As word of the presence of ICE agents in the neighborhood spread, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums rushed over to Esperanza Elementary School, where a number of parents and community members had gathered.
Addressing them, the Mayor called the situation the “the ugly side of government.”
He labeled the ICE actions “inappropriate and unnecessary” and reiterated that children needed education, not harassment. “There should be no raids in Oakland,” he said.
Is this what has become of our great nation? A willingness of our government to intimidate parents through fear tactics in public schools? Have we been reduced to such base behavior? Say what you will about the illegal immigration, but NEVER, let me repeat, NEVER, should any government willingly strike fear within a child who has committed no crime!
http://www.alternet.org/rights/84718/
does anyone care that after all the requests to highlight the solutions page, and with all the redesign of the page–you can’t find it? Seems a bit curious that the only positive part of the blog is hidden.
Elena, there is no ICE activity in schools. That is part of their policy. No ICE raids at/in or around schools. From reading the snipet above, it appears the parents/children/community leaders gathered there to discuss, avoid or protest the raid – pick your description. ICE was not at that school. As a matter of fact, ICE policy is that they WILL NOT take into custody minor children on their own.
Yes, every government has its ugly side, the enforcement side is usually not pretty. That is why we pay other people to do it. Whether its enforcing immigration laws or cleaning up homicide scenes, we pay others to do the tasks that we as a society choose not to do.
I would ask you if your stance is to end immigration raids? If so, then the wave of illegal immigration will increase because the only penalty will be removed. Enforcement of virtually any negative side of a law can be ugly, but there are some things that have to be done for the larger good of society as a whole.
So in pursuit of fugitives no one is allowed to go near a school? Because it might upset a teenager?
Give me a break.
We have two choices. Either people like those behind this board convince us to keep a welcome mat out, and we abandone sovereignity, rule of law, and any hope to reduce poverty and promote equality in America as our underclass swells to basically include Mexico’s poor. (Meanwhile Mexico’s elite continue to live large). Or we make it, dare I say UNCOMFORTABLE and UNNERVING to be an undocumented criminal in America.
Even so, the ICE agents weren’t trying to create fear among teenagers. That’s just a byproduct which I for one have no issue with. It’s either OKAY to be a criminal or it’s NOT OKAY. That’s a lesson being learned every day – whether the laws of this nation are a joke or not.
Maybe we should not arrest murderers and rapists for fear of striking terror into their children’s hearts? Elena, you talk about Greg manipulating events and here you are doing the same thing that you rag on him for. ICE was not at the school rounding up children like this article would have us believe. A crime is a crime and just because these people don’t feel they are committing a crime doesn’t make it so. The US Government and the overwhelming majority of US Citizens do believe that they are committing a crime which is why they are being arrested and deported. It’s not a human crisis and they are not breaking up families. The children are free to go back to Mexico/Honduras/Guatemala/etc with their parents and learn the value of the law. They will be better people for it in the long run.
PW Resident,
The solutions thread is at the top of the page, seriously, do you think there is a conspiracy 🙂 ?
I am for comprehensive immigration reform. The ICE raids actually don’t do much of anything right now, as most are who are held, apparently, are processed appropriately, and then released for a hearing date. Yes, they do strike fear, but if most people are willing to accept that we have a broken immigration policy, WHY are we continuing to pretend that there is no culpubility on the part of our government for the mess we are in today? I am wondering, how many people actually READ the entire symposium on our broken immigration system? The Council on Foreign Relations is no leftist “commie” organization, I believe it is extremely diffucult to dismiss them or their findings.
I would also like to see talk about solutions that would prompt people to take action to resolve the problems that are behind all the fear and hate and the reacting not acting.
Please put the solutions that people have suggested to this blog on the Solutions Page. If you need me to read through the old threads, compile them and e-mail them in one document to you so you can post them, I can help out. You have my home e-mail, please contact me, Alanna.
Also, on the Solutions page, you have an “overcrowding hotline” contact posted for the City of Manassas. I thought they stopped promoting the property maintenance contact as an overcrowding hotline after the discrimination lawsuit was filed?
