Hispanic registered voters’ support for Barack Obama for president remained consistent and strong in June, with Obama leading John McCain by 59% to 29% among this group.
And, Gandelman adds (from the Gallup piece):
Gallup has interviewed more than 4,000 Hispanic registered voters during this time period. An analysis of candidate support by subgroup within the U.S. Hispanic electorate reveals that many of the well-established divisions in this year’s campaign — such as the gender gap and the marriage gap — are weak or nonexistent among Hispanic voters.
Rather, Hispanics of differing demographic backgrounds all tend to solidly support Obama. It thus appears that there isn’t much beyond a shared Hispanic ethnicity or identity that explains Hispanic voting patterns.
Being part Hispanic-Latino myself, I am naturally interested in the political leanings and aspirations of Hispanics in America. By “Hispanics in America” I mean persons of Spanish (the country, Spain), Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin residing in the United States. And, since we are talking about elections and voting, I should hastily add to my “Hispanics in America” definition: “and who are registered voters.“
All this is very interesting, but equally interesting, I believe, is what the Hispanics and/or Latinos who are citizens/residents of Spain, Central or Latin American, etc., feel about our elections and about the candidates.
But, unless one is ready to do a myriad of personal interviews–and spend a fortune on travel, or telephone calls, which I guess is doable–one has to pretty much rely on what the “Hispanic” media reports on the matter.
An excellent source for such information is the site “Watching America,“ watchingamerica.com. For example in the last couple of weeks, there have been several translated articles from Spain, Mexico and other Latin American countries discussing the subject:
One of the biggest challenges that awaits Democratic candidate Barack Obama is winning the Hispanic vote, because, during the primary elections, he was not very good with Latinos and he will not make it to the White House without their massive support. It will not be easy. Though Latinos have historically voted for the Democrats and they did in even greater numbers during the recent primary elections of the party (in part due to increasing anti-immigration rhetoric from the Republicans), a large fraction of the Latino vote was for Hillary Clinton.
If Europeans could vote for the next U.S. President today, we would elect Barack Obama, with a noticeable majority over his Republican rival, John McCain. At least that is what some recently published surveys assert. What is even more noteworthy is that the Democratic candidate also exacts a victory among the right-wing European electorate. Surprises will never cease.
But then the author quickly dampens such prospects, and even manages to deliver a slap in the face of the American voter by concluding:
However, it is in foreign policy that the European electorate needs to know with whom it is dealing. John McCain has spent many years forging alliances with European personalities, while the Democratic candidate is absolutely new at foreign policy matters and is only interested in the domestic agenda. When he speaks about international conflicts, the slips of Barack Obama are memorable, but they are beyond the grasp of an electorate that, largely, would not be able to locate Spain on a map.
Finally, a more recent, June 29, article, “Obama and McCain Go After the Hispanic Vote,” in El Universal, Mexico, reports on the convention of the Education Fund of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), which both McCain and Obama attended and where they made speeches. The following excerpt summarizes what both the Convention and “El Universal” focused on:
Immigration is the theme that captures the audience’s attention. The Democrat accused his Republican rival of turning his back on immigration reform under pressure from his party. McCain promised that a change in the immigration laws was, is, and will be his priority.
I will post some more excerpts in future columns, but focusing more on what the Hispanic people, rather than the Hispanic press, have to say about our elections and our candidates.
During the primaries a strong argument used against Democratic Senator Barack Obama was that he received tepid support from Hispanic voters and therefore could not be counted on to get that crucial part of the party’s constituency come November. But that argument is no more: a new Gallup Poll shows Hispanic voters strongly support the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee.
What to watch: will this poll now lead many conservatives who are unhappy about Republican presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain’s assurances to Latinos on immigration reform now pressure McCain more than ever to stop trying to appeal to Hispanics at the risk of losing conservative voters? The poll:
Hispanic registered voters’ support for Barack Obama for president remained consistent and strong in June, with Obama leading John McCain by 59% to 29% among this group.
That’s a whopping margin and it’s hard to see what McCain can do to turn that around, although he can perhaps try to neutralize Democratic Hispanic support in some key swing states.
While Hispanics generally preferred Hillary Clinton to Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, a solid majority of Hispanics have consistently backed Obama against McCain in general-election trial heats. Obama has led McCain by about a 2-to-1 margin since Gallup began tracking general-election voting preferences in early March.
The Iraqi refugee crisis–and it is a crisis–continues to draw my interest, and, the refugees, my compassion.
