Even from her gentle birthplace in the Lesser Antilles, Katrina has her eye set upon "The Big Easy."

The warm waters of the Caribbean combine with her nascent breezes until they form a subtle, adagio pas de deux.

As the dance goes on, they become one, and begin to twirl and twirl.

Feeding upon itself, the spinning ballet becomes faster and faster.

In short order, they are a vortex of increasing size and energy.

Then, the all-encompassing funnel begins to move.

Katrina knows that her journey has begun.

While the silent eye slowly creeps northward, Katrina is completely unaware of the devastating forces being built into a fury beyond the serenity of its wall.

As she wends her way through the hapless islands of the Greater Antilles, Katrina's inner vista increases.

She is delighted with sights along the voyage, and completely unaware of the devastation being wrought by her exterior hell-sent winds.

So great is her excitement to experience the delights of Le Vieux Carré, that she almost mistakes a brief interlude over a jutting peninsula to be her desired destination.

Upon entering the even warmer waters of the expansive Gulf, her excitement becomes so great that, unknowingly, she increases the strength of her encircling, protective escort to its maximum intensity.

With the Mississippi Delta now clearly within her sight, Katrina seems to hear revelry and chanting: Laissez le bon temps roulé.

But now, as she approaches the shore, Katrina is confused; she does not recognize the upturned vessels and dismantled land structures, and because of this, she corrects her course slightly toward the east.

Drastically weakened, Katrina now begins her immutable dénouement northward.

Noting the widening Mississippi to the west, she now knows that her fated encounter with the site of the vaunted Mardi Gras was only partially realized.

As the absence of the nurturing, balmy seas begins to enervate her protective wall and dissipate its raging winds, Katrina now hears an oddly nostalgic strain, just above a whisper: "Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans..."

I am an old man but I am not too old to forget their scent. I am being sought by a race that stole its sense of community from my homeland. While at home what they call a nation is an assortment of thieves. Thieves and cutthroats who sell our country at the market to the highest bidder. Every day the federal republic is torn apart by the warring of differing interests. Conflicting interests eating away at the center of Europe. Separated from the democratic republic by a wall put up by the red Jews who want to take the rest. They want to eat Germany and fill their bellies. There were no conflicting interests when we ran affairs. They were kept under control. Didn't we warn everybody that the Jewish filth wanted Germany for itself? They sent us to war. We were only defending ourselves from their slavery.

Now they sit there waiting for the other half to fall apart altogether. How many years did we spend cleaning up the mess to have them return and take the prize? They have even stolen our sense as a nation and turned it to their own use. How the Israelis mirror us. They have learnt well their lesson. Now they treat Palestinian like pariahs and want to seek a final solution to the Palestinian problem. They hunt and cut them down. Their intelligence is perfect. Now they seek me. I am alone here without a knot to tie. I cannot touch another hand. Another hand will not seek mine. I am isolated in a country that was born and that will die in ruin. Why do they seek me? I am one man amongst others. I did my work. They asked for it. It was war. They cannot be blind to that. They group together to seek me out. They will not rest until they have me hanging by a rope. What do they want me to tell them? They have conquered us and they will not let me go.

I still see him. Eckstein. He is still with us. I know that. It's Eckstein's sons who seek me here. They will look everywhere. They will crack a few heads and pay back debts on their way. These are a brand of Jews whom I know little. I am in a railway station. In Vienna. It is thirty-eight or thirty-nine. I have just visited at their Council of Elders with Eckstein. He stands by me. We have had a very long and difficult meeting. They will not listen to us even though we are poised at their throats. They are trying to deal with me. Who do these longnoses think they are? Demanding that certain arrangements should be met before they will even consider an emigration for payment scheme. How quickly I will finish them off. These babblers who treated me with deference while hiding their contempt and treating me like a contractible disease. Eckstein had persuaded them that the force I was speaking of was actual and he told them there was no doubt that a machine of terror would be put in use against them. He discussed it in a frank yet still diplomatic manner. One Jew got up on his feet and like some strange animal started bleating out very loudly that Eckstein was a traitor to his people. That he was working with monsters and would suck their blood dry. He accused him of being a criminal who would pay for his crimes. Crimes against his own people. This went on for about five minutes. I said nothing. I thought that they are so violent with each other then my work will be made easy. The man was forced into silence by his colleagues. The meeting went on.

