I've been reading about SB 1070 - the Arizona anti-illegal immigrant law.
It's very alarming, and it makes me no little bit sick to my stomach. This law is akin to the law that put Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans in labor camps during WWII. This law turns Arizona into a place where you have to carry your "PAPERS" with you at all times so that you can prove you are a citizen of the U.S. or that you are in the country legally - if your skin is brown that is... Very Gestapo...
Some proponents are positioning the law as a way to address the influx of illegal immigrants, claiming that individual states should have the jurisdiction to police the national borders. However border control is a task that the constitution grants to the federal government alone. These advocates of SB 1070 seem to feel that harassing Americans of Latino or Hispanic decent and those immigrants who are legally here in this country, is acceptable collateral damage, and they should just put up with it in the name of catching those who are here illegally.
They fail to realize that that is absolutely unacceptable. No citizen of the U.S. is supposed to have to fear the papers-police. All their ranting about Anti-American-this and Un-American-that seems to miss this very crucial point... In my mind there's nothing more anti-american than the loss of our civil liberties, of our essential freedoms. And one person's loss of freedom is a loss for all of us.
The supporters of SB 1070 fail to realize that much of the illegal immigrant problem is due to our government's mistaken policies. That NAFTA and other like-minded free market-based policies actually have worsened the illegal immigrant problem instead of being a part of the solution. In the 1980s and 90s, NAFTA proponents boasted that trade, not aid, would boost the lot of Mexico and Mexicans. By raising Mexican living standards and wage levels - NAFTA's intended goals - Attorney General Janet Reno predicted NAFTA would reduce illegal immigration by up to two-thirds in six years. "NAFTA is our best hope for reducing illegal migration in the long haul... If it fails, effective immigration control will become impossible..."(Reno, 1994).
Well, guess what, Janet - it failed.
Instead of increasing the living conditions for the Mexicans and benefiting the Americans, the flood of illegal immigrants to the United States is up, and the standard of living of the average Mexican is down. People don't leave their communities, their friends, their families and their cultures because they want to. They leave because they have to. NAFTA set the stage for the kind of poverty that drives people to break laws simply to feed their families.
NAFTA permits heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers. This has driven the Mexican farmer off the land because they cannot compete with the low-priced imports of US corn and other agricultural products. Millions of Mexicans have been forced off their farms and out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices have more than doubled in recent years and will continue to climb due to, in part, the U.S. policies encouraging production of corn-based ethanol.
NAFTA's service-sector rules allowed companies like Wal-Mart to enter the Mexican market. By selling low-priced goods made by ultra-cheap labor in other countries, these discount stores eliminated tens of thousands of small and medium-sized Mexican businesses.
It's definitely a quagmire now.
I'd like to think that a move to fair market policies rather than free market would eventually fix at least some of the problems, but I think that the vociferous voices on the right would find a way to stigmatize the fair market movement with their cries of "Socialist agenda" and "Anti-American."
I also doubt that we've enough time to make it work before the meltdown occurs. It seems we're reaching a fevered pitch - at least as far as the rhetoric is concerned. I'm worried that we're going to see an increase in violence soon.
The bigots hiding behind the "States' Rights" rallying call are very good at working their constituencies up into a rabid spittle-spewing froth, feeding the immigrant-bashing mantra that is sweeping the country via their Tea Party pro-America, America-for-the-Americans platform, and playing on the fear of losing jobs to immigrants - the fact that those jobs are ones that no red-blooded Tea Party regular would ever consider doing is irrelevant.
egad... what's next?
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
28 April 2010
05 February 2009
Tom Dispatch
I've added Tom Dispatch to my blogroll. It's a political statement I'm making by doing so.
I encourage people to read it, but I'll warn you ahead of time that it's not for the faint of heart. It can be scary, discouraging, infuriating, frustrating and more.
It is one of the most important things I read.
It's really hard to do it though.
I encourage people to read it, but I'll warn you ahead of time that it's not for the faint of heart. It can be scary, discouraging, infuriating, frustrating and more.
It is one of the most important things I read.
It's really hard to do it though.
21 May 2008
Perhaps A Foundling
Last Friday, Abelisto and I took the train from Winona to Indianapolis. We were going to visit with my mother and drive back in our Taurus station wagon (so we could be a bit more sustainable in our driving - it gets between 24 and 27 mpg, while the truck, well, I have been afraid to test it - I do not really want to know how bad it is...). We left the Taurus there back in November when we brought my dad's pick-up truck home with us. My brother had been checking over the Taurus for us - it had a few problems.
On Saturday, my brother stopped by to tell us about the things he found out about the car that needed our attention once we got it home. We ended up talking about politics, the environment, and some social justice issues. About halfway through the discussion, I asked my brother if he was libertarian. He said except for drugs and prostitution, he is one.
