Friday, November 13, 2009

Lou Dobbs & Public Opinion

There is a lot of commentary, mostly celebration about Lou Dobbs' departure from CNN.

What I like about this Op-Ed is that is points out how corrosive anti-immigrant rhetoric can be. It's not that I have any problem with a person having a differing opinion from my own-quite the contrary. But Dobbs and others like him have made a reasoned discussion of immigration nearly impossible, so riddled are these conversations today with fear-mongering and conspiracy theories.

If we look at Dobbs as an example, we don't have to worry about his so-called foreign "invasion." We are our own worst enemy.
in reference to:
"“Unfortunately,” he said, “these issues are now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous, empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion.”Mr. Dobbs couldn’t have phrased a more apt criticism of himself. He calls himself Mr. Independent, but he is far closer in style and method to the right-wing ranters who mold the facts to shape the argument on television and on AM radio, where Mr. Dobbs still has a show. Mr. Dobbs’s CNN program has long been a nesting ground for untruths and conspiracy theories: fretting over a nonexistent, immigrant-borne leprosy epidemic; questioning President Obama’s citizenship; issuing dark warnings about the “North American Union,” a supposed plot to strangle United States sovereignty. It’s hard to pinpoint how much damage these kinds of ideas have done to the national discussion of illegal immigration, but they have been corrosive. Solutions have withered as many politicians parrot the central myth that people desperate to seek new lives in the United States are an affliction to be feared, not an opportunity to be engaged, future Americans who could enrich the country as immigrants always have and will."
- Editorial - A Farewell to Lou - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

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