DmMic

A new CEO FOR FOX NEWS!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hq3PUGkZ9M

Some pictures from the night of the great victory.  The world celebrates Obama. 

   PRESIDENT OBAMA!!!!!!!  Thank you GOD!!!!!

 

I  found a new enthusiasm for this presidential race while watching Obama's speech at the DNC convention.  A stadium filled to its 80,000 spectator capacity welcomed the DNC nominee for president.  The event was not only historic on many  levels but just plain awe inspiring. Obama not only looked presidential but showed leadership, courage, and poise.  ( You try speaking to an 80,000 person audience.)  I am fully supporting Obama for president and I am a former Hillary supporter.  The idea of Obama leading this nation for the next eight years is wonderful.  Obama is  a savior  from these awful Bush years. 

 

You can read the transcript to Obama speech at this site:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/us/politics/28te
xt-obama.html?pagewanted=1

Here are a few of my favorite excerpts from Obama's speech:

-Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story, of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to.

-It is that promise that's always set this country apart, that through hard work and sacrifice each of us can pursue our individual dreams, but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams, as well. That's why I stand here tonight. 

-Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit cards, bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach.-

-We're a better country than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment that he's worked on for 20 years and watch as it's shipped off to China

-We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty...-... that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.

-Tonight, tonight, I say to the people of America, to Democrats and Republicans and independents across this great land: Enough. This moment...

-Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third.

-And we are here -- we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look just like the last eight.On November 4th, on November 4th, we must stand up and say: Eight is enough.

-But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time.

-I don't know about you, but I am not ready to take a 10 percent chance on change.

-And when one of his chief advisers, the man who wrote his economic plan, was talking about the anxieties that Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a mental recession and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."

-Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third, or fourth, or fifth tour of duty.

-Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans; I just think he doesn't know.

-We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was president...

-In the face of that young student, who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree, who once turned to food stamps, but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

-Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

_And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: In 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

-As president, as president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America.

-OBAMA: And I'll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy -- wind power, and solar power (OTCBB:SOPW) , and the next generation of biofuels -- an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced.

-If you have health care -- if you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves.

-For -- for while -- while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats that we face.

-"When John McCain said we could just muddle through in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights.

You know, John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but he won't even follow him to the cave where he lives."

-I will end this war in Iraq responsibly and finish the fight against Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts, but I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression.

  Several claims made by anti-immigrant bloggers on FOX and other blog sites were debunked by the LA Times last year.  The LA Times wrote that the claims, attributed  to  a supposed LA Times article, are an internet hoax .  Read the blog below.  Apparently certain bloggers have not gotten the news flash.  They are still posting these so called "facts" and even writing tirades against illegal immigrants based on this mythical article.  Internet hoaxes are nothing new and there is even a website devoted to debunking internet hoaxes.  www.snopes.com  

On Snopes.com I  even found a category titled "Obama" and it's devoted to confirming or debunking claims about Senator Obama.  Very interesting.  Did you know Obama IS NOT a muslim?

  What are some of the internet myths you have debunked or actually believed.  I once debunked a photo of a GIANT crocodile being loaded onto a old truck by two black men.  The photo was emailed to me by a friend exclaiming, "look at this!".  The caption on the picture was, "Giant Croc found swimming in New Orleans after Katrina Storm." I knew the croc was far too big to be indigenous to America plus Louisiana has alligators not crocodiles.  I noticed the truck was very late model with no license plates.  The missing plates reminded me of vehicles I had seen in my trips abroad to  third world countries. After a very quick google search  I found the original post of the photo.  The giant crocodile was captured in Africa. 

 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/readers/2007/11/inter
net-immigr.html

---

« Whatever happened to...? | Main | Of crimes past »

Internet immigration hoax

Probably five times a week, the readers' representative office gets a question like this one received recently from Harvey Akeson of Tucson:

"Please help me, an e-mail is making the rounds stating the information is from the L.A. Times.  It may or may not be true.  Can you verify?   Thanks."

Such inquiries have come in for more than a year -- most by e-mail, some by telephone. From the beginning, the notes have shown signs of having been forwarded to many others, who then forward them to many others, before one of the recipients decides to check with the alleged source.

The answer is: The L.A. Times never ran such a story.

"If this doesn't open your eyes nothing will!" So begin most of the e-mails that readers forward to us. Though the endings vary -- a typical sign-off is, "Send copies of this letter to at least two other people.  100 would be even better" -- the bulk of the note always consists of 10 "facts" that they are told came from the L.A. Times. The hoax e-mail goes like this: 

1. 40% of all workers in L. A. County ( L. A. County has 10.2 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants working without a green card.
2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens. 
3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens. 
4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on  Medi-Cal,whose births were paid for by taxpayers. 
5. Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally. 
6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages. 
7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border. 
8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal. 
9. 21 radio stations in L. A. are Spanish speaking. 
10. In L. A. County 5.1 million people speak English, 3.9 million speak Spanish.

(There are 10.2 million people in L. A. County)

Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare.

Over 70% of the United States' annual population growth (and over 90% of California, Florida, and New York) results from immigration.

29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.

We are a bunch of fools for letting this continue. 

Here's the response we've sent to those who ask:

No article has appeared in The Times with this list. And some of these 'facts' appear to have been misleadingly edited from articles that appeared in the L.A. Times as long as 20 years ago and are now being cited inappropriately. When this Internet rumor started last year, The Times' opinion website looked into this hoax; here is the link to those findings: 

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2007/02/some_
memes_neve.html

One example of how this is inaccurate is the claim that a Times story reported that "over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages." This appears to misquote information from a May 24, 1987, article about the number of people living in garages in Los Angeles County. It reported that, at that time, about 42,000 garages were sheltering about 200,000 immigrants in L.A. County. That article provided detailed information explaining how the figures were arrived at but it did not allude to anyone's residency status.

Most readers thank us for the explanation and promise to get word back to those who forwarded the hoax e-mail. Added Akeson: "This hate stuff is very difficult because most people read it and pass it on without even thinking of facts or the hurt they are spreading."

November 28, 2007 in Accuracy issues, Q&A | Permalink

 

Read or watch an interview, by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, with the friend of  Mexican immigrant Luis Ramiez the immigrant murdered by American teens in Pennsylvania. No charges have been filed against the known killers and supposedly no  investigation has been started. Ariela Garcia was a witness to the savage beating.  WHen black youths viciously attacked a white youth in Jena, Louisiana arrests were made and the most sever charges were filed against the attackers. Read the article on the conviction here:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19488285/

 When drunken American white teens beat to death an immigrant in conservative, Pennsylvania nothing is done. An example of an unfair justice system? I believe it is starting to look like one.  

 

---

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/24/fri
end_of_mexican_immigrant_beaten_to

democracynow.org

July 24, 2008Friend of Mexican Immigrant Beaten to Death in Pennsylvania Gives Eyewitness Account of AttackLuis Ramirez, a twenty-five-year-old Mexican immigrant, was beaten to death last week by a group of teenagers in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. He was walking home last Monday night when six white high school students brutally beat him while yelling racial slurs. Despite eyewitness testimony, no charges have been filed. We speak with Arielle Garcia, a friend of Ramirez who witnessed the attack. [includes rush transcript]

HelpPrinter-friendly versionEmail to a friendPurchase DVD/CDLISTEN
WATCHReal Video StreamReal Audio StreamMP3 DownloadMore…Guest:Arielle Garcia, friend of Luis Ramirez. She witnessed the beating.Rush TranscriptThis transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution. 
Donate - $25, $50, $100, More...


AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Shenandoah Valley in Pennsylvania. Luis Ramirez was a twenty-five-year-old Mexican immigrant who was beaten to death last week by a group of teenagers in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. He was walking home last Monday night when six white high school students brutally beat him while yelling racial slurs. When one of Ramirez’s friends tried to stop the beating, one of the teenagers said, “Tell your Mexican friends to get out of town, or you’ll be laying next to him.” Despite eyewitness testimony, no charges have been filed as yet.Ramirez came to the United States six years ago. He was the father of two children. He was engaged to Crystal Dillman, who grew up in Shenandoah.
We called the district attorney investigating the case, but he declined to join us on the program and said he had no comment.

I’m joined right now by Arielle Garcia, a friend of the couple who was an eyewitness to the attack on Luis Ramirez. She’s a high school senior in Shenandoah. We welcome you, Arielle, to Democracy Now! 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Hi. Thank you. 


AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. How old are you? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: I’m seventeen. 

AMY GOODMAN: And what year are you in high school? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: I’m a senior. 

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what happened, not this past Monday night, but the Monday before that? What happened to Luis Ramirez? Where were you? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: He was at our house all day that afternoon. And it was around maybe 11:00, he asked us to take him uptown to drop him off, whatever, he was going to go home. So, we leave him at the Vine Street Park, and we drive away, Victor and I, and about two minutes later he called us and told us to come back, that people were beating him up. So we get back as fast as we could. And when we get there, he was—like the fight was over, like the boys were walking away, but they were still screaming like racial slurs, like “Go back to Mexico!” 

And so, Victor and I ran up to Luis, and we said, “What happened?” But he was so mad, he wasn’t really talking to us. And those kids kept yelling stuff, and he went back, and the kids turned around, and the fight started again. So Victor, my husband, tried to like stop the fight. He tried to get the kids off of Luis, but kids were trying to fight my husband. So my husband got the kids off of him, and we couldn’t stop the fight between Luis and the—but next thing we know, Luis was on the floor. And so, me and Victor, we ran up to his side, and we were at his side. We were trying to wake him up, and the kids are still like kicking him and kicking him. And somebody—I don’t know who, but they kicked him like in the left side of his head so hard that that’s what killed him. 

AMY GOODMAN: Now, where were you and your husband exactly as this part of the fight took place? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: We were right by him on the floor. We were like kneeling by his side, trying to wake him up when they kicked him. 

AMY GOODMAN: Did you know his attackers? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Yes, they’re in my class. 

AMY GOODMAN: How many were there? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Six or seven. 

AMY GOODMAN: You knew all of them? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah. 

AMY GOODMAN: Can you name them? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: I don’t20think I’m allowed to name them. I’m sorry. 

AMY GOODMAN: Did you tell the police who they were? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Yes. 

AMY GOODMAN: And what did the police say? Did the police show up that night? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah, they showed up. First, the ambulance did, and they took our friend to the hospital. And about five minutes later, the police came, and I guess they were looking—I mean, we kept telling them where the kids ran, but they didn’t—they didn’t run towards there. I mean, they kind of stayed where it all happened. And I told them the names and everything. 

AMY GOODMAN: And, well, this was more than a week ago. Have they been investigating since? 
< /font>
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah. And like, still nothing. 

AMY GOODMAN: Why did they say—when you showed them the direction that the kids had run, why did they not go after them at the time? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: I don’t know. They told me that it wasn’t their priority right now. 

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, “their priority”? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah. 

AMY GOODMAN: Where was your friend at this point? Where was Luis Ramirez? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: He was gone. He was in the—on his way to be [inaudible]. 

AMY GOODMAN: What was their priority? Did they say that to you? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: No. They were pretty rude, some of them. Not all of them, but most of them were pretty rude to me. 

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean they were rude? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Like, I told them where the kids ran, and they wouldn’t go after them, and they told me that “Somebody said there was someone with a gun here, and we have to search your car.” And they searched Victor, like they put his hand behind his back, and like they put him against— 

AMY GOODMAN: Victor is your husband? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Yes. 

AMY GOODMAN: The boys ran off. Was it all boys? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah. 

AMY GOODMAN: Were they white? Were they Mexican? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah, they were all white. 

AMY GOODMAN: All white, and you know them all? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Uh-huh. 

AMY GOODMAN: Have you seen them in school? Or school is out, so you haven’t seen them since. 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah, no, I haven’t seen them. I mean, we’ve seen one of the kids. He was like playing— 

AMY GOODMAN: If you could talk as loud as you can, Arielle, it’s a little hard to hear you because of the crackling of the phone. 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Oh, OK. 

AMY GOODMAN: Speak right into the phone. 

ARIELLE GARCIA: OK. Yeah, we have seen one of the—like one of the guys recently. We saw him in the backyard of his house playing, as if, you know, like nothing happened. It is frustrating. Our friend is dead and these kids are living life. That kind of frustrates us, because our friend9 9s dead, and these kids are like living life. It just frustrates me, like they can live without feeling guilty or anything. I just hope that the correct charges are pressed against them. 

AMY GOODMAN: Did you speak to any of these kids, since you knew them, in the midst of the fight or afterwards? Did they say anything to you?

ARIELLE GARCIA: Yes. After the fight, I ran after one of them, and I said, “Hey!” I said, “Why did you do this to my friend? You killed him.” And they said—he says, “No, no, I didn’t kill him. He’s still breathing.” And I said, well—and I smelled like—I smelled alcohol, and I said, “Oh, you’re drinking?” And he said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Don’t say our names. I’m out of here.” And he ran. 

AMY GOODMAN: He said, “Don’t say our names”? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: He said—yeah, he said that . 

AMY GOODMAN: Do you know why they attacked Luis? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Do I know? No. I mean, Victor and I weren’t there when it all started. But like I said, when we got there, it was all racial. Everything. 

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, it was racial? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: They were screaming racial, like “Get out of here, Mexican, whatever. Go back to where you came from.” I mean, they were saying bad stuff that I can’t say over the phone. 

AMY GOODMAN: We’re showing pictures right now. For our radio listeners, you can go on our website at democracynow.org to see pictures of Crystal, Luis Ramirez’s fiancee, and pictures of Luis, as well, and their children. 
So they were shouting racial ep ithets. They were—what is the atmosphere in Shenandoah? What is the attitude to Mexican immigrants? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: I think it’s—most of the time, it’s OK. But there are times when there are racial slurs. I mean, with my husband, I’ve been with him four years, and like, I’m telling you, there are many times that I’ve heard people scream racial slurs to him. You know, like I was pregnant with my son, and they told me, “What’s that in your belly? Another person I’m going to have to pay for? Another Mexican on welfare?” Like stuff like that. It’s disgusting. 

AMY GOODMAN: What do you want to see happen in this case? And how is Crystal? How is Crystal Dillman, Luis’s fiancee and mother of his kids? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: She’s doing OK, but she’s pretty upset and she’s frustrated that nothing has been done yet. She wants justice for her family. And we do, too. We want justice for our friend. I feel like that wasn’t his time to die. I fee l like those kids should be—they should be treated as adults in this case. They should be treated as adults that committed a homicide. I don’t understand why it’s being put off here. 

AMY GOODMAN: Luis’s body has been sent back to Mexico? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Yes. 

AMY GOODMAN: To his family? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Yes. 

AMY GOODMAN: What has been his family’s reaction? And where does he come from in Mexico? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: I don’t know the town. I don’t know. It begins with a “G”. But he—his body was sent back to his mother, and she was—when she found out, she was hysterical. I mean, Crystal told me that she was screaming on the phone, and she didn’t know—she didn’t understand, and she didn’t want to believe it. And he’s arriving there today, actually. He’ll be in Mexico City, and they will be sending him back to where his home city was. 

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you, Arielle, for joining us. Are you at all afraid of speaking out? 

ARIELLE GARCIA: Am I afraid of what? 

AMY GOODMAN: Speaking out. 

ARIELLE GARCIA: No. 

AMY GOODMAN: Well, thank you for joining us. We’ll continue to investigate and follow this case. Arielle Garcia is a friend of Luis Ramirez. She witnessed the beating two Monday nights ago that led to his death. Arielle Garcia knows the people who killed Luis Ramirez. They’re her classmates in high school.

