Mean Loves Stupid and Stupid Loves Mean

Following disclosures that we inject deportees with mind-altering drugs, sweep up immigrants in Gestapo-style midnight raids, and unaccountably throw poor brown people willy-nilly into bottomless pits called "for-profit detention centers," editors at the New York Times today reveal another charming piece of Republican genius for us to ponder.

Apparently we're banning people who marry foreigners from getting earned tax rebate checks:

Hard-liners were so intent on keeping the cash out of the hands of undocumented workers that they restricted the rebate to people with Social Security numbers. An Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, issued by the Internal Revenue Service to people who pay taxes but do not qualify for Social Security numbers, will not do. If a married couple files jointly, and one spouse is not eligible for the rebate, neither gets the money.

This hurts all manner of people who are working and paying taxes: American soldiers stationed abroad who happen to have married foreigners; high-tech immigrants in Silicon Valley and other places whose spouses are not authorized to work or have not yet had their paperwork processed. These are people who are perfectly legal, economically vital and politically inconvenient .[Emphases added.]

Does it get any dumber? Do we need clearer proof that mean loves stupid and stupid loves mean?

You Speak for Me, CIRC: Postville, IA Raid a National Disgrace

I'm posting this media release in full because it speaks for me, too.

President Bush Must Act to Stop Destruction of Families and
Communities Through Raids and Deportations

Statement by the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition

DENVER, CO – In response to Monday’s raid by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Postville, Iowa, the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC) released the following statement:

“We stand with the families of Postville, Iowa torn apart by Monday’s massive immigration raid. Nearly 400 hard working immigrants, already exploited in deplorable working conditions, now find their lives turned upside down by a quasi-military operation in our own heartland. The images and horrific accounts in Iowa mirror the ICE raid in Greeley, Colorado eighteen months ago that orphaned children and separated hundreds of families. Once again, at a time when the nation’s economy is already fragile, especially in smaller communities, it is outrageous and inhumane that this Administration would use American tax dollars to turn community cattle auction grounds into an immigration detention camp.

“We urge President Bush and the Presidential candidates to take a stand for humane and rational immigration policy and to put an immediate stop to these reckless raids that have done nothing to fix our broken immigration system. Dividing families, sewing fear in communities and herding hundreds of people in chains onto cattle
grounds are an insult to our nation’s values.

“We stand for a set of values that respects the civil liberties of all Americans, values workers and worker protections, and brings Americans – immigrant and non-immigrant alike – together to address the issues that we all face. Postville was founded by German and Norwegian immigrants, and then in 1987 economically revived by Hasidic Jews that built the largest Kosher meat packing plant in the town. Now many Guatemalan, Mexican, Ukrainian, and Russian immigrants work at the plant, attend schools, and fill Postville’s churches. Instead of integrating immigrants into the life of our nation, our government is disintegrating and destroying whole
communities.”
###

The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC) is a statewide membership-based coalition of immigrant, faith, labor, youth, and ally organizations founded in 2002 to build a unified statewide voice to defend and advance justice for all immigrants and refugees in Colorado and the U.S.

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Contact: Julien Ross 720-290-1125

AZ Governor Janet Yanks Arpaio's Anti-Immigrant Funds

>>>>>AZ RESIDENTS: PLEASE CALL NAPOLITANO'S OFFICE NOW TO THANK HER FOR THIS MAJOR STEP TOWARD HUMANE AZ IMMIGRATION POLICY: 602-542-4331. WE MUST SPEAK OUT IN SUPPORT OF REASONABLE, COURAGEOUS STANDS! PLEASE ALSO CALL YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS AND ASK THEM TO SUPPORT THE GOVERNOR!<<<<<

In a deft strike at the Maricopa County Sheriff's highly controversial anti-immigrant round-up/deportation neighborhood sweeps, AZ Governor Janet Napolitano (D) has issued an executive order directing the state's Department of Public Safety (DPS) to give priority to targeting the tens of thousands of felons in the state:

The executive order directs the DPS to immediately deploy a squad to address the backlog of nearly 60,000 open felony warrants statewide, with priority on gang-related felonies and fugitives who are undocumented immigrants.

The action takes place in a statewide budget crunch partly brought on, ironically, by misguided rightwing Republican-driven anti-immigration policies such as the recent "employer sanctions" law. These measures are triggering an exodus from Arizona of Hispanics (immigrant and other) fearful and angry at being targeted. When they leave, they take millions from the consumer/tax streams that fund state operations.

The open felony warrants Napolitano seeks to address appear largely to have been tabled by the Sheriff in order to to target Hispanic immigrants who have entered the country without authorization. For the rest of this story, please see my post at Citizen Orange.

What Would a Smart Country Do?

A new immigration study by the Center-Right Manhattan Institute has findings with mixed implications for low-skill, undocumented Mexican immigrants. While finding that today's immigrants assimilate faster than those of earlier times, it also reported this:

The overall assimilation index also masks big differences between immigrants from certain countries. Mexicans, for example have an index of 13, while Vietnamese were at 41. And although immigrants who arrived as children tend to be nearly identical to their U.S.-born counterparts, apart from their lower rates of citizenship, those who come from Mexico are less assimilated and have higher incidences of teenage pregnancy and incarceration.

A major reason for these disparities in assimilation levels may be the high percentage of Mexican immigrants who are in the country illegally, Vigdor said. When only cultural factors are considered, Mexicans score almost as high as Vietnamese and higher than immigrants from countries such as India and China, which tend to have a high rate of immigration to the United States.

"If you're in the country illegally, a lot of the avenues of assimilation are cut off to you," he said. "There are lot of jobs you can't get, and you can't become a citizen."

Almost certainly the Right in Arizona and nationally will interpret this as reason to pursue round-ups and deportations, while the Left will interpret it as reason to allow residents to pursue legal standing. I vote for the latter.

The reasons? One, as I noted earlier, the New York Times reports today that the nation is already experiencing markedly negative economic repercussions from the Republicans' slash-and-burn approach to Latinos crossing the border illegally. That's true in spades for Arizona.

Two, the obvious implication is that the USA needs low-skilled Mexicans, and not just to perform construction, agriculture, entertainment-industry, and other jobs that native-born workers will not do--or do not do successfully.* We also need their tax, Social Security, and consumer contributions, and because they are a younger cohort than the American average, we need them to help fund our imperiled retirements. Our own self-interest says to change course.

Three, the massive detention industry that is growing fat from profiteering on Hispanic immigrants (not necessarily only undocumented ones) poses a direct threat to our constitutional way of life. But there's something already hideously embarassing and disgusting about our country's having the highest incarceration rate in the world. In fact, it beggars pretty much every cliche we bleat about our way of life.

To add the fact that it's a rapidly-growing for-profit industry that is coming under fire for predictable profit-driven and other abuses to its inmate population is revolting. More important, it is profoundly alarming for those of us who actually believe in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Why? Politicization of our churches leaves us wondering what part of the sermon is partisan agenda and what part is, well, faith-based. Similarly, privatization of prisons for profit leaves us wondering who's in charge. The very structure undermines the notion that incarceration is a function of our Justice system. It leaves us wondering exactly what percent of the inmate population, and exactly what percent of "discipline" options such as time added, have to do instead with somebody's bottom line.

We already know that humans debased by profit uber alles are not pretty creatures. Do we need more really grotesque demonstrations of just how bad that can get? Because if we do, private, for-profit prison ventures underwritten by pillaged tax dollars and unaccountable even to immigration lawyers and members of Congress, much less public watchdogs like ACLU, are just the ticket.

I don't really think we need to transform ICE and our law enforcement, judicial, and prison systems into a whole new pipeline for a whole new form of human trafficking. Plus this: Combined with our penchant for imprisoning everything that moves and the powerful Far Right's capacity to define a difference of opinion as treason (therefore imprisonable if not whackable), the prison privatization thing may well be our own demise. It's a nasty and slippery slope.

Four, corruption corrupts. We're seeing this played out now in the Iraq war, in secret US torture pits, in private detention facilities, in the person and office of the Maricopa County sheriff, in the operation of the US mortgage/credit and energy industries, and even in our elections. Reversals in economic and labor regulatory policy and abandonment of fundamental constitutional principles to forward ideological and profiteering goals just aren't working for anybody. Well, except a handful of well-connected owners and investors like BushMcCainCheneyGoodhair. The rest of us are either co-opted, or reeling with disgust and fury, or paralyzed by a parade of abuses we once thought could never happen here.

The point is that immigration is giving us a whole new way to interpret "doing unto others." We have a decision to make, now. We can either continue as we are, proving ad nauseum that being poisoned by fear and driven crazy with vengefulness and greed isn't working, or we can use common sense.

We can aim for a high-wage worker-respecting econony worldwide instead of the global opposite, and we can treat our immigrant populations for what they are: like us, they're the hearts and minds of the country's future, politically, psychically, and economically. Abuse them and lose them.

