On GOP Immigration Push: What exactly does the GOP hope to accomplish?

[BadGimp]

With regards to the recent GOP Immigration Push:

What exactly does the GOP hope to accomplish?

What is the real agenda?

Did they expect the Latino community to band together so quickly and in such numbers, and against the GOP?

What way does the GOP think these newly energized voting block members will vote come 06?

I am sitting here watching the C-SPAN coverage live of the DC gathering. I remember what happened tin LA 2 weeks agi, and I left work early today to avoid getting stuck downtown.

I am not able to decipher the Rovian background strategy.

[MadMaddie]

1. I think whatever stupid strategy they had backfired...

they once again underestimated the response by those that they attacked the Latino population.....

I have been listening to some of the reports and other groups are joining African American, Chinesese....religious....

The latino's are also taking voter registration cards to the rally's and getting American citizens to register to vote in November......

November may prove to be an amazing month...

[Vincardog]

2. Rove's plan was to DISTRACT DISTRACT DISTRACT

They (The Corporatist) NEVER plan on cracking down on Illegal immigrants they are key to their low wage agenda. They will never attack the root cause of Illegal immigration that being corporations demanding low wage (Slave) labor.

[Post]

3. Brian James, KYFI Radio, Wants You To Shoot Immigrants

What a dope. Check it out: http://postanapology.blogspot.com/2006/04/brian-james-kfyi-wants-you-to-shoot.html#links

[robinlynne]

4. ao contraire... They are getting exactly what they want . It's all about

the guest worker program. Unfortunately we are so unaware of their plans that the idea of a "guest worker program" sounds decent, until you look at it's history. Look up the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition. read their plan. It is financed by walmart and other corporations who need to resolve their problem. That problem is, according to their website" the shortage of skilled and non-skilled labor in the United States".
read and weep. It will all make sense. They really don;t care whether or not the immigrants here are legalized or not. that is not the issue here. The issue is a program to provide labor, with no protection for up to 10 months per year, according to the need filed by the companies themselves. This has nothing to do with people, Americans or immigrants, legal or illegal. This is an evil plan.

[TahitiNut]

14. A workforce where many of the lowest paid can't even vote.

'Visa' workers, 'legal' immigrants, 'illegal' immigrants, ex-felons, you-name-it. Cheap labor = higher profits.

[Post]

5. Outsourcing American Farms

How about the strategy is to outsource one of the last industries in America - the American Farm. Corporate or not, outsourcing is a real threat and could be the devious strategy. Check it out:
http://postanapology.blogspot.com/2006/04/outsourcing-american-farming.html#links

[rocktivity]

6. It's a no-lose situation for them

This "crisis" is playing out exactly the way the rethugs want it to. The issue is being framed around the immigrants instead of the fact that American businesses ENJOY underpaying and exploiting them. The passage of guest worker and path-to-citizenship initiatives will encourage more illegal workers to pour across U.S. borders, increasing the underpaying, exploiting, and enjoying. They don't have to care how the reform would affect legal immigrants, people legally trying to become American citizens, or Americans who'd gladly do the work illegal workers do if it paid enough. It supresses coverage of Leakgate and the Gulf wars in the national media. And if the vote fails, the status quo remains.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Jade Fox]

9. Well put, rocknation. n/t

[TahitiNut]

15. Yep. Right on.

Absolutely every policy of this regime has been about profiteering.

[katty]

7. another Wedge-issue...stiring up the racist pot-drama,drama,

as we prepare for Iran

[LiberalEsto]

8. To distract from low poll ratings, Iran invasion,

and Fitzmas.

[struggle4progress]

10. The rightwingers are looking for a general authority to deport anyone ..

.. who allegedly can't produce proper papers. Such broad police authority is consistent with what they wanted in PATRIOT II, namely

... Stripping even native-born Americans of all of the rights of United States citizenship if they provide support to unpopular organizations labeled as terrorist by our government, even if they support only the lawful activities of such organizations, allowing them to be indefinitely imprisoned in their own country as undocumented aliens. (Section 501) ...
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/17203leg20030214.html

Failing to win this authority under the guise of "fighting terrorism," they reseek it under the guise of "fighting illegal immigration."

I say, again and explicitly, that I would not expect them to use such authority only against people who are actually here illegally. If such a bill passes, and if you are a vocal critic of the Administration, you might want to stash backup copies of things like your birth certificate in safe places, cause the public records could disappear just before you find yourself in court as an alleged illegal.

Who would actually get deported is anybody's guess, but to judge from who's being spied on, it might be noisy vegans who protest meat, members of such dangerous organizations as Food Not Bombs, etc etc etc ...

[Lexingtonian]

11. They were hoping

for an anti-Latino backlash among wavering moderate Republicans, who are a very white demographic.

It's not working among moderate R's at all, though the usual 24% hardline wackos are definitely going white hot. Just listen to Limbaugh and such.

And yes, the amount and degree of Latino countereffort is probably coming as an unhappy surprise. Probably not to a quantitative degree outside what they prepared for, but quality- the way LULAC and such groups prepared and now have massive capability to get passive Latino voters to go active and publicly active- was probably unanticipated. Though I've heard rumblings that Democrats quietly got them a lot of money last year after ignoring them in '04, anticipating (correctly, unfortunately) a Latino swing to Republicans in '04 that has now more than swung back.

Republicans have probably lost their three to five marginal House seats in the Southwest permanantly over this game already, and there's going to be collateral damage at the state level.

It was a gamble on weakness of Washington Democrats, moderate Republicans, and Latino groups on the part of the White House. The people pushing it were their corporate management buddies, of course, and hardline "base" anxiety that the Bush WH was not letting them beat up on Latinos before losing power this fall. The WH political operations team seems to find its support weaker and its opposition stronger than it expects consistently these days.

[meow2u3]

12. Keeping the Democratic-voting darkies out

That's their goal--pure, unadulterated racism!

The rethugs want to make felons out of Catholics (real Catholics, not Opus Dei cultists), liberals, and any other 'undesirables' in order to hang onto power at all costs.

[priller]

13. Contrary to those who think this was the GOP plan

and that Rove and Co. are wringing their hands, going "Mwa ha ha ha ha, our plan is unfolding precisely as we predicted!", I really think they screwed up big time here. This attempt to define a new "wedge" issue has blown up in their faces. I think they believed it would break off Dem voters who were afraid immigrants would take their jobs (and appeal to their racist base, of course). And that may be true, but they've lost more than they've gained. The GOP had made great strides recently in getting Hispanic votes, but with this crap they just lost almost all of them. And at these huge rallies people are registering new voters by the thousands. New Dem voters.

[Zorra]

16. I dunno. But I bet that these demonstrations scared the shit out

of just about every joe and jane six pack in rural America, who already were not thrilled about the number of illegal immigrants in the US.

Since Dems already have a very substantial majority of the Latino vote, we gain nothing, or very little by supporting citizenship for illegal immigrants. We simply maintain Latino support.

On the other hand, these demonstrations just may hurt Dems by reversing any damage that Bu*h and republican corruption did to the republican party simply by scaring Joe and Jane Wonderbread from Omaha back into the arms of the republicans.

If republicans now take a hard line against illegal immigrants, they may regain a lot of the independents that they lost through Bu*h lunacy and republican corruption.

I am very concerned that these demonstrations may have just killed our chances to take control of Congress in'06.

[Andromeda]

17. The Republicans are hopelessly deadlocked

and the Democrats are split as well.

Bushes agenda is to drive down the minimum wage by letting corporations hire low-paid workers with no benefits. If that means "amnesty" for illegals and a "guest worker card" then the upper 1% of the country will have as much cheap labor as they need without having to worry about raising the minimum wage.

The popular meme---"they do the jobs Americans don't want to" is being thrown around as justification for the exploitation of illegal workers.

The minimum wage hasn't been raised in 9 years.

This hurts the middle class who suffers silently while jobs are going overseas; whose wages have remained stagnent and whose healthcare costs have doubled.

I don't believe any kind of meaningfull legislation is going to come out of all this.

[sojourner]

18. to distract AND create a new "enemy" for people to fear/hate.......

and it works, this time, for both sides of the issue........just listen to everyone buzz. look at the demonstrations, and look at DU for chrisakes. the strategy is the same --- fear, fear, fear --- hate, hate, hate ---

when will people wake up?