Everyone will have to register their nationality with the government. No one will be exempt. People of certain nationalities will be targeted for removal. Those who look like they might be from those nations will be marked as suspects, constantly subject to harassment, official and unofficial.

Certain people, based on their nationality, will not be allowed to work. They will not be allowed to live in this place. They will be denied access to hospitals, to doctors. They will not be allowed to purchase medicine or food. Their children will be driven from the schools.

Every store clerk will become a race cop, compelled by law to check the papers of every customer they find “suspect.” Everyone who isn’t white will be challenged at the point of sale for any commodity they might need or want. The official language will be English: only. Those who try to shelter, clothe, feed, or give gainful employment or medical assistance to the targeted population will be punished.

According to the LA Times, when the law passed, white citizens burst into applause. The Times reported the reaction of one white woman to the news: "The only ones who are against it are the Hispanics," she said, "and that's because it's against them."

This isn’t South Africa under Apartheid; it’s not the Deep South under Jim Crow. It’s not Nazi Germany, or 1984 . It’s Hazleton Pennsylvania, USA- population 31,000. The year is 2006 in the Common Era: 514 years since the white invasion of the Americas.

Let’s make one thing clear; none of this is about “illegal immigration.” It’s not even about immigration. Before it passed, Anna Arias spoke at the Hazelton council meeting against the ordinance, warning that its approval would make Hazleton "the first Nazi city in the country." When she asked the crowd if they would deport the children of undocumented workers – utterly “legal” US citizens - the crowd shouted “Yes!”

There’s only one thing the “immigration debate” is about: It’s about white nationalism.
The law recently passed by the Hazelton City Council in a 4-1 vote wasn’t the brain child of anyone in Hazleton. It’s a copycat measure based on a design by a xenophobe from San Bernardino, California by the name of Joe Turner.

Turner, age 27, is an angry young white man with a sneering manner who heads up a group of Minutemen-style thugs called Save Our State (SOS.) He was the author of the original Hazleton-style measure, one that recently failed to get on the ballot in his home town.

Turner’s group has appeared publicly with members of the neo-Nazi organization Stormfront in tow; he says California is being turned into a “Third World Cesspool” by migrants, that Mexican culture is “inferior” to white European culture and that being a white nationalist “doesn’t make you a racist.”

“Americans,” Turner says, “are tired of watching their great American culture disappear, only to watch it be replaced by other cultures that are inferior and contradictory to everything this country was built upon.”

Turner says, “Gone are the days when we allowed our opponents to define the terminology of the debate.” In an SOS email thread entitled “Racism Redefined,” SOS members show what he means:

One writes: “I say: "Racist and proud of it" when they hurl their slime at me.”

Everyone who hates migrants and wants them gone or under lockdown denies their feelings in the matter have anything to do with race – even Turner, when he’s pressed.
That goes for Hazleton mayor Louis Barletta as well; having copied the persecutorial legislation advanced by Turner, he denies being "racist, intolerant and unfair," claiming that "illegal is illegal" and that the Hazleton ordinance doesn’t "target any particular race."

But demographic trends show that the nation as a whole will be half peoples of color by 2050, a fact that causes no small unease among white cultural conservatives across the country, especially in the “Red States” which are largely white, and whose populations have recently shifted in both culture and color.

Barletta is no exception. The very presence of non-white people disturbs him.

"There's no place for me to hide in a small city," he said, according to the Times. "I get it in the grocery store, I get it at the lunch counter, when I get my morning coffee, when I'm pumping gas.

"People are begging me, because we are losing the one asset that this city has to offer — our quality of life."

That’s the same complaint Joe Turner and overt white nationalist groups raise when they say US cities are turning into “Third World Cesspools.”

"It's about time," said Francis X. Tucci, a white business owner and lifelong resident of Hazleton. "We were a nice community," she added. Now the “nice” community is 30% Brown. One anti-migrant commentator wrote that the new law would frighten migrants. “The only people it will scare Christian,” he wrote, “are those here illegally and they should be scared.”

“The city's population has shot from 5% Hispanic to 30% Hispanic in only 6 years,” he wrote. “While not all are illegal aliens, there is suspicion that a large majority are.”

Hazleton will hunt down its suspects through every “legal” means, using police, health and code officers. “It could be a routine traffic stop or a code violation,” Barletta said. “When we do come across someone here illegally, we will find their place of employment if there is one and where they live. We would be the first city that would be going after businesses where they work and the place where they sleep.”

In a Freudian slip, he added "The illegal citizens, I would recommend they leave."

The Hazleton Illegal Immigration Relief Act forces anyone seeking to rent a dwelling in the city to apply to the city for a residency license and to submit to an investigation of their citizenship status.

Landlords who rent to people without a residency license will be fined $1,000 for each undocumented tenant on their premises and $100 per day the renter remains there without a permit.

Business owners who hire, rent property to, or provide either goods or services to migrants will lose their business permit for five years on a first offense and 10 years on a second, and find themselves ineligible for city contracts.

Barletta sites crime and economic stressors as among the principal reasons for targeting the brown population of the city. But the reality is that migrants have been an immense boon to the Hazleton economy, creating 60 new businesses and markedly boosting the value of real estate. Only a year ago Barletta was bragging that the economy was going through an unprecedented boom, due to migration. Today he says, "Illegal aliens are a drain on our resources, and they are not welcome here.”

In the meantime total arrests are down and violent crimes of all descriptions are down since the influx of Dominicans, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans began, while, predictably in any community of color, drug related arrests are up.

Barletta says "we are arresting illegal individuals much more often than we ever have." He doesn’t specify if the arrests are proportional to the population growth in the community, whether there is a differential in the rate of arrests for brown and white people, nor what role racial profiling might play in arrest figures.

Barletta admits the figures don’t back him up. But that’s not the point. The point is that the stereotypes about “crime” and “poverty” are so widespread and deeply entrenched that, even when unequivocally contradicted by hard data, they can be used to stir up a fear driven racist backlash against communities of color – and that is just what Barletta has done.

He knows what his white constituents want.

The white people of Hazleton want to be separate, apart: That’s what Apartheid means. It’s Afrikaans for "Separateness.” Under international law, Apartheid is a Crime Against Humanity.

The 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid defines the following acts as criminal:

Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognised trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association…

No one in Hazleton will ever be tried – much less convicted – under the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. The US is one of a handful of nations that – through Democrat and Republican administrations alike – has refused to sign the treaty.

Besides, official white Amerika will never admit that the Chican@ and Mexican@ people, for example, are one people: inseparable; they will never admit that to attack one segment of the community is to attack the whole; they will never admit that Chican@s, Mexican@s and Native Americans are a single group of indigenous descent, an ethnic and racial group that is being singled out for attack.

A Hazleton ophthalmologist – a Puerto Rican – said, "We are family. If you insult part of the family, you insult the whole family."

Official Amerika will never admit that the matter of “national origin” and “immigration status” is little more than a thin excuse for ethnic suppression and ethnic cleansing.

A passage from Ellen Barry’s report on Hazleton in the LA Times makes the point:

“White people feel free to speak openly about their annoyance with immigrants, said Jessica Cruz, who waits tables in two local diners.

“Cruz sputtered with anger recalling a recent day when she greeted three friends in Spanish, and a customer looked up from his seat, pointed his finger at her and told her to speak English. Another customer looked into the kitchen and said he couldn't wait until Immigration came to take away the Mexicans.”

Faced with a trio of oppressions – Apartheid style banishment, deportation and racial profiling, brown people are already leaving Hazleton. “They feel like this is racism,” said the publisher of El Mensajero – the community’s newspaper.

They may have no place to go.

What awaits them is a nation poised to give birth to a new Jim Crow, poised at the edge of fascism; a Congress that wants to deport millions and a string of localities poised to make the nation a patchwork of little Nurembergs, like the place where the Nazi laws on citizenship and race were forged in 1935.

It has come this far. The national movement for migrant’s rights must act now and bring all its resources to bear to wipe the Hazleton law clean from the slate.

While there’s still time.

The fastest growing ethnicity in Hazleton is Latino. It is not due to immigrants (legal or illegal) but to citizens of Latino ethnicity - mostly Puerto Ricans, who at birth are US citizens and no required to speak English.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that Spanish speaking citizens must be provided with the same services and English speaking citizens. Several PR attorneys are already contesting the suppression of Latinos by Hazleton’s hooded "Whites Only" laws, which is certain to go the route of prop 187.

