Pensamiento Cimarrón/Maroon Thinking

The Gaza War (updated every two days!)

2009-03-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

I started another blog dedicated to rational, constructive discussions on Israel's conduct during its most recent war on the Palestinian people and on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in general.

To access the blog, click HERE.

At this point I've added so many posts to this that I can't list them below. Check it out and forward it to as many people as you know!

Also, to read some of my original commentary on the Gaza War, click on the links below:

1) Response to a Fellow Graduate Student (1/14/09)
2) No Justice, No Peace (1/14/09)
3) Righteousness or self-righteous, blind hated? (1/5/09)
4) Some historical clarifications on Israel/Palestine (1/31/09)
5) Why is Gaza Burning? (1/30/09)

La ruta del esclavo por México

2009-03-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

por: Nicolás Triedo
Bolivarifa.com

Los africanos de la conquista guerrearon contra los indios, sellando así un pacto de amor y odio que caracterizó las relaciones interétnicas entre invadidos e invasores a lo largo de los crueles siglos del colonizaje.

Aún en nuestros días, esas relaciones de aceptación y rechazo se observan en las zonas donde la genética y la cultura siguen enfrentando a indios y afromestizos, tal es la secuela que dejó el sistema racista que oprimió a las dos etnias sobre las que descansó la sociedad de explotación colonial.

Las aportaciones genéticas al tipo mexicano provinieron de los tres troncos por igual: indio, africano y blanco, no como dice el criterio oficial existente hasta nuestros días de la dicotomía de lo indígena-español como única forma de lo mexicano.

El africano, al igual que el indio, fue tratado como bestia de trabajo, arrancado de su hogar y transportado cautivo a un lugar desconocido. Su destino era oscuro y trágico: además de la desventura del cautiverio, tuvo que llegar a otra cultura, a otro sistema, a otro mundo totalmente ajeno a su origen.

El africano se rebeló desde el momento mismo de su llegada mucho antes que el indio abrumado por su derrota, se rebeló en las ciudades, en los trapiches, en las plantaciones, en las haciendas.

El africano fue en todo caso el que primero accedió a la nueva fórmula genética y cultural del mestizaje; mientras que el indio no desapareció del todo y el español conservó su identidad incluso en sus descendientes criollos, el africano desprovisto de su africana empezó a ser mexicano desde los tiempos coloniales, dejó de ser rápidamente extranjero y se arraigó al suelo que trabajaba y hacía producir; en toda justeza debería reconocerse en sus descendientes a los primeros mexicanos.

Habiendo llegado sin posesión alguna, el africano reconstruyó si identidad adoptando nuevas formas culturales con aquello que pudo apropiarse en su nuevo destino.

Para comprender la herencia africana en nuestro acervo cultural, hace falta buscar al africano en la cultura popular, está en la región y la magia, está en el habla popular, en la medicina tradicional, en las formas de cocinar, la manera de bailar y de hacer música, los refranes, en las leyendas, los hábitos alimenticios, en la forma de construir sus viviendas (los redondos), etc.

En el México mestizo están contenidas todas las mezclas, todas las castas y en cada una de ellas está una parte del africano, están sus rasgos genéticos y culturales, en una amalgama que a la vez que síntesis es una tercera forma de ser sincrética, es la gestación de le mexicanidad.

La cultura mayoritaria no es otra cosa que el crisol en el que se fundieron las tres raíces de México: la india, la africana y la española.

Haz click AQUI para leer el resto del artículo.

Teaching Race in Venezuela

2009-03-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

by: Abigail Elwood
Venezuelanalysis.com

At the International Afro-Descendent Conference hosted by Venezuela last weekend, Humberto Brown of the Global Afro-Latino and Caribbean Initiative (USA) stated that “Afro Descendents cannot talk about democracy in countries in which racism exists.” The conference was hosted by The Afro-Venezuelan Network and the Ministry of Information and Communication May 6-8 in Caracas. The aim of the conference was to ensure that in the process of creating Latin American unity, the inclusion of historically oppressed sectors (composed mainly of indigenous and Afro-descendent groups) is not overlooked. Participating in discussions were panelists from Venezuela, Brazil, Peru and Colombia, among others, as well as a delegation from the US-based Trans-Africa Forum.

Discussions focused on ways to promote inclusion and visibility for Afro-descendents, to be achieved through both state and grassroots initiatives. Proposed mediums through which this inclusion could be obtained were the institutional recognition of Afro-descendents in the Bolivarian Revolution (Indigenous peoples are formally recognized in the constitution of 1999 but Afro-descendents are not) and the continued and full participation of Afro–descendant communities in policies that affect them. This participation in the creation of a new “Bolivarian” education syllabus is especially important because state and community-based strategies for institutionalizing the participation of Afro-descendant communities in Venezuela meet in the classroom.

The Cosmic Race or the Cosmic Myth?

It is the commonly held opinion of many Venezuelans (no matter their skin color) that racism does not exist in Venezuela. There is an obvious and ragged divide between the light-skinned elite and the darker skinned popular classes, that can be seen most clearly in the distribution of wealth. However, as it is very difficult to find a person in Venezuela that does not have at least a drop of indigenous or African blood (usually both), and because racism is not perceived as a contributing factor to poverty, racism is generally not seen as overt.

Unfortunately, it does exist, and is very often overt. All one has to do to see blatant racism is to open a newspaper and there will be a cartoon of President Chavez—who openly and proudly proclaims his indigenous and African roots—depicted as a monkey. Or turn on the television and see television shows that one would swear are from Europe because there is not even the token black person one sees in some North American shows, mostly consisting of white folks. This conference was held to combat the false belief that racism has been eradicated and does not exist in Venezuela. After all, even invisible chains imprison. While one can still see the color divide between rich and poor, and when the president of a country can still be compared to a monkey because of the color of his skin and his heritage, racism is undeniably alive and well.

Click HERE for the rest of the original article.

Exclusive Interview with El Salvador's New President on Ending 130 Years of Oligarchy and Military Rule

2009-03-20T12:47:00.000-07:00

by: Roberto Lovato and Josue Rojas
New America Media, 3/18/09, Alternet.org

Editor’s note: Democractic freedom prevailed on March 16 as the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) became the first leftist party in the history of El Salvador to clinch the presidential election. By 10 p.m., it became clear to Salvadorans and to the world that the former guerrillas had ended more than 130 years of oligarchy and military rule over this tiny Central American nation of 7 million. In the streets, thousands of red-shirted sympathizers chanted “Si, Se Pudo!” (Yes, We Could), as they celebrated the victory of Mauricio Funes, the man who brought an end to the 20-year rule of the Nationalist Republican Alliance party (ARENA.) Funes captured 51 percent of the vote, defeating ARENA candidate Rodrigo Avila.

Immigration has become one of the defining issues of the United States-El Salvador relationship. How will your administration’s immigration policies differ from those of the outgoing administration?

The fact that we're going to rebuild the democratic institutions--enforce the constitution and make El Salvador a democratic state that respects the rule of law--is the best guarantee to the United States that we will significantly reduce the flows of out-migration.

Salvadorans who leave to the United States do so because of the institutional abandon, the lack of employment and dignified salaries to make a living. This forces them to leave in search of new possibilities in the United States.

It's not the same for us to ask the U.S. government to renew TPS
[temporary legalization] without a Salvadoran effort to avoid further migration flows, then to do so from a position in which we have undertaken efforts to reduce the migration flows.

What’s the first message you’d like to send to President Obama?

The message that I would like to send to President Obama is that I will not seek alliances or accords with other heads of state from the southern part of the continent that will jeopardize my relationship with the government of the United States.

Opinion polls in El Salvador indicate that large majorities of its citizens reject key policies that define, in many ways, the relationship between El Salvador and the United States, specifically CAFTA, dollarization and the Iraq war.

We can't get mixed up in repealing CAFTA...nor can we reverse dollarization because that would send a negative message to foreign investors, and then we'd be facing serious problems because we wouldn't have enough investment to stimulate the national economy.

Click HERE for full original interview.

Mexico's Drug War Bloodbath: Guns from the U.S. Are Destabilizing the Country

2009-03-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

by: Silja J.A. Talvi
Alternet.org, 3/18/09

A minute is all the time that it takes for an employee in one of almost 7,000 gun shops dotting the U.S./Mexico border to accept a wad of cash from an eager customer, fill out a triplicate sales slip, and slide a nice, new Taurus .45 caliber pistol across the counter. Or two, or three, or twenty, as the case may be. Add those handguns to the countless tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of pistols, sniper and assault rifles, semi-automatic machine guns, shield-piercing bullets, grenades, plastic explosives, as well as anti-tank weapons outfitted with self-propelling rockets passing illegally through the hands of drug cartel foot soldiers and assassins. Throw in the array of weapons favored by DEA and CIA agents, Mexican federal police and military units, and other 'drug warriors,' of one sort or another. These are all people who are ready, willing, and able to use violence to get what they want. If it looks like you’ve got a battle on your hands, you do -- the Mexican drug war has hit boiling point.

Mexican authorities have been quite vocal in the past year about the role that the U.S. is playing in the escalation of gun violence in Mexico. Last year, no less than 20,000 weapons were seized in drug-related actions, raids, arrests, and shoot-outs; nearly all of them were sold in the U.S. (The Mexican government has finally been given electronic access, by the U.S. Department of Justice, to be able to trace the origins of registered weapons, but only if they are used in the commission of crimes.)

Last month, the U.S. government’s own Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, released its policy-shaping “2009 International Narcotics Strategy Report.” As the bureau had to admit, “U.S.-purchased or stolen firearms account for an estimated 95% of the Mexico’s drug-related killings.”

Click HERE for full original article.

Celebrating Genocide!

