Esquire contributing editor Colby Buzzell reports “What John McCain Doesn’t Get About Our Immigrant Troops“:
… My infantry platoon had guys from all over the country — we looked like a recruitment ad that screamed diversity — so I had no idea that foreign citizens fought alongside us. Nor did I know that such a thing was possible. But it didn’t bother me, and I actually thought it was incredible that Reyes would risk life and limb for a country that wasn’t officially his.
__
No, what bothered me was that serving with our flag on his shoulder didn’t guarantee Reyes citizenship upon honorable discharge; it merely helped his chances. He had committed to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” but the United States would not commit to him…
__
Last week Harry Reid announced that he will insert the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act into a defense authorization bill, granting permanent residency to young undocumented immigrants who honorably serve in the armed forces for two years. This infuriated Republicans, including John McCain, who called it “onerous” and “a pure political act” despite co-sponsoring the same bill in 2005, 2006, and 2007. (Colin Powell, still technically a Republican, approves of the proposal.)
__
McCain has obvious political considerations — he’s up for reelection in a state hostile to immigration — but this flip-flop seems especially cynical. It blows my mind that he would threaten to block this reform. Foreign citizens have always participated in our nation’s defense, sometimes when Americans were scared to send their own children…
__
[W]e desperately need more troops, and there’s nothing more patriotic than willingness to fight and die in the hope of becoming a citizen. Immigrants are willing to work all the shitty, low-paying, demeaning jobs that most lazy Americans feel is beneath them. But military service isn’t janitorial work — it’s not beneath anyone — and if our lazy citizens aren’t willing to serve their own country, then the honor should go to people who actually deserve to wear the uniform.
If we insist on dying as an empire, the least we can do is emulate Rome and grant our enterprising mercenaries full citizenship.
superdestroyer
If it was just about the military, it would be easy to support. However, it is the other provisions that make the DREAM act just act I of the Democrats push for open borders, unlimited immigraiton, and amnesty.
The real question is why do the Democrats talk so much about help blue collar families and then flood the country with illegal immigrants.
schrodinger's cat
Shorter McCain:
I iz in your senate hating on immigrants.
Cat Lady
It blows his mind that McCain would be a dishonorable opportunistic self aggrandizing flip flopping hack? Where’s he fucking been?
dmsilev
Obviously someone who isn’t familiar with John McCain. This is so in character with the way he’s acted over the last few years that it hardly bears noticing. Between the pandering to the hard-right fringe of his hard-right party and the reflexive opposition to anything that might vaguely be associated with the Obama administration (Obama should endorse McCain for reelection; I guarantee that Angry John would drop out less than a week later), it’d be surprising if he *didn’t* lash out against the DREAM Act.
dms
Cliff
Do we agree, FU rethuglican parental units. (U kno who you are.)
????
Linda Featheringill
So McCain is willing to prostitute himself for votes.
What else is new?
The disturbing question is how many people is he speaking for? Nice little country we have here.
stuckinred
@superdestroyer: Fuck you idiot.
Linda Featheringill
Yes, I know that this isn’t an open thread but I’m going to be busy for a while and I really wanted to share this.
File this under schadenfreude:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/business/20wall.html?src=me&ref=general
Yeah, life’s a bitch, ain’t it?
Mike in NC
The immigrant troops mostly earned the right to wear the uniform, unlike John “My Father and Grandfather were Four Star Admirals so I get a Free Ride” McCain.
Cliff
@superdestroyer:
Fuck you, you clearly don’t understand the point of being an american.
Onkel Bob
@superdestroyer: Yeah those damn immigrants, arriving with their BSEE’s and PhD’s taking those jobs away from hard working ‘murikan’s out in the fields and out in front of Home Depot…
Effing Carly Fiorina did more to lose – discard American Jobs – good paying ones with good benefits then any flood of illegal, legal, white skinned, brown skinned, pink with vertical stripes immigrants ever can. I’ll bet you’re hoping she doesn’t make it to the Senate.
Oh and this veteran served with all sorts of resident aliens, including guys from Hong Kong, Philippines, England(?!) and of all places – Somalia.
