What’s the Difference?

President Obama’s executive order concerning immigration is being threatened with every ridiculous threat that the party of NO can conjure up. Check your history: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and every Republican and Democrat for the past half century has used their power of executive order to right the wrongs of this country’s immigration laws.

President George H. W. Bush, through the Family Fairness Program, covered about 1.5 million spouses and children. This represented forty percent of the undocumented immigrants in our country at that time. Why was it so wonderful when President Bush did it and so wrong when President Obama does it?

Well, let’s see…oh yes, he wasn’t born in one of the forty-eight and he is not white. You see how shallow you NO people are.

The bottom line is, if you are not a full-bloodied American Indian, you have no right to say who can or cannot make their home in the United States. Our bloodlines all started someplace else.

We were all foreigners whose families wanted a better life for their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They packed a few belongings and, with faith in their God, and faith in a new country, they boarded a ship in Germany, France, Austria or some other country and made the arduous trip to America. Some who came after 1886, on first seeing the lovely Lady Liberty, so regal and welcoming, dropped to their knees and wept.

Let us open our hearts to those who want to be a part of our great and benevolent country. Let us welcome our new brothers and sisters, as our antecedents wished to be, to the melting pot of our shared homeland.

All Hail Our Patchwork Quilt

From the lodge…… several days ago, the morning edition of the Courier Journal brought me my Blog subject for today.

“Obama lifts deportation threat for children who came to U.S.”

This is one of the issues from the Dream Act, but a very important part for children whose parents brought them to this great country for  more opportunity.

Even though they have grown up in the United States as illegals, this is the only country they have known. They have had to pursue their life, their work and their education under threat of deportation.

“This will give young people an opportunity to finally come out of the shadows, so they can study or join the military and contribute to our society…this is extremely significant,” said the Rev. Antonio Aja, coordinator for Hispanic/Latino Ministries for the Mid-Kentucky Presbytery. He said the number of people affected in Kentucky could reach the thousands.

A student attending the Jefferson Community and Technical College said the new policy will allow her to pay for her education, pursue a career and have a better life. A student attending the University of Louisville said when she heard the news on Friday, she was hopeful and relieved. “I wanted to cry,” she said. “The dream my parents had when they left Mexico 17 years ago is finally becoming a reality.”

Of course the Republicans were opposed, but what else is new from the party of “NO”.  If it doesn’t help make the wealthy richer then we have to vote NO.

We should all remember, unless all of your forefathers were full-bloodied Indians, most likely driven to the reservation by “newcomers,” you too are a child of immigrants who came here looking to improve the lives of their immediate families and those who came further down the line. You only have to research your family tree to find your predecessors came to this country with the same hopes, visions and desires for success as today’s immigrants, so what makes you judge or jury against someone seeking to better themselves?

Let’s get the rest of the Dream Act moving in the right direction and welcome all who cherish the desire to be U.S. citizens; welcome all to join with the rest of us and move our country forward.

Generations before me, my relations sailed on ships full of immigrants and they loved and respected this country with every fiber of their being.  So, welcome to our country, each and every one!

Attitude Check

From the lodge……………..It has been a while since I have been on the blog train. Good to be back with my friends. A pretty nasty bout of Bronchitis laid me low for several weeks. Just before the broney bout I was ready to write this blog. As I laid low, my state of mind on the subject intensified.

When I was a young child, growing up in the late twenties, and in the thirties, forties and fifties, I believed we lived in one of the most loving, giving, respectful countries in the world. Yes, it took time for civil rights to be recognized by law and by fellow citizens. We are still working on that. In the past, America was always first to help, care and share with our brothers and sisters around the world. To an extent we still try to help in time of disaster and I am proud of that. Sometimes I think we could be humanitarians to our own a little more.

So, why have so many Americans become so hateful, disrespectful, and greedy ?

I am appalled at the disrespect we afford our President and our elected government officials. Calling our President a liar would have bordered on treason back in my day.

I am saddened by the fact that those of us that do not worry about health care can be so uncaring for those who do not have this very basic item that is not a luxury, but something that should be available to all citizens. I am puzzled by the Right to Life activist who bombards us with the rights of the unborn but who I have never heard a peep out of about discarding the elderly by denying them health care they cannot afford. Which one is not a human entity?

I am an avid reader of the daily news and lament the demise of so many fine newspapers in our country, but the news media of all ilks share responsibility for the bad manners of some people and the proliferation of individuals and or groups that spew hatred. The press gravitates to the screaming idiots who have no desire to support and help our country during trying times–the ones whose aim is to protect the haves and the have nots be dammed. Of course they are stellar citizens–they have the props to prove it: they have an American flag in their cap, and the Bible in one hand hoisted high with a gun in the other. My assessment of that picture is that the flag does not make you a good American, the Bible does not make you a good Christian and the gun sure to hell doesn’t make you a patriot.

Our country needs to get back to caring about one another, sharing with each other when there is a need, respecting each other and especially the men and women who try every day to make this a better country for everyone–our elected government officials, our school teachers, policemen, firemen, and all others who give us comfort and care in our time of need. My mother always told us, you are born happy individuals–you have to work at being mean and uncaring.

I will close this blog with this thought. Just recently 371 immigrants from 70 different countries became US Citizens here in Louisville, Kentucky. Most were so overcome they shed tears of joy and hugged each other. They were all so proud. I wonder how long before the bloom will be off the rose and they realize we have so many self-serving people among us. I hope this does not happen, for we need all the kind loving proud citizens we can get right now regardless of where they called home, be it Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Somalia or Mexico.