Thursday morning at 12:01 a.m. local time, Arizona’s well publicized anti-illegal-immigration law will finally go into effect. Or at least parts of it will. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled today to block several provisions of the law that some consider controversial (even though these mimic federal law). However, the judge has allowed the remainder of the law to move forward as planned while the case is being litigated. This includes allowing the state of Arizona to stop rogue state officials from implementing “sanctuary city” policies, and allowing the state to pursue civil lawsuits over sanctuary cities. In addition, Arizona will still be permitted to implement the portion of the law that makes it a crime to pick up day laborers, an issue that law enforcement and officials say has become a major problem in the state.
While yesterday’s ruling is being praised by opponents of the law, it won’t stop their protests, it will prolong them. For years. In fact, hordes of angry protesters are scheduled to descend upon the state first thing Thursday morning. And the propaganda machine on the left continues to run at full speed, cranking out intentionally misleading statements, disinformation, and outright lies. We’ve watched the boycotts. We’ve watched as the protests have erupted into hate events, directed not from the right against illegal immigrants as the left portrays them, but from the left and illegal immigrants against peaceful people on the right (and many in the center!).
Meanwhile, as the left continues their manufactured barrage of anger at Andrew Breitbart for supposedly taking things out of context in the Shirley Sherrod story, they fabricate their own version of context propaganda on video in examples like this one from the SEIU:
The video’s description reads in part:
“This means that while the law will still take effect on July 29th, police will NOT be able to use racial profiling to inquire into a person’s immigration status. But SB1070 doesn’t stop with racial profiling. Further militarizing the border with land mines and machine guns, and shutting off utilities are all policy “solutions” that extreme politicians are considering. If we don’t stand up, these types of extreme laws may come to your state. Watch this video to see the type of America that Republicans want to create for us.”
The video then proceeds with one of the most irresponsible pieces of manufactured propaganda that I’ve seen in some time. Here’s the script that SEIU is feeding to illegal immigrants and to uninformed sympathizers on the left who are unable to think or to read the law for themselves.
As seen in this video a frame at a time,
If they [the Republicans] get everything they want, here’s what it’ll look like.
First they’ll cut the power.
Then they’ll round them up.
They’ll build a wall. (Video cuts to clips of Nazi Germany; building the Berlin Wall)
They’ll turn our border into a war zone and mine field. (Video cuts to clips of bombs exploding)
And then, finally, they’ll intern undocumented workers in camps – or tent cities.
Haven’t we seen this before? (Video cuts to old video and edited news footage depicting interned Japanese after Pearl Harbor)
These bad ideas are coming to a state near you.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
This is disgusting.
Let’s pause for a moment. Consider the importance of context with as much emphasis as was placed on it with respect to the Sherrod story. Also consider the significance of some of the historical events that are depicted in the video alongside said “context”, and how drastically such history has been degraded by the insinuation that this is the case today. Lastly, think about the portrayal of the images and of the information in the video – much like the insurance companies were chided by the left during the health care debate for cooking up “fishy information”, the SEIU projects a blatantly false portrayal of what the Arizona law really represents.
Where is the Reality Check from Linda Douglass in the White House today? Where is the government snitch program through flag@whitehouse.gov? Where is Media Matters for America on this one?
As if this video wasn’t enough to demonstrate the irresponsible nature of the SEIU’s “information” distribution, there is also this gem the SEIU has been peddling.
“A Nation of Immigrants”, “The Story of Immigration is the Story of America.” Well, surprisingly for the SEIU, those are actually correct statements. Unfortunately, the context around the information in the video is not. You see, the SEIU intentionally misleads viewers of the video by omitting any reference of the word “illegal” or anything like it. The video attempts to convince the viewer that those who oppose the left’s plan for “comprehensive immigration reform,” which includes amnesty for all illegals in the country, oppose immigration. This is simply not the case. The SEIU and so many others on the left, including much of the liberal media, have repeatedly positioned the argument in this fashion, all the while portraying good Americans as “racist” and “full of hate”.
Let me refer to some of my own background for a moment to provide a little “context” for our friends on the left.
I have an interesting family history. My great-grandparents immigrated to the US in the early 1900’s from Syria and Lebanon. They waited years to become citizens; my great-grandmother, with whom I was close as a child, used to tell me their stories. My great-grandfather and his brother had to make several trips back and forth between Lebanon and the US over a period of many years before they finally made their way through Ellis Island for the last time. It took years to get all of their family members all over here in the US, back together again as one family. Perhaps that appreciation for family is what keeps us meeting for family reunions every year, still to this very day.
On the other side, I also have my stepfather’s family history. My mother was remarried when I was about 12 years old. My stepfather’s parents immigrated here from Iran, as did several others from his family. His father was a high-level decorated officer in the Iranian military. His mother was a Polish citizen who was eventually removed from Poland and sent to a labor camp in Iran after the Nazis murdered her first husband, leaving her alone with a small child, my stepfather’s oldest sister. My stepfather’s parents met while his father was guarding the labor camp where his mother and sister were interned. When his sister became gravely ill and the camp had no penicillin to save her life, it was his Iranian father who went to extremes to obtain penicillin, which was like gold at that time. He rode great distances by horse to retrieve the medicine and bring it into the camp and save that child’s life. Years later, the two married, and his father made his way to the US to make a home for them embraced by the freedom of our country. She joined him here years later, and they’d had several more children, including my stepfather.
Despite their dire situations, their hardships, and their lack of financial means, all of my family members came into this country legally. They all went through painstaking efforts to earn that entry. They all loved this country immensely and often voiced this appreciation aloud. I could tell story after story about my family members’ journeys, and about their lives as legal US citizens. I summarize this background merely to demonstrate that there is a difference between those who are here illegally, and those who played by the rules and patiently made their way here legally. It is an insult to all of the legal immigrants in this great country to act as though the rules don’t matter and should simply be tossed away. It would hurt my great-grandparents and my step-grandparents to see the propaganda and hear the false rhetoric of the left on this issue.
As Americans, we all recognize that immigration is a difficult and complex issue that has no simple solution. But before we can really address a realistic solution of any sort, the propaganda and the race-baiting and immigrant-baiting must stop. Insincere and irresponsible videos such as these only harm the debate, and create unnecessary conflict and fear in communities where it need not exist. These policies of fear are not at all the policies that the other side has been proposing.
It’s all about the context.
Yes, we are a nation of immigrants. And my own family is very proud of their legal immigration to the US. If only all of our great-grandparents were still alive today – if others were anything like mine were, I think we’d see a tremendous amount of respect, dignity and sincerity brought to this debate. Most importantly, I know they’d have brought plenty of honesty. And that’s something I haven’t seen a lot of in the agit-prop coming from the likes of the SEIU. I know my great-grandparents would have been ashamed to see such treachery.