RE Thomas Scott and Louis Riel

Reine Lagimodiere was the first legitimate white child to be born in the West. Reine's younger sister, Julie Lagimodiere was Louis Riel's mother. Louis Riel's father was Metis.

Thomas Scott did not recognize the Riel led government and was surveying land to sell that was not his to sell. He was stopped and sent back a few times before being taken to jail. While in jail, he was very violent, very rude to his guards and threatened to commit murder if he was ever let out. Thomas Scott was executed by firing squad. Though, historians were not kind to Scott, at the time of his death, he was considered to be a Martyr in Ontario. Thus, the Prime Minister was torn between Quebec who saw Louis Riel as a hero and Ontario who wanted revenge for Scott's death.

This is sort of a gentler version of that history:

http://history.cbc.ca/history/?MIval=EpContent.html&series_id=1&episode_id=9&chapter_id=2&page_id=4&la...

My father, who is french, was taught in school that Louis Riel was a hero and the father of Manitoba.

My mother, who is irish-welsh, was taught in school that Louis Riel was a crazy man who had to be stopped.

RE: - Carol Thatcher has recently appeared as some new kind of "celebrity" (how I hate that word), on a "reality" TV show.

Brian Mulroney can do Margaret Thatcher one step better - his son Ben Mulroney is the host of Canadian Idol (like American Idol). I think that George Stroumboulopoulos once compared Amy Winehouse to Billie Holiday both in talent and penchant for self destructiveness.

RE: - Mark Thatcher was not simply accused/found guilty of arms trafficking, but of helping to organise a coup in an African country.

How many of those have the Americans done successfully? Seems too much of a coincidence that Mark would just happen to have the type of contacts one needs to attempt to pull something like that off.

RE: - I also read somewhere that Harper was being advised by Bush's campaign people, and running the type of sleazy negative ads we've become accustomed to here in the US. Were these having an effect on Canadian voters?

Are you talking about the Tory "Stephane Dion is Not a Leader" ads? My favourite spoof of it is Rick Mercer's "Ken Dryden is Not a Goalie (February 6, 2007):

http://www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/backissues.php?season=4

*Ken Dryden played in the Canada-Russia series of 1972 before running against Stephane Dion for the leadership of the Liberal party. The line about "soft on Communism" is so sweet and somewhat topic related since Bush has come up with a replacement for the cold war in the Middle East.

Canadian political parties are not shy about their commercials there are the Conservative ads (conservative.ca), the Liberal ads (liberal.ca) and the NDP ads (ndp.ca) - though the latter only has video rants up so far. Looks like the Harper government will be defeated in a couple of weeks and Canada will be going into another election.

Harper often ends up saying things that Bush has said before see (March 17, 2006 - "Have we heard this before?")

http://www.cbc.ca/22minutes/video.html

(also check out January 30, 2007 "Tory attack ads" and, after clicking MAIN Nov 6 – 2007 "Conservative attack ad" - will show you Air Farce spoofs of these ads next time)

RE: - According to the polls here, that sort of 'Islamofascist' fearmongering isn't working as well as it once did with the general public, but McCain, et al, were running for the GOP nomination where such threadbare nightmares still terrify the Republican base; I think even McCain will drop that loathsome rhetoric once he becomes the nominee.

That is good to know, but McCain seems to be gung ho about keeping the war going. You have to demonize your enemy a certain amount to convince people to keep fighting them. Or is McCain going to promote Military service as a means of surviving the recession induced job losses! Have you heard of someone called Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Ali is promoting the idea that Islam is inheriently bad and that there is no such thing as islamophboia.

RE: - More than once, I've heard the grandchildren of both a Mexican and, separately, a Polish grandfather tell Gramps something along the lines of "If things are so great over there, why don't you go back?"

I thought my cousin was bad when he told his teacher (who was a nun) that she knows nothing about teaching children because she never had any. Wanting to be like one's peers is one thing but it sounds like the half Mexican half Polish kid is either being rude on purpose (a real possibility since my eldest used to say the phrase "you are a horrible mother because you are too controling" as if it contained swear words) or racist against their own grandparents. If you know of such a child, tell the grandpas to get together and drag the kid to Folklorama - there is one Mexican Pavilion and two Polish Pavilions - and the one he'll actually be interested in - the Japanese pavillion.

Son kicking me off.

Vaudree, yes, I did read a little bit about the Liberal Party scandals, which I understand were nearly as bad as the recent Republican congressional scandals in this country. I also read somewhere that Harper was being advised by Bush's campaign people, and running the type of sleazy negative ads we've become accustomed to here in the US. Were these having an effect on Canadian voters?

Re: "Of course it is a distraction - they don't want voters to focus on the economy etc. The thing is that if any candidate running on behalf of Stephen Harper's Conservative Party used the word 'islamofascist' in public the way McCain, Romney or Huckabee have, that candidate would no longer be representing the party. The Conservatives do whatever they can to avoid the label 'racist.' They Repugs would not be using that word repeatedly if they did not think that it was drawing people to them."

According to the polls here, that sort of 'Islamofascist' fearmongering isn't working as well as it once did with the general public, but McCain, et al, were running for the GOP nomination where such threadbare nightmares still terrify the Republican base; I think even McCain will drop that loathsome rhetoric once he becomes the nominee. I understand from my Canadian friends that if any candidate for office up there invoked the names of God or Jesus to bolster his campaign, as Huckabee and other Republicans have, he or she would be laughed out of politics. Lucky for you.

Re: "Don't know much about Margaret Cho. Heard a different thing about third generations - the first generation is too different to assimilate, the second generation can and does and the third generation reclaims their culture from their grandparents. Not sure if that is similar or not."

Of course that happens, but far more often, in my experience, by the third generation, especially in the case of Mexican and Eastern European immigrants, the kids are sick of hearing tales of the 'Old Country' and have become thoroughly 'Americanized.' More than once, I've heard the grandchildren of both a Mexican and, separately, a Polish grandfather tell Gramps something along the lines of "If things are so great over there, why don't you go back?"

BTW, I believe Margaret Cho uses the 'Rainbow' both as a symbol of gay rights, which she strongly supports, and of multi-cultural unity.

Re: "Even if history bores you, the execution of Thomas Scott is bound to be a good time."

Ha, ha -- well, I guess Canadians and Americans aren't that much different after all.

Re: "What I do know is that Bill Blaikie lobbied hard trying to get worker protections placed into the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). How it would work is that if that the country you traded with either had to get their labour standards up to yours or there would be a tariff placed on goods from that country to make up for the differences in wages."

That's about what President Bill Clinton said when he signed NAFTA, but there was no follow-up and the additional language was never added. I'll get a quick, shameless plug in here for Obama. Last Wednesday in Janesville, Wisconsin, he started talking like John Edwards:

"(When) I am president, I will not sign another trade agreement unless it has protections for our environment and protections for American workers. And I'll pass the Patriot Employer Act that I've been fighting for ever since I ran for the Senate -- we will end the tax breaks for companies who ship our jobs overseas, and we will give those breaks to companies who create good jobs with decent wages right here in America."
-- Barack Obama in Janesville, WI, Feb. 13, 2008, as quoted by The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=284664

CocoaSwann, you're right -- the immigration problem is directly linked to unchecked corporate power and it's ironic, considering the overheated bleatings about immigrants from right-wingers in the US, that if the progressive candidate for president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, had defeated conservative Bush-clone Felipe Calderon in the election, he would have passed economic reforms to create more good-paying jobs in Mexico so that there wouldn't be so many immigrants heading to 'El Norte' for work. Of course, the corporations both here and south of the border didn't like that idea -- it would rob them of the cheap labor they exploit for higher profits. So Calderon wins, likely by theft, and runs his corrupt government to enrich him and his cronies, and sends his poor and starving to the US. It's a shame that the Minute Men and these other jingoistic anti-immigrant groups don't have time to read the recent history of Mexico -- they might have to choke back their bile and support a liberal for a change -- at least a Mexican liberal, anyway.

Vaudree: Unfortunately, there is no kind of "protectionism" in place for our own workplace, no honest regulation of foreign labour forces. We are simply in the land of "cheap is good".
Mark Thatcher was not simply accused/found guilty of arms trafficking, but of helping to organise a coup in an African country. Carol Thatcher has recently appeared as some new kind of "celebrity" (how I hate that word), on a "reality" TV show.
Winston Churchill, was voted top, ahead of such people as Isaac Newton, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Florence Nightingale and Elizabeth 1st. No mention of Shakespeare, Dickens, Elgar, Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Constable, Turner et al.
We are a superficial nation, who worship "celebrity" and image, but ridicule intelligence and culture. Our national pastimes are supporting soccer, and getting drunk on a regular basis.
Current national heroes probably include - Pete Docherty, Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse and anybody who seems to represent that part of society who lack moral standards or reasonable behaviour.

RE: - We no longer have any manufacturing industry in the UK (steel manufacture, aerospace, ship building, motor industry, textiles, ceramics), they have all been farmed out to the far East, because of the cheap labour markets.

I am not sure about the trade agreements in the UK or whether this was done without need of them (would not mind a brief history). What I do know is that Bill Blaikie lobbied hard trying to get worker protections placed into the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). How it would work is that if that the country you traded with either had to get their labour standards up to yours or there would be a tariff placed on goods from that country to make up for the differences in wages.

RE: - Margaret Thatcher (a woman admired by many in the US), dismantled our unions, and by his devotion to Thatcher, Tony Blair continued to erode workers rights in the UK.

You answered my question about Tony Blair. Wasn't Winston Churchill voted the Greatest Brit out of a list of 100 people from the UK (which included Boy George among others)? They had a similar contest in the US and Ronald Reagan won. (The Greatest Canadian is none other than Keifer's Sutherlands famous grandfather and the father of medicare Tommy Douglas).