What would a smart country do?
_______________________

*From the employer's viewpoint, according to recent testimony before a House Commerce Committee hearing on immigration and the native workforce.

Note to Arizona: Being Mean and Stupid Has Awful Consequences

Some people think I'm too hard on Republicans. I can't imagine why. I point out the predictable consequences of Republican economic and social policy for Arizona. That seems fair enough. If I show a little irritation now and then, maybe it's because I've had enough.

Republican social and economic policies result in laws that are having disastrous consequences for us all--locally, nationally, and internationally. The fact that these disasters were predictable makes these policies stupid--unarguably. That's the very definition of "stupid."

The fact that they are also (predictably) causing or will cause severe pain for all of us at physical, economic, emotional, spiritual, mental, and psychic levels makes them mean, vile, and brutish.

That they target some of us for special destruction and pillaging makes them bigoted as well.

Surely most Arizonans are taking notes for November about the consequences of Republican social and economic policy at every level.

Two examples of many from what's going on here at home.

I just noted that the 31 GOP and 2 Democratic hyenas roiling beneath the Copper dome to wreck the lives of self-supporting, tax-paying, and hard-working gays and lesbians just means that the rest of you will have to pick up the tab for our lawsuits and lost health insurance. Etc.

Trust me. This will happen if you continue to follow the scent of the hyena nearest you and vote to ban "all the benefits incident to marriage" in the reprised gay-bashing proposition en route to us in November.

Many besides me, however, have noted the horrific results of Arpaio's midnight sweeps and AZ laws aimed at Hispanic immigrants--like the brilliant employer sanctions law.

The thing is, these measures are making life a very hell for all Hispanics in our state. However, the exodus of documented and undocumented Hispanics sick of living in fear, sick of harassment, and no longer willing to face a prolonged economic tsunami isn't "just" hurting Hispanics. That would be sufficient reason to vote out every Republican in AZ government. But it's also causing serious labor shortfalls and losses in three of the state's largest economic sectors: agribusiness, construction, and entertainment.

True, national Republican social and economic policies, like Iraq and the oil crisis, and RepubliCons' refusal to oversee and regulate their Enron-style mortgage lending and credit businesses (this is called "free trade") have big roles in all these disasters.

But as Arizona Hispanics--documented and undocumented--walk away from decling home values and vengeful legislators--and why not?--we are seeing serious additions to to an already alarming foreclosure rate. This means big headaches for, like, Del Webb, Pulte, and Diamond Ventures, and it means vanishing jobs in construction, building supply, and in every trade related to keeping you inside four walls.

And then there are the empty rentals, the closing mom-and-pop mercados, zapaterias, and llanterias, and that whole train of lost jobs. Not to mention lost revenues for our gas stations, supermarkets, K-Marts, and all the rest. AND the consequent trashed tax base and trashed school budgets that come when good jobs, hard workers, and decent taxpayers go away.

Well, hey. The New York Times today is confirming all that, AND bearing the great glad tidings that this train of catastrophes is a national thing. The demographic that was doing so well before Bush, that was contributing so much to the US economy is being trashed. That would be US Hispanics.

Read it and weep.

The economic downturn unfolding across the United States is imposing a particularly punishing toll on Hispanics, a group that was among the primary beneficiaries of the expansion in recent years. What had been a story of broad and steady advances has given way to growing joblessness, diminishing paychecks and lost homes.

The boom in American housing generated millions of new jobs for those willing to engage in physically demanding tasks, from factory work churning out floorboards, carpeting and upholstery, to landscaping, roofing and janitorial services. Latinos occupied widening swaths of these trades and filled large numbers of relatively high-paying construction jobs.

As a great influx of Latino immigrants spread beyond the initial entryways of the Southwest into smaller cities and towns across the South and the Midwest, many found employment doing much of the unpleasant work shunned by those with better prospects.

But now significant portions of this work are disappearing. What were once the fastest-growing areas of the nation, including states with expanding Hispanic populations like Florida, California, Georgia and Nevada, are often bearing the brunt of the pain.

I could point out that there is a reason why the "Golden Rule" is what it is. It isn't just about playing nice. It's about Karma. When we treat each other like garbage, there are consequences. "What goes around comes around."

If the last eight years haven't proved that rule, I shudder to think what it will take for us to get the message.

AZ Anti-Gay Proposition En Route

Today, like a pack of hyenas, 33 members of the AZ state legislature snarled and swirled long enough to bring us, still yet again one more time, another ballot proposition to make Arizona's gays and lesbians full-fledged second-class citizens.

