Thursday, March 12, 2009

Please take action today for neutrality in El Salvador's elections

If you are concerned about U.S. intervention in other countries' elections and/or are encouraged by the tide of center-left victories in Latin America in recent years, here's a chance to do something about it. See the CISPES website for a quick call to the State Department, asking Secretary of State Clinton to immediately counter Republican scare tactics supporting El Salvador's right-wing ARENA party...

CISPES - The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador - Republicans in U.S. Congress Intervene in Salvadoran Elections--Take Action NOW!

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

the immigration "problem"

"To Benjamin Franklin the prospect that the Germans 'will soon ... out number us' was one full of alarm. Their children didn't seem to learn English; they read imported German books and a German newspaper; interpreters were now needed in some courts. The very "Signs in the our Streets have inscriptions in both languages,' he noted warily, 'and in some places only in German.'"

Sound familiar? No one seems to worry about German-speaking immigrants these days, because in time, of course, they learned English -- just as today's immigrants to the U.S. will do.



- from Peter Silver, Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America, (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008), p. 13.