Arizona Green Party Congressional Candidate Richard Grayson Says: Do the Arizona Hustle!

Green Party Candidate for Congress AZ-06 Richard Grayson Poll: SHOULD ARIZONA BE KICKED OUT OF THE UNITED STATES?

Many supporters have suggested that, in the highly unlikely situation that I do get elected to Congress, the first piece of legislation I introduce should be one to eliminate my job -- and those of John McCain, John Kyl, and the other Arizona members of the U.S. House of Representatives. In other words, they want me to sponsor a bill that would kick Arizona out of the union. This would eliminate the state that's dead last in job creation and education and which comes in second in the percentage of its residents living in poverty.

They say Arizona's anti-American attitudes -- its racism, xenophobia, crazy right-wing nativist tea-party wacko majority's weirdo beliefs -- make it so sucky that the Cactus State needs to be given the boot. The residents seem to hate the federal government anyway.

Miss Wit, aka Deborah Goldstein, designed this t-shirt that shows a map of the proposed improved Arizona-less United States ("Piece Out, Arizona"). We'd like to ask those who stop by our website here to vote in the poll at right over the next week and tell us what you think: Do you think Arizona should be thrown out of the Union?

Over One-Fifth of Arizonans Live in Poverty, and Rep. Jeff Flake Does Nothing But Laugh and Say, "Go Fuck Yourselves, Poor People!"

According to the latest report, more than one-fifth of Arizonans live in poverty, a figure higher than anywhere else in the nation except Mississippi.

Figures Thursday from the U.S. Census Bureau show nearly 1.4 million Arizonans in households earning less than the federal poverty level - about 21.2 percent.

As Howard Fischer wrote for Capitol Media Services,

The new report shows that even with a sluggish national economy, there is an increasing disparity between Arizonans and those living everywhere else.

In 2007, for example, before the economy tanked, Arizona's poverty rate was 14.3 percent, compared with the national rate of 12.5 percent. That put Arizona at 14th-highest in nation.

By 2008, the percentage of Arizonans living in poverty rose to 18 percent, while the national figure rose to 13.2 percent. That ranked Arizona fourth-highest in the U.S. And the current 21.2 percent number is approaching a level one and a half times the national average.

What has Rep. Jeff Flake ever done for Arizona's poor people? Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Bupkis.

Oh wait, with his votes, he's laughed at their poverty and told them to go fuck themselves.

You're on your own, poor people, Jeff Flake says with a smile as he votes against unemployment benefits, food stamps, government aid to children, for housing, for education.


Jeff Flake doesn't give a shit about poor people, and that's one reason he needs to be replaced.

But, you, the dopey assholes who make up the most of the voters in the East Valley's Sixth Congressional District, don't give a shit about your poor neighbors, either, and that's why Jeff Flake is a shoo-in for re-election.

He doesn't have to worry about opponents who actually would try to help poor people like Democrat Rebecca Schneider or myself.

Those Arizonans who live in poverty deserve better representation in Congress than do-nothing, care-nothing, fuck-the-poor free-market fanatic Jeff Flake and his equally disgusting Republican colleagues.

Why Arizona Sucks

Que Lástima, Arizona: State Leaders Favor Bland Homogeneity Over Diversity

At WorldHum, Adam Karlin has an articulate and perceptive take on Arizona and immigration from the traveler's point of view. An excerpt:

Twenty-four million Mexicans legally cross into Arizona every year to spend money. Many are now thinking twice about doing so, which is going to be a hell of a blow to Arizona’s tourism revenue—1 in 10 travelers here is Mexican. One of the most touristed states in the nation now faces one of the biggest tourism boycotts of any individual state.

And the law may discourage more than the simple act of movement. All those boycotts speak to something else: a blow to the blended identity that makes Arizona so interesting. Besides her considerable natural beauty, Arizona’s attraction lies in the way she merges Sonora, Mexico and the American Southwest like she blends purple and red and orange and pink and indigo into impossibly beautiful sunsets. If SB 1070 widens divisions between Arizona’s Anglos and Latinos, it will be harming a big source of the state’s appeal.