The fiction is that the measure--defeated once already by Arizonans--would merely ban gay "marriage." In truth, we expect that again it will ban any legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples, including the humble domestic partnership agreement. Thus it will bar us not just from all the benefits of marriage derived from nano-second Vegas drive-through sanctifications, but also from benefits yet to be foreseen or defined in the courts of law.

However, what it likely won't do this time is ban unmarried heterosexual couples who cohabitate. That would snare too many AZ seniors who know that they have smaller retirement incomes if they re-marry than if they remain single and just bunk together. A reprise of that language would again make them mad enough to vote at least in their own self-interest if not to preserve fundamental American rights for us. And they provided the margin of defeat for the last anti-gay proposition.

Will the new measure be unconstitutional? Not if a Republican court can help it. But hey, will I even live long enough to find out?

One hopes that this time, Arizonans of sound mind and spirit will notice that they are being manipulated. Again. By the exact same RepubliCons whose anti-immigrant hatred is manipulating them to plunge the state deeply into the red and into expensive, wasteful, and exhausting court battles like the one about employer sanctions.

One hopes that this time, reasonable Arizonans will resent being buzzed up to take part in another bad-tempered, expensive, wasteful, and ultimately self-sabotaging measure, especially in this year of growing budget woes.

When "the benefits of marriage" are defined to include all the civilities that married heterosexuals take for granted, we gay men and lesbian women who are currently self-supporting in every respect but who depend on official recognition of our domestic partnership agreements for things like health insurance, will find ourselves suddenly dependent on you to pay those bills. Sound like a plan?

And how many lawsuits will this proposition spawn on our dwindling tax base? Hard to say, but you can count on picking up your share of the tab when a lot of justifiably offended tax-paying, yard-raking, neighbor-helping, laundry-washing good Queer citizens hit the wall being erected between us and the Bill of Rights.

And those are just some examples. When all "the benefits of marriage" are denied to us by outlawing any form of legal recognition of our long-term relationships, we will be permanently ghettoized economically, legally, psychically, and socially by our own fellow Americans.

The insult has been delivered. The injury already, at the psychic level, is grotesque, as any one of us can tell you. This is especially the case when not even our own mainstream "progressive" churches have the integrity to counter the Far Right.

This is profoundly damaging stuff, and there's been far too little discussion of that and of the selling out of the great liberal Protestant tradition by wishy-washy clergy and lay leaders afraid to offend a big donor in the pew. I don't know when they went away, but the days of meaningful moral and ethical leadership by the mainstream Protestant church seem to be bygone. It's an incalculable loss to us all.

I'm hoping this isn't the direction that Arizonans want to go in. I'm hoping that "do unto others" still has a tiny ring of relevance here, although I must say that our collective, hypocritical, self-righteous vindictiveness toward undocumented immigrants certainly makes me doubt it. Sorry if I sound pissed off. I am.

This from Equality Arizona:

Thirty-three (33) Members of the Arizona House of Representatives voted YES on SCR 1042, a resolution that would place another so-called "marriage" amendment on the ballot in November.
With their YES votes, 33 Members said they want more litigation that threatens to take away domestic benefits from unmarried couples.

Thirty-three Members want to force Arizona voters to vote again on an issue that has already been decided --- by the Legislature, by the Courts, and by the Voters.
The 33 Members who caved to the pressure of anti-equality and anti-domestic partner forces and voted to perpetuate the politics of division are:
Republicans (31)
Kirk Adams
Mark Anderson
Ray Barnes
Nancy K. Barto
Andy Biggs
Tom Boone
Judy M. Burges
Doug Clark
Rich Crandall
Sam Crump
Adam Driggs
Eddie Farnsworth
Trish Groe
John Kavanagh
Bill Konopnicki
Lucy Mason
Marian McClure
John McComish
Nancy McLain
Rick Murphy
John B. Nelson
Warde V. Nichols
Jonathan Paton
Russell K. Pearce
Michele Reagan
Bob Robson
Bob Stump
Andrew M. Tobin
Jerry Weiers
Steven B. Yarbrough
Jim Weiers

Democrats (2)
Jack A. Brown
Pete Rios

"Careless Detention" Series in WaPo

From this four-part, must-read Washinton Post series by Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein:

A closer look at 83 deaths. This report is similar to a recent brief covered by Wild Chihuahuas in the New York Times. We call attention to the mention of two unexplained deaths at Arizon's Eloy detention center.

And:

Osman's death is a single tragedy in a larger story of life, death and often shabby medical care within an unseen network of special prisons for foreign detainees across the country. Some 33,000 people are crammed into these overcrowded compounds on a given day, waiting to be deported or for a judge to let them stay here.

