Steve,
That's a great idea! It will paint the Repuglicans into a corner.
Jonathan
Posted by at April 3, 2006 11:24 AMWhat's the status of those "detention centers" that KBR was awarded a contract to build? Does this phrase ring any bells with anyone: "The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency..."
Deportation of eleven million immigrants may have been what they had in mind all along. After all, there's a lot of money to be had in running prisons, I mean "detention centers."
Posted by ann at April 3, 2006 11:30 AMOh get fucking real. The Dems don't have the fucking balls to do something like that.
Posted by angryspittle at April 3, 2006 12:01 PM"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
Theodore Roosevelt 1919
Say it, don't spray it, my friend! I agree with your measured analysis. If the dems can't be bothered to chastise Bushco for breaking the law ten ways to Sunday, they sure as hell can't come up with something resembling a plan on immigration.
Posted by iamcoyote at April 3, 2006 12:45 PM...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
so that means that the neocon cabal should be tried for treason, eh?
Bushco would be in the same boat, were not corporations considered to be people, thanks to judicial skullduggery...
Posted by DW at April 3, 2006 02:10 PMLet's get to the root of the problem.
Marcela Sanchez wrote:
To alter income disparity, it is obvious that Mexico must reduce its development gap and raise incomes. What is just as apparent is that Americans do not feel, at least at the moment, that they have a responsibility or even an interest in reducing that gap through investment of money and expertise. They don't feel the same obligation they once felt, say, after World War II for Europe, or that the European Union took on when it bolstered its poorest members. Mexico and the United States may share a 2,000-mile border but their sense of a shared future runs two two inches deep.
There is a strong sense in this country that Mexico's problems are of its own making, and must be solved by Mexico. That is why former Bush administration official Richard A. Falkenrath and others say a significant infusion of U.S. aid into Mexico is a "nonstarter.'' Indeed, Mexico desperately needs to collect more taxes and reform its energy sector and labor laws -- healing itself by removing structural constraints that make it more a third-world nation than the economic powerhouse it could become.
The North American Free Trade Agreement signed more than 10 years ago by Canada, Mexico and the United States was supposed to generate more jobs in Mexico, raise salaries and therefore reduce people's incentive to emigrate. That proved to be wishful thinking. In fact, NAFTA has not generated the number of new jobs predicted, nor has it alleviated rural poverty in many areas of Mexico. That would require, according to a soon-to-be-released report on NAFTA by the Institute for International Economics, "a sustained period of strong growth and substantial income transfers to poorer states.''
Labor conditions in Mexico are lower now than they were pre-NAFTA. Unlike the European Community where devoloped world standards for labor and the enviroment have to be met before a country becomes a full member, NAFTA is centered on corporate profets with negitive long term results that today's massive immigration is only one part of.
constraints on your local government’s ability to zone against sprawl or toxic industries; and elimination of preferences for spending your tax dollars on U.S.-made products or locally-grown food. In fact, calling NAFTA a “trade” agreement is misleading, NAFTA is really an investment agreement. Its core provisions grant foreign investors a remarkable set of new rights and privileges that promote relocation abroad of factories and jobs and the privatization and deregulation of essential services, such as water, energy and health care.
Remarkably, many of NAFTA’s most passionate boosters in Congress and among economists never read the agreement. They made their pie-in-the-sky promises of NAFTA benefits based on trade theory and ideological prejudice for anything with the term “free trade” attached to it. Now, ten years later, the time for conjecture and promises is over: the data are in and they clearly show the damage NAFTA has wrought for millions of people in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Thankfully, the failed NAFTA model - a watered down version of which is also contained in the World Trade Organization (WTO) - is merely one among many options. Throughout the world, people suffering with the consequences of this disastrous experiment are organizing to demand the better world we know is possible. But, we face a race against time. The same interests who got us into NAFTA are now pushing to expand it and lock in 31 more countries in Latin American and the Caribbean through the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and five Central American countries through a Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
NAFTA needs a serious re-writing. Any immigration reform is going to fail long term without the deteriorating conditions of the poor in Mexico being addressed. If you think that the war on drugs is going well, you'll soon be extatic over the war on immigration.
