Tuesday, April 07, 2009, 12:18 PM
Opinion, National, Georgia, Politics
By Stephanie Ramage
IMMIGRATION REFORM NOW!
The reason that wrongheaded Republicans have made illegal immigrants their scapegoats—and the reason that spineless Democrats have not spoken out against the anti-immigrant nastiness—is that America has lost respect for honest, hard work and the people who do it.
It is eye-opening that my candor regarding the menial jobs I did to support myself after being laid off from white collar work as a journalist has been met with ridicule by other people in the press who post comments saying that the fact that I worked such jobs clearly shows that I am a person of no account. That sort of attitude is what is wrong with America today. Back in late 2002 and early 2003, I took unemployment for about six weeks and just couldn’t stomach it anymore. I went to work at a day care and at night I worked at Café Lily in Decatur. I’d previously taken contacts there when I worked in corporate PR and before that, as a journalist, I’d taken sources there. One night, I took the AJC’s Cynthia Tucker there.
When I found myself out of a job, I went to Angelo Patillo, the owner, and told him I needed work and I could wait tables. At first, he was horrified: “But, you’re my customer!” he exclaimed. “We can’t have you working here!” But I leveled with him. I was broke, I had a son to support, I was raised to work and I would never go on the dole.
He looked me in the eye and said gruffly, “I understand. When can you start?”
(I ended up working as a hostess--yes, opening the door for people.)
We were a nation built not on lattes and 401Ks and corporate healthcare, but on simple persistence, humility, determination and the copious sweat of laborers. When we lost respect for work and sought to subsidize ourselves with credit cards, we lost respect for ourselves and we lost our way. We lost our very identity. Americans are the people of work. That is who we are.
My father was such a person. He dropped out of school in eighth grade to support his family because his father was an alcoholic. Then he spent his life going from one menial job to another. He tried farming. He was a truckdriver. He was a milkman. He ran a store. He cooked at a restaurant. In the end, he retired after decades working as a boiler operator at Gilman Paper Company. Ours was not an easy existence. We kids—there were six of us—were pushed into the labor market even before we could legally work in some cases, but my Dad was extremely proud of the home that he’d bought for his family and the fact that half his children graduated from college.
Several years before he died in early 2003, Dad had just arrived home from what the rest of the family referred to as his second home, the Huddle House. It was a Saturday in summer and close to noon. My parents lived in the same tiny hometown where I’d grown up in middle Georgia and already the temperature was into the 90s.
Dad was blanched with the heat and poured himself a glass of ice water before sinking into a chair in the kitchen and saying thoughtfully “I just went by, down there at the creek, where they’ve got a bunch of Mexicans clearing out the place and man, let me tell you, those jokers can work.”
My father was in his 70s. He was a World War II veteran and, like many of his generation, he admired a person’s willingness to work hard more than just about anything else. He believed that a willingness to work was the central tenet of being American and that is probably one of the reasons he loved immigrants so much and he did not, just so you know, make any distinction between legal or illegal. He used to say “If somebody wants to come to this country and work, then by God we ought to let’em. We already got too many sorry SOBs who don’t want to work.”
My father, as I have reported previously in this space, used to say that immigrants, more than anyone else, understood what there was to love about this country—much more so than native-born, perfectly legal Americans who took it forgranted. The immigrants he admired the most at the end of his long hard life, a life that included his wounding in combat and contraction of malaria while in the service of his country in the Pacific, were the illegals he saw nearly everyday in middle Georgia. He would see crews of them and comment that they were “hip-deep in cottonmouths” down in the swamp, clearing someone’s land. He was fascinated by them and he felt that they made a strongly positive contribution to this country.
Now, if you knew how conservative my Dad was, that might surprise you, but old conservatives will recognize him as one of their own. He was not religious and he saw clearly that the lifeblood of America is those people who are willing to sacrifice their safety for this country and work hard to earn the American dream—he believed that dream must be earned, that it is not a birthright, and that is why, to him and his generation, those who are willing to work are the true heirs of this country regardless of any paperwork.
He explained to me on no uncertain terms that it is work itself that makes one an American and that, in his opinion, the so-called “illegals” were nothing of the sort.
