Kidnapping the Future

“I believe that children are our future…”

-Whitney Houston

The Future

Arizona is trying to kidnap the next generation of Latinos in the United States.  Rather than simply legislating that brown people are bad, or that Latinos are only allowed to work as gardeners and nannies in the Grand Canyon State (because neither of those would be politically correct), these segregationists are giving President Obama and Latino-America the finger by attacking children, taking away their citizenship, native language, education, and ability to “Win the Future”.

Jan Brewer, the Republican governor of Arizona, coupled with State Senator Russell Pearce and a Republican-controlled state legislature, has already declared it legally acceptable for law enforcement to stop citizens who “look Latino illegal.” When pressed for a description, though, they were unable to provide one.  What did happen after the passage of SB1070, though, is citizens of the United States with Latino heritage, Spanish surnames, or brown skin were stopped and harassed until that law was struck down by a federal court.  Now, the racists and segregationists have shifted tactics and targets. The laws proposed violate the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States because they:

1. deny citizenship to children born in the United States to undocumented parents;
2. create “non-citizen”- and “citizen”-stamped birth certificates;
3. deny medical services/public education to “non-citizens” born in the United States;
4. require school teachers, administrators, and hospital personnel to determine citizenship status/deny services; and
5. forbid “non-citizens” from driving, and impose jail-time for those who do (and confiscate their legal property for Arizona’s benefit)

The new proposed legislation, then, is creating a segregated society by stealing the citizenship of native-born United States citizens. The coded language, calling their targets “illegal” and focusing on “immigration”, allows them to navigate the mainstream media with their racism only being called out by those they’re targeting.  This battlecry of “illegals” and “taxpayer services” hides in plain sight the determination by Arizona Republicans to sweep the state clean of brown people.

Arizona is proceeding like Germany in the 1930s, scapegoating a single group through discriminatory legislation, incrementally stripping them of citizenship, due process and access to services, and forcing them to vacate by creating a climate of persecution, harassment and suspicion.  Though these laws, like the previous attempt, will be found unconstitutional if they are passed, it is a wake-up call for Latinos and the United States that they are garnering enough support to be moved out of committee and voted on by a state legislature.  In fact, these proposed laws and the copycat legislation in 15 other states should give all Americans pause.

Kidnapping is a crime to be punished, not a method of governing a state or the nation.

Related Articles

• Arizona Panel Passes Birthright Citizenship Law (foxnews.com)
• Arizona Lawmakers Push New Round of Immigration Restrictions
• Arizona Sets Stage For Another Legal Showdown Over Immigration
• Black Code, Arizona
• I See Ghosts
• Illegal immigration likely to be hot topic at USF form
• Sweeping AZ Immigration Bills Target Undocumented Children
• To Win the Future, America Must Win the Global Competition in Education

Exports and Imports

While the economy is still struggling, the United States is successfully exporting democratic ideals, and motivating citizens in oppressed countries to stand up to their oppressive governments and secure a measure of liberty and stability they have not yet known.  Unfortunately, via our capitalist and conservative political spheres, the United States is also importing authoritarian oppression at a fast pace, too.

In Tunisia, a republican movement of citizens and disenfranchised people voted with their feet and their hearts, toppling a dictator.  In Egypt, kindergarteners, children, adolescents, young adults, older adults and mature citizens gathered in peaceful protest, filling Tahrir Square in Cairo and in other cities, and pushed “President” Hosni Mubarak off their necks.  In Libya, Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, government of the people is becoming a popular refrain, where citizens fatigued with oppressive and corrupt regimes choose to lay down their lives by standing up for their rights to receive their due.  Democracy, it seems, is being exported.

Here in the United States, however, Republicans with a capital R seem to believe that the rights and responsibilities that citizens across the globe are exercising are “UnAmerican”.  In Wisconsin, public employees are being denied by the elected Republican governor and legislature their right to assemble (collective bargaining) and their right to petition for the redress of grievances.  Governor Walker has exaggerated a budget deficit in order to nullify their contract, and at the same time attempted to quell the voices of the workers by stripping them of the right to bargain collectively.

