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Black and white…white and black. America has struggled with these two words for decades. No doubt race is the first thought which comes to mind when one mentions black and white…but the issue is much broader than skin color…it encompasses a way of thinking that struggles to see the many shades of gray which occupy the space between two extremes.

Hence, my thoughts on the subject were triggered by four items in the news…all seemingly unrelated though clearly conjoined by the presence of a simmering sickness…one which has at its core a pitiful propensity to view the world and its inhabitants with the forceful, though false safety found in the embracing of extremes.

For most of my life, I’ve been a doodler…writing and drawing in school notebooks or in any other blank space I could find on an otherwise white piece of paper. By and large, my doodles were mindless acts intended to fill space…both the space on a piece of paper and the empty mental space that often accompanied my own boredom.

However, not long ago, I stopped to think about my doodling and realized that one particular pattern existed…one that was evidenced by years of writing words that are opposites…most frequently the words “sooner” and “later”…all words that are akin to the concept of black and white.

At the same time, my life has been characterized by an effort to see the many shades of gray that one must navigate in order to move from one extreme to the other…so much so that I’ve often angered individuals on both ends of the philosophical and political spectrums. I view my choice to do so as a decision to remain conflicted…the place from which I’ve always sought and found my most significant moments of awareness and insight.

Truth be told, choosing to reside in such a state creates anxiety and frustration…but the payoff has always exceeded the cost…payoff that comes in what I’ve called my periods of hyper-reality. During those intervals, long standing mental logjams are broken and a comforting clarity suddenly emerges in a cascade of cognition. It’s as if pieces of a puzzle fall effortlessly into place to reveal a much needed image.

I make mention of my personal experience because I believe it a worthwhile contemplative construct…one that has the potential to move beyond the banality of black and white…and therefore past the animosity which seems to typify our adoption of an architecture of antagonism.

With that contextual background, let’s look at the specific news items. First, the observations of Stanley Kurtz on a Salon.com article titled, So Long, White Boy, in which he points to a new book about the Duke lacrosse rape case, Until Proven Innocent, specifically citing this quote from the book, “Duke’s politically-correct faculty…produced a mirror image of the worst racism of the South in the 1950s….”. Kurtz raises the prospect that the Duke case and the university response may provide evidence that reverse discrimination is the ultimate product of affirmative action. He concludes with the following.

First the Democrats alienated many white men by supporting discriminatory preferential treatment policies. When these men refused to accept this discrimination, many of them left the Democratic Party. This, in turn, enraged many Democrats, who began to think “invidiously” about white men. So it would appear that racial discrimination in law and policy breeds racial discrimination in culture. If the Democrats lose a large chunk of the “NASCAR Dad” vote in the upcoming elections, it might have something to do with the fact that the Dems richly deserve to lose it.

The second item is the “censoring” of Sally Fields remarks during the Emmy Awards. While accepting her award, Fields, who plays a mother on the television program “Brothers & Sisters”, dedicated her award to all of the mothers in the world and stated, “May they be seen; may their work be valued and raised and especially for the mothers who stand with open hearts and wait. Wait for their children to come home from danger and harm’s way and war”. As she closed her remarks, Fox cut out the following statement.

From The National Post on Canada.com:

“If mothers ruled the ruled the world, there would be no…”

Snip to wide shot.

What was cut (some people saw it live) from the broadcast: “god-damned wars in the first place”

The blogosphere is abuzz with commentary on Field’s remarks and the decision by Fox to edit the latter portion. The situation is being characterized differently by those on opposite sides of the political spectrum. One side suggests it is an issue of censorship by right leaning Fox Network and the other side argues that Field’s was simply using the Emmy’s as a platform for an anti-war tirade.

Consistent with the argument I intend to make, I choose to focus on the dialogue rather than the merits of either position. The following are some of the comments found on the internet.

someone should’ve thrown her off the stage, forget using a cane.

G*****n you, Rupert Murdoch! All Sally was doing was trying to offer the progressive counterpoint to that war-glorifying, Bush-loving, neoconservative medley of talk show one-liners earlier in the broadcast.

Well, if mothers ruled the world in the way Sally meant (i.e. mothers wouldn’t send their own or other people’s children to die in wars, so there wouldn’t be any wars)–what would happen in reality is that a great many Western mothers would indeed keep their children from fighting. However, the Islamist moms around the world would be busily strapping bombs to their babies themselves and shoving them out the door to kill Jews and Americans. Result? We’d lose our culture and our lives. Miserably and quickly.