2008-11-25T10:40:00.000-08:00

by: Dan Brook
CounterPunch
November 26, 2002

Many people annually get as stuffed as their turkeys in celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving is a quintessentially American holiday, so much so that it is not just a holiday, but really is (as the etymology implies) one of our Holy Days, almost universally celebrated by Americans. In its sacredness, families get together to (unintentionally?) celebrate one genocide (against Native Americans) by committing another (against turkeys). Can we celebrate in good faith and conscience?

On Thanksgiving Day, we give thanks. We give thanks for being the invader, the exploiter, the dominator, the greedy, the gluttonous, the colonizer, the thief, indeed the genocidaire, rather than on the other side of imperialism's zero-sum murderous game. As Mark Twain points out in his War Prayer, wishing and being thankful for one's own success and victory is, at the very same time, wishing and being thankful for another's defeat and destruction. Do we want to make these kinds of wishes and give these kinds of thanks?

Click HERE for rest of article.

First Genocide, Then Lie About It: Why I Hate Thanksgiving

2008-11-25T09:43:00.000-08:00

by: Mitchel Cohen
Counterpunch
November 27, 2003

The year was 1492. The Taino-Arawak people of the Bahamas discovered Christopher Columbus on their beach.

Historian Howard Zinn tells us how Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. Columbus later wrote of this in his log. Here is what he wrote:

"They brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned. They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of sugar cane. They would make fine servants. With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."

And so the conquest began, and the Thanotocracy -- the regime of death -- was inaugurated on the continent the Indians called "Turtle Island."

Click HERE for rest of article.

Dismantling Thanksgiving myths: a Native American story

2008-11-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

by: Aisha Ali, D.C. Youth Issues Examiner
NDN News & Native American Issues & Causes
Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The First Thanksgiving, painted by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863- 1930) In less than two weeks, Thanksgiving will arrive. The need for celebration may not come as easily for those who have lost their homes and have suffered many misfortunes throughout the year. However, one should be thankful for just being alive, shouldn’t they?

Nonetheless, I view Thanksgiving differently from others, even before this current economic crisis. While I always have expressed "thanks" for the many blessings God has bestowed upon me, with underserved communities experiencing destitution, living in substandard housing, being unable to properly care for their children; to afford health care; or to just overall survive, how could I be happy? To know many people would be homeless or starving on Thanksgiving certainly does evoke a "warm, light-hearted feeling".

Click HERE to read the rest.

Inaugurating Multiculturalist White Supremacy

2008-11-10T10:18:00.001-08:00

by: Prof. Dylan Rodríguez
Dept. of Ethnic Studies
UC Riverside
October 11, 2008

What happens to the politics of antiracism when the phenotype of white supremacy ‘changes?’ At the risk of being scolded for offending the optimistic spirit of this historical moment, I offer these thoughts with a different kind of hope: that the spectacle and animus of the Obama campaign, election, and presidency fail, and fail decisively, to domesticate, discipline, and contain a politics of radical opposition to a U.S. nation-building project that now insists on the diversity of the American ‘we,’ while leaving so many for dead.

To be clear: the political work of liberation from racist state violence and everything it sanctions and endorses, from premature death to poverty becomes more complex, contradictory, and difficult now. The dreadful genius of the multiculturalist Obama moment is that it installs a ‘new’ representative figure of the United States that, in turn, opens ‘new’ possibilities for history¹s slaves, savages, and colonized to more fully identify with the same nation-building project that requires the neutralization, domestication, and strategic elimination of declared aliens, enemies, and criminals. In this sense, I am less anxious about the future of the ‘Obama administration’ (whose policy blueprint is and will be relatively unsurprising) than I am about the speed and effectiveness with which it has rallied the sentimentality and political investment (often in terms of actual dollar contributions and voluntary labor) of the purported
U.S. ‘Left.’

ClickHERE for the rest of the article.

Ojalá

2008-11-07T10:33:00.000-08:00

por: Eduardo Galeano
7 de noviembre del 2008

¿Obama probará, desde el gobierno, que sus amenazas guerreras contra Irán y Pakistán fueron no más que palabras, proclamadas para seducir oídos difíciles durante la campaña electoral? Ojalá. Y ojalá no caiga ni por un momento en la tentación de repetir las hazañas de George W. Bush. Al fin y al cabo, Obama tuvo la dignidad de votar contra la guerra de Irak, mientras el Partido Demócrata y el Partido Republicano ovacionaban el anuncio de esa carnicería.

Durante su campaña, la palabra leadership fue la más repetida en los discursos de Obama. Durante su gobierno, ¿continuará creyendo que su país ha sido elegido para salvar el mundo, tóxica idea que comparte con casi todos sus colegas? ¿Seguirá insistiendo en el liderazgo mundial de los Estados Unidos y su mesiánica misión de mando? Ojalá esta crisis actual, que está sacudiendo los cimientos imperiales, sirva al menos para dar un baño de realismo y de humildad a este gobierno que comienza.

ClickHERE for rest of article.

UCSD is No Place for a Minuteman

2008-11-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

by: José Fusté
November 1, 2008

I would like to clarify here why on October 16, 100 students protested Jim Gilchrist’s (founder of the Minuteman Project) lecture on campus.

Most readers would agree that universities are not soapboxes for people to freely express their unsubstantiated personal opinions. We don’t just pick random people off the street and bring them here as distinguished lecturers. The university is a forum for persons who seek to grow our collective knowledge in a way that improves society. In my opinion, Gilchrist is far from qualified to speak as a “distinguished lecturer.” Here’s why:

Click HERE to read the rest.

The Meaning of Columbus Day

2008-10-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

by: Mac Chapin
World Watch Magazine
Nov/Dec, 2008

A year ago I was walking through a shopping mall in northern Virginia when I passed by a tobacco shop. A life-sized wooden Indian, clutching a handful of cigars, was guarding the door. Someone had taped a sign to its chest that read: "Happy Columbus Day."

Shortly after, I came upon a statement made by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, on the eve of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas. He called the Admiral's landfall "one of the greatest achievements of human endeavor," and added, "I strongly encourage every American to support the Quincentennary, and to discover the significance that this milestone in history has in his or her own life."

But just what "significance" does Columbus Day have, or should it have, in our lives? It celebrates the day, 516 years ago, when three small boats carrying Spanish sailors "discovered" the Western Hemisphere. This Encounter of Two Worlds, as it is often called, was the first step in a process that led, in short order, to the conquest and European subjugation of the native peoples of this newly found continent. It determined the direction the Americas were to take from that point on, and when we contemplate the significance of Columbus Day in our lives we need to take into consideration the whole package, from discovery through conquest to domination.

Click HERE for rest of article

The Devil's Breath

2008-08-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

An in-depth look at how the October 2007 and wildfires affected the lives of three groups of migrants heading north from Mexico. [5/2008]

How Scores of Black Men Were Tortured Into Giving False Confessions by Chicago Police

2008-07-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

By Jessica Pupovac, AlterNet
Posted on July 23, 2008, Printed on July 23, 2008

Michael Tillman was 20, with a 3-year-old daughter and an infant son, when he was brought into the Area 2 police station on Chicago's South Side for questioning. His mother, Jean Tillman, says that although he had gotten into some trouble with the law as a youngster, he had been on the straight-and-narrow, working as a janitor and paying his bills, since he and his girlfriend had their first child. That was July 22, 1986.

He hasn't been home since.

Tillman is one of at least 24 African-American men that the People's Law Office in Chicago claims are still serving sentences for crimes they say they confessed to only after enduring hours of torture at the hands of Chicago police officers under Commander Jon Burge between 1972 and 1992. Although 10 of Burge's victims have been pardoned or given new trials after their illegally obtained confessions were exposed, the vast majority of the 100-plus cases have yet to be reviewed by the state of Illinois. Those men have either served out their sentences, died in custody or, like Tillman, continue to live their lives behind bars, hoping that one day they will have a fair trial.

Click HERE for full story.

Chomsky: Bush & Cheney Always Saw Iraq as a Sweetheart Oil Deal

2008-07-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

The deal just taking shape between Iraq's Oil Ministry and four Western oil companies raises critical questions about the nature of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq -- questions that should certainly be addressed by presidential candidates and seriously discussed in the United States, and of course in occupied Iraq, where it appears that the population has little if any role in determining the future of its country.

Negotiations are under way for Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP -- the original partners decades ago in the Iraq Petroleum Company, now joined by Chevron and other smaller oil companies -- to renew the oil concession they lost to nationalization during the years when the oil producers took over their own resources. The no-bid contracts, apparently written by the oil corporations with the help of U.S. officials, prevailed over offers from more than 40 other companies, including companies in China, India and Russia.

"There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract," Andrew E. Kramer wrote in the New York Times.

Click HERE for the rest of the piece.

The Iraq War Was About Oil, All Along

2008-07-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

by: Bill Moyers, Michael Winship

Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil.

Alan Greenspan said so last fall. The former chairman of the Federal Reserve, safely out of office, confessed in his memoir, "Everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." He elaborated in an interview with The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, "If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands, our response to him would not have been as strong as it was in the first Gulf War."

Click HERE for full article.

Racial Emergency: A May Day Retrospective on the Plight of Immigrant Families During the 2007 San Diego Firestorm

2008-06-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

by: José Fusté
Voz Fronteriza (Spring Issue)
http://vozfronteriza.org/

It’s been six months now since the latest firestorm devastated parts of southern California. Many of San Diego County’s mostly white, middle and upper class population suffered hardships as a result of the fires. Around 500.000 were inconvenienced by evacuations. Sadly, over 1,000 families lost their homes, and thousands more suffered damages. Some may carry with them the trauma of losing possessions or fearing for their lives.

Just like U.S. born San Diegans, immigrants were equally exposed to the destruction caused by the fires. Unlike most firestorm victims, they were either ignored or vilified by the media, and in some cases criminalized and terrorized by the authorities. Their trauma was of a different kind. They too have tried to recover monetarily and psychologically but the circumstances they live in make their injuries hard if not impossible to mend. This other kind of trauma cannot be cured with insurance reimbursements. It appears and keeps returning with the realization that in times of need, most people around you will single you out as less deserving of aid, and more deserving of scorn. It does not end when the fires are put out. For immigrant families, the actual flames may have been extinguished but their lives are still smoldering in the never-ending social firestorm of prejudice and neglect that was here before they arrived.