I thought about that recently when Jon Stewart excoriated CNBC’s “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer for encouraging investment in companies that would, not much later, fail and require a taxpayer bailout. Stewart said something that could very well have fallen from the lips of my curmudgeonly WWII veteran dad: “When will we realize in this country that our wealth is in our work?”
This, to me stands out in sharp contrast with the mindset of one of Georgia’s foremost bashers of undocumented immigrants, D.A. King, whom I interviewed at length in 2006 for an article entitled “Little Pink Houses.” In it, King explained to me that it had been some time since he had worked—he was previously in insurance—because his business had declined and he’d felt it imperative to devote himself fulltime to the cause of fighting illegals—those same illegals whose work ethic is beyond dispute.
I seriously doubt that D.A. King has ever swung a sling blade to clear a ditch or even, as I did growing up, squatted low between rows of butterbeans and picked them until my back ached and then shelled them until I thought my thumbnail would fall off.
In our interview, he spoke of how much of a foodie he was, enjoying fine wine and cuisine, and how he’d been inspired to start down the road of anti-immigrant advocacy when Mexicans had moved in across the street and he saw that their van leaked oil onto the cul de sac. They also—horrors!—painted their house pink.
I have had the bitterly unfortunate experience of living next door to good-for-nothings for most of my life. I’ve seen them fake disabilities to get a government paycheck. I’ve seen them drink themselves half to death and then demand that I, the taxpayer, pick up the tab each and every time they called an ambulance to come get them because they wanted to drink more than they wanted to manage their diabetes. I’ve seen them flat-out refuse to work, too sorry even to put recyclables in a bin. I’ve seen neighbors deal crack. I’ve seen them neglect and abuse their kids. I’ve seen them neglect their elderly folks. And they were all perfectly legal, native born Americans.
I would have paid money to have a hard-working bunch of so-called “illegals” next door.
King and others like him make a distinction between “legal and illegal” because they do not actually understand what it means to be American.
Our country was built on the blood and sweat of people who did not believe in entitlement. They were people who were brave enough to risk their lives and give up everything they had to come here to be able to…WORK.
Today so many of the complaints against Latino illegals involve things that we have forced them to do by withholding citizenship from them. Yes, withholding. The Latinos by and large have earned their citizenship. We have forced them to live like criminals, we have alienated their children from the American dream and made them criminals by denying the very thing that would help this country the most: granting them citizenship.
Why do they eat up our tax-dollars at emergency rooms? Because they know the ER has to treat them regardless of their citizenship status. Who forced them to such subterfuge? Politicians like Georgia’s Chip Rogers who have passed law after law criminalizing these hard-working folks. If they were not afraid of being separated from their kids and deported, they might be more willing to seek less expensive forms of health care—like seeing a primary care physician. Doctors at Grady Hospital have told me how many of the Latinos they see dig into their pockets for cash to try to pay their bills, as opposed to native born Americans who waltz in and waltz out without a thought for who’s going to pay for their treatment.
By criminalizing undocumented immigrants, we’ve isolated them, making it harder for them to learn to speak English and yet their rabid critics scream that their inability to speak English is one of the chief reasons why we should not tolerate their presence in this country. That’s like stabbing someone and then complaining that they’re bleeding all over your floor.
Some point to the Reagan “amnesty” of 1986 and they say that it only encouraged more illegals to come here. It was no “amnesty.” Risking your life to come to a country to be able to work an honest job and provide for your family is not an illegal act. President Reagan understood that. He granted them citizenship because they had earned it. And my father, I remember, applauded Reagan for it.
How strange it is that in an era when Reagan has been canonized by both Republicans and Democrats alike, no one on either side—except John McCain—has had the cajones to talk about one of the most dramatic things Reagan ever did: his so-called “amnesty” for workers here without papers. It was the right thing to do. They cannot fully be Americans, they cannot live with equal protection and responsibility under the law, until we grant them legal status.
And before you take up the chant about how this group and that group has to wait and wait for many years to become citizens let me say two things: 1) Our entire immigration system needs to be reformed and 2) Actually, Mexicans do, in fact, have a status that merits special consideration not extended to everyone and so, by the way, do Canadians. It makes sense to make allowances for the countries that share your border. Their regional concerns are yours and you will find, if you know your history, that draconian immigration controls employed by neighboring countries always result in huge amounts of money being spent to achieve absolutely nothing.
