This first published January 17, 2008 in the Henderson Home News, a Community Newspapers of Nevada publication.
Nevada, you have an opportunity to make a statement to the rest of the country by participating in your local caucus. How we behave this weekend will speak volumes for months, if not for years.
Democrat or Republican, not only your voice but your actions will set the pace for what are probably the most important elections in our lifetimes.
The national media has now put us in the focus of the nation, even though there appeared to be a moment of denial after the New Hampshire primary that the Nevada caucus would be pertinent to presidential campaigns.
How easily they forget it was Nevada that put George W. Bush into the White House because of his empty promises of good science at Yucca Mountain. It is up to us to choose wisely and not make a decision based on any single hot-button issues, but to look in broader terms.
My own considerations involve global issues sprinkled with some state and domestic issues. Many people can’t quite grasp whether I’m Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, which illustrates my point about hot-button issues. Because I’m pro-life, some consider me to be conservative. However, in the same vein, I oppose the death penalty, which would color me as a liberal.
As a young man, I was a proud member of the National Rifle Association, which makes me a gun advocate, a conservative color for sure. On the other hand I’m definitely an advocate for peace and non-violent solutions, and this again colors me a liberal.
Though a registered Democrat, I can’t say I have ever voted a straight ticket in my life. Probably voting for as many Republicans as Democrats is a reflection of my being a Westerner and, more significantly, a Nevadan. Adopting platforms that didn’t really fit my lifestyle and belief system were never an option for me, so I left most party politics behind me in the ’80s.
In this presidential cycle, the candidate to catch my attention will need to show an interest in global matters such as “Smart Power” ‹ not the kind you get from an outlet either. It is the less tangible yet more empowering kind. There’s the superpower, or military power, of the United States, one of force and intimidation, and then there’s our Smart Power, the ability create global relationships through diplomatic strategies coupled with development assistance integrated with economic policies, defense and intelligence activities.
Last week I co-hosted IMPACT ’08 in Nevada, along with 80 or so other community leaders from around the state. IMPACT ’08 is a campaign launched by the Center for U.S. Global Engagement, which promotes “Building a Better, Safer World” through a 21st century vision of U.S. global leadership.
This national nonpartisan campaign co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci seeks to inspire the next administration to make Third World development, global health and diplomacy a priority.
Our presidential candidates need to grasp the importance of strengthening this country’s non-military tools of global engagement.
Most of us have never thought about foreign assistance and how it keeps America safe, nor have we considered how it works as a tool.
According to the Center for U.S. Global Engagement, U.S. foreign assistance works to keep America safer by stabilizing weakened states, assembling international anti-terrorism coalitions, combating weapons proliferation, fighting global crime and drug trafficking and promoting international understanding.
It demonstrates our moral values by alleviating poverty, expanding access to health care and basic education, combating the spread of infectious disease, supporting victims of disaster and conflict and strengthening democratic institutions and civil society.
Finally, it builds economic prosperity by promoting market access and global trade, supporting small and medium enterprise development, creating jobs, advocating for American business overseas and promoting economic development.
So what does this have to do with Saturday’s caucus here in Nevada? The answer is: Everything! You have a voice and a vote that can lead to a safer America for tomorrow by supporting candidates who have the “Smart Power” vision.
Desperate people take desperate measures. Desperation is the seed of terrorism. Desperate people today are the terrorist of tomorrow.
You are the voice, you have the vote. Don’t waste it.
Tim O’Callaghan, co-publisher of the Home News, can be reached at 990-2656
or tim.oc@vegas.com.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Museum makes Holocaust real
This first published April 5, 2007 in the Henderson Home News, a Community Newspapers of Nevada publication. It is one of several previously published columns that will be posted in the coming weeks.
After many years of going to Washington, D.C., I had never taken the time to visit any of the many national museums until last month, when my wife joined me on one of my trips.
We had visited several museums, but none had the impact of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Growing up in a family that had considerable connections to Israel and the Jewish
community through our father, I was certainly aware of the horrific human suffering and genocide of Jewish people in eastern Europe under the persecution of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime.
All the books I've read and the movies I've watched didn't prepare me for the emotional, physical and intellectual exercise I was about to experience.
The visit to the memorial had been planned for months with Nancy Wesoff, the executive director of the Housing Authority of Clark County, where I serve on the board.
Upon entering the memorial Nancy said we should check our coats. This seemed odd at first, because we had carried our coats at other museums.
