Annex Mexico? Might As Well
It's too early to speculate on potential fallout from Tim Johnson's serious health ailments. It's possible that Johnson could experience a full recovery within the next few months, much the way Joe Biden did after his 1988 brain surgery. Even so, I'd be incredibly surprised if Johnson is well enough to run for re-election in two years, so even if Johnson's prevails and saves the Democratic Senate majority in 2006, it's probably not likely he'll be ready, willing, and able to save us in 2008.
While Johnson's health is unpredictable, the distressing response from Americans to this week's immigration raids was entirely too predictable. The federal raids, apparently done with the knowledge of the Swift meatpacking company who hired the illegal immigrants, resulted in more than 1,000 arrests. Swift will apparently evade consequences for themselves with the long-standing excuse that the illegal immigrants they hired only managed to get only the payroll due to their false documentation. Many of my fellow liberals now have even more evidence that their pie-in-the-sky of "huge fines against companies that hire illegals" as the only acceptable enforcement solution to illegal immigration will never come to fruition.
Now it's never pretty when heartless federal agents instigate a crackdown on any group, but the media has determinedly raised the sympathy card as high as they can raise it over these raids, making sure to put microphones in front of sobbing spouses and children facing deportation and local ministers (many of whom actively conspire with the meatpacking barons to keep the flow of cheap labor rolling in unabated), all wringing their hands about the merciless thugs separating families and undermining the ability of people who "are just here to work". Perhaps I should be nicknamed Ebenizer this holiday season, but I just can't sympathize with anybody who willfully breaks laws to "just work here", particularly with the sleazy corporate barons who are ultimately empowered as a result.
But then again, I'm the son of a former meatpacker. I've watched how lawless immigration policy has stripped my family and hometown of its livelihood. Not everybody sees things my way, and the fairly substantial display of sympathy coming from a middle-class American public has emerged since the raids, adding renewed acceptance to the ongoing apartheid of undocumented cheap labor that will assuredly condemn whatever remains of the American working class into a financial gas chamber.
The Associated Press fueled the fire with an article today warning consumers of how the price of their meat may end up skyrocketing as a result of these raids. After all, the inability for Swift, et. al. to recruit a pipeline of undocumented labor from the Third World could produce the worst-case scenario of (gasp!) market-driven wages in the meatpacking industry. There goes that "liberal media" again! Keep in mind that inflation-adjusted wages in the meatpacking industry have fallen by 64% since 1983....and every one of us is grateful for the huge reduction in the cost of meat that has paralleled the industry's declining labor costs. Right?
The Washington Post's Tamar Jacoby went even further in breathless defense of the meatpacking barons against those nasty fair-wage advocates with a litany of false statistics, sob stories from industry executives claiming to pay $22.50 an hour (show me a meatpacking plant that pays more than $46,000 per year and I'll show you a plant with far more applicants than open positions), and a general consensus that employers have a birthright entitlement to cheap labor on demand.....and anyone who dares to challenge that birthright is just a swastika-wielding bigot motivated by nothing but ethnic hatred.
This endgame of this dog-and-pony show is in defense of the ruinous "comprehensive immigration plan" supported by robber baron conservatives, who are active players in the cheap-labor apartheid, and "open-minded" limousine liberals who fancy themselves above it. The "comprehensive" strategy is heavy on "paths to citizenship" and "guest-worker programs", but light to non-existent on border security, a toxic brew that ensures we'll have tens of millions more illegal immigrants to grant amnesty to 20 years from now when we next address the issue.
A Daily Kos commenter floated the idea of annexing Mexico amidst a heated illegal immigration debate earlier this week. And why not? More than 15% of Mexico already lives in America (with the remaining 85% expected to be here a week from Tuesday), we have little to no interest in sealing our borders, and the Mexican government is actively encouraging its people to infiltrate America's employment market instead of weeding the endemic corruption out of its own. Do we really have anything to lose by annexing Mexico as America's 51st state? Far as I can tell, the only significant difference would be that working-class Mexican workers would at least have voting rights in the new Amerexican republic. That's more than they'll have under a "guest worker program"
While Johnson's health is unpredictable, the distressing response from Americans to this week's immigration raids was entirely too predictable. The federal raids, apparently done with the knowledge of the Swift meatpacking company who hired the illegal immigrants, resulted in more than 1,000 arrests. Swift will apparently evade consequences for themselves with the long-standing excuse that the illegal immigrants they hired only managed to get only the payroll due to their false documentation. Many of my fellow liberals now have even more evidence that their pie-in-the-sky of "huge fines against companies that hire illegals" as the only acceptable enforcement solution to illegal immigration will never come to fruition.
