namaste & workreno

I would happier if the CD system were self-censoring - especially after I responded, for the first time, to their $20,000 appeal with some of my scarce funds.

CD seemed to be the best-informed, most tolerant, most user-friendly and least-cluttered site. Huffpo used to be very good, but over the past 18 months has steadily deteriorated with clear editorial control of a number of topic areas which suggests some trolls have infiltrated the organization. I really do hope that CD doesn't suffer a similar fate.

workreno & Parallax -- Sometimes the "moderation" delay occurs when I have 3 or more URLs, so paste them into 2 or more msgs.

It has also happened to several people, including my old screen name (still), and can last for months.

One blogger has had a good response from the editors, which claim that there is no active censorship, and they'd be glad to reset your screen name.

I suspect that either some of the editors aren't as open, or perhaps there is some hacking going on to suppress certain opinions considered by those_powers_that_be to be outside the pale of their tolerance3.

Either way, be nice and send the editors an email (and again in a day or so) - and ask for your screen name to be reset.

Namaste

I guess no one on CD is allowed to be "to" aware of the facts.

workreno March 11th, 2008 12:15 pm

My comment in the same vein is also missing. Seems that we no longer have free speech on CD.

Just being against unrestricted immigration doesn't necessarily mean one is racist, anti-immigrant, etc. That is merely a means of deflecting the debate away from the facts of cause and effect. Also, it labels one point of view as being evil, while the other is labled as being good, and reason goes out the window, along with common sense.

The immigrants swarming across the border aren't any better or worse than anyone else; they are merely economically desperate. Some might say that that desperation alone justifies them coming here 'illegally.'

By that reasoning, then, all countries should have the same right to swarm in, correct? Why give Latinos preference to, say, Indians or Filipino refugees? Let them ALL come in, otherwise we're guilty of discrimination. Right?

Now, what about the practical considerations here, do they matter at all? Who is going to pay for their housing, education, health care (50 mil here don't even have health insurance!), etc. You see, there are profound societal and economic consequences for unrestricted immigration. And because someone is desperate for something does not mean they are automatically entitled to it.

But that's what happens when we allow emotion to get ahead of reason; we are easily manipulated. And we wind up taking sides according to our inclination without even really examining an issue, is this not so?

I'm counting 36 comments here.Are the two that are missing the ones that I posted that state that the leaders of both countries are to blame.

on my screen it states that

"Your comment is awaiting moderation"

Hey jruebl,

Look up the difference between correlation and causation and stop making unsupported arguments by insinuation.

California schools have fallen so dramatically because they have been bled dry of funding since Prop 13.

iammyself

I agree ,but make sure you understand who orchestrates this "Divide and Conquer" assault .

I am with all people that seek peaceful means.

If the People can learn to stand together against All Empire maybe we can take the species to a higher level.

One thing I haven't seen enough on in the "debate" on immigration is that, just like the Nazis blamed the Jews for the economic problems of the time in order to focus people's attention elsewhere than on the government, so today the people responsible for the economic mess we are in are trying to focus the blame on someone else. In the case of the Nazis, the Jews were blamed because they "controlled the banks." In the case of the immigrants, they are responsible for "taking all the jobs."

Earlier today I read an article about inflation in food costs. If you think that we have inflation now, wait until the xenophobes get rid of the immigrants and their jobs go undone or are taken by people who want decent wages. Then who will they blame?

It's good to see strong moves to fight hatred. I've waged my own little battle against the local Minute Men chapter. The interesting thing is that so few people in this world recognize hate in their own hearts. It is only human to rationalize and justify hateful feelings, thereby labeling them as something else and avoiding shame. This criticism applies to the left far more than the right. Here at commondreams, I see a massive amount of hate towards Jews, towards Republicans, and towards Bush. I don't mean that everyone critical of Israel, Bush, or Republicans, harbors hate; far from it. There's plenty to be critical about. I've voted 100% Democrat. However, so many here cross the line into hate speech. It makes me ashamed to be a liberal. Look inside yourself.

The American Wall has many uses, dosent it.? Mr bush.....TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!!!.

I'm skeptical that the implication of an increase of hatred is occurring in America. How could it have gotten any higher? Maybe the increase in the number of countable hate groups is due to their fractionating into finer levels of sympathetic haters who want their own groups and use the Internet to bond. Maybe accounting methods have been changed over the years (similiar to the U.S. government's changing of methods in counting Iraqi deaths due to the U.S. aggression there.)
I would agree with FAIR that wanting to limit immigration is not equivalent to hating immigrants. I don't know anything else about the group---maybe they are haters.
To get to my point more simply, How do you really measure the level of hate in an individual or a group?