A better listing for the City of Manassas would be:
Neighborhood Services – Kisha Wilso Sogunro 703-257-8240
Complaints about grass over 12″- Officer Elaine Lee, 703-257-8197
Safety/Vacant and Unsecured Structures, Lt. Tina Pannell – 703-257-8025
Starting a Neighborhood Watch, Officer Scott Stallard – 703-257-8179
Meanwhile, the Virginia Commission on Immigration is inviting public comments in Fairfax this month:
http://www.insidenova.com/isn/news/local/article/immigration_commission_to_meet_in_fairfax/15111/
What the hell were ICE agents doing sitting 4 blocks from the school? That seems like a tactic to impose fear in the students. Children should not have to feel threatened. I do not care if they are documented, undocumented or citizens of the U.S. Most of the children who have been brought to this country by their parents have been raised here, attended school here and this is THEIR country. They have known no other way. Just listen to the interveiws of these kids who will tell you this is the only country they know and they consider it their home. They are not responsible for the actions of their parents and should not be subjected to fear. The “Dream Act” needs to be passed.
I agree with Elena. We need comprehensive immigration reform. The system is broken. There are people who have been waiting up to 10 years for papers. In addtion, ICE raids really do not do much and it takes a very long time for a person with an ICE detainer to be processed and ICE is really only interested in processing criminals. They do not have the time, nor the resources to do much else.
“I would ask you if your stance is to end immigration raids?”
First, where is this information coming from, that it was ICE at a school raid? That doesn’t seem likely to me. It really doesn’t. I can see some radical group like GL’s out there (we have people on camera screaming at chidren) and CS and JS out there (because they don’t care who they target so long as they project themselves as saving money and making HSM happy) but I don’t see ICE doing it. It’s against the law to take kids out of school based on immigration status. Period.
Second, to end the raids, give people a legal path to citizenship and secure the borders now. Do BOTH NOW. If you recall, at the Landsdowne raid, ICE agents gave workers an application for a work visa. This to me means they are TRYING to make this right, even if they cannot. Get enough workers who got raided filling out these forms and you send a clear message to government that something needs to be done NOW.
I won’t put up with people harassing children EVER EVER EVER. I don’t care if I have to stand in front of GL and his ilk in front of a school. I will have these people arrested for intimadation if it EVER happens here. I KNOW there are parents who are like me who are sick and tired of our public schools and children being persecuted and demeaned and harassed for whatever reason that might be—immigration related or otherwise.
If you target children, you are criminals. Period. You belong behind bars. This includes JS and CS.
I tried posting on the “solutions” page this morning but couldn’t. I emailed Admin. this:
“These folks are fixing communities post-Hurricane Katrina. And we can’t seem to get some neighborhood action going to make our communities better for everyone? We have no excuses. If we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem.”
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/cnn.heroes/
At the very least, the ICE raids will get those who are apprehended a hearing date and will start a process – either to stay or go – that would not have been started otherwise.
Yes, the system is broken, but do we further that by just stopping enforcement – thereby breaking yet another part of the immigration system?
ICE, by policy, does not target minors. They do not take minors in to custody. They target adults, who have to know that part of the risk for entering illegally is that some day, some where, the feds will catch up with them.
This thread is about deportation of adults, NOT children. Nobody is deporting or targeting minors for deportation. If the parents are deported and take the children with them, I can sympathize with their plight. But because the children are citizens, the parents do not earn a legal right to stay.
GL is not “radical”. If he wanted to form a “radical” organization he could have. You could probably shape the anger out there in many directions. Greg shaped it and directed it in a very civilized manner, pointed away from racism and towards exercising democracy based on reason and dialogue. I was there at I think the first HSM meeting when some angry characters were pretty much told by him “there’s the door” if you want to make this about race.
A lot of you who disagree with him keep wanting to pretend the anger comes from Greg or Corey Stewart fanning it up. No. It comes from angry homeowners and neighborhood residents from what they see around them. It’s extremely real and transcends politics.
Elena speaks of culpability. We have to accept that the laws of this country are slanted towards protecting the wealthy and that through a variety of shell games large business owners who reap the profits of illegal labor won’t end up being held accountable, only subcontractors and small business owners will. In terms of culpability, our politicians who are sworn to uphold the law are as culpable as can be. Especially at the federal level. I don’t let local politicians off the hook though. If you stand for lifting Americans out of poverty and stand for promoting equality in America, you can’t be for the imporation of millions of uneducated poor into the U.S. Someone like Tim Kine trying to pretend they can grow the amount of asisstence the government provides to citizens, while making things comfy and cozy for millions who aren’t citizens, is so absurd and irresponsible it belies anything they say.
