Some Things Are Hard to Figure Out...
...and some things are easy.
Take immigration, for example. I find it hard to figure out why Representatives "Tex" Sensenbrenner and "Nuke Mecca" Tancredo are pushing a bill that the Emperor doesn't want, the money half of the Republican Party doesn't want, and the majority of Americans don't want, and doing it in an election year. Given the general low esteem in which the Republican Congress and the Republican President is held, why do this now? It seems pretty foolish to me.
What isn't so hard to figure out is why we have so many illegal immigrants coming to the United States. Mexicans, Central Americans, and South Americans know why: it's an opportunity to work, an opportunity denied many of them in their own countries thanks to our screwed-up priorities for the global economy. El Salvador's Diario Co Latino recently published an editorial that expressed the issue quite clearly from the Latin American perspective.
As we have earlier said, the immigrants are there not because they want to be there, but because millions have been literally expelled from their own countries, which have embraced the neo-liberal model of development, leading to exclusion and impoverishment of large portions of their societies.
Because it has undermined national economic models and coerced governments to follow World Bank and International Monetary Fund prescriptions, Washington is responsible for the misery that goes on in many Latin American countries. If the United States wishes to attract fewer immigrants, it should allow Latin American governments to introduce development models that are more inclusive and allow them to stop paying unjust levels of foreign debt. These funds could then be used to create jobs which would guarantee future development.
The "World Bank and International Monetary Fund prescriptions" are based on corporate business models for a reason. They allow for the new corporate colonialism which essentially ties the Latin American governments' hands when it comes to internal development of native resources. When the peasant is forced from his land, he has to go somewhere to find work to feed his family. The only place all too often is the US, where he will be underpaid and work under appalling conditions, too frightened to complain.
Of course, this kind of thinking is too "nuanced" for the likes of the Tancredos and Sensenbrenners in Congress. And the Emperor and the corporate interests he serves certainly don't want that kind of talk heard because it will mess up the old gravy train. Sooner or later, however, someone in this country is going to get it, and then do something about it.
If we're lucky.
Take immigration, for example. I find it hard to figure out why Representatives "Tex" Sensenbrenner and "Nuke Mecca" Tancredo are pushing a bill that the Emperor doesn't want, the money half of the Republican Party doesn't want, and the majority of Americans don't want, and doing it in an election year. Given the general low esteem in which the Republican Congress and the Republican President is held, why do this now? It seems pretty foolish to me.
What isn't so hard to figure out is why we have so many illegal immigrants coming to the United States. Mexicans, Central Americans, and South Americans know why: it's an opportunity to work, an opportunity denied many of them in their own countries thanks to our screwed-up priorities for the global economy. El Salvador's Diario Co Latino recently published an editorial that expressed the issue quite clearly from the Latin American perspective.
As we have earlier said, the immigrants are there not because they want to be there, but because millions have been literally expelled from their own countries, which have embraced the neo-liberal model of development, leading to exclusion and impoverishment of large portions of their societies.
Because it has undermined national economic models and coerced governments to follow World Bank and International Monetary Fund prescriptions, Washington is responsible for the misery that goes on in many Latin American countries. If the United States wishes to attract fewer immigrants, it should allow Latin American governments to introduce development models that are more inclusive and allow them to stop paying unjust levels of foreign debt. These funds could then be used to create jobs which would guarantee future development.
The "World Bank and International Monetary Fund prescriptions" are based on corporate business models for a reason. They allow for the new corporate colonialism which essentially ties the Latin American governments' hands when it comes to internal development of native resources. When the peasant is forced from his land, he has to go somewhere to find work to feed his family. The only place all too often is the US, where he will be underpaid and work under appalling conditions, too frightened to complain.
Of course, this kind of thinking is too "nuanced" for the likes of the Tancredos and Sensenbrenners in Congress. And the Emperor and the corporate interests he serves certainly don't want that kind of talk heard because it will mess up the old gravy train. Sooner or later, however, someone in this country is going to get it, and then do something about it.
If we're lucky.
posted by Diane at 9:29 AM
2 Comments:
This nation is a nation of illegal immigrants. The European colonists simply came in and took over, and in the few cases (like the "sale" of Manhattan) it was clearly a swindle, assuming the Native Americans really intended to sell that land forever.
My grandparents were legal immigrants, but the people who decided that traced their own ancestry to uninvited settlements, so their authority rests on "we're here, deal with it."
Well, those "illegals" are here. Maybe we need to just deal with it.
I'm sure at least some among today's Cherokee, Sioux, Apache, etc. would be happy to see all the "illegals" go home.
I think I left some stuff out of that first 'graph, but I hope you get the meaning.
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