Posted on 05/02/2006 1:33:07 PM PDT by 300magnum
On the day when more than a million advocates of illegal immigration were estimated to be skipping work and boycotting American goods, consumer experts were unsure if the protests would be effective.
The National Immigrant Solidarity Network (NISN) and other pro-immigrant groups urged illegal immigrants and their supporters to stay home from work and school and to boycott American businesses May 1, calling it the "Great American Boycott of 2006."
The goal of the protest, according to NISN, was to show "anti-immigrant politicians and hate-mongers" that illegal immigrants are vital to the United States economy. In addition to the calls for strikes and boycotts, rallies were held in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere.
Dr. Carl Horowitz, director of the Organized Labor Accountability Project of the conservative National Legal and Policy Center, was skeptical that the demonstrations would make much of a difference. "Our economy is just too big and diverse for any group, no matter how well organized, to have much of an impact," he said.
Horowitz added that in order for a boycott to be successful, it would have to continue for a long period of time. "That could only be achieved by illegal immigrants returning to their home nations," he said, "an idea many Americans would gladly support."
Monroe Friedman, emeritus professor of psychology at Eastern Michigan University, told Cybercast News Service that calling the demonstration a boycott was inaccurate. "People are marching, they're demonstrating, and we don't really know how many of them are absent from work or got approved absences from work. We just know they're out in the streets," he said.
Friedman, the author of the book "Consumer Boycotts," added, "I don't see anyone that's going to stores ... checking to see whether people are buying things.
"There is a very, very emotional tone and character to the term boycott," Friedman said. "It's one of these buzzwords and I think the news media gets very excited and leaps upon it to use it as a headline word." He said protest organizers might take advantage of the media's eagerness to use the word "boycott" to describe events that don't constitute a boycott.
Friedman said boycotts are "not one-day affairs but these are much longer in duration," pointing to the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr., in the mid-1950s, which lasted more than a year.
The real purpose of the "Great American Boycott" is not to squeeze the U.S. economy, Friedman said, but "it's really a day to call attention to ... some of the concerns that immigrants have had over the years."
Friedman declined to speculate on the impact of Monday's events, saying that he thought the wisest approach would be to "wait and see" what happened during the demonstrations and whether people actually skipped work and stopped shopping.
Horowitz predicted that the day's events would have "a limited effect."
"There [will] be some anecdotes here or there of people not showing up for work and businesses not functioning at full capacity," he said, "but in the main it's going to have a marginal effect on our economy and that will send a signal to boycotters that future such actions aren't in their best interest."
Anti-Bush activists attempted a similar "boycott" on Jan. 20, 2005, the day of President Bush's second inauguration. The boycott was intended as an anti-war message. Organizer David Livingstone told the Associated Press that he hoped pro-war corporations and politicians would lose money.
The NISN used Internet advertisements to emphasize its goal of showing the immigrants' impact on the economy. If illegal immigrants are a drain on society, one of the ads claimed, "then during the day on May 1st the stock market will surge and the economy will boom. If not, we prove them wrong once and for all."
The Dow Jones finished Monday down about 24 points and the NASDAQ was down about 18 points.
"The stock market can surge or fall for any number of reasons. You don't need an illegal immigrant boycott to do that," Horowitz said.
Protest organizers "want to fulfill their own prophesy," he added. "They'll set up a conclusion and then they'll cherry pick the evidence that allegedly proves it.
I like burritos, but they are fattening; and I can make my own if I want.
Also can make great quesadillas and reasonably good tacos, but like best the ones that Jack in the Box used to make with the salsa. Yum!
All that said, it's perfectly obvious and has been for years that the LBM (my preferred acronym for the vermin styling themselves 'journalists') 1) are not AT ALL well acquainted with the principal tool of their trade, to wit, the English language, 2) have been brainwashed, probably quite willingly, into accepting the notion the words mean ''just what I choose them to mean, neither more nor less'', a la Humpty-Dumpty, and 3) harbour a strongly anti-Constitutional (thus anti-American) bias, and so are strongly inclined toward opinions and viewpoints that are net-net destructive to the Republic.
I hate to break this to you, but we lost the War of the Reconquista 10 years ago.
You think they are lame brained.
I think they are dupes who take their marching orders from the world wide communist-socialist movement.
They use the words they are told to use because those at the top of the propaganda chain have let them know they are the approved words and phrases.
Your post # 21 is scary and accurate.
We need to keep up the fight.
I'll say! We'll end up like France in a few years if we don't get this invasion under control. Of course, the difference is that I will be sitting on my roof with a shotgun if any vandals think they are going to burn down my house or car.
LOL. What boycott?
I read in my local paper today that we have 98,000 Hispanics in the whole state. (But, I think that's a doubling in the last five years)
Actually, they are illegal aliens. Immigration is a legal process of granting residence->citizenship to non-citizens.
Exactly. If there are 11 million + "undocumented" immigrants in the US, why only 1 million (including the ususal rent-a-mobs) involved in protests/boycotts.
This whole thing stinks to high heaven.
bump
Last night went to a buffet. Noticed three families and two workers that looked Hispanic, but something about them looked like American citizens. I had not realized it before that for some reason there seems to be a difference, but I still can't place my finger on it. Other than the fluent English.
"NO ILLEGALS, NO BURRITOS"
I dont even LIKE Burritos.
And last I checked, it's not very HARD to make a taco.
"Give me a goddam break DEMOCRATS!!!!!!!!!!! Grow up and get your lies straight where they hold up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1"
Only the democrates....?????
The three abiding impressions that I still have of them are: 1) facts -- demonstrable facts -- have exactly no value to them, 2) they would, and have, apply any appellation or adjective to anything or anyone without any regard to its connotative value, as long as such term fit their agenda and was approved by their respective editors (who themselves deserve a special circle in Dante's Hell), and 3) they not only weren't the sharpest knife in the drawer, they were competing with potato peelers.
This attitude has only been expressed/exposed well just once in my experience: Mr. Limbaugh's deliberate concatenation of 'racist/sexist/bigot/homophobe'as a means of making fun of these clowns, and for that -- easy as it might seem in the abstract -- he deserves enormous praise.
The pen is mightier than the sword, eh? OK, fine with me. Let's just not turn the 'pen' over to those who are not favourites to be able to look up 'pen' and 'sword' in a dictionary, never mind expecting these anti-American morons to understand the metaphor involved.
I **particularly** have one ABC J.O. in mind, one who was two classes junior to me at college. 'Sack of hammers' is overly complimentary to this clod.
I do apologise for my error in the previous response to you!!
They are the ones that usually find themselves devoid of all logic and fair play when it comes to making a point for their side... as far as I'm concerned there aren't any Democrats worth talking to or having anything to do with that pull that kind of crap in their misguided thinking (and I have idiot relatives that are like that).
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