Unfortunately, the mainstream media (MSM) in their coverage of Arizona isn’t telling the whole story. This battle has been portrayed as a racial issue, when in fact, it is not at all.
As the originator of the BUYcott concept, I have been asked to speak at BUYcott events in recent weeks. This allowed me to spend time in shops, restaurants, and hotels in Arizona, and to speak to many people of all races regarding SB1070. I put on my investigator hat and even I was surprised at how little we really know about the situation on the ground in Arizona.
- LIE #1: Most minorities are opposed to SB 1070 because they are afraid of being unfairly accused, stopped, racially profiled, or in some way inconvenienced or abused.
The facts: The hotel where we stayed had Native Americans, Latinos, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, and Asians. I used my down time to interview them about SB 1070 and I was shocked to learn that not one person I spoke with of any national or ethnic origin was opposed to SB 1070.
They know that dangerous terrorists have established an entire entry strategy utilizing the advantage of our broken borders, and as one Native American told me, “I would rather be asked for my ID than have my people blown to bits by a terrorist.”
Simple enough.
He added that virtually everyone in Arizona knows that you can go to New Mexico, and get a driver’s license without proof of citizenship. If that is true, that means that all the whining about people having to produce ID is simply manufactured. If I, a citizen journalist can uncover such profound facts, where is the forthrightness of the media who must know this?
- Lie #2: Law enforcement will have to begin new processes that may include racial profiling when SB 1070 goes into effect.
The facts: I spoke with a shop owner who happened to be an off-duty Phoenix cop, and the moment he learned that I was the “BUYcott girl” I watched the passion well up in him. “This law changes one thing. One thing!” He said. “And this is the one thing it changes… When 1070 goes through, and I arrest someone who I suspect is committing a crime, and haul ’em into the Feds, now they will have to do something with them.”.
He further explained that as the law (or lack thereof) stands now, he takes the criminal into the Feds, they release the suspect, and then the suspect comes after his family, or him for revenge.
He said the biggest change in all of this isn’t about race, or profiling, or even arrests. It is about the lives of law enforcement and their families.
I visited the PLEA (Phoenix Law Enforcement Agency) offices around Memorial Day and paused to look into the eyes of the fallen officers whose pictures hung on a memorial wall. I wondered about their wives, their children, their mothers, and the lost contribution of their lives to our world. Their numbers are growing, sadly. One officer was killed in the line of duty leaving a wife and two young children while we were in Arizona. I saw almost no national news coverage of this fact.
- Lie #3: Local groups are holding grassroots boycotts of Arizona.
The facts: I attended the Boycott of SB1070 undercover. No one I met was from Arizona. All came in on a bus, funded by union bosses or Communist front groups (I have their documents, and it is straight up true, see below) bragging about how they were traveling around the country “doing” these rallies because life has been unfair to them.
Unfair? Unfair?
Unfair is their accusation that this is racist. Unfair is their driving a wedge between people of different ethnicities. Unfair is their attack on our rule of law. Unfair is their incitement of violence on our military, law enforcement, and those who put their lives on the line every day for the freedom and safety of our families. Unfair is their poisonous rhetoric present at virtually every rally they astroturf that reads in part “”The Revolution We Need…The Leadership We Have. A message and a call from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. We live under a system of capitalism-imperialism…a system in which US imperialism is the most monstrous, most oppressive superpower…. a system driven by a relentless chase after profit, which brings horror upon horror, a nightmare seemingly without end, for the vast majority of humanity: poverty and squalor…torture and rape…the whole sale domination and degradation of women everywhere…wars, invasions, and occupations….assassinations and massacres…planes, missiles, tanks and troops of the USA bombarding people in faraway lands while they sleep in their homes or go about their daily lives blasting their little children to pieces, cutting down men and women in the prime of life or in old age…” You get the idea.
Unfair is the wholesale attack on our veterans and military who risk everything to defend us, and have hateful lies like that spewn about. Unfair is my child crying herself to sleep for fear we are really losing our America. Unfair is the couple who were murdered by illegals at the border as they made their way through Arizona, on the very day we were there to take photos and report on the scene at the border.
- Lie #4: The Mexicans, all illegals, and most foreign countries all agree that the US is being unreasonable in its desire to secure the borders.
The facts: After Mexican film crews interviewed me on the BUYcotts, I always asked them what their personal opinions were on the issue of SB 1070 and the US illegal immigration policy. Without exception, they told me that Mexican sentiment is that politicians are using this to grandstand, and media outlets are using it to sell papers and get ratings, but that the people on the ground in Mexico prefer a safe guest worker program that is legal and well-managed.
As I was driving the 1500 miles home to Missouri, we detoured to see first hand our border, the guards, and illegals trying to get here. I spoke with the illegals. They told me they hope for a strong guest worker program, and a strong border patrol, because they recognize that terrorists and criminals are using them to cross the borders and endangering all.
They want to work here legally, and without the fear that they are crossing the border with terrorists who may kill them, or criminals who may get them into trouble.
The unmentioned victims in all of this are the legal immigrants who are most likely to be victimized by the illegal immigrants for kidnapping, robbery, and murder. They played by the rules and now they have become the targets. They are certainly unafraid of some sort of “profiling” possibility in light of the other threats they endure every day.
So if all of this is true, and I could not find one “real person” who is buying what the leftist MSM is selling, then who are these throngs of people who turn out at the rallies to boycott and bully Arizona, despite the almost 80 percent of public support for the issue? And who is funding them? Where are the screams about “astroturf” if they are all admittedly bussed in, and why is no one searching for the Sugar Daddy in all of this? Why is no one researching the funding source of this group, and asking if it is even funded with U.S. dollars?
I find it curious that all of the above questions are repeatedly launched at conservative groups, and yet when the facts lay in plain enough daylight for a casual visitor to see, no one is reporting them?
This is the behavior and total lack of professionalism we have come to expect of the MSM, but I wonder where any media is on this? I have seen some insightful coverage, but facts like the Communist participants, the easy attainment of the New Mexico Driver’s License, the astroturfing of the supposed boycotts, and even the real effect of the law go largely unreported.
It is time for some more serious media courage, and if they need to know the real story, they can start by visiting the beautiful state of Arizona.