Big S.F. protest of Arizona immigration law

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(05-01) 16:05 PDT -- Thousands marched through San Francisco's Mission District Saturday to denounce a new Arizona state law as racist and to call for immigration reform.

The march, part of the annual worldwide May Day workers' rights demonstrations, stretched four to five blocks and ended at City Hall, where members of the conservative Tea Party and local Golden Gate Minutemen held a counter-protest.

Jim Homer, a business manager for the Local 216 Laborers International Union of North America, whose 100-member group led the march, said many fellow construction laborers fear Arizona's SB1070 will spread to California and create cultural hostility toward foreign-born workers.

"The immigration system is set up to blame the workers who come here," Homer said. "There needs to be reform of the immigration laws that put more focus on the employers and their responsibilities, not just on the people who come to this country to make a living."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/01/BAHD1D86I4.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea

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And guess what? There's also a big counter-protest at the comments section of this article, with the majority of top-recommended comments saying "the law is the law, just kick out the illegal immigrants" and one even suggesting "most of these protesters were illegal immigrants". And I suppose the counter-protest was much much smaller than the anti-SB1070 crowd unless the SF Chronicle exhibited a purposeful liberal bias to the level of Fox News standards. Were there any marches against Arizona SB1070 in your area? Discuss them here!

Here's a challenge to everyone who stands by this law. Yes, illegal immigration is illegal. But the thing is: What is ONE non-racist way to determine who is an illegal immigrant just by looking at him or her?

[Webster Green]

1. the comments section at the chron site is taken over by wingnuts..

they are on there every day bringing insanity about every story, no matter what it's about. It's racist hatred all day, every day.

[Proletariatprincess]

3. Right you are,WG.

I have lived in San Francisco for over 40 years and the Chron has never reflected the progressive views of my fellow citizens. This is a strong Labor town still.
The Examiner was a much better paper before it became just a shopping news. I miss the Examiner. I never read the Chronicle until it became the only paper in town.
I am still surprised by how many wingnuts write to the editor and get published. My letters never are. I am comforted, however, that most are out of towners. Of course, online we don't know where they are from or how the commments are moderated.

[Webster Green]

4. Yeah, I think they are mostly goobers from flyover country.

San Francisco is a symbol for everything they hate, so they flock to the site to display how bad-ass and patriotic they are. :eyes:

[FreakinDJ]

5. and Calif overwhelmingly approved prop 187 in 1994

California Proposition 187 (also known as the Save Our State initiative) was a 1994 ballot initiative designed to prohibit illegal immigrants from using social services, health care, and public education in the U.S. State of California. It was initially passed by the voters but later found unconstitutional by a federal court, with appeals against the judgement being halted by Governor Gray Davis in 1999.

Proposition 187 heated up the ongoing issue of illegal immigration into the United States and the state's large undocumented Latino population. It was viewed by opponents as based largely on xenophobia toward immigrants of Hispanic origin but supporters insisted that their concerns were entirely economic

[SoapBox]

2. Progressive sites need moderators...

I am usually only on 4 "progressive" type sites.

Three of them have some kind of moderations...from complete (I love that...the owner just doesn't post nutty stuff) to moderate.

My fourth site, has no moderation. The comments section sometimes are taken over by trolls posting garbage...it is absolutely frustrating. They derail the article completely.

Then, just today, someone mentioned that there are actually "Professional Blog Warriors". The poster then gave me
these two links...I never knew!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/17/12157/4714

http://www.cybersoc.com/2006/05/behind_netvocat.html

SO...whilst I'm all for free speech...free speech these days has gone out of control.