When I began this blog in 2001, I was appalled by President Bush's headlong rush to an illegal war (we were not in fact under attack). As time wore on and Bush began his assault on the Constitution and any people bold enough to criticize, I believed that "the republic is endangered more by actions of our own government than by those of any terrorist." With the election of a high-minded, compassionate, intelligent man like Barack Obama, my fears have ceased.
"Honor them with peace, not war"
United for Peace
Monday, December 18, 2006
This brief excerpt is from New America Media (a national collaboration of ethnic news organizations) Buchanan Gets Ugly -- Again : (Article posted May, 2006)
We'll know the right wing is interested solely in enforcing the law when they start going after the white Americans who hire all these undocumented workers, who supposedly are 'doing work no American citizen would do.' The latter is a lie, folks.
American citizens have done and will do pretty much anything is the pay is right. What these immigrant workers are doing is accepting working conditions and pay that Americans won't. The working conditions are often illegal, but undocumented workers are in no position to complain.
Copyright © 2001-03 Pam Shorey
(except the specific sources credited in quotes)
Buchanan Gets Ugly -- Again
This brief excerpt is from New America Media (a national collaboration of ethnic news organizations) Buchanan Gets Ugly -- Again : (Article posted May, 2006)
...But it still shocks me when the discourse take the form of unabashed bigotry and hatred, and I'm especially dismayed that so much of this ugliness is relayed on our airwaves, framed as legitimate debate.
Look at Pat Buchanan's most recent book, 'State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America,' for example. It's nothing new; he wrote a book just like it 10 years ago, as he was preparing his failed run for the presidency. His relentless focus on race and ethnicity makes the book less a treatise on immigration than a disturbing call to arms to white Americans in what he believes is an ongoing culture war with everyone else in this country.
Buchanan starts with immigrants, but it quickly becomes clear that his argument is a white nationalist one, a pessimistic view of an America unable to cope with diversity. The country he describes is one I don't recognize. It bears no resemblance to the rich, diverse and vibrant community that we are, a people capable of sharing values despite differences in skin color and heritage ... read more
We'll know the right wing is interested solely in enforcing the law when they start going after the white Americans who hire all these undocumented workers, who supposedly are 'doing work no American citizen would do.' The latter is a lie, folks.
American citizens have done and will do pretty much anything is the pay is right. What these immigrant workers are doing is accepting working conditions and pay that Americans won't. The working conditions are often illegal, but undocumented workers are in no position to complain.
Palema
5:54 AM
Comments:
Folks here might be interested in looking at two recent items.
Laurence E. Harrison of Tufts has an article in Sunday's Washington Post Outlook where he says that he used to think that culture was unimportant but that research has changed his mind. He thinks culture is very important for democracy, etc. He says that Islam and Catholicism are counterproductive and that Protestantism is productive. There is lots more.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn
/content/article/2006/12/15/
AR2006121501814.html
Then the Inductivist blog has related conclusions about culture of various ethnic groups in the US. He statistically mines the data from the General Social Survey.
http://inductivist.blogspot.com/
2006_12_01_archive.html
Scroll down the page to the Sunday, December 3 entry:
I think that you will find that his rankings of ethnic groups within the US pretty well parallel the rankings which Harrison found internationally.
Most of the supporting analyses can be found by looking through his archive.
So this suggests that culture does not stop at the border, even after many generations, and that if we want to maintain democracy, etc., we had best control our immigration better.... as Buchanan suggests and for the reasons he suggests.
Just because someone is a bigot does not mean he is wrong.
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Laurence E. Harrison of Tufts has an article in Sunday's Washington Post Outlook where he says that he used to think that culture was unimportant but that research has changed his mind. He thinks culture is very important for democracy, etc. He says that Islam and Catholicism are counterproductive and that Protestantism is productive. There is lots more.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn
/content/article/2006/12/15/
AR2006121501814.html
Then the Inductivist blog has related conclusions about culture of various ethnic groups in the US. He statistically mines the data from the General Social Survey.
http://inductivist.blogspot.com/
2006_12_01_archive.html
Scroll down the page to the Sunday, December 3 entry:
I think that you will find that his rankings of ethnic groups within the US pretty well parallel the rankings which Harrison found internationally.
Most of the supporting analyses can be found by looking through his archive.
So this suggests that culture does not stop at the border, even after many generations, and that if we want to maintain democracy, etc., we had best control our immigration better.... as Buchanan suggests and for the reasons he suggests.
Just because someone is a bigot does not mean he is wrong.
Copyright © 2001-03 Pam Shorey
(except the specific sources credited in quotes)
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