It cannot be forgotten that though our corrupt system provides incentives, the major culpability IS on the party of the individuals who smuggle themselves in and who engage in identity fraud. You can argue that morally you feel these people are less to blame than someone else, but legally this is inarguable. A man leaving his product on a street corner does not excuse theft. A woman wearing sexy clothes does not excuse rape. The crime IS human smuggling and identity fraud. If you want this phenomenon stopped or mitigated, don’t lose sight of who is culpable for it. I’m all for attacking the problem from both angles but you can’t let the actual criminal themselves off the hook for choices made. Even if they’re just pawns in a game, many millions more are watching and deciding whether to come over here and add to the problem, or not.
I didn’t know where else to post this but consider this when the BOCS refuses to serve elderly based on citizen status. Someone noted to me in an email that most of the elderly in county programs can’t even remember their own names, never mind remember where they put their ID’s. Many of them are the last people in their families, or their families are in other countries. How can the BOCS possibly deny these people? It’s a human rights’ and civil rights travesty.
“Just last week, I wrote to you about the Supreme Court ruling that upheld Indiana ‘s voter identification law — the most restrictive in the nation. League members responded in full force to fight back against this blatantly discriminatory law.
We are already seeing the negative effects of this law. At Tuesday’s Indiana primary, for example, about 12 nuns — all in their 80s or 90s — were turned away from a polling place by a fellow sister because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.
And the implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling reach far beyond Indiana.
Nationwide, it is estimated that as many as 11% of U.S. citizens don’t have government-issued photo identification— that is as many as 21 million Americans.
On the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision, many states will be tempted to unnecessarily tighten their ID restrictions, while other states may use the Supreme Court ruling as a springboard to take action on this issue before the 2008 elections.
Already, in Missouri , a state representative has tried to pass legislation that would require voters to obtain and show a government-issued photo ID. Fiscal estimates indicate that this bill would cost cash-strapped Missouri taxpayers more than $6.4 million — and could disenfranchise 240,000 Missourians, especially the elderly, low-income individuals, minorities, the homeless and handicapped people.
That’s why we can’t stop now. Only the League of Women Voters has the knowledge, reputation, experience and grassroots network to fight back against politicians that are trying to rig our elections to expand their political power. And we will continue our work to fight all the challenges we face. Learn more here!
I’m so proud to be standing together with dedicated League members and activists like you who understand what’s at stake and have stepped up to make change happen.
Thank you for your continued support.
Mary G. Wilson
President, LWVUS
The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization, has fought since 1920 to improve our systems of government and impact public policies through citizen education and advocacy. The League’s enduring vitality and resonance comes from its unique decentralized structure. The League is a grassroots organization, working at the national, state and local levels.
Rick there are much better ways to deal with this than how the CS, JS, GL, and HSM are. By using policy, language, and mandates from a hate group, they have created a hostile environment that instead of solving neighborhood problems have increased them.
Don’t try to tell me that screaming at children, threatening people (as GL did to me and others which I reported to the police), calling people “vermin” and “invaders” and gloating over “brown faces” no longer being a bus stops and in schools that these people are doing good. I don’t know what your definition of “good” might be, but I don’t think it’s in sync with most of ours, including those of us in faith based communities which have been spurned openly by CS, a supposedly devout Catholic. Shame on them all. If they had any integrity, they would be hanging their heads in public. After this debacle, if CS had any character, he would resign. Pride cometh before the fall. It will happen.
Elena wrote: “PW Resident,
The solutions thread is at the top of the page, seriously, do you think there is a conspiracy 🙂 ?”
My bad–I was looking on the right!
Rick Bentley, 9. May 2008, 7:20
So in pursuit of fugitives no one is allowed to go near a school? Because it might upset a teenager?
Give me a break.
