Of course, McCain had to double down on this bad idea, to show how much tuffer he is than Obama.

Is there any chance that some of these troops might rein in the wackos?

The reason I’m wary and kind of tired of this Presidency is that every impetuous act is one that lurches severely rightward, while most progressive ideas die the death of a thousand cuts in a committee or DoD study.

i would add that as well to the annals of “how Obama is not a liberal, part one jillion trillion”.

The borders should be patrolled and our sovereignty protected.  These illegal immigrants are being used as pawns to drive down our wages and cause swaths of jobs to be devalued into slave labor.  I’m sure some politicians hope that if they were legal, they will vote on the liberal side.  They won’t, by and large Mexico is R.C. and deeply conservative.

I believe there is a more humane way to keep our borders protected.  But the unprotected border problem has gone on so long people are upset and looking for drastic change.  This is a serious time, because a despot who will be hardcore about this issue will gain a lot of support from many people…across all religions and political persuasions.

As far as crime, yes illegal immigrants by their very presence is crime.  As far as violent crime, only very few take part but they do add to our crime numbers.  I sat a trial for just such this situation.

So how are we going to secure the borders? No one who advocates that ever has a coherent answer, in my experience.

Cue the troll to repeat the lies.

However, unlike other states, crime and unemployment are both low in Arizona. Unlike other states with double digit unemployment, Arizona’s is at 4 percent.

I saw a news report a couple days ago in which Arizona manufacturers claimed they were losing millions since the threat of the new law.

They’re either afraid to hire illegals, or all the immigrants fled, and they’ve had no luck hiring locals.

A large group of police chiefs are protesting the law because they believe it will make it more difficult to prosecute actual crime.

“Arizona’s controversial new immigration law will strain police ties to the community, sap limited law enforcement resources and could lead to an increase in crime, a group of police chiefs told U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64P58T20100526?type=domesticNews&feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

But, hey, why defer to those US citizens both affected adversely by this law, and experts in their field, when there are racist lies to be spread?

At this point, I think President Obama isn’t even looking for votes.  With people from all sides of the political spectrum bailing on him, and the disaster in the Gulf that now has his name on it, he’s just looking to avoid tar and feathers.

A better move would have been to just nationalize all of BP’s assets in the US.  Send the national guard to every BP facility in America and take them over.

However, unlike other states, crime and unemployment are both low in Arizona. Unlike other states with double digit unemployment, Arizona’s is at 4 percent.

How is that possible?

Ding! Ding! We have a winner! Racist lies have won!

“A poll by NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo released on Wednesday found that Republican candidates stand to gain by making the Arizona immigration law a political issue in the campaign.

Forty percent of registered voters said they would side with a Republican congressional candidate who supported the state law. Just 26 percent said they would back a Democratic candidate who opposed it.

Overall, 61 percent of the respondents to the poll said they backed the Arizona law, while 60 percent said they would support comprehensive immigration reform legislation.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64P58T20100526?type=domesticNews&feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

And Obama, who never met a right wingnut leaning poll he wouldn’t pander to, is pandering to it (unlike the polls with overwhelming support for progressive ideas, such as the repeal of DADT, which the Obama administration chooses to ignore.)

The borders should be patrolled and our sovereignty protected.  These illegal immigrants are being used as pawns to drive down our wages and cause swaths of jobs to be devalued into slave labor.

*spit*

“Our wages” white boy? Why are those “yours” more than “theirs”? You’re not due a job any more than they are.

What do you think happens anyway if you bar cheap labor from travelling to the USA? In a globalized world, it just means cheap jobs will travel *out* of the USA.

If you were really interested in not depreciating wages you’d be doing labor organizing and unionizing workers, whether citizens or undocumented, local or abroad. Just helping our own won’t work in a world where a factory can pull up shop and move to another country. Defending the rights of undocumented immigrants is, in itself, favorable to keeping wages high for all of us (since if CEOs can’t exploit them due to their ‘illegal’ status, they can’t use them as scab labor).

How do immigrants steal jobs from me anymore than my neighbor’s own children do?  Very few illegal immigrants are coming here to “steal” jobs as doctors and scientists, but my neighbors kids could easily grow up to compete with me in my field.  Also, there’s no set number of jobs; the economy just doesn’t work that way.  Every immigrant who steals a job contributes to creating dozens of others.  Nearly every person, regardless of citizenship status, will spend money on food, housing, water, sewer, phones, cable, electricity, gas, clothing, education, transportation, personal hygiene, and entertainment.  They money that they make from these stolen jobs goes right back into our economy, especially among the generally poor illegal immigrants who can’t afford to save or hoard any money.  Anyone who accuses anyone of stealing a job does not have a basic understanding of how our economy works.  Don’t they teach this stuff in high school anymore?

How many illegal immigrants does Tyson Foods hire? They actually helped smuggle workers in.

What is the #1 source of revenue for the cartels? Marijuana.

But we need to get the military to round up the illegals. Thats the only option ever given by the completely-not-racist-people-who-are-concerned-with-the-rule-of-law.

Fucking over your base is always a good idea, especially in a low-turnout midterm election where the margin of victory in CO,NC,OH, NV, etc in 2008 was built on Latino and union turnout. Is there another tax that can be put on unions, like their health insurance? No prob, Dems got that covered.

What about a grand bargain, with a Value Added Tax, reduction in the corporate tax rate, and cuts in Social Security? The White House is already on that.

@ catgirl: no, no they don’t. It isn’t on the standardized tests, you see. And teaching the evolution “controversy” takes an awful lot of class time. And then there’s all the time you have to spend ensuring that students learn about Newt Gingrich and Phyllis Schlafly instead of Thomas Jefferson.

Just doesn’t leave a ton of time for any of that messy reality shit. But anyway, who needs it? Our mysterious and shadowy betters will prolly just take care of it right?

I used to drive to El Paso from Las Cruces one Saturday a month to walk across the border into Juarez. I liked the markets. I would always see Mexican Nationals going in the other direction to do some shopping. So even people living in Mexico end up contributing money to the economy in the US.

Plus I’ve noticed that the people who like to blame Mexico for the drug problems in the US never acknowledge that US guns are exported south to be used by the drug cartels. We’re the ones providing the means for the violence.

Just helping our own won’t work in a world where a factory can pull up shop and move to another country.

Which points out a huge fucking problem in our labor market.  Capital is free to move.  Labor is prevented (both legally and practically) from doing the same.  This creates a ‘free market’ in which one side has a massive power advantage, and unsurprisingly, they abuse it.

