Has the swine flu pandemic given rise to even more anti-immigrant hatred? An article a friend sent me from MSNBC.COM suggests yes:
“No contact anywhere with an illegal alien!” conservative talk show host Michael Savage advised his U.S. listeners this week on how to avoid the swine flu. “And that starts in the restaurants” where he said, you “don’t know if they wipe their behinds with their hands!”
And Thursday, Boston talk radio host Jay Severin was suspended after calling Mexican immigrants “criminalians” during a discussion of swine flu and saying that emergency rooms had become “essentially condos for Mexicans.”
That’s tepid compared to some of the xenophobic reactions spreading like an emerging virus across the Internet. “This disgusting blight is because MEXICANS ARE PIGS!” an anonymous poster ranted on the “prison planet” forum, part of radio host and columnist Alex Jones’ Web site.
There is even talk of conspiracy. Savage speculated that terrorists are using Mexican immigrants as walking germ warfare weapons. “It would be easy,” he said, “to bring an altered virus into Mexico, put it in the general population, and have them march across the border.”
The following Keither Olbermann video gives further examples of scapegoating.
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Do people really respond to microbes this way? Was this the excuse people were looking for?
Most Latinos in our area are from countries other than Mexico. Only about 25% our our Hispanic population is from Mexico. Have they been treated differently since this outbreak? Perhaps those who are slinging this kind of trash should be reminded that the first cases of swine flu in the United States were brought back by American Catholic high school students who had been vacationing over Spring break in Cancun. Surely no one will suggest that we ban American Catholic high school students.
[ed note: I am aware that this video is not neutral view point. However, people’s words do speak for themselves, so I opted to use the material. ]
Yes please.
Just re. Frederick.
done
@ShellyB
Yes, Shelly, you’re right. There’s no possible way that you’re wrong. Your “Shakespeare’s Sister” stuff (there’s a concept that I’d bet a year’s salary is the most relevant bit of info here) is irrefutable. You have beaten me so completely that I’m at a loss for words. I wish my intellect could be as searing-hot as yours someday. Now go celebrate by feeding your unicorns.
Unicorns? Where? (looking around) Slow, do you think they would fit on that contentious ‘Run for the Roses’ thread?
Haven’t even followed the Derby this year. I heard a 50-1 underdog won…..that’s pretty cool.
Slowpoke – go watch the video on the Run for the Roses thread – either the one posted at the top of the thread or the longer one I posted yesterday – which is longer and has great interview with horse jockey plus a better view of how the horse came up way from behind – very exciting race (and I am not a horse racing enthusiast).
We can have a unicorn race – now that’s something I’d like to see! Definitely sounds like a topic that will fit into the very controversial Run for the Roses thread!
Correct. The Preakness will be run in 2 weeks on May 16. Maybe you can get caught up then. I Want Revenge should be running. Will he be a serious contendor to Mine The Bird?
I read through the report. You didn’t make the 1005 folks’ answers to factual question 4 up….that much is true. But your interpretation of the numbers is indicative of a mind that can only see what it wants to see, and will use almost anything (including a sample of 1000 people) to support a hopeless argument. Then again, you called Rasmussen a hate group, so everyone knows you cannot be trusted to handle facts or figures with any measure of reliability. You might have been better off using a long-running tracking poll that shows numbers steadily changing over time, instead of a one-time snapshot of 1000 people, about whom you cannot know many key details. Here’s a good one that shows a decline in the number of people who consider themselves Republican: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/party_affiliation/party_affiliation/summary_of_party_affiliation
I’m sorry that “Shakespeare’s Sister” isn’t in there anywhere (Shelly, I have to tell you that I picture you the evil one in the “Stay” video….she admitted in an interview she was totally drunk, like you, when they filmed that….but really, make up, wobbly eyes and all).
OK, still with me, Shelly? or have you started to twitch uncontrollably? Now, in your “interpretation” of your 1000-persons answers, you seem to ignore the folks who lean to the right, and of course we can’t know how many “strictly independents” are that way because they are more conservative than the Republican Party is (very easy to do these days).
I won’t argue that the Republican party is in trouble….it should be…Republicans have lost their way, abandoned their principles almost completely from 2001-2008 and even more recently. The cleansing of the party is going to take a long time and make things look hopeless for a long time. There’s no clear leader right now, and membership is down. And maybe they’ll never recover! I can believe that. But using your 1000 person survey to prove beyond a doubt that only 20% of Americans are Republicans is so out of touch with reality, that it’s really laughable. Your analysis skills are actually worse than those of a 5-year old. But keep trying! I always encourage folks to keep trying (even if I know they’ll never succeed)
Unicorn races? Hmmmm…and they could jab those in their way with the horn on their heads. I vote for that!
Slowpoke, tell us your vision of the Republican party. I think that is what troubles some folks: Republican means different things to different people. I saw a distinct change when the Religious Right took over back in the mid to late 80s. (and not for the good) I remember the 1992 Republican convention which did more to shoe Bill Clinton in the White House than any other single factor. As I recall, the day after that convention, the DNC received more money in a single day than any other day in the history of the party.
Slowpoke, I had a feeling my last post would drive you into a frenzy of futility. But thanks for coping with reality even for a fleeting minute. And now, your unicorns await you.
No, dear, that last post just demonstrates how insufficient your analysis skills are, how out of touch with reality you are, and how the mind can block out what it doesn’t want to believe.
Slow, if you can make such a statement about me, then all you have to do is apply those words to yourself and you might have a chance to reenter society. When was the last time you had a thought of your own without resorting to Fox “News” or Rush Limbaugh? Remember that person? Wouldn’t you like to have him back again? If so, look at yourself in the mirror and repeat your own words:
“How out of touch with reality you are, and how the mind can block out what it doesn’t want to believe.”
I couldn’t have said it better.
@ShellyB
That’s awesome, Shelly, you’re reduced to “I’m rubber, you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you”. You’re the best!!
Mr. “rodriguez”, apparently Fox News has prepared you to have a single conversation. And you have been having it, ad nauseum, with ONLY the most liberal member of this online forum. It seems that for you, and other far right followers of Hannity and Limbaugh, there is no line of communication with independents or moderates within your own party. The only communication you desire is a circuitous and predictable duet that leaves everyone else out of the loop (except for those on the far left who are all too happy to echo your extremism from the other end of the spectrum).