On Immigration, The Right Loses Compassion
On Immigration, The Right Loses Compassion
The fallout from a controversial raid on undocumented workers has shown again that immigration issues rile up the right-wing in America like no other.
Late last month, federal agents arrested 119 undocumented workers employed at a poultry plant in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. One hundred and fifteen were from Mexico. About 30 of their children — some as young as 3 months old — were abandoned after all but twelve of the workers were deported from the United States.
The raid drew harsh criticism from the town’s sheriff and mayor, and even conservative Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), a Baptist preacher, who objected to the families being unnecessarily divided:
Huckabee said it appears the arrests of 119 workers at the plant were terribly planned and that federal agents gave little thought to the consequences for children of those arrested. … Huckabee has joined Hispanic civil rights leaders to ensure the well-being of the children.
What did Huckabee get for his trouble? Apparently a bunch of angry phone calls. Days after the raid, an Arkansas TV station suggested that the governor was possibly “risking his political future by speaking out against a recent immigration raid,” and that Huckabee said “calls to his office have been ‘about 1,000 to one’ against his position”:
The governor says many of the callers are angry and use profanity. He says immigration is a very emotional issue and people become irrational over it.
Apparently some right-wingers aren’t so concerned with family values when the families are Mexican.
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Must not have been Republican-owned business because they sure love the cheap labor.
August 8th, 2005 at 5:51 pmJust puttin’ on a show for the public.
August 8th, 2005 at 5:57 pm…And CUT. That’s a wrap!
August 8th, 2005 at 6:02 pmWhat did they call this “Operation Little Dutch Boy”?Must be harassing some business owner for political reasons(as in #1).
August 8th, 2005 at 6:07 pmI agree that the corporation may have been Republican owned, but maybe not.
My Grandmother and my last girl-friend were legal immigrants so I am not against immigration. I am against every illegal immigrant. Every one of them take jobs and wages away from Americans. Americans are on the loosing end of this policy.
The illegals are destroying American’s:
Jobs
Healthcare
Social Security
Job Benefits
Education systems from elementary through the univeristity systems.
College kids could job in resturants, landscaping, various summer jobs in the construction industry.
All and more are being destroyed just so the corporations can make more profits. Check with Lou Dubbs on CNN, and he is a Republican.
The GOP is not addressing this because they want to change the very fabric of American society. They want to destroy all worker rights, still will increase corporate profits. They want to destory all labor unions. Most of the Repbulicans do not realize that if they do accomplish these goals they also will be destroyed shortly afterwards.
The soon we standup and address this issue and take a stand against it and the Republican behind it the soon we can get this country back to the road to being a great nation to live in again.
August 8th, 2005 at 6:11 pmThere are many things that will result in you losing your kids. This is one of them. I’m anti illegal-alien, no matter the cost.
August 8th, 2005 at 6:16 pmThe answer to illegal immigration has to be largely a policy that makes it less desirable for the immigrant to come here. You can’t put a candy store, with big display windows, in the middle of a neighborhood of unemployed, hungry, disaffected people, and not expect some shop lifting and break ins. So, we need to be working to improve job prospects in Mexico if we really are serious about stopping Mexicans from coming here to get work.
August 8th, 2005 at 6:16 pmIllegals are equivalent to the messenger…. shot for forwarding some bad news…
August 8th, 2005 at 6:16 pmThat giant sucking sound called NAFTA was supposed to make things better in Mexico ,a lie. I guess we can expect more immigrants from the CAFTA countries in the years to come.
August 8th, 2005 at 6:24 pmEasyrider,
I agree with some of what you say. I even think that
the laws passed in the 80s – making it illegal to hire illegals be very strictly enforced – up the fine and enforce. Make it a bad business decision, and the problem will be minimized.
But you are wrong on two points. Social Security benefits greatly from having people pay into it that would never collect. Greedy corperations will try not pay for health benefits, this is true whether there are illegals or not. As a group illegals use medical facilities much less than the average indigent American – thats a fact. In the long run they destroy American jobs as they drive wages down -but do not kid yourself, they take jobs nobody wants. Very few Americans want to work as a chicken feather plucker.
August 8th, 2005 at 6:25 pmWe do not need no vigilantes. We need the government to do it’s job by shutting down the border and enforcing existing federal laws and upping the penalty.
And as much as I hate Republicans and all they stand for – this is an American problem not a partisan problem. Courage is needed. If companies are forced to pay living wages – perhaps more people would be willing to pluck some feathers for a living.