Notice I said “immigration controls”—not “borders.” We need strong borders. But borders and immigration are two separate matters and it is only since the two have been forced into one issue by those wishing to further their careers by persecuting Latinos, that we have seen enormous, wasteful financial outlays in the form of nanny-chasing and gardener-tackling and all manner of other ridiculous and pathetic so-called “immigration enforcement” and “homeland security.” In 2007 alone, American taxpayers spent $270 million to incarcerate and maintain Hondurans whose only reason for being arrested, in the vast, vast majority of cases, was that they were here illegally. How much sense does that make to you? And that was just the Hondurans.
America is more than 200 years old and yet until the 1960s she always seemed so young, even younger than other, much newer states around the globe. Why? Because America’s previously more open and forgiving—prior to 1964—immigration policies meant that we were constantly seeing ourselves anew through the eyes of grateful newcomers. Their infusions of sweat and determination kept our economy robust as their presence created more jobs. That’s something the anti-immigrant crowd never talks about because they either don’t know or don’t want you to know: working people tend to create more jobs. Any economist can tell you that. My father used to say “I’d be ashamed to admit somebody took my job away. Anybody who’ll work will find a job.” That may seem harsh, but if we boil it down to bare economics it’s actually true, and working people create more work. You might not be working the job you want, but you’re helping yourself and the economy if you’re working at all and your job allows someone else to have a job, too.
As Fareed Zakaria pointed out in a May 2007 Newsweek article, “The six states that get the largest inflow of illegal immigrants—New York, California, Illinois, Texas, Florida and Arizona—have unusually low unemployment rates. With the exception of California and Illinois, they are all lower than the already-low national average of 4.5 percent (last month). As for the argument that immigrants depress the wages of native-born Americans, the best new research on this topic—by economists Giovanni Peri and Chad Sparber—demonstrates that unskilled immigrants complement rather than replace native Americans in the labor force, doing jobs that native Americans will not.”
The answer to the immigration dilemma is actually pretty simple. We must create a work visa program sooner rather than later. If you believe as I do, and as many generations of Americans before me believed, that your sweat is your justification for being here, a work visa program is the obvious choice for helping the American economy.
It makes sense in terms of tax revenues and paying for public services because guest workers can be taxed at a higher rate to pay for public services. It makes sense in terms of investing in America’s future because it will provide a legal path to citizenship. It makes sense in terms of reducing the prison population so that cell space can go to real criminals instead of housekeepers, roofers and landscapers. It makes sense in terms of creating a new generation of hard working immigrants to rejuvenate America’s economy. It makes sense in terms of preserving English because, without the taint of illegality, Latino laborers in particular will move more freely in society and they and their children will learn to speak English as a consequence.
It makes sense in every way except politically and if we, the people, make our wishes known, then it will make sense in that way as well.
COME TO AMERICA! Taxpayers WILL Support you?
Whatever the issues are, such as health care, education or even a overloaded prison system. Nothing has more effect on the culture, language, and momentum of our economy than ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION Politicians see the American taxpayer as the "Beast of Burden" None are more malevolent than Sen. Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a multitude of other officials, who only have big business dividends at heart.
How many more illegal aliens with their families are taxpayers expected to support? The media, along with the government have chanted monotonously for years, that only 13 million have settled here. But the Heritage Foundation have analyzed it's more like 40 million? Then who are we inclined to believe? I think the latter of the two and with that, what costs are estimated taxpayers fork out annually. The Heritage Foundation has issued many reports on costs for settling illegal and legal immigrants and the news it's not good? The critics will argue that illegal aliens pay taxes, state and federal--but millions more are happily accommodated by criminal employers who pay directly into the hand. Then what about the billions that leave this country every year by Western Union wire transfer, that never ends up in the nations coffers. Remember we have an encumbrance of illegal aliens stealing jobs in "Sanctuary Cities" But then we have Sanctuary states like California. Then guess what state nearly collapsed with bankruptcy imminent? They had to raise the highest taxes in the nation, to cover the $47. billion dollars, so they could support all the illegal alien welfare payouts. Seeing nobody is telling the Public the straight facts, we should use Census tracking to locate and deport all illegal foreign nationals? E-Verify should be made--PERMANENT--Not just for new employees, but those already hired.