Much like the thugs hired by the Egyptian president, who stole US State Department vehicles in order to attack the peaceful revolutionaries in Tahrir Square, Governor Walker’s associates have bussed in thousands of actors, disguised as concerned citizens of the Tea Party Movement, to berate, confuse and antagonize the protestors (read: teachers, nurses, etc.) in Wisconsin.

The parallels – large numbers of economically challenged lower and middle class workers struggling peacefully to receive their just due from economically advantaged politicians and political actors – between the exported democratic ideals and the imported authoritarian oppression are clear and striking.

It’s important to realize, then, that in order to continue espousing our democratic ideals and speaking about the rights of the people, we must fight here in the United States to insure that they are not usurped by people whose priorities are money before people.

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” – Thomas Paine, 1777

Related Articles

• Paul Ryan: “It’s like Cairo has come to Wisconsin” (salon.com)
• Letters: Arab revolution creeps nearer to the oilfields (independent.co.uk)

Would You Like Some Hypocrisy In Your TEA?

The Incoming class of Republican hypocrites who call themselves the TEA Party caucus already have their hands down the pants of Washington lobbyists, trying to pry hard cash from those silk pockets even as they talk out the other side of their faces about fiscal conservatism, debt ceilings, broken Washington politics, and taking their government back.
All of the indignation that fueled their campaigns and lip service to changing the culture of government has evaporated even before they begin serving their brief terms in our nation’s capital. It is sad, not only that their supposed virtue lasted less time than the previous Alaskan governor’s term (she did endorse many of them), or that it’s gone before they’ve moved into their ATMs – I mean offices – or cast their first votes. What’s sad is that the lies they told to get elected played on the fears and anxieties of constituents whose names they forgot as soon as the votes were counted.

My Daughter Doesn’t Like Shots, Either

My daughter doesn’t like to get immunizations.  God bless her, she starts tearing up at the mention of going to the doctor’s office, for fear and anticipation of what is to come.  The unfortunate reality, though, is that the immunizations are for her own good, and her mother and I have decided that she is going to get those shots, whether she likes it or not.  The closer we get to the office, the louder and more dramatic the wales become.  The door opens to the office, and she is in full-blown tantrum mode, tears, screams, and screeches.  Yet, we are still moving her toward the office and the needles she so despises and fears.

The Republican Party has taken the lessons my daughter teaches to heart.  “From the mouths of babes,” as the saying goes.  They are crying and screaming, lying and digging in their heels on the ground, saying that Executive Orders “aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on” and attempting to devalue any and every aspect of the current legislation before the House of Representatives which will a) make health coverage accessible to 32,000,000 more American citizens, b) prohibits health plans from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, c) prohibits health insurance companies from dropping people who get sick, and d) is the first step in a great direction to living up to the purposes stated in the preamble to the Constitution.

Just as my child screams and cries and says whatever she can to avoid the shots she must get, I’m watching Mike Pence and Michelle Bachmann right now, eyes big and lips quavering with demonic and grandiose statements against the health care bill, against Congressman Stupak, against the Congressional Budge Office, against the President’s encroachment on the legislative purview to make law – just a bunch of noise to show their displeasure.  I wonder if the Tea Party protestors who’ve gathered in Washington, D.C., and have decided the best way to protest is to hurl racial epithets (at two black and one latino legislators), to attack a gay congressman for his sexual orientation, and who spit on a member of Congress are taking their lessons from Rep. Bachmann’s language, or Chairman Michael Steele’s language.  Maybe a better quote is something about “the blind leading the blind.”

I’m not worried, though.  After five generations, a President (this one) has gotten Congress to enact health care reform legislation.  So, just like my child, who’s immunizations are covered by my health insurance, by the way, the Republicans are going to get their shots, and they country will be covered.

Even if they don’t like to get the shots they need.

Credit Where It’s Due

I don’t often have very positive things to say about the GOP these days.  But I do today.  The House Republicans put their earmarks where their mouths are and announced that for the next year they won’t use them.  It strains me a little to give them credit, because I haven’t seen them follow through, but I HOPE they do.  As a matter of fact, I hope the Senate Republicans and the House Democrats and the Senate Democrats do, too.  While earmarks make up a miniscule percentage of the federal deficit, and won’t impact it nearly as positively as the Senate Health Care Bill, the discipline necessary to not sneak in extra spending at the last minute without discussion can only lead to positive outcomes.

