On the Scene? How Was Crafton "Shrewd"?

Local paper publishes balanced treatment of Eric Crafton and English Only and discovers the connections to John Tanton (to which I alluded in February 2007).  Some of the Crafton mythology debunked today:

As for the people who would be most affected by English Only, the Woodbine Community Center attracts them all: Kurds, Somalis, Hispanics. Monday through Thursday, for $10 a week, they hitch rides, swap bus transfers and do whatever it takes to make their ESL classes after work.

Their teacher, a no-bullshit Irishwoman from Chicago, has no time for anyone who wants to tell her that her students aren't trying. Especially in September, when classes threaten to spill into the hall. She sees the truth: There aren't enough hours in the day to work, study and raise a family. Her students' best teachers, she says, are the children they're caring for at home.

But balance and equivalence can obscure the factual. The Scene piece glosses over the glaring inconsistencies in Crafton's tactical attempts to win the bid for English Only.

For example, Caleb Hannan argues that Crafton engineered a "shrewd" tactical shift in response to Mayor Bill Purcell's veto on English Only:

Then came Mayor Bill Purcell's veto. With it arrived what appeared to be a makeover for English Only .... With the superficial change in legislative language came a shrewd change in the argument's focus. No longer was the bill aimed at illegals. According to Crafton, his legislative Priority One is the momentum of legal immigrants into mainstream society.

That doesn't square with the actual timing and inconsistencies of Eric Crafton's statements about the motivations behind English Only.

Purcell vetoed English Only in February 2007. Crafton was already saying in 2006 that English Only had nothing to do with illegal immigration at the same time he was making arguments in Council using illegal immigration as a pretext for English Only. My own interpretation of Crafton's tactics after watching him for the last 4 years on the council is that he uses any tactic, from moment to moment, that he believes will help get him want he wants, and he does not manuever shrewdly, but with wholesale, like a sledgehammer demolishing dry wall.

When I watched Crafton in 2006-07 he seemed to captain English Only with a heavy-handed opportunism that was used both before and after the mayoral veto, and not without self-contradiction. And in one case his inconsistency gave way to dishonesty. He responded to an effort to kill his English Only bill in 2006 by offering to indulge fellow council member requests for community education provisions for immigrant Nashvillians (the motion to table English Only was consequently defeated by 5 votes). However, when council passed English Only in 2007, there was no community education provision in the bill. There has also been no talk of community education since Mayor Purcell's veto.

If Eric Crafton is so shrewd, then why did he not peel away votes from the opposition by including the provisions they asked for? Instead, he has been working the anti-immigrant base. That's as deliberative as a sledgehammer. Using the term "shrewd" to describe that is some high gloss on what actually happened.

The Only Local Media Blog that Is Critically Examining Eric "English Only" Crafton

While the City Paper is busy being Eric Crafton's tool on the issue of starting a petition to put an English Only referendum on the ballot (and the Tennessean coverage is just weak), the Nashville Scene's P.J. Tobia is actually blogging the controversy with a critical eye and actually keeping tabs on the opposition.

This week, Tobia has two PiTW posts on the rising opposition to English Only. The NCP's blog, Political Animals, has nothing, and as I've pointed out, their hard copy looks either apathetic about or sympathetic to English Only's flawed premise that mandating English Only would actually make non-English speakers learn faster than they already are.

And in related news: Crafton is not running on the strength of the concept of English Only alone. He is pushing it with the following robo-call (courtesy of Southern Beale):

Please help Metro Councilman Eric Crafton make English the official language of city government in Nashville. He needs to collect 15,000 signed petitions by August 15 to put a referendum on the ballot to let the voters decide if they want their government to operate in English, or pay for their government to operate in languages ranging from Spanish to Arabic.

BREAKING UPDATE: The City Paper's blog, Political Animals, has today actually posted something on English Only. Oh, wait, it's more about Enclave than Eric Crafton. Never mind.

I would really like to see journalists ask Eric Crafton more than "What do you hope to accomplish with the petition and ballot referendum?" Something like, "What evidence do you have that forcing Metro employees only to use English is going to make Spanish-speakers learn English, since providing vital government services is not exactly like teaching English?" Or how about, "If one person's life could be saved with a Metro dispatcher speaking Kurdish to a 911 caller, is risking an English Only law really worth the effort?"

