On Wednesday night, MSNBC anchor and self-professed socialist Lawrence O’Donnell dedicated over ten minutes of his show lamenting that much of America was “stolen” from Mexico. O’Donnell, demonstrably devoid of all journalistic integrity, stooped to a new low: victim blaming. The left-wing shill condescendingly contended that America is all but deserving for the turmoil at the southern border, since much of the nation and its boundaries were established by violent wars and purchases made by white men.
The Last Word host began the awkward segment by reciting a lyric from Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.” This patriotic, inclusive, and seemingly innocuous song is actually a testament to America’s violent, unjust, and systemically discriminatory past, says O’Donnell.
That lyric was written and sung by perhaps the most liberal American songwriter in history, Woody Guthrie. And when I was kid learning that song, I never wondered how the Navajo people felt about that, or the Sioux, or the Wampanoag tribe in Massachusetts where I was growing up. This land was made for you and me. When I was a kid, I never wondered how the Mexican people felt about that song, since California was once Mexico, and Woody Guthrie's Gulf Stream waters were not always the southern border of this country. We purchased Louisiana in 1803 from the people who stole it from the tribes who were there before them.
“So no,” O’Donnell concluded, “this land was not made for you and me.”
According to O’Donnell, America isn’t the country suffering from an inundation of immigrants that may have deleterious implications on society and the economy; instead, Mexico is actually the victim, suffering from “permanent, massive economic dislocation”:
This land was not made for you and me, and so, we had to seize it. The current 2,000-mile southern border is really only 109 years old in its current form because Arizona and New Mexico did not become states until 1912. And so, their southern borders did not become the southern borders of the United States of America until 1912. The Rio Grande river did not become the southern border of the state of Texas until 1848, when we seized land from Mexico in war. All of the current southern border was taken by force from Mexico in war. And borders established by the seizure of land in war are borders that have had problems throughout history—to put it mildly. And when you seize the most valuable land in a country, you will cause a permanent, massive economic dislocation in that country, and that's what we did to Mexico.
O’Donnell, of course, failed to mention that many—if not a supermajority of—nations were formed via some form of war, conquest, procurement, or treaty.
The leftist hack cynically concluded the segment by alleging that the immigration crisis at the southern border will never truly be solved. Rather, it can only be “managed with varying degrees of success because the current southern border was not drawn on the Earth by God, and this land was not made for you and me.”
Lawrence O’Donnell’s ten-minute rant, in which he unrelentingly bashed America, was brought to you, in part, by Mercedes-Benz. Contact this advertiser and others via the Media Research Center’s Conservatives Fight Back website, conveniently linked here.
Please click “Expand” to view the entire transcript from March 24:
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
03/24/2021
10:40:27 PM Eastern
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: This land is your land, this land is my land, from California to the New York island. From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters, this land was made for you and me. That lyric was written and sung by perhaps the most liberal American songwriter in history, Woody Guthrie. And when I was kid learning that song, I never wondered how the Navajo people felt about that, or the Sioux, or the Wampanoag tribe in Massachusetts where I was growing up. This land was made for you and me. When I was a kid, I never wondered how the Mexican people felt about that song, since California was once Mexico, and Woody Guthrie's Gulf Stream waters were not always the southern border of this country. We purchased Louisiana in 1803 from the people who stole it from the tribes who were there before them. So no, this land was not made for you and me.
But by the time Woody Guthrie started singing the song during World War Two, fact and fiction had blurred into the mythology that this land was made for you and me. This land was not made for you and me, and so, we had to seize it. The current 2,000-mile southern border is really only 109 years old in its current form because Arizona and New Mexico did not become states until 1912. And so, their southern borders did not become the southern borders of the United States of America until 1912. The Rio Grande river did not become the southern border of the state of Texas until 1848, when we seized land from Mexico in war. All of the current southern border was taken by force from Mexico in war. And borders established by the seizure of land in war are borders that have had problems throughout history—to put it mildly. And when you seize the most valuable land in a country, you will cause a permanent, massive economic dislocation in that country, and that's what we did to Mexico.
[…]
10:48:13 PM Eastern
O’DONNELL: Managing a border established by land seized in war is always difficult. Permanently difficult. And some people will occasionally call it a crisis, even though what they’re calling a crisis has been happening every single day of their lives. In the White House, what makes policy on the southern border endlessly challenging is the attempt to combine enforcement with compassion and humanity. That is what Joe Biden is trying to do. For years, the Trump policy was trying to combine enforcement with cruelty. Republicans believe that compassion creates a crisis for the country but cruelty does not.
A senior Senator from Texas criticized Joe Biden for emphasizing, quote, the humane treatment of immigrants. Republicans oppose humane treatment. Republicans believe that humane treatment of immigrants is a crisis. And that is the real crisis we are now confronted with as a country. The moral crisis of a political party that represents a sizable minority of Americans now stands in opposition to humane treatment. The Republican Party position is to oppose compassion and humanity, and that is a crisis for this country because the worst governing regimes in the history of the world have all been opponents of humane treatment. The worst of the worst. The situation at the southern border is permanent. The challenges are permanent and complex. There will never be a president in your lifetime who doesn't face the challenge of how to combine enforcement with compassion and humanity, especially when it comes to children at the southern border. And if we have more presidents like Trump, they will simply eliminate compassion and humanity, while presidents like Joe Biden will be locked in a permanent struggle, every day, trying to combine enforcement with compassion and humanity, especially when it comes to the children at the southern border. The situation at the southern border will sometimes be called a crisis and sometimes not, but the problem will never be solved. It can only be managed with varying degrees of success because the current southern border was not drawn on the Earth by God, and this land was not made for you and me.