Perhaps it is because of my personal involvement in another refugee crisis in the seventies; perhaps it is because, in my opinion, the tragedy is a direct, albeit unintended result of our disastrous decision to invade Iraq and our equally disastrous mismanagement of the subsequent, nearly six-year-long occupation.
While, according to some sources, the situation in Iraq seems to be improving, there is no near-term end in sight to the sheer misery that over four million displaced Iraqis are experiencing–in squalid camps in their own country and in equally sordid conditions, mostly in Syria and Jordan.
Regardless of my passion for this issue, it is always great when I come across other voices that are equally or more passionate, and especially much more eloquent and authoritative.
A few days ago, I related the expert opinion on this issue by Morton Abramowitz, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and a board member of the International Rescue Committee.
Today’s New York Times had an opinion piece on the Iraqi refugees issue by none other than two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Nicholas D. Kristof.
I honestly can not think of another journalist–or for that matter, a politician or government official–who has focused more of the world’s attention on genocide, famine, global health, poverty and refugee issues in the developing world and elsewhere. Since 2004 Kristof has written dozens of columns about Darfur and visited the area eight times.
Thus, it should be no surprise that Mr. Kristof won his second Pulitzer in 2006, for commentary for what the judges called “his graphic, deeply reported columns that, at personal risk, focused attention on genocide in Darfur and that gave voice to the voiceless in other parts of the world.”
In his column, “Books not Bombs,” Kristof calls attention to what he calls the “dirty little secret” of the Iraq war:
The dirty little secret of the Iraq war isn’t in Baghdad or Basra. Rather, it’s found in the squalid brothels of Damascus and the poorest neighborhoods of East Amman.
Some two million Iraqis have fled their homeland and are now sheltering in run-down neighborhoods in surrounding countries. These are the new Palestinians, the 21st-century Arab diaspora that threatens the region’s stability.
Many youngsters are getting no education, and some girls are pushed into prostitution, particularly in Damascus. Impoverished, angry, disenfranchised, unwanted, these Iraqis are a combustible new Middle Eastern element that no one wants to address or even think about.
Kristof also writes:
We broke Iraq, and we have a moral responsibility to those whose lives have been shattered by our actions. Helping them is also in our national interest, for we’ll regret our myopia if we allow young Iraqi refugees to grow up uneducated and unemployable, festering in their societies.
In one of my pieces on this subject I quoted one of the members of our compassionate Conservative administration expressing just the opposite opinion: “…our obligation was to give [Iraqis] new institutions and provide security…” and , we don’t “have an obligation to compensate [Iraqis] for the hardships of war.” You guessed it, this was our former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton
Kristof also bemoans how little the U.S. has done towards accepting more Iraqi refugees into our country. But he also has a suggestion that would help the refugees and at the same time would address the region’s security challenges instead of “devoting billions of dollars to permanent American military bases,” as American hawks would prefer doing:
A simpler way to fight extremism would be to pay school fees for refugee children to ensure that they at least get an education and don’t become forever marginalized and underemployed.
[…]
We have already seen, in the case of Palestinians, how a refugee diaspora can destabilize a region for decades. If Jordan were to collapse in part from such pressures, that would be a catastrophe — and the best way to prevent that isn’t to give it Blackhawk helicopters, but help with school fees and school construction.
If we let the Iraqi refugee crisis drag on — and especially if we allow young refugees to miss an education so that they will never have a future — then we are sentencing ourselves to endure their wrath for decades to come. Educating Iraqis may not be as glamorous as bombing them, but it will do far more good.
Amen, Mr. Kristof, and thank you for continuing to give “voice to the voiceless in other parts of the world.”
Some attention is being given to an only partly humorous video from reason.tv which takes a fairly disparaging look at American reactions to various labor threats. The phrasing is worth noting:
Sometimes the threat comes from China, Japan, or outsourcing to India. Today, it’s NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement—you know, all those Mexicans taking our jobs.
The article then goes on to quote Drew Carey ranting about “the robot threat.”
“Now, think about it,” says Reason.tv host Drew Carey. “How are we supposed to compete against something that doesn’t get paid, doesn’t get health insurance, and never goes on breaks?”
“No job is safe from the robot threat!”
A couple of the usual sources have a good guffaw over this. (Give a wave to James Joyner and Professor Bainbridge.) However, the subtext of the original article follows an all too common theme. Anyone expressing concern over the so called “free trade” (which is quite obviously unfair trade in a cheap costume) effects on workers in the United States should immediately be lumped in with Luddites and those fretting over “brown skinned people sneaking over the border and taking our jobs.” The fact, of course, is that we’re talking about three very different issues here.