Back to Thatcher. If my memory serves me correctly, Margaret Thatcher (UK), Ronald Reagan (US) and Brian Mulroney (Canada) were pretty close. Mulroney's eulogy at Reagan's funeral was described as Reagan's last b*** J**. During the eulogy, Mulroney gave Reagan credit for the reunification of Germany (which was united under a Chancellor who was later implicated in a Spendenaffaere). Wasn't Thatcher's son involved in some sort of scandal involving arms?

This is what Brian Mulroney has been up to lately:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071212/mulroney_testifies_071213/20071213/

Seems that Thyssen, the company often associated with Prescott Bush was thriving during the Mulroney, Reagan Thatcher era.

RE: - The Rainbow Tribe is a Native American Prophecy.

I don't think we have any major populations of Navajo here - we have Cree and Saulteaux/Ojibwa mainly. That is a nice myth and hope it comes true - I mean the rainbow saviours part since the other part has.

Have you heard of Tomson Highway? Seems that he wrote an opera which is partially sung in Cree called Pimooteewin (The Journey).

Highway's Cree story brings us the trickster and the eagle, who cross the river to the land of the dead. The pair tries to smuggle a basketful of dead spirits back to the land of the living. But the basket has some escapees who cause mayhem before the natural order of things is restored in the end.

http://www.thestar.com/article/303327

Q: Why did you choose the Cree myth of Pimooteewin?

A: It's not specifically Cree, it's sort of universal to the aboriginal people of Canada in general. It's this story about what is basically a crossing of the River Styx — although it's not called that in native mythology — into the land of the dead. It involves the Trickster, one of the essential characters of aboriginal mythology, and the time he decided to cross that river with his best friend, the Eagle, to go visit the ancestors. They go off to this magic island of the dead and go to this ball, this dance. I chose that story specifically because I had, at that point in time, five years ago, experienced a lot of death in my immediate family. And ultimately, in the philosophical and theological context of aboriginal beliefs, death is not negative at all, it's positive — it's not an end, it's a continuation of life in a different energy form. The dead are still among us — that's the gist of it.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/theatre/highway.html

Clean slate

Monday is Manitoba's first Louis Riel Day; the holiday can be anything you want it to be

Sat Feb 16 2008, WPG Free Press

By Bartley Kives

EVERY Manitoban has a chance to do something extraordinary this weekend: Create a tradition that has the potential to last forever.

The advent of a brand new provincial holiday means 1.2 million people suddenly have a new long weekend on the calendar, with no preconceptions about how to celebrate it.

All existing holidays come with expectations. For most Manitobans, the Victoria Day long weekend means the first trip of the season to the cottage or the first serious attempt to clean out the garage.

Canada Day means fireworks, the August holiday represents the midway point of summer and Labour Day offers a chance to ridicule those suckers from Saskatchewan who can only manage to win Grey Cups when opposing quarterbacks have broken limbs.

Thanksgiving, meanwhile, connotes a gut-busting turkey meal while late December suggests non-stop partying and socializing.
But right now, there are no customs or rituals associated with Louis Riel Day, which makes its debut on Monday. And I think this blank slate is nothing less than the cultural opportunity of a lifetime.

Think about it. When the provincial government created a new holiday in February, ostensibly responding to a campaign run by a Winnipeg radio station, it was really just following other provinces that decided winter-weary Canadians deserved a day off between New Year's Day and Easter.

It's likely the government figured most Manitobans would see the new holiday as just another chance to sleep in and maybe catch up on some household chores.

But a holiday named after the founder of the province offers a chance for anyone with a strong sense of regional identity to come up with new traditions that celebrate something about Manitoba -- be it good, bad, indifferent or, as is most often the case, a little bit weird, in a folksy, Prairie sort of way.

And since whatever happens this weekend has the potential to serve as the template for all future Louis Riel Days, Manitobans may want to consider their leisure time wisely.

Among my own circle of acquaintances, I know of three Louis Riel Day celebrations that have the potential to catch on.

One close friend who has two small kids is planning a Sunday afternoon celebration of all things Manitoban, complete with a curling rink in his Garden City backyard.

Another is planning a costume party where everyone must come "as their favourite Manitoban." The printed invitation is adorned with major and minor celebrities from the 1980s and 1990s, including former Winnipeg Jets captain Dale Hawerchuk, Crash Test Dummies singer Brad Roberts and Natalie Pollock, the cable-access television co-host.

A third is simply planning the sort of party that people can only afford to attend when they can get a day off to recover. Is getting wasted a definitively Manitoba act? Hardly, but there's no denying alcohol consumption is part of the local culture, especially during the winter.

But the possibilities really are limitless. For starters, the Festival du Voyageur -- already a distinctively Manitoba festival -- can cash in on the holiday by linking itself more directly to Riel, the francophone leader of a Métis-founded province.

The extra day off allows more Winnipeggers to get involved in the festival, which needs to up its programming ante in order to capitalize. Family friendly Riel Day celebrations could eventually attract the same sort of crowds as New Year's Eve and Canada Day celebrations, and there's also some potential for a bigger and hipper Saturday- or Sunday-night party.

Assuming the province can allocate the funds, a little public education about the role Riel played in Manitoba's history couldn't hurt. This doesn't have to be dull, as the man was a kooky character as well as a visionary.

Imagine a historical re-enactment of the Red River Resistance right on the grounds of what's left of Upper Fort Garry. Even if history bores you, the execution of Thomas Scott is bound to be a good time.

But a definitively Manitoba holiday doesn't have to be caught up in cheesy heritage moments. A festival of Manitoba food would be a great addition to the Louis Riel Day weekend, and I'm not just talking about pickerel and saskatoon pie. Winnipeg chefs have been experimenting with creative or even decadent versions of humble foodstuffs such as perogies and tortieres for about a decade; it's time to bring the regional-cuisine movement to the masses.

Personally, I'm going to consider a Riel Day long weekend camping trip next year. And I'm going to repeat what I've been saying for years: If Festival du Voyageur started up a folk fest-style campground, the idea would just be crazy enough to attract minor risk-takers from all over.

Embracing winter instead of freaking out about it has always been a challenge in Manitoba. And Louis Riel Day could go a long way toward more of a celebratory attitude about the cold.

Then again, if whining about the weather is a distinct part of the culture, so be it. This weekend is all about Manitoba, in all its imperfect glory.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

The Rainbow Tribe is a Native American Prophecy.

Walk on a rainbow trail, walk on a trail of song, and all about you will be beauty. There is a way out of every dark mist, over a rainbow trail.
- Navajo Song

It is not blood that makes an Native American...
It is the soul...
Too many - with fire of Native blood - walk ignored.
Do not say I am Apache or Kickapoo.
Do not say I am Sioux or Cherokee.
Say... I am of the Mother Tribe.
This is the pain of our children...
To return from the stars without a home or community...
A tribe lost returns - scattered in the wind.
Those who hear must unite and reap the seed of this return.
ONE tribe...ONE Earth...ONE Heart...ONE People.
Those with ears must build a fire and give thanks this night.
Be united with ONE soul.
Oh, my Children come home...
Teachers step forward without fear... You are real.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chief Seattle

When the Earth is sick,
the animals will begin to disappear,
when that happens,
The Warriors of the Rainbow
will come to save them.

Aho.

Gyptian and CocoaSwann: I have laid the blame at my government, not at the immigrants themselves. As you rightly say, unchecked corporate power is the reason, but who enables them to do it? The governments, by de-regulating employment laws, and adopting an "open door" policy to EU member states.
We no longer have any manufacturing industry in the UK (steel manufacture, aerospace, ship building, motor industry, textiles, ceramics), they have all been farmed out to the far East, because of the cheap labour markets.
I would like to see the new wave of migrant workers, be subjected to the same laws and regulations which apply to everyone else.
I did put forward a comparison, and ask people to comment on the figures.
UK population 60 million. 2-3 million immigrants in last 3 years.
US population 300 million - are the Americans (Canadians), on this board honestly going to tell me that the US could stand 10-15 million immigrant workers in 3 years?
Margaret Thatcher (a woman admired by many in the US), dismantled our unions, and by his devotion to Thatcher, Tony Blair continued to erode workers rights in the UK.
There are many people in this country who have worked their a**** off, only to find that it isn't enough. I did say earlier that the top 5% are controlling everyone else, and until we have a true democratic/progressive socialist leadership, we are going to get more of the same.

AndyUK
Actually, I do understand the problem. However, sounds to me as if the solution is to focus on changing the companies' policies that cause them to lower wages of "legal" residents, or fire them altogether in favor of cheap a "illegal" labor force. So, in reality, most xenophobes are responding to the RESULTS of corporate policies and indeed blaming those who are willing to work for next to nothing for the benefit of a very few rich/ultra rich who are generally anti-union (and who put both muscle and their considerable resources behind destroying unions and those individuals who demand to exercise their right to organize for worker protection).

I also understand being the recipient of unfairly low wages; and this has been my experience from the very beginning of my 20 year career. And yes, I DO have a bachelor's degree, so the low wage has nothing to do with my educational background or willingness to learn a new trade/skill set. I've worked my a*! off for most of my life; the only thing that separates my experience from most immigrants (legal or no) is that I've managed somehow to make a few pennies more than them. But the hard work ethic is the same...seems to me that's what many xenophobes ignore.

I'm sorry, my friend, but unchecked immigration is NOT the problem...it's UNCHECKED CORPORATE POWER.

CS

AndyUK -- while your cry for justice seems valid enough - unfortunately the very reasons you give also gives rise to feelings of antagonism against minorities and immigrants. The larger picture is repeatedly ignored. As long as you globalize capital and your corporations make huge profits they will NOT change their ways precisely because people like you turn on immigrants instead of acosting the real culprits--the corporations themselves.

