By Colin Powell... the general who thought that leaving
Saddam Hussein and his sons in power after Gulf War One ended was a bright idea... the Secretary of State whose top aid (Richard Armitage) betrayed all ethical and moral standards... and finally... the "Republican"
private citizen who supported and voted for Barack Obama.
* * *
Many years ago, after I had become a four-star general
and then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Times of London wrote an
article observing that if my parents had sailed to England rather than New
York, “the most they could have dreamed of for their son in the military was to
become a sergeant in one of the lesser British regiments.”
* IF ONLY POWELL'S PARENTS HAD SAILED TO ENGLAND! IF
ONLY...!!!
Only in America could the son of two poor Jamaican
immigrants become the first African-American, the youngest person and the first
ROTC graduate from a public university to hold those positions, among many
other firsts. My parents arrived — one at the Port of Philadelphia, the other at
Ellis Island — in search of economic opportunity, but their goal was to become
American citizens, because they knew what that made possible.
* THEIR GOAL... THEIRS...
Immigration is a vital part of our national being because
people come here not only to build a better life for themselves and their
children, but to become Americans.
* SOME DO. MANY DON'T. SURELY YOU'RE AWARE OF THIS, MR. SECRETARY, WHY
NOT JUST... BE HONEST...???
With access to education...
* HEY... FOLKS... ABOUT THAT "ACCESS"... DID
YOU KNOW THAT IT COSTS MONEY TO PROVIDE SCHOOLING (NOT TO MENTION
ALL THE OTHER BENEFITS OF LIVING HERE IN AMERICA) TO IMMIGRANTS?
(*SNORT*)
* FUNNY... I DOUBT POWELL WILL FOLLOW UP HIS REMARKS WITH
AN ACCOUNTING OF WHAT LEGAL IMMIGRATION - LET ALONE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION - COSTS
US.
(*SHRUG*)
...and a clear path to citizenship, they routinely become
some of the best, most-patriotic Americans you’ll ever know.
* AGAIN. SOME DO. MANY DON'T.
That’s why I am a strong supporter of immigration-law
reform: America stands to benefit from it as much as, if not more than, the
immigrants themselves.
* HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!
(*ROFLMAO*)
Contrary to some common misconceptions, neighborhoods
with greater concentrations of immigrants have lower rates of crime and
violence than comparable non-immigrant neighborhoods, according to a 2015
report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
* FOLKS... JUST READ THE SUMMARY AND TELL ME IF IT SOUNDS
"FAIR AND BALANCED" TO YOU... OR IF IT COMES ACROSS AS SOME SORT OF
MARKETING OUTREACH.
(*SHRUG*)
* IN ANY CASE... TO CONTINUE WITH POWELL'S OP-ED...
Foreign-born men age 18-39 are jailed at one-quarter the
rate of native-born American men of the same age.
* SO... EXACTLY HOW MANY FOREIGN-BORN MEN ARE WE
TALKING...???
(*SMIRK*)
* AND... WHY "MEN?" WHY ONLY "MEN?"
* AND... WHY USE "JAILED?" WHY NOT USE
"ARRESTED?" HMM? WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS IF WE'RE TALKING
"ARRESTED?"
* FOLKS... THESE ARE THE TYPES OF QUESTIONS THAT ANYONE
VERSED IN STATISTICAL ANALYSIS - AS I AM - WILL ASK. (BUT OF COURSE THESE
AREN'T THE QUESTIONS LIBERAL JOURNALISTS WILL ASK...)
Today’s immigrants are learning English at the same rate
or faster than earlier waves of newcomers...
* UH-HUH. SO... WE CAN DO AWAY WITH BI-LINGUAL EDUCATION?
WE CAN DO AWAY WITH BI-LINGUAL... EVERYTHING?
(*CHUCKLE*)
* SOMEHOW I DOUBT POWELL IS GIVING US THE UNVARNISHED
TRUTH... THE TRUE STORY.
...and first-generation arrivals...
* WHAT ARE "FIRST-GENERATION ARRIVALS?" LEGAL
IMMIGRANTS? ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS? BOTH...???
(*SMIRK*)
...are less likely to die from cardiovascular disease or
cancer than native-born people.
* FREE MEDICAL CARE COURTESY OF THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER?
* SERIOUSLY... WHAT'S YOUR POINT, MR. SECRETARY?
They experience fewer chronic health conditions, have
lower infant-mortality and obesity rates, and have a longer life expectancy.
* WOW! THEY'RE SUPER-HUMANS!
* I WONDER... DOES THIS PRESENTATION MATCH WHAT YOUR
AVERAGE COP, EMT, NURSE, DOCTOR, OR FIREMAN WOULD TELL YOU?
* FOLKS... I'D HAVE TO GO OVER THE ACTUAL RESEARCH. ALL
I'LL TELL YOU IS THAT... MY GUESS IS THAT POWELL IS SKEWING HIS PRESENTATION
VIA RELYING UPON SKEWED - AND THUS MISLEADING - STATS.
(*SHRUG*)
My parents met and married here and worked in the garment
industry, bringing home $50 to $60 a week. They had two children: my sister
Marilyn, who became a teacher, and me. I didn’t do as well as the family hoped;
I caused a bit of a crisis when I decided to stay in the Army. “Couldn’t he get
a job? Why is he still in the Army?”
We were a tight-knit family with cousins and aunts and
uncles all over the place. But that family network didn’t guarantee success.
What did? The New York City public education system.