While many of us maintain a soft spot in our hearts for John Henry’s epic struggle against the rise of the machine age, the Luddite movement was dead before it was fully born. Worries about illegal immigrants sneaking over the border at night to “steal our jobs” is yet another distraction. Few, if any, high end, lucrative jobs are going to be filled by undocumented migrant workers. The real issue there speaks to a failure to enforce existing employment laws and is a discussion for another day.
The true annoyance here is the obvious conflation of the above two scenarios with the very real issue of job outsourcing and the government’s reaction to it. Anyone thinking that such things don’t happen or are the griping of “old world thinkers” who are standing in the way of progress and globalization are simply in denial. The issue is real and it confronts us today. Advancements in technology have allowed telecommuting to provide great benefits in a wide variety of areas. These include computer application development, engineering, CAD/CAM, graphics design and customer service among others. But far too many large corporations immediately made the jump from “remote working” to “very remote working” by handing these jobs off to basement rate cheap labor markets.
Usually these transitions come in the form of attractive sounding “offers” where employees are informed that their positions are being reallocated to “global resources.” The “offer” ensures that the worker will be given first choice for other, parallel positions inside the company or the lure of a “bridge to early retirement.” The reality, of course, is that other positions are scarce when every department is under similar pressure to globalize. The offer of “retirement” is not attractive to people who were still years from their target retirement date. More often than not the workers find themselves - well into middle age - suddenly tossed out into a fiercely competitive labor market and winding up in positions where they have to learn entire new sets of technical jargon involving phrases like, “grande, latte and half-caf.”
At the same time, many of these companies are recording record profits while collecting huge tax benefits at both the federal and state levels. Take a look at the list of companies, many of which are heavy hitters in the job outsourcing debacle, who wound up paying ZERO taxes in 2007 while sending our jobs overseas.
The survey said the following 16 companies, whose profits ranged from $42 million to $2.9 billion, paid no Federal tax last year: I.B.M., General Motors, Aetna Life and Casualty, Baxter Travenol Laboratories, Carolina Power and Light, Illinois Power, Corning, Hewlett-Packard, Ashland Oil, Greyhound, Ogden, Sequa, Pennzoil, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Consumers Power and Gulf States Utilities.
It is not the Federal government’s place to tell industry who and where they can hire workers. But by the same token, the Feds are under no obligation to give such huge benefits to the worst offenders. When you operate your company in the country which made it possible for you to achieve such success, you have a responsibility to give something back to that country. Make a profit? Yes. But you owe some loyalty beyond the circle of your board of directors and largest investors. You also owe some loyalty to the workers who helped you get there. The government needs to stop turning a blind eye to this. Incidentally, this is a subject which John McCain gets wrong, Obama gets occasionally right (but then often back peddles in his next speech) and Bob Barr nails right on the head.
Yesterday, I wrote a column comparing–contrasting–the Vietnamese refugee crisis with the present and ongoing Iraqi refugee crisis. My comments were based mostly on personal experiences and on personal views on the issue. Most of the experiences came from a stint of military duty in 1975 at one of the Vietnamese refugee camps as a Senior Refugee Liaison Officer–a tour of duty that turned out to be one of the most fascinating and rewarding aspects of my entire Air Force career.
Coincidentally, and fortunately, today’s Los Angeles Times carried a column, “The shortchanging of Iraqi refugees,” written by Morton Abramowitz, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and a board member of the International Rescue Committee. He also was the U.S. ambassador to Thailand (1978-81) and Turkey (1989-91). I say “fortunately” because while, as I said, my piece was based mostly on personal experience, Abramowitz column is steeped in professional knowledge and experience at the highest multinational levels in the areas of human rights, international rescue, refugees and crisis prevention missions and activities. Where else to go to both fact-check and complement my original article in such rapid succession?
Ambassador Abramowitz first provides a historic perspective on present and past refugee crises by pointing out that, “Since World War II, American actions have unintentionally created three huge refugee crises: the Indochinese in Southeast Asia, the Kurds of northern Iraq and now a third: the Iraqis displaced by today’s war.”
He then describes the professional, humanitarian and compassionate way in which the U.S. handled the Indochinese refugee crisis–“an extraordinary act“– and how the Kurdish refugee crisis was resolved.