I’m starting to become convinced that Obama’s rope-a-dope strategy is more meta and more successful than I had initially given him credit for. Do what the Republicans want, sit back, let the dumber half of the country figure out that it really is a shitty idea. It’s taking awhile—and too bad about that nice Gulf you had there—but it does kinda sorta seem to be working.

Someone asked how it was possible that Arizona had both a low crime rate and 4% unemployment: I don’t know, all I can do is reiterate the facts as I’ve read them, or report what was reported on the news.

Do you mean how can those facts exist when the lies say otherwise? Well, facts are stubborn and generally don’t respond to unreality.

Despite all those “anchor babies” and illegal immigrants, Arizona has both a low crime rate and 4% unemployment.

Yet another inconvenient truth.

Oh and if the right winger motives are about drug related violence and not racism, why is there no mention of what’s happening in Kingston, Jamaica right now?

Mel, when you compare a Mexican immigrant standing around doing nothing to you to real crimes like murder, your racism is showing.

So how are we going to secure the borders? No one who advocates that ever has a coherent answer, in my experience.

Rants like Mel’s incline me to think that they think randomly shooting people who “look” like immigrants should do the trick.

“Our wages” white boy? Why are those “yours” more than “theirs”? You’re not due a job any more than they are.

IIRC, you’re an anarchist. You don’t even believe on the concept of borders or nation-states.

Immigration really needs to be considered something to be handled on an “as-needed” basis. Is our country really lacking something because more migrants across the Mexican border can’t come in or because they are limited by the pipeline created by the need to sneak across the border? In my opinion, no (you may feel differently and explain why we need more poor, low-skilled immigrants). And it is the right of the state to define its border and control what is allowed to cross into it.

What’s irritating here is only Obama’s willingness to feed into right wing memes. They told him we need troops on the border and to cut social security, and he’s obliging.

I don’t know about crime rates, but Arizona’s unemployment rate isn’t 4%, it’s 9.4%. Or it was as of March.

Not that I think undocumented workers are at all the cause of AZ’s unemployment rate, I’m much more inclined to believe the 9.4% is caused by the global recession, and the fact that Arizona was disproportionately hit by the real estate bubble bursting.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&idim=state:ST040000&dl=en&hl=en&q=arizona+unemployment

It’s called giving cover to the conservadems for immigration reform. It has nothing to do with getting Republican votes, whether in the Congress or the election.

Is our country really lacking something because more migrants across the Mexican border can’t come in or because they are limited by the pipeline created by the need to sneak across the border? In my opinion, no (you may feel differently and explain why we need more poor, low-skilled immigrants).

Why don’t you ask all the farmers in Northern California, Southern California, New Mexico, Minnesota and Washington that have crops rotting in their fields while they lose millions of dollars to explain to you why we need more “low-skilled immigrants”? Is it really that difficult to understand? Or how about that illegal immigrants contributed 10% of the budget surplus in 2004? Not to mention since they’re here illegally they won’t get the pay out from benefits like Social Security, even though they pay into them. Social Security has 6-7 BILLION dollars in an account that will never get paid out. It’s just sitting there earning interest for people who will receive SS.

I could go on and on but I have a feeling you aren’t really interested in facts that get in the way of your racism/xenophobia.

The reason I’m wary and kind of tired of this Presidency is that every impetuous act is one that lurches severely rightward, while most progressive ideas die the death of a thousand cuts in a committee or DoD study.

We need arbitrary but radical socialism fridays in the white house.

A better move would have been to just nationalize all of BP’s assets in the US.  Send the national guard to every BP facility in America and take them over.

I like the idea, but I don’t think it would play out too well… it would pretty much create an international incident, since BP is a British company headquartered in London.  I don’t think that if we just seizd all of their American assets that it would happen without them protesting pretty heavily before any number of international bodies such as the UN or NATO.

Also, to add to DTG’s point, a lot of foreign corporations would pull out of the USA if that happened, fearing what would happen to them, sending our economy right down the shitter exactly when it’s recovering.

Well, it would be cool if it actually were 11th dimensional chess and he was just getting the National Guard in place to take out Arpaio and all the unamerican racist fucks in NAZIzona.

Seriously, WTF?  Brewer wants unmanned drones.  Why do you want to militarize our country?

Fine the companies.  Legalize marijuana.  Increase the stimulus funds.  Actually take steps to solve the problems instead of making racists feel good about themselves by creating a brown second class of citizen.

I could go on and on but I have a feeling you aren’t really interested in facts that get in the way of your racism/xenophobia.

I suppose it’s possible that I’m a xenophobic racist, but it’s more likely that I have no interest in providing human fodder for the crappy, crappy low paid jobs that US employers want to fill with desperate suckers, ensuring that our economy continues to run on the fuel of poverty.

I’m not really sure how are domestic poverty situation, urban and rural, is insufficient to cover our needs for cheap labor or why our laws should effectively provide a subsidy to employers who want to start companies that depend on very cheap, low-skilled labor by ensuring they have a steady supply of available workers.

You know, one of the reasons Mexican immigrants come to pick lettuce and engage in other low paid labor is because their OWN farms and agricultural jobs were devastated by NAFTA. is it really helping anyone to run a bunch of Mexican farmers out of business just to get them to move to the US to live in wage-slavery working on American farms?

The only use I can think of for the extra troops is stopping american guns from illegally going into mexico.

The mexicans did complaign about it recently.

I suppose it’s possible that I’m a xenophobic racist, but it’s more likely that I have no interest in providing human fodder for the crappy, crappy low paid jobs that US employers want to fill with desperate suckers, ensuring that our economy continues to run on the fuel of poverty.

Well that’s a nice cover for someone who isn’t self aware enough to know if he/she is racist. But your original comment had nothing to do with the exploitation of migrant workers once they reached the US. Your original point was:

Is our country really lacking something because more migrants across the Mexican border can’t come in or because they are limited by the pipeline created by the need to sneak across the border? In my opinion, no

And my response was a resounding YES. But maybe I shouldn’t have responded since it seems you were just JAQing off.

Amanda,

I’m Alaskan Native.  My skin is as brown as any Mexican illegal immigrant in this country.  Which means my journeys around the Midwest have been interesting to say the least.

Don’t be so quick to scream racism.

If you are here illegally it is a crime.  Crimes that are allowed to go unchecked open up avenues for more crime.  Our financial problems are a big example of this.

