May Day

I couldn't go to the protests in Downtown LA today, because I had to work at the video store. I wasn't actually sure of the rules for this whole boycott thing. I'm not an immigrant, but I agree with the cause, so was I supposed to be boycotting stuff all day? Because I bought lunch.

My roommate and another co-worker of ours, both of whom are immigrants (I'm guessing legal ones, but I've never requested any documentation so I can't be sure), went down there. I'm hoping they'll write up a little something for the blog here, and of course that they thought to take some pictures.

My first impression, upon reading some media reports about the event, is that the anti-immigrant racists are totally screwed. Not only because this massive groundswell of previously-ignored workers seem poised to become much more politically active and engaged. But because of the power of these ideas and images. These are families marching peacefully in the streets, asking only for respect and a chance for success in America. What kind of sicko curmudgeon do you have to be to see scores of people walking through their neighborhoods, wearing white to symbolize peace and unity, carrying young children, singing and dancing and cheering, and react with hatred?

Apparently, this kind:

But if illegal aliens all took the day off and were truly invisible for one day, there would be some plusses along with the mild inconveniences. Hospital emergency rooms across the southwest would have about 20-percent fewer patients, and there would be 183,000 fewer people in Colorado without health insurance.

That's Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo, the latest in a massively long line of Republicans hoping to rise to national prominance by appealing directly to racists. The protests and boycotts today were designed to show Americans how much all of these illegal immigrants would be missed if they weren't here.

Now, if you take a look around and decide that their presence didn't really have much of an impact either way. Fair enough. I would say that means your community doesn't have a large illegal immigrant community, and you probably should just ignore politicains when they make broad generalizations about the topic.

But Tancredo actually goes ahead and indulges in a fantasy of his own design...What if illegal immigrants really went away forever? What if, with the push of a button, he could disappear millions of his fellow Americans? Oh, the possibilities!

Also, you've got to love Tancredo faulting illegal immigrants for not having health insurance. Tom, I'd sure they'd love to have health insurance. Why don't you offer it to them, scumbag? You're in fucking Congress! The fact that all these thousands of sick people in Colorado can't get medical help is your fucking fault, not some guy who came up from Rosarito hoping to pick strawberries for $4.

Youth gangs would see their membership drop by 50 percent in many states, and in Phoenix, child-molestation cases would drop by 34 percent and auto theft by 40 percent.

This is such bullshit. How can he know any of these numbers? I'm sorry...did they start arresting every single car thief in Phoenix, and then running background checks to ensure they were all here legally? Has Tom been rapping with the kids in the street about how many gang members were born in El Salvador as opposed to one of our fine American ghettos? Or, as I'm going to officially theorize, does he just make this shit up?

Not to mention that, once again, he'd be blaming illegal immigrants for problems that existed long before they ever arrived here. It would be like delivering a pizza to Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown's house, and then having them accuse you of turning their bathroom into a crack den.

Now here's a particularly bizarre paragraph:

In Durango, Colorado, and the Four Corners area and the surrounding Indian reservations, the methamphetamine epidemic would slow for one day, as the 90 percent of that drug now being brought in from Mexico was held in Albuquerque and Farmington a few hours longer. According to the sheriff of La Plata County, Colorado, meth is now being brought in by ordinary illegal aliens as well as professional drug dealers.

Even the geography is confusing, and this is his state. So, in Durango, and the area around it, and the area around that, 90% of methamphetamines are brought in by "ordinary" illegal aliens. What makes them ordinary? If they are smuggling in meth, doesn't that make them extra-ordinary illegal aliens? I mean, is Tom suggested that every person who sneaks into America illegally brings with them a significant supply of crank? That someone traveling into America without crank would be an extraordinary circumstance?

Also, I'm not so sure I'm going to go ahead and take the Sheriff of La Plata County, Colorado, at his word. For all I know, that guy makes up shit, just like Tom Tancredo. Hell, maybe there isn't even a La Plata County, Colorado.

Tom goes on to recite a few anecdotes about specific illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, as if this kind of evidence proves anything ever. Two can play at that game:

I wish I had a button that could make all the old rich white men go away, because then we wouldn't have had an Enron scandal or an Iraq War.

Finally, check out this airtight logic:

If illegal aliens stayed home—in Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, and 100 other countries—the Border Patrol would have 3,500 fewer apprehensions (of the 12,000 who try each day).

But Tom, if illegal aliens stayed home, we wouldn't even need a Border Patrol, so actually there wouldn't even be anywhere for them not to go and...hang on...I think I just blew my own mind.

At the end of the article, Tom makes a sarcastic remark implying that he'd like the authorities to round up the illegal immigrants as they march and ship them out of the country. It's a really well thought out plan, I must admit. I'm always walking around wishing we'd start rounding people up more in America. If I know my 20th Century history, and I think that I do, that's always a positive sign about things to come!

And speaking of brilliant wingnut plans to clean up our streets of dirty, filthy illegals, I couldn't resist bringing to your attention this brilliant piece of immigration policy courtesy of the Associated Press:

Some of the rallies drew small numbers of counter-protesters, including one in Pensacola, Fla.
"You should send all of the 13 million aliens home, then you take all of the welfare recipients who are taking a free check and make them do those jobs," said Jack Culberson, a retired Army colonel who attended the Pensacola rally. "It's as simple as that."

Yeah, Jack! Simple! First, you gather together 13 million illegal immigrants. Hey, I'm not exactly sure how you'd find them all. Probably, first, you'd make everyone show up at some pre-designated public spot to prove their American citizenship. (My humble suggestion: kill two birds with one stone and make them prove they ain't Mooslims!) Those that can't prove they belong here (or anyone who might be Mooslim) has to wear a brown star on their shirt.

Okay, so then, once all the stars have been handed out, you send around motivated groups of young people, armed to the teeth of course, to go house to house and gather all the immigrants (and Mooslims and Jews and gays and any one else that gets your dander up). Then, we send them all to the labor camps for a while. I mean, as long as we're processing all of them and providing them travel back to their homeland for free, why not get some extra work out of them first? Am I right or am I right or am I right?

Then, when we're done with them, we send 'em on home. Easy! And then, Michelle Malkin can write a book about how well it all went!

That only leaves us with the problem of getting everyone on welfare into these newly-opened employment opportunities. A few small minor snags in your thinking here...

- Those jobs often pay less than a legally-mandated wage
- Those jobs might not be located within easy access of where welfare recipients live
- Those jobs might not be appropriate for single mothers, the elderly, starving young people just starting out in the world and others who receive welfare
- You are an idiot

So, yeah, shuffling around all the employed and underemployed people all around the country to take the newly-vacated immigrant jobs might be time-consuming, burdensome and expensive. But, obviously, it has to be done. I mean, we can't have people coming to this country, working and supporting themselves and their families, can we?