With respect to the present Iraqi refugee crisis, the Ambassador has this to say:
Our war has displaced 4 million Iraqis since 2003, including 2 million now living beyond its borders in tough conditions. Yet we have allowed this vast, potentially destabilizing refugee burden to be borne mostly by Syria and Jordan. We have provided some aid to host countries but none to Syria, and we have allowed only a trickle of Iraqis (fewer than 10,000 so far) to resettle in the U.S. — far fewer than have been taken in by Sweden.
And,
For five years, the U.S. has failed to make Iraq’s refugee exodus a focus of national or international attention. The U.S. has allowed the crisis to be managed by concerned but second-tier American officials, and it has been slow to provide financial assistance. This year’s aid, the most generous so far, will surpass $200 million — but it is still only a quarter of what is needed, relief agencies say. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees complained last month that he would run out of funds in August.
Abramowitz then goes on to explain the differing responses to the three crises and offers some reflections. Included in the explanations are:
* The fact that White House leadership provided by Presidents Carter and George H.W. Bush was good and the fact that “This time around, there has been little presidential involvement.”
* The facts that “guilt was an underlying factor in previous crises,” and that “The current Bush White House, by contrast, appears to be without guilt or remorse.”
* The fact that the media have been generally uninterested in the story of the refugees this time. “Partly because, unlike, say, Darfur, where overcrowded, grim refugee camps can be graphically portrayed, Iraqi refugees generally live in crowded quarters in the cities of Syria and Jordan, surviving on inadequate international handouts, illegal labor or declining savings — but without much visual squalor to stir sympathy.”
* The fact–as I mentioned in my story–that “9/11 changed our national consciousness as well. We became less welcoming of outsiders in general and more suspicious of Arabs and Muslims in particular.”
In his conclusion, the Ambassador addresses a couple of my rhetorical questions and issues:
The stark reality is that no U.S. government, Republican or Democrat, is going to resettle hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees in the U.S. Nor is that the best solution. The best solution — as is almost always the case — is for most of the refugees to return home. They need to rebuild their lives and their country. After five years of war, violence is down and the situation offers hope for mass return, but that day has not yet come (despite the Iraq government’s recent promise to provide $195 million for returnees).
Until that time comes, they need plenty of help. In its waning days, the administration can at least provide the refugees greater financial assistance and can pressure Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to provide more than a pittance to them and to the states sheltering them.
Finally, I am pleased that the Ambassador agrees with me that “the U.S. should take in more refugees — particularly those who will simply never return to Iraq or whose savings have run out. Our values and our interests in the Middle East demand a better response.”
If I might quote myself, “Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children anxiously await our answers–answers that will reflect and perhaps redefine ‘the character of a nation.’”
Author’s wife (center) with a family of South Vietnamese refugees at the Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, refugee camp in 1975
The New York Times periodically publishes an “Op-Chart” that graphically depicts the progress, or lack thereof, that we are making in Iraq. The latest Op-Chart published today (Sunday, June 22), (”The State of Iraq: An Update”) does indeed reflect progress on several fronts, including the all-important political and military fronts.
The Op-Chart analysts, however, do offer some words of caution: “Iraq remains a violent country plagued by high unemployment, raw wounds from sectarian conflict, extremist militias aided by Iran, more than four million people still displaced by violence, and very limited government capacity to meet the country’s core needs.“
It is the “more than four million people still displaced by violence” that I would like to address. These “more than four million people” include approximately 2.7 million Iraqis who have been “internally“ displaced by the raging sectarian fighting since the war began, and who now live in squalid conditions and in virtual imprisonment in their own country. The number also includes approximately two million Iraqis who have fled the carnage in Iraq, mostly to Syria and Jordan and whose plight is not much better. Up to very recently, thousands of Iraqis were fleeing their war-ravaged country every month, making this the largest diaspora in the Middle East since 1948.
While the plight of all of these human beings is horrific and needs to be addressed, it is the situation–I call it a crisis–of the Iraqi refugees abroad that affects me most deeply, because it evokes poignant memories of a muggy May morning 33 years ago at a makeshift refugee camp at a sprawling military base in Florida.
Military personnel like me and others were there to welcome South Vietnamese refugees to the United States. An article I wrote at the time describing my experience said: “The character of a nation is reflected in the faces of these volunteers. Some have flowers in their hands, some have tears in their eyes, and all have compassion in their hearts”
The “volunteers” (social workers, housewives, college students, etc.) were watching a small, fragile old woman break down in tears as she stepped off the bus that brought her and the others to the camp. Next, an exhausted young mother holding a tiny baby was followed off the bus by six more small children–the father conspicuously missing. And so it went on. Last, a young helicopter pilot stepped off with just the clothes on his back, happy to be alive. These refugees and hundreds of others like them would be placed in our care for the next six months.
