Posted by Scott Gleeson I’ve not personally developed strong concerns about Latin American immigration, although my late father felt strongly about it, and he was no bigot (in fact a strong ACLU supporter). My own limited experiences have been mostly positive. I just read that Mark Twain said if the end of the world comes he wants to be in Cincinnati (where he lived for two years) because they are always twenty years behind. Applies here in Kentucky as well (Dave Barry mentioned Kentucky explicitly in one column referring to a trend away from black clothing in current fashion – but that “right now somewhere in Kentucky someone is unloading a truckload of black clothing”), but even here the invasion in underway in the horse industry and the number of TexMex restaurants has gone from one and a half to 15 in ten years (and we are avid patrons). We chose to put our kids in the local Spanish immersion program believing fluency in Spanish (which we lack) would be a fantastic benefit to them in the future, not because the US is converting (which it is not, in fact the world in general is switching to English, irreversibly) but because it can open a door to the whole hemisphere. What a gift! To me the big problem with the US policy toward Latin America over the years I have been observing it has been the typical “vision thing”, featuring a series of banal interventions (e.g., the preposterous assassination of Allende) and economics driven policies. How in the world has the situation evolved to where Chavez has to call Bush the Devil to be taken seriously in politics? Outrageous! The new world has the potential to be a genuine paradise (humans have only been here 10,000 years!) and we should be putting MOST of our foreign policy money energy and effort into building that, using the European Union as a model. I went to Mexico two summers ago (they DID let me in, and my kids without passports – another story – which they couldn’t have done last year) and learned how many Americans are moving down there for retirement, it is a fabulous place. There would be a lot more trying to get into Mexico if we all just got together to fix the water system (I mean what’s up with that??). I’d bet that alone would cure the immigration “problem”. 51st state indeed! No joke, I’m for it 200%!! Give ‘m Hell, Bob!! And PLEASE, next time you compose a 10,000 word essay, please do it in Word and not directly into the message board, I can’t bear to think about something like that disappearing.
on January 29, 2007, 3:28 pm, in reply to "Re: Bob Haworth's new song hits the airwaves!"
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Give‘em Hell, Bob! It’s been one of the highlights of the last year to see this board light up with Bob’s impassioned posting about immigration, and see this conviction transformed into an ear-catching protest song rocking the airwaves. Shades of the sixties!! What could be cooler than to see that become a national hit stimulating a productive debate. Who knows? Stranger things have happened. I don’t see why talk-shows wouldn’t be an excellent venue to debut a song – it’s what so many people are listening to, and I’m sure they are all listening to each other and eager for anything with some hint of controversy. It’s clear Bob has studied this issue in depth and would blow anyone away if they took the time to interview him, any suspicion that this was motivated by narrow-minded bigotry would be quickly dispelled, as in the case of Ingrid. I think it is in the spirit of Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” that you can read a lot into if you want, and think of as an “anti” song, but really is a “pro” song, reaffirming the value of a tradition in need (perhaps) of protection. If I’m not overstepping, I would say it is in the spirit of “KT politics” in that it digs deeper than a conventional reenactment of a party line left vs. right debate and challenges us to envision a better way (without delivering a stultifying lecture).
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