American Flag Blog

Advocates for legalizing illegal immigration are flush with anticipation over the huge numbers of protesters they promise to deliver in cities across America Monday. But in their zeal to get their message out, have they failed to define the terms of the debate?

The answer to that question is almost certainly yes. Organizers and supporters of the movement have framed the issue as one of human rights and race. The official talking points include the claim that illegal immigrants do the jobs that Americans won’t and that Americans who want to defend the border are nothing more than racists.

Ordinarily, those arguments might have the ring of truth to the average American, but these aren’t ordinary circumstances. We have a huge population that has willfully entered our country in an act of overt defiance of U.S. law and they have recently revealed just how large a crowd they are by marching through our streets waving Mexican flags and chanting anti-American slogans.

Now adding insult to injury, they are making demands. Jorge Rodriguez, one of the organizers of those Mexican flag rallies is right out front with the movement’s agenda, “We want full amnesty, full legalization for anybody who is here (illegally). That is the message that is going to be played out across the country on May 1.”

Historically, such a direct confrontation, some might even call it a threat, has never played well here. Americans are perhaps the most generous people on earth, but only when the giving is voluntary. Rodriguez’ statement is more like getting mugged in the alley.

Jim Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project put it this way, “It’s intimidation when a million people march down main streets in our major cities under the Mexican flag. This will backfire.”

Adam Kidron, a British born music producer, is releasing a Spanish version of the Star Spangled Banner to coincide with Monday’s nationwide boycott/protest by illegal Mexicans. The song features names such as Wyclef Jean, hip-hop artist Pitbull, Carlos Ponce and Olga Tanon.

Kidron may mean well, in a soft-headed liberal sort of way, but this latest effort to make a case for illegal immigrants is sure to do nothing more than fan the flames. To make matters worse, a version will be released in June with modified lyrics such as, “These kids have no parents, cause all of these mean laws … let’s not start a war with all these hard workers, they can’t help where they were born.”

Kidron defends the heresy by pointing out that the melody for the Star Spangled Banner was lifted from an English drinking song. If you’re trying to find the logic in that line of reasoning, don’t bother, it’s not there. When Francis Scott Key was so inspired by the sight of the giant American flag still flying over Fort McHenry that he penned the words to what would later become our National Anthem, it was not unusual to borrow the tune of an English song since we were essentially an English colony that had recently won independence.

That Kidron draws a parallel between that event and his willful desecration of of our sacred National Anthem for the supposed benefit of individuals who mock our laws shows how contemptuous these people are of America.

When this song hits the radio, the effect will most likely be similar to the effect of illegal Mexicans waving Mexican flags in open defiance of U.S. sovereignty. Whatever the intention might be, the message could not be any more clear, “We are stealing your country and we are stealing your National Anthem too!”

The central issue here is not immigration and the vast majority of Americans know it, although they might not neccessarily be able to articulate it. However, the concept is simple - entering our country illegally by sneaking across the border, then demanding citizenship replete with all the perks is not even close to a reasonable definition of immigration.

Then on top of that, changing the lyrics of our National Anthem and singing it in Spanish seems less like an appeal for leniency from the American people than as a warning shot across the bow. We Americans by and large may have gotten soft over decades of affluence, comfort and safety, but that condition may already be on the fast track to a quick change.

Even President Bush, who for whatever reason has sided with the illegals in the past, has come out swinging on this one, “I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.”

Just shy of 61 years since a bullet thankfully penetrated the skull of Adolph Hitler, yet the underlying methodology of the most hated and feared tyranny the world has ever known is alive and well right here in the U.S.A. Not only that, but in a twisted piece of irony, one of the vanguard of the movement is none other than Abe Foxman and his Anti Defamation League.

Foxman, to his shame, has been defaming Christians in the most vile terms under the guise of defending Jews. He bellows frequently that the shadowy Christians are attempting to “Christianize” America. Never mind the fact that almost all the European settlers who came here before the United States was formed were Christians, many of whom came to escape religious persecution.