“If you are here illegally it is a crime.  Crimes that are allowed to go unchecked open up avenues for more crime.  Our financial problems are a big example of this.”

Yeah!  Don’t you stupid leftards see that?  If we had enforced our immigration laws, and properly policed our borders, there would never have been a looting spree by Wall Street that lead to financial collapse.

Next up:  Properly enforce our nation’s speed laws to prevent cancer…

Wanting to enforce immigration laws to protect workers’ (both Mexican and American) is a nice idea in theory, but it is basically impossible. The attempts we have made to “punish” those that have come here illegally usually just end up further isolating and disempowering immigrant communities which makes them more exploitable and thus brings all worker’s down even further. The only way to protect workers is to allow immigrants to be protected by our laws and integrated into our communities so that they can stand up for fair wages and good working conditions. Illegal immigrants are here to stay so we need to make the best of the situation rather than creating a permanent underclass of latinos.

Someone asked me how it is that Arizona has only a 4% unemployment rate and a low crime rate and all I can say is I don’t know..”

ARGH!!  Ok, the issue of immigration is a tough one filled with national security and human exploitation and yes, unfortunately, a whole heaping lot of racism, but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP LYING TO COMBAT LIES!!

Arizona umeployment rate is at almost 10%, more than double your smugly claimed #: http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.az.htm

The crime rate, like in most states, is determined by weath.  Poor border town = lots of crime.  Gilbert, AZ = low crime.

Saw a news story a couple days ago in which it was reported: 4% unemployment in Arizona, accompanied by interviews with manufacturers, business owners claiming they couldn’t fill the open jobs, due to fear induced and it was costing ‘em millions.

No for links to that, but couldn’t remember where I’d seen it. So, sorry for my honest mistake (rather than lie, so let’s not be histrionic), but as for poor border towns being crime-ridden:

“the assistant police chief in Nogales, Roy Bermudez, “shakes his head and smiles when he hears politicians and pundits declaring that Mexican cartel violence is overrunning his Arizona border town. ‘We have not, thank God, witnessed any spillover violence from Mexico,’ Chief Bermudez says emphatically. ‘You can look at the crime stats. I think Nogales, Arizona, is one of the safest places to live in all of America.’” ...

“According to the most recent figures from the U.S. Department of Justice, the violent crime rate in Arizona in 2008 was the lowest it has been since 1971; the property crime rate fell to its lowest point since 1966.  In the past decade, as illegal immigrants were drawn in record numbers by the housing boom, the rate of violent crimes in Phoenix and the entire state fell by more than 20 percent, a steeper drop than in the overall U.S. crime rate.

Immigration also does not seem related to a rise in crime in other areas of the country, including Virginia:

“Nationwide, the crime rate has dropped by more than 30 percent in the past 15 years. Crime has dropped at a similar rate in more immigrant-friendly Fairfax County.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/25/unfounded-fear-of-immigrant-crime-grips-arizona/

And my response was a resounding YES.

Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to glorify the virtues of an economy that depends on a constant influx of the destitute. That’s really not my vision for our country’s future. I can’t say I’ve ever looked this country abd said, “we have a desperate need for poor low skilled people that needs to be filled!”

And someone who whines that he can’t find enough people to take his low wage shit jobs he needs to fill?Fuck him. Maybe he should start a business that needs higher paid employees instead of wage slave labor only possible if we maintain a constant supply of the desperate and destitute.

“Yeah!  Don’t you stupid leftards see that?  If we had enforced our immigration laws, and properly policed our borders, there would never have been a looting spree by Wall Street that lead to financial collapse.”

Its ironic you don’t see the connection MikeEss because those Wall Street banking gangsters are exactly the people who want slave labor here without rights.  Its called FREE TRADE.  They want us to be Mexico.  The rich in Mexico live it up practically tax free and behind armed guards no less.  They don’t pay taxes that is why the country is such a mess.  And FREE TRADE has destroyed any protections they did have which is why the poor are running for the borders.

It will happen in Europe as well.  We are going to see massive waves of people moving to the part of the ship that will sink last.  But we are all going down unless we hold our politicians and other elites responsible.

I agree with you, Melponeme, but how will laws like AZ’s, or any other laws that punish undocumented workers and make them more vulnerable do anything but make them more trapped as “slave labor.” Laws like AZ have racist implications and will only make the problem worse.

those Wall Street banking gangsters are exactly the people who want slave labor here without rights.  Its called FREE TRADE.

More specifically, they (i.e. the neoCon establishment) want a multi-generational gastarbeiter programme that simply preserves and formalises the current situation of cheap labour with no rights—the sort of scheme that’s already in place in Europe, to disastrous effect. Its only selling point is that it’s more realistic than the Teabagger/Know-Nothing fantasies of mass deportations and 2000-mile walls.

Sadly, instead of offering a reality-based third way involving immigration reform and paths to citizenship, Obama seems to be humouring the fantasists with this proposed National Guard deployment.

“We are going to see massive waves of people moving to the part of the ship that will sink last.  But we are all going down unless we hold our politicians and other elites responsible.”

Agreed. 

However, it reminds me of Winston Smith’s idea in 1984: “If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles.”  Great idea, but not going to happen — unless there really is a second American Revolution, and if things get that bad we’re far more likely to become a fascist (christian?) dictatorship than a freshly remodeled liberal democratic republic.

We will not ever really hold our “politicians and other elites” responsible for the mess that used to be America, at least not as the country we are now.  We are allowing our petty squabbles (continually stoked by those politicians and elites) and our stupid entertainments (TV, sports, movies, etc.) to completely distract us from recognizing and accepting the truth: We are proles.  And the elites will never stop using us to get wealth and power.

And if by chance we shout back “No More!”, those same elites will happily trash what’s left of America (scorched earth?) finding some other population of proles to exploit.  And they’re already doing it…

Melponeme_k:  Employment of illegal immigrants is among the easiest crimes imaginable to prosecute.  You have a massive paper trail, regular meetings, and immense amounts of money changing hands.  Rather than using our military to shoot brown people, perhaps a policy of auditing the wealthy would be effective?

So how are we going to secure the borders? No one who advocates that ever has a coherent answer, in my experience.

I know - why don’t you hire cheap Mexicans to do it?

Tyro, I wasn’t glorifying it I was, once again, answering your question about whether the US is lacking something when migrant workers can’t get to where they’re needed.

And someone who whines that he can’t find enough people to take his low wage shit jobs he needs to fill?Fuck him.

