|
Transcript #168-1 Busting More Right-Wing Lies About The Arizona
Immigration Statute Partially hyperlinked to sources.
For all sources, see the data
resources page. Your sources for this segment
include: the Associated Press, msnbc.com, the New York Times, newsmax.com,
mediamatters.org, and reuters.com. Last
podcast
we discussed the new Arizona immigration law, largely in the context of nearly a
half century of GOP right-wing racism. You heard about the Southern Strategy,
vote caging, and bigoted, ugly
comments and behavior by prominent present and past right-wingers such as Ronald
Reagan and Rush Limbaugh. In kind of a grab bag, I want to
expand on a point or two, and bring up a few new issues.
To start off with, defenders of the
Arizona statute never tire of repeating that immigration status can only be
checked when an otherwise lawful stop is made.
This is really
no restriction at all: David Salgado, a Phoenix
police office…said the fact that officers can check immigration status only
after a stop for another reason is essentially meaningless because “you drive
two or three blocks down the street I will find something to pull you over for
— going over the double line, forgetting to signal for a lane change, it’s
not hard.” As an Arizona judge of Hispanic
origin put it, “This has been lifelong, these stops." Lawsuits in Arizona have been
successful in the past against just such de facto racial profiling. Next: last time we pointed out while
the right was screaming about all the crime by immigrants, that was factually
just plain wrong. Now even more data
on this has been gathered
by the Associated Press. You can tell any right-winger who
starts going on and on about crime, that statistically, the US-Mexico border is
one of the safest parts of the country, and getting safer. Which four big cities in America have
the lowest rates of violent crime? All
in border states: San Diego, Phoenix --- Phoenix -- El Paso and Austin. In 2009, violent crime in all of
Arizona declined. What is a legitimate concern, which
Democratic Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico has brought up, is the
possibility of the horrific drug violence in Mexico spilling over the border.
In the border areas that are the exception to the decreased violence
trend, the violence is indeed from drug smuggling, not people smuggling.
So, as any rational person would understand -- does that exclude all
right-wingers? at least most of them
-- as any rational person would understand, solving the drug violence problem
has nothing to do with stopping and deporting your gardener or the dishwasher
who works in your restaurant, because they rolled through a stop sign. Ok, here's a biggie:
not only will the Arizona law not reduce crime, as the right-wing would
have you believe, but in the opinion of those who should
know, it will lead to an increase
in crime. Who are those who should know?
The Chiefs of Police from several cities, including those in Arizona. The reason is, that undocumented
workers will not report crimes, for fear of being deported.
And, scarce police resources will be diverted from fighting crimes
against people and property, to performing immigration enforcement.
The Los Angeles police chief Charlie
Beck point blank said: We will be unable to do
our jobs. Laws like this will actually increase crime, not decrease crime. In fact, there are reports from the
field in Arizona that already, even before the law has taken effect, crimes like
robbery and domestic violence are going
unreported by victims. Just think about it -- this law
creates a class of defenseless victims. If
you were a criminal, wouldn't you prefer to target those whom you know will be
afraid to report your criminal action to the police?
This could get very ugly. As usual, in accordance with one of
Blast The Right's mantras, right-wing policies increase human misery, suffering,
pain and death. Here's a wrinkle.
While police chiefs don't like the law, many Arizona organizations which
represent rank-and-file police offers, do
support
the statute. I asked listeners in my monthly email
to suggest reasons why. Dale from North Carolina nailed it, I
think: [O]ne must consider the
different tasks and goals. Cops on the beat are more short term, day to day,
focused on apprehension and punishment. Therefore they see the law as a tool to
allow them to make arrests. The top management sees a bigger picture and takes a
longer term view because they are focused on crime statistics. They…are
considering…the side effects on the whole population. Kathie from Montana echoed what Dale
wrote, and also suggested this psychological
factor : Most [police officers]
that I know...like things to be black and white -- no gray areas…The people
they encounter on a daily basis in their work are either "good" or
"bad". Undocumented persons have committed a "crime"
and are therefore "bad"…Anything that gives them additional tools to
get rid of the "bad" people…is just fine by them. Well, Tea Party darling Ron Paul
recently said
he thought restaurant owners and other businesses should be allowed to refuse
service to African-Americans and other minorities.