There's quite a few neo-Nazi cities in the United States already, long before this act of hatred and bigotry.

Ever been to Clearwater, Florida? A Judge once asked the Scientology enterprise during one of the endless court trials Scientology is involved in "clue me in. When's the invasion?" when evidence of the enterprise surfaced that they had over 1,000 cameras trained on sidewalks and buildings and such in Clearwater, attempting to record all the pedestrians and motor drivers passing through downtown Clearwater.

The Scientology cultists parade around the city in toy sailor outfits pretending to be sailors or something, and at one time the City had to issue injunctions against the cultists from wearing police uniforms and carrying firearms.

Point being there are other cities where hatred, bigotry, fascism, Totalitarianism, and Authoritarianism -- not to mention abject insanity -- holds sway. This isn't a first.

My opinions only and only my opinions.

I'll be glad when the cameras go up at the border.

Maybe it will keep the vigilantes indoors where they are less likely to shoot some one.

I bet the BP will have the cam locations sponsored by big business and run ads like, "MoonPie, the only one on the Planet!"

The geeks will find a way to hack the cams and either run scenes of millions of Mexicans crossing like that game on the net that let’s you shoot at pregnant women and children or no activity what so ever while millions of Mexicans cross undetected - just for the harvest mind you - it's a government conspiracy.

Free speech is a good thing. Ask the guy at this video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ehriao4gzg&mode=related&search=

Sure, there are fascistic little hellholes all over, but this looks different to me.

This is the first place to have outright Apartheid since the Jim Crow era. Whether it gets through the courts or not, it sends a big signal about what time it is in Amerikkka.

I don't think that little town in Florida even compares.

You hear the guy in the video first say that he hates Mexicans, then he says he doesn't have a problem with Mexicans who just come here to work, that his problem is with Aztlan and MEChA and that he wants to take them out, he wants people to form an army.

He is confused, he believes every lie that the extreme right and Tancredo has put out there.

At this very moment, there are labor shortages all over the US in construction and agribusiness. Average wages for this years Calif harvest workers is $14/hr. La Vegas is hiring anyone that shows up for a gig in construction. The fool in the video probably hasn't even opened the want ads in years.

Lies like the ones the fool in the video thinks are real have been circulating since the 70s, and now because of the Internet, more people have heard them and believe them without ever questioning the validity or the source, which can usually be traced back to a Race Supremacy group.

I didn't watch the video, since the guy's a nobody, and just probably expressing his opinion, which he has every right to do.

What I do care about is what is happening in Hazelton. It seems that the people have decided to take back control of their city. I like how "Anna Arias" tried to play the "Race" card, and had her ass handed to her by the citizens!

Seems like it's the city that's "playing the race card." They're rigging the deck so the Mexicans get a shitty hand.

"Seems like it's the city that's "playing the race card." They're rigging the deck so the Mexicans get a shitty hand."

That's funny- the people who will get fined will more than likely be Americans (landlords/employers), but this is unfair to "Mexicans"? Another thing- this law was passed to help combat the effects of "illegal immigration", so now all "Mexicans" are illegal?

Arias asked a legitimate question - would the kind "citizens" of Hazleton deport citizens - their answer was to shout "yes."

If their problem had anything to do with immigration - illegal od otherwise, they'd have said "no."

She played the "citizen" card. They showed their hand - as outright racists.

This law wasn't passed to deal with illegal immigration - it was passed to "deal" with unwanted people of color.

>>>That's funny- the people who will get fined will more than likely be Americans (landlords/employers), but this is unfair to "Mexicans"? Another thing- this law was passed to help combat the effects of "illegal immigration", so now all "Mexicans" are illegal?

Obviously, a troll. Most people, especially not paranoids afraid of immigrants, can tell the difference between a chunty[1] dude with a weed whacker, and a city planner from El Monte who's moved to Hazleton because houses there are too expensive for what you get, man. Because of these Nazi laws, Mr. Code Enforcement Man is now at risk of "Raking While Brown" in front of his own house!

[1] I just learned that word.

"Arias asked a legitimate question..."

That says it all! Son, do you know the difference between, oh, let's say throwing some people in a gas chamber, and asking someone to follow immigration laws? If you don't, then you have my condolences...

Stay on topic.

The City played the "race card" -its citizens saying yes, they will or would deport citizens. Arias did not play any so called race card - the citizens - the white citizens - exposed their OWN racism in THEIR WILL TO DEPORT "LEGAL" CITIZENS OF MEXICAN DESCENT.

Sorry, chump, you don't get to play shell games or deal from the bottom of the deck by switching topics.

And don't call me "Son," asswipe. I am over fifty.

Maybe that's why you're having trouble reading, SON... time to visit the optometrist. I'll post whatever I feel like, SON, whether it's to your liking or not. How's that, Mr. Shotcaller?

Here, I'll type slow, so you can read it:

"Before it passed, Anna Arias spoke at the Hazelton council meeting against the ordinance, warning that its approval would make Hazleton 'the first Nazi city in the country.'"

I see... she wasn't playing the "race" card, she was just playing the RACE card! I get it now! Here's some more info for you, SON- Mexicans aren't a RACE! I should know- one of the "Mexica Movement" guys just said so...

No, a Jew calling a Nazi a Nazi is not playing the race card.

Look up the Nuremberg laws. Look up the Nazi laws on citizenship. It's a Nazi law, plain and simple.

By your standards a Black man being lynched would be playing the "race card" if he called his lynchers racists.

Here; educate yourself. You can write, you must be able to read:

http://www.counterpunch.org/wise04242006.html

April 24, 2006
The Absurdity (and Consistency) of White Denial
What Kind of Card is Race?
By TIM WISE
Recently, I was asked by someone in the audience of one of my speeches, whether or not I believed that racism--though certainly a problem--might also be something conjured up by people of color in situations where the charge was inappropriate. In other words, did I believe that occasionally folks play the so-called race card, as a ploy to gain sympathy or detract from their own shortcomings? In the process of his query, the questioner made his own opinion all too clear (an unambiguous yes), and in that, he was not alone, as indicated by the reaction of others in the crowd, as well as survey data confirming that the belief in black malingering about racism is nothing if not ubiquitous.
It's a question I'm asked often, especially when there are several high-profile news events transpiring, in which race informs part of the narrative. Now is one of those times, as a few recent incidents demonstrate: Is racism, for example, implicated in the alleged rape of a young black woman by white members of the Duke University lacrosse team? Was racism implicated in Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's recent confrontation with a member of the Capitol police? Or is racism involved in the ongoing investigation into whether or not Barry Bonds--as he is poised to eclipse white slugger Babe Ruth on the all-time home run list--might have used steroids to enhance his performance?*
Although the matter is open to debate in any or all of these cases, white folks have been quick to accuse blacks who answer in the affirmative of playing the race card, as if their conclusions have been reached not because of careful consideration of the facts as they see them, but rather, because of some irrational (even borderline paranoid) tendency to see racism everywhere. So too, discussions over immigration, "terrorist" profiling, and Katrina and its aftermath often turn on issues of race, and so give rise to the charge that as regards these subjects, people of color are "overreacting" when they allege racism in one or another circumstance.
Asked about the tendency for people of color to play the "race card," I responded as I always do: First, by noting that the regularity with which whites respond to charges of racism by calling said charges a ploy, suggests that the race card is, at best, equivalent to the two of diamonds. In other words, it's not much of a card to play, calling into question why anyone would play it (as if it were really going to get them somewhere). Secondly, I pointed out that white reluctance to acknowledge racism isn't new, and it isn't something that manifests only in situations where the racial aspect of an incident is arguable. Fact is, whites have always doubted claims of racism at the time they were being made, no matter how strong the evidence, as will be seen below. Finally, I concluded by suggesting that whatever "card" claims of racism may prove to be for the black and brown, the denial card is far and away the trump, and whites play it regularly: a subject to which we will return.

