All Hail Hitchens!

Christopher Hitchens can be infuriating, wrong, and disgusting. And he can be brilliant Welcome to the upper echelons of humanity.

Here, find brilliance. Find one tough-minded enough to slog through the gelatin that so often passes for liberal thought and persevere all the way to progressive insight. Here find one who is willing enough to stand for what he believes to risk being infuriating, wrong, and disgusting. Would that we all were.

A recent blizzard of liberal columns has framed the debate over American Islam as if it were no more than the most recent stage in the glorious history of our religious tolerance. This phrasing of the question has the (presumably intentional) effect of marginalizing doubts and of lumping any doubters with the anti-Catholic Know-Nothings, the anti-Semites, and other bigots and shellbacks. So I pause to take part in a thought experiment, and to ask myself: Am I in favor of the untrammeled "free exercise of religion"?
No, I am not. . . .
The taming and domestication of religion is one of the unceasing chores of civilization. Those who pretend that we can skip this stage in the present case are deluding themselves and asking for trouble not just in the future but in the immediate present.

Let humble me merely pick up where he left off.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights are meant to address perennial problems: the rights of the individual versus the rights of the community; the roles and powers of the state versus the liberties and authorities of the people; the power of religion versus the power of the state; the meaning of liberty; the point of organized civil authority, and so on.

Hitchens here does a great service by pointing out that the courts have never granted American citizens an unrestricted right to exercise religion however we see fit, and by contextualizing the forthcoming decisions about Islam on our continenent in this way.

However, I stipulate that an even greater threat to our Constitution and Bill of Rights than Islam is extreme, fundamentalist Christianism. I have written a good deal about this. I will write more shortly. In the meantime, pay attention to the storms of religious fervor being gathered during this election season. PS: It's not about GLBT. It's about control of the government. Get it?

"The Dark Side of the Vote"

I've read a lot lately about Prop 8 and Prop 102, and the other anti-gay votes in Florida and Arkansas, but I haven't read anything that even begins to hint at how I feel about my fellow Americans writing me out of the Constitution, and how I feel about that massive straight blind spot, so well as this piece in the NYT by Judith Warner.

The Marriage War: Strategy Considerations

My wife and I got married in San Francisco, CA, in February, 2004, when Mayor Gavin Newsome first gave gays and lesbians the option. So I've got a more than a little interest in this matter. I'm not now nor have I ever been writing about it from a neutral perspective.

Of course I think GLBT people should be able to marry. I've written fairly extensively about why. In my way, I penned a somewhat contrarian analysis of why the issue matters so much to Republicans and what else it brings into their gunsights, and took a sarcastic swing at Cathi Herrod, doyenne of the Arizona Gay Haters' resurrected anti-gay proposition, Prop 102. Recently, I took up strategy, too.

We will succeed. So long as we have a Constitution, states such as Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut are reliable bellwethers. But our strategies will determine how long we have to fight, and what additional costs we'll pay. Some thoughts:

(1) It's trendy now to blame African Americans for passing Prop 8. That's really not smart. In the first place, it may well be because of young, new, first-time African American voters that the margin wasn't greater than it was. Olberman made that point last night, showing the numbers.

In the second, didn't we learn anything from the Obama/Hillary dust-up in the South Carolina primary? The LAST thing we need, as progressives, is a split in the ranks. No matter how bitter the irony of Black opposition may be to a community over-represented in the Civil Rights movement, we need to be clear about defining the real enemy. Instead of singling out African Americans when Hispanics and others are equally complicit, and instead of denigrating the African Americans who voted for Prop 8 and its ugly cousins in states like AZ and AR, we must target the racist, sexist, and heterosexist fundamentalists and evangelicals who, after all, are the real foe. Remember: African Americans who voted for Prop 8 or Prop 102, or any other anti-gay measure, didn't do so because they're African Americans. They did so only because of hateful, lying anti-gay propaganda from Far Right Christianists like Howard Ahmandson, Jr. THAT's the source of the problem. Let's keep our eyes fixed on the correct target.

(3) The energy we save by not attacking African Americans can and should be used for outreach and education in all conservative communities, including African American, Hispanic, Native, Asian American, and Anglo. Follow Obama's example: Never cede territory to the foe.

(4) I think it's stupid to picket churches. Think about it: A picture speaks a thousand words, right? The negative PR image is louder than anything we can shout. It doesn't help us to hand message validation to Christianists on a silver platter! They're saying that we're un-churched, godless, and opposed to everything holy and good. And sure enough, there we are, lined up screaming outside a church. Duh.

(5) Instead, I support targeted boycotts. Mormon leaders made the LDS church an aggressively public party to this struggle. Let's let them know, in no uncertain terms, that while we support their right to vote, the LDS decision to intervene militantly, across state lines has consequences. They are free to use the power of their institution and their money to pursue their objectives. So are we.

But I don't get limiting the boycott to Utah and Mormons. After all, Baptists and Catholics and others have been there long before the Mormons decided to put their feet on our necks.

Any group, corporation, organization, municipality, or state that waves an anti-gay flag doesn't deserve and should not receive gay dollars. In this recession, that message can have a major effect.

And this is critical: Not only the churches that actively urge hate, but also those that choose safe silence in the face of clear injustice are complicit in our oppression. Let them all feel what it means when GLBT people, our families, and our friends withdraw our support.

This can be tricky when denominations take a pro-gay stand but local member congregations choose silence or opposition. Know who's who and what's what.

(6) Similarly, anyone who supports us, we should support strongly. We must make it our business to know that PepsiCo gave PFLAG a half-million dollar grant, and buy Pepsi. As long as Coors funds the Far Right, drink Pepsi.

(7) Words matter. Use them wisely and well. Instead of using terms that affirm the lie that Christianists mean us no harm and hope only to oppose "gay marriage," we should begin now to talk simply about marriage. Not gay marriage, not straight marriage. Just marriage. From our point of view, the goal is not "gay" marriage, whatever that might mean. Our goal is equality in marriage.

And let's not talk anymore about "anti-gay marriage." From the Far Right point of view, the "marriage" angle is just a cover. This is not anti-gay marriage. It's ANTI-GAY. Period. Make no mistake about that. Let's strip the facade and take away the sophistry. This movement is only and always about oppressing gay and lesbian people, never merely about who has access to marriage rites. Let's not contribute to the confusion, OK? Call it what it is: Anti-Gay.

(8) Instead of re-inventing the wheel, it seems to me that activists across the nation would be wise to study the tactics and strategies of Evan Wolfson, often called the father of the marriage movement. When there's an expert hanging around, why not utilize his experience and knowledge? And there are strongly successful state law models out there. Washington State's is one of them. Let's go with what works, stay focused, and stay on message.

Racist Nation: Loser Nation

This from the Bottleneck Blog at the LA Times:

Random searches of passengers and their belongings will begin next week on Metrolink commuter trains, the agency announced Thursday. Passengers got the news via a flier left on train seats.

Sheriff's deputies will be setting up random screening stations at random times. "Access to the station platform will be restricted; passengers must pass through the checkpoint to gain access to the station platform," stated the flier.

The release goes on to say that some passengers will be selected from those lines and have their baggage searched. Anyone who refuses to be searched won't be allowed to get on the train. Deputies are looking for "explosives" or other "dangerous items."

Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell told me this morning that the searches are not in response to any threats that have been made against trains.

"It's more in response to what has become standard procedure at other commuter rail agencies across the country," she said. "We were one of the few who wasn't doing this, and we thought it would be a good idea to step up the security a little bit."

She said police are primarily looking for explosives, but won't turn a blind eye to other issues. "They are police officers," Tyrrell added. "If you have a half a pound of hash in your book bag, they are going to arrest you. I would suggest if that's the case you are one of the people that wants to walk away."

There's more if you're interested.

Not happy. No US passenger train has been a successful target of terrorists. It's election season. LA is pretty much border country. There's a war on brown people. Privatized prisons need prisoners to make a profit, and there's just no telling what can turn up in a random search. WHOOOHOOOO!!

You say, "Yes, but just because they haven't blown up a train doesn't mean they won't"?

Yes, and just because they haven't used a yacht to blow up a harbor doesn't mean they won't. Let's randomly detain and sweep yachts, what say!

I doubt this is about security. I think this is one more goose step toward a fascist police state. We'll kvetch and argue, and the Fearful will support it because, "You know, it COULD happen here! I mean it DID happen in Madrid!" And while we're busily selling out, random searches and seizures on subways will be added to spying on our emails, letters, parcels, and phone calls. Just in case.

What's next? Random house searches? Well, why not? Exactly where's the logical distinction between private homes and private backpacks in the "Well it Could Happen" school of constitutional law?

This makes me angry. I strongly suspect that this is Joe Arpaio-style intimidation aimed at the LA immigrant population. This is about undocumented workers. Any number of them--Latino, Chinese, African, and others--ride the LA tube. It will mean that many won't take the subway, won't make it to work, and then won't have a job. Some who lose their already all-too-insecure jobs will lose their homes. So, once again in the USA, while we're having our pedicures and Jiffy Lubing the Beemer, human beings will be turned into hungry, frightened prey. And once again, the cover of dealing with "illegal immigration" will blind us to how smoothly we're simultaneously being habituated to life in a police state.

