Imagine if you were using someone else's SSN for employment purposes so that you could evade taxes. There would be no amnesty for you. Imagine if you commited perjury on a federal document other than an I-9 form. There would be no amnesty for you.
When folks such as Tony Snow, Bush, Kennedy, etc talk about how we want the "folks who have been here working hard and not breaking our laws" keep in mind that they mean "folks who have been here and HAVE BEEN AND ARE STILL CURRENTLY breaking out laws."
So you may be able to find some illegal aliens who have only committed several crimes but not been caught for a rape. This criminal is treated like he never broke the law. According to Tony Snow this guy is a natural Republican. You know, someone who is willing to lie, steal, cheat, mis-identify themselves, commit fraud, etc. Way to give republicans a bad name Tony.
No money for the RNC. No money to the Republican Party. None.
18 comments:
Keep spinning those wheels round and round. The GOP doesn't care about a few half-wit dimball know-nothings that don't like the comprehensive immigration reform bill. Even Tom-Tom Tan-creepo agrees it is pretty much a done deal with little that can be done, except to make threats. So, why you dozers are threatening to withhold funds and votes if they vote "yes" for CIR, we are promising them votes and funds when they do vote "yes".
Besides, I suspect many of you that are threatening to defund the GOP don't even give enough so they can buy paper. That is all.
43 Comments - Show Original Post Collapse comments
voice of reason said...
Ten emails, ten faxes and ten phone calls from one constituent to a single politician or party (or even 5 each for each of Oregon's two senators) is not the sign of a healthy and principled political movement; it is the sign of a movement given over to paranoia, desperation and bullying tactics. What is the point of multiple contacts with a politician other than to artificially inflate your own numbers? Would someone care to explain why that is necessary?
Make your call, register your opinion, and if you want, follow up with a fax OR an email to elaborate on points you didn't have time to make on the phone. But don't tie up everyone's phone lines and clog their email boxes just so you can feel powerful ... the only effect of that is to prevent OTHERS from registering their own views -- on this issue, or -- suprise! -- other issues! There are other issues, you know.
7:36 AM
eddie said...
Yup... I agree... one contact with an individual representative.
Otherwise, you might as well be a progressive.
7:46 AM
Anonymous said...
"There are other issues, you know."
Not in Daniel's version of reality. Iraq, the federal deficit, our woeful health care system, gas prices, global warming....these all pale in comparison to illegal immigration.
Slowly but surely, this "problem" will remedy itself. Fertility in Mexico has been reduced drastically during the past two decades. The remittance economy has raised the standard of living in that country as well. The push factors driving Mexican migration are on the decline, again, slowly, but surely.
I think it's time to get this bill passed and move on to more pressing issues.
10:11 AM
Anonymous said...
To voice of reason and eddie:
This is just grand, people who want the American people to lay down and let this amnesty abomination become law, giving advice on what to do and what not to do.
Everybody in politics knows that intensity matters!
How hard people will work matters in politics.
How active voters are about an issue matters.
How do politicians measure intensity?
It is measured by the number of contacts and the kinds of contacts.
So, the politicians do this "deal" in secret and want to vote on it four days after telling the American people about the "deal"; and the bill is 700 pages long and hasn't been printed yet. There are no committee hearings.
And voice of reason talks about "...paranoia, desperation and bullying tactics."
Get real.
I've tangled with voice of reason before and crushed his "reason".
I look forward to it again.
10:13 AM
Anonymous said...
To anon1011am:
This bill is a threat to the Republic.
The question is this:
Will the United States of America continue to be a constitutional democratic republic or be an oligarchy controlled by either Big business or the socialists with a patina or veneer of democratic trappings?
This is a Kansas-Nebraska bill moment. The bill was passed in 1854, it opened the western territories to slavery by "popular sovereignty". It divided the Democrates, destroyed the Whigs, and gave birth to the anti-slavery Republican Party and led directly to the Civil War in 1860.
This makes the abortion issue look like a walk in the park, the gay agenda a street fight, while this is a battle for the Republic in which our grandchildren will live.
Where have you been in the last 24 hours? There is a prairie fire of intensity on this issue because the American people know what is at stake.
10:43 AM
Anonymous said...
A Kansas-Nebraska moment? Intensity? Okay -- what will you guys all do if, sorry, when this thing is signed into law? How do you respond to being on the losing end of a "Kansas-Nebraska" moment?
10:59 AM
anon 1043am said...
To anon1059am:
You are counting your chickens before they hatch, as the old saying goes. Politicians respond to groundswelling revulsion that will cost them re-election.
Can I guarantee Americans will defeat this abomination? No, but you are over-confident, and many times over-confidence is heading for a fall.
My side has the intensity, your side doesn't, and is inherently divided between Socialists, big business and La Raza types.
Blueoregon the blog of the left: Check it out, no post on immigration. Why? They are already divided over immigration because even Blueoregon types know amnesty will lower wages and hurt blue collar workers.
Get to know it.
Money is not the measure of all things.
You might just learn that in this episode.
11:32 AM
The OTHER Ben Dover said...
Hee Hee Hee...
You paranoids are really sweating it. Looks like your Prez sold ya'll down the river - little racist reference for ya.
Poor Daniel. Now he won't get any rest.
See ya in the bread, or should I say "tortilla" line
2:57 PM
Anonymous said...
Check CNN.COM poll
With 105,000 votes, it asks what you think of the new immigration proposal...
64% Amnesty
36% Immigration Reform
Looks like Americans are getting screwed in the a**hole by bush.
3:56 PM
Anonymous said...
No reverberatory effect of the great war has caused American public opinion more solicitude than the failure of the "melting-pot." The discovery of diverse nationalistic feelings among our great alien population his come to most people as an intense shock. It has brought out the unpleasant inconsistencies of our traditional beliefs. We have had to watch hard-hearted old Brahmins virtuously indignant at the spectacle of the immigrant refusing to be melted, while they jeer at patriots like Mary Antin who write about our "forefathers." We have had to listen to publicists who express themselves as stunned by the evidence of vigorous traditionalistic and cultural movements in this country among Germans, Scandinavians, Bohemians and Poles, while in the same breath they insist that the alien shall be forcibly assimilated to that Anglo-Saxon tradition which they unquestionably label "American."
As the unpleasant truth has come upon us that assimilation in this country was proceeding on lines very different from those we had marked out for it, we found ourselves inclined to blame those who were thwarting our prophecies. The truth became culpable. We blamed the war, we blamed the Germans. And then we discovered with a moral shock that these movements had been making great headway even before the war even began. We found that the tendency, reprehensible and paradoxical as it might be, has been for the national clusters of immigrants, as they became more and more firmly established and more and more prosperous, to cultivate more and more assiduously the literatures and cultural traditions of their homelands. Assimilation, in other words, instead of washing out the memories of Europe, made them more and more intensely real. Just as these clusters became more and more objectively American, did they become more and more German or Scandinavian or Bohemian or Polish.
To face the fact that our aliens are already strong enough to take a share in the direction of their own destiny, and that the strong cultural movements represented by the foreign press, schools, and colonies are a challenge to our facile attempts, is not, however, to admit the failure of Americanization. It is not to fear the failure of democracy. It is rather to urge us to an investigation of what Americanism may rightly mean. It is to ask ourselves whether our ideal has been broad or narrow--whether perhaps the time has not come to assert a higher ideal than the "melting-pot" Surely we cannot be certain of our spiritual democracy when, claiming to melt the nations within us to a comprehension of our free and democratic institutions, we fly into panic at the first sign of their own will and tendency. We act as if we wanted Americanization to take place only on our own terms, and not by the consent of the governed. All our elaborate machinery of settlement and school and union, of social and political naturalization, however, will move with friction just in so far as it neglects to take into account this strong and virile insistence that America shall be what the immigrant will have a hand in making it, and not what a ruling class, descendant of those British stocks which were the first permanent immigrants, decide that America shall be made. This is the condition which confronts us, and which demands a clear and general readjustment of our attitude and our ideal.
Mary Antin is right when she looks upon our foreign-born as the people who missed the Mayflower and came over on the first boat they could find. But she forgets that when they did come it was not upon other Mayflowers, but upon a "Maiblume," a "Fleur de Mai," a "Fior di Maggio," a "Majblomst." These people were not mere arrivals from the same family, to be welcomed as understood and long-loved, but strangers to the neighborhood, with whom a long process of settling down had to take place. For they brought with them their national and racial characters, and each new national quota had to wear slowly away the contempt with which its mere alienness got itself greeted. Each had to make its way slowly from the lowest strata of unskilled labor up to a level where it satisfied the accredited norms of social success.
We are all foreign-born or the descendants of foreign-born, and if distinctions are to be made between us they should rightly be on some other ground than indigenousness. The early colonists came over with motives no less colonial than the later. They did not come to be assimilated in an American melting-pot. They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the smallest intention of "giving themselves without reservation" to the new country. They came to get freedom to live as they wanted. They came to escape from the stifling air and chaos of the old world; they came to make their fortune in a new land. They invented no new social framework. Rather they brought over bodily the old ways to which they had been accustomed. Tightly concentrated on a hostile frontier, they were conservative beyond belief. Their pioneer daring was reserved for the objective conquest of material resources. In their folkways, in their social and political institutions, they were, like every colonial people, slavishly imitative of the mother-country. So that, in spite of the "Revolution," our whole legal and political system remained more English than the English, petrified and unchanging, while in England law developed to meet the needs of the changing times.
It is just this English-American conservatism that has been our chief obstacle to social advance. We have needed the new peoples--the order of the German and Scandinavian, the turbulence of the Slav and Hun--to save us from our own stagnation. I do not mean that the illiterate Slav is now the equal of the New Englander of pure descent. He is raw material to be educated, not into a New Englander, but into a socialized American along such lines as those thirty nationalities are being educated in the amazing schools of Gary. I do not believe that this process is to be one of decades of evolution. The spectacle of Japan's sudden jump from mediaevalism to post-modernism should have destroyed that superstition. We are not dealing with individuals who are to "evolve." We are dealing with their children, who, with that education we are about to have, will start level with all of us. Let us cease to think of ideals like democracy as magical qualities inherent in certain peoples. Let us speak, not of inferior races, hut of inferior civilizations. We are all to educate and to be educated. These peoples in America are in a common enterprise. It is not what we are now that concerns us, but what this plastic next generation may become in the light of a new cosmopolitan ideal.
We are not dealing with static factors, but with fluid and dynamic generations. To contrast the older and the newer immigrants and see the one class as democratically motivated by love of liberty, and the other by mere money-getting, is not to illuminate the future. To think of earlier nationalities as culturally assimilated to America, while we picture the later as a sodden and resistive mass, makes only for bitterness and misunderstanding. There may be a difference between these earlier and these later stocks, but it lies neither in motive for coming nor in strength of cultural allegiance to the homeland. The truth is that no more tenacious cultural allegiance to the mother country has been shown by any alien nation than by the ruling class of Anglo-Saxon descendants in these American States. English snobberies, English religion, English literary styles, English literary reverences and canons, English ethics, English superiorities, have been the cultural food that we have drunk in from our mothers' breasts. The distinctively American spirit pioneer, as distinguished from the reminiscently English that appears in Whitman and Emerson and James, has had to exist on sufferance along side of this other cult, unconsciously belittled by our cultural makers of opinion. No country has perhaps had so great indigenous genius which had so little influence on the country's traditions and expressions. The unpopular and dreaded German-American of the present day is a beginning amateur in comparison with those foolish Anglophiles of Boston and New York and Philadelphia whose reversion to cultural type sees uncritically in England's cause the cause of Civilization, and, under the guise of ethical independence of thought, carries along European traditions which are no more American' than the German categories themselves.
It speaks well for German-American innocence of heart or else for its lack of imagination that it has not turned the hyphen stigma into a "Tu quoque!" If there were to be any hyphens scattered about, clearly they should he affixed to those English descendants who had had centuries of time to be made American where the German had had only half a century. Most significantly has the war brought out of them this alien virus, showing them still loving English things, owing allegiance to the English Kultur, moved by English shibboleths and prejudice. It is only because it has been the ruling class in this country that bestowed the epithets that we have not heard copiously and scornfully of "hyphenated English-Americans." But even our quarrels with England have had the bad temper, the extravagance, of family quarrels. The Englishman of to-day nags us and dislikes us in that personal, peculiarly intimate way in which he dislikes the Australian, or as we may dislike our younger brothers. He still thinks of us incorrigibly as "colonials." America---official, controlling, literary, political America--is still, as a writer recently expressed it, "culturally speaking, ,a self-governing dominion of the British Empire."
The non-English American can scarcely be blamed if he sometimes thinks of the Anglo-Saxon predominance in America as little more than a predominance of priority. The Anglo-Saxon was merely the first immigrant, the first to found a colony. He has never really ceased to be the descendant of immigrants, nor has he ever succeeded in transforming that colony into a real nation, with a tenacious, richly woven fabric of native culture. Colonials from the other nations have come and settled down beside him. They found no definite native culture which should startle them out of their colonialism, and consequently they looked back to their mother-country, as the earlier Anglo-Saxon immigrant was looking back to his. What has been offered thee newcomer has been the chance to learn English, to become a citizen, to salute the flag. And those elements of our ruling classes who are responsible for the public schools, the settlements, all the organizations for amelioration in the cities, have every reason to be proud of the care and labor which they have devoted to absorbing the immigrant. His opportunities the immigrant has taken to gladly, with almost a pathetic eagerness to make his way in the new land without friction or disturbance. The common language has made not only for the necessary communication, but for all the amenities of life.
If freedom means the right to do pretty much as one pleases, so long as one does not interfere with others, the immigrant has found freedom, and the ruling element has been singularly liberal in its treatment of the invading hordes. But if freedom means a democratic cooperation in determining the ideals and purposes and industrial and social institutions of a country, then the immigrant has not been free, and the Anglo-Saxon element is guilty of just what every dominant race is guilty of in every European country: the imposition of its own culture upon the minority peoples. The fact that this imposition has been so mild and, indeed, semi-conscious does not alter its quality. And the war has brought out just the degree to which that purpose of "Americanizing," that is, "Anglo-Saxonizing," the immigrant has failed.
For the Anglo-Saxon now in his bitterness to turn upon the other peoples, talk about their "arrogance," scold them for not being melted in a pot which never existed, is to betray the unconscious purpose which lay at the bottom of his heart. It betrays too the possession of a racial jealousy similar to that of which he is now accusing the so-called "hyphenates." Let the Anglo-Saxon be proud enough of the heroic toil and heroic sacrifices which moulded the nation. But let him ask himself, if he had had to depend on the English descendants, where he would have been living to-day. To those of us who see in the exploitation of unskilled labor the strident red leit-motif of our civilization, the settling of the country presents a great social drama as the waves of immigration broke over it.
Let the Anglo-Saxon ask himself where he would have been if these races had not come? Let those who feel the inferiority of the non-Anglo-Saxon immigrant contemplate that region of the States which has remained the most distinctively "American," the South. Let him ask himself whether he would really like to see the foreign hordes Americanized into such an Americanization. Let him ask himself how superior this native civilization is to the great "alien" states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, where Scandinavians, Poles, and Germans have self-consciously labored to preserve their traditional culture, while being outwardly and satisfactorily American. Let him ask himself how much more wisdom, intelligence, industry and social leadership has come out of these alien states than out of all the truly American ones. The South, in fact, while this vast Northern development has gone on, still remains an English colony, stagnant and complacent, having progressed scarcely beyond the early Victorian era. It is culturally sterile because it has had no advantage of cross-fertilization like the Northern states. What has happened in states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota is that strong foreign cultures have struck root in a new and fertile soil. America has meant liberation, and German and Scandinavian political ideas and social energies have expanded to a new potency. The process has not been at all the fancied "assimilation" of the Scandinavian or Teuton. Rather has it been a process of their assimilation of us--I speak as an Anglo-Saxon. The foreign cultures have not been melted down or run together, made into some homogeneous Americanism, but have remained distinct but cooperating to the greater glory and benefit, not only of themselves but of all the native "Americanism" around them.
What we emphatically do not want is that these distinctive qualities should be washed out into a tasteless, colorless fluid of uniformity. Already we have far too much of this insipidity, masses of people who are cultural half-breeds, neither assimilated Anglo-Saxons nor nationals of another culture. Each national colony in this country seems to retain in its foreign press, its vernacular literature, its schools, its intellectual and patriotic leaders, a central cultural nucleus. From this nucleus the colony extends out by imperceptible gradations to a fringe where national characteristics are all but lost. Our cities are filled with these half-breeds who retain their foreign names but have lost the foreign savor. This does not mean that they have actually been changed into New Englanders or Middle Westerners. It does not mean that they have been really Americanized. It means that, letting slip from them whatever native culture they had, they have substituted for it only the most rudimentary American --the American culture of the cheap newspaper, the "movies," the popular song, the ubiquitous automobile. The unthinking who survey this class call them assimilated, Americanized. The great American public school has done its work. .With these people our institutions are safe. We may thrill with dread at the aggressive hyphenate, but this tame flabbiness is accepted as Americanization. The same moulders of opinion whose ideal is to melt the different races into Anglo-Saxon gold hail this poor product as the satisfying result of their alchemy.
Yet a truer cultural sense would have told us that it is not the self-conscious cultural nuclei that sap at our American life, but these fringes. It is not the Jew who sticks proudly to the faith of his fathers and boasts of that venerable culture of his who is dangerous to America, but the Jew who has lost the Jewish fire and become a mere elementary grasping animal. It is not the Bohemian who supports the Bohemian schools in Chicago whose influence is sinister, but the Bohemian who has made money and has got into ward politics. Just so surely as we tend to disintegrate these nuclei of nationalistic culture do we tend to create hordes of men and women without a spiritual country, cultural outlaws, without taste, without standards but those of the mob. We sentence them to live on the most rudimentary planes of American life. The influences at the centre of the nuclei are centripetal. They make for the intelligence and the social values which mean an enhancement of life. And just because the foreign-born retains this expressiveness is he likely to be a better citizen of the American community. The influences at the fringe, however, are centrifugal, anarchical. They make for detached fragments of peoples. Those who came to find liberty achieve only license. They become the flotsam and jetsam of American life, the downward undertow of our civilization with its leering cheapness and falseness of taste and spiritual outlook, the absence of mind and sincere feeling which we see iii our slovenly towns, our vapid moving pictures, our popular novels, and in the vacuous faces of the crowds on the city street. This is the cultural wreckage of our time, and it is from the fringes of the Anglo-Saxon as well as the other stocks that it falls. America has as yet no impelling integrating force. It makes too easily for this detritus of cultures. In our loose, free country, no constraining national purpose, no tenacious folk-tradition and folk-style hold the people to a line.
The war has shown us that not in any magical formula will this purpose be found. No intense nationalism of the European plan can be ours. But do we not begin to see a new and more adventurous ideal? Do we not see how the national colonies in America, deriving power from the deep cultural heart of Europe and yet living here in mutual toleration, freed from the age-long tangles of races, creeds, and dynasties, may work out a federated ideal? America is transplanted Europe, but a Europe that has not been disintegrated and scattered in the transplanting as in some Dispersion. Its colonies live here inextricably mingled, yet not homogeneous. They merge but they do not fuse.
America is a unique sociological fabric, and it bespeaks poverty of imagination not to be thrilled at the incalculable potentialities of so novel a union of men. To seek no other goal than the weary old nationalism, belligerent, exclusive, inbreeding, the poison of which we are witnessing now in Europe, is to make patriotism a hollow sham, and to declare that, in spite of our boastings, America must ever be a follower and not a leader of nations.
II
If we come to find this point of view plausible, we shall have to give up the search for our native "American" culture. With the exception of the South and that New England which, like the Red Indian, seems to be passing into solemn oblivion, there is no distinctively American culture. It is apparently our lot rather to be a federation of cultures. This we have been for half a century, and the war has made it evermore evident that this is what we are destined to remain. This will not mean, however, that there are not expressions of indigenous genius that could not have sprung from any other soil. Music, poetry, philosophy, have been singularly fertile and new. Strangely enough, American genius has flared forth just in those directions which are least [understood] of the people. If the American note is bigness, action, the objective as contrasted with the reflective life, where is the epic expression of this spirit? Our drama and our fiction, the peculiar fields for the expression of action and objectivity, are somehow exactly the fields of the spirit which remain poor and mediocre. American materialism is in some way inhibited from getting into impressive artistic form its own energy with which it bursts. Nor is it any better in architecture, the least romantic and subjective of all the arts. We are inarticulate of the very values which we profess to idealize. But in the finer forms --music, verse, the essay, philosophy--the American genius puts forth work equal to any of its contemporaries. Just in so far as our American genius has expressed the pioneer spirit, the adventurous, forward-looking drive of a colonial empire, is it representative of that whole--America of the many races and peoples, and not of any partial or traditional enthusiasm. And only as that pioneer note is sounded can we really speak of the American culture. As long as we thought of Americanism in terms of the "melting pot," our American cultural tradition lay in the past. It was something to which the new Americans were to be moulded. In the light of our changing ideal of Americanism, we must perpetrate the paradox that our American cultural tradition lies in the future. It will be what we all together make out of this incomparable opportunity of attacking the future with a new key.
Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, it is certain to become something utterly different from the nationalisms of twentieth-century Europe. This wave of reactionary enthusiasm to play the orthodox nationalistic game which is passing over the country is scarcely vital enough to last. We cannot swagger and thrill to the same national self-feeling. We must give new edges to our pride. We must be content to avoid the unnumbered woes that national patriotism has brought in Europe, and that fiercely heightened pride and self-consciousness. Alluring as this is, we must allow our imaginations to transcend this scarcely veiled belligerency. We can be serenely too proud to fight if our pride embraces the creative forces of civilization which armed contest nullifies. We can be too proud to fight if our code of honor transcends that of the schoolboy on the playground surrounded by his jeering mates. Our honor must be positive and creative, and not the mere jealous and negative protectiveness against metaphysical violations of our technical rights. When the doctrine is put forth that in one American flows the mystic blood of all our country's sacred honor, freedom, and prosperity, so that an injury to him is to be the signal for turning our whole nation into that clan-feud of horror and reprisal which would be war, then we find ourselves back among the musty schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and not in any pragmatic and realistic America of the twentieth century.
We should hold our gaze to what America has done, not what mediaeval codes of dueling she has failed to observe. We have transplanted European modernity to our soil, without the spirit that inflames it and turns all its energy into mutual destruction. Out of these foreign peoples there has somehow been squeezed the poison. Ann America, "hyphenated" to bitterness is somehow non-explosive. For, even if we all hark back in sympathy to a European nation, even if the war has set every one vibrating to some emotional string twanged on the other side of the Atlantic, the effect has been one of almost dramatic harmlessness.
What we have really been witnessing, however unappreciatively, in this country has been a thrilling and bloodless battle of Kulturs. In that arena of friction which has been the most dramatic--between the hyphenated German-American and the hyphenated English-American--there have emerged rivalries of philosophies which show up deep traditional attitudes, points of view which accurately reflect the gigantic issues of the war. America has mirrored the spiritual issues. The vicarious struggle has been played out peacefully here in the mind. We have seen the stout resistiveness of the old moral interpretation of history on which Victorian England thrived and made itself great in its own esteem. The clean and immensely satisfying vision of the war as a contest between right and wrong; the enthusiastic support of the Allies as the incarnation of virtue on a rampage; the fierce envisaging of their selfish national purposes as the ideals of justice, freedom and democracy--all this has been thrown with intensest force against the German realistic interpretations in terms of the struggle for power and the virility of the integrated State. America has been the intellectual battleground of the nations.
The failure of the melting-pot, far from closing the great American democratic experiment, means that it has only just begun. Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, we see already that it will have color richer and more exciting than our ideal has hitherto encompassed. In a world which has dreamed of internationalism, we find that we have all unawares been building up the first international nation. The voices which have cried for a tight and jealous nationalism of the European pattern are failing. From that ideal, however valiantly and disinterestedly it has been set for us, time and tendency have moved us further and further away. What we have achieved has been rather a cosmopolitan federation of national colonies, of foreign cultures, from whom the sting of devastating competition has been removed. America is already the world-federation in miniature, the continent where for the first time in history has been achieved that miracle of hope, the peaceful living side by side, with character substantially preserved, of the most heterogeneous peoples under the sun. Nowhere else has such contiguity been anything but the breeder of misery. Here, notwithstanding our tragic failures of adjustment, the outlines are already too clear not t
III
o give us a new vision and a new-orientation of the American mind in the world.
It is for the American of the younger generation to accept this cosmopolitanism, and carry it along with self-conscious and fruitful purpose. In his colleges, he is already getting, with the study of modern history and politics, the modern literatures, economic geography, the privilege of a cosmopolitan outlook such as the people of no other nation of to-day in Europe can possibly secure. If he is still a colonial, he is no longer the colonial of one partial culture, but of many. He is a colonial of the world. Colonialism has grown into cosmopolitanism, and his motherland is no one nation, but all who have anything life enhancing to offer to the spirit. That vague sympathy which the France of ten years ago was feeling for the world--a sympathy which was drowned in the terrible reality of war--may be the modern American's, and that in a positive and aggressive sense. If the American is parochial, it is in sheer wantonness or cowardice. His provincialism is the measure of his fear of bogies or the defect of his imagination.
Indeed, it is not uncommon for the eager Anglo-Saxon who goes to a vivid American university to-day to find his true friends not among his own race but among the acclimatized German or Austrian, the acclimatized Jew, the acclimatized Scandinavian or Italian. In them he finds the cosmopolitan note. In these youths, foreign-born or the children of foreign-born parents, he is likely to find many of his old inbred morbid problems washed away. These friends are oblivious to the repressions of that tight little society in which he so provincially grew up. He has a pleasurable sense of liberation from the stale and familiar attitudes of those whose ingrowing culture has scarcely created anything vital for his America of to-day. He breathes a larger air. In his new enthusiasms for continental literature, for unplumbed Russian depths, for French clarity of thought, for Teuton philosophies of power, he feels himself citizen of a larger world. He may be absurdly superficial, his outward-reaching wonder may ignore all the stiller and homelier virtues of his Anglo-Saxon home, but he has at least found the clue to that international mind which will be essential to all men and women of good-will if they are ever to save this Western world of ours from suicide. His new friends have gone through a similar revolution. America has burned most of the baser metal also from them. Meeting now with this common American background, all of them may yet retain that distinctiveness of their native cultures and their national spiritual slants. They are more valuable and interesting to each other for being different, yet that difference could not be creative were it not for this new cosmopolitan outlook which America has given :- - them and which they all equally possess.
A college where such a spirit is possible even to the smallest degree, has within itself already the seeds of this international intellectual world of the future. It suggests that the contribution of America will be an intellectual internationalism which goes far beyond the mere exchange of scientific ideas and discoveries and the cold recording of facts. It will be an intellectual sympathy which is not satisfied until it has got at the heart of the different cultural expressions, and felt as they feel. It may have immense preferences, but it will make understanding and not indignation its end. Such a sympathy will unite and not divide. Against the thinly disguised panic which calls itself "patriotism" and the thinly disguised militarism which calls itself "preparedness" the cosmopolitan ideal is set. This does not mean that those who hold it are for a policy of drift. They, too, long passionately for an integrated and disciplined America. But they do not want one which is integrated only for domestic economic exploitation of the workers or for predatory economic imperialism among the weaker peoples. They do not want one that is integrated by coercion or militarism, or for the truculent assertion of a mediƦval code of honor and of doubtful rights. They believe that the most effective integration will be one which coordinates the diverse elements and turns them consciously toward working out together the place of America in the world-situation. They demand for integration a genuine integrity, a wholeness and soundness of enthusiasm and purpose which can only come when no national colony within our America feels that it is being discriminated against or that its cultural case is being prejudged. This strength of cooperation, this feeling that all who are here may have a hand in the destiny of America, will make for a finer spirit of integration than any narrow "Americanism" or forced chauvinism. In this effort we may have to accept some form of that dual citizenship which meets with so much articulate horror among us. Dual citizenship we may have to recognize as the rudimentary form of that international citizenship to which, if our words mean anything, we aspire. We have assumed unquestioningly that mere participation in the political life of the United States must cut the new citizen off from all sympathy with his old allegiance. Anything but a bodily transfer of devotion from one sovereignty to another has been viewed as a sort of moral treason against the Republic. We have insisted that the immigrant whom we welcomed escaping from the very exclusive nationalism of his European home shall forthwith adopt a nationalism just as exclusive, just as narrow, and even less legitimate because it is founded on no warm traditions of his own. Yet a nation like France is said to permit a formal and legal dual citizenship even at the present time. Though a citizen of hers may pretend to cast off his allegiance in favor of some other sovereignty, he is still subject to her laws when he returns. Once a citizen, always a citizen, no matter how many new-citizenships he may embrace. And such a dual citizenship seems to us sound and right. For it recognizes that, although the Frenchman may accept the formal institutional framework of his new country and indeed become intensely loyal to it, yet his Frenchness he will never lose. What makes up the fabric of his soul will always be of this Frenchness,-so that unless he becomes utterly degenerate he will always to some degree dwell still in his native environment.
Indeed, does not the cultivated American who goes to Europe practice a dual citizenship, which, if not formal, is no less real? The American who lives abroad may be the least expatriate of men. If he falls in love with French ways and French thinking and French democracy and seeks to saturate himself with the new spirit, he is guilty of at least a dual spiritual citizenship. He may be still American, yet he feels himself through sympathy also a Frenchman. And he finds that this expansion involves no shameful conflict within him, no surrender of his native attitude. He has rather for the first time caught a glimpse of the cosmopolitan spirit. And after wandering about through many races and civilizations he may return to America to find them all here living vividly and crudely, seeking the same adjustment that he made. He sees the new peoples here with a new vision. They are no longer masses of aliens, waiting to be "assimilated," waiting to be melted down into the indistinguishable dough of Anglo-Saxonism. They are rather threads of living and potent cultures, blindly striving to weave themselves into a novel international nation, the first the world has seen. In an Austria-Hungary or a Prussia the stronger of these cultures would be moving almost instinctively to subjugate the weaker. But in America those wills-to-power are turned in a different direction into learning how to live together.
Along with dual citizenship we shall have to accept, I think, that free and mobile passage of the immigrant between America and his native land again which now arouses so much prejudice among us. We shall have to accept the immigrant's return for the same reason that we consider justified our own flitting about the earth. To stigmatize the alien who works in America for a few years and returns to his own land, only perhaps to seek American fortune again, is to think in narrow nationalistic terms. It is to ignore the cosmopolitan significance of this migration. It is to ignore the fact that the returning immigrant is often a missionary to an inferior civilization.
This migratory habit has been especially common with the unskilled laborers who have been pouring into the United States in the last dozen years from every country in southeastern Europe. Many of them return to spend their earnings in their own country or to serve their country in war. But they return with an entirely new critical outlook, and a sense of the superiority of American organization to the primitive living around them. This continued passage to and fro has already raised the material standard of living in many regions of these backward countries. For these regions are thus endowed with exactly what they need, the capital for the exploitation of their natural resources, and the spirit of enterprise. America is thus educating these laggard peoples from the very bottom of society up, awakening vast masses to a new-born hope for the future. In the migratory Greek, therefore, we have not the parasitic alien, the doubtful American asset, but a symbol of that cosmopolitan interchange which is coming, in spite of all war and national exclusiveness.
Only America, by reason of the unique liberty of opportunity and traditional isolation for which she seems to stand, can lead in this cosmopolitan enterprise. Only the American--and in this category I include the migratory alien who has lived with us and caught the pioneer "spirit and a sense of new social vistas--has the chance to become that citizen of the world. America is coming to be, not a nationality but a transnationality, a weaving back and forth, with the other lands, of many threads of all sizes and colors. Any movement which attempts to thwart this weaving, or to dye the fabric any one color, or disentangle the threads of the strands, is false to this cosmopolitan vision. I do not mean that we shall necessarily glut ourselves with the raw product of humanity. It would he folly to absorb the nations faster than we could weave them. We have no duty either to admit or reject. It is purely a question of expediency. What concerns us is the fact that the strands are here. We must have a policy and an ideal for an actual situation. Our question is, What shall we do with our America? How are we likely to get the more creative America by confining our imaginations to the ideal of the melting-pot, or broadening them to some such cosmopolitan conception as I have been vaguely sketching?
The war has shown America to be unable, though isolated geographically and politically from a European world-situation, to remain aloof and irresponsible She is a wandering star in a sky dominated by two colossal constellations of states. Can she not work out some position of her own, some life of being in, yet not quite of, this seething and embroiled European world? This is her only hope and promise. A trans-nationality of all the nations, it is spiritually impossible for her to pass into the orbit of any one. It will be folly to hurry herself into a premature and sentimental nationalism, or to emulate Europe and play fast and loose with the forces that drag into war. No Americanization will fulfill this vision which does not recognize the uniqueness of this trans-nationalism of ours. The Anglo-Saxon attempt to fuse will only create enmity and distrust. The crusade against "hyphenates" will only inflame the partial patriotism of trans-nationals, and cause them to assert their European traditions in strident and unwholesome ways. But the attempt to weave a wholly novel international nation out of our chaotic America will liberate and harmonize the creative power of all these peoples and give them the new spiritual citizenship, as so many individuals have already been given, of a world.
Is it a wild hope that the undertow of opposition to metaphysics in international relations, opposition to militarism, is less a cowardly provincialism than a groping for this higher cosmopolitan ideal? One can understand the irritated restlessness with which our proud pro-British colonists contemplate a heroic conflict across the seas in which they have no part. It was inevitable that our necessary inaction should evolve in their minds into the bogey of national shame and dishonor. But let us be careful about accepting their sensitiveness as final arbiter. Let us look at our reluctance rather as the first crude beginnings of assertion on the part of certain strands in our nationality that they have a right to a voice in the construction of the American ideal. Let us face realistically the America we have around us. Let us work with the forces that are at work. Let us make something of this trans-national spirit instead of outlawing it. Already we are living this cosmopolitan America. What we need is everywhere a vivid consciousness of the new ideal. Deliberate headway must be made against the survivals of the melting-pot ideal for the promise of American life.
We cannot Americanize America worthily by sentimentalizing and moralizing history. When the best schools are expressly renouncing the questionable duty of teaching patriotism by means of history, it is not the time to force shibboleth upon the immigrant. This form of Americanization has been heard because it appealed to the vestiges of our old sentimentalized and moralized patriotism. This has so far held the field as the expression of the new American's new devotion. The inflections of other voices have been drowned. They must be heard. We must see if the lesson of the war has not been for hundreds of these later Americans a vivid realization of their transnationality, a new consciousness of what America meant to them as a citizenship in the world. It is the vague historic idealisms which have provided the fuel for the European flame. Our American ideal can make no progress until we do away with this romantic gilding of the past.
All our idealisms must be those of future social goals in which all can participate, the good life of personality lived in the environment of the Beloved Community. No mere doubtful triumphs of the past, which redound to the glory of only one of our trans-nationalities, can satisfy us. It must be a future America, on which all can unite, which pulls us irresistibly toward it, as we understand each other more warmly.
To make real this striving amid dangers and apathies is work for a younger intelligensia of America. Here is an enterprise of integration into which we can all pour ourselves, of a spiritual welding which should make us, if the final menace ever came, not weaker, but infinitely strong.
4:27 PM
Anonymous said...
There can be no question about the average American's Americanism or his desire to preserve this precious heritage at all costs. Nevertheless, some insidious foreign ideas have already wormed their way into his civilization without his realizing what was going on. Thus dawn finds the unsuspecting patriot garbed in pajamas, a garment of East Indian origin; and lying in a bed built on a pattern which originated in either Persia or Asia Minor. He is muffled to the ears in un-American materials: cotton, first domesticated in India; linen, domesticated in the Near East; wool from an animal native to Asia Minor; or silk whose uses were first discovered by the Chinese. All these substances have been transformed into cloth by methods invented in Southwestern Asia. If the weather is cold enough he may even be sleeping under an eiderdown quilt invented in Scandinavia.
On awakening he glances at the clock, a medieval European invention, uses one potent Latin word in abbreviated form, rises in haste, and goes to the bathroom. Here, if he stops to think about it, he must feel himself in the presence of a great American institution; he will have heard stories of both the quality and frequency of foreign plumbing and will know that in no other country does the average man perform his ablutions in the midst of such splendor. But the insidious foreign influence pursues him even here. Glass was invented by the ancient Egyptians, the use of glazed tiles for floors and walls in the Near East, porcelain in China, and the art of enameling on metal by Mediterranean artisans of the Bronze Age. Even his bathtub and toilet are but slightly modified copies of Roman originals. The only purely American contribution to tile ensemble is tile steam radiator, against which our patriot very briefly and unintentionally places his posterior.
In this bathroom the American washes with soap invented by the ancient Gauls. Next he cleans his teeth, a subversive European practice which did not invade America until the latter part of the eighteenth century. He then shaves, a masochistic rite first developed by the heathen priests of ancient Egypt and Sumer. The process is made less of a penance by the fact that his razor is of steel, an iron-carbon alloy discovered in either India or Turkestan. Lastly, he dries himself on a Turkish towel.
Returning to the bedroom, the unconscious victim of un-American practices removes his clothes from a chair, invented in the Near East, and proceeds to dress. He puts on close-fitting tailored garments whose form derives from the skin clothing of the ancient nomads of the Asiatic steppes and fastens them with buttons whose prototypes appeared in Europe at the Close of the Scone Age. This costume is appropriate enough for outdoor exercise in a cold climate, but is quite unsuited to American summers, steam-heated houses, and Pullmans. Nevertheless, foreign ideas and habits hold the unfortunate man in thrall even when common sense tells him that the authentically American costume of gee string and moccasins would be far more comfortable. He puts on his feet stiff coverings made from hide prepared by a process invented in ancient Egypt and cut to a pattern which can be traced back to ancient Greece, and makes sure that they ire properly polished, also a Greek idea. Lastly, he tics about his neck a strip of bright-colored cloth which is a vestigial survival of the shoulder shawls worn by seventeenth century Croats. He gives himself a final appraisal in the mirror, an old Mediterranean invention, and goes downstairs to breakfast.
Here a whole new series of foreign things confronts him. His food and drink are placed before him in pottery vessels, the proper name of which -- china -- is sufficient evidence of their origin. His fork is a medieval Italian invention and his spoon a copy of a Roman original. He will usually begin the meal with coffee, an Abyssinian plant first discovered by the Arabs. The American is quite likely to need it to dispel the morning-after effects of overindulgence in fermented drinks, invented in the Near East; or distilled ones, invented by the alchemists of medieval Europe. Whereas the Arabs took, their coffee straight, he will probably sweeten it with sugar, discovered in India; and dilute it with cream, both the domestication of cattle and the technique of milking having originated in Asia Minor.
If our patriot is old-fashioned enough to adhere to the so-called American breakfast, his coffee will be accompanied by an orange, domesticated in the Mediterranean region, a cantaloupe domesticated in Persia, or grapes domesticated in Asia Minor. He will follow this with a bowl of cereal made from grain domesticated in the Near East and prepared by methods also invented there. From this he will go on to waffles, a Scandinavian invention with plenty of butter, originally a Near Eastern cosmetic. As a side dish he may have the egg of a bird domesticated in Southeastern Asia or strips of the flesh of an animal domesticated in the same region, which has been salted and smoked by a process invented in Northern Europe.
Breakfast over, he places upon his head a molded piece of felt, invented by the nomads of
Eastern Asia, and, if it looks like rain, puts on outer shoes of rubber, discovered by the ancient Mexicans, and takes an umbrella, invented in India. He then sprints for his train–the train, not sprinting, being in English invention. At the station he pauses for a moment to buy a newspaper, paying for it with coins invented in ancient Lydia. Once on board he settles back to inhale the fumes of a cigarette invented in Mexico, or a cigar invented in Brazil. Meanwhile, he reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites by a process invented in Germany upon a material invented in China. As he scans the latest editorial pointing out the dire results to our institutions of accepting foreign ideas, he will not fail to thank a Hebrew God in an Indo-European language that he is a one hundred percent (decimal system invented by the Greeks) American (from Americus Vespucci, Italian geographer).
--Ralph Linton, "One Hundred Per-Cent American," from the American Mercury (1937)
4:28 PM
Anonymous said...
Benjamin Franklin on Immigration:
Europe is generally full settled with Husbandmen, Manufacturers, &c. and therefore cannot now much increase in People: America is chiefly occupied by Indians, who subsist mostly by Hunting. But as the Hunter, of all Men, requires the greatest Quantity of Land from whence to draw his Subsistence, (the Husbandman subsisting on much less, the Gardner on still less, and the Manufacturer requiring the least of all), The Europeans found America as fully settled as it well could bee by Hunters; yet these having large Tracks, were easily prevail'd on to part with Portions of Territory to the new Comers, who did not much interfere with the Natives in Hunting, and furnish'd them with many Things they wanted.
Land being thus plenty in America, and so cheap as that a labouring Man, that understands Husbandry, can in a short Time save Money enough to purchase a Piece of new Land sufficient for a Plantation, whereon he may subsist a Family; such are not afraid to marry; for if they even look far enough forward to consider how their Children when grown up are to be provided for, they see that more Land is to be had at Rates equally easy, all Circumstances considered.
Hence Marriages in America are more general, and more generally early, than in Europe. And if it is reckoned there, that there is but one Marriage per Annum among 100 Persons, perhaps we may here reckon two; and if in Europe they have but 4 Births to a Marriage (many of their Marriages being late) we may here reckon 8, of which if one half grow up, and our Marriages are made, reckoning one with another at 20 Years of Age, our People must at least be doubled every 20 Years.
But notwithstanding this Increase, so vast is the Territory of North-America, that it will require many Ages to settle it fully; and till it is fully settled, Labour will never be cheap here, where no Man continues long a Labourer for others, but gets a Plantation of his own, no Man continues long a Journeyman to a Trade but goes among those new Settlers, and set up for himself, &c. Hence Labour is no cheaper now, in Pennsylvania, than it was 30 Years ago, tho' so many Thousand labouring People have been imported.
The Danger therefore of these Colonies interfering with their Mother Country in Trades that depend on Labour, Manufactures, &c. is too remote to require the Attention of Great-Britain.
But in Proportion to the Increase of the Colonies, a vast Demand is growing for British Manufacturers, a glorious Market wholly in the Power of Britain, in which Foreigners cannot interfere, which will increase in a short Time even beyond her Power of supplying, tho' her whole Trade should be to her Colonies: Therefore Britain should not too much restrain Manufactures in her Colonies. A wise and good Mother will not do it. To distress, is to weaken, and weakening the Children, weakens the whole Family....
'Tis an ill-grounded Opinion that by the Labour of Slaves, America may possibly vie in Cheapness of Manufactures with Britain. The Labour of Slaves can never be so cheap here as the Labour of working Men is in Britain. Any one may compute it. Interest of Money in the Colonies from 6 to 10 per Cent. Slaves one with another cost L30 Sterling per Head. Reckon then the Interest of the first Purchase of a Slave, the Insurance or Risque on his life, his Clothing and Diet, Expences in his Sickness and Loss of Time, Loss by his Neglect of Business (Neglect is natural to the Man who is not to be benefitted by his own Care or Diligence), Expense of a Driver to keep him at Work, and his Pilfering from Time to Time, almost every Slave being by Nature a Thief, and compare the whole Amount with the Wages of a Manufacturer of Iron or Wool in England, you will see that Labour is much cheaper there than it can ever be by Negroes here. Why then will Americans purchase Slaves? Because Slaves may be kept as long as a Man pleases, or has Occasion for their Labour; while hired Men are continually leaving their Master (often in the midst of his Business) and setting up for themselves.
....There are suppos'd to be now upwards of One Million English Souls in North-America, (tho' 'tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over Sea) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather more, on Account of the Employment the Colonies afford to Manufacturers at Home. This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 Years, will in another Century be more than the People of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on this Side the Water. What an Accession of Power to the British Empire by Sea as well as Land! What Increase of Trade and Navigation! What Number of Ships and Seamen! We have been here but little more than 100 Years, and yet the Force of our Privateers in the late War, united, was greater, both in Men and Guns, than that of the whole British Navy in Queen Elizabeth's Time....
And since Detachments of English from Britain sent to America, will have their Places at Home so soon supply'd and increase so largely here; why should the Palatine Boors [Germans] be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.
4:30 PM
Anonymous said...
Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
4:33 PM
Anonymous said...
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
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Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
4:42 PM
Anonymous said...
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Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
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naiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
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Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjhklsadjsfioupcrtn8seuacxmipodfjksadklajsf;ncioudtngiojsdajocgm;ixojwraigjsidfjgmci jaicjiasdfjkgjajsvlcncncncncncntucnaigjfkldjhs;doifut;wcfnaiorjtksdajg;oiisrejgt;erijgidfklajjjxcgm;kjs;fgiweriojyocmiutg8uiqhredi;hag;oictjuieru;yidjxl;rkjtpaowierjhatl;kdhjoaheitjhsijhtsdkljhfsdhfjsdhjkhfasiohqphiotopjahfjklsak;fjksdajfsfjfjksdkjoa’ nocjeoirt’acior349uiaskeuj9jhoasjkejdlf;asjekxrjoieui05tj ;234iou5wasioesudrfoaWHEJKDRHOPWEUIHFOSA;wiudp99au3iekjotsikjs;9eua[;sjkdjaposiyeuiha;oiweu3ieusodjfgioasjdpoifjksjf;oaiusdifgoae[urtfiqerua[ofjasoidfguwoaservfigasejf
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naiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
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4:44 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
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AMNESTY NOW!
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AMNESTY NOW!
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AMNESTY NOW!
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AMNESTY NOW!
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AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
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AMNESTY NOW!
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AMNESTY NOW!
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AMNESTY NOW!
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AMNESTY NOW!
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AMNESTY NOW!
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AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
Some of the anti-capitalist and anti-American rants by illegal-immigrant apologists here are very interesting.
4:59 PM
Anonymous said...
Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
‘Immigration in America,’ a forum about the national debate over immigration, was held downtown last night. Students Fermin Lopez and Lin Luohzen wrote the winning essays in a related competition.
By
The Forest Grove News-Times, Apr 25, 2007, Updated Apr 25, 2007 (58 Reader comments)
Chase Allgood / News-Times
Fermin Lopez
Is there such a thing as the American Dream?
Searching for a dream that has yet to come true at times seems foolish. In the eyes of a hard-working man, there is no such thing as a dream.
How do you expect to dream when your body’s too exhausted to dream? We don’t live for a dream, but a reality. Dreams don’t pay bills but hard work does. At least that’s how it’s sometimes seen through my father’s eyes. Sixteen years in this land of opportunity and yet he hasn’t witnessed a so-called “American Dream.” There’s not a day that goes by where he doesn’t worry about not having to pay the bills. Day after day of working is endless when you’re supporting a family of six.
Coming to the United States as an immigrant, you’re faced with many difficult decisions. You choose whether coming here will create a safe environment for your family to grow up in. Will I be able to make it here? Is this really a decision I can handle? Is America really what its all made up to be? Is it worth it? These are a flurry of questions you ask yourself while attempting to cross the border.
Crossing the border is just one of the many struggles we face in this country. From other peoples eyes it’s seen as our most difficult struggle. What about finding a home? Getting a job? Getting around? Do you really think these things are handed to us? Not to mention the fact that in every society you’ll find racism.
Growing up in Mexico was hard on my father. He dropped out of second grade because his parents couldn’t afford to keep him in school. Do you know how bad that makes him feel having dropped out of school because of poverty, something that wasn’t uncommon in the part of Mexico where he grew up? Quitting school and working wasn’t his choice.
He was seven years old, taking care of cows from six in the morning to eight at night. Then when he turned thirteen he began working in construction. Moving heavy bricks and mixing cement, doesn’t seem hard but moving the bricks by hand was hard. Scrapes all over his back, fingers bleeding, body aching, working his fingers to the bone. Working from six in the morning to eight. All for some measly 60 pesos a day. Sometimes there would be no work and all they would have to eat was tortillas with salt, or with pumpkin seeds. One shirt and one pair of jeans is what they had to live with. No underwear or socks.
When he made the decision to cross the border at 17, it took him three attempts to get here. He didn’t come here for a dream he came here for the reality, which was to make the money to support his family. It was harder than he imagined. There was a huge difference between working here and working in Mexico. Here he had to be at work at a certain time, and was kept on a tight leash. Having a man breathing over your shoulder, rushing you to work, cussing at you in a foreign language being fired at times for no reason and having no one to communicate with — where’s the dream in that? He had blisters upon blisters, bruises as dark as black paint. The abuse he faced was fierce. How can you dream when the pain of a hard days work puts you to sleep? The scars he has are proof of what he’s been through.
A dream to him is to win the lottery, and for the world to be at peace. That’s a dream. The success of his children is just something he’s grateful to see. Having my brothers and I leave our footsteps in history is something he would want to see. He just wants to show everyone that we are the same and have the same abilities.
There’s no sweeter joy than to see the success of an immigrant race making it in a foreign country, from being no one to being someone important. A dream he wants to see is equality, but to him there is no so-called “American Dream.”
The way I see things are: you have to pave your own path, climb your own ladder to be someone in life. My father and I believe you can’t build a foundation off a dream, but a willingness to strive and to be someone.
The “American Dream” to us means nothing.
— Fermin Lopez, a student at Forest Grove High School, lives in Cornelius.
There is nothing wrong with fighting for your dreams
Everyone has a dream. Some people want to have more money. Others are looking for education and a place to be accepted. However, some people live in places where it would be hard to survive let alone to reach their dream.
Every day we hear about places that are closed to immigrants who would like to enter, but because they don’t have the right documents, they can’t. Those documents cost money, too; so do their dreams. I strongly think every place in the world should be open for any immigrant that would like to enter.
I am a Chinese, born in southeastern China, and I’m proud of who I am. I came here to have a better education that will bring me a successful life. America was the country that I chose because this country could support me with a good education and lead me to my dream. Even though I came with the right papers, I would still hope America could be open for those people who want to enter. In my own opinion I think every human being is born to have the same and equal rights. That’s what the United States Constitution says. I believe people have the right to fight for their dreams, also the right to choose to their life.
Education, I think, is the first step to our dreams. The better education that you have, the better job you will get when you grow up. One of my biggest dreams is to become a famous lawyer. I know there are many steps that I have to go though to reach that dream. There is one quote I really like in China: “You have to fight for your life in order to get a better start. Money won’t come to you if you’re just sitting there. You are the one that who decides if you want to have a better life or not.”
I strongly believe it and that is the reason why I am trying my best in school everyday. I know in try hard, my dream will come true.
Some illegal immigrants might be refugees looking for a place to live. Their dream might be as simple as a safe place to live and food to eat. They also need a place that will support their dreams and accept them as a member to the country. Their hope is to come to a place that they could call home and not be hurt a second time. I think every country should give them a chance.
Still I think the biggest reason immigrants come is for the opportunity to make more money because money is the first step for most of the people to reach their dreams. To reach my dream education is my first step and I think that is also the first step for many other people, too. Going to a college takes money; too, so they need to earn the money it will take for their education. Then, they can get a better job.
Immigrants have helped the U.S to be one of the best countries in the world today. People have dreams and most of the dreams need money to get a good start. However, education is also an important goal, too. I hope every place should support the refugees because as a human being we should all receive the same and equal treatment.
— Lin ‘Lily’ Luozhen is an eighth-grader at Neil Armstrong Middle School in Forest Grove.
Reader comments
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Well, these "winning" essays leave much to be desired. Mostly distinguished by the extreme self-centeredness and arrogance of the authors. Let's take "Lily" first;
>
America doesn't excist to lead you to your "dreams" honey. We are a real country, with a real history, and a real people. Our ancestors paid in blood, sweat and tears for the infrastructure you so blithely brag about taking advantage of -- and which you also so generously want to offer to every Tom, Dick and Harry who thinks they have a "human right" to use our infrastructure ot achieve their "dreams." How would you feel if billions of people thought they were entitled to use YOUR country the same way? Fact is, for you to have your "dreams", many native-born Americans don't get to have THEIR dreams. The least you could do is say thank-you.
>
Quit whining about how your Dad has never found the "American Dream." As with "Lily", our nation doesn't exist to provide you with "dreams." Also, if our country means nothing to you then please go back to Mexico with your criminal lawbreaking dad.
"Mary"
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 07:26 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Yes, there's no sure thing about achieving your goals and dreams in this country! I struggled to support a family alone - took many a menial job just for health benefits - dead end jobs and I see my children losing their jobs to cheap labor.
My compassion and sympathies go to that American worker who was so angry at me for unknowingly hiring an American contractor who sent two groups of illegal aliens, one from Central America and one from Mexico to my home - I didn't want them there, I didn't agree to that, I didn't get a big savings. He was later fined 1.5 million dollars - oh yes! But the Contractor who didn't get the job was beside himself on why I hired the other Contractor and I wouldn't have hired him.
Reports on TV this week is that social security entitlements and medicare will bankrupt America. Hello??????????
"Fairlane"
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 09:56 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
It was the "American Dream" which gave this great country the standing it has in the world. If not for such a thing we would have never have risen to the highest level in the world community. I daresay the early immigrants who formed this country worked to better not only themselves but the country itself, they learned a common language and worked to integrate themselves. The current illegal immigrants send large amounts of money out of the USA, contribute with disproportionate amounts of crime (as if illegally entering a sovereign nation is not a crime itself), live here 10, 15, 20 years illegally and make no attempt to learn the native language, uncontrolled child birth, make no time to better the greater community, leech off of public resources for food, housing, etc.
The American dream is what separates us from all our neighbors, it is what many Americans have fought and died for. Other countries have let corruption, greed and indifference shape their countries and carry these same qualities here with them. The American dream is what you make of it, we do not owe any illegal immigrants one thing except swift prosecution and deportation. If the "immigrants" truly believe in this country as something other than a handout and a way to pave the way to third world living conditions I have not seen it. With the high rate of employment among these "immigrants" why do so many of them live in HUD housing or in squalor with 3-4 families in a house or apartment? Could it be they were criminals in their own countries? Real immigrants live with American society not under it. The American dream will fade when these minorities become the majority and open borders cause the once proud USA to become a footnote. The signs are all around us.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 11:38 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Is this the same "Immigration Dream" competition posted on the Cornelius Fred Meyer bulletin board? The one that caused me to wince, thinking - “here we go again” - another feel-good session for the Politically (in)Correct!
There's a tiny minority of extremely active ‘locals’ who’ve become the Enabler’s of bottom tier, or illegal immigration, as their livelihoods are often center around dispensing our social services to the constant influx of illegal and amnestied-illegal aliens.
This writing “Competition” was nothing more than a media tool to evoke pity for those who'll apparently stop at nothing to get what we have -- and it bothers me to see it given this attention by our local newspaper.
Current LEGAL US immigration allows over 300,000 new citizens a year into this country. That's larger than the city of Portland during most of my life! With a current estimate of 20 Million illegal alien immigrants within our borders - where's our sovereignty?
I've an 8th grade daughter too (born in Forest Grove), though she'll apparently have to speak a foreign language to find work. Tell me - what of her Dreams?!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 08:20 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Congratulations to the students who participated in the "Immigration in America" essay contest. I applaud their willingness to share their stories, and to wrestle with what it means to be a young immigrant in America today. It gives me hope to see their constructive contributions to the immigration debate, not an easy one to walk into. We are all richer for their presence and involvement.
"Bridget"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 12:31 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I was amazed and gratified at the level of reflection evidenced in the essays written by these two young people. How wonderful that young people can dream the same dreams that almost all of our ancestors dreamed when they began their struggles in this "land of dreams". I sincerely regret that some of us base our opinions on incorrect data, our own painful past or current experiences or unfounded fear. Dream on, whoever you are.
"Barbara"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 01:04 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
On Tuesday evening, April 24, I attended the event at the Forest Grove Community Center where the two students read the winnning essays. I was very impressed, not only with the essays and the students, but also with the history of immigration presented by Dr. Jim Moore with Pacific University. Perhaps individuals with hostile and hateful comments about immigrants would have developed an educated understanding of immmigration in this country if they had attended and participated in the event. The hostile comments remind me of the child who asks his mother "Mom, what's a label?" "It's something they put on a person so you can hate them without having to get to know them first."
"Louise"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow! I am amazed at the hostility and ignorance of some previous comments. They must have a great deal of fear to attack a 13 year old and 16 year old! I want to commend Lily and Fermin for their wonderful essays which give a brief look into the world of the immigrant; a chance to see what many choose to ignore. Many of the "facts" stated above would have been dispelled if Neal, Mark, Fairlane and Mary had chosen to participate in the Immigration Forum. Before blaming these courageous students or their parents one should take a deep look at US Foreign Policy.
"Gina"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:24 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
My dear,
You missed something about "YOUR REAL HISTORY"
Your ancestors did not pay with BLOOD for anything. They killed and stole this land that was belong to someone esle. Did not you know that part?
Let me change "Real People" defination for "Real Criminals"
"Linda"
""Linda""
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 03:12 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I worked hard to bring my wife here leagaly, I paid and spent a year and a half trying to get it all correct, but she is leagal. Why did the essays not also stake the fact out right that their parents broke the law as they are breaking our country. I have no problem what so ever for some one who is willing to come hear correctly and I for one understand how hard it is, but to come and trespass here and use our own benefits that we are trying to save for our own retirement such as social security just really makes me angry, and I just want to say GO HOME!!!!!!!
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 06:55 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
It's interesting to see that the complaints made about Irish immigrants in the late 19th century (contributing disproportionately to crime) and German immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century (not willing to learn English) have been recycled for use against our newest immigrant populations.
My great-grandmother spoke nothing but German. My grandmother spoke German to her mother, and English to her children. My father could only understand parts of what his mother said to his grandmother, and the only German I use is 'Gesundheit!'
Exodus 23:9 — ‘You shall not oppress a resident alien, you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.'
"Jenye"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 07:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
After reading the winning essays on immigration from two local high school students, I was impressed by the authors’ eloquence and organization of their papers. It takes writing skills to be able to express complex issues in a clear and organized manner, especially when you are doing it in your second language.
Immigration is a complex issue, often exploited by opportunistic politicians, that raises a lot of passion. While some people think that immigrants come here for a ‘free ride’, only to take advantage of the great benefits of our society (as if they only needed to stretch their arm to grab the ripe fruit from a tree), while other people think that they are being exploited by our avaricious employers.
I personally think that immigration does not happen at random. Immigrants go where they are needed or wanted. The same happens with migrant movements from within our borders (i.e. the neighbor from Texas or Alabama that moved to Oregon). One only needs to look around our community to see that recent immigrants are an integral part of our community, holding jobs in all sectors of the economy, from picking berries in the fields, changing shingles on the roofs, cooking in restaurants, taking care of the elderly to working in the high tech industry.
The recent immigrants that I have met are hard workers, often times holding more than one job. The reason for this, as I later found out, is that for some their pay is below the minimum wage, often times without benefits such as vacation time, sick leave or retirement. In fact, for many the Social Security and Medicare that is taken off their paycheck twice a month is money that they will never see again.
While we are a nation of immigrants, it seems hypocritical to me that now we have decided that new immigrants are not welcome. It saddens me to see that in the whole immigration debate we tend to forget that we are all humans in pursuit of happiness doing the best that we can to provide for ourselves and our children. Let us not forget our humanity.
""Gerardo""
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 08:56 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wake up and figure the cost of the programs to help at risk youth (i.e. hispanics) stay out of gangs, stay in school and stay out of jail. Then calculate the cost of your friends, neighbors, and businesses having to repair or paint the damage done by these "at risk" gang taggers, thieves, and drug dealers. Then figure out what the meetings in Forest Grove for spanish speakers cost to help them watch for the signs of gang activity with their "at risk" children. How about the cost of high school programs to hold dances, low rider events and mexican cooking classes? Is cheap labor worth the price? If they feel they are being oppressed by English speaking bosses maybe they would have more of a voice if they were here legally and businesses didn't hire cheap labor for a quick buck, oh and learning our language helps. It's not the poor illegal alien worker to blame, it's the companies that hire them with fake papers. Both political parties are to blame, one for the exploitation of the labor force for business and the other to garner votes for them and their social programs. It's not the kid's essays to blame, it's the apathy among people who sit and watch the American Dream disappear into the sunset all so business can turn a profit. When they don't make record profits they pick up their marbles and take their factories to Mexico, China, India or the like to ensure the CEO makes billions of dollars. Being a Native American Indian I could go on about many of the injustices done to the original inhabitants of North America but that and bible versus are irrelevant to this argument. Ask your government why they help fuel the sellout of the USA....
"John Q"
(Not verified)
Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 10:58 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I feel that a lot has been said about this subject but I have a few things to add. First off, most of the west coast used to belong to Mexico and Americans took it. Now "we" complain and say that they are on "our" land. Second, American companies exploit Mexicans living in their own country by placing factories there and paying workers very little, giving them poor working conditions, breaking international civil rights, and polluting their land to the point that many water sources are no longer usable for consumption. If US companies are destroying Mexican land, how can American citizens get mad at Mexican natives for crossing the border and leaving such conditions? Third, we seem to put every member of the Latino community into one group - "illegal Mexicans." I believe that this label destroys the opportunity of many members of the Latino community who are in the US legally to succeed. I also believe that we forget that many Latino youth are here legally. Some of their parents may have come here illegally but many of the youth are not illegal. They are Americans and have all the same rights as any other American. So when people complain about the programs out there that help at risk youth (not every at risk youth is Latino I'd like to add) and say tax payers are just pouring money into illegals, I believe it to be incorrect. If they were born on American soil, they are American citizens and have all the same rights as any other American. If an American youth turns to a life of crime, the state tries to get them back on the right track whether they are black, brown, white, or green.
Why must we look at every new group of immigrants as a burden? Why can't we see them as a new opportunity to learn? Every culture has so much to offer. We sure don't mind going to Mexican restaurants or drinking Corona. Why can't we embrace the rest of the culture starting with its people that have come to our country, who I'm sure would love to share their roots with us?
"Leah"
(Not verified)
Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Before reaching conclusions about America's immigrants, please review the following two links:
http://www.ocpp.org/2007/issue070410immigranttaxeseng.pdf, and,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901322.html.
These articles reinforce the positive contributions of our immigrants.
"Joe Rodriguez"
(Not verified)
Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 04:58 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
A few facts might help to make some sense out of some of the comments above.
- Immigrants, even those who are here legally, do not qualify for most public benefits until they have worked and paid taxes for 40 quarters. That's ten years.
- Even though they are not able to partake in many of the benefits of our government, immigrants pay taxes. Some work under the table--as do some citizens--but the vast majority are subject to withholding from their wages. Anyone who owns or rents property pays property taxes, either directly or indirectly.
- As anyone who has ever struggled through a high school Spanish, or French or German, Japanese, or Chinese class, should know, becoming fluent in another language isn't so easy, especially when working long hours at back-breaking work to support a family. But remember, the eloquent essays that started this string of responses were written by the children of immigrants, and written quite well, I might add, in our common tongue. It has always beens so in America's melting pot.
- Studies comparing the economies of cities like Los Angeles, which have seen great immigration with cities like Cleveland, which have not, show that the hard work, entrepreneurship and, yes, "dreams" immigrants bring to our country actually help to lift the economy, not hurt it.
Ignorance is no excuse for bigotry.
Michael
"D. Michael Dale"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 06:27 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Your links hardly shed any new light on the subject, like my rants they lack any documenting evidence to support there opinions.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 07:40 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
So much for the inscription on the Statue of Liberty which ends with the words, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." The inscription does not mention that paperwork must be in order.
How sad it is to read the hateful comments that stand in opposition to the welcome offered by Lady Liberty. What's next?---A large cloth hung over the inscription to block out these words?
"Sheila"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 04:53 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
How aggravating to read (yet again) the same sorry "talking points" of our Illegal Enablers. Such as: 'This land belonged to them before us'... No, it didn't; you're talking about Aztecs and Spanish Conquistadors, not our Native Americans. 'This is just how the Irish were treated'... The Irish checked in; if not up to specks, they were sent back. Those who stayed - stayed - and, they were legal. 'Send us your poor'... That was simply a “commemorative plaque,” it was never US Government policy. If anything, send us you educated - not those with on average a 3rd grade education and unable to make it in their home country. And (while you’re at it) send us your law abiding, not identity stealing border jumping criminals.
'They do pay taxes'... not directly, and not near enough to off-set their FULL cost to our society. 'They work hard'... cause they're desperate! Watch what they (or their children) do as they get more comfortable. 'They do the work Americans won't' ... you mean they’ll do the work for 3rd world wages, and a standard of living Americans refuse. How do you propose we live, like Europe, or Central America?
'They have a dream' ... so do we! 'English is hard' ... then stay where it isn’t. 'They were "Indians" and we stole their land' ..."Indians" stole, tortured and enslaved their own for eons; Europeans were simply more efficient - evolution? 'Cities were built on cheap labor' ... so was our South - they called it Slavery. 'American Companies exploit Mexicans' ... and their government allows it? Bring those factories home and exploit us! ...The Mexican Government's exploiting its people, and if these Central Americans are so righteous, why aren't they fighting for the rights our great-grandparents won for us instead of stealing ours?
That's more than enough… We're talking about Illegal Alien’s aren’t we? And who can help if they all appear as one (if mixed) race - though diversification would make no difference. And encouraging another Amnesty will again make it ten times worse. So, we either rollover and play dead, or we defend a line? Take your pick!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 05:57 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
The Statue of Liberty came from France, you figure that one out. I'm still trying to figure out how people can roll over and be assimilated into a foreign culture in their own country. Drive thru Cornelius and count how many billboards and storefronts are in spanish. Drive down to Woodburn and check out the old downtown tell me that won't be more towns like that. As far as learning the language immersion is the best way to learn. Working in Woodburn for two years allowed me to immerse myself in spanish to be able to communicate with the locals. Dump someone in the middle of a foreign country and they will learn quickly especially one that has no English available. It's a survival skill that no classroom setting can teach. It's corporate America who make money off of the illegals who choose not to interact with Americans for fear of deportation and cater to their language.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 06:07 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
After the may day activities in Portland today I think a lot of the points I put out earlier strengthen. Hispanics illegal and legal marching in a U.S. city with mexican flags, spanish signs and shouting "viva la raza" Look up Atzlan and La Raza in google and decide for yourself. This is not a part of my American Dream. The following link will explain all of this and more, I'd like someone to defend this well documented movement:
http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 11:25 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am overly impressed with the intelligence these two students portrayed in their reflections. The reality of your writing is something I will carry with me. I congratulate you both for your deep and meaningful portrayal of a contentious issue.
"gretchen"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
If it were not for immigrants our country would not exsist...my own hertiage is a mix of people who originated here in what now known as United States of America and others that came to America LEGALLY thru Ellis Island and began living their lives by adapting to the culture, language and laws of our country
What does it say to our citizens and law-abiding immigrants when we condone and give amnesty to people who have broken the law by their very presence? What do we say to others in our country who have broken our laws when we have one set of laws for them and another set for someone who refuses to abide by our laws from the very beginning of their life in the US
What kind of message does it sends to the kind of people we don’t want or need in this country?
Whether they are from Mexico, Viet Nam, Canada, Iraq or any other country, immigrants enntering illegally, SHOULD NOT have any of the rights of legal immigrants and our own citizens; including, in my opionion the natural citizenship of the children they give birth to while residing in the US illegally as well as allowing them to stay because they have maaried US citizens. We should also consider the employer who hires these people to work as any other citizen who breaks the law
I believe that this issue should be a question we pose as part of the upcoming Presidential election. The people in this country illegally DO have a consequence on our schools, socail structure and work environment. If you don't think this is true, ask the parents of the high school student who wa recently shot by a classmate that is 'undocumented' As well, I am uncomfortable exercising my First Amendment right to express my opionion freely--without fear of reprisal for my stand on this issue
"TL PALMER"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 02:42 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Why were we not going through these protesters and deporting all of the illegals? If I broke into a bank and stole your money would I have a chance to say "hey i broke in but it is only because you let me and I should get to keep the money and have you pay for anything else I need" They are ILLEGAL. Period end of statement send them home!!!!!!!!!! It makes it even harder for someone who does it correct. The INS says if you don't have a good job in your home coutry you can't come and visit, but hey if you are hear illegal then we should try to help you out. This is just another crime that are country is excepting because it is politcally correct.!!!!! Sorry I still say send them all home and lets fix our own country first. If you honestly believe that our schools are not being hurt by all of the language barriers and the free rides to college because of your color, then you are also a fool.
"DAVE"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 04:05 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am appalled by all of the mean-spirited and racist comments of immigrants that are not even illegal though, I believe that everyone seems to have very interesting points but my opinion is; Illegal Immigrants are an issue in this country and take jobs that really should be for people who are legal. I am not saying that every Mexican should be banished from here but in turn, that Immigrants should legally become citizens and work as legal citizens. I understand the want for happiness and/or the American dream but remember the words of Benjamin Franklin:
"The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it."
So I say, aim for the American dream and try, try, try and one day it could be a reality.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 05:20 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
WOW, I too am amazed at some of the greedy and harsh comments made by my fellow Americans. I am so sorry that America has instead of becoming the land that welcomes those who want freedom from oppression to the land that does a lot of oppressing.
I was proud of these student for the thought and honesty that went into these essays. You are Brave- very Brave and I aplaud you.
These students were doing nothing more than sharing their story from were they sit in life, not asking for a free ride, not cutting down America or Americans, not saying we owe them just simply saying "Why is everyone acting as if we are coming to steal something or get a free ride, NO they are here becuase thier family and lives depend on it, leaving family was not easy for them, life has not been easy- they are just wanting to live- What is so hard to understand about that? Isn't that what we all want.
If I were to have an American Dream it would be that Americans and all countries would learn to share, respect and love one another. A Quote I read just this night from Mother Teresa said, "There is a Famine in America. Not of food, but of love, of truth, of life." Let us all love one another and remember we are only caretakers, the owner is the Creator himself- and he graciously gave to all- no on excluded!
"Georgia"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 08:52 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Good lord! Where to begin? Like others, I congratulate the essay contest winners. The brilliance of our youth never ceases to amaze me. I work with youth and they teach me so much. As a Chicano, a dad, a Forest Grove resident and the son of migrant farm workers, these youth make me proud! Kudos to the FGN-T for re-printing their essays.
The racist (if not fascist) anti-immigrant rants on this blog aren't much of a surprise. But I couldn’t contain myself in responding to them to say: touchĆ©...assimilate...you are a hateful few (albeit w/ access to the internet). Your hate reflects a broken spirit, but your blame is misplaced.
Those who heroically struggle for survival by crossing borders despite the dangers - they are the dignified, the courageous, the ones with a spirit that is alive, sane, and contagious. They and their children are role models for all of us to emulate. Racist diatribes about "illegals," "the rule of law," "follow our laws," etc., etc., only reflects a vast ignorance of history, why laws exist, and a blind acceptance of national chauvinism.
Your hate should be directed toward capitalism -- the economic system that crosses borders freely and ruins economies the world over. So-called "free trade" policies, in collusion w/ corrupt governments (US govt. included) are responsible for forced migration. Like someone mentioned earlier, even within our own borders. Livelihoods, sovereignty, and self-determination are ruined here and abroad.
Why? Not for simple profit, but for private, undisclosed, in the hands of very few profit. The border that you naively want to strengthen to "keep them out" serves those few. It does nothing for our communities, neither here in the U.S. or in Mexico, Central America, China....etc... So don't convert your rage into anti-immigrant xenophobia (remember the Nazis) -- you'd be best fighting alongside immigrants to stop capitalism from ruining the planet!
"Eduardo Martinez Zapata"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 09:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Eduardo Martinez Zapata: You said it very well... Thank you for educating the ignorant in our community.
Estudiantes: Felicidades! Sigan Adelante!
"Narce Rodriguez"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 10:25 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wait a minute... isn't there a law in our country that says illegal immigration is a crime? Oh yeah.... I think I heard that once. But I guess it's okay as long as everyone is chasing a dream.
Wake up America. We're being overrun!
DW in CA
"Derik"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 09:31 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Eduardo.... Did you know our prisons are 30% full of illegal immigrants? If what you say is true: "they are the dignified, the courageous, the ones with a spirit that is alive, sane, and contagious. They and their children are role models for all of us to emulate." We're in BIG trouble. You're trying to say that every immigrant should be commended? Nice try, but we're not stupid.
"Derik"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 09:37 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Strange how "Racist," if racially linked the most prominent supporters of illegal "Immigrants" are? Here sits the most generous and racially diverse nation on earth -- being lectured to by one race, or failed culture. Looks like a masked invasion to me!
The only thing "Racial" about this invasion is from where it comes – one place. It's as if Mexico, if not all of Central America are “ethnically cleansing” themselves at our expense. Note the "Spanish sir names" around here... they’re the rulers and spokesmen of Central and (most of) South American, and they’re apparently looking to do the same up here.
No, it's not about race - but funny how that's the first slur tossed at anyone protesting this silent invasion. It may be about a failed culture, if the overwhelming of one by another - language included. But it's actually about LEGALITY - isn't it? Nobody's talking about shipping out legal American Citizens are they? And few doubt the good intentions or intelligence of some; though if so well intentioned - why aren't they in line with the other 300,000 legal-to-be immigrants of this years generous quota?
Here's how it's worked: Desperate Mexican's were allowed migratory work visas to pick crops cheaper than Americans (though my parents did!) could or would. Many stopped returning to Mexico, and out of desperation began working for anything - anywhere to support themselves. American "Businesses" loved that! ...near slave labor! These illegal’s quietly settled in, while quietly sending home money and the advice to Mexico - come on up!
They did, a low estimate of 3 million. What to do? Grant them Amnesty!! -- Reagan's gift to big business, and yet another knife in the heart of American organized labor. Each newly amnestied-illegal ‘legally’ hauled up on average 5 kin. Instead of dodging "Mexican" men at 'Hanks' in Cornelius, we then began dodging their pregnant mates, pushing a baby stroller with a child or two in tow. As this "legal" batch learned the ropes, the word went out - Come on up – we’ll hide you!!
...and they have; there's now an estimated 20 Million living illegally within the US ...but they ‘only want to become legal US Citizens’… right, and so do 98% of the rest of the world! And with another Amnesty... and each of those 20 million will bring up another 5. And if we continued to ignore our so-called ‘immigrations laws’ -- heck - we could empty all of Central America – maybe the world!
So think deep Neighbors; there are obviously polished promoters among us, and of course, 'their children.' And yes, speaking bluntly to this ugly issue isn’t pretty, it’s ugly …but again, what of our children?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 11:26 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I have no problem with "legal" immigrant's as I stated my wife is one. The whole point is not how hard they work or the dream they are trying for. The whole point is they break the law coming here and we have to pay for it. I have seen more hispanics buying homes that I can not even afford, and then when you talk with them they are getting wic for the kids food and welfare and special deals for college when those of us who grew up here can't get any of those things. My rants and feelings are not about just hispanics, i am talking about all ilegal's. The flat out fact is they are breaking the law and then demanding we should take care of them further by giving them amnesty. I for one would like to see this country going back to what it used to be, when we rooted for the American country and we had people who were proud to be an American. Now what do we get, we get groups of people who live here and root for there country but want us to give them a great new life.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 01:31 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Some of the reactions to Illegal Immigration are very understandable. The concern for the future of American Children vs illegal immigrants' children is real.
When you come to a foreign country you need to learn how to survive, not how to destroy its foundations. Learn the language, live according to the law, respect others, etc. All of these things are necessary to have balance.
But at the same time a deeper problem seems to come out of our hearts. It seems as if America is becoming the spoiled child of the world. America is prosper and rich, there is so much abundance and freedom. And yet it seems like it doesn't want to share with it's brother or sister that doesn't have a roof over their heads, or a job or bread to eat.
Why can we make arrangements so that there is not only enough for us but plenty so that we can share with the needy ones. Or is it that we just want to reach the "American Dream" for us and our children and let the rest of the world die? How could we live with ourselves then?
Is the American Dream the most important thing in the world? It just sounds so selfish.
Are all the criminals hispanics? So if there were not hispanics in America there wouldn't be crime?
Are you better or superior to the rest of America, Asia, India or Africa?
What's wrong with us, friends?
"Zellie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 02:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am speechless, overwhelmed by so much hostility toward the stories of these eloquent students and by the lack of compassion for immigrants. My ancestors came to the Northwest 150 years ago, yet I find myself wondering often about who previously owned the land they claimed in central Washington state. I can only imagine the sad stories there, even as my ancestors began a new, celebrated, "brave" prairie life.
We must all seek out the stories of others. Reading them from the pages of a newspaper is powerful, but I wonder what would happen if we came together in one room regularly to hear our stories. Would we still tell immigrants to "go home" if we heard their voices, saw their tears, and tried as hard as we could to imagine the struggles of their family members provide food for their starving little ones? We are all part of the human family--we must never forget that. To do so is to allow our souls to die. We face tough political issues, but we must also listen and work together to find answers.
"Monica"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 04:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I agree Monica, as humans we do have to work together. And as people we are all entitled to the same rights. So why is it that when (legal) immigrants from europe came to the U.S., what, 70 years ago? they were on boats, brought passed our lady Liberty welcomed into New York and entitled to fair jobs, food, shelter ect. when today (legal, yes, legal) immigrants are floating in from Central America and we say "Oh mexicans, how illegal of you. Go back to mexico." listen up
They aren't all illegal
Illegal Immigrants, because of immigration laws, do have to be back in mexico but (legal) immigrants do have rights as humans.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 06:11 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Is this a Christian youth newsletter? You could never prove it by the hurtful comments and responses that were posted in regards to these youny adult's essays.
"Catrina Hamilton"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 06:26 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Here’s a little follow up info on two enabling contributors above; quite proud of their work, and kind enough to give us their full names.
First is, “Eduardo MartĆnez Zapata,” the “Chicano national leader in the Freedom Socialist Party,” and apparently linked with: the “Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women Activities” in Oregon. …now what are their ties to the Grove?
And here’s some ‘recommendations’ by Mr. Zapata: “Abolish NAFTA, CAFTA, and all neoliberal free trade agreements! • No to the criminalization of immigrants! No to guest worker programs! Stop the raids by la Migra! • Amnesty now! Open the borders for workers! • End the war against Iraq! Fund union jobs and social services! • For a world free of want — for democratic socialism! -- Eduardo MartĆnez Zapata
Quite the agenda!
Followed by this quote: “Eduardo Martinez Zapata: You said it very well”... “Thank you for educating the ignorant in our community. Estudiantes: Felicidades! Sigan Adelante!”
Signed by: Narce Rodriguez.
That’s Narce Rodriguez, linked to and apparently promoting: The first annual Latino Awareness Week, "Semana de la Raza: Week of the People," will be held April 16 through 21 at the Portland Community College Rock Creek Campus, 17705 NW Springville Road. The week is based on education, advocacy and celebration of the rich Latino heritage of Washington County.
“Week of the people” … now what “People” do you think she means? And shouldn’t she have also described it as, “Educating the ignorant in our community”?
And a bit more on, "la Raza" -- the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html in fact “la Raza” means "the Race?" So who's talking "Race" here? And what “Rich Latino heritage is she talking about?
I purport these are not members of our community; but professional advocates and enablers of “their race,” and no one else’s. I also suspect several (if not most) of the other apologists posting here are also linked to them. Of course none will speak up...
Well, just to “come clean,” I’m a local member of “Oregonians For Immigration Reform” – and – but also a longtime local (our kids were born in FG). So that’s OFIR, based in our city to the south, McMinnville. Here’s their link: http://www.oregonir.org/new_page_21.htm Research away!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 02:22 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Do the critics even know these fellow humans whom they abhor? Have the experts, citing their research, ever had the courage to test their information? First hand experience trumps assumptions and one sided research. As an ESL teacher to adults for over 25 years I've had the priviledge of knowing 4,000 of these men and women. (20 students per class, 2 classes per term, 4 terms a year - you do the math). Their writings and speeches, allow me to introduce them to you. They are brave: soldiers who fought alongside my brother's peers in Vietnam; patriots with whom my uncle fought in Korea; refugees, thrown into circumstances beyond their control, facing oppression and poverty. They left the familiarity of home and the love of family and friends only out of desperation to feed their children. They are talented: an Olympic athelete from Africa, a musician from Borneo. To these talented essay writers, keep educating us. Illustrate to my blind neighbors the competent and gifted people you are. Just remember that after perservering, you'll reach adulthood and realize that the American dream is not found in getting everything you want; it is in having the freedom to choose how to move forward with your life. I applaude your work and am proud to have you as my neightbor. Debbie
"Debbie Olsen"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 07:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Get a life, the whole argument here is not about legal immigration but illegal. The whole ESL program should be dumped in favor of immersion anyway. California made one of the smartest decisions when it decided to do so, it shortens the time it takes to learn and saves money. It doesn't support the staff and infrastructure that drag to process out to years.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 08:52 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Mark is correct, we are talking about people who have broken our laws and then make demands that we are supposed to help them. My situation is about one thing and only one thing. That is they broke the law. send them back or put them in jail, why do these criminals expect us to sit back and say oh sure we will give you amnesty, we dont care enough about our own country so you can stay. I do care about my country, and I was willing to protect in the service. I did not fight to let a common criminal take a way my home and to break our laws.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 10:44 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
We are talking about the words of 2 teenagers, exploring what is means to be who they are - in the context of being THIRTEEN AND SIXTEEN. They are children, for heaven's sake. "Rational", "mature" adults are being turned inside out by the sentiments of 2 children. You need to get a life. My life is full and rewarding because I give out of the abundance of what I've been given and have attained for myself. By the way, ESL emersion only works before puberty, as every language teacher knows. ESL programs are useful to the adult community - whom I serve. We aren't talking about people depleting your resources or the certain robbery of your child's future, (your child who was born here in Forest Grove - who cares that your child is a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, generation Oregonian? wow that really legitimizes his or her worth!) I'm sick of these small minded, selfish, paranoid, cliques of people who think being a native anything makes them superior to anyone else. No one is a native anything. Even if you were born here, as pointed out before, your ancestors were not. It's character and contribution to the greater good that matter, not where you were born. Those of you upset by the words of these two teenage students need to grow up.
"Debbie Olsen"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 01:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow! I am saddened by the fact that this is a forum about the two essays on the immigration debate and now we are arguing about the accuracy of facts and other random blabber. I think we all agree that legal immigrants should stay and illegal immigrants should go. Also that there's an American dream no? Why don't we cool down so what we say can be put into consideration and not thrown out as a racial or mean spirited comment.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 04:29 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Our "ESL Teacher" has obviously had her arm so deep in the pot she's fallen in! As mentioned - the home-grown advocates of illegal immigration (and of course 'their children') are finically linked. They've a vested interest in promoting, if encouraging more of the same. Therefore, their arguments in favor of continuing this influx of illegal 'immigrants' (and their children, or anchor-babies) should be viewed in that light. A dark light!
The abilities of illegal aliens (and their children) are not the point; the point is they are here illegally - displacing those legally seeking US citizenship, and robbing the rights and resources of our current citizens. It's become all-too-easy to 'say' you disagree with their illegality - yet ignore their devastating consequences. And we're not talking about the multitude of new citizens, having done it right, or their personal contributions to this nation - we're talking about 20 million illegal aliens within our nations border at this moment -- and not simply the two 'winning' feel-good essays by a couple of local minorities (if children).
This "Essay Competition" (as mentioned) was simply another Public Relations stunt to show the children of minorities as capable of more than drug distribution, gang activity, crime, or job and identity theft. And the problem is - up till now - it's worked! It's worked just well enough to keep the majority of American’s eyes off the ball... But as we watch, for instance, Hillsboro turn into what local kids are calling "Hillsburrito," and the ghetto-like conditions of its core - Americans, Oregonians -- the residents of Forest Grove are wakening up and speaking up!
Anyone suggesting those following this issue "get a live" – wake up, we've got one - but it's fading fast! You may be secure in yours, but not all have locked themselves so comfortably into the system. Just as our kids no longer pick strawberries, they're also losing the opportunities of every other entry level job. As permanent jobs are consumed by amnestied or soon-to-be amnestied aliens -- where are our children -- and yes - I'm speaking of CHILDREN -- where are our children to work? Intel's building in China, construction workers are nearly all "Hispanic," nursery's hire nothing but... And to get a job - check out the help-wanted ads -- to get a job you must be "Bilingual." ...Bilingual in what? …not German, French, Irish, Chinese or Portuguese... but just what ‘you teach’ …now isn’t that Special?
As a forth generation Oregonian, with Native American blood, I resent "your" racist dismissive attitude about who - and who doesn’t belong here. Even the Native American’s fought for their land, their culture and their rights. To do less is not only Un-American, it goes against the principals of humanity and human history. This invasion has been relatively silent, but as illegal aliens demand ‘our rights’ across this nation - it's time you woke up, if not fight back. … but then maybe you've already chose sides..?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 05, 2007 at 12:28 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
A recent KATU viewer poll asked : "Do you support immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants?"
77% said no.
Copy and paste :
http://www.katu.com/home/poll/7272856.html?submit=Submit&oid=2&mr=1&t=a&cid=3031&pid=7272856
"Hello?"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 05, 2007 at 01:30 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I never wrote I was condoning the presence of illegal immigrants. I was responding to the meanspirited comments that were being expressed about immigrants in general. Mark and Neal, you made assumptions and jumped to erroneous conclusions. Did I ever write I support the presence of illegal aliens? I don't. They should follow the same protocol every other immigrant is required to follow to come here. There were nasty comments addressed to these student writers, legally here. These students were stereo typically being lumped into the category of illegals, and they are not. It was to those critics, I was writing. That you 2 got personal and hureld insults at me just reveals your inability to conduct yourselves humanly when you're in disagreement, and even more foolishly since I wasn't disagreeing with those against illegals.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 06, 2007 at 08:56 PM
All aboard the Fail-boat
Nothin' beats a good ole' fashioned arguement on the internet.
Group A's angry at group B. Group B's angry at group A.
Blahblahblah
The internet's become a feeble place where anyone with a 56k internet connection is able say whatever they choose thanks to our beloved 1st ammendment (despite many a moderators protest)
All of which could be noble debate, except for the fact that it's on the internet.
It doesn't matter what side you're on, you still look like a retard.
(No offense)
"anonymous"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 06, 2007 at 09:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Just look at how much logic it took to flush out a statement like, "I never wrote I was condoning the presence of illegal immigrants" ...but you’ll "condone" and promote their children – thus their existence? And "Debbie" - if your spirit is so righteous, why aren’t you in the Peace Corps doing your ESL work in Central America? ...I know… who wants to live in Central America when they can live in Forest Grove!
"Meanspirited" you claim; how about realistic, patriotic, or just plain sick & tired of watching my community drug down to failed culture? And what 'word' should we describe you, as you further your personal wealth at the expense of our community...? How about traitorous? As an entrenched Alien-enabler your allegiance is obviously not with your longtime neighbors.
‘Ditching’ your last name? You’ve likely become uncomfortable repeating your "bring-em-on" attitude among the community – though apparently more than happy to continue backing this PR Essay-go-round. And what was the point of this so-called Essay? ...I know -- more gibberish about ‘poor minority children’ and their "American Dream." But as you so fervently support the children of minorities, illegal or not – you refuse to acknowledge the detrimental effects of their ever-increasing numbers on our community. I suspect you also ignore their consumption of our resources at an unsustainable rate -- including your pay check and bennies.
Quite skewed, this debate’s become one between our overly-educated social service-providing alien-enablers; vs. the common citizen. As most cringe, trying to ignore this invasion of legal, semi-legal, soon-to-be legal and down-right illegals -- you and yours have been cashing in at our expense! You are as guilty in your complacency as anyone involved, and as you imply calling a 'spade a spade' "meanspirited," that's your prerogative. If I insist on calling your feel-good propaganda session a manipulative disservice to our community – that’s mine.
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 08:46 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I just hate reading this. Everyone seems to be blaming Illegal Immigration on each other. I'm not gonna rat on anyone and I don't care if anyone rats on me. No one wants people to hop the border illegally. No one wants their children's jobs taken by illegals. If anyone really wants to stop illegal immigration by himself or herself, and if anyone wants to interpret others as being against you, and if anyone wants no one to respect them, then go ahead and try while the rest of us try making things better. I don't understand how this forum is gonna help anything when we are tearing eachother apart limb by limb and only trying to get our points across. If anyone really cares so much about this stupid forum, why not just go and do something. Its terrible to watch good people slander other people because of hate, when they could actually be doing something useful with their lives. If all anyone wants to do for the rest of their days is sit and try to dry their tears by making others want to throw up and die, then god have mercy on you.
This forum is out of hand. We only have one world, got to remember that.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 11:27 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"I just hate reading this." Then stop. You've responded more, yet added less than anyone here.
"I'm not gonna rat on anyone and I don't care if anyone rats on me." And just what does that mean? You too are illegal?
You demean any efforts to correct this illegal mess, yet suggest we work to make things better? For the past 25 years I haven't seen anything done - ANYTHING - to seriously stop the flow of Illegals into this country, our state, or this community. And it’s obvious to anyone 'from' around here that things have changed, and are continuing to change for the worse. Maybe you're not from ‘around here,’ or you're part of that 'change,' or, you simply don't care? But don't discredit or demean the efforts of those who do.
"I don't understand how this forum is gonna help anything when we are tearing eachother apart limb by limb and only trying to get our points across." But it is helping; it's dissected a Public Relations stunt designed to lull us into further complacency over illegal immigration, and (with effort) has caused those most connected to respond at a deeper level. I've gotten a lot out of it, and if my frequency of posts lead you to believe I've got little else to do, let me assure you - it's quite the opposite. But this problem, and this forum are too close to home, and too detrimental to my community to ignore.
So, may I thank the News Times for allowing this discussion; and as far as there being only one world - isn't that all the more reason we protect all we can?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:04 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial response:
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this exchange of ideas, but Neal makes a point I'd like to echo. This is the biggest response we've received to any story since we began allowing reader comments a few months ago. I agree with Neal that this forum shows the need for this topic to be discussed further. I think it's great that the Friends of the Forest Grove Library hosted the evening discussion and solicited the student essays. (Neal, we can agree to disagree on whether it was a PR stunt.) And, I'm thrilled that our paper can host a place where people can exchange ideas. That's why in this week's print edition of the News-Times, we excerpted some of the comments here and encouraged our print readers to join the on-line discussion. We'll keep it going for another couple weeks, as long as people are interested.
John Schrag
Editor & Publisher
News-Times
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
In 1954, when it was legal to discriminate against blacks, the Supreme Court saw the bigotry and overturned the Constitution saying "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Movement began and it seemed like our own comfortable, familiar, worlds were changing. Now, your insulated little worlds are being threatened by change, and you've gotten yourself into a nervous 'tizzy'. As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream Speech, "you are in for a rude awakening if you think things will return to business as usual." With your degree of nervousness now, you'll probable have a nervous breakdown as things progress and laws are changed. Your breakdown will be a welcome relief for our community. We'll be free of you lashes (mocking a teacher? - in the nobelest of professions, doing decent work with law abiding people. Shame on you. Mocking Tolea? - she just wants unity and a peaceful, civil, debate. Shame on you.) We'll also be free of your hatred, snobbery, and bigotry. I can't wait.
"Gary"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow Gary seems to have a real handle on this agenda, glad to see more people drinking the kool-aid. I'm glad theres a few of us "lashes" at least our eyes our open. The global economy is killing our great nation anyway so we might as well open our arms and assimilate right? It appear by all these postings at the very least Forest Grove is becoming a hotbed of liberals who love to cater to lawbreakers. Can it be the great influx of illegals along with the immigration of the California disenfranchised? Who knows our once quiet burg will continue to grow with illegals as the quality of life deteriorates.
"Phineas Bogg"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Oh now we're back to Oregon's FAVORITE scapegoat of all - the Californians! Yes, blame the Californians for our influx of immigrants. We, the reasonable, humane, native, Oregonians aren't responsible. It's always the Californians. THEY'RE the real enemy. Can't you see how ridiculous that is? At least previous writers of anti-immigrants, oh excuse me, anti-illegal immigrants, (as if you really see a difference), based their objections on research and the LAW. You merely guess: Can it be? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe that? More generalizations, more speculations, more idiocy. If you are going to come forward with anti-illegal sentiments, at least base them on research findings and the LAW. Our students learn the law, including the Supreme Court ruling that "separate but equal" was seen for the injustice it was and declared UNconstitutional. We teach them about Martin Luther King Jr. and that you ARE in for a rude (if not uncomfortable) awakening if you really think things will return to business as usual. The legal immigrants are learning about the Civil Rights Act and will insist on equality in employment and housing. They are learning about the 24th Amendment - that they are free from unfair voting restrictions...and like the immigrants who came before them, they will stay. So, you're upset by the illegals? GOOD, join those for reform and do something constructive; GOOD, join law enforcement and enforce the law. But please, spare us your imagined, baseless, unfounded speculations.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:49 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am surprised at the reactions revealed in this forum. It tells me that there are a lot of people out there who think as I do. I don't think the responses are directed at the essays by the students as much as a response to what is happening in and to our communities and our way of life due to what is an "invasion" by one group of immigrants largely illegal. Neal and Mark are right on. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing. I for one am selecting the times I shop and go about the communities in western Washington County largely because I can no longer tolerate tripping over these people who are everywhere. I see them lined up at the free medical clinics, dragging bags of free food items home, using food stamps - all that I am paying for - all the while the majority of them allow their children to run rampant through stores, screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. We have little-Mexicos all over western Washington County. I won't even touch on the increase in certain types of crime. Why are the dregs of this group coming here? Because they would be in jail or worse otherwise. It used to be you would go into a fast food restaurant and see teenagers behind the counter. Now it is wall-to-wall Hispanic-speaking teenagers or otherwise Latinos. There seems to be too much focus and emphasis on assimilation on our part when the burden should be the other way around. If I moved to Germany, for example, I would be expected to and would learn German if I planned to live there. But here it is the other way around: We must learn Spanish, we must have Spanish-language skills to even apply for some jobs, we offer English-as-a-2nd-language classes for free but if we want to learn Spanish we must pay for it. The reactions I have been reading tell me that there is a much broader concern and it isn't something that will be easy to resolve - since it has been allowed to happen and now we are paying the price.
"Kate R"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Debbie,
I have to say that the more you actually say, the better you help our side. You go on and on about history and "that's the way it was". When in reality it is up to all of us the create the shape and create the history we will proud of. I don't want to see the history you are creating. If you keep this up then illegals will start getting even smarter and only vote in some one who will speak about the rights they deserve and we don't because we did not have to be a criminal to get here. It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we cant keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources. I hope you soon see the big picture that your kids may not be able to finish high school or even earlier because we just cant keep up with the demands of the criminals who will be running our country soon.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Okay, but what about the legal immigrants, who after years of studying our language and customs, now run their own businesses, and sincerely want to assimilate into our culture? They want their children to learn English because they really do feel that is the only way to assimilate and have a better life. They want to learn their civil rights so they can protect themselves and their children. I know this because I know them. Like Kate wrote, instead of this forum just being about the essays, it turned into a place for people to vent frustrations about the illegal immigrants being here and the changes to their communities because of it. I understand that frustration and sense of loss. I really do! Everytime I go to my original hometown, it looks nothing like the wonderful place it was while I was growing up. It felt safe and comfortable. Now it doesn't. I understand the sense of loss people are experiencing. I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that?
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
P.S. My students are legally here - they have student visas, are resident aliens, or are now citizens. They have to prove that to get into the program. They are not criminals. I'm not helping criminals. They have done what was required by law are the ones who have attained citizenship are proud of being Americans and want to contribute something good. They really do! I wish you could read their essays and hear them talk about wanting their new country to be free from destruction and the ugliness they left behind. I love my country and don't want to see it in the hands of anyone who would cause its ruin.. . and like you said, WE are the ones who create our history. How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"Gary," you're mixing Civil Rights with Citizen’s Rights; the bulk of whom we're talking about are not citizens. Martin Luther King was, and he made us proud. Again, linking this to race or ethnicity doesn’t work, or - maybe it does..? And shame on who?
Phineas... good points. I see a lateral stratification occurring among communities; those giving in and up to this invading culture -- and those who feel insulated from it. Obviously, Cornelius has given up, and Hillsboro’s fast giving in, though Beaverton and FG, (even Portland) haven't, yet. They're becoming educated enclaves, where property values and community expectations remain too high for these third-world refugees. This is how it's become in our border states; totally Hispanic run towns, with fortified and gated communities next door.
Debbie... still looking for a "scapegoat?" Actually, from all I've heard (including in-laws) we can blame the illegal immigrants for our Californians! They've given up 'defending' their neighborhoods, let alone their state - and are migrating to Oregon. "Can't you see how ridiculous that is?" --- Yes, I can! And Debbie, you're groping... if not losing it...
"Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing." --- Kate R., you're welcome; in fact, I suspect your views (if secretly held) reflect those of the majority -- of which I'm simply one. Thank you for sharing them.
"It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we can’t keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources." Thanks Dave, your words also reflect the reality of our concerns and fears. This is basically the replacing of one culture by another -- at the expense of the former. A two-tier society is emerging. But unlike the "China Towns,” where some inhabitance live their lives without assimilating, entire cities across the US are turning into Latino / Hispanic towns & cities – run by and for their culture - at our expense.
Debbie; again, what citizen of the Third-world doesn’t want to eventually become a US Citizen? Just as this feel-good essay ‘competition’ shown, there are always a few 'standouts.' Even within a prison population there are those who can impress us with their aptitude. But should we welcome the world for the few stellar individuals that may include? Here's a ‘novel idea’: why don't we allow a limited number of new citizens into our country every year, based on their proven abilities, talents and willingness to live within our laws? ... Whoops!
"I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that? "Debbie." --- Nothing's wrong with that, and for decades that's exactly how they've been treated by the vast majority of our communities. Problem is, after we rewarded the illegal (yes, there is such a thing as Illegal) batch of 86 with citizenship, the flow has increased. We originally legalized just under 3 million (not counting extended family), there are now as many (and isn't it scary to realize no one really knows how many illegal 'immigrants' there are inside our borders?) ...now there are as many as 20 million Illegals awaiting their reward. How do you tell them apart? You can't ask, that's "racial profiling," or offensive to the new found liberties of some... So you'd simply welcome, if not reward them all? Debbie, your job security is coming at too high a cost to your community – could this be your true fear?
More Debbie... what is a "resident alien"? Anything like an Anchor-baby? And just where did your students come from... thin air? And by 'helping them,' are you not basically helping their illegal parents educate their children at our expense? …Thus allowing those 'children' to directly compete with ours for all those Spanish speaking social service jobs … right down to flipping burgers?
So these 'students' are happy to be here... why not? But have you noticed the "destruction and the ugliness they left behind" is following them? Sure, and again, we're talking about a handful of exceptional students -- I know, I have a couple myself. But mine are being denied resources to pay for yours... and mine (if not most) got here legally, and first.
"How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!" Present tense..? What you are doing is enabling the next generation of Enablers, at the expense and exclusion of all others. You are providing a ‘dream environment’ to the newly legal, semi-legal, soon to be legal and downright illegal invaders of our nation. Sound ugly - it is! Sure, you look out upon some eager faces; I've had doors held open for me by their parents, but good intent does not excuse the illegal behavior it took for nearly every one of those 'students' to get here. This may sound ‘greedy,’ but if you can ditch the rose-tinted glasses it's not as pretty as you’d have us believe. And though the community you’ve fled ‘to’ is not yet as bad as the one you fled – it’s not only catching up with you - you’re helping usher it in! And frankly, you're the one around here pushing an agenda; the rest of us are simply reacting to it.
News Times, timely news isn't it? Thought I’d check in … thanks for keeping this alive. PS, what’s happened to the Freedom Socialist’s and Radical Women..? Staying too busy in P-town to mess with us I suspect..? Thanks -
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 13, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Neal,That was a fantastic reply, except for one thing. My wife is a resident alien but we worked and payed dearly for it to be done correct. I was not willing to bring her under false pretenses. At the same time right after she moved here a family friend from Brazil called and said he was in New York doing construction work at a very nice pay. It took him less than a month to enter here illegal and get a job that was paying very nicely. Both my wife and I were very upset. It was crazy it took a almost two years to get it done correctly and it took him less than a month by paying some guy in Mexico to help get him here. This is what I fear the most, as the word gets out that if you have been here before such and such date and time that you can stay and become a citizen. Duh does anyone know when they really came across? They will be filing in like crazy if that bill passes. I do not have a race issue, I have right vs wrong issue. I grew up knowing what was right from wrong but today know one can really know. Because We pay for the needs of illegals who claim that there child was born here so they should be able to stay and get food stamps because they are so poor. But wait I can here the bull crap in that, they have no money but they get food stamps and health care and housing right? Then when you talk to them they are sending all of their money home in some other country while being here getting along for free and draining our resources. Debbie how can you be a teacher and not be able to see the writing on the wall? You are simply telling them it is OK to steal and any number of other crimes, simply because you broke the law of our land by coming here illegaly. I do not have the perfect answer but I can tell you that I am looking for other countries to live in because this land is going downhill and it is people like you who are not only helping them bring it down but you think you are doing good to save these people. Do you not see the Americans who live here? We are a dieing breed thanks to you and the others who think like you. I do not want my children growing up where being right is the wrong thing to do.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 17, 2007 at 06:12 PM
5:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Friday, May 18, 2007
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 30 comments links to this post
5:44 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
In case anybody wonders, I wasn't the anonymous who posted all of those comments from FGNT.
5:53 PM
Anonymous said...
as far as there being only one world - isn't that all the more reason we protect all we can?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:04 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial response:
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this exchange of ideas, but Neal makes a point I'd like to echo. This is the biggest response we've received to any story since we began allowing reader comments a few months ago. I agree with Neal that this forum shows the need for this topic to be discussed further. I think it's great that the Friends of the Forest Grove Library hosted the evening discussion and solicited the student essays. (Neal, we can agree to disagree on whether it was a PR stunt.) And, I'm thrilled that our paper can host a place where people can exchange ideas. That's why in this week's print edition of the News-Times, we excerpted some of the comments here and encouraged our print readers to join the on-line discussion. We'll keep it going for another couple weeks, as long as people are interested.
John Schrag
Editor & Publisher
News-Times
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
In 1954, when it was legal to discriminate against blacks, the Supreme Court saw the bigotry and overturned the Constitution saying "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Movement began and it seemed like our own comfortable, familiar, worlds were changing. Now, your insulated little worlds are being threatened by change, and you've gotten yourself into a nervous 'tizzy'. As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream Speech, "you are in for a rude awakening if you think things will return to business as usual." With your degree of nervousness now, you'll probable have a nervous breakdown as things progress and laws are changed. Your breakdown will be a welcome relief for our community. We'll be free of you lashes (mocking a teacher? - in the nobelest of professions, doing decent work with law abiding people. Shame on you. Mocking Tolea? - she just wants unity and a peaceful, civil, debate. Shame on you.) We'll also be free of your hatred, snobbery, and bigotry. I can't wait.
"Gary"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow Gary seems to have a real handle on this agenda, glad to see more people drinking the kool-aid. I'm glad theres a few of us "lashes" at least our eyes our open. The global economy is killing our great nation anyway so we might as well open our arms and assimilate right? It appear by all these postings at the very least Forest Grove is becoming a hotbed of liberals who love to cater to lawbreakers. Can it be the great influx of illegals along with the immigration of the California disenfranchised? Who knows our once quiet burg will continue to grow with illegals as the quality of life deteriorates.
"Phineas Bogg"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Oh now we're back to Oregon's FAVORITE scapegoat of all - the Californians! Yes, blame the Californians for our influx of immigrants. We, the reasonable, humane, native, Oregonians aren't responsible. It's always the Californians. THEY'RE the real enemy. Can't you see how ridiculous that is? At least previous writers of anti-immigrants, oh excuse me, anti-illegal immigrants, (as if you really see a difference), based their objections on research and the LAW. You merely guess: Can it be? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe that? More generalizations, more speculations, more idiocy. If you are going to come forward with anti-illegal sentiments, at least base them on research findings and the LAW. Our students learn the law, including the Supreme Court ruling that "separate but equal" was seen for the injustice it was and declared UNconstitutional. We teach them about Martin Luther King Jr. and that you ARE in for a rude (if not uncomfortable) awakening if you really think things will return to business as usual. The legal immigrants are learning about the Civil Rights Act and will insist on equality in employment and housing. They are learning about the 24th Amendment - that they are free from unfair voting restrictions...and like the immigrants who came before them, they will stay. So, you're upset by the illegals? GOOD, join those for reform and do something constructive; GOOD, join law enforcement and enforce the law. But please, spare us your imagined, baseless, unfounded speculations.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:49 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am surprised at the reactions revealed in this forum. It tells me that there are a lot of people out there who think as I do. I don't think the responses are directed at the essays by the students as much as a response to what is happening in and to our communities and our way of life due to what is an "invasion" by one group of immigrants largely illegal. Neal and Mark are right on. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing. I for one am selecting the times I shop and go about the communities in western Washington County largely because I can no longer tolerate tripping over these people who are everywhere. I see them lined up at the free medical clinics, dragging bags of free food items home, using food stamps - all that I am paying for - all the while the majority of them allow their children to run rampant through stores, screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. We have little-Mexicos all over western Washington County. I won't even touch on the increase in certain types of crime. Why are the dregs of this group coming here? Because they would be in jail or worse otherwise. It used to be you would go into a fast food restaurant and see teenagers behind the counter. Now it is wall-to-wall Hispanic-speaking teenagers or otherwise Latinos. There seems to be too much focus and emphasis on assimilation on our part when the burden should be the other way around. If I moved to Germany, for example, I would be expected to and would learn German if I planned to live there. But here it is the other way around: We must learn Spanish, we must have Spanish-language skills to even apply for some jobs, we offer English-as-a-2nd-language classes for free but if we want to learn Spanish we must pay for it. The reactions I have been reading tell me that there is a much broader concern and it isn't something that will be easy to resolve - since it has been allowed to happen and now we are paying the price.
"Kate R"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Debbie,
I have to say that the more you actually say, the better you help our side. You go on and on about history and "that's the way it was". When in reality it is up to all of us the create the shape and create the history we will proud of. I don't want to see the history you are creating. If you keep this up then illegals will start getting even smarter and only vote in some one who will speak about the rights they deserve and we don't because we did not have to be a criminal to get here. It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we cant keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources. I hope you soon see the big picture that your kids may not be able to finish high school or even earlier because we just cant keep up with the demands of the criminals who will be running our country soon.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Okay, but what about the legal immigrants, who after years of studying our language and customs, now run their own businesses, and sincerely want to assimilate into our culture? They want their children to learn English because they really do feel that is the only way to assimilate and have a better life. They want to learn their civil rights so they can protect themselves and their children. I know this because I know them. Like Kate wrote, instead of this forum just being about the essays, it turned into a place for people to vent frustrations about the illegal immigrants being here and the changes to their communities because of it. I understand that frustration and sense of loss. I really do! Everytime I go to my original hometown, it looks nothing like the wonderful place it was while I was growing up. It felt safe and comfortable. Now it doesn't. I understand the sense of loss people are experiencing. I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that?
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
P.S. My students are legally here - they have student visas, are resident aliens, or are now citizens. They have to prove that to get into the program. They are not criminals. I'm not helping criminals. They have done what was required by law are the ones who have attained citizenship are proud of being Americans and want to contribute something good. They really do! I wish you could read their essays and hear them talk about wanting their new country to be free from destruction and the ugliness they left behind. I love my country and don't want to see it in the hands of anyone who would cause its ruin.. . and like you said, WE are the ones who create our history. How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"Gary," you're mixing Civil Rights with Citizen’s Rights; the bulk of whom we're talking about are not citizens. Martin Luther King was, and he made us proud. Again, linking this to race or ethnicity doesn’t work, or - maybe it does..? And shame on who?
Phineas... good points. I see a lateral stratification occurring among communities; those giving in and up to this invading culture -- and those who feel insulated from it. Obviously, Cornelius has given up, and Hillsboro’s fast giving in, though Beaverton and FG, (even Portland) haven't, yet. They're becoming educated enclaves, where property values and community expectations remain too high for these third-world refugees. This is how it's become in our border states; totally Hispanic run towns, with fortified and gated communities next door.
Debbie... still looking for a "scapegoat?" Actually, from all I've heard (including in-laws) we can blame the illegal immigrants for our Californians! They've given up 'defending' their neighborhoods, let alone their state - and are migrating to Oregon. "Can't you see how ridiculous that is?" --- Yes, I can! And Debbie, you're groping... if not losing it...
"Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing." --- Kate R., you're welcome; in fact, I suspect your views (if secretly held) reflect those of the majority -- of which I'm simply one. Thank you for sharing them.
"It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we can’t keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources." Thanks Dave, your words also reflect the reality of our concerns and fears. This is basically the replacing of one culture by another -- at the expense of the former. A two-tier society is emerging. But unlike the "China Towns,” where some inhabitance live their lives without assimilating, entire cities across the US are turning into Latino / Hispanic towns & cities – run by and for their culture - at our expense.
Debbie; again, what citizen of the Third-world doesn’t want to eventually become a US Citizen? Just as this feel-good essay ‘competition’ shown, there are always a few 'standouts.' Even within a prison population there are those who can impress us with their aptitude. But should we welcome the world for the few stellar individuals that may include? Here's a ‘novel idea’: why don't we allow a limited number of new citizens into our country every year, based on their proven abilities, talents and willingness to live within our laws? ... Whoops!
"I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that? "Debbie." --- Nothing's wrong with that, and for decades that's exactly how they've been treated by the vast majority of our communities. Problem is, after we rewarded the illegal (yes, there is such a thing as Illegal) batch of 86 with citizenship, the flow has increased. We originally legalized just under 3 million (not counting extended family), there are now as many (and isn't it scary to realize no one really knows how many illegal 'immigrants' there are inside our borders?) ...now there are as many as 20 million Illegals awaiting their reward. How do you tell them apart? You can't ask, that's "racial profiling," or offensive to the new found liberties of some... So you'd simply welcome, if not reward them all? Debbie, your job security is coming at too high a cost to your community – could this be your true fear?
More Debbie... what is a "resident alien"? Anything like an Anchor-baby? And just where did your students come from... thin air? And by 'helping them,' are you not basically helping their illegal parents educate their children at our expense? …Thus allowing those 'children' to directly compete with ours for all those Spanish speaking social service jobs … right down to flipping burgers?
So these 'students' are happy to be here... why not? But have you noticed the "destruction and the ugliness they left behind" is following them? Sure, and again, we're talking about a handful of exceptional students -- I know, I have a couple myself. But mine are being denied resources to pay for yours... and mine (if not most) got here legally, and first.
"How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!" Present tense..? What you are doing is enabling the next generation of Enablers, at the expense and exclusion of all others. You are providing a ‘dream environment’ to the newly legal, semi-legal, soon to be legal and downright illegal invaders of our nation. Sound ugly - it is! Sure, you look out upon some eager faces; I've had doors held open for me by their parents, but good intent does not excuse the illegal behavior it took for nearly every one of those 'students' to get here. This may sound ‘greedy,’ but if you can ditch the rose-tinted glasses it's not as pretty as you’d have us believe. And though the community you’ve fled ‘to’ is not yet as bad as the one you fled – it’s not only catching up with you - you’re helping usher it in! And frankly, you're the one around here pushing an agenda; the rest of us are simply reacting to it.
News Times, timely news isn't it? Thought I’d check in … thanks for keeping this alive. PS, what’s happened to the Freedom Socialist’s and Radical Women..? Staying too busy in P-town to mess with us I suspect..? Thanks -
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 13, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Neal,That was a fantastic reply, except for one thing. My wife is a resident alien but we worked and payed dearly for it to be done correct. I was not willing to bring her under false pretenses. At the same time right after she moved here a family friend from Brazil called and said he was in New York doing construction work at a very nice pay. It took him less than a month to enter here illegal and get a job that was paying very nicely. Both my wife and I were very upset. It was crazy it took a almost two years to get it done correctly and it took him less than a month by paying some guy in Mexico to help get him here. This is what I fear the most, as the word gets out that if you have been here before such and such date and time that you can stay and become a citizen. Duh does anyone know when they really came across? They will be filing in like crazy if that bill passes. I do not have a race issue, I have right vs wrong issue. I grew up knowing what was right from wrong but today know one can really know. Because We pay for the needs of illegals who claim that there child was born here so they should be able to stay and get food stamps because they are so poor. But wait I can here the bull crap in that, they have no money but they get food stamps and health care and housing right? Then when you talk to them they are sending all of their money home in some other country while being here getting along for free and draining our resources. Debbie how can you be a teacher and not be able to see the writing on the wall? You are simply telling them it is OK to steal and any number of other crimes, simply because you broke the law of our land by coming here illegaly. I do not have the perfect answer but I can tell you that I am looking for other countries to live in because this land is going downhill and it is people like you who are not only helping them bring it down but you think you are doing good to save these people. Do you not see the Americans who live here? We are a dieing breed thanks to you and the others who think like you. I do not want my children growing up where being right is the wrong thing to do.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 17, 2007 at 06:12 PM
5:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Friday, May 18, 2007
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 30 comments links to this post
5:44 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
In case anybody wonders, I wasn't the anonymous who posted all of those comments from FGNT.
5:53 PM
5:55 PM
Scottiebill said...
Daniel: Why are you allowing all these dissertations to go on? These various and sundry anonymous' have taken up all your blogging space with these seemingly endless ramblings. And then there is the anonymous with all that gabble that means nothingand the anonymous with a lot of blogs saying the same stupid thing.
It would seem that there could be some semblance of editing here.
And now these "anonymous" anonymous' will scream "First Amendment Rights". It makes one want to puke!!
6:23 PM
Charles U. Farley said...
Scottiebill, stick your finger down your throat. You'll feel better.
Daniel. How about some from refreshment from God's word.Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
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Leviticus, chapter 1
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.01
1: And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.
3: If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD.
4: And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
5: And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
6: And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.
7: And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire:
8: And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:
9: But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
10: And if his offering be of the flocks, namely, of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt sacrifice; he shall bring it a male without blemish.
11: And he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar.
12: And he shall cut it into his pieces, with his head and his fat: and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:
13: But he shall wash the inwards and the legs with water: and the priest shall bring it all, and burn it upon the altar: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
14: And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the LORD be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves, or of young pigeons.
15: And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar:
16: And he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes:
17: And he shall cleave it with the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder: and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
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Leviticus, chapter 2
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.02
1: And when any will offer a meat offering unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:
2: And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests: and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD:
3: And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
4: And if thou bring an oblation of a meat offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.
5: And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.
6: Thou shalt part it in pieces, and pour oil thereon: it is a meat offering.
7: And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in the fryingpan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.
8: And thou shalt bring the meat offering that is made of these things unto the LORD: and when it is presented unto the priest, he shall bring it unto the altar.
9: And the priest shall take from the meat offering a memorial thereof, and shall burn it upon the altar: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
10: And that which is left of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
11: No meat offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven: for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the LORD made by fire.
12: As for the oblation of the firstfruits, ye shall offer them unto the LORD: but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savour.
13: And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
14: And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the LORD, thou shalt offer for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears.
15: And thou shalt put oil upon it, and lay frankincense thereon: it is a meat offering.
16: And the priest shall burn the memorial of it, part of the beaten corn thereof, and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof: it is an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
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Leviticus, chapter 3
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.03
1: And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.
2: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons the priests shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.
3: And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
4: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
5: And Aaron's sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
6: And if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering unto the LORD be of the flock; male or female, he shall offer it without blemish.
7: If he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he offer it before the LORD.
8: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof round about upon the altar.
9: And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat thereof, and the whole rump, it shall he take off hard by the backbone; and the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
10: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
11: And the priest shall burn it upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire unto the LORD.
12: And if his offering be a goat, then he shall offer it before the LORD.
13: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of it, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about.
14: And he shall offer thereof his offering, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
15: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
16: And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD's.
17: It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.
Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
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Leviticus, chapter 4
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.04
1: And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them:
3: If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people; then let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto the LORD for a sin offering.
