With Nazi Germany under Hitler and Fascist Italy under Mussolini supporting the overthrow of Spain and other nations calling for “non-intervention”, the Abraham Lincoln Brigades served as a beacon during a time when the clouds of intolerance and extremism seem to cover Spain. For nearly two years the brigades fought advancing fascist troops on behalf of the democratically elected government of Spain.

The people who made up brigade were black and white, immigrant and non-immigrant, rich and poor, and Christian and Jew. While their backgrounds varied from individual to individual, what brought them together was the belief that humanity shared a destiny that was worth fighting for.

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteers lost many battles. During reunions, veterans of the brigades sing of that time with pride but also with remorse as evidenced in the song Jarama Valley:

There’s a valley in Spain called Jarama
It’s a place that we all know so well
It was there that we gave of our manhood
And so many of our brave comrades fell.

We are proud of the Lincoln Battalion
And the fight for Madrid that it made
There we fought like true sons of the people
As part of the Fifteenth Brigade.

Now we’re far from that valley of sorrow
But its memory we ne’er will forget
So before we conclude this reunion
Let us stand to our glorious dead.

One can’t help but to wonder how the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, facing well armed and trained troops, found the strength not only to stand but to also move forward. What was their secret? As I read the accounts and archives this weekend of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades one thing becomes clear.

The real power of the brigades comes from the simple fact that they fought not because they believed they would win or lose—but rather it was simply the right thing to do. Or to steal from that famous poet Dylan Thomas they chose to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

The members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades are true heroes and heroines because they refused to be paralyzed, refused to turn their backs and run from the approaching darkness. They tied their destiny to others confronting the specters of intolerance, anti-Semitism and racism.

May the day come when we choose to be so bold.

I have been purchasing these books since I came to Chicago, I guess one per a year, probably as a part of a New Year resolution. I do not remember exactly. In some of them I am struggling with the motive for writing my memoir. Often I write of a need to tell my story in order to piece my memory and myself back together. In a few of them I talk about the telling of my story as a way to become whole again and reclaim my life.

In several of the journals I am engaging in “an ordinary pursuit of a perfect format for my story. A novel, for example, would be too long. Would an average reader want to read for hours the mundane details of a struggle to keep sane amidst complete destruction?” Reading through these pages, I soon realized that my focus on motive and form helped keep me silent. I began to question this lack of a voice.

Early in childhood I was developing a strong and clear personal voice. I always felt a strange excitement whenever I had a writing assignment in school. I wrote panoramic descriptions with flourish, and wrote plots with gusto. Sure, my teachers knew that during “the storm on mount Igman, while window shutters slammed against the building with a brute force of an overjoyed four year old stomping her feet on the playground,” fairies did not appear whispering secret messages that only I could hear.

Nevertheless, they encouraged my flowery verses and crazy plots, and I loved the adrenaline rush and shortness of breath caused by the speed of my writing once I caught the rhythm of my imagination. This playful relationship with language abruptly stopped with the War during which I focused all of my cognitive resources on survival.

Once I started college in Chicago, I rekindled the relationship with language, this time developing my academic voice into a powerful one. I enjoyed learning the mechanics of formal language that allowed me to explore abstract ideas and connections, without a possibility of being hurt. Soon, this became my primary voice and it worked well for me since my life at that time centered on the pursuit of education.

However this voice is not the one that I could use to tell my story. I mean, to relate the truth of war and its layered and deep impact on survivors, I would have to dig deep inside and for that I need a personal voice, one that I believed did not function in the English language. What I failed to see is that just like the language acquisition; literacy is a process rather than the event. In this sense, I have to escape the refuge of my academic voice, and allow myself to forge an emotional relationship with this new language in order to become fully literate. I hope to find the voice that will tell the story of survival and will aid me in recovery. Writing, I expect, will help me become whole again.

I’ve heard the “safest place to sit” conversation at least a dozen times on airplanes over the years. I know several people who have to sit in particular places on planes, either through superstition or some silly belief that one can actually survive a plane wreck. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve had run of the mill conversations about the safety of planes. So I can only imagine that the “suspicious passengers” had to be just plain stupid or, more likely, racist.

It’s one thing to have a few ignorant bumpkins on a plane, it’s whole other when officials at AirTran, who should be well-equipped to deflect these types of situations, feed the frenzy by acting on such ridiculous complaints. Come to think of it, since AirTran doesn’t seem to want to take the heat on this one, maybe the complaining passengers should come forward and offer a personal apology. Maybe if all the busybodies out there had to actually show the face attached to the pointing finger, they would be less likely to concern themselves with the Muslim family sitting behind them.

Of course when other people have conversations about the safest places to sit on planes they are probably not dark-skinned Muslim men with beards and women with headscarves. These people must not have the same conversations as other Americans without facing hours of interrogation.

Seven years ago it was horrifying to see the way Arabs, Muslims, Sikhs and basically anyone who fit the description of “Middle Eastern terrorist” suffered at the hands of our government and our citizens. It was rationed away as hysterical fear in light of the 9/11 attacks. Today it is shameful that this type of blatant racial discrimination is still occurring, and the excuses are long gone.

The fact is the Arab, Muslim and Sikh communities in the U.S. have worked very hard to teach patience and understanding both internally and externally, especially when it comes to air travel. These instances of racial profiling are unacceptable and need to stop. It’s time the rest of us worked hard for tolerance too.

Chevron insists that their involvement ends there. They refuse to take any responsibility for ominous environmental disaster that plagues the region that Texaco once profited from, and instead point their finger at PetroEcuador, a state-owned Ecuadorian oil company.

Ecuadorian citizens seem to disagree with the American company. A class action law suit was filed against Chevron in 1993 on behalf of 30,000 Amazon residents for polluting their environment.

Since then, Chevron pushed to have the case heard in Ecuador, where it has been re-filed. The trial is still going on right now, while judicial inspections are being performed. The vast sea of opposing information available on this subject can be dizzying, but when I took into account the origin of the intellectual material it helped cure my vertigo.

According to Judith Kimerling (2007 recipient of the Parker Gentry Award for Conservation Biology), “…from 1972 until it left Ecuador in 1992, Texaco intentionally dumped more than 19 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the region and was responsible for 16.8 million gallons of crude oil spilling from the main pipeline into the forest.” This pollution has caused massive amounts of eco-degradation and human health problems. There has been increased cancer rates in oil producing villages and higher miscarriage rates. The International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health attributes this to living in the proximity of a contaminated water source, and it just so happens that the streams in the region contain more than 280 times more oil chemicals than European communities would allow.

But Chevron has a different perspective. Their analysis of Ecuador data reveals no increased cancer levels in the oil region. They fabricated this information by funding a study of their own called “Cancer Mortality and Oil Production in the Amazon Region of Ecuador, 1990-2005,” key word being “funding”. The study was conducted by three scientists at a consulting firm called Exponent. When I went to the their website and found that the veteran member of the Exponent Board of Directors (Samuel H. Armacost) is also a board member of the Chevron Corporation, I couldn’t help myself from laughing out loud.

Anyone with a critical eye should be able to see right through Chevron’s junk science. An independent court-appointed expert found that 100% of Chevron’s former well sites are contaminated with illegal levels of Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons. Most all of the samples contain well known carcinogens, or, cancer causing agents.

I wonder if Chevron is beginning to regret moving the case to Ecuador. They probably assumed switching the location would help to keep Chevron out of the US media spotlight. Maybe they thought they would be able to bully their way out of assuming liability more easily in a smaller, less wealthy country. All in all, it doesn’t seem to be working out so well for them. Chevron keeps trying to flaunt its power and threaten Ecuadorians by pushing US administration to cancel special trade preferences for Ecuador if the country’s government doesn’t drop the case. But the US government has continued all trade agreements….and soon Mr. Obama will step into office…and well, things aren’t looking great for Chevron these days.

Big oil has to pay for the damage it’s done. Hopefully, Chevron-Texaco still has some money left over from selling the 1.3 billion barrels of oil they extracted from the ancestral lands of Ecuador.

Tens of thousands of families are newly unemployed; home foreclosures are non-stop; businesses crumble; poverty and racism endures; new war rages in the Middle East—the economic-political chaos at home and worldwide is nothing short of sordid. Yet we hope, even audaciously.

For poor people these times are, of course, nothing new. Poor folk and poor neighborhoods and communities have seldom been on any political radar screen or in any political master plan. It’s important to remember that as headline-generating tough times reach into the middle class and even pare down some of the super-rich for whom “the system” has always worked. In light of all the pressing realities of the day, it’s more unlikely than ever that poverty and racism will be high on the national agenda—all the more reason why efforts must be redoubled to address, indeed attack, those harsh realities in our midst.

2009 marks several intriguing observances: the 200th (same day) birth of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, and the 150th year since the defining Lincoln-Douglas debates in their race for the Senate. While there are, of course, countless other important observances, these particularly remind us of the enduring legacy of unresolved social, cultural, racial, economic, religious, and political battles that have been at the core of American identity for generations. This is a year of complex intersections at which these old battles are not simply recognized, but continue to be waged. As we look forward to new possibilities we cannot ignore the fact that feet anxious for forward movement are still stuck in old mud.

When President Obama speaks this year at the national celebration of Lincoln’s birth, history will weigh heavily on the day. Commentators and pundits will lift up the historic moment and rightly hail its significance. They will, however, not be ready to remind us of the stark and enduring pain of racism in a nation that has long-held to whiteness as the mark of true belonging—pain that to this day, for example, marks Black teenagers for violence and death at epidemic proportions. This is the reality of the day, the new year. Complex intersections to be navigated, made straight for the journeys ahead.

At that game England’s players warmed up wearing anti-racist t-shirts but that did not stop the racist jeers. Every time a black English player touched the ball, sections of the crowd would boo loudly and some fans directed monkey chants towards them.

Racism in Spanish football is a massive problem, but unlike in England, there is little to no effort to address it. As discussed before on this blog because of the combined efforts of fans, the FA, and anti-racist groups, racist incidents in British football are now very rare.