I didn't claim that the NCP was a tool in their past editorial pages, although in 2007 their reporters did provide Eric Crafton a lot of publicity free from the critical questioning or attention to his inconsistencies that he was due then, too. But why endure Crafton's crap again months before leveling some hard questions at the petition? Why should we wait for an election eve editorial against English Only before we ask journalists to focus on the holes instead of the image? They have a blog, for the love of Mike.


UPDATE: Looks like the Animals broke out of the zoo to publish an editorial against English Only with their Voices. Now if the editors would just have their reporters ask Eric Crafton tougher questions during interviews.

Council Votes to Defer English Only Bill Until February

Metro Council Member Eric Crafton mysteriously moved to defer his English Only Bill tonight, saying that there needed to be more discussion of it. Fellow member Charles Shumer introduced a motion to table the bill saying that the issue was too divisive, that parties from outside of Metro were trying to influence the vote, and that the discussion needed to end tonight. Shumer's motion was voted down by the Council, but did the breakdown of the vote on the tabling motion signal why Crafton moved to defer? Crafton could only muster 19 votes to kill the tabling motion; he needs at least 21 to get English Only passed. So did Crafton know that he only had 19 votes to pass English Only? Judging by the vote to approve Crafton's deferral is impossible; it passed by voice vote. Opponents of Crafton's Resolution did not choose to call for a roll call vote on the deferral vote; proponents had called for one on the less significant tabling motion. What do you think the latter is about? Using parliamentary procedure to intimidate or bully, perhaps?

During discussion of English Only, Council Member Mike Jameson revealed that Eric Crafton never bothered to reply to the 4 questions that he asked Crafton in September when English Only was introduced. Jameson said that not only had he asked Crafton the questions in council meeting, but he sent Crafton a letter with the questions, sent him an e-mail with the questions, and sent him Metro Staff with the questions without any Crafton response. Jameson asked Crafton the same questions tonight, but Michael Craddock buzzed in after Jameson and "moved the previous question," a parliamentary tactic that closed discussion without further debate. So, once again, Eric Crafton escapes without answering some important questions.


UPDATE: News 2's Chris Bundgaard reported at 10:00 that Crafton did not have the votes to pass English Only. Council Member Adam Dread told NewsChannel5 reporter Amy Rau that Crafton's votes were not there.

Laudable Council Member Performances

Council members who did an admirable job standing up to Eric Crafton's English-only ordinance are due some recognition:

• Mike Jameson (mike.jameson@nashville.gov)--really dressed down the feigned paternalism and the very logic of the English-only bill. He said that before he could vote with Crafton, he needed some questions answered. He asked for a list of immigrant groups who approached Crafton asking for the very help that Crafton was offering to free them from their supposed crutches. He asked for data to show that non-English speakers were not attempting to learn English because of the bilingual policies of Metro government. He reminded us that there are long lines to get into adult English classes, but that the Metro Council had cut funding for these classes (At this point, I was on the edge of my recliner pumping my fist snarling, "You go, Mike!" I mean, after all, how can you take away something from people with one hand and not offer something else with the other?). He also asked for data to support Crafton's claim that cutting bilingual services actually helps immigrants learn English faster. Jameson not only took Crafton's argument apart block-by-block, but he schooled his fellow council members on the critical questions that they are supposed to be asking.
• Jim Shulman (jim.shulman@nashville.gov)--argued against any bill that would divide Metro Nashville residents from one another. He pointed to the high volume of polarized e-mails council members were getting and he astutely observed that despite Crafton's stated intentions to unify Nashville under "English-only," the bill seemed to be dividing Nashvillians. Amen. You can't force unity, Mr. Crafton. This is not a top-down, banana-republic dictatorship. It never ceases to amaze me that the shrillest critics of government, like Crafton, are usually the first ones to start advocating government crack-downs in an attempt to force unity among different people. So much for libertarianism.
• Ronnie Greer (ronnie.greer@nashville.gov)--addressed the need for Metro Nashville to be an inclusive place. Greer compared codifying English-only now to the forcing of English-only on his African forbearers brought here as slaves in the 19th Century.