---

 The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/24/friend_of_mexican
_immigrant_beaten_to



###
=====================================----------------
-------------------------------




Shown is the town of Shenandoah,. Pa. Tuesday July 15, 2008. Luis Ramirez, 25, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, died Monday, July 14, 2008 from injuries he received in a beating. He was beaten over the weekend after an argument with a group of youths, including at least some players on the town's beloved high school football team, police said. 

(AP Photo/Rick Smith) (Rick Smith - AP)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2
008/07/18/AR2008071801768_2.html?nav=hcmodule
http://tinyurl.com/64mgvr



----------------------------------------------------






Crystal Dillman, 24, left, sits with her children Kiara, 2, second left, and Anjelina, 3, and sister Lita Rector are seen at home in Shenandoah, Pa., Tuesday July 15, 2008. Dillman's fiancee, Luis Ramirez, 25, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, died Monday, July 14, 2008 from injuries he received in a beating. 

(AP Photo/Rick Smith) (Rick Smith - AP)http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp -dyn/content/article/2008/07/18/AR2008071801768_2.html?
nav=hcmodule

Some very good video showing the San Diego Minutemen's true colors. They are hateful, vulgar, racists, and low life.  Anyone  that supports them are too.  Check out the video. 

--------------

   Right wing nuts that like to shout "nuke em' all" should read this. -------------------------------------------------
-----------
- EFFECT OF 20 MEGATON NUCLEAR BOMBWhat Would Happen if a 20 Megaton Nuclear Explosion hit a City of 3 Million ?

Ground Zero

Within 1/100th of a second, a fireball would form in every direction from ground zero enveloping downtown and reaching out for two miles.

Temperatures would rise to 20 million degrees Fahrenheit, and everything — buildings, trees, cars, and people - would he vaporized.

2 to 4 Miles from Ground ZeroThe blast would produce pressures of 25 pounds per square inch and winds in excess of 650 miles per hour. These titanic forces would rip buildings apart and level everything, including reinforced concrete and steel structures. Even deep underground bomb shelters would be crushed.

4 to 10 Miles from Ground ZeroThe heat would vaporize automobile sheet metal. Glass would melt. At this distance, the blast wave would create pressures of 7 to 10 pounds per square inch and winds of 200 miles per hour. Masonry and wood frames would be leveled.

16 Miles from Ground ZeroThe heat would ignite all easily flammable materials -houses, paper, cloth, leaves, gasoline, heating fuel - starting hundreds of thousands of fires. 

Fanned by blast winds still in excess of 100 miles per hour, these fires would merge into a giant firestorm more than 30 miles across and covering 800 square miles. Everything within this entire area would be consumed by flames. Temperatures would rise to 1400° F. The death rate would approach 10070!

Beyond 16 Miles

The blast would still produce pressures of two pounds per square inch, enough to shatter glass windows and turn each of them into hundreds of lethal missiles flying outward from the center at 100 miles per hour. 

At 29 miles, the heat would be so intense that all exposed skin, not protected by clothing, would suffer third degree burns. Even as far as 40 miles from ground zero anyone who turned to gaze at the sudden flash of light would be blinded by burns on the retina and at the back of their eyes.

Within minutes after the bomb exploded 1,000,000 would die. Among the 1,800,000 survivors, more than 1,100,000 would be fatally injured. 

Another 500,000 would have major medical injuries from which they might recover if they received adequate medical care. 

Less than 200,000 people would remain without injuries - with very few doctors and with only limited medical facilities.

American racists dominate the anti-illegal immigrant movement and will resort to violence and murder. I believe the hateful rhetoric posted and distributed by hateful anti-immigrant groups and their allies in the news media, such as Lou Dobbs, have inspired the young to attack and kill. The police not wanting to call this attack a hate crime is outrageous. An attack against a black, jewish, or gay person which included racial, or anti gay slurs would have earned a hate crime charge against the attackers. Murdered at 25 by American racist killers who are only teenagers.

---

-------------------------------------------------
-------------
In this photo provided Crystal Dillman, Luis Ramirez lies in his hospital bed
hours before his death at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa.. Ramirez,
25, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, died Monday, July 14, 2008 from injuries
he received in a beating in Shenandoah, Pa.

(AP Photo/Crystal Dillman)

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Mexico-Danville2C-Pa/pho
to//080718/480/38b3ea70b56240b1a56a54bc6c188de7//s:/ap/
20080718/ap_on_re_us/immigrant_killing_students

http://tinyurl.com/5wlq3j

-------------------------------------------------------
------------------

Fri Jul 18, 1:24 PM ET

Friday, July 18, 2008 (AP)

Immigrant's beating death exposes tensions in Pa.

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press Writer


(07-18) 11:12 PDT Shenandoah, Pa. (AP) --

Luis Ramirez came to the U.S. from Mexico six years ago to look for work,

landing in this town in Pennsylvania's coal region. Here, he found steady

employment, fathered two children and, his fiancee said, occasionally

endured harassment by white residents.

Now he is headed back to Mexico in a coffin.

The 25-year-old illegal immigrant was beaten over the weekend after an

argument with a group of youths, including at least some players on the

town's beloved high school football team, police said. Despite witness

reports that the attackers yelled ethnic slurs, authorities say the

beating wasn't racially motivated.

Hate crime or not, the killing has exposed long-simmering tensions in

Shenandoah, a blue-collar town of 5,000 about 80 miles northwest of

Philadelphia that has a growing number of Hispanic residents drawn by jobs

in factories and farm fields.

An investigation continues, and no charges have yet been filed, but police

say as many as six teens were involved in the fight, which ended with

Ramirez in convulsions and foaming at the mouth. He died early Monday of

head injuries.

Crystal Dillman, the victim's 24-year-old fiancee, who is white and grew

up here, said Ramirez was often called derogatory names, including "dirty

Mexican," and told to return to his homeland.

"People in this town are very racist toward Hispanic people. They think

right away if you're Mexican, you're illegal, and you're no good," said

Dillman, who has two young children by Ramirez and a 3-year-old who

thought of him as her father.

On Dillman's fireplace mantel hangs a medallion of Jesus that Ramirez was

wearing the night he was beaten. Ramirez had an imprint of the medallion

on his chest, marking where an assailant stomped on him, she said.

Police Chief Matthew Nestor acknowledged there have been problems as the

community - the birthplace of big band musicians Tommy and Jimmy

Dorsey and home of Mrs. T's Pierogies - has tried to adjust to an

influx of Hispanics, who now comprise as much as 10 percent of the

population.

Teenagers have sprayed racially tinged graffiti and yelled racial slurs at

the newcomers, he said.

"Things are definitely not the way they used to be even 10 years ago.

Things have changed here radically," Nestor said. "Some people could adapt

to the changes and some just have a difficult time doing it. ... Yeah,

there is tension at times. You can't deny that."

Police are still interviewing suspects and witnesses. Preliminarily,

though, they have determined that Ramirez, who worked in a factory and

picked strawberries and cherries, got into an argument with a group of

youths that escalated into a fight in which he was badly outnumbered.

"From what we understand right now, it wasn't racially motivated," Nestor

said. "This looks like a street fight that went wrong."

Retired Philadelphia police Officer Eileen Burke, who lives on the street

where the fight occurred, told The Associated Press she heard a youth

scream at one of Ramirez's friends after the beating to tell her Mexican

friends to get out of Shenandoah, "or you're going to be laying next to

him."

Shenandoah Valley High School principal Phillip Andras said he knew little

about the alleged involvement of any football players. A call by the AP to

the athletic director was referred back to the principal.

But the players' possible involvement has added to interest in the case.

Football, along with the town's many block parties and festivals, is a

major attraction; home games typically draw thousands of fans.

