posted by Sam Richards
Do you have any idea how many times you’ve been lied to and didn’t know it? Really…think about it. How often does your silly, gullible self accept something as true because…well…because you believed the source? And how often have you passed on the lie to others? It’s painful for me to even think about it in my own case.
So I recently received an email from a friend that contained a video of a story that Fox News broadcast a while back. The tag line said that I needed to watch it to understand a terrible injustice brought about by liberals, illegal immigration, and political correctness — not necessarily in that order. It was one of those emails that I receive once or twice per week. Take a look at the video for yourself (it’s only a 36 second clip):
If your first response is to tilt your head to the side and scratch the back of your skull while having a dazed and confused look on your face, then you know exactly how it affected me. The thought that went along with said reaction, however, was the same one that I had when I was a kid and someone offered me the opportunity to see some freak such as a “bearded lady” at the local carnival — “this simply sounds too crazy to be true.”
Being the skeptic that I am, I decided to conduct an investigation to see if I could get to the bottom of it and find out what really happened. I started by reading some of the comments that were being made on YouTube. They were pretty scathing: “Round ‘em up and send ‘em home,” said one patriot. Another brain surgeon in the making chimed in, “This is what happens when we elect a black man as president.” (The politically correct violation that is referenced in the video occurred a couple of years ago, by the way, long before Obama entered our national spotlight.) Clearly, these blockheads were not searching for the real story and so I would not find it there.
So I plugged some combination of words such as “Oregon Mexican firefighter fired” and quickly found what I wanted: a statement from the State of Oregon’s Department of Forestry that explained the matter in considerable detail. It took me all of about 45 seconds to read, but what it revealed was very depressing (given the number of people who watched and believed the original story). I’ll summarize it for you here:
Oregon’s Department of Forestry contracts private fire crews. (Remember conservatives, privatization = cost savings = free market capitalism.) If these companies choose to hire non-English-speaking firefighters for a crew, then they must have bilingual crew leaders because while English is the official language of firefighting in the U.S., crew leaders MUST be able to communicate with their crews for purposes of safety. If a private company hires Mexican firefighters, then English only speaking crew leaders can’t lead that team. If they hire only English-speaking firefighters, then the crew leaders need only have the ability to speak English.
It makes sense that so many people hate liberals and Mexicans and political correctness with stories like this floating around on the WWW. Who wouldn’t be clamoring for the microphone to add to the shouting chorus of red-blooded citizens who want to preserve the United States for the “real Americans” (not to be confused with Native Americans, of course).
So how many times have you been duped by such an email or a rumor? How often do you find yourself saying, “No way. This can’t possibly be true. I have to tell everyone I know so this outrage will stop.” And how often do you follow that up with, “This sounds fishy and so I’d better explore it before I pass it on down the rumor mill.”?
This stuff cuts both ways, mind you, because misinformation enters the public discourse from both the right and the left wings of the political spectrum. (This story originally aired on Fox News, but left-wing blogs and web sites picked it up and carried it as though it was true, by the way.) My gut inclination tells me that the right is slightly better at putting out misinformation than the left, but only because they have more money to do so. I think that both are equal in terms of their scruples about lying–but the right-wing is better at it and more flagrant about it than the left-wing. My personal opinion, folks. Perhaps that’s just because more of their political operatives have written tell all books about their strategies and misdeeds. (If you haven’t read any of these and you fancy yourself a conservative, then perhaps you ought to take a look.)
An addendum: One respondent who is a firefighter noted the utmost importance of communication while fighting fires and pointed out that non-English speaking firefighters would be problematic on English speaking crews. I absolutely agree and would maintain that Mexicans who do not speak English should NOT be on crews with U.S. firefighters who only speak English. To which I respond…no kidding.
Those Mexicans will have us all speaking Spanish
After reading this article in its entirety it seemed almost common sense. If a fire fighting crew is to have members who speak multiple languages it seems almost apparent that firefighters and chiefs (or crew leaders) should be synchronous in their communication. It would almost seem that it be mandatory that the members themselves need to be able to communicate. Its funny because technically the difference between a job and a profession is that a profession requires a certain degree of certification. Professions deal with the public in a way that is determining the safety of the people; etc doctors, firefighters, police, and many others in some extended way. Would it not be necessary for any sort of person in a profession to be able to speak the language of their superiors or vice versa. That would be like going to the hospital and the doctors were not able to communicate with one another.
However, it seems that some people in the country are very quick to blame Obama for any sort of issue that is not explainable off the top of their head. While this is not the issue of the article it is still bothersome in some ways.
It now seems as if, in our culture, patriotism gives off a negative appearance towards the impeding the freedom of others; isn’t that quite ironic? At least that is how its seemed from a sociological perspective. Most of the examples we have seen in class the patriots to America seemed like extremest who had little knowledge of the situation but had must know information.
The thought of having bilingual chiefs is bothersome in no way. It almost seems that that would be a good thing. Their ability to serve the public just increases the public that they can serve to. If we were to take a visit to another country, we would be glad to see if their workers in certain professions were able to distribute the same line of language choices. But maybe we as Americans have just become all to accustomed to being understood and able to talk as foreigners to natives when we travel; seeing that most other countries have devoutly tried to learn English.
To be fair this argument may go further to the “Mexicans taking all the jobs”, which frankly just sounds like a poor sportsmanship. The job market is an economy. There is a supply and a demand, and both needs need to be met in order to have working relationship. From the workers perspective whoever can get the job done and is willing to work for what is demanded (which is the lowest cost) should have the job. From the company’s perspective why would anyone want to hire someone for more than they have to. There are great subtleties to this, such as, respect for past worked time. But new workers should all have a fair equal chance when looking at individual job positions.
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This video also seemed odd to me, it does not make any sense to hire people who do not know how to speak English and then because of this layoff or demote the supervising firefighters who are not bilingual. How can you all of a sudden demote or layoff a supervisor just because there was a hiring of a firefighter who only knows how to communicate in Spanish. I think their law that the supervisor must be bilingual if someone on his staff does not know English is a good idea because it is a safety hazard for all the firefighter if there are a couple of firefighters who have no idea what is being communicated. This is a sticky situation because I feel that any state does not want to be seen as being racist if they don’t hire these Mexican firefighters who are probably well qualified for the job but don’t know how to speak English, but it is also clearly unfair to demote or layoff a supervisor who works hard at his or her job. Laying off the supervisor not only affects him or her but also affects their family and the their community’s harmony once the word gets out. All in all, the hiring process needs to be changed. There has to be supervisors who are bilingual in English and Spanish who are able to lead these Mexican firefighter, the number of people in the U.S who are learning Spanish is a lot since there is a growing population of Hispanics in this country. Also before we even complain about supervisors only speaking English, I feel that all immigrants in the country who do not know how to speak English should learn English to the point that they are trying to become fluent. English is the United States’ main dialect to is it essential to learn our language, why would anyone want to immigrate to a different country and not even try to learn the main dialect. That just puts them in a difficult situation because they wouldn’t be able to communicate with hardly anyone and therefore no one would want to cater to them. I can relate this example to myself, this spring semester I will be studying abroad in Barcelona, however I have been taking Spanish language classes since middle school. I am not fluent in speaking Spanish but I know enough in order to get by and have a simple conversation. Also, one of the classes I am required to take is Spanish. This shows that you can’t just go to a differet country and not want to or require yourself to learn about their culture and language. I would be completely uncomfortable not knowing any Spanish once I got to Barcelona, that would just put me in a bad position there.
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Rumors and false information largely drive the media world. How else would they keep people interested? Many feel the need to twist words and the truth to appeal to the listeners. This twisting is largely seen in the political media. As the rumors are passed around, they can unite people against others and situations all on false information. It is very good that some here such strange allegations as the one seen in this video and say wait a minute that does not sound correct. They are the people who further investigate and look for the truth and are able to straighten out the words of the media. This video addresses a largely controversial topic; Mexican immigration to the United States.
