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Deported 1 Million, Separated Countless Families Since 2009, to Latinos Obama Is the Bait and Switch President
In 2008, Latinos delivered a whopping two thirds of their vote to the candidate of Hope and Change, to Barack Obama, who opposed the building of border walls who spoke out against the politics of demonizing immigrants, and who promised a clear path to citizenship for millions living in the shadows. The well-funded layer of corporate and Democratic Party Latino leaders whose careers and condo payments depend on it hope to turn out a massive Latino vote for Obama in 2012. But the tide may be against them.
Despite concrete promises and lofty rhetoric the Obama administration has built and extended border walls, massively increased the numbers of workplace audits and raids at firms suspected of hiring the undocumented. President Obama has declared that states like his home Illinois can no longer opt out of the so-called Secure Communities program, and must send fingerprints and identifying data on everybody they arrest to the feds to be checked against immigration databases. The First Black President has deported an all time high of more than 1 million immigrants since taking office in 2009, and tens of thousands on any given day more await similar fates in his vast, and often privatized, network of immigration prisons and jails.
Unlike black Americans, who can still get misty-eyed at the sight of Michelle Obama and her pretty kids walking across the White House lawn to the Marine helicopter, Latinos have a much harder time fooling themselves about the fundamental nature of the Obama presidency. In that community, almost everybody has recent immigrants in the immediate family or among the in-laws, recent immigrants living downstairs or across the street, and more recent immigrants among the people they work, worship or go to school with.
Thus nearly everybody has neighbors, relatives and co-workers who've been stopped for traffic offenses or arrested for misdemeanors and disappeared into the maze of immigration detention. Hundreds of thousands know people at workplaces that have been audited by ICE and the bosses forced to fire undocumented employees, people whose workplaces were raided, and employees arrested on the job. Thousands have taken in children of parents facing deportation, and hundreds of thousands actually know the names and faces of family members, co-workers, neighbors and friends whose families are being cruelly separated.
in a National Day of Action on Tuesday, August 16 hundreds of immigrants and citizens delivered thousands of petitions demanding an end to the Secure Communities Program at Democratic party offices in Houston, Atlanta, Charlotte and Miami, and Barack Obama's campaign headquarters in Chicago.
“If the President continues to alienate Latino voters he will lose the election, plain and simple," said Carlos Roa from Presente.org, a national online advocacy group that seeks to empower Latinos nationwide. " He cannot expect Latino voters and an entire community to simply stand by and watch...”
The threat is not an idle one. Can corporate funded and Democratic Party Latino leaders bring out a huge vote for Obama a second time, despite his abominable record on immigration? I wouldn't bet on it.
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22 Comments so far
Show AllSay it with me: "¡Si Se Puede!"
Who has Obama not dissed? You would think he was intentionally trying to gut the Democratic Party!
Should I believe he is not? Certainly there is some ambivalence, since he will surely use it to run in 2012. But it is beyond me what more he could do to gut it as any kind of vehicle for any progressive or centrist agenda, let alone "hope and change."
Once upon a time, Obama was young, politically ambitious, black on the outside, and a resident of Chicago. Whatever ideology any of us want to say he had, he would have been a fool to run as a Republican, wouldn't he?
Obama cannot do anything other than continue "to alienate Latino voters" along with all other voters aside from the elite he works for. As I said on his Innauguration Day and quite often thereafter: Obama is Public Enemy #1, and he will continue to be so as that's what he aspires to be.
Actually, this is now true of just about every politician who runs for any election in Amereicha today. None of them represent the people. All of them represent the corporate Plutocracy. Period. The entire function and purpose of the U.S.A.today is the advancement and profit of the corporations. There is quite literally no other purpose to anything government here does, be it federal, state, or local. If you disagree, can you point to any example where it works to better the lives of the citizens? I'll bet you can't - or if you name an existing program, like SS or Medicare, I'll point to proof that the government is actually working hard to cut, decrease, or outright eliminate such programs.
Any politician running as a D or an R is going to alienate the people, since they are running for office purely to advance the wealthy elite's agenda.
"... to Latinos Obama Is the Bait and Switch President"
Obama lying outright? - Naaa - he wouldn't do that. Would he?
Can we even think that? (What was that positive-sounding slogan of Obama's again? - "Yes, we can!")
muitos agradece para o obfuscation de sua presidência
I resent this article. Harumph!
President Obama is an equal opportunity bait and switcher.
The latinos (and just about everyone else) will certainly not vote for him. The possible exception is the "Wall Streetos" that may vote for more swag and cheetos.
I find it a testament to the corruption of the English language for the purpose of cheap divide and rule framing that the Italians, you know, those people from Italy, that place where LATIN originated, are not considered LATINOS.
The term "latino" seems to define a sort of reverse one drop rule complete with pejorative connotations of not having that one drop of anglo-saxon. Considering the diversity of race, color and creed on this hemisphere, the term "latino" is total bullshit.
I believe that Obama and whoever the repukes come up with will not get the human vote. The dupoloy candidates will split the "wallstreeto for swag and cheetos" vote. The voting machines will make it look like a close vote and Ron Paul will lose by a hair in order to continue fooling voters into believing that we are still not a fascist dictatorship with good PR.
WALLSTREETOS are evil vampires sucking the blood of the humans in the USA. They REALLY deserve a pejorative connotation. But then it's kind of overkill to demonize demons, right?
Harry Braun for president!
https://p3amendments.us/Home_Page.html
To all the Don Quijotes out there. You may be quixotic but tell them to stuff it when they call you a latino!
