As four separate wildfires devour the state of Arizona-burning more than 17,500 acres at last count-it’s instructive to look at how our government has handled its investigation into the two enormous ones which blazed a path of destruction across the state in 2011. According to the Arizona Daily Star, both the Horseshoe 2 and the Monument Fire were caused  by humans, which in the case of national forests invariably means illegal aliens and/or Mexican narco-traffickers nesting within wilderness cordoned off from American citizens. The tragedy, which should elicit anger and frustration in anyone concerned about the environment and the lives of law-abiding Arizonans, is that the Forest Service-the ostensible guardian of this land-has now recommended that investigations into both of these horrific fires be closed for lack of evidence. 

This recommendation comes in spite of the fact that the Government Accountability Office has implicated illegal aliens in the willful destruction of forest land-often for the purpose of protecting lucrative human and drug smuggling routes into the United States. Attempting to contain fires caused by our government’s neglect of border enforcement is bad enough, but as Jon Feere of the Center for Immigration Studies reports, these responses are inevitably hampered-if not halted altogether-because of the presence of thousands of illegal trespassers. The only reactive measure taken by federal officials, unfortunately, is too put up signs warning American citizens to beware of their presence.

Our good friend Cindy Kolb traveled back to Cochise County to document the scene of the crimes. To appreciate the scale of this tragedy, simply look over the Facebook gallery she’s created in order to show the rest of us-who don’t live along the most heavily used rat line for human smuggling and narcotics trafficking in the country-just what has been lost because of the federal government’s neglect and indifference to the concerns of those who live in border states. The picture that you see at the top of this entry is of the Horseshoe 2 fire, courtesy of NASA, but you need not be a rocket science in order to understand that our government’s border security policy of benign neglect has real-world consequences. It has resulted in irreparable destruction to our natural environment, incalculable damage to the property of thousands of Arizonans, and threatened the lives and security of scores of Americans. It’s long past time that we reasserted control of American territory, regardless of the damage such an action might do to the sensitivities of Mexican consular officials or people who should never have stepped foot into this country in the first place.

Tomorrow night David North, of the Center for Immigration Studies, will deliver the last in a series of lectures sponsored by the Center for Immigration Studies and hosted by the Penn Club. With any luck I’ll be able to cover his talk, whose subject is the extremely important-and all but ignored-subject of legal immigration. You can view my thoughts-or react with your own-by following my Twitter account and replying @OddLane.

I look forward to the conversation.

Considering the rapidly diminishing prospects of American job applicants, events such as the Put America Back To Work job fair are desperately needed. It’s curious that such an event would be hosted by someone who wants  Americans to have fewer employment opportunities, and doesn’t believe the distinction between Americans and non-Americans should even exist.    

That said, I urge all of you-even those of you who may be gainfully employed at present-to check it out if your schedule permits. If you want to (politely) inquire as to the apparent contradiction between Mr. Rivera’s views on immigration and his endorsement of a job fair intended specifically for the benefit of American citizens, so much the better. 

The chalking you see above was one of the first signs I spotted of the organizing that was taking place inside of Bryant Park on May Day. Simplistic, but probably one of the more coherent artistic messages that I encountered as I traveled throughout lower and Midtown Manhattan on May 1st.

Ersatz Buddhist symbology-including the beautifully drawn lotus seen below-was incorporated into the protest esthetic OWS attempted to create for its May 1st “general strike.” I’m not sure what precisely the aim of this association was, but I must say that it’s preferable to the transgendered Maoism found at other Occupy Wall Street endeavors.

In addition to the visual arts, there was a self-described guitarmy willing to provide musical accompaniment to hundreds of OWS activists scattered throughout the city. Unfortunately, most of it was of the bad, acoustic folk-rock variety expertly satirized by Tom Lehrer.

There was also a brass section which I, alas, didn’t have the pleasure of hearing perform.

And what urban protest movement would be complete without a papier-mâché replica of the Statue of Liberty? There was a similar effigy of Uncle Sam, which inexplicably went unused-much like the scores of yellow ponchos brought to Union Square by well-prepared SEIU members.

There was also a nod to the paper airplane protest against large banking entities that were recipients of TARP welfare, courtesy of the federal government.

Personally, I don’t think holding aloft a facsimile of a multi-engine passenger jet is the best way to endear yourself to residents of lower Manhattan, but I could very well be mistaken.

Someone decided to wave a mock police barricade-referencing the large presence of law enforcement throughout the day. For those of you who might not recall, Union Square was sealed off completely for several days at the end of March. Astonishingly, this was a response that even the anthrax attacks in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center did not occasion.

