Apartheid Returns to America: SB 1070, the "Papers Please" Law

There’s only one way an American can repay the debt for our Constitution and Bill of Rights—among the world’s greatest guarantees of dignity, liberty, and equality—and that’s to pay it forward. When we fail to do that, when we deliberately jettison somebody else’s rights and dignity, we spit in the face of God.

SB 1070, the harsh new “Papers Please” law that Arizona’s GOP government just enacted, requires Arizona police to demand the papers of anyone they “reasonably suspect” is in the country illegally. It also says that any person can sue the authorities if they don’t do just that.

Ironically, SB 1070 does nothing to stop illegal border crossing. Nor is it actually aimed at “illegal immigration” generically. It isn’t aimed at Canadians or Europeans or Icelanders or Polynesians. In Arizona, illegal immigration is a south of the border thing, meaning that this law’s effective impact is exclusively directed at Latinos, Mestizos, and Hispanics.

Unlike a border control station, SB 1070 just doesn’t treat all people equally. Blue eyed, fair skinned “illegals” have no worries. The chances they’ll be carded are zero. That makes this law unconstitutional.

Effective impact means how this law will operate in real life, so let’s get honest. There’s no way to tell by looking who’s here illegally. Given this new mandate and our proximity to Mexico, that’s going to pose a big problem for our police, because here in Arizona, 10% of the population is Native American, and 30% of the population is Latino, Mestizo, or Hispanic.

Of that combined 40%, hundreds of thousands of Arizona residents belong to families who have inhabited this land long before any Anglo ever did, which should make the prospect of carding any one of them cause repeated reflexive vomiting. And then there’s our indigenous American population. Thousands and thousands of them are in fact physically indistinguishable from a Mestizo or an indigenous Mexican, Honduran, Guatemalan, or Ecuadorian, and all of them are in fact citizens of the 21 other sovereign nations in Arizona that we call tribes.

Because this law requires our police to detain anyone they merely suspect might be here illegally; and because it targets Latinos, Mestizos, Hispanics, and Native Americans exclusively, it combines everyone in these groups—US citizens, tribe members, legal residents, illegal residents alike—into one giant suspect class based on nothing but racial characteristics such as skin and eye color, facial structure, and body type.

In other words, unless our governor in her vast wisdom produces other criteria for identifying a suspected illegal immigrant, it seems inescapable that SB 1070 will force Arizona's jurisdictions to engage in illegal racial profiling—there being no alternative—or be sued. That’s called legitimized race discrimination.

So, thanks to SB 1070, now all Arizona residents whose skin or eye color, facial structure, or body type may provide “reasonable suspicion” of illegal residency must now carry papers in case they are stopped--on mere suspicion and without warrant. My citizen friend Antonio, who looks like a Mayan prince, could be detained when he walks his dog. My citizen friend Roberto, a former Senate chief of staff, could also be detained, as could any Hispanic, Latino, Mestizo, or indigenous US soldier. As could their families. As could physicians, and educators, and hard-working roofers, construction guys, gardeners, nannies, chefs, inventors, investors, citrus pickers, miners, architects, waiters, and artists, all because the police can’t tell by looking and our GOP government doesn’t really give a good goddamn about the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.

This makes me almost indescribably angry. But it gets worse.

Added to the powers to arrest, detain, and deport without warrant, giving police the power to demand proof of citizenship on the basis of mere suspicion and without warrant is as fundamental to the police state as a network of secret prisons. In fact, it is the ground-level, on-the-street hypodermic syringe that every single one of them must have in order to inject into their people the pervasive terror that keeps them in power. Get it?

What you get when you add race discrimination to police state powers is called Apartheid. It is no less Apartheid in Phoenix than it was in Johannesburg. It is no less ugly, no less an affront to human decency, and no less a threat to the entire citizenry here in the US of A than it was in South Africa, because once this kind of thing is permitted to take root, it will only grow.

For this (I would think obvious) reason, our brilliant Constitution limits police powers, reserves border control to the federal government, protects us from unreasonable search and seizure, and prohibits indefinite detention without specific cause and due process. We undermine and debase those protections at everyone’s peril, because the generation that will sells its country’s freedoms at any price is also least equipped to buy them back again.

The bottom line here is that, as history repeatedly affirms, if given enough popular fear and outrage, lawmakers everywhere can and will justify anything, no matter how heinous or obscene. In my view, that simple truth puts the participation of Tom Tanton’s Immigration Reform Law Institute in writing SB 1070 into what I hope is horrifying focus. Please: Follow that link.

A lawyer for the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI)--the group that helped write Arizona's law--boasted about being "approached by lawmakers from four other states who have asked for advice on how they can do the same thing. IRLI is the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Immigration Reform (FAIR), an extreme anti-immigrant group that has recently been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 'In a nutshell, the IRLI has been behind most, if not every, local legislative immigration crackdown over the past few years. . . .'

[The Progress Report, April 29, 2010] Please: Follow that link, too.

In other words, entities that the very estimable Southern Poverty Law Center calls “hate groups,” entities that, with the help of Fox News and Lou Dobbs and Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh other loud-mouthed Far Right propagandists, have been spewing virulent lies for years about the extent and consequences of illegal Hispanic, Latino, Mestizo, and indigenous immigration are now drafting Arizona state law.

If that doesn't frighten you and make you hopping mad, either you’re not breathing or you’re stupider than a can of sand, and you sure as hell aren’t an American patriot.

I'm scared and I'm furious. I’m also frightened and sickened by the enormous erosion in the last 30 years of Americans’ common understanding of ourselves as a people and of what we stand for as a nation. More and more of us—mostly good people, many well educated—are entirely ready to jettison somebody else’s constitutional protections in less time than it takes to strike a match, and then have a party to brag about it.