The Rights of the Many

Yesterday’s meeting at Blair House did one thing for me: it elucidated the difference between Democrats and Republicans.  It wasn’t the “blank sheet of paper” versus “we’ve got a few things in common” line, though.  It was the fundamental philosophical difference between Democrats and Republicans about the first sentence in the Constitution of the United States.

“We the People, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The Democratic Party appeared to be pushing an interpretation that “we the people” does indeed include all citizens and legal residents of the United States.  The Republican Party, however, appeared not to have such an inclusive interpretation.  While their conversation and Congressman Joe Wilson’s infamous outburst make clear their feelings about illegal immigrants, they also appear to have shifted their definition from individual citizens to individual (which includes corporations, thanks to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling) donors to their campaigns.  Unfortunately, the poor and uninsured don’t tend to rank among rank and file Republicans, so their interests do not coincide.

Further down the preamble, beyond the clause to “establish justice” by making healthcare available and affordable; beyond the clause to “insure domestic tranquility” by making sure that end of life counseling is provided for terminal patients and their families and not mischaracterized as “death panels” by insurance lobbyists and elected representatives; beyond even the clause to “provide for the common defense” by making sure each individual has as much protection from biological ruin, catastrophic illness, economic pillaging, or health-insurer abandonment as is possible; Democrats began and ended the summit standing firmly on the clause which says that the government of the United States has a responsibility to “promote the general welfare.”

The Democratic Party, in this instance, is basing its approach to healthcare as a basic right guaranteed to each citizen and legal resident by the Constitution of the United States.  This doesn’t mean that the government is everyone’s doctor.  This means that, as the President noted yesterday, “we have meat inspectors to make sure the food is good,” the government has a responsibility to make sure everyone has access to health care.  The Republican Party, in this instance, is arguing the opposite.  For them, healthcare is a privilege (that they can afford, so why bother?)  They are, then, not attempting to “form a more perfect union,” because they aren’t worried about their fellows.  They are concerned with “big government”, “tax cuts”, “reconciliation”, “the nuclear option”, “scrap the bill”, none of which is mentioned in the Constitution.

My healthcare is just fine.  My family is covered, and thank God those members of my extended family who don’t have it are covered by those who do.  But the larger picture is that it’s not just about me and mine, as the Republican argument has developed.  “Promoting the general welfare” means that I am concerned about the needs of other people, too.

Healthcare, like a good education, isn’t a privilege you’re entitled to only if you can pay for it.  It’s a right written right into the first sentence of the document that governs our country.  It’s nice to know that some people who work on Pennsylvania Avenue know that.

To repeat, the CBO found that premiums go down under health-reform

Obama to GOP: It’s Over

WH and Dems Should Send the Message: Health Means Life; Health Means Freedom

Statements about Health Care

Health-Care Summit Starts With Discussion of Facts, Not Policy

Let’s hope health summit wasn’t a fraud

I Told You So

President Jimmy Carter is stating what I’ve been saying for a while (and was “taken to task” for in the comment section of the last post).  Namely, many of the attacks, both in the “substance” and tone, against President Barack Obama, are thinly veiled expressions of racist disbelief that a black man is POTUS.  And while I was compiling my evidence and articulating a reply, it suddenly dawned on me that I can lead horses (or elephants) to water, but I can’t make them drink.  Understand that this is not simply Republican-bashing.  It is simply a realization that while there are many independents and Democrats (and some Republicans) who disagree with the President’s ideological and practical governance of the United States, the extreme ideas by fearful and ignorant people are gaining traction with the not so ignorant because they hold one thing in common: Fear of a black planet.

There are groups of people angry and scared and confused whose sole similarity with each other is their hatred of the President.  Elderly people who will benefit from changing the manner in which their medical insurance is billed and their prescriptions are screaming at their elected representatives that President Obama is a socialist; people are saying “they want their country back,” but when asked what they means answer, “I don’t know”; Glenn Beck is on “national television” saying that the half-white President has a problem with white people…the President’s birth/legitimacy is still being questioned, by “concerned” almost-citizens and echoed by members of Congress – where were they when Senator McCain was running for the office?  And if you don’t know why that’s relevant, you’ve proven my point.

