FWD.us Remixes the Statue of Liberty Greeting

theodp writes "In the days leading up to the Senate's passage of the landmark immigration bill, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new ad from FWD.us, his pro-immigration reform PAC. The ad, 'Emma', contains an altered version of Emma Lazarus' famous 1883 poem 'The New Colossus' ('Give me your tired, your poor...'), which is engraved on a bronze plaque inside the Statue of Liberty. 'In doing so,' notes the Latin Times, 'it [the ad] departs radically from the meaning of Lazarus' original — which exalted the Statue of Liberty as a "mother of exiles" and redeemer of the world's rootless poor — to accommodate the PAC's call for more high-skilled workers from abroad be allowed to work and live legally in the United States.' Instead of the original's call for 'the wretched refuse of your teeming shore' and 'the homeless, tempest-tossed', the FWD.us remix asks for 'the influencers and the dreamers...talent that is searching for purpose...those dedicated to the doing'. Here's a YouTube Doubler of readings of both versions — pick your fave, kids!"

Comments

Fuckerberg

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Seriously fuck that guy. I'm sure that if it wasn't him, some other unscrupulous douche would be in his place doing basically the same shit but he's the one here and now so fuck him and his abuse of the powerless.

The corporate version

[evilviper]

"Keep your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Send me your young, your rich,
Your highly skilled, willing to work 18 hour days.
They will soon be returned to you as wretched refuse,
on your teeming shore."

Re:The corporate version

[adisakp]

Here's the original for those too lazy to search:

"The New Colossus"
Emma Lazarus - 1883

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Re:The corporate version

[phantomfive]

You can see the difference between the original and the Zuckerberg version.

The original version says, "all those people that you rejected, we can see that, even though on the outside they like worthless, they have good in them. Send them to us and we will help bring out their greatness."

Zuckerberg is saying, "Hey send us all your good people, who everyone knows is good. We want them."

The generosity of the first is easily matched by the selfishness of the second.

Re:The poem was already a perversion of the idea..

[Black Parrot]

The idea was that the USA would be a shining city on a hill, an example for other nations.
It wasn't supposed to be a beacon for immigrants.
"Hey, you can do this too"... not "Hey, come over here cause you can't get your shit together over there"...

Whose idea?

Why did the people who wrote our constitution include a clause granting citizenship to those who are born here? Had *they* already perverted the idea?

When I was a schoolboy we were taught to take pride in the fact that we were and always had been a melting pot. Somehow we've run off the rails since then.

Re:An Important Inaccuracy

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

"Guest workers" is such a euphemism, we should use something more accurate:

out-sourcing trainees
skill exporters
wage reducers
foreign vulnerables

Don't get me wrong, I welcome actual immigrants. I don't even have a problem with individuals who come here for temporary jobs of any sort. I just think that a system where the top 10 h1b employers - accounting for half of all h1b visa holders are outsourcers is in any way good for americans citizens or immigrants. If anything it discourages the next generation from even considering the idea of going to school to learn how to be an engineer which just makes things even worse for us down the road.

Re:An Important Inaccuracy

[Black Parrot]

From the summary:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new ad from FWD.us, his pro-immigration reform PAC.

This is inaccurate. The main focus of the PAC is on guest workers, not immigrants.

Yeah, "pro-immigration reform" is a bit of a stretch for "pro-cheap-foreign-labor reform".

"Give us your (somewhat) skilled workers willing to work for a sub-standard wage.
  Or rather, just loan them to us long enough for the next group to be ready."

Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a brazen giant of Geek fame,
Who conquered networks astride from lan to lan;
Here at our white-washed, paywalls shall stand
A nerdy man whose torch lights flame wars
Master of walled gardens
Father of social Exiles. From his mouse-hand
Glows the world-wide web; his code wileding minions command
The air-gapped harbor that geocities frame.
"Keep, ancient pictures, your funny stories!" cries he
With silent lips. "Give me your engineers , your admins,
Your huddled masses yearning to code C,
The wretched refuse of your Mac store.
Send these, the clueless, tempest-tost to me,
I need more fodder for my golden horde!"

Re:the plaque itself is a remix

[adisakp]

The statue of liberty didn't originally have that inscription, that was added later and itself had nothing to do with the symbolism of Libertas.

The poem was written in 1883 and read at the Opening of the Statue of Liberty to the public in 1886. While it took almost 20 years before a plaque was added to memorialize the poem in 1903, it was very much in the original spirit of the the Freedom the Statue represents.

It was not like the addition of "In God We Trust" on our money, or "Under God" to the Pledge during the McCarthy era of rampant fears of God-less communism.

Re:The poem was already a perversion of the idea..

[ebno-10db]

Every other country that ever existed was based on ethnicity. ... The melting pot idea was introduced by people who had something to gain.

First you praise the US for not being based on ethnicity, and then you criticize the melting pot. Talk about a confused argument.