You have to give it up the Europeans, when things go wrong in their respective countries they take it to the streets and fight. Whether it’s a corrupt government, tuition hikes or suspected voter fraud, the young people of Europe protest, fight and stir shit up, they get the attention of their leaders. They egg the cars of leaders the burn and tag the streets, their energy and vigor is unmatched.
The Dream Act is a bill that would have provided undocumented students who graduate from a United States high school with the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency if they complete two years in the military or two years at a four year institution of higher learning. These are the students who arrived in the U.S. illegally as minors, and have been in the country continuously and illegally for at least five. As of December 18, 2010 the bill was killed in the U.S. Senate by vote of 55-41, the bill was block and never reached the desk of President Barack Obama for his signature.
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This bill would have been a progressive move in the right direction. All across America, students came out in full force to fight and have their voices heard. Hunger strikes, protest and rallies painted a picture of how important this bill was and how it needed to get passed.
It seems the time is now to continue and not sit idly by as this bill gets swept under the rug like so many others. This is the time when we can learn from our European counterparts and amp up the effort. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was dead in the water more times than anyone can remember and now it has been passed. The battle is never over as long as you continue to fight.
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We need to call out those who don’t think it’s important, for example, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. Mancchin missed key votes on the Dream Act and Don’t Ask, Don’t tell because he was attending a Christmas party over the weekend. Enough with the eggnog! We need to start egging Obama’s motorcade, we need for some of our elected leaders to start throwing punches like they do in the European parliaments.
Young people in England were angered by a doubling, or potentially even a tripling, of government-regulated tuition fees, to a max of about $14,200 a year. Imagine if our tuitions tripled on top of what some students are already paying.
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So just because the Dream Act didn’t pass doesn’t mean the war is over, it took 17 years for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to get repealed, we needed Lt. Dan Choi and others to handcuff himself to the gates of the White House, we needed the likes of Lady Gaga and other celebs to show their support, we needed the grassroots movements to stir it up to get things done.