We left the meeting and walked to the railway station. Eckstein had said nothing to me on our walk. We stood there waiting for the train to take us to Berlin. I mentioned some small matter related to the meeting. He looked at me. In a moment he had slapped his hand hard across my cheeks. So hard it left a red marking. He was unafraid. I looked at him and said nothing. I have been alone for so long. All this time. I have expected them. When the political winds change. I know they will not forget Heimmann. There have been times when I have expected them to pluck me out. To take me to their sanctuary. To examine me. Like some specimen. They want to hold me up. Hold me up to the world like some ventriloquist's doll.

Heimmann will not do that. He will show this good for nothing scum what he is made of. They will think they have a prize in their hands. No. No. They will have a bomb. A bomb that will explode into their money lending hands. That is certain. I know they follow me. Do they think for one moment that it is possible to fool the man who controlled Europe with an intelligence network the like which had never and has never been seen in human history. In the same hour I could have a man picked up in Lodz. Another in Brussels. A woman in Prague. A teenager in Paris. They could all end up in my office the next day. They could be dead the day after that. That is power. That is strength. Every morning at my desk I would have reports from each of the occupied countries. From their cities. From their towns. From their villages. I had compromised. I had corrupted. I had debased key individuals. If I wanted information it was on my desk. The next morning. The next hour. Looking back it seems I had half of Europe in my debt one way or another. I had corrupted them. They had corrupted themselves.

They are still here. Some of them doing very well. Key people. I cannot touch them. In this world who would believe Heimmann. He is not to be believed I can hear them saying. I'll tell them many things they don't want to hear. I'll not end up on the scaffold praying to smaller gods than I am myself. I'll not tell them I was only following orders. I am not frightened by their puny justice. They'll try to shut me up but I will speak until I have no more to say. They want to know how such a man is made. I'll tell them. They needn't ask. I'll tell them at once. I'm a man they can only imagine. They all live in my shadow. I know them already. I will know their faces. I will have known their fathers. Mothers. Uncles. Sisters. Brothers. I will have known their relatives. Their friends. I will have taken whole families on my train to their final departures. They do not frighten me. Where are they now? I can hear them. I have seen them. I am sitting here alone waiting for them. When will they come? I am not going to run anymore.

When we left the railway station Eckstein made no attempt to speak to me. To explain his action. I made no attempt to speak to him. My mind was rushing with many thoughts. There were moments when I felt like I wanted to pull out my pistol and end it there and then. I wanted him. He was simply one more man that I had control over. That was the truth of the matter. He could expect no grace from me. He sat in the carriage as if nothing had happened. He passed me some papers that I had given him earlier in the day. This man. His sons will try to do business with me but they have another thing coming. I am not an old man they can intimidate like they would an Arab in the desert. I'm no savage they can beat into submission. They will feel the sharp whip of my tongue crack them across the face. Who do these assassins of Christ think they are dealing with? They are not dealing with some flunked doctor now. In a forest. Somewhere on the outskirts of Paris. My men gathered up the entire staff of a particular Lycée in Paris that we knew to be the center of resistance against us. They were gathered up in the middle of the day when they least expected it. It was in full view of the locals. Everybody pretended not to notice. We gathered them on a truck. The entire staff. There were Israelites amongst them. I am certain. They had changed their names but the Lycée would have been a natural home for them. Packed off into a truck and driven to the outskirts of Paris. In a forest. They pleaded with us. Demanding to know why they had been taken. From their beloved Lycée. An old man - a professor came up to me. A Jew of long standing I would have thought. He came to talk to me. He wanted to know why they were here. I told him. Because you serve no purpose. I pushed him back into the throng and my men fired upon them until no one was left standing. An officer. A middle-aged man who was not involved in the shooting came up to me and asked brusquely why we had shot these people. I pulled out my pistol and shot him point blank. I told him - that's because you don't understand our purpose. He fell on his knees as if in prayer. We got back in the truck leaving this mess.

They think they know why they want me. I am a sinister man - they say. Do they think people have long memories? People were forgetting as soon as we had done these actions. After the war people's memories got very distorted. Some of the young do not even know there was a war. They do not want to know. No one wants to remember. I remember everything. People want to move towards a future. What a future we left those we conquered. No sooner had the war finished than the French were in Vietnam. Then in Algeria. Employing the same methods that we had taught them. They were unflinching in their brutality. The English were no sooner out of the Blitz and they were putting the boot into the colonies and giving their own population some punishment. The Americans were in anywhere they could get a fight going so that they may profit. By brutality Israel was founded and by brutality it was maintained. A litany of the occupied becoming the occupier. Their methods were no different except they were less efficient. They followed our rule book as if they had written it. Yet they presented this mimicry as if they alone were saving civilization. The Russians never pretended civilization and they renewed their savagery with a fervor with their new satellites.