No racism? How pathetic.
Even William F. Buckley admitted
before he died that the federal Civil Rights Act had been a necessary federal
intervention. Beyond that, there's hidden racism,
that has very harmful economic and other impacts. For example, one study showed
that all other things being equal, applicants with
black-sounding names received 50 percent fewer callbacks than those with
white-sounding names. Many black job applicants avoid
specifying race on an application, or use initials or nicknames to hide
black-sounding names. And how about this:
a recent study showed that better jobs are often not publicly posted, but
filled through word-of-mouth and informal networks.
Minorities received far fewer of these types of job leads. Racism also exists in the criminal
justice system, adversely
affecting minority criminal defendants.
A recent study found that African-Americans are still routinely excluded
from southern juries, thus denying black defendants a jury of their peers.
Just like during the days of
Jim Crow. You may well be aware of other
examples of present-day racism Here's a point I want to clarify:
if someone snuck across the border last week, I have no problem finding
and deporting that person. Maybe the
Arizona law will randomly find a few such people. But what I'm concerned about, and
opponents of the law are worried about, is the legislation's effect on
law-abiding residents of 10, 20 years or more.
You and I know, and even the right knows, that eventually the 12 million
undocumented immigrants in this country will be offered a path to legality, if
not outright citizenship. So does it make sense to arrest and
deport a resident of 20 years who rolled through a stop sign, when in the not
too distant future this person will be offered a path to legal status? It just seems mean-spirited at best,
and it has nothing to do with catching drug smugglers and the like. Remember, this is critical: police
officers already
have the power to check the immigration status of those suspected of a crime, so
when they catch a drug smuggler, they already have the power to deport that
person if he or she is here illegally. On a lighter note, I was amused by
how President Obama and Arizona Governor, Republican Jan Brewer had a make
nice-nice meeting in the Oval Office. It
was apparently very cordial, and Gov. Brewer came out expressing hope for a
"much better dialogue between the government and Arizona." Photo-ops don't cut it with me. What I'm really impressed by, is the
new generation of Hispanic student activists who are putting
it all on the line to fight for legal status.
The federal DREAM Act would provide a
path to citizenship to undocumented students through college enrollment or
military service. Illinois Democrat
Dick Durban and Indiana Republican Richard Lugar are sponsors. The student activists are studying
the Civil Rights era, training in non-violent civil disobedience, and conducting
sit-ins and class walk-outs in protest. They publicly announce their
undocumented status, and thus risk being deported.
Putting it all on the line. This really moved me:
on a study trip to the U.S. South, some of the student activists met a
member of the Little Rock Nine. One
of the students related: I went up to her…and
told her my story and tried not to cry. She
listened. Then, she hugged me. If the students can have hope, so can
all progressives. Not least because,
right-wingers and their corporate media mouthpieces are only telling you and me
half the story from poll results on this issue. Sure, the American public supports
the Arizona law. That's all you hear
about. But the polls also show that
at least as large percentages of the public, continue to support as well, a path
to legal status for undocumented immigrants, either citizenship or a permanent
green card situation. So if the spirit moves you, do go out
and advocate for the DREAM Act and for comprehensive immigration reform.
Both morality, and public opinion, are on your side. Transcript #168-2 The Struggle Continues For Economic Justice Partially hyperlinked to sources.
For all sources, see the data
resources page. Your sources for this segment
include: the New York Times, commondreams.org, reuters.com, the website of the
group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, In These Times, and taxfoundation.org. We'll start off by discussing two
efforts in New York to achieve some economic justice.
The battle continues on, often beneath the radar.
As you'll see, there's a racial angle not just in the Arizona immigration
law issue, but here as well. First up:
In New York City, many development projects like shopping malls receive
government subsidies. Legislation
before the City Council would set
wages for retail
workers and others at these completed projects at a minimum of $10 an hour,
with health benefits. Sounds good to me, how about you? But the right is raising holy hell
about this. They argue that most
retail workers are part-time teenagers.
Wrong. The vast majority are
older, work full-time, and support families. The right also argues-- this is their
all-purpose argument -- that the bill would stifle development, it makes things
too expensive. Baloney.
Studies show businesses adjust and everyone does fine. Some progressive arguments in favor
of this type of statute: Projects receiving public benefits
should benefit the public. Higher
wages mean the government subsidy is being shared with the community.
On the other hand, paying sub-poverty-level wages means workers will get
public assistance, and taxpayers will foot the bill. Frankly, I just think it's absurd
that right-wingers claim that the richest country in the world can't afford to
pay workers enough so they don't starve. There's a racial angle: the retail
work force is mostly made up of people of color, many of them immigrants.
And get this: $10 an hour isn't even
a living wage. As a single adult,
you'd need to
make nearly $12 an hour in New York City to barely get by.
A family of four would need $30 hour.
So how pathetic is this entire discussion of should we mandate pay of $10
an hour. About 140 cities have similar laws.
Let's hope this minimal-type measure passes. The second bill, in the New York
State legislature, would apply to 200,000 nannies, housekeepers, and other
domestic workers. It would
grant
them
the rights
to overtime pay and collective bargaining, as well as guaranteed vacation days,
paid holidays and sick days. This bill would be the first of its
type in the nation, and would apply to undocumented workers. Right-wingers in the New York GOP
have blocked the bill for six years, because -- surprise, surprise -- it would
supposedly be too costly for employers, and, again no surprise, because it
affords the workplace protections to undocumented workers. Here's an interesting racial angle,
beyond the fact that most of these domestic workers are members of minority
groups. Do you know why these workers aren't
already enjoying these protections? Because when labor legislation was
passed during the New Deal under FDR, domestic workers and farm workers were
deliberately excluded.
This was to appease racist right-wing southern Dixiecrats, because most
of these workers were then African-American. As one supporter of the present-day
domestic workers bill lamented: The same prejudices that
applied to them in 1935 have continued to apply to them both in federal law and
state laws. This has to change. Look for similar efforts to aid
domestic workers in California and Colorado.
And a victory now in New York would
be sorely needed, since there have been defeats on related fronts.
For example, home health care aides were thwarted in their efforts to
gain minimum wage and overtime protections. Don't you think it's a shame that
it's so hard for simple morality to take effect? Let's expand the frame, and move from
specific bills, to some national-level stats. The wealth
gap between blacks
and whites has long been recognized. A
lot of that is due to the fact that African-American GI's were deliberately
excluded from the home ownership benefits of the GI Bill after World War II.
See podcast 116
on that. This racial gap widened
during the Bush presidency. What's new is, a recent study has
shown that not only is there a racial gap, but a terrible gender gap that
exacerbates it. And it exists even
after factoring out the single mother factor. And of course, who are these minority
women, other than the very health care aides, domestic workers and retail
workers we've been speaking of. You know, things aren't getting any
better. In April of last year I
saved an article
about how 1 in 10 Americans were on food stamps.
By November, there was another article
about how 1 in 8 Americans were on food stamps. One in 4 kids!
Half of all Americans have received food stamps by the time they turn 20. I'd be remiss not to repeat here some
overall stats that are almost unbelievable: Since 1980, the richest 1% of
Americans have nearly tripled their share of the national income pie.
They went from about 8
½% when Reagan took office, to 23
½ in 2007. While those at the bottom have, as
one writer put
it, "barely moved an inch." What about wealth?
