Friday, March 31, 2006
Teachers: Prepare To Check Your First Amendment Rights at the Classroom Door
Judge Rules Teachers Have No Free Speech Rights in Class
by Matthew Rothschild
March 28, 2006
The Progressive
Here's an update on Deb Mayer, the teacher who said her contract was not renewed because she answered a student's question about whether she would participate in a demonstration for peace.
Her case involves an incident that occurred on January 10, 2003, at Clear Creek Elementary School in Bloomington, Indiana.
The students were reading an article in Time for Kids about peace protests. She responded to the student’s question by saying she sometimes honks for peace and that it’s important to seek out peaceful solutions both on the playground and in society. Afterwards, the parents of one of the students got angry and insisted that she not speak about peace again in the classroom. Mayer’s principal so ordered her.
When the school district did not renew Mayer’s contract at the end of the semester, she sued for wrongful termination and for violation of her First Amendment rights.
On March 10, Judge Sarah Evans Barker dismissed Mayer’s case, granting summary judgment to the defendants.
The judge said the school district was within its rights to terminate Mayer because of various complaints it received from parents about her teaching performance.
But beyond that, Judge Barker ruled that “teachers, including Ms. Mayer, do not have a right under the First Amendment to express their opinions with their students during the instructional period.”
The judge ruled that “school officials are free to adopt regulations prohibiting classroom discussion of the war,” and that “the fact that Ms. Mayer’s January 10, 2003, comments were made prior to any prohibitions by school officials does not establish that she had a First Amendment right to make those comments in the first place.” The judge also implied that Mayer, by making her comments, was attempting to “arrogate control of the curricula.”
And the judge gave enormous leeway to school districts to limit teachers’ speech in the classroom.
“Whatever the school board adopts as policy regarding what teachers are permitted to express in terms of their opinions on current events during the instructional period, that policy controls, and there is no First Amendment right permitting teachers to do otherwise,” Judge Barker wrote.
The judge “has simply gotten the law wrong,” says Michael Schultz, Mayer’s attorney. “There is a long line of authority that teachers do not check their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door. And, in this case, Ms. Mayer was asked for her opinion in the context of teaching the approved curriculum. She only gave her opinion in a very appropriate, limited way and then related the issue to the students' lives (i.e., on the playground), and then moved on in the lesson. If giving one's opinion in response to a legitimate (and predictable) question is fair game for making a decision to terminate a teacher, who will want to teach? And, more importantly, what impact will this state of affairs have on the quality of instruction?”
Mayer says she’s going to appeal. “It’s too important not to,” she says. “Teachers everywhere are at risk because of what this judge has said.”
Matthew Rothschild has been with The Progressive since 1983.
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Thursday, March 30, 2006
Post M-3 Rumors
TWO TRILLION $
FEDERAL RESERVE ORDERS TWO TRILLION DOLLARS TO BE PRINTED AND PUT INTO CIRCULATION! SOURCES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES TREASURY ARE FLABBERGASTED!
INFO CORROBORATED BY THREE SEPARATE U.S. TREASURY SOURCES
Six months ago, the Federal Reserve quietly announced that as of March 20, 2006, they would no longer publish "M3" Data. The "M3" was the amount of cash the government printed to put into circulation, propping-up the U.S. economy.
As of eight days ago, M3 data is no longer being reported, so there is no way for the public, investors or bond holders to know how much currency exists - and no way to gauge how much a "dollar" is truly worth.
Three separate sources in the U.S. Treasury have told me that this week, the federal reserve ordered TWO TRILLION dollars to be printed! The U.S. Treasury is allegedly running printing presses 24/7 to accommodate that order. Treasury employees were specifically ORDERED not to talk about this to anyone because it could cause economic collapse.
Even worse, I was also told that the whole Immigration Amnesty Debate (especially the well-funded well-attended protests) was deliberately scheduled to take place now, to divert attention from this massive printing/devaluation of the U.S. Dollar. The feds allegedly figured that by the time anyone found out, they could smooth things over. They figured wrong. Surprise, boys, you've been exposed!
Watch for Gold and silver to skyrocket in price within days as the world wises up and begins dumping the U.S. Dollar.
UPDATE: As of 9:05 AM this morning, Silver is at a ten year high and Gold is within a few dollars of a 25 year high. The U.S. Dollar is falling against all major world currencies. More details as they become available.
SPP Update: Fox Urges U.S., Canada, To Accept "Guest Workers"
Fox urges U.S., Canada to accept guest workers
By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 29, 2006
Mexican President Vicente Fox is calling on Canada to accept more low-skilled Mexican workers in its temporary work force, making his push for guest workers a continentwide affair.
"We should move out from agriculture to other services and other kinds of jobs, and we are working on this with the Canadian government," Mr. Fox said in yesterday's edition of the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper.
He is asking U.S. officials to legalize the estimated 6 million illegal-alien Mexicans in the United States and wants Congress to create a guest-worker program for low-skilled foreigners.
Immigration promises to be a dominant issue in the run-up to the meeting this week among Mr. Fox, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Bush. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the leaders will discuss guest-worker programs and cross-border security efforts.
"There are responsibilities on both sides, and we all need to work together to make sure those responsibilities are met," Mr. McClellan said.
The Senate is debating immigration and appears to be headed toward approving some form of a guest-worker program. In December, the House passed an immigration-enforcement bill that does not include guest-worker provisions.
Mexican officials have been critical of the House bill, particularly an amendment that calls for building nearly 700 miles of fence along the border.
The Bush administration supported the House bill, but Mr. Bush told CNN Espanol yesterday that fencing off the border is "impractical." He did say that the U.S. Border Patrol needs more tools.
He also said he has told Mr. Fox that Mexico must work to secure its own southern border, through which hundreds of thousands pass illegally on their way to the United States.
Mr. Bush rejected the Mexican government's claim in U.S. newspaper advertisements to a role in the U.S. debate, saying that although "thoughtful suggestions" are welcome, Congress will write the bill.
The president is trying to keep a lid on simmering tensions over immigration, and has cautioned several times over the past week for a "civil" debate.
But some members of Congress say Mexican officials have crossed that line too often.
"Americans are tired of being told that they are bigots by the likes of President Fox and Foreign Minister [Luis Ernesto] Derbez," Rep. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican, wrote in a letter yesterday to Mr. Bush.
"I respectfully request that you publicly make it clear to both men that their clumsy, over-the-top rhetoric about internal U.S. political matters pertaining to our border security is unwarranted and unacceptable."
Neither a spokesman at the Mexican Embassy in Washington nor a Canadian government spokesman could be reached for comment.
In his newspaper interview, Mr. Fox also disputed the size of the illegal Mexican population in the United States, saying it is between 3 million and 4 million, rather than 6.2 million as reported by the Pew Hispanic Center in March 2005.
END
[Actually, the figure is somewhere between 12 and 20 million.]
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
SPP: The Cancun Agenda
Today might set a record for posts here--but there's been a lot going on (including articles I am writing against deadlines). A few readers have actually replied to some of the earlier posts. Responses to those will just have to wait; at the moment I don't have time, as things are happening too quickly. But for now it seems worthwhile to recommend identifying your enemy: not the illegal alien per se but the globalist banking cartel and those who have surrounded them--politicians of both major parties, wealthy CEOs of multi-billion-dollar transnational corporations, and their well-paid shills in the mainstream media, in the big foundations and in the so-called think tanks. All of these share in the blame for the ongoing destruction of the United States of America, Constitutional republic. Always ask: who benefits? Who will benefit, in the long run, from converting 12 to 20 million illegal aliens to 12 to 20 million wage slaves who never knew anything about Constitutionally limited government or the rule of law. And always ask: is "globalization" a natural process brought about by changes in technology or a carefully orchestrated one brought about by an international banking cartel that has been promoting global hegemony and empire for decades? The answer to this last: it is not changing technology, since the idea of global hegemony was around when the Council on Foreign Relations was formed in 1921, long before any of today's telecommunications or Web technology was ever dreamt of. We had, after all, refused to join the (globalist) League of Nations.
In any event, even as I write, our globalist President George W. Bush, Mexico's Vicente Fox and Canada's Stephen Harper are meeting in Cancun and continuing the globalist scheme for "integrating" North America. This comes courtesy of Joan Masters (thanks) who has penned some commentary of her own which will come next. I think it will prove worth reading.
Then we get to Lou Dobbs, whose criticisms of our global elites have always been sensible if limited (I don't think he sees the entire picture, but he sees some of it--and more than most).
Joan: "They do the jobs Americans won't do? Horse manure!"
I've been thinking about the idea being touted around that illegals only take the hard and dirty jobs Americans wont. And I have to say that is a baldfaced lie!
My oldest son went to school with a young fellow named Mark and they've been friends for many years.
Mark graduated from high school and got a job in his township as a trash collector. He married young and he and his wife bought a home where they raised three lovely children - one who became a doctor, one graduated from college last year, and one is still in the local high school. All of them supported by their father and he put two through college - one through medical school. He still works as a trash collector.
Still think Americans wont work at certain jobs but immigrants will?
My oldest son, big for his 11 years, got part time jobs. One summer he cleaned out underneath the big commercial trampolines that were all the rage that year. Sometimes, after a rain, he stood in mud up to his waist. As a young teenager he got a summer job working with roofers . His job was to make sure the tar was stirred in the kettle over the fire. Then he would lift the tar buckets up to the roofers. He'd come home at night and I'd put salve on his burnt hands and arms. He worked as a packer in a grocery store, and as the boy who carried out people's groceries and loaded them in their cars. He worked one summer in Washington, helping to lift the huge ceiling tiles for the metro stations being built then. Another summer he worked in a cement factory, laying cement in wooden squares used for floors in apartment buildings. And he worked his own way through college before he volunteered as a Marine and went to Vietnam.