La Frontera encompasses two overlapping universes and the creative tension of a human Venn diagram. Take Ajo, Arizona, 40 miles from Sonyata, Mexico. Amid its low-slung homes with air-con boxes busting out the side and the bulb-y round cupolas of the smooth white Catholic mission is a Moorish-Mediterranean-Mexican thread you could tug on and follow to the red dirt towns of nearby Sonora. Those polished white-tile presidios come from across the ocean to the scrubbed out sunshine and low-slung, red roofs of Andalucia, themselves just a hop north of the olive groves (which resemble palo verde copses) and breezy riads of Morocco. Which is speckled with its bulb-y white cupola-ed mosques and trilling ouds which, hey, sound quite-near-almost-proximate to the flamenco guitar that just came out of the local radio station back in Ajo.

The mix is heady and fascinating, and the tragic thing is people of all political stripes here recognize that. I talked with ranchers who supported the law who were hardly bigots. They had fed and given water to immigrants crossing on foot. Many had raised their children to be bilingual. But they feared for their safety. Like a lot of potentially bad legislation, SB 1070 was founded in fear, a panic that followed the murder of rancher Robert Krentz near the border. “Really, it’s not the workers we’re worried about,” one rancher said. “It’s the drug guys.” I had the sense he really meant it, and that if it weren’t for the violence that recently accompanied the Mexican drug trade, the law wouldn’t have popped on his radar.

Or would it have? With bans on ethnic studies classes and teachers with strong accents (are Mississippi teachers included?), however genuine and nice those ranchers were, it’s hard not to feel as though the legislators of Arizona are giving the finger to anyone who doesn’t fit into the muzak sprawl that is the not-seamy-but-boring underbelly of Arizona. The tract housing that spills over Paradise Valley; the obscene golf courses fuzzed green by an increasingly scarce water table; the architects behind the faux-dobe shopping malls that, but for their pseudo-Southwest façade, could be from Houston or Seattle or Dayton or anywhere.

I can’t analyze the legislation as an immigration or security expert, but I can see it from the vantage point of the traveler. And speaking as a traveler, I’m worried that the general mindset of Arizona’s leaders, as exemplified by the above laws, favors bland homogeneity over diversity.

Everywhere I go in Arizona, I see the beauty that occurs when the best of two cultures happily interbreed. If this law increases community tensions between brown and white, it will ultimately work against the gourmet food stalls where Anglo artists paint clever variants on Day of the Dead demigods while serving jazzed up versions of green chile; the radio stations that juke between norteño music and Cowpunk sets; burlesque shows that balance Victorian corsets with chola-inspired graffiti; the sense of opportunity that draws the best and brightest and hardest-working from other countries (thanks, Mexico) and weaves them into our national tapestry.

Que lástima. Beware this law, Arizona. I don’t support a tourism boycott—it’s too simple a punishment for people with complex motivations—but will whatever safety is gained by the law (if any safety is gained) be worth losing all of the above? Because there’s a lot more at risk than tourism dollars and tacos.

Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL): Arizona Immigration Law "Reminiscent of Gestapo"

Many Republicans across the country have been criticizing Arizona's hateful and unconstitutional new immigration law. Here's a statement released by Rep. Connie Mack, Republican of Florida:

There’s no question that our nation’s immigration policies are in dire straits. We all agree that inaction by both the Bush and the Obama Administrations has compounded this problem and forced states like Arizona to take drastic measures.

But the new Arizona law strikes a severe blow to freedom and the principles that make our nation strong. This law of “frontier justice” – where law enforcement officials are required to stop anyone based on “reasonable suspicion” that they may be in the country illegally – is reminiscent of a time during World War II when the Gestapo in Germany stopped people on the street and asked for their papers without probable cause. It shouldn’t be against the law to not have proof of citizenship on you.

This is not the America I grew up in and believe in, and it’s not the America I want my children to grow up in. [italics ours]

Instead of enacting laws that trample on our freedoms, we should be seeking more ways to create opportunities for immigrants to come to our nation legally and be productive citizens. We must improve our border security both north and south, and make certain that we have sufficient resources in place to enforce our immigration laws.

America has always been, and should always be, a beacon for those seeking freedom. But as a wise man once said, a government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take it all away – and that includes our freedom to live our lives as we see fit.

Linda Greenhouse: Arizona a "Police State," Calls on Everyone to Identify as Illegal Alien

Linda Greenhouse, the retired New York Times Supreme Court reporter - when I taught U.S. constitutional history and political & civil rights courses at Nova Southeastern University, I used to tell my college students to read her reporting on the the justices' opinions - has an op-ed column today on Arizona's immigration law that ends with the suggestion that everyone in Arizona identify as an illegal alien, as in our campaign's T-shirts. Excerpts:

I’m glad I’ve already seen the Grand Canyon.

