Isn't it funny how the same people screaming about how amnesty for undocumented workers runs counter to the rule of law are the same people demanding a pardon for Scooter Libby?

Laws: They only apply to Liberals and Brown People and should be enforced to the letter, not the spirit.

-pb

"You think you're the only one doin' time, Derek? You think you're here all alone? You think I'm not in here with you?"

- Doris Vinyard (Beverly D'Angelo), American History X

We watched The Last King of Scotland yesterday. Great film. Forest Whitaker deserved every ounce of that Oscar, because his portrayal of Idi Amin scared the shit out of me. Nightmare on Elm Street? Aliens? Not even close. The Last King of Scotland is a horror film. The entire movie, I'm on edge because you never know when Whitaker's Amin is going to go from smiling to butcher. Knowing Amin's story kind of helped, but seriously, every scene in that movie (even the very early scenes), I was simply waiting for his visage to shift from a smile to that look that says "someone - maybe that five-year-old - is about to eat a bullet". Without a single shock segueway, The Last King of Scotland managed to keep me jumping the entire time.

But this post isn't about scary movies.

In the same way that Forest Whitaker scared me, fear is often a reaction to an unknown but possibly imminent "really bad thing". It doesn't even have to be something that's about to happen to you, just that it's going to happen, and it's going to affect you.

I didn't really understand that fear, but I've been introduced to it. Now, I don't like fear. I don't like the very concept. Fear is, as I see it, getting all worked up about futures that haven't happened yet and possibly might never happen. Just as I don't live with regret, I try to live without fear. I can't change the past, and there's no sense in fretting over a shadowy "what if". But as opposed to regret, which I diffuse with a simple assessment of my life and knowledge that changing even a single foul-up in my past would have put me somewhere else, I can't so easily dismiss my fears.

I quoted Beverly D'Angelo from American History X from the scene where she's talking to Ed Norton through the prison glass, explaining to him that people that love him are bearing the reality of his imprisonment, in effect, living in a prison of their own. I never really got that line until a few months ago, when my sister-in-law told us that she's shipping out for Iraq in September.

Now, I understand. She's not even gone yet, and I'm already there. I'm already afraid. Every day, it passes my mind that some day I might come home to see two officers standing on my porch. That thought isn't some shadowy "what if", in my mind. That day is tomorrow. They might be waiting for me right now. And that scares the shit out of me.

I just want you to understand the fact that when someone goes off to war, the people who care about them go with them. I might have a nice drive up the Turnpike every day, but once she's in Iraq, I'm going to be thinking less about the roads that I'm driving on and more about the one's that she's driving on. I'm going to be there as much as I'm here. I just want you to understand that we're not just sending 140,000 troops to Iraq, we're sending their families.

Understand?

So, imagine that fear, and now amplify it to a point you can't even comprehend.

Army Spec. Alex Jimenez is in the same division as my sister-in-law. He's one of the three soldiers captured in a raid that left four other soldiers and their translator dead. The body of one of the captured soldiers has since been recovered. Jimenez and the other soldier are still missing. They've been MIA for five weeks. I can't even begin to imagine the daily hell that Spec. Jimenez's wife, Yaderlin Hiraldo, has been going through every day. She knows now what it's like to have those two officers waiting for her, but she's left with the horror of not knowing. She can't begin to mourn yet, because they don't know if he's dead or alive. She can't allow herself the luxury of believing everything's ok, because it's not.

So, Yaderlin Hiraldo has a lot to think about right now. But, as if that wasn't enough, the INS is planning to deport her.

You see, she and Spec. Jimenez met in her native Dominican Republic. She later came to America to be with him in 2001 and married Jimenez in 2004. She's not here legally, but they'd been trying to get her legal status to remain.

An immigration judge has been sympathetic, putting the case on hold since Alex Jimenez was reported missing. But her case is in limbo, and her future in this country uncertain.

The worst part about this is, if she's deported and Spec Jimenez doesn't make it home, she'll never be allowed to enter the country legally to even visit his grave.

Here's two out-of-control trains this country has set in motion violently colliding. One, the disastrous war of aggression in Iraq, and the other, our inhumane immigration policy. Our government is putting our soldiers and their families through hell, and given the chance, they'll do what they can to compound it.

Of course, this government is run by a bunch of people that have never been afraid. Not the way that I'm afraid. Not the way that Yaderlin Hiraldo is afraid. And that scares me even more.

-pb

So, here's the rant you've probably all been waiting for:

Fuck you, Democrats. Seriously, fuck you. If it weren't for the fact that Pennsylvania doesn't haven an open primary, I'd tear up my registration card into 280 pieces and send one to each Democrat in the House and Senate. They might be trying to convince us that either of the two major bills right now are coated in lube as they shove them up our ass, but no, they're red-fucking hot.

Back in November, America rose up and said "fix this shit". Dems took over at the end of January, and all they've accomplished so far is loosing a game of political chicken with a lame duck moron with approval numbers in the toilet. How fucking dumb do you have to be? They lost a chess match to a blind guy playing on a different board. Great job, assholes. Great fucking job. And you wonder why this annointed Congress has approval numbers just a few points higher than President Fucktard?

Since taking over, Dems have:

• Caved to Bush's demand for unlimited war.


• Blubbered along while Alberto Gonzalez is revealed to be a corpse-fucking vampire who can't tie his shoes without kicking a puppy.


• Claimed that their steaming pile of dogshit immigration legislation was a "great comprimise" and we should all go gaga over it.


