You’re A Bitch, Girl and You’ve Gone Too Far…
by John A. Kwitkoski
A few days ago, Michele Bachmann (Idiot-Minn.), enlightened us all with her views on immigration. “The social cost will be profound on the U.S. taxpayer — millions of unskilled, illiterate, foreign nationals coming into the United States who can’t speak the English language.”
Thank you, Michele. You just insulted my maternal grandparents. They came here as Polish immigrants, worked hard all of their lives, saved their money, purchased and owned a home, raised seven children, one of whom died defending this nation in World War II, paid taxes and voted, and left this earth speaking little if any English.
Were they “illiterate”? In the English language probably. But they could speak, read and write their native language very well. And they spoke easily with all of their children — in Polish. My grandfather, lean and wiry, woke up every day with a dozen things to do and my grandmother, round and warm, was the queen of their kitchen and sweetness itself.
I cannot express adequately my disappointment to know that someone as profoundly ignorant of American history as you could ever have been a member of Congress.
Did you know the western end of the first intercontinental railway in the U.S. was built by gangs of Chinese immigrants, many of whom could not speak English? Did you know that non-English speaking immigrants from Poland, Italy, France, Germany and other European countries built a host of public and private infrastructure that catapulted this nation to financial primacy in the world?
If you could find the time and summon the nerve, you would discover tens of thousands of names of “foreign nationals” are on the U.S. military death lists from World War II. They gave their lives to protect a country they had come to love. And unless you can claim Native American ancestry, your family were “foreign nationals” at one time and might not have been well-versed in English as well!
Try as you might to retreat from your latest brain-vomit, we both know this was veiled propaganda against Latinos. Well just to update you, I visit a nearby shopping center from time to time. In it there is a shop front that offers English classes to Latinos once or twice a week. On those nights the parking lot in front is full up. A strange thing for those “unskilled, illiterate” people to be doing, don’t you think?
Oh, and by the way, the next time you shop for vegetables at the market, you might remember that those “foreign nationals” were probably the ones who picked them. And cleaned your hotel room. In fact, one of them is Cesar Millan who has become quite successful teaching Americans about their dogs. Ever hear of the “Dog Whisperer”? You really do have to get your head out of your butt more often.
I don’t like you, Michele. In fact, I could safely say it has blossomed to full-blown hate. Pray to whatever God you know that our paths never cross because if they do I will bitch-slap you so hard it will take a month of Sundays for you to find your face. I now know that the only real solution to immigration in this country is to keep them and deport people like you.
I love a good rant, and yours was just awesome, John!
1John,
2Very well put! Unfortunately someone like Bachmann is actually
too stupid to appreciate your words. I moved from her district in Minnesota when she was elected. Her entire career has been one of whipping up hatred against “the other” or programs that help them. Truly a vile, bile filled nasty woman.
Thank you, John! Thanking Susan for this public space where you gave your voice to exactly what so many of us have been thinking.
The idiot known as Bachmann would not be given a jot of ink were it not for her stupidity. Unfortunately, that ink is what keeps her voice alive. Same, of course, with the Diva known as Palin.
3Good one, John.
4Even though I am an American citizen by birth, English is not my native language. Viennese German is what I learned first, then English.
5So Michele, up yours and the horse you rode in on.
All true, but Bachmann’s spew has an even more basic problem: President Obama’s mandate specifically does not apply to newcomers–only to people who have lived here for five years. There is no “coming into the United States” involved. The basic change is that people who are here and not criminal can stay with the fear of deportation removed for a few years. (I suggest that anyone who agrees with this idea should vote in 2016.)
This article has a good summary: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/what-obamas-immigration-action-actually-does/383037/
6Bachmann, like most Republican’ts just doesn’t get it and never will. She is so busy spouting misinformation and hate, she can’t take the time to check the facts. I will be glad to see her leaving Congress, but saddened by all the remaining bigots who remain.
7John, what thou sayest! My father was an English speaking immigrant with more of an education that his peers here in this country in the 1920’s. He was built like the pro-am athlete he was and took on any job that came his way, including really heavy lifting. However, when his coworkers, all born here, found out he wasn’t, they gave him a hard time. Once. And thats all. He simply flexed his muscles, picked up the biggest, heaviest thing around and lifted it over his head. However, if he were to immigrate into this country today, he would run into creeps like Bachmann and Kris Kobach in Kansas who would insist that he just didn’t make the cut and he should self-deport himself back to where he came from. I am sure if anyone these days challenged him like that he might possibly reply in English, French or German, but then he was a very good judge of how much such a person was worth. And he would just spit a wad on the ground.
