How long before this kind of treatment becomes the norm for US born citizens?

But while the thousand of deported and detained immigrants may be out of the public eye, their expulsion has serious consequences. Take the case of a Mexican man deported while his immigrant wife and children are left behind in the U.S. with no grasp of the English language and little way to make a living. While before they would have been a self-sufficient family, now the wife and children, who might even be U.S. citizens, become the proverbial "drain on society." While the man may try to return to join his family, even risking his life in an illegal border crossing, the Mexican border has become so dangerous thanks to armed vigilantes, harsh weather and increased security, there’s a good chance he would not return alive.


Meanwhile, others who are deported might as well be strangers dropped in a strange land. The DuPage facility in Illinois, like facilities all over the country, was full of young Asian and Latino men who were to be deported because of gang- and drug-related convictions. Most of these men had lived in the U.S. from a young age, and English was their only language.

Groan. My stomach hurts

In deference to our heightened state of alert, I am maintaining National Public Radio silence.

Now I don't mean to gush, but I miss hearing Clinton talk. I miss the fact that he could talk and that he enjoyed talking and asking and answering questions. Have a standards fallen so quickly?

Tuesday, February 04, 2003

Dammit! Now I have to buy the book!

I was going to anyway, even though I have so many unfinished books and other projects I'm ashamed of myself. In fact, I wasn't sure I even I really wanted to read it. I just want to see it on the Top 10 list over on Amazon.com. But I just finished the intro and fell for that wonderfully cranky prose all over again.

In recent times, the right has ginned up its “liberal media” propaganda machine.
Books by both Ann Coulter, a blond bombshell pundette, and Bernard Goldberg,
former CBS News producer, have topped the best-seller lists, stringing together such
a series of charges that, well, it’s amazing neither one thought to accuse “liberals” of
using the blood of conservative children for extra flavor in their soy-milk decaf lattes.
While extremely popular with the media they attack, both books are so shoddily writ-ten
and “researched” that they pretty much refute themselves. Their danger derives
less from the authors’ respective allegations than the “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”
impression they inspire. In fact, barely any of the major allegations in either book
stands up to more than a moment’s scrutiny. The entire case is a lie, and, yes, in many
instances, a slander. Although I abhor the methods of both authors, I do not feel they
can go unanswered. Ideas, particularly bad ones, have consequences. The myth of the
“liberal media” empowers conservatives to control debate in the United States to the
point where liberals cannot even hope for a fair shake anymore. However immodest
my goal, I aim to change that.

You gotta love Eric's sense of humor. The title--What Liberal Media?--sums up the bewilderment we all felt when we liberals rolled off of our futons, and opened our copies of the New York Times over our bowls of organic granola, to discover we had the power to control the hearts and minds of American public. You also gotta love his salute to Tapped, Atrios, and company for their work at debunking the myth.

In my more compassionate moments, I entertain the idea that perhaps people on the hard right aren't nearly as nutty or scary or evil as we might believe. Then reports like this jerk that fairytale right out of my head.

Bush is revered so intensely among CPACers that all successes seem to issue from him, while failures are the fault of others unworthy of the great man. Jason Crawford, a 23-year-old who works in business development in New York, formed his group Patriots for the Defense of America right after Sept. 11 to promote "moral clarity" in the war on terror. Now, convinced that moral clarity requires attacking North Korea and fomenting revolution in Iran, he's disappointed in the administration. Yet speaking along with Oliver North (who ranted against the "brie-eating, foie gras-sucking French") at the "What Are We Fighting For?" panel, he put the blame not on Bush, but on some amorphous "us" who failed to rise to Bush's challenge. "Today we can see from our actions that we lack moral clarity," he told the crowd. "We are betraying the principles of the Bush doctrine!"

Dear, sweet, pale, trembling Lord!

I don't know what's funnier; the idea the Tom Daschle is a communist, or the outraged victimization of these people. If they weren't so completely beneath contempt I'd pity them. The fact is they're fighting a losing battle and they know it.

People who know me will laugh when I say this, but I really don't believe in laying everything that's gone wrong in the last two years at the feet of the Bush administration. Yesterday's shuttle catastophe is one of those horrible things that I'd like to chalk up to misshap. But this is hard to ignore. What gets at me the most is the way that Bush's constant slashing of funds is having real and unimaginable consequences.