Thread: Socialist rants on "immigrants rights"

While looking for something else, I came across this. Now look to the section wich I highlighted in bold and in red. Talk about some major fantasizing of being persecuted!!

Freedom Socialist • Vol. 28, No. 2 • April-May 2007
Let's realize the promise of the immigrant rights upsurge

by Yuisa Gimeno and Muffy Sunde


Los Angeles, March 25, 2006: Up to a million people protest a racist immigration bill passed by the House of Representatives. Los Ángeles, marzo 25, 2006: Hasta un millón de personas protestan contra un proyecto de ley de inmigración racista aprobado por la Cámara de Diputados.
Credit Marcus / LA IMC

From March to May last year, world attention was riveted on a mighty upsurge by U.S. immigrants and their supporters, who rallied in numbers rivaling those of the biggest anti-war protests in 2003.

Demands for unconditional amnesty and full legal, labor and civil rights overtook the call for a vague "path to legalization" offered by immigrant-focused nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and some labor unions. Nasty legislation that would have turned undocumented workers into felons stalled. Public discussion centered on immigrants as workers rather than criminals.

The time appeared ripe to build a broad united front that could not only improve the lives of immigrants, but challenge the corporate globalization that creates so many immigrants and refugees in the first place. But in the months that followed, the masses disappeared from the streets, while the situation for immigrants worsened.

Congress expanded plans for detention centers for undocumented immigrants and, with solid Democratic support in the Senate, approved extending the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Fascist Minutemen now patrol the border and run for school board and city council seats across the country. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) terrorizes immigrants by rousting them at home in front of their children, at work, and even on public transportation. Immigrant rights groups and a few unions condemn the raids and deportations, but don't organize to stop them.

Why the demobilization?

Doing the bosses' work. Don't blame the immigrants at the grass roots, whose courage is reminiscent of that of Black freedom fighters during the 1950s and '60s.

Instead, responsibility lies squarely with misleaders setting the wrong agenda: timid NGO activists, union bureaucrats, and coalition leaders who turned down the street heat after May 2006 to protect Democratic Party politicians during election season. This gave the Democrats a free pass to vote for legislation such as the fortified border fence and to ignore the echoes of Nazi Germany in the midnight knocks on immigrants' doors.

Many of these misleaders are Stalinists (Communist Party members, often undercover, and their political relatives) or cultural nationalists (briefly, "my oppressed group is better than yours, and the gringos too"). They operate as a "middle caste": they advertise themselves as representatives of workers and the oppressed, but actually strive for peaceful coexistence between working people and the ruling class.

They use anti-communist stereotypes to slur open socialists who point out the uselessness of halfhearted reforms. They counsel caution and fear mass radicalization. No doubt they had nightmares when tens of thousands of students booed Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, as he told the young people to "play by the rules."

Some specific examples of how they try to disarm the movement:

• At a regional strategy conference last June in Los Angeles, a Communist Party representative and allies argued against a proposal to hold an "alternative election" to give disenfranchised immigrants a voice on the issues, saying that it would drain support from the Democrats.

• In Portland, Oregon, representatives from an immigrant rights NGO kept quiet about planned Minutemen attacks on day laborer centers — despite the previous successful defense of another center that was organized by the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP), Radical Women (RW), and others.

• An immigrant rights coalition in Portland closed itself to vocal socialists, and the May 1st Coalition in New York excluded socialists as rally speakers.

• Especially on the West Coast, cultural nationalists have focused almost exclusively on Latinos and, in coalition meetings, have trivialized feminist issues and ridiculed female participants. This has damaged efforts to build solidarity with African immigrants, immigrant women, and African Americans.

But when the movement looks for allies, it will find them. For the May Day march in Los Angeles, Latina feminists from Planned Parenthood mobilized hundreds of people and joined RW's Labor and Feminist Contingent, as did the anti-war group Code Pink. Queer activists with Out Against the Border marched in L.A.'s Labor Day parade, and the Labor Day march for immigrant rights through Seattle's Black community got a warm response.

Forward through workers' unity. The point of the escalating ICE raids is to force support for the misnamed "guest worker" scheme, a component of immigration "reform" that Republicans and Democrats strongly agree on. Employers are hungry for low-paid, desperate workers with no legal rights who can be deported for striking, getting fired, or just complaining.