Another son was never without some kind of job, starting also about age eleven. He helped the Jewel Tea Co. delivery man carry orders to customers at home, riding on the back of a truck. One job he had was cleaning out the grease traps in a restaurant. He worked at the cement factory, too, and also helped lift the tiles for the Metro's ceiling in DC. One year he worked for a horse trainer, walking the horses around the Maryland track and rubbing them down later. Also shoveled out horse stalls. He and a friend spent a summer tarring people's driveways. Another summer cutting down trees for a local contracter. He worked days in a factory taking molded materials out of a burning hot oven and at night he'd go to the baseball statium and cut and squeeze lemons for the fellow who sold lemonade. He'd come home and his burnt hands would be stinging from the lemon juice and I'd wrap them in salve bandages.
Their father and I never told them they couldn't work at any job, because this is what they wanted to do.
These are only the jobs I can remember they had. There were many more I've forgotten.
It is an insult to the American people to say someone from a foreign country has to come to the United States to do the jobs they wont do.
Maybe the president was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and never had to do anything but learn to ride horseback and water ski before going off to Yale.
Americans are known for being the work horses of the world. No French 35 hours a week for them!
After all, who crossed an ocean and looked at the forests of primitive America and planted the farmlands? and built the cities? and raised the factories and the skyscrapers? and dug the canals and built the dams?
The president should ask himself those questions. Or didn't they tell him at Yale who built America?
Joan
----- Original Message -----
From: Nick Ivanovich
To:
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 3:41 PM
Subject: AMNESTY - BUSH - FOX and The Cancun Agenda
Bush Reveals True Motive for Open Borders,
His Actions Speak Even Louder!
Lawbreakers in Congress Caused This Mess!
They Violated Their Constitutional Oath to Protect the Borders
Result: Amnesty for 20 Million;
Businesses Can Still Hire Illegals
Problem: No One is Accountable.
Today ! March 29, 2006. As the Full Senate is Preparing For Debate Of The Immigration Reform Bill Passed By Senate Judiciary Committee; Mexican President Vicente Fox Is Meeting in Cancun With President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper;
From: Lou Dobbs Tonight - CNN - March 28
President Vicente Fox took credit for the illegal immigration legislation approved by the Judiciary Committee.
!
President Fox said the bill resulted from five years of work that began with his inauguration as Mexico's president in 2000.
See Building a North American Community," Fox says it's one step closer to Mexico's goal of "legalization for everyone" who works in the United States."
Speaking about the massive demonstrations in Los Angeles over the past few days, Alberto Tinoco of Televisa television network said, "With all due respect to Uncle Sam, this shows Los Angeles has never stopped being ours."
President Bush said he sees no problem with the Mexican government's full-page newspaper ads last week intended to influence the U.S. political debate on illegal immigration.
Is Bush proposing a permanent indentured class - Hard work for below market wages? Who profits?
GEORGE W. BUSH, I mean, rather than have people sneaking across the border to come and do jobs that Americans won't do [An Insult], it seems like it makes sense for people to be given an identification card that they can come! and use to do a job on a temporary basis so they can go back and forth freely with this tamper-proof ID card
USA Citizenship for Sale - Cheap! Work here for 11 years and pay $2000.
Are credit cards accepted? Spread the word!
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: ”If you can for an 11-year period have a good, -- obey the law, be proficient if English, be constantly employed, pay a $2,000 fine after 11 years, I think you've earned the right to be an American citizen.”
Watch Video Tape http://www.americanpatrol.com/WMV/060329-Dobbs-MexiSkunksGloat-56K.wmv
WATCH CNN LOU DOBBS TONIGHT 5PM CENTRAL
The Cancun Agenda
Transcript
LOU DOBBS TONIGHT
[Aired March 28, 2006 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT, news, debate and opinion for Tuesday, March 28.
Live in New York, Lou Dobbs.
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everybody.
One day after the Senate Judiciary Committee's vote to legalize millions of illegal aliens in this country, the full Senate is set to begin historic debate over immigration reform, but not yet. It seems there is a severely divided opinion.
We're live on Capitol Hill with the story. And I'll be joined by Senator Jon Kyl and Senator Jeff Sessions. They're launching a new fight in the Senate against that amnesty for illegal aliens.
Also tonight, why organized labor and special interest groups and big business are also heavily in favor of illegal alien amnesty. Why is that?
We begin with Republicans in the Senate preparing to battle members of their own part! y over the issues of border security and the president's demands for a guest worker program, amnesty for illegal aliens. The full Senate is preparing for a debate of the so-called comprehensive immigration reform bill passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee last night. But that plan to give millions of illegal aliens legal status has already divided the Republican Party.
Dana Bash live on Capitol Hill with the story -- Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Now, Lou, senators all day, really all last night and this morning, had been haggling over just how to bring this complicated and divisive issue to the Senate floor.
And what we now believe is going to happen, probably starting tomorrow, is that they're actually going to be debating two measures at the same time, one from the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, which deals just with border security and not the so-called guest worker program, and also with the measure that the Senate Judiciary Committee passed last night, which of course does deal with the guest worker program and puts illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship.
Now, what we will likely see over the next week and a half is essentially, as you mentioned, a free-for-all. A debate that will likely fall down. The way it will fall down, I should say, is going to be anybody's guess, but it will certainly further illustrate the deep divide in the Republican Party.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: If you can for an 11-year period have a good, -- obey the law, be proficient if English, be constantly employed, pay a $2,000 fine after 11 years, I think you've earned the right to be an American citizen. I think that's a win-win.
SEN. GEORGE ALLEN (R), VIRGINIA: The bill that's coming out of the Judiciary Committee awards illegal behavior. And I think if you reward illegal behavior, you'll get more illegal behavior.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I mean, rather than have people sneaking across the border to come and do jobs that Americans won't do, it seems like it makes sense for people to be given an identification card that they can come and use to do a job on a temporary basis so they can go back and forth freely with this tamper-proof ID card and not have to sneak across, so that our border patrol agents on both sides of the border are really dealing with, you know, drug smuggling or gun smuggling or terrorists trying to sneak into the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: President Bush also said he sees no problem with the Mexican government's full-page newspaper ads last week intended to influence the U.S. political debate on illegal immigration. President Bush says he appreciates the input, as he put it, from the Mexican government.
Mexican President Vicente Fox took credit for the illegal immigration legislation approved by the Judiciary Committee. President Fox particularly pleased with provisions for a so-called guest worker program for illegal aliens residing in this country.
President Fox said the bill resulted from five years of work that began with his inauguration as Mexico's president in 2000. Fox says it's one step closer to Mexico's goal of "legalization for everyone" who works in the United States."
Mexican media commentators went even further. They see a reversal of Mexico's defeat in the Mexican-American War of 1848.
Speaking about the massive demonstrations in Los Angeles over the past few days, Alberto Tinoco of Televisa television network said, "With all due respect to Uncle Sam, this shows Los Angeles has never stopped being ours."
President Fox brings his illegal immigration agenda to Cancun this week for trilateral summit talks with President Bush and Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper. The three leaders will also discuss, among other issues, border security and so-called free trade.
Casey Wian reports from Cancun.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A year ago, they were called the three amigos: President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. Their meeting at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch focused on several issues, including the United States' desire for stronger border security, Mexico's demand for amnesty for millions of its citizens living illegally in the U.S., and Canada's push for a new way to resolve trade disputes. But the only accomplishment was an agreement to meet again, and the same issues will be on the table this week in Cancun with a new amigo, Canada's new prime minister, Stephen Harper.
Last year, the Minuteman Project in Arizona was just beginning. Now border security and immigration reform are at the top of the United States agenda.
BUSH: If I keep the promise of America we must enforce the laws of America. We must also reform those laws. No one is served by an immigration system that allows large numbers of people to sneak across the border illegally. Nobody benefits when illegal immigrants live in the shadows of society.
WIAN: But Mexican president Vicente Fox only agrees with half that statement. He supports the renewed push in the United States Senat! e for amnesty, but he's lobbying hard to defeat the House bill that would crack down on illegal aliens.
VICENTE FOX, MEXICAN PRESIDENT: They're working with dignity, with productivity. They're doing fine in contributing to the United States economy. The least they deserve is to be recognized as legal in their work and recognize their human and labor rights.
WIAN: Now he's even demanding that Canada accept more Mexican guest workers. Canada's Harper has not publicly responded. He's expected to challenge another U.S. border security effort that would require Canadians to show secure identification like a passport for crossing the United States border.
Casey Wian, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: This program will be broadcasting from the trilateral summit in Cancun beginning tomorrow night. We will, of course, be reporting all the major issues of the summit and its agenda: illegal immigration, border security, the expansion of the North American Security Perimeter, as it is called, and so-called free trade, and a great deal more.
We hope you'll be with us.
CNN LOU DOBBS TONIGHT 5PM CENTRAL
The Photo That Should Kill Amnesty for Illegal Aliens!
03/28 : Student protest
Whittier area students from Pioneer, California and Whittier high schools walked out of classes to protest the proposed federal immigration bill March 27, 2006. The protestors put up the Mexican flag over the American flag flying upside down at Montebello High. (Leo Jarzomb/Staff photo)
For more information and more photos, go here.
Out of the Vault: Patrick J. Buchanan Addresses the Council on Foreign Relations on Trade
Warning: this critique of the ideology of so-called free trade is as hard-hitting as anything I've seen recently.
10 AMERICAN FREE PRESS
October 19, 2001
Buchanan Admonishes Council on Foreign Relations
In November 1998, Pat Buchanan addressed the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, blasting the internationalists for their religious support of free trade. Buchanan's moving words are as meaningful and relevant today as they were then.
By Patrick J. Buchanan
TEDDY ROOSEVELT
No tree trader.
TMm is a prestigious forum ; and I 'appreciate the opportunity to address it. As my subject, I have chosen what I believe is the coming and irrepressible conflict between the claims of a new American nationalism and the commands of the global economy.
As you may have heard in my last campaign, I am called by many names. 'Protectionist" is one of the nicer ones; but it in inexact. I am an economic nationalist . To me, the country comes before the economy ; and the economy exists for the people . I believe in free markets, but I do not worship them. In the proper hierarchy of things, it is the market that must be harnessed to work for man-and not the other way around.
As for the global economy, like the unicorn, it is a mythical beast that exists only in the imagination. In the real world, there are only national economies--Japan's that has lost its animal spirits, South Korea's that is deep in recession, Brazil's which is falling, Indonesia and Russia's which are in collapse .
In these unique national economies, critical decisions are based on what in best for the nation. Only in America do leaders sacrifice the interests of their own country on the altar of that golden calf, the global economy.
What is economic nationalism? Is it some right-wing or radical idea? By no means. Economic nationalism was the idea and cause that brought Washington, Hamilton and Madison to Philadelphia . These men dreamed of creating here in America the greatest free market on earth, by eliminating all internal barriers to trade among the 13 states, and taxing imports to finance the turnpikes and canals of the new nation and end America's dependence on Europe. It was called the American system .
The ideology of free trade is the alien import, an invention of European academics and scribblers, not one of whom ever built a great nation, and all of whom were repudiated by America's greatest statesmen, including all four presidents on Mount Rushmore .
The second bill that Washington signed into law was the Tariff Act of 1789 . Madison saved the nation's infant industries from being buried by the dumping of British manufactures, with the first truly protective tariff, the Tariff Act of 1816. "Give me a tariff and I will give you the greatest nation on earth," said Lincoln. "I thank God I am not a free trader," Theodore Roosevelt wrote to Henry Cabot Lodge.
Under economic nationalism, there was no income tax in the United States, except during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Tariffs produced 60 to 90 percent of federal revenue. And how did America prosper? From 1866 to 1913, U.S. growth averaged 4 percent a year. We began the era with half Britain's production, but ended with twice Britain's production .
Yet, this era is now disparaged in history books and public schools as the time of the Robber Barons, a Gilded Age beat forgotten.
Not only did America rise to greatness through economic nationalism, so did every other first-rank power in history-from Britain in the 18th century, to Bismark's Germany in the 19th, to post-war Japan.
Economic nationalism has been the policy of rising nations, free trade the practice of nations that have commenced their historic decline.
-
KARL MARX Loved free trade .
This idea may be mocked by the talking heads, but it is going to prevail again in America, for it alone comports with the national interests of the United States.
The great free-market economist Milton Friedman is credited with the line, "there is no free lunch ." Let me amend Friedman's Law with Buchanan's Corollary:
Free trade is no free lunch. And it is time its costs were calculated.
Back in 1848, another economist wrote that if free trade were ever adopted, societies would be torn apart .
His name was Karl Marx, and he wrote : ' . . . the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point . . . the Free trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone . . . I am in favor of Free Trade."
What is economic nationalism? Is it right-wing or radical idea? By no means .
Economic nationalism was the idea and cause that brought Washington, Hamilton
and Madison to Philadelphia . These men dreamed of creating the greatest free
market on earth, by eliminating all internal barriers to trade .
Marx was right . Here, then, is the first cost of open borders free trade. It exacerbates the divisions between capital and labor. It separates societies into contending classes, and deepens the division between rich and poor . Under free trade, economic and social elites, whose jobs and incomes are not adversely impacted by imports or immigration, do well. For them, these have been the best of times. America's richest one percent controlled 21 percent of the national wealth in 1949 ; in 1997 it was 40 percent . CEO salaries were 44 times the average wage of their workers in 1965 ; by 1996 they were 212 times an average worker's pay.
How has Middle America fared? Between 1972 and 1994, the real wages of working Americans fell 19 percent. In 1970, the price of a new house was twice a young couple's income; it is now four times . In 1960, 18 percent of women with children under six were in the work force ; by 1995 it had risen 63 percent. The U .S . has a larger percentage of women in its work force than any industrial nation, yet median family income fell 6 percent in the first six years of the 1990s .
Something is wrong when wage earners work harder and longer just to stay in the same place . Under the free trade regime, economic insecurity has become a preexisting condition of life .
A second cost of global free trade is a loss of independence and national sovereignty. America was once a self-reliant nation; trade amounted to only 10 percent of GNP; imports only 4 percent. Now, trade is equal to 25 percent of GNP; and the trade surpluses we ran every year from 1900-1970 have turned into trade deficits for all of the last 27 years .
Since 1980 our total merchandise trade deficit adds up to $2 trillion. This year's trade deficit is approaching $300 billion. Year in and year out, we consume more than we produce . This cannot last. Look at what this is doing to an industrial plant that once produced 40 percent of all that the world produced .
In 1965, 31 percent of the U.S . labor force had manufacturing equivalent jobs . By 1997, it was down to 15 percent, smallest share in 100 years .
More Americans now work in government than in manufacturing . We Americans no longer make our own cameras, shoes, radios, TV's, toys. A fourth of our steel, a third of our autos, half our machine tools, two-thirds of our textiles are foreign made . We used to be the world's greatest creditor nation; now, we are its greatest debtor .
And American sovereignty is being eroded . In 1994, for the first time, the U .S . joined a global institution, the World Trade Organization, where America has no veto power and the one-nation, one-vote rule applies. Where are we headed? Look at the nations of Europe that are today surrendering control of their money, their immigration policy, their environmental policy, even defense policy-to a giant socialist superstate called the EU.
A third cost of the global economy is America's vulnerability to a financial collapse caused by events beyond our control. When Mexico, with an economy no larger than that of Illinois threatened a default in 1994, the United States cobbled together a $50 billion bailout, lest Mexico's default bring on what Michel Camdessus of the IMF called "global financial catastrophe ."
When tiny Asian dominoes began to fall in 1997, the IMF had to put together $117 billion in bailouts of Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, lest the Asian crisis bring down all of Latin America and the rest of the world with it .
In the global economy, the world is always just one default away from disaster.
A fourth cost of this global economy is the de-industrialization of America and the de-Americanization of our industries . Many of our Fortune 500 corporations have already shed their American identity . When Gilbert Williamson, then president of NCR, was asked about U.S. workers being unable to compete in a global economy, he dismissed the question with this remark: "I was asked the other day about U.S. competitiveness, and I replied that I don't think about it at all . We at NCR think of ourselves as a globally competitive company that happens to be headquartered in the United States."
Many companies still carry fine old American names, but their work forces are becoming less and less American. In 1985, GE employed 243,000 Americans ; 10 years later, it was down to 150,000. IBM has lopped off half of its U .S . workers in the past decade.
Boeing's Philip Condit says he would be happy if, 20 years from now, no one thought of Boeing as an American company.
Here is Carl A. Gerstacker of Dow Chemical : "I have long dreamed of buying an island owned by no nation and of establishing the World Headquarters of the Dow Company on the truly neutral ground of such an island, beholden to no nation or society ."
To this new corporate elite, putting America first betrays a lack of loyalty to the company. Some among our political elite share this view. Here is Strobe Talbott, Clinton's roommate at Oxford and architect of his Russian policy: "All countries," said Talbott in 1991, "are basically social arrangements . . . No matter how permanent and even sacred they may seem at any one time, in fact they are all artificial and temporary . . . within the next 100 years . . . nationhood as we know it will be obsolete ; all states will recognize a single, global authority."
This is the transnational elite, our new Masters of the Universe.
The Cold War has been succeeded by a new struggle . The real divisions of our time," writes scholar Christisan Kopff, "are not between left and right, but between nations and the globalist delusion ." That struggle will shape the politics of the new century ; and a familiar question is being asked again across America: When the commands of the global economy conflict with call of patriotism, whose side are you on?
If you would see the consequences of free trade ideology, go to Detroit. In the 1950s this was the forge and furnace of the Arsenal of Democracy, with 2 million of the most productive people on Earth. Compare Detroit then to Detroit now. Free trade is not free .
Forty years ago, Japan exported 6,000 cars. Today, Japan has as large a share of the U.S . auto and truck market as GM . How did Japan do it? Yes, they built fine cars ; but the Japanese did not leave the outcome of this struggle for dominance in the world's first industry to the vagaries of the market place. The Japanese fixed the game . Japan virtually sealed off its market to U .S. auto imports, subsidized its auto industry and exports, and paid its workers 16 percent of U .S. wages in factories that would have had to be shut down in the United States. Tokyo's political and industrial elite did not let Adam Smith dictate how they would play the game .
In short, 'Tokyo in the 1970s and 1980s looked on our auto market the way their grandfathers looked on China in the 1920s and 30s-as an inviting target'for conquest.
