Many of these students are citizens but have parents or family members who are not, this is a show of familia and pride.  Today is Cesar Chavez Day in California, how fitting.  Thanks for writing this up, Steven.

We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit - Octavio Paz / Latino Político

StevenD writes:

Do not hold your breath, Steven.

I will keep saying this until someone pays attention.

The "Democrats"...those in positions of national power, anyway...are now the Republican Lite party. With a VERY few exceptions.

Republican Lite on the War in Iraq.

Republican Lite on censure and impeachment.

Republican Lite on "Homeland Security"...what a joke THOSE words have become.

On bankruptcy, on who gets into the Supreme Court, on Blood For Oil and economic imperialism in general...on everything that their owners damned well TELL them to be Republican Lite.

Whatever is in the interests of the Corporate PermaGov is OK.

And rebellious Chicanos are NOT in those interests,

Thus their shameful silence.

Thus the qualm before the storm.

I have been saying this on these blogs for nearly a year now.

There is going to have to be some kind of real shock to the system to get us out of the one party doldrums, and it is going to have to come from people who for one reason or another...and language is a GREAT reason...have not been put in as deep or as universal a trance state by the media as have been the majority of Americans.

I personally think that the Central, South and Caribbean American nations...and their immigrants here in the United States, legal or otherwise...show promise of being the saviors of democracy in the world. (And by the way...what right does THIS administration have to even USE the word "legal" about ANYTHING? Really. It out to burn their mouths to even think the word.)

VAYA!!!

César Chavez was a prophet.

VAYA!!!

AG

Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.-Mae West

From the heartland of CA's coastal fields where Cesar Chavez once organzied farmworkers, police charged one of the organizers of Sat's march for various traffic violations, incl. marching w/out a permit, and is also charging the organizers with the "costs" of police overtime.

Watsonville Police charge Brown Berets for peaceful action!

. . . after the march, the Watsonville Police Department targeted one organizer (a Brown Beret) and wrote him a citation with 8-10 counts against him, including criminal charges. We are still waiting for the ticket to arrive in the mail, what we know we have learned from one policeman and the news. They will also be charging the Brown Berets for police overtime. This was an effort to show people that “…they can’t do whatever they want to,” in the words of the Watsonville Police.

Protect & serve . . .

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky

At least they aren't apathetic and waiting for some politician to make it all better or for voters to vote it all away.

To me, that Patriotic

I say we have money to kill - let's use it to heal. For all the people. Not just some but all.

War should be ILLEGAL - not humans

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. - Jimi Hendrix

Senate committee votes 12 -6. Link here.

Denial is our most dangerous adversary.

H-Town is representing too.

Houston area students protest immigration reform proposal

About 150 students from an Aldine school staged a walkout this morning, hiking several miles to protest a potential congressional crackdown on illegal immigration.

After walking some eight miles from Eisenhower High School, 7922 Antoine, to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office at 126 Northpoint Drive, the group stood outside holding signs and a Mexican flag for about two hours.

Senior Jesse Quintero, 18, said:
"I challenge all Latino and hispanic-descent people to come out with us tomorrow, to miss one day of work, because that will show the city of Houston, and everyone in the nation will see how badly this (proposed immigration restriction) will affect the country."

Other students said they walked past Aldine High School which was locked down so others could not leave.

The people united will never be divided!

VIVA LA RAZA!!!!

They did it here in Ventura too. A horde of kids was on the corner outside Ventura High around 9, and they marched west shortly after.

mbr + dv + woyg

Steven, It may have been unexpected to you, but it wasn't unexpected to immigration advocates like me and 100,000 or more other advocates across the country. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is brought to us by Richard Mellon Scaife, the same asshole who bankrolled the Clinton investigations and impeachment. They have HUGE resources. They get HUGE play on the coopted national media. Their frontline current spokesman is Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, who is just the next in line after guys like Lamar Smith of Texas. They've been building this incredibly punitive anti-foreigner law for a long time.

You know the way the Republicans are running the Congress now, right? House and Senate pass different versions of a bill and it goes to conference. Under this unholy government of the evil undead Frist and Hastert, there is no opennness to the conferences at all. No Democrats are allowed. No information is provided at all as to what transpires. The "lawyers" from FAIR are allowed to sit with Republican staffers and write what is reported as the final bill.

In other words, these hearings today, and the debates the rest of the week, are a FUCKING SHAM! We went through a similar process, at a lower temperature, in 1996, and we got the IIRAIRA bill, to date the most punitive ant-immigrant law in history. That was written by FAIR lawyers in the conference. The final bill, which became LAW after Clinton signed it, didn't look anything at all like what passed the houses of Congress.

Congress this time will be restrained a little bit by the huge demonstrations. But the final bill may be a lot worse than what is reported today.

I held my nose and watched most of Lou Dobbs tonight and boy was he foaming at the mouth.  He was indignant that protesters were carrying flags other than the US flag, and I'm almost positive I heard him call the protests "riots" at the beginning of his show. I'll have to see if I heart that right when they release the transcripts.  What an angry, hateful man.

I was driving home from a job interview in the San Fernando Valley and inexplicably found myself tied up in traffic by a flock of cop cars escorting about 200 kids marching down the sidewalk flocked by elegant arrangements of red white and green balloons.  

To me, since I had no idea what was going on, the balloons confused me, since (as I later learned) a bunch of kids spontaneously walking out of school would most probably not have the resources or the forethought to prepare elegant balloon arrangements celebrating the Mexican flag to take along with them.  

As a former student protester par excellence, I want to feel hopeful about this unexpected manifestation of civil disobedience.  I'm just concerned that it may play out as the hero Bush (AKA President Rove) vetoing anti-immigrant legislation.  It will be interesting to see how these events play out.

putting people's backs to the wall before they wake up and start marching.  Most of the people here shun marches and demonstrations, but there is nothing like the image of half a million people spontaneously moving out into the streets that makes a point.  True, those people have to do more than march on one day.  We see the so-called orange revolution devolving.  But there is energy not found in any other activity in a protest march.

Grandma Jo