But alas, people who are in the majority rarely acquiesce that their domination of societal and cultural norms without confrontation and overwhelming evidence (and many times not even then).  Whether that is white people in the United States, men on the planet earth, English speakers, heterosexuals, the non-disabled… the domination doesn’t matter.  From our language to our institutions, the codified methods of discrimination are not rewritten without cataclysm.

Sorry… I got a little carried away.  Maureen Dowd, President Carter, and many others are beginning to speak the truth to power.  How long will it take before the people who disagree with the President’s policies, but don’t ascribe to the fearful racist elements that show themselves in screaming fits at town halls an as mouthpieces for economic predators acknowledge and disavow the people that drown out their legitimate arguments?

Just some final thoughts: Here is the post I was beginning to write. I’m including it more for the articles linked…

Unpacking the Knapsack

In critiquing the critics of the President, I have been accused of: a) playing the race card, b) being racist, c) loving a good stereotype, and d) falling back on hyperbole when I didn’t have any facts to back up my assertions.  Hence, I will attempt for those who, in good faith, misunderstand how race plays a part of the wildly aggressive campaign to delegitimize the presidency of Barack Obama, and in doing so simply acknowledge the symptoms without diagnosing the disease, thereby insuring the nation continues to suffer from the illness.

The ridiculous combination of conspiracies being hurled at President Obama are not new ground.  The level of serious consideration that they’ve gained in Congress, though, are.  From Republican Senators and Congresspeople questioning the President’s birthplace, to the continued lie that is “death panels”

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Of National Lies and Racial America

Boy, Oh, Boy

Carter: Racism plays major role in opposition to Obama

Stoopid is as stoopid does

Fear and hatred of “the other” has reached ridiculous levels.  The President of the United States is going to speak to school children, and white “conservative” ignorant people are keeping their kids home from school, or bombarding their school administrations with fictitious objections to stop “the socialist indoctrination” from happening.

Did they protest President George H.W. Bush when he spoke to kids and asked them to “help the President”?  No.

Did they protest when President Ronald Reagan spoke to children, and gave his misguided “trickle-down economics” theory in answer to a question?  No.

But the “black fascist socialist hitler” is doing something wrong, right?

More and more, as the untruths are piled on top of each other like corpses in front of outnumbered and scared invaders beating a slow and forced retreat, I am unnerved by the inability of rational people, conservatives, liberals and progressives alike, to stem the tide.  This latest objection against the President speaking to schoolchildren and encouraging them to do well in school is merely another straw (although the camel’s back is noticeably strained).  On top of the birthers, the deathers, the death panels, “Obamacare”, the bailout of the banks (which was President Bush, but what are facts?), the negotiations with terrorists (I mean the diplomacy with Iran), the failure of the war in Afghanistan (that President Bush began and forgot), the stimulus package which is saving the deregulated orgy that was wall street, and the reform of the for-profit health insurance industry into an actual health-care industry, the white people who wanted John McCain to be president are proving to be sore losers.

They’re showing up to public discussion with arms, misunderstanding both the first and second amendments to the Constitution.  They’re arguing the primacy of the tenth amendment, or the Reserve Clause, and stating the federal government doesn’t have the power to legislate to the states.  They’re abusing the very rights they “cherish” because they lost to a black man, who’s aiming to keep the promises he made when he was campaigning.

I’ve said before I hate stupid people.  But that hate is beginning to eat me up.  So I’m working on understanding that Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are simply expressing a different point of view based on insecurity and challenges to white male domination of this country that they are unable to fathom.  I’m working on being more like Senator Franken who is able to address people who disagree without displaying the frustration at their idiocy and unfounded accusations that I’m simply unable to do at this point.

Keeping your kids home so that they won’t hear the President say go to school and do your work so you can grow up and be big and strong and successful is stoopid.  And I don’t hate the parents for being stoopid.

I just feel sorry for their children.

Text of President Obama’s Address

Planned Obama Speech to Students Sparks Protest

Obama’s education speech no cause for debate

Enemies of the State

“You’ll find that many of the truths we cling to depend on your point of view.”

