patrickmurfin

Well, the Illinois Minuteman Project circus rolls into town tonight when they put on their $50-a-head show at McHenry County College featuring Ohio Sheriff Daniel Beck.  You may remember these folks as the eye of the hurricane that blew through McHenry County this summer when they tried to put on the same show at a local hotel.  This blog carried the ensuing drama blow by blow.  Check the archives to get up to speed or refresh your memory.

I’ve been asked why the McHenry County Peace Group and the Latino Coalition have not publicized protests to this meeting.  Good question.  First, neither group ever denied the right of the Minuteman group, or anyone else, to meet.  We only wanted to counter their support of draconian measures targeting immigrants and, inevitably, any one who looks or sounds like an immigrant.  Secondly, we agreed that Latinos Unitdos, the recognized college student group, should take the lead in plotting a response.

In speaking to the press shortly after this meeting was announced, I made clear that we were not opposed to allowing them to have a forum.  I did point out that when the Peace Group recently sponsored its Current American Issues forum on immigration with Salvadore Cicero, it was free and open to the public.  No attempt was made to screen out Minuteman members or other opposed to a fair and equitable immigration policy.  We accommodated written questions from the audience regardless of the perspective of the questioners.

On the other hand the Minuteman Project has gone out of its way to make its “public” meeting as private as possible.  The $50 admission charge and the refusal to sell tickets at the door are meant to screen out attendance by any possible opponents.  Minuteman front woman Rosanna Pulido, after denying that the high charge was meant to screen out opponents in the NORTHWEST HERALD was caught red handed admitting it in the DAILY HERALD. 

When the group was planning its first meeting, it even returned the money of Latino Coalition leader Carlos Acosta and refused to allow him to attend even to observe.  Acosta and others have secured tickets to the new program.  It will be interesting to see if they will honor their commitment to the college for an “open” meeting or will try to deny them entrance anyway.

The group also will ban cameras and recording devises from the meeting so no record of what is actually being said by whom will likely be made public.

Another interesting question is whether the group can fill the auditorium with paying customers.  $50 a head is quite a shot, even for many of their own supporters.  One wonders how many tickets will be “comped” to loyal supporters to avoid the embracement of a half-empty house.  Again, the wide spread use of free passes while soaking the general public would call into question their “public” meeting.

Latino Unidos students did take the lead and outlined ambitious plans for counter events.  But the administration, probably fearing confrontations, refused to allow the group to use the commons area near the Conference Center to set up alternative literature and programming.  They turned down a proposal to allow a teach-in  in classrooms any where near the Minuteman event or to allow the group to invite high school students to attend.  Hints were heavily dropped that any “disruptive” behavior by Latinos Unidos could result in the suspension of their recognition as an official student group.

When the group presented college President  Walter Packard, with a petition containing over 400 names, protesting the use of the college as a venue for the event, Packard used the media to paint Latinos Unidos as advocates of censorship and the college as a bastion of free speech.  But neither the President nor the College has ever explained how the Minuteman group’s restrictive admissions policy should qualify it to use college facilities under the tissue thin guise of presenting a “public” meeting.

Tonight Latino students, acting as individuals, will make their presence known to those attending the event.  In the course of their normal activities—going to classes, the library, commons, and the parking lot—they can be observed wearing identifying t-shirts.  Meanwhile supportive observers, including Peace Group and Latino Coalition members will be on hand to monitor the situation.  No demonstrations or disruptive activities are planned.

But the Minuteman group and their allies will not be able to slink into McHenry County unnoticed.

Look to this space for coverage of what takes place tonight.

Regular readers of these electronic page know that this blog is a strong supporter of justice for immigrants, including those of irregular status.  With rising popular hysteria against “illegals” and political ambivalence by leaders of both parties, there has been little good news for immigrants coming out of Washington.  Even the so called immigration reform measure supported by Senate Democrats and the Resident last year which went on to defeat in the House, was not an un-mixed blessing.  In fact, it was so riddled with problems and pitfalls that I believe that its loss was better for most immigrants than the “benign neglect” of continuing the present system.  In fact almost any imaginable broad immigration bill that could pass this Congress would be a punitive disaster.

But Senator Richard Durbin, the great and courageous senator from Illinois, is leading the fight for an important, if limited, reform—the DREAM ACT.  This would guarantee that children brought to this country at an early age who have stayed in school through high school, do not have criminal records, and who go to college or serve in the military would have a clear path to citizenship.  This is only just as these children are Americans in everything but technical legal status.

I received the following appeal from the NATIONAL IMMIGRATION LAW CENTER from Silvia Realzola of the Carpentersville Community Alliance and from Carlos Acosta of the Latino Coalition.  I am sharing it here in hope that you will take a moment to lend your support.

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

SENATE VOTE ON DREAM ACT

AS EARLY AS WEDNESDAY!

 ***IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED*** 

YOU AND YOUR NETWORKS NEED TO FLOOD SENATE OFFICES WITH PHONE CALLS, FAXES AND EMAILS TOMORROW!!!!! 

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2007 

TELL SENATORS TO VOTE FOR S. 2205 THE DREAM ACT!!!

CALL THEM AGAIN THE NEXT DAY!!!!!

 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2007 

TELL SENATORS TO VOTE FOR S. 2205 THE DREAM ACT!!! 

The DREAM Act will likely come up for a vote on the Senate floor this Wednesday. 

IT IS IMPERATIVE FOR ALL DREAM ACT SUPPORTERS TO CALL YOUR SENATORS, send an e-mail message and fax them, do it all over again on Wednesday morning first thing.  

SHUTDOWN THE SENATE SWITCHBOARD WITH YOUR CALLS!

CALL 202-224-3121

DON'T LET THE ANTI-DREAM CALLERS BEAT US THIS TIME!

Last week, Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) quietly re-introduced the DREAM Act as a new stand-alone bill, S. 2205. Most likely this Wednesday there will be a "cloture" vote on whether the DREAM Act can be debated and ultimately voted on. This will mark the first time that the DREAM Act has ever come to a clean vote on the Senate floor. 

The provisions of S. 2205 are similar, though not identical, to S. 774, the version of the DREAM Act that was filed by the Senators Durbin, Hagel, and Lugar earlier this year. Like the earlier version, S. 2205 would provide a 6-year path to permanent residence and eventual citizenship for individuals brought to the U.S. more than 5 years ago as undocumented children if they graduate from high school and continue on to college or military service. 

The cloture motion will require 60 votes to pass. If it fails, the DREAM Act will be pulled from the floor.  If it passes, there will be more votes on the DREAM Act as well as on possible amendments. The outcome of these votes will determine the fate of the DREAM Act for this Congress. 

THE FIRST STEP IS PASSAGE OF THE "CLOTURE" MOTION, MOST LIKELY ON WEDNESDAY.  Word is already getting out about the vote on anti-immigrant websites, talk shows, and cable TV who are spreading their usual falsehoods, and there is little doubt that their angry and fearful base will respond. 

