Decoding Immigration Doublespeak
This is about as good a summary of the recent immigration protest demos as can be found anywhere. There’s more there than I have passed on here…including a lot of embedded links to other reportage on the demos.
The elite media have always been out of touch with American values, and their reporting has often been at odds with reality. (See “Offensive, Tet.”) However, their coverage of the last week’s massive pro-illegal immigration rallies bordered (no pun intended) on the Orwellian, virtually requiring one to believe the inverse of everything they reported. Among their many distortions, sanitizations, euphemisms, and lies were:
“Pro-Immigration Rallies.” The elite media consisted presented the protests as rallies in favor of immigration or immigrants rights….The sympathy of the masses would be moved in quite another way were these described by more accurate terms, like “Open Borders Rallies,” “Pro-Lawbreaking Rallies,” “Anti-Homeland Security Rallies,” or “Massive Collections of Perhaps Felonious Welfare Recipients.”
Rallying for their Rights. The “pro-immigration” rallies inevitably demanded “rights.”…America grants this dignity to non-citizens because of her innate goodness, not because of any binding legal obligation. The only inalienable “rights” illegals enjoy under our system is the right to remain silent, the right to a speedy trial, and right-of-way on the first southbound mass transit system.
Organized by Hispanic Radio. As with the last rallies, the “mainstream” media claimed “Hispanic radio” pumped out a half-million demonstrators in Los Angeles and tens of thousands more nationwide….as noted elsewhere, the organizers were less benign: left-wing labor unions, far-Left Open Borders groups, Hispanic racists, and anarchist organizations. Again, the media buried these details. The Times noted, “The action was supported by a wide array of political, religious, labor and civic figures, including Robert Morlino, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Madison, state Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, and Mayor David Cieslewicz of Madison.” The Washington Post quoted L.A. protest organizer Maria Elena Durazo of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, who in a moment of unguarded candor acknowledged the massive pro-lawbreaking rally “was not an overnight thing.” WaPo adds, “Among labor unions, the Service Employees International Union played a central role in helping to organize rallies in a number of cities, including on the Mall.” The union Unite Here also involved. So, too, was International ANSWER, a prime organizer of this event. Ditto the Aztlan partisans at La Raza.
Patriotic and Pro-American. The protestors’ sudden affinity for the Stars-and-Stripes fooled no one in Middle America – and a few of the organizers were surprisingly forthright about their disingenuous motives. The L.A. Times reported Cardinal Roger Mahony told his flock to put away Mexican and Latin American flags: “They do not help us get the legislation we need.”
The Republican Bill “Criminalizes Undocumented Workers. The rallies were allegedly called to oppose the GOP House immigration bill, sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, which would “criminalize” illegals….Of course, illegal immigrants are, ipso facto, criminals; hence, the modifier illegal. The House bill would not change their status as lawbreakers deserving deportation; it would merely raise the penalty from a misdemeanor to a felony. Such a move may not be the wisest course of action (or it may be), but that is an internal matter for American citizens to determine.
This is a Civil Rights Rally. Observing these uprisings by individuals who have no right to be in our country, the New York Times summarized, “some immigrant advocates [are beginning] to hail what they describe as the beginnings of a Hispanic civil rights movement.”…these illegal immigrants – who “only come into this country to work” – rallied by the thousands for their “right” to continue to collect welfare without even pretending to be U.S. citizens.