its amazing how soon we forget...

this morning I received a forwarded email that claims to originate from an angry guy in california that apparently has been reading letters to the editor from persons with hispanic surnames which must be infuriating in their tone to a true american. (side note - I find it amusing that the pissed off guy has a french surname traditionally associated with rich assholes in that country...five bucks says this guy applauded "freedom" fries and dumped out any french wine he had a few years back). the email claims to include a copy of a letter to the editor which mr. labonte's historically ignorant wife did not get printed (no doubt because the media is overrun by brown people seeking to keep whitey down). below is a copy of the email...and below that, my response.


The Orange County California Newspaper

This is a very good letter to the editor. This woman made some good points. For some reason, people have difficulty structuring their arguments when arguing against supporting the currently proposed immigration revisions. This lady made the argument pretty simple. Not printed in the Orange County Paper. Newspapers simply won't publish letters to the editor which they either deem politically incorrect (read below) or which does not agree with the philosophy they're pushing on the public. This woman wrote a great letter to the editor that should have been published; but, with your help it will get published via cyberspace.

From: 'David LaBonte'

My wife, Rosemary, wrote a wonderful letter to the editor of the OC Register which, of course, was not printed. So, I decided to 'print' it myself by sending it out on the Internet. Pass it along if you feel so inclined. Written in response to a series of letters to the editor in the Orange County Register:

Dear Editor:
So many letter writers have based their arguments on how this land is made up of immigrants. Ernie Lujan for one, suggests we should tear down the Statue of Liberty because the people now in question aren't being treated the same as those who passed through Ellis Island and other ports of entry.

Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to people like Mr. Lujan why today's American is not willing to accept this new kind of immigrant any longer. Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to the United States, people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in New York and be documented. Some would even get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good and bad times. They made learning English a primary rule in their new American households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new home.

They had waved good bye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into one culture. Nothing was handed to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labor laws to protect them. All they had were the skills and craftsmanship they had brought with them to trade for a future of prosperity.

Most of their children came of age when World War II broke out. My father fought along side men whose parents had come straight over from Germany , Italy , France and Japan . None of these first generation Americans ever gave any thought about what country their parents had come from. They were Americans fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of Japan They were defending the United States of Americas one people.

When we liberated France , no one in those villages was looking for the French American or the German American or the Irish American. The people of France saw only Americans. And we carried one flag that represented one country. Not one of those immigrant sons would have thought about picking up another country's flag and waving it to represent who they were. It would have been a disgrace to their parents who had sacrificed so much to be here. These immigrants truly knew what it meant to be an American. They stirred the melting pot into one red, white and blue bowl.

And here we are in 2009 with a new kind of immigrant who wants the same rights and privileges. Only they want to achieve it by playing with a different set of rules, one that includes the entitlement card and a guarantee of being faithful to their mother country. I'm sorry, that's not what being an American is all about. I believe that the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900's deserve better than that for all the toil, hard work and sacrifice in raising future generations to create a land that has become a beacon for those legally searching for a better life I think they would be appalled that they are being used as an example by those waving foreign country flags.

And for that suggestion about taking down the Statue of Liberty , it happens to mean a lot to the citizens who are voting on the immigration bill. I wouldn't start talking about dismantling the United States just yet.

(signed) Rosemary LaBonte



first off, ms. labonte is incredibly historically inaccurate in her claims of immediate, uncoerced and happy assimilation of previous immigrant groups. hell, most of them still haven't thrown off the cultures of their native lands...why the hell does she think every major city in this country has "little italy," "little germany," "little india," "chinatown" etc. she herself probably goes down to chinatown for grub once a week. if we had all assimilated so wonderfully before this, reservations would never have come to be.

the simple reality is that prior immigrant groups underwent the exact same crap with people screaming how they did not want to assimilate and were refusing to "americanize." someone like myself especially remembers that german farming communities in the midwest were looked upon with suspicion while the press was up in arms about how they had no interest in becoming a part of america but were only seeking to form a beachhead for germany to come take over. their true "allegiance" was questioned for generations, particularly when europe exploded into war. hell, just down the river from where my father's family settled a fellow german was throttled to death by a mob for the incredible offense of being german during the first world war.

we know it is an outright lie that former immigrant groups did not retain their language and culture from their homeland. another side note - if anyone bothered to check, second generation hispanics are a hell of a lot more "americanized" then any other immigrant group before them). very few voluntarily changed their names. they were either given new names because the authorities were too lazy to figure out how to spell or pronounce their true names, or they changed their names to avoid the same kind of bigotry that is now pointed at brown people from latin and south america. the same goes for use of language, an important aspect of cultural heritage. in my family, german did not stop being used in the home until the nation really turned on germans during the world wars. it is especially idiotic to make such a claim when it is so evident that the very basis of "our way of life" - the "rule of law" - was retained from the english homeland. hell, the english language itself is called english, not american.

but the problem is, we ran out of european ethnicities to turn our noses up at. we hated on the italians, the irish, the germans...on down the line. only now we accept them as the fabric of the american quilt. so we needed someone else to turn on - enter the asian peoples. only even they brought good things to this country, and soon they became more accepted. and so we need someone else to turn on, especially when things start to go bad. it happens everytime, earlier immigrant groups attack the newest immigrant group harder than anyone. the last immigrant to get shit on by the american public treats the next worse than the rest of us.

ms. labonte hints at the true nature of her rant (economic times are tough, and she is not getting the same life she felt she was entitled to, so she needs a scapegoat) when she implies she wants to go back to the good old days without "free lunches, labor laws, and welfare" to protect the public. never mind that this is a gross misrepresentation of the history of the american state. perhaps she would like to turn her children over for seven 15 hour shifts a week. maybe she would prefer the indentured servitude of company towns. or maybe she just wants to spend her life locked in a filthy factory working for pennies a day in shifts that start before dawn and end at midnight making garments that she can never afford to buy on machines that will inevitably take one of her fingers within the first two years of sleep-deprived, hunger-induced work. maybe she enjoys hordes of neighbors starving and living in squalor. perhaps, like all those immigrant groups she claims so immediately shrugged off their heritage, she just really hated the post-war years and the growth of the middle class, home ownership, standards of living, education, etc. I'm with her in that regard, because man, those "free lunches, labor laws and welfare" really screwed stuff up after WWII when the largest sustained economic growth in history resulted.

the problem with not understanding history and with pushing historical myths that are so far from the truth is we get mired in this ridiculous exceptionalism that has played a major role in bringing down every single major western power since the roman empire. if one never admits their flaws, personal growth is impossible.

ernie lujan had it right...there was a time when we declared to the world "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me." ms. labonte appears to prefer the statue of liberty read "europe sent us their tired, their poor, their huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of their teeming shore. europe sent those, the homeless, tempest-tost to us. we even took a bunch from asia and brought them over from africa. we're all full up on foreigners now. besides, brown people stick out too easily."


now that I've found you, would you object to never seeing each other again?