Vdare.com Note:This is a report from a VDARE.com reader. Guilt-by-association types will please note that it doesn’t mean we agree with everything Nick Griffin stands for, or vice-versa. If we were in the business of guilt by association, we might wonder if this sort of violence was inspired by kids these days reading too many reports from the Southern Poverty Law Center.(Plaintiff’s lawyers take note–the SPLC’s pockets are extremely deep.)

On Friday, October 26, British Nationalist Party (BNP) Chairman Nick Griffin attempted to deliver a speech at Michigan State University on the “Islamization of Europe.” According to the Michigan Messenger, some 30 people showed up in support and another 75 to protest.

The event began with the Pledge of Allegiance, which was greeted with loud boos from protesters. Kyle Bristow, chairman of the Michigan State University Young Americans for Freedom (MSU-YAF), introduced Griffin. At the end of his introduction, Bristow showed his defiance to the protesters by declaring, “You cannot take our hearts, you cannot take our tongues, and you cannot take our freedom!” These are the words Griffin had spoken following his acquittal of the charge of inciting racial hatred for his description of Islam as a “wicked, vicious faith.”

The Griffin event was videotaped and video footage is available on MSU-YAF’s blog, the Spartan Spectator.

Prior to the event, groups such as the Young Democratic Socialist Club, Anti-Racist Action (which was bussed in from Detroit to disrupt the event), Students for Economic Justice, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA), Chicanos y Latinos Unidos, La Raza, and various other left-wing extremist organizations held a protest in which they beat an effigy of Nick Griffin. The protesters are pictured below.

The onslaught of verbal abuse made it difficult for Griffin to deliver his planned hour-long speech. As the video footage clearly shows, the “tolerant” liberals tried shout him down. At one point someone even pulled a fire alarm. Refusing to yield, however, Griffin spent his allotted time taking questions from the audience.

Immediately after the event, Bristow reports that approximately six supporters of Griffin were chased by protesters wielding baseball bats, canes, and sticks. Fortunately, no one was harmed. In a press release posted on the Spartan Spectator, Bristow said that he was “amazed at the level of savagery that occurred at a so-called institution of higher learning.”

The Griffin event was not the first time that “savagery” was on display at MSU. Last November, MSU-YAF hosted Rep. Tom Tancredo, whose speech on immigration was also greeted with loud shouts from protesters. Bristow says that the protestors destroyed a digital camera, spat on YAF members, kicked YAF members, pulled fire alarms, and, following the event, slashed the tires and keyed the cars of YAF members. Both the O’Reilly Factor and the Hannity & Colmes Show covered the event.

In April, YAF hosted Chris Simcox, president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. Protesters shouted the speaker down until police intervened. Video footage of the event is available on YouTube. The event was also covered by Fox News.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) placed MSU-YAF on its list of “hate groups” following Tancredo’s speech at MSU. However, YAF remains defiant. Indeed, they recently announced on their blog that they plan on bringing Simcox back to campus on November 13.

MSU-YAF seems to make all the right enemies. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the group is behind 2 of the 23 “extremist” events that have been held in Michigan. After YAF hosts Simcox in November, they will be responsible for 3 of the 24 “extremist” events in Michigan, making them responsible for a full 12.5% of all “extremist” events that have taken place in the state.

MSU-YAF has also hosted speeches by Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian, author of the upcoming The Born Gay Hoax Ryan Sorba, and many others. On election night 2006, when Michigan passed Proposition 209 and banned race preferences, Jennifer Gratz thanked MSU-YAF in her victory speech for helping to defeat affirmative action in the state.

If you are interested in congratulating MSU-YAF, they can be reached at yaf@msu.edu.

DoD has fallen in with the amnesty crowd, see the following excerpt from today’s (19 Sept) Washington Times editorial on the DREAM Act [No DREAM at all ] DoD now seeks to undermine and render citizenship meaningless by importing the third world.

The Bush administration has not taken an official position, but Defense Department officials are quietly urging members to support the bill. Meanwhile, Homeland Security officials, alarmed by the prospect of massive fraud resulting from Mr. Durbin’s proposal, have been opposing it. This is a clear cut issue: The DREAM Act is a nightmare.

Reportedly the wisemen who dreamed this up see it as way to increase recruiting, IE, build a mercenary force with no ties to the heart of the nation, or true loyalty to its institutions. This is dangerously delusional. A mercenary force and the devaluation of citizenship were factors in ending the Roman Republic , and later Rome itself.

