First of all, most military actions consist of poor people fighting for the interests of the rich in guise of the spreading of an ideal democracy.
Most Latinos who escape their native countries and immigrate are hounded by the memories of government’s and bureaucratic pit bulls who use armies designed in collaboration with U.S. Government Black Ops Task Forces to oppress the will of the common folk.
They immigrate here to improve upon life, family and financial standing, face the challenges of language barriers in a country which is world renown for being generally illiterate in other world languages and cultures, only to be faced with educational stigmas which draw them closer to the idea that being a soldier in another armed force will improve their generations to come.
Meanwhile, teachers are valued by their ability to speak Spanish and teach bilingual students, yet are not praised, and are often penalized, for teaching or telling their students that armed forces recruiters let on campus should not be the primary people to seek a future with.
In a country built on the backs of immigrants, cheap/free labor and the exploitation of the sweat and blood of minorities; we have, still to this day, the design to influx immigrants based on their ability to improve the economy, comfort the native language, conform their identity, assimilate their history and die for someone else’s future.
Speaking freely and without the choice to scholarly reference or article, the government regulates the borders by basing the people entering as either being a commodity, criminal, or some other type of character, from terrorist to lazy freeloader.
While the administration chooses to separate the interests of the people from the global tycoons and strategically continue to exploit the Natural Resources of certain distinct areas surrounding their empire to improve on the control of those common folk closest to the land and those resources. They use the guise of democracy, based on privatization of property, seize land through malicious and militias means, and declare “terror” as a means to justifying their actions.
Then they expect “Us”, and I use this term to specifically define the distinction of separate interests between the administration and its followers, to vote for change, for them, and fight with tooth and nail for pork barrel battles as “republicrats” or “democans” on ballots cast in hazy elections, regulated in humid states. Who assign the media to filter our voices and faces, while we still find ways to bring the message independently?
And they wonder why today we are surrounded by an evergrowing amount of anarchists, communists, humanitarians, greenies, feminists, socialists, activists!
Why should we abide by the constitution, when you don’t! Why should we build upon the walls of your empire when it only entraps our freedoms?! Why should we respect your laws when you don’t show up in international court?! Why should we capitalize on the blood, sweat and tears of others, when you don’t let working people, craftsmen and small businesses have a place at the table! Why should we not be outwardly peaceful in protest when you ship and sell guns to countries, cover up history and secret weaponry projects to continue the slaughter of tribal and developing nations in search of neutrality?
Why should we choose from an elephant or a donkey mascot for a party when our system’s polarity excludes participation from those unless they are billionaires or have ideas about society that will make billions?!
Why should we allow old, white, rich men to put their interests first, but their first ladies are put off by a secret room of deliberators setting up the next presidential coup to make or ruin a leader?!
Where are our red buttons to press when the approval rating of our leaders shows that we don’t want what they want?!
There must be people of minority stature to stand up to the administration like Hugo Chavez; Those who will not allow the takeover of an oil industry to empower the Bush Family Legacy, who will stand up against the reformed legacy of profiteering and imperialism.
Just as with the Rio Grande, the borders that lay between the neighbors of countries old and new must cultivate a doctrine of reconciliation. The finger pointing must stop, fundamentalism must give way to moderation, the bullet and bomb must hush and listen to the voice of reason. Ancestors must not quarrel at the table with their great grandchildren’s weapons. Sibling Rivalry is common, but not to the point of irreparable death and damage. We must seek an open door from our maze of self interest, to find rectitude in a shared destiny and common future that is not based entirely on competition extremism or religious fervor.
We must find a way in our words and actions for intervention, not intrusion.
I can hear the echo of the voice of the women around my ears, she is angry, she wants me to tell other men to put away their guns, put away their political penis, to prevent the penetration of missiles, rifles, bullets, and other war machines used to puncture flesh and souls.
She wants me to tell these men, as she sings her voice, that power is not always domination, but empowerment that comes from nurturing, envelopment, warmth, life, love….that begins; like she conceives and begets us as men from her vagina, from her womb.
We as men must discontinue the cultural castration of our world’s brothers, uncles, fathers and nephews while simultaneously empowering our sisters, aunts, mothers and nieces to have control and ownership over their own bodies.

Our laws are made with a closed fist, much like the gavel, as it slams on a flat version of the truth, with a rounded interpretation of what the people want for themselves. We govern ourselves as we govern others, and it is those laws that are enforced upon the weak and poor, creating prison industries, rebellions, and generations of incarcerated young men who will never become role models and leave women to fend for themselves.
It is these laws that we attempt to create on paper that do not apply in the same way over certain boundaries of class, culture and race.
They leave profiles for the false justification of an unjust war on terror, a battle with our own secularity and separation from ourselves, a separation of our god from there god, our state from their church, our church from there state. Only to recreate a new set of laws disagreed upon, because those who make them; do not follow them.
Laws that are made to create even more terror upon a people for the attempted security of an unnatural border, a border swindled by another piece of paper, a treaty, with another gavel, by a cleric in a robe, who is appointed to enforce martial law and restrict marital law.
But, I say, we need an open hand as opposed to a closed fist, we need to outstretch our discipline and include the world, and create laws that are not laws, but guidelines, fundamentals, katas, no-kamai’s, that are upheld by honor, respect and nourishing the human spirit. Our fingers must be sensitive to both the harsh weather of the world and sensitive to the grasps of the fingers of children.
We should study not Martial Law, but Martial Arts.

So, here we stand with our most important freedom, our words. As we sacrifice our time for the sense that we are accomplishing something, something beyond us, something that provides us security, and fear at the same time. Fear because it is our government that we are allowing to sacrifice the freedoms of us and other people, slowly, and steadily for a false sense of security.

As your token Chicano speaker today, I speak to you as a human being descended from two long lines of people who have endured warfare, been victims to it, and have never really been the victor’s within it.

Please sing with me,

“War, huh! good god ya’ll, what is it good for?!”

“ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!”

“SAY IT AGAIN…..”

“War, huh, good god ya’ll, what is it good for?!”

“ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!”