Slamming the Schoolroom Door

Think Progress reports:

"The North Carolina Attorney General’s office decided yesterday that undocumented immigrant students cannot attend public colleges in their state. This decision to cut off opportunity for one group of North Carolina residents affects even those children who have gone to North Carolina public schools since kindergarten, and cannot remember ever living anywhere other than North Carolina."

So, your nation's long-term interest depends on (a) an educated, competitive, and loyal next generation, and (b) winning the hearts and minds of the world for democracy.

Given the choice between (1) educating children of undocumented workers in this country, treating them with kindness, and giving them the best possible start in life, or (2) pitching them out of school on their backsides, their American Dream in ruins, themselves humiliated, broken-hearted, and enraged, what do you do?

Well, if you’re a “compassionate conservative Christian,” the answer’s obviously (1), right? Who among these compassionate conservative Christians would fail to remember Jesus’s teaching: “If you do it unto the least of these, you do it unto me”?

I don’t recall seeing the footnote, “except undocumented Mexicans.” I mean this was a guy who hung out with robbers, whores, Republicans . . . .

File Under "Huh?"

Equality AZ, the leading edge in last year's successful fight against a Republican-driven state constitution banning gay/lesbian marriage, domestic partnership, and any similar rights or benefits, today announced that it has hired Marc Morgan to head its development effort.

Morgan, who comes to us from Washington, DC, is described thus:

"With over 12 years of experience, Morgan has been successful in generating funds for such worthwhile causes like animal welfare, the environment, human rights and HIV/AIDS. On the political front, he's been a trusted and well-respected Republican fundraiser for several Members of Congress and local candidates."

Whoa.

Isn't that like being an urban developer and fundraising for the Society for Historic Preservation?

Meanin' no disrespect here, mind. It's just that this strikes me as the fundraising equivalent of turning on the tap while bailing out the basement. Because, like, if we didn't elect Republicans, who would manufacture all these hate bills? I'm thinkin' Pearce. McCain. Kyle. I'm just sayin.'

I don't know. Maybe it's a compulsion thing. Bad habit. Hard to break. Like that. But you know what they say: Friends don't let friends fund Republicans.

Still, I have nothing but admiration for Equality AZ's work in the last nasty anti-diversity proposition fight. AZ is the only state of six, I think, that managed to kick the bigots in the britches, leaving us mighty proud and grateful. So I guess if Executive Director Barbara McCullough-Jones's team thinks Morgan is a great fit, all I can say is "Welcome to Arizona, Marc! Break a leg!"

"Monsanto's Harvest of Fear"

If globalization, immigration, AZ agriculture, guest workers/slaves, shock doctrine economics, genetically modified foods, the horrors of "free trade," and the future of what goes into your mouth are among your interests, you'll want to read this.

Regular readers know I rant about Monsanto's role in creating the desperation that drives immigrants over the border. This will help to explain how that works, because genetically modified seeds and Monsanto's corporate goons aren't just homebodies. They get around.

Makes me wonder who the majority stockholders are.

Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear

"Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination."

AZ's Solar Plant imperiled? And Whoa, Mexico, Latin America Get Muscle?

Check it out.

From The New Republic:

WASHINGTON--It could be said that Latin America will come of age politically the day that Pemex, Mexico's oil behemoth, ceases to be a state monopoly. Until that happens, the psyche of many Latin Americans will be beholden to the mythical notion that government-owned natural resources are the custodians of national identity. That is why President Felipe Calderon's efforts to open up the oil sector to private investment in Mexico have profound cultural implications.

Legislation that would allow foreign investors to sign contracts with Pemex in order to explore, distribute and refine oil falls short of what is needed. But given the taboo that surrounds anything related to Pemex and the fact that the president's party is in the minority, Calderon's move deserves ample credit.

Go here for more. Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum-da-dum-da-dum-da-dum . . .

Oh, and from The Christian Science Monitor:

Phoenix - The sun shines 325 days a year in Arizona, on average, and some here see that as the state's biggest energy asset.

But fledgling efforts to turn Arizona into the solar capital of the world depend on making the initial investment in new energy plants affordable – something that could become much more difficult, perhaps even impossible, if a federal tax credit for solar projects expires at the end of the year as scheduled.

Time to call your progressive senators, Arizona.

The Trans-Texas Corridor and Why You Really Do Care

"It will connect to Interstate and other major highways. However, by design it will not provide easy, if any, access to the communities it passes by. It will not spur commercial development along its frontage like our Interstate Highways. There will be no frontage. There will be no opportunity for the owners of property it abuts to develop new or expanded businesses with access to the Corridor. Moreover, it has provisions in the plan and the law to place all possible traveler services on the corridor itself."

