sonora and
see the level of sophistication and the number of international
companies operating there. For part of his visit, Rothschild was joined by Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, who had a large group of city leaders in tow. "We're competing with California and Texas, but we're also competing with Phoenix," Rothschild said. If
warehousing, shipping or intermodal facilities aren't plentiful in this
region, manufacturing companies in Sonora could simply change routes
and bring goods into the U.S. through ports of entry where they are
being courted with incentives such as twin plant operations and
investments in technology. "They can head west, they can head east or they can drive right through," Rothschild said. "They don't need us." Relationship worth billions Mexico is now the No. 1 maker of television screens in the world and exports more cars than Japan, Korea or Germany. In
Hermosillo, Ford Motor Corp., is doubling production and hiring 1,000
workers to build the new Fusion model that will roll out of the factory
this year. Forty-three countries have trade agreements with Mexico
and The World Bank says the country outranks China, India and Brazil
for ease of doing business. A recent example: In July, British
turbine manufacturer JJ Churchill signed a lease for a new, $9.6 million
plant in Guaymas, Sonora. One month later, the land was being cleared
and prepped for the facility. The Port of Guaymas, which received
its first shipment of container cargo in February, is doubling its size
and capacity by expanding into the bay with neighboring Empalme. And
just on the other side of the border in Nogales, Sonora, houses with
underground utilities are popping up in planned communities to
accommodate the growing middle class working in the manufacturing
industry. Southbound, Arizona's top export partner is Mexico. Of
the $17.7 billion in exports from Arizona last year, $6 billion went to
Mexico; $2 billion to Canada and $1 billion to China, the Arizona
Commerce Authority said. The amount of other countries' imports of
Arizona goods are in the millions of dollars. Unlike China, Mexico relies on U.S. distributors for manufacturing materials. "Most
of the $6 billion worth of trade is in materials that go to those
factories and operations," said Fernando Jimenez, the Commerce
Authority's international trade and investment vice president. "We're
really plugged in to the supply-chain part." He said for every $1 million worth of exports, 14 to 16 jobs are supported or created in the exporting state. "That's paying the bills on this side," Jimenez said. "We tend to forget that we are in an exciting geographical location." Rising
transportation costs and a desire for more oversight has high-tech
manufacturers pulling plants out of China and opting for "nearshoring"
in Mexico. "This is a real opportunity for us," Luis Felipe
Seldner III, president of Tucson-based The Offshore Group, told the
mayor and his entourage during their visit to the company's industrial
parks. Offshore operates manufacturing plants in Mexico and is the
largest private-sector employer in Sonora. "When it comes to
low-skill, high-volume manufacturing, we can't compete with China,"
Seldner said, referring to items such as T-shirts and toys. "But in the
highly skilled manufacturing arena, Mexico is getting some attention." Competing for Mexico Although
expansion of the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales is under way, the
state is way behind the infrastructure improvements in other border
states. For years, the commercial port has been plagued by
bottlenecks and long lines of idling trucks, especially during the peak
produce season. And Mexico's coveted produce industry is something Texas is trying to lure. Earlier
this year, the Rio Grande Valley's congressional delegation was
successful in lobbying the USDA to allow McAllen, Texas, to construct
border facilities that blast fruits and vegetables with a beam of
electricity to kill pathogens and pests versus using heat, which reduces
the produce's shelf life. "The difference between Texas and
Arizona is that Texas is very focused on the economic impact that their
ports have," Nogales Port Director Guadalupe Ramirez said. "They are
very aggressive in courting new business." Jaime Chamberlain,
president of Nogales, Ariz.-based J-C Distributing Inc. and past
chairman of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, cringes at
the contrast between the two states.
"We need to be talking about
economics and how to make our state and region stronger," he said. "Arizona's thinking is really small. We have made ourselves the state of
controversy." Chamberlain said any significant loss of produce suppliers to Texas could devastate Southern Arizona. "I
have a 100,000 square-foot building here and if it becomes easier for
me to do business in McAllen, Texas because their port is open 24 hours a
day, then I'll move to Texas and take my $80 million worth of business
with me," he said. "And I'm just one." Ramirez is hopeful the expansion of the port will keep Arizona competitive and become a 24-hour operation. "The
new facility gives Arizona a fighting chance to keep the business we
have and recruit more," he said. "When the economy is in the state that
it's in, your ports of entry can help spark things." Renewed focus The
one clear message that Mayor Rothschild said he got from his visit
south of the border was that Southern Arizona has much to gain - and
lose - as Mexico's economy continues to grow.
