By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
WASHINGTON - In his first public comments on the Bush administration's surprise decision to replace him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace disclosed that he had turned down an offer to voluntarily retire rather than be forced out.
To quit in wartime, he said, would be letting down the troops.
Pace, responding to a question from the audience after he spoke at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va., on Thursday evening, said he first heard that his expected nomination for a second two-year term was in jeopardy in mid-May. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on June 8 announced Pace was being replaced.
"One thing that was discussed was whether or not I should just voluntarily retire and take the issue off the table," Pace said, according to a transcript released Friday by his office at the Pentagon.
"I said I could not do that for one very fundamental reason," which is that no soldier or Marine in Iraq should "think — ever — that his chairman, whoever that person is, could have stayed in the battle and voluntarily walked off the battlefield.
"That is unacceptable as a leadership thing, in my mind," he added.
Pace, whose current term ends Oct. 1, said he intended to remain on the job until then. Navy Adm. Michael Mullen has been announced as President Bush's choice to succeed Pace, who is the first Marine ever to hold the military's top post.
The decision to drop Pace has fed the political debate in Washington over the Iraq war. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) caused a stir when he said Pace had failed in his job of providing Congress a candid assessment on the war. Democrats typically have shied from stinging comments about military officers, instead focusing criticism on Bush and administration policies in Iraq.
Asked for comment on Reid's statement, a spokeswoman for Pace, Marine Col. Katie Haddock, said Pace "is focused on his duties as chairman and is not going to respond to press reports on who's saying what. He will let 40 years of service speak for itself."
A Vietnam veteran, Pace indicated in his Norfolk comments that his experience in that war colored his decision not to quit voluntarily.
"The other piece for me personally was that some 40 years ago I left some guys on the battlefield in Vietnam who lost their lives following 2nd Lt. Pace," he said. "And I promised myself then that I will serve this country until I was no longer needed — that it's not my decision. I need to be told that I'm done.
"I've been told I'm done.
"I will run through the finish line on 1 October, and when I run through the finish line I will have met the mission I set for myself," he said.
Pace was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the run-up to the Iraq war and during the early years of a conflict that has dragged on far longer than the administration foresaw. In October 2005 he succeeded Air Force Gen. Richard Myers as Joint Chiefs chairman, and until recently had largely been spared the war-related criticism that senior civilian officials attracted.
The decision to sideline Pace came as a surprise, since Gates had previously indicated privately that he intended to recommend that the president re-nominate him. In his remarks in Norfolk, Pace confirmed that Gates had told him he preferred to keep him as chairman but in mid-May began to see signs of opposition on Capitol Hill.
When he announced the decision last Friday, Gates said that after consulting with members of the Senate he concluded that sticking with Pace would risk a Senate confirmation struggle focusing on the Iraq War.
"It would be a backward-looking and very contentious process," Gates said. At the same time, he made clear he had made his decision with reluctance, saying he wished it had not been necessary.
"I am no stranger to contentious confirmations, and I do not shrink from them," Gates said. "However, I have decided that at this moment in our history, the nation, our men and women in uniform and General Pace himself would not be well served by a divisive ordeal. ..."
In his remarks in Norfolk, Pace said Gates had accurately portrayed what transpired.
"He brought me in the office and sat me down and said `Pete, this is what's happening. I want to re-nominate you. I want you to know that this is what I'm beginning to hear, this is what I'm going to go do, this is how I'm going to go do it.'"
"He went out and did exactly what he said on television, and exactly what he's been saying in his interviews, which is he went out and pulsed various members of Congress and he heard back from them the things that he said that he heard," Pace said.
At that point, Pace said, he assured Gates that he was willing to go through even a contentious confirmation process.
"I also told him that what he needed to do, in my opinion, was what was best for the institution, and whatever he and the president decided was going to be best for the institution was what Pete Pace was going to do," he said. "Oh and by the way, I can read the Constitution, which says the president gets to nominate and the Senate gets to confirm, or not, and neither one of those two things is going to happen, therefore I'm not staying."
Friday, June 15, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Criminalizing our Children
Go to Original
School to Prison Pipeline
By Bob Herbert
The New York Times
Saturday 09 June 2007
The latest news-as-entertainment spectacular is the Paris Hilton criminal justice fiasco. She's in! She's out! She's - whatever.
Far more disturbing (and much less entertaining) is the way school officials and the criminal justice system are criminalizing children and teenagers all over the country, arresting them and throwing them in jail for behavior that in years past would never have led to the intervention of law enforcement.
This is an aspect of the justice system that is seldom seen. But the consequences of ushering young people into the bowels of police precincts and jail cells without a good reason for doing so are profound.
Two months ago I wrote about a 6-year-old girl in Florida who was handcuffed by the police and taken off to the county jail after she threw a tantrum in her kindergarten class.
Police in Brooklyn recently arrested more than 30 young people, ages 13 to 22, as they walked toward a subway station, on their way to a wake for a teenage friend who had been murdered. No evidence has been presented that the grieving young people had misbehaved. No drugs or weapons were found. But they were accused by the police of gathering unlawfully and of disorderly conduct.
In March, police in Baltimore handcuffed a 7-year-old boy and took him into custody for riding a dirt bike on the sidewalk. The boy tearfully told The Baltimore Examiner, "They scared me." Mayor Sheila Dixon later apologized for the arrest.
Children, including some who are emotionally disturbed, are often arrested for acting out. Some are arrested for carrying sharp instruments that they had planned to use in art classes, and for mouthing off.
This is a problem that has gotten out of control. Behavior that was once considered a normal part of growing up is now resulting in arrest and incarceration.
Kids who find themselves caught in this unnecessary tour of the criminal justice system very quickly develop malignant attitudes toward law enforcement. Many drop out - or are forced out - of school. In the worst cases, the experience serves as an introductory course in behavior that is, in fact, criminal.
There is a big difference between a child or teenager who brings a gun to school or commits some other serious offense and someone who swears at another student or gets into a wrestling match or a fistfight in the playground. Increasingly, especially as zero-tolerance policies proliferate, children are being treated like criminals for the most minor offenses.
There should be no obligation to call the police if a couple of kids get into a fight and teachers are able to bring it under control. But now, in many cases, youngsters caught fighting are arrested and charged with assault.
A 2006 report on disciplinary practices in Florida schools showed that a middle school student in Palm Beach County who was caught throwing rocks at a soda can was arrested and charged with a felony - hurling a "deadly missile."
We need to get a grip.
The Racial Justice Program at the American Civil Liberties Union has been studying this issue. "What we see routinely," said Dennis Parker, the program's director, "is that behavior that in my time would have resulted in a trip to the principal's office is now resulting in a trip to the police station."
He added that the evidence seems to show that white kids are significantly less likely to be arrested for minor infractions than black or Latino kids. The 6-year-old arrested in Florida was black. The 7-year-old arrested in Baltimore was black.
Shaquanda Cotton was black. She was the 14-year-old high school freshman in Paris, Tex., who was arrested for shoving a hall monitor. She was convicted in March 2006 of "assault on a public servant" and sentenced to a prison term of - hold your breath - up to seven years!
Shaquanda's outraged family noted that the judge who sentenced her had, just three months earlier, sentenced a 14-year-old white girl who was convicted of arson for burning down her family's home. The white girl was given probation.
Shaquanda was recently released after a public outcry over her case and the eruption of a scandal involving allegations of widespread sexual abuse of incarcerated juveniles in Texas.
This issue deserves much more attention. Sending young people into the criminal justice system unnecessarily is a brutal form of abuse with consequences, for the child and for society as a whole, that can last a lifetime.