The medical neglect they endure is part of the hidden human cost of increasingly strict policies in the post-Sept. 11 United States and a lack of preparation for the impact of those policies. The detainees have less access to lawyers than convicted murderers in maximum-security prisons and some have fewer comforts than al-Qaeda terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But they are not terrorists. Most are working-class men and women or indigent laborers who made mistakes that seem to pose no threat to national security: a Salvadoran who bought drugs in his 20th year of poverty in Los Angeles; a U.S. legal U.S. resident from Mexico who took $50 for driving two undocumented day laborers into a border city. Or they are waiting for political asylum from danger in their own countries: a Somali without a valid visa trying to prove she would be killed had she remained in her village; a journalist who fled Congo out of fear for his life, worked as a limousine driver and fathered six American children, but never was able to get the asylum he sought.

The most vulnerable detainees, the physically sick and the mentally ill, are sometimes denied the proper treatment to which they are entitled by law and regulation. They are locked in a world of slow care, poor care and no care, with panic and coverups among employees watching it happen, according to a Post investigation.

The investigation found a hidden world of flawed medical judgments, faulty administrative practices, neglectful guards, ill-trained technicians, sloppy record-keeping, lost medical files and dangerous staff shortages. It is also a world increasingly run by high-priced private contractors. There is evidence that infectious diseases, including tuberculosis and chicken pox, are spreading inside the centers.

Federal officials who oversee immigration detention said last week that they are "committed to ensuring the safety and well-being" of everyone in their custody.

More

Apology to Subscribers

Hey, for some reason I don't understand, my laptop has been kicking me out of my blogging software mid-title or sometimes even before I've even written a single word of a post.

This means you get an alert with a link to a nothing.

I apologize to you for the inconvenience, and will try to find out what's causing the interruptions as I type. This needs to stop.

In the meantime, thanks so much for your patience. I value every single one of my readers--especially those who support me by subbing. The last thing I want to do is annoy you!

Best,
Pico

What Mother's Day Means, From the Women Who Created It

From Campaign for America's Future, this moving piece by Sara Robinson, which begins:

Progressives have always loved holidays, which may be why we've created so many of them. There are Saturdays, of course, brought to us with no small help from the early 20th century unions. And May Day. And Labor Day.

And Mother's Day, which started out as the first and perhaps greatest progressive holiday of all.

You may have noticed that all the holidays I've just mentioned are in deep trouble. May Day hasn't been big in the US since the last loud, proud Commie folded up his red flag in the late 1930s. Saturday, as you can testify yourself if you're reading this from work on the day it was published, is also gravely endangered. Not only do more and more of us work on Saturdays; if you're on salary, you're doing it for no pay at all. Labor Day is a boon to the travel industry, since for a lot of us, those three days are the only summer vacation our bosses will let us have. And it's likely that most Americans, if pressed, would cynically tell you that Mother's Day was the nefarious handiwork of a secret cabal -- a shady backroom marketing deal concocted by executives from Hallmark, FTD, DeBeers, and Russell Stover.

Conservatives don't like holidays unless they can use them to sell stuff. They have special reason to really not like this one.

It seems that Mother's Day was originally an anti-war statement:

Mother's Day got its start as the fusion of two holidays created by two women, both activists protesting the carnage of the Civil War. The first was a young homemaker from West Virginia named Ann Jarvis, whose established the first Mother's Work Day in 1858 to improve sanitation among her Appalachian neighbors. When the war came up to their doorsteps, Jarvis's homegrown peace group tended the wounded on both sides; after the war, they worked to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors in the state.

The other was Boston socialite, suffragette, and poet Julia Ward Howe -- an incandescently bright woman who spoke five languages and ran the New England Institute for the Blind with her husband, Dr. Samuel Howe. Howe is still best remembered as the author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic -- the abolitionist anthem that captures much of the righteous fury of the Union cause. For 40 years after the war, she was one of the most popular public speakers in the country, getting the full-on rock star treatment wherever she went.

More

I doubt that even Karl Rove can mount an attack on Mother's Day, though I'm sure he would now, if he could. But I won't be surprised to hear him and his little familiars like O'Rilly start a campaign against author Sara Robinson.

It's not the person they don't like. It's the truth she tells. Same song, umpteenth verse. Wouldn't you think the Faux Noise listeners would begin to catch on by now?

Daily Fitz and AZ's American War on Education

Mike Bryan over at Blog for Arizona has an ongoing discussion in his Recent Comments section about a Daily Fitz cartoon pillorying the AZ GOP for its paranoia about public education. Here's my two cents about that.