Arielle Garcia and her husband, who were with Ramirez when he was beaten

late Saturday, said they had dropped their friend off at a park but

returned when he called to say he had gotten into a fight.

She saw someone kick Ramirez in the head, she said, and "that's when he

started shaking and foaming out of the mouth."

The Garcias said they heard the youths call Ramirez "stupid Mexican" and

an ethnic slur.

Burke, the former Philadelphia officer, said she saw shirtless youths

swarming around Ramirez, called 911 and went outside, when she heard a

youth yell obscenities and make the get-out-of-Shenandoah remark.

Despite the witness statements, Borough Manager Joseph Palubinsky said he

doesn't believe Ramirez's ethnicity was what prompted the fight: "I have

reason to know the kids who were involved, the families who were involved,

and I've never known them to harbor this type of feeling."

(This version CORRECTS the gender of the friend in the 14th paragraph,

beginning "Retired Philadelphia ...".)

-------------------------------------------------------
---------------

Copyright 2008 AP

What an amazing life this man had.  He had the courage to challenge injustice and he was a teacher.  I am amazed at how much he was able to pack into the stream of his life.  A real man of action and compassion. 

Rest in Peace. 

-------------------------------------------------
-

Our Beloved DON WHITE ~ Has Passed On ~ PRESENTE       
Senor Don Blanco   
  

DON WHITE -  

 Born in Mount Vernon, Washington on April 18th, 1937.  Died on June 19th, 2008 - 71 Years Old.

 

Don White long time Southern California activist, Charter Founder and lifetime member of United Teachers of Los Angeles passed away suddenly at his home in Los Angles, CA on June 19, 2008.  He will be missed by, not only his family, but literally hundreds of friends and associates of the many organizations in which he was so passionately involved over the past three decades.

 

Born and raised in Mount Vernon, Washington on April 18, 1937, Don White’s life was a reflection of the last 60 years of the progressive movement in the United States. His leadership abilities became evident during his high school years. He was president of his sophomore class and then president of the Mount Vernon High School Student Body.  He graduated from the College of the Pacific studying political science and attended post graduate classes at American University in Washington DC. 

 

From the time that he was a college student in the late 1950's, fighting against the injustice surrounding the House of Representatives' Un-American Activities Committee, Don remained engaged in the struggle for peace and justice for humanity. 

 

After becoming disenchanted with the political scene in Washington DC, he moved to Los Angeles California in 1963 where he taught history at Irving Junior High School.  He was deeply committed to issues of equity in educational opportunity, especially for children in the inner cities. Don participated in every teacher’s union strike from 1963 until his retirement in 1997.

 

In 1976, Don traveled to Guatemala to do relief work following a devastating earthquake there. He called that month-long journey "an epiphany, a life changing experience" which remained a vibrant part of his political psyche that resulted in his friendship and faithful service to Central America. During the war in EI Salvador, Don made 14 trips to that country and to Guatemala, Honduras andNicaragua. He often traveled to El Salvador to bring direct material aid and on fact-finding missions there, often at risk to his own safety.  Don was a member of the Echo Park Chapter of the Committee in Solidarity with the people of EI Salvador, CISPES, since joining the group shortly after its founding convention in 1980.

 

As an organizer, Board Member and leader of CISPES in Los Angeles, Don coordinated and addressed countless rallies, demonstrations, fund-raisers, teach-in's, delegations, material aid drives, congressional visits, civil disobedience actions demanding an end to U.S. intervention in EI Salvador and Central America. For years he organized and/or participated in protests demanding closure of the US based School of the Americas, known for training members of the military from Latin American countries in methods of torture.

 

Don White was an organizer of scores of citywide coalitions addressing numerous progressive causes including peace in the Middle East, the treatment of immigrants, police brutality, women’s rights and more. He played a crucial part in the early sanctuary movement, where local churches gave refuge to undocumented immigrants from Central and Latin America, and up until the time of his death he spoke out about human suffering and separation of families as a result of US government immigration raids in Southern California and elsewhere.

 

He was part of the coalition that following a news story broken by the San Jose Mercury newspaper, mobilized against the CIA bringing in crack cocaine to South Los Angeles. And, as a "Legal Observer" working with the National Lawyers Guild, he could be seen wearing the fluorescent Green Hat worn by the NLG Legal Observers at virtually every major - and minor - demonstration in Los Angeles.

 

Don was a founding member of the Southern California Fair Trade Network, which organized for the 1999 World Trade Organization protests held in Seattle, Washington referred to as “The Battle in Seattle” which has been hailed as ushering in a new era of activism in the United States and internationally.  He was one of the lead organizers in protests referred to as  “D2K” which were held during the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.  Several of the D2K protests were the largest Los Angles had seen for some time, and several law suits were filed and won against Los Angeles Police Department for their actions both in the lead up to and during the protests.

 

He served on the Boards of the Coalition in Solidarity with the people of EI Salvador, the Office of the Americas and Americans for Democratic Action, as well as being the first chair of the Local Station Board of Los Angeles listener-sponsored radio station KPFK, 90.7 fm.  He also served several terms on Pacifica Radio's National Board. He was a key supporter of the Pacifica Foundation and KPFK, and was involved in a lengthy community led struggle to democratize the Foundation and the station.  Don volunteered during KPFK fund drives, most recently several days before his death, and he helped to bring new talent to the station.

 

Don White was also a lead organizer and coordinator in countless mass demonstrations for peace and pro-immigrant rallies in Los Angeles. He helped organize the 3-day LA Social Forum to be held the weekend of June 27th, 2008.  He was active in the Ad Hoc Working Group on Haiti where he was a constant presence at the weekly vigils calling for the safe return of Haitian Human Rights Activist Lovinsky Pierre Antoine. He stood with anti-war veterans as well as anti-war active duty soldiers. He firmly supported and helped to fundraise for Augustine Aguayo for Iraq Veterans Against the War and for the team that produced the film Arlington West. He also worked closely with Cole Miller of NO MORE VICTIMS. And at the time of his death he was organizing among other activities, for the visit to Los Angeles of Mauricio Funes, the FMNL candidate for President of El Salvador. 

 

As a dynamic speaker, he was a fixture of the progressive movement, often serving as Master of Ceremonies or moderator at events sponsored by a wide range of organizations and coalitions. He was regularly the guy who made the pitch for money at demonstrations as well as social and political events -- because he put people at ease, could make them laugh, and made them want to give and be a part of something much larger than themselves. As a result, Don raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for scores of progressive and humanitarian organizations.

 

For his 70th birthday, a birthday party invitation went out from actor and activist Martin Sheen, and the party was not only a celebration but also a fundraiser for the local peace movement.

 

Don leaves behind, his brother Dennis and sister-in-law Harriet White, their children Denise Smith and Lori White, their grandchildren Haley Smith, Rachel LaCasse and Campbell, sister-in-law Lucrecia (Bobbi) Way, nephews George and Gary Way and their families and many friends in the Pacific Northwest, in California, across the US as well as in El Salvador.  In the style of the activist community to whom Don was so committed, a meeting of friends, family and community based organizations has been organized to plan his public memorial.  Several on-air tributes have been paid to Don White on Pacifica Radio’s KPFK

  

FOX viewers do not believe immigration enforcement uses racial profiling of hispanics. Here is another article  that challenges that belief.  "Your papers please", should be America's new national motto.  
 ------------------------------------------------------
------------------

Does crackdown cross line?

Arizona efforts stir racial profiling claims

By Howard Witt | Tribune correspondent

    12:26 AM CDT, May 26, 2008

 

PHOENIX - The newest tactic in America's quickening effort to gain control of its porous southern border starts with a cracked windshield, a broken taillight or even a failure to signal a right or left turn.

That's all the probable cause sheriff's deputies here in sprawling Maricopa County say they need to pull over a vehicle they suspect might be carrying illegal immigrants.

