three things i hate about you...

#3- man i’d kill for some equality…

Immigration will certainly be one of the major issues in the upcoming presidential election.  There’s a lot of static coming from both sides and the debate’s starting to make about as much sense as a Charlie Kaufman movie sober.  The Republican Party is looking to make immigration the ‘gay marriage’ of ’08 and hopes to woo (terrify) the party’s conserva-tarded base and independent [read: lazy] voters with it.  After all, who ISN’T afraid that their lawnmower/maid/strawberry salesman is trying to bring America to its knees one avocado at a time?  The Republicans have taken a hard-line stance and have suggested everything from closing our borders to anyone who doesn’t require SPF to aggressively rounding up the illegal immigrants already here and deporting them (but keeping the avocados).  The Democrats, for their part, have coyly been riding the fence (you know, the one the Republicans want to build) and show no signs of getting down anytime soon.

A country’s right to keep its borders secure is a basic tenet of sovereignty (unless you have resources we need) and so there’s nothing wrong with reforming the current immigration policy of the US to make it more effective and expeditious than the current system of “Hey Jed, is that a log or a Mexican in the river? Hell if I know, shoot at it and see if it freaks out.” (insert King of the Hill voice)  However, the current demonization of Latino immigrants is disturbing- not only because of its racist overtones but because of the distracting effect it has on the average (dimwitted) electorate who are about as hard to mislead as fish to shiny objects.  And this is the larger picture.

Throughout history, those in power have sought to take the anger/frustration/gun licenses of their struggling subjects and focus them on easy to attack and demonize minority groups.  The Black Death is killing 2 out of 3 Europeans?  Don’t blame the kings or popes- it’s the Jews.  Germany is brought to its knees by a WWI loss?  Don’t blame the inept generals or government officials that started it- it’s the Jews (again).  And so, the middle class in America is suffocating under an enormous and growing mountain of debt, poverty is on the rise, inflation is outpacing wages, etc. Don’t blame the CEO’s (who’s have your money) or politicians (who didn’t require the big corporations to raise your wages) or big business (who moved their factories to Indonesia because damn! those kids have fast fingers AND they’ll work for a penny a day).  This is the fundamental disconnect. 

The people with the power and money in this world determine, largely, what happens in it.  Chances are that if something in your life is fucked up, it’s because it somehow serves the interests of the people on top.  But time and time again, those on top are able to convince us poor saps to direct our anger down the ladder- at the people with even less power than us- making them the culprits we’ve been looking for.  What is happening with the Latinos now is the same thing that happened to the Irish, the Jews, and the African Americans and IS happening to the gays, the Muslims and on and on.  When someone in power tries to tell you who to blame or who to be scared of it’s nearly always a ploy to keep you from channeling your rage towards them, which is precisely where it should be.  Be a patriot- question authority.