TODAY, Representative Gutierrez introduced the CIR ASAP Reform Immigration bill. What are the particulars of the bill right now? This, and notes on the media teleconference call Monday that SEIU held, announcing Gutierrez’ bill.
THOSE WHO REPRESENT and are empowered by the People must act in ways that satisfy and protect and preserve those people. When they do not, they risk their seat of power and abdicate the role of “representative.” Too often we settle for this. We should settle for this no longer.
THE REPUBLICANS USE THEIR RADICAL BASE for fuel. The Democrats marginalize their radical base. The GOP operates on philosophies that can allow for greed and harm to the overall social body. The Democratic party has a much more ideal image…but do they believe in it themselves?
TED KENNEDY has died, at 77. He was a staunch fighter for progressive issues, and you know this by how much and how easily he infuriated the GOP. For never having worked a real job a day in his life, he spent a lot of time fighting for the rights of those who do. He is remembered well.
THERE IS A LARGER PICTURE undeniably drawing itself in clotty bright blood across the imaginary maplines of this world. There is a cause and effect of which the US is ignorant, as is México, as is Canada. That is giving them the benefit of the doubt. One could assume far worse.
THE INSIDIOUS AND DEPRAVED AND VAMPIRIC NATURE of the detention industry is a topic I cover here regularly. Latino convicts are now the largest ethnic population in the federal prison system, and all due to the criminalization of immigration that Bush brought upon us and that Obama, so far, has yet to dismantle or substantially reshape.
THEY BESEECH THE WISE LATINA TO SOOTHE THEIR TREMBLING AND WOUNDED EGOS. Like petulant babies they repeatedly, almost to the point of absurdity, demand she confess her irrational temperament. And throughout it all cannot see the irony.
WHO WILL GIVE THE DEMOCRATS A TOUGH TALK? Who will tell them that in order to rise above the well-entrenched practices of the Right, they will need to be daring, intelligent, and original? Who will assure them they possess the ability to be both honest and victorious?
SOMETHING MUST CHANGE. When US citizens already suffering from a terrible loss are attacked by other citizens en masse, and for nothing more than having Spanish names, it makes me feel like the past has reared up; days of Civil Rights era struggle, days of anti-Greaser hate, days of Los Vatos Locos and the dangerous fabled Pachuco. La Lucha Sigue.
A DEPARTMENT LIKE ICE has no conscience, of course. Just directives (like “make 400,000 arrests this year”) and a great concern for its public image. If that’s the case, however, I can’t imagine why they’d think chilling out on train platforms and plucking young Latinas out of the crowd would go over well.
TUESDAY, President Obama announced Sonia Sotomayor as his pick to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Sotomayor could be the first Latina appointed to the Supreme Court. Predictably, attacks and slurs from the Right are already flying.
THE NATIVIST LOBBY HAS INSINUATED ITSELF into the media dialogue on immigration to all our detriment. They create a false boogeyman of danger and parasitism, and promote the impression that the only response is a harsh, punitive one doled out in cuffs or a cell. The results of the February Bellingham raids are in, and put the lie to this screech of extremist thought.
LABOR GIANTS SEIU AND A.F.L.C.I.O have come to an accord on the fight for immigration reform and today proudly told the press of the unified effort, one which will seek, “finally, a principled public dialogue” and one, according to SEIU, that “does justice to our heritage as a nation of immigrants.” Get the link to the Nezua-notated liveblog of the call in this post.
THOUGH WORKING TO CLOSE Guantánamo, peppering his speech with talk of law and order, and restoring US image to the world abroad, Obama still risks muddying up his accomplishments with a blatant hypocrisy: we cannot lead the way on liberty or justice when investing in detention systems from Arizona to Iraq.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION seems quite capable of centrist positioning on many issues, including immigration reform. While some argue centrist position allows Obama to effectively reach consensus, immigration reform is an issue that he cannot play sides with.
House of Nezua
the XOLAGRAFIK theater!