8Unfettered st00pid accelerated by arrogance should never be given a live microphone. Wish it were that Michele Bachmann were one of a kind, but she isn’t.
The sad fact is that we are in many respects devolving as a nation. From the days of “no Irish need apply” signs of hysteria, and the other xenophobic balderdash which we would hope had vanished emerges this latest round of illogical pandering based on baseless fears.
What happened to language in America? Our high schools once taught a choice of second languages and passing a foreign language SAT was required at most accredited universities. Plans were in place to introduce languages in our elementary schools because it is a known fact that children learn multiple languages easier at an early age.
Language is like music. (oh yeah, that’s been dropped from our schools too) Learning a first instrument is the most difficult because it involves not just the instrument, but also reading sheet music, developing the “ear” and the physical skills. As musical competence grows, so does the ease of adding additional instruments. The same is true of languages.
English grammar was complicated to me. What sorted it out best for me were my classes in French which offered a basis in comparison, and finally (to me) something logical upon which to hang the English grammar.
Random observation is that those who seem to most fear “others” particularly others speaking a different language have no mastery of the one and only language they speak. To wit: Michele Bachmann. So it seems that in not speaking even one language adequately, they have no appreciation for anyone with a first language and ability to learn another one.
There are others who write much better than I, so I won’t go into all the well documented economic advantages of a fair immigration policy.
One last thought: “oh the humanity” just how do we express that concept in terms even a Michele Bachmann can understand?
9I once heard a story, I don’t know if it’s true, about a group of foreigners who journeyed for weeks, maybe months to get to this great land. It was a time long ago, well before all of this anti-immigration talk. When the newcomers ran out of food, people here were only too happy to help them survive a winter that might otherwise have left them cold and hungry.
We celebrate that event this week, Thanksgiving, to commemorate those English speakers who arrived here unable to speak the mother tongue, who were given a great deal of assistance so they didn’t starve to death the first years after they arrived in “America.”
10My grandparents, too, came to this country speaking no English. My grandfather was a farmer and learned English through his interactions at the markets. My grandmother, however, stayed home on the farm, working and raising three children, so she had little opportunity to learn the language. Once the children started school, she insisted they speak only English at home so she could learn it as well. She eventually taught herself to speak, read and write English, which was more difficult for her since it involved learning a whole new alphabet (she was Ukrainian).
Her two sons fought in WWII, and my uncle made the ultimate sacrifice defending this country in the Battle of the Bulge.
Their story has been repeated millions of times over in this country, which was founded upon the idea of immigration. How dare Michele Bachmann insult the hundreds of millions of immigrants, including her own ancestors, who have come to this country to make a better life for themselves and their families.
Thank goodness her hate and ignorance will no longer stain our halls of Congress.
11Well said, Rick. I hope you don’t mind, I would like to use that for my facebook status this week.
12Grand article, John. I hope you are writing a book and include this in it.
13My ancestors in the western band Cherokee declined to speak English. They spent a lifetime moving west in order to evade the venomous English speakers. Bite yourself, Bachman.
14buskyandme-
15Thanks for asking, yes, please do. Happy Thanksgiving!
The most grating part of Michele Bachmann’s bigotry is that her own in-laws are immigrants from Switzerland.
She also assisted a Christian family seeking political asylum in the US after they “fled” Germany in order to homeschool their children. But then, they’re white & conservative Christians, so they’re the “good kind” of immigrants.
16http://www.salon.com/2013/04/10/glenn_becks_favorite_kind_of_immigrants/
I applaud everything John wrote and the comments that have followed. However, John’s ending statement hits it square on the head:
17“I now know that the only real solution to immigration in this country is to keep them and deport people like you.”
Don’t waste yourself with hate as justified as it may be. Literally negative body chemistry is produced besides the effect on one’s attitude. I personally would say to the bachman’s, koches et all, of the world, “I don’t respect you.”. I also truly believe that ‘what goes round comes round’ to them as well as myself. And I don’t have to be there, except in my case, when it happens.
18Is bachman a symptom or a problem? IMO, more symptom because how did she get and keep power so long? How did she manage to bastardize Christian and get away with it esp from her church? The voters are more of the source for problem and that is what is so frightening.
You know who I see as being scared of immigrants?
