Who Will Stop the Anti-Immigration Hysteria?

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Mark Twain wrote an interesting piece titled "The United States of Lyncherdom" in which he explains that people seem to go along with awful things because they are afraid of what the others will think of them- or of what the others will do to them. The immigration crisis of this past year has been inflamed by hysterical media types (such as Lou Dobbs) that seem to continuously seek a symbolic lynching of undocumented immigrants. If more people would take a stand there could actually be some change. But if people continue to cave in to conservative pressure, as has John McCain, then the mob mentality continues.

This piece by Mark Twain is rarely quoted. It was written in 1901 but not published until 1924 in - Europe and Elsewhere by Albert Bigelow Paine. Twain told a friend that if he actually wrote a complete book on lynching "I shouldn't have even half a friend left down there [in the South], after it issued from the press." - Obviously he was also concerned about what people would think...
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The United States of Lyncherdom
by Mark Twain

...perhaps the remedy... comes to this: station a brave man in each affected community to encourage, support, and bring to light the deep disapproval of lynching hidden in the secret places of its heart--for it is there, beyond question. Then those communities will find something better to imitate--of course, being human, they must imitate something. Where shall these brave men be found? That is indeed a difficulty; there are not three hundred of them in the earth. If merely physically brave men would do, then it were easy; they could be furnished by the cargo. When Hobson called for seven volunteers to go with him to what promised to be certain death, four thousand men responded--the whole fleet, in fact. Because all the world would approve. They knew that; but if Hobson's project had been charged with the scoffs and jeers of the friends and associates, whose good opinion and approval the sailors valued, he could not have got his seven...

For the complete essay:

http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/enam482e/lyncherdom.html
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McCain Changes Course on Immigration

Salon.com
By JENNIFER TALHELM Associated Press Writer

August 02,2007 | WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Thursday backed a scaled-down proposal that imposes strict rules to end illegal immigration but doesn't include a path to citizenship.

The move away from a comprehensive measure is an about-face for the Arizona senator, who had been a leading GOP champion of a bill that included a guest worker program and would have legalized many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. It failed earlier this year....

...McCain's immigration position has been a campaign liability among Republican voters and hurt his efforts to raise money. Other GOP presidential candidates, fellow Arizona Republicans and immigration opponents throughout the country have loudly decried his position.

Observers said McCain's switch was political. "He recognizes his position on the issue is killing him," said Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors vigorous immigration enforcement.

...Immigrants' rights advocates jumped to condemn their decision. "It is fairly stunning they have gone from leaders on comprehensive reform legislation to lemmings running over the cliff" with the Republican opponents of the bill, said Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum.

http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8QP68K80.html