He wants to restart the effort to develop a regional logistics hub. For
more than a decade, the city operated Puerto Nuevo, a project to create
a site where trade from Mexico could be received and stored, then
shipped by rail or truck throughout the country. That effort folded in 2007 and the city handed the project to Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities, Inc. A
year later, TREO unveiled a "strategic map" to highlight the logistics
companies operating in the area with the hope of luring more of those
businesses to the region, but the recession pulled TREO's attention in
other directions. More than 150 companies in the Tucson area specialize in trade logistics, from warehouse operations to intermodal facilities. On
Tucson's southeast side, the Port of Tucson to many validates the
viability of turning Tucson into an inland port. The 16-year-old port
has added warehouses and rail and is again expanding. Tucson City
Manager Richard Miranda wants to hire an international business expert
who understands the relationship with Sonora and its potential impact on
Tucson. "We are now seeing some cautious recovery and making some
investments in Sonora makes sense," he said. "It's important for me to
have someone in city hall. We need to send the message that Tucson is
open for business." One step being spearheaded by the city is trying to secure a direct flight from Tucson to different cities in Mexico. Along
with TREO, city leaders are negotiating with a Mexican airline to fly
in and out of Tucson International Airport. City and state officials in
Sonora are also looking at offering incentives for airlines to restart
those flights. TIA lost its last direct flight to Mexico in 2008. "There's
a lot of buzz about logistics right now," TREO CEO Joe Snell said. "We
were on that path, then the recession put things on hold. Now, the
timing is right and there's renewed interest. "The mayor's visit was the tip of the spear." Potential benefits A
study by Princeton, N.J.-based The Boyd Co. Inc. says Pima County could
add more than 5,000 jobs with wages and salaries totaling more than
$200 million annually by 2030 if the region created an inland port by
recruiting more logistics companies to the region. And the
Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors' Bureau estimates that
Mexican visitors to Arizona's malls, restaurants and hotels spend more
than $1 billion each year. Business leaders say it's critical for
politicians to join the private sector in pushing for more staffing at
the ports of entry in Nogales to ease the entry of trade and tourists. "All
city and county governments should be lobbying hard to insure funding
for the new Mariposa Port of Entry," said Michael Hammond, president and
CEO of Picor Commercial Real Estate Services, which does extensive
business in Mexico. "The average time to cross into the U.S.
should be 10 minutes or less," he said. "If so, we would see an impact
in retail sales immediately." The man overseeing the northern flow of trade and tourists at the Nogales ports of entry would like to do just that. "As
residents of Arizona, we have to recognize that economic indicators
show that there should be more trade and travel," Ramirez said. "The
ports of entry are your front door." He said it's "inevitable" the new port become a 24-hour operation. "It's too large of an investment," Ramirez said. Rothschild
said he plans to spearhead advocating for increased port staffing and
hours of operation by lobbying Arizona's congressional representatives.
If need be, the mayor plans to go to Washington, D.C., to make the case
for funding. "If a large part of a mayor's job is to help
stimulate the economy then I have to focus on those areas where our
region has an advantage over other regions," he said. "It's silly for a
region of 1 million people to cut itself off from another region of 1
million people." By the numbers Princeton,
N.J.-based The Boyd Co. Inc., outlined the impact on Pima County if the
region were to create an inland port to receive, store, transfer and
ship trade throughout the country or recruit more logistics operations
into the area:
• 4,292 additional jobs by 2020 • 5,236 additional jobs by 2030 • $165 million in annual wages and salaries by 2020 • $202 million in annual wages and salaries by 2030
Editor's note Sonora's
growing economy and middle class will have a significant impact on
Southern Arizona. The Star will publish an occasional series on the
subject in the coming months.
As Anti-Immigrant "Papers" Law Takes Effect, Jeff Biggers on Arizona, the "State Out of the Union"
Last week a federal judge lifted an injunction against a key component of Arizona’s controversial anti-immigrant law, S.B. 1070, requiring police to check the immigration status of people they stop before releasing them. On Saturday, hundreds of protesters marched in Phoenix to protest the law, which they say enables racial profiling. As the "show me your papers" law goes into effect, we’re joined by journalist Jeff Biggers, author of the new book, "State Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream." [Original includes rush transcript]
Guest:
Jeff Biggers, journalist and author of several books, most recently, State Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream.
