Immigration Nation - signing the OCJCE

This will be my last post for a while because I am about to get out of my pajamas, strap on my Nikon, hop into my fuel-efficient Scion, wend my way out of Hollywood-Hills-liberal-land and head down to the (probably humungous) “Day without Immigrants” demonstration in downtown LA. [Maybe we should run a contest on how much you’re going to end up paying for parking.-ed. I’m drawing the line at $80.]

So like any signer of the (let’s suppse there is one) Official Citizen Journalists Code of Ethics (OCJCE), I am going to state my biases now. When you read my reports later or see my photos or participation in PJMedia videos, you will be able to decide if these views overwhelmed my coverage or if the event changed me in any way.

Basically, I’m against this demonstration as it was conceived. Boycotting businesses from whom you intend to take money as salary is weird to me – unless you are an old time socialist looking for revolutionary economic change. In that case you’re either a demagogue or a nitwit. (Definition of a nitwit: someone who continues to make the same mistake after having been proven wrong four hundred times) Or maybe a sentimentalist – that’s the worst really because that rarely does anybody any good. (If you’re looking to get some action with the opposite sex by wearing a Che t-shirt, I excuse you.)

I also think the movement to sing the National Anthemn in Spanish is a complete eye-roller and actually destructive to immigrants and/or illegal aliens. This nation of immigrants and its economic system thrived on people doing exactly the opposite – proudly and rapidly learning English. English is also, as we all know, now the international language of science and technology. The good jobs, here and elsewhere, come to those who know English. By encouraging the possibility people can live here with only Spanish, the leaders of this demonstration are essentially keeping their constituency in poverty. (In a sense, that could be their intention. Better for the leaders, isn’t it?)

And, of course, on top of all this there’s Mexico – that beautiful, train wreck of a nation, one of my favorite places in the world. Conditions there seem to go from bad to to the proverbial worse. Keeping an open (exit) door policy for her poor and unemployed may be necessary temporarily, but it has not helped Mexico face the reality of fixing her own problems, something which she resists doing with a tenacity only equaled by the economic motor of the United States.

AND YET …. I support these people (the non-criminal, non-terroristic ones of course) and want them to be here and have jobs. Most of them already do. I have lived in Los Angeles for thirty-five years and interact with them every day. (Ironically, it keeps my Spanish up.) They are great folks from a great culture. Our economy depends on them – we all know it. Something has to be worked out and…. dare I say it?… Bush seems to have a decent plan (or part of one).

Hasta pronto.

UPDATE on the way out: Marc Cooper reports tht at this weekend’s Democratic Party Convention in Scaramento, the subject of immigration “never came up.” … Holy simoleons!