We have two choices. Either people like those behind this board convince us to keep a welcome mat out, and we abandone sovereignity, rule of law, and any hope to reduce poverty and promote equality in America as our underclass swells to basically include Mexico’s poor. (Meanwhile Mexico’s elite continue to live large). Or we make it, dare I say UNCOMFORTABLE and UNNERVING to be an undocumented criminal in America.
Even so, the ICE agents weren’t trying to create fear among teenagers. That’s just a byproduct which I for one have no issue with. It’s either OKAY to be a criminal or it’s NOT OKAY. That’s a lesson being learned every day – whether the laws of this nation are a joke or not.
KENNETH SAID NOT SCREAMED……..DUHHHHH RICK……..YOU KNOW THAT 5 YEAR OLDS GO TO SCHOOLS ALSO? OR WERE TO TRYING TO TRICK US ALL WITH YOUR SMART-ASS REMARK ABOUT TEEN-AGERS……..CLEVER FOLLOW YOU ARE…..MAYBE FAIR COULD USE YOU!!! AS AN ASIDE, I AM SURE THAT ICE WOULD NEVER GO TO A SCHOOL……….WHAT IS CLEAR THAT WHEN ICE GOES AND PICKS UP THE POOR FOLKS WORKING IN THE CHICKEN PLUCKIN FACTORY DOWN THE STREET…THEY DO SWEEP UP THE PARENTS OF KIDS IN THE SCHOOLS……AND THAT IS A REAL SICKENING SITE. OTHER FOLKS GATHER AROUND THESE SCHOOLS TO HELP THE KIDS WHOSE PARENTS HAVE BEEN DETAINED…..WELL, KEEP ON THINKIN RICK…….WE’LL ALL BE WATCHING FOR YOUR NEXT MISSIVE!!
park’d, 9. May 2008, 7:40
Maybe we should not arrest murderers and rapists for fear of striking terror into their children’s hearts? Elena, you talk about Greg manipulating events and here you are doing the same thing that you rag on him for. ICE was not at the school rounding up children like this article would have us believe. A crime is a crime and just because these people don’t feel they are committing a crime doesn’t make it so. The US Government and the overwhelming majority of US Citizens do believe that they are committing a crime which is why they are being arrested and deported. It’s not a human crisis and they are not breaking up families. The children are free to go back to Mexico/Honduras/Guatemala/etc with their parents and learn the value of the law. They will be better people for it in the long run.
KENNETH SAID NOT SCREAMED – WELL, PARK’D CHECK THIS POSTING AGAIN……IT WASNT ELENA WHO STARTED THIS GO-ROUND…….IT WAS OAKLAND MAYOR DELLUMS LOOKIN FOR A FRIDAY AFTERNOON PRESS OP!!
Katherine, I totally agree. Many of us acknowledge that illegal immigration is causing problems in PWC but we want to deal with the problems in a way that doesn’t use policy and language that create hostility and ill-will. Residents might be angry but I don’t think truthful people with deny that some OTHER bloggers enjoy whipping up the minions into a wild feeding frenzy.
“WHAT IS CLEAR THAT WHEN ICE GOES AND PICKS UP THE POOR FOLKS WORKING IN THE CHICKEN PLUCKIN FACTORY DOWN THE STREET…THEY DO SWEEP UP THE PARENTS OF KIDS IN THE SCHOOLS……”
And the parents are completely oblivious to the fact that they’re working illegally in the US and think that they’re immune from deportation???
It wouldn’t matter if the school was next door or three miles away…
Greg is getting slandered here.
If there were no Greg here and no HSM, people would only be angrier. I know I was MAD AS HELL myself with what happened to my neighborhood. I was full of anger and disillusionment before there was an HSM or I had any idea who Corey Stewart was. And each of them has, if anything, calmed me down and made me think there is SOME HOPE for our region.
You can be mad as hell. We all get that way. But there’s a positive and a negative way to deal with anger, Rick, and it’s not the HSM/FAIR way.
GL has slandered ALL of us and did himself in long ago with his own words, threats and actions. If you care that much about him, tell him to shut up or he will keep digging himself into a deeper hole. Or get him a good lawyer. He might need one.
kgotthardt, 9. May 2008, 9:32
I am a member of league of women voters, great organization.