"Every mile of Corridor will consume 146 acres of land. That's property that will [be] . . . removed from county and school district tax rolls everywhere it extends."

"With a right-of-way approximately 1,200-feet-wide, the proposed corridor could change the face of agriculture in Texas forever as it swallows up thousands of production acres of farmland."

"If you take comfort in the lengthy environmental process and public hearings for a highway project of this massive size, you're in for a rude awakening. The Federal Highway Administration announced on March 16, 2004, that the first segment of the Trans Texas Corridor (Hillsboro to San Antonio) has been granted 'experimental project' status and construction can begin before the environmental study is complete." [Excerpted from Corridorwatch.com]

This one has everything.

This one, the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC), is the perfect illustration of shock-doctrine privatized predator capitalism brought home to the USA, and the all-encompassing symbol and manifestation of what "free trade" means for us, the people.

It has years of behind-the-scenes planning reminiscent of the Iraq occupation in more ways than I can count. It has corruption on at least the same order of magnitude. It benefits the same people for the same reasons by the same means. It is occurring without regard for the views of the people directly affected, without due process, with blissful disregard of the Constitution and Bill of Rights and of their deeper meaning for this beautiful country, and without regard for its impact on the people or the ecosystem.

It is being packaged and sold by a bunch of taxpayer-paid for lies and obfuscations, just as was the Iraq war.

Official rhetoric provides clues for the attentive about its connections to other domestic disasters that were utterly unfathomable before Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: an infrastructure left to crumble; a New Orleans left to rot, an endless train of immigration muck-ups, lousy guest worker programs, and the border fence BS, etc.

And if it isn't already, when it becomes a matter of "national security," like the border fence it so closely resembles in its RepubliCon dimension, an un-elected and utterly unaccountable Department of Homeland Security cabinet secretary will waive every law and regulation ever designed to protect workers, the people, their investments, the environment and ecosystems, the parklands, small agriculture, and the rest.

It is what it is, but it is also a gargantuan Trojan horse deliberately designed to enrich the richest, bleed and indenture the rest, and dismantle what is left of a legal system that was built on the understanding that community and commonwealth are intrinsically interconnected.

And if you imagine that the Party in power, which is run by exactly the people who are directly responsible for this catastrophe, will adandon this multi-billion cash cow and fascist wet dream, I sincerely believe you have a big think coming. I hope to God I'm wrong.

Why do you care? You care deeply, not just because this model is coming to a theatre near, you but also because you care about the people of Texas, who, like the people of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, are about to be thrown under a very big bus.

You care deeply because a few dozen well-oiled, well-connected high rollers with deep links to the GOP, here and abroad (can you spell BUSH?), are systematically looting and gutting the USA, and this is an example that even the dimmest among us can possibly grasp. Before it's too late, I hope.

What is the TTC? A privately-owned, outsourced, uber-super commerce corridor whose priority routes alone will total 4,000 miles. The entire TTC will total 8,000 miles and consume one million Texas acres. It will be a quarter-mile—wide, transecting Texas in all directions. The Texas Department of Transportation (TX-DOT) describes it thus:

It "will include [ten vehicle lanes,] separate toll ways for passenger vehicles and trucks. The corridor also will include six rail lines (three in each direction): two tracks for high-speed passenger rail, two for commuter rail and two for freight. The third component of the corridor will be a protected network of safe and reliable utility lines for water, petroleum, natural gas, electricity and data."

The fourth component will enclose and franchise to select privileged owners as "state concessions" all the services that sustain human travel—hotels, entertainment sites, fast-food joints, etc., as well as all the myriad service and maintenance infrastructure required to keep things moving.

The entire TTC could take as long as 50 years to complete. The initial cost estimate, $200 Billion for the first 4,000 miles, was low even for 2002 dollars. Imagine what the price tag will be given 2008 gas prices.

Why the TTC? Eventually it will be the key link in the trade chain from Mexico to Canada, and from LA to Dade County. Note this official excerpt from TX-DOT. For a plan described recently as having nothing to do with NAFTA, the title of the official propaganda is more than interestingly titled: Crossroads of the Americas: Trans-Texas Corridor Plan. And check the contents:

Draw a north-south line from Mexico City to Chicago. Draw an east-west line from Los Angeles to Miami. The two lines intersect in Texas.

Texas has long been seen as the crossroads of North America, but this concept has never been more relevant as trade between North and South America continues to grow.

Most goods and commodities coming into the United States from Mexico and South America cross the Texas border and move north, sometimes all the way to Canada.

The reverse is true for exports. In fact, 79 percent of all U.S.-Mexico trade passes through Texas ports of entry. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, this international traffic will only increase.

A large percentage of the nation's cross-continent traffic also passes through Texas. And then there are the transportation needs of the 21 million people who already live here.

