Minutemen fighting against Corporate Slavery

[cidliz2004]

Illegal immigrants are the "American modern day slaves" They have to hide and work for wages that are not enough to live on. They are not entitled to walk our streets and be active in our system with equal access. They are modern day slaves period. The Minutemen are saying "No" to illegal immigration therefore illegal slavery. While the Minutemen are doing their part to end the supply of "slaves" - others must do their part against corporations for hiring them and lowering the wages across the board for all jobs. Look at the wages being offered now a days in the classifieds.....WANTED: tons of experience, tons of skills,no benefits and $8-10.00/hour. The middle class is being obliterated. We are getting a constant supply of "cheap" labor and the jobs that used to offer close to livable wages are now offering really low wages.

Protest against the Corporations, not people trying to stop the flow of slavery. All of the people that feel sorry for these people should be looking into setting up some help for them. Medical Clinics at the borders, Food Depots at the borders, job training programs and going to Washington to look into increasing Foreign Aid to Mexico.

Fox wants to get rid of his poor onto us and Bush wants illegals in the country to force down wages and supply cheap labor for his corporate buddies. Mexicans are coming into this country illegally trying to find better lives for themselves only to be further exploited by this country.

The Federal Government doesn't adequately fund programs for border patrol and anything else to do with Homeland Security. The State Governments, especially border towns get crushed by the weight of the housing, medical, schooling...for these people -not to mention some crime rates). Bush doesn't care, he doesn't pay the bills, it is passed on to states and the states in turn have to slash funds to schools and everything else.

Protest in Washington, instead of crucifying the Minutemen, who are basically people who got off of their dead asses and are trying to do something about this issue. Everybody that is name calling is either not recognizing the bigger problem - Corporate Slavery and the Middle class being squashed. That is the "Bush Agenda". Turning our heads and "allowing" illegals to continuously cross the borders is turning people into fugitives and creating a subculture as well as giving a fresh supply of "cheap" labor to those who like to take advantage of others by breaking the law and hiring illegals for below minimum wages.

This whole issue is about a lot of laws being broken and one side saying let the starving people into the country - don't enforce the laws and the other side saying - hey, Americans won't work for below living wages, but illegals will, so I will hire them and save money and then the people who cannot or will not come into this country legally, so they break laws and enter illegally.

It is a system of illogical bleeding heart enablers, fugitives and corporate greed. The only way the system can work is for all three parts to be available and unfortunately, on this issue, all sides are doing their part - and Heaven forbid somebody (like the Minutemen) try to interfere (upsetting the applecart) in this lovely effort of people, for their own reasons, all breaking laws.

[lonestarnot]

1. We are the country of follow the law only when it is of benefit to ME...

[cidliz2004]

2. How true. Great way to put it.

[TaleWgnDg]

84. Indeed. Who ARE these people who *feel* so arrogant . . .

.
Indeed. Who ARE these people who *feel* so arrogant as to steal and smear the name of America's earliest and steadfast colonial patriots? The first responders against King George's British "Redcoats" were the Lexington Minutemen, who, when summoned to a call to arms, responded within a "minute" to protect the Massachusetts colonial armament cache of both Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.

WHO the hell are these bunch of vigilantes in the southwest who don't want non-whites entering our country? Who hide behind and twist such an historical and honorable name as "minuteman/men?"

And, vigilante is a negative term, not positive. A bunch of yahoos taking the law into their own hands. Ignorants! Since when are non-police taught how to respect the constitutional rights of others? And, who know the federal legal codes and the various states legal codes? Who the hell are these idiot vigilantes but gun-rubbing, gun-loving, empty-headed, short-attention-spanned nothings?

Can it get any worse u/ this *ssh*le called George Walker Bush? (No, don't answer that!)

___________________________________________________________________


Captain John Parker, of the Lexington Minutemen,
April 19, 1775 "the shot heard 'round the world" on Lexington Green
Lexington, Massachusetts

"The first gray wisps of an early spring dawn flashed in the flinty eyes of Captain John Parker as the Lexington Minutemen dozed fitfully in Buckman’s Tavern, across from the Lexington Green, on the epochal morning of April 19, 1775. The alarm had been sounded by Paul Revere but a few hours earlier … 'The Regulars are coming! The Regulars are coming out!'

