Michael Calderone
Politico.Com
November 11, 2009
Veteran CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, whose populist views on the perils of immigration and his repeated questioning of President Barack Obama’s birthplace made him a controversial figure on a network that has traditionally eschewed opinion, announced Wednesday night that he is resigning.
While Dobbs will continue his radio show, he gave no indication of whether he will stay in television—it’s been rumored that he could end up on Fox. Dobbs said on his show “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” that he’s now “considering a number of options and directions,” and that CNN president Jon Klein has released him from his contract, which is not up until 2011. He has been with CNN for 30 years.
“Over the past six months, it’s become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us,” Dobbs said. “And some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond my role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving, as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day. And to continue to do so in the most honest and direct language possible.”
While CNN executives boast of a non-partisan line-up in prime-time, Dobbs has remained an opinionated presence at the network. Earlier this year, there was a push from management for Dobbs to tone down his personal views and do a more straight newscast, thus fitting in with the network’s stated mission to provide a non-partisan alternative to MSNBC and Fox in the evening. But Dobbs continued to stray from the network’s goals this past summer by repeatedly calling into question whether Obama was actually born in Hawaii, despite documentation provided by the White House that he was.
Klein said in a statement that Dobbs “has now decided to carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere.”
“Lou Dobbs is a valued founding member of the CNN family,” Klein said. “For decades, Lou fearlessly and tirelessly pursued some of the most important and complex stories of our time, often well ahead of the pack. All of us will miss his appetite for big ideas, the megawatt smile and larger than life presence he brought to our newsroom, and we’re grateful to have known and worked with him over the years.”
Indeed, Dobbs has been at CNN since Ted Turner first had the idea of a 24-hours news network, and through the years, performed various on-air and executive roles for the network. He oversaw the network’s business programming for two decades, beginning in 1980. Dobbs later hosted “The Money Line News Hour” before launching “Lou Dobbs Tonight” in June 2003.
“I’m the last of the original anchors here on CNN, and am proud to have had the privilege of helping to build the world’s first news network,” Dobbs said in announcing his departure. “I am grateful for the many opportunities that CNN has given me over these many years, I’ve tried to reciprocate with the full measure of my ability and my energy.”
Dobbs said he wants to remain committed to issues that he’s most passionate about, including the plight of the middle class, health care, job creation, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – and immigration.
Dobbs argued stridently for tougher immigration laws, and often focused in his show on reports linking "illegal aliens" to crimes. In the past, Dobbs has talked about a "reconquista," where Mexicans crossing the border might reconquer part of the United States that used to belong to the country, including California and New Mexico.
"Lou Dobbs is almost single-handedly responsible for creating, for being the architect of the young-Latino-as-scapegoat for everything that ails this country," Fox's Geraldo Rivera said two weeks ago.
The liberal watchdog group Media Matters—along with other organizations—sponsored a “Drop Dobbs” campaign aimed at getting the controversial host off the air.
“For too long, CNN provided Lou Dobbs with its stamp of approval as he pursued a dangerous, one-sided and all too often false conspiracy tinged crusade against immigrants,” Media Matters’s president, Eric Burns said in a statement after the announcement that he was leaving CNN. “This is a happy day for all those who care about this nation of immigrants and believe in the power of media to elevate the political discourse.”
Dobbs was not particularly popular within CNN, which has been struggling to compete with Fox and MSNBC. "I think it's safe to say that he won't be missed among the rank-and-file employees at the network," said a CNN staffer. "The Dobbs show has existed in its own little universe for the last several years, in many ways cut off from the rest of the editorial process at CNN. Most people will be left wondering what this means for the primetime lineup and whether Klein can now deliver on his 'down the middle' mantra."
Dobbs, who considers himself as an independent with a strong populist streak, didn’t mention any groups by name that have criticized him. But in his farewell, Dobbs noted that major issues today are “defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion.”
“Thanks for being with us,” Dobb said in signing off his final show. “As they say, 'I'll see you next on the radio.'"
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29426.html
Showing posts with label Nativism Literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nativism Literature. Show all posts
Friday, November 13, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
In Dallas, Tickets for Not Speaking English
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 25, 2009
DALLAS (AP) — Dallas police officers have improperly cited drivers for not being able to speak English 38 times in the past three years, Chief David Kunkle said Friday.
The discovery came after a woman was pulled over earlier this month for making an illegal U-turn and was given a ticket for being a “non-English-speaking driver.”
