March 01, 2008

Saturday Forum

(With A Note From The Letters Editor)

Since January, the volume of mail we receive at VDARE.COM has doubled!

Most of this increase is attributable to the distressing results of the primaries and caucuses that will leave us with no good choice in the November presidential election. The balance reflects your continuing outrage about the Bush Administration’s failure to enforce immigration law.

We’re grateful for the time you take to write us. I read every letter and make a serious effort to reply to all the mail, including the abusive ones. I’m sure that I’m not 100 percent successful—but it isn’t for lack of trying.

Unfortunately, we cannot post all the letters we receive—even the good ones.

Please be patient if you haven’t seen yours; just because several days, weeks or even months have passed, that doesn’t mean your letter won’t eventually appear. I have a folder labeled “November Letters” that I’m still occasionally dipping into!

During my long illness last year, some of your letters might have drifted to the bottom of the stack where they may inadvertently remain.

Feel free to inquire as to the status of any letter you’ve submitted. I try to give readers a heads-up as to when theirs might appear. But again, I doubt if I’m completely successful at that either.

I have a few suggestions on how you can help get to the top of the pile.

Please indicate whether we can use your name and e-mail or not. This avoids the time-consuming exercise of having me write back to ask for your permission.

If you don’t want your e-mail posted (perfectly understandable), please consider getting a special Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail account. This takes less than two minutes and allows other readers to communicate directly with you. Remember: we’re building a coalition. Easy access to each other is important.

Include a couple of lines of biographical information that includes the state you live in. Anything you write is fine, e.g., “has two cats”. Readers can more easily relate to you when you provide a few details about yourself.

Feel free to write to us in complete candor. We automatically delete employers’ identities and locations (if you are still working). When we’re in doubt, we will always check with you for your approval to post and to confirm how exactly you would like your letter to be worded to avoid any exposure on your part.

Some readers send links to current stories. We appreciate them because the articles are often sources for columns or blog posts. For those of you who forward stories that you feel particularly passionate about, write a line or two of comment so we can consider it for posting.

Other readers write in to share a particular incident in their local communities. Whenever possible, please include the links to the stories.

Please do not add dozens of exclamation marks, underline key words or type in bold print or all CAPITAL LETTERS. I simply have to delete the emphasis you add before I send your letter on for posting. Because we share your anger and frustration at immigration outrages, we can readily identify the most annoying features of the problems you bring to our attention.

Your letters are widely read. Both the Today’s Letters and the Saturday Forum are among the most popular features of VDARE.COM

Thank you all very much for participating.

And on to what you have to say this week!

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A Maryland Reader Charges The IRS With Discrimination Against English Speakers

From: Ronald Vertrees (e-mail him)

For twenty years I owned and operated a business in Denver.

I made my payments to the IRS over the counter at its local office because they would stamp "Received with payment" on a copy of my submissions.

In the early years I often stood in line with CPAs who were there for the same reason.

But in the late 1990s, I noticed that the waiting area was filled with Hispanics, presumably getting their Individual Tax Payer Identification Numbers (ITINS)

By then the IRS had posted signs designating one service window as "English" and the other "Spanish." There was a system of issuing numbers to customers with separate numbering according to the English or Spanish window.

On one visit I noticed that the "English" window was temporarily closed and the number issued to me indicated I would have a long wait so I asked for a "Spanish number."

When my turn came, I stepped to the window but the Hispanic clerk there refused to serve me. To this I protested in Spanish (which I had learned living in Latin America). Her response was to call the guard who threatened to arrest me for making a disturbance.

Prompt courteous service at the Spanish window was not for Spanish-speakers—but for those of Hispanic ethnicity.

Vertrees, who was a customhouse broker, says that he never turned to that office and left Denver shortly after the incident. Upon his arrival in Maryland, Vertrees reports that he “became a VDARE.COM contributor” because we shared his “special interest” in border control.

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A Texas Reader Notes What Willie Brown Thinks About Barack Obama: “Like Michael Jordan And Doctor J. Wrapped Into One”

From: David Rogers (e-mail him)

In a recent Washington Post story about how shocked Hillary Clinton’s camp is that black voters have abandoned her in favor of Barack Obama, I note this quote from former San Francisco Mayor and long time Speaker of the California Assembly Willie Brown. [Obama Wave Stuns Clintons Black Supporters, By Kevin Merida, Washington Post, February 19, 2008]

Commenting that Obama’s status is like nothing ever before seen in the black community, Brown said:

“It's like Michael Jordan and Dr. J. wrapped into one, playing basketball by themselves. I think most white politicians do not understand that the race pride we all have trumps everything else.”

You can’t make this stuff up!

Rogers is the policy director and assistant general counsel for the Texas Legal Foundation, a nonprofit conservative advocacy group. In 1981, he was fired from his job as a busboy to make room for an illegal immigrant. A previous letter from Rogers about the relationship between illegal aliens and mortgage defaults is here

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A Texas Reader Says Most Immigrants Don’t Want America Overwhelmed By The “People They Escaped From”

From: The Shah of Plano (e-mail him)

Re: Brenda Walker’s Column: Why Does The Anti-Defamation League Want Jews (And Americans) To Commit Suicide?

I’m a white Christian who was married to a Jewish woman for ten years.

As an insider, it soon became clear to me why Jews make the mistake of siding with minorities.

Most Jews think that whites who criticize our liberal immigration laws must be closet anti-Semites.

That paranoia, which is the message that Norman Finkelstein has been trying to get across for years, runs deeply throughout the Jewish community.

After my divorce, I remarried an Iranian immigrant who came to America twenty years ago.

Like most immigrants, she came here to be part of America—not to be overwhelmed by the people she escaped from.

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An Iowa Reader Says The Workplace Is Becoming A Nightmare for White Employees

From: Chuck Stoner (e-mail him)

Re: Leroy Wheat’s Letter: An Iowa Reader Says Diversity Programs Have Made Him A Target Of Harassment

Like VDARE.COM letter writer Leroy Wheat, a fellow Iowa resident, I’ve had my share of bad workplace experiences because I am white.

Employment in multicultural America has become more and more a nightmare for the average Joe and Josephine. What’s happening confirms my suspicions that those complaining the loudest about racial animosity are the same ones who cause it.

At Helena Chemical (e-mail), where I worked briefly as a temporary, I was let go without word of explanation.

Earlier that day during lunch, I scolded a Mexican woman for calling me a “gringo .”

Coincidence? I doubt it.

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