Immigration

The politics of the immigration issue are a litttle different, and more interesting, than most. When it began to loom up a few months ago I thought, okay, apparently something's going on here, I guess I better get with it. So I started paying more attention. Two intriguing things struck me: the size of the protesting groups and the lack of press coverage. One morning on Democracy Now, Amy Goodman said that some hundreds of thousands were protesting in Chicago and that nobody seemed to know anything about it. I checked the news and found nothing. I also called my son who lives in Chicago, and he said, yeah, he left work to go home and here were all these people and he hadn't heard a thing about it. And then some 50,000 protested in Denver, and again there was virtually no coverage. Turns out, as we now know, that the protests were a response mostly to the bill in the House of Representatives that would, among other things, make all illegal immigrants felons and make them all go back to Mexico, and spell out an onerous passage to citizenship. And apparently the protesters were both Mexican immigrants and American sympathizers.
It took me awhile to figure out what I thought about it. Yeah, maybe mandatory ID cards for all citizens would be a good idea. And yeah, those hiring illegals should be prosecuted. But as I followed all the proposals, in Congress and out, it finally dawned on me that everything proposed, except maybe the ID cards, would be worse than leaving things alone. Yes, there are some 11 million who have entered this country illegally. This is a very big deal, especially to those who have borne children here (who by law are American citizens) and would thus either be separated from their kids or would have to take the kids back to Mexico with them.
At this point it also occurred to me that this is far from the major issue in this country (think homelessness, think 17 percent of children in Colorado living in poverty; think the Iraq war; think Congressional corruption). So I came up with only a couple possibilities: talk seriously to Vicente Fox about improving conditions in Mexico, and do something ourselves about bringing Mexico up to developed-country standards. Give more foreign aid. Come up with a plan to educate all children in Mexico. Maybe Bill Gates would be an interested donor. Sure, this takes time. But all the better to start NOW. Otherwise nothing will improve ever.
Then the other day I saw a poll on TV. It said about 50 or 55 percent of Republicans think immigration is the most important issue facing the country, while only 3 percent of Democrats think it is. I had no idea. I had thought maybe a considerable number of Dems would oppose immigration because it depresses wages and takes jobs from American citizens. Apparently not so. So I'm agreeing more or less with my fellow Democrats.

Globalization

"Is globalization reversible?" asked Michael Moore, Director-General of the World Trade Organization. "Yes, if we go mad," responded Martin Wolf, former senior economist at the World Bank's division for international trade.
Reversible or not--and I don't think it is in a world of computers--it can be a marvelous thing, but there is something wrong with the way it's going. The trouble is that what we have is corporate globalization. The multinational corporations are in charge, and they have an agenda: maximize profit, deregulate, and privatize. This is making a lot of people miserable. What we should have is what might be called, for want of a better term, "globalization from below." What we want is a worldwide movement for peace and for the welfare of ordinary people.
Young (mostly) people all over the world are on the Internet, and this can be an amazing tool to remake the world. Its potential is mind-boggling. But we'll have to see that it remains free and accessible. Just today I heard a report that the U.S. Congress is trying to find a way to control it. And of course other political leaders have been trying as hard as they can to do that.
So we must get on the Internet and make globalization go the way we want. And we need a name for it that fits our goals.

The Iraq War

It's not my strong suit: the military. But I feel it's important for ordinary citizens to speak out on the war in Iraq.
My feeling is that we should withdraw now. Rep. John Murtha said it for me; I agree with his statement. My reasoning is that our military presence there is doing more harm than good. The insurgency there is stronger because of our presence. And surely Iraq is more of a breeding ground for terrorists as long as we're there; actually, not just Iraq but everywhere. I don't know what will happen if we leave now, but I feel it likely there will be less warfare than if we stay. Also, our leaving will give the Iraqis more incentive to start governing themselves. And I certainly want to end the killing of both Americans and Iraqis.
What does departing "now" mean? To me it means informing the world that we are getting out and then doing it in an orderly fashion, starting immediately. I don't know how long that should take. I remember that when the Japanese surrendered in August of 1945, ending WW II, I was discharged from the WAVES in almost 4 months. Two differencces: (1) I was stationed in the States; (2) there were millions to discharge then. All in all, then, I think it should take only a few months.
The main thing in withdrawing, however, to my mind, is that we should declare that we will rebuild the infrastructure, at least in Baghdad, as much as seems reasonably possible. Also, we should keep some contingent force over there somewhere, say in Kuwait.

It;s hard being a consumer

Hey, I'm back, after writing a paper and doing income tax and stuff. Thanks for waiting, all you loyal readers (Ha). :-) (Is that the way to make a smiley face? I think I have more to learn.)
Just heard on NPR that Lucent is being bought out or something by a French company, and that General Motors is selling its GMAC component, trying to avoid bankruptcy, and that they're both laying off tens of thousands of workers.
This brings two thoughts to mind. The worst is that so many workers are being laid off all the time. Is there anybody out there doing real work, I mean besides thinking up new marketing gimmicks and technology stuff like iPods to confuse us old codgers? But the real message here is that it's a bad time to be in the labor force, with collective bargaining and pensions and stuff having been pretty well dispensed with, and the minimum wage in the pits. And those who are working are overworked, working 60-80 hours a week.
My second thought--sorry I'm so disconnected today--is that the consumers are doing most of the work these days because they (the MNCs) have laid off all the workers. So they shrink wrap and otherwise make everything hard to open. (It took me 4 days to open a bottle of pills that had a white band wrapped around a white bottle, and these are pills for someone with limited vision.) And when you go into a store you walk half a mile before you even see a clerk. And when you try to phone someone you punch buttons for half an hour and still don't get a real person. And heaven help you if you get a package that says, "Some assembly required," the three scariest words in the English language, someone has said. My point is, consumers are doing all the work. The workers who could be helpful have all been laid off. And those who are working are just thinking up ways to catch you, the consumer.
Can anything be done about this? My solution is to elect Democrats and try to get policies in place to honor workers' rights and watchdog the MNCs so they're not making all the rules. After all, we can still vote. Let's think of ways to help workers and consumers.