Reply #30: Every election cycle, they dust off the "bloody shirts"

[SoCalDem]

no surprise ..it's all they have:)

SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sat Jun-16-07 10:27 AM

Original message

It's just "bloody shirt" season..everyone calm down :)


A few years ago the naive ones were whipped into a frenzy over gay marriage & abortion.

This cycle it's all about immigration..

These tired old "issues" will never be "solved" in ANY election cycle. The pols want us to think they have great plans for "solving" these big issues, but they never really want them solved.

A problem solved, is a problem that cannot be waved under the noses of the base...if the base cannot be whipped into a voting frenzy, they might just stay home on election day.

Immigration as an issue is a lose-lose for everyone, since neither "side" wants to undertake the pain of really "fixing" it..

REAL ID cards/passports would HAVE to be issued in order to track who is legal and who is not.. The right and the left seem to hate that idea.

The constitution would have to be changed to deport families whose children were born here .. and no one would agree to deport Mom & Dad and institutionalize the US citizen children (that would cost too much money)..

Contrary to the right-wing-think, "Illegals" have bigger issues to contend with than how they can vote. These people spend 24-7 trying to stay unnoticed.. Showing up to vote is not something that many of them want to do anyway.

Congress is too chicken to really hit the problem head on.. The laws exist NOW, but they are too afraid to tackle the enforcement against the housing industry, the chicken processing companies, the meat-packing industry, the hotel & leisure industry, the agri-business people.

Local people do not like "seeing all those guys at Home depot" so that's the angle the congress can hit on..and so they do. They have local people all over..up in arms about the 'illegals' in schools, in hospitals and on the dole.. It works for their argument.

These same people are often conflicted too,m because when THEY need a cheap nanny, or some yard work done, they too will look for the cheapest labor they can find, so even at the grassroots level, there is no cut and dried "solution".

A few years back we hired a landscaper, and we paid $3500.00. Could we have paid less by going to Home Depot and bringing some "Mexicans" home with us? Sure!.. Did we? Nope. Our landscaping guy paid his workers $15 an hour. Are we chumps? maybe.. but I think not. If one of our guys had hurt himself working on our project, he would have been insured, and his injuries would have been taken care of,. but that's just us..

Right-wingers are conflicted because they want it both ways. they like the cheap labor, but they would prefer that it be done by eunuchs who come here just to do work for THEM for $5 an hour, and then disappear...until the next time they need some yard work or laundry done :)

It's all smoke & mirrors ..to rile up the base..and once immigration fades away, they will still have lots of time to drag out some of their other pet issues..

before we vote in '08, we will no doubt be treated to another round of :

vouchers
guns
god
abortion


Anything to avoid talking about :

the WARS
gasoline prices
health care
social security preservation
fair elections
the loss of good jobs in America
college expenses
media consolidation & the propaganda merchants

Those are issues that are really important, and they are the ones no one wants to talk about.




and from 2005


SoCalDem (1000+ posts) Fri Jun-03-05 10:21 AM
Original message

We caught the bloody shirt, and are now waving it wildly.


The republicans cannot get a toehold in our ranks with issues that are ingrained in the party. Things like unions, equality, education and environmental issue, among others, are so much a part of us, that we do not splinter because of those issues....BUT

they have found one that DOES work .....RACISM/Immigration.

Each one of us has a responsibility to acknowledge their plan, and vow to resist it.

In times of plenty..plenty of jobs..plenty of educational opportunities...plenty of money...plenty of options, immigration goes pretty much unnoticed, and actually welcomed.

After a few years of republican rule, jobs just "magically disappear", and the Darwinist Racism bubbles to the surface:

"MY financial situation is bad because of....."
"I cannot find a job because of...."
"MY kid's classroom is crowded because of...."
"Gasoline costs so much because of....."

The 'fill in the blanks' part of those issues, and many others, has been occupied by many disparate groups. At times it's been the Irish, the Italians, the Blacks, the Mexicans,the Haitians,the Chinese, the Laotians, the Vietnamese, the Cambodians..etc etc etc..

The biggest nastiest ploy they are using now is the one where they seek out 'democrats' willing to go on the record supporting draconian measures against immigration (from Mexico mostly).

The approaches they use are varied in their range of subtlety, and range from the 'in-your-face' Minutemen camped on the border with coolers, sunglasses, beach umbrellas and guns...to the silver-tongued so-called statesmen who blame every community issue on 'illegal immigrants'.

It's called scapegoating, and it's been around for a LONG time.

The Mexican children are NOT causing your schools to suddenly disintegrate....republican-style oversight of education is what's wrong with it.

The Mexican workers are not driving wages down... the republican bosses, and the lax enforcement of labor laws are doing it.

The Mexicans are not driving the cost of housing up..if ANYTHING, their slave-wages are keeping the costs artificially LOWER than they might be.

The Mexicans are not a Homeland Security threat..in fact they are conned into JOINING our military as a citizenship-for-blood scheme..our recruiting numbers would be even WORSE without their participation.

Perhaps that fantastic $6 an hour job you always wanted, DID go to an undocumented worker, so in the next "immigrant sweep" , that job trimming palm trees or plucking chickens might once again become available..

Immigration is the issue the republicans have chosen to infiltrate our ranks.. Be vigilant and don't fall for it.

They know they cannot divide us on religion, choice, civil rights, job creation issues & unions, environment and others, but they are chipping away with immigration, because down deep, ALL people are scared when they think their livelihoods are challenged.

No one wants to lose their job, their homes or their chance at education.

Republicans are always trotting out real people like "Ann Ecdotal" and her friends to make their point that if only we would 'get tough on illegal immigration', all our problems would be solved..

Think back about ...oh....FORTY YEARS...Remember when the 'war on drugs' would solve all our problems? We all know how well that is going.

Immigrants come here because they CAN. There are jobs here or support systems in place (usually family who preceded them). They pay into a system, using phony ID. Bosses accept that ID with a wink and a nod, not so they can pay their "legal" workers MORE, to provide a product or service for sale at a cheaper price, or provide better benefits with the money they save.. they accept the ID so THEY can keep the extra money saved.

They tell their new employees that they will have FICA and taxes withheld from their already paltry checks, and the new hire cannot complain, since he/she knows the documentation is fake.. So does anyone really think that the "boss" really matches his share of SS and sends in the payments to the government? They KEEP the money, folks..

As long as there is greed in America, there will always be "an immigration problem".

We will never "solve" the problem, because the people who COULD solve it, don't really think it's a problem.. They will NEVER admit it though.