Chief Kunkle said the citations were disappointing for Dallas, a city where Hispanics make up 44 percent of the more than one million residents and where many other residents are Southeast Asian refugees.
“I was, I guess, surprised and stunned,” the chief said of the ticketing. “We are a very diverse community.”
Chief Kunkle said his department’s computer system for citations had a pull-down menu that included a law requiring drivers of commercial vehicles to speak English. He said he believed that federal law had been misapplied to local drivers of private vehicles.
At least six officers wrote the citations, including one who wrote five of them, Chief Kunkle said at a news conference. The officers and their commanders are under investigation, and the Dallas police also plan to look beyond the last three years to see whether other citations turn up, he said.
On Oct. 2, Ernestina Mondragon was pulled over by Officer Gary Bromley, a rookie who was still under supervised training. Officer Bromley gave Ms. Mondragon a ticket for not speaking English, along with a citation for making an illegal U-turn and failing to carry her driver’s license.
“I wanted to tell him,” Ms. Mondragon said in Spanish on Friday. “I couldn’t talk back to him out of respect.”
Ms. Mondragon was driving her 11-year-old daughter to school when Officer Bromley stopped her. She had forgotten her purse with her license in it while darting out the door that morning after her daughter missed the school bus.
“I felt humiliated, sad,” she said. “I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. The anger wouldn’t let me.”
During the exchange between her and the officer, Ms. Mondragon said, she had used the limited English words and phrases she knew.
“He asked me if I spoke English,” she said. “I said I speak a little and understand it.”
Ms. Mondragon said court staff members had seemed puzzled by the charge. The court ultimately dismissed the “non-English-speaking” ticket and driver’s license citation after Ms. Mondragon presented her license.
Chief Kunkle said the outcome of the other 37 citations for not speaking English was unclear.
Ms. Mondragon said that she had been surprised to hear that others were also cited and that she was glad she said something so the ticketing could stop. She said she and her family were considering a lawsuit.
From now on, the Dallas police will not give commercial drivers tickets for being unable to speak English, Chief Kunkle said, adding that was a job for other law enforcement agencies.
As part of their training, Dallas police recruits hear from various minorities in the city, Chief Kunkle said.
Texas offers the written part of its driver’s license test in Spanish, said Tom Vinger, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/us/25dallas.html?_r=1&ref=us
October 25, 2009
DALLAS (AP) — Dallas police officers have improperly cited drivers for not being able to speak English 38 times in the past three years, Chief David Kunkle said Friday.
The discovery came after a woman was pulled over earlier this month for making an illegal U-turn and was given a ticket for being a “non-English-speaking driver.”
Chief Kunkle said the citations were disappointing for Dallas, a city where Hispanics make up 44 percent of the more than one million residents and where many other residents are Southeast Asian refugees.
“I was, I guess, surprised and stunned,” the chief said of the ticketing. “We are a very diverse community.”
Chief Kunkle said his department’s computer system for citations had a pull-down menu that included a law requiring drivers of commercial vehicles to speak English. He said he believed that federal law had been misapplied to local drivers of private vehicles.
At least six officers wrote the citations, including one who wrote five of them, Chief Kunkle said at a news conference. The officers and their commanders are under investigation, and the Dallas police also plan to look beyond the last three years to see whether other citations turn up, he said.
On Oct. 2, Ernestina Mondragon was pulled over by Officer Gary Bromley, a rookie who was still under supervised training. Officer Bromley gave Ms. Mondragon a ticket for not speaking English, along with a citation for making an illegal U-turn and failing to carry her driver’s license.
“I wanted to tell him,” Ms. Mondragon said in Spanish on Friday. “I couldn’t talk back to him out of respect.”
Ms. Mondragon was driving her 11-year-old daughter to school when Officer Bromley stopped her. She had forgotten her purse with her license in it while darting out the door that morning after her daughter missed the school bus.
“I felt humiliated, sad,” she said. “I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. The anger wouldn’t let me.”
During the exchange between her and the officer, Ms. Mondragon said, she had used the limited English words and phrases she knew.
“He asked me if I spoke English,” she said. “I said I speak a little and understand it.”
Ms. Mondragon said court staff members had seemed puzzled by the charge. The court ultimately dismissed the “non-English-speaking” ticket and driver’s license citation after Ms. Mondragon presented her license.