#6 – That’s hard core, Brian. Those kids are picking up the tab for choices their parents had to make in order to survive, and there has to be a better way of handling this issue.
August 8th, 2005 at 6:26 pmRemember you heard it here first. Huckabee and other Republicans may be flip flopping for this reason….
Bushie will be in Aurora, Illinois on Weds. to sign a highway bill. Like always, Bushie has a hidden agenda.
Aurora, Illinois is the most popular destination for illegal immigrants from Mexico.
A National Guard base is being relocated from Midway Airport to Aurora.
Guess who’s going to meet the demand for more troops in Iraq?
August 8th, 2005 at 6:27 pmI hate to point out the obvious, but individuals and businesses (often run by republicans) would stop hiring the illegal immigrants under the table so they don’t have to pay payroll taxes or minimum wages – the illegals would stop coming…
August 8th, 2005 at 6:28 pmobvious
August 8th, 2005 at 6:29 pmChavez is right on that score, about Social Security. The immigration issue is a tricky one, and it certainly isn’t something Bush has any interest in solving. I would like to send quite a few “Americans” to Mexico. Some of the folks who come here from other places make far better neighbors than a few “long time” residents. Off Topic but….
Bush reportedly will jail mom of US soldier killed in Iraq
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/8/124941/6758
August 8th, 2005 at 6:30 pmThat’s true Susan, they have gone recruiting in foreign countries now, not just among the illegals in this country.
August 8th, 2005 at 6:32 pmFrom Newsmax, (yuck!)
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/6/12/12441.shtml
August 8th, 2005 at 6:33 pmIllegal aliens are victims of the current policies of the Repbulicans. They are just different victims.
If the corporations are force to pay to the same wages as they do here in America then maybe to standard of living will rise in the other countries.
But the tactic choosen by the Republicans leadership and corporations is to lower American standard of living.
We need to close the borders, deport all illegal aliens, and prosecute all the corporations and idividuals involved in this illgeal activity.
We should stop rewarding corporation with tax breaks. Any corporation that sources American jobs to other countries must be taxed very heavily, as well as the management that makes that decision. We could force the corporations that source America jobs or are employing illegal aliens to be automatically be unionized. How else to better protect the American jobs than the threat to unionize them as punishment for trying to destroy American job?
The children will be better off when the parents stay in their country and are paid a real wage. As it is now the parents are just another set of victims the GOP has targeted.
August 8th, 2005 at 6:36 pmBushie will give them a choice I’m sure, DEPORTATION WITHOUT YOUR CHILDREN OR IRAQ.
August 8th, 2005 at 6:37 pmEasyRider, in a non-republican world your plan would work beautifully.
August 8th, 2005 at 6:38 pmZookeeper,
August 8th, 2005 at 6:42 pmI will worry about the kids and hope for the best.
Illegal labor is the keystone of Neocon power.
I live it everyday. 80% of my employer’s 1500 employee workforce is illegal, mistreated, and expendable(literally).
Many on the right, war bloggers in particular, tried to attack and discredit this piece. Smarter people on the right slapped them down. The called the academic a liberal, of all things. He’s no liberal. Maybe it was the last name. People on the right are so fvckin’ stupid, most of the time.
David M. Kennedy, a professor of history at Stanford and the author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning “Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945,” is working on a book about the American national character.
The Best Army We Can Buy
THE United States now has a mercenary army. To be sure, our soldiers are hired from within the citizenry, unlike the hated Hessians whom George III recruited to fight against the American Revolutionaries. But like those Hessians, today’s volunteers sign up for some mighty dangerous work largely for wages and benefits – a compensation package that may not always be commensurate with the dangers in store, as current recruiting problems testify.
Neither the idealism nor the patriotism of those who serve is in question here. The profession of arms is a noble calling, and there is no shame in wage labor. But the fact remains that the United States today has a military force that is extraordinarily lean and lethal, even while it is increasingly separated from the civil society on whose behalf it fights. This is worrisome – for reasons that go well beyond unmet recruiting targets.
One troubling aspect is obvious. By some reckonings, the Pentagon’s budget is greater than the military expenditures of all other nations combined. It buys an arsenal of precision weapons for highly trained troops who can lay down a coercive footprint in the world larger and more intimidating than anything history has known. Our leaders tell us that our armed forces seek only just goals, and at the end of the day will be understood as exerting a benign influence. Yet that perspective may not come so easily to those on the receiving end of that supposedly beneficent violence.
