Sunday, May 4, 2008

Great Job, Folks

If there's one thing that America's brilliant, far-sighted Republicons excel at, it's spreading misery around. This from today's New York Times about declines in money that immigrants send back home:

"Nobody should think of the decline in remittances, however, as anything but unfortunate. Immigrant workers are not just vital to the American economy, their money transfers are a critical bulwark against poverty for millions of people south of the border. Cutting off that lifeline will lead to more misery in some of the poorest parts of the hemisphere — and it will feed the desperation that sends more migrants to the United States."
As it has for blue collar and middle management workers, the gutted economy has meant more hard times for both documented and undocumented immigrants. But for immigrants, the increase in intentional harrassment has meant both a reluctant exodus out of the country (leading to more home foreclosures, more empty apartments, and more trashed state budgets) and more unemployment (Always a good thing. Not.) As usual, life is tougher for them than for the rest of us.
So once again, the consequences of a hate-based, xenophobic economic/labor policy--or ideology--are more misery all around.

Good job, Dobbs. Great work, Tancredo. Outstanding, Buchanan. Oh, and very well done, AZ Rep. Russell the Nazi Pearce.

I wish I could leave it there.

However, they couldn't have gone this far if we had stood up to them. Therefore, 50% of the responsibility for this clustered duck goes right smack-dab to the great rotten-rock liberal majority, which, far as I can tell, hasn't missed an opportunity to sit out a tough one since Vietnam.

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