As the DoD leadership showed in Iraq , they are completely ignorant of other countries and cultures, and I dare say, of their own. A lot of these illegals are completely illiterate and the Indians don’t even speak Spanish. They also come from countries where the military has been an instrument of oppression. But to the “business model” fanatics, a nation’s culture is meaningless, an impediment to the bottom line. To the DoD, and Rumsfeld par excellence, we are all interchangeable parts. To paraphrase “They learn nothing, and forget everything.”

“An Economist“ writes

I have long had doubts about the SEIU. Frankly, it has struck me as a phony union, more devoted to promoting Open Borders than actually helping workers. It would appear that there is some substance to my skepticism.

From the article “Who Killed the Immigration Bill, and Who Wants it to Come Back?” PoliticalAffairs.net, [David Bacon, June 13, 2007]

“Yet instead of raising wage and benefits to attract workers, or paying more taxes to improve education and training in working class communities, employers held that only huge guest worker programs could meet their labor needs. In an joint oped piece for Politico.com, Thomas Donahue, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (one of two unions that supported the tradeoff bills) stated that “we need legislation that will create a carefully monitored essential worker program,” and called it “a system that provides U.S. businesses with the workers it needs.”"

And from “The Working Class Is Not Stupid About Immigration” By Froma Harrop, May 22, 2007

“The SEIU covers many of the very people who take these jobs. It seems curious that the union does not mind adding another half million workers a year to compete with its own members. Its Website contends that America has a shortage of 10 million workers and that “nearly half of all jobs created from now until 2012 will be held by workers with a high school diploma or less.”

Duh–but don’t worker shortages cause wages to rise? The wages of “workers with a high school diploma or less” have been crashing through the floor. Or hasn’t the SEIU noticed that its contract “victories” are not that fabulous?

It’s hard to believe that the SEIU’s leaders are dumb. Rather, they ignore the law of supply and demand to cover another agenda. Thus, one can’t be sure whether the SEIU aspires to be a union representing workers or an arm of the National Council of La Raza, a group that claims to further the interests of Hispanics–and does a lousy job of it.”

And from “Choosing Sides on Immigration” By Froma Harrop, June 05, 2007

“And it’s true that recent “victories” in unionizing low-skilled workers have produced paltry gains. For example, the Service Employees International Union managed to organize janitors in Los Angeles, but Briggs notes, “at wages way below what they were back in the 1970s.” The strange part is that Los Angeles’ janitors were highly unionized (and mostly African-American) until the ’70s, when a surge in illegal immigration destroyed their bargaining power.

The union last year organized janitors in Houston. For all these efforts, this largely Hispanic workforce saw its pay rise from a pitiful $5.25 an hour to a pathetic $6.25–which is lower than the minimum wage in 21 states and the District of Columbia. Wages in the contract’s later years will barely exceed the new federal minimum.”

Is the SEIU a front for “La Raza”?

“An Economist” writes:

It appears that the opposition to the bill isn’t “the extremes of the left and right” against the virtuous center. The reality is that the non-elites are revolting against the elites. Take a look at the Senate voting patterns. The Democrats who opposed the bill are (generally) from working class, low immigrant states. Same as it turns out for the Republicans. There is also a significant voting pattern with respect to the successful Dorgan amendment to limit the “guest worker” plan to 5 years.

Check out the Democrats (plus Sanders) who voted no on cloture

Baucus (D-MT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Landrieu (D-LA)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Pryor (D-AR)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Tester (D-MT)
Webb (D-VA)

With the possible exception of Boxer (D-CA), all of these Democrats seem to have opposed the bill because of the “guest worker” plan and/or the Amnesty. Boxer (D-CA) presumably objected to anything other than abolishing the border.

I don’t think the Republican votes against cloture are notable because many were clearly party-line. Kyl voted against cloture even though he obviously supports the bill. Same for Lott, McConnell, etc. By contrast, the Republican votes for cloture are significant. These are presumably the hard core Amnesty Now, Amnesty Forever Bushbots.

Graham (R-SC)
Hagel (R-NE)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
Specter (R-PA)
Voinovich (R-OH)

Note that there are more (12) hard core Democratic opponents of the bill, than Republican supporters (7).

The next vote to look at is the Dorgan amendment () to terminate the “guest worker’ plan after 5 years. Presumably, the Republicans who voted YEA, are the hardcore opponents.

