Amnesty. The right wing framed you again

[sandnsea]

If you think the immigration issue is amnesty, then you've let the right wing win again.

No lawmaker ever proposed a blanket amnesty. McCain-Kennedy proposed a very stringent path to citizenship.

The Sensenbrenner bill proposed felonies and fences. That is what the immigration protests are about.

Bush would really prefer a revolving door labor trade, where workers easily get a document, come and work, and then get tossed to the side when we've used them up. With an endless supply ready to take their place. That is "guest worker" and the closest thing to amnesty that is being proposed.

Some of you say they should learn English. McCain-Kennedy requires that.

Some of you say they shouldn't get priority over the people who applied legally. They aren't, McCain-Kennedy sends them to the end of the line.

Some of you say you want business held accountable. McCain-Kennedy turns enforcement over to the Dept of Labor and adds more penalties. We can all be more vigilant in turning in illegal employers. And why doesn't anybody have a "catchy" name for those rat bastards?

Some of you say American workers are being cheated and ignored. Well wouldn't an entire work force fighting for good wages and benefits help American workers, in the end? Immigrants with a stake in this country, and the security of not being deported or convicted as felons, would be more inclined to stand with American workers for a better standard of living. Don't you think?

Some of us tried to tell you that Lou Dobbs is pretty good at identifying labor problems. But he's got the flat WRONG solutions and ends up being a right wing shill because of it. If you're basing your opinions on what he's saying, then that would be why you're misinformed and being led down the wrong path. He's playing the politics of worker division, which the right is well known for.

Stop being duped. Workers stand together, or go down together. That or join the 98% of workers around the world who live in huts.

[ComerPerro]

1. That is true. The right wing has been very careful to always refer

to McCain-Kennedy as "amnesty"

[Richard Steele]

2. We were warned MONTHS ago that repubs were gonna do this...

That they were going to whip up a phoney 'immigration crisis'
as their '06 election platform.

And yet, even with months of warning, many of us
just walked right into their hands.

As another DUer just said, "I got 99 problems and IMMIGRATION ain't one of 'em".
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1084466

We aren't just 'being played', we are working hard to be played!

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. It's supply and demand

Employers gets us cheaply because we're not worth much. We're not worth much because there are a lot of surplus workers here. It's as simple as that. My primary economic asset is the value of my labor, and as long as it's available in surplus, my value is reduced. "Standing together" doesn't mean shit. The cards are stacked against american labor, and even Democrats can't seem to agree that representing their interests trumps squishy concepts of universal human rights.

Everyone has a basic human right to my job, I guess.

The natives working in trades in which immigration has most effect have lost 12% of their income. It's like a gas-price hike which never stops.

http://cis.org/articles/1998/wagestudy/wages.pdf

Immigration, legal and illegal, should stop and not resume until the workforce is growing as fast as the native-born population.

[sandnsea]

4. We are 5% of the global population

If you think workers are going to get their fair share relying on "supply and demand", you're delusional. We're only going to get our fair share by calling them out on bullshit "supply side" labor exploitation and DEMAND our share of the profits for the products workers make. Workers anywhere. We will never be able to compete when 30% of the world's population is currently living on less than a dollar a day.

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. Not "delusional" but "good at math".

The GDP per capita worldwide is about $4500.

There's your level playing field. The good news is that in a globalized workforce the poorest of the poor will be able to afford beans to go with their rice. The bad news is that that's all you'll be able to afford, too.

Absent any support from workers in this country to protect ourselves, the supply of labor becomes essentially limitless. To say that it's unrealistic to expect someone making $4 a day to participate in a struggle to establish a $100/day lower limit as a living wage, when the short term effect is to lose the $4 with which he eats, is to strain the definition of understatement.

[sandnsea]

6. Which is why workers must stand together

The 300,000 people who are the major holders in corporations are sucking out every last resource of these countries. They don't have an opportunity to build their own businesses and economies, they're completely dependent on US multi-nationals for less then scraps. That is the cause of the vast majority of labor and global poverty problems. You cannot have 300,000 people owning all the resources in the world and expect the people to maintain a standard of living. Illegal immigration is a symptom of this problem, as is outsourcing and insourcing. We either start breaking this up and start supporting bottom up economies, local entrepreneurship to create good local jobs, or we are all going to be in huts.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. American workers must stand together.

If we stand with all the workers in the world, we'll be standing at the corporate-owned village well surrounded by our mud huts.

The pie isn't limitless in size. It's big enough for $4500 per person. A share of that will go to pay for capital, and a share of that will go to pay for society.

Capitalists own the bulk of the assets, but US workers currently get disproportionate reward for their labor. You probably consider it selfish, but I would think as carefully before giving that primary asset away as I would my car.

[sandnsea]

9. The pie grows

As economies in other parts of the world grows, the pie grows. Whether workers around the world get their share of the pie depends on how well we stand together to get it. New technologies will create new economies, new lifestyles. It's been going on forever.

What's happening in this country now is people tripping over a thousand dollars to keep somebody else from picking up a dime. It's greedy, selfish and stupid.

[PsN2Wind]

8. Kennedy-McCain does not send illegals to the "end of the line"

because the end of the line is beyond our borders.

[Cleita]

10. Good post.

:thumbsup:

Criminalizing a segment of the population who want to work for a better life tells me our civilization is in decline if we go down that road.

[jerry611]

11. The biggest insult is against LEGAL immigrants

I know legal immigrants that are ticked off about this issue. They think that since they went through the process of becoming a citizen, that it is only fair that the people that came here illegally should be sent to the back of the line and go through the process as well.

Just because the line is long and it takes forever to move doesn't give you a right to cut in line. And it certainly doesn't give you the right to break the law.

[sandnsea]

12. H1B Visas get bashed too

The same people bitching about illegal immigration pop up to close the borders when the issue is H1B's and outsourcing too. Caring about the legal immigrants is a rationalization now, only to be tossed aside when the issue changes.

Legal, illegal, insourced, outsourced, it's all the same thing. There are way too many people in the world for us to think we're going to be able to keep unskilled wages up by controlling our borders. We aren't even going to be able to keep skilled wages up, as the IT industry knows. We're going to have to demand international regulations that protect our environment and create a good standard of living for everybody.

The people who don't get this and choose to point their fingers at victims of corporatism, just like US workers are, are actually pushing us down the path to poverty.