OUR RESPONSE MUST BE UNPRECEDENTED!

If you care at all about the future of DREAM Act students who have grown up here, then you must make your calls today and tomorrow, then forward this message, and then get on the phone to make sure that everyone you know does likewise. There will not be another chance.

CALL BOTH OF YOUR SENATORS AND TELL THEM:

"PLEASE VOTE FOR THE DREAM ACT
SO THAT IMMIGRANT STUDENTS BROUGHT HERE AS CHILDREN
CAN REALIZE THEIR POTENTIAL"

Your Senators' phone numbers are online here

OR

CALL THE SENATE SWITCHBOARD 202-224-3121

 To send an e-mail message to your Senators please go here 

 The DREAM Act in Brief:

The DREAM Act is narrowly tailored

It would apply only to individuals brought to the U.S. at least 5 years ago as children, who have grown up here (but are still under 30 years old), and who have remained in school and out of trouble.  They could get a green card 6 years after graduating from high school if during that time they continue on to college or serve in the military.

The DREAM Act is not a "mini-amnesty"

At its core, amnesty is forgiveness for wrongdoing. That does not apply to DREAM Act students who were all brought here years ago as children. The DREAM Act rewards them for staying in school or serving our country.

The DREAM Act would benefit taxpayers

The DREAM Act would provide hope to immigrant students and lead many more of them to remain in school. As an example of the fiscal benefits of this, a RAND study showed that a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant woman who graduates from college will pay $5,300 more in taxes and cost $3,900 less in government expenses each year than if she had dropped out of high school. This amounts to an annual fiscal benefit of over $9,000 per person every year, money that can be used to pay for the education of other children. State and local taxpayers have already invested in the education of these children in elementary and secondary school and deserve to get a return on their investment

The DREAM Act up now differs from earlier versions

The most important differences from the earlier version are that S. 2205 would not apply to individuals who, on the date of enactment, are over 30 years old, and it would not delete a provision of federal law that places conditions on states that provide in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants. 

You can find more information about the DREAM Act here

 Rev. Dan Larsen of the Congregational Unitarian Church (left) and program host Dr. Nelson Borrelli (right) look on as Ann Legg and Patrick Murfin review questions for speaker Salvador Cicero at the September Current American Issues program.

 

            The hot topic of immigration received a cool and considered examination at the McHENRY COUNTY PEACE GROUP’S first CURRENT AMERICAN ISSUES forum of the new season at McHENRY COUNTY COLLEGE Thursday night.  Chicago attorney SALVADOR CICERO explained the myths and realities of immigration, especially Mexican immigration, to an audience of almost 150 in the college Conference Center.

            With graphic illustrations projected behind him, Cicero traced the roots of Mexican immigration to this country, the economic realities that fuel it in both countries, and the controversy over what some see as “an invasion.”

            Cicero was quick to point out that Mexicans make up only a portion, albeit a large portion, of overall immigration to the United States, both legal and undocumented.  And they are also only a part of a wider Latino immigration that includes people from Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Spain.  But Mexican immigrants have concentrated in four states—California, Texas, Arizona, and Illinois—and the Chicago metropolitan region is second only to Los Angeles as a destination.

            The misconceptions are that all Latinos are Mexican and that they are all “illegal.”  Cicero pointed out that huge swaths of the US were once Mexican and people in those areas have been citizens for generations.  Immigration patterns also reach back to the 19th and early 20th centuries when many Mexican railroad workers followed the tracks north and began settling in Chicago.  People from the same regions and villages tended to follow one another and establish communities.  Today a large majority of people of Mexican origin in the United States are American born, citizens, or in the country legally.

            Still, “illegal” immigration has risen dramatically in recent decades due to a population explosion in Mexico, economic necessity and the desire for family reunification.  For its part, American industry has welcomed the semi- and unskilled labor provided by the immigrants.

            Changes in immigration law may have actually acerbated the situation.  Earlier many Mexican workers came seasonally for agricultural work, returning to their homes yearly.  Others came to work for a few years and returned with their saving to their families.  But current immigration law makes such routine border crossing difficult and encourages worker to stay in the U.S.  rather than risk not being able to come back.

            Following the presentation, questions were collected from the audience on note cards and read by moderators ANN LEGG and PATRICK MURFIN.  Murfin acknowledged that the issues were emotional and that people of all shades of opinion would be in the audience.  He promised that all questions, even those that clearly arose from an exclusionist view point would be read, subject to time constraints and legibility.  Only questions that were “insulting” would be disregarded.  In the end, none were disallowed on that basis and a wide ranging discussion was possible.

SALVADOR A CICERO, FEATURED SPEAKER AT SEPTEMBER CURRENT AMERICAN ISSUES FORUM

IMMIGRATION: MYTHS VS. REALITIES IN THE CURRENT DEBATE will be the topic of a public forum in the CURRENT AMERICAN ISSUES FORUM in the McHENRY COUNTY COLLEGE CONFERENCE CENTER on Thursday, September 13 at 7 p.m.

            The featured speaker will be SALVADOR A. CICERO, an award winning Chicago attorney whose law practice focuses on civil rights, immigration, business law and international human rights.  Cicero, a former CONSUL OF MEXICO, is a volunteer with the LEAUGE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS (LULAC.)  He has directed projects for the AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION (ABA) and serves as a consulting expert for the ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES (0AS.)  His scholarly articles have been published in peer reviewed law journals and he is qualified by U.S. COURTS as an expert in international law.  He has made a specialty of preventing trafficking in human beings.

            Cicero will offer his perspectives on U.S. immigration policy as it exists today and how international trade agreements have affected the influx of job seekers.

            The program follows a month of controversy about immigration touched off by an program, later cancelled, sponsored by ILLINOIS MINUTEMAN PROJECT and public demonstrations by both sides in CRYSTAL LAKE.

            The Current American Issues Series is sponsored monthly at MCC by the McHENRY COUNTY PEACE GROUP.  There will be a period of open discussion following the program.  Admission is free and open to the public.

            For more information visit e-mail aglegg@sbcglobal.net or visit McHenry County Peace Group. 

LAURA ZAMBRANO AND ADAM RUIZ OF THE CARPENTERSVILLE COMMUNITY ALLIANCE.

            It was a beautiful day in CRYSTAL LAKE.   For the first time in days the sun returned and the rain did not. It was down right pleasant and refreshing in McCORMICK PARK—named for a beloved priest, not the inventor of the Reaper—in the shadow of the water tower on Rt. 14.

            Absent, too, was the storm und drang predicted by Crystal Lake Police Officials, who envisioned riots and brawls between the McHENRY COUNTY PEACE GROUP and its allies on one side and the MINUTEMAN MIDWEST and those who responded to their call for “Patriots” in from a hundred miles all around on the other.  And it was literally on one side and another.  The Peace Group Vigil and the Minuteman counter protest were separated by white police saw horses and dozens of officers.  Roughly equal in numbers, the Minuteman group gathered at the northern corner by Florence Street—right across from the gas station where I work several nights a week as a clerk.  We were on the Southern corner by King Street with the Taco Bell across Rt. 14.  Everything proceeded perfectly peacefully as the two sides studiously avoided contact with each other or any outward sign of antagonism.

            It was a great day for the Peace Group and for the LATINO COALITION and the CARPENTERSVILLE COMMUNITY ALLIANCE who co-sponsored the event.  At its height nearly fifty folks were gathered to promote a peaceful, just, and rational discussion of the immigration issue.  And the vigil attracted folks from the NORTHBOOK PEACE COMMITTEE ,  a contingent from NORTH AURORA, individuals from ELGIN and all over Crystal Lake.

            The press was on hand, too with reporters and photographers from the NORTHWEST HERALD (for those who doubt that there are racist undertones to those who support the Minuteman groups read the comments under the article—it will curl your hair) and DAILY HERALD, as well a free-lance reporter for a Polish television news service, and Northbrook Peace Committee member LEE GOODMAN, who plans to post footage he shot on www.AtCenterNetwork.com (it’s not up yet, but check back in a day or so for it.)

            Perhaps most encouraging, in light of the vitriolic tone of so many letters to the editor on the immigration topic and those that stalk the NORTHWEST HERALD comments section, both of which would lead to believe that the whole of McHenry County is seething with barely contained rage about the “illegal invasion”, is that there was almost none of that reaction from the general public traveling busy Rt. 14.  There were no shouted insults, shaking fists, or single digit salutes.  There were some honks, and a lot of waves.  And some obvious encouragement.  Can it be that our neighbors do not really want to see their community ethnically cleansed?

            Below are more pictures from the event.  There are none of the Minuteman group because my camera does not have a telephoto lens and I was trying to honor the police request that we say separate.    The one picture I took showed tiny figures far in the distance.  

  

THE MINISTERS:  REV. DAN LARSEN OF THE CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH IN WOODSTOCK AND A MINISTER FROM THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHUCH OF MARENGO—WHOSE NAME HAS FALLEN COMPLETELY OUT OF MY HEAD.
                                 

MEET THE PRESS—PHOTOGRAPHERS AND VIDEOGRAPHERS COVER THE STORY.  THE MINUTMAN PROTEST IS BARELY VISIBLE BEHIND THE POLICE OFFICERS IN THE UPPER RIGHT.

MOST OF THE NEARLY 45 FOLKS STILL IN THE PARK AT THE VIGIL’S END.  THAT’S CARLOS ACOSTSTA OF THE LATINO COALITION KNEALING FRONT RIGHT IN THE STRAW HAT.

Three groups that had called for a vigil outside a meeting of the ILLINOIS MINUTEMAN PROJECT this Saturday announced alternative plans Thursday night after the HOLIDAY INN CRYSTAL LAKE canceled the anti-immigration group’s meeting.  Instead of rallying near the hotel, the groups will hold a quiet vigil at the corner of Rt. 14 and Main Street in Crystal Lake at 1 p.m. Saturday.

            THE McHENRY COUNTY PEACE GROUP, LATINO COALITION and the CARPENTERSVILLE COMMUNITY ALLIANCE will sponsor the vigil. 

            According to PATRICK MURFIN, press spokesperson for the Peace Group, the vigil will be held, “to promote respect, diversity and a reasoned discussion on the immigration issue.”

            The Peace Group and the other organizations never intended to suppress the free speech and assembly rights of the Minuteman Project, Murfin said.  “Our intention in calling for a counter vigil to the original event was to provide the public with an alternative view on the volatile immigration issue.  We feel that the event we are now planning will also facilitate that dialogue.”

            The Peace Group has also publicly supported the right of the Minuteman Project to assemble, even when it vehemently disagrees with it.  “We oppose any form of ‘taxation’ on free speech, including “fees” for police protection which have the effect of stifling public discussion.  This is a matter of fundamental liberty,” according to Murfin.

            Participants in the vigil will gather on the sidewalk and quietly hold signs for about an hour and half before dispersing. 

            Murfin pointed out that “we have never had the slightest incident in the nearly two years the Peace Group has held weekly anti-war vigil at this sight, even when counter demonstrators occasionally assembled nearby.  We are, after all, a Peace Group.”

            The HOLIDAY INN CRYSTAL LAKE has canceled the ILLINOIS MINUTEMAN PROJECT meeting scheduled for this Saturday.  Representatives of the McHENRY COUNTY PEACE GROUP, LATINO COALITION, and the CARPENTERSVILLE COMMUNITY ALLIANCE first got wind of a possible cancellation during a meeting with CRYSTAL LAKE POLICE authorities this morning (Wednesday.) 

            The NORTHEWEST HERALD posted confirmation on their web site hours later.  The paper quotes Illinois Minuteman Director ROSANNA PULIDO that the hotel backed out because of security concerns and because the Crystal Lake Police requested re-imbursement for extra police protection.  She indicated that the group would try to find an alternative site in Crystal Lake for the event.

            Word of the cancellation came shortly after Latino Coalition leader CARLOS ACOSTA received a communication from Puldio denying him admittance to the ticket-only event and refunding him his $10 admission.  The group evidently did not want any dissenting opinions at its “public” meeting.

            Participants at the morning meeting indicated a willingness to proceed with the rally at SANDS and THREE OAKS ROADS from 1:30 to 4 pm this Saturday.  They will consult with their organization and announce firm plans as soon as possible.

            Speaking for the Peace Group, PATRICK MURFIN said, “We want it to be clear that at no time did we bring any pressure on the Holiday Inn to cancel this event.  We believe in free speech and the freedom to assemble, even for those with whom we disagree.  We just wanted the public to know by virtue of our public vigil that the McHenry County community includes those who embrace diversity and who oppose mindless and punitive action against undocumented workers and the Latino community as a whole.”

            Keep an eye on this space for the latest information and developments as they occur.

            Plans continue for a counter protest to the MINUTEMAN PROJECT meeting at the HOLIDAY INN CRYSTAL LAKE on Saturday, August 25 from 12:30 to 4 pm.  Joining the McHENRY COUNTY PEACE GROUP will be a sizable contingent of members and supporters of the CARPENTERSVILLE COMMUNITY ALLIANCE (CCA) and the LATINO COALITION.

            The CCA is an association of largely Latino business people who have been prominent in the fight to oppose anti-immigrant ordinances in Carpentersville.  The Minuteman Project probably selected Crystal Lake for the site of its meeting largely because of its proximity to the highly publicized battles in Carpentersville and what they perceive as a high level of anti-immigrant sentiment in the region in general.

            The Latino Coalition is the leading advocacy and action organization on issues affecting the Latino community in McHenry County.

            Preliminary discussions with the CRYSTAL LAKE POLICE indicate that the designated protest area will likely be at the intersection of THREE OAKS and SANDS ROADS.  This site, while more visible from the hotel than the original proposed site at Three Oaks and Rt. 31, will be far less visible to the general public as it is more removed from heavily traveled Rt. 31.  There will, however be more space there for what looks like a large turn-out.

            Demonstrators will not be allowed on the hotel property and will not be able to park there.  The nearest parking will probably be in the lot of the shopping center at Sands and Rt. 14 which has Home Depot and other stores.

            Police say that banners and hand held signs only will be permitted—no sticks or poles on the signs.

            Some individuals have bought tickets to the event and will attempt to raise questions inside.  They will not be allowed to carry signs.

            All of these details are subject to some changes.  Members of all of the participating groups will be meeting with Crystal Lake Police officials on Wednesday morning to fine tune arrangements for a safe and peaceful protest.

The new monument in Haymarket Square and the memorial to the Haymarket Martyrs at Forrest Home Cemetary (formerly Waldheim Cemetary)

BECOMING AMERICAN (ANOTATED VERSION)
A Thumbnail History of the European-American Immigrant Experience

Micks, Krauts, Wops, Frogs, Kikes,

     Square Heads, Polacks, Bohunks,[i]

     our huddled masses, bewildered and frightened

     pressed against the Golden Door[ii]

     and burst in upon your Yankee yeomanry.[iii]

Ready or not, here we came,

     a stinking pestilence, a Popish rabble[iv]

     the shucked off waste of Babel[v]

     polluting your pristine English stream,

     the craven minions

     of the Elders of the Protocols of Zion[vi]

     with appetites for Christian babes

     and usury’s truncheon on honest men.

And you welcomed us with Know Nothing[vii]

     wet dreams of Maria Monk’s priestly orgies,[viii]

     with No Irish Need Apply[ix]

     posted in every clean and comfortable shop

     where moleskin and brogan slaves[x]

     might yearn for relief from spade and hod.[xi]

You cursed the Dutchy[xii]

     who worshiped in his guttural tongue,

     idled over beer instead of whiskey,

     dreamed of failed revolutions[xiii]

     and future one in endless

     alien newspapers—

          And, damn it, learn the language!

When you tired of lynching Black men,

     you burned your crosses in our yards[xiv]

     the purifying, scourging flames

     exorcising Roman anti-Christs

     and demonic Hebrew cults.

Yet we filled your tenements and slums,

     your Hoovervilles and hobo jungles,[xv]

     your railroad shacks and company towns,

     your Army posts, your prisons,

     and your potter’s fields.[xvi]

We dug and wove and dug some more,

     we felled the endless forests

     and reaped your amber waves of grain,[xvii]

     hog butchered to the world,[xviii]

     gandy danced and poured the very brimstone[xix]

     that steeled the nation’s progress,

     we sewed and stitched and vulcanized,[xx]

     sailed your Death Ship and dug your graves.[xxi]

We did all of the dirty, bloody labors

     that you spurned

     and you called us lazy, ignorant, and ungrateful

     as we died by the dutiful legion

     in your burning pits and suffocating sweat shops.

We were Henry Forded and Taylorized,[xxii]

     made mere interchangeable cogs

     in the vast machine that made

     more, always more,

     as our days and years ran on,

     a Mobius loop of numbing sameness.[xxiii]

And when we finally clenched our fists in rage

     and linked our arms in union,

     we were Hay Marketed, Joe Hilled,[xxiv]

     Sacco and Vanzettied, Ludlowized,[xxv]

     and Republic Steeled,[xxvi]

     we sang the new litany of martyrs

     and grew strong.

You called your Pinkertons and gun thugs[xxvii]

     and when we would not yield,

     you tagged us Reds and Commies,

     raided and deported us,[xxviii]

     wetted your bayonets and gassed us,

     and stuffed your prisons full.[xxix]

But we endured and inch by painful inch

     we climbed to our place at your table,

     now our children’s children’s children

     are Yankees, the old tongues and ways

     abandoned with no regret,

     we have mixed our blood

     until there are swarthy Olsens

     and Hebrew Fitzgeralds.

Now we hear our progeny say—

     “Why don’t they just learn English?

     They breed like rabbits

      and lay around on welfare.

     Go back to where you came from!”

Truly, they have become American.

[i] Irish, Germans, Italians, French, Jews, Scandinavians, Poles, Bohemians.

[ii] The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus

[iii] Free men subject to militia call.

[iv] Catholics.

[v] Tower in Genesis struck down by Yahweh scattering the builders across the earth with mutually unintelligible languages.

[vi] Forgery purporting to prove an international Jewish Conspiracy to dominate the world.

[vii] Secret anti-immigrant political party, 1825-1860.

[viii] THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARIA MONK, a popular anti-Catholic book of the 1840’s purporting to expose sexual perversion among priests and nuns and the practice of anti-Christian rites.

[ix] Signs posted by merchants in Boston Shop windows from the 19^th through the early 20^th Centuries.

[x] Soft, heavy material used in trousers by Irish workers and the heavy laced shoes that they wore.

[xi] A devise for carrying bricks or mortar. Irish workers frequently “carried the hod.”

[xii] German from Deutsche.

[xiii] The great German migration began after the failure of the 1848 uprisings throughout the German states.

[xiv] The 1920’s revival of the Ku Klux Klan gained considerable support in the North as an anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic organization.  The Klan seized control of the Indiana state government for a while.

[xv] Depression shanty towns named for Herbert Hoover and the camps of migrant workers near the railroads they used to get from job to job.

[xvi]  Grave yard where paupers were buried at public expense, usually without any grave markers.

[xvii] America the Beautiful by Katherine Lee Bates.

[xviii] Chicago by Carl Sandburg.

[xix] Railroad track layers and maintenance workers.

[xx] The process of heating rubber with sulfur so that it will not become brittle in cold or gummy in heat discovered by Charles Goodyear in 1839..

[xxi] THE DEAH SHIP by B. Travin.

[xxii] Fredrick Winslow Talyor, an American industrial engineer who originated “scientific management”  and “time motion studies” which led to the modern assembly line with each worker repeating highly specialized but limited tasks.

[xxiii] A three dimensional surface that has only one side, a continuous loop crated when a rectangular strip is twisted and the ends attached.  Named form German mathematician August Ferdinand Mobius.

[xxiv] The Haymarket in Chicago, site of a labor rally in support of the 8-hour day which was attacked by Police on May 4, 1886.  A bomb was thrown at the police, killing and wounding severs.  Eight labor leaders, all but one German, were convicted of conspiracy and murder, though none could be tied to the crime.  The youngest, Louis Ling, committed suicide.  Albert Parson, August Spies, George Engle and Adoph Fischer here hanged, becoming America’s first great labor martyrs.  Other defendants were later pardoned by Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld.  Joe hill was a Swedish immigrant who joined the Industrial Workers of The World (IWW) and became an itinerant organizer.  He became most famous as the writer of numerous labor songs including  The Preacher and the Slave, The Rebel Girl, and Casey Jones the Union Scab.  He was framed on a murder charge and executed by firing squad in Utah in 1915.  His final words became a labor legend, “Don’t mourn, organize!’

[xxv] ’Nicola Sacco, a shoemaker, and Barolomeo Vanzetti a fish monger, were Italian immigrants and anarchists charged with a payroll robbers at a shoe factory in which a guard was killed on April 15, 1920.  They were convicted on scant evidence and sentenced to death.  Their case became the great labor cause of the ‘20’s.  Despite world wide protests they wee executed in 1927.  Fifty years later Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation clearing their names.  1n 1913 and 1914 coal miners, mostly Greeks and Slovaks, struck mines operated by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. at Ludlow, Colorado, owned by John D. Rockefeller.  During the bitter strike, the company evicted strikers and their families from the company town.  The strikers set up a nearby tent city.  On April 20, 1914 the Colorado the National Guard attacked the camp with machine guns. At least 39 men, women and children were killed and scores injured.

[xxvi]On Memorial Day, 1937 several thousand strikers demanding union recognition made a peaceful march on the Republic Steel plant Chicago accompanied by their wives and children.  The mayor had assured them that their march was legal and would be allowed.  They were met by more than 500 Chicago Police who attacked them with tear gas, truncheons, pistol and rifle fire.  Ten were killed outright, most shot in the back while on the ground.  90 others were wounded.  A newsreel crew caught the whole action on film.  Despite attempts to suppress the film and its damning evidence, Senate hearings called by Wisconsin’s Robert LaFollet exposed the truth of the attack..

[xxvii] Allen Pinkerton’s detective service had a long history of service to employers in labor disputes.  Pinkerton agent James McParland infiltrated and broke the Molly Maguires, an Irish miners’ secret organization.  Years later the same McParland kidnapped IWW William “Big Bill” Haywood and tried to frame him for the bombing murder of a former Idaho governor.  Pinkerton guards frequently escorted strikebreakers and attacked union pickets.  Gun thugs were simply local toughs employed by companies to intimidate or attack union supporters.  The most famous gun thugs were employed by Ford Motor to attack Walter Reuther and other United Auto Workers organizers in the ‘30’s.

[xxviii] The Palmer Raids of 1919, organized by a young J. Edgar Hoover of the Bureau of Investigation, swept up thousands of mostly foreign-born workers and radicals with little or no evidence of any crime.  Hundreds were deported.   

            Those of us who touch on politics in our blogs are required by law, under pain of exile to that land where the only communications tools are fat, soft lead pencils and wide ruled Big Chief School Tablets, to expound on the Resident’s State of the Union Address.  I was dutifully on my way to fulfilling this solemn obligation Tuesday night when I was mugged by an unwelcome ad (see my last post.)

            Now, when everyone else has moved on to the condition of Scooter Libby’s toenail fungus which caused such a great distraction that he forgot that high ranking CIA spooks had spilled the beans to him about Joe Wilson’s wife’s job (phew!), I am ready to fulfill my obligation.  Nothing less could be expected from the NUMBER 1 DEMOCRATIC/UU/PEACENIC/PRO-LABOR/POETRY BLOG IN McHENRY COUNTY, ILLINOIS (according to some unsubstantiated rumors.)

            First off, let me come clean.  I did not actually see the State of the Union (SOTU to inside the beltway hipsters.)  I was at work, as usual for a Tuesday night, behind the register of a Crystal Lake gas station.  I had my radio—yes just about the same kind of transistor radio we all had in 1965—tuned in to an appropriate AM news station.  Between customers and chores I strained to hear most of what George W. had to say, fawning commentary by former senator and acting stud Fred Thompson, and Senator Jim Webb’s Democratic Party Response.  So I was out of the game of assessing Nancy Pelosi’s wardrobe, keeping the exact count of  who leapt their feet to applaud at exactly what statements,  trying to catch Congress people snoring in their seats, or counting sneers and smirks on Dick Cheney’s face. 

I admit that I could have gone to any number of online sources when I got home and watched the whole thing unfold in front of my very eyes as if for the fist time.  But, frankly, I hadn’t the stomach for it.  I would rather have volunteered for un-anesthetized fingernail extraction by a drunken hippo vet .

            Listening on the radio, the technological equivalent of a wood burning steam locomotive, I can say for sure that George W. Bush is no Franklin Roosevelt.  Hell, he isn’t even a Senator Beauregard Claghorn.  He might be, on a good day, a passable Mortimer Snerd.  But in this performance he did not, to my memory, utter any of the infamous Bushisms that have become his trade mark or engage in any lying so specific that he is apt to get nailed as Pinocchio (as in the famous 16 words) by some disgruntled Ambassador.  Instead, the lies permeated the whole speech kind of like a low grade fever—you know it’s there, but it isn’t worth the energy to do anything about.

            I’ll dispose of the second part of the speech first.  It can be summed up thusly:  Everyone knew what he was going to say.  Nobody wanted to hear it.  Not one mind in America changed, save that of 12 year old Chester “Chetster” Dinglebottom of Muncie, Indiana.  He was moved because the X-Box was broken and he had to watch the speech with his parents.  “You mean there is a war or something going on?” he asked.  When told there was, he registered his strong support for the president, “Coooool Dude!”

            Senator Webb later casually demolished the Resident’s feeble appeal for one more do-over as if he were scraping gum off of his shoe. ‘Nuff said on that topic.

            So let’s take a look at the first half of the speech, the one which the op-ed pundits assured us was meant to “reach out to the Democrats now in power,” and “outlined areas of possible cooperation.”  Well, its true that he outlined a short laundry list is issues dear to Democrats—and to the American public, for that matter.  What is not true is that he offered any kind of concrete programs that were either acceptable on their face or were not shams covering his usual corporate smash and grab agenda. 

            Only on immigration is there the remotest chance of reaching an agreement with the Democrats, who generally favor some kind of accommodation for the millions of un-documented immigrants now in residence.  On the last go-around, compromise immigration reform passed in the Senate was shot down by the nativist, mow-‘em-down-with-machine-guns-at-the-boarder House Republicans.  But even here his hopes are dimmed because his interest is in providing a steady stream of cheap labor to his corporate pals, while most Democrats are looking for a humane way to include established, hard working families in the American Dream without giving a free hand to the oligarchs in undermining American wages.

            George W’s approach to health care mirrored the “Blue Sky Initiative” for air pollution—a dodge using right sounding buzz words to cover for a nearly polar opposite policy.  Bush’s sketchily drawn health care plan is based largely—surprise!—on “tax relief” proposals.  He resurrects raising the upper limits on “Health Savings Accounts,” another notorious tax dodge for this favored richest 2%. 

Then he proposes a confusing array of tax deductions to “encourage” un-covered Americans to buy private health coverage.  But to pay for that he (althought not described in the SOTU) would count “gold plated” traditional fee-for service health plans above a certain level and provided by employers as taxable income.  The trouble is that many elderly, sick, and high risk individuals would suddenly find this essential, but expensive benefit taxed.  Many would have no choice but to drop coverage.  And many employers would be encouraged to drop health care benefits. 

Bush also offered assistance to states trying to create their own wider systems of health care coverage—but only to those state who would do so by underwriting purchase of private insurance.  States opting for some sort of single payer plan would get nothing and would probably loose huge chunks of currently available Federal health care funding.  In short, the President is not advocating making health care easily available and affordable.  He wants to create a gigantic boondoggle for the insurance industry. 

As a sop to the doctors, who despise insurance companies but hate malpractice lawyers just a tad more, he trotted out the familiar call for caps on malpractice settlements and shifting to a looser-pays-all system that would bar most folks of modest means from ever daring to sue.

            The President trotted out, as he has done before, the need for energy self-sufficiency.  Generally this has been an excuse to turn over all petroleum assets to the major oil companies as cheaply as possible with the fewest restrictions on one hand, while showering them with massive “tax incentives” to do what they were going to do anyway.  This time he dressed it up with suggestions that he—and he really, really means it this time “cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die”—seriously wants to subsidize research and development of alternative of alternative fuels and—gasp!—even agrees to new higher fuel efficiency requirements for passenger cars.  At the same time, however, he will balm the pain of his old oil buddies buying enough crude from them to double the size of the Strategic Reserves—a purchase sure to keep demand high and prices up.

            As an after thought he allowed that energy conservations measures might also affect “global climate change.”  This sent many commentators into state of rapturous praise.  They believed that he had finally reversed himself and agree that, yes there really is “global warming”, Virginia.  Only the keen of ear and the sharp of intellect picked up that “global climate change” is not the same as “global warming.”  The latter is fraught with implications that is caused by human activity on the planet and that it might be ameliorated or even reversed by concerted action and major life-style changes.  “Global climate change,” on the other hand, infers natural rhythms, perhaps ordained by God himself, over which mere mortals have no control.  Translation:  don’t expect any policy change from this administration.

            I could go on, but you get the picture. 

            My fellow Americans, the State of the Union is bad and sliding to horrible.  It will remain so as long as the current mob of thieves, thugs, and theocrats retains a shred of political authority. Oh-my-God! Save the People and bless the United States of America.

Finally, someone said it.  I was beginning to think I was alone in my reservations.  Last week TRUTHOUT.ORG, ran a special perspective piece by David Bacon, “No Immigration Bill is Better”. In the piece Bacon quotes some immigration activists who have concluded that the supposedly “liberal” Senate bill is nearly as damaging at the House version—death by a thousand cuts rather than decapitation.

If the Senate bill had been up for consideration two years ago, immigration reform activists and the immigrant communities themselves would have been up in arms.  Many of its provisions add onerous burdens on individuals and families.  Others seem to strengthen and institutionalize the exploitation of their labor for virtually no reward at all.

Instead, the Sensenbrenner bill caught the attention of millions of undocumented workers and drove them spontaneously into the streets.  From the beginning of the remarkable marching season, many supported the Senate version as a reasonable alternative to the draconian criminalization of millions.  That was understandable.           

The Senate bill, with the backing of the President, at least offered what was seen as a “path to citizenship.”  But the path is so narrow most will never be able to negotiate it.  On top of that ever more restrictive amendments were added to the package to entice the House to bite the bullet in conference.

But now groups such as the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, the San Francisco Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, the AFL-CIO, and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund have recognized the flaws in the Senate plan and are beginning to withdraw support.

At any rate the ideologically driven House of Representatives seems ready to stand by its demands for a harsh measures and rejection of  “legalization.”  Congressman Sensenbrenner, principle architect of the House plan, rejected any compromise with the Senate on the talking heads shows last Sunday.  He is getting fifth column support from Senate Majority Leader Frist, who is still scrambling to prove his fascist credentials to the right wing in the ramp up of his presidential aspirations. 

Any compromise that could be reached would be much closer to the House version, anyway.

It looks more and more likely that there may be a stand-off between that two houses and no final bill may emerge.  Some bewail this as a disaster.  I believe it is likely a blessed gift to struggling immigrant workers.  Certainly no bill is preferable to anything that stands a chance of passage, even if the status of millions is in no way clarified.

In the late 1960’s the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan surveyed the failure of many Great Society Programs to alleviate poverty in urban Black communities.  Indeed, he believed that many programs had made matters much worse.  He recommended that, instead of continuing to commit social experimentation, a period and policy of “benign neglect,”—leaving the situation alone—might be called for.  Moynihan was roundly criticized by many liberals for bailing out of the War on Poverty.  What ever the merits of that might have been then.  Certainly today some “benign neglect” of immigration policy might save much heart ache and tragedy.

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On an incomparable Sunday in May, the movement for immigrant rights came to Woodstock, Illinois. About 400 marchers, mostly Latinos, stepped off from the historic Square for a march to the McHenry County Government Center, about two miles away. Leading the march were the Rev. Dan Larsen (holding megaphone) of the Congregational Unitarian Church, Janie Galarza of the Harvard Human Relations Commission, and Carlos Acostsa, Director of the McHenry County Latino Coalition.

The upbeat crowd walked through neighborhoods of tidy but modest homes where successful immigrants now increasingly make their homes next to old time Anglos. Folks came out of their homes to watch and wave. Many joined the march.

Picturesque Woodstock, with it Norman Rockwell Square and Middle American hometown feel is typical of many communities. Latino immigrants, mostly Mexican, are making homes here, working, opening business and buying homes. What was 95% Anglo ten years ago probably now has a 20% Spanish speaking population and that is growing rapidly.

Some folks don’t much like that. You can hear a lot of anti-immigrant muttering around town and read irate letters to the editor. Other folks recognize their value to the community, not only as workers, but as families.

Four counter demonstrators held signs near the rear of the rally at the County complex. They got their pictures taken, and were interviewed. The local press trying to be “evenhanded” naturally those four protesters almost as much space as the 400 marchers.

It may not seem significant when over a million marched in cities across American on May Day—400,000 in Chicago alone. But if this is happening in Woodstock, the movement has truly penetrated to the center and soul of the country.

It was a great day!

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Whew! What a week since I last been able to post to this blog.  A lot has happened including:

I.

The United States announced that it would not seek a seat on the new United Nations Human Rights Council.  The U.S., with the loyal support of Israel, Marshal Islands and Palau had voted against the creation of the new body, a replacement for the discredited  old Human Rights Commission, on which often sat some of the worst human rights violators.  The new Council, with beefed up powers, would exclude states with egregious human rights records.  The Council had the support of Secretary General Kofi Annan and the overwhelming majority of member states.  It had the fervent opposition of the administration's anointed bull in the china shop, Ambassador John Bolton.  Bolton rightly feared that American violations at Abu Grab, Guantanamo, in Afghanistan and elsewhere might become the object of investigation, censure, and maybe even UN sanctions.  The administration also faced the humiliating likelihood that the US would not only be defeated if it ran for a seat, it would be obliterated.  So the State Department, making a silk purse from a cow’s ear, announced we would not seek a seat in the first year, but allow the commission to organize itself.  Organize itself without input from “The Worlds Greatest Democracy.”   This has to rank among the top diplomatic embarrassments of recent decades.

