Elizabeth Wright
Elizabeth Wright is editor of the newsletter, Issues & Views, (issuesview.blogspot.com) initially published from 1985 as a hard copy edition. This article is republished with the permission of Elizabeth Wright.
Who started the lie that the Founders of this nation expended their energies, in order to create a haven for the rescue of the world's displaced populations? Did it come about chiefly from cynical 19th century industrialists eager only for cheap labor, who sought to soften their true motives by wrapping them in sentimental bombast?
Was the lie then perpetuated through the fantasies of some early lucky refugees who found their way to these shores, and who desired to make the path to the Golden Door easier for their family and kin left behind?
Or was the lie deliberately concocted by those who despised the country's powerful and entrenched establishment, with the expectation that making mass immigration a national religious mandate might eventually unglue said establishment?
When restrictive immigration laws were changed in the 1960s, who expected to benefit most from the mass influx that inevitably would begin to stream from around the world?
I ask these questions in light of The New York Times' recent editorials denigrating those Americans who campaign, through organizations and modest media outlets, to regain control over our borders, in order to preserve the traditional cultural integrity of the United States. The Times and its comrades share the presumptuous notion that the U.S. is the rightful destination of every conceivable population on earth. They send the word far and wide that, if you're hurting in the land of your birth, then you have a right to alleviate that hurt by transporting yourself to the U.S.A., no matter what stress is put upon the resources of American citizens.
Thanks to our education system and a century of media propaganda, it has become a fixed notion that this country, unlike every other on earth, was put together for the benefit of the world's faceless masses. He who desires entrance must merely claim to share certain ideals, that is, the "propositions" contained in the founding documents, with a couple of modern axioms thrown in for good measure. Because of America's "special" status, there need be no regard for prevailing social and economic conditions, since the welfare of the existing population is not as important as that of the prospective immigrant. After all, America was founded on nothing more than a bundle of universalist ideas based around themes of freedom; it has no borders and no heritage.
In an earlier post on this blog, "Farewell to Thomas Jefferson" [to appear in the June issue of The St. Croix Review], I ask what the likelihood is that any group would form a nation for a people other than their own kind. Why would these men not desire to retain the cultural integrity of their lineage? Other than today's self-consciously de-racinating whites, what people do not possess this very preference? Would the Hutu be likely to expend their energies to develop a society to benefit alien tribes and foreigners? Would the Tamil? Those who claim that the world has now moved beyond ethnocentric loyalty, or ought to, might do well to take a look at the real world.
In that post, I also suggest that the Founders would not be in concert with the platitudes contained in that mawkish poem that was belatedly affixed to the base of the Statue of Liberty. Which Founder envisioned this country's future in the hands of "huddled masses" from every nook and cranny of the earth? Certainly not John Jay, who thanked Providence for giving
. . . this one connected country to one united people, a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs.
That doesn't sound like a proposition to win over the huddled masses to me. Today, is it unreasonable to assume that, for the sake of preserving the Anglo-European institutions on which this country was nurtured, an Anglo-Euro majority should prevail?
The Times' editorialists do not seem to blush as they pronounce the outright lie that the United States was "composed of people without any common national heritage." How can they attach the reputation of their once preeminent publication to such a colossal falsehood? Now, if you're out to eliminate the Anglo-European cultural make-up of the U.S., and are thrilled by the increasingly multiracial polyglot nature of this society, say so. But don't fabricate history, in order to prove that this country was formed in a vacuum by people who shared no heritage.
One would have thought that coping with the real disabilities of the descendants of the country's slaves, as well as accommodating the Hispanics-Latinos, who had always been a presence, would be enough to occupy the administrators of an already multiracial nation. To open the floodgates in the 1960s, ensuring an even greater heterogeneous influx, would seem an act of folly.
In its editorials, The Times cavalierly dismisses the impact of these recent decades of mass immigration on employment. With a wave of the hand, the editorialists imply that immigration reformers are not motivated by concern about jobs since, apparently, to The Times, this is just another "wedge" issue, that is, insignificant.
Blacks have known for some time that their leaders -- politicians, academics, and varieties of "civil rights" bureaucrats -- have turned their backs on the struggle against illegal immigration. The primary interest of these dignitaries is the protection of their careers and/or political turf. In Immigration: Betrayal by Black Elites, I outlined the pattern of black leadership organizations (take your pick) and black politicians (take your pick) who eagerly make alliances with the elites of other groups, no matter how detrimental such unions prove to blacks in the long run.
