Immigrants, illegal and legal have put us to shame

[madmunchie]

The numbers of them turning out to fight for their rights (whether you agree or not), are what we used to be like. We took to the streets and protested against things that we were against. There are some protests now, but not like what we are seeing immigrants doing.

What has happened to our fighting spirit?

[ret5hd]

1. It's either over by the remote control...

or behind the ice cream in the freezer.

(not much) sarcasm intended.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Well said. Complacency is more dangerous than fear.

[madeline_con]

2. Wages have gone down, we can't miss work for protests. eom

[kerrygoddess]

17. Neither can they

It's not all illegals out there protesting - fyi, it's relatives, it's compassionate people who are not even affected, it's folks from many walks of life and many countries.

[Lost-in-FL]

3. It is hard to disagree with someone that is soooo right...

I mean right as being correct...

:popcorn:

[hwmnbn]

5. Add to the fact the illegals are risking arrest and ......

deportation, this is impressive. Maybe they still believe the US is a democracy and the people have a right to protest the government's actions.

Latin America has been a political hotbed for many years. They know from dictators and civil wars and corrupt governments.

[Redstone]

6. Some of us are old and worn out.

Don't know what the younger ones' excuse is.

May I compliment you on a well-writen post?

Redstone

[madmunchie]

8. Yes, and thank you!

[TheBaldyMan]

24. age is no excuse, I knew a veteran of the Spanish Civil War who continued

to protest into his seventies (20 years ago) and as far as I know he is still going strong. He fought for the International Brigades and was always politically active since he was a kid.

[dolstein]

7. Why don't illegal immigrants take that fighting spirit back home

and fight for social change there?

[madmunchie]

9. Why aren't we fighting for social change here?

[Christa]

10. well said! :-) NT

[Lost-in-FL]

13. Great answer

[hwmnbn]

12. Well, there's Venezuela ....

Chile, and Bolivia that have made some nice democratically elected changes. More on the way if we are to believe the polls about Mexico.

[Bridget Burke]

21. There's plenty of fighting "back home"--by which you mean Mexico.

Do you follow Mexican politics?

[tsuki]

11. You must remember that they are closer to their "working" roots.

They have not become part of the "muddled-class."

I hate the term "middle class."

[ladjf]

14. Don't worry. The "middle class" is disappearing so rapidly

that you won't have to hear the term much longer. Soon there will be on rich and poor.

[tsuki]

18. Then maybe some people will remember their roots. nt

[ladjf]

19. They will refer to it as "the good old days".

[EC]

15. Well for some reason, some businesses and schools were

shutting down to allow their students and employees to march...hmmm...don't see that happening for Peace marches do you?

On edit: and gee the media were right there covering these marches weren't they?

[Igel]

16. They're not fighting for abstract rights or something

they're merely against.

The illegal immigrants are fighting for the rights and privileges that the legal immigrants have (and some, for more than those, if the occasional advocacy group is to be taken at face value). The legal immigrants and citizens are fighting for their friends and family, not wanting to be declared felons or criminals for doing what they want to do. Some are fighting for people of the same race just on the principle of fighting for their race, not seeing the difference between legal and illegal immigration clearly: some people I know, fairly educated (professors, grad students), assume that the current legislation somehow targets a specific race or all immigrants equally.

Some people believe they have only rights and personal concerns; they have no responsibilities beyond their own interests for upholding the law that they find inconvenient to them, personally. This can be a reasonable pov; however, in a sufficiently balkanized political landscape, I believe this not to be the case.

Some people have confused the 'stranger' of the Old and New Testament with any immigrant; 'strangers' were typically few and far between, and usually fled drought or war, or were bereft of everything, including family. "Economic refugees" were rare: the idea of leaving kith and kin and turning to strangers in another land was not a pleasant thought. Others believe all immigrants fall into the same category as the battered traveller helped by the Good Samaritan; however, he was battered and left for dead by thieves, he wasn't accused of breaking any law. This has the effect of making illegal immigrants a somehow special class by virtue of their being here illegally, which is a very strange kind of class. (And for those that think a 'person can't be illegal', 'illegal immigrant' unpacks not as 'an illegal one who immigrated, but 'one who illegally immigrated'.)

[Bridget Burke]

22. They are fighting against a Republican bill.

Which has a great many fans at DU. In fact, quite a few here fear that the Republicans are being far too lenient.

I suspected we had Republicans posing as Democrats over here. But I didn't think there were so many.

[msgadget]

20. If the press had run video of what the first inaugural procession looked

like I don't think you'd even have to ask that question. There have been large protests that receive not one second of attention from the local news stations the average, work-a-day voter watches before Letterman or Leno.

The president, until recently, was only feted and photographed at carefully choreographed meet and greets (even during Katrina!). And, remember what a hard line the administration took 'for security reasons' during '04? Protests were allowed but usually a block away and rarely did the press do more than snort about 'some activity in the distance'. The press even downplayed the arrest of a dead soldier's mother attending a speech during the campaign... The NYT, btw, has since admitted to witholding major news stories it learned about prior to November 2004.

The press let us down. It was like shouting into outer space and I think that's why so much of our protesting is done online these days.

[annabanana]

23. there were 750k on the streets of NY during the GOP

convention. . . CSpan showed it
CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX. . . . not so much

And the big march in Washington?. . If you couldn't find a traffic-cam . ."it never happened"