Mon 27 Mar 2006
Dear Republicans,
Rallies in support of immigrants around the country have attracted crowds that have astonished even their organizers. More than a half-million demonstrators marched in Los Angeles on Saturday, as many as 300,000 in Chicago on March 10, and — in between — tens of thousands in Denver, Phoenix, Milwaukee and elsewhere.
One of the most powerful institutions behind the wave of public protests has been the Roman Catholic Church, lending organizational muscle to a spreading network of grass-roots coalitions. In recent weeks, the church has unleashed an army of priests and parishioners to push for the legalization of the nation’s illegal immigrants, sending thousands of postcards to members of Congress and thousands of parishioners into the streets.
The demonstrations embody a surging constituency demanding that illegal immigrants be given a path to citizenship rather than be punished with prison terms. It is being pressed as never before by immigrants who were long thought too fearful of deportation to risk so public a display.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Partha Banerjee, director of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network, who was in Washington yesterday to help plan more nationwide protests on April 10. “People are joining in so spontaneously, it’s almost like the immigrants have risen. I would call it a civil rights movement reborn in this country.”
Isn’t that fucking cool?
Go on, motherfuckers, mess with the poor people that outnumber you some more. You’d think, with the black bag searches, the indefinite detentions, the giant fences, the eagle-eyed redneck sentinels, and warrantless access to the whole fucking internet, it wouldn’t be quite so easy for a million plus people to just sneak up on you like that. Especially since it seems to keep happening over and over again, doesn’t it? You fat little shitheads all grabbing for the money in the water and hey, whoah, this raft is kind of tippy, and nobody said there were sharks in the water, just mermaids. Almost like there’s some kind of cycle going on. Some kind of wave.
Paraphrasing George Peppard, I love it when a giant, angry, highly motivated voting bloc (grass roots, spontaneous, exponential, virulently anti-GOP) comes together. Especially when that bloc’s been kicked around for, like, ever, and it’s all your fault, you and your racist bedfellows. And you were trying, on the ludicrous basis of a shared love of pickup trucks, to get them to LIKE you? To vote for you? How’s that going?
And they’re Catholics! That has to sting. I mean, they love Jesus, you love Jesus, you love Bush, them not so much. After all the work you put in, really, ow.
Maybe I’m overestimating this: it’s a a momentary arc of activism and Bush, in his magisterial compassiontude, will remember Spanish and defuse the situation. George Will thinks there has to be a first time for that, right, the (objectively) Worst President Ever not totally fucking blowing it? Maybe, not kidding this time, for really reals, it’ll backfire and HELP the GOP! Like you’ve always wanted! Just gotta start working the phones, the blowdryers. Or maybe, if you’re a pudgy, yearning young conservative activist, watching those massed throngs in the streets, Americans, somehow, in American streets, you feel like maybe there is a wave coming. A wash of acid worry that cuts right through the smarm and self-satisfaction, lapping at the insults, the slights, the past you’d hoped to put behind you. A wave portending an eerily familiar future, where nobody listens to you anymore and you’re back to nodding along to Art Bell in your basement, plotting against Hillary, as you iron your red ties again and again and again, just, you know, in case you need them.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:42 am
there were 20,000 protestors in Phoenix who marched 3 miles to Sen. Jon Kyl’s office, then they marched 3 miles back to the church where they started.
20,000 protesters in white-bread Phoenix. That’s like, well, half a million in LA.
Power to the people baby. If only we could turn out that many to protest Bush seizing dictatorial powers.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:43 am
Funny–I saw not one article about or photo of yesterday’s massive protests in today’s print editions of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Daily News. Go figure.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:48 am
Somebody needs to translate Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” into Spanish and distribute it.
Imagine a hundred Hispanic immigrants showing up at Chaney’s local opera - and farting all the way through a high society event…
March 27th, 2006 at 10:51 am
A world in which the following brainworm, which swept the hip Lefternet like some insidious virus, is not up for a Koufax is a world in which I do not wish to live:
(Am I a bad person because I am singing “enormous, mendacious, disembodied anus” to myself to the tune of the Beach Boys’ smash hit single “Kokomo”? Or am I a bad person in spite of it? Discuss.)