One of the primary means of visual communication for OWS is, of course, stenciling. Some of the results are more impressive than others.

A pretty creative sign lampooned the too big to fail mantra of government bureaucrats and the recipients of taxpayer largesse among financial services/banking giants. The analogy of these corporate supplicants to dinosaurs was pretty clever in my estimation, at least if you consider the corporatist model to be going extinct. Perhaps that’s an overoptimistic belief, considering the resiliency of taxpayer-bankrolled  corporate bailouts.

One of the more baffling tableaux I noticed during my May Day peregrinations involved a group calling itself the “Tax Dodgers.” Obviously playing off the former pride and joy of Brooklyn-which abandoned New York City for less green pastures many years ago-this collection of amateur actors was attempting to draw an analogy between the reviled “one percent” and the men who shipped off Dem Bums to the Left Coast.

I’m still not quite sure who the Walter O’Malley figure is supposed to represent. Warren Buffett perhaps? You have to wonder if the amateur actors here are indignant about government manipulation of the tax code generally, or simply want to use the government’s instruments of taxation for their own pet projects.

The anathematizing of the wealthiest-some would say most productive-element of American society was in full swing at Bryant Park on May 1st. Evidently,  these folks have never listened to Adam Carolla’s theory regarding the Occupy Wall Street generation.

A few feet from the Tax Dodgers I noticed an attractive young woman wearing an emerald green dress fringed with what appeared to be fake dollar bills.

It turns out that she was a “money bunny.” I’m not certain what her intended message was, but I’m going to go out on a limb and surmise that it had something to do with the unfair distribution of income in the United States. Those darned one-percenters!

There was another quasi-artistic protest decrying the evils of perceived greed. Roughly translated, money is less than brains plus heart. I’m not sure what precisely this means. Perhaps my confusion stems from the fact that you do need intelligence-and some degree of creativity-in order to create wealth, although you probably shouldn’t tell that to President Obama or Ben Bernanke.

There were a handful of talented artists at Bryant Park, such as this fellow:

And the man who created this painting:

The link between the artistic community, at least within New York City, and Occupy Wall Street is relatively strong, notwithstanding the seeming crudity of the efforts on display at Zuccotti Park and other outposts of OWS. For example, Molly Crabapple has contributed her work to various protests throughout the city. Why successful entrepreneurs would lend their support a movement that wants to confiscate their wealth is a matter for political scientists-or perhaps psychotherapists-to analyze.

One of the organizations which has tried to glom onto the popularity of Occupy Wall Street is Anonymous, whose banner you see above. Based upon my time at Union Square and Bryant Park, I’m not sure most of the people identifying with this group understand the underlying concept.

To be fair, a few seemed to grasp the idea.

One of the more interesting innovations I found was the incorporation of Quickmeme into the protest art of Occupy, a humorous turn that isn’t quite as trite as the “Tax Dodgers” gambit, which seems to be merely a reincarnation of Billionaires for Bush.

Surprisingly, LOLcats also made an appearance:

There was even a DIY wizard ambling around Bryant Park, although I’m not certain what connection, if any, he had to the political agitation occurring during May Day’s general strike.

The central objet d’art in Union Square harkened back to the traditional meaning of the holiday with a paper-rather than wooden-maypole. Instead of celebrating the changing season though, it invoked the time-honored tradition of kvetching about the people who have screwed you over. Shades of Seinfeld?

I suppose that’s a fitting way to end this photo-essay, insofar as the chief activity during the May Day “general strike” seemed to be ritualistic complaining. As a man much wiser than I has observed, that’s no way to go through life. That said, I doubt the maypole of lamentations is going anywhere, at least if the OWS generation has anything to say about it.

Even as California increasingly seems intent upon sinking into the abyss, there is some encouraging news to report from the Golden State. Most of you are familiar with the tragic story of Jamiel Shaw Jr., a bright, energetic young student-athlete from Los Angeles who was indiscriminately killed by a criminal alien while his mother was serving her country overseas. After four painful years of pursuing justice, the Shaw family can now take some comfort in the knowledge that the illegal alien gangbanger who murdered their son has been convicted by a California jury. 