As any straight man can attest, if women ruled the world there’d still be plenty of wars. They’d just cease to be for discernible reasons. I’ll go hide now.

Confirms that the right-wing corporate establishment cannot survive without war. A threat to war is a threat to their very existence. Manifestly, the anti-war movement is their biggest fear, greater even than an adverse puritanical FCC ruling. Shocking (but predictable).

The third item involves Chris Crocker, the gay man who defended Britney Spears in a tearful YouTube video. Crocker has become the latest celeb of the moment and as so often happens, he has become the focus of mean spirited and malicious comments…comments which clearly seek to use the Crocker situation to push a variety of ideological beliefs.

Most recently, Crocker took issue with a Fox News segment…one which he felt was nothing more than a personal attack by the group of reporters. There are those who defend Fox News, stating that Crocker sought the attention and therefore needs to deal with the consequences…and there are those who feel the Fox segment was homophobic. The following are an example of some of the most heinous comments in response to this latest Crocker video clip.

Clearly ur the most gay and stupid person in the world, why do u wear make-up? Are u a guy who think he’s a girl, Or are just a dumb dumb, + UR SO F****D UP! Put a dildo in ur ass a gun in ur mouth and shoot urself!

what a friggin weirdo! I swear if i ever see this person face to face i will kick his/her ass!

hahaha your are sick!!! please do us a favor die soon before someone kill you for good!!!

BTW, If you WERE MORE A WOMAN you wouldnt cry like the little bitch that you are. people get made fun of, deal with it, thats what drives the world.

The final item involves the immigration debate and the belief that the GOP stands to see the gains they made with Hispanic voters under George Bush evaporate in response to perceived prejudice against Mexicans. The two poles of the immigration argument are miles apart. On the one hand, there are those who favor the deportation of all illegal’s and the sealing of our border with Mexico. Then there are those who take the opposite view…the one which views the issue as a matter of basic rights and proposes that all illegal’s be granted amnesty and that the U.S. make it much easier for Mexicans to immigrate.

Sept. 24, 2007 issue - Lionel Sosa has long been one of the Republicans’ most potent weapons come election time. A Hispanic marketing guru, he’s crafted successful ad campaigns for presidential candidates from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush aimed at drawing more Latinos into the GOP fold.

But Sosa, who last worked for Bush in 2004, has also been dismayed by the way many GOP candidates have handled the illegal-immigration issue, advocating policies like building a border wall and employing rhetoric that he says is venomous and xenophobic: “It’s just an exaggerated, unfriendly position that needlessly turns away Latinos.”

Unlike the Democrats, all the Republican presidential candidates, except Sen. John McCain, declined to participate in a debate on the Spanish-language channel Univision, possibly to avoid hostile immigration questioning (the network says it’s trying to reschedule). They also ditched conventions earlier this year held by high-profile groups like the National Council of La Raza and NALEO.

Among Latino evangelicals, the portrait’s just as bleak. They make up a growing portion of the Hispanic electorate and are twice as likely as Latino Catholics to identify with the GOP, according to Pew Research Center surveys. Yet “right now, the nativist and xenophobic constituency is in charge of the Republican Party,” says the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the evangelical National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. “That’s a party the Hispanic-American voter cannot support.”

Quite frankly, all of these stories are related…related in their evidence of a growing climate of black and white…the need to view all situations and issues with a certainty which cannot be justified or sustained…a certainty born of bias but doggedly disguised as unencumbered erudition.

It’s a need to determine which race has suffered more from discrimination such that we seemingly need to conclude whether one race has been more aggrieved. What can be achieved in arguing that the white male is the new black male? What is the goal and where and when does it end?

It’s the need to prove that the war in Iraq is about the freedom and liberty promised by democracy such that success must and will include the transformation of the world into an image of our liking.

It’s the need to characterize civility and a commitment to peace as a gender driven dynamic such that the world cannot function appropriately if one gender holds more power than the other.

It’s the need to refute the potential of women of Islam as advocates for peace by defining their religion as evil and thereby associating them with acts of terrorism…all designed to lead one to the tortured conclusion that their annihilation may well be justified.