4: And he shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD; and shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head, and kill the bullock before the LORD.
5: And the priest that is anointed shall take of the bullock's blood, and bring it to the tabernacle of the congregation:
6: And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the LORD, before the vail of the sanctuary.
7: And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the LORD, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation: and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
8: And he shall take off from it all the fat of the bullock for the sin offering; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
9: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away,
10: As it was taken off from the bullock of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt offering.
11: And the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung,
12: Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt.
13: And if the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which should not be done, and are guilty;
14: When the sin, which they have sinned against it, is known, then the congregation shall offer a young bullock for the sin, and bring him before the tabernacle of the congregation.
15: And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the LORD: and the bullock shall be killed before the LORD.
16: And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bullock's blood to the tabernacle of the congregation:
17: And the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the LORD, even before the vail.
18: And he shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar which is before the LORD, that is in the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall pour out all the blood at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
19: And he shall take all his fat from him, and burn it upon the altar.
20: And he shall do with the bullock as he did with the bullock for a sin offering, so shall he do with this: and the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them.
21: And he shall carry forth the bullock without the camp, and burn him as he burned the first bullock: it is a sin offering for the congregation.
22: When a ruler hath sinned, and done somewhat through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD his God concerning things which should not be done, and is guilty;
23: Or if his sin, wherein he hath sinned, come to his knowledge; he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a male without blemish:
24: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the goat, and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering before the LORD: it is a sin offering.
25: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out his blood at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering.
26: And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him.
27: And if any one of the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and be guilty;
28: Or if his sin, which he hath sinned, come to his knowledge: then he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned.
29: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering.
30: And the priest shall take of the blood thereof with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar.
31: And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat is taken away from off the sacrifice of peace offerings; and the priest shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour unto the LORD; and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him.
32: And if he bring a lamb for a sin offering, he shall bring it a female without blemish.
33: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay it for a sin offering in the place where they kill the burnt offering
34: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar:
35: And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat of the lamb is taken away from the sacrifice of the peace offerings; and the priest shall burn them upon the altar, according to the offerings made by fire unto the LORD: and the priest shall make an atonement for his sin that he hath committed, and it shall be forgiven him.
That's only the first four chapters. I got bored and I have a life unlike you. I'll be back with more later.
Keep up the good fight.
You chickenshit skinhead.
6:33 PM
MacNichol, last of the Viking Kings of Skye said...
What the fuck kind of name is Miclav? Is that right? I don't care. It's SLAVIC fucks like you who've been screwing up this country from the beginning.
You know "Slav" comes from the Rus (the Vikings) term for slave? The zeroes whose country they traveled through on the way to Byzantium, where they'd sell all these cute slavic babes to rich A-rabs. Obviously an inferior race.
Anyway, I'm sick of your diluting the pure strain of Scotts-Irish blood our country was built on.
Most of my family got here in the 18th century. When did your folks crawl onto Ellis Island?
Go back where you came from.
6:44 PM
short and sweet said...
I have a prediction that I absolutely GUARANTEE will come true:
At the end of the day, Daniel and his nativist friends are going to lose this one. Why? Because they are so far, far-right wing, that there is absolutely no bill that could conceivably get through Congress and get Bush's signature that will make them happy. No matter what happens, they'll be pissed, and they'll scream about betrayals and traitors and vow revenge.
I guarantee it.
7:04 PM
R Huse said...
Obviously the pro illegal alien side has clearly proven at least one argument by their responses.
It is now quite apparent that the reasoning they use is as vacuous as the morality upon which it is based. Name calling, racism and now just endless empty Spam.
Quite neat, and also immeasurably pitiful. I, for one, thank them for their clear demonstrations. Iconoclasts through and through, idiotic, absurd.
7:24 PM
Kind Red Spirit said...
r. huse said it best. "Idiotic and absurd" Wow, that's deep. I don't know what's the problem with all these motherfuckas. Its like they all want the beners wreckin their lives yo.
Corse, could be all those vatos locos guys could come lokking for your cracker ass in which I dont know you bro. Know what im sayin?
But hey man. if theres a throw down and you got numbrs on your side man. You know good white folks Im down man
well bust some fuckin heads
power to the people
the GOOD people
8:53 PM
Rosetta Stone said...
Endless, empty spam R? I think not.
Daniel professes to have an "interest" in "Jesus" Does Jesus have an interest in him?
The Book of James, by one of our Lord and Savior's little brothers will offer the poor soul some solace.
"Count it all joy by bretheren..."
I'll let him finish.
1: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
2: My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
3: Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4: But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
5: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
6: But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
7: For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
8: A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
9: Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
10: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
11: For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
12: Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
13: Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
14: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15: Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
16: Do not err, my beloved brethren.
17: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
18: Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
19: Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
20: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
21: Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
22: But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
23: For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
24: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
25: But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
26: If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
27: Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
James, chapter 2
1: My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.
2: For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;
3: And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool:
4: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
5: Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?
6: But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?
7: Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?
8: If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:
9: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.
10: For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
11: For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
12: So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.
13: For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
14: What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
15: If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16: And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17: Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
18: Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19: Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20: But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
21: Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
22: Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
23: And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
24: Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
25: Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?
26: For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
James, chapter 3
1: My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
2: For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
3: Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body.
4: Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.
5: Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!
6: And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
7: For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
8: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
9: Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
10: Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
11: Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
12: Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
13: Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
14: But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
15: This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
16: For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
17: But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
18: And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
James, chapter 4
1: From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2: Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3: Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
4: Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
5: Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
6: But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
7: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8: Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9: Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10: Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
11: Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
12: There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
13: Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
14: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
15: For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
16: But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
17: Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
James, chapter 5
1: Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2: Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3: Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
4: Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
5: Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
6: Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.
7: Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
8: Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9: Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
10: Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11: Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
12: But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.
13: Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.
14: Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
15: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
16: Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
17: Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
18: And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
19: Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;
20: Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
Did you get that? He which CONVERTETH A SINNER from the error of his ways...
shall save a soul from death.
Empty spam? R. you do yourself, and the rest of humanity a grave disservice.
9:07 PM
Anonymous said...
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
9:58 PM
Anonymous said...
'He's a fair man'
Johnson says he will to accept Goodell punishment
Posted: Friday May 18, 2007 9:14PM; Updated: Friday May 18, 2007 9:14PM
Tank Johnson says his goal is to become NFL Man of the Year.
AP
LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) -- Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson said Friday he's ready to accept whatever punishment NFL commissioner Roger Goodell gives him for his recent off-field problems that included a two-month stint in jail.
"I feel like whatever sanction he imposes, I'm man enough to take it and I know that once I get back on the field, that chapter of my life is closed and I can move on with a sense of closure," Johnson said Friday after the first day of Bears minicamp.
It was Johnson's first public statements since being released from Cook County jail Sunday.
Johnson met with Goodell in New York on Wednesday and awaits a decision on a possible suspension for violating terms of his probation and a gun charge.
In April, Goodell suspended Tennessee Titans defensive back Adam "Pacman" Jones for the 2007 season, and Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry for eight games before introducing a strengthened personal conduct policy.
"Mr. Goodell has the league's interest to look out for," Johnson said. "Whatever sanction he imposes, I know that it's in the best interest of this league.
"I can't say what would be fair, what would be unfair. But I do know that meeting Mr. Goodell, he's a fair man. He gave me the opportunity to speak with him. He gave me the opportunity to convey some of the things that I want to get better at. I feel like whatever he imposes, meeting him and knowing he's a fair man, is in the best interest of the league."
During their 90-minute meeting in New York, Johnson said he told Goodell his goal is to go from jail to NFL Man of the Year.
"One day I want to be the face of the league for guys who have come through adversity, came through it and ultimately became the Man of the Year in the NFL," Johnson said. "That would be a tremendous ending to the story."
Johnson spent 60 days of a 120-day sentence in jail for violating his probation. He was released Sunday for good behavior.
In December, police raided Johnson's Gurnee home and found six unregistered firearms -- a violation of his probation on an earlier gun charge.
That charge stemmed from Johnson's 2005 arrest after a Chicago nightclub valet reported seeing Johnson with a handgun in his SUV. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
Two days after the raid in Gurnee, Willie B. Posey, the Johnson bodyguard who had been arrested after the raid, was shot and killed in an early morning fight while he and Johnson were at a Chicago nightclub.
Johnson was suspended by the Bears for one game for being at the club.
In March, Johnson began his jail term for violating his probation. Last month, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor weapons charge stemming from the December raid as part of a deal with prosecutors that kept him from serving more time in jail. He was ordered to serve 45 days, which he was able to serve concurrently with the sentence for violating his probation.
Johnson had numerous visits from Bears players, coaches and officials during his 60 days of incarceration.
"It was a tough time for me, but at the same time I learned a lot about myself," Johnson said. "I learned a lot about a lot of things. During that process, I got to know that I have tremendous support from all walks of life.
"The Bears showed me unconditional support. My friends and family showed me unconditional support."
Johnson credited coach Lovie Smith and general manager Jerry Angelo, in particular, with standing by him during his time in jail. Johnson did not participate in the team portion of practice Friday because he needs to be in better condition, Smith said.
Johnson did do some individual work early in practice.
Smith still regards Johnson as the Bears' starting nose tackle.
"As much as anything, Tank now has a starting spot," Smith said. "He's back with the group working out. He has a long way to go. As a football team we have a long way to go.
"But Tank will catch up. He's got a smile on his face. He's excited about being back around this team."
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
10:09 PM
interesting said...
Overflowing bag
After 800+ e-mails, I give you league rankings, more
Posted: Wednesday May 16, 2007 12:53PM; Updated: Wednesday May 16, 2007 3:10PM
Arkansas RB Darren McFadden is one of many explosive playmakers in a loaded SEC.
AP
RELATED
• REACT: Are Mandel's league rankings legit?
You love the Mailbag. You really love it.
You made that abundantly clear, dear readers, when you bombarded my in-box to the tune of more than 800 e-mails within 24 hours of publishing the season's first edition. Those are mid-November numbers, people. Give yourselves much-deserved props.
So what did I learn over the course of those 800 e-mails? I learned that most of you never stop thinking about college football, even in the dead of the offseason, and for that I am extremely appreciative -- because it justifies my continued employment. I learned that a great number of you are extremely invested in the choice of the next Celebrity Crush (more on that later), which is good, because I fully intend to milk the suspense.
But most of all, I learned you're all really, really obsessed with this strength-of-conference thing. I could have filled this entire Mailbag with questions about the Big East's legitimacy, the Big Ten's bowl record (2-1 against the SEC last year, as several hundred of you reminded me), the Pac-10's non-conference schedule, lack of respect for the Big 12 and more. Instead, I chose this one, all-encompassing, guaranteed-to-start-a-riot topic from Taylor of Lexington, Ky.:
Stewart, you always say that conference strength is cyclical and always seem to defend easily bash-able conferences (i.e. the Pac-10, ACC). So let's see your rank all 11 Division I-A conferences. Answer at your own risk!
OK, I'll do it, but under two conditions: 1) That we all agree to accept the premise of cyclical conference strength, which means these ratings are based solely on the upcoming season and are by no means permanent. And 2) That once I do this list, there will be no revisiting the topic until at least the start of the season. Let's face it, the only guarantee about this list is that 10 of 11 sets of fans are going to be outraged, and I'm not filling next week's Mailbag with all your angry responses to this one.
Here it goes ...
1) SEC: Simply put, this year's SEC could be the toughest conference in history. I'm not exaggerating. It's extremely rare for a league to not only boast so many quality teams at the top (LSU, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee) but also so little dead weight at the bottom. Really, it's just Mississippi State. You've got two former national championship coaches, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban, leading what may be only the seventh- or eighth-best teams in the league. Kentucky won eight games last year. And Vandy is no longer a gimme (just ask Georgia). It's a perfect storm for the SEC right now with so many accomplished coaches, so much elite talent and so many returning veterans all at once.
2) Pac-10: I've always felt one reason the Pac-10 doesn't get taken seriously by most of the country is that outside of USC, no one has been able to stay consistently good recently. At the same time, however, no one has been consistently bad, either. In other words, the league's image is a victim of its own balance. USC appears to be the cream of the crop again this year, but remember, the Trojans lost to two Pac-10 teams last year, UCLA and Oregon State, both of which return the vast majority of their starters. Cal is loaded on offense yet again. And I expect Oregon, Arizona State (which now has Dennis Erickson), Arizona and possibly Washington to all be factors as well.
3) Big Ten: Remember the 1990s and early 2000s? For the only time in its history, the Big Ten was actually fairly wide open, with everyone from Northwestern to Purdue to Illinois winning titles. Now, the league has gone back to being top-heavy. Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio State could all be top-10 teams, Penn State won't be far off, but then there's a pretty drastic drop-off. I do expect Iowa to do a bit of damage, but nearly half the teams the league (Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois and Indiana) are basically irrelevant.
4) Big East: Obviously, it's impossible for the Big East to go as deep as the other leagues because it has so few teams, and thus its ranking suffers. The top four teams -- Louisville, West Virginia, Rutgers and USF -- stack up with any league outside of the SEC. All four are legitimate preseason top-25 teams in my mind, and three of them could be BCS-caliber. The Cardinals and Mountaineers have already shown their offenses are as explosive as any in the country, but I have a hunch Rutgers might wind up winning the title because it has a defense to go with its potential All-America running back.
5) Big 12: Earlier this decade, I really thought the Big 12 was going to emerge as the best conference in the country. But due in large part to Dennis Franchione's thus-far disappointing tenure at Texas A&M, the South Division has remained largely a two-team show (though Texas Tech is a consistent second-tier bowl team), and the North has yet to fully recover from its all-out implosion a few years ago. Nebraska should be a top-20 team, but I'm not convinced the Huskers are ready to contend nationally yet, Missouri should again be good but not great and the jury's still out on the likes of Kansas State and Kansas.
6) ACC: The conference will be better than it was last year due to several high-profile coaching changes and more experienced teams, but it is still probably a year away from becoming a true force nationally. Virginia Tech should be a top-10 team, but after that it's anyone's best guess who will emerge as legitimate top-20 teams and who will remain mired in mediocrity out of a pack that includes Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College, Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech and Maryland.
7) Mountain West: Utah, TCU and BYU have each produced nationally competitive teams over the past three seasons and all will likely be strong again this season. New Mexico is always in the postseason mix. Things are a little hazy after that, though I'm interested to see whether Colorado State can bounce back from an awful year and how much improvement San Diego State shows in Chuck Long's second year.
8) WAC: Despite losing several teams to Conference USA a few years ago, this league has actually gotten stronger. We all know about Boise State, but the emergence of Nevada, San Jose State and Hawaii has boosted the conference considerably. If anyone can dethrone the Broncos this year, it's Colt Brennan and the Warriors. And I think last year's 4-8 debacle will prove an aberration for Fresno State.
9) Conference USA: This league has become hard to watch since losing Louisville, Cincinnati and USF. I expect there will once again be several decent teams (Tulsa, Southern Miss, East Carolina, UCF) but none that approach top-25 status.
10) MAC: Where have you gone, Ben Roethlisberger? Or Byron Leftwich? Or even Bruce Gradkowski? It's been a few years now since the MAC produced any giant-killers, and I don't expect that to change this year. Even with the addition of Temple (as hard as that may be to believe).
11) Sun Belt: How the members of this conference continue to remain at the I-A level is one of the great mysteries of our time.
So there you have it, folks. Now comes the hard part. You can either fire off that nasty e-mail inquiring about the size of my brain ... or you can ask a question that might actually get published next week.
Oh, the agony.
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The reputation of Iowa's Kirk Ferentz as being a top-notch coach has taken a hit after a pair of disappointing seasons.
AP
Is Kirk Ferentz overrated as a coach? He had talented teams in both 2005 and 2006 and they only went 13-12 over those two years, yet everyone still says Kirk is up there with Pete Carroll, Bob Stoops and Urban Meyer. I find that hard to believe.
--Russ, Dyersville, Iowa
A straight up comparison of Ferentz to the coaches you mentioned would not exactly be fair considering he's not working with anywhere near the same level of talent. That said, he definitely dropped several rungs on my ladder the past two seasons. One of the major reasons Ferentz earned his reputation in the first place was that he was able to take largely blue-collar, physically overmatched teams and beat teams like Ohio State and Michigan and pull off 11-2, 10-3 and 10-2 seasons from 2002-04. The other major trait of those teams is that they got notably better as the season went along, another indicator of good coaching.
But that second part simply did not happen last year. That 6-7 team was a major disappointment considering it had a proven, senior quarterback in Drew Tate and was by all accounts a more talented bunch overall than those earlier teams, whose players were primarily recruited when the program was in the tank. So the question becomes, was Ferentz overrated to begin with or did his earlier teams simply overachieve? I tend to think last year was one of those inevitable blips that every coach endures from time to time when a team, for whatever reason, simply fails to gel. It's also unrealistic to think any coach is ever going to win 10 games every year at Iowa. But it's also not as if Ferentz has such a long track record that he be afforded a free pass. (Especially now that he's being paid like a Stoops or Meyer.) It will be interesting to see how much improvement, if any, this year's Hawkeyes show.
The last couple of seasons, we have seen an influx in big non-conference games to start the season. Which game are you most eager to see. For me, it's Virginia Tech at LSU on Sept. 8!
--Joshua, Richmond, Va.
That's going to be a good one, all right. I don't know who's going to win, but I bet the final score will be something like 10-9. I also think it's going to be an extremely important moment for the Virginia Tech community in its ongoing healing process. Assuming that's the "game of the week" nationally (Notre Dame-Penn State will get plenty of attention as well, but those teams aren't going to be ranked in the Top 10), I can only imagine how uplifting it will be for Hokies fans to see their school return to the national spotlight for something besides the recent tragedy.
The non-conference game I'm looking forward to most, however, is USC at Nebraska the following weekend. The Trojans are the expected preseason No. 1 team, but they're not without questions, particularly on offense. This will be just their second game of the season, and the first one is against Idaho, so this will truly be the first chance to gauge the 2007 Trojans. I also think this game will serve as a referendum on Bill Callahan's mostly stormy tenure in Lincoln. I thought Huskers fans got a little bit ahead of themselves last year in thinking their team would give USC any sort of scare in L.A. in what was then the start of Callahan's third season. At this point, however, it's year four, he's got his recruits and he's finally got a stud quarterback in Sam Keller. It's reasonable to expect that Nebraska -- one of the most storied programs of all-time -- should not roll over for anyone, even the No. 1 team in the country.
Stewart: It's time to play the annual eighth-year seniors game! I'll start it off ... really, a no-brainer: Notre Dame's Tom Zbikowski.
--Dave, Chelsea, Mich.
Ah yes, it's an annual Mailbag tradition. And Zbikowski is a perfect candidate for two reasons: 1) His recruitment as a high school senior in 2002-03 was so heavily chronicled that his name has been with us a whole extra year; and 2) I think most of us were under the assumption that last year would be his final season (he was in Brady Quinn's class but didn't play his first season). It was primarily because his stock plummeted so much that he came back for a fifth year.
Here are my nominees for other eighth-year seniors: Texas WR Limas Sweed, Michigan QB Chad Henne, LSU RB Alley Broussard, North Carolina WR Joe Dailey (Nebraska's starting quarterback in 2004), Penn State RB Austin Scott, Virginia Tech LB Xavier Adibi and Georgia K Brandon Coutu. More nominees are welcome.
We also have a new Hall of Famer. Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm about to tell you is truly astounding. Would you believe that Miami's Glenn Sharpe -- the cornerback from the famous Miami-Ohio State Fiesta Bowl pass-interference call -- is still in college?! Sharpe, a true freshman during that 2002 season, received a sixth year of eligibility after missing most of the 2004 and '05 seasons due to separate ACL tears. Next year, this little game may need to be officially renamed the Glenn Sharpe Game.
Stewart, is Ralph Friedgen making a huge mistake in leaning towards Jordan Steffy as Maryland's starting quarterback over transfer Josh Portis? What I have seen of Steffy so far has been far from impressive, and Portis seems like a perfect fit for Fridge's offense (a la former Georgia Tech QB Joe Hamilton). What gives?
--Brandon, College Park, Md.
That's a good question. Back when Portis decided to transfer to Maryland from Florida (where, if he stayed, he'd now be competing with Tim Tebow), I assumed Friedgen would just hand him the starting job in '07 if for no other reason than to avoid the wrath of Portis' psycho mother. But without having seen Portis play beyond a few meaningless snaps at Florida, I'm not sure I'm equipped to answer the question. So I've called in a guest expert, Heather Dinich, the Baltimore Sun's all-knowing Terrpains beat writer, whose Blog is a must-read both for her expertise on the Terps and her highly amusing comebacks at some of the "haters" who post on her comments board.
Regarding Portis, Heather says: "Everybody WANTS to see Portis because of all the hype surrounding him, and his exciting promise of athletic ability, but he's only a 'perfect fit' for Friedgen's offense if he knows it. Ralph has nearly 200 different pass patterns that can be run from about 15 different formations. Until Ralph is convinced Portis has an understanding of everything, Portis is going to be behind Steffy -- who has had more time to learn the system and spent all of last season calling plays in from the sidelines. There might also be a wee bit of politics involved. (Gasp!) It certainly isn't as if Ralph can afford to have Steffy transfer. Bottom line? Neither one of them has proven anything yet."
By the way, I would have pegged Steffy -- who played a bit in 2004 -- as an eighth-year senior himself, but it turns out he's only a fourth-year junior.
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Thanks for your new Fifth Mailbag Commandment. Is anything worse than sports fans referring to their favorite team as "we" or "us?" It's maddening.
--Keary Floyd, Lawrenceville, Ga.
Your new fifth rule isn't going to fly. As someone who was raised a Gator, and currently goes to school there, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't claim to be part of the "Gator Nation" and refer to it as "we." Sports teams are representations of the school, and anyone who does or has gone to a certain school is fully allowed to say "we" when talking about their team.
--J.B., West Palm Beach, Fla.
This was the only one of the five commandments that elicited backlash, so I stopped and considered whether there may actually be scenarios in which it would be acceptable for someone not on a team to refer to it as "we." And the answer I came up with was ... not in a million years.
Don't get me wrong, one of the things that makes college sports so much more riveting than the pros (at least in my mind) is the legitimate sense of ownership fans feel when the team in question plays for their school. So I do understand where J.B. is coming from. However, there's still a significant difference between saying, "My Gators kicked Ohio State's butt" (I've got no problem with that), and, "We kicked Ohio State's butt." Umm ... no you didn't. You sat in the stands and watched the Gators kick Ohio State's butt.
Your criticism about Chan Gailey got me thinking. Do you think a head coach in the NFL has an advantage coaching at the college level over his counterparts? He usually has a poor history in the NFL or he'd still be there, so what makes the Pete Carroll's do so well and what's your prediction for Bill Callahan at Nebraska?
--Mike Burr, Chicago
This is turning out to be a Callahan-heavy Mailbag. But that's OK, because Mike brings up a topic I've formed some pretty staunch opinions about within the last year. Of all the head coaches who have made the transition from the NFL to college in recent years, the only one who's had any raging success is Carroll. And I've always found it interesting that many of the very things that worked against Carroll in the pros -- his rah-rah personality, his player-friendly approach and his aggressive schemes and play-calling -- have been his biggest sources of success in college. This tells me there's almost no correlation between success at the two levels, and that in fact NFL experience may actually work against guys in college. Why? Because in college, unlike the NFL, it doesn't pay to be conservative.
Think back to last year's bowl season. Florida won a national title running an offense in which the backup quarterback was the top running back. Boise State won a BCS bowl running trick plays no NFL coach would dare run in a million years. USC won the Rose Bowl by literally abandoning any notion of offensive balance. College football has become increasingly synonymous with unconventional strategy. But NFL-bred coaches like Gailey, Callahan, Dave Wannstedt and Karl Dorrell tend to be among the most conservative in the nation. (Remember last year's Cotton Bowl?) They may win some games that way, but you don't win championships in college by playing not to lose.
Stewart, I've read your column for a couple of years and have never been compelled to write in until you were looking for a new Mailbag Crush. I nominate Kate Mara, granddaughter of New York Giants owner/legend Wellington Mara. Not only is she football royalty, but she was in We are Marshall.
--Kevin D, Chicago
You don't even have to change channels for your 2007 celebrity crush. How about Sarah Chalke from Scrubs?
--Tripp, Atlanta
Both Kate and Sarah were mentioned frequently in the first round of e-mails, as were two Entourage ladies, Emannuele Chriqui (Sloan) and Carla Guigno (Amanda), The Office's Rashida Jones (Karen), Friday Night Lights' Minka Kelly (whom Jimmy Traina previously claimed), Heroes' Hayden Panettiere (c'mon guys, she's 17) and, a truly under-the-radar choice, Rachel Specter, the RGX body spray girl.
I recently watched an episode of E's The Girls Next Door (admit it, you watch it, too) that illuminated the process by which Hugh Hefner picks the Playmate of the Year. (This year's choice, incidentally, is a recent Oregon State grad who posed for her first cover in Beavers colors. I have a whole new respect for that school.) Basically, he uses the reader poll as input but at the end of the day, he ultimately makes the call. So that's how we're going to treat Celebrity Crush. All of the aforementioned ladies are fine nominees, but I can't say whether any of them are going to make my final cut.
How many times are you going to keep insisting that the relative strength of conferences is "cyclical" when you simply mean that it's mutable? If you can find a cycle in any of this, you should apply your talents to the stock market. For crying out loud, you're a professional writer.
--Kurt S., Chapel Hill, N.C.
Listen, smarty pants. I write about football for a living. Therefore, I don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about. But once upon a time I did buy stock in a rising computer-software company. It had a funny name I kind of liked -- Microsoft. A few years later, I got a call from my stock broker saying I wouldn't have to worry about money anymore. Which is nice. It gives me more time to worry about the important things.
Like whether the Pac-10 is better than the Big 12 or vice versa.
(P.S. Parts of the aforementioned story were exaggerated for dramatic purposes. Greatly.)
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43 Comments - Show Original Post Collapse comments
voice of reason said...
Ten emails, ten faxes and ten phone calls from one constituent to a single politician or party (or even 5 each for each of Oregon's two senators) is not the sign of a healthy and principled political movement; it is the sign of a movement given over to paranoia, desperation and bullying tactics. What is the point of multiple contacts with a politician other than to artificially inflate your own numbers? Would someone care to explain why that is necessary?
Make your call, register your opinion, and if you want, follow up with a fax OR an email to elaborate on points you didn't have time to make on the phone. But don't tie up everyone's phone lines and clog their email boxes just so you can feel powerful ... the only effect of that is to prevent OTHERS from registering their own views -- on this issue, or -- suprise! -- other issues! There are other issues, you know.
7:36 AM
eddie said...
Yup... I agree... one contact with an individual representative.
Otherwise, you might as well be a progressive.
7:46 AM
Anonymous said...
"There are other issues, you know."
Not in Daniel's version of reality. Iraq, the federal deficit, our woeful health care system, gas prices, global warming....these all pale in comparison to illegal immigration.
Slowly but surely, this "problem" will remedy itself. Fertility in Mexico has been reduced drastically during the past two decades. The remittance economy has raised the standard of living in that country as well. The push factors driving Mexican migration are on the decline, again, slowly, but surely.
I think it's time to get this bill passed and move on to more pressing issues.
10:11 AM
Anonymous said...
To voice of reason and eddie:
This is just grand, people who want the American people to lay down and let this amnesty abomination become law, giving advice on what to do and what not to do.
Everybody in politics knows that intensity matters!
How hard people will work matters in politics.
How active voters are about an issue matters.
How do politicians measure intensity?
It is measured by the number of contacts and the kinds of contacts.
So, the politicians do this "deal" in secret and want to vote on it four days after telling the American people about the "deal"; and the bill is 700 pages long and hasn't been printed yet. There are no committee hearings.
And voice of reason talks about "...paranoia, desperation and bullying tactics."
Get real.
I've tangled with voice of reason before and crushed his "reason".
I look forward to it again.
10:13 AM
Anonymous said...
To anon1011am:
This bill is a threat to the Republic.
The question is this:
Will the United States of America continue to be a constitutional democratic republic or be an oligarchy controlled by either Big business or the socialists with a patina or veneer of democratic trappings?
This is a Kansas-Nebraska bill moment. The bill was passed in 1854, it opened the western territories to slavery by "popular sovereignty". It divided the Democrates, destroyed the Whigs, and gave birth to the anti-slavery Republican Party and led directly to the Civil War in 1860.
This makes the abortion issue look like a walk in the park, the gay agenda a street fight, while this is a battle for the Republic in which our grandchildren will live.
Where have you been in the last 24 hours? There is a prairie fire of intensity on this issue because the American people know what is at stake.
10:43 AM
Anonymous said...
A Kansas-Nebraska moment? Intensity? Okay -- what will you guys all do if, sorry, when this thing is signed into law? How do you respond to being on the losing end of a "Kansas-Nebraska" moment?
10:59 AM
anon 1043am said...
To anon1059am:
You are counting your chickens before they hatch, as the old saying goes. Politicians respond to groundswelling revulsion that will cost them re-election.
Can I guarantee Americans will defeat this abomination? No, but you are over-confident, and many times over-confidence is heading for a fall.
My side has the intensity, your side doesn't, and is inherently divided between Socialists, big business and La Raza types.
Blueoregon the blog of the left: Check it out, no post on immigration. Why? They are already divided over immigration because even Blueoregon types know amnesty will lower wages and hurt blue collar workers.
Get to know it.
Money is not the measure of all things.
You might just learn that in this episode.
11:32 AM
The OTHER Ben Dover said...
Hee Hee Hee...
You paranoids are really sweating it. Looks like your Prez sold ya'll down the river - little racist reference for ya.
Poor Daniel. Now he won't get any rest.
See ya in the bread, or should I say "tortilla" line
2:57 PM
Anonymous said...
Check CNN.COM poll
With 105,000 votes, it asks what you think of the new immigration proposal...
64% Amnesty
36% Immigration Reform
Looks like Americans are getting screwed in the a**hole by bush.
3:56 PM
Anonymous said...
No reverberatory effect of the great war has caused American public opinion more solicitude than the failure of the "melting-pot." The discovery of diverse nationalistic feelings among our great alien population his come to most people as an intense shock. It has brought out the unpleasant inconsistencies of our traditional beliefs. We have had to watch hard-hearted old Brahmins virtuously indignant at the spectacle of the immigrant refusing to be melted, while they jeer at patriots like Mary Antin who write about our "forefathers." We have had to listen to publicists who express themselves as stunned by the evidence of vigorous traditionalistic and cultural movements in this country among Germans, Scandinavians, Bohemians and Poles, while in the same breath they insist that the alien shall be forcibly assimilated to that Anglo-Saxon tradition which they unquestionably label "American."
As the unpleasant truth has come upon us that assimilation in this country was proceeding on lines very different from those we had marked out for it, we found ourselves inclined to blame those who were thwarting our prophecies. The truth became culpable. We blamed the war, we blamed the Germans. And then we discovered with a moral shock that these movements had been making great headway even before the war even began. We found that the tendency, reprehensible and paradoxical as it might be, has been for the national clusters of immigrants, as they became more and more firmly established and more and more prosperous, to cultivate more and more assiduously the literatures and cultural traditions of their homelands. Assimilation, in other words, instead of washing out the memories of Europe, made them more and more intensely real. Just as these clusters became more and more objectively American, did they become more and more German or Scandinavian or Bohemian or Polish.
To face the fact that our aliens are already strong enough to take a share in the direction of their own destiny, and that the strong cultural movements represented by the foreign press, schools, and colonies are a challenge to our facile attempts, is not, however, to admit the failure of Americanization. It is not to fear the failure of democracy. It is rather to urge us to an investigation of what Americanism may rightly mean. It is to ask ourselves whether our ideal has been broad or narrow--whether perhaps the time has not come to assert a higher ideal than the "melting-pot" Surely we cannot be certain of our spiritual democracy when, claiming to melt the nations within us to a comprehension of our free and democratic institutions, we fly into panic at the first sign of their own will and tendency. We act as if we wanted Americanization to take place only on our own terms, and not by the consent of the governed. All our elaborate machinery of settlement and school and union, of social and political naturalization, however, will move with friction just in so far as it neglects to take into account this strong and virile insistence that America shall be what the immigrant will have a hand in making it, and not what a ruling class, descendant of those British stocks which were the first permanent immigrants, decide that America shall be made. This is the condition which confronts us, and which demands a clear and general readjustment of our attitude and our ideal.
Mary Antin is right when she looks upon our foreign-born as the people who missed the Mayflower and came over on the first boat they could find. But she forgets that when they did come it was not upon other Mayflowers, but upon a "Maiblume," a "Fleur de Mai," a "Fior di Maggio," a "Majblomst." These people were not mere arrivals from the same family, to be welcomed as understood and long-loved, but strangers to the neighborhood, with whom a long process of settling down had to take place. For they brought with them their national and racial characters, and each new national quota had to wear slowly away the contempt with which its mere alienness got itself greeted. Each had to make its way slowly from the lowest strata of unskilled labor up to a level where it satisfied the accredited norms of social success.
We are all foreign-born or the descendants of foreign-born, and if distinctions are to be made between us they should rightly be on some other ground than indigenousness. The early colonists came over with motives no less colonial than the later. They did not come to be assimilated in an American melting-pot. They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the smallest intention of "giving themselves without reservation" to the new country. They came to get freedom to live as they wanted. They came to escape from the stifling air and chaos of the old world; they came to make their fortune in a new land. They invented no new social framework. Rather they brought over bodily the old ways to which they had been accustomed. Tightly concentrated on a hostile frontier, they were conservative beyond belief. Their pioneer daring was reserved for the objective conquest of material resources. In their folkways, in their social and political institutions, they were, like every colonial people, slavishly imitative of the mother-country. So that, in spite of the "Revolution," our whole legal and political system remained more English than the English, petrified and unchanging, while in England law developed to meet the needs of the changing times.
It is just this English-American conservatism that has been our chief obstacle to social advance. We have needed the new peoples--the order of the German and Scandinavian, the turbulence of the Slav and Hun--to save us from our own stagnation. I do not mean that the illiterate Slav is now the equal of the New Englander of pure descent. He is raw material to be educated, not into a New Englander, but into a socialized American along such lines as those thirty nationalities are being educated in the amazing schools of Gary. I do not believe that this process is to be one of decades of evolution. The spectacle of Japan's sudden jump from mediaevalism to post-modernism should have destroyed that superstition. We are not dealing with individuals who are to "evolve." We are dealing with their children, who, with that education we are about to have, will start level with all of us. Let us cease to think of ideals like democracy as magical qualities inherent in certain peoples. Let us speak, not of inferior races, hut of inferior civilizations. We are all to educate and to be educated. These peoples in America are in a common enterprise. It is not what we are now that concerns us, but what this plastic next generation may become in the light of a new cosmopolitan ideal.
We are not dealing with static factors, but with fluid and dynamic generations. To contrast the older and the newer immigrants and see the one class as democratically motivated by love of liberty, and the other by mere money-getting, is not to illuminate the future. To think of earlier nationalities as culturally assimilated to America, while we picture the later as a sodden and resistive mass, makes only for bitterness and misunderstanding. There may be a difference between these earlier and these later stocks, but it lies neither in motive for coming nor in strength of cultural allegiance to the homeland. The truth is that no more tenacious cultural allegiance to the mother country has been shown by any alien nation than by the ruling class of Anglo-Saxon descendants in these American States. English snobberies, English religion, English literary styles, English literary reverences and canons, English ethics, English superiorities, have been the cultural food that we have drunk in from our mothers' breasts. The distinctively American spirit pioneer, as distinguished from the reminiscently English that appears in Whitman and Emerson and James, has had to exist on sufferance along side of this other cult, unconsciously belittled by our cultural makers of opinion. No country has perhaps had so great indigenous genius which had so little influence on the country's traditions and expressions. The unpopular and dreaded German-American of the present day is a beginning amateur in comparison with those foolish Anglophiles of Boston and New York and Philadelphia whose reversion to cultural type sees uncritically in England's cause the cause of Civilization, and, under the guise of ethical independence of thought, carries along European traditions which are no more American' than the German categories themselves.
It speaks well for German-American innocence of heart or else for its lack of imagination that it has not turned the hyphen stigma into a "Tu quoque!" If there were to be any hyphens scattered about, clearly they should he affixed to those English descendants who had had centuries of time to be made American where the German had had only half a century. Most significantly has the war brought out of them this alien virus, showing them still loving English things, owing allegiance to the English Kultur, moved by English shibboleths and prejudice. It is only because it has been the ruling class in this country that bestowed the epithets that we have not heard copiously and scornfully of "hyphenated English-Americans." But even our quarrels with England have had the bad temper, the extravagance, of family quarrels. The Englishman of to-day nags us and dislikes us in that personal, peculiarly intimate way in which he dislikes the Australian, or as we may dislike our younger brothers. He still thinks of us incorrigibly as "colonials." America---official, controlling, literary, political America--is still, as a writer recently expressed it, "culturally speaking, ,a self-governing dominion of the British Empire."
The non-English American can scarcely be blamed if he sometimes thinks of the Anglo-Saxon predominance in America as little more than a predominance of priority. The Anglo-Saxon was merely the first immigrant, the first to found a colony. He has never really ceased to be the descendant of immigrants, nor has he ever succeeded in transforming that colony into a real nation, with a tenacious, richly woven fabric of native culture. Colonials from the other nations have come and settled down beside him. They found no definite native culture which should startle them out of their colonialism, and consequently they looked back to their mother-country, as the earlier Anglo-Saxon immigrant was looking back to his. What has been offered thee newcomer has been the chance to learn English, to become a citizen, to salute the flag. And those elements of our ruling classes who are responsible for the public schools, the settlements, all the organizations for amelioration in the cities, have every reason to be proud of the care and labor which they have devoted to absorbing the immigrant. His opportunities the immigrant has taken to gladly, with almost a pathetic eagerness to make his way in the new land without friction or disturbance. The common language has made not only for the necessary communication, but for all the amenities of life.
If freedom means the right to do pretty much as one pleases, so long as one does not interfere with others, the immigrant has found freedom, and the ruling element has been singularly liberal in its treatment of the invading hordes. But if freedom means a democratic cooperation in determining the ideals and purposes and industrial and social institutions of a country, then the immigrant has not been free, and the Anglo-Saxon element is guilty of just what every dominant race is guilty of in every European country: the imposition of its own culture upon the minority peoples. The fact that this imposition has been so mild and, indeed, semi-conscious does not alter its quality. And the war has brought out just the degree to which that purpose of "Americanizing," that is, "Anglo-Saxonizing," the immigrant has failed.
For the Anglo-Saxon now in his bitterness to turn upon the other peoples, talk about their "arrogance," scold them for not being melted in a pot which never existed, is to betray the unconscious purpose which lay at the bottom of his heart. It betrays too the possession of a racial jealousy similar to that of which he is now accusing the so-called "hyphenates." Let the Anglo-Saxon be proud enough of the heroic toil and heroic sacrifices which moulded the nation. But let him ask himself, if he had had to depend on the English descendants, where he would have been living to-day. To those of us who see in the exploitation of unskilled labor the strident red leit-motif of our civilization, the settling of the country presents a great social drama as the waves of immigration broke over it.
Let the Anglo-Saxon ask himself where he would have been if these races had not come? Let those who feel the inferiority of the non-Anglo-Saxon immigrant contemplate that region of the States which has remained the most distinctively "American," the South. Let him ask himself whether he would really like to see the foreign hordes Americanized into such an Americanization. Let him ask himself how superior this native civilization is to the great "alien" states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, where Scandinavians, Poles, and Germans have self-consciously labored to preserve their traditional culture, while being outwardly and satisfactorily American. Let him ask himself how much more wisdom, intelligence, industry and social leadership has come out of these alien states than out of all the truly American ones. The South, in fact, while this vast Northern development has gone on, still remains an English colony, stagnant and complacent, having progressed scarcely beyond the early Victorian era. It is culturally sterile because it has had no advantage of cross-fertilization like the Northern states. What has happened in states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota is that strong foreign cultures have struck root in a new and fertile soil. America has meant liberation, and German and Scandinavian political ideas and social energies have expanded to a new potency. The process has not been at all the fancied "assimilation" of the Scandinavian or Teuton. Rather has it been a process of their assimilation of us--I speak as an Anglo-Saxon. The foreign cultures have not been melted down or run together, made into some homogeneous Americanism, but have remained distinct but cooperating to the greater glory and benefit, not only of themselves but of all the native "Americanism" around them.
What we emphatically do not want is that these distinctive qualities should be washed out into a tasteless, colorless fluid of uniformity. Already we have far too much of this insipidity, masses of people who are cultural half-breeds, neither assimilated Anglo-Saxons nor nationals of another culture. Each national colony in this country seems to retain in its foreign press, its vernacular literature, its schools, its intellectual and patriotic leaders, a central cultural nucleus. From this nucleus the colony extends out by imperceptible gradations to a fringe where national characteristics are all but lost. Our cities are filled with these half-breeds who retain their foreign names but have lost the foreign savor. This does not mean that they have actually been changed into New Englanders or Middle Westerners. It does not mean that they have been really Americanized. It means that, letting slip from them whatever native culture they had, they have substituted for it only the most rudimentary American --the American culture of the cheap newspaper, the "movies," the popular song, the ubiquitous automobile. The unthinking who survey this class call them assimilated, Americanized. The great American public school has done its work. .With these people our institutions are safe. We may thrill with dread at the aggressive hyphenate, but this tame flabbiness is accepted as Americanization. The same moulders of opinion whose ideal is to melt the different races into Anglo-Saxon gold hail this poor product as the satisfying result of their alchemy.
Yet a truer cultural sense would have told us that it is not the self-conscious cultural nuclei that sap at our American life, but these fringes. It is not the Jew who sticks proudly to the faith of his fathers and boasts of that venerable culture of his who is dangerous to America, but the Jew who has lost the Jewish fire and become a mere elementary grasping animal. It is not the Bohemian who supports the Bohemian schools in Chicago whose influence is sinister, but the Bohemian who has made money and has got into ward politics. Just so surely as we tend to disintegrate these nuclei of nationalistic culture do we tend to create hordes of men and women without a spiritual country, cultural outlaws, without taste, without standards but those of the mob. We sentence them to live on the most rudimentary planes of American life. The influences at the centre of the nuclei are centripetal. They make for the intelligence and the social values which mean an enhancement of life. And just because the foreign-born retains this expressiveness is he likely to be a better citizen of the American community. The influences at the fringe, however, are centrifugal, anarchical. They make for detached fragments of peoples. Those who came to find liberty achieve only license. They become the flotsam and jetsam of American life, the downward undertow of our civilization with its leering cheapness and falseness of taste and spiritual outlook, the absence of mind and sincere feeling which we see iii our slovenly towns, our vapid moving pictures, our popular novels, and in the vacuous faces of the crowds on the city street. This is the cultural wreckage of our time, and it is from the fringes of the Anglo-Saxon as well as the other stocks that it falls. America has as yet no impelling integrating force. It makes too easily for this detritus of cultures. In our loose, free country, no constraining national purpose, no tenacious folk-tradition and folk-style hold the people to a line.
The war has shown us that not in any magical formula will this purpose be found. No intense nationalism of the European plan can be ours. But do we not begin to see a new and more adventurous ideal? Do we not see how the national colonies in America, deriving power from the deep cultural heart of Europe and yet living here in mutual toleration, freed from the age-long tangles of races, creeds, and dynasties, may work out a federated ideal? America is transplanted Europe, but a Europe that has not been disintegrated and scattered in the transplanting as in some Dispersion. Its colonies live here inextricably mingled, yet not homogeneous. They merge but they do not fuse.
America is a unique sociological fabric, and it bespeaks poverty of imagination not to be thrilled at the incalculable potentialities of so novel a union of men. To seek no other goal than the weary old nationalism, belligerent, exclusive, inbreeding, the poison of which we are witnessing now in Europe, is to make patriotism a hollow sham, and to declare that, in spite of our boastings, America must ever be a follower and not a leader of nations.
II
If we come to find this point of view plausible, we shall have to give up the search for our native "American" culture. With the exception of the South and that New England which, like the Red Indian, seems to be passing into solemn oblivion, there is no distinctively American culture. It is apparently our lot rather to be a federation of cultures. This we have been for half a century, and the war has made it evermore evident that this is what we are destined to remain. This will not mean, however, that there are not expressions of indigenous genius that could not have sprung from any other soil. Music, poetry, philosophy, have been singularly fertile and new. Strangely enough, American genius has flared forth just in those directions which are least [understood] of the people. If the American note is bigness, action, the objective as contrasted with the reflective life, where is the epic expression of this spirit? Our drama and our fiction, the peculiar fields for the expression of action and objectivity, are somehow exactly the fields of the spirit which remain poor and mediocre. American materialism is in some way inhibited from getting into impressive artistic form its own energy with which it bursts. Nor is it any better in architecture, the least romantic and subjective of all the arts. We are inarticulate of the very values which we profess to idealize. But in the finer forms --music, verse, the essay, philosophy--the American genius puts forth work equal to any of its contemporaries. Just in so far as our American genius has expressed the pioneer spirit, the adventurous, forward-looking drive of a colonial empire, is it representative of that whole--America of the many races and peoples, and not of any partial or traditional enthusiasm. And only as that pioneer note is sounded can we really speak of the American culture. As long as we thought of Americanism in terms of the "melting pot," our American cultural tradition lay in the past. It was something to which the new Americans were to be moulded. In the light of our changing ideal of Americanism, we must perpetrate the paradox that our American cultural tradition lies in the future. It will be what we all together make out of this incomparable opportunity of attacking the future with a new key.
Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, it is certain to become something utterly different from the nationalisms of twentieth-century Europe. This wave of reactionary enthusiasm to play the orthodox nationalistic game which is passing over the country is scarcely vital enough to last. We cannot swagger and thrill to the same national self-feeling. We must give new edges to our pride. We must be content to avoid the unnumbered woes that national patriotism has brought in Europe, and that fiercely heightened pride and self-consciousness. Alluring as this is, we must allow our imaginations to transcend this scarcely veiled belligerency. We can be serenely too proud to fight if our pride embraces the creative forces of civilization which armed contest nullifies. We can be too proud to fight if our code of honor transcends that of the schoolboy on the playground surrounded by his jeering mates. Our honor must be positive and creative, and not the mere jealous and negative protectiveness against metaphysical violations of our technical rights. When the doctrine is put forth that in one American flows the mystic blood of all our country's sacred honor, freedom, and prosperity, so that an injury to him is to be the signal for turning our whole nation into that clan-feud of horror and reprisal which would be war, then we find ourselves back among the musty schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and not in any pragmatic and realistic America of the twentieth century.
We should hold our gaze to what America has done, not what mediaeval codes of dueling she has failed to observe. We have transplanted European modernity to our soil, without the spirit that inflames it and turns all its energy into mutual destruction. Out of these foreign peoples there has somehow been squeezed the poison. Ann America, "hyphenated" to bitterness is somehow non-explosive. For, even if we all hark back in sympathy to a European nation, even if the war has set every one vibrating to some emotional string twanged on the other side of the Atlantic, the effect has been one of almost dramatic harmlessness.
What we have really been witnessing, however unappreciatively, in this country has been a thrilling and bloodless battle of Kulturs. In that arena of friction which has been the most dramatic--between the hyphenated German-American and the hyphenated English-American--there have emerged rivalries of philosophies which show up deep traditional attitudes, points of view which accurately reflect the gigantic issues of the war. America has mirrored the spiritual issues. The vicarious struggle has been played out peacefully here in the mind. We have seen the stout resistiveness of the old moral interpretation of history on which Victorian England thrived and made itself great in its own esteem. The clean and immensely satisfying vision of the war as a contest between right and wrong; the enthusiastic support of the Allies as the incarnation of virtue on a rampage; the fierce envisaging of their selfish national purposes as the ideals of justice, freedom and democracy--all this has been thrown with intensest force against the German realistic interpretations in terms of the struggle for power and the virility of the integrated State. America has been the intellectual battleground of the nations.
The failure of the melting-pot, far from closing the great American democratic experiment, means that it has only just begun. Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, we see already that it will have color richer and more exciting than our ideal has hitherto encompassed. In a world which has dreamed of internationalism, we find that we have all unawares been building up the first international nation. The voices which have cried for a tight and jealous nationalism of the European pattern are failing. From that ideal, however valiantly and disinterestedly it has been set for us, time and tendency have moved us further and further away. What we have achieved has been rather a cosmopolitan federation of national colonies, of foreign cultures, from whom the sting of devastating competition has been removed. America is already the world-federation in miniature, the continent where for the first time in history has been achieved that miracle of hope, the peaceful living side by side, with character substantially preserved, of the most heterogeneous peoples under the sun. Nowhere else has such contiguity been anything but the breeder of misery. Here, notwithstanding our tragic failures of adjustment, the outlines are already too clear not t
III
o give us a new vision and a new-orientation of the American mind in the world.
It is for the American of the younger generation to accept this cosmopolitanism, and carry it along with self-conscious and fruitful purpose. In his colleges, he is already getting, with the study of modern history and politics, the modern literatures, economic geography, the privilege of a cosmopolitan outlook such as the people of no other nation of to-day in Europe can possibly secure. If he is still a colonial, he is no longer the colonial of one partial culture, but of many. He is a colonial of the world. Colonialism has grown into cosmopolitanism, and his motherland is no one nation, but all who have anything life enhancing to offer to the spirit. That vague sympathy which the France of ten years ago was feeling for the world--a sympathy which was drowned in the terrible reality of war--may be the modern American's, and that in a positive and aggressive sense. If the American is parochial, it is in sheer wantonness or cowardice. His provincialism is the measure of his fear of bogies or the defect of his imagination.
Indeed, it is not uncommon for the eager Anglo-Saxon who goes to a vivid American university to-day to find his true friends not among his own race but among the acclimatized German or Austrian, the acclimatized Jew, the acclimatized Scandinavian or Italian. In them he finds the cosmopolitan note. In these youths, foreign-born or the children of foreign-born parents, he is likely to find many of his old inbred morbid problems washed away. These friends are oblivious to the repressions of that tight little society in which he so provincially grew up. He has a pleasurable sense of liberation from the stale and familiar attitudes of those whose ingrowing culture has scarcely created anything vital for his America of to-day. He breathes a larger air. In his new enthusiasms for continental literature, for unplumbed Russian depths, for French clarity of thought, for Teuton philosophies of power, he feels himself citizen of a larger world. He may be absurdly superficial, his outward-reaching wonder may ignore all the stiller and homelier virtues of his Anglo-Saxon home, but he has at least found the clue to that international mind which will be essential to all men and women of good-will if they are ever to save this Western world of ours from suicide. His new friends have gone through a similar revolution. America has burned most of the baser metal also from them. Meeting now with this common American background, all of them may yet retain that distinctiveness of their native cultures and their national spiritual slants. They are more valuable and interesting to each other for being different, yet that difference could not be creative were it not for this new cosmopolitan outlook which America has given :- - them and which they all equally possess.
A college where such a spirit is possible even to the smallest degree, has within itself already the seeds of this international intellectual world of the future. It suggests that the contribution of America will be an intellectual internationalism which goes far beyond the mere exchange of scientific ideas and discoveries and the cold recording of facts. It will be an intellectual sympathy which is not satisfied until it has got at the heart of the different cultural expressions, and felt as they feel. It may have immense preferences, but it will make understanding and not indignation its end. Such a sympathy will unite and not divide. Against the thinly disguised panic which calls itself "patriotism" and the thinly disguised militarism which calls itself "preparedness" the cosmopolitan ideal is set. This does not mean that those who hold it are for a policy of drift. They, too, long passionately for an integrated and disciplined America. But they do not want one which is integrated only for domestic economic exploitation of the workers or for predatory economic imperialism among the weaker peoples. They do not want one that is integrated by coercion or militarism, or for the truculent assertion of a mediƦval code of honor and of doubtful rights. They believe that the most effective integration will be one which coordinates the diverse elements and turns them consciously toward working out together the place of America in the world-situation. They demand for integration a genuine integrity, a wholeness and soundness of enthusiasm and purpose which can only come when no national colony within our America feels that it is being discriminated against or that its cultural case is being prejudged. This strength of cooperation, this feeling that all who are here may have a hand in the destiny of America, will make for a finer spirit of integration than any narrow "Americanism" or forced chauvinism. In this effort we may have to accept some form of that dual citizenship which meets with so much articulate horror among us. Dual citizenship we may have to recognize as the rudimentary form of that international citizenship to which, if our words mean anything, we aspire. We have assumed unquestioningly that mere participation in the political life of the United States must cut the new citizen off from all sympathy with his old allegiance. Anything but a bodily transfer of devotion from one sovereignty to another has been viewed as a sort of moral treason against the Republic. We have insisted that the immigrant whom we welcomed escaping from the very exclusive nationalism of his European home shall forthwith adopt a nationalism just as exclusive, just as narrow, and even less legitimate because it is founded on no warm traditions of his own. Yet a nation like France is said to permit a formal and legal dual citizenship even at the present time. Though a citizen of hers may pretend to cast off his allegiance in favor of some other sovereignty, he is still subject to her laws when he returns. Once a citizen, always a citizen, no matter how many new-citizenships he may embrace. And such a dual citizenship seems to us sound and right. For it recognizes that, although the Frenchman may accept the formal institutional framework of his new country and indeed become intensely loyal to it, yet his Frenchness he will never lose. What makes up the fabric of his soul will always be of this Frenchness,-so that unless he becomes utterly degenerate he will always to some degree dwell still in his native environment.
Indeed, does not the cultivated American who goes to Europe practice a dual citizenship, which, if not formal, is no less real? The American who lives abroad may be the least expatriate of men. If he falls in love with French ways and French thinking and French democracy and seeks to saturate himself with the new spirit, he is guilty of at least a dual spiritual citizenship. He may be still American, yet he feels himself through sympathy also a Frenchman. And he finds that this expansion involves no shameful conflict within him, no surrender of his native attitude. He has rather for the first time caught a glimpse of the cosmopolitan spirit. And after wandering about through many races and civilizations he may return to America to find them all here living vividly and crudely, seeking the same adjustment that he made. He sees the new peoples here with a new vision. They are no longer masses of aliens, waiting to be "assimilated," waiting to be melted down into the indistinguishable dough of Anglo-Saxonism. They are rather threads of living and potent cultures, blindly striving to weave themselves into a novel international nation, the first the world has seen. In an Austria-Hungary or a Prussia the stronger of these cultures would be moving almost instinctively to subjugate the weaker. But in America those wills-to-power are turned in a different direction into learning how to live together.
Along with dual citizenship we shall have to accept, I think, that free and mobile passage of the immigrant between America and his native land again which now arouses so much prejudice among us. We shall have to accept the immigrant's return for the same reason that we consider justified our own flitting about the earth. To stigmatize the alien who works in America for a few years and returns to his own land, only perhaps to seek American fortune again, is to think in narrow nationalistic terms. It is to ignore the cosmopolitan significance of this migration. It is to ignore the fact that the returning immigrant is often a missionary to an inferior civilization.
This migratory habit has been especially common with the unskilled laborers who have been pouring into the United States in the last dozen years from every country in southeastern Europe. Many of them return to spend their earnings in their own country or to serve their country in war. But they return with an entirely new critical outlook, and a sense of the superiority of American organization to the primitive living around them. This continued passage to and fro has already raised the material standard of living in many regions of these backward countries. For these regions are thus endowed with exactly what they need, the capital for the exploitation of their natural resources, and the spirit of enterprise. America is thus educating these laggard peoples from the very bottom of society up, awakening vast masses to a new-born hope for the future. In the migratory Greek, therefore, we have not the parasitic alien, the doubtful American asset, but a symbol of that cosmopolitan interchange which is coming, in spite of all war and national exclusiveness.
Only America, by reason of the unique liberty of opportunity and traditional isolation for which she seems to stand, can lead in this cosmopolitan enterprise. Only the American--and in this category I include the migratory alien who has lived with us and caught the pioneer "spirit and a sense of new social vistas--has the chance to become that citizen of the world. America is coming to be, not a nationality but a transnationality, a weaving back and forth, with the other lands, of many threads of all sizes and colors. Any movement which attempts to thwart this weaving, or to dye the fabric any one color, or disentangle the threads of the strands, is false to this cosmopolitan vision. I do not mean that we shall necessarily glut ourselves with the raw product of humanity. It would he folly to absorb the nations faster than we could weave them. We have no duty either to admit or reject. It is purely a question of expediency. What concerns us is the fact that the strands are here. We must have a policy and an ideal for an actual situation. Our question is, What shall we do with our America? How are we likely to get the more creative America by confining our imaginations to the ideal of the melting-pot, or broadening them to some such cosmopolitan conception as I have been vaguely sketching?
The war has shown America to be unable, though isolated geographically and politically from a European world-situation, to remain aloof and irresponsible She is a wandering star in a sky dominated by two colossal constellations of states. Can she not work out some position of her own, some life of being in, yet not quite of, this seething and embroiled European world? This is her only hope and promise. A trans-nationality of all the nations, it is spiritually impossible for her to pass into the orbit of any one. It will be folly to hurry herself into a premature and sentimental nationalism, or to emulate Europe and play fast and loose with the forces that drag into war. No Americanization will fulfill this vision which does not recognize the uniqueness of this trans-nationalism of ours. The Anglo-Saxon attempt to fuse will only create enmity and distrust. The crusade against "hyphenates" will only inflame the partial patriotism of trans-nationals, and cause them to assert their European traditions in strident and unwholesome ways. But the attempt to weave a wholly novel international nation out of our chaotic America will liberate and harmonize the creative power of all these peoples and give them the new spiritual citizenship, as so many individuals have already been given, of a world.
Is it a wild hope that the undertow of opposition to metaphysics in international relations, opposition to militarism, is less a cowardly provincialism than a groping for this higher cosmopolitan ideal? One can understand the irritated restlessness with which our proud pro-British colonists contemplate a heroic conflict across the seas in which they have no part. It was inevitable that our necessary inaction should evolve in their minds into the bogey of national shame and dishonor. But let us be careful about accepting their sensitiveness as final arbiter. Let us look at our reluctance rather as the first crude beginnings of assertion on the part of certain strands in our nationality that they have a right to a voice in the construction of the American ideal. Let us face realistically the America we have around us. Let us work with the forces that are at work. Let us make something of this trans-national spirit instead of outlawing it. Already we are living this cosmopolitan America. What we need is everywhere a vivid consciousness of the new ideal. Deliberate headway must be made against the survivals of the melting-pot ideal for the promise of American life.
We cannot Americanize America worthily by sentimentalizing and moralizing history. When the best schools are expressly renouncing the questionable duty of teaching patriotism by means of history, it is not the time to force shibboleth upon the immigrant. This form of Americanization has been heard because it appealed to the vestiges of our old sentimentalized and moralized patriotism. This has so far held the field as the expression of the new American's new devotion. The inflections of other voices have been drowned. They must be heard. We must see if the lesson of the war has not been for hundreds of these later Americans a vivid realization of their transnationality, a new consciousness of what America meant to them as a citizenship in the world. It is the vague historic idealisms which have provided the fuel for the European flame. Our American ideal can make no progress until we do away with this romantic gilding of the past.
All our idealisms must be those of future social goals in which all can participate, the good life of personality lived in the environment of the Beloved Community. No mere doubtful triumphs of the past, which redound to the glory of only one of our trans-nationalities, can satisfy us. It must be a future America, on which all can unite, which pulls us irresistibly toward it, as we understand each other more warmly.
To make real this striving amid dangers and apathies is work for a younger intelligensia of America. Here is an enterprise of integration into which we can all pour ourselves, of a spiritual welding which should make us, if the final menace ever came, not weaker, but infinitely strong.
4:27 PM
Anonymous said...
There can be no question about the average American's Americanism or his desire to preserve this precious heritage at all costs. Nevertheless, some insidious foreign ideas have already wormed their way into his civilization without his realizing what was going on. Thus dawn finds the unsuspecting patriot garbed in pajamas, a garment of East Indian origin; and lying in a bed built on a pattern which originated in either Persia or Asia Minor. He is muffled to the ears in un-American materials: cotton, first domesticated in India; linen, domesticated in the Near East; wool from an animal native to Asia Minor; or silk whose uses were first discovered by the Chinese. All these substances have been transformed into cloth by methods invented in Southwestern Asia. If the weather is cold enough he may even be sleeping under an eiderdown quilt invented in Scandinavia.
On awakening he glances at the clock, a medieval European invention, uses one potent Latin word in abbreviated form, rises in haste, and goes to the bathroom. Here, if he stops to think about it, he must feel himself in the presence of a great American institution; he will have heard stories of both the quality and frequency of foreign plumbing and will know that in no other country does the average man perform his ablutions in the midst of such splendor. But the insidious foreign influence pursues him even here. Glass was invented by the ancient Egyptians, the use of glazed tiles for floors and walls in the Near East, porcelain in China, and the art of enameling on metal by Mediterranean artisans of the Bronze Age. Even his bathtub and toilet are but slightly modified copies of Roman originals. The only purely American contribution to tile ensemble is tile steam radiator, against which our patriot very briefly and unintentionally places his posterior.
In this bathroom the American washes with soap invented by the ancient Gauls. Next he cleans his teeth, a subversive European practice which did not invade America until the latter part of the eighteenth century. He then shaves, a masochistic rite first developed by the heathen priests of ancient Egypt and Sumer. The process is made less of a penance by the fact that his razor is of steel, an iron-carbon alloy discovered in either India or Turkestan. Lastly, he dries himself on a Turkish towel.
Returning to the bedroom, the unconscious victim of un-American practices removes his clothes from a chair, invented in the Near East, and proceeds to dress. He puts on close-fitting tailored garments whose form derives from the skin clothing of the ancient nomads of the Asiatic steppes and fastens them with buttons whose prototypes appeared in Europe at the Close of the Scone Age. This costume is appropriate enough for outdoor exercise in a cold climate, but is quite unsuited to American summers, steam-heated houses, and Pullmans. Nevertheless, foreign ideas and habits hold the unfortunate man in thrall even when common sense tells him that the authentically American costume of gee string and moccasins would be far more comfortable. He puts on his feet stiff coverings made from hide prepared by a process invented in ancient Egypt and cut to a pattern which can be traced back to ancient Greece, and makes sure that they ire properly polished, also a Greek idea. Lastly, he tics about his neck a strip of bright-colored cloth which is a vestigial survival of the shoulder shawls worn by seventeenth century Croats. He gives himself a final appraisal in the mirror, an old Mediterranean invention, and goes downstairs to breakfast.
Here a whole new series of foreign things confronts him. His food and drink are placed before him in pottery vessels, the proper name of which -- china -- is sufficient evidence of their origin. His fork is a medieval Italian invention and his spoon a copy of a Roman original. He will usually begin the meal with coffee, an Abyssinian plant first discovered by the Arabs. The American is quite likely to need it to dispel the morning-after effects of overindulgence in fermented drinks, invented in the Near East; or distilled ones, invented by the alchemists of medieval Europe. Whereas the Arabs took, their coffee straight, he will probably sweeten it with sugar, discovered in India; and dilute it with cream, both the domestication of cattle and the technique of milking having originated in Asia Minor.
If our patriot is old-fashioned enough to adhere to the so-called American breakfast, his coffee will be accompanied by an orange, domesticated in the Mediterranean region, a cantaloupe domesticated in Persia, or grapes domesticated in Asia Minor. He will follow this with a bowl of cereal made from grain domesticated in the Near East and prepared by methods also invented there. From this he will go on to waffles, a Scandinavian invention with plenty of butter, originally a Near Eastern cosmetic. As a side dish he may have the egg of a bird domesticated in Southeastern Asia or strips of the flesh of an animal domesticated in the same region, which has been salted and smoked by a process invented in Northern Europe.
Breakfast over, he places upon his head a molded piece of felt, invented by the nomads of
Eastern Asia, and, if it looks like rain, puts on outer shoes of rubber, discovered by the ancient Mexicans, and takes an umbrella, invented in India. He then sprints for his train–the train, not sprinting, being in English invention. At the station he pauses for a moment to buy a newspaper, paying for it with coins invented in ancient Lydia. Once on board he settles back to inhale the fumes of a cigarette invented in Mexico, or a cigar invented in Brazil. Meanwhile, he reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites by a process invented in Germany upon a material invented in China. As he scans the latest editorial pointing out the dire results to our institutions of accepting foreign ideas, he will not fail to thank a Hebrew God in an Indo-European language that he is a one hundred percent (decimal system invented by the Greeks) American (from Americus Vespucci, Italian geographer).
--Ralph Linton, "One Hundred Per-Cent American," from the American Mercury (1937)
4:28 PM
Anonymous said...
Benjamin Franklin on Immigration:
Europe is generally full settled with Husbandmen, Manufacturers, &c. and therefore cannot now much increase in People: America is chiefly occupied by Indians, who subsist mostly by Hunting. But as the Hunter, of all Men, requires the greatest Quantity of Land from whence to draw his Subsistence, (the Husbandman subsisting on much less, the Gardner on still less, and the Manufacturer requiring the least of all), The Europeans found America as fully settled as it well could bee by Hunters; yet these having large Tracks, were easily prevail'd on to part with Portions of Territory to the new Comers, who did not much interfere with the Natives in Hunting, and furnish'd them with many Things they wanted.
Land being thus plenty in America, and so cheap as that a labouring Man, that understands Husbandry, can in a short Time save Money enough to purchase a Piece of new Land sufficient for a Plantation, whereon he may subsist a Family; such are not afraid to marry; for if they even look far enough forward to consider how their Children when grown up are to be provided for, they see that more Land is to be had at Rates equally easy, all Circumstances considered.
Hence Marriages in America are more general, and more generally early, than in Europe. And if it is reckoned there, that there is but one Marriage per Annum among 100 Persons, perhaps we may here reckon two; and if in Europe they have but 4 Births to a Marriage (many of their Marriages being late) we may here reckon 8, of which if one half grow up, and our Marriages are made, reckoning one with another at 20 Years of Age, our People must at least be doubled every 20 Years.
But notwithstanding this Increase, so vast is the Territory of North-America, that it will require many Ages to settle it fully; and till it is fully settled, Labour will never be cheap here, where no Man continues long a Labourer for others, but gets a Plantation of his own, no Man continues long a Journeyman to a Trade but goes among those new Settlers, and set up for himself, &c. Hence Labour is no cheaper now, in Pennsylvania, than it was 30 Years ago, tho' so many Thousand labouring People have been imported.
The Danger therefore of these Colonies interfering with their Mother Country in Trades that depend on Labour, Manufactures, &c. is too remote to require the Attention of Great-Britain.
But in Proportion to the Increase of the Colonies, a vast Demand is growing for British Manufacturers, a glorious Market wholly in the Power of Britain, in which Foreigners cannot interfere, which will increase in a short Time even beyond her Power of supplying, tho' her whole Trade should be to her Colonies: Therefore Britain should not too much restrain Manufactures in her Colonies. A wise and good Mother will not do it. To distress, is to weaken, and weakening the Children, weakens the whole Family....
'Tis an ill-grounded Opinion that by the Labour of Slaves, America may possibly vie in Cheapness of Manufactures with Britain. The Labour of Slaves can never be so cheap here as the Labour of working Men is in Britain. Any one may compute it. Interest of Money in the Colonies from 6 to 10 per Cent. Slaves one with another cost L30 Sterling per Head. Reckon then the Interest of the first Purchase of a Slave, the Insurance or Risque on his life, his Clothing and Diet, Expences in his Sickness and Loss of Time, Loss by his Neglect of Business (Neglect is natural to the Man who is not to be benefitted by his own Care or Diligence), Expense of a Driver to keep him at Work, and his Pilfering from Time to Time, almost every Slave being by Nature a Thief, and compare the whole Amount with the Wages of a Manufacturer of Iron or Wool in England, you will see that Labour is much cheaper there than it can ever be by Negroes here. Why then will Americans purchase Slaves? Because Slaves may be kept as long as a Man pleases, or has Occasion for their Labour; while hired Men are continually leaving their Master (often in the midst of his Business) and setting up for themselves.
....There are suppos'd to be now upwards of One Million English Souls in North-America, (tho' 'tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over Sea) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather more, on Account of the Employment the Colonies afford to Manufacturers at Home. This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 Years, will in another Century be more than the People of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on this Side the Water. What an Accession of Power to the British Empire by Sea as well as Land! What Increase of Trade and Navigation! What Number of Ships and Seamen! We have been here but little more than 100 Years, and yet the Force of our Privateers in the late War, united, was greater, both in Men and Guns, than that of the whole British Navy in Queen Elizabeth's Time....
And since Detachments of English from Britain sent to America, will have their Places at Home so soon supply'd and increase so largely here; why should the Palatine Boors [Germans] be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.
4:30 PM
Anonymous said...
Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
4:33 PM
Anonymous said...
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
4:42 PM
Anonymous said...
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
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4:44 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
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AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
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AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
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AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
Some of the anti-capitalist and anti-American rants by illegal-immigrant apologists here are very interesting.
4:59 PM
Anonymous said...
Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
‘Immigration in America,’ a forum about the national debate over immigration, was held downtown last night. Students Fermin Lopez and Lin Luohzen wrote the winning essays in a related competition.
By
The Forest Grove News-Times, Apr 25, 2007, Updated Apr 25, 2007 (58 Reader comments)
Chase Allgood / News-Times
Fermin Lopez
Is there such a thing as the American Dream?
Searching for a dream that has yet to come true at times seems foolish. In the eyes of a hard-working man, there is no such thing as a dream.
How do you expect to dream when your body’s too exhausted to dream? We don’t live for a dream, but a reality. Dreams don’t pay bills but hard work does. At least that’s how it’s sometimes seen through my father’s eyes. Sixteen years in this land of opportunity and yet he hasn’t witnessed a so-called “American Dream.” There’s not a day that goes by where he doesn’t worry about not having to pay the bills. Day after day of working is endless when you’re supporting a family of six.
Coming to the United States as an immigrant, you’re faced with many difficult decisions. You choose whether coming here will create a safe environment for your family to grow up in. Will I be able to make it here? Is this really a decision I can handle? Is America really what its all made up to be? Is it worth it? These are a flurry of questions you ask yourself while attempting to cross the border.
Crossing the border is just one of the many struggles we face in this country. From other peoples eyes it’s seen as our most difficult struggle. What about finding a home? Getting a job? Getting around? Do you really think these things are handed to us? Not to mention the fact that in every society you’ll find racism.
Growing up in Mexico was hard on my father. He dropped out of second grade because his parents couldn’t afford to keep him in school. Do you know how bad that makes him feel having dropped out of school because of poverty, something that wasn’t uncommon in the part of Mexico where he grew up? Quitting school and working wasn’t his choice.
He was seven years old, taking care of cows from six in the morning to eight at night. Then when he turned thirteen he began working in construction. Moving heavy bricks and mixing cement, doesn’t seem hard but moving the bricks by hand was hard. Scrapes all over his back, fingers bleeding, body aching, working his fingers to the bone. Working from six in the morning to eight. All for some measly 60 pesos a day. Sometimes there would be no work and all they would have to eat was tortillas with salt, or with pumpkin seeds. One shirt and one pair of jeans is what they had to live with. No underwear or socks.
When he made the decision to cross the border at 17, it took him three attempts to get here. He didn’t come here for a dream he came here for the reality, which was to make the money to support his family. It was harder than he imagined. There was a huge difference between working here and working in Mexico. Here he had to be at work at a certain time, and was kept on a tight leash. Having a man breathing over your shoulder, rushing you to work, cussing at you in a foreign language being fired at times for no reason and having no one to communicate with — where’s the dream in that? He had blisters upon blisters, bruises as dark as black paint. The abuse he faced was fierce. How can you dream when the pain of a hard days work puts you to sleep? The scars he has are proof of what he’s been through.
A dream to him is to win the lottery, and for the world to be at peace. That’s a dream. The success of his children is just something he’s grateful to see. Having my brothers and I leave our footsteps in history is something he would want to see. He just wants to show everyone that we are the same and have the same abilities.
There’s no sweeter joy than to see the success of an immigrant race making it in a foreign country, from being no one to being someone important. A dream he wants to see is equality, but to him there is no so-called “American Dream.”
The way I see things are: you have to pave your own path, climb your own ladder to be someone in life. My father and I believe you can’t build a foundation off a dream, but a willingness to strive and to be someone.
The “American Dream” to us means nothing.
— Fermin Lopez, a student at Forest Grove High School, lives in Cornelius.
There is nothing wrong with fighting for your dreams
Everyone has a dream. Some people want to have more money. Others are looking for education and a place to be accepted. However, some people live in places where it would be hard to survive let alone to reach their dream.
Every day we hear about places that are closed to immigrants who would like to enter, but because they don’t have the right documents, they can’t. Those documents cost money, too; so do their dreams. I strongly think every place in the world should be open for any immigrant that would like to enter.
I am a Chinese, born in southeastern China, and I’m proud of who I am. I came here to have a better education that will bring me a successful life. America was the country that I chose because this country could support me with a good education and lead me to my dream. Even though I came with the right papers, I would still hope America could be open for those people who want to enter. In my own opinion I think every human being is born to have the same and equal rights. That’s what the United States Constitution says. I believe people have the right to fight for their dreams, also the right to choose to their life.
Education, I think, is the first step to our dreams. The better education that you have, the better job you will get when you grow up. One of my biggest dreams is to become a famous lawyer. I know there are many steps that I have to go though to reach that dream. There is one quote I really like in China: “You have to fight for your life in order to get a better start. Money won’t come to you if you’re just sitting there. You are the one that who decides if you want to have a better life or not.”
I strongly believe it and that is the reason why I am trying my best in school everyday. I know in try hard, my dream will come true.
Some illegal immigrants might be refugees looking for a place to live. Their dream might be as simple as a safe place to live and food to eat. They also need a place that will support their dreams and accept them as a member to the country. Their hope is to come to a place that they could call home and not be hurt a second time. I think every country should give them a chance.
Still I think the biggest reason immigrants come is for the opportunity to make more money because money is the first step for most of the people to reach their dreams. To reach my dream education is my first step and I think that is also the first step for many other people, too. Going to a college takes money; too, so they need to earn the money it will take for their education. Then, they can get a better job.
Immigrants have helped the U.S to be one of the best countries in the world today. People have dreams and most of the dreams need money to get a good start. However, education is also an important goal, too. I hope every place should support the refugees because as a human being we should all receive the same and equal treatment.
— Lin ‘Lily’ Luozhen is an eighth-grader at Neil Armstrong Middle School in Forest Grove.
Reader comments
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Well, these "winning" essays leave much to be desired. Mostly distinguished by the extreme self-centeredness and arrogance of the authors. Let's take "Lily" first;
>
America doesn't excist to lead you to your "dreams" honey. We are a real country, with a real history, and a real people. Our ancestors paid in blood, sweat and tears for the infrastructure you so blithely brag about taking advantage of -- and which you also so generously want to offer to every Tom, Dick and Harry who thinks they have a "human right" to use our infrastructure ot achieve their "dreams." How would you feel if billions of people thought they were entitled to use YOUR country the same way? Fact is, for you to have your "dreams", many native-born Americans don't get to have THEIR dreams. The least you could do is say thank-you.
>
Quit whining about how your Dad has never found the "American Dream." As with "Lily", our nation doesn't exist to provide you with "dreams." Also, if our country means nothing to you then please go back to Mexico with your criminal lawbreaking dad.
"Mary"
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 07:26 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Yes, there's no sure thing about achieving your goals and dreams in this country! I struggled to support a family alone - took many a menial job just for health benefits - dead end jobs and I see my children losing their jobs to cheap labor.
My compassion and sympathies go to that American worker who was so angry at me for unknowingly hiring an American contractor who sent two groups of illegal aliens, one from Central America and one from Mexico to my home - I didn't want them there, I didn't agree to that, I didn't get a big savings. He was later fined 1.5 million dollars - oh yes! But the Contractor who didn't get the job was beside himself on why I hired the other Contractor and I wouldn't have hired him.
Reports on TV this week is that social security entitlements and medicare will bankrupt America. Hello??????????
"Fairlane"
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 09:56 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
It was the "American Dream" which gave this great country the standing it has in the world. If not for such a thing we would have never have risen to the highest level in the world community. I daresay the early immigrants who formed this country worked to better not only themselves but the country itself, they learned a common language and worked to integrate themselves. The current illegal immigrants send large amounts of money out of the USA, contribute with disproportionate amounts of crime (as if illegally entering a sovereign nation is not a crime itself), live here 10, 15, 20 years illegally and make no attempt to learn the native language, uncontrolled child birth, make no time to better the greater community, leech off of public resources for food, housing, etc.
The American dream is what separates us from all our neighbors, it is what many Americans have fought and died for. Other countries have let corruption, greed and indifference shape their countries and carry these same qualities here with them. The American dream is what you make of it, we do not owe any illegal immigrants one thing except swift prosecution and deportation. If the "immigrants" truly believe in this country as something other than a handout and a way to pave the way to third world living conditions I have not seen it. With the high rate of employment among these "immigrants" why do so many of them live in HUD housing or in squalor with 3-4 families in a house or apartment? Could it be they were criminals in their own countries? Real immigrants live with American society not under it. The American dream will fade when these minorities become the majority and open borders cause the once proud USA to become a footnote. The signs are all around us.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 11:38 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Is this the same "Immigration Dream" competition posted on the Cornelius Fred Meyer bulletin board? The one that caused me to wince, thinking - “here we go again” - another feel-good session for the Politically (in)Correct!
There's a tiny minority of extremely active ‘locals’ who’ve become the Enabler’s of bottom tier, or illegal immigration, as their livelihoods are often center around dispensing our social services to the constant influx of illegal and amnestied-illegal aliens.
This writing “Competition” was nothing more than a media tool to evoke pity for those who'll apparently stop at nothing to get what we have -- and it bothers me to see it given this attention by our local newspaper.
Current LEGAL US immigration allows over 300,000 new citizens a year into this country. That's larger than the city of Portland during most of my life! With a current estimate of 20 Million illegal alien immigrants within our borders - where's our sovereignty?
I've an 8th grade daughter too (born in Forest Grove), though she'll apparently have to speak a foreign language to find work. Tell me - what of her Dreams?!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 08:20 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Congratulations to the students who participated in the "Immigration in America" essay contest. I applaud their willingness to share their stories, and to wrestle with what it means to be a young immigrant in America today. It gives me hope to see their constructive contributions to the immigration debate, not an easy one to walk into. We are all richer for their presence and involvement.
"Bridget"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 12:31 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I was amazed and gratified at the level of reflection evidenced in the essays written by these two young people. How wonderful that young people can dream the same dreams that almost all of our ancestors dreamed when they began their struggles in this "land of dreams". I sincerely regret that some of us base our opinions on incorrect data, our own painful past or current experiences or unfounded fear. Dream on, whoever you are.
"Barbara"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 01:04 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
On Tuesday evening, April 24, I attended the event at the Forest Grove Community Center where the two students read the winnning essays. I was very impressed, not only with the essays and the students, but also with the history of immigration presented by Dr. Jim Moore with Pacific University. Perhaps individuals with hostile and hateful comments about immigrants would have developed an educated understanding of immmigration in this country if they had attended and participated in the event. The hostile comments remind me of the child who asks his mother "Mom, what's a label?" "It's something they put on a person so you can hate them without having to get to know them first."
"Louise"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow! I am amazed at the hostility and ignorance of some previous comments. They must have a great deal of fear to attack a 13 year old and 16 year old! I want to commend Lily and Fermin for their wonderful essays which give a brief look into the world of the immigrant; a chance to see what many choose to ignore. Many of the "facts" stated above would have been dispelled if Neal, Mark, Fairlane and Mary had chosen to participate in the Immigration Forum. Before blaming these courageous students or their parents one should take a deep look at US Foreign Policy.
"Gina"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:24 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
My dear,
You missed something about "YOUR REAL HISTORY"
Your ancestors did not pay with BLOOD for anything. They killed and stole this land that was belong to someone esle. Did not you know that part?
Let me change "Real People" defination for "Real Criminals"
"Linda"
""Linda""
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 03:12 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I worked hard to bring my wife here leagaly, I paid and spent a year and a half trying to get it all correct, but she is leagal. Why did the essays not also stake the fact out right that their parents broke the law as they are breaking our country. I have no problem what so ever for some one who is willing to come hear correctly and I for one understand how hard it is, but to come and trespass here and use our own benefits that we are trying to save for our own retirement such as social security just really makes me angry, and I just want to say GO HOME!!!!!!!
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 06:55 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
It's interesting to see that the complaints made about Irish immigrants in the late 19th century (contributing disproportionately to crime) and German immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century (not willing to learn English) have been recycled for use against our newest immigrant populations.
My great-grandmother spoke nothing but German. My grandmother spoke German to her mother, and English to her children. My father could only understand parts of what his mother said to his grandmother, and the only German I use is 'Gesundheit!'
Exodus 23:9 — ‘You shall not oppress a resident alien, you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.'
"Jenye"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 07:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
After reading the winning essays on immigration from two local high school students, I was impressed by the authors’ eloquence and organization of their papers. It takes writing skills to be able to express complex issues in a clear and organized manner, especially when you are doing it in your second language.
Immigration is a complex issue, often exploited by opportunistic politicians, that raises a lot of passion. While some people think that immigrants come here for a ‘free ride’, only to take advantage of the great benefits of our society (as if they only needed to stretch their arm to grab the ripe fruit from a tree), while other people think that they are being exploited by our avaricious employers.
I personally think that immigration does not happen at random. Immigrants go where they are needed or wanted. The same happens with migrant movements from within our borders (i.e. the neighbor from Texas or Alabama that moved to Oregon). One only needs to look around our community to see that recent immigrants are an integral part of our community, holding jobs in all sectors of the economy, from picking berries in the fields, changing shingles on the roofs, cooking in restaurants, taking care of the elderly to working in the high tech industry.
The recent immigrants that I have met are hard workers, often times holding more than one job. The reason for this, as I later found out, is that for some their pay is below the minimum wage, often times without benefits such as vacation time, sick leave or retirement. In fact, for many the Social Security and Medicare that is taken off their paycheck twice a month is money that they will never see again.
While we are a nation of immigrants, it seems hypocritical to me that now we have decided that new immigrants are not welcome. It saddens me to see that in the whole immigration debate we tend to forget that we are all humans in pursuit of happiness doing the best that we can to provide for ourselves and our children. Let us not forget our humanity.
""Gerardo""
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 08:56 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wake up and figure the cost of the programs to help at risk youth (i.e. hispanics) stay out of gangs, stay in school and stay out of jail. Then calculate the cost of your friends, neighbors, and businesses having to repair or paint the damage done by these "at risk" gang taggers, thieves, and drug dealers. Then figure out what the meetings in Forest Grove for spanish speakers cost to help them watch for the signs of gang activity with their "at risk" children. How about the cost of high school programs to hold dances, low rider events and mexican cooking classes? Is cheap labor worth the price? If they feel they are being oppressed by English speaking bosses maybe they would have more of a voice if they were here legally and businesses didn't hire cheap labor for a quick buck, oh and learning our language helps. It's not the poor illegal alien worker to blame, it's the companies that hire them with fake papers. Both political parties are to blame, one for the exploitation of the labor force for business and the other to garner votes for them and their social programs. It's not the kid's essays to blame, it's the apathy among people who sit and watch the American Dream disappear into the sunset all so business can turn a profit. When they don't make record profits they pick up their marbles and take their factories to Mexico, China, India or the like to ensure the CEO makes billions of dollars. Being a Native American Indian I could go on about many of the injustices done to the original inhabitants of North America but that and bible versus are irrelevant to this argument. Ask your government why they help fuel the sellout of the USA....
"John Q"
(Not verified)
Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 10:58 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I feel that a lot has been said about this subject but I have a few things to add. First off, most of the west coast used to belong to Mexico and Americans took it. Now "we" complain and say that they are on "our" land. Second, American companies exploit Mexicans living in their own country by placing factories there and paying workers very little, giving them poor working conditions, breaking international civil rights, and polluting their land to the point that many water sources are no longer usable for consumption. If US companies are destroying Mexican land, how can American citizens get mad at Mexican natives for crossing the border and leaving such conditions? Third, we seem to put every member of the Latino community into one group - "illegal Mexicans." I believe that this label destroys the opportunity of many members of the Latino community who are in the US legally to succeed. I also believe that we forget that many Latino youth are here legally. Some of their parents may have come here illegally but many of the youth are not illegal. They are Americans and have all the same rights as any other American. So when people complain about the programs out there that help at risk youth (not every at risk youth is Latino I'd like to add) and say tax payers are just pouring money into illegals, I believe it to be incorrect. If they were born on American soil, they are American citizens and have all the same rights as any other American. If an American youth turns to a life of crime, the state tries to get them back on the right track whether they are black, brown, white, or green.
Why must we look at every new group of immigrants as a burden? Why can't we see them as a new opportunity to learn? Every culture has so much to offer. We sure don't mind going to Mexican restaurants or drinking Corona. Why can't we embrace the rest of the culture starting with its people that have come to our country, who I'm sure would love to share their roots with us?
"Leah"
(Not verified)
Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Before reaching conclusions about America's immigrants, please review the following two links:
http://www.ocpp.org/2007/issue070410immigranttaxeseng.pdf, and,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901322.html.
These articles reinforce the positive contributions of our immigrants.
"Joe Rodriguez"
(Not verified)
Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 04:58 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
A few facts might help to make some sense out of some of the comments above.
- Immigrants, even those who are here legally, do not qualify for most public benefits until they have worked and paid taxes for 40 quarters. That's ten years.
- Even though they are not able to partake in many of the benefits of our government, immigrants pay taxes. Some work under the table--as do some citizens--but the vast majority are subject to withholding from their wages. Anyone who owns or rents property pays property taxes, either directly or indirectly.
- As anyone who has ever struggled through a high school Spanish, or French or German, Japanese, or Chinese class, should know, becoming fluent in another language isn't so easy, especially when working long hours at back-breaking work to support a family. But remember, the eloquent essays that started this string of responses were written by the children of immigrants, and written quite well, I might add, in our common tongue. It has always beens so in America's melting pot.
- Studies comparing the economies of cities like Los Angeles, which have seen great immigration with cities like Cleveland, which have not, show that the hard work, entrepreneurship and, yes, "dreams" immigrants bring to our country actually help to lift the economy, not hurt it.
Ignorance is no excuse for bigotry.
Michael
"D. Michael Dale"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 06:27 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Your links hardly shed any new light on the subject, like my rants they lack any documenting evidence to support there opinions.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 07:40 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
So much for the inscription on the Statue of Liberty which ends with the words, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." The inscription does not mention that paperwork must be in order.
How sad it is to read the hateful comments that stand in opposition to the welcome offered by Lady Liberty. What's next?---A large cloth hung over the inscription to block out these words?
"Sheila"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 04:53 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
How aggravating to read (yet again) the same sorry "talking points" of our Illegal Enablers. Such as: 'This land belonged to them before us'... No, it didn't; you're talking about Aztecs and Spanish Conquistadors, not our Native Americans. 'This is just how the Irish were treated'... The Irish checked in; if not up to specks, they were sent back. Those who stayed - stayed - and, they were legal. 'Send us your poor'... That was simply a “commemorative plaque,” it was never US Government policy. If anything, send us you educated - not those with on average a 3rd grade education and unable to make it in their home country. And (while you’re at it) send us your law abiding, not identity stealing border jumping criminals.
'They do pay taxes'... not directly, and not near enough to off-set their FULL cost to our society. 'They work hard'... cause they're desperate! Watch what they (or their children) do as they get more comfortable. 'They do the work Americans won't' ... you mean they’ll do the work for 3rd world wages, and a standard of living Americans refuse. How do you propose we live, like Europe, or Central America?
'They have a dream' ... so do we! 'English is hard' ... then stay where it isn’t. 'They were "Indians" and we stole their land' ..."Indians" stole, tortured and enslaved their own for eons; Europeans were simply more efficient - evolution? 'Cities were built on cheap labor' ... so was our South - they called it Slavery. 'American Companies exploit Mexicans' ... and their government allows it? Bring those factories home and exploit us! ...The Mexican Government's exploiting its people, and if these Central Americans are so righteous, why aren't they fighting for the rights our great-grandparents won for us instead of stealing ours?
That's more than enough… We're talking about Illegal Alien’s aren’t we? And who can help if they all appear as one (if mixed) race - though diversification would make no difference. And encouraging another Amnesty will again make it ten times worse. So, we either rollover and play dead, or we defend a line? Take your pick!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 05:57 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
The Statue of Liberty came from France, you figure that one out. I'm still trying to figure out how people can roll over and be assimilated into a foreign culture in their own country. Drive thru Cornelius and count how many billboards and storefronts are in spanish. Drive down to Woodburn and check out the old downtown tell me that won't be more towns like that. As far as learning the language immersion is the best way to learn. Working in Woodburn for two years allowed me to immerse myself in spanish to be able to communicate with the locals. Dump someone in the middle of a foreign country and they will learn quickly especially one that has no English available. It's a survival skill that no classroom setting can teach. It's corporate America who make money off of the illegals who choose not to interact with Americans for fear of deportation and cater to their language.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 06:07 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
After the may day activities in Portland today I think a lot of the points I put out earlier strengthen. Hispanics illegal and legal marching in a U.S. city with mexican flags, spanish signs and shouting "viva la raza" Look up Atzlan and La Raza in google and decide for yourself. This is not a part of my American Dream. The following link will explain all of this and more, I'd like someone to defend this well documented movement:
http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 11:25 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am overly impressed with the intelligence these two students portrayed in their reflections. The reality of your writing is something I will carry with me. I congratulate you both for your deep and meaningful portrayal of a contentious issue.
"gretchen"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
If it were not for immigrants our country would not exsist...my own hertiage is a mix of people who originated here in what now known as United States of America and others that came to America LEGALLY thru Ellis Island and began living their lives by adapting to the culture, language and laws of our country
What does it say to our citizens and law-abiding immigrants when we condone and give amnesty to people who have broken the law by their very presence? What do we say to others in our country who have broken our laws when we have one set of laws for them and another set for someone who refuses to abide by our laws from the very beginning of their life in the US
What kind of message does it sends to the kind of people we don’t want or need in this country?
Whether they are from Mexico, Viet Nam, Canada, Iraq or any other country, immigrants enntering illegally, SHOULD NOT have any of the rights of legal immigrants and our own citizens; including, in my opionion the natural citizenship of the children they give birth to while residing in the US illegally as well as allowing them to stay because they have maaried US citizens. We should also consider the employer who hires these people to work as any other citizen who breaks the law
I believe that this issue should be a question we pose as part of the upcoming Presidential election. The people in this country illegally DO have a consequence on our schools, socail structure and work environment. If you don't think this is true, ask the parents of the high school student who wa recently shot by a classmate that is 'undocumented' As well, I am uncomfortable exercising my First Amendment right to express my opionion freely--without fear of reprisal for my stand on this issue
"TL PALMER"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 02:42 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Why were we not going through these protesters and deporting all of the illegals? If I broke into a bank and stole your money would I have a chance to say "hey i broke in but it is only because you let me and I should get to keep the money and have you pay for anything else I need" They are ILLEGAL. Period end of statement send them home!!!!!!!!!! It makes it even harder for someone who does it correct. The INS says if you don't have a good job in your home coutry you can't come and visit, but hey if you are hear illegal then we should try to help you out. This is just another crime that are country is excepting because it is politcally correct.!!!!! Sorry I still say send them all home and lets fix our own country first. If you honestly believe that our schools are not being hurt by all of the language barriers and the free rides to college because of your color, then you are also a fool.
"DAVE"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 04:05 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am appalled by all of the mean-spirited and racist comments of immigrants that are not even illegal though, I believe that everyone seems to have very interesting points but my opinion is; Illegal Immigrants are an issue in this country and take jobs that really should be for people who are legal. I am not saying that every Mexican should be banished from here but in turn, that Immigrants should legally become citizens and work as legal citizens. I understand the want for happiness and/or the American dream but remember the words of Benjamin Franklin:
"The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it."
So I say, aim for the American dream and try, try, try and one day it could be a reality.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 05:20 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
WOW, I too am amazed at some of the greedy and harsh comments made by my fellow Americans. I am so sorry that America has instead of becoming the land that welcomes those who want freedom from oppression to the land that does a lot of oppressing.
I was proud of these student for the thought and honesty that went into these essays. You are Brave- very Brave and I aplaud you.
These students were doing nothing more than sharing their story from were they sit in life, not asking for a free ride, not cutting down America or Americans, not saying we owe them just simply saying "Why is everyone acting as if we are coming to steal something or get a free ride, NO they are here becuase thier family and lives depend on it, leaving family was not easy for them, life has not been easy- they are just wanting to live- What is so hard to understand about that? Isn't that what we all want.
If I were to have an American Dream it would be that Americans and all countries would learn to share, respect and love one another. A Quote I read just this night from Mother Teresa said, "There is a Famine in America. Not of food, but of love, of truth, of life." Let us all love one another and remember we are only caretakers, the owner is the Creator himself- and he graciously gave to all- no on excluded!
"Georgia"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 08:52 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Good lord! Where to begin? Like others, I congratulate the essay contest winners. The brilliance of our youth never ceases to amaze me. I work with youth and they teach me so much. As a Chicano, a dad, a Forest Grove resident and the son of migrant farm workers, these youth make me proud! Kudos to the FGN-T for re-printing their essays.
The racist (if not fascist) anti-immigrant rants on this blog aren't much of a surprise. But I couldn’t contain myself in responding to them to say: touchĆ©...assimilate...you are a hateful few (albeit w/ access to the internet). Your hate reflects a broken spirit, but your blame is misplaced.
Those who heroically struggle for survival by crossing borders despite the dangers - they are the dignified, the courageous, the ones with a spirit that is alive, sane, and contagious. They and their children are role models for all of us to emulate. Racist diatribes about "illegals," "the rule of law," "follow our laws," etc., etc., only reflects a vast ignorance of history, why laws exist, and a blind acceptance of national chauvinism.
Your hate should be directed toward capitalism -- the economic system that crosses borders freely and ruins economies the world over. So-called "free trade" policies, in collusion w/ corrupt governments (US govt. included) are responsible for forced migration. Like someone mentioned earlier, even within our own borders. Livelihoods, sovereignty, and self-determination are ruined here and abroad.
Why? Not for simple profit, but for private, undisclosed, in the hands of very few profit. The border that you naively want to strengthen to "keep them out" serves those few. It does nothing for our communities, neither here in the U.S. or in Mexico, Central America, China....etc... So don't convert your rage into anti-immigrant xenophobia (remember the Nazis) -- you'd be best fighting alongside immigrants to stop capitalism from ruining the planet!
"Eduardo Martinez Zapata"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 09:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Eduardo Martinez Zapata: You said it very well... Thank you for educating the ignorant in our community.
Estudiantes: Felicidades! Sigan Adelante!
"Narce Rodriguez"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 10:25 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wait a minute... isn't there a law in our country that says illegal immigration is a crime? Oh yeah.... I think I heard that once. But I guess it's okay as long as everyone is chasing a dream.
Wake up America. We're being overrun!
DW in CA
"Derik"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 09:31 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Eduardo.... Did you know our prisons are 30% full of illegal immigrants? If what you say is true: "they are the dignified, the courageous, the ones with a spirit that is alive, sane, and contagious. They and their children are role models for all of us to emulate." We're in BIG trouble. You're trying to say that every immigrant should be commended? Nice try, but we're not stupid.
"Derik"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 09:37 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Strange how "Racist," if racially linked the most prominent supporters of illegal "Immigrants" are? Here sits the most generous and racially diverse nation on earth -- being lectured to by one race, or failed culture. Looks like a masked invasion to me!
The only thing "Racial" about this invasion is from where it comes – one place. It's as if Mexico, if not all of Central America are “ethnically cleansing” themselves at our expense. Note the "Spanish sir names" around here... they’re the rulers and spokesmen of Central and (most of) South American, and they’re apparently looking to do the same up here.
No, it's not about race - but funny how that's the first slur tossed at anyone protesting this silent invasion. It may be about a failed culture, if the overwhelming of one by another - language included. But it's actually about LEGALITY - isn't it? Nobody's talking about shipping out legal American Citizens are they? And few doubt the good intentions or intelligence of some; though if so well intentioned - why aren't they in line with the other 300,000 legal-to-be immigrants of this years generous quota?
Here's how it's worked: Desperate Mexican's were allowed migratory work visas to pick crops cheaper than Americans (though my parents did!) could or would. Many stopped returning to Mexico, and out of desperation began working for anything - anywhere to support themselves. American "Businesses" loved that! ...near slave labor! These illegal’s quietly settled in, while quietly sending home money and the advice to Mexico - come on up!
They did, a low estimate of 3 million. What to do? Grant them Amnesty!! -- Reagan's gift to big business, and yet another knife in the heart of American organized labor. Each newly amnestied-illegal ‘legally’ hauled up on average 5 kin. Instead of dodging "Mexican" men at 'Hanks' in Cornelius, we then began dodging their pregnant mates, pushing a baby stroller with a child or two in tow. As this "legal" batch learned the ropes, the word went out - Come on up – we’ll hide you!!
...and they have; there's now an estimated 20 Million living illegally within the US ...but they ‘only want to become legal US Citizens’… right, and so do 98% of the rest of the world! And with another Amnesty... and each of those 20 million will bring up another 5. And if we continued to ignore our so-called ‘immigrations laws’ -- heck - we could empty all of Central America – maybe the world!
So think deep Neighbors; there are obviously polished promoters among us, and of course, 'their children.' And yes, speaking bluntly to this ugly issue isn’t pretty, it’s ugly …but again, what of our children?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 11:26 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I have no problem with "legal" immigrant's as I stated my wife is one. The whole point is not how hard they work or the dream they are trying for. The whole point is they break the law coming here and we have to pay for it. I have seen more hispanics buying homes that I can not even afford, and then when you talk with them they are getting wic for the kids food and welfare and special deals for college when those of us who grew up here can't get any of those things. My rants and feelings are not about just hispanics, i am talking about all ilegal's. The flat out fact is they are breaking the law and then demanding we should take care of them further by giving them amnesty. I for one would like to see this country going back to what it used to be, when we rooted for the American country and we had people who were proud to be an American. Now what do we get, we get groups of people who live here and root for there country but want us to give them a great new life.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 01:31 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Some of the reactions to Illegal Immigration are very understandable. The concern for the future of American Children vs illegal immigrants' children is real.
When you come to a foreign country you need to learn how to survive, not how to destroy its foundations. Learn the language, live according to the law, respect others, etc. All of these things are necessary to have balance.
But at the same time a deeper problem seems to come out of our hearts. It seems as if America is becoming the spoiled child of the world. America is prosper and rich, there is so much abundance and freedom. And yet it seems like it doesn't want to share with it's brother or sister that doesn't have a roof over their heads, or a job or bread to eat.
Why can we make arrangements so that there is not only enough for us but plenty so that we can share with the needy ones. Or is it that we just want to reach the "American Dream" for us and our children and let the rest of the world die? How could we live with ourselves then?
Is the American Dream the most important thing in the world? It just sounds so selfish.
Are all the criminals hispanics? So if there were not hispanics in America there wouldn't be crime?
Are you better or superior to the rest of America, Asia, India or Africa?
What's wrong with us, friends?
"Zellie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 02:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am speechless, overwhelmed by so much hostility toward the stories of these eloquent students and by the lack of compassion for immigrants. My ancestors came to the Northwest 150 years ago, yet I find myself wondering often about who previously owned the land they claimed in central Washington state. I can only imagine the sad stories there, even as my ancestors began a new, celebrated, "brave" prairie life.
We must all seek out the stories of others. Reading them from the pages of a newspaper is powerful, but I wonder what would happen if we came together in one room regularly to hear our stories. Would we still tell immigrants to "go home" if we heard their voices, saw their tears, and tried as hard as we could to imagine the struggles of their family members provide food for their starving little ones? We are all part of the human family--we must never forget that. To do so is to allow our souls to die. We face tough political issues, but we must also listen and work together to find answers.
"Monica"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 04:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I agree Monica, as humans we do have to work together. And as people we are all entitled to the same rights. So why is it that when (legal) immigrants from europe came to the U.S., what, 70 years ago? they were on boats, brought passed our lady Liberty welcomed into New York and entitled to fair jobs, food, shelter ect. when today (legal, yes, legal) immigrants are floating in from Central America and we say "Oh mexicans, how illegal of you. Go back to mexico." listen up
They aren't all illegal
Illegal Immigrants, because of immigration laws, do have to be back in mexico but (legal) immigrants do have rights as humans.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 06:11 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Is this a Christian youth newsletter? You could never prove it by the hurtful comments and responses that were posted in regards to these youny adult's essays.
"Catrina Hamilton"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 06:26 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Here’s a little follow up info on two enabling contributors above; quite proud of their work, and kind enough to give us their full names.
First is, “Eduardo MartĆnez Zapata,” the “Chicano national leader in the Freedom Socialist Party,” and apparently linked with: the “Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women Activities” in Oregon. …now what are their ties to the Grove?
And here’s some ‘recommendations’ by Mr. Zapata: “Abolish NAFTA, CAFTA, and all neoliberal free trade agreements! • No to the criminalization of immigrants! No to guest worker programs! Stop the raids by la Migra! • Amnesty now! Open the borders for workers! • End the war against Iraq! Fund union jobs and social services! • For a world free of want — for democratic socialism! -- Eduardo MartĆnez Zapata
Quite the agenda!
Followed by this quote: “Eduardo Martinez Zapata: You said it very well”... “Thank you for educating the ignorant in our community. Estudiantes: Felicidades! Sigan Adelante!”
Signed by: Narce Rodriguez.
That’s Narce Rodriguez, linked to and apparently promoting: The first annual Latino Awareness Week, "Semana de la Raza: Week of the People," will be held April 16 through 21 at the Portland Community College Rock Creek Campus, 17705 NW Springville Road. The week is based on education, advocacy and celebration of the rich Latino heritage of Washington County.
“Week of the people” … now what “People” do you think she means? And shouldn’t she have also described it as, “Educating the ignorant in our community”?
And a bit more on, "la Raza" -- the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html in fact “la Raza” means "the Race?" So who's talking "Race" here? And what “Rich Latino heritage is she talking about?
I purport these are not members of our community; but professional advocates and enablers of “their race,” and no one else’s. I also suspect several (if not most) of the other apologists posting here are also linked to them. Of course none will speak up...
Well, just to “come clean,” I’m a local member of “Oregonians For Immigration Reform” – and – but also a longtime local (our kids were born in FG). So that’s OFIR, based in our city to the south, McMinnville. Here’s their link: http://www.oregonir.org/new_page_21.htm Research away!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 02:22 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Do the critics even know these fellow humans whom they abhor? Have the experts, citing their research, ever had the courage to test their information? First hand experience trumps assumptions and one sided research. As an ESL teacher to adults for over 25 years I've had the priviledge of knowing 4,000 of these men and women. (20 students per class, 2 classes per term, 4 terms a year - you do the math). Their writings and speeches, allow me to introduce them to you. They are brave: soldiers who fought alongside my brother's peers in Vietnam; patriots with whom my uncle fought in Korea; refugees, thrown into circumstances beyond their control, facing oppression and poverty. They left the familiarity of home and the love of family and friends only out of desperation to feed their children. They are talented: an Olympic athelete from Africa, a musician from Borneo. To these talented essay writers, keep educating us. Illustrate to my blind neighbors the competent and gifted people you are. Just remember that after perservering, you'll reach adulthood and realize that the American dream is not found in getting everything you want; it is in having the freedom to choose how to move forward with your life. I applaude your work and am proud to have you as my neightbor. Debbie
"Debbie Olsen"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 07:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Get a life, the whole argument here is not about legal immigration but illegal. The whole ESL program should be dumped in favor of immersion anyway. California made one of the smartest decisions when it decided to do so, it shortens the time it takes to learn and saves money. It doesn't support the staff and infrastructure that drag to process out to years.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 08:52 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Mark is correct, we are talking about people who have broken our laws and then make demands that we are supposed to help them. My situation is about one thing and only one thing. That is they broke the law. send them back or put them in jail, why do these criminals expect us to sit back and say oh sure we will give you amnesty, we dont care enough about our own country so you can stay. I do care about my country, and I was willing to protect in the service. I did not fight to let a common criminal take a way my home and to break our laws.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 10:44 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
We are talking about the words of 2 teenagers, exploring what is means to be who they are - in the context of being THIRTEEN AND SIXTEEN. They are children, for heaven's sake. "Rational", "mature" adults are being turned inside out by the sentiments of 2 children. You need to get a life. My life is full and rewarding because I give out of the abundance of what I've been given and have attained for myself. By the way, ESL emersion only works before puberty, as every language teacher knows. ESL programs are useful to the adult community - whom I serve. We aren't talking about people depleting your resources or the certain robbery of your child's future, (your child who was born here in Forest Grove - who cares that your child is a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, generation Oregonian? wow that really legitimizes his or her worth!) I'm sick of these small minded, selfish, paranoid, cliques of people who think being a native anything makes them superior to anyone else. No one is a native anything. Even if you were born here, as pointed out before, your ancestors were not. It's character and contribution to the greater good that matter, not where you were born. Those of you upset by the words of these two teenage students need to grow up.
"Debbie Olsen"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 01:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow! I am saddened by the fact that this is a forum about the two essays on the immigration debate and now we are arguing about the accuracy of facts and other random blabber. I think we all agree that legal immigrants should stay and illegal immigrants should go. Also that there's an American dream no? Why don't we cool down so what we say can be put into consideration and not thrown out as a racial or mean spirited comment.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 04:29 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Our "ESL Teacher" has obviously had her arm so deep in the pot she's fallen in! As mentioned - the home-grown advocates of illegal immigration (and of course 'their children') are finically linked. They've a vested interest in promoting, if encouraging more of the same. Therefore, their arguments in favor of continuing this influx of illegal 'immigrants' (and their children, or anchor-babies) should be viewed in that light. A dark light!
The abilities of illegal aliens (and their children) are not the point; the point is they are here illegally - displacing those legally seeking US citizenship, and robbing the rights and resources of our current citizens. It's become all-too-easy to 'say' you disagree with their illegality - yet ignore their devastating consequences. And we're not talking about the multitude of new citizens, having done it right, or their personal contributions to this nation - we're talking about 20 million illegal aliens within our nations border at this moment -- and not simply the two 'winning' feel-good essays by a couple of local minorities (if children).
This "Essay Competition" (as mentioned) was simply another Public Relations stunt to show the children of minorities as capable of more than drug distribution, gang activity, crime, or job and identity theft. And the problem is - up till now - it's worked! It's worked just well enough to keep the majority of American’s eyes off the ball... But as we watch, for instance, Hillsboro turn into what local kids are calling "Hillsburrito," and the ghetto-like conditions of its core - Americans, Oregonians -- the residents of Forest Grove are wakening up and speaking up!
Anyone suggesting those following this issue "get a live" – wake up, we've got one - but it's fading fast! You may be secure in yours, but not all have locked themselves so comfortably into the system. Just as our kids no longer pick strawberries, they're also losing the opportunities of every other entry level job. As permanent jobs are consumed by amnestied or soon-to-be amnestied aliens -- where are our children -- and yes - I'm speaking of CHILDREN -- where are our children to work? Intel's building in China, construction workers are nearly all "Hispanic," nursery's hire nothing but... And to get a job - check out the help-wanted ads -- to get a job you must be "Bilingual." ...Bilingual in what? …not German, French, Irish, Chinese or Portuguese... but just what ‘you teach’ …now isn’t that Special?
As a forth generation Oregonian, with Native American blood, I resent "your" racist dismissive attitude about who - and who doesn’t belong here. Even the Native American’s fought for their land, their culture and their rights. To do less is not only Un-American, it goes against the principals of humanity and human history. This invasion has been relatively silent, but as illegal aliens demand ‘our rights’ across this nation - it's time you woke up, if not fight back. … but then maybe you've already chose sides..?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 05, 2007 at 12:28 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
A recent KATU viewer poll asked : "Do you support immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants?"
77% said no.
Copy and paste :
http://www.katu.com/home/poll/7272856.html?submit=Submit&oid=2&mr=1&t=a&cid=3031&pid=7272856
"Hello?"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 05, 2007 at 01:30 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I never wrote I was condoning the presence of illegal immigrants. I was responding to the meanspirited comments that were being expressed about immigrants in general. Mark and Neal, you made assumptions and jumped to erroneous conclusions. Did I ever write I support the presence of illegal aliens? I don't. They should follow the same protocol every other immigrant is required to follow to come here. There were nasty comments addressed to these student writers, legally here. These students were stereo typically being lumped into the category of illegals, and they are not. It was to those critics, I was writing. That you 2 got personal and hureld insults at me just reveals your inability to conduct yourselves humanly when you're in disagreement, and even more foolishly since I wasn't disagreeing with those against illegals.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 06, 2007 at 08:56 PM
All aboard the Fail-boat
Nothin' beats a good ole' fashioned arguement on the internet.
Group A's angry at group B. Group B's angry at group A.
Blahblahblah
The internet's become a feeble place where anyone with a 56k internet connection is able say whatever they choose thanks to our beloved 1st ammendment (despite many a moderators protest)
All of which could be noble debate, except for the fact that it's on the internet.
It doesn't matter what side you're on, you still look like a retard.
(No offense)
"anonymous"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 06, 2007 at 09:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Just look at how much logic it took to flush out a statement like, "I never wrote I was condoning the presence of illegal immigrants" ...but you’ll "condone" and promote their children – thus their existence? And "Debbie" - if your spirit is so righteous, why aren’t you in the Peace Corps doing your ESL work in Central America? ...I know… who wants to live in Central America when they can live in Forest Grove!
"Meanspirited" you claim; how about realistic, patriotic, or just plain sick & tired of watching my community drug down to failed culture? And what 'word' should we describe you, as you further your personal wealth at the expense of our community...? How about traitorous? As an entrenched Alien-enabler your allegiance is obviously not with your longtime neighbors.
‘Ditching’ your last name? You’ve likely become uncomfortable repeating your "bring-em-on" attitude among the community – though apparently more than happy to continue backing this PR Essay-go-round. And what was the point of this so-called Essay? ...I know -- more gibberish about ‘poor minority children’ and their "American Dream." But as you so fervently support the children of minorities, illegal or not – you refuse to acknowledge the detrimental effects of their ever-increasing numbers on our community. I suspect you also ignore their consumption of our resources at an unsustainable rate -- including your pay check and bennies.
Quite skewed, this debate’s become one between our overly-educated social service-providing alien-enablers; vs. the common citizen. As most cringe, trying to ignore this invasion of legal, semi-legal, soon-to-be legal and down-right illegals -- you and yours have been cashing in at our expense! You are as guilty in your complacency as anyone involved, and as you imply calling a 'spade a spade' "meanspirited," that's your prerogative. If I insist on calling your feel-good propaganda session a manipulative disservice to our community – that’s mine.
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 08:46 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I just hate reading this. Everyone seems to be blaming Illegal Immigration on each other. I'm not gonna rat on anyone and I don't care if anyone rats on me. No one wants people to hop the border illegally. No one wants their children's jobs taken by illegals. If anyone really wants to stop illegal immigration by himself or herself, and if anyone wants to interpret others as being against you, and if anyone wants no one to respect them, then go ahead and try while the rest of us try making things better. I don't understand how this forum is gonna help anything when we are tearing eachother apart limb by limb and only trying to get our points across. If anyone really cares so much about this stupid forum, why not just go and do something. Its terrible to watch good people slander other people because of hate, when they could actually be doing something useful with their lives. If all anyone wants to do for the rest of their days is sit and try to dry their tears by making others want to throw up and die, then god have mercy on you.
This forum is out of hand. We only have one world, got to remember that.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 11:27 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"I just hate reading this." Then stop. You've responded more, yet added less than anyone here.
"I'm not gonna rat on anyone and I don't care if anyone rats on me." And just what does that mean? You too are illegal?
You demean any efforts to correct this illegal mess, yet suggest we work to make things better? For the past 25 years I haven't seen anything done - ANYTHING - to seriously stop the flow of Illegals into this country, our state, or this community. And it’s obvious to anyone 'from' around here that things have changed, and are continuing to change for the worse. Maybe you're not from ‘around here,’ or you're part of that 'change,' or, you simply don't care? But don't discredit or demean the efforts of those who do.
"I don't understand how this forum is gonna help anything when we are tearing eachother apart limb by limb and only trying to get our points across." But it is helping; it's dissected a Public Relations stunt designed to lull us into further complacency over illegal immigration, and (with effort) has caused those most connected to respond at a deeper level. I've gotten a lot out of it, and if my frequency of posts lead you to believe I've got little else to do, let me assure you - it's quite the opposite. But this problem, and this forum are too close to home, and too detrimental to my community to ignore.
So, may I thank the News Times for allowing this discussion; and as far as there being only one world - isn't that all the more reason we protect all we can?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:04 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial response:
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this exchange of ideas, but Neal makes a point I'd like to echo. This is the biggest response we've received to any story since we began allowing reader comments a few months ago. I agree with Neal that this forum shows the need for this topic to be discussed further. I think it's great that the Friends of the Forest Grove Library hosted the evening discussion and solicited the student essays. (Neal, we can agree to disagree on whether it was a PR stunt.) And, I'm thrilled that our paper can host a place where people can exchange ideas. That's why in this week's print edition of the News-Times, we excerpted some of the comments here and encouraged our print readers to join the on-line discussion. We'll keep it going for another couple weeks, as long as people are interested.
John Schrag
Editor & Publisher
News-Times
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
In 1954, when it was legal to discriminate against blacks, the Supreme Court saw the bigotry and overturned the Constitution saying "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Movement began and it seemed like our own comfortable, familiar, worlds were changing. Now, your insulated little worlds are being threatened by change, and you've gotten yourself into a nervous 'tizzy'. As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream Speech, "you are in for a rude awakening if you think things will return to business as usual." With your degree of nervousness now, you'll probable have a nervous breakdown as things progress and laws are changed. Your breakdown will be a welcome relief for our community. We'll be free of you lashes (mocking a teacher? - in the nobelest of professions, doing decent work with law abiding people. Shame on you. Mocking Tolea? - she just wants unity and a peaceful, civil, debate. Shame on you.) We'll also be free of your hatred, snobbery, and bigotry. I can't wait.
"Gary"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow Gary seems to have a real handle on this agenda, glad to see more people drinking the kool-aid. I'm glad theres a few of us "lashes" at least our eyes our open. The global economy is killing our great nation anyway so we might as well open our arms and assimilate right? It appear by all these postings at the very least Forest Grove is becoming a hotbed of liberals who love to cater to lawbreakers. Can it be the great influx of illegals along with the immigration of the California disenfranchised? Who knows our once quiet burg will continue to grow with illegals as the quality of life deteriorates.
"Phineas Bogg"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Oh now we're back to Oregon's FAVORITE scapegoat of all - the Californians! Yes, blame the Californians for our influx of immigrants. We, the reasonable, humane, native, Oregonians aren't responsible. It's always the Californians. THEY'RE the real enemy. Can't you see how ridiculous that is? At least previous writers of anti-immigrants, oh excuse me, anti-illegal immigrants, (as if you really see a difference), based their objections on research and the LAW. You merely guess: Can it be? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe that? More generalizations, more speculations, more idiocy. If you are going to come forward with anti-illegal sentiments, at least base them on research findings and the LAW. Our students learn the law, including the Supreme Court ruling that "separate but equal" was seen for the injustice it was and declared UNconstitutional. We teach them about Martin Luther King Jr. and that you ARE in for a rude (if not uncomfortable) awakening if you really think things will return to business as usual. The legal immigrants are learning about the Civil Rights Act and will insist on equality in employment and housing. They are learning about the 24th Amendment - that they are free from unfair voting restrictions...and like the immigrants who came before them, they will stay. So, you're upset by the illegals? GOOD, join those for reform and do something constructive; GOOD, join law enforcement and enforce the law. But please, spare us your imagined, baseless, unfounded speculations.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:49 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am surprised at the reactions revealed in this forum. It tells me that there are a lot of people out there who think as I do. I don't think the responses are directed at the essays by the students as much as a response to what is happening in and to our communities and our way of life due to what is an "invasion" by one group of immigrants largely illegal. Neal and Mark are right on. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing. I for one am selecting the times I shop and go about the communities in western Washington County largely because I can no longer tolerate tripping over these people who are everywhere. I see them lined up at the free medical clinics, dragging bags of free food items home, using food stamps - all that I am paying for - all the while the majority of them allow their children to run rampant through stores, screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. We have little-Mexicos all over western Washington County. I won't even touch on the increase in certain types of crime. Why are the dregs of this group coming here? Because they would be in jail or worse otherwise. It used to be you would go into a fast food restaurant and see teenagers behind the counter. Now it is wall-to-wall Hispanic-speaking teenagers or otherwise Latinos. There seems to be too much focus and emphasis on assimilation on our part when the burden should be the other way around. If I moved to Germany, for example, I would be expected to and would learn German if I planned to live there. But here it is the other way around: We must learn Spanish, we must have Spanish-language skills to even apply for some jobs, we offer English-as-a-2nd-language classes for free but if we want to learn Spanish we must pay for it. The reactions I have been reading tell me that there is a much broader concern and it isn't something that will be easy to resolve - since it has been allowed to happen and now we are paying the price.