That morning in 1975 was only a few weeks after the fall of Saigon, an event that precipitated a chaotic helicopter evacuation out of Vietnam. The U.S. military airlifted 6,000 desperate South Vietnamese along with about 1,000 Americans to aircraft carriers offshore. The images of crying Vietnamese women, babies in their arms, desperately reaching out to dangerously overloaded helicopters are still with us. Over the next eight months, more than 125,000 Vietnamese were warmly greeted at several “Operation New Arrivals” camps like the one in Florida.
America and Americans opened up their hearts and arms to this “first wave” of Vietnamese refugees. (Hundreds of thousands of additional Vietnamese would be given refuge in our country during the next 10 years.) Within a few months the refugees were resettled in communities throughout the U.S. Thousands were graciously welcomed by Americans into their own homes; thousands more were “sponsored” by social and welfare organizations and provided with jobs. The vast majority would become hard-working, productive, loyal and grateful residents of our country.
What does Vietnam have to do with the ongoing Iraqi refugee crisis? A great deal, I believe. But, sadly, only by way of contrast.
While our government and our nation acted so nobly at the end of the Vietnam War, our government has been singularly blasé, ambivalent and slow in responding to the Iraqi refugee crisis. While many believe that the U.S. has the moral responsibility to seriously and meaningfully tackle the Iraqi humanitarian crisis, President Bush lacks the political will and does little more than make promises and provide money for refugee assistance–a “whopping” $208 million, according to USA Today “barely one-tenth of the $2 billion that members of the International Rescue Committee‘s board believe is needed annually for up to four years.”.
Since the war in Iraq started more than five years ago, the United States has admitted fewer than 6,000 Iraqi refugees. (Small Sweden has taken in more than 9,000 Iraqi refugees since the war began.) Last year, under pressure from the United Nations and other organizations, the U.S. State Department promised to allow 7,000 Iraqi refugees to enter the United States. Only 1608 were resettled. Since October 2007, only about 4,700 Iraqi refugees have been allowed to enter the United States.
Murtaja Kamal Aldeen is one of those 4,700 fortunate Iraqis. This Sunday’s New York Times tells how the 26-year-old Baghdad University dentistry graduate left everything back home to “escape a nightmare” that included death threats because he had worked for an American organization.
As in Vietnam, there are thousands of other not-as-fortunate Iraqi men and women who risked their lives by working with U.S. military and government officials, who believed our promises, and who now find themselves the targets of terrorists, insurgents and militia groups.
At least, there are small quotas for these Iraqis–whether they will be filled is another matter. The administration has allocated 12,000 slots for such Iraqi refugees this year–and is very slow in filling them.
But how about the two-million-plus Iraqis who are languishing in Syria, Jordan and elsewhere? Will we welcome hundreds of thousands of them as we welcomed the South Vietnamese? Doesn’t the U.S. as an invading and occupying nation bear some responsibility for the crisis? Or, do we agree with former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton’s position that “our obligation was to give [Iraqis] new institutions and provide security…” and that we don’t “have an obligation to compensate [Iraqis] for the hardships of war.”?
How have Sept. 11 and the war on terror changed our attitudes towards Arabs and Muslims? What are our security concerns when it comes to such refugees? The administration claims, and perhaps rightly so, that it has to be careful to weed out potential terrorists when processing the refugees. They also claim that admitting large numbers of Iraqis would just make their return to Iraq more difficult when Iraq is finally “liberated.”
More than 4,100 of our troops have sacrificed their lives to, as we are told, give Iraqis some measure of security, liberty and democracy. But, are these very same Iraqis not “good enough” to be let into our country?
Americans must address these questions and issues soberly and pragmatically, but hopefully also with some compassion. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children anxiously await our answers–answers that will reflect and perhaps redefine “the character of a nation.”
(The author served as a Senior Refugee Liaison Officer at the Eglin Air Force Base Vietnamese Refugee Center during “Operation New Arrivals” in 1975, and was responsible for the reception, processing, housing, health and welfare and assistance with the resettlement of over 600 South Vietnamese refugees)
Many Americans think the hot-button immigration issue is mainly one raging in the United States and that it’s only in the United States where passions are aroused. WRONG.
The European Union has just passed a law that is, quite simply, inhumane and utterly hypocritical. The law allows European governments to lock up illegal immigrants for a period of 18 months, after which the illegal alien “will be banned from European territory for five years.”
