I have BEEN to Chertoff's private jail in Tacoma and gotten people out. Me. Physically. I have been to immigration court and I've given people off-line advice about how to deal with the system. I have helped illegal immigrants time and time again and sometimes the best thing they can do for themselves is to GO HOME.
You HAVE to understand what the system really is, not some silly Leninist notion.
These ICE raids on the meatpacking industry come only after decades of racketeering throughout the food industry where packers, producers and distributors blatantly and deliberately import illegal labor to force down wages. They were a slap on the wrist. They were done for publicity. There's just no question about that.
Are you on the side of Swift Meats? You think Swift is importing these Mexicans to do them a fucking favor? By your theory, Swift is more of a champion for Mexican rights than La Raza. Do you really think that? Ask yourself this: why doesn't Swift just build a plant in fucking Oaxaca or Chihuahua? They want the America subsidies, dude. American subsidies plus Mexican workers - the best of both worlds.
Homeland Security terribly mistreats the very small number of immigrants it actually gets its hands on with IN ORDER to intimidate a very large number of immigrants. They do this with the FULL KNOWLEDGE that they are pushing immigrants TOWARDS illegal status. They make the formal system impossible to deal with so that immigrants will turn illegal or stay illegal and thus remain cheap labor.
You act as though the US Government actually deports a significant number of the people who have immigration judgments against them. That's just a joke. You can hardly FIND an immigrant who hasn't had a negative finding or a deportation order against her at some time. Any reasonable analysis of the US immigration system leads to one conclusion - it is there to create a legal underclass. It's practically straight out of Foucault.
This image of the US Government sending herds of illegales South of the border is just nonsense. Millions and millions of people have come in SINCE 9/11 and the government did fuck-all about it. You think that big fence proposal is anything more than a boondoggle for defense contractors? Have you BEEN to the Chihuahan desert? It's ridiculous.
ICE could be deporting not thousands but hundreds of thousands if they really cared. They don't. The suffering of detainees and deportees is BY DESIGN. The system is made for extra cruelty, not efficiency. It is there to intimidate, not deport or detain any significant percentage of illegal workers.
It's very, very, very clear what American capital wants. The evidence is overwhelming. American capital wants cheap, foreign labor. All the better if that cheap, foreign labor is right here in the U.S.A., intimidated, ununionizable, without whistle-blowers, desperate for hard currency for their families. That's what American capital wants and THAT is why the system works the way it does.
The meat packing industry blatantly conspired in a racket to import illegal workers. They condoned and supported identity theft and EVERYBODY knows it. These workers in Colorado and Iowa were building their lives on a corporate lie. They thought they were building a community on honest work, but it's better for Swift and American capital if they realize that they are just replaceable nobodies.
Wake up.
boddi
On 12/16/06, Julio Huato <juliohuato at gmail.com> wrote:
> boddi satva wrote:
>
> > Lefties have to stop getting so hysterical about deportations.
>
> How cool would you be if, out of necessity, you had to move to another
> country, the bigots in that country called you a scab, and the
> government of that country jailed you and kicked you out?
>
> I mean, you wouldn't be doing anything criminal -- unless the
> legislators in that country make the basic conditions for survival
> subject to punishment. There must be a clear difference between fair
> and legal. No?
>
> I'd say that kicking boddi satva out of that hypothetical country
> might be "legal," but it ain't fair.
>
> > Nobody is doing illegal workers a favor by importing their oppression.
>
> So, if boddi satva migrates to that hypothetical country, out of
> necessity, and the gov't of that country jails him and deports him, we
> should applaud the action because -- tough love -- the gov't is doing
> him a favor by returning him to his country so that he can fix things
> there instead of bringing his misery with him to alien places. I see.
>
> > Historically, illegal workers have been imported to oppress domestic
> > workers and that's what's happening now. The companies that do this
> > should be sued for being the racketeers that they are. I'm sorry if
> > illegal workers lose their jobs because of it, but how are we supposed
> > to oppose capitalism if we ignore capitalist lawbreaking INTENDED to
> > reduce working people's wages and break their unions?
>
> I don't know. It doesn't really sound like you're sorry. Or it's
> like the "I'm sorry I'll have to let you go" phrase a boss would utter
> when handing a pink slip. Genuine or not, I think you should keep
> that sorrow to yourself.
>
> Let me see if I get your argument straight: If local workers are
> pitted against "imported" workers, the local workers should fall for
> it and take it against the "imported" workers, instead of uniting with
> them to disable the divide-and-conquer strategy of their common
> oppressor? I can see the convenience in your reasoning:
>
> The "illegal" aliens are poorer, weaker, desperate, with virtually no
> legal right. So, it must be easier to gang up on them than to
> confront the common oppressor, who -- chances are -- is rich and
> powerful. In my book, that is the definition of cowardice. And it's
> the surest way to break any chance of solidarity among workers, the
> only serious defense against oppression.
>
> It's basic that the power and wealth of the oppressors is built upon
> the disunity of those below. For the better-off among the oppressed
> to be able to legitimately protect their jobs and standard of living,
> they have to stand by their poorer and weaker sisters and brothers --
> extend them some solidarity first. Otherwise, they would just be
> coating their selfish interests with anti-capitalistic, legalistic
> speech.
>
> U.S. workers who take it against the poorer, legally more vulnerable,
> and politically weaker members of their class, using boddi's kind of
> contorted, legalistic, patronizing, condescending "logic" to justify
> their stance, are -- in fact -- sucking up to their oppressors, no
> matter how they cover their position with anti-capitalist rhetoric.
> They are just riveting the shackles that tie them.
>
> And in this world we live in, the protection afforded to local workers
> by fences and tough enforcement of immigration laws, is more illusory
> than real. They take it against workers of a different skin color,
> because it's easier to personalize and find an scapegoat than to pin
> down the global invisible forces that shatter your little cocoon.
> It's not a real strategy, but a delusion.
>
> It's not impossible to oppose capitalism without taking it against the
> "illegals." It's just not as easy and fun as blaming the "illegals."
>
> > The truth of the matter is that we have to fight the oppression that
> > makes these illegal workers so desperate.
>
> So? How? By feeling "sorry," but basically applauding that they are
> kicked out of the country?
>
> > Mexicans, for example, who are living here as an underclass
> > could be at home, changing Mexico.
>
> Could, but they already chose to be here instead! If boddi satva were
> down in Mexico, changing things there, then he'd have plenty of moral
> authority to address migrant workers this way. But he's not there.
> He's here, admonishing them from afar.
>
> > Nobody wants privation and disaster, but you have to be honest about
> > what is happening. American capitalists are attempting to import a
> > permanent legal underclass and that must not be allowed.
>
> LOL.
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