Deeper Politics™

Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-24T22:37:00.000-04:00

The Occupy Movement has become a cultural phenomenon, since its inception over one month ago. Utilizing the slogan, “We are the 99%,” the participants reference the economic disparities between the top 1% and the rest of the population. The movement has been joined by people of different ages, races, genders, political beliefs, religions and careers. It has received support from the entire political spectrum, from a founder of the Tea Party Movement to President Barack Obama, as he released a White House statement declaring that he fights for the “interests of the 99%.” Recent polls indicate that a considerable majority of Americans support the Occupy Movement making it the most popular political movement in the United States, with more than twice the support our Congress receives. A survey of those who support the movement shows that most of the supporters are politically independent, have a full time job and have at least an undergraduate degree, although it has also received much support from people who do not fit this description. It has received additional support from at least 30 of the United State’s largest labor unions and activist groups, the NYC General Assembly, U.S. Day of Rage, New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts, Anonymous, veterans, celebrities, students, environmentalists, and community groups, along with Independent, Republican and Democrat politicians including the co-chairs of Congressional Caucuses.

Occupy Wall Street was inspired by the Arab Springs, particularly the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. It was originally called for on July 13, 2011 by the activist group, Adbusters, although the movement remains leaderless and has no affiliation to any organizations. This followed their registration of the domain name occupywallstreet.org on July 9, 2011. Adbusters stated that, "Beginning from one simple demand – a presidential commission to separate money from politics – we start setting the agenda for a new America." This movement started on September 17, 2011, when roughly 2,000 people rallied in Lower Manhattan, marched up Broadway, and stopped at Zuccotti Park, where a portion of those people began encamping day and night protesting against corporate greed’s corrosive power over the democratic process. The occupiers renamed Zucotti Park, Liberty Plaza, which was its name before the space was rebuilt by Brookfield Properties and renamed after its chairman, John Zuccotti, in 2006. The Occupy movement spread outside Occupy Wall Street in New York City to over 100 major cities in the United States from Occupy Los Angeles to Occupy Atlanta, covering nearly every region with additional financial, food, clothing and note support coming from even more places. This is despite an unprecedented level of police aggression and brutality with at least 1,000 arrests including the arrest of Cornel West.

This occupation is organized with a general assembly, where they facilitate collective decision making in an open, participatory and non-binding method. The assemblies place at least once a day with close to 1,000 participants each time, where several different working groups deliver reports. Of these different working groups, many of them are comprised of different subcommittees, which are assigned different objectives. Members volunteer to record and give updated minutes on the meetings. Since New York City requires a permit to use amplified sound, the participants created a system, where the speaker continually pauses while the nearby members of the audience repeat the phrase in unison, thus creating a unified echoing effect allowing others in the crowd to hear. Additionally, those listening to the speaker in the crowd use a created system of hand signals to convey agreement, disagreement and more. This represents a direct democracy since there are no elected leaders, and all the people have a vote. Every day they have an agenda with events taking place including open forums, marches and educational meetings. There are designated areas such as sleeping, medical, kitchen, lost & found, information tables, library, media and more. Occupy Wall Street is committed to keeping Zuccotti Park clean and sanitized as hundreds of people sleep in the park every night to demonstrate support. Due to their efforts of a designated Sanitation working group, Bloomberg News reported on October 10, 2011 that "the ground is mostly free of litter" and as of October 11, 2011, a special 311 hotline set up by the Department of Sanitation had not received any complaints regarding sanitation at the park.

The movement went from national to international, from Occupy London to Occupy Hong Kong, even holding a global day of protest on October 15, 2011, originally called for by the Spanish Indignants movement on May 30, 2011, taking place in several cities, countries, and continents. They have received support from around the world from the Brazilian President to the Indian Prime minister. This global day of protest simultaneously had more than 1,500 events in no less than 951 cities, in at least 82 countries in Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, and Australia as a part of one of the largest days of protest in history. The movement is continuing to advocate for its goal and purpose of economic justice and seeks to accomplish it by ending corporate corruption over democracy. It has already had an effect globally by changing the dialogue of average citizens and elected officials around the world.