. . . Beyond that, much of Texas' transportation infrastructure is nearing the end of its design life. [Emphasis added throughout.]

From the same source:

"Four corridors have been identified as priority segments of the Trans Texas Corridor. These corridors parallel I-35, I-37 and I-69 (propose) from Denison to the Rio Grande Valley, I-69 (proposed) from Texarkana to Houston to Laredo, I-45 from Dallas-Fort Worth to Houston and I-10 from El Paso to Orange. . . . [Texas Republican] Governor Rick Perry wrote Transportation Commission Chairman John W. Johnson on January 30, 2002 to outline his vision for the Trans-Texas Corridor. The Governor asked the three-member commission to assemble the Texas Department of Transportation's top talent to create and deliver a Trans Texas Corridor implementation plan in 90 days."

From TX-DOT: "Connection between the corridor and nearby cities will be accomplished with the existing highway system. Proposed corridor segments will require interconnection with additional modes of transportation to enable passengers and freight to reach their final destinations in nearby cities. Privately funded franchises or public/private partnerships will provide transportation from the corridor to destination cities."

However, as toll roads always do, TTC will transverse many rural areas and towns without the customary on- and off-ramps. That is, it will cut existing towns and communities off from the sustenance of daily travel and commerce, and play havoc with developments and investments made but not yet realized all along its path.

How this New Jerusalem will affect the workers who are needed to staff all these facilities hasn't been publicly addressed, to my knowledge. Will they be "guest workers" imported for the purpose and housed in some out-of-sight Bahrain-style ghettos within the corridor, or will they be expected to commute, paying their own way from their homes to travel to and from the nearest access point? I don't know yet, but I'm betting it won't be an all-fees-paid vacation plan.

Obviously, the TTC will also carve great, hideous scars across the Texas landscape. It will bisect some areas and segment others--ranches, developments, parkland--into useless, isolated micro-parcels, and it will wreck the ecosystem in ways yet even to be imagined.

As horrifying as its physical structure and its implications for the people of Texas are its underlying financing and profit structures—public/private partnership (PPP) deals financed and managed through a new class of financial instruments called infrastructure funds.

This structure, based on Australia's Macquarie model, is being pushed hard by the Bush Federal Highway Administration on all state governments, despite having been reliably slammed for Enron-style "high debt levels, high fees, paying distributions out of capital rather than cash flow, overpaying for assets, related-party transactions, booking profits from revaluations, poor disclosure, myriad conflicts of interest, auditor conflicts and other poor corporate governance." Macquarie, not incidentally, is the partner of Cintro, the Spanish firm to which the TTC has – you guessed it – been outsourced. A big Macquarie investor until he ran for president? Giuliani. Its law firm? Giuliani's a partner in Houston-based Bracewell and Giuliani, known for big energy clients and TTC. Other domestic trough-feeders? Halliburton KBR. Duh.

And there's more. The TTC will be a toll road, but just one of many more toll roads proposed for Texas.

Last but not least, critics of the plan have noticed that clustering critical national life supports-–rail, highway, pipeline, electrical, and even data--into one neat 4,000-mile ribbon will provide any US enemy a handy way to slice a major artery in the US blood supply. Don't think only "terrorists." Think nations, too. Ostensibly the bet is that interlocking multinational trade interests will protect us from the latter, but even if that does work, what about the former?

Oh, and that reference to Texas ports of entry. Would I be delusional to imagine that one reason New Orleans is being left to rot could have to do with relocating its share of that commerce to Houston-Galveston?
Or, given this gem, would I be crazy to be concerned about Arizona: "Expanding the corridor beyond Texas will require a cooperative effort with Mexico, as well as Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico." Is an end-run planned for Arizona's I-10, Phoenix, Tucson, Nogales, and for I-17 and points north? A "heads-I-win/tails-you-lose" for Texas? I don't know, but I'll be asking around.

I believe the TX legislature has begun to put some breaks on this runaway train, but I need help finding the beef on that. More later as I learn more. Meanwhile, other sources on the TTC: corridorwatch, jobsanger, texastollparty, muckraker, burkablog

Where It's At

It doesn't get clearer than this comment I received from Brad today:

"Roy Beck hasn't said anything that isn't true and numbers USA has a posting saying not to immigrant bash. Me, I just plan [sic] don't like Hispanics and I wish they would all get the fuck out of America."

Find the original in the comments here.

Hey Brad, I'm guessing the feeling is mutual.

AZ Guestworker Bills: Update

According to Truthout, Arizona lawmakers are now considering weakening laws designed to protect teen workers as a way to address the growing agricultural worker shortage. According to me and others who know way more than I do, the growing ag worker shortage is the result of actions of the same legislature to sanction employers who hire undocumented workers (a generations-old Arizona tradition held in highest regard until NAFTA), and actions of our resident Gestapoman, the Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Arpaio: He of the immigrant round-ups, baby detentions, and parent deportations.