"Shortly after dawn, the drum call to arms was sounded by William Diamond. Captain Parker and his seventy-six minutemen took a position in two thin rows on the Green to confront the eight hundred Red Coats approaching from Boston. What follows is known: eight brave minutemen, who had pledged their estates and everything dear in life; yea, and life itself in the support of the common cause, lay dead. The first blood shed for young America that cold New England morning made Lexington 'the Birthplace of American Liberty.' "
Source: Lexington Police website http://ci.lexington.ma.us/Police/History.htm
_____________________________________________

See also DU thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=158x3994
_____________________________________________

[xchrom]

3. then stand outside the corporations that hire ''illegals''

and watch them.

how many non-hispanic americans hire ''illegals'' to do housework, babysitting, yardwork, etc and aren't corporations at all?

we have been benefitting from a system of ''illegal'' labour for far longer than the minutemen would have us believe.

for my money until the WHOLE corporate system of controlling our lives is upended -- this is a non-issue.

[lonestarnot]

4. Correction has to start somewhere and making it a non issue isn't a start

[cidliz2004]

9. Sorry, but they are controlling our lives...media to start, standard of

living next

[Scout1071]

70. That would mean standing in front of every hotel, restaurant,

construction crew, landscaping crew, child care center, etc.

I am constantly amazed at the enormous influx of hispanics in my area. Ten years ago, we did not have all hispanic grocery stores (by major chains). And not to far from me there is what I like to call "Wal-Martina." It's next door to La Chopperilla (Price Chopper Grocery.) The products are different and every employee hablo espanol.

My former roommate is Mexican and I used to joke with her that the revolution is nearly complete. Mexico has indeed taken back Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Souther Cali.

Anyway, we need to come up with a solution. We need the workers and they need opportunity. No more sneaking back and forth across the border. In Hong Kong it is customary to have "help." My friends that lived there told me that they have very strict govt regulations regarding the Phillipino women who come to HK to work as nanny's, house keepers, etc. There is a type of minimum wage the govt sets for these workers and they are essentially issued working visas. This way they can legally go back and forth. No more sneaking across the border. No need.

[sandnsea]

116. It won't work

They tried it in the Marianas. Ended up with indentured servants. Delay thinks the Mariana system is a great model for "guest worker", which is what you just described. It won't work because we will never pay enough to enforce the laws. Increasing citizenship if the answer, and lifting other countries out of poverty by demanding labor and environmental laws in any country we import from.

[shadowknows69]

79. why isn't immigration outside these corporations

capturing and deporting illegals?

[sandnsea]

115. Or fining the corporations

Why do people always turn against each other instead of against the real problem.

[NoPasaran]

5. Hero?

or Zero?

[cidliz2004]

10. Yes, for getting up and doing something for what is a very complex

problem. It is much like protesting in the street against obvious Government consent of "illegal immigration" At least they are doing SOMETHING, as opposed to nothing but finger pointing and name calling while sitting on thier asses.

[NoPasaran]

30. If your idea of "doing something"

If your idea of "doing something" is to join a vigilante gang led by racists, maybe you should just sit on your fat ass.

[cidliz2004]

38. How do you know that I have a fat ass?

[NoPasaran]

49. Not referring to yours

Rather the supposed "patriot" in my post.

[shadowknows69]

80. maybe you're painting the minutemen

with too broad a stroke.

[cidliz2004]

87. Maybe I just take offense to the statement "People that support the

Minutemen are bigots"

[shadowknows69]

97. I do too perhaps I misunderstood you

I thought you were saying they're bigots

[Bridget Burke]

64. That photo came from the Houston Chronicle....

The "minuteman" pictured threatened to bring the "movement" to Texas.

I remember the photographer has a Hispanic/Latino name. Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words.

[Zorra]

72. Are you insinuating that this person is a bad person

or that there is something intrinsically wrong with this person just because he is overweight?

Isn't that a form of bigotry?

[cidliz2004]

88. Funny isn't it when somebody automatically classifies somebody based

on looks and then calls you a bigot?.?

[Kathy in Cambridge]

90. It's even funnier when people veil their racism with patriotism

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Sapphire Blue]

92. Guess those 'Minutemen' are just 'Appropriate Tools'

... being PATRIOTic under the mantle of the USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism).