Bunning (R-KY)
Corker (R-TN)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Enzi (R-WY)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)

My guess is that most, if not all, of these Republicans would actually support some type of a “guest worker” plan. However, they so strongly oppose Amnesty that they were quite willing to vote in favor of a “killer amendment”. The Democrats who voted against the Dorgan amendment are a more complex group. Some are obviously Amnesty Now types (Kennedy, Feinstein, Salazar). However, others are not. The list is

Akaka (D-HI)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Pryor (D-AR)
Salazar (D-CO)
Whitehouse (D-RI)

These votes support two arguments. First, Senators representing non-elite, low immigrants states are the most strongly opposed to Amnesty and the bill overall. Second, the Republicans and the Democrats want very different things from the bill. The Democrats want Amnesty, first and foremost and are essentially opposed to any “guest worker” plan.

The Republicans generally oppose Amnesty (with a core who strongly oppose Amnesty and a core who strongly support Amnesty), but dearly want a “guest worker” plan. Why? Perhaps cheap labor with minimal social costs and no imported voters for the Democrats.

Would a “guest worker” plan work out that way? Not very likely, as vast foreign and U.S. experience shows. However, it is a nice theory (and with brutal enforcement might even work). Of course, I am opposed to all “guest worker” plans and all mass amnesties.

The corollary is that killing the “guest worker” plan, kills the bill. Without the “guest worker” plan, there is nothing left in the bill for Republicans to vote for. The shift to merit based immigration is 8 years away and of little interest to Republicans (the Democrats definitely oppose it though). Most Republicans are presumably smart enough to know that it will be gutted long before the 8 years have passed. Actutally, that is not quite so clear…

Of course, the enforcement provisions are either meaningless (border control inferior to current law) or questionable (the Employment Eligibility Verification System ) from a Republican standpoint.

Conversely, removing the “guest worker” plan will make the bill more attractive to Democrats. Only the hard core anti-Amnesty Democrats will still oppose it. However, without the support of Kyl and the rest of the “guest worker” Republicans, the bill won’t go back to the Senate floor (as Kyl has stated many times).

Below are the 29 Senators who voted to strip the Amnesty from the bill (the Vitter Amendment). Presumably, they are the most likely to support killer amendments and/or oppose any final bill. Once again the list is strongly weighted towards non-elite states with low immigrant populations

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bond (R-MO)
Bunning (R-KY)
Byrd (D-WV)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Enzi (R-WY)
Grassley (R-IA)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Landrieu (D-LA)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sununu (R-NH)
Tester (D-MT)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)

By Anonymous Attorney

The Washington Post’s Teresa Vargas rushed to the rescue last Friday of a drunk-driving Hispanic immigrant (legal, she tells us) who overstayed his jail time.[Another Inmate Held Too Long In Pr. William | Spanish-Speaking Man Victim of Clerical Error, June 8, 2007]

A number of points not addressed by Vargas:

• How sorry should we feel, exactly, for this “hard working” El Salvadoran who, despite his hectic tree-cutting and grocery-stocking schedule, still found the time to drive drunk and endanger our lives? If he’d killed someone, would we get a story focusing on his immigrant status, leading to a bigger story about the unending number of deaths caused by drunk-driving illegals/Hispanic immigrants?
• Why should the problems caused by his inability to speak English come to rest on the English-speaking population? A man comes to the United States with no intention of learning the language (the story says he’s been here since he was a teenager) or obeying its traffic laws, and WE are all the bad guys because of the problem that arose?
• Why would Mr. Duarte sign two court documents with two different last names? Are Hispanics playing with their own dual last names in this way to confound authorities? Has anyone checked into this?
• If 25 percent of the inmates processed by Prince William County are Hispanic, doesn’t that point more to a Hispanic crime wave problem than a justice administration problem by the county?
• Has Ms. Vargas ever looked into what happens to an American in a Mexican (or El Salvadoran) jail?

We can be confident that Ms. Vargas–and the rest of the Washington Post team–will never ask these questions or write these stories. You can see exactly what’s running through her head as she sits there at her desk: fat, white sheriff’s deputies and police officials in Virginia, probably bigots, are manhandling innocent Mr. Duarte, a blameless Hispanic immigrant who only works hard and dreams his dreams of success. The hero and the villains were formed in her mind before she ever picked up the phone for an interview, and the story fell into place.