So anyway, now comes AZ state Republican Senator Jack Harper with a proposal aimed, in my opinion, rather more at trying to save some bone-stupid GOP lawmakers (including Jack Harper) from being bludgeoned by irate growers than at easing the growing shortage of agricultural workers, a synonym for Mexican immigrants of undetermined status.

Tuesday 06 May 2008

Phoenix - State lawmakers are weighing whether to let teens perform jobs now considered too hazardous for them under state law as one answer to the complaints of a labor shortage.

Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, proposes removing current legal prohibitions that keep those younger than 18 from working as delivery drivers. Now those who have a license but have not reached that age can drive only if the duties are "incidental to the employment."

A more far-reaching measure would allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work on ladders or scaffolds up to 10 feet in height. That is double the current state restrictions.

And teens in that same age group could be on ladders 20 feet tall for picking fruit or pruning trees; the current state limit is eight feet.

That last one's a kicker, ain't it?

Read the rest of Truthout's summary here.

Also note well that according to AZ Democrat Marsha Arzberger, sponsor of S1508, one of the AZ slaveworker--er, guestworker--measures, Homeland Security Chief Chertoff has the unilateral power to make waivers in laws determining who can come into the homeland. If the guestworker bill sponsors and growers go that route, Congress's (and I suppose AZ legislators') votes on guestworker legislation would be rendered irrelevant.

Who needs Congress anyway! (That's sarcasm, by the way.)

When are we going to hear about unelected activist Cabinet secretaries? Just askin'.

AZ's Guestworker Bills

From MigrationInformation, this about that:

Arizona and Colorado Guest Worker Programs. State legislators in Arizona have proposed a state-run guest worker program. The Arizona program, detailed in Arizona House Bill 2863 and Senate Bill 1508, would allow Arizona employers with demonstrated labor shortages to hire workers from Mexico for two-year periods. An Arizona employer facing labor shortages could file an application with the Industrial Commission of Arizona. If the commission approved the employer's application, the employer would be able to recruit workers at a US consulate in Mexico, and the Arizona Department of Transportation would provide those workers with temporary worker ID cards.

In a similar move, legislators in Colorado have introduced a bill that would establish a pilot program that allows agricultural workers to be recruited in Mexico and brought to the United States on an expedited basis under the existing H-2A program.

Proponents of both the Arizona and Colorado bills have said a state guest worker program is needed to help meet labor shortages. Whether states have the legal ability to establish their own temporary worker programs, however, is highly contested. Even the bill's supporters agree the program would need federal approval.

Read Arizona's SB 1508 here.
Read Arizona's HCM 2013 here.
Read Colorado's House Bill 08-1325 here.
Learn more about Arizona's employer sanctions law in the January 2008 Policy Beat.
Read more about temporary worker programs in this January 2006 MPI Insight.

I'm still studying up on agricultural guestworker programs, and I don't know anything about MigrationInformation other than what appears on its website and the impression I've gleaned from scanning the site, which is cautiously favorable. If anyone out there has more information about it, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

First thoughts about temporary guestworker programs are these. Maybe I'll regret putting them out there, but I doubt it.

Historically, most have been designed to provide labor for "dirty, demanding, and dangerous" jobs. The inplication that they suffer from a shortage of willing native labor is hard to miss: If there were an adequate supply, a guestworker program wouldn't be needed.

Workers who are willing to accept these jobs historically are not well educated, well connected, or well off. They aren't well represented in Washington or well protected at the state level, either.

The capitalist profit imperative means that employers will pay whatever and offer whatever conditions and terms of work they can get away with. We know from the Braceros programs (1940s-1960s) that they can get away with conditions approximating slavery: below-minimum-wage pay, unsanitary and overcrowded housing, no medical care, no health, retirement or sick leave benefits, and brutally long hours.

Corporate interests dictate the actual language of many bills; this is one of the perks of lavish political action committee donations and well connected lobbyists. So we know that the tendency inevitably will be to secure the best possible terms for the employers and the fewest possible rights and protections for the guestworkers.

Studies of the realities of the Braceros programs bear all this out, as do reports from more recent guestworker programs in Europe. These studies also note the stigmatization of low-wage foreign workers, their ghettoization in host countries, and a predictable ensuing white backlash as racist/xenophobic nativists perceive national "takeovers," mass cultural reprogramming, and threats to the native labor force, real or not. When threats to national security are tacked on, the consequences for the guestworkers are all too clear and all too ugly, ranging from legalized oppression to murderous pogroms.