Turning Injustice into a Game of Chance: The Origins of Race as "Card"
First, let us consider the history of this notion: namely, that the "race card" is something people of color play so as to distract the rest of us, or to gain sympathy. For most Americans, the phrase "playing the race card" entered the national lexicon during the O.J. Simpson trial. Robert Shapiro, one of Simpson's attorneys famously claimed, in the aftermath of his client's acquittal, that co-counsel Johnnie Cochran had "played the race card, and dealt it from the bottom of the deck." The allegation referred to Cochran's bringing up officer Mark Fuhrman's regular use of the 'n-word' as potentially indicative of his propensity to frame Simpson. To Shapiro, whose own views of his client's innocence apparently shifted over time, the issue of race had no place in the trial, and even if Fuhrman was a racist, this fact had no bearing on whether or not O.J. had killed his ex-wife and Ron Goldman. In other words, the idea that O.J. had been framed because of racism made no sense and to bring it up was to interject race into an arena where it was, or should have been, irrelevant.
That a white man like Shapiro could make such an argument, however, speaks to the widely divergent way in which whites and blacks view our respective worlds. For people of color--especially African Americans--the idea that racist cops might frame members of their community is no abstract notion, let alone an exercise in irrational conspiracy theorizing. Rather, it speaks to a social reality about which blacks are acutely aware. Indeed, there has been a history of such misconduct on the part of law enforcement, and for black folks to think those bad old days have ended is, for many, to let down their guard to the possibility of real and persistent injury (1).
So if a racist cop is the lead detective in a case, and the one who discovers blood evidence implicating a black man accused of killing two white people, there is a logical alarm bell that goes off in the head of most any black person, but which would remain every bit as silent in the mind of someone who was white. And this too is understandable: for most whites, police are the helpful folks who get your cat out of the tree, or take you around in their patrol car for fun. For us, the idea of brutality or misconduct on the part of such persons seems remote, to the point of being fanciful. It seems the stuff of bad TV dramas, or at the very least, the past--that always remote place to which we can consign our national sins and predations, content all the while that whatever demons may have lurked in those earlier times have long since been vanquished.
To whites, blacks who alleged racism in the O.J. case were being absurd, or worse, seeking any excuse to let a black killer off the hook--ignoring that blacks on juries vote to convict black people of crimes every day in this country. And while allegations of black "racial bonding" with the defendant were made regularly after the acquittal in Simpson's criminal trial, no such bonding, this time with the victims, was alleged when a mostly white jury found O.J. civilly liable a few years later. Only blacks can play the race card, apparently; only they think in racial terms, at least to hear white America tell it.

Anything but Racism: White Reluctance to Accept the Evidence
Since the O.J. trial, it seems as though almost any allegation of racism has been met with the same dismissive reply from the bulk of whites in the U.S. According to national surveys, more than three out of four whites refuse to believe that discrimination is any real problem in America (2). That most whites remain unconvinced of racism's salience--with as few as six percent believing it to be a "very serious problem," according to one poll in the mid 90s (3)--suggests that racism-as-card makes up an awfully weak hand. While folks of color consistently articulate their belief that racism is a real and persistent presence in their own lives, these claims have had very little effect on white attitudes. As such, how could anyone believe that people of color would somehow pull the claim out of their hat, as if it were guaranteed to make white America sit up and take notice? If anything, it is likely to be ignored, or even attacked, and in a particularly vicious manner.
That bringing up racism (even with copious documentation) is far from an effective "card" to play in order to garner sympathy, is evidenced by the way in which few people even become aware of the studies confirming its existence. How many Americans do you figure have even heard, for example, that black youth arrested for drug possession for the first time are incarcerated at a rate that is forty-eight times greater than the rate for white youth, even when all other factors surrounding the crime are identical (4)?
How many have heard that persons with "white sounding names," according to a massive national study, are fifty percent more likely to be called back for a job interview than those with "black sounding" names, even when all other credentials are the same (5)?
How many know that white men with a criminal record are slightly more likely to be called back for a job interview than black men without one, even when the men are equally qualified, and present themselves to potential employers in an identical fashion (6)?
How many have heard that according to the Justice Department, Black and Latino males are three times more likely than white males to have their vehicles stopped and searched by police, even though white males are over four times more likely to have illegal contraband in our cars on the occasions when we are searched (7)?
How many are aware that black and Latino students are about half as likely as whites to be placed in advanced or honors classes in school, and twice as likely to be placed in remedial classes? Or that even when test scores and prior performance would justify higher placement, students of color are far less likely to be placed in honors classes (8)? Or that students of color are 2-3 times more likely than whites to be suspended or expelled from school, even though rates of serious school rule infractions do not differ to any significant degree between racial groups (9)?
Fact is, few folks have heard any of these things before, suggesting how little impact scholarly research on the subject of racism has had on the general public, and how difficult it is to make whites, in particular, give the subject a second thought.
Perhaps this is why, contrary to popular belief, research indicates that people of color are actually reluctant to allege racism, be it on the job, or in schools, or anywhere else. Far from "playing the race card" at the drop of a hat, it is actually the case (again, according to scholarly investigation, as opposed to the conventional wisdom of the white public), that black and brown folks typically "stuff" their experiences with discrimination and racism, only making an allegation of such treatment after many, many incidents have transpired, about which they said nothing for fear of being ignored or attacked (10). Precisely because white denial has long trumped claims of racism, people of color tend to underreport their experiences with racial bias, rather than exaggerate them. Again, when it comes to playing a race card, it is more accurate to say that whites are the dealers with the loaded decks, shooting down any evidence of racism as little more than the fantasies of unhinged blacks, unwilling to take personal responsibility for their own problems in life.

Blaming the Victims for White Indifference
Occasionally, white denial gets creative, and this it does by pretending to come wrapped in sympathy for those who allege racism in the modern era. In other words, while steadfastly rejecting what people of color say they experience--in effect suggesting that they lack the intelligence and/or sanity to accurately interpret their own lives--such commentators seek to assure others that whites really do care about racism, but simply refuse to pin the label on incidents where it doesn't apply. In fact, they'll argue, one of the reasons that whites have developed compassion fatigue on this issue is precisely because of the overuse of the concept, combined with what we view as unfair reactions to racism (such as affirmative action efforts which have, ostensibly, turned us into the victims of racial bias). If blacks would just stop playing the card where it doesn't belong, and stop pushing for so-called preferential treatment, whites would revert back to our prior commitment to equal opportunity, and our heartfelt concern about the issue of racism.
Don't laugh. This is actually the position put forward recently by James Taranto, of the Wall Street Journal, who in January suggested that white reluctance to embrace black claims of racism was really the fault of blacks themselves, and the larger civil rights establishment (11). As Taranto put it: "Why do blacks and whites have such divergent views on racial matters? We would argue that it is because of the course that racial policies have taken over the past forty years." He then argues that by trying to bring about racial equality--but failing to do so because of "aggregate differences in motivation, inclination and aptitude" between different racial groups--policies like affirmative action have bred "frustration and resentment" among blacks, and "indifference" among whites, who decide not to think about race at all, rather than engage an issue that seems so toxic to them. In other words, whites think blacks use racism as a crutch for their own inadequacies, and then demand programs and policies that fail to make things much better, all the while discriminating against them as whites. In such an atmosphere, is it any wonder that the two groups view the subject matter differently?
But the fundamental flaw in Taranto's argument is its suggestion--implicit though it may be--that prior to the creation of affirmative action, white folks were mostly on board the racial justice and equal opportunity train, and were open to hearing about claims of racism from persons of color. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. White denial is not a form of backlash to the past forty years of civil rights legislation, and white indifference to claims of racism did not only recently emerge, as if from a previous place where whites and blacks had once seen the world similarly. Simply put: whites in every generation have thought there was no real problem with racism, irrespective of the evidence, and in every generation we have been wrong.

