Here's the crux of the argument: America--corporate America and the American consumers themselves--depends on cheap, exploitable labor. At the same time, the racist elements of the the country require rhetoric that claims to want to protect our borders. So what are the corporate lackeys in the Democratic and Republican parties to do to have it both ways? Well, you're seeing it.
Look, securing national borders is not rocket science. While we may have an official policy regarding immigration and technical classify some people as "illegal" immigrants, the fact is that our borders are porous specifically because there are high-level decisions in the federal government to keep them porous because without a large illegal, cheap, exploitable, unquantifiable pool of labor to suppress wages, our economy would be unsustainable in its present form.
Do you want to pay $5.00/lb for tomatoes? Then don't bitch about migrant laborers. You want to be able to get a hotel room for under $100/night. Don't bitch about migrant laborers. You like getting that 99 cent special at McDonald's? Don't bitch about migrant laborers.
Democrats and Republicans alike have underfunded the Border Patrol, the Customs Service, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service in conscious service to maintaining a surplus supply of labor to keep the wheels of the American economy turning. The whole stinking mess is balanced on the backs of all those poor, hard-working people who will risk anything just to get a lousy job doing stoop labor in the fields or scrubbing toilets in office buildings or hauling away trash from construction sites for new stucco fucko McMansions in the suburbs of Phoenix and Albuquerque or slicing up steer carcassess in slaughterhouses in Storm Lake, Iowa.
Two things are required, both morally and practically to fix this "problem." One, pay a fair livable wage to EVERY worker in the United States. Second, accept the real cost of things. We all turn a blind eye to the misery that supports our lifestyle and persecute the poorest among us when things go a little sour.
We are a miserably hypocritical society, and when I hear these fat white bastards crying about the threat from south of the border even as then jerk off to pay-per-view porno in their immigrant-cleaned hotel suite on their immigrant-laundered sheets, I want to strip them of their birth certificates and send them to a border slum in Sonora, Mexico, for a few years to learn some lessons in fundamental economics.
6 comments:
So are you saying that America deserves to be overrun with illegals?
"Deserves"? Hardly. What I am saying is that our official policy and our implementation of that policy are completely disconnected, and this is done purposely. It serves to give lip service for politicians who want to be tough on immigration ("it's the law") while at the same time keeping all the corporate owners of our government happy by maintaining an endless supply of cheap labor.
Think about it: if you're a CEO or board member or rich stockholder, are you threatened by immigrant labor, or have you benefitted handsomely from it?
Now to the rhetorical quality of your question--nice try at reframing what I wrote into advocacy of being "overrun with illegals," but there is nowhere in there such a statement. You must watch too much Fox "News." It's the O'Reilly School of Bad Rhetoric I sense here.
Hmm, I sense it too. Bad Rhetoric. Do we call that a straw man? Last I heard, you burn those to the ground. Sorry fuckface, unless you have some real rhetorical tools, good luck with this spin. Olaf raises some good points. His rhetoric is bold and brash and entirely quantifiable. Do the same. Oh, I guess that makes me nuts. Oh well, I'll take my nutso self and generally be annoyed at the prospect of a world without justice...hmm, was that a straw man?
Yes, yes, thank you anonymous--strawman.
Mr. Sanity (sounds like "hannity" dunnit?):
America has been overrun with immigrants for several (hundreds of) years. It is the white people who get to make the rules, so they have identified themselves as "legal" immigrants, while the rest get to be "illegal." It is actually an arbitrary disctinction. Anyway, we are all guilty of stealing from (and brutally slaughtering) the American Indians. Legal shmegal.
Good point. Borders are artificial constructions designed to consolidate political power. Over time they resist change, regardless of the logic that created them, as in Iraq for a really glaring example.
Post a Comment