06/03/2007
Linda Chavez has long been regarded with suspicion at VDARE.com. Despite a reportedly fairly amiable personal demeanor, she has accumulated a nasty record as a Neoconservative enforcer, as documented here and here.This is hardly surprising. Although it has suited her to posture as Hispanic for career purposes, she has in fact apparently assimilated into quite a different tradition. For forty years she has been Mrs. Christopher Gersten, reportedly raising her three sons as Jewish. Some in the blogosphere speak of Christopher Gersten as a strong Zionist. Could he possibly be ghosting some of her columns?
Consequently the fact that her May 25 column at Townhall.com: Latino Fear and Loathing is basically a standard neocon smear/vilification piece of thuggery is quite predictable.
Where once the xenophobes could advocate forced sterilization and eugenics coupled with virtually shutting off legal immigration from "undesirable" countries, now they must be content with building walls, putting troops on the border, rounding up illegal aliens on the job and deporting them, passing local ordinances to signal their distaste for immigrants' multi-family living arrangements, and doing whatever else they can to drive these people back where they came from. There is no chance this small group of xenophobes will succeed — ultimately. The victories of their predecessors have been short-lived and so obviously wrong-headed we've always finally abandoned them, from modifying and then repealing the Asian exclusion acts to scrapping the nationalities quotas. But we need to quit pretending that the "No Amnesty" crowd is anything other than what it is: a tiny group of angry, frightened and prejudiced loudmouths backed by political opportunists who exploit them.
She appears to be following the same script (somewhat more bluntly) as President Bush.
Townhall.com readers in the main seem to be sincere concerned citizens rather than seasoned ideologists, and their indignation and outrage has been volcanic. As I write, a total of 481 comments have been posted. Other members of the courtier-”conservative” media have been diving for cover.
Chavez has now followed up with Latino Fear and Loathing, Part II (Jewish World Review June 1 2007). Essentially, this utilizes some of the more abrasive comments she received to argue that opposition to mass immigration is illegitimate and taboo and that only the traditional neoconservative laxity — in which preservation of national character has no place — is permissible:
I've exposed the nasty underbelly of the anti-immigrant crowd — and let’s be clear here, this debate is about more than illegal immigration…I want more secure borders and an end to illegal immigration — but the only way that will ever happen is to adopt a market-based legal immigration system that allows sufficient numbers of workers to come here to fill jobs Americans shun…I absolutely reject the view that our immigration policy should ever be premised on a racial or ethnic test, or that members of one group are somehow unfit to become Americans….It’s time for those who truly are color-blind to disavow those in our ranks who are not.
Unsurprisingly, the actual tenor of the comments Chavez received is quite different from what she represents. (And of course, she does not actually refute the arguments made by the ones she does quote.):
” These people will be instantly granted access to our social safety net and will bankrupt it in short order. They will never contribute anything close to what they suck out of our economy and social safety net. In addition, the dirty little secret you and your ilk try to hide, is that most will qualify for earned income tax credit, so taxpayers will subsidize them yet again. This bill is an abomination and must never be allowed to pass…. “ I am very pro-immigration. This country has survived and prospered on the talents of people from all over the world. But, we as a nation, can not absorb all the indigent peoples of the world, paying for schooling, medical care, etc etc and have any hope of continued prosperity. ” I am not anti-latino (my wife and many friends are latino); I am anti-drug trafficking, anti-terrorist and anti-criminal. Build the wall first, then have an honest discussion about handling hard-working latinos in our country. ” I’m not a racist and resent the remark. I’m worried about social security being there when I retire and of course more taxes.
