You Choose '08: Immigration
Few issues in the public dialogue inspire as much passion as the issue of immigration. While most Americans recognize the importance of protecting the country's borders, there is still enormous debate about how we should treat the roughly 12 million undocumented workers currently living in the United States. The questions around immigration cut to the core of American identity, and the debate often finds itself at the nexus of politics, culture, geography, and security. Immigration isn't merely a political issue - it's a personal issue.
One of the most poignant examples we've seen of the immigration debate on YouTube has come from 9500Liberty, a channel started by Eric Byler to highlight the immigration battle taking place in Prince William County, Virginia. 9500 Liberty is the address of an intersection where immigration protests became heated after local policy makers debated an ordinance denying certain rights to local immigrants.
Most famously, Rep. Tom Tancredo brought the issue of immigration into the primary presidential race. In
this video, he asked YouTubers if they've been impacted by immigration. He received quite a number of video responses, like this one from hccowboy, who shares a personal story of how immigration has affected his workplace — in his opinion, for the worse. In a very different video response, tonymynd, whose parents came from Mexico to the United States illegally, argues in favor of treating all immigrants, regardless of their status, with respect.
The Courage Campaign has produced a series of videos in which people recount their immigrant stories. In this one, writer Arianna Huffington talks about her experience as an immigrant — and why she believes immigrants are sometimes used as political scapegoats. Meanwhile, this video from kocotv of a recent immigration protest in Oklahoma captures the raw emotional intensity of this debate.
And finally, as divisive as this issue is, some YouTubers have nevertheless been able to approach it from a comedic perspective. In this video from LatinoComedyProject, the popular "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" campaign becomes the set-up for a rather "un-PC" sketch about immigration.
To watch and hear more about this issue, check out our playlist below and of course feel free to join in on the conversation yourself.
Yours,
Steve G.
YouTube News & Politics
Posts
15 comments:
On the topic of illegal immigration;
I find it a little dishonest that we call these people "undocumented works" What they are is illegal, and they want to stay that way. They have no desire to become Americans. This problem has gotten to the point where this is not a migration, but an invasion. Furthermore, they cost the average American hundreds of dollars more for, health care, school taxes as well as property taxes. The solution is very simple, take the people that are on welfare and make them work for their check. Also, take the money used to incarcerate illegals and give that to the boarder agency to help fight the invasion. Moreover, have all check cashing places remove a percentage of the money going to Mexico for legal citizens needing health care. Simple?
thanks to the umpteen illegal MEXICAN"S yes i said mexican,don't like it to damn bad,because of them I lost my disability & medi-cal cause an illegal stole my S.S.N. Card Just So They Can Work!!!!! & Cause Of That I Now Have No income,No Medical Insurance & Most Likely No Place To Live & Most Of The Pro-Illegal Mexicans want to keep these god damn ppl in this country.
i say send ALL OF THOSE Disease Infested,Low Life,Job Stealing,Disability Stealing,Home Stealing, COUNTRY STEELING ASSH**LES OUT OF THIS COUNTRY!!!!!!
and yes i AM pissed off about these ppl.
As an american single female, I resent having so many uneducated, illegals coming into our country so easily who can have so many free rights to pillage and free range thru all our communities, states and the entire country killing pregnant woman to steal a car, or a bicycle(to hok) for food or money. Everybody forgets, that the reason they come is that they have nothing...so they don't often have basic essentials and this is intolerable abuse most often to women who just simply get in the way of any aggravated male assault or attack. They don't have our values. Business owners who wish to hire them need regulation at the state level and they should check these people in at the border into busses, provide transportation for them, feed them, house them, and return them to their country humanely and KEEP THEM OUT OF MAINSTREAM SOCIETY AND AWAY FROM OUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN!!!!
We don't need these low class skills that much!!! You get what you pay for!
I would rather focus on raising our children with superior ECO friendly skills and create housing with clean energy and water. Not dragging in low class skills to create MORE BAD ENVIRONMENT-MORE UNSUSTAINABLE LIVING. We need to focus on our future---not force our children to speak spanish AND SERVE HISPANIC COMMUNITIES. Our country should be serving OUR SUSTAINABLE needs-not creating OPPORTUNITIES for more BAD HABITS. I support closing the border for this reason. I want a safer community AND a cleaner environment to live in.
At least Steve G. has let us know where Youtube stands.
1. "undocumented workers" is the Dem euphemism for those who, in legal terms, are illegal aliens.
2. 9500Liberty is hardly "poignant". It's just endlessly repurposed racial demagoguery designed to support illegal activity.
3. Steve G. doesn't seem to have found too many videos from the pro-borders perspective, yet they should be too very hard to find. For instance: youtube.com/watch?v=tIK9ZawRMlg
See my videos for the types of questions that would probably cause Steve G. to faint.
