BLAME SHIFTERS: Immigration and "Free Trade"

Nothing could be less genuine than the posturing of Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs and the coterie of rightwing blame shifters working to transform fear of the "migrant invasion" into political advantage or viewer dividends.

What makes this carefully orchestrated, plotted and planned strategy all the more depraved is that the very same global labor exploiters who ripped the heart out of the American working class (beware citizens of France for you are embarked on the same path) now wish to pin the blame for their crimes on the exploited.

Having watched these race-baiting bigots operate under the umbrella of populism for too long, I have no doubt the strategy is deliberate. The blame shifters tried so very hard to play the immigration card to save them in the midterm election but they came up short because of the ironic reluctance of the Rove-Bush machine that was hoping to parlay the president’s affinity for Mexican politics into future Republican dominance.

The philanthropic side of the free trade equation is a sham – a con so thinly veiled it can only fool the foolhardy and uninformed. Scapegoating racists have always supported blame shifting politicians to their own demise. As former president and supreme leader of the World Bank Paul Wolfowitz found out, the con does not work on sincere and educated public servants dedicated to fulfilling their mandate.

The blame-shifting scheme is all the more nefarious because it pretends to help those it most grievously injures. On the global scale, it promises to lift up third world nations but in practice it strips those nations of natural resources while gutting social services and shamelessly exploiting labor with slave wages and inhuman working conditions.

In America (as in other elite nations), it promises cheap goods and an ever-shifting economic base that will enable us to leap ahead of our competitors. It promises superior education and training but it cuts funding for both and saddles public education with unachievable goals in preparation for its role in the next blame-shifting strategy.

When the promises inevitably flounder, it is blamed not on trade policy, not on foreign labor exploitation, not on greedy corporations with unconscionable profit margins, but on the impoverished migrant labor force.

The much publicized immigration policy compromise, embraced by the mainstream of both major parties and offering a convoluted route to legalization and citizenship with a price tag that few could ever afford, is yet another means of evading debate on a bipartisan trade policy that richly rewards international corporations while decimating the workforce worldwide.

The policy allows the blame shifters to continue their assault on immigrant labor while continuing to ignore both the short-term remedy (strict and cost prohibitive penalties on employers) and the core solution: Fair Trade.

For those defenders of CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who more than any other mainstream pundit parlays race baiting, anti-immigrant venom into media ratings, why is it that he turns every discussion of immigration solutions into border defense and ultimately a multi-billion dollar boondoggle wall that sponsors insist (like the Israelis) on calling a fence?

Dobbs knows and has admitted that harsh, unforgiving and strictly enforced penalties on employers of illegal immigrants would stem the tide at a fraction of the cost, yet Dobbs and his Republican blame-shifting compadres know a cash cow when they see one. They do not want a real solution. They would rather focus on a wall that would mock our founding principles and further a transformation of the American dream into a façade – a guarded refuge for the privileged, a gated nation fearful of its own neighbors, and an object of international pity.

Ancient China built the Great Wall, Berlin had its wall of isolation, Israel has its wall of oppression and America will join that history of ignominy with its wall of fear.

What more could we do to impress the world with our fall from grace: State sanctioned torture? Suspension of Habeas Corpus? Aggressive wars on false pretense? Indifference to the plight of the poor and dark skinned victims? Scientific regression and denial of the world’s most pressing problem? Incarceration of the homeless, disabled, dispossessed and destitute? The forgotten ruins of the American city that most embodies our multicultural heritage?

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free…"

Let us send Lady Liberty back to France. We have forsworn her and France needs to be reminded of her enlightened ideal.

Jazz.

[This article posted by Dissident Voice 21 May 2007.]

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE APPEARED ON THE ALBION MONITOR, PEACE-EARTH-JUSTICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, PACIFIC FREE PRESS, LEFTWARD, DISSIDENT VOICE AND COUNTERPUNCH.

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