Quite a few are from Hispanics and immigrants fed up with the immigration deluge:
” Please, Ms. C, come out of your pretty idealistic tower and smell the problems. I’m one of those now rare Californian (read: American) 4th generation Hispanics, latinos, whatever the latest PC label is, who has had it with the government’s turning its back on our laws and the consequences thereof. Until you’ve lived with a bunch of noisy, unidentified guys in one house next store, had 8 hospitals and clinics close in your area because they can’t handle the influx of uninsured people and their growing families, had junk dumped on your property repeatedly, and had the quality of education for your kids decline because the districts can’t handle the crowd of new students, then you can tell me how wonderful it is to have all these unaccounted for people populating my neighborhood…This is not your father’s immigration, it’s an uncontrolled flood. ” I am half Cuban and as an unhyphenated-American of Hispanic ancestry, I vehmiently oppose the shamnesty bill and also reject Chavez’s unfounded bigotry label. I also now have a healthy dislike for Linda Chavez. Not because she is a Hispanic but because she has transformed herself into a race baiter in the mold of Jessee Jackson or Al Sharpton. She disgusts me! ” Just because I am Latino it does not mean that I have to follow blindly, as many do, the anti-American agenda of angry activists who think and preach hatred against America like MECHA, LULAC, MALDEF, and others radical groups, who are exploiting the need of ignorant illegal Mexicans to advance their anti-American agendas. Just because I am Latino it does not mean that I have to be silent about all the pillage of our economy and illegal activities that illegal Mexicans are doing here in America. ” I coming from Peru, and Linda Chavez does not speak for me. Linda Chavez is just a puppet of the left propaganda, which plays the racist card very well…Linda Chavez should pay attention to the following charateristics of these “hard working” Mexicans: 1. Uneducated. No schooling. No diplomas. No technical skills. No computer knowledge. 2. Ranchers. 3. They work as much as they can to send money to Mexico. 4. They litter front yards and public places with empty beer cans, used car oils, and junks. 5. They have not interest at all in learning English, going to school, assimilate to American culture. 6. Latino neighborhoods are usually dirty, children playing outside with not supervision, teenagers dressing gang-style clothes listening to rap songs. 7. Children of illegal people born in USA are usually alienated from the American society. They form a culture within a culture. They keep their own traditions and culture with not intention at all to assimilate to American culture. 8. Public schools are crowded by Mexican children who speaks very little English, and some not even a word. 9. Latino teenagers get pregnant at early age before finishing high schools and go right away to apply for food stamps, cash aid and Medical. Most of them have babies from Mexican teenagers born in America who have not finished high schools and are involved in gangs. Children grow in a dysfunctional family, fathers usually end up in probation or custody or jail because of using drugs, robbery, family violence, and driving violations. 10. Latino families with not education and technical skills end up with five or six or seven children in the family where the cycle of poverty is never broken but perpetuated. 11. Since both parents have never had motivation from their parents to study and enroll in schools, they do not see the necessity to motivate their children to study to get ahead in life. Going to school is a waste of time with not economical profit, according to them. 12. A sense of distrust toward American white people is inculcated to illegal Mexican children by their parents. The idea that Latinos are hated because they are Mexican is common in many Mexican families. And Linda Chavez is the evidence of this fact. 13. They are not loyal to America because they do consider America their own country. 14. They want all the benefits that America offers them but they do not want to be part of the American system… Therefore, listen Linda Chavez, I support the building of walls on our borders. I support the putting troops on the border, rounding up illegal aliens on the job and deporting them, passing local ordinances to prevent the renting of apartments for large crowded illegal people, and doing whatever else they can to send these people back where they came from. ” As a naturalized, legal immigrant, I’m deeply offended by those who think that sneaking into a country to break its laws is identical to the desire to live free and enjoy the blessings of American liberty. What’s so heroic about sneaking across the border or paying coyotes to help you?… As a former Arizona resident, I have seen the damage that large amounts of uneducated and illiterate (in both languages) law-breakers can do, and racism has nothing to do with it. These people have no desire to become Americans. They want to work, yes, but not to pay taxes or become part of American society. They want better lives for their children, but not if it means that they have to learn English or adopt our values. Being Mexican continues to be more of their identity than being American ever will be
VDARE.com welcomes the Chavez rants. As I said just over a year ago, when the Treason Lobby starts chanting “Racism!” it means they know they are in trouble.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.