But who's doing the terrorizing?

[cidliz2004]

99. Abraham Lincoln says....."

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

Abraham Lincoln 1809 - 1865


I suppose that he is a racist to.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

124. Well, Lincoln never said that...so it is irrelevent.

Sorry.


http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln.htm

[cidliz2004]

107. rofl rofl ....instead of rolling on the floor why don't you give some

INTELLIGENT SOLUTIONS to some of these issues? Or do you just prefer rolling on the floor laughing?


CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html
In the NAFTA era, a staggering 87 percent of Mexico's imports go to the United States, while Mexicans living in the United States send home more than $8 billion annually. Fox has said he considers his constituency to include the 22 million to 24 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States. Mexican candidates now make campaign stops in U.S. cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Fresno, Calif." (Mexico's muddle, Ruben Navarrette Jr., March 26, 2003

CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html
The total K-12 school expenditure for illegal immigrants costs the states $7.4 billion annually—enough to buy a computer for every junior high student nationwide.

CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html
Illegal aliens have cost billions of taxpayer-funded dollars for medical services. Dozens of hospitals in Texas, New Mexico Arizona, and California, have been forced to close or face bankruptcy because of federally-mandated programs requiring free emergency room services to illegal aliens. Taxpayers pay half-a-billion dollars per year incarcerating illegal alien criminals.


As noted above, in a recent year in Colorado, the state's emergency Medicaid program paid an estimated $30 million in hospital and physician delivery costs for about 6,000 illegal immigrant mothers - average of $5,000 per baby."
"Mexican ambulance drivers are driving their hospital patients who can't pay for medical care in Mexico, to facilities in the United States. They know that the federal Emergency Medical Act mandates that U.S. hospitals with emergency-room services must treat anyone who requires care, including illegal aliens.

Medical service for Americans in affected communities is being severely damaged as hospitals absorb more than $200 million in unreimbursed costs. Some emergency rooms have shut down because they cannot afford to stay open. Local tax-paying Americans are either denied medical care or have to wait in long lines for service as the illegals flood the facilities. In California, the losses are calculated to be about $79 million, with $74 million in Texas, $31 million in Arizona, and $6 million in New Mexico."1


"Business interests however are short-term. Easy immediate access to labour will always be preferred to the costs of training and capital investment for the longer term. In the nature of economic cycles, yesterday's essential labour can often become, as the defunct factories and mills of Europe have shown, today's unemployed. Employers who demanded immigrant labour are not held to account for this or required to contribute to subsequent costs of their unemployed former workers. Few things are more permanent that temporary worker from a poor country. If business were made responsible for the lifetime costs of their migrant labour in the same way as they must now deal with the lifetime environmental costs of their products, perhaps enthusiasm for labour migration might be moderated and make way for longer-term investment in capital-intensive restructuring."7

CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html
"Economic and social costs of illegal immigration
The economic and social consequences of illegal immigration across the 1,940 mile long America-Mexico border are staggering.

An average of 10,000 illegal aliens cross the border every day - over 3 million per year. A third will be caught and many of them immediately will try again. About half of those remaining will become permanent U.S. residents (3,500 per day).

Currently there are an estimated 9 to 11 million illegals in the U.S., double the 1994 level. A quarter-million illegal aliens from the Middle-east currently live in the U.S, and a growing number are entering by crossing the Mexican border."

"Mexican ambulance drivers are driving their hospital patients who can't pay for medical care in Mexico, to facilities in the United States. They know that the federal Emergency Medical Act mandates that U.S. hospitals with emergency-room services must treat anyone who requires care, including illegal aliens.


These costs are staggering. The Cochise County, Arizona Health Department spends as much as 30 percent of its annual $9 million budget on illegal aliens.3 The Copper Queen Hospital in Bisbee, Arizona, has spent $200,000 in uncompensated services out of a net operating budget of $300,000.3 The University Medical Center in Tucson may lose as much as $10 million and the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, also in Tucson, has lost $1 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2002.3

AND DON'T FORGET ANYBODY BUT ANYBODY TRYING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THESE PROBLEMS, AS PRIMITIVE AS THEIR ACTIONS MAY BE, ARE BIGOTS..........