Living here. Watching the globe. I have laughed until my sides split to think that these men think they can judge me. By what laws? We are the ones that developed those laws. They mirror our every action. They sit on high and tell me Heimmann this world cannot live with a man like you in its midst. Humanity has to rehabilitate itself - they will say. Humanity has to do away with people like you. They will insist. These liars. These frauds. Any one of these countries including Israel would benefit with the service of a Heimmann working for them. Ministering to their needs. No doubts about that. They would do well to employ me. They could not secrete me behind a door in some office. They know they would have to show others their naked face. This they cannot afford. They hide their face behind two penny brutes that they keep on a chain in countries like these. They keep their hands clean. They forever wash them. That's your trouble Heimmann - they would say — you got your hands too dirty with your tasks. We cannot be contaminated by you they would claim. They are drowned in their own filth. They cannot clean up the filth they have accumulated. They want the benefit of my methods but they do not want to pay the price. Perhaps they think they can make a public spectacle of me then they can go about their business without reference to my deeds. To do away with me is to pretend to do away with the deed. This is the thinking that made America. They will not forget Heimmann and his deeds. They will live on. In both books and life. This world cannot forget Heimmann. He is the door through which they constructed the post-war world. It is to him that they owe a debt. While they destroy town after town. City after city. Country after country. They can always point to the misdeeds of Heimmann to detract from their own deeds. They are without culture. They are without intelligence. Their reign will not last.

When I was a young man. After the First World War. I would look at maps and know that what was there today might not be there tomorrow. That empires were doomed to collapse. That one country would become another. That whole continents would be transformed. I drew on these maps. I imagined new boundaries. The creation of new borders. I imagined this then. Behind every change I saw the chosen ones or some other inferior race that needed to be extinguished. Now every day the world is faced with this reality. It was in the last days of the war that I visited the camp where Eckstein was held. He was still working in the chamber commando. Many of those he might have called colleagues in his task had already gone to join their number. Not Eckstein. He was skin and bone with a sack on top but he was still there. He would go soon. He had been a lucky man. He had seen day turn into night. He had seen the future. I went up to him in the camp. He did not seem to recognize me. I tapped him hard on his arms. He looked up for a moment. Continued with his task except now he was almost unconsciously mimicking me. He was following my every movement and gesture. The look on my face he mirrored. It was as if he was passing through me. I spoke to him but he could not answer. The man in charge of the camp was about to strike him but I fended off the attack. The weather will finish him off I said. They are the last words I spoke to him. We walked away from him but as I went into the main block I could still see him mimicking me. That's the last I saw of him.

I am alone sitting in my office. I have been told the Red Army are nearing Berlin. They are not far away. I can hear them. In the distance. The others are in a frenzy. There are already some who have deserted and others who have gone to Switzerland to make a peace. There are orders going everywhere. Orders are not being followed. This very day I have seen full uniforms left in piles all over the place. Left there. As if the owners had stripped off and just walked naked from the uniform. Ghosts. This city is a madhouse. I cannot believe this is happening. All the shops are either closed or ransacked. My men are staying loyal. They at least give this appearance. I do not know. The means of communication are nearly all gone. Fourteen year old boys travel the city with messages from one leader to another.

These boys carry news of what is happening on the front. Without them it would be impossible to get information from one place to another. The leadership seems to be everywhere and nowhere. The radio has gone and rumor has become the deadline. You hear everything. Men I have known throughout our struggle run pass me in the street. No one greets one another anymore. Fear within the nation is greater than I have ever felt. Those who have their wits about them still fear me though they do their best to bypass me. I am not being noticed. Who are these orders for? Who am I issuing them to? An order has a short lifespan here if you can find someone to delegate it to. All around me. They all want to save their skins. That's the politics of our days and nights. We have night no longer. Every night we are being bombarded and light fills what is left of the sky. You cannot believe what I am seeing. Yesterday after the Russians had hit the zoo with mortar fire you could see wild animals prowling through the city. Wild animals. I am situated in the middle of a nightmare. It is happening so fast. There doesn't seem enough time anymore. I cannot breathe. I need air. The cage is closing in. Why can't I breathe? My body feels as if it is in convulsion. I go through my files searching out names. I pore over schedules. I seek out names and numbers. Places. It's falling apart. I'm looking at reports I made in 1934. They are detailed and precise. They speak to me now. My memory serves me well. The whole city is falling apart. These are my people. This is my country. What are we doing? The camps should be burnt to the ground. Lock stock and barrel. I have sent the order. I don't know whether it's been acknowledged. Whether there is anybody to acknowledge the order. Our cities look like a collection of rubble. Few buildings are left standing. They're pummeling our city to ash. We who have brought culture to the world now see that culture smashed to pieces. Opera houses. Theatres. Cathedrals. Galleries. Museums. Rubble.

Eckstein and his sons have followed my scent though I will smell them first. They are very close. I hear and see. I am not imagining them. I can hear them. I can see them. They are close. So close. I will know them. They will listen to me. I have a story to tell these stamp collectors. They will hear more than their ears can bare. They will hear a word or two that they may have not thought possible to utter. I will utter them. Eckstein will have told his side of the story. That's certain. A sob story. I would be a large figure in that landscape. No doubt about that. Eckstein will have his lists. My name will be at the top of them. I'll not hide that fact. That's what they expect me to do. Hide the facts.

In 1942, while innocent San Diego citizens and legal residents of Japanese ancestry were being held under guard at Santa Anita’s stinking horse stables, in Orange County. Del Webb (who later built Arizona’s “Sun City”) was busy constructing, “Camp Poston,” the largest in area of the ten WWII, U.S. Japanese concentration facilities. This construction was taking place in then-Yuma County (now, “La Paz”), in the State of Arizona – on a freakin’ American Indian Reservation!!! The horrified Indian Council, incredulous at the double-jeopardy insensitivity of “The Great White Father,” would have nothing to do with the infernal plan. Naturally, they were overruled by the military and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Thus, those now-marginalized, once-possessors of all the lands, were required to remain mute, as their residual residence was profaned by yet another, race-based, inhumane assault upon mankind!!!

As the result of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, signed on April 1, 1942, more than 127,000 U.S. citizens and other legal residents of Japanese ancestry were forced from their homes on the West Coast and placed under guard in barbed wire-ringed concentration camps throughout the interior of the U.S. Apart from U.S. citizens and residents, the camps included people of Japanese ancestry sent from countries in South America.

The Poston Relocation Camp in Arizona was peopled by more than 17,000 residents, mainly from Southern California. It was built on the Colorado River Indian Reservation. The camp consisted of three sections, aligned north to south, about 3 miles apart. It was located in remote desert, about 3 miles east of the Colorado River. All 3 sections were surrounded by barbed wire. Because of the remoteness of the camps, no guard towers were used at this facility.

Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese Empire on December 7, 1941. In the months that followed, the fever-pitch against Japanese on the West Coast became so shrill that FDR was cornered into acting. Curiously, no similar action was taken in Hawaii. In the spring of 1942, posters went up in San Diego, California instructing Japanese residents where and when to report for deportation. They were given 7 days to get their affairs in order and be at the train station. Their property, real or otherwise, that could not be disposed of within that time limit had to be left behind. Since the camps would not be ready until the fall, they were hustled off to the race track to live like animals!

Once at the Poston Camp, they were confined to tarpaper-lined buildings, which afforded a dearth of privacy. The communal latrines and mess halls were no better. The meals were standard military fare. Folks could be employed at $5 a day. The climate was desert-hot and desert-cold. The Poston prisoners named their 3 facilities, “Roastin’ Toastin’ and Dustin,” depending on location. Incredibly, some accepted the U.S. invitation to go overseas to fight for “liberty and justice! Otherwise, Poston was home for the rest of them, until war’s end in 1945

The camp was named for Charles Debrille Poston, a government engineer who established the reservation in 1865, and planned an irrigation system for the area. What irony: As one people of color is (kinda) freed, another is confined to a space where, later another would be further confined therein!

Add another tear to the Iron Eyes Cody, long-ago TV image – a so-called ‘American Indian’, bemoaning the trashing of his native land.

(Although an audio copy is not available for the visually impaired, there exists a sociological study of the Poston Camp: “The Governing of Men,” by Alexander H. Leighton, 1945.)

***** ***** *****

America, thy sins are great.
Thou hidest them to deceive Fate.
Somewhere, there’s a bump.
Could it be this, “Trump”
Depends on Fate’s donation plate.

Even before it was reported that a former Trump wife had accused him of rape, The Donald opened his presidential campaign by accusing immigrants from below the border, in large part, of being rapists. That was then; the now-"sensitive" Trump, in an interview, could not bring himself even to utter the title, "Operation Wetback" – right after touting that Eisenhower, Mexican roundup as his ideal!

Operation Wetback literally was a human roundup of about 250,000 people – not the million-plus misstated by Trump. It was the beginning of our today's south-of-the-border immigration problems.