"Kate R"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Debbie,
I have to say that the more you actually say, the better you help our side. You go on and on about history and "that's the way it was". When in reality it is up to all of us the create the shape and create the history we will proud of. I don't want to see the history you are creating. If you keep this up then illegals will start getting even smarter and only vote in some one who will speak about the rights they deserve and we don't because we did not have to be a criminal to get here. It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we cant keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources. I hope you soon see the big picture that your kids may not be able to finish high school or even earlier because we just cant keep up with the demands of the criminals who will be running our country soon.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Okay, but what about the legal immigrants, who after years of studying our language and customs, now run their own businesses, and sincerely want to assimilate into our culture? They want their children to learn English because they really do feel that is the only way to assimilate and have a better life. They want to learn their civil rights so they can protect themselves and their children. I know this because I know them. Like Kate wrote, instead of this forum just being about the essays, it turned into a place for people to vent frustrations about the illegal immigrants being here and the changes to their communities because of it. I understand that frustration and sense of loss. I really do! Everytime I go to my original hometown, it looks nothing like the wonderful place it was while I was growing up. It felt safe and comfortable. Now it doesn't. I understand the sense of loss people are experiencing. I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that?
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
P.S. My students are legally here - they have student visas, are resident aliens, or are now citizens. They have to prove that to get into the program. They are not criminals. I'm not helping criminals. They have done what was required by law are the ones who have attained citizenship are proud of being Americans and want to contribute something good. They really do! I wish you could read their essays and hear them talk about wanting their new country to be free from destruction and the ugliness they left behind. I love my country and don't want to see it in the hands of anyone who would cause its ruin.. . and like you said, WE are the ones who create our history. How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"Gary," you're mixing Civil Rights with Citizen’s Rights; the bulk of whom we're talking about are not citizens. Martin Luther King was, and he made us proud. Again, linking this to race or ethnicity doesn’t work, or - maybe it does..? And shame on who?
Phineas... good points. I see a lateral stratification occurring among communities; those giving in and up to this invading culture -- and those who feel insulated from it. Obviously, Cornelius has given up, and Hillsboro’s fast giving in, though Beaverton and FG, (even Portland) haven't, yet. They're becoming educated enclaves, where property values and community expectations remain too high for these third-world refugees. This is how it's become in our border states; totally Hispanic run towns, with fortified and gated communities next door.
Debbie... still looking for a "scapegoat?" Actually, from all I've heard (including in-laws) we can blame the illegal immigrants for our Californians! They've given up 'defending' their neighborhoods, let alone their state - and are migrating to Oregon. "Can't you see how ridiculous that is?" --- Yes, I can! And Debbie, you're groping... if not losing it...
"Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing." --- Kate R., you're welcome; in fact, I suspect your views (if secretly held) reflect those of the majority -- of which I'm simply one. Thank you for sharing them.
"It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we can’t keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources." Thanks Dave, your words also reflect the reality of our concerns and fears. This is basically the replacing of one culture by another -- at the expense of the former. A two-tier society is emerging. But unlike the "China Towns,” where some inhabitance live their lives without assimilating, entire cities across the US are turning into Latino / Hispanic towns & cities – run by and for their culture - at our expense.
Debbie; again, what citizen of the Third-world doesn’t want to eventually become a US Citizen? Just as this feel-good essay ‘competition’ shown, there are always a few 'standouts.' Even within a prison population there are those who can impress us with their aptitude. But should we welcome the world for the few stellar individuals that may include? Here's a ‘novel idea’: why don't we allow a limited number of new citizens into our country every year, based on their proven abilities, talents and willingness to live within our laws? ... Whoops!
"I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that? "Debbie." --- Nothing's wrong with that, and for decades that's exactly how they've been treated by the vast majority of our communities. Problem is, after we rewarded the illegal (yes, there is such a thing as Illegal) batch of 86 with citizenship, the flow has increased. We originally legalized just under 3 million (not counting extended family), there are now as many (and isn't it scary to realize no one really knows how many illegal 'immigrants' there are inside our borders?) ...now there are as many as 20 million Illegals awaiting their reward. How do you tell them apart? You can't ask, that's "racial profiling," or offensive to the new found liberties of some... So you'd simply welcome, if not reward them all? Debbie, your job security is coming at too high a cost to your community – could this be your true fear?
More Debbie... what is a "resident alien"? Anything like an Anchor-baby? And just where did your students come from... thin air? And by 'helping them,' are you not basically helping their illegal parents educate their children at our expense? …Thus allowing those 'children' to directly compete with ours for all those Spanish speaking social service jobs … right down to flipping burgers?
So these 'students' are happy to be here... why not? But have you noticed the "destruction and the ugliness they left behind" is following them? Sure, and again, we're talking about a handful of exceptional students -- I know, I have a couple myself. But mine are being denied resources to pay for yours... and mine (if not most) got here legally, and first.
"How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!" Present tense..? What you are doing is enabling the next generation of Enablers, at the expense and exclusion of all others. You are providing a ‘dream environment’ to the newly legal, semi-legal, soon to be legal and downright illegal invaders of our nation. Sound ugly - it is! Sure, you look out upon some eager faces; I've had doors held open for me by their parents, but good intent does not excuse the illegal behavior it took for nearly every one of those 'students' to get here. This may sound ‘greedy,’ but if you can ditch the rose-tinted glasses it's not as pretty as you’d have us believe. And though the community you’ve fled ‘to’ is not yet as bad as the one you fled – it’s not only catching up with you - you’re helping usher it in! And frankly, you're the one around here pushing an agenda; the rest of us are simply reacting to it.
News Times, timely news isn't it? Thought I’d check in … thanks for keeping this alive. PS, what’s happened to the Freedom Socialist’s and Radical Women..? Staying too busy in P-town to mess with us I suspect..? Thanks -
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 13, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Neal,That was a fantastic reply, except for one thing. My wife is a resident alien but we worked and payed dearly for it to be done correct. I was not willing to bring her under false pretenses. At the same time right after she moved here a family friend from Brazil called and said he was in New York doing construction work at a very nice pay. It took him less than a month to enter here illegal and get a job that was paying very nicely. Both my wife and I were very upset. It was crazy it took a almost two years to get it done correctly and it took him less than a month by paying some guy in Mexico to help get him here. This is what I fear the most, as the word gets out that if you have been here before such and such date and time that you can stay and become a citizen. Duh does anyone know when they really came across? They will be filing in like crazy if that bill passes. I do not have a race issue, I have right vs wrong issue. I grew up knowing what was right from wrong but today know one can really know. Because We pay for the needs of illegals who claim that there child was born here so they should be able to stay and get food stamps because they are so poor. But wait I can here the bull crap in that, they have no money but they get food stamps and health care and housing right? Then when you talk to them they are sending all of their money home in some other country while being here getting along for free and draining our resources. Debbie how can you be a teacher and not be able to see the writing on the wall? You are simply telling them it is OK to steal and any number of other crimes, simply because you broke the law of our land by coming here illegaly. I do not have the perfect answer but I can tell you that I am looking for other countries to live in because this land is going downhill and it is people like you who are not only helping them bring it down but you think you are doing good to save these people. Do you not see the Americans who live here? We are a dieing breed thanks to you and the others who think like you. I do not want my children growing up where being right is the wrong thing to do.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 17, 2007 at 06:12 PM
5:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Friday, May 18, 2007
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 30 comments links to this post
5:44 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
In case anybody wonders, I wasn't the anonymous who posted all of those comments from FGNT.
5:53 PM
Anonymous said...
as far as there being only one world - isn't that all the more reason we protect all we can?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:04 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial response:
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this exchange of ideas, but Neal makes a point I'd like to echo. This is the biggest response we've received to any story since we began allowing reader comments a few months ago. I agree with Neal that this forum shows the need for this topic to be discussed further. I think it's great that the Friends of the Forest Grove Library hosted the evening discussion and solicited the student essays. (Neal, we can agree to disagree on whether it was a PR stunt.) And, I'm thrilled that our paper can host a place where people can exchange ideas. That's why in this week's print edition of the News-Times, we excerpted some of the comments here and encouraged our print readers to join the on-line discussion. We'll keep it going for another couple weeks, as long as people are interested.
John Schrag
Editor & Publisher
News-Times
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
In 1954, when it was legal to discriminate against blacks, the Supreme Court saw the bigotry and overturned the Constitution saying "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Movement began and it seemed like our own comfortable, familiar, worlds were changing. Now, your insulated little worlds are being threatened by change, and you've gotten yourself into a nervous 'tizzy'. As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream Speech, "you are in for a rude awakening if you think things will return to business as usual." With your degree of nervousness now, you'll probable have a nervous breakdown as things progress and laws are changed. Your breakdown will be a welcome relief for our community. We'll be free of you lashes (mocking a teacher? - in the nobelest of professions, doing decent work with law abiding people. Shame on you. Mocking Tolea? - she just wants unity and a peaceful, civil, debate. Shame on you.) We'll also be free of your hatred, snobbery, and bigotry. I can't wait.
"Gary"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow Gary seems to have a real handle on this agenda, glad to see more people drinking the kool-aid. I'm glad theres a few of us "lashes" at least our eyes our open. The global economy is killing our great nation anyway so we might as well open our arms and assimilate right? It appear by all these postings at the very least Forest Grove is becoming a hotbed of liberals who love to cater to lawbreakers. Can it be the great influx of illegals along with the immigration of the California disenfranchised? Who knows our once quiet burg will continue to grow with illegals as the quality of life deteriorates.
"Phineas Bogg"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Oh now we're back to Oregon's FAVORITE scapegoat of all - the Californians! Yes, blame the Californians for our influx of immigrants. We, the reasonable, humane, native, Oregonians aren't responsible. It's always the Californians. THEY'RE the real enemy. Can't you see how ridiculous that is? At least previous writers of anti-immigrants, oh excuse me, anti-illegal immigrants, (as if you really see a difference), based their objections on research and the LAW. You merely guess: Can it be? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe that? More generalizations, more speculations, more idiocy. If you are going to come forward with anti-illegal sentiments, at least base them on research findings and the LAW. Our students learn the law, including the Supreme Court ruling that "separate but equal" was seen for the injustice it was and declared UNconstitutional. We teach them about Martin Luther King Jr. and that you ARE in for a rude (if not uncomfortable) awakening if you really think things will return to business as usual. The legal immigrants are learning about the Civil Rights Act and will insist on equality in employment and housing. They are learning about the 24th Amendment - that they are free from unfair voting restrictions...and like the immigrants who came before them, they will stay. So, you're upset by the illegals? GOOD, join those for reform and do something constructive; GOOD, join law enforcement and enforce the law. But please, spare us your imagined, baseless, unfounded speculations.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:49 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am surprised at the reactions revealed in this forum. It tells me that there are a lot of people out there who think as I do. I don't think the responses are directed at the essays by the students as much as a response to what is happening in and to our communities and our way of life due to what is an "invasion" by one group of immigrants largely illegal. Neal and Mark are right on. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing. I for one am selecting the times I shop and go about the communities in western Washington County largely because I can no longer tolerate tripping over these people who are everywhere. I see them lined up at the free medical clinics, dragging bags of free food items home, using food stamps - all that I am paying for - all the while the majority of them allow their children to run rampant through stores, screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. We have little-Mexicos all over western Washington County. I won't even touch on the increase in certain types of crime. Why are the dregs of this group coming here? Because they would be in jail or worse otherwise. It used to be you would go into a fast food restaurant and see teenagers behind the counter. Now it is wall-to-wall Hispanic-speaking teenagers or otherwise Latinos. There seems to be too much focus and emphasis on assimilation on our part when the burden should be the other way around. If I moved to Germany, for example, I would be expected to and would learn German if I planned to live there. But here it is the other way around: We must learn Spanish, we must have Spanish-language skills to even apply for some jobs, we offer English-as-a-2nd-language classes for free but if we want to learn Spanish we must pay for it. The reactions I have been reading tell me that there is a much broader concern and it isn't something that will be easy to resolve - since it has been allowed to happen and now we are paying the price.
"Kate R"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Debbie,
I have to say that the more you actually say, the better you help our side. You go on and on about history and "that's the way it was". When in reality it is up to all of us the create the shape and create the history we will proud of. I don't want to see the history you are creating. If you keep this up then illegals will start getting even smarter and only vote in some one who will speak about the rights they deserve and we don't because we did not have to be a criminal to get here. It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we cant keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources. I hope you soon see the big picture that your kids may not be able to finish high school or even earlier because we just cant keep up with the demands of the criminals who will be running our country soon.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Okay, but what about the legal immigrants, who after years of studying our language and customs, now run their own businesses, and sincerely want to assimilate into our culture? They want their children to learn English because they really do feel that is the only way to assimilate and have a better life. They want to learn their civil rights so they can protect themselves and their children. I know this because I know them. Like Kate wrote, instead of this forum just being about the essays, it turned into a place for people to vent frustrations about the illegal immigrants being here and the changes to their communities because of it. I understand that frustration and sense of loss. I really do! Everytime I go to my original hometown, it looks nothing like the wonderful place it was while I was growing up. It felt safe and comfortable. Now it doesn't. I understand the sense of loss people are experiencing. I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that?
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
P.S. My students are legally here - they have student visas, are resident aliens, or are now citizens. They have to prove that to get into the program. They are not criminals. I'm not helping criminals. They have done what was required by law are the ones who have attained citizenship are proud of being Americans and want to contribute something good. They really do! I wish you could read their essays and hear them talk about wanting their new country to be free from destruction and the ugliness they left behind. I love my country and don't want to see it in the hands of anyone who would cause its ruin.. . and like you said, WE are the ones who create our history. How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"Gary," you're mixing Civil Rights with Citizen’s Rights; the bulk of whom we're talking about are not citizens. Martin Luther King was, and he made us proud. Again, linking this to race or ethnicity doesn’t work, or - maybe it does..? And shame on who?
Phineas... good points. I see a lateral stratification occurring among communities; those giving in and up to this invading culture -- and those who feel insulated from it. Obviously, Cornelius has given up, and Hillsboro’s fast giving in, though Beaverton and FG, (even Portland) haven't, yet. They're becoming educated enclaves, where property values and community expectations remain too high for these third-world refugees. This is how it's become in our border states; totally Hispanic run towns, with fortified and gated communities next door.
Debbie... still looking for a "scapegoat?" Actually, from all I've heard (including in-laws) we can blame the illegal immigrants for our Californians! They've given up 'defending' their neighborhoods, let alone their state - and are migrating to Oregon. "Can't you see how ridiculous that is?" --- Yes, I can! And Debbie, you're groping... if not losing it...
"Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing." --- Kate R., you're welcome; in fact, I suspect your views (if secretly held) reflect those of the majority -- of which I'm simply one. Thank you for sharing them.
"It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we can’t keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources." Thanks Dave, your words also reflect the reality of our concerns and fears. This is basically the replacing of one culture by another -- at the expense of the former. A two-tier society is emerging. But unlike the "China Towns,” where some inhabitance live their lives without assimilating, entire cities across the US are turning into Latino / Hispanic towns & cities – run by and for their culture - at our expense.
Debbie; again, what citizen of the Third-world doesn’t want to eventually become a US Citizen? Just as this feel-good essay ‘competition’ shown, there are always a few 'standouts.' Even within a prison population there are those who can impress us with their aptitude. But should we welcome the world for the few stellar individuals that may include? Here's a ‘novel idea’: why don't we allow a limited number of new citizens into our country every year, based on their proven abilities, talents and willingness to live within our laws? ... Whoops!
"I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that? "Debbie." --- Nothing's wrong with that, and for decades that's exactly how they've been treated by the vast majority of our communities. Problem is, after we rewarded the illegal (yes, there is such a thing as Illegal) batch of 86 with citizenship, the flow has increased. We originally legalized just under 3 million (not counting extended family), there are now as many (and isn't it scary to realize no one really knows how many illegal 'immigrants' there are inside our borders?) ...now there are as many as 20 million Illegals awaiting their reward. How do you tell them apart? You can't ask, that's "racial profiling," or offensive to the new found liberties of some... So you'd simply welcome, if not reward them all? Debbie, your job security is coming at too high a cost to your community – could this be your true fear?
More Debbie... what is a "resident alien"? Anything like an Anchor-baby? And just where did your students come from... thin air? And by 'helping them,' are you not basically helping their illegal parents educate their children at our expense? …Thus allowing those 'children' to directly compete with ours for all those Spanish speaking social service jobs … right down to flipping burgers?
So these 'students' are happy to be here... why not? But have you noticed the "destruction and the ugliness they left behind" is following them? Sure, and again, we're talking about a handful of exceptional students -- I know, I have a couple myself. But mine are being denied resources to pay for yours... and mine (if not most) got here legally, and first.
"How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!" Present tense..? What you are doing is enabling the next generation of Enablers, at the expense and exclusion of all others. You are providing a ‘dream environment’ to the newly legal, semi-legal, soon to be legal and downright illegal invaders of our nation. Sound ugly - it is! Sure, you look out upon some eager faces; I've had doors held open for me by their parents, but good intent does not excuse the illegal behavior it took for nearly every one of those 'students' to get here. This may sound ‘greedy,’ but if you can ditch the rose-tinted glasses it's not as pretty as you’d have us believe. And though the community you’ve fled ‘to’ is not yet as bad as the one you fled – it’s not only catching up with you - you’re helping usher it in! And frankly, you're the one around here pushing an agenda; the rest of us are simply reacting to it.
News Times, timely news isn't it? Thought I’d check in … thanks for keeping this alive. PS, what’s happened to the Freedom Socialist’s and Radical Women..? Staying too busy in P-town to mess with us I suspect..? Thanks -
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 13, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Neal,That was a fantastic reply, except for one thing. My wife is a resident alien but we worked and payed dearly for it to be done correct. I was not willing to bring her under false pretenses. At the same time right after she moved here a family friend from Brazil called and said he was in New York doing construction work at a very nice pay. It took him less than a month to enter here illegal and get a job that was paying very nicely. Both my wife and I were very upset. It was crazy it took a almost two years to get it done correctly and it took him less than a month by paying some guy in Mexico to help get him here. This is what I fear the most, as the word gets out that if you have been here before such and such date and time that you can stay and become a citizen. Duh does anyone know when they really came across? They will be filing in like crazy if that bill passes. I do not have a race issue, I have right vs wrong issue. I grew up knowing what was right from wrong but today know one can really know. Because We pay for the needs of illegals who claim that there child was born here so they should be able to stay and get food stamps because they are so poor. But wait I can here the bull crap in that, they have no money but they get food stamps and health care and housing right? Then when you talk to them they are sending all of their money home in some other country while being here getting along for free and draining our resources. Debbie how can you be a teacher and not be able to see the writing on the wall? You are simply telling them it is OK to steal and any number of other crimes, simply because you broke the law of our land by coming here illegaly. I do not have the perfect answer but I can tell you that I am looking for other countries to live in because this land is going downhill and it is people like you who are not only helping them bring it down but you think you are doing good to save these people. Do you not see the Americans who live here? We are a dieing breed thanks to you and the others who think like you. I do not want my children growing up where being right is the wrong thing to do.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 17, 2007 at 06:12 PM
5:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Friday, May 18, 2007
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 30 comments links to this post
5:44 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
In case anybody wonders, I wasn't the anonymous who posted all of those comments from FGNT.
5:53 PM
5:55 PM
Scottiebill said...
Daniel: Why are you allowing all these dissertations to go on? These various and sundry anonymous' have taken up all your blogging space with these seemingly endless ramblings. And then there is the anonymous with all that gabble that means nothingand the anonymous with a lot of blogs saying the same stupid thing.
It would seem that there could be some semblance of editing here.
And now these "anonymous" anonymous' will scream "First Amendment Rights". It makes one want to puke!!
6:23 PM
Charles U. Farley said...
Scottiebill, stick your finger down your throat. You'll feel better.
Daniel. How about some from refreshment from God's word.Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
| Table of Contents for this work |
| All on-line databases | Etext Center Homepage |
Leviticus, chapter 1
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.01
1: And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.
3: If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD.
4: And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
5: And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
6: And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.
7: And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire:
8: And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:
9: But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
10: And if his offering be of the flocks, namely, of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt sacrifice; he shall bring it a male without blemish.
11: And he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar.
12: And he shall cut it into his pieces, with his head and his fat: and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:
13: But he shall wash the inwards and the legs with water: and the priest shall bring it all, and burn it upon the altar: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
14: And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the LORD be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves, or of young pigeons.
15: And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar:
16: And he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes:
17: And he shall cleave it with the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder: and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
| Table of Contents for this work |
| All on-line databases | Etext Center Homepage |
Leviticus, chapter 2
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.02
1: And when any will offer a meat offering unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:
2: And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests: and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD:
3: And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
4: And if thou bring an oblation of a meat offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.
5: And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.
6: Thou shalt part it in pieces, and pour oil thereon: it is a meat offering.
7: And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in the fryingpan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.
8: And thou shalt bring the meat offering that is made of these things unto the LORD: and when it is presented unto the priest, he shall bring it unto the altar.
9: And the priest shall take from the meat offering a memorial thereof, and shall burn it upon the altar: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
10: And that which is left of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
11: No meat offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven: for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the LORD made by fire.
12: As for the oblation of the firstfruits, ye shall offer them unto the LORD: but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savour.
13: And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
14: And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the LORD, thou shalt offer for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears.
15: And thou shalt put oil upon it, and lay frankincense thereon: it is a meat offering.
16: And the priest shall burn the memorial of it, part of the beaten corn thereof, and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof: it is an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
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Leviticus, chapter 3
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.03
1: And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.
2: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons the priests shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.
3: And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
4: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
5: And Aaron's sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
6: And if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering unto the LORD be of the flock; male or female, he shall offer it without blemish.
7: If he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he offer it before the LORD.
8: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof round about upon the altar.
9: And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat thereof, and the whole rump, it shall he take off hard by the backbone; and the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
10: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
11: And the priest shall burn it upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire unto the LORD.
12: And if his offering be a goat, then he shall offer it before the LORD.
13: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of it, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about.
14: And he shall offer thereof his offering, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
15: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
16: And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD's.
17: It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.
Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
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Leviticus, chapter 4
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.04
1: And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them:
3: If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people; then let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto the LORD for a sin offering.
4: And he shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD; and shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head, and kill the bullock before the LORD.
5: And the priest that is anointed shall take of the bullock's blood, and bring it to the tabernacle of the congregation:
6: And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the LORD, before the vail of the sanctuary.
7: And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the LORD, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation: and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
8: And he shall take off from it all the fat of the bullock for the sin offering; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
9: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away,
10: As it was taken off from the bullock of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt offering.
11: And the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung,
12: Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt.
13: And if the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which should not be done, and are guilty;
14: When the sin, which they have sinned against it, is known, then the congregation shall offer a young bullock for the sin, and bring him before the tabernacle of the congregation.
15: And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the LORD: and the bullock shall be killed before the LORD.
16: And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bullock's blood to the tabernacle of the congregation:
17: And the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the LORD, even before the vail.
18: And he shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar which is before the LORD, that is in the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall pour out all the blood at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
19: And he shall take all his fat from him, and burn it upon the altar.
20: And he shall do with the bullock as he did with the bullock for a sin offering, so shall he do with this: and the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them.
21: And he shall carry forth the bullock without the camp, and burn him as he burned the first bullock: it is a sin offering for the congregation.
22: When a ruler hath sinned, and done somewhat through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD his God concerning things which should not be done, and is guilty;
23: Or if his sin, wherein he hath sinned, come to his knowledge; he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a male without blemish:
24: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the goat, and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering before the LORD: it is a sin offering.
25: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out his blood at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering.
26: And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him.
27: And if any one of the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and be guilty;
28: Or if his sin, which he hath sinned, come to his knowledge: then he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned.
29: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering.
30: And the priest shall take of the blood thereof with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar.
31: And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat is taken away from off the sacrifice of peace offerings; and the priest shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour unto the LORD; and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him.
32: And if he bring a lamb for a sin offering, he shall bring it a female without blemish.
33: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay it for a sin offering in the place where they kill the burnt offering
34: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar:
35: And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat of the lamb is taken away from the sacrifice of the peace offerings; and the priest shall burn them upon the altar, according to the offerings made by fire unto the LORD: and the priest shall make an atonement for his sin that he hath committed, and it shall be forgiven him.
That's only the first four chapters. I got bored and I have a life unlike you. I'll be back with more later.
Keep up the good fight.
You chickenshit skinhead.
6:33 PM
MacNichol, last of the Viking Kings of Skye said...
What the fuck kind of name is Miclav? Is that right? I don't care. It's SLAVIC fucks like you who've been screwing up this country from the beginning.
You know "Slav" comes from the Rus (the Vikings) term for slave? The zeroes whose country they traveled through on the way to Byzantium, where they'd sell all these cute slavic babes to rich A-rabs. Obviously an inferior race.
Anyway, I'm sick of your diluting the pure strain of Scotts-Irish blood our country was built on.
Most of my family got here in the 18th century. When did your folks crawl onto Ellis Island?
Go back where you came from.
6:44 PM
short and sweet said...
I have a prediction that I absolutely GUARANTEE will come true:
At the end of the day, Daniel and his nativist friends are going to lose this one. Why? Because they are so far, far-right wing, that there is absolutely no bill that could conceivably get through Congress and get Bush's signature that will make them happy. No matter what happens, they'll be pissed, and they'll scream about betrayals and traitors and vow revenge.
I guarantee it.
7:04 PM
R Huse said...
Obviously the pro illegal alien side has clearly proven at least one argument by their responses.
It is now quite apparent that the reasoning they use is as vacuous as the morality upon which it is based. Name calling, racism and now just endless empty Spam.
Quite neat, and also immeasurably pitiful. I, for one, thank them for their clear demonstrations. Iconoclasts through and through, idiotic, absurd.
7:24 PM
Kind Red Spirit said...
r. huse said it best. "Idiotic and absurd" Wow, that's deep. I don't know what's the problem with all these motherfuckas. Its like they all want the beners wreckin their lives yo.
Corse, could be all those vatos locos guys could come lokking for your cracker ass in which I dont know you bro. Know what im sayin?
But hey man. if theres a throw down and you got numbrs on your side man. You know good white folks Im down man
well bust some fuckin heads
power to the people
the GOOD people
8:53 PM
Rosetta Stone said...
Endless, empty spam R? I think not.
Daniel professes to have an "interest" in "Jesus" Does Jesus have an interest in him?
The Book of James, by one of our Lord and Savior's little brothers will offer the poor soul some solace.
"Count it all joy by bretheren..."
I'll let him finish.
1: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
2: My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
3: Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4: But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
5: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
6: But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
7: For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
8: A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
9: Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
10: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
11: For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
12: Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
13: Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
14: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15: Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
16: Do not err, my beloved brethren.
17: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
18: Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
19: Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
20: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
21: Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
22: But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
23: For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
24: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
25: But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
26: If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
27: Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
James, chapter 2
1: My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.
2: For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;
3: And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool:
4: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
5: Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?
6: But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?
7: Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?
8: If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:
9: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.
10: For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
11: For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
12: So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.
13: For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
14: What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
15: If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16: And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17: Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
18: Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19: Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20: But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
21: Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
22: Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
23: And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
24: Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
25: Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?
26: For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
James, chapter 3
1: My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
2: For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
3: Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body.
4: Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.
5: Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!
6: And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
7: For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
8: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
9: Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
10: Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
11: Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
12: Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
13: Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
14: But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
15: This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
16: For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
17: But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
18: And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
James, chapter 4
1: From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2: Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3: Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
4: Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
5: Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
6: But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
7: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8: Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9: Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10: Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
11: Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
12: There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
13: Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
14: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
15: For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
16: But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
17: Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
James, chapter 5
1: Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2: Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3: Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
4: Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
5: Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
6: Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.
7: Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
8: Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9: Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
10: Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11: Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
12: But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.
13: Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.
14: Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
15: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
16: Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
17: Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
18: And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
19: Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;
20: Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
Did you get that? He which CONVERTETH A SINNER from the error of his ways...
shall save a soul from death.
Empty spam? R. you do yourself, and the rest of humanity a grave disservice.
9:07 PM
Anonymous said...
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
9:58 PM
Anonymous said...
'He's a fair man'
Johnson says he will to accept Goodell punishment
Posted: Friday May 18, 2007 9:14PM; Updated: Friday May 18, 2007 9:14PM
Tank Johnson says his goal is to become NFL Man of the Year.
AP
LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) -- Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson said Friday he's ready to accept whatever punishment NFL commissioner Roger Goodell gives him for his recent off-field problems that included a two-month stint in jail.
"I feel like whatever sanction he imposes, I'm man enough to take it and I know that once I get back on the field, that chapter of my life is closed and I can move on with a sense of closure," Johnson said Friday after the first day of Bears minicamp.
It was Johnson's first public statements since being released from Cook County jail Sunday.
Johnson met with Goodell in New York on Wednesday and awaits a decision on a possible suspension for violating terms of his probation and a gun charge.
In April, Goodell suspended Tennessee Titans defensive back Adam "Pacman" Jones for the 2007 season, and Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry for eight games before introducing a strengthened personal conduct policy.
"Mr. Goodell has the league's interest to look out for," Johnson said. "Whatever sanction he imposes, I know that it's in the best interest of this league.
"I can't say what would be fair, what would be unfair. But I do know that meeting Mr. Goodell, he's a fair man. He gave me the opportunity to speak with him. He gave me the opportunity to convey some of the things that I want to get better at. I feel like whatever he imposes, meeting him and knowing he's a fair man, is in the best interest of the league."
During their 90-minute meeting in New York, Johnson said he told Goodell his goal is to go from jail to NFL Man of the Year.
"One day I want to be the face of the league for guys who have come through adversity, came through it and ultimately became the Man of the Year in the NFL," Johnson said. "That would be a tremendous ending to the story."
Johnson spent 60 days of a 120-day sentence in jail for violating his probation. He was released Sunday for good behavior.
In December, police raided Johnson's Gurnee home and found six unregistered firearms -- a violation of his probation on an earlier gun charge.
That charge stemmed from Johnson's 2005 arrest after a Chicago nightclub valet reported seeing Johnson with a handgun in his SUV. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
Two days after the raid in Gurnee, Willie B. Posey, the Johnson bodyguard who had been arrested after the raid, was shot and killed in an early morning fight while he and Johnson were at a Chicago nightclub.
Johnson was suspended by the Bears for one game for being at the club.
In March, Johnson began his jail term for violating his probation. Last month, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor weapons charge stemming from the December raid as part of a deal with prosecutors that kept him from serving more time in jail. He was ordered to serve 45 days, which he was able to serve concurrently with the sentence for violating his probation.
Johnson had numerous visits from Bears players, coaches and officials during his 60 days of incarceration.
"It was a tough time for me, but at the same time I learned a lot about myself," Johnson said. "I learned a lot about a lot of things. During that process, I got to know that I have tremendous support from all walks of life.
"The Bears showed me unconditional support. My friends and family showed me unconditional support."
Johnson credited coach Lovie Smith and general manager Jerry Angelo, in particular, with standing by him during his time in jail. Johnson did not participate in the team portion of practice Friday because he needs to be in better condition, Smith said.
Johnson did do some individual work early in practice.
Smith still regards Johnson as the Bears' starting nose tackle.
"As much as anything, Tank now has a starting spot," Smith said. "He's back with the group working out. He has a long way to go. As a football team we have a long way to go.
"But Tank will catch up. He's got a smile on his face. He's excited about being back around this team."
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
10:09 PM
interesting said...
Overflowing bag
After 800+ e-mails, I give you league rankings, more
Posted: Wednesday May 16, 2007 12:53PM; Updated: Wednesday May 16, 2007 3:10PM
Arkansas RB Darren McFadden is one of many explosive playmakers in a loaded SEC.
AP
RELATED
• REACT: Are Mandel's league rankings legit?
You love the Mailbag. You really love it.
You made that abundantly clear, dear readers, when you bombarded my in-box to the tune of more than 800 e-mails within 24 hours of publishing the season's first edition. Those are mid-November numbers, people. Give yourselves much-deserved props.
So what did I learn over the course of those 800 e-mails? I learned that most of you never stop thinking about college football, even in the dead of the offseason, and for that I am extremely appreciative -- because it justifies my continued employment. I learned that a great number of you are extremely invested in the choice of the next Celebrity Crush (more on that later), which is good, because I fully intend to milk the suspense.
But most of all, I learned you're all really, really obsessed with this strength-of-conference thing. I could have filled this entire Mailbag with questions about the Big East's legitimacy, the Big Ten's bowl record (2-1 against the SEC last year, as several hundred of you reminded me), the Pac-10's non-conference schedule, lack of respect for the Big 12 and more. Instead, I chose this one, all-encompassing, guaranteed-to-start-a-riot topic from Taylor of Lexington, Ky.:
Stewart, you always say that conference strength is cyclical and always seem to defend easily bash-able conferences (i.e. the Pac-10, ACC). So let's see your rank all 11 Division I-A conferences. Answer at your own risk!
OK, I'll do it, but under two conditions: 1) That we all agree to accept the premise of cyclical conference strength, which means these ratings are based solely on the upcoming season and are by no means permanent. And 2) That once I do this list, there will be no revisiting the topic until at least the start of the season. Let's face it, the only guarantee about this list is that 10 of 11 sets of fans are going to be outraged, and I'm not filling next week's Mailbag with all your angry responses to this one.
Here it goes ...
1) SEC: Simply put, this year's SEC could be the toughest conference in history. I'm not exaggerating. It's extremely rare for a league to not only boast so many quality teams at the top (LSU, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee) but also so little dead weight at the bottom. Really, it's just Mississippi State. You've got two former national championship coaches, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban, leading what may be only the seventh- or eighth-best teams in the league. Kentucky won eight games last year. And Vandy is no longer a gimme (just ask Georgia). It's a perfect storm for the SEC right now with so many accomplished coaches, so much elite talent and so many returning veterans all at once.
2) Pac-10: I've always felt one reason the Pac-10 doesn't get taken seriously by most of the country is that outside of USC, no one has been able to stay consistently good recently. At the same time, however, no one has been consistently bad, either. In other words, the league's image is a victim of its own balance. USC appears to be the cream of the crop again this year, but remember, the Trojans lost to two Pac-10 teams last year, UCLA and Oregon State, both of which return the vast majority of their starters. Cal is loaded on offense yet again. And I expect Oregon, Arizona State (which now has Dennis Erickson), Arizona and possibly Washington to all be factors as well.
3) Big Ten: Remember the 1990s and early 2000s? For the only time in its history, the Big Ten was actually fairly wide open, with everyone from Northwestern to Purdue to Illinois winning titles. Now, the league has gone back to being top-heavy. Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio State could all be top-10 teams, Penn State won't be far off, but then there's a pretty drastic drop-off. I do expect Iowa to do a bit of damage, but nearly half the teams the league (Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois and Indiana) are basically irrelevant.
4) Big East: Obviously, it's impossible for the Big East to go as deep as the other leagues because it has so few teams, and thus its ranking suffers. The top four teams -- Louisville, West Virginia, Rutgers and USF -- stack up with any league outside of the SEC. All four are legitimate preseason top-25 teams in my mind, and three of them could be BCS-caliber. The Cardinals and Mountaineers have already shown their offenses are as explosive as any in the country, but I have a hunch Rutgers might wind up winning the title because it has a defense to go with its potential All-America running back.
5) Big 12: Earlier this decade, I really thought the Big 12 was going to emerge as the best conference in the country. But due in large part to Dennis Franchione's thus-far disappointing tenure at Texas A&M, the South Division has remained largely a two-team show (though Texas Tech is a consistent second-tier bowl team), and the North has yet to fully recover from its all-out implosion a few years ago. Nebraska should be a top-20 team, but I'm not convinced the Huskers are ready to contend nationally yet, Missouri should again be good but not great and the jury's still out on the likes of Kansas State and Kansas.
6) ACC: The conference will be better than it was last year due to several high-profile coaching changes and more experienced teams, but it is still probably a year away from becoming a true force nationally. Virginia Tech should be a top-10 team, but after that it's anyone's best guess who will emerge as legitimate top-20 teams and who will remain mired in mediocrity out of a pack that includes Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College, Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech and Maryland.
7) Mountain West: Utah, TCU and BYU have each produced nationally competitive teams over the past three seasons and all will likely be strong again this season. New Mexico is always in the postseason mix. Things are a little hazy after that, though I'm interested to see whether Colorado State can bounce back from an awful year and how much improvement San Diego State shows in Chuck Long's second year.
8) WAC: Despite losing several teams to Conference USA a few years ago, this league has actually gotten stronger. We all know about Boise State, but the emergence of Nevada, San Jose State and Hawaii has boosted the conference considerably. If anyone can dethrone the Broncos this year, it's Colt Brennan and the Warriors. And I think last year's 4-8 debacle will prove an aberration for Fresno State.
9) Conference USA: This league has become hard to watch since losing Louisville, Cincinnati and USF. I expect there will once again be several decent teams (Tulsa, Southern Miss, East Carolina, UCF) but none that approach top-25 status.
10) MAC: Where have you gone, Ben Roethlisberger? Or Byron Leftwich? Or even Bruce Gradkowski? It's been a few years now since the MAC produced any giant-killers, and I don't expect that to change this year. Even with the addition of Temple (as hard as that may be to believe).
11) Sun Belt: How the members of this conference continue to remain at the I-A level is one of the great mysteries of our time.
So there you have it, folks. Now comes the hard part. You can either fire off that nasty e-mail inquiring about the size of my brain ... or you can ask a question that might actually get published next week.
Oh, the agony.
1 of 3
The reputation of Iowa's Kirk Ferentz as being a top-notch coach has taken a hit after a pair of disappointing seasons.
AP
Is Kirk Ferentz overrated as a coach? He had talented teams in both 2005 and 2006 and they only went 13-12 over those two years, yet everyone still says Kirk is up there with Pete Carroll, Bob Stoops and Urban Meyer. I find that hard to believe.
--Russ, Dyersville, Iowa
A straight up comparison of Ferentz to the coaches you mentioned would not exactly be fair considering he's not working with anywhere near the same level of talent. That said, he definitely dropped several rungs on my ladder the past two seasons. One of the major reasons Ferentz earned his reputation in the first place was that he was able to take largely blue-collar, physically overmatched teams and beat teams like Ohio State and Michigan and pull off 11-2, 10-3 and 10-2 seasons from 2002-04. The other major trait of those teams is that they got notably better as the season went along, another indicator of good coaching.
But that second part simply did not happen last year. That 6-7 team was a major disappointment considering it had a proven, senior quarterback in Drew Tate and was by all accounts a more talented bunch overall than those earlier teams, whose players were primarily recruited when the program was in the tank. So the question becomes, was Ferentz overrated to begin with or did his earlier teams simply overachieve? I tend to think last year was one of those inevitable blips that every coach endures from time to time when a team, for whatever reason, simply fails to gel. It's also unrealistic to think any coach is ever going to win 10 games every year at Iowa. But it's also not as if Ferentz has such a long track record that he be afforded a free pass. (Especially now that he's being paid like a Stoops or Meyer.) It will be interesting to see how much improvement, if any, this year's Hawkeyes show.
The last couple of seasons, we have seen an influx in big non-conference games to start the season. Which game are you most eager to see. For me, it's Virginia Tech at LSU on Sept. 8!
--Joshua, Richmond, Va.
That's going to be a good one, all right. I don't know who's going to win, but I bet the final score will be something like 10-9. I also think it's going to be an extremely important moment for the Virginia Tech community in its ongoing healing process. Assuming that's the "game of the week" nationally (Notre Dame-Penn State will get plenty of attention as well, but those teams aren't going to be ranked in the Top 10), I can only imagine how uplifting it will be for Hokies fans to see their school return to the national spotlight for something besides the recent tragedy.
The non-conference game I'm looking forward to most, however, is USC at Nebraska the following weekend. The Trojans are the expected preseason No. 1 team, but they're not without questions, particularly on offense. This will be just their second game of the season, and the first one is against Idaho, so this will truly be the first chance to gauge the 2007 Trojans. I also think this game will serve as a referendum on Bill Callahan's mostly stormy tenure in Lincoln. I thought Huskers fans got a little bit ahead of themselves last year in thinking their team would give USC any sort of scare in L.A. in what was then the start of Callahan's third season. At this point, however, it's year four, he's got his recruits and he's finally got a stud quarterback in Sam Keller. It's reasonable to expect that Nebraska -- one of the most storied programs of all-time -- should not roll over for anyone, even the No. 1 team in the country.
Stewart: It's time to play the annual eighth-year seniors game! I'll start it off ... really, a no-brainer: Notre Dame's Tom Zbikowski.
--Dave, Chelsea, Mich.
Ah yes, it's an annual Mailbag tradition. And Zbikowski is a perfect candidate for two reasons: 1) His recruitment as a high school senior in 2002-03 was so heavily chronicled that his name has been with us a whole extra year; and 2) I think most of us were under the assumption that last year would be his final season (he was in Brady Quinn's class but didn't play his first season). It was primarily because his stock plummeted so much that he came back for a fifth year.
Here are my nominees for other eighth-year seniors: Texas WR Limas Sweed, Michigan QB Chad Henne, LSU RB Alley Broussard, North Carolina WR Joe Dailey (Nebraska's starting quarterback in 2004), Penn State RB Austin Scott, Virginia Tech LB Xavier Adibi and Georgia K Brandon Coutu. More nominees are welcome.
We also have a new Hall of Famer. Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm about to tell you is truly astounding. Would you believe that Miami's Glenn Sharpe -- the cornerback from the famous Miami-Ohio State Fiesta Bowl pass-interference call -- is still in college?! Sharpe, a true freshman during that 2002 season, received a sixth year of eligibility after missing most of the 2004 and '05 seasons due to separate ACL tears. Next year, this little game may need to be officially renamed the Glenn Sharpe Game.
Stewart, is Ralph Friedgen making a huge mistake in leaning towards Jordan Steffy as Maryland's starting quarterback over transfer Josh Portis? What I have seen of Steffy so far has been far from impressive, and Portis seems like a perfect fit for Fridge's offense (a la former Georgia Tech QB Joe Hamilton). What gives?
--Brandon, College Park, Md.
That's a good question. Back when Portis decided to transfer to Maryland from Florida (where, if he stayed, he'd now be competing with Tim Tebow), I assumed Friedgen would just hand him the starting job in '07 if for no other reason than to avoid the wrath of Portis' psycho mother. But without having seen Portis play beyond a few meaningless snaps at Florida, I'm not sure I'm equipped to answer the question. So I've called in a guest expert, Heather Dinich, the Baltimore Sun's all-knowing Terrpains beat writer, whose Blog is a must-read both for her expertise on the Terps and her highly amusing comebacks at some of the "haters" who post on her comments board.
Regarding Portis, Heather says: "Everybody WANTS to see Portis because of all the hype surrounding him, and his exciting promise of athletic ability, but he's only a 'perfect fit' for Friedgen's offense if he knows it. Ralph has nearly 200 different pass patterns that can be run from about 15 different formations. Until Ralph is convinced Portis has an understanding of everything, Portis is going to be behind Steffy -- who has had more time to learn the system and spent all of last season calling plays in from the sidelines. There might also be a wee bit of politics involved. (Gasp!) It certainly isn't as if Ralph can afford to have Steffy transfer. Bottom line? Neither one of them has proven anything yet."
By the way, I would have pegged Steffy -- who played a bit in 2004 -- as an eighth-year senior himself, but it turns out he's only a fourth-year junior.
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Thanks for your new Fifth Mailbag Commandment. Is anything worse than sports fans referring to their favorite team as "we" or "us?" It's maddening.
--Keary Floyd, Lawrenceville, Ga.
Your new fifth rule isn't going to fly. As someone who was raised a Gator, and currently goes to school there, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't claim to be part of the "Gator Nation" and refer to it as "we." Sports teams are representations of the school, and anyone who does or has gone to a certain school is fully allowed to say "we" when talking about their team.
--J.B., West Palm Beach, Fla.
This was the only one of the five commandments that elicited backlash, so I stopped and considered whether there may actually be scenarios in which it would be acceptable for someone not on a team to refer to it as "we." And the answer I came up with was ... not in a million years.
Don't get me wrong, one of the things that makes college sports so much more riveting than the pros (at least in my mind) is the legitimate sense of ownership fans feel when the team in question plays for their school. So I do understand where J.B. is coming from. However, there's still a significant difference between saying, "My Gators kicked Ohio State's butt" (I've got no problem with that), and, "We kicked Ohio State's butt." Umm ... no you didn't. You sat in the stands and watched the Gators kick Ohio State's butt.
Your criticism about Chan Gailey got me thinking. Do you think a head coach in the NFL has an advantage coaching at the college level over his counterparts? He usually has a poor history in the NFL or he'd still be there, so what makes the Pete Carroll's do so well and what's your prediction for Bill Callahan at Nebraska?
--Mike Burr, Chicago
This is turning out to be a Callahan-heavy Mailbag. But that's OK, because Mike brings up a topic I've formed some pretty staunch opinions about within the last year. Of all the head coaches who have made the transition from the NFL to college in recent years, the only one who's had any raging success is Carroll. And I've always found it interesting that many of the very things that worked against Carroll in the pros -- his rah-rah personality, his player-friendly approach and his aggressive schemes and play-calling -- have been his biggest sources of success in college. This tells me there's almost no correlation between success at the two levels, and that in fact NFL experience may actually work against guys in college. Why? Because in college, unlike the NFL, it doesn't pay to be conservative.
Think back to last year's bowl season. Florida won a national title running an offense in which the backup quarterback was the top running back. Boise State won a BCS bowl running trick plays no NFL coach would dare run in a million years. USC won the Rose Bowl by literally abandoning any notion of offensive balance. College football has become increasingly synonymous with unconventional strategy. But NFL-bred coaches like Gailey, Callahan, Dave Wannstedt and Karl Dorrell tend to be among the most conservative in the nation. (Remember last year's Cotton Bowl?) They may win some games that way, but you don't win championships in college by playing not to lose.
Stewart, I've read your column for a couple of years and have never been compelled to write in until you were looking for a new Mailbag Crush. I nominate Kate Mara, granddaughter of New York Giants owner/legend Wellington Mara. Not only is she football royalty, but she was in We are Marshall.
--Kevin D, Chicago
You don't even have to change channels for your 2007 celebrity crush. How about Sarah Chalke from Scrubs?
--Tripp, Atlanta
Both Kate and Sarah were mentioned frequently in the first round of e-mails, as were two Entourage ladies, Emannuele Chriqui (Sloan) and Carla Guigno (Amanda), The Office's Rashida Jones (Karen), Friday Night Lights' Minka Kelly (whom Jimmy Traina previously claimed), Heroes' Hayden Panettiere (c'mon guys, she's 17) and, a truly under-the-radar choice, Rachel Specter, the RGX body spray girl.
I recently watched an episode of E's The Girls Next Door (admit it, you watch it, too) that illuminated the process by which Hugh Hefner picks the Playmate of the Year. (This year's choice, incidentally, is a recent Oregon State grad who posed for her first cover in Beavers colors. I have a whole new respect for that school.) Basically, he uses the reader poll as input but at the end of the day, he ultimately makes the call. So that's how we're going to treat Celebrity Crush. All of the aforementioned ladies are fine nominees, but I can't say whether any of them are going to make my final cut.
How many times are you going to keep insisting that the relative strength of conferences is "cyclical" when you simply mean that it's mutable? If you can find a cycle in any of this, you should apply your talents to the stock market. For crying out loud, you're a professional writer.
--Kurt S., Chapel Hill, N.C.
Listen, smarty pants. I write about football for a living. Therefore, I don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about. But once upon a time I did buy stock in a rising computer-software company. It had a funny name I kind of liked -- Microsoft. A few years later, I got a call from my stock broker saying I wouldn't have to worry about money anymore. Which is nice. It gives me more time to worry about the important things.
Like whether the Pac-10 is better than the Big 12 or vice versa.
(P.S. Parts of the aforementioned story were exaggerated for dramatic purposes. Greatly.)
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43 Comments - Show Original Post Collapse comments
voice of reason said...
Ten emails, ten faxes and ten phone calls from one constituent to a single politician or party (or even 5 each for each of Oregon's two senators) is not the sign of a healthy and principled political movement; it is the sign of a movement given over to paranoia, desperation and bullying tactics. What is the point of multiple contacts with a politician other than to artificially inflate your own numbers? Would someone care to explain why that is necessary?
Make your call, register your opinion, and if you want, follow up with a fax OR an email to elaborate on points you didn't have time to make on the phone. But don't tie up everyone's phone lines and clog their email boxes just so you can feel powerful ... the only effect of that is to prevent OTHERS from registering their own views -- on this issue, or -- suprise! -- other issues! There are other issues, you know.
7:36 AM
eddie said...
Yup... I agree... one contact with an individual representative.
Otherwise, you might as well be a progressive.
7:46 AM
Anonymous said...
"There are other issues, you know."
Not in Daniel's version of reality. Iraq, the federal deficit, our woeful health care system, gas prices, global warming....these all pale in comparison to illegal immigration.
Slowly but surely, this "problem" will remedy itself. Fertility in Mexico has been reduced drastically during the past two decades. The remittance economy has raised the standard of living in that country as well. The push factors driving Mexican migration are on the decline, again, slowly, but surely.
I think it's time to get this bill passed and move on to more pressing issues.
10:11 AM
Anonymous said...
To voice of reason and eddie:
This is just grand, people who want the American people to lay down and let this amnesty abomination become law, giving advice on what to do and what not to do.
Everybody in politics knows that intensity matters!
How hard people will work matters in politics.
How active voters are about an issue matters.
How do politicians measure intensity?
It is measured by the number of contacts and the kinds of contacts.
So, the politicians do this "deal" in secret and want to vote on it four days after telling the American people about the "deal"; and the bill is 700 pages long and hasn't been printed yet. There are no committee hearings.
And voice of reason talks about "...paranoia, desperation and bullying tactics."
Get real.
I've tangled with voice of reason before and crushed his "reason".
I look forward to it again.
10:13 AM
Anonymous said...
To anon1011am:
This bill is a threat to the Republic.
The question is this:
Will the United States of America continue to be a constitutional democratic republic or be an oligarchy controlled by either Big business or the socialists with a patina or veneer of democratic trappings?
This is a Kansas-Nebraska bill moment. The bill was passed in 1854, it opened the western territories to slavery by "popular sovereignty". It divided the Democrates, destroyed the Whigs, and gave birth to the anti-slavery Republican Party and led directly to the Civil War in 1860.
This makes the abortion issue look like a walk in the park, the gay agenda a street fight, while this is a battle for the Republic in which our grandchildren will live.
Where have you been in the last 24 hours? There is a prairie fire of intensity on this issue because the American people know what is at stake.
10:43 AM
Anonymous said...
A Kansas-Nebraska moment? Intensity? Okay -- what will you guys all do if, sorry, when this thing is signed into law? How do you respond to being on the losing end of a "Kansas-Nebraska" moment?
10:59 AM
anon 1043am said...
To anon1059am:
You are counting your chickens before they hatch, as the old saying goes. Politicians respond to groundswelling revulsion that will cost them re-election.
Can I guarantee Americans will defeat this abomination? No, but you are over-confident, and many times over-confidence is heading for a fall.
My side has the intensity, your side doesn't, and is inherently divided between Socialists, big business and La Raza types.
Blueoregon the blog of the left: Check it out, no post on immigration. Why? They are already divided over immigration because even Blueoregon types know amnesty will lower wages and hurt blue collar workers.
Get to know it.
Money is not the measure of all things.
You might just learn that in this episode.
11:32 AM
The OTHER Ben Dover said...
Hee Hee Hee...
You paranoids are really sweating it. Looks like your Prez sold ya'll down the river - little racist reference for ya.
Poor Daniel. Now he won't get any rest.
See ya in the bread, or should I say "tortilla" line
2:57 PM
Anonymous said...
Check CNN.COM poll
With 105,000 votes, it asks what you think of the new immigration proposal...
64% Amnesty
36% Immigration Reform
Looks like Americans are getting screwed in the a**hole by bush.
3:56 PM
Anonymous said...
No reverberatory effect of the great war has caused American public opinion more solicitude than the failure of the "melting-pot." The discovery of diverse nationalistic feelings among our great alien population his come to most people as an intense shock. It has brought out the unpleasant inconsistencies of our traditional beliefs. We have had to watch hard-hearted old Brahmins virtuously indignant at the spectacle of the immigrant refusing to be melted, while they jeer at patriots like Mary Antin who write about our "forefathers." We have had to listen to publicists who express themselves as stunned by the evidence of vigorous traditionalistic and cultural movements in this country among Germans, Scandinavians, Bohemians and Poles, while in the same breath they insist that the alien shall be forcibly assimilated to that Anglo-Saxon tradition which they unquestionably label "American."
As the unpleasant truth has come upon us that assimilation in this country was proceeding on lines very different from those we had marked out for it, we found ourselves inclined to blame those who were thwarting our prophecies. The truth became culpable. We blamed the war, we blamed the Germans. And then we discovered with a moral shock that these movements had been making great headway even before the war even began. We found that the tendency, reprehensible and paradoxical as it might be, has been for the national clusters of immigrants, as they became more and more firmly established and more and more prosperous, to cultivate more and more assiduously the literatures and cultural traditions of their homelands. Assimilation, in other words, instead of washing out the memories of Europe, made them more and more intensely real. Just as these clusters became more and more objectively American, did they become more and more German or Scandinavian or Bohemian or Polish.
To face the fact that our aliens are already strong enough to take a share in the direction of their own destiny, and that the strong cultural movements represented by the foreign press, schools, and colonies are a challenge to our facile attempts, is not, however, to admit the failure of Americanization. It is not to fear the failure of democracy. It is rather to urge us to an investigation of what Americanism may rightly mean. It is to ask ourselves whether our ideal has been broad or narrow--whether perhaps the time has not come to assert a higher ideal than the "melting-pot" Surely we cannot be certain of our spiritual democracy when, claiming to melt the nations within us to a comprehension of our free and democratic institutions, we fly into panic at the first sign of their own will and tendency. We act as if we wanted Americanization to take place only on our own terms, and not by the consent of the governed. All our elaborate machinery of settlement and school and union, of social and political naturalization, however, will move with friction just in so far as it neglects to take into account this strong and virile insistence that America shall be what the immigrant will have a hand in making it, and not what a ruling class, descendant of those British stocks which were the first permanent immigrants, decide that America shall be made. This is the condition which confronts us, and which demands a clear and general readjustment of our attitude and our ideal.
Mary Antin is right when she looks upon our foreign-born as the people who missed the Mayflower and came over on the first boat they could find. But she forgets that when they did come it was not upon other Mayflowers, but upon a "Maiblume," a "Fleur de Mai," a "Fior di Maggio," a "Majblomst." These people were not mere arrivals from the same family, to be welcomed as understood and long-loved, but strangers to the neighborhood, with whom a long process of settling down had to take place. For they brought with them their national and racial characters, and each new national quota had to wear slowly away the contempt with which its mere alienness got itself greeted. Each had to make its way slowly from the lowest strata of unskilled labor up to a level where it satisfied the accredited norms of social success.
We are all foreign-born or the descendants of foreign-born, and if distinctions are to be made between us they should rightly be on some other ground than indigenousness. The early colonists came over with motives no less colonial than the later. They did not come to be assimilated in an American melting-pot. They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the smallest intention of "giving themselves without reservation" to the new country. They came to get freedom to live as they wanted. They came to escape from the stifling air and chaos of the old world; they came to make their fortune in a new land. They invented no new social framework. Rather they brought over bodily the old ways to which they had been accustomed. Tightly concentrated on a hostile frontier, they were conservative beyond belief. Their pioneer daring was reserved for the objective conquest of material resources. In their folkways, in their social and political institutions, they were, like every colonial people, slavishly imitative of the mother-country. So that, in spite of the "Revolution," our whole legal and political system remained more English than the English, petrified and unchanging, while in England law developed to meet the needs of the changing times.
It is just this English-American conservatism that has been our chief obstacle to social advance. We have needed the new peoples--the order of the German and Scandinavian, the turbulence of the Slav and Hun--to save us from our own stagnation. I do not mean that the illiterate Slav is now the equal of the New Englander of pure descent. He is raw material to be educated, not into a New Englander, but into a socialized American along such lines as those thirty nationalities are being educated in the amazing schools of Gary. I do not believe that this process is to be one of decades of evolution. The spectacle of Japan's sudden jump from mediaevalism to post-modernism should have destroyed that superstition. We are not dealing with individuals who are to "evolve." We are dealing with their children, who, with that education we are about to have, will start level with all of us. Let us cease to think of ideals like democracy as magical qualities inherent in certain peoples. Let us speak, not of inferior races, hut of inferior civilizations. We are all to educate and to be educated. These peoples in America are in a common enterprise. It is not what we are now that concerns us, but what this plastic next generation may become in the light of a new cosmopolitan ideal.
We are not dealing with static factors, but with fluid and dynamic generations. To contrast the older and the newer immigrants and see the one class as democratically motivated by love of liberty, and the other by mere money-getting, is not to illuminate the future. To think of earlier nationalities as culturally assimilated to America, while we picture the later as a sodden and resistive mass, makes only for bitterness and misunderstanding. There may be a difference between these earlier and these later stocks, but it lies neither in motive for coming nor in strength of cultural allegiance to the homeland. The truth is that no more tenacious cultural allegiance to the mother country has been shown by any alien nation than by the ruling class of Anglo-Saxon descendants in these American States. English snobberies, English religion, English literary styles, English literary reverences and canons, English ethics, English superiorities, have been the cultural food that we have drunk in from our mothers' breasts. The distinctively American spirit pioneer, as distinguished from the reminiscently English that appears in Whitman and Emerson and James, has had to exist on sufferance along side of this other cult, unconsciously belittled by our cultural makers of opinion. No country has perhaps had so great indigenous genius which had so little influence on the country's traditions and expressions. The unpopular and dreaded German-American of the present day is a beginning amateur in comparison with those foolish Anglophiles of Boston and New York and Philadelphia whose reversion to cultural type sees uncritically in England's cause the cause of Civilization, and, under the guise of ethical independence of thought, carries along European traditions which are no more American' than the German categories themselves.
It speaks well for German-American innocence of heart or else for its lack of imagination that it has not turned the hyphen stigma into a "Tu quoque!" If there were to be any hyphens scattered about, clearly they should he affixed to those English descendants who had had centuries of time to be made American where the German had had only half a century. Most significantly has the war brought out of them this alien virus, showing them still loving English things, owing allegiance to the English Kultur, moved by English shibboleths and prejudice. It is only because it has been the ruling class in this country that bestowed the epithets that we have not heard copiously and scornfully of "hyphenated English-Americans." But even our quarrels with England have had the bad temper, the extravagance, of family quarrels. The Englishman of to-day nags us and dislikes us in that personal, peculiarly intimate way in which he dislikes the Australian, or as we may dislike our younger brothers. He still thinks of us incorrigibly as "colonials." America---official, controlling, literary, political America--is still, as a writer recently expressed it, "culturally speaking, ,a self-governing dominion of the British Empire."
The non-English American can scarcely be blamed if he sometimes thinks of the Anglo-Saxon predominance in America as little more than a predominance of priority. The Anglo-Saxon was merely the first immigrant, the first to found a colony. He has never really ceased to be the descendant of immigrants, nor has he ever succeeded in transforming that colony into a real nation, with a tenacious, richly woven fabric of native culture. Colonials from the other nations have come and settled down beside him. They found no definite native culture which should startle them out of their colonialism, and consequently they looked back to their mother-country, as the earlier Anglo-Saxon immigrant was looking back to his. What has been offered thee newcomer has been the chance to learn English, to become a citizen, to salute the flag. And those elements of our ruling classes who are responsible for the public schools, the settlements, all the organizations for amelioration in the cities, have every reason to be proud of the care and labor which they have devoted to absorbing the immigrant. His opportunities the immigrant has taken to gladly, with almost a pathetic eagerness to make his way in the new land without friction or disturbance. The common language has made not only for the necessary communication, but for all the amenities of life.
If freedom means the right to do pretty much as one pleases, so long as one does not interfere with others, the immigrant has found freedom, and the ruling element has been singularly liberal in its treatment of the invading hordes. But if freedom means a democratic cooperation in determining the ideals and purposes and industrial and social institutions of a country, then the immigrant has not been free, and the Anglo-Saxon element is guilty of just what every dominant race is guilty of in every European country: the imposition of its own culture upon the minority peoples. The fact that this imposition has been so mild and, indeed, semi-conscious does not alter its quality. And the war has brought out just the degree to which that purpose of "Americanizing," that is, "Anglo-Saxonizing," the immigrant has failed.
For the Anglo-Saxon now in his bitterness to turn upon the other peoples, talk about their "arrogance," scold them for not being melted in a pot which never existed, is to betray the unconscious purpose which lay at the bottom of his heart. It betrays too the possession of a racial jealousy similar to that of which he is now accusing the so-called "hyphenates." Let the Anglo-Saxon be proud enough of the heroic toil and heroic sacrifices which moulded the nation. But let him ask himself, if he had had to depend on the English descendants, where he would have been living to-day. To those of us who see in the exploitation of unskilled labor the strident red leit-motif of our civilization, the settling of the country presents a great social drama as the waves of immigration broke over it.
Let the Anglo-Saxon ask himself where he would have been if these races had not come? Let those who feel the inferiority of the non-Anglo-Saxon immigrant contemplate that region of the States which has remained the most distinctively "American," the South. Let him ask himself whether he would really like to see the foreign hordes Americanized into such an Americanization. Let him ask himself how superior this native civilization is to the great "alien" states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, where Scandinavians, Poles, and Germans have self-consciously labored to preserve their traditional culture, while being outwardly and satisfactorily American. Let him ask himself how much more wisdom, intelligence, industry and social leadership has come out of these alien states than out of all the truly American ones. The South, in fact, while this vast Northern development has gone on, still remains an English colony, stagnant and complacent, having progressed scarcely beyond the early Victorian era. It is culturally sterile because it has had no advantage of cross-fertilization like the Northern states. What has happened in states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota is that strong foreign cultures have struck root in a new and fertile soil. America has meant liberation, and German and Scandinavian political ideas and social energies have expanded to a new potency. The process has not been at all the fancied "assimilation" of the Scandinavian or Teuton. Rather has it been a process of their assimilation of us--I speak as an Anglo-Saxon. The foreign cultures have not been melted down or run together, made into some homogeneous Americanism, but have remained distinct but cooperating to the greater glory and benefit, not only of themselves but of all the native "Americanism" around them.
What we emphatically do not want is that these distinctive qualities should be washed out into a tasteless, colorless fluid of uniformity. Already we have far too much of this insipidity, masses of people who are cultural half-breeds, neither assimilated Anglo-Saxons nor nationals of another culture. Each national colony in this country seems to retain in its foreign press, its vernacular literature, its schools, its intellectual and patriotic leaders, a central cultural nucleus. From this nucleus the colony extends out by imperceptible gradations to a fringe where national characteristics are all but lost. Our cities are filled with these half-breeds who retain their foreign names but have lost the foreign savor. This does not mean that they have actually been changed into New Englanders or Middle Westerners. It does not mean that they have been really Americanized. It means that, letting slip from them whatever native culture they had, they have substituted for it only the most rudimentary American --the American culture of the cheap newspaper, the "movies," the popular song, the ubiquitous automobile. The unthinking who survey this class call them assimilated, Americanized. The great American public school has done its work. .With these people our institutions are safe. We may thrill with dread at the aggressive hyphenate, but this tame flabbiness is accepted as Americanization. The same moulders of opinion whose ideal is to melt the different races into Anglo-Saxon gold hail this poor product as the satisfying result of their alchemy.
Yet a truer cultural sense would have told us that it is not the self-conscious cultural nuclei that sap at our American life, but these fringes. It is not the Jew who sticks proudly to the faith of his fathers and boasts of that venerable culture of his who is dangerous to America, but the Jew who has lost the Jewish fire and become a mere elementary grasping animal. It is not the Bohemian who supports the Bohemian schools in Chicago whose influence is sinister, but the Bohemian who has made money and has got into ward politics. Just so surely as we tend to disintegrate these nuclei of nationalistic culture do we tend to create hordes of men and women without a spiritual country, cultural outlaws, without taste, without standards but those of the mob. We sentence them to live on the most rudimentary planes of American life. The influences at the centre of the nuclei are centripetal. They make for the intelligence and the social values which mean an enhancement of life. And just because the foreign-born retains this expressiveness is he likely to be a better citizen of the American community. The influences at the fringe, however, are centrifugal, anarchical. They make for detached fragments of peoples. Those who came to find liberty achieve only license. They become the flotsam and jetsam of American life, the downward undertow of our civilization with its leering cheapness and falseness of taste and spiritual outlook, the absence of mind and sincere feeling which we see iii our slovenly towns, our vapid moving pictures, our popular novels, and in the vacuous faces of the crowds on the city street. This is the cultural wreckage of our time, and it is from the fringes of the Anglo-Saxon as well as the other stocks that it falls. America has as yet no impelling integrating force. It makes too easily for this detritus of cultures. In our loose, free country, no constraining national purpose, no tenacious folk-tradition and folk-style hold the people to a line.
The war has shown us that not in any magical formula will this purpose be found. No intense nationalism of the European plan can be ours. But do we not begin to see a new and more adventurous ideal? Do we not see how the national colonies in America, deriving power from the deep cultural heart of Europe and yet living here in mutual toleration, freed from the age-long tangles of races, creeds, and dynasties, may work out a federated ideal? America is transplanted Europe, but a Europe that has not been disintegrated and scattered in the transplanting as in some Dispersion. Its colonies live here inextricably mingled, yet not homogeneous. They merge but they do not fuse.
America is a unique sociological fabric, and it bespeaks poverty of imagination not to be thrilled at the incalculable potentialities of so novel a union of men. To seek no other goal than the weary old nationalism, belligerent, exclusive, inbreeding, the poison of which we are witnessing now in Europe, is to make patriotism a hollow sham, and to declare that, in spite of our boastings, America must ever be a follower and not a leader of nations.
II
If we come to find this point of view plausible, we shall have to give up the search for our native "American" culture. With the exception of the South and that New England which, like the Red Indian, seems to be passing into solemn oblivion, there is no distinctively American culture. It is apparently our lot rather to be a federation of cultures. This we have been for half a century, and the war has made it evermore evident that this is what we are destined to remain. This will not mean, however, that there are not expressions of indigenous genius that could not have sprung from any other soil. Music, poetry, philosophy, have been singularly fertile and new. Strangely enough, American genius has flared forth just in those directions which are least [understood] of the people. If the American note is bigness, action, the objective as contrasted with the reflective life, where is the epic expression of this spirit? Our drama and our fiction, the peculiar fields for the expression of action and objectivity, are somehow exactly the fields of the spirit which remain poor and mediocre. American materialism is in some way inhibited from getting into impressive artistic form its own energy with which it bursts. Nor is it any better in architecture, the least romantic and subjective of all the arts. We are inarticulate of the very values which we profess to idealize. But in the finer forms --music, verse, the essay, philosophy--the American genius puts forth work equal to any of its contemporaries. Just in so far as our American genius has expressed the pioneer spirit, the adventurous, forward-looking drive of a colonial empire, is it representative of that whole--America of the many races and peoples, and not of any partial or traditional enthusiasm. And only as that pioneer note is sounded can we really speak of the American culture. As long as we thought of Americanism in terms of the "melting pot," our American cultural tradition lay in the past. It was something to which the new Americans were to be moulded. In the light of our changing ideal of Americanism, we must perpetrate the paradox that our American cultural tradition lies in the future. It will be what we all together make out of this incomparable opportunity of attacking the future with a new key.
Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, it is certain to become something utterly different from the nationalisms of twentieth-century Europe. This wave of reactionary enthusiasm to play the orthodox nationalistic game which is passing over the country is scarcely vital enough to last. We cannot swagger and thrill to the same national self-feeling. We must give new edges to our pride. We must be content to avoid the unnumbered woes that national patriotism has brought in Europe, and that fiercely heightened pride and self-consciousness. Alluring as this is, we must allow our imaginations to transcend this scarcely veiled belligerency. We can be serenely too proud to fight if our pride embraces the creative forces of civilization which armed contest nullifies. We can be too proud to fight if our code of honor transcends that of the schoolboy on the playground surrounded by his jeering mates. Our honor must be positive and creative, and not the mere jealous and negative protectiveness against metaphysical violations of our technical rights. When the doctrine is put forth that in one American flows the mystic blood of all our country's sacred honor, freedom, and prosperity, so that an injury to him is to be the signal for turning our whole nation into that clan-feud of horror and reprisal which would be war, then we find ourselves back among the musty schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and not in any pragmatic and realistic America of the twentieth century.
We should hold our gaze to what America has done, not what mediaeval codes of dueling she has failed to observe. We have transplanted European modernity to our soil, without the spirit that inflames it and turns all its energy into mutual destruction. Out of these foreign peoples there has somehow been squeezed the poison. Ann America, "hyphenated" to bitterness is somehow non-explosive. For, even if we all hark back in sympathy to a European nation, even if the war has set every one vibrating to some emotional string twanged on the other side of the Atlantic, the effect has been one of almost dramatic harmlessness.
What we have really been witnessing, however unappreciatively, in this country has been a thrilling and bloodless battle of Kulturs. In that arena of friction which has been the most dramatic--between the hyphenated German-American and the hyphenated English-American--there have emerged rivalries of philosophies which show up deep traditional attitudes, points of view which accurately reflect the gigantic issues of the war. America has mirrored the spiritual issues. The vicarious struggle has been played out peacefully here in the mind. We have seen the stout resistiveness of the old moral interpretation of history on which Victorian England thrived and made itself great in its own esteem. The clean and immensely satisfying vision of the war as a contest between right and wrong; the enthusiastic support of the Allies as the incarnation of virtue on a rampage; the fierce envisaging of their selfish national purposes as the ideals of justice, freedom and democracy--all this has been thrown with intensest force against the German realistic interpretations in terms of the struggle for power and the virility of the integrated State. America has been the intellectual battleground of the nations.
The failure of the melting-pot, far from closing the great American democratic experiment, means that it has only just begun. Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, we see already that it will have color richer and more exciting than our ideal has hitherto encompassed. In a world which has dreamed of internationalism, we find that we have all unawares been building up the first international nation. The voices which have cried for a tight and jealous nationalism of the European pattern are failing. From that ideal, however valiantly and disinterestedly it has been set for us, time and tendency have moved us further and further away. What we have achieved has been rather a cosmopolitan federation of national colonies, of foreign cultures, from whom the sting of devastating competition has been removed. America is already the world-federation in miniature, the continent where for the first time in history has been achieved that miracle of hope, the peaceful living side by side, with character substantially preserved, of the most heterogeneous peoples under the sun. Nowhere else has such contiguity been anything but the breeder of misery. Here, notwithstanding our tragic failures of adjustment, the outlines are already too clear not t
III
o give us a new vision and a new-orientation of the American mind in the world.
It is for the American of the younger generation to accept this cosmopolitanism, and carry it along with self-conscious and fruitful purpose. In his colleges, he is already getting, with the study of modern history and politics, the modern literatures, economic geography, the privilege of a cosmopolitan outlook such as the people of no other nation of to-day in Europe can possibly secure. If he is still a colonial, he is no longer the colonial of one partial culture, but of many. He is a colonial of the world. Colonialism has grown into cosmopolitanism, and his motherland is no one nation, but all who have anything life enhancing to offer to the spirit. That vague sympathy which the France of ten years ago was feeling for the world--a sympathy which was drowned in the terrible reality of war--may be the modern American's, and that in a positive and aggressive sense. If the American is parochial, it is in sheer wantonness or cowardice. His provincialism is the measure of his fear of bogies or the defect of his imagination.
Indeed, it is not uncommon for the eager Anglo-Saxon who goes to a vivid American university to-day to find his true friends not among his own race but among the acclimatized German or Austrian, the acclimatized Jew, the acclimatized Scandinavian or Italian. In them he finds the cosmopolitan note. In these youths, foreign-born or the children of foreign-born parents, he is likely to find many of his old inbred morbid problems washed away. These friends are oblivious to the repressions of that tight little society in which he so provincially grew up. He has a pleasurable sense of liberation from the stale and familiar attitudes of those whose ingrowing culture has scarcely created anything vital for his America of to-day. He breathes a larger air. In his new enthusiasms for continental literature, for unplumbed Russian depths, for French clarity of thought, for Teuton philosophies of power, he feels himself citizen of a larger world. He may be absurdly superficial, his outward-reaching wonder may ignore all the stiller and homelier virtues of his Anglo-Saxon home, but he has at least found the clue to that international mind which will be essential to all men and women of good-will if they are ever to save this Western world of ours from suicide. His new friends have gone through a similar revolution. America has burned most of the baser metal also from them. Meeting now with this common American background, all of them may yet retain that distinctiveness of their native cultures and their national spiritual slants. They are more valuable and interesting to each other for being different, yet that difference could not be creative were it not for this new cosmopolitan outlook which America has given :- - them and which they all equally possess.
A college where such a spirit is possible even to the smallest degree, has within itself already the seeds of this international intellectual world of the future. It suggests that the contribution of America will be an intellectual internationalism which goes far beyond the mere exchange of scientific ideas and discoveries and the cold recording of facts. It will be an intellectual sympathy which is not satisfied until it has got at the heart of the different cultural expressions, and felt as they feel. It may have immense preferences, but it will make understanding and not indignation its end. Such a sympathy will unite and not divide. Against the thinly disguised panic which calls itself "patriotism" and the thinly disguised militarism which calls itself "preparedness" the cosmopolitan ideal is set. This does not mean that those who hold it are for a policy of drift. They, too, long passionately for an integrated and disciplined America. But they do not want one which is integrated only for domestic economic exploitation of the workers or for predatory economic imperialism among the weaker peoples. They do not want one that is integrated by coercion or militarism, or for the truculent assertion of a mediƦval code of honor and of doubtful rights. They believe that the most effective integration will be one which coordinates the diverse elements and turns them consciously toward working out together the place of America in the world-situation. They demand for integration a genuine integrity, a wholeness and soundness of enthusiasm and purpose which can only come when no national colony within our America feels that it is being discriminated against or that its cultural case is being prejudged. This strength of cooperation, this feeling that all who are here may have a hand in the destiny of America, will make for a finer spirit of integration than any narrow "Americanism" or forced chauvinism. In this effort we may have to accept some form of that dual citizenship which meets with so much articulate horror among us. Dual citizenship we may have to recognize as the rudimentary form of that international citizenship to which, if our words mean anything, we aspire. We have assumed unquestioningly that mere participation in the political life of the United States must cut the new citizen off from all sympathy with his old allegiance. Anything but a bodily transfer of devotion from one sovereignty to another has been viewed as a sort of moral treason against the Republic. We have insisted that the immigrant whom we welcomed escaping from the very exclusive nationalism of his European home shall forthwith adopt a nationalism just as exclusive, just as narrow, and even less legitimate because it is founded on no warm traditions of his own. Yet a nation like France is said to permit a formal and legal dual citizenship even at the present time. Though a citizen of hers may pretend to cast off his allegiance in favor of some other sovereignty, he is still subject to her laws when he returns. Once a citizen, always a citizen, no matter how many new-citizenships he may embrace. And such a dual citizenship seems to us sound and right. For it recognizes that, although the Frenchman may accept the formal institutional framework of his new country and indeed become intensely loyal to it, yet his Frenchness he will never lose. What makes up the fabric of his soul will always be of this Frenchness,-so that unless he becomes utterly degenerate he will always to some degree dwell still in his native environment.
Indeed, does not the cultivated American who goes to Europe practice a dual citizenship, which, if not formal, is no less real? The American who lives abroad may be the least expatriate of men. If he falls in love with French ways and French thinking and French democracy and seeks to saturate himself with the new spirit, he is guilty of at least a dual spiritual citizenship. He may be still American, yet he feels himself through sympathy also a Frenchman. And he finds that this expansion involves no shameful conflict within him, no surrender of his native attitude. He has rather for the first time caught a glimpse of the cosmopolitan spirit. And after wandering about through many races and civilizations he may return to America to find them all here living vividly and crudely, seeking the same adjustment that he made. He sees the new peoples here with a new vision. They are no longer masses of aliens, waiting to be "assimilated," waiting to be melted down into the indistinguishable dough of Anglo-Saxonism. They are rather threads of living and potent cultures, blindly striving to weave themselves into a novel international nation, the first the world has seen. In an Austria-Hungary or a Prussia the stronger of these cultures would be moving almost instinctively to subjugate the weaker. But in America those wills-to-power are turned in a different direction into learning how to live together.
Along with dual citizenship we shall have to accept, I think, that free and mobile passage of the immigrant between America and his native land again which now arouses so much prejudice among us. We shall have to accept the immigrant's return for the same reason that we consider justified our own flitting about the earth. To stigmatize the alien who works in America for a few years and returns to his own land, only perhaps to seek American fortune again, is to think in narrow nationalistic terms. It is to ignore the cosmopolitan significance of this migration. It is to ignore the fact that the returning immigrant is often a missionary to an inferior civilization.
This migratory habit has been especially common with the unskilled laborers who have been pouring into the United States in the last dozen years from every country in southeastern Europe. Many of them return to spend their earnings in their own country or to serve their country in war. But they return with an entirely new critical outlook, and a sense of the superiority of American organization to the primitive living around them. This continued passage to and fro has already raised the material standard of living in many regions of these backward countries. For these regions are thus endowed with exactly what they need, the capital for the exploitation of their natural resources, and the spirit of enterprise. America is thus educating these laggard peoples from the very bottom of society up, awakening vast masses to a new-born hope for the future. In the migratory Greek, therefore, we have not the parasitic alien, the doubtful American asset, but a symbol of that cosmopolitan interchange which is coming, in spite of all war and national exclusiveness.
Only America, by reason of the unique liberty of opportunity and traditional isolation for which she seems to stand, can lead in this cosmopolitan enterprise. Only the American--and in this category I include the migratory alien who has lived with us and caught the pioneer "spirit and a sense of new social vistas--has the chance to become that citizen of the world. America is coming to be, not a nationality but a transnationality, a weaving back and forth, with the other lands, of many threads of all sizes and colors. Any movement which attempts to thwart this weaving, or to dye the fabric any one color, or disentangle the threads of the strands, is false to this cosmopolitan vision. I do not mean that we shall necessarily glut ourselves with the raw product of humanity. It would he folly to absorb the nations faster than we could weave them. We have no duty either to admit or reject. It is purely a question of expediency. What concerns us is the fact that the strands are here. We must have a policy and an ideal for an actual situation. Our question is, What shall we do with our America? How are we likely to get the more creative America by confining our imaginations to the ideal of the melting-pot, or broadening them to some such cosmopolitan conception as I have been vaguely sketching?
The war has shown America to be unable, though isolated geographically and politically from a European world-situation, to remain aloof and irresponsible She is a wandering star in a sky dominated by two colossal constellations of states. Can she not work out some position of her own, some life of being in, yet not quite of, this seething and embroiled European world? This is her only hope and promise. A trans-nationality of all the nations, it is spiritually impossible for her to pass into the orbit of any one. It will be folly to hurry herself into a premature and sentimental nationalism, or to emulate Europe and play fast and loose with the forces that drag into war. No Americanization will fulfill this vision which does not recognize the uniqueness of this trans-nationalism of ours. The Anglo-Saxon attempt to fuse will only create enmity and distrust. The crusade against "hyphenates" will only inflame the partial patriotism of trans-nationals, and cause them to assert their European traditions in strident and unwholesome ways. But the attempt to weave a wholly novel international nation out of our chaotic America will liberate and harmonize the creative power of all these peoples and give them the new spiritual citizenship, as so many individuals have already been given, of a world.
Is it a wild hope that the undertow of opposition to metaphysics in international relations, opposition to militarism, is less a cowardly provincialism than a groping for this higher cosmopolitan ideal? One can understand the irritated restlessness with which our proud pro-British colonists contemplate a heroic conflict across the seas in which they have no part. It was inevitable that our necessary inaction should evolve in their minds into the bogey of national shame and dishonor. But let us be careful about accepting their sensitiveness as final arbiter. Let us look at our reluctance rather as the first crude beginnings of assertion on the part of certain strands in our nationality that they have a right to a voice in the construction of the American ideal. Let us face realistically the America we have around us. Let us work with the forces that are at work. Let us make something of this trans-national spirit instead of outlawing it. Already we are living this cosmopolitan America. What we need is everywhere a vivid consciousness of the new ideal. Deliberate headway must be made against the survivals of the melting-pot ideal for the promise of American life.
We cannot Americanize America worthily by sentimentalizing and moralizing history. When the best schools are expressly renouncing the questionable duty of teaching patriotism by means of history, it is not the time to force shibboleth upon the immigrant. This form of Americanization has been heard because it appealed to the vestiges of our old sentimentalized and moralized patriotism. This has so far held the field as the expression of the new American's new devotion. The inflections of other voices have been drowned. They must be heard. We must see if the lesson of the war has not been for hundreds of these later Americans a vivid realization of their transnationality, a new consciousness of what America meant to them as a citizenship in the world. It is the vague historic idealisms which have provided the fuel for the European flame. Our American ideal can make no progress until we do away with this romantic gilding of the past.
All our idealisms must be those of future social goals in which all can participate, the good life of personality lived in the environment of the Beloved Community. No mere doubtful triumphs of the past, which redound to the glory of only one of our trans-nationalities, can satisfy us. It must be a future America, on which all can unite, which pulls us irresistibly toward it, as we understand each other more warmly.
To make real this striving amid dangers and apathies is work for a younger intelligensia of America. Here is an enterprise of integration into which we can all pour ourselves, of a spiritual welding which should make us, if the final menace ever came, not weaker, but infinitely strong.
4:27 PM
Anonymous said...
There can be no question about the average American's Americanism or his desire to preserve this precious heritage at all costs. Nevertheless, some insidious foreign ideas have already wormed their way into his civilization without his realizing what was going on. Thus dawn finds the unsuspecting patriot garbed in pajamas, a garment of East Indian origin; and lying in a bed built on a pattern which originated in either Persia or Asia Minor. He is muffled to the ears in un-American materials: cotton, first domesticated in India; linen, domesticated in the Near East; wool from an animal native to Asia Minor; or silk whose uses were first discovered by the Chinese. All these substances have been transformed into cloth by methods invented in Southwestern Asia. If the weather is cold enough he may even be sleeping under an eiderdown quilt invented in Scandinavia.
On awakening he glances at the clock, a medieval European invention, uses one potent Latin word in abbreviated form, rises in haste, and goes to the bathroom. Here, if he stops to think about it, he must feel himself in the presence of a great American institution; he will have heard stories of both the quality and frequency of foreign plumbing and will know that in no other country does the average man perform his ablutions in the midst of such splendor. But the insidious foreign influence pursues him even here. Glass was invented by the ancient Egyptians, the use of glazed tiles for floors and walls in the Near East, porcelain in China, and the art of enameling on metal by Mediterranean artisans of the Bronze Age. Even his bathtub and toilet are but slightly modified copies of Roman originals. The only purely American contribution to tile ensemble is tile steam radiator, against which our patriot very briefly and unintentionally places his posterior.
In this bathroom the American washes with soap invented by the ancient Gauls. Next he cleans his teeth, a subversive European practice which did not invade America until the latter part of the eighteenth century. He then shaves, a masochistic rite first developed by the heathen priests of ancient Egypt and Sumer. The process is made less of a penance by the fact that his razor is of steel, an iron-carbon alloy discovered in either India or Turkestan. Lastly, he dries himself on a Turkish towel.
Returning to the bedroom, the unconscious victim of un-American practices removes his clothes from a chair, invented in the Near East, and proceeds to dress. He puts on close-fitting tailored garments whose form derives from the skin clothing of the ancient nomads of the Asiatic steppes and fastens them with buttons whose prototypes appeared in Europe at the Close of the Scone Age. This costume is appropriate enough for outdoor exercise in a cold climate, but is quite unsuited to American summers, steam-heated houses, and Pullmans. Nevertheless, foreign ideas and habits hold the unfortunate man in thrall even when common sense tells him that the authentically American costume of gee string and moccasins would be far more comfortable. He puts on his feet stiff coverings made from hide prepared by a process invented in ancient Egypt and cut to a pattern which can be traced back to ancient Greece, and makes sure that they ire properly polished, also a Greek idea. Lastly, he tics about his neck a strip of bright-colored cloth which is a vestigial survival of the shoulder shawls worn by seventeenth century Croats. He gives himself a final appraisal in the mirror, an old Mediterranean invention, and goes downstairs to breakfast.
Here a whole new series of foreign things confronts him. His food and drink are placed before him in pottery vessels, the proper name of which -- china -- is sufficient evidence of their origin. His fork is a medieval Italian invention and his spoon a copy of a Roman original. He will usually begin the meal with coffee, an Abyssinian plant first discovered by the Arabs. The American is quite likely to need it to dispel the morning-after effects of overindulgence in fermented drinks, invented in the Near East; or distilled ones, invented by the alchemists of medieval Europe. Whereas the Arabs took, their coffee straight, he will probably sweeten it with sugar, discovered in India; and dilute it with cream, both the domestication of cattle and the technique of milking having originated in Asia Minor.
If our patriot is old-fashioned enough to adhere to the so-called American breakfast, his coffee will be accompanied by an orange, domesticated in the Mediterranean region, a cantaloupe domesticated in Persia, or grapes domesticated in Asia Minor. He will follow this with a bowl of cereal made from grain domesticated in the Near East and prepared by methods also invented there. From this he will go on to waffles, a Scandinavian invention with plenty of butter, originally a Near Eastern cosmetic. As a side dish he may have the egg of a bird domesticated in Southeastern Asia or strips of the flesh of an animal domesticated in the same region, which has been salted and smoked by a process invented in Northern Europe.
Breakfast over, he places upon his head a molded piece of felt, invented by the nomads of
Eastern Asia, and, if it looks like rain, puts on outer shoes of rubber, discovered by the ancient Mexicans, and takes an umbrella, invented in India. He then sprints for his train–the train, not sprinting, being in English invention. At the station he pauses for a moment to buy a newspaper, paying for it with coins invented in ancient Lydia. Once on board he settles back to inhale the fumes of a cigarette invented in Mexico, or a cigar invented in Brazil. Meanwhile, he reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites by a process invented in Germany upon a material invented in China. As he scans the latest editorial pointing out the dire results to our institutions of accepting foreign ideas, he will not fail to thank a Hebrew God in an Indo-European language that he is a one hundred percent (decimal system invented by the Greeks) American (from Americus Vespucci, Italian geographer).
--Ralph Linton, "One Hundred Per-Cent American," from the American Mercury (1937)
4:28 PM
Anonymous said...
Benjamin Franklin on Immigration:
Europe is generally full settled with Husbandmen, Manufacturers, &c. and therefore cannot now much increase in People: America is chiefly occupied by Indians, who subsist mostly by Hunting. But as the Hunter, of all Men, requires the greatest Quantity of Land from whence to draw his Subsistence, (the Husbandman subsisting on much less, the Gardner on still less, and the Manufacturer requiring the least of all), The Europeans found America as fully settled as it well could bee by Hunters; yet these having large Tracks, were easily prevail'd on to part with Portions of Territory to the new Comers, who did not much interfere with the Natives in Hunting, and furnish'd them with many Things they wanted.
Land being thus plenty in America, and so cheap as that a labouring Man, that understands Husbandry, can in a short Time save Money enough to purchase a Piece of new Land sufficient for a Plantation, whereon he may subsist a Family; such are not afraid to marry; for if they even look far enough forward to consider how their Children when grown up are to be provided for, they see that more Land is to be had at Rates equally easy, all Circumstances considered.
Hence Marriages in America are more general, and more generally early, than in Europe. And if it is reckoned there, that there is but one Marriage per Annum among 100 Persons, perhaps we may here reckon two; and if in Europe they have but 4 Births to a Marriage (many of their Marriages being late) we may here reckon 8, of which if one half grow up, and our Marriages are made, reckoning one with another at 20 Years of Age, our People must at least be doubled every 20 Years.
But notwithstanding this Increase, so vast is the Territory of North-America, that it will require many Ages to settle it fully; and till it is fully settled, Labour will never be cheap here, where no Man continues long a Labourer for others, but gets a Plantation of his own, no Man continues long a Journeyman to a Trade but goes among those new Settlers, and set up for himself, &c. Hence Labour is no cheaper now, in Pennsylvania, than it was 30 Years ago, tho' so many Thousand labouring People have been imported.
The Danger therefore of these Colonies interfering with their Mother Country in Trades that depend on Labour, Manufactures, &c. is too remote to require the Attention of Great-Britain.
But in Proportion to the Increase of the Colonies, a vast Demand is growing for British Manufacturers, a glorious Market wholly in the Power of Britain, in which Foreigners cannot interfere, which will increase in a short Time even beyond her Power of supplying, tho' her whole Trade should be to her Colonies: Therefore Britain should not too much restrain Manufactures in her Colonies. A wise and good Mother will not do it. To distress, is to weaken, and weakening the Children, weakens the whole Family....
'Tis an ill-grounded Opinion that by the Labour of Slaves, America may possibly vie in Cheapness of Manufactures with Britain. The Labour of Slaves can never be so cheap here as the Labour of working Men is in Britain. Any one may compute it. Interest of Money in the Colonies from 6 to 10 per Cent. Slaves one with another cost L30 Sterling per Head. Reckon then the Interest of the first Purchase of a Slave, the Insurance or Risque on his life, his Clothing and Diet, Expences in his Sickness and Loss of Time, Loss by his Neglect of Business (Neglect is natural to the Man who is not to be benefitted by his own Care or Diligence), Expense of a Driver to keep him at Work, and his Pilfering from Time to Time, almost every Slave being by Nature a Thief, and compare the whole Amount with the Wages of a Manufacturer of Iron or Wool in England, you will see that Labour is much cheaper there than it can ever be by Negroes here. Why then will Americans purchase Slaves? Because Slaves may be kept as long as a Man pleases, or has Occasion for their Labour; while hired Men are continually leaving their Master (often in the midst of his Business) and setting up for themselves.
....There are suppos'd to be now upwards of One Million English Souls in North-America, (tho' 'tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over Sea) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather more, on Account of the Employment the Colonies afford to Manufacturers at Home. This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 Years, will in another Century be more than the People of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on this Side the Water. What an Accession of Power to the British Empire by Sea as well as Land! What Increase of Trade and Navigation! What Number of Ships and Seamen! We have been here but little more than 100 Years, and yet the Force of our Privateers in the late War, united, was greater, both in Men and Guns, than that of the whole British Navy in Queen Elizabeth's Time....
And since Detachments of English from Britain sent to America, will have their Places at Home so soon supply'd and increase so largely here; why should the Palatine Boors [Germans] be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.
4:30 PM
Anonymous said...
Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
4:33 PM
Anonymous said...
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Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
4:42 PM
Anonymous said...
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Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
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naiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjhklsadjsfioupcrtn8seuacxmipodfjksadklajsf;ncioudtngiojsdajocgm;ixojwraigjsidfjgmci jaicjiasdfjkgjajsvlcncncncncncntucnaigjfkldjhs;doifut;wcfnaiorjtksdajg;oiisrejgt;erijgidfklajjjxcgm;kjs;fgiweriojyocmiutg8uiqhredi;hag;oictjuieru;yidjxl;rkjtpaowierjhatl;kdhjoaheitjhsijhtsdkljhfsdhfjsdhjkhfasiohqphiotopjahfjklsak;fjksdajfsfjfjksdkjoa’ nocjeoirt’acior349uiaskeuj9jhoasjkejdlf;asjekxrjoieui05tj ;234iou5wasioesudrfoaWHEJKDRHOPWEUIHFOSA;wiudp99au3iekjotsikjs;9eua[;sjkdjaposiyeuiha;oiweu3ieusodjfgioasjdpoifjksjf;oaiusdifgoae[urtfiqerua[ofjasoidfguwoaservfigasejf
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naiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
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4:44 PM
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Polish Immigrant said...
Some of the anti-capitalist and anti-American rants by illegal-immigrant apologists here are very interesting.
4:59 PM
Anonymous said...
Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
‘Immigration in America,’ a forum about the national debate over immigration, was held downtown last night. Students Fermin Lopez and Lin Luohzen wrote the winning essays in a related competition.
By
The Forest Grove News-Times, Apr 25, 2007, Updated Apr 25, 2007 (58 Reader comments)
Chase Allgood / News-Times
Fermin Lopez
Is there such a thing as the American Dream?
Searching for a dream that has yet to come true at times seems foolish. In the eyes of a hard-working man, there is no such thing as a dream.
How do you expect to dream when your body’s too exhausted to dream? We don’t live for a dream, but a reality. Dreams don’t pay bills but hard work does. At least that’s how it’s sometimes seen through my father’s eyes. Sixteen years in this land of opportunity and yet he hasn’t witnessed a so-called “American Dream.” There’s not a day that goes by where he doesn’t worry about not having to pay the bills. Day after day of working is endless when you’re supporting a family of six.
Coming to the United States as an immigrant, you’re faced with many difficult decisions. You choose whether coming here will create a safe environment for your family to grow up in. Will I be able to make it here? Is this really a decision I can handle? Is America really what its all made up to be? Is it worth it? These are a flurry of questions you ask yourself while attempting to cross the border.
Crossing the border is just one of the many struggles we face in this country. From other peoples eyes it’s seen as our most difficult struggle. What about finding a home? Getting a job? Getting around? Do you really think these things are handed to us? Not to mention the fact that in every society you’ll find racism.
Growing up in Mexico was hard on my father. He dropped out of second grade because his parents couldn’t afford to keep him in school. Do you know how bad that makes him feel having dropped out of school because of poverty, something that wasn’t uncommon in the part of Mexico where he grew up? Quitting school and working wasn’t his choice.
He was seven years old, taking care of cows from six in the morning to eight at night. Then when he turned thirteen he began working in construction. Moving heavy bricks and mixing cement, doesn’t seem hard but moving the bricks by hand was hard. Scrapes all over his back, fingers bleeding, body aching, working his fingers to the bone. Working from six in the morning to eight. All for some measly 60 pesos a day. Sometimes there would be no work and all they would have to eat was tortillas with salt, or with pumpkin seeds. One shirt and one pair of jeans is what they had to live with. No underwear or socks.
When he made the decision to cross the border at 17, it took him three attempts to get here. He didn’t come here for a dream he came here for the reality, which was to make the money to support his family. It was harder than he imagined. There was a huge difference between working here and working in Mexico. Here he had to be at work at a certain time, and was kept on a tight leash. Having a man breathing over your shoulder, rushing you to work, cussing at you in a foreign language being fired at times for no reason and having no one to communicate with — where’s the dream in that? He had blisters upon blisters, bruises as dark as black paint. The abuse he faced was fierce. How can you dream when the pain of a hard days work puts you to sleep? The scars he has are proof of what he’s been through.
A dream to him is to win the lottery, and for the world to be at peace. That’s a dream. The success of his children is just something he’s grateful to see. Having my brothers and I leave our footsteps in history is something he would want to see. He just wants to show everyone that we are the same and have the same abilities.
There’s no sweeter joy than to see the success of an immigrant race making it in a foreign country, from being no one to being someone important. A dream he wants to see is equality, but to him there is no so-called “American Dream.”
The way I see things are: you have to pave your own path, climb your own ladder to be someone in life. My father and I believe you can’t build a foundation off a dream, but a willingness to strive and to be someone.
The “American Dream” to us means nothing.
— Fermin Lopez, a student at Forest Grove High School, lives in Cornelius.
There is nothing wrong with fighting for your dreams
Everyone has a dream. Some people want to have more money. Others are looking for education and a place to be accepted. However, some people live in places where it would be hard to survive let alone to reach their dream.
Every day we hear about places that are closed to immigrants who would like to enter, but because they don’t have the right documents, they can’t. Those documents cost money, too; so do their dreams. I strongly think every place in the world should be open for any immigrant that would like to enter.
I am a Chinese, born in southeastern China, and I’m proud of who I am. I came here to have a better education that will bring me a successful life. America was the country that I chose because this country could support me with a good education and lead me to my dream. Even though I came with the right papers, I would still hope America could be open for those people who want to enter. In my own opinion I think every human being is born to have the same and equal rights. That’s what the United States Constitution says. I believe people have the right to fight for their dreams, also the right to choose to their life.
Education, I think, is the first step to our dreams. The better education that you have, the better job you will get when you grow up. One of my biggest dreams is to become a famous lawyer. I know there are many steps that I have to go though to reach that dream. There is one quote I really like in China: “You have to fight for your life in order to get a better start. Money won’t come to you if you’re just sitting there. You are the one that who decides if you want to have a better life or not.”
I strongly believe it and that is the reason why I am trying my best in school everyday. I know in try hard, my dream will come true.
Some illegal immigrants might be refugees looking for a place to live. Their dream might be as simple as a safe place to live and food to eat. They also need a place that will support their dreams and accept them as a member to the country. Their hope is to come to a place that they could call home and not be hurt a second time. I think every country should give them a chance.
Still I think the biggest reason immigrants come is for the opportunity to make more money because money is the first step for most of the people to reach their dreams. To reach my dream education is my first step and I think that is also the first step for many other people, too. Going to a college takes money; too, so they need to earn the money it will take for their education. Then, they can get a better job.
Immigrants have helped the U.S to be one of the best countries in the world today. People have dreams and most of the dreams need money to get a good start. However, education is also an important goal, too. I hope every place should support the refugees because as a human being we should all receive the same and equal treatment.
— Lin ‘Lily’ Luozhen is an eighth-grader at Neil Armstrong Middle School in Forest Grove.
Reader comments
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Well, these "winning" essays leave much to be desired. Mostly distinguished by the extreme self-centeredness and arrogance of the authors. Let's take "Lily" first;
>
America doesn't excist to lead you to your "dreams" honey. We are a real country, with a real history, and a real people. Our ancestors paid in blood, sweat and tears for the infrastructure you so blithely brag about taking advantage of -- and which you also so generously want to offer to every Tom, Dick and Harry who thinks they have a "human right" to use our infrastructure ot achieve their "dreams." How would you feel if billions of people thought they were entitled to use YOUR country the same way? Fact is, for you to have your "dreams", many native-born Americans don't get to have THEIR dreams. The least you could do is say thank-you.
>
Quit whining about how your Dad has never found the "American Dream." As with "Lily", our nation doesn't exist to provide you with "dreams." Also, if our country means nothing to you then please go back to Mexico with your criminal lawbreaking dad.
"Mary"
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 07:26 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Yes, there's no sure thing about achieving your goals and dreams in this country! I struggled to support a family alone - took many a menial job just for health benefits - dead end jobs and I see my children losing their jobs to cheap labor.
My compassion and sympathies go to that American worker who was so angry at me for unknowingly hiring an American contractor who sent two groups of illegal aliens, one from Central America and one from Mexico to my home - I didn't want them there, I didn't agree to that, I didn't get a big savings. He was later fined 1.5 million dollars - oh yes! But the Contractor who didn't get the job was beside himself on why I hired the other Contractor and I wouldn't have hired him.
Reports on TV this week is that social security entitlements and medicare will bankrupt America. Hello??????????
"Fairlane"
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 09:56 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
It was the "American Dream" which gave this great country the standing it has in the world. If not for such a thing we would have never have risen to the highest level in the world community. I daresay the early immigrants who formed this country worked to better not only themselves but the country itself, they learned a common language and worked to integrate themselves. The current illegal immigrants send large amounts of money out of the USA, contribute with disproportionate amounts of crime (as if illegally entering a sovereign nation is not a crime itself), live here 10, 15, 20 years illegally and make no attempt to learn the native language, uncontrolled child birth, make no time to better the greater community, leech off of public resources for food, housing, etc.
The American dream is what separates us from all our neighbors, it is what many Americans have fought and died for. Other countries have let corruption, greed and indifference shape their countries and carry these same qualities here with them. The American dream is what you make of it, we do not owe any illegal immigrants one thing except swift prosecution and deportation. If the "immigrants" truly believe in this country as something other than a handout and a way to pave the way to third world living conditions I have not seen it. With the high rate of employment among these "immigrants" why do so many of them live in HUD housing or in squalor with 3-4 families in a house or apartment? Could it be they were criminals in their own countries? Real immigrants live with American society not under it. The American dream will fade when these minorities become the majority and open borders cause the once proud USA to become a footnote. The signs are all around us.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 11:38 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Is this the same "Immigration Dream" competition posted on the Cornelius Fred Meyer bulletin board? The one that caused me to wince, thinking - “here we go again” - another feel-good session for the Politically (in)Correct!
There's a tiny minority of extremely active ‘locals’ who’ve become the Enabler’s of bottom tier, or illegal immigration, as their livelihoods are often center around dispensing our social services to the constant influx of illegal and amnestied-illegal aliens.
This writing “Competition” was nothing more than a media tool to evoke pity for those who'll apparently stop at nothing to get what we have -- and it bothers me to see it given this attention by our local newspaper.
Current LEGAL US immigration allows over 300,000 new citizens a year into this country. That's larger than the city of Portland during most of my life! With a current estimate of 20 Million illegal alien immigrants within our borders - where's our sovereignty?
I've an 8th grade daughter too (born in Forest Grove), though she'll apparently have to speak a foreign language to find work. Tell me - what of her Dreams?!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 08:20 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Congratulations to the students who participated in the "Immigration in America" essay contest. I applaud their willingness to share their stories, and to wrestle with what it means to be a young immigrant in America today. It gives me hope to see their constructive contributions to the immigration debate, not an easy one to walk into. We are all richer for their presence and involvement.
"Bridget"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 12:31 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I was amazed and gratified at the level of reflection evidenced in the essays written by these two young people. How wonderful that young people can dream the same dreams that almost all of our ancestors dreamed when they began their struggles in this "land of dreams". I sincerely regret that some of us base our opinions on incorrect data, our own painful past or current experiences or unfounded fear. Dream on, whoever you are.
"Barbara"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 01:04 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
On Tuesday evening, April 24, I attended the event at the Forest Grove Community Center where the two students read the winnning essays. I was very impressed, not only with the essays and the students, but also with the history of immigration presented by Dr. Jim Moore with Pacific University. Perhaps individuals with hostile and hateful comments about immigrants would have developed an educated understanding of immmigration in this country if they had attended and participated in the event. The hostile comments remind me of the child who asks his mother "Mom, what's a label?" "It's something they put on a person so you can hate them without having to get to know them first."
"Louise"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow! I am amazed at the hostility and ignorance of some previous comments. They must have a great deal of fear to attack a 13 year old and 16 year old! I want to commend Lily and Fermin for their wonderful essays which give a brief look into the world of the immigrant; a chance to see what many choose to ignore. Many of the "facts" stated above would have been dispelled if Neal, Mark, Fairlane and Mary had chosen to participate in the Immigration Forum. Before blaming these courageous students or their parents one should take a deep look at US Foreign Policy.
"Gina"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:24 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
My dear,
You missed something about "YOUR REAL HISTORY"
Your ancestors did not pay with BLOOD for anything. They killed and stole this land that was belong to someone esle. Did not you know that part?
Let me change "Real People" defination for "Real Criminals"
"Linda"
""Linda""
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 03:12 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I worked hard to bring my wife here leagaly, I paid and spent a year and a half trying to get it all correct, but she is leagal. Why did the essays not also stake the fact out right that their parents broke the law as they are breaking our country. I have no problem what so ever for some one who is willing to come hear correctly and I for one understand how hard it is, but to come and trespass here and use our own benefits that we are trying to save for our own retirement such as social security just really makes me angry, and I just want to say GO HOME!!!!!!!
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 06:55 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
It's interesting to see that the complaints made about Irish immigrants in the late 19th century (contributing disproportionately to crime) and German immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century (not willing to learn English) have been recycled for use against our newest immigrant populations.
My great-grandmother spoke nothing but German. My grandmother spoke German to her mother, and English to her children. My father could only understand parts of what his mother said to his grandmother, and the only German I use is 'Gesundheit!'
Exodus 23:9 — ‘You shall not oppress a resident alien, you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.'
"Jenye"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 07:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
After reading the winning essays on immigration from two local high school students, I was impressed by the authors’ eloquence and organization of their papers. It takes writing skills to be able to express complex issues in a clear and organized manner, especially when you are doing it in your second language.
Immigration is a complex issue, often exploited by opportunistic politicians, that raises a lot of passion. While some people think that immigrants come here for a ‘free ride’, only to take advantage of the great benefits of our society (as if they only needed to stretch their arm to grab the ripe fruit from a tree), while other people think that they are being exploited by our avaricious employers.
I personally think that immigration does not happen at random. Immigrants go where they are needed or wanted. The same happens with migrant movements from within our borders (i.e. the neighbor from Texas or Alabama that moved to Oregon). One only needs to look around our community to see that recent immigrants are an integral part of our community, holding jobs in all sectors of the economy, from picking berries in the fields, changing shingles on the roofs, cooking in restaurants, taking care of the elderly to working in the high tech industry.
The recent immigrants that I have met are hard workers, often times holding more than one job. The reason for this, as I later found out, is that for some their pay is below the minimum wage, often times without benefits such as vacation time, sick leave or retirement. In fact, for many the Social Security and Medicare that is taken off their paycheck twice a month is money that they will never see again.
While we are a nation of immigrants, it seems hypocritical to me that now we have decided that new immigrants are not welcome. It saddens me to see that in the whole immigration debate we tend to forget that we are all humans in pursuit of happiness doing the best that we can to provide for ourselves and our children. Let us not forget our humanity.
""Gerardo""
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 08:56 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wake up and figure the cost of the programs to help at risk youth (i.e. hispanics) stay out of gangs, stay in school and stay out of jail. Then calculate the cost of your friends, neighbors, and businesses having to repair or paint the damage done by these "at risk" gang taggers, thieves, and drug dealers. Then figure out what the meetings in Forest Grove for spanish speakers cost to help them watch for the signs of gang activity with their "at risk" children. How about the cost of high school programs to hold dances, low rider events and mexican cooking classes? Is cheap labor worth the price? If they feel they are being oppressed by English speaking bosses maybe they would have more of a voice if they were here legally and businesses didn't hire cheap labor for a quick buck, oh and learning our language helps. It's not the poor illegal alien worker to blame, it's the companies that hire them with fake papers. Both political parties are to blame, one for the exploitation of the labor force for business and the other to garner votes for them and their social programs. It's not the kid's essays to blame, it's the apathy among people who sit and watch the American Dream disappear into the sunset all so business can turn a profit. When they don't make record profits they pick up their marbles and take their factories to Mexico, China, India or the like to ensure the CEO makes billions of dollars. Being a Native American Indian I could go on about many of the injustices done to the original inhabitants of North America but that and bible versus are irrelevant to this argument. Ask your government why they help fuel the sellout of the USA....
"John Q"
(Not verified)
Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 10:58 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I feel that a lot has been said about this subject but I have a few things to add. First off, most of the west coast used to belong to Mexico and Americans took it. Now "we" complain and say that they are on "our" land. Second, American companies exploit Mexicans living in their own country by placing factories there and paying workers very little, giving them poor working conditions, breaking international civil rights, and polluting their land to the point that many water sources are no longer usable for consumption. If US companies are destroying Mexican land, how can American citizens get mad at Mexican natives for crossing the border and leaving such conditions? Third, we seem to put every member of the Latino community into one group - "illegal Mexicans." I believe that this label destroys the opportunity of many members of the Latino community who are in the US legally to succeed. I also believe that we forget that many Latino youth are here legally. Some of their parents may have come here illegally but many of the youth are not illegal. They are Americans and have all the same rights as any other American. So when people complain about the programs out there that help at risk youth (not every at risk youth is Latino I'd like to add) and say tax payers are just pouring money into illegals, I believe it to be incorrect. If they were born on American soil, they are American citizens and have all the same rights as any other American. If an American youth turns to a life of crime, the state tries to get them back on the right track whether they are black, brown, white, or green.
Why must we look at every new group of immigrants as a burden? Why can't we see them as a new opportunity to learn? Every culture has so much to offer. We sure don't mind going to Mexican restaurants or drinking Corona. Why can't we embrace the rest of the culture starting with its people that have come to our country, who I'm sure would love to share their roots with us?
"Leah"
(Not verified)
Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Before reaching conclusions about America's immigrants, please review the following two links:
http://www.ocpp.org/2007/issue070410immigranttaxeseng.pdf, and,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901322.html.
These articles reinforce the positive contributions of our immigrants.
"Joe Rodriguez"
(Not verified)
Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 04:58 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
A few facts might help to make some sense out of some of the comments above.
- Immigrants, even those who are here legally, do not qualify for most public benefits until they have worked and paid taxes for 40 quarters. That's ten years.
- Even though they are not able to partake in many of the benefits of our government, immigrants pay taxes. Some work under the table--as do some citizens--but the vast majority are subject to withholding from their wages. Anyone who owns or rents property pays property taxes, either directly or indirectly.
- As anyone who has ever struggled through a high school Spanish, or French or German, Japanese, or Chinese class, should know, becoming fluent in another language isn't so easy, especially when working long hours at back-breaking work to support a family. But remember, the eloquent essays that started this string of responses were written by the children of immigrants, and written quite well, I might add, in our common tongue. It has always beens so in America's melting pot.
- Studies comparing the economies of cities like Los Angeles, which have seen great immigration with cities like Cleveland, which have not, show that the hard work, entrepreneurship and, yes, "dreams" immigrants bring to our country actually help to lift the economy, not hurt it.
Ignorance is no excuse for bigotry.
Michael
"D. Michael Dale"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 06:27 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Your links hardly shed any new light on the subject, like my rants they lack any documenting evidence to support there opinions.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 07:40 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
So much for the inscription on the Statue of Liberty which ends with the words, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." The inscription does not mention that paperwork must be in order.
How sad it is to read the hateful comments that stand in opposition to the welcome offered by Lady Liberty. What's next?---A large cloth hung over the inscription to block out these words?
"Sheila"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 04:53 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
How aggravating to read (yet again) the same sorry "talking points" of our Illegal Enablers. Such as: 'This land belonged to them before us'... No, it didn't; you're talking about Aztecs and Spanish Conquistadors, not our Native Americans. 'This is just how the Irish were treated'... The Irish checked in; if not up to specks, they were sent back. Those who stayed - stayed - and, they were legal. 'Send us your poor'... That was simply a “commemorative plaque,” it was never US Government policy. If anything, send us you educated - not those with on average a 3rd grade education and unable to make it in their home country. And (while you’re at it) send us your law abiding, not identity stealing border jumping criminals.
'They do pay taxes'... not directly, and not near enough to off-set their FULL cost to our society. 'They work hard'... cause they're desperate! Watch what they (or their children) do as they get more comfortable. 'They do the work Americans won't' ... you mean they’ll do the work for 3rd world wages, and a standard of living Americans refuse. How do you propose we live, like Europe, or Central America?
'They have a dream' ... so do we! 'English is hard' ... then stay where it isn’t. 'They were "Indians" and we stole their land' ..."Indians" stole, tortured and enslaved their own for eons; Europeans were simply more efficient - evolution? 'Cities were built on cheap labor' ... so was our South - they called it Slavery. 'American Companies exploit Mexicans' ... and their government allows it? Bring those factories home and exploit us! ...The Mexican Government's exploiting its people, and if these Central Americans are so righteous, why aren't they fighting for the rights our great-grandparents won for us instead of stealing ours?
That's more than enough… We're talking about Illegal Alien’s aren’t we? And who can help if they all appear as one (if mixed) race - though diversification would make no difference. And encouraging another Amnesty will again make it ten times worse. So, we either rollover and play dead, or we defend a line? Take your pick!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 05:57 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
The Statue of Liberty came from France, you figure that one out. I'm still trying to figure out how people can roll over and be assimilated into a foreign culture in their own country. Drive thru Cornelius and count how many billboards and storefronts are in spanish. Drive down to Woodburn and check out the old downtown tell me that won't be more towns like that. As far as learning the language immersion is the best way to learn. Working in Woodburn for two years allowed me to immerse myself in spanish to be able to communicate with the locals. Dump someone in the middle of a foreign country and they will learn quickly especially one that has no English available. It's a survival skill that no classroom setting can teach. It's corporate America who make money off of the illegals who choose not to interact with Americans for fear of deportation and cater to their language.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 06:07 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
After the may day activities in Portland today I think a lot of the points I put out earlier strengthen. Hispanics illegal and legal marching in a U.S. city with mexican flags, spanish signs and shouting "viva la raza" Look up Atzlan and La Raza in google and decide for yourself. This is not a part of my American Dream. The following link will explain all of this and more, I'd like someone to defend this well documented movement:
http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 11:25 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am overly impressed with the intelligence these two students portrayed in their reflections. The reality of your writing is something I will carry with me. I congratulate you both for your deep and meaningful portrayal of a contentious issue.
"gretchen"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
If it were not for immigrants our country would not exsist...my own hertiage is a mix of people who originated here in what now known as United States of America and others that came to America LEGALLY thru Ellis Island and began living their lives by adapting to the culture, language and laws of our country
What does it say to our citizens and law-abiding immigrants when we condone and give amnesty to people who have broken the law by their very presence? What do we say to others in our country who have broken our laws when we have one set of laws for them and another set for someone who refuses to abide by our laws from the very beginning of their life in the US
What kind of message does it sends to the kind of people we don’t want or need in this country?
Whether they are from Mexico, Viet Nam, Canada, Iraq or any other country, immigrants enntering illegally, SHOULD NOT have any of the rights of legal immigrants and our own citizens; including, in my opionion the natural citizenship of the children they give birth to while residing in the US illegally as well as allowing them to stay because they have maaried US citizens. We should also consider the employer who hires these people to work as any other citizen who breaks the law
I believe that this issue should be a question we pose as part of the upcoming Presidential election. The people in this country illegally DO have a consequence on our schools, socail structure and work environment. If you don't think this is true, ask the parents of the high school student who wa recently shot by a classmate that is 'undocumented' As well, I am uncomfortable exercising my First Amendment right to express my opionion freely--without fear of reprisal for my stand on this issue
"TL PALMER"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 02:42 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Why were we not going through these protesters and deporting all of the illegals? If I broke into a bank and stole your money would I have a chance to say "hey i broke in but it is only because you let me and I should get to keep the money and have you pay for anything else I need" They are ILLEGAL. Period end of statement send them home!!!!!!!!!! It makes it even harder for someone who does it correct. The INS says if you don't have a good job in your home coutry you can't come and visit, but hey if you are hear illegal then we should try to help you out. This is just another crime that are country is excepting because it is politcally correct.!!!!! Sorry I still say send them all home and lets fix our own country first. If you honestly believe that our schools are not being hurt by all of the language barriers and the free rides to college because of your color, then you are also a fool.
"DAVE"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 04:05 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am appalled by all of the mean-spirited and racist comments of immigrants that are not even illegal though, I believe that everyone seems to have very interesting points but my opinion is; Illegal Immigrants are an issue in this country and take jobs that really should be for people who are legal. I am not saying that every Mexican should be banished from here but in turn, that Immigrants should legally become citizens and work as legal citizens. I understand the want for happiness and/or the American dream but remember the words of Benjamin Franklin:
"The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it."
