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The Deep Comic Roots of ‘Self-Deportation’
February 1, 2012, 8:53 am
By ROBERT MACKEY
While the Republican presidential candidates have now moved on to Nevada, the brief campaign for Florida did introduce many Americans to a new concept: “self-deportation.”
Last week, when Mitt Romney was asked how he planned to repatriate millions of illegal immigrants without the use of force, he suggested that the ideal solution was to encourage them to “self-deport,” or return voluntarily to their countries of origin. That immediately inspired a wave of mockery from pundits and bloggers who thought the idea sounded like a joke, but, as my colleague Julia Preston reported, the concept of making life in the United States so uncomfortable for those who came here illegally that they might leave “is central to tough laws passed in Arizona, Alabama and South Carolina, among other states.”
Still, there is something undeniably comic about a term that combines the concepts of being compelled to leave a country and choosing to do so, and it turns out that buried deep in the etymology of “self-deportation,” there is indeed a joke.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/the-deep-comic-roots-of-self-deportation/
Interview w/Ira Glass: http://pocho.com/deportadoiraglass.mp3
By ROBERT MACKEY
While the Republican presidential candidates have now moved on to Nevada, the brief campaign for Florida did introduce many Americans to a new concept: “self-deportation.”
Last week, when Mitt Romney was asked how he planned to repatriate millions of illegal immigrants without the use of force, he suggested that the ideal solution was to encourage them to “self-deport,” or return voluntarily to their countries of origin. That immediately inspired a wave of mockery from pundits and bloggers who thought the idea sounded like a joke, but, as my colleague Julia Preston reported, the concept of making life in the United States so uncomfortable for those who came here illegally that they might leave “is central to tough laws passed in Arizona, Alabama and South Carolina, among other states.”
Still, there is something undeniably comic about a term that combines the concepts of being compelled to leave a country and choosing to do so, and it turns out that buried deep in the etymology of “self-deportation,” there is indeed a joke.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/the-deep-comic-roots-of-self-deportation/
Interview w/Ira Glass: http://pocho.com/deportadoiraglass.mp3
Get ready to laugh...
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
...expecting the Mainstream Media to do their jobs is like expecting more standardized testing in schools to produce smarter students. It's just not going to happen. News articles like this operate on the basis of a hook; Mittens bringing up self-deportation is a hook. I think it's fortunate that Lalo Alcaraz has been so successful, otherwise articles like this probably wouldn't be written at all. 
I neglected to post this one earlier in my daily toon thread:
More: http://www.gocomics.com/laloalcaraz/2012/02/03
He's a funny dude:
