Hey Folks - Note the new widget to the right and click on the Police State to take action against SB 1070. It'll take you to a page to email the Governor. You can use the canned letter they provide, or write your own. Even though she's received over 6,000 emails from the site, I wrote my own:
----------------------------------------Subject: "We Will Resist SB 1070"-------------------------------------
"We were kind of hoping you would save us from the fascists, not collude with them, but rumor has it that you'll be signing SB 1070 any day now - or just letting it pass into law - not vetoing it.
You still have time to save the day – you can still be the hero of this civil rights movement. Or, you can pave the way for people like Pearce to have even more power over people like you and I.
This will be your great test, I guess – do you have what it takes to fend off the bad guys in the legislature, or do we need a new chief executive?
I don’t believe you would sign this bill if Pearce didn’t have some kind of leverage with you that we can’t see, because I think you know the harm it will do us all. It’s going to tear this place apart.
Remember Mississippi's Freedom Summer? Arizona may have a similar boost in tourism soon - possibly of people not carrying documents. What a mess that could be, all those civil rights activists getting stopped and detained because they're passing through Arizona looking too brown...how embarrassing, and what a waste of law enforcement resources, verifying that they’re all citizens…
And no doubt hate crimes against Latinos and their sympathizers are about to go out of sight. The bad guys here carry guns everywhere, you know. Most poor people don't.
So, many prayers are with you tonight, as are the hopes of young citizens with undocumented parents, communities with undocumented neighbors, and a whole lot of undocumented and silenced victims of crime who will never feel safe anywhere again...
Would you tell the young woman from Chiapas who is raped that she should have known better, and deport her in cuffs? Or the Guatemalan teenager looking for his parents that it's their own fault if they're lost in the federal detention system (earning big bucks for CCA every day they stay "lost" there) - then lock him up, too, until they're "found"?
That's the kind of stuff you do, Governor, every time you sign off on one of these abusive pieces of legislation that Pearce pushes through. It's all only gotten worse for people of color in this state under you. If you really believe, with all your heart, that this bill is good for Arizona - sign away. By all means, be true to yourself and honest with us about the implications.
But I don't think you really believe it will be good for Arizona. I think you know there's a fascist or two among us with far too much power, and that this piece of legislation comes not from a love of America, but from a fear of everyone brown - citizen and non-citizen alike. It's about white supremacy. If you sign it, you can't later claim ignorance or innocence - you've been advised by the very people who would know what evil this is.
We’re saddened to think you'll be signing SB 1070, Governor. Just don't think it will win you any votes from the far right - and be sure it will lose you many from the center - once this thing sinks in.
This bill makes us the most racist, fascist state in the country, and we will resist it until the young and the wise and the poor are powerful enough to throw you all out of our State House and Governor’s Mansion..."
This is a great report to arm ourselves with; people need to know more about the think tanks spitting out the racist garbage that becomes law in this land. Is it any surprise that the people the AZ Me Party Senate President gets his brilliant immigration legislation from are so closely affiliated with hate groups? Pearce and Burges should be ashamed of themselves - but then this is Arizona - they're heroes to the white supremacists who think they own this state. I believe Pearce quotes FAIR directly for his propaganda campaigns all the time...
The coalition of state lawmakers seeking to undermine the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship protection includes a dozen legislators who embrace a raft of radical beliefs, including conspiracy theories about supposed government concentration camps and claims that President Obama is a foreigner.
Attacking the Constitution: State Legislators for Legal Immigration & the Anti-Immigrant Movement profiles 12 leading members of State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI), which has announced a national campaign to end the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship for all children born in the United States. The group is also pushing a number of other harsh, anti-immigrant proposals in states across the country.
"The radical beliefs of SLLI members parallel their radical agenda – rewriting the 14th Amendment," said Heidi Beirich, research director for the SPLC and author of the report. "The fact that we're talking about people who wield real political power should scare everyone who cares about our constitutional ideals."
SLLI, which has about 65 members in 40 states, was founded by Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe in 2007. The group works closely with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which the SPLC has designated as an anti-immigrant hate group because of its white nationalist agenda and ties to racist groups.
Metcalfe has said that immigrant parents "live the life of a criminal" and should have their children taken away. He has routinely demonized undocumented immigrants as criminals, despite studies that clearly show immigrants are on average much less criminal than native-born Americans.
Metcalfe once denounced Pennsylvania's Domestic Violence Awareness Month as part of the "homosexual agenda" because it included men as possible victims of domestic violence. He characterized military veterans concerned about climate change and foreign energy dependence as traitors promoting a "leftist agenda." And, like others in the so-called "birther movement," Metcalfe has cast doubt on Obama's U.S. citizenship.
Along with Metcalfe, the report profiles Rep. Tim Bearden, Georgia; Rep. Leo Berman, Texas; Rep. Judy Burges, Arizona; Rep. Sally Kern, Oklahoma; Rep. Charles Key, Oklahoma; Sen. Brian Nieves, Missouri; Sen. Russell Pearce, Arizona; Rep. Michael Pitts, South Carolina; Rep. Matt Shea, Washington; Rep. Randy Terrill, Oklahoma; and Sen. Danny Verdin, South Carolina.
It includes these details:
"Not all members of this coalition have voiced such radical opinions, but by virtue of pursuing this attack on the 14th Amendment, they all have signed on to an attempt to radically reinterpret the Constitution – an attempt that one conservative commentator accurately described as a fool's errand," Beirich said.
SLLI contends that the 14th Amendment has been misapplied to grant automatic U.S. citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants. But it is clear from the record of debate in Congress leading up to the amendment's adoption in 1868 that its sponsors did intend for the amendment to cover the children of non-citizens, including Gypsies, perhaps the group most analogous to today's undocumented immigrants, as well as Chinese immigrants, who retained citizenship in their home countries, were present in large numbers and were barred from naturalization.