So I say, aim for the American dream and try, try, try and one day it could be a reality.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 05:20 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
WOW, I too am amazed at some of the greedy and harsh comments made by my fellow Americans. I am so sorry that America has instead of becoming the land that welcomes those who want freedom from oppression to the land that does a lot of oppressing.
I was proud of these student for the thought and honesty that went into these essays. You are Brave- very Brave and I aplaud you.
These students were doing nothing more than sharing their story from were they sit in life, not asking for a free ride, not cutting down America or Americans, not saying we owe them just simply saying "Why is everyone acting as if we are coming to steal something or get a free ride, NO they are here becuase thier family and lives depend on it, leaving family was not easy for them, life has not been easy- they are just wanting to live- What is so hard to understand about that? Isn't that what we all want.
If I were to have an American Dream it would be that Americans and all countries would learn to share, respect and love one another. A Quote I read just this night from Mother Teresa said, "There is a Famine in America. Not of food, but of love, of truth, of life." Let us all love one another and remember we are only caretakers, the owner is the Creator himself- and he graciously gave to all- no on excluded!
"Georgia"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 08:52 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Good lord! Where to begin? Like others, I congratulate the essay contest winners. The brilliance of our youth never ceases to amaze me. I work with youth and they teach me so much. As a Chicano, a dad, a Forest Grove resident and the son of migrant farm workers, these youth make me proud! Kudos to the FGN-T for re-printing their essays.
The racist (if not fascist) anti-immigrant rants on this blog aren't much of a surprise. But I couldn’t contain myself in responding to them to say: touchĆ©...assimilate...you are a hateful few (albeit w/ access to the internet). Your hate reflects a broken spirit, but your blame is misplaced.
Those who heroically struggle for survival by crossing borders despite the dangers - they are the dignified, the courageous, the ones with a spirit that is alive, sane, and contagious. They and their children are role models for all of us to emulate. Racist diatribes about "illegals," "the rule of law," "follow our laws," etc., etc., only reflects a vast ignorance of history, why laws exist, and a blind acceptance of national chauvinism.
Your hate should be directed toward capitalism -- the economic system that crosses borders freely and ruins economies the world over. So-called "free trade" policies, in collusion w/ corrupt governments (US govt. included) are responsible for forced migration. Like someone mentioned earlier, even within our own borders. Livelihoods, sovereignty, and self-determination are ruined here and abroad.
Why? Not for simple profit, but for private, undisclosed, in the hands of very few profit. The border that you naively want to strengthen to "keep them out" serves those few. It does nothing for our communities, neither here in the U.S. or in Mexico, Central America, China....etc... So don't convert your rage into anti-immigrant xenophobia (remember the Nazis) -- you'd be best fighting alongside immigrants to stop capitalism from ruining the planet!
"Eduardo Martinez Zapata"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 09:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Eduardo Martinez Zapata: You said it very well... Thank you for educating the ignorant in our community.
Estudiantes: Felicidades! Sigan Adelante!
"Narce Rodriguez"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 10:25 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wait a minute... isn't there a law in our country that says illegal immigration is a crime? Oh yeah.... I think I heard that once. But I guess it's okay as long as everyone is chasing a dream.
Wake up America. We're being overrun!
DW in CA
"Derik"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 09:31 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Eduardo.... Did you know our prisons are 30% full of illegal immigrants? If what you say is true: "they are the dignified, the courageous, the ones with a spirit that is alive, sane, and contagious. They and their children are role models for all of us to emulate." We're in BIG trouble. You're trying to say that every immigrant should be commended? Nice try, but we're not stupid.
"Derik"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 09:37 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Strange how "Racist," if racially linked the most prominent supporters of illegal "Immigrants" are? Here sits the most generous and racially diverse nation on earth -- being lectured to by one race, or failed culture. Looks like a masked invasion to me!
The only thing "Racial" about this invasion is from where it comes – one place. It's as if Mexico, if not all of Central America are “ethnically cleansing” themselves at our expense. Note the "Spanish sir names" around here... they’re the rulers and spokesmen of Central and (most of) South American, and they’re apparently looking to do the same up here.
No, it's not about race - but funny how that's the first slur tossed at anyone protesting this silent invasion. It may be about a failed culture, if the overwhelming of one by another - language included. But it's actually about LEGALITY - isn't it? Nobody's talking about shipping out legal American Citizens are they? And few doubt the good intentions or intelligence of some; though if so well intentioned - why aren't they in line with the other 300,000 legal-to-be immigrants of this years generous quota?
Here's how it's worked: Desperate Mexican's were allowed migratory work visas to pick crops cheaper than Americans (though my parents did!) could or would. Many stopped returning to Mexico, and out of desperation began working for anything - anywhere to support themselves. American "Businesses" loved that! ...near slave labor! These illegal’s quietly settled in, while quietly sending home money and the advice to Mexico - come on up!
They did, a low estimate of 3 million. What to do? Grant them Amnesty!! -- Reagan's gift to big business, and yet another knife in the heart of American organized labor. Each newly amnestied-illegal ‘legally’ hauled up on average 5 kin. Instead of dodging "Mexican" men at 'Hanks' in Cornelius, we then began dodging their pregnant mates, pushing a baby stroller with a child or two in tow. As this "legal" batch learned the ropes, the word went out - Come on up – we’ll hide you!!
...and they have; there's now an estimated 20 Million living illegally within the US ...but they ‘only want to become legal US Citizens’… right, and so do 98% of the rest of the world! And with another Amnesty... and each of those 20 million will bring up another 5. And if we continued to ignore our so-called ‘immigrations laws’ -- heck - we could empty all of Central America – maybe the world!
So think deep Neighbors; there are obviously polished promoters among us, and of course, 'their children.' And yes, speaking bluntly to this ugly issue isn’t pretty, it’s ugly …but again, what of our children?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 11:26 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I have no problem with "legal" immigrant's as I stated my wife is one. The whole point is not how hard they work or the dream they are trying for. The whole point is they break the law coming here and we have to pay for it. I have seen more hispanics buying homes that I can not even afford, and then when you talk with them they are getting wic for the kids food and welfare and special deals for college when those of us who grew up here can't get any of those things. My rants and feelings are not about just hispanics, i am talking about all ilegal's. The flat out fact is they are breaking the law and then demanding we should take care of them further by giving them amnesty. I for one would like to see this country going back to what it used to be, when we rooted for the American country and we had people who were proud to be an American. Now what do we get, we get groups of people who live here and root for there country but want us to give them a great new life.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 01:31 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Some of the reactions to Illegal Immigration are very understandable. The concern for the future of American Children vs illegal immigrants' children is real.
When you come to a foreign country you need to learn how to survive, not how to destroy its foundations. Learn the language, live according to the law, respect others, etc. All of these things are necessary to have balance.
But at the same time a deeper problem seems to come out of our hearts. It seems as if America is becoming the spoiled child of the world. America is prosper and rich, there is so much abundance and freedom. And yet it seems like it doesn't want to share with it's brother or sister that doesn't have a roof over their heads, or a job or bread to eat.
Why can we make arrangements so that there is not only enough for us but plenty so that we can share with the needy ones. Or is it that we just want to reach the "American Dream" for us and our children and let the rest of the world die? How could we live with ourselves then?
Is the American Dream the most important thing in the world? It just sounds so selfish.
Are all the criminals hispanics? So if there were not hispanics in America there wouldn't be crime?
Are you better or superior to the rest of America, Asia, India or Africa?
What's wrong with us, friends?
"Zellie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 02:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am speechless, overwhelmed by so much hostility toward the stories of these eloquent students and by the lack of compassion for immigrants. My ancestors came to the Northwest 150 years ago, yet I find myself wondering often about who previously owned the land they claimed in central Washington state. I can only imagine the sad stories there, even as my ancestors began a new, celebrated, "brave" prairie life.
We must all seek out the stories of others. Reading them from the pages of a newspaper is powerful, but I wonder what would happen if we came together in one room regularly to hear our stories. Would we still tell immigrants to "go home" if we heard their voices, saw their tears, and tried as hard as we could to imagine the struggles of their family members provide food for their starving little ones? We are all part of the human family--we must never forget that. To do so is to allow our souls to die. We face tough political issues, but we must also listen and work together to find answers.
"Monica"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 04:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I agree Monica, as humans we do have to work together. And as people we are all entitled to the same rights. So why is it that when (legal) immigrants from europe came to the U.S., what, 70 years ago? they were on boats, brought passed our lady Liberty welcomed into New York and entitled to fair jobs, food, shelter ect. when today (legal, yes, legal) immigrants are floating in from Central America and we say "Oh mexicans, how illegal of you. Go back to mexico." listen up
They aren't all illegal
Illegal Immigrants, because of immigration laws, do have to be back in mexico but (legal) immigrants do have rights as humans.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 06:11 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Is this a Christian youth newsletter? You could never prove it by the hurtful comments and responses that were posted in regards to these youny adult's essays.
"Catrina Hamilton"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 06:26 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Here’s a little follow up info on two enabling contributors above; quite proud of their work, and kind enough to give us their full names.
First is, “Eduardo MartĆnez Zapata,” the “Chicano national leader in the Freedom Socialist Party,” and apparently linked with: the “Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women Activities” in Oregon. …now what are their ties to the Grove?
And here’s some ‘recommendations’ by Mr. Zapata: “Abolish NAFTA, CAFTA, and all neoliberal free trade agreements! • No to the criminalization of immigrants! No to guest worker programs! Stop the raids by la Migra! • Amnesty now! Open the borders for workers! • End the war against Iraq! Fund union jobs and social services! • For a world free of want — for democratic socialism! -- Eduardo MartĆnez Zapata
Quite the agenda!
Followed by this quote: “Eduardo Martinez Zapata: You said it very well”... “Thank you for educating the ignorant in our community. Estudiantes: Felicidades! Sigan Adelante!”
Signed by: Narce Rodriguez.
That’s Narce Rodriguez, linked to and apparently promoting: The first annual Latino Awareness Week, "Semana de la Raza: Week of the People," will be held April 16 through 21 at the Portland Community College Rock Creek Campus, 17705 NW Springville Road. The week is based on education, advocacy and celebration of the rich Latino heritage of Washington County.
“Week of the people” … now what “People” do you think she means? And shouldn’t she have also described it as, “Educating the ignorant in our community”?
And a bit more on, "la Raza" -- the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html in fact “la Raza” means "the Race?" So who's talking "Race" here? And what “Rich Latino heritage is she talking about?
I purport these are not members of our community; but professional advocates and enablers of “their race,” and no one else’s. I also suspect several (if not most) of the other apologists posting here are also linked to them. Of course none will speak up...
Well, just to “come clean,” I’m a local member of “Oregonians For Immigration Reform” – and – but also a longtime local (our kids were born in FG). So that’s OFIR, based in our city to the south, McMinnville. Here’s their link: http://www.oregonir.org/new_page_21.htm Research away!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 02:22 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Do the critics even know these fellow humans whom they abhor? Have the experts, citing their research, ever had the courage to test their information? First hand experience trumps assumptions and one sided research. As an ESL teacher to adults for over 25 years I've had the priviledge of knowing 4,000 of these men and women. (20 students per class, 2 classes per term, 4 terms a year - you do the math). Their writings and speeches, allow me to introduce them to you. They are brave: soldiers who fought alongside my brother's peers in Vietnam; patriots with whom my uncle fought in Korea; refugees, thrown into circumstances beyond their control, facing oppression and poverty. They left the familiarity of home and the love of family and friends only out of desperation to feed their children. They are talented: an Olympic athelete from Africa, a musician from Borneo. To these talented essay writers, keep educating us. Illustrate to my blind neighbors the competent and gifted people you are. Just remember that after perservering, you'll reach adulthood and realize that the American dream is not found in getting everything you want; it is in having the freedom to choose how to move forward with your life. I applaude your work and am proud to have you as my neightbor. Debbie
"Debbie Olsen"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 07:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Get a life, the whole argument here is not about legal immigration but illegal. The whole ESL program should be dumped in favor of immersion anyway. California made one of the smartest decisions when it decided to do so, it shortens the time it takes to learn and saves money. It doesn't support the staff and infrastructure that drag to process out to years.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 08:52 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Mark is correct, we are talking about people who have broken our laws and then make demands that we are supposed to help them. My situation is about one thing and only one thing. That is they broke the law. send them back or put them in jail, why do these criminals expect us to sit back and say oh sure we will give you amnesty, we dont care enough about our own country so you can stay. I do care about my country, and I was willing to protect in the service. I did not fight to let a common criminal take a way my home and to break our laws.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 10:44 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
We are talking about the words of 2 teenagers, exploring what is means to be who they are - in the context of being THIRTEEN AND SIXTEEN. They are children, for heaven's sake. "Rational", "mature" adults are being turned inside out by the sentiments of 2 children. You need to get a life. My life is full and rewarding because I give out of the abundance of what I've been given and have attained for myself. By the way, ESL emersion only works before puberty, as every language teacher knows. ESL programs are useful to the adult community - whom I serve. We aren't talking about people depleting your resources or the certain robbery of your child's future, (your child who was born here in Forest Grove - who cares that your child is a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, generation Oregonian? wow that really legitimizes his or her worth!) I'm sick of these small minded, selfish, paranoid, cliques of people who think being a native anything makes them superior to anyone else. No one is a native anything. Even if you were born here, as pointed out before, your ancestors were not. It's character and contribution to the greater good that matter, not where you were born. Those of you upset by the words of these two teenage students need to grow up.
"Debbie Olsen"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 01:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow! I am saddened by the fact that this is a forum about the two essays on the immigration debate and now we are arguing about the accuracy of facts and other random blabber. I think we all agree that legal immigrants should stay and illegal immigrants should go. Also that there's an American dream no? Why don't we cool down so what we say can be put into consideration and not thrown out as a racial or mean spirited comment.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 04:29 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Our "ESL Teacher" has obviously had her arm so deep in the pot she's fallen in! As mentioned - the home-grown advocates of illegal immigration (and of course 'their children') are finically linked. They've a vested interest in promoting, if encouraging more of the same. Therefore, their arguments in favor of continuing this influx of illegal 'immigrants' (and their children, or anchor-babies) should be viewed in that light. A dark light!
The abilities of illegal aliens (and their children) are not the point; the point is they are here illegally - displacing those legally seeking US citizenship, and robbing the rights and resources of our current citizens. It's become all-too-easy to 'say' you disagree with their illegality - yet ignore their devastating consequences. And we're not talking about the multitude of new citizens, having done it right, or their personal contributions to this nation - we're talking about 20 million illegal aliens within our nations border at this moment -- and not simply the two 'winning' feel-good essays by a couple of local minorities (if children).
This "Essay Competition" (as mentioned) was simply another Public Relations stunt to show the children of minorities as capable of more than drug distribution, gang activity, crime, or job and identity theft. And the problem is - up till now - it's worked! It's worked just well enough to keep the majority of American’s eyes off the ball... But as we watch, for instance, Hillsboro turn into what local kids are calling "Hillsburrito," and the ghetto-like conditions of its core - Americans, Oregonians -- the residents of Forest Grove are wakening up and speaking up!
Anyone suggesting those following this issue "get a live" – wake up, we've got one - but it's fading fast! You may be secure in yours, but not all have locked themselves so comfortably into the system. Just as our kids no longer pick strawberries, they're also losing the opportunities of every other entry level job. As permanent jobs are consumed by amnestied or soon-to-be amnestied aliens -- where are our children -- and yes - I'm speaking of CHILDREN -- where are our children to work? Intel's building in China, construction workers are nearly all "Hispanic," nursery's hire nothing but... And to get a job - check out the help-wanted ads -- to get a job you must be "Bilingual." ...Bilingual in what? …not German, French, Irish, Chinese or Portuguese... but just what ‘you teach’ …now isn’t that Special?
As a forth generation Oregonian, with Native American blood, I resent "your" racist dismissive attitude about who - and who doesn’t belong here. Even the Native American’s fought for their land, their culture and their rights. To do less is not only Un-American, it goes against the principals of humanity and human history. This invasion has been relatively silent, but as illegal aliens demand ‘our rights’ across this nation - it's time you woke up, if not fight back. … but then maybe you've already chose sides..?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 05, 2007 at 12:28 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
A recent KATU viewer poll asked : "Do you support immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants?"
77% said no.
Copy and paste :
http://www.katu.com/home/poll/7272856.html?submit=Submit&oid=2&mr=1&t=a&cid=3031&pid=7272856
"Hello?"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 05, 2007 at 01:30 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I never wrote I was condoning the presence of illegal immigrants. I was responding to the meanspirited comments that were being expressed about immigrants in general. Mark and Neal, you made assumptions and jumped to erroneous conclusions. Did I ever write I support the presence of illegal aliens? I don't. They should follow the same protocol every other immigrant is required to follow to come here. There were nasty comments addressed to these student writers, legally here. These students were stereo typically being lumped into the category of illegals, and they are not. It was to those critics, I was writing. That you 2 got personal and hureld insults at me just reveals your inability to conduct yourselves humanly when you're in disagreement, and even more foolishly since I wasn't disagreeing with those against illegals.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 06, 2007 at 08:56 PM
All aboard the Fail-boat
Nothin' beats a good ole' fashioned arguement on the internet.
Group A's angry at group B. Group B's angry at group A.
Blahblahblah
The internet's become a feeble place where anyone with a 56k internet connection is able say whatever they choose thanks to our beloved 1st ammendment (despite many a moderators protest)
All of which could be noble debate, except for the fact that it's on the internet.
It doesn't matter what side you're on, you still look like a retard.
(No offense)
"anonymous"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 06, 2007 at 09:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Just look at how much logic it took to flush out a statement like, "I never wrote I was condoning the presence of illegal immigrants" ...but you’ll "condone" and promote their children – thus their existence? And "Debbie" - if your spirit is so righteous, why aren’t you in the Peace Corps doing your ESL work in Central America? ...I know… who wants to live in Central America when they can live in Forest Grove!
"Meanspirited" you claim; how about realistic, patriotic, or just plain sick & tired of watching my community drug down to failed culture? And what 'word' should we describe you, as you further your personal wealth at the expense of our community...? How about traitorous? As an entrenched Alien-enabler your allegiance is obviously not with your longtime neighbors.
‘Ditching’ your last name? You’ve likely become uncomfortable repeating your "bring-em-on" attitude among the community – though apparently more than happy to continue backing this PR Essay-go-round. And what was the point of this so-called Essay? ...I know -- more gibberish about ‘poor minority children’ and their "American Dream." But as you so fervently support the children of minorities, illegal or not – you refuse to acknowledge the detrimental effects of their ever-increasing numbers on our community. I suspect you also ignore their consumption of our resources at an unsustainable rate -- including your pay check and bennies.
Quite skewed, this debate’s become one between our overly-educated social service-providing alien-enablers; vs. the common citizen. As most cringe, trying to ignore this invasion of legal, semi-legal, soon-to-be legal and down-right illegals -- you and yours have been cashing in at our expense! You are as guilty in your complacency as anyone involved, and as you imply calling a 'spade a spade' "meanspirited," that's your prerogative. If I insist on calling your feel-good propaganda session a manipulative disservice to our community – that’s mine.
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 08:46 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I just hate reading this. Everyone seems to be blaming Illegal Immigration on each other. I'm not gonna rat on anyone and I don't care if anyone rats on me. No one wants people to hop the border illegally. No one wants their children's jobs taken by illegals. If anyone really wants to stop illegal immigration by himself or herself, and if anyone wants to interpret others as being against you, and if anyone wants no one to respect them, then go ahead and try while the rest of us try making things better. I don't understand how this forum is gonna help anything when we are tearing eachother apart limb by limb and only trying to get our points across. If anyone really cares so much about this stupid forum, why not just go and do something. Its terrible to watch good people slander other people because of hate, when they could actually be doing something useful with their lives. If all anyone wants to do for the rest of their days is sit and try to dry their tears by making others want to throw up and die, then god have mercy on you.
This forum is out of hand. We only have one world, got to remember that.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 11:27 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"I just hate reading this." Then stop. You've responded more, yet added less than anyone here.
"I'm not gonna rat on anyone and I don't care if anyone rats on me." And just what does that mean? You too are illegal?
You demean any efforts to correct this illegal mess, yet suggest we work to make things better? For the past 25 years I haven't seen anything done - ANYTHING - to seriously stop the flow of Illegals into this country, our state, or this community. And it’s obvious to anyone 'from' around here that things have changed, and are continuing to change for the worse. Maybe you're not from ‘around here,’ or you're part of that 'change,' or, you simply don't care? But don't discredit or demean the efforts of those who do.
"I don't understand how this forum is gonna help anything when we are tearing eachother apart limb by limb and only trying to get our points across." But it is helping; it's dissected a Public Relations stunt designed to lull us into further complacency over illegal immigration, and (with effort) has caused those most connected to respond at a deeper level. I've gotten a lot out of it, and if my frequency of posts lead you to believe I've got little else to do, let me assure you - it's quite the opposite. But this problem, and this forum are too close to home, and too detrimental to my community to ignore.
So, may I thank the News Times for allowing this discussion; and as far as there being only one world - isn't that all the more reason we protect all we can?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:04 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial response:
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this exchange of ideas, but Neal makes a point I'd like to echo. This is the biggest response we've received to any story since we began allowing reader comments a few months ago. I agree with Neal that this forum shows the need for this topic to be discussed further. I think it's great that the Friends of the Forest Grove Library hosted the evening discussion and solicited the student essays. (Neal, we can agree to disagree on whether it was a PR stunt.) And, I'm thrilled that our paper can host a place where people can exchange ideas. That's why in this week's print edition of the News-Times, we excerpted some of the comments here and encouraged our print readers to join the on-line discussion. We'll keep it going for another couple weeks, as long as people are interested.
John Schrag
Editor & Publisher
News-Times
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
In 1954, when it was legal to discriminate against blacks, the Supreme Court saw the bigotry and overturned the Constitution saying "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Movement began and it seemed like our own comfortable, familiar, worlds were changing. Now, your insulated little worlds are being threatened by change, and you've gotten yourself into a nervous 'tizzy'. As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream Speech, "you are in for a rude awakening if you think things will return to business as usual." With your degree of nervousness now, you'll probable have a nervous breakdown as things progress and laws are changed. Your breakdown will be a welcome relief for our community. We'll be free of you lashes (mocking a teacher? - in the nobelest of professions, doing decent work with law abiding people. Shame on you. Mocking Tolea? - she just wants unity and a peaceful, civil, debate. Shame on you.) We'll also be free of your hatred, snobbery, and bigotry. I can't wait.
"Gary"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow Gary seems to have a real handle on this agenda, glad to see more people drinking the kool-aid. I'm glad theres a few of us "lashes" at least our eyes our open. The global economy is killing our great nation anyway so we might as well open our arms and assimilate right? It appear by all these postings at the very least Forest Grove is becoming a hotbed of liberals who love to cater to lawbreakers. Can it be the great influx of illegals along with the immigration of the California disenfranchised? Who knows our once quiet burg will continue to grow with illegals as the quality of life deteriorates.
"Phineas Bogg"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Oh now we're back to Oregon's FAVORITE scapegoat of all - the Californians! Yes, blame the Californians for our influx of immigrants. We, the reasonable, humane, native, Oregonians aren't responsible. It's always the Californians. THEY'RE the real enemy. Can't you see how ridiculous that is? At least previous writers of anti-immigrants, oh excuse me, anti-illegal immigrants, (as if you really see a difference), based their objections on research and the LAW. You merely guess: Can it be? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe that? More generalizations, more speculations, more idiocy. If you are going to come forward with anti-illegal sentiments, at least base them on research findings and the LAW. Our students learn the law, including the Supreme Court ruling that "separate but equal" was seen for the injustice it was and declared UNconstitutional. We teach them about Martin Luther King Jr. and that you ARE in for a rude (if not uncomfortable) awakening if you really think things will return to business as usual. The legal immigrants are learning about the Civil Rights Act and will insist on equality in employment and housing. They are learning about the 24th Amendment - that they are free from unfair voting restrictions...and like the immigrants who came before them, they will stay. So, you're upset by the illegals? GOOD, join those for reform and do something constructive; GOOD, join law enforcement and enforce the law. But please, spare us your imagined, baseless, unfounded speculations.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:49 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am surprised at the reactions revealed in this forum. It tells me that there are a lot of people out there who think as I do. I don't think the responses are directed at the essays by the students as much as a response to what is happening in and to our communities and our way of life due to what is an "invasion" by one group of immigrants largely illegal. Neal and Mark are right on. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing. I for one am selecting the times I shop and go about the communities in western Washington County largely because I can no longer tolerate tripping over these people who are everywhere. I see them lined up at the free medical clinics, dragging bags of free food items home, using food stamps - all that I am paying for - all the while the majority of them allow their children to run rampant through stores, screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. We have little-Mexicos all over western Washington County. I won't even touch on the increase in certain types of crime. Why are the dregs of this group coming here? Because they would be in jail or worse otherwise. It used to be you would go into a fast food restaurant and see teenagers behind the counter. Now it is wall-to-wall Hispanic-speaking teenagers or otherwise Latinos. There seems to be too much focus and emphasis on assimilation on our part when the burden should be the other way around. If I moved to Germany, for example, I would be expected to and would learn German if I planned to live there. But here it is the other way around: We must learn Spanish, we must have Spanish-language skills to even apply for some jobs, we offer English-as-a-2nd-language classes for free but if we want to learn Spanish we must pay for it. The reactions I have been reading tell me that there is a much broader concern and it isn't something that will be easy to resolve - since it has been allowed to happen and now we are paying the price.
"Kate R"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Debbie,
I have to say that the more you actually say, the better you help our side. You go on and on about history and "that's the way it was". When in reality it is up to all of us the create the shape and create the history we will proud of. I don't want to see the history you are creating. If you keep this up then illegals will start getting even smarter and only vote in some one who will speak about the rights they deserve and we don't because we did not have to be a criminal to get here. It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we cant keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources. I hope you soon see the big picture that your kids may not be able to finish high school or even earlier because we just cant keep up with the demands of the criminals who will be running our country soon.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Okay, but what about the legal immigrants, who after years of studying our language and customs, now run their own businesses, and sincerely want to assimilate into our culture? They want their children to learn English because they really do feel that is the only way to assimilate and have a better life. They want to learn their civil rights so they can protect themselves and their children. I know this because I know them. Like Kate wrote, instead of this forum just being about the essays, it turned into a place for people to vent frustrations about the illegal immigrants being here and the changes to their communities because of it. I understand that frustration and sense of loss. I really do! Everytime I go to my original hometown, it looks nothing like the wonderful place it was while I was growing up. It felt safe and comfortable. Now it doesn't. I understand the sense of loss people are experiencing. I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that?
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
P.S. My students are legally here - they have student visas, are resident aliens, or are now citizens. They have to prove that to get into the program. They are not criminals. I'm not helping criminals. They have done what was required by law are the ones who have attained citizenship are proud of being Americans and want to contribute something good. They really do! I wish you could read their essays and hear them talk about wanting their new country to be free from destruction and the ugliness they left behind. I love my country and don't want to see it in the hands of anyone who would cause its ruin.. . and like you said, WE are the ones who create our history. How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"Gary," you're mixing Civil Rights with Citizen’s Rights; the bulk of whom we're talking about are not citizens. Martin Luther King was, and he made us proud. Again, linking this to race or ethnicity doesn’t work, or - maybe it does..? And shame on who?
Phineas... good points. I see a lateral stratification occurring among communities; those giving in and up to this invading culture -- and those who feel insulated from it. Obviously, Cornelius has given up, and Hillsboro’s fast giving in, though Beaverton and FG, (even Portland) haven't, yet. They're becoming educated enclaves, where property values and community expectations remain too high for these third-world refugees. This is how it's become in our border states; totally Hispanic run towns, with fortified and gated communities next door.
Debbie... still looking for a "scapegoat?" Actually, from all I've heard (including in-laws) we can blame the illegal immigrants for our Californians! They've given up 'defending' their neighborhoods, let alone their state - and are migrating to Oregon. "Can't you see how ridiculous that is?" --- Yes, I can! And Debbie, you're groping... if not losing it...
"Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing." --- Kate R., you're welcome; in fact, I suspect your views (if secretly held) reflect those of the majority -- of which I'm simply one. Thank you for sharing them.
"It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we can’t keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources." Thanks Dave, your words also reflect the reality of our concerns and fears. This is basically the replacing of one culture by another -- at the expense of the former. A two-tier society is emerging. But unlike the "China Towns,” where some inhabitance live their lives without assimilating, entire cities across the US are turning into Latino / Hispanic towns & cities – run by and for their culture - at our expense.
Debbie; again, what citizen of the Third-world doesn’t want to eventually become a US Citizen? Just as this feel-good essay ‘competition’ shown, there are always a few 'standouts.' Even within a prison population there are those who can impress us with their aptitude. But should we welcome the world for the few stellar individuals that may include? Here's a ‘novel idea’: why don't we allow a limited number of new citizens into our country every year, based on their proven abilities, talents and willingness to live within our laws? ... Whoops!
"I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that? "Debbie." --- Nothing's wrong with that, and for decades that's exactly how they've been treated by the vast majority of our communities. Problem is, after we rewarded the illegal (yes, there is such a thing as Illegal) batch of 86 with citizenship, the flow has increased. We originally legalized just under 3 million (not counting extended family), there are now as many (and isn't it scary to realize no one really knows how many illegal 'immigrants' there are inside our borders?) ...now there are as many as 20 million Illegals awaiting their reward. How do you tell them apart? You can't ask, that's "racial profiling," or offensive to the new found liberties of some... So you'd simply welcome, if not reward them all? Debbie, your job security is coming at too high a cost to your community – could this be your true fear?
More Debbie... what is a "resident alien"? Anything like an Anchor-baby? And just where did your students come from... thin air? And by 'helping them,' are you not basically helping their illegal parents educate their children at our expense? …Thus allowing those 'children' to directly compete with ours for all those Spanish speaking social service jobs … right down to flipping burgers?
So these 'students' are happy to be here... why not? But have you noticed the "destruction and the ugliness they left behind" is following them? Sure, and again, we're talking about a handful of exceptional students -- I know, I have a couple myself. But mine are being denied resources to pay for yours... and mine (if not most) got here legally, and first.
"How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!" Present tense..? What you are doing is enabling the next generation of Enablers, at the expense and exclusion of all others. You are providing a ‘dream environment’ to the newly legal, semi-legal, soon to be legal and downright illegal invaders of our nation. Sound ugly - it is! Sure, you look out upon some eager faces; I've had doors held open for me by their parents, but good intent does not excuse the illegal behavior it took for nearly every one of those 'students' to get here. This may sound ‘greedy,’ but if you can ditch the rose-tinted glasses it's not as pretty as you’d have us believe. And though the community you’ve fled ‘to’ is not yet as bad as the one you fled – it’s not only catching up with you - you’re helping usher it in! And frankly, you're the one around here pushing an agenda; the rest of us are simply reacting to it.
News Times, timely news isn't it? Thought I’d check in … thanks for keeping this alive. PS, what’s happened to the Freedom Socialist’s and Radical Women..? Staying too busy in P-town to mess with us I suspect..? Thanks -
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 13, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Neal,That was a fantastic reply, except for one thing. My wife is a resident alien but we worked and payed dearly for it to be done correct. I was not willing to bring her under false pretenses. At the same time right after she moved here a family friend from Brazil called and said he was in New York doing construction work at a very nice pay. It took him less than a month to enter here illegal and get a job that was paying very nicely. Both my wife and I were very upset. It was crazy it took a almost two years to get it done correctly and it took him less than a month by paying some guy in Mexico to help get him here. This is what I fear the most, as the word gets out that if you have been here before such and such date and time that you can stay and become a citizen. Duh does anyone know when they really came across? They will be filing in like crazy if that bill passes. I do not have a race issue, I have right vs wrong issue. I grew up knowing what was right from wrong but today know one can really know. Because We pay for the needs of illegals who claim that there child was born here so they should be able to stay and get food stamps because they are so poor. But wait I can here the bull crap in that, they have no money but they get food stamps and health care and housing right? Then when you talk to them they are sending all of their money home in some other country while being here getting along for free and draining our resources. Debbie how can you be a teacher and not be able to see the writing on the wall? You are simply telling them it is OK to steal and any number of other crimes, simply because you broke the law of our land by coming here illegaly. I do not have the perfect answer but I can tell you that I am looking for other countries to live in because this land is going downhill and it is people like you who are not only helping them bring it down but you think you are doing good to save these people. Do you not see the Americans who live here? We are a dieing breed thanks to you and the others who think like you. I do not want my children growing up where being right is the wrong thing to do.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 17, 2007 at 06:12 PM
5:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Friday, May 18, 2007
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 30 comments links to this post
5:44 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
In case anybody wonders, I wasn't the anonymous who posted all of those comments from FGNT.
5:53 PM
Anonymous said...
as far as there being only one world - isn't that all the more reason we protect all we can?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:04 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial response:
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this exchange of ideas, but Neal makes a point I'd like to echo. This is the biggest response we've received to any story since we began allowing reader comments a few months ago. I agree with Neal that this forum shows the need for this topic to be discussed further. I think it's great that the Friends of the Forest Grove Library hosted the evening discussion and solicited the student essays. (Neal, we can agree to disagree on whether it was a PR stunt.) And, I'm thrilled that our paper can host a place where people can exchange ideas. That's why in this week's print edition of the News-Times, we excerpted some of the comments here and encouraged our print readers to join the on-line discussion. We'll keep it going for another couple weeks, as long as people are interested.
John Schrag
Editor & Publisher
News-Times
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
In 1954, when it was legal to discriminate against blacks, the Supreme Court saw the bigotry and overturned the Constitution saying "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Movement began and it seemed like our own comfortable, familiar, worlds were changing. Now, your insulated little worlds are being threatened by change, and you've gotten yourself into a nervous 'tizzy'. As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream Speech, "you are in for a rude awakening if you think things will return to business as usual." With your degree of nervousness now, you'll probable have a nervous breakdown as things progress and laws are changed. Your breakdown will be a welcome relief for our community. We'll be free of you lashes (mocking a teacher? - in the nobelest of professions, doing decent work with law abiding people. Shame on you. Mocking Tolea? - she just wants unity and a peaceful, civil, debate. Shame on you.) We'll also be free of your hatred, snobbery, and bigotry. I can't wait.
"Gary"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow Gary seems to have a real handle on this agenda, glad to see more people drinking the kool-aid. I'm glad theres a few of us "lashes" at least our eyes our open. The global economy is killing our great nation anyway so we might as well open our arms and assimilate right? It appear by all these postings at the very least Forest Grove is becoming a hotbed of liberals who love to cater to lawbreakers. Can it be the great influx of illegals along with the immigration of the California disenfranchised? Who knows our once quiet burg will continue to grow with illegals as the quality of life deteriorates.
"Phineas Bogg"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Oh now we're back to Oregon's FAVORITE scapegoat of all - the Californians! Yes, blame the Californians for our influx of immigrants. We, the reasonable, humane, native, Oregonians aren't responsible. It's always the Californians. THEY'RE the real enemy. Can't you see how ridiculous that is? At least previous writers of anti-immigrants, oh excuse me, anti-illegal immigrants, (as if you really see a difference), based their objections on research and the LAW. You merely guess: Can it be? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe that? More generalizations, more speculations, more idiocy. If you are going to come forward with anti-illegal sentiments, at least base them on research findings and the LAW. Our students learn the law, including the Supreme Court ruling that "separate but equal" was seen for the injustice it was and declared UNconstitutional. We teach them about Martin Luther King Jr. and that you ARE in for a rude (if not uncomfortable) awakening if you really think things will return to business as usual. The legal immigrants are learning about the Civil Rights Act and will insist on equality in employment and housing. They are learning about the 24th Amendment - that they are free from unfair voting restrictions...and like the immigrants who came before them, they will stay. So, you're upset by the illegals? GOOD, join those for reform and do something constructive; GOOD, join law enforcement and enforce the law. But please, spare us your imagined, baseless, unfounded speculations.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:49 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am surprised at the reactions revealed in this forum. It tells me that there are a lot of people out there who think as I do. I don't think the responses are directed at the essays by the students as much as a response to what is happening in and to our communities and our way of life due to what is an "invasion" by one group of immigrants largely illegal. Neal and Mark are right on. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing. I for one am selecting the times I shop and go about the communities in western Washington County largely because I can no longer tolerate tripping over these people who are everywhere. I see them lined up at the free medical clinics, dragging bags of free food items home, using food stamps - all that I am paying for - all the while the majority of them allow their children to run rampant through stores, screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. We have little-Mexicos all over western Washington County. I won't even touch on the increase in certain types of crime. Why are the dregs of this group coming here? Because they would be in jail or worse otherwise. It used to be you would go into a fast food restaurant and see teenagers behind the counter. Now it is wall-to-wall Hispanic-speaking teenagers or otherwise Latinos. There seems to be too much focus and emphasis on assimilation on our part when the burden should be the other way around. If I moved to Germany, for example, I would be expected to and would learn German if I planned to live there. But here it is the other way around: We must learn Spanish, we must have Spanish-language skills to even apply for some jobs, we offer English-as-a-2nd-language classes for free but if we want to learn Spanish we must pay for it. The reactions I have been reading tell me that there is a much broader concern and it isn't something that will be easy to resolve - since it has been allowed to happen and now we are paying the price.
"Kate R"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Debbie,
I have to say that the more you actually say, the better you help our side. You go on and on about history and "that's the way it was". When in reality it is up to all of us the create the shape and create the history we will proud of. I don't want to see the history you are creating. If you keep this up then illegals will start getting even smarter and only vote in some one who will speak about the rights they deserve and we don't because we did not have to be a criminal to get here. It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we cant keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources. I hope you soon see the big picture that your kids may not be able to finish high school or even earlier because we just cant keep up with the demands of the criminals who will be running our country soon.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Okay, but what about the legal immigrants, who after years of studying our language and customs, now run their own businesses, and sincerely want to assimilate into our culture? They want their children to learn English because they really do feel that is the only way to assimilate and have a better life. They want to learn their civil rights so they can protect themselves and their children. I know this because I know them. Like Kate wrote, instead of this forum just being about the essays, it turned into a place for people to vent frustrations about the illegal immigrants being here and the changes to their communities because of it. I understand that frustration and sense of loss. I really do! Everytime I go to my original hometown, it looks nothing like the wonderful place it was while I was growing up. It felt safe and comfortable. Now it doesn't. I understand the sense of loss people are experiencing. I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that?
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
P.S. My students are legally here - they have student visas, are resident aliens, or are now citizens. They have to prove that to get into the program. They are not criminals. I'm not helping criminals. They have done what was required by law are the ones who have attained citizenship are proud of being Americans and want to contribute something good. They really do! I wish you could read their essays and hear them talk about wanting their new country to be free from destruction and the ugliness they left behind. I love my country and don't want to see it in the hands of anyone who would cause its ruin.. . and like you said, WE are the ones who create our history. How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"Gary," you're mixing Civil Rights with Citizen’s Rights; the bulk of whom we're talking about are not citizens. Martin Luther King was, and he made us proud. Again, linking this to race or ethnicity doesn’t work, or - maybe it does..? And shame on who?
Phineas... good points. I see a lateral stratification occurring among communities; those giving in and up to this invading culture -- and those who feel insulated from it. Obviously, Cornelius has given up, and Hillsboro’s fast giving in, though Beaverton and FG, (even Portland) haven't, yet. They're becoming educated enclaves, where property values and community expectations remain too high for these third-world refugees. This is how it's become in our border states; totally Hispanic run towns, with fortified and gated communities next door.
Debbie... still looking for a "scapegoat?" Actually, from all I've heard (including in-laws) we can blame the illegal immigrants for our Californians! They've given up 'defending' their neighborhoods, let alone their state - and are migrating to Oregon. "Can't you see how ridiculous that is?" --- Yes, I can! And Debbie, you're groping... if not losing it...
"Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing." --- Kate R., you're welcome; in fact, I suspect your views (if secretly held) reflect those of the majority -- of which I'm simply one. Thank you for sharing them.
"It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we can’t keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources." Thanks Dave, your words also reflect the reality of our concerns and fears. This is basically the replacing of one culture by another -- at the expense of the former. A two-tier society is emerging. But unlike the "China Towns,” where some inhabitance live their lives without assimilating, entire cities across the US are turning into Latino / Hispanic towns & cities – run by and for their culture - at our expense.
Debbie; again, what citizen of the Third-world doesn’t want to eventually become a US Citizen? Just as this feel-good essay ‘competition’ shown, there are always a few 'standouts.' Even within a prison population there are those who can impress us with their aptitude. But should we welcome the world for the few stellar individuals that may include? Here's a ‘novel idea’: why don't we allow a limited number of new citizens into our country every year, based on their proven abilities, talents and willingness to live within our laws? ... Whoops!
"I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that? "Debbie." --- Nothing's wrong with that, and for decades that's exactly how they've been treated by the vast majority of our communities. Problem is, after we rewarded the illegal (yes, there is such a thing as Illegal) batch of 86 with citizenship, the flow has increased. We originally legalized just under 3 million (not counting extended family), there are now as many (and isn't it scary to realize no one really knows how many illegal 'immigrants' there are inside our borders?) ...now there are as many as 20 million Illegals awaiting their reward. How do you tell them apart? You can't ask, that's "racial profiling," or offensive to the new found liberties of some... So you'd simply welcome, if not reward them all? Debbie, your job security is coming at too high a cost to your community – could this be your true fear?
More Debbie... what is a "resident alien"? Anything like an Anchor-baby? And just where did your students come from... thin air? And by 'helping them,' are you not basically helping their illegal parents educate their children at our expense? …Thus allowing those 'children' to directly compete with ours for all those Spanish speaking social service jobs … right down to flipping burgers?
So these 'students' are happy to be here... why not? But have you noticed the "destruction and the ugliness they left behind" is following them? Sure, and again, we're talking about a handful of exceptional students -- I know, I have a couple myself. But mine are being denied resources to pay for yours... and mine (if not most) got here legally, and first.
"How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!" Present tense..? What you are doing is enabling the next generation of Enablers, at the expense and exclusion of all others. You are providing a ‘dream environment’ to the newly legal, semi-legal, soon to be legal and downright illegal invaders of our nation. Sound ugly - it is! Sure, you look out upon some eager faces; I've had doors held open for me by their parents, but good intent does not excuse the illegal behavior it took for nearly every one of those 'students' to get here. This may sound ‘greedy,’ but if you can ditch the rose-tinted glasses it's not as pretty as you’d have us believe. And though the community you’ve fled ‘to’ is not yet as bad as the one you fled – it’s not only catching up with you - you’re helping usher it in! And frankly, you're the one around here pushing an agenda; the rest of us are simply reacting to it.
News Times, timely news isn't it? Thought I’d check in … thanks for keeping this alive. PS, what’s happened to the Freedom Socialist’s and Radical Women..? Staying too busy in P-town to mess with us I suspect..? Thanks -
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 13, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Neal,That was a fantastic reply, except for one thing. My wife is a resident alien but we worked and payed dearly for it to be done correct. I was not willing to bring her under false pretenses. At the same time right after she moved here a family friend from Brazil called and said he was in New York doing construction work at a very nice pay. It took him less than a month to enter here illegal and get a job that was paying very nicely. Both my wife and I were very upset. It was crazy it took a almost two years to get it done correctly and it took him less than a month by paying some guy in Mexico to help get him here. This is what I fear the most, as the word gets out that if you have been here before such and such date and time that you can stay and become a citizen. Duh does anyone know when they really came across? They will be filing in like crazy if that bill passes. I do not have a race issue, I have right vs wrong issue. I grew up knowing what was right from wrong but today know one can really know. Because We pay for the needs of illegals who claim that there child was born here so they should be able to stay and get food stamps because they are so poor. But wait I can here the bull crap in that, they have no money but they get food stamps and health care and housing right? Then when you talk to them they are sending all of their money home in some other country while being here getting along for free and draining our resources. Debbie how can you be a teacher and not be able to see the writing on the wall? You are simply telling them it is OK to steal and any number of other crimes, simply because you broke the law of our land by coming here illegaly. I do not have the perfect answer but I can tell you that I am looking for other countries to live in because this land is going downhill and it is people like you who are not only helping them bring it down but you think you are doing good to save these people. Do you not see the Americans who live here? We are a dieing breed thanks to you and the others who think like you. I do not want my children growing up where being right is the wrong thing to do.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 17, 2007 at 06:12 PM
5:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Friday, May 18, 2007
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 30 comments links to this post
5:44 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
In case anybody wonders, I wasn't the anonymous who posted all of those comments from FGNT.
5:53 PM
5:55 PM
Scottiebill said...
Daniel: Why are you allowing all these dissertations to go on? These various and sundry anonymous' have taken up all your blogging space with these seemingly endless ramblings. And then there is the anonymous with all that gabble that means nothingand the anonymous with a lot of blogs saying the same stupid thing.
It would seem that there could be some semblance of editing here.
And now these "anonymous" anonymous' will scream "First Amendment Rights". It makes one want to puke!!
6:23 PM
Charles U. Farley said...
Scottiebill, stick your finger down your throat. You'll feel better.
Daniel. How about some from refreshment from God's word.Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
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Leviticus, chapter 1
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.01
1: And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.
3: If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD.
4: And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
5: And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
6: And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.
7: And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire:
8: And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:
9: But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
10: And if his offering be of the flocks, namely, of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt sacrifice; he shall bring it a male without blemish.
11: And he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar.
12: And he shall cut it into his pieces, with his head and his fat: and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:
13: But he shall wash the inwards and the legs with water: and the priest shall bring it all, and burn it upon the altar: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
14: And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the LORD be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves, or of young pigeons.
15: And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar:
16: And he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes:
17: And he shall cleave it with the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder: and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
| Table of Contents for this work |
| All on-line databases | Etext Center Homepage |
Leviticus, chapter 2
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.02
1: And when any will offer a meat offering unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:
2: And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests: and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD:
3: And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
4: And if thou bring an oblation of a meat offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.
5: And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.
6: Thou shalt part it in pieces, and pour oil thereon: it is a meat offering.
7: And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in the fryingpan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.
8: And thou shalt bring the meat offering that is made of these things unto the LORD: and when it is presented unto the priest, he shall bring it unto the altar.
9: And the priest shall take from the meat offering a memorial thereof, and shall burn it upon the altar: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
10: And that which is left of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
11: No meat offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven: for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the LORD made by fire.
12: As for the oblation of the firstfruits, ye shall offer them unto the LORD: but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savour.
13: And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
14: And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the LORD, thou shalt offer for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears.
15: And thou shalt put oil upon it, and lay frankincense thereon: it is a meat offering.
16: And the priest shall burn the memorial of it, part of the beaten corn thereof, and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof: it is an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
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Leviticus, chapter 3
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.03
1: And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.
2: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons the priests shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.
3: And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
4: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
5: And Aaron's sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
6: And if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering unto the LORD be of the flock; male or female, he shall offer it without blemish.
7: If he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he offer it before the LORD.
8: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof round about upon the altar.
9: And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat thereof, and the whole rump, it shall he take off hard by the backbone; and the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
10: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
11: And the priest shall burn it upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire unto the LORD.
12: And if his offering be a goat, then he shall offer it before the LORD.
13: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of it, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about.
14: And he shall offer thereof his offering, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
15: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
16: And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD's.
17: It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.
Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
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Leviticus, chapter 4
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.04
1: And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them:
3: If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people; then let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto the LORD for a sin offering.
4: And he shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD; and shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head, and kill the bullock before the LORD.
5: And the priest that is anointed shall take of the bullock's blood, and bring it to the tabernacle of the congregation:
6: And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the LORD, before the vail of the sanctuary.
7: And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the LORD, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation: and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
8: And he shall take off from it all the fat of the bullock for the sin offering; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
9: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away,
10: As it was taken off from the bullock of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt offering.
11: And the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung,
12: Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt.
13: And if the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which should not be done, and are guilty;
14: When the sin, which they have sinned against it, is known, then the congregation shall offer a young bullock for the sin, and bring him before the tabernacle of the congregation.
15: And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the LORD: and the bullock shall be killed before the LORD.
16: And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bullock's blood to the tabernacle of the congregation:
17: And the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the LORD, even before the vail.
18: And he shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar which is before the LORD, that is in the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall pour out all the blood at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
19: And he shall take all his fat from him, and burn it upon the altar.
20: And he shall do with the bullock as he did with the bullock for a sin offering, so shall he do with this: and the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them.
21: And he shall carry forth the bullock without the camp, and burn him as he burned the first bullock: it is a sin offering for the congregation.
22: When a ruler hath sinned, and done somewhat through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD his God concerning things which should not be done, and is guilty;
23: Or if his sin, wherein he hath sinned, come to his knowledge; he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a male without blemish:
24: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the goat, and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering before the LORD: it is a sin offering.
25: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out his blood at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering.
26: And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him.
27: And if any one of the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and be guilty;
28: Or if his sin, which he hath sinned, come to his knowledge: then he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned.
29: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering.
30: And the priest shall take of the blood thereof with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar.
31: And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat is taken away from off the sacrifice of peace offerings; and the priest shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour unto the LORD; and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him.
32: And if he bring a lamb for a sin offering, he shall bring it a female without blemish.
33: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay it for a sin offering in the place where they kill the burnt offering
34: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar:
35: And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat of the lamb is taken away from the sacrifice of the peace offerings; and the priest shall burn them upon the altar, according to the offerings made by fire unto the LORD: and the priest shall make an atonement for his sin that he hath committed, and it shall be forgiven him.
That's only the first four chapters. I got bored and I have a life unlike you. I'll be back with more later.
Keep up the good fight.
You chickenshit skinhead.
6:33 PM
MacNichol, last of the Viking Kings of Skye said...
What the fuck kind of name is Miclav? Is that right? I don't care. It's SLAVIC fucks like you who've been screwing up this country from the beginning.
You know "Slav" comes from the Rus (the Vikings) term for slave? The zeroes whose country they traveled through on the way to Byzantium, where they'd sell all these cute slavic babes to rich A-rabs. Obviously an inferior race.
Anyway, I'm sick of your diluting the pure strain of Scotts-Irish blood our country was built on.
Most of my family got here in the 18th century. When did your folks crawl onto Ellis Island?
Go back where you came from.
6:44 PM
short and sweet said...
I have a prediction that I absolutely GUARANTEE will come true:
At the end of the day, Daniel and his nativist friends are going to lose this one. Why? Because they are so far, far-right wing, that there is absolutely no bill that could conceivably get through Congress and get Bush's signature that will make them happy. No matter what happens, they'll be pissed, and they'll scream about betrayals and traitors and vow revenge.
I guarantee it.
7:04 PM
R Huse said...
Obviously the pro illegal alien side has clearly proven at least one argument by their responses.
It is now quite apparent that the reasoning they use is as vacuous as the morality upon which it is based. Name calling, racism and now just endless empty Spam.
Quite neat, and also immeasurably pitiful. I, for one, thank them for their clear demonstrations. Iconoclasts through and through, idiotic, absurd.
7:24 PM
Kind Red Spirit said...
r. huse said it best. "Idiotic and absurd" Wow, that's deep. I don't know what's the problem with all these motherfuckas. Its like they all want the beners wreckin their lives yo.
Corse, could be all those vatos locos guys could come lokking for your cracker ass in which I dont know you bro. Know what im sayin?
But hey man. if theres a throw down and you got numbrs on your side man. You know good white folks Im down man
well bust some fuckin heads
power to the people
the GOOD people
8:53 PM
Rosetta Stone said...
Endless, empty spam R? I think not.
Daniel professes to have an "interest" in "Jesus" Does Jesus have an interest in him?
The Book of James, by one of our Lord and Savior's little brothers will offer the poor soul some solace.
"Count it all joy by bretheren..."
I'll let him finish.
1: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
2: My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
3: Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4: But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
5: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
6: But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
7: For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
8: A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
9: Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
10: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
11: For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
12: Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
13: Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
14: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15: Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
16: Do not err, my beloved brethren.
17: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
18: Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
19: Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
20: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
21: Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
22: But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
23: For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
24: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
25: But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
26: If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
27: Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
James, chapter 2
1: My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.
2: For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;
3: And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool:
4: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
5: Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?
6: But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?
7: Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?
8: If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:
9: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.
10: For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
11: For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
12: So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.
13: For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
14: What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
15: If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16: And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17: Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
18: Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19: Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20: But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
21: Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
22: Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
23: And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
24: Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
25: Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?
26: For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
James, chapter 3
1: My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
2: For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
3: Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body.
4: Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.
5: Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!
6: And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
7: For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
8: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
9: Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
10: Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
11: Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
12: Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
13: Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
14: But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
15: This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
16: For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
17: But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
18: And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
James, chapter 4
1: From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2: Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3: Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
4: Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
5: Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
6: But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
7: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8: Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9: Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10: Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
11: Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
12: There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
13: Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
14: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
15: For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
16: But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
17: Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
James, chapter 5
1: Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2: Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3: Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
4: Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
5: Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
6: Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.
7: Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
8: Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9: Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
10: Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11: Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
12: But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.
13: Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.
14: Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
15: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
16: Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
17: Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
18: And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
19: Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;
20: Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
Did you get that? He which CONVERTETH A SINNER from the error of his ways...
shall save a soul from death.
Empty spam? R. you do yourself, and the rest of humanity a grave disservice.
9:07 PM
Anonymous said...
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
9:58 PM
Anonymous said...
'He's a fair man'
Johnson says he will to accept Goodell punishment
Posted: Friday May 18, 2007 9:14PM; Updated: Friday May 18, 2007 9:14PM
Tank Johnson says his goal is to become NFL Man of the Year.
AP
LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) -- Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson said Friday he's ready to accept whatever punishment NFL commissioner Roger Goodell gives him for his recent off-field problems that included a two-month stint in jail.
"I feel like whatever sanction he imposes, I'm man enough to take it and I know that once I get back on the field, that chapter of my life is closed and I can move on with a sense of closure," Johnson said Friday after the first day of Bears minicamp.
It was Johnson's first public statements since being released from Cook County jail Sunday.
Johnson met with Goodell in New York on Wednesday and awaits a decision on a possible suspension for violating terms of his probation and a gun charge.
In April, Goodell suspended Tennessee Titans defensive back Adam "Pacman" Jones for the 2007 season, and Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry for eight games before introducing a strengthened personal conduct policy.
"Mr. Goodell has the league's interest to look out for," Johnson said. "Whatever sanction he imposes, I know that it's in the best interest of this league.
"I can't say what would be fair, what would be unfair. But I do know that meeting Mr. Goodell, he's a fair man. He gave me the opportunity to speak with him. He gave me the opportunity to convey some of the things that I want to get better at. I feel like whatever he imposes, meeting him and knowing he's a fair man, is in the best interest of the league."
During their 90-minute meeting in New York, Johnson said he told Goodell his goal is to go from jail to NFL Man of the Year.
"One day I want to be the face of the league for guys who have come through adversity, came through it and ultimately became the Man of the Year in the NFL," Johnson said. "That would be a tremendous ending to the story."
Johnson spent 60 days of a 120-day sentence in jail for violating his probation. He was released Sunday for good behavior.
In December, police raided Johnson's Gurnee home and found six unregistered firearms -- a violation of his probation on an earlier gun charge.
That charge stemmed from Johnson's 2005 arrest after a Chicago nightclub valet reported seeing Johnson with a handgun in his SUV. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
Two days after the raid in Gurnee, Willie B. Posey, the Johnson bodyguard who had been arrested after the raid, was shot and killed in an early morning fight while he and Johnson were at a Chicago nightclub.
Johnson was suspended by the Bears for one game for being at the club.
In March, Johnson began his jail term for violating his probation. Last month, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor weapons charge stemming from the December raid as part of a deal with prosecutors that kept him from serving more time in jail. He was ordered to serve 45 days, which he was able to serve concurrently with the sentence for violating his probation.
Johnson had numerous visits from Bears players, coaches and officials during his 60 days of incarceration.
"It was a tough time for me, but at the same time I learned a lot about myself," Johnson said. "I learned a lot about a lot of things. During that process, I got to know that I have tremendous support from all walks of life.
"The Bears showed me unconditional support. My friends and family showed me unconditional support."
Johnson credited coach Lovie Smith and general manager Jerry Angelo, in particular, with standing by him during his time in jail. Johnson did not participate in the team portion of practice Friday because he needs to be in better condition, Smith said.
Johnson did do some individual work early in practice.
Smith still regards Johnson as the Bears' starting nose tackle.
"As much as anything, Tank now has a starting spot," Smith said. "He's back with the group working out. He has a long way to go. As a football team we have a long way to go.
"But Tank will catch up. He's got a smile on his face. He's excited about being back around this team."
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
10:09 PM
interesting said...
Overflowing bag
After 800+ e-mails, I give you league rankings, more
Posted: Wednesday May 16, 2007 12:53PM; Updated: Wednesday May 16, 2007 3:10PM
Arkansas RB Darren McFadden is one of many explosive playmakers in a loaded SEC.
AP
RELATED
• REACT: Are Mandel's league rankings legit?
You love the Mailbag. You really love it.
You made that abundantly clear, dear readers, when you bombarded my in-box to the tune of more than 800 e-mails within 24 hours of publishing the season's first edition. Those are mid-November numbers, people. Give yourselves much-deserved props.
So what did I learn over the course of those 800 e-mails? I learned that most of you never stop thinking about college football, even in the dead of the offseason, and for that I am extremely appreciative -- because it justifies my continued employment. I learned that a great number of you are extremely invested in the choice of the next Celebrity Crush (more on that later), which is good, because I fully intend to milk the suspense.
But most of all, I learned you're all really, really obsessed with this strength-of-conference thing. I could have filled this entire Mailbag with questions about the Big East's legitimacy, the Big Ten's bowl record (2-1 against the SEC last year, as several hundred of you reminded me), the Pac-10's non-conference schedule, lack of respect for the Big 12 and more. Instead, I chose this one, all-encompassing, guaranteed-to-start-a-riot topic from Taylor of Lexington, Ky.:
Stewart, you always say that conference strength is cyclical and always seem to defend easily bash-able conferences (i.e. the Pac-10, ACC). So let's see your rank all 11 Division I-A conferences. Answer at your own risk!
OK, I'll do it, but under two conditions: 1) That we all agree to accept the premise of cyclical conference strength, which means these ratings are based solely on the upcoming season and are by no means permanent. And 2) That once I do this list, there will be no revisiting the topic until at least the start of the season. Let's face it, the only guarantee about this list is that 10 of 11 sets of fans are going to be outraged, and I'm not filling next week's Mailbag with all your angry responses to this one.
Here it goes ...
1) SEC: Simply put, this year's SEC could be the toughest conference in history. I'm not exaggerating. It's extremely rare for a league to not only boast so many quality teams at the top (LSU, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee) but also so little dead weight at the bottom. Really, it's just Mississippi State. You've got two former national championship coaches, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban, leading what may be only the seventh- or eighth-best teams in the league. Kentucky won eight games last year. And Vandy is no longer a gimme (just ask Georgia). It's a perfect storm for the SEC right now with so many accomplished coaches, so much elite talent and so many returning veterans all at once.
2) Pac-10: I've always felt one reason the Pac-10 doesn't get taken seriously by most of the country is that outside of USC, no one has been able to stay consistently good recently. At the same time, however, no one has been consistently bad, either. In other words, the league's image is a victim of its own balance. USC appears to be the cream of the crop again this year, but remember, the Trojans lost to two Pac-10 teams last year, UCLA and Oregon State, both of which return the vast majority of their starters. Cal is loaded on offense yet again. And I expect Oregon, Arizona State (which now has Dennis Erickson), Arizona and possibly Washington to all be factors as well.
3) Big Ten: Remember the 1990s and early 2000s? For the only time in its history, the Big Ten was actually fairly wide open, with everyone from Northwestern to Purdue to Illinois winning titles. Now, the league has gone back to being top-heavy. Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio State could all be top-10 teams, Penn State won't be far off, but then there's a pretty drastic drop-off. I do expect Iowa to do a bit of damage, but nearly half the teams the league (Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois and Indiana) are basically irrelevant.
4) Big East: Obviously, it's impossible for the Big East to go as deep as the other leagues because it has so few teams, and thus its ranking suffers. The top four teams -- Louisville, West Virginia, Rutgers and USF -- stack up with any league outside of the SEC. All four are legitimate preseason top-25 teams in my mind, and three of them could be BCS-caliber. The Cardinals and Mountaineers have already shown their offenses are as explosive as any in the country, but I have a hunch Rutgers might wind up winning the title because it has a defense to go with its potential All-America running back.
5) Big 12: Earlier this decade, I really thought the Big 12 was going to emerge as the best conference in the country. But due in large part to Dennis Franchione's thus-far disappointing tenure at Texas A&M, the South Division has remained largely a two-team show (though Texas Tech is a consistent second-tier bowl team), and the North has yet to fully recover from its all-out implosion a few years ago. Nebraska should be a top-20 team, but I'm not convinced the Huskers are ready to contend nationally yet, Missouri should again be good but not great and the jury's still out on the likes of Kansas State and Kansas.
6) ACC: The conference will be better than it was last year due to several high-profile coaching changes and more experienced teams, but it is still probably a year away from becoming a true force nationally. Virginia Tech should be a top-10 team, but after that it's anyone's best guess who will emerge as legitimate top-20 teams and who will remain mired in mediocrity out of a pack that includes Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College, Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech and Maryland.
7) Mountain West: Utah, TCU and BYU have each produced nationally competitive teams over the past three seasons and all will likely be strong again this season. New Mexico is always in the postseason mix. Things are a little hazy after that, though I'm interested to see whether Colorado State can bounce back from an awful year and how much improvement San Diego State shows in Chuck Long's second year.
8) WAC: Despite losing several teams to Conference USA a few years ago, this league has actually gotten stronger. We all know about Boise State, but the emergence of Nevada, San Jose State and Hawaii has boosted the conference considerably. If anyone can dethrone the Broncos this year, it's Colt Brennan and the Warriors. And I think last year's 4-8 debacle will prove an aberration for Fresno State.
9) Conference USA: This league has become hard to watch since losing Louisville, Cincinnati and USF. I expect there will once again be several decent teams (Tulsa, Southern Miss, East Carolina, UCF) but none that approach top-25 status.
10) MAC: Where have you gone, Ben Roethlisberger? Or Byron Leftwich? Or even Bruce Gradkowski? It's been a few years now since the MAC produced any giant-killers, and I don't expect that to change this year. Even with the addition of Temple (as hard as that may be to believe).
11) Sun Belt: How the members of this conference continue to remain at the I-A level is one of the great mysteries of our time.
So there you have it, folks. Now comes the hard part. You can either fire off that nasty e-mail inquiring about the size of my brain ... or you can ask a question that might actually get published next week.
Oh, the agony.
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The reputation of Iowa's Kirk Ferentz as being a top-notch coach has taken a hit after a pair of disappointing seasons.
AP
Is Kirk Ferentz overrated as a coach? He had talented teams in both 2005 and 2006 and they only went 13-12 over those two years, yet everyone still says Kirk is up there with Pete Carroll, Bob Stoops and Urban Meyer. I find that hard to believe.
--Russ, Dyersville, Iowa
A straight up comparison of Ferentz to the coaches you mentioned would not exactly be fair considering he's not working with anywhere near the same level of talent. That said, he definitely dropped several rungs on my ladder the past two seasons. One of the major reasons Ferentz earned his reputation in the first place was that he was able to take largely blue-collar, physically overmatched teams and beat teams like Ohio State and Michigan and pull off 11-2, 10-3 and 10-2 seasons from 2002-04. The other major trait of those teams is that they got notably better as the season went along, another indicator of good coaching.
But that second part simply did not happen last year. That 6-7 team was a major disappointment considering it had a proven, senior quarterback in Drew Tate and was by all accounts a more talented bunch overall than those earlier teams, whose players were primarily recruited when the program was in the tank. So the question becomes, was Ferentz overrated to begin with or did his earlier teams simply overachieve? I tend to think last year was one of those inevitable blips that every coach endures from time to time when a team, for whatever reason, simply fails to gel. It's also unrealistic to think any coach is ever going to win 10 games every year at Iowa. But it's also not as if Ferentz has such a long track record that he be afforded a free pass. (Especially now that he's being paid like a Stoops or Meyer.) It will be interesting to see how much improvement, if any, this year's Hawkeyes show.
The last couple of seasons, we have seen an influx in big non-conference games to start the season. Which game are you most eager to see. For me, it's Virginia Tech at LSU on Sept. 8!
--Joshua, Richmond, Va.
That's going to be a good one, all right. I don't know who's going to win, but I bet the final score will be something like 10-9. I also think it's going to be an extremely important moment for the Virginia Tech community in its ongoing healing process. Assuming that's the "game of the week" nationally (Notre Dame-Penn State will get plenty of attention as well, but those teams aren't going to be ranked in the Top 10), I can only imagine how uplifting it will be for Hokies fans to see their school return to the national spotlight for something besides the recent tragedy.
The non-conference game I'm looking forward to most, however, is USC at Nebraska the following weekend. The Trojans are the expected preseason No. 1 team, but they're not without questions, particularly on offense. This will be just their second game of the season, and the first one is against Idaho, so this will truly be the first chance to gauge the 2007 Trojans. I also think this game will serve as a referendum on Bill Callahan's mostly stormy tenure in Lincoln. I thought Huskers fans got a little bit ahead of themselves last year in thinking their team would give USC any sort of scare in L.A. in what was then the start of Callahan's third season. At this point, however, it's year four, he's got his recruits and he's finally got a stud quarterback in Sam Keller. It's reasonable to expect that Nebraska -- one of the most storied programs of all-time -- should not roll over for anyone, even the No. 1 team in the country.
Stewart: It's time to play the annual eighth-year seniors game! I'll start it off ... really, a no-brainer: Notre Dame's Tom Zbikowski.
--Dave, Chelsea, Mich.
Ah yes, it's an annual Mailbag tradition. And Zbikowski is a perfect candidate for two reasons: 1) His recruitment as a high school senior in 2002-03 was so heavily chronicled that his name has been with us a whole extra year; and 2) I think most of us were under the assumption that last year would be his final season (he was in Brady Quinn's class but didn't play his first season). It was primarily because his stock plummeted so much that he came back for a fifth year.
Here are my nominees for other eighth-year seniors: Texas WR Limas Sweed, Michigan QB Chad Henne, LSU RB Alley Broussard, North Carolina WR Joe Dailey (Nebraska's starting quarterback in 2004), Penn State RB Austin Scott, Virginia Tech LB Xavier Adibi and Georgia K Brandon Coutu. More nominees are welcome.
We also have a new Hall of Famer. Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm about to tell you is truly astounding. Would you believe that Miami's Glenn Sharpe -- the cornerback from the famous Miami-Ohio State Fiesta Bowl pass-interference call -- is still in college?! Sharpe, a true freshman during that 2002 season, received a sixth year of eligibility after missing most of the 2004 and '05 seasons due to separate ACL tears. Next year, this little game may need to be officially renamed the Glenn Sharpe Game.
Stewart, is Ralph Friedgen making a huge mistake in leaning towards Jordan Steffy as Maryland's starting quarterback over transfer Josh Portis? What I have seen of Steffy so far has been far from impressive, and Portis seems like a perfect fit for Fridge's offense (a la former Georgia Tech QB Joe Hamilton). What gives?
--Brandon, College Park, Md.
That's a good question. Back when Portis decided to transfer to Maryland from Florida (where, if he stayed, he'd now be competing with Tim Tebow), I assumed Friedgen would just hand him the starting job in '07 if for no other reason than to avoid the wrath of Portis' psycho mother. But without having seen Portis play beyond a few meaningless snaps at Florida, I'm not sure I'm equipped to answer the question. So I've called in a guest expert, Heather Dinich, the Baltimore Sun's all-knowing Terrpains beat writer, whose Blog is a must-read both for her expertise on the Terps and her highly amusing comebacks at some of the "haters" who post on her comments board.
Regarding Portis, Heather says: "Everybody WANTS to see Portis because of all the hype surrounding him, and his exciting promise of athletic ability, but he's only a 'perfect fit' for Friedgen's offense if he knows it. Ralph has nearly 200 different pass patterns that can be run from about 15 different formations. Until Ralph is convinced Portis has an understanding of everything, Portis is going to be behind Steffy -- who has had more time to learn the system and spent all of last season calling plays in from the sidelines. There might also be a wee bit of politics involved. (Gasp!) It certainly isn't as if Ralph can afford to have Steffy transfer. Bottom line? Neither one of them has proven anything yet."
By the way, I would have pegged Steffy -- who played a bit in 2004 -- as an eighth-year senior himself, but it turns out he's only a fourth-year junior.
2 of 3
Thanks for your new Fifth Mailbag Commandment. Is anything worse than sports fans referring to their favorite team as "we" or "us?" It's maddening.
--Keary Floyd, Lawrenceville, Ga.
Your new fifth rule isn't going to fly. As someone who was raised a Gator, and currently goes to school there, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't claim to be part of the "Gator Nation" and refer to it as "we." Sports teams are representations of the school, and anyone who does or has gone to a certain school is fully allowed to say "we" when talking about their team.
--J.B., West Palm Beach, Fla.
This was the only one of the five commandments that elicited backlash, so I stopped and considered whether there may actually be scenarios in which it would be acceptable for someone not on a team to refer to it as "we." And the answer I came up with was ... not in a million years.
Don't get me wrong, one of the things that makes college sports so much more riveting than the pros (at least in my mind) is the legitimate sense of ownership fans feel when the team in question plays for their school. So I do understand where J.B. is coming from. However, there's still a significant difference between saying, "My Gators kicked Ohio State's butt" (I've got no problem with that), and, "We kicked Ohio State's butt." Umm ... no you didn't. You sat in the stands and watched the Gators kick Ohio State's butt.
Your criticism about Chan Gailey got me thinking. Do you think a head coach in the NFL has an advantage coaching at the college level over his counterparts? He usually has a poor history in the NFL or he'd still be there, so what makes the Pete Carroll's do so well and what's your prediction for Bill Callahan at Nebraska?
--Mike Burr, Chicago
This is turning out to be a Callahan-heavy Mailbag. But that's OK, because Mike brings up a topic I've formed some pretty staunch opinions about within the last year. Of all the head coaches who have made the transition from the NFL to college in recent years, the only one who's had any raging success is Carroll. And I've always found it interesting that many of the very things that worked against Carroll in the pros -- his rah-rah personality, his player-friendly approach and his aggressive schemes and play-calling -- have been his biggest sources of success in college. This tells me there's almost no correlation between success at the two levels, and that in fact NFL experience may actually work against guys in college. Why? Because in college, unlike the NFL, it doesn't pay to be conservative.
Think back to last year's bowl season. Florida won a national title running an offense in which the backup quarterback was the top running back. Boise State won a BCS bowl running trick plays no NFL coach would dare run in a million years. USC won the Rose Bowl by literally abandoning any notion of offensive balance. College football has become increasingly synonymous with unconventional strategy. But NFL-bred coaches like Gailey, Callahan, Dave Wannstedt and Karl Dorrell tend to be among the most conservative in the nation. (Remember last year's Cotton Bowl?) They may win some games that way, but you don't win championships in college by playing not to lose.
Stewart, I've read your column for a couple of years and have never been compelled to write in until you were looking for a new Mailbag Crush. I nominate Kate Mara, granddaughter of New York Giants owner/legend Wellington Mara. Not only is she football royalty, but she was in We are Marshall.
--Kevin D, Chicago
You don't even have to change channels for your 2007 celebrity crush. How about Sarah Chalke from Scrubs?
--Tripp, Atlanta
Both Kate and Sarah were mentioned frequently in the first round of e-mails, as were two Entourage ladies, Emannuele Chriqui (Sloan) and Carla Guigno (Amanda), The Office's Rashida Jones (Karen), Friday Night Lights' Minka Kelly (whom Jimmy Traina previously claimed), Heroes' Hayden Panettiere (c'mon guys, she's 17) and, a truly under-the-radar choice, Rachel Specter, the RGX body spray girl.
I recently watched an episode of E's The Girls Next Door (admit it, you watch it, too) that illuminated the process by which Hugh Hefner picks the Playmate of the Year. (This year's choice, incidentally, is a recent Oregon State grad who posed for her first cover in Beavers colors. I have a whole new respect for that school.) Basically, he uses the reader poll as input but at the end of the day, he ultimately makes the call. So that's how we're going to treat Celebrity Crush. All of the aforementioned ladies are fine nominees, but I can't say whether any of them are going to make my final cut.
How many times are you going to keep insisting that the relative strength of conferences is "cyclical" when you simply mean that it's mutable? If you can find a cycle in any of this, you should apply your talents to the stock market. For crying out loud, you're a professional writer.
--Kurt S., Chapel Hill, N.C.
Listen, smarty pants. I write about football for a living. Therefore, I don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about. But once upon a time I did buy stock in a rising computer-software company. It had a funny name I kind of liked -- Microsoft. A few years later, I got a call from my stock broker saying I wouldn't have to worry about money anymore. Which is nice. It gives me more time to worry about the important things.
Like whether the Pac-10 is better than the Big 12 or vice versa.
(P.S. Parts of the aforementioned story were exaggerated for dramatic purposes. Greatly.)
3 of 3
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43 Comments - Show Original Post Collapse comments
voice of reason said...
Ten emails, ten faxes and ten phone calls from one constituent to a single politician or party (or even 5 each for each of Oregon's two senators) is not the sign of a healthy and principled political movement; it is the sign of a movement given over to paranoia, desperation and bullying tactics. What is the point of multiple contacts with a politician other than to artificially inflate your own numbers? Would someone care to explain why that is necessary?
Make your call, register your opinion, and if you want, follow up with a fax OR an email to elaborate on points you didn't have time to make on the phone. But don't tie up everyone's phone lines and clog their email boxes just so you can feel powerful ... the only effect of that is to prevent OTHERS from registering their own views -- on this issue, or -- suprise! -- other issues! There are other issues, you know.
7:36 AM
eddie said...
Yup... I agree... one contact with an individual representative.
Otherwise, you might as well be a progressive.
7:46 AM
Anonymous said...
"There are other issues, you know."
Not in Daniel's version of reality. Iraq, the federal deficit, our woeful health care system, gas prices, global warming....these all pale in comparison to illegal immigration.
Slowly but surely, this "problem" will remedy itself. Fertility in Mexico has been reduced drastically during the past two decades. The remittance economy has raised the standard of living in that country as well. The push factors driving Mexican migration are on the decline, again, slowly, but surely.
I think it's time to get this bill passed and move on to more pressing issues.
10:11 AM
Anonymous said...
To voice of reason and eddie:
This is just grand, people who want the American people to lay down and let this amnesty abomination become law, giving advice on what to do and what not to do.
Everybody in politics knows that intensity matters!
How hard people will work matters in politics.
How active voters are about an issue matters.
How do politicians measure intensity?
It is measured by the number of contacts and the kinds of contacts.
So, the politicians do this "deal" in secret and want to vote on it four days after telling the American people about the "deal"; and the bill is 700 pages long and hasn't been printed yet. There are no committee hearings.
And voice of reason talks about "...paranoia, desperation and bullying tactics."
Get real.
I've tangled with voice of reason before and crushed his "reason".
I look forward to it again.
10:13 AM
Anonymous said...
To anon1011am:
This bill is a threat to the Republic.
The question is this:
Will the United States of America continue to be a constitutional democratic republic or be an oligarchy controlled by either Big business or the socialists with a patina or veneer of democratic trappings?
This is a Kansas-Nebraska bill moment. The bill was passed in 1854, it opened the western territories to slavery by "popular sovereignty". It divided the Democrates, destroyed the Whigs, and gave birth to the anti-slavery Republican Party and led directly to the Civil War in 1860.
This makes the abortion issue look like a walk in the park, the gay agenda a street fight, while this is a battle for the Republic in which our grandchildren will live.
Where have you been in the last 24 hours? There is a prairie fire of intensity on this issue because the American people know what is at stake.
10:43 AM
Anonymous said...
A Kansas-Nebraska moment? Intensity? Okay -- what will you guys all do if, sorry, when this thing is signed into law? How do you respond to being on the losing end of a "Kansas-Nebraska" moment?
10:59 AM
anon 1043am said...
To anon1059am:
You are counting your chickens before they hatch, as the old saying goes. Politicians respond to groundswelling revulsion that will cost them re-election.
Can I guarantee Americans will defeat this abomination? No, but you are over-confident, and many times over-confidence is heading for a fall.
My side has the intensity, your side doesn't, and is inherently divided between Socialists, big business and La Raza types.
Blueoregon the blog of the left: Check it out, no post on immigration. Why? They are already divided over immigration because even Blueoregon types know amnesty will lower wages and hurt blue collar workers.
Get to know it.
Money is not the measure of all things.
You might just learn that in this episode.
11:32 AM
The OTHER Ben Dover said...
Hee Hee Hee...
You paranoids are really sweating it. Looks like your Prez sold ya'll down the river - little racist reference for ya.
Poor Daniel. Now he won't get any rest.
See ya in the bread, or should I say "tortilla" line
2:57 PM
Anonymous said...
Check CNN.COM poll
With 105,000 votes, it asks what you think of the new immigration proposal...
64% Amnesty
36% Immigration Reform
Looks like Americans are getting screwed in the a**hole by bush.
3:56 PM
Anonymous said...
No reverberatory effect of the great war has caused American public opinion more solicitude than the failure of the "melting-pot." The discovery of diverse nationalistic feelings among our great alien population his come to most people as an intense shock. It has brought out the unpleasant inconsistencies of our traditional beliefs. We have had to watch hard-hearted old Brahmins virtuously indignant at the spectacle of the immigrant refusing to be melted, while they jeer at patriots like Mary Antin who write about our "forefathers." We have had to listen to publicists who express themselves as stunned by the evidence of vigorous traditionalistic and cultural movements in this country among Germans, Scandinavians, Bohemians and Poles, while in the same breath they insist that the alien shall be forcibly assimilated to that Anglo-Saxon tradition which they unquestionably label "American."
As the unpleasant truth has come upon us that assimilation in this country was proceeding on lines very different from those we had marked out for it, we found ourselves inclined to blame those who were thwarting our prophecies. The truth became culpable. We blamed the war, we blamed the Germans. And then we discovered with a moral shock that these movements had been making great headway even before the war even began. We found that the tendency, reprehensible and paradoxical as it might be, has been for the national clusters of immigrants, as they became more and more firmly established and more and more prosperous, to cultivate more and more assiduously the literatures and cultural traditions of their homelands. Assimilation, in other words, instead of washing out the memories of Europe, made them more and more intensely real. Just as these clusters became more and more objectively American, did they become more and more German or Scandinavian or Bohemian or Polish.
To face the fact that our aliens are already strong enough to take a share in the direction of their own destiny, and that the strong cultural movements represented by the foreign press, schools, and colonies are a challenge to our facile attempts, is not, however, to admit the failure of Americanization. It is not to fear the failure of democracy. It is rather to urge us to an investigation of what Americanism may rightly mean. It is to ask ourselves whether our ideal has been broad or narrow--whether perhaps the time has not come to assert a higher ideal than the "melting-pot" Surely we cannot be certain of our spiritual democracy when, claiming to melt the nations within us to a comprehension of our free and democratic institutions, we fly into panic at the first sign of their own will and tendency. We act as if we wanted Americanization to take place only on our own terms, and not by the consent of the governed. All our elaborate machinery of settlement and school and union, of social and political naturalization, however, will move with friction just in so far as it neglects to take into account this strong and virile insistence that America shall be what the immigrant will have a hand in making it, and not what a ruling class, descendant of those British stocks which were the first permanent immigrants, decide that America shall be made. This is the condition which confronts us, and which demands a clear and general readjustment of our attitude and our ideal.
Mary Antin is right when she looks upon our foreign-born as the people who missed the Mayflower and came over on the first boat they could find. But she forgets that when they did come it was not upon other Mayflowers, but upon a "Maiblume," a "Fleur de Mai," a "Fior di Maggio," a "Majblomst." These people were not mere arrivals from the same family, to be welcomed as understood and long-loved, but strangers to the neighborhood, with whom a long process of settling down had to take place. For they brought with them their national and racial characters, and each new national quota had to wear slowly away the contempt with which its mere alienness got itself greeted. Each had to make its way slowly from the lowest strata of unskilled labor up to a level where it satisfied the accredited norms of social success.
We are all foreign-born or the descendants of foreign-born, and if distinctions are to be made between us they should rightly be on some other ground than indigenousness. The early colonists came over with motives no less colonial than the later. They did not come to be assimilated in an American melting-pot. They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the smallest intention of "giving themselves without reservation" to the new country. They came to get freedom to live as they wanted. They came to escape from the stifling air and chaos of the old world; they came to make their fortune in a new land. They invented no new social framework. Rather they brought over bodily the old ways to which they had been accustomed. Tightly concentrated on a hostile frontier, they were conservative beyond belief. Their pioneer daring was reserved for the objective conquest of material resources. In their folkways, in their social and political institutions, they were, like every colonial people, slavishly imitative of the mother-country. So that, in spite of the "Revolution," our whole legal and political system remained more English than the English, petrified and unchanging, while in England law developed to meet the needs of the changing times.
It is just this English-American conservatism that has been our chief obstacle to social advance. We have needed the new peoples--the order of the German and Scandinavian, the turbulence of the Slav and Hun--to save us from our own stagnation. I do not mean that the illiterate Slav is now the equal of the New Englander of pure descent. He is raw material to be educated, not into a New Englander, but into a socialized American along such lines as those thirty nationalities are being educated in the amazing schools of Gary. I do not believe that this process is to be one of decades of evolution. The spectacle of Japan's sudden jump from mediaevalism to post-modernism should have destroyed that superstition. We are not dealing with individuals who are to "evolve." We are dealing with their children, who, with that education we are about to have, will start level with all of us. Let us cease to think of ideals like democracy as magical qualities inherent in certain peoples. Let us speak, not of inferior races, hut of inferior civilizations. We are all to educate and to be educated. These peoples in America are in a common enterprise. It is not what we are now that concerns us, but what this plastic next generation may become in the light of a new cosmopolitan ideal.
We are not dealing with static factors, but with fluid and dynamic generations. To contrast the older and the newer immigrants and see the one class as democratically motivated by love of liberty, and the other by mere money-getting, is not to illuminate the future. To think of earlier nationalities as culturally assimilated to America, while we picture the later as a sodden and resistive mass, makes only for bitterness and misunderstanding. There may be a difference between these earlier and these later stocks, but it lies neither in motive for coming nor in strength of cultural allegiance to the homeland. The truth is that no more tenacious cultural allegiance to the mother country has been shown by any alien nation than by the ruling class of Anglo-Saxon descendants in these American States. English snobberies, English religion, English literary styles, English literary reverences and canons, English ethics, English superiorities, have been the cultural food that we have drunk in from our mothers' breasts. The distinctively American spirit pioneer, as distinguished from the reminiscently English that appears in Whitman and Emerson and James, has had to exist on sufferance along side of this other cult, unconsciously belittled by our cultural makers of opinion. No country has perhaps had so great indigenous genius which had so little influence on the country's traditions and expressions. The unpopular and dreaded German-American of the present day is a beginning amateur in comparison with those foolish Anglophiles of Boston and New York and Philadelphia whose reversion to cultural type sees uncritically in England's cause the cause of Civilization, and, under the guise of ethical independence of thought, carries along European traditions which are no more American' than the German categories themselves.
It speaks well for German-American innocence of heart or else for its lack of imagination that it has not turned the hyphen stigma into a "Tu quoque!" If there were to be any hyphens scattered about, clearly they should he affixed to those English descendants who had had centuries of time to be made American where the German had had only half a century. Most significantly has the war brought out of them this alien virus, showing them still loving English things, owing allegiance to the English Kultur, moved by English shibboleths and prejudice. It is only because it has been the ruling class in this country that bestowed the epithets that we have not heard copiously and scornfully of "hyphenated English-Americans." But even our quarrels with England have had the bad temper, the extravagance, of family quarrels. The Englishman of to-day nags us and dislikes us in that personal, peculiarly intimate way in which he dislikes the Australian, or as we may dislike our younger brothers. He still thinks of us incorrigibly as "colonials." America---official, controlling, literary, political America--is still, as a writer recently expressed it, "culturally speaking, ,a self-governing dominion of the British Empire."
The non-English American can scarcely be blamed if he sometimes thinks of the Anglo-Saxon predominance in America as little more than a predominance of priority. The Anglo-Saxon was merely the first immigrant, the first to found a colony. He has never really ceased to be the descendant of immigrants, nor has he ever succeeded in transforming that colony into a real nation, with a tenacious, richly woven fabric of native culture. Colonials from the other nations have come and settled down beside him. They found no definite native culture which should startle them out of their colonialism, and consequently they looked back to their mother-country, as the earlier Anglo-Saxon immigrant was looking back to his. What has been offered thee newcomer has been the chance to learn English, to become a citizen, to salute the flag. And those elements of our ruling classes who are responsible for the public schools, the settlements, all the organizations for amelioration in the cities, have every reason to be proud of the care and labor which they have devoted to absorbing the immigrant. His opportunities the immigrant has taken to gladly, with almost a pathetic eagerness to make his way in the new land without friction or disturbance. The common language has made not only for the necessary communication, but for all the amenities of life.
If freedom means the right to do pretty much as one pleases, so long as one does not interfere with others, the immigrant has found freedom, and the ruling element has been singularly liberal in its treatment of the invading hordes. But if freedom means a democratic cooperation in determining the ideals and purposes and industrial and social institutions of a country, then the immigrant has not been free, and the Anglo-Saxon element is guilty of just what every dominant race is guilty of in every European country: the imposition of its own culture upon the minority peoples. The fact that this imposition has been so mild and, indeed, semi-conscious does not alter its quality. And the war has brought out just the degree to which that purpose of "Americanizing," that is, "Anglo-Saxonizing," the immigrant has failed.
For the Anglo-Saxon now in his bitterness to turn upon the other peoples, talk about their "arrogance," scold them for not being melted in a pot which never existed, is to betray the unconscious purpose which lay at the bottom of his heart. It betrays too the possession of a racial jealousy similar to that of which he is now accusing the so-called "hyphenates." Let the Anglo-Saxon be proud enough of the heroic toil and heroic sacrifices which moulded the nation. But let him ask himself, if he had had to depend on the English descendants, where he would have been living to-day. To those of us who see in the exploitation of unskilled labor the strident red leit-motif of our civilization, the settling of the country presents a great social drama as the waves of immigration broke over it.
Let the Anglo-Saxon ask himself where he would have been if these races had not come? Let those who feel the inferiority of the non-Anglo-Saxon immigrant contemplate that region of the States which has remained the most distinctively "American," the South. Let him ask himself whether he would really like to see the foreign hordes Americanized into such an Americanization. Let him ask himself how superior this native civilization is to the great "alien" states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, where Scandinavians, Poles, and Germans have self-consciously labored to preserve their traditional culture, while being outwardly and satisfactorily American. Let him ask himself how much more wisdom, intelligence, industry and social leadership has come out of these alien states than out of all the truly American ones. The South, in fact, while this vast Northern development has gone on, still remains an English colony, stagnant and complacent, having progressed scarcely beyond the early Victorian era. It is culturally sterile because it has had no advantage of cross-fertilization like the Northern states. What has happened in states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota is that strong foreign cultures have struck root in a new and fertile soil. America has meant liberation, and German and Scandinavian political ideas and social energies have expanded to a new potency. The process has not been at all the fancied "assimilation" of the Scandinavian or Teuton. Rather has it been a process of their assimilation of us--I speak as an Anglo-Saxon. The foreign cultures have not been melted down or run together, made into some homogeneous Americanism, but have remained distinct but cooperating to the greater glory and benefit, not only of themselves but of all the native "Americanism" around them.
What we emphatically do not want is that these distinctive qualities should be washed out into a tasteless, colorless fluid of uniformity. Already we have far too much of this insipidity, masses of people who are cultural half-breeds, neither assimilated Anglo-Saxons nor nationals of another culture. Each national colony in this country seems to retain in its foreign press, its vernacular literature, its schools, its intellectual and patriotic leaders, a central cultural nucleus. From this nucleus the colony extends out by imperceptible gradations to a fringe where national characteristics are all but lost. Our cities are filled with these half-breeds who retain their foreign names but have lost the foreign savor. This does not mean that they have actually been changed into New Englanders or Middle Westerners. It does not mean that they have been really Americanized. It means that, letting slip from them whatever native culture they had, they have substituted for it only the most rudimentary American --the American culture of the cheap newspaper, the "movies," the popular song, the ubiquitous automobile. The unthinking who survey this class call them assimilated, Americanized. The great American public school has done its work. .With these people our institutions are safe. We may thrill with dread at the aggressive hyphenate, but this tame flabbiness is accepted as Americanization. The same moulders of opinion whose ideal is to melt the different races into Anglo-Saxon gold hail this poor product as the satisfying result of their alchemy.
Yet a truer cultural sense would have told us that it is not the self-conscious cultural nuclei that sap at our American life, but these fringes. It is not the Jew who sticks proudly to the faith of his fathers and boasts of that venerable culture of his who is dangerous to America, but the Jew who has lost the Jewish fire and become a mere elementary grasping animal. It is not the Bohemian who supports the Bohemian schools in Chicago whose influence is sinister, but the Bohemian who has made money and has got into ward politics. Just so surely as we tend to disintegrate these nuclei of nationalistic culture do we tend to create hordes of men and women without a spiritual country, cultural outlaws, without taste, without standards but those of the mob. We sentence them to live on the most rudimentary planes of American life. The influences at the centre of the nuclei are centripetal. They make for the intelligence and the social values which mean an enhancement of life. And just because the foreign-born retains this expressiveness is he likely to be a better citizen of the American community. The influences at the fringe, however, are centrifugal, anarchical. They make for detached fragments of peoples. Those who came to find liberty achieve only license. They become the flotsam and jetsam of American life, the downward undertow of our civilization with its leering cheapness and falseness of taste and spiritual outlook, the absence of mind and sincere feeling which we see iii our slovenly towns, our vapid moving pictures, our popular novels, and in the vacuous faces of the crowds on the city street. This is the cultural wreckage of our time, and it is from the fringes of the Anglo-Saxon as well as the other stocks that it falls. America has as yet no impelling integrating force. It makes too easily for this detritus of cultures. In our loose, free country, no constraining national purpose, no tenacious folk-tradition and folk-style hold the people to a line.
The war has shown us that not in any magical formula will this purpose be found. No intense nationalism of the European plan can be ours. But do we not begin to see a new and more adventurous ideal? Do we not see how the national colonies in America, deriving power from the deep cultural heart of Europe and yet living here in mutual toleration, freed from the age-long tangles of races, creeds, and dynasties, may work out a federated ideal? America is transplanted Europe, but a Europe that has not been disintegrated and scattered in the transplanting as in some Dispersion. Its colonies live here inextricably mingled, yet not homogeneous. They merge but they do not fuse.
America is a unique sociological fabric, and it bespeaks poverty of imagination not to be thrilled at the incalculable potentialities of so novel a union of men. To seek no other goal than the weary old nationalism, belligerent, exclusive, inbreeding, the poison of which we are witnessing now in Europe, is to make patriotism a hollow sham, and to declare that, in spite of our boastings, America must ever be a follower and not a leader of nations.
II
If we come to find this point of view plausible, we shall have to give up the search for our native "American" culture. With the exception of the South and that New England which, like the Red Indian, seems to be passing into solemn oblivion, there is no distinctively American culture. It is apparently our lot rather to be a federation of cultures. This we have been for half a century, and the war has made it evermore evident that this is what we are destined to remain. This will not mean, however, that there are not expressions of indigenous genius that could not have sprung from any other soil. Music, poetry, philosophy, have been singularly fertile and new. Strangely enough, American genius has flared forth just in those directions which are least [understood] of the people. If the American note is bigness, action, the objective as contrasted with the reflective life, where is the epic expression of this spirit? Our drama and our fiction, the peculiar fields for the expression of action and objectivity, are somehow exactly the fields of the spirit which remain poor and mediocre. American materialism is in some way inhibited from getting into impressive artistic form its own energy with which it bursts. Nor is it any better in architecture, the least romantic and subjective of all the arts. We are inarticulate of the very values which we profess to idealize. But in the finer forms --music, verse, the essay, philosophy--the American genius puts forth work equal to any of its contemporaries. Just in so far as our American genius has expressed the pioneer spirit, the adventurous, forward-looking drive of a colonial empire, is it representative of that whole--America of the many races and peoples, and not of any partial or traditional enthusiasm. And only as that pioneer note is sounded can we really speak of the American culture. As long as we thought of Americanism in terms of the "melting pot," our American cultural tradition lay in the past. It was something to which the new Americans were to be moulded. In the light of our changing ideal of Americanism, we must perpetrate the paradox that our American cultural tradition lies in the future. It will be what we all together make out of this incomparable opportunity of attacking the future with a new key.
Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, it is certain to become something utterly different from the nationalisms of twentieth-century Europe. This wave of reactionary enthusiasm to play the orthodox nationalistic game which is passing over the country is scarcely vital enough to last. We cannot swagger and thrill to the same national self-feeling. We must give new edges to our pride. We must be content to avoid the unnumbered woes that national patriotism has brought in Europe, and that fiercely heightened pride and self-consciousness. Alluring as this is, we must allow our imaginations to transcend this scarcely veiled belligerency. We can be serenely too proud to fight if our pride embraces the creative forces of civilization which armed contest nullifies. We can be too proud to fight if our code of honor transcends that of the schoolboy on the playground surrounded by his jeering mates. Our honor must be positive and creative, and not the mere jealous and negative protectiveness against metaphysical violations of our technical rights. When the doctrine is put forth that in one American flows the mystic blood of all our country's sacred honor, freedom, and prosperity, so that an injury to him is to be the signal for turning our whole nation into that clan-feud of horror and reprisal which would be war, then we find ourselves back among the musty schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and not in any pragmatic and realistic America of the twentieth century.
We should hold our gaze to what America has done, not what mediaeval codes of dueling she has failed to observe. We have transplanted European modernity to our soil, without the spirit that inflames it and turns all its energy into mutual destruction. Out of these foreign peoples there has somehow been squeezed the poison. Ann America, "hyphenated" to bitterness is somehow non-explosive. For, even if we all hark back in sympathy to a European nation, even if the war has set every one vibrating to some emotional string twanged on the other side of the Atlantic, the effect has been one of almost dramatic harmlessness.
What we have really been witnessing, however unappreciatively, in this country has been a thrilling and bloodless battle of Kulturs. In that arena of friction which has been the most dramatic--between the hyphenated German-American and the hyphenated English-American--there have emerged rivalries of philosophies which show up deep traditional attitudes, points of view which accurately reflect the gigantic issues of the war. America has mirrored the spiritual issues. The vicarious struggle has been played out peacefully here in the mind. We have seen the stout resistiveness of the old moral interpretation of history on which Victorian England thrived and made itself great in its own esteem. The clean and immensely satisfying vision of the war as a contest between right and wrong; the enthusiastic support of the Allies as the incarnation of virtue on a rampage; the fierce envisaging of their selfish national purposes as the ideals of justice, freedom and democracy--all this has been thrown with intensest force against the German realistic interpretations in terms of the struggle for power and the virility of the integrated State. America has been the intellectual battleground of the nations.
The failure of the melting-pot, far from closing the great American democratic experiment, means that it has only just begun. Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, we see already that it will have color richer and more exciting than our ideal has hitherto encompassed. In a world which has dreamed of internationalism, we find that we have all unawares been building up the first international nation. The voices which have cried for a tight and jealous nationalism of the European pattern are failing. From that ideal, however valiantly and disinterestedly it has been set for us, time and tendency have moved us further and further away. What we have achieved has been rather a cosmopolitan federation of national colonies, of foreign cultures, from whom the sting of devastating competition has been removed. America is already the world-federation in miniature, the continent where for the first time in history has been achieved that miracle of hope, the peaceful living side by side, with character substantially preserved, of the most heterogeneous peoples under the sun. Nowhere else has such contiguity been anything but the breeder of misery. Here, notwithstanding our tragic failures of adjustment, the outlines are already too clear not t
III
o give us a new vision and a new-orientation of the American mind in the world.
It is for the American of the younger generation to accept this cosmopolitanism, and carry it along with self-conscious and fruitful purpose. In his colleges, he is already getting, with the study of modern history and politics, the modern literatures, economic geography, the privilege of a cosmopolitan outlook such as the people of no other nation of to-day in Europe can possibly secure. If he is still a colonial, he is no longer the colonial of one partial culture, but of many. He is a colonial of the world. Colonialism has grown into cosmopolitanism, and his motherland is no one nation, but all who have anything life enhancing to offer to the spirit. That vague sympathy which the France of ten years ago was feeling for the world--a sympathy which was drowned in the terrible reality of war--may be the modern American's, and that in a positive and aggressive sense. If the American is parochial, it is in sheer wantonness or cowardice. His provincialism is the measure of his fear of bogies or the defect of his imagination.
Indeed, it is not uncommon for the eager Anglo-Saxon who goes to a vivid American university to-day to find his true friends not among his own race but among the acclimatized German or Austrian, the acclimatized Jew, the acclimatized Scandinavian or Italian. In them he finds the cosmopolitan note. In these youths, foreign-born or the children of foreign-born parents, he is likely to find many of his old inbred morbid problems washed away. These friends are oblivious to the repressions of that tight little society in which he so provincially grew up. He has a pleasurable sense of liberation from the stale and familiar attitudes of those whose ingrowing culture has scarcely created anything vital for his America of to-day. He breathes a larger air. In his new enthusiasms for continental literature, for unplumbed Russian depths, for French clarity of thought, for Teuton philosophies of power, he feels himself citizen of a larger world. He may be absurdly superficial, his outward-reaching wonder may ignore all the stiller and homelier virtues of his Anglo-Saxon home, but he has at least found the clue to that international mind which will be essential to all men and women of good-will if they are ever to save this Western world of ours from suicide. His new friends have gone through a similar revolution. America has burned most of the baser metal also from them. Meeting now with this common American background, all of them may yet retain that distinctiveness of their native cultures and their national spiritual slants. They are more valuable and interesting to each other for being different, yet that difference could not be creative were it not for this new cosmopolitan outlook which America has given :- - them and which they all equally possess.
A college where such a spirit is possible even to the smallest degree, has within itself already the seeds of this international intellectual world of the future. It suggests that the contribution of America will be an intellectual internationalism which goes far beyond the mere exchange of scientific ideas and discoveries and the cold recording of facts. It will be an intellectual sympathy which is not satisfied until it has got at the heart of the different cultural expressions, and felt as they feel. It may have immense preferences, but it will make understanding and not indignation its end. Such a sympathy will unite and not divide. Against the thinly disguised panic which calls itself "patriotism" and the thinly disguised militarism which calls itself "preparedness" the cosmopolitan ideal is set. This does not mean that those who hold it are for a policy of drift. They, too, long passionately for an integrated and disciplined America. But they do not want one which is integrated only for domestic economic exploitation of the workers or for predatory economic imperialism among the weaker peoples. They do not want one that is integrated by coercion or militarism, or for the truculent assertion of a mediƦval code of honor and of doubtful rights. They believe that the most effective integration will be one which coordinates the diverse elements and turns them consciously toward working out together the place of America in the world-situation. They demand for integration a genuine integrity, a wholeness and soundness of enthusiasm and purpose which can only come when no national colony within our America feels that it is being discriminated against or that its cultural case is being prejudged. This strength of cooperation, this feeling that all who are here may have a hand in the destiny of America, will make for a finer spirit of integration than any narrow "Americanism" or forced chauvinism. In this effort we may have to accept some form of that dual citizenship which meets with so much articulate horror among us. Dual citizenship we may have to recognize as the rudimentary form of that international citizenship to which, if our words mean anything, we aspire. We have assumed unquestioningly that mere participation in the political life of the United States must cut the new citizen off from all sympathy with his old allegiance. Anything but a bodily transfer of devotion from one sovereignty to another has been viewed as a sort of moral treason against the Republic. We have insisted that the immigrant whom we welcomed escaping from the very exclusive nationalism of his European home shall forthwith adopt a nationalism just as exclusive, just as narrow, and even less legitimate because it is founded on no warm traditions of his own. Yet a nation like France is said to permit a formal and legal dual citizenship even at the present time. Though a citizen of hers may pretend to cast off his allegiance in favor of some other sovereignty, he is still subject to her laws when he returns. Once a citizen, always a citizen, no matter how many new-citizenships he may embrace. And such a dual citizenship seems to us sound and right. For it recognizes that, although the Frenchman may accept the formal institutional framework of his new country and indeed become intensely loyal to it, yet his Frenchness he will never lose. What makes up the fabric of his soul will always be of this Frenchness,-so that unless he becomes utterly degenerate he will always to some degree dwell still in his native environment.
Indeed, does not the cultivated American who goes to Europe practice a dual citizenship, which, if not formal, is no less real? The American who lives abroad may be the least expatriate of men. If he falls in love with French ways and French thinking and French democracy and seeks to saturate himself with the new spirit, he is guilty of at least a dual spiritual citizenship. He may be still American, yet he feels himself through sympathy also a Frenchman. And he finds that this expansion involves no shameful conflict within him, no surrender of his native attitude. He has rather for the first time caught a glimpse of the cosmopolitan spirit. And after wandering about through many races and civilizations he may return to America to find them all here living vividly and crudely, seeking the same adjustment that he made. He sees the new peoples here with a new vision. They are no longer masses of aliens, waiting to be "assimilated," waiting to be melted down into the indistinguishable dough of Anglo-Saxonism. They are rather threads of living and potent cultures, blindly striving to weave themselves into a novel international nation, the first the world has seen. In an Austria-Hungary or a Prussia the stronger of these cultures would be moving almost instinctively to subjugate the weaker. But in America those wills-to-power are turned in a different direction into learning how to live together.
Along with dual citizenship we shall have to accept, I think, that free and mobile passage of the immigrant between America and his native land again which now arouses so much prejudice among us. We shall have to accept the immigrant's return for the same reason that we consider justified our own flitting about the earth. To stigmatize the alien who works in America for a few years and returns to his own land, only perhaps to seek American fortune again, is to think in narrow nationalistic terms. It is to ignore the cosmopolitan significance of this migration. It is to ignore the fact that the returning immigrant is often a missionary to an inferior civilization.
This migratory habit has been especially common with the unskilled laborers who have been pouring into the United States in the last dozen years from every country in southeastern Europe. Many of them return to spend their earnings in their own country or to serve their country in war. But they return with an entirely new critical outlook, and a sense of the superiority of American organization to the primitive living around them. This continued passage to and fro has already raised the material standard of living in many regions of these backward countries. For these regions are thus endowed with exactly what they need, the capital for the exploitation of their natural resources, and the spirit of enterprise. America is thus educating these laggard peoples from the very bottom of society up, awakening vast masses to a new-born hope for the future. In the migratory Greek, therefore, we have not the parasitic alien, the doubtful American asset, but a symbol of that cosmopolitan interchange which is coming, in spite of all war and national exclusiveness.
Only America, by reason of the unique liberty of opportunity and traditional isolation for which she seems to stand, can lead in this cosmopolitan enterprise. Only the American--and in this category I include the migratory alien who has lived with us and caught the pioneer "spirit and a sense of new social vistas--has the chance to become that citizen of the world. America is coming to be, not a nationality but a transnationality, a weaving back and forth, with the other lands, of many threads of all sizes and colors. Any movement which attempts to thwart this weaving, or to dye the fabric any one color, or disentangle the threads of the strands, is false to this cosmopolitan vision. I do not mean that we shall necessarily glut ourselves with the raw product of humanity. It would he folly to absorb the nations faster than we could weave them. We have no duty either to admit or reject. It is purely a question of expediency. What concerns us is the fact that the strands are here. We must have a policy and an ideal for an actual situation. Our question is, What shall we do with our America? How are we likely to get the more creative America by confining our imaginations to the ideal of the melting-pot, or broadening them to some such cosmopolitan conception as I have been vaguely sketching?
The war has shown America to be unable, though isolated geographically and politically from a European world-situation, to remain aloof and irresponsible She is a wandering star in a sky dominated by two colossal constellations of states. Can she not work out some position of her own, some life of being in, yet not quite of, this seething and embroiled European world? This is her only hope and promise. A trans-nationality of all the nations, it is spiritually impossible for her to pass into the orbit of any one. It will be folly to hurry herself into a premature and sentimental nationalism, or to emulate Europe and play fast and loose with the forces that drag into war. No Americanization will fulfill this vision which does not recognize the uniqueness of this trans-nationalism of ours. The Anglo-Saxon attempt to fuse will only create enmity and distrust. The crusade against "hyphenates" will only inflame the partial patriotism of trans-nationals, and cause them to assert their European traditions in strident and unwholesome ways. But the attempt to weave a wholly novel international nation out of our chaotic America will liberate and harmonize the creative power of all these peoples and give them the new spiritual citizenship, as so many individuals have already been given, of a world.
Is it a wild hope that the undertow of opposition to metaphysics in international relations, opposition to militarism, is less a cowardly provincialism than a groping for this higher cosmopolitan ideal? One can understand the irritated restlessness with which our proud pro-British colonists contemplate a heroic conflict across the seas in which they have no part. It was inevitable that our necessary inaction should evolve in their minds into the bogey of national shame and dishonor. But let us be careful about accepting their sensitiveness as final arbiter. Let us look at our reluctance rather as the first crude beginnings of assertion on the part of certain strands in our nationality that they have a right to a voice in the construction of the American ideal. Let us face realistically the America we have around us. Let us work with the forces that are at work. Let us make something of this trans-national spirit instead of outlawing it. Already we are living this cosmopolitan America. What we need is everywhere a vivid consciousness of the new ideal. Deliberate headway must be made against the survivals of the melting-pot ideal for the promise of American life.
We cannot Americanize America worthily by sentimentalizing and moralizing history. When the best schools are expressly renouncing the questionable duty of teaching patriotism by means of history, it is not the time to force shibboleth upon the immigrant. This form of Americanization has been heard because it appealed to the vestiges of our old sentimentalized and moralized patriotism. This has so far held the field as the expression of the new American's new devotion. The inflections of other voices have been drowned. They must be heard. We must see if the lesson of the war has not been for hundreds of these later Americans a vivid realization of their transnationality, a new consciousness of what America meant to them as a citizenship in the world. It is the vague historic idealisms which have provided the fuel for the European flame. Our American ideal can make no progress until we do away with this romantic gilding of the past.
All our idealisms must be those of future social goals in which all can participate, the good life of personality lived in the environment of the Beloved Community. No mere doubtful triumphs of the past, which redound to the glory of only one of our trans-nationalities, can satisfy us. It must be a future America, on which all can unite, which pulls us irresistibly toward it, as we understand each other more warmly.
To make real this striving amid dangers and apathies is work for a younger intelligensia of America. Here is an enterprise of integration into which we can all pour ourselves, of a spiritual welding which should make us, if the final menace ever came, not weaker, but infinitely strong.
4:27 PM
Anonymous said...
There can be no question about the average American's Americanism or his desire to preserve this precious heritage at all costs. Nevertheless, some insidious foreign ideas have already wormed their way into his civilization without his realizing what was going on. Thus dawn finds the unsuspecting patriot garbed in pajamas, a garment of East Indian origin; and lying in a bed built on a pattern which originated in either Persia or Asia Minor. He is muffled to the ears in un-American materials: cotton, first domesticated in India; linen, domesticated in the Near East; wool from an animal native to Asia Minor; or silk whose uses were first discovered by the Chinese. All these substances have been transformed into cloth by methods invented in Southwestern Asia. If the weather is cold enough he may even be sleeping under an eiderdown quilt invented in Scandinavia.
On awakening he glances at the clock, a medieval European invention, uses one potent Latin word in abbreviated form, rises in haste, and goes to the bathroom. Here, if he stops to think about it, he must feel himself in the presence of a great American institution; he will have heard stories of both the quality and frequency of foreign plumbing and will know that in no other country does the average man perform his ablutions in the midst of such splendor. But the insidious foreign influence pursues him even here. Glass was invented by the ancient Egyptians, the use of glazed tiles for floors and walls in the Near East, porcelain in China, and the art of enameling on metal by Mediterranean artisans of the Bronze Age. Even his bathtub and toilet are but slightly modified copies of Roman originals. The only purely American contribution to tile ensemble is tile steam radiator, against which our patriot very briefly and unintentionally places his posterior.
In this bathroom the American washes with soap invented by the ancient Gauls. Next he cleans his teeth, a subversive European practice which did not invade America until the latter part of the eighteenth century. He then shaves, a masochistic rite first developed by the heathen priests of ancient Egypt and Sumer. The process is made less of a penance by the fact that his razor is of steel, an iron-carbon alloy discovered in either India or Turkestan. Lastly, he dries himself on a Turkish towel.
Returning to the bedroom, the unconscious victim of un-American practices removes his clothes from a chair, invented in the Near East, and proceeds to dress. He puts on close-fitting tailored garments whose form derives from the skin clothing of the ancient nomads of the Asiatic steppes and fastens them with buttons whose prototypes appeared in Europe at the Close of the Scone Age. This costume is appropriate enough for outdoor exercise in a cold climate, but is quite unsuited to American summers, steam-heated houses, and Pullmans. Nevertheless, foreign ideas and habits hold the unfortunate man in thrall even when common sense tells him that the authentically American costume of gee string and moccasins would be far more comfortable. He puts on his feet stiff coverings made from hide prepared by a process invented in ancient Egypt and cut to a pattern which can be traced back to ancient Greece, and makes sure that they ire properly polished, also a Greek idea. Lastly, he tics about his neck a strip of bright-colored cloth which is a vestigial survival of the shoulder shawls worn by seventeenth century Croats. He gives himself a final appraisal in the mirror, an old Mediterranean invention, and goes downstairs to breakfast.
Here a whole new series of foreign things confronts him. His food and drink are placed before him in pottery vessels, the proper name of which -- china -- is sufficient evidence of their origin. His fork is a medieval Italian invention and his spoon a copy of a Roman original. He will usually begin the meal with coffee, an Abyssinian plant first discovered by the Arabs. The American is quite likely to need it to dispel the morning-after effects of overindulgence in fermented drinks, invented in the Near East; or distilled ones, invented by the alchemists of medieval Europe. Whereas the Arabs took, their coffee straight, he will probably sweeten it with sugar, discovered in India; and dilute it with cream, both the domestication of cattle and the technique of milking having originated in Asia Minor.
If our patriot is old-fashioned enough to adhere to the so-called American breakfast, his coffee will be accompanied by an orange, domesticated in the Mediterranean region, a cantaloupe domesticated in Persia, or grapes domesticated in Asia Minor. He will follow this with a bowl of cereal made from grain domesticated in the Near East and prepared by methods also invented there. From this he will go on to waffles, a Scandinavian invention with plenty of butter, originally a Near Eastern cosmetic. As a side dish he may have the egg of a bird domesticated in Southeastern Asia or strips of the flesh of an animal domesticated in the same region, which has been salted and smoked by a process invented in Northern Europe.
Breakfast over, he places upon his head a molded piece of felt, invented by the nomads of
Eastern Asia, and, if it looks like rain, puts on outer shoes of rubber, discovered by the ancient Mexicans, and takes an umbrella, invented in India. He then sprints for his train–the train, not sprinting, being in English invention. At the station he pauses for a moment to buy a newspaper, paying for it with coins invented in ancient Lydia. Once on board he settles back to inhale the fumes of a cigarette invented in Mexico, or a cigar invented in Brazil. Meanwhile, he reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites by a process invented in Germany upon a material invented in China. As he scans the latest editorial pointing out the dire results to our institutions of accepting foreign ideas, he will not fail to thank a Hebrew God in an Indo-European language that he is a one hundred percent (decimal system invented by the Greeks) American (from Americus Vespucci, Italian geographer).
--Ralph Linton, "One Hundred Per-Cent American," from the American Mercury (1937)
4:28 PM
Anonymous said...
Benjamin Franklin on Immigration:
Europe is generally full settled with Husbandmen, Manufacturers, &c. and therefore cannot now much increase in People: America is chiefly occupied by Indians, who subsist mostly by Hunting. But as the Hunter, of all Men, requires the greatest Quantity of Land from whence to draw his Subsistence, (the Husbandman subsisting on much less, the Gardner on still less, and the Manufacturer requiring the least of all), The Europeans found America as fully settled as it well could bee by Hunters; yet these having large Tracks, were easily prevail'd on to part with Portions of Territory to the new Comers, who did not much interfere with the Natives in Hunting, and furnish'd them with many Things they wanted.
Land being thus plenty in America, and so cheap as that a labouring Man, that understands Husbandry, can in a short Time save Money enough to purchase a Piece of new Land sufficient for a Plantation, whereon he may subsist a Family; such are not afraid to marry; for if they even look far enough forward to consider how their Children when grown up are to be provided for, they see that more Land is to be had at Rates equally easy, all Circumstances considered.
Hence Marriages in America are more general, and more generally early, than in Europe. And if it is reckoned there, that there is but one Marriage per Annum among 100 Persons, perhaps we may here reckon two; and if in Europe they have but 4 Births to a Marriage (many of their Marriages being late) we may here reckon 8, of which if one half grow up, and our Marriages are made, reckoning one with another at 20 Years of Age, our People must at least be doubled every 20 Years.
But notwithstanding this Increase, so vast is the Territory of North-America, that it will require many Ages to settle it fully; and till it is fully settled, Labour will never be cheap here, where no Man continues long a Labourer for others, but gets a Plantation of his own, no Man continues long a Journeyman to a Trade but goes among those new Settlers, and set up for himself, &c. Hence Labour is no cheaper now, in Pennsylvania, than it was 30 Years ago, tho' so many Thousand labouring People have been imported.
The Danger therefore of these Colonies interfering with their Mother Country in Trades that depend on Labour, Manufactures, &c. is too remote to require the Attention of Great-Britain.
But in Proportion to the Increase of the Colonies, a vast Demand is growing for British Manufacturers, a glorious Market wholly in the Power of Britain, in which Foreigners cannot interfere, which will increase in a short Time even beyond her Power of supplying, tho' her whole Trade should be to her Colonies: Therefore Britain should not too much restrain Manufactures in her Colonies. A wise and good Mother will not do it. To distress, is to weaken, and weakening the Children, weakens the whole Family....
'Tis an ill-grounded Opinion that by the Labour of Slaves, America may possibly vie in Cheapness of Manufactures with Britain. The Labour of Slaves can never be so cheap here as the Labour of working Men is in Britain. Any one may compute it. Interest of Money in the Colonies from 6 to 10 per Cent. Slaves one with another cost L30 Sterling per Head. Reckon then the Interest of the first Purchase of a Slave, the Insurance or Risque on his life, his Clothing and Diet, Expences in his Sickness and Loss of Time, Loss by his Neglect of Business (Neglect is natural to the Man who is not to be benefitted by his own Care or Diligence), Expense of a Driver to keep him at Work, and his Pilfering from Time to Time, almost every Slave being by Nature a Thief, and compare the whole Amount with the Wages of a Manufacturer of Iron or Wool in England, you will see that Labour is much cheaper there than it can ever be by Negroes here. Why then will Americans purchase Slaves? Because Slaves may be kept as long as a Man pleases, or has Occasion for their Labour; while hired Men are continually leaving their Master (often in the midst of his Business) and setting up for themselves.
....There are suppos'd to be now upwards of One Million English Souls in North-America, (tho' 'tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over Sea) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather more, on Account of the Employment the Colonies afford to Manufacturers at Home. This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 Years, will in another Century be more than the People of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on this Side the Water. What an Accession of Power to the British Empire by Sea as well as Land! What Increase of Trade and Navigation! What Number of Ships and Seamen! We have been here but little more than 100 Years, and yet the Force of our Privateers in the late War, united, was greater, both in Men and Guns, than that of the whole British Navy in Queen Elizabeth's Time....
