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I saw this photo while flipping through The Times this morning, and at first I thought it might be a new installation by the artist Richard Serra. Instead, it is an image, beautiful yet terrible, of a recently completed section of the fence the United States is building across dunes along the border with Mexican border. The shot was connected with a story about the U.S.'s troubled relations with its southern neighbor.
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David Gibson is an award-winning religion writer who specializes in writing about the Catholic Church, which he joined as a convert at the age of 30. He is the author The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World. He also wrote The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism. He has written about Catholicism for leading newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, Boston magazine, Fortune, Commonweal, and America. Gibson worked in Rome for Vatican Radio for several years and traveled frequently with Pope John Paul II. He later covered religion for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey. He has co-written several recent documentaries on Christianity for CNN. For further information check out his website at dgibson.com.
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The destruction of an individual related to drugs or other issues relyes more on his/her lack of faith and personal-familiar values rather on external factors, if you are a real christian please don´t blame Mexico or other countries about the u.s. drugs problems.... IT´S MORE AN ISSUE OF YOUR OWN CULTURAL VALUES!!! stop free selling of deadly weapons to the drug cartels! Please, work on that issue, because thounsands of mexican and latino innocent peoples are dying because of tohusands of american fellows like to use drugs!!!
David, I'm with you on this. It's a terrible, terrible travesty for our country to place our emphasis on a "protective" fence.
If we want to raise our quality of life and standard of living we need to care for our citizens, educate our people, encourage full cooperation among nations for the care of the poor of all lands.
We do not need to set up us v. them, have v. have not to any greater extent than we already do.
While the image is beautiful, the reality is horrible. The border wall has cost the lives of over 5,000 immigrants who went around the disconnected sections that have been erected near cities and tried to cross through the deserts, according to the GAO. It has had zero impact on the availability of drugs in the United States. It is a scar upon the landscape and a symbol of hatred. There are beautiful paintings of death and carnage, but the aesthetics of the image should not give us a false understanding of the reality.
How is this fence any different than the ones the Catholic hierarchy builds to 'keep out' its 'undesirables, to deny god's grace and mercy to ALL?
Lew Rockwell links to more of the sorry story on our war on drugs here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/026017.html
from a Boston paper
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