Who's next?

Conservatives who think this incrementalism is just hunky-dory as long as we're talking "terrorism" seem to have forgotten core conservative principles like the sanctity of private property and "reasonable suspicion." But this is only to be expected from the party of idiots like Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan. They're denouncing (!) the Supreme Court for upholding habeas corpus!

You just have to wonder. As many have observed, detention and imprisonment are government's most terrifying power, short of outright assassination. But habeas corpus is one of the few thin walls standing between you and that government out of control. You'd think a conservative would get that, wouldn't you?

I think they do get that, when it comes to yachts and white people. When it comes to the rest, all I can think is that they're vanguard soldiers in the police state or stockholders in the Corrections Corporation of America. Or both.

For seven years, our government has only had to whisper "terrorism" to stampede us from defending the world's noblest experiment in democracy. We celebrate racist campaigns not seen since WWII. We welcome violations of the Constitution and make laws to protect the perpetrators. We just don't get it that when we strip the rights from some of us, we strip the rights from all. It's inevitable.

I have just one question: Why are we such pathetic, sell-out losers?

First they came for the Latinos. . .

It's cool to dismiss fears about encroaching fascism as "tinfoil-hat" stuff. It's maybe too cool.

There's been a little hooha over on Feathered Bastard about whether the Homeland Security Department's published "Endgame" plan amounts to anything. Stephen Lemons writes:

Despite the occasional references to the humane treatment of detainees, and a meek, brief discussion of alternatives to incarceration, the plan seems perfectly suited to the paranoid mental playgrounds of left-wing tinfoil-hat types. But the document itself is all too real. And even if the conspiracy theories it has spawned are straight from planet woo, this post-9/11 detention and removal strategy still has a creepy, Orwellian feel to it.

I have two problems with the "planet woo" dismissal. One, no evaluation, no assessment, no measure of anything takes place in a vacuum. What's as important as the thing itself is its context. And two, what if the woo theorists are wrong?

What the tin-hat lampooners miss is the context. It's not just about a published plan to round up "aliens" entitled "Endgame." It's about the context in which this document was written and will be implemented. Who wrote it? What is the political ideology of the Administration charged with implementing it? Have any other of its actions warranted constitutional or human rights concern? Are current arrests, deportations, and detentions happening under this plan being conducted acceptably, with due process and respect for constitutional rights and guarantees? Are there racist, national supremacist, corporatist and other troubling taints in this plan? What does the selection of particular words like "Endgame" suggest?

This Administration has earned enormous concern about its pronounced fascist tendencies, and I'm hardly the first to note them. Given its disdain for the balance of powers, its fondness for torture, its demonizing of political opponents as "traitors," its channeling of vast federal resources to benefit large corporate crony interests, its confounding of fundamentalist ideology with the State, its partisan and policy attacks on liberals, progressives, women, GLBT people, and people of color, its private, Christianist mercenary army, and its penchant for privatized prisons with zero accountability, no rational person would regard the "Endgame" document as anything but alarming.

Not to mention this, from the Massachusetts ACLU:". . . Endgame uses tactics similar to the ethnic cleansing we saw in the Balkans during the 1990s -- lightning raids, mass arrests, packed detention centers, and mass deportations. . . ."

Or this from ICE spokesman Vinnie Picard about "Endgame":

"I would characterize it by saying that we’re focusing our priorities not so much on dates but on other kinds of goals. . . Like reducing the percentage of foreign-born criminals in the state jails here in Arizona.

Well, I've sure noticed that, haven't you? So tell me, if that's been the focus, how come Governor Janet had to redirect Arpaio's enforcers to that very purpose? If that was the priority, how come Arpaio was going after mere undocumented workers in their beds?

No small discrepancy, that. It indicates either that Picard is badly misinformed, or that ICE and Arpaio are wildcatting, or that the stated priority really isn't the priority after all. Deeds speak louder than words.

So much more could be said, about individuals who've simply disappeared in detention, or been molested or beaten; about a baby snatched out of a parent's arms in a public mall; about Mexicans deported to Guatemala and vice versa, without money or passport or papers; about unexplained deaths in detention centers; about the use of taxpayer funds to build detention centers for the exclusive profit of private, well connected individuals; about the nasty revolving door between the boards of the privatized prison industry and public officials.

And so much more could be said about the language in that document. "Endgame"? Echoes of "Final Solution" are hard to miss. That doesn't make the plan inevitably analogous to gas chambers, but it sure suggests that the powers who wrote and approved it wanted us to be mindful that history does repeat itself. I, for one, don't like attempts to intimidate me, particularly from representatives sworn to uphold our Constitution and Bill of Rights. So I take it fairly seriously when they do try to intimidate me. I regard that as a real and significant warning that those in power are veering sharply off track.

