Stop the ICE Raids

Fair, equitable, and comprehensive immigration reform should be a high priority for the new administration and the new Congress. First and foremost the raids must stop. This should be right up there with stopping the military commissions at Guantanamo, which President Obama did even before his first full day in office.

• The horrific Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids have terrorized communities all over the United States. The terrorizing isn't (and couldn't be) limited to unauthorized immigrants; it affects whole communities, children and families, many of whom are U.S. citizens.
• The raids leave devastated communities in their wake and ruin local economies. For proof of how much immigrants do to strengthen our local economies, look at what happened in the small community of Postville, Iowa. Before the May 12, 2008, ICE raid, this was a thriving paragon of integration and cross-cultural cooperation with a population of more than 2,200. The community of Postville is now a ghost town, a shadow of its former self, having lost approximately a quarter of its population. Every single member of the community has been deeply affected by the raid. (Go here for more information about the Postville raid.)
• Families are torn apart by the raids, and fear runs rampant throughout the community, not only among Latinos and immigrants, but especially among children, who fear that their parents will be taken away from them as the parents of their friends and classmates have been. The raids establish a climate of fear for everyone in the affected communities.
• Workers caught up in the ICE raids have been denied due process. The cases involving the workers from Postville were not reviewed individually, nor were individual circumstances taken into account. All the cases were treated exactly alike and were railroaded through court ten at a time. The system was designed for the wholesale imposition of guilt. It is unlikely that the workers understood the charges against them.
• Enforcement-only policies encourage profiling. Many Latinos, regardless of their immigration status, are harassed and frightened. Friends and relatives occasionally just disappear, presumably picked up by ICE, but no one knows for sure. For many, this experience is eerily familiar, as they come from countries where friends and family were once regularly "disappeared" by regional death squads.

The ICE raids have made the United States resemble an autocratic police state with no regard for individual rights or the well-being of children, families, and communities. They must stop so that we as a nation can focus instead on creating reasonable, equitable immigration reform.

Today our friends from the Fair Immigration Reform Movement are demonstrating in Washington, DC, to ask the new administration to work for fair and comprehensive immigration reform. If you would like to support their work, please join the Fair Immigration Reform Movement cause on Facebook, support the New Day for Immigration, and sign the pledge at Building America Together:

I commit to stand for America's finest ideals and core community values and publicly reject the politics of division and isolation that fan anger and hate against any person or community. I will work towards just, workable and humane immigration reform.

We can do this. Yes we can! ¡Sí, se puede!

My Kind of Revolution

In his recent In These Times editorial, "The Interactive Presidency," Joel Bleifuss recounts how Barack Obama's online supporters could be changing America's political landscape. We have met the revolution, and it is us.

No doubt about it, this is my kind of revolution. I'm an introvert, and I express myself in writing much better than in talking. I like staying home. I'm happy to rouse the rabble and viva the revolution especially when I can do it from my kitchen with my cat curled up beside me.

Bleifuss begins by asking a lot of questions about how the landscape is changing. The questions are good, because I don't think we've begun to fully realize the many ways that social networking is changing the political landscape. More people sign up for Facebook and Twitter every day, and more and more people are using those sites and others like them to find like-minded individuals and groups. Talk about the ultimate in community organizing resources!

Somewhere along the line last fall, I realized how easy Facebook made it to find more or less like-minded people. I started sending friend requests to anyone with an Obama photo as their profile pic or "Hussein" as their middle name. I was a little hesitant at first to send friend requests to strangers, but nearly everybody accepted my requests, and I didn't really care that much if they didn't. Having accumulated a modicum of allies, I found the excitement of the upcoming election all the more palpable. And there my new life as an online rabble-rouser began.

According to Bleifuss, "Obama’s 13 million supporters hope their new president will take his cues from them—that their voices will be heard above those of status quo Democrats and corporate flacks, and, perhaps, even sway Obama’s centrist inclinations." Uh, that would indeed be me. I'm doing my best to send him cues like crazy, and I'm encouraging my friends and acquaintances to do likewise.

It was discouraging that the answer to the most-asked question in Round 2 on Change.gov didn't get a more direct answer, but the more I think about Eric Holder being the people's attorney, the more I like the idea. I'm not throwing my hands up in despair just yet anyway. I'm going to keep pushing and watching what happens very carefully.

