Immigration - an unattributed good thought

"You Say That Immigrants Threaten Your Way of Life, Man, That Must Be Tough." - a poster with a photo of an older Native American.

A relative posted on Facebook the poster "You Say That Immigrants Threaten Your Way Of Life, Man, That Must Be Tough".  She shared it from "Americans Against The Republican Party" and it supposedly came from "Being Liberal".

Before I posted it on my blog, I wanted to check authorship.  Neither Facebook site gave any such information.  I found http://www.freakyts.com/Pages/NativeAmerican.aspx with Google, and I had many chuckles with not only the Native American section but some of the others.  Are these designs original with freakyts, are they copyrighted by someone else, or are they in the public domain?

Whatever the case, I'll be back before Christmas.  Our family gives T-shirts, sweatshirts, or books.  I've already picked out two T-shirts.

I sent something similar to the above three paragraphs to freakyts's comments.

In response to my relative's posting, I added:

I always thought the Indians had a lousy immigration policy. Just think how they could have protected themselves if they had more guns.

On a more mundane note, I would like to post this on my blog, but I can find no attribution other than a facebook site. Somebody must have the rights to this.

Finally, Pete Seeger has on one album the following:

Two Indians are standing on the beach when a small boat pulls ashore. A man steps out and says, "Buenos Dias, Señores!"  One Indian looks at the other and says, "Well, there goes the neighborhood!"

The idiocy of race and nationality

Several weeks ago a Duluth Fox news director caused quite a stir when he put on Facebook a derogatory, racist remark about somebody that was near his house.  I don't remember if he resigned or was fired.  He then said that his great-grandfather's great-grandfather was Indian or some such chain, and he claims he is Indian too.  He even was admitted into an Indian journalists' group.

Come on!  Just because you had an ancestor of a certain origin doesn't make you one of the group the ancestor belonged to.  Many people even one generation removed from some place have none of the language or culture of where their parents came from.

My surname is Irish, but I can find no ancestor that lived in Ireland.  The best I can tell is that my great-great-great grandfather, Vincent Magree, was probably born in Maryland.  I am assuming that Magree is Irish because several Australians named Magree trace their ancestry back to Kilkenny.

I have great-grandparents who were born in England and Germany.  I consider myself neither English or German.  When I was in England and Ireland, I was called a Yank.  When I was in Germany, I was called Amerikaner.  Some of my ancestors born in what was then Germany may have had Polish ancestors.  I do not consider myself Polish.

I consider myself an American because I was born in the U.S., had almost all of my education in the U.S., and except for some trips to Canada, never went outside the U.S. until I was 30.

So, if some ancestor long, long ago was from a certain group and some of that person's descendants claim they belong to that group, shouldn't we consider President Barack Obama a white man.  His mother was a white American and a long list of her ancestors were white.  Given the reasoning for people to claim Indian inheritance, then we can also say that Obama is white.

We're born here; we're Americans.  End of story.

Never, ever use never and ever - a note to Mitt Romney

I noticed that an ad at the top of "Citizens or soldiers, which do we want" is for Mitt Romney, probably because I quote from The American Conservative".  (You may see a different ad.)

The ad boldly repeats Romney's assertion, "I will never apologize for America."  I am afraid of leaders who assert, "My country, always right!"  I'm sorry, Mr. Romney, but history is full of aggressive acts by American governments where others were pushed aside for American "interests".

I guess Romney would not apologize for the atrocities against Native Americans that have been admitted by other presidents.  Note: the measure was introduced into the U.S. Senate by Sam Brownback, R-KS with the words: “to officially apologize for the past ill-conceived policies by the US Government toward the Native Peoples of this land and re-affirm our commitment toward healing our nation’s wounds and working toward establishing better relationships rooted in reconciliation.”  See http://nativevotewa.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/president-obama-signs-native-american-apology-resolution/.

I guess he would not apologize for the internment of Japanese-Americans as did his hero, Ronald Reagan.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment.

I guess he would not apologize for an American sniper using the Qu'ran for target practice as did his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.  See "Real conservatives can say they're sorry", Nicholaus Mills, CNN, 2012-09-20.

I guess he would not apologize for the atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in the Philipines (see "Revolt in the Ranks" written by a conservative).

I guess he would not apologize for all the meddling in other countries' affairs that we would not tolerate if done by other countries to us.