It’s the need to report the news through ideological filters such that news is little more than packaged rhetoric meant to bolster network ratings and define reality. Its a public which seems all too receptive to believing that the news is either black or white…happily stepping over our own responsibility to demand that all news be factual…and doing so with an ill-conceived notion that all will be well if we can only succeed in painting a map of the United States red or blue.

It’s the need to identify sexual orientation as the defining moral issue confronting the nation such that individuals like Chris Crocker become lightning rods for the bias and prejudice which seeks to unleash its ugliness by finding its way to the much sought after path of least resistance.

It’s the need to vilify Mexicans as a force for the undermining of our cultural identity…all the while ignoring our history as an agglomeration of countless cultural influences…influences which were once thought to be a noble trait and a defining part of our charmed legacy.

It’s the willingness of politicians to close their eyes to those walking in the back door because they long ago opened the front door to all those willing to foster and fund their political aspirations.

It’s embracing all that is wrong with the construct which posits that the absence of love must be accompanied by the emergence of hate…both in our personal lives and universally in all things that we deem to defy the lazy and illogical labels of black or white.

In a world where proponents of a higher being…a divine creator…prevail…and willfully espouse the inability of science to extricate the intricacies of god’s grand design…we willingly bear witness to the audacity which so arrogantly and arbitrarily seeks to attach our own vituperate views to that which we deem to be unacceptably different.

Either we accept the infinite grayness that permeates our perceptive proclivities or we continue down the path of painting ourselves into the dark corners and blinding back rooms which come with an insistence upon the advancement of ideation that is little more than two dimensional delusion.

Unless the battle for black and white gives way to judicious gradations, the red blood which gives each of us life will undoubtedly be the last vague vestige upon the canvas which was intended to represent the enduring achievements of our shared humanity. That’s a legacy we can preclude…that’s a legacy to lament.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

Fred Barnes, in an editorial at the Wall Street Journal, offers his manifesto for Republican resurgence. Unfortunately, from my perspective, the piece is a textbook demonstration of the degree to which GOP insiders haven’t a clue with regards to the concerns of ordinary Americans as well as the existing political realities. Even worse, much of the piece is an exercise in the “if only” mentality one might expect to find in the Harry Potter world of fantasy and magic. The following excerpt is wholly illustrative.

Clearly the war hurt, more than a little. Just as clearly, a turnaround in Iraq would help enormously.

But even if the “surge” is as successful as it appears it might be, there’s a problem. While public support has increased recently, the war still faces deep-seated opposition. There’s a widespread view that its cost in lives, money and national prestige has been too high. This won’t change overnight. Public opinion isn’t quite that fickle.

It’s not immutable, however. What if military success by Gen. David Petraeus, the American commander, is matched by a political breakthrough engineered by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki? Or matched by the acceleration of political reconciliation at the provincial rather than the national level in Iraq? Either scenario is possible.

I’m willing to concede that anything is possible in this world of uncertainty…but to assume that all of the above will transpire seems akin to Mr. Barnes believing that he holds the winning Power Ball ticket. Yes, it could happen…but it is hardly a reasoned piece of journalistic conjecture.

While Barnes is imagining a political breakthrough, Senator Levin and others are suggesting that the Maliki government is not only an obstacle to progress; it may need to be removed for any hope of political reconciliation to emerge. Shouldn’t a Wall Street Journal piece offer more than the fanciful thought one might find on a slip of paper removed from a fortune cookie?

For the sake of those within the GOP who are actually seeking a blueprint for a return to relevance, may I suggest that the content of this editorial may not be the horse upon which to hitch their hopes?

Mr. Bush can’t erase the memory of his inept handling of Hurricane Katrina. But if another disaster occurred and the president responded effectively, that would counteract the memory of his Katrina performance.

OK, if this is part of the Barnes plan, why not be bold and ask Pat Robertson and the 700 Club to pray that god’s wrath be brought upon another sinful city so that the President can redeem his poor performance. Never mind that this sounds like Barnes is wishing America experience a natural disaster in order to achieve political gain.

As I recall, each time a Democrat has mentioned the possibility of a terrorist attack and that we are no safer as a result of the invasion of Iraq, the GOP has pounced upon such statements as vile, unpatriotic demonstrations of blatant partisanship…going so far as to argue that the Democrats hate America and calling such statements a willingness to sacrifice American lives for political capital. Conversely, is hoping for a natural disaster a noble cause if it helps the GOP?