Chief Kunkle said the outcome of the other 37 citations for not speaking English was unclear.
Ms. Mondragon said that she had been surprised to hear that others were also cited and that she was glad she said something so the ticketing could stop. She said she and her family were considering a lawsuit.
From now on, the Dallas police will not give commercial drivers tickets for being unable to speak English, Chief Kunkle said, adding that was a job for other law enforcement agencies.
As part of their training, Dallas police recruits hear from various minorities in the city, Chief Kunkle said.
Texas offers the written part of its driver’s license test in Spanish, said Tom Vinger, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/us/25dallas.html?_r=1&ref=us
Friday, September 4, 2009
Report Cites Culture of Ethnic Hatred in Suffolk County
By KIRK SEMPLE
The New York Times
September 3, 2009
HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. — An environment of racial intolerance and ethnic hatred, fostered by anti-immigrant groups and some public officials, has helped fuel dozens of attacks on Latinos in Suffolk County during the past decade, says a report issued Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks hate groups around the country.
“Latino immigrants in Suffolk County live in fear,” said the report, which the law center released at a news conference here. “Political leaders in the county have done little to discourage the hatred, and some have actively fanned the flames.”
The law center, based in Montgomery, Ala., came to prominence in the 1970s for anti-discrimination efforts and its legal battles against the Ku Klux Klan. It started looking at Suffolk County after Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, was stabbed to death last November in Patchogue. Seven youths, who prosecutors say were driven by prejudice against Latinos, are awaiting trial in that case.
The center’s report is the product of months of investigation on Long Island, including scores of interviews with Latino immigrants and local civic leaders. While it draws heavily on news accounts and public records, center officials said it was the most comprehensive compilation of statements and events showing a pattern of hate crimes in Suffolk that were at least tacitly condoned — if not actively encouraged — by some local leaders.
The center’s investigators made “frightening” discoveries, the report said: “Although Lucero’s murder represented the apex of anti-immigration violence in Suffolk County to date, it was hardly an isolated incident.”
Many Latino immigrants in Suffolk say they have been beaten with baseball bats and other objects, attacked with BB guns and pepper spray, and been the victims of arson, the report said. Latinos, it added, are frequently run off the road while riding bicycles or pelted with objects hurled from cars.
On Aug. 15, after the center’s report had been printed, an Ecuadorean man in Patchogue was attacked by three men who used racial epithets as they kicked and punched him, the police said. The three were arrested, and two were charged with assault as a bias crime, Newsday reported.
On Aug. 20, a man in Smithtown told a mother and a daughter who wore traditional Islamic garb that he was going to “chop you into little pieces and kill you,” the police said. The man was charged with second-degree aggravated harassment, the Associated Press reported.
And on Wednesday, the police said, hate-crimes detectives were investigating a burglary Tuesday night at a Latino evangelical church in Patchogue, in which notes with anti-Hispanic comments were found on the altar.
The law center report, echoing often-repeated statements by advocates for immigrants, accused the Suffolk County executive, Steve Levy, of helping to create an atmosphere of anti-immigrant sentiment by taking a hard line against illegal immigration.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Levy said, “While we can continue to disagree about policies related to the economic and social impacts of illegal immigration, we can all agree that any violence against a fellow human being cannot and will not be tolerated.” In the past, Mr. Levy has repeatedly denied accusations that he has fomented bias.
The report pointed to a statement by Michael M. D’Andre, a county legislator from Smithtown, at a 2001 hearing on a bill to penalize contractors who hire undocumented workers. Mr. D’Andre said that if his town were “attacked” by an influx of Hispanic day laborers, “we’ll be up in arms, we’ll be out with baseball bats.” He apologized the following week for his remark.
The report also highlighted a comment by Elie Mystal, a county legislator from Amityville, who said during a hearing in 2007 that if day laborers started gathering in his neighborhood, “I would load my gun and start shooting, period.” He later apologized and said he had been joking, according to news media reports.
Mr. D’Andre and Mr. Mystal are no longer legislators.
The report said Latinos’ fears were fed by nativist groups like Sachem Quality of Life, a local organization that has disbanded.
After Mr. Lucero’s death, many immigrants in the county stepped forward to describe their attacks to the police and media. In some of the cases, the allegations were reported to the police at the time the assaults occurred, but no arrests were made, in part because language barriers made communication difficult, the authorities have said.