Seems to me from developments over the last 30 years that the Right here and nationally is coming from two visions of society to justify dismantling public schools. Since both ultimately serve its anti-Jeffersonian-Democracy ideology, the advocates of each are happy to use the advocates of the other to advance their own game plan. No one Republican need buy into both ideals to get both accomplished.

Both visions have given birth to ideology-driven agendas that are all to ready to capitalize on (pun intended) problems in public education caused by decades of underfunding, corruption, institutionalized racism (as in local school districts), disengaged parents, badly-behaved kids, and a host of other "inputs." Up the rhetoric and go for a broken national, affordable public education platform. Literally.

One is economic: The privatization agenda. This is one means to wipe out every vestige of the ideal that government ought to help ensure the basics necessary for everyone’s boat to rise. Affordable, good public education is certainly fundamental for that, as is a commonwealth, people-centered approach to the environment--as contrasted with the prevailing view.

Privatization defunds our government by seizing tax-payer paid-for assets (infrastructure, parklands, schools, etc.) by any means possible (hurricanes, private-public investment instruments, condemnation, revising definitions in law, etc.) and then turning them over to favored entities (ultimately, few hundred families) to operate for private profit while funding them by more taxpayer dollars. I say "a few favored entities" because of the pattern emerging in other privatization initiatives, like rebuilding Iraq and seizing its oil, the border fence, the TransTexas Corridor, post-Katrina initiatives in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast, and mercenary armies. Let’s call privatization the secular, plutocratic fundamentalist agenda.

The other is religious: The theocracy agenda. This means funneling our kids into home schooling (a "privatized" curriculum using privatized teaching aids developed privately) and voucher schools (private and privatized).

Anyone familiar with political developments over the last 30 years knows about the takeover of school boards, Rightwing wars over issues like prayer in public schools and the contents of textbooks, and the rise of private, fundamentalist colleges(Liberty and the newer Patrick Henry U, for instance).

They may not be as familiar with the overlap of key GOP players in these spheres and in the ranks of White House, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branch internships and employment. They also may not be as aware of privatized, canned curricula in private religious schools and in the home schooling business, or of the myriad problems that razing our great public education heritage to create our very own mudrashas raises for the country’s future. Let’s call this the theocratic fundamentalist agenda.

Both the secular and the theocrat fundamentalists benefit from collaborating to dismantle public education. By this means they create an ideologically molded cadre of kids tailor-made to follow a ideologically determined marching orders, whether religious, partisan, or corporatist.

By replacing the hated core Jeffersonian ideals with narrow theocratic, elitist, and totalitarian alternatives, they create a dumber-down generation that is trained rather than educated. Trashing the old "liberal arts" model means trashing the tools that empower thinkers and problem-solvers. Replacing it with a task-oriented curriculum means creating generations of malleable worker bees ideally suited to be told what to do and when to do it, at work, at home, and at the polls.

The dumbed-down “news” media (compare Cronkite with Wolf Blitzer, or even worse, Edward R. Murrow with Sean Hannity) are just team players in the larger ball game.

If you think I’ve donned my tin hat, poke around as I have for 25+ years in the organizations and issues the Far Right has created and funded, the key players, and the outcomes. Not least has been its breathtaking progress in converting the GOP from the party of Eisenhower to the party of Dobson, Robertson, Bush, McCain, Norquist, Kyle, Renzi, and Rove. What used to be an honorable alternative view of the great American experiment has become an instrument of mass indoctrination; rank, elitist profiteering; institutionalized ignorance; and unabashed xenophobia.

That’s where I think Fitz was headed.

Phoenix City Provides Composters, Yard Carts

I call this cool. (Thanks to KimberlyAnn on FreecyclePhoenix for the tip.)

Especially knowing as we now do that child labor in Mexico puts the onions and tomatoes (among other goodies) on our tables, folks in Phoenix may want to start growing our own.

Well, our very hip City government provides composters and yard carts made of damaged trash bins for just $5. And provides tips on how to compost.

That sounds like a win/win/win to me.

NC Reversal on Admitting Undocumented Immigrants to Colleges

See my short post over at Citizen Orange updating earlier reports of the North Carolina Attorney General's recent decision to bar children of undocumented immigrants from NC colleges.

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Fathe, er, Homeland Security doesn't actually require such schools to track students' immigration status.

Therefore, now, according to a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 10, such students are not necessarily barred.