On fiscal issues, Democrats foolishly dismissed the president’s insistence on cutting $22 billion from overall discretionary spending, claiming it was a puny amount. To them, it is. To the public, it’s not. A veto war on spending bills is likely to work in Mr. Bush’s favor, though not if weak-willed congressional Republicans cut and run. Should it lead to a government shutdown–call it the shutdown trap–that would be all the more harmful to Democrats.

On taxes, Democrats appear confident there’s no trap at all, so long as they don’t raise taxes on the middle class. Thus congressional Democrats have felt free to pass tax hikes this year on energy companies, foreign corporations and cigarettes, and they’re poised to repeal the Bush tax cuts for those earning more than $200,000 a year.

Republicans believe Democrats have misread their mandate on taxes. We’ll see.

Fred, where have you been while this President has nearly doubled the national debt from 5 trillion to 9 trillion? Have you forgotten that this is the President who enacted the largest entitlement program in recent history with the passage of his prescription drug benefit? When the Democrats fail to get excited about 22 billion dollars, they do so while pointing to the borrow and spend backdrop that has typified the Bush administration.

As to the tax hikes which Barnes feels will hurt the Democrats, clearly the number of Americans impacted by such increases is miniscule…but then again, I doubt Barnes spends much time with ordinary citizens. Frankly, Barnes might want to consider the possibility that voters have grown weary of tax cut promises from the GOP. Putting a few dollars into a voters pocket…while at the same time taking it out through inflation, wage stagnation, a suspect economy, declining home prices and sales, tightening credit, and the expenditure of 10 to 12 billion dollars each month on an endless war effort…doesn’t seem like much of a winning strategy.

They practically invited Democrats to trump them on ethics and lobbying reform. And they’ve allowed their obsession with illegal immigrants to get out of hand. This drives away Hispanic voters and leaves the impression that Republicans are small-minded, ungenerous and nasty. The worst offenders are the presidential candidates, who would be wise to tone down their rhetoric on immigration.

Yes, nothing like embracing a strategy premised upon the notion that a leopard can suddenly lose its spots. The glaring omission in this suggestion is any understanding of where the GOP actually stands with regards to immigration…other than where Barnes posits may be most politically advantageous. Perhaps the fact that the Republican Party seems to treat this and so many other issues as nothing more than political calculations is what is troubling voters?

From my vantage point, Republican candidates have spent years using the immigration issue to pander to competing constituents such that the majority of the wells have been poisoned and the kool-aid is no longer potable. Weaving a workable message at this point would be akin to pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

As Karl Rove has noted, Republicans need a big idea. The best available is the one Mr. Bush abandoned: ownership. Allowing private investment of payroll taxes for Social Security would only be a start. An Ownership Society would allow individual Americans, rather than government, to control how and where their health care, public education, 401(k) and IRA funds are spent.

I’ll give Barnes credit…if you’re in the last act of a show that is undoubtedly destined to go dark…you might as well pull out all of the stops. Sadly, like most men who become enamored with their own self-interest, Barnes’ Ownership Society finale is little more than the wish list of a man and a Party that has not only sought to raid the cookie jar…but has also decided that it is entitled to devour all of the delicacies on the dish.

In the ultimate miscalculation, Barnes’ final words ring hollow to the many voters who can’t afford this months rent, who work jobs that do not provide health insurance, who couldn’t put money in a 401K even if the company offered one, and who haven’t the time or the energy to invest social security funds for a future they can’t begin to imagine as they try to scrape together the means to put enough food on tonight’s dinner table.

I hate to be the one to break this to Fred…but after reading his manifesto, the final thought that crossed my mind was that it would be far easier for voters to simply vote for the Democrats than for them to hope that the Republicans can shed their sullied skin and suddenly become the compassionate conservatives they so masterfully marketed as none other than George Bush.

In the end, the Barnes piece has served one valuable purpose…it has made it abundantly clear why voters will likely relegate the GOP to the sidelines for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, maybe Mr. Barnes and his fellow Republicans can craft the next iteration of an ill-conceived illusion. One thing is certain, they would be well advised to choose a better wizard…one that isn’t quite so visibly unable to manipulate the machinery as the drapes of deception are dismantled.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

We Americans like to think of ourselves as evolved individuals who embrace freedom and equality for all…and in many ways our history has demonstrated the truth found in this assumption. At the same time, we haven’t encountered that many recent opportunities to test the merits of our hypothesis.