This is journalistic malpractice. It’s naked ethnic advocacy (for Hispanics) and obvious ethnic slander (against Americans, English- speakers, whites, etc.). It doesn’t pass what Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko (an old-style liberal) might have called the “Slats Grobnik” test: how would a working guy sitting at a bar react to a story like this? Probably by snorting that Mr. Duarte should have learned some English, or stayed home in El Salvador.

But I am willing to bet that Ms. Vargas wouldn’t care about the opinion of a working guy sitting at a bar–unless he had two last names.

A reader reports:

I was video taping with my anti illegal alien group (US Border Watch) at a protest on Saturday. Our Houston NBC affiliate was at the protest to do a story. [Send them mail] The following picture below is a screen grab from the event.

The NBC cameraman had a Mexican flag attached to his camera! This is making headlines on some forums here in Houston, and was talked about quite a bit this morning on both Houston and Dallas channels. Fair and balanced, unbiased and non-partisan, right? Ha!

In the New York Times article “Before Deadly Rage, A Life Consumed By A Troubling Silence,” [By N. R. Kleinfeld, April 22, 2007] which is of course All The News Fit To Print, they write the following about the inscription on Cho’s arm:

“On one arm was inscribed Ax Ismael, a name whose significance has not been determined but might be a Biblical allusion.”

A “BIBLICAL ALLUSION”? The biblical spelling, as we all know, is “Ishmael” and not the Q’URANIC form of the name that they quoted. Even allowing the possibility that the killer couldn’t spell, sweeping this fact under the rug as a biblical reference is surely a noteworthy and unfortunate omission.

Given all of this mentally-ill killer’s ramblings about “martyrs” and so forth, it’s very likely that he identified to some extent with Islamist terrorists and killers. But given his Korean Christian background and well-documented lack of pretty much any social activity, it’s extremely unlikely that he had anything at all to do with Muslims, the Q’uran, or Islam. The name could be an oblique reference to something Islamic, but it also sounds a lot like a username online or in a video game, and we know Cho spent a lot of time on his computer. “Ismail Ax” sounds threatening in and of itself.

Why not mention a few more likely explanations for “Ismael Ax” on his arm? It’s possible that the New York Times is reluctant to have not one but two of its much-touted minorities in their diversity agenda, Koreans and Muslims, associated with this horrific crime. Maybe they were trying to forestall, in this age of mostly-Islamic terrorism, any chance that someone somewhere might link this case to Muslims or Islam, with which it is basically not connected. It may be a noble goal, but a newspaper should not choose its facts based on what some hypothetical idiot somewhere might misinterpret–they’re supposed to be working for the rest of us! They should print the facts, regardless of their palatability or (slight) potential to be misinterpreted.

Paul Nachman writes:

On Saturday, a number of us patriotic sorts listened in to a conference among reconquistas and their fellow travelers who were planning the nationwide May 1, 2006 “Day Without An Immigrant” events. The conference was at the University of California, Riverside, and people joined in by phone from around the country. I noted callers from New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Florida, and Des Moines. One caller said that he represented the Southern California Anarchists’ Federation and that they would be cooperating on 5/1 by trying to shut down the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Anarchists‘ Federation!!!

[I dialed in and listened without making my presence known, though at times I was sorely tempted to holler "Viva la migra!" into my phone to see if this would spook the proceedings.]

Some of the discussion was in Spanish and, thus, lost on me, but more was in English. Here’s what I heard:

The word “amnesty” was used quite freely among the conferees. I think this should be useful for discussions we have with our “leaders” in the Senate, whose diversionary response to our objections has been “It’s not an amnesty!” Well, if the would-be beneficiaries call it an amnesty, that’s good enough for me. Of course, the conferees also said “legalization,” but “amnesty” was used as much as anything else. When he wrapped up his opening remarks, Nativo Lopez employed the line “legalization/amnesty, call it what you will.”

Lopez (a prominent race hustler/agitator who was recalled from the Santa Ana, CA school board in February, 2003 because of his mania to imprison kids in bilingual education, defying California’s Proposition 227–and whose given name is “Lawrence”!) was the main speaker. Referring to this week’s developments on Capitol Hill, he said that in the Senate, “Everything is up in the air.” He also stated that “A draw [i.e. no bill this Congress] is a victory for our forces.” This squares with what Rick Oltman of FAIR says: The status quo is pretty much just fine for the “cheap” labor forces and their allies of convenience in the ethnic-grievance brigades.

