The company they keep...
Having glimpsed two late middle-aged, paunchy men standing on a street corner of our town, sporting bermuda shorts, cowboy hats and T-shirts reading, "STOP ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION," I wondered who these folks are. What would motivate you to leave your home and hit the road to campaign in sparsely populated areas against illegal immigration, when the United States was founded on immigration generally?
As you might suspect, it's not a pretty picture. The official line is "lack of respect for our American laws," but that's only for public consumption. In fact, as prominent members of the stop illegal immigration crowd make clear, the motives constitute a witches' brew of racism, paranoia, conspiracy theories and plain old nativism. One woman from Virginia maintains that illegals have brought a leprosy epidemic to an area just outside Boston, Massachusetts and must be stopped on that basis. She also maintains that those not diseased are probably pedophiles, fleeing draconian Mexican penalties for their crimes. One of her confreres, or perhaps this same woman--it all kind of runs together, after all--alleges to audiences that al-quaeda has teamed up with various nefarious Latin American leaders(Chavez is probably a leading candidate)to bring middle eastern terrorists to Latin America, teach them impeccable Spanish, then smuggle them across the border so that they can commit atrocities here. Which terror candidates would volunteer for the desert ordeal when they can get into the US on legal visas through JFK airport is unclear, but never mind. Then there is the terra irredenta angle, made known to everyone by an elderly Arizonan. This fellow claims that Hispanics are a Trojan Horse force sent to begin the so-called reconquista, the retaking by force of former Mexican territory from the hapless and unsuspecting United States. A few years ago, he declared that if the United States could bomb the television station in Belgrade, it could certainly do the same to TELEMUNDO and all the Spanish media in this country.
This is quite a group here. If you have any friends obsessing about this issue, about the illegal "invasion" of the United States by Hispanics, clue them in as to what their famous fellow travelers say in their less public moments(these stories and more courtesy of the Southern Povery Law Center, www.splcenter.org). They'll no doubt agree that these are not people with whom they would travel the world on a tandem bike...
As you might suspect, it's not a pretty picture. The official line is "lack of respect for our American laws," but that's only for public consumption. In fact, as prominent members of the stop illegal immigration crowd make clear, the motives constitute a witches' brew of racism, paranoia, conspiracy theories and plain old nativism. One woman from Virginia maintains that illegals have brought a leprosy epidemic to an area just outside Boston, Massachusetts and must be stopped on that basis. She also maintains that those not diseased are probably pedophiles, fleeing draconian Mexican penalties for their crimes. One of her confreres, or perhaps this same woman--it all kind of runs together, after all--alleges to audiences that al-quaeda has teamed up with various nefarious Latin American leaders(Chavez is probably a leading candidate)to bring middle eastern terrorists to Latin America, teach them impeccable Spanish, then smuggle them across the border so that they can commit atrocities here. Which terror candidates would volunteer for the desert ordeal when they can get into the US on legal visas through JFK airport is unclear, but never mind. Then there is the terra irredenta angle, made known to everyone by an elderly Arizonan. This fellow claims that Hispanics are a Trojan Horse force sent to begin the so-called reconquista, the retaking by force of former Mexican territory from the hapless and unsuspecting United States. A few years ago, he declared that if the United States could bomb the television station in Belgrade, it could certainly do the same to TELEMUNDO and all the Spanish media in this country.
This is quite a group here. If you have any friends obsessing about this issue, about the illegal "invasion" of the United States by Hispanics, clue them in as to what their famous fellow travelers say in their less public moments(these stories and more courtesy of the Southern Povery Law Center, www.splcenter.org). They'll no doubt agree that these are not people with whom they would travel the world on a tandem bike...
posted by buckarooskidoo at 11:15 PM
2 Comments:
Maybe if people took some time for rational thought instead of knee jerk reactions to their bizarro world fears.
And they accuse liberals of being dope-smokers...
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