• June 29, 2007 7:06 AM

    Finding Myself on Bush's Side

    This headline in The New York Times should, by all accounts, make me happy:

    Defeat For Bush

    And based on my reactions to the President's past domestic policy gems like wanting to privatize Social Security and giving Big Pharma the ranch as part of his healthcare reforms, you'd think I'd be delighted by this:

    President Bush’s effort to overhaul the nation’s immigration policy, a cornerstone of his domestic agenda, collapsed Thursday in the Senate

    But I'm not giddy. I don't think the immigration bill was perfect by any means...but I am a little afraid of some of the forces that aligned against it.

    Quotes like this make me nervous:

    The vote followed an outpouring of criticism from conservatives and others who called it a form of amnesty for lawbreakers.

    "Lawbreakers." That is the attitude shared by too many in power toward the millions of immigrants who would have had a path to citizenship opened to them by this plan.

    And again, while it was a problematic bill, I know I don't want to be on the same side as these guys:

    Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, said: “The American people won today. They care enough for their country to get mad and to fight for it. Americans made phone calls and sent letters and convinced the Senate to stop this bill.”

    Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, a leading opponent of the bill, said talk radio was “a big factor” in derailing it.

    Supporters of the bill wanted to pass it quickly, “before Rush Limbaugh could tell the American people what was in it,” Mr. Sessions said.

    DeMint, Sessions and Limbaugh are a triumvirate that make me take George Bush's part in an argument.

    One piece of legislation isn't going to solve the larger issue: there are tensions in this country, based on fear and ignorance and a politics of "us vs. them" -- and we saw it at play in the ruckus demanding immigration reform, then again in the vitriol against pathways to citizenship...and that fear-mongering and hate-mongering is the bigger threat than the people crossing our borders for better lives.

    Posted by Justin Krebs
    Permalink | Comments (1) | del.icio.us | digg
    Tags: Bush, immigration reform, Senate
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  • GJKBEAR [TypeKey Profile Page] :

    Basing what I read in the Washington Post under a headline of- Small towns helped defeat immigration bill - and your comments, I concur. Be afraid, Be very afraid.
    One lady said that she went to her local WalMart "and there were all these women speaking spanish only inches from my face. I was very uncomfortable" she said. There was such anger from people in the comments.
    I read everything from throw the bums out to the argument that unless both parents were legal born citizens, that the resultant child should not be given citizen status either. One person claimed that the resulting child should be taken away and given to legal families in the US and the parents deported. It was like a pack of rabid dogs. In addition to myself there were only a few others who said that this was not fair and tried to humanize those who were illegal aliens.
    Hatred is in fine form these days. No one seemed willing to answer my challenge that not giving tax breaks to companies who move their plants to Mexico and requiring them to play a living wage to those poor people. I feel that if the corporations have nothing to loose by moving their operations to 3rd world countries and paying cheap labor or hiring illegals here in the US that things will only get worse. I guess it is true. Americans would sell their own mother if they thoght it would make a buck.....

    Posted on June 30, 2007 11:45 AM

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