As if on cue, the more cautious immigrant rights groups are quietly dropping demands against the guest worker plan. For example, although both the May 1st Coalition in New York and the March 25th Coalition in Los Angeles previously raised this demand, it is absent from the published platform of the new May Day National Movement for Workers and Immigrant Rights, which these two groups played key roles in forming.

Unions including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and United Farm Workers excuse their support of this plan with the logic that any legalization is better than none at all.

Some SEIU members are striving valiantly to reverse their union's position. (Readers can sign their petition at www.noworkerisillegal.org.) They recognize that immigration is an issue of workers against bosses. If immigrants continue to be abused, all workers will suffer.

And, after all, there would be no labor movement in the U.S. without the immigrants who led battles that built unions and won the eight-hour day, health and safety laws, and protections against child labor.

It is now up to U.S. unionists to defend their undocumented sister and brother workers, who are condemned for crossing the same borders that big business crosses freely.

In a model effort, Organized Workers for Labor Solidarity (OWLS), a multiracial, cross-union Seattle group, is urging unions to adopt resolutions supporting open borders and pledging their halls as sanctuaries from ICE raids. Two area unions have done so to date. (For a copy of the resolution, call 206-949-4552 or email mreigel6@comcast.net.)

And, crucially, labor militants who champion immigrant rights also need to demand that their unions finally stop relying on the Democratic Party for help that is never going to come.

The immigrant insurgency is not over. Student and community organizations are beginning to protest ICE raids in Los Angeles and other cities. Some are planning May 1st walkouts again this year.

These are heartening signs of life. Now let's build an open, democratic movement that will welcome radical leadership, embrace discussion of the root causes of immigrant exploitation, strengthen itself through alliances with everyone else abused by the same system, and ultimately recognize the need for socialism to end the misery caused by capitalism around the world.

• End the forced migration caused by U.S. military and economic policy!

• No guest worker programs — no to indentured servitude! Employment for all at a union-scale wage!

• Dismantle ICE and Homeland Security! Open the borders for working people and declare amnesty for all immigrants!

Yuisa Gimeno organized unionists and feminists to protest the Minutemen at the U.S.-Mexico border. Muffy Sunde helped defend Mississippi's last abortion clinic against rightwing attacks. Contact them in Los Angeles at 323-369-6343 or lafsprw6@aol.com.

What a bunch of pro-illegal propaganda. No matter what you call it, illegal immigrants are breaking the law and deserve NOTHING.

Dismantle ICE and Homeland Security! Open the borders for working people and declare amnesty for all immigrants

Well they don't want much do they! To hell with the American citizen, they honestly act like we aren't even here, we don't exist!

These people grew up with the mentality that their opinins were so important and at they were so smart and always had to be the boss. My guess is that they had the kind of parents who catered to them, talked in front of them about how smart they were, and would have to pull other parents aside and explain how hurt "little Hilary" was that the other kids did not like her ideas, and how unfair it all was to her!

These people are simply narcisitic. They truly believe their feelings and beliefs are the only thing that matters, that is why they lie the way they do, and use verbal and physical tactics to try to intimidate anyone who opposes them.

AmericanElizabeth wrote

These people are simply narcisitic. They truly believe their feelings and beliefs are the only thing that matters, that is why they lie the way they do, and use verbal and physical tactics to try to intimidate anyone who opposes them.

I agree, but we have to remember that it is La Raza who is rehursing these wolves. They spread the hate and the lies and racism that is the foundation of all of the illegal claims. I wouldn't be surprised if the Mexican government plays in a part of this too.

Oh for sure! I really was giving it a lot of thought while watching the protests, and felt strongly that the socialists, anarchists, La Raza and the Mexican government are using the illegals as pawns, and that if the illegals had not been told by these people that they had "rights" and that they were being trampled on, the illegals may not have participated in this boloney.

I am beginning to think that for the most part, many illegals have no clue about how badly they are being used for these groups to try to gain political control over the U.S. .

I do believe, however, that many of the illegals simply go for the "ride" as it seems that they could benefit financially from it all, so they do not mind.

Really, they are simply letting themselves get caught up in the same situation they were in in their own corrupted countries, which they claim they fled for those very reasons. Nothing like allowing yourself to a perpetual vicitim.

Exactly!