OLLIE OX UPDATE 8/10: The Star Tribune uses Westrum as a source in an article about the debate over the language to be used to describe undocumented immigrants. Near the end of "Words cloud 'illegals' debate", readers learn:
Paul Westrum of Albert Lea, Minn., founder of Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction, says language has actually improved for immigrants over the years. He recalled his grade school teachers calling migrant workers "wetbacks" and also "Operation Wetback," which as launched during the Eisenhower administration to repatriate Mexicans.
Calling these immigrants anything but "illegal" is simply wrong, he said. Look up the words in the dictionary.
"All it does is fog the issue, and pretty soon people don't know what to think," Westrum said.
Nice to know that the Strib calls on such rock solid minds to help us think. Westrum's quoted right after George Lakoff, by crackee.
ORIGINAL POST: It's hard to know what to think of Paul Westrum's recent letters to editor of small town papers in the First.
Today's Dodge County Independent features this epistle:
Our Sovereignty Threatened
Letter to the Editor:
Paul Westrum
Albert Lea, MN
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
If the sovereignty of the U.S. is important to you, you should know the very sovereignty you hold so dear is being deliberately: and systematically eroded away by an agreement signed in March 2005 by President Bush, Mexican president Vincente Fox and the Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. This program, called the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), is run within the office of NAFTA at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and when the woman who heads the office, Ms. Geri Word, was asked last month why the secrecy, she said, "We did not want to get the contact people of the working groups distracted by calls from the public."
The agreement is far-reaching to say the least. It creates a European Union-like setup between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Its goals include eracing our borders "to build capacity and improve the legitimate flow of people and cargo at our shared borders, enhance crucial infrastructure protection and implement a common approach to emergency response." Wait a minute! Let's backtrack a bit. "Build capacity" regarding the flow of people? No wonder President Bush doesn't care about enforcing our immigration laws or doing anything serious about illegal immigration. Why bother when he's got this coming? And all this without telling us or Congress; there is no bill in the U.S. House or Senate to set this up. Are we still living in a democracy?
Wake up, people, before it is too late. Call your Representative and two Senators and tell them "NO WAY!"
Paul Westrum
Albert Lea, MN
The Spring Grove Herald ran a similiar letter from Westrum, an immigration "reform" advocate from Albert Lea:
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: DISSOLVING OUR BORDERS
A nation is supposed to have defined borders; otherwise it is not a nation at all. That is what comes to mind when I hear talk of "The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP)." The name itself sounds innocuous, and who doesn't like the sound of security and prosperity? However, look a little deeper and you realize that this "partnership," recently introduced by the so-called leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, is hardly in America's best interest.The SPP's goal is to turn our sovereign nation into part of a North American trading colony with no identity whatsoever. The idea of trying to form a "Union" from three separate countries with very different social, linguistic, and economic conditions is beyond absurd.
Apparently, the main thrust of the SPP is the "free flow" of goods and more importantly, people, throughout the region, thereby fattening the wallets of the few who will benefit from cheap labor. I can hear the corpocracy now: "Why have those pesky immigration laws when you can dissolve the borders and have an endless supply of cheap labor to replace middle class workers who actually expect a livable wage for their efforts?" The sound of pigs at a trough would be a fitting soundtrack to the last statement.
And while we're on the topic of standard of living, you may as well forget about one if the North American Union becomes a reality. The United States and Canada will become third world countries, just like Mexico. It should now be easy for most people to understand the Bush administration's obsession with globalism, guest worker programs, and pandering to illegal aliens while pretending to be concerned about "border security." Plans are to get us dumbed-down and used to the idea of no borders at all.
Thankfully, there are several patriots left in Congress who will stand up to the elites. Americans must be informed of this impending disaster if our great country is to be saved in time.
For more information, go to www.spp.gov/
Paul Westrum
Albert Lea, Minn.
Accusing President Bush of trying to semi-secretly set up a "North American Union" seems to venture into the realm of black helicopter land. Yet Paul Westrum is taken seriously and has had the ear of Gil Gutknecht in the past in discussions of immigration policy.
According to the August 21, 2005, Mason City Globe Gazette, Paul Westrum was an invited guest of Gil Gutknecht at a meeting about immigration:
Republican Congressmen Gil Gutknecht from Minnesota and Tancredo, chairman of the 70-member House Immigration Reform Caucus, spoke to 100 people at a luncheon Tuesday in Albert Lea.
The Globe Gazette spoke with Westrum:
Paul Westrum of Albert Lea believes in "a common- sense approach to our immigration policy."
He was invited to Tuesday's luncheon by Gutknecht."If we don't do something about this immigration issue, we're going to lose our country as we know it," said Westrum, who has researched immigration issues for nearly a decade.
Does Gutknecht share Westrum's concerns about SPP? Is he one of the "several patriots left in Congress" who Westrum praises? If not, are Mr. Westrum's policy recommendations really based on a "common-sense approach"?
I've met a handful of nuts like this, mostly on construction sites.
I can remember first discussing this hemespheric trade union stuff in Poli Sci 1301 at the U about, damn, eight years ago. Yep, the world is a changing, nea - evolving, place. Just don't tell Mr. Westrum.
If I may:
The SPP's goal is to turn our sovereign nation into part of a North American trading colony with no identity whatsoever. The idea of trying to form a "Union" from three separate countries with very different social, linguistic, and economic conditions is beyond absurd.
I know cultural identity was a big sticking point with the EU, but I'd like Mr. Westrum say which identity it is that we, as Americans, are likely to lose.
Secondly, if the idea of three seperate countries forming a union is "absurd" to Mr. Westrum, I wonder how wildly fanciful it would be to put fifty independent states into one union. Won't someone please think of the children?
Why is it that some men (and their wives agree with them, of course) see it necessary to remain static as a society in order to feel safe as an individual?
Posted by: tom | August 09, 2006 at 05:05 PM