What does the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad think of Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee who has suggested a willingness to sit down at the table with the widely reviled Iranian leader? This editorial from the Islamic Republic’s state-run Iran News Daily is as notable for what it doesn’t say as for what it does. According to the daily, which seems to carefully avoid the issue of talks, “Obama was the right candidate with the right message at the right time. In fact, his message and ‘dream candidacy’ has resonated with many around the world, including in the Islamic world and people in our own nation.” Read the rest of this entry »
In my state, Ohio, the House passed HB 477 earlier this year in an effort to make English the state’s official language, but it appears to be at a standstill in the Senate just before the summer recess. There is widespread opposition to the bill and today, the effort, Blogging in Tongues came into existence to demonstrate and explain the many reasons why HB 477 should be opposed. Ohio blogs that are participating in this effort reach more than 10,000 readers.
If you would like to read about why HB 477 is bad law, please visit these posts:
“On the day that Obama seized the Democratic nomination (Tuesday, June 3), O Globo began telling readers to prepare for a spectacular political campaign. Here, however, is a note of caution. Don’t expect a duel between the young guy and the villain in the style of the best American Western. The choice between Obama and McCain is not between right and left, between good and evil, between progress and backwardness, or between liberal and conservative. It is a formidable display from a country that has seen some of its best traditions - amongst them tolerance, freedom of the individual and opportunity for all - slaughtered by almost a decade of Bushism. Even McCain recognizes that.”
“The McCain-Obama face-off is already turning the November presidential election into an exceptional moment in American history. A Republican rebel in his seventies confronting a mixed-raced newcomer to national politics almost looks like an accidental hiccup. It is a sign that the political apparatus no longer knows how to respond to the nation’s challenges. Both candidates embody the quest for what historian Arthur Schlesinger once called ‘the vital center.’
In what appears to be a clear signal that Sen. John McCain feels he has secured as much of the conservative base vote that he can for the general election, the candidate seems to have doubled back again on the question of comprehensive immigration reform. During the early, heated portion of the Republican primary McCain found himself in big trouble with the conservative base over this issue, leading him to issue a statement saying that he had heard the voices of concern and, “I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people’s priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders.” This position has been repeated as recently as last month.
So, it was troubling to some of his supporters when he appeared yesterday at a meeting of business leaders in San Jose, California and said the following:
“I believe we have to secure our borders, and I think most Americans agree with that, because it’s a matter of national security. But we must enact comprehensive immigration reform. We must make it a top agenda item if we don’t do it before, and we probably won’t, a little straight talk, as of January 2009.”
Mr. McCain asked others on the panels for suggestions about how to “better mobilize American public opinion” behind the notion of comprehensive immigration reform.
If the Senator plans to secure the borders before addressing comprehensive immigration reform, and he plans to do that in January of next year, that would appear to give him about eight days to lock down our borders. No small feat to pull off. (Pardon my snark.)
The reaction to this from the conservative base was rapid and predictable. Prominent Right wing blogger John Hawkins wasted no time in penning a proclamation: Why I Will No Longer Support John McCain for President. There are lots of campaign quotes and background material in there (so “read the whole thing” please) but here’s the hammer blow from the end.
Put very simply; John McCain is a liar. He’s a man without honor, without integrity, who could not have captured the Republican nomination had he run on making comprehensive immigration a top priority of his administration. Quite frankly, this is little different from George Bush Sr. breaking his “Read my lips, no new taxes pledge,” except that Bush’s father was at least smart enough to wait until he got elected before letting all of his supporters know that he was lying to them.
Under these circumstances, I simply cannot continue to support a man like John McCain for the presidency. Since that is the case, I have already written the campaign and asked them to take me off of their mailing list and to no longer send me invitations to their teleconferences. I see no point in asking questions to a man who has no compunction about lying through his teeth on one of the most crucial election issues and then changing his position the first time he believes he can get away with it.
Strong words indeed, and quite possibly representative of some elements of the conservative GOP who place national security and border control as their number one election issue. But does it truly represent any danger to McCain in the general election? You never want to see any of your party base abandon ship, but at this relatively late stage in the game McCain may still be able to pull off this type of “flip flop” with impunity.
Barring some sort of true disaster, McCain has the nomination wrapped up. He will carry the Republican standard forward in November. And while many in the Right wing base may find these statements objectionable, it is unlikely that they think a better deal will be coming from Senator Obama. In short, this change in position may cause a bit more buyer’s remorse from some of the primary voters who supported McCain, but for better or for worse he is the candidate they have in November.