So, from the get-go, history teaches that the inherent tendency of guestworker programs is to exploit the guestworker. And that brings me to the twin AZ bills.

At present, I see no reason to trust that they'll be any different. Even with amendments that require prevailing wages and safeguards against substandard housing, abusive working conditions and hours, and other forms of exploitation such as bars to citizenship, the fact is this: Without strongly committed, incessant government oversight and enforcement, none of this matters one bit. The Braceros programs made that clear.

In the current economic crisis, in the current frenzy of racist xenophobia, what anti-regulatory Republican-dominated state legislature do you know that would mandate and fund an adequate guestworker inspection/enforcement program?

The twin AZ bills represent both an admission that Republicans' harsh anti-immigrant measures are profoundly threatening Arizona business, and a resolute determination to learn nothing from history. I can't see what they'll solve, and I'm not pleased that Napolitano is encouraging them, but I understand her dilemma.

Unless our guestworker program comes with the provisions that genuinely reward hard work with dignity--that is, with a reasonable path to citizenship; enforced work, housing, healthcare, and wage protections and all other measures necessary to prevent employers from undercutting wages and conditions for native workers; and a PR program to destigmatize these foreign workers, it will be a gilded time bomb and an insult to the human dignity and to the Bill of Rights.

We haven't been able to get these terms for home-grown workers in the whole history of the country. I'm just not holding my breath that we can get them for guestworkers in Bushlandia.

Anti-Immigrant Organizations

This from PublicEye.org, the website of Political Research Associates. Keep it handy, especially when you watch YouTube videos like Roy Beck's "Immigration Gumball," now being much blogged.

"The Latino Trail of Tears"

This title from from Dee over at Immigration Talk with a Mexican American helps to give context to what is happening at US immigrant detention centers. Follow the link to read Dee's look at today's New York Times report of 66 deaths in holding pens for immigrants. Be sure to read the mocking comment she received.

Of these, 13 reportedly were suicides.

Private, for-profit centers, which hold 19% of these detainees, reported 32% of the deaths.

The Times notes numerous inconsistences in the lists, including unexplained deaths.

Some things to keep in mind:

Illegal entry into the US is a misdemeanor.

Some detainees have been incarcerated for two years or more.

Conditions in these detention centers are harsh.

The vast majority are here to work and came here (a) because US free trade/Chicago School of Ecomomics/Shock Doctrine policy made survival impossible at home, and (b) because American companies are still, even now in the midst of Arpaio-style crackdowns, soliciting them to come.

You'd come too, in their shoes.

They are here to work as hard as necessary, at whatever is available, in "the pursuit of happiness." Last I heard, our Constitution calls that "an unalienable right granted to all [people] by our Creator."

Even birds migrate to survive.

Privatized prisons like those operated by Corrections (sic) Corporation of America and Wackenhutt generally operate on a per capita reimbursement basis. The government (state or other) reimburses the agency on a per person, per day rate. What do you suppose the natural incentive for profit maximization would be?

Not once, in all the years I've lived in central Phoenix and sought the help of a day laborer have I seen an Anglo, an African American, or an Asian of any age queued up in front of Home Depot praying for a back-breaking, low-wage job. So exactly whose jobs are being taken?

As I've noted elsewhere, this is the tip of the iceberg. It doesn't include hideous death by dehydration in the desert, or being shot by helpful minutemen, or being disappeared in police, ICE, or others' custody, or cases of missing and unaccounted for migrant workers. It certainly doesn't include slavery-like conditions in which many undocumented workers end up, or the myriad cases of abusive indentured service and wage-theft by corporate thieves in, say, the construction industry.

However, as Dee rightly notes, it does point up a pattern in ethnic relations in US history. If I were a nativist, I'd be careful about claiming that this is a "Christian" country. People might get the wrong idea.

Republiconomics and Life in the Reality-Based World

This economic update from The Progress Report does more than expose the size of the gap between wealthy and other Americans. It also demonstrates the size of the lies coming from Republicons about the wonders of Republicon/neo-con/free-trade/shock-doctrine economics.

For those of us who live in the reality-based world--which is 99.99999% of the human race--"free trade" is a synonym for "screw you." Verily. Verdad. I'm not kidding.

Why, just yesterday, I ran across a whole new example of exactly what Republiconomics means to average Americans. It's called the Trans-Texas Corridor, and it's for sure coming to a state near you. More about this momentarily, because it is the all-encompassing metaphor for, symbol of, and manifestation of "free trade." I don't know how I've managed to miss it until now.

Heads Up: While none of us likes to think of hi- or herself as "average" in any sense, you and I are included in the "average Americans" demographic. That makes us merely fodder for the cannibalistic appetites of the emerging new plutocracy, or grist for its mill, if you prefer the Vegan version.