I am Canadian and I only speak one language (though I know swear words in many). We did get French in school but too late for it to make a difference. Most linguistic people recommend kindergarten or earlier - though it seems that, after one has learned two languages that any subsequent language is easier to learn - something about synaptic pruning. Starting a second language in grade 5 or 6 just doesn't work. Now we have French Immersion which starts them earlier but that is only a few schools. When do schools start teaching Spanish?

RE: - But then, I was surprised conservative Bush-clone Stephen Harper somehow became your PM.

The Liberals had too many scandals and needed to be punished. Technically Harper only has a minority government and the only reason it hasn't fallen yet is because of the Liberals. At first the Liberals did not want another election until they had chosen a new leader and then the Liberals decided that they were not ready for an election. If Harper wants something bad enough, he makes it a "Confidence vote" (which means that the government falls and Canada is into an election if it is not passed).

The English Debate from the last Federal election (transcript):

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060109/ELXN_debate_transcript_060109/20060109/

Using edit/find look up the following words: scandal, corrupt,

The French Debate from the last Federal election (transcript in English):

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060109/ELXN_debate_transcript_060110/20060110/

A budget is automatically a Confidence Vote and there will be one in about ten days.

RE: - The Republicans have been trying to whip this up as a campaign issue the last few years, another distraction from their monumental failures,

Of course it is a distraction - they don't want voters to focus on the economy etc. The thing is that if any candidate running on behalf of Stephen Harper's Conservative Party used the word "islamofascist" in public the way McCain, Romney or Huckabee have, that candidate would no longer be representing the party. The Conservatives do whatever they can to avoid the label "racist." They Repugs would not be using that word repeatedly if they did not think that it was drawing people to them.

RE: - Ultimately, the survivors of this mess will be The Rainbow Tribe. I have heard it said and understood it to be that once your ancestors have been born and lived on "American" soil for more than 3 generations. It is the third generation that has the chance to be a part of The Rainbow Tribe of people. Or the generation Margaret Cho spoke of. It is separate from what your ancestors gave you, and it is connected to the truth of this place

Don't know much about Margaret Cho. Heard a different thing about third generations - the first generation is too different to assimilate, the second generation can and does and the third generation reclaims their culture from their grandparents. Not sure if that is similar or not.

Here rainbows tend to be associated with the gay rights movement. How many of the candidates running for President from either party have ever attended a gay pride parade? Attending gay pride parades tend to be very popular even among straight politicians here.

From what I can gather from Cho, rainbows symbolise multi-culturalism?

funeocons Said on February 13th, 2008 9:52 pm: "elmysterio - yes, we should all be critical thinkers — but unfortunately, we aren't born that way."

So what you're saying is that it's perfectly acceptable to blindly follow what TV tells us? That really makes me seriously question the intelligence of you people. You seem to blame everything but yourselves and refuse to take responsibility for your ignorance. It's TV's fault. It's our education's fault. At what point does it become your own fault for NOT meeting your responsibility as a citizen of a so called democracy to QUESTION things?

Soeharto Said on February 14th, 2008 12:26 am: "Great article. But I am sick and tired of non-Americans posting to this Thread."

Why is that? Because we think outside your little Americanized bubble? It's unfortunate but true... but since you Americans seem hell-bent on exporting your crap around the world, what happens in the US is of concern to us all. I wish it wasn't true. I wish that US would stay within it's borders and be a responsible member of the international community but since you insist on American Exceptionalism, the rest of us have EVERY right to watch and comment on what you people are doing.

Vaudree, thanks for the detailed rundown on cultural clashes in Canada -- it's not the kind of thing the arrogant US media covers. While I've read about the Quebecois movement, and have friends who've told me how different Montreal is from Toronto, as well as something about the native groups, I never imagined all of the other cultural schisms that existed up north. But then, I was surprised conservative Bush-clone Stephen Harper somehow became your PM.

Vaudree: "What I don't understand about the United States is that the Hispanic language and culture seems very central to American history and yet everyone cries blue murder at the idea that stop signs should be in spanish and english."

Don't mistake volume for quantity here. The Republicans have been trying to whip this up as a campaign issue the last few years, another distraction from their monumental failures, but few Americans I've talked to really think it's such a big deal if govt. forms and signs are printed in more than one language, especially Spanish. Although, you're right -- Europeans and Candaians I've met were generally fluent in at least one other language than their own (with Europeans it's generally English) and most Americans seem to have trouble mastering their own tongue. (Yes, Bush being prima facie evidence.) But then, our conservatives have been dumbing down our public school system for thirty years, so I guess it's to be expected. Paint yourself red, white and blue and wave that big foam 'No. 1' finger while your job goes overseas, your house is foreclosed on, your dollar crashes, and your government spends you into debt unto the next three generations. Many of us are waking up though; hence the across-the-board unpopularity of Bush Junior and the Republican Party.

Our reduced status in the world, both economically and miltarily, is what we deserve and may jolt the US into some needed circumspection. I'm inclined to be cynical, but there may be hope for your fatuous southern cousins yet, just starting to emerge from the fog of Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism.

Ultimately, the survivors of this mess will be The Rainbow Tribe. I have heard it said and understood it to be that once your ancestors have been born and lived on "American" soil for more than 3 generations. It is the third generation that has the chance to be a part of The Rainbow Tribe of people. Or the generation Margaret Cho spoke of. It is separate from what your ancestors gave you, and it is connected to the truth of this place, now. A future peoples in a sense. Bound by a love and deep regard for this land. That is why I dont want to move no matter how fearful I am of what could come and what is. I am willing to be a peaceful one that may inherit the Earth. God/Goddess willing. I wish all the warring people would leave already and go live in their mall societies on Mars.

Ok, here's the deal with English language Only in America, of course this is only one American, California specific, person's p.o.view: I think we should be multi-lingual in the way others are. We are really missing the boat. We do teach Spanish in California schools, but I would not say the average person is bilingual. Most people know a few words - enough to survive if they had to I guess.
There is a deeper thread to this and that is we basically abhor things that isolate people into exclusive groups other than the one common one we all supposedly share - People get really angry if you are hanging out and two people start in another language that excludes the others - that really seems to upset Americans. They dont want to be left out and yet they want everybody to speak their own language that they understand. Wow, that does sound selfish, childish.

Thanks CD for the opportunity to write and give greater thought to these pressing issues of our times.

Peace all.

I think that when Tony Blair was first elected, people thought that he was less like John Major and Margaret Thatcher than he truly was. At least I think a few people in Canada were fooled into thinking he meant something quite different than what he did by "the third way" and presume it is the same over there. Know next to nothing about Gordon Brown nor how to get a hold of the transcripts for Prime Minister's Questions.

It wasn't so long ago that when one got a job one could be expected to stay there for life. I don't think that job security is something the big corporations want for us.

From what you have said (or what I can gather from it) the immigration issue is not just one issue but many issues - that there are immigrants with varying degree of skills and official welcome coming over. Some are welcome overtly and some are welcomed covertly by those who are hiring those not legally allowed to work in the UK.

Speaking of culture - Canadians would never dream of putting a swimming pool right next to a curling rink - yet that is what they do in Scotland (the place where curling was invented). The humidity makes the rock go straighter and stick at unexpected places.

There will be curling all weekend here.

Hockey beats soccor hands down here - and I don't see how anyone would make issue of a hijab in hockey.

Vaudree: I agree with much that you have said, so I won't quote you, but although there are many English (UK - Scottish, Welsh and Irish) nationalists, who would like to live in a country where fish and chips, or boiled beef and carrots is the traditional food, or you support your local soccer team and get drunk and trash a town, I am not among their number. I believe that nationalism of any kind, can lead to racial, religious or cultural tension.
I work and socialise with people from different races, cultures and religions, but they all have one thing in common, they all live and work on what I would call a "level playing field". We all get grumpy about the government and the Iraq war, and we all feel uneasy about an increasing elderly population, and about adequate pension provision.
The only people who are safe at the moment, in our current economic situation, are the lawyers, bankers, heads of business and politicians.
I still have fifteen to twenty years to work, and I don't know if I will keep a permanent job for that time, or if it will be one contract after another. My wife and friends are in the same position. We have all paid our taxes and played the system according to the rules.
The new arrivals over the past 36 months, are not having to play to any rules, and the tension is building. I do not blame the immigrants, but the government, who have enabled them, in order to massage the employment figures, and claim that immigration really does benefit the country.

"Am I really a racist, or am I standing up and trying to save something that you know can be lost forever?" - Herman Bittner

Herman Bittner created a calendar where he punned the words "sick" and "Sikh" so I would think so.

Strange how Naomi Klein's name comes up no matter what you are talking about. Klein's father came to Canada to avoid the Vietnam war. Her husband's great grandfather came to Canada because he was threatened by the Russians for being active in Polish labour union activities. If their families never came to Canada, they probably never would have met. Her husband's family is more famous than Naomi Klein herself in Canda.

RE: - Also another spoke of honoring and making some formal statement regarding the genocide of the first people that were here.

Probably David Grayling about Rudd's recent formal apology. Eric Robinson co-wrote the book "The infested blanket : Canada's constitution, genocide of Indian nations" in 1985. Here is a short blurb about Eric Robinson:

http://www.gov.mb.ca/minister/mincult.html

Number 27 on the list of 100 Greatest Canadians - which brings the point - who do you have in your country who is famous for sticking up for cultural plurality?

TECUMSEH 1768-1813
Like an early Martin Luther King, the Shawnee chief had a dream: a dream of a pan-Indian movement and enough land to guarantee his people's way of life. His support of Brock's attack on Detroit ensured Brock's victory, but ultimately, did not further his own.

RE: - Indian casinos are not reparations for the genocide. It reeks more of payoff for the few who sold out to th Euros.

It is a means of creating job opportunities without leaving the reserve - that is all. It is a choice between the problems associated with an influx of gamblers and the problems associated with high unemployment. However, I think that the start up costs came from less homes being built for two years until the casino started making money - so there was an initial increased cost of poor and insufficient housing but later the community gets its own hockey rink.