I urge you all to listen to the reaction of Jamiel Shaw’s father to the verdict, which can’t possibly repair the psychic trauma of losing not only his namesake, but his link to the future. The Shaw family has doggedly fought against the institutionalized politics of a city that joyfully clings to its status as the capital of the third world by attempting to pass Jamiel’s Law, which would have amended Special Order 40-the directive that allowed the murderer of Jamiel Shaw Jr. to roam Los Angeles without any fear of apprehension and deportation. The fact that the political class has refused to adopt this measure does not mean the threat from illegal aliens in the City of Angels has abated. To the contrary, the systemic targeting of black individuals by primarily Mexican and Central American gang members continues to plague Southern California. To get an idea of how pervasive this crime pandemic is, I recommend reading The Mexican Mafia by Tony Rafael, which chronicles the rise to power of the most ubiquitous criminal syndicate in the state of California.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Shaw family as it continues to struggle for justice and fights for the memory of its beloved  son and nephew, Jamiel Shaw Jr. As we enter the sentencing phase of this trial, we can only hope that this capital crime is punished with the harshest sentence available.

My apologies for not posting-as promised-the second part of my May Day photo-essay. There is some great coverage of May 1st by our friends at Vigilant Squirrel Brigade though, including footage of the attack upon NY ICE. You can find multiple videos of the confrontation-and what led up to it-on VSB’s Youtube channel. You can also find some fantastic photographs over at The Silent Majority No More.

You’ll see my last entry about the events surrounding May Day sometime later this week.

Some qualified good news came out of the Supreme Court recently, with a decision that partially upheld Arizona’s 2004 voter identification law. Unfortunately, while the court let stand the portion of Proposition 200 that required voters to provide I.D. in order to vote, it invalidated the I.D. requirement for voter registration.

The bigger news though, from the perspective of those of us who want to ensure fair and transparent elections, is the decision by the American Legislative Exchange Council to  withdraw its support for the voter identification laws now under sustained legal assault by the Obama administration. Although the ostensible rationale for ALEC’s narrowed legislative focus is the coordinated left wing crusade against Stand your Ground laws in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, this incident was simply the pretext for an ongoing attempt to legitimize election fraud by Van Jones and his open borders, collectivist allies.

For those of you who are followers of American Rattlesnake, you’ll know that the campaign against ALEC has been a key aspect of the Democratic Party’s election year drive to enliven a voter base whose enthusiasm has waned since 2008. Stretching back to last December, there have been rallies against any effort to prevent parties and voters from engaging in electoral fraud. The insipidity of their arguments is exemplified by the sign held aloft by one of our friends from the MinkWon Center, which graces the top of this page.

The American Spectator has an in-depth exploration of the forces behind these attacks on voter integrity, which include former Obama green jobs ‘czar’ and 9/11 truther Van Jones, as well as Color of Change, a demagogic open borders group that has attempted to accomplish through boycotts and 21st century mau-mauing what can’t be achieved in the legislative arena. These forces are now pressuring businesses that have in the past supported ALEC to sever ties with the organization. Even if  knuckling under to leftist intimidation spares some multinational corporations Jackson and Sharpton-style muscling-the controversial stances of the race-based, hard left Congressional Black Caucus do not seem to elicit the same concerns-ALEC’s attempt to spare itself from further harassment will ultimately prove futile.

The reason is that the institutional left is not interested in achieving consensus, especially when they perceive themselves-accurately, in this case-to be winning the public relations battle. The attempt by Arizona’s ignominious congressman Raul Grijalva and his radical colleague Keith Ellison to coerce states into rejecting stand your ground laws is proof that regardless of how many concessions you make to political correctness, its practitioners are never quite satisfied. That’s why ALEC would do well to remember that standing by principle-while  unprofitable in the short term-often is the best policy course for organizations that want to be taken seriously as agents for free-market enterprise, limited government, and federalism.

One of the hallmarks of demonstrations organized by the left-as anyone who lives in this city can attest-is a consistently muddled message-or assemblage of messages-which often has little bearing on the theme ostensibly animating the protest movement in question. I’m not sure if the occupiers displaying the words of anti-USSR, Marxist Polish philosopher-turned anti-Marxist Solidarity activist-Leszek Kolakowski appreciate their import-considering the number of CCCP t-shirts and Soviet flags I saw displayed throughout May Day, I doubt most of them do. However, the Kolakowski quote did strike an ironic note when juxtaposed against the sea of slogans chanted by protesters this past Tuesday, some of them contradictory, some of them incoherent, and some of them not even leftist so much as anti-state.

Unlike in past years, the number of self-styled activists who were promoting mass legalization of illegal aliens was miniscule. There was the Aztec warrior you see below, who was wearing sneakers made of vulcanized rubber that I’m pretty certain was not part of pre-Columbian civilization.

