Good news. Acrassicauda, the excellent metal band that had to flee Iraq during the worst of the religious-fueled violence, has been granted asylum in the states and got to meet Metallica (that's the greatest band of all time, not like I'm biased). From NYT:
And on Sunday night, two days after the last of the band’s four members was resettled in the United States, they enjoyed what any metal fan would have to call heaven: bearhugs and “Wow, dude” heart-to-hearts backstage with Metallica at the Prudential Center in Newark. It probably wasn’t necessary for James Hetfield, Metallica’s lead singer, to surprise them after the show by handing over one of his guitars, a black ESP, and signing it “Welcome to America”; their minds were already blown.This brings up the question of why more Iraqi refugees (not just the ones who can thrash) aren't allowed to settle in the United States (particularly those who helped us out). There's been less than 20,000 a year, despite the fact that there is already a large Iraqi community in Dearborn, Michigan which could easily assimilate more. Following the fall of Saigon, 135,000 refugees were allowed into America and the Vietnamese community in Los Angeles/Orange County quickly rose to affluence. Clearly, a revamping of our immigration policy, which is a bureaucratic clusterfuck, is needed. The Whitehouse.gov website has some terse language addressing immigration, but it's probably on the backburner as Obama feebly struggles to save the economy by running up the national debt.
“That’s for keeping the faith,” Mr. Hetfield said, adding as he disappeared with his entourage down a corridor, “Write some good riffs.”
Our nation has done well over the past 400 or so years because the best people from all over the world who have the courage to start a new life have crossed onto our shores. No reason to stop that now. A new metal band to electrify the genre highlights this point.
See what the others have said:
10 comments:
This is not going to be offensive in the least. I wish they'd let out terp come over here. He was murdered when the bad guys found out he was helping us. I lose it to this day when I think about him.
The Iraqi terp issue seems to have lost steam as Iraq dropped out of the headlines. It's very sad, and I think we should allow them all over here if they want to come.
Iraqis are brown silly. Whiteys don't want more brown people over here.
Not to be a dick and piss on your riff but it is my style. I'm sure there are many lovely people there who are caught in a shitty situation but do we really need more refugees? We have plenty of joblessness and rampant welfare as it is. I think we can only handle so much and I think "all of them" would be a few too many. Letting more people into a country that can't handle the ones it has seems to me a very poor idea.
I'm hoping that, under the new administration, all Iraqis who have helped coalition forces will be offered asylum in the US or Canada, Britain or elsewhere - it seems the very least that can be done.
I know the Vice President has worked toward that effort when he was in the Senate - maybe the Obama, too.
Yeah Dillinger, I'm sure everyone can support leaving the Iraqi terps behind to get killed. All they did was save our servicemen's lives anyhow.
On a non-sarcastic note: Welcome Acrassicauda! And if you need another fast riffing guitar send me an email. I'd even be a guitar tech since you may not have one yet.
Wek, that's nice that you care about the wonderful Iraqis but it's their country. If it were my country I would expect to either stand up for myself and my beliefs or get fucked. It's terrible that helpful people can't be saved but they can't be saved. If we take them then we have too many people and Iraq has nobody to fight for positive results. What's the politically correct thing to do is rarely good for the overall picture.
Politically correct? Please. Try politically astute.
I just had approx 300 words typed up in response and then deleted it after repeating "I will not engage a troll" 5 times.
Wek, the next time you have 300 words or more typed up, don't you even THINK about deleting it...troll or no troll!
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