{"id":235788,"date":"2023-05-22T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=235788"},"modified":"2023-05-21T07:48:24","modified_gmt":"2023-05-21T06:48:24","slug":"stepping-over-the-border-onto-planet-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/05\/stepping-over-the-border-onto-planet-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Stepping over the Border, onto Planet Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>17 May 2023 – <\/em>\u201c. . . we belong to the Earth rather than to a nation . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

These words stick in my heart like a wedding ring. They emanate a cutting glow, a crying wish and hope that slices to the core of me. At the same time, I feel surrounded by a cynical \u201crealism\u201d: Don\u2019t be a fool. A marriage like that isn\u2019t possible. Be grateful you\u2019re a US citizen. Arm yourself! We\u2019re being invaded.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The border! When the term is used, it virtually always means the southern one, where migrants die in the desert \u2013 an estimated 10,000<\/a> over the last 25 years. Yeah, the southern border, US\u2019 vulnerable spot, where hordes of Third Worlders congregate, shaking their fists, demanding entry and access to our wealth, our jobs. For lots of North Americans, the response is obvious; it\u2019s basic racism. They\u2019re different from us! That means they don\u2019t belong here.<\/p>\n

And in recent weeks, as three years of Covid restrictions are loosened: \u201cHeeding the call of the state\u2019s right-wing political leaders, armed vigilantes stalked and harassed humanitarian aid providers during the day and by nightfall rounded up migrant children in the dark,\u201d Ryan Devereaux<\/a> writes at The Intercept.<\/p>\n

Their efforts to protect the U.S., he notes, include shooting holes in the water tanks humanitarian aid workers have set up along the border to give migrants a better chance at survival. No way can this be allowed!<\/p>\n

But of course it\u2019s not just the vigilantes who are \u201cdefending\u201d the U.S. border. The government is completely defense-oriented in its attitude toward immigration. As Alan Liz\u00e1rraga of Border Network for Human Rights puts it, as quoted by Candice Bernd<\/a> at Truthout:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe border has never been as militarized as it is right now. We have the state government sending troops here, the National Guard. We also have state troopers at the border. We just got additional troops from President Biden. . . . (I)nstead of creating actual policies that would aid toward a more humane, more practical immigration system, we\u2019re getting Border Protection Units, we\u2019re getting military personnel, we\u2019re getting more police, more agents.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is where the money goes. This is where the country\u2019s official effort goes \u2013 toward keeping most desperate migrants out of the country, perhaps at the cost of their lives (not our problem). The futility and insanity of our government\u2019s policy merely begins with the cruelty it manifests at the border; the separation of families, the caging of children, etc., etc. I\u2019m not saying a shift toward greater empathy for the plight of migrants would simply require a change in attitude. Understanding and dealing with the causes of the flow of migrants to the southern border \u2013 the wars and poverty and persecution around the world \u2013 is enormously complex, and would require deep, deep changes in how we think: in our attitude toward the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

So I return to the words at the beginning of the column, from Steve Taylor\u2019s<\/a> essay in The Conversation; My primary identity \u2013 our<\/em> identity \u2013 is not as US citizens but as inhabitants of this planet, which we share with seven billion other members of the human race, not to mention with every other species, every plant, every handful of soil, every drop of water. Indeed, \u201cshare\u201d is hardly the correct word here. Hey, President Biden, listen up. We are all connected with one another! We are all part of an almost infinitely complex ecosystem, and we\u2019d better do what we must to preserve it. The last thing we need to be doing is playing \u201cGet out of here! This is mine!\u201d<\/p>\n

The ultimate point I\u2019m reaching for \u2013 let me just say it \u2013 is that \u201cAmerica\u201d is an abstraction, a made-up entity and in no way should it be our first or, for God\u2019s sake, only<\/em> concern. A border wall, for instance, that is \u201cgood for the USA\u201d but harmful to the environment is a disastrous irony. The changes that human civilization as a whole must make in order to rescue the global ecosystem \u2013 devastated by human exploitation and pollution \u2013 are almost beyond comprehension. But we can\u2019t start addressing these changes merely as national entities bickering and bargaining with one another, with the participants\u2019 primary, or perhaps sole, focus that of \u201cnational interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

We belong to the Earth rather than to a nation.<\/p>\n

To act otherwise is basically a collective neurosis. Taylor, for instance, notes that \u201cwhen people are made to feel insecure and anxious, they tend to become more concerned with nationalism, status and success. We seem to have an impulse to cling to labels of identity to defend ourselves against insecurity\u201d \u2013 labels defined, for instance, by race and nationality.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my view, then\u201d he goes on, \u201call nationalistic enterprises \u2013 such as \u2018North America First\u2019 or Brexit \u2013 are highly problematic, as they are based on anxiety and insecurity, so inevitably create discord and division. And since nationalism contravenes the essential reality of human nature and human origins, such enterprises always turn out to be temporary. It\u2019s impossible to override the fundamental interconnectedness of the human race. At some point, it always reasserts itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps you could say this interconnectedness has reasserted itself as global climate chaos. Limited thinking allows us to kill. If we act with destructive indifference beyond or within our borders, beyond what we value, the consequences always come home. One form it takes, of course, is climate chaos: rising sea levels, toxic air, ecosystem collapse. A militarized attitude toward other national entities \u2013 toward all our problems \u2013 has also led to a plague of mass murders at home.<\/p>\n

But I would add that interconnectedness also reasserts itself as empathy, caring, courage \u2013 bringing water to migrants at the border in 2023, ordering a drink at a Greensboro lunch counter in 1960. Yes, we can transcend our limits, even when doing so means breaking the law.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Robert C. Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based peace journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, <\/em>Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is still available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0Go to Original \u2013 commonwonders.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

17 May 2023 – \u201c. . . we belong to the Earth rather than to a nation . . .\u201d These words stick in my heart like a wedding ring. At the same time, I feel surrounded by a cynical \u201crealism\u201d: Don\u2019t be a fool. A marriage like that isn\u2019t possible. Be grateful you\u2019re a US citizen. Arm yourself! We\u2019re being invaded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":122360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[867,936,778,939,2335,2748,1354,1156,1157,124,70],"class_list":["post-235788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism","tag-anglo-america","tag-astronomy","tag-borders","tag-cosmology","tag-cosmos","tag-countries","tag-earth","tag-extraterrestrial-life","tag-space-science","tag-united-nations","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235788"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235789,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235788\/revisions\/235789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}