Nancy then escorted us to counter filled with small books labeled “IDENTIFICATION CARD.” Before I knew what we were doing, she picked up one of the books from the left side of the counter and said, “Please let mine be a survivor.” I then realized we were each picking up a biography of a victim of the Holocaust. As I picked one from the right side of the counter, I quietly prayed for a survivor too.
Nancy flipped to the last page and sighed with relief as I read the following from the book I picked up.
“This card tells the story of a real person who lived during the Holocaust.
“Name: Chaim Frenkiel
“Date of Birth: November 2, 1927
“Place of Birth: Gabin, Poland
“Chaim was the third of seven boys born to a religious Jewish parents. They lived in a town near Warsaw called Gabin, where Chaim’s father worked as a cap maker.
“Gabin had one of Poland’s oldest synagogues, built of wood in 1710. Like most of Gabin’s Jews, Chaim’s family lived close to the synagogue. The family of nine occupied a one-room apartment on the top floor of a three-story building.
“1933-39: In September 1939, two months before I was 12, Germany invaded Poland. In Gabin 10 people were shot in the street; doctors and teachers were taken away. A neighbor who had persistently spoken against Germany was arrested. A few weeks later, the family received a box of ashes — his remains. Then the Germans started terrorizing Jews; they doused the synagogue and nearby homes with gasoline and set them on fire.
“1940-45: When I was 14, I was taken to several forced-labor camps with my brothers Shmuel and Jakob. Food was scarce, so we’d ‘organize’ food when possible. When working outside the camps, we’d beg at homes, or search for scraps in the garbage.
“Shmuel slipped under the camp fence at night to pick cabbage from the fields. Once, five boys were hung for ‘organizing’ food, but it didn't stop us.
“Jakob and I wished for one thing: to live through the war, get a loaf of bread, sit at a table and eat till we were full.
“In 1943 Chaim was transferred to Auschwitz, where he remained for 17 months. After a forced march to Germany, he was liberated in April 1945. He emigrated to the United States in 1949.”
I sighed my own sense of relief to learn I had a picked a survivor, too. Yet this was the tip of the iceberg for what would be a 5 1/2-hour journey.
With our tickets in hand, we waited for the elevator to take us up to the fourth floor and home of “The Holocaust, Nazi Assault 1933-39.” This represents the beginning of the tour and gives a complete history of Hitler’s rise to power and the Nazi Party. From there our senses were challenged by so much information, and emotions tapped by images that were indescribably cruel.
Because the tour starts on the fourth floor, we wended our way down floor by floor. At each permanent exhibit, our bodies were drained by the ghosts of innocence crying out in our heads, begging not to be forgotten, gripping our souls. Held by the power of knowing the truth of such inhumanity, we found viewing the act of genocide in film and photography haunting. This is not a Friday night at the movies designed to titillate your inner fear, but rather the raw truth of a savage movement bent on not just killing off an entire race but also ethnic cleansing of Gypsies, gays and the disabled — recorded forever.
I stepped back for a moment to rest and take in the deafening silence muffled by the shuffling feet of visitors moving in trance like cadence, pausing only to take a second look at what seemed too gruesome to be real.
While I can only describe to you a fraction of what my journey was like, the images of the ghettos, murders, the shoes and, the most haunting of all, the faces of death that flash in the mind’s eye don’t go away.
Finally, we reached the end and entered the Hall of Remembrance, a quiet place for visitors to gather their senses. Whether it was designed for that purpose or not, it certainly worked for me. My head was still spinning in sensory overload as we gathered up our coats and headed for the doors. We exited into the crisp air of our nation’s capital. The three of us looked at each other in silence, and I wondered if they felt less innocent, as I did.
There is a reason why the tour starts on the fourth floor and ends on the ground floor. I know that I would not have been able carry the weight of 6 million Jews and millions of others on my heart from the ground floor to the fourth floor.
Tim O’Callaghan, co-publisher of the News, can be reached at 990-2656 or tim.oc@vegas.com.
After many years of going to Washington, D.C., I had never taken the time to visit any of the many national museums until last month, when my wife joined me on one of my trips.
We had visited several museums, but none had the impact of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Growing up in a family that had considerable connections to Israel and the Jewish
community through our father, I was certainly aware of the horrific human suffering and genocide of Jewish people in eastern Europe under the persecution of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime.
All the books I've read and the movies I've watched didn't prepare me for the emotional, physical and intellectual exercise I was about to experience.
The visit to the memorial had been planned for months with Nancy Wesoff, the executive director of the Housing Authority of Clark County, where I serve on the board.