If the driver or the passengers fail to produce a U.S. driver's license or a proper Immigration visa, if they speak only Spanish, or if they can't otherwise convince the officer they are in the country legally, they are likely to be arrested, jailed and handed off to federal Immigration authorities for deportation.

To Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, these zero-tolerance traffic sweeps, which he recently stepped up in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods across the Phoenix metropolitan area, are a successful tool to root out the undocumented workers that many conservative leaders say have overwhelmed America's fifth-most-populous city just a three-hour drive north of the Mexican border. Arpaio's deputies have arrested more than 500 illegal immigrants so far this year.

   RACE IN AMERICA

"We're hitting this illegal Immigration on all aspects of it," said Arpaio, the elected Republican sheriff for the last 16 years. "We know how to determine whether these guys are illegal, the way the situation looks, how they are dressed, where they are coming from."

But to a growing chorus of Hispanic activists, civil rights leaders and Democratic politicians, Arpaio's policy represents a blatant case of racial profiling. It is an extreme example, they say, of anecdotes that have begun surfacing across the country in which local police agencies respond to the national backlash against illegal immigrants by aggressively targeting Spanish-speakers for the offense of "driving while brown."

As a result, Phoenix has surfaced as the latest fault line scarring America's long-troubled racial map.

"We're absolutely seeing a rise in racial profiling," said Cynthia Valenzuela, litigation director for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. "It's simply not legal to use a minor traffic offense as a pretext for investigating Immigration status."

Indiscriminate sweeps

Arpaio's critics allege that both U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent and Mexican visitors with valid visas have been caught up in the sheriff's sweeps and held for hours in special jails until they could prove their right to be in the country. And they say the sheriff's tactics are provoking fear throughout Phoenix's Hispanic community, as well as reluctance on the part of Spanish-speaking crime victims or witnesses to cooperate with police.

One class-action lawsuit already has been filed against the sheriff, and civil rights groups say they are collecting evidence for more.

"If you are of Mexican-American heritage, if you have brown skin, there is nothing you can do not to be stopped," said Mary Rose Wilcox, the only member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors who has criticized Arpaio's Immigration sweeps and the only Hispanic on the board.

"Deputies are asking for birth certificates. Do you carry a birth certificate with you? Should you have to?" she added.

Arizona's Democratic governor, Janet Napolitano, pulled $1.6 million in state funding for Arpaio's office this month because she said the sheriff's actions "were causing trepidation in the Immigration community."

Last month, Phil Gordon, the Democratic mayor of Phoenix, formally asked the U.S. Justice Department to open a civil rights investigation into Arpaio's tactics, which Gordon said included "discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests."

"I understand these are serious allegations," Gordon wrote to Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey. "As mayor of the city of Phoenix, I must speak out when the rights of our residents are violated and the safety of our neighborhoods threatened."

Under a new city policy, Phoenix police also question anyone they arrest about their Immigration status and refer suspected illegal immigrants to federal authorities, but Gordon has expressly prohibited such questioning during routine traffic stops.

Arpaio, who styles himself as "America's toughest sheriff" and is famous for confining criminals in tented prisons and issuing them pink underwear, scoffs at all the criticism, which he dismisses as politically inspired.

"We don't racial-profile. That's all garbage. Everything [Gordon] has said is a lie," Arpaio said during an interview last week. "The politicians fear the Hispanic vote. They want to stay right on that fence; they don't want to aggravate the Hispanic community."

read the rest of the article at:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-pro
filing_wittmay26,0,4678882.story?page=2

 

I want to share this article with readers because so many FOX viewers and fans believe that all hispanics are illegal immigrants and that ICE is deporting only illegal immigrants. Well, this is not true.  This article is only one of several on the internet reporting U.S. born citizens of  hispanic heritage are being arrested by ICE and illegally deported, REMOVED,  from THEIR OWN country of origin, the United States of America. As a hispanic born and bred in the U.S.  this concerns me. Who will be next?  ICE appears to be using racial profiling to determine  who is not a legal U.S. citizen. This type of discrimination and illegal treatment of one group of citizens brings to my mind the similar treatment of Jewish Germans in Nazi Germany. 

One reader on my blog has taunted me for "cut and pasting" articles into my blog.  My reason for doing this?   Readers that  view  only FOX New Channel and other right wing media should have the opportunity to read what other unbiased  journalists are reporting.  Walter Cronkite once said in an interview, " journalism should tell you what you need to know, not what you want to hear". Plus, I am not a professional journalist / writer and will not pretend to be one like so many bloggers on this site. My expertise is technical.  These blogs have no credibility, usually no credible sources (if any sources at all)   for the information they present, and most of the time they are at best poor writers. High school term papers written with these standards  would be reject by the teacher.  

Having worked with some excellent reporters I don't have a lot of tolerance for "posers" and bad ones at that.  

  MSNBC.com

A mother seeks a son wrongly deported

Amid Tijuana's chaos, hunt under way for young, mentally disabled man

The Associated Press

updated 4:10 p.m. PT, Sun., June. 17, 2007

TIJUANA, Mexico - Clutching a photo of her son, Maria Carvajal walks Tijuana’s sweltering streets searching for the mentally disabled man she says was deported more than a month ago despite being a U.S. citizen and then disappeared in this chaotic border city.

Carvajal says she has searched hospitals, shelters and jails here looking for her 29-year-old son, Pedro Guzman of Lancaster, Calif., who was jailed for a misdemeanor trespassing violation, then sent to Mexico on May 11.

Guzman’s relatives sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department last week in federal court, claiming Guzman was a U.S. citizen and had been wrongfully deported and demanding that U.S. authorities help find him.

“I’m searching for him because he’s my son. But it should be (U.S. authorities) searching for him,” Carvajal, a 49-year-old fast-food restaurant worker from Lancaster, said Sunday in Tijuana. “They made the mistake. Not me.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed Guzman had been deported and said the agency had done so correctly. “ICE has no reason to believe that it improperly removed Pedro Guzman,” read a statement.

U.S. official: ‘We are doing things to help ... ’
Officials at the U.S. consulate in Tijuana say they have made calls to help search for Guzman and asked other consulates in Mexico if they have information.

“We are doing things to help that we are not obliged to do,” said consulate spokeswoman Lorena Blanco.

Carvajal, a brown-haired woman with glasses who carries a piece of paper bearing a photo of her son, said he called the family on May 11 to say he was deported but the phone cut off before she could find out where he was.

She said she never thought she would end up having to search Tijuana’s hospital and morgues for her son, but vowed to keep on doing it because “I have to.” She is not carrying her son’s birth certificate with her, saying her main concern is finding him.

Guzman can’t read or write and has trouble processing information. Carvajal fears he could be an easy victim for robbers.

The lawsuit says Guzman was asked about his immigration status in jail and responded that he was born in California of Mexican parents.

Sometime after that, the Sheriff’s Department identified him as a non-citizen, obtained his signature for voluntary removal from the United States and turned him over to Customs and Immigration Enforcement, a division of the Homeland Security Department, for deportation.

ACLU: Birth certificate from L.A. county
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which helped file the lawsuit, says it has Guzman’s birth certificate showing he was born at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

It also says that Guzman had previously done jail time for drug possession, so he had a record that could have been cross-checked before a deportation decision was made.

The Sheriff’s Department has said it followed procedures correctly.

In California, Guzman’s brother, Michael Guzman, said last week that during a phone call to the family the 29-year-old said he had been deported and asked a passer-by where he was. The family could hear the person respond: “Tijuana.”

Michael Guzman said his parents were from Mexico, but seven children, including Pedro, were born in California. Pedro, who takes the surname of his father, speaks both English and Spanish.

Carvajal said she keeps seeing glimpses of people on the Tijuana streets that she thinks are her son and runs toward them. But each time she finds she is mistaken.

“I have to fight for my son,” she said.

