Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Don't Know Much About History

(Apologies to Sam Cooke…)

In today’s News for Republicans, John McCain, enjoying that “bump” all the way to third place past Willard Mitt Romney in the contest for the Repug nomination for president, travels to Florida (noted here) to address “a broad spectrum of issues” according to U.S. News and World Report stenographer Liz Halloran.

I hope that while McCain is traveling to Florida, he has a chance to read the U.S. Constitution; it most certainly does not specify that America is a “Christian nation” (here).

And Rudy! is no doubt still basking in the love shown for him by South Philadelphia cultural troglodyte Joey Vento of Geno’s Steaks, seeing as how they both share such a love and respect for immigrants.

As noted in the Inquirer story…

Vento, who got national and international attention last year for posting a sign in the window declaring, "This is America. When ordering, please speak English."
There are many reasons why this is the wrong attitude, but here are just a few (from here)…

Today there is a tendency to revise history, to extol the virtues of past immigration, specifically that which includes our ancestors, while saying that now the country is full and can hold no more. But as we have seen, the pattern of resistance to immigration was, if anything, more severe during earlier waves of arrivals. Indeed immigration today is about equal, in absolute numbers, to the peak of entries around 1910. And the rate of immigration as immigrants per 1,000 U.S. residents is several times lower than at any time during the period 1850-1930, because the U. S. population as a whole is so much larger (Simon 1992).

Anti-immigrant groups have had to endorse historical immigration because the vast majority of U.S. citizens are descended from immigrants. What they do not state directly, but imply in cleverly constructed arguments, is the one thing that clearly is different today. In 1900, 85 percent of immigrants came from Europe (only 2.5 percent came from Latin America and Asia combined). By 1990, Latino and Asian immigrants accounted for more than two-thirds of all immigrants (Lapham 1993). Because recent immigrants tend to settle in five or six states, these increases have contributed to areas where people of color are in the majority. The population of Hispanics in the United States is projected to reach 96 million by the middle of this century, while the Asian population will rise to about 34 million. By 2050 about half the U.S. population will consist of people of color (Population Projection Program 2000).
And more in line with Vento and Giuliani is this excerpt…

Language is a key issue in the immigration debate. At the same time that there is concern that students are not learning second languages, there are attempts to make sure that young immigrants do not retain their native language. A plausible explanation is that immigrants have the wrong language: Spanish, rather than French or German (predominantly spoken by the wave of immigrants in the early 1900s). The opposition to "other" languages seems to reflect both disdain of foreign cultures and fear of the loss of English as the dominant U.S. language and is closely associated with the racist aspects of immigrant bashing.

The language issue is often falsely framed as a concern that immigrants are not learning English and are not integrating into society. In fact, immigrants today are learning English as rapidly as previous generations of immigrants, despite longer and longer waiting lists for adult English classes due to government cutbacks. The hidden political agenda of English Only advocates is clear in their attacks on bilingual education and bilingual ballots. When English Only laws have passed, it has emboldened employers to restrict non-English languages at work and cities to outlaw commercial signs in various languages. It has fueled anti-immigrant sentiment, extending to citizens, legal residents, and the undocumented alike, as long as they "look like immigrants."
Now I’ll be honest with you; I get frustrated also when I hear non-English spoken in the work place or in other areas of businesses where I deal with people who have either recently arrived here or have not been here for long compared to myself. But in my experience, these people are able to function as citizens and aspire for better lives for themselves and their families. And if they’re here as a result of an employer seeking cheap labor, that’s not the fault of the person who has come here. They’re trying to take advantage of an opportunity, and I would do the same thing if the roles were reversed.

Just forget about Joey Vento. Pat’s is better anyway (and it looks like Rudy’s guy Paul Singer couldn’t quite pull off that little stunt in California trying to screw up the electoral votes…bad luck there).

And by the way, did you know that Saddam Hussein “of course” had WMD before we invaded Iraq? Why, that must be true – Frederick of Hollywood said so here (doesn’t he need a nap right about now or something?).

And as for Willard Mitt Romney who I alluded to earlier…



And...



Update: Sounds like the "mayor of 9/11" has more explaining to do.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

obama will raise taxes. that's a fact. you can't debate that, but you can try to use rhetoric to make it sound better.

higher taxes are not good. name one good reason for a middle class family in LA to pay 80% in taxes? none.

i dare you to post this. I know you won't though. You're a liberal, censoring anything with reason (MSNBC)

doomsy said...

According to Talking Points Memo...

"McCain, by continuing the basic thrust of Bush's tax policies and adding a few new wrinkles, would cut taxes for the top 0.1 percent of earners -- those making an average of $9.1 million -- by another $190,000 a year, on top of the Bush reductions. Obama would raise taxes on this top 0.1 percent by an average of $800,000 a year.

It's hard not to look at that figure and be a little stunned. It would represent a huge tax increase on the wealthy families. But it's also worth putting the number in some context. The bulk of Obama's tax increases on the wealthy -- about $500,000 of that $800,000 -- would simply take away Bush's tax cuts. The remaining $300,000 wouldn't nearly
reverse their pretax income gains in recent years. Since the mid-1990s, their inflation-adjusted pretax income has roughly doubled."

That's a good ballpark estimation. Obama would raise McCain's taxes by roughly $800,000; McCain would cut them by about $200,000. That's a million dollar spread. No wonder McCain is so hostile to Obama's economic agenda.

But here's what's really interesting. Obama's proposals would raise his own taxes by hundreds of thousands of dollars, in order to cut the taxes of people who are less fortunate than he is. McCain would cut his own taxes even further than they've already been reduced. And that's everything a voter needs to know about these two men.

Anonymous said...

wishful thinking.

obama will raise taxes for EVERYONE. he says "only for the rich," however, in SoCal, a family making 300K is far from wealthy. Obama will tax and spend. he will raise taxes on ALL people unless they don't make any money. Tax rates for the middle class will rise. He'll give handouts to people who make minimum wage (ie. have no skills) but he won't give any money to someone making 100K. Instead, he'll take over 50% of that income to pay for socialist policies.

doomsy said...

Uh, no...what I included in my prior comment was not "wishful thinking," it is what some of us refer to as "factual information" (I think it's safe to say that Josh Marshall over at TPM has analyzed this matter more thoroughly than you have - phrases like "tax and spend" and "raise taxes on ALL people unless they don't make any money" are a tipoff, as well as "socialist policies").

Please leave comments like this over at LGF or Power Line, if you would (or better yet, the Philadelphia Inquirer). I'm sure they'll welcome you with open arms.