Googling around on the Immigration issue massively increases the awe in which one must hold the MSM’s ability to repress news in America.

Somewhere this week “an immigration-policy conference” was held at which Rep Howard Berman, D- Calif – a Bad News Bear on immigration–was, perhaps, too candid for the taste of the news managers:

House Democratic leaders worried about the November election want to thwart enforcement-only immigration legislation supported by colleagues in districts where immigration is a hot-button issue, a leading House liberal said Thursday.

People who are very committed to comprehensive reform but who are charged with the responsibility for the next elections think about Lou Dobbs and the power of this issue in different local election contests,” said Howard Berman, D-Calif.

Immigration-enforcement bill splits Democrats by Jerry Kammer, Arizona Republic, May 9, 2008

What this story demonstrates is that the Democrats are absolutely terrified by the immigration issue. (Listening, John McCain?–Aw, forget it.)

As Berman - nothing if not a professional Pol–said:

House Democrats want to avoid a vote on legislation that would require employers nationwide to check the legal status of all workers with a federal verification system.

But their problem is it is some of their newer and vulnerable colleagues, such as Rep Heath Shuler (D- NC) want to position favorably on the bill:

The bill’s chief sponsor is Heath Shuler, a freshman Democrat from North Carolina, where a decade of heavy illegal immigration has roiled the political waters.
Shuler is one of 10 Democrats who have signed a petition that seeks to force House leaders to schedule a vote on his bill.
Meanwhile, 178 Republicans have put their names on the petition, bringing it within 30 signatures of the 218 it needs to force the issue.

Berman’s opinion:

if it came up for a vote, the measure would likely pass in the House, with support from nearly all Republicans and a group of Democrats determined to pre-empt campaign ads that might brand them as soft on illegal immigration.

The response:

Democratic leaders “have been working very hard to keep our Democrats from signing” the petition, Berman said. He spoke at a two-day conference in Washington, D.C.

Unsurprisingly the Arizona Republic’s story demonstrates that new Representative Gabrielle Giffords is a Treason Lobby member:

The issue has split Arizona’s delegation along party lines. The four Republicans have signed it; the four Democrats have not.
Two of the Democrats, Harry Mitchell of Tempe and Gabrielle Giffords of Tucson, are freshmen who won their 2006 races against hard-liners on illegal immigration.

It is not a surprise that House Democrats have a problem: a number won election in ’06 by lying about their attitude on immigration–and more particularly their party’s attitude–so they now face difficulties.

Not if the MSM can help it however: as far as I can Google, the Arizona Republic is the only outlet to mention Rep. Berman’s candid and undeniably interesting remarks.The Democrats have a problem. But America has a worse problem: extreme censorship on these issues by the MSM.

The Land of the Free! What happened?

Ultimately, one of the best assets Immigration Patriots have is the astonishing, amazing and abrasive arrogance of the Hispanic Advocacy groups.

Consider this: apparently in Missouri, a grass-roots outfit, Missourians Against Illegal Immigration, has raised the money to place newspaper advertisements supporting SB858, a bill in the Missouri Senate which would ban drivers licenses and public assistance being given to illegal immigrants, and sanction their employers.

Anti-illegal immigration group makes push for Senate bill by Melissa Huffer, Columbia Missourian, May 8, 2008

The bill is being stalled in the State Senate, which recesses next week.

Janet Renner (email her), who founded Missourians Against Illegal Immigration, is associated with FAIR, which the Columbia Missourian breathlessly notes

was labeled an active U.S. hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, according to the center’s Web site.

This, of course, is an honor shared with VDARE.com, and is a fine example of how SPLC terrorism works.

However, the gem in the report comes at the end: the effort is opposed by

Missouri Immigrant and Refugee Advocates, an umbrella organization formed to promote immigrants’ rights

the “chair” of which, Joan Suarez, opines of Missourians Against Illegal Immigration

“They are a group with relatively little sway…If anything, they are citizen lobbyists”

Citizen Lobbyists! Applying themselves to influencing a State legislature! Disgusting!

Matters are handled much better in Latin America!

Explain the USA to Joan Suarez

Last week I reported on the efforts in Houston to mask the data on attitudes to immigration revealed by a local opinion survey. (Un PC Results from The Houston Area Survey April 29).

The Houston Area Survey’s website has now posted a 10-page summary of the study An Historical Overview of Immigration in Houston, Based on the Houston Area Survey (PDF)

This document differs from a normal academic paper in two ways: first, the extreme stridency and tendentiousness of the pro-immigration spin it exhibits, and secondly the professional fluency of the writing–far removed from the turgid jumble usually emerging from University Sociology Departments (I speak from bitter editing experience).

Perhaps it is not too much to detect the hand of the Houston Chronicle’s Lisa Falkenberg, [Send her mail] who managed to publish a long (and fluent) pro immigration foil to the Survey the day of its press release. (I am informed she has the role of pro immigration Commissar on the Chronicle – thanks JC and GW.) Certainly it is clear that the complaint of the Survey’s progenitor, Professor Stephen Klineberg [Send him mail]:

“No matter how you ask the question,…every measure shows growing anti-immigrant sentiment.”

(VDARE.com emphasis) was heart-felt.

Quite out of place in a professional academic essay is this happy burble:

The United States, which throughout all of its history was an amalgam of European nationalities, is suddenly becoming a microcosm of the world — the first nation in history that can say, “We are a free people, and now we come from everywhere!”

(p2)

Or this polemical fulmination:

Between 1924 and 1965, under the notorious and viciously racist “National Origins Quota Act,” immigration into America slowed to a trickle, and explicit preference was accorded to Northern Europeans.

(P2)

(As Professor Kevin MacDonald has decisively demonstrated, the 1924 legislation was a clash between two groups, one seeking to preserve historic America, the other wishing to overthrow it. Both could be said to be serving their ethnic interests. In 1924 the former won, in 1965 the latter.)

Apart from employing glaring historical falsehoods–(The United States remained overwhelmingly a British, Protestant nation until the 1840s; there is a ridiculous effort on Page 4 to blame the abysmally low educational attainments of Houston’s Mexican immigrant population on the family reunification provisions of the 1965 Act–whereas of course the overwhelming bulk of this group are in Houston because they walked illegally across the border)–the main argumentation in the essay seems to be based on the assumption that the serfs reading it cannot think. Thus the information that half of third generation Hispanics have only Hispanics as their three closest friends is presented as evidence of assimilation! (P8)

As noted last week, the main evidence the report offers of assimilation is the irrelevant one of converging economic profiles–even having access to a computer! (P6-7)

Of course, I suppose it could be that the Klinebergs and Falkenbergs see being American merely as a matter of having similar possessions.

It is clear that the report realizes that Houston has imported itself a probably lethal problem:

More than 40 percent of all Houston’s Latino and Asian immigrants are recent arrivals, having come here since 1995…if the socioeconomic disparities with Anglos are not reduced, if too many of Houston’s “minority” youth remain unprepared to succeed in the knowledge economy of the twenty-first century, it is difficult to envision a prosperous future for the region as a whole…How the public responds…will do much to determine whether the region’s ongoing demographic transformation will become a significant asset for this port-city as it positions itself for prosperity in the global economy, or whether it will instead become a major liability, reducing rather than enhancing the region’s competitiveness and setting the stage for serious social conflict.

The strong implication is that the burden of adjustment should all fall on the historic Americans.

Instead, “the public” would do well to consider how it was this mess was created.

Tell Professor Klineberg to improve his scholarship - and get a more honest ghostwriter!

Rice University’s Professor Stephen Klineberg directs an annual survey of opinion in the Houston area. This year’s, released today shows a dramatic increase in unenthusiasm in the city for immigration:

The number of respondents who described the arrival of large numbers of illegal immigrants as a “very serious” problem for Houston rose from 43 percent in 2006 to 61 percent this year. By far the most frequently cited reason for this concern was the perceived strain on public services caused by illegal immigrants. The negative attitudes have spread beyond undocumented immigrants: The proportion of area residents who favor taking action to reduce the number of new immigrants (legal and otherwise) who are coming to America grew from 48 percent in 2004 to 63 percent today.

[Annual study finds Houstonians' attitudes sour toward immigration Eurekalert.org, April 29, 2008]

Professor Klineberg, who also designed the survey, seems frustrated by this:

“No matter how you ask the question,” Klineberg said, “every measure shows growing anti-immigrant sentiment.” The public seems increasingly to believe that the nation is being swamped by a rising tide of unassimilable foreigners that it cannot absorb.

An interesting discovery is that Latino immigrants, particularly the longer established ones, are not especially keen on immigration themselves.

Thirty-nine percent of the Latino immigrants who have been in the United States for fewer than 10 years said the U.S. should admit more immigrants. That number drops to 29 percent among those who have lived in America for 20 or more years, to 25 percent among second-generation Latino immigrants and to just 14 percent in the third generation.

Sadly, the survey, no doubt by design, verges on dishonesty in discussing the question of assimilation. The press release trumpets in its second sentence:

The…survey finds Latino immigrants are quickly assimilating into U.S. society.

The primary evidence of this is income levels:

The proportion of the immigrants who report household incomes above $35,000, for example, grows from 16 percent for those who have lived in the U.S. for nine years or less, to 22 percent and to 42 percent among the immigrants who have been in America for more than nine and more than 19 years; the numbers rise to 52 percent in the second generation (U.S.-born Latinos with immigrant parents) and to 57 percent in the third generation

Earning money, of course has absolutely nothing to do with becoming American, which is a cultural, not an economic phenomenon.

The limited insight into cultural matters the survey offers is, in fact, alarming:

the proportions who think of themselves as “primarily Hispanic” drop progressively from 85 percent among the most recent immigrants to 17 percent in the third generation.

Third generation!

The language news is bad too:

the proportion of the Latino respondents who conducted the interviews in English rather than Spanish grows from 17 percent among the most recent immigrants to 49 percent of those who have lived in the U.S. for 20 years or more, and to 98 percent of the third-generation Latinos.

One wonders if ever before an urban immigrant community would have been so weak in English after 20 years “or more” that it preferred its native tongue. Or whether they would have been given the option on such a survey.

Houstonians however, are not xenophobes:

When asked to assess “the overall impact of the Katrina evacuees on Houston,” a growing majority considers the impact to have been a “bad thing” for the city, rising from 47 percent in 2006 to 65 percent in 2007 and to 70 percent this year.

Something Steve Sailer could have predicted — and in effect did.

The local Treason Lobby propaganda sheet, the Houston Chronicle, quickly deployed Lisa Falkenberg for damage control.

Ignorance is costlier than immigrants [April 28 2008] is the conventional number-shuffling shell game, shot through with contempt for the serfs who dare to question the immigration enthusiast agenda:

it’s easy to see how well-founded concerns over immigration could have devolved into widespread hysteria after three years of constant politicization and media hype… the media are constantly playing up the “illegal immigrant” angle in crimes such as drunken driving or robbery… Focusing only on the negative perpetuates a climate in which illegal immigrants are demonized.”

Falkenberg, as usual, completely ignores the central issue: what good did all this immigration do US born Houstonians?

Particularly those whose find their children’s education needs neglected while teachers struggle with non-English speakers, who are delayed getting medical treatment and whose hospital bills are inflated by indigent immigrants stealing health care, or whose incomes would have been higher – and so their taxes – without the undercutting presence of illegals.

Happily the Houston Chronicle has a comment thread (at present).

A Houston policeman (apparently) has a much better – or more honest – understanding. Piercessw wrote

I deal with the illegal issue on a daily basis!

The majority of the illegals I stop on traffic stops have NO ID on them. This is so they can give us (police) a fake name, date of birth, etc, so they don’t have to be held accountable for their actions.

They often claim they can’t speak English….until the tow truck shows up! Boy, they learned broken English real fast!

They often have warrants on the plates of the car they are driving under various names (from the various alias names given to officers).

I would not think about going to another country and driving illegally, but I have illegal aliens pass me all the time speeding, drunk, etc… They know they are safe here in Houston!

Tell Lisa Falkenberg it is time for her to think of her fellow Americans.

Last February, The Charlotte Observer ran a six-part series, The Cruelest Cuts, which essentially accused a large North Carolina poultry producer, House of Raeford of maltreating and exploiting the illegal Hispanic workers who apparently make up the bulk of the firm’s work force:

“Our journalists found …that House of Raeford has undergone a work force transformation. In the early 1990s, its workers were largely African Americans. Today, between 80 percent and 90 percent of workers at some of its plants are Latinos. Most have no legal standing in this country; most are poor…”

[Poultry series exposes a new, silent subclass, By Rick Thames The Charlotte Observer,February 10, 2008]
This was naïve of The Charlotte Observer, since in Primary season no politician wanted to be seen championing illegal immigrants (or offending the powerful interests which benefit from their presence). The well researched story essentially went nowhere, except for some routine employer-bashing by Senator Kennedy and other Democrats at a Senate sub-committee hearing.[Lawmakers: Toughen poultry plant penalties, Congressional hearing on hazards prompted by Observer articles, By Ames Alexander And Lisa Zagaroli, The Charlotte Observer, April 2, 2008]

Naïve and incurious ra-ra immigration enthusiasm has, of course long been a hallmark of The Observer on the immigration issue.

But now national election concerns have faded, North Carolina’s Democratic Governor, Mike Easley, has crawled out from under cover and tried to use the series to make some political capital at the expense of the state’s Labor Department Commissioner, an elected Republican. In the process, he lapses into Illegal Immigrant Veneration:

“Legal or not these workers are still human beings,” he said. “They’re still God’s children. And we have a moral obligation - that supersedes state or federal law - to treat them with dignity.”… Too many employers work immigrants until they are seriously hurt, Easley said.
“Then they just throw them on the curb and move on,” he said. “There need to be in place some laws to protect these workers. The people of the state don’t want to tolerate this.”

[Easley: Labor Dept. needs to be more aggressive The Charlotte Observer , April 17, 2008]

What The Charlotte Observer, Senate Democrats, and Governor Easley fail to grasp (or prefer to ignore) is that is the Government which has created this problem by not enforcing immigration law.

Meat processing has always been physically arduous, dangerous, and unpleasant. It is also an extremely competitive business. When supplied with a work force, which as Rick Thames in the essay above describes as “A disturbing subclass of compliant workers with few, if any, rights…As a group…compulsively compliant, ever-conscious that one complaint could lead to their firing or arrest or deportation,” then abuses are extremely likely and capital investment to automate and improve conditions unlikely.

Last year, discussing his excellent study demonstrating that Hispanics are eroding South Carolina wages, USC’s Doug Woodward said:

“What we’re doing here in South Carolina is importing cheap labor to our economy,”

It is the politicians who let this happen who are really responsible for any abuses at House of Raeford.

So the “Department of Homeland Security” -what a creepy title – has woken up to the Chicken Processing situation:

Pilgrim’s Pride: Homeland Security Took 400 Wrkrs Into Custody CNNMoney.com April16 2006

Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (PPC) confirmed the Department of Homeland Security took 400 employees into custody at five processing facilities across the South….Officials from the Customs Enforcement division took into custody employees at plants in Batesville, Ark.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Live Oak, Fla.; Morefield, W.Va.; and Mt. Pleasant, Texas.
Pilgrim’s Pride said it had terminated all employees who were arrested and would terminate employees found to have engaged in similar misconduct.

Charming to see how Pilgrim’s Pride, the world’s largest chicken supplier, stands by its employees in time of need.

But of course the company has the fine moral example set by one of their outside directors, Linda Chavez – no doubt there to sanctify treasonable employment practices.

So it appears that John McCain has won in the Republican Florida Primary. As Peter Brimelow remarked the other day, the intense tribalism of this year’s contests is breathtaking, as is:

how complacently this is passed over in the MSM. Women vote for Hillary in Nevada. Hispanics vote for Hillary in Nevada. Mormons vote for Romney in Nevada. Evangelicals vote for Huckabee in South Carolina. Veterans vote for McCain in South Carolina. (Close race). Probably blacks will vote overwhelmingly for Obama throughout the South.

And, apparently, the Aged vote for John McCain in Florida. Of course, Ron Paul is over 70 too. But McCain deals exclusively in memories, and Paul mainly in ideas: it is a very serious practical difference.

Voting for your own makes a certain sense. In a more recent blog, Peter Brimelow noted what absolutely does not make sense: in South Carolina, where the

near-lynching of Senator Lindsey Graham was among the first signs that the Kennedy-Bush amnesty/ immigration surge bill was going to fail, McCain, who supported it, got a quarter (24%)of those naming immigration. He even got a quarter (26%) of the gratifying majority (52%) of South Carolina Republican voters who thought illegal immigrants should be deported.

It is indisputable that the grass roots rebellion which blocked the Bush/Kennedy Amnesty of last year was one of the most powerful popular political spasms of modern times.

So what does this tell us of John McCain’s appreciation - or respect - for the popular will ( especially of his party) that he so grovellingly slurped up the endorsement of Florida’s Senator Mel Martinez last week? Martinez (R-Cuba) whose bigoted ethnocentric political behavior has been hugely damaging to the Republican base and repulsively anti- American into the bargain?

Nothing good.

Why is it that Ron Paul’s rather respectable credentials on the immigration issue – which was so white hot last year – do not help him?

Peter Brimelow, in his comment on the South Carolina results has the answer:

Ron Paul, who got an appalling 4% of both groups [those saying immigration most important issue; those wanting illegals deported] is missing a huge opportunity by not stressing his commitment to national sovereignty

Some year, a Presidential candidate will appear who hears this music.

Goodnight, my someone…

Kevin MacDonald has just published on his blog The Neocons as a Hostile Conservative (!) Elite, which essentially is an updated and simplified reprise of his Thinking About Neoconservatism, possibly the most important and certainly the most costly article VDARE.com has ever carried.

In his new essay, MacDonald notes

First, neoconservatism is a Jewish movement. That should have been clear to everyone by now, but references to the Jewish basis of the movement have been noticeably missing from much of the mainstream media, to the point that Bill Kristol was introduced as a columnist at the New York Times as simply a “conservative.” This is critical because the neocons have now become the conservative establishment. When Kristol (or Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity) hold forth at Fox News, most people have no idea that they are tuning into the public face of a fundamentally Jewish movement that elbowed out more traditional conservatives.

Secondly, Jewish neocons not only have a strong Jewish identity, they also have strong Jewish interests. This is obvious from their involvement in pro-Israel activism, their personal relationships with Israeli leaders, and close ties with other Jews and with the wider Jewish community. In fact, I have argued that the neocons are more strongly identified as Jews than the mainstream liberal/left Jews — that the neocons form the vanguard of the Jewish community…along with the American Jewish mainstream, the neocons have been vital players in the establishment of a variety of policies opposed to the interests and attitudes of the American majority, most egregiously unrestricted immigration which has successfully altered the ethnic composition of the country.

Ron Paul’s clearest statement on his immigration policy, we believe, is the interview he gave last September to VDARE.com.

VDARE.com being funded by a 501(c)(3) foundation, we cannot comment directly on elections. But we can, I understand, note matters involving the internet’s influence on politics.

At VDARE.com - founded essentially because of the immigration issue’s exclusion by a Neo Conservative Cabal and their minions at National Review - we have always had faith in the possibilities of the internet.

The Paul People/tards/istas/ettes (who knows?) have never considered the print media as important. They even question television.

If you Google/ News on the Ron Paul matter you will quickly find yourself in obscure blogs, and a few letters to provincial newspapers. Where is the MSM (even jeering)?

The Fix is in. Paul, like immigration until recently, is simply forbidden to be mentioned. But this time, it doesn’t work. Consider the effort by the Orange County Register to denigrate the PaulPeoples’s enterprising idea of having a march on the virtual reality game World of Warcraft:

Ron Paul Warcraft march won’t win votes, analysts say By SONYA SMITH, Monday, December 31, 2007.

(World of Warcraft is an activity in which over 9Mm people participate - including your children! -especially males.)

As so often, an elegant and decisive refutation arrived in the comment thread from cyberspace. It deserves careful consideration:

Ummmm… Duh!?

It’s name recognition, nothing more… But neither you nor your ‘analyst’ understand anything about the internet

So here’s how it works, Or how it worked with me, anyway. Since you obviously have no concept of how the internet can create votes…

Name recognition: In may I saw a link to his speeches ( youtube.com ) on the floor of the house before the Iraq war…

More interest: I looked at more of his speeches and him speaking, watching many of these speeches and lectures while at work… ( dozens, hundreds )

Got Involved: I Joined Meetup.com and went to a sign-waving, Lots of other young people were there…

Went to more sign-wavings, handed out literature, talked with like minded people, & got psyched up…

Spreading the message: I brought my girlfriend and family into it, I lectured them ( all non-voters ) into registering republican to vote for him. & They did.

Raising money: I asked my family members to buy me Ron Paul gear and literature for christmas, all-together my family donated about 250$.

Getting out the vote : I’m about to start canvassing this week in my state ( california ) through my meetup group. I have my list & map, just waiting on some literature.

I now have My own, and 7 other friends & family ( all but 1 were non-primary-voters ) showing up super tuesday for california’s primary…

I’ve never voted before, yet I’m bringing at least 8 votes for Ron Paul… Soooo… ‘Analyze’ that.

Internet voters are smarter & more organized, television is on its way out… The Sheep don’t make it to the polls
Educated, motivated, Suppressed & AGITATED Paul supporters will show up in droves.

Talon Ferguson
Orange, CA

My nephew, a regular player, who participated in the march this evening, said it was on a scale he has never seen. My son, also a regular player, tried to sign up just before the event started, and was eventually told the server was overloaded. As a matter of political significance, both boys participate normally in a “Guild” of about ten in which they are the only ones below voting age.

Consider the activities of the Ron Paul Blimp – launched by an internet appeal quite independently of the Paul campaign. If you follow its flight path over Florida (on a wide enough scale), small notice boards spring up telling you of the Paul Meetup Groups. Some are beautifully organized, like Clay County’s, with informative links to Paul YouTube film clips. Obviously the internet hugely leverages the effect of operating this airship – something I myself had considered until I saw it.

Probably we should try Meetup groups for VDARE.com.

Or what about the absolutely addictive AOL Presidential Straw poll, complete with a US map which frequently updates, and which clearly demonstrates that Paul, invariably first or second in every state, is the only true national GOP candidate?

(The only other candidate to show real vitality in this venue, albeit strictly regional, is Mike Huckabee. Another Arkansas shyster in the White House?)

The crux of the matter, of course, has been the Paul campaign’s ability to raise money over the internet. Which originally, like America’s concepts of freedom, came from England.

It is not a coincidence.

VDARE.com likes to tease Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies for his habit of triangulating against us – although in fact we accept that enabling others to advance the patriotic cause by our drawing fire away from them is a valuable role.

However Mark can be pretty forthright himself. (As he was in the Q & A session of the Diana Furchtgott-Roth/Peter Brimelow row at the Hudson Institute Conference.)

A notable example of this appeared on Friday in the Frontpagemag.com debate already noted by James Fulford. Apparently irritated by the vicious sophistry of Linda Chavez, he said in conclusion:

…this whole discussion among John (Fonte), Joe (Hicks), Linda (Chavez), Clint (Bolick), and me has, I think, been quite illuminating. The substantive, documented critiques by John and me, and the glib, breezy responses by Linda and Clint, really highlight the unbridgeable divide on the Right over immigration. On one side is the majority of conservatives, who, despite many differing views on the specifics of immigration policy, nonetheless give first priority to Americanization, borders, sovereignty, and national cohesion. On the other side is a small but vocal group that places first priority on continued high levels of immigration, without any preconditions regarding assimilation or sovereignty. This faction is part of an odd-bedfellows coalition of business lobbyists, libertarian ideologues, racial-chauvinist groups, and left-wing open-borders activists that have been very successful over the years in preventing consistent, across-the-board enforcement of our immigration laws.

It’s long past time to establish the first of these two competing views as the consensus position of the Right: Assimilation first; Secure borders first; Sovereignty first. Those who disagree should either keep their own counsel or find a different political home. (VDARE.com emphasis.)

Find a different political home. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Linda Chavez also said some significant things in the FrontPage debate. (In inverse order):

the only way we can solve the problem with illegal immigration is to make it possible for more people to come here legally.

and

I am convinced that the real opposition to immigration reform is culturally-based.

That Chavez is in reality an open borders type is no surprise – although she denied it when Krikorian challenged her. But the assertion that culturally-based opposition to mass immigration (aka “reform”) exists (but is somehow illegitimate) sheds light on what motivates her own dogmatism on the question.

The “Hispanic” camouflage has faded. The lucrative board memberships at illegal-employing companies are beside the point. Linda Chavez – Mrs. Christopher Gerson – has assimilated both in style and beliefs to what comprises today America’s greatest danger.