School to Prison Pipeline
By Bob Herbert
The New York Times
Saturday 09 June 2007
The latest news-as-entertainment spectacular is the Paris Hilton criminal justice fiasco. She's in! She's out! She's - whatever.
Far more disturbing (and much less entertaining) is the way school officials and the criminal justice system are criminalizing children and teenagers all over the country, arresting them and throwing them in jail for behavior that in years past would never have led to the intervention of law enforcement.
This is an aspect of the justice system that is seldom seen. But the consequences of ushering young people into the bowels of police precincts and jail cells without a good reason for doing so are profound.
Two months ago I wrote about a 6-year-old girl in Florida who was handcuffed by the police and taken off to the county jail after she threw a tantrum in her kindergarten class.
Police in Brooklyn recently arrested more than 30 young people, ages 13 to 22, as they walked toward a subway station, on their way to a wake for a teenage friend who had been murdered. No evidence has been presented that the grieving young people had misbehaved. No drugs or weapons were found. But they were accused by the police of gathering unlawfully and of disorderly conduct.
In March, police in Baltimore handcuffed a 7-year-old boy and took him into custody for riding a dirt bike on the sidewalk. The boy tearfully told The Baltimore Examiner, "They scared me." Mayor Sheila Dixon later apologized for the arrest.
Children, including some who are emotionally disturbed, are often arrested for acting out. Some are arrested for carrying sharp instruments that they had planned to use in art classes, and for mouthing off.
This is a problem that has gotten out of control. Behavior that was once considered a normal part of growing up is now resulting in arrest and incarceration.
Kids who find themselves caught in this unnecessary tour of the criminal justice system very quickly develop malignant attitudes toward law enforcement. Many drop out - or are forced out - of school. In the worst cases, the experience serves as an introductory course in behavior that is, in fact, criminal.
There is a big difference between a child or teenager who brings a gun to school or commits some other serious offense and someone who swears at another student or gets into a wrestling match or a fistfight in the playground. Increasingly, especially as zero-tolerance policies proliferate, children are being treated like criminals for the most minor offenses.
There should be no obligation to call the police if a couple of kids get into a fight and teachers are able to bring it under control. But now, in many cases, youngsters caught fighting are arrested and charged with assault.
A 2006 report on disciplinary practices in Florida schools showed that a middle school student in Palm Beach County who was caught throwing rocks at a soda can was arrested and charged with a felony - hurling a "deadly missile."
We need to get a grip.
The Racial Justice Program at the American Civil Liberties Union has been studying this issue. "What we see routinely," said Dennis Parker, the program's director, "is that behavior that in my time would have resulted in a trip to the principal's office is now resulting in a trip to the police station."
He added that the evidence seems to show that white kids are significantly less likely to be arrested for minor infractions than black or Latino kids. The 6-year-old arrested in Florida was black. The 7-year-old arrested in Baltimore was black.
Shaquanda Cotton was black. She was the 14-year-old high school freshman in Paris, Tex., who was arrested for shoving a hall monitor. She was convicted in March 2006 of "assault on a public servant" and sentenced to a prison term of - hold your breath - up to seven years!
Shaquanda's outraged family noted that the judge who sentenced her had, just three months earlier, sentenced a 14-year-old white girl who was convicted of arson for burning down her family's home. The white girl was given probation.
Shaquanda was recently released after a public outcry over her case and the eruption of a scandal involving allegations of widespread sexual abuse of incarcerated juveniles in Texas.
This issue deserves much more attention. Sending young people into the criminal justice system unnecessarily is a brutal form of abuse with consequences, for the child and for society as a whole, that can last a lifetime.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
History Repeats Itself
As someone who dabbles in history, the look at the stories of our past, I often find myself troubled with things I see in the present. I was taught as a junior in high school that: “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” Ultimately, this is a fancy way of saying that history repeats itself. For years, I doubted this. I grew up and continue to believe that people can learn from their mistakes. Furthermore, they can grow from witnessing the mistakes of others, including their parents. In fact, I must say that I believed this type of education was an essential part of being human- a vital aspect of our ever-evolving collective humanity. But when I first laid my eyes on the following letters and numbers, I scarcely could believe my eyes:
NSPD 51 and HSPD-20
These little letters and numbers will effectively mark the end of the Republic if the citizenry of the United States of America fail to rise up and peacefully overwhelm its rhetoric and those who would see it through.