America according to statistics from reputable websites takes in 1.5 million new--LEGAL IMMIGRANTS--a year. That's more immigration than any other country in the world.
Here is just a few who have compromised the E-Verify, but others who are have influenced the "Rule of Law." is Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). who should have never voted in to office. He runs with the subversive groups like La Raza, Mecha and a contagious following of anti-sovereignty lunatics. It should be noted that the FBI states, that America has the highest concentration of illegal alien felons incarcerated. Georgia is now pondering to make drivers licenses only available to people, who comprehend English. One only has to study the growing incident rate of DUI's on the website AMERICAN PATROL, to realize the scope of the death caused by foreign nationals on the highways and the violence in our streets. Illegal gang members have become the epitome of hideous murders in Sanctuary cities and states and a breeding ground for other felons. Home invasion robberies, car jacking and just plain kidnapping and assaults, rapes and child pederasts, was never on such a grand scale since the intentional ignorance of our lawmakers--to cease and desist--arresting and detaining illegal immigrants. Such is a violation of the law in Sanctuary cities. With pro-illegal alien Mayors such as Antonio Villegriossa, Gavin Newson in California only in the well lit areas will ordinary Americans venture on to the streets, Ever since1950's England opened immigration to colonists under crown rule, people stay in their homes at night, because of the inception of muggings and much more pronounced criminal activity. If President Obama is motivated to unleash another AMNESTY. That condemns American taxpayers to paying for the chain migration of every family member who is sponsored. That means the IRS will have to--EVEN MORE MONEY FROM TAXPAYERS--because the senile, handicapped and the large family of brothers, sisters, grandmothers, grandfathers will not be exempt. It will not matter if they never paid into Social Security, because they can still collect SSI, (Supplemental Security Income) and in addition get taxpayer low income housing and other public assistance.
Reid-Akaka-Inouye-Begich-Bennet-Udall-Bingaman-Udall-Boxer-Feinstein-Brown-Burris-Durbin-Byrd-Rockefeller-Cantwell-Murray-Cardin-Mikulski-
Carper-Kaufman-Casey-Conrad-Dorgan-Dodd-Lieberman-Feingold-Kohl-Gillibrand-Schumer-Harkin-Johnson-Kerry-Landrieu-Shaheen-Leahy-Sanders-
Levin-Stabenow-Lincoln-Pryor-Menendez-Lautenberg-Merkley-Wyden-Nelson-Reed-Whitehouse-Reid-Warner and Lady Pelosi. Xavier Becerra, Luis Gutierrez, Jon Kyl, Jeff Flake could also used their influence. We need E.Verify as a permanent tool in immigration enforcement.
Then we have E-verify that was stripped from the Stimulus/Omnibus spending bills. Then we have some pro-illegal immigrant states charging taxpayers to underwrite the in-state, higher education of illegal alien students. Course by now--we know the left wingers, open border brain-dead zealots, are pushing President Obama, to enact another Amnesty, to enact the Dream Act and rescind E-Verify, Real ID Act---and then to purgatory for US workers. They even curtailed the employer letter that notified them that their worker didn't match the Social Security Number given. It is no wonder these liberal Socialists have lambasted any chance of a Federal ID card? Because the numbers would be staggering who who would be identified as an illegal foregn national. If they can overrule the US Constitution, they can sure ignore the en masse, discharging millions more impoverished people for the taxpayers wallets--AND NOT THE PREDATORY BUSINESSES THAT HIRE THEM Remember who--THE PEOPLES--Arch-Enemies are? US Chamber of Commerce, ACLU and K Street lobbyists and radical ethnocentralist groups who think we should have wide open borders.
