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Matthew Freeman is a Brooklyn based playwright with a BFA from Emerson College. His plays include THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR, REASONS FOR MOVING, THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE AMERICANS, THE WHITE SWALLOW, AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, THE MOST WONDERFUL LOVE, WHEN IS A CLOCK, GLEE CLUB, THAT OLD SOFT SHOE and BRANDYWINE DISTILLERY FIRE. He served as Assistant Producer and Senior Writer for the live webcast from Times Square on New Year's Eve 2010-2012. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to Gamespy, Premiere, Complex Magazine, Maxim Online, and MTV Magazine. His plays have been published by Playscripts, Inc., New York Theatre Experience, and Samuel French.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Lou Dobbs: Renegade or Jackass Symbol of Mainstream, Institutionalized Foolishness?

Lou Dobbs is an idiotic, paranoid propagandist for his obsession with illegal immigration. When he takes stabs and political savants and pundits, it's the height of irony. This man represents everything that's wrong with the MSM, and he's front and center on CNN, arguably the MSM flagship.

6 comments:

David Johnston said...

Agreed and agreed. Lou Dobbs is one of the jowliest and more obnoxious members of the political pundit/talking head/political savant class. Who the hell does he think he is - someone who has an honest job?

Anonymous said...

OK. Just because Lou is a little "jowly" is no cause for name calling. On his behalf, he is stepping up saying what NO ONE else in the MSM are saying, and that is "wait until the votes are in before you crown the president elect!". For all the candidates "momentum" we are only 3 primaries in.
On the flipside, Lou is so obsessed with yelling about immigration he forgot to throw in a solution! My opinion, besides Obama and his change message the only REAL candidate out there that represents REAL CHANGE is Ron Paul. The educated, informed few out there who actually think for themselves will be putting their votes for little ol' Ron Paul. The rest of the ignorant masses will just vote for something different (Obama). Either way, its going to be positive for out country.

Freeman said...

Ron Paul is a bigot. Sure, bigots can be against the war in Iraq. But he's a bigot.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca

John said...

My in-laws are obsessed with Dobbs. It's crazy. They're good smart, liberal, old Yankee crackers. We sit around the dining room table and talk about immigration and amnesty. I'm like, "Uhhmmm... they're fucking here and maybe 2% of them are criminals. Just like the rest of us." But they love Lou. Their one blindspot. I don't see the appeal, myself. Reminds me of a St. Louis alderman, trying to be a regular guy, totally on the take.

Anonymous said...

Hey Mat, John, do you not care about anything but yourself? Maybe, but I want my children to grow up in a America that I did. Yesterday, a pregnant woman was stabbed 12 times here in Portland Oregon. Mexican gang related. Every couple days, same old thing. Who cares right John, right Mat? Maybe if it was one of your kids, maybe not. Who cares? What ever excuse you guys have for allowing illegals to stay here is just not right. see below, is this right? Where do you guys live, I'll let the Mexicanos know their welcome ...

The solution, close the border now using troops, gather up ALL the illegals and send them back to Mexico or where ever they came from. (Russia, Japan, Germany, England, etc.)


Border homesteading


By JOSE DE LA ISLA
Hispanic Link
Thursday, January 10, 2008

I met Marta Sanchez at her office, in a strip center next door to El Paraiso cafe, in Alton, just north of Mission, Texas. She heads La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) in Alton, a nonprofit organization of the United Farm Workers union.

It provides outreach services on an idea originally conceived by Cesar Chavez for rural communities. I am here at the invitation of the Annie E. Casey Foundation looking into issues affecting families.

The office is a whirlwind of activity.

Today, Sanchez is dealing by phone with the aftermath of a scam by Malcolm L. Webber (a/k/a "Grand Chief Thunderbird IV"), who sold "Kaweah" Indian tribal memberships to undocumented immigrants. Sanchez says perhaps 200 to 300 people in the county were offered $400 memberships, but I was told some may have paid as much as $1,200.

The scheme worked through evangelical church networks. The marks were allowed to believe tribal enrollment would allow them to apply for U.S. citizenship.

The LUPE office has heard from about 100 people in Mississippi, Georgia and California taken in by the fraud.

Over coffee at the Pic N Pac, Marta tries to characterize her work in the rural colonias. These are the subdivisions her constituents have homesteaded, even though they lack many services.

We agree on "inocente," in the Spanish sense -- meaning lacking street smarts. "Viven de la palabra," she adds. They still take people's word for it. Her words are reminiscent of the observation of Robert D. Putnam, who wrote in "Bowling Alone" about how a lack of trust contributes to declining membership in civic associations. Sanchez's mission seems to be to re-establish it.

She hears from employees who have been shortchanged or who go altogether unpaid by contractors. Often workers simply lack an understanding about what recourse they have. Euterio, for instance, who is now an office volunteer, learned how to take his complaint to small-claims court. He prevailed and now teaches others about their rights.

Euterio's point is that an injustice gets an appropriate response.

"Those abuses are in abundance," Sanchez says, and explains the advocacy and education role played by LUPE. Recurring are problems that arise from contracts to buy colonia lots and the circumstances around which people lose their investments.

Texas had about 1,400 colonias as of 2002. Broadly speaking, they are neighborhoods and subdivisions -- mostly plotted land, but not always -- along the U.S.-Mexico border. The term is used mostly to mean the underdeveloped communities that represent a modern-day homesteading movement.

About 400,000 people from El Paso to Brownsville call a colonia home. Most of them are in the Rio Grande Valley, one of the poorest parts of the United States. These rural, unincorporated communities of 20 or more dwellings are physically isolated from urban areas and mostly don't benefit much from tax-based improvements administered by towns and cities.

Colonias also face water-related problems, such as availability, affordability and even access to clean drinking water, drainage and sewage disposal. This multiplies the already serious, if not critical, lack of adequate health care, education, low-cost food and other necessities. These property owners haul their own trash.

Politically, the late, legendary San Antonio congressman Henry B. Gonzalez, then chairman of the House Banking Committee, drew attention to colonias in 1988. He brought the Democratic presidential candidate, Michael Dukakis, to the border to sway public opinion and Texas' 29 electoral votes.

During the 1990s, Texas congressman Alberto G. Bustamante, as a member of the House Select Committee on Hunger, drew attention to nutritional problems in colonias. As recently as November 2007, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited colonias in nearby Laredo as part of a visit to the border and the international bridge there.

This election season, let's see if any of the presidential contenders have the courage of conviction to address issues of border security by addressing the colonias.

(Jose de la Isla, author of "The Rise of Hispanic Political Power" (Archer Books, 2003), writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail joseisla3(at)yahoo.com.)

Freeman said...

Jim -

If Dobbs's effect on the US population is to make people think the way you do, CNN might have some huge new fans in the KKK.

Thanks for stopping by.