Are we selling out Hispanic Americans in Arizona for Campaign Contributions?

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.  This is the first line of a story from National Public Radio that I heard last week.  The story that followed completely pissed me off, it didn’t surprise me in any way but just added to my growing negative opinion of our government.  Apparently, prison corporations working through their lobbyists, and a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and even the name sounds sinister.  Legislative exchange, so legislation in exchange for what, well money of course, in the form of business dealings sure but money none-the-less.  So effectively, prison corporations in conjunction with ALEC met together in a hotel room in Washington, DC and came up with the verbiage for the Arizona Immigration Law that would put lots of illegal immigrants in prison for a very profitable government per diem for the illegals incarcerated.   Which works out for the Corrections Corporation of America since they foresee a significant portion of their future revenues coming from immigration enforcement and customs.

So the law was passed in Arizona and who cares where it was written, I mean it was objectively passed by the legal representatives of the state, right?  It was a popular bill once introduced, 36 co-sponsors immediately jumped on the bill, unheard of in the Arizona Legislature.  Then the bill went to the governor who I am sure carefully considered the bill and then objectively decided to sign it.  Well, maybe not so objectively, all 36 sponsors had received campaign contributions from the prison lobby and two of Governor Jan Brewer’s top aides are both former prison lobbyists.

So in essence, a bill that has been reviled around the nation, that puts a presumption of guilt on any Hispanic looking individual in the state of Arizona, is vindicated for being motivated by racism.  Worse than that, it is motivated by greed and the obsession of being re-elected to the point of selling your honor.  Now I think we all understand there is a racist element to the bill as well, so Hispanic American’s in Arizona are getting screwed due to racism and greed.  What the hell is happening to this country?  The link to the NPR story is below:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130833741

The Ground Zero Mosque a new problem or is it?

I love this piece from the New York Times take a gander at the opening paragraph:

“Many New Yorkers were suspicious of the newcomers’ plans to build a house of worship in Manhattan. Some feared the project was being underwritten by foreigners. Others said the strangers’ beliefs were incompatible with democratic principles.

Concerned residents staged demonstrations, some of which turned bitter.

But cooler heads eventually prevailed; the project proceeded to completion. And this week, St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Lower Manhattan — the locus of all that controversy two centuries ago and now the oldest Catholic church in New York State — is celebrating the 225th anniversary of the laying of its cornerstone.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/nyregion/08zero.html?_r=1&hp

Now here’s the quiz, who was this been said about:

“Few of their children in the country learn English. … They will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.”

If you guessed Benjamin Franklin in 1751 about German immigrants you are correct.  Below is a link to a very interesting piece on American bigotry:

http://badgerherald.com/oped/2007/08/31/bigotry_americas_sha.php

These two pieces very much show the shameful side of America’s history of bigotry.  The anger around the supposed ground-zero mosque certainly has components of rightful anger related to 9/11, unfortunately I would love to be convinced that’s all it is.  However, as we have seen since the inception of our country new immigrants have suffered the same type of bigotry just for being new and just for being different.  America my friends is NOT a Judeo-Christian country, it is a country founded by primarily Judeo-Christian men.  Their predecessors came here to establish a country where the most important concept is, was and will hopefully always be freedom, not religion.  Freedom to believe as you please and to build anything you want, anywhere you want, as long as you do not violate the laws of the land.  At the end of the day that is what makes America great and why we should we truly be proud of our country.  What we should also be proud of is our progress.  When our founding fathers founded our country, it was a country found by and for men.  Since those days we have grown to recognize the rights of women to vote, of blacks to be full citizens with all of those rights including the right to vote (even if that did take almost 200 years), to allow same-sex partners to have partnership rights and even in some places to marry.  So my hope for America is that we can recognize our mistakes from history and maybe, just maybe speed up our progress to truly allow people in this country to be free, even with the costs that come with that freedom.

To Jan Brewer, Governor of Arizona, kiss my shiny white Irish A@#!

Hello Governor Brewer let’s get something straight, you signed a bill that makes it a misdemeanor to be an illegal immigrant in Arizona so that local and state authorities can deal with the immigration issues your state is facing.  I understand the difficulties that southern Arizona in particular faces in regard to illegal immigration. You’ve taken a lot of static for that decision and your most recent response, a ripoff Kermit the Frog puppet singing reading is fun, is not only ridiculous but hypocritical.  Particularly in light of the fact that you say this action will not inspire racial profiling, of course you must be talking about the amended bill you signed removing the racial profiling language, so I wonder, Governor Brewer, did YOU read the first version of the bill you signed? Remember, reading is fun!

 If you go to this link: http://immigration.change.org/blog/view/frog_puppet_thinks_reading_and_arizona_sb_1070_is_fun you can see the stupid singing frog video and read a quick little snippet by Alex DiBranco where she quotes Arizona State Rep. Russell Pearce, the sponsor of SB 1070 who goes ahead and admits racial profiling was exactly what he had in mind: “Ninety percent of the illegal aliens in Arizona come from south of the border, so it [appearance] certainly may be a factor.”  At least he’s honest, Governor Brewer doesn’t have the same integrity.

I’m sick and tired of politicians on the right, so-called ”conservatives”, using bullshit reasons to be sexist, racist assholes.  I’m not racist, I’m just against illegal immigration they say, taking a break from telling their beaner and wet back jokes to face a camera.   Rush Limbaugh isn’t sexist as he refers to this or that woman as the news chick, or government chick, he’s just joking around, I mean hey. the term femonazi is a term of endearment, please.  Conservatives don’t understand how students wearing US Flag shirts to school on Cinco de Mayo could possibly be construed as anything other than patriotic.  Surely they are not trying to incite Mexican-American students.

Cut the shit, all of you, just stop, THIS IS AMERICA!  You want to be a patriot, aspire to the actual ideals this country was founded on, a nation where those who cannot find freedom or prosperity in their homeland can come and find it here.  That plaque on the statue of liberty is not just for decoration, nor was it ever intended to be conditional.  In this country we take the poor and the displaced as long as we are able, that’s patriotic.  My great-grandfather immigrated to this country from Ireland, you may have heard of a little something called the potato famine, if not, look it up!  When the Irish came to the US they were spit upon, maligned, beaten, killed and discriminated against.  But my people had an edge, we looked a hell of a lot like the people who were already here.  Mexicans and Latinos immigrating here legally or illegally have a much bigger hill to climb based on nothing more than the color of their skin.  These people are just as hard-working as my ancestors were, they come here and they work here to make a better life for their children, just like my great-grandfather and so many other Irish men and women did.  So Governor Brewer on behalf of myself and all of my Irish ancestors, kiss my shiny, white, Irish ass and get off the Mexican’s back!