The bottom line is that the survival of America depends on the "Rule of Law" that was specified by the framers of our nation. Not from the corruption of our overseers, who think--WE--are fodder for their corporate sponsorship. In this year of Democratic leadership, I see radical change coming. Some good like the monolithic problem of Universal health care, for all the legal population, which will make life easier for every Joe in the streets. The critics can say what they will, but before my step-daughter passed away from Cancer the insurance companies were unrelenting, non-compassionate dirreah. Whose only objective was to extort as much money from my family, to relieve the so called hardship of their stockholders. copiously rich they are still trying to get their "pound of Flesh" from my ex-spouse. In Fausts--Devine Comedy--the tortures in purgatory is to good for them. Including in this miasma of a stench should be equal appearances of the majority of our politicians in Washington. Of course their are many honest, hard working exceptions to the rule. But the many have sold their soul, for thirty pieces of Silver to the highest bidder, which in most cases is big business, who care nothing but the most profit accessed from the US taxpayer. We must all keep phoning Washington at: 202-224-3121; The President: 202-456-1414: The truth about the plague of illegal immigration, can be found at NUMBERSUSA. JUDICIAL WATCH, CAPSWEB.
Dave
Tuesday, April 07, 2009 at 1:07 PM
FBI: Burgeoning gangs behind up to 80% of U.S. crime
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
Criminal gangs in the USA have swelled to an estimated 1 million members responsible for up to 80% of crimes in communities across the nation, according to a gang threat assessment compiled by federal officials.
The major findings in a report by the Justice Department's National Gang Intelligence Center, which has not been publicly released, conclude gangs are the "primary retail-level distributors of most illicit drugs" and several are "capable" of competing with major U.S.-based Mexican drug-trafficking organizations.
"A rising number of U.S.-based gangs are seemingly intent on developing working relationships" with U.S. and foreign drug-trafficking organizations and other criminal groups to "gain direct access to foreign sources of illicit drugs," the report concludes.
The gang population estimate is up 200,000 since 2005.
Bruce Ferrell, chairman of the Midwest Gang Investigators Association, whose group monitors gang activity in 10 states, says the number of gang members may be even higher than the report's estimate.
"We've seen an expansion for the last 10 years," says Ferrell, who has reviewed the report. "Each year, the numbers are moving forward."
'Growing threat' on the move
The report says about 900,000 gang members live "within local communities across the country," and about 147,000 are in U.S. prisons or jails.
"Most regions in the United States will experience increased gang membership … and increased gang-related criminal activity," the report concludes, citing a recent rise in gangs on the campuses of suburban and rural schools.
Among the report's other findings:
•Last year, 58% of state and local law enforcement agencies reported that criminal gangs were active in their jurisdictions, up from 45% in 2004.
•More gangs use the Internet, including encrypted e-mail, to recruit and to communicate with associates throughout the U.S. and other countries.
•Gangs, including outlaw motorcycle groups, "pose a growing threat" to law enforcement authorities along the U.S.-Canadian border. The U.S. groups are cooperating with Canadian gangs in various criminal enterprises, including drug smuggling.
Assistant FBI Director Kenneth Kaiser, the bureau's criminal division chief, says gangs have largely followed the migration paths of immigrant laborers.
He says the groups are moving to avoid the scrutiny of larger metropolitan police agencies in places such as Los Angeles. "These groups were hit hard in L.A." by law enforcement crackdowns, "but they are learning from it," Kaiser says.
MS-13 far-flung from L.A. incubator
One group that continues to spread despite law enforcement efforts is the violent Salvadoran gang known as MS-13.
Michael Sullivan, the departing director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, says the gang's dependence on shocking violence to advance extortion, prostitution and other criminal enterprises has frustrated attempts to infiltrate and disrupt the insular group's activities.
"MS-13's foothold in the U.S. is expanding," Sullivan says.
Kaiser says the street gang is in 42 states, up from 33 in 2005. "Enforcement efforts have been effective to a certain extent, but they (gang members) keep moving," he says.
MS-13 is the abbreviation for the gang also known as Mara Salvatrucha. The group gained national prominence in the 1980s in Los Angeles, where members were linked to incidents involving unusual brutality.
Since then, it has formed cells or "cliques" across the U.S., says Aaron Escorza, chief of the FBI's MS-13 National Gang Task Force.
The task force was launched in 2004 amid concerns about the gang's rapid spread. Gang members were targeted in broad investigations similar to those used to bust organized crime groups from Russia and Italy.