RE: - I mean look how many Iraq refugees need shelter and we have allowed a shamefully small amount of these truly beleaguered people.

These kind of refugees that are escaping war or persecution don't seem to count if they are from countries that the US is friends with. The US is supporting the government it installed in Iraq so letting Iraqis come to the US is like admitting that this government if either impotent or culpable (or both). To let a whole bunch of Iraqis into the US would make it look like the US mission is failing, don't you think?

And through the SPP (ie NAFTA on steroids) the US is trying to get Canada to harmonize our immigration policies with theirs. We tend more for family reunification and refugees from violence than the US but our standards for letting in economic refugees are fairly strict - we have to have a shortage of trained workers in the field.

RE: - We need to seriously look at the causes of this and address them, rather than blaming or criminalizing the immigrants.

Edwards plan about going after employers is a good one for getting at the problem - which is employers exploiting undocumented workers. If you are undocumented, you can't complain about working conditions because then you will be deported. But if it is your boss who can get in trouble for hiring you, there will be no job to come to and no power that the boss can hold over you to keep you from sticking up for yourself.

Bill Blaikie started criticising the Free Trade agreement between Canada and the US in 1987 for the lack of worker protections in it. In Mexico, you can be arrested for trying to start a union.

http://www.billblaikie.ca/taxonomy/term/49

Heard Obama say it the other day that future trade agreements will have worker and enviromental standards incorporated into them. Didn't John Edwards say it before he did?

RE: - I was exposed to Chinese racists and yet in the end my view sounds terrible and I am not happy about it.

Racism comes in all flavours. Just think of how easily Jane Elliott created racism in her classroom just by dividing kids into brown-eyed and blue eyed children.

RE: - Vaudree, one of the things that has kept the US, Canada and Europe growing was the symbiotic assimilation of other cultures — it worked both ways: we changed them and they changed us.

Yeah. But Canada* is a newer country which defined ourselves in the negative. Once Canada stopped seeing itself as British, it has always defined itself as being something distinct from both the UK and the US. Since the Canadian culture was defined in such a way, anything that made Canada even more different from the US and the UK was easier to embrace. This is the way Trudeau sold multiculturalism and why Canada sees itself as a mosaic rather than a melting pot (even after Canada's melting pot history. When we had perogies with our roast beef instead of mashed potatoes it made us different from England.

England saw themselves as having a distinct well-defined culture before the more recent waves of immigration, so they see any modification of that culture as more of a threat. In a way, Quebec is more like Europe in this regard because, unlike other parts of Canada, Quebecers see themselves as having a distinct culture that exists no where else on earth and which was always in danger of being eroded by what they saw as the english influences in the rest of Canada and the United States. They were able to maintain their cultural identity despite anglo influences and there is a tendency to see non-english non-french cultures as the new enemy of culture - which is why they are behaving more like France than they have for over two hundred years.

Native and Inuit cultures are in between. There are some Native Persons, most notably David Ahenakew (who criticized Hilter's -er - inefficiency concerning his treatment of the Jewish) who see other cultures as a threat to themselves. There are other Native people who remember that the original tradition (which was common in polytheism) was when two tribes became friends, their gods became friends and their cultural traditions intermingled.

The changing each other approach is the approach associated with the tradition of polytheism. Monotheism, on the other hand, only allowed for one god or one set of beliefs rather than the intermingling (ie corruption) of belief - and sees the presence of two sets of beliefs and always being opposed to each other.

In Canada, cultural polytheism is born from the tradition of cultural duality. First the native people questioned whether it was really a duality of founding nations, since they considered themselves one of the founding nations of Canada. Then the Metis people said that they were the only true Canadians because everyone (even the Native Peoples through the Bering Strait) came from elsewhere - and the Metis were the only people who were never anything else than Canadian. And then other groups stepped in. And then other children of mixed identities felt, like the Metis, that they were distinct from their pureblood ancestors and stopped claiming only one of their identities.

And then Folklorama came along in 1970 - which is a celebration of cultures. You had Baba wanting you to learn Ukrainian dancing and Gran wanting you to learn Highland Scottish dancing and the one that was the best at getting their way got their cultural folk dances passed down to the next generation.

And then Toddish McWong invented a joint Chinese New Years Robbie Burns celebration which is a mixture of both Chinese and Scottish traditions - which was probably partially influenced by the Metis culture which had French, Scottish, Irish and Native elements to it.

And then you had Baltej Singh Dhillon, who fought to be the first RCMP officer to be allowed to wear a turban and won in 1990. Not that there wasn't a racist backlash and calendar:

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-73-614-3302-10/on_this_day/politics_economy/sikh_mounties_turban
What I don't understand about the United States is that the Hispanic language and culture seems very central to American history and yet everyone cries blue murder at the idea that stop signs should be in spanish and english. This is the one thing that makes the US different from both Europe and Canada. In Europe, they have no problem with other languages being used and tend to learn more than one fluently before leaving school. Canada, most of us only know english, but are a bit more tolerant of other languages than the US is.

Thus, Europe seems to fear the cultural change rather than the linguistic which happens when you speak more than one language - or are exposed to more than one language.

I think there is a point too. someone mentioned teaching the people who arrive here about Turtle Island. Also another spoke of honoring and making some formal statement regarding the genocide of the first people that were here. Ultimately these first people belonged and belong here because of a deep love and connection to the Earth herself and that love is what this place needs. When the Europeans found America, the whole country was like a garden that had been lovingly tended.

Indian casinos are not reparations for the genocide. It reeks more of payoff for the few who sold out to th Euros. Look at the real spiritual native people, they are still being run off their land!

That is a very good point you make about what Margaret Cho said, RSJ.
I blame our govt. I mean look how many Iraq refugees need shelter and we have allowed a shamefully small amount of these truly beleaguered people. There seems to be no limit to the chinese millionaires, who happen to vote Republican, that are allowed to come here. However, I even feel for them. They come here to a neighborhood with a long history of social change and believe me, it is not their comfort zone. They are very intimate with an oppressive govt and probably miss the order of that kind of society. They are very confused because they think waving the little flag makes them patriotic and therefore Safe. They arrive here at the peak of their success and imagine what it takes to be a millionaire in China - to be just another American in a very expensive city. Their millions buy them a modest house and car here. Dont get me wrong they are doing better than many, but I dont think it bought them the status they imagined.

Thanks for the many insights on this subject. We just have to keep our planet together. I hope we can evolve to that place where most people "get it". Good planets are hard to find. Ultimately we are one human race and our survival will depend on working together.

Bring back community gardens - on every block. The common good for all can break down these barriers.

Btw, I Love riding in a car full of friends, it reminds me of fun times!

Vaudree, one of the things that has kept the US, Canada and Europe growing was the symbiotic assimilation of other cultures -- it worked both ways: we changed them and they changed us. In those parts of the world with closed societies, such as some countries in the Middle East and Asia, they have a homogenous culture, but are also stuck in the 12th century.

Barksnotbites, sadly, racism and ignorance are universal but, as Margaret Cho once pointed out, by the second or third generation, most people think their bigoted ancestors are nuts.

AndyUK, the same sort of thing is happening in the US, all the more reason these immigrants should be made citizens, as they were in the past in America. The problem is not the immigrants, the problem is multi-national corporations, with government sanction, eviscerating our manufacturing base and sending our jobs overseas to make bigger profits for Wal-Mart and their ilk. For only a small increase in the price, we could still have goods made in our own countries by our own people and have self-sustaining and healthy economies instead of the 'disaster capitalism' that the Corprocracy practices.

Still and all, look at the life of the average person in the West these days compared to the way things were a hundred years ago. Progress has been slow but substantial. Now we just have to make sure those in Asia and elsewhere have the same pay and opportunities as we do in the 'first world'; that would mitigate immigration problems by ending this ruinous and brutal international competition for cheap labor.

I am not talking about skilled/professional people, who will work for the same wages as British people, I am talking about ECONOMIC MIGRANTS from Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. The UK cannot sustain the present levels of immigration, particularly given the state of the economy.
I am married to somebody who came here from abroad, was told that they did not recognise her science degree, so she took a Masters degree here. She works for the same rates of pay as someone who was born here. She has to, because she pays the same taxes, insures her car, and is an example of fair competition for any British person.
There are towns and villages in Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Albania, which have no young workforce, because they decide to come to the UK, because our minimum wage is a fortune to them.
If the majority of people posting here cannot see the problem, then without wishing to be nasty, I hope that one day, you or your children, will not be able to afford to buy or rent a house in the country where you were born, because developers or landlords, will be inflating the property market. The chances are that more families will be forced to house share, resulting in slum neighbourhoods.
The new wave of migrants are being exploited by employers, because they are off the radar. They do not pay council tax, they are not on the electoral role, they do not pay tax and insurance on vehicles, they never incur fines because they cannot be traced.
They are living in conditions, which UK citizens would not accept, and they are working for wages which we cannot live on.
Why is this happening in the 5th largest economy in the World?

Many people, instinctively, see overpopulation, not immigration as a problem. It just so happens that as they drive through their crowded streets to their crowded stores, they don't notice all the one cars with the one white persons all over, they notice the Hispanic family or the carload of Hispanic construction workers. You become noticable if you like your extended family or you enjoy the company of your coworkers. This is not a white trait. This is a "minority" trait. For what ever reason some "types of people" actually like "others of their kind". At the heart of it, though, I think many people believe there are too many people. Don't worry, though, the neocons have a plan to depopulate the planet. A better solution would be to depopulate the neocons. Just kidding Mr Chaney.