But the modern military’s disjunction from American society is even more disturbing. Since the time of the ancient Greeks through the American Revolutionary War and well into the 20th century, the obligation to bear arms and the privileges of citizenship have been intimately linked. It was for the sake of that link between service and a full place in society that the founders were so invested in militias and so worried about standing armies, which Samuel Adams warned were “always dangerous to the liberties of the people.”
Many African-Americans understood that link in the Civil War, and again in World Wars I and II, when they clamored for combat roles, which they saw as stepping stones to equal rights. From Aristotle’s Athens to Machiavelli’s Florence to Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia and Robert Gould Shaw’s Boston and beyond, the tradition of the citizen-soldier has served the indispensable purposes of sustaining civic engagement, protecting individual liberty – and guaranteeing political accountability.
That tradition has now been all but abandoned. A comparison with a prior generation’s war illuminates the point. In World War II, the United States put some 16 million men and women into uniform. What’s more, it mobilized the economic, social and psychological resources of the society down to the last factory, rail car, classroom and victory garden. World War II was a “total war.” Waging it compelled the participation of all citizens and an enormous commitment of society’s energies….
Read the rest here
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/25/opinion/25kennedy.html?ex=1123646400&en=ee3a1cbcffd1d4c4&ei=5070&oref=login
August 8th, 2005 at 6:49 pmChaves,
There was a ruling, maybe by a court, that illegal aliens can file for and receive Social Security benefits, even from within another country. Social Security is more than just the retirement benfits.
——-
The hositals are attending to the illegal aliens in the emergency rooms. Illegal aliens are not seeing doctors nt using the emergency room for their healthcare needs. The costs are passed on to the rest of us in the form of high costs whether we are insured or not.
Of course this is not only source of the high costs.
—-
And as much as I hate Republicans and all they stand for – this is an American problem not a partisan problem. Courage is needed. If companies are forced to pay living wages – perhaps more people would be willing to pluck some feathers for a living.
I agree but we must make it an issue. As long as the Republican leadership and coproations are in power and control of the American government all of us are doomed to be victims.
August 8th, 2005 at 6:57 pmImmigration & Terrorists – two things the right hates, and continues to pick the wrong solutions to. The best solution to both problems is aid & assistance (education, medical relief, etc.) coupled with an opening of global markets to the poorest nations. People come here because they have no prospects (or feel they have none). The same situations, coupled with hate, fuels terrorism. Help the rest of the world really get on its own solid footing and both of these problems will reduce drastically.
Yeah, I’m optimistic, but forgive me, I just finished skimming Jeffrey Sachs’ “The End of Poverty.” Not bad.
August 8th, 2005 at 7:21 pmeasyrider,
Unfortunately republicans don’t want legal residents to receive a living wage by law – they’re all ‘free market’ radicals who have no problems with worker exploitation. The minimum wage now is a fraction of the same ‘real dollars’ that it was at its inception – and the relative value of those wages are eroded daily. The republicans are marie antoinette – and they represent the same corrupt values that brought down the french republican. The believe in the subjegation of workers, and the lack of workers rights, combined with the brutal boot of the aristocracy. We’re france 1770s, pre-bastille…
August 8th, 2005 at 7:23 pmUltimately, Mexico’s unemployment problem is the problem of the Mexican Government and the Citizens of Mexico. Just like solving the rest of the world’s problems should be none of our business. By what right have we arrogated to ourselves the role of Savior?
Illegal immigration is our problem. It comes down to protecting our national sovereignty and our security. It really is as simple as that. There is an invasion going on ALL of our borders. Meanwhile the NeoCons are in their element, aiding and abetting crime.
BORDER PATROL ORDERED TO STAND DOWN…
August 8th, 2005 at 7:57 pmhttp://www.washtimes.com/national/20050513-122032-5055r.htm
Thank you for posting this story about Mike Huckabee’s stance on protecting the children in illegal immigration cases. He is a compassionate man who is unafraid to take unpopular positions on things he knows are right. If your readers would like to learn more about Huckabee, they are invited to visit: http://www.mikehuckabeepresident2008.blogspot.com
Regards,
August 8th, 2005 at 9:04 pmBSR
Adam says, “People come here because they have no prospects (or feel they have none). The same situations, coupled with hate, fuels terrorism” even though all the 9/11 terrorists were middle class or better and OBL is a millionaire. Some people are immune to evidence. We call those people “liberals.”