According to respected economists, the global recession that hit the United States was the worse since The Great Depression and was directly influenced by the underhanded actions by the financial corporations, especially the ones on Wall Street. In a report written by Wall Street executives, they admitted some of their irresponsibility led to the recession. Examples of Wall Street corporate greed include Lehman Brothers hiding billions of dollars in loans from their investors, Bank of America lying about billions in bonuses, Goldman Sachs telling falsehoods to clients to sell them toxic mortgage deals, AIG derivatives chief, Joe Cassano, convincing investors they would not lose even "one dollar" just months before his unit imploded, former Lehman Brothers chief Dick Fuld failed to disclose $263 million in compensation and more; yet, no one received criminal charges for their fraud and theft. Instead, these finance corporations have carefully crafted settlements where they pay a small fine and are not required to admit doing anything wrong. The most patronizing of it all is that the individuals within these corporations that are caught in the criminal activity are almost never reprimanded because they use the shareholders' money to pay the fine, while theirs remains untouched.

When the financial corporations needed financial help from the economic situation largely attributed to them, they received bailouts from the government, paid for by the taxpayers. After receiving these bailouts, they continued to stifle the taxpayers, gave themselves particularly high bonuses, and even began laying off the same taxpaying employees that bailed them out, while these corporations made record profits only possible due to the very same bailouts. Corporate profits are at the highest recorded number in United States history and they are paying a historically low amount of taxes. This is while the average annual pay for the CEO's of the largest corporations in the United States is $11.4 billion, 343 times higher than the workers' median pay, the largest wealth gap in the world. The income of the top 1% of the income peaked in 2007, to a level that had not been reached since 1929; the top 1% additionally had 52% of all income growth. Between 1992 and 2007 the 400 richest Americans saw their income increase by 392% even though their tax rate was reduced by 37%. The average annual Wall Street bonus used to be less than the average worker’s annual pay in the 1980’s, current Wall Street bonuses are several times higher than an average worker’s salary due to these bonuses skyrocketing over 14 times in about 30 years. One can only attribute this to a fundamental unfairness, as if they are getting rewarded for theft, fraud and greed as they take advantage of the deregulation since the 1980's. This produced a frustration, among many other frustrations, toward the 1%; the 99%’s collective frustration manifested itself into the Occupy Movement, as they continue to promote economic justice.

Health Care Reform Repeal

2011-01-26T22:53:00.036-05:00

Once the Republicans achieved control of the United States House of Representatives after the mid-term elections, they frequently stated that they would cut the deficit. Ironically, the first bill they would like to pass is a repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Health Care Reform. The most counterproductive action toward the goal of reducing the deficit is this repeal because the Congressional Budget Office affirmed that the deficit would increase by an astonishing $230 billion in less than a decade if the repeal succeeds. The Congressional Budget Office is nonpartisan and has always been relied upon by both Republicans and Democrats. A ranking Republican on the finance committee, Senator Chuck Grassley, has even stated "I consider CBO (Congressional Budget Office) God around here." In addition, those opposed to the health care reform named their bill the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act, claiming that the Congressional Budget Office backs up their claims. In actuality, the Congressional Budget Office said that health care reform would “reduce the amount of labor used…by a small amount—roughly half a percent.” Congressional Budget Office projects a reduction in the supply of labor, which is not the same as a reduction in the supply of jobs. Labor used will be reduced because “older workers will choose to retire earlier” while others will “work fewer hours or…withdraw from the labor market” because of a smaller financial burden credited to the health benefits of reform. In other words, people will choose to take fewer hours, leave their jobs or retire earlier because of a better financial situation. In fact, according to the Center for American Progress, health care reform will create up to 4 million new jobs in the next decade.