Law center officials said that according to immigrants they interviewed, there may have been another reason for the inaction: police indifference.
Many immigrants told center investigators that the “police did not take their reports of attacks seriously, often blaming the victim,” the report said. “They said there’s little point in going to the police, who are often not interested in their plight and instead demand to know their immigration status.”
The Suffolk County police commissioner, Richard Dormer, said in a statement, “Some of the report had concrete ideas, most of which we are already implementing, but other parts were rife with inaccuracies due to the law center’s failure to interview the Police Department, the district attorney or elected officials.”
The report urged officials to adopt measures including halting “their angry demagoguery” about immigration, promoting programs that encourage respect for diversity, and training police officers to take seriously all allegations of hate-motivated crime.
“If these measures are taken to combat an increasingly volatile situation,” the report said, “it’s likely that angry passions in Suffolk can be cooled and a rational debate on immigration and its consequences begun.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/nyregion/03suffolk.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=suffolk%20county&st=cse
The New York Times
September 3, 2009
HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. — An environment of racial intolerance and ethnic hatred, fostered by anti-immigrant groups and some public officials, has helped fuel dozens of attacks on Latinos in Suffolk County during the past decade, says a report issued Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks hate groups around the country.
“Latino immigrants in Suffolk County live in fear,” said the report, which the law center released at a news conference here. “Political leaders in the county have done little to discourage the hatred, and some have actively fanned the flames.”
The law center, based in Montgomery, Ala., came to prominence in the 1970s for anti-discrimination efforts and its legal battles against the Ku Klux Klan. It started looking at Suffolk County after Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, was stabbed to death last November in Patchogue. Seven youths, who prosecutors say were driven by prejudice against Latinos, are awaiting trial in that case.
The center’s report is the product of months of investigation on Long Island, including scores of interviews with Latino immigrants and local civic leaders. While it draws heavily on news accounts and public records, center officials said it was the most comprehensive compilation of statements and events showing a pattern of hate crimes in Suffolk that were at least tacitly condoned — if not actively encouraged — by some local leaders.
The center’s investigators made “frightening” discoveries, the report said: “Although Lucero’s murder represented the apex of anti-immigration violence in Suffolk County to date, it was hardly an isolated incident.”
Many Latino immigrants in Suffolk say they have been beaten with baseball bats and other objects, attacked with BB guns and pepper spray, and been the victims of arson, the report said. Latinos, it added, are frequently run off the road while riding bicycles or pelted with objects hurled from cars.
On Aug. 15, after the center’s report had been printed, an Ecuadorean man in Patchogue was attacked by three men who used racial epithets as they kicked and punched him, the police said. The three were arrested, and two were charged with assault as a bias crime, Newsday reported.
On Aug. 20, a man in Smithtown told a mother and a daughter who wore traditional Islamic garb that he was going to “chop you into little pieces and kill you,” the police said. The man was charged with second-degree aggravated harassment, the Associated Press reported.
And on Wednesday, the police said, hate-crimes detectives were investigating a burglary Tuesday night at a Latino evangelical church in Patchogue, in which notes with anti-Hispanic comments were found on the altar.
The law center report, echoing often-repeated statements by advocates for immigrants, accused the Suffolk County executive, Steve Levy, of helping to create an atmosphere of anti-immigrant sentiment by taking a hard line against illegal immigration.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Levy said, “While we can continue to disagree about policies related to the economic and social impacts of illegal immigration, we can all agree that any violence against a fellow human being cannot and will not be tolerated.” In the past, Mr. Levy has repeatedly denied accusations that he has fomented bias.
The report pointed to a statement by Michael M. D’Andre, a county legislator from Smithtown, at a 2001 hearing on a bill to penalize contractors who hire undocumented workers. Mr. D’Andre said that if his town were “attacked” by an influx of Hispanic day laborers, “we’ll be up in arms, we’ll be out with baseball bats.” He apologized the following week for his remark.
The report also highlighted a comment by Elie Mystal, a county legislator from Amityville, who said during a hearing in 2007 that if day laborers started gathering in his neighborhood, “I would load my gun and start shooting, period.” He later apologized and said he had been joking, according to news media reports.
Mr. D’Andre and Mr. Mystal are no longer legislators.
The report said Latinos’ fears were fed by nativist groups like Sachem Quality of Life, a local organization that has disbanded.