McCain is doubtless aware that the more centrist and left leaning voters in America are keen on seeing some form of immigration reform. (Even President Bush recognizes that.) And the Arizona Senator also knows that he needs to worry more about reaching out to the middle at this point than further comforting his base supporters.
Cartoon by Petar Pismestrovic, Kleine Zeitung, Austria
Trying to explain Barack Obama and the impact his appearance is having on people around the world is a gargantuan task.
This article from France’s Liberation takes a good stab at it by examining his influence on young people - especially on those in the French suburbs which are so often areas of violent confrontation between police and that nation’s alienated minority population.
“Products of postcolonial immigration, the older generation - around the age of Obama’s father - say it’s extraordinary to see this in their lifetime and didn’t dare imagine such a fate for their own children. The younger generation, whose hostility against the United States took root during the war in Iraq, are finding something to smile about. One high school student told us that Obama’s victory would mean the “liberation of all Blacks in the world!”
“French born in France have to fight constantly with employers or in communicating and dealing with police against the idea that “being French is something observable.” Tired of having to respond to the eternal question, “Do you feel more Malian (Cameroonian, etc.) or French?” They have begun to dream of a country where when someone asks a Black person from whence they came, it’s to find out whether they were born in Ohio or California. They recognize themselves in Obama’s ambiguity of identity. …”
“But we shouldn’t be naively optimistic. First, because the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, by reintroducing the specter of racial division, showed that America’s old demons could undermine the dream of this new generation. Republicans will surely play on the senator’s “dubious” origins and on these fears.” Read the rest of this entry »
“As if the protagonists weren’t human beings who has separated themselves from their families to try and build a better future, the news that cash remittances from Latin American immigrants to their impoverished families back home are declining has been cause for celebration in xenophobic circles in the United States. … that doesn’t imply, as anti-immigrant groups say, good news for those seeking to restrict the flow of migration, since if the U.S. economy continues to deteriorate, the effects will be felt throughout the region. And when the economies of Latin America enter into a major crisis, the only escape valve will once again be immigration.” Read the rest of this entry »
Even under ordinary conditions, if you are the newly-elected president of a small Central American nation like Guatemala, coming to Washington to meet the U.S. president is a singularly important and daunting event.
Unfortunately for Guatemala, President Alvaro Colom’s visit comes during an election year in which the idea of legalizing the undocumented is the political kiss of death. According to this editorial from Guatemala’s Prensa Libre, the trip also proved a lesson in the global pecking order:
“Meetings between Guatemalan officials and their Washington colleagues stand out, due to a failure to comprehend how the complicated American political system works Read the rest of this entry »
Why is it that Popes don’t usually visit the United States during presidential election years? Lucas Mendez writes for the BBC Brazil, “As neutral as the papal robe is, his messages can and will be used by the candidates … every time Benedict XVI opens his mouth, Democrats and Republicans will interpret and “spin it,” according to their own political ‘gospels’” Read the rest of this entry »
Dang writes, “Harboring hatred for China’s development, the Caffertys of the world have assaulted, slandered, framed and spread rumors over recent years, and now they have finally - nakedly - come to the fore.” Beijing’s assault on the Western media shows no sign of abating.
By Ding Gang*
April 17, 2008
People’s Republic of China - People’s Daily - Original Article (English)
On April 9, when CNN broadcast the news on the Olympic torch relay in San Francisco, its host Jack Catterty remarked that Chinese products are “junk” Read the rest of this entry »
Swedish company, Absolut, wants us all to drink to Mexico reconquering the entire U.S. Southwest? Interesting. I can just imagine the eyeballs of several FOXNews hosts exploding out of their sockets. Honestly, I’m not very happy to see that ad either and I’m sure many other Americans aren’t amused.
While I could hysterically call for a boycott as others have, I don’t drink, so I’m not really an authority here. I know people get hooked on a certain type of liquor and will ride it till they die. Word on the street is the mass exodus to Grey Goose is in the works. Personally, I think people are too lazy for all that boycotting stuff unless its something very important. Read the rest of this entry »
March 21st, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
The message is up and awake, unanesthetized and walking. The message is about ‘the past’ and the ghosts that are yet unlaid in our country. Its other name is “racial issues.”