Although the financial benefits are tremendous, the more important benefits are the ones that directly affect the American people’s health. If health care reform gets repealed an estimated 32 million Americans will lose health care coverage. Also, health insurance companies will be able to take away coverage from individuals after they get sick, refuse to cover children with pre-existing conditions such as a diagnosis of cancer, limit the amount of coverage to an individual over their lifetime, force seniors to pay for drugs in certain cost ranges known as the donut hole, and allow more than 15% of the revenue of insurance companies to profits, dividends for stockholders, and administrative costs. Health insurance companies would no longer be required to justify their premium increases, will not be required to lower premiums of the increases that are too high, and will no longer be required to cover several preventative services such as immunizations and mammograms. Medicare would no longer cover several preventative screenings such as cancer screenings, parents could no longer include their children on their health insurance policy up to age 26 and small businesses would no longer obtain tax credit for up to 35% of the costs for health care. These are merely a fraction of the benefits that are already in place while over 50 benefits to the American people will still be gradually implemented through 2018.

The health care reform was an historic accomplishment that was attempted by Republican and Democrat Presidents, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter and Clinton before finally being passed by President Obama. The old health care system was broken and this bill is a solution to many of the problems that persisted, as shown by a Harvard study, which finds that 60% of personal bankruptcies in the United States are caused by health problems. Fortunately, it is very unlikely this Bill’s repeal will pass, although it has already passed the House, the Senate does not even plan to take up the measure. If they do, there are not enough votes in the Senate, and even if it somehow passed the Senate, President Obama would surely veto it. If health care reform can be improved, President Obama and other advocates welcome any positive adjustments that can be made, but to repeal the entire bill is tremendously detrimental to the American people but beneficial only to the already wealthy Health Insurance companies. Possibly the largest idiosyncrasy of this repeal is that the members in Congress who desire to repeal health care reform, receive most of these benefits themselves as beneficiaries of the Federal Employee Health Benefits program. Is the public really supposed to believe that health care reform benefits are good enough for the members in Congress but not for the American people?

Is Obama a Muslim?

2010-09-04T23:15:00.028-04:00

On Thursday, August 19, 2010 a Pew Research Center Poll shows that nearly one-in-five Americans incorrectly believe that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, an increase from the roughly one-in-ten on March 2009. An even higher amount of the right-wing Americans believes this fallacy with almost one-in-three republicans. Still 43 percent do not know Obama’s religion while only 34 percent could correctly identify him as a Christian. The White House released an official statement stating that Obama is a Christian who prays and receives devotionals every day. This is not the first time Obama has incorrectly been associated with Islam. The erroneous information began to surface during his campaign to deter voters by focusing on America’s negativity towards Islam, which is evident in the hostility of a community center containing a Mosque near Ground Zero. The poll also shows this correlation because the ones that believe Obama is a Muslim largely consist of those who disapprove of his job performance and do not like him personally, therefore many go along with the tactic of calling Obama a Muslim because they feel that it adds to his negativity.

The assertion that President Barack Obama falsely claims to be a Christian because it is politically expedient holds no validity. The most obvious reason is that he has been a devout Christian and active member of Trinity United Church of Christ. Obama regularly attended beginning in the mid-1980’s, before he even considered going into politics (he became Illinois State Senator in 1996). Obama was even baptized in 1988, writing about it in on page 208 of his book, The Audacity of Hope, stating "I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized." As a child, Obama also attended Sunday school classes at the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu and his family held a memorial service at that location for his grandmother last Christmas.

Rumors exist that Obama attended a radical Muslim school in his youth during the few years he lived in Indonesia. These claims are not legitimate since Obama never attended a Muslim school as it was a public school that was open to all faiths. This is asserted by the Deputy Headmaster of the Basuki School, Hardi Priyono, "This is a public school. We don't focus on religion…In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment." The school’s religious diversity is evident with a sign featuring the Lord's Prayer and a painting of Jesus. This public school also offers classes on Christianity with teachings from the New Testament of the Bible, a stronger teaching of the Bible than one will receive from an average public school in America. CNN visited the actual school and reported “a handful of Christians learn that Jesus is the son of God” on the Situation Room, on January 22, 2007. The fact still remains that Obama only attended this school for one of his four years in Indonesia, in the fourth grade. For first grade through third grade Obama was studying at Fransiskus Asisi, a religious Roman Catholic school, run at the time by a strict Dutch priest, where classes started and ended with mandatory Christian prayers. Ultimately the education that Obama received during the entirety of the four years spent in Indonesia was accompanied with Christian elements.

Obama’s mother was a Christian and Obama’s father was a Muslim at one point in his life, but his father became an agnostic before Obama was even born; regardless, his father’s religion is irrelevant because Obama never saw him after the divorce, which occurred when Obama was only one month old. Obama was sworn into office and took his oath as he “held his personal Bible” as widely reported in newspaper accounts, including the January 5, 2005 Los Angeles Times. He has publicly and favorably quoted the Bible, was married in a Christian ceremony, attended several Washington D.C. churches, eaten bacon with Independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg and drank beer with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge cop James Crowley; these are all strongly forbidden in Islam. The Reverend Joel Hunter, an evangelical who is in frequent contact with Obama has publicly stated “He is very definitely a Christian" and referring to Christian pastors he said "Several of us prayed with him over the phone.” Hunter has also said that he is in weekly contact with the president about his spiritual life, including writing devotionals for Obama.

Even with an overwhelming amount of evidence and irrefutable proof that Obama is and has always been a Christian, with no evidence suggesting that at any point in Obama’s life that he was ever a Muslim, this falsehood is still being circulated even though his religion should not be such a strong matter of discussion. For most, this is merely a method to politically hurt Obama by utilizing America's hostility towards Muslims, but for many it is an attempt to racialize Islam since unconcealed racism would be too intolerable. There is a clear correlation between his race and the misguided implication that Obama is a Muslim considering it was never an issue with the other 43 non-minority presidents. In the words of Barack Obama, publicly during his 2008 campaign, “Jesus Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him.”

The Tea Party's Racist Elements

2010-08-20T01:44:00.009-04:00

Tea Party Rally at the United
States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

