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

[SoCalDem]

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 on "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 rightwing-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 most 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..

Freeps 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 WAR
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.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Wise words

:)

[TwilightGardener]

2. Well-said. Immigration is important, but is being used as a big red herring this time around.

No doubt the R's want to whip up a frenzy among working-class Dems/Indies who are anti-war, but hate seeing all the Mexicans. It's the only thing they've got to pull us over to their side, and they're going to try to use it, once they knock McCain out of the way.

[MADem]

3. Well, in the GOP, I suspect it's more like "Brown Pants" Season

The reference, of course, is to this old chestnut:

In the days when pirates plied the bounding main, there was a treasure ship on its
way back to port. About halfway there, it was approached by a pirate ship, skull
and crossbones waving in the breeze!

"Captain, captain, what do we do?" asked the first mate.

"First mate," said the captain, "go to my cabin, open my sea
chest, and bring me my red shirt." The first mate did so.

Wearing his bright red shirt, the captain exhorted his crew to
fight. So inspiring was he, in fact, that the pirate ship was repelled
without casualties.

A few days later, the ship was again approached, this time by two
pirate sloops!

"Captain, captain, what should we do?"

"First mate, bring me my red shirt!"

The crew, emboldened by their fearless captain, fought heroically, and
managed to defeat both boarding parties, though they took many
casualties. That night, the survivors had a great celebration. The
first mate asked the captain the secret of his bright red shirt.

"It's simple, first mate. If I am wounded, the blood does not
show, and the crew continues to fight without fear."

A week passed, and they were nearing their home port, when
suddenly the lookout cried that TEN ships of the enemy's armada were
approaching!

"Captain, captain, we're in terrible trouble, what do we do?"
The first mate looked expectantly at the miracle worker.

Pale with fear, the captain commanded, "First mate.... bring me my
brown pants!"

[Demeter]

4. There Are Multiple Issues Lumped Under Immigration

and different groups are upset about different ones and have differing solutions to propose.

The question is: what are the real problems, and how to solve them; vs. the racist "problems", the "cheap labor" problem, the "crime" problem, and others that cater to one sub-group or another.

[Cleita]

5. Let's see all the red herring issues brought up in past elections,

abortion, gay marriage and now immigrants, hispanic ones that is, no one else. Can you see a pattern here? Misogynism. Homophobia. Racism. In other words, these campaign managers are appealing to the worst in us, our prejudices and fears, to raise issues and get the vote for their candidate and lose the vote for the opposition, our progressive candidates.

I will never forget in election 2000 an old woman who was interviewed coming out of a polling precinct after casting her vote. When asked what her party was, she said she was a Democrat. When asked whom she voted for, she said George Bush, of course. When asked why she didn't vote for Al Gore, she said it was because Bill Clinton was immoral.(??? Bill Clinton=Al Gore ???) It seems that party and church had done a good job of whipping up a big glass of Kool-Aid for that moronic old woman.

[SoCalDem]

6. The neo-cons are something else, aren't they?

They are sop ready to believe the worst about democrats, yet gleefully look the other way when a republican does soemthing 10 times worse.

the idiots who call in to washington Journal, view all the calamities that make up the GWB administration...as pure coincidence.. He's responsible for nothing

[blues90]

7. I don't feel either the Dems or repubs have any solutions

for any of the problems that exist now . They went off last on gay issues and flag burning and abortion .

Both sides play the same old songs and nothing ever seems to get solved and all the promises made once the elections are over seem to vanish like a fart in the wind .

As far as the illegal issue is concerned I don't see how on earth this will ever be solved where it is fair , things have gone to far now , they always look for a solution when things are way out of control .

Even with their idea of a wall , what are they going to do wall of the entire length of the southern border from calif to texas ?

No one seems interested in the real criminals who hire the illegals and truck them in all across the USA .

Illegal is a term that seems to apply mostly to mexicans , anyone here without the proper papers is an illegal no matter where they came from .

As an american I can't just cross the border to another country and work and get away with it .

If we do have the 2008 elections I will bet nothing will change and this will go on for as many years as it has already and then some .


The only solution is to give mexico back the jobs and their oil , none of them want to leave their homes just to come here .

[ellisonz]

8. Welcome to Late Capitalism!

Among the characteristics of late capitalism (or the 'third age' of capitalism after freely-competitive capitalism and monopoly capitalism) are said to be:

* the hypertrophy of the state, and systematic attempts by the state to moderate economic fluctuations as well as exerting more and more social controls;
* intensified monopolistic and oligopolistic competition for superprofit in world markets;
* the co-optation and integration of trade union and oppositional political movements into the state apparatuses;
* the globalisation of financial capital, commercial capital and production capital;
* a third technological revolution (electronics, synthetics, computerisation, biotechnology) and accelerated technological innovation;
* accelerated turnover of capital and the pressure to engage in comprehensive economic planning of investments;
* An increase in the rate of surplus value attributable mainly to increased productivity of labour;
* a permanent arms economy in which the military industry becomes a significant factor in economic growth;
* permanent currency inflation and growing debt levels;
* the hyper-concentration and centralisation of capital ownership and management on a world scale, in giant industrial and banking corporations;
* neo-colonialism involving unequal exchange and humanitarian imperialism where armed intervention in foreign countries is morally justified by reference to humane concerns;
* the corrosion and breakdown of all traditional social institutions by market forces, leading globally to a succession of continual wars, armed conflicts and unarmed social conflicts;
* (according to Leo Kofler) an optimistic belief in the power of technology to solve all problems, or, alternatively, a cultural pessimism. Some writers like Andre Glucksmann extrapolate this pessimism as a nihilist ideology; others like Elmar Altvater and Tariq Ali have interpreted it as a retreat to fundamentalism; and yet others like Frank Furedi see the pessimism as a cult of human vulnerabilities diminishing human potential and sowing unwarranted anxieties;
* an ever-increasing gap between the rich and the poor, within and between countries, as strong market actors defeat the weaker ones;
* the growth of "excess capital" (overcapitalisation) and "excess capacity", meaning that much additional capital is no longer invested in expanding production, but diverted to trade and capital accumulation based on already existing physical and financial assets - with obvious effects on employment opportunities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_capitalism


:hide: :popcorn:

[blondeatlast]

9. "The loss of good jobs" is what is being obscured by the immigration hysteria--

why aren't we talking abouyt Ford and GM going south of the border? Why aren't we kicking and screaming about that?

I know--because it's DIFFICULT.

[KoKo]

10. IMMIGRATION has replaced the "African American/Gay Vote" issue....

The RW has "morphed" and moved on. :puke: Gotta always find a new enemy...a new group to hate and to obscure the issue so that the real problems and solutions that could be amicable NEVER GET ADDRESSED!

I'm so sick of it...and I know you've been around awhile to watch it like I have, So Cal. :hi:

Rewarmed Hate...eat it for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. "Duck & Cover," too. The "Terraists" have replace the Commie Bogeymen..who are going to KILL OUR BABIES....!!!!

[SoCalDem]

11. Yep.. Every 'Murikan has to get up every morning and be afraid

afraid that a terra-ist has turned their car into a bomb overnight while they slept..or that a terra-ist is lurking behind that planter at the mall or waiting in the back seat of the school bus..

Never mind that average families are worried about how to send that smart junior in high school to college..or how they willl ever afford to retire..or how they are going to afford gas to get to work..

Those are tough to "fix"...and it's so much easier to make people afraid..