Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Neo-Nazi Hate Group Dubs Cinco de Mayo ‘Report An Illegal Day’

Report An Illegal I have not addressed Arizona’s discriminatory, Nazi-like immigration policy head-on, but I had mentioned it within another post on the general discriminatory mindset of Alabama Republican Governor nominee, Tim James.

According to Arizona’s SB 1070, law enforcement officials in Arizona now have the right to demand documentation from any person they personally suspect may be in the country illegally. Several blogs and countless news sources have brought up the fact that Arizona’s new law, which unless it is blocked by legal challenges, will go into effect this summer, could potentially lead to racial profiling. In fact, Janet Napolitano, who formerly served as Arizona’s governor before taking the position of Homeland Security Secretary has stated herself that the bill “certainly could invite profiling” and also said that “the border’s been under more control than ever before,” making this bill an absolute shame.

Sadly, a lot of people are pretty psyched about this discriminatory and racist bill. I have seen countless Facebook groups being created in favor of “taking control of illegal immigration” and “getting those illegals out of our country.” What kind of people are creating, joining and spreading the word of these groups? Well, people like the National Socialist Movement.

In case you’ve never heard of them, the National Socialist Movement is considered by many to be a neo-Nazi hate group. The Yahoo Group page for the movement (because apparently they still live in the 90′s) claims that they are a “civil rights organization for White people of America and around the World.”

Today is May 5th, Cinco de Mayo, a day that celebrates the anniversary of Mexican independence; and to help Arizona in their “anti-immigration efforts,” the National Socialist Movement has declared today “Report An Illegal Day.”

The group has printed up one-page fliers that instruct people to fax or email Congress to demand that the border be secured and to ask local businesses to participate in e-verify and turn people who they suspect to be illegal immigrants into DHS and ICE.

According to Phoenix, Arizona’s ABC affiliate, Phoenix police are “looking into the flyer.”

This is really getting disgusting, people.

Posted in Misc | 5 Comments
Monday, May 3, 2010

Tim James: Your Racist, Bigoted, Republican Nominee for Alabama Governor

A few days ago I saw someone post a video from Tim James, the Republican nominee for Governor of Alabama. After watching it, I wasn’t necessarily surprised since it was a public service announcement from someone openly Republican, but it still made me ridiculously angry; so angry that I left a pretty long comment on the post, which spawned into a bit of a debate of about 40 comments. After going to the source of where this person found the video, I saw that it posted by Justin Taylor, the Mayor of Carbondale, Pennsylvania–the closest sort of big city near me; and this Moderate Democrat Mayor thought it was “awesome.”

After leaving two comments about this video, one on the post where I first saw this video and another on the Mayor of Carbondale’s Facebook page, and getting some varied responses, I thought it was about time to spread the anger-inducing, discriminatory video of doom to all of you.

[The video has been removed from YouTube and I can't seem to find it anywhere. Obviously Tim James realized he put his hand in the wrong pot with his views on the English language and immigration in this country.]

Oh yes, another “if you want to live here, speak the language” declarations from someone who is incredibly proud of their close-mindedness.

Currently, Alabama gives their driver’s license tests in Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Thai and Vietnamese. That exact order was taken directly from Tim James’ own website and it is listed alphabetically instead of by the largest population who speaks a non-English language and so on. A major advantage of this alphabetized list is also so that Arabic can just so happen to be listed first and as a Southern state where most of the population has the deeply embedded “war is great” mindset, they immediately think of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when seeing Arabic and then the mindset easily develops into Arabic > terrorists > we don’t want terrorists operating vehicles in our state.

Tim James seems to be piggybacking on the recent outrageous Arizona immigration policy that gives law enforcement the power to act like Nazis–literally.

According to Arizona’s SB 1070, law enforcement officials have the right to demand documentation from any person they personally feel may be in the country illegally. As Debra W. Haffner, a minister and sexologist, stated, this law is “nothing short of a full-frontal attack on people of Latino descent.” This law could also push racial profiling into law in the state of Arizona and from the looks of it, Tim James is probably sad he didn’t think up this law for Alabama first.

Tim James may also want to look up a little bit on the history Alabama has when it comes to enforcing English-only driver’s license examinations. Alabama politicians have been singing the English-only tune for quite a while now and have racked up millions of dollars in legal fees due to the general close-mindedness that comes with this “speak English or get out of the country” stance.

After an advisory opinion issued by Jimmy Evans, the Attorney General in 1990, Alabama did only offer the driver’s license exam in English and six years later in 1996, the Southern Poverty Law Center defended Martha Sandoval, a Mexican-born Alabama citizen (notice I said citizen, not “illegal immigrant,) who was limited in her ability to speak English and was unable to pass the exam. Because of this, Sandoval had been arrested several times for driving without a license. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal class-action lawsuit under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that said:

“The regulation had impermissible disparate impact on the basis of national origin in violation of Title VI, and was not supported by substantial legitimate justification.”

In 1998, the state of Alabama lost in federal court and the state returned to offering the driver’s license exam in multiple languages and the ruling was upheld by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Current state Republican Governor Bob Riley has been a consistent supporter of English being the official language of the state of Alabama but has maintained the position that based on the US Supreme Court ruling in favor of Sandoval, returning to an English-only driver’s license exam would put the state’s federal transportation dollars in jeopardy since there would be even more class-action lawsuits filed. He, as well as Democratic Governor Don Siegelman stated that the testing options helped people with limited English skills pass the test and become legal drivers, which of course helps these people become active in their communities and help the economy of their communities by being able to work, get an education and stimulate the economy by shopping.

As for the obviously un-researched point James made in his public service announcement about saving the state of Alabama money by only offering the exam in English, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety stated that no extra cost is involved in offering the exam in multiple languages because the test is given automatically by computer.

Obviously, Tim James is proud of the fact that he is a “business man”, but from the looks of it, he is a very poor one.

This video has received a great deal of press nationally and James has defended is political viewpoint many times, even going as far as to making up a very condescending poll on his website saying that while the “far left” has a problem with this language PSA, he believes that “normal” Americans will support this stance. Yes, he did indeed use the word normal, as if saying people on the left are some sort of crazy; what a divisive stance you take when trying to be elected, Tim James, very nice! The poll includes very basic questions as if James believes he is explaining his stance to a crowd of kindergarteners.

Luckily, some Alabama voters are seeing what a dim-witted, discriminatory man Tim James really is and they are making sure their voices are heard in the comments section of the Alabama State Blog.

So no, Tim James, this legal minefield you wish to put your state in does not make sense and it also doesn’t seem to make sense to a good number of the people who will not be voting for you.

Posted in Misc | 5 Comments
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