As I read the news this morning, I found myself wondering if we may be on the verge of moving in the opposite direction…or, at the least, if our stated commitment to such beliefs might be little more than a nice piece of veneer applied to a hidden harbor of hostility.

The events of 9/11 undoubtedly created a heightened level of fear…a level we Americans have rarely been forced to face. In its aftermath, we have seen a growing willingness to suspend some of the civil liberties which have highlighted our purported belief in an open society and a transparent system of governance.

While I understand the inclination and the necessity to act in this manner (within reason), I find myself concerned that such actions may be a slippery slope towards the adoption of other attitudes that serve to undermine the principles upon which this nation was founded.

I suspect many readers may be thinking I’m about to discuss the efforts of our President to allow for greater clandestine surveillance along with other measures he has sought to detect and minimize terrorist threats. While I do view such measures with a healthy degree of skepticism, my observations today are focused upon the thoughts and beliefs we each hold as individuals and which impact America’s status as a beacon for the tenets of democracy and equality.

For some time now, I’ve expressed doubts to friends and acquaintances about the potential of a woman or a black man to be elected to the presidency…not as a function of their competency to lead…but as a function of inherent prejudices that lurk within the psyche of some segments of our society. Simultaneously, I’ve felt that the growing opposition to our rapidly expanding immigrant population contains an element of ethnic bias in addition to the many legitimate concerns that can be associated with shoddy border control.

Today, three articles caught my attention and lent support to my suspicions. The following excerpts are from the first article.

From McClatchy News:

DES MOINES, Iowa - A pair of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s worst nightmares trudged past a giant blue “Hillary for President” sign outside the Iowa State Fair here with palpable disgust.

“Hillary can go to hell,” said Alice Aszman, 66, a Democrat from Ottumwa. “I’ll never vote for her. I don’t think a woman should be president. I think a man should. They’ve got more authority.”

Her husband, Daniel, 50, also a Democrat, agreed: “I think women should stay home instead of being boss.”

A July poll of likely Democratic caucus-goers by the University of Iowa found that Clinton had 30 percent support among women and 18 percent among men. By comparison, there was no difference in gender support for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who got 21 percent from both men and women.

The same poll found that 32 percent of women strongly agreed that Clinton was electable, while only 14 percent of men did. And 30 percent of women strongly agreed that Clinton was the Democrats’ strongest candidate, while only 17 percent of men did.

In a general election however, it could be a major problem, because men traditionally vote for Republicans at a higher rate than women vote for Democrats.

“She has to be careful the men don’t split against her more than women split for her,” Smith said.

As I read the article, two items stand out. One, we tend to view bias or prejudice as coming exclusively from those who are different than the one at whom the bias or prejudice is directed…meaning bias towards women should come from men and bias towards men should come from women. Unfortunately, that assumption isn’t accurate and the evidence…in the case of Senator Clinton…pours out of the mouths of other women who embrace established societal notions that gender can and should be a limiting factor in certain circumstances.

Two, the long established view that women should have narrowly defined roles in society…roles that are predominantly subservient to men…remain well established among men in America and women who operate outside these parameters are frequently met with derogatory characterizations. While a strong male figure receives the admiration of many males, a strong female is frequently viewed as acerbic and the object of misogynistic ridicule.

Moving onto the next article, the following excerpts point to the underlying obstacles faced by a black man when seeking to hold the highest office in the land.

From The Philadelphia Enquirer:

A computer search finds 464 instances in which Obama’s name appears in print in conjunction with the phrase black enough. The first was in the Chicago Sun-Times in 2003 when he was preparing to run for the Senate. Writer Laura Washington recalled his loss in an earlier House race to a South Side incumbent. “Whispers abounded,” she wrote, “that Obama was ‘not black enough.’ ”

Washington went on to recall how her uncle, a retired black railroad worker, had seen Obama wearing “a thousand-dollar coat” while visiting a public-housing project. Her uncle, she said, “dismissed him as an ‘elitist.’ ”

And isn’t that telling? A black rapper who visited that same housing project wearing a thousand-dollar coat would be celebrated and emulated. A black politician who does so is an elitist.

Man, I wouldn’t walk in Barack Obama’s shoes for a million dollars. Oh, he seems like a swell guy. But it must get real old real fast being America’s tabula rasa, its blank slate upon which it projects unresolved racial aspirations and fears. If it has been painful watching some conservative white Americans project upon him the latter (Is he too black? Is he Muslim? What about that weird name?), it has been just as painful, if not more so, watching many black Americans grappling with the former.