Bleifuss concludes: "The limitation of Obama’s online operation is that, since he owns it, it can’t challenge him should he backslide. Yet to the extent that it circumvents the propaganda of the right, Obama’s online army could make the difference in realizing a progressive agenda."

Well, I for one am most definitely going to challenge him should he "backslide." Obama doesn't own my corner of the Internet any more than he owns my kitchen table. I have found here a lovely little spot in cyberspace from which I can raise my voice, push like hell, laugh uproariously, and rouse the rabble until I'm virtually hoarse. And that's just what I'm going to do and keep on doing it until I run out of virtual steam, which isn't going to be any time soon.

The Teaspoon Brigade

I'm a complete Pete Seeger geek, which is why I like to refer to myself as a singalong goddess. Sure it's nice to stand up in front of everybody and sing your heart out, but there's nothing on earth like standing up in front of everybody while you all sing your hearts out together. That is one of the greatest highs on earth. I learned that from watching Pete Seeger.

Pete knows that a song is way more than a song and that music is the best way to make peace and progress in the world. He doesn't underestimate the power of a small group of people to effect change, especially if they are singing. He doesn't just sing songs, he believes in what he's singing and in the power of song to build bridges and communities, to heal broken hearts, and to open closed minds.

Photo by Anthony Pepitone

Pete is 89 years old now, and he's still singing and rabble-rousing, just as he has since the 1940s. Many a Saturday afternoon he can be found at the intersection of Routes 9 and 9D in Wappingers Falls, New York, protesting the war in Iraq with another ten or so compatriots. You might not expect someone who has received a Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award to stand on a corner with a handful of other people and sing his discontent. But Pete's not your average performer.

A June New York Times article reports that when asked whether protesting at the side of the road would help end the war, Pete responded, "I don’t think that big things are as effective as people think they are. The last time there was an antiwar demonstration in New York City I said, 'Why not have a hundred little ones?' "

Another "small" effort Pete champions is picking up trash. “This is my religion now," he is quoted as saying in the same article. "Picking up trash. You do a little bit wherever you are.” What a lovely, tidy world it would be if we all did that.

He said that working for peace was like adding sand to a basket on one side of a large scale, trying to tip it one way despite enormous weight on the opposite side.

“Some of us try to add more sand by teaspoons,” he explained. “It’s leaking out as fast as it goes in and they’re all laughing at us. But we’re still getting people with teaspoons. I get letters from people saying, ‘I’m still on the teaspoon brigade.’ ”

The teaspoon brigade. That's about my speed. Some day this summer, I'd love to take my husband and my guitar on a pilgrimage to Wappingers Falls, New York. I'd love nothing better than to sing along with Pete. Of course, I have in fact been doing that for many years now. He's inspired so many of us to take up our guitars, banjos, and teaspoons and get busy.

If Pete is your hero too, go here to sign a petition to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. You can also join a Facebook group with the same goal here. But of course what Pete would most want you to do is keep singing, and keep those teaspoons coming.

In the spirit of the teaspoon brigade, Tom (my husband) and I have added a couple of teaspoons over at "Open for Questions" at Change.gov. Tom works for the U.S. Post Office as an electronics technician, and he's a steward for the American Postal Workers Union. His question:

Will you appoint postal policy makers who will restore USPS' financial ability to serve people, rather than to profit big mailers and private postal companies? Limit discounts to costs avoided? Fully use idle USPS resources before contracting out?

His question has two votes, one of them mine and one his (so maybe these count as quarter teaspoons). If you want to vote yes for Tom's question, search for "USPS financial" and you'll find it.

My two teaspoon questions are as follows:

What will you do to restore the checks and balances in the U.S. government?

(Search for "restore the checks and balances") and

Will you repudiate any claims for the legal force of presidential signing statements and affirm the executive branch's obligation to enforce the law and uphold the Constitution of the United States?

(Search for "repudiate any claims.") My questions each have six votes, and of course there are numerous other questions along the same lines as mine. I have no idea whether the questions will be aggregated to come up with the final count. But anyway, it is nice to make your voice heard. Let's hope the Obama folks really are listening.

Our BIG question, the one from Democrats.com, which we've been tracking for days (see here and here) now is the question with the most votes: 20,357 as of 9:17pm Central Time on Sunday.