Democrats Awaken on Iraq, But Not on Immigration

By Donald A. Collins

11/12/2005

[Recently by Don Collins: Camp Of The Saints Comes True In France. Let’s Stop It Happening Here.]

Recently I received a jaunty email heads-up from DNC Chair Howard Dean about what AP covered in its November 2nd story "Democrats Put Senate Into Closed Session". (This may have something to do with the fact that I am a Democratic contributor.) Finally, Democrats in the Senate were acting like they should have long since about the Bush rush into the Iraq War.

Bravo!

However, what about that other invasion? You know, the one involving the illegal arrival of aliens across our borders — which last year numbered 3 million? Over 10 million illegal aliens, maybe 20 million, are here now. And my party keeps sloughing off the issue as if tax-paying, CONTRIBUTING, ordinary Democrats were there merely to help our leaders into elected office.

Gimme a break, Governor Dean.

In my VDARE.COM article A Democrat Says MoveOn Members Need To Get A Move On About Immigration Reform, I applauded that organization for its good — in my opinion — efforts, but suggested that its stated priorities needed revision.

These priorities included:

1. Firing Karl Rove for outing undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame.

2. Urging appointment of a moderate to the O'Connor Supreme Court vacancy.

MoveOn always asks for ideas from its members, so naturally I replied. In part, I said,

"Until you start realizing that the present open border situation in America is draining the respect of our citizens for our precious Rule of Law, there isn’t much sense to my reading your other materials.

"Failing to deal with this issue head on is like being in a mid-ocean life boat which has sprung a serious leak (immigration invasion) with a killer storm on the horizon (coming domestic terrorism) and you the coxswain (MoveOn) are telling everyone to be sure to put on life jackets (overspending on defense) so we can continue to ignore the leak and the storm."

It’s a vicious circle we are well into — and firing Karl Rove or Scooter Libby won’t fix things.

I got no response from MoveOn. However, I did get a heavy flow of emails from VDARE.COM readers.

Here are a few :

• "As a member of various true environmental orgs, your VDARE.com article is a breath of fresh air. Your comments on the relative scale of importance of the issues Move-On sees as critical or important are spot on. All I can say is bravo for your insights."

• "To be generous with one’s own possessions is quite different from being generous with those of posterity. We should call this point to the attention of those who from a commendable love of justice and equality, would institute a system of the commons, either in the form of a world food bank, or of unrestricted immigration. We must convince them if we wish to save at least some parts of the world from environmental ruin. "

• "Appreciated your commentary on MoveOn. MoveOn was one of the Brutus types during the most recent Sierra Club Board Election. They threw their considerable weight to smear candidates championing immigration reform. When Ms Blades spoke at a local bookstore promoting her book I asked her about it. I was boo-ed by the Berkeley audience for bringing up such a distasteful question. Needless to say I got no real answer from her. From that time on I viewed MoveOn on par with the Southern Law Poverty Center and ZPG — destructive "progressive" organizations. Keep up the virtual cream pies."

So, Governor Dean, to paraphrase Robert Frost, we have miles to go before we sleep. If we Democrats fall asleep at this fork in the road, and fail to demand true immigration reform, huge, negative developments in our country will be made permanent. America may never again be able to adhere to the principles of law and equity which made us unique in the history of the world.

Obsessing over Inside-the-Beltway trivia is easy and may be fun. But we need to earn the right to return to being the governing party. Calling attention to important long term problems, which the Republicans are refusing to face, is the way. No issue meets this prescription better than the U.S. Immigration disaster.

About the Author: Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, is a board member of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

Donald A. Collins is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.

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