The 400 richest
American families in 2006 had as much wealth, as the entire bottom half of
the nation. So as you can imagine, the solution
to this rampant economic injustice has to go beyond just raising the wages of
low income workers. It has to
involve bringing back the far more progressive tax code we had for several
decades, until Ronald Reagan got his hands on it. If you took the richest point one
percent of Americans -- the richest 1 out of a thousand Americans -- and taxed
them at 1960 rates, that would produce an additional $281
billion a year in revenue. Am I just offering pipe dreams here? Well, just like with the immigration
issue, where the vast majority of the public still supports a path to
legalization for the 12 million undocumented immigrants, the public supports
progressive economic measures as well. As far as raising the pay of
full-time workers living in poverty, Americans were asked
if they agreed with the following: As a country, we should
make sure that people who work full-time should be able to earn enough to keep
their families out of poverty. Can you guess how many supported this
bottom-line moral concept? 94%, with 80% agreeing strongly. And as far as raising taxes on the
wealthy, again, progressive thought is mainstream thought. A recent Quinnipiac
poll asked: Do
you think raising income taxes on households making more than $250,000 should or
should not be a main part of any government approach to the deficit? Six out of ten Americans supported
this tax. If you raise the threshold
to $1 million, that percentage increases, and includes a majority of
Republicans. Republicans!
A majority of Republicans
want to raise taxes on those making over $1 million a year. What are we waiting for?! I remember the first time I heard a
right-winger tell me that he didn't think a person who worked full-time, should
earn enough to feed himself. I just
couldn't believe it. How could
anyone think like that in the late 20th century?
Easy, I now realize, if they're trying to restore 12th century feudalism
economics. The key is, the social contract.
We as a society promise, that if you work hard and play by the rules and
keep your nose clean, you'll earn enough to provide a decent life for your
family. We as a society will set the
rules of the game, so this will be the case for you. Right-wingers don't believe in such a
social contract. That's why they go to sometimes
absurd lengths to trash that concept. You reach the goal of the social
contract, through what is called, in shorthand, social justice, sometimes
economic justice. So just listen
to Glenn Beck recently: audio: Glenn Beck I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or
'economic justice' on your church website. If you find it, run as fast as you
can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. …These are the Marxist code words for the new
global order. This is some of the dumbest, most
ignorant talk I've ever heard. Beck
is apparently unaware, that the Catholic Church, the Conservative and Reform
movements of Judaism, the National Association of Evangelicals, all explicitly
call for social justice. So did
Martin Luther King, Jr. Unfortunately, right-wingers want to
dismantle all society-wide efforts to achieve social justice: audio: Rush Limbaugh Roosevelt is dead.
His policies may live on, but we're in the process of doing something
about that as well. Beck and Limbaugh have firmly put
themselves in the category of what I call right-wing pseudo-Christians.
These are people who purport to follow Jesus Christ's teachings, but in
reality, do everything in their power to thwart the implementation of what Jesus
taught. See podcast 160
for a lot more on this. Let me close by linking together, or
more accurately, letting some wise union officials link
together, the two segments of today's show.
Undocumented immigrants are forced to accept low pay and poor job
conditions because they're afraid to stand up for their rights.
That worsens things for the entire workforce.
So unions want these undocumented workers to get legal status.
This is how the union officials put it: Workers don’t depress
wages. Unscrupulous employers do. Your
standard of living is not going to improve, and you’re not going to be in a
stronger position to solve your problems as long as you have all of these people
out there without any rights — without any ability to contribute. Things will
only get worse, not better. You may not want to do
this because you like José Rodríguez, but this affects you. If we can free
them so they can come out of the shadows, we can not only improve their lives,
but all workers’ lives. So a path to legality is not only the
moral thing to advocate, but it would help reduce the vast income and wealth
inequality that threatens to destroy the American social contract and our very
nation. The path to legality is something
progressives support and right-wingers oppose, and in this and all things that
help the average person, it seems, t'will ever be thus. You and I had better dig in for the
long haul.
|