So fuck all the chile farmers in New Mexico? Or the grape growers and wineries in Northern California? Or the apple growers in Washington? Yeah that makes sense. Let’s stop hiring migrant workers, shut down all the farms in the US and import all of our fruits and vegetables. That sounds like a great idea, except for the economic and environmental devastation. But it’s worth it because…Fuck the Farmers!

RE: The Pirate Guy,

The U.S. is also the primary source of illegal handguns in Canada - the gangs here trade amphetamine and marijuana for guns and cocaine from the U.S. 

As to Mexico, the same smuggling routes, run by the same gangs, are used for both the illegal drug trade and the illegal immigrant trade.  Listen to this CBC documentary about an Arizona rancher:
http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/dispatches_20100513_32285.mp3
In other words, keeping the status quo at the U.S. southern border helps keep guns and drug money going south to Mexico. 

I suspect the reason the Mexican president was so concerned about the new Arizona law is because he’s worried it might be a sign that border security is being taken seriously.  I heard on CBC (I can’t find the link right now) that the Mexican GDP is 25% drugs, and 25% remittances from the U.S., Thus, a tighter border threatens to eat away at 50% of Mexican GDP, so there is a strong incentive for Mexico to keep the border porous and the drug and remittance money coming.

Finally, as to the cries of “racism” - it’s not about race.  It’s about integration into the mainstream culture.  At one point, the decidedly Mediterranean-looking Italian-Americans were discriminated against - but today they aren’t.  I believe it’s because the influx of large numbers of fresh-off-the-boat Italians stopped, which allowed the existing population to integrate, free of the continued stigma attached to the new arrivals.  Italians stopped being cheap labour for construction, moved out of the Little Italys and into the suburbs, and became bankers, lawyers and doctors.  The same thing will happen to the Latino-American population, but only if the massive influx of new immigrants stops.

#48

I suspect the reason the Mexican president was so concerned about the new Arizona law is because he’s worried it might be a sign that border security is being taken seriously.  I heard on CBC (I can’t find the link right now) that the Mexican GDP is 25% drugs, and 25% remittances from the U.S., Thus, a tighter border threatens to eat away at 50% of Mexican GDP, so there is a strong incentive for Mexico to keep the border porous and the drug and remittance money coming.

I kind of suspect its because more military will destabilize an already bad relationship. More conflict with Mexico is not in Mexican or US interest.

So how are we going to secure the borders? No one who advocates that ever has a coherent answer, in my experience.

According to Rand Paul, with an underground electric fence! I’m guessing he doesn’t understand much about electricity…

Oh, and it’s going to have helicopter stations too… It’s not entirely clear whether those are underground helicopter stations.

At one point, the decidedly Mediterranean-looking Italian-Americans were discriminated against - but today they aren’t.

Really?

Come to Chicago sometime.  As late as the 90s I listened to an Italian guy carry on about how he was the first Italian to make it so high at a local TV station, and how one of the maintenance workers was his paisan and so proud of him.

Personally, I never knew Mexicans weren’t white until I moved to California.  One of the blessings of growing up in a 90% white area, and I had a weird sense of what was ‘appropriate’ from not realizing there was a difference and not understanding the discrimination they faced.

As for the theory that Italian discrimination ended when they stopped coming off the boats?  How’s that worked out for black people?  Slave boats stopped a l-o-n-g time ago, so where are native-born for centuries blacks getting their self-created stigma?

Oh yeah.  From the racists.

#51

Oh, and it’s going to have helicopter stations too… It’s not entirely clear whether those are underground helicopter stations.

I say we need some aircraft carriers floating in the Gulf of Mexico. Or maybe some minefields. Or how about ICBM‘s? Maybe underground ICBM’s? I can’t think of anything that would make me feel safer than lots of underground fusion bombs waiting to go off at any moment.

Gear! Got Gear.

“I suppose it’s possible that I’m a xenophobic racist, but it’s more likely that I have no interest in providing human fodder for the crappy, crappy low paid jobs that US employers want to fill with desperate suckers, ensuring that our economy continues to run on the fuel of poverty.”

It seems like people rarely ever look at this from the perspective of the immigrants themselves.  They come here because the situation in Mexico is bleak and they can make higher wages here, much of which are sent right back home.  Migrant labor seems perfectly willing to work low-wage jobs, since they still pay better than what they could get back home.  Now, I’m sure some folks are enticed to come here with lies about what work they would find, but this problem could be solved merely by opening up legal immigration so that they don’t need to rely on traffickers, etc…

The other issue that I don’t see being talked about very much by the MSM is the fact that illegal immigration has declined along with our economy in the past several years. (http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_ill_pe_2009.pdf)

It’s infuriating to me to see how easy it is to distract Americans with this race-baiting bullshit so they are so busy being angry at the illegal immigrants themselves that they refuse to acknowledge the bigger picture.  People like Melponeme_k don’t even seem to realize that one reason blue collar and lower class Americans feel the economic pinch of immigrants “taking their jobs” is because we’re all competing for a smaller pool of them after decades of having our manufacturing industry gutted and moved overseas.  But it’s far easier to aim your hatred at someone else who’s at the bottom with you than at the faceless people higher up who are making the decisions that lead to massive layoffs and factories shutting down.

There are no real consequences to fucking over your labor force.  It was cheaper in the long run for BP to half-ass their work and risk a major oil spill because the financial obligation they’ll be held to when it does blow is laughable.  And then we just sit here and watch them dick around trying to salvage the pipeline for weeks while all this oil literally poisons chokes the ocean and shoreline.  You’ve got violent union-busting going on in the coal mining industry and what a surprise—those companies don’t follow basic safety protocols and get their workers killed.  Workers making Apple (and other) products in China are so despondent they are flinging themselves off the factory roof.

This country’s infrastructure is literally falling down around us.  Imagine what we could’ve achieved with just a portion of the money we’ve thrown away in Iraq if we’d invested in this country’s future with a WPA type program.

Anger over illegal immigration is just another mindless distraction from the real shit that needs to get done in this country.

It seems like people rarely ever look at this from the perspective of the immigrants themselves.  They come here because the situation in Mexico is bleak and they can make higher wages here, much of which are sent right back home.

I’m really well aware of that, anoNY. I just think that the job of the USA is to manage its immigration policy with an eye towards what is best for the country and its people. By contrast, if you read Matthew Yglesias’s blog, he consistently makes the point that immigration is a good way to address global poverty, because a person’s best bet to get out of third world poverty is to come to the USA and find any kind of job available. And while that’s true, it’s not really the point of our immigration policy, and I don’t think it should be, especially when the US has a poverty situation that’s worse than other, peer 1st world countries.