WHAT ARE YOU PERSONALLY DOING TO HELP WITH THESE ISSUES? SOME IF NOT ALL OF THE MINUTE MEN ARE FROM COMMUNITIES THAT ARE FEELING THE AFFECTS OF THESE CRUSHING PROBLEMS THAT ARE BANKRUPTING STATE BUDGESTS. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TURNS A BLIND EYE SO THAT THE SHIFT OF THE BURDEN OF THIS INFLUX OF PEOPLE ARE FELT ONLY ON A STATE AND LOCAL LEVEL.

[NoPasaran]

105. Let's see...

Dimwit drives 1,500 miles to join a group of racist paramilitary yahoos playing militiaman in the desert, take the law into his own hands and interfere with legitimate law enforcement... certainly within my margin of error for "bad person".

[Zorra]

73. Are you insinuating that this person is a bad person,

or that there is something intrinsically wrong with this person, just because he is overweight?

Isn't that a form of bigotry?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

6. Then why are two racists at the helm of their project?

All you people who may support the project but ignore the history of Simcox and Barnett crack me up.

[cidliz2004]

12. Attack, don't address the problem as it needs 3 separate

illegal parts in order for it to continue to exist. Don't address people having to live like fugitives and be further exploited. Don't address the Governments failure to adequately fund the Border Patrols. No, lets just condemn the symptom of a much larger web of exploitation of the less fortunate people and middle class dissemination and people illegally entering into our country (who knows where the next terrorist attack may come from). According to you and yours, let them enter illegally across the Mexican border.

[Bridget Burke]

15. Then why are two racists at the helm of the project?

Please answer the question.

[cidliz2004]

19. That is an unfortunate set of circumstances and unfortunately racism

isn't against the law, but people crossing borders into this country w/o going thru the immigration process is illegal. Just as hiring illegals/thereby giving them income for food and shelter is against the law just as exploiting illegals to get cheap labor is against moral laws. Can be said that allowing illegals to come into this country to be exploited is condoning the exploitation of underprivileged people.

By the way, what makes your issue - racism, more important than other's issues, like exploitation of the poor, forcing people to live like fugitives, disseminating the middle class by keeping wages low. At least some of my issues are actually BREAKING the law and protecting people from exploitation. Jefferson was a slave owner, does that disqualify him from all that he had accomplished?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

20. Jefferson was a slave owner almost 300 years ago.

Are you seriously holding him up to today's morals?

[cidliz2004]

28. In a word, Yes, ESPECIALLY since we still honor

U.S. Constitution. And even older (at least some) The Bible. Just because it is old doesn't mean it is totally obsolete.

My point was that we are all a mixed bag. Good mixed with bad. Some of what Jefferson did (affair with a slave) - (owning slaves) were admittedly "bad" things, BUT brilliance still came out of that imperfect soul.

These guys may be racist, but they may ALSO be opening the door to more civilian participation and even activism on this issue.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

52. Jefferson was racist in a time when that was the way society was run

Society KNOWS better now. These guys are willfully ignorant pigheaded jackasses.

It's so anachronistic to hold those of the past up to our standards. Best example is Hamurrabi's Code. People today use the term as meaning something particularly harsh. People of the time however saw it as leniency because it prevented someone from killing you because you stole from them.

[cidliz2004]

89. How about the affair? How about the point that WE ARE ALL MIXED BAGS

Don't address all of my arguments or statements, you pick out one statement or two. Kind of like the media when they take statements out of context. Don't want to deal with the whole response, just part of it.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

94. Yeah, affairs were common then since women were property.

Mixed bag...why don't you go point out the good things Hitler did? There's another white racist fuckwad, just like the founders of the minutemen project.

Yes, we're all mixed bags, but that doesn't mean a white supremacist asshole is on par with someone that fibs on their income tax.