August 8th, 2005 at 9:10 pmI don’t believe that the current regime sees tackling the immigration issue as being in the best interests of The Party (*click heels together*). My deepest concern is that they are beginning to court the Latino vote and will offer an amnesty that includes citizenship or some other means of voting – thus creating a very large pool of grateful, yet disadvantaged people who will be loyal to The Party (*click heels together*).
Anyone else get this sense too…?
August 8th, 2005 at 9:15 pmWhy take the easy way out and only deport illegal aliens. We should also ship out non-US professional athletes from the US. Let the Europeans stock their soccer leagues with foreigners (fyi, each national league limits the number of foreign born athletes allowed on each club, usually 3; MLB and the NBA do not have such a rule). We have given them (extremely high paying) jobs that Americans should have. Take Ichiro Suzuki, for example. He had no financial purpose to play here. He is a god in Japan. There is a museum in his honor and he is member of their baseball hall of fame. His life and future are well taken care of. Yet, he deemed it necessary to take the job of an American ball player and the Seattle Mariners agreed, paying him $12.5 million this year alone. In fact, a good American, Bret Boone, coming from a respected baseball family (his grandfather, father and brother have all played major league baseball) was released by the Mariners earlier this year. Bret Boone is only 4 years older than Ichiro, so it’s not like he’s washed up or useless. Most importantly, he’s an American and he wasn’t making as much money as Ichiro.
We must stop this mockery of America’s passtime and allow only US players in our leagues. Only US players should be allowed to be overpaid and obnoxious athletes. I cannot tell you the pain I suffer when I see a foreigner behave arrogantly while wearing the uniform of an American professional team. It only feels right when its an American.
+_+_+_+_+_
Disclaimer, the above statements have not been approved by anyone. they are tongue in cheek. Let’s get real and propose solutions that reflect our historic dedication to freedom and opportunity for all. Immigrants, illegal and legal, each come for their own reasons, mostly economic. Even the lowly housekeeper, gardner, or farm hand provides some economic impact and benefit to the American economy. If it were not the case, would American businesses offer them work (albeit, low pay and ill treatment do not justify their actions)? Immigration is an adult issue…let’s discuss and respond like adults.
August 8th, 2005 at 9:29 pm#29…I would agree with you there. Although the parallells are imperfect, I sense something along the lines of the ‘three-fifth’s solution’. In order to assure a strong political presence in Washington, the southern states wanted the slave population to be counted when determining the number of representatives sent to Congress. They weren’t concerned with giving them rights, just assuring more political power unto themselves.
August 8th, 2005 at 9:34 pmOkay, I’m going to invoke my right as an American to spew forth into the public ether my Opinion:
When it comes to the subject of immigration and welcoming newcomers, the US has historically set the high water mark. In some cases, we’ve also set the low water mark. But there is one thing which I believe has always distinguished us from other countries, and it’s something I haven’t heard many people talk about. Every other contry in the world (please tell me of any that don’t fit this deffinition), is bound together by geneology, whereas we in the US are bound together by a common ideology – an ideology which is laid out in the Constitution, and is based upon equality and the rule of law. Almost every immigrant group that has come here has done so with the desire and intention of sharing that ideology, so when people come here illegally, live and work here illegally, not only does it drain our economy, it devalues the efforts everyone who *did* come to this country leaglly.
As for the argument “let’s just legallize ‘em and start over”, the problem is that this won’t stop illeagal immigration, it will only encourage it by making the payoff-to-risk that much higher. Those new citizens will likely find themselves immediately unemployed because the businesses that complained of having to pay legal citizens too much will just continue to employ illeagal workers. Think unemployment is bad now…?
And for my last bit, standing up to illeagal immigration is not “racist”. Unfortunately, it attracts some racists, but the idea is not racist itself. I’ve heard this accusation leveled because the topic of illeagal immigration only concerns itself with “immigrants” from Mexico. First, if they’re here illeagally, they aren’t immigrants. Second, I’m sure there would be just as loud an outcry if we still had to deal with those pesky Swedes and their f*****g longboats. But that hasn’t been an issue for quite a while…
Anyway, this came out much longer than I had intended it to. Thanks for reading this far.
August 8th, 2005 at 11:01 pm#29, Bushie did court the latino vote and that is why he is walking a tight rope.
He doesn’t want to deport the families of those who fell for his lies and voted for him.
I heard that illegal Mexican immigrants clashed with California’s MINUTEMEN. They claim that protecting the border is a racist cause.