Omnes Omnibus
@stuckinred: Well put, sir.
jibeaux
A spelling mistake, a punctuation mistake, and a capitalization mistake in, oh, a dozen and a half or so words. Yep, that’s about par for the course for our real “native” ‘muricans.
schrodinger's cat
I think it is time for McCain to retire to one of his elebenty houses.
Gramps we have had enuff
Kthx bai
Ash Can
@superdestroyer #1: Now, be honest: You have no idea in sweet powdered-sugar hell what you’re talking about, now, do you?
sven
@superdestroyer:
don’t forget
the Nafta Superhighway
the Amero
and Terror Babies!!!!!
but I’ve already said too much; if I don’t post again, superdestroyer, you must carry on the fight without me!
sven
@superdestroyer:
don’t forget
the Nafta Superhighway!!
the Amero!!!
and Terror Babies!!!!
but I’ve already said too much; if I don’t post again, superdestroyer, you must carry on the fight without me!
(curse the link moderation!!!!!)
arguingwithsignposts
Obviously good news … you know the rest.
Fuckin’ senile old badger.
Halteclere
Fuck McCain, Mr. against the GI bill (we don’t want to encourage people to leave the military too soon!), but then claiming credit for being part of the Senate that passed it. I’m sure he’ll not do the same this time if this DREAM act passes.
freelancer (itouch)
@stuckinred:
@Cliff:
Et al:
I can’t believe I’m the first person to get here, but “Concentrate all firepower on that superdestroyer!”
JGabriel
@superdestroyer:
The real question is what sky-high ivory tower do you gaze down from where blue collar families still look like an undiversified sea of white? Clearly immigration isn’t that much of an issue if you can’t make out all the different colors in those blue collars.
.
Lolis
I am thinking superdestroyer may be snarkin’. Usually trolls are not the first commenter in a thread. Does anyone think John McCain may show up to watch Bristol on the set of DWTS? He seems desperate enough.
Ruckus
@superdestroyer
I hope it passes. And as it does none of the things you think it does maybe you will get the chance to actually think for yourself. Maybe, just maybe then you will see that this nation is made up of immigrants. And their descendants. It is most very likely you are one of them. In the scheme of things there have not been that many generations since the original settlers, so even if your family has been here from the start of immigration, you aren’t that far from being an immigrant yourself. Now if you are a full blooded Indian, one whose family line is a direct link to those here before the europeans came over, good for you. Or if you are a black person, descended from slaves, you had little choice in the matter.
Otherwise you might just want to shut the fuck up about immigration. Unless you like talking about yourself in the negative, as you seem to like to do about others.
JGabriel
@superdestroyer: Hmm, on further thought, I suspect pseudo-troll.
DougJ, is that you?
.
Alex
Am I the only person who thinks labeling our troops “enterprising mercenaries” not only inaccurate but somewhat offensive?
Litlebritdifrnt
Not quite OT but there was some rat fucker in a link that Ebert tweeted yesterday who said something to the effect that the post office should be disbanded cause it was staffed with “nigerian retards” or some such thing, basically implying that all the postal workers are complete idiots. I tried (but failed in some cases) to post a response in many of the links that The US Postal Service is the largest employer of Military Vets in the US. They even get preferential hiring status. So basically the rat fucker was calling all our military vet postal workers “nigerian retards”. Nice. And yes I am too damn lazy to go and search my twitter feed for the links.
gnomedad
Terror Baby Soldiers!
El Cid
@JGabriel: Democrats didn’t “flood” the economy with illegal immigrants.
Now, when Ronald Reagan destroyed much of Central America with his death squad client states driving out the population, that was opening the flood gates.
So far the immigration rate has plummeted — yes, not increased, not remained constant, but dropped greatly — in the past few years.
And it’s because the jobs aren’t there.
So apart from fantasies about walls and more border guards, the best way to reduce illegal immigration is to collapse your economy.
Ruckus
@freelancer (itouch):
Would that it were so.
sven
@Lolis: Oh sweet baby Jeebus, I had to check the internets before I would believe Bristol Palin was really on Dancing with the Stars. That’s it, I’m really moving to Vancouver if Palin is elected in 2012. The Canadians will have to start accepting political refugees.