This is the trauma that will probably continue to scar the immigrants that I talked to in Qualcomm Stadium when I volunteered as a translator there during the fires. Those who complained to me that they were routinely accused by others of stealing supplies will likely carry it indefinitely. This trauma also afflicted many of the immigrants that stayed at Qualcomm who had to either show their IDs to authorities or be evicted.

One of the underlying causes of this trauma is the racist xenophobia that characterizes the way authorities and much of civil society treats immigrant families in California. Of course, there is no smoking gun evidence that racial animosity towards immigrants lead authorities to mistreat them and San Diegans to fail to commiserate with them. Nevertheless, racism does not always entail overt prejudice towards people of color. It can sometimes inhabit the thought that some people deserve less sympathy than others simply because of the way they look, act, and/or talk. It is also in the occasional belief that doing harm unto those people is less morally reprehensible than harming one’s own kind. In other words, indifference and insensitivity toward the human suffering of one specific group is the less visible side of racism’s coin.

Going back to the fires, I can’t think of anything other than sheer indifference and insensitivity that could explain why authorities refused to force farm owners whose land lay inside evacuated areas to tell their workers to stop picking fruit and go home. I don’t know what else could account for the sheriff’s department’s insistence on setting up roadblocks for checking driver’s IDs entering and leaving fire zones after he was told that many immigrant families were hesitant to cross into safer zones for fear of being separated and deported. I can’t fathom why some government officials thought it would be a good idea to ask the Border Patrol to assist with policing during the fires. I also still don’t get why one S.D.P.D. officer decided to detain and deport a family at Qualcomm who were falsely accused of stealing supplies.

To me, it is clear that this insensitivity and indifference that clearly put immigrants’ lives at risk is inherently racially motivated simply because it was exclusively directed towards people of a certain kind: those who ‘look’ or talk like immigrants. This indifference is as racial as that which underlies the apathy that Americans generally feel about the thousands of immigrants that have died crossing into the United States in the aftermath of President Clinton’s Operation Gatekeeper. Racist indifference is there when most Americans fail to sympathize with the thousands of families that are torn apart by immigration deportations, many of whom are warehoused indefinitely in substandard immigration detention facilities. Recently, the federal government launched immigration raids where they wrongfully detained Latinos with either citizenship or green cards simply because of the way they look. Few in civil society have denounced this crass act of racial profiling and the corporate media has completely ignored it.

This racist indifference is similar to the one that accounts for the way authorities failed to save thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina, most of whom happened to be black. It accounts for why today, almost three years after the hurricane, there is no moral outrage at the fact that more than hundreds of thousands have been unable to return to New Orleans.

This indifference also might explain why in New York City, a judge acquitted four police officers accused of shooting and killing an unarmed, innocent man the night before his wedding. They fired more than fifty shots at his car. One of the officers even reloaded his weapon. This is not the first time that an innocent black person is murdered by police officers in this country. It is also not the first time that police officers see no jail time for doing so.

This indifference underlies Americans’ apathy towards the fact that this country now has both the biggest per capita and total prisoner population in the world. Almost 70% of those prisoners are African-American and Latino when both groups account for 25% percent of the U.S.’ general population. One out of nine black men aged 20-34 is currently incarcerated. Where’s the moral outrage about that?

Finally, this is also similar to the indifference that accounts for the fact that we know precisely how many American soldiers have died in Iraq but we care little about how many Iraqis have perished (conservative estimates suggest that about 91,000 civilians have died to date but many estimates place the count in the hundreds of thousands). A few decades ago, the majority of Americans showed little concern about the millions of civilians killed in the Vietnam War. There is no memorial for them in Washington D.C. We only care enough to pay respects to the 58,183 American men and women who died there.

Neither is there a memorial for the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians that died as a result of the atom bombs. Americans show an equal disregard for the more than a million civilians slaughtered in the Philippine-American war and the U.S.’ subsequent occupation of this archipelago between 1898 and 1946. Frighteningly, few Americans are familiar with this crude act of imperial conquest, even though it bears a striking resemblance to the today’s Iraq War. This apathy toward the suffering of certain individuals is analogous to the way most Americans failed to see the inhumanity behind the enslavement of millions of Africans and the genocide and conquest of millions of Native Americans. Where is the Holocaust Museum for them?

The San Diego firestorm was a racial emergency in the sense that indifferent and insensitive government officials recklessly put the lives of immigrant families at risk. But the word emergency means that a dangerous, unexpected situation emerges, thus requiring immediate action. In this sense, the prejudicial and insensitive way immigrants were treated during this time emerged. I am not suggesting here that this crisis marked an isolated or rare appearance of racist xenophobia. This crisis was haunted by an underlying prejudice that is always there. It sleeps under the cover of political correctedness but in times of urgency and confusion—when people don’t have time to think twice about what they say and they do—it rears its ugly head.

In hindsight, the San Diego firestorm teaches us who the real aliens in this country are. They are not those who come here to sell their labor to an economy that desperately needs them. Those immigrants are not alien in that they are an integral piece of this country’s labor engine. There is another more abundant and truly dangerous kind of alienness (or rather alienation) here: those who don’t want to know and don’t want to care about the plight of people of color here and abroad. It is this attitude—not hard working people who cross an imaginary border—that is truly detrimental to this country. This is the raging fire that continues to burn in San Diego. Only those who care enough to do something about it can save us from it and put it out.

Race Baiting and White Entitlement Tantrums (the two worst things about this primary)

2008-06-04T00:05:00.000-07:00

by: José Fusté

This week, I found a report published by Harvard University that seems to contradict the popular belief that Hillary Clinton was consistently treated unfairly by the press. The study comprehensively "examined the coverage of the candidates’ character, history, leadership and appeal—apart from the electoral results and the tactics of their campaigns." It found that "From January 1, just before the Iowa caucuses, through March 9, following the Texas and Ohio contests, the height of the primary season, the dominant personal narratives in the media about Obama and Clinton were almost identical in tone, and were both twice as positive as negative.”

Click HERE to read a summary of the study’s findings.

The report does not seem deny the existence of negative sexist portrayals of Clinton in the media. Clearly, there were instances in which idiots like Chris Matthews or Pat Buchanan made extremely problematic and sexist comments about her. Then again, there were moments in which pundits and talking heads kept making racially charged innuendos about Obama being a secret black Muslim or a closet black radical.

So what about those who say that as a woman and victim of sexism, Clinton wins the oppression Olympics? Check out this Youtube hit-video of a Clinton supporter who ranted about Obama’s supposed unfair advantage: his blackness-

This is what this Harriet Christian (the woman in the video) said:

"I'm proud to be an older American woman....

"The Democrats are throwing the election away. For what? An inadequate black male, who would not have been running had it not been a white woman that was running for president?

"And I'm not gonna shut my mouth anymore. I can be called white, but you can't be called black. That's not my America. It's equality for all of us. It's about time we all stood up for it.

"I'm no second class citizen, and God damn the Democrats....

It’s probably no coincidence that Christian’s comments sound similar to those made last March by former congresswoman and vice-presidential candidate Jeraldine Ferraro. This is what she said then (as Obama started to pull ahead of Clinton):

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position…And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

I should note that Ferraro made similar comments about Jesse Jackson when he ran for president in 1988. Back then she said: "if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race." Counter to prevailing wisdom, Ferraro seems to think that from mid-1980s until 2008, America has been longing for a black president; it doesn’t matter who, they just want to vote for one for the heck of it. It’s an interesting theory. Maybe she knows something that most other white and non-white people missed.

Obviously, these remarks show that these two Clinton supporters are clearly out of touch with the politics of race in America. The fact that there are “liberals” who think like this shouldn’t surprise anyone. Prejudiced Americans come in all genders and belong to all political sectors of society. Let no one doubt it: these two women are racially prejudiced. I’m not saying they’re racist (as in they are defined as a whole by this label). I’m saying they harbor racist beliefs about Obama as a black candidate. They’re not the run-of-the-mill “I have black people” kind of racists. They belong to a different type. They are the kind of good white liberal that truly believe they are not prejudiced. They tell themselves: “I love people of color,” “I have a black friend,” “I wouldn’t mind if my daughter/son” marries one” but “if one of them takes what is MINE (or beats me at anything I’m supposed to be better at), it must be because she/he got unfair advantages as a person of color.”

There are two racially insensitive and discriminatory subtexts underlying the comments made by Ferraro and Christian. First, they demonstrate the tendency that many white Americans have of ignoring—or not showing interest in learning about—the privileges that the U.S.’ racist history has bestowed on them as whites. When I say privileges, I’m talking about the inter-generational unfair advantages that account for today's uneven distribution of wealth, social status, and professional and educational attainment between whites and non-whites in this country.

Secondly, these comments exhibit how many white Americans routinely minimize the burdens people of color face (of all social classes although class makes race hurt more) and refuse to fully validate their plight. Because they fail to become informed about this country’s racist past and present, they believe that the days of racial bias and disadvantages vis-à-vis unfair advantages are over. Many people in the U.S. continue to believe that this country is a multicultural, fully democratic and meritocratic, liberal individualist, zero sum playing field. According to the dominant narrative that frames this mindset, if whites have wealth it's because they worked hard for it. If people of color don't it's because they're lazy or welfare dependent, and have been spoiled by unfair advantages gained in the post-civil rights era.

In this country, if a black or brown woman/man attains something that people of their racial group rarely or never get, people look at her/him with suspicion. If a black man drives an expensive car, it must be because he’s a criminal. If a black woman beats other white candidates for a job or position in a university, it must be because someone felt sorry for her, not because she was more qualified than the rest. Even if she was less qualified on paper, they would not bother to think of all the other possible economic and emotional obstacles that woman had to go through (because of her racial AND gender identity) to be in a competitive position to be considered for that job. They don’t see how that adds a particular type of qualification that sometimes should trump a diploma from a particular university or say a small difference in a GPA or standardized test scores. Of course, they also don’t reflect on the ways in which the other candidates may have been unfairly advantaged by white privileges.

Along the lines of this less blatant racially prejudiced thinking, it's interesting how "liberals" like Ferraro and Christian see Obama as the unqualified "affirmative action" candidate. To them, he’s the guy who wouldn't be where he is today if it wasn't for people feeling sorry for him as a black guy. The Clinton campaign has sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly fostered this sentiment. First, they say that Obama has no qualifications, that all he has is a speech he made before the Iraq War, etc. This leaves people to wonder: what then explains his popularity? According to Ferraro (who worked for the Clinton campaign when she made these comments), it's simply the fact that he's black. Clinton also acquiesced to this crass attempt at race baiting when she failed to fire Ferraro after she stated these absurdities. All she did was state: "It's regrettable that any of our supporters - on both sides, because we both have this experience - say things that kind of veer off into the personal." Unlike Clinton’s, Obama’s campaign quickly asked for the resignation of Samantha Power when she said that Clinton was a "monster" in an off-record interview with a journalist in Scotland). By the way, in contrast to Power, Ferraro made her comments repeatedly, in public fora, and has yet to apologize for them.

Going back to the oppression Olympics scorecard, Ferraro and Christian would have us believe that white women win hands down as more subjugated than black men. No one should minimize the fact that women in the U.S. today are clearly at the receiving end of a patriarchal, heterosexist society. All women here face a professional glass ceiling. Overall, they still receive lower wages or salaries than men. They are more likely to be victims of violence and most media representations objectify them (i.e. sexually as things that belong to men and also as beings with less agency than men). There is an absurd lack of female politicians in the U.S., especially considering that more than half of the voters here are women.

However, white women inherit certain privileges that in many ways make their lives less hard than those of most men and women of color. In many ways, men of color face challenges that white women would never face. If someone sees a white woman walking down the street at night, that person will not suspect that they are about to be robbed. Neither will they think that she must be undocumented. A white woman like Clinton would never have a problem hailing a cab in New York or Chicago, or would not be pulled over by a police person simply because their skin color doesn’t match their make and model of their car. If a white woman were to be arrested for a crime she did not commit, she will have less of a chance of being convicted. If she were convicted, she would receive a much shorter prison sentence and would be significantly less likely to be executed. Currently one out of nine Black men, not white women, aged 20-34 (of any class) is incarcerated in the U.S.

Also, compared to black men and people of color in general, white women are far less likely to live in an environmentally polluted area. Statistically, they are more likely to me medically insured and receive better medical care.

When it comes to women of color, race makes patriarchy hurt significantly more. That is why feminists of color have routinely rejected the idea that all women suffer from patriarchy equally.

As I said before, many people have made extremely sexist comments against Clinton just like many—including Clinton supporters—have made some racist allegations against Obama. Nevertheless, the difference here is that the Obama campaign is not gender-baiting Clinton. A few whack jobs in the media or in public events have been doing that. Most of those culpable of this are card-carrying conservatives. The ones that aren’t do not identify themselves as Obama supporters. Ferraro on the other hand was a Clinton campaign operative. Christian is a gung-ho Clinton supporter.

So here’s my point with all of this: the use of race baiting as a campaign tactic is a deplorable tactic. It has an extremely deleterious effect on the lives of people of color in this country and it needs to stop. It intensifies racial prejudice, insensitivity, and ignorance. Clinton’s campaign uses race-baiting yet they deny it and refuse to denounce it. This demonstrates that when it comes to preserving power and privilege, the Clintons will discretely prop themselves up on the backs of people of color. African Americans are aware of this because their life experiences and cultural wisdom makes them hyperaware of white Americans who in the end would rather cling on to their possessive investment in whiteness rather than reverse it in order to undo their unfair privileges and prejudicial treatment of people of color. That’s why they withdrew their support for Hillary and sided with Obama after Bill’s attempt to race-bait him in South Carolina. Clinton sneakily tried to paint Obama as “the black candidate” (as in the guy who only cares about blacks and is out for racial justice) when he stated: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here." Race baiting in the south is an age-old political tactic going all the way back to the post-Civil war era. Hence the term “southern strategy.” African-Americans saw right through Bubba’s whack at it.

The use of race-baiting as a campaign tactic also tells us a lot about why most voters in states that have an overwhelming working class white population (i.e. 'rust belt' states) would vote for Clinton if she were the nominee but according to polls, would rather vote for McCain than for Obama by a significant statistical margin. Given that Obama's and Clinton's domestic and foreign policies are almost the same, what else other than race would explain this? Consider this: according to exit polls, 17% of Kentucky democrats said they voted against Obama because of his racial identity. So did 19% of West Virginia democratic voters. Did Clinton denounce this blatant prejudice? No. Instead, this is what she said:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on…Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me… There's a pattern emerging here."

Ok, so what should we make of the news about the most recent minister scandal. I’m referring to the white catholic priest who made some more controversial remarks as a guest speaker at Trinity Church in Chicago (click HERE for a link to a CNN story about it).

In the video, Pfleger wipes his eyes with a handkerchief and suggests Clinton wept because she thought that as a white person and the wife of a former president, she was entitled to the presidency.

Reminiscent of the Rev. Wright controversy, for days now, the network pundits have been attempting to pump up their ratings by relentlessly excoriating Father Pfleger for being a self-loathing white person, a racist against his own kin. Of course, they did not critique the sexism that potentially underlies his mocking of Clinton. To the networks, what was controversial is that Pfleger talked about white entitlement and privilege. In this country, you can talk about racial inequalities in education, you can talk about the KKK, police beatings of blacks, racial profiling. That’s all acceptable because clearly somewhere there are always a couple of racist bigots lurking in the shadows waiting for their moment to manifest their prejudice. On the other hand, if someone accuses a reputable white liberal of having a sense of white entitlement, that person then becomes the racist bigot and whites become his victim.

The irony in this new media obsession with Father Pfleger’s supposedly controversial statements is that unbeknownst to the viewers and readers of the U.S. mainstream media, if one looks closely, Pfleger sort of has a point, not about Clinton’s crying in front of reporters in New Hampshire but about her campaign, which thrives out of white entitlement. The statements Ferraro and Christian made are saturated with it yet they are not isolated cases of it. They are reflections of Clinton’s race-baiting strategy. So where are the pundits or talking heads of color who will point this out ad nauseam in the networks? Oh that’s right! There are none. How surprising. You would think that if Ferraro has been right for the past twenty years about blackness being such a desirable trait in a public persona, there would be lots.

p.s.- Watch Harriet Christian rant some more on Fox News (and deny she's a racist):

United States Maneuvers to Carve Up Bolivia with Autonomy Vote

2008-05-05T18:38:00.000-07:00

by: Roger Burbach

The illegal referendum held on Sunday to declare autonomy in Santa Cruz, Bolivia's richest province, is backed by the Bush administration in an attempt to halt the leftward drift of South America. While the US embassy in La Paz blandly declares its support for "unity and democracy" in Bolivia, the government's Interior Minister Alfredo Raba states what is widely known, that the United States "has an agenda more political than diplomatic in Bolivia, and this agenda is linked to opponents of the current government." Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of the country, bluntly declares: "The imperialist project is to try to carve up Bolivia, and with that to carve up South America because it is the epicenter of great changes that are advancing on a world scale."

Click HERE to read the rest of the article.

The Rev. Wright Uproar Is About Race

2008-05-03T18:42:00.000-07:00

Below is a very incisive article by Bill Moyers on the Rev. Wright controversy. Moyers asks us to think about why Obama is getting all this heat for his association with Wright, while McCain is getting none even though he has warmly accepted endorsements of religious fanatics like John Hagee who unlike Wright are certifiably insane. Moyer's answer is that it must be about race. The U.S. cannot stand a black man openly criticizing its racist foreign and domestic policies. This is why MLK and Malxom X got killed and this is why Wright is being metaphorically lynched by the media today.

"Beware the Terrible Simplifiers"
by: Bill Moyers

Click HERE to read the essay.

-OR-

Click HERE to view a video of Moyer's monologue.

Finally, click HERE for a video of some of the crazy things that Rev. John Hagee has said. Hagee is endorsing McCain who has refused to condemn him for some of the things he has said and done in the past.

Port cargo workers take the day off to protest of Iraq War

2008-05-01T16:58:00.000-07:00

By: Ronald W. Powell
San Diego Union Tribune

Port workers at cargo terminals in San Diego and National City joined their counterparts at other West Coast port facilities in a May Day work stoppage to protest the Iraq War.

The 40 scheduled for the 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. shift today did not show up, said Ron Popham, the maritime director at the San Diego Unified Port District, which operates the two cargo facilities.

National City's 24th Street Marine Terminal was quiet Thursday as longshore workers that handle cargo stayed away from work in a one-day protest against the war in Iraq.
But William Silva, president of Local 29 of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union, said the number was 500, counting casual, part-time, fill-in and other union laborers. Silva said 25,000 dock workers from San Diego to Alaska were participating in the work action.

“Today we are standing for the majority of Americans who are against the Iraq War,” Silva said in an interview. “We're Democrats, Republicans and independents, and we're sending a signal to our politicians that it's time to get out of Iraq now.”

Click, HERE to read full article.

Rodolfo Acuña responds to controversial AZ bill

2008-05-01T16:56:00.000-07:00

"Letter to the Editor"
by: Rodolfo F. Acuña

Unlike many of the present day squatters in Arizona, I have deep
feelings for Arizona. My mother's family, the Elíases lived there for
centuries.