Because they are uniformed and desperate, they have no idea that the MINUTEMEN are actually doing them a favor by denying them access to the U.S.
Bush has a purpose for illegal Mexicans and that is to
A. Lie to them to gain their support
B. Send them to Iraq
A smart Mexican will be grateful for what they have in Mexico. Coming to America is not a good option for them under this administration.
To Mexican immigrants, look up the word “exploit” in your dictionary and run south of the border as fast as you can.
You don’t want to be a part of this criminal country. It could cost you your life. Ask any Iraqi.
August 8th, 2005 at 11:06 pmWhat total BS, the idiots at INS are not all members of the Republican party and many of them are Hispanics themselves. Now I hope whoever screwed this up loses their job, but who wants to bet they will have a union to protect them no matter how stupid they are? I also doubt all those who called are Republicans as well, but you needed to post an attack, so here it is. If you ever checked out Drudge, and I don’t think you must if you bring this up far after the fact, you could have bitched and moaned a couple of weeks ago.
August 8th, 2005 at 11:07 pmI agree 100% with #32.
August 8th, 2005 at 11:22 pmDrudge! ROTFLMAO! We are coming for you FBA! You are getting a one way ticket to Mexico! Your boss? He ain’t so lucky. LOL!
August 9th, 2005 at 5:55 amPerhaps some of those upset with Huckabee were American citizens whose decent-paying jobs have been eliminated and/or undercut by downward pressure on wages caused by illegal labor. One can sympathize with illegal aliens — if I were in their shoes I’d do the same thing — but blithely allowing them to bring down the wages in what were once middle-class jobs (construction, factory work) to benefit the profits of big business and “the consumer” (which includes workers) is no solution. It is a myth that there are certain jobs Americans won’t do — they won’t do them at the wages offered, and the wages offered are less than the market demands because employers use cheap labor from abroad. We consumers ought to be ashamed that the low prices we pay at Wal-Mart and the cheaper home renovations we get are based in part on near-slave labor and in part on screwing the American working class we because we are afraid of being called “racist” if we oppose uncontrolled immigration.
August 9th, 2005 at 5:59 amMike Huckabee?
Huckabee has also made use of his authority as Governor to pardon or commute the sentences of felons. The most (in)famous of these was Wayne Dumond, a convicted rapist who would later commit murder in Missouri.
Dukakis.
August 9th, 2005 at 6:02 amYou all need to look to history a bit more, and the words of Porfirio Diaz.
Whereas the United States traditionally has rejoiced at the delivery of its landscape from “savagery,� Mexico has taken its national identity only from the Indian, the mother. Mexico measures all cultural bastardy against the Indian; equates civilization with India  Indian kingdoms of a golden age; cities as fabulous as Alexandria or Benares or Constantinople; a court as hairless, as subtle as the Pekingese. Mexico equates barbarism with Europe  beardedness  with Spain.
It is curious, therefore, that both modern nations should similarly apostrophize the Indian, relegate the Indian to the past.
Come this way, please. Mrs. … Ah … this way, please. Señor Fuentes wears an avocado-green sports coat with gold buttons. He is short. He is rather elegant, with a fine small head, small hands, small feet; with his two rows of fine small teeth like a nutcracker’s teeth, with which he curtails consonants as cleanly as bitten thread. Señor Fuentes is brittle, he is watchful, he is ironic, he is metropolitan; his wit is quotational, literary, wasted on Mrs. Ah.
He is not our equal. His demeanor says he is not our equal. We mistake his condescension for humility. He will not eat when we eat. He will not spend when we shop. He will not have done with Mexico when we have done with Mexico.
Señor Fuentes is impatient with us, for we have paused momentarily outside the museum to consider the misfortune of an adolescent mother who holds her crying baby out to us. Several of us confer among ourselves in an attempt to place a peso value on the woman’s situation. We do not ask for the advice of Señor Fuentes.
For we, in turn, are impatient with Señor Fuentes. We are in a bad mood. The air conditioning on our “fully air-conditioned coach� is nonexistent. We have a headache. Nor is the city air any relief, but it is brown, fungal, farted.
Señor Fuentes is a mystery to us, for there is no American equivalent to him; for there is no American equivalent to the subtleties he is paid to describe to us.
Mexico will not raise a public monument to Hernán Cortés, for example, the father of Mexico  the rapist. In the Diego Rivera murals in the presidential palace, the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán is rendered  its blood temples and blood canals  as haughty as Troy, as vulnerable as Pompeii. Any suggestion of the complicity of other tribes of Indians in overthrowing the Aztec empire is painted over. Spaniards appear on the horizons of Arcadia as syphilitic brigands and demon-eyed priests.