Anyway, here's a snapshot of today's pocketbook economics from The Progress Report. I'm sure it won't surprise you at all.

The Income Divide

The Congressional Budget Office reports that since 1979, the average income for the bottom half of American households has grown by 6 percent. In contrast, the top 1 percent of earners have seen their incomes shoot up by a 229 percent during that same period. Under the Bush administration, the average income of most Americans has fallen, but the average income of top wage earners (those above the 95 percentile range) has increased from $324,427 in 2001 to $385,805 in 2006. Only one other year has seen a comparable income gap: 1928, the year before the Great Depression.

And who took office in 1980? Which party has ruled for the majority of these decades?

WHY THE DIVIDE?: The reasons for this rise in income inequality can be split into three basic components: government policies, tremendous wage inequality, and high investment income. The federal government under Bush, which provides the fundamental rules that guide how economic gains are distributed around the country, has embraced deregulation and an unstructured financial system. Consequently, huge corporations have raked in profits while the economy sags. The administration's tax policies, which lower taxes on the wealthy rather than the middle class, have furthered the problem...

Remember the word "cannibalistic"? Back when the USA was governed by civilized people, the prevailing ethic was based on the notion of the body politic, the notion that the nation is a living organism whose members are as interconnected as cells in a human being. That notion and the resulting ethic, which acted to regulate capitalism's innate cannibalistic tendencies, has vanished. Now the prevailing ethic is based on a Darwinian view. Leviathan corporate entities are at the top of the food chain, and you are, well, krill.

CEO pay, which has increased by 20.5 percent over just the past 12 months, dwarfs the mere 3.5 percent salary increase for American workers. To put this in perspective, the top 500 American corporate executives earned a combined total of $6.4 billion in 2007, about $12.8 million each and roughly 10 percent of all company profits. An absence of laws protecting collective bargaining has removed the leverage that unions once had on companies to increase wages quickly. Wage inequality, the shrinking value of the minimum wage, and the all-around decline in manufacturing jobs only intensify the problem.

So now we begin to see that wage inequality isn't just a problem for "illegals." That being the case, we also see why immigrant rights are worker rights are civil rights.

WHERE DOES [YOUR] MONEY GO?: ... A recent report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the largest increases in consumer spending between 2006 and 2007 was on necessities: fuel, food staples, and medical bills.

Are you having fun yet?

HEALTH INSURANCE PERILS: ... Approximately 158 million Americans enjoy employer-provided health care benefits. More and more workers, however, are opting out of their health insurance because they simply can't afford it. The average cost of those benefits to employees has increased by $1,500 -- from $1,800 to $3,300 -- since 2001. For a middle class worker, that amount is an entire month's paycheck, which is particularly troubling as national incomes rose only one-tenth that amount during that same period. Due to a combination of bigger out-of-pocket deductibles and co-payments, higher premiums, and less extensive coverage, medical bills now account for almost one-fifth of average family income.

Against this factoid, rhetoric about "the greatest generation" makes me to hurl. Well I guess! Not to diminish its valiant sacrifice in WWII, but holy crap! The GI Bill, employer-paid healthcare, pension plans, cheap housing, and a great economy brought by FDR to grow the US Middle Class? If I sound bitter, it's because I'm reflecting on the difference between life under progressive Democratic economic policies (then) and life under Republiconomics (now). More. . .

Book versus Cover

Check this out.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!

From Feathered Bastard:

Wing-nutty Hobbit lady Anna Gaines attempts recall of Mayor Phil Gordon

Expect it to look like The Best of Jerry Springer down at City Hall Thursday morn, as anti-Hispanic Hispanic Anna Gaines and a pack of her nativist 'tard buds will be holding a press-conference at 9 AM to announce their intent to gather sigs for a recall of Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon. Gaines is a Hobbit-like lady who never waivers in her belief that the borders should have closed after she crossed over into El Norte. She's been closely affiliated in the past with the F.A.I.R.-sponsored offshoot You Don't Speak for Me, headed up by Al "StepinFetchit" Rodriguez, and until recently she was a fellow-traveler of bigot-boy Rusty "Crusty" Childress' anti-immigrant posse United for a Sovereign America, which has accepted such neo-Nazis as Mesa's Zeppelin-esque J.T. Ready and goosestepping geezer Elton Hall into its ranks." More . . .

Follow that link. The picture alone is worth the trip.

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.

Eight Belles

The heroic filly, Eight Belles, after finishing second at the Kentucky Derby today, dropped and was euthanized on the track, having broken both front ankles.

Surely it's time to take a thorough, critical, hard look at horse racing. Ruffian, Barbaro, Eight Belles. Dirt tracks, racing itself, I don't know. I'm not up on this.
What I do know is that horses are fragile and deserve every amenity if we insist on using them for our sport. No horse should run to die.