After the touted, U.S. "Manifest Destiny" was sealed with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in 1848 –coincidentally, just prior to the announcement of gold at Sutter's Mill (chicanery?J). The Mexican American War obviously is the most productive of our foreign entanglements. The vast land area ceded by Mexico filled out the huge southwestern chunk of the U.S. mainland map as it exists today – with, perhaps, a bit of tweaking caused by vagaries in the flow pattern of the Rio Grande.

When Chicanos say, "We didn't cross the border; it crossed us," they ain't shittin' – that's the way it was. After the new boundaries were drawn, those caught on the northern side had to make a choice of allegiance to Mexico or the U.S. Thus began a century of very fluid and natural cross-border activity in the southwest. For a time, fences and border-crossing stations were either non-existent or ignored. The formalization of border activity developed slowly. Even as late as 1916, President Woodrow Wilson (BTW, a virulent racist) had no qualms about committing a "causus bellicus" by having General Pershing breach the border in pursuit of Pancho Villa.

When WWII drained off Anglo workers in the very racially restrictive southwest, the labor market became more available to Mexicans, both legal and illegal. Although field labor was almost exclusively Mexican, more "braceros" (workers) were brought up from Mexico through contracting. (A bit of digression is necessary here):

[The bulk of the discussion of U.S. racial discrimination and White Supremacy generally is White/Black, and mainly covers the northeastern states. Actually, the philosophy of White Male Superiority was engendered throughout the entirety of the U.S. mainland and off-shore territories, including the two that eventually became states: Alaska and Hawaii.

Mexicans were the, "Niggers" of the southwest – and sometimes a conflation of both, with a canine twist for good measure: "WE DO NOT SERVE NIGGERS, MEXICANS OR DOGS". The movie, "Giant" is a good primer in this regard. Least discussed is the racial bias directed at Native Americans, Chinese, Japanese and Filipinos. All were aware that they were living in the White Man's world – and had better know it and keep their place.]

After the war, the labor market had to be purged of women and minorities, in order to make room for the return of the conquering heroes' resumption of control. By the time Eisenhower took office in 1952, the agitation mills were already at full wind. The newspapers were carrying stories about the diseases, crime and general unrest due to "Wetbacks." (Actually, some of Donald Trump's rants would fit very comfortably within that milieu.)

Just as FDR was forced to round up the Japanese, DDE let them go ahead with Operation Wetback. It began in California, and eventually was extended to Arizona and Texas. Later, some Midwest states were involved. The streets, transportation systems and other public venues were scrutinized for anyone with a "Latin" appearance. Citizen and non-citizen alike was caught up in the net. The inability to speak English made arrest certain. There were no niceties; it was right to the border or straight to jail to await pick-up by Immigration. (Just down Trump's line: Grab 'em and drop-kick 'em over the border.)

This was prior to the Civil Rights revolution, so there was no organized outcry by minority groups or outraged members of the majority. This was the middle of the 20th century. It sharpens one's perception of Lincoln's plight, just a century earlier.

Following is a personal account of this writer's participation in Operation Wetback:

[In 1951, I was a member of the noted, "Hall Johnson Choir" in Los Angeles, where the Republican National Convention was held, which nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower for the presidency. Mr. Johnson received an invitation to have his choir sing at Convention Hall.

During the campaign, I witnessed a pitiful, scantily attended motorcade with Adlai Stevenson on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. It was an omen of the electoral thrashing he was to receive from Eisenhower.

A few years into the Eisenhower Administration, I answered an ad by the Los Angeles Police Department for Spanish-speaking civilian employees. After I was hired, it was explained that we would be needed to process prisoners to be detained during a program called, "Operation Wetback." Along with an Anglo employee hired for that same purpose, I was assigned to the Lincoln Heights Jail, just east of downtown Los Angeles.

When the operation started, they began to bring in vehicle loads of suspected illegal immigrants. Most were obvious farm workers, shabbily dressed and wearing, "huaraches," Mexican sandals. Most of this group was illiterate in any language. No one had identification, we had to start their dossiers from scratch, relying completely on what we were told. When it came to height and weight, they had not the slightest, so we had to weigh and measure them on the spot. (Just as well; we had no notion of kilos and meters.) That was the bulk of the people we had to interview, although there were some well-dressed, literate folk who did not speak English. When we completed our interviews, the detainees were taken to a holding cell until they were picked up by Immigration officials.

My humanity sensitivity was a part of the times. One had been conditioned to accept things as they came. It would have been interesting to peer 60 years into the future and listen to a presidential candidate pining for a repetition of precisely what one was witnessing at the time.]