The Spaniard entered the Indian by entering her city  the floating city  first as a suitor, ceremoniously; later by force. How should Mexico honor the rape?
In New England the European and the Indian drew apart to regard each other with suspicion over centuries. Miscegenation was a sin against Protestant individualism. In Mexico the European and the Indian consorted. The ravishment of fabulous Tenochtitlán ended in a marriage of blood  a “cosmic race,� the Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos has called it.
Mexico’s tragedy is that she has no political idea of herself as rich as her blood.
The rhetoric of Señor Fuentes, like the murals of Diego Rivera, resorts often to the dream of India  to Tenochtitlán, the capital of the world before conquest. “Preconquest� in the Mexican political lexicon is tantamount to “prelapsarian� in the Judeo-Christian scheme, and hearkens to a time Mexico feels herself to have been whole, a time before the Indian was separated from India by the serpent Spain.
Three centuries after Cortés, Mexico declared herself independent of Spain. If Mexico would have no yoke, then Mexico would have no crown, then Mexico would have no father. The denial of Spain has persisted into our century.
The priest and the landowner yet serve Señor Fuentes as symbols of the hated Spanish order. Though, in private, Mexico is Catholic; Mexican mothers may wish for light-skinned children. Touch blond hair and good luck will be yours.
In private, in Mexican Spanish, indio is a seller of Chiclets, a sidewalk squatter. Indio means backward or lazy or lower-class. In the eyes of the world, Mexico raises a magnificent museum of anthropology  the finest in the world  to honor the Indian mother.
In the nave of the National Cathedral, we notice the floor slopes dramatically. “The cathedral is sinking,� Señor Fuentes explains as a hooded figure approaches our group from behind a column. She is an Indian woman; she wears a blue stole; her hands are cupped, beseeching; tear marks ream her cheeks. In Spanish, Señor Fuentes forbids this apparition: “Go ask padrecita to pry some gold off the altar for you.�
“Mexico City is built upon swamp,� Señor Fuentes resumes in English. “Therefore, the cathedral is sinking.� But it is clear that Señor Fuentes believes the sinkage is due to the oppressive weight of Spanish Catholicism, its masses of gold, its volumes of deluded suspiration.
Mexican political life can only seem Panglossian when you consider an anti-Catholic government of an overwhelmingly Catholic population. Mexico is famous for politicians descended from Masonic fathers and Catholic mothers. Señor Fuentes himself is less a Spaniard, less an Indian, perhaps, than an embittered eighteenth-century man, clinging to the witty knees of Voltaire against the chaos of twentieth-century Mexico.
Mexico blamed the ruin of the nineteenth century on the foreigner, and with reason. Once emptied of Spain, the palace of Mexico became the dollhouse of France. Mexico was overrun by imperial armies. The greed of Europe met the Manifest Destiny of the United States in Mexico. Austria sent an archduke to marry Mexico with full panoply of candles and bishops. The U.S. reached under Mexico’s skirt every chance he got.
“Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States.�
Señor Fuentes dutifully attributes the mot to Porfirio Diáz, the Mexican president who sold more of Mexico to foreign interests than any other president. It was against the regime of Porfirio Diáz that Mexicans rebelled in the early decades of this century. Mexico prefers to call its civil war a “revolution.�
Mexico for Mexicans!
August 9th, 2005 at 6:12 amI have a simple solution. Deport all Republicans, neocons, conservatives and theocrats.
August 9th, 2005 at 6:19 amHuckabee is reaping whirlwind, what he has sown. You assholes open Pandora’s Box to get elected and stay in power and you expect what? You know how that turned out. Huckabee gets what he deserved. He will never even get the nomination. He ain’t no Clinton.
August 9th, 2005 at 6:27 amSome people are immune to evidence. We call those people “liberals.�
That has to be the funniest thing I have ever read from Ed @ Fred. It’s right up there with “last throes”.
An excellent London Review of Books article on Iraq from reporter Patrick Cockburn. Only available to subscribers, so here are some substantial highlights. In short: things are looking down.
Suicide bombs blow up with the regularity of an artillery barrage in Baghdad. I no longer always go up onto the roof of the al-Hamra Hotel, where I am living, to see the black smoke rising and to try to work out where the bomb went off. On a single day recently 12 suicide bombs exploded in the city, killing at least 30 people….
