It’s Election Day in Venezuela
Voters in Venezuela headed to the polls today to vote on the Constitutional changes sought by President Hugo Chavez.
o the poor of the country, Chavez appears to be a savior. A very quick scan of the referendum in which changes to Venezuela’s Constitution Chavez wants to make speaks to the poor on many levels.
Yet, the real fear is that with these changes brings even greater potential for corruption and dictatorship that should have the whole Western Hemisphere asking ourselves if a new wave of immigrants will be knocking on our door, and given the current climate, what will be said?
Updated 12/03/07 at 4:01pm: In what was a huge surprise to me, Venezuela voted to defeat Chavez’s sweeping reforming in a narrow election.
Buchanan: “America Committing Suicide”
Pat Buchanan is the fierce warrior of the conservative culture wars seeking to return to that fantastical age of the 1950s. Think I’m kidding? He basically said so himself.
BUCHANAN: It is. It is. But take a look at the unity we had, say, in the 1950s and early 1960s. What have we gone through? You had a culture war that’s divided us completely on matters of morality. You’ve got a wholesale invasion, the greatest invasion in human history, coming across your southern border, changing the composition and character of your country. You’ve got the melting pot that once welded us all together, which has broken down. All of these things are happening, Sean, and, frankly, I don’t think we got the kind of solid, firm, strong national leadership you need to deal with this crisis. [emphasis added]
Unity in the 1950s and 1960s? Undoubtedly one of the most turbulent times in American history since the Civil War? Buchanan was born in 1938. He looks back to his days as a teenager in segregated schools and all that happened after it — the struggle over civil rights and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — and thinks “unity.”
The insanity does not stop there. FOX News commentator Sean Hannity reiterates Buchanan’s argument of a “path of national suicide,” which Buchanan uses to recycle the myth of Mexicans reclaiming the southwest for Mexico.
Media Matters notes this passage from Buchanan’s recently released book, Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, And Greed Are Tearing America Apart:
How is America committing suicide? Every way a nation can.
The American majority is not reproducing itself. Its birthrate has been below replacement level for decades. Forty-five million of its young have been destroyed in the womb since Roe v. Wade, as Asian, African, and Latin American children come to inherit the estate the lost generation of American children never got to see.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, from 2005 to 2006, our minority population rose 2.4 million to exceed 100 million. Hispanics, 1 percent of the U.S. population in 1950, are now 14.4 percent. Since 2000, their numbers have soured 25 percent to 45 million. The U.S. Asian population grew by 24 percent since 2000, as the number of white kids of school age fell 4 percent. Half the children five and younger today are minority children. (Pages 7-8)
The language is explicit and his intent quite clear. By “American majority,” Buchanan is obviously talking about whites, who are, according to Buchanan, the real Americans. (Whites are, at the national level, the most populous group in the 2000 U.S. Census, comprising over 80% of the national population.)
Buchanan’s equation is quite simple, actually.
More People of Color = America Dying
(Hat tip: Louis Pagan, Latino Pundit)
A Progressive Plan for Immigration Reform
Duke1676, blogger at Migra Matters, offered a progressive plan for immigration reform at Daily Kos. Check it out.
Sorry GOP, Immigration Not Your ‘08 Wedge Issue
Republicans, desperate to rally a demoralized base, are faced with the possibility of a pro-choice, gay-friendly presidential candidate — neutralizing two of their historical hot button wedge issues that draw their core supporters to the polls.
In response, the GOP debuted this election cycle’s two-minute hate on Tuesday: immigration. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for the public discourse, Republicans failed to turn xenophobic bigotry towards Latinos into ballot box success. Democrats made major gains in Virginia and took the Governorship in Kentucky.
Race42008’s DaveG sees the writing on the wall: things don’t look good for the GOP next year.