I grew up in Hollywood, CA. Talk about immigrants. Everybody in that town was from somewhere else and everybody following a dream. It was a dont ask dont tell kind of town. I was used to being around every nationality on this Earth and had friends of every kind of pursuasion. However...I had to leave S.F. because Xenophobia overcame me and it was horrible. We moved to the neighborhood that my family had a long history in. My parents had met there and my granmother, a musician, owned houses out near the Cliff house and the beach. We moved there a few years ago and it was a nightmare. Ok, I am sorry to even talk about it , but here goes, the People of Hong Kong have taken over that neighborhood and as their own country becomes polluted they are moving there en masse. As my friend said they are the only culture that migrates in a "closed society". White people are white devils and they spit when you walk past(the old ones) and not a single one will smile. When the war was about to start and everyone (non-chinese) was out in the street protesting the war. These Hong/Kongers were visibly absent. They all waved little American flags and it got me thinking that all the rich a%%holes from other countries come here and they are still a%%holes. In fact I think it was a plot to destroy that neighborhood of working class homeowners and import Republican voters in masses to replace the former democratic union types. I am writing this as somewhat of a confessional because on the one hand I dont want to talk about it and I speak to no one about this because it goes against my true universal one world belief and on the other hand this is a serious subject. I was exposed to Chinese racists and yet in the end my view sounds terrible and I am not happy about it. I moved and I need to live where I am happy and can feel peace. I live in a very culturally mixed area of California and I am most comfortable with a mix of everybody. I get nervous when there is too many of anybody and that includes white people and I am one of them.

Forced, 'illegal' immigration (aka economic refugees) is a tragedy for everyone involved. We need to seriously look at the causes of this and address them, rather than blaming or criminalizing the immigrants. Many are also fleeing violence and environmental degradation, and this will only increase if we stay the course we are on. I whole heartedly believe in human liberty and that we should all be free to live where we please. I for one am American and I hate this fu**ing country, but we aren't any 'freer' than the next guy to just go and live where ever we feel would best jive with our values and tastes. But to be forced from one's home because of the reckless acts of corporations or governments is a serious human rights violation and those creating the conditions should be prosecuted.

Obama came out against NAFTA today. I think I can live with him.

Sounds like someone has a good PR firm!

The native people call what we did to them in residential schools as "cultural genocide" (excluding the other things that happened at those schools. They were not allowed to speak their language or practice their cultural traditions.

Seems that cultural genocide is a means of maintaining cultural purity. Otherwise, when cultures mix what result is something new and different than what existed before. The little white haired ladies are trying to preserve something unaltered that they figure that any alteration of it is an eradication of it.

Fearing the other is basically the fear of eating one's roast beef with perogies or rice rather than mashed potatoes. Fearing the other is about the fear of modifying tradition.

Be glad culture is accepted

Why is it so hard for some people to accept that a Muslim girl was asked to remove her hijab in a judo competition for safety reasons?

Does this young woman realize she should be thankful she is allowed to wear her hijab? She should be thankful they are only refusing her hijab in a sports competition.

Fifty years ago in this country, my mother was forced to cut her hair off during her time in residential school. My mother was an original inhabitant of this land, yet as an aboriginal person was forced to assimilate and christianize. It was a cultural genocide that is only starting to reverse itself.

So to all the immigrants out there who want to wear their hijabs, etc. -- please do not forget that you can have your cake and eat it too in this great Canadian melting pot. Nobody is forcing you to leave your culture at the door when you enter our great country -- unlike my ancestors who were forced to give up their own not so long ago.

DONNA PRATT

Eric Robinson was a former First Nations chief before entering provincial politics.

National body to look at hijab issue

Mon Dec 10 2007, WPG Free Press

By Joe Paraskevas

THE case of a Manitoba girl, prohibited from competing in a judo tournament last month because she wore a traditional Muslim headdress, could have implications at the national and international levels of the sport, Sport Manitoba president Jeff Hnatiuk said.

Officials with Judo Manitoba, the organization that oversees the sport locally, met recently with Hagar Outbih, her family and her coach, and now plan to take Outbih's case to the national judo body, Hnatiuk said.

From there, Outbih's banishment from a tournament at Windsor Park Collegiate on Nov. 17 could reach international judo officials responsible for setting the rules of the 19th-century martial art.

"Judo (Manitoba) has made the indication that they will have some further discussions at their national body around this issue and see if there can be any kind of changing to an international rule or regulation," Hnatiuk said.

Briefed on the Nov. 26 meeting between Outbih's family and provincial sports officials, Hnatiuk said national judo officials are aware there is a growing list of such cases involving athletes who wear the hijab, the traditional headdress Outbih was wearing the day she was denied the chance to compete.
In the wake of the incident at Windsor Park, Manitoba Sports Minister Eric Robinson ordered officials to look into the issue, in an effort to examine how sports reconcile competition and the wearing of religious clothing.

Hnatiuk said Outbih's family understood that judo officials based their decision to bar Hagar on safety concerns. In turn, he said, officials are seeking to understand how religious beliefs and the desire to play sports can be accommodated.

This great article by Pat LaMarche really resonated with me: I've met several otherwise sane people who sometimes spew the weirdest, most nationalistic, religiously perverted tripe I've ever heard.

There's the Nice Guy Christian who told me seriously that Jesus approved of the death penalty. Really? Where did you get that notion? "Look at the way he died." Oh, and Jesus never intended that 'turn the other cheek, forgive your enemies' stuff should apply to nations; just individuals. The NGC couldn't recall exactly what part of the Bible contained that revelation, but he swore it was in there. (Perhaps the Book of King Junior, Chapter 1, Verse 1, of the Robertson Revised Version?)

Then there's the sweet little white-haired lady who said that John Kerry, had he been elected, was planning on turning over the United States to Al-Qaeda. Where did she get that bizarre idea? "It's well known in Washington."

And the young mother who was outraged that her kids in public school were being taught by "pedagogues." I told her a pedagogue is another name for a schoolteacher. Turns out she didn't like them either, "They sit on their butts and make a fortune for doing nothing." Yet somehow her kids learned to read, write and do math anyway. "Oh, hell, they can get that from TV."

I have also been assured that this country was founded a Christian nation, regardless of the rejection of Christianity by Enlightenment types like Jefferson, Franklin and Paine, et al, and that the separation of church and state means that the government should stay out of religion, but not that religion should stay out of government. Moreover, "religious teaching should guide the government in everything it does." I am still searching for that part of the Constitution.

There have also been the occasional conversational forays into killing all the Muslims before they kill us -- yep, a mass genocide of over one billion human beings because an organization with fewer than 50,000 members attacked us on 9/11; the well-worn GOP theme that lower taxes and a larger military would work without running a deficit, if only the Democrats would stop giving away all our money to the poor; and the insistence that all liberals basically "hate America." (Thank you, Ann Coulter.)

Finally, the one that really floored me was the middle-management white woman who was all for NAFTA, CAFTA and all of the other 'free trade' job-stealing acronyms, and especially fiercely anti-union. Turns out her father was an auto worker, and the only way she was able to go to college was thanks to his strong union making sure he received a decent wage and benefits for his work. When confronted with this, she didn't bat an eye, pulling the ladder up with her as she said: "That was then, this is now. American workers are going to have to learn to get along without unions and be more competitive in the new free trade world economy." That was in 2001.

I read last year that her company was closing it US headquarters, eliminating white-collar staff in this country as it shifted its operations to Asia for a cheaper executive-level labor force. I can't help but wonder what she thinks of the 'new free trade world economy' now?

RE: - I live in the UK, a small island, with a population of 60 million. We have an estimated 2-3 million immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe, who have arrived in the last couple of years

AndyUK - are you talking about the Ukrainians and the Poles and the Croatians and the Serbians and the Slovenians and the Hungarians and the Romanians - some of these the lands of hockey players! While you do hear some Ukranians or Poles whose families were here for three or four generations complain about those who have come more recently, they have basically intermarried and are no longer considered immigrants here.

BTW - did you know that Randy Bachman of the Guess Who and BTO is Ukrainian? So are hockey players Vicky Sunohara and Jordin Tootoo (among many others) media guru George Stroumboulopoulos and comic Luba Goy. And I don't want to list all the Ukrainian Canadian Politicians from the left or from the right. The most famous Canadian of Serbian Descent is Ben Mulroney, son of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

RE: - In reading the new posts, I've noticed something else…the xenophobes rarely/never mention European immigrants (except AndyUK who mentioned eastern Euros). Why is that, I wonder?

The same reason Canadians rarely mention Mexicans - the proximity. Can you imagine a Canadian complaining about "those damned yankies" sneaking across the border? The only time that happens is when one talks about gun control.

RE: - Both my wife, and myself have personally experienced our wages falling steadily, whilst employers are more than willing to employ somebody at a fraction of the cost.

If it wasn't the Slavics it would be the Irish - and it used to be the Irish.

And it seems that both the Irish and the Russians had "Potato famines" - while the Brits and the Russians never had to go without their mashed potatoes. Strange how this is.

RE: - English

Strange how both the US and the UK tend to discourage the speaking of other languages.

This is Akina Shirt singing Canada's National Anthem in Cree
http://youtube.com/watch?v=POXu1fl3Zwg

This is the leader of the NDP (like your Liberal Democrats) wishing Canadians a happy Chinese New Years - in Cantonese:

http://www.ndp.ca/page/6155

Why don't we hear the American or British national anthems only in english? Why don't we hear British or American politicians speaking in more than just english?

gads, it's tragic, but i am inclined to believe that we are at a point in the evolution of the human spirit where there is a split - between those of us who operate from a position of love and light and those who live in the fearful dark. poor things. unfortunately for us, we have to live with them for now.

fear not! there ARE more of us than them and it's our challenge and opportunity to continue to accept them and love them and offer them the light of real truth; that they will be loved in spite of their INCREDIBLE STUPIDITY.

Some people here need to update thier concepts of immigration. It is big business and and there are world brokers.