In Spain racism is seen both at the club and international level. The captain of the Spanish national team, Iker Casillas, reacted angrily about the FA’s perceived boycott of the Bernadeu stadium, stating, “That really does seem like a joke and completely stupid to me,”…”At every stadium there are heartless people who shout against everything and everyone, but you can’t generalize, and even less with the crowd at the Bernabeu who have always shown their respect and their love for good football.”

Casillas’s international teammate, Cesc Fabregas, also reacted to the FA’s request. He stated, “I wasn’t in the squad when that game was played, but we should be playing it down,”…”The fans go to support the national team. That happened in that moment and that’s it.”

Instead of bringing the issue out into the open and calling for a change, both players attempt to downplay the 2005 incident.

And the problem does not stop with the fans. One month before the game Spain’s head coach was caught on tape calling Thierry Henry, a “black piece of s***” during a training session. The comment sent shockwaves around the football world. Instead of making an example of the head coach by firing him, the Spanish Football Association allowed the coach to keep his job and fined him only the equivalent of a day’s wages.

No player of color is immune from abuse in Spanish club football, even from his own fans! Espanyol’s Cameroonian goalkeeper Carlos Kameni has suffered much racial abuse, most notably from Atletico Madrid (whose fans are widely considered the most racist in Spanish football) when over 500 fans hurled racist taunts at him during one game. Kameni has also accused his own fans of racially abusing him. In 2005 he was quoted in one newspaper as saying “It is understandable if the fans complain when the team doesn’t play well, but they can’t do these racist acts again and again. I’ve had enough.”

In recent years the racist abuse of one player in Spain has grabbed headlines. Samuel Eto’o, another Cameroonian playing for Barcelona, is widely considered one of the best players in the world. He is treated like a God in Barcelona, but that has not protected him from opposing fans.

In 2006, during a game against Real Zaragoza, Eto’o was racially abused by a small section of fans. When Eto’o went to collect a ball that went out of bounds for a corner right near that section, bottles and peanuts were thrown in his direction and a chorus of monkey chants sprang up. Eto’o, clearly distraught, started to walk off the field shaking his head. The referee stopped the game and ordered Zaragoza officials to announce over the PA system that the racist abuse had to stop or the game would be abandoned.

Racism in Spanish football will not go away until the Spanish Football Association and the European football governing body, UEFA, toughen their response. Fining a team 15,000 Euro’s is little more than pocket change for professional players and clubs in Spain.

A zero tolerance policy must be implemented. Every time a player or coach is convicted of a racist incident he must be fired from his club. Any fan found guilty of racism must be banned from attending games for life. Any club fans who hurl racist abuse towards another team’s players must play their home game behind closed doors. Similar polices have worked in other countries and have drastically limited the amount of racist incidents that occur each year. If Spanish football wants to effectively address racism, it has to take action.

Israel is ruled by a far right-winged government, much like our current administration, so it is unsurprising that they would emulate us and resort to unchecked violence. What is surprising is that so many American activists are deeply disturbed by a government behaving in the same manner as their own.

What the Israeli government is doing is terrible, but anyone who is not at least indirectly affected by the violence should examine why they are willing to invest their time into protesting Israel and not other governments.

It’s not that I don’t believe the Palestinians are living in an occupied state or that the oppression they face is horrific, it’s that what they are suffering does not rank very high as far as global suffering goes. My heart breaks for the so far 62 civilians who have lost their lives. But if I’m going to protest for them, there are at least a dozen other oppressed peoples I should go out and march for first.

One would be the 426 black males between the ages of 14 and 17 that were killed in the U.S. by guns in 2007. Or how about the 30,000 immigrants (including children) with no criminal histories currently being held by ICE in prison-like detention centers?

Another would be the 35 civilians that were murdered in Southern Sudan over Christmas alone. The violence in Sudan is far from over, as hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians have been murdered in 2008. I’ve also never received an invitation to attend a rally for the 10,000 Somali citizens that have died over the past two years, not to mention the 3.2 million Somalis that are now dependent on humanitarian aid because their U.S.-backed government targets its own people.

It is actually difficult to find hard numbers on the Somali casualties, because mainstream media doesn’t pay any attention to them. Much like they don’t pay attention to the civilian casualties in Iraq, which depending on who you talk to could range anywhere from 90,000 to hundreds of thousands. The media doesn’t pay attention because we don’t demand that they do, because we don’t care. Americans disproportionately care about the deaths in Gaza because it is perpetrated by Jews, and anti-Semitism is deeply rooted in our culture. To quote a wise friend, “anti-Semitism didn’t suddenly disappear because the Holocaust ended”.

Investing one’s energy into harshly criticizing Israel is troubling on two fronts. On one side we neglect more pressing crises and on another we create space for anti-Semitic bigotry. If we are going to address global suffering, we need to address it fairly and proportionately. Speaking up on human rights issues is valiant and effective only if our own bigotry doesn’t get in the way.

Since the weeks leading up to the most significant elections ever to take place in the United States, federal law enforcement agencies, the media and human rights organizations have paid close attention to threats made against Presidential-Elect Barack Obama. Some of these threats have been made by individuals with ties to the neo-Nazi movement in the United States.