[cidliz2004]

100. Oh, yeah the Minutemen are doing as much evil as Hitler....

CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html

"Medical service for Americans in affected communities is being severely damaged as hospitals absorb more than $200 million in unreimbursed costs. Some emergency rooms have shut down because they cannot afford to stay open. Local tax-paying Americans are either denied medical care or have to wait in long lines for service as the illegals flood the facilities. In California, the losses are calculated to be about $79 million, with $74 million in Texas, $31 million in Arizona, and $6 million in New Mexico."1

These costs are staggering. The Cochise County, Arizona Health Department spends as much as 30 percent of its annual $9 million budget on illegal aliens.3 The Copper Queen Hospital in Bisbee, Arizona, has spent $200,000 in uncompensated services out of a net operating budget of $300,000.3 The University Medical Center in Tucson may lose as much as $10 million and the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, also in Tucson, has lost $1 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2002.3

Illegal aliens have cost billions of taxpayer-funded dollars for medical services. Dozens of hospitals in Texas, New Mexico Arizona, and California, have been forced to close or face bankruptcy because of federally-mandated programs requiring free emergency room services to illegal aliens. Taxpayers pay half-a-billion dollars per year incarcerating illegal alien criminals.

In the NAFTA era, a staggering 87 percent of Mexico's imports go to the United States, while Mexicans living in the United States send home more than $8 billion annually. Fox has said he considers his constituency to include the 22 million to 24 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States. Mexican candidates now make campaign stops in U.S. cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Fresno, Calif." (Mexico's muddle, Ruben Navarrette Jr., March 26, 2003"


YEAH, THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO REASON WHATSOEVER TO RISE UP AND ATTEMPT TO DO SOMETHING TO PROTECT THEIR COMMUNITIES....TO THEM IT IS PERSONAL, THEIR HOSPITALS ARE BEING CLOSED. THEIR SCHOOLS ARE SEVERLY OVERCROWDED AND THEIR TOWNS CANNOT AFFORD TO PROVIDE THE NORMAL SERVICES THAT THEY WOULD HAVE OTHERWISE BEEN ABLE TO PROVIDE BECAUSE THEY ARE BEING CRUSHED BY THE BURDEN.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

113. Wow, you post off a racist site.

What's next? FAIR? CIS?

Do you even know what a white supremacist is? THEY WANT TO DESTROY ALL PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT WHITE. Yeah, I'm being completely unfair to them :eyes:

Hell yes I'm comparing them to Hitler. They are white supremacists and they both are scapegoating people to direct the hate away from the people it actually should be directed at.

[cidliz2004]

118. You are ignoring statistics, diprove them, or just continue to name call

I've heard that from my kids when they were YOUNG, I'm guessing that you are young, in mind or in body and mind.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

125. You haven't posted any statistics.

You've only posted off websites that are KNOWN for being anti-immigrant and out and out racist.

"CIS describes itself as “independent” and “nonpartisan,” but its studies, reports, and media releases consistently support its restrictionist agenda and works closely on Capitol Hill with Republican Party immigration restrictionists. However, CIS has achieved credibility with the media and in think tank circles because of its lack of the kind of strident anti-immigrant rhetoric associated with many restrictionist groups, its willingness to invite pro-immigrant voices to its forums, and the scholarly format of its reports."

“Let’s be clear,” wrote Frank Sharry of the National Immigration Forum, “CIS was birthed by FAIR, the militant anti-immigration group. The CIS executive director moved from FAIR to CIS to head up the organization. Although now independent, the two organizations share the same basic agenda: an American version of what in Europe is called ‘zero immigration.’” According to Sharry, CIS masquerades as an objective, “squeaky clean” think tank, but CIS is “simply churning out high-sounding, low-credibility grist for the high-pitch, low-road anti-immigration forces in the United States.” This assessment of CIS is widely shared among pro-immigrant groups, but CIS studies are not only frequently cited by the “low-road” nativist forces but also by major news media. (4)

CIS has also been critiqued as being part of a network of anti-immigrant groups that cater to a white supremacist constituency by right-wing economic libertarians who believe in the benefits of mass and unfettered immigration. A Wall Street Journal op-ed (June 15, 2004), that was widely praised and circulated by pro-immigrant groups, reported that despite the fact that CIS “may strike right-wing poses in the press,” it and other like-minded groups “support big government, mock federalism, deride free markets, and push a cultural agenda abhorrent to any self-respecting social conservative.” A follow-up article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Borderline Republicans” described the anti-immigration network this way: “CIS, FAIR, NumbersUSA, ProjectUSA—and more than a half-dozen similar groups that Republicans have become disturbingly comfortable with—were founded or funded (or both) by John Tanton. In addition to trying to stop immigration to the U.S., appropriate population control measures for Dr. Tanton and his network include promoting China’s one-child policy, sterilizing Third World women, and wider use of RU-486.” (5) Replying to this charge, Krikorian wrote in National Review Online that CIS does not take a “position on anything that does not involve U.S. immigration policy.”