Finally, I have got to tell you: I am still shaking my head about Crafton's attack on the state's current English-only law during last night's debate (he referred to it as "do-nothing"). If this guy is going to go so far as to deride existing English-only laws, that should tell you that his views are extreme, perhaps even dangerous.

Crafton Calls English Only Opponents "Elites" with Vision of "Shadow Government"

Perhaps I've been deceiving myself. I've been opposing Eric Crafton's English Only since 2006 and I had no idea that all this time I have been advocating a conspiracy for Nashville's "liberal elites" to enact their vision of "a shadow government and a shadow community" to keep immigrants from having a voice. That is how Eric Crafton described his opponents of this month's English Only referendum to Lou Dobbs and a national audience yesterday. He claims guys like me are not among the regular folks who are more likely to support him.

I've documented how Eric Crafton's justifications for English Only have changed over and over again to suit the tactical goals he has at any particular time. His latest reasoning is a twisted embrace of democracy as an advocate to help immigrants protect themselves against a tiered system where people are kept from having tools of their own uplift. He's fashioned himself lately into some sort of weird caricature of a progressive. He argued in the past that English Only is not about illegal immigration, but he did not object one bit when Lou Dobbs tied the two issues together even as he posed as a champion of democracy.

After watching Eric Crafton manuever English Only around Metro Council in 2006-07, abandoning some promises (language education programs) and adding others (exceptions for emergent conditions), I do not believe that he is honest in claiming to be interested in immigrant uplift. It appeared to me that his shift from "English Only" to "English First" (he has used both labels to describe his interests) was motivated purely by his self-interest in getting enough votes to pass legislation to crack down on immigrants (and he did motivate 23 other council members to follow him). Very little about that vote suggested democracy to me.

There is no anti-democratic conspiracy to kill English Only from my perspective; there is suspicion of Eric Crafton's true motives. An appearance in Lou Dobb's national vacuum will not change my mind about that.

Mayor Tells Council Effect of "English First" Will Be "English Only"

For a long time I've been using the terms "English First" and "English Only" interchangeably, because I've always assumed that the effect of both is to make English the only language that Metro employees could use.  Eric Crafton's change of nomenclature last year when he was attempting to sell "English Only" to the Metro Council was cynical, because it truly made no difference outside of cosmetic effect.

In his comments to the Metro Council last night, Mayor Karl Dean told members that he believes that the "English First" ballot initiative would have the same effect of "English Only."  Obviously, I couldn't agree more.  Even with Mayor's criticism of English Only, Crafton curiously remained cordial toward the Mayor saying something to the effect that his initiative would help the Mayor.

Council ended up passing a memorializing resolution encouraging people to vote against Crafton's English Only.  The debate reflected the effects that I assume whenever legislators encourage voters to do something:  Council conservatives railed against the resolution for its apparent paternalism.  Even with passage, I believe that the resolution will serve as a rallying point for voters who support Crafton's attempts to micromanage Metro government and impose a cultural agenda on employees just trying to do their jobs.

How Mainstream Media Memes Become Fact

One week ago, City Paper reporter Nate Rau effectively shielded Eric Crafton from criticism by referring to him as "accessible" to an acquiescing local media. This morning Rau once again seems to be trying to keep Crafton away from any criticism of the local movement he has created:

Crafton has consistently said that English Only is simply about whether Metro business should be conducted in one language. But only last month The City Paper interviewed some of the Davidson County residents who signed his petition drive and streamlining Metro business was not the reason they supported the charter amendment proposal — instead their comments touched on the issue of illegal immigration.

Crafton has not been consistent on this issue. Since he birthed English Only in 2006, he has both tried to tie English Only to and tried to separate English Only from immigration issues. His co-leader in this effort, Jon Crisp, has consistently tied English Only to immigration in the public comments from him that I've read. If there is an anti-immigrant rabble around English Only, Eric Crafton has been at least as much a part of it as he has of any nobler purpose that Nate Rau attributes to him. Why does the City Paper continue to be so phobic and protective in writing on Eric Crafton?

That recurring Crafton pattern comes back around again

This has been done before.

After Mayor Bill Purcell vetoed Eric Crafton's English Only bill in 2007 and Crafton vowed to entertain a public referendum, he went on a string of introductions of non-binding memorializing resolutions in Metro Council asking various parties to do various things. That was before 2008 brought him the opportunity and the Metro tax dollars to take English Only to the voters. Now that English Only has received the ultimate veto from the voters, it looks like CM Crafton is back to introducing memorializing resolutions.