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19278902/

MSN Privacy . Legal

© 2008 MSNBC.com

 

Fair and Balanced? The CEO of NEWS Corp admits manipulating the news for his agenda. Watch the video.







Murdock pays no taxes? Now that could be an agenda.  Bill Moyers delivers an eloquent editorial about media emperor Rupert Murdock and his empire.  Touche!! FNC.  




What is your opinion?

This is an excellent article on the conditions faced by hispanic workers in Georgia. --------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------Below
please find my best effort to date to conceptualize the
current immigration crisis. It's the product of
significant time spent in the Georgia and the deep south:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080526/lovato

While centered in the South, the analysis therein
is applicable to many if not most regions of the country.
Given the 66 deaths of migrants in ICE custody
and the raids that now target even children, it
feels timely.

The Nation is translating it into Spanish and it will
run in some Spanish language papers as a series as well.

It's part of a larger project and is, to my mind, the best thing
I'll write this year. Hope it's of use.

Saludos,

Roberto Lovato
WriterJuan CrowMay 8, 2008

 

Juan Crow in Georgia

by Roberto Lovato

This article appeared in the May 26, 2008 edition of The Nation.

May 8, 2008

 

 

From the living room of the battered trailer she and her mother call home, Mancha described what happened when she came out of the shower that morning. "My mother went out, and I was alone," she said. "I was getting ready for school, getting dressed, when I heard this noise. I thought it was my mother coming back." She went on in the Tex-Mex Spanish-inflected Georgia accent now heard throughout Dixie: "Some people were slamming car doors outside the trailer. I heard footsteps and then a loud boom and then somebody screaming, asking if we were 'illegals,' 'Mexicans.' These big men were standing in my living room holding guns. One man blocked my doorway. Another guy grabbed a gun on his side. I freaked out. 'Oh, my God!' I yelled."As more than twenty Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents surrounded the trailer, said Mancha, agents inside interrogated her. They asked her where her mother was; they wanted to know if her mother was "Mexican" and whether she had "papers" or a green card. They told her they were looking for "illegals."

After about five minutes of interrogation, the agents–who, according to the women's lawyer, Mary Bauer of the Southern Poverty Law Center, showed no warrants and had neither probable cause nor consent to enter the home–simply left. They left in all likelihood because Mancha and her mother didn't fit the profile of the workers at the nearby Crider poultry plant, who had been targeted by the raid in nearby Stilwell. They were the wrong kind of "Mexicans"; they were US citizens.

Though she had experienced discrimination before the raid–in the fields, in the supermarket and in school–Mancha, who testified before Congress in February, never imagined such an incident would befall her, since she and her mother had migrated from Texas to Reidsville. Best known for harvesting poultry and agricultural products, Reidsville, a farm town about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, is also known for harvesting Klan culture behind the walls of the state's oldest and largest prison. But its most famous former inmate is Jim Crow slayer and dreamer Martin Luther King Jr. His example inspires Mancha's new dream: lawyering "for the poor."

The toll this increasingly oppressive climate has taken on Mancha represents but a small part of its effects on noncitizen immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, and other Latinos. Mancha and the younger children of the mostly immigrant Latinos in Georgia are learning and internalizing that they are different from white–and black–children not just because they have the wrong skin color but also because many of their parents lack the right papers. They are growing up in a racial and political climate in which Latinos' subordinate status in Georgia and in the Deep South bears more than a passing resemblance to that of African-Americans who were living under Jim Crow. Call it Juan Crow: the matrix of laws, social customs, economic institutions and symbolic systems enabling the physical and psychic isolation needed to control and exploit undocumented immigrants. Listening to the effects of Juan Crow on immigrants and citizens like Mancha ("I can't sleep sometimes because of nightmares," she says. "My arms still twitch. I see ICE agents and men in uniform, and it still scares me") reminds me of the trauma I heard among the men, women and children controlled and exploited by state violence in wartime El Salvador. Juan Crow has roots in the US South, but it stirs traumas bred in the hemispheric South.

In fact, the surge in Latino migration (the Southeast is home to the fastest-growing Latino population in the United States) is moving many of the institutions and actors responsible for enforcing Jim Crow to resurrect and reconfigure themselves in line with new demographics. Along with the almost daily arrests, raids and home invasions by federal, state and other authorities, newly resurgent civilian groups like the Ku Klux Klan, in addition to more than 144 new "nativist extremist" groups and 300 anti-immigrant organizations born in the past three years, mostly based in the South, are harassing immigrants as a way to grow their ranks.

Meanwhile, a legal regime of distinctions between the rights of undocumented immigrants and citizens has emerged and is being continually refined and expanded. A 2006 Georgia law denies undocumented immigrants driver's licenses. Federal laws that allowed local and state authorities to pursue blacks under the Fugitive Slave Act appear to be the model for the Bush Administration's Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security (ACCESS) program, which allows states to deputize law enforcement officials to chase, detain, arrest and jail the undocumented. Georgia's lowest-paid workers, the undocumented, now occupy a separate, unequal and clandestine place that has made it increasingly difficult for them to work, rent homes or attend school.

The pre- and post-Reconstruction regional economic system centered on the stately Southern mansions that once graced Atlanta's storied Peachtree Street has given way to a more global finance-driven system centered on the cold, anonymous skyscrapers that loom over Peachtree today. And in a more hopeful sign, some veterans of the civil rights struggle against Jim Crow are joining Latino immigrants in what will likely be one of the major movements of the twenty-first century.

These and other facets of immigrant life in Georgia, the Deep South and the entire country are but a small part of the labyrinthine institutional and cultural arrangements defining the strange career of Juan Crow.

The immigrant condition in Georgia worsened in the wake of the failed immigration reform proposal last year. The national immigration debate had the effect of further legitimizing and emboldening the most extreme elements of the anti-immigrant movement in places like Georgia. Since the advent of what he terms "Georgiafornia," for example, D.A. King, a former marine and contributor to the anti-immigrant hate site VDARE, has leapfrogged into the national limelight to become one of the major advocates for deportation and security-only "immigration reform." Strengthened by the defeat of national reform, King, State Senator Chip Rogers and a growing galaxy of formerly fringe groups succeeded in getting some of the country's most draconian anti-immigrant laws passed. These new racial codes are disguised by the national security-infused bureaucratic language of laws with names like the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act (GSICA).

Their efforts were egged on by the Bush Administration's implementation of the ACCESS program last August. ACCESS provided new excuses for state and local officials to pursue the undocumented in states like Georgia. In tandem with the federal government, King and Rogers led the push to pass GSICA, which requires law enforcement officers to investigate the citizenship status of anyone charged with a felony or driving under the influence. GSICA and federal efforts laid the foundation on which the other legal and social structures of Juan Crow grow.

Georgia's estimated 500,000 undocumented immigrants must think twice before seeking emergency support at hospitals or clinics because of laws that require them to prove their legal status before receiving many state benefits. "No-match letter" regulations requiring all employers to confirm the Social Security numbers of their employees have been issued by the Social Security Administration and have resulted in firings and growing fear among immigrants. But even without the no-match letters, undocumented immigrants in Georgia have many reasons to fear going to work. If they work at a company with more than 500 employees, for example (and most undocumented immigrants are employed in meatpacking, agricultural, carpet and other industries with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of workers), they must worry about laws that punish employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants and mandate that firms with state contracts check the immigration status of their employees. Similar laws denying or restricting housing, education, transportation and other aspects of immigrant life are also being instituted across Georgia.

For a firsthand look at how the interplay of state and federal policies fuels Juan Crow, one need go no further than the immigrant-heavy area surrounding Buford Highway in DeKalb County, near Atlanta. During the weekend of October 18, 2007, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) and other advocacy groups from across the state reported sharp increases in arrests of immigrants in the area. "This weekend alone we received more than 200 phone calls from people telling horrible stories of arrests," said GLAHR executive director Adelina Nicholls of Mexico City. "There are hundreds of Latinos who've been hunted down like animals, taken to jail, and they don't even know why or whether or not they'll be released," said Nicholls more recently.