Americans in Canada will say the sorts of things Republicans demand immigrants say about the U.S.
“sure I was a doctor in my home country but even working as a taxi driver life is so much better here!!!”
Ruckus
@El Cid:
So what you’re saying is that rethugs are taking the long way around for immigration reform?
Cliff
@freelancer (itouch):
LOL, I’m sure that’s related to something i’ve got no f’n clu ’bout
Oh well.
Fuck all rethuglican/taliban xxX wads.
etc etc blah blah…
JGabriel
El Cid:
Never said they did. Sorry if I gave you the impression that I thought that. I was just snarkily pointing out that the “blue collar” class is far more diverse than it used to be, which will make playing the working class against so-called “illegal immigrants” (i.e. wingut code for brown people) a less and less effective tactic going forward.
.
JGabriel
@Litlebritdifrnt:
To be fair, he (the ratfucker) only meant the black vets.
.
Cliff
@superdestroyer:
mmm.. cause Bigots don’t create jobs worth having?
Fuk all bigots with a baseball bat.
El Cid
@JGabriel: Ah.
celticdragonchick
Service guarantees citizenship!
El Cid
@Ruckus: Yep. You could say that Republicans have led the way on reducing illegal immigration by destroying our economy.
It’s controversial, but, gosh, it’s effective.
Wile E. Quixote
@superdestroyer:
Yeah, the Democrats were doing a lot better in 1972 when they had the awesomely alliterative platform of Acid, Amnesty and Abortion. Hell, I’m still trying to figure out how Nixon won going up against an awesome platform like that. It must have been bias on the part of those nattering, nabobs of negativism in the press.
El Cid
@celticdragonchick: I loved that movie. It was so obviously a parody of macho in your pop-fascist nationalism. And even funnier was after all the tough guy talk and ‘we’re all rarin’ for battle’, when they were finally on the first invasion against the bugs, there was instantly no more tongue-in-cheek stuff and the bugs just came out and shredded them apart and slaughtered them. And yet it was still parody, this time of the warmongers hungering for war.
Wile E. Quixote
Oh, and this is just one more reason to hate John McCain. Jesus, what a loathsome piece of shit that man is. I wonder if Christine O’Donnell knows of some dark ritual that would allow us to raise Barry Goldwater from the dead.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@celticdragonchick: I’m surprised it took 36 posts before that showed up.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Oh looky I found the linky dinky
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/pages-for-twitter/thats-racist-bullshit.html
JGabriel
Time Magazine, Nov. 1972 via Wile E. Quixote:
And history would look so much different if only McGovern had called it a tax cut instead of a grant.
.
celticdragonchick
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Me too.
But, I’m a sci fi geek from hell.
celticdragonchick
@El Cid:
I loved it also…but where the frak was the power armor??!!
As a parody, though, it was priceless.
freelancer (itouch)
@Cliff:
Nobody here saw Jedi? I’m fukkin ‘shamed of y’all.
gbear
Here’s some good OT news from the Mpls StarTribune:
This is the law that set off the Target boycott. Of course it was business and religious conservatives trying to get it thrown out.
Cacti
His Navy career being a failure, and his POTUS ambitions dashed and dashed again, he knows when his time has passed, he’ll be a footnote in American history. He’s a bitter old crank who knows he never lived up to the legacy of his father and grandfather.
So he’ll angrily cling to his Senate seat, purchased with his second wife’s millions, until he wheezes out his dying breath, doing and saying anything he thinks will keep it in his clutches.
WaterGirl
My first thought on seeing that was: Umm, everything?
JGabriel
Headline at HuffPo:
(bangheaddesk)
They’re sending Lady Gaga out to fight gay stereotypes? Seriously?
I’m so flabbergasted, I can’t even work in the requisite pun on Swing.
.
Ash Can
@Cacti: The next Strom Thurmond. Terrific.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@JGabriel: Lady Gaga is doing this on her own. She’s not fighting stereotypes, just for repeal. Hell, the law should be repealed whether the stereotypes are true or not.