This is a great video showing San Carlos & Guaymas Mexico.
This video produced for San Carlos Marketing a Grupo Caballero company by Abraham Castro "onix" www.onixfx.com.
Blogger's Note: Attesting to this recommendation, we have happily lived here for 7 years now. If the U.S. "mainstream" media has made it sound dangerous to you, please check out my recent post on comparative murder rates in countries, states, and cities of Mexico, the U.S., and the World. You may be surprised.
View of the seaside sections of San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico. Some of the boats in the marina and many, many more in local dry storage are virtually abandoned by their American owners due to American media lies about safety down here.
Homicide Rates in Mexico, the U.S., and the World
by David L. Griscom
While I haven’t watched the evening news on U.S. TV more than sporadically for many years now, it is my understanding that murders in México are reported virtually on a daily basis. It is certainly for this reason that Americans who used to come down to México regularly have suddenly become so afraid that they have virtually abandoned homes and boats down here in San Carlos, about 300 miles due south of Tucson. Having lived here for 7 years now, it has always seemed very safe to us. Have we been fooled? ...or are the Americans living north of the border the ones who are being fooled?
I decided to get to the bottom of these questions once and for all by studying the murder rates per 100,000 inhabitants of both the U.S. and México, as well as other countries around the world. The data for individual countries are easily obtained (my source here) and I have graphed the data for a representative number of countries as the open circles to the left of the figure below. Data for U.S. cities are also easily obtained (my sources were here, here, and here) and I have plotted a number of them on the right-hand side of the figure below. I have broken out these data according to the dates when the data were recorded – revealing, for example, falling crime rates in many U.S. cities. However, murders have been increasing in some U.S. cities (see my blog post immediately preceding to this one).
Similar data for Mexican cities are hard to find. However, the Mexican government yearly publishes meticulously tabulated data for the Mexican stateshere (I selected the stacked triangles in the figure above as a subset representative of data for 2009). One of the things revealed here is that the three of the states bordering the U.S. in my selection are a bit on the high side (13 to 13.8 homicides per 100,000), although close to the 2009 all-México average of 14.36 ...which is itself safer than the following American cities in 2011: Miami (15.4), Atlanta (17.3), Pittsburgh (17.6), Philadelphia (19.6), Washington, DC (21.9), Detroit and Baltimore (34.5 and 34.8, respectively).
Since we live in the State of Sonora, I wondered if those of us living far from the border towns, where the drug gangs regularly take lives, might be safer than the average for the entire state (13.78). So having found out (here) that the number of murders in the state capital of Hermosillo in 2009 was 46 but being unable to find the 2009 population, I settled for the 2008 population of 850,000 in order to calculate 5.4 homicides per 100,000 (a number which would have been lower still had I found and utilized the 2009 population number).
This murder rate determined for Hermosillo, though surely greater than the rate down in San Carlos, is actually slightly better than the 2011 number for New York City (6.4), a place where I've felt quite safe during recent visits.
And both of these places are immensely safer than was Washington, DC, back in the days when we lived in nearby Northern Virginia (reaching 80 homicides per 100,000 in 1991 – virtually the same as the present-day city of Chihuahua, México)! Yet this horrific murder rate didn’t deter us (nor anyone else that we knew) from going downtown to visit museums, take in musical performances at the Kennedy Center, see our doctor ...or play ice hockey (though we stopped playing at the Fort Dupont rink after our goalie was mugged in the parking lot one night).
So why are Americans so fearful of going to México? The answer, if course, is the incessant drumbeat of U.S. “mainstream” media propaganda. Those who control our government don't want unemployed, underemployed, or foreclosed-upon Americans to find out that their lives could actually bebetter down here in México.
Related articles posted by the author:
Proof that U.S. border cities were safer than cities farther from the border even before the U.S. government began spending billions of dollars on added fences and border patrol agents
A nice video that tells it like it really is down in San Carlos, Sonora, México. It features a couple of neighbors whose home is a couple blocks up the hill from us.
U.S. border cities prove havens from Mexico's drug violence
By Alan Gomez, Jack Gillum, and Kevin Johnson Updated 7/18/2011 2:15 PM
The picture painted of America's southwestern border with Mexico is a bloody one, in which the drug violence decimating northern Mexico has spilled onto U.S. soil and turned the region into a war zone.