Lopez said the May Day festivities across the country will support four demands:

1. Immediate and unconditional legalization of all illegal aliens. [12 million was the number "without documents" that he cited.]

2. No border walls.

3. No criminalization of process or person.

4. Protect workers’ rights and civil liberties.

Given demand #1, one wonders why they care about #3, but logic has never been the reconquistas’ strong point.

Demand #2 might be useful for our side. If our opponents [heck, enemies] were “merely” concerned with amnestying those here, why would they care about a fence on the border? Surely they don’t give a hoot about the borderland ecology and its animal inhabitants! Instead, #2 is simply more proof — not that we need it, but perhaps it will sober up the larger society — that their program is infinite importation of more legions like themselves. (Which also proves how deeply stupid these people are, since this would destroy the U.S. as a first-world society. If it isn’t already doomed …)

The other notable thing Lopez said was that Senate “compromises” like the Hagel-Martinez version of amnesty are unacceptable. He’s “adamantly opposed to a ’stratified’ program, because all of our people have earned legalization.”

Well, Hagel and Martinez would instantly amnesty virtually everyone who’s been here illegally more than 5 years. Those here 2 to 5 years would have to go through some meaningless kabuki dance at the border to get amnestied. And those here less than 2 years would be deported. (As Mark Steyn has pointed out, who has records we could trust to make these distinctions, anyway?)

But, according to Lopez, that wouldn’t be good enough. So, in effect, he was saying that anyone who has made it across the border–even, we have to conclude, someone who sneaked across five minutes ago–has earned amnesty.

Discussing the mass tantrums we’ve recently seen in Los Angeles, Chicago, and elsewhere, Lopez described them as “having had a patriotic tenor.” Right! The program for May 1, he said, is “No work, no school, no shopping, and no selling,” the last meaning that stores owned by illegal aliens, immigrants, and their sympathizers should close for the day.

In subsequent discussion, one girl–who sounded distinctly Anglo to me–said “We want amnesty for all [i.e. Mexicans plus Filipinos, Caribbeans, etc.] so it’s important to show American flags to indicate what people want to join, not where they come from.” This was disputed. Someone said, no, bring Mexican flags. Some other guy said, “We’re going to move forward, and we’re not going to impose the American flag on anyone.”

Thus, may millions of Mexican flags flap in American cities on May Day–and rekindle patriotism in millions of Americans!

Ryan Kennedy writes:

I’d like to rebut WSJ’s latest load of nonsense as succinctly as possible:

BRIMELOW Where does the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page campaign for fixed exchange rates fit into this?

FRIEDMAN You got me! I think that’s just an aberration. My God, how the hell can they stick with that? They’ve just got an id�e fixe about it. Like they’ve got on immigration. It’s just obvious that you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.

[HOOVER DIGEST 1998, Interview by Peter Brimelow:MILTON FRIEDMAN, SOOTHSAYER]

Re:The Fulford File, By James Fulford Labor Day vs. Day Labor

James Fulford put his finger on it! “Scabs” — that is the key to the PR campaign to get under the leftists’ skin and point out the horrible contradictions in their pro-labor, pro-immigrant positions.

When speaking of Mexicans call them scab labor. Ask your local liberal why he wants to import scab labor and drive Americans out of their jobs. If he says “all labor deserves respect” or some such crap, ask him whether scabs deserve that respect, too.

Tell him you are a working man, and refuse to go to his local watering hole because they employ scab Mexican workers in the back.

If he says “they aren’t scabs, there is no strike”, ask him what the difference is between a scab and anyone else who comes into a factory to drive down wages.

If he says “but they are just trying to get a job and work to take care of their families” tell him that is exactly what a scab is, someon who will undercut the living wage of a working man to drive him out of work and starve his children so the scab can work for even less than a living wage–which of course is easy for him to do since he has no family to support, like all those illegal Mexicans.

I’m telling you, the concept of scab needs to be expaded in our lexicon to cover illegals driving down wages. That, I firmly believe is the weak point, the chink in the lefty armor. Whatever argument they put up defending Mexicans, they cannot deny that they work for less than a living wage, and force people currently in their jobs to lose them.

They must be forced to confront their covert and latent hatred for the American working man that has been fulminating since hardhats with Amerrican flags back in 1968. They must be forced to actively and outspokenly reject the working man (or join sides with us) so we can move on.