Send Earth Day/immigration faxes to politicians‏

An urgent post from http://www.numbersusa.com/  about immigration's impact on the environment! This follows this post about immigration bills in Florida. This follows this post about congressional redistricting and this follows this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso. On a related note, you can read about Miss Kentucky Latina here, an interesting article about Jessica Alba here or another article about Salma Hayek here. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read a very interesting book HERE!


Send Earth Day/immigration faxes to politicians‏



TELL CONGRESS THAT CONCERNS ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT


MUST LEAD TO REDUCTIONS IN IMMIGRATION NUMBERS



Let's make sure that your Members of Congress and their staffs know that immigration is an environmental issue.



As I discovered at the giant Earth Day festival in Dallas, a lot of people are shocked to have the two issues connected.



ACTION -- You can guarantee that your Members of Congress and their staffs will be better educated if you send this immigration/environmental fax.



http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=13093  



Earth Day happened during the congressional break. Now that they are back in D.C., this is a good time to make the connection for them.



In case you didn't see my blogs about my Earth Day experiences, I am copying them in this email.



Visitor to our Earth Day booth 'shames' me for dishonoring my 'hippie' past -- but others cheer our existence



DALLAS -- One man loudly told me that I should be ashamed of myself for advocating U.S. population stabilization at an Earth Day festival -- and indicated that the founders of Earth Day were shamefully selfish if they advocated what NumbersUSA is advocating.



Three of us are spending two days running our NumbersUSA booth at this Earth Day festival in downtown Dallas.



This is the 41st Earth Day, and Congress continues to defy the goals of the First Earth Day 1970 by forcing massive U.S. population growth.



It can be most informative to hear the ideas that pop out of people's heads and mouths when confronted with the original Earth Day 1970 message of stabilizing U.S. population.



THOSE WHO ARE SHOCKED



It was a white male Baby Boomer who has gotten the most upset with us.



I saw him eyeing our booth from afar. I motioned him closer and gave him a foldover card of Census projections. Apparently, he thought we were pushing for Americans to have smaller families at first, because his face went blank when I explained we are carrying out the recommendations of two national commissions under Pres. Clinton to reduce immigration.



The man reached in his pocket, pulled out our card and tossed it back on our table.



"Shame. Shame on you," he said to me. "I bet you were a hippie when you were young?"



"Well, not actually."



"But you had long hair didn't you?"



"Well, yes."



"Now, you're like the narcs who grew long hair to trick the hippies so they could arrest them," the man said. "If your ancestors hadn't been allowed to immigrate you wouldn't be here today. And now you are just selfish."



I handed the man a flier that had quotes from a number of national environmental commissions and leaders about the essentiality of stabilizing U.S. population for the sake of American ecological resources and the world's. The man just brushed them aside. I asked him if he was saying that all of these environmental leaders, including the founders of Earth Day were selfish and meanspirited. He indicated they were.



As he walked away, he told me I should use my intellect and energies to do something good for humankind.



TEACHER INSISTS CLASS HEAR MY LECTURE



While Mr.-You're-A-Disgrace-To-Hippiedom was finishing with me, a school teacher sidled up to NumbersUSA Deputy Directory Anne Manetas and said:



"Oh, this is about population. I want my kids to hear about this."



She then had her full class stand in our booth for me to give them a 10-minute population lecture about our "Wall charts."



"When I was growing up we were taught about the importance of slowing down population growth," the teacher said. "But these kids almost never hear about it."



With a teacher like that, the students were most attentive and asked good questions.



41st EARTH DAY WITNESSES TO ITS FOUNDER'S DEEPEST SENSE OF FAILURE



At the first Earth Day in 1970, I was a newspaper reporter covering the story.



On the 41st anniversary, I'm at this festival in the blocked off streets of the Arts District of downtown Dallas. Last night, in a reception for the sponsors of this event, the leader Trammell Crow Jr. said (in typical Texas fashion) that he was quite sure that this is the largest Earth Day celebration in America in terms of exhibits, etc.



We present ourselves to the public with a big quote from the late Sen. Gaylord Nelson, the Father of Earth Day:



" . . . no way to forge a sustainable society without stabilizing U.S. population."



By identifying our whole booth and message with the Father of Earth Day 1970, we are causing most skeptics who stop by to give us a second look. Many are a little amazed that the whole enterprise was begun by a man who thought a central necessity of the Earth Day movement was the stabilization of U.S. population.



Furthermore, Sen. Nelson became more and more insistent during the last years of his life that true American environmentalists had to support immigration reductions, because sustainability was not possible without cuts in the numbers.



At last night's reception, NumbersUSA Deputy Director Anne Manetas and myself had quite a visit with former Congressman Pete McCloskey of California (ran for President against Nixon in 1972). He was the Republican co-chair of that first national Earth Day, in partnership with the Democrat Nelson.



Anne and I enjoyed swapping Sen. Nelson stories with Congressman McCloskey. Anne had worked with Sen. Nelson frequently throughout the 1990s as he became more and more public in his condemnation of immigration policies that were negating many of the big Earth Day environmental gains. And I both shared speaking platforms with Sen. Nelson during his last years but was a bit of a phone pal with him, as he regularly checked with me for new population statistics.



IMMIGRANT: 'SO I'M THE PROBLEM?



A young man just came by with a name tag as affiliated with a Texas green activist group. He looked at our foldover population card with that big red "growth from immigration" on it. He pointed to the red and said, "So I'm the problem?"



He went on to say that he immigrated from South America a decade ago. I told him that he and other immigrants are not part of the problem but that federal policy is the problem if it continues to bring quadrupled levels of immigration into the country.



