Day: October 6, 2011

Alabama’s Harsh Immigration Law: Worse Than Arizona And Revives Old Memories Of Alabama’s Horrid Racial History!

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Alabama has managed to take some attention off Arizona’s disgraceful immigration law, as its own legislation, put into effect on October 1, although being contested in the courts by the federal government, has already undermined its image to anyone who has a sense of justice and decency and fairness!

Reports of Hispanic immigrants fleeing, leaving their homes and possessions behind, and of children suddenly withdrawing from school , paint a picture that reminds us of Alabama’s past history of racial discrimination and violence, only possibly matched or surpassed in the South by Mississippi!

Only about 4.2 percent of Alabama’s population are undocumented immigrants, and there is no indication that there has been a problem of crime due to them being present in the state.

There are reports of pregnant women afraid to go to the hospital and of crime victims fearful of going to the police.

At the same time, harvest of agricultural crops in the state has declined dramatically, and much of the produce will rot for lack of people willing to do the work, so the economy of one of the poorest states will become worse, because of this draconian law!

The legislation makes illegal immigrants unable to enter contracts; be employed; rent housing; or gain government services. It makes these unfortunate victims unable to work, unable to gain education, unable to protect themselves from being victimized, and puts them in poverty with a sense of no ability to relate to their neighbors or any social institutions.

Fortunately, many church leaders have protested, and the federal government is actively pursuing action, but what is needed now is a court injunction to prevent further enforcement until the case comes to court! This legislation is inhumane, and a violation of human rights on a grand scale!

Two Billionaires: Steve Jobs And Donald Trump–One Constructive, One An Embarrassment!

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With the death of Steve Jobs, one of the most significant business tycoons of all time, on the level of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Alexander Graham Bell, we have lost one of the great business leaders of all time, not just for his innovations in technology, but also as a model for keeping out of the public spotlight!

Jobs, a perfectionist often difficult to relate to in private, was a person who avoided publicity like the plague, but whenever he uttered his thoughts or introduced new technology, he always came across as a person with a good heart and instincts. His commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005, in which he said one should follow his dreams as we all eventually will die, was a brilliant example of the decency and vision of this man!

At the same time, we have Donald Trump, best described as a publicity hound, a person who wants constant attention, has had three wives, gone bankrupt a couple of times, loves to fire people on his TV show, enjoys being courted by Republican Presidential candidates, and makes a habit of saying and doing things that divide us in a difficult time. He is, without question, a real “character” with a tremendous ego that he loves to display!

This is not saying that Steve Jobs has not done anything in his private life that is questionable, since anyone is capable of having a so called “skeleton in his closet”, but Jobs avoided publicity, while Trump savors it to the extreme, showing he has a problem with his own self esteem! Nothing embarrasses him, but he is, without question, a real embarrassment!

And ultimately, Jobs changed America! When Trump passes from the scene, will anyone be able to say he made a difference in the same manner? The answer is clearly NO!

Rick Perry’s Assault On FDR’s New Deal: Unconscionable!

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The last time that a major party Presidential candidate went after the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt with such zeal as Texas Governor Rick Parry has done in his recent book and during his presidential campaign was Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater in the 1964 Presidential campaign, and anyone who knows political history knows that Goldwater suffered the worst percentage defeat ever to Lyndon B. Johnson, who went on to expand and improve on the New Deal with his Great Society.

Hopefully, the same scenario will happen if Rick Perry is Barack Obama’s opponent, and we will see Obama improve on Lyndon B Johnson, which he certainly has more than anyone since then, certainly more than Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton!

Perry not only has called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme”, even though it has always paid out for 75 years, and is well funded to 2037, and only needs a little tinkering to sustain itself into the long range future, similar to what it received in the famous Ronald Reagan-Tip O’Neill deal of 1983.

Perry also criticizes in his book “Fed Up”, published last year, all of the government agencies created during the New Deal, including three public works agencies that created worthwhile jobs during the New Deal (the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration, and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration); the nation’s agency to watch over the stock market and Wall Street (the Securities and Exchange Commission); an agency which took the American South out of dire poverty and provided electricity, which private enterprise had not done (the Tennessee Valley Authority); an agency started by President Herbert Hoover to help keep business afloat during the Great Depression and continued by FDR (the Reconstruction Finance Corporation); an agency which helped keep farmers going during the worst times in agricultural history (the Agricultural Adjustment Administration); and also a denial by Perry that the New Deal lowered the unemployment rate, which in actual fact went from 12-13 million at the beginning of 1933 to a little over 6 million in 1939!

Perry has utilized misrepresentation and misconceptions, and pure lies and demagoguery, while forgetting his own poverty stricken past! Is there anything worse than pure hypocrisy and deception in the name of his corporate masters, who support his campaign for President?