I thought this birthday wish was appropriate in light of our most recent thread.

I am trying to figure out who this land really does belong to. How many people want to repeal the 14th amendment to keep children of foreigners who are born in this country from being declared citizens?

In our discussion the past several days, I am reminded of Emma Lazarus’ New Collossus:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

That really doesn’t describe America any more, does it?

 

6 Thoughts to “Happy Birthday , Woody Guthrie 7-14-1912”

  1. Starryflights

    It sure doesn’t look like the welcoming country it once was known for.

    The 14th amendment makes us all citizens. Repeal it and none if yes are citizens.

  2. Cargosquid

    @Starryflights
    Not so much. We were citizens before the 14th.

    As for the “welcoming country,” please point out when this was a welcoming country.

    Even for those LEGAL immigrants that you are referring to.

    1. I wasn’t. My citizenship was granted by being born in Virginia.

      Why was that poem written? I think many people welcomed immigrants. I have always welcomed them, regardless of how/why they got here.

      I can remember welcoming boat people about 25-30 years ago. I took them a playpen for their baby.

      I don’t know if these folks were legal or what. I knew they were desperate and the buddist society brought them here.

  3. Scout

    CS is older than I realized. I thought I was the oldest guy here.

    He makes a valid point, however, that incoming immigrants frequently incurred the ire of people already in the boat. It happened over and over throughout our history. The sure sign of complete assimilation is when one ethnic group that had been vilified starts screaming at the next one coming in. I’m sure, human nature being as feeble and base as it is, that is a certainty that some of the children and grandchildren of latin american immigrants, will someday join in spittle-flecked chorus to denounce as unclean, unAmerican, unassimilable, criminal, etc., etc., the next big wave of immigration from South Asia or the Middle East. We can be an ugly species, even in a country with the high ideals of this one.

  4. middleman

    I agree with Scout- our country has a long history of demonization of the “other.” From the Chinese to the Irish to the Poles to the Jews to the Catholics (remember when many claimed that Kennedy would take orders from the Pope?) and on and on.

    And it has always been the same group- the less-educated, less-successful, primarily white and primarily male among us that have been the demonizers. The tactics have always been the same- play on fear and “differences” between “them” and “us.” Witness the current claims that the newcomers bring disease, when the growing faction in this country that won’t inoculate their children are a much greater threat to American’s health.

    But what Woody Guthrie knew and spent a lifetime professing is that we’re all in this together and the basic precept of America is that we’re all equal in “our land.” He believed that the “people” owned this land, whether they were farmworkers or factory workers or business owners.

    Before some folks start screaming socialism, I mean ownership in the sense that we all have a say in our country, we all get a fair shake, we’re all equal socially- there’s no caste system where those at the top exploit those in the middle and bottom.

    Unfortunately, Woody’s gone now and we’re getting further and further away from the ideas his songs espoused, led by a minority of losers.

    1. @middleman, sort of like we all own the national parks? Of course I guess that is socialism also.

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