MRs serve a constructive purpose except when one goes back to that well too many times and appears to be grandstanding rather than authoring significant ordinances, bills, and binding resolutions. Why am I so cynical to see tonight's Crafton MR as grandstanding? Because not only did CM Crafton a little over two years ago attempt to limit the number of MRs that could be introduced by requesting an unsuccessful rules change, but he responded to an English First MR offered as a non-binding, broadly-supported alternative to English Only by arguing that the MR would not do anything. Au contraire. If nothing else, MRs keep a CM's name in the public eye: witness today's City Paper coverage. Then again, the City Paper had its own problems in 2007 grasping the difference between the English Only resolution and the English-affirming MR.

Time will tell whether we will see even more MRs from CM Crafton leading to whatever his next big thing is. But I would bet on us seeing more.

El Gambito

Today's 5:00 drivetime broadcast on 92Q (WQQK-FM 92.1) with Michael Baisden included a commercial from Eric Crafton's English Only group encouraging listeners to vote for the referendum on January 22. It is beyond irony that Crafton's commercial spot--running on a station whose target is the "adult" African American demographic--is most likely funded by an outside group with connections to 1950's white citizens councils and the Ku Klux Klan.

Part of the reason Eric Crafton may not be willing to reveal his contributors as he was required by law to do today is that if target black audiences hear of English Only's racist financial connections behind the commercial, they may not turn out to vote with Crafton or they may backlash against him. I am rather curious to know whether 92Q ever inquires into the source of funds they receive from advertisers. Would it make a difference to their sales department if they took money donated to Crafton's group by John Tanton, who has raised money from racists who despise African Americans?

92Q's unscientific online poll is currently showing English Only favored by 92Q's demographic 58% to 42%. That may or may not say anything about actual African American voter turnout on January 22, but it is not good news. Eric Crafton seems to be running a gambit of getting African Americans to vote or he would not be spending his campaign contributions on 92Q. I think he is betting on a sense of competitiveness that the African American community feels with Nashville's growing Hispanic community. At the ethnic level, English Only is tactical divide and conquer.

Whether that competitive feeling mobilizes African Americans will make or break English Only. I hope that we see demographic polling data soon after polls close next week and I hope they prove me wrong, but I have to believe that if the African American community (most of which voted to put the first African American in the White House) largely votes with Nashville's conservative white community, English Only wins, as does a troubling vestige of racism in Nashville.

English Only Quote of the Week

Bedne is spot on about how Nashvillians who think they're winning stand ultimately to lose with English Only:

Now [English Only opponents] are being insulted for fighting this, but later, when the lawsuits pile up, and the consequences of this bubble up, nobody will apologize, they will just say "I didn't realize" [the consequences of popularly approving the English Only amendment to the Metro Charter].

I've insisted for some time that if English Only ever reaches the referendum stage, then Eric Crafton wins, because as blue as Davidson County may look after Barack Obama's November win, we are still only among the bluest counties in a deep red state. We still field conservative Democrats to represent us and this county is nowhere close to moving past the knee-jerk stage to a growing immigrant community. Our media rarely bothers to cover local partisan attacks on immigrants and it puts on blinders to the fact that immigrants already know that learning English is imperative while giving demagogues free megaphones and pamphlets to play on cultural prejudices.

English Only opponents are probably going to lose when polls close next week, but not nearly as much as Nashville will.


UPDATE: Aunt B. states a fundamental reason for voting against English Only tout sweet:

“First it was ‘Whites Only.’ Now it’s ‘English Only.’ Stop the hate.”
“Why am I against ‘English Only’? Because I’m not a bigot.”

There are exceptions to every rule; prudence is the ability to embrace the good ones

WPLN reports:

Council Member Mike Jameson agrees the city can’t conduct a poll on everything. But he argues the downtown convention center deserves extra input, calling it Nashville’s most important, and expensive, decision in the next decade.

“If there was ever any one issue that begged for an opinion poll, a referendum, some sort of survey, this is it.”