After Mr. Lucero’s death, many immigrants in the county stepped forward to describe their attacks to the police and media. In some of the cases, the allegations were reported to the police at the time the assaults occurred, but no arrests were made, in part because language barriers made communication difficult, the authorities have said.
Law center officials said that according to immigrants they interviewed, there may have been another reason for the inaction: police indifference.
Many immigrants told center investigators that the “police did not take their reports of attacks seriously, often blaming the victim,” the report said. “They said there’s little point in going to the police, who are often not interested in their plight and instead demand to know their immigration status.”
The Suffolk County police commissioner, Richard Dormer, said in a statement, “Some of the report had concrete ideas, most of which we are already implementing, but other parts were rife with inaccuracies due to the law center’s failure to interview the Police Department, the district attorney or elected officials.”
The report urged officials to adopt measures including halting “their angry demagoguery” about immigration, promoting programs that encourage respect for diversity, and training police officers to take seriously all allegations of hate-motivated crime.
“If these measures are taken to combat an increasingly volatile situation,” the report said, “it’s likely that angry passions in Suffolk can be cooled and a rational debate on immigration and its consequences begun.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/nyregion/03suffolk.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=suffolk%20county&st=cse
Friday, July 10, 2009
FAIR distorts truth on immigration
Donna Lipinski
Warrenton, Virginia
Letter to the Editor
The Star Exponent
July 8, 2009
It’s time for FAIR to wake up and realize that its age-old tactics of attacking immigrants through the means of empty rhetoric and meaningless numbers will never make us a stronger, safer, more peaceful or more productive country.
The majority of Americans already understand that. In poll after poll, there’s increasing support for a fair, common sense plan to fix our broken immigration system. Americans understand that by regularizing the status of undocumented workers, we will increase government tax revenues by bringing more workers into the system; that workers with legal status earn more and spend more; and that deporting 10 million undocumented immigrants will cost $41.2 billion annually ($206 billion over 5 years) and that their deportation will represent a loss of 1.8 trillion in annual spending.
I’ve seen the consequences of our failed system.
As an immigration lawyer for over 21 years, I’ve witnessed the toll our broken laws have on ranchers when they can’t find U.S. workers to harvest their crops; when long-time undocumented immigrants lose their homes or businesses when they are deported; when families are torn apart and become homeless when the breadwinner is deported following a raid.
People say undocumented immigrants should just get in line and follow the rules. I agree, but we must first create those legal channels and then those rules can be followed. Americans overwhelmingly agree that undocumented immigrants should be given an opportunity to apply for legal status if they register, pay taxes and learn English.
Donna Lipinski
Warrenton
http://www.starexponent.com/cse/news/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/article/fair_distorts_truth_on_immigration/38995/
Warrenton, Virginia
Letter to the Editor
The Star Exponent
July 8, 2009
It’s time for FAIR to wake up and realize that its age-old tactics of attacking immigrants through the means of empty rhetoric and meaningless numbers will never make us a stronger, safer, more peaceful or more productive country.
The majority of Americans already understand that. In poll after poll, there’s increasing support for a fair, common sense plan to fix our broken immigration system. Americans understand that by regularizing the status of undocumented workers, we will increase government tax revenues by bringing more workers into the system; that workers with legal status earn more and spend more; and that deporting 10 million undocumented immigrants will cost $41.2 billion annually ($206 billion over 5 years) and that their deportation will represent a loss of 1.8 trillion in annual spending.
I’ve seen the consequences of our failed system.
As an immigration lawyer for over 21 years, I’ve witnessed the toll our broken laws have on ranchers when they can’t find U.S. workers to harvest their crops; when long-time undocumented immigrants lose their homes or businesses when they are deported; when families are torn apart and become homeless when the breadwinner is deported following a raid.
People say undocumented immigrants should just get in line and follow the rules. I agree, but we must first create those legal channels and then those rules can be followed. Americans overwhelmingly agree that undocumented immigrants should be given an opportunity to apply for legal status if they register, pay taxes and learn English.
Donna Lipinski
Warrenton
http://www.starexponent.com/cse/news/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/article/fair_distorts_truth_on_immigration/38995/
Friday, March 20, 2009
The Drone of the Hatemongers
A Nation of Immigrants
By MICHAEL D. YATES
Counterpunch.Org
Every night on CNN, Lou Dobbs bashes immigrants. No matter what the subject, he manages to turn it into a horror story about the evils of people he calls “illegal aliens.” They steal; they cheat; they use drugs; they murder innocent people; they transmit diseases; they have filthy habits; they take jobs from decent hardworking American; they cost the taxpayers billions of dollars each year; they get perks ordinary citizens can only dream of, such as free healthcare and college tuition. Dobbs’ attacks are mirrored day and night on radio talk shows, in newspaper editorials and guest columns, and in the halls of Congress and every state capitol.