Hate, like love, has a way of getting personal. All immigrants except white ones get caught in the web of hate. Anyone with a Spanish sounding surname is fair game for hate. Anyone who is brown, or speaks with an accent is a target. I think of my ESL students and want to protect them, but I can't

workreno,

I wish someone would make a video showing all the crime victims of U.S. citizens.

Sorry, I forgot, there aren't enough days in the year to view it.

Ask these people what we should do!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpomTIkv0V8&NR=1

Sorry I forgot.

We can't.

I saw this entire vidio the black man is a plain clothed Police officer he actually orders the Boot Jacks to attack the American citizen while he sets in his car watching hundreds of people breaking the Law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOe5uYFcXzY

It's the rich folk version of the gladiator games. They mange to distract our attention from the theft of our economy and country and way of life.

"It's a shame the major media outlets don't explore the roots of immigration and report about that. Then more people might understand that immigrants tend to want to stay in their home countries with their families and communities."

This is my thinking as well.

Thinking about hate and walls and immigration without contemplating the causes is too little, too late.

NAFTA is but one cause for immigration, legal and illegal, into the U.S. Mobility will always be a fact of life, but much of it is caused by inequalities and pressures created by others. The debt owed by poor countries to world banks is immense and creates a situation where leaving ones home and family to find work, even back-breaking deadly work, seems a good trade-off. This must end or there will never be a wall high enough to keep out the growing numbers of desperately poor.

Both of the groups (in article) exist, primarily, to 'broaden divides' -- not enhance 'understanding'.
I listen to neither...common-sense is sufficient as a source for needed-information. Simple Values (on all-sides) address the rest.

Walker: "Why is no one talking about the AMERO?"

Right you are. One of many possible directions we could go from here, and potentially a very good one. I haven't seen any evidence that Bush or any politico has said specifically that they're for it, but it seems to be a logical direction ...and then free trade with Europe as a precusor to the ...Western Union? Of course, millions will suffer economically to bring this rosy new brotherhood into being.

But even in such a fantastic, science fiction of a potential, there'll still be tribalist xenophobe cretins with horrid chips on their shoulders. And then, if the world changes as much as scientists say it's going to change (in terms of global warming), our current situation is going to compare like a tea party to D-Day with what we'll have on our hands for an "immigration crisis".

jruebl said: "Our schools have gone from top in the nation to near last."

I would suspect that is a result from underfunding by the government rather than anything to do with immigration.

Cheencheen said: "Most of the U.S. and Mexican populations are opposed to NAFTA, the "Security and Prosperity Plan," and the transnational highway"

You can include Canadians in that as well...

If you go look at FAIR's website, it's just sad the arguments they put forth. I can understand labeling them as a hate group. They're Xenophobes.

Why is no one talking about the AMERO?
The immigration debate seems moot!

Bush is behind the AMERO, one currancy for Canada,Us,mexico. Open trade like EU. Open worker status, It won't matter. Thats why the dollar is being devalued against the euro to bring on the AMERO.

PS, on topic:

Except for the deprivation of rights and liberties of the victims of hate crimes and government abuses... it amuses me to think the Republican Party is divided because of this.

When they covertly capitalized on our ethnocentricity, racism and religious bigotry to curry SUPPORT FOR THE WAR, they awakened a sleeping giant. They wanted people to WANT to "go git some Ayrabs" regardless of which "Ayrabs" we got.

Now we have Republicans and Democrats alike in border states and elsewhere CRYING TO ROUND UP THE ALIENS.

Ya'all have been duped into pushing the start button of the Police State.

Hey, thanks a lot.

Stilba, in an enlightened world, meaning enlightened governments, the whole of the earth would be seen as belonging to everyone, which is really the truth. Man in his egoic state has created and is continuing to create artificial divisions of race, creed, class, etc., keeping everyone in self-destructive competition, whether it be for resources or oneupmanship.

If and only if more individuals awaken spiritually will this begin to change. At present both Latinos and American citizens are operating inwardly on a self-destructive plane. Though the Latinos are presently the exploited, they are just a likely to become the exploiters if the tables turn.

For the whole of mankind to survive, we must end our egoic strivings and replace competition with cooperation. This is the only thing that will bring meaningful and lasting change and get us out of the hell-hole we've turned this planet into.

Reagan eliminated the Bracero Program. Nixon decimated the border patrol, using the paroquotting of the marijuana fields as justification. This ended a ten year war for control of the drug traffic in the SW US. The price of pot went up ten times in a couple of years and bodda boom bodda bing, SAY HELLO TO COCAINE. It was followed by two decades of draconian legislation and unconstitutional persecution of small pot farmers in the US. By the mid-70s we were rounding up and deporting up to 5000 illegal immigrants per month, per COUNTY in Central California. Bipartisan amnesties have been issued almost annually for any illegal that can show a year old check stub, for decades now.