They did not read Richard Cobden on free trade ; they read Alexander Hamilton, who would never have allowed Japan to overrun our auto industry, our radio industry, or our television industry .
Remember NAFTA. This treaty was going to open Mexico to U.S. auto exports. Well, in 1996, we shipped 46,000 cars to Mexico; and Mexico sent 550,000 cars back to us . Where did Mexico get its booming auto industry? From Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri .
In the 1950s, "Engine Charlie" Wilson immortalized himself with the remark, "What's good for America is good for General Motors, and vice versa ." What Engine Charlie said was true, when he said it. We see that now as we watch GM closing factories here and opening up abroad. GM's four newest plants are going up in Argentina, Poland, China, and Thailand. "GM's days of building nerd plants in North America may be over," says The Wall Street Journal .
GM used to be the largest employer in the United States; today, it is the largest employer in Mexico where it has built 50 plants in 20 years . In Juarez alone, there are 18 plants of Delphi Automotive, a GM subsidiary . Across from Juarez, El Paso is becoming a glorified truck stop, as Texans watch their manufacturing jobs go south.
Volkswagen has closed its U .S. plant in the Mon Valley and moved production of its new Beetle into Mexico, where it will produce 450,000 vehicles this year . Wages at Volkswagens plant in Puebla average $1.69 an hour, one-third of the U.S. minimum wage
If you remove all trade barriers between a Third World economy like Mexico and a First World country like the United States, First World manufacturers will head south, to the advantage of the lower wages, and the Third World workers will head north, to the advantage of the higher wages . Economics 101 .
October 15, 2001
AMERICAN FREE PRESS
11
Relations; Free Trade Dangerous Not Free
Shortly after the terror attack on Sept . 11, the U.S . economy took a serious nose dive, leaving many to ask: What happened? Three years ago, in a speech before the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, Pat Buchanan . laid it all out to America's top policy advisors, chiding them for their devout support of free trade . A glance at what has become of American manufacturing-and where it has moved to-proves that Buchanan's prophetic words are ringing true .
Since the free-trade era began, 4,000 new factories have been built in northern Mexico, and 35 million immigrants, most of them poor, have come into the United States-among them 5 million illegal aliens, mostly from Mexico.
But the free traders respond: Who cares who makes what, where? What's important is that consumers get the best buy at the cheapest price.
But this is Grasshopper Economics . Americans are not only consumers; we are producers and citizens . We have obligations to one another and to our country ; and
one of those obligations is not to behave like wastrel children squandering a family estate built up over generations . A family estate is something you can sell off-only once.
What is the wealth of nations? Is it stocks, bonds, derivatives-the pieces of paper traded on Wall Street that can be gone with in the wind? No, the true wealth of a nation lies in its factories, farms, fisheries, and mines, in the genius and capacities of its people .
Industrial power is at the heart of economic power, and economic power is at the heart of strategic power . America won two world wars and the Cold War because our industrial power and technology proved beyond the ability of our enemies to match .
Is this steady attrition of America's sovereignty irreversible?
My answer is, no . For the balance of power in America has begun to shift . In 1997, on the vote to give the president a blank check to negotiate trade treaties without congressional amendment-so-called Fast Track authority, it went down to defeat .
The day is not too distant when economic nationalism will triumph . Several events will hasten that day. The first is the tidal wave of imports from Asia about to hit these shores. When all those manufactured goods pour in, taking down industries and killing jobs, there will arise a clamor from industry and labor for protection. If that cry goes unheeded, those who turn a stone face to the American workers will be turned out.
In the Democratic Party or the Republican Party or the Reform Party or some new party, economic nationalism will find its vehicle and its voice . Rely upon it.
It is already happening-with the crisis in the steel industry. Here is a perfect example of the folly of free trade . Since the mid-19809,$50 billion dollars was invested in modernization ; a steel worker today is three times as productive as his father, and the industry has only a third as many workers as 25 years ago.
Yet, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Indonesia-four of them being bailed out with our tax dollars-are dumping steel into our market, taking down our steel industry to save their own . Why do we allow subsidized foreign steel to be dumped into the U.S . to destroy the greatest private steel industry on Earth?
Well, says the free trader: If we can get it cheaper, let our industry go, just as we let our televisions go, our textiles go, radios go, and the shoe industry go . Besides, these countries need to sell steel here to get the dollars to pay back their IMF loans . Thus, the United Steelworkers of America are being sacrificed-to make the world safe for Goldman Sachs .
There is another reason the free trade era is coming to a close . One day soon, Americans will wake up and discover that other nations do not believe in free trade,
and do not practice our particular faith . China and Japan each run $60 billion in annual trade surpluses at America's expense, but each cordons off its own market to U.S. goods .
We must start looking out for America first . As Andrew Jackson once declared : "We have been too long subject to the policy of [foreign] merchants . We need to become more Americanized, and instead of feeding the paupers and laborers of Europe . . . feed our own, or in a, short time . . . we shall all be rendered paupers ourselves ."
America first, and not only first, but second and third as well .
Illegal Immigration: Clear and Present Threat to America
If this abomination goes the rest of the way through Congress and places somewhere between 12 and 20 million illegal aliens--lawbreakers--on a fast track to becoming U.S. citizens, and "ordinary" native-born Americans say nothing, or do nothing to investigate the root causes of this (the global power elites in the international banking cartel, on Wall Street, in subversive organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, in the big foundations such as Ford and Rockefeller, in Congress, and in the transnational megacorporations) then there is just one conclusion: This country collectively does not deserve to survive!
VDARE.COM - http://www. vdare.com/guzzardi/060303_specter.htm
March 03, 2006
Meet the Senate Judiciary Committee: Your Fate Is In Its Hands Right Now
By Joe Guzzardi
When I sat down to write my column, I planned to lead by saying that no United States Senator is worse on immigration than the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter (R).
Based on his tortured immigration proposals this week, I thought that was a safe statement.
Then I looked at the entire committee roster. Specter has a lot of competition among the seventeen-man group.
Specter is touting what he calls “Comprehensive Immigration Reform of 2006,” an as-yet unnamed bill that is several of our worst nightmares rolled into one: amnesty, guest workers, new worker visas and everything but official open borders.
Specter’s proposal would give amnesty to 15-20 million illegal residents and create 1.1 million new green card holders among employment-based immigrants. Amazingly, the provision for more than 1 million employment-based green cards would renew every year in perpetuity.
And it would generate a brand-new American job-killer: the no cap H-2C visa for those soon-to-be omnipresent guest workers.
Read NumbersUSA.com’s outstanding analysis of the entire Specter disaster here.
To accompany the NUSA analysis, VDARE.COM readers might find it useful to have the following armchair guide that I developed to refresh your memory regarding the individual senators’ immigration leanings.
Meet, in all its ignominy, the committee:
Orrin Hatch, (R-UT)
Charles E. Grassley, (R-IA)
John Kyl, (R-AZ)
Mike DeWine, (R-OH)
Jeff Sessions, (R-AL)
Lindsey Graham, (R-SC)
John Cornyn, (R-TX)
Sam Brownback, (R-KS)
Tom Coburn, (R-OK)
Patrick J. Leahy, (D-VT)
Edward M. Kennedy, (D-MA)
Joseph R. Biden, Jr., (D-DE)
Herbert Kohl, (D-WI)
Dianne Feinstein, (D-CA)
Russ Feingold, (D-WI)
Charles Schumer, (D-NY)
Richard J. Durbin, (D-IL)
A thumbnail profile of the Republican bad guys:
The Worst of the Lot
Hatch and Brownback: Two holier than thou dirtbags who are beyond reach since they proclaim, Brownback more loudly than Hatch, that they take their direction from a higher authority.
Hatch, Specter’s predecessor as Judiciary Chairman, voted for S.1545, the DREAM Act, which would grant illegal aliens in-state tuition rates. And he cosponsored S. 1645 that protected illegal aliens granted temporary resident status from prosecution for Social Security fraud.
Brownback co-sponsored S. 644 to increase asylum claims by creating a new special immigrant visa category for an unlimited number of women and children who are said to be at risk of harm because of their gender and age.
Both Hatch and Brownback have moved sharply toward a more pro-immigration position in the last several years.
Read Rolling Stone’s recent, unflattering Brownback profile here: “ God’s Senator.”
DeWine: No one in the Senate, Republican or Democrat, has a worse immigration record than DeWine. Although DeWine represents Ohio, a state that has been devastated by job loss, he has backed every piece of legislation that promotes more illegal immigration and worker visas.
Among the low points of DeWine’s recent record is that he voted to invoke cloture, a procedural move requiring 60 votes to limit debate and ensure a vote on the AgJOBS amnesty amendment for up to 3 million illegal aliens, introduced by Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID).
The cloture motion failed, but DeWine’s attempt to force it revealed his sympathy for amnesty.
Cornyn and Kyl: Co-authors of their own bill, S. 1438 that Juan Mann describes as “a slickly packaged rehash” of bad old (and failed) amnesty bills. The “Comprehensive Enforcement and Immigration Reform Act” as S.1438 is misleadingly labeled, translates into amnesty and more guest workers.
While Kyl was once rumored to be sensible about immigration, he has always promoted more foreign workers. In 2005, Kyl voted against the Byrd Amendment to the Budget Reconciliation bill, which would have stripped a provision to increase permanent, employment-based immigration by as many as 366,000 annually.