Because I’m not going back to Arizona as long as it remains a police state, which is what the appalling anti-immigrant bill that Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law last week has turned it into.

What would Arizona’s revered libertarian icon, Barry Goldwater, say about a law that requires the police to demand proof of legal residency from any person with whom they have made “any lawful contact” and about whom they have “reasonable suspicion” that “the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States?” Wasn’t the system of internal passports one of the most distasteful features of life in the Soviet Union and apartheid-era South Africa? . . .

I’ll offer a reflection on how, a generation ago, another of the country’s periodic anti-immigrant spasms was handled by the Supreme Court. In 1975, Texas passed a law to deprive undocumented immigrant children of a free public education. Many thousands of children — a good number of whom were on the road to eventual citizenship under immigration laws that were notably less harsh back then — faced being thrown out of school and deprived of a future.

The law was challenged in federal court, with the Carter administration supporting the plaintiffs. By the time the case, Plyler v. Doe, reached the Supreme Court, Ronald Reagan was president, and there was a major debate within his administration over whether to change sides. Rex E. Lee, the admirable solicitor general, refused to do so.

In June 1982, by a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court struck down the Texas law. Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote for the majority that the constitutional guarantee of equal protection prohibited the state from imposing “a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status.” Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., a Nixon appointee and the swing justice of his day, provided the fifth vote. The law “threatens the creation of an underclass of future citizens and residents,” he wrote.

I have no doubt that but for that ruling, public school systems all over the country would be checking papers and tossing away their undocumented students like so much playground litter. Blocked from that approach, local governments now try others. The city of Hazleton, Pa., passed a law that made it a crime for a landlord to rent an apartment to an undocumented immigrant. A federal district judge struck down the law on the ground that immigration is the business of the federal government, not of Hazleton, Pa.

Indeed, federal pre-emption would appear to be the most promising route for attacking the Arizona law. Supreme Court precedents make clear that immigration is a federal matter and that the Constitution does not authorize the states to conduct their own foreign policies.

My confidence about the law’s fate in the court’s hands is not boundless, however. In 1982, hours after the court decided the Texas case, a young assistant to Attorney General William French Smith analyzed the decision and complained in a memo: “This is a case in which our supposed litigation program to encourage judicial restraint did not get off the ground, and should have.” That memo’s author was John G. Roberts Jr.

So what to do in the meantime? Here’s a modest proposal. Everyone remembers the wartime Danish king who drove through Copenhagen wearing a Star of David in support of his Jewish subjects. It’s an apocryphal story, actually, but an inspiring one. Let the good people of Arizona — and anyone passing through — walk the streets of Tucson and Phoenix wearing buttons that say: I Could Be Illegal.

Green Party of Maricopa County: "Apartheid State Here in Arizona"

From the website of the Maricopa Greens:

The Green Party-US stands firmly for social justice for all those living in this country, regardless of their immigration status. Above all, policy and law must be humane. Anything less would be inconsistent with our Green Values, and with our nation's values. The Green Party must consider immigration issues from an international viewpoint, taking into account international labor and environmental standards, and human rights. Undocumented immigrants who are already residing and working in the United States, and their families, should be granted a legal status which includes the chance to become U.S. citizens.

Arizona Senate Bill 1070 became law on Friday, April 23, 2010. The new legislation makes it a state crime to be in the United States illegally. It requires local law enforcement to determine an individual's immigration status if an officer suspects that person is in the country illegally. . .

The signing of Senate Bill 1070 has created an apartheid state here in Arizona. The Green Party of Maricopa County (GPMC) and the Arizona Green Party (AZGP) will organize with others to help overturn this legislation. Join us! La lucha continua!

[images ours]

Grayson for Congress AZ-06 Campaign T-Shirts

ARIZONA ILLEGAL ALIEN T-shirt

Coming soon to the streets of the East Valley...

"We tried everything to keep the Immigrants out! We even lined the border with the crappiest states."
- Stephen Colbert

ARIZONA – OR A NAZI?

ARIZONA – OR A NAZI?

I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation.
– Cardinal Roger Mahony

We can.