• On Tuesday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a ground breaking executive order requiring all city agencies to provide language assistance services for people who speak Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Italian or French Creole. According to The New York Times, this is the first time that all New York City agencies will be forced to follow the same standard in providing translation and language interpretation services to people who do not speak English:
The fascists and sadists in our country have been given the green light. In her book "The House of the Spirits", after the assasination of the duly elected president in Chile, Salvador Allende, and at the time of the fictionalized takeover by Pinochet, the police and military which previously were there to protect the Chilean citizens, turn on their own people to aprehend them torture them, and make them dissapear, all in the name of a defense of "freedom". Similarly, our own government authorities are turning our nation into a country where people disappear, are tortured, arrested (if they look foreign) all in the name of "protecting the homeland". Isabel Allende rethorically asks in the novel, "Where have these people been hiding, where did they come from?" and the answer is: "They are our neighbors. The have been living amongst us...but now they are emboldened." Emboldened indeed! They were given the green light by Pinochet. Similarly, the sadists and torturers in our midst have been given the green light.
Last month I wrote about a Media Matters report that revealed that when it comes to immigration and undocumented immigrants, instead of news and/or facts, we are getting a bunch of lies and misinformation. Cable news anchors like CNN’s Lou Dobbs and Fox’s Bill O'Reilly use their "news shows" to promote a message of fear and anger, creating and encouraging hate and a strong sense of resentment against undocumented immigrants.
Is Naomi Wolf's predicted "fascist shift" accelerating, using the anti-migrant controversy as another "facilitating issue"?
As The NYT reported Sunday, a simple traffic stop of Juana Villegas, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was nine months pregnant, turned into another case of Homeland Security Hell, of criminalizing poverty or the "crime" of not having "proper paperwork", in this case by torture.
But this was first reported at Political Salsa on June 13th by Tim Chavez, who heard her and described the torture, reminding him of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. It seems the war supposedly started to combat terrorism has now come home to torment anyone without the right paperwork: without papers, they're demons...
But is this even more sinister??
We all hear about how Illegal Immigrants are causing crime, ruining our country. Well Mr. O'reilly, Mr. Dobbs, Mr. Hannity..... I know you won't cover it but some of us will....
This horrendous crime happened in Shenandoah, PA. not far from where my parents are originally from. Local news has barely covered it and Harrisburg's Patriot News hasn't covered it all.
I was born in Pottsville, Pa not far from here and most of my extended family come from here.
I lived in Harrisburg until I was 18. I am just appalled and saddened by this. The fact that nobody has been arrested or charged shows you how out of wack our system is.
Correction: I have removed the AP article. Sorry about that! I've replaced it with a link to Marina's diary....
Another death of an undocumented immigrant. As much as we hear the drumbeat of "illegals commit crimes against upstanding Americans", we rarely hear statistics about how many immigrants are subjected to hate crimes.
Read all the way through this link (warning: AP) and see what you surmise from the description whether this was a hate crime or not.
• "The Shame of Postville, Iowa," an editorial in Sunday’s New York Times, calls attention to an essay written by Erik Camayd-Freixas. Mr. Camayd-Freixas is a professor and court interpreter who witnessed the aftermath of last month’s ICE raid on the Postville community. He was disgusted when he saw the injustice in the legal system that the workers were subjected to; instead of being deported immediately, over 260 workers were charged with serious identity fraud crimes and sentenced to 6 months in prison:
From Obama article 7-12 Wow, now he is getting on to something here. I think he turned on his "right" blinker to make that turn. He is just sooo transparent. He will be TOTALLY exposed in the near future.
DENVER - Last week, I appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs tonight to discuss the economic meltdown and the political fallout that will come from it. You can watch the clip here:
In 1988 Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, the son of Greek immigrants, lost the election to George H. W. Bush. Before that, the last child of immigrant parents to be a major party nominee for President of the United States was in 1916, when Republican Charles E. Hughes, whose father came from Wales, lost to incumbent Woodrow Wilson. And today, 20 years later, we have the son of an African immigrant, Senator Barack Obama, as the Democratic nominee for president.
The phenomenal political striving of these children of immigrants speaks to the immigrant origin of our country. Since its foundation, our nation has witnessed the special contributions and success of immigrants and their children.
UPDATE #3: So it has been a crazy 24 hours. But what is most outragous is that Col. Doherty of the State Police actually said yesterday:
Doherty said state police will not be conducting immigration raids or sweeps. But he added, "I’ve taken a position that this is not a sanctuary state, and if we find someone who is here illegally or unlawfully, we will notify ICE."
Yet, within minutes, that is exactly what happened.
Democrat Barack Obama yesterday promised Hispanic Americans, a key voting bloc, to press for immigration reform and improved access to health care in his first year if elected to the White House.
"The system isn't working when 12 million people live in hiding, and hundreds of thousands cross our borders illegally each year," Obama told the 40th annual National Council of La Raza convention, an influential Latino group.
"I fought with you in the Senate for comprehensive immigration reform, and I will make it a top priority in my first year as president," he said.
Recently both leading presidential candidates have increased their outreach to Latino voters with appearances at various events sponsored by prominent Latino organizations. Not surprisingly, the topics of immigration and immigration reform have played a central role in this outreach effort.
As an issue where both candidates feel they exhibit some strength with Latino voters, they have both attempted to utilize this perceived strength to make inroads into what most believe will be a crucial voting block this coming November.
But what we have received from both candidates thus far are vague promises and pleasant platitudes about "A Nation of Immigrants."
This is a complex issue, and as the history of failed efforts at reform clearly shows, it will take more than quick sound bites and quotes from Emma Lazarus to solve the problems with our failed current immigration system. In order to enact meaningful immigration reform that is practical, rational, fair and most of all humane, tough questions must be answered and problems dealt with.
Sometimes I am dumbfounded by the attitude of social conservatives. When it comes to economic theory, at least I understand the basis for the (true) conservative viewpoint. I don't agree with it, but it doesn't strike me as instantly and inherently absurd.
But social conservatism--conservatism which is focused on "moral" or "value" issues--just befuddles me. And not because the people who practice it are wrong (again, I can agree to disagree), but because they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. The level of cognitive thought that goes into their reasoning is that of a fruit fly; their words are knee-jerk reactions to common-sense imagery which has been adopted and reinforced by common culture.
And sometimes an example of this rears its head in a way that makes me have to share my astonishment.
"Anyone who has doubts that this country is abusing and terrorizing undocumented immigrant workers should read an essay by Erik Camayd-Freixas, a professor and Spanish-language court interpreter who witnessed the aftermath of a huge immigration workplace raid at a meatpacking plant in Iowa."