Rick,
If Greg and HSM is the only alternative, we are in big trouble. Our county government should have taken control and creates solutions to deal with the neighborhood issues, town hall meetins, task force, etc. I will never accept that a man who continually posts propoganda is truly interested in public policy.
On another note, I agree that I could have come up with a better headline, but I was rushing and wanted to get the post up. I still would like to know why ICE was in a neighborhood for a raid, was it a large business, corporation, what was it? Is ICE going door to door to private homes? ICE was not AT the school, but they were very close, close enough that children could see them. That may not bother everyone here, but it sure bothered me.
We need logic AND empathy to solve this problem.
“Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.”
“The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith.”
Bertrand Russell quotes (English Logician and Philosopher 1872-1970)
“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.”
Meryl Streep quotes (American film actress, b.1949)
I hope to leave my children a sense of empathy and pity and a will to right social wrongs”
Anita Roddick quotes (English businesswoman (The Body Shop), b.1942)
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/some_people_think_only_intellect_counts-knowing/10598.html
“I am a member of league of women voters, great organization.” You are? Are you a member in PWC? We have our own area group now.
I think a lot of you are talking about your reaction to Greg’s web site and speaking/thinking of it as HSM.
His leadership of HSM is issue-based, and he has steered it away from racism and kept the agenda well-focused.
His web site is a bit more personal and idiosynchratic (not racist – I think that’s a false charge). Which he has every right to.
Perhaps his desire to maintain and expand bvbl makes him an imperfect spokesman for HSM. Perhaps not. From my viewpoint, he did one hell of a job and helped restore a lot of people’s faith in government.
I have to say, his web site is a great source for information. How many of you knew that Stephen Fuller who has been active in criticizing the PWC Rule of Law was on the Board of Directors of the company which was responsible for the illegal aliens being netted this week in Richmond, working on a Federal Courthouse?
I know it because of Greg’s website. The local media is far too biased to report such a thing.
Much less to show the chicken coops in Frank Principi’s district.
Elena, so are we to tell ICE that they should ignore immigration issues that are near schools? How far must away they stay? A block, a mile, five miles? With all due respect, I can’t comprehend what directions you would tell ICE agents. If kids can look out a window from the top floor and see the action, its wrong? The agency stays out of schools, which is the proper thing to do. But to extend a “sanctuary ring” around the sight lines of schools or daycare or playground is unworkable and just plain bad policy. Where does it stop? Do we have to watch out for school bus stops? Teenage hangouts too?
The ONLY internal domestic security and actions ICE takes are the raids and if we take that away, we might as well fold up the agency and open the borders because there is no other penalty for being here illegally, whatever individual reasons people may have.
Rick: Agreed. Greg was a Godsend to me with his blog. He has taught me so much about how PWC and the 2 cities work and the scams and plans that each municipality engages in. He took on an issue for this community that was ripping it apart and he helped build an organization thousands of members strong that has real political power now to create change for the better. He’s not perfect as none of us are, but to call him racist is absurd. If concerns about cultural conversion, crime, blight, overcrowding, and expenditures related to this are racist then so be it.
Hey I think we have a new title: “Gospel Greg, the Godsend.”
If God takes policy from a hate group, I think I’ll become an atheist.
I’ll third that. Greg’s concerns are in line with citizens whom have felt the brunt of this issue both on a personal and financial level.
The guy has worked tirelessly at mostly his own expense to be a voice for us citizens. He has been a Godsend, although I don’t take any person’s word as Gospel.
KG: every time you call HSM a hate group *snicker* you lose that much more credibility. Every time you call one of us a racist or bigot or member of a hate group you just chip away at your cause a little at a time. It really is not the best way to further your cause and to institute dialog.
Park’d, FAIR IS a hate group and that’s where the policy came from. The “Help Save” groups came from groups labeled the same thing. I didn’t make up the label of Hate Groups. Formal organizations did that, and these are organizations that lead civil rights, human rights, and legal movements. So I’m sorry if you don’t like my calling HSM and company a hate group according to other sources, it IS. If you don’t want to be labeled like that, get out of the group.
Furthermore, from what I understand, GL is in a pretty different socio economic class than someone like yours truly. He’s a well off white guy telling the rest of us how we should run our communities and to give into illogical hatred and anger instead of finding real solutions.
