What's wrong with Mexico?!!

[Uiler]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060318..._vWvCkUewgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA4NTMzazIyBHNlYwMxNjk2

MEXICALI, Mexico - Despite its name, the All-American Canal has been leaking water to the Mexican side of the desert border for more than 60 years, nourishing alfalfa, onion and cotton crops that might otherwise wither. Now the U.S. government is preparing to line the earthen channel with concrete.

Mexican farmers' loss will be California's gain: Scarce water that will no longer be able to seep away instead will help flush toilets and water lawns more than 100 miles west in San Diego.

And that would affect thousands of families whose fields cover thousands of acres around Mexicali, an industrial city of 800,000 that is gobbling up farmland on its outskirts. Critics of the project say the lining would prevent the replenishment of about 100 rural wells they use.

Nazario Ortiz, who farms 100 acres about three miles inside Mexico, worries that his hardscrabble community will not survive.

"Everything comes from the canal, so everything is going to be ruined," said Ortiz, 46, who lives in a village where old pickup trucks and unleashed dogs share dirt roads. "How are people going to make a living?"

It will be hard, Ortiz says, to stop his sons — ages 22, 18 and 16 — from illegally crossing the border to join relatives in Los Angeles.

For many of its 82 miles, the canal's green waters trace the U.S.-Mexican border, running through sand dunes and verdant fields to California's Imperial Valley, where it is the lifeblood for 500,000 acres of U.S. farmland.

The project to line 23 miles of the canal is slated to begin this summer and be completed in 2008. Project managers expect that the refit canal will capture enough water for 135,000 new homes, mostly in San Diego and its suburbs.

The deal is not, however, ironclad. A group of Mexicali farmers and businesses has sued in federal court in Las Vegas to stop construction; a hearing is scheduled April 24.

Nearly 3,000 acres in Mexico depend entirely on the All-American, according to the Mexicali Economic Development Council. California also relies on water that the canal siphons from the Colorado River as one of the West's major water sources winds from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico.

For years, water consumption spurred by breakneck growth in Southern California prompted Western states to complain they were not getting their share. A water-redistribution deal in 2003 cleared the way for the lining project, which, at an estimated cost of $225 million, will ease some of the pinch California feels from being able to gulp less water from the Colorado.

Mexico already gets 489 billion gallons of Colorado River water each year. Supporters of the lining project say that that should suffice — that the canal's seepage is water Mexico is not entitled to get. The Mexican government estimates 90 percent of the canal's seepage ends up in Mexico, according to Enrique Villegas, environmental protection secretary for Mexico's Baja California state.

"We don't mind sharing, but enough is enough," said Stella Mendoza, who serves on the board of the Imperial Irrigation District, which oversees the canal and solicited construction bids last month.

The issue with water seems quite urgent in Mexico in general as can be seen in the recent news about how on average people in Mexico City get only *one* hour of running water a day due to government neglect of infrastructure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/international/americas/16mexico.html

Not to mention increasing violence in "water wars" in Mexico in general.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060317...fkdl.0A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Still, you have to ask, what right does Mexico have to *demand* that America give it free water it is not legally entitled to from a canal which runs entirely in American land and which America paid and built by itself. Water which America needs for its own farmers? What are they going to say in court? America is not allowed to make repairs to its canal because we can't steal water anymore?

This reminds me of the previous news about the Mexican government lambesting American imperialism for the plans to build border walls to stop illegal immigrants, comparing it to the Berlin Wall. Now, I think the wall plan is stupid, a white elephant, useless and a PR disaster. However, once again, how does America NOT have the moral or legal right to secure its borders? Especially since the Mexican government is doing everything to insecure the borders to the extent of publishing guides on how to illegal cross the border? And what about this infamous quote:

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/20/D8EK6GGO9.html

"We learned to believe in the United States. We have a binational life," he said of Zacatecas, a state that has been sending migrants north for more than a century. "It isn't just a feeling of rejection. It's against what we see as part of our life, our culture, our territory."

Then there are also the demands from Mexico that illegal immigrants should get access to all sort of US government services (paid for by American citizens of course).

Now I post plenty of criticism of America in this forum but I have to defend America in this case. It's not even as if the attitude is, "Well it's illegal we know but we want to make money. Sorry, such is life." Instead it's, "What are you talking about? It's our *right*. We are *entitled* to these things!" It's not even asking, it's *demanding*. Where on earth does this sense of entitlement on the part of the Mexicans come from?!

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Mexico wants water, Mexico tries to take water. If it were the other way round, the US would do the same, or threaten military force.

 

[Dann]

You gotta remember half the western continental US used to be part of Mexico. Thus the "our territory" bit.

And they're slowly taking it back too, culturally.

J/k

 

[h4ppy]

They can culturally control it all they want but succession is illegal and nothng can change that. (except for a Constitutional amendment or SCOTUS ruling, I suppose.)

 

[Sahkuhnder]

You gotta remember half the western continental US used to be part of Mexico. Thus the "our territory" bit.

And they're slowly taking it back too, culturally.

J/k

Just like in civ4 the culture push goes both ways. In TJ and other parts of Mexico there are quite a few retired Americans that can live there for less money and Mexico is a big US tourist destination with McDonald's and Pizza Hut, et. al. Many US companies have factories just inside Mexico producing goods for US markets.

When all the Mexican workers come to the US their kids pick up some English and some US culture too. If/when they go home they will be far more Norteamericano than the native children that stayed home.

 

[Dreadnought]

Give it to them! Why?

If you don't, even more people will cross the border!

 

[Vietcong]

Mexico can shove it!!

if those farmers want american watter, i suggest they get money and pay for it..

ooo

whats that?? they have no money to pay for it??
well......
To bad. i guess no watter for poor mr mexican man, and i gess he will make even less money now since all his crops will die!! oo and also say bye bye to ur lil cesspoll of a community u have their...

 

[Fox Mccloud]

Mexico can shove it!!

if those farmers want american watter, i suggest they get money and pay for it..

ooo

whats that?? they have no money to pay for it??
well......
To bad. i guess no watter for poor mr mexican man, and i gess he will make even less money now since all his crops will die!! oo and also say bye bye to ur lil cesspoll of a community u have their...

...and then he will come to the US, and we are flooded with Mexicans!!!!

Seriously, what you are saying is really cruel.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

They can culturally control it all they want but succession is illegal and nothng can change that. (except for a Constitutional amendment or SCOTUS ruling, I suppose.)

Or a nice big war.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Or a nice big war.

Yep. I always thought that North America would look much more aesthetic with Mexico as part of the US.

But I doubt Mexico is that dumb.

 

[Gelion]

Mexicans? ( )

 

[silver 2039]

Such is life. If Mexico wants water they either have to pay for it or fight for it. Since they can do neither they will suffer as they must.

 

[mitsho]

The most famous example of the same problem exists with the Euphrat and the Turkish planned Dam which would leave practically whole Syria waterless and poor. Or the Golan-heights in/around/by/near/whatever Isreal.

The wars of the future will be about water most probably. So, this whole Mexican-America thing doesn't surprise me at all. It'd now be wise from the Americans not just to take the water but look at it as some sort of "help", I mean, if you take a look at it on the whole, what's more important, agriculture of flushing toilets in San Diego? Of course, this can be debated, but I don't think water has become crucial in San Diego yet...

mitsho

 

[Chieftess]

Yep. I always thought that North America would look much more aesthetic with Mexico as part of the US.

I was just half-thinking that. Now, if Canada joined, too, you'd have something like 93 states -- maybe add in 7 Carribean states in another 20-40 years after Castro is bound to kick the bucket -- (a little less if you combined some - 90 is a nice, round number -- 100 with Carribean states included). Granted, there's too much of a cultural difference though.

But, who knows, maybe in 20-40 years (a generation or so), there might be so much of a mix that Mexican families will have American family members. (If you look at the way the Inca divided the people, they put them into various districts, which allowed them to assimilate those people into their culture. Other countries have done the same in history.) Then, there might be a push to unite the North American Continent.


OT: I'd love to see Monterrey have a baseball team. Monterrey Coyotes, perhaps? Then again, coyotes is also a slang term.. (I heard my aunt - who is part Mexican, part Texan talk about her uncle - who came over illegally or something, and called him a coyote). Maybe Monterrey Cactii? Monterrey Tumbleweeds? Monterrey --- something-or-another...

 

[h4ppy]

IIRC coyotes are professional border guides who get people through the desserts. (or atleast try to do so)

 

[Bugfatty300]

I was just half-thinking that. Now, if Canada joined, too, you'd have something like 93 states -- maybe add in 7 Carribean states in another 20-40 years after Castro is bound to kick the bucket.

We should have done that stuff 100 years ago.

Cuba would have made a great state.

 

[Dreadnought]

We could've had Mexico entirely, Cuba also, but we, feeling all democratic, let them go

 

[h4ppy]

Yeah, and don't even mention the Phillipene tragedy.

 

[Fox Mccloud]

Such is life. If Mexico wants water they either have to pay for it or fight for it. Since they can do neither they will suffer as they must.

That's sad.

The people in the US get ALL the water they ever want, and we can't give, just a little to a few Mexicans.....

What's next? Are Americans going to have to pay to breathe Canadian air?

 

[h4ppy]

Its called realism.