That was 2005 as far as I am concerned.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:53 am
(OK, off topic, fair enough, but still.)
March 27th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Be very careful here people. Be very very VERY careful what you wish for. The GOP has been casting about, looking for a nice juicy wedge issue to mobilize the demoralized Republican voters for one more push in 2006.
And guess what? A bunch of illegal immigrants (who cannot vote) marching in their pure-as-the-driven-snow whitebread streets, scaring the shit out of them, taking all those high-paying janitorial jobs? That’s quite a wedge issue.
Now, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is all too big, too much anti-GOP backlash. And maybe I’m a paranoid. But ask yourself this, and really ask yourself it: A bill which not only makes illegal immigrants into de facto felons, but also makes anyone who harbors them, hires them or assists them in any way into felons as well? That wasn’t intended to cause EXACTLY THIS?
Dunno. I could be wrong. Anyway: food for thought.
March 27th, 2006 at 11:55 am
let’s ask pete wilson about all this. hell, let’s ask the entire california republican establishment about this. they turned our state permanently blue with this same shit about 10 years ago.
please, republicans, do alienate every hispanic you can. it is the door marked “permanent minority”. go on in. you’ll like it there.
March 27th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
My grandchildren think I am insane because I go around singing enormous mendacious disembodied anus. Sometimes they sing it with me.
Then another day you write something like this and I am reminded why I like you so much even though you withhold kittens and go on vacation.
Thank you Editors.
March 27th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
My grandchildren think I am insane because I go around singing enormous mendacious disembodied anus. Sometimes they sing it with me.
Then another day you write something like this and I am reminded why I like you so much even though you withhold kittens and go on vacation.
Thank you Editors.
March 27th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Poopsie
Thank you sifu tweety. Those eds are on another stinkin’ vacation with all the kittens again, aren’t they.
March 27th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Word, CSL, Jr!
The Kokomo posts (and associated comment threads) were one of my top dozen moments of teh funny on the internet or anywhere else last year.
(Though perhaps its a sign of the maturity of the blogosphere that bitching about the Koufaxes is now as much SOP as bitching about the Oscars.)
March 27th, 2006 at 12:31 pm
Sifu: great post.
Chad: Ever hear the phrase “battered woman syndrome”?
March 27th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Miscellaneous Dylan lyric
“So don’t fear/if you hear/a foreign sound/to your ear”?
“Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage/And never sat once at the head of the table/And didn’t even talk to the people at the table/Who just cleaned up all the food from the table/And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level”?
March 27th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
Fear and hatred of Mexicans will be one of the main themes for the GOP this election year.
They don’t need the Hispanic vote or California. They do need the kind of primitives who believe that straight white Christians are an oppressed minority.
Incidentally, those kind of people don’t believe Catholics are Christians.
March 27th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
A bill which not only makes illegal immigrants into de facto felons, but also makes anyone who harbors them, hires them or assists them in any way into felons as well?
seeing as every last person i know who hires illegal immigrants is a republican, i sorta like the sound of this law. it will be fun watching republicans go to jail.
They don’t need the Hispanic vote or California.
maybe not this year, but they will, and soon. hispanics are one of the fastest growing segments of the u.s. pissing them off is not good long term strategy.
Incidentally, those kind of people don’t believe Catholics are Christians.
seeing as how roman catholicism is the largest religion in the u.s. by a wide margin, we should be making people aware of this, no?
March 27th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
This bill was, without question, designed to energize their base by scaring them with visions of evil mexicans. It was not, however, likely designed to galvanize the (much larger) immigrant population against them such that that population will (say) march tens of thousands strong in every city in the nation. As far as I know, that never works out for the party in power.
March 27th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
Well, the revolution is GOING to be televised, after all.
Chicago, LA and Iraq: the evidence is everywhere.
Karma just topped the levee.
March 27th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
The Mexican flag is very pretty, it looks nice–in Mexico. It’s time to roll back the invasion. We could learn a lesson from the hostile Muslim enclaves in Europe, who refuse to become European, but cling to their backward cultures. Or wait a minute, could it be possible we have the same problem in our neighborhood?
March 27th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
Not the best Hannibal Smith paraphrase ever, but serviceable.
March 27th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
I think Sensenbrenner and his ilk don’t really have a clue about how they’re fucking up. Seems to me that most Americans look around, see Mexicans WORKING, and think, hey, more power to ‘em, and it’s sad that so many Americans have come to believe that even skilled labor is beneath them.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
But the Savior Jesus Christ is the one who said, “hate thy neighbor.”
Didn’t he? Am I remembering that wrong?
Personally, I think the GOP should go after GAY illegal immigrants. That group has NO organizing power at all. It could be a real winner for them.
March 27th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
Now, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is all too big, too much anti-GOP backlash. And maybe I’m a paranoid. But ask yourself this, and really ask yourself it: A bill which not only makes illegal immigrants into de facto felons, but also makes anyone who harbors them, hires them or assists them in any way into felons as well?
Reminds me strongly of one of the most vile pieces of legislation passed by Congress before 2001:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_Slave_Law_of_1850
The Mexican flag is very pretty, it looks nice–in Mexico. It’s time to roll back the invasion. We could learn a lesson from the hostile Muslim enclaves in Europe, who refuse to become European, but cling to their backward cultures. Or wait a minute, could it be possible we have the same problem in our neighborhood?
Um, no. We don’t. Do you actually LIVE around any Hispanics?
For one thing, Hispanics are all Christians. Isn’t that supposed to be important to you patriotic types who like to fling around this sort of facile racism?
March 28th, 2006 at 12:20 am
Limuel: man, I hope you’re right about me.
March 28th, 2006 at 1:41 am
Uh, you know that illegal immigrants can’t vote, right? Right? So it doesn’t matter if 100 million of them marched, won’t make a shred of difference in November. Well, except it might scare the white bigots a bit and help the Republican get-out-the-vote effort.
March 28th, 2006 at 2:11 am
It’s time to roll back the invasion.
That has to be irony… right?
March 28th, 2006 at 2:47 am
Didn’t God give the whole planet to everyone? Who are we to say where people can go and can’t go? Also, the United States stole Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California from the Mexicans in the first place in 1848 or ‘49. (If I missed any states, please feel free to add.)
March 28th, 2006 at 3:04 am
Also, what is a Koufax award? And whose anus is in question?
The lips, too, are sphincter muscles. One at the beginning and at the end of the digestive tract.
March 28th, 2006 at 3:42 am
Lovely post.
Bush is more sympathetic and sounder on immigration than the rest of the Republicans, but all the guest-worker program amounts to is a way to get the INS off the backs of his business buddies while still not letting 11 million new voters in.
On the other hand naturalization & support for unionization & minimum wages would be hated by all the Republicans. But it would be good for existing American workers, who could now compete on a level field.
Now let’s see, which party could use a few million more votes… hmmm… I’m trying to remember what happened in the last couple of elections here….
March 28th, 2006 at 4:12 am
Gary Ogletree Says: The Mexican flag is very pretty, it looks nice–in Mexico. It’s time to roll back the invasion. We could learn a lesson from the hostile Muslim enclaves in Europe, who refuse to become European, but cling to their backward cultures. Or wait a minute, could it be possible we have the same problem in our neighborhood?
Just for fun I’m going to imagine that you’re serious.
First off let’s consider the fact that with Mexican people comes mexican food. That alone should be enough to justify large scale immigration from Mexico and latin America.
Second, I would love it if everyone who stands on the anti-immigrant side of this debate who has German, Irish, Italian, Spanish, African, Middle Eastern, Japanese, Chinese, South Asian or of course Latin American ancestors TO PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU FUCKING HYPOCRITE CUNT.