But recently I have been swimming in a sea of emails alerting me to
Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, amendments to Senate Bill 1108 that would
permit Arizona to confiscate books, ban Chicano studies and exclude
the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanos de Aztlan (MECHA) from Arizona's
campuses.

I am 75-years young and have lived through the McCarthy era and read
about similar thought control crusades which history has exposed as
idiotic. In the 1920s the words to the pledge of alliance were changed
from "my flag" to the "flag of the United States" so aliens would not
cross their fingers and salute a foreign flag. The present proposal
ranks along side these kinds of idiocies.

Click HERE to read full letter.

Arizona bill would outlaw race-conscious organizations on public campuses and courses that "denigrate American values"

2008-04-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

by kilo
www.indybay.org
Sunday Apr 20th, 2008 3:36 PM

Arizona public schools would be barred from any teachings considered counter to democracy or Western civilization under a proposal endorsed Wednesday by a legislative panel. Additionally, the measure would prohibit students of the state's universities and community colleges from forming groups based in whole or part on the race of their members, such as the Black Business Students Association at Arizona State University or Native Americans United at Northern Arizona University. Those groups would be forbidden from operating on campus.

Click HERE to read the rest of the article.

American Exception: Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’

2008-04-25T21:36:00.000-07:00

By: ADAM LIPTAK
The New York Times
April 23, 2008

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

Click HERE to read the rest of the article.

Martinique poet Aime Cesaire dies at 94

2008-04-17T10:01:00.000-07:00

By: Herve Brival
April 17, 2008

FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique (AP) — Aime Cesaire, a poet honored throughout the French-speaking world and a crusader for West Indian rights, has died at 94.

Cesaire died Thursday after at a Fort-de-France hospital where he was being treated for heart problems and other ailments, said government spokeswoman Marie Michele Darsieres.

He was one of the most celebrated cultural figures in the Caribbean and was revered in his native Martinique, which sent him to France's parliament for nearly half a century and repeatedly elected him mayor of the capital.

Cesaire helped found the "Black Student" journal in Paris in the 1930s that launched the idea of "negritude," urging blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage. His 1950 "Discourse on Colonialism" became a classic of French political literature.

French Culture Minister Christine Albanel said Cesaire "imbued the French language with his liberty and his revolt."

"He made (the French language) beat to the rhythm of his spells, his cries, his appeals to overcome oppression, invoking the soul of subjugated peoples to urge the living to raise themselves up," she said.

His best known works included the essay "Negro I am, Negro I Will Remain" and the poem "Notes From a Return to the Native Land."

Cesaire was born June 26, 1913, in Basse-Pointe, Martinique and moved to France for high school and university studies. He graduated from one of the country's most elite institutes, the Ecole Normale Superieure.

Cesaire returned to Martinique during World War II and taught at a high school in Fort-de-France, where he served as mayor from 1945 to 2001, except for a blip in 1983-84.

Even political rivals paid him homage.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy successfully led a campaign last year to change the name of Martinique's airport in honor of Cesaire, despite the poet's refusal to meet him in the run-up to the 2007 French elections. Cesaire endorsed Sarkozy's Socialist rival, Segolene Royal.

Cesaire complained that Sarkozy had endorsed a 2005 French bill citing the "positive role" of colonialism. Cesaire spoke ardently against the measure's language, and it was later removed after complaints from former French colonies and France's overseas territories.

"I remain faithful to my beliefs and remain inflexibly anti-colonialist," Cesaire said in a statement at the time.

Sarkozy on Thursday praised Cesaire as "a great poet" and a "great humanist."

"As a free and independent spirit, throughout his whole life he embodied the fight for the recognition of his identity and the richness of his African roots," Sarkozy said. "Through his universal call for the respect of human dignity, consciousness and responsibility, he will remain a symbol of hope for all oppressed peoples."

Royal called him "an eminent symbol of a mixed-race France" and urged that he be buried in the Pantheon, where French heroes from Victor Hugo to Marie and Pierre Curie are interred.

"A great voice has died out, that of a man of conviction, of creation, of testimony, who awakened consciousness throughout his life, blasted apart hypocrisies, brought hope to all who were humiliated, and was a tireless fighter for human dignity," Royal said.

Cesaire was the honorary president of her support committee during the presidential campaign.

Cesaire was affiliated with the French Communist Party early in his career but became disillusioned in the 1950s and founded the Martinique Progressive Party in 1958. He later allied with the Socialist Party in France's National Assembly, where he served from 1946-1956 and 1958-1993.

Associated Press writer Angela Doland in Paris, France, contributed to this report.

40 Years Later: The Unrealized American Dream

2008-04-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

by: Dedrick Muhammad
Program on Inequality and the Common Good

Dr. Martin Luther King recognized that the next phase in the African-American’s quest for civil rights and equality was one that would focus on the economic divide between the wealthiest Americans, the working class, and those in poverty. King’s analysis of economic inequality as the foundation of racial inequality remains as valid today as it was 40 years ago.

40 Years Later: The Unrealized American Dream examines the progress in and challenges to economic equality between African Americans and whites since April 4, 1968 using data from the US Census Bureau, the Economic Policy Institute, the Survey of Consumer Finances, and other sources. Findings conclude that despite educational advances, economic equality for African Americans is still a dream, not a reality.

Click HERE to download 18 page report.

Click HERE to watch Dedrick Muhammad speaking about 40 Years Later: The Unrealized American Dream on YouTube

Colonialismo interno, corrupción y la traicionera idea de defender a Aníbal

2008-04-06T15:20:00.000-07:00

por: pepete

En estos momentos, Puerto Rico está pasando por un momento doblemente vergonzoso. Por un lado el gobierno de la metrópoli colonial estadounidense recientemente acusó al gobernador y algunos de sus secuaces de numerosos actos criminales de corrupción. Por otro lado, figuras prominentes de la izquierda puertorriqueña han salido a defenderlos. ¿Qué les pasa a nuestros líderes supuestamente anti-coloniales?

Haz click AQUÍ para leer el resto del artículo.

Ni angelitos ni delincuentes: la muerte de cinco estudiantes mexicanos en el campamento de las FARC en Ecuador

2008-04-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

Por Blanche Petrich

Haz click AQUÍ para leer el artículo entero.

What's fueling the increase in violence against Latinos?

2008-03-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

by: Justin Akers Chacon
Progressive Media Project
Sacramento Bee

While the majority has rejected in the primaries immigration as a wedge issue, the politics of divisiveness remain entrenched in the mainstream. As a result, the poisonous residue of immigrant scapegoating has accumulated in the margins, fueling the rise of hate groups setting their sights on Latinos, regardless of citizenship status.

According to a recent study published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, hate crimes are on the rise, with attacks on Latinos increasing in tandem with the intensification of the immigration debate. Since 2000, the number of hate groups has swelled by 48 percent, and attacks on Latinos have spiked by 35 percent between 2003 and 2006. While anti-immigrant candidates are repeatedly thrashed in national elections, this has not stopped their like-minded progeny in the street from taking matters into their own hands, confident that their actions are legitimized by what's happening around them.

This can be attributed to the fact that the anti-immigrant movement - from Cable-TV pundits and radio shock-jocks to partisan "research" organizations such as the Center for Immigration Studies - has crafted in the public mind the archetype of the undocumented immigrant as Latino, as criminal, and as a threat to the "American way of life." This has opened the gates for the re-emergence of traditional hate groups, and fertilized the soil for the growth of new ones.

More significantly, the anti-immigrant right's strategy of "attrition through enforcement" has been incorporated into every level of government. This cruel and inhumane philosophy posits that undocumented people will be encouraged to "self-deport" if their lives have been made sufficiently miserable through restrictive measures, selective punishments and the constant fear of capture and detention.

In the first two months of this year, state lawmakers across the country have introduced 350 bills that tighten the screws on immigrant families. The proposals include provisions that increase employer sanctions, prohibit access to driver's licenses, permit law enforcement to engage in immigration enforcement, and deny access to social services and benefits.

At the federal level, Republican and some Democratic lawmakers are trying to muscle through a vote on the SAVE Act (Secure America through Verification and Enforcement Act of 2007), a draconian measure that dramatically expands the machinery of detention and deportation and requires a national database for workplace verification, while offering hard-working immigrant families no opportunities for legalization and no reprieve.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has been conducting its own low-intensity war against immigrants. In recent years, the number of raids, detentions and deportations has skyrocketed. According to federal statistics, about 280,000 people are currently being held for immigration violations in 15 detention centers and 400 state and local prisons across the country.

The department estimates that it will deport upwards of 200,000 people this year after rounding up people from workplace raids, door-to-door searches and through "collateral arrests," innocent people detained in the course of serving arrest warrants to others. While some arrested and deported have undoubtedly committed criminal acts, most are victims of circumstance.

In fact, a recent study published by the Public Policy Institute of California (the state with the largest undocumented immigrant population) demonstrated that the incarceration rate of "non-citizen Mexican males" is eight times less than U.S.-born males. Overall, U.S.-born men are 10 times more likely than immigrants to be found in correctional facilities. While facts can be stubborn, they can also be ignored when inconvenient.

In such a polarized environment, where Latinos are racially profiled and immigrants are dehumanized and persecuted as "illegals," and "criminal aliens," the hate-filled and the weak-minded will rally to the cause in their own violent way. Only if the new generation of politicians listens to the majority - and those who stand for human rights and legalization continue to push for it - the voices of divisiveness will be truly marginalized.

Justin Akers Chacon is a professor of U.S. History and Chicano Studies in San Diego. Readers may write to the author at: Progressive Media Project, e-mail: pmproj@progressive.org.

Immigrants Come Here Because Globalization Took Their Jobs Back There

2008-02-08T01:21:00.000-08:00

By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
Posted on February 7, 2008, Printed on February 7, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76076/

The wailing in our country about the "invasion of immigrants" has been long and loud. As one complainant put it, "Few of their children in the country learn English ...The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of the importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious."

