Dave Pollard's environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays. In search of a better way to live and make a living, and a better understanding of how the world really works.
One
of the things that astonished me about last summer's new immigrant
marches in American streets was the ferocious xenophobia that they
stirred among Americans. Survey after survey showed that, far from
rousing public sentiment to the plight of illegal aliens and the
struggles of new Americans to settle in the Land of Opportunity, these
shows of Latin-American solidarity roused fear and revulsion among a
wide swath of Americans who generally agree on little: racists, the
unemployed and under-employed, crime-obsessed conservatives, white
xenophobic homeowners who equate immigration with lower property
values, libertarians who equate immigration with more demands on public
health and education systems they would like to see dismantled, and
even environmentalists who equate immigration with more suburban
sprawl, pollution, population pressure on wilderness lands, and
resource depletion.
So it's not surprising that Republicans
recognize this xenophobia as an opportunity to get this wide swath out
to the polls to support anti-immigration candidates (who are
overwhelmingly Republican) and are beginning to whip up hysterical
anti-immigrant furor as part if the 2006 fall election campaign
strategy. This is a no-brainer for them: They desperately need an issue
to detract from the Bush administration's colossal bungling of every
facet of political and economic policy they have touched, and to
prevent a rout in the polls this fall as support for Bush and his
neocon extremism plummets.
This is an issue they can't lose by
exploiting. By creating a false hysteria about immigrants, they need
present no evidence -- they just capitalize on popular misconceptions
by repeating them as if they were facts on talk radio and in campaign
ads. These misconceptions include:
That immigration is so vast that whites will soon be a minority in their own land
That immigrants are likely to be, or to become, criminals (or terrorists)
That immigrants are more likely than other Americans to be ill and burden the health system
That immigrants take skilled, well-paying jobs from lifelong Americans
That immigrants do not, or cannot afford to, maintain their homes properly (and hence their presence lowers property values)
That immigrants are lazy, dishonest, cliquish, and disrespectful of American 'values'
That
immigrants, because of their lack of English language skills, burden
the education system and lessen the ability of the system to deal with
other education needs
As with all exploitable issues, there are a few facts about immigration that are not misconceptions, which can be conveniently blended into the anti-immigrant rhetoric when it veers too close to outright racism:
That
immigrants often work for less than the minimum wage, accept
intolerable work conditions, and are unlikely to complain about
employment even when it is abusive or illegal, which makes them almost
ideal employees to unethical employers
That immigrants
constitute most of the net increase in US population and tend, at least
for a generation or two, to have larger families than lifelong
Americans, and hence contribute disproportionately to the increased
demand for land, housing and other resources that makes
'sustainability' impossible to achieve
The other facet of the
current US immigration issue that is so convenient to anti-immigrant
forces is that the majority of Latin-American immigrants (by far the
largest group of immigrants) describe themselves racially as 'white'.
So while much of the anti-immigrant furor is overtly or covertly racist
(if most of the illegal US immigration was white English-speakers, it
probably wouldn't even be an issue), the fact that most immigrants are
self-described 'whites' allows racists to plausibly shrug off the
accusation. But racism is "discrimination or prejudice against a
defined ethnic group", and that is precisely what Republicans are
hoping to stir up and tap into in this year's and 2008's elections.
Anti-immigrant,
racist hysteria is a common, and successful, tactic of political
extremists in times of political and economic turmoil. It was used by
the Nazis to great effect, and was also used by governments in most of
the affluent nations of the world during the 1930s when that affluence
suddenly disappeared and everyone was looking for a scapegoat. When
the population is deeply unhappy, as is the case now in the US, there
is a natural preference to blame the misfortune that has given rise to
that unhappiness on 'outsiders' rather than accepting that the blame
lies with deep flaws in the systems and values on which the very social
fabric of the country is founded.
"If you're a Republican
Party that's fairing poorly, sometimes you have to win ugly," Robert
Dion, a local political scientist at the University of Evansville,
Indiana, recently told PBS's NOW investigative reporting program, "and in this case, it's stirring up fears about the menace posed by immigrants."
Democrats
are helpless to defend against such a Republican ploy, because the
fears that xenophobic attacks exploit are shared by many moderates and
liberals, notably the two fears bulleted above that are justifiable. A well-intentioned attempt to make low immigration a policy plank of the US Sierra Club
ended up being misrepresented and endorsed by xenophobic groups and
almost destroyed the organization in the process. The whole issue of
immigration leaves environmentalists, who tend to be social
progressives, on the horns of a dilemma, and, as I have argued before,
the only rational answer (which is: no restrictions on immigration
whatsoever) is deeply troubling, divisive and massively difficult to
defend. It's a quagmire that could easily be the Democrats' undoing.
And for that reason, it will, I predict, become the issue in the 2008 US elections, and Republicans will be testing the waters this fall to see how far they can push it. And they will find there is no limit to how far they can push it.
It's their trump card, and as they become more and more desperate to
salvage control of at least one body of Congress this fall, they will
choose to push it to the limit. Few will admit that xenophobia is the
issue that gets them to the polls this fall (just as few admitted in
2004 that homophobia got them to the polls that year) -- but if there
is a significant spike in turnout this fall, look for a strong
xenophobic, racist undercurrent in the results -- and a lot of
disappointed Democrats.