While I have been disposed to oppose popular referendum on singular budget issues in the past, I've never remotely advocated an absolute stand against the idea of referendums. Those who forced the referendum issue on Metro have a different agenda: they would cut off revenue streams to spite any services and programs.

Under most circumstances I would oppose a referendum to kill attempts to pay for police services, infrastructure maintenance, and programs that serve Nashvillians at many levels, but I also realize that we work with what we've got before us. If the referendum initiative can be turned to serve the common good by revealing actual public support or opposition to Nashville's largest capital project ever--dedicated to tourists and the businesses that serve tourists--then it is no self-contradiction to support holding that referendum.

And attempting to show contradiction between support for an election on the convention center and opposition to an election on English Only is just as short-sighted and lame. Passage of English Only would have been much more of a threat to local communities and our quality of life than expressing non-binding, but significant public opposition to a convention center would. The English Only referendum presented the worst face of referendum initiatives because it was an attempt to solve a problem that didn't exist based on anti-immigrant sentiment that would have generated more tension in our neighborhoods.

Opposing the English Only referendum cannot be remotely correlated to supporting a referendum on the convention center. English Only was about culture war; the convention center is about economics and civic life.

The same can be said of charges of contradiction between criticizing the cost of the English Only referendum and accepting the cost of a convention center referendum. I argued that Eric Crafton should be accountable for costing Metro taxpayers extra money to hold a referendum that was designed to make the jobs of able Metro employees harder and to drive cultural wedges between neighbors in Nashville.

The arcs of English Only and convention center criticism look nothing like one another. On the one hand, English Only had been Eric Crafton's baby from 2005 on. he proved himself willing to ignore public opposition and bolt over any obstacle and whip up a mobilized minority of voters to win. He should have counted the cost.

On the other hand, many of us with misgivings about the convention center believe that neither the Mayor nor the Council has made room for public feedback that could influence decisions on Music City Center. And yet, with the General Fund potentially obligated and $14 million out there hanging to be taken from other services, we're the major stakeholders in the project.

We've watched Metro indenture itself to two large budget-busting capital projects in the form of sports venues, and then come back later to say "we don't have a choice but continue to fund these back-breakers while other Metro services suffer." Bankrolling a third time does not make it charm. Even so, criticism of the convention was late and slow in developing, and it is not connected to personalities leading a reactionary faction of voters.

These initiatives to hold referendums couldn't be farther apart.

Thus, we agree with responsible critics like CM Mike Jameson: if there was ever a single cause to hold a referendum, building a new convention center, when expenses are a millstone for Metro in a sea of economic uncertainty, is a huge one.

How the So-Called "Liberal" Mainstream Print Media Covered the English-Only Debate

The reliability of this morning's print coverage of last night's Metro Council English-only debate is mixed.

Bill Harless at the Nashville City Paper reported that Metro Council "passed a significantly neutralized version" of Crafton's English-only ordinance. Harless does not attribute the adjective "neutralized" to the sponsors or any bill-supporter, so I am left to conclude that such a description is his own. However, suggesting that Crafton's substitute bill is more "neutral" is a matter of perspective and not a matter of objective fact. To be neutral means to not be aligned with, supporting, or favoring either side in a war, dispute, or contest. How is Crafton's substitute bill neutral in this dispute over making English the "official" language? It may be more neutral to right-wingers who desire that no form of government communication ever be in any other language but English, but it is hardly neutral for "English-only" opponents who believe that the council does not need to start mandating which languages Metro chooses to communicate with Metro residents. As such, Harless' report indicates a bias in favor of Crafton's measure. Calling it neutral gives the bill more credibility and legitimacy, and such conservative commentary is not Harless' job.

The Tennessean's Michael Cass' own reportage was actually pretty close to fitting the actual definition of neutrality. He calling Crafton's substitute bill a "diluted English proposal." To dilute can mean "to lessen the force, strength, purity, or brilliance of." The substitute bill was indeed lessened in force, strength, and purity from its predecessor (which was about as brilliant as a bag full of hammers). To call the proposal "diluted" allows readers to develop their own positive, negative, or neutral responses, and it does not seem to indicate a bias either for or against the English-only ordinance. So, I could not detect any hint of bias in Cass' writing, one way or the other. He could teach Harless a couple of things about objective reporting.