During the Democratic National Convention in August police in Denver, Colorado detained three individuals after a weapon, drugs and wigs were discovered in their possession. The individuals, eventually released, were described as white supremacists. Two months later two racist skinheads were arrested in Tennessee after law enforcement uncovered their plans to behead black Americans and assassinate Barack Obama.

According to the Chicago Tribune there have been at least 200 hate incidents directed at Obama and his supporters. Some of these incidents have included cross burnings. A tactic historically used by the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate blacks.

However it is beyond the graffiti, intimidation, and harassment that the far right is building its true power. With Republican leadership engaged in an internal power struggle to control the party apparatus, extremist factions within the party are seeking to strengthen their influence while more extreme external organizations hope that the current political vacuum will allow them to increase the influence of white nationalism in the American body politic.

While some factions like The Eagle’s Forum, The National Rifle Association, and Team America Political Action Committee have enter the politically charged minefield to control the Republican Party, other organizations like The Constitution Party, John Birch Society and the overtly anti-Semitic American Free Press hope that they will be able to create a third alternative to the current two party system. Regardless of the differences, what each faction shares is the belief that waging political attacks against President Obama will allow them to both undermine the incoming administration and grow their membership.

Political attacks on Obama began immediately after the last vote was cast. On December 1st and again on the 3rd a group called We the People Foundation ran full page ads in the Chicago Tribune questioning Obama’s citizenship. By law an American president is required to be born on U.S. territory and We the People Foundation (run by Robert Shultz) hoped to raise doubt regarding the right of Obama to be president. What the Chicago Tribune failed to point out when they ran the ads was that Shultz, a long time far right tax protester, bases his anti-tax theory on the belief that as a “free white sovereign male” he is not required to pay income tax. Shultz also argues that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is illegal.

This particular attack on Obama is part of a larger tendency within the American far right to dismantle the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Brought into law after the American Civil War, the 14th Amendment defined legal citizenship for those born in the United States. This was a major blow against white supremacy after the Civil War because it superseded race, religion and ethnicity as the basis of citizenship.

Under the guise of “controlling immigration”, the far right Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the most influential anti-immigrant group in the United States, has stated publicly that one of its top goals for the next federal legislative session is to restrict the 14th Amendment. The Federation for American Immigration Reform was founded by John Tanton, a conservationist and retired ophthalmologist. FAIR has received 1.2 million dollars (U.S.) from the “racial science” foundation the Pioneer Fund. FAIR has many associations with political extremists including white nationalists.

Bob Dane the spokesperson for FAIR told the newspaper Sacramento Bee that “To deal with this tidal wave of human beings coming across the border, repealing the 14th Amendment would be an effective tool.” In reality, far from curbing immigration ending the 14th Amendment would effectively reverse major gains of the black civil rights and women’s rights.

While FAIR prepares to fuel bigotry by attacking immigrants and civil rights the National Rifle Association (NRA) has sought to sow fear and suspicion of a multi-racial democracy amongst whites by claiming that Obama has plans to pass laws that will allow the government to confiscate their guns. While these rumors are completely unfounded it has served to grow the ranks of the NRA. It has also vastly increased the sale of guns and ammunition since the election in the neighborhoods of white America where neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan organizations litter the streets with leaflets whispering of imminent “race war.”

Unsurprisingly hate violence is on the rise according to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. The victims—Jewish, black, homosexual, and immigrant—are innocents in an environment created by white nationalists out to undermine the Obama presidency at any cost. A successful black presidency undercuts the bigoted arguments of white nationalists and affirms the possibility of a multiracial civil society—one where “the content of a person’s character means more than the color of their skin.”

Since late 2006, the Bush administration has been carrying out the “tough love” side of immigration reform without the generous and open-arms side, which would mean legalization for those in the United States today, and a migrant worker program for those it will need tomorrow.

It has pursued a humiliating and hostile policy of persecution and harassment of illegal Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Hondurans and many others. It changed the rules of the game without any warning or empathy, nor with the traditional understanding the United States has shown, more often than not over the past century, in regard to those who cross its borders without papers.

In a concise article, Castañeda both condemns the inhumane cycle of raids and detentions, and urges President-elect Obama to immediately move to stop the hunting of immigrants.

After his inauguration, Mr. Obama could put an end to all of this by suspending the raids, detentions and deportations. He should return to the approach followed by all of his predecessors until 2006: stop illegal entrants at the border when possible, but refrain from hunting them down once they cross the border.

He also doesn’t ignore one of the thornier immigration subjects: states that have taken immigration enforcement into their own hands.

[Obama] cannot, obviously, erase aggressive local ordinances in states like Arizona and Oklahoma. But he can initiate or hasten the federal government’s challenge to their constitutionality

Castañeda is absolutely right, we need to speed up the accountability process for people like Sheriff Arpaio, who is carrying out gross human rights violations in Phoenix.

This is the kind of rational, humane approach needed to realistically address immigration. Obama should listen to him.