Upon entering the memorial Nancy said we should check our coats. This seemed odd at first, because we had carried our coats at other museums.
Nancy then escorted us to counter filled with small books labeled “IDENTIFICATION CARD.” Before I knew what we were doing, she picked up one of the books from the left side of the counter and said, “Please let mine be a survivor.” I then realized we were each picking up a biography of a victim of the Holocaust. As I picked one from the right side of the counter, I quietly prayed for a survivor too.
Nancy flipped to the last page and sighed with relief as I read the following from the book I picked up.
“This card tells the story of a real person who lived during the Holocaust.
“Name: Chaim Frenkiel
“Date of Birth: November 2, 1927
“Place of Birth: Gabin, Poland
“Chaim was the third of seven boys born to a religious Jewish parents. They lived in a town near Warsaw called Gabin, where Chaim’s father worked as a cap maker.
“Gabin had one of Poland’s oldest synagogues, built of wood in 1710. Like most of Gabin’s Jews, Chaim’s family lived close to the synagogue. The family of nine occupied a one-room apartment on the top floor of a three-story building.
“1933-39: In September 1939, two months before I was 12, Germany invaded Poland. In Gabin 10 people were shot in the street; doctors and teachers were taken away. A neighbor who had persistently spoken against Germany was arrested. A few weeks later, the family received a box of ashes — his remains. Then the Germans started terrorizing Jews; they doused the synagogue and nearby homes with gasoline and set them on fire.
“1940-45: When I was 14, I was taken to several forced-labor camps with my brothers Shmuel and Jakob. Food was scarce, so we’d ‘organize’ food when possible. When working outside the camps, we’d beg at homes, or search for scraps in the garbage.
“Shmuel slipped under the camp fence at night to pick cabbage from the fields. Once, five boys were hung for ‘organizing’ food, but it didn't stop us.
“Jakob and I wished for one thing: to live through the war, get a loaf of bread, sit at a table and eat till we were full.
“In 1943 Chaim was transferred to Auschwitz, where he remained for 17 months. After a forced march to Germany, he was liberated in April 1945. He emigrated to the United States in 1949.”
I sighed my own sense of relief to learn I had a picked a survivor, too. Yet this was the tip of the iceberg for what would be a 5 1/2-hour journey.
With our tickets in hand, we waited for the elevator to take us up to the fourth floor and home of “The Holocaust, Nazi Assault 1933-39.” This represents the beginning of the tour and gives a complete history of Hitler’s rise to power and the Nazi Party. From there our senses were challenged by so much information, and emotions tapped by images that were indescribably cruel.
Because the tour starts on the fourth floor, we wended our way down floor by floor. At each permanent exhibit, our bodies were drained by the ghosts of innocence crying out in our heads, begging not to be forgotten, gripping our souls. Held by the power of knowing the truth of such inhumanity, we found viewing the act of genocide in film and photography haunting. This is not a Friday night at the movies designed to titillate your inner fear, but rather the raw truth of a savage movement bent on not just killing off an entire race but also ethnic cleansing of Gypsies, gays and the disabled — recorded forever.
I stepped back for a moment to rest and take in the deafening silence muffled by the shuffling feet of visitors moving in trance like cadence, pausing only to take a second look at what seemed too gruesome to be real.
While I can only describe to you a fraction of what my journey was like, the images of the ghettos, murders, the shoes and, the most haunting of all, the faces of death that flash in the mind’s eye don’t go away.
Finally, we reached the end and entered the Hall of Remembrance, a quiet place for visitors to gather their senses. Whether it was designed for that purpose or not, it certainly worked for me. My head was still spinning in sensory overload as we gathered up our coats and headed for the doors. We exited into the crisp air of our nation’s capital. The three of us looked at each other in silence, and I wondered if they felt less innocent, as I did.
There is a reason why the tour starts on the fourth floor and ends on the ground floor. I know that I would not have been able carry the weight of 6 million Jews and millions of others on my heart from the ground floor to the fourth floor.
Tim O’Callaghan, co-publisher of the News, can be reached at 990-2656 or tim.oc@vegas.com.
President Ford’s words resonated
This first published January 5, 2007 in the Henderson Home News, a Community Newspapers of Nevada publication. It is one of several previously published columns that will be posted in the coming weeks.
Former President Gerald R. Ford was one of four U.S. presidents whom I
have had the pleasure to meet in my lifetime. It was the Fourth of July, 1976, the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence.
