Message to George Bush from a San Diego North County Evacuee

Neither the Border Patrol nor George Bush is welcome in San Diego! We’ve Suffered Enough!

Message to George Bush,

I believe…

1. Nature caused these fires

2. Global Warming, the most dangerous side effect of Capitalism, made them worse.

3. The lack of resources to fight these fires and which are currently being used in the imperialist war in Iraq prevented most of these fires from being extinguished expeditiously.

At this moment, the FBI and other police agencies are searching for some of the culprits who may have caused some of the fires in San Bernardino. Such is the thirst for revenge for these fires that one suspected person has been shot and killed while there is a search for others. This search implies that these particular fires in San Bernardino were caused by humans, while the rest were a tragic result of nature.

I believe otherwise.

If the police authorities want to find the person who may be to blame for the rest of the fires that spread uncontrollably around Southern California, they should immediately detain and arrest George Bush as he sets foot into the scene of the crime on this day.

The fact of the matter is that no other entity in this country, and perhaps the world bears more responsibility for this natural disaster than George Bush and the government he represents. No other person or government in the world is more anti-nature than George Bush and the status quo he represents.

We are well aware of the repeated attempts by the US government to continue to deny the fact that Global Warming, or what should be called, Global Extinction, is a reality and a threat to our society, and our world as we know it, despite the overwhelming proof being provided by the scientific community. We know that when it comes to the question of Global Warming, there is no longer a debate, but instead only a time bomb that has been lit.

If Hurricane Katrina made those of us who were skeptical about Global Warming question whether it was a reality, then the fires in Southern California in 2007 should be more than convincing. What more proof are we waiting for? One more natural disaster of epic proportion? Is the third time the charm? It must not be so.

In addition to the threat brought onto the world caused by the lifestyle of those who identify themselves as capitalists, the War in Iraq is also to blame. Being a lifelong resident of Fallbrook, which is located in the North County of San Diego where you are visiting, I have seen many fires start and end within two to three days around this area.

The fire we saw on the morning of Monday, October 22, 2007 was no different. As we traveled to the burning area that was in Rainbow on that morning, the only difference we saw was the lack helicopters or airplanes flying around the area, nor did we hear the familiar sound of fire engines rushing to the scene. Even if it were true that the Santa Ana winds prevented airplanes and helicopters from flying on Monday, that does not explain Tuesday, Wednesday and now Thursday when the winds have actually died down substantially. Nor does this explain why the fires were not extinguished from the start on Sunday, October 21st, as they normally are around this area when there are isolated fires.

According to award-winning journalist, Miriam Raftery, “CNN reports that only 1,500 National Guard have been sent to assist Californians during the current wildfire crisis—less than 1/10 of the state’s 20,000 National Guard members. Clearly having the bulk of our National Guards forces deployed to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan have hindered emergency response here at home.”

Thus, your war in Iraq bears responsibility for allowing these fires to grow to the level in which they did.

Furthermore, the presence of the Border Patrol in evacuated communities only add insult to injury. There is absolutely no need for Border Patrol vehicles in evacuated communities and their presence only hinders what should be a collaborative effort between authorities and evacuees.

The sight of the Border Patrol in Mexican and Latin American communities such as Fallbrook, Pala and Pauma Valley, bears as much terror as the guillotine’s public presence used in the French Revolution, since the Border Patrol and other immigration agencies are known to decapitate families by separating parents from their children.

How in the world do you expect the community to react in a time of crisis when they see these instruments of state terror roaming around their neighborhoods? They expect the community to now see them as aiding the evacuation effort? If they truly wanted to be of assistance, why not they give them a hose or a fireman’s uniform to fight the fire, since there was obviously a shortage of manpower?

Considering all this, your visit to our communities in North County should only receive the utmost repudiation and disdain we can humanly express. Even more so than how Bollinger received Ahmadinejad at Columbia University earlier this year since you embody the most extreme signs of an imperialistic and psychopathic dictator.

In closing, we must recall the words of Subcomandante Marcos at the Gathering of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas held just recently.

“Never before has there been so much and such great stupidity from the bad governments which cause our countries to suffer… because what is happening is that they are killing the earth, nature, the world.

Without logic of time and place, catastrophes such as earthquakes, droughts, hurricanes, floods become present in all of the world.

And they say they are natural catastrophes, when in reality they have been provoked, with painstaking stupidity, by the grand multinational corporations and the governments that serve them in our countries.

The fragile equilibrium of nature, which for millions of years has permitted the world to exist, is about to shatter anew, but this time definitively.”

You Mr. Bush (you do not deserve the title of President) represent the quintessence of the stupidity of governments our Compañero Marcos so precisely described.

October 25, 2007
Ricardo Favela
Fallbrook Resident and Evacuee
North County San Diego
rqfavela@yahoo.com