-Obi-wan Kenobi, Return of the Jedi

Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Michelle Bachmann, Senator Ensign and all the others who said that President Obama’s handshake and smile with President Hugo Chavez sent a message to the enemies of America were right. What they didn’t say, and would probably not truly understand, is that they are those enemies. The President managed to establish, in two interactions, diplomatic ties with Venezuela. I’m uncertain how establishing a political relationship with another country, one which supplies us with oil, is bad, but these people are adamant that it is.

They are also critical of the President’s decision to forgo torture, and to release information about the criminal acts of the previous administration. Again, perhaps I am naive or perhaps they have something to hide, but the good book says that “the truth shall set you free.” Much as I was tired of being afraid for candidate Obama’s safety or for feeling the HOPE that he would be elected to lead us in November, I am tired of the arrogance that goes with the statements of these people regarding the United States and our position in the world.

It is weakness and insecurity which doesn’t allow them to acknowledge the faults in our behavior. No one is perfect. No country is perfect. And yet, they would have us believe that acknowledgement of imperfection, or apology for things we’ve done wrong are signs of weakness?

How then, do they argue for the continued embargo of Cuba on human rights issues when we have Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay? How do they argue that we are fighting against terrorists when we used our army to invade a sovereign country, and we are sending drones into another country? How do they claim the moral high ground with China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela or any place else when they support and advocate the same behaviors from our government and our military?

Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Michelle Bachmann, Senator Ensign and all the others who said that President Obama’s handshake and smile with President Hugo Chavez sent a message to the enemies of America were right. What they didn’t say, and would probably not truly understand, is that they are those enemies.

And I hope they fail.

Teabags, Taxes and the “new” Republican Right

“Watch yourself. Be on guard. This place is full of vultures, vultures everywhere. Everywhere.” – Casablanca

There is a “movement” of idiots afoot protesting President George Bush’s tax structure, though they claim they’re against President Obama’s bailouts (like TARP, which started under . . . President Bush). They’ve mistaken the stimulus package passed by President Barack Obama and the 111th Congress for something that affects them as they file their taxes for 2008. What’s more, Faux News is promoting this farce and trying to make it sound like a news story instead of a (permanent opposition to a Democratic president) publicity stunt. Fashioned after the famed Boston Tea Party, where American colonists disguised themselves as Native Americans and destroyed private property in protest of taxation without representation, today’s ‘tea baggers’ are protesting against the wrong people for the wrong reasons. However, they haven’t realized that much like the Virginia Republican Party, which was displaying softcore lesbian pornography on its website a few days ago “by mistake”, that their preferred method of protest, teabagging, is a rather vulgar masculine display of power and authority it modern parlance.

This confusion about what is good for the United States, and what is Right in the United States, and what is simply peeing into the wind is exemplified by the people who speak for the Republican Party in public. Take House Minority Whip Cantor’s comments about tax increases today.

“At a time when American families and small businesses are facing difficult challenges and financial uncertainty, Washington must not make their situations worse by imposing the largest tax increase in American history.”

His comments have absolutely nothing to do with the taxes we’re filing. He (and the teabaggers . . . giggle) are trying to link together President Obama, the economic crisis, and the fact that our government must have taxes as revenue in order to function. How did he vote on Congressional salary increases? How do the teabaggers expect that the services they depend on like police departments, fire departments and public schools to name a few, are to be paid for?

The tax structure today is lower than it was under that paragon of conservative economic virtue, President Reagan. President Obama’s tax cut for the majority of American families (including those who run small businesses) took effect in March of 2009 – which means that they affect next year’s tax returns, not today. The New Right is so wrapped up in fighting President Obama (even though they lost the election, remember) that they can’t see straight.

I’ve grown tired of the whining, the preening, the Rushing. Protest is the right of every citizen of the United States, and really the world. But you should know what you’re protesting for (or against) before you open your mouth, paint a sign, or threaten to tea bag someone.

Anti-Tax ‘Tea Party’ Protests Expected Across U.S.

The Fine Art of Teabagging

April 15th is Patriots Day

Right-wing extremism may be on rise, report says

Nationwide ‘tea party’ protests blast bailout