Most of the Founding Fathers as well as the citizen-soldiers who fought for independence from England were Christians. And George Washington, who designed the American flag and was once called “The Father of Our Country” was a devout Christian who spoke of the neccessity of religion to inform the decisions and actions of our political representatives.

Just as Hitler and his henchmen waged a full frontal assault of slander, demonization and fear-mongering against the Jewish population of Europe, Foxman and many others just like him are manipulating public opinion using the same despicable techniques. They have been depicting Christians as a sort of sub-species of meager intelligence and undeserving of a voice in the public square. One gets the feeling that Foxman would love nothing better than to see Christians rounded up and put away.

Now Foxman has turned his beady eyes on Americans who think it would be a good idea to defend our borders. According to Foxman, Americans who were alarmed at the sight of thousands of Mexican flags in the hands of people who have entered our country illegally are “extremists,” “racists,” and “white supremacists.” This man is as unscrupulous as they come.

Don Feder, a well know political commentator who also happens to be Jewish has this to say about Foxman’s organization, “Despite its reputation, the ADL is not a Jewish organization. There’s nothing distinctly Jewish (i.e., grounded in Jewish law) about its operations. It’s really just another left-wing group, with a leftist agenda.” It would serve the American Jewish community well if well known Jews such as Ben Stein would publicly expose Foxman for the hater he is.

Ever since the images of thousands of illegal Mexicans waving Mexican flags on American streets flashed across our TV screens, Americans who never gave a thought to the consequences of a growing illegal population are now suddenly concerned and are telling the politicians who represent them.

And while the politicians in Washington are scrambling to cover their butts with constituents while trying hard not to alienate the Hispanic population that may soon be voting, the media is assuring Americans that these new immigrants are no different than the waves of immigrants who came to America a century or so ago. But is the notion that the overwhelming majority of illegal Mexicans yearn to be Americans an accurate one?

If you visit the Minuteman Project website and read the hatemail, much of which comes from illegal Mexicans, you may come away with a different opinion. Here’s a sampling (the capitalization is not mine):

“…YOU NEED TO READ UP ON THE HISTORY BOOKS AND FIND OUT FOR YOUR SELF WHO THIS LAND REALLY BELONGS TO, THE MEXICAN IS THE ONE THAT IS BEING VIOLATED HERE WE ARE THE RIGHTFUL OWNERS TO THIS LAND,YES WE MEXICANS AND THE NATIVE AMERICANS.” - Maria Ramos

“STAY OUT U THIS LAND IS AMERICA IF U LIKE STAY HERE IF NAT GO BACK TO INGLAND MEXICAN MORE AMERICAN THE ANY PERSON…” - Miguel

“F*** YOU ALL!!!! F***ING RED NECKS!!!! THAT TERRITORY WAS OURS F***INGA**HOLES, AND LIKE IT OR NOT, WE ARE TAKING IT BACK SLOWLY BUT SURELY ANDIN FRONT OF YOUR F***ING NOSES YOU SONS OF BITCHES!!!!!!!!!! SO GO F*** YOUR MOTHER F***ING WHITE TRASH GRINGOS!!!!” - Anonymous

“This is not an invasion, we are taking our land back. IS OURS. you white settlers stole it by force and so it is still an occupied territory. I see that you’re the only ones aware of this and I can tell that your fearing our return. well bad news is impossible to stop us now, in about 25-50 years the majority of people in the US will be people of color and that means good bye to your white privilege status. kill whitey!” - anonymous

“Apparently your prefernce is Cubans and Gooks (Chinese)….so why don’t you
start deporting those f***ing worms (Cubans) and those yellow sons of bitches (Chinese) back to their countries. For that matter, deport yourself back to Europe too. Mexicans, and I’m not Mexican, - I’m American-born Marine Corp service connected combat vet - have more right to be in Aztlan than any of you racist Gringo assholes. Worse !!! You are asking for those pigs Cubans and Gooks to join yor ranks…well f*** all of you. Come to the South Texas / Mexican border and try to pull your shit here. I have many Chicano brothers there, all combat U.S. vets, all waiting for a**holes like you.” - Jose G.

