Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman figured that if only they could get Congress and the media squawking loud enough that we are being invaded by Mexicans, no one will notice that all the organs of our government have been seized by Ferengi.
So far it’s working.
You could cut the demagoguery with a knife, but it better be well sharpened steel.
The GOP having decided it would help in the fall elections if they could stir up a good rolling boil of racist resentment against wetbacks – and then having discovered that they didn’t actually want to do anything about it – our Senators longed to make a bold and forthright stand, to show the world that they hate that awful Spanish stuff more than anybody.
So on Monday they passed a resolution that the Star Spangled Banner should be sung in English. And, while they were at it, that citizenship oaths and the Pledge of Allegiance should be recited in English too.
But wait! In the course of reaffirming what they assume to be the electorate’s revulsion against all things Hispanic, they didn’t want to alienate any Hispanic voters. So, performing a neat straddle across the requirements of bigotry and PC, they cleverly omitted the word “only”. Their final language, after the obligatory slop bucketload of Whereas-es, ran thus:
Resolved, That the Senate affirms that statements or songs that symbolize the unity of the Nation, including the National Anthem, the Oath of Allegiance sworn by new United States citizens, and the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States, should be recited or sung in English, the common language of the United States.
From this one gleans the point of the whole exercise: we Anglos may take comfort that, after the Brown Peril has swamped our country under a flood of siestas, piñatas, and little candy skeletons on el día de los Muertos, the Pledge and Anthem will still be performed in English at least every now and then.
Meanwhile, the Whereas-es tendered their own amusements.
Actually, I found this Whereas more offensive than amusing:
Whereas the people of the United States are united not by race, ancestry, or origin, but by a common language, English…
(The bill does go on to mention, as if in afterthought, that we Yanks have some founding ideas like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in common, too. But it appears those are but the icing of Americanism, while English is the cake.)
In explaining how very important it is for Americans to be “united”, to be, you know, all like each other rather than (shudder)different,
this Whereas gets trotted to the front of the stage:
Whereas the original national motto of the United States, `E Pluribus Unum’, meaning `from many, one’, signifies the coming together of people from many foreign countries to form one Nation, was incorporated into the Great Seal of the United States in 1776, is printed on currency of the United States, and inscribed on the wall of the Senate chamber;
In the light of this resolution, don’t they have to sandblast “E Pluribus Unum” off the wall of the Senate chamber, and replace it with something in English?
If they don’t, our great land could be overrun by hordes of olive-skinned aliens in togas, taking away those vine tending and coliseum building jobs that ought to go to real Americans. And I would hate that more than anybody.
Tinsel Wing 