19Americans who think they are owed something and haven’t worked a real job and are too lazy to do so.
And when an immigrant comes here with his family he doe not expect to gain the so called american dream, he expects to work hard to gain that dream for his kids.
And when ‘merica has a problem, i.e. drugs, it aint because of immigrants, but it is caused by white-well off-Ahole ‘mericans.
After the “Body” Ventura had his run as Guv,Minnesota advertised for a new “flake” for their license plate/state slogan 10000 Lakes and a Flake and guess who was chosen to be that “flake”?
Moochele-One L-Bachmann will make a rilly nice pimple on Babe the Blue Ox’ buttocks as history harshly reminds us what damage wingnuts hath wrought.
20She has delusions of adequacy.
21Which are wholly unfounded.
Leenie-their story has been repeated millions of times over in this country-not by the privileged white Bachmanns of the nation. Thanks for your family history and their sacrifices for all of us,including the privileged white Bachmanns of this nation.
22Don’t be so timid, John. Tell us what you really think! Seriously, folks, this was perfect, as were any number of commenter’s additions. Wonderful! Thank goodness Bachmann has been mostly shoved to one side even by people who more-or-less agree with her opinions. Now we can concentrate on those who are currently in a position to poison our well more effectively: The esteemed (ha!) governor-elect, and (shudder) the unesteemed lt. governor, and …. the list is too long to enumerate here. But you know who they are.
23Michele Bachmann family has got many government farm help all their lives, but does not want other to have. She mostly has got 23 girls as foster children +++++ moneys also probably to clean her mansion, no boys because of her Hubby tendency
24She is leaving congress because of some illegal action taken by her during her run for POTUS.
Immigrants are a scapegoat. The GOP and the rich folks say “Look at those immigrants taking your jobs,” because they don’t want people who are struggling to look at *them* and wonder why in the hell they’re so rich and privileged and why they’re sucking up ALL the gains in the US economy and leaving nothing for the workers. The ones on top can always find somebody to blame besides themselves for the way things are screwed up.
25Best I can tell everyone in the USA today is either an immigrant of the descendant of an immigrant. How far back does one want to take this immigrant argument?
26I was with you John until the last paragraph. But your threat to bitch slap a woman, any woman, almost brings tears to my eyes. Guess I’ve seen too many battered women in my long life. May you learn non-violent resolutions that will satisfy your feelings of hatred.
27Psychopaths like Bachmann show no hesitation about making callous and mean statements about people they disdain. She has no inhibitions against labeling everyone immigrating to this land with pejoratives such as “unskilled” or “illiterate.” She never has to actually deal in person with the actual people she demeans – typical behavior for cowards like her.
I’ve been a volunteer English literacy tutor for the past few years. My current student has driven a taxi since coming to the U.S. several years ago for treatment of a difficult medical condition. He then remained here legally along with others in his family.
Illiterate? Unskilled? For 30 years he was a commercial pilot for the Mongolian national airline, as was his father. He began by flying Antonov AN-2s, graduating to AN-24 twin turboprops and finally Boeing 727s where he was pilot-in command on a regular route from Ulan Bator to Moscow and on to Berlin.
In his 60s now, he is learning conversational English in addition to his basic proficiency in aviation English, standard Chinese and Russian. Bachmann should have no fear about meeting my student face-to-face. He is too much a gentleman to give her the punch in the chops that she richly deserves.
One other thing. My student’s son is a flight instructor in California. Both of them are taxpayers and productive contributors to the American economy and society, but that would be too inconvenient a truth for a psycho-demagogue like Bachmann to acknowledge.
28Hey Rick…I posted your story to my FB page too. It was too wonderful not to share, and I attributed it to ‘Rick.’
29Hilary
My father was an immigrant.
I married an immigrant.
On my mother’s side of the family, I am 4th generation.
Michelle Bachmann is a nasty, horrible woman.
30“millions of unskilled, illiterate, foreign nationals coming into the United States who can’t speak the English language.”
Except for the “foreign” part, she is basically describing the kind of people she and other Tea Partiers pander to.
31Bachmann please god will be out of our hair soon!
One more thing – I am glad to see Kathleen Turner is doing a one woman show – a tribute to Molly Ivens, how about that for great!
32Today I am grateful…
…grateful that I am not poisoned in body, mind, and spirit by the hateful attitude, such as shown by Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin
…grateful that I choose compassion, learning, and self-growth instead of arrogance, selfishness, and ignorance like B&P and their co-horts.