Has Obama stood by any of the traditional groups that make up the base of the Democratic party? I can't think of one. When Obama harms someone in a far of land like Afghanistan, most people don't react. But when your brother or sister or uncle or aunt or mother or father gets deported, people tend to sit up and take notice. I have a friend who is the odd man out in a family where everyone became citizens but him and now he can't because he came here illegally as a child. He speaks perfect English and would be lost in Mexico. I know lots of people would say deport him, but to me it smacks of irrational racism and cruelty. We have millions in this situation and need to find a rational and just solution. But Obama just uses the hammer, because when you only have one tool, every thing looks like a nail.
.....let's all vote for Rick Perry or Santorum or Michelle.....oh oh I guess not!
g123fk,
The lesser of two evils argument doesn't fly. If you vote for Obama, you vote for war and injustice. Vote for someone who stands for your own moral view of the world. If that person has no hope of winning, that is democracy.
Too many so-called progressives, like Thom Hartmann and his listeners, fall into this lesser of two evils meme. The last I heard Hartmann, his meme was that Obama may have done some bad things, but if gets re-elected he will have the opportunity to appoint 2 or 3 liberal supreme court justices. So that is Hartmann's two pieces of silver to justify his going along with slaughtering innocent Muslim children, separating innocent Hispanic children from their families here in the US, trying to destroy social security, etc.
To me, if you vote for a baby killer, you are a baby killer. No moral relativism there.
I agree. Early on,he had the power to stop the CIA drones from killing Pakistani children, but failed the morality test instantly. For me, hope was replaced by shame that I had voted for him. I'll vote Green this time, as should anyone who doesn't want to be an accomplice to murder.
I'd rather see the country burn at the hands of the Tea Party, than have this Frankenstein prez Obama again. He may be worse than Bush was; for example he tripled the money for nuclear energy that Bush set a side.
I have friends who are die hard Democrats, but they all own Stocks and have family members who work for Wall Street banks, while they sit around and act like they support unions. When I ask them where the objective and measurable reasons are to vote Democrat, they shyly bow their heads in silence.
It's over. The Democratic party is dead. It's up to the American People to look at their lifestyles too, and how they might CHANGE it to become less dependent on Pharmaceutical companies, Big Oil, Big Agriculture. There are very viable alternatives, like riding bicycles, but most Americans don't want to give up they way they live, which is basically as a slave to the Corporations that own them.
what about his abominable record on everything else?
Perfect time to start a 3rd party!
Obama has alienated EVERYONE. Do the right thing and send a message
to the two party system, vote for Ron Paul...He is a third party candidate.
Even in the 50's when I was growing up, the John Birch Society was known as a fanatical right-wing wacko group. Do a search for 'Ron Paul John Birch Society' and you'll find he was the keynote speaker at their convention the last time he ran for Pres.
Despite all the false polemics between the Democratic Party 'liberals' and the Republican Party 'conservatives', both corporate parties are united in deporting the undocumented, many of them straight back into a Mexico that has no jobs for them. And who is responsible for that most of all? The US business community and government, that has an economic alliance with the corrupt and undemocratic Mexican elites. And that US 'big brother' has forced on 'little brother' Mexico economic policies just as fantastically bad for the common people as they have been for the common folk of the US.
Apparently, the conditions are getting worse here for the children of undocumented workers, as well. Just saw on CBS news that the child poverty rate rose from 17-20%, so things might equalize across the border (not in a good way) before long. Yes, the insane trade agreements will eventually sink everyone's boat, even those who are currently profiting from it. This must happen where there is large scale exploitation and a very few profit at the expense of everyone else. The outward resolution of this mess will not be pretty. Violent confrontations will continue to escalate for as long as this grossly inequitable structure is maintained.
The immigration situation is complex. People all around are not feeling as 'charitable' as they may have at one time; all except the upper echelons are being squeezed from every direction. Something hit home with me the other day when one of my friends intimated that an ex-girlfriend of his asked for food for a food drive, and he said to her that he could barely feed himself, much less give away any for her cause! The high birth rate is not helping things either. No doubt indoctrination from the Catholic church has a lot to do with that.
Obama is the "bait and switch" president for everyone--he has deceived, duped and betrayed all Americans except the very rich. So don't vote for this lying scum again. If we elect a progressive Congress, we can dump Obama because it won't matter whether the greater or lesser evil sits in the WH as long as the Congress is progressive.
Unfortunately the legislative branch is just as corrupted by corporate cash as the executive.
I believe they did a pole among Hispanics and they are not happy about day laborers taking their jobs either. I'm glad he deported them. There are about 30,000,000 undocumented persons in the US now. There are 50,000,000 million Hispanic Citizens and they represent 16% of the population but are responsible for 44% of new births. They are an exponential population time bomb of mindless procreation. Mexico only has a population of 107,000,000. Do you really want to import ALL of the Mexican poverty to America? Do you think that Hispanics have reached their quota yet? How about letting some other people in?
U.S. taxpayers spend $12,000,000,000 a year on primary and secondary school education for the children of illegal immigrants. Last year Los Angeles ALONE paid over $600,000,000. in health and social services to illegals not including education. When you have to lay off Advanced Placement teachers because you have to hire Spanish Interpreters because 25% of the children can't speak English, you will leave this Country unprepared to compete in a global market. Do you really want to give 30,000,000 invaders amnesty so they will be eligible for
Educational Grants
Free Health Care
Social Security
Tax Credits and
Disability???????
Do you really want to replace taxpaying workers with day laborers who are paid in cash at the end of the day? He needs to deport another 10,000,000. Because I lost my job to day laborers. He is trying to save jobs and the standard of living of the middle class.
They should stop issuing all work VISA's until our unemployment problem is solved. An immigration program is supposed to protect the citizens of it's own country FIRST.