The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
Vol: 55 Issue: 5 - Wednesday, April 05, 2006
An American Intifada?
We've all seen the news footage of waves of illegal immigrants darting through the desert underbrush on their way toward the US border. The 'immigration issue' has become this year's political hot-potato.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is pushing for a Senate vote on a bill that would allow many illegal immigrants to stay here.
Critics say Frist's plan brushes aside the fact that 11 million or more people in the United States came here illegally. And it encourages even more people to sneak in, assuming that there will be still another amnesty declared sometime in the future.
Illegal immigration, particularly from Mexico, is nothing new. What IS new is any serious effort to address the problem. Illegal immigration is one of those few issues that cuts across party lines. Politics aside, there are two major arguments.
One point of view is that illegal immigrants are necessary to the economy since they do the jobs that Americans won't do. And they work cheaper, which holds down prices for some goods and services.
On the other hand, cheap immigrant labor tends to keep wages low for American workers, so one argument cancels out the other. And while it might be argued that immigrants do jobs Americans won't do, it is equally true that there are millions of Americans on the public dole who aren't doing anything at all.
Illegal immigrants buy goods and services, which proponents of legalizing guest worker programs argue generates and sustains new job growth. But, by definition, illegal aliens working under the table don't pay taxes.
But their children attend US public schools, their families collect government benefits, and they are a drain on the nation's indigent health care system.
Again, one argument cancels out the other.
The White House proposal of a 'guest worker program' claims it would reduce illegal immigration by giving many of the same people -- mainly poor and unskilled Mexicans -- work permits.
In 2004, the US government estimated that illegal immigrants -- mostly Mexicans -- now make up nearly 12 percent of the US population. For that reason, watching the demonstrations opposing the immigration reform effort was both revealing and terrifying. What was revealing was the demonstrators themselves. The majority of them were marching under MEXICAN flags! Any American flags I saw were either being burned or carried upside-down.
If the protests were intended to demonstrate the desire of illegal immigrants to become legal Americans, why would they either disrespect Old Glory or march under a different banner?
Demonstration organizer Roberto Reveles of "Unidos en Arizona" said that they will help host a "Summit Meeting" in Phoenix, Arizona to work out the details of the "international economic and labor boycott" in an effort to cripple the economy that so many Mexicans are willing to risk life and limb to participate in.
Dr. Armando Navarro of the NAHR said that the "international boycott" counts on the support of the consulates of Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico, as well as that of Mexican labor organizations. The coalition welcomes the support of other countries abroad.
"We have to demonstrate to the nation, one more time, that its economic stability depends on us. I am sure that our sister nations of Latin America, who are also tired of the situation, will unite with us", Professor Navarro said. "That is why we will celebrate May 1, 'Day of the Worker', with labor strikes, no purchases and go out and march. Soon they will see the impact we will have!", he concluded.
That is the revealing part.
The terrifying part is their numbers. There were literally millions of demonstrators marching under Mexican flags, demanding the US abandon its 'racist' immigration reform plans.
At 12% of the US population, there are proportionately as many Mexican immigrants in the United States as there are Muslim immigrants in France.
And France now enjoys the nickname, "Eurabia."
Assessment:
The demonstrations are being coordinated by a coalition of Mexican groups under the umbrella group, La Raza.
"La Raza" (literally, 'The Race') sees itself as "America's Palestinians" and has as its goal the recovery of its former territories in the American Southwest, specifically, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, which they call "Aztlan".
Their website "La Voz de Aztlan" (Voice of Aztlan) is crammed full of articles sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, with subheadings like "USA Jewry, the Media and Hollywood"; "God vs. Zionism and USA Immorality" and "The Palestinian Struggle".
Noted one editorial; "There are great similarities between the political and economic condition of the Palestinians in occupied Palestine and that of La Raza in the southwest United States," before explaining that Los Angeles is Atzlan's version of Jerusalem.
La Voz de Atzlan finds analogies between the Arab uprising in Israel and gang violence in Los Angeles, saying,
"The similarities are many . . .The primary one, of course, is the fact that both La Raza and the Palestinians have been displaced by invaders that have utilized military means to conquer and occupy our territories. The takeover of our respective lands by foreign elements occurred 100 years apart. For La Raza, it happened in 1848 when Mexico lost the southwest at the end of the Mexican-American war and the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidlago. For the Palestinians, it occurred in 1948 when the Zionist Jewish People's Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum and signed the 'Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel' on the day in which the British Mandate over Palestine expired."
The Atzlan demonstrations may well be signaling the beginning of a Palestinian-style Mexican intifada against the United States. Like the Palestinians, the real intention isn't to create an autonomous state living side by side in peace, but the destruction of the existing state.
I once asked a rhetorical question regarding the US policy toward Israel and the Palestinians and the Mexican Atzlan movement:
The US continues to demand Israel trade land for peace. But what would Washington's response be if Mexican terrorists started blowing up targets in Texas, New Mexico or California? Would Washington acquiesce to demands that we give up California in order to have peace with the terrorists within our borders?
Those questions seem somewhat less rhetorical, now.
Ten years ago, the most pressing question facing Washington was the question of what to do with the 'peace dividend' left over after the end of the Cold War.
Ten years later, the most pressing question facing Washington is which enemy represents the most pressing threat to America's continued existence.
"But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape." (1st Thessalonias 5:1-3)
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