Cornyn, a first term Senator from Texas who immediately began as a La Raza bag man by talking about getting illegal immigrants “ out of the shadows,” voted in 2005 with Hatch and Brownback in favor of S.1545. He also co-sponsored S. 1387, a bill to create a temporary guest worker program for illegal aliens with an amnesty-on-installment program.
Graham: As Capitol Hill insiders say about Graham, “Republican by day, Democrat by night.” The South Carolina Senator is another who has abruptly changed teams to join the open borders crowd.
Graham is now a champion of more worker visas. During the current Congressional year, Graham has cosponsored S. 1033, the McCain-Kennedy bill, which would add an extra 150,000 employment-based visas (mostly for unskilled workers) annually. Additionally, it would create a brand new guest worker program that would bring in 400,000 unskilled workers during its first year.
Many Capitol Hill observers think that Graham is maneuvering for a Vice Presidential spot on a possible McCain ticket in 2008.
Republicans; the Moderates
Grassley: The Iowa senator qualifies as a moderate by comparison only. His voting record is a mixed bag of supporting university tuition breaks for aliens and amnesty for wives and children of aliens legalized in 1986.
But Grassley also voted not to invoke cloture on the Craig AgJOBS amnesty amendment. Grassley’s vote helped keep the amnesty off the 2005 Iraq supplemental spending bill.
Interestingly, Grassley’s immigration voting record has improved over the last several years…unlike that of his colleagues.
Coburn: Another senator who runs hot and cold. No one has a worse record of supporting foreign-worker visas. In 2005, Oklahoma’s Coburn even voted against increasing L-1 visa fees that employers pay. Heaven forbid that employers displacing Americans with foreign visa holders might have to shell out a few extra bucks for the Treasury coffers!
On the other hand, Coburn co-sponsored S. 2061 to reduce illegal immigration through increased border controls. The bill requires construction of a border fence along the U.S.-Mexico border; provides for additional Border Patrol agents; and mandates the use of the entry-exit system at all ports of entry.
Republicans; the one solid Senator
Sessions: In addition to amassing a solid pro-American worker and anti-illegal immigration voting record, Sessions also co-sponsored S. 2061. Since 2003, Sessions has voted against every foreign-worker visa proposal considered by the Judiciary Committee.
Unfortunately, predicting the way the committee will vote is child’s play. Even before a single vote is cast, past history as outlined above tells us that the deck is stacked against us.
Immigration reformers can count, with 100 per cent certainty, on exactly one vote. Only Alabama’s Sessions stands ready to thwart the open borders, Chamber of Commerce lobby.
Three other possible votes for our side: Grassley, Colburn and, who knows, maybe even Dianne Feinstein, the notorious Democratic immigration waffler.
If the worst happens, lay the blame where it belongs: on the Republicans.
Whatever final scheme the Senate Judiciary Committee may come up with, the Republicans there are the heavies…they have aided and abetted the Democrats on immigration policy.
If the G.O.P. hadn’t turned coat, Specter’s crazy scheme would never have seen the light of day. But, unhappily, the Republicans of late are just as bad as the Democrats.
The good news is that even Specter admits that the road ahead will be rocky. Since the Senators are divided---each with his particular sell-out angle---no immediate consensus is likely.
Said Specter:
“I have seen virtually no agreement on anything. Emotions are at an all-time high." [ Immigrant Bill Faces Tough Fight in Senate, Suzanne Gamboa, Associated Press, March 2, 2006]
Thankfully, the committee’s treasonous work is done for this week. The next hearing is tentatively scheduled for March 8th or 9th.
In the meantime, Specter remains hopeful.
As NumbersUSA.COM Executive Director Roy Beck told me,
“You can count on Specter, if he is given any chance, to do the wrong thing.”
Joe Guzzardi [email him], an instructor in English at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing a weekly newspaper column since 1988. This column is exclusive to VDARE.COM.
Here is the Washington Times report on this past Monday's decision:
The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Panel OKs 'amnesty' bill
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published March 28, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Senate Judiciary Committee last night approved a plan that would put millions of illegal aliens on a path to U.S. citizenship, would let them stay here while applying and would not punish their unlawful entry as a felony, contrary to a House-passed bill.
"A path to earned citizenship is what this bill is all about," Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said after joining all Democrats and three other Republicans on the panel to approve the plan, which many consider an "amnesty."
The sudden approval -- after weeks of negotiations that often had appeared fruitless -- likely will lead to a showdown with the House, which last year approved an immigration bill that only tightened border security.
"If the bottom line is that all people that came here illegally have got to be made citizens, then we should have the vote now," Sen. Jon Kyl, the Arizona Republican who fought the proposal, said in the seven-hour committee meeting yesterday.
"That's amnesty, and that won't work. And the House won't even go to conference with something like that," he said.
The plan approved by the committee -- taken from a bill written by Sens. John McCain, Arizona Republican, and Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat -- would fine current illegal aliens $2,000 each. The bill also would require aliens to undergo criminal background checks and mandate that they maintain employment over the six years they wait to get in line for full citizenship, a process which takes several more years.
"All Americans wanted fairness, and they got it this evening," Mr. Kennedy said after the vote last night.
Many House Republicans -- and most U.S. voters -- oppose any new immigration legislation until the borders are secured and existing immigration laws are enforced. The vast differences between the House bill and the Senate Judiciary Committee proposal must be worked out before any legislation can go to President Bush for his signature.
It was still not clear last night whether the bill would even make it to the floor of the Senate, which yesterday began debating legislation offered by Majority Leader Bill Frist that bypasses the Judiciary Committee and deals only with border security.
"A nation that can't secure its borders can't secure its destiny or administer its laws," said Mr. Frist, who introduced his bill yesterday. "And the situation along our southern border now ranks as a national security challenge second only to the war on terror."
Mr. Frist's "Securing America's Borders Act" would hire more border-patrol officers, build limited fencing in high-traffic areas and toughen the penalties for being in the U.S. illegally. The bill does not, however, have the guest-worker provisions included in the committee bill.
The Tennessee Republican -- is widely expected to seek his party's nomination for president -- has made clear to the Judiciary Committee that he would not consider adopting any guest-worker or "amnesty" provisions that didn't garner a majority of the Republican vote in committee.
The panel proposal failed to get that majority, but Mr. Frist said yesterday that he hasn't decided whether he will consider the committee's bill. He was in negotiations last night with committee Chairman Arlen Specter and other panel members.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, has implored Mr. Frist to take whatever the committee approves and has threatened filibusters if the Republican leader bypassed the committee with his security-only bill.
"We need comprehensive immigration reform that secures our borders, protects Americans and addresses the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living here today," Mr. Reid said yesterday. "I congratulate Chairman Specter, Ranking Member [Patrick J.] Leahy and the Judiciary Committee for reporting out a bipartisan bill today that does just that. I hope Senator Frist will immediately substitute this comprehensive approach for his wrongheaded bill as the full Senate begins debate tomorrow."
In addition to Mr. Specter and Mr. Graham, Republican Sens. Mike DeWine of Ohio and Sam Brownback of Kansas supported the committee proposal.
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican who faces a tough primary fight this year, missed yesterday's vote.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican who has led the fight against illegal immigration, said the committee's proposal "provides nearly universal amnesty" for the more than 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S. and adds hundreds of thousands of foreign workers to a background-check system that is "already on the brink of collapse."
"If the Senate follows the Judiciary Committee's lead, the prospects of getting a reform bill to the president's desk this year are slim, to say the least," he said.
"No plan with amnesty and a massive increase in foreign workers will pass the House. Amnesty and foreign workers are fundamentally incompatible with the House's approach and, according to every recent poll, they are not what Americans want. Americans want enforcement first, and disagreement over foreign workers should not prevent us from securing our borders," he said.
*********************************
Now here is the problem: at least some of these illegals are radicals who have an agenda of their own: to destroy this country, which we note just happens to be the same agenda as the New World Order power elites, taken by a somewhat different rout.
Marchers say gringos,
not illegals, have to go
Activists turn tables, offer no amnesty for 'non-indigenous' on 'our continent'
WorldNetDaily.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: March 29, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Mexica Movement activists protest in L.A.
WASHINGTON – While debates about guest-worker programs for illegal aliens take place in the corridors of power, in the streets of America's big cities no amnesty is being offered by activists calling for the expulsion of most U.S. citizens from their own country.
While politicians debate the fate of some 12 million people residing in the U.S. illegally, the Mexica Movement, one of the organizers of the mass protest in Los Angeles this week, has already decided it is the "non-indigenous," white, English-speaking U.S. citizens of European descent who have to leave what they call "our continent."
The pictures and captions tell the story.
"This is our continent, not yours!" exclaimed one banner.
"We are indigenous! The only owners of this continent!" said another.
"If you think I'm illegal because I'm a Mexican, learn the true history, because I'm in my homeland," read another sign.
"One of the more negative parts of the march was when American flags were passed out to make sure the marchers were looked on as part of 'America,'" said the group's commentary on the L.A. rally.
Both Rep. James Sensebrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a proponent of tougher border security, and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger were caricatured as Nazis by the group on its posters and banners.
The group insists the indigenous people of the continent were the victims of genocide – a campaign of extermination that killed, according to one citation, 95 percent of their population, or 33 million people. Another citation on the same website claims the toll was 70 million to 100 million.
The only solution, says the Mexica Movement, is to expel the invaders of the last 500 years, force them to pay reparations and return the continent to its rightful heirs.