Denial as an Intergenerational Phenomenon
So, for example, what does it say about white rationality and white collective sanity, that in 1963--at a time when in retrospect all would agree racism was rampant in the United States, and before the passage of modern civil rights legislation--nearly two-thirds of whites, when polled, said they believed blacks were treated the same as whites in their communities--almost the same number as say this now, some forty-plus years later? What does it suggest about the extent of white folks' disconnection from the real world, that in 1962, eighty-five percent of whites said black children had just as good a chance as white children to get a good education in their communities (12)? Or that in May, 1968, seventy percent of whites said that blacks were treated the same as whites in their communities, while only seventeen percent said blacks were treated "not very well" and only 3.5 percent said blacks were treated badly? (13)?
What does it say about white folks' historic commitment to equal opportunity--and which Taranto would have us believe has only been rendered inoperative because of affirmative action--that in 1963, three-fourths of white Americans told Newsweek, "The Negro is moving too fast" in his demands for equality (14)? Or that in October 1964, nearly two-thirds of whites said that the Civil Rights Act should be enforced gradually, with an emphasis on persuading employers not to discriminate, as opposed to forcing compliance with equal opportunity requirements (15)?
What does it say about whites' tenuous grip on mental health that in mid-August 1969, forty-four percent of whites told a Newsweek/Gallup National Opinion Survey that blacks had a better chance than they did to get a good paying job--two times as many as said they would have a worse chance? Or that forty-two percent said blacks had a better chance for a good education than whites, while only seventeen percent said they would have a worse opportunity for a good education, and eighty percent saying blacks would have an equal or better chance? In that same survey, seventy percent said blacks could have improved conditions in the "slums" if they had wanted to, and were more than twice as likely to blame blacks themselves, as opposed to discrimination, for high unemployment in the black community (16).
In other words, even when racism was, by virtually all accounts (looking backward in time), institutionalized, white folks were convinced there was no real problem. Indeed, even forty years ago, whites were more likely to think that blacks had better opportunities, than to believe the opposite (and obviously accurate) thing: namely, that whites were advantaged in every realm of American life.
Truthfully, this tendency for whites to deny the extent of racism and racial injustice likely extends back far before the 1960s. Although public opinion polls in previous decades rarely if ever asked questions about the extent of racial bias or discrimination, anecdotal surveys of white opinion suggest that at no time have whites in the U.S. ever thought blacks or other people of color were getting a bad shake. White Southerners were all but convinced that their black slaves, for example, had it good, and had no reason to complain about their living conditions or lack of freedoms. After emancipation, but during the introduction of Jim Crow laws and strict Black Codes that limited where African Americans could live and work, white newspapers would regularly editorialize about the "warm relations" between whites and blacks, even as thousands of blacks were being lynched by their white compatriots.
From Drapetomania to Victim Syndrome -- Viewing Resistance as Mental Illness
Indeed, what better evidence of white denial (even dementia) could one need than that provided by "Doctor" Samuel Cartwright, a well-respected physician of the 19th century, who was so convinced of slavery's benign nature, that he concocted and named a disease to explain the tendency for many slaves to run away from their loving masters. Drapetomania, he called it: a malady that could be cured by keeping the slave in a "child-like state," and taking care not to treat them as equals, while yet striving not to be too cruel. Mild whipping was, to Cartwright, the best cure of all. So there you have it: not only is racial oppression not a problem; even worse, those blacks who resist it, or refuse to bend to it, or complain about it in any fashion, are to be viewed not only as exaggerating their condition, but indeed, as mentally ill (17).
And lest one believe that the tendency for whites to psychologically pathologize blacks who complain of racism is only a relic of ancient history, consider a much more recent example, which demonstrates the continuity of this tendency among members of the dominant racial group in America.
A few years ago, I served as an expert witness and consultant in a discrimination lawsuit against a school district in Washington State. Therein, numerous examples of individual and institutional racism abounded: from death threats made against black students to which the school district's response was pitifully inadequate, to racially disparate "ability tracking" and disciplinary action. In preparation for trial (which ultimately never took place as the district finally agreed to settle the case for several million dollars and a commitment to policy change), the school system's "psychological experts" evaluated dozens of the plaintiffs (mostly students as well as some of their parents) so as to determine the extent of damage done to them as a result of the racist mistreatment. As one of the plaintiff's experts, I reviewed the reports of said psychologists, and while I was not surprised to see them downplay the damage done to the black folks in this case, I was somewhat startled by how quickly they went beyond the call of duty to actually suggest that several of the plaintiffs exhibited "paranoid" tendencies and symptoms of borderline personality disorder. That having one's life threatened might make one a bit paranoid apparently never entered the minds of the white doctors. That facing racism on a regular basis might lead one to act out, in a way these "experts" would then see as a personality disorder, also seems to have escaped them. In this way, whites have continued to see mental illness behind black claims of victimization, even when that victimization is blatant.
In fact, we've even created a name for it: "victimization syndrome." Although not yet part of the DSM-IV (the diagnostic manual used by the American Psychiatric Association so as to evaluate patients), it is nonetheless a malady from which blacks suffer, to hear a lot of whites tell it. Whenever racism is brought up, such whites insist that blacks are being encouraged (usually by the civil rights establishment) to adopt a victim mentality, and to view themselves as perpetual targets of oppression. By couching their rejection of the claims of racism in these terms, conservatives are able to parade as friends to black folks, only concerned about them and hoping to free them from the debilitating mindset of victimization that liberals wish to see them adopt.
Aside from the inherently paternalistic nature of this position, notice too how concern over adopting a victim mentality is very selectively trotted out by the right. So, for example, when crime victims band together--and even form what they call victim's rights groups--no one on the right tells them to get over it, or suggests that by continuing to incessantly bleat about their kidnapped child or murdered loved one, such folks are falling prey to a victim mentality that should be resisted. No indeed: crime victims are venerated, considered experts on proper crime policy (as evidenced by how often their opinions are sought out on the matter by the national press and politicians), and given nothing but sympathy.
Likewise, when American Jews raise a cry over perceived anti-Jewish bigotry, or merely teach their children (as I was taught) about the European Holocaust, replete with a slogan of "Never again!" none of the folks who lament black "victimology" suggests that we too are wallowing in a victimization mentality, or somehow at risk for a syndrome of the same name.
In other words, it is blacks and blacks alone (with the occasional American Indian or Latino thrown in for good measure when and if they get too uppity) that get branded with the victim mentality label. Not quite drapetomania, but also not far enough from the kind of thinking that gave rise to it: in both cases, rooted in the desire of white America to reject what all logic and evidence suggests is true. Further, the selective branding of blacks as perpetual victims, absent the application of the pejorative to Jews or crime victims (or the families of 9/11 victims or other acts of terrorism), suggests that at some level white folks simply don't believe black suffering matters. We refuse to view blacks as fully human and deserving of compassion as we do these other groups, for whom victimization has been a reality as well. It is not that whites care about blacks and simply wish them not to adopt a self-imposed mental straightjacket; rather, it is that at some level we either don't care, or at least don't equate the pain of racism even with the pain caused by being mugged, or having your art collection confiscated by the Nazis, let alone with the truly extreme versions of crime and anti-Semitic wrongdoing.
See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Wrong as Always
White denial has become such a widespread phenomenon nowadays, that most whites are unwilling to entertain even the mildest of suggestions that racism and racial inequity might still be issues. To wit, a recent survey from the University of Chicago, in which whites and blacks were asked two questions about Hurricane Katrina and the governmental response to the tragedy. First, respondents were asked whether they believed the government response would have been speedier had the victims been white. Not surprisingly, only twenty percent of whites answered in the affirmative. But while that question is at least conceivably arguable, the next question seems so weakly worded that virtually anyone could have answered yes without committing too much in the way of recognition that racism was a problem. Yet the answers given reveal the depths of white intransigence to consider the problem a problem at all.
So when asked if we believed the Katrina tragedy showed that there was a lesson to be learned about racial inequality in America--any lesson at all--while ninety percent of blacks said yes, only thirty-eight percent of whites agreed (18). To us, Katrina said nothing about race whatsoever, even as blacks were disproportionately affected; even as there was a clear racial difference in terms of who was stuck in New Orleans and who was able to escape; even as the media focused incessantly on reports of black violence in the Superdome and Convention Center that proved later to be false; even as blacks have been having a much harder time moving back to New Orleans, thanks to local and federal foot-dragging and the plans of economic elites in the city to destroy homes in the most damaged (black) neighborhoods and convert them to non-residential (or higher rent) uses.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, has to do with race nowadays, in the eyes of white America writ large. But the obvious question is this: if we have never seen racism as a real problem, contemporary to the time in which the charges are being made, and if in all generations past we were obviously wrong to the point of mass delusion in thinking this way, what should lead us to conclude that now, at long last, we've become any more astute at discerning social reality than we were before? Why should we trust our own perceptions or instincts on the matter, when we have run up such an amazingly bad track record as observers of the world in which we live? In every era, black folks said they were the victims of racism and they were right. In every era, whites have said the problem was exaggerated, and we have been wrong.
Unless we wish to conclude that black insight on the matter--which has never to this point failed them--has suddenly converted to irrationality, and that white irrationality has become insight (and are prepared to prove this transformation by way of some analytical framework to explain the process), then the best advice seems to be that which could have been offered in past decades and centuries: namely, if you want to know about whether or not racism is a problem, it would probably do you best to ask the folks who are its targets. They, after all, are the ones who must, as a matter of survival, learn what it is, and how and when it's operating. We whites on the other hand, are the persons who have never had to know a thing about it, and who--for reasons psychological, philosophical and material--have always had a keen interest in covering it up.
In short, and let us be clear on it: race is not a card. It determines whom the dealer is, and who gets dealt.
Tim Wise is the author of two new books: White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (Soft Skull Press, 2005), and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (Routledge: 2005). He lived in New Orleans from 1986-1996. He can be reached at: timjwise@msn.com
* Personally, I have no idea whether or not Barry Bonds has used anabolic steroids during the course of his career, nor do I think the evidence marshaled thus far on the matter is conclusive, either way. But I do find it interesting that many are calling for the placement of an asterisk next to Bonds' name in the record books, especially should he eclipse Ruth, or later, Hank Aaron, in terms of career home runs. The asterisk, we are told, would differentiate Bonds from other athletes, the latter of which, presumably accomplished their feats without performance enhancers. Yet, while it is certainly true that Aaron's 755 home runs came without any form of performance enhancement (indeed, he, like other black ball-players had to face overt hostility in the early years of their careers, and even as he approached Ruth's record of 714, he was receiving death threats), for Ruth, such a claim would be laughable. Ruth, as with any white baseball player from the early 1890s to 1947, benefited from the "performance enhancement" of not having to compete against black athletes, whose abilities often far surpassed their own. Ruth didn't have to face black pitchers, nor vie for batting titles against black home run sluggers. Until white fans demand an asterisk next to the names of every one of their white baseball heroes -- Ruth, Cobb, DiMaggio, and Williams, for starters -- who played under apartheid rules, the demand for such a blemish next to the name of Bonds can only be seen as highly selective, hypocritical, and ultimately racist. White privilege and protection from black competition certainly did more for those men's game than creotine or other substances could ever do for the likes of Barry Bonds.

