Interest Groups v. American People

[Annie]

Special interests run things only when the American public is not engaged. When awakened, the people are in control, power comes from the people. Think port deal. Truth is, if the public were upset enough, profiling would be the acknowledged norm, but the appearance of security was enough.

Backlash can cause serious problems. Politicians on both extremes had better stop grandstanding and address the concerns and possible solutions:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/03/whose_backlash.html

March 31, 2006
Whose Backlash?
By Victor Davis Hanson

Hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens, along with Mexican-Americans and Hispanics in general, hit the streets throughout the United States this past week in one of the largest displays of public outrage since the Vietnam-War era.

The conventional wisdom was that the supposedly spontaneous outbursts of immigrant pride and anger took lawmakers by surprise. In response, politicians may backtrack on some of the tougher proposals concerning border enforcement, from constructing a wall to deportations. The media tended to emphasize the heartfelt anguish of the demonstrators, who often on selected televised clips carried American flags and were shown reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

But here in Central California that is not the public face of the demonstrations that we saw--which were mostly angry and, in the case of truant high-school students, so often unfortunately characterized by Mexican chauvinism, if not overt racism of the La Raza ("the race") type. And while these public outbursts were for the present just noisy, the private counter-reactions to them, I fear, are going to grow larger and angrier still.
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If many thousands of illegal aliens marched in their zeal, many more millions of Americans of all different races and backgrounds watched--and seethed. They were struck by the Orwellian incongruities--Mexican flags, chants of "Mexico, Mexico," and the spectacle of illegal alien residents lecturing citizen hosts on what was permissible in their own country.

If the demonstrators thought that they were bringing attention to their legitimate grievances--the sheer impossibility of deporting 11 million residents across the border or the hypocrisy of Americans de facto profiting from "illegals" who cook their food, make their beds, and cut their lawns--they seemed oblivious to the embarrassing contradictions of their own symbolism and rhetoric. Most Americans I talked to in California summed up their reactions to the marches as something like, 'Why would anyone wave the flag of the country that they would never return to--and yet scream in anger at those with whom they wish to stay?' Depending on the particular questions asked, polls reveal that somewhere around 60-80% of the public is vehemently opposed to illegal immigration.

When schools were dismissed due to student walkouts and traffic disrupted, Americans began to see the wages of their own indifference to the problems of illegal immigration. Insidiously over the last 30 years we have allowed an entire apartheid community to grow up in enclaves in the American Southwest and occasionally beyond--one by language and psyche that may well feel more romantically attached to the Mexico it left and won't return to the United States it sought out and must stay in.

To understand the backlash to all this that is rising, think back to the 2003 California recall election for governor. When it was clear that Gray Davis had lost public support and was finished, for a while it looked as if Democratic Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante might well be a shoo-in. After all, California was a solidly blue state, and the Republican challengers, actor and political novice Arnold Schwarzenegger and the unknown State Senator Tom McClintock, would probably split the minority Republican vote.

But then Bustamante very quickly began to scare the electorate. He was unapologetic about his past MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán) ties, even when that otherwise irrelevant radical student group's mottos and separatist constitution found their way into the public discourse. He tried to redefine his unsavory fund-raising with the Indian gaming industry as a point of ethnic pride, promised driver's licenses for illegal aliens, and then aired seemingly suicidal television ads showing him shouting to Latino crowds in a sea of waving red flags.

At the time I remember a liberal friend of mine from the Bay Area calling up, rather shaken, asking in disbelief, "Who is this guy and why does he always scream to screamers?" Bustamante was subsequently trounced and couldn't receive a third of the vote from a liberal electorate that, he apparently forgot, once passed overwhelmingly ballot propositions banning state aid to illegal aliens, racial preferences in hiring, and bilingual education.

Something of the same backlash may soon follow these demonstrations. There are over 300 million resident Americans, and the vast majority of them are citizens. Had the demonstrators marched chanting "God Bless America," confined their flag waving to Old Glory, and expressed thanks to a magnanimous United States that gave them a second chance when a corrupt Mexico has precluded their first, then they would have won public support.