• Failed to provide even the illusion of leadership.


• In trying, made themselves look worse and then didn't bother to call anyone on it (Pelosi in Syria)


• Played to the tune of the most corrupt administration since (at least) Nixon's Crooks'r'Us

Way to win, Dems. Way to parley that great victory in '06 into... jack fucking shit. You'll be lucky to hold those seats in '08, and you'll be lucky if this fiasco doesn't drag the eventual nominee down with it.

I'm back to Edwards as my guy. Not only is he the one that I agree with the most (I'm starting to find Kucinich's desire for media at any cost to be a bit desperate), he's one of the few Dems not tainted by this by being in Congress at the moment. Yes, he voted for the war, but he's taken his licks for that. Obama can scream all he wants about not voting for the war, but at the end of the day, he's already said he'll vote for a bill with no timetables because Bush vetoed the first one. That's not leadership. That's not standing up for morals, no matter how unpopular. Fuck that. And Hillary? Not a fucking chance.

So yeah, fuck you, Dems. If you give me someone else besides John Edwards to vote for in the general, I have another candidate already lined up. (Seriously, Thom, it's Edwards or Truelove).

-pb

So, I'm having fun with a thread started from an anti-immigration (read: racist) rant on The Morning Call's letter page (my new favorite watering hole). Here's one of the more outrageous discussions:

Jon Obert - Allentown Pa And who did the Mexicans steal the land from? What, if you're the first thief, you get a pass? Mexicans, Columbians, Peruvians, etc are all descendents of the Spanish who came to these shores to loot, and kill and enslave.

Me: Actually, Mexicans, Columbians, Peruvians, etc are all decended from the people that the Spanish came here to loot, kill and enslave. They were here first.

used2play: their ancestors may have been here 200 years ago, but for generations theyve been slumming it up in puerto rico. now they are here illegally.

Me: Do you even think before you type? Puerto Ricans are *American Citizens*. They're not here illegally any more than someone who moves from New Jersey to Kansas is there illegally. Maybe next time do a little research.

used2play: I know about the hissy fit PR threw to become part of our country! Just cause im not 100 yrs old like you doesnt mean i dont know about our history! What im saying is they SHOULDNT be part of our country!!!!!!!!!! and as far as im conserned i tell my children we have 50 states and one leaching cesspool of an island.

Me: a) I'm not 100.

b) Puerto Rico didn't "throw a hissy fit" to become part of our country. The U.S. Government acquired Puerto Rico in the 1898 Treaty of Paris as reparations for the Spanish-American War.

c) Puerto Rican politics are divided into three camps concerning America: Independence, Statehood, or continued Commonwealth status.

Again, try doing a little research. You're embarrassing yourself with your horribly wrong collection of racist-tinted "facts".

-pb

I haven't really weighed in on this immigration issue, so here goes:

First off, this whole issue is seeded with an undertone of racism, from all sides. The only way to address this issue is to divorce it from the racism.

He're how I see it:

• Amnesty. We need to declare that the 11 million people already here are to be granted citizenship, as long as they haven't committed a felony offense. We need to accept the fact that they are here, and the resources and impact of rounding them up and shipping them out are exponentially greater than the impact of welcoming them and making them legal members of our society. They're already here, already (in most cases) paying taxes into a system they can't access, and already having children who are American citizens. We can't simply ignore that and pretend that by making them citizens, we somehow increase the number of people already here. The argument against this is that we're rewarding them for illegal behavior. That's not the case. We're being pragmatic. Amnesty cannot exist in a vacuum, though. We need to make sure that it's not a single event that would simply increase the problem. That's where my other proposals come in.
• Increased immigration. We need to allow a much greater number of Latin Americans to come into our country legally. They're going to come here anyway, so why not make it legal? Coupled with greater immigration, we need more stringent checks. This will ensure that criminals are turned back while productive, legitimate entrants are welcomed.
• Border security. And lots of it. Increased immigration quotas will significantly cut down on the number of peaceful, generally law-abiding people that attempt to cross undetected. That will mean that people trying to sneak across the border are criminals of some sort, be they terrorists or drug runners.
• Admission. We need to admit to ourselves that our economic policies have created a Latin America that is poor and disenfranchised, while creating a shining El Dorado in the North for them to look to. We've essentially beaten them into poverty with our trade policies and our interventions to support brutal terroristic warlords in the sole interest of pushing back Communism. It's time we started working to make them free, democratic, and prosperous (like most of them were before we started meddling). If we can help them get on their feet with an economy not based on drugs and corruption, then the flow of immigrants will start to turn backwards, or slow significantly.
  We need to admit to ourselves that, despite all the rhetoric, we benefit from the labor of these people. Domestic services, construction, produce. All of these industries are propped up by honest, hard-working people who have braved desperate conditions for a chance to make a salary that we would scoff at. They are living the American dream, and we've ensured that they are marginalized and disenfranchised. They live in their own communities and cling to each other, because as illegals, they have no protection if they are robbed, raped, or otherwise abused. They shun medical care because a trip to the ER could mean a trip back to El Salvador. The dream that they come here for is just out of their reach, and some lawmakers want to make them criminals on top of that?

Amnesty for those here, increased immigration quotas, heightened border security, and an economic policy to create a viable Latin America would benefit everyone. We can't approch this from a "dirty wetback!" mentality. First off, this country was founded by immigrants, and every generation has a new immigrant group that it hates. We need to look past that and address the real issues.

-pb