Gloom is deeper in Baghdad now than at any time since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Even Iraqi officials in the relative safety of the Green Zone, once invariably optimistic, are beginning to despair. It is not only the increase in the number of suicide bombs. There is a water shortage in some parts of the city. Electricity supply is down to five hours a day….
Hatred between Sunni and Shia Arabs has been intensifying over the past few months. Iraqis used to claim that sectarianism had been fomented or exacerbated by Saddam. In reality the tension between Sunni, Shia and Kurd has always shaped Iraqi politics….
Defence procurement in the Middle East, as in much of the world, is corrupt. But in most countries usable equipment, however overpriced, does eventually turn up. In Iraq the corruption is on a different scale: often the money disappears entirely and nothing is received in return….
Nobody knows how many soldiers and policemen actually turn up for work. Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Kurdish political leader, says that an army unit supposedly numbering 2200 men was sent to Kirkuk. The Kurds counted them: there were just 300 men in the unit. Nobody knew what had happened to the other 1900. “They say that there are 150,000 men in the army and police,” Othman says, “but I believe the real figure is 40,000.” The rest either appear only to draw their pay or never existed in the first place….
The chances of a unitary Iraq emerging from the conflict are dwindling. The Kurds, triumphant after fighting for half a century, are not going to give up the oil city of Kirkuk or abandon a level of autonomy close to independence. The Shias want as much power as they can get. The Sunnis have shown by their armed resistance that they can destabilise Iraq for as long as they want. But the insurgents will not be able to spread resistance beyond the Sunni community because of the savage attacks by the suicide bombers on Shia mosques and children playing in the street in Shia districts. The appeal of Iraqi nationalism is ebbing….
The looting of Baghdad which began in the days after Saddam’s fall has never really ended.
This must mean ED @ FRED is, by definition, a liberal, because not only does he ignore evidence, he and his “neo-liberal” cabal ignored all the warnings from true experts, relying on the morons that ED regurgitates at his lame website, with pom-poms.. And now they will pay dearly for it.
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ask_this.view&askthisid=00129
Most surprising to me is that no American political leader today has tried to unmask the absurdity of the administration’s case that to question the strategic wisdom of the war is unpatriotic and a failure to support our troops. Most officers and probably most troops don’t see it that way. They are angry at the deficiencies in materiel support they get from the Department of Defense, and especially about the irresponsibly long deployments they must now endure because Mr. Rumsfeld and his staff have refused to enlarge the ground forces to provide shorter tours. In the meantime, they know that the defense budget shovels money out the door to maritime forces, SDI, etc., while refusing to increase dramatically the size of the Army.
As I wrote several years ago, “the Pentagon’s post-Cold War force structure is so maritime heavy and land force weak that it is firmly in charge of the porpoises and whales while leaving the land to tyrants.� The Army, some of the Air Force, the National Guard, and the reserves are now the victims of this gross mismatch between military missions and force structure. Neither the Bush nor the Clinton administration has properly “supported the troops.� The media could ask the president why he fails to support our troops by not firing his secretary of defense.
(…)
I don’t believe anyone will be able to sustain a strong case in the short run without going back to the fundamental misjudgment of invading Iraq in the first place. Once the enormity of that error is grasped, the case for pulling out becomes easy to see.
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=about.viewcontributors&bioid=86
Google Lt. General William E. Odom, or scores of other experts who have consistently warned against this course of action, and are now being proven right, at a very high cost to everyone but Bush and his cabal of ignorant and incompetent buckaroos.
August 9th, 2005 at 9:13 amOr you could keep listening to the Pentagon, recycling the same press release over and over again, jumbling up the words a bit. You have no credibility here, or anywhere else, ED. Hide. It’s the safest course of action for you now.
August 9th, 2005 at 9:16 amPaul Hackett yersterday on Diane Rehm: (paraphrase)
-�critical� is the polite way of describing how officers describe Bush use of military.
-(Officers) don’t know what they are being “asked to accomplish� in Iraq, and don’t have a picture of the “end state�.
-It’s important to realize that Bush has made dissent unpatriotic.
Nice post, Janitor
August 9th, 2005 at 9:25 amSo if Chimpus decides to drop a nuke will there be a debate from the pentagon or will they just ask what day and time?
Having dissent be unpatriotic is one thing, the lack of conscience in the military to stop this crap they know is misguided is another.