On August 3, 2010, The Tea Party movement, a group of predominately white radical conservatives, sent an email to 35,000 Tea Party members with the purpose of bringing a halt to illegal immigration. On the surface this may seem as if it is a noble goal with admirable intentions, but upon further investigation of the email there are clear discriminatory implications. The part of the email that stands out most is where it instructs the Tea Party members to post pictures and videos of “illegals or their supporters doing outrageous things (like burning the American flag or putting the Mexican flag above ours, or showing racist posters.)” There are some obvious racist intentions within this sentence alone that target the Latino community. First of all, it would be difficult to send a picture or video of one of these ”illegals” since they do not have a defined appearance; but there is a strong implication by this email that these illegal immigrants are Latino, discrimination similar to the proposed Arizona immigration law, SB 1070. The more noticeable ethnically discriminatory remark is the example they used of putting the “Mexican flag above ours,” even though an estimated 2.5 million undocumented immigrants that are currently living in America illegally are non-Latino. A greater amount is not even Mexican, according to the Hispanic American Center for Economic Research.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the Tea Party has invoked racism towards people of color. It has actually become a relatively frequent occurrence that the Tea Party has put little effort to abolish. At nearly every Tea Party rally, there have been several racist placards including possible undertones such as "I want my country back," depictions of President Barack Obama as an African witch doctor, pictures of Steve Erckel's body under Obama’s head, portrayal of the First Lady Michelle Obama as an ape, suggestions of lynching stating “Hang em high!,” as well as signs stating “The American taxpayers are the Jews for Obama’s oven,” “Obama’s plan — white slavery,” “Obamaconomics chains you can believe in,” “Obama — what you talkin about Willis!...,” “…Kenyan tries to destroy America…homey don’t play dat,” “Obamanomics — monkey see, monkey do,” “The zoo has an African and the white house has a lyin’ African,” “no ‘voo-doo' medicine!!,” “somewhere in Kenya a village is missing its idiot” and the list goes on with probably one of the worst by a Tea Party member who operated their official website holding a sign stating “Congress = Slaveowner, Taxpayer = Niggar.” Although not every member carries racist signs, the amount that is seen is in excess and the members of the Tea Party who see these signs usually do not voice much of an opposition against them.
On March 20, 2010 there was a rally against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Bill at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Many black lawmakers said that the Tea Party protestors shouted the n-word at them. Black Democrat Representative Emanuel Cleaver II of Massachusetts stated that a protestor spat on him, afterwards the protestor was detained, put in handcuffs and released later only because Cleaver declined to press any charges. Video evidence has emerged supporting this and whether or not the spitting was intentional is debatable based on the video but regardless it factually occurred. Two black Democrat Representatives André Carson of Indiana and John Lewis of Georgia, a respected leader during the civil rights era, both stated that they had racial slurs yelled at them. Lewis’ Chief of Staff heard it as well and Carson later told the press that the protesters had chanted the n-word "15 times." Two witnesses of the aftermath, Hill newspaper reporter Roxana Tiron and Post reporter Paul Kane, viewed Carson’s reactions to the events, which according to them included trembling, agitation, anger and emotion. Another witness AFL-CIO union President Richard Trumka had said “I watched them spit at people, I watched them call John Lewis the n-word,” Trumka went on to say “I witnessed it, I witnessed it. I saw it in person. That’s real evidence.” Tea Party leaders said that they never used racial slurs because it was not caught on video even with the overwhelming amount of witnesses and evidence.

A day after the incident, on March 21, 2010, Springboro Tea Party founder Sonny Thomas left a racist comment on his twitter page stating “Illegals everywhere today! So many spics makes me feel like a speck. Grrr. Wheres my gun!?” It is self explanatory that using racial slurs and implying that you would like to shoot Latino is absolutely racist and inappropriate, yet Tea Party leaders did not reprimand him in any capacity. Less than a month later on April 12, 2010 a Tea Party Republican candidate, Carl Paladino, running for Governor of New York, was caught in a scandal where he sent dozens of racist and sexually graphic emails over the years dating back to 2008. One of many emails includes an African doing a tribal dance, entitled “Obama Inauguration Rehearsal”, a different email shows a fictitious image of Barack and Michelle Obama in a 70’s pimp and prostitute clothing and another shows a picture of black males running from a plane with a caption “Holy Shit — run niggers, run!” It is a shame that this is a candidate that only launched his campaign after being urged to do so by Tea Party leaders and that the Tea Party does not use more discretion before backing one of their racist members to run for Governor and supporting his candidacy. Even after this information was released they still have not rescinded their endorsements.

As recently as last month on July 13, 2010, the racism within the Tea Party became so frequent and blatant that over 2,000 NAACP delegates unanimously made a resolution calling upon the "leaders to repudiate racist elements in their ranks," while making sure to not call the organization racist, only the elements. Instead of complying, the Tea Party became difficult stating that there was no intemperance to racism within the Tea Party. This assertion was proved unfounded only two days after, Mark Williams, who was a Tea Party Express spokesman and chairman, posted a fictional letter named "Colored People" on his blog that read "Dear Mr. Lincoln, we Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!" The posting went on to elaborate why he felt the Tea Party could not be racist, "Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn't that what we want all Coloreds to strive for?" and "What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bailouts directly to us coloreds!" Williams later resigned from his position because he felt he was a liability to the Tea Party, but still stated in an interview that “I’m still a Tea Partier, I just don’t speak officially for the Tea Party Express” and regarding his letter that “I defend the idea behind it.”