NOTES
(1) There is plenty of information about police racism, misconduct and brutality, both in historical and contemporary terms, available from any number of sources. Among them, see Kristian Williams, Our Enemies in Blue. Soft Skull Press, 2004; and online at the Stolen Lives Project: http://stolenlives.org.
(2) Washington Post. October 9, 1995: A22
(3) Ibid.
(4) "Young White Offenders get lighter treatment," 2000. The Tennessean. April 26: 8A.
(5) Bertrand, Marianne and Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment in Labor Market Discrimination." June 20.
(6) Pager, Devah. 2003. "The Mark of a Criminal Record." American Journal of Sociology. Volume 108: 5, March: 937-75.
(7) Matthew R. Durose, Erica L. Schmitt and Patrick A. Langan, Contacts Between Police and the Public: Findings from the 2002 National Survey. U.S. Department of Justice, (Bureau of Justice Statistics), April 2005.
(8) Gordon, Rebecca. 1998. Education and Race. Oakland: Applied Research Center: 48-9; Fischer, Claude S. et al., 1996. Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 163; Steinhorn, Leonard and Barabara Diggs-Brown, 1999. By the Color of Our Skin: The Illusion of Integration and the Reality of Race. NY: Dutton: 95-6.
(9) Skiba, Russell J. et al., The Color of Discipline: Sources of Racial and Gender Disproportionality in School Punishment. Indiana Education Policy Center, Policy Research Report SRS1, June 2000; U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System: Youth 2003, Online Comprehensive Results, 2004.
(10) Terrell, Francis and Sandra L. Terrell, 1999. "Cultural Identification and Cultural Mistrust: Some Findings and Implications," in Advances in African American Psychology, Reginald Jones, ed., Hampton VA: Cobb & Henry; Fuegen, Kathleen, 2000. "Defining Discrimination in the Personal/Group Discrimination Discrepancy," Sex Roles: A Journal of Research. September; Miller, Carol T. 2001. "A Theoretical Perspective on Coping With Stigma," Journal of Social Issues. Spring; Feagin, Joe, Hernan Vera and Nikitah Imani, 1996. The Agony of Education: Black Students in White Colleges and Universities. NY: Routledge.
(11) Taranto, James. 2006. "The Truth About Race in America--IV," Online Journal (Wall Street Journal), January 6.
(12) The Gallup Organization, Gallup Poll Social Audit, 2001. Black-White Relations in the United States, 2001 Update, July 10: 7-9.
(13) The Gallup Organization, Gallup Poll, #761, May, 1968
(14) "How Whites Feel About Negroes: A Painful American Dilemma," Newsweek, October 21, 1963: 56
(15) The Gallup Organization, Gallup Poll #699, October, 1964
(16) Newsweek/Gallup Organization, National Opinion Survey, August 19, 1969
(17) Cartwright, Samuel. 1851. "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race," DeBow's Review. (Southern and Western States: New Orleans), Volume XI.
(18) Ford, Glen and Peter Campbell, 2006. "Katrina: A Study-Black Consensus, White Dispute," The Black Commentator, Issue 165, January 5.

free speech IS a good thing - it makes it easier for the idiots to identify themselves

"No, a Jew calling a Nazi a Nazi is not playing the race card."

Glad we agree- then an American calling an Illegal Alien an "Illegal Alien" isn't playing the race card, either. Therefore, the "Nazi city" reference that was made at the council meeting was completely inappropriate. Thanks for clarifying it for me, chum...

There was a process that led to the camps, one that occurred over nearly a decade, and one that too few Jewish (and German) people opposed at its onset.

The Final Solution began with "encouraging" self-deportation in 1933 (the minutemen) and, two years later, the Nuremberg Race Laws that deprived Jews of the right to work or own property (like Hazelton). Then of course, they were removed from the countryside (like Hazelton) to apartheid-style to life in the city's ghettos, while the German leadership debated whether Jews should be deported or exterminated. By1942, the Nazis were sufficiently entrenched to implement their new deportation policy. It was deportation--to eastern Eastern Europe and the death camps.

The parallels to the anti-Mexican movement in this country are, I think, too striking to ignore.

Here are a couple of letters from Jewish leadership that illustrate the deliberateness and consideration given to the process that eventually permitted the annihilation of Jews.

21.September, 1939
Berlin

To Chiefs of all Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police
Subject: Jewish Question in Occupied Territory
I refer to the conference held in Berlin today, and again point out that the planned total measures (i.e., the final aim) are to be kept strictly secret.

Distinction must be made between:

the final aim (which will require extended periods of time) and the stages leading to the fulfillment of this final aim (which will be carried out in short periods).

It is obvious that the tasks ahead cannot be laid down from here in full detail. The instructions and directives below must serve also for the purpose of urging chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen to give practical consideration to [the problems involved.] For the time being, the first prerequisite for the final aim is the concentration of the Jews from the countryside into the larger cities.

Reinhard Heydrich



13.August.1941
The Reichskommissar for Ostland IIa 4
Secret!
Provisional Directives for the treatment of Jews in the area of the Reichskommissariat Ostland.

The final solution of the Jewish question in the area of the Reichskommissariat Ostland will be in accordance with the instructions in my address of 27.July.1941 in Kovno.

Insofar as further measures are taken, particularly by the Security Police, to carry out my verbal instructions, they will not be affected by the following _provisional directives._ It is merely the purpose of these provisional directives to assure that where, and as long as, further measures for the final solution are not possible, minimum measures will be taken by the Generalkommissare or Gebietskommissare. . .

. . .As far as possible the Jews are to be concentrated in cities or in sections of large cities, where the population is already predominately Jewish. There, ghettos are to be established, and the Jews are to be prohibited from leaving these ghettos.

In the ghettos the Jews are to receive only as much food as the rest of the population can spare, but not more than is required for their bare subsistence. The same applies to the allocation of other essential goods.

Lohse
Reichskommisar

http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/ghetto.html

The situation in Hazleton is patterned throughout north america with one group of immigrants (Euro-americans) being set against another group of recent immigrants (Latino-americans) with African-american immigrants being used as bargaining chips in the middle. This immigrant vs. immigrant power struggle orchestrated by the elite Euro-americans is taking place over the graves of indigenous North American people who lived here for at least 10,000 years prior to the invasion of Europeans following Columbus quest for gold, spices, whatever..

Many of the European immigrants to North America were economically coerced here with promises of a better life, working for some factory or extraction corporation (coal, oil, metals, lumber, etc..) and barely scraping by week by week..

That being said, working class populations of Euro, Latino, Asian and African-americans (all immigrants) all live here and should at least try to get along with one another instead of fighting. Hazleton, PA in particular has a strong history with working class Polish immigrants who have struggled against coal mining corporations over the last few centuries. My guess is that the divisiveness between Polish and Puerto Rican working class people in this (Hazleton) case is initiated by some devious intellects on the upper echelon levels of think-tank pyramids..

What we see in the "white" (more like biege, eh?) Euro-nationalist movements like SOS/Minutemen that inspire anti-immigrant legislation is recruitment of working class Euro-american youth into their ranks, misplacing their legitimate anger that should be directed at corporate elites instead being lost on futile infighting with other working class peoples based on ethnic/language/cultural differences..

Then there's the Democratesque "more jobs" position that claims more Latino immigrants are needed for more jobs in construction, lawnmowers, plantation agriculture and other menial labor jobs that nobody else wants to do (except for prison slave labor, no choices there, eh?). What we need is less menial jobs for any immigrants and more sustainability in living communities around the world, as witnessed in the recently destroyed south central farm. Problem with that approach is both democrats and republicans are heavily invested in menial labor dependency and increased consumer base to allow any truly free 'jobs' like the south central community farm to flourish. Maybe we should attack the concepts of corporate property ownership and jobs before setting working class people into a free for all against one another over shitty wage slavery..

For one, there's already enough construction jobs and suburban sprawl destroying the remaining habitat of indigenous North American peoples (not for Euro-american land grabbing developers OR Latino workers to decide either) in north america (Turtle Island) with more strip malls, SprWAL-Marts, parking lots, etc..

Every conflict and oppression has it's source elsewhere, look no further than the neo-colonialist globalization inspired inequality in Mexico City between the handful of wealthy Euro-american (Spanish descended) capitalists in Calderon's PAN party and the large majority of landless working poor (many indigenous) Mexicans in the southern part of the country (Chiapas, Oaxaca, Morelos, etc..) and their obvious anger towards the Mexican government's lapdog position towards US imperialism, NAFTA, etc..

NAFTA's economic inequality is the main driving force causing Mexicans and other Latino immigrants to come north across the invisible line for those really crummy jobs like mowing lawns, exposure to pesticide agribusiness farming, exposure to coal dust in mining, etc.. and other crappy jobs formerly dominated by either working class Euro-americans and/or African-americans. This sums up the history of immigration to north america, with the latest batch of immigrants pushing out the previous batch of immigrants in competition for the crappiest low paying jobs in whatever sector they live..

If the Euro-nationalists and the Latinos really want to duke it out over crummy jobs working for the "man" they should get it on already by playing their military war games with paint ball guns across the freeways and parking lots of the US. Ten points for tagging ANY SUV, regardless of whatever immigrant group is behind the wheel. No excuses for petroleum theft from military exploitation. The least the rival immigrants could do is set off a mini-civil war in the US by detonating equipment in a few military bases. That may be the most effective way to bring the US soldiers home from Iraq, a nice domestic military conflict in the US to tie up the oil hungry Bush regime fascists in the US government for a while. Israel's attack on Lebanon's civilians only strengthens my resolve to destroy western imperialism once and for all..

To end on a positive note (how possible in today's society?) the south central community farm really was a true example of how people could and should live together in harmony with the ecosystem and one another. Of course this was too much positive health for the system to handle so the US (via local thugs)goverment sent in the Caterpillar bulldozers of destruction to prevent everyone from witnessing what a healthy diverse farm looks like, an oasis of life surrounded by an ocean of concrete death. The elites like Ralph Horowitz that chose to destroy this gem signed their own death sentence in my book. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Ditto that for your precious western 'civilization' called USA..

Maybe i'm somewhat of an elitist by taking the position that i'ld rather see the entire technological civilization collapse than witness another act of ecocidal destruction as what happened to the south central farm. Hey, at least i'm willing to eat dandelion leaves, and don't spray them with pesticides. Some real winners in the US, killing edible plants and replacing with monoculture and toxic chemicals. Like how Euro-americans killed the indigenous bison and replaced with factory farmed cattle who cannot survive without agribusiness, fertilizer, hormones and miles of fences. You call it development, i call it genocide. No immigrant legislation will cover up the genocide of indigenous americans..

The history leading up to the exclusion of Chinese (and later, Japanese, and all Asians) was similar, too.

First, they pass laws about specific behaviors. Then they pass blanket laws that create a "matrix" that makes it difficult or impossible for the targetted group to exist, or organize a political opposition. Vandals who terrorize the minorities are let free, police participate in the violence.

Then, they create exclusion. For the Chinese, it was the exclusion laws that prevented immigration. It was also laws that prohibted Asian immigrants from getting naturalized as citizens.

After that, all bets are off, and your personal security is down the shitter. After Japanese exclusion laws, there was a war, and the Japanese on the west coast, including tens of thousands of native born citizens (and many who would have naturalized, were it not ILLEGAL to become a citizen), were rounded up and put into concentration camps. Many lost all their property (but not all).

This is AMERICAN HISTORY. No need to find some vague parallels here. This was all deemed CONSTITUTIONAL at the time. One of the coordinators was governor Earl Warren, who was later considered a very liberal Justice on the Supreme Court. His liberal attitude didn't extend to asians. Other "liberals" said it was to protect the people from race wars.... that is just maintream tolerance of terrorism against minorities. It's a defense of freedom for the KKK.

History leading to the deportation of American citizens of Mexican decent is pretty bleak too. Unemployment was up, and lawmakers started implementing a plan to get rid of immigrants from Mexico. This included their children, who were native born citizens of America. It's estimated over 100,000 people were "sent back" to Mexico, including a lot of CITIZENS who had never been to Mexico in their lives.

This isn't foreign history. It's AMERICAN HISTORY. You don't even have to change the races of the people involved to find the parallels.

You don't even have to think about it as a "history" long gone, because there are thousands of people alive, today, who went through this racist injustice at the hands of their own government and their own countrymen. They live in this city, and remember what happened.

There are a narrow segment of Americans who want to see these laws come back. They think they were great laws. They also happen to be the kind of people who look up to Hitler (and some call themseves Nazis), and they support SOS and the MMP because they agree on most points, and think that they can take the movment back to its Nazi-sympathizer roots.

A good point was made about 'pseudo-issues' or 'pseudo-debates.' There are an awful lot of those floating around. In fact the "left" has had its brains pretty severely scrambled by them, as I see it.

One of the biggies is the present focus on corporations as THE Great Satan, the ne plus ultra. No they're not. They're *instruments* of the same bunch of assholes that have been the root of the problem going all the way back to Sumeria: the mutant parasites at the top of the class food chain who live to obtain ever more of the things they already have far too much of -- wealth and power. Corporations are simply their latest grand design for pooling their interests to increase their leverage against everybody else. Long ago they had a grand design called 'monarchy,' just as formidable, that was likewise mistaken for the "real problem." Look where THAT got us.

Yes, corporations are monstrously powerful *instruments*, no doubt, and it's definitely worthwhile to acknowledge them as a huge problem and to find ways to counteract them, but mistaking them for the Disease Itself when they're really a symptom is a grave conceptual mistake, and a lot of people appear to be doing this.

For the ruling mafia this is beautiful. It means you're wasting your time shaking your fist at the Wizard of Oz instead of peeking behind the curtain. Back when revolutionary communists were in their prime (I do NOT mean CoIntelPro bullshits like Bob Avakian) they could not be fooled this way. They had these assholes by their throats. That's why the Real Enemy spent untold trillions over the past 90 years trying to hurl every communist on earth into a mass grave. The way they brainwashed everyone in this society going back 60 years to hate communists as much as they did was only one aspect of this war. For this part they coughed up mere tens of billions. The communists had these slimes terrified, and also came amazingly close to gaining a decisive advantage and then defeating them absolutely. It was very touch-and-go in the '30s and '40s

I'm not a communist, nor am I advocating communism. I bring this up to point out the importance of not letting them hypnotize you with phantom menaces they manufacture to trick you into taking your eyes off them. All the hoopla about corporations, the Bush Regime, the WTO, globalism, the Bilderbergers, Skull & Bones, blah-di-blah, all this is very much in their interest. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out they're putting out some of the crazier stuff themselves.

There's only one conspiracy that really matters. It's called "class"

The Theory and Practice of Hierarchical Oligarchical Collectivism.
http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/go-goldstein.html

Orwell wrote of "Perpetual War".

It seems there are those who would profit from the "recurrent tendency of human beings to fight with each other in the absence of external enemies" (Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men) by manufacturing "external enemies" when they are not readily available.

Don't be a profitable pawn.

...always get to eat all of the Milk and Apples?

(Read George Orwell's "1984" and its companion "Animal Farm")

And remember Comrades, NO SLEEPING IN BEDS!... errr um, wif sheets.

that's funny coming from the one ( as one views them ) that you can't really tell the difference in, between the 'pigs' and the 'humans'.
He said they were indistinguishable from each other.
Tanks for proving his point.

Read any issue of Fortune or Time or Forbes from the early 1950s. The capitalists were still afraid of communists. They believed, quite correctly, that the US was still a class society, with a working class and a propertied class. This is, partly, how the "middle class" was invented - as a bulwark against the spread of communism.

We're still, somewhat, in the throes of anti-communist public policy. Every effort to help "first time homebuyers" is an attempt to turn renters into owners, because renters are far more likely to have a class resentment against the owner/landlord, than a mortgageholder is to have against their mortgage company.

The push for 401ks was an extension of the attempts to make equity investment more accessible to workers, so that their savings were tied to the stock market rather than the government's bonds, or regulated savings. If workers had a nominal share of their savings in equities, they reasoned, the workers would be less likely to pass laws against other stockowners. (Never mind that thinking like that doesn't make sense until you own a lot of stock.)

Now that communism has been vanquished, the business interests are going after all the New Deal redistribution and welfare programs that they've always hated. They're trying to privatize everything, introduce tiered services, and start re-stratifying the market so that people will be more unequal than ever, and each strata, being a smaller market than the whole market, can be more easily manipulated with artificial shortages and rigged pricing.

Don't bother to read about 1984. Those days are over. Read 1884, because that's how it's going to be.

The best action against racist towns like Hazelton Pn, is to boycott all the goods and try to bleed out the economy. Some "and I underline some" white Americans are so damn lazy that they will not survive if it was not for the hard working Human Being "they call illegal" that are working to make their lives better. I will bet you guys that within several years Hazelton will be filled with a bunch of illiterate, inbred, rednecks with crooked teeth and bellow poverty line income. Other towns are keeping a close eye on Hazelton. They are testing and watching how this town's economy will tumble. Come on folks, this is a small peace of shit town.
God bless the ACLU, and let us keep donating money to the real Americans in the ACLU. Racism will not thrive in the US. We will crush it, just like we crushed it in the south "somewhat!!"
Stay strong my brothers and sisters of color and may you prosper and increase in Number.

Look at the linked site. The city isn't doing so great.

I'd guess that it's the kind of place where people leave to seek their fortune. It could be worse, and the influx of people without college degrees is going to hurt their already not-so-great numbers.

My guess is that the marginal economy set the stage for this influx of immigrants. The got the jobs because the local businesses couldn't think of a better way to make a profit.

The city has boomed, growing 50% in a decade. That's tremendous, and it's coming with growing pains. Mexicans are their scapegoat.

My other guess is that the laws passed because the demographics are heavily white, but primarily "ethnic" whites whose parents immigrated at the end of the 19th century, and into the 20th century: Italians, Slovaks, Polish, Irish, etc. They're white, but not quite as white as WASPs. They probably have "something to prove", and the way they're going to do it is to burn any bridges to their immigrant past.

They're spreading the idea that it's the illegals committing crimes, and the legal ones are not. In fact, if you look at it, it's usually the non-immigrants, the Americans, who are running the crimes, and the immigrants, with or without papers, are the victims.

HOO RAY for HAZELTON!

I don't see how their new law equates to "nazism" and "racism" It would appear that it would affect people who's status in this country is illegal, any ethnicity would be affected by this.

They created three laws, first being making English the official language of Hazleton. I don't see a problem with that, as no else seems to have issues with French being the official language of France, or Castellano being the official language of Spain. Second, they made it illegal to rent to those illegally in this country. That has nothing to do with ethnicity, but simply based on visa status, or lack therof. Third, they made it illegal to hire illegal immigrants, which, by the way, is already a FEDERAL law. It's ashame they have to make these law's simply because the federal goverment refused to enforce them, either due to the bleeding heart left, or the cheap-slave labor loving right.

Also, I also couldn't help but notice you use the word "migrants" to cloud the fact that these laws target ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. Every nation in the world has immigration laws, and if you violate them you are illegal. Countries have the right to their soverignty and can choose to let in who they see fit, not just anyone who walks through the door can be an American.

And before someone throws the racist "anti-hispanic" card out there, I am a Cuban-American, not the typical evil Anglo-Americans you so despise.

What a ridiculous pendejo - obviously you're a guzano- a right wing cuban, always making excuses for the oppressor.

Look pendejo .If this law is approved by the court it will make it illegal to _sell_ anything to a so-called "illegal immigrant. _every brown skinned person will be a suspect, unable even to shop for food. If you don't call that racist, check in with your doctor.

Guzano? I have never heard this term, perhaps you ment GUSANO, but let this not turn into a lesson in grammar. These laws don't target any particular ethnicity, they target people who are here ILLEGALLY, with no visa or valid form of ID. Is there any part of "national soveriegnty" that you DON'T understand? By the way, attacking someone in a debate with insults is very immature. Is that how the far-left argues these days?

It is time to call a national (international?) economic boycott of racist towns such as Hazleton, Pa., a la Cesar Chavez and the FWU. All supporters of immigrant workers rights should refuce to buy products made by companies with headquarters or factories in this town. The following are such companies: Hershey Foods, Dial Corp, and Stroehmann Bakeries. It is time to make their pocket books hurt. Then, they will back off.

Boycott racist towns!!!!

English 101:
Alien:
In law, an alien is a person who is not a citizen of the land where he or she is found. If an alien resides in the country, as opposed to being just a visitor, he or she may be called a "resident alien". The term illegal alien describes foreign nationals who have entered the country illegally.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(law)

Crime:
a violation of a local, state, or federal law.
www.nationaltcc.org/tcc/

Criminal:
A type of case in which the person is charged with a crime and may face penalties including fines, jail time, or imprisonment.
www.goldberg-law.com/legal_vocabulary.htm

Status:
the relative position or standing of things or especially persons in a society.....
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

OK, end of English 101 -

Now, yes - we are a nation of immigrants. We are also a nation of laws. We are expected to obey the laws or pay the legal consequences; that includes congressmen, presidents.. everyone. My children may be starving, but if I break the law to feed them, I will be jailed and/or fined. I know that going into it. If I were to enter another nation illegally, I might not know their laws to the extent that I will know exactly what the consequences are going to be, but I can anticipate that there will be legal consequences if I am caught. It's a given. It's common sense; everybody has some of that, eh? =;o]

Immigration into the United States, Mexico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or any other country on the face of this planet is not a god-given right, nor is it left to every individual to make up their own rules, ad hoc. It is a legal process to be followed, determined by the government of each individual country. There are laws, forms, waiting periods, medical exams, etc. Every country has these laws and they are there for many reasons, none of them racist, anti-immigrant, anti-family, anti-worker, anti-union or anti Latino. The various national immigration laws try to preserve a healthy balance in the community, labor market & social infrastructure. These laws are the product of legislation within each sovereign nation.

No nation on the face of the planet allows citizens of another nation to make its laws.

It is human nature to rationalize one's situation, but the facts are this:

Anyone who has entered the United States or over-stayed their visa limits without going through the proper, legal channels or process is here illegally in that they have broken immigration law.

One who breaks the law has, by definition (see above), commited a crime.

One who commits a crime is, (again - see above) by definition, a criminal.

The status of a foreign national that has entered the country outside of proper channels, process or law is "illegal alien".

So, foreign nationals crossing a national border illegally have indeed ciminalized themselves. By obtaining false documents, sometimes by stealing legal citizens identities, these foreign nationals have further criminalized themselves. If they have unreported income, they have further criminalized themselves.

Those that cross borders illegally and provide false documentation are not victims. They are not citizen of the nation they have entered illegally and have no "rights" but what the invaded nation is willing to grant them in a court of law. They are criminals and should expect to be treated as such.

Makes no difference what country they emmigrated from or immigrated to, there are laws and there are penelties, not rewards, for breaking them.

Play dumb, or play the pity card, ignorance of the law is no excuse and neither is "wanting a better life for my family". Either excuse leads to a conviction in a court of law.