#54

Now, I’m sure some folks are enticed to come here with lies about what work they would find, but this problem could be solved merely by opening up legal immigration so that they don’t need to rely on traffickers, etc…

Or, even simpler, work to improve the economies of the nations that people are emigrating from in the first place. That way, you simply don’t have that many folks streaming over your border, because Mexicans/Central Americans/Poles no longer have a reason to leave.

Most people don’t want completely “open borders”. The nation-state system is a reality we have to deal with. The imbalance comes when corporations can cross borders as much as they please, because the workers can’t. So if you can’t change one side of the equation (people don’t want completely “open borders”), then attack the other side (prevent corporations from crossing borders so easily).

My skin is as brown as any Mexican illegal immigrant in this country.

Oh, well then I guess you couldn’t possibly be racist.  It’s not like any brown person has ever been racist against brown people of another group, or even of their own group.  It’s sort of like how women can never, ever be sexist against other women, and how no white people can be racist if they have a token black friend.  I mean, the governor of my state, Bob McDonnell, said and did some really sexist stuff, but he told us that he let his daughter go to college and join the military, so it’s all good.  And Ann Coulter and Phylis Schlafly can’t be sexist because they have vaginas too, amirite?

Mel rightly pointed out that corporations are using illegal immagrants as pawns due to fears concerning their status to work at lower than legal wages and so force down the wages legal residents (whether immagrant or not) can demand. 
BlackBlock ignored that (or had a complete failure of reading comprehension, as most of the rest of you seem to have done).
I hate to break it to you, but those poor N CA farmers who can’t get anyone to pick their crops?  Bull.  They can’t get anyone to do so for the slave wages they are willing to pay, and generally are corporations, not struggling families.  (speaking as someone who worked picking produce one summer and as the spouse of someone who grew up on a family farm with few to no irregular, local employees outside the immediate family.)

#55

Anger over illegal immigration is just another mindless distraction from the real shit that needs to get done in this country.

Point well taken blitzgal. The nativists aren’t that reality-based.

Tyro, we (rightfully) let millions of people into this country every year, whenever our citizens give birth to babies.  Are you really telling me that a helpless infant is more of an asset to our country than an adult immigrant?  If your argument is that we should limit the amount of people who immigrate here because they are a drain on our society, then how do you justify letting people have as many children as they want?

alysia, making the e-Varify manditory rather than voluntary for all companies would be a good step forward.

Oh, and yeah, the law is AZ is racist as f*ck, not going to help with the problem and going to span many more.

“Or, even simpler, work to improve the economies of the nations that people are emigrating from in the first place. That way, you simply don’t have that many folks streaming over your border, because Mexicans/Central Americans/Poles no longer have a reason to leave. “

I fail to see how that is “simpler” than allowing more immigration or temp work permits, or cheaper…

#61

If your argument is that we should limit the amount of people who immigrate here because they are a drain on our society, then how do you justify letting people have as many children as they want?

Catgirl, from an economic standpoint your argument makes sense. From a security standpoint, I can see the opposition to large amounts of immigration.

Catgirl, from an economic standpoint your argument makes sense. From a security standpoint, I can see the opposition to large amounts of immigration.

Why?  Is it somehow better for me to be the victim of a crime committed by a natural-born citizen than by an immigrant?

Want to stop undocumented workers from coming over here?  Here’s how to do it:

(1) 10 years in prison for anyone who knowingly hires an undocumented worker.
(2) Free “green card”* to any undocumented worker who turns in the guy who hired him.
(3) Big posters explaining this in several languages (particularly Spanish and Cantonese) at all work sites combined with a massive public service ad campaign.

In this plan, the incentives all line up.  The long prison stretch will serve as a nice stick to discourage the hiring of undocumented workers.  And the free “green card” will be a big incentive for an undocumented worker to turn the person who hired them in - making it a virtual certainty that an undocumented worker will step forward.

If a politician promotes my policy, then I’ll believe they are serious about stopping undocumented workers.  All else is just noise - usually racist noise.  But my idea will never be used because our lovely politicians don’t really want to stop the exploitation of undocumented workers.  Doing so would cut into the profits of the corporations who exploit undocumented workers.  Nah, our feckless politicians would rather just complain about the “brown menace” to capture the xenophobe vote.

* Green cards aren’t really green.

That should have been spawn @63.

this problem could be solved merely by opening up legal immigration so that they don’t need to rely on traffickers, etc…

That would mean that the bad ol’ government would be meddling in the free market of labour, AnoNY.

Or perhaps not. “Legal immigration” might just be your euphemism for a guest-worker programme—migrant workers give the corporations and HNWIs you worship all the cheap labour they want, but they and their children get none of the rights of citizenship (which, along with things like public accommodation laws, are pesky artifacts of the eeevill state).

“Temp work permits” ... yep.

#64

I fail to see how that is “simpler” than allowing more immigration or temp work permits, or cheaper…

anoNY, it seems simpler to me because in my opinion most people are turned off by large amounts of immigration/emigration.

#66

Why?  Is it somehow better for me to be the victim of a crime committed by a natural-born citizen than by an immigrant?

Catgirl, good counter. But that’s not really what I mean, maybe ‘security’ isn’t the right word. I guess I mean that large amounts of population transfer between nations is inherently destabilizing, IMO. Does that make sense?

IIRC, you’re an anarchist. You don’t even believe on the concept of borders or nation-states.

No. No I don’t.

“My only nation is the international working class.”

@69

“That would mean that the bad ol’ government would be meddling in the free market of labour, AnoNY. “

Aye, that it would.  I’m not saying it would be perfect, because none of the options would be, but it would satisfy those who want more immigration, and also those who want more security (since the government would presumably be able to better keep track of who was crossing than in the current situation). 

Rights are not artifacts of the state, they are merely protected by the state.  Anyone here temporarily has rights, regardless of their origin.  A guest worker would still presumably be subject to the law, including minimum wage, etc…

“anoNY, it seems simpler to me because in my opinion most people are turned off by large amounts of immigration/emigration. “

Many people are also turned off by large amount of money being spent to shore up other economies, when it could be spent at home (or allowed to remain with the taxpayer that paid it).  I was just pointing out that it is not “simple” to try to improve another country’s economy.

Catgirl, good counter. But that’s not really what I mean, maybe ‘security’ isn’t the right word. I guess I mean that large amounts of population transfer between nations is inherently destabilizing, IMO. Does that make sense?