CocoaSwann: you are from the US, and I don't expect you to understand the problem which we face from UNCHECKED IMMIGRATION. You have a population of 300 million, so imagine if you had an influx of 10 - 15 million immigrants over a period of three years. I will let you do the maths on this one, because I guess that everyone on this board is intelligent enough to realise, what effect that will have on wages, healthcare and education. Both my wife, and myself have personally experienced our wages falling steadily, whilst employers are more than willing to employ somebody at a fraction of the cost.
We are constantly told that the reason why we need migrant workers, is because they do the jobs which the English will not. The truth is, that they will work for minimum wage (or even lower), because they are often living crammed into rented accommodation, which then creates ghettos.
The only people benefiting from this situation are:
The employers - cheap, scared workforce.
Landlords - ready market for cheap cramped dwellings.
My wife is a scientist and I am an accountant, and this is not based on irrational fear, but of events which are unfolding now.
I look back at comments from Provoice, and see that he identifies the problems exactly as they are happening.

RE: - It IS her fault. Unless of course that she's mentally retarded or 5 years old or something

Now we are getting into American stereotypes here! ;)

Half serious. Remember the Predacon Quickstrike and the Maximal Silverbolt from Beast Wars - strange that Quickstrike had a Texan accent. America has a racist history slightly worse than Canada's and politicians willing to awaken those latent racist tendencies, amplify them and exploit them for personal gain. You listen to McCain or Romney or Huckabee and they all use the word "Islamofacist" as if they are at war against the whole religion. The closest we have to that in Canada is the phony veiled voting scandal in Quebec. Seems that only 15 veiled women voted in the last Quebec election and all were willing to remove their veil before voting (discretely and to another woman).

The thing is I can't tell whether this whole thing was to stir up Islamophobia in Quebec or to disallow people from voting who don't have picture ID. Unless I can find my old student card from 10 years ago, I don't have ANY photo ID.

RE: - AND what makes you think that Canada wants people like that?

Harper wants people like that. In fact, Bob Rae (aka the naked guy), though he personally finds such people repulsive, would not mind Xenox voting in the coming by-election for the riding of Toronto Centre since his major opponent is El-Farouk Khaki an openly gay immigration lawyer.

by-election=mini election between elections for a specific voting district(s) which occurs between elections.

Bob Rae
http://www.bobrae.ca/
El-Farouk Khaki
http://www.elfaroukkhaki.ca/issues.php

RE: - You have to realize that when multi generational local people loose thier jobs to illegal immigrants that work for 1/4 the going wage

Why aren't they working for the full going wage and who benefits from that fact that they aren't? Seems as if there is a tendency to blame those who are allowing themselves to be exploited worse than "whitey" allows him/herself to be exploited rather than the exploiters - how convenient!

RE: - Yes some people are racist but others are concerened for thier own welfare, whats the sin in that?.

Divide an conquer - this goes way back to Adam who divided womankind into Lilith and Eve and then sat back and watched Lilith and Eve engage in their little catfight. When there are more workers than jobs, an employer can get away with paying less so why would an employer want a situation where there is a shortage of workers! One day Lilith and Eve woke up and decided to form their own union and lobbied Adam for a living wage and proper working conditions.

Toddish McWong (Todd Wong's) family has been here in Canada for at least a century and a half and people who are first or second generation from the US or UK accuse them of being immigrants. And what happens when you have immigrants - do racists fear the mixing of cultures - the haggis filled spring roll etc!

Gung Haggis Fat Choy!
http://www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com/blog/_archives/2008/1/20/3477505.html

As funeocons says: as long as we can blame our troubles on the 'other', we won't blame the little band of elites that we are supposed to admire and aspire to become.

RE: - The government should make sure there are enough jobs for all here before importing new stresses on the sysytem.

If the government does screen economic refugees for job skills there will still be those who go all Marc Lepine complaining that all the women or all the (insert group) are taking all the good jobs and leaving people like him with a shitty underemployed future.

Most of those Mexicans who came to Windsor as economic refugees won't become citizens - they were misled and (often financially) exploited by those who told them that they would be.

RE: - Think about how many intelligent, critical thinking adults trick their children into believing the most monstrous lie in the world — Santa Claus.

Now you are starting to sound like my elder son! And Muslims play along also because they see Christmas not so much as a religious holiday but as a Canadian holiday.

RE: - As for me, I have no intention of moving to Canada, whether Canadians want me there or not. The reason why is because if I do there will be one less person to vote against our manipulative big

Who says that you have to give up your American citizenship when you come to Canada! I'm sure that many of the War Resisters from the US who want to stay in Canada will still maintain their right to vote in America elections.

In reading the new posts, I've noticed something else...the xenophobes rarely/never mention European immigrants (except AndyUK who mentioned eastern Euros). Why is that, I wonder?

And my Q to you AndyUK is: how exactly have the eastern Euro immigrants affected you DIRECTLY? Or is your comment based on your fear of what "could" happen? Frankly, your argument sounds EXACTLY the same as the anti-affirmative action jokers here in the states....

Also, I happen to LOVE the international input on this discussion...especially canuckchuck!

CS

What a bunch of crap some of you are spewing. If the illegal immigrants didn't work cheap and take jobs most whities would never lower themselves to take then immigration would swoop down and send their asses back to whence they came. There are some trade such as the building trades that employee Mexicans (I am talking about socal here)that probably do lower the wages overall but its not like it takes a frigging mental giant to swing a hammer, besides if immigration was really interested they could stake out street corners these pesky brown people hang out at each morning waiting for the jefe to pick them to work that day. All of them pay taxes each and every purchase they make and I would bet that the lower price of your fruits and vegetables in the market more than makes up for the money spent on health care and education afforded to immigrants.

I'm Tsalagi, and i say stop immigration. Get rid of the "refugee" racket.

I think you have to question the validity of immigration:

http://www.republicoflakotah.com/why.html

Jruebl: glad to see that someone on here is not just being politically correct. There are serious problems when you ignore the effects of unchecked immigration. I live in the UK, a small island, with a population of 60 million. We have an estimated 2-3 million immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe, who have arrived in the last couple of years. There are no barriers, no checks, no work permits, nobody counting.
We have a minimum wage in the UK, about $10 an hour, and most of the immigrants work for that wage, irrespective of the job they do.
So, if any of you out there are teachers, scientists, nurses, plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, haulage drivers, you may want to think if you could survive on $20000 a year. Why am I asking you? Because if you are on $40000 a year, your job could be in danger, because somebody out there can dangle a big juicy carrot in front of your employer, and say "I can work for half of what the greedy, lazy English/Americans can"
I used to be very tolerant with regards to immigration, particularly people seeking asylum from war zones, but you have to take a view that letting everybody in doesn't work.
The UK is known as a "soft touch" in Europe, because of our policy towards immigrants. People know that they cannot just "perch" in Germany or France, because questions will be asked. Our government has welcomed immigrants, saying that it will benefit the economy, and drive growth?
The reality is, that unchecked immigration will drive down wages and living standards, and will only benefit the top 5% of the elite. The immigrants will not benefit the country (except in exceptional cases where they have specific skills), because they very often do not intend to stay.

If you think that xenophobia is a uniquely American disease, you either have not studied other nations or cultures, or you have not traveled outside of the United States, and you are therefore quite parochial and limited in outlook.

It is not very liberal or progressive or compassionate to demand lowered living standards for your or any other nation.

Do you want cheap labor to keep coming? Suppose I say, yes; I agree with you. We definitely need them to keep the oligarchy of wealth in place. We need them to keep feeding the war machine with soldiers. We need them to swell the ranks of our armed forces, so we can invade other countries. We need them to keep poor urban Blacks in their place. We need immigrants (legal and illegal) so that we can tell other countries that there is nothing we can do about global warming because people need jobs. Am I a progressive? Yes, of course.

By the way, anyone born in the United States is NOT an immigrant; and the majority of people living here were born here, so we are not a nation of immigrants and had no choice in the matter of what our great-grandparents did.

If foreigners got their opinions about Americans from Common Dreams, the rest of the world would think of America as the most enlightened, non-racist country on Earth. I want to thank everyone here for their heart felt comments. Keep up the good work!

There are extreme racists in this world that arent politicians, no big deal though i am only prejudiced against extremists religous followers

At one time I was one of those bleeding hearts who thought we should open all of our ports and borders to anyone who wanted to come live in this great land... and then I saw how that worked in reality.

First of all, my entire life we have already HAD programs that permitted foreign nationals to come here and work LEGALLY and then return home at the end of the harvest... at this moment we have 8 or 9 such programs allowing our farmers and corporations to LEGALLY bring people in from other countries to fill positions they are unable to fill with citizens, like the annual sugar cane harvest in South Florida, where Jamaicans come harvest the crop, and go home wealthy by Jamaican standards.

The problem is, many people are abusing the programs by offering the jobs at wages Americans can't live on... or by not even trying to fill them with American citizens. In fact, I know two IT professionals who were forced to train their foreign replacements!

To top all of that off, we have had a HUGE influx of workers here ILLEGALLY... who have not been checked for disease, mental illness or criminal records.

A National economy is very much like those boats coming from Haiti and Cuba... they get along fine as long as they are not overloaded... but if you put too many people in the boat, EVERYONE DROWNS.

We are drowning folks...

Great article. But I am sick and tired of non-Americans posting to this thread.

You cry bullshit on that, elmysterio? Okay. It's your right to do so.

But that woman is a victim, too, whether you want to admit it or not. And TV is a very powerful form of manipulation, whether you want to admit it or not. And all Americans aren't, as you put it, "bloody stupid."

As for me, I have no intention of moving to Canada, whether Canadians want me there or not. The reason why is because if I do there will be one less person to vote against our manipulative big corporation/military-industrial complex/corrupt politicians war machine. After all, they are the ones that are truly evil and stupid, not that little woman in Maine that so many people, including you and the author of this piece, seem to think of as a punching bag.