And since Detachments of English from Britain sent to America, will have their Places at Home so soon supply'd and increase so largely here; why should the Palatine Boors [Germans] be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.
4:30 PM
Anonymous said...
Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
4:33 PM
Anonymous said...
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
4:42 PM
Anonymous said...
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
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4:44 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
Some of the anti-capitalist and anti-American rants by illegal-immigrant apologists here are very interesting.
4:59 PM
Anonymous said...
Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
‘Immigration in America,’ a forum about the national debate over immigration, was held downtown last night. Students Fermin Lopez and Lin Luohzen wrote the winning essays in a related competition.
By
The Forest Grove News-Times, Apr 25, 2007, Updated Apr 25, 2007 (58 Reader comments)
Chase Allgood / News-Times
Fermin Lopez
Is there such a thing as the American Dream?
Searching for a dream that has yet to come true at times seems foolish. In the eyes of a hard-working man, there is no such thing as a dream.
How do you expect to dream when your body’s too exhausted to dream? We don’t live for a dream, but a reality. Dreams don’t pay bills but hard work does. At least that’s how it’s sometimes seen through my father’s eyes. Sixteen years in this land of opportunity and yet he hasn’t witnessed a so-called “American Dream.” There’s not a day that goes by where he doesn’t worry about not having to pay the bills. Day after day of working is endless when you’re supporting a family of six.
Coming to the United States as an immigrant, you’re faced with many difficult decisions. You choose whether coming here will create a safe environment for your family to grow up in. Will I be able to make it here? Is this really a decision I can handle? Is America really what its all made up to be? Is it worth it? These are a flurry of questions you ask yourself while attempting to cross the border.
Crossing the border is just one of the many struggles we face in this country. From other peoples eyes it’s seen as our most difficult struggle. What about finding a home? Getting a job? Getting around? Do you really think these things are handed to us? Not to mention the fact that in every society you’ll find racism.
Growing up in Mexico was hard on my father. He dropped out of second grade because his parents couldn’t afford to keep him in school. Do you know how bad that makes him feel having dropped out of school because of poverty, something that wasn’t uncommon in the part of Mexico where he grew up? Quitting school and working wasn’t his choice.
He was seven years old, taking care of cows from six in the morning to eight at night. Then when he turned thirteen he began working in construction. Moving heavy bricks and mixing cement, doesn’t seem hard but moving the bricks by hand was hard. Scrapes all over his back, fingers bleeding, body aching, working his fingers to the bone. Working from six in the morning to eight. All for some measly 60 pesos a day. Sometimes there would be no work and all they would have to eat was tortillas with salt, or with pumpkin seeds. One shirt and one pair of jeans is what they had to live with. No underwear or socks.
When he made the decision to cross the border at 17, it took him three attempts to get here. He didn’t come here for a dream he came here for the reality, which was to make the money to support his family. It was harder than he imagined. There was a huge difference between working here and working in Mexico. Here he had to be at work at a certain time, and was kept on a tight leash. Having a man breathing over your shoulder, rushing you to work, cussing at you in a foreign language being fired at times for no reason and having no one to communicate with — where’s the dream in that? He had blisters upon blisters, bruises as dark as black paint. The abuse he faced was fierce. How can you dream when the pain of a hard days work puts you to sleep? The scars he has are proof of what he’s been through.
A dream to him is to win the lottery, and for the world to be at peace. That’s a dream. The success of his children is just something he’s grateful to see. Having my brothers and I leave our footsteps in history is something he would want to see. He just wants to show everyone that we are the same and have the same abilities.
There’s no sweeter joy than to see the success of an immigrant race making it in a foreign country, from being no one to being someone important. A dream he wants to see is equality, but to him there is no so-called “American Dream.”
The way I see things are: you have to pave your own path, climb your own ladder to be someone in life. My father and I believe you can’t build a foundation off a dream, but a willingness to strive and to be someone.
The “American Dream” to us means nothing.
— Fermin Lopez, a student at Forest Grove High School, lives in Cornelius.
There is nothing wrong with fighting for your dreams
Everyone has a dream. Some people want to have more money. Others are looking for education and a place to be accepted. However, some people live in places where it would be hard to survive let alone to reach their dream.
Every day we hear about places that are closed to immigrants who would like to enter, but because they don’t have the right documents, they can’t. Those documents cost money, too; so do their dreams. I strongly think every place in the world should be open for any immigrant that would like to enter.
I am a Chinese, born in southeastern China, and I’m proud of who I am. I came here to have a better education that will bring me a successful life. America was the country that I chose because this country could support me with a good education and lead me to my dream. Even though I came with the right papers, I would still hope America could be open for those people who want to enter. In my own opinion I think every human being is born to have the same and equal rights. That’s what the United States Constitution says. I believe people have the right to fight for their dreams, also the right to choose to their life.
Education, I think, is the first step to our dreams. The better education that you have, the better job you will get when you grow up. One of my biggest dreams is to become a famous lawyer. I know there are many steps that I have to go though to reach that dream. There is one quote I really like in China: “You have to fight for your life in order to get a better start. Money won’t come to you if you’re just sitting there. You are the one that who decides if you want to have a better life or not.”
I strongly believe it and that is the reason why I am trying my best in school everyday. I know in try hard, my dream will come true.
Some illegal immigrants might be refugees looking for a place to live. Their dream might be as simple as a safe place to live and food to eat. They also need a place that will support their dreams and accept them as a member to the country. Their hope is to come to a place that they could call home and not be hurt a second time. I think every country should give them a chance.
Still I think the biggest reason immigrants come is for the opportunity to make more money because money is the first step for most of the people to reach their dreams. To reach my dream education is my first step and I think that is also the first step for many other people, too. Going to a college takes money; too, so they need to earn the money it will take for their education. Then, they can get a better job.
Immigrants have helped the U.S to be one of the best countries in the world today. People have dreams and most of the dreams need money to get a good start. However, education is also an important goal, too. I hope every place should support the refugees because as a human being we should all receive the same and equal treatment.
— Lin ‘Lily’ Luozhen is an eighth-grader at Neil Armstrong Middle School in Forest Grove.
Reader comments
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Well, these "winning" essays leave much to be desired. Mostly distinguished by the extreme self-centeredness and arrogance of the authors. Let's take "Lily" first;
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America doesn't excist to lead you to your "dreams" honey. We are a real country, with a real history, and a real people. Our ancestors paid in blood, sweat and tears for the infrastructure you so blithely brag about taking advantage of -- and which you also so generously want to offer to every Tom, Dick and Harry who thinks they have a "human right" to use our infrastructure ot achieve their "dreams." How would you feel if billions of people thought they were entitled to use YOUR country the same way? Fact is, for you to have your "dreams", many native-born Americans don't get to have THEIR dreams. The least you could do is say thank-you.
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Quit whining about how your Dad has never found the "American Dream." As with "Lily", our nation doesn't exist to provide you with "dreams." Also, if our country means nothing to you then please go back to Mexico with your criminal lawbreaking dad.
"Mary"
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 07:26 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Yes, there's no sure thing about achieving your goals and dreams in this country! I struggled to support a family alone - took many a menial job just for health benefits - dead end jobs and I see my children losing their jobs to cheap labor.
My compassion and sympathies go to that American worker who was so angry at me for unknowingly hiring an American contractor who sent two groups of illegal aliens, one from Central America and one from Mexico to my home - I didn't want them there, I didn't agree to that, I didn't get a big savings. He was later fined 1.5 million dollars - oh yes! But the Contractor who didn't get the job was beside himself on why I hired the other Contractor and I wouldn't have hired him.
Reports on TV this week is that social security entitlements and medicare will bankrupt America. Hello??????????
"Fairlane"
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 09:56 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
It was the "American Dream" which gave this great country the standing it has in the world. If not for such a thing we would have never have risen to the highest level in the world community. I daresay the early immigrants who formed this country worked to better not only themselves but the country itself, they learned a common language and worked to integrate themselves. The current illegal immigrants send large amounts of money out of the USA, contribute with disproportionate amounts of crime (as if illegally entering a sovereign nation is not a crime itself), live here 10, 15, 20 years illegally and make no attempt to learn the native language, uncontrolled child birth, make no time to better the greater community, leech off of public resources for food, housing, etc.
The American dream is what separates us from all our neighbors, it is what many Americans have fought and died for. Other countries have let corruption, greed and indifference shape their countries and carry these same qualities here with them. The American dream is what you make of it, we do not owe any illegal immigrants one thing except swift prosecution and deportation. If the "immigrants" truly believe in this country as something other than a handout and a way to pave the way to third world living conditions I have not seen it. With the high rate of employment among these "immigrants" why do so many of them live in HUD housing or in squalor with 3-4 families in a house or apartment? Could it be they were criminals in their own countries? Real immigrants live with American society not under it. The American dream will fade when these minorities become the majority and open borders cause the once proud USA to become a footnote. The signs are all around us.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 11:38 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Is this the same "Immigration Dream" competition posted on the Cornelius Fred Meyer bulletin board? The one that caused me to wince, thinking - “here we go again” - another feel-good session for the Politically (in)Correct!
There's a tiny minority of extremely active ‘locals’ who’ve become the Enabler’s of bottom tier, or illegal immigration, as their livelihoods are often center around dispensing our social services to the constant influx of illegal and amnestied-illegal aliens.
This writing “Competition” was nothing more than a media tool to evoke pity for those who'll apparently stop at nothing to get what we have -- and it bothers me to see it given this attention by our local newspaper.
Current LEGAL US immigration allows over 300,000 new citizens a year into this country. That's larger than the city of Portland during most of my life! With a current estimate of 20 Million illegal alien immigrants within our borders - where's our sovereignty?
I've an 8th grade daughter too (born in Forest Grove), though she'll apparently have to speak a foreign language to find work. Tell me - what of her Dreams?!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 08:20 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Congratulations to the students who participated in the "Immigration in America" essay contest. I applaud their willingness to share their stories, and to wrestle with what it means to be a young immigrant in America today. It gives me hope to see their constructive contributions to the immigration debate, not an easy one to walk into. We are all richer for their presence and involvement.
"Bridget"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 12:31 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I was amazed and gratified at the level of reflection evidenced in the essays written by these two young people. How wonderful that young people can dream the same dreams that almost all of our ancestors dreamed when they began their struggles in this "land of dreams". I sincerely regret that some of us base our opinions on incorrect data, our own painful past or current experiences or unfounded fear. Dream on, whoever you are.
"Barbara"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 01:04 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
On Tuesday evening, April 24, I attended the event at the Forest Grove Community Center where the two students read the winnning essays. I was very impressed, not only with the essays and the students, but also with the history of immigration presented by Dr. Jim Moore with Pacific University. Perhaps individuals with hostile and hateful comments about immigrants would have developed an educated understanding of immmigration in this country if they had attended and participated in the event. The hostile comments remind me of the child who asks his mother "Mom, what's a label?" "It's something they put on a person so you can hate them without having to get to know them first."
"Louise"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow! I am amazed at the hostility and ignorance of some previous comments. They must have a great deal of fear to attack a 13 year old and 16 year old! I want to commend Lily and Fermin for their wonderful essays which give a brief look into the world of the immigrant; a chance to see what many choose to ignore. Many of the "facts" stated above would have been dispelled if Neal, Mark, Fairlane and Mary had chosen to participate in the Immigration Forum. Before blaming these courageous students or their parents one should take a deep look at US Foreign Policy.
"Gina"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:24 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
My dear,
You missed something about "YOUR REAL HISTORY"
Your ancestors did not pay with BLOOD for anything. They killed and stole this land that was belong to someone esle. Did not you know that part?
Let me change "Real People" defination for "Real Criminals"
"Linda"
""Linda""
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 03:12 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I worked hard to bring my wife here leagaly, I paid and spent a year and a half trying to get it all correct, but she is leagal. Why did the essays not also stake the fact out right that their parents broke the law as they are breaking our country. I have no problem what so ever for some one who is willing to come hear correctly and I for one understand how hard it is, but to come and trespass here and use our own benefits that we are trying to save for our own retirement such as social security just really makes me angry, and I just want to say GO HOME!!!!!!!
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 06:55 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
It's interesting to see that the complaints made about Irish immigrants in the late 19th century (contributing disproportionately to crime) and German immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century (not willing to learn English) have been recycled for use against our newest immigrant populations.
My great-grandmother spoke nothing but German. My grandmother spoke German to her mother, and English to her children. My father could only understand parts of what his mother said to his grandmother, and the only German I use is 'Gesundheit!'
Exodus 23:9 — ‘You shall not oppress a resident alien, you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.'
"Jenye"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 07:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
After reading the winning essays on immigration from two local high school students, I was impressed by the authors’ eloquence and organization of their papers. It takes writing skills to be able to express complex issues in a clear and organized manner, especially when you are doing it in your second language.
Immigration is a complex issue, often exploited by opportunistic politicians, that raises a lot of passion. While some people think that immigrants come here for a ‘free ride’, only to take advantage of the great benefits of our society (as if they only needed to stretch their arm to grab the ripe fruit from a tree), while other people think that they are being exploited by our avaricious employers.
I personally think that immigration does not happen at random. Immigrants go where they are needed or wanted. The same happens with migrant movements from within our borders (i.e. the neighbor from Texas or Alabama that moved to Oregon). One only needs to look around our community to see that recent immigrants are an integral part of our community, holding jobs in all sectors of the economy, from picking berries in the fields, changing shingles on the roofs, cooking in restaurants, taking care of the elderly to working in the high tech industry.
The recent immigrants that I have met are hard workers, often times holding more than one job. The reason for this, as I later found out, is that for some their pay is below the minimum wage, often times without benefits such as vacation time, sick leave or retirement. In fact, for many the Social Security and Medicare that is taken off their paycheck twice a month is money that they will never see again.
While we are a nation of immigrants, it seems hypocritical to me that now we have decided that new immigrants are not welcome. It saddens me to see that in the whole immigration debate we tend to forget that we are all humans in pursuit of happiness doing the best that we can to provide for ourselves and our children. Let us not forget our humanity.
""Gerardo""
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 08:56 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wake up and figure the cost of the programs to help at risk youth (i.e. hispanics) stay out of gangs, stay in school and stay out of jail. Then calculate the cost of your friends, neighbors, and businesses having to repair or paint the damage done by these "at risk" gang taggers, thieves, and drug dealers. Then figure out what the meetings in Forest Grove for spanish speakers cost to help them watch for the signs of gang activity with their "at risk" children. How about the cost of high school programs to hold dances, low rider events and mexican cooking classes? Is cheap labor worth the price? If they feel they are being oppressed by English speaking bosses maybe they would have more of a voice if they were here legally and businesses didn't hire cheap labor for a quick buck, oh and learning our language helps. It's not the poor illegal alien worker to blame, it's the companies that hire them with fake papers. Both political parties are to blame, one for the exploitation of the labor force for business and the other to garner votes for them and their social programs. It's not the kid's essays to blame, it's the apathy among people who sit and watch the American Dream disappear into the sunset all so business can turn a profit. When they don't make record profits they pick up their marbles and take their factories to Mexico, China, India or the like to ensure the CEO makes billions of dollars. Being a Native American Indian I could go on about many of the injustices done to the original inhabitants of North America but that and bible versus are irrelevant to this argument. Ask your government why they help fuel the sellout of the USA....
"John Q"
(Not verified)
Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 10:58 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I feel that a lot has been said about this subject but I have a few things to add. First off, most of the west coast used to belong to Mexico and Americans took it. Now "we" complain and say that they are on "our" land. Second, American companies exploit Mexicans living in their own country by placing factories there and paying workers very little, giving them poor working conditions, breaking international civil rights, and polluting their land to the point that many water sources are no longer usable for consumption. If US companies are destroying Mexican land, how can American citizens get mad at Mexican natives for crossing the border and leaving such conditions? Third, we seem to put every member of the Latino community into one group - "illegal Mexicans." I believe that this label destroys the opportunity of many members of the Latino community who are in the US legally to succeed. I also believe that we forget that many Latino youth are here legally. Some of their parents may have come here illegally but many of the youth are not illegal. They are Americans and have all the same rights as any other American. So when people complain about the programs out there that help at risk youth (not every at risk youth is Latino I'd like to add) and say tax payers are just pouring money into illegals, I believe it to be incorrect. If they were born on American soil, they are American citizens and have all the same rights as any other American. If an American youth turns to a life of crime, the state tries to get them back on the right track whether they are black, brown, white, or green.
Why must we look at every new group of immigrants as a burden? Why can't we see them as a new opportunity to learn? Every culture has so much to offer. We sure don't mind going to Mexican restaurants or drinking Corona. Why can't we embrace the rest of the culture starting with its people that have come to our country, who I'm sure would love to share their roots with us?
"Leah"
(Not verified)
Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Before reaching conclusions about America's immigrants, please review the following two links:
http://www.ocpp.org/2007/issue070410immigranttaxeseng.pdf, and,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901322.html.
These articles reinforce the positive contributions of our immigrants.
"Joe Rodriguez"
(Not verified)
Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 04:58 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
A few facts might help to make some sense out of some of the comments above.
- Immigrants, even those who are here legally, do not qualify for most public benefits until they have worked and paid taxes for 40 quarters. That's ten years.
- Even though they are not able to partake in many of the benefits of our government, immigrants pay taxes. Some work under the table--as do some citizens--but the vast majority are subject to withholding from their wages. Anyone who owns or rents property pays property taxes, either directly or indirectly.
- As anyone who has ever struggled through a high school Spanish, or French or German, Japanese, or Chinese class, should know, becoming fluent in another language isn't so easy, especially when working long hours at back-breaking work to support a family. But remember, the eloquent essays that started this string of responses were written by the children of immigrants, and written quite well, I might add, in our common tongue. It has always beens so in America's melting pot.
- Studies comparing the economies of cities like Los Angeles, which have seen great immigration with cities like Cleveland, which have not, show that the hard work, entrepreneurship and, yes, "dreams" immigrants bring to our country actually help to lift the economy, not hurt it.
Ignorance is no excuse for bigotry.
Michael
"D. Michael Dale"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 06:27 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Your links hardly shed any new light on the subject, like my rants they lack any documenting evidence to support there opinions.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 07:40 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
So much for the inscription on the Statue of Liberty which ends with the words, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." The inscription does not mention that paperwork must be in order.
How sad it is to read the hateful comments that stand in opposition to the welcome offered by Lady Liberty. What's next?---A large cloth hung over the inscription to block out these words?
"Sheila"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 04:53 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
How aggravating to read (yet again) the same sorry "talking points" of our Illegal Enablers. Such as: 'This land belonged to them before us'... No, it didn't; you're talking about Aztecs and Spanish Conquistadors, not our Native Americans. 'This is just how the Irish were treated'... The Irish checked in; if not up to specks, they were sent back. Those who stayed - stayed - and, they were legal. 'Send us your poor'... That was simply a “commemorative plaque,” it was never US Government policy. If anything, send us you educated - not those with on average a 3rd grade education and unable to make it in their home country. And (while you’re at it) send us your law abiding, not identity stealing border jumping criminals.
'They do pay taxes'... not directly, and not near enough to off-set their FULL cost to our society. 'They work hard'... cause they're desperate! Watch what they (or their children) do as they get more comfortable. 'They do the work Americans won't' ... you mean they’ll do the work for 3rd world wages, and a standard of living Americans refuse. How do you propose we live, like Europe, or Central America?
'They have a dream' ... so do we! 'English is hard' ... then stay where it isn’t. 'They were "Indians" and we stole their land' ..."Indians" stole, tortured and enslaved their own for eons; Europeans were simply more efficient - evolution? 'Cities were built on cheap labor' ... so was our South - they called it Slavery. 'American Companies exploit Mexicans' ... and their government allows it? Bring those factories home and exploit us! ...The Mexican Government's exploiting its people, and if these Central Americans are so righteous, why aren't they fighting for the rights our great-grandparents won for us instead of stealing ours?
That's more than enough… We're talking about Illegal Alien’s aren’t we? And who can help if they all appear as one (if mixed) race - though diversification would make no difference. And encouraging another Amnesty will again make it ten times worse. So, we either rollover and play dead, or we defend a line? Take your pick!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 05:57 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
The Statue of Liberty came from France, you figure that one out. I'm still trying to figure out how people can roll over and be assimilated into a foreign culture in their own country. Drive thru Cornelius and count how many billboards and storefronts are in spanish. Drive down to Woodburn and check out the old downtown tell me that won't be more towns like that. As far as learning the language immersion is the best way to learn. Working in Woodburn for two years allowed me to immerse myself in spanish to be able to communicate with the locals. Dump someone in the middle of a foreign country and they will learn quickly especially one that has no English available. It's a survival skill that no classroom setting can teach. It's corporate America who make money off of the illegals who choose not to interact with Americans for fear of deportation and cater to their language.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 06:07 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
After the may day activities in Portland today I think a lot of the points I put out earlier strengthen. Hispanics illegal and legal marching in a U.S. city with mexican flags, spanish signs and shouting "viva la raza" Look up Atzlan and La Raza in google and decide for yourself. This is not a part of my American Dream. The following link will explain all of this and more, I'd like someone to defend this well documented movement:
http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 11:25 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am overly impressed with the intelligence these two students portrayed in their reflections. The reality of your writing is something I will carry with me. I congratulate you both for your deep and meaningful portrayal of a contentious issue.
"gretchen"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
If it were not for immigrants our country would not exsist...my own hertiage is a mix of people who originated here in what now known as United States of America and others that came to America LEGALLY thru Ellis Island and began living their lives by adapting to the culture, language and laws of our country
What does it say to our citizens and law-abiding immigrants when we condone and give amnesty to people who have broken the law by their very presence? What do we say to others in our country who have broken our laws when we have one set of laws for them and another set for someone who refuses to abide by our laws from the very beginning of their life in the US
What kind of message does it sends to the kind of people we don’t want or need in this country?
Whether they are from Mexico, Viet Nam, Canada, Iraq or any other country, immigrants enntering illegally, SHOULD NOT have any of the rights of legal immigrants and our own citizens; including, in my opionion the natural citizenship of the children they give birth to while residing in the US illegally as well as allowing them to stay because they have maaried US citizens. We should also consider the employer who hires these people to work as any other citizen who breaks the law
I believe that this issue should be a question we pose as part of the upcoming Presidential election. The people in this country illegally DO have a consequence on our schools, socail structure and work environment. If you don't think this is true, ask the parents of the high school student who wa recently shot by a classmate that is 'undocumented' As well, I am uncomfortable exercising my First Amendment right to express my opionion freely--without fear of reprisal for my stand on this issue
"TL PALMER"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 02:42 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Why were we not going through these protesters and deporting all of the illegals? If I broke into a bank and stole your money would I have a chance to say "hey i broke in but it is only because you let me and I should get to keep the money and have you pay for anything else I need" They are ILLEGAL. Period end of statement send them home!!!!!!!!!! It makes it even harder for someone who does it correct. The INS says if you don't have a good job in your home coutry you can't come and visit, but hey if you are hear illegal then we should try to help you out. This is just another crime that are country is excepting because it is politcally correct.!!!!! Sorry I still say send them all home and lets fix our own country first. If you honestly believe that our schools are not being hurt by all of the language barriers and the free rides to college because of your color, then you are also a fool.
"DAVE"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 04:05 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am appalled by all of the mean-spirited and racist comments of immigrants that are not even illegal though, I believe that everyone seems to have very interesting points but my opinion is; Illegal Immigrants are an issue in this country and take jobs that really should be for people who are legal. I am not saying that every Mexican should be banished from here but in turn, that Immigrants should legally become citizens and work as legal citizens. I understand the want for happiness and/or the American dream but remember the words of Benjamin Franklin:
"The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it."
So I say, aim for the American dream and try, try, try and one day it could be a reality.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 05:20 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
WOW, I too am amazed at some of the greedy and harsh comments made by my fellow Americans. I am so sorry that America has instead of becoming the land that welcomes those who want freedom from oppression to the land that does a lot of oppressing.
I was proud of these student for the thought and honesty that went into these essays. You are Brave- very Brave and I aplaud you.
These students were doing nothing more than sharing their story from were they sit in life, not asking for a free ride, not cutting down America or Americans, not saying we owe them just simply saying "Why is everyone acting as if we are coming to steal something or get a free ride, NO they are here becuase thier family and lives depend on it, leaving family was not easy for them, life has not been easy- they are just wanting to live- What is so hard to understand about that? Isn't that what we all want.
If I were to have an American Dream it would be that Americans and all countries would learn to share, respect and love one another. A Quote I read just this night from Mother Teresa said, "There is a Famine in America. Not of food, but of love, of truth, of life." Let us all love one another and remember we are only caretakers, the owner is the Creator himself- and he graciously gave to all- no on excluded!
"Georgia"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 08:52 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Good lord! Where to begin? Like others, I congratulate the essay contest winners. The brilliance of our youth never ceases to amaze me. I work with youth and they teach me so much. As a Chicano, a dad, a Forest Grove resident and the son of migrant farm workers, these youth make me proud! Kudos to the FGN-T for re-printing their essays.
The racist (if not fascist) anti-immigrant rants on this blog aren't much of a surprise. But I couldn’t contain myself in responding to them to say: touchĆ©...assimilate...you are a hateful few (albeit w/ access to the internet). Your hate reflects a broken spirit, but your blame is misplaced.
Those who heroically struggle for survival by crossing borders despite the dangers - they are the dignified, the courageous, the ones with a spirit that is alive, sane, and contagious. They and their children are role models for all of us to emulate. Racist diatribes about "illegals," "the rule of law," "follow our laws," etc., etc., only reflects a vast ignorance of history, why laws exist, and a blind acceptance of national chauvinism.
Your hate should be directed toward capitalism -- the economic system that crosses borders freely and ruins economies the world over. So-called "free trade" policies, in collusion w/ corrupt governments (US govt. included) are responsible for forced migration. Like someone mentioned earlier, even within our own borders. Livelihoods, sovereignty, and self-determination are ruined here and abroad.
Why? Not for simple profit, but for private, undisclosed, in the hands of very few profit. The border that you naively want to strengthen to "keep them out" serves those few. It does nothing for our communities, neither here in the U.S. or in Mexico, Central America, China....etc... So don't convert your rage into anti-immigrant xenophobia (remember the Nazis) -- you'd be best fighting alongside immigrants to stop capitalism from ruining the planet!
"Eduardo Martinez Zapata"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 09:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Eduardo Martinez Zapata: You said it very well... Thank you for educating the ignorant in our community.
Estudiantes: Felicidades! Sigan Adelante!
"Narce Rodriguez"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 10:25 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wait a minute... isn't there a law in our country that says illegal immigration is a crime? Oh yeah.... I think I heard that once. But I guess it's okay as long as everyone is chasing a dream.
Wake up America. We're being overrun!
DW in CA
"Derik"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 09:31 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Eduardo.... Did you know our prisons are 30% full of illegal immigrants? If what you say is true: "they are the dignified, the courageous, the ones with a spirit that is alive, sane, and contagious. They and their children are role models for all of us to emulate." We're in BIG trouble. You're trying to say that every immigrant should be commended? Nice try, but we're not stupid.
"Derik"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 09:37 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Strange how "Racist," if racially linked the most prominent supporters of illegal "Immigrants" are? Here sits the most generous and racially diverse nation on earth -- being lectured to by one race, or failed culture. Looks like a masked invasion to me!
The only thing "Racial" about this invasion is from where it comes – one place. It's as if Mexico, if not all of Central America are “ethnically cleansing” themselves at our expense. Note the "Spanish sir names" around here... they’re the rulers and spokesmen of Central and (most of) South American, and they’re apparently looking to do the same up here.
No, it's not about race - but funny how that's the first slur tossed at anyone protesting this silent invasion. It may be about a failed culture, if the overwhelming of one by another - language included. But it's actually about LEGALITY - isn't it? Nobody's talking about shipping out legal American Citizens are they? And few doubt the good intentions or intelligence of some; though if so well intentioned - why aren't they in line with the other 300,000 legal-to-be immigrants of this years generous quota?
Here's how it's worked: Desperate Mexican's were allowed migratory work visas to pick crops cheaper than Americans (though my parents did!) could or would. Many stopped returning to Mexico, and out of desperation began working for anything - anywhere to support themselves. American "Businesses" loved that! ...near slave labor! These illegal’s quietly settled in, while quietly sending home money and the advice to Mexico - come on up!
They did, a low estimate of 3 million. What to do? Grant them Amnesty!! -- Reagan's gift to big business, and yet another knife in the heart of American organized labor. Each newly amnestied-illegal ‘legally’ hauled up on average 5 kin. Instead of dodging "Mexican" men at 'Hanks' in Cornelius, we then began dodging their pregnant mates, pushing a baby stroller with a child or two in tow. As this "legal" batch learned the ropes, the word went out - Come on up – we’ll hide you!!
...and they have; there's now an estimated 20 Million living illegally within the US ...but they ‘only want to become legal US Citizens’… right, and so do 98% of the rest of the world! And with another Amnesty... and each of those 20 million will bring up another 5. And if we continued to ignore our so-called ‘immigrations laws’ -- heck - we could empty all of Central America – maybe the world!
So think deep Neighbors; there are obviously polished promoters among us, and of course, 'their children.' And yes, speaking bluntly to this ugly issue isn’t pretty, it’s ugly …but again, what of our children?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 11:26 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I have no problem with "legal" immigrant's as I stated my wife is one. The whole point is not how hard they work or the dream they are trying for. The whole point is they break the law coming here and we have to pay for it. I have seen more hispanics buying homes that I can not even afford, and then when you talk with them they are getting wic for the kids food and welfare and special deals for college when those of us who grew up here can't get any of those things. My rants and feelings are not about just hispanics, i am talking about all ilegal's. The flat out fact is they are breaking the law and then demanding we should take care of them further by giving them amnesty. I for one would like to see this country going back to what it used to be, when we rooted for the American country and we had people who were proud to be an American. Now what do we get, we get groups of people who live here and root for there country but want us to give them a great new life.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 01:31 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Some of the reactions to Illegal Immigration are very understandable. The concern for the future of American Children vs illegal immigrants' children is real.
When you come to a foreign country you need to learn how to survive, not how to destroy its foundations. Learn the language, live according to the law, respect others, etc. All of these things are necessary to have balance.
But at the same time a deeper problem seems to come out of our hearts. It seems as if America is becoming the spoiled child of the world. America is prosper and rich, there is so much abundance and freedom. And yet it seems like it doesn't want to share with it's brother or sister that doesn't have a roof over their heads, or a job or bread to eat.
Why can we make arrangements so that there is not only enough for us but plenty so that we can share with the needy ones. Or is it that we just want to reach the "American Dream" for us and our children and let the rest of the world die? How could we live with ourselves then?
Is the American Dream the most important thing in the world? It just sounds so selfish.
Are all the criminals hispanics? So if there were not hispanics in America there wouldn't be crime?
Are you better or superior to the rest of America, Asia, India or Africa?
What's wrong with us, friends?
"Zellie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 02:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am speechless, overwhelmed by so much hostility toward the stories of these eloquent students and by the lack of compassion for immigrants. My ancestors came to the Northwest 150 years ago, yet I find myself wondering often about who previously owned the land they claimed in central Washington state. I can only imagine the sad stories there, even as my ancestors began a new, celebrated, "brave" prairie life.
We must all seek out the stories of others. Reading them from the pages of a newspaper is powerful, but I wonder what would happen if we came together in one room regularly to hear our stories. Would we still tell immigrants to "go home" if we heard their voices, saw their tears, and tried as hard as we could to imagine the struggles of their family members provide food for their starving little ones? We are all part of the human family--we must never forget that. To do so is to allow our souls to die. We face tough political issues, but we must also listen and work together to find answers.
"Monica"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 04:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I agree Monica, as humans we do have to work together. And as people we are all entitled to the same rights. So why is it that when (legal) immigrants from europe came to the U.S., what, 70 years ago? they were on boats, brought passed our lady Liberty welcomed into New York and entitled to fair jobs, food, shelter ect. when today (legal, yes, legal) immigrants are floating in from Central America and we say "Oh mexicans, how illegal of you. Go back to mexico." listen up
They aren't all illegal
Illegal Immigrants, because of immigration laws, do have to be back in mexico but (legal) immigrants do have rights as humans.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 06:11 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Is this a Christian youth newsletter? You could never prove it by the hurtful comments and responses that were posted in regards to these youny adult's essays.
"Catrina Hamilton"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 06:26 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Here’s a little follow up info on two enabling contributors above; quite proud of their work, and kind enough to give us their full names.
First is, “Eduardo MartĆnez Zapata,” the “Chicano national leader in the Freedom Socialist Party,” and apparently linked with: the “Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women Activities” in Oregon. …now what are their ties to the Grove?
And here’s some ‘recommendations’ by Mr. Zapata: “Abolish NAFTA, CAFTA, and all neoliberal free trade agreements! • No to the criminalization of immigrants! No to guest worker programs! Stop the raids by la Migra! • Amnesty now! Open the borders for workers! • End the war against Iraq! Fund union jobs and social services! • For a world free of want — for democratic socialism! -- Eduardo MartĆnez Zapata
Quite the agenda!
Followed by this quote: “Eduardo Martinez Zapata: You said it very well”... “Thank you for educating the ignorant in our community. Estudiantes: Felicidades! Sigan Adelante!”
Signed by: Narce Rodriguez.
That’s Narce Rodriguez, linked to and apparently promoting: The first annual Latino Awareness Week, "Semana de la Raza: Week of the People," will be held April 16 through 21 at the Portland Community College Rock Creek Campus, 17705 NW Springville Road. The week is based on education, advocacy and celebration of the rich Latino heritage of Washington County.
“Week of the people” … now what “People” do you think she means? And shouldn’t she have also described it as, “Educating the ignorant in our community”?
And a bit more on, "la Raza" -- the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html in fact “la Raza” means "the Race?" So who's talking "Race" here? And what “Rich Latino heritage is she talking about?
I purport these are not members of our community; but professional advocates and enablers of “their race,” and no one else’s. I also suspect several (if not most) of the other apologists posting here are also linked to them. Of course none will speak up...
Well, just to “come clean,” I’m a local member of “Oregonians For Immigration Reform” – and – but also a longtime local (our kids were born in FG). So that’s OFIR, based in our city to the south, McMinnville. Here’s their link: http://www.oregonir.org/new_page_21.htm Research away!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 02:22 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Do the critics even know these fellow humans whom they abhor? Have the experts, citing their research, ever had the courage to test their information? First hand experience trumps assumptions and one sided research. As an ESL teacher to adults for over 25 years I've had the priviledge of knowing 4,000 of these men and women. (20 students per class, 2 classes per term, 4 terms a year - you do the math). Their writings and speeches, allow me to introduce them to you. They are brave: soldiers who fought alongside my brother's peers in Vietnam; patriots with whom my uncle fought in Korea; refugees, thrown into circumstances beyond their control, facing oppression and poverty. They left the familiarity of home and the love of family and friends only out of desperation to feed their children. They are talented: an Olympic athelete from Africa, a musician from Borneo. To these talented essay writers, keep educating us. Illustrate to my blind neighbors the competent and gifted people you are. Just remember that after perservering, you'll reach adulthood and realize that the American dream is not found in getting everything you want; it is in having the freedom to choose how to move forward with your life. I applaude your work and am proud to have you as my neightbor. Debbie
"Debbie Olsen"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 07:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Get a life, the whole argument here is not about legal immigration but illegal. The whole ESL program should be dumped in favor of immersion anyway. California made one of the smartest decisions when it decided to do so, it shortens the time it takes to learn and saves money. It doesn't support the staff and infrastructure that drag to process out to years.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 08:52 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Mark is correct, we are talking about people who have broken our laws and then make demands that we are supposed to help them. My situation is about one thing and only one thing. That is they broke the law. send them back or put them in jail, why do these criminals expect us to sit back and say oh sure we will give you amnesty, we dont care enough about our own country so you can stay. I do care about my country, and I was willing to protect in the service. I did not fight to let a common criminal take a way my home and to break our laws.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 10:44 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
We are talking about the words of 2 teenagers, exploring what is means to be who they are - in the context of being THIRTEEN AND SIXTEEN. They are children, for heaven's sake. "Rational", "mature" adults are being turned inside out by the sentiments of 2 children. You need to get a life. My life is full and rewarding because I give out of the abundance of what I've been given and have attained for myself. By the way, ESL emersion only works before puberty, as every language teacher knows. ESL programs are useful to the adult community - whom I serve. We aren't talking about people depleting your resources or the certain robbery of your child's future, (your child who was born here in Forest Grove - who cares that your child is a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, generation Oregonian? wow that really legitimizes his or her worth!) I'm sick of these small minded, selfish, paranoid, cliques of people who think being a native anything makes them superior to anyone else. No one is a native anything. Even if you were born here, as pointed out before, your ancestors were not. It's character and contribution to the greater good that matter, not where you were born. Those of you upset by the words of these two teenage students need to grow up.
"Debbie Olsen"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 01:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow! I am saddened by the fact that this is a forum about the two essays on the immigration debate and now we are arguing about the accuracy of facts and other random blabber. I think we all agree that legal immigrants should stay and illegal immigrants should go. Also that there's an American dream no? Why don't we cool down so what we say can be put into consideration and not thrown out as a racial or mean spirited comment.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 04:29 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Our "ESL Teacher" has obviously had her arm so deep in the pot she's fallen in! As mentioned - the home-grown advocates of illegal immigration (and of course 'their children') are finically linked. They've a vested interest in promoting, if encouraging more of the same. Therefore, their arguments in favor of continuing this influx of illegal 'immigrants' (and their children, or anchor-babies) should be viewed in that light. A dark light!
The abilities of illegal aliens (and their children) are not the point; the point is they are here illegally - displacing those legally seeking US citizenship, and robbing the rights and resources of our current citizens. It's become all-too-easy to 'say' you disagree with their illegality - yet ignore their devastating consequences. And we're not talking about the multitude of new citizens, having done it right, or their personal contributions to this nation - we're talking about 20 million illegal aliens within our nations border at this moment -- and not simply the two 'winning' feel-good essays by a couple of local minorities (if children).
This "Essay Competition" (as mentioned) was simply another Public Relations stunt to show the children of minorities as capable of more than drug distribution, gang activity, crime, or job and identity theft. And the problem is - up till now - it's worked! It's worked just well enough to keep the majority of American’s eyes off the ball... But as we watch, for instance, Hillsboro turn into what local kids are calling "Hillsburrito," and the ghetto-like conditions of its core - Americans, Oregonians -- the residents of Forest Grove are wakening up and speaking up!
Anyone suggesting those following this issue "get a live" – wake up, we've got one - but it's fading fast! You may be secure in yours, but not all have locked themselves so comfortably into the system. Just as our kids no longer pick strawberries, they're also losing the opportunities of every other entry level job. As permanent jobs are consumed by amnestied or soon-to-be amnestied aliens -- where are our children -- and yes - I'm speaking of CHILDREN -- where are our children to work? Intel's building in China, construction workers are nearly all "Hispanic," nursery's hire nothing but... And to get a job - check out the help-wanted ads -- to get a job you must be "Bilingual." ...Bilingual in what? …not German, French, Irish, Chinese or Portuguese... but just what ‘you teach’ …now isn’t that Special?
As a forth generation Oregonian, with Native American blood, I resent "your" racist dismissive attitude about who - and who doesn’t belong here. Even the Native American’s fought for their land, their culture and their rights. To do less is not only Un-American, it goes against the principals of humanity and human history. This invasion has been relatively silent, but as illegal aliens demand ‘our rights’ across this nation - it's time you woke up, if not fight back. … but then maybe you've already chose sides..?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 05, 2007 at 12:28 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
A recent KATU viewer poll asked : "Do you support immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants?"
77% said no.
Copy and paste :
http://www.katu.com/home/poll/7272856.html?submit=Submit&oid=2&mr=1&t=a&cid=3031&pid=7272856
"Hello?"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 05, 2007 at 01:30 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I never wrote I was condoning the presence of illegal immigrants. I was responding to the meanspirited comments that were being expressed about immigrants in general. Mark and Neal, you made assumptions and jumped to erroneous conclusions. Did I ever write I support the presence of illegal aliens? I don't. They should follow the same protocol every other immigrant is required to follow to come here. There were nasty comments addressed to these student writers, legally here. These students were stereo typically being lumped into the category of illegals, and they are not. It was to those critics, I was writing. That you 2 got personal and hureld insults at me just reveals your inability to conduct yourselves humanly when you're in disagreement, and even more foolishly since I wasn't disagreeing with those against illegals.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 06, 2007 at 08:56 PM
All aboard the Fail-boat
Nothin' beats a good ole' fashioned arguement on the internet.
Group A's angry at group B. Group B's angry at group A.
Blahblahblah
The internet's become a feeble place where anyone with a 56k internet connection is able say whatever they choose thanks to our beloved 1st ammendment (despite many a moderators protest)
All of which could be noble debate, except for the fact that it's on the internet.
It doesn't matter what side you're on, you still look like a retard.
(No offense)
"anonymous"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 06, 2007 at 09:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Just look at how much logic it took to flush out a statement like, "I never wrote I was condoning the presence of illegal immigrants" ...but you’ll "condone" and promote their children – thus their existence? And "Debbie" - if your spirit is so righteous, why aren’t you in the Peace Corps doing your ESL work in Central America? ...I know… who wants to live in Central America when they can live in Forest Grove!
"Meanspirited" you claim; how about realistic, patriotic, or just plain sick & tired of watching my community drug down to failed culture? And what 'word' should we describe you, as you further your personal wealth at the expense of our community...? How about traitorous? As an entrenched Alien-enabler your allegiance is obviously not with your longtime neighbors.
‘Ditching’ your last name? You’ve likely become uncomfortable repeating your "bring-em-on" attitude among the community – though apparently more than happy to continue backing this PR Essay-go-round. And what was the point of this so-called Essay? ...I know -- more gibberish about ‘poor minority children’ and their "American Dream." But as you so fervently support the children of minorities, illegal or not – you refuse to acknowledge the detrimental effects of their ever-increasing numbers on our community. I suspect you also ignore their consumption of our resources at an unsustainable rate -- including your pay check and bennies.
Quite skewed, this debate’s become one between our overly-educated social service-providing alien-enablers; vs. the common citizen. As most cringe, trying to ignore this invasion of legal, semi-legal, soon-to-be legal and down-right illegals -- you and yours have been cashing in at our expense! You are as guilty in your complacency as anyone involved, and as you imply calling a 'spade a spade' "meanspirited," that's your prerogative. If I insist on calling your feel-good propaganda session a manipulative disservice to our community – that’s mine.
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 08:46 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I just hate reading this. Everyone seems to be blaming Illegal Immigration on each other. I'm not gonna rat on anyone and I don't care if anyone rats on me. No one wants people to hop the border illegally. No one wants their children's jobs taken by illegals. If anyone really wants to stop illegal immigration by himself or herself, and if anyone wants to interpret others as being against you, and if anyone wants no one to respect them, then go ahead and try while the rest of us try making things better. I don't understand how this forum is gonna help anything when we are tearing eachother apart limb by limb and only trying to get our points across. If anyone really cares so much about this stupid forum, why not just go and do something. Its terrible to watch good people slander other people because of hate, when they could actually be doing something useful with their lives. If all anyone wants to do for the rest of their days is sit and try to dry their tears by making others want to throw up and die, then god have mercy on you.
This forum is out of hand. We only have one world, got to remember that.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 11:27 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"I just hate reading this." Then stop. You've responded more, yet added less than anyone here.
"I'm not gonna rat on anyone and I don't care if anyone rats on me." And just what does that mean? You too are illegal?
You demean any efforts to correct this illegal mess, yet suggest we work to make things better? For the past 25 years I haven't seen anything done - ANYTHING - to seriously stop the flow of Illegals into this country, our state, or this community. And it’s obvious to anyone 'from' around here that things have changed, and are continuing to change for the worse. Maybe you're not from ‘around here,’ or you're part of that 'change,' or, you simply don't care? But don't discredit or demean the efforts of those who do.
"I don't understand how this forum is gonna help anything when we are tearing eachother apart limb by limb and only trying to get our points across." But it is helping; it's dissected a Public Relations stunt designed to lull us into further complacency over illegal immigration, and (with effort) has caused those most connected to respond at a deeper level. I've gotten a lot out of it, and if my frequency of posts lead you to believe I've got little else to do, let me assure you - it's quite the opposite. But this problem, and this forum are too close to home, and too detrimental to my community to ignore.
So, may I thank the News Times for allowing this discussion; and as far as there being only one world - isn't that all the more reason we protect all we can?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:04 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial response:
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this exchange of ideas, but Neal makes a point I'd like to echo. This is the biggest response we've received to any story since we began allowing reader comments a few months ago. I agree with Neal that this forum shows the need for this topic to be discussed further. I think it's great that the Friends of the Forest Grove Library hosted the evening discussion and solicited the student essays. (Neal, we can agree to disagree on whether it was a PR stunt.) And, I'm thrilled that our paper can host a place where people can exchange ideas. That's why in this week's print edition of the News-Times, we excerpted some of the comments here and encouraged our print readers to join the on-line discussion. We'll keep it going for another couple weeks, as long as people are interested.
John Schrag
Editor & Publisher
News-Times
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
In 1954, when it was legal to discriminate against blacks, the Supreme Court saw the bigotry and overturned the Constitution saying "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Movement began and it seemed like our own comfortable, familiar, worlds were changing. Now, your insulated little worlds are being threatened by change, and you've gotten yourself into a nervous 'tizzy'. As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream Speech, "you are in for a rude awakening if you think things will return to business as usual." With your degree of nervousness now, you'll probable have a nervous breakdown as things progress and laws are changed. Your breakdown will be a welcome relief for our community. We'll be free of you lashes (mocking a teacher? - in the nobelest of professions, doing decent work with law abiding people. Shame on you. Mocking Tolea? - she just wants unity and a peaceful, civil, debate. Shame on you.) We'll also be free of your hatred, snobbery, and bigotry. I can't wait.
"Gary"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow Gary seems to have a real handle on this agenda, glad to see more people drinking the kool-aid. I'm glad theres a few of us "lashes" at least our eyes our open. The global economy is killing our great nation anyway so we might as well open our arms and assimilate right? It appear by all these postings at the very least Forest Grove is becoming a hotbed of liberals who love to cater to lawbreakers. Can it be the great influx of illegals along with the immigration of the California disenfranchised? Who knows our once quiet burg will continue to grow with illegals as the quality of life deteriorates.
"Phineas Bogg"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Oh now we're back to Oregon's FAVORITE scapegoat of all - the Californians! Yes, blame the Californians for our influx of immigrants. We, the reasonable, humane, native, Oregonians aren't responsible. It's always the Californians. THEY'RE the real enemy. Can't you see how ridiculous that is? At least previous writers of anti-immigrants, oh excuse me, anti-illegal immigrants, (as if you really see a difference), based their objections on research and the LAW. You merely guess: Can it be? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe that? More generalizations, more speculations, more idiocy. If you are going to come forward with anti-illegal sentiments, at least base them on research findings and the LAW. Our students learn the law, including the Supreme Court ruling that "separate but equal" was seen for the injustice it was and declared UNconstitutional. We teach them about Martin Luther King Jr. and that you ARE in for a rude (if not uncomfortable) awakening if you really think things will return to business as usual. The legal immigrants are learning about the Civil Rights Act and will insist on equality in employment and housing. They are learning about the 24th Amendment - that they are free from unfair voting restrictions...and like the immigrants who came before them, they will stay. So, you're upset by the illegals? GOOD, join those for reform and do something constructive; GOOD, join law enforcement and enforce the law. But please, spare us your imagined, baseless, unfounded speculations.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:49 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am surprised at the reactions revealed in this forum. It tells me that there are a lot of people out there who think as I do. I don't think the responses are directed at the essays by the students as much as a response to what is happening in and to our communities and our way of life due to what is an "invasion" by one group of immigrants largely illegal. Neal and Mark are right on. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing. I for one am selecting the times I shop and go about the communities in western Washington County largely because I can no longer tolerate tripping over these people who are everywhere. I see them lined up at the free medical clinics, dragging bags of free food items home, using food stamps - all that I am paying for - all the while the majority of them allow their children to run rampant through stores, screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. We have little-Mexicos all over western Washington County. I won't even touch on the increase in certain types of crime. Why are the dregs of this group coming here? Because they would be in jail or worse otherwise. It used to be you would go into a fast food restaurant and see teenagers behind the counter. Now it is wall-to-wall Hispanic-speaking teenagers or otherwise Latinos. There seems to be too much focus and emphasis on assimilation on our part when the burden should be the other way around. If I moved to Germany, for example, I would be expected to and would learn German if I planned to live there. But here it is the other way around: We must learn Spanish, we must have Spanish-language skills to even apply for some jobs, we offer English-as-a-2nd-language classes for free but if we want to learn Spanish we must pay for it. The reactions I have been reading tell me that there is a much broader concern and it isn't something that will be easy to resolve - since it has been allowed to happen and now we are paying the price.
"Kate R"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Debbie,
I have to say that the more you actually say, the better you help our side. You go on and on about history and "that's the way it was". When in reality it is up to all of us the create the shape and create the history we will proud of. I don't want to see the history you are creating. If you keep this up then illegals will start getting even smarter and only vote in some one who will speak about the rights they deserve and we don't because we did not have to be a criminal to get here. It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we cant keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources. I hope you soon see the big picture that your kids may not be able to finish high school or even earlier because we just cant keep up with the demands of the criminals who will be running our country soon.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Okay, but what about the legal immigrants, who after years of studying our language and customs, now run their own businesses, and sincerely want to assimilate into our culture? They want their children to learn English because they really do feel that is the only way to assimilate and have a better life. They want to learn their civil rights so they can protect themselves and their children. I know this because I know them. Like Kate wrote, instead of this forum just being about the essays, it turned into a place for people to vent frustrations about the illegal immigrants being here and the changes to their communities because of it. I understand that frustration and sense of loss. I really do! Everytime I go to my original hometown, it looks nothing like the wonderful place it was while I was growing up. It felt safe and comfortable. Now it doesn't. I understand the sense of loss people are experiencing. I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that?
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
P.S. My students are legally here - they have student visas, are resident aliens, or are now citizens. They have to prove that to get into the program. They are not criminals. I'm not helping criminals. They have done what was required by law are the ones who have attained citizenship are proud of being Americans and want to contribute something good. They really do! I wish you could read their essays and hear them talk about wanting their new country to be free from destruction and the ugliness they left behind. I love my country and don't want to see it in the hands of anyone who would cause its ruin.. . and like you said, WE are the ones who create our history. How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"Gary," you're mixing Civil Rights with Citizen’s Rights; the bulk of whom we're talking about are not citizens. Martin Luther King was, and he made us proud. Again, linking this to race or ethnicity doesn’t work, or - maybe it does..? And shame on who?
Phineas... good points. I see a lateral stratification occurring among communities; those giving in and up to this invading culture -- and those who feel insulated from it. Obviously, Cornelius has given up, and Hillsboro’s fast giving in, though Beaverton and FG, (even Portland) haven't, yet. They're becoming educated enclaves, where property values and community expectations remain too high for these third-world refugees. This is how it's become in our border states; totally Hispanic run towns, with fortified and gated communities next door.
Debbie... still looking for a "scapegoat?" Actually, from all I've heard (including in-laws) we can blame the illegal immigrants for our Californians! They've given up 'defending' their neighborhoods, let alone their state - and are migrating to Oregon. "Can't you see how ridiculous that is?" --- Yes, I can! And Debbie, you're groping... if not losing it...
"Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing." --- Kate R., you're welcome; in fact, I suspect your views (if secretly held) reflect those of the majority -- of which I'm simply one. Thank you for sharing them.
"It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we can’t keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources." Thanks Dave, your words also reflect the reality of our concerns and fears. This is basically the replacing of one culture by another -- at the expense of the former. A two-tier society is emerging. But unlike the "China Towns,” where some inhabitance live their lives without assimilating, entire cities across the US are turning into Latino / Hispanic towns & cities – run by and for their culture - at our expense.
Debbie; again, what citizen of the Third-world doesn’t want to eventually become a US Citizen? Just as this feel-good essay ‘competition’ shown, there are always a few 'standouts.' Even within a prison population there are those who can impress us with their aptitude. But should we welcome the world for the few stellar individuals that may include? Here's a ‘novel idea’: why don't we allow a limited number of new citizens into our country every year, based on their proven abilities, talents and willingness to live within our laws? ... Whoops!
"I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that? "Debbie." --- Nothing's wrong with that, and for decades that's exactly how they've been treated by the vast majority of our communities. Problem is, after we rewarded the illegal (yes, there is such a thing as Illegal) batch of 86 with citizenship, the flow has increased. We originally legalized just under 3 million (not counting extended family), there are now as many (and isn't it scary to realize no one really knows how many illegal 'immigrants' there are inside our borders?) ...now there are as many as 20 million Illegals awaiting their reward. How do you tell them apart? You can't ask, that's "racial profiling," or offensive to the new found liberties of some... So you'd simply welcome, if not reward them all? Debbie, your job security is coming at too high a cost to your community – could this be your true fear?
More Debbie... what is a "resident alien"? Anything like an Anchor-baby? And just where did your students come from... thin air? And by 'helping them,' are you not basically helping their illegal parents educate their children at our expense? …Thus allowing those 'children' to directly compete with ours for all those Spanish speaking social service jobs … right down to flipping burgers?
So these 'students' are happy to be here... why not? But have you noticed the "destruction and the ugliness they left behind" is following them? Sure, and again, we're talking about a handful of exceptional students -- I know, I have a couple myself. But mine are being denied resources to pay for yours... and mine (if not most) got here legally, and first.
"How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!" Present tense..? What you are doing is enabling the next generation of Enablers, at the expense and exclusion of all others. You are providing a ‘dream environment’ to the newly legal, semi-legal, soon to be legal and downright illegal invaders of our nation. Sound ugly - it is! Sure, you look out upon some eager faces; I've had doors held open for me by their parents, but good intent does not excuse the illegal behavior it took for nearly every one of those 'students' to get here. This may sound ‘greedy,’ but if you can ditch the rose-tinted glasses it's not as pretty as you’d have us believe. And though the community you’ve fled ‘to’ is not yet as bad as the one you fled – it’s not only catching up with you - you’re helping usher it in! And frankly, you're the one around here pushing an agenda; the rest of us are simply reacting to it.
News Times, timely news isn't it? Thought I’d check in … thanks for keeping this alive. PS, what’s happened to the Freedom Socialist’s and Radical Women..? Staying too busy in P-town to mess with us I suspect..? Thanks -
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 13, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Neal,That was a fantastic reply, except for one thing. My wife is a resident alien but we worked and payed dearly for it to be done correct. I was not willing to bring her under false pretenses. At the same time right after she moved here a family friend from Brazil called and said he was in New York doing construction work at a very nice pay. It took him less than a month to enter here illegal and get a job that was paying very nicely. Both my wife and I were very upset. It was crazy it took a almost two years to get it done correctly and it took him less than a month by paying some guy in Mexico to help get him here. This is what I fear the most, as the word gets out that if you have been here before such and such date and time that you can stay and become a citizen. Duh does anyone know when they really came across? They will be filing in like crazy if that bill passes. I do not have a race issue, I have right vs wrong issue. I grew up knowing what was right from wrong but today know one can really know. Because We pay for the needs of illegals who claim that there child was born here so they should be able to stay and get food stamps because they are so poor. But wait I can here the bull crap in that, they have no money but they get food stamps and health care and housing right? Then when you talk to them they are sending all of their money home in some other country while being here getting along for free and draining our resources. Debbie how can you be a teacher and not be able to see the writing on the wall? You are simply telling them it is OK to steal and any number of other crimes, simply because you broke the law of our land by coming here illegaly. I do not have the perfect answer but I can tell you that I am looking for other countries to live in because this land is going downhill and it is people like you who are not only helping them bring it down but you think you are doing good to save these people. Do you not see the Americans who live here? We are a dieing breed thanks to you and the others who think like you. I do not want my children growing up where being right is the wrong thing to do.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 17, 2007 at 06:12 PM
5:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Friday, May 18, 2007
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 30 comments links to this post
5:44 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
In case anybody wonders, I wasn't the anonymous who posted all of those comments from FGNT.
5:53 PM
Anonymous said...
as far as there being only one world - isn't that all the more reason we protect all we can?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:04 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial response:
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this exchange of ideas, but Neal makes a point I'd like to echo. This is the biggest response we've received to any story since we began allowing reader comments a few months ago. I agree with Neal that this forum shows the need for this topic to be discussed further. I think it's great that the Friends of the Forest Grove Library hosted the evening discussion and solicited the student essays. (Neal, we can agree to disagree on whether it was a PR stunt.) And, I'm thrilled that our paper can host a place where people can exchange ideas. That's why in this week's print edition of the News-Times, we excerpted some of the comments here and encouraged our print readers to join the on-line discussion. We'll keep it going for another couple weeks, as long as people are interested.
John Schrag
Editor & Publisher
News-Times
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
In 1954, when it was legal to discriminate against blacks, the Supreme Court saw the bigotry and overturned the Constitution saying "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Movement began and it seemed like our own comfortable, familiar, worlds were changing. Now, your insulated little worlds are being threatened by change, and you've gotten yourself into a nervous 'tizzy'. As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream Speech, "you are in for a rude awakening if you think things will return to business as usual." With your degree of nervousness now, you'll probable have a nervous breakdown as things progress and laws are changed. Your breakdown will be a welcome relief for our community. We'll be free of you lashes (mocking a teacher? - in the nobelest of professions, doing decent work with law abiding people. Shame on you. Mocking Tolea? - she just wants unity and a peaceful, civil, debate. Shame on you.) We'll also be free of your hatred, snobbery, and bigotry. I can't wait.
"Gary"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow Gary seems to have a real handle on this agenda, glad to see more people drinking the kool-aid. I'm glad theres a few of us "lashes" at least our eyes our open. The global economy is killing our great nation anyway so we might as well open our arms and assimilate right? It appear by all these postings at the very least Forest Grove is becoming a hotbed of liberals who love to cater to lawbreakers. Can it be the great influx of illegals along with the immigration of the California disenfranchised? Who knows our once quiet burg will continue to grow with illegals as the quality of life deteriorates.
"Phineas Bogg"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Oh now we're back to Oregon's FAVORITE scapegoat of all - the Californians! Yes, blame the Californians for our influx of immigrants. We, the reasonable, humane, native, Oregonians aren't responsible. It's always the Californians. THEY'RE the real enemy. Can't you see how ridiculous that is? At least previous writers of anti-immigrants, oh excuse me, anti-illegal immigrants, (as if you really see a difference), based their objections on research and the LAW. You merely guess: Can it be? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe that? More generalizations, more speculations, more idiocy. If you are going to come forward with anti-illegal sentiments, at least base them on research findings and the LAW. Our students learn the law, including the Supreme Court ruling that "separate but equal" was seen for the injustice it was and declared UNconstitutional. We teach them about Martin Luther King Jr. and that you ARE in for a rude (if not uncomfortable) awakening if you really think things will return to business as usual. The legal immigrants are learning about the Civil Rights Act and will insist on equality in employment and housing. They are learning about the 24th Amendment - that they are free from unfair voting restrictions...and like the immigrants who came before them, they will stay. So, you're upset by the illegals? GOOD, join those for reform and do something constructive; GOOD, join law enforcement and enforce the law. But please, spare us your imagined, baseless, unfounded speculations.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:49 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am surprised at the reactions revealed in this forum. It tells me that there are a lot of people out there who think as I do. I don't think the responses are directed at the essays by the students as much as a response to what is happening in and to our communities and our way of life due to what is an "invasion" by one group of immigrants largely illegal. Neal and Mark are right on. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing. I for one am selecting the times I shop and go about the communities in western Washington County largely because I can no longer tolerate tripping over these people who are everywhere. I see them lined up at the free medical clinics, dragging bags of free food items home, using food stamps - all that I am paying for - all the while the majority of them allow their children to run rampant through stores, screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. We have little-Mexicos all over western Washington County. I won't even touch on the increase in certain types of crime. Why are the dregs of this group coming here? Because they would be in jail or worse otherwise. It used to be you would go into a fast food restaurant and see teenagers behind the counter. Now it is wall-to-wall Hispanic-speaking teenagers or otherwise Latinos. There seems to be too much focus and emphasis on assimilation on our part when the burden should be the other way around. If I moved to Germany, for example, I would be expected to and would learn German if I planned to live there. But here it is the other way around: We must learn Spanish, we must have Spanish-language skills to even apply for some jobs, we offer English-as-a-2nd-language classes for free but if we want to learn Spanish we must pay for it. The reactions I have been reading tell me that there is a much broader concern and it isn't something that will be easy to resolve - since it has been allowed to happen and now we are paying the price.
"Kate R"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Debbie,
I have to say that the more you actually say, the better you help our side. You go on and on about history and "that's the way it was". When in reality it is up to all of us the create the shape and create the history we will proud of. I don't want to see the history you are creating. If you keep this up then illegals will start getting even smarter and only vote in some one who will speak about the rights they deserve and we don't because we did not have to be a criminal to get here. It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we cant keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources. I hope you soon see the big picture that your kids may not be able to finish high school or even earlier because we just cant keep up with the demands of the criminals who will be running our country soon.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Okay, but what about the legal immigrants, who after years of studying our language and customs, now run their own businesses, and sincerely want to assimilate into our culture? They want their children to learn English because they really do feel that is the only way to assimilate and have a better life. They want to learn their civil rights so they can protect themselves and their children. I know this because I know them. Like Kate wrote, instead of this forum just being about the essays, it turned into a place for people to vent frustrations about the illegal immigrants being here and the changes to their communities because of it. I understand that frustration and sense of loss. I really do! Everytime I go to my original hometown, it looks nothing like the wonderful place it was while I was growing up. It felt safe and comfortable. Now it doesn't. I understand the sense of loss people are experiencing. I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that?
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
P.S. My students are legally here - they have student visas, are resident aliens, or are now citizens. They have to prove that to get into the program. They are not criminals. I'm not helping criminals. They have done what was required by law are the ones who have attained citizenship are proud of being Americans and want to contribute something good. They really do! I wish you could read their essays and hear them talk about wanting their new country to be free from destruction and the ugliness they left behind. I love my country and don't want to see it in the hands of anyone who would cause its ruin.. . and like you said, WE are the ones who create our history. How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"Gary," you're mixing Civil Rights with Citizen’s Rights; the bulk of whom we're talking about are not citizens. Martin Luther King was, and he made us proud. Again, linking this to race or ethnicity doesn’t work, or - maybe it does..? And shame on who?
Phineas... good points. I see a lateral stratification occurring among communities; those giving in and up to this invading culture -- and those who feel insulated from it. Obviously, Cornelius has given up, and Hillsboro’s fast giving in, though Beaverton and FG, (even Portland) haven't, yet. They're becoming educated enclaves, where property values and community expectations remain too high for these third-world refugees. This is how it's become in our border states; totally Hispanic run towns, with fortified and gated communities next door.
Debbie... still looking for a "scapegoat?" Actually, from all I've heard (including in-laws) we can blame the illegal immigrants for our Californians! They've given up 'defending' their neighborhoods, let alone their state - and are migrating to Oregon. "Can't you see how ridiculous that is?" --- Yes, I can! And Debbie, you're groping... if not losing it...
"Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing." --- Kate R., you're welcome; in fact, I suspect your views (if secretly held) reflect those of the majority -- of which I'm simply one. Thank you for sharing them.
"It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we can’t keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources." Thanks Dave, your words also reflect the reality of our concerns and fears. This is basically the replacing of one culture by another -- at the expense of the former. A two-tier society is emerging. But unlike the "China Towns,” where some inhabitance live their lives without assimilating, entire cities across the US are turning into Latino / Hispanic towns & cities – run by and for their culture - at our expense.
Debbie; again, what citizen of the Third-world doesn’t want to eventually become a US Citizen? Just as this feel-good essay ‘competition’ shown, there are always a few 'standouts.' Even within a prison population there are those who can impress us with their aptitude. But should we welcome the world for the few stellar individuals that may include? Here's a ‘novel idea’: why don't we allow a limited number of new citizens into our country every year, based on their proven abilities, talents and willingness to live within our laws? ... Whoops!
"I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that? "Debbie." --- Nothing's wrong with that, and for decades that's exactly how they've been treated by the vast majority of our communities. Problem is, after we rewarded the illegal (yes, there is such a thing as Illegal) batch of 86 with citizenship, the flow has increased. We originally legalized just under 3 million (not counting extended family), there are now as many (and isn't it scary to realize no one really knows how many illegal 'immigrants' there are inside our borders?) ...now there are as many as 20 million Illegals awaiting their reward. How do you tell them apart? You can't ask, that's "racial profiling," or offensive to the new found liberties of some... So you'd simply welcome, if not reward them all? Debbie, your job security is coming at too high a cost to your community – could this be your true fear?
More Debbie... what is a "resident alien"? Anything like an Anchor-baby? And just where did your students come from... thin air? And by 'helping them,' are you not basically helping their illegal parents educate their children at our expense? …Thus allowing those 'children' to directly compete with ours for all those Spanish speaking social service jobs … right down to flipping burgers?
So these 'students' are happy to be here... why not? But have you noticed the "destruction and the ugliness they left behind" is following them? Sure, and again, we're talking about a handful of exceptional students -- I know, I have a couple myself. But mine are being denied resources to pay for yours... and mine (if not most) got here legally, and first.
"How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!" Present tense..? What you are doing is enabling the next generation of Enablers, at the expense and exclusion of all others. You are providing a ‘dream environment’ to the newly legal, semi-legal, soon to be legal and downright illegal invaders of our nation. Sound ugly - it is! Sure, you look out upon some eager faces; I've had doors held open for me by their parents, but good intent does not excuse the illegal behavior it took for nearly every one of those 'students' to get here. This may sound ‘greedy,’ but if you can ditch the rose-tinted glasses it's not as pretty as you’d have us believe. And though the community you’ve fled ‘to’ is not yet as bad as the one you fled – it’s not only catching up with you - you’re helping usher it in! And frankly, you're the one around here pushing an agenda; the rest of us are simply reacting to it.
News Times, timely news isn't it? Thought I’d check in … thanks for keeping this alive. PS, what’s happened to the Freedom Socialist’s and Radical Women..? Staying too busy in P-town to mess with us I suspect..? Thanks -
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 13, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Neal,That was a fantastic reply, except for one thing. My wife is a resident alien but we worked and payed dearly for it to be done correct. I was not willing to bring her under false pretenses. At the same time right after she moved here a family friend from Brazil called and said he was in New York doing construction work at a very nice pay. It took him less than a month to enter here illegal and get a job that was paying very nicely. Both my wife and I were very upset. It was crazy it took a almost two years to get it done correctly and it took him less than a month by paying some guy in Mexico to help get him here. This is what I fear the most, as the word gets out that if you have been here before such and such date and time that you can stay and become a citizen. Duh does anyone know when they really came across? They will be filing in like crazy if that bill passes. I do not have a race issue, I have right vs wrong issue. I grew up knowing what was right from wrong but today know one can really know. Because We pay for the needs of illegals who claim that there child was born here so they should be able to stay and get food stamps because they are so poor. But wait I can here the bull crap in that, they have no money but they get food stamps and health care and housing right? Then when you talk to them they are sending all of their money home in some other country while being here getting along for free and draining our resources. Debbie how can you be a teacher and not be able to see the writing on the wall? You are simply telling them it is OK to steal and any number of other crimes, simply because you broke the law of our land by coming here illegaly. I do not have the perfect answer but I can tell you that I am looking for other countries to live in because this land is going downhill and it is people like you who are not only helping them bring it down but you think you are doing good to save these people. Do you not see the Americans who live here? We are a dieing breed thanks to you and the others who think like you. I do not want my children growing up where being right is the wrong thing to do.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 17, 2007 at 06:12 PM
5:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Friday, May 18, 2007
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 30 comments links to this post
5:44 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
In case anybody wonders, I wasn't the anonymous who posted all of those comments from FGNT.
5:53 PM
5:55 PM
Scottiebill said...
Daniel: Why are you allowing all these dissertations to go on? These various and sundry anonymous' have taken up all your blogging space with these seemingly endless ramblings. And then there is the anonymous with all that gabble that means nothingand the anonymous with a lot of blogs saying the same stupid thing.
It would seem that there could be some semblance of editing here.
And now these "anonymous" anonymous' will scream "First Amendment Rights". It makes one want to puke!!
6:23 PM
Charles U. Farley said...
Scottiebill, stick your finger down your throat. You'll feel better.
Daniel. How about some from refreshment from God's word.Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
| Table of Contents for this work |
| All on-line databases | Etext Center Homepage |
Leviticus, chapter 1
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.01
1: And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.
3: If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD.
4: And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
5: And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
6: And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.
7: And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire:
8: And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:
9: But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
10: And if his offering be of the flocks, namely, of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt sacrifice; he shall bring it a male without blemish.
11: And he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar.
12: And he shall cut it into his pieces, with his head and his fat: and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:
13: But he shall wash the inwards and the legs with water: and the priest shall bring it all, and burn it upon the altar: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
14: And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the LORD be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves, or of young pigeons.
15: And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar:
16: And he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes:
17: And he shall cleave it with the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder: and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
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Leviticus, chapter 2
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.02
1: And when any will offer a meat offering unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:
2: And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests: and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD:
3: And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
4: And if thou bring an oblation of a meat offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.
5: And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.
6: Thou shalt part it in pieces, and pour oil thereon: it is a meat offering.
7: And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in the fryingpan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.
8: And thou shalt bring the meat offering that is made of these things unto the LORD: and when it is presented unto the priest, he shall bring it unto the altar.
9: And the priest shall take from the meat offering a memorial thereof, and shall burn it upon the altar: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
10: And that which is left of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
11: No meat offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven: for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the LORD made by fire.
12: As for the oblation of the firstfruits, ye shall offer them unto the LORD: but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savour.
13: And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
14: And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the LORD, thou shalt offer for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears.
15: And thou shalt put oil upon it, and lay frankincense thereon: it is a meat offering.
16: And the priest shall burn the memorial of it, part of the beaten corn thereof, and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof: it is an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
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Leviticus, chapter 3
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.03
1: And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.
2: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons the priests shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.
3: And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
4: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
5: And Aaron's sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
6: And if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering unto the LORD be of the flock; male or female, he shall offer it without blemish.
7: If he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he offer it before the LORD.
8: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof round about upon the altar.
9: And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat thereof, and the whole rump, it shall he take off hard by the backbone; and the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
10: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
11: And the priest shall burn it upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire unto the LORD.
12: And if his offering be a goat, then he shall offer it before the LORD.
13: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of it, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about.
14: And he shall offer thereof his offering, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
15: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
16: And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD's.
17: It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.
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Leviticus, chapter 4
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.04
1: And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them:
3: If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people; then let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto the LORD for a sin offering.
4: And he shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD; and shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head, and kill the bullock before the LORD.
5: And the priest that is anointed shall take of the bullock's blood, and bring it to the tabernacle of the congregation:
6: And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the LORD, before the vail of the sanctuary.
7: And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the LORD, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation: and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
8: And he shall take off from it all the fat of the bullock for the sin offering; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
9: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away,
10: As it was taken off from the bullock of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt offering.
11: And the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung,
12: Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt.
13: And if the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which should not be done, and are guilty;
14: When the sin, which they have sinned against it, is known, then the congregation shall offer a young bullock for the sin, and bring him before the tabernacle of the congregation.
15: And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the LORD: and the bullock shall be killed before the LORD.
16: And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bullock's blood to the tabernacle of the congregation:
17: And the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the LORD, even before the vail.
18: And he shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar which is before the LORD, that is in the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall pour out all the blood at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
19: And he shall take all his fat from him, and burn it upon the altar.
20: And he shall do with the bullock as he did with the bullock for a sin offering, so shall he do with this: and the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them.
21: And he shall carry forth the bullock without the camp, and burn him as he burned the first bullock: it is a sin offering for the congregation.
22: When a ruler hath sinned, and done somewhat through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD his God concerning things which should not be done, and is guilty;
23: Or if his sin, wherein he hath sinned, come to his knowledge; he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a male without blemish:
24: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the goat, and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering before the LORD: it is a sin offering.
25: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out his blood at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering.
26: And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him.
27: And if any one of the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and be guilty;
28: Or if his sin, which he hath sinned, come to his knowledge: then he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned.
29: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering.
30: And the priest shall take of the blood thereof with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar.
31: And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat is taken away from off the sacrifice of peace offerings; and the priest shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour unto the LORD; and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him.
32: And if he bring a lamb for a sin offering, he shall bring it a female without blemish.
33: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay it for a sin offering in the place where they kill the burnt offering
34: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar:
35: And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat of the lamb is taken away from the sacrifice of the peace offerings; and the priest shall burn them upon the altar, according to the offerings made by fire unto the LORD: and the priest shall make an atonement for his sin that he hath committed, and it shall be forgiven him.
That's only the first four chapters. I got bored and I have a life unlike you. I'll be back with more later.
Keep up the good fight.
You chickenshit skinhead.
6:33 PM
MacNichol, last of the Viking Kings of Skye said...
What the fuck kind of name is Miclav? Is that right? I don't care. It's SLAVIC fucks like you who've been screwing up this country from the beginning.
You know "Slav" comes from the Rus (the Vikings) term for slave? The zeroes whose country they traveled through on the way to Byzantium, where they'd sell all these cute slavic babes to rich A-rabs. Obviously an inferior race.
Anyway, I'm sick of your diluting the pure strain of Scotts-Irish blood our country was built on.
Most of my family got here in the 18th century. When did your folks crawl onto Ellis Island?
Go back where you came from.
6:44 PM
short and sweet said...
I have a prediction that I absolutely GUARANTEE will come true:
At the end of the day, Daniel and his nativist friends are going to lose this one. Why? Because they are so far, far-right wing, that there is absolutely no bill that could conceivably get through Congress and get Bush's signature that will make them happy. No matter what happens, they'll be pissed, and they'll scream about betrayals and traitors and vow revenge.
I guarantee it.
7:04 PM
R Huse said...
Obviously the pro illegal alien side has clearly proven at least one argument by their responses.
It is now quite apparent that the reasoning they use is as vacuous as the morality upon which it is based. Name calling, racism and now just endless empty Spam.
Quite neat, and also immeasurably pitiful. I, for one, thank them for their clear demonstrations. Iconoclasts through and through, idiotic, absurd.
7:24 PM
Kind Red Spirit said...
r. huse said it best. "Idiotic and absurd" Wow, that's deep. I don't know what's the problem with all these motherfuckas. Its like they all want the beners wreckin their lives yo.
Corse, could be all those vatos locos guys could come lokking for your cracker ass in which I dont know you bro. Know what im sayin?
But hey man. if theres a throw down and you got numbrs on your side man. You know good white folks Im down man
well bust some fuckin heads
power to the people
the GOOD people
8:53 PM
Rosetta Stone said...
Endless, empty spam R? I think not.
Daniel professes to have an "interest" in "Jesus" Does Jesus have an interest in him?
The Book of James, by one of our Lord and Savior's little brothers will offer the poor soul some solace.
"Count it all joy by bretheren..."
I'll let him finish.
1: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
2: My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
3: Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4: But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
5: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
6: But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
7: For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
8: A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
9: Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
10: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
11: For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
12: Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
13: Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
14: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15: Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
16: Do not err, my beloved brethren.
17: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
18: Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
19: Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
20: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
21: Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
22: But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
23: For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
24: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
25: But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
26: If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
27: Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
James, chapter 2
1: My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.
2: For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;
3: And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool:
4: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
5: Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?
6: But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?
7: Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?
8: If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:
9: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.
10: For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
11: For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
12: So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.
13: For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
14: What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
15: If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16: And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17: Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
18: Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19: Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20: But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
21: Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
22: Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
23: And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
24: Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
25: Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?
26: For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
James, chapter 3
1: My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
2: For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
3: Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body.
4: Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.
5: Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!
6: And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
7: For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
8: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
9: Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
10: Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
11: Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
12: Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
13: Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
14: But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
15: This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
16: For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
17: But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
18: And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
James, chapter 4
1: From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2: Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3: Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
4: Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
5: Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
6: But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
7: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8: Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9: Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10: Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
11: Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
12: There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
13: Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
14: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
15: For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
16: But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
17: Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
James, chapter 5
1: Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2: Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3: Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
4: Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
5: Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
6: Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.
7: Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
8: Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9: Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
10: Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11: Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
12: But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.
13: Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.
14: Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
15: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
16: Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
17: Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
18: And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
19: Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;
20: Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
Did you get that? He which CONVERTETH A SINNER from the error of his ways...
shall save a soul from death.
Empty spam? R. you do yourself, and the rest of humanity a grave disservice.
9:07 PM
Anonymous said...
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
9:58 PM
Anonymous said...
'He's a fair man'
Johnson says he will to accept Goodell punishment
Posted: Friday May 18, 2007 9:14PM; Updated: Friday May 18, 2007 9:14PM
Tank Johnson says his goal is to become NFL Man of the Year.
AP
LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) -- Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson said Friday he's ready to accept whatever punishment NFL commissioner Roger Goodell gives him for his recent off-field problems that included a two-month stint in jail.
"I feel like whatever sanction he imposes, I'm man enough to take it and I know that once I get back on the field, that chapter of my life is closed and I can move on with a sense of closure," Johnson said Friday after the first day of Bears minicamp.
It was Johnson's first public statements since being released from Cook County jail Sunday.
Johnson met with Goodell in New York on Wednesday and awaits a decision on a possible suspension for violating terms of his probation and a gun charge.
In April, Goodell suspended Tennessee Titans defensive back Adam "Pacman" Jones for the 2007 season, and Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry for eight games before introducing a strengthened personal conduct policy.
"Mr. Goodell has the league's interest to look out for," Johnson said. "Whatever sanction he imposes, I know that it's in the best interest of this league.
"I can't say what would be fair, what would be unfair. But I do know that meeting Mr. Goodell, he's a fair man. He gave me the opportunity to speak with him. He gave me the opportunity to convey some of the things that I want to get better at. I feel like whatever he imposes, meeting him and knowing he's a fair man, is in the best interest of the league."
During their 90-minute meeting in New York, Johnson said he told Goodell his goal is to go from jail to NFL Man of the Year.
"One day I want to be the face of the league for guys who have come through adversity, came through it and ultimately became the Man of the Year in the NFL," Johnson said. "That would be a tremendous ending to the story."
Johnson spent 60 days of a 120-day sentence in jail for violating his probation. He was released Sunday for good behavior.
In December, police raided Johnson's Gurnee home and found six unregistered firearms -- a violation of his probation on an earlier gun charge.
That charge stemmed from Johnson's 2005 arrest after a Chicago nightclub valet reported seeing Johnson with a handgun in his SUV. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
Two days after the raid in Gurnee, Willie B. Posey, the Johnson bodyguard who had been arrested after the raid, was shot and killed in an early morning fight while he and Johnson were at a Chicago nightclub.
Johnson was suspended by the Bears for one game for being at the club.
In March, Johnson began his jail term for violating his probation. Last month, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor weapons charge stemming from the December raid as part of a deal with prosecutors that kept him from serving more time in jail. He was ordered to serve 45 days, which he was able to serve concurrently with the sentence for violating his probation.
Johnson had numerous visits from Bears players, coaches and officials during his 60 days of incarceration.
"It was a tough time for me, but at the same time I learned a lot about myself," Johnson said. "I learned a lot about a lot of things. During that process, I got to know that I have tremendous support from all walks of life.
"The Bears showed me unconditional support. My friends and family showed me unconditional support."
Johnson credited coach Lovie Smith and general manager Jerry Angelo, in particular, with standing by him during his time in jail. Johnson did not participate in the team portion of practice Friday because he needs to be in better condition, Smith said.
Johnson did do some individual work early in practice.
Smith still regards Johnson as the Bears' starting nose tackle.
"As much as anything, Tank now has a starting spot," Smith said. "He's back with the group working out. He has a long way to go. As a football team we have a long way to go.
"But Tank will catch up. He's got a smile on his face. He's excited about being back around this team."
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
10:09 PM
interesting said...
Overflowing bag
After 800+ e-mails, I give you league rankings, more
Posted: Wednesday May 16, 2007 12:53PM; Updated: Wednesday May 16, 2007 3:10PM
Arkansas RB Darren McFadden is one of many explosive playmakers in a loaded SEC.
AP
RELATED
• REACT: Are Mandel's league rankings legit?
You love the Mailbag. You really love it.
You made that abundantly clear, dear readers, when you bombarded my in-box to the tune of more than 800 e-mails within 24 hours of publishing the season's first edition. Those are mid-November numbers, people. Give yourselves much-deserved props.
So what did I learn over the course of those 800 e-mails? I learned that most of you never stop thinking about college football, even in the dead of the offseason, and for that I am extremely appreciative -- because it justifies my continued employment. I learned that a great number of you are extremely invested in the choice of the next Celebrity Crush (more on that later), which is good, because I fully intend to milk the suspense.
But most of all, I learned you're all really, really obsessed with this strength-of-conference thing. I could have filled this entire Mailbag with questions about the Big East's legitimacy, the Big Ten's bowl record (2-1 against the SEC last year, as several hundred of you reminded me), the Pac-10's non-conference schedule, lack of respect for the Big 12 and more. Instead, I chose this one, all-encompassing, guaranteed-to-start-a-riot topic from Taylor of Lexington, Ky.:
Stewart, you always say that conference strength is cyclical and always seem to defend easily bash-able conferences (i.e. the Pac-10, ACC). So let's see your rank all 11 Division I-A conferences. Answer at your own risk!
OK, I'll do it, but under two conditions: 1) That we all agree to accept the premise of cyclical conference strength, which means these ratings are based solely on the upcoming season and are by no means permanent. And 2) That once I do this list, there will be no revisiting the topic until at least the start of the season. Let's face it, the only guarantee about this list is that 10 of 11 sets of fans are going to be outraged, and I'm not filling next week's Mailbag with all your angry responses to this one.
Here it goes ...
1) SEC: Simply put, this year's SEC could be the toughest conference in history. I'm not exaggerating. It's extremely rare for a league to not only boast so many quality teams at the top (LSU, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee) but also so little dead weight at the bottom. Really, it's just Mississippi State. You've got two former national championship coaches, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban, leading what may be only the seventh- or eighth-best teams in the league. Kentucky won eight games last year. And Vandy is no longer a gimme (just ask Georgia). It's a perfect storm for the SEC right now with so many accomplished coaches, so much elite talent and so many returning veterans all at once.
2) Pac-10: I've always felt one reason the Pac-10 doesn't get taken seriously by most of the country is that outside of USC, no one has been able to stay consistently good recently. At the same time, however, no one has been consistently bad, either. In other words, the league's image is a victim of its own balance. USC appears to be the cream of the crop again this year, but remember, the Trojans lost to two Pac-10 teams last year, UCLA and Oregon State, both of which return the vast majority of their starters. Cal is loaded on offense yet again. And I expect Oregon, Arizona State (which now has Dennis Erickson), Arizona and possibly Washington to all be factors as well.
3) Big Ten: Remember the 1990s and early 2000s? For the only time in its history, the Big Ten was actually fairly wide open, with everyone from Northwestern to Purdue to Illinois winning titles. Now, the league has gone back to being top-heavy. Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio State could all be top-10 teams, Penn State won't be far off, but then there's a pretty drastic drop-off. I do expect Iowa to do a bit of damage, but nearly half the teams the league (Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois and Indiana) are basically irrelevant.
4) Big East: Obviously, it's impossible for the Big East to go as deep as the other leagues because it has so few teams, and thus its ranking suffers. The top four teams -- Louisville, West Virginia, Rutgers and USF -- stack up with any league outside of the SEC. All four are legitimate preseason top-25 teams in my mind, and three of them could be BCS-caliber. The Cardinals and Mountaineers have already shown their offenses are as explosive as any in the country, but I have a hunch Rutgers might wind up winning the title because it has a defense to go with its potential All-America running back.
5) Big 12: Earlier this decade, I really thought the Big 12 was going to emerge as the best conference in the country. But due in large part to Dennis Franchione's thus-far disappointing tenure at Texas A&M, the South Division has remained largely a two-team show (though Texas Tech is a consistent second-tier bowl team), and the North has yet to fully recover from its all-out implosion a few years ago. Nebraska should be a top-20 team, but I'm not convinced the Huskers are ready to contend nationally yet, Missouri should again be good but not great and the jury's still out on the likes of Kansas State and Kansas.
6) ACC: The conference will be better than it was last year due to several high-profile coaching changes and more experienced teams, but it is still probably a year away from becoming a true force nationally. Virginia Tech should be a top-10 team, but after that it's anyone's best guess who will emerge as legitimate top-20 teams and who will remain mired in mediocrity out of a pack that includes Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College, Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech and Maryland.
7) Mountain West: Utah, TCU and BYU have each produced nationally competitive teams over the past three seasons and all will likely be strong again this season. New Mexico is always in the postseason mix. Things are a little hazy after that, though I'm interested to see whether Colorado State can bounce back from an awful year and how much improvement San Diego State shows in Chuck Long's second year.
8) WAC: Despite losing several teams to Conference USA a few years ago, this league has actually gotten stronger. We all know about Boise State, but the emergence of Nevada, San Jose State and Hawaii has boosted the conference considerably. If anyone can dethrone the Broncos this year, it's Colt Brennan and the Warriors. And I think last year's 4-8 debacle will prove an aberration for Fresno State.
9) Conference USA: This league has become hard to watch since losing Louisville, Cincinnati and USF. I expect there will once again be several decent teams (Tulsa, Southern Miss, East Carolina, UCF) but none that approach top-25 status.
10) MAC: Where have you gone, Ben Roethlisberger? Or Byron Leftwich? Or even Bruce Gradkowski? It's been a few years now since the MAC produced any giant-killers, and I don't expect that to change this year. Even with the addition of Temple (as hard as that may be to believe).
11) Sun Belt: How the members of this conference continue to remain at the I-A level is one of the great mysteries of our time.
So there you have it, folks. Now comes the hard part. You can either fire off that nasty e-mail inquiring about the size of my brain ... or you can ask a question that might actually get published next week.
Oh, the agony.
1 of 3
The reputation of Iowa's Kirk Ferentz as being a top-notch coach has taken a hit after a pair of disappointing seasons.
AP
Is Kirk Ferentz overrated as a coach? He had talented teams in both 2005 and 2006 and they only went 13-12 over those two years, yet everyone still says Kirk is up there with Pete Carroll, Bob Stoops and Urban Meyer. I find that hard to believe.
--Russ, Dyersville, Iowa
A straight up comparison of Ferentz to the coaches you mentioned would not exactly be fair considering he's not working with anywhere near the same level of talent. That said, he definitely dropped several rungs on my ladder the past two seasons. One of the major reasons Ferentz earned his reputation in the first place was that he was able to take largely blue-collar, physically overmatched teams and beat teams like Ohio State and Michigan and pull off 11-2, 10-3 and 10-2 seasons from 2002-04. The other major trait of those teams is that they got notably better as the season went along, another indicator of good coaching.
But that second part simply did not happen last year. That 6-7 team was a major disappointment considering it had a proven, senior quarterback in Drew Tate and was by all accounts a more talented bunch overall than those earlier teams, whose players were primarily recruited when the program was in the tank. So the question becomes, was Ferentz overrated to begin with or did his earlier teams simply overachieve? I tend to think last year was one of those inevitable blips that every coach endures from time to time when a team, for whatever reason, simply fails to gel. It's also unrealistic to think any coach is ever going to win 10 games every year at Iowa. But it's also not as if Ferentz has such a long track record that he be afforded a free pass. (Especially now that he's being paid like a Stoops or Meyer.) It will be interesting to see how much improvement, if any, this year's Hawkeyes show.
The last couple of seasons, we have seen an influx in big non-conference games to start the season. Which game are you most eager to see. For me, it's Virginia Tech at LSU on Sept. 8!
--Joshua, Richmond, Va.
That's going to be a good one, all right. I don't know who's going to win, but I bet the final score will be something like 10-9. I also think it's going to be an extremely important moment for the Virginia Tech community in its ongoing healing process. Assuming that's the "game of the week" nationally (Notre Dame-Penn State will get plenty of attention as well, but those teams aren't going to be ranked in the Top 10), I can only imagine how uplifting it will be for Hokies fans to see their school return to the national spotlight for something besides the recent tragedy.
The non-conference game I'm looking forward to most, however, is USC at Nebraska the following weekend. The Trojans are the expected preseason No. 1 team, but they're not without questions, particularly on offense. This will be just their second game of the season, and the first one is against Idaho, so this will truly be the first chance to gauge the 2007 Trojans. I also think this game will serve as a referendum on Bill Callahan's mostly stormy tenure in Lincoln. I thought Huskers fans got a little bit ahead of themselves last year in thinking their team would give USC any sort of scare in L.A. in what was then the start of Callahan's third season. At this point, however, it's year four, he's got his recruits and he's finally got a stud quarterback in Sam Keller. It's reasonable to expect that Nebraska -- one of the most storied programs of all-time -- should not roll over for anyone, even the No. 1 team in the country.
Stewart: It's time to play the annual eighth-year seniors game! I'll start it off ... really, a no-brainer: Notre Dame's Tom Zbikowski.
--Dave, Chelsea, Mich.
Ah yes, it's an annual Mailbag tradition. And Zbikowski is a perfect candidate for two reasons: 1) His recruitment as a high school senior in 2002-03 was so heavily chronicled that his name has been with us a whole extra year; and 2) I think most of us were under the assumption that last year would be his final season (he was in Brady Quinn's class but didn't play his first season). It was primarily because his stock plummeted so much that he came back for a fifth year.
Here are my nominees for other eighth-year seniors: Texas WR Limas Sweed, Michigan QB Chad Henne, LSU RB Alley Broussard, North Carolina WR Joe Dailey (Nebraska's starting quarterback in 2004), Penn State RB Austin Scott, Virginia Tech LB Xavier Adibi and Georgia K Brandon Coutu. More nominees are welcome.
We also have a new Hall of Famer. Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm about to tell you is truly astounding. Would you believe that Miami's Glenn Sharpe -- the cornerback from the famous Miami-Ohio State Fiesta Bowl pass-interference call -- is still in college?! Sharpe, a true freshman during that 2002 season, received a sixth year of eligibility after missing most of the 2004 and '05 seasons due to separate ACL tears. Next year, this little game may need to be officially renamed the Glenn Sharpe Game.
Stewart, is Ralph Friedgen making a huge mistake in leaning towards Jordan Steffy as Maryland's starting quarterback over transfer Josh Portis? What I have seen of Steffy so far has been far from impressive, and Portis seems like a perfect fit for Fridge's offense (a la former Georgia Tech QB Joe Hamilton). What gives?
--Brandon, College Park, Md.
That's a good question. Back when Portis decided to transfer to Maryland from Florida (where, if he stayed, he'd now be competing with Tim Tebow), I assumed Friedgen would just hand him the starting job in '07 if for no other reason than to avoid the wrath of Portis' psycho mother. But without having seen Portis play beyond a few meaningless snaps at Florida, I'm not sure I'm equipped to answer the question. So I've called in a guest expert, Heather Dinich, the Baltimore Sun's all-knowing Terrpains beat writer, whose Blog is a must-read both for her expertise on the Terps and her highly amusing comebacks at some of the "haters" who post on her comments board.
Regarding Portis, Heather says: "Everybody WANTS to see Portis because of all the hype surrounding him, and his exciting promise of athletic ability, but he's only a 'perfect fit' for Friedgen's offense if he knows it. Ralph has nearly 200 different pass patterns that can be run from about 15 different formations. Until Ralph is convinced Portis has an understanding of everything, Portis is going to be behind Steffy -- who has had more time to learn the system and spent all of last season calling plays in from the sidelines. There might also be a wee bit of politics involved. (Gasp!) It certainly isn't as if Ralph can afford to have Steffy transfer. Bottom line? Neither one of them has proven anything yet."
By the way, I would have pegged Steffy -- who played a bit in 2004 -- as an eighth-year senior himself, but it turns out he's only a fourth-year junior.
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Thanks for your new Fifth Mailbag Commandment. Is anything worse than sports fans referring to their favorite team as "we" or "us?" It's maddening.
--Keary Floyd, Lawrenceville, Ga.
Your new fifth rule isn't going to fly. As someone who was raised a Gator, and currently goes to school there, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't claim to be part of the "Gator Nation" and refer to it as "we." Sports teams are representations of the school, and anyone who does or has gone to a certain school is fully allowed to say "we" when talking about their team.
--J.B., West Palm Beach, Fla.
This was the only one of the five commandments that elicited backlash, so I stopped and considered whether there may actually be scenarios in which it would be acceptable for someone not on a team to refer to it as "we." And the answer I came up with was ... not in a million years.
Don't get me wrong, one of the things that makes college sports so much more riveting than the pros (at least in my mind) is the legitimate sense of ownership fans feel when the team in question plays for their school. So I do understand where J.B. is coming from. However, there's still a significant difference between saying, "My Gators kicked Ohio State's butt" (I've got no problem with that), and, "We kicked Ohio State's butt." Umm ... no you didn't. You sat in the stands and watched the Gators kick Ohio State's butt.
Your criticism about Chan Gailey got me thinking. Do you think a head coach in the NFL has an advantage coaching at the college level over his counterparts? He usually has a poor history in the NFL or he'd still be there, so what makes the Pete Carroll's do so well and what's your prediction for Bill Callahan at Nebraska?
--Mike Burr, Chicago
This is turning out to be a Callahan-heavy Mailbag. But that's OK, because Mike brings up a topic I've formed some pretty staunch opinions about within the last year. Of all the head coaches who have made the transition from the NFL to college in recent years, the only one who's had any raging success is Carroll. And I've always found it interesting that many of the very things that worked against Carroll in the pros -- his rah-rah personality, his player-friendly approach and his aggressive schemes and play-calling -- have been his biggest sources of success in college. This tells me there's almost no correlation between success at the two levels, and that in fact NFL experience may actually work against guys in college. Why? Because in college, unlike the NFL, it doesn't pay to be conservative.
Think back to last year's bowl season. Florida won a national title running an offense in which the backup quarterback was the top running back. Boise State won a BCS bowl running trick plays no NFL coach would dare run in a million years. USC won the Rose Bowl by literally abandoning any notion of offensive balance. College football has become increasingly synonymous with unconventional strategy. But NFL-bred coaches like Gailey, Callahan, Dave Wannstedt and Karl Dorrell tend to be among the most conservative in the nation. (Remember last year's Cotton Bowl?) They may win some games that way, but you don't win championships in college by playing not to lose.
Stewart, I've read your column for a couple of years and have never been compelled to write in until you were looking for a new Mailbag Crush. I nominate Kate Mara, granddaughter of New York Giants owner/legend Wellington Mara. Not only is she football royalty, but she was in We are Marshall.
--Kevin D, Chicago
You don't even have to change channels for your 2007 celebrity crush. How about Sarah Chalke from Scrubs?
--Tripp, Atlanta
Both Kate and Sarah were mentioned frequently in the first round of e-mails, as were two Entourage ladies, Emannuele Chriqui (Sloan) and Carla Guigno (Amanda), The Office's Rashida Jones (Karen), Friday Night Lights' Minka Kelly (whom Jimmy Traina previously claimed), Heroes' Hayden Panettiere (c'mon guys, she's 17) and, a truly under-the-radar choice, Rachel Specter, the RGX body spray girl.
I recently watched an episode of E's The Girls Next Door (admit it, you watch it, too) that illuminated the process by which Hugh Hefner picks the Playmate of the Year. (This year's choice, incidentally, is a recent Oregon State grad who posed for her first cover in Beavers colors. I have a whole new respect for that school.) Basically, he uses the reader poll as input but at the end of the day, he ultimately makes the call. So that's how we're going to treat Celebrity Crush. All of the aforementioned ladies are fine nominees, but I can't say whether any of them are going to make my final cut.
How many times are you going to keep insisting that the relative strength of conferences is "cyclical" when you simply mean that it's mutable? If you can find a cycle in any of this, you should apply your talents to the stock market. For crying out loud, you're a professional writer.
--Kurt S., Chapel Hill, N.C.
Listen, smarty pants. I write about football for a living. Therefore, I don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about. But once upon a time I did buy stock in a rising computer-software company. It had a funny name I kind of liked -- Microsoft. A few years later, I got a call from my stock broker saying I wouldn't have to worry about money anymore. Which is nice. It gives me more time to worry about the important things.
Like whether the Pac-10 is better than the Big 12 or vice versa.
(P.S. Parts of the aforementioned story were exaggerated for dramatic purposes. Greatly.)
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43 Comments - Show Original Post Collapse comments
voice of reason said...
Ten emails, ten faxes and ten phone calls from one constituent to a single politician or party (or even 5 each for each of Oregon's two senators) is not the sign of a healthy and principled political movement; it is the sign of a movement given over to paranoia, desperation and bullying tactics. What is the point of multiple contacts with a politician other than to artificially inflate your own numbers? Would someone care to explain why that is necessary?
Make your call, register your opinion, and if you want, follow up with a fax OR an email to elaborate on points you didn't have time to make on the phone. But don't tie up everyone's phone lines and clog their email boxes just so you can feel powerful ... the only effect of that is to prevent OTHERS from registering their own views -- on this issue, or -- suprise! -- other issues! There are other issues, you know.
7:36 AM
eddie said...
Yup... I agree... one contact with an individual representative.
Otherwise, you might as well be a progressive.
7:46 AM
Anonymous said...
"There are other issues, you know."
Not in Daniel's version of reality. Iraq, the federal deficit, our woeful health care system, gas prices, global warming....these all pale in comparison to illegal immigration.
Slowly but surely, this "problem" will remedy itself. Fertility in Mexico has been reduced drastically during the past two decades. The remittance economy has raised the standard of living in that country as well. The push factors driving Mexican migration are on the decline, again, slowly, but surely.
I think it's time to get this bill passed and move on to more pressing issues.
10:11 AM
Anonymous said...
To voice of reason and eddie:
This is just grand, people who want the American people to lay down and let this amnesty abomination become law, giving advice on what to do and what not to do.
Everybody in politics knows that intensity matters!
How hard people will work matters in politics.
How active voters are about an issue matters.
How do politicians measure intensity?
It is measured by the number of contacts and the kinds of contacts.
So, the politicians do this "deal" in secret and want to vote on it four days after telling the American people about the "deal"; and the bill is 700 pages long and hasn't been printed yet. There are no committee hearings.
And voice of reason talks about "...paranoia, desperation and bullying tactics."
Get real.
I've tangled with voice of reason before and crushed his "reason".
I look forward to it again.
10:13 AM
Anonymous said...
To anon1011am:
This bill is a threat to the Republic.
The question is this:
Will the United States of America continue to be a constitutional democratic republic or be an oligarchy controlled by either Big business or the socialists with a patina or veneer of democratic trappings?
This is a Kansas-Nebraska bill moment. The bill was passed in 1854, it opened the western territories to slavery by "popular sovereignty". It divided the Democrates, destroyed the Whigs, and gave birth to the anti-slavery Republican Party and led directly to the Civil War in 1860.
This makes the abortion issue look like a walk in the park, the gay agenda a street fight, while this is a battle for the Republic in which our grandchildren will live.
Where have you been in the last 24 hours? There is a prairie fire of intensity on this issue because the American people know what is at stake.
10:43 AM
Anonymous said...
A Kansas-Nebraska moment? Intensity? Okay -- what will you guys all do if, sorry, when this thing is signed into law? How do you respond to being on the losing end of a "Kansas-Nebraska" moment?
10:59 AM
anon 1043am said...
To anon1059am:
You are counting your chickens before they hatch, as the old saying goes. Politicians respond to groundswelling revulsion that will cost them re-election.
Can I guarantee Americans will defeat this abomination? No, but you are over-confident, and many times over-confidence is heading for a fall.
My side has the intensity, your side doesn't, and is inherently divided between Socialists, big business and La Raza types.
Blueoregon the blog of the left: Check it out, no post on immigration. Why? They are already divided over immigration because even Blueoregon types know amnesty will lower wages and hurt blue collar workers.
Get to know it.
Money is not the measure of all things.
You might just learn that in this episode.
11:32 AM
The OTHER Ben Dover said...
Hee Hee Hee...
You paranoids are really sweating it. Looks like your Prez sold ya'll down the river - little racist reference for ya.
Poor Daniel. Now he won't get any rest.
See ya in the bread, or should I say "tortilla" line
2:57 PM
Anonymous said...
Check CNN.COM poll
With 105,000 votes, it asks what you think of the new immigration proposal...
64% Amnesty
36% Immigration Reform
Looks like Americans are getting screwed in the a**hole by bush.
3:56 PM
Anonymous said...
No reverberatory effect of the great war has caused American public opinion more solicitude than the failure of the "melting-pot." The discovery of diverse nationalistic feelings among our great alien population his come to most people as an intense shock. It has brought out the unpleasant inconsistencies of our traditional beliefs. We have had to watch hard-hearted old Brahmins virtuously indignant at the spectacle of the immigrant refusing to be melted, while they jeer at patriots like Mary Antin who write about our "forefathers." We have had to listen to publicists who express themselves as stunned by the evidence of vigorous traditionalistic and cultural movements in this country among Germans, Scandinavians, Bohemians and Poles, while in the same breath they insist that the alien shall be forcibly assimilated to that Anglo-Saxon tradition which they unquestionably label "American."
As the unpleasant truth has come upon us that assimilation in this country was proceeding on lines very different from those we had marked out for it, we found ourselves inclined to blame those who were thwarting our prophecies. The truth became culpable. We blamed the war, we blamed the Germans. And then we discovered with a moral shock that these movements had been making great headway even before the war even began. We found that the tendency, reprehensible and paradoxical as it might be, has been for the national clusters of immigrants, as they became more and more firmly established and more and more prosperous, to cultivate more and more assiduously the literatures and cultural traditions of their homelands. Assimilation, in other words, instead of washing out the memories of Europe, made them more and more intensely real. Just as these clusters became more and more objectively American, did they become more and more German or Scandinavian or Bohemian or Polish.
To face the fact that our aliens are already strong enough to take a share in the direction of their own destiny, and that the strong cultural movements represented by the foreign press, schools, and colonies are a challenge to our facile attempts, is not, however, to admit the failure of Americanization. It is not to fear the failure of democracy. It is rather to urge us to an investigation of what Americanism may rightly mean. It is to ask ourselves whether our ideal has been broad or narrow--whether perhaps the time has not come to assert a higher ideal than the "melting-pot" Surely we cannot be certain of our spiritual democracy when, claiming to melt the nations within us to a comprehension of our free and democratic institutions, we fly into panic at the first sign of their own will and tendency. We act as if we wanted Americanization to take place only on our own terms, and not by the consent of the governed. All our elaborate machinery of settlement and school and union, of social and political naturalization, however, will move with friction just in so far as it neglects to take into account this strong and virile insistence that America shall be what the immigrant will have a hand in making it, and not what a ruling class, descendant of those British stocks which were the first permanent immigrants, decide that America shall be made. This is the condition which confronts us, and which demands a clear and general readjustment of our attitude and our ideal.
Mary Antin is right when she looks upon our foreign-born as the people who missed the Mayflower and came over on the first boat they could find. But she forgets that when they did come it was not upon other Mayflowers, but upon a "Maiblume," a "Fleur de Mai," a "Fior di Maggio," a "Majblomst." These people were not mere arrivals from the same family, to be welcomed as understood and long-loved, but strangers to the neighborhood, with whom a long process of settling down had to take place. For they brought with them their national and racial characters, and each new national quota had to wear slowly away the contempt with which its mere alienness got itself greeted. Each had to make its way slowly from the lowest strata of unskilled labor up to a level where it satisfied the accredited norms of social success.
We are all foreign-born or the descendants of foreign-born, and if distinctions are to be made between us they should rightly be on some other ground than indigenousness. The early colonists came over with motives no less colonial than the later. They did not come to be assimilated in an American melting-pot. They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the smallest intention of "giving themselves without reservation" to the new country. They came to get freedom to live as they wanted. They came to escape from the stifling air and chaos of the old world; they came to make their fortune in a new land. They invented no new social framework. Rather they brought over bodily the old ways to which they had been accustomed. Tightly concentrated on a hostile frontier, they were conservative beyond belief. Their pioneer daring was reserved for the objective conquest of material resources. In their folkways, in their social and political institutions, they were, like every colonial people, slavishly imitative of the mother-country. So that, in spite of the "Revolution," our whole legal and political system remained more English than the English, petrified and unchanging, while in England law developed to meet the needs of the changing times.
It is just this English-American conservatism that has been our chief obstacle to social advance. We have needed the new peoples--the order of the German and Scandinavian, the turbulence of the Slav and Hun--to save us from our own stagnation. I do not mean that the illiterate Slav is now the equal of the New Englander of pure descent. He is raw material to be educated, not into a New Englander, but into a socialized American along such lines as those thirty nationalities are being educated in the amazing schools of Gary. I do not believe that this process is to be one of decades of evolution. The spectacle of Japan's sudden jump from mediaevalism to post-modernism should have destroyed that superstition. We are not dealing with individuals who are to "evolve." We are dealing with their children, who, with that education we are about to have, will start level with all of us. Let us cease to think of ideals like democracy as magical qualities inherent in certain peoples. Let us speak, not of inferior races, hut of inferior civilizations. We are all to educate and to be educated. These peoples in America are in a common enterprise. It is not what we are now that concerns us, but what this plastic next generation may become in the light of a new cosmopolitan ideal.
We are not dealing with static factors, but with fluid and dynamic generations. To contrast the older and the newer immigrants and see the one class as democratically motivated by love of liberty, and the other by mere money-getting, is not to illuminate the future. To think of earlier nationalities as culturally assimilated to America, while we picture the later as a sodden and resistive mass, makes only for bitterness and misunderstanding. There may be a difference between these earlier and these later stocks, but it lies neither in motive for coming nor in strength of cultural allegiance to the homeland. The truth is that no more tenacious cultural allegiance to the mother country has been shown by any alien nation than by the ruling class of Anglo-Saxon descendants in these American States. English snobberies, English religion, English literary styles, English literary reverences and canons, English ethics, English superiorities, have been the cultural food that we have drunk in from our mothers' breasts. The distinctively American spirit pioneer, as distinguished from the reminiscently English that appears in Whitman and Emerson and James, has had to exist on sufferance along side of this other cult, unconsciously belittled by our cultural makers of opinion. No country has perhaps had so great indigenous genius which had so little influence on the country's traditions and expressions. The unpopular and dreaded German-American of the present day is a beginning amateur in comparison with those foolish Anglophiles of Boston and New York and Philadelphia whose reversion to cultural type sees uncritically in England's cause the cause of Civilization, and, under the guise of ethical independence of thought, carries along European traditions which are no more American' than the German categories themselves.
It speaks well for German-American innocence of heart or else for its lack of imagination that it has not turned the hyphen stigma into a "Tu quoque!" If there were to be any hyphens scattered about, clearly they should he affixed to those English descendants who had had centuries of time to be made American where the German had had only half a century. Most significantly has the war brought out of them this alien virus, showing them still loving English things, owing allegiance to the English Kultur, moved by English shibboleths and prejudice. It is only because it has been the ruling class in this country that bestowed the epithets that we have not heard copiously and scornfully of "hyphenated English-Americans." But even our quarrels with England have had the bad temper, the extravagance, of family quarrels. The Englishman of to-day nags us and dislikes us in that personal, peculiarly intimate way in which he dislikes the Australian, or as we may dislike our younger brothers. He still thinks of us incorrigibly as "colonials." America---official, controlling, literary, political America--is still, as a writer recently expressed it, "culturally speaking, ,a self-governing dominion of the British Empire."
The non-English American can scarcely be blamed if he sometimes thinks of the Anglo-Saxon predominance in America as little more than a predominance of priority. The Anglo-Saxon was merely the first immigrant, the first to found a colony. He has never really ceased to be the descendant of immigrants, nor has he ever succeeded in transforming that colony into a real nation, with a tenacious, richly woven fabric of native culture. Colonials from the other nations have come and settled down beside him. They found no definite native culture which should startle them out of their colonialism, and consequently they looked back to their mother-country, as the earlier Anglo-Saxon immigrant was looking back to his. What has been offered thee newcomer has been the chance to learn English, to become a citizen, to salute the flag. And those elements of our ruling classes who are responsible for the public schools, the settlements, all the organizations for amelioration in the cities, have every reason to be proud of the care and labor which they have devoted to absorbing the immigrant. His opportunities the immigrant has taken to gladly, with almost a pathetic eagerness to make his way in the new land without friction or disturbance. The common language has made not only for the necessary communication, but for all the amenities of life.
If freedom means the right to do pretty much as one pleases, so long as one does not interfere with others, the immigrant has found freedom, and the ruling element has been singularly liberal in its treatment of the invading hordes. But if freedom means a democratic cooperation in determining the ideals and purposes and industrial and social institutions of a country, then the immigrant has not been free, and the Anglo-Saxon element is guilty of just what every dominant race is guilty of in every European country: the imposition of its own culture upon the minority peoples. The fact that this imposition has been so mild and, indeed, semi-conscious does not alter its quality. And the war has brought out just the degree to which that purpose of "Americanizing," that is, "Anglo-Saxonizing," the immigrant has failed.
For the Anglo-Saxon now in his bitterness to turn upon the other peoples, talk about their "arrogance," scold them for not being melted in a pot which never existed, is to betray the unconscious purpose which lay at the bottom of his heart. It betrays too the possession of a racial jealousy similar to that of which he is now accusing the so-called "hyphenates." Let the Anglo-Saxon be proud enough of the heroic toil and heroic sacrifices which moulded the nation. But let him ask himself, if he had had to depend on the English descendants, where he would have been living to-day. To those of us who see in the exploitation of unskilled labor the strident red leit-motif of our civilization, the settling of the country presents a great social drama as the waves of immigration broke over it.
Let the Anglo-Saxon ask himself where he would have been if these races had not come? Let those who feel the inferiority of the non-Anglo-Saxon immigrant contemplate that region of the States which has remained the most distinctively "American," the South. Let him ask himself whether he would really like to see the foreign hordes Americanized into such an Americanization. Let him ask himself how superior this native civilization is to the great "alien" states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, where Scandinavians, Poles, and Germans have self-consciously labored to preserve their traditional culture, while being outwardly and satisfactorily American. Let him ask himself how much more wisdom, intelligence, industry and social leadership has come out of these alien states than out of all the truly American ones. The South, in fact, while this vast Northern development has gone on, still remains an English colony, stagnant and complacent, having progressed scarcely beyond the early Victorian era. It is culturally sterile because it has had no advantage of cross-fertilization like the Northern states. What has happened in states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota is that strong foreign cultures have struck root in a new and fertile soil. America has meant liberation, and German and Scandinavian political ideas and social energies have expanded to a new potency. The process has not been at all the fancied "assimilation" of the Scandinavian or Teuton. Rather has it been a process of their assimilation of us--I speak as an Anglo-Saxon. The foreign cultures have not been melted down or run together, made into some homogeneous Americanism, but have remained distinct but cooperating to the greater glory and benefit, not only of themselves but of all the native "Americanism" around them.
What we emphatically do not want is that these distinctive qualities should be washed out into a tasteless, colorless fluid of uniformity. Already we have far too much of this insipidity, masses of people who are cultural half-breeds, neither assimilated Anglo-Saxons nor nationals of another culture. Each national colony in this country seems to retain in its foreign press, its vernacular literature, its schools, its intellectual and patriotic leaders, a central cultural nucleus. From this nucleus the colony extends out by imperceptible gradations to a fringe where national characteristics are all but lost. Our cities are filled with these half-breeds who retain their foreign names but have lost the foreign savor. This does not mean that they have actually been changed into New Englanders or Middle Westerners. It does not mean that they have been really Americanized. It means that, letting slip from them whatever native culture they had, they have substituted for it only the most rudimentary American --the American culture of the cheap newspaper, the "movies," the popular song, the ubiquitous automobile. The unthinking who survey this class call them assimilated, Americanized. The great American public school has done its work. .With these people our institutions are safe. We may thrill with dread at the aggressive hyphenate, but this tame flabbiness is accepted as Americanization. The same moulders of opinion whose ideal is to melt the different races into Anglo-Saxon gold hail this poor product as the satisfying result of their alchemy.
Yet a truer cultural sense would have told us that it is not the self-conscious cultural nuclei that sap at our American life, but these fringes. It is not the Jew who sticks proudly to the faith of his fathers and boasts of that venerable culture of his who is dangerous to America, but the Jew who has lost the Jewish fire and become a mere elementary grasping animal. It is not the Bohemian who supports the Bohemian schools in Chicago whose influence is sinister, but the Bohemian who has made money and has got into ward politics. Just so surely as we tend to disintegrate these nuclei of nationalistic culture do we tend to create hordes of men and women without a spiritual country, cultural outlaws, without taste, without standards but those of the mob. We sentence them to live on the most rudimentary planes of American life. The influences at the centre of the nuclei are centripetal. They make for the intelligence and the social values which mean an enhancement of life. And just because the foreign-born retains this expressiveness is he likely to be a better citizen of the American community. The influences at the fringe, however, are centrifugal, anarchical. They make for detached fragments of peoples. Those who came to find liberty achieve only license. They become the flotsam and jetsam of American life, the downward undertow of our civilization with its leering cheapness and falseness of taste and spiritual outlook, the absence of mind and sincere feeling which we see iii our slovenly towns, our vapid moving pictures, our popular novels, and in the vacuous faces of the crowds on the city street. This is the cultural wreckage of our time, and it is from the fringes of the Anglo-Saxon as well as the other stocks that it falls. America has as yet no impelling integrating force. It makes too easily for this detritus of cultures. In our loose, free country, no constraining national purpose, no tenacious folk-tradition and folk-style hold the people to a line.
The war has shown us that not in any magical formula will this purpose be found. No intense nationalism of the European plan can be ours. But do we not begin to see a new and more adventurous ideal? Do we not see how the national colonies in America, deriving power from the deep cultural heart of Europe and yet living here in mutual toleration, freed from the age-long tangles of races, creeds, and dynasties, may work out a federated ideal? America is transplanted Europe, but a Europe that has not been disintegrated and scattered in the transplanting as in some Dispersion. Its colonies live here inextricably mingled, yet not homogeneous. They merge but they do not fuse.
America is a unique sociological fabric, and it bespeaks poverty of imagination not to be thrilled at the incalculable potentialities of so novel a union of men. To seek no other goal than the weary old nationalism, belligerent, exclusive, inbreeding, the poison of which we are witnessing now in Europe, is to make patriotism a hollow sham, and to declare that, in spite of our boastings, America must ever be a follower and not a leader of nations.
II
If we come to find this point of view plausible, we shall have to give up the search for our native "American" culture. With the exception of the South and that New England which, like the Red Indian, seems to be passing into solemn oblivion, there is no distinctively American culture. It is apparently our lot rather to be a federation of cultures. This we have been for half a century, and the war has made it evermore evident that this is what we are destined to remain. This will not mean, however, that there are not expressions of indigenous genius that could not have sprung from any other soil. Music, poetry, philosophy, have been singularly fertile and new. Strangely enough, American genius has flared forth just in those directions which are least [understood] of the people. If the American note is bigness, action, the objective as contrasted with the reflective life, where is the epic expression of this spirit? Our drama and our fiction, the peculiar fields for the expression of action and objectivity, are somehow exactly the fields of the spirit which remain poor and mediocre. American materialism is in some way inhibited from getting into impressive artistic form its own energy with which it bursts. Nor is it any better in architecture, the least romantic and subjective of all the arts. We are inarticulate of the very values which we profess to idealize. But in the finer forms --music, verse, the essay, philosophy--the American genius puts forth work equal to any of its contemporaries. Just in so far as our American genius has expressed the pioneer spirit, the adventurous, forward-looking drive of a colonial empire, is it representative of that whole--America of the many races and peoples, and not of any partial or traditional enthusiasm. And only as that pioneer note is sounded can we really speak of the American culture. As long as we thought of Americanism in terms of the "melting pot," our American cultural tradition lay in the past. It was something to which the new Americans were to be moulded. In the light of our changing ideal of Americanism, we must perpetrate the paradox that our American cultural tradition lies in the future. It will be what we all together make out of this incomparable opportunity of attacking the future with a new key.
Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, it is certain to become something utterly different from the nationalisms of twentieth-century Europe. This wave of reactionary enthusiasm to play the orthodox nationalistic game which is passing over the country is scarcely vital enough to last. We cannot swagger and thrill to the same national self-feeling. We must give new edges to our pride. We must be content to avoid the unnumbered woes that national patriotism has brought in Europe, and that fiercely heightened pride and self-consciousness. Alluring as this is, we must allow our imaginations to transcend this scarcely veiled belligerency. We can be serenely too proud to fight if our pride embraces the creative forces of civilization which armed contest nullifies. We can be too proud to fight if our code of honor transcends that of the schoolboy on the playground surrounded by his jeering mates. Our honor must be positive and creative, and not the mere jealous and negative protectiveness against metaphysical violations of our technical rights. When the doctrine is put forth that in one American flows the mystic blood of all our country's sacred honor, freedom, and prosperity, so that an injury to him is to be the signal for turning our whole nation into that clan-feud of horror and reprisal which would be war, then we find ourselves back among the musty schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and not in any pragmatic and realistic America of the twentieth century.
We should hold our gaze to what America has done, not what mediaeval codes of dueling she has failed to observe. We have transplanted European modernity to our soil, without the spirit that inflames it and turns all its energy into mutual destruction. Out of these foreign peoples there has somehow been squeezed the poison. Ann America, "hyphenated" to bitterness is somehow non-explosive. For, even if we all hark back in sympathy to a European nation, even if the war has set every one vibrating to some emotional string twanged on the other side of the Atlantic, the effect has been one of almost dramatic harmlessness.
What we have really been witnessing, however unappreciatively, in this country has been a thrilling and bloodless battle of Kulturs. In that arena of friction which has been the most dramatic--between the hyphenated German-American and the hyphenated English-American--there have emerged rivalries of philosophies which show up deep traditional attitudes, points of view which accurately reflect the gigantic issues of the war. America has mirrored the spiritual issues. The vicarious struggle has been played out peacefully here in the mind. We have seen the stout resistiveness of the old moral interpretation of history on which Victorian England thrived and made itself great in its own esteem. The clean and immensely satisfying vision of the war as a contest between right and wrong; the enthusiastic support of the Allies as the incarnation of virtue on a rampage; the fierce envisaging of their selfish national purposes as the ideals of justice, freedom and democracy--all this has been thrown with intensest force against the German realistic interpretations in terms of the struggle for power and the virility of the integrated State. America has been the intellectual battleground of the nations.
The failure of the melting-pot, far from closing the great American democratic experiment, means that it has only just begun. Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, we see already that it will have color richer and more exciting than our ideal has hitherto encompassed. In a world which has dreamed of internationalism, we find that we have all unawares been building up the first international nation. The voices which have cried for a tight and jealous nationalism of the European pattern are failing. From that ideal, however valiantly and disinterestedly it has been set for us, time and tendency have moved us further and further away. What we have achieved has been rather a cosmopolitan federation of national colonies, of foreign cultures, from whom the sting of devastating competition has been removed. America is already the world-federation in miniature, the continent where for the first time in history has been achieved that miracle of hope, the peaceful living side by side, with character substantially preserved, of the most heterogeneous peoples under the sun. Nowhere else has such contiguity been anything but the breeder of misery. Here, notwithstanding our tragic failures of adjustment, the outlines are already too clear not t
III
o give us a new vision and a new-orientation of the American mind in the world.
It is for the American of the younger generation to accept this cosmopolitanism, and carry it along with self-conscious and fruitful purpose. In his colleges, he is already getting, with the study of modern history and politics, the modern literatures, economic geography, the privilege of a cosmopolitan outlook such as the people of no other nation of to-day in Europe can possibly secure. If he is still a colonial, he is no longer the colonial of one partial culture, but of many. He is a colonial of the world. Colonialism has grown into cosmopolitanism, and his motherland is no one nation, but all who have anything life enhancing to offer to the spirit. That vague sympathy which the France of ten years ago was feeling for the world--a sympathy which was drowned in the terrible reality of war--may be the modern American's, and that in a positive and aggressive sense. If the American is parochial, it is in sheer wantonness or cowardice. His provincialism is the measure of his fear of bogies or the defect of his imagination.
Indeed, it is not uncommon for the eager Anglo-Saxon who goes to a vivid American university to-day to find his true friends not among his own race but among the acclimatized German or Austrian, the acclimatized Jew, the acclimatized Scandinavian or Italian. In them he finds the cosmopolitan note. In these youths, foreign-born or the children of foreign-born parents, he is likely to find many of his old inbred morbid problems washed away. These friends are oblivious to the repressions of that tight little society in which he so provincially grew up. He has a pleasurable sense of liberation from the stale and familiar attitudes of those whose ingrowing culture has scarcely created anything vital for his America of to-day. He breathes a larger air. In his new enthusiasms for continental literature, for unplumbed Russian depths, for French clarity of thought, for Teuton philosophies of power, he feels himself citizen of a larger world. He may be absurdly superficial, his outward-reaching wonder may ignore all the stiller and homelier virtues of his Anglo-Saxon home, but he has at least found the clue to that international mind which will be essential to all men and women of good-will if they are ever to save this Western world of ours from suicide. His new friends have gone through a similar revolution. America has burned most of the baser metal also from them. Meeting now with this common American background, all of them may yet retain that distinctiveness of their native cultures and their national spiritual slants. They are more valuable and interesting to each other for being different, yet that difference could not be creative were it not for this new cosmopolitan outlook which America has given :- - them and which they all equally possess.
A college where such a spirit is possible even to the smallest degree, has within itself already the seeds of this international intellectual world of the future. It suggests that the contribution of America will be an intellectual internationalism which goes far beyond the mere exchange of scientific ideas and discoveries and the cold recording of facts. It will be an intellectual sympathy which is not satisfied until it has got at the heart of the different cultural expressions, and felt as they feel. It may have immense preferences, but it will make understanding and not indignation its end. Such a sympathy will unite and not divide. Against the thinly disguised panic which calls itself "patriotism" and the thinly disguised militarism which calls itself "preparedness" the cosmopolitan ideal is set. This does not mean that those who hold it are for a policy of drift. They, too, long passionately for an integrated and disciplined America. But they do not want one which is integrated only for domestic economic exploitation of the workers or for predatory economic imperialism among the weaker peoples. They do not want one that is integrated by coercion or militarism, or for the truculent assertion of a mediƦval code of honor and of doubtful rights. They believe that the most effective integration will be one which coordinates the diverse elements and turns them consciously toward working out together the place of America in the world-situation. They demand for integration a genuine integrity, a wholeness and soundness of enthusiasm and purpose which can only come when no national colony within our America feels that it is being discriminated against or that its cultural case is being prejudged. This strength of cooperation, this feeling that all who are here may have a hand in the destiny of America, will make for a finer spirit of integration than any narrow "Americanism" or forced chauvinism. In this effort we may have to accept some form of that dual citizenship which meets with so much articulate horror among us. Dual citizenship we may have to recognize as the rudimentary form of that international citizenship to which, if our words mean anything, we aspire. We have assumed unquestioningly that mere participation in the political life of the United States must cut the new citizen off from all sympathy with his old allegiance. Anything but a bodily transfer of devotion from one sovereignty to another has been viewed as a sort of moral treason against the Republic. We have insisted that the immigrant whom we welcomed escaping from the very exclusive nationalism of his European home shall forthwith adopt a nationalism just as exclusive, just as narrow, and even less legitimate because it is founded on no warm traditions of his own. Yet a nation like France is said to permit a formal and legal dual citizenship even at the present time. Though a citizen of hers may pretend to cast off his allegiance in favor of some other sovereignty, he is still subject to her laws when he returns. Once a citizen, always a citizen, no matter how many new-citizenships he may embrace. And such a dual citizenship seems to us sound and right. For it recognizes that, although the Frenchman may accept the formal institutional framework of his new country and indeed become intensely loyal to it, yet his Frenchness he will never lose. What makes up the fabric of his soul will always be of this Frenchness,-so that unless he becomes utterly degenerate he will always to some degree dwell still in his native environment.
Indeed, does not the cultivated American who goes to Europe practice a dual citizenship, which, if not formal, is no less real? The American who lives abroad may be the least expatriate of men. If he falls in love with French ways and French thinking and French democracy and seeks to saturate himself with the new spirit, he is guilty of at least a dual spiritual citizenship. He may be still American, yet he feels himself through sympathy also a Frenchman. And he finds that this expansion involves no shameful conflict within him, no surrender of his native attitude. He has rather for the first time caught a glimpse of the cosmopolitan spirit. And after wandering about through many races and civilizations he may return to America to find them all here living vividly and crudely, seeking the same adjustment that he made. He sees the new peoples here with a new vision. They are no longer masses of aliens, waiting to be "assimilated," waiting to be melted down into the indistinguishable dough of Anglo-Saxonism. They are rather threads of living and potent cultures, blindly striving to weave themselves into a novel international nation, the first the world has seen. In an Austria-Hungary or a Prussia the stronger of these cultures would be moving almost instinctively to subjugate the weaker. But in America those wills-to-power are turned in a different direction into learning how to live together.
Along with dual citizenship we shall have to accept, I think, that free and mobile passage of the immigrant between America and his native land again which now arouses so much prejudice among us. We shall have to accept the immigrant's return for the same reason that we consider justified our own flitting about the earth. To stigmatize the alien who works in America for a few years and returns to his own land, only perhaps to seek American fortune again, is to think in narrow nationalistic terms. It is to ignore the cosmopolitan significance of this migration. It is to ignore the fact that the returning immigrant is often a missionary to an inferior civilization.
This migratory habit has been especially common with the unskilled laborers who have been pouring into the United States in the last dozen years from every country in southeastern Europe. Many of them return to spend their earnings in their own country or to serve their country in war. But they return with an entirely new critical outlook, and a sense of the superiority of American organization to the primitive living around them. This continued passage to and fro has already raised the material standard of living in many regions of these backward countries. For these regions are thus endowed with exactly what they need, the capital for the exploitation of their natural resources, and the spirit of enterprise. America is thus educating these laggard peoples from the very bottom of society up, awakening vast masses to a new-born hope for the future. In the migratory Greek, therefore, we have not the parasitic alien, the doubtful American asset, but a symbol of that cosmopolitan interchange which is coming, in spite of all war and national exclusiveness.
Only America, by reason of the unique liberty of opportunity and traditional isolation for which she seems to stand, can lead in this cosmopolitan enterprise. Only the American--and in this category I include the migratory alien who has lived with us and caught the pioneer "spirit and a sense of new social vistas--has the chance to become that citizen of the world. America is coming to be, not a nationality but a transnationality, a weaving back and forth, with the other lands, of many threads of all sizes and colors. Any movement which attempts to thwart this weaving, or to dye the fabric any one color, or disentangle the threads of the strands, is false to this cosmopolitan vision. I do not mean that we shall necessarily glut ourselves with the raw product of humanity. It would he folly to absorb the nations faster than we could weave them. We have no duty either to admit or reject. It is purely a question of expediency. What concerns us is the fact that the strands are here. We must have a policy and an ideal for an actual situation. Our question is, What shall we do with our America? How are we likely to get the more creative America by confining our imaginations to the ideal of the melting-pot, or broadening them to some such cosmopolitan conception as I have been vaguely sketching?
The war has shown America to be unable, though isolated geographically and politically from a European world-situation, to remain aloof and irresponsible She is a wandering star in a sky dominated by two colossal constellations of states. Can she not work out some position of her own, some life of being in, yet not quite of, this seething and embroiled European world? This is her only hope and promise. A trans-nationality of all the nations, it is spiritually impossible for her to pass into the orbit of any one. It will be folly to hurry herself into a premature and sentimental nationalism, or to emulate Europe and play fast and loose with the forces that drag into war. No Americanization will fulfill this vision which does not recognize the uniqueness of this trans-nationalism of ours. The Anglo-Saxon attempt to fuse will only create enmity and distrust. The crusade against "hyphenates" will only inflame the partial patriotism of trans-nationals, and cause them to assert their European traditions in strident and unwholesome ways. But the attempt to weave a wholly novel international nation out of our chaotic America will liberate and harmonize the creative power of all these peoples and give them the new spiritual citizenship, as so many individuals have already been given, of a world.
Is it a wild hope that the undertow of opposition to metaphysics in international relations, opposition to militarism, is less a cowardly provincialism than a groping for this higher cosmopolitan ideal? One can understand the irritated restlessness with which our proud pro-British colonists contemplate a heroic conflict across the seas in which they have no part. It was inevitable that our necessary inaction should evolve in their minds into the bogey of national shame and dishonor. But let us be careful about accepting their sensitiveness as final arbiter. Let us look at our reluctance rather as the first crude beginnings of assertion on the part of certain strands in our nationality that they have a right to a voice in the construction of the American ideal. Let us face realistically the America we have around us. Let us work with the forces that are at work. Let us make something of this trans-national spirit instead of outlawing it. Already we are living this cosmopolitan America. What we need is everywhere a vivid consciousness of the new ideal. Deliberate headway must be made against the survivals of the melting-pot ideal for the promise of American life.
We cannot Americanize America worthily by sentimentalizing and moralizing history. When the best schools are expressly renouncing the questionable duty of teaching patriotism by means of history, it is not the time to force shibboleth upon the immigrant. This form of Americanization has been heard because it appealed to the vestiges of our old sentimentalized and moralized patriotism. This has so far held the field as the expression of the new American's new devotion. The inflections of other voices have been drowned. They must be heard. We must see if the lesson of the war has not been for hundreds of these later Americans a vivid realization of their transnationality, a new consciousness of what America meant to them as a citizenship in the world. It is the vague historic idealisms which have provided the fuel for the European flame. Our American ideal can make no progress until we do away with this romantic gilding of the past.
All our idealisms must be those of future social goals in which all can participate, the good life of personality lived in the environment of the Beloved Community. No mere doubtful triumphs of the past, which redound to the glory of only one of our trans-nationalities, can satisfy us. It must be a future America, on which all can unite, which pulls us irresistibly toward it, as we understand each other more warmly.
To make real this striving amid dangers and apathies is work for a younger intelligensia of America. Here is an enterprise of integration into which we can all pour ourselves, of a spiritual welding which should make us, if the final menace ever came, not weaker, but infinitely strong.
4:27 PM
Anonymous said...
There can be no question about the average American's Americanism or his desire to preserve this precious heritage at all costs. Nevertheless, some insidious foreign ideas have already wormed their way into his civilization without his realizing what was going on. Thus dawn finds the unsuspecting patriot garbed in pajamas, a garment of East Indian origin; and lying in a bed built on a pattern which originated in either Persia or Asia Minor. He is muffled to the ears in un-American materials: cotton, first domesticated in India; linen, domesticated in the Near East; wool from an animal native to Asia Minor; or silk whose uses were first discovered by the Chinese. All these substances have been transformed into cloth by methods invented in Southwestern Asia. If the weather is cold enough he may even be sleeping under an eiderdown quilt invented in Scandinavia.
On awakening he glances at the clock, a medieval European invention, uses one potent Latin word in abbreviated form, rises in haste, and goes to the bathroom. Here, if he stops to think about it, he must feel himself in the presence of a great American institution; he will have heard stories of both the quality and frequency of foreign plumbing and will know that in no other country does the average man perform his ablutions in the midst of such splendor. But the insidious foreign influence pursues him even here. Glass was invented by the ancient Egyptians, the use of glazed tiles for floors and walls in the Near East, porcelain in China, and the art of enameling on metal by Mediterranean artisans of the Bronze Age. Even his bathtub and toilet are but slightly modified copies of Roman originals. The only purely American contribution to tile ensemble is tile steam radiator, against which our patriot very briefly and unintentionally places his posterior.
In this bathroom the American washes with soap invented by the ancient Gauls. Next he cleans his teeth, a subversive European practice which did not invade America until the latter part of the eighteenth century. He then shaves, a masochistic rite first developed by the heathen priests of ancient Egypt and Sumer. The process is made less of a penance by the fact that his razor is of steel, an iron-carbon alloy discovered in either India or Turkestan. Lastly, he dries himself on a Turkish towel.
Returning to the bedroom, the unconscious victim of un-American practices removes his clothes from a chair, invented in the Near East, and proceeds to dress. He puts on close-fitting tailored garments whose form derives from the skin clothing of the ancient nomads of the Asiatic steppes and fastens them with buttons whose prototypes appeared in Europe at the Close of the Scone Age. This costume is appropriate enough for outdoor exercise in a cold climate, but is quite unsuited to American summers, steam-heated houses, and Pullmans. Nevertheless, foreign ideas and habits hold the unfortunate man in thrall even when common sense tells him that the authentically American costume of gee string and moccasins would be far more comfortable. He puts on his feet stiff coverings made from hide prepared by a process invented in ancient Egypt and cut to a pattern which can be traced back to ancient Greece, and makes sure that they ire properly polished, also a Greek idea. Lastly, he tics about his neck a strip of bright-colored cloth which is a vestigial survival of the shoulder shawls worn by seventeenth century Croats. He gives himself a final appraisal in the mirror, an old Mediterranean invention, and goes downstairs to breakfast.
Here a whole new series of foreign things confronts him. His food and drink are placed before him in pottery vessels, the proper name of which -- china -- is sufficient evidence of their origin. His fork is a medieval Italian invention and his spoon a copy of a Roman original. He will usually begin the meal with coffee, an Abyssinian plant first discovered by the Arabs. The American is quite likely to need it to dispel the morning-after effects of overindulgence in fermented drinks, invented in the Near East; or distilled ones, invented by the alchemists of medieval Europe. Whereas the Arabs took, their coffee straight, he will probably sweeten it with sugar, discovered in India; and dilute it with cream, both the domestication of cattle and the technique of milking having originated in Asia Minor.
If our patriot is old-fashioned enough to adhere to the so-called American breakfast, his coffee will be accompanied by an orange, domesticated in the Mediterranean region, a cantaloupe domesticated in Persia, or grapes domesticated in Asia Minor. He will follow this with a bowl of cereal made from grain domesticated in the Near East and prepared by methods also invented there. From this he will go on to waffles, a Scandinavian invention with plenty of butter, originally a Near Eastern cosmetic. As a side dish he may have the egg of a bird domesticated in Southeastern Asia or strips of the flesh of an animal domesticated in the same region, which has been salted and smoked by a process invented in Northern Europe.
Breakfast over, he places upon his head a molded piece of felt, invented by the nomads of
Eastern Asia, and, if it looks like rain, puts on outer shoes of rubber, discovered by the ancient Mexicans, and takes an umbrella, invented in India. He then sprints for his train–the train, not sprinting, being in English invention. At the station he pauses for a moment to buy a newspaper, paying for it with coins invented in ancient Lydia. Once on board he settles back to inhale the fumes of a cigarette invented in Mexico, or a cigar invented in Brazil. Meanwhile, he reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites by a process invented in Germany upon a material invented in China. As he scans the latest editorial pointing out the dire results to our institutions of accepting foreign ideas, he will not fail to thank a Hebrew God in an Indo-European language that he is a one hundred percent (decimal system invented by the Greeks) American (from Americus Vespucci, Italian geographer).
--Ralph Linton, "One Hundred Per-Cent American," from the American Mercury (1937)
4:28 PM
Anonymous said...
Benjamin Franklin on Immigration:
Europe is generally full settled with Husbandmen, Manufacturers, &c. and therefore cannot now much increase in People: America is chiefly occupied by Indians, who subsist mostly by Hunting. But as the Hunter, of all Men, requires the greatest Quantity of Land from whence to draw his Subsistence, (the Husbandman subsisting on much less, the Gardner on still less, and the Manufacturer requiring the least of all), The Europeans found America as fully settled as it well could bee by Hunters; yet these having large Tracks, were easily prevail'd on to part with Portions of Territory to the new Comers, who did not much interfere with the Natives in Hunting, and furnish'd them with many Things they wanted.
Land being thus plenty in America, and so cheap as that a labouring Man, that understands Husbandry, can in a short Time save Money enough to purchase a Piece of new Land sufficient for a Plantation, whereon he may subsist a Family; such are not afraid to marry; for if they even look far enough forward to consider how their Children when grown up are to be provided for, they see that more Land is to be had at Rates equally easy, all Circumstances considered.
Hence Marriages in America are more general, and more generally early, than in Europe. And if it is reckoned there, that there is but one Marriage per Annum among 100 Persons, perhaps we may here reckon two; and if in Europe they have but 4 Births to a Marriage (many of their Marriages being late) we may here reckon 8, of which if one half grow up, and our Marriages are made, reckoning one with another at 20 Years of Age, our People must at least be doubled every 20 Years.
But notwithstanding this Increase, so vast is the Territory of North-America, that it will require many Ages to settle it fully; and till it is fully settled, Labour will never be cheap here, where no Man continues long a Labourer for others, but gets a Plantation of his own, no Man continues long a Journeyman to a Trade but goes among those new Settlers, and set up for himself, &c. Hence Labour is no cheaper now, in Pennsylvania, than it was 30 Years ago, tho' so many Thousand labouring People have been imported.
The Danger therefore of these Colonies interfering with their Mother Country in Trades that depend on Labour, Manufactures, &c. is too remote to require the Attention of Great-Britain.
But in Proportion to the Increase of the Colonies, a vast Demand is growing for British Manufacturers, a glorious Market wholly in the Power of Britain, in which Foreigners cannot interfere, which will increase in a short Time even beyond her Power of supplying, tho' her whole Trade should be to her Colonies: Therefore Britain should not too much restrain Manufactures in her Colonies. A wise and good Mother will not do it. To distress, is to weaken, and weakening the Children, weakens the whole Family....
'Tis an ill-grounded Opinion that by the Labour of Slaves, America may possibly vie in Cheapness of Manufactures with Britain. The Labour of Slaves can never be so cheap here as the Labour of working Men is in Britain. Any one may compute it. Interest of Money in the Colonies from 6 to 10 per Cent. Slaves one with another cost L30 Sterling per Head. Reckon then the Interest of the first Purchase of a Slave, the Insurance or Risque on his life, his Clothing and Diet, Expences in his Sickness and Loss of Time, Loss by his Neglect of Business (Neglect is natural to the Man who is not to be benefitted by his own Care or Diligence), Expense of a Driver to keep him at Work, and his Pilfering from Time to Time, almost every Slave being by Nature a Thief, and compare the whole Amount with the Wages of a Manufacturer of Iron or Wool in England, you will see that Labour is much cheaper there than it can ever be by Negroes here. Why then will Americans purchase Slaves? Because Slaves may be kept as long as a Man pleases, or has Occasion for their Labour; while hired Men are continually leaving their Master (often in the midst of his Business) and setting up for themselves.
....There are suppos'd to be now upwards of One Million English Souls in North-America, (tho' 'tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over Sea) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather more, on Account of the Employment the Colonies afford to Manufacturers at Home. This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 Years, will in another Century be more than the People of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on this Side the Water. What an Accession of Power to the British Empire by Sea as well as Land! What Increase of Trade and Navigation! What Number of Ships and Seamen! We have been here but little more than 100 Years, and yet the Force of our Privateers in the late War, united, was greater, both in Men and Guns, than that of the whole British Navy in Queen Elizabeth's Time....
And since Detachments of English from Britain sent to America, will have their Places at Home so soon supply'd and increase so largely here; why should the Palatine Boors [Germans] be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.
4:30 PM
Anonymous said...
Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
4:33 PM
Anonymous said...
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
4:42 PM
Anonymous said...
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Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
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Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjhklsadjsfioupcrtn8seuacxmipodfjksadklajsf;ncioudtngiojsdajocgm;ixojwraigjsidfjgmci jaicjiasdfjkgjajsvlcncncncncncntucnaigjfkldjhs;doifut;wcfnaiorjtksdajg;oiisrejgt;erijgidfklajjjxcgm;kjs;fgiweriojyocmiutg8uiqhredi;hag;oictjuieru;yidjxl;rkjtpaowierjhatl;kdhjoaheitjhsijhtsdkljhfsdhfjsdhjkhfasiohqphiotopjahfjklsak;fjksdajfsfjfjksdkjoa’ nocjeoirt’acior349uiaskeuj9jhoasjkejdlf;asjekxrjoieui05tj ;234iou5wasioesudrfoaWHEJKDRHOPWEUIHFOSA;wiudp99au3iekjotsikjs;9eua[;sjkdjaposiyeuiha;oiweu3ieusodjfgioasjdpoifjksjf;oaiusdifgoae[urtfiqerua[ofjasoidfguwoaservfigasejf
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
naiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjhklsadjsfioupcrtn8seuacxmipodfjksadklajsf;ncioudtngiojsdajocgm;ixojwraigjsidfjgmci jaicjiasdfjkgjajsvlcncncncncncntucnaigjfkldjhs;doifut;wcfnaiorjtksdajg;oiisrejgt;erijgidfklajjjxcgm;kjs;fgiweriojyocmiutg8uiqhredi;hag;oictjuieru;yidjxl;rkjtpaowierjhatl;kdhjoaheitjhsijhtsdkljhfsdhfjsdhjkhfasiohqphiotopjahfjklsak;fjksdajfsfjfjksdkjoa’ nocjeoirt’acior349uiaskeuj9jhoasjkejdlf;asjekxrjoieui05tj ;234iou5wasioesudrfoaWHEJKDRHOPWEUIHFOSA;wiudp99au3iekjotsikjs;9eua[;sjkdjaposiyeuiha;oiweu3ieusodjfgioasjdpoifjksjf;oaiusdifgoae[urtfiqerua[ofjasoidfguwoaservfigasejf
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Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
4:44 PM
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AMNESTY NOW!
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AMNESTY NOW!
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AMNESTY NOW!
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Polish Immigrant said...
Some of the anti-capitalist and anti-American rants by illegal-immigrant apologists here are very interesting.
4:59 PM
Anonymous said...
Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
‘Immigration in America,’ a forum about the national debate over immigration, was held downtown last night. Students Fermin Lopez and Lin Luohzen wrote the winning essays in a related competition.
By
The Forest Grove News-Times, Apr 25, 2007, Updated Apr 25, 2007 (58 Reader comments)
Chase Allgood / News-Times
Fermin Lopez
Is there such a thing as the American Dream?
Searching for a dream that has yet to come true at times seems foolish. In the eyes of a hard-working man, there is no such thing as a dream.
How do you expect to dream when your body’s too exhausted to dream? We don’t live for a dream, but a reality. Dreams don’t pay bills but hard work does. At least that’s how it’s sometimes seen through my father’s eyes. Sixteen years in this land of opportunity and yet he hasn’t witnessed a so-called “American Dream.” There’s not a day that goes by where he doesn’t worry about not having to pay the bills. Day after day of working is endless when you’re supporting a family of six.
Coming to the United States as an immigrant, you’re faced with many difficult decisions. You choose whether coming here will create a safe environment for your family to grow up in. Will I be able to make it here? Is this really a decision I can handle? Is America really what its all made up to be? Is it worth it? These are a flurry of questions you ask yourself while attempting to cross the border.
Crossing the border is just one of the many struggles we face in this country. From other peoples eyes it’s seen as our most difficult struggle. What about finding a home? Getting a job? Getting around? Do you really think these things are handed to us? Not to mention the fact that in every society you’ll find racism.
Growing up in Mexico was hard on my father. He dropped out of second grade because his parents couldn’t afford to keep him in school. Do you know how bad that makes him feel having dropped out of school because of poverty, something that wasn’t uncommon in the part of Mexico where he grew up? Quitting school and working wasn’t his choice.
He was seven years old, taking care of cows from six in the morning to eight at night. Then when he turned thirteen he began working in construction. Moving heavy bricks and mixing cement, doesn’t seem hard but moving the bricks by hand was hard. Scrapes all over his back, fingers bleeding, body aching, working his fingers to the bone. Working from six in the morning to eight. All for some measly 60 pesos a day. Sometimes there would be no work and all they would have to eat was tortillas with salt, or with pumpkin seeds. One shirt and one pair of jeans is what they had to live with. No underwear or socks.
When he made the decision to cross the border at 17, it took him three attempts to get here. He didn’t come here for a dream he came here for the reality, which was to make the money to support his family. It was harder than he imagined. There was a huge difference between working here and working in Mexico. Here he had to be at work at a certain time, and was kept on a tight leash. Having a man breathing over your shoulder, rushing you to work, cussing at you in a foreign language being fired at times for no reason and having no one to communicate with — where’s the dream in that? He had blisters upon blisters, bruises as dark as black paint. The abuse he faced was fierce. How can you dream when the pain of a hard days work puts you to sleep? The scars he has are proof of what he’s been through.
A dream to him is to win the lottery, and for the world to be at peace. That’s a dream. The success of his children is just something he’s grateful to see. Having my brothers and I leave our footsteps in history is something he would want to see. He just wants to show everyone that we are the same and have the same abilities.
There’s no sweeter joy than to see the success of an immigrant race making it in a foreign country, from being no one to being someone important. A dream he wants to see is equality, but to him there is no so-called “American Dream.”
The way I see things are: you have to pave your own path, climb your own ladder to be someone in life. My father and I believe you can’t build a foundation off a dream, but a willingness to strive and to be someone.
The “American Dream” to us means nothing.
— Fermin Lopez, a student at Forest Grove High School, lives in Cornelius.
There is nothing wrong with fighting for your dreams
Everyone has a dream. Some people want to have more money. Others are looking for education and a place to be accepted. However, some people live in places where it would be hard to survive let alone to reach their dream.
Every day we hear about places that are closed to immigrants who would like to enter, but because they don’t have the right documents, they can’t. Those documents cost money, too; so do their dreams. I strongly think every place in the world should be open for any immigrant that would like to enter.
I am a Chinese, born in southeastern China, and I’m proud of who I am. I came here to have a better education that will bring me a successful life. America was the country that I chose because this country could support me with a good education and lead me to my dream. Even though I came with the right papers, I would still hope America could be open for those people who want to enter. In my own opinion I think every human being is born to have the same and equal rights. That’s what the United States Constitution says. I believe people have the right to fight for their dreams, also the right to choose to their life.
Education, I think, is the first step to our dreams. The better education that you have, the better job you will get when you grow up. One of my biggest dreams is to become a famous lawyer. I know there are many steps that I have to go though to reach that dream. There is one quote I really like in China: “You have to fight for your life in order to get a better start. Money won’t come to you if you’re just sitting there. You are the one that who decides if you want to have a better life or not.”
I strongly believe it and that is the reason why I am trying my best in school everyday. I know in try hard, my dream will come true.
Some illegal immigrants might be refugees looking for a place to live. Their dream might be as simple as a safe place to live and food to eat. They also need a place that will support their dreams and accept them as a member to the country. Their hope is to come to a place that they could call home and not be hurt a second time. I think every country should give them a chance.
Still I think the biggest reason immigrants come is for the opportunity to make more money because money is the first step for most of the people to reach their dreams. To reach my dream education is my first step and I think that is also the first step for many other people, too. Going to a college takes money; too, so they need to earn the money it will take for their education. Then, they can get a better job.
Immigrants have helped the U.S to be one of the best countries in the world today. People have dreams and most of the dreams need money to get a good start. However, education is also an important goal, too. I hope every place should support the refugees because as a human being we should all receive the same and equal treatment.
— Lin ‘Lily’ Luozhen is an eighth-grader at Neil Armstrong Middle School in Forest Grove.
Reader comments
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Well, these "winning" essays leave much to be desired. Mostly distinguished by the extreme self-centeredness and arrogance of the authors. Let's take "Lily" first;
>
America doesn't excist to lead you to your "dreams" honey. We are a real country, with a real history, and a real people. Our ancestors paid in blood, sweat and tears for the infrastructure you so blithely brag about taking advantage of -- and which you also so generously want to offer to every Tom, Dick and Harry who thinks they have a "human right" to use our infrastructure ot achieve their "dreams." How would you feel if billions of people thought they were entitled to use YOUR country the same way? Fact is, for you to have your "dreams", many native-born Americans don't get to have THEIR dreams. The least you could do is say thank-you.
>
Quit whining about how your Dad has never found the "American Dream." As with "Lily", our nation doesn't exist to provide you with "dreams." Also, if our country means nothing to you then please go back to Mexico with your criminal lawbreaking dad.
"Mary"
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 07:26 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Yes, there's no sure thing about achieving your goals and dreams in this country! I struggled to support a family alone - took many a menial job just for health benefits - dead end jobs and I see my children losing their jobs to cheap labor.
My compassion and sympathies go to that American worker who was so angry at me for unknowingly hiring an American contractor who sent two groups of illegal aliens, one from Central America and one from Mexico to my home - I didn't want them there, I didn't agree to that, I didn't get a big savings. He was later fined 1.5 million dollars - oh yes! But the Contractor who didn't get the job was beside himself on why I hired the other Contractor and I wouldn't have hired him.
Reports on TV this week is that social security entitlements and medicare will bankrupt America. Hello??????????
"Fairlane"
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 09:56 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
It was the "American Dream" which gave this great country the standing it has in the world. If not for such a thing we would have never have risen to the highest level in the world community. I daresay the early immigrants who formed this country worked to better not only themselves but the country itself, they learned a common language and worked to integrate themselves. The current illegal immigrants send large amounts of money out of the USA, contribute with disproportionate amounts of crime (as if illegally entering a sovereign nation is not a crime itself), live here 10, 15, 20 years illegally and make no attempt to learn the native language, uncontrolled child birth, make no time to better the greater community, leech off of public resources for food, housing, etc.
The American dream is what separates us from all our neighbors, it is what many Americans have fought and died for. Other countries have let corruption, greed and indifference shape their countries and carry these same qualities here with them. The American dream is what you make of it, we do not owe any illegal immigrants one thing except swift prosecution and deportation. If the "immigrants" truly believe in this country as something other than a handout and a way to pave the way to third world living conditions I have not seen it. With the high rate of employment among these "immigrants" why do so many of them live in HUD housing or in squalor with 3-4 families in a house or apartment? Could it be they were criminals in their own countries? Real immigrants live with American society not under it. The American dream will fade when these minorities become the majority and open borders cause the once proud USA to become a footnote. The signs are all around us.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 11:38 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Is this the same "Immigration Dream" competition posted on the Cornelius Fred Meyer bulletin board? The one that caused me to wince, thinking - “here we go again” - another feel-good session for the Politically (in)Correct!
There's a tiny minority of extremely active ‘locals’ who’ve become the Enabler’s of bottom tier, or illegal immigration, as their livelihoods are often center around dispensing our social services to the constant influx of illegal and amnestied-illegal aliens.
This writing “Competition” was nothing more than a media tool to evoke pity for those who'll apparently stop at nothing to get what we have -- and it bothers me to see it given this attention by our local newspaper.
Current LEGAL US immigration allows over 300,000 new citizens a year into this country. That's larger than the city of Portland during most of my life! With a current estimate of 20 Million illegal alien immigrants within our borders - where's our sovereignty?
I've an 8th grade daughter too (born in Forest Grove), though she'll apparently have to speak a foreign language to find work. Tell me - what of her Dreams?!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 08:20 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Congratulations to the students who participated in the "Immigration in America" essay contest. I applaud their willingness to share their stories, and to wrestle with what it means to be a young immigrant in America today. It gives me hope to see their constructive contributions to the immigration debate, not an easy one to walk into. We are all richer for their presence and involvement.
"Bridget"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 12:31 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I was amazed and gratified at the level of reflection evidenced in the essays written by these two young people. How wonderful that young people can dream the same dreams that almost all of our ancestors dreamed when they began their struggles in this "land of dreams". I sincerely regret that some of us base our opinions on incorrect data, our own painful past or current experiences or unfounded fear. Dream on, whoever you are.
"Barbara"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 01:04 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
On Tuesday evening, April 24, I attended the event at the Forest Grove Community Center where the two students read the winnning essays. I was very impressed, not only with the essays and the students, but also with the history of immigration presented by Dr. Jim Moore with Pacific University. Perhaps individuals with hostile and hateful comments about immigrants would have developed an educated understanding of immmigration in this country if they had attended and participated in the event. The hostile comments remind me of the child who asks his mother "Mom, what's a label?" "It's something they put on a person so you can hate them without having to get to know them first."
"Louise"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow! I am amazed at the hostility and ignorance of some previous comments. They must have a great deal of fear to attack a 13 year old and 16 year old! I want to commend Lily and Fermin for their wonderful essays which give a brief look into the world of the immigrant; a chance to see what many choose to ignore. Many of the "facts" stated above would have been dispelled if Neal, Mark, Fairlane and Mary had chosen to participate in the Immigration Forum. Before blaming these courageous students or their parents one should take a deep look at US Foreign Policy.
"Gina"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:24 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
My dear,
You missed something about "YOUR REAL HISTORY"
Your ancestors did not pay with BLOOD for anything. They killed and stole this land that was belong to someone esle. Did not you know that part?
Let me change "Real People" defination for "Real Criminals"
"Linda"
""Linda""
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 03:12 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I worked hard to bring my wife here leagaly, I paid and spent a year and a half trying to get it all correct, but she is leagal. Why did the essays not also stake the fact out right that their parents broke the law as they are breaking our country. I have no problem what so ever for some one who is willing to come hear correctly and I for one understand how hard it is, but to come and trespass here and use our own benefits that we are trying to save for our own retirement such as social security just really makes me angry, and I just want to say GO HOME!!!!!!!
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 06:55 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
It's interesting to see that the complaints made about Irish immigrants in the late 19th century (contributing disproportionately to crime) and German immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century (not willing to learn English) have been recycled for use against our newest immigrant populations.
My great-grandmother spoke nothing but German. My grandmother spoke German to her mother, and English to her children. My father could only understand parts of what his mother said to his grandmother, and the only German I use is 'Gesundheit!'
Exodus 23:9 — ‘You shall not oppress a resident alien, you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.'
"Jenye"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 07:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
After reading the winning essays on immigration from two local high school students, I was impressed by the authors’ eloquence and organization of their papers. It takes writing skills to be able to express complex issues in a clear and organized manner, especially when you are doing it in your second language.
Immigration is a complex issue, often exploited by opportunistic politicians, that raises a lot of passion. While some people think that immigrants come here for a ‘free ride’, only to take advantage of the great benefits of our society (as if they only needed to stretch their arm to grab the ripe fruit from a tree), while other people think that they are being exploited by our avaricious employers.
I personally think that immigration does not happen at random. Immigrants go where they are needed or wanted. The same happens with migrant movements from within our borders (i.e. the neighbor from Texas or Alabama that moved to Oregon). One only needs to look around our community to see that recent immigrants are an integral part of our community, holding jobs in all sectors of the economy, from picking berries in the fields, changing shingles on the roofs, cooking in restaurants, taking care of the elderly to working in the high tech industry.
The recent immigrants that I have met are hard workers, often times holding more than one job. The reason for this, as I later found out, is that for some their pay is below the minimum wage, often times without benefits such as vacation time, sick leave or retirement. In fact, for many the Social Security and Medicare that is taken off their paycheck twice a month is money that they will never see again.
While we are a nation of immigrants, it seems hypocritical to me that now we have decided that new immigrants are not welcome. It saddens me to see that in the whole immigration debate we tend to forget that we are all humans in pursuit of happiness doing the best that we can to provide for ourselves and our children. Let us not forget our humanity.
""Gerardo""
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 08:56 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wake up and figure the cost of the programs to help at risk youth (i.e. hispanics) stay out of gangs, stay in school and stay out of jail. Then calculate the cost of your friends, neighbors, and businesses having to repair or paint the damage done by these "at risk" gang taggers, thieves, and drug dealers. Then figure out what the meetings in Forest Grove for spanish speakers cost to help them watch for the signs of gang activity with their "at risk" children. How about the cost of high school programs to hold dances, low rider events and mexican cooking classes? Is cheap labor worth the price? If they feel they are being oppressed by English speaking bosses maybe they would have more of a voice if they were here legally and businesses didn't hire cheap labor for a quick buck, oh and learning our language helps. It's not the poor illegal alien worker to blame, it's the companies that hire them with fake papers. Both political parties are to blame, one for the exploitation of the labor force for business and the other to garner votes for them and their social programs. It's not the kid's essays to blame, it's the apathy among people who sit and watch the American Dream disappear into the sunset all so business can turn a profit. When they don't make record profits they pick up their marbles and take their factories to Mexico, China, India or the like to ensure the CEO makes billions of dollars. Being a Native American Indian I could go on about many of the injustices done to the original inhabitants of North America but that and bible versus are irrelevant to this argument. Ask your government why they help fuel the sellout of the USA....
"John Q"
(Not verified)
Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 10:58 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I feel that a lot has been said about this subject but I have a few things to add. First off, most of the west coast used to belong to Mexico and Americans took it. Now "we" complain and say that they are on "our" land. Second, American companies exploit Mexicans living in their own country by placing factories there and paying workers very little, giving them poor working conditions, breaking international civil rights, and polluting their land to the point that many water sources are no longer usable for consumption. If US companies are destroying Mexican land, how can American citizens get mad at Mexican natives for crossing the border and leaving such conditions? Third, we seem to put every member of the Latino community into one group - "illegal Mexicans." I believe that this label destroys the opportunity of many members of the Latino community who are in the US legally to succeed. I also believe that we forget that many Latino youth are here legally. Some of their parents may have come here illegally but many of the youth are not illegal. They are Americans and have all the same rights as any other American. So when people complain about the programs out there that help at risk youth (not every at risk youth is Latino I'd like to add) and say tax payers are just pouring money into illegals, I believe it to be incorrect. If they were born on American soil, they are American citizens and have all the same rights as any other American. If an American youth turns to a life of crime, the state tries to get them back on the right track whether they are black, brown, white, or green.
Why must we look at every new group of immigrants as a burden? Why can't we see them as a new opportunity to learn? Every culture has so much to offer. We sure don't mind going to Mexican restaurants or drinking Corona. Why can't we embrace the rest of the culture starting with its people that have come to our country, who I'm sure would love to share their roots with us?
"Leah"
(Not verified)
Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Before reaching conclusions about America's immigrants, please review the following two links:
http://www.ocpp.org/2007/issue070410immigranttaxeseng.pdf, and,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901322.html.
These articles reinforce the positive contributions of our immigrants.
"Joe Rodriguez"
(Not verified)
Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 04:58 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
A few facts might help to make some sense out of some of the comments above.
- Immigrants, even those who are here legally, do not qualify for most public benefits until they have worked and paid taxes for 40 quarters. That's ten years.
- Even though they are not able to partake in many of the benefits of our government, immigrants pay taxes. Some work under the table--as do some citizens--but the vast majority are subject to withholding from their wages. Anyone who owns or rents property pays property taxes, either directly or indirectly.
- As anyone who has ever struggled through a high school Spanish, or French or German, Japanese, or Chinese class, should know, becoming fluent in another language isn't so easy, especially when working long hours at back-breaking work to support a family. But remember, the eloquent essays that started this string of responses were written by the children of immigrants, and written quite well, I might add, in our common tongue. It has always beens so in America's melting pot.
- Studies comparing the economies of cities like Los Angeles, which have seen great immigration with cities like Cleveland, which have not, show that the hard work, entrepreneurship and, yes, "dreams" immigrants bring to our country actually help to lift the economy, not hurt it.
Ignorance is no excuse for bigotry.
Michael
"D. Michael Dale"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 06:27 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Your links hardly shed any new light on the subject, like my rants they lack any documenting evidence to support there opinions.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 07:40 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
So much for the inscription on the Statue of Liberty which ends with the words, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." The inscription does not mention that paperwork must be in order.
How sad it is to read the hateful comments that stand in opposition to the welcome offered by Lady Liberty. What's next?---A large cloth hung over the inscription to block out these words?
"Sheila"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 04:53 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
How aggravating to read (yet again) the same sorry "talking points" of our Illegal Enablers. Such as: 'This land belonged to them before us'... No, it didn't; you're talking about Aztecs and Spanish Conquistadors, not our Native Americans. 'This is just how the Irish were treated'... The Irish checked in; if not up to specks, they were sent back. Those who stayed - stayed - and, they were legal. 'Send us your poor'... That was simply a “commemorative plaque,” it was never US Government policy. If anything, send us you educated - not those with on average a 3rd grade education and unable to make it in their home country. And (while you’re at it) send us your law abiding, not identity stealing border jumping criminals.
'They do pay taxes'... not directly, and not near enough to off-set their FULL cost to our society. 'They work hard'... cause they're desperate! Watch what they (or their children) do as they get more comfortable. 'They do the work Americans won't' ... you mean they’ll do the work for 3rd world wages, and a standard of living Americans refuse. How do you propose we live, like Europe, or Central America?
'They have a dream' ... so do we! 'English is hard' ... then stay where it isn’t. 'They were "Indians" and we stole their land' ..."Indians" stole, tortured and enslaved their own for eons; Europeans were simply more efficient - evolution? 'Cities were built on cheap labor' ... so was our South - they called it Slavery. 'American Companies exploit Mexicans' ... and their government allows it? Bring those factories home and exploit us! ...The Mexican Government's exploiting its people, and if these Central Americans are so righteous, why aren't they fighting for the rights our great-grandparents won for us instead of stealing ours?
That's more than enough… We're talking about Illegal Alien’s aren’t we? And who can help if they all appear as one (if mixed) race - though diversification would make no difference. And encouraging another Amnesty will again make it ten times worse. So, we either rollover and play dead, or we defend a line? Take your pick!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 05:57 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
The Statue of Liberty came from France, you figure that one out. I'm still trying to figure out how people can roll over and be assimilated into a foreign culture in their own country. Drive thru Cornelius and count how many billboards and storefronts are in spanish. Drive down to Woodburn and check out the old downtown tell me that won't be more towns like that. As far as learning the language immersion is the best way to learn. Working in Woodburn for two years allowed me to immerse myself in spanish to be able to communicate with the locals. Dump someone in the middle of a foreign country and they will learn quickly especially one that has no English available. It's a survival skill that no classroom setting can teach. It's corporate America who make money off of the illegals who choose not to interact with Americans for fear of deportation and cater to their language.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 06:07 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
After the may day activities in Portland today I think a lot of the points I put out earlier strengthen. Hispanics illegal and legal marching in a U.S. city with mexican flags, spanish signs and shouting "viva la raza" Look up Atzlan and La Raza in google and decide for yourself. This is not a part of my American Dream. The following link will explain all of this and more, I'd like someone to defend this well documented movement:
http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 11:25 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am overly impressed with the intelligence these two students portrayed in their reflections. The reality of your writing is something I will carry with me. I congratulate you both for your deep and meaningful portrayal of a contentious issue.
"gretchen"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
If it were not for immigrants our country would not exsist...my own hertiage is a mix of people who originated here in what now known as United States of America and others that came to America LEGALLY thru Ellis Island and began living their lives by adapting to the culture, language and laws of our country
What does it say to our citizens and law-abiding immigrants when we condone and give amnesty to people who have broken the law by their very presence? What do we say to others in our country who have broken our laws when we have one set of laws for them and another set for someone who refuses to abide by our laws from the very beginning of their life in the US
What kind of message does it sends to the kind of people we don’t want or need in this country?
Whether they are from Mexico, Viet Nam, Canada, Iraq or any other country, immigrants enntering illegally, SHOULD NOT have any of the rights of legal immigrants and our own citizens; including, in my opionion the natural citizenship of the children they give birth to while residing in the US illegally as well as allowing them to stay because they have maaried US citizens. We should also consider the employer who hires these people to work as any other citizen who breaks the law
I believe that this issue should be a question we pose as part of the upcoming Presidential election. The people in this country illegally DO have a consequence on our schools, socail structure and work environment. If you don't think this is true, ask the parents of the high school student who wa recently shot by a classmate that is 'undocumented' As well, I am uncomfortable exercising my First Amendment right to express my opionion freely--without fear of reprisal for my stand on this issue
"TL PALMER"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 02:42 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Why were we not going through these protesters and deporting all of the illegals? If I broke into a bank and stole your money would I have a chance to say "hey i broke in but it is only because you let me and I should get to keep the money and have you pay for anything else I need" They are ILLEGAL. Period end of statement send them home!!!!!!!!!! It makes it even harder for someone who does it correct. The INS says if you don't have a good job in your home coutry you can't come and visit, but hey if you are hear illegal then we should try to help you out. This is just another crime that are country is excepting because it is politcally correct.!!!!! Sorry I still say send them all home and lets fix our own country first. If you honestly believe that our schools are not being hurt by all of the language barriers and the free rides to college because of your color, then you are also a fool.
"DAVE"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 04:05 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am appalled by all of the mean-spirited and racist comments of immigrants that are not even illegal though, I believe that everyone seems to have very interesting points but my opinion is; Illegal Immigrants are an issue in this country and take jobs that really should be for people who are legal. I am not saying that every Mexican should be banished from here but in turn, that Immigrants should legally become citizens and work as legal citizens. I understand the want for happiness and/or the American dream but remember the words of Benjamin Franklin:
"The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it."
So I say, aim for the American dream and try, try, try and one day it could be a reality.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 05:20 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
WOW, I too am amazed at some of the greedy and harsh comments made by my fellow Americans. I am so sorry that America has instead of becoming the land that welcomes those who want freedom from oppression to the land that does a lot of oppressing.
I was proud of these student for the thought and honesty that went into these essays. You are Brave- very Brave and I aplaud you.
These students were doing nothing more than sharing their story from were they sit in life, not asking for a free ride, not cutting down America or Americans, not saying we owe them just simply saying "Why is everyone acting as if we are coming to steal something or get a free ride, NO they are here becuase thier family and lives depend on it, leaving family was not easy for them, life has not been easy- they are just wanting to live- What is so hard to understand about that? Isn't that what we all want.
If I were to have an American Dream it would be that Americans and all countries would learn to share, respect and love one another. A Quote I read just this night from Mother Teresa said, "There is a Famine in America. Not of food, but of love, of truth, of life." Let us all love one another and remember we are only caretakers, the owner is the Creator himself- and he graciously gave to all- no on excluded!
"Georgia"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 08:52 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Good lord! Where to begin? Like others, I congratulate the essay contest winners. The brilliance of our youth never ceases to amaze me. I work with youth and they teach me so much. As a Chicano, a dad, a Forest Grove resident and the son of migrant farm workers, these youth make me proud! Kudos to the FGN-T for re-printing their essays.
The racist (if not fascist) anti-immigrant rants on this blog aren't much of a surprise. But I couldn’t contain myself in responding to them to say: touchĆ©...assimilate...you are a hateful few (albeit w/ access to the internet). Your hate reflects a broken spirit, but your blame is misplaced.
Those who heroically struggle for survival by crossing borders despite the dangers - they are the dignified, the courageous, the ones with a spirit that is alive, sane, and contagious. They and their children are role models for all of us to emulate. Racist diatribes about "illegals," "the rule of law," "follow our laws," etc., etc., only reflects a vast ignorance of history, why laws exist, and a blind acceptance of national chauvinism.
Your hate should be directed toward capitalism -- the economic system that crosses borders freely and ruins economies the world over. So-called "free trade" policies, in collusion w/ corrupt governments (US govt. included) are responsible for forced migration. Like someone mentioned earlier, even within our own borders. Livelihoods, sovereignty, and self-determination are ruined here and abroad.
Why? Not for simple profit, but for private, undisclosed, in the hands of very few profit. The border that you naively want to strengthen to "keep them out" serves those few. It does nothing for our communities, neither here in the U.S. or in Mexico, Central America, China....etc... So don't convert your rage into anti-immigrant xenophobia (remember the Nazis) -- you'd be best fighting alongside immigrants to stop capitalism from ruining the planet!
"Eduardo Martinez Zapata"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 09:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Eduardo Martinez Zapata: You said it very well... Thank you for educating the ignorant in our community.
Estudiantes: Felicidades! Sigan Adelante!
"Narce Rodriguez"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 10:25 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wait a minute... isn't there a law in our country that says illegal immigration is a crime? Oh yeah.... I think I heard that once. But I guess it's okay as long as everyone is chasing a dream.
Wake up America. We're being overrun!
DW in CA
"Derik"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 09:31 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Eduardo.... Did you know our prisons are 30% full of illegal immigrants? If what you say is true: "they are the dignified, the courageous, the ones with a spirit that is alive, sane, and contagious. They and their children are role models for all of us to emulate." We're in BIG trouble. You're trying to say that every immigrant should be commended? Nice try, but we're not stupid.
"Derik"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 09:37 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Strange how "Racist," if racially linked the most prominent supporters of illegal "Immigrants" are? Here sits the most generous and racially diverse nation on earth -- being lectured to by one race, or failed culture. Looks like a masked invasion to me!
The only thing "Racial" about this invasion is from where it comes – one place. It's as if Mexico, if not all of Central America are “ethnically cleansing” themselves at our expense. Note the "Spanish sir names" around here... they’re the rulers and spokesmen of Central and (most of) South American, and they’re apparently looking to do the same up here.
No, it's not about race - but funny how that's the first slur tossed at anyone protesting this silent invasion. It may be about a failed culture, if the overwhelming of one by another - language included. But it's actually about LEGALITY - isn't it? Nobody's talking about shipping out legal American Citizens are they? And few doubt the good intentions or intelligence of some; though if so well intentioned - why aren't they in line with the other 300,000 legal-to-be immigrants of this years generous quota?
Here's how it's worked: Desperate Mexican's were allowed migratory work visas to pick crops cheaper than Americans (though my parents did!) could or would. Many stopped returning to Mexico, and out of desperation began working for anything - anywhere to support themselves. American "Businesses" loved that! ...near slave labor! These illegal’s quietly settled in, while quietly sending home money and the advice to Mexico - come on up!
They did, a low estimate of 3 million. What to do? Grant them Amnesty!! -- Reagan's gift to big business, and yet another knife in the heart of American organized labor. Each newly amnestied-illegal ‘legally’ hauled up on average 5 kin. Instead of dodging "Mexican" men at 'Hanks' in Cornelius, we then began dodging their pregnant mates, pushing a baby stroller with a child or two in tow. As this "legal" batch learned the ropes, the word went out - Come on up – we’ll hide you!!
...and they have; there's now an estimated 20 Million living illegally within the US ...but they ‘only want to become legal US Citizens’… right, and so do 98% of the rest of the world! And with another Amnesty... and each of those 20 million will bring up another 5. And if we continued to ignore our so-called ‘immigrations laws’ -- heck - we could empty all of Central America – maybe the world!
So think deep Neighbors; there are obviously polished promoters among us, and of course, 'their children.' And yes, speaking bluntly to this ugly issue isn’t pretty, it’s ugly …but again, what of our children?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 11:26 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I have no problem with "legal" immigrant's as I stated my wife is one. The whole point is not how hard they work or the dream they are trying for. The whole point is they break the law coming here and we have to pay for it. I have seen more hispanics buying homes that I can not even afford, and then when you talk with them they are getting wic for the kids food and welfare and special deals for college when those of us who grew up here can't get any of those things. My rants and feelings are not about just hispanics, i am talking about all ilegal's. The flat out fact is they are breaking the law and then demanding we should take care of them further by giving them amnesty. I for one would like to see this country going back to what it used to be, when we rooted for the American country and we had people who were proud to be an American. Now what do we get, we get groups of people who live here and root for there country but want us to give them a great new life.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 01:31 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Some of the reactions to Illegal Immigration are very understandable. The concern for the future of American Children vs illegal immigrants' children is real.
When you come to a foreign country you need to learn how to survive, not how to destroy its foundations. Learn the language, live according to the law, respect others, etc. All of these things are necessary to have balance.
But at the same time a deeper problem seems to come out of our hearts. It seems as if America is becoming the spoiled child of the world. America is prosper and rich, there is so much abundance and freedom. And yet it seems like it doesn't want to share with it's brother or sister that doesn't have a roof over their heads, or a job or bread to eat.
Why can we make arrangements so that there is not only enough for us but plenty so that we can share with the needy ones. Or is it that we just want to reach the "American Dream" for us and our children and let the rest of the world die? How could we live with ourselves then?
Is the American Dream the most important thing in the world? It just sounds so selfish.
Are all the criminals hispanics? So if there were not hispanics in America there wouldn't be crime?
Are you better or superior to the rest of America, Asia, India or Africa?
What's wrong with us, friends?
"Zellie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 02:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am speechless, overwhelmed by so much hostility toward the stories of these eloquent students and by the lack of compassion for immigrants. My ancestors came to the Northwest 150 years ago, yet I find myself wondering often about who previously owned the land they claimed in central Washington state. I can only imagine the sad stories there, even as my ancestors began a new, celebrated, "brave" prairie life.
We must all seek out the stories of others. Reading them from the pages of a newspaper is powerful, but I wonder what would happen if we came together in one room regularly to hear our stories. Would we still tell immigrants to "go home" if we heard their voices, saw their tears, and tried as hard as we could to imagine the struggles of their family members provide food for their starving little ones? We are all part of the human family--we must never forget that. To do so is to allow our souls to die. We face tough political issues, but we must also listen and work together to find answers.
"Monica"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 04:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I agree Monica, as humans we do have to work together. And as people we are all entitled to the same rights. So why is it that when (legal) immigrants from europe came to the U.S., what, 70 years ago? they were on boats, brought passed our lady Liberty welcomed into New York and entitled to fair jobs, food, shelter ect. when today (legal, yes, legal) immigrants are floating in from Central America and we say "Oh mexicans, how illegal of you. Go back to mexico." listen up
They aren't all illegal
Illegal Immigrants, because of immigration laws, do have to be back in mexico but (legal) immigrants do have rights as humans.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 06:11 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Is this a Christian youth newsletter? You could never prove it by the hurtful comments and responses that were posted in regards to these youny adult's essays.
"Catrina Hamilton"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 06:26 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Here’s a little follow up info on two enabling contributors above; quite proud of their work, and kind enough to give us their full names.
First is, “Eduardo MartĆnez Zapata,” the “Chicano national leader in the Freedom Socialist Party,” and apparently linked with: the “Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women Activities” in Oregon. …now what are their ties to the Grove?
And here’s some ‘recommendations’ by Mr. Zapata: “Abolish NAFTA, CAFTA, and all neoliberal free trade agreements! • No to the criminalization of immigrants! No to guest worker programs! Stop the raids by la Migra! • Amnesty now! Open the borders for workers! • End the war against Iraq! Fund union jobs and social services! • For a world free of want — for democratic socialism! -- Eduardo MartĆnez Zapata
Quite the agenda!
Followed by this quote: “Eduardo Martinez Zapata: You said it very well”... “Thank you for educating the ignorant in our community. Estudiantes: Felicidades! Sigan Adelante!”
Signed by: Narce Rodriguez.
That’s Narce Rodriguez, linked to and apparently promoting: The first annual Latino Awareness Week, "Semana de la Raza: Week of the People," will be held April 16 through 21 at the Portland Community College Rock Creek Campus, 17705 NW Springville Road. The week is based on education, advocacy and celebration of the rich Latino heritage of Washington County.
“Week of the people” … now what “People” do you think she means? And shouldn’t she have also described it as, “Educating the ignorant in our community”?
And a bit more on, "la Raza" -- the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html in fact “la Raza” means "the Race?" So who's talking "Race" here? And what “Rich Latino heritage is she talking about?
I purport these are not members of our community; but professional advocates and enablers of “their race,” and no one else’s. I also suspect several (if not most) of the other apologists posting here are also linked to them. Of course none will speak up...
Well, just to “come clean,” I’m a local member of “Oregonians For Immigration Reform” – and – but also a longtime local (our kids were born in FG). So that’s OFIR, based in our city to the south, McMinnville. Here’s their link: http://www.oregonir.org/new_page_21.htm Research away!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 02:22 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Do the critics even know these fellow humans whom they abhor? Have the experts, citing their research, ever had the courage to test their information? First hand experience trumps assumptions and one sided research. As an ESL teacher to adults for over 25 years I've had the priviledge of knowing 4,000 of these men and women. (20 students per class, 2 classes per term, 4 terms a year - you do the math). Their writings and speeches, allow me to introduce them to you. They are brave: soldiers who fought alongside my brother's peers in Vietnam; patriots with whom my uncle fought in Korea; refugees, thrown into circumstances beyond their control, facing oppression and poverty. They left the familiarity of home and the love of family and friends only out of desperation to feed their children. They are talented: an Olympic athelete from Africa, a musician from Borneo. To these talented essay writers, keep educating us. Illustrate to my blind neighbors the competent and gifted people you are. Just remember that after perservering, you'll reach adulthood and realize that the American dream is not found in getting everything you want; it is in having the freedom to choose how to move forward with your life. I applaude your work and am proud to have you as my neightbor. Debbie
"Debbie Olsen"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 07:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Get a life, the whole argument here is not about legal immigration but illegal. The whole ESL program should be dumped in favor of immersion anyway. California made one of the smartest decisions when it decided to do so, it shortens the time it takes to learn and saves money. It doesn't support the staff and infrastructure that drag to process out to years.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 08:52 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Mark is correct, we are talking about people who have broken our laws and then make demands that we are supposed to help them. My situation is about one thing and only one thing. That is they broke the law. send them back or put them in jail, why do these criminals expect us to sit back and say oh sure we will give you amnesty, we dont care enough about our own country so you can stay. I do care about my country, and I was willing to protect in the service. I did not fight to let a common criminal take a way my home and to break our laws.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 10:44 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
We are talking about the words of 2 teenagers, exploring what is means to be who they are - in the context of being THIRTEEN AND SIXTEEN. They are children, for heaven's sake. "Rational", "mature" adults are being turned inside out by the sentiments of 2 children. You need to get a life. My life is full and rewarding because I give out of the abundance of what I've been given and have attained for myself. By the way, ESL emersion only works before puberty, as every language teacher knows. ESL programs are useful to the adult community - whom I serve. We aren't talking about people depleting your resources or the certain robbery of your child's future, (your child who was born here in Forest Grove - who cares that your child is a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, generation Oregonian? wow that really legitimizes his or her worth!) I'm sick of these small minded, selfish, paranoid, cliques of people who think being a native anything makes them superior to anyone else. No one is a native anything. Even if you were born here, as pointed out before, your ancestors were not. It's character and contribution to the greater good that matter, not where you were born. Those of you upset by the words of these two teenage students need to grow up.
"Debbie Olsen"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 01:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow! I am saddened by the fact that this is a forum about the two essays on the immigration debate and now we are arguing about the accuracy of facts and other random blabber. I think we all agree that legal immigrants should stay and illegal immigrants should go. Also that there's an American dream no? Why don't we cool down so what we say can be put into consideration and not thrown out as a racial or mean spirited comment.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 04:29 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Our "ESL Teacher" has obviously had her arm so deep in the pot she's fallen in! As mentioned - the home-grown advocates of illegal immigration (and of course 'their children') are finically linked. They've a vested interest in promoting, if encouraging more of the same. Therefore, their arguments in favor of continuing this influx of illegal 'immigrants' (and their children, or anchor-babies) should be viewed in that light. A dark light!
The abilities of illegal aliens (and their children) are not the point; the point is they are here illegally - displacing those legally seeking US citizenship, and robbing the rights and resources of our current citizens. It's become all-too-easy to 'say' you disagree with their illegality - yet ignore their devastating consequences. And we're not talking about the multitude of new citizens, having done it right, or their personal contributions to this nation - we're talking about 20 million illegal aliens within our nations border at this moment -- and not simply the two 'winning' feel-good essays by a couple of local minorities (if children).
This "Essay Competition" (as mentioned) was simply another Public Relations stunt to show the children of minorities as capable of more than drug distribution, gang activity, crime, or job and identity theft. And the problem is - up till now - it's worked! It's worked just well enough to keep the majority of American’s eyes off the ball... But as we watch, for instance, Hillsboro turn into what local kids are calling "Hillsburrito," and the ghetto-like conditions of its core - Americans, Oregonians -- the residents of Forest Grove are wakening up and speaking up!
Anyone suggesting those following this issue "get a live" – wake up, we've got one - but it's fading fast! You may be secure in yours, but not all have locked themselves so comfortably into the system. Just as our kids no longer pick strawberries, they're also losing the opportunities of every other entry level job. As permanent jobs are consumed by amnestied or soon-to-be amnestied aliens -- where are our children -- and yes - I'm speaking of CHILDREN -- where are our children to work? Intel's building in China, construction workers are nearly all "Hispanic," nursery's hire nothing but... And to get a job - check out the help-wanted ads -- to get a job you must be "Bilingual." ...Bilingual in what? …not German, French, Irish, Chinese or Portuguese... but just what ‘you teach’ …now isn’t that Special?
As a forth generation Oregonian, with Native American blood, I resent "your" racist dismissive attitude about who - and who doesn’t belong here. Even the Native American’s fought for their land, their culture and their rights. To do less is not only Un-American, it goes against the principals of humanity and human history. This invasion has been relatively silent, but as illegal aliens demand ‘our rights’ across this nation - it's time you woke up, if not fight back. … but then maybe you've already chose sides..?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 05, 2007 at 12:28 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
A recent KATU viewer poll asked : "Do you support immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants?"
77% said no.
Copy and paste :
http://www.katu.com/home/poll/7272856.html?submit=Submit&oid=2&mr=1&t=a&cid=3031&pid=7272856
"Hello?"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 05, 2007 at 01:30 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I never wrote I was condoning the presence of illegal immigrants. I was responding to the meanspirited comments that were being expressed about immigrants in general. Mark and Neal, you made assumptions and jumped to erroneous conclusions. Did I ever write I support the presence of illegal aliens? I don't. They should follow the same protocol every other immigrant is required to follow to come here. There were nasty comments addressed to these student writers, legally here. These students were stereo typically being lumped into the category of illegals, and they are not. It was to those critics, I was writing. That you 2 got personal and hureld insults at me just reveals your inability to conduct yourselves humanly when you're in disagreement, and even more foolishly since I wasn't disagreeing with those against illegals.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 06, 2007 at 08:56 PM
All aboard the Fail-boat
Nothin' beats a good ole' fashioned arguement on the internet.
Group A's angry at group B. Group B's angry at group A.
Blahblahblah
The internet's become a feeble place where anyone with a 56k internet connection is able say whatever they choose thanks to our beloved 1st ammendment (despite many a moderators protest)
All of which could be noble debate, except for the fact that it's on the internet.
It doesn't matter what side you're on, you still look like a retard.
(No offense)
"anonymous"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 06, 2007 at 09:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Just look at how much logic it took to flush out a statement like, "I never wrote I was condoning the presence of illegal immigrants" ...but you’ll "condone" and promote their children – thus their existence? And "Debbie" - if your spirit is so righteous, why aren’t you in the Peace Corps doing your ESL work in Central America? ...I know… who wants to live in Central America when they can live in Forest Grove!
"Meanspirited" you claim; how about realistic, patriotic, or just plain sick & tired of watching my community drug down to failed culture? And what 'word' should we describe you, as you further your personal wealth at the expense of our community...? How about traitorous? As an entrenched Alien-enabler your allegiance is obviously not with your longtime neighbors.
‘Ditching’ your last name? You’ve likely become uncomfortable repeating your "bring-em-on" attitude among the community – though apparently more than happy to continue backing this PR Essay-go-round. And what was the point of this so-called Essay? ...I know -- more gibberish about ‘poor minority children’ and their "American Dream." But as you so fervently support the children of minorities, illegal or not – you refuse to acknowledge the detrimental effects of their ever-increasing numbers on our community. I suspect you also ignore their consumption of our resources at an unsustainable rate -- including your pay check and bennies.
Quite skewed, this debate’s become one between our overly-educated social service-providing alien-enablers; vs. the common citizen. As most cringe, trying to ignore this invasion of legal, semi-legal, soon-to-be legal and down-right illegals -- you and yours have been cashing in at our expense! You are as guilty in your complacency as anyone involved, and as you imply calling a 'spade a spade' "meanspirited," that's your prerogative. If I insist on calling your feel-good propaganda session a manipulative disservice to our community – that’s mine.
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 08:46 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I just hate reading this. Everyone seems to be blaming Illegal Immigration on each other. I'm not gonna rat on anyone and I don't care if anyone rats on me. No one wants people to hop the border illegally. No one wants their children's jobs taken by illegals. If anyone really wants to stop illegal immigration by himself or herself, and if anyone wants to interpret others as being against you, and if anyone wants no one to respect them, then go ahead and try while the rest of us try making things better. I don't understand how this forum is gonna help anything when we are tearing eachother apart limb by limb and only trying to get our points across. If anyone really cares so much about this stupid forum, why not just go and do something. Its terrible to watch good people slander other people because of hate, when they could actually be doing something useful with their lives. If all anyone wants to do for the rest of their days is sit and try to dry their tears by making others want to throw up and die, then god have mercy on you.
This forum is out of hand. We only have one world, got to remember that.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 11:27 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"I just hate reading this." Then stop. You've responded more, yet added less than anyone here.
"I'm not gonna rat on anyone and I don't care if anyone rats on me." And just what does that mean? You too are illegal?
You demean any efforts to correct this illegal mess, yet suggest we work to make things better? For the past 25 years I haven't seen anything done - ANYTHING - to seriously stop the flow of Illegals into this country, our state, or this community. And it’s obvious to anyone 'from' around here that things have changed, and are continuing to change for the worse. Maybe you're not from ‘around here,’ or you're part of that 'change,' or, you simply don't care? But don't discredit or demean the efforts of those who do.
"I don't understand how this forum is gonna help anything when we are tearing eachother apart limb by limb and only trying to get our points across." But it is helping; it's dissected a Public Relations stunt designed to lull us into further complacency over illegal immigration, and (with effort) has caused those most connected to respond at a deeper level. I've gotten a lot out of it, and if my frequency of posts lead you to believe I've got little else to do, let me assure you - it's quite the opposite. But this problem, and this forum are too close to home, and too detrimental to my community to ignore.
So, may I thank the News Times for allowing this discussion; and as far as there being only one world - isn't that all the more reason we protect all we can?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:04 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial response:
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this exchange of ideas, but Neal makes a point I'd like to echo. This is the biggest response we've received to any story since we began allowing reader comments a few months ago. I agree with Neal that this forum shows the need for this topic to be discussed further. I think it's great that the Friends of the Forest Grove Library hosted the evening discussion and solicited the student essays. (Neal, we can agree to disagree on whether it was a PR stunt.) And, I'm thrilled that our paper can host a place where people can exchange ideas. That's why in this week's print edition of the News-Times, we excerpted some of the comments here and encouraged our print readers to join the on-line discussion. We'll keep it going for another couple weeks, as long as people are interested.
John Schrag
Editor & Publisher
News-Times
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
In 1954, when it was legal to discriminate against blacks, the Supreme Court saw the bigotry and overturned the Constitution saying "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Movement began and it seemed like our own comfortable, familiar, worlds were changing. Now, your insulated little worlds are being threatened by change, and you've gotten yourself into a nervous 'tizzy'. As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream Speech, "you are in for a rude awakening if you think things will return to business as usual." With your degree of nervousness now, you'll probable have a nervous breakdown as things progress and laws are changed. Your breakdown will be a welcome relief for our community. We'll be free of you lashes (mocking a teacher? - in the nobelest of professions, doing decent work with law abiding people. Shame on you. Mocking Tolea? - she just wants unity and a peaceful, civil, debate. Shame on you.) We'll also be free of your hatred, snobbery, and bigotry. I can't wait.
"Gary"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow Gary seems to have a real handle on this agenda, glad to see more people drinking the kool-aid. I'm glad theres a few of us "lashes" at least our eyes our open. The global economy is killing our great nation anyway so we might as well open our arms and assimilate right? It appear by all these postings at the very least Forest Grove is becoming a hotbed of liberals who love to cater to lawbreakers. Can it be the great influx of illegals along with the immigration of the California disenfranchised? Who knows our once quiet burg will continue to grow with illegals as the quality of life deteriorates.
"Phineas Bogg"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Oh now we're back to Oregon's FAVORITE scapegoat of all - the Californians! Yes, blame the Californians for our influx of immigrants. We, the reasonable, humane, native, Oregonians aren't responsible. It's always the Californians. THEY'RE the real enemy. Can't you see how ridiculous that is? At least previous writers of anti-immigrants, oh excuse me, anti-illegal immigrants, (as if you really see a difference), based their objections on research and the LAW. You merely guess: Can it be? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe that? More generalizations, more speculations, more idiocy. If you are going to come forward with anti-illegal sentiments, at least base them on research findings and the LAW. Our students learn the law, including the Supreme Court ruling that "separate but equal" was seen for the injustice it was and declared UNconstitutional. We teach them about Martin Luther King Jr. and that you ARE in for a rude (if not uncomfortable) awakening if you really think things will return to business as usual. The legal immigrants are learning about the Civil Rights Act and will insist on equality in employment and housing. They are learning about the 24th Amendment - that they are free from unfair voting restrictions...and like the immigrants who came before them, they will stay. So, you're upset by the illegals? GOOD, join those for reform and do something constructive; GOOD, join law enforcement and enforce the law. But please, spare us your imagined, baseless, unfounded speculations.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:49 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am surprised at the reactions revealed in this forum. It tells me that there are a lot of people out there who think as I do. I don't think the responses are directed at the essays by the students as much as a response to what is happening in and to our communities and our way of life due to what is an "invasion" by one group of immigrants largely illegal. Neal and Mark are right on. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing. I for one am selecting the times I shop and go about the communities in western Washington County largely because I can no longer tolerate tripping over these people who are everywhere. I see them lined up at the free medical clinics, dragging bags of free food items home, using food stamps - all that I am paying for - all the while the majority of them allow their children to run rampant through stores, screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. We have little-Mexicos all over western Washington County. I won't even touch on the increase in certain types of crime. Why are the dregs of this group coming here? Because they would be in jail or worse otherwise. It used to be you would go into a fast food restaurant and see teenagers behind the counter. Now it is wall-to-wall Hispanic-speaking teenagers or otherwise Latinos. There seems to be too much focus and emphasis on assimilation on our part when the burden should be the other way around. If I moved to Germany, for example, I would be expected to and would learn German if I planned to live there. But here it is the other way around: We must learn Spanish, we must have Spanish-language skills to even apply for some jobs, we offer English-as-a-2nd-language classes for free but if we want to learn Spanish we must pay for it. The reactions I have been reading tell me that there is a much broader concern and it isn't something that will be easy to resolve - since it has been allowed to happen and now we are paying the price.
"Kate R"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Debbie,
I have to say that the more you actually say, the better you help our side. You go on and on about history and "that's the way it was". When in reality it is up to all of us the create the shape and create the history we will proud of. I don't want to see the history you are creating. If you keep this up then illegals will start getting even smarter and only vote in some one who will speak about the rights they deserve and we don't because we did not have to be a criminal to get here. It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we cant keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources. I hope you soon see the big picture that your kids may not be able to finish high school or even earlier because we just cant keep up with the demands of the criminals who will be running our country soon.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Okay, but what about the legal immigrants, who after years of studying our language and customs, now run their own businesses, and sincerely want to assimilate into our culture? They want their children to learn English because they really do feel that is the only way to assimilate and have a better life. They want to learn their civil rights so they can protect themselves and their children. I know this because I know them. Like Kate wrote, instead of this forum just being about the essays, it turned into a place for people to vent frustrations about the illegal immigrants being here and the changes to their communities because of it. I understand that frustration and sense of loss. I really do! Everytime I go to my original hometown, it looks nothing like the wonderful place it was while I was growing up. It felt safe and comfortable. Now it doesn't. I understand the sense of loss people are experiencing. I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that?
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
P.S. My students are legally here - they have student visas, are resident aliens, or are now citizens. They have to prove that to get into the program. They are not criminals. I'm not helping criminals. They have done what was required by law are the ones who have attained citizenship are proud of being Americans and want to contribute something good. They really do! I wish you could read their essays and hear them talk about wanting their new country to be free from destruction and the ugliness they left behind. I love my country and don't want to see it in the hands of anyone who would cause its ruin.. . and like you said, WE are the ones who create our history. How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"Gary," you're mixing Civil Rights with Citizen’s Rights; the bulk of whom we're talking about are not citizens. Martin Luther King was, and he made us proud. Again, linking this to race or ethnicity doesn’t work, or - maybe it does..? And shame on who?
Phineas... good points. I see a lateral stratification occurring among communities; those giving in and up to this invading culture -- and those who feel insulated from it. Obviously, Cornelius has given up, and Hillsboro’s fast giving in, though Beaverton and FG, (even Portland) haven't, yet. They're becoming educated enclaves, where property values and community expectations remain too high for these third-world refugees. This is how it's become in our border states; totally Hispanic run towns, with fortified and gated communities next door.
Debbie... still looking for a "scapegoat?" Actually, from all I've heard (including in-laws) we can blame the illegal immigrants for our Californians! They've given up 'defending' their neighborhoods, let alone their state - and are migrating to Oregon. "Can't you see how ridiculous that is?" --- Yes, I can! And Debbie, you're groping... if not losing it...
"Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing." --- Kate R., you're welcome; in fact, I suspect your views (if secretly held) reflect those of the majority -- of which I'm simply one. Thank you for sharing them.
"It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we can’t keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources." Thanks Dave, your words also reflect the reality of our concerns and fears. This is basically the replacing of one culture by another -- at the expense of the former. A two-tier society is emerging. But unlike the "China Towns,” where some inhabitance live their lives without assimilating, entire cities across the US are turning into Latino / Hispanic towns & cities – run by and for their culture - at our expense.
Debbie; again, what citizen of the Third-world doesn’t want to eventually become a US Citizen? Just as this feel-good essay ‘competition’ shown, there are always a few 'standouts.' Even within a prison population there are those who can impress us with their aptitude. But should we welcome the world for the few stellar individuals that may include? Here's a ‘novel idea’: why don't we allow a limited number of new citizens into our country every year, based on their proven abilities, talents and willingness to live within our laws? ... Whoops!
"I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that? "Debbie." --- Nothing's wrong with that, and for decades that's exactly how they've been treated by the vast majority of our communities. Problem is, after we rewarded the illegal (yes, there is such a thing as Illegal) batch of 86 with citizenship, the flow has increased. We originally legalized just under 3 million (not counting extended family), there are now as many (and isn't it scary to realize no one really knows how many illegal 'immigrants' there are inside our borders?) ...now there are as many as 20 million Illegals awaiting their reward. How do you tell them apart? You can't ask, that's "racial profiling," or offensive to the new found liberties of some... So you'd simply welcome, if not reward them all? Debbie, your job security is coming at too high a cost to your community – could this be your true fear?
More Debbie... what is a "resident alien"? Anything like an Anchor-baby? And just where did your students come from... thin air? And by 'helping them,' are you not basically helping their illegal parents educate their children at our expense? …Thus allowing those 'children' to directly compete with ours for all those Spanish speaking social service jobs … right down to flipping burgers?
So these 'students' are happy to be here... why not? But have you noticed the "destruction and the ugliness they left behind" is following them? Sure, and again, we're talking about a handful of exceptional students -- I know, I have a couple myself. But mine are being denied resources to pay for yours... and mine (if not most) got here legally, and first.
"How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!" Present tense..? What you are doing is enabling the next generation of Enablers, at the expense and exclusion of all others. You are providing a ‘dream environment’ to the newly legal, semi-legal, soon to be legal and downright illegal invaders of our nation. Sound ugly - it is! Sure, you look out upon some eager faces; I've had doors held open for me by their parents, but good intent does not excuse the illegal behavior it took for nearly every one of those 'students' to get here. This may sound ‘greedy,’ but if you can ditch the rose-tinted glasses it's not as pretty as you’d have us believe. And though the community you’ve fled ‘to’ is not yet as bad as the one you fled – it’s not only catching up with you - you’re helping usher it in! And frankly, you're the one around here pushing an agenda; the rest of us are simply reacting to it.
News Times, timely news isn't it? Thought I’d check in … thanks for keeping this alive. PS, what’s happened to the Freedom Socialist’s and Radical Women..? Staying too busy in P-town to mess with us I suspect..? Thanks -
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 13, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Neal,That was a fantastic reply, except for one thing. My wife is a resident alien but we worked and payed dearly for it to be done correct. I was not willing to bring her under false pretenses. At the same time right after she moved here a family friend from Brazil called and said he was in New York doing construction work at a very nice pay. It took him less than a month to enter here illegal and get a job that was paying very nicely. Both my wife and I were very upset. It was crazy it took a almost two years to get it done correctly and it took him less than a month by paying some guy in Mexico to help get him here. This is what I fear the most, as the word gets out that if you have been here before such and such date and time that you can stay and become a citizen. Duh does anyone know when they really came across? They will be filing in like crazy if that bill passes. I do not have a race issue, I have right vs wrong issue. I grew up knowing what was right from wrong but today know one can really know. Because We pay for the needs of illegals who claim that there child was born here so they should be able to stay and get food stamps because they are so poor. But wait I can here the bull crap in that, they have no money but they get food stamps and health care and housing right? Then when you talk to them they are sending all of their money home in some other country while being here getting along for free and draining our resources. Debbie how can you be a teacher and not be able to see the writing on the wall? You are simply telling them it is OK to steal and any number of other crimes, simply because you broke the law of our land by coming here illegaly. I do not have the perfect answer but I can tell you that I am looking for other countries to live in because this land is going downhill and it is people like you who are not only helping them bring it down but you think you are doing good to save these people. Do you not see the Americans who live here? We are a dieing breed thanks to you and the others who think like you. I do not want my children growing up where being right is the wrong thing to do.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 17, 2007 at 06:12 PM
5:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Friday, May 18, 2007
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 30 comments links to this post
5:44 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
In case anybody wonders, I wasn't the anonymous who posted all of those comments from FGNT.
5:53 PM
Anonymous said...
as far as there being only one world - isn't that all the more reason we protect all we can?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:04 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial response:
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this exchange of ideas, but Neal makes a point I'd like to echo. This is the biggest response we've received to any story since we began allowing reader comments a few months ago. I agree with Neal that this forum shows the need for this topic to be discussed further. I think it's great that the Friends of the Forest Grove Library hosted the evening discussion and solicited the student essays. (Neal, we can agree to disagree on whether it was a PR stunt.) And, I'm thrilled that our paper can host a place where people can exchange ideas. That's why in this week's print edition of the News-Times, we excerpted some of the comments here and encouraged our print readers to join the on-line discussion. We'll keep it going for another couple weeks, as long as people are interested.
John Schrag
Editor & Publisher
News-Times
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
In 1954, when it was legal to discriminate against blacks, the Supreme Court saw the bigotry and overturned the Constitution saying "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Movement began and it seemed like our own comfortable, familiar, worlds were changing. Now, your insulated little worlds are being threatened by change, and you've gotten yourself into a nervous 'tizzy'. As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream Speech, "you are in for a rude awakening if you think things will return to business as usual." With your degree of nervousness now, you'll probable have a nervous breakdown as things progress and laws are changed. Your breakdown will be a welcome relief for our community. We'll be free of you lashes (mocking a teacher? - in the nobelest of professions, doing decent work with law abiding people. Shame on you. Mocking Tolea? - she just wants unity and a peaceful, civil, debate. Shame on you.) We'll also be free of your hatred, snobbery, and bigotry. I can't wait.
"Gary"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow Gary seems to have a real handle on this agenda, glad to see more people drinking the kool-aid. I'm glad theres a few of us "lashes" at least our eyes our open. The global economy is killing our great nation anyway so we might as well open our arms and assimilate right? It appear by all these postings at the very least Forest Grove is becoming a hotbed of liberals who love to cater to lawbreakers. Can it be the great influx of illegals along with the immigration of the California disenfranchised? Who knows our once quiet burg will continue to grow with illegals as the quality of life deteriorates.
"Phineas Bogg"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Oh now we're back to Oregon's FAVORITE scapegoat of all - the Californians! Yes, blame the Californians for our influx of immigrants. We, the reasonable, humane, native, Oregonians aren't responsible. It's always the Californians. THEY'RE the real enemy. Can't you see how ridiculous that is? At least previous writers of anti-immigrants, oh excuse me, anti-illegal immigrants, (as if you really see a difference), based their objections on research and the LAW. You merely guess: Can it be? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe that? More generalizations, more speculations, more idiocy. If you are going to come forward with anti-illegal sentiments, at least base them on research findings and the LAW. Our students learn the law, including the Supreme Court ruling that "separate but equal" was seen for the injustice it was and declared UNconstitutional. We teach them about Martin Luther King Jr. and that you ARE in for a rude (if not uncomfortable) awakening if you really think things will return to business as usual. The legal immigrants are learning about the Civil Rights Act and will insist on equality in employment and housing. They are learning about the 24th Amendment - that they are free from unfair voting restrictions...and like the immigrants who came before them, they will stay. So, you're upset by the illegals? GOOD, join those for reform and do something constructive; GOOD, join law enforcement and enforce the law. But please, spare us your imagined, baseless, unfounded speculations.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:49 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am surprised at the reactions revealed in this forum. It tells me that there are a lot of people out there who think as I do. I don't think the responses are directed at the essays by the students as much as a response to what is happening in and to our communities and our way of life due to what is an "invasion" by one group of immigrants largely illegal. Neal and Mark are right on. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing. I for one am selecting the times I shop and go about the communities in western Washington County largely because I can no longer tolerate tripping over these people who are everywhere. I see them lined up at the free medical clinics, dragging bags of free food items home, using food stamps - all that I am paying for - all the while the majority of them allow their children to run rampant through stores, screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. We have little-Mexicos all over western Washington County. I won't even touch on the increase in certain types of crime. Why are the dregs of this group coming here? Because they would be in jail or worse otherwise. It used to be you would go into a fast food restaurant and see teenagers behind the counter. Now it is wall-to-wall Hispanic-speaking teenagers or otherwise Latinos. There seems to be too much focus and emphasis on assimilation on our part when the burden should be the other way around. If I moved to Germany, for example, I would be expected to and would learn German if I planned to live there. But here it is the other way around: We must learn Spanish, we must have Spanish-language skills to even apply for some jobs, we offer English-as-a-2nd-language classes for free but if we want to learn Spanish we must pay for it. The reactions I have been reading tell me that there is a much broader concern and it isn't something that will be easy to resolve - since it has been allowed to happen and now we are paying the price.
"Kate R"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Debbie,
I have to say that the more you actually say, the better you help our side. You go on and on about history and "that's the way it was". When in reality it is up to all of us the create the shape and create the history we will proud of. I don't want to see the history you are creating. If you keep this up then illegals will start getting even smarter and only vote in some one who will speak about the rights they deserve and we don't because we did not have to be a criminal to get here. It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we cant keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources. I hope you soon see the big picture that your kids may not be able to finish high school or even earlier because we just cant keep up with the demands of the criminals who will be running our country soon.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Okay, but what about the legal immigrants, who after years of studying our language and customs, now run their own businesses, and sincerely want to assimilate into our culture? They want their children to learn English because they really do feel that is the only way to assimilate and have a better life. They want to learn their civil rights so they can protect themselves and their children. I know this because I know them. Like Kate wrote, instead of this forum just being about the essays, it turned into a place for people to vent frustrations about the illegal immigrants being here and the changes to their communities because of it. I understand that frustration and sense of loss. I really do! Everytime I go to my original hometown, it looks nothing like the wonderful place it was while I was growing up. It felt safe and comfortable. Now it doesn't. I understand the sense of loss people are experiencing. I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that?
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
P.S. My students are legally here - they have student visas, are resident aliens, or are now citizens. They have to prove that to get into the program. They are not criminals. I'm not helping criminals. They have done what was required by law are the ones who have attained citizenship are proud of being Americans and want to contribute something good. They really do! I wish you could read their essays and hear them talk about wanting their new country to be free from destruction and the ugliness they left behind. I love my country and don't want to see it in the hands of anyone who would cause its ruin.. . and like you said, WE are the ones who create our history. How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"Gary," you're mixing Civil Rights with Citizen’s Rights; the bulk of whom we're talking about are not citizens. Martin Luther King was, and he made us proud. Again, linking this to race or ethnicity doesn’t work, or - maybe it does..? And shame on who?
Phineas... good points. I see a lateral stratification occurring among communities; those giving in and up to this invading culture -- and those who feel insulated from it. Obviously, Cornelius has given up, and Hillsboro’s fast giving in, though Beaverton and FG, (even Portland) haven't, yet. They're becoming educated enclaves, where property values and community expectations remain too high for these third-world refugees. This is how it's become in our border states; totally Hispanic run towns, with fortified and gated communities next door.
Debbie... still looking for a "scapegoat?" Actually, from all I've heard (including in-laws) we can blame the illegal immigrants for our Californians! They've given up 'defending' their neighborhoods, let alone their state - and are migrating to Oregon. "Can't you see how ridiculous that is?" --- Yes, I can! And Debbie, you're groping... if not losing it...
"Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing." --- Kate R., you're welcome; in fact, I suspect your views (if secretly held) reflect those of the majority -- of which I'm simply one. Thank you for sharing them.
"It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we can’t keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources." Thanks Dave, your words also reflect the reality of our concerns and fears. This is basically the replacing of one culture by another -- at the expense of the former. A two-tier society is emerging. But unlike the "China Towns,” where some inhabitance live their lives without assimilating, entire cities across the US are turning into Latino / Hispanic towns & cities – run by and for their culture - at our expense.
Debbie; again, what citizen of the Third-world doesn’t want to eventually become a US Citizen? Just as this feel-good essay ‘competition’ shown, there are always a few 'standouts.' Even within a prison population there are those who can impress us with their aptitude. But should we welcome the world for the few stellar individuals that may include? Here's a ‘novel idea’: why don't we allow a limited number of new citizens into our country every year, based on their proven abilities, talents and willingness to live within our laws? ... Whoops!
"I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that? "Debbie." --- Nothing's wrong with that, and for decades that's exactly how they've been treated by the vast majority of our communities. Problem is, after we rewarded the illegal (yes, there is such a thing as Illegal) batch of 86 with citizenship, the flow has increased. We originally legalized just under 3 million (not counting extended family), there are now as many (and isn't it scary to realize no one really knows how many illegal 'immigrants' there are inside our borders?) ...now there are as many as 20 million Illegals awaiting their reward. How do you tell them apart? You can't ask, that's "racial profiling," or offensive to the new found liberties of some... So you'd simply welcome, if not reward them all? Debbie, your job security is coming at too high a cost to your community – could this be your true fear?
More Debbie... what is a "resident alien"? Anything like an Anchor-baby? And just where did your students come from... thin air? And by 'helping them,' are you not basically helping their illegal parents educate their children at our expense? …Thus allowing those 'children' to directly compete with ours for all those Spanish speaking social service jobs … right down to flipping burgers?
So these 'students' are happy to be here... why not? But have you noticed the "destruction and the ugliness they left behind" is following them? Sure, and again, we're talking about a handful of exceptional students -- I know, I have a couple myself. But mine are being denied resources to pay for yours... and mine (if not most) got here legally, and first.
"How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!" Present tense..? What you are doing is enabling the next generation of Enablers, at the expense and exclusion of all others. You are providing a ‘dream environment’ to the newly legal, semi-legal, soon to be legal and downright illegal invaders of our nation. Sound ugly - it is! Sure, you look out upon some eager faces; I've had doors held open for me by their parents, but good intent does not excuse the illegal behavior it took for nearly every one of those 'students' to get here. This may sound ‘greedy,’ but if you can ditch the rose-tinted glasses it's not as pretty as you’d have us believe. And though the community you’ve fled ‘to’ is not yet as bad as the one you fled – it’s not only catching up with you - you’re helping usher it in! And frankly, you're the one around here pushing an agenda; the rest of us are simply reacting to it.
News Times, timely news isn't it? Thought I’d check in … thanks for keeping this alive. PS, what’s happened to the Freedom Socialist’s and Radical Women..? Staying too busy in P-town to mess with us I suspect..? Thanks -
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 13, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Neal,That was a fantastic reply, except for one thing. My wife is a resident alien but we worked and payed dearly for it to be done correct. I was not willing to bring her under false pretenses. At the same time right after she moved here a family friend from Brazil called and said he was in New York doing construction work at a very nice pay. It took him less than a month to enter here illegal and get a job that was paying very nicely. Both my wife and I were very upset. It was crazy it took a almost two years to get it done correctly and it took him less than a month by paying some guy in Mexico to help get him here. This is what I fear the most, as the word gets out that if you have been here before such and such date and time that you can stay and become a citizen. Duh does anyone know when they really came across? They will be filing in like crazy if that bill passes. I do not have a race issue, I have right vs wrong issue. I grew up knowing what was right from wrong but today know one can really know. Because We pay for the needs of illegals who claim that there child was born here so they should be able to stay and get food stamps because they are so poor. But wait I can here the bull crap in that, they have no money but they get food stamps and health care and housing right? Then when you talk to them they are sending all of their money home in some other country while being here getting along for free and draining our resources. Debbie how can you be a teacher and not be able to see the writing on the wall? You are simply telling them it is OK to steal and any number of other crimes, simply because you broke the law of our land by coming here illegaly. I do not have the perfect answer but I can tell you that I am looking for other countries to live in because this land is going downhill and it is people like you who are not only helping them bring it down but you think you are doing good to save these people. Do you not see the Americans who live here? We are a dieing breed thanks to you and the others who think like you. I do not want my children growing up where being right is the wrong thing to do.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 17, 2007 at 06:12 PM
5:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Friday, May 18, 2007
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 30 comments links to this post
5:44 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
In case anybody wonders, I wasn't the anonymous who posted all of those comments from FGNT.
5:53 PM
5:55 PM
Scottiebill said...
Daniel: Why are you allowing all these dissertations to go on? These various and sundry anonymous' have taken up all your blogging space with these seemingly endless ramblings. And then there is the anonymous with all that gabble that means nothingand the anonymous with a lot of blogs saying the same stupid thing.
It would seem that there could be some semblance of editing here.
And now these "anonymous" anonymous' will scream "First Amendment Rights". It makes one want to puke!!
6:23 PM
Charles U. Farley said...
Scottiebill, stick your finger down your throat. You'll feel better.
Daniel. How about some from refreshment from God's word.Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
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Leviticus, chapter 1
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.01
1: And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.
3: If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD.
4: And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
5: And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
6: And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.
7: And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire:
8: And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:
9: But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
10: And if his offering be of the flocks, namely, of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt sacrifice; he shall bring it a male without blemish.
11: And he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar.
12: And he shall cut it into his pieces, with his head and his fat: and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:
13: But he shall wash the inwards and the legs with water: and the priest shall bring it all, and burn it upon the altar: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
14: And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the LORD be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves, or of young pigeons.
15: And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar:
16: And he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes:
17: And he shall cleave it with the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder: and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
| Table of Contents for this work |
| All on-line databases | Etext Center Homepage |
Leviticus, chapter 2
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.02
1: And when any will offer a meat offering unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:
2: And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests: and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD:
3: And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
4: And if thou bring an oblation of a meat offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.
5: And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.
6: Thou shalt part it in pieces, and pour oil thereon: it is a meat offering.
7: And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in the fryingpan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.
8: And thou shalt bring the meat offering that is made of these things unto the LORD: and when it is presented unto the priest, he shall bring it unto the altar.
9: And the priest shall take from the meat offering a memorial thereof, and shall burn it upon the altar: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
10: And that which is left of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
11: No meat offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven: for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the LORD made by fire.
12: As for the oblation of the firstfruits, ye shall offer them unto the LORD: but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savour.
13: And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
14: And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the LORD, thou shalt offer for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears.
15: And thou shalt put oil upon it, and lay frankincense thereon: it is a meat offering.
16: And the priest shall burn the memorial of it, part of the beaten corn thereof, and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof: it is an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
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| All on-line databases | Etext Center Homepage |
Leviticus, chapter 3
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.03
1: And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.
2: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons the priests shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.
3: And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
4: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
5: And Aaron's sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
6: And if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering unto the LORD be of the flock; male or female, he shall offer it without blemish.
7: If he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he offer it before the LORD.
8: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof round about upon the altar.
9: And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat thereof, and the whole rump, it shall he take off hard by the backbone; and the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
10: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
11: And the priest shall burn it upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire unto the LORD.
12: And if his offering be a goat, then he shall offer it before the LORD.
13: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of it, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about.
14: And he shall offer thereof his offering, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
15: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
16: And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD's.
17: It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.
Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
| Table of Contents for this work |
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Leviticus, chapter 4
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.04
1: And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them:
3: If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people; then let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto the LORD for a sin offering.
4: And he shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD; and shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head, and kill the bullock before the LORD.
5: And the priest that is anointed shall take of the bullock's blood, and bring it to the tabernacle of the congregation:
6: And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the LORD, before the vail of the sanctuary.
7: And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the LORD, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation: and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
8: And he shall take off from it all the fat of the bullock for the sin offering; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
9: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away,
10: As it was taken off from the bullock of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt offering.
11: And the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung,
12: Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt.
13: And if the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which should not be done, and are guilty;
14: When the sin, which they have sinned against it, is known, then the congregation shall offer a young bullock for the sin, and bring him before the tabernacle of the congregation.
15: And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the LORD: and the bullock shall be killed before the LORD.
16: And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bullock's blood to the tabernacle of the congregation:
17: And the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the LORD, even before the vail.
18: And he shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar which is before the LORD, that is in the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall pour out all the blood at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
19: And he shall take all his fat from him, and burn it upon the altar.
20: And he shall do with the bullock as he did with the bullock for a sin offering, so shall he do with this: and the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them.
21: And he shall carry forth the bullock without the camp, and burn him as he burned the first bullock: it is a sin offering for the congregation.
22: When a ruler hath sinned, and done somewhat through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD his God concerning things which should not be done, and is guilty;
23: Or if his sin, wherein he hath sinned, come to his knowledge; he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a male without blemish:
24: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the goat, and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering before the LORD: it is a sin offering.
25: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out his blood at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering.
26: And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him.
27: And if any one of the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and be guilty;
28: Or if his sin, which he hath sinned, come to his knowledge: then he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned.
29: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering.
30: And the priest shall take of the blood thereof with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar.
31: And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat is taken away from off the sacrifice of peace offerings; and the priest shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour unto the LORD; and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him.
32: And if he bring a lamb for a sin offering, he shall bring it a female without blemish.
33: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay it for a sin offering in the place where they kill the burnt offering
34: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar:
35: And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat of the lamb is taken away from the sacrifice of the peace offerings; and the priest shall burn them upon the altar, according to the offerings made by fire unto the LORD: and the priest shall make an atonement for his sin that he hath committed, and it shall be forgiven him.
That's only the first four chapters. I got bored and I have a life unlike you. I'll be back with more later.
Keep up the good fight.
You chickenshit skinhead.
6:33 PM
MacNichol, last of the Viking Kings of Skye said...
What the fuck kind of name is Miclav? Is that right? I don't care. It's SLAVIC fucks like you who've been screwing up this country from the beginning.
You know "Slav" comes from the Rus (the Vikings) term for slave? The zeroes whose country they traveled through on the way to Byzantium, where they'd sell all these cute slavic babes to rich A-rabs. Obviously an inferior race.
Anyway, I'm sick of your diluting the pure strain of Scotts-Irish blood our country was built on.
Most of my family got here in the 18th century. When did your folks crawl onto Ellis Island?
Go back where you came from.
6:44 PM
short and sweet said...
I have a prediction that I absolutely GUARANTEE will come true:
At the end of the day, Daniel and his nativist friends are going to lose this one. Why? Because they are so far, far-right wing, that there is absolutely no bill that could conceivably get through Congress and get Bush's signature that will make them happy. No matter what happens, they'll be pissed, and they'll scream about betrayals and traitors and vow revenge.
I guarantee it.
7:04 PM
R Huse said...
Obviously the pro illegal alien side has clearly proven at least one argument by their responses.
It is now quite apparent that the reasoning they use is as vacuous as the morality upon which it is based. Name calling, racism and now just endless empty Spam.
Quite neat, and also immeasurably pitiful. I, for one, thank them for their clear demonstrations. Iconoclasts through and through, idiotic, absurd.
7:24 PM
Kind Red Spirit said...
r. huse said it best. "Idiotic and absurd" Wow, that's deep. I don't know what's the problem with all these motherfuckas. Its like they all want the beners wreckin their lives yo.
Corse, could be all those vatos locos guys could come lokking for your cracker ass in which I dont know you bro. Know what im sayin?
But hey man. if theres a throw down and you got numbrs on your side man. You know good white folks Im down man
well bust some fuckin heads
power to the people
the GOOD people
8:53 PM
Rosetta Stone said...
Endless, empty spam R? I think not.
Daniel professes to have an "interest" in "Jesus" Does Jesus have an interest in him?
The Book of James, by one of our Lord and Savior's little brothers will offer the poor soul some solace.
"Count it all joy by bretheren..."
I'll let him finish.
1: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
2: My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
3: Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4: But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
5: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
6: But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
7: For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
8: A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
9: Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
10: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
11: For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
12: Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
13: Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
14: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15: Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
16: Do not err, my beloved brethren.
17: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
18: Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
19: Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
20: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
21: Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
22: But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
23: For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
24: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
25: But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
26: If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
27: Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
James, chapter 2
1: My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.
2: For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;
3: And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool:
4: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
5: Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?
6: But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?
7: Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?
8: If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:
9: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.
10: For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
11: For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
12: So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.
13: For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
14: What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
15: If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16: And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17: Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
18: Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19: Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20: But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
21: Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
22: Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
23: And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
24: Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
25: Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?
26: For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
James, chapter 3
1: My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
2: For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
3: Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body.
4: Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.
5: Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!
6: And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
7: For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
8: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
9: Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
10: Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
11: Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
12: Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
13: Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
14: But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
15: This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
16: For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
17: But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
18: And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
James, chapter 4
1: From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2: Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3: Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
4: Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
5: Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
6: But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
7: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8: Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9: Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10: Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
11: Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
12: There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
13: Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
14: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
15: For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
16: But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
17: Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
James, chapter 5
1: Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2: Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3: Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
4: Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
5: Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
6: Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.
7: Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
8: Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9: Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
10: Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11: Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
12: But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.
13: Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.
14: Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
15: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
16: Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
17: Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
18: And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
19: Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;
20: Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
Did you get that? He which CONVERTETH A SINNER from the error of his ways...
shall save a soul from death.
Empty spam? R. you do yourself, and the rest of humanity a grave disservice.
9:07 PM
Anonymous said...
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
9:58 PM
Anonymous said...
'He's a fair man'
Johnson says he will to accept Goodell punishment
Posted: Friday May 18, 2007 9:14PM; Updated: Friday May 18, 2007 9:14PM
Tank Johnson says his goal is to become NFL Man of the Year.
AP
LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) -- Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson said Friday he's ready to accept whatever punishment NFL commissioner Roger Goodell gives him for his recent off-field problems that included a two-month stint in jail.
"I feel like whatever sanction he imposes, I'm man enough to take it and I know that once I get back on the field, that chapter of my life is closed and I can move on with a sense of closure," Johnson said Friday after the first day of Bears minicamp.
It was Johnson's first public statements since being released from Cook County jail Sunday.
Johnson met with Goodell in New York on Wednesday and awaits a decision on a possible suspension for violating terms of his probation and a gun charge.
In April, Goodell suspended Tennessee Titans defensive back Adam "Pacman" Jones for the 2007 season, and Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry for eight games before introducing a strengthened personal conduct policy.
"Mr. Goodell has the league's interest to look out for," Johnson said. "Whatever sanction he imposes, I know that it's in the best interest of this league.
"I can't say what would be fair, what would be unfair. But I do know that meeting Mr. Goodell, he's a fair man. He gave me the opportunity to speak with him. He gave me the opportunity to convey some of the things that I want to get better at. I feel like whatever he imposes, meeting him and knowing he's a fair man, is in the best interest of the league."
During their 90-minute meeting in New York, Johnson said he told Goodell his goal is to go from jail to NFL Man of the Year.
"One day I want to be the face of the league for guys who have come through adversity, came through it and ultimately became the Man of the Year in the NFL," Johnson said. "That would be a tremendous ending to the story."
Johnson spent 60 days of a 120-day sentence in jail for violating his probation. He was released Sunday for good behavior.
In December, police raided Johnson's Gurnee home and found six unregistered firearms -- a violation of his probation on an earlier gun charge.
That charge stemmed from Johnson's 2005 arrest after a Chicago nightclub valet reported seeing Johnson with a handgun in his SUV. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
Two days after the raid in Gurnee, Willie B. Posey, the Johnson bodyguard who had been arrested after the raid, was shot and killed in an early morning fight while he and Johnson were at a Chicago nightclub.
Johnson was suspended by the Bears for one game for being at the club.
In March, Johnson began his jail term for violating his probation. Last month, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor weapons charge stemming from the December raid as part of a deal with prosecutors that kept him from serving more time in jail. He was ordered to serve 45 days, which he was able to serve concurrently with the sentence for violating his probation.
Johnson had numerous visits from Bears players, coaches and officials during his 60 days of incarceration.
"It was a tough time for me, but at the same time I learned a lot about myself," Johnson said. "I learned a lot about a lot of things. During that process, I got to know that I have tremendous support from all walks of life.
"The Bears showed me unconditional support. My friends and family showed me unconditional support."
Johnson credited coach Lovie Smith and general manager Jerry Angelo, in particular, with standing by him during his time in jail. Johnson did not participate in the team portion of practice Friday because he needs to be in better condition, Smith said.
Johnson did do some individual work early in practice.
Smith still regards Johnson as the Bears' starting nose tackle.
"As much as anything, Tank now has a starting spot," Smith said. "He's back with the group working out. He has a long way to go. As a football team we have a long way to go.
"But Tank will catch up. He's got a smile on his face. He's excited about being back around this team."
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
10:09 PM
interesting said...
Overflowing bag
After 800+ e-mails, I give you league rankings, more
Posted: Wednesday May 16, 2007 12:53PM; Updated: Wednesday May 16, 2007 3:10PM
Arkansas RB Darren McFadden is one of many explosive playmakers in a loaded SEC.
AP
RELATED
• REACT: Are Mandel's league rankings legit?
You love the Mailbag. You really love it.
You made that abundantly clear, dear readers, when you bombarded my in-box to the tune of more than 800 e-mails within 24 hours of publishing the season's first edition. Those are mid-November numbers, people. Give yourselves much-deserved props.
So what did I learn over the course of those 800 e-mails? I learned that most of you never stop thinking about college football, even in the dead of the offseason, and for that I am extremely appreciative -- because it justifies my continued employment. I learned that a great number of you are extremely invested in the choice of the next Celebrity Crush (more on that later), which is good, because I fully intend to milk the suspense.
But most of all, I learned you're all really, really obsessed with this strength-of-conference thing. I could have filled this entire Mailbag with questions about the Big East's legitimacy, the Big Ten's bowl record (2-1 against the SEC last year, as several hundred of you reminded me), the Pac-10's non-conference schedule, lack of respect for the Big 12 and more. Instead, I chose this one, all-encompassing, guaranteed-to-start-a-riot topic from Taylor of Lexington, Ky.:
Stewart, you always say that conference strength is cyclical and always seem to defend easily bash-able conferences (i.e. the Pac-10, ACC). So let's see your rank all 11 Division I-A conferences. Answer at your own risk!
OK, I'll do it, but under two conditions: 1) That we all agree to accept the premise of cyclical conference strength, which means these ratings are based solely on the upcoming season and are by no means permanent. And 2) That once I do this list, there will be no revisiting the topic until at least the start of the season. Let's face it, the only guarantee about this list is that 10 of 11 sets of fans are going to be outraged, and I'm not filling next week's Mailbag with all your angry responses to this one.
Here it goes ...
1) SEC: Simply put, this year's SEC could be the toughest conference in history. I'm not exaggerating. It's extremely rare for a league to not only boast so many quality teams at the top (LSU, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee) but also so little dead weight at the bottom. Really, it's just Mississippi State. You've got two former national championship coaches, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban, leading what may be only the seventh- or eighth-best teams in the league. Kentucky won eight games last year. And Vandy is no longer a gimme (just ask Georgia). It's a perfect storm for the SEC right now with so many accomplished coaches, so much elite talent and so many returning veterans all at once.
2) Pac-10: I've always felt one reason the Pac-10 doesn't get taken seriously by most of the country is that outside of USC, no one has been able to stay consistently good recently. At the same time, however, no one has been consistently bad, either. In other words, the league's image is a victim of its own balance. USC appears to be the cream of the crop again this year, but remember, the Trojans lost to two Pac-10 teams last year, UCLA and Oregon State, both of which return the vast majority of their starters. Cal is loaded on offense yet again. And I expect Oregon, Arizona State (which now has Dennis Erickson), Arizona and possibly Washington to all be factors as well.
3) Big Ten: Remember the 1990s and early 2000s? For the only time in its history, the Big Ten was actually fairly wide open, with everyone from Northwestern to Purdue to Illinois winning titles. Now, the league has gone back to being top-heavy. Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio State could all be top-10 teams, Penn State won't be far off, but then there's a pretty drastic drop-off. I do expect Iowa to do a bit of damage, but nearly half the teams the league (Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois and Indiana) are basically irrelevant.
4) Big East: Obviously, it's impossible for the Big East to go as deep as the other leagues because it has so few teams, and thus its ranking suffers. The top four teams -- Louisville, West Virginia, Rutgers and USF -- stack up with any league outside of the SEC. All four are legitimate preseason top-25 teams in my mind, and three of them could be BCS-caliber. The Cardinals and Mountaineers have already shown their offenses are as explosive as any in the country, but I have a hunch Rutgers might wind up winning the title because it has a defense to go with its potential All-America running back.
5) Big 12: Earlier this decade, I really thought the Big 12 was going to emerge as the best conference in the country. But due in large part to Dennis Franchione's thus-far disappointing tenure at Texas A&M, the South Division has remained largely a two-team show (though Texas Tech is a consistent second-tier bowl team), and the North has yet to fully recover from its all-out implosion a few years ago. Nebraska should be a top-20 team, but I'm not convinced the Huskers are ready to contend nationally yet, Missouri should again be good but not great and the jury's still out on the likes of Kansas State and Kansas.
6) ACC: The conference will be better than it was last year due to several high-profile coaching changes and more experienced teams, but it is still probably a year away from becoming a true force nationally. Virginia Tech should be a top-10 team, but after that it's anyone's best guess who will emerge as legitimate top-20 teams and who will remain mired in mediocrity out of a pack that includes Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College, Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech and Maryland.
7) Mountain West: Utah, TCU and BYU have each produced nationally competitive teams over the past three seasons and all will likely be strong again this season. New Mexico is always in the postseason mix. Things are a little hazy after that, though I'm interested to see whether Colorado State can bounce back from an awful year and how much improvement San Diego State shows in Chuck Long's second year.
8) WAC: Despite losing several teams to Conference USA a few years ago, this league has actually gotten stronger. We all know about Boise State, but the emergence of Nevada, San Jose State and Hawaii has boosted the conference considerably. If anyone can dethrone the Broncos this year, it's Colt Brennan and the Warriors. And I think last year's 4-8 debacle will prove an aberration for Fresno State.
9) Conference USA: This league has become hard to watch since losing Louisville, Cincinnati and USF. I expect there will once again be several decent teams (Tulsa, Southern Miss, East Carolina, UCF) but none that approach top-25 status.
10) MAC: Where have you gone, Ben Roethlisberger? Or Byron Leftwich? Or even Bruce Gradkowski? It's been a few years now since the MAC produced any giant-killers, and I don't expect that to change this year. Even with the addition of Temple (as hard as that may be to believe).
11) Sun Belt: How the members of this conference continue to remain at the I-A level is one of the great mysteries of our time.
So there you have it, folks. Now comes the hard part. You can either fire off that nasty e-mail inquiring about the size of my brain ... or you can ask a question that might actually get published next week.
Oh, the agony.
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The reputation of Iowa's Kirk Ferentz as being a top-notch coach has taken a hit after a pair of disappointing seasons.
AP
Is Kirk Ferentz overrated as a coach? He had talented teams in both 2005 and 2006 and they only went 13-12 over those two years, yet everyone still says Kirk is up there with Pete Carroll, Bob Stoops and Urban Meyer. I find that hard to believe.
--Russ, Dyersville, Iowa
A straight up comparison of Ferentz to the coaches you mentioned would not exactly be fair considering he's not working with anywhere near the same level of talent. That said, he definitely dropped several rungs on my ladder the past two seasons. One of the major reasons Ferentz earned his reputation in the first place was that he was able to take largely blue-collar, physically overmatched teams and beat teams like Ohio State and Michigan and pull off 11-2, 10-3 and 10-2 seasons from 2002-04. The other major trait of those teams is that they got notably better as the season went along, another indicator of good coaching.
But that second part simply did not happen last year. That 6-7 team was a major disappointment considering it had a proven, senior quarterback in Drew Tate and was by all accounts a more talented bunch overall than those earlier teams, whose players were primarily recruited when the program was in the tank. So the question becomes, was Ferentz overrated to begin with or did his earlier teams simply overachieve? I tend to think last year was one of those inevitable blips that every coach endures from time to time when a team, for whatever reason, simply fails to gel. It's also unrealistic to think any coach is ever going to win 10 games every year at Iowa. But it's also not as if Ferentz has such a long track record that he be afforded a free pass. (Especially now that he's being paid like a Stoops or Meyer.) It will be interesting to see how much improvement, if any, this year's Hawkeyes show.
The last couple of seasons, we have seen an influx in big non-conference games to start the season. Which game are you most eager to see. For me, it's Virginia Tech at LSU on Sept. 8!
--Joshua, Richmond, Va.
That's going to be a good one, all right. I don't know who's going to win, but I bet the final score will be something like 10-9. I also think it's going to be an extremely important moment for the Virginia Tech community in its ongoing healing process. Assuming that's the "game of the week" nationally (Notre Dame-Penn State will get plenty of attention as well, but those teams aren't going to be ranked in the Top 10), I can only imagine how uplifting it will be for Hokies fans to see their school return to the national spotlight for something besides the recent tragedy.
The non-conference game I'm looking forward to most, however, is USC at Nebraska the following weekend. The Trojans are the expected preseason No. 1 team, but they're not without questions, particularly on offense. This will be just their second game of the season, and the first one is against Idaho, so this will truly be the first chance to gauge the 2007 Trojans. I also think this game will serve as a referendum on Bill Callahan's mostly stormy tenure in Lincoln. I thought Huskers fans got a little bit ahead of themselves last year in thinking their team would give USC any sort of scare in L.A. in what was then the start of Callahan's third season. At this point, however, it's year four, he's got his recruits and he's finally got a stud quarterback in Sam Keller. It's reasonable to expect that Nebraska -- one of the most storied programs of all-time -- should not roll over for anyone, even the No. 1 team in the country.
Stewart: It's time to play the annual eighth-year seniors game! I'll start it off ... really, a no-brainer: Notre Dame's Tom Zbikowski.
--Dave, Chelsea, Mich.
Ah yes, it's an annual Mailbag tradition. And Zbikowski is a perfect candidate for two reasons: 1) His recruitment as a high school senior in 2002-03 was so heavily chronicled that his name has been with us a whole extra year; and 2) I think most of us were under the assumption that last year would be his final season (he was in Brady Quinn's class but didn't play his first season). It was primarily because his stock plummeted so much that he came back for a fifth year.
Here are my nominees for other eighth-year seniors: Texas WR Limas Sweed, Michigan QB Chad Henne, LSU RB Alley Broussard, North Carolina WR Joe Dailey (Nebraska's starting quarterback in 2004), Penn State RB Austin Scott, Virginia Tech LB Xavier Adibi and Georgia K Brandon Coutu. More nominees are welcome.
We also have a new Hall of Famer. Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm about to tell you is truly astounding. Would you believe that Miami's Glenn Sharpe -- the cornerback from the famous Miami-Ohio State Fiesta Bowl pass-interference call -- is still in college?! Sharpe, a true freshman during that 2002 season, received a sixth year of eligibility after missing most of the 2004 and '05 seasons due to separate ACL tears. Next year, this little game may need to be officially renamed the Glenn Sharpe Game.
Stewart, is Ralph Friedgen making a huge mistake in leaning towards Jordan Steffy as Maryland's starting quarterback over transfer Josh Portis? What I have seen of Steffy so far has been far from impressive, and Portis seems like a perfect fit for Fridge's offense (a la former Georgia Tech QB Joe Hamilton). What gives?
--Brandon, College Park, Md.
