Demands of 'immigrants' display a perversion of language
By Georgie Anne Geyer, Yahoo news
May 3, 2006
It's curious that the immigration civil rights marches by undocumented men and women, demanding their rights and amnesty while shouting, "We are America," was held on May Day.
While the first-of-May holiday originated in Europe with pre-Christian agricultural fertility rituals, May Day has been since 1889 not only a symbol of the communist left, but the symbol of its perversion of language. Communism was the real "democracy," the West was "fascist," and human nature could be "scientifically" defined -- so it went in the dark carnival that communism made of the classic truths of language and reality.
The most disturbing thing about this year's May Day was how these mostly illegal aliens, and some others, corrupted the language disturbingly, as did the communists.
In fact, they are NOT America: America is made up not in its heart and soul of people who break into its land, even if they work hard, but of citizens; and it is insulting to our entire history as an institutionalized nation of committed citizens to make such a presumption. The protesters are not undocumented, but illegal -- unless, tellingly, they do not respect the law -- and amnesty is historically given to people by abundant authority, not because of political demand. Men and women who have not committed themselves by that vow to "defend and protect" the United States as citizens do not have rights here, except on the level of some ethereal, non-enforceable ideas and U.N. treaties.
In particular, this May Day had nothing to do with the great civil rights struggle in America. That noble effort was made by Americans humbled by our country's initial adherence to slavery, not by people bored and humiliated by homelands that mistreat them.
Many Mexicans in America refer to themselves as "la raza," or "the race." Why doesn't that sound right to me?
Even more curious, in Mexico itself, where the government does everything possible to deport its poor and its potential political reformers to American soil, thousands of Mexicans marched in "A Day Without Gringos." But without the despised gringos, Mexico would not have $20 billion in remittances from Mexicans in the United States -- a sum, interestingly enough, second only to Mexico's $28 billion in oil revenues. The ceaselessly corrupt Mexican government, which this week moved to "legalize" cocaine and heroin, will not take one step to create a middle class, so threatening would that be to its privileges and status.
Mexico itself, take immigrants? Mexico's motto might well be, "Mi casa no es su casa."...
The corruption of language in the demonstrations across the country Monday came straight out of the American left's multicultural agenda of the 1960s and '70s. The multiculturalists, largely within the Democratic Party -- who believed all cultures are equal, education should stoop to its lowest common denominator, groups like women and Latinos can be represented only by their own, quotas reign, and "politically correct" slogans take the place of the truth -- doomed the party until today, but they also gave belated inspiration to the topsy-turvy language of this week.
Interestingly enough, the storm clouds of miasmic populism began to clear as the week wore on.
A new Zogby poll of Americans, using neutral language (i.e., avoiding words like "amnesty" or "illegal alien"), found that by 2-to-1 Americans prefer congressional bills of border enforcement only to Senate proposals to legalize illegals and increase legal immigration. Only 26 percent said immigrants were assimilating well, while 67 percent said immigration should be reduced. Only 2 percent -- including every ethnic, income, age, religious or political group -- believe that current immigration is too low. And support for the border enforcement bill included 81 percent of Republicans, 72 percent of independents, 57 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of Hispanics.
Perhaps the clarity of the majority of the American people will in the end win. Certainly it has begun to cut through the rhetorical fog of May Day. Everything else is specious sentimentality, a serious challenge to the nature, the institutions and the citizenship of this country.
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