August 9th, 2005 at 10:48 amThat is always the problem of the military, they are sworn to take orders from a civilian authority. However as proven during the nuremberg trials. The defense I was following orders is not good enough.
August 9th, 2005 at 10:51 amMaybe it was a republican business given that a republican governor spoke out against the method of deportation rather than criticizing the business for employing illegals. Just because thousands of conservative dickheads flooded the gov with complaints doesn’t mean shit. They don’t understand the connection between republican businesses and the leaky border policy of the Bush junta.
August 9th, 2005 at 12:28 pmShucks, folks, those feds were just helping out my friends at Tyson Foods by raiding one of their competitors. As for giving some “thought to the consequences for children,” isn’t that supposed to be the responsibility of the parents? Or does being a poor illegal alien mean you don’t have to worry about what might happen to your kids if you get hauled off to jail or deported?
I’m surprised there aren’t more anti-corporate lefties who are cheering about this news. We need more of this kind of enforcement action. If all employers faced regular raids like this, plus very stiff fines (and, I would argue, jail terms for management employees who hire illegals), there would be fewer companies hiring illegal aliens, and more jobs available for American workers. Over time, this would help reduce our illegal immigration problem by diminishing the economic incentive to come to El Norte.
August 9th, 2005 at 1:22 pmTurning Up The Heat
Want a space flight to the moon? That’s part of the 5:30 Report for today. Along with lots on Iraq and Daylight Saving Time issues.
August 9th, 2005 at 4:38 pmMost of the comments I read were ridiculous, like send Mexicans to Iraq, where and when. I am a Mexican-AMERICAN veteran and I did not see any Mexicans from MEXICO over there. I still don’t get it, you commit any crime in our country you should pay the price. Crossing another countries boarder illeagally is a crime and deportion seems more than fair when you look at other countries. We are by far the most leniant not only on this crime but all. The town’s sheriff and mayor are wrong. Would any of you put your family at risk of being seperated just to make more American dollars than the next person. Mexicans can wait in line just like everybody else did to enter our country as my family did almost 110 years ago. On another comment I agree. Mexico is for the Mexicans you just have to convence them of that, But it’s hard to convence another country to have it’s people rebuild it when there all leaving.
ASTA La Bye Bye
October 1st, 2005 at 8:53 pmThere’s a myth that illegal immigration is just a Republican, conservative issue. Polls show that just about as high a percentage of registered Democrats want to reduce illegal immigration as registered Republicans. This is not a left VS right issue. This is a poor & middle class VS elitist issue. Some polls show that more than 90% of Americans would like to reduce illegal immigration.
Wouldn’t it be great if we lived in a functioning Democracy? As Gandhi said about Western Civilization, “I think it would be a good idea.”
But the elites want to merge the 3rd world with the 1st world, whether by exporting jobs to cheap labor markets or by importing cheap labor. We need to stop voting for globalist politicians. See this scorecard to find out how your rep is doing:
October 13th, 2005 at 11:58 pmhttp://www.GlobalismScorecard.org
The Mexicans did not cross the borders, the borders crossed the Mexicans.
November 29th, 2005 at 6:56 pmBy the way who let the white folks off the ship back in the day? I don’t think we Native Americans knew what a heartache they would cause us in the years to come. First they took our land,then they imposed thier GOD, then they made thier rules, and lastly they now want to say who stays in America. Native Americans think the White people took jobs and all the herds. Stop being greedy.
November 29th, 2005 at 7:02 pmGet all your ancestors and belongings and hop on the ship. Go to your Motherland where ever that might be across the ocean.
Keep it simple. Bush does. Mexicans crossing the border. Taking a s-load of starter position jobs. American disadvantaged youth sol for work. Military ratcheting up incentives or bribes in ever growing job scarcity and corporate layoffs. Government incentives to ship even more potential jobs to other countries youth and disadvantaged. Sounds like just more BUSH-IT to me. America needs a plan as well. IMPEACH BUSH!
January 27th, 2006 at 11:08 pmThe Mexican government sold the north of Mexico, the Mexican people will take it, not by any means possible, they will take it unconsciously.
March 28th, 2006 at 8:38 pmIf your not american citizen you shouldn’t recieve any government benefits because you don’t pay taxes.
July 13th, 2006 at 6:52 pmThis country is not the white man’s land it’s God’s land…one who’s born here is lucky, just lucky…not special…don’t hate your neighbors, but love and share with your neighbors….put yourself in another man’s shoes!!!!!!!!!!
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