II.

Inspector Jarvet—oops, I mean Special Council Patrick Fitzgerald—let it be known in court filings that Vice President Cheney and President himself are implicated in the leaking of National Security documents in a concerted effort to discredit and destroy the reputation of  Ambassador Joe Wilson.  It turns out indicted weasel “Scooter” Libby (every time I write or say that name I picture my childhood dog, the noble dachshund Fritz, who used to get bone fragments stuck inside his anal sphincter and scooted across the living room rug on his ass to relieve the itch) is claiming that he was ordered to leak material by his boss Cheney which was “secretly” de-classified by the President.  White House designated liar Scott McClellan was thrown to the wolves by his superiors, unable to refute or deny the plain facts, only to argue lamely that the President acted within his legal rights in declassifying the documents.  The President himself shrugged it of with a virtual “so what” and claiming that he was only trying to “get the truth out” when in fact he was leaking information he knew to be false to discredit a man who was demonstrably telling the truth.  The mind reels and the President’s approval ratings sag to pick-pocket range heading south toward child molester.

III.

Up on Capital Hill a widely heralded immigration compromise was announced in the Senate.   The plan would have put undocumented workers in the country for more than 5 years onto a citizenship track (after extorting them for big fines and “back taxes”),  created a temporary guest worker track for those in the country 2-years, required all others to return to their countries and re-apply for legal admission and beef up border security.  The bi-partisan bill promptly fell apart when it could muster only 38 votes, all Democrats.  Republican Senators, feeling the wrath of the xenophobic wing of the Party were threatened and began offering dozens of “toughening” amendments, many of which would have brought the measurer closer to the draconian bill passed by the House.  Faced with multiple crippling amendments Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid refused to allow votes on more than four GOP amendments—a mirror of Republican restrictions placed on Democrats in bill after bill.  On Sunday the President actually blamed Democrats—the only ones who had voted for the bill—for killing it!

Meanwhile, the astonishing mass movement of immigrants and their supporters grew geometrically and spread across the country with huge marches and demonstrations in cities small, medium and large.  It was apparent that a new movement, perhaps on a par of significance with the push for public accommodations and voting rights in the South during the Civil Rights era, was not going away.

Popular opinion remained split, with widespread resentment of immigrants, particularly Mexicans, and a demand that “the law is the law” remained high.  Yet not as high as many had expected.  Poll results began to show majorities of Americans in favor of some kind of legalization process.

House Republicans, who are much further to the right than the mainstream press acknowledges, clung to their harsh measures, which would make illegal status a felony along with similar charges for anyone who would assist them in any way.  The remained devoted to their fortified border fences and enamored of the reinforcement of the Border Patrol until it would resemble the quasi-military “border police” regiments so familiar in the old Soviet empire.  House Republicans have virtually annihilated any moderates among them, let alone those old fashion liberal Republicans from New England, the upper Midwest and Northwest.  But they remain split among those bought and paid for by industry and the hard core “social conservatives”—read fanatics.  The fanatics have the upper hand in the House and have shown an almost gleeful willingness to throw their business buddies and even the President under the bus.  They believe that immigration will be the ultimate “wedge issue” and are willing to ride it as the only way to save their asses in the tidal wave of anti-Republican sentiment about to hit them because of the war, repeated scandals, the budget deficit, and the Medicare drug fiasco.  In fact some believe that immigration is the issue that can permanently peel away blue collar workers, most threatened by perceived job loss, from their traditional Democratic allegiances.  They also note the deep strains between the immigrant movement and many blacks—witness the fighting in California high schools and the silence of many Black leaders in what is obviously a civil rights crusade—and can actually pick up real Black support, not just from window dressing opportunists.  They may be right if Democrats, labor and the real Civil Rights movement don’t recognize the opportunity before them to unite with Hispanics and Asians to create a governing coalition that could last decades.

IV.

The guilty plea by lobbyist Jack Abramoff revealed the key roll of former Majority Whip Tom Delay’s senior staff and drew him and other key GOP leaders deeper into the flushing toilet of scandal.  Delay, who recently survived a primary challenge and who had sworn to fight for his Midland, Texas Congressional seat and to eventually return to power in the House, was finally forced to withdraw his candidacy because he had become “a distraction.”  Never one to bow out gracefully, with the solicitous assistance of Fox News sycophants, Delay was able to go on TV and blame his woes on those heartless, anti-Christian Democrats.  On one hand most house Republicans were probably glad to see him go, on the other hand they missed his single minded viciousness and his ability to wield them into a united block (see the split among House Republicans on immigration.)

V.

The conviction of former Republican heavy hitter James Tobin is finally convicted in a bazaar scheme to block a Democratic turn-out-the-vote phone bank in advance of the 2002 elections.  As scandals go these days, small potatoes except that phone logs revealed how tied into the White House the operation really was.  The day of the jamming Tobin or his associates logged in a dozen calls to the White House political office.  While the content of the calls cannot be determined, even on the eve of an election, this is an astonishing number from one small state and demonstrate intense White House interest.  A crack, perhaps, in Karl Rove’s impenetrable armor.

VI.

Elections, election, elections, everywhere an election, none of them boding well for the President, his ambitions or his party.  In Italy Bush’s most loyal Western European ally, Conservative Party media billionaire Silvio Berlusconi apparently will be out of office since his ruling coalition has narrowly lost majorities in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.  Romano Prodi’s center-left coalition will almost surely be called to form a new government, which will expedite Italy’s withdrawal (already underway) from the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq.  But the ever bellicose Berlusconi refuses to coned defeat.  He disputes some election result, especially the key six Senate seats elected by Italians abroad and is holding out for a “Grand coalition” with his opponents similar to the one struck in Germany after that country’s indecisive elections earlier this year.  A stubborn refusal to fade gracefully away may bring out crowds of demonstrators and threaten civil unrest.

In Peru Ollanta Humala, a left wing populist and former junior army officer is the leader in a three way race with 31% of the vote.  He will apparently face former President Alan Garcia (24.4%) in a May run-off.  A third candidate, Lourdes Flores has 23.3 percent vote with enough votes remaining to be counted to place the issue in doubt.  The popular Humala, who also represents a continent wide rejection of the old European elite, is another of the anti-US who have been coming to power.  If he wins he will join an increasing phalanx that already includes the presidents of Venezuela, Brazil, and Bolivia with moderate leftists and Bush critics leading Argentina and Chile.  Columbia, always on the verge of multi-sided civil war, Uruguay and Paraguay may follow suit.  Haiti in the Caribbean is finally settling into a left government.  That leaves the President with an alienated ally, Mexico, increasingly estranged over immigration issues, and the weak states of Central America and the less significant island republics of the Caribbean as his only southern allies.  When he came to power, a wave of democratic regimes were replacing old dictatorships and oligarchies and hopes ran high for a hemispheric free trade zone dominated by America.  That dream lays shattered and Bush may have created a united continent in opposition to the US, willing even perhaps like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez to reach out the Iranians and the Muslim world for allies.  Only foreign policy geniuses of the highest order could have accomplished that.