JGabriel
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Of course it should. But Lady Gaga stepping out to represent gays and advocate on their behalf to Republican Senators reminds me of that Onion parody where gay men in leather briefs and metal studs talked about their support for Al Gore in the 2000 election.
I mean, if you want to play up the American soldier paradigm and play down the counter-culture image, Lady Gaga, a woman who dresses in plastic bubbles and wears a machine gun bra, is not your ideal spokesperson.
.
Cliff
hhmmmm… shouldn’t a said that stupid shit. ( kicks me in ass)
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@JGabriel: OK, I’ll give you that. But I just don’t see John Mayer taking the gig.
Maybe she’s trying to shift the Overton window: “You think gays are bad, just watch what would happen if I joined the military.”
Cliff
so, How bout just f’ you all you stupid bigosts …
(y’all kno who you are.) du ta duu.
bootsy
@JGabriel: Actually there’s also been an ongoing continuous lobbying effort by Service Members United, a group that is spearheaded by former military personnel… who are about as non-gay stereotype as you can get (keeping in mind of course that all stereotypes are mostly untrue).
But Lady Gaga gets the headlines, because the simple act of citizens lobbying their senators doesn’t seem interesting to the press whores. If I remember correctly, the last time the national press paid attention was when Lt. Choi chained himself to the White House fence.
The press needs spectacle, because they are children who are easily entertained by clowns. No wonder they follow Beck and Palin’s every move.
Sly
@celticdragonchick:
It’s not even citizenship.
Service guarantees permanent resident status!
Cliff
@freelancer (itouch):
not seen it, link? amazon or whatever will do.
JGabriel
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Ha! That would be hilarious.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Gaga’s sense of irony is that finely honed, despite her sense of absurdity.
.
Glenndacious Greenwaldian (formerly tim)
I wish the American public discourse could get past the stage where even Esquire feels the need to glorify military service as though it’s the ultimate and pure expression of patriotism.
Bullshit.
I hold no special reverence for those who “serve” in the military. Being employed by the Pentagon is just a job. Like any other, and you even get to retire with a pension after just 20 years if you don’t get your dick or head blown off in some stupid illegal war first. I think most grunts sign up because they don’t think they have many other viable economic choices, which is just the way this society is programmed to make them feel.
And if far FEWER people would volunteer for this job like any other, the military industrial complex wouldn’t be able to wage war and terror all around the globe.
JGabriel
Glenndacious Greenwaldian (formerly tim):
Yes, they would. It would just require re-instituting the draft, if voluntary service couldn’t meet the numbers.
.
freelancer (itouch)
@Cliff:
Return. Of. The. Jedi. Full stop
http://www.google.com/m/url?client=safari&ei=pzGYTLiBMYiktged8e7yAQ&hl=en&oe=UTF-8&q=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086190/&ved=0CBYQFjAC&usg=AFQjCNEJJLI_54VYtaGv_Indw8mcN9iaVw
Sigh.
Bill D.
My father served in the U.S. Army before he was a citizen, and that was back in the 1950s. He had a choice- serve, or leave the country forever. But then there was a draft back in those days.
cmorenc
My paternal grandmother came through Ellis Island as a frightened 13-year old German girl back around 1910, immigrating to the US to become an indentured servant on a dairy farm, speaking absolutely NO English when she arrived. Other than being white-Caucasian in appearance, she had lots in common with modern-day immigrants to the US from Latin America – coming here to escape impoverished family circumstances in her native country, not speaking English at first, working jobs most native-born Americans did not want at modest wages. It was a profound experience for me back in 2000 to visit Ellis Island and stand in the balcony above the grand entry hall where nearly every foreign immigrant entering the east coast of the US came through over many years, the very room my grandmother went through almost exactly 90 years earlier…I could clearly visualize her standing next to her older (15 year old) sister, waiting in the long line in front of the tables where immigrants went through initial administrative input.
So, unless your ancestors were native-Americans who crossed the land-bridge from Siberia to North America some 10-12,000 years ago, YOUR ancestors to this country were immigrants too, fleeing home to hopefully create a better life eventually for yourself here.
