Download the ringtone of the popular song: Hands Up …

BS! Mexico would still be as intentionally poorly governed today, with social stability valued over any sort of economic opportunity. The marches would just be in Portland and Seattle rather that LA.

I don’t watch Lou Dobbs, but I’ve seen him as a guest on other programs. I don’t remember him saying that he blamed the immigrant, I thought he was decrying illegal immigration — the system, or lack thereof. Do you actually think he’s ranting because he doesn’t like people with brown skin? Obviously, you’ve made a careful analysis of his motives. I don’t know.

You want to stop exploitation of oppressed people? Stop the flow of people who beg to be exploited, who replace people who stand up for their rights. Aim your anger at the governments of Mexico, El Salvador, etc. Cesar Chavez worked his entire life to bring dignity to the workers in the fields. He was against illegal immigration.

The news story is about immigration across the southern border because infrastructure is breaking down in southern border states. The numbers are far greater.

You say “Nowhere have I ever said that I am for “unchecked immigration.” So what’s your solution. Because I absolutely agree with you that people should not be exploited, nor scapegoated.

What I oppose is exploitation and scapegoating. If the government and business want labor from Latin America, and they obviously do, then they need to let these people come here legally so that they have the same rights as everybody else. The immigrants who are already here, working and paying taxes, should be legalized. For some reason, this is considered a radical idea.

And I am not looking at anything through a “veil of prejudice.” For that I would have to listen to right wing talk radio or watch Lou Dobbs as he says “illegal alien” every 15 seconds while showing footage of brown people from Mexico and Central America. As I said in a previous post, they are human beings who are native to the Americas. No human is an “alien.” It’s sad that I should even have to say that at all.

If this were really just a story about illegal immigration, the media would show the issue in its entirety. Illegal immigrants come from all over the world. The marches on the east coast included illegal immigrants from Europe, Asia and Africa.

It is so simplistic to view history through your own veil of prejudice.

The desire to gain power and enrich oneself on the sweat of others is not a white-only club. History is rife with examples of people of all colors, and ethnicity who have oppressed, pillaged, raped, suppressed and murdered. You only choose to point your finger at those who fit into your ideology. You then build your argument for unchecked immigration on that ideology. If anyone dares to disagree with your paradigm, you charge them with siding with oppression.

Many posters on Marc’s site have demonstrated their concerns with the complexities of this situation, and you choose to bring it back to racism. Add clichés like “Work Americans don’t want to do” and “people living in the shadows” and you could write speeches for the current administration.

If that’s true, how come millions of impoverished Africans aren’t coming to work at the bottom end of the U.S. labor market via illegal immigration ?

We’ll let you come here and work (wink wink), we’ll let you pay taxes, and if you use a taxpayer ID to pay federal taxes it might even help you to become a citizen (wink wink), we’ll let you fight in Iraq (wink wink), we’ll let you pay into social security (wink wink), and we’ll let you be a cheap source of labor that also functions as a built-in scapegoat that distracts Americans from the war in Iraq and high gas prices.

But don’t you dare mess up our game and
demand the same rights as everybody else!

I don’t believe anyone in this human rights struggle is attempting to equate the sins of African slavery with the opppression faced by non-white immigrants in the U.S. today. Clearly the African slave trade and the Civil Rights Movement are singularly immoral stains on the fabric of America specifically, and on mankind in general.

That being said, it is not accurate to suggest that there is no relationship between the two struggles either.

The struggle of undocumented immigrants today is the moral equivalent of African slavery and the Civil Rights struggle in the respect that both are struggles of the poor and powerless against the powerful and rich. Is it mere coincidence that all of these struggles feature white hegemonic power structures against non-white impoverished people?

Not quite. You see, all of these examples of oppression I’ve just mentioned are cut from the same shameful and immoral cloth. The circumstances may be different but the net result is the same:
Servitude, oppression, and the loss of our humanity.

The attempt to draw a distinction between these sins is dishonest and is designed to fracture a
coalition among people of all backgrounds.