In an interview on July 19, 2010, NAACP President Ben Jealous, spoke about William’s resignation as a positive step, but there is an enormous amount to still be done. He said the Council of Conservative Citizens was actively recruiting Tea Party members, even though this group believes that “black people are not equipped for democracy.” He stated that David Duke, who is affiliated with the KKK and publically speaks in favor of racial segregation and white separatism, was excited about the Tea Party and blogged stating it would “revive him in politics.” Jealous continued to say that someone running for Governor in the south is claiming “broad Tea Party support” even though the candidate has publically said that “there is no place for people of color in his country.” Jealous said that a website started by former KKK leader Don Black titled Storm Front is “bragging about their reach and influence into the Tea Party.” The massive amount of racism within the Tea Party is still prevalent and has been present for an extended period of time, yet they are not doing much to bring it to a halt and even release statements saying this racism is non-existent.

The direct intentions of the Tea Party may not be racist and they claim their true goals are reducing taxes and government, encouraging the free market and respecting the U.S. Constitution. Without necessarily being inherently racist there are overwhelming amounts of racist elements that are being incorporated by Tea Party leaders, candidates and members who may be bitter that a black President was sworn into office and join the Tea Party simply as a way to express their dissatisfaction. Since not every member is racist, the ones who are not, like in any other political movement, have a responsibility to utilize their best resources to diminish such racist activities; not enough is being done to do so. To say we are currently in a Post-Racial America is delusional and while the progress made is admirable, there is still much more to be done. Every time America makes such enormous strides forward towards racial equality there has always been backlash, bitterness and some recoil, the election of a black president is no different and is exemplified through the racist elements of the Tea Party.

Obama's Citizenship

2010-08-12T20:08:00.020-04:00

President Barack Obama's
Certification of Live Birth

Recently Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Lakin refused deployment to Afghanistan because he believes President Barack Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen, a requirement necessary for anyone to hold office as the President of The United States, according to the 14th amendment of The Constitution. Lakin is now facing three charges of disobeying a lawful order, one count of missing movement and one count of dereliction of duty. On Friday, August 6, 2010 Lakin asked to defer any plea so that the court could consider dismissing the case altogether because he still has not seen his desired proof that President Obama is constitutionally eligible to hold his position. Although it may seem absurd to most, several studies have been conducted showing that roughly a quarter of Americans actually believe that Obama is probably not a U.S. Citizen.

This is not the first time Obama has been questioned on this matter. This was first used during his campaign as a scare tactic to deter many from voting for him. Now that he has been elected, it is still used as a scare tactic, but instead for the purpose of negatively affecting his popularity amongst the American people. Over 40 lawsuits have been filed over the legitimacy of Obama’s citizenship, since he hit the campaign trail, but none of them have prevailed in any capacity in court and every Judge has ruled in Obama’s favor. Now that Lakin has brought the issue to light once again, those who had their initial doubts of Obama’s authenticity as a citizen are firmly standing behind him in hopes that his charges will be dismissed.

Those that question the legitimacy of Obama’s citizenship frequently request to see his birth certificate. They fail to realize, however, that the state law, Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 338-18, prohibits the release of the birth certificate without a "direct and tangible interest"; they publish the equivalent, a certification of live birth. Janice Okubo of the Hawaii Department of Health stated that “our certificate of live birth is the standard form which was modeled after national standards that are acceptable by federal agencies and organizations.” Unfortunately for the Lieutenant and those who are in agreement with him, Barack Obama’s certification of live birth, that stated he was born in Hawaii, was publicly released by his campaign in June 2008.