Now it's never pretty when heartless federal agents instigate a crackdown on any group, but the media has determinedly raised the sympathy card as high as they can raise it over these raids, making sure to put microphones in front of sobbing spouses and children facing deportation and local ministers (many of whom actively conspire with the meatpacking barons to keep the flow of cheap labor rolling in unabated), all wringing their hands about the merciless thugs separating families and undermining the ability of people who "are just here to work". Perhaps I should be nicknamed Ebenizer this holiday season, but I just can't sympathize with anybody who willfully breaks laws to "just work here", particularly with the sleazy corporate barons who are ultimately empowered as a result.
But then again, I'm the son of a former meatpacker. I've watched how lawless immigration policy has stripped my family and hometown of its livelihood. Not everybody sees things my way, and the fairly substantial display of sympathy coming from a middle-class American public has emerged since the raids, adding renewed acceptance to the ongoing apartheid of undocumented cheap labor that will assuredly condemn whatever remains of the American working class into a financial gas chamber.
The Associated Press fueled the fire with an article today warning consumers of how the price of their meat may end up skyrocketing as a result of these raids. After all, the inability for Swift, et. al. to recruit a pipeline of undocumented labor from the Third World could produce the worst-case scenario of (gasp!) market-driven wages in the meatpacking industry. There goes that "liberal media" again! Keep in mind that inflation-adjusted wages in the meatpacking industry have fallen by 64% since 1983....and every one of us is grateful for the huge reduction in the cost of meat that has paralleled the industry's declining labor costs. Right?
The Washington Post's Tamar Jacoby went even further in breathless defense of the meatpacking barons against those nasty fair-wage advocates with a litany of false statistics, sob stories from industry executives claiming to pay $22.50 an hour (show me a meatpacking plant that pays more than $46,000 per year and I'll show you a plant with far more applicants than open positions), and a general consensus that employers have a birthright entitlement to cheap labor on demand.....and anyone who dares to challenge that birthright is just a swastika-wielding bigot motivated by nothing but ethnic hatred.
This endgame of this dog-and-pony show is in defense of the ruinous "comprehensive immigration plan" supported by robber baron conservatives, who are active players in the cheap-labor apartheid, and "open-minded" limousine liberals who fancy themselves above it. The "comprehensive" strategy is heavy on "paths to citizenship" and "guest-worker programs", but light to non-existent on border security, a toxic brew that ensures we'll have tens of millions more illegal immigrants to grant amnesty to 20 years from now when we next address the issue.
A Daily Kos commenter floated the idea of annexing Mexico amidst a heated illegal immigration debate earlier this week. And why not? More than 15% of Mexico already lives in America (with the remaining 85% expected to be here a week from Tuesday), we have little to no interest in sealing our borders, and the Mexican government is actively encouraging its people to infiltrate America's employment market instead of weeding the endemic corruption out of its own. Do we really have anything to lose by annexing Mexico as America's 51st state? Far as I can tell, the only significant difference would be that working-class Mexican workers would at least have voting rights in the new Amerexican republic. That's more than they'll have under a "guest worker program"
posted by Mark at 3:17 PM
1 Comments:
sara, I was pretty sure Richardson opposed the border fence, which in my opinion renders meaningless any and all other immigration policy reforms. At least Richardson opposes the "guest worker program", which is the most despicable aspect of the "comprehensive" reforms proposed in McCain-Kennedy. Hopefully Richardson can be persuaded about the fence, but it seems unlikely.
I'm surprised you didn't hear about the Swift raids. There was one in Texas....in the town of Cactus (can't say as I know where that is). THere were six plants raided in all, with more than 1,200 illegal immigrants arrested.
sean, I wouldn't rule out a Tom Daschle comeback in 2008....nor would I rule out his prospects of beating any Republican that might run against him, including Mike Rounds. Herseth would probably have a better chance at winning a Senate seat since Daschle runs the risk of being branded "old news", but if Daschle does decide to run, I expect you're correct that Herseth will decide to stay in the House. Of course, the best-case scenario would be for Tim Johnson to have a full recovery and be able to run for a third full term in 2008, but I'm betting the odds on that scenario playing out are long.
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