The distinction between the Civil Rights Movement and this Human Rights Movement is a distinction without a difference.

Don’t fall for it. Their aims are the same, Hate and Power, all they’ve done is simply move on to a set of fresh faces.

In their eyes both indigenous immigrants and blacks before the Civil Rights Movement are equally deserving of their lot in life: servitude.

And the final assertion – which is obviously a matter of profound belief for most of us – that every human being has the right to demand equal treatment under the law – when what’s at issue is that some folks take “the law” into their own hands when asserting a right of residence in the United States simply because they can due to border proximity – strikes me as a self-defeating argument on this particular issue.

Interesting fact from today’s New York Times: The number of federal immigration agents who focus on work-site enforcement plunged to 65 nationwide in 2004, from 240 in 1999, according to the Government Accountability Office. Moreover, the government reduced the number of notices of intent to fine employers who hired illegal immigrants to just 3 in 2004 from 417 in 1999.

This is something that has really been bothering me. Some people seem to fall into the trap of thinking that immigrants need to have the same exact history as that of black Americans in order to use the words “civil rights.”

Last time I checked, no single group had a trademark on the term “civil rights.” Or “human rights” or “equal rights” for that matter.

Every human being has not only the right but the obligation to demand equal treatment under the law.

Otherwise, we will have to refight this battle every 20-30 years.

No. Really? Evidently you have not been reading the utterances of one Marc Cooper.

>As long as we are back on this subject…a few random thoughts about what it means to see thousands — maybe a couple of milliion of illegals– demonstrating in the streets.

Isn’t it terrible when we mostly agree?

Very good piece on the generals and Rumsfeld, by the way.

Zack H. Says:
April 13th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
What a whining b**ch that Bill Bradley is! There’s a white boy who sure can’t take the heat. I’ve seen a lot of weird customers on this blog but he takes the cake. Make any critique of him and he’s pasting posts one after another defending his wounded little ego. Let’s see, he’s a friend of Angelides, a friend of the Governor, a booster of Steve Westley, a mouthpiece for the UFW, a parrot of Mickey Kaus, an advisor to Gary Hary, a Mensa member, a presidential level advisor (have I left anything out?) and oh yes, a whining b**tch. Now he’s asking the host of the blog to take down any comments criticizing him. Please, Marc, don’t make Bill cry. Boo hoo.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mayvis14apr14,0,51710.story?track=tothtml

We’ll let you come here and work (wink wink), we’ll let you pay taxes, and if you use a taxpayer ID to pay federal taxes it might even help you to become a citizen (wink wink), we’ll let you fight in Iraq (wink wink), we’ll let you pay into social security (wink wink), and we’ll let you be a cheap source of labor that also functions as a built-in scapegoat that distracts Americans from the war in Iraq and high gas prices.

But don’t you dare mess up our game and
demand the same rights as everybody else!

I don’t believe anyone in this human rights struggle is attempting to equate the sins of African slavery with the opppression faced by non-white immigrants in the U.S. today. Clearly the African slave trade and the Civil Rights Movement are singularly immoral stains on the fabric of America specifically, and on mankind in general.

That being said, it is not accurate to suggest that there is no relationship between the two struggles either.

The struggle of undocumented immigrants today is the moral equivalent of African slavery and the Civil Rights struggle in the respect that both are struggles of the poor and powerless against the powerful and rich. Is it mere coincidence that all of these struggles feature white hegemonic power structures against non-white impoverished people?

Not quite. You see, all of these examples of oppression I’ve just mentioned are cut from the same shameful and immoral cloth. The circumstances may be different but the net result is the same:
Servitude, oppression, and the loss of our humanity.

The attempt to draw a distinction between these sins is dishonest and is designed to fracture a
coalition among people of all backgrounds.

The distinction between the Civil Rights Movement and this Human Rights Movement is a distinction without a difference.

Don’t fall for it. Their aims are the same, Hate and Power, all they’ve done is simply move on to a set of fresh faces.

In their eyes both indigenous immigrants and blacks before the Civil Rights Movement are equally deserving of their lot in life: servitude.