That's a good question. Back when Portis decided to transfer to Maryland from Florida (where, if he stayed, he'd now be competing with Tim Tebow), I assumed Friedgen would just hand him the starting job in '07 if for no other reason than to avoid the wrath of Portis' psycho mother. But without having seen Portis play beyond a few meaningless snaps at Florida, I'm not sure I'm equipped to answer the question. So I've called in a guest expert, Heather Dinich, the Baltimore Sun's all-knowing Terrpains beat writer, whose Blog is a must-read both for her expertise on the Terps and her highly amusing comebacks at some of the "haters" who post on her comments board.
Regarding Portis, Heather says: "Everybody WANTS to see Portis because of all the hype surrounding him, and his exciting promise of athletic ability, but he's only a 'perfect fit' for Friedgen's offense if he knows it. Ralph has nearly 200 different pass patterns that can be run from about 15 different formations. Until Ralph is convinced Portis has an understanding of everything, Portis is going to be behind Steffy -- who has had more time to learn the system and spent all of last season calling plays in from the sidelines. There might also be a wee bit of politics involved. (Gasp!) It certainly isn't as if Ralph can afford to have Steffy transfer. Bottom line? Neither one of them has proven anything yet."
By the way, I would have pegged Steffy -- who played a bit in 2004 -- as an eighth-year senior himself, but it turns out he's only a fourth-year junior.
2 of 3
Thanks for your new Fifth Mailbag Commandment. Is anything worse than sports fans referring to their favorite team as "we" or "us?" It's maddening.
--Keary Floyd, Lawrenceville, Ga.
Your new fifth rule isn't going to fly. As someone who was raised a Gator, and currently goes to school there, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't claim to be part of the "Gator Nation" and refer to it as "we." Sports teams are representations of the school, and anyone who does or has gone to a certain school is fully allowed to say "we" when talking about their team.
--J.B., West Palm Beach, Fla.
This was the only one of the five commandments that elicited backlash, so I stopped and considered whether there may actually be scenarios in which it would be acceptable for someone not on a team to refer to it as "we." And the answer I came up with was ... not in a million years.
Don't get me wrong, one of the things that makes college sports so much more riveting than the pros (at least in my mind) is the legitimate sense of ownership fans feel when the team in question plays for their school. So I do understand where J.B. is coming from. However, there's still a significant difference between saying, "My Gators kicked Ohio State's butt" (I've got no problem with that), and, "We kicked Ohio State's butt." Umm ... no you didn't. You sat in the stands and watched the Gators kick Ohio State's butt.
Your criticism about Chan Gailey got me thinking. Do you think a head coach in the NFL has an advantage coaching at the college level over his counterparts? He usually has a poor history in the NFL or he'd still be there, so what makes the Pete Carroll's do so well and what's your prediction for Bill Callahan at Nebraska?
--Mike Burr, Chicago
This is turning out to be a Callahan-heavy Mailbag. But that's OK, because Mike brings up a topic I've formed some pretty staunch opinions about within the last year. Of all the head coaches who have made the transition from the NFL to college in recent years, the only one who's had any raging success is Carroll. And I've always found it interesting that many of the very things that worked against Carroll in the pros -- his rah-rah personality, his player-friendly approach and his aggressive schemes and play-calling -- have been his biggest sources of success in college. This tells me there's almost no correlation between success at the two levels, and that in fact NFL experience may actually work against guys in college. Why? Because in college, unlike the NFL, it doesn't pay to be conservative.
Think back to last year's bowl season. Florida won a national title running an offense in which the backup quarterback was the top running back. Boise State won a BCS bowl running trick plays no NFL coach would dare run in a million years. USC won the Rose Bowl by literally abandoning any notion of offensive balance. College football has become increasingly synonymous with unconventional strategy. But NFL-bred coaches like Gailey, Callahan, Dave Wannstedt and Karl Dorrell tend to be among the most conservative in the nation. (Remember last year's Cotton Bowl?) They may win some games that way, but you don't win championships in college by playing not to lose.
Stewart, I've read your column for a couple of years and have never been compelled to write in until you were looking for a new Mailbag Crush. I nominate Kate Mara, granddaughter of New York Giants owner/legend Wellington Mara. Not only is she football royalty, but she was in We are Marshall.
--Kevin D, Chicago
You don't even have to change channels for your 2007 celebrity crush. How about Sarah Chalke from Scrubs?
--Tripp, Atlanta
Both Kate and Sarah were mentioned frequently in the first round of e-mails, as were two Entourage ladies, Emannuele Chriqui (Sloan) and Carla Guigno (Amanda), The Office's Rashida Jones (Karen), Friday Night Lights' Minka Kelly (whom Jimmy Traina previously claimed), Heroes' Hayden Panettiere (c'mon guys, she's 17) and, a truly under-the-radar choice, Rachel Specter, the RGX body spray girl.
I recently watched an episode of E's The Girls Next Door (admit it, you watch it, too) that illuminated the process by which Hugh Hefner picks the Playmate of the Year. (This year's choice, incidentally, is a recent Oregon State grad who posed for her first cover in Beavers colors. I have a whole new respect for that school.) Basically, he uses the reader poll as input but at the end of the day, he ultimately makes the call. So that's how we're going to treat Celebrity Crush. All of the aforementioned ladies are fine nominees, but I can't say whether any of them are going to make my final cut.
How many times are you going to keep insisting that the relative strength of conferences is "cyclical" when you simply mean that it's mutable? If you can find a cycle in any of this, you should apply your talents to the stock market. For crying out loud, you're a professional writer.
--Kurt S., Chapel Hill, N.C.
Listen, smarty pants. I write about football for a living. Therefore, I don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about. But once upon a time I did buy stock in a rising computer-software company. It had a funny name I kind of liked -- Microsoft. A few years later, I got a call from my stock broker saying I wouldn't have to worry about money anymore. Which is nice. It gives me more time to worry about the important things.
Like whether the Pac-10 is better than the Big 12 or vice versa.
(P.S. Parts of the aforementioned story were exaggerated for dramatic purposes. Greatly.)
3 of 3
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43 Comments - Show Original Post Collapse comments
voice of reason said...
Ten emails, ten faxes and ten phone calls from one constituent to a single politician or party (or even 5 each for each of Oregon's two senators) is not the sign of a healthy and principled political movement; it is the sign of a movement given over to paranoia, desperation and bullying tactics. What is the point of multiple contacts with a politician other than to artificially inflate your own numbers? Would someone care to explain why that is necessary?
Make your call, register your opinion, and if you want, follow up with a fax OR an email to elaborate on points you didn't have time to make on the phone. But don't tie up everyone's phone lines and clog their email boxes just so you can feel powerful ... the only effect of that is to prevent OTHERS from registering their own views -- on this issue, or -- suprise! -- other issues! There are other issues, you know.
7:36 AM
eddie said...
Yup... I agree... one contact with an individual representative.
Otherwise, you might as well be a progressive.
7:46 AM
Anonymous said...
"There are other issues, you know."
Not in Daniel's version of reality. Iraq, the federal deficit, our woeful health care system, gas prices, global warming....these all pale in comparison to illegal immigration.
Slowly but surely, this "problem" will remedy itself. Fertility in Mexico has been reduced drastically during the past two decades. The remittance economy has raised the standard of living in that country as well. The push factors driving Mexican migration are on the decline, again, slowly, but surely.
I think it's time to get this bill passed and move on to more pressing issues.
10:11 AM
Anonymous said...
To voice of reason and eddie:
This is just grand, people who want the American people to lay down and let this amnesty abomination become law, giving advice on what to do and what not to do.
Everybody in politics knows that intensity matters!
How hard people will work matters in politics.
How active voters are about an issue matters.
How do politicians measure intensity?
It is measured by the number of contacts and the kinds of contacts.
So, the politicians do this "deal" in secret and want to vote on it four days after telling the American people about the "deal"; and the bill is 700 pages long and hasn't been printed yet. There are no committee hearings.
And voice of reason talks about "...paranoia, desperation and bullying tactics."
Get real.
I've tangled with voice of reason before and crushed his "reason".
I look forward to it again.
10:13 AM
Anonymous said...
To anon1011am:
This bill is a threat to the Republic.
The question is this:
Will the United States of America continue to be a constitutional democratic republic or be an oligarchy controlled by either Big business or the socialists with a patina or veneer of democratic trappings?
This is a Kansas-Nebraska bill moment. The bill was passed in 1854, it opened the western territories to slavery by "popular sovereignty". It divided the Democrates, destroyed the Whigs, and gave birth to the anti-slavery Republican Party and led directly to the Civil War in 1860.
This makes the abortion issue look like a walk in the park, the gay agenda a street fight, while this is a battle for the Republic in which our grandchildren will live.
Where have you been in the last 24 hours? There is a prairie fire of intensity on this issue because the American people know what is at stake.
10:43 AM
Anonymous said...
A Kansas-Nebraska moment? Intensity? Okay -- what will you guys all do if, sorry, when this thing is signed into law? How do you respond to being on the losing end of a "Kansas-Nebraska" moment?
10:59 AM
anon 1043am said...
To anon1059am:
You are counting your chickens before they hatch, as the old saying goes. Politicians respond to groundswelling revulsion that will cost them re-election.
Can I guarantee Americans will defeat this abomination? No, but you are over-confident, and many times over-confidence is heading for a fall.
My side has the intensity, your side doesn't, and is inherently divided between Socialists, big business and La Raza types.
Blueoregon the blog of the left: Check it out, no post on immigration. Why? They are already divided over immigration because even Blueoregon types know amnesty will lower wages and hurt blue collar workers.
Get to know it.
Money is not the measure of all things.
You might just learn that in this episode.
11:32 AM
The OTHER Ben Dover said...
Hee Hee Hee...
You paranoids are really sweating it. Looks like your Prez sold ya'll down the river - little racist reference for ya.
Poor Daniel. Now he won't get any rest.
See ya in the bread, or should I say "tortilla" line
2:57 PM
Anonymous said...
Check CNN.COM poll
With 105,000 votes, it asks what you think of the new immigration proposal...
64% Amnesty
36% Immigration Reform
Looks like Americans are getting screwed in the a**hole by bush.
3:56 PM
Anonymous said...
No reverberatory effect of the great war has caused American public opinion more solicitude than the failure of the "melting-pot." The discovery of diverse nationalistic feelings among our great alien population his come to most people as an intense shock. It has brought out the unpleasant inconsistencies of our traditional beliefs. We have had to watch hard-hearted old Brahmins virtuously indignant at the spectacle of the immigrant refusing to be melted, while they jeer at patriots like Mary Antin who write about our "forefathers." We have had to listen to publicists who express themselves as stunned by the evidence of vigorous traditionalistic and cultural movements in this country among Germans, Scandinavians, Bohemians and Poles, while in the same breath they insist that the alien shall be forcibly assimilated to that Anglo-Saxon tradition which they unquestionably label "American."
As the unpleasant truth has come upon us that assimilation in this country was proceeding on lines very different from those we had marked out for it, we found ourselves inclined to blame those who were thwarting our prophecies. The truth became culpable. We blamed the war, we blamed the Germans. And then we discovered with a moral shock that these movements had been making great headway even before the war even began. We found that the tendency, reprehensible and paradoxical as it might be, has been for the national clusters of immigrants, as they became more and more firmly established and more and more prosperous, to cultivate more and more assiduously the literatures and cultural traditions of their homelands. Assimilation, in other words, instead of washing out the memories of Europe, made them more and more intensely real. Just as these clusters became more and more objectively American, did they become more and more German or Scandinavian or Bohemian or Polish.
To face the fact that our aliens are already strong enough to take a share in the direction of their own destiny, and that the strong cultural movements represented by the foreign press, schools, and colonies are a challenge to our facile attempts, is not, however, to admit the failure of Americanization. It is not to fear the failure of democracy. It is rather to urge us to an investigation of what Americanism may rightly mean. It is to ask ourselves whether our ideal has been broad or narrow--whether perhaps the time has not come to assert a higher ideal than the "melting-pot" Surely we cannot be certain of our spiritual democracy when, claiming to melt the nations within us to a comprehension of our free and democratic institutions, we fly into panic at the first sign of their own will and tendency. We act as if we wanted Americanization to take place only on our own terms, and not by the consent of the governed. All our elaborate machinery of settlement and school and union, of social and political naturalization, however, will move with friction just in so far as it neglects to take into account this strong and virile insistence that America shall be what the immigrant will have a hand in making it, and not what a ruling class, descendant of those British stocks which were the first permanent immigrants, decide that America shall be made. This is the condition which confronts us, and which demands a clear and general readjustment of our attitude and our ideal.
Mary Antin is right when she looks upon our foreign-born as the people who missed the Mayflower and came over on the first boat they could find. But she forgets that when they did come it was not upon other Mayflowers, but upon a "Maiblume," a "Fleur de Mai," a "Fior di Maggio," a "Majblomst." These people were not mere arrivals from the same family, to be welcomed as understood and long-loved, but strangers to the neighborhood, with whom a long process of settling down had to take place. For they brought with them their national and racial characters, and each new national quota had to wear slowly away the contempt with which its mere alienness got itself greeted. Each had to make its way slowly from the lowest strata of unskilled labor up to a level where it satisfied the accredited norms of social success.
We are all foreign-born or the descendants of foreign-born, and if distinctions are to be made between us they should rightly be on some other ground than indigenousness. The early colonists came over with motives no less colonial than the later. They did not come to be assimilated in an American melting-pot. They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the smallest intention of "giving themselves without reservation" to the new country. They came to get freedom to live as they wanted. They came to escape from the stifling air and chaos of the old world; they came to make their fortune in a new land. They invented no new social framework. Rather they brought over bodily the old ways to which they had been accustomed. Tightly concentrated on a hostile frontier, they were conservative beyond belief. Their pioneer daring was reserved for the objective conquest of material resources. In their folkways, in their social and political institutions, they were, like every colonial people, slavishly imitative of the mother-country. So that, in spite of the "Revolution," our whole legal and political system remained more English than the English, petrified and unchanging, while in England law developed to meet the needs of the changing times.
It is just this English-American conservatism that has been our chief obstacle to social advance. We have needed the new peoples--the order of the German and Scandinavian, the turbulence of the Slav and Hun--to save us from our own stagnation. I do not mean that the illiterate Slav is now the equal of the New Englander of pure descent. He is raw material to be educated, not into a New Englander, but into a socialized American along such lines as those thirty nationalities are being educated in the amazing schools of Gary. I do not believe that this process is to be one of decades of evolution. The spectacle of Japan's sudden jump from mediaevalism to post-modernism should have destroyed that superstition. We are not dealing with individuals who are to "evolve." We are dealing with their children, who, with that education we are about to have, will start level with all of us. Let us cease to think of ideals like democracy as magical qualities inherent in certain peoples. Let us speak, not of inferior races, hut of inferior civilizations. We are all to educate and to be educated. These peoples in America are in a common enterprise. It is not what we are now that concerns us, but what this plastic next generation may become in the light of a new cosmopolitan ideal.
We are not dealing with static factors, but with fluid and dynamic generations. To contrast the older and the newer immigrants and see the one class as democratically motivated by love of liberty, and the other by mere money-getting, is not to illuminate the future. To think of earlier nationalities as culturally assimilated to America, while we picture the later as a sodden and resistive mass, makes only for bitterness and misunderstanding. There may be a difference between these earlier and these later stocks, but it lies neither in motive for coming nor in strength of cultural allegiance to the homeland. The truth is that no more tenacious cultural allegiance to the mother country has been shown by any alien nation than by the ruling class of Anglo-Saxon descendants in these American States. English snobberies, English religion, English literary styles, English literary reverences and canons, English ethics, English superiorities, have been the cultural food that we have drunk in from our mothers' breasts. The distinctively American spirit pioneer, as distinguished from the reminiscently English that appears in Whitman and Emerson and James, has had to exist on sufferance along side of this other cult, unconsciously belittled by our cultural makers of opinion. No country has perhaps had so great indigenous genius which had so little influence on the country's traditions and expressions. The unpopular and dreaded German-American of the present day is a beginning amateur in comparison with those foolish Anglophiles of Boston and New York and Philadelphia whose reversion to cultural type sees uncritically in England's cause the cause of Civilization, and, under the guise of ethical independence of thought, carries along European traditions which are no more American' than the German categories themselves.
It speaks well for German-American innocence of heart or else for its lack of imagination that it has not turned the hyphen stigma into a "Tu quoque!" If there were to be any hyphens scattered about, clearly they should he affixed to those English descendants who had had centuries of time to be made American where the German had had only half a century. Most significantly has the war brought out of them this alien virus, showing them still loving English things, owing allegiance to the English Kultur, moved by English shibboleths and prejudice. It is only because it has been the ruling class in this country that bestowed the epithets that we have not heard copiously and scornfully of "hyphenated English-Americans." But even our quarrels with England have had the bad temper, the extravagance, of family quarrels. The Englishman of to-day nags us and dislikes us in that personal, peculiarly intimate way in which he dislikes the Australian, or as we may dislike our younger brothers. He still thinks of us incorrigibly as "colonials." America---official, controlling, literary, political America--is still, as a writer recently expressed it, "culturally speaking, ,a self-governing dominion of the British Empire."
The non-English American can scarcely be blamed if he sometimes thinks of the Anglo-Saxon predominance in America as little more than a predominance of priority. The Anglo-Saxon was merely the first immigrant, the first to found a colony. He has never really ceased to be the descendant of immigrants, nor has he ever succeeded in transforming that colony into a real nation, with a tenacious, richly woven fabric of native culture. Colonials from the other nations have come and settled down beside him. They found no definite native culture which should startle them out of their colonialism, and consequently they looked back to their mother-country, as the earlier Anglo-Saxon immigrant was looking back to his. What has been offered thee newcomer has been the chance to learn English, to become a citizen, to salute the flag. And those elements of our ruling classes who are responsible for the public schools, the settlements, all the organizations for amelioration in the cities, have every reason to be proud of the care and labor which they have devoted to absorbing the immigrant. His opportunities the immigrant has taken to gladly, with almost a pathetic eagerness to make his way in the new land without friction or disturbance. The common language has made not only for the necessary communication, but for all the amenities of life.
If freedom means the right to do pretty much as one pleases, so long as one does not interfere with others, the immigrant has found freedom, and the ruling element has been singularly liberal in its treatment of the invading hordes. But if freedom means a democratic cooperation in determining the ideals and purposes and industrial and social institutions of a country, then the immigrant has not been free, and the Anglo-Saxon element is guilty of just what every dominant race is guilty of in every European country: the imposition of its own culture upon the minority peoples. The fact that this imposition has been so mild and, indeed, semi-conscious does not alter its quality. And the war has brought out just the degree to which that purpose of "Americanizing," that is, "Anglo-Saxonizing," the immigrant has failed.
For the Anglo-Saxon now in his bitterness to turn upon the other peoples, talk about their "arrogance," scold them for not being melted in a pot which never existed, is to betray the unconscious purpose which lay at the bottom of his heart. It betrays too the possession of a racial jealousy similar to that of which he is now accusing the so-called "hyphenates." Let the Anglo-Saxon be proud enough of the heroic toil and heroic sacrifices which moulded the nation. But let him ask himself, if he had had to depend on the English descendants, where he would have been living to-day. To those of us who see in the exploitation of unskilled labor the strident red leit-motif of our civilization, the settling of the country presents a great social drama as the waves of immigration broke over it.
Let the Anglo-Saxon ask himself where he would have been if these races had not come? Let those who feel the inferiority of the non-Anglo-Saxon immigrant contemplate that region of the States which has remained the most distinctively "American," the South. Let him ask himself whether he would really like to see the foreign hordes Americanized into such an Americanization. Let him ask himself how superior this native civilization is to the great "alien" states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, where Scandinavians, Poles, and Germans have self-consciously labored to preserve their traditional culture, while being outwardly and satisfactorily American. Let him ask himself how much more wisdom, intelligence, industry and social leadership has come out of these alien states than out of all the truly American ones. The South, in fact, while this vast Northern development has gone on, still remains an English colony, stagnant and complacent, having progressed scarcely beyond the early Victorian era. It is culturally sterile because it has had no advantage of cross-fertilization like the Northern states. What has happened in states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota is that strong foreign cultures have struck root in a new and fertile soil. America has meant liberation, and German and Scandinavian political ideas and social energies have expanded to a new potency. The process has not been at all the fancied "assimilation" of the Scandinavian or Teuton. Rather has it been a process of their assimilation of us--I speak as an Anglo-Saxon. The foreign cultures have not been melted down or run together, made into some homogeneous Americanism, but have remained distinct but cooperating to the greater glory and benefit, not only of themselves but of all the native "Americanism" around them.
What we emphatically do not want is that these distinctive qualities should be washed out into a tasteless, colorless fluid of uniformity. Already we have far too much of this insipidity, masses of people who are cultural half-breeds, neither assimilated Anglo-Saxons nor nationals of another culture. Each national colony in this country seems to retain in its foreign press, its vernacular literature, its schools, its intellectual and patriotic leaders, a central cultural nucleus. From this nucleus the colony extends out by imperceptible gradations to a fringe where national characteristics are all but lost. Our cities are filled with these half-breeds who retain their foreign names but have lost the foreign savor. This does not mean that they have actually been changed into New Englanders or Middle Westerners. It does not mean that they have been really Americanized. It means that, letting slip from them whatever native culture they had, they have substituted for it only the most rudimentary American --the American culture of the cheap newspaper, the "movies," the popular song, the ubiquitous automobile. The unthinking who survey this class call them assimilated, Americanized. The great American public school has done its work. .With these people our institutions are safe. We may thrill with dread at the aggressive hyphenate, but this tame flabbiness is accepted as Americanization. The same moulders of opinion whose ideal is to melt the different races into Anglo-Saxon gold hail this poor product as the satisfying result of their alchemy.
Yet a truer cultural sense would have told us that it is not the self-conscious cultural nuclei that sap at our American life, but these fringes. It is not the Jew who sticks proudly to the faith of his fathers and boasts of that venerable culture of his who is dangerous to America, but the Jew who has lost the Jewish fire and become a mere elementary grasping animal. It is not the Bohemian who supports the Bohemian schools in Chicago whose influence is sinister, but the Bohemian who has made money and has got into ward politics. Just so surely as we tend to disintegrate these nuclei of nationalistic culture do we tend to create hordes of men and women without a spiritual country, cultural outlaws, without taste, without standards but those of the mob. We sentence them to live on the most rudimentary planes of American life. The influences at the centre of the nuclei are centripetal. They make for the intelligence and the social values which mean an enhancement of life. And just because the foreign-born retains this expressiveness is he likely to be a better citizen of the American community. The influences at the fringe, however, are centrifugal, anarchical. They make for detached fragments of peoples. Those who came to find liberty achieve only license. They become the flotsam and jetsam of American life, the downward undertow of our civilization with its leering cheapness and falseness of taste and spiritual outlook, the absence of mind and sincere feeling which we see iii our slovenly towns, our vapid moving pictures, our popular novels, and in the vacuous faces of the crowds on the city street. This is the cultural wreckage of our time, and it is from the fringes of the Anglo-Saxon as well as the other stocks that it falls. America has as yet no impelling integrating force. It makes too easily for this detritus of cultures. In our loose, free country, no constraining national purpose, no tenacious folk-tradition and folk-style hold the people to a line.
The war has shown us that not in any magical formula will this purpose be found. No intense nationalism of the European plan can be ours. But do we not begin to see a new and more adventurous ideal? Do we not see how the national colonies in America, deriving power from the deep cultural heart of Europe and yet living here in mutual toleration, freed from the age-long tangles of races, creeds, and dynasties, may work out a federated ideal? America is transplanted Europe, but a Europe that has not been disintegrated and scattered in the transplanting as in some Dispersion. Its colonies live here inextricably mingled, yet not homogeneous. They merge but they do not fuse.
America is a unique sociological fabric, and it bespeaks poverty of imagination not to be thrilled at the incalculable potentialities of so novel a union of men. To seek no other goal than the weary old nationalism, belligerent, exclusive, inbreeding, the poison of which we are witnessing now in Europe, is to make patriotism a hollow sham, and to declare that, in spite of our boastings, America must ever be a follower and not a leader of nations.
II
If we come to find this point of view plausible, we shall have to give up the search for our native "American" culture. With the exception of the South and that New England which, like the Red Indian, seems to be passing into solemn oblivion, there is no distinctively American culture. It is apparently our lot rather to be a federation of cultures. This we have been for half a century, and the war has made it evermore evident that this is what we are destined to remain. This will not mean, however, that there are not expressions of indigenous genius that could not have sprung from any other soil. Music, poetry, philosophy, have been singularly fertile and new. Strangely enough, American genius has flared forth just in those directions which are least [understood] of the people. If the American note is bigness, action, the objective as contrasted with the reflective life, where is the epic expression of this spirit? Our drama and our fiction, the peculiar fields for the expression of action and objectivity, are somehow exactly the fields of the spirit which remain poor and mediocre. American materialism is in some way inhibited from getting into impressive artistic form its own energy with which it bursts. Nor is it any better in architecture, the least romantic and subjective of all the arts. We are inarticulate of the very values which we profess to idealize. But in the finer forms --music, verse, the essay, philosophy--the American genius puts forth work equal to any of its contemporaries. Just in so far as our American genius has expressed the pioneer spirit, the adventurous, forward-looking drive of a colonial empire, is it representative of that whole--America of the many races and peoples, and not of any partial or traditional enthusiasm. And only as that pioneer note is sounded can we really speak of the American culture. As long as we thought of Americanism in terms of the "melting pot," our American cultural tradition lay in the past. It was something to which the new Americans were to be moulded. In the light of our changing ideal of Americanism, we must perpetrate the paradox that our American cultural tradition lies in the future. It will be what we all together make out of this incomparable opportunity of attacking the future with a new key.
Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, it is certain to become something utterly different from the nationalisms of twentieth-century Europe. This wave of reactionary enthusiasm to play the orthodox nationalistic game which is passing over the country is scarcely vital enough to last. We cannot swagger and thrill to the same national self-feeling. We must give new edges to our pride. We must be content to avoid the unnumbered woes that national patriotism has brought in Europe, and that fiercely heightened pride and self-consciousness. Alluring as this is, we must allow our imaginations to transcend this scarcely veiled belligerency. We can be serenely too proud to fight if our pride embraces the creative forces of civilization which armed contest nullifies. We can be too proud to fight if our code of honor transcends that of the schoolboy on the playground surrounded by his jeering mates. Our honor must be positive and creative, and not the mere jealous and negative protectiveness against metaphysical violations of our technical rights. When the doctrine is put forth that in one American flows the mystic blood of all our country's sacred honor, freedom, and prosperity, so that an injury to him is to be the signal for turning our whole nation into that clan-feud of horror and reprisal which would be war, then we find ourselves back among the musty schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and not in any pragmatic and realistic America of the twentieth century.
We should hold our gaze to what America has done, not what mediaeval codes of dueling she has failed to observe. We have transplanted European modernity to our soil, without the spirit that inflames it and turns all its energy into mutual destruction. Out of these foreign peoples there has somehow been squeezed the poison. Ann America, "hyphenated" to bitterness is somehow non-explosive. For, even if we all hark back in sympathy to a European nation, even if the war has set every one vibrating to some emotional string twanged on the other side of the Atlantic, the effect has been one of almost dramatic harmlessness.
What we have really been witnessing, however unappreciatively, in this country has been a thrilling and bloodless battle of Kulturs. In that arena of friction which has been the most dramatic--between the hyphenated German-American and the hyphenated English-American--there have emerged rivalries of philosophies which show up deep traditional attitudes, points of view which accurately reflect the gigantic issues of the war. America has mirrored the spiritual issues. The vicarious struggle has been played out peacefully here in the mind. We have seen the stout resistiveness of the old moral interpretation of history on which Victorian England thrived and made itself great in its own esteem. The clean and immensely satisfying vision of the war as a contest between right and wrong; the enthusiastic support of the Allies as the incarnation of virtue on a rampage; the fierce envisaging of their selfish national purposes as the ideals of justice, freedom and democracy--all this has been thrown with intensest force against the German realistic interpretations in terms of the struggle for power and the virility of the integrated State. America has been the intellectual battleground of the nations.
The failure of the melting-pot, far from closing the great American democratic experiment, means that it has only just begun. Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, we see already that it will have color richer and more exciting than our ideal has hitherto encompassed. In a world which has dreamed of internationalism, we find that we have all unawares been building up the first international nation. The voices which have cried for a tight and jealous nationalism of the European pattern are failing. From that ideal, however valiantly and disinterestedly it has been set for us, time and tendency have moved us further and further away. What we have achieved has been rather a cosmopolitan federation of national colonies, of foreign cultures, from whom the sting of devastating competition has been removed. America is already the world-federation in miniature, the continent where for the first time in history has been achieved that miracle of hope, the peaceful living side by side, with character substantially preserved, of the most heterogeneous peoples under the sun. Nowhere else has such contiguity been anything but the breeder of misery. Here, notwithstanding our tragic failures of adjustment, the outlines are already too clear not t
III
o give us a new vision and a new-orientation of the American mind in the world.
It is for the American of the younger generation to accept this cosmopolitanism, and carry it along with self-conscious and fruitful purpose. In his colleges, he is already getting, with the study of modern history and politics, the modern literatures, economic geography, the privilege of a cosmopolitan outlook such as the people of no other nation of to-day in Europe can possibly secure. If he is still a colonial, he is no longer the colonial of one partial culture, but of many. He is a colonial of the world. Colonialism has grown into cosmopolitanism, and his motherland is no one nation, but all who have anything life enhancing to offer to the spirit. That vague sympathy which the France of ten years ago was feeling for the world--a sympathy which was drowned in the terrible reality of war--may be the modern American's, and that in a positive and aggressive sense. If the American is parochial, it is in sheer wantonness or cowardice. His provincialism is the measure of his fear of bogies or the defect of his imagination.
Indeed, it is not uncommon for the eager Anglo-Saxon who goes to a vivid American university to-day to find his true friends not among his own race but among the acclimatized German or Austrian, the acclimatized Jew, the acclimatized Scandinavian or Italian. In them he finds the cosmopolitan note. In these youths, foreign-born or the children of foreign-born parents, he is likely to find many of his old inbred morbid problems washed away. These friends are oblivious to the repressions of that tight little society in which he so provincially grew up. He has a pleasurable sense of liberation from the stale and familiar attitudes of those whose ingrowing culture has scarcely created anything vital for his America of to-day. He breathes a larger air. In his new enthusiasms for continental literature, for unplumbed Russian depths, for French clarity of thought, for Teuton philosophies of power, he feels himself citizen of a larger world. He may be absurdly superficial, his outward-reaching wonder may ignore all the stiller and homelier virtues of his Anglo-Saxon home, but he has at least found the clue to that international mind which will be essential to all men and women of good-will if they are ever to save this Western world of ours from suicide. His new friends have gone through a similar revolution. America has burned most of the baser metal also from them. Meeting now with this common American background, all of them may yet retain that distinctiveness of their native cultures and their national spiritual slants. They are more valuable and interesting to each other for being different, yet that difference could not be creative were it not for this new cosmopolitan outlook which America has given :- - them and which they all equally possess.
A college where such a spirit is possible even to the smallest degree, has within itself already the seeds of this international intellectual world of the future. It suggests that the contribution of America will be an intellectual internationalism which goes far beyond the mere exchange of scientific ideas and discoveries and the cold recording of facts. It will be an intellectual sympathy which is not satisfied until it has got at the heart of the different cultural expressions, and felt as they feel. It may have immense preferences, but it will make understanding and not indignation its end. Such a sympathy will unite and not divide. Against the thinly disguised panic which calls itself "patriotism" and the thinly disguised militarism which calls itself "preparedness" the cosmopolitan ideal is set. This does not mean that those who hold it are for a policy of drift. They, too, long passionately for an integrated and disciplined America. But they do not want one which is integrated only for domestic economic exploitation of the workers or for predatory economic imperialism among the weaker peoples. They do not want one that is integrated by coercion or militarism, or for the truculent assertion of a mediƦval code of honor and of doubtful rights. They believe that the most effective integration will be one which coordinates the diverse elements and turns them consciously toward working out together the place of America in the world-situation. They demand for integration a genuine integrity, a wholeness and soundness of enthusiasm and purpose which can only come when no national colony within our America feels that it is being discriminated against or that its cultural case is being prejudged. This strength of cooperation, this feeling that all who are here may have a hand in the destiny of America, will make for a finer spirit of integration than any narrow "Americanism" or forced chauvinism. In this effort we may have to accept some form of that dual citizenship which meets with so much articulate horror among us. Dual citizenship we may have to recognize as the rudimentary form of that international citizenship to which, if our words mean anything, we aspire. We have assumed unquestioningly that mere participation in the political life of the United States must cut the new citizen off from all sympathy with his old allegiance. Anything but a bodily transfer of devotion from one sovereignty to another has been viewed as a sort of moral treason against the Republic. We have insisted that the immigrant whom we welcomed escaping from the very exclusive nationalism of his European home shall forthwith adopt a nationalism just as exclusive, just as narrow, and even less legitimate because it is founded on no warm traditions of his own. Yet a nation like France is said to permit a formal and legal dual citizenship even at the present time. Though a citizen of hers may pretend to cast off his allegiance in favor of some other sovereignty, he is still subject to her laws when he returns. Once a citizen, always a citizen, no matter how many new-citizenships he may embrace. And such a dual citizenship seems to us sound and right. For it recognizes that, although the Frenchman may accept the formal institutional framework of his new country and indeed become intensely loyal to it, yet his Frenchness he will never lose. What makes up the fabric of his soul will always be of this Frenchness,-so that unless he becomes utterly degenerate he will always to some degree dwell still in his native environment.
Indeed, does not the cultivated American who goes to Europe practice a dual citizenship, which, if not formal, is no less real? The American who lives abroad may be the least expatriate of men. If he falls in love with French ways and French thinking and French democracy and seeks to saturate himself with the new spirit, he is guilty of at least a dual spiritual citizenship. He may be still American, yet he feels himself through sympathy also a Frenchman. And he finds that this expansion involves no shameful conflict within him, no surrender of his native attitude. He has rather for the first time caught a glimpse of the cosmopolitan spirit. And after wandering about through many races and civilizations he may return to America to find them all here living vividly and crudely, seeking the same adjustment that he made. He sees the new peoples here with a new vision. They are no longer masses of aliens, waiting to be "assimilated," waiting to be melted down into the indistinguishable dough of Anglo-Saxonism. They are rather threads of living and potent cultures, blindly striving to weave themselves into a novel international nation, the first the world has seen. In an Austria-Hungary or a Prussia the stronger of these cultures would be moving almost instinctively to subjugate the weaker. But in America those wills-to-power are turned in a different direction into learning how to live together.
Along with dual citizenship we shall have to accept, I think, that free and mobile passage of the immigrant between America and his native land again which now arouses so much prejudice among us. We shall have to accept the immigrant's return for the same reason that we consider justified our own flitting about the earth. To stigmatize the alien who works in America for a few years and returns to his own land, only perhaps to seek American fortune again, is to think in narrow nationalistic terms. It is to ignore the cosmopolitan significance of this migration. It is to ignore the fact that the returning immigrant is often a missionary to an inferior civilization.
This migratory habit has been especially common with the unskilled laborers who have been pouring into the United States in the last dozen years from every country in southeastern Europe. Many of them return to spend their earnings in their own country or to serve their country in war. But they return with an entirely new critical outlook, and a sense of the superiority of American organization to the primitive living around them. This continued passage to and fro has already raised the material standard of living in many regions of these backward countries. For these regions are thus endowed with exactly what they need, the capital for the exploitation of their natural resources, and the spirit of enterprise. America is thus educating these laggard peoples from the very bottom of society up, awakening vast masses to a new-born hope for the future. In the migratory Greek, therefore, we have not the parasitic alien, the doubtful American asset, but a symbol of that cosmopolitan interchange which is coming, in spite of all war and national exclusiveness.
Only America, by reason of the unique liberty of opportunity and traditional isolation for which she seems to stand, can lead in this cosmopolitan enterprise. Only the American--and in this category I include the migratory alien who has lived with us and caught the pioneer "spirit and a sense of new social vistas--has the chance to become that citizen of the world. America is coming to be, not a nationality but a transnationality, a weaving back and forth, with the other lands, of many threads of all sizes and colors. Any movement which attempts to thwart this weaving, or to dye the fabric any one color, or disentangle the threads of the strands, is false to this cosmopolitan vision. I do not mean that we shall necessarily glut ourselves with the raw product of humanity. It would he folly to absorb the nations faster than we could weave them. We have no duty either to admit or reject. It is purely a question of expediency. What concerns us is the fact that the strands are here. We must have a policy and an ideal for an actual situation. Our question is, What shall we do with our America? How are we likely to get the more creative America by confining our imaginations to the ideal of the melting-pot, or broadening them to some such cosmopolitan conception as I have been vaguely sketching?
The war has shown America to be unable, though isolated geographically and politically from a European world-situation, to remain aloof and irresponsible She is a wandering star in a sky dominated by two colossal constellations of states. Can she not work out some position of her own, some life of being in, yet not quite of, this seething and embroiled European world? This is her only hope and promise. A trans-nationality of all the nations, it is spiritually impossible for her to pass into the orbit of any one. It will be folly to hurry herself into a premature and sentimental nationalism, or to emulate Europe and play fast and loose with the forces that drag into war. No Americanization will fulfill this vision which does not recognize the uniqueness of this trans-nationalism of ours. The Anglo-Saxon attempt to fuse will only create enmity and distrust. The crusade against "hyphenates" will only inflame the partial patriotism of trans-nationals, and cause them to assert their European traditions in strident and unwholesome ways. But the attempt to weave a wholly novel international nation out of our chaotic America will liberate and harmonize the creative power of all these peoples and give them the new spiritual citizenship, as so many individuals have already been given, of a world.
Is it a wild hope that the undertow of opposition to metaphysics in international relations, opposition to militarism, is less a cowardly provincialism than a groping for this higher cosmopolitan ideal? One can understand the irritated restlessness with which our proud pro-British colonists contemplate a heroic conflict across the seas in which they have no part. It was inevitable that our necessary inaction should evolve in their minds into the bogey of national shame and dishonor. But let us be careful about accepting their sensitiveness as final arbiter. Let us look at our reluctance rather as the first crude beginnings of assertion on the part of certain strands in our nationality that they have a right to a voice in the construction of the American ideal. Let us face realistically the America we have around us. Let us work with the forces that are at work. Let us make something of this trans-national spirit instead of outlawing it. Already we are living this cosmopolitan America. What we need is everywhere a vivid consciousness of the new ideal. Deliberate headway must be made against the survivals of the melting-pot ideal for the promise of American life.
We cannot Americanize America worthily by sentimentalizing and moralizing history. When the best schools are expressly renouncing the questionable duty of teaching patriotism by means of history, it is not the time to force shibboleth upon the immigrant. This form of Americanization has been heard because it appealed to the vestiges of our old sentimentalized and moralized patriotism. This has so far held the field as the expression of the new American's new devotion. The inflections of other voices have been drowned. They must be heard. We must see if the lesson of the war has not been for hundreds of these later Americans a vivid realization of their transnationality, a new consciousness of what America meant to them as a citizenship in the world. It is the vague historic idealisms which have provided the fuel for the European flame. Our American ideal can make no progress until we do away with this romantic gilding of the past.
All our idealisms must be those of future social goals in which all can participate, the good life of personality lived in the environment of the Beloved Community. No mere doubtful triumphs of the past, which redound to the glory of only one of our trans-nationalities, can satisfy us. It must be a future America, on which all can unite, which pulls us irresistibly toward it, as we understand each other more warmly.
To make real this striving amid dangers and apathies is work for a younger intelligensia of America. Here is an enterprise of integration into which we can all pour ourselves, of a spiritual welding which should make us, if the final menace ever came, not weaker, but infinitely strong.
4:27 PM
Anonymous said...
There can be no question about the average American's Americanism or his desire to preserve this precious heritage at all costs. Nevertheless, some insidious foreign ideas have already wormed their way into his civilization without his realizing what was going on. Thus dawn finds the unsuspecting patriot garbed in pajamas, a garment of East Indian origin; and lying in a bed built on a pattern which originated in either Persia or Asia Minor. He is muffled to the ears in un-American materials: cotton, first domesticated in India; linen, domesticated in the Near East; wool from an animal native to Asia Minor; or silk whose uses were first discovered by the Chinese. All these substances have been transformed into cloth by methods invented in Southwestern Asia. If the weather is cold enough he may even be sleeping under an eiderdown quilt invented in Scandinavia.
On awakening he glances at the clock, a medieval European invention, uses one potent Latin word in abbreviated form, rises in haste, and goes to the bathroom. Here, if he stops to think about it, he must feel himself in the presence of a great American institution; he will have heard stories of both the quality and frequency of foreign plumbing and will know that in no other country does the average man perform his ablutions in the midst of such splendor. But the insidious foreign influence pursues him even here. Glass was invented by the ancient Egyptians, the use of glazed tiles for floors and walls in the Near East, porcelain in China, and the art of enameling on metal by Mediterranean artisans of the Bronze Age. Even his bathtub and toilet are but slightly modified copies of Roman originals. The only purely American contribution to tile ensemble is tile steam radiator, against which our patriot very briefly and unintentionally places his posterior.
In this bathroom the American washes with soap invented by the ancient Gauls. Next he cleans his teeth, a subversive European practice which did not invade America until the latter part of the eighteenth century. He then shaves, a masochistic rite first developed by the heathen priests of ancient Egypt and Sumer. The process is made less of a penance by the fact that his razor is of steel, an iron-carbon alloy discovered in either India or Turkestan. Lastly, he dries himself on a Turkish towel.
Returning to the bedroom, the unconscious victim of un-American practices removes his clothes from a chair, invented in the Near East, and proceeds to dress. He puts on close-fitting tailored garments whose form derives from the skin clothing of the ancient nomads of the Asiatic steppes and fastens them with buttons whose prototypes appeared in Europe at the Close of the Scone Age. This costume is appropriate enough for outdoor exercise in a cold climate, but is quite unsuited to American summers, steam-heated houses, and Pullmans. Nevertheless, foreign ideas and habits hold the unfortunate man in thrall even when common sense tells him that the authentically American costume of gee string and moccasins would be far more comfortable. He puts on his feet stiff coverings made from hide prepared by a process invented in ancient Egypt and cut to a pattern which can be traced back to ancient Greece, and makes sure that they ire properly polished, also a Greek idea. Lastly, he tics about his neck a strip of bright-colored cloth which is a vestigial survival of the shoulder shawls worn by seventeenth century Croats. He gives himself a final appraisal in the mirror, an old Mediterranean invention, and goes downstairs to breakfast.
Here a whole new series of foreign things confronts him. His food and drink are placed before him in pottery vessels, the proper name of which -- china -- is sufficient evidence of their origin. His fork is a medieval Italian invention and his spoon a copy of a Roman original. He will usually begin the meal with coffee, an Abyssinian plant first discovered by the Arabs. The American is quite likely to need it to dispel the morning-after effects of overindulgence in fermented drinks, invented in the Near East; or distilled ones, invented by the alchemists of medieval Europe. Whereas the Arabs took, their coffee straight, he will probably sweeten it with sugar, discovered in India; and dilute it with cream, both the domestication of cattle and the technique of milking having originated in Asia Minor.
If our patriot is old-fashioned enough to adhere to the so-called American breakfast, his coffee will be accompanied by an orange, domesticated in the Mediterranean region, a cantaloupe domesticated in Persia, or grapes domesticated in Asia Minor. He will follow this with a bowl of cereal made from grain domesticated in the Near East and prepared by methods also invented there. From this he will go on to waffles, a Scandinavian invention with plenty of butter, originally a Near Eastern cosmetic. As a side dish he may have the egg of a bird domesticated in Southeastern Asia or strips of the flesh of an animal domesticated in the same region, which has been salted and smoked by a process invented in Northern Europe.
Breakfast over, he places upon his head a molded piece of felt, invented by the nomads of
Eastern Asia, and, if it looks like rain, puts on outer shoes of rubber, discovered by the ancient Mexicans, and takes an umbrella, invented in India. He then sprints for his train–the train, not sprinting, being in English invention. At the station he pauses for a moment to buy a newspaper, paying for it with coins invented in ancient Lydia. Once on board he settles back to inhale the fumes of a cigarette invented in Mexico, or a cigar invented in Brazil. Meanwhile, he reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites by a process invented in Germany upon a material invented in China. As he scans the latest editorial pointing out the dire results to our institutions of accepting foreign ideas, he will not fail to thank a Hebrew God in an Indo-European language that he is a one hundred percent (decimal system invented by the Greeks) American (from Americus Vespucci, Italian geographer).
--Ralph Linton, "One Hundred Per-Cent American," from the American Mercury (1937)
4:28 PM
Anonymous said...
Benjamin Franklin on Immigration:
Europe is generally full settled with Husbandmen, Manufacturers, &c. and therefore cannot now much increase in People: America is chiefly occupied by Indians, who subsist mostly by Hunting. But as the Hunter, of all Men, requires the greatest Quantity of Land from whence to draw his Subsistence, (the Husbandman subsisting on much less, the Gardner on still less, and the Manufacturer requiring the least of all), The Europeans found America as fully settled as it well could bee by Hunters; yet these having large Tracks, were easily prevail'd on to part with Portions of Territory to the new Comers, who did not much interfere with the Natives in Hunting, and furnish'd them with many Things they wanted.
Land being thus plenty in America, and so cheap as that a labouring Man, that understands Husbandry, can in a short Time save Money enough to purchase a Piece of new Land sufficient for a Plantation, whereon he may subsist a Family; such are not afraid to marry; for if they even look far enough forward to consider how their Children when grown up are to be provided for, they see that more Land is to be had at Rates equally easy, all Circumstances considered.
Hence Marriages in America are more general, and more generally early, than in Europe. And if it is reckoned there, that there is but one Marriage per Annum among 100 Persons, perhaps we may here reckon two; and if in Europe they have but 4 Births to a Marriage (many of their Marriages being late) we may here reckon 8, of which if one half grow up, and our Marriages are made, reckoning one with another at 20 Years of Age, our People must at least be doubled every 20 Years.
But notwithstanding this Increase, so vast is the Territory of North-America, that it will require many Ages to settle it fully; and till it is fully settled, Labour will never be cheap here, where no Man continues long a Labourer for others, but gets a Plantation of his own, no Man continues long a Journeyman to a Trade but goes among those new Settlers, and set up for himself, &c. Hence Labour is no cheaper now, in Pennsylvania, than it was 30 Years ago, tho' so many Thousand labouring People have been imported.
The Danger therefore of these Colonies interfering with their Mother Country in Trades that depend on Labour, Manufactures, &c. is too remote to require the Attention of Great-Britain.
But in Proportion to the Increase of the Colonies, a vast Demand is growing for British Manufacturers, a glorious Market wholly in the Power of Britain, in which Foreigners cannot interfere, which will increase in a short Time even beyond her Power of supplying, tho' her whole Trade should be to her Colonies: Therefore Britain should not too much restrain Manufactures in her Colonies. A wise and good Mother will not do it. To distress, is to weaken, and weakening the Children, weakens the whole Family....
'Tis an ill-grounded Opinion that by the Labour of Slaves, America may possibly vie in Cheapness of Manufactures with Britain. The Labour of Slaves can never be so cheap here as the Labour of working Men is in Britain. Any one may compute it. Interest of Money in the Colonies from 6 to 10 per Cent. Slaves one with another cost L30 Sterling per Head. Reckon then the Interest of the first Purchase of a Slave, the Insurance or Risque on his life, his Clothing and Diet, Expences in his Sickness and Loss of Time, Loss by his Neglect of Business (Neglect is natural to the Man who is not to be benefitted by his own Care or Diligence), Expense of a Driver to keep him at Work, and his Pilfering from Time to Time, almost every Slave being by Nature a Thief, and compare the whole Amount with the Wages of a Manufacturer of Iron or Wool in England, you will see that Labour is much cheaper there than it can ever be by Negroes here. Why then will Americans purchase Slaves? Because Slaves may be kept as long as a Man pleases, or has Occasion for their Labour; while hired Men are continually leaving their Master (often in the midst of his Business) and setting up for themselves.
....There are suppos'd to be now upwards of One Million English Souls in North-America, (tho' 'tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over Sea) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather more, on Account of the Employment the Colonies afford to Manufacturers at Home. This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 Years, will in another Century be more than the People of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on this Side the Water. What an Accession of Power to the British Empire by Sea as well as Land! What Increase of Trade and Navigation! What Number of Ships and Seamen! We have been here but little more than 100 Years, and yet the Force of our Privateers in the late War, united, was greater, both in Men and Guns, than that of the whole British Navy in Queen Elizabeth's Time....
And since Detachments of English from Britain sent to America, will have their Places at Home so soon supply'd and increase so largely here; why should the Palatine Boors [Germans] be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.
4:30 PM
Anonymous said...
Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
4:33 PM
Anonymous said...
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
4:42 PM
Anonymous said...
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
Srio;gtjiopq vnaiokjsi vngiowdrnmj vthiowmiscgj,ropqgtkrsdj’gdfl;nmagkfkajsdfl; asklj rnciujtirgmjkvxcjakfsdjdckwdjgi;rnaocm,kagjkajl;giorjqeagkja;ksldfgjjkahrctmiraugt,qr;jaioxgjasdkjgioparuptcmiajfsdk;fjaio;eruvtn;0umxcir;qutmi;sr,gijfisd;jghkl;drtjayigjerioqaio;zhg;ioaeruioharisdfoh;tiourhqi;oaehgerjaygioqrjhgsiohryguioaernhjgnvdduiofhgtuiocrny;oiutrjwioceimrcxhi;oaf;axcn;uiroxu;irgjiovctygiotunm;aictuirjh
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4:44 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:57 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
AMNESTY NOW!
4:58 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
Some of the anti-capitalist and anti-American rants by illegal-immigrant apologists here are very interesting.
4:59 PM
Anonymous said...
Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
‘Immigration in America,’ a forum about the national debate over immigration, was held downtown last night. Students Fermin Lopez and Lin Luohzen wrote the winning essays in a related competition.
By
The Forest Grove News-Times, Apr 25, 2007, Updated Apr 25, 2007 (58 Reader comments)
Chase Allgood / News-Times
Fermin Lopez
Is there such a thing as the American Dream?
Searching for a dream that has yet to come true at times seems foolish. In the eyes of a hard-working man, there is no such thing as a dream.
How do you expect to dream when your body’s too exhausted to dream? We don’t live for a dream, but a reality. Dreams don’t pay bills but hard work does. At least that’s how it’s sometimes seen through my father’s eyes. Sixteen years in this land of opportunity and yet he hasn’t witnessed a so-called “American Dream.” There’s not a day that goes by where he doesn’t worry about not having to pay the bills. Day after day of working is endless when you’re supporting a family of six.
Coming to the United States as an immigrant, you’re faced with many difficult decisions. You choose whether coming here will create a safe environment for your family to grow up in. Will I be able to make it here? Is this really a decision I can handle? Is America really what its all made up to be? Is it worth it? These are a flurry of questions you ask yourself while attempting to cross the border.
Crossing the border is just one of the many struggles we face in this country. From other peoples eyes it’s seen as our most difficult struggle. What about finding a home? Getting a job? Getting around? Do you really think these things are handed to us? Not to mention the fact that in every society you’ll find racism.
Growing up in Mexico was hard on my father. He dropped out of second grade because his parents couldn’t afford to keep him in school. Do you know how bad that makes him feel having dropped out of school because of poverty, something that wasn’t uncommon in the part of Mexico where he grew up? Quitting school and working wasn’t his choice.
He was seven years old, taking care of cows from six in the morning to eight at night. Then when he turned thirteen he began working in construction. Moving heavy bricks and mixing cement, doesn’t seem hard but moving the bricks by hand was hard. Scrapes all over his back, fingers bleeding, body aching, working his fingers to the bone. Working from six in the morning to eight. All for some measly 60 pesos a day. Sometimes there would be no work and all they would have to eat was tortillas with salt, or with pumpkin seeds. One shirt and one pair of jeans is what they had to live with. No underwear or socks.
When he made the decision to cross the border at 17, it took him three attempts to get here. He didn’t come here for a dream he came here for the reality, which was to make the money to support his family. It was harder than he imagined. There was a huge difference between working here and working in Mexico. Here he had to be at work at a certain time, and was kept on a tight leash. Having a man breathing over your shoulder, rushing you to work, cussing at you in a foreign language being fired at times for no reason and having no one to communicate with — where’s the dream in that? He had blisters upon blisters, bruises as dark as black paint. The abuse he faced was fierce. How can you dream when the pain of a hard days work puts you to sleep? The scars he has are proof of what he’s been through.
A dream to him is to win the lottery, and for the world to be at peace. That’s a dream. The success of his children is just something he’s grateful to see. Having my brothers and I leave our footsteps in history is something he would want to see. He just wants to show everyone that we are the same and have the same abilities.
There’s no sweeter joy than to see the success of an immigrant race making it in a foreign country, from being no one to being someone important. A dream he wants to see is equality, but to him there is no so-called “American Dream.”
The way I see things are: you have to pave your own path, climb your own ladder to be someone in life. My father and I believe you can’t build a foundation off a dream, but a willingness to strive and to be someone.
The “American Dream” to us means nothing.
— Fermin Lopez, a student at Forest Grove High School, lives in Cornelius.
There is nothing wrong with fighting for your dreams
Everyone has a dream. Some people want to have more money. Others are looking for education and a place to be accepted. However, some people live in places where it would be hard to survive let alone to reach their dream.
Every day we hear about places that are closed to immigrants who would like to enter, but because they don’t have the right documents, they can’t. Those documents cost money, too; so do their dreams. I strongly think every place in the world should be open for any immigrant that would like to enter.
I am a Chinese, born in southeastern China, and I’m proud of who I am. I came here to have a better education that will bring me a successful life. America was the country that I chose because this country could support me with a good education and lead me to my dream. Even though I came with the right papers, I would still hope America could be open for those people who want to enter. In my own opinion I think every human being is born to have the same and equal rights. That’s what the United States Constitution says. I believe people have the right to fight for their dreams, also the right to choose to their life.
Education, I think, is the first step to our dreams. The better education that you have, the better job you will get when you grow up. One of my biggest dreams is to become a famous lawyer. I know there are many steps that I have to go though to reach that dream. There is one quote I really like in China: “You have to fight for your life in order to get a better start. Money won’t come to you if you’re just sitting there. You are the one that who decides if you want to have a better life or not.”
I strongly believe it and that is the reason why I am trying my best in school everyday. I know in try hard, my dream will come true.
Some illegal immigrants might be refugees looking for a place to live. Their dream might be as simple as a safe place to live and food to eat. They also need a place that will support their dreams and accept them as a member to the country. Their hope is to come to a place that they could call home and not be hurt a second time. I think every country should give them a chance.
Still I think the biggest reason immigrants come is for the opportunity to make more money because money is the first step for most of the people to reach their dreams. To reach my dream education is my first step and I think that is also the first step for many other people, too. Going to a college takes money; too, so they need to earn the money it will take for their education. Then, they can get a better job.
Immigrants have helped the U.S to be one of the best countries in the world today. People have dreams and most of the dreams need money to get a good start. However, education is also an important goal, too. I hope every place should support the refugees because as a human being we should all receive the same and equal treatment.
— Lin ‘Lily’ Luozhen is an eighth-grader at Neil Armstrong Middle School in Forest Grove.
Reader comments
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Well, these "winning" essays leave much to be desired. Mostly distinguished by the extreme self-centeredness and arrogance of the authors. Let's take "Lily" first;
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America doesn't excist to lead you to your "dreams" honey. We are a real country, with a real history, and a real people. Our ancestors paid in blood, sweat and tears for the infrastructure you so blithely brag about taking advantage of -- and which you also so generously want to offer to every Tom, Dick and Harry who thinks they have a "human right" to use our infrastructure ot achieve their "dreams." How would you feel if billions of people thought they were entitled to use YOUR country the same way? Fact is, for you to have your "dreams", many native-born Americans don't get to have THEIR dreams. The least you could do is say thank-you.
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Quit whining about how your Dad has never found the "American Dream." As with "Lily", our nation doesn't exist to provide you with "dreams." Also, if our country means nothing to you then please go back to Mexico with your criminal lawbreaking dad.
"Mary"
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 07:26 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Yes, there's no sure thing about achieving your goals and dreams in this country! I struggled to support a family alone - took many a menial job just for health benefits - dead end jobs and I see my children losing their jobs to cheap labor.
My compassion and sympathies go to that American worker who was so angry at me for unknowingly hiring an American contractor who sent two groups of illegal aliens, one from Central America and one from Mexico to my home - I didn't want them there, I didn't agree to that, I didn't get a big savings. He was later fined 1.5 million dollars - oh yes! But the Contractor who didn't get the job was beside himself on why I hired the other Contractor and I wouldn't have hired him.
Reports on TV this week is that social security entitlements and medicare will bankrupt America. Hello??????????
"Fairlane"
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 09:56 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
It was the "American Dream" which gave this great country the standing it has in the world. If not for such a thing we would have never have risen to the highest level in the world community. I daresay the early immigrants who formed this country worked to better not only themselves but the country itself, they learned a common language and worked to integrate themselves. The current illegal immigrants send large amounts of money out of the USA, contribute with disproportionate amounts of crime (as if illegally entering a sovereign nation is not a crime itself), live here 10, 15, 20 years illegally and make no attempt to learn the native language, uncontrolled child birth, make no time to better the greater community, leech off of public resources for food, housing, etc.
The American dream is what separates us from all our neighbors, it is what many Americans have fought and died for. Other countries have let corruption, greed and indifference shape their countries and carry these same qualities here with them. The American dream is what you make of it, we do not owe any illegal immigrants one thing except swift prosecution and deportation. If the "immigrants" truly believe in this country as something other than a handout and a way to pave the way to third world living conditions I have not seen it. With the high rate of employment among these "immigrants" why do so many of them live in HUD housing or in squalor with 3-4 families in a house or apartment? Could it be they were criminals in their own countries? Real immigrants live with American society not under it. The American dream will fade when these minorities become the majority and open borders cause the once proud USA to become a footnote. The signs are all around us.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 11:38 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Is this the same "Immigration Dream" competition posted on the Cornelius Fred Meyer bulletin board? The one that caused me to wince, thinking - “here we go again” - another feel-good session for the Politically (in)Correct!
There's a tiny minority of extremely active ‘locals’ who’ve become the Enabler’s of bottom tier, or illegal immigration, as their livelihoods are often center around dispensing our social services to the constant influx of illegal and amnestied-illegal aliens.
This writing “Competition” was nothing more than a media tool to evoke pity for those who'll apparently stop at nothing to get what we have -- and it bothers me to see it given this attention by our local newspaper.
Current LEGAL US immigration allows over 300,000 new citizens a year into this country. That's larger than the city of Portland during most of my life! With a current estimate of 20 Million illegal alien immigrants within our borders - where's our sovereignty?
I've an 8th grade daughter too (born in Forest Grove), though she'll apparently have to speak a foreign language to find work. Tell me - what of her Dreams?!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 08:20 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Congratulations to the students who participated in the "Immigration in America" essay contest. I applaud their willingness to share their stories, and to wrestle with what it means to be a young immigrant in America today. It gives me hope to see their constructive contributions to the immigration debate, not an easy one to walk into. We are all richer for their presence and involvement.
"Bridget"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 12:31 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I was amazed and gratified at the level of reflection evidenced in the essays written by these two young people. How wonderful that young people can dream the same dreams that almost all of our ancestors dreamed when they began their struggles in this "land of dreams". I sincerely regret that some of us base our opinions on incorrect data, our own painful past or current experiences or unfounded fear. Dream on, whoever you are.
"Barbara"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 01:04 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
On Tuesday evening, April 24, I attended the event at the Forest Grove Community Center where the two students read the winnning essays. I was very impressed, not only with the essays and the students, but also with the history of immigration presented by Dr. Jim Moore with Pacific University. Perhaps individuals with hostile and hateful comments about immigrants would have developed an educated understanding of immmigration in this country if they had attended and participated in the event. The hostile comments remind me of the child who asks his mother "Mom, what's a label?" "It's something they put on a person so you can hate them without having to get to know them first."
"Louise"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow! I am amazed at the hostility and ignorance of some previous comments. They must have a great deal of fear to attack a 13 year old and 16 year old! I want to commend Lily and Fermin for their wonderful essays which give a brief look into the world of the immigrant; a chance to see what many choose to ignore. Many of the "facts" stated above would have been dispelled if Neal, Mark, Fairlane and Mary had chosen to participate in the Immigration Forum. Before blaming these courageous students or their parents one should take a deep look at US Foreign Policy.
"Gina"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:24 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
My dear,
You missed something about "YOUR REAL HISTORY"
Your ancestors did not pay with BLOOD for anything. They killed and stole this land that was belong to someone esle. Did not you know that part?
Let me change "Real People" defination for "Real Criminals"
"Linda"
""Linda""
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 03:12 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I worked hard to bring my wife here leagaly, I paid and spent a year and a half trying to get it all correct, but she is leagal. Why did the essays not also stake the fact out right that their parents broke the law as they are breaking our country. I have no problem what so ever for some one who is willing to come hear correctly and I for one understand how hard it is, but to come and trespass here and use our own benefits that we are trying to save for our own retirement such as social security just really makes me angry, and I just want to say GO HOME!!!!!!!
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 06:55 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
It's interesting to see that the complaints made about Irish immigrants in the late 19th century (contributing disproportionately to crime) and German immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century (not willing to learn English) have been recycled for use against our newest immigrant populations.
My great-grandmother spoke nothing but German. My grandmother spoke German to her mother, and English to her children. My father could only understand parts of what his mother said to his grandmother, and the only German I use is 'Gesundheit!'
Exodus 23:9 — ‘You shall not oppress a resident alien, you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.'
"Jenye"
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 07:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
After reading the winning essays on immigration from two local high school students, I was impressed by the authors’ eloquence and organization of their papers. It takes writing skills to be able to express complex issues in a clear and organized manner, especially when you are doing it in your second language.
Immigration is a complex issue, often exploited by opportunistic politicians, that raises a lot of passion. While some people think that immigrants come here for a ‘free ride’, only to take advantage of the great benefits of our society (as if they only needed to stretch their arm to grab the ripe fruit from a tree), while other people think that they are being exploited by our avaricious employers.
I personally think that immigration does not happen at random. Immigrants go where they are needed or wanted. The same happens with migrant movements from within our borders (i.e. the neighbor from Texas or Alabama that moved to Oregon). One only needs to look around our community to see that recent immigrants are an integral part of our community, holding jobs in all sectors of the economy, from picking berries in the fields, changing shingles on the roofs, cooking in restaurants, taking care of the elderly to working in the high tech industry.
The recent immigrants that I have met are hard workers, often times holding more than one job. The reason for this, as I later found out, is that for some their pay is below the minimum wage, often times without benefits such as vacation time, sick leave or retirement. In fact, for many the Social Security and Medicare that is taken off their paycheck twice a month is money that they will never see again.
While we are a nation of immigrants, it seems hypocritical to me that now we have decided that new immigrants are not welcome. It saddens me to see that in the whole immigration debate we tend to forget that we are all humans in pursuit of happiness doing the best that we can to provide for ourselves and our children. Let us not forget our humanity.
""Gerardo""
(Not verified)
Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 08:56 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wake up and figure the cost of the programs to help at risk youth (i.e. hispanics) stay out of gangs, stay in school and stay out of jail. Then calculate the cost of your friends, neighbors, and businesses having to repair or paint the damage done by these "at risk" gang taggers, thieves, and drug dealers. Then figure out what the meetings in Forest Grove for spanish speakers cost to help them watch for the signs of gang activity with their "at risk" children. How about the cost of high school programs to hold dances, low rider events and mexican cooking classes? Is cheap labor worth the price? If they feel they are being oppressed by English speaking bosses maybe they would have more of a voice if they were here legally and businesses didn't hire cheap labor for a quick buck, oh and learning our language helps. It's not the poor illegal alien worker to blame, it's the companies that hire them with fake papers. Both political parties are to blame, one for the exploitation of the labor force for business and the other to garner votes for them and their social programs. It's not the kid's essays to blame, it's the apathy among people who sit and watch the American Dream disappear into the sunset all so business can turn a profit. When they don't make record profits they pick up their marbles and take their factories to Mexico, China, India or the like to ensure the CEO makes billions of dollars. Being a Native American Indian I could go on about many of the injustices done to the original inhabitants of North America but that and bible versus are irrelevant to this argument. Ask your government why they help fuel the sellout of the USA....
"John Q"
(Not verified)
Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 10:58 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I feel that a lot has been said about this subject but I have a few things to add. First off, most of the west coast used to belong to Mexico and Americans took it. Now "we" complain and say that they are on "our" land. Second, American companies exploit Mexicans living in their own country by placing factories there and paying workers very little, giving them poor working conditions, breaking international civil rights, and polluting their land to the point that many water sources are no longer usable for consumption. If US companies are destroying Mexican land, how can American citizens get mad at Mexican natives for crossing the border and leaving such conditions? Third, we seem to put every member of the Latino community into one group - "illegal Mexicans." I believe that this label destroys the opportunity of many members of the Latino community who are in the US legally to succeed. I also believe that we forget that many Latino youth are here legally. Some of their parents may have come here illegally but many of the youth are not illegal. They are Americans and have all the same rights as any other American. So when people complain about the programs out there that help at risk youth (not every at risk youth is Latino I'd like to add) and say tax payers are just pouring money into illegals, I believe it to be incorrect. If they were born on American soil, they are American citizens and have all the same rights as any other American. If an American youth turns to a life of crime, the state tries to get them back on the right track whether they are black, brown, white, or green.
Why must we look at every new group of immigrants as a burden? Why can't we see them as a new opportunity to learn? Every culture has so much to offer. We sure don't mind going to Mexican restaurants or drinking Corona. Why can't we embrace the rest of the culture starting with its people that have come to our country, who I'm sure would love to share their roots with us?
"Leah"
(Not verified)
Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Before reaching conclusions about America's immigrants, please review the following two links:
http://www.ocpp.org/2007/issue070410immigranttaxeseng.pdf, and,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901322.html.
These articles reinforce the positive contributions of our immigrants.
"Joe Rodriguez"
(Not verified)
Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 04:58 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
A few facts might help to make some sense out of some of the comments above.
- Immigrants, even those who are here legally, do not qualify for most public benefits until they have worked and paid taxes for 40 quarters. That's ten years.
- Even though they are not able to partake in many of the benefits of our government, immigrants pay taxes. Some work under the table--as do some citizens--but the vast majority are subject to withholding from their wages. Anyone who owns or rents property pays property taxes, either directly or indirectly.
- As anyone who has ever struggled through a high school Spanish, or French or German, Japanese, or Chinese class, should know, becoming fluent in another language isn't so easy, especially when working long hours at back-breaking work to support a family. But remember, the eloquent essays that started this string of responses were written by the children of immigrants, and written quite well, I might add, in our common tongue. It has always beens so in America's melting pot.
- Studies comparing the economies of cities like Los Angeles, which have seen great immigration with cities like Cleveland, which have not, show that the hard work, entrepreneurship and, yes, "dreams" immigrants bring to our country actually help to lift the economy, not hurt it.
Ignorance is no excuse for bigotry.
Michael
"D. Michael Dale"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 06:27 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Your links hardly shed any new light on the subject, like my rants they lack any documenting evidence to support there opinions.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 07:40 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
So much for the inscription on the Statue of Liberty which ends with the words, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." The inscription does not mention that paperwork must be in order.
How sad it is to read the hateful comments that stand in opposition to the welcome offered by Lady Liberty. What's next?---A large cloth hung over the inscription to block out these words?
"Sheila"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 04:53 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
How aggravating to read (yet again) the same sorry "talking points" of our Illegal Enablers. Such as: 'This land belonged to them before us'... No, it didn't; you're talking about Aztecs and Spanish Conquistadors, not our Native Americans. 'This is just how the Irish were treated'... The Irish checked in; if not up to specks, they were sent back. Those who stayed - stayed - and, they were legal. 'Send us your poor'... That was simply a “commemorative plaque,” it was never US Government policy. If anything, send us you educated - not those with on average a 3rd grade education and unable to make it in their home country. And (while you’re at it) send us your law abiding, not identity stealing border jumping criminals.
'They do pay taxes'... not directly, and not near enough to off-set their FULL cost to our society. 'They work hard'... cause they're desperate! Watch what they (or their children) do as they get more comfortable. 'They do the work Americans won't' ... you mean they’ll do the work for 3rd world wages, and a standard of living Americans refuse. How do you propose we live, like Europe, or Central America?
'They have a dream' ... so do we! 'English is hard' ... then stay where it isn’t. 'They were "Indians" and we stole their land' ..."Indians" stole, tortured and enslaved their own for eons; Europeans were simply more efficient - evolution? 'Cities were built on cheap labor' ... so was our South - they called it Slavery. 'American Companies exploit Mexicans' ... and their government allows it? Bring those factories home and exploit us! ...The Mexican Government's exploiting its people, and if these Central Americans are so righteous, why aren't they fighting for the rights our great-grandparents won for us instead of stealing ours?
That's more than enough… We're talking about Illegal Alien’s aren’t we? And who can help if they all appear as one (if mixed) race - though diversification would make no difference. And encouraging another Amnesty will again make it ten times worse. So, we either rollover and play dead, or we defend a line? Take your pick!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 05:57 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
The Statue of Liberty came from France, you figure that one out. I'm still trying to figure out how people can roll over and be assimilated into a foreign culture in their own country. Drive thru Cornelius and count how many billboards and storefronts are in spanish. Drive down to Woodburn and check out the old downtown tell me that won't be more towns like that. As far as learning the language immersion is the best way to learn. Working in Woodburn for two years allowed me to immerse myself in spanish to be able to communicate with the locals. Dump someone in the middle of a foreign country and they will learn quickly especially one that has no English available. It's a survival skill that no classroom setting can teach. It's corporate America who make money off of the illegals who choose not to interact with Americans for fear of deportation and cater to their language.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 06:07 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
After the may day activities in Portland today I think a lot of the points I put out earlier strengthen. Hispanics illegal and legal marching in a U.S. city with mexican flags, spanish signs and shouting "viva la raza" Look up Atzlan and La Raza in google and decide for yourself. This is not a part of my American Dream. The following link will explain all of this and more, I'd like someone to defend this well documented movement:
http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Tue, May 01, 2007 at 11:25 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am overly impressed with the intelligence these two students portrayed in their reflections. The reality of your writing is something I will carry with me. I congratulate you both for your deep and meaningful portrayal of a contentious issue.
"gretchen"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 02:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
If it were not for immigrants our country would not exsist...my own hertiage is a mix of people who originated here in what now known as United States of America and others that came to America LEGALLY thru Ellis Island and began living their lives by adapting to the culture, language and laws of our country
What does it say to our citizens and law-abiding immigrants when we condone and give amnesty to people who have broken the law by their very presence? What do we say to others in our country who have broken our laws when we have one set of laws for them and another set for someone who refuses to abide by our laws from the very beginning of their life in the US
What kind of message does it sends to the kind of people we don’t want or need in this country?
Whether they are from Mexico, Viet Nam, Canada, Iraq or any other country, immigrants enntering illegally, SHOULD NOT have any of the rights of legal immigrants and our own citizens; including, in my opionion the natural citizenship of the children they give birth to while residing in the US illegally as well as allowing them to stay because they have maaried US citizens. We should also consider the employer who hires these people to work as any other citizen who breaks the law
I believe that this issue should be a question we pose as part of the upcoming Presidential election. The people in this country illegally DO have a consequence on our schools, socail structure and work environment. If you don't think this is true, ask the parents of the high school student who wa recently shot by a classmate that is 'undocumented' As well, I am uncomfortable exercising my First Amendment right to express my opionion freely--without fear of reprisal for my stand on this issue
"TL PALMER"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 02:42 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Why were we not going through these protesters and deporting all of the illegals? If I broke into a bank and stole your money would I have a chance to say "hey i broke in but it is only because you let me and I should get to keep the money and have you pay for anything else I need" They are ILLEGAL. Period end of statement send them home!!!!!!!!!! It makes it even harder for someone who does it correct. The INS says if you don't have a good job in your home coutry you can't come and visit, but hey if you are hear illegal then we should try to help you out. This is just another crime that are country is excepting because it is politcally correct.!!!!! Sorry I still say send them all home and lets fix our own country first. If you honestly believe that our schools are not being hurt by all of the language barriers and the free rides to college because of your color, then you are also a fool.
"DAVE"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 04:05 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am appalled by all of the mean-spirited and racist comments of immigrants that are not even illegal though, I believe that everyone seems to have very interesting points but my opinion is; Illegal Immigrants are an issue in this country and take jobs that really should be for people who are legal. I am not saying that every Mexican should be banished from here but in turn, that Immigrants should legally become citizens and work as legal citizens. I understand the want for happiness and/or the American dream but remember the words of Benjamin Franklin:
"The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it."
So I say, aim for the American dream and try, try, try and one day it could be a reality.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 05:20 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
WOW, I too am amazed at some of the greedy and harsh comments made by my fellow Americans. I am so sorry that America has instead of becoming the land that welcomes those who want freedom from oppression to the land that does a lot of oppressing.
I was proud of these student for the thought and honesty that went into these essays. You are Brave- very Brave and I aplaud you.
These students were doing nothing more than sharing their story from were they sit in life, not asking for a free ride, not cutting down America or Americans, not saying we owe them just simply saying "Why is everyone acting as if we are coming to steal something or get a free ride, NO they are here becuase thier family and lives depend on it, leaving family was not easy for them, life has not been easy- they are just wanting to live- What is so hard to understand about that? Isn't that what we all want.
If I were to have an American Dream it would be that Americans and all countries would learn to share, respect and love one another. A Quote I read just this night from Mother Teresa said, "There is a Famine in America. Not of food, but of love, of truth, of life." Let us all love one another and remember we are only caretakers, the owner is the Creator himself- and he graciously gave to all- no on excluded!
"Georgia"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 08:52 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Good lord! Where to begin? Like others, I congratulate the essay contest winners. The brilliance of our youth never ceases to amaze me. I work with youth and they teach me so much. As a Chicano, a dad, a Forest Grove resident and the son of migrant farm workers, these youth make me proud! Kudos to the FGN-T for re-printing their essays.
The racist (if not fascist) anti-immigrant rants on this blog aren't much of a surprise. But I couldn’t contain myself in responding to them to say: touchĆ©...assimilate...you are a hateful few (albeit w/ access to the internet). Your hate reflects a broken spirit, but your blame is misplaced.
Those who heroically struggle for survival by crossing borders despite the dangers - they are the dignified, the courageous, the ones with a spirit that is alive, sane, and contagious. They and their children are role models for all of us to emulate. Racist diatribes about "illegals," "the rule of law," "follow our laws," etc., etc., only reflects a vast ignorance of history, why laws exist, and a blind acceptance of national chauvinism.
Your hate should be directed toward capitalism -- the economic system that crosses borders freely and ruins economies the world over. So-called "free trade" policies, in collusion w/ corrupt governments (US govt. included) are responsible for forced migration. Like someone mentioned earlier, even within our own borders. Livelihoods, sovereignty, and self-determination are ruined here and abroad.
Why? Not for simple profit, but for private, undisclosed, in the hands of very few profit. The border that you naively want to strengthen to "keep them out" serves those few. It does nothing for our communities, neither here in the U.S. or in Mexico, Central America, China....etc... So don't convert your rage into anti-immigrant xenophobia (remember the Nazis) -- you'd be best fighting alongside immigrants to stop capitalism from ruining the planet!
"Eduardo Martinez Zapata"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 09:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Eduardo Martinez Zapata: You said it very well... Thank you for educating the ignorant in our community.
Estudiantes: Felicidades! Sigan Adelante!
"Narce Rodriguez"
(Not verified)
Wed, May 02, 2007 at 10:25 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wait a minute... isn't there a law in our country that says illegal immigration is a crime? Oh yeah.... I think I heard that once. But I guess it's okay as long as everyone is chasing a dream.
Wake up America. We're being overrun!
DW in CA
"Derik"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 09:31 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Eduardo.... Did you know our prisons are 30% full of illegal immigrants? If what you say is true: "they are the dignified, the courageous, the ones with a spirit that is alive, sane, and contagious. They and their children are role models for all of us to emulate." We're in BIG trouble. You're trying to say that every immigrant should be commended? Nice try, but we're not stupid.
"Derik"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 09:37 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Strange how "Racist," if racially linked the most prominent supporters of illegal "Immigrants" are? Here sits the most generous and racially diverse nation on earth -- being lectured to by one race, or failed culture. Looks like a masked invasion to me!
The only thing "Racial" about this invasion is from where it comes – one place. It's as if Mexico, if not all of Central America are “ethnically cleansing” themselves at our expense. Note the "Spanish sir names" around here... they’re the rulers and spokesmen of Central and (most of) South American, and they’re apparently looking to do the same up here.
No, it's not about race - but funny how that's the first slur tossed at anyone protesting this silent invasion. It may be about a failed culture, if the overwhelming of one by another - language included. But it's actually about LEGALITY - isn't it? Nobody's talking about shipping out legal American Citizens are they? And few doubt the good intentions or intelligence of some; though if so well intentioned - why aren't they in line with the other 300,000 legal-to-be immigrants of this years generous quota?
Here's how it's worked: Desperate Mexican's were allowed migratory work visas to pick crops cheaper than Americans (though my parents did!) could or would. Many stopped returning to Mexico, and out of desperation began working for anything - anywhere to support themselves. American "Businesses" loved that! ...near slave labor! These illegal’s quietly settled in, while quietly sending home money and the advice to Mexico - come on up!
They did, a low estimate of 3 million. What to do? Grant them Amnesty!! -- Reagan's gift to big business, and yet another knife in the heart of American organized labor. Each newly amnestied-illegal ‘legally’ hauled up on average 5 kin. Instead of dodging "Mexican" men at 'Hanks' in Cornelius, we then began dodging their pregnant mates, pushing a baby stroller with a child or two in tow. As this "legal" batch learned the ropes, the word went out - Come on up – we’ll hide you!!
...and they have; there's now an estimated 20 Million living illegally within the US ...but they ‘only want to become legal US Citizens’… right, and so do 98% of the rest of the world! And with another Amnesty... and each of those 20 million will bring up another 5. And if we continued to ignore our so-called ‘immigrations laws’ -- heck - we could empty all of Central America – maybe the world!
So think deep Neighbors; there are obviously polished promoters among us, and of course, 'their children.' And yes, speaking bluntly to this ugly issue isn’t pretty, it’s ugly …but again, what of our children?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 11:26 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I have no problem with "legal" immigrant's as I stated my wife is one. The whole point is not how hard they work or the dream they are trying for. The whole point is they break the law coming here and we have to pay for it. I have seen more hispanics buying homes that I can not even afford, and then when you talk with them they are getting wic for the kids food and welfare and special deals for college when those of us who grew up here can't get any of those things. My rants and feelings are not about just hispanics, i am talking about all ilegal's. The flat out fact is they are breaking the law and then demanding we should take care of them further by giving them amnesty. I for one would like to see this country going back to what it used to be, when we rooted for the American country and we had people who were proud to be an American. Now what do we get, we get groups of people who live here and root for there country but want us to give them a great new life.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 01:31 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Some of the reactions to Illegal Immigration are very understandable. The concern for the future of American Children vs illegal immigrants' children is real.
When you come to a foreign country you need to learn how to survive, not how to destroy its foundations. Learn the language, live according to the law, respect others, etc. All of these things are necessary to have balance.
But at the same time a deeper problem seems to come out of our hearts. It seems as if America is becoming the spoiled child of the world. America is prosper and rich, there is so much abundance and freedom. And yet it seems like it doesn't want to share with it's brother or sister that doesn't have a roof over their heads, or a job or bread to eat.
Why can we make arrangements so that there is not only enough for us but plenty so that we can share with the needy ones. Or is it that we just want to reach the "American Dream" for us and our children and let the rest of the world die? How could we live with ourselves then?
Is the American Dream the most important thing in the world? It just sounds so selfish.
Are all the criminals hispanics? So if there were not hispanics in America there wouldn't be crime?
Are you better or superior to the rest of America, Asia, India or Africa?
What's wrong with us, friends?
"Zellie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 02:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am speechless, overwhelmed by so much hostility toward the stories of these eloquent students and by the lack of compassion for immigrants. My ancestors came to the Northwest 150 years ago, yet I find myself wondering often about who previously owned the land they claimed in central Washington state. I can only imagine the sad stories there, even as my ancestors began a new, celebrated, "brave" prairie life.
We must all seek out the stories of others. Reading them from the pages of a newspaper is powerful, but I wonder what would happen if we came together in one room regularly to hear our stories. Would we still tell immigrants to "go home" if we heard their voices, saw their tears, and tried as hard as we could to imagine the struggles of their family members provide food for their starving little ones? We are all part of the human family--we must never forget that. To do so is to allow our souls to die. We face tough political issues, but we must also listen and work together to find answers.
"Monica"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 04:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I agree Monica, as humans we do have to work together. And as people we are all entitled to the same rights. So why is it that when (legal) immigrants from europe came to the U.S., what, 70 years ago? they were on boats, brought passed our lady Liberty welcomed into New York and entitled to fair jobs, food, shelter ect. when today (legal, yes, legal) immigrants are floating in from Central America and we say "Oh mexicans, how illegal of you. Go back to mexico." listen up
They aren't all illegal
Illegal Immigrants, because of immigration laws, do have to be back in mexico but (legal) immigrants do have rights as humans.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 06:11 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Is this a Christian youth newsletter? You could never prove it by the hurtful comments and responses that were posted in regards to these youny adult's essays.
"Catrina Hamilton"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 03, 2007 at 06:26 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Here’s a little follow up info on two enabling contributors above; quite proud of their work, and kind enough to give us their full names.
First is, “Eduardo MartĆnez Zapata,” the “Chicano national leader in the Freedom Socialist Party,” and apparently linked with: the “Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women Activities” in Oregon. …now what are their ties to the Grove?
And here’s some ‘recommendations’ by Mr. Zapata: “Abolish NAFTA, CAFTA, and all neoliberal free trade agreements! • No to the criminalization of immigrants! No to guest worker programs! Stop the raids by la Migra! • Amnesty now! Open the borders for workers! • End the war against Iraq! Fund union jobs and social services! • For a world free of want — for democratic socialism! -- Eduardo MartĆnez Zapata
Quite the agenda!
Followed by this quote: “Eduardo Martinez Zapata: You said it very well”... “Thank you for educating the ignorant in our community. Estudiantes: Felicidades! Sigan Adelante!”
Signed by: Narce Rodriguez.
That’s Narce Rodriguez, linked to and apparently promoting: The first annual Latino Awareness Week, "Semana de la Raza: Week of the People," will be held April 16 through 21 at the Portland Community College Rock Creek Campus, 17705 NW Springville Road. The week is based on education, advocacy and celebration of the rich Latino heritage of Washington County.
“Week of the people” … now what “People” do you think she means? And shouldn’t she have also described it as, “Educating the ignorant in our community”?
And a bit more on, "la Raza" -- the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html in fact “la Raza” means "the Race?" So who's talking "Race" here? And what “Rich Latino heritage is she talking about?
I purport these are not members of our community; but professional advocates and enablers of “their race,” and no one else’s. I also suspect several (if not most) of the other apologists posting here are also linked to them. Of course none will speak up...
Well, just to “come clean,” I’m a local member of “Oregonians For Immigration Reform” – and – but also a longtime local (our kids were born in FG). So that’s OFIR, based in our city to the south, McMinnville. Here’s their link: http://www.oregonir.org/new_page_21.htm Research away!
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 02:22 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Do the critics even know these fellow humans whom they abhor? Have the experts, citing their research, ever had the courage to test their information? First hand experience trumps assumptions and one sided research. As an ESL teacher to adults for over 25 years I've had the priviledge of knowing 4,000 of these men and women. (20 students per class, 2 classes per term, 4 terms a year - you do the math). Their writings and speeches, allow me to introduce them to you. They are brave: soldiers who fought alongside my brother's peers in Vietnam; patriots with whom my uncle fought in Korea; refugees, thrown into circumstances beyond their control, facing oppression and poverty. They left the familiarity of home and the love of family and friends only out of desperation to feed their children. They are talented: an Olympic athelete from Africa, a musician from Borneo. To these talented essay writers, keep educating us. Illustrate to my blind neighbors the competent and gifted people you are. Just remember that after perservering, you'll reach adulthood and realize that the American dream is not found in getting everything you want; it is in having the freedom to choose how to move forward with your life. I applaude your work and am proud to have you as my neightbor. Debbie
"Debbie Olsen"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 07:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Get a life, the whole argument here is not about legal immigration but illegal. The whole ESL program should be dumped in favor of immersion anyway. California made one of the smartest decisions when it decided to do so, it shortens the time it takes to learn and saves money. It doesn't support the staff and infrastructure that drag to process out to years.
"Mark P."
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 08:52 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Mark is correct, we are talking about people who have broken our laws and then make demands that we are supposed to help them. My situation is about one thing and only one thing. That is they broke the law. send them back or put them in jail, why do these criminals expect us to sit back and say oh sure we will give you amnesty, we dont care enough about our own country so you can stay. I do care about my country, and I was willing to protect in the service. I did not fight to let a common criminal take a way my home and to break our laws.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 10:44 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
We are talking about the words of 2 teenagers, exploring what is means to be who they are - in the context of being THIRTEEN AND SIXTEEN. They are children, for heaven's sake. "Rational", "mature" adults are being turned inside out by the sentiments of 2 children. You need to get a life. My life is full and rewarding because I give out of the abundance of what I've been given and have attained for myself. By the way, ESL emersion only works before puberty, as every language teacher knows. ESL programs are useful to the adult community - whom I serve. We aren't talking about people depleting your resources or the certain robbery of your child's future, (your child who was born here in Forest Grove - who cares that your child is a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, generation Oregonian? wow that really legitimizes his or her worth!) I'm sick of these small minded, selfish, paranoid, cliques of people who think being a native anything makes them superior to anyone else. No one is a native anything. Even if you were born here, as pointed out before, your ancestors were not. It's character and contribution to the greater good that matter, not where you were born. Those of you upset by the words of these two teenage students need to grow up.
"Debbie Olsen"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 01:54 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow! I am saddened by the fact that this is a forum about the two essays on the immigration debate and now we are arguing about the accuracy of facts and other random blabber. I think we all agree that legal immigrants should stay and illegal immigrants should go. Also that there's an American dream no? Why don't we cool down so what we say can be put into consideration and not thrown out as a racial or mean spirited comment.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Fri, May 04, 2007 at 04:29 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Our "ESL Teacher" has obviously had her arm so deep in the pot she's fallen in! As mentioned - the home-grown advocates of illegal immigration (and of course 'their children') are finically linked. They've a vested interest in promoting, if encouraging more of the same. Therefore, their arguments in favor of continuing this influx of illegal 'immigrants' (and their children, or anchor-babies) should be viewed in that light. A dark light!
The abilities of illegal aliens (and their children) are not the point; the point is they are here illegally - displacing those legally seeking US citizenship, and robbing the rights and resources of our current citizens. It's become all-too-easy to 'say' you disagree with their illegality - yet ignore their devastating consequences. And we're not talking about the multitude of new citizens, having done it right, or their personal contributions to this nation - we're talking about 20 million illegal aliens within our nations border at this moment -- and not simply the two 'winning' feel-good essays by a couple of local minorities (if children).
This "Essay Competition" (as mentioned) was simply another Public Relations stunt to show the children of minorities as capable of more than drug distribution, gang activity, crime, or job and identity theft. And the problem is - up till now - it's worked! It's worked just well enough to keep the majority of American’s eyes off the ball... But as we watch, for instance, Hillsboro turn into what local kids are calling "Hillsburrito," and the ghetto-like conditions of its core - Americans, Oregonians -- the residents of Forest Grove are wakening up and speaking up!
Anyone suggesting those following this issue "get a live" – wake up, we've got one - but it's fading fast! You may be secure in yours, but not all have locked themselves so comfortably into the system. Just as our kids no longer pick strawberries, they're also losing the opportunities of every other entry level job. As permanent jobs are consumed by amnestied or soon-to-be amnestied aliens -- where are our children -- and yes - I'm speaking of CHILDREN -- where are our children to work? Intel's building in China, construction workers are nearly all "Hispanic," nursery's hire nothing but... And to get a job - check out the help-wanted ads -- to get a job you must be "Bilingual." ...Bilingual in what? …not German, French, Irish, Chinese or Portuguese... but just what ‘you teach’ …now isn’t that Special?
As a forth generation Oregonian, with Native American blood, I resent "your" racist dismissive attitude about who - and who doesn’t belong here. Even the Native American’s fought for their land, their culture and their rights. To do less is not only Un-American, it goes against the principals of humanity and human history. This invasion has been relatively silent, but as illegal aliens demand ‘our rights’ across this nation - it's time you woke up, if not fight back. … but then maybe you've already chose sides..?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 05, 2007 at 12:28 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
A recent KATU viewer poll asked : "Do you support immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants?"
77% said no.
Copy and paste :
http://www.katu.com/home/poll/7272856.html?submit=Submit&oid=2&mr=1&t=a&cid=3031&pid=7272856
"Hello?"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 05, 2007 at 01:30 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I never wrote I was condoning the presence of illegal immigrants. I was responding to the meanspirited comments that were being expressed about immigrants in general. Mark and Neal, you made assumptions and jumped to erroneous conclusions. Did I ever write I support the presence of illegal aliens? I don't. They should follow the same protocol every other immigrant is required to follow to come here. There were nasty comments addressed to these student writers, legally here. These students were stereo typically being lumped into the category of illegals, and they are not. It was to those critics, I was writing. That you 2 got personal and hureld insults at me just reveals your inability to conduct yourselves humanly when you're in disagreement, and even more foolishly since I wasn't disagreeing with those against illegals.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 06, 2007 at 08:56 PM
All aboard the Fail-boat
Nothin' beats a good ole' fashioned arguement on the internet.
Group A's angry at group B. Group B's angry at group A.
Blahblahblah
The internet's become a feeble place where anyone with a 56k internet connection is able say whatever they choose thanks to our beloved 1st ammendment (despite many a moderators protest)
All of which could be noble debate, except for the fact that it's on the internet.
It doesn't matter what side you're on, you still look like a retard.
(No offense)
"anonymous"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 06, 2007 at 09:10 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Just look at how much logic it took to flush out a statement like, "I never wrote I was condoning the presence of illegal immigrants" ...but you’ll "condone" and promote their children – thus their existence? And "Debbie" - if your spirit is so righteous, why aren’t you in the Peace Corps doing your ESL work in Central America? ...I know… who wants to live in Central America when they can live in Forest Grove!
"Meanspirited" you claim; how about realistic, patriotic, or just plain sick & tired of watching my community drug down to failed culture? And what 'word' should we describe you, as you further your personal wealth at the expense of our community...? How about traitorous? As an entrenched Alien-enabler your allegiance is obviously not with your longtime neighbors.
‘Ditching’ your last name? You’ve likely become uncomfortable repeating your "bring-em-on" attitude among the community – though apparently more than happy to continue backing this PR Essay-go-round. And what was the point of this so-called Essay? ...I know -- more gibberish about ‘poor minority children’ and their "American Dream." But as you so fervently support the children of minorities, illegal or not – you refuse to acknowledge the detrimental effects of their ever-increasing numbers on our community. I suspect you also ignore their consumption of our resources at an unsustainable rate -- including your pay check and bennies.
Quite skewed, this debate’s become one between our overly-educated social service-providing alien-enablers; vs. the common citizen. As most cringe, trying to ignore this invasion of legal, semi-legal, soon-to-be legal and down-right illegals -- you and yours have been cashing in at our expense! You are as guilty in your complacency as anyone involved, and as you imply calling a 'spade a spade' "meanspirited," that's your prerogative. If I insist on calling your feel-good propaganda session a manipulative disservice to our community – that’s mine.
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 08:46 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I just hate reading this. Everyone seems to be blaming Illegal Immigration on each other. I'm not gonna rat on anyone and I don't care if anyone rats on me. No one wants people to hop the border illegally. No one wants their children's jobs taken by illegals. If anyone really wants to stop illegal immigration by himself or herself, and if anyone wants to interpret others as being against you, and if anyone wants no one to respect them, then go ahead and try while the rest of us try making things better. I don't understand how this forum is gonna help anything when we are tearing eachother apart limb by limb and only trying to get our points across. If anyone really cares so much about this stupid forum, why not just go and do something. Its terrible to watch good people slander other people because of hate, when they could actually be doing something useful with their lives. If all anyone wants to do for the rest of their days is sit and try to dry their tears by making others want to throw up and die, then god have mercy on you.
This forum is out of hand. We only have one world, got to remember that.
"Tolea"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 11:27 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"I just hate reading this." Then stop. You've responded more, yet added less than anyone here.
"I'm not gonna rat on anyone and I don't care if anyone rats on me." And just what does that mean? You too are illegal?
You demean any efforts to correct this illegal mess, yet suggest we work to make things better? For the past 25 years I haven't seen anything done - ANYTHING - to seriously stop the flow of Illegals into this country, our state, or this community. And it’s obvious to anyone 'from' around here that things have changed, and are continuing to change for the worse. Maybe you're not from ‘around here,’ or you're part of that 'change,' or, you simply don't care? But don't discredit or demean the efforts of those who do.
"I don't understand how this forum is gonna help anything when we are tearing eachother apart limb by limb and only trying to get our points across." But it is helping; it's dissected a Public Relations stunt designed to lull us into further complacency over illegal immigration, and (with effort) has caused those most connected to respond at a deeper level. I've gotten a lot out of it, and if my frequency of posts lead you to believe I've got little else to do, let me assure you - it's quite the opposite. But this problem, and this forum are too close to home, and too detrimental to my community to ignore.
So, may I thank the News Times for allowing this discussion; and as far as there being only one world - isn't that all the more reason we protect all we can?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:04 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial response:
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this exchange of ideas, but Neal makes a point I'd like to echo. This is the biggest response we've received to any story since we began allowing reader comments a few months ago. I agree with Neal that this forum shows the need for this topic to be discussed further. I think it's great that the Friends of the Forest Grove Library hosted the evening discussion and solicited the student essays. (Neal, we can agree to disagree on whether it was a PR stunt.) And, I'm thrilled that our paper can host a place where people can exchange ideas. That's why in this week's print edition of the News-Times, we excerpted some of the comments here and encouraged our print readers to join the on-line discussion. We'll keep it going for another couple weeks, as long as people are interested.
John Schrag
Editor & Publisher
News-Times
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
In 1954, when it was legal to discriminate against blacks, the Supreme Court saw the bigotry and overturned the Constitution saying "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Movement began and it seemed like our own comfortable, familiar, worlds were changing. Now, your insulated little worlds are being threatened by change, and you've gotten yourself into a nervous 'tizzy'. As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream Speech, "you are in for a rude awakening if you think things will return to business as usual." With your degree of nervousness now, you'll probable have a nervous breakdown as things progress and laws are changed. Your breakdown will be a welcome relief for our community. We'll be free of you lashes (mocking a teacher? - in the nobelest of professions, doing decent work with law abiding people. Shame on you. Mocking Tolea? - she just wants unity and a peaceful, civil, debate. Shame on you.) We'll also be free of your hatred, snobbery, and bigotry. I can't wait.
"Gary"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow Gary seems to have a real handle on this agenda, glad to see more people drinking the kool-aid. I'm glad theres a few of us "lashes" at least our eyes our open. The global economy is killing our great nation anyway so we might as well open our arms and assimilate right? It appear by all these postings at the very least Forest Grove is becoming a hotbed of liberals who love to cater to lawbreakers. Can it be the great influx of illegals along with the immigration of the California disenfranchised? Who knows our once quiet burg will continue to grow with illegals as the quality of life deteriorates.
"Phineas Bogg"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Oh now we're back to Oregon's FAVORITE scapegoat of all - the Californians! Yes, blame the Californians for our influx of immigrants. We, the reasonable, humane, native, Oregonians aren't responsible. It's always the Californians. THEY'RE the real enemy. Can't you see how ridiculous that is? At least previous writers of anti-immigrants, oh excuse me, anti-illegal immigrants, (as if you really see a difference), based their objections on research and the LAW. You merely guess: Can it be? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe that? More generalizations, more speculations, more idiocy. If you are going to come forward with anti-illegal sentiments, at least base them on research findings and the LAW. Our students learn the law, including the Supreme Court ruling that "separate but equal" was seen for the injustice it was and declared UNconstitutional. We teach them about Martin Luther King Jr. and that you ARE in for a rude (if not uncomfortable) awakening if you really think things will return to business as usual. The legal immigrants are learning about the Civil Rights Act and will insist on equality in employment and housing. They are learning about the 24th Amendment - that they are free from unfair voting restrictions...and like the immigrants who came before them, they will stay. So, you're upset by the illegals? GOOD, join those for reform and do something constructive; GOOD, join law enforcement and enforce the law. But please, spare us your imagined, baseless, unfounded speculations.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:49 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am surprised at the reactions revealed in this forum. It tells me that there are a lot of people out there who think as I do. I don't think the responses are directed at the essays by the students as much as a response to what is happening in and to our communities and our way of life due to what is an "invasion" by one group of immigrants largely illegal. Neal and Mark are right on. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing. I for one am selecting the times I shop and go about the communities in western Washington County largely because I can no longer tolerate tripping over these people who are everywhere. I see them lined up at the free medical clinics, dragging bags of free food items home, using food stamps - all that I am paying for - all the while the majority of them allow their children to run rampant through stores, screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. We have little-Mexicos all over western Washington County. I won't even touch on the increase in certain types of crime. Why are the dregs of this group coming here? Because they would be in jail or worse otherwise. It used to be you would go into a fast food restaurant and see teenagers behind the counter. Now it is wall-to-wall Hispanic-speaking teenagers or otherwise Latinos. There seems to be too much focus and emphasis on assimilation on our part when the burden should be the other way around. If I moved to Germany, for example, I would be expected to and would learn German if I planned to live there. But here it is the other way around: We must learn Spanish, we must have Spanish-language skills to even apply for some jobs, we offer English-as-a-2nd-language classes for free but if we want to learn Spanish we must pay for it. The reactions I have been reading tell me that there is a much broader concern and it isn't something that will be easy to resolve - since it has been allowed to happen and now we are paying the price.
"Kate R"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Debbie,
I have to say that the more you actually say, the better you help our side. You go on and on about history and "that's the way it was". When in reality it is up to all of us the create the shape and create the history we will proud of. I don't want to see the history you are creating. If you keep this up then illegals will start getting even smarter and only vote in some one who will speak about the rights they deserve and we don't because we did not have to be a criminal to get here. It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we cant keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources. I hope you soon see the big picture that your kids may not be able to finish high school or even earlier because we just cant keep up with the demands of the criminals who will be running our country soon.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Okay, but what about the legal immigrants, who after years of studying our language and customs, now run their own businesses, and sincerely want to assimilate into our culture? They want their children to learn English because they really do feel that is the only way to assimilate and have a better life. They want to learn their civil rights so they can protect themselves and their children. I know this because I know them. Like Kate wrote, instead of this forum just being about the essays, it turned into a place for people to vent frustrations about the illegal immigrants being here and the changes to their communities because of it. I understand that frustration and sense of loss. I really do! Everytime I go to my original hometown, it looks nothing like the wonderful place it was while I was growing up. It felt safe and comfortable. Now it doesn't. I understand the sense of loss people are experiencing. I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that?
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
P.S. My students are legally here - they have student visas, are resident aliens, or are now citizens. They have to prove that to get into the program. They are not criminals. I'm not helping criminals. They have done what was required by law are the ones who have attained citizenship are proud of being Americans and want to contribute something good. They really do! I wish you could read their essays and hear them talk about wanting their new country to be free from destruction and the ugliness they left behind. I love my country and don't want to see it in the hands of anyone who would cause its ruin.. . and like you said, WE are the ones who create our history. How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"Gary," you're mixing Civil Rights with Citizen’s Rights; the bulk of whom we're talking about are not citizens. Martin Luther King was, and he made us proud. Again, linking this to race or ethnicity doesn’t work, or - maybe it does..? And shame on who?
Phineas... good points. I see a lateral stratification occurring among communities; those giving in and up to this invading culture -- and those who feel insulated from it. Obviously, Cornelius has given up, and Hillsboro’s fast giving in, though Beaverton and FG, (even Portland) haven't, yet. They're becoming educated enclaves, where property values and community expectations remain too high for these third-world refugees. This is how it's become in our border states; totally Hispanic run towns, with fortified and gated communities next door.
Debbie... still looking for a "scapegoat?" Actually, from all I've heard (including in-laws) we can blame the illegal immigrants for our Californians! They've given up 'defending' their neighborhoods, let alone their state - and are migrating to Oregon. "Can't you see how ridiculous that is?" --- Yes, I can! And Debbie, you're groping... if not losing it...
"Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing." --- Kate R., you're welcome; in fact, I suspect your views (if secretly held) reflect those of the majority -- of which I'm simply one. Thank you for sharing them.
"It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we can’t keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources." Thanks Dave, your words also reflect the reality of our concerns and fears. This is basically the replacing of one culture by another -- at the expense of the former. A two-tier society is emerging. But unlike the "China Towns,” where some inhabitance live their lives without assimilating, entire cities across the US are turning into Latino / Hispanic towns & cities – run by and for their culture - at our expense.
Debbie; again, what citizen of the Third-world doesn’t want to eventually become a US Citizen? Just as this feel-good essay ‘competition’ shown, there are always a few 'standouts.' Even within a prison population there are those who can impress us with their aptitude. But should we welcome the world for the few stellar individuals that may include? Here's a ‘novel idea’: why don't we allow a limited number of new citizens into our country every year, based on their proven abilities, talents and willingness to live within our laws? ... Whoops!
"I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that? "Debbie." --- Nothing's wrong with that, and for decades that's exactly how they've been treated by the vast majority of our communities. Problem is, after we rewarded the illegal (yes, there is such a thing as Illegal) batch of 86 with citizenship, the flow has increased. We originally legalized just under 3 million (not counting extended family), there are now as many (and isn't it scary to realize no one really knows how many illegal 'immigrants' there are inside our borders?) ...now there are as many as 20 million Illegals awaiting their reward. How do you tell them apart? You can't ask, that's "racial profiling," or offensive to the new found liberties of some... So you'd simply welcome, if not reward them all? Debbie, your job security is coming at too high a cost to your community – could this be your true fear?
More Debbie... what is a "resident alien"? Anything like an Anchor-baby? And just where did your students come from... thin air? And by 'helping them,' are you not basically helping their illegal parents educate their children at our expense? …Thus allowing those 'children' to directly compete with ours for all those Spanish speaking social service jobs … right down to flipping burgers?
So these 'students' are happy to be here... why not? But have you noticed the "destruction and the ugliness they left behind" is following them? Sure, and again, we're talking about a handful of exceptional students -- I know, I have a couple myself. But mine are being denied resources to pay for yours... and mine (if not most) got here legally, and first.
"How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!" Present tense..? What you are doing is enabling the next generation of Enablers, at the expense and exclusion of all others. You are providing a ‘dream environment’ to the newly legal, semi-legal, soon to be legal and downright illegal invaders of our nation. Sound ugly - it is! Sure, you look out upon some eager faces; I've had doors held open for me by their parents, but good intent does not excuse the illegal behavior it took for nearly every one of those 'students' to get here. This may sound ‘greedy,’ but if you can ditch the rose-tinted glasses it's not as pretty as you’d have us believe. And though the community you’ve fled ‘to’ is not yet as bad as the one you fled – it’s not only catching up with you - you’re helping usher it in! And frankly, you're the one around here pushing an agenda; the rest of us are simply reacting to it.
News Times, timely news isn't it? Thought I’d check in … thanks for keeping this alive. PS, what’s happened to the Freedom Socialist’s and Radical Women..? Staying too busy in P-town to mess with us I suspect..? Thanks -
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 13, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Neal,That was a fantastic reply, except for one thing. My wife is a resident alien but we worked and payed dearly for it to be done correct. I was not willing to bring her under false pretenses. At the same time right after she moved here a family friend from Brazil called and said he was in New York doing construction work at a very nice pay. It took him less than a month to enter here illegal and get a job that was paying very nicely. Both my wife and I were very upset. It was crazy it took a almost two years to get it done correctly and it took him less than a month by paying some guy in Mexico to help get him here. This is what I fear the most, as the word gets out that if you have been here before such and such date and time that you can stay and become a citizen. Duh does anyone know when they really came across? They will be filing in like crazy if that bill passes. I do not have a race issue, I have right vs wrong issue. I grew up knowing what was right from wrong but today know one can really know. Because We pay for the needs of illegals who claim that there child was born here so they should be able to stay and get food stamps because they are so poor. But wait I can here the bull crap in that, they have no money but they get food stamps and health care and housing right? Then when you talk to them they are sending all of their money home in some other country while being here getting along for free and draining our resources. Debbie how can you be a teacher and not be able to see the writing on the wall? You are simply telling them it is OK to steal and any number of other crimes, simply because you broke the law of our land by coming here illegaly. I do not have the perfect answer but I can tell you that I am looking for other countries to live in because this land is going downhill and it is people like you who are not only helping them bring it down but you think you are doing good to save these people. Do you not see the Americans who live here? We are a dieing breed thanks to you and the others who think like you. I do not want my children growing up where being right is the wrong thing to do.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 17, 2007 at 06:12 PM
5:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Friday, May 18, 2007
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 30 comments links to this post
5:44 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
In case anybody wonders, I wasn't the anonymous who posted all of those comments from FGNT.
5:53 PM
Anonymous said...
as far as there being only one world - isn't that all the more reason we protect all we can?
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:04 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial response:
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this exchange of ideas, but Neal makes a point I'd like to echo. This is the biggest response we've received to any story since we began allowing reader comments a few months ago. I agree with Neal that this forum shows the need for this topic to be discussed further. I think it's great that the Friends of the Forest Grove Library hosted the evening discussion and solicited the student essays. (Neal, we can agree to disagree on whether it was a PR stunt.) And, I'm thrilled that our paper can host a place where people can exchange ideas. That's why in this week's print edition of the News-Times, we excerpted some of the comments here and encouraged our print readers to join the on-line discussion. We'll keep it going for another couple weeks, as long as people are interested.
John Schrag
Editor & Publisher
News-Times
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
In 1954, when it was legal to discriminate against blacks, the Supreme Court saw the bigotry and overturned the Constitution saying "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Movement began and it seemed like our own comfortable, familiar, worlds were changing. Now, your insulated little worlds are being threatened by change, and you've gotten yourself into a nervous 'tizzy'. As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream Speech, "you are in for a rude awakening if you think things will return to business as usual." With your degree of nervousness now, you'll probable have a nervous breakdown as things progress and laws are changed. Your breakdown will be a welcome relief for our community. We'll be free of you lashes (mocking a teacher? - in the nobelest of professions, doing decent work with law abiding people. Shame on you. Mocking Tolea? - she just wants unity and a peaceful, civil, debate. Shame on you.) We'll also be free of your hatred, snobbery, and bigotry. I can't wait.
"Gary"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Wow Gary seems to have a real handle on this agenda, glad to see more people drinking the kool-aid. I'm glad theres a few of us "lashes" at least our eyes our open. The global economy is killing our great nation anyway so we might as well open our arms and assimilate right? It appear by all these postings at the very least Forest Grove is becoming a hotbed of liberals who love to cater to lawbreakers. Can it be the great influx of illegals along with the immigration of the California disenfranchised? Who knows our once quiet burg will continue to grow with illegals as the quality of life deteriorates.
"Phineas Bogg"
(Not verified)
Tue, May 08, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Oh now we're back to Oregon's FAVORITE scapegoat of all - the Californians! Yes, blame the Californians for our influx of immigrants. We, the reasonable, humane, native, Oregonians aren't responsible. It's always the Californians. THEY'RE the real enemy. Can't you see how ridiculous that is? At least previous writers of anti-immigrants, oh excuse me, anti-illegal immigrants, (as if you really see a difference), based their objections on research and the LAW. You merely guess: Can it be? Who knows? Maybe this? Maybe that? More generalizations, more speculations, more idiocy. If you are going to come forward with anti-illegal sentiments, at least base them on research findings and the LAW. Our students learn the law, including the Supreme Court ruling that "separate but equal" was seen for the injustice it was and declared UNconstitutional. We teach them about Martin Luther King Jr. and that you ARE in for a rude (if not uncomfortable) awakening if you really think things will return to business as usual. The legal immigrants are learning about the Civil Rights Act and will insist on equality in employment and housing. They are learning about the 24th Amendment - that they are free from unfair voting restrictions...and like the immigrants who came before them, they will stay. So, you're upset by the illegals? GOOD, join those for reform and do something constructive; GOOD, join law enforcement and enforce the law. But please, spare us your imagined, baseless, unfounded speculations.
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:49 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
I am surprised at the reactions revealed in this forum. It tells me that there are a lot of people out there who think as I do. I don't think the responses are directed at the essays by the students as much as a response to what is happening in and to our communities and our way of life due to what is an "invasion" by one group of immigrants largely illegal. Neal and Mark are right on. Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing. I for one am selecting the times I shop and go about the communities in western Washington County largely because I can no longer tolerate tripping over these people who are everywhere. I see them lined up at the free medical clinics, dragging bags of free food items home, using food stamps - all that I am paying for - all the while the majority of them allow their children to run rampant through stores, screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. We have little-Mexicos all over western Washington County. I won't even touch on the increase in certain types of crime. Why are the dregs of this group coming here? Because they would be in jail or worse otherwise. It used to be you would go into a fast food restaurant and see teenagers behind the counter. Now it is wall-to-wall Hispanic-speaking teenagers or otherwise Latinos. There seems to be too much focus and emphasis on assimilation on our part when the burden should be the other way around. If I moved to Germany, for example, I would be expected to and would learn German if I planned to live there. But here it is the other way around: We must learn Spanish, we must have Spanish-language skills to even apply for some jobs, we offer English-as-a-2nd-language classes for free but if we want to learn Spanish we must pay for it. The reactions I have been reading tell me that there is a much broader concern and it isn't something that will be easy to resolve - since it has been allowed to happen and now we are paying the price.
"Kate R"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Debbie,
I have to say that the more you actually say, the better you help our side. You go on and on about history and "that's the way it was". When in reality it is up to all of us the create the shape and create the history we will proud of. I don't want to see the history you are creating. If you keep this up then illegals will start getting even smarter and only vote in some one who will speak about the rights they deserve and we don't because we did not have to be a criminal to get here. It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we cant keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources. I hope you soon see the big picture that your kids may not be able to finish high school or even earlier because we just cant keep up with the demands of the criminals who will be running our country soon.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Okay, but what about the legal immigrants, who after years of studying our language and customs, now run their own businesses, and sincerely want to assimilate into our culture? They want their children to learn English because they really do feel that is the only way to assimilate and have a better life. They want to learn their civil rights so they can protect themselves and their children. I know this because I know them. Like Kate wrote, instead of this forum just being about the essays, it turned into a place for people to vent frustrations about the illegal immigrants being here and the changes to their communities because of it. I understand that frustration and sense of loss. I really do! Everytime I go to my original hometown, it looks nothing like the wonderful place it was while I was growing up. It felt safe and comfortable. Now it doesn't. I understand the sense of loss people are experiencing. I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that?
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
P.S. My students are legally here - they have student visas, are resident aliens, or are now citizens. They have to prove that to get into the program. They are not criminals. I'm not helping criminals. They have done what was required by law are the ones who have attained citizenship are proud of being Americans and want to contribute something good. They really do! I wish you could read their essays and hear them talk about wanting their new country to be free from destruction and the ugliness they left behind. I love my country and don't want to see it in the hands of anyone who would cause its ruin.. . and like you said, WE are the ones who create our history. How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!
"Debbie"
(Not verified)
Sat, May 12, 2007 at 06:33 PM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
"Gary," you're mixing Civil Rights with Citizen’s Rights; the bulk of whom we're talking about are not citizens. Martin Luther King was, and he made us proud. Again, linking this to race or ethnicity doesn’t work, or - maybe it does..? And shame on who?
Phineas... good points. I see a lateral stratification occurring among communities; those giving in and up to this invading culture -- and those who feel insulated from it. Obviously, Cornelius has given up, and Hillsboro’s fast giving in, though Beaverton and FG, (even Portland) haven't, yet. They're becoming educated enclaves, where property values and community expectations remain too high for these third-world refugees. This is how it's become in our border states; totally Hispanic run towns, with fortified and gated communities next door.
Debbie... still looking for a "scapegoat?" Actually, from all I've heard (including in-laws) we can blame the illegal immigrants for our Californians! They've given up 'defending' their neighborhoods, let alone their state - and are migrating to Oregon. "Can't you see how ridiculous that is?" --- Yes, I can! And Debbie, you're groping... if not losing it...
"Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and experiencing." --- Kate R., you're welcome; in fact, I suspect your views (if secretly held) reflect those of the majority -- of which I'm simply one. Thank you for sharing them.
"It is getting to the point, and we all know this, where we can not keep our schools opened, we can’t keep our police and fire services in place, all due in fact that these illegals are draining our resources." Thanks Dave, your words also reflect the reality of our concerns and fears. This is basically the replacing of one culture by another -- at the expense of the former. A two-tier society is emerging. But unlike the "China Towns,” where some inhabitance live their lives without assimilating, entire cities across the US are turning into Latino / Hispanic towns & cities – run by and for their culture - at our expense.
Debbie; again, what citizen of the Third-world doesn’t want to eventually become a US Citizen? Just as this feel-good essay ‘competition’ shown, there are always a few 'standouts.' Even within a prison population there are those who can impress us with their aptitude. But should we welcome the world for the few stellar individuals that may include? Here's a ‘novel idea’: why don't we allow a limited number of new citizens into our country every year, based on their proven abilities, talents and willingness to live within our laws? ... Whoops!
"I agree with every point that's been made about illegals. I just want people to give the legal ones a chance, and not think that every non-white face they see is the face of an illegal. What's wrong with that? "Debbie." --- Nothing's wrong with that, and for decades that's exactly how they've been treated by the vast majority of our communities. Problem is, after we rewarded the illegal (yes, there is such a thing as Illegal) batch of 86 with citizenship, the flow has increased. We originally legalized just under 3 million (not counting extended family), there are now as many (and isn't it scary to realize no one really knows how many illegal 'immigrants' there are inside our borders?) ...now there are as many as 20 million Illegals awaiting their reward. How do you tell them apart? You can't ask, that's "racial profiling," or offensive to the new found liberties of some... So you'd simply welcome, if not reward them all? Debbie, your job security is coming at too high a cost to your community – could this be your true fear?
More Debbie... what is a "resident alien"? Anything like an Anchor-baby? And just where did your students come from... thin air? And by 'helping them,' are you not basically helping their illegal parents educate their children at our expense? …Thus allowing those 'children' to directly compete with ours for all those Spanish speaking social service jobs … right down to flipping burgers?
So these 'students' are happy to be here... why not? But have you noticed the "destruction and the ugliness they left behind" is following them? Sure, and again, we're talking about a handful of exceptional students -- I know, I have a couple myself. But mine are being denied resources to pay for yours... and mine (if not most) got here legally, and first.
"How is what I do hurting our history? I teach the good ones!!" Present tense..? What you are doing is enabling the next generation of Enablers, at the expense and exclusion of all others. You are providing a ‘dream environment’ to the newly legal, semi-legal, soon to be legal and downright illegal invaders of our nation. Sound ugly - it is! Sure, you look out upon some eager faces; I've had doors held open for me by their parents, but good intent does not excuse the illegal behavior it took for nearly every one of those 'students' to get here. This may sound ‘greedy,’ but if you can ditch the rose-tinted glasses it's not as pretty as you’d have us believe. And though the community you’ve fled ‘to’ is not yet as bad as the one you fled – it’s not only catching up with you - you’re helping usher it in! And frankly, you're the one around here pushing an agenda; the rest of us are simply reacting to it.