Two, what if the tinfoil-hat lampooners are wrong and those of us who smell danger turn out to be right? It'll be too late then to say, "I told you so." As that's the case, I tend to look at ridiculing the cautious among us as both unwise and unhelpful. Remember Pastor Martin Niemoeller?

A massive network of privatized prisons and a frenzy of official terrorizing and abuse directed at the nation's Latinos--not undocumented workers exclusively, at all-- is a situation that every one of us is required to look at in light of the Constitution and history. We have a duty to be skeptical and to be outraged when we see these abuses of power, and a duty to stop them.

As to what they portend for the rest of us, it wouldn't be the first time that this nation has rounded up potential political enemies, would it? It wouldn't be the first time that a prominent, civilized western government has been murderously deranged, either.

Somewhere in our founding documents it says that Americans have the right and the duty to remove any government that acts unjustly.

As I was browsing the Internet looking for that citation, I stumbled across the obscure story of a Breton priest named Lamennais (1782-1854)whom the Catholic hierarchy chose to condemn not once but twice.

Lamennais expressed eloquently the concepts our own founding documents express. These, therefore, are the only principles that should govern any genuine patriot in this country now. Take a look. I'm hoping that seeing them expressed in a different form will give them new meaning, and maybe inspire us to remember where we come from.

On freedom of conscience:

"Those who persecute in the name of Jesus, who probe people’s consciences with the sword, who torture the body in order to convert the soul, who make tears flow rather than wipe them do not have the spirit of Jesus."

On liberty: "Liberty should be equal for all, or it is assured for no one."

On the rights of the governed:

"When people speak to you of those who have great power and say: ‘Behold your master!’ Don’t believe it. If those in authority are just, then they are your servants; if they are not, they are tyrants. Everyone is born equal: no one coming into this world carries with him the right to command."

The American State of Mind

Pondering the notion that Americans might actually elect John McCain led me to wonder if we are the stupidest and most uninformed people on earth, or the most gullible and easily deceived, or all the above. A case can be made.

If being stupid is repeating the same catastrophic actions over and over while hoping for some outcome besides disaster, then to my mind we indicted ourselves in 2004. If we do it again, there's no point saying "God help us." We're past help, too stupid to splash around in the gene pool.

Lots of us have agonized about how low we have sunk since George Washington was first sworn in, and why. Back then we really were "the land of the free and the home of the brave." Despite our shortcomings, back then we had a magnificent collective vision and were willing to die to achieve it.

We had just come from tyranny. That is why we hadn’t yet forgotten that, although liberty resides in the soul as our human birthright, it can’t be actualized or preserved without first understanding what it is and that it is worth any price.

This is the "freedom" state of mind. It is, ultimately, a self-fulfilling attitude. Without it, freedom and liberty just don’t happen. That's what worries me.

You know, it’s been almost 400 years since those English colonists fled the tyranny of religious and political repression to create a free society. Whatever the shortcomings then and since, they and our later forebears had a clear vision and set out to accomplish it.

Since then, however, we seem to have forgotten the meaning of being without freedom, or else we’d never have consented to being ruled again by a tyrant.

But we have consented. What do I mean? A tyrant is above the law, unitary, aloof, arrogant, and unaccountable. That is precisely the stated perspective of this administration, and its vision for us of serfdom, intimidation, disenfranchisement, and perpetual surveillance is being realized as we speak--above all through defiance of the Constitution. Everything—-wiretaps, torture, contempt for Congress, politicization of the Justice Department, cruel capitalization on tragedy, stolen elections, pirated Treasury, rigged voting machines, stolen archives, trashed economy, and planted "news"-—stems from this fact. Despite swearing an oath on the Bible to protect and defend the Constitution, this Jesus-lovin' President perjured himself. He thinks the Constitution is just a piece of paper. He disdains it, ignores it at will.

And what of us? Rather than take George W. Bush's lies and assaults on our liberty seriously enough to defend ourselves and our birthright, we've bowed and stooped, stammered and excused, enabled, and folded. We are as responsible for this disaster as he is. If we lose that magnificent vision and all that has been achieved before, our children can rightly blame us all: you and me.

Why? Because, no, actually we are not brave. All our founding myths and folktales notwithstanding, we have shown that we can be manipulated so easily that even an obvious lie will cause us to approve really appalling things out of sheer terror. That's weak. That's really despicably weak.

