On illegal immigration, idealism and Gen X

[0rganism]

I've been thinking about illegal immigration for a while, and the more I think about it, the sadder I get. Why? Because illegal immigration from our southern border is direct evidence of the failure of the American labor movements, environmental movements, and civil rights movements. We failed.

Wait, you might say, these people are here because those movements succeeded! We have better wages, better living conditions, better legal systems, precisely because of their success. That's why companies have to break the law to hire these undocumented workers, that's why the illegal workers would rather come here.

That's exactly the kind of success that will whisper loving words in your ear while it cuts your throat.

We, us and our ideological ancestors, failed to take those movements global, and now everything we accomplished thereby is in jeopardy -- if not from illegal immigration, then from perfectly legal outsourcing. The failure of labor, environmentalism, and civil rights in Mexico and Central America are our failures, and their poverty will become our poverty. And truly, it is my generation, the thirty- and forty-somethings who have fallen down the hardest. Our forebears did their level best, and gave us the leadership and inspiration to bring the benefits of fair wages, livable conditions, and reasonable work hours to the United States. It was our job, our destiny, to help these movements spread throughout Latin America, but instead we rested on our laurels while the Reaganistas murdered and tortured our Hispanic counterparts into submission.

Did we really think it wouldn't come back to haunt us?

In our defense, I'll say that not all of us were so apathetic. Some of my contemporaries were at least as involved in international movement politics as we were in getting stoned and fucking. You guys, you're off the hook, you know who you are. Take a bow. At least you tried. Not me. Not a lot of the people I know. We lived loud and large while the third world struggled.

The rest of us are now reaping the ill harvest we've sown. As the tariff barriers evaporate across the globe, and international commerce comes increasingly under the influence of the shadowy WTO, we will see our own economic situation come to reflect the reality of life in poorer countries that nominally house our competing labor markets -- nastier, a bit more brutish, and perhaps significantly shorter.

I would ask the local disciples of St. Dobbs to think for a minute about what life is like in those countries where poverty rates are 20% or more, where people live in fear of armed bandits or even their neighbors, where a significant portion of the jobs that are available are in maquiladoras which work people to the bone with little or no safety regulations. When crossing a border illegally into a country where you are widely regarded as a sub-human parasite fit only to clean toilets and pick crops for below-minimum wage is the lesser evil, you have a big problem at home. Do you really think that these Mexicans and Guatemalans and El Salvadorans would be leaving their homelands and risking life and limb to travel illegally into El Norte if their homelands were economically, politically, and environmentally sound? All else equal, I think they'd rather stay at home, and work in their communities. Given the choice, I know I would.

Like it or not, Mexico's economic problems are now our economic problems. President Clinton signed us up for this with NAFTA in 1994, and despite all the strife it's caused, maybe it's a good thing. Maybe now, we'll be forced to confront those circumstances face-to-face that we might have allowed to exist indefinitely otherwise. The true danger for those of us concerned at all with progressive ethics is that Americans would be willing to substitute the placebo of isolationism for a real global solution.

Let's face it, we have had people crossing the southern border illegally for decades. They have worked long hours in dangerous conditions for dirt wages, because to them it was prosperity, or at least the shortest path to it. Only recently, sensing the potential to aggravate racism and drive a political wedge between labor and Hispanic voters, has the GOP turned up the heat on illegal immigration. All too predictably, the public has once again fallen victim to the lie that we can control the supply of a resource without addressing the causes of demand. When I see our discussions focusing on the viability of increased border patrols, mass arrests, and the divine rights of victors, I know we've missed the point.

Who benefits most from having that supply of cheap labor, willing to work for a fraction of the minimum wage? Answer that question, and you will quickly see that the end result of a successful process of border enforcement, in the best possible case, will only be an increase in the availability of H1-B visas and outsourcing. We might be tempted to call for the revocation of NAFTA and GATT, the dissolution of the WTO, and a return to the import tariffs of the past, but that is at heart a reactionary tactic that gives only temporary relief. In the end, it will fail us as often as we enact it, until we take the logical preventive step: bringing labor rights, civil rights, and responsible environmental regulations to our trading partners. The owning class takes advantage of their absence to simultaneously increase economic profits and undercut domestic rights and regulations, it's win-win for the ultra-wealthy.

