[migrawatch-public] [Fwd: Fwd: Icemen Gone Wild]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fwd: Icemen Gone Wild
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 21:44:44 -0700
From: Ramiro Medrano <Ramiro_Medrano@csumb.edu>
To: saviorself@riseup.net

Message
From: "Roberto Rodriguez" <xcolumn@gmail.com <mailto:xcolumn@gmail.com>>
Subject: Icemen Gone Wild
To: "Roberto X Rodriguez" <xcolumn@gmail.com <mailto:xcolumn@gmail.com>>

COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
RELEASE DATE: APRIL 15, 2007
Bush's Migra: Icemen Gone Wild
By Roberto Rodriguez

Under the president's watch, several thousand Mexican and Central
American migrants have died along the border. Under his watch, massive
Gestapo-style nationwide immigration raids – in which families and
communities are being torn apart – have become emblematic of his
failed immigration policies.

These raids get lots of press, cause widespread terror, but do not
address issues that could easily be resolved via a simple bilateral
agreement; all it requires is making the decision to treat workers as
full human beings with the same rights afforded all other workers.
But apparently, nobody wants this, as Americans seem quite happy
to treat them as subservient, exploitable and expendable workers.

Despite this multi-generational tragedy, the media continues to give
the president a pass, touting him as a moderate voice on immigration.

After being in office for 7 years, the president has actually been
AWOL on this issue, permitting the public to conflate immigration with
terrorism. And actually, the president hasn't permitted this
conflation; he is the one person responsible for it, though admittedly,
Republican representatives and presidential aspirants Duncan Hunter of
California and Tom Tancredo of Colorado, are giving him a run his money.

Yet it is the president who is primarily responsible for fueling this
poisoned environment as he has mastered the politics of fear, blame
and hate. All of this under the guise of the war on terror.

As a result of his politics, Western Civilization is involved in a
Holy Crusade against the Arab and Muslim world. While he initially
labeled it as such, he can no longer call it a crusade; nowadays, it
is simply referred to as the "global war on terror." More accurately,
it is a war against all those forces or regimes that won't go along
with the administration's expansionist dreams. If it were actually
such a war, he would also have to go to war against both, friendly
repressive regimes, and against the right wing militias at home that
have proliferated since the Reagan-Bush era.

What a dilemma. Actually, it's no dilemma at all. The president is not
interested in making moves against allied repressive regimes or in
disarming home-grown terrorists. Instead, he is quite content with
stoking the politics of fear, blame and hate. This permits him to
continue with his notion of permanent war and it also permits the
nation to fear the border.

In the minds of Americans, the U.S./Mexico border is brown. It is
where potential terrorists can infiltrate because it is also where
other brown peoples are waiting to stream in. Terrorists, immigrants,
illegal aliens, drug traffickers: all brown, same thing. Close it
down, put up a wall, deport them all. The American mindset.

And yet, after the huge pro-immigrant nationwide protests last May 1,
and after the nation repudiated the president's agenda in November,
now all is changing.

Not quite. The two million protestors who marched in May were told to
march with U.S. flags because it would send a clear message to the
nation: that these were potential U.S. loyal Americans. The thought
must have horrified even liberals and Democrats alike.

Despite the November elections, the president has stayed the course of
inaction, this while stepping up his nationwide draconian immigration
raids by Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents. The raids
are designed to prod Democrats into accepting his new bracero or
"Guest Worker" program, this while appeasing the anti-immigrant wing
of his party.

The response of the new Democrat majority has been to go to the
extreme right. Similar to the issue of confronting him on the war,
Democrats appear to fear this lame president.

While it is incontrovertible that most people do not want a future
society divided between legal and illegal human beings, due to the
politics of fear, blame and hate, the majority has been prodded into
believing that a little bit of ethnic cleansing (via mass deportation
raids) is not such a bad thing.

The response of the Democrats has been to introduce the STRIVE Act
(Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy) Act
of 2007 (H.R 1645). In effect, it is taken from the president's
playbook: mass deportations and the continued militarization of the
border, along with the introduction of a permanent subservient labor
force… a labor force that is actually precluded from ever being
treated as full human beings (no path to citizenship) and a labor
force that continually has to exit the country and pay exhorbitant fines
to return.

This is what we're striving for?

* For more information on the STRIVE ACT, the deaths along the border,
the current immigration raids or the upcoming May 1 protests, go to
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights at: www.nnirr.org

<http://www.nnirr.org>
or: www.derechoshumanosaz.net <http://www.derechoshumanosaz.net>.

(c) 2007 Column of the Americas

Rodriguez can be reached at: Column of the Americas PO BOX 5093
Madison WI 53705 -- XColumn@gmail.com <mailto:XColumn@gmail.com> or
608-238-3161
It is archived at: hometown.aol.com/xcolumn/myhomepage/

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