A documentary about the immigration situation in Northern Virginia from independent filmmakers Eric Byler, Annabel Park, and Jeff Man is currently being serialized on the web: youtube.com/9500Liberty. Nick Miroff of the Washington Post promotes it in "Raw Look at Immigration Crucible". Both he and a member of the local Minuteman Civil Defense Corps say they're balanced. However, a glance at the videos casts a great deal of doubt on that, and Miroff admits that both Byler and Park volunteered for the James Webb campaign. In fact:

"Watching George Allen look into the camera and point and say you are not the real Virginia, the real Virginia is the people who are laughing with me at you, reminded me of this whole thing that was never resolved," Byler said.

What a creative retelling of events. Whatever the issue with Macaca, the "real" statement wasn't directed at the cameraman: it was meant to draw a contrast between where Allen was and where Webb was at that moment, namely in Hollywood. Since Byler can't get that right, don't expect the videos to be much better.

A sample video is at: youtube.com/watch?v=k_Dw1ioGPGY Someone who might be refered to as an old coot objects to people speaking Spanish and has other old cootish concerns. For this the commentors on the video call him a racist. The overall impact of this segment is to portray Hispanics as oppressed victims of people like him.

However, the issues on that segment go much deeper, and both the filmmakers and Miroff appear to be too steeped in leftwing ideology to recognize those issues. Here's his first paragraph, refering to this video:

In one video, a man furious about hearing Spanish at a hardware store berates a group of Latino families with a lecture on American history, telling them "my ancestors were here before the Constitution." A little girl shyly reminds him: "The Indians were here before the Americans."

And, someone else says that the Europeans came here illegally. What Miroff and Byler don't pick up on is that we're importing people who think they have a race-based claim on our land. And, they're expressing that claim and using it as justification for coming here contrary to our laws.

That theme is also included in a clip called "Hispanic Children Will One Day Rise" (youtube.com/watch?v=HyzMOcjITvI); that's a quote from a black high school teacher (Patrick Garland) who spoke at a meeting of the Prince William County board after which they passed a Proposition 200-style ordinance (link). He spoke against the ordinance, and, on the video, he also says that, because we're a nation of immigrants, we're "in no position to say that this is our country."

Obviously, if we can't say who can come here, then we've not only got open borders we have no control over our country and in fact we no longer have a country.

Bearing in mind that YT is pretty much at the AOL level when it comes to political debate, the comments left on the videos show the dangers inherent in allowing mass immigration by those who can pretend to have some race-based right to come here at will. A few examples from different people are in the extended entry.

UPDATE: They've re-edited the old coot's episode here: youtube.com/watch?v=29WTKbpYhag

With that, they've revealed their hand: their goal is engaging in base racial demagoguery, not fostering debate.

3/2/10 UPDATE: Due to the switch to a new CMS, the formatting in the following got mixed up, confusing me in the other recent update that was here. In any case, the following are the Youtube video comments left by others referred to three paragraphs up, delimited by dashes; whether some of these should be run together is lost to the sands of time:

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"America is the land of immigrants" who has the right to say "this is our country" the Native Americans are the one who should be able to say it, not Anglo-American.

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coming from an half african and mexican male.i love my people and this land was ours and don't tell me my people had nothing to do with building this country.we built this country.

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by-the-way. that old man has no more claim to live here than any of thoseb legal hispanics, his people came to America and persecuted my ancestors [the filmmakers posted a reply saying they wanted to interview that poster]

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That old white guy needs to go to school. Every race here except for the Natives shouldn't be here. It was rightfully their land before the white people.

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BTW I am not hispanic but I feel for them.some parts of Mexico was forcefully taken in violence hence California,Colorado,Texas now U.S.A..

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you said it, this land is stolen... so, Mexicans are just recovering it

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the fact that europeans have been illegal in this country since 1492 doesnt seem to cross anyone's mind

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They think they own the land that they are on right now, and think it always belonged to them. When in all actuality it belonged\belongs to the Indians.

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The Native Americans were in the country first until a pack of people from another country decide to take it over. Some Hispanics (primarily Mexicans) are mixed of European and Native American blood, so technically his "we were here first" argument is completely invalidated by that fact alone.

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When each group(Irish, German, Italian) came to this stolen country they had their languages they spoke and if you were in a deli or store you heard it. We slaughtered the Native Americans and as far as this side of the world Natives of South America were here first. We shot and killed and stole land from them. I dare you to find me a spoiled white kid who is willing to leave their ipod or X box to work when their parents hand them everything.

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If that american guy actually studied HIS history he would know that the americans as we know it today KILLED all the natives and claimed this land as theirs.