That's not some diatribe from one of today's Republican presidential candidates. It's the anxious cry of none other than Ben Franklin, deploring the wave of Germans pouring into the colony of Pennsylvania in the 1750s. Thus, anti-immigrant eruptions are older than the United States itself, and they've flared up periodically throughout our history, targeting the Irish, French, Italians, Chinese, and others. Even George W's current project to wall off our border is not a new bit of nuttiness -- around the time of the nation's founding, John Jay, who later became the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, proposed "a wall of brass around the country for the exclusion of Catholics."

Luckily for the development and enrichment of our country, these past public frenzies ultimately failed to exclude the teeming masses, and those uproars now appear through the telescope of time to have been some combination of ridiculous panic, political demagoguery and xenophobic ugliness. Still, this does not mean that the public's anxiety and simmering anger about today's massive influx of Mexicans coming illegally across our 2,000-mile shared border is illegitimate. However, most of what the politicians and pundits are saying about it is illegitimate.

Click HERE to read full article.

Qualcomm vs Superdome - Evacuees & Refugees

2007-11-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

by: Paul Harris

[from: The O.B. Rag Blog , posted on November 1st, 2007 but written as a letter to the San Diego U-T editor]

During the nightmarish firestorms in Southern California many individuals and some of the press compared the wildfires to Hurricane Katrina and more specifically the evacuation center at Qualcomm Stadium to the New Orleans Superdome. I do not in any way wish to diminish the horrific losses of life, homes, and despair that many of our residents have gone through, but to make such a comparison goes far beyond comparing apples to oranges. For comparison, the relative estimated statistics are almost unfathomable.

For starters, let us try to contemplate that about 200 times as many people were killed during Katrina as during the wildfires! At least 100 times as many homes were destroyed during Katrina. Almost 100 times as much financial damage was caused by Katrina. As for Qualcomm Stadium, officials definitely learned some lessons from the Superdome. Evacuees to Qualcomm (”refugees” as the Superdome evacuees were labeled) numbered about 15,000. In the Superdome were about 25,000 residents. Qualcomm residents generally stayed a maximum of 4 days, had running water, working electricity, limited shower facilities, TVs, communication to the outside, fairly decent weather, working toilets and toilet paper, entertainment, heroes, ample security, tons of supplies donated by caring Americans, gift baskets, visits by dignitaries & politicians, cots, blankets, days without knowing if their homes still existed, looters, people taking more than their fair share, false rumors about the ability to return home, and fear and frustration.

Click HERE for full article.

Mike Davis: the un-told story of how immigrants were affected is “the central human tragedy of the recent fires”

2007-11-06T17:45:00.000-08:00

by: Frank Gormlie

[from: The O.B. Rag Blog, posted on November 2nd, 2007]

By the time we arrived at Mike Davis’ talk at the City Heights Rec Center on Landis Street, it was standing room only. Up to 200 people crowded into the mid-sized room, designed to hold less than half that; people were on the floors, hugging the walls, hanging onto door frames. It was a friendly atmosphere, as neighbor chatted with neighbor, all in anticipation; the audience was almost an even split between older, gray-hairs and younger college types. Organized by Haymarket Books and International Socialist Organization, the groups’ friendly reps staffed the book tables and ran the forum. Justin Akers Chacon, a Chicano activist and professor and Enrique Morones of Border Angels would also speak. A small crew from KPBS was taping the forum.

Click HERE for full account of event.

Correspondence During the Fires

2007-11-05T19:35:00.001-08:00

by: José Fusté

[from: Revolution #108, November 11, 2007]

Correspondence: “Qualcomm Reminded Me of Katrina”

It is important that people know that the government’s response to San Diego fires has not been as benevolent as the news media has made it out to be. For immigrant families, this is in no way an “anti-Katrina.” Immigrants in San Diego County are being neglected by emergency evacuators, put in danger by their employers, treated rudely by authorities and volunteers, refused aid at evacuation sites, and racially profiled by police and deported by the Border Patrol.

Click HERE for full article.

The Making of a Model Community in the Midst of a Racial Emergency

2007-11-05T12:42:00.000-08:00

Although there were definitely many successes in dealing with the fires to San Diego, in terms of saving lives and preventing property loss, and personally I am grateful that I wasn't evacuated or seriously threatened, there are a number of issues that emerged which we cannot be silent on and cannot dismiss as incidental towards an overall great efforts on behalf of San Diego to protect and save itself. First of all, the the constant comparisions of both media and regular people to this "not being another Katrina" was just far too revealing and defensive to miss. When Governor Arnold went around to evacuation centers speaking to displaced peoples who had lost or might lose homes, he constantly said, "no bad news, just good news."

Although one could say that the joy at which media people and politicians in California were proclaiming that this was not another Katrina and that our here we know how to take care of people and take care of ourselves, was very innocent and deserved, one could only see the truth of this by taking a look at the difference between what was being blazoned across screens and promoted as the heroism and survival of California, and what was not being covered at all, or completely left out of the story of California's preparedness and greatness. Of the news coverage that I saw, it was all very self-congratulatory, with the ghost of Katrina being exorcised left and right, but the story of who was surviving, persisting and suffering was always a suburban white family. Given the life and death struggles of these people, it was interesting how many stories which were supposed to promote the powerful and strong spirit of these people, focused on such minute and often ridiculous things. There were several reports of vintage cars and artifacts being saved, stories of people frantically trying to find ways to save, their pets, and the incredibly uplifting and sickening stories of how community generosity was so overwhelming that there were actually too many donations at Qualcomm Stadium and much of it was going to waste!

Click HERE to read full post from the NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO Blog (great blog on issues pertaining to Chamorros, Modern Colonialism and decolonization, Politics in Pacific Islands, Indigenous Studies, etc. I highly recommend it).

Michael Lujan Bevacqua is a Ph.D. student at the Ethnic Studies Department, University of California, San Diego.

BURN BABY BURN – The California Celebrity Fires

2007-11-03T16:57:00.000-07:00

by: Greg Palast

What color is your disaster? It makes a difference. A life and death difference.

Dig:

Population of San Diego fire evacuation zone: 500,000
Population of the New Orleans flood evacuation zone: 500,000

White folk as a % of evacuees, San Diego: 66%
Black folk as % of evacuees, New Orleans: 67%

Size counts, too. Size of your wallet, that is:

Evacuees in San Diego, in poverty: 9%
Evacuees in New Orleans, in poverty: 27%

Click HERE for full article.

The Collision of Capitalism and Nature

2007-11-03T16:49:00.001-07:00

by: Mike Davis

[from: Socialist Worker]

THE MEDIA verdict on this disaster seems to be that the federal government and the state and local authorities did a great job, and everyone who evacuated to the Qualcomm football stadium is getting the royal treatment. What’s left out of this picture?

Click HERE for full article.

La Opinion Interviews Family Deported from Qualcomm

2007-11-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

Click HERE for full article (in Spanish).

Click HERE for second article also interviewing this family.

Also, click HERE for article on stories about immigrants burnt in the fires.

Rapture Rescue 911: Disaster Response for the Chosen

2007-11-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

by: Naomi Klein

[from The Nation, November 19, 2007 issue]

I used to worry that the United States was in the grip of extremists who sincerely believed that the Apocalypse was coming and that they and their friends would be airlifted to heavenly safety. I have since reconsidered. The country is indeed in the grip of extremists who are determined to act out the biblical climax--the saving of the chosen and the burning of the masses--but without any divine intervention. Heaven can wait. Thanks to the booming business of privatized disaster services, we're getting the Rapture right here on earth.

Click HERE for full article.

People Burn Here

2007-11-03T07:10:00.000-07:00

by: Mike Davis

[from the Nation, November 19, 2007 issue]

The most heartbreaking sign in California can be found at Doghouse Junction, near the summit of fire-scarred Otay Mountain. It is a simple, chilling image of a family desperately fleeing flames. Anyone encountering the sign will instantly understand its meaning: people burn here.

Click HERE for full article

A Tale of Two Stadiums

2007-11-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

by: Sharon Smith

[from www.counterpunch.org]

When wildfires raged through Southern California last week, George W. Bush flew into action. The unfolding disaster presented the perfect opportunity for the unpopular president to finally recover from the public relations disaster that exposed the Bush administration's indifference toward New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina survivors two years ago.

Click HERE for full article.

Sharon Smith is the author of Women and Socialism and Subterranean Fire: a History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States.

Racial Emergency: 2007 San Diego Fires

2007-11-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

by: Dept. of Etnic Studies, University of California, San Diego

The Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California-San Diego acknowledges the losses suffered by all of those directly affected by the 2007 fires. As Critical Racial/Ethnic Studies scholars, however, we see as our duty to read beyond headlines, sound bites, and quick camera shots. While dealing with the fear of having our homes burnt to the ground; wondering about relatives, friends, and neighbors – even if safe with friends that offered us refuge – we could not miss how the local, national, and international media have chosen to highlight how middle and upper-middle class white San Diegans have been dealing with the havoc these fires brought to their lives: the shot of a yellow Porsche rescued by overworked firefighters; descriptions of the congenial atmosphere at the Qualcomm Stadium; the heroic male rule-breakers that stayed to save houses or returned to rescue vintage automobiles the never-ending reports on the predicament of those who did not know how to find shelters for their cats, dogs, and horses.

Click HERE to read full statement.

Two Detailed Reports on Human and Civil Rights Violations During S.D.'s Wildfires

2007-11-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

For those of you interested in getting the facts (i.e. what was barely reported in the press) about the darker side of the San Diego wildfires, check out these two complementary reports released yesterday (I wrote the farm workers section on the IRC/JOB/ACLU report).