Not only has he demonstrated a lack of empathy for foreigners, he has catigated people of different religions and the elderly (I’ve read it). He has made overtly racist statements. He has made fun of the disabled and peoples’ gender identities. How you can defend someone like this is just beyond me.
This isn’t “my cause.” A “cause” is something you pick up because maybe you believe in it but maybe you just want to have something to protest. These are my beliefs and myself I am defending against him and people like him. This county would be a more peaceful, more productive place full of solutions and community action if GL and his buds were deported. Except I wouldn’t wish that on ANY foreign nation.
Moon-howler, 9. May 2008, 11:08
kgotthardt, 9. May 2008, 9:38
Rick there are much better ways to deal with this than how the CS, JS, GL, and HSM are. By using policy, language, and mandates from a hate group, they have created a hostile environment that instead of solving neighborhood problems have increased them.
Katherine, I totally agree. Many of us acknowledge that illegal immigration is causing problems in PWC but we want to deal with the problems in a way that doesn’t use policy and language that create hostility and ill-will. Residents might be angry but I don’t think truthful people with deny that some OTHER bloggers enjoy whipping up the minions into a wild feeding frenzy.
KENNETH SAID NOT SCREAMED – IF ONLY K AND MH WERE ON THE BOCS INSTEAD OF THE TWO S’SSSSS
park’d, 9. May 2008, 15:43
Rick: Agreed. Greg was a Godsend to me with his blog. He has taught me so much about how PWC and the 2 cities work and the scams and plans that each municipality engages in. He took on an issue for this community that was ripping it apart and he helped build an organization thousands of members strong that has real political power now to create change for the better. He’s not perfect as none of us are, but to call him racist is absurd. If concerns about cultural conversion, crime, blight, overcrowding, and expenditures related to this are racist then so be it.
KENNETH SAID NOT SCREAMED……CHANGE FOR THE BETTER?????? I DONT THINK SO…..WE ALL KNOW THAT THE PROBLEMS IN THE COMMUNITY WERE ALL FIXABLE UNDER CURRENT ORDINANCES AND THAT GOSPEL GREG AND THE TWO S’SSSSSSS ARE THE ONES WHO BROUGHT FAIR INTO COUNTY GOVT…….WE BECAME FAIR’S LACKEYS…AND PAYING FOR IT DEARLY….
LuckyDuck, 9. May 2008, 14:35 said
“Elena, so are we to tell ICE that they should ignore immigration issues that are near schools? How far must away they stay? A block, a mile, five miles? With all due respect, I can’t comprehend what directions you would tell ICE agents. If kids can look out a window from the top floor and see the action, its wrong?”
Answers:
That’s exactly what we tell them. ICE should not conduct raids within eyesight of a school.
An immigration raid to catch people committing the crime of working hard in unpleasant jobs is not the same thing as catching murderers or rapists. A raid is a very traumatic thing to witness for a child, even for your white and black non-immigrant children.
Personally I don’t think raids should be conducted at all.
Firedancer, I think a raid would be tramatic for MANY of us no matter WHAT our ages!
tarumatic traumatic DAMN! Hope those new glasses I’ve ordered help me with this typing thing!
Rick,
I don’t know what has happened to you. I used to read you over on the other and you made a lot of sense. You were a moderate.
Why do you think GL is correct all the time? Does the word ‘spin’ mean anything to you?
What do you suppose he is getting out of all of this? How about those 2 supervisors whose names start with an S? What are they getting out of any of this?
These are questions you need to be asking yourself. I think that HSM has some good folks in it. I think there were lots of people out there hurting because of what was going on in their neighborhoods. I think some folks who shall go nameless saw an opportunity and played upon the ill fortunes of others. Why? Why is the most important question to ask.
As for Dr.. Fuller…so what if he is on the board of anything. Do you think he is getting rich off of sitting on that board? That falls into the world of BFD. I would also like to point out that the company has gone unnamed, to my knowledge. No way the information can even be verified.
Rick, I know you are a smart guy. Trust but verify.
