I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
I'm relatively new to following politics in detail, so forgive me if this is a stupid question.
How can anybody belong to an organization and not have a general idea of the goals or objectives of the organization. For the average Joe, you either pay dues or make some other contribution in exchange for the benefits of membership. I suppose even if you're a celebrity the exchange works the same way, except the organization uses your name as an endorsement.
Even if you don't agree with the organization's goals or methods, you still must make some kind of conscious decision if you remain a member. I belong to the VFW, which I don't think does squat for veterans at the legislative level, but I like to have a few beers at the VFW hall every now and then.
I just can't understand how somebody can belong to an organization like US English and not be either comfortable with the organization's goals or make a conscious compromise of your own beliefs.
I guess Arnold's the guy to go to if you're looking for "pants down" expertise.
Here's a group where my opinion is uncharacteristically ambivalent.
I believe immigrants (and hey, locals, too!) should learn English. I want the USA to be less like the former Yugoslavia and more like, well, the USA.
But Jeebus, a group too right-wing for Linda Chavez? And co-founded by bigot-boy John Tanton?
But then again a bunch of immigrants are on the board.
I think the Arnold 1970s interviews are a better tool against the thug recall campaign. Forget the US English thing.
There's a difference between anti-immigrant and anti-immigration, and there's a difference between encouraging and helping immigrates to assimilate in a variety of ways, including learning english, with tasty carrots or doing so with punitive sticks.
Anti-immigration causes of all kinds generally tend to get overrun with anti-immigrant types. The cofounder of US English obviously has issues.
But, Essjay, remember that Spanish is an official language of New Mexico, a state with a sizeable population of the descendants of spanish-speakers who were there before it became a state, and I don't see us giving up Puerto Rico any time soon, who of course grow up speaking Spanish and who are citizens.
No one else finds it ironic that Arnold is a member of a group which demands that all americans be able to speak a language Arnold himself (not to mention the president of the united states) is barely competent in?
I will be stunned to see Arnold win after pronouncing "Caleeee-fornya" the way he does in his commercials.
Atrios - one correction: Puerto Ricans (the ones living there, anyway) are "citizens" in the same sense that DC natives are: They get Social Security cards, pay taxes, serve in the Armed Forces (as volunteers or via the Draft).
But they are not citizens in the sense of having any representative say in the government of the country, or even, to a large extent, of their own island. **
Can anyone, uh, see any similarities between these two populations?
**(I don't know the details of "home rule" in PR--maybe someone can help me. Also, DC, since the 23rd Amendment in '61, gets 3 electors for Prez, which PR doesn't get.)
I can understand why recent immigrants support learning English: nonproficiency is what keeps PhDs cleaning hotel rooms. But moost US English types ultimately want to prevent Spanish from being learned or used anywhere.
In New Mexico, if you speak Spanish learning in Spanish is a constitutional right.
Puerto Rico has 'commonwealth' status: not a state, not a territory. It has a governor and a legislature, both popularly elected. Periodically, PR has held plebiscites on changing its status; so far, staying with commonwealth has beaten statehood and independence. Of course, if either statehood or independece should ever prevail, the US Congress would have to act to implement the result.
Michael,
Yes, but if someone born and raised in Puerto Rico moves to Idaho then they do have those rights.
Wait a minute - Arnold's on the f***ing board? After that memo? I've yet to see concrete proof of the groping, but this is it for me. No more benefit of the doubt.
I live nowehere near CA, of course.
Michael in DC --
I presume the commonality you're referring to between DC and PR is the vast minority populations of each. And you're correct if you're assuming that, right now, given the voting tendencies of each minority, there is zero chance that any Republican-controlled government is going to extend representation to them.
But the irony is, there was a time not long ago that the population of Puerto Rico was considered solidly Republican. In fact, whenever the idea of DC statehood was proposed, it was generally coupled with the idea of also granting such status to Puerto Rico, to make it a "neutral" add-on in terms of Senators (in the same way Hawaii and Alaska came in roughly together as a Dem/GOP combo).
I bet some Republicans are real glad they didn't make that deal.
well, i guess he sort of speaks english.
Michael:
Puerto Rico has pseudo-autonomy. The US Constitution’s territorial clause gives Congress authority over Puerto Rico.
Tipped off by Atrios, I have more details and links on the issue here and it's far worse than it sounds. It actually just gets worst. U.S. English is at the nexus of the center of anti-latino white supremacist groups, a fact documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center and other researchers.
Linda Chavez didn't just quit; she has denounced the whole organization and it's funders as stone racists.
Bustamante belongs to his own racist group, the radical "bronze" supremacist organization MEChA.
Read more about it on my website (which also posted Arnold's sex interview, of course, as it is not biased).
Joshua Ruszkiewicz
Chief Editor, The Political Times
Atrios/Demtom/Gabriel:
thanks for the ejamacation. I'm aware it's an imperfect parallel. I guess I've got a little trigger in my brain that wants to inject DC's second-class status into every discussion; and in the broader sense to counter the common assumptions we have about the perfection of American Democracy.
Of course, I'm more or less preaching to the choir here, but I do think both DC and our broader democracy problems should be alot more prominent in the national conversation...
Mr. Chief Editor,
If you've read half the posts you've commented on in the last week, you know that the MEChA dustup has been thoroughly run to ground here and elsewhere - most concisely, I think, by Orcinus. But of course your just trolling for hits on your own little linkfest, so why am I even bothering...
Read more about it on my website (which also posted Arnold's sex interview, of course, as it is not biased).
Anyone ever tell ya: When you hear 'em say "It's not about the money," it's about the money.
Hey,
Can anyone explain what Saul Bellow is doing on the board of US English? How about Alistair Cooke? I thought Bellow was sort of enlightened and stuff. Not that I have ever read one of his books.
Alex Trebek is also on the board and we all know what a racist fuckhole he is. I am boycotting Jeopardy starting Monday. God damn Canadian trying to screw up America. The bastard ought to learn Spanish like the rest of us.
Alastair Cooke is not enlightened, if you've ever listened to one of his "Letter from America" imperialist Right propaganda pieces, a sinecure Aunt Beebe has given him to permit him to continue to abuse New York's rent control laws. His views place him at 1942 or 1945 mentally, when old white men owned just about everything worth owning. White supremacism is only a very short step from that.
I tried to reread Bellow's "Henderson the Rain King" this Spring, it was quite unpleasant for me (I did about fifteen pages). The hero is a big, messy, "don't take no s**t" 50-year-old, who likes to screw much younger women, IIRC. And what an iconoclast he is.
So Annonymonus,
Please enlighten us. Is Arnold your favorite candidateto be Governor of one of the largest economies in the world? If so, perhaps you could tell us what you think of his proposed policies to take care of the budget crisis that supporters of the recall provide as their rationale?
What in the world is a "homo contraceptive"? I am fluent in US English, and have no idea what the man (Tanton) is referring to.
Was he using US English in his memo?
No one else finds it ironic that Arnold is a member of a group which demands that all americans be able to speak a language Arnold himself (not to mention the president of the united states) is barely competent in?
Arnold overcame his non-English handicap and wishes for other immigrants to succeed as he did. You Austrian immigrant hater, you.
As for the other tripe posted here, it all applies to Bustamante and MEChA in spades. "For the Race, Everything; For Those Outside the Race, Nothing"
I thought that Bustamente-Mecha thing was beaten to the ground...
But how can opposing an organization with obviously RACIST roots be similar to Mecha's above creed?
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