As I note over at CO, I'll be really surprised if this ICE opinion doesn't attract unwanted attention from the always-wrong Right. After all, they just can't resist even a tiny, symbolic opportunity to convert hardworking, promising new US residents into lifelong bitter enemies.

I Wanna Know Where Love Is!

FI-NUH-LEE!

Finuhlee is our lead scent Chi, whom we dispatch to search for truth-in-advertising about Senator John McCain, AKA McNutz, McBush, McWar, McFavors.

It's hard work, but today, in the piles of senatorial ethics and straight-shooter underbrush surrounding the AZ GOP senator and presidential candidate, Finuhlee turned up this, ahem, gem from the New York Times, about the 26-year mutually loving relationship between McBush and Arizona gazillionaire, lifetime "free trade" supporter, and real estate developer Don Diamond. An excerpt:

"In California, the McCain aide’s assistance with the Army helped Mr. Diamond complete a purchase in 1999 that he soon turned over for a $20 million profit. And Mr. McCain’s letter of recommendation reinforced Mr. Diamond’s selling point about his McCain connections as he pursued — and won in 2005 — a potentially much more lucrative deal to develop a resort hotel and luxury housing.

"In Arizona, Mr. McCain has helped Mr. Diamond with matters as small as forwarding a complaint in a regulatory skirmish over the endangered pygmy owl, and as large as introducing legislation remapping public lands. In 1991 and 1994, Mr. McCain sponsored two laws sought by Mr. Diamond that resulted in providing him millions of dollars and thousands of acres in exchange for adding some of his properties to national parks. The Arizona senator co-sponsored a third similar bill now before the Senate." [Emphases added.] More

For a closer look at Mr. Diamond's recent donations (reported)--or anyone else's, for that matter--Arianna Huffington has provided a helpful database. Be sure to scroll down, in Diamond's case. Wwhile there, you can also peruse the affectionate support given to McNutz from the senior management team at Diamond Ventures. Don't you just know there's way more love there.

And while you're at it, read their bios, available at the Diamond Ventures site. These little tidbits are useful to connect the dots. For instance, take David Goldstein. Notice all his magnanimous public service on behalf of habitat conservation and desert land use. No self-interest there. Now notice his campaign contributions -- the Goldstein of Diamond Ventures, not the Minneapolis Goldstein.

Bless his tireless little heart, Finuhlee also turned up this little jewel on Open Secrets:

"Lobbyists in McCain Land Deal Have Close Ties to Senator," Post Reports
Published on May 9, 2008
"The Washington Post's story this morning about a land deal supported by John McCain that benefits his donors, bundlers and staffers illustrates how furiously Washington's revolving door spins. It's enough to make even a senator dizzy...." (Continue)

And my personal favorite, widespread indicators of McCain's particularly loving care of Peabody Western:

". . . (Public Law 93-531 as amended in 1996 (Partition), 1999 (Settlement), 2001 (Enforcement of Resettlement) and 2005 (Expansion of Resettlement) . . . bills introduced by Senator McCain - has led to the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Hon Abdeltalif Amor's condemnation of human rights violations inside the US, over the stripping of rights and forced resettlement of these gentle and deeply spiritual band of Dineh-Navajo Indians from Arizona, swept off of lands they'd owned since 1500 A.D. so that Peabody Western Coal could mine the Coal from beneath their farmlands and tap their wells to slurry pipe it to a power station in Nevada)."

For more on this, a little legislative history and this little item in which Peabody alleges that in a deal for Peabody facilitated by Donald Hodel, Reagan's Interior Secretary, the Tribe sought "special preferences." AHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Last but not least, McCain's little family-owned jet travel present from his efforts at campaign finance reform. You do know that he pursues his presidential campaign traveling on wife Cindy's private jet, right?

Serving up John McCain as the champion of ethics in government and campaign finance reform is like serving up Ann Coulter as the good manners maven. In my opinion, his one great lifetime achievement was marrying a woman with a whole lot of money. After that, he's just a dime-a-dozen crony Republican. His POW service cuts him some slack--which he's well and truly used up by now. But it sure doesn't erase the entire rest of his life, or relieve him of the obligation to disclose his favors, the sources of his financing, his wife's tax statements, and the sources of her fortune. After all, Cindy McCain is no more irrelevant to his career and campaign financing that Theresa Heinz Kerry was to John Kerry's.

I wanna know where the love is. I SO wanna know.

More on campaign financing.

AZ Superdelegates and All that Crap

See what Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion has to say about that.

If there's a way to complicate something, Democrats will by-God find it every time.

I heard from reliable sources that we've got legions dressed like Lancelot searching hard for our Holy Grail, the cup called "Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory."