But, hey, this is just my opinion. Call it bullshit, if you want, but it's just as much my right to have it as it's your right to disagree with it.

"Xenophobia: no known cure. Symptoms generally untreatable. Disease is often fatal to innocent bystanders, but rarely to carrier. Best possible defense at this time is to avoid contact with carriers as much as possible. Especially essential is need to keep children from being exposed, as young people are extraordinarily vulnerable to this devastating mental illness."

This is simply brilliant !! Im gonna have to print this out and paste in on a certain persons office !!

elmysterio - yes, we should all be critical thinkers -- but unfortunately, we aren't born that way. Our education system discourages critical thinking, and the most powerful opinion-shaping, mind-controlling tools known to man are in the control of a few corporate giants who profit from war, and hence have an interest in promoting xenophobia. And as long as we can blame our troubles on the 'other', we won't blame the little band of elites that we are supposed to admire and aspire to become.

The thing about culture is that you don't pass it on by saying "this is how our culture is", it is passed on by saying "this is how things are, or "this is how the world is". Some of us were lucky as children and were permitted to question things or had life or educational experiences that allowed us to overcome this ignorance. But I think we all know people whose whole identity and security is tied to this faulty belief system, and no amount of evidence can crack that. Think about how many intelligent, critical thinking adults trick their children into believing the most monstrous lie in the world -- Santa Claus. It is so preposterous, and yet our entire culture plays along, despite knowing full well we will one day be caught in our lie. I am sure most people would say they believe it is wrong to deceive and lie to their children, and yet most of us do it. Why? This is the power of culture -- it is how we know who we are, identify with the tribe. It is easy to pick apart other people's Santa Claus's with logic and fact, but for the person who holds these beliefs, they can be difficult to let go of because they are part of their identity. It is like turning your back on your own people. So, rationality has very little to do with our beliefs. How many people here knock on wood?

Nice article Pat- It would be funny if I did not know so many people just like her, loving caring with their families and there communities, and hate mongers when it comes to everything out side their view of Eurocentric American World domination.

I moved to Maine, my crime? being from Massachusssets.

And about 80% of Mainers talk like that, even on Maine public TV shows.

You have to realize that when multi generational local people loose thier jobs to illegal immigrants that work for 1/4 the going wage, immigrants that compete for minimum wage jobs, social programs, live 20/25 to a house that would otherwise have the board of health condemn it if "Whitey" was living like that, then there is going to be a problem.

Jobless, homeless, foodless and facing -20 to -40F Winters is staring death in the eyes. Yes some people are racist but others are concerened for thier own welfare, whats the sin in that?.

The government should make sure there are enough jobs for all here before importing new stresses on the sysytem.

Anyone that wants to come up here all next Winter, tent in my back yard, try to find a job within a 2 1/2 hour drive, and eat leather is welcome to, I'll even let you use my shower, but I need $100 a month toward electric.

On a broader level "not my problem" is America's problem. No one cares about welfare reform or slashing social programs till they need them, and with the coming depression that will be soon. I've been shamed by progressives who believe in social programs in macrocosmic principal, but have a hard time with individuals like me who live on programs like SSI or welfare. You hear all this talk from nonprogessives about how they want the war to end because of the loss of American soldier's lives. No one seems to care about the over 1 million killed. Yuppies often talk of how they want the buying choice that exists in the US until they realize that lack of public funding has caused the infrastructure to crumble, and they have to wait in endless traffic to get from the suburbs to the city. Until we can find a way to get Americans to realize that all our problems are interconnected, and get them to think logically (why would Canada have less immigrants than the US?) we can't win any of our larger battles.

Love that response! I have one that I've used a few times myself:

"I agree, I think all legal and illegal immigrants should go back to where they came from. And children of illegals should go with them. And it should be retroactive. I think anyone who's ancestors weren't already here in 1492 should get the hell out of my country.

So. when are you leaving?"

Sorry, Canada don't take your kind....we are anti-fascist

ticonderoga Said: "It's not her fault. The fear she has was put into her (and other Americans) for the purpose of keeping the Iraq war going."

I cry bullshit on that. It IS her fault. Unless of course that she's mentally retarded or 5 years old or something. That's the problem... People are ignorant and they say "oh, it's not my fault... TV told me"... well if that's the case, by watching TV, one could get the impression that it's perfectly ok to rape and murder... so there's a good defense. "It's not my fault I murdered that man and raped his wife... TV said it was ok!". Bloody stupid Americans. AND what makes you think that Canada wants people like that?

Not my problem? I'm pink(white), I grew up with maids, black. I don't know poverty. I am from a priviliged class even if I have no money. My priviliges have allowed me to live well, better than 90% of the people of the world, if not more. I realize that my confort is the result of theft and abuse of those not in my class. The poverty of these people is indeed my problem, since I live comfortably from their exploitation. That is why I adopted someone from the ones we exploited and still exploit.

It is your problem.

RE: Travel is a good one. Go see other parts of the world and how other people live

Some tourist destination where the economy is based on catering to the tourists. Would probably reinforce the idea that Xenox has that she is superior to other people.

RE: Our Government has just apologized to the Indigenous People, the Aborigines, for stealing many of their kids and sending them to the joys of boarding schools and to unpaid labor in adoptive homes.

Kevin Rudd did a good thing - good in that it should have been done along time ago and good in that it looks good on his resume. There is no mention of finacial compensation for the residential schools in what I have read - is that coming?

Australia offers landmark apology to aboriginal people

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/02/12/australia-apology.html

Australia apologizes to Aborigines

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080213/australia_aborigines_080213/20080213?hub=...

National Chief's Final Speaking Notes - Indian Residential schools announcement

This is an important day. It is a day for celebration. It is perhaps even a turning point in the history of this nation.

As of today, a long, 150 year journey has come to an end. A journey of tears, of hardship and pain….. but also one of tremendous struggle and accomplishment . The Settlement Agreement marks the success of that journey.

The Settlement is symbolic. It is a symbolic offering from Canada which acknowledges the harm done to survivors of Indian residential schools and how very wrong it was to inflict that harm. It is not a government handout – far from it - …it is an admission of wrong doing and an attempt to make amends.

(continued)

http://www.afn.ca/article.asp?id=3788

Phil Fontaine, the elected Chief of the Assembly of First Nations is a survivor himself.

Well, I did have a bit of a problem with this article. Not everyone who is anti-immigration is a "xenophobe." In LA, I've seen first-hand the horrifying problems that illegal immigration has caused. We have large immigrant families who are malnourished. We have many immigrants who are hostile toward Enlightenment values and education.

It isn't as simple as calling anyone who questions immigration policy as being "hateful" or "racist." Excessive illegal immigration is harmful for all parties, including the immigrants themselves whose families are often tossed into the rotor-blades of the system.

We need to find a way for this to work for all parties. Illegal immigration, NAFTA, CAFTA, etc. is not working for anyone.

Xenophobia exists everywhere. In a nation of immigrants, it looks of course particularly strange. Although also indigenous peoples disliked other tribes (see Africa to this day).

There was a pretty successful anti-immigration party in America in the 19th century called "America First" which was probably the champion of those settlers who tried to keep most of today's xenophobes' poor ancestors away from America's shores..

Travelling helps a lot, that's true.

In Europe we 've noticed that the only Americans who seem to be able to afford to travel - and get enough vacation - are students or wealthy retirees, though. The middle-aged portion of the US population, i.e. the majority of the people, don't leave the country and if they do, they only can see the world thanks to the military, either by being stationed in any of the 100+ countries where the US for some reason have bases, or else by visiting a friend or relative who's stationed overseas. That's the general impression.

The military has its own schools and infrastructure, though, so military families live a life removed from the local population, those visitors basically just experience a Little America to the backdrop of some different scenery and have the occasional outing out of their base.

Considering the money burned in Iraq every year, I guess that the US government could afford to pay a year-long trip around the world for every single American for that amount and get a much better rate of return...

America is probably intellectually the most isolated country on earth apart from North Korea. Information flows out, true, but hardly anything flows the other way. And if it does and it's even registered, it's the desinformation that comes in via Fox.

American tourists asked us recently, when in Mexico, whether we had TV where we came from...(Our answer was: "Actually yes, but the reception in our cave is just horrible due to the humidity!")

Nevertheless: Xenophobia alas exists even when people are well-travelled, otherwise we wouldn't have it any more in Europe.

What the author describes as xenophobia is actually racism since the woman had no problems with Canadians. Unfortunately, true xenophobia, the fear of foreigners is also a serious problem and possibly for America an even more serious problem.

Xenophobia begins with nationalism - our nation is superior to all others and is boosted by right wing factions especially before war - the typical flag waving, anthems drums beating and sabre rattling. In fact, Americans should consider the superior Germans with their marches, anthems, and rallies prior to the second world war every time they engage in these activities.

No one is saying that you should not take pride in your country but the day you see it as perfect, the Declaration of Independance becomes meaningless and you are on the path to decay and corruption ready to be used by any power lobby willing to tell you how absolutely brilliant you are.

The Corporations don't care about national boundaries but unfortunately the unions do which is a pity really as Detroit becomes a ghost town and Americans drive Fords made in Brazil - The USA Unions should have gone global and cared about Brazillian auto workers.

It's time the American progressive movement realized that the world's progressive movement is fighting the same fight. It's not America's fault and so America can't win this one. It really is time to restrict flag waving to sports and for all fair-minded people to focus on saving the planet.

The true spirit of democracy says "Join us. We welcome you." As Herbert Muller observed, the noblest aspiration of mankind is to form himself into larger groups.

We need to teach this vein of sentiment as an antidote to the ubiquitous provincialism being deplored in these comments, but nobody seems to be advocating this point of view.