“You need to have a sovereign nation to have borders. That’s gone and it’s never coming back. It’s gone because the American people were too weak and too greedy to keep it. So get used to it, accept it and learn to deal with it.” - RPT

There are a lot more of these. Visit the Minuteman Project website if you have the stomach. The thought of these people waving Mexican flags as they marched on American soil is not half as disturbing as the realization that some of them may have been cynically waving the American flag.

The New York based Islamic Thinkers Society was back at it again Friday, this time staging a protest in front of the Israeli Consulate. You may remember that the Islamic Thinkers was the group that staged a demonstration last year at which they spread American flags out on a New York street, then proceeded to stomp on them.

This year, their threats are more specific and more sinister, including pictures of the White House with an Islamic flag replacing the American flag and chants such as, “The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real holocaust is on its way!”

The Islamic Thinkers Society may seem like a fanatical fringe group, but the fact is that they are not on the fringes at all. Not only do they have strong ties to major Islamic terror organizations like Hamas but they are also closely related to the Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR. CAIR is a U.S. based group that always tries to put a smiley face on Islam to the approving nods of dopey Americans while they talk to each other about the day that the United States will be an Islamic state.

The fact that the actions of the Islamic Thinkers and many other Muslim groups operating within our borders are pretty much ignored by the Media and the general public has not gone unnoticed by the Muslim world. Islamic leaders, terrorist and otherwise, believe Westerners and especially Americans to be wallowing in decadence and lacking the will to stand for long against a determined adversary and they are actively chipping away.

That’s what the latest message from Usama Bin Laden is all about. The truth is that the United States is at war with Islam, not because we want a war with Islam, but because Bin Laden and friends thought it might be fun to kill a few thousand New Yorkers and destroy a major U.S. landmark as the first (major) shot in a war they have created.

That Bin Laden, the supposed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is whining about a U.S. led war against Islam does not suggest an attempt, as some media outlets suggest, to rally the Muslim world. Rather, he is quite shrewdly appealing to the American left to side with him and condemn the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.

It’s all well and good for Americans to debate U.S. involvement in Iraq or anywhere else, but Bin Laden’s message may actually signal a change in strategy. If a significant portion of the American population can be convinced that the U.S. is wrongly targeting an innocent and peaceful Islam, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary, we may be well on the road towards the day the flag of Islam really does replace the American flag.

We live in an age where activity has become an acceptable substitute for results in many quarters and nowhere is that principal more obvious than in regards to the immigration debate.

For years, the American people have been told that the I.N.S. is doing a bang-up job regulating the border while thousands of illegals pour in every day. Those Americans with land along the border have been unfortunate enough to watch illegals stream across while most Americans are blissfully unaware of the problem. That is, until now.

The sight of a half a million illegal Mexicans flowing like a river through the streets of Los Angeles waving literally thousands of Mexican flags with nary an American flag in the bunch sobered up an America in denial in a hurry. In response to the outcry from citizens calling for action, our political leadership (that’s an oxymoron, by the way), afraid to do anything that might be perceived as an insult to millions of potential future voters, has accomplished absolutely nothing.

But the image of illegals defiantly waving Mexican flags has proved to be a powerful catalyst for change. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has stepped up to the plate, aggressively chasing businesses that “knowingly and recklessly” employ illegals. After all, who needs Congress to pass another law when the laws we need to stem the tide are already on the books?

This latest move by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff may be political gamesmanship by the White House, but it’s still the right move, and none too soon. The Minutemen are threatening to build a wall themselves if the Government doesn’t act quickly, and we applaud them. That’s what America is all about - citizens who will get the job done when politicians refuse to act. But while a wall is an important step in the process, putting the brakes on a system that rewards businesses for breaking the law is the key.

