And, of course, there's always Jon Stewart:
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Arizona, the "meth lab" of democracy. Ouch!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
I'll Try To Remember My Passport When I Go See the Grand Canyon
Even the Arizona Republic, no liberal left rag with a very conservative editorial page, comes out forcefully against the new bust 'em and book 'em law in Arizona. They do so for quite conservative reasons.
Arizona, the "meth lab" of democracy. Ouch!
Arizona, the "meth lab" of democracy. Ouch!
Thanks for the inspiration...you sent me off on my own Arizona rant (which includes my real years spent there)...it´s amazing to me how this new ¨mindset¨ of wingnuts have taken it upon themselves to be superior beings...what a crock!
ReplyDeleteI think Arizona is going to be economically very sorry for all this prejudice, discrimination a ugly demonizing mischief...watch.
Leonardo Ricardo
Apparently this bill includes such features as fines for police stations not arresting enough people; imprisonment and fines for not having your papers, even if you are legal; and allows investigation on thebasis of any combination of "race, nationality, or color. How is this NOT racial profiling? How is this NOT the same as Nazis demanding papers on the train?
ReplyDeleteThank goodness for Jon Stewart.
ReplyDeleteArizona has really gone off the deep end and it was such a beautiful place to visit. John McCain, the governor and all those making "hay" out the the fears of "haters" are wrong, wrong, wrong.
Prayers ascending for poor Arizona!
ReplyDeleteI am tempted in this circumstance to urge all and sundry to come to New Mexico and spend your dollars here.
ReplyDeleteIt's a funny thing about the Southwest. Having grown up in Texas, I know that the Spanish colonial legacy is there minimized as much as possible, and the Indians driven out (mostly to the Indian Territory to the North, now Oklahoma). In New Mexico the Hispanic element has always been a part of the community's self-undertanding, with a somewhat rosy but better-than-most claim to pacific relations with the Native American heritage.
As a guy who, truth be told, is white as Wonder Bread, I like it very much here, and of course encourage visitors to what is still a rather desperately poor state. I've never lived in Arizona, but it does strike me has sharing that Texas attitude that the Anglos "tamed" it, and the Anglos own it. Here the favored saying is, "We didn't cross the border; the border crossed us."
But, self interest aside, there is much natural beauty in Arizona, and I would simply point out that the great Navajo and Hopi reservations are places where, within the exterior boundaries of the state of Arizona, state law does not apply; they are governed there purely by tribal and federal law. Visitors can visit places such as Canyon de Chelly (not as spectacular, perhaps, as the Grand Canyon, but much less crowded, and graced with breathtaking Anasazi ruins) or the Hopi mesas--places where a little cultural sensitivity may be required, but oddly much ignored by American tourists (I once represented a hotel in Chinle, and found most of the guests French and Germans).
Boycotts I often have mixed feelings about they. The can be very effective, but often work by harming people innocent of the wrong being protested. I simply point out that for those in love with the American Southwest, there are still vast and beautiful areas to which this iniquitous Arizona law does not apply.