English Only Did Not Play in Music City

With over 90% of the precincts reporting, Eric Crafton and English Only lose big.  39,000 Nashvillians are rejecting English only with only a handful of precincts remaining to count.

UPDATE: I expect nothing but contrition in any response from Eric Crafton, whose mantra while pursuing this expensive special election was "'We the People' have a right to vote on this matter." Well, he should have been more careful about what he asked for.  He has now caused this city to spend $500,000 to get us right back to the place we were before he started blowing hard. For shame!

UPDATE:  The unofficial final results with 100% of the precincts in:

For English Only -- 32,144 (44%)

Against English Only -- 41,752 (56%)

UPDATE: Here's what counts as concession at Crafton's "Nashville English First":

Everyone at Nashville English First would like to thank the 32,144 Nashvillians that supported the cause to unify Nashville through language. We worked hard to promote your voice and in the end we were successful by allowing the citizens of Nashville to speak their opinion at the ballot box.

Even when he loses, Crafton still claims to win.

How Mainstream Media Memes Become Fact, Part 2

Since the beginning of Mayor Karl Dean's stint in the Courthouse, a meme has repeatedly emerged in the Nashville City Paper at the fringes of reports on Metro politics and at the heart of several anonymous editorial opinions: Dean Administration = good; Bill Purcell's former administration = bad. Whether that meme is reported from the mouths of interview subjects or comes from the disembodied editorial voice, it has been a constant, and an unchallenged constant.

Nate Rau's report on Eric Crafton this morning replays that meme once again without any challenge from Rau:

Crafton blames the opposition for drawing so much attention nationally to the issue. He insisted that if Purcell had not vetoed his original Council bill, then no one outside of Nashville would have noticed.

Crafton has made no bones about his odd animus for Purcell and his strange preference for Karl Dean, even though Dean has done much more than Purcell to oppose Crafton and publicize that opposition in the media.

It was the Dean Administration's legal department that threw up every road block it could to stave off an election. It has been Dean starring in opposition TV commercials and in a mayoral YouTube series speaking out against English Only. It was Dean who appeared with the Governor in a highly publicized pilgrimage to the polls recently to vote against English Only. Dean has been a much more newsworthy English Only opponent than Purcell, who would at times leave us guessing about whether he would veto Crafton's council English Only bill. Moreover, it wasn't Bill Purcell who went on national Fox News in February 2007 after the veto. It was Eric Crafton who brought national attention to his pet cause. For Crafton to argue that Purcell brought national attention is unadulterated fabrication at best, a damned lie at worst.

Reporter Rau should have responded to Crafton dragging Purcell once more through the muck disingenuously by pointing out all of these facts. But so doing would fail the dominant mayoral meme at the City Paper.

Does the Convention Center Billing Controversy Blow Back on the Successful Effort against English Only?

Last week's mess regarding public relations firm McNeely, Pigott, & Fox and their overbilling of work for MDHA and Metro government--including co-writing speeches for the Mayor and columns for the Tennessean--got me wondering about Nashville for All of Us. The Public Relations Society of America awarded "Nashville for All of Us with McNeely, Pigott, & Fox" a Silver Anvil in public affairs for "changing the outcome" of the referendum on Eric Crafton's English Only.

As someone who has been fighting against English Only since Crafton pitching it around 2006, I would say that there are a lot of people both inside and outside "Nashville for All of Us" who can take pride in changing the outcome of the 2009 referendum. So I take the reason for the award with a grain of salt without denying the role MP&F played in, as they describe it, "providing messaging, media, communications and materials" for the movement against Crafton.

But the recent enmeshment between MP&F with the Mayor's office, MDHA, and the media regarding the proposal to build a new convention center makes me wonder how much separation there actually was between the PR firm and the Nashville for All of Us. It looks like these awards are won tandemly with PR firms either in tow or coordinating the group's message. So it seems that coalitions do not win Silver Anvils without hiring (or being created by?) PR firms.

I guess I am curious about how much time MP&F spent writing prominent speeches against English Only (including the Mayor's). I would also like to know where that Silver Anvil award resides. If there is a separate Nashville for All of Us office is it there? Or is it sitting at MP&F even though their press release says that they accepted it on behalf of the coalition? Nashville for All of Us was touted as a grassroots group. I guess I'm interested in knowing whether that was really the case, or it was more of a top-down proposition than we might have been lead to believe.

