Stuck in my Craw(ford) - Kosmopolites & Illegal Immigration (with poll)

How much do you think your current socioeconomic and geographic situation has to do with your stance on illegal immigration? How much is pure theory, how much based on personal experience, what happens when those two conflict? I am extremely curious to know, and hope to post some polls which might take sample "slices" from within the Kos. i know that my questions will probably be somewhat flawed, and welcome any suggestions on how to improve them / better questions to ask. I also welcome interpretations of the results.

But first, I want to report on my trip to Crawford TX, where I attended the "Reckoning / Rumble at the Ranch" rally on the Minuteman Project Caravan, which concluded in D.C. on friday.

"Liberal and against illegal immigration" is what one of my signs read at the Reckoning at the Ranch event in Crawford Texas just over a week ago. Although many people approached me and were eager to discuss the matter, no one said "so am i!" or "me too!" In fact, in some cases, I witnessed distinct WTF? facial expressions.

We were in rural Texas, hours from any major city, so I wasn't shocked, but I did still find it odd. Maybe other progressive agnostics & secular humanists were frightened away by the giant Ten Commandments outside the tent ;) (i know i, for one, found their presence irrelevant and somewhat absurd.) But you couldn't see those until you were already there, they didn't seem to be brought by event organizers, and they may have been a package deal with the functioning Liberty Bell replica that sat between them. And that bell was pretty amazing, actually. I'm not normally into that kind of thing, patriotic historic relics, but it made a very haunting sound that seemed to be "spanning time" (to quote Vincent Gallo in Buffalo 66.)

The event was sponsored by the Minuteman Project and F.A.I.R., and I know a lot of people have issues with those two groups, or at least with the minutemen. I had heard (here, in responses to my first diary) that i should expect outright white supremacy & utter xenophobia. While there were some Bosephus-esque fellows on the outer fringes with some freaky bloody-arm flag, even they told me (when I asked about the arm) that there were "other flags" that were not allowed. What I was able to extrapolate (from them & everyone else I casually encountered) was that there probably were some xenophobic or racist people there, but that was not the point of the rally or the movement, and that expressions of such were expelled upon discovery.

The majority of people, or at least the loudest, just seemed like betrayed conservatives who were using most of their energy screaming for Bush's head, or at least impeachment.

There were people from New Orleans, including a family who had driven up for the event with their 2 little girls (it's got to be a 7 hour drive.) They responded to my other sign "Let New Orleanians rebuild New Orleans - & - Let Mexicans rebuild Mexico." (I know that people from Mexico are not the only illegal immigrants, and that a lot of people from Honduras & other countries are working in New Orleans, but the posterboard only allows for so much text, unless you want to make it look like a Dr. Bronners Soap label.)

 Also present were representatives from Common Ground Collective, http://www.commongroundrelief.org , who looked more like liberal activists might typically look but did not align themselves (at least not to me) with any political organization or camp. Their website currently has an into and link to a film about three innocent Black Panthers in Angola Prison, if that's any indication.

There were quite a few African Americans, some with their sons, one running for dallas City Council (he was the best speaker there, in my opinion.)
Terry Anderson, (black) L.A. radio talk show host and personality (sometimes a guest on Tavis Smiley, for example) gave an outrageous, over-the-top speech which included references to the chickens running around South Central these days. He claimed there are so many that they are given names: "how you doin' today Clyde..."

Lupe Moreno, daughter of a coyote, gave an extremely emotional speech. While the Southern Poverty Law Center website states that she believes homosexuals have been taken over by evil spirits, the Scientologists have their thetans too, and whatever I think of Tom Cruise, he was still amazing in Magnolia. Besides, I wasn't there for a gay rights rally, and part of my passion for the illegal immigration issue comes from my concern that a massive & unrestricted influx of socially conservative people will help prevent women's & gay rights from ever reaching full bloom.

For the record, I saw no ranch. We were near some civic center, supposedly, but all i saw was a charming waterfall, trees, and some goats, who brought to mind vague recollections of  Bush's 9-11 reading list.
I guess this is what life is like in the "Free Speech Zone" allotted to those who disagree with him by our (cough) freedom-loving president.

Thus concludes my mini-report on the Crawford rally. I wanted to give at least a small glimpse, since so much is said on the Kos about the Minutemen and their presumed ill doings. I am not defending them,
nor fully endorsing them, but I do consider them allies on this particular issue. There does not appear to be another group, at least not to my knowledge, that has any better ideas or has engaged in action, risking their lives for their side of the issue. And you have to give them that- they do get shot at quite regularly, often with semi-automatic weapons, there is the throwing of rocks, and I have not yet heard a single substantiated report in which they have shot or wounded anyone crossing the international border.

plus bush renounces them ;)
that still has to count for something, people!

::: ok, on to a related but separate sub-topic :::

In the only other major post I have prior to this, or "My First Diary" (i am a deep emerald shade of newbie green,) I got really far into my own observations and experiences as a non-wealthy homeowner in the city of San Diego, California (some would say there is no such thing, but one can often borrow ridiculous amounts of money now, haven't you heard?;) and began to connect those to my philosophies on illegal immigration, or even a massive legal influx of poor people from the third world with values contrary to many liberal beliefs. I hoped to explore what happened when what I thought I believed came into direct conflict with the struggles of my everyday existence. I chose to expose what I honestly have been thinking rather than edit myself in this particular case. That gave me an irregular surface to which the dreaded "xenophobe" label could be potentially attached.

However I continue to feel that such risks are essential if we are to find the truest, as opposed to the most obvious, progressive position on the current immigration discussion. It seems easy and effortless for many to join the official Democrat / Liberal bandwagon on the matter, but I wonder if these people have anything riding on the outcome other than utopian philosophy or, in some cases, self-interest? I truly may be swimming too hard upstream, but have always felt comfortable with paradox.

Besides, those who know me would probably describe me as a fervent practictioner of Xenophilia in most other areas of life. I guess that's why I'm so hung up on trying to find ways for all of this to mesh together.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." ('The Crack-Up,' 1936)

but then he also said "At 18 our convictions are hills from which we look; At 45 they are caves in which we hide."

??? -- i'm still in my 30s.