I see what you mean but I disagree with it.  I don’t think it is inherently destabilizing.  Things change, and things will continue to change regardless of immigration.  Many people will resist, but the world and our country will go on.

#74

Many people are also turned off by large amount of money being spent to shore up other economies, when it could be spent at home (or allowed to remain with the taxpayer that paid it).

What can I say. There isn’t always an “individualistic” way to act in the national interest. And yet, we should act in the national interest, because our nation is a collective entity that does a lot for us.

So, I’ve put forward a way to solve the imbalance between the US and Mexico, that doesn’t use guest-worker programs or force people to get used to large amounts of immigration, or demand that we renounce nation-states, or start some moronic and deadly tribal war of anglos against latins. You think your guest-worker program will be more easily accepted by the populace? OK, try to get your program enacted then.

76

Does your “solution” have anything more specific than “improve the economies” of other nations?  Like, the “how” perhaps?

It doesn’t seem like either of our trade-offs will be easily accepted by the public.  If it were that easy, then we probably would already have made the appropriate trade-off and there would be no issue.

we should act in the national interest, because our nation is a collective entity that does a lot for us.

That’s basically the way I feel about it, and that is sort of my reply to catgirl, too: the government does not have a role in regulating the birth decisions of individuals, especially given our rather moderate birthrate. One of its core purposes, however, is to determine things like immigration policy in service of our national interest. I’m not really clear what national interests are served in an unregulated flow of poor, low-skilled immigrants into the country, especially given that they depress wages of those already at the bottom of the ladder (though not really for the rest of us).

Of course, at the end of the day, when the choice is between keeping the benign neglect status quo of semi-unregulated immigration from Latin America and politically empowering the racist faction of our body politic, we’re going to stick with “benign neglect” rather than fix our immigration system.

“Of course, at the end of the day, when the choice is between keeping the benign neglect status quo of semi-unregulated immigration from Latin America and politically empowering the racist faction of our body politic, we’re going to stick with “benign neglect” rather than fix our immigration system. “

I think that is right on the mark.

the government does not have a role in regulating the birth decisions of individuals, especially given our rather moderate birthrate

So are you saying that it would be OK for the government to regulate reproduction in other circumstances?

I’m not really clear what national interests are served in an unregulated flow of poor, low-skilled immigrants into the country,

And I’m not really clear what national interests are served in an unregulated flow of poor, low-skilled babies being born in this country, who will grow up to be poor, low-skilled adults.  That doesn’t mean that we should prevent them all from coming here.

So are you saying that it would be OK for the government to regulate reproduction in other circumstances?

Well, i think it’s in the government’s interest, as a public health issue, to make sure that all people have access to whatever family planning amenities they want.

The point is, catgirl, we get to choose who comes to our country based on what we think makes this country a better place for the people who live here. You point out that “things change” with immigration: true. However, we get to choose the direction of that change. Having the direction of change through immigration be in favor of a large number of impoverished, low skilled immigrants when we already have (as you point out) an ample number of impoverished, low skilled people doesn’t really strike me as advantageous.

#78

Of course, at the end of the day, when the choice is between keeping the benign neglect status quo of semi-unregulated immigration from Latin America and politically empowering the racist faction of our body politic, we’re going to stick with “benign neglect” rather than fix our immigration system.

The problem is, one side is trying to strike a delicate balance respecting both the national interest and human rights. The other side doesn’t give a damn about national interest, human rights, or the economy, and just wants to fuck up some Latins.

Rights are not artifacts of the state, they are merely protected by the state.

America is a special case. The Constitution—not ethnic national identity, not ownership of land—forms the basis of the state here. A major component of the Constitution in its original form is the ennumeration of the rights of citizens.

So no rights, one less need for the state. In any case, rights are not your main concern here.

Anyone here temporarily has rights, regardless of their origin.  A guest worker would still presumably be subject to the law, including minimum wage, etc…

Sure, just like in Europe. It’s worked out very well there.

You see, the key term above is “temporarily,” and when you’re here on the sufferance of a private individual or corporation, you become subject to their whims in ways you cannot imagine. Guest workers are often frightened to avail themselves of those temporary rights.

These aren’t tech workers or physicians or academics we’re talking about: they already have guest visa programmes, and if they plan on staying and contributing to the country they do have a (still sadly tortuous) path to citizenship. They can afford attorneys. They already speak English. This is not the problem under discussion in Arizona.

No, the “immigration” problem you’re proposing to solve with “temp work permits” is about construction workers, stoop agricultural labour, meat packers, domestic servants, and the like. That plan, as proposed by neoCons and their Libertarian allies, is focused soley on formalising the current situation of cheap labour by handing them work permits but no practical rights.

For example, the spectre of deportation due to withdrawal of sponsorship means they’re not gonna unionise or complain to OSHA—which is right in line with your philosophy. Don’t think that would happen? I know H1Bs who were threatened because they complained too much about mismanagement of their sponsoring company—think a fruit-picker will fare any better?

This has been another example in an on-going series on the disingenuous cluelessness of privilege-soaked Libertarians, brought to you by AnoNY.

The point is, catgirl, we get to choose who comes to our country based on what we think makes this country a better place

We get to choose who comes into our country by one method, but not by another method.  You haven’t proven to me that one is more acceptable than another.

I’m not really clear what national interests are served in an unregulated flow of poor, low-skilled immigrants into the country

Clearly, Tyro, you’re not a Libertarian or neoCon. Although, admittedly, they’d be peachy keen with a semi-regulated flow of poor, low-skilled gastarbeiters (sorry, “human resources on temp work permits”) into the country.

Having the direction of change through immigration be in favor of a large number of impoverished, low skilled immigrants when we already have (as you point out) an ample number of impoverished, low skilled people doesn’t really strike me as advantageous.

I see where you’re coming from, but the impoverished, low skilled people often don’t want to do the sort of work that their immigrant counterparts do. Heck, they often don’t want to do the sort of work that highly educated and skilled immigrants do (see especially medical fields and STEM academic faculties).

The traditional (and successful) model of American immigration involves a large number of impoverished, low skilled immigrants coming to this country to do the hard and thankless work, with the understanding that doing so will give them: wage and rights parity with a citizen performing the same sort of work; a path to citizenship for themselves and their families; and access to what government services exist (public education for their kids being foremost among them).

Between a broken and underfunded immigration bureaucracy, the crappy and racist attitudes of current citizens (including many “ladder-pulling” descendants of immigrants), and the cheap-labour mentality of corporate America, that bargain was betrayed decades ago.