* SERIOUSLY... HE'S GONNA COMPARE HIS NYC SCHOOL
SYSTEM - BACK THEN - TO TODAY'S...??? REALLY...??? WOW... I WONDER WHY THERE ARE
SO MANY PRIVATE SCHOOLS IN NYC...
(*SMIRK*)
I’m a public-education kid, from kindergarten through to
Morris High School in the South Bronx and, finally, City College of New York.
New York University made me an offer, but tuition there was $750 a year. Such a
huge sum in 1954!
* YES, MR. SECRETARY... 1954.
(*SMIRK*)
* FOLKS... THIS GUY IS FULL OF SHIT AND HE KNOWS HE'S
FULL OF SHIT. THAT'S WHAT'S SO DISGUSTING.
I would never impose that on my parents, so it was CCNY,
where back then tuition was free.
* NO, MR. SECRETARY, TUITION WAS NEVER "FREE."
THE COST WAS FINANCED ON THE BACKS OF THE TAXPAYERS.
I got a B.S. in geology and a commission as an Army
second lieutenant, and that was that. And it all cost my parents nothing. Zero.
* DID YOUR PARENTS PAY TAXES? (DO YOU UNDERSTAND BASIC
ECONOMIC REALITY, MR. SECRETARY?)
After CCNY, I was lucky to be among the first group of
officers commissioned just after the Army was desegregated.
* FOLKS... GOOGLE "WILSON + MILITARY
SEGREGATION".
(*SMIRK*)
* FOLKS... NEXT GOOGLE "FDR + MILITARY
SEGREGATION".
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
I competed against West Pointers, against grads from
Harvard and VMI and the Citadel and other top schools. And to my surprise, I
discovered I had gotten a pretty good education in the New York City public
schools. Not only in geology and the military, but also in wider culture. I had
learned a little about music, about Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” and theater
and things like that. I got a complete education, all through public schools,
and it shapes me to this day.
* I ATTENDED PUBLIC SCHOOL K-12 - TAXPAYER FINANCED. I
THEN ATTENDED NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY... PARTIALLY FINANCED BY MY FATHER...
LARGELY FINANCED BY... ME.
(*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)
This amazing gift goes back to 1847 when the Free Academy
of the City of New York was created with a simple mandate: “Give every child
the opportunity for an education.” And who would pay for it? The citizens and
taxpayers of New York City and State. They did it and kept at it when the
Academy became CCNY in 1866, because they knew that poor immigrants were their
children. They were the future.
* AND TODAY... 50 YEARS OF MODERN "LIBERALISM"
HAVE BASICALLY DESTROYED THAT ONCE GREAT SYSTEM.
(*SHRUG*)
* IT'S TRUE. WE ALL KNOW IT'S TRUE. BUT... COLIN POWELL
DOESN'T CARE. SAD. PATHETIC.
They still are. Today some 41 million immigrants and 37.1
million U.S.-born children of immigrants live in the U.S. Taken together, the
first and second generations are one-quarter of the population.
* AND THIS AIN'T GOOD!
While some countries, like Japan and Russia, worry that population
decline threatens their economies, America’s economic future vibrates with
promise from immigrants’ energy, creativity and ambition.
(*HEADACHE*)
* UH-HUH. OUR "VIBRATING" ECONOMY. OUR
"VIBRATING" DEFICITS! OUR "VIBRATING" DEBT!
Every one of these people deserves the same educational
opportunities I had.
* DESERVES...???
* FIRST OF ALL... THEY'RE NOT GONNA GET IT BECAUSE THE
LEFT HAS DESTROYED THE SCHOOLS; SECOND... ARE WE (YOU) TALKING LEGAL OR ILLEGAL
ALIENS? HMM?
It wasn’t, and isn’t, charity to immigrants or to the
poor.
* UM. YES. YES IT IS!
Those early New Yorkers were investing in their own
future by making education and citizenship accessible to “every child.” They
knew it — and what a future it became!
* AGAIN. MR. SECRETARY. IT'S NOT 1954!
(*HEADACHE*)
We still have that model. But today too many politicians
seem to think that short-changing education...
* HA! HA! HA! YEAH... SURELY IF ONE LOOKS AT WHAT AMERICA
SPENDS UPON EDUCATION ONE WILL SEE LITTLE "SHORT-CHANGING."
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... POWELL IS A FAKE, PHONY FRAUD.
PERIOD.
...will somehow help society. It does not. It hurts
society.
We need people who know that government has no more
important function than securing the terrain...
* I WISH! (SOMEHOW I DOUBT SECRETARY POWELL IS REFERRING
TO SECURING OUR BORDERS...)
(*SMIRK*)
...which means opening the pathways to the future for
everyone, educating them to be consumers, workers, leaders — and citizens.
* EVERYONE...???
We are all immigrants...
* NOT ME, DUDE. (INDEED, NOT YOU!)
* HE'S JUST... SO... FULL OF SHIT!
...wave after wave over several hundred years. And every
wave makes us richer: in cultures, in language and food, in music and dance, in
intellectual capacity.
* NOT THIS WAVE. CLEARLY NOT THIS WAVE. WHO DOES THIS
CLOWN THINK HE'S FOOLING? SERIOUSLY...?!?!
We should treasure this immigrant tradition, and we
should reform our laws to guarantee it.
In this political season, let us remember the most
important task of our government: making Americans.
* "FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGED" AMERICANS, MR.
SECRETARY?
Immigrants — future Americans — make America better every
single day.
* EXCEPT THE ONES WHO... DON'T.
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