I’m conflicted on the issue of immigration reform, but not layoffs.
By: Hank Kalet
I’ve avoided writing about the various immigration reforms being floated, mostly because I’m a bit unsure exactly how to tackle a rather sticky issue.
My general view is that punitive immigration rules are counterproductive, that relatively open borders makes the most sense and that much of the mania surrounding this issue has more to do with xenophobia than anything else.
There are several arguments:
1. Security demands tighter borders an argument that fails on its face. The 9-11 hijackers didn’t slide in through a porous Mexican border.
2. Economic undocumented immigrants are a drain on resources, i.e., schools, medical facilities, etc., costing all of us taxes, etc. This is more difficult. Studies have both proven and disproved and there is some evidence that shows that undocumenteds bring in enough in taxes to cover it.
3. Economic, part 2 Americans won’t do the jobs being done by immigrants. As Robert Scheer says, this may be right. Or it might not. Right now, we have no way of knowing.
4. Economic, part 3 illegal immigration expands the pool of low-wage workers allowing corporate America to suppress wages further, while propping up a corrupt Mexican oligarchy. This maybe the best of the strict-controls arguments, though I think it smacks of the same kinds of justifications as the "Americans won’t do it" line. Thom Hartmann offers this argument (with a bit of questionable history) here.
As I said, I am conflicted.
I’ve posted what follows to the Voices of Reason blog but though it deserved a mention here:
A new book by Louis Uchitelle appears to confirm what most of us have known for a long time: Coprorate layoffs or downsizing, to be more business-friendly have wide-reaching consequences. There is the effect on the worker, no small thing, but there are other effects, as well.
Here is a paraphrase of some of Uchitelle’s arguments, from a review in today’s Times:
"The layoff, Mr. Uchitelle argues, has transformed the nation. At least 30 million full-time American employees have gotten pink slips since the Labor Department belatedly started to count them in 1984. But add in the early retirees, the ‘quits’ who saw the layoffs coming, and the number is much higher a whole ghost nation trekking into what for most will be lower-wage work. This is the Dust Bowl in our Golden Bowl, and to Mr. Uchitelle, layoffs in one way are worse than the unemployment of the 1930’s. At least then, most of the jobless came back to better-paid, more secure jobs. Those laid off in our time almost never will."
And so, we (meaning Voices of Reason) humbly move forward with Voices of Reason in the hopes that some of the distress this corporate behavior creates on the economy and on those being pushed to the margins.
Found this on Eric Alterman’s generally useful, though sometimes petulant, blog Altercation. Worth checking out, especially if you’re one of those who believe liberals like me are in charge of this business.
Anyway, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has a report on the conservative punditocracy that could have come right off The Daily Show.
Here’s a taste, from Alterman:
"The only people who think this wasn’t a victory are Upper Westside liberals, and a few people here in Washington." (Charles Krauthammer, Inside Washington, WUSA-TV, 4/19/03)
"We’re all neo-cons now." (MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)
"The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war." (Fox News Channel’s Fred Barnes, 4/10/03)
"It was reminiscent, I think, of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And just sort of that pure emotional expression, not choreographed, not stage-managed, the way so many things these days seem to be. Really breathtaking." (Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly, appearing on Fox News Channel on 4/9/03, discussing the pulling down of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad, an event later revealed to have been a U.S. military PSYOPS operationLos Angeles Times, 7/3/04)
"We’re proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who’s physical, who’s not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who’s president. Women like a guy who’s president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It’s simple. We’re not like the Brits." (MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, 5/1/03)
"He looked like an alternatively commander-in-chief, rock star, movie star, and one of the guys." (CNN’s Lou Dobbs, on Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech, 5/1/03)
"Why don’t the damn Democrats give the president his day? He won today. He did well today." (MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)
"What’s he going to talk about a year from now, the fact that the war went too well and it’s over? I mean, don’t these things sort of lose theirIsn’t there a fresh date on some of these debate points?" (MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, speaking about Howard Dean4/9/03)
"Now that the war in Iraq is all but over, should the people in Hollywood who opposed the president admit they were wrong?" (Fox News Channel’s Alan Colmes, 4/25/03)
"I doubt that the journalists at the New York Times and NPR or at ABC or at CNN are going to ever admit just how wrong their negative pronouncements were over the past four weeks." (MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, 4/9/03)
"I’m waiting to hear the words ‘I was wrong’ from some of the world’s most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types…. I just wonder, who’s going to be the first elitist to show the character to say: ‘Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong’? Maybe the White House will get an apology, first, from the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd. Now, Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war…. "Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief U.N. weapons inspector who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein? Well, Mr. Ritter actually told a French radio network that quote, ‘The United States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between its legs, defeated.’ Sorry, Scott. I think you’ve been chasing the wrong tail, again.
"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don’t call them ‘elitists’ for nothing." (MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, 4/10/03)
"This has been a tough war for commentators on the American left. To hope for defeat meant cheering for Saddam Hussein. To hope for victory meant cheering for President Bush. The toppling of Mr. Hussein, or at least a statue of him, has made their arguments even harder to defend. Liberal writers for ideologically driven magazines like The Nation and for less overtly political ones like The New Yorker did not predict a defeat, but the terrible consequences many warned of have not happened. Now liberal commentators must address the victory at hand and confront an ascendant conservative juggernaut that asserts United States might can set the world right." (New York Times reporter David Carr, 4/16/03)
"Well, the hot story of the week is victory…. The Tommy Franks-Don Rumsfeld battle plan, war plan, worked brilliantly, a three-week war with mercifully few American deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths…. There is a lot of work yet to do, but all the naysayers have been humiliated so far…. The final word on this is, hooray." (Fox News Channel’s Morton Kondracke, 4/12/03)
"Some journalists, in my judgment, just can’t stand success, especially a few liberal columnists and newspapers and a few Arab reporters." (CNN’s Lou Dobbs, 4/14/03)
"This will be no war there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention…. The president will give an order. [The attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling…. It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it on." (Christopher Hitchens, in a 1/28/03 debate cited in the Observer, 3/30/03)
"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?" (Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, 1/29/03)
"It won’t take weeks. You know that, professor. Our military machine will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there’s no question that it will." (Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, 2/10/03)