I hope it isn’t too politically incorrect to say that when the big old featherbed of ‘race’ is slashed open by one thing or another, all manner of odd and non-race related things come flying out too, it seems. These have to be sorted carefully for some are cordwood and some are chaff. Cities have been burnt by throwing chaff into the air and lighting a match… when in fact steadier minds would’ve strived to use the cordwood to make a fire that could warm all… and around which perhaps, for the first time, not one side or the other, but ALL sides of the stories could be told and held.
I hope it isn’t too outré to suggest that every time the featherbed pours, right away someone usually runs out with a big needle and thread wanting to sew that featherbed all back up again and way too soon. Douse the message. Something in the individual psyche, in the collective psyche, seems to want to silence the many sides who have not yet spoken. Instead, a number of individuals and the collective seem to move away from the message that not only walks, but tracks us…not to eat us, but seeking mercy and healing.
Some seem to want to say, “Ok an explosion went off, but it’s over now. Let go back to being snoring frogs again, for this is just all too much and too insipid and wont work out anyway.”
It’s better though I think, with cooler minds leading, to do otherwise, to in fact remain in the message… and to look at the open graves with the unlaid ghosts
Grave-looking takes guts, calm and deep souls … so that looking has every chance of turning into useful inquiry instead of endless indictment.
I hope it is not too off the wall to mention that in Rwanda, in relatively few years of hideous bloodshed, afterward, in the reconciliation and truth commission hearings, the vital testimonies of ALL concerned also took years to hear, assay, and to make moves for a real mending for many, at root level. Not in media light. It took as much time, as many years or more, to hear and understand as it did for groups of people to lie and thieve and harm one another prior.
I hope it isn’t as bewildering to you as it is to me, when I think that many in our country, seem right now to be thinking that one person running in an election primary, has made the final quintessential speech about race for our times. That there is no more to say now that Rev. Wright’s and Senator Obama’s points of view have been on the internet and in print and on the evening news. I hope it is not so that many people are thinking there are no other points of view to hear. The graves are still wide open. Pick a color, any color. The graves still are unblessed.
There are oceans yet to say; from thousands and thousands of voices. Specifics. Experiences. Whys and hows and wheres and whens. I wish there were a lyceum large enough to hold us all, and that the powers that be that want us to live in peace with one another would please bring to us the farmer from delta Mississippi and let him speak his life to us…
bring us a sign maker and bring us a stevedore. And bring us a good cop and a big bad one, and bring us a Daughter of the American Revolution. Please bring us a nun who has given her entire life to serving Haitians, and the presser from NOLA who has worked ironing clothes for the wealthy all his life. Give us a man who runs a shoe repair, and a scumble of those who worked on the assembly lines together, ones who wove and welded and work still now with all their bones and blood and do not have soft hands or years in chair sitting. Half the healing is in the storytelling. The other half is in the just listening and moving to do better.
We know. We know we know we know that a plant that ails has an etiology to its wither. That what shows on the surface is only the symptom. Underneath lie systems under duress and in disorder and disrepair. It can hardly be thought can it, that to help a patient be well again, we finger point and blame?
Isn’t it more that we lay the best medicine into the worst of the wounds? And encourage one another throughout? There’s a saying in healing that the patient heals the doctor, encourages the doctor with their spirit, as much as the doctor helps to heal and encourage the patient. Oughtn’t it be more like that?
So. “Race” is up and alive and walking. Only thing is, “race” is mute. It needs people to speak for it. Thousands and thousands of different perspectives to speak for it—dialogue, not solely monologue… so we can, this two hundred and some years later for this country, really get down to it. Figure out the graves and how to go forward without carrying the heavy caskets on our backs for eternity.. any of us.
Now would be the time in the nomination race for ALL candidates to realize the surprise reason, one of the most critical reasons to stay on message regarding “race” in our country right now in our time and for the foreseeable future… for many persons do not realize that along with the backs and bones and blood of labor from Mexico and Central America, also being imported right along with their hearts and souls is their 500 years of bending under the lash of abject racism there too.
“Race” isn’t only a painful ganglia from the past for most everyone… it is also an ancient issue but with new faces, that is bearing down toward us.
It would be better to learn to heal rather than to hide.
March 12th, 2008 by DAVID SCHRAUB, Assistant Editor
The theme being people fleeing human rights abuses in Iran being treated like dirt when they try and get asylum in the west. Today’s variation: a 19-year old gay teenager who likely will be deported back to Iran (where his boyfriend was executed for Sodomy) from Great Britain because Iran does not “systematically persecute” homosexuals.
![[Excelsior, Mexico]](http://worldmeets.us/images/wantedimmigrants_excelsior.gif)
