Text 350, 112 rader
Skriven 2006-05-09 16:43:00 av BOB KLAHN (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av ALAN HESS
Ärende: Chapman on protests
===========================
 AH> What do you think of his take on immigrant protests?  I
 AH> must say he does seem to have a point about the flags.

 AH> *******

 AH> From the Baltimore Sun
 AH> Outrage over immigrant protests doesn't add up

 AH> By Steve Chapman

 AH> May 8, 2006

 AH> CHICAGO -- The immigration protests held across the country
 AH> last Monday serve as a perfect Rorschach test: What
 AH> reaction did you have to the sight of hundreds of thousands
 AH> of immigrants marching down American streets, calling on
 AH> Congress to accommodate them? Dismay? Ambivalence?
 AH> Admiration?

 Outrage that b******s like this clown keep referring to
 immigrants at the targets, instead of illegal immigrants. If he
 stayed focused on illegal immigrants the whole picture changes.

 ...

 AH> fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and bar illegal
 AH> immigrants already here from gaining legal status. That
 AH> bill, more than anything else, is what has brought so many
 AH> immigrants into the streets to demonstrate - which seems
 AH> only to harden the views of the hard-liners.

 Anyone protesting for legalization of illegal immigrants just
 might expect to harden the views of the opposition, hard line or
 not.

 ...

 AH> This was not a mob bent on upending the social order.
 AH> Instead, the marchers were asking, in a sober and
 AH> restrained manner, to be included in that social order.
 AH> They were not looking for a fight - they were hoping to
 AH> avoid one.

 There are millions of poor Americans who want to be included in
 the social order. Those who are here illegally have no grounds
 to call to be included in the social order.

 ...

 AH> True, many of these people are violating immigration laws.
 AH> But whose fault is that? Critics act as though we've been
 AH> invaded by hordes of outsiders. In fact, Americans have
 AH> invited them in by declining to enforce our laws and
 AH> providing them with ample employment opportunities.

 He makes it sound like everyone of us employs an illegal alien
 nanny or house keeper. In the real world a few Americans provide
 ample employment opportunity for illegals, as a way to avoid
 paying Americans a decent salary.

  As to declining to enforce our laws, what does he think this
  whole arguement is about?

 ...

 AH> The furor over a Spanish version of the national anthem
 AH> revives fears that Latino immigrants have no interest in
 AH> assimilating into American society. In fact, today's
 AH> immigrants behave pretty much like those of the past.
 AH> Almost all second-generation Hispanics speak fluent
 AH> English, and 72 percent of third-generation Hispanics speak
 AH> nothing but English at home.

 In which case, simply abolish all requirements for other
 language support. We don't need a Spanish version of the
 National Anthem if everyone speaks English.

 AH> The closed-border crowd thinks those who violate
 AH> immigration rules represent a danger to law and order. But
 AH> the opposite is true: Latino immigrants are more
 AH> law-abiding and less inclined to criminality than
 AH> native-born Americans.

 How does limiting the issue to illegal immigrants change the
 results?

 AH> Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson attributes the steep
 AH> drop in crime in the 1990s to the arrival of so many
 AH> foreigners. His study, he writes, "found that immigrants
 AH> appear in general to be less violent than people born in
 AH> America, particularly when they live in neighborhoods with
 AH> high numbers of other immigrants."

 And where does the term, "illegal immigrants" appear in that?
 It's not immigrants, it's illegal immigrants. It's not
 immigration, it's unrestrained immigration.

 AH> The immigration hard-liners insist on seeing everything
 AH> illegal immigrants do in the worst light - as hostile and
 AH> subversive. The protests made it clear that they don't want
 AH> to destroy our way of life. They only want to share in it.

 Yes, they do want to share in it. So do millions of poor
 Americans, black and white, who are being undermined by illegal
 immigrants.

BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... "The poor in your midst are my Trust, guard ye my Trust" < God
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