The tree itself was a small, plastic tree bought by my parents on credit, as most of the luxury items were in the old Yugoslavia. My sister and I firmly believed that the tree predated my birth, making it, we often stated, a family heirloom. A bit shaggy in spots, held up by electric tape on the bottom, and barely a foot tall, this tree was the most festive and cherished family member. It was prominently placed upon a small console.

Ornaments were not bountiful. There were only a few nice glass ones. Most had fallen victim to disagreements between my sister and me. The ones I loved most were candies wrapped in a festive, sparkly foil. We got them when my grandmother decided to buy new ornaments for her tree. The first time they were hung on the tree, I could not resist and I unwrapped and licked one of these cherished thirty year old candies. Later I learned that Mom had fond memories of these in particular, as they had hung on the Christmas tree when she was a child. I did not tell a soul that night, relieved the next morning that the candies had not made me ill.

To compensate for the lack of ornaments, we would cover the tree with silver confetti. The three of us would shower the tree. I was very proud of my ability to throw the silver threads high in air and achieve the effortless decorating look. The final touch was, in our opinion, the stroke of genius. Mom would take cotton from a makeup bag and unravel it to create snow under the tree. A bit more silver confetti and the sparkly snow became the winter wonderland look we all loved.

While we did our chores, mom would place gifts under the tree. These were always modest gifts, usually a book or a journal. On special occasions we got earrings or hats, gloves and scarves. These gifts were special to us since she would wrap them with such care, making them look like the ones we saw in magazines. Beautiful paper and ribbon was just the backdrop for her artistic expression. She would include fresh berries or evergreen branches or even the twigs and bows made of orange rind. Each gift was wrapped differently, and we felt so special just looking at them.

We would circle around the tree, lifting the gifts and shaking them, trying to guess what we were getting, knowing that we could not open them until after the Christmas Eve dinner. And this dinner was what made this day truly special.

Christmas Eve dinner was a simple feast of fish, German potato salad, red wine for adults and a berry juice for kids. Freshly baked bread and a variety of homemade cakes and cookies rounded out supper. My favorites were tiny sugar cookies and chocolate covered marzipan bars, which would usually disappear in minutes.

While the food was always delicious, the true star of the evening was a candle lighting ritual prior to dinner. There were three candles in all, and two small dishes. One contained red wine, the other with a bit of bread, set in a medley of evergreens at the center of the table. Mom would light each candle and recite, “Please God spark the love in our hearts.” Dinner would end by extinguishing the candles with bread dipped in wine. With that mom would say, “Please God stop the hatred in our hearts.” To this day I keep that tradition. And though I am so far from my family in Sarajevo these small things bring me a little closer to home.

What is it that makes me do it?  Is it the Old Navy commercials with the attractive young people dancing around with their pets?  Is it the obscene amount of car and jewelery commercials where people make out or pass out?  Or is it the underlining theme to all of this?  That notion that if you care about people, you will show them this by giving them things.

And giving them things makes up for all the crap you put them through the rest of the year?  This whole cycle makes me feel sad and without.  I don’t make cookie plates or buy people sweaters with snowflakes on them and somehow I feel like less of a person because of it.

But when it comes to Christmas day, and we’re opening presents and my friends and family are calling to say “Happy Holidays!”, I feel overwhelmed in a different way.  Instead of feeling sorry for myself or kicking myself for not buying Uncle Fred that mounted singing fish, I feel overjoyed to have what I do; people who love me, healthy children, a job, and a warm place to sleep at night.  Happy New Year to you all and thanks for stopping by.

This is not the more familiar image of the innocent babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, surrounded by angels singing in the night air. Nor is it the image of the innocent, sweet, loving Jesus heralded over the centuries by Christians across the globe, bringing simple peace. Perhaps that is why this Song of Mary is seldom lifted up, even though it precedes the familiar birth narrative by only a few verses.

The Magnificat is a song of profound joy and sweeping justice, ringing with a vision of hope and fulfillment for the oppressed, the poor, the hungry. In its verses the mighty are cast down, the lowly lifted up. The hungry are filled and the rich sent away empty. The suffering are made whole and mercy is spread about freely upon those who believe in the promise of Abraham. Joy and justice reign.

This is the lost story of the Jesus that Christians celebrate this day. Even without all the wrappings of the cultural celebration that has permeated the religious expression, this is a story that most Christians would rather skip over quickly in favor of sweetness and light. In this simple song is the story that conveys both the beginning and the end of the life of this one born of humble beginnings, whose journey from Bethlehem eventually took him to a deadly encounter with Rome in Jerusalem: one does not stand up against empire in ones midst without paying a high cost; one does not challenge political and economic power without readiness to risk life itself.

So it is on this day that Christians do indeed celebrate, feel, and experience the richness of the promise inherent in the birth of this Jesus—and rightly so. But so it is also on this day Christians are starkly reminded that this birth, this life is world-changing in ways that many are not expecting. The mighty are cast down, the hungry are fed, the rich sent away empty. So may it be. Joy and justice are twinned; the Song of Mary is sung quietly in the middle of the silent night, and the possibility of a new day for those cast aside is made dreadfully, wonderfully real.