There were also abandoned signs alluding to mass amnesty and opposition to immigration enforcement measures such as SB 1070:

However, the primary action was to be found among those agitating for a grab bag of legislative proposals, most consisting of the redistribution-some would say confiscation-of wealth from the “1 percent” and the transfer of said riches to the “99 percent.” The person below, for example, feels that “millionaires” should be taxed disproportionately. Leaving aside the fact that they already are in relation to the rest of the population, and that the phrase itself is incredibly misleading, insofar as the tax would be levied on those with six figure incomes, the idea that this proposal would reduce wealth stratification is completely erroneous.

Regardless of the message intended, there were several thousand of these people dispersed throughout the city Tuesday. Hence, the seemingly endless stream NYPD vehicles parked on the street opposite Bryant Park.

And signs denouncing the occupants of said vehicles. For what it’s worth, the application process for acquiring a sound permit in this city is incredibly difficult, although to be fair, the serpentine bureaucracy governing nearly everything in this city-including constitutionally protected activities-is probably more at fault than any individual police officer.

I spotted the gigantic sign bearing that singular, capitalized verb as I was entering Bryant Park from the west. I wasn’t able to discern its precise meaning. Then again, neither were the women walking beside me, who asked the seemingly obvious question, “rise against what?”

Some of the other signs on display were just as cryptic, such as the one above, which as a generic exhortation to creativity and industry is not such a bad suggestion. However, one wonders how much reinvention-or invention, for that matter-will occur once the optimal ratio of regulation and taxation envisioned by OWS is achieved. Some signs, of course, were even more inscrutable:

The somewhat contradictory ambitions of the movement could be found if one looked hard enough. For example, these two signs juxtaposed below, one urging an American spring-presumably with a concomitant flowering of individual freedom-while the one directly above it calls for the abrogation of freedom of speech.

The 1st Amendment, it should be noted, even enshrines freedom of speech and assembly for the fairer sex, a fact that I’m not sure the person who crafted this sign is fully cognizant of.

Many of the participants in May Day rallies used the opportunity to speak out against  perceived injustices, including what they viewed as misguided American foreign policy. The interesting aspect of this segment of protest, from my perspective, was how often president George W. Bush was singled out for criticism, notwithstanding the fact that it’s been nearly four years since Barack Obama was elected to succeed him as POTUS.

The quietude of the anti-war left during the Obama administration has been much remarked upon, and the fact that there weren’t many protesters focusing on these issues-with a few exceptions, such as the man seen below-proves more than anything else that the anti-war movement was largely based upon partisan differences rather than any sincere philosophical attachment to pacifism and non-interventionism.

Although I wasn’t able to spot the Wikileaks Mobile Information Collection Unit, which was stationed across the street from Zuccotti Park during the first iteration of Occupy Wall Street, I did see one sign highlighting the prosecution of Bradley Manning, the Army private charged with handing over classified material to Julian Assange.

There was a surprisingly potent anti-government sentiment to be found at the gatherings I observed, although how far such expressions extend is open to question. Whether the critique of anti-terrorist surveillance  techniques deployed by the federal government,

Will be broadened to include criticism of the state’s interpolation of itself into an individual’s working life is something that remains to be seen. Considering the litany of economic demands being made by OWS, it appears doubtful.

Even so, there were more than a few elements of Tuesday’s day of action that struck an almost Tea Partyish note, including a flag of Benjamin Franklin’s iconic woodcut urging resistance to British tyranny.

There was even a lone Ron Paul supporter standing amongst the throngs of occupiers who massed in Union Square, although I’m not sure he found much common ground with the scores of labor activists who traveled to Manhattan.

Which brings us to the main subject of this photo-essay. Namely, the public sector unions that have largely subsumed the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Kerry Picket, of the Washington Times, has analogized the labor unions that have taken over OWS to the Muslim Brotherhood, which exploited the unexpected success of mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square-which were initially led by students and nonsectarian anti-Mubarak forces-to achieve permanent political power within Egypt. As Picket has pointed out, while the unfocused, disorganized protests of OWS often result in reprisals by law enforcement, the disciplined militancy of Big Labor ensure that its followers-whose jobs depend upon political largesse more often than collective bargaining-are spared any harsh nights in Riker’s Island.

The main beneficiary of this uneasy coalition is the Service Employees International Union, which flooded Union Square with bodies during the May Day “strike.”