The truth is, 2007 was a continuation of 2006. Democrats made gains in Indiana, Kentucky, and Virginia, three states that were red in 2004 but that padded Democrats’ congressional majorities in 2006. Anyone who thinks that the once-red border states aren’t in play next year need only examine Virginia, which now sports a Democratic governor, one Democratic U.S. Senator, a Democratic state Senate, and which is about to elect another Democratic U.S. Senator next year. Moreover, the Republicans’ grasp on the Virginia House of Delegates is far from solid. Virginia could easily go blue next year. And if Indiana, the most Republican state in the Midwest, continues to give Democrats more and more power, just imagine the state of the GOP in Ohio, which is probably the second-reddest state in the Midwest, but still decidedly less red than Indiana. In other words, if Indiana’s getting bluer, so is Ohio, and Ohio was purple already.
Check that: the GOP lays in ruins in the Buckeye State following yesterday’s pummeling that left Republicans screaming with a bruised and bloodied face, “No Más!”
News reports from the New York Times and the Washington Post declared in unison: immigration is not the wedge issue Republicans were hoping for, but don’t tell DaveG that. To him, immigration is the last, best hope for a wedge issue in 2008.
The other silver lining for Republicans evidenced by this year’s elections, as well as from Hillary’s small but real slump in the polls following the last Democratic presidential debate, is that Democrats may have an Achilles Heel in the immigration issue.
Changes in Senator Hillary Clinton’s (D-New York) polling numbers are not because of the immigration issue itself. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut) opposed Governor Eliot Spitzer’s plan driver’s license plan for the undocumented. DaveG’s analysis would hold that Senator Dodd’s numbers should have climbed — yet they haven’t. Her numbers slipped because her answer was seen as “parsing” and triangulation.
It wasn’t her answer that got her in trouble.
It was her lack of an answer at all.
Durbin Slams Tancredo on the DREAM Act
Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) spoke passionately and eloquently about the DREAM Act brought before the Senate this afternoon. On Tuesday, Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton, Colo.) issued a press release stating that he alerted authorities about three undocumented students brought to Washington, D.C. to speak in favor of the Senate bill. Said Senator Durbin:
“His hatred for people who are immigrants is boundless,” Durbin said.
The bill’s supporters failed to invoke cloture and was effectively killed with a 52-44 vote.
Dos Centavos posted the press release from Eliseo Medina, Executive Vice President of SEIU.
For the specifics, check out Duke at Man Eegee’s blog.
Marisa Treviño on the DREAM Act
The skillful writer behind Latina Lista, Marisa Treviño, penned a great piece about the DREAM Act for the Huffington Post, which will be finding its way to the Senate floor for a vote fairly soon.
Across the country, debate over the DREAM Act — providing undocumented students who were 15-years-old or younger when they arrived with their parents, a path to citizenship, if they either go on to college or military service and prove to be of good moral character — always seems to get stuck on the point of granting undocumented immigrants in-state tuition.
It doesn’t matter to critics that studies show that in states that already allow undocumented immigrants college access and the opportunity to compete for financial aid that the number of undocumented students is far too small to deprive native-born students of college admission slots or financial aid.
Critics still complain.
Treviño notes the imbalance in fairness by blaming the children of undocumented immigrants for their legal status. These kids did not have a choice but are largely “American” — they just were not born in the U.S.
This evening, I was invited to participate in a conference call with Senator Durbin, the main sponsor of the current DREAM Act bill going before the Senate tomorrow afternoon.
He said that many of his colleagues, who are the same critics who have shouted down the DREAM Act before, have expressed their “displeasure” in having to vote for this bill again.
Why? Because it may help the children of undocumented immigrants?
As one reader of Latina Lista commented, since when in this country do we blame the children for the sins of the parents?
If that were the case, then every child of a drunk driver, robber, rapist, embezzler, etc. would be locked up.
It’s not done because our common sense tells us it’s not right.
Treviño lays out the case here.
Marisa Treviño on LiberalOasis Radio Show
Blogger/radio host Bill Scher, who I have trusted, admired and respected ever since his regular appearances on The Majority Report years ago, interviewed another blogger/radio personality that I trust, admire and respect immensely, Latina Lista’s Marisa Treviño, on the GOP vis-a-vis the Latino community and the movement on immigrant rights.
Subscribe to the show’s RSS podcast here.
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Beijing 2008
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