I was an impressionable 14-year-old with an unusual interest in politics for a kid of any age. Most teens couldn't tell you who is president, much less who the vice president or the speaker of the House is.
It was for this reason that my dad, the late Gov. Mike O’Callaghan, invited me to attend the National Governors Conference in Hershey, Pa., with him and his longtime friend and confidant, the late George Brookman.
During this trip, I was given the opportunity of a lifetime. Well, actually two, but I had to choose between going to the world-famous Hershey Amusement Park or traveling by bus to Valley Forge to hear President Ford give remarks on the “Spirit of Sacrifice” at Valley Forge State Park.
It was an easy decision for me to choose to hear the president of the United States speak. He was campaigning for election to the White House after succeeding President Richard M. Nixon, who had resigned. President Ford defied all political sense and pardoned Nixon for his participation in Watergate only a month after taking office. History has proven it was the right thing to do, even though it cost Ford the election.
Somewhere in my files are the photos I snapped of Marine One, the presidential helicopter, as it flew into Valley Forge State Park and landed on the grass.
With the aid of the Gerald R. Ford Library online, I’m able to give you a taste of the words that so inspired a 14-year old from Nevada.
“As we continue our American adventure… all our heroes and heroines of war and peace send us this single, urgent message: though prosperity is a good thing, though compassionate charity is a good thing, though institutional reform is a good thing, a nation survives only so long as the spirit of sacrifice and self-discipline is strong within its people. Independence has to be defended as well as declared; freedom is always worth fighting for; and liberty ultimately belongs only to those willing to suffer for it.”
It was by chance alone I had the opportunity to meet him at the edge of the stage in one of the most historic places in the United States. It became one of the defining moments in my own history. Although he would never remember me, I have never forgotten that day.
At that moment, I had no idea I would later that evening meet the next president of the United States for the second time. Former President Jimmy Carter, then governor of Georgia and a presidential candidate, would spend a few moments eating barbecue and talking with a skinny kid and his father from Nevada.
Only years later would I realize the significance of that conversation and the impact it would have on the world, including places like Northern Iraq and Nicaragua, where my dad would act as an international observer of free elections for the Carter Center.
As I reflect on the past week surrounding the death and then state funeral for President Ford, I find myself not only inspired by his life and character, but in his death I see that we have the opportunity to appreciate the fruits of his life and character. We see it combined with the graciousness of his wife, Betty, and in their adult children.
As I watched on television as Americans viewed this president lying in state, I could see the great impact being made as his children greeted each visitor who passed by the casket with great dignity and appreciation.
Today America is a better place because of President Gerald R. Ford, not only for his actions in life but because, in his death, those actions have been recalled for the benefit of every American to learn from.
Even a 45-year-old man, a former skinny kid, from Nevada.
Tim O’Callaghan, co-publisher of the News, can be reached at 990-2656 or tim.oc@vegas.com.
Former President Gerald R. Ford was one of four U.S. presidents whom I
have had the pleasure to meet in my lifetime. It was the Fourth of July, 1976, the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence.
I was an impressionable 14-year-old with an unusual interest in politics for a kid of any age. Most teens couldn't tell you who is president, much less who the vice president or the speaker of the House is.
It was for this reason that my dad, the late Gov. Mike O’Callaghan, invited me to attend the National Governors Conference in Hershey, Pa., with him and his longtime friend and confidant, the late George Brookman.
During this trip, I was given the opportunity of a lifetime. Well, actually two, but I had to choose between going to the world-famous Hershey Amusement Park or traveling by bus to Valley Forge to hear President Ford give remarks on the “Spirit of Sacrifice” at Valley Forge State Park.
It was an easy decision for me to choose to hear the president of the United States speak. He was campaigning for election to the White House after succeeding President Richard M. Nixon, who had resigned. President Ford defied all political sense and pardoned Nixon for his participation in Watergate only a month after taking office. History has proven it was the right thing to do, even though it cost Ford the election.
Somewhere in my files are the photos I snapped of Marine One, the presidential helicopter, as it flew into Valley Forge State Park and landed on the grass.
With the aid of the Gerald R. Ford Library online, I’m able to give you a taste of the words that so inspired a 14-year old from Nevada.
“As we continue our American adventure… all our heroes and heroines of war and peace send us this single, urgent message: though prosperity is a good thing, though compassionate charity is a good thing, though institutional reform is a good thing, a nation survives only so long as the spirit of sacrifice and self-discipline is strong within its people. Independence has to be defended as well as declared; freedom is always worth fighting for; and liberty ultimately belongs only to those willing to suffer for it.”