Third, speaking of clinging backward cultures can we get the Puritans to go back to England?
March 28th, 2006 at 5:47 am
I’m all for immigration but not the illegal variety. Make it easy to immigrate and get citinship ok but just crashing the through the gate and coming here illegally is wrong.
March 28th, 2006 at 7:16 am
I understand Chad’s point on this one. However, I think it is being used to galvanize support in the already Red areas. The GOP aren’t really concerned about appealing to a new electorate (those Hispanics who have the vote), they didn’t need anyone new in ‘04.
BUT…
While I do not agree with creating instant felons with the “new” immigration bill (and underlying racist tones), I’d like to see some type of action taken on immigration/border security.
I have a friend from the Bahamas, who came into this country legally, waiting (and waiting) his turn to become a citizen. Why does he go through the bureaucratic and involved process (work visa, background, etc.), when others are entering so freely and finding work? Yet, because he entered legally, he was able to freely attend college and graduate school, become a professional, meet a wife and have a family, and buy a home. While many different scenarios exist, wouldn’t the above be preferred to illegally entering and working for (potentially) lower wages (though high by Mexico’s standards)?
I am a liberal Democrat. But it raises my hackles a bit to see people decrying the “criminalization” of illegal immigration. Doesn’t the “illegal” part mean something? God help me, but I’m beginning to agree with Lou Dobbs.
There is room for serious debate on this issue. My wife is a public school teacher in Georgia. It is difficult enough getting in touch with parents who are citizens, let alone attempting to connect with a transient population trying to hide (or being afraid of) their legal/illegal status. She sees it quite often. I’m sure there are similar practical examples (besides border security) of why this needs reasoned debate.
Thoughts?
March 28th, 2006 at 7:20 am
Also, I totally support penalties against businesses that hire illegal immigrants just to pay extra-low wages, as is being debated in the Georgia Legislature.
However, comprehensive policies enforcing or newly regulating the demand AND supply will likely be needed to head off serious government budget and service crises in the future.
My $0.04
March 28th, 2006 at 9:29 am
Sifu: this post is terrific - right out of Edgar Allen Poe! And I agree with Phonecian: Alinsky baked beans at the opera (or for that matter, wherever Cheney dines now that Signatures is gone).
March 28th, 2006 at 9:31 am
I am a liberal Democrat. But it raises my hackles a bit to see people decrying the “criminalization” of illegal immigration. Doesn’t the “illegal” part mean something?
The illegality of it is purely political. It’s not clear who’s being harmed, and plenty of people — besides the immigrants — are benefiting. Moreover, the only people who potentially will suffer the consequences are people who are just trying to make a living, and no one is talking about the underlying reasons why it’s so desirable to leave Mexico.
March 28th, 2006 at 9:34 am
Sorry, please insert “of the proposed legistration” after “suffer the consequences” in the previous post.
March 28th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Cross posting from another comment section. I hope you don’t mind but it really pissed me off!
This man is sick…
http://www.azstarnet.com/opinion/121708
Write him at: murchib@cox.net
I can’t believe racists like him are given a voice in major newspapers…
Here is my letter to the Editors:
Bruce P. Murchison complains that politicians bicker over the complicated issue of illegal immigration. What’s his simple answer? The Patriot Act.
Hmmm, you might wonder what the Patriot Act has to do with illegal immigration? Well, in Mr. Murchison’s mind, while many illegal immigrants are trying to provide for their families, most are drug dealers and gang members. He says, ‘The Patriot Act would make it easier to round up and neutralize this destructive group’.
Murchison equates illegal immigrants with ‘dangerous gangs’ and ‘drug dealers’ who should be ’rounded up and neutralized’. Then he whines when people like him are called racists.
I don’t know what kind of Science Mr. Murchison teaches over at Sahuaro High, but our students would be better served if Mr Murchison had studied a little more history. Demonizing a whole population of people based on the actions of a minority and then proposing draconian laws to eliminate them is racist. And that’s exactly what he suggests when he says the answer to illegal immigration ‘may be right under our noses’.