NOW, GeoGroup and others are contracted since '03 to round up and incarcerate all 12-15 million illegal immigrants by the year 2012. In this time frame, behold the rise of Lou Dobbs the Republican maverick and incessant media hype over the whole issue. Someone should tell that corporate hack Dobbs, that his wet dream is in progress.

Are you softened up yet? Are you ready for the greatest forced movement of a people in human history? I hear so-called "liberals" lining up to blame the people that have been here for decades now, as if it was all a new problem. How gullible you are. Do you think that once 12 million people have been incarcerated wholesale, the GeoGroup and others are going to want to give up their fat little Department of Homeland Security contracts?

Your ASS is NEXT.

The Latino illegals are my BROTHERS AND SISTERS. Given legal status they will fight for the rights of working people... right along side ME. American progressives agitate like old people screw.

These immigrants were used to bust unions and keep us all divided and easy to exploit, sure. But it wasn't THEY that did this, it was US. THEY were invited.

greatbear215: "Unless you claim decscent from American Indians, everyone in America is either an immigrant or descended from immigrants."

And even they immigrated ...from Kamchatka! Tribal thinking of any shade is bad news for the human species in its current state.

Lou Dobbs should be asking the question I posted above about immigration reform himself, since obviously he is obsessed by this issue. Has Dobbs ever discussed this aspect of immigration reform before?

Mr. Stein of FAIR states here that, "Their banner may be stop the hate but it's really stop the debate. Apparently, you can't even articulate an argument for immigration reform without being smeared."

How about this one, one that is rarely if ever discussed in any medium that I am aware of:

Why is it that in the USA, the waiting period for immigrants to receive green cards, work visas, or citizenship varies from nation to nation? Why is there not a universal standard in the USA for the waiting period? Should there be? Well, in my opinion, that would definitely be fair to everyone who would like to be USA citizens. Again, there is no universal waiting time for legalization of immigrants. For a citizen of one nation it can take weeks; for citizens of other nations, depending on the nation, could take months or years. Why is this the case?

chessgames56 March 10th, 2008 12:22 pm:

"Ironic if true, since Lou is married to a hispanic himself."

chessgames56, I didn't know that. So where do we put this tidbit of irony, in the file with George Bush not letting his relationship with the Bin Laden family get in the way of a little terror war? Unlike you or I (I presume), Bush and Dobbs are of such sort that doesn't mind reality being thrown in the path of the gravy train of demagoguery.

solrak March 10th, 2008 12:34 pm:

"The fact that the media run with a frame that dehumanizes people (illegal immigration) is part of the reason why the debate is so gross, and leaves us no closer to humane, realistic and pragmatic solutions that include in the least renegotiating trade deals so they include wage and labor protections and documenting the undocumented."

solrak, I can't help but notice the blatant persistence of America's geography, abutting as it does some of the poorest countries on Earth. I have heard some say that North America will specialize in the knowledge economy and other nations, chief among them those of Asia, will provide the labour inputs. Is it sustainable that South America and Asia will agree to be perpetually farther down the economic food chain than the US? Or, I beg the question, is it more rational to raise up the poorer nations to some minimal common standards of health, environment etc. so as to safeguard living wage jobs for those of us who are not on the verge of landing our next CEO corner office but are aspiring to keep our home away from the foreclosure auction?

In all of the hullabaloo about illegal immigration, no one's talking about legal immigration. Are people entering illegally because we're letting too few in legally and they're desperate to improve their lives? Or do they just not want to deal with the paperwork? I think I just answered my own question.

Here's how the US likes its Latino immigration: keep 'em coming for the cheap labor, keep 'em illegal so they have no rights when the get here, and keep 'em invisible so we don't have to know we citizens are a higher caste above the untouchables. People get upset whenever that third component breaks down. I do sympathize with state and local governments that pay the expense but don't share in employer profits--another example of capitalist cost-dumping in action.

Are we upset that illegals are illegal? Raise or eliminate immigration quotas so immigration becomes legal and documented. More importantly, we'll know who they are, in case some of them commit crimes while they're here.

Are we upset that illegals are taking jobs? Offer big incentives to illegals to inform on their employers, including cash and citizenship for the informer, his/her spouse and kids. Employers might start getting leery of hiring illegals.

Are we upset that illegals are NOT taking jobs and are going on welfare? Let's get federal money to affected communities to ease budget problems and promote employment.

Are we upset that Latinos are coming here at all? This is a tough one. In the modern world migrant labor from poor countries is even harder to keep out than illegal drugs. But we might work harder with Latin America to reduce poverty, whether through trade agreements (like the much-demonized NAFTA) or direct aid. Employ THEM there so we don't have to employ THEM here. Walls didn't keep the Mongols or Manchus from conquering China and they won't save us from a demographic Reconquista.