In an attempt to combat the release of Obama’s certification of live birth, critics began to speculate and spread lies that it was a fake. Too bad for them that it has been examined by the experts of factcheck.org which produced several close up pictures that can be viewed here. Still not convinced it is real? Well how about the fact that on an interview on New York's WABC Radio by host Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Hawaii’s Republican Governor, Linda Lingle stated "I had my Health Director, who is a physician by background, go personally view the birth certificate in the birth records of the Department of Health," which means the birth certificate that does exist has been viewed. The Health Director then publicly stated in a news release that "I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen.” In the WABC interview, the Republican Governor even went on to state that "The President was in fact born at Kapi'olani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. And that's just a fact.”

If that is still not enough proof for you, both of Honolulu’s major newspapers, the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin published a birth announcement including their Hawaiian address that ran on Aug. 13, 1961 documenting a birth as follows “Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Hwy., son, Aug. 4” which can be viewed here under the "Births, Deaths, Marriages" section. Can one honestly say that this scheme has been in the works since Obama's birth in the off chance that he would be elected Preident? Even if that was a viable option, both of these newspapers receive their birth information from the Department of Health Vital Statistics System. Although not for all, but for some, it is not even an issue of where he was born; it is about what race he was born and many other impertinent variables. Under U.S. law, anyone born in the U.S. is a natural-born citizen and President Barack Obama was undoubtedly born in Hawaii as stated on his certification of live birth. He has publicly shown proof that has met all current State and Federal requirements to prove he is a citizen. Those who attempt to say he was born elsewhere have no standing to infer so and are simply doing everything in their power to perpetrate the myth for their own personal agenda.

Mosque on Ground Zero

2010-08-05T13:16:00.020-04:00

Owner and developer present
plans for project at a meeting.

Information is circulating that a mosque is being built on Ground Zero so the 9/11 terrorists can have a symbol for what they feel they have accomplished by destroying The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Although this is beyond ludicrous and holds no validity, it has not stopped politicians such as Sarah Palin from releasing insensitive and inaccurate statements via facebook such as “To build a mosque at Ground Zero is a stab in the heart of the families of the innocent victims of those horrific attacks.” Do she and the other advocates of stopping the construction of the building realize that the victims of those attacks included Muslims as well? American citizen Muslims were in the towers, innocent passengers on the planes and on the ground as civilians, police officers, fire fighters and emergency medical technicians doing their best to minimize the damage that had been done. Even today, Muslims continue to mourn loved ones they lost on that tragic day.

Even if it were simply a mosque on Ground Zero, to stop it from being built is un-American going against religious freedom protected by the first amendment of the constitution and the fact remains, that the owners cannot be told to stop construction on their private property because of others religious bigotry. Even though a mosque on Ground Zero is not entirely the reality we are faced with. It is really going to be a community center containing a mosque along with a gym, resturant, swimming pool, library, cafe, auditorium, basketball court, performing arts space, a child care and playground center and many other facilities available to people of all faiths similar to the YMCA. The community center is also not going to be on Ground Zero; it will be built 2 blocks away from the Ground Zero site while another mosque currently resides 4 blocks away from Ground Zero with no controversy. Several places of worship including Christian churches presently reside much closer than the planned community center. Lastly, the mosque being moved into the community center has been in operation at another location in the same neighborhood for 29 years. Ultimately it is not just a mosque and it is not on Ground Zero, of course the media and those against this community center have had no problem leaving out this useful information for Americans to make an informed decision.

If any information were to arise that there is a connection between the community center and the 9/11 terrorists than there is a case to make an issue but as of now there is no information suggesting this. Unfortunately the urgency many Americans feel towards the halting of this community center near Ground Zero is not merely because of America’s sensitivity to the issue but simply because of several Americans’ unjustified intolerance towards the Muslim community since 9/11. Many seem to have forgotten it was a war on terror not a war on Islam. What many people do not realize is that those terrorists were Islam extremists and do not reflect Islam in its entirety, the same way the Ku Klux Klan are Christian extremists yet their beliefs do not reflect the Christian community as a whole. To stop the community center from being built near Ground Zero is the equivalent to stopping a church from being built by the Oklahoma City Bombing site, which was the second most destructive terrorist attack in American history and it was led by a man who claimed to be raised, confirmed and “maintain the core beliefs” of Christianity in a Time magazine interview. It is simply a double standard that does not encompass all religious faiths, ironic as this country was founded by those trying to flee religious persecution. Fortunately the community center has been approved by the New York City Panel in a 9-0 vote as of Tuesday, August 3, 2010, and hopefully the worse of the troubles have passed and America can move forward instead of backwards in regard to religious tolerance and equality.