Among law enforcement efforts:
•Omaha: The last of 24 MS-13 members swept up on federal firearms charges and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine were sentenced last year in the largest bust since the group emerged there in 2004.
The gang's strength dimmed as a result, but the nine-month probe did not eradicate the group, says Ferrell, who assisted in the investigation.
•Nashville: During the last two years, 14 MS-13 members pleaded guilty on charges ranging from murder to obstruction of justice.
Davidson County, Tenn., Sheriff Daron Hall, whose jurisdiction includes Nashville, says MS-13 started growing there about five years ago, corresponding with an influx of immigrant labor.
Last April, county officials began checking the immigration status of all arrestees. "We know we have removed about 100 gang members, including MS-13," to U.S. authorities for deportation, Hall says.
•Maryland: Earlier this month, federal authorities said they had convicted 42 MS-13 members since 2005. More than half were charged in a "racketeering conspiracy" in which members participated in robberies and beatings and arranged the murders of other gang members, according to Justice Department documents.
In one case, Maryland gang members allegedly discussed killing rivals with an MS-13 leader calling on a cellphone from a Salvadoran jail, the documents say.
Escorza says a "revolving door" on the border has kept the gang's numbers steady — about 10,000 in the U.S. — even as many illegal immigrant members are deported.
The FBI, which has two agents in El Salvador to help identify and track members in Central America and the United States, plans to dispatch four more agents to Guatemala and Honduras, Escorza says.
"They evolve and adapt," he says. "They know what law enforcement is doing. Word of mouth spreads quickly."
Arturo
Thursday, April 09, 2009 at 11:34 AM
http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/mecha/archive/plan.html
EL PLAN DE AZTLÁN
El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán
In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal "gringo" invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlán from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny.
We are free and sovereign to determine those tasks which are justly called for by our house, our land, the sweat of our brows, and by our hearts. Aztlán belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to the foreign Europeans. We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze continent
Brotherhood unites us, and love for our brothers makes us a people whose time has come and who struggles against the foreigner "gabacho" who exploits our riches and destroys our culture. With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before all our brothers in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we are a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlán.
For La Raza to do. Fuera de La Raza nada.
Program
El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán sets the theme that the Chicanos (La Raza de Bronze) must use their nationalism as the key or common denominator for mass mobilization and organization. Once we are committed to the idea and philosophy of El Plan de Aztlán, we can only conclude that social, economic, cultural, and political independence is the only road to total liberation from oppression, exploitation, and racism. Our struggle then must be for the control of our barrios, campos, pueblos, lands, our economy, our culture, and our political life. El Plan commits all levels of Chicano society - the barrio, the campo, the ranchero, the writer, the teacher, the worker, the professional - to La Causa.
Nationalism
Nationalism as the key to organization transcends all religious, political, class, and economic factions or boundaries. Nationalism is the common denominator that all members of La Raza can agree upon.
Organizational Goals
1. UNITY in the thinking of our people concerning the barrios, the pueblo, the campo, the land, the poor, the middle class, the professional-all committed to the liberation of La Raza.
2. ECONOMY: economic control of our lives and our communities can only come about by driving the exploiter out of our communities, our pueblos, and our lands and by controlling and developing our own talents, sweat, and resources. Cultural background and values which ignore materialism and embrace humanism will contribute to the act of cooperative buying and the distribution of resources and production to sustain an economic base for healthy growth and development Lands rightfully ours will be fought for and defended. Land and realty ownership will be acquired by the community for the people's welfare. Economic ties of responsibility must be secured by nationalism and the Chicano defense units.
3. EDUCATION must be relative to our people, i.e., history, culture, bilingual education, contributions, etc. Community control of our schools, our teachers, our administrators, our counselors, and our programs.
4. INSTITUTIONS shall serve our people by providing the service necessary for a full life and their welfare on the basis of restitution, not handouts or beggar's crumbs. Restitution for past economic slavery, political exploitation, ethnic and cultural psychological destruction and denial of civil and human rights. Institutions in our community which do not serve the people have no place in the community. The institutions belong to the people.
