Please heed the call

Like them or hate them, agree with them or disagree with them, Hispanic immigrants, legal and illegal, have risen up today with one voice to tell the United States that they will no longer be ignored, no longer simply be the folks in the background who cut our lawns and cook our food. And I have never been more inspired.

I was thinking about this earlier today, and I thought that, although agreeing that illegals are treated like crap in this country, anyone here illegally needs to be subject to some sort of penalty. Now I'm even reconsidering that.

I was listening to Bob Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" and "The Times They Are A-Changin'" on my way to work today, and I realized something: those who refused to go to Vietnam during the War on Communism and protested were illegals, too. I thought of Rosa Parks. She broke the law to sit at the front of a bus because she was exhausted. I began to wonder, what would the country have been like if we'd castigated those protesters as so many are illegal immigrants? I mean, isn't breaking an unjust law somehow justified?

And by the way, I'm really annoyed with this legal-illegal bullshit, too. I mean, how dare the Bush Administration (the same "patriotic" motherfuckers who think that the national anthem is somehow less American when those singing about the glory of the stars and stripes are doing so in Spanish) criticize anyone doing anything illegal! These stupid sons of bitches have been breaking laws since the day that corrput fuckhead took the oath of office.

Look, the problem isn't with illegal immigration, folks; it's with legal immigration. We let under a million people in here every year from around the world. That isn't a very high number. People who want to come here to live and work don't want to mooch off our economy, and I challenge anyone believing such lunacy to a Milleresque duel. I mean, when you're sending more than 3/4 of your paychecks back to your poor-as-shit family back home, you're being noble, not a mooch.

We need to let more people into this country, not keep them out. That doesn't mean fewer background checks, and that doesn't mean we should let just anyone in. But how can anyone try to claim that we have a problem with Hispanic or Mexican immigration when the government allowed to of the 9/11 terrorists -- two guys who were dead, by the way -- into the country with green cards?

Our fucked-up government is making me believe more and more that the whole system needs to be blown up, and a new one needs to be put in place. I'm losing faith in the entire process.

And George W. Bush, that arrogant prick who's never actually had to do a real honest day's work in his entire miserable life, needs to seriously shut the fuck up about everything. There is no one less qualified to run this country than the son-of-a-bitch who's doing it right now, and he knows it.

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Today's DIJ: "The Times They Are A-Changin'," Bob Dylan (The Times They Are A-Changin').

Like most of Dylan's protest songs ("Chimes of Freedom," "Masters of War," "Blowin' in the Wind,"), "The Times They Are A-Changin'" is a timeless one. Amazing that a song resonating in the early '60s with he Civil Rights and Anti-War Movements could resonate today with...er...the New Civil Rights and Neo-Anti-War Movements. "Times" succeeds on every single level: lyrically, it's a tone poem about how all the old-fashioned fascists are about to be bypassed by the natural progression of society; musically, it's a simple folk tune that could've been a major force with an electric guitar at CBGB's in 1977; vocally, Dylan practically shouts his protests; and the simple use of one acoustic guitar, pardon the pun, brings it all back home. In the great pantheon of Dylan songs (and, considering he's the single greatest artist in rock history, there are about twice as many as the next closest artist), this one's right near the top of the list.