I don’t think Greg is “preying”. Again I say to you, he has lead the group HSM in a civilized and restrained manner. It could have been very different. We could have had Minuteman-styled encounters at 7-11s, and lots of angry physical encounters at places other than County Government halls. We could have started harassing individual illegal aliens, reporting them and trailing them within the county. That anger is there – and it’s in me, to this day.
As to Dr. Fuller, this is the worst kind of corruption. You may be willing to laugh it off. But I’m not.
You’re right that I am generally moderate, but not on this issue.
Folks, here’s another piece of blatent and arrogant abstract thinking that is destructive, divisive and discrimminatory against others not like themselves: everytime I see it I’m going to call people on it, not personally but ethically. These concepts are destructive and promote cultural division instead of “integraton”.
KG at 9:32, Mary Wilson’s LWV’s gender bias.
“Only the League of Women Voters has the knowledge, reputation, experience and grassroots network to fight back against politicians that are trying to rig our elections to expand their political power. And we will continue our work to fight all the challenges we face. Learn more here!”
You’ve got to love that people still think this line of reasonong is OK in this day and age, implying that “men” are not qualified to do this work, only women are. Discrimmnation and illegal bias, in raw form.
Would you prefer that we start a “league of men voters”, and start addressing only issues that men want put into law for themselves and not for anybody else?
I would prefer we get beyond this gender, racial, religious, ethnic group political advocacy social engineering concept, and away from political entities concentrating only on special interests and “privileges” only for groups like themselves.
What you should legally be forming is a “league of voters”, concerned about voting and legal rights for all, applied legally under the same law regardless of gender, religion, race or ethnic group. You cannot apply an “individual and human rights standard” fairly and equitably across all genders, religions, races and ethnic groups, if you keep politically separating into illegal special interest and culturally fractured, segregated, and seperatist political groups, looking out for only their own special group needs and interests. People should be offended by “political groups” such as these as much as any racial or ethnic hatred group. This particular group and those who join it have a “hatred” of men.
Nobody here cares about that huh?
Case in point” the Indiana law turns away ALL “illegal” people regardless of race, religion, ethnic group or gender. It is NEUTRAL.
But the League of Women Voters is only politically concerned that “women” were turned away: At Tuesday’s Indiana primary, for example, about 12 nuns — all in their 80s or 90s — were turned away from a polling place by a fellow sister because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.
Concepts such as “sisterhood” are meant to be “intentionally exclusive” and demeaning of anyone not in the “sisterhood”, a form of hatred in itself.
Michael,
“Our Mission Statement
The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization, encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.”
It is clear you that you do not understand the purpose of the group. I urge you to do a little research so you can have a better grasp of the facts. The concern of League of Women Voters is disenfranchisement of ALL legal voters, not JUST women.
http://www.lwv.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=About_Us
Rick,
Greg DID have an aggressvive interaction at a 7-11, there was a police report filed. I wonder why you and others, so quickly dismiss the SPLC and their finding of HSM being a Nativisit group. Do you discredit them NOW as a credible anti hate organization because now you find yourself in allignment with Greg?
You have been given facutal information about crime, labor market, housing trends, etc, and yet do you still believe that undocumented hispanics are at the root of all these issues?
Maybe there is convienent amnesia. I am not not sure. Let me recap history as I recall it. The country was already headed into an ecomonic downturn in 2001 when Bush became president, the dot come era was coming to an end, but after 9-11, the country was in a place of fear that we had never experienced and it respresented itself in our economy, stock market suffering, economy suffering, everyone was afraid to spend money. Then, interest rates kept dropping, and dropping and suddenly, people could envision themselves buying newer and bigger homes, now they could afford more than they ever could before. Pretty soon, houses were being bid UP on sale price, people were in a panic, you couldn’t build houses fast enough. We built our own house(we were our own general contractors!), I know what it was like having to wait for contractors to even GIVE you a bid, they were all so busy. What I want to know, is where were all these out of work contractors, I sure didn’t meet any, white, brown, black, EVERYONE was busy.
We built ourselves out of the black hole we were in 7 years ago, now suddenly everyone has amnesia. I will reitterate again, NOTHING, NOTHING I have heard from virulent anti immigrants voices, sounds any different from what was said about the Irish, or the Italians, or any other large wave of immigrant group EXCEPT one claim, the hispanics are illegal. Well, it use to be you got on a boat, showed up with a piece of paper or even less sometimes, to verify who you were , and off you went, to pursue your American dream. That’s how my ancestors found their dream, what about yours? I am not dismissing there are issues, but let’s talk about them factually, not from a place of fear.
