VIDEO: "This is Alabama. We speak English"

By GottaLaff

Yes, Tim, this is all about saving money. It has nothing to do with whites feeling threatened, or the transition from a white male Christian society to a more diverse one.

Welcome to Scapegoat, USA.

Via The Maddow Blog:

In this advertisement, Tim speaks out on the issue of English only. Alabama offers drivers license tests in 12 languages. As Governor, he will push to have the test given in only one language, English.

It gets more disgusting:

On his website, James includes a category called "Common Sense for Crime and Public Safety." It starts with crystal meth and spouse abuse and ends with the prisons' revolving doors, and in between: "Enforce Alabama's Constitutional Amendment declaring English as the state's official language."

That's right. If you can't quite get the hang of Alabama's wannabe official, only acceptable language, then you are a violent druggie. If you're here to work hard and find a good life for yourself, you must be shooting up and throwing your significant other against walls. English-speaking white people never do stuff like that.

And the sad part is, there are voters out there who lap this up the way this guy laps up Tancredoisms.

Welcome to Election Season 2010.

Councilman pushing for Nashville to go English-only

By GottaLaff

Je ne comprend pas. No entiendo. Or as we say in my neck of the woods, wtf:

In a proposal that has defined him publicly and dominated local politics for two years, [Eric] Crafton hopes to make Nashville the largest city in the United States to prohibit the government from using languages other than English, with exceptions allowed for issues of health and safety. On Jan. 22, city residents will vote on the proposal, which Mr. Crafton calls English First and critics call English Only. [...]

But the vision he does have for Nashville — and eventually America — has drawn criticism from Mayor Karl Dean and a broad coalition of civil rights groups, business leaders, ministers and immigration experts. The leaders of nine institutions of higher education in Nashville wrote an opinion article in The Tennessean newspaper opposing the proposal, which they said would sully the city’s reputation for tolerance and diversity.

“The irony of the city known as the ‘Athens of the South’ becoming the first major metropolitan community in America to pass ‘English only’ is a distressing prospect,” they wrote. [...]

Jonathan Z. Crisp, a former chairman of the county Republican Party and a supporter of the proposal, said: “Our opponents talk about Nashville being the ‘Athens of the South.’ But if you go to the other Athens, in Greece, all of the government workers are speaking Greek.” [...]

[C]ritics say he has wasted at least $350,000 of taxpayer money on a special election for an issue that does not matter to most voters. “I don’t think English Only would be an issue if it weren’t for Eric Crafton,” said Mr. Schulz of the Chamber of Commerce. But Mr. Crafton insists that momentum is on his side in Nashville and across the country. “We’ll make English the official language here,” he said. “After that happens, we’re going to go city to city, show them how we’ve done it here, and let the dominos fall.”

I have two words for Crafton, universally understood in nearly any language. But since he insists on English, I'll use what's left of my self control and leave them to your imagination. Hint: I'd be quoting Cheney.