In addition to the SEIU, which served as the spearhead of President Obama’s initial presidential campaign, members of the American Federation of State, Municipal and County Employees-the single largest contributor to national political campaigns in the country-were there to demand their “fair share” of the public treasury, i.e. private wealth confiscated by agents of the government through taxation. Apparently, the portion that their employees in the legislature are giving them now isn’t quite enough to satisfy their wants.

For the most part, the interests of OWS and their union allies coincide. The fact the latter-and at least a large portion of the former-want to live off of the taxpayer ensure that they find many points of agreement, illustrated by the sign below, which enunciated the chief proposals outlined by the organizers of the May day strike.

In addition to the soft socialism pedaled by most of the attendees, there was also a much more explicit, hard communism endorsed by pockets within the crowd.

Despite the PRC flag-and copies of The China Daily-this man was not among them. In fact, he is what some would call a professional troll; he shows up at virtually every demonstration of any size that takes place in the City-you may even recognize him from the anti-police surveillance, CAIR-endorsed rally I covered earlier this year. There were, however, genuine Marxists and Communists participating in May Day, which shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the contemporary interpretation of May 1st.

The quote above is taken from Theodore Adorno, the German sociologist who was one of the chief theorists of the Frankfurt School, a branch of cultural Marxism that was transplanted to the United States from Western Europe after Adolf Hitler’s NSDAP seized power. Of course, there were those who didn’t feel the need to qualify their Marxism.

Or, if Marx is not to your liking, there’s always the ideology responsible for more unnecessary deaths than any other in the 20th century.

For the fashionable, historically and morally illiterate:

And no Occupy Wall Street convocation would be complete without a gaggle of neo-hippies ineptly copying what they perceive to be Eastern religious rites.

Pascal Bruckner would no doubt have a field day with some of the modern primitives that made their way to Bryant Park last week, although personally I don’t think they’re any more interesting than the Hare Krishnas I occasionally run into as I make my way through the Times Square 42nd St. station.

In my next post, I’ll scrutinize some of the artistic elements of OWS’s May Day “general strike.”

Or, as New Yorkers like to call it, Discount Tequila Day. President Obama used this occasion to promote-what else-amnesty for illegal aliens! I bet you thought it was going to be more restrictive family reunification policies, didn’t you? My own suggestion is that you celebrate May 5th  by proudly waving Old Glory, and since school’s not in session, you’ll probably even be able to do so without incurring the wrath of the judiciary and/or craven school administrators.

On a more serious note, today marks the one-year anniversary of the tragic death of Marine Jose Guerena at the hands of a SWAT team in Pima County, Arizona. I’d recommend keeping his surviving family members-including his widow and their young children-in your thoughts and prayers.

Update:  More great coverage of the May Day assault at The Silent Majority No More.

Here’s a followup from Joanna Marzullo, president of New Yorkers for Immigration Control and Enforcement, describing the events surrounding her assault at the hands of pro-illegal alien thugs during the May Day march to Foley Square. Unfortunately, the banner seen above is no more. However, the spirit of defiance it embodies lives on.

Joanna’s report after the jump.

Hi NY ICers,

Thank You.

I can barely keep up with my emails of encouragement that I have received from people throughout our country who have viewed the footage of NY ICE, which, at the point of filming, was down to just 3  members being mobbed by a pack of rabid bullies. For those of you who haven’t viewed the video, please view it and share with friends. Here is the link again, which I shot myself.  Here is a link from the spectator’s view, where you can see the NY ICers.

Of course, I am grateful to all the NY ICers who came out on May 1, 2012, but particularly grateful to the 2 men who stood with me as we were: spat upon, had water and water bottles thrown at us, had our banner destroyed and parceled out in pieces as “trophies”; endured the onslaught of vulgarity, sexism (to me, the only “b*tch” there); and anti-white racism. So, I won’t ever forget that and will be always grateful to you two, Jim and Daniel.

Our video has been posted in many places and is being widely viewed and spoken about. This is due, in no small part, to the efforts of “Urban Infidel”. Thank you, Urban Infidel. 

Here are links from some of the coverage:

 I appear about an half-hour into the Darby-Stranahan Show.

Here is coverage from Digger’s Realm.  

Here’s coverage from Breitbart.com. 

As well as Urban Infidel. 

And, of course, our good friends at the Ruthie Report. 

 Ruthie talks about NY ICE about 20 minutes into her segment. I’ll be her guest next Thursday, on May 9, 2012, beginning at 10pm EST, when you can call in and listen via this number: 917.388.4520. 

This is what courage looks like,

Joanna, President

NY ICE (New Yorkers for Immigration Control and Enforcement)