in case you missed it | Economic struggle, ethnic cleansing in Arizona

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Economic struggle, ethnic cleansing in Arizona

Arizona may be paying an unexpected price for SB 1070, the new law that enables racial profiling in an effort to apprehend and deport undocumented immigrants. According to The Guardian UK, Latinos are fleeing the state in anticipation of the racial hostility they fear may be just around the corner.

Parts of Phoenix have turned into ghost towns almost overnight, with real estate offices, Mexican restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, clothing stores and even cell phone stores going out of business. Schools are on track to have much lower than normal enrollments, as well.

It’s not just undocumented residents who are leaving, but Latinos in general. The Guardian quotes one woman, a community worker, as saying, “Panic has set in.”

The same worker goes on to explain how a “Gestapo community” is in the making in Arizona, with whites threatening to turn undocumented Latino neighbors over to police for transgressions like barking dogs.

None of this is good for Arizona’s Latino families, even those who are U.S. citizens. But it’s not good for the state’s economy, either. Arizona seems to be on the brink of creating its own private depression within the recession.

Well, how about that? As Nelson from The Simpsons would say, “Ha ha!” Let’s hope Colorado’s conservative lawmakers are paying attention. Some were inspired by the passage of SB 1070 in Arizona and hope to introduce a similar measure in Colorado next January. But undocumented workers are an important part of our state’s economy. Give them a path to citizenship. Colorado doesn’t need to make its own budget crisis worse by upending the economy in this way.

Besides, it looks too much like ethnic cleansing when one group of people begin boarding up their shops, closing their businesses and fleeing an area out of fear of their neighbors.

Tom and the village idiots

Sure has been fun watching the right-wing politicos scrambling around, hemming and hawing over whether they should agree with some, all or none of former Congressman Tom Tancredo’s latest idiotic comments.

At a rally for Senate candidate Ken Buck, district attorney for Weld County, Tancredo called President Barack Obama the greatest threat the country faces right now.

Buck hastily distanced himself from the comments, saying that Tancredo “tends to exaggerate sometimes” and that “I love Tom, but I don’t always agree with him.”

Oooh! Ken loves Tom! We always knew it, secretly. Well, in pounces Buck’s competitor, former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, jumping on the opportunity to seem as right-wing as Buck by saying that there was “a real measure of truth in what Tancredo said.”

Not to be out-right-winged, Buck clarified that what he meant was that the “progressive liberal movement” is the biggest threat.

The Dems jumped in as well, with Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff calling Tancredo’s comments “reprehensible” and Colorado Democratic Party Chair Pat Waak calling on gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis to pick a side.

“McInnis flaunts his relationship with Tancredo when campaigning at the grassroots,” Waak said. “But he refuses to be public about whether or not he agrees with Tancredo’s outrageous remarks last week.”

We left a message for McInnis’ PR type, Sean Duffy, but haven’t heard back.

Hmmm, maybe Sean has been busy with his employer’s plagiarism controversy.

Speaking of, you gotta love the two Democratic CU regents who unloaded on McInnis for plagiarizing.

What goes around comes around, eh? Seems like just yesterday that the rightwingers were pouring gasoline on the shitstorm around Ward Churchill’s plagiarism case.

The two Dem regents were forced to issue a correction to their original press release, of course, clarifying that they weren’t speaking for the entire board. You think that was prompted by the Republican board members raising hell?

Nah. There are no politics on the Board of Regents, right? Not that it matters (except when it comes to running out unpopular professors), but a vote for Democrat Melissa Hart over incumbent Steve Bosley would likely turn the majority of the board blue for the first time in many moons.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com