It's really kind of sickening to me, really, how the right wing has made intolerance its #1 ethos. I'm reassured that the American people are smelling their bullshit. Most people are pretty fair-minded. Most people believe in a fair shake. Most people believe in the work ethic. And in America, we as a people tend to be optimistic at heart. It's in our culture -- even our vacuous pop culture.

What the Republicans have been playing at is the victim game. According to them, we're victims of the powerless. Remember Reagan's diatribes against "welfare mothers"? How about the common attacks on the poor? Look at the attacks on the working class. Look at how they call the pensions people worked for "entitlements" -- as if workers' pensions were the same as welfare. In foreign affairs, they'll have us believe that we're being victimized by "evil-doers" out there somewhere, when really we're killing people on a scale at least an order of magnitude greater than the tragedy of 9/11. And now, they're frothing at the mouth over "illegal" immigration.

See anything in common here?

People don't like to talk about race in this country, but after Katrina, we have to really ask ourselves how much longer we can hope to avoid it.

The first step is to get out of the victim mind the Republicans are cultivating. It's time to get past the fearful, reactionary impulses they cultivate and nurture. We're better than that. We're stronger than that.

Life is hard. But that's no excuse to be indecent as a people, intolerant as a nation. The Founders forged into the Constitution the structures to protect people from the intolerance of the majority. The people who came here and helped build this country up were, to a large extent, fleeing intolerance.

The people who were here before all of us have borne the brunt of much intolerance. And now, to a large degree, we call them "illegal" and demand they be shipped out.

In the right wing's view, Lady Liberty is wearing a shroud.

May 1 is a Day Without Immigrants. Yet even the Daughters of the American Revolution are immigrants. What makes them so different from the immigrants of today, except for race and class?

More: May 1st General Strike and Boycott / 1 May Paro General, May day in The Bay!, Scope of Monday Immigrant Boycott Unclear, Action for World Liberation Everyday....

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