I’m spending my Christmas vacation in lovely Maricopa County, AZ, this week with my in-laws. And I have to tell you that, thanks to Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his gang of thugs deputies, I’ll be somewhat relieved when I leave.

After all, how would you like to live in a place where law enforcement actually arrests you for applauding briefly at a public county council meeting? Where they threaten and intimidate you just for showing up in the first place?

That’s what’s been happening here.

Read the rest of the article at http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/arizona-sheriff-turns-county-meeting.

My father remarried about 3 years ago to an Irish woman who brought her 3 kids all under the age of 10 with her to live in our house. Since then my sister and my stepmother both have had children bringing the total number of kids to 7. The ages are 21, 20, 10, 10, 5, 1 and 4 months. So as you can imagine, our house is very noisy and Christmas day is no exception.

I have always loved the weeks leading up to Christmas because it is a time for family and even though all of our cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles are living in Ireland or England we still keep in touch, especially over the Christmas period. We receive countless cards each year from friends and family back home who we rarely see but haven’t forgotten us and we certainly haven’t forgotten them. All of the Christmas cards from Ireland have a festive stamp on them usually containing the words “Nollaig Shona Duit” which means merry Christmas in the Irish language, Gaelic.

Every year my grandparents send over selection boxes, which are big boxes of different types of Irish chocolate bars which I stuff my face with on Christmas morning. A few days before Christmas we make Christmas pudding which is a heavy steamed pudding filled with dried fruit. The tradition is that each member of the family must stir the pudding mix before it is cooked and while you are stirring you make a wish. After Christmas dinner, the pudding is brought out and doused in brandy and then lit on fire as everyone applauds and the kids blow the cake out before we eat it.

Every Christmas Eve we make mince pies. Mince pies are small pastries filled with mincemeat which is a thick preservative made with sultanas, raisins, and apples. We leave the mince pies out for Santa along with a pint of Guinness or if he is very lucky, a glass of whiskey. Before going to bed on Christmas Eve we watch the Christmas special of English and Irish comedies like Only Fools and Horses, Father Ted, and the Royle Family.

After this the kids go to sleep, we wrap the presents and put them under the tree for the next morning. Usually at about 6am or earlier on Christmas morning my step brothers bust into my room with my step sister and jump on my bed to wake me up. My dad then has to go downstairs before any of the kids can to check if Santa has come. When he gives the signal, all of the kids run downstairs to open the presents. After the mad scramble of opening all of the presents is finished, we bring out Christmas crackers which we take turns pulling. The winner usually gets a paper hat small toy. We spend the next few hours calling our family in Ireland and asking them what presents they got from Santa. After a huge Christmas dinner, the rest of the day and following days are spent quietly with my family and family friends.

Christmas is my favorite time of year and my family have continued our Christmas traditions in the country we now call home. I encourage everyone to make the most out of this Christmas period with your family and have a great holiday wherever you may be.

The ad spots were purchased by the Department of Homeland Security and promote their E-Verify program, a controversial employee verification system. The ads run at the end of a segment and say, “‘Support for NPR comes from NPR stations, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), offering E-Verify, confirming the legal working status of new hires. At DHS dot gov slash E-Verify.”

E-Verify allows employers to check work eligibility against a massive database, and according to the National Immigration Law Center the “SSA estimates that 17.8 million (or 4.1 percent) of its records contain discrepancies related to name, date of birth, or citizenship status, with 12.7 million of those records pertaining to U.S. citizens.”

E-Verify is the perfect study of racism thriving in American institutions. Employers often fire or fail to hire workers that they cannot confirm through E-Verify. These discrepancies overwhelmingly affect Latinos and African American citizens.

The confusion by listeners and even those within NPR over why they would choose to accept money from DHS is understandable. After all, NPR has been consistently critical of DHS and its more sinister sibling agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

On Dec. 1, EPIC, ACLU, Free Press, and the National Immigration Law Center sent a letter to NPR calling for the discontinuation of the ads, pointing to the “shortcomings of E-Verify, including its high cost, high levels of inaccuracies in the databases on which the program is based, employer misuse resulting in discrimination and unlawful termination, and the lack of privacy protections.”

Facing layoffs and programming cuts, it’s not surprising NPR would hedge on halting the ads, though in true public radio style, they’ve done it diplomatically.

On Dec. 4th, Alicia Shepard, NPR’s Ombudsman, took to the airwaves to address listeners’ concerns and defend the acceptance of funding credits. She rightly pointed out the reasons for controversy around E-Verify, but then kept the focus on the “firewall” that protects journalistic integrity from advertising dollars.

This indicates that NPR still doesn’t get why this is a problem. I don’t think listeners are as concerned about the integrity of journalists, as they are about the integrity of National Public Radio itself. I can sympathize with NPR’s economic woes, but we’re all feeling the same pinch. Bottom line, E-Verify is racist and NPR should stop promoting it.

To counteract the growing momentum for realistic immigration reform anti-immigrant bigots seek to inject false data into the conversation. A new report entitled “The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Coloradans” was released by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). It’s apparent that FAIR prefers to dump their resources into faulty reports in an attempt to stir up more fear and hatred in an already tense economic landscape.