These little letters and numbers are acronyms for two documents entitled "National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51" and "Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20."
Under these documents, President Bush has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic event within the borders of our Nation. This sounds harmless enough. We are, after all, in a Post-9/11, Post-Katrina world. It would make sense to have in place a modus operandi, a way to cut through the niceties of government in order to rapidly address a variety of disasters. Let there be no doubt, if the mainstream media ever gets a hold of this, this will be the spin we are force-fed on the 6 o’clock news. In the reality-based world, however, the content of NSPD-51 and HSPD-20 suggest a far more dangerous, perhaps outright nefarious design is at work. At this time, it is now clear to me that history is again repeating itself. The year I look to for reference is 1933.
The document’s subject is euphamistically titled, “National Continuity Policy.” In it, the President states that, given the right conditions, he alone will be given the final say in “ensuring Constitutional government” during a “catastrophic emergency.” The document states that a “catostrophic emergency” is "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function," and includes "localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies."
Just in case you missed something in the last paragraph, this document explicitly states: ”The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government." It negates any appearance of the three coequal branches of government by proclaiming there will be "a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government," which will be "coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers." The President, in this scenario, would be granted the power to oversee the “coordination” of the three branches in order to "provide for orderly succession" and encourage an "appropriate transition of leadership."
Allow that to resonate in your head for a moment. George W. Bush has proclaimed that, in an emergency, he has the power to disband the Legislative and Judicial branches of the U.S. government. There is a clear parallel here between NSPD 51 and HSPD-20 and the Enabling Act of March 23, 1933. The problem is that the former legally granted dictatorial powers to Adolf Hitler.
I once thought that comparing anyone to Adolf Hitler was a stretch, an act of hyperbole. No more. Anyone who proposes this parallel now has my full attention and likely will see my head nodding in approval. I am not agreeing with them based on my political beliefs, my positions on the “Long War” (the so-called “War on Terror”), or my position on the U.S. governments support of torture. Though they surely factor into this, they are not the crux of my argument. I base my assessment simply on the facts in front of me and on other past failures of humanity. If I seem totally off base, let me make one more parallel available here. Read it, and then make your own decisions on the validity of my ideas.
On February 28, 1933, twenty-three days before the Enabling Act, the Reichstag Fire Decree was signed into law. It read:
§ Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom (habeas corpus), freedom of opinion, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.
Go through and list all that was suspended by the Reichstag Fire Decree. Check off which of these rights we have already lost in this country. And after that, I dare you to tell me I’m wrong. God, I wish this were the case.
NSPD 51 and HSPD-20
These little letters and numbers will effectively mark the end of the Republic if the citizenry of the United States of America fail to rise up and peacefully overwhelm its rhetoric and those who would see it through.
These little letters and numbers are acronyms for two documents entitled "National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51" and "Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20."
Under these documents, President Bush has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic event within the borders of our Nation. This sounds harmless enough. We are, after all, in a Post-9/11, Post-Katrina world. It would make sense to have in place a modus operandi, a way to cut through the niceties of government in order to rapidly address a variety of disasters. Let there be no doubt, if the mainstream media ever gets a hold of this, this will be the spin we are force-fed on the 6 o’clock news. In the reality-based world, however, the content of NSPD-51 and HSPD-20 suggest a far more dangerous, perhaps outright nefarious design is at work. At this time, it is now clear to me that history is again repeating itself. The year I look to for reference is 1933.
