The Climate of Racial Paranoia Continues.

Arizona has passed the strongest anti immigrant measure in a long time anywhere. Now a policeman can stop you and ask for your "papers" just like in Nazi Germany. Of course the goal is to get illegal Latinos off the streets and out of the country, or at least out of the state. Of course Saran Palin and others are still talking about "taking aim" at democrats and using the image of gun sight cross hairs as a "dog whistle" call to all of the gun whackos out there who are just looking for an excuse. At least April 19th came and went in this country with nobody getting killed. Of course it's understandable that whites, as well as Blacks, too, would be concerned about Latinos taking their jobs. But you know what Allan Greenspan allegedly said in 1993. He said his job was to keep the reins of money so tight that everyone would feel a certain unease about losing their jobs and in this way there would be no "wage bidding wars" breaking out. The last thing Greenspan wanted was a tight labor market where people are actually willing to pay top dollar. Randy Rhodes had truck drivers who in 1985 made twenty dollars an hour and now they make fifteen or something 25 years later, with the inflation we've had. And meanwhile people in Arizona may be having to pay the man who cleans their pools $25.00 an hour when he used to get by with the foreign help happy to work for five dollars an hour. Of course in general the tea baggers what us to shift the blame for no jobs - - away from our disastrous trade policies - - and on to racial minorities, and see the whole thing as part of a giant Obama conspiracy. I don't know what Obama's policy is on immigration but he may be doing some "dog whistling" of his own. After all "learning English and paying a fine and going to the back of the line" is dog whistle speak for Amnesty. So the real question is what position should we really have in this country twords all those illegal aliens here over the past 25 years? Jesus Christ (of KFI) thinks you should rat out your best friend and get him deported. I don't believe the issue is that black and white. There is a certain "human factor". These are people, lives, families, who came to this country in search of a better life, and they found it here in America. How far should be deviate from those words on the Statue of Liberty? Personally, I don't know. I want respect for the law to be upheld, but I'm also aware that there is a tradition in this country of extending open arms to all offering them a better life. Some have said this is the only country that was founded on concepts and ideals rather than race and genetics. One person put it thusly: "I could go back to Italy and spend thirty years there and I would never be an Italian, but if an Italian were to decide to come here and take the citizenship test, he would indeed Become an American.

Tomorrow is Earth Day. The battle for the future of planet earth goes on. The first two earth days in 1070 and 1071 were heavily celebrated. But after that the idea fell into disuse until 1990 when again the whole Earth Day got a second life and since then people have been ecology conscious. Last night I watched a thing that said California was leading the way to a Green economy and enemy conservation. That was news to me but I'm glad to hear it. I thought I also heard that 12% of our total energy production came from "alternative energy sources". This is also news to me. I had no idea the figure was that high. There is talk of soon whole cities will be "going solar panel" and I've heard that solar panels have dropped dramatically in price. I hope that's true. People like me are looking for one big "cure all" but in the end it will probably be a bunch of little things that turn the tide on our energy needs.

The banking bill before congress is one that contains a lot of input from diverse sources. People say that both this banking bill and the health care act, are "two of the most transparent processes ever to come before congress". I'm glad to hear that. Of course the Republicans, all 41 of them apparently, are pledged to vote against this banking bill, for even getting it out of committee. A big provision of this banking bill is what I call a "dowry fund" in that it makes big financial institutions fork over a bunch of money in advance, in anticipation of the day when they may be dissolved corporately, by the provisions of this bill. This money they themselves provide will help make the transitions necessary for dissolution- - so that all the right people get paid off in a fair and equitable manner. Of course the tea party crowd are just shills for the bank and insurance companies. I don't know how unprecedented this is for a "protest group" to be a shill for a shadowy interest. But some have compared it to Nazi Germany, which in the beer hall days of Munich, billed itself as a "Workers party" and pro union and such. When really this whole approach was just a come on for the things Hitler eventually instituted. People are led like sheep to believe anything the big corporations with their vast wealth and media control, tell us to believe about the "Real" problem with this economy, as THEY want us to view it.

I have thought about this whole idea of incrementalism. It was true in Nazi Germany but it's also true today. If people in the year 2000 woke up and it was suddenly ten years later and read our newspapers they would recoil in horror. They would not believe that a Black president was the object of such diverse hatred. They wouldn't be able to make sense of all this Tea Party stuff. They would recoil at the idea of the United States being at war on two different fronts and both wars were wars of choice. (Not to make any connection with Germany in the 1930s) And they would not believe stories of Abo Grave and Guandanamo bay and civil liberties abuses of the CIA and other government agencies and all the surveillance they do now. Ten years ago they would say "I thought the Watergate crisis resolved all these issues". But if I were a Christian in 1971, which I wasn't, and woke up today I would certainly run hard as fast as I could away from anything Christian. I would know that all the stuff Larry Norman said about "The Real Jesus" verses "Churchianity" was just a lot of idle wishful thinking. And the thing is about wishful thinking is that it has an addictive, narcotic effect on the human soul. People say that rather than people becoming more certain about whether they should protest in Nazi Germany, they actually became increasingly UN-certain about whether to speak up, as the opiate drip of the propaganda seeped into their brains and their minds and conscience were numbed..