FAIR has been listed as a hate group by the civil rights organization the Southern Poverty Law Center, alongside the Ku Klux Klan and the American National Socialist Workers Party. Current FAIR spokesperson Bob Dane has publicly called for the destruction of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would reverse African American civil rights gains.

With the economic crisis on everyone’s mind, FAIR is attempting to play off people’s fears by drawing on dubious data that blame immigrants for Colorado’s woes. “Even in the best of economic times, $1.1 billion would be an unnecessary and unjustifiable burden on Colorado taxpayers,” said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. “With Colorado, like nearly every other state, forced to cut vital programs and services, these costs are simply untenable.” Stein has defended on several occasions FAIR’s acceptance of over 1.2 million dollars from the anti-Black Pioneer Fund, a “racial science” foundation.

One of the main themes in FAIR’s report is the claim that undocumented people are fraudulently obtaining benefits. Not once does FAIR offer proof of this but ignores real data that cites the devastating economic cost of the proof of citizenship-style bill that passed in Colorado in 2006. The law requires service providers to check documents and so far they have identified very few, if any, undocumented immigrants seeking benefits. This bill ironically passed with the support of Colorado’s Democrats.

FAIR instead uses spurious numbers to estimate that Colorado would save $1.1 billion dollars a year in the arenas of health care, education, and incarceration if undocumented immigrants didn’t exist. But the report is full of holes including FAIR’s addition of US-born citizens whose parents are undocumented in determining all costs of “illegal immigration.”

FAIR continues down the slippery slope of “expertise” by suggesting that all English learners are undocumented. For its data on incarceration costs, FAIR counts “suspected illegal aliens” and immigrants with detainee status (a 48-hour pretrial detention by law enforcement) who may be legal.

In acknowledging the inaccuracy of the data used for anti-immigrant propaganda purposes, the report uses the word “estimate” 57 times in its 13 pages. Nearly 90% of the statistical data given in the report is preceded by the word “estimate”*. To add to this folly many of the so-called “estimates” by FAIR are based on national data that is not even Colorado specific.

FAIR gives a couple of “recommendations” including training more police officers to enforce immigration laws and increasing bed space in detention centers (strange since one of the major costs the report dwells on is incarceration). They completely ignore any realistic or humane solutions already on the table.

One thing that FAIR does prove with this report is that for anti-immigrant leaders all is fair in the game of bigotry.

* For real accurate data on immigration see the Immigration Policy Center.

Arpaio has diverted deputies from solving crimes to chasing immigrants — and done so with no real strategy other than to attract television cameras. Arpaio’s deputies carry out traffic stops and neighborhood sweeps that have reportedly stopped people for no greater “crime” than being brown. These sheriff deputies hope they find someone without identification who they can turn over to federal immigration officials. Arpaio even requires that victims and witnesses prove their immigration status – a sure way to get fewer whistleblowers to come forward, thus increasing crime.

Seems like an odd guy for Fox to highlight as a law enforcement icon.
Fernandez also highlights a new video by America’s Voice that exposes the damage Arpaio has done to the justice system in Maricopa County.

During winter break, the first morning after the snow storm would become very noisy. My sister and I, along with other kids from the neighborhood, would run out and go wild on the hill in front of our apartment building. The crowd pleasers were sled races on the “trail of death,” ending with a steep drop onto the street. The goal was to throw oneself off the sled in a most artistic and heroic way at full speed. I developed my own style and would fall in a classic James Bond fashion, ending on my feet, keeping my cool.

On weekends we went skiing, having the luxury of Olympic ski trails twenty minutes away. We would spend all day skiing and warm up at the ski lodge before the most anticipated event of the weekend. Skiing at midnight was what we all waited for eagerly. One trail would be illuminated with lights, while music accompanied us as we raced down the mountain. All I could see was the sparkle of lights refracting through snow, making me feel as if I was an integral part of the magic of nature.

These feelings of wonder and excitement of snow and winter disappeared after the war. When Sarajevo came under the siege in the Spring of 1992, all electricity, gas, water and food were cut off, leaving the city of then 500,000 people without infrastructure and under a constant assault. The first war winter was a big adjustment for us. My sister and I soon relied on each other for strength and support.

Our regular routine of getting up at 2 am, crossing part of the city under sniper fire and waiting in line for water up to five hours, became almost unbearable in winter. We dealt with the cold, the physical exertion and the understanding that we could be killed at any moment by a grenade or a sniper. What made our routine soul draining was the fact that we went back to a home without windows, which were shattered in the first months of the war, and lacking a viable source of heat.

Only one room in our apartment was heated since it had the last remaining window. We created a “wood-burning “stove out of a water heater and burned old shoes, furniture and clothes for heat. Wood was almost impossible to come by and we refused to cut down our apple tree or deplete parks or even take wooden crosses from the cemetery. Though our extensive library was off limits, mom was forced to use a couple of books in desperation.

During winters, our home was so cold that to get to the bathroom at the other end of the apartment, we had to dress in layers. Soon, my sister and I learned to live with frostbite on a regular basis. There were scabs on our hands and toes that we accepted as badges of honor.

