Democrats should take a firm, populist stand against illegal aliens without using racist rhetoric. It's both a winning position and a correct one.
http://risenmessiah.mydd.com/story/2005/8/14/33254/4274#readmore
Illegal immigration is completely misunderstood. These individuals come here to work and potentially settle and form a new life. If you take away their ability to work, they won't come. But no Republican is going to discourage someone from artificially diluting the cost of labor and the jobs being created by the "Bush Economy" are largely those jobs which most people living in America would be reluctant to take. Using undocument workers "solves" both problems. The only reason there is resistance from conservative circles is that there's inherent racism in having to deal with "them" as Latinos or other non-white ethnicites.
You want to end illegal immigration tommorrow without declaring some bs emergency? Find a state attorney general with a spine to roll into a Wal-mart, Outback Steakhouse, or any other low-wage job bonanza and arrest the manager for state tax evasion. After the first round of litigation sticks, other states would pile on just like Microsoft and the tobacco suits.
But best of all, the lack of foreign income would cause the economies of many Latin American countries to collapse and real reform could finally take place in those nations. It would be a bitter pill, but at least it would cure the disease. The reforms then would offer a place where lower cost structures could compete with nations like China where wages are artificially low and help bring about real labor reform not just in the United States but the world at large.
The Democrats have to frame this issue correctly however. They want enforcement of labor laws. They want to protect those who come here legally and those who work hard for little pay who are native born. But using other forms of coercion like denial of civil services or chasing workers on the freeway at rush hour....good TV but bad policy.
Behind many of the bloodiest conflicts in the Third World, there have been US aid or intervention.. often behind the wrong side..
For example, the US supported Saddam Hussein for many years.. his bloodiest years.. The US supported Pol Pot against our enemies, the Vietnamese.. in the terrible Khmer Rouge era in Cambodia.. The US supported Osama Bin Laden - giving him his start - in Afghanistan.. overthrowing a (Soviet-sponsored) government that, with its many faults, was still much, much less repressive than the Taliban.. (During those years Afghanistan had a functioning university, women did not have to wear those shapeless bags.. etc..)
The US supported the Indonesian (Suhuarto?) government in its incredibly bloody takeover of the former Portugese colony of East Timor, in which hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered.. We have sponsored many, many coups and counter-coups in Latin America.. as well as in Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania...
We overthrew popular, elected governments in Iran (1953) and Korea (1949?) to install fascist, right-wing dictatorships that inevitably, proved immensely unpopular and often, which gave a previously unpopular Communist party an opportunity to seize (really) the 'moral high ground' from torturers in the same way that right wing governments often follow (for a time) Communism.. out of reaction to brutality..
In fact, I left the biggest mistake out.. China..
We supported the brutal and megalomaniacal 'Nationalist' Chiang Kai Shek (who openly admired Adolph Hitler and whose incredibly corrupt government set new records for theivery..) in China AGAINST THE RECOMENDATIONS OF ALL OF THE CHINA HANDS IN THE US INTELLIGENCE SERVICES..
Chiang's soldiers - acting under orders.. thoughtfully blew the bridges - the only way out of China's then-capital, Nanjing, up behind them as they retreated from the advancing Japanese fascists.. TRAPPING THE ENTIRE CIVILIAN POPULATION INSIDE THE CITY TO BE SLAUGHTERED..
The US continued to support him for years after that! Wasting a historic opportunity to instead, promote democracy.. by setting a standard of human rights.. The result, a Communist victory.. and indeed, at that point, after the fascist and brutal Nationalists and the fascist and even more brutal Japanese - they were an improvement!
A similar situation occurred in Korea, where the US shoehorned a right-wing nut who had been out of the country for something like 20 years.. (Syngman Rhee) and helped - or at least did not stop.. assasinate moderates who were beginning to unify the Korean Peninsula under a fledgling democracy..
many other facts are in dispute, but nobody these days disputes that Syngman Rhee's brutality and lack of willingness to protect the rights of the common people - the overwhelming majority of the people- of Korea from the landowning class.. (who had all colaborated with the Japanese) gave Kim Il Sung an opportunity he would not have had otherwise in the North.. and in the South..unfortunately..
There are many other examples of this idiotic embracing by the US government of fascists and brutality in the Third World.. with tragic outcomes..
Too many more.. too many to describe..I wouldn't even know where to begin..
We share some of the responsibility for their poverty when we overthrow their governments (or prevent the overthrow of dictators)
Typically, the democracies are overthrown for the 'crime' of trying to strike better deals with US corporations who are trying to (buy? steal?) their natural resources.. and labor... Iran in the 50s was a good example.. To replace the overwhelmingly popular Mossadeq(?) - (who was promising to nationalize the oil industry in Iran, I think)..the CIA installed the Shah.. (and his still-infamous SAVAK secret police) who killed perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iranians.. ushering in the mullahs on a 'red carpet' of sorts.. of blood..
Are we seeing a pattern here..
If we want to stop illegal immigration, we need to stop meddling in the Third World.. and that means we will need to accept that the US will not be able to tell other nations how to run themselves.. even if it means 'US' corporations will have to pay more for labor, raw materials.. etc..
Why not? ITS THE RIGHT THING TO DO..
'Live simply, so that others can simply live'
do not defecate where you sleep. If we come for them, eventually they come for us.
Oh wait, they already did.