But I would be ever more so grateful if I truly thought Bachman would no longer have a media voice after her retirement. And being out of office does not seem to really stop the Wingnuts from being heard over and over again. They end on Faux News or as speakers at their conventions.
Did anyone see Mike Huckabee’s “Learn Our History” ad? I suspect this is meant to be the RWNJ rewrite of American History. What do you think? http://learnourhistory.com/Home.html
33Bravo.
34I no longer remember who wrote it. I do, however, think I read it on this “non-blog”.
What worries a lot of these mean, spiteful white folks like Mrs. Bachman is simply this….
She worries that when mean, spiteful white folks are no longer the “majority” in this country….. they/She and her ilk….. will be treated with the same disdain they are showing ” the others”.
35I echo all the kudos everyone here has offered. John does capture, very well, the fed-up disdain I feel for Bachmann, and all like her. Every dog has his day, and in American politics, a pack of feral, rabid, village idiots has taken over.
However, I have to side with Gypsycrone on this one. I’d almost say offer to slap Marcus so hard that Michele would feel it for a month, but for three things: 1) you’re better than that 2) while satisfying, violence solves nothing and 3) Marcus might not mind, or at least, living with her, is probably used to it.
In lieu of hitting anyone, offer to glitter-bomb them both so hard they’ll set off metal detectors for a month.
All We Are Saying
36Is Give Peace a Chance
John, I loved your last statement..!!! My grandparents spoke no English but they sure learned it… I have those grandfathers’ draft card copies from WWI and WWII (they were Polish, btw) and several of my uncles fought..from that family..for the US… I was a federal migrant teacher, and my families wanted and insisted on their children learning English, and insisted on a teacher who spoke no Spanish to them…The famiies, just like my Polish grandparents, learned English from working AND from their kids.
I do not recall hearing that the ….. (I can’t demean a female dog here) was a full-blooded Native American. Does she forget her roots are also not from this country… Can we please send her back, along with a few others….and I would also like to send Cruz and Rubio elsewhere…
37A point of information:
38Three of the six Marines depicted in the famous Iwo Jim flag raising picture were
not US citizens. One was a Pima (Ira Hayes) and two (Rene Gagnon and Michael Strank) were foreign born.
America’s biggest immigration problem started about 1492 when the natives would have been better of killing everyone on the 3 boats. And there would never have been a Michele Bachmann and better still all the NUTJOBS who voted for the idiot.
39@L.Long:
40And the folks ashore waiting on Chris Columbus and his boat people to disembark immigrated to North America from Asia. So far as I have read human beings did not pop out of the muck in North America.
Dam good thang we had rill ‘murricans on top o’ Iwo Jima elseways that danged french surrender monkey with the girls first name-Gagnon-would have give us up to Hitler in a heartbeat,doncha know? Who vetted them heroes,McCain’s campaign?
41If ever there’s a doubt in your mind
Which political party leaves the worst messes behind
Just watch a parade and the droppings being laid and tell me.
The steaming piles left behind by elephants
Are there for the duration,clean up jobs no American wants
We have a need for an immigrant or three,now tell me.
Run to me,I am a Democrat
Run to me,I will take care of that
I must be unwise, next election wingnuts will lie about me.
How about a hearty hand for the BeeGee from whom I stole the melody?
42wonderful, e platypus onion!
43Right on, brother John.
44Right on, brother John.
45grannygrey50: Michele NEVER forgets her roots. She has them done twice a week, at least.
Either that, or she just prays the grey away.
46Bachmann’s an ignorant creep, worth only our apathy.
47Very true #40 but guess what when they came over they did not steal the land, kill off the natives, and then complain about others coming.
48Couldn’t agree more, GrannyGrey!
Diane
49Great post and comments. Others have mentioned this excellent line too: ” . . . the only real solution to immigration in this country is to keep them and deport people like you.” Amen John!
Minnesota has 8 congressional districts, with no gerrymandering because a panel of retired judges creates the districts. Bachman’s #6, north and east of Minneapolis, just happens to be infested with an over abundance of Republicans. Her replacement is another R, Tom Emmer. He’s pretty far to the right too, but not in MB’s frighteningly ignorant/hateful/stupid mode. A minor improvement.
MB has been a royal embarrassment for even moderately sane Republican Minnesotans from her first day in the state legislature. She retired because she did a boatload of illegal campaign stuff in Iowa. Comparing MB to Palin is apt.
50