He was respectful but clearly disturbed to see our booth.



Having fun having a number of people come by and say "I send your faxes." And a number giving thumbs up that glad to see the U.S. population issue showing up at this enviro event.



A woman came by and asked if we were working for zero population growth.



I said, "Yes, we work on the immigration part that is keeping us from a stable population in the U.S."



She responded that she couldn't go along with limiting immigration but she was for zero population growth. I said that if she looked at our wall chart she could see what she wants isn't possible.



The woman then said she was for zero population growth of the world but not the U.S.



Lots of schools have released roving bands of students and clogging our streets. Only a few stop to ask. But the ones that do hear Anne and me say, "This is what will happen to the U.S. population in your lifetimes."



Census Data used for the chart shows that the 203 million U.S. population of the First Earth Day 1970 and soared to over 300 million today and will hit 625 million by the end of this century -- if Congress doesn't change immigration numbers.



Every environmental effort advertised in this Earth Day festival will be substantially if not wholly undercut if that population growth occurs.



MOST IMMIGRANTS AT BOOTH ARE WITH US OR UNDERSTANDING



An Indian immigrant just stopped by with her family and had a long conversation and a thumbs up.



In fact, most of the people who identify themselves as immigrants, as well as most Hispanics (could be immigrants or recent descendents), either indicate some agreement on the need to slow immigration or at the least show a lot of openness.



Frankly, I'm somewhat encouraged by that. The city of Dallas is heavily immigrant now, so the crowds here reflect that. My experience here undergirds my wish for people to step back from a lot of negative stereotypes about Hispanic Americans, assuming that they are in favor of ruining the quality of life and environment in this country. It is true that most Hispanic leaders seem to show little concern about future generations of Americans (because of their advocacy of massive population growth). So, it is little wonder that most Hispanic Americans may not have heard about the need for lower immigration. But, then, most Americans of any ethnicity probably haven't heard it either. That's a big challenge for all of you who are connected with NumbersUSA.



Having said all of that, we definitely get an occasional booth adult visitor who acts soiled after picking up one of our foldover cards and states that his/her parents were immigrants and that they can't be a part of anything limiting immigration.



TOO MANY PEOPLE THINK IMMIGRATION CAN SAVE SOCIAL SECURITY



Discouraging to hear so many people who start out totally with us on limiting immigration but then say, "But one good thing is that all this immigration may save Social Security."



Several detailed studies have shown that immigration actually makes the threatened Social Security crash even bigger. A lot of the huge demand on SS the next couple of decades will be the huge wave of immigrants who are retiring. And most immigrants do not pay enough money into SS to help out.



WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT THAT?



A middle-aged white woman just turned up her nose at our charts and said, "What so bad about that?"



"You mean adding another 300 million people to America this century?" I asked.



"No, but you're talking about immigration," she said. "Why aren't you telling people to have fewer babies?"



"Well," I said, "actually, Americans have been having fewer babies since 1972. 100% of our long-term population growth is now caused by Congress which is forcing it through elevated immigration numbers."



"Don't you value cultural mixing and enrichment?" she shot back.



"Whether immigration is good or bad is not the issue here," I said. "The issue is whether we should bring in quadrupled levels of immigration to force 300 million more people into the U.S. this century."



"Who is going to do all these jobs that Americans won't do?"



I did my usual information about that, after which she started talking about her son working in landscaping for a long time. I didn't quite follow her argument there.



"What you ought to be doing," she said, "is fight all these corporations moving the jobs oversees. That's what is really hurting America. You should do that instead of taking after immigrants." And then she stormed off.



One of things that Anne and I marvel at is the number of people who seem to think that it is illegitimate to work on immigration and U.S. population as long as any other jobs or environmental problem has not yet been solved.



Many people have told us what NumbersUSA should be doing besides immigration.



Of course, we know that we are dealing with classic signs of denial. I really think hardly any of these people in a calm moment would say that adding 300 million more people is good for the environment or the country. But as long as stopping that growth involves reducing their sacred cow of immigration, they just have to go into all kinds of silly denial.



I am sure that everybody reading this has dealt with this kind of ignorant response from otherwise educated and intelligent people.



WE DON'T FOCUS ON THE HOSTILES



Of course, those who are hostile or in denial are not going to determine this country's future.



No, we are interested in identifying all the people who already are with us -- or who have the capacity to understand new information. There are millions of people who would like to reduce immigration but don't know that NumbersUSA exists.



There are millions of people who would help you pressure Congress to do the right thing if they could just hear about us. We don't have the money to take out an ad for the Super Bowl (of course, they wouldn't accept the ad).



So, we really depend on the people who are giving us thumbs up here in downtown Dallas, and on all of you, to spread the word.



My biggest effort here has been to convince people who agree with us to believe that we can eventually win. Too many people just give up.



YET ANOTHER ENGAGED HISPANIC AMERICAN AT THE BOOTH



He identified himself as an immigrant, asked for my full presentation and said he really can see why we are doing it, although he hadn't thought much about it..



He said it hurts to tell people they can't come to the U.S. but most people in the world are going to have to live where they are and be helped to transform their own societies.



I told him that there is one group of people who have tended to be really angry at us -- middle-aged white women.



Our new immigrant friend said that too many white people are scared of the immigration issue because they are afraid of being called racists.



Interestingly, not one person mentioned racism to me these two days. But lot of them sure told me that I was wasting my life for a bad cause.



Again, though, I am finishing this trip thinking about all the wonderful people who came by and said how excited they were to see us there and working on the lower-immigration cause.