Firefighters are very important, especially out west where there are a lot of forest fires. As with all collaborative jobs, communication is vital. There are many diverse people entering the workforce. With this, comes a language barrier and the topic of who should learn another language. Should the boss be required to accommodate for the employees or should employees learn the language of their boss? I feel the best solution is to just have the language barrier handled by pairing those of the same language in a work environment. This is what they were trying to do in Oregon, and then the words and motives were altered. Interestingly is how America responded to this on YouTube, etc. Many made snide remarks about Mexicans, even though these Mexican firefighters are working to help stop treacherous fires.
On the topic of immigrants and the language barriers that are arriving in America, I feel that we all need to be more understanding. When our ancestors came to this country, they did not speak English. They did not even change their culture and few attempted to learn a new language. However, once the language barrier became a problem, many other generations learned English and often were bilingual. However, no one was forced to change immediately and that is what makes up America, the melting pot. No one needed to conform to any particular language or culture. Now, Mexicans are simply new immigrants and it is harder for them, because a culture and language has already been established in America. Instead of helping them with the transition, Americans are making it much more difficult with comments and actions and turning it into a huge political issue. This is true for other immigrants as well, such as from Eastern countries. America is ruthless and unkind to them, even though that is exactly how we all got here; immigration. Then, the media and politicians turn it into campaign issues and a battle between political parties for their own benefits. Then, nothing is solved and we still have people being rude and wrong about immigrants as seen in the firefighter’s video. The media needs to stop twisting the facts.
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The media picks and chooses what stories to report and what stories to forget; what stories to exaggerate and what stories to mitigate. One reason I do not like watching this particular station is because I know that I am not exactly getting the facts, but a twisted version of the truth. If an American English speaking firefighter was indeed not fired for his lack of Spanish speaking skills, than why report this imaginary story? It does not make much sense to me why this happens. It is the same with what other countries report and do not report as well. For instance, in Iraq, they are showed clips about crazy Christians that are being “trained” to force Christianity upon the entire world. This is obvious to us Americans that it is completely and utterly false; however the Iraqis don’t know first hand the actual truth. So basically we should not all believe everything we hear. I think that one of the most “realest” news stations portraying the most factual information are the ones on Comedy central. The story seems as if the reporters are trying to make English speaking Americans angry with Mexican immigrants. They are making us think that because the did not learn English, then other Americans are losing their jobs because of it; which is actually not the case at all. It is like that are adding in another variable to the situation solely to piss off other people. They attack all parties and point out all ridiculous happenings with no bias at all.
Aside from the media warping out thoughts and such, the idea of everyone living in this country and being forced to learn English is not exactly a bad idea in my opinion. The fact that firefighters are not always able to communicate because of a language barrier is very unsafe. If you chose to live in a country, raise a family, and become part of the workforce, then I think it is very important to learn the language in which the country you choose to reside in. There are a million conflicts that could be avoided if there was not a problem communicating with your coworkers especially in the risky job of a firefighter. The facts however do make sense; If a private company hires Mexican firefighters, then English only speaking crew leaders can’t lead that team. If they hire only English-speaking firefighters, then the crew leaders need only have the ability to speak English. So if a firefighter was in actually fired, it must have been for a different reason. If you think about it, it does make sense for people to be discriminating immigrants that are “taking our jobs” because that is how our news portrays them! When will we ever get the REAL NEWS?
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I have a nice fresh joke for you people) Why can’t a woman ask her brother for help? Because he can’t be a brother and assist her too.
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I have a nice joke for you people!
What do cats like to eat for breakfast? Mice Krispies.
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I have read a good joke in internet
Did you hear about the guy who ran through the screen door? He strained himself.
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A joke for you peoples! How do they put out fires at the post office? They stamp them out.
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