I went to the largest protest march I've seen in a very long time on Saturday here in Santa Barbara. There were at least 1,000 people, energized and excited, in the rain.
Of course you've seen the photos from Los Angeles. And today there are more student protests in California. And in Detroit, thousands of people are marching right now. There were similar protests in cities across the country over the weekend, involving millions.
The protests involve a bill which passed the US House of Representatives last week, HR 4337. This bill, scheduled to be debated in the Senate today, would make it a crime to help a person living and working in the United States without documents. It would make living in the US without documents a felony. And it would make millions of hardworking, decent people into criminals.
What struck me the most about the rally here in Santa Barbara was the lack of elected officials and Democratic party leaders. The only elected official I saw was Das Williams, a city councilman, who spoke to the crowd. I didn't see any Democratic party officials trying to use the opportunity to speak to a crowd of energized and ready-to-vote people. That's a shame.
What isn't a shame, though, is the growing grassroots current of people dedicated to protecting immigrant rights. It's not a coincidence that I'm writing a seminar paper right now about immigration law. The changes to immigration law in the US in the past 10 years have been striking. Militarizing the border was just the beginning. HR 4337 would be the latest in a long line of racially charged, blatantly anti-American legislation.
Call your senators right now to express your opinion. In California, Senator Feinstein's number is 415 393-0707.
A bill that makes illegal immigration illegal? How original.
i'll tell you what's original...a bill that seeks to criminalize the very people that make our quality of life possible. but i suppose that like everything else, everything that you have is all due to your own hard work.
you manage to turn an incredibly complex issue into a polarizing, unrelated binary. why not have the church also pass a doctrine that says illegal immigrants will burn in hell too?
me? i hope that illegal immigrants prove all those a-holes right and rise up and take over. hey, they couldn't screw up the country any worse than the current regime has.
Bob, why must you turn this into a personal attack on me? I don't think you know me well enough, or at all, to ascertain exactly how much of what I've accomplished is due to my own hard work.
The irony I was pointing out is the fact that illegal immigration has always been winked at despite the fact that it is illegal by definition and its name attests to this. I'm not even positing a stance on the issue, but if you'd like one I'll give you one later.
To help you know how to insult me:
My Mom grew up poor in the Bahamas as the only girl amongst seven brothers. She has at least as many siblings out of wedlock due to her father's philandering. She was the only one of her siblings to make it into Nassau's Government (Honors) High School. She attended Liverpool and Oxford in England. On a return trip to the Bahamas, she met and married my father, moving to the states a year later.
Dad grew up in Detroit as the first son of a fairly uneducated mechanic. He was the first in the family to attend college (Michigan State). He then joined the Coast Guard and met my mother toward the tail-end of his stint. When they moved back, he went to the University of Michigan and got his MBA.
My brother turned down a full ride to the University of Michigan to attend the U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis). After graduating and serving out his stint, he earned his MBA from the University of Illinois.
These were my role models, and I've done the best I can to live up to the example they've set. You can debate how much hard work I had to do on my own, but I do know that when I was attending the University of Michigan and Northwestern University, I didn't see anyone breaking into my room or the office to do my hard work for me.
Anyway, if you'd like the opinion of a second generation immigrant who remembers when his mother needed a permission slip from his father to take him out of the country, let me know.
hi ian,
you misread my intentions. believe me, if i was meaning to insult you, i would have resorted to fith grade school yard taunts like i do with that douchebag laslos. i'm sorry if you took it that way.
i suppose that last line, about the hard work could be construed that way, but erik has well informed me that you are a hard worker, and in. so i retract that last line.
but i do still think that your comment diminishes the neat show of solidarity that erik was commenting on. and i didn't want that to be the last comment.
but as you clarify, you weren't making a position stand, so again, all ill will intended in the post is retracted.
hope all is well in michigan.
Dammit, Bob, there was no reason to sound the retreat.
Ian, Bob's "hard work" comment was not a personal attack on you. Bob is making the larger point that everyone works hard. You certainly wouldn't argue that the person born in rural West Virginia to immigrant parents who ends up working in a coal mine is working less hard than you or me, right?
The thing is, there are structures in society that limit our life chances. This is a basic precept of sociology, and one that I'll continue to reference here in terms of not only our lives, Ian, but everyone's.
The point is, yes you have worked hard, and yes you deserve to be proud of your accomplishments. The same can be said for "illegal" immigrants.
The reason so many -- at least 11 million -- people live as undocumented workers in the this country is because A) they want a better life than they can find in their countries of origin; and B) because their employers in the US love the ability to hire workers that they can fire at will and pay less than minimum wages under the table; and C) because very few native born Americans have any interest in doing the hard work that these hard working people do.
Whether you like it or not, immigrants have been and continue to be the bedrock upon which our opulent lives are lived on. And when the US House of Representatives moves to make their mere presence a felony, I stand with the accused and cry foul. Despite the complexities of immigration law, we need to at the very least give these people the basic dignity they deserve. No son criminales.
Hey, Erik,
Wish I could've been there with you, protesting this travesty. I've been discussing the bill with anyone willing to listen to me here in Holland.
Oh, and, I'm happy to see Mr. Miyagi gracing your page
There are thousands of hard-working individuals around the world who are waiting this very moment to legally enter the United States, but you are saying they are just all suckers and should sneak into the country illegally like these tens of thousands of Mexicans? If you enter in illegally, you are a criminal—I don't care how many hours a week you put in with a mop or a leaf-blower to fulfill your capitalistic goals.
My family came here legally, and they had no money. I'm sure the families of everybody on this blog struggled to come here legally.
The American dream is about having opportunity to succeed through struggle, and embracing a new land with new sets of laws; it is not about taking what you want selfishly and wrecklessly by force whenver you feel you're "entitled" to it, or whenever you feel it's not happening "fast enough." That's the kind of corruption we're trying to eradicate— we don't need to offer mass citizenship to it.
Does this look like humble people who want to start new and embrace a home?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/images2/mexicanflag.gif
You know laslos i thought about asking you some hard important questions about the "entitlement" that you refer to--you know like actually being able to sit at your blog all day stalking erik as opposed to holding a leaf-blower--or perhaps about the mythology of struggling and working hard to succeed in this country. but after thinking hard about it i think the most appropriate response to your ridiculous post would be the following:
Fuck you and do us all a favor and take your hypocritical morality and shove it up your kulo.
Another intelligent response from Team Opposition.
Maybe this blog should be renamed: "Fuck anybody who disagrees with Erik"
That doesn't seem to be Erik's attitude, but appears to be the position of a lot of his readers.
If your position on an issue is so obviously superior, then lay out the facts and enlighten us.
Otherwise just write "I hate anyone who disagrees with me" and save your pathetic personal attacks.