The Liberal Avenger
Michelle Malkin has discovered environmentalism, now that destruction of the ecology can be blamed on Mexicans. She recently featured an edited version of a news story about illegal border crossers leaving trash in the Arizona desert, capped with a snarky comment: Just doing the littering Americans won’t do.
What’s most revealing about the story she linked is the part that she left out. For example, she “forgot” to include this part:
Considering that the Border Patrol apprehended more than 577,000 illegal immigrants in 2004-05 alone, the BLM figures that those people left almost four million pounds of trash that same year.
Why would she leave that out? Because one of the themes Malkin hammers again and again is the idea that there is essentially open. Admitting that 577,000 border crossers would demonstrate the dishonesty of Malkin’s rhetoric. But the most important part that Malkin deleted is this:
Without a tightening of controls on illegal immigration, a guest-worker program or other reform of federal border policy, the trash will just keep coming regardless of what’s spent.
That sentence gets right to the origin of the problem: During the past 15 years, there has been a substantial decrease in the number of visas issues to Mexican workers, even though the demand for their labor has greatly increased. At the same time, the easiest points of entry were cut off, forcing illegal immigrants to take longer routes through the Arizona desert. Inevitably, the combination of more illegal crossings and longer treks resulted in an exponential growth in the volume of litter. So the most efficient way to stop the trashing of the desert would be to issue more visas to Mexican workers, as long as the demand for their labor continues to increase. But Malkin won’t consider that, because she doesn’t really care about the environment. What she cares about is keeping Mexicans out of the country.
How do I know? Because when Malkin writes about the environment, she’s almost always attacking environmentalists:
Malkin attacks Al Gore as she links to a story about an environmentally conscious family that takes drastic steps to shrink their environmental footprint, steps that Gore has never endorsed.
Malkin nitpicks Gore’s movie by quoting scientists who acknowledge Gore’s larger point: global warming will soon cause rising ocean levels.
Malkin attacks Gore for having too many children, even though Gore has never called on families to have fewer children as a way of protecting the environment.
See a pattern here? Malkin only cares about the environment when she can use it as a club to beat up Mexican immigrants. But when the environmentalists start objecting to the construction of a border fence, well…
Malkin attacks environmentalists for suggesting that a border fence would harm wildlife immigration patterns.
And you’ll certainly never hear Malkin complain about the negative environmental effects associated with killing Arabs.
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Michelle Malkin loves groups like the Minutemen. Here she is riding with David Duke, the original border vigilante.
Environmentalism is just one issue that Malkin becomes interested in only when she sees an opportunity to bash Mexicans:
Michelle Malkin made a big stink out of the prospect that illegal immigrants may have voted in Bexar County, Texas. Of course, she “forgets” to let her readers know the true scope of the alleged fraud: since 2001, there may have been as many as 41 instances of illegal immigrants casting ballots in Bexar County, which has a population of 1.5 million.
Malkin criticized the Texas Rangers for playing a game wearing jerseys that read, “Los Rangers”. The jerseys were then autographed by players and auctioned for charity.
See the pattern? Malkin will take up any cause, even causes that are ridiculous and causes that are anathema to her worldview, as long as she can use it as a vehicle for attacking Mexicans.
But remember: it’s not about race. It’s about the environment. Or voting integrity. Or enforcing an “English only” policy for baseball jerseys. Or…
(cross posted at appletree)