So the question of whether he’s “black enough” reveals more about the people asking than the man being asked. Liberal, and black, and conservative, and white, we have projected our own realities upon this guy, have written like mad upon the blank slate.

Again, we see much the same with regards to Senator Obama. His obstacles are twofold. He must overcome the objections that emanate from within his own racial profile. Senator Obama, much like a woman candidate for president, has to contend with the objections of blacks who see his success as an indication that he has abandoned his racial constituents in favor of winning the approval of whites.

I was particularly struck by the comparison made with regard to the expensive coat. The success achieved by a senator with a good education and excellent credentials can potentially be viewed to be inferior to the success of a rapper. In that dynamic, one can’t help but notice the built-in resistance to change and the peer pressures that exist to prevent certain types of social, cultural, and economic mobility.

At the same time, the senator is confronted by the bias and prejudice that one might well expect to be directed at his candidacy from those racial groups which have had a history of viewing blacks as lesser and unfit to serve as president.

The following excerpts from the final article confront the question of immigration and the growing animosity that permeates the topic.

From McClatchy News:

Scores of organizations, ranging from mainstream to fringe groups, are marshalling forces in what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls “a war here at home” against illegal immigration, which he says is as important as America’s conflicts being fought overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While most of the groups register legitimate, widespread concerns about the impact of illegal immigration on jobs, social services and national security, the intense rhetoric is generating fears of an emerging dark side, evident in growing discrimination against Hispanics and a surge of xenophobia unseen since the last big wave of immigration in the early 20th century.

The Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, said the number of “nativist extremist” organizations advocating against illegal immigration has grown from virtually zero just over five years ago to 144, including nine classified as hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan supremacists.

Demographers and immigration experts say the passions over illegal immigration in the opening decade of the 21st century are comparable to those that swept through American cities with the surge of immigrants who descended on U.S. shores from the 1900s to the 1920s.

The latest wave of immigrants — both legal and illegal — is predominated by Mexicans and other Latin Americans who are venturing deep into the U.S. interior to follow the job market, often settling in towns and cities that, just a few years earlier, were unaccustomed to Hispanics.

The resulting demographic impact on local communities can often lead to social tensions that help explain the intensity of feelings over illegal immigration, said Meissner and other experts.

John Trasvina, president of the Los Angeles-based Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), said the backlash over illegal immigrants is clearly generating widening anti-Hispanic sentiments, often exemplified in hate rhetoric on talk shows and over the Internet.

MALDEF has thus far prevailed in legally defeating municipal immigration ordinances, but Trasvina said that “a poisonous atmosphere” remains.

“What these ordinances do is add tension to the communities,” he said. “So a woman in the grocery is talking to her daughter in Spanish. It emboldens the person standing in line behind her to say, ‘Hey, speak English.’”

It seems to me that the growing opposition to the expanding Mexican and Latin American immigrant populations may be the best example of the pervasive nature of bias and prejudice. I would argue that the recent outcry results from the perceived threat to our established cultural structure has reached a point of critical mass.

For well over two decades, the influx of immigrants served our interests…interests which included cheap labor in the form of migrant workers, nannies, housekeepers, landscapers, and other roles which Americans viewed to be inferior. While these immigrants remained in the background such that their impact on society was difficult to observe, many Americans were willing to benefit from their presence.

As these immigrant populations became a visible and measurable force in society, their presence has met with a growing disfavor…some of which results from racial prejudice and has led to such vocal and vehement opposition. Efforts to portray the negative impact of immigrants upon society has suddenly overwhelmed much, if not most, of their positive contributions.

In the end, these three articles paint a troubling picture. Despite numerous admirable attributes and an historical willingness to be welcoming and inclusive, I have to wonder if we aren’t standing upon the precipice of a period of exclusion and a re-kindling of old, yet inextinguishable inequities.

While the current administration seems to be focused upon exporting our way of life to the obviously oppressed, we at home may well be in the process of dismantling or erasing the hard fought principles this country has toiled to achieve…the same principles this president has so persistently sought to promote. At the moment, I find myself struggling to view this as a win-win situation.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

Counting of the people every ten years is one hell of a tough job and I can understand the dilemma of the Census Bureau when counting illegal immigrants to America. Their job is in fact to count all of the people regardless of citizenship or legality of that residency requirement.