A man crosses Grand Ave. in Nogales, Ariz., near a border
crossing into Mexico. The hill in the background is Mexico.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has warned of human skulls rolling through her state's deserts. Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, says violence on the U.S. side of the border is "out of control." Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., has suggested sending a military brigade to protect Americans.
"Of course there is spillover violence along the border," Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said during a recent congressional hearing. "It is not secure and it has never been more violent or dangerous than it is today. Anyone who lives down there will tell you that."
That's not actually the case, according to a USA TODAY analysis that draws upon more than a decade of detailed crime data reported by more than 1,600 local law enforcement agencies in four states, federal crime statistics and interviews along the border from California to Texas.
The analysis found that rates of violent crime along the U.S.-Mexico border have been falling for years — even before the U.S. security buildup that has included thousands of law enforcement officers and expansion of a massive fence along the border.
U.S. border cities were statistically safer on average than other cities in their states. Those border cities, big and small, have maintained lower crime rates than the national average, which itself has been falling.
The appearance of an out-of-control border region, though, has had wide-ranging effects — stalling efforts to pass a national immigration reform law, fueling stringent anti-immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere, and increasing the amount of federal tax dollars going to build more fencing and add security personnel along the southwestern border.
The perception of rising violence is so engrained that 83% of Americans said they believe the rate of violence along the southwestern border is higher than national rates, according to a recent USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 999 adults.
The findings "are contrary to conventional speculation that the border is an out-of-control place," said Steven Messner, a criminologist and sociology professor at the University at Albany-SUNY, who reviewed USA TODAY's analysis.
Some observers say the numbers don't reflect realities on the ground and give cover to a federal government that is not adequately protecting hundreds of border communities.
"Don't tell me that the violence isn't spilling over," said Pinal County (Ariz.) Sheriff Paul Babeu. "When you have American citizens who don't feel safe in their own home or free in their own country, this should be appalling to everyone."
Others read the numbers as proof the issue of "spillover violence" from Mexico is being exaggerated and used as an impetus for anti-immigration legislation and stepped-up federal and state funding to law enforcement agencies along the border.
"The data really spells out the irresponsibility of many of our elected leaders in their role in this immigration debate," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which backs a plan to legalize some of the 11 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. "This is the ugliest version of the politics of fear that our country has seen for quite a while."
Mining the data
For this story, USA TODAY studied crime trends along the U.S.-Mexico border, using data reported to the FBI from city and county police agencies in the four border states — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
It found that violent crime rates were on average lower in cities within 30, 50 and 100 miles of the border — the distances used to fit various definitions of the "border region." Statisticians interviewed by USA TODAY confirmed the results.
Because the data reported by the local agencies does not include kidnapping, the newspaper also had the FBI review its kidnapping investigations along the border.
Among the major findings:
•The murder rate for cities within 50 miles of the border was lower in nearly every year from 1998 to 2009, compared with the respective state average. For example, California had its lowest murder rate during that time period in 2009, when 5.3 people were murdered per 100,000 residents. In cities within 50 miles of the border, the highest murder rate over that time period occurred in 2003, when 4.6 people were murdered per 100,000 residents.
•The robbery rate for cities within 50 miles of the border was lower each year compared with the state average. In Texas over that time span, the robbery rate ranged from 145 to 173 per 100,000 people in the state, while the robbery rate throughout Texas' border region never rose above 100 per 100,000.
•Kidnapping cases investigated by the FBI along the border are on the decline. The bureau's Southwestern offices identified 62 cartel-related kidnapping cases on U.S. soil that involved cartels or illegal immigrants in 2009. That fell to 25 in 2010 and 10 so far in 2011.
When presented with USA TODAY's findings, a majority of law enforcement officials throughout the border region said the numbers accurately represent what they see.
"Over the last five years, whether you take a look at violent crime or property crime, we've seen a 30% decrease," said Chula Vista (Calif.) Police Chief David Bejarano, whose city is 7 miles from Tijuana.
In Arizona, the epicenter of the immigration debate since the state passed a tough immigration enforcement law last year, some police officials are frustrated by the rhetoric.
"Everything looks really good, which is why it's so distressing and frustrating to read about these reports about crime going up everywhere along the border, when I know for a fact that the numbers don't support those allegations," Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villaseñor said.
And in Texas, El Paso has seen sharp declines in violent crimes despite being in the shadow of Ciudad Juárez, one of the main battlegrounds of Mexico's drug wars where 3,400 people were murdered last year.