5. SELF-DEFENSE of the community must rely on the combined strength of the people. The front line defense will come from the barrios, the campos, the pueblos, and the ranchitos. Their involvement as protectors of their people will be given respect and dignity. They in turn offer their responsibility and their lives for their people. Those who place themselves in the front ranks for their people do so out of love and carnalismo. Those institutions which are fattened by our brothers to provide employment and political pork barrels for the gringo will do so only as acts of liberation and for La Causa. For the very young there will no longer be acts of juvenile delinquency, but revolutionary acts.
6. CULTURAL values of our people strengthen our identity and the moral backbone of the movement. Our culture unites and educates the family of La Raza towards liberation with one heart and one mind. We must insure that our writers, poets, musicians, and artists produce literature and art that is appealing to our people and relates to our revolutionary culture. Our cultural values of life, family, and home will serve as a powerful weapon to defeat the gringo dollar value system and encourage the process of love and brotherhood.
7. POLITICAL LIBERATION can only come through indepen-dent action on our part, since the two-party system is the same animal with two heads that feed from the same trough. Where we are a majority, we will control; where we are a minority, we will represent a pressure group; nationally, we will represent one party: La Familia de La Raza!
Action
1. Awareness and distribution of El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán. Presented at every meeting, demonstration, confrontation, courthouse, institution, administration, church, school, tree, building, car, and every place of human existence.
2. September 16, on the birthdate of Mexican Independence, a national walk-out by all Chicanos of all colleges and schools to be sustained until the complete revision of the educational system: its policy makers, administration, its curriculum, and its personnel to meet the needs of our community.
3. Self-Defense against the occupying forces of the oppressors at every school, every available man, woman, and child.
4. Community nationalization and organization of all Chicanos: El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán.
5. Economic program to drive the exploiter out of our community and a welding together of our people's combined resources to control their own production through cooperative effort.
6. Creation of an independent local, regional, and national political party.
A nation autonomous and free - culturally, socially, economically, and politically- will make its own decisions on the usage of our lands, the taxation of our goods, the utilization of our bodies for war, the determination of justice (reward and punishment), and the profit of our sweat.
El Plan de Aztlán is the plan of liberation!
Back to MEChA de Tejaztlan Homepage
Arturo
Thursday, April 09, 2009 at 11:56 PM
Stephanie, I am going to post a long response to your blog here. There is a good chance you may not even read it. If you do, I seriously doubt anything I write will change your mind. Still this is an issue I have researched copiously and thought about very much over the past several years.
I continue to be dismayed by media conflation of illegal immigrants with the public policy question of whether illegal immigration is good for the country and whether allowing regularization and new guest worker programs allowing more low-skill foreigners to come and work is good for the country. I suspect the media does this deliberately because any person with a heart can empathize with the immigrant. I, for one, agree that most first generation immigrants are diligent and decent people. That, Stephanie, is simply not the issue. I beg you and everyone else in the media to stop conflatiing the issues. The issue is what is good public policy. If we looked at it strictly as a policy issue, we could get away from some of the emotion and the name-calling that has become so a part of this debate. As an aside, I have been very disappointing with the name-calling you have resorted to on this blog. Your comments about DA King, a decorated Marine who defended this country and a hard-working retiree from the insurance industry, are especially dismaying.
Let's limit this debate to public policy, shall we?
To that end, I assert that an unlimited flow of low-wage, low-skill employees, particuarly when they arrive illegally, is bad for the country, notwithstanding the hard work they put in.
Because you may not even read this, I am not going to offer sources or footnotes to my points. Just writiing this is work enough. However, if you do read this and you have a doubt about anything I say, bring it to my attention and I will source it for you.
