Forum Post: Illegal immigrants- the problem?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN1kp1ggWyM&feature=relmfu

Daisy: The illegal immigration debate is actually not a debate. It's a straight up power play. The so-called debate would be more accurately described as a largely one-sided affair, an extended xenophobic rant. That's what it is. And the people responsible for this are members of the ruling class of American society, or those who for whatever reason align themselves with ruling class interests. These people want to monopolize the definition of American identity; they want to be the ones who decide who is a 'real American' and who is not - "I'm an authentic American, you're not. So get out, stop ruining my country" and so on.

Pinky: It's interesting to hear you frame it as a kind of identity issue. Because I can imagine lots of people saying, um, "Isn't the immigration debate really about jobs? It's not really an identity issue is it?"

Daisy: Well, actually they're connected. It's true that changing governmental policies towards immigration could have a significant impact on the economy. No one denies this. But it's also quite obvious that there are many, many other ways, and more profound ways, to transform the national economy. So why has illegal immigration been made the 'hot topic' right now? Well, it's because it is a very convenient way for the people who control public discourse to merge two things - on one hand we have ordinary working people feeling incredibly insecure and uncertain about the future, a situation really only made worse by the increasing concentration of wealth, and resources, and power into the hands of the already wealthy; you know, this is what you get under predatory capitalism. On the other hand we have these very effective tools for controlling public opinion - racism, scapegoating, manipulation of data for the purpose of fear mongering. So the illegal immigration debate is the bringing of these two things together. Americans are being told that we are in danger of losing not only our jobs, but we're also in danger of losing our language, losing our culture, our security, everything. And it's all the fault of these people who are 'not us'. They are the Other, and we should be fearful of them. We need to protect ourselves, our country, against them, the aliens. Right? So this is the identity aspect that I was talking about.

And what I'm saying is that this is basically a smokescreen. It's an act of misdirection. You get your average American workers all riled up that their jobs are being 'stolen' by these illegal immigrants. Supposedly these illegal immigrants are sucking the profits from our economy, they must be getting very, very rich. Of course this is absurd. There are profits, but the big profits are not going to illegal immigrants okay? And they're also not going to the middle class. In actuality a disproportionate amount of the nation's wealth is being systematically funneled towards the pockets of the richest of the rich. Even conservative economists agree on this.

But you know, these self-appointed watchdogs of Americanism, they've actually been very successful in whipping up popular animosity towards these so-called 'illegal aliens'. If you think about it, what they've been able to achieve is actually quite remarkable - they've basically taken a group of people from tremendously impoverished places, living extremely difficult lives, and they've successfully branded them as a bunch of criminal opportunists hell-bent at exploiting America's generosity. Which is, of course, totally ironic since First World exploitation of the Third World has historically been the driving force behind creating that poverty they're trying to escape in the first place. The lack of awareness or compassion is extraordinary.