The platform of the group illustrates the diverse – and sometimes extreme – agendas of those participating in the mass mobilizations that have been seen largely as protests against efforts to curb illegal immigration.
Some of those involved, including the Mexica Movement, have much bigger goals than stopping a piece of legislation before Congress.
The Mexica Movement has big issues with many other equally radical groups participating in the massive, united-front rallies. The group makes a point of distinguishing its goals and objectives from others, such as the separatist Aztlan Movement.
Aztlan, the mythical birthplace of the Aztecs, is regarded in Chicano folklore as an area that includes California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas. The movement seeks to create a sovereign, Spanish-speaking state, "Republica del Norte," or the Republic of the North, that would combine the American Southwest with the northern Mexican states and eventually merge with Mexico.
A group called "La Voz de Aztlan," the Voice of Aztlan, identifies Mexicans in the U.S. as "America's Palestinians." Many Mexicans see themselves as part of a transnational ethnic group known as "La Raza," the race. A May editorial on the website, with a dateline of Los Angeles, Alta California, declares that "both La Raza and the Palestinians have been displaced by invaders that have utilized military means to conquer and occupy our territories."
Others in the coalition hope to see a "reconquest" of the American southwest by Mexico. This would not likely take place through military action, they say, but rather through a slow process of migration – both legal and illegal.
Subject: INS: Did Americans see what REALLY happened?
http://www.federalobserver.com/archive.php?aid=10612
Did Americans see what REALLY happened?
By S. J. Miller
Most Americans saw video footage of mass protests, demanding "rights" for illegal aliens in major cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Phoenix and Los Angeles. From 12,000 in Phoenix to 500,000 in Los Angeles, illegal aliens converged and put centers of major cities into gridlock for hours.
Americans were shocked to see law and order defied, with the consent and even encouragement of local officials and the police. But did they really see what was happening? Probably not!
Americans didn't see what they don't know what to look for. Despite the touchy-feely, "we're all the same under the skin" human-rights rhetoric, Mexicans and third-world Latin American politics are much different than in the US, and not what Americans want here. While their distateful political habits and behavior are increasingly common in the US, Americans must recognize the tactics when they move from El Salvador or Mexico City to Kansas City or Atlanta.
To be blunt and politically incorrect, recognize third-world behavior as well as its source. when it appears in our back yards.
Mass Protests don't "just happen"
Despite what illegal alien advocates and their pandering politicians and media would have you believe, these mass protests weren't spontaneous gatherings prompted by mass emotional support for illegal aliens. Such operations require planning, time and most of all $$$$$$$$$. Big money. Luckily, the "illegal alien rights" movement has plenty of everything.
While benevolent-appearing entities like the Catholic Church, the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists and Quakers ("Friends") ally with ethnic groups like LULAC, MALDEF, National Council of LaRaza, Humane Borders, No More Deaths, present a sympathy-generating and politically correct "front," don't be fooled.
Use the same strategy the FBI uses to identify terrorists: Follow the money.
These groups receive their primary money from two sources: foreign governments (like Mexico) and wealthy open-borders groups like the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, US Chamber of Commerce and the like.
100,000 illegal aliens didn't converge on Chicago and shut down the Loop at afternoon rush hour by depending on the Chicago Transit Authority busses and the El Trains. They came from 8 surrounding states, and were moved there with the express purpose of protesting. The fleet of busses needed would put Ray Nagin's New Orleans school busses to shame.
Those of us old enough to recall the anti-Vietnam War protests and civil rights marches of the 1960s era learned that organizations prepared these operations months in advance to deposit thousands of bodies in to demonstrate. While the 30s and 40s age group are too young to remember, we're available to educate them.
Immediately after the passage of HR 4437 last December, Mexico and other countries whose economies depend on illegal alien wage remittances were planning to counteract Americans' demands of Congress for tough immigration law enforcement and elimination of illegal immigration. On Valentine's Day, foreign ministers of Mexico, Colombia, Panama and El Salvador flew to Washington to meet with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and voice alarm over the bill. (2)
It's both appalling and hypocritical that these countries so blatantly and arrogantly interfere with the American democratic process, particularly in view of Mexico's strict laws against foreigners' involvement or even commenting on Mexican internal affairs. In "Mexico's Undiplomatic Diplomats," Heather MacDonald comments on Mexico's hypocrisy:
"Mexican officials here and abroad are involved in a massive and almost daily interference in American sovereignty. The dozens of illegals milling in the consulate’s courtyard as Velázquez-Suárez speaks, and the millions more radiating outward from Los Angeles across the country, are not a naturally occurring phenomenon, like the tides. They are there thanks in part to Mexico’s efforts to get them into the U.S. in violation of American law, and to normalize their status once here in violation of the popular will.
Mexican consulates are engineering a backdoor amnesty for their illegal migrants and trying to discredit American immigration enforcementactivities clearly beyond diplomatic bounds.
Mexico’s governing class is not content simply to unload the victims of its failed policies on the U.S., however. It also tries to ensure that migrants retain allegiance to La Patria, so as to preserve the $16 billion in remittances that they send to Mexico each year. Mexican leaders have thus tasked their nation’s U.S. consulates with spreading Mexican culture into American schools and communities. Given the American public’s swelling anger about illegal immigration, it’s past time for Washington to tell Mexico to cease interfering and for the Bush administration to start enforcing the law." (3)
MacDonald's comments only validate what Americans see every day - Mexican consulates issuing their government's fraudulent matricula consular cards to their illegal aiens, and then urging state and local government to accept these cards as "identification." Mexican interests commonly lobby state and federal legislatures to pass laws favorable to their illegal aliens. Mexico won't tolerate such interference in their internal affairs.
But as usual, our wrath should be directed at American politicians who allow foreign governments to interfere. US laws against foreign political contributions are easily evaded, particularly since McCain-Feingold campaign legislation.
Violence and intimidation is part of "south of the border" politics.
Political change in Mexico requires mass protests and often violence. There's no history of peaceful change there, and every Mexican knows it. Nowhere is there a better example of "might makes right." "Taking to the streets" is their first resort, not the last resort as has been true in America. We all recall the stories of angry campesinos (farmers) who rode horseback into the Mexican Senate immediately after the passage of NAFTA put them out of business.
The recent success of former Mexican braceros in collecting from their government their long-overdue wages earned during the 1942-1962 work in the US required them to mob the private ranch of President Vicente Fox. Hypocritically, Fox was so angry that he spoke of prosecuting these Mexicans for criminal trespassing to protect his private property rights. The San Diego Union Tribune story bluntly told what led to success: "the bitter product of years of angry, sometimes violent protests, on both sides of the border demanding that the former workers get what's owed them." (1)
Although hushed up for years, news stories of kidnappings and murders in Mexico routinely appear in newspapers. Such violence is rife not only in border towns, but throughout Mexico.
Avoiding violence is the primary motive for Mexican government officials to grant popular demands. We all recognize that avoiding such violence is a strong motive for Mexico's ruling class to promote illegal immigration to the US - unemployed Mexican workers aren't in Mexico to protest and riot, and their US wages return to bolster the Mexican economy.
Americans who think this Mexican "custom" hasn't entered the US should "get a clue" and fast. Last Wednesday, I attended a Town Hall held by my Congressman (J.D. Hayworth of Arizona) for his constituents. The topic of illegal immigration was addressed, and Congressman Hayworth openly opposed the current "guest worker amnesty" legislation being debated in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
A Mexican stood and told everyone of the need for Americans to "show compassion" to illegal aliens in the demands for amnesty. When he saw that the audience wasn't buying his sales pitch, he switched his tactic to threats of violence and intimidation by warning of the "tension" in the US caused by American opposition to illegal alien amnesty, and said that it could produce violence.
While most citizens present didn't pick up on his threat, Congressman Hayworth wasn't fooled for a minute. "J.D." quickly told the man in no uncertain terms that Americans would not be threatened or intimidated into granting illegal aliens amnesty, and the citizens' loud applause showed that the "Mexican" tactic had backfired.
My reference to the man as "Mexican" is recognition of his national loyalty and the agenda he follows, not his citizenship. He may well have been a native-born US citizen. Congressman Jim Kolbe of Arizona is another that I'd call a Mexican - where he was born is totally counter to his loyalty and the agenda he promotes.
Wolves in "multicultural" clothing.
Many educational bureaucrats promote the Mexican/illegal alien agenda as ardently as the businesses who profit from dirt-cheap wages that fatten corporate wallets.
As with greedy, cheap-labor corporations and pandering non-profit groups, educational bureaucrats are adept at ignoring the huge public costs and negative impact generated by illegal immigration.
Do these supposedly well-educated people approve of the violence and intimidation that the illegal alien influence has added to the American political process?
Brenda Dean, Assistant Director of Hamblen County (TN) Schools recently commented of the effect of huge numbers of illegal aliens in their schools, burdening the local taxpayers: "I think that cultural diversity adds to the richness of our community," says Dean. Does that include the violence, intimidation and corruption brought to the US political process by people who demonstrate contempt for law and order? I'm sure Ms. Dean would tap-dance around the question and evade the issue with five-dollar educational words, as such people are so adept at doing.
Give me an airsick bag.