Criticism/Self-Criticism

There's been much criticism of late aimed at Gov. Janet for signing the Employer Sanctions bill and its recent revision.

Much much-deserved criticism, I might add. We have a right to expect elected leaders of the Democratic Party to, well, lead.

Unfortunately, politics, by definition, is about following, not leading. Politicians generally must reflect the prevailing sentiment or else they'll speedily be unemployed.

It's only in the extra-ordinary times--the "outside the ordinary" moments--that politicians have any possibility of leading, and it happens only if those moments are matched by the extra-ordinary person. Hence Roosevelt's three terms (for which the gods are ever to be blessed) and Bush's impertinent reversal of Constitution democracy following 9-ll (for which the gods are ever to be cursed). How much of global destiny is due to peronal charisma I don't even want to know.

That aside, immigration seems to punch the buttons of the Right but leave the Left somnolent, snoring. We wonder why. It seems to me that there is more strength in hating, in the mere notion that somebody's getting something for free, than there is in the fact that loving ennobles both the lover and the loved one. Why is that?

But I wander. The thing is, if we on the Left had stood up for our own principles and denounced the racist, xenophobic, fascist, lying rhetoric and the resulting laws, round-ups, detentions, and deportations, Napolitano would have had the political cover to veto those measures. Remember Vietnam? Well, maybe not. Unfortunately, we haven't really acted on our principles on the needed scale in 40 years. And that's the point. Fifty percent of why we've gotten to this benighted place is because we let ourselves be distracted, intimidated, or just plain excused from showing up.

With the exception of a tiny handful of Anglo clergy, activists, and bloggers in Tucson and Phoenix, a couple of Democrat legislators, and 95% of the Hispanic community, we Democrats, independents, and ethically grounded Republicans just didn't provide Napolitano the political cover to withstand the haters, did we? I couldn't even get a MeetUp group to agree to meet with me on the subject. There was just no there there among Lefties, and there still isn't. Which reminds me, again, of why liberals are so often called "rotten rock." We talk a great line, but don't expect us to put our bodies in the line of fire. Nhuh-uh!

So before you denounce her, look in the mirror. We on the Left took a powder. We are only just now beginning to wake up to the fact that something very similar to Nazi Germany in means, methods, and morals (if not in scale, thank God) is happening right here in the Fatherl, er Homela, er USA. That's pretty disgusting if you ask me.

"Child Labor in Mexico Puts Food on US Tables"

The lead story in The Arizona Republic today adds another chapter to the sorry tale of NAFTA's effects on the Mexican people.

"About 300,000 youngsters. . . work illegally in Mexico's fields, the U.N. Children's Fund says, making child labor a major link in the chain that increasingly supplies American dinner tables."

Mexican law prohibits child labor.

"Nevertheless, children under 15 make up 20 percent of Mexico's migrant farmworkers, the Mexican Labor Secretariat says. Less than 10 percent of these children attend school and 42 percent suffer from some form of malnutrition, government studies show.

"They persist in the fields despite harsh criticism from international groups, rules imposed by U.S. distributors and increasingly strident warnings from the Mexican government."

Here's why:

"The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement is partly to blame for the child-labor phenomenon. . . .

"The trade pact has opened up the U.S. market to Mexican farmers, encouraging large-scale packing and exporting operations in Mexico's northern and central states. . . .

"Small-scale farmers, mostly Indians from southern Mexico, have found it hard to compete. Instead, they began migrating north each harvest season to work the big fields.

"The children of these families went from working on the family farm to working for hire.

". . . In most cases, the children do not appear on the farms' payrolls.

". . . But because adult workers earn bonuses for picket more than their daily quota, parents with 'helpers' bring home more money. Farms save money beause they do not have to pay social security for youngsters."

It goes unmentioned that US agribusiness operates large farms as well as "packing and exporting" operations both in Mexico and on this side of the border, in Texas's Rio Grande Valley, for instance, and in Arizona's onion fields. It is not unheard of for the same crews of undocumented workers to work in both operations, as was attested at this week's House Education and Labor Committee hearing on immigrant labor shortfalls. [Hearing on "Do Federal Programs Ensure U.S. Workers Are Recruited First Before Employers Hire From Abroad?" Tuesday, May 6, 2008]

Also not reported in the discussion of parents' recruiting their children as 'helpers' is the corollary that adult workers wouldn't need to impress their children if their own labor provided a living wage.

For them in Mexico, as here, it doesn't.

This puts a whole new inflection on "grow your own."

Bon appétit.

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.