Let’s hope that this week’s crackdown on businesses that flagrantly break laws for selfish gain is just the beginning and not a one-time show to appease an angry public.

An Associated Press story released today about Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Project, contains one line that could easily be passed over, but raises an important point. The second paragraph starts like this: “Simcox, whose civilian watch group opposes illegal immigration…”

Since the Minuteman group is identified as being in opposition to illegal immigration, the implication is that there are other Americans who are for illegal immigration. Of course, this is not news, but it begs the question, why would an American be for illegal immigration? Take away the employers who make a bigger profit off the cheap labor of undocumented workers and we’re still left with a lot of Americans who welcome illegal immigration.

This attitude is an outgrowth of the multi-cultural movement that at once praises third-world cultures while condemning western culture, particularly American culture. Sadly, there are plenty of Americans who fully enjoy the fruits of our liberty while accusing America of being the source of the world’s troubles. According to these folks, people from other cultures, including Mexicans, are ready to live hand-in-hand to build a peaceful world.

But the fact that the first impulse of tens or even hundreds of thousands of illegal Mexicans was to wave the Mexican flag, not the American flag, and carry signs with messages like “We didn’t cross the border - the border crossed us!,” does not bode well for the multi-cultural camp.

If the politicians refuse to act and act decisively, starting with the Minutemen, Americans will take the matter into their own hands, and I’m afraid that what follows will be anything but peaceful.

Carl Bernstein, that super-sleuth reporter who is best known for happily allowing himself to be played like a piano in the Watergate investigation, has joined the liberal throng calling for George Bush’s head. After reading an article he wrote for Vanity Fair calling for a Senate investigation of the entire Bush tenure, a couple of points came to mind.

The hallmark of the sad goofballs that comprise the liberal left in this country is the almost manic righteous indignation they generate over every perceived threat. The unemployed loser who torches an American flag in a crowd is described as selfless, sincere and courageous while the cop who arrests him is a Nazi.

The single most conspicuous trait of the leftists is their unyielding belief that they are of pristine character and anyone who disagrees is naturally evil and vile. And the watchword that exposes this attitude are the various forms of the word “hypocrite.” Yet liberals will excuse all types of hypocrisy from other like-minded folks believing that the ends justify the means.

Enter Carl Bernstein venting his silly hyperbole on behalf of the Bush-haters of the far left. Here’s just one example:

“The first fundamental question that needs to be answered by and about the president (sic), the vice president (sic), and their political and national-security aides, from Donald Rumsfeld to Condoleezza Rice, to Karl Rove, to Michael Chertoff, to Colin Powell, to George Tenet, to Paul Wolfowitz, to Andrew Card (and a dozen others), is whether lying, disinformation, misinformation, and manipulation of information have been a basic matter of policy—used to overwhelm dissent; to hide troublesome truths and inconvenient data from the press, public, and Congress; and to defend the president and his actions when he and they have gone awry or utterly failed.”

Besides the fact that this tirade could just as well apply to the Clinton administration, it is an absolutely vacuous statement. Do these people really expect that everything that goes on in any President’s administration should be completely and openly shared with the general public? Or are they making these demands only of the Bush administration because they personally despise him? The answer is very obviously the latter.

Then there’s the issue of Berstein’s own little bit of hypocrisy. The man identified only as Deep Throat by Bernstein and Bob Woodward in their famous investigation of the Watergate break-in, turned out to be none other than former F.B.I. hotshot W. Mark Felt.

Felt’s motive for using the young reporters had nothing to do with morality - he and others at the F.B.I. wanted to prevent Nixon from seizing power at the bureau following the death of J. Edgar Hoover and what better way to accomplish that than to destroy Nixon politically.

At the time Bernstein and Woodward were meeting Felt in parking garages, it was well known that Felt was accomplished at breaking and entering as well as gathering information on American citizens illegally. You see, Felt had a criminal conviction on his record for failing to secure search warrants in his investigative efforts of the Weather Underground.