We’ve several times now proved our abject cowardice by caving to mere rumors of war and warnings of catastrophe. I have in mind why we occupied Iraq, are terrorizing undocumented Mexican laborers, are excusing torture, are permitting a surveillance culture, abandoned New Orleans, allowed Bush to steal our treasury and rape our land; why we are, again, relinquishing our right to universal health care, why we are refusing to impeach this war-criminal and treasonous administration. Treasonous? What else do you call it when the Constitution is trashed, the commonwealth stolen, and the Congress and the people are treated with contempt? What else when our generals conspire to deceive us so that they'll get Pentagon consulting contracts?

We're the shiftless, blissful agents of our own demise. All that anyone with a blog or a microphone has to say these days is that we’ll suffer dire consequences if we don’t do as we’re told and do it now. And then we do.

That makes us puking cowards. It makes us ignorant, puking cowards. We can be stampeded by lies and rumors because we're uninformed, and worse still, we cherish our ignorance. We're so proud of it, in fact, that we even ridicule education as "elitist." We're so stupid that we even ridicule education itself as "elitist," when, as anybody with two brain cells to rub together knows, manipulation is elitist and education its only antidote.

We’re probably the only culture in history that has not cherished learning for its own sake and expected (at least) its (male) youth to attain certain standards of knowledge as a condition of self worth, if not of success and cultural preservation.

But bravery, like liberty, is a state of mind. Follow me here. Bravery begins in the centeredness of soul that recognizes its own and its neighbor's worth. That is why a brave person can't easily be deceived or intimidated. When courage stems from self respect—that is, when it stems from having the strength to draw the line from the utter conviction that we're worth defending in the first place—-then brave people just do not accept being manipulated, lied to, and toyed with. Those things fly in the face of self respect.

So. When you come right down to it, the fact is that liberty, freedom, bravery, and courage all stem from understanding what's really valuable in life, and from the wisdom to act accordingly.

The genuinely courageous, and the authentically liberated therefore understand that Truth is as essential to self respect as it is to national security, and that self respect, therefore, is one of life’s greatest values. That is why brave people do whatever is necessary to encourage freedom of speech and ensure a vigilant, skeptical, honest, probing, and free press, whereas cowardly people try to silence it.

We can’t both be brave and fear the truth or fail to understand that Truth is most likely found in the clash of opposing convictions.

Alas, we can tell what we are by the state of reportage and debate in this country today. Our patron saints are Rush Limbaugh and the Militiamen, Ann Coulter and Bay Buchanan. Our brilliant analysts the likes of Wolf Blitzer, Howie Kurtz, Tim Russert, Chris Matthews. God Almighty. What they want, above all, is to control our thinking and stampede us into violent, racist, and xenophobic frenzies. Is that really what we want? Is that really what we think is in our best longterm interest? Have we learned nothing from the last 100 years?

Well, as my mother used to say, you can tell if God resides in an action by its consequences.

Anyway, maybe our susceptibility to the grossest manipulation and to institutionalized deception is a symptom. Maybe it indicates precisely that we've lost our self respect somewhere along the way.

Perhaps it was when we Americans chose to value flash over quality--around about the mid-1950s, I guess, when fins defined The Car. Perhaps it was when we decided to value profits over the people who achieve them, about the time Reagan busted the Air Traffic Controllers union. (The dues are coming now.) Maybe it was when we stopped teaching our kids that it isn’t winning; it really is whether you play the game with integrity. Maybe we lost that when Little League dads started cursing umpires instead of teaching their kids a better ball game. Maybe it was when we decided to equate dignity with celebrity and character with wealth. That gave us the Reign of the junk bond king and Britney Nation. Or maybe it was when we started building our mansions of particle board and Scotch tape, and our fortunes on Ponzi schemes, and our self esteem on designer jeans.

Maybe we Americans can be manipulated to accept deception in exact proportion to the extent that we ourselves have come to value appearance much more than we value reality. Think about that.

We love cheap thrills to the point that our kids can’t tell the difference between Yellowstone and Disneyland. We live our lives in fantasy worlds of cyberspace and television to the extent that reality either bores or offends us. How else explain cosmetic surgery and foregoing regular actual water for overpriced stuff that comes in a bottle? We flash our neighbors with a "prosperity" made of credit cards, interest-only mortgages, and Lease-a-Beemer. We reckon that a day at Wal-Mart or Saks or Neiman’s is a day of life in the Real World, laugh at environmentalists, and tell our kids they’re marvelous even if they’re despicable, cretinous little snots.

In this America we’ve made, of faux achievement, faux culture, and faux substance, we might as well be faux heroes and faux patriots, too.

Anything better would be wasted.