Great idea.
Unfortunately the House Dems don't have the power to force a vote on the brand of toilet paper used in the basement restrooms.
Posted by euzoius at April 3, 2006 03:12 PMThe House Dems don't even have TP in their separate but equal toilets.
Now we know why the Repubs were ready for Gingrich after their 40 years in the (minority) wilderness of the House.
A useful reform would be to allow the minority some ability to bring bills to the floor occasionally, but that reform won't see the light of day.
Talk about a frustrating job: minority in the HoR house!
Posted by JimPortlandOR at April 3, 2006 03:18 PMSteve,
That's a great idea! It will paint the Repuglicans into a corner.
Jonathan
Of course it's a good idea, but the Dems won't do it.
Posted by Judith at April 3, 2006 03:23 PMSun Tsu says "Never interrupt your opponent when they are making a mistake." The Democrats can sit back and let the GOP wedge itself. They want to wedge the Democrats for the midterms the way Pete Wilson did here in California in 1994. However, they've only exposed their own internal battles between the corporatists and the xenophobes. The GOP will most likely do nothing because they don't want to anger either a) their xenophobic base or b) Hispanics and corporate moneyed interests. Since the Democrats don't control anything, it will be hard for the GOP to use it as an issue. For Democrats, the winning strategy is to sit back, make some popcorn, and watch the fireworks!
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at April 3, 2006 03:48 PMSo true. The more we expose the right's blatant racism on this issue, the better.
Posted by Joseph at April 3, 2006 04:40 PMSo what is it that we wish to see happen? What if they (Republican Party) set up deportation area (concentration camps)?
What if they (Republican Party) set up deportation area (concentration camps)?
If they do, it won't be all Republicans. This could cause a split in the Republican party with the "corporate cons" and the "paleocons" squaring off against each other.
Posted by ann at April 3, 2006 06:20 PMEveryone who pointed out the absurdity of the Dems forcing such a deportation measure to a vote is 110 percent right, for all the reasons cited and because the Dems are divided on it, too. The only reason Dems are making hay out of it is because the Republicans jumped out in front of this train, not because the Dems have any sort of better solution or are any more for or against the measures proposed thus far. They're not. They're split, just like the Repubs. I say Dems should just keep subtly pushing them in front of the train, not force a vote on an issue that will divide the Dems, too. Of course, for those reasons as well as the others, the Dems will not do such a thing.
Posted by Brian Bell at April 3, 2006 06:55 PMSteve, calling for a vote is a great idea, and very possible even with dem-miniballs.
oozo, put me down for Charmin Ultra.
Posted by TIKI AL at April 3, 2006 07:22 PMThe con movement is turning upon itself. God reigns in justice.
Posted by herbal tee at April 3, 2006 08:12 PMokay, as a conservative two things.
1.) I'm with you a hundred percent, please call for that vote. Though I think Democrats will take a fork in the eye every bot as mch as Republicans will, maybe more.
2.) I wouldn't put a lot of stock in that poll. I follow this issue pretty closely and I can guarantee you public opinion polling runs consistently over 60% against amnesty, for a wall and for removal of benefits. It is considered CW that the real number is more like 80%.
I thought you guys were all about the workers (of which I'm one) where's the love?
Posted by Jake Jacobsen at April 3, 2006 08:19 PMSorry for the typos, bad arthritis day!
Posted by Jake Jacobsen at April 3, 2006 08:20 PMDelay will not run again!!!!!............
Great, one crook gone.
Wake up America! BushCo is building concentration camps all over the country, deporting illegal’s is only a warm up………..
Posted by Bison at April 3, 2006 11:56 PMBison, thanks alot for reminding me of my dear uncle who died in Auschwitz. He had too many beers, and fell out of the guard tower.
3 zummerzaltz and a schplatt.
Posted by TIKI AL at April 4, 2006 02:02 AM