Click HERE to read a report co-authored by the Immigrants Rights Coalition (IRC), Justice Overcoming Boundaries (JOB) and the American Civil Liberties Uniuon (ACLU). It's titled "FIRESTORM: Treatment of Vulnerable Populations During the San Diego Wildfires." Sections include:

-San Diego Police Department Detention of Immigrant Evacuees and Call to Border Patrol in Violation of Police Policy
-Intimidating Presence of Border Patrol
-San Diego Police Inspections, Expulsions and Rejections of Evacuees
-Racial Profiling by San Diego Police and Volunteers
-San Diego Police Department Harassment of African American Evacuee Leaving With Supplies
-San Diego Police Department Harassment of 19-year-old Filipino Volunteer
-American Red Cross Leadership, Sheriff’s Department Harassment
-Military Presence at the Del Mar Fairgrounds
-Farmworkers working in Mandatory Evacuation Areas
-The Sheriff’s Department’s Policy and Practices at Checkpoints for
Returning Residents
-Restrictions on Press Freedom During the Wildfires and Aftermath
-Recommended Reforms

Click HERE for American Friends Service Committee's (AFSC) Report titled "The State of Civil and Human Rights for Migrant Communities in San Diego County during the Firestorms of October 2007." Sections include:

-Culture of Fear and Intimidation
-San Diego Police Department Collaboration with the U.S. Border Patrol
-Impact of Wildfires on Farn Worker Communities
-Denial of Basic Services at Shelters

Firing up the Voices

2007-11-02T09:34:00.000-07:00

by: Trangđài Trầnguyễn

The air smells of death. The silence tastes morbid. The sky stops breathing. The ocean becomes distant.

On the balcony strewn with crunchy green leaves and inundated with suffocating ash, the plants and flowers let their leaves off, begging for water respite and CPR.

My nose is bleeding. The same way my heart bled on the empty endlessness of New Orleans freeways, in the boundless blankness of Biloxi neighborhoods, at the fathomless frustration in which disadvantaged Louisiana residents swayed. Months after the hurricanes, green trees pushed elbows with half-witted houses and dangling street lights, as if mocking, as if inviting, as if challenging.

Renters returned home – for they had no where else to go, or could not come to part with that piece of their heart. But there was another piece that they needed. A piece of paper.
A piece of paper is everything. Without it, they no longer exist. It is their life – which they no longer have. Elderly men displaced by wars, then displaced by flood, asked for assistance. They stood in line day in day out, only to be sent home empty handed from the relief stations overflowing with donated goods. Immigrant fishermen came for emergency stipends. They were told that their 'number' could not be located. A place of destruction: that was all they had. Nothing more.

Not many others came back. Yet those who took the risk to return home found themselves deprived of the aids that were reserved for the 'legitimate' who had safely relocated else where in their relatives' homes. Safely. Long ago.

Water. Fire. Different? Maybe so from aerial views. On the ground, the pattern repeats. On the ground, real things happen. It is the human life that is at risk, the marginal voices that resonate into thin air, the inequitable distribution of aids that persist, the refusal to acknowledge that certain lives have value, the violence of perpetuating discrimination.

These lives are not irrelevant. They get fish from the sea to the dock. They get food on the table. They clean the sheets. They water the plants. They build the freeways. They drive the trucks. They are the hands that craft tomorrow and the feet that move today in the most organic way.

Though they are treated as replaceable goods, they are not disposable. They are humans.

They are life.

Trangđài Trầnguyễn is an Ethnic Studies Graduate Student at the University of California, San Diego.

Mike Davis: Who Really Set the California Fires?

2007-11-02T06:30:00.000-07:00

Click HERE for full article.

La otra cara de los incendios del sur de California

2007-10-30T23:00:00.001-07:00

Click HERE for an English version of this article that just came out in El Tecolote News Online

por: José Fusté

Los fuegos que han arrasado el sur de California han dejado miles de cuerdas de terreno incineradas, más de 2,700 hogares u otras estructuras destruidas y han desplazado a alrededor de medio millón de habitantes, causando así las evacuaciones más grandes en la historia de este estado. Hemos escuchado numerosas anécdotas de actos heroicos durante esta crisis. Los medios están colmados de alabanzas al ‘Governator’ Schwarzenegger, a Michael Chertoff y a los directores de FEMA quienes alegadamente lograron hacer de esta crisis un verdadero ‘anti-Katrina.’

Lo que rara vez se comenta públicamente es que durante esta crisis, inmigrantes indocumentados en el condado de San Diego han sido ignorados por evacuadores de emergencia, puestos en peligro por su patronos y tratados groseramente por autoridades y voluntarios. Les han rechazado ayuda en los centros de evacuación (Ej. a los que no pudieron proveer identificación, incluyendo personas pobres y sin hogar). Además, han sido víctimas de discrimen por parte de la policía y algunos hasta fueron agarrados en los centros de evacuación y deportados por la patrulla fronteriza. Muchos de los que viven en cañones remotos y fincas cerca de los fuegos no evacuaron. En algunos casos, las autoridades no les informaron que sus vidas corrían peligro. Otros no tenían transportación para salir o temían que la patrulla fronteriza los agarrara saliendo de sus hogares y los deportara.

Durante la pasada semana, Enrique Morones (un activista local pro-derechos de inmigrantes y fundador de los ‘Ángeles de la Frontera’) ha viajado por los sectores rurales de San Diego tratando de lograr que familias de inmigrantes evacuen. Él nos informa que en varias fincas, los patronos han forzado a sus trabajadores a quedarse laborando cerca de los fuegos. Debido a la contaminación del aire con partículas de humo y cenizas y el peligro de verse atrapados dentro de las llamas, esto crea un gran riesgo de salud para estos campesinos.

Adrián del Río es un voluntario que llevó abastecimientos a áreas remotas del condado. El 25 de octubre, él nos informa que encontró un campamento de más de 150 personas, la mayoría de ellos inmigrantes quienes nunca recibieron órdenes de evacuación y necesitaban desesperadamente comida y agua. El día antes, la patrulla fronteriza deportó a siete inmigrantes (dos parejas y tres niños) a quienes se les acusó de ‘robar donativos’ (una paradoja patente) del centro de evacuación en el estadio de Qualcomm. Numerosos testigos y algunos de los deportados mismos nos aseguran que solamente se estaban llevando abastecimientos que les fueron obsequiados como cualquier otra familia saliendo del sitio.

Luego de este incidente, las autoridades comenzaron a revisar las tarjetas de identificación de todas las personas dentro del lugar. La ciudad de San Diego ha dicho que esto se hizo para prevenir que se quedaran ahí ‘vagabundos.’ Observadores legales estiman que docenas de familias indocumentadas se marcharon por miedo a ser deportados. Este no fue el único incidente de discrimen ocurrido en Qualcomm. De acuerdo a la Lcda. Andrea Guerrero del ACLU, observadores legales documentaron casos de otras familias acusadas de robar que luego fueron interrogados por policías. En algunos casos, oficiales rodearon carros e inspeccionaron cuántos artículos cada familia se llevaba. Las autoridades también han establecido retenes de seguridad donde le están pidiendo identificación a evacuados mientras regresan a sus casas. Esto ha causado que muchas familias viren para atrás por miedo a ser deportados.

El trato que recibieron los inmigrantes Latinos en San Diego nos recuerda lo que le sucedió en Nueva Orleans durante Katrina. Antes del ciclón, las autoridades no evacuaron adecuadamente a la población de clase trabajadora (en su mayoría afro-americanos) que vivía en el centro de la ciudad. Luego de pasar la tormenta, los medios elogiaban a los residentes blancos de la ciudad que llevaban consigo abastecimientos llevados de tiendas destruidas por su afán de sobrevivir. Mientras tanto, tildaban a los afro-americanos que hacían lo mismo de ladrones. Este mismo tipo de perfilamiento racial esta ocurriendo en San Diego ahora.

Los residentes de San Diego merecen ser elogiados por donar recursos y tiempo para ayudar a las víctimas de este desastre. Esto no los exime de críticas por permitir que el discrimen institucionalizado contra inmigrantes y/o latinos manche esos esfuerzos. Cualquier persona que conoce de negocios sabe que los dos millones de trabajadores indocumentados que viven en California son la espina dorsal de la economía de este estado. Si se les deporta, se estima que el precio de la comida triplicaría. ¿No merecen ellos la misma amabilidad y ayuda que están recibiendo los sandiegueños blancos, angloparlantes documentados?

Dice un refrán que el ser humano es el único animal que comete el mismo error dos veces. Parece que los gobiernos de Estados Unidos no aprendieron nada de Katrina.

Divided by Fire: Two San Diegos Emerge from the Flames

2007-10-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

By: Justin Akers Chacón

As the popular saying goes, the 8 freeway divides San Diego County between the haves to the north and the have-nots to the south. The Great Firestorm of 2007 that has scorched half a million acres, destroyed 2,300 structures, and displaced several hundred thousand people, has unmasked the even deeper fissures that cut through "America's Finest City."

While the fires were still burning bright, the Republican Chain of Command—from George Bush to San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders—declared "mission accomplished" and an end to "Hurricane Katrina syndrome."

As Department of Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff told CNN, the federal response to the wildfires was "phenomenally better" than the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, "because we have been preparing and planning and training together for the last 2 ½ years." As Bush gleefully proclaimed during a photo-op, "the experts can try to figure out whether the response was perfect or not." During their carefully charted victory tour, the reality facing most San Diegans was factored out of the equation.

While the southern California wildfires do not discriminate against peoples and property values, the machinery of preparedness and hands of recovery certainly have. Hundreds of thousands of San Diego's inhabitants have been excluded, ignored or persecuted during the relief efforts, and will be forced to bear the costs of this systemic failure into the foreseeable future…

Click HERE for complete article.