Finally, excuse me for asking, but I would be remiss if I didn't do so now with news that MP&F coached a Tennessean columnist and that the City Paper appears on MP&F's bills to Metro five times on behalf of the Music City Center. A Nashville City Paper reporter won a journalists' award for coverage of English Only. Did the PR firm coach him during their efforts against English Only, too?

Crafton Loses His "Shrewd" Status at Pith in the Wind

Eric Crafton backing out of Friday's locally televised English Only debate has PiTW blogger Caleb Hannan dropping ridiculous adjectives like "shrewd" to describe CM Crafton's actions. Instead, Hannan turns to CM Mike Jameson for judgment and the latter does not fail to disappoint:

When you sit down in front of a well-informed moderator and a capable opponent [David Briley] that are clearly going to discuss the minutiae of your argument, it's only natural for your blood pressure to spike," he says. "I mean, why does meat fear the meatgrinder?

Jameson speaks from experience. He ground some chuck himself back in 2006 when Crafton first swaggered into council chambers with English Only:

[Jameson] asked for a list of immigrant groups who approached Crafton asking for the very help that Crafton was offering to free them from their supposed crutches. He asked for data to show that non-English speakers were not attempting to learn English because of the bilingual policies of Metro government. He reminded us that there are long lines to get into adult English classes, but that the Metro Council had cut funding for these classes (At this point, I was on the edge of my recliner pumping my fist snarling, "You go, Mike!" I mean, after all, how can you take away something from people with one hand and not offer something else with the other?). He also asked for data to support Crafton's claim that cutting bilingual services actually helps immigrants learn English faster. Jameson not only took Crafton's argument apart block-by-block, but he schooled his fellow council members on the critical questions that they are supposed to be asking.

I have no doubt that Crafton realizes from past experience with Jameson and Briley in Metro Council that he would be in too far over his head by standing toe-to-toe with his opponents.

English Only Passed by 3 Votes

Eric Crafton and the Metro Council social conservatives--needing 21 votes for passage--got their English Only/First resolution approved 23-14 at tonight's Council Meeting. It was mentioned in the debate that Metro Legal has warned that because of the way the bill is written, some of the same problems that would have plagued Crafton's initial bill could also beset the revised bill that passed tonight. A Metro Legal official commented that her office had concerns about the language of the bill.

Before passage, Council Member Lynn Williams pointed out that the language "except when necessary to protect or promote public health, safety or welfare" could bind the city to extra responsibilities (and costs) like producing traffic signs in various languages to suit non-English speakers who might demand it in the name of their own health and safety. That would be karma for Crafton, wouldn't it? She also argued that the bill represents the violation of freedom of speech.

In his own comments before passage, Mr. Crafton answered Mike Jameson's question on which immigrant groups had requested his resolution. Mr. Crafton cited two surveys--one national and one by Marsha Blackburn--that stated that a majority of immigrants wanted English to be the official language. He added that his wife and brother-in-law asked for it. So, a majority of people in two surveys with total ignorance of Nashville's English Only Bill and two of Crafton's close relatives wanted it. That doesn't sound like a groundswell of local immigrant appeal for English Only to you?

Crafton's Lawyer is Playing with Fire in Personal Attacks on Immigrant

Eric Crafton commenting less on English Only is actually good for English Only because when he opens his mouth on politics and culture he tends to polarize and piss off.

So, maybe it was better that Crafton's lawyer spoke on his behalf. Or was it?

First of all he accuses an immigrant who is suing Metro to stop the January 22 ballot initiative (early voting starts January 2) of attempting to take away "the people's" right abolish Metro government or direct it as they see fit.

But if we assume that the El Salvadorian plaintiff in this case is actually one of "the people," Crafton's lawyer does not seem too keen on her right to level her grievances against this Metropolitan government:

[Crafton's attorney] said he suspects Quinteros is a political puppet being used by opponents of the English-only measure who fear that they cannot defeat it at the ballot box. The move will backfire, he said.

"I think there is going to be some backlash at immigrants for this," he said. "Here's a woman to whom we've stretched out our hand, and she's kicked us in the shins."