What these hatemongers say resonates with many of my fellow citizens. I have heard them say so, from Miami Beach and Amherst to Estes Park and Tucson. But especially in these hard economic times, when scapegoating of one group or another might become virulent and lead to vicious and divisive actions and politics, it might be a good idea to get a handle on some facts.
The first thing we need to understand is that immigrants come to the United States not out of choice but because changed circumstances, brought about often enough by business-supported political actions taken here in the United States, have forced them to do so. Consider the story of a typical immigrant, a composite of millions of others who could tell a similar tale. Let us call her Elena. Elena worked in a garment factory in a free trade zone in El Salvador. The factory is a subcontractor for a large clothing chain in the United States. The free trade zone, itself, is the product of an agreement made between the government of El Salvador and the International Monetary Fund. The government is right-wing, dominated by the rich rural families that have run the country for many decades. It has been waging a war against left-wing insurgents, aided by money and military advisors from the United States, which, in support of U.S. coffee companies and other businesses with interests in El Salvador, has been deeply embedded in Salvadoran affairs . The government’s budget is strained because of the war and because the rich are too powerful to be taxed and the poor have no money. In the countryside adults must subsist on about 1,200 calories per day. To pay its bills, the government goes to the IMF for a loan. The IMF, itself dominated by the United States, grants the loan but imposes strict conditions on the Salvadoran budget. One of these is that exports must be stimulated by offering foreign firms tax incentives. So the government establishes a free trade zone, a space in the capital city of San Salvador where businesses can set up shop in publically-financed buildings and operate tax-free. There is plenty of labor available, mostly women who have migrated to the city to escape the civil war in the countryside.
http://www.counterpunch.org/yates03202009.html
By MICHAEL D. YATES
Counterpunch.Org
Every night on CNN, Lou Dobbs bashes immigrants. No matter what the subject, he manages to turn it into a horror story about the evils of people he calls “illegal aliens.” They steal; they cheat; they use drugs; they murder innocent people; they transmit diseases; they have filthy habits; they take jobs from decent hardworking American; they cost the taxpayers billions of dollars each year; they get perks ordinary citizens can only dream of, such as free healthcare and college tuition. Dobbs’ attacks are mirrored day and night on radio talk shows, in newspaper editorials and guest columns, and in the halls of Congress and every state capitol.
What these hatemongers say resonates with many of my fellow citizens. I have heard them say so, from Miami Beach and Amherst to Estes Park and Tucson. But especially in these hard economic times, when scapegoating of one group or another might become virulent and lead to vicious and divisive actions and politics, it might be a good idea to get a handle on some facts.
The first thing we need to understand is that immigrants come to the United States not out of choice but because changed circumstances, brought about often enough by business-supported political actions taken here in the United States, have forced them to do so. Consider the story of a typical immigrant, a composite of millions of others who could tell a similar tale. Let us call her Elena. Elena worked in a garment factory in a free trade zone in El Salvador. The factory is a subcontractor for a large clothing chain in the United States. The free trade zone, itself, is the product of an agreement made between the government of El Salvador and the International Monetary Fund. The government is right-wing, dominated by the rich rural families that have run the country for many decades. It has been waging a war against left-wing insurgents, aided by money and military advisors from the United States, which, in support of U.S. coffee companies and other businesses with interests in El Salvador, has been deeply embedded in Salvadoran affairs . The government’s budget is strained because of the war and because the rich are too powerful to be taxed and the poor have no money. In the countryside adults must subsist on about 1,200 calories per day. To pay its bills, the government goes to the IMF for a loan. The IMF, itself dominated by the United States, grants the loan but imposes strict conditions on the Salvadoran budget. One of these is that exports must be stimulated by offering foreign firms tax incentives. So the government establishes a free trade zone, a space in the capital city of San Salvador where businesses can set up shop in publically-financed buildings and operate tax-free. There is plenty of labor available, mostly women who have migrated to the city to escape the civil war in the countryside.
http://www.counterpunch.org/yates03202009.html
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