My sister and her husband are probably republican. My other brother, is definitely conservative, I do not know if he is more likely to be republican or libertarian and to the best of my knowledge my mother has always voted republican, although this time she may not - she is disgusted and disquieted about the condition of the world and our government's abuses. She, at 72, is probably far more liberal than my siblings, far more open to ideas and the views of "the other."
Where did I come from? Or maybe a better question is how did I get to where I am? I told my mother I felt like a foundling, like a misfit in my own family. She said that I have had a "larger life" than my siblings. I have lived more places, had more education, experienced more hardships, been abused, isolated, marginalized - and survived all of it, fairly intact and sane.
Maybe she is right. I think that I have not always been as liberal as I am now. In fact I know that I have not. For most of my life I did not even allow myself to express my thoughts or even know what I thought about a great many things - at least on the surface. I think that over time, I began to collect ideas and opinions which I hid away in compartments in my head, taking them out to study them when I could, when it was safe.
Does one need to experience injustice, poverty, abuse, and conflict in order to understand its impact? I think some people may be able to intuit the magnitude of these violences. But I was an extremely self-centered child/adolescent/young adult. I guess I had to live in it before I realized the weight of violence and abuse and how it pressed me down, made me tired and weak and powerless.
And I had to feel all of that personally, deep down in my bones, before I could develop any empathy for others, any understanding of privilege and lack, any passion for social justice and critical thinking. Before I could learn to be kind or to stand up to violence and injustice.
Of course, I am still working on it.
On Saturday, my brother stopped by to tell us about the things he found out about the car that needed our attention once we got it home. We ended up talking about politics, the environment, and some social justice issues. About halfway through the discussion, I asked my brother if he was libertarian. He said except for drugs and prostitution, he is one.
My sister and her husband are probably republican. My other brother, is definitely conservative, I do not know if he is more likely to be republican or libertarian and to the best of my knowledge my mother has always voted republican, although this time she may not - she is disgusted and disquieted about the condition of the world and our government's abuses. She, at 72, is probably far more liberal than my siblings, far more open to ideas and the views of "the other."
Where did I come from? Or maybe a better question is how did I get to where I am? I told my mother I felt like a foundling, like a misfit in my own family. She said that I have had a "larger life" than my siblings. I have lived more places, had more education, experienced more hardships, been abused, isolated, marginalized - and survived all of it, fairly intact and sane.
Maybe she is right. I think that I have not always been as liberal as I am now. In fact I know that I have not. For most of my life I did not even allow myself to express my thoughts or even know what I thought about a great many things - at least on the surface. I think that over time, I began to collect ideas and opinions which I hid away in compartments in my head, taking them out to study them when I could, when it was safe.
Does one need to experience injustice, poverty, abuse, and conflict in order to understand its impact? I think some people may be able to intuit the magnitude of these violences. But I was an extremely self-centered child/adolescent/young adult. I guess I had to live in it before I realized the weight of violence and abuse and how it pressed me down, made me tired and weak and powerless.
And I had to feel all of that personally, deep down in my bones, before I could develop any empathy for others, any understanding of privilege and lack, any passion for social justice and critical thinking. Before I could learn to be kind or to stand up to violence and injustice.
Of course, I am still working on it.
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05 May 2008
New York Times Article: Abortion
I read "What if Abortion Became Illegal?" and had to post a comment on the comment board. I do not do this very often, it seems silly and vain to do it. But today I felt a need. This is a topic that I feel strongly about, not in the usual pro-life, pro-choice sort of way, but with a social justice view...
My comment
Pro-life means anti-war, anti-death penalty, anti-poverty, not just anti-abortion. Shame on any of you that claim to be pro-life who do not take an anti-war stance, an anti-poverty stance and an anti-death penalty stance. Life is Life and should be treasured. Period.
If we want to put an end to abortion, or reduce the number of abortions, we must make it possible for women - especially poor, young women - to choose to give birth. This means inexpensive universal health care, anti-poverty programs that make it possible to raise healthy kids, meaningful and equitable education for all, and free, unrestricted birth control for those who do not wish to have children.
When the classism that prevents poor people from having decent lives is addressed, women will be able to make choices other than abortion.
A civil, just society needs to take care of all its members - the born and unborn.
***************************************************************************************************************
My comment
Pro-life means anti-war, anti-death penalty, anti-poverty, not just anti-abortion. Shame on any of you that claim to be pro-life who do not take an anti-war stance, an anti-poverty stance and an anti-death penalty stance. Life is Life and should be treasured. Period.
If we want to put an end to abortion, or reduce the number of abortions, we must make it possible for women - especially poor, young women - to choose to give birth. This means inexpensive universal health care, anti-poverty programs that make it possible to raise healthy kids, meaningful and equitable education for all, and free, unrestricted birth control for those who do not wish to have children.
When the classism that prevents poor people from having decent lives is addressed, women will be able to make choices other than abortion.
A civil, just society needs to take care of all its members - the born and unborn.
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