The document’s subject is euphamistically titled, “National Continuity Policy.” In it, the President states that, given the right conditions, he alone will be given the final say in “ensuring Constitutional government” during a “catastrophic emergency.” The document states that a “catostrophic emergency” is "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function," and includes "localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies."
Just in case you missed something in the last paragraph, this document explicitly states: ”The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government." It negates any appearance of the three coequal branches of government by proclaiming there will be "a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government," which will be "coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers." The President, in this scenario, would be granted the power to oversee the “coordination” of the three branches in order to "provide for orderly succession" and encourage an "appropriate transition of leadership."
Allow that to resonate in your head for a moment. George W. Bush has proclaimed that, in an emergency, he has the power to disband the Legislative and Judicial branches of the U.S. government. There is a clear parallel here between NSPD 51 and HSPD-20 and the Enabling Act of March 23, 1933. The problem is that the former legally granted dictatorial powers to Adolf Hitler.
I once thought that comparing anyone to Adolf Hitler was a stretch, an act of hyperbole. No more. Anyone who proposes this parallel now has my full attention and likely will see my head nodding in approval. I am not agreeing with them based on my political beliefs, my positions on the “Long War” (the so-called “War on Terror”), or my position on the U.S. governments support of torture. Though they surely factor into this, they are not the crux of my argument. I base my assessment simply on the facts in front of me and on other past failures of humanity. If I seem totally off base, let me make one more parallel available here. Read it, and then make your own decisions on the validity of my ideas.
On February 28, 1933, twenty-three days before the Enabling Act, the Reichstag Fire Decree was signed into law. It read:
§ Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom (habeas corpus), freedom of opinion, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.
Go through and list all that was suspended by the Reichstag Fire Decree. Check off which of these rights we have already lost in this country. And after that, I dare you to tell me I’m wrong. God, I wish this were the case.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
The New Culture War
In the ongoing battle over immigration, conservative rhetoric continues to escalate. It's racist, and it gets results. Here, then, are the six racist myths driving the immigration debate, dispelled.
By Rinku Sen for tompaine.com
In the ongoing battle over immigration, conservative rhetoric continues to escalate. It's racist, and it gets results. This year, more than 30 states have passed 57 laws banning the undocumented from receiving social services or pledging National Guard troops to patrol the southern U.S. border. Earlier this week, House Republicans in Washington staged a hearing about "cracking down" on undocumented immigrants. Republicans have been told to move ahead but avoid pissing off Latinos - their lesson from Proposition 187 in California -- but a little decoding of the symbols, soundbites and economic arguments they use exposes their fear of a browner nation.
Here, then, are the six racist myths driving the immigration debate, dispelled.
Immigrants are not animals. Last week, Rep. Steve King, R.-Ariz., presented his proposal to Congress for a "super fence" along the border. "We could electrify it," he said, "not enough to kill somebody but enough to make them think twice. We do that with livestock all the time." If the problem eased, he suggested, we could open it up again and "let the livestock run through." Enough said.
Neither are they terrorists. In Colorado, a dramatic series of debates ended with the state legislature passing a law requiring adult applicants for public services to prove citizenship. Republicans complained about being beaten down in a "Friday night massacre" because the law didn't go far enough, according to State Rep. Debbie Stafford, R-Aurora. She wanted a ballot measure writing the ban into the state's constitution and also applying to people under 18.
"We're helping to create the next generation of terrorists," she told the Rocky Mountain News . There is no documented connection between immigration and terrorism. When making the flimsy argument that immigration threatens our national security, conservatives like to cite the example of the 9/11 hijackers. Yet, they forget that all 19 hijackers entered the country legally.
Tent cities at the border would be 21st-century concentration camps. Don Goldwater, Arizona's leading Republican gubernatorial candidate, wants to arrest border crossers, imprison them in tents and make them build that coveted super fence. All those National Guard troops sent to the southern border would be kept busy guarding the camps.
There's no invasion. In Idaho, Canyon County Commissioner Robert Vasquez, modeling himself after Tom Tancredo, accused his opponents in a Senate race of "collaborating with the unarmed enemy invading America."
His grandparents were Mexican immigrants, but he fears the consequences of letting in more of their kind, calling this a war: "Either we protect and defend Old Glory at every challenge, or we all learn Spanish and get used to the chicken and worm on the Mexican flag." (Vasquez has joined the National Advisory Committee of Protect Arizona Now, whose chair Virginia Abernethy describes herself as a "white separatist.") There's no evidence, however, that the Latino population will surpass whites any time soon. According to the Census
Bureau, by 2030, whites will be 57.5 percent of the population and Latinos only 20.1 percent; Latinos won't outnumber whites even in the next 50 years.
They speak English, just not "English only." Mayor Tom Macklin of Avon Park, Florida, pushed for a new law based on a Pennsylvania precedent that makes English the city's official language -- in addition to fining landlords and denying business licenses to those who accommodate the horde. The city will remove Spanish from all documents, signs and automated phone messages. In Bogota, New Jersey, Mayor Steve Lonegan, generally a free-market libertarian, is campaigning to force McDonald's to remove a Spanish-language billboard. Of course, he'll have to change the town's name too.
As an immigrant child, I can testify that all this is unnecessary. Although my parents allowed no English at home, I still get to experience the pleasure of white people complimenting my English. Funding for English as a Second Language classes would be far more helpful--and very likely less expensive - than prohibiting multilingualism.
They do not drain public coffers. Lamenting the strain the undocumented impose on our public services is a favorite straw man erected by nativist politicians. Yet, once again, the facts don't support the argument. Studies in state after state show that immigrants pay their fair share of taxes. Even the undocumented pay into Social Security through false numbers. According to a 2005 study by Physicians for a National Health Program, immigrants, including the undocumented, use fewer health care resources than native-born citizens. Immigrants accounted for 10.4 percent of the U.S. population, but only 7.9 percent of total health spending, and only 8 percent of government health spending. Their per capita expenditure is less than half that of non-immigrants. Thirty percent of immigrants used no healthcare at all in the course of a year.
These stereotypes generate real consequences. They drive the entire policy debate rightward, so that neither Republicans nor Democrats are willing to decouple immigration and national security. Even the Senate's "good" immigration bill includes an English-only provision that could prevent FEMA and other federal agencies from serving limited English speakers. At the local level, racism, coded or not, drives all immigrants underground and enables bigots. It won't take a genius landlord to decide that simply avoiding brown skin altogether beats paying $1,000 fine per person. A woman in Avon Park, the new English-only city, reported that a bartender refused to serve her sister who had a Puerto Rican drivers' license, saying, "I can't read that."
In another example, the Idaho Community Action Network reports that Robert Vasquez's polarizing language has created so much fear of roundups that immigrants hole up at home and send the kids to do the grocery shopping. Vehicles carrying day laborers there have been forced off the road by others. Refugees have woken up in the middle of the night to someone banging on their doors telling them to get out of the country, and the white supremacist group National Alliance set fires at the local university to "defend" the flag. Their flyers said: "Stop Immigration! Non- Whites are turning America into a Third World slum... They are messy, disruptive, noisy and multiply rapidly. Let's send them home now!" Lest we believe this is only about red states, note that a woman wrote in to The New York Times after seeing the same flyer on a window in the Upper East Side.
Racism is the wedge conservatives use to distract us from real questions that need answers. If they are so upset with people draining the public treasury, they should protest real drains like the $70 billion of corporate tax income lost in offshore tax havens annually.
Politicians and immigration foes are trying to manufacture a new culture war. But the majority of Americans don't want one and must speak up now to drown out the subtle racism dominating this debate.
Rinku Sen is the publisher of ColorLines magazine and executive director of the Applied Research Center (ARC).