Resources:
(1) Allen Wall, Memo From Mexico, Vicente Fox & the Braceros: Hypocrisy & Fraud, VDARE.com, March 23 2004,
http://www.vdare.com/awall/the_braceros.htm
(1) Migrant Pay Decades Late - Mexico to compensate for long-forgotten fund, San Diego Union Tribune, January 3 2006,
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20060103-9999-1m3braceros.html
(2) Protests over immigration bill, Newsday, February 23 2006,
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-liimmi0223,0,1059099.story?coll=ny-top-headlines
(3) Heather MacDonald, Mexico's Undiplomatic Diplomats, The City Journal, Autumn 2006
(4) (I>Senator: Newspaper 'Crossed Line', WXIA News, March 23 2006,
http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=77664
(5) Hamblen politician critical of spending on education for immigrants, WBIR News, October 10 2005,
http://www.wbir.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=29253
~ About the author ~
S. J. Miller is a former veteran of the IT industry who sought another career rather than "follow the jobs" abroad, and a lifelong resident of border states, California, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada.
(c) S. J. Miller, 2006. All Rights Reserved
"Published originally at FederalObserver.com: republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
The S. J. Miller Archive on The Federal Observer
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In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. GRG [Ref.
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Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Illegal Immigration Update: Police Stand Down in Charlotte
France is also falling apart. My, don't we live in interesting times?!
William Gheen's Letter of Complaint to Charlotte, NC Authorities
Posted on Sunday, March 26 @ 18:27:15 PST
Topic: Illegal Immigration News in the US
Illegal Immigration News in the US
The following letter is being sent to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police, Charlotte City Council members and Mayor, Mecklenburg County Commissioners, NC Media, and NC Attorney General's Office.
Why no police at Protest of thousands in center of Metro Area?
To Whom It May Concern:
I would like to file a formal complaint that on March 25, 2006 the Charlotte Police Department allowed a rally of thousands of people three blocks from their station without making arrangements for any visible police presence.
On this date I attended a protest in Marshall Park in Charlotte which is located just three blocks away from the police department. I was there to document the protest with my camcorder.
At approximately 3:20 pm, an hour after the rally began, I noticed that there was not a single uniformed officer present in the park, in the parking lots, on the adjacent streets, or on the streets into the area. A friend of mine pointed out that Charlotte had a law that required any organization having a large meeting to hire or arrange security to be present.
It is common sense that visible police officers or hired security is necessary for any such event especially a crowd of 3,000 to 5,000.
As you can see from the video footage, thousands were present and no officers are seen in any of these areas. I confirmed the absence of officers with local news crews and many of the news crews also found it exceptional that there were no police to be seen in any direction.
I called the 311 Non-emergency line for the Charlotte police and spoke to an officer. When I told him what I was calling about he put me on hold. After being on hold for the first 15 minutes I started walking to the police station.
Fifteen minutes later, after being on hold for 30 minutes, I entered the Charlotte police department and spoke to officer Greeno. I showed him my cell phone and activated the speaker function to illustrate that I had been on hold for the 30 minutes. I told him that I wanted to file a formal complaint that there was a large crowd of thousands of people, many illegal aliens, gathered just three blocks from the station and there were no visible officers. In fact, I did not see a single officer or police car until I reached the station.
Officer Greeno told me that I had just filed my complaint by speaking to him and that they were taking measures. I explained that I believed it was my right as a citizen to file a formal complaint and that considering the gravity of this situation that would be best. He angrily informed me that I did not have a right to make a formal complaint. I called a friend on the phone and asked her for contact information for the Mayor. She witnessed the officer telling me that I was not allowed to file a complaint.
At an early point in the conversation, officer Greeno told me that they had no evidence my claims were accurate and I held my camcorder up so he could see it and explained I could show him the video now.
Later, they assembled a team in the lobby and said that they did not know about this event and officers were being dispatched.
I find this claim to be completely implausible. This rally had been in the local media for weeks. The organizers of the rally were required to obtain a permit that would notify the police of the event. National news has carried the stories about the tens of thousands of illegal alien rallies in cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, Denver, Atlanta, and Phoenix.
When I returned to the protest around 4:15, I saw my first visible officer. He was standing next to the TV Station trucks. Two bike patrol officers remained invisible to the crowd on a balcony and there was one police car on the far side of the park. After seeing the first police presence only included about four or five officers I left.
If a fight had started or someone had an accident or anything at all, the Charlotte Police were completely unprepared to protect taxpayer properties and attendees. Didn't Charlotte just have a lot of property damage in the downtown area? Isn't there a heightened sense of security in the community after these unfortunate events? Isn't there a law for insurance purposes that visible security be present?
I am requesting that I be allowed to file a formal complaint that a large rally was held with no visible police officers or security. I am requesting a formal inquiry as to why the Charlotte Police department did not send uniformed officers to at least monitor the streets around the park that were filled with pedestrians, news trucks, and high levels of traffic. I would like an official opinion to know if my legal right to file a complaint about the Charlotte police department was denied by officer Greeno. I want to know if it is a law in Charlotte that officers or security are present for such events.
It is a sad day in America when thousands of illegal aliens can take to the streets in the absence of federal law enforcement who should be doing their job to enforce our existing immigration laws. Sadder still is the fact that the Charlotte Police Department had zero visible presence at a large protest that was attended by Charlotte's Mayor Pro-Tem and a County Commissioner. It is my opinion that the city government did not want any illegal aliens, wanted fugitives, or others engaged in unlawful activities to be concerned in the slightest about attending this protest.
Also, please send me a list of what other large gatherings have been allowed in the center of Charlotte without visible police or security.
I am willing to provide you with copies of the video, a sworn affidavit, and witnesses as evidence.
Sincerely,
William Gheen
President, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC ALIPAC
The Choice of Charlie Sheen: Disinformation Tactic?
Charlie Sheen, A Useful Idiot?
Tue, 28 Mar 2006 05:36:34 -0500
Dear Steven,
I did not intend making an ongoing issue over the Sheen & Jones 9/11 interview which was picked up by CNN's Hollywood gossip show. However, this follow-up email is prompted by the deluge of replies I received insisting that it is a good thing the story has broken.
It is not.
The issue has to do with deception, and we had better start preparing ourselves for more of the same, because we are entering a time when deception across all aspects of our lives will become commonplace. Now is the time to expose the intent behind the Sheen fracas, so that we can understand what is in store for us over the coming months and years ahead.
The following brief points are extracted from an article which you should read in its entirety online at www.iamthewitness.com/DarylBradfordSmith_Sheen.html.
While I do not agree with some of the points in the article, I fully endorse the gist thereof , namely that very few information sources are reliable and we are to choose wisely to understand the bigger picture.
Extracts:
Why has a known supporter of US government policy chosen Alex Jones to 'break the news', among thousands of more qualified 9/11 sources?
Remember that all three CNN shows and the CNN poll emphasized "cover-up" and "unanswered questions." Vague terms. One of the most insidious cover-ups of 9/11 is a book with the title "Cover-Up" on the cover - by a CIA operative!
CNN selected two people to bring onto a subsequent show as 9/11 experts: Webster Tarpley (author of "9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in the USA") and Mike Berger (of 911truth.org – a known disinformation site). Both these individuals have previously been involved in suppressing facts about 9/11 (see link above for details). Tarpley is also the individual who promoted the idea of the planned opening of the Euro-denominated Iranian Oil Bourse as the real reason for an attack on Iran. This bourse didn't open as scheduled on March 22.
Alex Jones, too, is not the shining star everyone believes he is. He has aligned himself with a group who wish to "establish Zion" and a "Government of God on Earth". Could this not be the same One World Government most of us are so concerned about? Who supplies Alex with the significant funding required to maintain his flashy network of sites?
The Bottom Line?
The next chimera is an even greater feat of delusion: letting only a tenth of the cat out of the bag.
The criminals responsible for 9/11 realize it is time to admit SOME of the truth behind 9/11, but in doing so, wish to remain in control about WHICH truth is revealed. If this involves sacrificing a few of their puppets (including possibly Bush) to protect themselves, they will not hesitate to do so.
Sheen, Jones and the variety of other actors used in this stint are purely the useful idiots who will bring the engineered 'truth' of 9/11 to the sleeping public's
attention, while the full story will remain hidden to all but the few who recognize the extent of the deception.
If the criminals responsible for 9/11 can fool the masses into believing that George Bush is responsible for 9/11, and that Charlie Sheen, Alex Jones, Webster Tarpley and
Mike Berger are heroes, then the criminals have won. They will remain in control of the global media, the Federal Reserve, the global banking system, the global military, and the coming global religion (the next deception to be forced on us).
What To Do?
The Sheen incident is yet the latest is a series of grand deceptions planned for us, and the challenge is to recognize them as they break.
Training our minds to recognize and expose deception will become more and more difficult in the days to come. Partly this is due to an over-abundance of information: as more and more raw data is thrown at us from disparate sources, our mind loses its ability to separate fact from fallacy.
The body can be trained to lift heavy weights and run long distances. So too can the mind be trained to identify a con quickly. But training takes time and dedication.. The key is to create an entirely new World View, or way of looking at events as they happen. With the correct World View, the Sheen con is quickly exposed for what it is: further propaganda amidst a sea of disinformation.
To learn how to recognize disinformation and develop the required World View, see
http://www.threeworldwars.com/prepare/rev-fresh-wisdom.htm
Here’s to focusing on the bigger picture,
Michael Haupt
www.ThreeWorldWars.com
--------------------------------------------------
Feel free to forward this email to your friends and family and post on other websites – there is no copyright. An online version is available at
http://www.threeworldwars.com/archive/news/charlie-sheen-alex-jones-911.htm
Monday, March 27, 2006
The Emerging Global Society - and Its "Living Constitution"
THE EMERGING GLOBAL VILLAGE
By Pastor Chuck Baldwin
March 24, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
Former President George Herbert Walker Bush was the first national figure to publicly use the term "New World Order." Since those days in the late 1980's, numerous notable personalities have advanced the concept of global hegemony.