Nicholls and other advocates are working feverishly in response to the exponential increase in official and extra-official profiling of immigrants. Last year there were forty-four reported armed robberies of DeKalb County-area Latino immigrants in August alone. One especially outrageous incident took place just west of Atlanta, in the rural town of Carrollton, last June. Emelina Ramirez, a Honduran immigrant, called local police to report that her roommates were attacking her, punching and kicking her in the stomach. Ramirez was pregnant. Locals say that when police got to Ramirez's apartment, officers handcuffed her, took her to jail and then ran her fingerprints through a federal database. After discovering that she was undocumented, they contacted federal authorities as stipulated under ACCESS and GSICA. Ramirez was then deported.

Nicholls says she and GLAHR staff exist in a perpetual state of exhaustion after having to expand their DeKalb County work to deal with cases like Ramirez's. Adding to their load is the situation in nearby Cobb County, where the local jail has 500 adults captured on streets, at work and in their homes. All of these people, says Nicholls, are awaiting deportation.

Beneath the growing fear and intensifying racial tensions of Georgia lies the new, more globalized economic system that sustains Juan Crow. At the core of the economy in Dixie are the financial dealings taking place in the shiny towers of Peachtree Street, buildings constructed atop the ashes of plantation houses.

Lining Peachtree today are SunTrust, Bank of America and other titans of global finance with major operations in downtown Atlanta. Along with the financial players of Charlotte, North Carolina, the companies occupying the towers on Peachtree are among the prime movers behind the transformation and restructuring of the Georgia economy–and of its race relations. On Peachtree you can find US banks and financial firms investing in companies doing business in post-NAFTA Latin America, where nonunion labor and miserably low wages drive immigration to Georgia and other states. The investment portfolios of many of these companies have grown fat with high-yield investments in the poultry, meatpacking, rug, tourism and other Georgia industries employing undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. The need to keep down the wages of these undocumented workers is fulfilled with the legal, political and psychological discipline of Juan Crow. Along with the most visible legacy of Jim Crow–Georgia's massive and growing population of black prisoners, housed in Reidsville and other, mostly rural prisons–the Peachtree State's undocumented immigrants find themselves at the bottom of the South's new political and economic order.

By keeping down wages of the undocumented and documented workforce, Juan Crow doesn't just pit undocumented Latino workers against black and white workers. It also makes possible every investor's dream of merging Third World wages with First World amenities. Promotional brochures put out by the state's Department of Economic Development, for example, tout Georgia's "below average" wages and its status as a "right to work" (nonunion) state. Georgia's infrastructure, its proximity to US markets and its incentives–nonunion labor, low wages, government subsidies, cheap land–allow the state to position itself as an attractive investment opportunity for foreign companies. While the fortunes of Ford, GM and other US companies have declined in the South, the fortunes of foreign automakers here are rising. Companies like Korean car manufacturer Kia, which plans to open a $1.2 billion plant by 2009, see in Georgia and other Southern states a new pool of cheap labor. Of the $5.7 billion of total new investment in Georgia in 2006, more than 36 percent was from international companies–companies that were also responsible for nearly half of the 24,660 jobs created by government-supported foreign ventures that year.

Also critical to the economic strategies formulated in the towers on Peachtree Street is another Latin-centered component: free trade with Latin America. "We are the gateway to the Americas," boasted Kenneth Stewart, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development. Stewart was among the more than 1,000 people, including three US Cabinet members and finance ministers, trade representatives, investors, corporate executives and politicians from thirty-three countries in the hemisphere, who attended the sold-out Americas Competitiveness Forum at the Marriott on Peachtree Street last June. As an organizer of the event, the gregarious Stewart, like many of the region's economic leaders, considers hosting the forum a critical part of Atlanta's bid to become the secretariat of the Free Trade Area of the Americas organization. Local elites support building a $10 million, privately financed FTAA headquarters complex, possibly in the area near Peachtree and the Sweet Auburn neighborhood.

Before being rapidly gentrified by the white-collar employees working in the Peachtree towers, Sweet Auburn, the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr., was one of the cradles of the African-American freedom struggle. Echoing the connection frequently made here between increased globalization and commerce and improved race relations, Stewart told me that free trade "will benefit citizens of Georgia and the citizens of Mexico and other Latin American countries." But when I asked him about the increased racial tensions, including the murders of some immigrants in Georgia, and about the growing repression of noncitizen Mexican workers, Stewart abruptly ended the interview.

For her part, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin–among the most recent in a long line of African-American Atlanta mayors that includes former Martin Luther King colleague and Wal-Mart consultant Andrew Young (who has an office in a Peachtree high-rise)–also linked local freedom struggles with global free trade. Before the Americas Competitiveness Forum, she and other regional elites distributed splashy brochures promoting the city's FTAA bid. Included in the brochure was a picture of the headstone of King's grave, which bears the inscription Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty I'm Free at last. The brochure promoting "the city too busy to hate" also paints a positive, global Kumbaya picture of the plight of Georgia's migrants: "With its attractive quality of life and rapidly expanding job market, Metro Atlanta draws thousands of newcomers every year and has growing Latin, Asian and African American communities."

"This is the home of Dr. King," said Franklin in her welcome speech at the packed forum. "It is in the spirit of peace, it is in the spirit of collaboration and it is in the spirit of fairness that we attack this issue of [economic] competitiveness," she told her audience in King-like cadences. But had Franklin taken her foreign visitors on the short stroll from their hotel to Sweet Auburn, they would not have found the racial harmony described in the glossy brochures and spirited speeches.

Documented and undocumented Latinos dealing with the economic and political effects of Juan Crow in Georgia (and across the country) find themselves unwitting actors in a centuries-old racial drama, which they must alter if Juan Crow is to be defeated. The major difference today is that Latinos also find themselves having to navigate a racial and political topography that is no longer black and white. Young Latinos, in particular, attend schools that teach them about Jim Crow while giving them a daily dose of Juan Crow.

High school senior Ernesto Chávez (a pseudonym) does not look forward to becoming one of the few undocumented students in Georgia to go to a university like Kennesaw State, which requires them to carry student IDs with special color coding, or to a college that denies them aid and forces them to pay exorbitant, nearly impossible-to-pay out-of-state tuition. He has already learned enough about Jim Crow–and Juan Crow–in high school.

Chávez, who sports a buzz cut and wears baggy clothes, said that when he studied Jim Crow in school, he identified strongly with the heroic generation of African-American youth who rebelled against it. "They couldn't ride in the same trains, they couldn't drink from the same fountains," he said during an interview in a classroom at Miller Grove High School in the Atlanta suburb of Lithonia. "I felt mad when I read about that, even though they weren't my people," said the soft-spoken Mexican, who is part of the small but growing minority of Latinos at Miller Grove (African-American students make up about 93 percent of the student body).

Chávez said he came to know the limits of his physical, social and psychic mobility, thanks to the Georgia law that requires people to show proof of citizenship or legal status in order to obtain a driver's license. "It's hard to describe what it feels like to be 'illegal' here in Georgia. It's like you can't move," he said, his voice cracking slightly. "It feels scary because you know that when you go out to a public place, you might never know if you're going to come back. I'm really scared because my mother drives without a license. She's scared too."

Chávez and other Latino students also expressed their shock and dismay at being discriminated against by some of the descendants of those discriminated against by Jim Crow.

"When I first got here, I was confused. I went to a mostly white school in Gwinnett County and started noticing the fifth-grade kids saying things to me, racial stuff, asking me questions like, 'Are you illegal?'" said Chávez as he fidgeted nervously in one of those ubiquitous and visibly uncomfortable school desks. "But when I was in seventh grade, I went to Richards Middle School, where it wasn't the white people saying things, it was black people. They didn't like Mexican kids. They would call us 'Mexican border hoppers,' '[...]' and all these things. Every time they'd see me, they yelled at me, threatened to beat me up after school for no reason at all." Asked how it felt, he said, "It's like, now since they have rights, they can discriminate [against] others."