It was by chance alone I had the opportunity to meet him at the edge of the stage in one of the most historic places in the United States. It became one of the defining moments in my own history. Although he would never remember me, I have never forgotten that day.
At that moment, I had no idea I would later that evening meet the next president of the United States for the second time. Former President Jimmy Carter, then governor of Georgia and a presidential candidate, would spend a few moments eating barbecue and talking with a skinny kid and his father from Nevada.
Only years later would I realize the significance of that conversation and the impact it would have on the world, including places like Northern Iraq and Nicaragua, where my dad would act as an international observer of free elections for the Carter Center.
As I reflect on the past week surrounding the death and then state funeral for President Ford, I find myself not only inspired by his life and character, but in his death I see that we have the opportunity to appreciate the fruits of his life and character. We see it combined with the graciousness of his wife, Betty, and in their adult children.
As I watched on television as Americans viewed this president lying in state, I could see the great impact being made as his children greeted each visitor who passed by the casket with great dignity and appreciation.
Today America is a better place because of President Gerald R. Ford, not only for his actions in life but because, in his death, those actions have been recalled for the benefit of every American to learn from.
Even a 45-year-old man, a former skinny kid, from Nevada.
Tim O’Callaghan, co-publisher of the News, can be reached at 990-2656 or tim.oc@vegas.com.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Immigration laws require reform
This first published January 3, 2008 in the Henderson Home News, a Community Newspapers of Nevada publication.
MEADVIEW, Ariz. – It is the day after Christmas, and because of holiday deadlines, I find myself writing the first column of 2008. Although it is a week before my topic of this column actually begins to play itself out, what a perfect time to get the fireworks going. What better topic to light things up than immigration?
The New York Times crafted an interesting editorial Dec. 18, titled “Blazing Arizona” outlining possible complications of Arizona’s Fair and Legal Employment Act, a two-strike law, suspending a business’s license on the first offense and revoking it on the second for knowingly employing undocumented workers.
The Times editorial reinforces what I have been saying for the past two years about immigration reform.
“We have always said that workplace laws should be enforced vigorously – as part of a comprehensive, nationwide immigration system that doesn’t just punish, but tries to actually solve the problems that foster and sustain the breaking of immigration laws. The boosters of the Arizona law, including the Minutemen border vigilantes who have made 'January First!’ an anti-immigrant rallying cry, have a much narrower goal: the biggest purge of illegal immigrants in the Southwest since the federal government’s Operation Wetback in 1954”, the Times said.
If for just a moment the American public could set aside their fear and anger to simply evaluate the economics involved in immigration – illegal or legal for that matter – they may reconsider their positions on it. Most of us are either unaware or just don’t care about how undocumented workers or illegal immigrants have become integral weaves in the fabric of the U.S. economy.
The Times points out what could be in store for Arizona. “If that happens,
the immigrants will take a big chunk of Arizona’s growth and economic
vitality with them – and not necessarily back across the international
border.
The collateral damage will be severe, as citizens and legal immigrants are also thrown out of work, as businesses struggle to find workers in a state with a 3.3 percent unemployment rate and as sleazy employers move more workers off the books, the better to abuse and exploit them. And the national problem of undocumented immigration will be no closer to a
solution.
“There are many compassion-and-common-sense criticisms of Arizona’s Fair and Legal Employment Act: stories about families torn apart, breadwinners deported and citizen children on public assistance. They make little headway with the law-and-order crowd. Nor does the fact that many hard-line defenders of workplace enforcement show a lopsided devotion to federal laws; they seldom complain when employers abuse undocumented immigrants and steal their wages, even though those violations worsen job conditions and pay for American workers, too.”
Harsh words for Arizona employers, but let’s not poke a stick in the eye of the Grand Canyon State, because so many employers in the Silver State are just as guilty.
With the failure of Congress to pass legitimate immigration reform, the decline in the number of American workers because of retirement and an aging population, the U.S. economy is facing great economic hardships due to worker shortages.
Then again, perhaps this is just an unnecessary concern, given so many American jobs being outsourced to other countries, the U.S. dependency on cheap goods from China and the exploitation of developing countries. Let’s pile on the concern by kicking 12 million undocumented workers out of the country, and don’t forget millions of American children who would be separated from their parents.
Yes, American children born in this country with all of its undeniable rights under the law. Do you really think undocumented immigrants are going to haul their legitimate American children back over the border and overseas?