Or shall we stick to the 100-year old turn-a-blind-eye/hysterical nativist reaction cycle? Yeah, let's just do that instead.

jlocke123 et al.

What's missing here is the media's culpability in this whole thing, including but not limited to Lou Dobbs. The fact that the media run with a frame that dehumanizes people (illegal immigration) is part of the reason why the debate is so gross, and leaves us no closer to humane, realistic and pragmatic solutions that include in the least renegotiating trade deals so they include wage and labor protections and documenting the undocumented.

This is another indication of the resounding success of the neocon fear and greed campaign that has been in progress for the past quarter century.

Who will be their next boogeyman ?

Ironic if true, since Lou is married to a hispanic himself.

From time to time I've had the misfortune to be in front of a tv whilst "Lou Dobbs" the CNN personality was on the screen. To my eyes, he is pure unvarnished racism personified. Every time I see him, he is talking about "the threat of invading, illegal aliens". With loaded propaganda coming at you like that, every evening, is it a wonder that Americans are so clueless?

Unfortunately, given human nature, Jrubl is correct. The struggle for limited resources will continue to grow, and undocumented workers will be targeted. A tanking economy will only serve to accelerate this. The solution may be to bring the illegals out of the shadows, but not on the terms of their exploitative employers. These employers should be given a choice: pay a fine AND the costs of naturalizing these workers, or go to jail.

Crack down on the employers who knowingly break immigration laws and reap the profits, and there will be no need to build more fences. Additionally, if an undocumented worker knowingly steals someone's SS# (or forges documents), he or she should be sent to jail and then deported, permanently forfeiting his or her chance for citizenship.

Finally, NAFTA must be thrown into the trash bin. If steps aren't taken soon, America will very likely find itself in a culture war, which will only escalate our destruction from within.

It's a shame the major media outlets don't explore the roots of immigration and report about that. Then more people might understand that immigrants tend to want to stay in their home countries with their families and communities. It is short-sighted government policy (like NAFTA) that favors huge corporations and is pushing poor Mexican farmers off their land and dissolving well-paid jobs in the States. People in the States are losing their jobs and working for less, while the Mexican farmers who lost their land either have to go to a city in the north to work in a sweatshop for about $4 a day under terrible conditions, or they risk their lives to flee to the U.S. Both U.S. and Mexico's governments fully support this trend, because corporations that profit give them the campaign donations.

Perhaps if the media wrote intelligent articles exploring these issues, most of the people here in the States would realize that we should be angry at the corrupt politicians and the corporations who want every small business closed and every family farmer out of work. Most of the U.S. and Mexican populations are opposed to NAFTA, the "Security and Prosperity Plan," and the transnational highway, and that includes immigrants, Republicans, Democrats, Minutemen, and human rights activists. The only people who keep pushing these policies are corrupt politicians (including Clinton and Obama), CEOs, and corporate-owned news agencies that want us to keep fighting each other. Let's unite and focus on who is really screwing all of us over. Please support local farmers and businesses and get out and raise hell about ending NAFTA.

I'm sorry, but the hate crimes are going to grow.

I think illegal immigration is a big mistake.

California, my home state, spent 10 billion dollars last year (with a 12 billion dollar budget deficit) to "assimilate" illegal immigrants.

Our schools have gone from top in the nation to near last.

This is unsustainable and the hate crimes are only going to get worse. This is not working out, people.

The AP is amazingly bad. They spend most the space in this story defending the bigots. They actually manage to avoid reporting much on what the Southern Poverty Law Center report states.

No real surprise in the story though. Anytime there's all this ramping up of 'hate speech' in politics on an issue like this, there's almost always a corresponding rise in hate crimes. The purveyors of hate speech always deny the connection. But, they definitely raise the emotions and their hate speech legitimizes violence in the eyes of the bigots who do these acts.

America is afraid. We're afraid that someone is going to "take things away from us". Someone is going to take away our jobs, take away our money, take away our freedom, or take away our country. America is desperate for "security". We're so desperate that we are willing to throw away everything we stand for to "keep what we got". The immigrants are coming. The terrorists are coming. The Islamists are coming. All these people are labeled as the "bad guys". The media plays the little word game to change your thinking into "only the government can save me" and "we need a strong (violent/racist) leader". The fear plague is infesting the country everywhere. Until we come out from the bomb shelter of our own ignorance, the "hate" will continue.

Just what America needs more of, "hatred." Unless you claim decscent from American Indians, everyone in America is either an immigrant or descended from immigrants.
Sometimes the "stupidity level" of anti-immigration hate groups rises high enough for them to trip over their own IQ's.
The targeting of "the undocumented," is beyond cowardly; these hate groups know that undocumented people will not call the police.
They are literally attacking those with no means to defend themselves. I have yet to know any member of any "hate group" that is not a coward. Hatred is cowardly-and it is the mark of the true coward.