Democracy Now Interviews Andrea Guerrero On Plight of Immigrants During the San Diego Fires

2007-10-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 29th, 2007
The Forgotten Victims of the California Wildfires: Undocumented Migrant Workers

Andrea Guerrero of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium says law enforcement deported evacuees and checked identifications of evacuees fleeing fires. [includes rush transcript] Thousands of people are beginning to return home as the wildfires across Southern California slowly die out. But for the thousands of undocumented migrant workers in San Diego's lucrative agriculture industry, the process is fraught with the threat of harassment and deportation.

According to the Los Angeles Times, over 100 Border Patrol agents have been redeployed to evacuation centers and neighborhood checkpoints for returning residents. Rumors of immigration raids only increased when an undocumented family was deported to Mexico Wednesday after local law enforcement arrested them for allegedly stealing food. Immigrant rights groups claim that local law enforcement is racially profiling immigrants. They say there is no need for them to involve Border Patrol agents.

Andrea Guerrero is the Chair of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium. She is also the Field and Policy Director of the ACLU in San Diego. She joins me now from San Diego, California.

Free Speech Radio News Intervew On Deportation of Six Undocumented Evacuees During San Diego Firestorm

2007-10-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

Southern California's Undocumented Immigrants Hit Hard by the Wildfires

Click HERE to listen to podcast of radio interview

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union and legal observers say
that some victims of the fire have been refused emergency services due
to racial profiling. FSRN's Producer Monica Lopez spoke with Andrea
Guerrero, field and policy director for the ACLU in San Diego and
Imperial counties.

Letter to the Editor: The California D.R.E.A.M. Is Where Justice Begins

2007-10-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

To: Editor of UCSD’s Guardian (click HERE for published piece)
by José Fusté

Dear Editor:

I am writing in response to Nathan Miklos’ op-ed piece titled “D.R.E.A.M. Act Encourages Double Standard but Lacks Effective Immigration Solution” (click HERE to access) published on October 15, 2007. Mr. Miklos’ piece is brimming with factual inaccuracies and logical fallacies. His entire argument hinges on the ill-informed claim that undocumented immigrants do not pay taxes and therefore should not be given the same benefits as ‘taxpayers.’ It is widely known that most undocumented immigrants do pay large sums of money to federal and state governments. For example, federal income taxes that cannot be matched to workers’ names and social security numbers grew $20 billion between 1990 and 1998. This surplus continues to grow $6 billion a year with the total of 2005 sitting at $519 billion. It is largely attributed to undocumented immigrant laborers whose employers deduct income taxes and social security payments from their checks to avoid being scrutinized by authorities. In terms of social security, these workers will never receive a dime of what they paid.

According to a study by conservative Cato Institute’s economist Steve Moore, immigrant households paid an estimated $133 billion in direct taxes to federal, state, and local governments in 1997. Douglas Massey, a Princeton professor, renowned sociologist, and expert on Mexican migrants has found that “illegal migrants pay taxes at high rates while using public services at low rates.” Among 2,100 undocumented immigrants he surveyed, “60 percent of them said they had federal taxes withheld from their pay.” Meanwhile, only 4 percent said they used food stamps and 3 percent said they received government welfare payments. In addition, only 11 percent of respondents reported that they send their children to U.S. public schools. Also, only 26 percent said they used a U.S. hospital.

Evidence shows that immigration laws that criminalize unskilled migrants who cross the border to work here are at odds with the labor demands of the U.S. economy. Consider this: in the past two decades, we have had our lowest national unemployment a rate and our fastest economic growth. Meanwhile, labor force participation rates among recent Latino immigrants remain high. Undocumented immigrants undeniably provide sorely needed labor to U.S. industries that lack sufficient workers. They work in some of the most exploitative but lowest-paying jobs in the U.S. In a 2001 study done by UCLA, experts found that if the undocumented Mexican population were to be deported, there would be a dramatic $220 billion drop in U.S. economic output. Also, the millions of undocumented immigrants who live here today purchase goods, acquire property, pay rent, invest money, and again, pay taxes. In a 2002 article, UCSD professor Wayne Cornelius detailed how undocumented immigrants contribute significantly to U.S. economy and society in spite of being criminalized and publicly regarded as undesirable. He pointed out that even former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan—a self-identified libertarian republican dubbed the ‘high priest of American capitalism’— advocated that more immigration would relieve the inflationary pressures of an excessively tight labor market.

Mr. Miklos claims that all undocumented students who would benefit from the California D.R.E.A.M. Act are guilty of committing crimes and therefore should not be rewarded. He neglects to mention that many of these individuals were brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were minors. They were not directly responsible for crossing illegally and as such, morally speaking, should not be held accountable for their parents’ infractions. Even if undocumented students or their families are here illegally, U.S. immigration laws are unjust and senseless for they marginalize people that contribute to the prosperity of this country. Martin Luther King once quoted St. Augustine who said that "an unjust law is no law at all." Facing institutionalized and legalized racism, Dr. King stated that “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” Like the Jim Crow system and the legal slavery that preceded it, this country’s immigration policies directly contradict its founding principles. America is supposed to be the sanctuary of freedom and equality in the world, not the paragon of moral hypocrisy.

Opposing the California D.R.E.A.M. act is not only unjust but impractical. After all, our state needs more college graduates. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, 41% of jobs will require a college education by 2025 but only 32% of workers in the state will have college degrees.

Mr. Miklos advocates treating people equally but he contradicts himself arguing that undocumented students should not get the same chance that ‘legal’ Americans get. Hard working students most of whom are only guilty of involuntarily committing a misdemeanor—entering the country illegally is a minor offense—should not be treated as second-class persons. Hundreds if not thousands of California college students break laws every year. For example, they download music illegally, drink alcohol while under the legal age, get into fights, smoke marijuana, and commit other crimes that in terms of legal severity are equivalent to crossing the border without a visa or worse. Should they have their financial aid revoked because of this?

Mr. Miklos states he is against “creating an institutional double-standard between legal citizens and undocumented residents.” The only double standard here is the one that marginalizes undocumented immigrants, not because they are “bad” but because they are cheap and expendable labor and concomitantly, tend to speak with a different accent or language and have a darker shade of skin.

Back to the mass slander of the undocumented

2007-06-21T15:09:00.000-07:00

by: Lionel Van Deerlin (click HERE for original article)
UNION-TRIBUNE

June 21, 2007

The U.S. Senate has decided there's a chance for that immigration bill, after all. Under way, therefore, is a second phase of the only truly important debate that's likely to ensue in the 110th Congress.

This may also revive some of the nastiest talk heard in our land since the civil rights debate raged nearly 50 years ago. It would be comforting to feel immigration reform can be addressed without resort to mass slander of the several million undocumented aliens living and working among us – an element usually referred to in terms no gentler than “illegals.”

Their legal status aside, however, it's hard to view the wretched outcasts encamped nightly in our North County canyons as evil folk. Can we seriously suppose their desire to find a life in America scores high on the scale of deadly sins?

No matter how one feels about the pending legislation (an issue mixing patriotism with partisanship and often economic interests as well), everyone of good faith should aim to deal with the facts. That would seem to start with assessing the size of the problem. How many immigrants have entered the United States unlawfully and remain here? Although we must wait more than two years for our next national population count, the Census Bureau currently estimates the undocumented at 11 million to 12 million.

A sizable number, that – but not stark enough, it seems, to satisfy members of a self-styled “Immigration Caucus” in Congress. Habitually, and absent supporting evidence, this politically charged, mainly Republican bloc puts the number at 20 million.

Except for a militant border band calling themselves Minutemen, our most ardent anti-immigrant citizen front is a six-year-old cyberspace network that has taken the name Grassfire. Its purported 2 million armchair warriors keep their computers alive with a steady stream of suggested talking points for use in castigating the mostly Mexican horde. Under other auspices, Grassfire's output would be designated urban legends – alarming tales that, though lacking proof, gain credence with their constant retelling.

Sample offerings: Only 2 percent of illegal aliens do farm work – while 20 times their number draw welfare. One baby in every 10 currently born in the United States is to unlawful immigrant parents, and paid for by Medicaid. An average 13 Americans are killed every day by uninsured alien DUIs. A typical illegal doing prison time has been arrested eight times, and committed 13 crimes.

Oh, yes, and Los Angeles has 300,000 immigrants huddled in residential garages.

Grassfire's organizer, one Steve Elliott, lists himself a graduate of the Rev. Pat Robertson's 30-year-old Regent University, in Virginia Beach, Va. “America's pre-eminent Christian university” has been much in the news of late. Young Elliott may have failed to make the cut among some 150 fellow collegians who landed jobs in the Bush administration. Instead, he applied his talents to an Internet assault against the alien scourge.

Whatever the extent of Christian training available at Regent, Elliott apparently passed on any sessions dealing with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Or, for that matter, with the fourth chapter of St. Matthew and its challenging line, “I came a stranger, and ye took me in.” Regrettably, most of the talking points spewed regularly from Elliott's Grassfire would fail the Eighth Commandment's stricture regarding false witness.

Those statistics on crime, for instance. A check with the Federal Bureau of Prisons discloses that illegal aliens – possibly because of a desire to stay out of sight – actually may be more law-abiding than the rest of us. The percentage of America's general population behind bars is markedly higher than the percentage of undocumented.

For sheer irresponsibility, however, no rap against aliens could top a statistical fabrication passed off as fact in a show hosted by TV reporter Lou Dobbs on CNN (a cable channel self-promoted as “The Most Trusted Name in News.”) Dobbs' startling allegation was that the illegal influx is responsible for 7,000 leprosy cases in the United States – “far more than in the past, and probably an understatement,” Dobbs added somberly.

The number 7,000 had a basis in fact, yes – except that the government report on which it was based made clear those cases stretched over 30 years. Health officials assert that the once dread disease is well in hand – indeed, that new leprosy cases have declined significantly since the early 1980s.

But so what? We'll be reminded those people shouldn't be here, damn it, with or without a communicable disease.

Van Deerlin represented a San Diego County district in Congress for 18 years.
© Copyright 2007 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. ? A Copley Newspaper Site