Fuck unprincipled hypocrites like John McCain and the GOP immigration-haters. They must think their families spouted up sometime in the past spontaneously de novo here in the US, without any dirty-immigrant past.
Glenndacious Greenwaldian (formerly tim)
@JGabriel:
Precisely. And THEN at long last, hopefully, we’d have some good old fashioned riots in the streets and perhaps that would bring about some of the long needed change Obama promised but hasn’t delivered.
It’s certainly no ACCIDENT that the draft hasn’t been revived; the fuckers know a compulsory draft is one sure way to rouse the youth of America from behind their keyboards and Gameboys.
Ruckus
@JGabriel:
And if the draft was not for every person it would fail like it did last time. There would be enough people going in so there would be deferments for those who have the capabilities to game the system.
Not to worry though we could always just pay mercenaries. Like we do now.
frosty
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Me too.
Never saw the movie, but liked the book back in my younger (junior high?) days. IIRC, for Heinlein, service could either be military or civilian, but if it was civilian you were doing something like emptying bedpans for two years.
An interesting concept anyway.
mslarry
@Litlebritdifrnt:
fyi “nigerian” is the new undercover term for nigger… nice
RalfW
People like John McCain no longer give a shit about our country. I think they’d actually rather be in charge of a smoldering pile of nuclear ash, as long as they still had their millions in the bank and some place nice to vacation and act like a bigshot important person.
Ruckus
Just checking in and have to add:
One More Reason to Loathe Republicans
I already have more than enough reasons for all the hate I can muster. I wish these crackheads would stop giving me more and more and
Jager
Buzzell’s platoon reminds me of mine, our “foreigner” was from France! And we had a damned Canadian, too!
John Bird
For the love of God. McCain has to know he won’t be around that much longer. Why does he want to go out on a sour note, abandoning his own positions and ensuring that his post-2008 legacy is only remembered by historians – as a record of rank opportunism? With his name in the history books and plenty of money for his heirs, you would think he’d be more likely to take risky positions, not less.
Is his Senate seat really that vulnerable?
someguy
@Alex:
Yes. I prefer baby killers or wedding party crashers if I’m in a more humorous mood, but if Laurie Ann wants to reduce what they do to a simple fee-for-services arrangement, I guess it’s allowed.
Mike E
John McCain hates the military like he hates himself. He is the personification of unresolved anger, a pustule. This is his final destination as a two-faced political coward; a pathetic, sad, little man; a Republican.
ETA Colin Powell is a POS, also too.
Alex
@someguy
Your sense of humor is as acute as your sense of irony. Nevertheless, it’s representative of what can be found in this part of the internets.
Wile E. Quixote
@Glenndacious Greenwaldian (formerly tim):
How fucking retarded are you? Seriously, did your mommy drink heavily while she was pregnant with you? Or did she shake you a lot as a child Or are you just the product of 20 or 30 generations of brother/sister inbreeding combined with a diet of lead based paint chips, red dye no. 2 and high fructose corn syrup. Seriously, you must be a few chromosomes shy of a full genome, or perhaps you’re packing a few extra to write something as astoundingly stupid as this.
Yeah, let’s reinstate the draft, and what will happen once we do? Well the same goddamned thing that happened during the 50s and 60s, the well connected, the Mitt Romneys, the Karl Roves, George W. Bushes, Dick Cheneys the Newt Gingriches and Rush Limbaughs will get out of being drafted just as they did during the Vietnam war. Which means of course that the kids getting sent off to war will be the ones that society currently considers disposable. Oh, and since they won’t have any choice but to join up or go to jail the military will cut the shit out of their benefits. No more bonuses or college for them.
Oh, and those riots in the streets you’re jacking off over. Yeah, they sure did great things back in the 1960s. We had lots of riots, the Republicans said “see, this is what happens when Democrats are in charge” and Richard M. Nixon became president in 1968 and 1972. You’re every bit as fucking stupid and retarded as those Qu’ran burning fuckheads who are hoping that if they burn enough Qu’rans they can start a holy war.