pro-immigrant rallies

Here is the report on the one that happened here at home--http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/14313651.htm-- and it is so exciting to see them happening all across the country. What a heady day yesterday!

On Saturday, Glen Powell from Winchester wrote to the Herald-Leader regarding the immigration debate,

"There's a black wind blowing through America, politically, economically and socially.
When will it end?"

Perhaps the wind is changing some. Not that there weren't pages of negative redneck responses to the rally. One web post in response to the article covering it read, "heres an idea, put an electrical wire in the rio grande. when they try to cross....sizzle and fry." stupid SOB.

Here is my letter (hopefully published in tomorrow's paper!) to the editor:

The anti-immigrant position fails on both humanitarian and economic grounds. Negative responses to the rally downtown have been filled with fear and hate towards millions of people just because they are foreign and willing to work for low wages. Additionally, the send-‘em-home position fails to recognize that cheap labor is a necessary part of our economic system; it is the only way to produce the cheap consumer goods that we buy every day. We vote for underpaid immigrant labor here in the USA-- and for low-cost overseas production that exploits these people in their home countries and drives them here seeking a better life-- with our shopping dollars. There is no closing our borders to a flow of people from the South without fundamentally restructuring the entire global economic system.

Instead of struggling without success to close the borders, we should protect the health and dignity of all people in the USA by granting citizenship to immigrants. Some argue that, as non-citizens, immigrants are in no position to make demands on our government. The purpose of a civil rights movement is to demand an equal right to live and have a say in government, in spite of powerful forces who believe you do not deserve it.

Alice Johnston
Winchester, KY



I think this is a big deal that is just going to get bigger. Peace and dignity, folks.