By Rinku Sen for tompaine.com
In the ongoing battle over immigration, conservative rhetoric continues to escalate. It's racist, and it gets results. This year, more than 30 states have passed 57 laws banning the undocumented from receiving social services or pledging National Guard troops to patrol the southern U.S. border. Earlier this week, House Republicans in Washington staged a hearing about "cracking down" on undocumented immigrants. Republicans have been told to move ahead but avoid pissing off Latinos - their lesson from Proposition 187 in California -- but a little decoding of the symbols, soundbites and economic arguments they use exposes their fear of a browner nation.
Here, then, are the six racist myths driving the immigration debate, dispelled.
Immigrants are not animals. Last week, Rep. Steve King, R.-Ariz., presented his proposal to Congress for a "super fence" along the border. "We could electrify it," he said, "not enough to kill somebody but enough to make them think twice. We do that with livestock all the time." If the problem eased, he suggested, we could open it up again and "let the livestock run through." Enough said.
Neither are they terrorists. In Colorado, a dramatic series of debates ended with the state legislature passing a law requiring adult applicants for public services to prove citizenship. Republicans complained about being beaten down in a "Friday night massacre" because the law didn't go far enough, according to State Rep. Debbie Stafford, R-Aurora. She wanted a ballot measure writing the ban into the state's constitution and also applying to people under 18.
"We're helping to create the next generation of terrorists," she told the Rocky Mountain News . There is no documented connection between immigration and terrorism. When making the flimsy argument that immigration threatens our national security, conservatives like to cite the example of the 9/11 hijackers. Yet, they forget that all 19 hijackers entered the country legally.
Tent cities at the border would be 21st-century concentration camps. Don Goldwater, Arizona's leading Republican gubernatorial candidate, wants to arrest border crossers, imprison them in tents and make them build that coveted super fence. All those National Guard troops sent to the southern border would be kept busy guarding the camps.
There's no invasion. In Idaho, Canyon County Commissioner Robert Vasquez, modeling himself after Tom Tancredo, accused his opponents in a Senate race of "collaborating with the unarmed enemy invading America."
His grandparents were Mexican immigrants, but he fears the consequences of letting in more of their kind, calling this a war: "Either we protect and defend Old Glory at every challenge, or we all learn Spanish and get used to the chicken and worm on the Mexican flag." (Vasquez has joined the National Advisory Committee of Protect Arizona Now, whose chair Virginia Abernethy describes herself as a "white separatist.") There's no evidence, however, that the Latino population will surpass whites any time soon. According to the Census
Bureau, by 2030, whites will be 57.5 percent of the population and Latinos only 20.1 percent; Latinos won't outnumber whites even in the next 50 years.
They speak English, just not "English only." Mayor Tom Macklin of Avon Park, Florida, pushed for a new law based on a Pennsylvania precedent that makes English the city's official language -- in addition to fining landlords and denying business licenses to those who accommodate the horde. The city will remove Spanish from all documents, signs and automated phone messages. In Bogota, New Jersey, Mayor Steve Lonegan, generally a free-market libertarian, is campaigning to force McDonald's to remove a Spanish-language billboard. Of course, he'll have to change the town's name too.
As an immigrant child, I can testify that all this is unnecessary. Although my parents allowed no English at home, I still get to experience the pleasure of white people complimenting my English. Funding for English as a Second Language classes would be far more helpful--and very likely less expensive - than prohibiting multilingualism.
They do not drain public coffers. Lamenting the strain the undocumented impose on our public services is a favorite straw man erected by nativist politicians. Yet, once again, the facts don't support the argument. Studies in state after state show that immigrants pay their fair share of taxes. Even the undocumented pay into Social Security through false numbers. According to a 2005 study by Physicians for a National Health Program, immigrants, including the undocumented, use fewer health care resources than native-born citizens. Immigrants accounted for 10.4 percent of the U.S. population, but only 7.9 percent of total health spending, and only 8 percent of government health spending. Their per capita expenditure is less than half that of non-immigrants. Thirty percent of immigrants used no healthcare at all in the course of a year.