As a student of the Scriptures, I am well aware that ever since the events surrounding the Tower of Babel (recorded in Genesis chapter 11), the desire for world conquest has repeatedly arisen in the hearts of power-hungry men. I also believe a vast number of America's political, commercial, media, and entertainment elite today knowingly assist and facilitate this emerging global village.
I further propound that since the end of World War II, the great majority of America's foreign policies have more to do with building Bush's "New World Order" than with protecting the people or interests of the United States. Yes, Margaret, that includes our current actions in the Middle East.
Both President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair speak boldly and often of their intentions to globalize the political and commercial affairs of the world's nations. One has only to listen to Bush's latest State of the Union address to get a glimpse of how immersed our political leaders are in the philosophy of globalism.
Just this week, Tony Blair gave a major speech on internationalism and the reason for Britain's (and America's) involvement in Iraq. In his speech Blair said, "This is not a clash between civilizations, it is a clash about civilization. 'We' is not the West. 'We' are as much Muslim as Christian or Jew or Hindu. 'We' are those who believe in religious tolerance, openness to others, to democracy."
Blair's speech, given at a Reuters newsmaker event, also said, "The only way to win is to recognize this phenomenon is a global ideology." Blair also boldly stated that the events in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, as well as climate change and poverty in Africa are all "linked."
Blair went on to say that there are about "40 to 50" countries that might require "interventionist" action in order to obtain global "prosperity and stability."
But George Bush & Tony Blair are not the only ones to espouse global government. Back in 2001, a U.N. official by the name of Edward Widmer made the following declaration: "Within 10 years time, you're going to see the beginning of an embryonic world order." I believe we are already seeing it.
Expressing the same thoughts as Bush, Blair, and Widmer, former newsman Walter Cronkite wrote in his book, A Reporter's Life, "A system of world government is mandatory. The proud nations someday will see the light and yield up their precious sovereignty."
Cronkite also told BBC newsman, Tim Sebastian, "I think we are realizing that we are going to have to have an international rule of law." He added, "We need not only an executive to make international law, but we need the military forces to enforce that law."
Cronkite went on to say, "American people are going to begin to realize that perhaps they are going to have to yield some sovereignty to an international body to enforce the law."
Remember also that President George W. Bush signed the Declaration of Quebec back on April 22, 2001 in which he gave a "commitment to hemispheric integration and national and collective responsibility for improving the economic well-being and security of our people."
Obviously, "our people" means the people of the Western Hemisphere, not the people of the United States. Phyllis Schlafly also recently reminded us that "Bush pledged that the United States will 'build a hemispheric family on the basis of a more just and democratic international order.'"
George Bush, Sr. calls it a "New World Order." Tony Blair calls it "Globalization." Walter Cronkite calls it "World Government." G.W. Bush calls it "International Order." Call it what you will, it means the end of U.S. sovereignty and independence. And a sizeable percentage of America's political, commercial, media, and entertainment elite are doing their best to bring it to fruition.
What will it take for the American people to wake up? Foreign troops on American soil? Already happening. Outsourcing every American asset, including our own security? Already happening. Putting American troops under foreign commanders? Already happening. Using American troops as U.N. "peacekeepers" and nation-builders? Already happening. Forcing "free trade" agreements upon the American people that steal their jobs and livelihoods? Already happening. Allowing and facilitating overwhelming and ruinous illegal immigration that sacrifices our culture and way of life? Already happening. Forcing Americans to adopt and accept foreign languages into the fabric of everyday life? Already happening. Ignoring or even ridiculing American history in our classrooms and entertainment? Already happening. What in the world has to happen to awaken and energize the American people? When will they determine to put a stop to this nonsense?
Americans (and perhaps Christians are the most blind and naïve regarding this reality) need to understand that there are not two parties in Washington, D.C., but only one: the Globalist Party. If you don't believe it, just check out the list of people from both parties who belong to the cabal of wealthy elitists whose goal is global government known as the Council on Foreign Relations. [Read] and [Read] Isn't it amazing that no matter who is elected President and from which party he hails, the list of CFR members in appointed government positions never decreases!
Folks, let's face it: the terms "conservative" and "liberal," "Republican" and "Democrat" mean very little these days. Instead of thinking in traditional terms, we need to start thinking in terms of "American" and "Globalist." Once we come to realize that the vast majority of the national candidates from both parties are Globalists at heart, it would be a simple matter to repudiate them, fire the ones that are already there, and start electing some real Americans to high public office once again. I don't know about anyone else, but that's the way I'm voting from now on.
© 2006 Chuck Baldwin - All Rights Reserved
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chuck Baldwin is Founder-Pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. In 1985 the church was recognized by President Ronald Reagan for its unusual growth and influence.
Dr. Baldwin is the host of a lively, hard-hitting syndicated radio talk show on the Genesis Communications Network called, "Chuck Baldwin Live" This is a daily, one hour long call-in show in which Dr. Baldwin addresses current event topics from a conservative Christian point of view. Pastor Baldwin writes weekly articles on the internet http://www.ChuckBaldwinLive.com and newspapers.
To learn more about his radio talk show please visit his web site at: www.chuckbaldwinlive.com. When responding, please include your name, city and state.
E-mail: chuck@chuckbaldwinlive.com
GINSBURG'S GLOBAL CONSTITUTION
By Terence P. Jeffrey
The Washington Times
Published March 27, 2006
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's authority, she apparently believes, extends all the way to rewriting the Declaration of Independence. Words written by Thomas Jefferson and edited by Benjamin Franklin won't do for her.
"A Decent Respect to the Opinions of [Human]kind," she titled a speech delivered last month at the Constitutional Court of South Africa.
The address might have gone wholly unnoticed were it not belatedly reported last week that Justice Ginsburg took the occasion to reveal that some idiot writing on an Internet chat site a year ago had called for violence against her and then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor because they had cited foreign laws and judgments in their opinions.
Of course, the Internet-idiot deserves Justice Ginsburg's scorn and ours. But that should not immunize the justice against the criticism she deserves for what she actually said in South Africa. While she began her speech with a politically correct rewrite of the Declaration, her main point was that she and other justices have the authority to change the Constitution -- and use foreign laws and rulings as inspiration for doing so.
"The notion that it is improper to look beyond the borders of the United States in grappling with hard questions ... is in line with the view of the U.S. Constitution as a document essentially frozen in time as of the date of its ratification," said Justice Ginsburg. "I am not a partisan of that view. U.S. jurists honor the Framers' intent 'to create a more perfect Union,' I believe, if they read the Constitution as belonging to a global 21st century, not as fixed forever by 18th-century understandings."
The problem here is that the Framers did not give judges the authority "to create a more perfect union." If any perfecting of our Constitution is to be done, the means are spelled out in Article 5 of the Constitution itself, which authorizes two-thirds of both houses of Congress to propose constitutional amendments and two-thirds of state legislatures to convene constitutional conventions. The Framers intended to make it so difficult to actually "perfect" the Constitution, however, that they required three-fourths of the states to ratify any proposed amendment.
By contrast, Justice Ginsburg believes five justices can amend the Constitution if their personal opinions happen to coincide -- and if they can gain sufficient ideological reinforcement, if not actual authority, from foreign courts.
Quoting former U.S. Appeals Court Judge Patricia Wald, Justice Ginsburg said, "We refer to decisions rendered abroad, it bears repetition, not as controlling authorities, but for their indication, in Judge Wald's words, of 'common denominators of basic fairness governing relationships between the governors and the governed.' "
The sort of analysis Justice Ginsburg describes is not judicial, but legislative. There is nothing in our Constitution that bars members of Congress from looking at foreign laws to see what works and what does not, what reflects American values and what does not. As long as they don't exceed the constitutional limits on Congress' own authority, they may, if they wish, propose legislation mirroring a foreign law to see if they can win a majority for it and persuade the president to sign it.
Congress could clone Russia's 13 percent flat tax, arguing, as Justice Ginsburg or Judge Wald might say, that Russia's tax plan embodies Congress' vision of the "basic fairness governing relationships between the governors and the governed."
It would not matter if Justice Ginsburg preferred, say, Iran's tax system to Russia's. The Constitution, as written, does not authorize her to trump Congress' preferences in this area.
It is when Justice Ginsburg cites specific Supreme Court decisions she believes were beneficially influenced by foreign courts that the real heart of the matter is revealed: On certain cultural issues, she likes other peoples' values better than those Americans have expressed through the democratic process. Some voters in this country, she clearly believes, just didn't get it right on same-sex sodomy and the death penalty.
"On respect for the opinions of [human]kind," she said of the opinion declaring same-sex sodomy a right, "the Lawrence Court emphasized: 'The right the petitioners seek in this case has been accepted as an integral part of human freedom in many other countries.' "
"Roper v. Simmons presents perhaps the fullest expressions to date on the propriety and utility of looking to 'the opinion of [human]kind,' " she said. "Holding unconstitutional the executions of persons under the age of 18 when they committed capital crimes, the court declared it fitting to acknowledge 'the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty.' "
Justice Ginsburg has every right to embrace foreign opinion on these issues. But if she wanted to act on those opinions officially, she should have resigned from the court and run for a state legislature first.
Terence P. Jeffrey is a nationally syndicated columnist.