Implied in this personal attack are 3 significant threats:

• A double standard that recognizes Crafton's people's right to abolish or change government, but ignores the right of other people to do the same.
  
• A denigration of immigrants as independent moral agents who can exercise their inalienable rights just like others and an attack on their dignity by calling them "tools" of someone else.
  
• The insinuation (and incitement?) of some sort of collective backlash by non-immigrant Middle Tennesseans against our immigrant communities.
  

That third threat to immigrants is particularly abhorrent given that it plays on ingrained prejudices and inflames bigotry already boiling.  Eric Crafton and his legal team apparently intend to make this case mean, nasty, brutish, and short.  They don't look like they might eschew using intimidation to leverage English Only.

Sprouted from Bad Seed: The National Race-Based Roots of English Only

Long before English Only arrived in Nashville, its advance was generated by a single individual and supported by a host of connections to racist and supremacist hate groups. According to research of the Southern Poverty Law Center:

In 1982, [John H.] Tanton created U.S. Inc. to raise and channel funds to his anti-immigration network. The following year, he created his second major vehicle, U.S. English, which made a cultural argument — that the English language was in mortal danger of being made irrelevant.

All contemporary organized anti-immigration and pro-English groups have spun off from Mr. Tanton's work. Yet, Mr. Tanton has a legacy, according to SPLC, of collaborating with anti-Hispanic and anti-Black groups like the Council of Concerned Citizens (itself the outgrowth of the segregationist and anti-Semitic White Citizens Councils of the 1950s).

After early successes (helping pass English Only statutes in 30 states), Tanton's racist predisposition became public knowledge. News came that one of his organizations accepted $1.2 million from a "Neo-Nazi organization, tied to the Nazi eugenics program of the 1930s" and committed to "racial inferiority and superiority."

During a 1988 Arizona English Only referendum some of Tanton's personal memos became public. According to SPLC:

The memos were replete with derogatory references to Latinos, reflecting a kind of entrenched bigotry that had only been suspected before. They complained mightily of the high Hispanic birth rate suggesting that Latin American immigrants would bring political corruption to the United States.

The memos included a demographic punchline that depicted Hispanics as hyperactive breeders and revolted many readers:
"[P]erhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down."

Recently these anti-immigration and pro-English groups are tied to conspiracy theories of Mexican plots to re-conquer the southwest, pseudo-scientific publications devoted to the idea that African Americans are less intelligent, Holocaust-denying organizations, and a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan. You should go read the whole thing for the sobering details. Not to be missed are the derogatory "racial mixing" comments from a retired Vanderbilt professor who served on one of Mr. Tanton's boards.

I ask the moderates and African Americans on the Metro Council who signed on to Eric Crafton's English Only bill and any Nashvillian who would sign an English Only petition: is this the kind of hate-ridden legacy that you prefer to embrace?

Council English Declaration Passes

[I]t's ludicrous to think that laws need to be created to help protect the language of Shakespeare.

- - Joey, West Wing

The memorializing resolution declaring English to be the "official language of the Metropolitan Government" passed overwhelming tonight. The difference between this resolution (co-sponsored by Jim Hodge and Randy Foster) and Eric Crafton's English Only bill (to be debated on third reading in February) is that the former does not codify English as the only or first language that Metro employees are permitted to use. It affirms English as the common language while still allowing latitiude to Metro employees to be flexible in offering services.

If you missed tonight's debate on it you missed Eric Crafton blowing a gasket and lashing out verbally at Vice Mayor Howard Gentry when Mr. Gentry prompted him to stay off discussions about his English Only bill in an effort to sink Hodge's bill. It was quite a yelling spectacle on Crafton's part. Mr. Gentry did exactly what he was supposed to do as Chair of the meeting, including keeping his cool when Mr. Crafton lost his. Ludye Wallace made perhaps the most intelligent point in the debate later when he said that the declaration of English as the official language was something members on all sides of Mr. Crafton's bill could agree on and Mr. Wallace added that it is contradictory to support any more coercive bill on the matter and vote against this bill. Nonetheless, 7 members showed how uncompromising they could be by voting against it.

It is said that being bilingual staves off the onset of dementia. Being bilingual surely did not stave off a temper tantrum by the sponsor of English Only tonight in Council Chambers.