"I'm not trying to paint a picture here that nothing ever happens, because it does," El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said. "But some have tried to suggest that El Paso is a violent city just because of its location. Unfortunately, some people's misperceptions have become their reality."
Unreported crime
Critics express doubts about the credibility of the FBI data, known as the Uniform Crime Reports, the government's only national repository for local crime data.
One concern is that many crimes go unreported, and the FBI reports don't include some of the money-making crimes used frequently by Mexican drug cartels: kidnapping and extortion.
"There's actually a private industry that negotiates ransoms with kidnappers," said San Diego Sheriff's Dept. Capt. David Myers, who heads the office's Border Crime Suppression Team. "There are actual people you can call who can negotiate that ransom for you if your loved ones have been kidnapped, without involving law enforcement."
But the available data indicate kidnappings are on the decline.
FBI Assistant Director Kevin Perkins, who heads the agency's criminal investigative division, said crime statistics reported by border communities and daily contacts with local officials do not show surges in such crimes as kidnapping and extortion.
"We don't see giant spikes in violence," Perkins said.
Others say crime reports don't reflect the measure of the crime along the border.
U.S. Rep. Francisco "Quico" Canseco, a Texas Republican, joined Miller and McCaul in proposing a bill that would require Homeland Security to track border-related crimes to better account for kidnappings, property-related crimes and simple acts of trespassing when farmers and ranchers encounter smugglers crossing their lands.
"There is spillover crime," Canseco said. "We need to be able to measure it."
Critics also point to high-profile killings in the border region as proof that the cartel violence is spilling over.
For example, on March 27, 2010, Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was murdered. The killing remains unsolved, but the case sparked outrage from advocates of increased immigration enforcement who suspect that the murder was committed by an illegal immigrant.
Partly based on that case and others, the image of the U.S. side of the southwestern border as a lawless region reminiscent of the Wild West lives on.
San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore visited Washington in November to brief members of Congress and found himself battling misconceptions.
"A lot of it was anecdotal information that was not based on fact," he said.
Angela Kelley, vice president of the Center for American Progress, a group pushing for immigration reform legislation that would allow some illegal immigrants a way to become citizens, said the perceived connection between immigrants and crime makes it impossible for Congress to reach a rational solution for the country's broken immigration system.
"There's this conflation that some like to make between crime rates and immigrants, and throw in there guns and drugs and violence generally," Kelley said. "It's very toxic and it impacts the debate in such a substantial way that you can't have a responsible debate about what does work."
The toll of extra security
Starting with the administration of President George W. Bush, money flowing to the southwestern border has substantially increased.
In 2000, there were fewer than 9,000 Customs and Border Patrol agents and officers patrolling the border. By 2010, that number was nearly 23,000. Homeland Security has increased funding for border security and interior enforcement by more than $5 billion since 2006, with most of that going to the southwestern border.
Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl, both Republicans from Arizona, have endorsed a 10-point plan that would deploy 3,000 National Guard troops, increase funding for local law enforcement agencies by $60 million and add more fencing.
"While our border with Mexico has always seen some level of illegal immigration, it has not seen the powerful threat of deadly violence that exists today due to Mexico's ongoing war against its drug cartels," McCain told a group of border sheriffs last year.
Others think the nation already has the appropriate level of security along the border and should shift some of the funding toward easing the gridlock that exists for those trying to get through the built-up border.
Crossing back and forth used to be simple, but the added layers of security and teams of Border Patrol officers inspecting vehicles and people coming into the country have caused hours-long delays for people legally entering the USA through the points of entry along the southwestern border, according to a report from the San Diego Association of Governments.
Those delays lead to slowed business production as freight trucks carrying goods to the U.S. are held up, and discourage many Mexicans from crossing into the USA to shop as they once did, according to the report. Put together, those delays cost California about $1 billion in revenue in 2007, the report found.
San Diego City Councilman David Alvarez said some of the money going to border security should instead be going to expanding the existing ports of entry and adding new ones to allow the state's already-hurting economy a chance to recover.
However, he said, the image of a lawless border makes it hard to even discuss the topic.
"When you've got the national rhetoric about illegal immigration, you can never get to a conversation about legal immigration," Alvarez said. "Effective border crossings and better regional economics don't sell newspapers."
Contributing: Gomez reported from San Diego; Gillum from Tucson; and Johnson from El Paso and Ciudad Ju?rez, Mexico.