I had a hope that Obama would start rectifying this situation, but militarising the border doesn’t bode well for it.

I grew up in El Paso and now live in the Albuquerque area.  My mom still lives in El Paso.

When she visits me, she likes to play a sort of game.  As we drive around Albuquerque, she’ll see something she thinks is neat (like a boutique pet store), and say, with theatrical longing and envy, “We don’t have one of those in El Paso!”

Anyway, one evening we’re plunked in front of the TV, watching the news, aka, the litany of shootings and mayhem that are commonplace in this city hundreds of miles from the U.S./Mexico border.

As the bubble-headed bleach blond with a gleam in her eyes chattered about the latest murder, my mom watched, amazed.  And then she said, “We don’t have that in El Paso.”

As Amanda noted, one impact of Juarez violence [on El Pasoans] has been to commerce, most notably the flow of American shoppers over the border.  When I was growing up, it was quite common for folks to do their grocery shopping and even get medical and dental care in Juarez.  It was also a great place to get cheap landscaping and building materials (like saltillo tiles).

Gracchus @ 83:
Agreed on the guest worker programs being a bad thing overall, not in keeping with the ideals of the USA (however badly we tend to miss them) and to be a not so great thing in Europe (yes, I have known people in Europe who were on them).
Our current temporary work allowances though for educated and technical folks?  Not so hot really,not to meantion skewed against the smaller businesses etc.  A company is required to have 100 employees who are residents for each non-resident worker per the last rant from my spouse who can’t sponsor his post masters intern as a regular worker, due to being super small R&D;/light manufacturing co.  He also has a former co-worker friend who had to go back to Africa when GE let him go after buying their former employer; one he would have loved to hire which would have let him stay here with his girlfriend.

The immigration debate is too complex for me to handle, I can’t think of anyway to constructively changing it so I’ll just pick at nits…

The National Guard is State funded branch of the military.  They are the “well regulated militia” in today’s America.  They are allowed to be stationed by executive order to help with state level emergencies.  (And I agree this isn’t an Emergency as I define it either.)  1500 National Guard members are permitted to perform office duties in Arizona to help free up some 200,000 Border Patrol agents.

What this looks like to me is shuffling of the budget.  Big Government that <strike>everyone</strike> conservatives hate <strike>coming to the rescue</strike> interfering with states rights.  So rather than taxing Grandma & Grandpa to have these manly men swaggering around it’s pushed off onto the rest of us.  You know, Tax the Blue States not the blue hairs!

Our current temporary work allowances though for educated and technical folks?  Not so hot really,not to meantion skewed against the smaller businesses etc.

Agreed—the current 100:1 “solution” to the original nativist complaints against H1Bs has only benefitted the bigcorps. Once again, the Know-Nothings get suckered by the neoCons, and the middle class (in this case innovative entrepreneurs) loses.

The bottom line is, skilled or unskilled, there has to be a relatively easy path to citizenship for those who are willing to work and contribute to a country whose core values they embrace. This is the immigrant experience that vaulted the U.S. into a position of being the world’s top innovator in the 20th century.

However, the neoCons and Libertarians (and yes, some Chicago School liberals, too) prioritise a cheap and docile workforce. And when it comes to guest worker schemes, that’s a lot easier to do with unskilled labour than it is with the skilled kind.

Mel rightly pointed out that corporations are using illegal immagrants as pawns due to fears concerning their status to work at lower than legal wages and so force down the wages legal residents (whether immagrant or not) can demand. 
BlackBlock ignored that (or had a complete failure of reading comprehension, as most of the rest of you seem to have done).

That shit does not hold. You say yourself the illegalization of undocumented workers is what is driving down their wages, and ours. The solution is thus obviously not to turn on them (driving them further underground) but to stand in solidarity with them. Anybody whose solution is deportation or further illegalization of migrant workers instead of solidarity with them (and providing organizational support, through union drives or similar) are showing themselves not to actually care about the plights of these workers at all, and as such their argument can be tossed away as purely a rhetorical ploy.

The solution is amnesty for all undocumented workers currently present in the country, and prosecution (with severe financial consequences, up to dissolving of the corporate charter or the complete confiscation of available capital) of corporations and employers who use undocumented immigrants.

One of the problems with enforcement against employers is that you have to couple it with really serious EEOC testing programs, because otherwise it’s going to amount to a whites-only employment policy. Employers’ first reactions, once they get over the denial will be not to hire anyone with brownish skin and and/or an accent.

Of course a crack canadian squad of employment candidates could put paid to this in short order…

“Plus I’ve noticed that the people who like to blame Mexico for the drug problems in the US never acknowledge that US guns are exported south to be used by the drug cartels. We’re the ones providing the means for the violence.”

Blaming Mexico for drug problems in the U.S. is the platonic ideal of victim blaming. We love our drugs, we vote for people who make them illegal, we pay lots for the drugs to gangsters and the gangsters shoot up Mexico fighting over the profits = Mexico’s fault? Fuck that all the way to Nepture.

Anyone who’s not for complete and total legalization of drugs is a moral idiot. Even if we became a heroin in the 7-11s OMG!!!!!11!!!!!1!! dystopia, at least we’d be the ones bearing the costs of our and our fellow citizens’ love of getting high.

Back in the original post:

I promise you that it’s really disturbing to have at least the visual image of martial law imposed on your home

This is why I really hate walking past the people wearing cammo and carrying military rifles in Penn Station.  I get that yeah, Manhattan has ground zero and, sure, the crowded transportation areas of it are a likely target.  Still, seeing armed national guard troops is much, much more disturbing than a police presence, even with the recent fascination for K-9 units among the police in Penn Station.  (I don’t react well to dogs, especially ones that look like German Shepherds)

I’d much rather have NYPD flood the station with a cop every three yards than have those armed national guard troops keeping a token presence there, even given some of the fucked up behavior NYPD sometimes engages in.

One critical factor in the immigration mess we currently have has been the long history of racism (i.e. bans or strict quotas on Non-Western Europeans), immense layers of red tape that was part and parcel of it, and classism. 

Even with the removal/amelioration of those quotas, pursuing the legal immigration route is an expensive arduous process which still tends to be much more difficult for those from non-“first world” countries and made much easier of one or one’s family is well-off. 