We’ve already seen Americans lie down and take it as GOP lawmakers happily cut out some of our constitutional right of privacy and some of our habeas corpus protection in the wake of 9-11. We’ve also mostly kept our mouths shut as state after state has made a lower caste of gays and lesbians. And now the Arizona GOP, unwilling to name, much less target, the real causes of illegal immigration, drug smuggling, and human trafficking, has made itself a racist police state the likes of which the USA hasn’t seen since Jim Crow.

Horribly, mystifyingly, no body of fact, no argument however elegant, no appeal to reason or Christ or common decency--no force in the known universe can make these people see that it actually isn’t white skin, flag waving, Bible thumping, and prayer in public schools that makes a person an American.

What makes us real Americans is standing up to fascism whenever, wherever, and however it arrives. It doesn’t make a bit of difference whether fascism gets here on the tip of a missile, carrying a cross and draped in the flag, or on the pen of a fundamentalist, white supremacist lawmaker, because once we let it in the door, it’s hell to get it out again. As we know.

From its predictable and profound negative economic, tourist, and international repercussions, to the human fodder this law throws to Arizona’s obscene for-profit prisons, to the hoped-for decimation of Hispanic votes in November, to the legislature’s usurpation of exclusively federal powers to regulate immigration, this law is a travesty.

But note well: This isn’t Arizona’s first modern venture into Apartheid.

In recent years, anyway, the first was Arizona’s segregation of GLBT people into a second class for which marriage and its enormous social and economic benefits are simply not accessible.

So it’s natural, now that we have yet another instance when an Arizona Republican government has intentionally created a lower-caste citizenry, that sentient beings might wonder what the third, fourth, and fifth instances will be. I’m deadly serious. These Christianist, Far Right extremists have a rather developed taste for limiting other people’s freedoms. As they’ve got Tom Tanton and Fox News to give them political cover, and an unusually high number of really whipped-up bone-stupid voters, and don’t hold themselves even the teensiest bit accountable to the Constitution and Bill of Rights, what’s to stop them?

People will always find reasons, but both the truth of history and the founding of our own country surely shout that nothing ever justifies spitting on the principles that make us uniquely American and for which many generations of our families and neighbors—yes, even “anchor babies,” “coloreds,” “Indians,” and “queers”—have died.

As pundit Michael Gerson put it in yesterday's Washington Post, the only truly American answer to “May I see your papers, please?” is “Go to hell! I’ll see you in court.”

Soon as that's past our lips we'd best deal quickly with the REAL causes of illegal immigration, starting with multinationals' pillaging of the nations south of the border, the American agribusiness, meatpacking, construction, and entertainment business demand for cheap (and even slave) labor, and shoe-shined Wall Street coke dealers.

Behold the City on a Hill. Or, I Can't Make This Stuff Up

If you secretly want to know what a far-Right Republican regime looks like, visit Arizona.

From my favorite AZ blogger about a pending AZ House bill: "HB 2650 would increase the waiting time for a divorce by 4 months, to give couples a chance to reconcile their differences."

Like they hadn't thought about that already? This is like handing your mom a cork after she's poured the champagne down the drain.

HB 2650 was written by the Center for Arizona Policy. This is the same outfit that used the proposition option to ban gay marriage in AZ. I just can't wait to find out how good, white, upscale, Republican, straight Arizonans will feel about having their good, white, upscale, Republican, straight private lives managed by the gov'mint. But wait. I forgot. Those people never get divorced, do they?

And then there's AZ state Sen. Frank Antenori's inspiration, SB 2770. That's Antenori there in the photo, proving still yet again that pictures DO speak louder than words. Antenori wants to set up a 1-800 number so you can report anybody you see using food stamps to buy smokes or booze or a cell phone. FANtastic!

What's next?

Any day now, watch for a bill from the Center for Arizona Policy that will set up a call line so you can report single people who buy condoms. I'm so LOVIN' this.

Honey, if you think it's right to ban a poor man from using food stamps to buy booze or cigarettes, can you spell DEMAGOGUERY? This is where fascism meets Mao Tse Tung.

Sure. Nobody, including moi, likes to see waste of federal or state aid, or a display of really bad judgment. But like many another morally superior Republican, Antenori makes his laws out of 3 parts ignorance, 2 parts hypocrisy, and 1 part frustration.

Think about it. It's a curiously anti-market approach for a Republican. The bill requires the state to interefere in personal choice. It interferes in free market transactions, and it punishes poor people for believing all they need for the Good Life is a six-pack and a Camel cigarette.

It's not just stupid. It's brutal. It's demagoguery that pits folks lucky enough not to have bought an overpriced house right before Bush's market collapse against those who weren't so lucky. Or well connnected. Or educated.

But I guess it's better we should criminalize poor people than go after the bankers and insurors who've brought us the Second Great Depression, the Iraq Occupation, Blackwater and Halliburton frauds on the Treasury, and no health care. It's the Republican way.

Arizona Bites Again

I read today of a measure pending in AZ that would allow official inspection of a private kennel upon a written complaint. I sent the article around to a local dog list and received this bit of enlightened genius (in part) in response:

It is clear, though, that there is continuing pressure every year in every legislative session to tighten animal control regulations and there are legislators who are cheerfully carrying the water for the activists that want them. For this, we may thank our friends at HSUS and PETA for their political activism and we may also thank our population of Latin Americans (mostly the illegals) who share a third world view of domestic animal treatment and who provide a continuing stream of animal abuses for law enforcement and the media to fawn over. A near-perfect storm.

This is what passes for thought in Arizona.

OK, one, who knew Latin Americans have a monopoly on cruelty to animals! Dang! It wasn't Ernesto Vick who got busted for vicious cruelty to pit bulls.

Two, who knew that it's "mostly the illegals" who pressure our legislators to carry the water for PETA and HSUS! I guess that must be just after they crawl out of the arroyo into the voting booth, huh. Right in front of Shurf Joe, even! Shee-it, man, they've got 'nads, don't they?

Three, I personally rescued a Doberman a couple of months ago who had been shot in the testicles by some white-boy brain-dead bubbas up in Flagstaff. I call that "animal cruelty," don't you?

It's not surprising to get this kind of trash. What's surprising is that it has become commonplace. This is the face of backlash stoked by the Republican religious Right.

The thing is, a country can't stoke these flames without getting very badly burned.

No justice, no peace.

Life in Arizona for Latinos and Queers

Oh, please join me and other gays and lesbians as we grovel in appreciation. We've been granted the "right" to pay the city of Phoenix $50.00 so that we have the right to visit each other in hospitals, nursing facilities, etc.

It's the Domestic Partnership Registry. Yay.

We're thrilled. Not.

Do you get the part about how WE have to PAY to be accorded a simple fact of civilized society that hets take for granted--because, for hets, it is granted, free?

This is "equal protection under the law"?

Well djes, here in Arizona, where our sheriff marches Latino deportees through the streets to humiliate and demean them, this is what passes for civilization.

And we pay taxes, too?

Belatedly, The AZ Republic Blasts Immigrant Suffering

Finally the Arizona Republic speaks:

The season of dying has started along Arizona's southern deserts.

Those who die are illegal immigrants, so some people say they get what they deserve.

After all, some people say, "What part of 'illegal' don't you understand?"

They've said it so loudly and for so long that they nearly drowned out some of Arizona's other voices.

In hard fact, what happens along the Arizona-Mexico border every summer is an enduring humanitarian crisis that takes the lives of real people.

Husbands.

Wives.

Sons and daughters.

Fences haven't stopped the deaths. Increases in Border Patrol agents haven't stopped it. The National Guard didn't stop it.

According to Border Patrol reckoning, 61 migrants died in the Tucson Sector from Oct. 1 through April 30. This tally is seven fewer than for the same period last year, which echoes a drop in the number of illegal immigrants caught entering the country.

Even at a reduced number, this represents a tragedy that Arizonans should not be willing to accept or ignore. What's more, those 61 souls perished before the summer heat begins taking a toll.

Migrants have long died trying to cross the border, but the numbers more than doubled from 1995 to 2005, according to the Government Accountability Office. More than three-quarters of that increase happened in Arizona. It was the result of enhanced enforcement in urban areas, which forced migrants deeper into harsh desert country.

The Rev. Robin Hoover has been keeping track of where deaths occur. He says that, eight years ago, bodies were generally found within three-quarters of a mile of a road. Now, they are found nearly 5 miles from the nearest road. The reason? Increased enforcement has driven migrants to even more remote and dangerous areas.

Hoover founded Humane Borders to try to save lives by placing water tanks along routes used by migrants. Despite the decreased numbers of border crossers this year, Hoover says the water stations disperse in excess of 1,500 gallons a week.

Years ago, The Republic editorial page began writing about summer death counts in the hope of shaming Congress into reforming immigration policies that contribute to those deaths. Washington wasn't paying much attention.

In recent years, the issue of illegal immigration reached hot-button status. Attention jumped right over those dead bodies. It leaped past the human dimension. Instead of being seen as people who are caught in a broken system, migrants are now portrayed as villains who are unworthy of sympathy.

That's where Arizona is today. Anger has the upper hand. Rage is louder than reason.

But Arizona risks its humanity if it can't refocus on what immigration policies are doing to real people.

Husbands.

Wives.

Sons and daughters.

The humanitarian crisis along our southern border needs to recognized for the tragedy it is. Policies that contribute to deaths by driving migrants deeper into the desert need to be assessed for the impact they have on people.

These things need to happen for the sake of the migrants' humanity.

And Arizona's.

The comments about the original editorial, on the Republic's website, make clear that much of Arizona has already lost its humanity. That was left by the roadside the minute these people elected to treat legality as if it were justice.

Is there anything more dangerous to our common humanity, or more disgusting, than a person who's lost the capacity for self-scrutiny and the saving grace of compassion?

Is She or Isn't She? Karen Johnson and 9-11

There's a lot not to like about Karen Johnson (R-Mesa), but when she questions W, she's walking on the side of the angels, IMHO.

It doesn't particularly matter whether her questions benefit me or don't. As long as she isn't just absorbing what she's told like a sponge, she's exhibiting more reason than our national media has managed to do in 30 years.

I refer to her temerity in questioning the official version of the events of 9-11. She's getting shellacked by all the usual suspects and then some, all of whom congratulate themselves for unsually high levels of sanity and discernment while soaking up the soup.

She's being smeared as a familiar of creationists and Holocaust deniers and that's bad, but oh my god, GASP!, she's a "conspiracy theorist"! (In some circles, a conspiracy theory is just another term for "hypothesis.")

A very close friend of Pico's had this to say in response to Matt Benson's column, "More From Karen Johnson on 9-11":

"I think it's possible to doubt the official scenario without being a nutcase, a partisan, or a fool, and I don't see why it's necessary or helpful to slime people who don't meekly swallow everything they're told.

"In fact, a lot of skeptics are on the opposite side of creationism and have sufficient cognitive skills to research facts like the Trans-Texas Corridor and the objectives and mechanics of global tradem and then to put two and two together to arrive at the obvious conclusion.

"Nothing in the parts of press release that are quoted here suggests that Johnson believes there was a massive conspiracy involving everyone in Congress and the Executive branches. That's [commenter] DekeB's contribution to the conversation.

"[Commenter] MUC38NYU's is to suggest she's saying 9-11 never happened, which, of course, she isn't. Better go back and read what she says, boys, and argue with that, not with your own phantom propositions.

"I rarely agree with Karen Johnson, but unless she's gone down the "US conspiracy" road elsewhere, it looks to me like she's simply saying that there are questions that haven't been adequately answered. She's hardly alone in that opinion, and she's entitled to inquire without being trashed.

"But then, I've noticed that anyone who challenges official doctrine gets trashed. Not exactly a worthy trait of the brave and free, IMHO. In fact, our country is in big trouble because not enough of us challenged the doctrine--about WMD in Iraq, about who knew the levees would fail, about what role courts play in every case of domestic spying, about what constitutes torture, about whether the USA operates gulags, about whether the White House outs our own covert agents, about who's benefitting from $4 gas, about who's profiteering from the Iraq occupation, about what happened to all those billions that we've "lost" there, and about why official investigations are being blocked.

"You can hoot and mock if you like, but as for me, I'm keeping an attitude of healthy skepticism. History tells me that any government can go terribly wrong. I see no reason to think ours is inherently exempt from universal human inclinations. Maybe you do?"

It's pretty clear to me that those who point and laugh at skeptics and "conspiracy theorists" are serving the interests of those in power. Maybe it's because I came of age in DC during the great social change and social protest movements of the 1970s, but I learned a long time ago that our government, like all other governments, CAN abuse the people's trust, CAN lie, CAN conspire to assassinate, CAN funnel large sums of money to insiders, CAN attack and even imprison its critics, CAN smear and destroy the careers of those who question it, and MUST be questioned, rigorously, at every turn. This stance has paid off. It's what prompted me NOT to believe everything Wolf Blitzer and Lou Dobbs have to say about undocumented immigrants. It freed me to do my own digging, and guess what? The facts are just the opposite of what we're being fed night after hate-filled night.

Karen Johnson isn't who I'd choose to ride in on a white horse, and beyond the press release excerpts Benson provided, I don't know what she might think about 9-11. Whatever it is, I'm not signing on to that here.

What I am saying is that we need more questioners of official doctrine, not fewer. She deserves our support for at least that much.

AZ's SB 1108: Thought Control for the Homeland

Frankly, we should welcome this bill because it outlines the world that Pearce and Kavanagh, with the blessings of Uberchancellors Bush, Cheney, McCain, and Kyle, would have in store for us.

This analysis explains that what is not said is actually as important as what is said.

SB 1108 in effect defines non-white persons as de facto threats to national security; proposes an unelected, partisan, ideologically-driven Council of Censors to determine the content of Arizona public education curriculum from first grade through college or university; legislates replacing the liberal arts curriculum that made America great with pure, ideologically-driven far-Right indoctrination; encourages far-Right forces to disrupt public education with bogus "bias" lawsuits, defines nonconformists as agents of sedition and so subtly legitimizes the use of violence against non-white students and educators who are perceived to violate The Plan; proposes to use your tax dollars to force Arizona teachers to become indoctrinators, not educators; and establishes vague and unspecified punishment anybody who doesn't get in line.

Here is the text of SB 1108, a bill sponsored by AZ Republican state Rep. Russell Pearce and others to revise Sec. 41-4258, Arizona Revised Statutes, relating to the Homeland Security Advisory Council. As here, I’ve italicized key phrases for your reference when reading the comments that follow. Also, as you read the italicized passages, keep in mind their authors' implied objectives and the administrative infrastructure that would be required to implement this measure.

This is the bill to which I've referred sarcastically in a couple of previous posts. Now I'm taking a more serious look. First the bill, then my comments.

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AMENDMENTS TO S.B. 1108

Section 1. Title 15, chapter 1, article 1, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding sections 15-107 and 15-108, to read: 15-107. Declaration of policy. The legislature finds and declares that:

1. A primary purpose of public education is to inculcate values of American citizenship.

2. Public tax dollars used in public schools should not be used to denigrate American values and the teachings of western civilization.

3. Public tax dollars should not be used to promote political, religious, ideological or cultural beliefs or values as truth when such values are in conflict with the values of American citizenship and the teachings of western CIVILIZATION.

15-108. Denigration, disparagement or encouragement of dissent from values of American democracy and western civilization; prohibition; enforcement; prohibition of race-based organizations; definition:

A. A public school in this state shall not include within the program of instruction any courses, classes or school sponsored activities that promote, assert as truth or feature as an exclusive focus any political, religious, ideological or cultural beliefs or values that denigrate, disparage or overtly ENCOURAGE dissent from the values of American democracy and western civilization, including democracy, capitalism, pluralism and religious toleration.

B. This section does not prohibit the inclusion of diverse political, religious, ideological or CULTURAL beliefs or values if the course, CLASS or school sponsored activity as a whole does not denigrate, disparage or overtly ENCOURAGE dissent from the values of American democracy and western civilization.

C. On request of the superintendent of public instruction or the superintendent's designee, a public school shall promptly provide copies of curricula, course materials and course syllabi to the superintendent of public INSTRUCTION. The superintendent of public instruction, after providing appropriate notice and conducting an appropriate hearing, may withhold a proportionate share of state monies from any public school that violates subsection A. The superintendent of public instruction may take reasonable and APPROPRIATE regulatory actions to enforce this subsection. Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to enlarge the authority of the superintendent of public instruction to regulate the CONTENT of curriculum in public schools.

D. A public school in this state, a university under the JURISDICTION of the arizona board of regents and a community college under the JURISDICTION of a community college DISTRICT in this state shall not allow organizations to operate on the CAMPUS of the school, UNIVERSITY or community college if the organization is based in whole or in part on race-based criteria.

E. For the purposes of this section, "public school" means any of the following:
1. A school district.
2. A school in a school district.
3. A charter school.
4. An accommodation school.
5. The arizona state schools for the deaf and the blind."

Pico's Comments

Frankly, we should welcome this bill because it outlines the world that Pearce and Kavanagh, with the blessings of Uberchancellors Bush, Cheney, McCain, and Kyle, would have in store for us.

This analysis shows that what is not said is actually as important as what is said.

SB 1108 in effect defines non-white persons as de facto threats to national security; proposes an unelected, partisan, ideologically-driven Council of Censors to determine the content of Arizona public education curriculum from first grade through college or university; legislates replacing the classic liberal arts curriculum that made America great with pure, ideologically-driven far-Right indoctrination; encourages far-Right forces to disrupt public education with bogus "bias" lawsuits at will; defines nonconformists and non-whites as agents of sedition and so subtly legitimizes the use of violence against students and educators who are perceived to violate The Plan; proposes to use your tax dollars to force Arizona teachers to become indoctrinators, not educators; and establishes vague and unspecified punishment for anybody who doesn't get in line.

Historically, in rightwing discourse, the word "race," unless modified by "white," is code for non-white races. Here, because the bill is attached to a state homeland security law instead of to a tax bill, say, or to a public school funding bill, we see plainly that its authors regard "race" as a national security issue: Non-white = threat to national security.

Militia types and other far-Right fascists always co-opt the American flag to symbolize their hate-based ideology. This is the statutory equivalent.(PS: Isn't it about time for us to be flying the American flag on our side of the street where it belongs?)

"A primary purpose of public education is to inculcate values of American citizenship."

By definition, there's only one primary (first, leading, main, most important) purpose of anything. The proper article isn't "a," it's "the." So for Pearce (and Bush, and Cheney, and all the rest of the GOP), we see a very telling confusion about the meanings of "indoctrinate" and "educate."

I grant that one purpose of education is to socialize each generation with the norms of its culture. But education and socialization are not the same thing. If they were, we could scrap our entire school system and save gazillions. Our kids could be indoctrinated in a select few mantras by age 5 without ever leaving the house. Perhaps that's the plan.

Education, which also differs from training, is about critical thinking skills. These cannot be taught without exposing students broadly to conflicting ideas, good 'uns and bad 'uns, and debating them.

Measures like this actually imply that the US Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are too fragile to withstand alternatives. Oh. Er. Oops. Silly me. When they say "the values of American citizenship," I thought they meant LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. FREEDOM OF THOUGHT. FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. FREEDOM OF SPEECH. That kind of thing.

Clearly they have something else in mind, so let's ask them: What, precisely, are "the values of American citizenship and where are they found?" What, exactly, sets "American citizenship" apart from, say, "Canadian citizenship" if not the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights"?

This should be fascinating. If the anwer is anything other than our founding documents, the bill's backers will have to tell us what it is and when we ratified it. If the answer is our founding documents, they'll have to explain why they propose to nullify large chunks of our guaranteed freedoms.

This bill shows between its lines that people like Pearce in fact despise the founding documents and actually do propose to nullify large chunks of our guaranteed freedoms. As American neo-fascist racists, they have no alternative. America, by origin and law, is a classic liberal culture that, by design, is meant always to stand for liberty and justice for all. This is the meaning of American patriotism. But because that isn't good news for white supremacist American neo-fascists, these sacred founding principles really must be put squarely in their gun sights along with people of color.

In truth, small-minded people fear your liberty. If the last seven years under far-Right GOP rule haven't taught Americans that much, we really are on the verge of losing everything.

Public tax dollars should not be used to promote political, religious, ideological or cultural beliefs or values as truth when such values are in conflict with the values of American citizenship and the teachings of western CIVILIZATION.

But according to this bill, they can and must be used to promote far-Right ideology and to fund an unelected Council of Censors to decide which is which. Well, isn't that special. Shades of the Spanish Inquisition. Such an irony!

All the obvious questions--So, we can't excoriate Enron? Which teachings of "Western civilization"? When does "Western civilization" begin? What cultures does it encompass? Is it English-speaking only? Who decides? Based on what qualifications, please?--all these are moot. This bill is "need to know." If the bill's sponsors know the answers, you don't need to know them.

Fortunately, the bill is so flagrantly unconstitutional that, at least for now, it can't stand. Meanwhile, a word to the wise is sufficient: The whole point is that it isn't merely unconstitutional. It's anti-constitutional.

The rest of the measure--the parts about what may be taught and who may assemble--don't just go to the heart of our constitutional liberties. Again, that's the point. These sections also subtly encourage nuisance lawsuits against courses and instructors perceived as violating far-Right ideological mandates.

We know that all across the country, rightwing financed interests have challenged specific courses and individual instructors as promoting a "liberal" bias when, in fact, they are actually teaching solid constitutional values. Here, Pearce et al. are providing the legal underpinnings for those interests to make war on traditional constitutional values in Arizona courts using your tax dollars. (Do you begin to see why Bush has seeded the US Court of Appeals with far-Right judges?)

Finally, SB 1108 encourages violence against non-white persons because it links "race" explicitly to national security, and defines "race-based" assemblies, multicultural content, and dissent as sedition.

Bottom line: For Pearce and the Uberchancellors--Bush, Cheney, Alito, Kyle, McCain, and the rest--the idea is that, for classic constitutional liberals and people of color, it's going to be a short walk from ASU or Rio Salado Community College to your friendly local detention center. For Pearce, McCain, Bush, and the rest, it's a win-win. After all, prison privatization is just a permanent employment plan and stream of cash for Republican cronies, and the state pays by the head.

That would be your head and mine.

Call your state legislator. Now.

PS: Grab an American flag and start showing Americans what "patriotism" really means.

Republicans Driving Immigrants out of AZ's Economy

As we predicted, the employer sanction law is pushing both documented and undocumented immigrants out of Arizona. Together with the Republican-engineered tanking economy, the Republican-engineered "employer sanction" law, which punishes employers for hiring undocumented workers, is driving down school enrollment, apartment occupancy, home buying, and retail sales in what undoubtedly will be a continuing spiral of decline for as long as the Republican-engineered home mortgage fraud crisis and the resulting Republican-created credit crisis persist.

How marvelous for us all.

If there's anyone in this state who has the unmitigated gall to vote for any Republican anywhere at any time in the future, it will prove beyond any remaining doubt that a sack of cement is smarter than a Republican.

Ask me if I'm angry.

Republican Russell Pearce and his merrie band of Republican racists has declared war. Unfortunately, like his White House mentors, Cheney and George, he's shot the wrong target. As Republican Sherrif Joe Arpaio and his thugs round up brown people, they are creating a climate of fear--called "panic" in this NYTimes article--that is enveloping not just undocumented workers but documented residents of 24 years and more. This is because they can't find jobs when the economy is depressed, and they have relatives here who are not documented, and they feel the flood of hostility being intentionally whipped up at Mexican immigrants. They don't feel welcome anymore, because they aren't.

The hysterical reaction of Republicans to the influx of (invited and lured) citrus harvesters, cotton pickers, farmworkers, construction workers, restaurant workers, hotel and motel service personnel, food service and grocery workers, landscapers, miners, and domestics--terrifying bunch, huh?-is rapidly worsening an economy that is already bringing record foreclosures and other disasters.

As these families leave, they withdraw their children from our public schools and school revenue, based on headcounts, tanks, too. They leave, and when they do, they leave groceries, gasoline, household goods, school supplies, sundries, prescription medications, clothing, shoes, and all other consumer goods on the shelves. Then businesses close and homes go into foreclosure, and when businesses close and homes are abandoned, city, county, and state revenues plummet and neighborhoods deteriorate. When these things happen, everybody--brown, black, yellow, red, and white, turns blue.

This is predictable in a state that historically has always depended on Mexican laborers for its prosperity. It doesn't take a genius to connect these dots. Apparently, however, it takes a bunch of Republicans.

AZ's Pearce: Give Me a Child for It's First Seven Years. . .

Arizona's Republican legislators, led by the notorious Russell Pearce and Karen Johnson, never cease to amaze us. They propose allowing guns in public schools, and slashing our education budget. Arizona is already somewhere around 49th in state per capita education spending, but I think I see the genius here. If we can just kill off the kids fast enough, we won't need much education funding. Heck, if we get the timing right, we could even rank 48th next year.

Sheer brilliance.

This might be amusing, except that it's anything but.

For some 20 years, attacks on public schools have been at the center of conservative Republican ideology. There's a reason.

Underfunding public schools sets them up to fail, which creates a climate in which "No Child Left Behind," vouchers, and home schooling seem reasonable. I wrote recently about "political climates." This strategy is a case study in how to manipulate public policy to make the unthinkable--such as Rightwing control of the curriculum through home schooling and through "faith-based" private schools--seem eminently sane.

But. The fact is that the old standard liberal arts curriculum was the terra firma on which Americans achieved technological and economic greatness, between the invention of the automobile and the airplane, and the moonwalk. However, it also gave us critical thinking skills, a fairly decent knowledge of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, a common approach to good citizenship and ethics, and the wherewithal to perform well in a changing global economy. All these are anathema to fascism, propaganda, spin, and distortion.

Rightwing, fundamentalist, fascist prosperity depends very centrally on controlling the curriculum for future generations. This is far easier to do outside the public sphere and beyond public accountability. Ergo, failing, unfunded public schools, attacks on teachers' unions, cuts in education funding, deteriorated physical plants, challenges to "liberal" teachers and course content, lawsuits, and all the rest pave the way for a New World Order, if you will. Enter standardized Far Right curricula marketed innocuously through privately controlled home schooling associations, "faith-based" private schools, and fundy factories pretending to be colleges and universities. By these means, a whole new crop of hardcore conservative automatons is cultivated for civil service, the military, the legislatures, the courts, and the White House.

If you doubt it, take a look around. All these things have come to pass in approximately the last 20 years, thanks to master strategies, organizing, and funding from the Far Right.

The consequences for America have been written for seven years in day-glo orange for the whole world to see. The caliber of Bush appointees to Justice, HHS, FEMA, FCC, the appellate courts, the US Supreme Court. The Iraq invasion. The demise of a vigorous middle class. The complete meltdown of any sense of common purpose and any awareness of common interests. Our deteriorated infrastructure. The recession. The chilling rage of one half the country at the other. All these markers of catastrophe can be traced, directly or indirectly, to priorities nurtured in the Far Right's gradual and surreptitious dismantling of our great Jeffersonian, liberal arts, free public education system.

If Arizonans want this future, they're well on the way to having it. As for me, I have a better opinion of our state, our country, and our kids. They deserve our very best, not--as Pearce and Johnson embody--our very worst.

Oppose Mandatory Spay/Neuter Laws: Act Now in AZ

A fierce war has raged for several years, out of sight to many of us. It’s happening in one of those numerous parallel universes that we only discover if we happen to discover it. The war is between PETA, on one side, and ordinary Americans and the so-called dog and cat and horse and cattle and sheep and chicken and duck fanciers, on the other. You get the picture. I lack the time to tell the history of this war, but there’s plenty of information online.

My focus now is on dogs, not on hunting or livestock or carrier pigeons or ladybugs.

Those who have dedicated years to this war and who know far more than I do about it have convinced me that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) isn’t all it says it is. They say, and they have avalanches of information to support this, that PETA wants to eventually eliminate animal ownership. That’s actually quite clear in the rhetoric of PETA chief Ingrid Newkirk, and in the legislation PETA pushes worldwide.

One of these measures is the so-called “mandatory spay/neuter” law, and one has just been introduced in the Arizona House of Representatives. It was just a matter of time.

PETA’s rationale for requiring the spay or neutering of all dogs and cats six months or over, unless you buy a permit (fee unannounced) is to cut down on the number of dogs and cats that end up in animal shelters. There’s been a whole campaign to convince Americans that our shelters are overflowing, when, in fact, shelter populations have been steadily declining for a decade, thanks to public education and positive incentives like spay/neuter vouchers.

But setting that aside for the moment, the mandatory spay/neuter approach is a disaster for at least ten good reasons I can think of.

1. It will reduce the gene pool for pure bred animals to a dangerously small number, and, for the rest, will mean virtual extinction in just one generation. Think about it: If today’s dog generation can’t reproduce, there won’t be a generation tomorrow. (That’s what PETA wants, but it’s not what American families and dog lovers want.)

2. The bill is unenforceable. What army of animal control officers is going to comb the state looking for scofflaw households and intact dogs and cats? And if there were such an army, where’s the money going to come from if not you and me? And don’t we have better things to do with our state tax dollars?

3. Veterinarian studies show reason for concern for premature spay and neuter. These can affect bone structure and other health aspects—a serious concern for any animal, but a disaster for working dogs.

4. The bill hits the wrong target. Only responsible owners who already spay and neuter, or already breed responsibly, will comply. Meanwhile, irresponsible, or uninformed, or poor owners—all of whom are the main source of feral animals—will not comply.

5. Wherever MSN bills have been tried, they have resulted in declines in dog licensure and vaccination compliance. People resent the intrusion and the additional fee, and so they don’t risk being forced to spay/neuter by going to get the booster shot or vaccination or license. They prefer to drop out of the system entirely. This isn’t good for shelter revenues or for animal health in this or neighboring states.

6. It isn’t needed. Current measures are already working—mostly, public education and vouchers for spay/neuter. Shelter populations have been dropping for a decade.

7. If the goal is to cut the number of dogs that end up in shelters, it will fail, because half of dogs in shelters were taken by their owners in order to be euthanized. That won’t change. Owners use public shelters to dispose of old, ill, or problem dogs rather than paying a vet for that service. And the other half of owner-surrendered dogs in shelters are already spayed or neutered.

8. The bill could actually increase the shelter population if people on limited budgets decide to abandon their dogs instead of complying with the neuter/spay or paying for an “intact” fee.

9. If enforced, animal control costs will skyrocket, hitting the poorest jurisdictions hardest. Those are the jurisdictions where most strays are found.

10. If enforced, the bill will gradually eliminate the revenues generated by dog- and cat- related events, and by service and product providers who cater to dogs and cats. And folks, in California, just dog show revenue alone amounted to $93 Million annually, according to the AKC.

Unenforceable laws that aren’t needed and that miss their target anyway, and that would impose new regulation without proof that it will work, are bad laws.

We who belong to breed clubs know from experience in other states fighting similar measures that these laws only create a huge public uproar from both sides, and either get pulled or, if passed, eventually get repealed. These are a huge waste of time and money, and a cruel—in fact, an incomprehensible—approach to a badly exaggerated problem.

I can’t imagine a life without dogs. I don’t want to imagine it if I could. The joy, love, security, fun, challenge, and peace of mind ours give to us don’t have a price tag.

Public education coupled with positive incentives such as vouchers for spay/neuter or free spay/neuter clinics around town are a far better way to proceed. We know that. It’s been proved time and again.

So if you live in AZ, do one thing now: Contact your state representative and ask them to oppose HB 2516 when it is introduced. Do it for you dogs and cats, and for yourself. Mandatory spay/neuter is genocide in a generation.

AZ Dog Lovers--URGENT HEADS UP!

I will post about this separately. Meanwhile, this from the AKC website:

Arizona Alert: Mandatory Spay/Neuter Bill Introduced
[Tuesday, January 22, 2008]

House Bill 2516, which seeks to prohibit persons from owning or keeping a dog or cat that is more than six months old if the animal has not been spayed or neutered, unless the person has acquired an intact permit for the animal, has been introduced.

If adopted, this unreasonable and unenforceable bill will have a profound negative impact not only upon responsible dog breeders in Arizona, but also upon all current and prospective dog owners. It is vital that all breeders and concerned dog owners in Arizona contact their elected state legislators and voice their strong opposition to the bill.

The American Kennel Club opposes the concept of breeding permits, breeding bans, or the mandatory spay/neuter of purebred dogs. Instead, we support reasonable and enforceable laws that protect the welfare and health of purebred dogs and do not restrict the rights of breeders and owners who take their responsibilities seriously. Additionally, we strongly support and actively promote a wide range of programs to educate the public about responsible breeding practices and the responsibilities of dog ownership.

As introduced, HB 2516 will:
Prohibit a person from owning or keeping a dog or cat that is more than six months old if the animal has not been spayed or neutered, unless the person qualifies for and purchases an intact permit.

Allow the fee for the permit to be set by the county enforcement agent or by the local jurisdiction.

Require the fee for the permit to be no more than what is "reasonably necessary" to fund the administration of the intact permit program.

Provide that intact permits be issued when one of the following conditions are met, including:

For those who provide a business license and federal tax identification number as a dog or cat breeder;

Proof that the dog belongs to a recognized registry and meets show or title standards;

Proof that the dog is a working dog for law enforcement, fire agencies, or private sector working dog organizations;

Proof that the dog is actively used by law enforcement, fire agencies, or private sector working dog organizations for law enforcement, fire service, search and rescue or medical service activities, or is being raised or otherwise prepared for any of these purposes;

A letter from a licensed veterinarian stating that due to age, poor health, or illness it is unsafe to spay or neuter the animal;

Proof that the dog is used for herding or guarding livestock on property designated for ranching;

Proof that the dog or cat is temporarily in the state;

Proof that the dog or cat is being trained or used for any of the purposes permitted by the US Animal Welfare Act; or

A written agreement to allow one male dog and one female dog per household to produce a single litter of offspring within one year after issuance of permit (pursuant to stringent health and care and conditions requirements).

HB 2516 will require breeders to pay an undetermined annual fee for every intact dog they possess, and is a blatant attempt at imposing a significant financial burden upon responsible dog breeders and owners. We believe that any attempt at restricting the rights and liberties of responsible breeders—especially via mandatory spay/neuter laws—must be defeated.

As a recently introduced bill, HB 2516 has not been referred to a committee within the Arizona House of Representatives. The AKC Canine Legislation Department will continue to monitor the consideration of HB 2516 and will notify the purebred dog community when the bill is assigned to a committee. Contact information for committee members will be provided and purebred dog owners should express their concerns with HB 2516 to committee members.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Please contact your State Representative and State Senator and ask them to oppose HB 2516. To find out who represents you in the Arizona Legislature, please click here.

50% of First Phoenix Immigrants were Mexicans

Even as Arizona Rightwingers contort in rage at anyone they perceive to be undocumented -- it's pretty hard to tell by looking -- the Arizona Republic today reports that half the city's first pioneer immigrants were Mexicans.

Ruins and relics found at a downtown Phoenix construction site re-confirm that fact, as if we didn't know that the history of Arizona is permanently conjoined with that of Mexico:

During a four-week dig, scientists found wall fragments dating to the late 1800s - what's left of the first businesses built by Anglo and Mexican settlers. John Y.T. Smith's mill, the Hotel Luhrs and attorney Edward Irvine's adobe and brick buildings were the town's commercial heart during that period.

'We are looking at the very beginnings of the city of Phoenix,' city archaeologist Todd Bostwick said.

Underneath the 19th-century foundations, the team of archaeologists also found the buried remnants of about a dozen prehistoric pit houses. Hohokam farmers who lived in the Valley between A.D. 1 and 1450 probably occupied them, archaeologists say. No human remains were found. . . .

Over the years, floods, silt and wind buried pit houses and pioneer-era buildings under a few feet of dirt.

The building fragments date to a time when only a few hundred people, about half of them Mexican settlers and half of them Anglos, lived in what is now Phoenix.

Early settlers eked out a hardscrabble life. Relations with Native Americans, including the Gila River, Maricopa, Pima and Apache tribes, were sometimes friendly, sometimes tense.

The intersection of Central Avenue and Washington Street was the heart of Phoenix life in the late 1800s, historians say.

Mills, saloons, government buildings, shops and professional offices sprang up in that area.

Experts knew about the pioneer-era businesses, but State Historic Preservation Officer James Garrison said he was astounded by how much was preserved under the parking lot.

Some of century-old walls fragments ran for a dozen feet, and one adobe cellar was practically intact.

'The first two-story building in Phoenix was sitting on top of a pit house,' Garrison said.

Even the Hohokam finds hinted at trade.

Archaeologists found a bracelet made from a seashell that is found only at a tourist destination in Mexico that is familiar to Arizonans.

'We aren't the first to vacation at [Puerto Penasco] Rocky Point,' Bostwick said.

So we're not Anglo. We're White Mountain and San Carlos Apache, Tohono O'odham, Chiricahua, Mescalero, Hopi, Navajo, Havasupai, and Mojave, and Mexican, and African American, Asian, Ethiopian, Iraqi, Japanese, Russian, Portuquese, Guatemalan, French, English, Polish, Malian, Nigerian, Ghanaean. . . you get my point.

So this Pat Buchanan/Minuteman/Russell Pearce business about racial and cultural homogeneity -- and that's what it's really about -- makes about as much sense as it makes humane policy. None.

Like the rest of the Southwest, Arizona derives its massive socio-cultural appeal from the mix of Mexican, Native American, and Anglo cultures. Phoenix got to be the fifth-largest city in the country on the backs of Mexican, Native American, and Anglo people, male and female. And any future we have will be hewn out by Mexican, Native American, and Anglo people, male and female.

If we treated our Hispanic art and artifacts the way we are treating our Hispanic people, our museums, libraries, and special collections would be destroyed, along with the material heritage of the entire state. Even our land is Native American and Mexican. From the point of view of the Tribes, we're all "illegal." You'd think we'd have the common decency to remember that as we try to solve the immigration/security issues.

The immigration and security issues are complex, economically, emotionally, physically, and logistically. But we won't reach workable solutions any faster by dividing and terrorizing a third of our people.

Those who want a genuine workable, just, and long-term solution owe it to everyone to shift the debate from people to policies, to stand up against anyone who demonizes and abuses anybody, and to refuse laws that threaten our common economic stability.

It's been said before: We're in this together, and pretending that we're not is like saying, "Your half of the boat is sinking."