News Times, timely news isn't it? Thought I’d check in … thanks for keeping this alive. PS, what’s happened to the Freedom Socialist’s and Radical Women..? Staying too busy in P-town to mess with us I suspect..? Thanks -
"Neal"
(Not verified)
Sun, May 13, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Re: Winning essays reveal teenagers’ impressions of immigration debate
Neal,That was a fantastic reply, except for one thing. My wife is a resident alien but we worked and payed dearly for it to be done correct. I was not willing to bring her under false pretenses. At the same time right after she moved here a family friend from Brazil called and said he was in New York doing construction work at a very nice pay. It took him less than a month to enter here illegal and get a job that was paying very nicely. Both my wife and I were very upset. It was crazy it took a almost two years to get it done correctly and it took him less than a month by paying some guy in Mexico to help get him here. This is what I fear the most, as the word gets out that if you have been here before such and such date and time that you can stay and become a citizen. Duh does anyone know when they really came across? They will be filing in like crazy if that bill passes. I do not have a race issue, I have right vs wrong issue. I grew up knowing what was right from wrong but today know one can really know. Because We pay for the needs of illegals who claim that there child was born here so they should be able to stay and get food stamps because they are so poor. But wait I can here the bull crap in that, they have no money but they get food stamps and health care and housing right? Then when you talk to them they are sending all of their money home in some other country while being here getting along for free and draining our resources. Debbie how can you be a teacher and not be able to see the writing on the wall? You are simply telling them it is OK to steal and any number of other crimes, simply because you broke the law of our land by coming here illegaly. I do not have the perfect answer but I can tell you that I am looking for other countries to live in because this land is going downhill and it is people like you who are not only helping them bring it down but you think you are doing good to save these people. Do you not see the Americans who live here? We are a dieing breed thanks to you and the others who think like you. I do not want my children growing up where being right is the wrong thing to do.
"Dave"
(Not verified)
Thu, May 17, 2007 at 06:12 PM
5:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Friday, May 18, 2007
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 30 comments links to this post
5:44 PM
Polish Immigrant said...
In case anybody wonders, I wasn't the anonymous who posted all of those comments from FGNT.
5:53 PM
5:55 PM
Scottiebill said...
Daniel: Why are you allowing all these dissertations to go on? These various and sundry anonymous' have taken up all your blogging space with these seemingly endless ramblings. And then there is the anonymous with all that gabble that means nothingand the anonymous with a lot of blogs saying the same stupid thing.
It would seem that there could be some semblance of editing here.
And now these "anonymous" anonymous' will scream "First Amendment Rights". It makes one want to puke!!
6:23 PM
Charles U. Farley said...
Scottiebill, stick your finger down your throat. You'll feel better.
Daniel. How about some from refreshment from God's word.Bible, King James. Leviticus, from The holy Bible, King James version
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
| Table of Contents for this work |
| All on-line databases | Etext Center Homepage |
Leviticus, chapter 1
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.01
1: And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.
3: If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD.
4: And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
5: And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
6: And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.
7: And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire:
8: And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:
9: But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
10: And if his offering be of the flocks, namely, of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt sacrifice; he shall bring it a male without blemish.
11: And he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar.
12: And he shall cut it into his pieces, with his head and his fat: and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:
13: But he shall wash the inwards and the legs with water: and the priest shall bring it all, and burn it upon the altar: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
14: And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the LORD be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves, or of young pigeons.
15: And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar:
16: And he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes:
17: And he shall cleave it with the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder: and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
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Leviticus, chapter 2
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.02
1: And when any will offer a meat offering unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:
2: And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests: and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD:
3: And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
4: And if thou bring an oblation of a meat offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.
5: And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.
6: Thou shalt part it in pieces, and pour oil thereon: it is a meat offering.
7: And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in the fryingpan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.
8: And thou shalt bring the meat offering that is made of these things unto the LORD: and when it is presented unto the priest, he shall bring it unto the altar.
9: And the priest shall take from the meat offering a memorial thereof, and shall burn it upon the altar: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
10: And that which is left of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.
11: No meat offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven: for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the LORD made by fire.
12: As for the oblation of the firstfruits, ye shall offer them unto the LORD: but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savour.
13: And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
14: And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the LORD, thou shalt offer for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears.
15: And thou shalt put oil upon it, and lay frankincense thereon: it is a meat offering.
16: And the priest shall burn the memorial of it, part of the beaten corn thereof, and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof: it is an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
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Leviticus, chapter 3
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.03
1: And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.
2: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons the priests shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.
3: And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
4: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
5: And Aaron's sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
6: And if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering unto the LORD be of the flock; male or female, he shall offer it without blemish.
7: If he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he offer it before the LORD.
8: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof round about upon the altar.
9: And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat thereof, and the whole rump, it shall he take off hard by the backbone; and the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
10: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
11: And the priest shall burn it upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire unto the LORD.
12: And if his offering be a goat, then he shall offer it before the LORD.
13: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of it, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about.
14: And he shall offer thereof his offering, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
15: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.
16: And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD's.
17: It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.
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Leviticus, chapter 4
Compare with Revised Standard Version: Levi.04
1: And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them:
3: If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people; then let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto the LORD for a sin offering.
4: And he shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD; and shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head, and kill the bullock before the LORD.
5: And the priest that is anointed shall take of the bullock's blood, and bring it to the tabernacle of the congregation:
6: And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the LORD, before the vail of the sanctuary.
7: And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the LORD, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation: and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
8: And he shall take off from it all the fat of the bullock for the sin offering; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,
9: And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away,
10: As it was taken off from the bullock of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt offering.
11: And the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung,
12: Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt.
13: And if the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which should not be done, and are guilty;
14: When the sin, which they have sinned against it, is known, then the congregation shall offer a young bullock for the sin, and bring him before the tabernacle of the congregation.
15: And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the LORD: and the bullock shall be killed before the LORD.
16: And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bullock's blood to the tabernacle of the congregation:
17: And the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the LORD, even before the vail.
18: And he shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar which is before the LORD, that is in the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall pour out all the blood at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
19: And he shall take all his fat from him, and burn it upon the altar.
20: And he shall do with the bullock as he did with the bullock for a sin offering, so shall he do with this: and the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them.
21: And he shall carry forth the bullock without the camp, and burn him as he burned the first bullock: it is a sin offering for the congregation.
22: When a ruler hath sinned, and done somewhat through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD his God concerning things which should not be done, and is guilty;
23: Or if his sin, wherein he hath sinned, come to his knowledge; he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a male without blemish:
24: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the goat, and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering before the LORD: it is a sin offering.
25: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out his blood at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering.
26: And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him.
27: And if any one of the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and be guilty;
28: Or if his sin, which he hath sinned, come to his knowledge: then he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned.
29: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering.
30: And the priest shall take of the blood thereof with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar.
31: And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat is taken away from off the sacrifice of peace offerings; and the priest shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour unto the LORD; and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him.
32: And if he bring a lamb for a sin offering, he shall bring it a female without blemish.
33: And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay it for a sin offering in the place where they kill the burnt offering
34: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar:
35: And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat of the lamb is taken away from the sacrifice of the peace offerings; and the priest shall burn them upon the altar, according to the offerings made by fire unto the LORD: and the priest shall make an atonement for his sin that he hath committed, and it shall be forgiven him.
That's only the first four chapters. I got bored and I have a life unlike you. I'll be back with more later.
Keep up the good fight.
You chickenshit skinhead.
6:33 PM
MacNichol, last of the Viking Kings of Skye said...
What the fuck kind of name is Miclav? Is that right? I don't care. It's SLAVIC fucks like you who've been screwing up this country from the beginning.
You know "Slav" comes from the Rus (the Vikings) term for slave? The zeroes whose country they traveled through on the way to Byzantium, where they'd sell all these cute slavic babes to rich A-rabs. Obviously an inferior race.
Anyway, I'm sick of your diluting the pure strain of Scotts-Irish blood our country was built on.
Most of my family got here in the 18th century. When did your folks crawl onto Ellis Island?
Go back where you came from.
6:44 PM
short and sweet said...
I have a prediction that I absolutely GUARANTEE will come true:
At the end of the day, Daniel and his nativist friends are going to lose this one. Why? Because they are so far, far-right wing, that there is absolutely no bill that could conceivably get through Congress and get Bush's signature that will make them happy. No matter what happens, they'll be pissed, and they'll scream about betrayals and traitors and vow revenge.
I guarantee it.
7:04 PM
R Huse said...
Obviously the pro illegal alien side has clearly proven at least one argument by their responses.
It is now quite apparent that the reasoning they use is as vacuous as the morality upon which it is based. Name calling, racism and now just endless empty Spam.
Quite neat, and also immeasurably pitiful. I, for one, thank them for their clear demonstrations. Iconoclasts through and through, idiotic, absurd.
7:24 PM
Kind Red Spirit said...
r. huse said it best. "Idiotic and absurd" Wow, that's deep. I don't know what's the problem with all these motherfuckas. Its like they all want the beners wreckin their lives yo.
Corse, could be all those vatos locos guys could come lokking for your cracker ass in which I dont know you bro. Know what im sayin?
But hey man. if theres a throw down and you got numbrs on your side man. You know good white folks Im down man
well bust some fuckin heads
power to the people
the GOOD people
8:53 PM
Rosetta Stone said...
Endless, empty spam R? I think not.
Daniel professes to have an "interest" in "Jesus" Does Jesus have an interest in him?
The Book of James, by one of our Lord and Savior's little brothers will offer the poor soul some solace.
"Count it all joy by bretheren..."
I'll let him finish.
1: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
2: My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
3: Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4: But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
5: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
6: But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
7: For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
8: A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
9: Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
10: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
11: For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
12: Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
13: Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
14: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15: Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
16: Do not err, my beloved brethren.
17: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
18: Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
19: Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
20: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
21: Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
22: But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
23: For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
24: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
25: But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
26: If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
27: Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
James, chapter 2
1: My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.
2: For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;
3: And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool:
4: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
5: Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?
6: But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?
7: Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?
8: If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:
9: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.
10: For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
11: For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
12: So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.
13: For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
14: What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
15: If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16: And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17: Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
18: Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19: Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20: But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
21: Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
22: Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
23: And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
24: Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
25: Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?
26: For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
James, chapter 3
1: My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
2: For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
3: Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body.
4: Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.
5: Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!
6: And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
7: For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
8: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
9: Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
10: Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
11: Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
12: Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
13: Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
14: But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
15: This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
16: For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
17: But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
18: And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
James, chapter 4
1: From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2: Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3: Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
4: Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
5: Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
6: But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
7: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8: Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9: Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10: Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
11: Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
12: There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
13: Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
14: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
15: For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
16: But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
17: Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
James, chapter 5
1: Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2: Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3: Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
4: Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
5: Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
6: Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.
7: Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
8: Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9: Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
10: Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11: Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
12: But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.
13: Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.
14: Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
15: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
16: Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
17: Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
18: And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
19: Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;
20: Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
Did you get that? He which CONVERTETH A SINNER from the error of his ways...
shall save a soul from death.
Empty spam? R. you do yourself, and the rest of humanity a grave disservice.
9:07 PM
Anonymous said...
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
9:58 PM
Anonymous said...
'He's a fair man'
Johnson says he will to accept Goodell punishment
Posted: Friday May 18, 2007 9:14PM; Updated: Friday May 18, 2007 9:14PM
Tank Johnson says his goal is to become NFL Man of the Year.
AP
LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) -- Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson said Friday he's ready to accept whatever punishment NFL commissioner Roger Goodell gives him for his recent off-field problems that included a two-month stint in jail.
"I feel like whatever sanction he imposes, I'm man enough to take it and I know that once I get back on the field, that chapter of my life is closed and I can move on with a sense of closure," Johnson said Friday after the first day of Bears minicamp.
It was Johnson's first public statements since being released from Cook County jail Sunday.
Johnson met with Goodell in New York on Wednesday and awaits a decision on a possible suspension for violating terms of his probation and a gun charge.
In April, Goodell suspended Tennessee Titans defensive back Adam "Pacman" Jones for the 2007 season, and Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry for eight games before introducing a strengthened personal conduct policy.
"Mr. Goodell has the league's interest to look out for," Johnson said. "Whatever sanction he imposes, I know that it's in the best interest of this league.
"I can't say what would be fair, what would be unfair. But I do know that meeting Mr. Goodell, he's a fair man. He gave me the opportunity to speak with him. He gave me the opportunity to convey some of the things that I want to get better at. I feel like whatever he imposes, meeting him and knowing he's a fair man, is in the best interest of the league."
During their 90-minute meeting in New York, Johnson said he told Goodell his goal is to go from jail to NFL Man of the Year.
"One day I want to be the face of the league for guys who have come through adversity, came through it and ultimately became the Man of the Year in the NFL," Johnson said. "That would be a tremendous ending to the story."
Johnson spent 60 days of a 120-day sentence in jail for violating his probation. He was released Sunday for good behavior.
In December, police raided Johnson's Gurnee home and found six unregistered firearms -- a violation of his probation on an earlier gun charge.
That charge stemmed from Johnson's 2005 arrest after a Chicago nightclub valet reported seeing Johnson with a handgun in his SUV. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
Two days after the raid in Gurnee, Willie B. Posey, the Johnson bodyguard who had been arrested after the raid, was shot and killed in an early morning fight while he and Johnson were at a Chicago nightclub.
Johnson was suspended by the Bears for one game for being at the club.
In March, Johnson began his jail term for violating his probation. Last month, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor weapons charge stemming from the December raid as part of a deal with prosecutors that kept him from serving more time in jail. He was ordered to serve 45 days, which he was able to serve concurrently with the sentence for violating his probation.
Johnson had numerous visits from Bears players, coaches and officials during his 60 days of incarceration.
"It was a tough time for me, but at the same time I learned a lot about myself," Johnson said. "I learned a lot about a lot of things. During that process, I got to know that I have tremendous support from all walks of life.
"The Bears showed me unconditional support. My friends and family showed me unconditional support."
Johnson credited coach Lovie Smith and general manager Jerry Angelo, in particular, with standing by him during his time in jail. Johnson did not participate in the team portion of practice Friday because he needs to be in better condition, Smith said.
Johnson did do some individual work early in practice.
Smith still regards Johnson as the Bears' starting nose tackle.
"As much as anything, Tank now has a starting spot," Smith said. "He's back with the group working out. He has a long way to go. As a football team we have a long way to go.
"But Tank will catch up. He's got a smile on his face. He's excited about being back around this team."
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
10:09 PM
interesting said...
Overflowing bag
After 800+ e-mails, I give you league rankings, more
Posted: Wednesday May 16, 2007 12:53PM; Updated: Wednesday May 16, 2007 3:10PM
Arkansas RB Darren McFadden is one of many explosive playmakers in a loaded SEC.
AP
RELATED
• REACT: Are Mandel's league rankings legit?
You love the Mailbag. You really love it.
You made that abundantly clear, dear readers, when you bombarded my in-box to the tune of more than 800 e-mails within 24 hours of publishing the season's first edition. Those are mid-November numbers, people. Give yourselves much-deserved props.
So what did I learn over the course of those 800 e-mails? I learned that most of you never stop thinking about college football, even in the dead of the offseason, and for that I am extremely appreciative -- because it justifies my continued employment. I learned that a great number of you are extremely invested in the choice of the next Celebrity Crush (more on that later), which is good, because I fully intend to milk the suspense.
But most of all, I learned you're all really, really obsessed with this strength-of-conference thing. I could have filled this entire Mailbag with questions about the Big East's legitimacy, the Big Ten's bowl record (2-1 against the SEC last year, as several hundred of you reminded me), the Pac-10's non-conference schedule, lack of respect for the Big 12 and more. Instead, I chose this one, all-encompassing, guaranteed-to-start-a-riot topic from Taylor of Lexington, Ky.:
Stewart, you always say that conference strength is cyclical and always seem to defend easily bash-able conferences (i.e. the Pac-10, ACC). So let's see your rank all 11 Division I-A conferences. Answer at your own risk!
OK, I'll do it, but under two conditions: 1) That we all agree to accept the premise of cyclical conference strength, which means these ratings are based solely on the upcoming season and are by no means permanent. And 2) That once I do this list, there will be no revisiting the topic until at least the start of the season. Let's face it, the only guarantee about this list is that 10 of 11 sets of fans are going to be outraged, and I'm not filling next week's Mailbag with all your angry responses to this one.
Here it goes ...
1) SEC: Simply put, this year's SEC could be the toughest conference in history. I'm not exaggerating. It's extremely rare for a league to not only boast so many quality teams at the top (LSU, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee) but also so little dead weight at the bottom. Really, it's just Mississippi State. You've got two former national championship coaches, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban, leading what may be only the seventh- or eighth-best teams in the league. Kentucky won eight games last year. And Vandy is no longer a gimme (just ask Georgia). It's a perfect storm for the SEC right now with so many accomplished coaches, so much elite talent and so many returning veterans all at once.
2) Pac-10: I've always felt one reason the Pac-10 doesn't get taken seriously by most of the country is that outside of USC, no one has been able to stay consistently good recently. At the same time, however, no one has been consistently bad, either. In other words, the league's image is a victim of its own balance. USC appears to be the cream of the crop again this year, but remember, the Trojans lost to two Pac-10 teams last year, UCLA and Oregon State, both of which return the vast majority of their starters. Cal is loaded on offense yet again. And I expect Oregon, Arizona State (which now has Dennis Erickson), Arizona and possibly Washington to all be factors as well.
3) Big Ten: Remember the 1990s and early 2000s? For the only time in its history, the Big Ten was actually fairly wide open, with everyone from Northwestern to Purdue to Illinois winning titles. Now, the league has gone back to being top-heavy. Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio State could all be top-10 teams, Penn State won't be far off, but then there's a pretty drastic drop-off. I do expect Iowa to do a bit of damage, but nearly half the teams the league (Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois and Indiana) are basically irrelevant.
4) Big East: Obviously, it's impossible for the Big East to go as deep as the other leagues because it has so few teams, and thus its ranking suffers. The top four teams -- Louisville, West Virginia, Rutgers and USF -- stack up with any league outside of the SEC. All four are legitimate preseason top-25 teams in my mind, and three of them could be BCS-caliber. The Cardinals and Mountaineers have already shown their offenses are as explosive as any in the country, but I have a hunch Rutgers might wind up winning the title because it has a defense to go with its potential All-America running back.
5) Big 12: Earlier this decade, I really thought the Big 12 was going to emerge as the best conference in the country. But due in large part to Dennis Franchione's thus-far disappointing tenure at Texas A&M, the South Division has remained largely a two-team show (though Texas Tech is a consistent second-tier bowl team), and the North has yet to fully recover from its all-out implosion a few years ago. Nebraska should be a top-20 team, but I'm not convinced the Huskers are ready to contend nationally yet, Missouri should again be good but not great and the jury's still out on the likes of Kansas State and Kansas.
6) ACC: The conference will be better than it was last year due to several high-profile coaching changes and more experienced teams, but it is still probably a year away from becoming a true force nationally. Virginia Tech should be a top-10 team, but after that it's anyone's best guess who will emerge as legitimate top-20 teams and who will remain mired in mediocrity out of a pack that includes Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College, Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech and Maryland.
7) Mountain West: Utah, TCU and BYU have each produced nationally competitive teams over the past three seasons and all will likely be strong again this season. New Mexico is always in the postseason mix. Things are a little hazy after that, though I'm interested to see whether Colorado State can bounce back from an awful year and how much improvement San Diego State shows in Chuck Long's second year.
8) WAC: Despite losing several teams to Conference USA a few years ago, this league has actually gotten stronger. We all know about Boise State, but the emergence of Nevada, San Jose State and Hawaii has boosted the conference considerably. If anyone can dethrone the Broncos this year, it's Colt Brennan and the Warriors. And I think last year's 4-8 debacle will prove an aberration for Fresno State.
9) Conference USA: This league has become hard to watch since losing Louisville, Cincinnati and USF. I expect there will once again be several decent teams (Tulsa, Southern Miss, East Carolina, UCF) but none that approach top-25 status.
10) MAC: Where have you gone, Ben Roethlisberger? Or Byron Leftwich? Or even Bruce Gradkowski? It's been a few years now since the MAC produced any giant-killers, and I don't expect that to change this year. Even with the addition of Temple (as hard as that may be to believe).
11) Sun Belt: How the members of this conference continue to remain at the I-A level is one of the great mysteries of our time.
So there you have it, folks. Now comes the hard part. You can either fire off that nasty e-mail inquiring about the size of my brain ... or you can ask a question that might actually get published next week.
Oh, the agony.
1 of 3
The reputation of Iowa's Kirk Ferentz as being a top-notch coach has taken a hit after a pair of disappointing seasons.
AP
Is Kirk Ferentz overrated as a coach? He had talented teams in both 2005 and 2006 and they only went 13-12 over those two years, yet everyone still says Kirk is up there with Pete Carroll, Bob Stoops and Urban Meyer. I find that hard to believe.
--Russ, Dyersville, Iowa
A straight up comparison of Ferentz to the coaches you mentioned would not exactly be fair considering he's not working with anywhere near the same level of talent. That said, he definitely dropped several rungs on my ladder the past two seasons. One of the major reasons Ferentz earned his reputation in the first place was that he was able to take largely blue-collar, physically overmatched teams and beat teams like Ohio State and Michigan and pull off 11-2, 10-3 and 10-2 seasons from 2002-04. The other major trait of those teams is that they got notably better as the season went along, another indicator of good coaching.
But that second part simply did not happen last year. That 6-7 team was a major disappointment considering it had a proven, senior quarterback in Drew Tate and was by all accounts a more talented bunch overall than those earlier teams, whose players were primarily recruited when the program was in the tank. So the question becomes, was Ferentz overrated to begin with or did his earlier teams simply overachieve? I tend to think last year was one of those inevitable blips that every coach endures from time to time when a team, for whatever reason, simply fails to gel. It's also unrealistic to think any coach is ever going to win 10 games every year at Iowa. But it's also not as if Ferentz has such a long track record that he be afforded a free pass. (Especially now that he's being paid like a Stoops or Meyer.) It will be interesting to see how much improvement, if any, this year's Hawkeyes show.
The last couple of seasons, we have seen an influx in big non-conference games to start the season. Which game are you most eager to see. For me, it's Virginia Tech at LSU on Sept. 8!
--Joshua, Richmond, Va.
That's going to be a good one, all right. I don't know who's going to win, but I bet the final score will be something like 10-9. I also think it's going to be an extremely important moment for the Virginia Tech community in its ongoing healing process. Assuming that's the "game of the week" nationally (Notre Dame-Penn State will get plenty of attention as well, but those teams aren't going to be ranked in the Top 10), I can only imagine how uplifting it will be for Hokies fans to see their school return to the national spotlight for something besides the recent tragedy.
The non-conference game I'm looking forward to most, however, is USC at Nebraska the following weekend. The Trojans are the expected preseason No. 1 team, but they're not without questions, particularly on offense. This will be just their second game of the season, and the first one is against Idaho, so this will truly be the first chance to gauge the 2007 Trojans. I also think this game will serve as a referendum on Bill Callahan's mostly stormy tenure in Lincoln. I thought Huskers fans got a little bit ahead of themselves last year in thinking their team would give USC any sort of scare in L.A. in what was then the start of Callahan's third season. At this point, however, it's year four, he's got his recruits and he's finally got a stud quarterback in Sam Keller. It's reasonable to expect that Nebraska -- one of the most storied programs of all-time -- should not roll over for anyone, even the No. 1 team in the country.
Stewart: It's time to play the annual eighth-year seniors game! I'll start it off ... really, a no-brainer: Notre Dame's Tom Zbikowski.
--Dave, Chelsea, Mich.
Ah yes, it's an annual Mailbag tradition. And Zbikowski is a perfect candidate for two reasons: 1) His recruitment as a high school senior in 2002-03 was so heavily chronicled that his name has been with us a whole extra year; and 2) I think most of us were under the assumption that last year would be his final season (he was in Brady Quinn's class but didn't play his first season). It was primarily because his stock plummeted so much that he came back for a fifth year.
Here are my nominees for other eighth-year seniors: Texas WR Limas Sweed, Michigan QB Chad Henne, LSU RB Alley Broussard, North Carolina WR Joe Dailey (Nebraska's starting quarterback in 2004), Penn State RB Austin Scott, Virginia Tech LB Xavier Adibi and Georgia K Brandon Coutu. More nominees are welcome.
We also have a new Hall of Famer. Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm about to tell you is truly astounding. Would you believe that Miami's Glenn Sharpe -- the cornerback from the famous Miami-Ohio State Fiesta Bowl pass-interference call -- is still in college?! Sharpe, a true freshman during that 2002 season, received a sixth year of eligibility after missing most of the 2004 and '05 seasons due to separate ACL tears. Next year, this little game may need to be officially renamed the Glenn Sharpe Game.
Stewart, is Ralph Friedgen making a huge mistake in leaning towards Jordan Steffy as Maryland's starting quarterback over transfer Josh Portis? What I have seen of Steffy so far has been far from impressive, and Portis seems like a perfect fit for Fridge's offense (a la former Georgia Tech QB Joe Hamilton). What gives?
--Brandon, College Park, Md.
That's a good question. Back when Portis decided to transfer to Maryland from Florida (where, if he stayed, he'd now be competing with Tim Tebow), I assumed Friedgen would just hand him the starting job in '07 if for no other reason than to avoid the wrath of Portis' psycho mother. But without having seen Portis play beyond a few meaningless snaps at Florida, I'm not sure I'm equipped to answer the question. So I've called in a guest expert, Heather Dinich, the Baltimore Sun's all-knowing Terrpains beat writer, whose Blog is a must-read both for her expertise on the Terps and her highly amusing comebacks at some of the "haters" who post on her comments board.
Regarding Portis, Heather says: "Everybody WANTS to see Portis because of all the hype surrounding him, and his exciting promise of athletic ability, but he's only a 'perfect fit' for Friedgen's offense if he knows it. Ralph has nearly 200 different pass patterns that can be run from about 15 different formations. Until Ralph is convinced Portis has an understanding of everything, Portis is going to be behind Steffy -- who has had more time to learn the system and spent all of last season calling plays in from the sidelines. There might also be a wee bit of politics involved. (Gasp!) It certainly isn't as if Ralph can afford to have Steffy transfer. Bottom line? Neither one of them has proven anything yet."
By the way, I would have pegged Steffy -- who played a bit in 2004 -- as an eighth-year senior himself, but it turns out he's only a fourth-year junior.
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Thanks for your new Fifth Mailbag Commandment. Is anything worse than sports fans referring to their favorite team as "we" or "us?" It's maddening.
--Keary Floyd, Lawrenceville, Ga.
Your new fifth rule isn't going to fly. As someone who was raised a Gator, and currently goes to school there, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't claim to be part of the "Gator Nation" and refer to it as "we." Sports teams are representations of the school, and anyone who does or has gone to a certain school is fully allowed to say "we" when talking about their team.
--J.B., West Palm Beach, Fla.
This was the only one of the five commandments that elicited backlash, so I stopped and considered whether there may actually be scenarios in which it would be acceptable for someone not on a team to refer to it as "we." And the answer I came up with was ... not in a million years.
Don't get me wrong, one of the things that makes college sports so much more riveting than the pros (at least in my mind) is the legitimate sense of ownership fans feel when the team in question plays for their school. So I do understand where J.B. is coming from. However, there's still a significant difference between saying, "My Gators kicked Ohio State's butt" (I've got no problem with that), and, "We kicked Ohio State's butt." Umm ... no you didn't. You sat in the stands and watched the Gators kick Ohio State's butt.
Your criticism about Chan Gailey got me thinking. Do you think a head coach in the NFL has an advantage coaching at the college level over his counterparts? He usually has a poor history in the NFL or he'd still be there, so what makes the Pete Carroll's do so well and what's your prediction for Bill Callahan at Nebraska?
--Mike Burr, Chicago
This is turning out to be a Callahan-heavy Mailbag. But that's OK, because Mike brings up a topic I've formed some pretty staunch opinions about within the last year. Of all the head coaches who have made the transition from the NFL to college in recent years, the only one who's had any raging success is Carroll. And I've always found it interesting that many of the very things that worked against Carroll in the pros -- his rah-rah personality, his player-friendly approach and his aggressive schemes and play-calling -- have been his biggest sources of success in college. This tells me there's almost no correlation between success at the two levels, and that in fact NFL experience may actually work against guys in college. Why? Because in college, unlike the NFL, it doesn't pay to be conservative.
Think back to last year's bowl season. Florida won a national title running an offense in which the backup quarterback was the top running back. Boise State won a BCS bowl running trick plays no NFL coach would dare run in a million years. USC won the Rose Bowl by literally abandoning any notion of offensive balance. College football has become increasingly synonymous with unconventional strategy. But NFL-bred coaches like Gailey, Callahan, Dave Wannstedt and Karl Dorrell tend to be among the most conservative in the nation. (Remember last year's Cotton Bowl?) They may win some games that way, but you don't win championships in college by playing not to lose.
Stewart, I've read your column for a couple of years and have never been compelled to write in until you were looking for a new Mailbag Crush. I nominate Kate Mara, granddaughter of New York Giants owner/legend Wellington Mara. Not only is she football royalty, but she was in We are Marshall.
--Kevin D, Chicago
You don't even have to change channels for your 2007 celebrity crush. How about Sarah Chalke from Scrubs?
--Tripp, Atlanta
Both Kate and Sarah were mentioned frequently in the first round of e-mails, as were two Entourage ladies, Emannuele Chriqui (Sloan) and Carla Guigno (Amanda), The Office's Rashida Jones (Karen), Friday Night Lights' Minka Kelly (whom Jimmy Traina previously claimed), Heroes' Hayden Panettiere (c'mon guys, she's 17) and, a truly under-the-radar choice, Rachel Specter, the RGX body spray girl.
I recently watched an episode of E's The Girls Next Door (admit it, you watch it, too) that illuminated the process by which Hugh Hefner picks the Playmate of the Year. (This year's choice, incidentally, is a recent Oregon State grad who posed for her first cover in Beavers colors. I have a whole new respect for that school.) Basically, he uses the reader poll as input but at the end of the day, he ultimately makes the call. So that's how we're going to treat Celebrity Crush. All of the aforementioned ladies are fine nominees, but I can't say whether any of them are going to make my final cut.
How many times are you going to keep insisting that the relative strength of conferences is "cyclical" when you simply mean that it's mutable? If you can find a cycle in any of this, you should apply your talents to the stock market. For crying out loud, you're a professional writer.
--Kurt S., Chapel Hill, N.C.
Listen, smarty pants. I write about football for a living. Therefore, I don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about. But once upon a time I did buy stock in a rising computer-software company. It had a funny name I kind of liked -- Microsoft. A few years later, I got a call from my stock broker saying I wouldn't have to worry about money anymore. Which is nice. It gives me more time to worry about the important things.
Like whether the Pac-10 is better than the Big 12 or vice versa.
(P.S. Parts of the aforementioned story were exaggerated for dramatic purposes. Greatly.)
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Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.
1. The Road Not Taken
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20
Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.
1. The Road Not Taken
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20
Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.
1. The Road Not Taken
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20
John the Baptist in the New Testament
Main article: Zechariah (priest)
St. John the Baptist (Leonardo) by Leonardo Da Vinci, c. 1514.
Unlike the other Synoptic Gospels, which introduce John the Baptist into the narrative as an adult, the Gospel of Luke provides an account of his infancy. According to Luke, John the Baptist was the son of Zacharias and Elisabeth. His birth, name, and office were foretold by the angel Gabriel to Zacharias, while Zacharias was performing his functions as a priest in the temple of Jerusalem. According to Luke, Zacharias was a priest of the course of Abijah, and his wife, Elisabeth, was of the Daughters of Aaron Luke 1:5; consequently John automatically held the priesthood of Aaron, which, to the Jews' eyes, gave him authority to baptize in the name of God.
Luke states that John was born about six months before Jesus, and that Zacharias' unbelief over the birth of his son led to him losing his power of speech, which was only restored on the occasion of John's circumcision (Luke 1:64). On the basis of Luke's account, the Catholic calendar placed the feast of John the Baptist on June 24, six months before Christmas.
According to Luke, Jesus Christ and John the Baptist were related; their mothers, Mary and Elisabeth, were cousins. (Luke 1:36).
[edit]The Baptist
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In Christianity John is known as "the Baptist" from his practice of preaching and baptizing Jews in the River Jordan. Most notably he is the one who recognized Jesus as the messiah, and, on Jesus' request, baptised him. The baptism marked the beginning of Jesus' life as a teacher.
[edit]John's imprisonment and beheading
According to the Canonical Gospels, John the Baptist's public ministry was suddenly brought to a close, probably about six months after he had baptized Jesus. According to these Gospel narratives, Herod Antipas jailed him, with the Gospel of Luke arguing that Herod was punishing John for condemning Herod's marriage to Herodias, the former wife of Herod Philip I, Herod's own brother (Luke 3:19). Some academics have argued that John was imprisoned in the Machaerus fortress on the southern extremity of Peraea, nine miles east of the Dead Sea. {Josephus Jewish Antiquities XVIII:5:1–2}
Josephus states that Herod deliberately killed John to quell a possible uprising in around 36. According to some, Herod Antipas did not marry his brother's wife until his brother Herod Philip I died in 34, so as to make Josephus' dating plausible for the biblical account of John's death. His disciples, after consigning his headless body to the grave, told Jesus all that had occurred (Matthew 14:3-12). But John's death came just before the third and last Passover of Jesus' ministry, placed no later than 33.[citation needed]
Neither Josephus nor the Gospels state where John was buried, though the Gospels state that John's disciples took his body and placed it in a tomb. In the time of Julian the Apostate, however, his tomb was shown at Samaria, where the inhabitants opened it and burned part of his bones. The rest of the alleged remains were saved by some Christians, who carried them to an abbot of Jerusalem named Philip.[1]
[edit]Status compared to Jesus in Gospel of John
The Gospel of John portrays John the Baptist as being clearly superseded by Jesus. The Gospel states that when John was baptizing at Aenon, a debate broke out between some of the disciples of John (John 4:1) over the issue of ceremonial cleansing. The Jews pointed out that Jesus was also baptizing, but baptizing more people than John (John 4:2).
John explained to them that Jesus “must become greater” while he, John, must become less (John 3:30). Although the Gospel later goes on to state that Jesus regarded John as a burning and a shining lamp, it also says that Jesus referred to John as something that people were glad to enjoy ... for a while (John 5:35). The Gospel of John also portrays the disciples of John as eventually merging into the followers of Jesus, in contrast to the Synoptics where they remain two distinct groups as long as they are mentioned.
[edit]Alleged prophecies related to John the Baptist
Christians believe that John the Baptist had a specific role ordained by God which was to be the forerunner or precursor to the Messiah, whom they believe to be Jesus. Luke 1:17 and also Luke 1:75:
And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways.
There are several passages within the Old Testament which are generally interpreted by Christians as being prophetic of John the Baptist in this role.
These include a passage in the Book of Malachi that refers to a prophet who would prepare the way of the Lord:
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts. - Malachi 3:1
Though the interpretation of this passage as referring to a forerunner of the Messiah was uncommon amongst Jews prior to the 2nd century BCE, it became significantly more common under Hellenic, and later Christian, influences.
Isaiah 40:3-5 is interpreted by Christians as referring prophetically to John, based on John's own statement as written in John 1:22-23:
He said "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias"
[edit]Josephus
Eastern Orthodox icon John the Baptist - the Angel of Desert (1620s).
Flavius Josephus in Jewish Antiquities book 18, chapter 5, paragraph 2 records the following:
Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him. (Whiston Translation) [1]
From the context, it would seem that in Josephus's account John was executed around 36. Divergences between Josephus's presentation and the Biblical account of John include the following:
Baptism for those whose souls have already been "purified beforehand by righteousness" is for purification of the body, not general repentance of sin (Mark 1:4).
John's imprisonment and subsequent execution is described as being to prevent "mischief", rather than owing to Herod's wife's daughter's persuasion of a reluctant Herod.
Josephus's passage is quoted by Origen in Contra Celsum in the early third century, and again by Eusebius of Caesarea in the fourth century.
Josephus makes much greater mention of John than he does of Jesus.
[edit]John the Baptist in Eastern Orthodox Church
The Eastern Orthodox believe that John was the last of the Old Testament prophets, thus serving as a bridge figure between that period of revelation and Jesus. They also teach that, following his death, John descended into Hell and there once more preached that Jesus the Messiah was coming.
The Eastern Orthodox Church remembers Saint John the Forerunner on six separate feast days, listed here in order of the church year which begins on September 1:
September 23 - Conception of St. John the Forerunner
January 7 - The Commemoration (Synaxis) of St. John the Forerunner (main feast day, immediately after Epiphany on January 6)
John was beheaded
February 24 - First and Second Finding of the Head of St. John the Forerunner
May 25 - Third Finding of the Head of St. John the Forerunner
June 24 - Birth of St. John the Forerunner
August 29 - The Beheading of St. John the Forerunner
The Roman Catholic Church remembers St. John the Baptists on two separate feast days:
June 24 The Birth of St. John
August 29 The Decollation (Beheading) of St. John
St John's parents are commemorated on the day the Eastern Church celebrates his conception.
September 23 Zechariah and Elisabeth, parents of St John, the Lord's Precursor.
Wood Sculpture of John The Baptist’s Head by Master Santiago Martinez Delgado, permanent Collection at the Museo Nacional de Bogota Colombia
[edit]John the Baptist as a patron saint
Saint John the Baptist is the patron saint of Puerto Rico, and its capital city San Juan bears his name. In 1521, the island was given its formal name "San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico", following the usual custom of christening the town with both its formal name and the name which Christopher Columbus had originally given the island, honoring John the Baptist. The indistinct use of "San Juan Bautista" and "Puerto Rico" for calling both the city and the island led to a reversal in practical use by most inhabitants due largely to a map-making error. Therefore by 1746 the name for the city (Puerto Rico) had become that of the entire island, while the name for the island (San Juan Bautista) had become the name for the city. The official motto for the island of Puerto Rico also references the saint, Joannes Est Nomen Eius (or translated, John is his name).
He is also a patron saint of French Canada, and Newfoundland. The Canadian cities of St. John's, Newfoundland (1497) and Saint John, New Brunswick (1604) were both named in honour of Saint John. In the UK Saint John the Baptist is the patron saint of Penzance, Cornwall. His feast day is June 24, celebrated in Quebec as the FĆŖte nationale du QuĆ©bec (la FĆŖte St-Jean-Baptiste). He is also patron of the Knights Hospitaller of Jerusalem, Florence, and Genoa, Italy. The Baptistines are the name given to a number of religious orders dedicated to the memory of John the Baptist.
[edit]Relics
St John's Shrine inside the Ummayad Mosque
A head said to be John's, enshrined in Rome
Several different locations claim to possess the severed head of John the Baptist.[2]
Muslim tradition maintains that the head of John the Baptist is interred in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
In medieval times it was rumored that the Knights Templar had possession of the head, and multiple records from their Inquisition in the early 1300s make reference to some form of head worship.[3]
Some Christians believe that the head on display in San Silvestro in Capite in Rome is that of John the Baptist.
Amiens Cathedral claims the head as a relic brought from Constantinople by Wallon de Sarton as he was returning from the Fourth Crusade.
Some believe that it is buried in the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England.[4] Others believe the current location to be in Turkish Antioch, or southern France.[2]
John's right hand, with which he baptised Jesus, is said to be in the possession of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Cetinje monastery.
The relics of John the Baptist are also said to be in the possession of the Coptic Orthodox Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great in Scetes, Egypt.[5]
It is said John the Baptist's arm and piece of his skull can be found at the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, Turkey.
[edit]Mandaean view
Mandaeans believe John the Baptist, called Yahya in the Sidra d-Yahia (Book of John), was the last and greatest of the prophets. While Mandaeans agree that he baptized Jesus (Yeshu), they reject the latter as either a saviour or prophet. And they viewed John as the only true Messiah.
According to the text of the Ginza Rba, John died at the hand of an angel. The angel appeared as a three-year-old child, coming to John for baptism. John knew the angel for what it was, and that once he touched its hand, he would die immediately. John performed the baptism, anyway, and died in the process. Afterwards, the angel covered John's body with mud.
[edit]Islamic viewpoint
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Main article: Islamic view of John the Baptist
In Arabic, the language in which the Qur'an is written, John the Baptist is known as Yahya. According to the Quran, John is the son of Zachariah (Mary's Guardian). His tidings were foretold to his father by the angel Gabriel (19:7-12). John was exhorted to hold fast to the Scripture and was given wisdom by God while still child. He was pure and devout, and walked in the Presence of God. He was cousin to Jesus. (19:13). He was dutiful towards his parents and he was not arrogant or rebellious (19:14). He, like everyone else, will resurrect on the day of judgement. (19:15).
John is called a righteous, honorable and chaste person, as well as a Prophet of the Righteous (6:85, 3:39). He came to confirm the Word of God (3:39).
[edit]BahĆ”'Ć view
There are numerous quotations in the writings of BahĆ”'u'llĆ”h, Founder of the BahĆ”'Ć Faith mentioning John the Baptist. He is regarded by BahĆ”'Ćs as a lesser Prophet. BahĆ”'u'llĆ”h has indicated that His Forerunner, the BĆ”b, was the spiritual return of John the Baptist. In His letter to Pope Pius IX, BahĆ”'u'llĆ”h wrote:
"O followers of the Son! We have once again sent John unto you, and He, verily, hath cried out in the wilderness of the BayƔn: O peoples of the world! Cleanse your eyes! The Day whereon ye can behold the Promised One and attain unto Him hath drawn nigh! O followers of the Gospel! Prepare the way! The Day of the advent of the Glorious Lord is at hand! Make ready to enter the Kingdom. Thus hath it been ordained by God, He Who causeth the dawn to break."[2]
However, BahĆ”'Ćs consider the BĆ”b to be a greater Prophet (Manifestation of God) and thus possessed of a far greater station than John the Baptist.
[edit]Gnostic and anthroposophic views
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In Gnosticism, John the Baptist was a "personification" of the Old Testament prophet Elijah. As an Old Testament prophet, Elijah did not know the True God (the God of the New Testament), and thus had to be reincarnated in Gnostic theology. As predicted by the Old Testament prophet Malachi, Elijah must "come first" to herald the coming of Jesus Christ. Modern anthroposophy, initiated by Rudolph Steiner, concurs with the idea that the Baptist was a reincarnation of Elijah, in line with the Synoptic Gospels (e.g. Mark 9:11-13,Matthew 11:13-14,Luke 7:27), although he himself explicitly denies this (John 1:21). Furthermore, after his beheading at Machaerus his soul is said to have become the inspiring group genius of Christ's disciples. According to Rudolph Steiner (founder of anthroposophy) the painter Raphael and the poet Novalis were more recent incarnations of John the Baptist.
[edit]Unification church
The Unification Church teaches that God intended that John help Jesus during his public ministry in Israel. In particular, John should have done everything in his power to persuade the Jewish people that Jesus was the Messiah. He was to become Jesus' greatest disciple. John's failure to do so was the chief obstacle to the fulfillment of Jesus' mission.
[edit]The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Latter-day Saints believe John appeared in Pennsylvania, as a resurrected being, to Joseph Smith, Jr. and Oliver Cowdery on 15 May 1829, and gave them the Aaronic Priesthood. They also believe John's ministry was foretold by two prophets in the Book of Mormon: Lehi (1 Nephi 10:7-10) and his son, Nephi (1 Nephi 11:27; 2 Nephi 31:4-18).
[edit]Places and things named for John the Baptist
Maronite Catholic Monastery of Saint John the Baptist, Beit Mery, Lebanon
St John's College of The University of Oxford, Oxford, England
Puerto Rico was originally named San Juan Bautista; San Juan (then called Puerto Rico) is now its capital city.
St. John's, Newfoundland, was founded on his feast day June 24, 1497.
Saint John, New Brunswick was named after the Saint John River which was named by Samuel de Champlain
St. John's University located in Queens, NY; St. John's is the largest Catholic university in the United States
FĆŖte nationale du QuĆ©bec - also known as la St- Jean-Baptiste - is the provincial holiday of Quebec, celebrated on June 24 of every year.
Prince Edward Island, a Canadian province, was originally called Ćle de St-Jean or St. John's Island.
St. John's wort is named after St. John because it is traditionally harvested on his feast day, June 24.
12th century cathedral in Kamien Pomorski (Poland) with a famous 17th century organ
St. Johns Road, in Bletchley of Milton Keynes, is the longest of the Roads in the Saints Estate
St. John's Regional College in Dandenong Melbourne (Australia)
St. John the Baptist Parish in southern Louisiana, USA. In Louisiana, a civil parish is equivalent to a county elsewhere in North America.
St. John's Avenue in Staten Island, New York, overlooks the Atlantic Ocean, Brooklyn, the Verrazano Bridge, New York Harbour, and Manhattan
St. John Ambulance and the Order of St. John.
Mission San Juan Bautista, one of the original 18th century missions, in northern California.
[edit]Famous churches
Two different Churches of St. John the Baptist in Ein Karem, traditional place of his birth
Basilica of St. John Lateran
St. John the Baptist of Coventry
St. John the Baptist of St. John's (Basilica-cathedral)
San Giovanni Battista di Rimini (cathedral)
San Giovanni Battista di Torino (cathedral)
Saint-Jean-Baptiste d'Audresselles
St. John's Cathedral of Valletta
Saint-John-Baptiste Located on Christian Quarter Road, Old City , Jerusalem
[edit]Notes
^ Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 3 Chronic. Alex, p.686)
^ a b Lost Worlds: Knights Templar, July 10, 2006 video documentary on The History Channel, directed and written by Stuart Elliott
^ Sean Martin, The Knights Templar: The History & Myths of the Legendary Military Order, 2005. ISBN 1-56025-645-1
^ http://www.halifaxparishchurch.org.uk/
^ http://www.stmacariusmonastery.org/eabout.htm
[edit]See also
Johannite
Baptism of Jesus
Prophets of Islam
Ebionites
[edit]References
Catherine M. Murphy, John the Baptist: Prophet of Purity for a New Age. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8146-5933-0
[edit]External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
John the Baptist
Official Catholic Encyclopedia Live Article on John the Baptist
Catholic Enclopedia on John the Baptist
The Baptism of Christ - Uncovering Bethany beyond the Jordan - 47 min Documentary
Greek Orthodox web site's page on John the Baptist
First and Second Finding of the Head of John the Baptist (Greek Orthodox)
Third Finding of the Head of John the Baptist (Greek Orthodox)
Jewish Encyclopedia: John the Baptist
The Witness of John the Baptist
John the Baptist historical person
John the Baptist in the 1911 EncyclopƦdia Britannica
Scholar who claims he's found John the Baptist's cave
Prophet Yahya (John) in the light of Islamic tradition. The same content is also available at [3]
Prophet John (Yahya)
Shrine of Prophet Yahya inside Jaami al-Amawi 2
[edit]References to John (Yahya) in the Qur'an
Appraisals for Yahya: 6:85, 19:7, 19:12, 19:13, 19:14, 19:15
Yahya's prophecy: 3:39, 6:85, 19:12
Saints Portal
Prophets of Islam in the Qur'an
Adam Idris Nuh Hud Saleh Ibrahim Lut Ismail Is'haq Yaqub Yusuf Ayub
Ų¢ŲÆŁ Ų§ŲÆŲ±ŁŲ³ ŁŁŲ ŁŁŲÆ ŲµŲ§ŁŲ Ų„ŲØŲ±Ų§ŁŁŁ ŁŁŲ· Ų§Ų³Ł Ų§Ų¹ŁŁ Ų§Ų³ŲŲ§Ł ŁŲ¹ŁŁŲØ ŁŁŲ³Ł Ų£ŁŁŲØ
Adam Enoch Noah Eber Shelah Abraham Lot Ishmael Isaac Jacob Joseph Job
Shoaib Musa Harun Dhul-Kifl Daud Sulayman Ilyas Al-Yasa Yunus Zakariya Yahya Isa Muhammad
Ų“Ų¹ŁŲØ Ł ŁŲ³Ł ŁŲ§Ų±ŁŁ Ų°Ł Ų§ŁŁŁŁ ŲÆŲ§ŁŲÆ Ų³ŁŁŁ Ų§Ł Ų„ŁŁŲ§Ų³ Ų§ŁŁŲ³Ų¹ ŁŁŁŲ³ Ų²ŁŲ±ŁŲ§ ŁŲŁŁ Ų¹ŁŲ³Ł Ł ŲŁ ŲÆ
Jethro Moses Aaron Ezekiel David Solomon Elijah Elisha Jonah Zechariah John Jesus Paraclete
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Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
Friday, May 18, 2007
Some criminals are more equal than others
Imagine if you were using someone else's SSN for employment purposes so that you could evade taxes. There would be no amnesty for you. Imagine if you commited perjury on a federal document other than an I-9 form. There would be no amnesty for you.
When folks such as Tony Snow, Bush, Kennedy, etc talk about how we want the "folks who have been here working hard and not breaking our laws" keep in mind that they mean "folks who have been here and HAVE BEEN AND ARE STILL CURRENTLY breaking out laws."
So you may be able to find some illegal aliens who have only committed several crimes but not been caught for a rape. This criminal is treated like he never broke the law. According to Tony Snow this guy is a natural Republican. You know, someone who is willing to lie, steal, cheat, mis-identify themselves, commit fraud, etc. Way to give republicans a bad name Tony.
No money for the RNC. No money to the Republican Party. None.
posted by Daniel at 10:26 PM 11 comments links to this post
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 43 comments links to this post
Thursday, May 17, 2007
STOP THE AMNESTY
NOTE: Sorry for the late response, not only am I dealing with the flood of illegal aliens I am also dealing with a flood and extensive water damage in my house, it's keeping me busy.
Bush, Kennedy and McCain are ready to sell out our country, the rule of law and the people who they are supposed to represent. But the amnesty is not a done deal. We can stop it. That means you don't just leave a comment here but you leave a comment with as many lawmakers and decision makers (read: party officials and the folks who supply the money) as possible.
The traitors are already under a deluge of negative phone calls, emails, faxes etc and we need to keep up the pressure. Let them know that they get no votes, no money, no suport, no more power.
Some places to start:
NumbersUSA
Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121
House switchboard: 202-225-3121
Congress.org
And my personal favorite... Outsource Congress
Update: and tell the RNC "not another penny as long as this party supports amnesty"
http://www.gop.com/ContactUs/
Call them 10 times, send them 10 faxes, email them 10 times. Then do it again tomorrow.
“If Senator McCain and Senator Kennedy spent as much time working on improving border security as they did poll testing creative euphemisms for amnesty, America would be a much safer place” -Tom Tancredo
posted by Daniel at 7:42 PM 14 comments links to this post
Good news department
State Senate wants proof of residency for driver’s license
The hot-button illegal immigration issue bubbled just below the surface Tuesday as the Oregon Senate voted to require proof of legal residence to get a driver’s license, a move which could deny driving privileges to thousands of undocumented workers.
The Senate vote, which was far from the last word on the subject this session, drew negative reviews from various quarters, including immigrants rights advocates, civil libertarians and Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s office.
This is good news that we seem to be moving forward on at least this bill. No more will illegal aliens get a pass when driving their meth up I-5.
But let's not count our anchor babies before they pop out, this bill is not yet law and we need to keep the pressure on to get it a vote in the House and a signature by Kulongoski.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 13 comments links to this post
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The great debate
Here is the FOXNews coverage of the GOP debate from last night. The media favorites all love illegal aliens and will do nothing to protect our families, our schools, our health care, our economy or our communities fromt his threat. Video of the debate can be seen at that link.
On the lighter side here is a debate from MADtv
posted by Daniel at 6:47 AM 10 comments links to this post
Monday, May 14, 2007
If you build it, they will come
Proof of citizenship not required
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children is a federal grant initiative that provided $1.26 million in food last year to thousands of low-income people living along the Idaho-Oregon border in Payette and Malheur counties.
That number is for two counties, imagine the number in Marion/Washington/Multnomah counties.
The number of local program recipients lacking legal citizenship status, though, is apparently unknown.
The WIC program was deemed “effective” following a 2006 study by the United States Office of Management and Budget.
There is no record, though, regarding how many local participants may be illegal immigrants because U.S. citizenship is not required to receive WIC services in Oregon and Idaho.
“Legal and illegal immigrants can apply for and receive WIC services,” Gene Gunderson, Director Idaho’s Southwest District Health, said.
Their version of "effective" must be different than mine. Mine says that "effective" means we don't help criminals.
Bilingual staff serve in the WIC offices for Malheur County and Payette County.
This is actually a very good news article. Just the facts. Criminals avail themselves of taxpayer services. Simple. We have an illegal alien problem not because the criminals are so "hardworking" but because they have figured out that they can come here for freebies supplied by John Q. Taxpayer.
posted by Daniel at 7:40 PM 37 comments links to this post
Sunday, May 13, 2007
67% say NO illegal aliens
In case you guys missed the news, an actual poll (read: the citizens get to vote, not a "small sampling") was taken on whether or not Americans want illegal aliens living in their town in Texas:
67% = do not want illegal aliens
32% = do want illegal aliens
This is big news right? Total landslide on a big election issue. I mean, a google news search of "Texas" and "immigration" should pop up a whole bunch of articles right?
Here are the results as of 5-13-07 at 12:19pm
That's 36 articles about the landslide vote to keep out illegal aliens and 58 articles about how a border fence will "interfere with wildlife."
But hey, they are very objective and contain both quotes from proponents and opponents of the measure like the laughable one put out by CBS. Oh wait, no they don't.
Here is the FOXNews version.
There's no poll like an actual vote of the people and illegal aliens lovers everywhere are going to be sadly disapointed by the results. God bless democracy.
posted by Daniel at 12:15 PM 15 comments links to this post
Friday, May 11, 2007
Those "family values"
Father of Fort Dix suspects arrested on immigration charges
The father of three men charged in the foiled Fort Dix terror plot was arrested this week on immigration violations and is in federal custody, two law enforcement sources said today.
Federal investigators have found no evidence linking the parents to the alleged plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix. But, the source said of the parents, "You can't ignore the fact that they are here illegally."
Nobody in the family was ever given legal residency status, the sources said. It was unclear why the Duka's had not been charged with immigration violations earlier.
I just can't imagine why he hadn't been charged with immigration violations earlier. It just boggles the mind...
Some good news
posted by Daniel at 7:06 PM 32 comments links to this post
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
America is not a country but an "idea"
Thank you Lindsey Graham, you are a traitor to America but at least you pulled McCain under the bus with you by giving this insane speech.
I guess when you give the speech at an event hosted by a racist organization you can call Americans who want our laws enforced "bigots" and tell them to "shut up."
In a completely unrelated story... (FOXNews.com link)
Three brothers charged in the alleged Fort Dix terror plot have been living illegally in the U.S. for more than 23 years and were accepted as Americans by neighbors and friends who had no idea they would scheme to attack military bases and slaughter GIs.
A federal law enforcement source confirmed to FOX News that the three — Dritan "Anthony" or "Tony" Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; and Eljvir "Elvis" Duka, 23 — also accumulated 19 traffic citations, but because they operated in "sanctuary cites," where law enforcement does not routinely report illegal immigrants to homeland security, none of the tickets raised red flags.
What's that Lindsey? I belive you were saying something about me shutting up?
posted by Daniel at 5:56 PM 19 comments links to this post
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* 10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
* STOP THE AMNESTY
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Politics news
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Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
Friday, May 18, 2007
Some criminals are more equal than others
Imagine if you were using someone else's SSN for employment purposes so that you could evade taxes. There would be no amnesty for you. Imagine if you commited perjury on a federal document other than an I-9 form. There would be no amnesty for you.
When folks such as Tony Snow, Bush, Kennedy, etc talk about how we want the "folks who have been here working hard and not breaking our laws" keep in mind that they mean "folks who have been here and HAVE BEEN AND ARE STILL CURRENTLY breaking out laws."
So you may be able to find some illegal aliens who have only committed several crimes but not been caught for a rape. This criminal is treated like he never broke the law. According to Tony Snow this guy is a natural Republican. You know, someone who is willing to lie, steal, cheat, mis-identify themselves, commit fraud, etc. Way to give republicans a bad name Tony.
No money for the RNC. No money to the Republican Party. None.
posted by Daniel at 10:26 PM 11 comments links to this post
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 43 comments links to this post
Thursday, May 17, 2007
STOP THE AMNESTY
NOTE: Sorry for the late response, not only am I dealing with the flood of illegal aliens I am also dealing with a flood and extensive water damage in my house, it's keeping me busy.
Bush, Kennedy and McCain are ready to sell out our country, the rule of law and the people who they are supposed to represent. But the amnesty is not a done deal. We can stop it. That means you don't just leave a comment here but you leave a comment with as many lawmakers and decision makers (read: party officials and the folks who supply the money) as possible.
The traitors are already under a deluge of negative phone calls, emails, faxes etc and we need to keep up the pressure. Let them know that they get no votes, no money, no suport, no more power.
Some places to start:
NumbersUSA
Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121
House switchboard: 202-225-3121
Congress.org
And my personal favorite... Outsource Congress
Update: and tell the RNC "not another penny as long as this party supports amnesty"
http://www.gop.com/ContactUs/
Call them 10 times, send them 10 faxes, email them 10 times. Then do it again tomorrow.
“If Senator McCain and Senator Kennedy spent as much time working on improving border security as they did poll testing creative euphemisms for amnesty, America would be a much safer place” -Tom Tancredo
posted by Daniel at 7:42 PM 14 comments links to this post
Good news department
State Senate wants proof of residency for driver’s license
The hot-button illegal immigration issue bubbled just below the surface Tuesday as the Oregon Senate voted to require proof of legal residence to get a driver’s license, a move which could deny driving privileges to thousands of undocumented workers.
The Senate vote, which was far from the last word on the subject this session, drew negative reviews from various quarters, including immigrants rights advocates, civil libertarians and Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s office.
This is good news that we seem to be moving forward on at least this bill. No more will illegal aliens get a pass when driving their meth up I-5.
But let's not count our anchor babies before they pop out, this bill is not yet law and we need to keep the pressure on to get it a vote in the House and a signature by Kulongoski.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 13 comments links to this post
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The great debate
Here is the FOXNews coverage of the GOP debate from last night. The media favorites all love illegal aliens and will do nothing to protect our families, our schools, our health care, our economy or our communities fromt his threat. Video of the debate can be seen at that link.
On the lighter side here is a debate from MADtv
posted by Daniel at 6:47 AM 10 comments links to this post
Monday, May 14, 2007
If you build it, they will come
Proof of citizenship not required
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children is a federal grant initiative that provided $1.26 million in food last year to thousands of low-income people living along the Idaho-Oregon border in Payette and Malheur counties.
That number is for two counties, imagine the number in Marion/Washington/Multnomah counties.
The number of local program recipients lacking legal citizenship status, though, is apparently unknown.
The WIC program was deemed “effective” following a 2006 study by the United States Office of Management and Budget.
There is no record, though, regarding how many local participants may be illegal immigrants because U.S. citizenship is not required to receive WIC services in Oregon and Idaho.
“Legal and illegal immigrants can apply for and receive WIC services,” Gene Gunderson, Director Idaho’s Southwest District Health, said.
Their version of "effective" must be different than mine. Mine says that "effective" means we don't help criminals.
Bilingual staff serve in the WIC offices for Malheur County and Payette County.
This is actually a very good news article. Just the facts. Criminals avail themselves of taxpayer services. Simple. We have an illegal alien problem not because the criminals are so "hardworking" but because they have figured out that they can come here for freebies supplied by John Q. Taxpayer.
posted by Daniel at 7:40 PM 37 comments links to this post
Sunday, May 13, 2007
67% say NO illegal aliens
In case you guys missed the news, an actual poll (read: the citizens get to vote, not a "small sampling") was taken on whether or not Americans want illegal aliens living in their town in Texas:
67% = do not want illegal aliens
32% = do want illegal aliens
This is big news right? Total landslide on a big election issue. I mean, a google news search of "Texas" and "immigration" should pop up a whole bunch of articles right?
Here are the results as of 5-13-07 at 12:19pm
That's 36 articles about the landslide vote to keep out illegal aliens and 58 articles about how a border fence will "interfere with wildlife."
But hey, they are very objective and contain both quotes from proponents and opponents of the measure like the laughable one put out by CBS. Oh wait, no they don't.
Here is the FOXNews version.
There's no poll like an actual vote of the people and illegal aliens lovers everywhere are going to be sadly disapointed by the results. God bless democracy.
posted by Daniel at 12:15 PM 15 comments links to this post
Friday, May 11, 2007
Those "family values"
Father of Fort Dix suspects arrested on immigration charges
The father of three men charged in the foiled Fort Dix terror plot was arrested this week on immigration violations and is in federal custody, two law enforcement sources said today.
Federal investigators have found no evidence linking the parents to the alleged plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix. But, the source said of the parents, "You can't ignore the fact that they are here illegally."
Nobody in the family was ever given legal residency status, the sources said. It was unclear why the Duka's had not been charged with immigration violations earlier.
I just can't imagine why he hadn't been charged with immigration violations earlier. It just boggles the mind...
Some good news
posted by Daniel at 7:06 PM 32 comments links to this post
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
America is not a country but an "idea"
Thank you Lindsey Graham, you are a traitor to America but at least you pulled McCain under the bus with you by giving this insane speech.
I guess when you give the speech at an event hosted by a racist organization you can call Americans who want our laws enforced "bigots" and tell them to "shut up."
In a completely unrelated story... (FOXNews.com link)
Three brothers charged in the alleged Fort Dix terror plot have been living illegally in the U.S. for more than 23 years and were accepted as Americans by neighbors and friends who had no idea they would scheme to attack military bases and slaughter GIs.
A federal law enforcement source confirmed to FOX News that the three — Dritan "Anthony" or "Tony" Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; and Eljvir "Elvis" Duka, 23 — also accumulated 19 traffic citations, but because they operated in "sanctuary cites," where law enforcement does not routinely report illegal immigrants to homeland security, none of the tickets raised red flags.
What's that Lindsey? I belive you were saying something about me shutting up?
posted by Daniel at 5:56 PM 19 comments links to this post
Site Feed
Google
About Me
My Photo
Name: Daniel
Location: Sherwood, Oregon, US
I will not rest until illegal aliens get treated like the criminals that they are.
View my complete profile
Tom Tancredo 2008
-----------------------------
My YouTube videos
-----------------------------
Daniel's Tip Jar
-----------------------------
Oregonians for Immigration Reform
-----------------------------
-----------------------------
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NEW!They Call me Vonski
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Where's your brain?
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Resistance is futile!
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Daniel's Political Musings
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You are not the boss of me!
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Life, or Something like it
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#
# Kate1040 Lars Larson Web Site
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# Resistance is Futile!
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# Troutdale Councilor Canfield
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# Listen to Lars live
# OregonWatchdog.com
# Oregonians for Immigration Reform
# Oregon Firearms Federation
# Oregonians in Action
# Contact President Bush
# Contact Sen Gordon Smith
# Contact Sen Ron Wyden
# Report illegal aliens
Previous Posts
* Some criminals are more equal than others
* 10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
* STOP THE AMNESTY
* Good news department
* The great debate
* If you build it, they will come
* 67% say NO illegal aliens
* Those "family values"
* America is not a country but an "idea"
* Let's legalize them
Archives
* March 2005
* April 2005
* May 2005
* June 2005
* July 2005
* August 2005
* September 2005
* October 2005
* November 2005
* December 2005
* January 2006
* February 2006
* March 2006
* April 2006
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Keep spinning those wheels round and round. The GOP doesn't care about a few half-wit dimball know-nothings that don't like the comprehensive immigration reform bill. Even Tom-Tom Tan-creepo agrees it is pretty much a done deal with little that can be done, except to make threats. So, why you dozers are threatening to withhold funds and votes if they vote "yes" for CIR, we are promising them votes and funds when they do vote "yes".
Besides, I suspect many of you that are threatening to defund the GOP don't even give enough so they can buy paper. That is all.
To anon602am:
You are right I don't have much money to give to the RNC, but I have something I think is more valuble (I'm sure you will look down your nose at me) and that is my vote.
It may not mean anything to you, but to me it's priceless.
Anonymous said...
Politics news
**http://deportgordonsmith.com/**
Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Full of something
Our esteemed representatives are getting a few phones calls. Senator Smith's voicemail box is still full.
Send him a fax instead.
Tell your GOP Senators what you think of the Kennedy/Bush amnesty
http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=7943
posted by Daniel at 9:38 AM 0 comments links to this post
Friday, May 18, 2007
Some criminals are more equal than others
Imagine if you were using someone else's SSN for employment purposes so that you could evade taxes. There would be no amnesty for you. Imagine if you commited perjury on a federal document other than an I-9 form. There would be no amnesty for you.
When folks such as Tony Snow, Bush, Kennedy, etc talk about how we want the "folks who have been here working hard and not breaking our laws" keep in mind that they mean "folks who have been here and HAVE BEEN AND ARE STILL CURRENTLY breaking out laws."
So you may be able to find some illegal aliens who have only committed several crimes but not been caught for a rape. This criminal is treated like he never broke the law. According to Tony Snow this guy is a natural Republican. You know, someone who is willing to lie, steal, cheat, mis-identify themselves, commit fraud, etc. Way to give republicans a bad name Tony.
No money for the RNC. No money to the Republican Party. None.
posted by Daniel at 10:26 PM 14 comments links to this post
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 46 comments links to this post
Thursday, May 17, 2007
STOP THE AMNESTY
NOTE: Sorry for the late response, not only am I dealing with the flood of illegal aliens I am also dealing with a flood and extensive water damage in my house, it's keeping me busy.
Bush, Kennedy and McCain are ready to sell out our country, the rule of law and the people who they are supposed to represent. But the amnesty is not a done deal. We can stop it. That means you don't just leave a comment here but you leave a comment with as many lawmakers and decision makers (read: party officials and the folks who supply the money) as possible.
The traitors are already under a deluge of negative phone calls, emails, faxes etc and we need to keep up the pressure. Let them know that they get no votes, no money, no suport, no more power.
Some places to start:
NumbersUSA
Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121
House switchboard: 202-225-3121
Congress.org
And my personal favorite... Outsource Congress
Update: and tell the RNC "not another penny as long as this party supports amnesty"
http://www.gop.com/ContactUs/
Call them 10 times, send them 10 faxes, email them 10 times. Then do it again tomorrow.
“If Senator McCain and Senator Kennedy spent as much time working on improving border security as they did poll testing creative euphemisms for amnesty, America would be a much safer place” -Tom Tancredo
posted by Daniel at 7:42 PM 14 comments links to this post
Good news department
State Senate wants proof of residency for driver’s license
The hot-button illegal immigration issue bubbled just below the surface Tuesday as the Oregon Senate voted to require proof of legal residence to get a driver’s license, a move which could deny driving privileges to thousands of undocumented workers.
The Senate vote, which was far from the last word on the subject this session, drew negative reviews from various quarters, including immigrants rights advocates, civil libertarians and Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s office.
This is good news that we seem to be moving forward on at least this bill. No more will illegal aliens get a pass when driving their meth up I-5.
But let's not count our anchor babies before they pop out, this bill is not yet law and we need to keep the pressure on to get it a vote in the House and a signature by Kulongoski.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 13 comments links to this post
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The great debate
Here is the FOXNews coverage of the GOP debate from last night. The media favorites all love illegal aliens and will do nothing to protect our families, our schools, our health care, our economy or our communities fromt his threat. Video of the debate can be seen at that link.
On the lighter side here is a debate from MADtv
posted by Daniel at 6:47 AM 10 comments links to this post
Monday, May 14, 2007
If you build it, they will come
Proof of citizenship not required
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children is a federal grant initiative that provided $1.26 million in food last year to thousands of low-income people living along the Idaho-Oregon border in Payette and Malheur counties.
That number is for two counties, imagine the number in Marion/Washington/Multnomah counties.
The number of local program recipients lacking legal citizenship status, though, is apparently unknown.
The WIC program was deemed “effective” following a 2006 study by the United States Office of Management and Budget.
There is no record, though, regarding how many local participants may be illegal immigrants because U.S. citizenship is not required to receive WIC services in Oregon and Idaho.
“Legal and illegal immigrants can apply for and receive WIC services,” Gene Gunderson, Director Idaho’s Southwest District Health, said.
Their version of "effective" must be different than mine. Mine says that "effective" means we don't help criminals.
Bilingual staff serve in the WIC offices for Malheur County and Payette County.
This is actually a very good news article. Just the facts. Criminals avail themselves of taxpayer services. Simple. We have an illegal alien problem not because the criminals are so "hardworking" but because they have figured out that they can come here for freebies supplied by John Q. Taxpayer.
posted by Daniel at 7:40 PM 37 comments links to this post
Sunday, May 13, 2007
67% say NO illegal aliens
In case you guys missed the news, an actual poll (read: the citizens get to vote, not a "small sampling") was taken on whether or not Americans want illegal aliens living in their town in Texas:
67% = do not want illegal aliens
32% = do want illegal aliens
This is big news right? Total landslide on a big election issue. I mean, a google news search of "Texas" and "immigration" should pop up a whole bunch of articles right?
Here are the results as of 5-13-07 at 12:19pm
That's 36 articles about the landslide vote to keep out illegal aliens and 58 articles about how a border fence will "interfere with wildlife."
But hey, they are very objective and contain both quotes from proponents and opponents of the measure like the laughable one put out by CBS. Oh wait, no they don't.
Here is the FOXNews version.
There's no poll like an actual vote of the people and illegal aliens lovers everywhere are going to be sadly disapointed by the results. God bless democracy.
posted by Daniel at 12:15 PM 15 comments links to this post
Friday, May 11, 2007
Those "family values"
Father of Fort Dix suspects arrested on immigration charges
The father of three men charged in the foiled Fort Dix terror plot was arrested this week on immigration violations and is in federal custody, two law enforcement sources said today.
Federal investigators have found no evidence linking the parents to the alleged plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix. But, the source said of the parents, "You can't ignore the fact that they are here illegally."
Nobody in the family was ever given legal residency status, the sources said. It was unclear why the Duka's had not been charged with immigration violations earlier.
I just can't imagine why he hadn't been charged with immigration violations earlier. It just boggles the mind...
Some good news
posted by Daniel at 7:06 PM 32 comments links to this post
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Name: Daniel
Location: Sherwood, Oregon, US
I will not rest until illegal aliens get treated like the criminals that they are.
View my complete profile
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-----------------------------
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-----------------------------
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-----------------------------
Oregonians for Immigration Reform
-----------------------------
-----------------------------
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#
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Previous Posts
* Full of something
* Some criminals are more equal than others
* 10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
* STOP THE AMNESTY
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* The great debate
* If you build it, they will come
* 67% say NO illegal aliens
* Those "family values"
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11:53 AM
Anonymous said...
Politics news
**http://deportgordonsmith.com/**
Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Full of something
Our esteemed representatives are getting a few phones calls. Senator Smith's voicemail box is still full.
Send him a fax instead.
Tell your GOP Senators what you think of the Kennedy/Bush amnesty
http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=7943
posted by Daniel at 9:38 AM 0 comments links to this post
Friday, May 18, 2007
Some criminals are more equal than others
Imagine if you were using someone else's SSN for employment purposes so that you could evade taxes. There would be no amnesty for you. Imagine if you commited perjury on a federal document other than an I-9 form. There would be no amnesty for you.
When folks such as Tony Snow, Bush, Kennedy, etc talk about how we want the "folks who have been here working hard and not breaking our laws" keep in mind that they mean "folks who have been here and HAVE BEEN AND ARE STILL CURRENTLY breaking out laws."
So you may be able to find some illegal aliens who have only committed several crimes but not been caught for a rape. This criminal is treated like he never broke the law. According to Tony Snow this guy is a natural Republican. You know, someone who is willing to lie, steal, cheat, mis-identify themselves, commit fraud, etc. Way to give republicans a bad name Tony.
No money for the RNC. No money to the Republican Party. None.
posted by Daniel at 10:26 PM 14 comments links to this post
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 46 comments links to this post
Thursday, May 17, 2007
STOP THE AMNESTY
NOTE: Sorry for the late response, not only am I dealing with the flood of illegal aliens I am also dealing with a flood and extensive water damage in my house, it's keeping me busy.
Bush, Kennedy and McCain are ready to sell out our country, the rule of law and the people who they are supposed to represent. But the amnesty is not a done deal. We can stop it. That means you don't just leave a comment here but you leave a comment with as many lawmakers and decision makers (read: party officials and the folks who supply the money) as possible.
The traitors are already under a deluge of negative phone calls, emails, faxes etc and we need to keep up the pressure. Let them know that they get no votes, no money, no suport, no more power.
Some places to start:
NumbersUSA
Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121
House switchboard: 202-225-3121
Congress.org
And my personal favorite... Outsource Congress
Update: and tell the RNC "not another penny as long as this party supports amnesty"
http://www.gop.com/ContactUs/
Call them 10 times, send them 10 faxes, email them 10 times. Then do it again tomorrow.
“If Senator McCain and Senator Kennedy spent as much time working on improving border security as they did poll testing creative euphemisms for amnesty, America would be a much safer place” -Tom Tancredo
posted by Daniel at 7:42 PM 14 comments links to this post
Good news department
State Senate wants proof of residency for driver’s license
The hot-button illegal immigration issue bubbled just below the surface Tuesday as the Oregon Senate voted to require proof of legal residence to get a driver’s license, a move which could deny driving privileges to thousands of undocumented workers.
The Senate vote, which was far from the last word on the subject this session, drew negative reviews from various quarters, including immigrants rights advocates, civil libertarians and Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s office.
This is good news that we seem to be moving forward on at least this bill. No more will illegal aliens get a pass when driving their meth up I-5.
But let's not count our anchor babies before they pop out, this bill is not yet law and we need to keep the pressure on to get it a vote in the House and a signature by Kulongoski.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 13 comments links to this post
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The great debate
Here is the FOXNews coverage of the GOP debate from last night. The media favorites all love illegal aliens and will do nothing to protect our families, our schools, our health care, our economy or our communities fromt his threat. Video of the debate can be seen at that link.
On the lighter side here is a debate from MADtv
posted by Daniel at 6:47 AM 10 comments links to this post
Monday, May 14, 2007
If you build it, they will come
Proof of citizenship not required
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children is a federal grant initiative that provided $1.26 million in food last year to thousands of low-income people living along the Idaho-Oregon border in Payette and Malheur counties.
That number is for two counties, imagine the number in Marion/Washington/Multnomah counties.
The number of local program recipients lacking legal citizenship status, though, is apparently unknown.
The WIC program was deemed “effective” following a 2006 study by the United States Office of Management and Budget.
There is no record, though, regarding how many local participants may be illegal immigrants because U.S. citizenship is not required to receive WIC services in Oregon and Idaho.
“Legal and illegal immigrants can apply for and receive WIC services,” Gene Gunderson, Director Idaho’s Southwest District Health, said.
Their version of "effective" must be different than mine. Mine says that "effective" means we don't help criminals.
Bilingual staff serve in the WIC offices for Malheur County and Payette County.
This is actually a very good news article. Just the facts. Criminals avail themselves of taxpayer services. Simple. We have an illegal alien problem not because the criminals are so "hardworking" but because they have figured out that they can come here for freebies supplied by John Q. Taxpayer.
posted by Daniel at 7:40 PM 37 comments links to this post
Sunday, May 13, 2007
67% say NO illegal aliens
In case you guys missed the news, an actual poll (read: the citizens get to vote, not a "small sampling") was taken on whether or not Americans want illegal aliens living in their town in Texas:
67% = do not want illegal aliens
32% = do want illegal aliens
This is big news right? Total landslide on a big election issue. I mean, a google news search of "Texas" and "immigration" should pop up a whole bunch of articles right?
Here are the results as of 5-13-07 at 12:19pm
That's 36 articles about the landslide vote to keep out illegal aliens and 58 articles about how a border fence will "interfere with wildlife."
But hey, they are very objective and contain both quotes from proponents and opponents of the measure like the laughable one put out by CBS. Oh wait, no they don't.
Here is the FOXNews version.
There's no poll like an actual vote of the people and illegal aliens lovers everywhere are going to be sadly disapointed by the results. God bless democracy.
posted by Daniel at 12:15 PM 15 comments links to this post
Friday, May 11, 2007
Those "family values"
Father of Fort Dix suspects arrested on immigration charges
The father of three men charged in the foiled Fort Dix terror plot was arrested this week on immigration violations and is in federal custody, two law enforcement sources said today.
Federal investigators have found no evidence linking the parents to the alleged plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix. But, the source said of the parents, "You can't ignore the fact that they are here illegally."
Nobody in the family was ever given legal residency status, the sources said. It was unclear why the Duka's had not been charged with immigration violations earlier.
I just can't imagine why he hadn't been charged with immigration violations earlier. It just boggles the mind...
Some good news
posted by Daniel at 7:06 PM 32 comments links to this post
Site Feed
Google
About Me
My Photo
Name: Daniel
Location: Sherwood, Oregon, US
I will not rest until illegal aliens get treated like the criminals that they are.
View my complete profile
Tom Tancredo 2008
-----------------------------
My YouTube videos
-----------------------------
Daniel's Tip Jar
-----------------------------
Oregonians for Immigration Reform
-----------------------------
-----------------------------
Coservative Oregon Blogroll Alliance
NEW!Mover Mike
NEW!The Write Idea Online
Teapot Tantrums
They Call me Vonski
RINO Watch
Dead Fish Wrapper Watch
Eugene Rant
Where's your brain?
Upper Left Coast
Troutdale Councilor Canfield
Resistance is futile!
The Cheezer
Right Minded
Born Again Redneck
Robin's Nest
Daniel's Political Musings
Chas' Compilation
A Boy Named Sous
MAX Redline
The Judicator
John Eyler
Jim in KFalls
You are not the boss of me!
CSI: Oregon
The Diesel Shack
Jason4Gov
Life, or Something like it
DANEgerus Weblog
It's a Dog's Life
Marine Corps Moms
Oregon Republican League
Oregon Conservative
Dan's Healthy Political Jihad
Anti-Hippies
Northwest Conservative
Powered by
BlogRolling
Local Blogs/Sites
# Allen of Salem
# Borderline Insanity
# Citizen Caucus
# Commentary from the Precipice
# CSI: Oregon
# Cuttin thru the crap
# Do Or Die
# Eugene Rant
# Inflight Missile Repairman
#
# Kate1040 Lars Larson Web Site
# MAX Redline
# My Very Brain
# NW Republican
# Orbusmax
# Oregon Billboard
# Polish Immigrant
# Radically Right
# Republicans do it better
# Resistance is Futile!
# RINO Watch
# Robin's Nest
# Tacoma Time
# The Cheezer
# The Diesel Shack
# The Oregon Conservative
# There are some who call me... Tim
# Troutdale Councilor Canfield
# Victoria Taft
Other Links
# Washington County Republican Meetup
# Listen to Lars live
# OregonWatchdog.com
# Oregonians for Immigration Reform
# Oregon Firearms Federation
# Oregonians in Action
# Contact President Bush
# Contact Sen Gordon Smith
# Contact Sen Ron Wyden
# Report illegal aliens
Previous Posts
* Full of something
* Some criminals are more equal than others
* 10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
* STOP THE AMNESTY
* Good news department
* The great debate
* If you build it, they will come
* 67% say NO illegal aliens
* Those "family values"
* America is not a country but an "idea"
Archives
* March 2005
* April 2005
* May 2005
* June 2005
* July 2005
* August 2005
* September 2005
* October 2005
* November 2005
* December 2005
* January 2006
* February 2006
* March 2006
* April 2006
* May 2006
* June 2006
* July 2006
* August 2006
* September 2006
* October 2006
* November 2006
* December 2006
* January 2007
* February 2007
* March 2007
* April 2007
* May 2007
Google
Recommended Reading
Sponsors
Powered by Blogger
StatCounter - Free Web Tracker and Counter
11:53 AM
Anonymous said...
Politics news
**http://deportgordonsmith.com/**
Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Full of something
Our esteemed representatives are getting a few phones calls. Senator Smith's voicemail box is still full.
Send him a fax instead.
Tell your GOP Senators what you think of the Kennedy/Bush amnesty
http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=7943
posted by Daniel at 9:38 AM 0 comments links to this post
Friday, May 18, 2007
Some criminals are more equal than others
Imagine if you were using someone else's SSN for employment purposes so that you could evade taxes. There would be no amnesty for you. Imagine if you commited perjury on a federal document other than an I-9 form. There would be no amnesty for you.
When folks such as Tony Snow, Bush, Kennedy, etc talk about how we want the "folks who have been here working hard and not breaking our laws" keep in mind that they mean "folks who have been here and HAVE BEEN AND ARE STILL CURRENTLY breaking out laws."
So you may be able to find some illegal aliens who have only committed several crimes but not been caught for a rape. This criminal is treated like he never broke the law. According to Tony Snow this guy is a natural Republican. You know, someone who is willing to lie, steal, cheat, mis-identify themselves, commit fraud, etc. Way to give republicans a bad name Tony.
No money for the RNC. No money to the Republican Party. None.
posted by Daniel at 10:26 PM 14 comments links to this post
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 46 comments links to this post
Thursday, May 17, 2007
STOP THE AMNESTY
NOTE: Sorry for the late response, not only am I dealing with the flood of illegal aliens I am also dealing with a flood and extensive water damage in my house, it's keeping me busy.
Bush, Kennedy and McCain are ready to sell out our country, the rule of law and the people who they are supposed to represent. But the amnesty is not a done deal. We can stop it. That means you don't just leave a comment here but you leave a comment with as many lawmakers and decision makers (read: party officials and the folks who supply the money) as possible.
The traitors are already under a deluge of negative phone calls, emails, faxes etc and we need to keep up the pressure. Let them know that they get no votes, no money, no suport, no more power.
Some places to start:
NumbersUSA
Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121
House switchboard: 202-225-3121
Congress.org
And my personal favorite... Outsource Congress
Update: and tell the RNC "not another penny as long as this party supports amnesty"
http://www.gop.com/ContactUs/
Call them 10 times, send them 10 faxes, email them 10 times. Then do it again tomorrow.
“If Senator McCain and Senator Kennedy spent as much time working on improving border security as they did poll testing creative euphemisms for amnesty, America would be a much safer place” -Tom Tancredo
posted by Daniel at 7:42 PM 14 comments links to this post
Good news department
State Senate wants proof of residency for driver’s license
The hot-button illegal immigration issue bubbled just below the surface Tuesday as the Oregon Senate voted to require proof of legal residence to get a driver’s license, a move which could deny driving privileges to thousands of undocumented workers.
The Senate vote, which was far from the last word on the subject this session, drew negative reviews from various quarters, including immigrants rights advocates, civil libertarians and Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s office.
This is good news that we seem to be moving forward on at least this bill. No more will illegal aliens get a pass when driving their meth up I-5.
But let's not count our anchor babies before they pop out, this bill is not yet law and we need to keep the pressure on to get it a vote in the House and a signature by Kulongoski.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 13 comments links to this post
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The great debate
Here is the FOXNews coverage of the GOP debate from last night. The media favorites all love illegal aliens and will do nothing to protect our families, our schools, our health care, our economy or our communities fromt his threat. Video of the debate can be seen at that link.
On the lighter side here is a debate from MADtv
posted by Daniel at 6:47 AM 10 comments links to this post
Monday, May 14, 2007
If you build it, they will come
Proof of citizenship not required
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children is a federal grant initiative that provided $1.26 million in food last year to thousands of low-income people living along the Idaho-Oregon border in Payette and Malheur counties.
That number is for two counties, imagine the number in Marion/Washington/Multnomah counties.
The number of local program recipients lacking legal citizenship status, though, is apparently unknown.
The WIC program was deemed “effective” following a 2006 study by the United States Office of Management and Budget.
There is no record, though, regarding how many local participants may be illegal immigrants because U.S. citizenship is not required to receive WIC services in Oregon and Idaho.
“Legal and illegal immigrants can apply for and receive WIC services,” Gene Gunderson, Director Idaho’s Southwest District Health, said.
Their version of "effective" must be different than mine. Mine says that "effective" means we don't help criminals.
Bilingual staff serve in the WIC offices for Malheur County and Payette County.
This is actually a very good news article. Just the facts. Criminals avail themselves of taxpayer services. Simple. We have an illegal alien problem not because the criminals are so "hardworking" but because they have figured out that they can come here for freebies supplied by John Q. Taxpayer.
posted by Daniel at 7:40 PM 37 comments links to this post
Sunday, May 13, 2007
67% say NO illegal aliens
In case you guys missed the news, an actual poll (read: the citizens get to vote, not a "small sampling") was taken on whether or not Americans want illegal aliens living in their town in Texas:
67% = do not want illegal aliens
32% = do want illegal aliens
This is big news right? Total landslide on a big election issue. I mean, a google news search of "Texas" and "immigration" should pop up a whole bunch of articles right?
Here are the results as of 5-13-07 at 12:19pm
That's 36 articles about the landslide vote to keep out illegal aliens and 58 articles about how a border fence will "interfere with wildlife."
But hey, they are very objective and contain both quotes from proponents and opponents of the measure like the laughable one put out by CBS. Oh wait, no they don't.
Here is the FOXNews version.
There's no poll like an actual vote of the people and illegal aliens lovers everywhere are going to be sadly disapointed by the results. God bless democracy.
posted by Daniel at 12:15 PM 15 comments links to this post
Friday, May 11, 2007
Those "family values"
Father of Fort Dix suspects arrested on immigration charges
The father of three men charged in the foiled Fort Dix terror plot was arrested this week on immigration violations and is in federal custody, two law enforcement sources said today.
Federal investigators have found no evidence linking the parents to the alleged plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix. But, the source said of the parents, "You can't ignore the fact that they are here illegally."
Nobody in the family was ever given legal residency status, the sources said. It was unclear why the Duka's had not been charged with immigration violations earlier.
I just can't imagine why he hadn't been charged with immigration violations earlier. It just boggles the mind...
Some good news
posted by Daniel at 7:06 PM 32 comments links to this post
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Name: Daniel
Location: Sherwood, Oregon, US
I will not rest until illegal aliens get treated like the criminals that they are.
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-----------------------------
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-----------------------------
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#
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# Report illegal aliens
Previous Posts
* Full of something
* Some criminals are more equal than others
* 10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
* STOP THE AMNESTY
* Good news department
* The great debate
* If you build it, they will come
* 67% say NO illegal aliens
* Those "family values"
* America is not a country but an "idea"
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11:53 AM
Anonymous said...
Politics news
**http://deportgordonsmith.com/**
Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Full of something
Our esteemed representatives are getting a few phones calls. Senator Smith's voicemail box is still full.
Send him a fax instead.
Tell your GOP Senators what you think of the Kennedy/Bush amnesty
http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=7943
posted by Daniel at 9:38 AM 0 comments links to this post
Friday, May 18, 2007
Some criminals are more equal than others
Imagine if you were using someone else's SSN for employment purposes so that you could evade taxes. There would be no amnesty for you. Imagine if you commited perjury on a federal document other than an I-9 form. There would be no amnesty for you.
When folks such as Tony Snow, Bush, Kennedy, etc talk about how we want the "folks who have been here working hard and not breaking our laws" keep in mind that they mean "folks who have been here and HAVE BEEN AND ARE STILL CURRENTLY breaking out laws."
So you may be able to find some illegal aliens who have only committed several crimes but not been caught for a rape. This criminal is treated like he never broke the law. According to Tony Snow this guy is a natural Republican. You know, someone who is willing to lie, steal, cheat, mis-identify themselves, commit fraud, etc. Way to give republicans a bad name Tony.
No money for the RNC. No money to the Republican Party. None.
posted by Daniel at 10:26 PM 14 comments links to this post
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 46 comments links to this post
Thursday, May 17, 2007
STOP THE AMNESTY
NOTE: Sorry for the late response, not only am I dealing with the flood of illegal aliens I am also dealing with a flood and extensive water damage in my house, it's keeping me busy.
Bush, Kennedy and McCain are ready to sell out our country, the rule of law and the people who they are supposed to represent. But the amnesty is not a done deal. We can stop it. That means you don't just leave a comment here but you leave a comment with as many lawmakers and decision makers (read: party officials and the folks who supply the money) as possible.
The traitors are already under a deluge of negative phone calls, emails, faxes etc and we need to keep up the pressure. Let them know that they get no votes, no money, no suport, no more power.
Some places to start:
NumbersUSA
Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121
House switchboard: 202-225-3121
Congress.org
And my personal favorite... Outsource Congress
Update: and tell the RNC "not another penny as long as this party supports amnesty"
http://www.gop.com/ContactUs/
Call them 10 times, send them 10 faxes, email them 10 times. Then do it again tomorrow.
“If Senator McCain and Senator Kennedy spent as much time working on improving border security as they did poll testing creative euphemisms for amnesty, America would be a much safer place” -Tom Tancredo
posted by Daniel at 7:42 PM 14 comments links to this post
Good news department
State Senate wants proof of residency for driver’s license
The hot-button illegal immigration issue bubbled just below the surface Tuesday as the Oregon Senate voted to require proof of legal residence to get a driver’s license, a move which could deny driving privileges to thousands of undocumented workers.
The Senate vote, which was far from the last word on the subject this session, drew negative reviews from various quarters, including immigrants rights advocates, civil libertarians and Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s office.
This is good news that we seem to be moving forward on at least this bill. No more will illegal aliens get a pass when driving their meth up I-5.
But let's not count our anchor babies before they pop out, this bill is not yet law and we need to keep the pressure on to get it a vote in the House and a signature by Kulongoski.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 13 comments links to this post
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The great debate
Here is the FOXNews coverage of the GOP debate from last night. The media favorites all love illegal aliens and will do nothing to protect our families, our schools, our health care, our economy or our communities fromt his threat. Video of the debate can be seen at that link.
On the lighter side here is a debate from MADtv
posted by Daniel at 6:47 AM 10 comments links to this post
Monday, May 14, 2007
If you build it, they will come
Proof of citizenship not required
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children is a federal grant initiative that provided $1.26 million in food last year to thousands of low-income people living along the Idaho-Oregon border in Payette and Malheur counties.
That number is for two counties, imagine the number in Marion/Washington/Multnomah counties.
The number of local program recipients lacking legal citizenship status, though, is apparently unknown.
The WIC program was deemed “effective” following a 2006 study by the United States Office of Management and Budget.
There is no record, though, regarding how many local participants may be illegal immigrants because U.S. citizenship is not required to receive WIC services in Oregon and Idaho.
“Legal and illegal immigrants can apply for and receive WIC services,” Gene Gunderson, Director Idaho’s Southwest District Health, said.
Their version of "effective" must be different than mine. Mine says that "effective" means we don't help criminals.
Bilingual staff serve in the WIC offices for Malheur County and Payette County.
This is actually a very good news article. Just the facts. Criminals avail themselves of taxpayer services. Simple. We have an illegal alien problem not because the criminals are so "hardworking" but because they have figured out that they can come here for freebies supplied by John Q. Taxpayer.
posted by Daniel at 7:40 PM 37 comments links to this post
Sunday, May 13, 2007
67% say NO illegal aliens
In case you guys missed the news, an actual poll (read: the citizens get to vote, not a "small sampling") was taken on whether or not Americans want illegal aliens living in their town in Texas:
67% = do not want illegal aliens
32% = do want illegal aliens
This is big news right? Total landslide on a big election issue. I mean, a google news search of "Texas" and "immigration" should pop up a whole bunch of articles right?
Here are the results as of 5-13-07 at 12:19pm
That's 36 articles about the landslide vote to keep out illegal aliens and 58 articles about how a border fence will "interfere with wildlife."
But hey, they are very objective and contain both quotes from proponents and opponents of the measure like the laughable one put out by CBS. Oh wait, no they don't.
Here is the FOXNews version.
There's no poll like an actual vote of the people and illegal aliens lovers everywhere are going to be sadly disapointed by the results. God bless democracy.
posted by Daniel at 12:15 PM 15 comments links to this post
Friday, May 11, 2007
Those "family values"
Father of Fort Dix suspects arrested on immigration charges
The father of three men charged in the foiled Fort Dix terror plot was arrested this week on immigration violations and is in federal custody, two law enforcement sources said today.
Federal investigators have found no evidence linking the parents to the alleged plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix. But, the source said of the parents, "You can't ignore the fact that they are here illegally."
Nobody in the family was ever given legal residency status, the sources said. It was unclear why the Duka's had not been charged with immigration violations earlier.
I just can't imagine why he hadn't been charged with immigration violations earlier. It just boggles the mind...
Some good news
posted by Daniel at 7:06 PM 32 comments links to this post
Site Feed
Google
About Me
My Photo
Name: Daniel
Location: Sherwood, Oregon, US
I will not rest until illegal aliens get treated like the criminals that they are.
View my complete profile
Tom Tancredo 2008
-----------------------------
My YouTube videos
-----------------------------
Daniel's Tip Jar
-----------------------------
Oregonians for Immigration Reform
-----------------------------
-----------------------------
Coservative Oregon Blogroll Alliance
NEW!Mover Mike
NEW!The Write Idea Online
Teapot Tantrums
They Call me Vonski
RINO Watch
Dead Fish Wrapper Watch
Eugene Rant
Where's your brain?
Upper Left Coast
Troutdale Councilor Canfield
Resistance is futile!
The Cheezer
Right Minded
Born Again Redneck
Robin's Nest
Daniel's Political Musings
Chas' Compilation
A Boy Named Sous
MAX Redline
The Judicator
John Eyler
Jim in KFalls
You are not the boss of me!
CSI: Oregon
The Diesel Shack
Jason4Gov
Life, or Something like it
DANEgerus Weblog
It's a Dog's Life
Marine Corps Moms
Oregon Republican League
Oregon Conservative
Dan's Healthy Political Jihad
Anti-Hippies
Northwest Conservative
Powered by
BlogRolling
Local Blogs/Sites
# Allen of Salem
# Borderline Insanity
# Citizen Caucus
# Commentary from the Precipice
# CSI: Oregon
# Cuttin thru the crap
# Do Or Die
# Eugene Rant
# Inflight Missile Repairman
#
# Kate1040 Lars Larson Web Site
# MAX Redline
# My Very Brain
# NW Republican
# Orbusmax
# Oregon Billboard
# Polish Immigrant
# Radically Right
# Republicans do it better
# Resistance is Futile!
# RINO Watch
# Robin's Nest
# Tacoma Time
# The Cheezer
# The Diesel Shack
# The Oregon Conservative
# There are some who call me... Tim
# Troutdale Councilor Canfield
# Victoria Taft
Other Links
# Washington County Republican Meetup
# Listen to Lars live
# OregonWatchdog.com
# Oregonians for Immigration Reform
# Oregon Firearms Federation
# Oregonians in Action
# Contact President Bush
# Contact Sen Gordon Smith
# Contact Sen Ron Wyden
# Report illegal aliens
Previous Posts
* Full of something
* Some criminals are more equal than others
* 10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
* STOP THE AMNESTY
* Good news department
* The great debate
* If you build it, they will come
* 67% say NO illegal aliens
* Those "family values"
* America is not a country but an "idea"
Archives
* March 2005
* April 2005
* May 2005
* June 2005
* July 2005
* August 2005
* September 2005
* October 2005
* November 2005
* December 2005
* January 2006
* February 2006
* March 2006
* April 2006
* May 2006
* June 2006
* July 2006
* August 2006
* September 2006
* October 2006
* November 2006
* December 2006
* January 2007
* February 2007
* March 2007
* April 2007
* May 2007
Google
Recommended Reading
Sponsors
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StatCounter - Free Web Tracker and Counter
11:54 AM
Anonymous said...
Politics news
**http://deportgordonsmith.com/**
Daniel's political musings
You're either with me or you're with the illegal aliens
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Full of something
Our esteemed representatives are getting a few phones calls. Senator Smith's voicemail box is still full.
Send him a fax instead.
Tell your GOP Senators what you think of the Kennedy/Bush amnesty
http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=7943
posted by Daniel at 9:38 AM 0 comments links to this post
Friday, May 18, 2007
Some criminals are more equal than others
Imagine if you were using someone else's SSN for employment purposes so that you could evade taxes. There would be no amnesty for you. Imagine if you commited perjury on a federal document other than an I-9 form. There would be no amnesty for you.
When folks such as Tony Snow, Bush, Kennedy, etc talk about how we want the "folks who have been here working hard and not breaking our laws" keep in mind that they mean "folks who have been here and HAVE BEEN AND ARE STILL CURRENTLY breaking out laws."
So you may be able to find some illegal aliens who have only committed several crimes but not been caught for a rape. This criminal is treated like he never broke the law. According to Tony Snow this guy is a natural Republican. You know, someone who is willing to lie, steal, cheat, mis-identify themselves, commit fraud, etc. Way to give republicans a bad name Tony.
No money for the RNC. No money to the Republican Party. None.
posted by Daniel at 10:26 PM 14 comments links to this post
10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
Immigration bill faces a wall of opposition
Attacks from left and right suggest that the latest push for change, although representing a potential breakthrough, could again end in a stalemate.
"This is far from over," Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said, criticizing as "amnesty, amnesty and amnesty" the provision that provides illegal immigrant workers with a path to legal standing and citizenship.
There are so many means of applying pressure at this point it is mind boggling. Contact your Oregon/Washington senators and reps, contact every presidential candidate, contact state and national party officials, contact senators and reps from other states.
Use the phone, there are probably 10 different numbers to call, use the email and webforms, visit the local office of your sentator or rep.
Keep your message short and sweet: No amnesty, we will never support you again if you reward illegal aliens. It doesn't have to be longer. A staffer is just going to tally the opposition phone calls/email/faxes and let the elected official know that they are getting X amount of negative feedback on this bill.
Make sure you contact Walden and DeFazio. Let's make sure that these two Oregon reps are on the right side of this one.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 46 comments links to this post
Thursday, May 17, 2007
STOP THE AMNESTY
NOTE: Sorry for the late response, not only am I dealing with the flood of illegal aliens I am also dealing with a flood and extensive water damage in my house, it's keeping me busy.
Bush, Kennedy and McCain are ready to sell out our country, the rule of law and the people who they are supposed to represent. But the amnesty is not a done deal. We can stop it. That means you don't just leave a comment here but you leave a comment with as many lawmakers and decision makers (read: party officials and the folks who supply the money) as possible.
The traitors are already under a deluge of negative phone calls, emails, faxes etc and we need to keep up the pressure. Let them know that they get no votes, no money, no suport, no more power.
Some places to start:
NumbersUSA
Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121
House switchboard: 202-225-3121
Congress.org
And my personal favorite... Outsource Congress
Update: and tell the RNC "not another penny as long as this party supports amnesty"
http://www.gop.com/ContactUs/
Call them 10 times, send them 10 faxes, email them 10 times. Then do it again tomorrow.
“If Senator McCain and Senator Kennedy spent as much time working on improving border security as they did poll testing creative euphemisms for amnesty, America would be a much safer place” -Tom Tancredo
posted by Daniel at 7:42 PM 14 comments links to this post
Good news department
State Senate wants proof of residency for driver’s license
The hot-button illegal immigration issue bubbled just below the surface Tuesday as the Oregon Senate voted to require proof of legal residence to get a driver’s license, a move which could deny driving privileges to thousands of undocumented workers.
The Senate vote, which was far from the last word on the subject this session, drew negative reviews from various quarters, including immigrants rights advocates, civil libertarians and Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s office.
This is good news that we seem to be moving forward on at least this bill. No more will illegal aliens get a pass when driving their meth up I-5.
But let's not count our anchor babies before they pop out, this bill is not yet law and we need to keep the pressure on to get it a vote in the House and a signature by Kulongoski.
posted by Daniel at 6:42 AM 13 comments links to this post
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The great debate
Here is the FOXNews coverage of the GOP debate from last night. The media favorites all love illegal aliens and will do nothing to protect our families, our schools, our health care, our economy or our communities fromt his threat. Video of the debate can be seen at that link.
On the lighter side here is a debate from MADtv
posted by Daniel at 6:47 AM 10 comments links to this post
Monday, May 14, 2007
If you build it, they will come
Proof of citizenship not required
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children is a federal grant initiative that provided $1.26 million in food last year to thousands of low-income people living along the Idaho-Oregon border in Payette and Malheur counties.
That number is for two counties, imagine the number in Marion/Washington/Multnomah counties.
The number of local program recipients lacking legal citizenship status, though, is apparently unknown.
The WIC program was deemed “effective” following a 2006 study by the United States Office of Management and Budget.
There is no record, though, regarding how many local participants may be illegal immigrants because U.S. citizenship is not required to receive WIC services in Oregon and Idaho.
“Legal and illegal immigrants can apply for and receive WIC services,” Gene Gunderson, Director Idaho’s Southwest District Health, said.
Their version of "effective" must be different than mine. Mine says that "effective" means we don't help criminals.
Bilingual staff serve in the WIC offices for Malheur County and Payette County.
This is actually a very good news article. Just the facts. Criminals avail themselves of taxpayer services. Simple. We have an illegal alien problem not because the criminals are so "hardworking" but because they have figured out that they can come here for freebies supplied by John Q. Taxpayer.
posted by Daniel at 7:40 PM 37 comments links to this post
Sunday, May 13, 2007
67% say NO illegal aliens
In case you guys missed the news, an actual poll (read: the citizens get to vote, not a "small sampling") was taken on whether or not Americans want illegal aliens living in their town in Texas:
67% = do not want illegal aliens
32% = do want illegal aliens
This is big news right? Total landslide on a big election issue. I mean, a google news search of "Texas" and "immigration" should pop up a whole bunch of articles right?
Here are the results as of 5-13-07 at 12:19pm
That's 36 articles about the landslide vote to keep out illegal aliens and 58 articles about how a border fence will "interfere with wildlife."
But hey, they are very objective and contain both quotes from proponents and opponents of the measure like the laughable one put out by CBS. Oh wait, no they don't.
Here is the FOXNews version.
There's no poll like an actual vote of the people and illegal aliens lovers everywhere are going to be sadly disapointed by the results. God bless democracy.
posted by Daniel at 12:15 PM 15 comments links to this post
Friday, May 11, 2007
Those "family values"
Father of Fort Dix suspects arrested on immigration charges
The father of three men charged in the foiled Fort Dix terror plot was arrested this week on immigration violations and is in federal custody, two law enforcement sources said today.
Federal investigators have found no evidence linking the parents to the alleged plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix. But, the source said of the parents, "You can't ignore the fact that they are here illegally."
Nobody in the family was ever given legal residency status, the sources said. It was unclear why the Duka's had not been charged with immigration violations earlier.
I just can't imagine why he hadn't been charged with immigration violations earlier. It just boggles the mind...
Some good news
posted by Daniel at 7:06 PM 32 comments links to this post
Site Feed
Google
About Me
My Photo
Name: Daniel
Location: Sherwood, Oregon, US
I will not rest until illegal aliens get treated like the criminals that they are.
View my complete profile
Tom Tancredo 2008
-----------------------------
My YouTube videos
-----------------------------
Daniel's Tip Jar
-----------------------------
Oregonians for Immigration Reform
-----------------------------
-----------------------------
Coservative Oregon Blogroll Alliance
NEW!Mover Mike
NEW!The Write Idea Online
Teapot Tantrums
They Call me Vonski
RINO Watch
Dead Fish Wrapper Watch
Eugene Rant
Where's your brain?
Upper Left Coast
Troutdale Councilor Canfield
Resistance is futile!
The Cheezer
Right Minded
Born Again Redneck
Robin's Nest
Daniel's Political Musings
Chas' Compilation
A Boy Named Sous
MAX Redline
The Judicator
John Eyler
Jim in KFalls
You are not the boss of me!
CSI: Oregon
The Diesel Shack
Jason4Gov
Life, or Something like it
DANEgerus Weblog
It's a Dog's Life
Marine Corps Moms
Oregon Republican League
Oregon Conservative
Dan's Healthy Political Jihad
Anti-Hippies
Northwest Conservative
Powered by
BlogRolling
Local Blogs/Sites
# Allen of Salem
# Borderline Insanity
# Citizen Caucus
# Commentary from the Precipice
# CSI: Oregon
# Cuttin thru the crap
# Do Or Die
# Eugene Rant
# Inflight Missile Repairman
#
# Kate1040 Lars Larson Web Site
# MAX Redline
# My Very Brain
# NW Republican
# Orbusmax
# Oregon Billboard
# Polish Immigrant
# Radically Right
# Republicans do it better
# Resistance is Futile!
# RINO Watch
# Robin's Nest
# Tacoma Time
# The Cheezer
# The Diesel Shack
# The Oregon Conservative
# There are some who call me... Tim
# Troutdale Councilor Canfield
# Victoria Taft
Other Links
# Washington County Republican Meetup
# Listen to Lars live
# OregonWatchdog.com
# Oregonians for Immigration Reform
# Oregon Firearms Federation
# Oregonians in Action
# Contact President Bush
# Contact Sen Gordon Smith
# Contact Sen Ron Wyden
# Report illegal aliens
Previous Posts
* Full of something
* Some criminals are more equal than others
* 10 emails, 10 faxes, 10 phone calls
* STOP THE AMNESTY
* Good news department
* The great debate
* If you build it, they will come
* 67% say NO illegal aliens
* Those "family values"
* America is not a country but an "idea"
Archives
* March 2005
* April 2005
* May 2005
* June 2005
* July 2005
* August 2005
* September 2005
* October 2005
* November 2005
* December 2005
* January 2006
* February 2006
* March 2006
* April 2006
* May 2006
* June 2006
* July 2006
* August 2006
* September 2006
* October 2006
* November 2006
* December 2006
* January 2007
* February 2007
* March 2007
* April 2007
* May 2007
Google
Recommended Reading
Sponsors
Powered by Blogger
StatCounter - Free Web Tracker and Counter
11:54 AM
bullshit police said...
To the Anon who is flooding Daniel's board: KNOCK IT OFF!!! I happen to be opposed to Miglavs politically, and I pop in here sometimes to make my case, but I am totally on HIS side when it comes to maintaining and defending the integrity of the space that HE created and has freely opened to others for comment and debate -- it's not something he has to do, it's not something he needs to do, but he does it, and I have a hell of a lot more respect for THAT than your idiotic copy-and-paste fetish. If you can't make an cogent argument, then fuck off.
12:41 PM
Dr. Swift said...
A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in
Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for
making them beneficial to the publick.
by Dr. Jonathan Swift. 1729
It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great
town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the
roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex,
followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and
importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers instead of
being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to
employ all their time in stroling to beg sustenance for their
helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for
want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for
the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.
I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number
of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of
their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present
deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional
grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap and
easy method of making these children sound and useful members of
the common-wealth, would deserve so well of the publick, as to
have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only
for the children of professed beggars: it is of a much greater
extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a
certain age, who are born of parents in effect as little able to
support them, as those who demand our charity in the streets.
As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years, upon
this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes
of our projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in
their computation. It is true, a child just dropt from its dam,
may be supported by her milk, for a solar year, with little other
nourishment: at most not above the value of two shillings, which
the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her
lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old
that I propose to provide for them in such a manner, as, instead
of being a charge upon their parents, or the parish, or wanting
food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall, on the
contrary, contribute to the feeding, and partly to the cloathing
of many thousands.
There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it
will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice
of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent
among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to
avoid the expence than the shame, which would move tears and pity
in the most savage and inhuman breast.
The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one
million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two
hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which
number I subtract thirty thousand couple, who are able to
maintain their own children, (although I apprehend there cannot
be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom) but this
being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand
breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand, for those women who
miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the
year. There only remain an hundred and twenty thousand children
of poor parents annually born. The question therefore is, How
this number shall be reared, and provided for? which, as I have
already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly
impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can
neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither
build houses, (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they
can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing till they arrive
at six years old; except where they are of towardly parts,
although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier; during
which time they can however be properly looked upon only as
probationers: As I have been informed by a principal gentleman in
the county of Cavan, who protested to me, that he never knew
above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part
of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that
art.
I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve
years old, is no saleable commodity, and even when they come to
this age, they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds
and half a crown at most, on the exchange; which cannot turn to
account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of
nutriments and rags having been at least four times that value.
I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I
hope will not be liable to the least objection.
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance
in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year
old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether
stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it
will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.
I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of
the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed,
twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one
fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep,
black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are
seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded
by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve
four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year
old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune,
through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck
plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and
fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an
entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the
fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned
with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the
fourth day, especially in winter.
I have reckoned upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh
12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, encreaseth
to 28 pounds.
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very
proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of
the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.
Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more
plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are
told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish
being a prolifick dyet, there are more children born in Roman
Catholick countries about nine months after Lent, the markets
will be more glutted than usual, because the number of Popish
infants, is at least three to one in this kingdom, and therefore
it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the
number of Papists among us.
I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child
(in which list I reckon all cottagers, labourers, and four-fifths
of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags
included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten
shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have
said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he
hath only some particular friend, or his own family to dine with
him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow
popular among his tenants, the mother will have eight shillings
neat profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child.
Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require)
may flea the carcass; the skin of which, artificially dressed,
will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine
gentlemen.
As to our City of Dublin, shambles may be appointed for this
purpose, in the most convenient parts of it, and butchers we may
be assured will not be wanting; although I rather recommend
buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife,
as we do roasting pigs.
A very worthy person, a true lover of his country, and whose
virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased, in discoursing on
this matter, to offer a refinement upon my scheme. He said, that
many gentlemen of this kingdom, having of late destroyed their
deer, he conceived that the want of venison might be well
supply'd by the bodies of young lads and maidens, not exceeding
fourteen years of age, nor under twelve; so great a number of
both sexes in every country being now ready to starve for want of
work and service: And these to be disposed of by their parents if
alive, or otherwise by their nearest relations. But with due
deference to so excellent a friend, and so deserving a patriot, I
cannot be altogether in his sentiments; for as to the males, my
American acquaintance assured me from frequent experience, that
their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our
school-boys, by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable,
and to fatten them would not answer the charge. Then as to the
females, it would, I think, with humble submission, be a loss to
the publick, because they soon would become breeders themselves:
And besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people
might be apt to censure such a practice, (although indeed very
unjustly) as a little bordering upon cruelty, which, I confess,
hath always been with me the strongest objection against any
project, how well soever intended.
But in order to justify my friend, he confessed, that this
expedient was put into his head by the famous Salmanaazor, a
native of the island Formosa, who came from thence to London,
above twenty years ago, and in conversation told my friend, that
in his country, when any young person happened to be put to
death, the executioner sold the carcass to persons of quality, as
a prime dainty; and that, in his time, the body of a plump girl
of fifteen, who was crucified for an attempt to poison the
Emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty's prime minister of
state, and other great mandarins of the court in joints from the
gibbet, at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can I deny, that
if the same use were made of several plump young girls in this
town, who without one single groat to their fortunes, cannot stir
abroad without a chair, and appear at a play-house and assemblies
in foreign fineries which they never will pay for; the kingdom
would not be the worse.
Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about
that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, or
maimed; and I have been desired to employ my thoughts what course
may be taken, to ease the nation of so grievous an incumbrance.
But I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is
very well known, that they are every day dying, and rotting, by
cold and famine, and filth, and vermin, as fast as can be
reasonably expected. And as to the young labourers, they are now
in almost as hopeful a condition. They cannot get work, and
consequently pine away from want of nourishment, to a degree,
that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labour,
they have not strength to perform it, and thus the country and
themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.
I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my
subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made
are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance.
For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen
the number of Papists, with whom we are yearly over-run, being
the principal breeders of the nation, as well as our most
dangerous enemies, and who stay at home on purpose with a design
to deliver the kingdom to the Pretender, hoping to take their
advantage by the absence of so many good Protestants, who have
chosen rather to leave their country, than stay at home and pay
tithes against their conscience to an episcopal curate.
Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of
their own, which by law may be made liable to a distress, and
help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle being
already seized, and money a thing unknown.
Thirdly, Whereas the maintainance of an hundred thousand
children, from two years old, and upwards, cannot be computed at
less than ten shillings a piece per annum, the nation's stock
will be thereby encreased fifty thousand pounds per annum,
besides the profit of a new dish, introduced to the tables of all
gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom, who have any refinement in
taste. And the money will circulate among our selves, the goods
being entirely of our own growth and manufacture.
Fourthly, The constant breeders, besides the gain of eight
shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will
be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.
Fifthly, This food would likewise bring great custom to taverns,
where the vintners will certainly be so prudent as to procure the
best receipts for dressing it to perfection; and consequently
have their houses frequented by all the fine gentlemen, who
justly value themselves upon their knowledge in good eating; and
a skilful cook, who understands how to oblige his guests, will
contrive to make it as expensive as they please.
Sixthly, This would be a great inducement to marriage, which all
wise nations have either encouraged by rewards, or enforced by
laws and penalties. It would encrease the care and tenderness of
mothers towards their children, when they were sure of a
settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by
the publick, to their annual profit instead of expence. We should
soon see an honest emulation among the married women, which of
them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would
become as fond of their wives, during the time of their
pregnancy, as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in
calf, or sow when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or
kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a
miscarriage.
Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the
addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of
barrel'd beef: the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement
in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the
great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are
no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well grown, fat
yearly child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure
at a Lord Mayor's feast, or any other publick entertainment. But
this, and many others, I omit, being studious of brevity.
Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be
constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might
have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and
christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about
twenty thousand carcasses; and the rest of the kingdom (where
probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty
thousand.
I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised
against this proposal, unless it should be urged, that the number
of people will be thereby much lessened in the kingdom. This I
freely own, and 'twas indeed one principal design in offering it
to the world. I desire the reader will observe, that I calculate
my remedy for this one individual Kingdom of Ireland, and for no
other that ever was, is, or, I think, ever can be upon Earth.
Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: Of taxing
our absentees at five shillings a pound: Of using neither
cloaths, nor houshold furniture, except what is of our own growth
and manufacture: Of utterly rejecting the materials and
instruments that promote foreign luxury: Of curing the
expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our
women: Of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and
temperance: Of learning to love our country, wherein we differ
even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo: Of
quitting our animosities and factions, nor acting any longer like
the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their
city was taken: Of being a little cautious not to sell our
country and consciences for nothing: Of teaching landlords to
have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. Lastly,
of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our
shop-keepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only
our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon
us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever
yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though
often and earnestly invited to it.
Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like
expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that
there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them
into practice.
But, as to my self, having been wearied out for many years with
offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly
despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal,
which, as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real,
of no expence and little trouble, full in our own power, and
whereby we can incur no danger in disobliging England. For this
kind of commodity will not bear exportation, and flesh being of
too tender a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt,
although perhaps I could name a country, which would be glad to
eat up our whole nation without it.
After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion, as to
reject any offer, proposed by wise men, which shall be found
equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But before
something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my
scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author or authors
will be pleased maturely to consider two points. First, As things
now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for a
hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. And secondly, There
being a round million of creatures in humane figure throughout
this kingdom, whose whole subsistence put into a common stock,
would leave them in debt two million of pounds sterling, adding
those who are beggars by profession, to the bulk of farmers,
cottagers and labourers, with their wives and children, who are
beggars in effect; I desire those politicians who dislike my
overture, and may perhaps be so bold to attempt an answer, that
they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they
would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been
sold for food at a year old, in the manner I prescribe, and
thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes, as
they have since gone through, by the oppression of landlords, the
impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of
common sustenance, with neither house nor cloaths to cover them
from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable
prospect of intailing the like, or greater miseries, upon their
breed for ever.
I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the
least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary
work, having no other motive than the publick good of my country,
by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the
poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children,
by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being
nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.
1:56 PM
Daniel said...
I second the motion of "the bullshit police."
I'm not sure what the goal of the copy and paste guy is but it is nice to have such a dedicated fan.
2:04 PM
Wow, the tolerant left shows their capacity for honest debate once again. Don't bother trying to argue based on facts, just spam the shit out of your competition. The sad part is that there is some unemployed wanker (well, maybe employed by Soros) that is taking his time to cut and paste all of this crap.
And cir, shut your Moby mouth and go back to DKos.
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