Today Bernstein points an accusatory finger at Bush for “spying on American citizens” (a bogus claim) but he was all too happy way back when to collaborate with an F.B.I. man who had actually been convicted of spying on Americans illegally. It doesn’t get any more hypocritical than that.

In February 2003, Princeton historian and self-proclaimed leftist Sean Wilentz appeared as a panelist at a symposium sponsored by David Horowitz and his online publication, FrontPageMagazine.com. The subject that day was “The ‘Peace’ Movement: a Front for the Anti-American Left?”

To the question, “What is legitimate dissent and what is betrayal of your country?,” Wilentz answered in part, “All dissent is legitimate. Betrayal is not dissent. Betrayal is beyond dissent, taking conscious actions against the country of your citizenship on behalf of another country.”

When his turn came, Horowitz agreed with Wilentz to a point, but made this important distinction:

“All dissent is legitimate and should be protected speech. No dissent is treason as defined by the laws of the land. However, dissent that refuses to make a distinction between Iraq and America, dissent that compares our leaders to Nazis, dissent at this point in time that incites organized opposition to our nation’s efforts to defend itself is betrayal. Two presidents have asked for authorization to use force against Iraq, and both parties have voted to give that authorization to Bush. In war, some sort of basic unity against the enemy is necessary. To seek to disrupt that unity is to aid the enemy.”

Horowitz, it should be pointed out, was a founding member of the New Left movement of the 60’s who repented and now works tirelessly to alert Americans to the dangers of the current leftist movement.

In the late 90’s, Wilentz actively defended then President Clinton against the prospect of impeachment, warning Republicans that they risked doing irreparable damage to the Office of the Presidency. Of course, the damage had already been done by a President who viewed the Oval Office as a good place to solicit sexual favors from the willing young groupies known as interns.

Well now it appears that Wilentz may be about to throw caution to the wind and do some damage of his own to the Office of the Presidency whilst walking the tight-rope of betrayal. In an issue of Rolling Stone magazine that will hit the newsstands on Friday, Wilentz tackles the question, (is Bush) “The Worst President in History?”

Coming off back-to-back terms of Bill Clinton with Jimmy Carter still visible in the rear-view mirror, the question is at best ridiculous. The left taunted Reagan in a similar fashion and history proved how wrong they were. Perhaps history will judge Wilentz as a poor historian but a very good shill for the left, who knows?

The huge immigration reform protest rallies in recent weeks sparked racous debate when illegal Mexicans boldly waved thousands of Mexican flags in the streets of America. And although the shadowy organizers quickly mobilized a switch to American flags, it was too late to close the barn door and the debate continues.

But what are we, as legitimate American citizens, debating? Well, thanks to a Congress that refuses to tackle the tough question of how to close the border, we are instead debating what to do with the millions of illegals already living within our borders.

And since the generosity of America prevents us from rounding them up and sending them packing, we are instead discussing how much we should give the illegals. But the question might be better framed as how much will we or can we prevent them from taking. The reality may well be that we are looking at an invasion, not immigration, and America can’t find the political will to repel the invaders.

Some in the main stream media are beginning to pay attention to what many Mexican political leaders here in this country have been telling their people for a long time - that the Southwestern U.S. was stolen from Mexico and they are taking it back. Besides waving first Mexican, then American flags, illegals were carrying signs and banners that said things like, “Uncle Sam Stole Our Land!” and “If you think I’m illegal because I’m a Mexican, learn the true history because I’m in my homeland.”

And the contention that we may be loosing our grip on southwestern states is being supported by some notable individuals such as Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington, who made this statement in 2004, “Demographically, socially and culturally, the reconquista of the Southwest United States by Mexico is well under way. No other immigrant group in U.S. history has asserted or could assert a historical claim to U.S. territory. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans can and do make that claim.”

One thing seems certain, if our political leadership continues to describe the collapse of our southern border as a humanitarian issue, we may have to relocate that border farther north in the not-to-distant future.