I would agree with you that employers of illegal immigrants benefit from their toil. However, regardless of which side of the issue one may be on, they must understand that these employers are being subsidized by the public. Please understand, Stephanie. When an employer has an opening for a new dishwasher, they can hire from the local community. If they do, there are no incremental costs to the community to hiring this person. Unfortunately, what happens in reality is that a restauranteur needing a new dishwasher will simply "put the word out" among his Hispanic employees that he needs a new dishwasher. Within weeks, a new Mexican, having pirated an American's Social Security number, will show up at the back door. Please understand, Stephanie, that whatever the company is paying that employee is just a fraction of the cost of bringing that employee into the community so he can be employed as a dishwasher. The average cost of one year of public education in the US is $8,000. Every trip to the emergency room costs at least $5,000. Incremental police and fire protection are necessary when population grows, and more roads and bridges are necessary. You must agree that the employer of this new dishwasher is not bearing any of the costs: the local community is subsidizing that employer for ALL of the costs. You may argue that the public benefits from the fact that the restauranteur is able to price his food lower than he would if he had to pay more for an American dishwasher. I would reply with several points. Number one is that the public would at least have a choice as to whether it wanted to pay higher prices at the restaurant or not. As it is, the increased taxes and lowered services that result from the current subsiday situation are something about which the public has no choice: these consequences are rammed down our throats. I would also note that most studies have shown that increased pay that would go to Americans do not greatly increase the cost of the product or service in question. An additonal point I would make is that numerous studies have shown that the presence of plentiful cheap labor is an impediment to innovation while scarce cheap labor spurs innovation. We put a man on the moon 40 years ago. You cannot tell me that we can't find a way to automate dishwashing, lettuce picking, meatpacking, chicken processing, and many other things. Japan is much more restrictive on immigration than we are. They are much, much more automated than we are and they make extensive use of robotics.
Now lets get to the downside of an unlimited flow of low-wage, low-skill labor into the country. I hasten to say that much of this has been brought about by globalization that has greatly changed the labor force. In my humble opinion, the media has done a poor job of reporting the ramifications, good or bad, of so-called free trade agreements and globalization. For example polls showed that when NAFTA was passed in 1993, 65% of the public was opposed. Has it been good for the country? Most of the public thinks not, but the media has been extremely silent. Either way, it cannot be argued that manufacturing, which used to be the backbone of our economy, has been eviscerated and that millions of middle-class manufacturing jobs with health care benefits have been lost due to NAFTA alone. The labor force has changed dramatically, and new jobs have been heavily weighted toward service and manual labor jobs, very few of which pay good wages and very few of which offer health care benefits.
Illegal immigration has, in fact, had a negaitve impact on the job market. Yes, illegal workers tend to be very hard-working and have a good work eithic. However, they are also very pliable. Their greatest fear is deportation or loss of job so they will literally do anything for their employer. They are, in fact, indentured servants. This greatly and deleteriously effects low-skill American workers. Immigration reform advocates often denigrate the work ethic of these American workers, but I would point out that those workers did the work long before the Mexicans showed up. I would like to remind you of the case of Howard Industires, another greedy employer in Missisisippi that has been given a free pass by the media. Roughly half of their employees were hauled away during an ICE raid last summer. The media copiously reported that, as they were being hauled away, the American employees, mostly poor and African-American, applauded. I ask you, Stephanie. Were they applauding because they are mean people or do you think that maybe, just maybe, these folks understood that the cheap and pliable Mexicans were standing in the way of the ability of these folks to command a fair wage and decent benefits for their toil. I think the answer is obvious. As an aside, when the plant had to rehire to replace the Mexicans, there were long lines of Americans applying for the jobs.
Please note that average wages in the meatpacking industry were $19 per hour and (unadjusted for inflation) they are $9 per hour today. It is not a coincidence that this industry employed Americans 20 years ago but today employs mostly Mexicans. Once again, the only beneficiary is the greedy employer. It is sad that you, Stephanie, and the MSM seem to always be on the side of these greedy employers.
I want to talk about the impact of illegal immigrants on schools, health care and hospitals, crime, traffic, and general quality of life. I will go into very detailed points. Sadly, Stephanie and others in the media have REFUSED to concede that the huge population growth emanating from illegal immigration, heavily centered in poor low-wage people with very little educational attanment, has any negative impacts.
I will go into those areas in a future post.
Here's hoping you are willing to have at least a modicum of an open mind, Stephanie. I have read your writing in the past and seen you on the Georgia Gang before. I think you are talented. Sadly, I think you have a closed mind on this issue. I don't expect to change it but would hope that you and other members of the MSM give just a little more respect to honest, hardworking Americans who happen to disagree, not because they have anything against Mexicans, but rather because they have a legitimate public policy concern.
Michael
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 6:24 PM