Closer to home, Democrat Francine Busby has piled up a substantial lead in an 18 candidate open field to replace the disgraced Congressman Randal Cunningham in California’s 50th Congretional District.  The San Diego district is historically Republican.  With 43% of the vote, Busby will apparently face former Republican Congressman Brian Bilbray (15.13%) in a June 6th run-off to finish Cunningham’s term. They will also be competing in their respective parties’ primaries for the fall election. Bilbray will undoubtedly also have to face competition from millionaire Eric Roach, who nearly spent his way into the run-off with 14.44% of the vote.  It is a muddled situation with millions of dollars pouring into the district from both parties and their supporters.  Busby looks to have a fair chance of winning the runoff and then will have to immediately brace for a bruising general election

Taken together, the results of these elections must remind Bush of why “things would be easier if I were a Dictator.”

VII.

And of course, to top everything off, the REALLY BIG story of the week centers on the President’s evident march to an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, possibly employing “bunker buster” tactical nuclear weapons.  He gets to play of the deranged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who master-minded a media event/comic opera/pageant waving vials of supposed enriched uranium and declaring that Iran had joined the club of nuclear capable nation.  While these two play chicken with one another, the rest of us try to sort out if either of them means business.  This story deserves much further attention and will be the topic of my next epic entry.

____________________

All in all it has been a very bad week for the President.  One can almost hear the feet of clay crumbling.  Yet it is precisely when cornered that sociopaths like the one running the country are the most dangerous.  Hard to tell just where they will lash out or to what ends they might not go to regain the “national security” advantage by plunging this nation into yet more conflict.  Maybe the only thing saving him these days is the still timid and disjointed Democratic response to all of his problems.

What was that ancient Chinese curse?  “May you live in interesting times.”

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I am stunned.  I am flabbergasted. I am inspired.

I was vaguely aware that a demonstration had been called on Friday to protest the draconian anti-immigrant bill, H.R. 4437.  I saw calls and endorsements from a number of organizations.  Members of my own McHenry County Peace group planned to attend.

But it was just another work day protest.  I figured at best a couple of thousand folks would half fill the Federal Plaza, about the number that took part in the pro-impeachment World Can’t Wait rally there in December.  And I suspect the fondest hopes of the organizers were for an event of about that magnitude.

Boy, were we wrong.

It seems like fliers for Huelga General, General Strike, against the bill were being passed hand to hand in immigrant communities throughout the region.  Word of mouth outran organizers and the organizations backing the protests.  And it was not confined to Latino barrios and workplaces.  It spread among the Milwaukee Avenue Poles, the East Asians of China town and Argyle, the South Asians along Devon, the South Side off the boat Irish, the Nigerian cab drivers huddled in coffee shops.

Hard working, ordinary people were united in fear and outrage.  They have a lot to be fearful of if the so-called “Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act,” which has already passed the House of Representatives, makes it through the Senate.

The mainstream media, when they have bothered to cover the story at all, have concentrated on the erection of a 700 mile fortified border fence along the Mexican Border.  But the bill goes much farther than that.  It makes felonies of even minor and technical immigration violations.  It threatens to withhold federal funds from states that do not stop virtually all services to undocumented aliens, including education and vital health services.  Perhaps most controversial is a provision that would criminalize giving any assistance to a known alien.  This would make every social service agency, hospital, school, and church employee a potential target for felony prosecution.

This is the provision that has already caused the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony to announce that he would instruct his priests and employees to defy the law if it is enacted.  Local Chicago priests made a similar vow on Thursday.  They undoubtedly will be joined by many other churches and denominations that serve immigrants.

It turns out that folks out in the communities took the call for a General Strike very seriously.  Individually or in organized groups tens of thousands stayed home from work on Friday or left early to join the march that began at Union Park on Ashland Avenue.  Some small business owners shuttered their own shops.  Workers walked off construction sites.  Men and women abandoned shop floors and restaurants.  They piled into vans, rented school buses, and hopped on the “L.”

Thousands of students joined them.  Some high schools in Latino neighborhoods reported more than half the student body were absent or left to join the march.

In the end they filled the street as far as the eye could see, stunning event organizers and police authorities alike.  The massive crowd was buoyant, but peaceful, as it surged through the streets bringing Loop traffic to a standstill.  As the crowd swelled, something amazing happened.  Chicago Media, which routinely totally ignore even very large demonstration, were out in force.  TV stations carried the images of massive crowds.  Radio reporters chattered away excitedly.  As the afternoon wore on estimates of the crowd grew and grew.  First it was “tens of thousands,” the 75 thousand, then 100 thousand plus.  Finally, after it was all over, Chicago Police, who have historically under reported participation in all demonstrations, told Channel 2 News that they estimated the crowd at more than 300,000.  The last marchers had still not entered the plaza when the rally officially ended.

That would make it certainly the largest demonstration in Chicago in my lifetime, and likely in history.  It dwarfs even the largest of the anti-war marches of the Vietnam Era.  It was certainly the largest demonstration anywhere in the country in defense of immigrant rights and compared favorably to the huge marches in Washington and New York before the Iraq invasion.

The large crowd was not threatening.  It did not evidence any of the “anti-Americanism” folks like to find in other large demonstrations.  American flags dotted the procession and outnumbered the Mexican and other national flags representing countries of origin.  Both documented and undocumented immigrants, in the crowd were hard working people seeking the American Dream and grateful to be here.

TV cameras, of course, lingered on the parade of political leaders who addressed the crowd, with some commentators clucking their tongues at the supposed endorsement of “lawbreaking” by Senator Dick Durbin, Governor Rob Blagojevich, Mayor Richard Daley and Congressmen Luis Gutierrez and Bobby Rush.

The politicians and many in the crowd expressed support for an alternative immigration bill co-sponsored by Senators John McCain and Edward Kennedy.  That legislation, while tightening some border security, would make it easier for legal immigrants to bring in relatives to re-unite often long separated families and would create an expanded temporary work visa program.

But despite the face time on the tube, this day did not belong to the politicians.  It belonged to the hundreds of thousands of ordinary folks of all complexions speaking dozens of languages.

Today they took a stand that has to even rattle the most dedicated natives and the most opportunistic latter day Know Nothing who thinks he can ride the anti-immigration to higher office and political glory.

¡Viva La Huelga!  ¡Viva La Huelga General!

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