We must export opportunities for true prosperity to the world, or we will surely import poverty.

[redqueen]

1. Don't need to revoke NAFTA and GATT... just add something...

a simple requirement that other countries abide by our workers' rights laws.

Defeatism is a stinky cologne.

[0rganism]

2. Nothing defeatist about recognizing mistakes of the past

If the solution were as easy as slipping that clause into the contract, it would already be there. The likely result of its inclusion would be the complete revocation of our own labor regulations. Examine Chapter 11 of NAFTA, and you will see the groundwork for such practices already exists.

Once again, the failure lies as much on our side of the border as the other, and it is as much an ethical failure as an economic one. Our senate, especially as currently constructed, would hardly have accepted such a provision; all the lobbies from the cheap labor addicts would act directly against it.

Workers' rights are human rights that must be established from the ground up, they cannot be built by fiat alone.

[redqueen]

4. Exactly... from the ground up.

Too many on the ground are too busy arguing about why we should triangulate and how it helped Clinton win.

Great gains, thanks a bunch!


It's up to us... we can keep working for it or not... I don't see what other option you're throwing out there... what *is* the point of this thread?

[0rganism]

6. That IS our only option -- keep working for it or not

I'm not a fan of NAFTA, I'm just trying to find the silver lining.

We need to come to terms with the economic reality of labor exploitation, and stand with labor rights movements in other countries to stop it. When Superbig, Inc. looks around the world for cheap labor and finds out that every other country on the globe has and enforces as many labor, environmental, and civil protections as we do here, they'll see no advantage in outsourcing, and the people who would otherwise immigrate will see less advantage in doing so.

By empowering workforces around the world, we protect our own hard-won gains here at home.

[redqueen]

8. exactly

:)

We agree completely!

[0rganism]

10. I had a feeling we would agree

The best thing about this whole scenario is that an opportunity to be successful on a huge scale is practically pounding down the door to get to us. There is a phenomenal amount of work to be done, but an immeasurably beautiful result awaits us if we persevere.

I dream of a world free from poverty. Someday.

[redqueen]

11. Someday SOON!

It's already happening in India... how long did that take?

How long until the Chinese demand workers' rights?

*hopeful*

[Vincardog]

3. 0rganism you are one cheerful person. The problems you describe are the

result of the FASCIST parasitic corporations and corrupt political parties.
The answer is to go to exclusively Public Financing of Elections and the end of Personnel rights to corporations. When the US economy starts to work for the benefit of all US citizens we will be in a position to export a standard of living as opposed to exporting slavery and degradation.

We can not let the PERFECT be the enemy of the Good. Just because we can not fix the Whole World does not mean that we should not protect our interests.

PS The World is not flat. Put down the Kool Aid and step away from the propaganda.

[0rganism]

5. And when will YOU be ready to stand in solidarity with workers?

When will YOUR interests be sufficiently protected? When will you be ready to start exporting prosperity?

Because then and only then will we see a decline in the demand for illegally cheapened labor.

Until then, we will see our own prosperity erode. We still have a choice, an opportunity to assist the rest of the world's workers to the level we would like to see for our own nation. And if we choose instead to continue letting them live in poverty, our own poverty will grow as a result, and a select portion of our population will continue to accumulate disproportional wealth. It is really very simple.

I'm all for ending personhood of corporations and publically financing elections, those are responsible steps to take along the way. Without solidarity, we'll just be remodeling our interior while the neighborhood crumbles around us. Capitalists will still seek out the cheapest viable labor source, and our own work force protections will deteriorate to the point where our expectations come into step with those of the people we're willing to exploit.

PS Our economy is part of the global economy. Put down the apathy and step away from GOP wedge politics.

[Vincardog]

7. Do you mean to tell me that while we let the Low Wage conservatives

kill the unions in the USA we should unionize the Guatemalan workers before we stand in solidarity with US workers? Exactly which union are you organizing for? What political campaign?

PS the Global economy is the flat earth view that is pushing the GOP agenda. It is the mechanism that is being used to castrate the workers rights in service of the Corporate Masters.

I am saying we have to fix our own house first. Then we can enforce FAIR TRADE deals that is not the same as FREE TRADE. NAFTA and CAFTA are deals to empower and enrich the Corporate FASCISTS while robing and impoverishing all workers everywhere.

[0rganism]

9. No, not at all, but you can't just do one or the other, especially now

With the prevailing bodies of law and corrupt influence-peddling lawmakers, any additional labor protections we enact in the USA are only going to drive more work out of the country and cause more exploitation of scabs or illegal workers.

We have to advance labor rights in the countries that are leading sources of illegal immigration and offshoring. Only then can the advances we make in the USA be meaningful. Even 100% unionization of US factory workers could be completely undercut by unrestricted imports from a country with no collective bargaining rights. You tell me that "we can't let the perfect become the enemy of the good", well what good is that? What benefit is there in having a nominally successful trade union in one country when it only leads to further foreign exploitation and higher domestic unemployment rates?

It's fun to call me a GOP tool, isn't it? True enough, the GOP loves to use the global economy as an excuse to destroy our domestic gains. But by dismissing out of hand the rationale behind their agenda, we become susceptible to it. Isolationism, closed borders, racism, they all play into the hands of the capitalists, as long as we keep buying the goods and services from cheap labor wherever it exists. The REAL solution is to embrace solidarity with the Guatemalan/Salavadoran/Mexican/Indian/Chinese workforce, and unionize them ALONG WITH ALL THE OTHER WORKERS IN THE WORLD.

Think about it. Which would you rather have:
* a world where ONE country has worker protections, civil rights, environmental regulations?
* a world where ALL countries have worker protections, civil rights, and environmental regulations?

A national labor movement is anemic in the face of free trade. We cannot fix our own house without assisting the neighbors as well, or they will dismantle it as fast as we can build it up. The transnational corporations have figured out that exploiting cheap foreign labor is the key to destroying domestic unions and environmental deregulation through force of fear; it's win-win for them. It is our failure to grasp this basic fact that has led, in my view, to our current conundrum. We can only fix our house by helping the neighbors fix their homes; strangely enough, by doing this, we will be indirectly and simultaneously fixing our house too. It's our only win-win response. When labor stands united worldwide, there will be no one left to exploit.

And that is how to beat the Corporate Masters at their own supply-side game.

[Vincardog]

12. OK I will fight for US workers and you go on down to Mexico or China or

where ever you feel you need to go. Why do you think we have to stand by for unrestricted imports? I tell you it is because the Corporate Fascists run our government.

How do you propose to force the world to have worker protections, civil rights, and environmental regulations?

We have to start by having worker protections, civil rights, and environmental regulations here. We can only do that by taking the actions I already stated, Namely getting the corrosive influence of Money out of politics. That will only happen with Public Financing of elections and the recension of personnel rights for Corporations. When we have our house in shape we can use our power to enforce worker protections, civil rights, and environmental regulations in other countries.

You claiming that the only way to fix us is to fix the whole world sounds a lot like aWoL pushing freedom in the ME while he wipes his a$$ on our constitution at home.

That being said I believe there are many roadies to the future. If you feel called to save the world first: have at it.

I am just saying watch out for Necropoint's Death Squads while you are out organizing the CoCa field workers in Columbia.

[0rganism]

13. Too bad you don't see the connection

> We have to start by having worker protections, civil rights,
> and environmental regulations here.

We ALREADY have them. They're deteriorating every day bush is in office, but we have them nonetheless. They're not as complete as they could be, but, as you'd say, let's not let the perfect become the enemy of the good. The problem we face is not that we don't have protections and rights, but that the people we compete with in the labor market don't have them at all.