As for as the immigration debate itself, we all know the truth that we suppress and the lies that we voice. Language has been the first casualty of our disingenuousness. "Illegal alien" is a descriptive, not a racist, term. In contrast, "undocumented worker" is deliberately misleading, since in most cases documents were never at issue, and not all aliens are workers. "Racism" has nothing to do with a failed system that appalls Asian- and African-Americans alike, as well as bewilders frustrated and patient Koreans, Punjabis, Africans, and Filipinos who did not cut ahead in the long legal immigration line. "Nativist" means nothing when Americans presently welcome in more legal immigrants that any other nation on earth.

Yes, illegal immigration provides a valuable source of cheap labor. But such jobs are not just those Americans will never take, but comprise work that they won't seek out at such cheap wages. Where compensation rises, citizen workers will follow.

Yes, most aliens work hard, but a small minority of them do not, and find themselves involved in criminal activity. And given the large pool of illegal immigrants from Mexico, that small minority can still reach several thousands--such as the nearly 15,000 aliens currently locked up in the California penal system alone, at a cost of a half-billion public dollars a year.

Yes, immigrants contribute more than receive--but mostly when they are young, single, and hale. As they age, become ill, marry, and have children, those without education, English, and legality naturally draw on entitlements for a semblance of parity with American citizens otherwise impossible for such minimum wage earners.

So what fails and what works? Bilingual education in our schools, multicultural romance about a mythical Aztlan in our universities, guest worker programs that institutionalize helot status, salad-bowl separatism, and millions who cross the border illegally, all have contributed to the present disaster. But as we see with second- and third-generation model Mexican-American citizens, English immersion, acceptance of an American identity, integration, intermarriage and assimilation, legal and monitored immigration in the thousands from Mexico--all that guarantees immigrants success and energizes us the host.

Americans recoil at the volatile ethnic enclaves in France and the Netherlands--and can understand how such tribalism could quickly escalate to sectarian violence in Iraq, the Balkans, and Rwanda. Unless we curb the present influx, return to the melting pot, and salvage a legal remedy from the present illegal disaster, what we saw this week may only be the beginning of something far more dangerous from both sides of this avoidable crisis.
Victor Davis Hanson is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of Mexifornia. A State of Becoming (Encounter 2003).

 

[rtwngAvngr]

There is no peaceful recourse for the american people. The Fox, Bush, And the Canadian dude are meeting right now to discuss creating a north american unistate.

check out the overtly stated socialist goals of the world bank, a lynchpin in the new world order, from their own site.

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXT...:51123644~piPK:329829~theSitePK:29708,00.html

"Our mission is to help developing countries and their people reach the goals by working with our partners to alleviate poverty. To do that we concentrate on building the climate for investment, jobs and sustainable growth, so that economies will grow, and by investing in and empowering poor people to participate in development."

Notice the goal is to help DEVELOPING nations.

 

[Said1]

Notice the goal is to help DEVELOPING nations.

Of course, but really, the help is no better than a payday loan. Probably the IFC's bright idea. I also didn't know the developing world had a "private" sector worthy of such large investment. Hmm.

IFC

 

[Said1]

BTW, some have high hopes for the Canadian dude, he's so in touch with the peeps.



yo, 'sup

 

[Annie]

I'm amazed by the numbers of people that will complain and state that we are heading for 'civil war' seemingly more ready to pick up a gun than a pen or phone and speak with their representatives. When the public is engaged, the interests groups have almost zero power. Granted they know this and will try to create a false alternative.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

I'm amazed by the numbers of people that will complain and state that we are heading for 'civil war' seemingly more ready to pick up a gun than a pen or phone and speak with their representatives. When the public is engaged, the interests groups have almost zero power. Granted they know this and will try to create a false alternative.

Your phone call means nothing compared to the businesses who want the cheap labor and who give millions to run campaigns. The process is corrupt all the way through.

 

[dilloduck]

Special interests run things only when the American public is not engaged. When awakened, the people are in control, power comes from the people. Think port deal. Truth is, if the public were upset enough, profiling would be the acknowledged norm, but the appearance of security was enough.

Backlash can cause serious problems. Politicians on both extremes had better stop grandstanding and address the concerns and possible solutions:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/03/whose_backlash.html

It was a political party that got the public engaged-----it was in THIER interest to make a big deal outta this so THEY stuck it out there for the public to bite!

 

[Annie]

Your phone call means nothing compared to the businesses who want the cheap labor and who give millions to run campaigns. The process is corrupt all the way through.

I disagree. Truly, when the 'people' respond, the politicos change direction extremely fast. Now that doesn't mean their sugar daddies won't try a new tactic, but it never works, when the folks keep their eye on them.

Note the Dubai deal and Bush's 'new look at' and subsequent withdrawal. Just too much heat. It's you and I that put on that heat, there has to be many though. I think immigration, thanks to the marches, is at that point now.

 

[Annie]

It was a political party that got the public engaged-----it was in THIER interest to make a big deal outta this so THEY stuck it out there for the public to bite!

You are so wrong, you see only what you want to see.

 

[dilloduck]

You are so wrong, you see only what you want to see.

Then take some time to explain it to me instead of being a smartass about it.

 

[Annie]

Then take some time to explain it to me instead of being a smartass about it.

I assume you are smart enough to know that when Congress people start writing op-ed pieces about the public's reaction to something, they are getting more than the normal 30-50 calls and emails. It wasn't one party, it was ALL of the representatives being deluged from their constituents. Now, some would stick with 'our ally', others went gaga, much like you accused many of us. You may have been onto something, or not, but in any case, too many were upset. Thus it became a doomed attempt.

I've got some stuff to deal with here, so I'll return when I can, for as long as I can.

 

[dilloduck]

I assume you are smart enough to know that when Congress people start writing op-ed pieces about the public's reaction to something, they are getting more than the normal 30-50 calls and emails. It wasn't one party, it was ALL of the representatives being deluged from their constituents. Now, some would stick with 'our ally', others went gaga, much like you accused many of us. You may have been onto something, or not, but in any case, too many were upset. Thus it became a doomed attempt.

I've got some stuff to deal with here, so I'll return when I can, for as long as I can.

By all means--take care of family first !!

( op ed people got mail because Shumer and Hillary wanted to panic people to make Bush look shitty--if it hadnt been for him coralling the media not only would people not have cared--they wouldnt have even noticed anything had happened)

 

[Annie]

By all means--take care of family first !!

For now, fighting might get my mind off of problems. If I excuse me.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

I disagree. Truly, when the 'people' respond, the politicos change direction extremely fast. Now that doesn't mean their sugar daddies won't try a new tactic, but it never works, when the folks keep their eye on them.

Note the Dubai deal and Bush's 'new look at' and subsequent withdrawal. Just too much heat. It's you and I that put on that heat, there has to be many though. I think immigration, thanks to the marches, is at that point now.

Hopefully you're right. The port deal was a pretty good example. Let's see what comes out of congress on this issue, if anything.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

There is no peaceful recourse for the american people. The Fox, Bush, And the Canadian dude are meeting right now to discuss creating a north american unistate.

check out the overtly stated socialist goals of the world bank, a lynchpin in the new world order, from their own site.

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXT...:51123644~piPK:329829~theSitePK:29708,00.html

"Our mission is to help developing countries and their people reach the goals by working with our partners to alleviate poverty. To do that we concentrate on building the climate for investment, jobs and sustainable growth, so that economies will grow, and by investing in and empowering poor people to participate in development."

Notice the goal is to help DEVELOPING nations.

The IMF and worldbank have done their damndest to enslave developing countries with bad economic advice and debts, and then call it "help". These countries would be much better off without them. There's a whole chapter on this in The Creature From Jekyll Island, I'm tempted to scan the whole damn chapter, heh. The supreme irony is that the globalist-groupies of the left don't have the slightest clue about the elitist neo-feudalist agenda of the IMF and worldbank.

 

[dilloduck]

Hopefully you're right. The port deal was a pretty good example. Let's see what comes out of congress on this issue, if anything.

Cmon--the Dems played the American people like a fiddle. :duh3: