On the stock-market channel Friday afternoon, just before commercial time, comes news that the Senate of the USA has declared Inglés the “national language” of state. Then comes the commercial, cutting to a Chinese couple standing in a busy airport, somewhat startled by a youngish white man who rushes up to them and says “welcome to America” in Chinese. “I practiced all morning,” says the gleamy-eyed realtor. “I hope you understand. Welcome to America!” The Century 21 realty company calls this new series of ads, “Agents of Change.” But if it's true that the bi-lingual aspirations of the eager realtor qualify him as a change agent, where does that leave the Senate?
When the term “national language” was inserted into immigration legislation this week, it both revealed and escalated power attached to English proficiency. On the one hand, the language of the so-called compromise immigration bill already would require English proficiency as a condition of citizenship. Or as one Senator put it: “If you fail to pass the English proficiency exam, you will be deported.”
To this clear and distinct requirement was added another warning: “Unless otherwise offered or provided by law, no person has a right, entitlement, or claim to have the Government of the United States or any of its officials or representatives act, communicate, perform or provide services, or provide materials in any language other than English” (SAMDT4064). The timing and placement of that language says watch out, when it comes to communicating in languages other than English, the USA is fed up trying.
And so another pander-to-fascists week came to an end in Washington, with little remembrance of the fact that the Senate had declared 2005 “The Year of Foreign Language Study” (SR28); or that legislation is pending “to construct a language arts facility at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico” (S2274); or that the 911 Commission said, even according to compromise co-author Sen. Kennedy, “we ought to give emphasis to other languages and that that was in our national security interest.”
The pander-to-fascist context seemed to relieve many observers from worrying overmuch that anything serious or long lasting will come from the President's call to send National Guard troops to the Mexican border. As in: “isn't he just pandering to fascists? Isn't that what this troop thing is really about?” And then moving on to the next issue, as if it matters not at all that based on this week's fascist pandering soon enough the troops will actually start moving into place.
When the President announced plans for troop deployment, his so-called target audience was only half satisfied. A “Minuteman” spokesman called it a “stop-gap” measure, which again seemed to help observers take comfort that the President was being only a little fascist. More progressive voices picked up the “stop-gap” language and therefore contributed to the impression that the President was being mostly insufficient, stupid, or crazy; when in fact sending thousands of troops to the Mexican border follows the same logic of radical excess that has motivated pre-emptive war, global strike, and torture camps. If this logic has to stop sometime, why not now? In solidarity with a rising immigrant rights movement, the Quakers seemed to get it. So did the ANSWER coalition. This time, these likely suspects are joined by enough insiders that maybe we can quietly snuff this troop deployment before it starts.
Refuting the charge that the troop deployment was merely a pandering insufficiency was none other than the Vice President himself, who came out of his bunker long enough to record an interview on a right-wing radio show that was promptly published at the White House web site. In the interview, the number two leader of the free world explained that good troops can make good fences, and of course good fences are what good neighbors are made of.
Most stunning was the sudden relevance of the New York press, headlining in a timely manner the crucial context to keep in mind: that this is the month when billion dollar bids will be submitted for a megamammoth border contract called SBInet (the Secure Border Initiative Network). Bidders will include such military-industrial behemoths as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. Most interesting is the last-minute entry of the European-based Ericsson company, because they provide surveillance along the Russia-Finland border, matching up nicely with the ideological model of the USA-Mexico border pushed by the fascist crowd's cold-war compulsions.
On the question of ideological models, it would be prudent to consider that the Vice President's description of the next Mexican border sounded a lot like the Israeli border with Palestine. In this context, the Bush-Cheney troop deployment will provide free of charge to the winning bidder of border security services a cadre of perma-temp employees who are already trained, dressed for photo-ops, and security-cleared (in case you missed the simultaneous news this week that the agency in charge of security clearances was shutting down because of poor budgeting).
Sad to say during election year in the USA, it still helps to be a little fascist. Everyone seems to comprende.
Greg Moses is author of Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of Nonviolence.
Republican politicians worked harder than Democrats before the 2000 election and still do. They worked like demons before their 1994 take over of Congress and like fanatics ever since. With fiendish determination, they were on C-Span until late every night spouting lies and drooling hate on their base. Republicans conduct a never ending slash and burn propaganda campaign 24/365, because it works.
How come Democrats don’t have the same commitment and fierce desire to win? Well, for one thing they lack the courage of their convictions, two, they are lazy, and three, they have been whipped into submission by Rupert Murdoch. We have allowed the fascist from down under to corrupt our political system. Then too, our monopolized corporate media has aided and abetted the Rabid Right every step along the way to tyranny.
Republicans are far more committed because they are fighting for their own self-interest: more money, more power and lower taxes. Democrats on the other hand have traditionally fought for the common man.
I’ll wait for you to stop laughing before I continue.
Problem is, Democrats are trying to serve two masters: I believe there are still many democrats who still care about the average guy, but they also have to kiss the hand that feeds them. Money has so corrupted our system that they have no choice but to genuflect to campaign contributors.
Which brings us to the part about Arousing the Base. Democratic politicians can’t help us, hells bells, they can’t even help themselves and Republicans won’t help us, because they serve one master, the plutocracy. We are on our own. When I say we, I generally mean the abandoned half of the country without representation. Specifically, I’m talking about progressive net bloggers. We have gone from being totally ignored to being noticed and attacked in a double time. That means the Rabid Right is feeling the heat. Keep up the good work.
Attack, attack, attack . . . with the truth. Arouse the Base.
by
rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments)
on Friday, May 19, 2006 at 10:00:48 PM
There is nothing fascistic at all about declaring a national language. Look up the definition of Fascism. No one is saying that people shouldn't speak different languages in the USA. They are only saying that official business of the USA is to be conducted in English. Which is as it should be. Your example of the real estate agent and the Chinese couple, with the agent greeting them in Chinese, has nothing to do with the Senate vote and such an incident would be a fine thing to have happen, and is perfectly in harmony with the idea of an official language and no one is saying otherwise. Name calling and scaremongering just make you look stupid.
by
chad (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Saturday, May 20, 2006 at 12:48:44 PM
What a load of poppycock !
Let me tell you....as the child of German immigrants, NONE of us knew the english language when we entered the school system here, when I and my five brothers enrolled in the public school system. Was there "dual language" textbooks made available to German-speaking students ? Was the enrollment documents offered in both German AND English ?They were most certainly was NOT ! Must my first name be Juan, or my last name be Benitez in order to be afforded this "special treatment" at taxpayer expense ? It most certainly LOOKS like it !
No, but I CAN tell you my parents were informed that if we were not properly educated in English BEFORE we enrolled in the school system, they would have no other choice but to exclude myself & my four brothers from an education until we DID have some kind of command of the English language !
Ahhhhhhhhhhh, that's right....my name wasn't Juan Valdez !
by
kruane (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Saturday, May 20, 2006 at 1:07:00 PM
1. It is quite normal for an elected body (Congress) to consider and even decide one language to be the national one to conduct business if and only if that Congress proportionally and fairly represents all the groups of population. Hardly this case.
2. As US originally consists of the conglomerate of people from different parts of the world and its charter as a nation insists on all being equal that puts immediately English language (as a matter of fact, the US version is rather a dialect) en par with others. There was no original ' titular nation' here and as such there is no reason ( except convenience) to put English over others.
You can see the example of Israel where original idea of preserving hebrew as language is dissociating and new immigrants demand the status of their languages.
3. Convenience still matters, of course. But as I said above, only properly constituted body of people's reps can make a decision. This decision has to be not political, but technical: such as for instance, all origianl Spanish - driven papers of official kind are to be considered legitimate and not to be discriminated upon, services are to be provided by the govts to translate to the citizens who cannot read English and also backwards. There has to be a very strict criteria of what does that mean to ' know language' and that ' knowledge' is not supposed to be in any way a condition for, say, employment at the jobs where it is not required. Otherwise our Prez would be out of the job; he does not know English. So will be most of our senators whose command of English is disastrous.
4. Last, but not least. The way the Congress behaved now was not to the interests of the unification of the citizens of the US but a blatant exercise of power, bigotry and in your face attitude. It not just unwise, it is irresponsible. As Taleighrant said,'It is not just a crime, it is a mistake'.
All our laws we have to consider from only one angle: either those unite us or divide us. There can be a good idea which being introduced wrongly only makes harm. This is the case here. And we, the Americans will have to bear that burden further on. Just read the comments above and you all will see the first bad seeds of that stupidity.
by
Mark Sashine (42 articles, 19 quicklinks, 226 diaries, 3212 comments)
on Monday, May 22, 2006 at 7:34:12 AM
Was it pastor Nehmoller who said that first they came for the Communists, and then the liberals and Jews and then they came for me. I ask the critics of Greg Moses to consider that the ongoing war of the rich against the poor can lead to fascism. According to the guy who invented fascism, Benito Mussolini - "Fascism should properly be called corporatism because it is the marriage of state power with corporation power." With the whole congress refusing to side with Russ Feingold on his call for censure and his demand for an independent investigator to oversee the ethics committees . . . I would say that we are well along in our slide to fascism and only an open terroristic dictatorship will complete the job.
Legislating against eleven million poor people who have taken to the streets is not going solve the problem of the demografic shift caused by the World Bank,NAFTA, and the WTO. These corporation policies have destroyed rural economies in the third world and trying to halt this process with fences is going to bring more people into the streets. Corporation rule in our government is making life miserable for more people than Latino's.
by
gramps (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 109 comments)
on Monday, May 22, 2006 at 12:35:07 PM