Arizona Immigration Law

2010-07-27T22:56:00.014-04:00

Protesters against Arizona's immigration law

The Arizona immigration law will take effect on Thursday, July 29, 2010 unless U.S. District Court Judge, Susan Bolton, makes a ruling otherwise. Is this really the right direction for America to move in? This controversial law, known as Senate Bill 1070, allows police officers who have made a "lawful stop, detention or arrest" to make a judgment and act upon a possible illegal status based on a “reasonable suspicion”. If one is unable to provide immigration documents at that time they will go through the procedures in jail, until status can be verified and if it can’t then they will be deported. Advocates of this law state that the federal government isn’t doing their job to decrease the amount of illegal immigrants residing in this country hence Arizona feels they must take the matter into their own hands. Those in favor of this law even go as far as to state that the Arizona state has every right to move along the process of deporting these people since they are doing something illegal which would therefore make this law constitutional.

Let’s take a look and see how constitutional this really is starting with the allegations of racism. The biggest question is how can a police officer reasonably suspect an individual of being an illegal immigrant? It’s very clear that the police officers are going to target Latinos because of how often we see Latino faces in the media regarding the entire illegal immigrant issue and America’s proximity to Mexico. These police officers will do this despite the fact that there are an estimated 2.5 million non-Latino undocumented immigrants who are living in America illegally, according to the Hispanic American Center for Economic Research. Although this law does not explicitly state that Latinos will be asked for immigration papers more frequently than other ethnic backgrounds, the police community will undoubtedly disproportionately harass Latinos about their legal status because it is all decided by the their reasonable suspicion. American citizens are not even required to carry anything that identifies themselves as citizens, but this law will put added pressure on the Latino citizens to carry verification of their citizenship more so than other ethnic background. This violates the 14th amendment right to equal protection because under this law Latinos are clearly not being protected equally including the Latinos that are in America legally.

Unfortunately, the problems with this Arizona immigration law does not end here. This law also hampers the Obama administration’s abilities in combating illegal immigration because the federal government is suppose to be the only governing authority on any foreign policy according to federal law and article 6 of the constitution. It’s clear that on a matter such as foreign policy it would not be wise to allow up to 50 different policies, one for each state, to simultaneously be in effect because to allow one state is to allow them all. Immigration is one of the many matters falling into the category of foreign policy. Those in agreement with the Arizona immigration law believe that the federal government is not doing enough on their part regarding illegal immigration. An immigration law being applied by a state is unconstitutional and breaks federal laws regardless of any petty reasoning some may feel about how the government is dealing with the issue. This law also requires local police to fulfill the roles of federal agents who are normally responsible for immigration matters. Respective parties are not playing their proper roles whether it’s on an institutional or individual level.

This law could also have disastrous effects on crime rates because victims or witnesses of crimes who are illegal immigrants will be less likely to report the crime because local police may want to further look into their legal status. This includes women who could be physically abused by their spouses since they may not want to report it and allow it to keep happening for this very reason. People’s safety is at stake and it’s very disheartening that a law such as this could even make it this far in our justice system. For a large array of reasoning the cons significantly outweigh the pros. Although it is necessary to fix the broken system with immigration reform, the Arizona immigration law is not the right way to go about it. Hopefully the U.S. District Court Judge, Susan Bolton, will make the correct decision and deem the law as unconstitutional, illegal, inadequate and potentially harmful.