MIA? Part II

My last post on progressive immigration policy, MIA?, began thus:

Have progressives have lost our way on the immigration issue? We don’t seem to have articulated, let alone stood as one in support of enlightened immigration law reform. We don’t even seem to have effectively exposed the myriad misconceptions that are currently running this dog and pony show, or to have begun to educate our base on the issues.

Nope, we seem either to have been smashed to aspic or thoroughly co-opted by the brilliant way in which Luntz, Rove, Tanton and the rest of the corporatist, xenophobic, nationalist, anti-Hispanic Far Right have framed the issue. (Have I heard this complaint before?)

By “smashed to aspic” I mean “silenced,” which, paradoxically, shows up as not showing up, as avoidance of or as skirting the issue. By “completely co-opted,” I mean “constrained to discussing immigration (a) within the rubrics established by the Right, (b) on terms designed to appease the Right, and (c) under the safer heading of partisan political strategy as contrasted with principled or enlightened policymaking.”

This is a continuation of that conversation. Here, I’m discussing what I perceive to be the characteristics of the progressive blogosphere’s immigration law reform debate.

1. Avoidance. It’s a relative term, so my perception is that, relative to the emphasis the Far Right gives to immigration and the intensity with which it is being editorialized and op-editorialized in the MSM, the issue has seen little more than a sprinkling of commentary from leading progressive blogs.

It’s reasonable to ask why, since immigration reform packages a whole big chunk of our traditional turf: anti-racism, justice, fair labor practice, fair trade, women, children, health care, social safety nets, multiculturalism, etc. One would expect a strong, virtually unified progressive voice on this issue, but it’s not there, leaving a giant black hole on the Left and a giant opportunity for the Far Right to frame, brand, and own the immigration issue--a coordinated effort begun in the 1980s by Tanton, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) , et al. (Note: Wittingly or not, CNN's Jack Cafferty just tonight quoted a CIS report as if it were, like, true.)

Perhaps one reason for our silence is that we progressives have been gaslighted. First, we too are side-tracked, misled, and derailed by Tanton, Buchanon, Dodd, Tancredo, et al. (It's out there. It doesn't matter if it's true or not.) Alas, this means that we haven't even done our own homework.

And we've been confounded. The word “illegal” has performed as expected. It has been a phenomenally effective wedge in our neighborhood, and a phenomenally effective mobilizing device on the Right and in the center. (There’s nothing people like more than feeling morally superior.)

But to be fair, the complexity of immigration law, the perceived clash of low-skilled immigrant workers’ and native-born workers’ interests, the huge discrepancies in the methodologies and assumptions used to study immigration, complex and hard-to-measure economic impact—all these things and more have given us pause. Way too much pause.

In this respect it’s as simple as the classic dilemma: The Right isn’t hampered by a fealty to truth and accuracy. Plus, it is tooled up to churn out sound bites like Fox pumps BS. Meanwhile, we go beyond concern for truth and accuracy. We agonize over nuance. We just don’t do soundbites, and when it takes weeks to research an issue thoroughly, we may issue drive-by opinions but not in-depth analysis. Besides, blogs don’t lend themselves to depth all that well.

2. Political strategy: We’ve pretty much limited our analysis to immigration as partisan strategy. From time to time, a flurry of posts appears on Firedoglake, Kos, Digby, or another influential blog, triggered mainly by a specific piece of legislation, a leaked or controversial political strategy, or a particularly egregious anti-immigrant action. Hence outraged reaction, the disclosure of Luntz’s proposal for framing immigration for the GOP, and a thoughtful diary about the “temporary worker program” that was included in Bush’s (defeated) “comprehensive immigration reform” bill this summer. As there and here, occasionally someone touches on a principle that could form the core of an alternative policy, or elucidates a Far Right shill's statistical distortions.

However important they are, these takes don’t adequately indicate what we stand for and why. Unless we say that, we can hardly expect America to take our view into account. What I’m asking for is something deeper than episodic outrage and political strategy analysis. I’m looking for serious dicussion of policy substance and its supporting rationale, something along the lines of this policy sketch.

Where in all this is the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party? And where is the Martin Luther King, Jr. wing of the African American community? We are talking about race-based economic fundamentals and about who will control America's future. The choice is between us and the corporatist plutocrats. To the extent that they divide us, they win.

3. Co-optation: Our conversation tends to be reactive, not proactive; defensive, and constrained by the Right’s talking points. For instance, the conversation on the blogosphere picked up a little bit recently on account of the convergence of four recent events: (1) party consultants’ thoroughly co-opted advice to the Democrats to go nativist on immigration law reform;(2) the ensuing thoroughly co-opted, abysmally stoopid, craven, and all but treasonous Democratic support for the SAVE Act of 2007, a nasty and dangerous piece of (privatized) border militarization, privatization, domestic policing powers and apparatus posing as immigration reform; and (3) the flap about NY Governor Spitzer’s proposal to give driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants.

