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.

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?

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.

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: 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

"What tribe are YOU from?"

So simple yet so powerful.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 :(.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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=World

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.

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.

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?

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

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?"

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.

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.

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.

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?

"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 !!

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.

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

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...

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

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!

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.

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.

I think you have to question the validity of immigration:

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.