Is the immigration scare a distraction or a Trojan horse?

[lumberjack_jeff]

In honor (some may consider that dubious) of my 1000th post.

Conventional wisdom here says that the current uproar over illegal immigration is all about pandering to the politics of race, for the purposes of distracting the public from more weighty issues.

I suggest that this is not the case. I think the immigration proposal is a tool to implement something worse.

The biggest clue comes from Bush’s “fix” for the problem – amnesty combined with a establishing a permanent second-class citizen category and biometric ID.

In the context of Bush’s proposal, biometric ID would require that an individual’s identity be electronically encoded with proof of personally identifiable traits. Such traits include eyescan, fingerprints or photo. As technology improves, this could conceivably include DNA sequence. This ID could either be carried or implanted.

First off, it is possible to hack anything. It is possible to encode a card with anything you wish. As a tool for preventing fraud, it’s not effective. Second, it does nothing to stop the epidemic practice of people working under the table. Third, for it to be useful (Bush is proposing this in the context of providing the tools for employers to verify the work status of applicants) it would be necessary for employers to have the ability to read the card. Lastly, if you think this through, for a biometric ID to be useful as a proof of the right to work in this country, wouldn’t everyone, citizens and “guest workers” both, need to have one?

How does it affect the rest of us? “Thank you for the opportunity to interview with you Mr. Gates. This ID card contains my DNA, fingerprints and retinal scan. I trust you won’t misuse it.”

We’re at a fork in the road.

On the one hand, we can support amnesty (call it what you want – the act of forgiving people who are breaking the law because enforcing it seems unkind, or just too hard), which will continue to depress wages, especially among the poor. To track these formerly law-breaking individuals, we must consent to carrying biometric “proof” of our ID, and be willing to surrender it to any employer to prove our right to work here. Since this is a highly unpopular position with the voters we need to win in 2008 and beyond, the privilege of working out the details of this program will fall on IBM, the CIA, Halliburton and the RNC.

On the other hand, we can oppose Bush. This has the benefit of support from the voting public, it keeps the supply of labor manageable (and will provide upward pressure on low-income wages), and it heads off the implementation of the Minority Report-esque individual tracking infrastructure.

If we want to be benevolent toward the poor in Latin America, we’re better able to do so by sending aid to their home than by encouraging them to invite themselves to ours.

[unda cova brutha]

1. trojan horse

there is no reason for all of the negative spin on illegal aliens. Just a way for the republicans to make an issue out of a non issue in an election year.

[MrModerate]

2. I think the immigration issue is real -- and Chimpy is actually . . .

Seeking a solution. However, the National ID Card -- which has been stalled so far, but which the Himmlers of the world have never given up on -- is the top of the slippery slope to substantially enhanced government control of the people.

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. I agree

But I'd dispute that we're on the top of the slope, I think we're about 2/3 of the way down, and the slide is getting increasingly steep.

[MrModerate]

7. Call me an optimist -- or student of history . . .

It gets LOTS worse that what we've got in the US today. The big difference between, say, our current situation and Nazi Germany or Stalinist Soviet Union being the incredible effectiveness of information technology, which makes a level of control heretofore impossible a readily achieveable goal.

But wait until our masters start really feeling their oats and start rounding people up by the millions (rather than the hundreds) for being "politically unreliable."

[AtomicKitten]

4. I think it serves the real purpose

of putting daylight between BushCo and the Republican Congressfolk up for re/election this November. With the chimp's poopy numbers, anything helps.

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. I dunno

I think it's kinda hard for the Republican party to distance themselves from their president.

... even if I believed that Bush is capable of falling on his own sword.

[AtomicKitten]

6. I think he'd do it to maintain control of Congress

without that, he's one impeached mo-fo

[AlamoDemoc]

8. you wrote:

"If we want to be benevolent toward the poor in Latin America, we’re better able to do so by sending aid to their home than by allowing them to invite themselves to ours."


No one ever left their birthplace because they wanted to venture out to other civilizations(Columbus excluding)....everyone would rather stay their home and prosper. But there are other factors of why these migrant workers are leaving their homes and land. We are now living economic border-crossing with NAFTA and GATT in place. These trade agreements have had huge effects on many Mexican farmers....even our northern Canadian farmers are at boiling point...that these trade agreements are beneficial to the large Agro-manufacturer companies.

We have to be very careful of how we address the immigration issue. We should be sensitive to the plight of those that come here for economic reasons, and for those that are coming here from an oppressive governments that seek asylum and refuge.





on edit...Agro-manufacturers

[lumberjack_jeff]

11. Agreed. Fixing (or ending) GATT and NAFTA are good first steps...

to providing the kind of aid that latin america needs.

If the US kleptocracy gets their hands off the mexican farmer, less direct aid would be necessary.

If an adequate subsistence standard of living is established there, there would also be less justification to give US workers earning power away as an act of charity.

[Peace Patriot]

9. I've no doubt they want robot slave labor with chips implanted, not just

for ID but to control behavior. You may be right--but I think there's more to this sudden arrival of "immigration" as "the issue."

I think it's the pre-written narrative for the post-election twitter of the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, who will need a feasible "explanation" for the Bushites' "comeback" victory in Congressional elections in November. In truth, their "comeback" will be engineered by the Bushite electronic voting corporations who now control vote tabulation all over the country, with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code--code so secret that not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review it--and virtually no audit/recount controls. Tom Delay, Bob Ney and Christopher Dodd--the biggest crooks who ever sat in Congress--didn't put this vote stealing capability in place not to be used. It HAS BEEN used, and WILL BE.

"Gay marriage" was the pre-arranged narrative for the post-election gabble (the plausible "explanation") after the 2004 election. "Immigration" is being set up in exactly the same way.

This is NOT an honest political debate. It is flak. It is dust in your eyes. It is bullshit. It is the cover for the theft of 2006 elections.

It may certainly have the more sinister, long term purpose of chip-controlled American "citizens." In the short term, it's just "we won because" _______ (fill in the blank). And it seems to be a pattern with these fascists that the blank is always filled in with the latest scapegoat group, in this case brown people. I don't think that Americans are haters, myself. Bush's base (that 25% of nutball white men--plus the 5% super-rich--that he seems to retain, no matter what he does, or what he is) certainly have some haters among them. Everybody else wants peace, tolerance, fairness, and decent government. But these pre-written narratives are NOT intended to convince anyone or change any votes. They are intended to provide a smeary, unfactual, impressionistic, FALSE narrative of who we are and how we voted, to explain how goons, incompetents and fascists can keep getting 'elected' in the home of the brave and land of the free.

[lumberjack_jeff]

12. Wow, you make a very good point.

I've never thought about it in the terms you describe. I'm pretty cynical, but I'm not quite to the point where I see issues and campaigns as solely windowdressing for preordained black box elections.

Their tactics are actually pretty evil-genius-ish.

R: "The house is burning, and it's all because those hispanics moved in next door."
D: "No, it's not!"
R: "Aha! You won't acknowledge that the house is on fire, or try to do anything to fix it!"
D: "Wait a minute, I didn't say the house wasn't burning, or that I wasn't interested in putting it out, I just said that it's not their fault."

The reality of immigration is a little tougher, because as it pertains to this analogy, the poor neighbors can't afford to pay for their share of the cost of a fire department. It's unfair to blame the entire fire on them, but it's also inaccurate to ignore the distributed costs of a changing demographic.

The better response:
D: "You're right, the house is burning and I'm sure that everyone in the neighborhood will pull together to put it out. We also need to promote a neighborhood where we can afford fire protection. If that means that the corporate slumlord who has been buying up the houses for cheap rentals is put out of business, then so be it."

[Vinnie From Indy]

10. It is scapegoating, seeding internal controls and greed

It is scapegoating because BushCo will use this issue to redirect anger from corporations to illegal workers for the loss of so many good paying jobs in America.

It is also the beginnings of an internal detainment and control apparatus. The use of the military, detention camps and biometric cards are all being built under the cover of "illegal immigration".

It is greed because BushCo's corporate sponsors will be the manufacturers of these hugh tech prison walls and crowd control devices. They have another huge truck pulling up to steal money from the treasury. Greed also rears it's ugly head again in regard to this issue because corporate America wants low wage workers. They want to turn back the clock on 100 years of gains made by working Americans. Say goodbye to living wages and safe working conditions.