As Digby and others point out, it's a mystery why the Democratic Party go nativist when the GOP strategy to use immigration as this cycle’s wedge bait, just bombed in VA? Why go that route when poll after poll after poll shows that the American people actually do not want a mean immigration policy? When reputable study after reputable study shows that the Far Right's spin on immigration is, well, bullshit.

Because the Democratic Party is co-opted. Behind its face is a looming corrupt and unprecedentedly greedy Corporate America. No big news. Our Democratic Party in Congress has been co-opted about everything. But there’s no reason why our blogs have to be.

So far, when we’re not avoiding the issue, our responses are formulated within the Far Right’s rhetorical box: illegal; amnesty; undercut wages; driver’s licenses. Surprising that we've fallen for that old trick, but here's a news flash: We won’t make a dent until we step out of that frame and discuss this on our own terms, in a distinctly American, not utterly reactionary (white European) way.

Immigration of low-skilled Mexican and Central American workers is about economic refugees. It is rooted in US, Mexican, and Central American plutocracies, in their and our tax policies, in colonialism and neo-colonialism (aka “free trade”), in Monsanto’s genetically engineered agriculture, in water privatization, in desperate poverty, equivalent need, and a Janus-headed US policy inviting with one hand and slamming back with the other. It is about the great realignment of wealth in the USA, turning us from the New Deal to the Screw Deal, and it is fundamentally about who we are and who we intend to be five, ten, thirty years from now.

Here’s the deal: We are not all Christians, or conservatives, or progressives, or Native Americans, or, or heterosexuals, or Republicans, or Democrats, but by virtue of one construct, we are all Americans. Our core values are specifically defined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. As FDR did, we ought to let these principles govern how we analyze the immigration data, the needs, the competing interests, the objectives. That’s the only way we’ll make it possible for everyone to pull together in one positive direction.

What does that mean? For instance, it means that we would propose wage and workplace safeguards to ensure that corporatist profiteers don’t exploit immigrants and use their labor to undercut wages, and we won’t allow “deregulation” or tax policies or fear to pit native-born American workers against immigrant would-be American workers.

You see where I’m going with this? Can I get a witness? Better yet, will the people who know this issue propose progressive policy specifics on the leading progressive blogs--white, African-American, and Hispanic, and all?

Comments welcomed.

(*I'll be back to add links.)
(**Links added.)

Tucson Museum Board U-Turns, Defies Anti-Mexican Terrorists

An unfolding story in Tucson this and last week is a small window on the rising tensions in AZ over immigration. From the Arizona Republic:

The flags of the United States, Arizona and Mexico are going back up in front of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, in Tucson where they flew side by side for more than 50 years until last week.

Sophia Kaluzniacki, chair of the museum board, said Saturday the museum 'caved' to anonymous threats from people angered to see the American flag next to the Mexican flag.

She called an emergency meeting Thursday after receiving more than 250 calls and e-mails regarding the flags removal earlier in the week.

The museum is also increasing its security budget by $100,000.

In a unanimous vote, Kaluzniacki said the board reversed its earlier decision to remove the three flags. She said the board wants the flags flying again as soon as next week. Kaluzniacki said that the flags had flown for years without soliciting a public response, but that threats increased as the debate over immigration raged in the past few years.

'We decided if we're going to fight any fight, we're going to fight what we felt was the morally correct fight. We are not a political organization. Our work as conservationists, researchers and educators has nothing to do with politics,' Kaluzniacki said. 'This is a sign to extremists we will not give into threats.'

Threats were made against animals, plants and the museum, she said and the Pima County Sheriff's Office advised the museum to take the threats eriously.

It's inspiring to see some spine on our side, even if belatedly.

Anonymous threats are a dime a dozen from the cowards who are lining up to terrorize Latinos in Arizona. It hasn't been so common lately to see them met with principled defiance. I salute the Museum Board for coming to its senses.

More than that, I hope that this small action on the side of human dignity instills some guts in the rest of us. It's been conspicuously absent, not just here but nationally, in Congress, the courts, across state legislatures and city halls, and in the homes of average Americans as, over the past six years, we've watched various leagues of thugs subvert all that the country was founded to be.

From the well-paid congressional aides who intimidated vote counters in Florida, to DOD Thug-in-Chief Rumsfeld and his merry band of boys and girls at Abu Ghraib, to the Blackwater Boys (I'll bet they're also behind the automatic weapons that peek from the SUV windows when the Pres-Boy goes a-fund raisin'), to the post-lobotomy anonymous callers in Tucson, we're up to our backsides in thugs.

