From:  "Eric Eller" <eller.eric@ssd.loral.com>
               Subject:  Discontinuation [of your web site]
               Date:  Mon, 28 Aug 2000

               Too bad. I enjoyed reading your thoughts, since they were so clearly
               the results of your experience, and a pragmatic understanding of the
               realities. I'm originally from Tucson, and a lot of my relatives lived
               in Escondido and San Diego, so every summer for 15 years (1960 - 1975)
               we trekked over the old hwy 84 and later I-8 to see them. Rolled a car
               off the road in '62 near Jacumba, and it lived forever at some
               god-forsaken wide spot in the road just east of there for years. Used to
               wave at it every year after when we went by...

               Your descriptions of the ominous nature of the activities at the border
               parallel my own experience. I used to work on ranches near Douglas in
               the early '70's; occasionally we would get illegals crossing our ranch
               (50 mi north of Douglas) and sometimes they would shoot at us (rarely).
               Because of this, we had to be armed. But mostly, it was pretty quiet.
               Now I hear of firefights, Mexican army incursions, and things that 50
               years ago would have resulted in war.

               I don't think people in the US have any idea what kind of "government"
               exists in that country, and, as you say, the effect of drug trafficking
               on virtually their entire government and "police" (=criminals) force.
               Americans simply can't imagine a reality where every state police
               officer, every federal judicial policeman, every Grupo Beta agent, every
               soldier, is probably a paid agent of the traffickers. It would be good if
               someone like you could make it clear to them. I know you've tried; I'm
               sure you can only endure so much exposure.

               I can't agree with the the conclusion "let them come"; 10% of the nation
               of Mexico is already here. It is obscene (to me) to think that we should
               accommodate the excess of a nation incapable of caring for it's own, a
               nation that (still, after 150 years) claims our land as it's own, and
               through it's actions, can rightly be thought of as a hostile nation. I
               understand that you think a reasonable level can be negotiated, but to
               me, to tell Americans on the one hand "don't have children,
               overpopulation is bad" and then to turn around and tell foreign
               nationals that "we'll absorb your excess, even though they hate us" is
               nuts. Just my opinion.

               I remember when the environmentalists used to say overpopulation was
               bad. I can't tell you how many earnest young college women I grew up
               with told me that they would only have "replacement" children (remember
               that?) or one or none at all. The same politicians who pushed that crap
               25 years ago are now the biggest champions of unrestricted legal
               immigration, and the biggest apologists for illegal immigration. I guess
               I just didn't understand their definition of "overpopulation" in the US.
               They obviously meant that the US was overpopulated with Americans, and
               there needed to be fewer of us...and more of pretty much everyone else.

               There are a lot of web sites dealing with this issue at all different
               levels of political consciousness. I thought yours was the one most
               aligned with my attitudes: no particular ethnic agenda to grind, just a
               stark recounting of the realities on the ground. I'll miss it.

               My family has been in the United States since before it was, on both
               sides. Ancestors fought each other in the (Un-)Civil War. Way back, we
               fought with Cleveland at King's Mountain (no one mentioned Mel Gibson as
               being there in any family history I know of) in the Revolution. The
               country they built is of course the envy of the earth. What can I tell
               my children: that the baby boom generation lost it? That
               irresponsibility led to narco-terrorist states in Latin America, that
               forced their people north? That we lost the strength to defend our
               borders, and enforce the laws we made? That they will grow up looking
               into the faces of policemen who are nothing more than criminals
               themselves? We are in real danger of that for the first time in 225
               years.

               Eric Eller
               Soquel, CA