The USA can't continue to support all these people who have never worked a day in this wonderful country of ours. I believe that unless you have worked in this country you do not deserve to be able to apply and get SSI AND/OR SSI Disability. All these immigrants sponser their Aged to sign them up. I believe that if they sponsor then they should be held accountable to support their family memebers if they can't work. I know this because I married into a family that brought brothers and mother into this country and signed them up and even when disqualified they continued to press the issue and won. Their mother is now on SSI disability and has never worked a day in this country. How fair is thatQ I work 7 days a week to make it and pay my bills whether I'm sick or tired.
their here lets get clear they ain't going back unless they chose too. change immigration policy now to allow mexicans central americans and south americans into this so called us of a which stands for american by the way, i call for seperate policies, one for those who walk over the border and another for those who float by boat
WHY DOESN'T SOMEONE TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS.THESE PEOPLE WERE LURED INTO THIS COUNTRY DECADES AGO--AND STILL ARE--BY AMERICANS WHO WANT CHEAP LABOR.THE BUSINESS SECTOR NEW WELL WHAT THEY WERE DOING,BUT THEY CARED ONLY ABOUT THEIR BOTTOM LINE AND TO HELL WITH PATRIOTISM.MOREOVER,THEY ARE THE FIRST TO ACCUSE SOMEONE ELSE OF BEING UNPATRIOTIC WHEN THEY ARE NUMERO UNO. AND THEY DON'T GIVE A GNAT'S ASS.
I think US Military National Guard Units not active should Round up all mexicans, cubans, latinos, and especially blacks(africa) and ship them all of any nationality out of AMERICA and let Them in only speaking english and fingerprint and take DNA from everyone of them problems to to AMERICAN CULTURE and live the way AMERICANS do and quit taking american jobs.......BANISH THEM ALL!!!!
Dear Blog Owner,
I would like to bring to your attention that a specific YouTube account called XenuTV has been unjustly discountinued from your services. It was suspended due to copyright infringement claims of a certain clip of Stephen Colbert from Comedy Central from your broadcast. However I have contacted Comedy Central personally at 212 767 8600 and they said it is no reason for concern. This is clear proof that they are not concerned about YouTube censorship. Please do whatever is in your power to rescind Mark Bunker's YouTube channel XenuTV IMMEDIATELY. I would greatly appreciate your concern on this matter.
I thank you for your time.
I SUPPORT TOM TANCREDO ALL THE WAY! ILLEGAL MEANS AGAINST THE LAW. MEXICANS OR ANY OTHER RACE NEED TO GET IN LINE FOR CITIZENSHIP LIKE THE REST THAT DO LEGALLY.
Man!! Why even comment On something so Reprehencable. This Country was founded with Immigrants Go back in time to the time of Columbus did Columbus ask Where's your Papers I am an American No He Did Not Because he was from Spain!~! Ignorant people make me Sick.
please check out a Dream Deferred as well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBuTxE2kDwQ
http://adreamdeferred.org/
let's blame all mexicans for are poor economy, it is a lot easier to blame others than look at the real problems in our nation! All those right wing born again folks should anwer the basic question of to do with the children who were born in the USA.
I'd like to comment that voting is only a very small part of being involved politically. There are many other ways one can do things that promote the common good.
One of my favorites is to protest corporations that commit human & civil rights abuses. A good example of this is, somewhat ironically, Youtube! This is because Youtube has made it extremely difficult and as untransparent as possible to respond to complaints one receives about their account here. Take, for example, Mark Bunker, a man who is critical of the Church of Scientology. Because of Youtube's obtuse and draconian methods of enforcing copyright complaints and its own TOS, Mr. Bunker no longer has a Youtube account. This effectively means that Youtube is a conspirator in the efforts of moneyed interests worldwide who do not wish to suffer any criticism.
This country was built by immigrants. This country IS immigrants with the exception of the American Indians. Maybe the American Indian should just take this country back and send this entire nation of immigrants home. Simplistic, I know, but what a concept.
The American Indian had the right idea: To share and to welcome the strangers (immigrants) who landed on their shores. Look what it got them. Then the plague spread to Africa. The African people wanted to welcome and share with the strangers who landed on their shore, look what happened to them. There's a pattern here; an unsightly, ugly American history. There are certain kinds of people who just believe and live by the rule 'what's yours is mine and what's mine is mine'.
It's the 'people' in Washington DC who create the problems and the problems are underscored with the g word: GREED. We the American people voted the greed group in….I think. Even the voting process has evolved into a bunch of crooked, dishonest crap. Our own complacency has escorted this country to this point. The fat and the fed are afraid to rock the boat. The satisfied, unconcerned, non-voting, clueless wake up one day and it’s suddenly a different world, a world they/we don’t like very much.
We cannot point to any specific ethnic group and claim that everything is their fault, not by a long shot; but we can point toward an American (corporate) government that has completely lost it. We the American voters let it get this out of hand by looking the other way as long as we could still make our house payments and buy food and toys and leisure and comfort. We all love la la land.
So, you see, immigration isn’t the problem. It’s a symptom of something much deeper, insidious and frightening.
And that's all I have to say about that. Actions speak louder than words.
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