This appears to be a Catch-22, damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t situation that should be addressed with compassion and dignity while protecting an already shaky economy.
By the time you read this column, whatever is going to happen here in Arizona will already be taking shape and could very well grade the path for future immigration and the U.S. economy.
The Times editorial ended with a thought-provoking statement: “As Arizona exacts its punishment on the undocumented workers who have made it so prosperous, it runs the risk of proving itself tough but not smart.” Even though a majority of the New York Times editorial is here, I suggest you take some time to read it in its entirety.
Instead of “Blazing Arizona” we could end up “Raising Arizona.” Ah, nothing like starting the new year off with a bang.
Tim O’Callaghan, co-publisher of the News, can be reached at 990-2656 or
tim.oc@vegas.com.
MEADVIEW, Ariz. – It is the day after Christmas, and because of holiday deadlines, I find myself writing the first column of 2008. Although it is a week before my topic of this column actually begins to play itself out, what a perfect time to get the fireworks going. What better topic to light things up than immigration?
The New York Times crafted an interesting editorial Dec. 18, titled “Blazing Arizona” outlining possible complications of Arizona’s Fair and Legal Employment Act, a two-strike law, suspending a business’s license on the first offense and revoking it on the second for knowingly employing undocumented workers.
The Times editorial reinforces what I have been saying for the past two years about immigration reform.
“We have always said that workplace laws should be enforced vigorously – as part of a comprehensive, nationwide immigration system that doesn’t just punish, but tries to actually solve the problems that foster and sustain the breaking of immigration laws. The boosters of the Arizona law, including the Minutemen border vigilantes who have made 'January First!’ an anti-immigrant rallying cry, have a much narrower goal: the biggest purge of illegal immigrants in the Southwest since the federal government’s Operation Wetback in 1954”, the Times said.
If for just a moment the American public could set aside their fear and anger to simply evaluate the economics involved in immigration – illegal or legal for that matter – they may reconsider their positions on it. Most of us are either unaware or just don’t care about how undocumented workers or illegal immigrants have become integral weaves in the fabric of the U.S. economy.
The Times points out what could be in store for Arizona. “If that happens,
the immigrants will take a big chunk of Arizona’s growth and economic
vitality with them – and not necessarily back across the international
border.
The collateral damage will be severe, as citizens and legal immigrants are also thrown out of work, as businesses struggle to find workers in a state with a 3.3 percent unemployment rate and as sleazy employers move more workers off the books, the better to abuse and exploit them. And the national problem of undocumented immigration will be no closer to a
solution.
“There are many compassion-and-common-sense criticisms of Arizona’s Fair and Legal Employment Act: stories about families torn apart, breadwinners deported and citizen children on public assistance. They make little headway with the law-and-order crowd. Nor does the fact that many hard-line defenders of workplace enforcement show a lopsided devotion to federal laws; they seldom complain when employers abuse undocumented immigrants and steal their wages, even though those violations worsen job conditions and pay for American workers, too.”
Harsh words for Arizona employers, but let’s not poke a stick in the eye of the Grand Canyon State, because so many employers in the Silver State are just as guilty.
With the failure of Congress to pass legitimate immigration reform, the decline in the number of American workers because of retirement and an aging population, the U.S. economy is facing great economic hardships due to worker shortages.
Then again, perhaps this is just an unnecessary concern, given so many American jobs being outsourced to other countries, the U.S. dependency on cheap goods from China and the exploitation of developing countries. Let’s pile on the concern by kicking 12 million undocumented workers out of the country, and don’t forget millions of American children who would be separated from their parents.
Yes, American children born in this country with all of its undeniable rights under the law. Do you really think undocumented immigrants are going to haul their legitimate American children back over the border and overseas?
This appears to be a Catch-22, damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t situation that should be addressed with compassion and dignity while protecting an already shaky economy.
By the time you read this column, whatever is going to happen here in Arizona will already be taking shape and could very well grade the path for future immigration and the U.S. economy.
The Times editorial ended with a thought-provoking statement: “As Arizona exacts its punishment on the undocumented workers who have made it so prosperous, it runs the risk of proving itself tough but not smart.” Even though a majority of the New York Times editorial is here, I suggest you take some time to read it in its entirety.
Instead of “Blazing Arizona” we could end up “Raising Arizona.” Ah, nothing like starting the new year off with a bang.
Tim O’Callaghan, co-publisher of the News, can be reached at 990-2656 or
tim.oc@vegas.com.
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