Immigration nation.

• Position: Letter to the editor

Chip Berlet's "Poking the Racist Beehive" was very interesting, as it highlighted the bigotry that is still alive in America and that has always been rooted in two facets: race and religion (January issue). You don't have to look back more than 100 years to remember how Italians, as one example, were discriminated against because they were not Anglo-Saxon. Today, immigrants, Mexicans, Musliras, and Arabs are the victims of similar propaganda.

It's sad to see the hypocrisy of Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan, who are so self-righteous in thinking "their" jobs are being taken and "their" culture is changing. It's the same old story as with earlier ethnic immigration waves. The jobs and culture were never "theirs" to begin with. The fabric of America will continue to change, as it always has.

Instead of supporting tolerance and education and extending a path to real freedom and citizenship, our so-called leaders, rightwing politicians, and mainstream corporate media continue to invoke fear in America and seek to pit us against each other in order to support their backward agendas.

Enrico Leo

Via e-mail

Chip Berlet offers up a propaganda piece sure to please union-busters. Racism is real enough, but incidental to the issues.

First of all, this is a nation of laws. Illegal immigrants and employers who hire them are breaking the law. Second, illegal immigrants...