When politics feeds on hate and
negativity, as it does increasingly in these troubled times, everyone
loses, especially the voices of reason and moderation, and the truth.
Fall colours out our bedroom window Friday morning.
A day late and discouragingly full of bad political and economic news, but here's this week's line-up.
Politics & Economics
Rushkoff and the Crisis of Confidence:
Cultural commentator Doug Rushkoff says his confidence in the veracity
of the media and of politicians of all stripes has fallen so far that
he no longer believes anything he reads or hears, and now finds what were once conspiracy theories entirely plausible.
Giving Up on Iraq and Afghanistan: A report from rural Iraq
makes it clear that civil war has engulfed both countries outside their
capitals, warlords, militias and anarchy prevail in most areas, and
that continued foreign military presence is futile, provocative and
dangerous. Yet still we are not willing to admit we have utterly
botched the job. If peace was ever winnable, it is not now.
In the US, The Two-Income Trap Includes Living Without Health Insurance:
A new study demolishes the myth that those without health insurance are
mostly single parents and the unemployed. Most, in fact, are increasingly struggling two-income families. The two-income trap gets even tighter.
...and Health Care Gets Harder to Find: Meanwhile, as the cost of US health insurance all by itself soars above the minimum wage,
fewer companies can afford to offer it. Those of us in countries with
universal coverage can only shake our heads and wonder what it will
take for the US to wake up.
Protest the US Oil Corpocracy: Buy Citgo:
If you don't want your money to go to Texas oil barons (and hence into
Republican election coffers), or to Saudi sheiks, the alternative is to
buy Citgo gas, as that company is owned by the government of Venezuela, run (for now) by Bush's sworn enemy and assassination target Hugo Chavez.
Ted Turner Wants Struggling Nations to Grow Our Fuel: In a controversial turn, media magnate and philanthropist Ted Turner is urging struggling nations to switch from growing food
(which is exported at bargain basement prices to compete with massively
subsidized North American and European crops and repay foreign loans,
while locals go hungry) to growing biofuels (where prices are
healthier). I'm not sure I agree, but his argument is worth discussing.
Democrats Capitulate on Bush's Torture Bill:
In a move that will inevitably come back to haunt them, and which shows
the cowardice and hypocrisy of the Democratic Party (and the desperate
need in the US for a truly progressive third party), many US Democratic members of congress endorsed
Bush's outrageous right-to-torture, right-to-imprison-indefinitely
(without charges) bill, which violates the spirit of the Geneva
Convention and eliminates the right of Habeas Corpus. Tragic and
shameful.
Visualizing How American Democracy & Capitalism Works:
Richard Saul Wurman's Understanding USA site provides wonderful
visualizations of important data and analysis of the US political and
economic systems. Here's a sample that shows how corporatist lobbying subverts the democratic process. Thanks to Jon Clement for the link.
The End of Canadian Sovereignty: Geoff Olson at Common Ground laments the accelerating loss of Canadian sovereignty
-- social, political and economic -- under the deliberate policies of
Harper's right-wing extremist minority government. Our sovereignty has
long been an illusion -- we own a minority of our private land,
resources and large corporations -- but we meekly accede to laws like
NAFTA that further erode any control we have over our own destiny.
Thanks to David Parkinson for the link.
Energy & Environment
A New Electric Car Battery Promises 5-Minute Charges at 20% the Cost of Gasoline: Business 2.0 reports on the promise of the EEStor chemical-free battery technology. Sounds too good to be true. Thanks to Doug Alder for the link.
Behind the Spinach E Coli Outbreak: WorldChanging analyzes the underlying problem behind the e coli outbreak in US spinach -- the lack of transparency in where their food comes from.
That lack of transparency permits horrific animal cruelty,
mega-pollution of air, water, soil and food, and political corruption
to continue on a massive scale, invisible to the consumer. One could
argue, of course, that the consumer doesn't want to know. Thanks to
David Parkinson for the link, and the one that follows.
Scenario for a Flu Pandemic: An amazing visualization of how the next global flu pandemic
could unfold, from Robert Horn. Key message: It's not the first wave
that will do the most damage, it's the second and third, when we think
we've got it beat and we're still reeling from the first wave. Thanks
to Jay Cross for the link.
Thought For the Week: This week's thought needs to come from you. Building on the principles of dealing with complexity by canvassing for and evaluating stories of Most Significant Change, Zahmoo blog is asking for stories that answer the question: What is the most significant change in the blogosphere since you started blogging? I'm saving my answer until more people weigh in.
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
One
of the things that astonished me about last summer's new immigrant
marches in American streets was the ferocious xenophobia that they
stirred among Americans. Survey after survey showed that, far from
rousing public sentiment to the plight of illegal aliens and the
struggles of new Americans to settle in the Land of Opportunity, these
shows of Latin-American solidarity roused fear and revulsion among a
wide swath of Americans who generally agree on little: racists, the
unemployed and under-employed, crime-obsessed conservatives, white
xenophobic homeowners who equate immigration with lower property
values, libertarians who equate immigration with more demands on public
health and education systems they would like to see dismantled, and
even environmentalists who equate immigration with more suburban
sprawl, pollution, population pressure on wilderness lands, and
resource depletion.