I feel sick. I feel terrible. I first heard of Eight Belles about 15 minutes ago, but I know nobility when I see it, and senseless death when I see it, and tragedy when I see it.

I venture to say that Eight Belles deeply touched the lives of everyone who worked with her. It's not so clear how many deserved that high honor.

A beautiful soul and a heroic heart are terrible things to waste.

How to Be a Force in State and Local Politics

Having just written a comment elsewhere that urges people to organize, organize, organize, I think it would be a good thing to draw your attention to this excellent piece of advice about becoming a player in your political community. While I'm at it, I'd like to draw your attention generally to Mike Bryan's terrific Blog for Arizona. If you're among the True Blue, as contrasted with the Red Menace, you'll want to bookmark that site.

Is Word Getting Out?

Is it me, or is word beginning to leak out at last?

It's not that reasonable people disagree about immigration. It's that we are two groups of people operating from two diametrically opposite databases. "Agreement" and "disagreement" are irrelevant in that situation.

We need to get on the same page.

One of the few things I've retained from my MA degree is a good set of research skills. That and my native suspicion about life on this planet -- you would believe it if you saw my baby picture -- equipped me automatically to distrust some information under all circumstances, and most information under some circumstances.

Take the recent e-mail virus that's urging people to express outrage to Congress or the White House (depending on which version you get) because, it says, Congress is about to, or has, or wants to grant Social Security benefits to "illegals."

Of course that's a warm, steaming pile of doo-doo being fed to the great masses of Americans to make them even madder at Mexican immigrants than they already are.

And of course they don't know that because they haven't picked up an actual fact in about 8 years. They wouldn't know a fact if they saw one. But there are some things that even lazy, uninformed, dim-witted, bad-tempered, jumped-up 'Merkuns can do to protect themselves against further injections of E-coli into their bloodstreams.

1. Know the author. If it's anonymous, that ought to tell you something. If there's no bill number, that's a big clue, too. (If there is a bill number, and it's from Congress, go to Thomas and look it up. That's a Library of Congress website. Good to know about. People do make up bill numbers.) If you can't go to Thomas, call your US Representative or US Senator's office and ask.

2. Know the bias. For instance, the language used will tell you a lot. If it says "illegals," it's rightwing. If it says "undocumented workers," it's leftwing. Probably. Neither is necessarily right and neither is necessarily wrong.

3. Know the agenda. Who's behind it? Do you know? Does it appeal to your reason or your passions? Does it play to your fears or to your judgment? What does it ask you to do? Why? Who benefits? Who loses? Does it give you a bad feeling? If so, pay attention to that.

4. Know the source. Is it published by an organization? How long has that org been in existence? Who's on its board? What kind of reputation does it have? Has that reputation altered lately? Ask around but ask people better informed and smarter than you are. Otherwise it's kind of a waste of time, isn't it?

5. Cross-check the information. Has anyone checked the facts? As Ann Coulter demonstrates, you can't even rely on footnotes anymore. She makes hers up. If all else fails and you don't have time to do your own research, you can always check Snopes.com That site exists to rate urban legends -- the junk you get unrequested in your inbox, like that one about Social Security for immigrants.

6. Remember: Not all opinions are created equal. But you know that. "Measure twice, cut once." "Consider the source." "That and a buck will get you a cup of coffee."


Be very careful before you invest your credibility. In a way, it's like investing your money. Both say a lot about what kind of person you are, and both will either generate profits or losses.

Migrant Mass Grave Alleged at Holtville, CA

For more photos and the photographer's compelling and persuasive report, see the Texas Civil Rights Review. For some reason, I don't suppose the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights was taken to this site.

The mounting evidence of abuses in this country, on a scale reminiscent of lynching, the destruction of Rosewood, FL, in 1923, and the chronic and corrosive but far less publicized profit-driven violence against Native Americans begs one simple question which I address to every reader:

Where is your voice, proud American?

Why the silence? Where are the Democrats, the Independents, the decent Republicans? Why the averted eyes, the indifference, the complascent ignorance? Why the readiness to believe every bad thing you're told about people of color? (I have in mind not just Lou Dobbs and the rest of the haters, but also the ubiquitous, anonymous email spam that's flooding the US bloodstream to gin up still more hatred for "illegals.") There's a direct cause/effect relationship between all that toxic waste and the photos you see here.

Do you not know that the more fear you feel about speaking up, the more urgent the need to speak out?

If you don't stand for something, Americans, you stand for nothing. Which is it?

UN: US Immigrant Detention Violates Due Process, Human Rights, International Law

This is no minor condemnation. To our everlasting shame, it puts the United States of America in the spotlight for yet another constellation of crimes against humanity during the God-forsaken reign of US Republican President George W. Bush.