It's time to stand up to them. The promise of America, the hope of our Constitution, and the rights of common, decent working men and women are just some of the things at stake.

It's not about Congress, or the cops, or anyone else. And it's not about a "lost" America. It's about an ideal that has to be re-enacted every day if it is to remain alive.

The only folks up to that task are the folks we see every day in our mirrors.

Dropped Stitches: GOP Candidates Can't Sew

I'm watching the Republicans debate tonight, and I'm reminded of the older women in my life. They sewed. They made clothes, and quilts, and drapes, and coats, and whatever else needed making. Their hearts, minds, and eyes were always focused on the needs of the people they loved and for whom they were responsible.

I'm not the first to see a quilt as a metaphor for a nation. A quilter knows that any quilt is only as strong as its weakest stitch. A quilter knows to look at the whole quilt before saying "Mission Accomplished," because the mission is not accomplished until everyone's last stitch is firmly in place, and every bed is warm.

A dropped stitch -- really a knitting term -- is a stitch that didn't take, that missed its mark, that doesn't hold.

Republicans don't understand about that. Over and over again, it's clear from what the candidates say that seeing a world whole, or even a country whole is just not part of a Republican's conceptual or emotional framework.

Should we sell 20% of the US stock market to Dubai? Sure, as long as Dubai passes a safety and security test. That's nice, except regimes change. Ministers come and go. Loyalties ebb and flow. Personal ambitions, even of the native born, rarely coincide with national interests. Corporate profits aren't necessarily in sync with the public wellbeing. A dropped stitch.

How's the US economy? Just ducky! Inflation's down, the market's up, umpteen million jobs have been added (source undisclosed), and our economy is "the greatest story never told." That's nice, except that everyone I know is scared to death of their economic future. Every dip of the market causes most of us to feel real fear, which is not something millionaires relate to. Everyone I know is aware of the millions who aren't prepared for retirement. None of the Republicans seems to have a clue about that.

Millions of Americans are losing their houses to predatory lenders. Half the country is working two or three jobs and still has to reach up to touch bottom. Major sectors of the economy--agriculture, mining, and construction--are headed for a train wreck because of shoot-first, racist, xenophobic immigration "solutions." Free trade is about jobs going thataway, not about workers or jobs or benefits or a sound workplace ecology coming thisaway.

Our jobs are being rapidly outsourced, and CEOs are sucking up the fruits of the economy at the rate of 500 times what the lineworker is making. Doesn't seem fair because it isn't fair. It's Republican. Dropped stitches.

How about trade policy? It's terrific except that China cheats, so we really ought to fix that. Someday. Outsourced American jobs? Impact on the global economy? We're pillaging Third World countries. If their workers can come here, they're coming. If they can't, they're killing each other or starving or dying of AIDS. And the American Middle Class is in a nosedive.

Impact on the environment? What environment? On global warming? What global warming? Dropped stitches.

Privatization and global poverty? Whatever can you mean? Dropped stitches.

War in Iraq? Wise choice. Going well, except maybe we could do better "politically." Of course oil had nothing to do with it. It was about terrorism and WMD and Saddam. Iraqis will come around. What's good for Halliburton is good for America. Dropped stitches.

Planning for retirement? Simple: People need to save. Never mind that "people" make minimum wage, work two jobs, have a spouse that works two jobs, and share the flat with another family and still there's nothing left to save.

Sanctions on Iran? Great idea. Never mind that sanctions hit the people, not the leaders. Never mind that sanctions didn't work to stop Saddam, and sanctions won't work to stop Ahmadinejad. Dropped stitches.

Free market? Essential. The story of America. Except for the part about robber barons and the Great Depression. Great suffering for a great many. Republicans don't seem to know or care about that. Dropped stitches.

Republicans see nothing except money, unilateral US power, and white male supremacy. Let them scream. The proof is in the policy. This isn't an aberrant GOP. This IS the GOP.

They see corporate health but not people's health. They see oil but not a ravaged Wyoming and a destroyed Iraq. They see sanctions but not children dying of starvation and infectious diseases. They see outlawing abortion but not women. They see life in the womb but not life in the ghettos or abroad. They see prosperity for the wealthy and indentured servitude for the rest of us. Consistently, Republicans drop the single most important stitches of all: the people and the planet. This isn't any religion I know about.

Without setting the health, welfare, and stability of the people and the planet as its highest priorities, a nation is a nasty thing, a Petri dish for predatory corporations, war-mongering, religious tyranny, and fascism. That's why we have a Constitution.

Use it or lose it.