These stereotypes generate real consequences. They drive the entire policy debate rightward, so that neither Republicans nor Democrats are willing to decouple immigration and national security. Even the Senate's "good" immigration bill includes an English-only provision that could prevent FEMA and other federal agencies from serving limited English speakers. At the local level, racism, coded or not, drives all immigrants underground and enables bigots. It won't take a genius landlord to decide that simply avoiding brown skin altogether beats paying $1,000 fine per person. A woman in Avon Park, the new English-only city, reported that a bartender refused to serve her sister who had a Puerto Rican drivers' license, saying, "I can't read that."
In another example, the Idaho Community Action Network reports that Robert Vasquez's polarizing language has created so much fear of roundups that immigrants hole up at home and send the kids to do the grocery shopping. Vehicles carrying day laborers there have been forced off the road by others. Refugees have woken up in the middle of the night to someone banging on their doors telling them to get out of the country, and the white supremacist group National Alliance set fires at the local university to "defend" the flag. Their flyers said: "Stop Immigration! Non- Whites are turning America into a Third World slum... They are messy, disruptive, noisy and multiply rapidly. Let's send them home now!" Lest we believe this is only about red states, note that a woman wrote in to The New York Times after seeing the same flyer on a window in the Upper East Side.
Racism is the wedge conservatives use to distract us from real questions that need answers. If they are so upset with people draining the public treasury, they should protest real drains like the $70 billion of corporate tax income lost in offshore tax havens annually.
Politicians and immigration foes are trying to manufacture a new culture war. But the majority of Americans don't want one and must speak up now to drown out the subtle racism dominating this debate.
Rinku Sen is the publisher of ColorLines magazine and executive director of the Applied Research Center (ARC).
CIDI Education
Collaborative, inclusive, and differentiated instruction is not simply an intersection of methods and techniques. True, it requires we use certain methods and tactics to foment authenticating education with our students. But if this is where such instruction begins and ends, we still lack a truly effective way to educate both our students and ourselves. We would thus be less able to create and re-create our world to become a better place than the one in which we now live. If these methods and techniques were the alpha and the omega, then the ideas shared in this forum of hope would be nothing but another set of “tricks” or “tools” that we teachers can use in our classrooms. Indeed, there is something more to genuine instruction in our schools than technical reproductions of actions one reads about in a book or educational magazine. What makes Collaborative, Inclusive, and Differentiated Instruction (CIDI) powerful and authentic, is that it helps to inform a way of being that enlightens the way we practice our everyday lives. This way of being demands that we evolve to become more complete women and men in the process of that practice.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Stop the War and Fund the Future
The school I am student teaching at is phenomenal. Why? I believe it is because the teachers and staff are well paid, we have enough resources, and are given enough time during the day to to our job. We also are not restricted- unlike the teachers in the Old Soviet Union or the current United States- to teaching to standardized knowledges. Nor are we put in a postition where we have to follow a script like in some bizarre post-apocalyptic science fiction drama (California, I'm looking at you!). We are allowed to practice the art of social creation and recreation as we see fit. Yes, we have restrictions- but they are restrictions of good sense. The freedom to teach is not given here...it is earned through the hard work and cross-curricular diligence of the faculty. How is this all affordable?
According to rough estimates I have made, it costs parents about USD $28,000 per year to send one kid here. I am very aware that this is more than some colleges cost. But here is the thing- with the USA crapping away a trillion or so dollars away on this war, we could stop the war and fund the future.
According to rough estimates I have made, it costs parents about USD $28,000 per year to send one kid here. I am very aware that this is more than some colleges cost. But here is the thing- with the USA crapping away a trillion or so dollars away on this war, we could stop the war and fund the future.
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