They completely forget that the reason a lot of immigrants (which make them money) are here is the fact that they exploit their people in their countries. It's not as if they weren't already exploited enough by their own government, but then the U.S. has to come and make it worse!!!! For the last 500 years, people of color have been oppressed and taught that acting as much as white people as possible is the way to move up in society, a bunch of sellouts. We have been taught that our culture is worthless as if it began when the Europeans came here. That is the reason people march, not because they want to defy you're sovereignty, but because they think they have been ripped off after you exploit them in their countries, exploit them here, and then blame them for your problems!!!!!!! We are tired of this hypocrisy and selective amnesia and we will continue to march.

And what is the immigration law, exactly? Have you read the immigration codes?

99% of the yahoos talking smack about "a nation of laws" haven't even read the immigration laws. I am fairly certain they don't even know what qualifies people to immigrate here. The few anti-immigrant or anti=illegal-immigrant partisans I've asked... they'd never read the laws.

Despite their ignorance, they certainly had strong
opinions. It's the arrogance of stupidity -- pride, American style.

All you information society internet yahoos: your arguments aren't shit until you can make references to the actual laws.

Just in case you need the info, it's US Code Title 8, Section 12.

in your face nazis!!! BOOM SHOCKA LOCKA!!!!

Class on Pa. town's immigration fight draws fire

By KATHY MATHESON

Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
updated 12:05 p.m. PT, Fri., March. 26, 2010

PHILADELPHIA - When David Lopez came to college in the big city, the immigration tensions in his small Pennsylvania hometown seemed a world away.

So he was surprised to find the discord had followed him 80 miles from Hazleton to Philadelphia. His community was being spotlighted in a Temple University class, "War in Hazleton: Main Street Meets the Global Village," just four years after it became ground zero in the national debate on illegal immigrants.

"It gets really intense in there some days," Lopez said of the course.

The class has drawn the ire of Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, who said he was never asked for any input or to address the students. Barletta, who blames an influx of illegal Hispanic immigrants for a deteriorating quality of life in the struggling former coal town, fears the class is unfairly portraying him as anti-immigrant and anti-Latino.

"I'm surprised and bewildered how a taxpayer-funded school could offer a course without interviewing one of the main principles that the course deals with," Barletta said this week. "There's no way that this course is not being slanted in one direction, which is unfortunate for the students, if that's the case."

Barletta championed a law that targeted landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and businesses that employ them. The law, one of many enacted by local leaders who thought the federal government wasn't doing enough to combat illegal immigration, was thrown out in court. The city is appealing.

Professor Lori Zett said the class provides context, history and background to help students understand why illegal immigrants come to the U.S. It uses Barletta's law as a starting point to examine immigration policy, the global economy and Latin American culture.

Zett noted that courses are often taught without personal appearances from principles, who may be long dead or simply inaccessible, but acknowledges she should have contacted Barletta earlier. The two will meet at a forum next week.

"I just thought he wouldn't be interested, so actually we're all very excited that he is interested," Zett said. "I think he'll find when he comes on the 31st, most of my students will completely agree with him."

The course was proposed last year by Zett and Temple professor Frank Leib, whose family has strong roots in Hazleton. Leib said he hoped the course would include field trips to his hometown, where students could walk the streets, talk with people and interview the mayor. Zett, who has taught the course for two semesters, said field trips were nixed because of logistics and finances.

The class does get first-person perspectives from students like Lopez and Kayla Hartz, both 18-year-old freshmen from Hazleton. They describe the town of 30,000 as bitterly divided over immigration, with no room for shades of gray; both said the class has opened their eyes to issues never discussed at home.

But Hartz feels some legitimate complaints about immigrant-related problems in Hazleton — such as overcrowded schools — don't get much support from Zett or other students.

"People need to actually experience Hazleton before they point the finger," Hartz said.

Terry Halbert, who oversees Temple's core curriculum, said the course represents an effort to teach modern, relevant issues even as the subjects evolve.

"We're trying to find courses that are connected to ongoing controversies or issues that are topical," Halbert said. "I think we're trying to teach our students to keep pace with a complicated and constantly changing world."

Barletta, though, criticized the course's "War in Hazleton" title, saying it's "disrespectful" to military members. Zett agreed it was "a little aggressive" and said she might change it.

The mayor also objected to an early course outline describing Hazleton as a Balkanized community filled "with a fierce mutual distrust." That language is not in the current syllabus.

Barletta, a Republican congressional candidate whose two daughters attended Temple, will meet Zett, a dual U.S.-Italian citizen who spent many years in Venezuela and Colombia, on Wednesday at a forum sponsored by the Temple Law School Republicans.

Organizers originally invited Barletta as part of a series of meet-and-greets with GOP hopefuls, but proposed the forum when they found out about the Hazleton class.

The event, "War in Hazleton: A Forum on U.S. Immigration Policy and its Effect on a Small Town in Pennsylvania," will also feature law professor Jan Ting, who specializes in immigration issues.

Temple, a quasi-public university, has about 37,000 students.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36053284/ns/us_news/

Class on Pa. town's immigration fight draws fire

By KATHY MATHESON

Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
updated 12:05 p.m. PT, Fri., March. 26, 2010

PHILADELPHIA - When David Lopez came to college in the big city, the immigration tensions in his small Pennsylvania hometown seemed a world away.

So he was surprised to find the discord had followed him 80 miles from Hazleton to Philadelphia. His community was being spotlighted in a Temple University class, "War in Hazleton: Main Street Meets the Global Village," just four years after it became ground zero in the national debate on illegal immigrants.

"It gets really intense in there some days," Lopez said of the course.

The class has drawn the ire of Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, who said he was never asked for any input or to address the students. Barletta, who blames an influx of illegal Hispanic immigrants for a deteriorating quality of life in the struggling former coal town, fears the class is unfairly portraying him as anti-immigrant and anti-Latino.

"I'm surprised and bewildered how a taxpayer-funded school could offer a course without interviewing one of the main principles that the course deals with," Barletta said this week. "There's no way that this course is not being slanted in one direction, which is unfortunate for the students, if that's the case."

Barletta championed a law that targeted landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and businesses that employ them. The law, one of many enacted by local leaders who thought the federal government wasn't doing enough to combat illegal immigration, was thrown out in court. The city is appealing.

Professor Lori Zett said the class provides context, history and background to help students understand why illegal immigrants come to the U.S. It uses Barletta's law as a starting point to examine immigration policy, the global economy and Latin American culture.

Zett noted that courses are often taught without personal appearances from principles, who may be long dead or simply inaccessible, but acknowledges she should have contacted Barletta earlier. The two will meet at a forum next week.

"I just thought he wouldn't be interested, so actually we're all very excited that he is interested," Zett said. "I think he'll find when he comes on the 31st, most of my students will completely agree with him."

The course was proposed last year by Zett and Temple professor Frank Leib, whose family has strong roots in Hazleton. Leib said he hoped the course would include field trips to his hometown, where students could walk the streets, talk with people and interview the mayor. Zett, who has taught the course for two semesters, said field trips were nixed because of logistics and finances.

The class does get first-person perspectives from students like Lopez and Kayla Hartz, both 18-year-old freshmen from Hazleton. They describe the town of 30,000 as bitterly divided over immigration, with no room for shades of gray; both said the class has opened their eyes to issues never discussed at home.

But Hartz feels some legitimate complaints about immigrant-related problems in Hazleton — such as overcrowded schools — don't get much support from Zett or other students.

"People need to actually experience Hazleton before they point the finger," Hartz said.

Terry Halbert, who oversees Temple's core curriculum, said the course represents an effort to teach modern, relevant issues even as the subjects evolve.

"We're trying to find courses that are connected to ongoing controversies or issues that are topical," Halbert said. "I think we're trying to teach our students to keep pace with a complicated and constantly changing world."

Barletta, though, criticized the course's "War in Hazleton" title, saying it's "disrespectful" to military members. Zett agreed it was "a little aggressive" and said she might change it.

The mayor also objected to an early course outline describing Hazleton as a Balkanized community filled "with a fierce mutual distrust." That language is not in the current syllabus.

Barletta, a Republican congressional candidate whose two daughters attended Temple, will meet Zett, a dual U.S.-Italian citizen who spent many years in Venezuela and Colombia, on Wednesday at a forum sponsored by the Temple Law School Republicans.

Organizers originally invited Barletta as part of a series of meet-and-greets with GOP hopefuls, but proposed the forum when they found out about the Hazleton class.

The event, "War in Hazleton: A Forum on U.S. Immigration Policy and its Effect on a Small Town in Pennsylvania," will also feature law professor Jan Ting, who specializes in immigration issues.

Temple, a quasi-public university, has about 37,000 students.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36053284/ns/us_news/