Shortly after WWII presidential candidate Wendell Willkie wrote "One World," and a movement arose. Whatever happened to it? A few declared people declared themselves 'citizens of the world.'

We have not moved forward since.

First I thought Xenophobia was a television show, you know the one where women wear revealing stuff from Ancient Times. Then I realized the article was about something else.

In Australia, we have a few Xenos...well, a lot really. Our Government has just apologized to the Indigenous People, the Aborigines, for stealing many of their kids and sending them to the joys of boarding schools and to unpaid labor in adoptive homes.

Of course, in Australia, it's hard to find non-black folk that aren't immigrants so there's no real basis for xenophobia of any kind. But humans are humans!

www.dangerouscreation.com

Only if people travel outside the usual places Americans travel, Europe, Mexico, Canada and the Carribbean. Few Americans go to the Middle East, Asia or Africa, these are my favorite places to visit but most Americans are xenophobic and afraid of these places :(.

COMarc: I agree that travel can open the open-mind (usually the young mind). However, on my own precious travels abroad, I have encountered such swathes of ugly Americans that I am to the point of feeling it would be better to entirely dissuade Yankees from international travel, generally. Students abroad is one thing, but the older, slightly-racist villagers who expect a Disneyworld version of whatever country they're in ...there's no hope for opening their minds. Same is true for within the US. A recent trip to Puerto Rico presented me with several ugly American shocks, despite my being in what was technically U.S. teritory! Shameless racism, complaining, obnoxiousness.

There's hope where young folks are concerned (if only every student could study abroad!), but the older folks who still haven't opened their minds are not going to ask forgiveness for not speaking the language.

ah, there are some cures for Xenophobia.

Travel is a good one. Go see other parts of the world and how other people live. Experience the feeling of being the person who "ain't from around here". By this I mean travel outside the US. Although even travel in the US is a good start. But its especially useful to travel outside the US and experience what its like to not even speak the language. Have fun trying to interpret signs you can't read. Or to try to interact with people who don't speak your language. When you have to beg forgiveness for the fact that you are in their country and don't speak their language, but you still need to buy something from their shop.

Short of that, simply being literate and well-read is a good start. Learn to experience the world from points of view other than your own.

Note of course that foreign travel and literacy are both sneered at by those who try to spread xenophobia. Someone who does either will be sneered at as efite pussy communist liberals that want to destroy an America that has the god given right and mission to be xenophobic monsters.

first of all, the use of the name Xena is an INSULT to the character...a completely open-minded character who was respectful of other cultures and peoples (after turning into a "good" warrior, that is).

secondly, i just LOVE the response the author has for the hateful xenophobic descendent-of-immigrants. i have to confess that there is not much that gets under my skin as much as descendents of immigrants complaining about the "evils of immigration." and frankly, most of the xenophobes are...wait for it...white. the absolute nerve of them! (sounds awful doesn't it? i don't like to make it seem like i hate white folks, it just gets irritating to deal with their hatefulness -- like Margaret Cho says, racism/xenophobia/sexism/homophobia is like being killed by thousands of papercuts)

Impatiently waiting for justice,
CS

With all the critics of immigration, you'd think those who think there's too many would connect American policies, foreign, economic, military, environmental and labor policies would reflect this.

Maybe with the ongoing drought areas in this country, we'll smarten up.

Not likely, but within the realm of possibilities.

" And let us move on in these powerful days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation." -Martin Luther King Jr., April 3, 1968.

Great article, Pat, but I really think that child needs a spanking.

She wants to move to Canada which prides itself in multiculturalism and has hate crime laws. She wants to move to Canada where the person who started the first gay rights group in Iran now lives and which the person who replaced him is now planning to move to?

She wants to move to a Canada which is still upset at what the Americans did to Maher Arar.

She'll probably want to vote Conservative (the most xenophobic of all the parties) - I wonder who her MP will be - Nina Grewal? Deepak Obhrai? Wajid Khan? Mike Chong? Rahim Jaffer or his wife to be Helena Guergis (I wonder if he is double booked whether he will get his assistant to stand in for him this time as well)?

That reminds me, the chances of her beloved son marrying outside Xena's area of comfort is quite high in Canada.

What makes this little woman take for granted that she is more deserving or wanted? She's white.

Ah, America....the home of the Brave. Personally, I think if there were not such a high percentage of closed minded greedy cowards in this country we would not be in such a mess. Killing everything that scares us is not going to make us safer, rather the other way around.
For a country full of people who think they are going to Heaven when they die, there surely is an unseeming hesitation to get on with it.

Veteran, '66-68

"What tribe are YOU from?"

So simple yet so powerful.

"What tribe are YOU from, asshole?" also works pretty good.

With a sly smile and delightful whimsey Pat LaMarche gets past all the emotion and pretense and shows prejudice for what it is--a childish immaturity unworthy of any adult. Great article!

Minnesota is the destination of choice for Somali refugees these days. With over 40,000, the one state has more than the whole of Canada. What the author left out was the number of large marches in Maine in support of the Somalian immigrants. Also the generous welfare and support payments and training that the immigrants are receiving. The Somalis don't choose these places because the people are awful, or its a lousy place to live.

Well, she will get along well with all the red neck racists that live here in Canada. It isn't different at the heart, maybe a little different in its display though. We are merging our immigration regulations with the US under the SPP and together the US and Can are making it very hard for refugees and not doing anything to foster compassion or acknowledge the true roots of Turtle Island.

In my hometown I grew up a block from the railroad tracks and back in that day the other side of the tracks meant that the poor or minority population was put there on the "the other side of the tracks." Not that we were rich, because we were as poor as those who were only one block away. Thank God I wandered back and forth over those tracks to my friends homes and learned a very diverse lesson in humanity and humility. I can't imagine the hate some people feel just because of a perceived difference due to culture or skin tones. All have been bleeding red since the beginning and it's the same thing all over. Maceo, Rodney. Darrell, Brian, Karen, Judy, Dianne, Geraldine and Vanessa are just some of the names I remember fondly from those early innocent days. All of those names are as colorless as the wind that gives us breath. People should get over their selves.

Reading the title, I expected an article on Ann Coulter.

We all know people like this. Puzzling how powerful irrational tribalism remains in a society that imagines itself both rational and e pluribus unum.

What this says, as maybe one poster above has hinted at, is that we are only a crisis away from producing something as evil as a genocide even in this country. Not my problem! Paul Tibbets, one of the fellows who dropped an atomic bomb on Japan, also used to say it. Amazing inhumanity.

My librarian friend in Pennsylvania is the same way. She talks so wonderfully about helping the local children with literacy programs, and is such a nice hostess. Then one day she snarled about the war in Iraq. "We'll show 'em who's boss. We need their oil so Al Queida doesn't get it! Anyone who doesn't think we need to kick butt and get control of oil is living in la-la land!"

They fear and hate the "other", and they worry about not having the upper hand at all times.

The irony is that she plans to move to Canada as what? AN IMMIGRANT,

Xenophobia: no known cure. Symptoms generally untreatable. Disease is often fatal to innocent bystanders, but rarely to carrier. Best possible defense at this time is to avoid contact with carriers as much as possible. Especially essential is need to keep children from being exposed, as young people are extraordinarily vulnerable to this devastating mental illness.

Though this is written with a touch of humor, I have to tell you that this story is echoed in neighborhoods all over America, and therefore very serious indeed. Very similar to my experience with my blue-eyed, petite and sweet, mother of four, active-in-the-community, God-fearing and church-going neighbor. Either that, or my neighbor must be little Xena's cousin or something.

When I first moved into my neighborhood, my neighbor seemed really kind, a family woman, very neighborly, the kind of person I'd want to befriend despite her frequent "as a Christian" conversation starters. Little by little though, the "not my problem" comments started happening. Then the love of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter came pouring out. Her ignorance is astounding, as is her readiness to believe any simplistic filth to explain away the complex problems of today. Through her example, I now understand how the Nazis corrupted "ordinary Germans" to their evil plans. And how it could and does happen all over again. I think she is the kind of person who would turn someone over to homeland security on a simple suspicion, and shut her heart and mind to their pain afterwards, thinking all along that she had done her patriotic duty. She is a happy citizen of George Orwell's 1984 -- gladly in service to Big Brother. And she is every where.

Xenophobia, like most right wing tactics, is impervious to logic. Careful psychological research goes into channeling the anger and resentment for one's falling standard of living to those who have even less power. It is a well tested strategy used by the powerful against the rest of us.

I also know a little woman, about 5' tall. Her husband is also about six inches taller than she is. Her problem, however, isn't xenophobia. Instead it's that her greatest desire is also her greatest fear:

She has a beautiful, intelligent, warm-hearted daughter who absolutely loves children and who is going to college to become a grade-school teacher. She knows that her daughter would be a wonderful mother, and would dearly love to have grandchildren, but she is terrified that her daughter's children, should she ever get married and have any (which she almost certainly will), will inherit a world that's not fit for them to live in, thanks to what the Bush administration is doing to the world.

How sad it is that the dreams and hopes of so many of us little people should be tarnished so that the bank accounts of so few can be enlarged. This applies to the little woman in Maine, too: she is actually contemplating moving to Canada because the Bush administration has instilled in her an unrealistic fear of outsiders. It's not her fault. The fear she has was put into her (and other Americans) for the purpose of keeping the Iraq war going. How heartbreakingly sad is that?

That vignette is typical of the narcissistic. close the door behind us mentality that has taken over a lot the USA. It is also futile, as there are too many powerful factors working against her: employers needing cheap labor being the most prominent. Its' also part of the thinking that actually believes that a higher wall can stop illegal immigrants, when history has shown that no wall can ever stop a determined attacker (ask the Chinese about the ultimate effectiveness of the Great Wall versus the Mongols & Manchus). What is dangerous is what these people's reaction will be when they see the futility of their position.