This was well-reflected in the immigration experiences I heard from my high school classmates and is even reflected within my own family.  Mom and her family were able to get citizenship within 5-7 years during the mid-late 1960’s because they were from a well-off family whereas it took my father nearly 35 years and thousands of dollars in legal and immigration fees before he got his because he was orphaned at a very young age and had no family.

Until the legal immigration channels are changed so it is not a byzantine bureaucratic and extremely costly process for prospective immigrants, many will continue to bypass the legal process to come to the US.

About a month ago we took a road trip from Albany, NY to Las Vegas and Arizona was by far the prettiest state to drive through….too bad.

Even if we became a heroin in the 7-11s OMG!!!!!11!!!!!1!! dystopia, at least we’d be the ones bearing the costs of our and our fellow citizens’ love of getting high.

If you want a glimpse of what widespread heroin addiction could be like from past history, just look at the widespread effects of opium addiction on the Chinese population (Some estimates placed addiction rates as high as 1/3 of the population), especially from the late 18th century till the late 1940’s. 

Whether one looks at it from a public health, economy/finance, social cohesion, public safety, or national security standpoint, it was a disaster in China’s case….and many of its effects could still be felt in Chinese domestic and international policies even to the very present.

What’s up with the photo? Are the Mexicans parachuting in? If so, I bet the people who wanted to build that wall feel pretty stupid now.

If you want a glimpse of what widespread heroin addiction could be like from past history, just look at the widespread effects of opium addiction on the Chinese population (Some estimates placed addiction rates as high as 1/3 of the population), especially from the late 18th century till the late 1940’s.

My great-aunt who grew up in Shanghai in the first few decades of the 20th Century, knew a tailor who was nick-named ‘Chow-chow-leetle’ because his habit led to decreased appetite and a rather skinny frame.

And there are still opium and heroin addicts in China to this day, despite a security apparatus and central control that make the late Ching dynasty look like a recreation of Woodstock by comparison.

OTOH, opium and it’s derivatives were available until 1906 in America pretty much in an unregulated form, and the country didn’t fall apart then, in fact, the initial anti-Chinese legislation in this country was a reaction to the linking of the Chinese and the scourge of opium:

The Opium Debate examines how the spread of opium-smoking fueled racism and created demands for the removal of the Chinese from American life. This study of the nineteenth-century drug-abuse crisis reveals the ways moral crusaders linked their antiopium rhetoric to already active demands for Chinese exclusion. Until this time, anti-Chinese propaganda had been dominated by protests against the economic and political impact of Chinese workers and the alleged role of Chinese women as prostitutes. The use of the drug by Anglos added another reason for demonizing Chinese immigrants.

Ahmad describes the disparities between Anglo-American perceptions of Chinese immigrants and the somber realities of these people’s lives, especially the role that opium-smoking came to play in the Anglo-American community, mostly among middle- and upper-class women. The book offers a brilliant analysis of the evolution of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, plus important insights into the social history of the nineteenth-century West, the culture of American Victorianism, and the rhetoric of racism in American politics.

And there are still opium and heroin addicts in China to this day, despite a security apparatus and central control that make the late Ching dynasty look like a recreation of Woodstock by comparison.

A large part of the current presence of opium and heroin addicts is actually the comparative decentralization and the greater corruption of the security apparatus and central control compared with Maoist times.  That and a greater concern for its international and to an extreme limited extent…even its domestic image means they can no longer implement harsh crackdown policies on drug dealers and addicts as they did right after the 1949 Communist takeover and during the 1950’s.  Some of those harsh policies included mandatory harsh labor/reeducation camps, imprisonment, and/or even mass summary executions if they did not “reform” quickly enough.  Fear of such harsh policies combined with the totalitarian state security/informant apparatus meant that it was practically impossible for addicts to maintain their addictions without detection during the Maoist era, especially considering that most of their neighbors tended to be quite unsympathetic to addicts and drug pushers as they were both regarded as “colonialist stooges” and “social parasites”.....especially considering how memories of associating the widespread opium addiction of their recent past with Western/Japanese Imperialism were still quite fresh in their national consciousness.

Funny how the current “drug” problem in Mainland China dates back to the 70s, back about the time that Nixon visited there, and Maoism was in full swing:

Nationalism has provided a forum for fashioning mainstream anti-drug discourse, interpreting the history of the Opium Wars, and mobilizing the social elite and general public in the cause of drug suppression. Yet to avoid adopting nationalism as a universal concept, the author argues that its complexity and mutability can only be fully appreciated if its multiple forms and meanings in modern China are explored. At the same time, the author contends that anti-drug campaigns also are closely related to internal politics. He shows that both the Nationalists and the Communists used these campaigns to build state hegemony through mass crusades, nationwide mobilization, and the use of state violence. To achieve its goal, the state often adopted multiple interpretations of the nationalist anti-drug debate and then incorporated them into the state’s hidden agenda of conducting anti-drug campaigns.

And as the author pointed out, via Google Books, page 6:

In the current anti-drug campaign, the Communist leadership is reusing the techniques of mass campaigning, despite the fact that old techniques seem to have lost legitimacy after the Cultural Revolution

Funny how the current “drug” problem in Mainland China dates back to the 70s, back about the time that Nixon visited there, and Maoism was in full swing:

Actually, though few people at the time actually realized it, the time Nixon visited in 1973 was around the time Maoism was starting to peter out because of Mao’s declining health, increasing political jockeying between various political factions to see who would succeed him, and the deleterious effects of the Cultural Revolution on China’s educational, research and development, social, and economic areas. 

In the current anti-drug campaign, the Communist leadership is reusing the techniques of mass campaigning, despite the fact that old techniques seem to have lost legitimacy after the Cultural Revolution

In addition to the deleterious effects of the Cultural Revolution which discredited mass campaigns as a whole by the Chinese Communist leadership, there is also another critical factor to consider. 

This factor is how many of the themes used in past anti-opium/anti-drug campaigns, especially those relating to anti-colonialism which were deeply resonant with their grandparents and great-grandparents during the late ‘40s and ‘50s are no longer as resonant to those who are around my age or the younger Chinese millennials.  Especially in the case of the latter group, most of their memories was spent during a period Mainland China was rapidly gaining economic and hence, international political clout and where the idea of “becoming rich is good” became the main mantra in practice and they view China as an ascending potential superpower. 

This factor, combined with the widespread distrust and cynicism of government led mass campaigns because of the Cultural Revolution means most Chinese, especially the younger generation are more inclined to tune them out as much as they can so they can continue to do whatever they can to become the next Chinese millionaire/billionaire and die with the most possible toys.