Frank Sharry leaves my questions unanswered, confirms MSM bias (FireDogLake forum)

Massive immigration supporter Frank Sharry - formerly of the National Immigration Forum and now with America's Voice - stopped by FireDogLake earlier today for a chat with their readers: firedoglake.com/2008/05/04/fdl-welcomes-frank-sharry-of-americas-voice

While he answered questions from others, he failed to answer a few I posed despite the fact that few others asked him anything and he had over 20 minutes to think up a good response; more below.

He also gave what will hopefully turn out to be spectacularly bad advice:

On the one hand, I do think it will matter hugely if progressive forces -- if labor, and immigrant advocates, and Latinos, and African Americans, -- if we close ranks, and Democrats get on offense [against "nativist sentiment"], that's going to matter hugely. ...the way to deal with the right-wing echo chamber is to marginalize them through a combination of political power and winning the argument over who has the better solution... We increasingly are and will take them on. There's an anti-hate approach that's part of the strategy. But from my point of view, the real key is to have the netroots take this on as an issue. I think we pretty much have the upper hand in the mainstream print press. And I think eventually we want to make cartoon figures out of TV talkers like who are cartoon characters.

There really isn't much of an argument in favor of massive and/or illegal immigration; the only way some make that argument is through being misleading in one way or another. And, many bloggers do post in support of illegal immigration, then get comments on those threads pointing out how they're wrong. While some new voices might join in, they'll soon leave as they see their credibility fall. And, it's good to see that Sharry at least partially agrees with me on the biases of the "print press".

Here's the comment I left, in case Sharry drops by and wants to leave a comment or something. Comments can be left 24/7, no waiting. Alternatively, those who attend his public appearances should try to ask him these or the many other questions he should answer (links added):

1. Approximately how much did your former group (the NIF) obtain from companies that profit from illegal immigration? I know they got at least $40,000 from Western Union, a company that illegal aliens use to send money to their home countries. Can you give us a ballpark figure on any other money received from other companies that profit from illegal immigration?

2. Would you agree that illegal immigration is an indicator of government corruption, and that anyone who supports illegal immigration through things like discouraging enforcement of our laws is supporting government corruption?

3. The ACLU is working directly with the Mexican government, and other non-profits have direct or indirect links as well. And, Calderon recently stated that they’re going to be using U.S. non-profits to push their agenda inside the U.S. Will you denounce such meddling in our internal politics?

Comments

Yes massive political and race illegal immigration and Legal so called immigration is part of the plan and no one who wants to keep a job inside the system is going to answer your political question about this plan of massive race dismantling of the USA Its about keeping your job if people start to see the evil facts the boys on the inside will just move on from that Question and make fun of the person asking any good questions, that is also part of the plan and yes we all know that the ACLU Is working for race and political interest of foreign nation states for many race reasons. and come-on-people its all about this plan of the one world people to make your kids into GOOD Little workers of the world, if you know what i mean? so if you will not take up arms for you nation or for your own live as a free people you may as well get in line for mexico. by 2100 one billion third world people will be living inside the former borders of the USA. what do you think this place will be like?

By the way some person or people set-off a bomb in L.A. At the political race builing one called the federal builing, at from what i understand was about 140am This may have been only some gang people or A Nut case person but it may have been some real brave Heroes who understand what freedom means, we may never know the names or what really will happen, the FBI on orders from the race political people will do its best to stop any more news. if it is freedom fighters inside the former USA Keep up the good work of freedom against the enemies of our lost nation.

Firedoglake, Hullabaloo, DownwithTyranny and others are all now infested with Dave Neiwert following pro Open Borders trolls. Dave Neiwert is linked to Chip Berlet a far far leftie. Look up Berlet's wiki. There's a constant battle over its editing by the way. That anybody gives likes of Dave Neiwert the time of day not to mention additional platforms from which to spread his nonsense is beyond me.

Has anyone else noticed this slight change from Sharry? For a long time, he pretended attrition policy didn't exist at all as a policy option and made the mass deportation straw man false argument. Now, he is starting to (forced to?) mention attrition, but only in passing, and still goes back to the old mass deportation or citizenship, one or the other card. Perhaps in his mind deportation and attrition are one and the same. It's certainly possible for someone with a strong ideological bias to be blind to clear distinctions. However, he's always mentioning that he doesn't think deportation plays well with the public and thus appears quick to disingenuously label practically *everything* 'deportation'. E.g., his press release opposition to the SAVE Act repeatedly called it 'deportation-only' when it obviously isn't. So maybe it's just a tactic. It really doesn't make a difference which it actually is. 'Barack gets this issue. I've been in some meetings with him and he so gets this issue. Really gets it. And she [Hillary Clinton] does too.' Obama and Frank Sharry hang out enough to be on a first name basis? That's not encouraging but hardly surprising. If you listen to Obama's words, oral and written (who knows if really by him) on immigration many of them are cliches which could have come straight from NIF or La Raza literature. STRAW MAN: 'But the heart of the political and policy debate is: 12 million people -- citizens, or deportees?' 'The issues aren't clear enough, we haven't done a good enough job of making the issue clear -- that it's between mass deportation and earned citizenship.' There's a lot of room in between, of course. He wants the biggest reward possible for unlawfulness so naturally he wants you to think the only other option is a too impractical/harsh to be a political threat 'punishment' (although in legal terms, a deportation act is not considered a prosecution nor expulsion a punishment). What probably scares him to death is knowing that the soft side of the public could be satisfied by measures well less than amnesty. He'll also never admit that a lot of people prefer doing nothing to granting amnesty. Thus, contrary to his stated goal, the LAST thing he really wants is to make the issue clear with ALL policy options on the table. That's pretty obvious when he keeps referring to the whopping total of 2(!) potential courses of action. Something in the middle (but not nearly enough for him) could actually pass. Instead 'comprehensive immigration reform' will be trotted out as compromise which obviously isn't much of one if people like Sharry, Bush, Kennedy, Mahony, et al are eager for it to pass.

Sharry is a corporate tool, and if he and the elites who run the HuffPo think that there is support among the netroots for illegal aliens (the correct, legal term) he's seriously delusonal. Perhaps one or two affluent writers from the site support it, but commenters on the HuffPo, and they are liberal democrats, are highly against amnesty and the so called "reform" that McCain and Kennedy were advocating. Millions of American citizens are impacted negativelyby illegals, more Americans see their children, family and friends losing jobs, seeing their costs rise to subsidize illegal aliens (another form of corporate welfare) and are fed up with it. Each time some writer on the HuffPo has attempted to turn on the waterwork for illegals, the comments from long time democratic readers of the site, rail against it. I'm a democrat, and I am passionately in favor of closing the border and strong enforcement, including deportation. You don't help poor people south of the border by rationalizing the status quo of their home countries. They can go home and work hard for change there. BTW, I love Lou Dobbs, as do a majority of American citizens, and those same Lou Dobbs fans are black and brown as well as white.

www.webofdeception.com Lou Dobbs of CNN and what he pays in property tax: 14 acres for $26.03 annually 31 acres for $146.94 annually 30 acres for $238.08 annually 62 acres for $414.78 annually 43 acres for $368.28 annually 90 acres for $597.06 annually 270 acres for $1,793.27 equals $6.64 (six dollars and sixty-four cents) an acre for property tax