As liberal and blue state blooded that I am I find it ridiculous for the Census Bureau to request that immigration enforcement agencies stop deportation of illegal aliens for any time period. Any person that works with numbers on a daily basis knows that if you deliberately take out any part of the equation it will skew the results that the experiment is looking to study. Stopping the legal government deportation of illegal aliens would make the next census useless.

That is where the hairs on the back of my neck go up and low and behold that same request would feed into the hands of the political philosophy that immigrants are a pox on America. Making illegal immigrants look like an invasion on our shores would feed into what political machine in 2012?

Immigrants are a constant in the American population whether you like it or not. Stopping the deportation process for any reason serves only one purpose and that is to make all immigrants, legal or illegal a political weapon for political parties to stand against.

Over at the Chicago Tribune they have this to say about the request to stop deportation in 2010…

Census Bureau Wants to Halt 2010 Raids
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
Associated Press Writer
6:45 PM CDT, August 16, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Census Bureau wants immigration agents to suspend enforcement raids during the 2010 census so the government can better count illegal immigrants.

Raids during the population count would make an already distrustful group even less likely to cooperate with government workers who are supposed to include them, the Census Bureau’s second-ranking official said in an Associated Press interview.

Deputy Director Preston Jay Waite said immigration enforcement officials did not conduct raids for several months before and after the 2000 census. But today’s political climate is even more volatile on the issue of illegal immigration.

Snip - A - Roooooo

Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, said the intense debate over immigration has made immigrants even more suspicious of the government today.

“The Census Bureau has a job to do,” said Vargas, who belongs to a committee that advises the bureau on the 2010 census. “They need to convince people that they need to report themselves to the federal government and that it’s going to remain confidential. That’s a hard sell.”

Supporters of stricter immigration laws said the whole discussion of suspending raids shows that the immigration system is broken.

“If you don’t enforce your laws, this is what you are going to get, one agency asking another agency to subvert the law,” said Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates stricter enforcement of immigration laws. - Chicago Tribune

I’m guessing that this is just a political chess game that will play out a couple of years down the road in the race for president in 2012. You have to really think long term when it comes to issues like immigration. Both political parties are fighting the procedures and laws required to fix it so who is up to this latest strategy? That is an answer I don’t have. Just something for you to tuck away in the back of your mind to think about a few years from now.

Same paper and the same article…

One lawmaker said she thinks “it’s nuts” for the Census Bureau to ask for a break in enforcement.

“I don’t know what country the Census Bureau is living in,” Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., said in a telephone interview from her district. “I can tell them the American people have grown sick and tired of their immigration laws not being enforced. They are not going to tolerate enforcement being suspended for any amount of time.”

The Constitution requires the Census Bureau to count everyone, including illegal immigrants, in the census. The once-a-decade population count is then used to apportion seats in Congress and to appropriate billions of dollars in federal spending each year.

Miller has introduced a constitutional amendment that would apportion seats in Congress based only on the number of U.S. citizens in each state. - Chicago Tribune

One question regarding this latest point in the article and this Congressional Members outrage, isn’t the Census Bureau under the Bush administration? Could this be micro managing by President Cheney… I mean Bush on forwarding the agenda of promoting the party politic?

I for one do not trust any lawmakers that want a Constitutional Amendment change when we have a perfectly good Congress and Senate at our disposal. What the hell is she so afraid of?

Immigrants are coming to our shores from every single nation around the world and changing our Constitution is not the answer. Changing the laws regarding immigration so that it works is the only answer.

My wife forwarded me an email recently that talked about the trials in life in comparison to boiling water that is our daily lives and what is put into it. Carrots in boiling water become soft and change to suit the temperature of the water. Eggs become hard when boiled and loose the ability to change forever other than a solid. Coffee beans however change the boiling water around them to become something for all to enjoy. That my friends is the melting pot that is America. Those of us that fear change the most are the people and leaders to fear the most.

Papamoka

Cross posted at Papamoka Straight Talk

whats up with that??? Max Blumenthal’s video takes us to a conference of these young chickenhawks where Hot-tub Tom Delay also did a great little speech that tied abortion and illegals into one neat little package. Personally I thought it was a stretch but the party faithful bought it hook, line and sinker. Max’s website is here. He has a writeup at HuffPo about his visit with the young neocon’s in the DickCheney mold too.

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Tags: Max Blumenthal, Chickenhawks, Tom Delay, young republicans