(I just got this in my inbox from an old friend who is a very smart and capable organizer who wanted to share some thoughts on messaging. Happy to repost here.--Singer)
There is something fundamentally different about the way conservatives communicate. When they talk about a topic they not only speak of an event, but they seem to dwell on the people involved. Think of the ugly stereotypes we've become acquainted with over time. The "Welfare Queen", "Border Runner", and now "Anchor Baby" are all part of our political vernacular. Instantly a mental image springs forth to fill in the hazy gaps in our minds, because the Right has not only built the narrative, more importantly they've cast the characters.
These characters are useful and effective because they sum up everything the conservative voter needs to know in a nice little package and glosses over all the useless details. "Anchor Baby" works because it's short, and inherently negative. It's an indefensible position, and if confronted with it in a debate the only logical choice is retreat. Never mind the well established rights granted to a US citizen under the 14th amendment. Don't worry about the untold amounts of money that undocumented workers contribute to the economy each year. Anchor Baby, 'nough said.
Where we've been getting beat stupid for years in messaging, isn't just about using focus-group tested buzz words, it's about narrative based dialogue, or "story-telling" if you want to be smart about it. Part of telling a good story is having an easily identifiable hero and villain. The hero is always either the voter or the crusading politician, a faceless everyman that anyone can project themselves onto. The villain on the other hand, encapsulates all that is wrong with the world and poses an antithesis to our hero. They don't play by the rules, they game the system, and threaten to undermine the good life that we all struggle so hard to achieve. We've already seen them do their magic with labor unions. The specter of the "Union Boss" has replaced the working families that built this country. If you watch and listen closely we're already starting to see the conservatives changing the debate around teachers, the guardians of education. It won't be long before they roll out a two-syllable, pre-tested label for their old nemesis, and the public schools will be ripe for plunder.
Now, think about the villains in the liberal world view. Most of them revolve around some form of the greedy CEO, or faceless corporation. This is problematic because while most Americans consider themselves far from rich, they haven't ruled out the possibility that their luck might change someday. The others include religious zealots and homophobes. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue or paint a mental image, does it? On one of our most fundamental issues, Education, the waters are so murky we
don't even have a clear story to tell.
But of course there's no reason why we can't learn from our mistakes by copying their strategy. And to those ends I'd like to suggest that our new villain is the "Tax Cheat". The name itself tells us a few things. We're not going to say that he's rich, we'll let the voters fill that one in for themselves. Which is great because this lets us play the class card, without offending any of our wealthy allies and donors who happen to have a conscience. But more importantly it says he has tax liability or that he owes something to society. Few people actually enjoy paying their taxes (although most people like what our taxes afford us), but we pay them nonetheless out of obligation to each other and future generations. Most importantly regardless of what we pay, each of us thinks individually that we pay our "fair share." But the Tax Cheat doesn't. He doesn't contribute a dime toward all the things that make our system work. He still uses the parks, schools, and bridges like everyone else, but we the "tax-payers" end up footing the bill.
None of this is to say that shifting the debate will be easy or cheap. It took years if not decades for conservative strategists to build their narrative in voter's minds. But if we start now by telling our story in the public sphere and door to door we can go after tax loop holes, and companies that make obscene profits domestically but house their corporate offices overseas. We can raise untold amounts of revenue, and won't be forced into balancing the budget on the backs of the poor. But most importantly we can begin to shift the blame in the voter's minds from teachers and workers, to the real enemy of the middle class.
Helena attorney Shahid Haque-Hausrath has a response to Matt Singer's "Montana is Montana and Jon Tester is Jon Tester" piece that went up earlier today on the Border Crossing Law Firm's Immigration Blog.
Haque-Hausrath, a good friend of mine, hits the nail on the head regarding the catalyst for a flood of heated backlash by Montana progressives who supported Tester in 2006:
Not only did Tester vote against the bill, but he issued a statement on Friday to pander to the anti-immigrant crowd, in which he actively mischaracterized the bill as "amnesty." Since his election, Jon Tester has buried his head in the sand about the importance of immigration issues to his progressive constituents and allies. His vote was a calculated attempt to score points with the most racist and xenophobic Montanans - people who would never vote for Tester, but have been flooding his office with calls. Tester believed that this would be a safe vote, and would barely garner any attention from progressives.
This weekend was bittersweet for me. As a member of the gay community, I was pleased to see both my US Senators join in the call for repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." It was a long time coming, and I personally have friends who will directly benefit from the policy reversal - once it is implemented.
But it was heartbreaking for me to see the DREAM Act stalled. At least for now, the hopes of thousands and thousands of hardworking people who have been living in the US since childhood are crushed.
I knew, from personally contacting both senate offices, how they would vote. What I wasn't expecting was an offensive statement issued by the Tester press shop continuing a long cycle of offensive rhetoric that looked like it was ripped from the websites of right-wing and xenophobic anti-immigrant groups:
"Illegal immigration is a critical problem facing our country, but amnesty is not the solution. I do not support legislation that provides a path to citizenship for anyone in this country illegally."
Amnesty is defined as "a general pardon for offenses, especially political offenses, against a government." The DREAM Act's full intent and purpose was crystal clear: it provided opportunity to achieve semblance of the "American Dream" to undocumented immigrants moved here, by their parents, at a very young age. As Andrew Simpson simply put it, "It is an extension of grace to a very specific group of people who did not knowingly commit a crime against the United States."
The DREAM Act was quite possibly one of the best pieces of policy that has moved across Tester's desk during his short, and what might be only, term in the US Senate. It is too bad to see it fail to move forward because of five Democrats. If you haven't taken the time to voice your frustration, do! There's been a fair amount of comment that seems to say, "This is Montana, not California" or "Jon Tester is Jon Tester, of course he would vote this way, he's always been bad on proactive immigration policies ever since he was in the state legislature." That sort of thing, none of which is any excuse for either his vote or statement - and all of it is pretty disheartening to see coming from folks on the left who self-identify as progressive or liberal.
Senate switchboard: 202 225 3121
Max Baucus: max_baucus@senate.gov
Jon Tester: jon_tester@senate.gov
The Senate on Tuesday voted against taking up a major military bill that would allow the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, disappointing advocates of allowing gay Americans to serve openly in the armed forces...
According to the Times report, Republicans said they opposed the bill failed because "procedural reasons." Democrats attached DADT repeal to the military reauthorization bill...along with the DREAM Act.
In the meantime, it's worth noting that there are an estimated 48,000 homosexuals on active duty or the reserves, many of them in critical occupations, many with distinguished service records. If they pose any risk at all to America's security, it is, paradoxically, because DADT institutionalizes dishonesty, puts them at risk of blackmail, and forces fellow warfighters who may know about their orientation to make an invidious choice between comradeship and the law. That's no way to run a military.
And it's worth remembering that this bill failed with 56 votes, thanks to the filibuster and Republican political gamesmanship.
And it's worth noting that both Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus voted to end the filibuster, for the DREAM Act and against DADT.
The freefall has begun. The US Senate has abandoned any notion of passing any kind of meaningful reform, and seems to be content to sit tight and watch the 2010 elections. Over the past week, the Senate has punted on some major issues that essentially say they're done.
To wit:
The Cobell settlementwas rejected by the US Senate. It was stripped from a war-funding bill. Harry Reid blamed Republicans, but as Indian Country Today's Rob Capriccioso pointed out, plenty of Democrats had to oppose the amendment for it to fail cloture, 46-51. Republicans - led by Wyoming's John Barrasso - do keep trying to "modify" the settlement in ways Cobell opposes, but it's unclear if the filibusterers here were voting against the settlement, or tacking on unrelated additional spending (there were other domestic measures in the bill besides the Cobell settlement) to the Afghanistan funding bill. So, it either failed because the Senate opposes the settlement, or because they're beholden to deficit hawks. Either way, it's a fail for the Senate.
Cobell is bringing the settlement back to the House. As Gwen Florio notes, the "most recent deadline - there have many, with many delays - for congressional approval of the settlement is Aug. 6."
From a planetary perspective, the Senate abandoning of a climate change bill is even worse. Harry Reid said simply he doesn't have the votes to pass a bill. Worse still, the abandonment of the climate in the Senate presages a complete collapse of any political will to work on climate issues:
The result is an undeniable defeat in stemming climate change in this country. It echoes overseas also with other countries wondering about American resolve on a global issue. The high-wire deal struck in a climate change conference last year in Copenhagen to reduce emissions by 17 percent by 2020 looks very far away.
But the wreckage isn't complete. California will face a challenge to its AB32 law cutting greenhouse emissions on the ballot in November. Also, GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman wants to hit the pause button on the law if elected. Keeping this law on the books becomes a higher priority than ever.
The Obama administration may also take an extra step in the battle by using existing federal laws to crack down on carbon emissions, a regulatory showdown it wanted to avoid with the legislative package that's now dead. Whether it has the will to do so, after the Senate defeat, remains in doubt.
Spectacular fail.
Finally, Republican Senators tried to block the US DoJ from challenging the recent Arizona immigration law. It failed, but the bad news here is that both Jon Tester and Max Baucus voted with Republicans on the issue. It's an astounding vote, frankly. For starters, the bill attempts to dictate to Justice what cases they should pursue. For another matter, while Tester has always been hawkish on immigration, the Arizona law is irreconcilable with the kind of individual civil liberties issues Jon's always championed in the past. How can you be an outspoken opponent of Real ID - and a supporter of Arizona's immigration law? Real ID at least has the benefit of being applied uniformly to all citizens, while Arizona's papers check would be haphazardly applied without document standards, and by local authorities with all of their biases and no oversight. And Tester, at least, has an election coming up and a history of drifting towards nativist positions on immigration. What's Baucus' excuse here?
As Netroots Nation friend Paul Hogarth blogged today, the Senate is where "progressive legislation goes to die."
If there's one major frustration leading into November, it's the U.S. Senate - where Republicans have obstructed practically everything that passed the House. Reid came to the Conference on July 24th - right after announcing we "don't have the votes" for comprehensive climate change reform this year, only adding insult to injury. One panel on filibuster reform suggested we're in a constitutional crisis, but Reid himself wouldn't commit to any specific solution.
And the solution?
But rather than give up, Al Franken reminded the netroots that Senators elected in 2006 and 2008 with their help are a "coalition of the impatient" - and represent a new generation of more progressive Democrats. Bloggers are needed this November to add to their ranks, in order to change the Senate.
Well...it's a nice thought. And I do think our progressive resurgence moved too quickly, allowing too many politicians from earlier eras of appeasement staff the chairs of vital Congressional committees. We do need better representatives.
But I'm still staggered - especially on climate change - how spectacular our political failures have been.
Exciting primaries last night, right? Specter gone! Lincoln hanging on for dear life! And a good chance to wrest McConnell's Senate seat from the Republican party! Lots of analyses are spinning in the lower rungs of the media atmosphere - but it was a good, solid day for progressive candidates, and I won't speculate beyond that. The best analysis I've read is, naturally, Nate Silver's. I do think the best takeaway from yesterday's results is that the GOP, trying to campaign on images of Pelosi, has forgotten that normal people aren't as obsessed by national politics as they are. All elections are local.
But I didn't come here to talk about the primaries. I came here to talk immigration reform, and, more specifically, to lobby for the DREAM Act.
The DREAM Act? What's the DREAM Act? Well, first a story...
A bright-eyed 19-year-old, Juve looks like any other American teen. While growing up in Prescott, Arizona, Juve liked to play baseball, skate, and work at a cattle auction. Carried into the U.S. by his mother at the age of 3 months, Juve knows no other life than in the U.S.
And if it weren't for a fateful traffic stop - one for the sole "crime" of driving with a cracked windshield - Juve would be still living out his teen years with his family in Prescott.
Juve had long known that he did not have his papers. His flaw was that he refused to succumb to this fact; he wanted to live life like a normal American kid. Arizona law does not allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, and yet Juve was a teen and he wanted wheels.
Juve always made sure to drive exactly the speed limit. The irony is that it wasn't Juve's driving that drew the attention of this officer.
Nor was it likely the crack in his windshield. A federal report released last year found that programs like SB 1070 encourage racial profiling.
Indeed, the Justice Department is currently investigating Sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County - just north of Juve's Yavapai County-for such civil rights violations.
And so Juve found himself in an ICE detention facility in Phoenix. He was dropped off in Nogales, Sonora, and found work in a border pharmacy.
He was sentenced to life in a country he barely knows.
He won't see his parents for years, and the only family he can see is his 18-year-old younger brother, who happened to be born in the U.S.
His brother will have to wait until he is 21 in order to apply for Juve's green card. Even then, due to our backlogged visa processing system, Juve will likely be 36 by the time he is allowed onto American soil. The wait for a sibling's green card is currently 14 years.
Current immigration law takes no account for how long immigrants without documentation have lived in the country, nor how old they were when they entered. The law offers little recourse to families of mixed nationality; too often, this results in split families, and young people who have lived most their lives being deported, essentially, to a foreign country.
The DREAM Act would change this. It's a bipartisan bill co-authored by Utah's Orrin Hatch and Illinois' Dick Durbin that would create a conditional path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country before they were 16 years old. Essentially, those that came before age 16 can become a citizen if they finish a four-year secondary degree.
No brainer, right? The bill would allow, say, a 24-year-old Iranian man to become a US citizen, despite having entered the county illegally...as a 3-year-old. As the law stands, he could be deported back to Iran, where his sexuality is a capital crime. Only the DREAM Act has stalled, thanks to one of its original supporters, Arizona's John McCain, who's reinvented himself as a nativist. And the Iranian man actually exists: he's Mohammad Abdollahi, who was recently arrested staging a sit-in at McCain's office, and who is now in custody of ICE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Administration officials and the Senate leadership say they need "bipartisan" support before taking up any immigration reform. But there's no reason the DREAM Act can't be considered separately from the myriad other issues swirling around immigration. Right now the law stands between young immigrants and their education and paths to becoming protective, and documented, citizens of our country.
Matthew Yglesias links to Factcheck.org's report on immigration and jobs, which shows that immigrants - legally or illegally entering the country - actually grow the economy, and create jobs and increases wages for the average American worker.
But of course when you look at the politics of this issue, none of this is reflected. The people clamoring to "control the border" aren't recent low-skill immigrants from Mexico. It's very rarely native born high-school dropouts either. Rather, the people upset about immigration tend to be white high school graduates, a group that has a lot of conservative opinions about many issues but generally benefits from high levels of immigration.
Kevin Drum suggests that immigration opponents' opposition "...is rooted less in economic concerns and more in cultural resentment and language angst." Which isn't really accurate, either, given the number of immigration opponents that proudly point to, say, German, Irish, or Italian immigrant ancestors.
It's racism. Not the overt, old-fashioned segregation and lynching kind...it's the face of a kind of new racism, in which a handful of people, no doubt feeling threatened, confused, or annoyed by the myriad and rapidity of change - economic, cultural, moral, or technological, and not all of it positive - cling for self-identity to a highly politicized vision of the mythic American past, which, at its center, includes a racial and ethnic identity. Obama does not belong to the mythology, nor, apparently, does the most recent Miss America - a Muslim-American woman who "usurped" the "rightful" owner of the crown, Arizona-immigration-policy-supporting Miss Oklahoma. A "real" American doesn't speak with an accent, drive the wrong car, worship the wrong God, or veer from the views of the conservative punditry.
And I do think there's an economic component to this resentment that's written into the mythology as the "Protestant work ethic," but is probably more about the fear of immigrants slicing off a too-generous helping from the US government's budget pie. It's no coincidence that the areas of the country most hostile to civil and immigrant rights are also the most federally subsidized. And it's no coincidence that Reagan's pairing of federal welfare abuse with single black mothers resonated so sharply with many white, middle-class voters.
Whatever. Let's just say that distrust of immigrant populations runs deep, and all the evidence in the world that new Americans actually benefit the US economy will change neither the canard associating immigrants with job loss nor any anti-immigration views.
For those on the left who like to paint our Gov with a broad brush as "not a progressive," simply because on one issue (coal) he votes the wrong way, here is another example of why most progressives (in Montana and nationally) like Schweitzer.
The Tea Party movement has spooked many Democrats. Watch the national news, and see how most Democrats who serve in competitive states or districts are not willing to stand up and take the Tea Partiers on. Instead, they walk on eggshells, always reluctant to criticize them for fear of becoming a target of them or for fear of losing a few independent voters who get their news from Fox. "You are seeing some understandable anger" is the usual refrain uttered by everybody from the President to just about every Democratic US Senator or member of Congress or Governor, unless they are lucky enough to serve an electorate that is heavily democratic and thus safe.
But here is a clip of Schweitzer on the Rachel Maddow show (yay!), calmly sticking a long dagger into the Tea folks, making them look like the foolish and ignorant hypocrites they are. Here's a link to the transcript for those of you reading this at work. And here's a quote I especially like:
The tea party people get up in the morning and they make phone calls to each other that they're going to go to a rally. And they use a subsidized telephone system. Then they drive down a road that was built by the government that is protected by government workers called highway patrolmen. They get to a rally and they carry their signs and they are protected by the firemen and the policemen who are in that town. And then they eagerly drive home and say, "It was a success. We're against the government."
I also like his stance on education,
It's not a sin to be frugal. It's not a sin to challenge expenses. But it is a sin to cut back on education for our most valuable resource.
This is far from the only place where Schweitzer isn't afraid to say what is right even if it doesn't poll well or get him conservative voters. Here in one of the more conservative states in America, he has made speeches praising the Canadian health system (daring Montana voters to find a Canadian citizen that doesn't like her country's healthcare).
He has openly advocated a withdrawal from Afghanistan--a war which he sees as not worth the lives or expense. He has welcomed American Indians into his government and into the political system with an emphasis not seen in Montana's political history, treating them as the sovereigns they are. He has gone after the Obama Administration, (and perhaps Baucus and Tester, implicitly...), for selling out to Big Pharma, and not allowing Montana citizens to buy cheap medication from Canada; and recently, he went to Butte to stand up publicly in defense of Saudi and other Arab students who were being taunted and attacked by local redneck douchebags.
He has made historic investments in Montana's HHS budget, in help for the poor, the disabled, and education, and has been happy to tout them even as the Tea Party criticizes him.
I saw an anti-immigration ad on the Billings Gazette website the other day, which was sponsored by an organization called NumbersUSA.
After some digging around on the NumbersUSA website, I found something interesting. NumbersUSA gives both Max Baucus and Jon Tester a B+ grade on immigration issues.
What brings Rehberg down in their scoring is this:
Cosponsoring H.R. 2414 to grant amnesty to illegal aliens Rep. Rehberg is a cosponsor of H.R. 2414 to encourage more illegal immigration by rewarding certain illegal aliens who work in agriculture with amnesty.
Which is interesting, considering the fact that Rehberg has tried to frame himself as anti-immigration/Mr. Protect-Our-Borders. In a 2007 press release, he said:
"Montanans, and Americans, have said they want real enforcement and they want immigrants entering our county to enter legally, without cutting corners. An immigrant's first act in America shouldn't be an illegal one. I oppose this legislation and I'll work to find a sensible solution here in the House."
Seems like amnesty for illegal aliens would fall under the category of "cutting corners."
This is just another example of Rehberg saying one thing to Montanans and doing another in Congress. Classic.
Enough already, Dennis. Show us a new party trick.
We've all heard about Arizona's new immigration law, Arizona SB 1070 (pdf), called, somewhat misleadingly, "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act."
The law, which proponents and critics alike said was the broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations, would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Opponents have called it an open invitation for harassment and discrimination against Hispanics regardless of their citizenship status.
Doesn't this seem like a bad idea? If applied uniformly, the law would essentially require everyone to carry proof of citizenship with them at all times while in Arizona at risk of arrest. If applied only to Latinos, it's a case of racial profiling and a law that arbitrarily targets a group based on race.
The Arizona Republic's Dan Nowicki outlines the likely legal challenges the bill will face. For one, the Constitution "makes it clear" the federal government alone "has the responsibility to enact and enforce immigration laws." Opponent also claim the bill violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and will lead to racial profiling.
Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles: "The law is wrongly assuming that Arizona residents, including local law enforcement personnel, will now shift their total attention to guessing which Latino-looking or foreign-looking person may or may not have proper documents. That's also nonsense. American people are fair-minded and respectful. I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation. Are children supposed to call 911 because one parent does not have proper papers? Are family members and neighbors now supposed to spy on one another, create total distrust across neighborhoods and communities, and report people because of suspicions based upon appearance?"
The New York Times: "The Arizona Legislature has just stepped off the deep end of the immigration debate, passing a harsh and mean-spirited bill that would do little to stop illegal immigration. What it would do is lead to more racial profiling, hobble local law enforcement, and open government agencies to frivolous, politically driven lawsuits."
It's not like Arizona governor Jan Brewer doesn't understand these concerns -- she apparently just doesn't care: "The governor listened patiently, Mr. Woods recalled, as he laid out his arguments against the bill: that it would give too much power to the local police to stop people merely suspected of being illegal immigrants and would lead to racial profiling; that some local police officers have been abusive toward immigrants; and that the law could lead to costly legal battles for the state.
"When he hung up, Mr. Woods knew he had lost the case. 'She really felt that the majority of Arizonans fall on the side of, Let's solve the problem and not worry about the Constitution,' he said."
Such a flagrant disregard of the Constitution should really fire up Tea Partiers, right? Right? Wrong.
Jamelle Bowie speculates why this is so: "This distinct lack of conservative outrage confirms something I've suspected for awhile. The conservative grassroots is genuinely concerned with creeping government power, but only when it affects their lives. Health care reform has a tangible impact on the Tea Party movement and its sympathizers, most of whom are well-off white men. By contrast, actual abrogations of freedom - indefinite detention, warrantless wiretapping, torture, anti-immigration police state laws - are completely acceptable, since they target people on the margins of society. And this holds even if the measures in question are illegal, or run counter to custom. If the goal is to 'stop Muslims' or send 'illegals back,' then anything and everything it takes to get there is justified. For a large number of conservatives, the exception is the rule, at least for people who don't look like them."
I'd go a step further than this analysis. It's not that liberal policies represent "creeping government power," but they often force entrenched groups to share funds and privileges and access to basic infrastructure with those that were hereto arbitrarily excluded, whether by race, gender, or sexual preference. Regressive conservative policies like Arizona's immigration law or Bush terror policies are essentially bulwarks against outside and marginal groups. They keep us "safe," goes the claim...
Securing the votes in Congress to pass real immigration solutions into law isn’t going to be easy. The next President – no matter who wins – will need to lead his own party first to get it done.
Deputies said two men brandished a baseball bat and a tire iron, used racial slurs and threatened migrant mushroom pickers at a Marion convenience store. One of the workers took a gun from his vehicle, fired two shots in the air and the parties went their separate ways.
About two hours later, deputies say up to seven white men attacked migrant workers at a campground, allegedly hurling racial slurs and beer bottles at the migrants. One white man had a rifle and fired five or six shots in the air.
So here's the question: how much does the rightie anti-immigration rhetoric spur this kind of thing? Or does the rhetoric flow from this kind of nascent anger?
As long as I'm using obscure music references in German to title posts, I figured this was a natural choice to talk immigration.
Simon Rosenberg notes the utter hollowness of immigration as an issue. If it really is so motivating, why is Tom Tancredo at 1%?
It occurred to me recently that there are really only two prominent voices in the immigration debate: the elite "centrist" position, advocating for a guest worker program that hurts American workers and keeps foreign workers as a second class, and a right-wing populist position, that blames the workers themselves for the problems in the economy.
Neither of these positions is really tenable in the framework of progressive populism. And the major voice from the left too often takes the form of an international liberal view that thinks our only priority should be on rectifying foreign economies rather than dealing with any problems potentially caused by immigration here in America.
In other words, there's a valuable -- and I think correct -- perspective missing from this debate in America.
Note: If you are tired of major issues like this getting no coverage in the face of a media blackout and thus you would like to see my nationally syndicated column in your local paper, see the bottom of this post on what to do to make that happen. - D
The debate taking place in America over illegal immigration is not just overheated. As I discuss in my new nationally syndicated column out this past Friday, the debate is dishonest. Both parties are trying to focus attention on the illegal immigration issue in order to distract attention from the underlying problem of worker exploitation and regressive economic/globalization policies that intensify the exploitation. We see it most often from Republicans, but we saw it just last week from Democrats at the presidential debate, as that debate only addressed the immigration issue from a punitive standpoint (driver's licenses, etc.) - rather than discussing the root of the issue, which is economic exploitation of all workers.
The fact is, both Democrats and Republicans know that exploitation is at the heart of illegal immigration, but neither party is really willing to confront that exploitation because that would mean confronting their big corporate donors who are profiting off the status quo. And so, taking a scapegoat play out of the Reagan and Clinton playbooks, the con artists in both parties are trying to channel Americans' intense anger at Big Money interests into a rage at illegal immigrants.
Much ado has been made of Hillary Clinton's on-again, off-again support for New York Governor Elliot Spitzer's plan to make it easier for immigrants to obtain U.S. driver's licenses. Detractors argue that it would make it easier for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses (and the benefits that accompany a license), while Spitzer's supporters argue that the plan will actually increase national security (by allowing undocumented aliens to come out of the legal "shadows") and help immigrants economically. It's an interesting debate, and both arguments have their merit.
But wait! No! Spitzer (and Clinton) don't really support the policy for the reasons they say they do! It's really about voter fraud!
AmPro's Harold Meyerson and TNR's Eve Fairbanks give Senator Jon Tester guff for not voting for the recent immigration bill - the DREAM act.
Meyerson (emphasis mine):
What's striking about this list of anti-DREAM Dems is how it overrepresents states that have minimal immigrant presence. Precisely because immigrants come to work, they tend not to migrate to states with a dearth of economic activity, states like West Virginia and North Dakota. Montana isn't exactly clogged with south-of-the-border immigrants, either. Yet those three states are represented by five of the eight dissenting Democrats. What West Virginia and North Dakota do have in abundance, however, are working-class whites adrift in economic backwaters. Talk radio tells them that their problems are the fault of illegal immigrants. Marx once famously referred to the idiocy of rural life, which is still a pretty good encapsulation of what's wrong with the Senate, the legislative house that represents land rather than people. Still, it's worth noting that a number of Democrats from socially conservative states -- not least, South Dakota's Tim Johnson, who's up for re-election next year, and Jim Webb from the presumably anti-immigrant hotbed of Virginia -- voted to support the DREAM Act.
First, personal feelings on immigration reform aside, when has Jon Tester ever said anything about supporting an immigration bill that included amnesty? Answer: never. From the get-go, he's walked a hard line on immigration.
With Jon, you get what you're promised. That's why we elected him.
Tester's position is that we should enforce the existing international labor agreements and pressure south-of-the-border countries to improve wages and work conditions. Then illegal immigrants won't want to come to the United States. While I disagree with Jon on amnesty, I don't disagree here. Why aren't we talking about labor agreements instead of amnesty? That would seem to be a winning issue with American voters. Of course it would mean biting the hand that feeds the Senate...
Second, "idiocy of rural life"? And you wonder why states like Montana gravitate away from the left. Maybe instead of using states like Montana as a rhetorical foil to be disdained or ridiculed, folks should see Montana as a battleground state holding the keys to electoral victory in 2008 and beyond...
Just got back East from a trip to Yellowstone & Grand Teton and was shocked at how quickly the towns on the west side of the Tetons are growing. I have visited this area many times, but much has changed since my last visit in 1999.
For those unfamiliar with the area, the towns of Driggs, Victor, and Tetonia, Idaho sit on the western face of the Teton Range. Across the Targhee Pass is Wilson, WY and the expansive valley more commonly known as Jackson Hole.
This is my first post at Left In the West since moving from Montana to Denver a few weeks ago. I miss Big Sky country already. I figured, though, that since this site is about politics in the West generally, and because Matt has been blogging a lot about immigration, I'd cross-post this here. - D
Politically, I don't usually agree with the Denver Post's David Harsanyi - but the guy has a really important point in today's paper about the "debate" that happened over immigration recently. "A debate typically entails two sides hashing out an issue with facts, rebuttals and so on," he writes. "Not here. It was like watching my grandparents discuss dinner plans." Exactly - and there's a reason why a real debate never happened. Because a real debate would force the money-drenched political Establishment to confront the very questions it is designed to avoid - the questions of economic inequality that corporate interests want swept under the rug.
In the interest of preventing redundancy, let me just repost an excerpt of what I wrote a little more than a year ago in a column for the San Francisco Chronicle:
Amid all the rhetoric in the superheated immigration debate, many have forgotten the key question: Why? Why do so many Mexicans want to come to America in the first place?...Many Mexicans are willing to risk their lives to enter the United States illegally because they are desperate to find a better life. In supply-and-demand terms, the supply of jobs in Mexico that one can subsist on is far less than the demand for such jobs...This is the supply-and-demand reality that no amount of emotional rhetoric can change - and in that reality we can find the way to address illegal immigration: by stopping the demand instead of trying to block the supply. The Academy Award-winning movie, "Traffic," highlighted the perils of waging a drug war that only focuses on trying to block the supply of narcotics, rather than on eliminating the demand for them. These same lessons can be applied to illegal immigration. The best way to stop illegal entry into our country from Mexico is to tamp down the demand by Mexicans to enter this country illegally. After all, no wall, no fence, no border security measure can be as effective as reducing the demand for entry. This means reforming our trade policy to include serious wage, workplace and human-rights provisions so that cross-border commerce actually improves the lives of Mexican workers to the point where they no longer feel the dire economic need to break our immigration laws. Think about it this way: Had NAFTA lifted 19 million Mexicans out of poverty as promised instead of helping to drive 19 million Mexicans into poverty, you can bet the flood of illegal immigrants across our southern border would be a trickle instead of the flood it is today.
During the immigration "debate," there was almost no discussion of America's trade policy or how to reform it (and our foreign aid program) to economically lift up neighboring countries like Mexico. Why? Because trade policy is seen in Washington as the exclusive purview of corporate lobbyists - it is not looked at as a human issue. These trade pacts are really investor rights agreements - and ones that have long enjoyed the support of both parties and the Wall Street financiers who underwrite them. They are designed first and foremost to create desperate economic conditions in both America and in Mexico. The more desperation, the lower the wages, the more pressure to reduce environmental protection and the better able employers are to bust unions. The last thing those Democrats, Republicans and corporate lobbyists who crafted NAFTA wanted was a trade policy that actually lifted up Mexico's economy - because if that happened, there wouldn't be a cheap labor pool to exploit.
Even Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) refuses to address how the manipulation of our trade policy exacerbates the problem of illegal immigration he purports to care so much about. When he has questioned our trade policy, he has questioned only its non-economic provisions - but he has carefully stayed away from the more fundamental - and well-documented - criticism of how our existing policy exacerbates Latin American poverty and thus drives up pressure at our border.
I'm guessing Harsanyi, a conservative, doesn't agree with my fundamental critique of our existing trade policy. But I'd like to hope that he and others across the ideological spectrum can agree that the debate over immigration policy has to be over more than just walls, border patrols and paths to citizenship for those already here - it has to be about what is driving the entire situation.
The immigration "debate" we just had was not a debate - it was political theater, and bad political theater at that. If we want to really address the immigration question, we are going to need political leaders that are courageous enough to ask the real question - the questions of why.
Sadly, the right is celebrating the defeat of the immigration bill. There was a lot in the bill to dislike. But it's death is not worth celebrating.
Today, 12 million undocumented workers live in the shadows of the U.S. -- trying to escape detection and deportation. That combination of facts makes them an easy population to exploit. That, in turn, means marked downward pressure on wages in industries with lots of undocumented workers.
During the debate over this bill, Senators Tester and Baucus voted wrong. Repeatedly. They both voted to require police to turn over crime victims who they discovered were present illegally -- a quick way to avoid discovering rapists and murderers if key witnesses are worried about deportation.
These sorts of bad ideas were brought up repeatedly. Other amendments would require doctors and hospitals to turn over undocumented patients for deportation. Given public health concerns and the likelihood of a massive flu outbreak (or some other epidemic) soon, does it really make sense to scare sick people away from medicine?
The problem with the immigration debate is a lot like the problem with the abortion debate. Some people are so caught up in the individual actions that they simply don't care how the public policy will actually work as long as it reflects their moral beliefs. Nevermind that anti-choice policies have tended to increase abortion rates worldwide. Nevermind that abstinence-only sex education has led in somes cases to higher pregnancy and STD transmission rates. And nevermind that cracking down on the border and implementing punitive measures against immigrants has never worked to stop the flow of migration before. The mindset is simple: If it feels good to pass a bill, do it. And damn the actual consequences.
I've written here before that one of the most disheartening things during the immigration debate was to witness Tester and Baucus referring to these immigrants as "illegal aliens," a term loaded to sound as vicious as possible. Regardless of what else one might think of the policy, the people most directly impacted are still human -- and using the rhetoric of minutemen and other vigilantes who seek to threaten and harm Hispanic immigrants, sometimes without regard to their legal status.
As someone blessed by my birth to be a citizen of the United States, I have a tough time being so damn vindictive toward people who dream of attaining what I had simply for being born in the right place to the right parents. That's not to say that there aren't problems associated with immigration that we should try to fix, but the hatefulness and the knee-jerk reactions are simply unnecessary.
...the Senate voted 64-35 to revive the bill, which stalled earlier this month when it failed to muster the 60 votes it needed to scale procedural hurdles.
Twenty-four Republicans joined 39 Democrats and independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut to move ahead with the bill. Opposing the move were 25 Republicans, nine Democrats and independent Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont.
As Steve Benen notes, "a similar test-vote earlier this month found just 45 supporters (7 Republicans), while today generated 64 voted (including 24 Republicans)." (Tester and Baucus voted against cloture on the bill, which, in effect, was a vote to kill it.)
That is, 17 of the additional 19 votes were Republican.
Think of it, this immigration bill has earned the condemnation of just about every vocal grassroots member of the Republican Party's base, yet GOP support for the bill has tripled in the past month. That, of course, is what is driving Stanley Kurz wild.
But it's simple really. The division in the GOP over the immigration bill is between the party's base and the business community. Anybody who's been a casual observer of the political process in the past, oh, 140 years will know with which side "good" Republican lawmakers will side.