Chávez's family, along with many immigrant families in Georgia, will be watching closely to see how the state's justice system deals with the still-pending 2005 case of six Mexican farmworkers killed execution-style in their trailers, which were parked near the cotton and peanut farms they toiled on in Tifton. Pretrial motions began last July in the case, in which prosecutors allege that four African-American men bludgeoned five of the immigrants to death with aluminum baseball bats and shot one in the head while robbing them in their trailer home. Though the face of anti-immigrant racism in the Juan Crow South is still overwhelmingly identified as white by the immigrants I interviewed, some immigrants also see a black face on anti-immigrant hate.

Politically, a growing divide has emerged between pro- and anti-immigrant blacks in Georgia. The African-American face of Juan Crow is embodied by State Senator and probable Democratic Atlanta mayoral candidate Kasim Reed (he's also considering a gubernatorial bid). Reed proposed a five-year prison sentence for anyone caught trying to secure employment with a false ID. Local Latino and African-American activists have criticized Reed for what Bruce Dixon of the online Black Agenda Report called his "morally bankrupt attempt to outflank Republicans on the right."

Activists like Janvieve Williams of the US Human Rights Network, based in Atlanta, counter the anti-immigrant tide by elevating the tone of the debate and shifting the terms to human rights. As an Afro-Panamanian immigrant, Williams says she feels discrimination from many whites in Georgia, but she also experiences discrimination from mestizo immigrants. Her perception of anti-immigrant sentiments among African-Americans adds another layer to the complex racial dynamics unleashed by Juan Crow. "I'm caught between African-Americans who don't want to understand immigration and immigrants and Latinos who use words like 'moreno,' 'negritos,' 'los negros' and other terms that are not good," says Williams.

But rather than see her Afro-Latino identity and her Latin American political experience as a barrier between communities, Williams–who co-hosts Radio Diaspora, a weekly Afro-Latino program that helped promote the 50,000-plus immigrants' rights marches in 2006–uses Latin American media and organizing experience to cross linguistic and political borders. "We need to move from civil rights to human rights. We need to start using the language and tools of human rights around the issue of immigration. It's an international issue that needs an international framework," says Williams, whose organization co-sponsored the visit to Atlanta last May by the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants. Williams's organization brought together many groups who shared stories of Juan Crow with the special rapporteur, who took his report to the UN General Assembly.

In the same way that the concept of civil rights grew as a response to Jim Crow, the human rights framework advocated by Williams and other immigrants' rights activists in the South and across the country challenges traditional approaches to race and rights. "Some civil rights leaders here don't think human rights affects us in the United States," says Williams. "A lot of the [civil rights] elders of that movement are not linked to the human rights movement, and that also gets in the way of working together."

Not all of Georgia's civil rights elders fit thirtysomething Williams's description. The Rev. Joseph Lowery, the lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr., says he did not perceive the threat that some whites and African-American Georgians felt from the massive immigrant marches of 2006; instead he sees in the millions marching in Atlanta and across the country "instruments of God's will to change this country." Reverend Lowery, who now leads the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, has spoken eloquently and vociferously against what he considers "wicked" immigration policies and has attended pro-immigrant rallies. He believes that massive immigration to the United States came about because of the workings within the tall buildings like those in spitting distance of his office in the historic Atlanta Life building on Auburn Avenue. "We've globalized money, we've globalized trade and commerce, but we haven't globalized fairness toward work and labor. The solution to the 'problem' of immigration and other problems is globalization of justice," he said.

Speaking of the relationship between American blacks and Latino immigrants, Lowery said, "There are many differences between our experience and that of immigrant Latinos–but there is a family resemblance between Jim Crow and what is being experienced by immigrants. Both met economic oppression. Both met racial and ethnic hostility.

"But the most important thing to remember," said Lowery, as if casting out the demons of Juan and Jim Crow, "is that, though we may have come over on different ships, we're all in the same damn boat now."

I want to share this article with you. The writer also co-authored the book "We Were Soldiers Once.... and Young". The   book describes the experience of his co-author Lt. General Harold G. Moore's Vietnam combat experience. Judging from the book the authors are not liberal democrats. -----------------------------------------
---------------------

Apathy as troops die unforgivable

BY: JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY, ARIZONA DAILY STAR
03/27/2008

 

This week, the Iraq War claimed its 4,000th American killed in action, but that sad and tragic milestone came as the war seems to have slipped off the evening news, off the front pages and from the minds of the American people.

I suppose this benign neglect of so important and damaging an event is combat fatigue on the part of the public. No doubt the White House is happy to see Iraqshoved to a back burner, just as all three presidential candidates are relieved to talk about something else, anything else, but their half-baked ideas about the war.

Shame on them, and shame on us, for such callous indifference to the service, sacrifice and suffering of the families of the dead, wounded and injured troops who've given so much for so little in return.

Vice President Dick Cheney again stuck both feet in his mouth by saying and then repeating that we should remember that our military is composed entirely of volunteers; that our troops all volunteered for this duty, this burden, this sacrifice.

What's your point, Mr. Vice President? That because they volunteered to serve our country in uniform it's OK to squander their lives in a war of choice, your choice and your president's, and that it somehow matters less than if they'd been dragooned into service by press gangs or a draft like the one you dodged with five deferments during the Vietnam War because, you said, you had "better things to do"?

The 58,249 Americans who were killed in the war of your youth had better things to do than rest under their white marble, government-issue tombstones. I'm certain, too, that the 4,000 Americans who've died in the war that you and President Bush launched five years ago for no good reason and several that weren't true had better things to do than die under your command.

No sooner did you and your boss begin celebrating "victory" in the surge in Iraq than new problems erupted in one of the most critical parts of the country, the southern Shiite Muslim city of Basra and nearby oil fields and ports.

Iraq government soldiers are fighting it out with the Mahdi Army of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for control of Basra, and the truce that's helped keep a fragile peace in Baghdad's toughest neighborhoods began to unravel. Sadr's militiamen rained mortars and rockets on the Green Zone — the headquarters of the Iraqi government and American diplomats and military commanders — as a pointed reminder of who still holds some good cards in this game.

Sadr turned off his murderous militia for reasons of his own last August, and casualty figures for American forces began falling sharply because Shiite militias were responsible for as much as 65 percent of U.S. casualties. If Sadr now turns his war back on, our casualty figures could rise as swiftly as they fell.

We'll get a good idea from the fighting in Basra about how strong the American-trained Iraqi Army really is as it goes up against Sadr's militiamen. The Iraqi police — American-trained but heavily infiltrated by another militia, the Iranian-backed Badr Organization — ran for their lives early in the fighting.

By the time the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David Petraeus, arrives in Washington during the second week of April to report to the president and the Congress on the achievements of the surge, he may have less good news to report.

But none of this makes a damn bit of difference if most Americans don't care and don't want to know anything, good or bad, about Iraq, the war and our troops. That's the sort of apathy and know-nothingness that elected and then re-elected Bush and Cheney. They're what happens when fewer than half the eligible voters in this great experiment in democracy and freedom even care enough to vote on Election Day.

Meantime, our volunteer troops — who comprise about one-half of 1 percent of our population of 300 million — soldier on, bearing the burden and making all the sacrifices on behalf of all the rest of us.

The war that Americans don't want to know about drags on because its authors don't care what you think or even if you think. In fact, they'd prefer that you didn't think or ask any pesky questions that they can't answer without lying.

Galloway is a military columnist for McClatchy Newspapers, a former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers andco-author of the national best-seller "We Were Soldiers Once … and Young."