I don't know how much clearer I can say it, but that's the plain simple truth.

You can go right ahead with your "fight for US workers", but it's just not going to be effective until you fight for ALL workers -- or at least, until someone does.

> Why do you think we have to stand by for unrestricted imports?
> I tell you it is because the Corporate Fascists run our government.

You say that like I might disagree with you. :shrug: Those we call Corporate Fascists excercise this degree of control over our government precisely because they can exploit labor from other countries for outrageous profits. Maybe you think it's possible to counteract this abuse of power purely from within, but that, too, neglects the scope of the cynical logic at work here.

Our Corporate Masters are milking the consumer base in this country. In order to have a consumer base to milk, they need people earning and spending their wages on goods and services. In the process of reducing the domestic workforce in favor of cheap labor sources, they've also managed to deplete the "disposable" income of middle America. Well, what's next? The only way they can keep profiting from reduced incomes is by lowering production costs and reducing quality to lower the price point. So they have to further degrade labor abroad to inflate consumer spending against the damage they've already done to labor at home.

Improved labor conditions in Mexico and China and Indonesia would be a dagger driven straight into the hearts of the people you despise, but you don't share my enthusiasm. Perhaps this is why:

> I am just saying watch out for Necropoint's Death Squads while you
> are out organizing the CoCa field workers in Columbia.

...which brings me right back to my OP. WE LET THIS HAPPEN. It is to our greatest shame that people like Negroponte can call hits on labor organizers, that taxpayers in this country willingly fund torturers and murderers in the countries which produce the goods we consume. It is economic imperialism, pure and simple, and we sit on our asses while it makes the world a poorer, more dangerous place. Is it lack of concern that stops us cold, or is it fear of reprisals? The end result is the same.

Do you want to tell me that we can unionize effectively in this country but we have to let the chips fall wherever they may everywhere else? That we can somehow address the problem of unfair trade practices while ignoring the bloodshed we fund on behalf of the dictatorships that make cheap labor imports available? Good luck with that.

> You claiming that the only way to fix us is to fix the whole world
> sounds a lot like aWoL pushing freedom in the ME while he wipes his
> a$$ on our constitution at home.

So either you believe bush is really "pushing freedom" in the Middle East or you haven't understood a word I've written. *sigh* Everything I've said has been about solidarity with labor organizers in these countries, yet you think I come off like some neo-conservative thug. :eyes:

Look, the "Libertarians" among us will tell you that unions and minimum wages and environmental regulations and so on are unworkable long-term, because they drive capitalists to look for cheaper labor in far shittier places. Guess what? They're right about that much, and you can see evidence that supports their theory wherever you see illegal immigration and outsourcing. Wherever you see a community voluntarily compromising their environmental regulations or worker rights just to keep a major employer from leaving, you'll find even more evidence. The Libertarian "solution" is to dissolve all the unions here, drop all wage laws and workplace regulations, and "let the market sort itself out." My proposal is to unionize the rest of the world and organize along with them to regulate wages and establish workplace safety worldwide. Their solution leads to a widespread global poverty that fuels a few pockets of extreme wealth, of which they hope to be members. Mine leads to a world where fair trade is not only possible but unavoidable, and extreme pockets of wealth are untenable. See if you can guess which ideal bush and his buddies are enacting.

> We can only do that by taking the actions I already stated,
> Namely getting the corrosive influence of Money out of politics.
> That will only happen with Public Financing of elections and the
> recension of personnel rights for Corporations.

These steps would certainly make a difference, were they possible. Perhaps you are the one to solve the dilemma of how to get the corrosive influence of Money out of politics through a political process that is compromised by the corrosive influence of Money.

[Vincardog]

14. How are you going to help the labor in China? You act as if they are

a free trade state. They have cheap labor and they restrict our exports to them. They place outrageous tariffs on our goods while we allow them unrestricted access to our markets.

Too bad you do not see the connection.

I worked union jobs and helped with union organization. I have and am helping progressive candidates today.

What are you doing except spouting this lovely vision of ending world poverty?