One frigid morning, after walking miles and waiting in water line for four hours our feet froze so bad that we were in tears. As they began to thaw the pain was excruciating. We ran to our balcony barefoot, dipping them in the snow to numb the sensation. We cried and laughed, feeling a sense of pride that we made it through one more day without giving-up.

I love snow, but now it comes with memories of cold and the constant struggle to stay warm during the war. Even in a warm home, I still feel the chill that cuts to the bone, becoming a physical reminder of war, making it impossible to escape and forget.

*Photo by Zeljko Puljic for FAMA from the “Survival Guide”

The anti-immigrant movement’s argument that immigrants are to blame for U.S. ecological degradation is deeply flawed. It has so many holes that it is transparent to anyone who thinks critically about the accusations they present. This is a strategic attack on immigrants, and cannot result in any productive environmental solutions. It only breeds more anti-immigrant hatred and leads Americans astray from real environmental progress.

Californians for Population Stabilization says on its website:

“Experts agree that the most dangerous problem facing our environment now and in the future—whether local, national, or global—is human overpopulation.”

“Because of rampant population growth, we’re also experiencing degradation of our ground water; pollution of our lakes, rivers and streams; destruction of forests, national parks, and natural habitats; wildfires and forest fires—often caused by migrating illegal immigrants…”

The truth is it doesn’t matter if a person is living in the United States or another country, wherever they are people are contributing to stresses on the environment. It’s ridiculous that anyone would buy into this being relevant to one’s locality. It’s a shockingly weak foundation on which to build their anti-immigrant agenda.

Both FAIR and CAPS often try to make it seem like environmentalists everywhere are siding with them. FAIR even has a page on their website called “Why Environmentalists Support Immigration Reform”, but they can’t name nor quote a legitimate environmentalist that actually does voice support for their policies.

In reality, there is more opposition to anti-immigrant groups than agreement by environmentalists. The Sierra Club, the most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States, has decisively banished anti-immigrant rhetoric, stating:

“The Sierra Club, its entities, and those speaking in its name will take no position on immigration levels or on policies governing immigration into the United States. The Club remains committed to environmental rights and protections for all within our borders, without discrimination based on immigration status.”

For those seeking to fuel immigrant scapegoating FAIR offers an “environmentalist” perspective, but provides no meaningful information for legitimate discourse on the environment.

Genuine concern for the planet and the life on it should inspire exploration of viable solutions. Real environmentalists are working beyond borders.

It is obvious that the United States is violating the human rights of Latinos living within the country’s borders by failing to protect its Latino residents. Latinos have been targeted, attacked, brutalized and murdered because of their race and ethnicity in incidents with rising frequency and severity throughout the United States.

In the past four months, three Latino men have lost their lives in racially-motivated attacks. Luis Eduardo Ramirez was beaten to death in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, in July when local teenagers attacked him, yelling racial epithets. In November, Marcelo Lucero was assaulted, stabbed and killed by a group of seven young men who had set out to go “beaner jumping” in Patchogue, New York. And, just last week, José Sucuzhañay was beaten to death in Brooklyn, NY, by men wielding baseball bats and broken bottles. LatinoJustice PRLDEF filed a petition Thursday with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights charging that the United States’ aggressive immigration enforcement policies have fostered an increasingly unsafe environment for U.S. Latinos, regardless of their legal status.

These immigration policies-which include midnight raids of private homes by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents - have been undertaken with little regard for the human rights of undocumented and documented immigrants.

We’ve all seen the statistics that say hate crimes against Latinos are on the rise. We’ve seen the hate spewed against immigrants, the anti-immigration ordinances, the English-only laws, the myths about Latinos fostered by FAIR and other hate groups. The federal government has helped foster that climate of hate with 287gs, with house raids, with breaking up of families and the general harassment of Latinos.

Instead of fulfilling its duty to protect, which is heightened given the dramatic increase in hate crimes against Latinos, the United States has done even less, as it has diverted its resources to immigration prosecution and enforcement efforts rather than instituting policies to ensure protection.

In Suffolk County, NY, where Marcello Lucero lived and was killed the number of undocumented immigrants referred to federal authorities has surged, from 44 people in 2004, when the county executive, Steve Levy, took office, to 2,289 last year. Police officers ask those they arrest about their immigration status and refer undocumented individuals to federal authorities.

”Many local governments take the point of view that they don’t want to ask that question,” Mr. Levy said. ”I think it’s ridiculous for localities to call themselves sanctuaries.” He called the notion that some people would stop cooperating with the police ‘’silly.”

Petitioners contend that such policies of local cooperation embolden those that would want to cause harm to immigrants and Latinos, and is evidenced by the number of incidents which are now being reported by those who have been afraid to report these crimes to police, as well as the County Police Department’s instructions to officers - suggesting there is an urgent problem.

The United States has an obligation to ensure the safety of all those who reside within its borders under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. Specifically, the Declaration’s Article 1 states that “everyone has a right to life, liberty and security of person.”

Christina Iturralde is a lawyer with LatinoJustice PRLDEF, an organization that protects opportunities for all Latinos to succeed in school and work, fulfill their dreams, and sustain their families and communities.