Apology for Slavery...

MAryland, after so long, you have finally issued a statement apologizing for slavery. At the same time O'malley decides to pass the nations first "living wage" to $8.50 for urban areas. Interesting...I like O'Malley so far...I am always skeptical about politicians but I like this guy.
On the Slavery issue, I didn't even know we were waiting for states to issues there statements. What does documenting your apology do exactly?? Change more social programs, put more money into education and housing for the poorer minority communities. Fix the problem slavery caused by attacking institutionalized racism (which is still very much alive...) Fuck statements of apology, the time for that is over. Give me a receipt for what you spent on fixing issues stemming from slavery.

Blaming Immigration?

Pat Buchanan recently wrote an article that pretty much blames our lax immigration policies as being behind the shootings at Virginia Tech. Which, to me, makes no sense. Cho immigrated here in the early 90's and pretty much was raised here. Buchanan argues that these immigrants are 'invading' our country and refusing to assimilate to our American culture. However, considering the actions perpatrated by Cho I dont see them that far off from an American. He had a gun, alot of American teens his age have guns, sure they hunt with them but still a gun is a gun. Cho was not a monster because of his 'apparent' failure to assimilate, he was a monster because he murdered people for no reason. He was not an outside attacker, America shaped him and created him. He said it himself. There is no need to speculate anymore on his motives because he vividly expresses them in his statement. In South Korea the murder by gun rate is no where the America rate. America has the largest death by firearm rate in the world, which could argueably stem from our cultures inability to separate guns with strength. What kind of arguement can be made for the two columbine shooters? They were homegrown as well but should we have sympathy for them because they were? NO. They did the exact same thing and it had nothing to do with our immigration policy. America is notorious for creating its own problem whether its on a global scale or domestic. The violence of Cho and the two Columbine kids is birthed from the violence we allow in America. It makes no sense to blame immigration. Lets not forget one of the underlying reasons the Immigration Act of 1965 was instituted was because of the Cold War. Russia had launched SPutnik into space and was flexing its muscle as a global power. America could not be seen as inferior because of their lack of Space program so they imported Smart guys and, sure enough, a few years later we landed Neil Armstrong on the moon. Being the first country to do so. There is a reason for everything. Cho unfortunately was America's son and should not be disregarded because he immigrated here as a child. He was raised by America and, frankly, carried out an infamously American act. I hope that immigrants do not assimilate and I think Buchanan has the notion of America a little misconstrued.
If you want to read his article here it is:
http://townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=the_dark_side_of_diversity&ns=PatrickJBuchanan&dt=05/01/2007&page=full&comments=true