Black politicians like Sheila Jackson-Lee, Maxine Waters, and John Conyers seek only to expand their constituent base. As racial demographics change in their districts, they frantically scramble to court and win the confidence of the burgeoning foreigners. The fact that these foreigners, a great many of them illegal, end up displacing Americans, frequently poor blacks in a shrinking job market, is of no concern, either to these representatives of the people, or to the editorialists at The New York Times.
As more and more Americans find themselves laid off or fired from stagnating companies, they discover that even the most modest work has become a scarce commodity. If Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, at a special hearing, is not moved when a black worker informs her of American minorities who have been displaced by illegals as roofers, drywallers, and truck drivers, why should The New York Times care?
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The Times has joined the bandwagon of those who smear as "racists" and "white supremacists" decent Americans who are seeking genuine solutions to the immigration crisis. Peter Brimelow targets it exactly. He notes that, since the Democrats are made up of a coalition of minorities, they "must at all costs prevent America's majority from uniting. Hence, The New York Times' hysteria." (By the way, the "white supremacist" tag has now replaced the much over-abused label of "racist" as the epithet of choice. Watch for it everywhere.)
To the camp followers of The Times, it is imperative to prevent average white citizens, who are still the majority, from ever uniting in the name of any cause. Preventing an effective immigration reform movement is paramount to those who seek to keep this country's borders wide open. This is certainly one of the reasons why the editors of The Times are spending their energies these days castigating three of the most successful immigration reform organizations -- the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), and NumbersUSA. I have followed the outstanding work of each of these groups since their formation, and have always been impressed by the respectful manner in which they handle what has become a volatile subject.
The Times further discredits itself by favorably acknowledging the biased reports and materials disseminated by the spurious Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC is among a handful of self-appointed "watchdogs," a cluster of groups whose creators have mastered the ability to acquire funding by instilling fear and indignation in the general public. Besmirching individuals and groups that work to end illegal immigration as "racists" and "xenophobes," the SPLC has diligently set about the task of destroying all proponents of restrictive immigration laws.
Traveling under the umbrella of "civil rights" or "human rights," these "watchdog" groups are represented through a fawning, deferential media as altruistic protectors of society's downtrodden. Depicting themselves as noble champions of "anti-racism," they spend a great deal of time crusading for the expansion of "hate crime" legislation, that is, laws designed specifically to give government greater control over Americans' thoughts and behavior. They have acquired enough political power to behave as quasi-government agencies, and some misguided citizens actually believe that these self-appointed entities, and their executive directors, possess official power.
Two of the major "watchdogs," the SPLC and the B'nai Brith Anti-Defamation League, are darlings of the media, because they can be counted on to provide an endless stream of news fillers. Reporters are happy to take the easy way out when supposedly covering a story on race. Just get the press release from the SPLC or ADL on some particular event or individual, copy what it says and, instantly, you have a news item to send to your editor. How often have you seen a news story end with a quote by an SPLC or ADL official denouncing some individual as a "racist" or "white supremacist"? And we know it's so, because the ADL or SPLC says it's so!
Character assassination is the SPLC's speciality. Its "link and smear" tactics are notorious, along with its ever-expanding hit list. Through insinuations, it will link an individual or group to some other group or event that is deemed evil by SPLC standards. It then relentlessly pursues the public destruction of the unfortunate target, all the while sending out poisonous press releases that are lapped up and quoted by an eager, uninquiring media.
If these watchdogs could make the "white supremacist" tag stick to immigration reform organizations, and could frame their leaders with some illegal charge, they would then set about stripping these immigration groups of all their financial resources. Both the ADL and SPLC have done exactly this to other organizations whose racial politics were perceived as "incorrect."
For an in-depth examination of groups like the SPLC, there is nothing better than Laird Wilcox's The Watchdogs: A Close Look at Anti-Racist "Watchdog" Groups. Wilcox has spent over two decades watching the watchdogs and compiling detailed information on their strategies and smear tactics.
*****
If you have been paying attention, you know that The New York Times, like all newspapers, is withering away. You also know that, in a desperate move, its owners recently requested and received a $250 million investment from Mexican businessman Carlos Slim. Some observers are suggesting that the recent attacks by The Times' directors on the most high-profile opponents of open borders comes as partial payment to their Mexican benefactor.
If those New York Times editorials are any barometer, the battle to resolve this country's immigration dilemma is going to be an even longer, more acrimonious one. *
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." --French economist, statesman, and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