Elena, their actions speak louder than their words . If they were so concerned about that mission statement, they would have simply formed “The league of voters”. Their is no need and it is against the concept of “indivual rights, representing all individuals” to align with any political group identified by gender, race, religion or ethnic group. Everyone cleary knows where their true loyalties lie, regardless of how “genderless” their mission statement is crafted. This is just to shield and deflect theiri true beliefs and actions taken.
I know this is hard for you to admit and see as truth.
I discredit the SPLC because they are acting as gender, racial, religious and ethnic group segregationists that are only concerned about legal issues promoting diversity, seperatism, segregation and socialism political alignment along racial, gender, religious and ethnic group lines.
They are not concerned about enforceing the law “equally”, regarding immigration law without discrimmination based on gender, religion, race or ethnic group, because they create the “illusion” of these groups and then say they are “racial hate groups”, when such a group aligned along gender, racial, gender or ethnic group boundaries does not exist in either HSM or in Greg’s management of the BVBL blog. All the hatred pulled from that site is highly selective, very rare, and from people who are difficult to prevent from making those kinds of comments. Greg’s political actions show he is aligned not along gender, racial, (can’t say religious lines because he is and I fault him for that when he does), or ethnic group political lines, rather he is aligned in political advocacy along “illegal” and “legal” law enforcement lines. It is for this reason the SPLC in order to justify its ethnic group hatred theory and comments must present lies, and extremely weak “relationship association” arguments to try to convince people something other than reality is going on.
I’ve read both side’s arguments and I see SPLC is the much bigger liar, very clearly.
Calling that site a hate site, or Greg a nativist is equivalent to calling the antiBVBL administrator, a hate site and the opposite of a “nativist concept” (seperatists), just because someone like me is posting on her web site. I don’t believe she is a seperatist or a hate monger at all, as I have seen her words. I do however see lots of people who post here, using haful words with no basis for truth, and I do see segregationists and separationists here that I’ am trying to convince to become “neutral” or you are no better than anyone else by advocating to destroy national identity and unity through socialist and marxist philosophy. Some of the very people you support are also advocating secession from the state and withdrawal from the “whole”.
From wiki: Separatism refers to the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial or gender separation from the larger group, often with demands for greater political autonomy and even for full political secession and the formation of a new state.[1] Depending on their political situation and views, groups may refer to their organizing as independence, self-determination, partition or decolonization movements instead of, or in addition to, autonomy, separatist or secession movements. While some critics may equate separatism and religious segregation, racial segregation or sexual segregation, separatists argue that separation by choice is not the same as government enforced segregation and serves useful purposes
Those useful purposes are to favor their own agenda for their own “people” , ethnic, gender or religious group without any regard for the impact or damage on everyone not in their special group.
The League of women voters is not concerned about the “disenfranchisement of all male voters” Their actions focused only on female issues, speak louder than any words they want you to believe about gender equity and laws applied equally to both male and female. They have advocated and forced political enactment of laws that apply only to them at great detriment and harm to “male” voters. They and they alone believe only they know and are qualified to rule on what is “best” for each gender’s happiness.
A genderless “league of voters” would not do this. They would apply and advocate the law equitably with equal emphahsis on genderless based legal solutions.
There for example no “battered male” safehouses, although their are millions of men out there who have been verbally abused, hit and hurt by the other gender. That indifference is perfectly socially acceptable to those who write the laws based on the political pressures of these gender aligned “groups”. You have only to look at the wording of the law to see the truth in this statement and the fact that no funding exists.
Then there are the millions of “dads” whose kids are ripped away every day by those same laws, the LWV and other gender groups like them, politically rammed down their throats. These men do not deserve to be put through these traumas, nor do their children. I was one of them and I can tell you from personal experience the law was incredibly biased, and the pain was intense. I am not alone in that belief, yet the laws regarding this are still not “fixed”.
These men are all “individuals” not members of a political gender group. They deserve the same basic rights of all “individuals” to not be harmed and abused in this way.