Bush immigration plan; lesson in racist demagogy
http://www.workers.org/2006/us/immigration-0525/
(from the socialist World Workers Party-one of the organizations that has been at the forefront of organizing the illegals' rallies particularly the LA group)
Bush’s immigration plan
A lesson in racist demagogy
By Deirdre Griswold
Published May 18, 2006 2:13 AM
Demagogy. It’s the stuff politicians are shoveling out when they say what people want to hear, even as they’re knifing them in the back.
President George W. Bush’s speech on immigration, carried live by the media on May 15, was full of demagogy.
He said, “The United States is not going to militarize the southern border.” But he laid out a plan to send up to 6,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border. One senator, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, calculated that the plan could result in more than 150,000 Guard members being deployed to the border in the next two years. (New York Times, May 17)
The deployment of National Guard troops is in addition to Bush’s plan to increase the number of Border Patrol agents from 9,000 to 12,000.
With the huge deployment of National Guard troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, most states already lack the person-power to deal with calamities. In February, governors from both the Democratic and Republican parties met in Washington and concluded that “Bush administration policies were stripping the National Guard of equipment and personnel needed to respond to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, forest fires and other emergencies.” (New York Times, Feb. 27)
Hurricanes and floods. Think Katrina and the unanswered pleas for help by people about to drown. Think grapefruit-sized hail in Tennessee a month ago. Think the recent floods in New England.
All the scientists are warning that, with extreme climate change caused by global warming, this is just the beginning. Yet Bush hasn’t jumped in front of the cameras with any plan to deal with this dire emergency. In fact, nothing, absolutely nothing, is being done by the so-called “homeland security” heavies to plan for these disasters, despite the huge budget at their disposal. They’re too busy eavesdropping on people’s telephone conversations and setting up juicy business contracts for the next level of high-tech surveillance.
Surveillance along the border. Says Bush: “We are launching the most technologically advanced border security initiative in American history. We will construct high-tech fences in urban corridors, and build new patrol roads and barriers in rural areas. We will employ motion sensors, infrared cameras and unmanned aerial vehicles to prevent illegal crossings.”
And in people’s wallets. Says Bush: “[There] should be a new identification card for every legal foreign worker. This card should use biometric technology, such as digital fingerprints....”
All this will cost billions, which will slip easily into the pockets of the already super-rich. The workers in this country will gain nothing from it. Diverting government money from other, needed social projects will mean new cutbacks in the public sector.
Solidarity is what’s needed
Since March, literally millions of immigrants have been marching to demand their right to live and work in this country like anyone else. This movement mushroomed up after the House passed the draconian Sensenbrenner-King bill, which would attach heavy criminal penalties to anyone found without papers and to people who employ or assist them. Bush jumped into the fray when it became clear that this bill was going nowhere.
Undocumented immigrants have had a hard enough time even before this latest assault. With the threat of deportation hanging over them, even if they have lived and worked here for years, they have been forced into below-minimum wage jobs, often working on a day-to-day basis with no benefits or security of any kind.
Increasingly, the right-wing in this country is discovering that workers are very upset. They are trying to turn that anger against immigrants. In the distorted world of Pat Buchanan, CNN’s Lou Dobbs and other demagogues, the problem is not because the big corporations are in a frenzy of layoffs and cutting wages, pensions and health care; it is not because the drive to build a world empire, led by Big Oil, is draining hundreds of billions away from schools, hospitals and all public services.
The lie they push is that it’s because “illegal immigrants are taking your jobs and not paying taxes.”
Both parts of this statement are totally false and calculated to turn worker against worker. It’s the bosses who decide who to hire and who to fire. Capitalist bosses are scouring the globe looking for places where they can pay lower wages. They also encourage immigration when they need labor here—but deliberately deprive immigrants of their rights, to keep them from winning better conditions.
Bush’s “guest worker” plan aims to do just that. It would keep employers of immigrants happy and supplied with a low-wage workforce, but send most of the workers home again before they could get the rights of citizens.
That’s a prescription for perpetual super-low wages. The only way to overcome it is by building solidarity among all workers, who can then struggle together against those who rob them every payday.
As for taxes, the current law is set up in such a way that two-thirds of those without papers—or 8 million out of the 12 million estimated to be here—have taxes automatically deducted from their paychecks.
This is because the Internal Revenue Service, since 1996, has had a policy of issuing identification numbers to undocumented workers. These immigrants, who can’t get most jobs without the numbers, “have Social Security and Medicare taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks. Since undocumented workers have only fake numbers, they’ll never be able to collect the benefits these taxes are meant to pay for. Last year, the revenues from these fake numbers—that the Social Security administration stashes in the ‘earnings suspense file’—added up to 10 percent of the Social Security surplus. The file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year.” (“Illegal Immigrants are Paying a Lot More Taxes Than You Think,” Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, May 1)
It’s the immigrants who are getting ripped off here, by both the employers and the capitalist government, and not the other way around.
Re: Bush immigration plan; lesson in racist demagogy
Quote:
It’s the immigrants who are getting ripped off here, by both the employers and the capitalist government, and not the other way around.
Then puleeeeze pack your bags, go home and stop being "ripped off". Nothing would please us more.
8)