The UN's High Commission on Human Rights is one of the world's leading advocates for common decency. That office investigates and reports on the full range of alleged atrocities worldwide. The office has reported recently on issues of women and violence, torture and detention in Romania, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and torture and detentions in Tibet, among other global atrocities.

Note that the Special Rapporteur was denied access to two of the most controversial of our most notorious red, white, and blue for-profit human rights violators: Hutto in Texas, and Monmouth, in New Jersey.

This from the National Immigrant Justice Center:

U.N. Special Rapporteur Denounces U.S. Immigrant Detention System, Friday, 07 March 2008
The National Immigrant Justice Center applauds the recommendations released March 7 by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants that call for sweeping reforms to restore justice and humanity to the U.S. immigration system.

In his report, Special Rapporteur Jorge Bustamante found that the U.S. immigrant detention and deportation system denies migrants basic due process and human rights, and violates international law. [Emphasis added.]

The report calls for significant reforms in the detention system, including the end of mandatory detention. [Emphasis added.]

The Special Rapporteur's report is the result of a three-week fact-finding mission he conducted in 2007. While he was invited to conduct the mission by the U.S. government, he was subsequently denied access to two detention centers without, in his words, satisfactory explanation.

The Special Rapporteur's recommendations include:

Eliminate mandatory detention laws and require the Department of Homeland Security to evaluate on a case-by-case basis whether a non-citizen is a threat to society or a flight risk to justify detention.


Comply with two Supreme Court decisions, Zadvydas v. Davis and Clark v. Martinez, which state that individuals who cannot be returned to their home countries must not be detained longer than six months after their case is completed.

Implement effective alternatives to reduce the U.S. government's overuse of immigrant detention, which the Special Rapporteur found to be in violation of several international human rights laws.

Create legally binding human rights standards to govern the treatment of immigrant detainees.

Guarantee detained immigrants the right to appointed counsel.
Detain immigrants only in facilities that are located within easy reach of legal service providers and pro bono counsel.

Guarantee a day in court to all non-citizens who are subject to detention.

Provide judicial review of immigrants' custody so that custody decisions are not made by government officials but by immigration judges.

Consider the gender-specific needs of detained immigrant women who have suffered violence or are pregnant or nursing.

Visit the National Immigrant Justice Center's site to download a copy of the Special Rapporteur's report.

Or go here to visit the Texas Civil Rights Review's site and its coverage of the report.

Read the ACLU's oral statement responding to the Special Rapporteur's report, made before the U.N. Human Rights Commission and endorsed by the National Immigrant Justice Center.

Read briefing papers on immigrant detention submitted by NIJC and other non-governmental organizations to the Special Rapporteur prior to his visit.

An excerpt from the Report points at other violations of human rights involving immigrants in the USA:

While noting the Government’s interest in addressing some of the problems related to the human rights of migrants, the Special Rapporteur has serious concerns about the situation of migrants in the country, especially in the context of specific aspects of deportation and detention policies, and with regard to specific groups such as migrant workers in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, migrant farm workers, and migrants in detention facilities. [Emphasis added.]

Erecting Our Own Tombstone: AZ's Employer Sanctions Law

From the National Immigration Law Center, "Erecting Its Own Tombstone: Arizona's Mandatory Basic Pilot/E-Verify Law" (April 2008). Read this PDF. Be sure to scroll all the way through it to catch the nitty gritty. The findings won't shock anyone with two braincells to rub together, but may surprise state Republicons and other Haters.

In other words, our Employer Sanctions law is causing new business to avoid moving to AZ, existing business to avoid expansion and to lose revenue, homes to foreclose, consumer goods, produce, and other marketable objects to languish on shelves, rental units to go unoccupied, the state budget to collapse in on itself, and construction, agriculture, entertainment and service, landscaping to cut back and/or fold. It's causing job losses, profit losses, budget cuts, layoffs, and, mostl likely, increases in all citizens' dependence on our public safety nets.

The good news is that there's never been a faster demonstration of the principles of Karma. What goes around comes around.

Here in AZ, as elsewhere, these measures are taking all the guesswork out of wondering what effects harsh anti-immigrant hate laws will have on state and municipal economies (meaning schools, new highway construction, infrastructure maintenance, emergency/security services, etc.). Now we know. Anti-immigrant laws kill towns, cities, and states.
AZ's Employer Sanctions law's consequences for the state's operating budget and for GOP election prospects are predictably causing a major divide between business and the GOP, which can't be all bad, and making even more of us loathe Russell Pearce and Republicons.

Don't you love it when a plan comes together? I'm talking to you, Gould, Pearce, Harper, Grimes, etc.