March 28th, 2006 at 10:46 am
The illegality of it is purely political. It’s not clear who’s being harmed, and plenty of people — besides the immigrants — are benefiting.
Purely political how? There are legal and illegal means of gaining entry to the US. I don’t think this should be a nuanced argument similar to downloading a song from the Internet and not calling it “stealing”. It’s fairly clear throughout history that if you aren’t legitimate in international travel/immigration, then you deserve scrutiny, at the very least. Politicians will make hay out of anything they feel will get them votes, and this is no different. I understand that the GOP is following their SOP with regard to hot-button “wedge” issues. However, the fact that this issue has a political angle we’ve seen many times before (nationalism, racism, etc.) does not necessarily mean it is without merit.
Countries have avenues for seeking assylum. But most of those entering illegally aren’t seeking assylum from political, religious, or ethnic persecution. They know that they can make more money here, and then ship it back home where family members can have a higher standard of living or follow them over.
“Just trying to make a living” is not an excuse for breaking the law. I’m sure there are thousands of drug dealers “just trying to make a living.” Ashley Simpson is “just trying to make a living”, but look at the musical holocaust she and similar “artists” have foisted upon popular culture.
But there are real consequences: certain government, social & health services become taxed; rising racial tensions surely aren’t good; not to mention security ramifications. Plenty of people are harmed, including immigrants risking their lives crossing the border, either via human trafficking or in the wilderness.
In some legislation being debated, business owners that hire undocumented workers and pay them under-the-table at below US market rates will suffer legal consequences.
I’m not an isolationist, but at some point Mexico is going to have to deal with the reasons why it is desirable to leave Mexico. Hopefully, this can be accomplished with US help in crafting better policy.
March 28th, 2006 at 11:09 am
A major problem with the immigration debate is that it seems to only be cast in terms of “illegal” Mexicans. (Although Mexicans have made, and are continuing to make a wonderful contribution to our country) There are hundreds of thousands of legal and illegal immigrants that will be hurt by the proposed bill who are from Central America, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, Ireland (yes, really) etc.
I provided legal assistance to a Cambodian who came here as a refugee. Mr. A had a foreign sounding name and had not naturalized yet, but was a lawful permanent resident. So Mr. B, with a vaguely similar sounding name kept beating up his wife. Mr. A was stopped for a traffic violation or something, and the cop confused this unmarried Mr. A with wife beater Mr. B. Even though there was no similarity in date of birth or social security number, Mr. A actually had an order of deportation entered against him for Mr. B’s crimes. Several months into Mr. A’s detention, I was lucky enough to get confirmation that Mr. B was still attending his probation meetings several thousand miles away, proving they were different people. There were no procedural safeguards in place to ensure that Mr. A, a refugee from the Khmer Rouge, would not be sent back to Cambodia for the crimes of another. The new bill will erode what little due process there is even further.
March 28th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
agc: I agree with you on the immigration issue, and it’s a tough one to solve. On the one hand, people crossing the border into the US from, say, Mexico, are doing so for the perfectly justifiable reason that the U.S. isn’t nearly as screwed up as Mexico. In fact, it’s so much less screwed up that there should probably be a different entire concept used for the problems in the US in relation to the problems down south. I feel for the people who come here looking for something better.
On the other hand, citizenship really does have to mean something, and just handing it out willy-nilly isn’t the brightest move in the world. Eventually the US would find itself with a population way over 2 billion if we just did that. The problem - or part of the problem, anyway - is that the entire immigration process (like so much else in this country) is completely politicized. The Republicans need to bang the “kick em out” drum to appease their base of easily petrified white people, and the Democrats… uh… something about kittens or something.
Anyhow, whenever someone shoves their head up out of their respective trenches to say something sane, it generally runs along the lines of “amnesty for current illegals and a more sensible border patrol going forward.” Which is really great except that the last part is vague to the point of meaninglessness.
Probably the only REAL way to fix the border crossing problem, and I’ve thought about this a bit, is to fix Mexico. I realize there’s a “STEP TWO: ???” problem with that idea, but I really do feel that it’s the only way to end the crossings permanently. It’s also smart for a host of other reasons, and damned neighborly besides.
March 28th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
Geez….No-one is mentioning the businesses that court the illegals to come here so they can under-pay them and add to their own coffers. They do it now, en masse, and nobody cares. Look at the roofing trade in Minneapolis, MN. How is this crackdown (of the companies that hire illegals and the illegals themselves) going to occur?
You can help the neighboring Mexico a lot with just a small percentage of what we’re spending to kill and destruct in the middle east. Maybe we should spend some down there so the Mexican people will want to stay home.
Less than 100 years ago, my Grandfather came here from Italy. He found work, his family learned the language and work and pay taxes evermore. Now it’s the, “We have ours and you can’t have any” attitude if anyone else wants to come here. Who are the hypocrites?
March 28th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
And unions were created. We used to have a saying: “If you don’t get the asses of the masses out in the street, forget it.” And you get enough of them out there, the ruling class gets scared. That’s the only thing they’re afraid of, is numbers. Numbers!
Al “Grandpa Munster” Lewis
http://mediafilter.org/shadow/S43/S43grand.html
March 28th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Folks who dismiss over half a million protesters as meaning nothing because “they are illegal and can’t vote” are fooling themselves. I can assure you that MOST of the people protesting were NOT illegals, but people who were motivated to stand up for their family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers and loved ones who are being threatened by the proposed legislation.
The only thing the G.O.P. has accomplished, besides throwing red meat to their xenophobic base, is motivating thousands of latinos, many of whom were not political, to stand up to proposed policies that will impact their loved ones. Just consider what is going on in the minds of millions of children of illegal aliens, who now fear that their families will be broken up because they are citizens while their parents are not. (How conservatives reconcile their family values agenda with the idea of breaking up millions of families is beyond me.)
The G.O.P has awoken a sleeping giant. Whatever chance they had to woo the Latino vote based on conservative family values has been destroyed. You can count on massive numbers of formerly nonpolitical American citizens of latino descent becoming active in the months to come. 2006 is looking better for Democrats all the time.
March 28th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
How about a slogan for the illegals campaign:
“Go back to Mexico, or we’ll rape your ass.”
Classic!
March 28th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Al “Grandpa Munster” Lewis
GOD I miss him!
March 28th, 2006 at 11:46 pm
Let’s just remember that “The Law” and “Justice” are two different things
March 29th, 2006 at 9:03 am
There are hundreds of thousands of legal and illegal immigrants that will be hurt by the proposed bill who are from Central America, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, Ireland (yes, really) etc.
Exactamundo. In fact, the USCIS will be the main offender if the idiot House bill becomes law, since it places immigrants out of status by virtue of its delays and fuckups every single day.
I can assure you that MOST of the people protesting were NOT illegals, but people who were motivated to stand up for their family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers and loved ones who are being threatened by the proposed legislation.
Quite so: which is why this pale English-speaking motherfucker of a legal immigrant was one of them.
You do get such ignorance on display from US citizens who know nothing of their own country’s laws. Perhaps if more citizens were in contact with their immigrant past (and if you’re not Native American, you’re one of them) then they’d have more of a clue.
March 30th, 2006 at 9:05 am
So, because my grandparents came here legally in 1913, I’m morally obliged to support the claims of anyone who wants to come here now? Facts are that illegal immigration hurts a lot of people by depressing wages (you know, Economics 101, a larger supply of labor means lower prices for labor). But hey, it’s mostly blue collar folks and people without college degrees who get hurt, so who cares about them when we can get kickass Mexican food! Oh there are all those unemployed black men hanging around on street corners (graph the black unemployment rate against immigration numbers - very illuminating), but when’s the last time they had a big march that got conservatives pissed off, huh?
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