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/org/cis.php

So you haven't posted any statistics anymore than if you had posted "statistics" off Free Republic showing Liberals were evil. And it's so hilarious you accuse me of "calling names" and then you post an "ad hominem" attack! Delicious!

[cidliz2004]

128. People wiggle out of counting statistics the way that you just did

everyday, not any original argument. Ignore the statistics if you choose to, you are one of those people that could have something right in front of their face and not see it. What you really are is a person who refuses to see that NO ONE is for ANYONE starving and furthermore, you refuse to see that there are several parts to this problem and 10,000/day (give or take a few) is a problem period. If you choose not to see as such that is your right. So far, though your "argument" has been so one dimensional that it is difficult to respect any position that you take because you are so obviously unwilling to do any IN DEPTH comprehensive thinking using at least some objectivity. So, go your merry little way and think that this whole issue rests on the question "should a mother be able to feed her children" as the sole question to ask when addressing the issue of illegal immigration.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

129. There's a whole industry devoted to "lying with statistics"

And RW hate sites like the ones you post are brilliant at it.

If I'm "blinded" you are too. You are so blinded by your thoughts on what the answer SHOULD be you take anyone who agrees at face value, even if they are RW morons.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

61. LOL! Using the fact that Jefferson owned slave to justify racists?

By the way..giving undocumented people food is not against the law. Would it bust your ass to call them a name that indicates they are human beings? Calling them "illegals" certainly says a hell of a lot more about you than it does about THEM.

[cidliz2004]

101. What name would you prefer to make it sound nicer, prettier, softer....

since I don't know the millions all by name what would you have me call them.....and what is YOUR preferred name for them? Since most everybody else refers to them that way, since that really does accurately not just give the "group" a name, but also describes the "nature" of their actions, to me will serve it's purpose. It is nothing personal, just like when an asshole makes a stupid remark, if he is a Democrat, he is still a Democrat - even if he is an asshole. Many people think "Democrat" and they immediately envision negative qualities to go along with that name, but it is merely a name. It is all in the perception and how thin your skin as well as your argument are.

[AlCzervik]

7. Then patrol Walmart and homebuilders, since they spply the jobs

for them.

[PsN2Wind]

8. Good post but a tough sell

to many of the posters here that have great empathy for the illegals and very little for the citizens of this country that must compete with them.

[Zynx]

11. Interesting - would this be why Bush likes illegals?

That would make sense considering who his real base is - the corporate elite.

[cidliz2004]

13. Two words CHEAP LABOR

[Bridget Burke]

14. Let them report illegal employers to the authorities.

Let them compile lists of companies hiring undocumented workers & start a boycott. Or let them apply for real jobs patrolling the border; how about volunteering to do some clerical work to free up the guards?

Too bad about the racism. That Confederate Battle Flag showed exactly where they are coming from.

Your post does show a very slick writing style. Original or spam?

[cidliz2004]

22. Well MAYBE just MAYBE some great citizens that aren't racist could join

their groups and steer them in the right direction.

Besides, it is the "them" that is THE PROBLEM.


Let them compile lists of companies hiring undocumented workers & start a boycott. DON'T LIKE THAT "THEM" WORD Or let them apply for real jobs patrolling the border BORDER PATROLS DON'T HAVE ENOUGH FUNDING - CONVENIENT FOR GOVERNMENT - AGAIN THAT "THEM" WORD; how about volunteering to do some clerical work to free up the guards?
GREAT IDEA!

Thanks for the compliment......it is all mine. And I usually get in big trouble for what I think and say.

[LibInternationalist]

16. well, if that were their stated goal...

it would be great. BUT it isn't. There were some racists in the abolitionist movement, too (see: the creation of Liberia). I don't really care for people accidentally doing something good for the wrong reasons -- it sets a bad precedent.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Like the KKK were fighting to improve the educational system.

Those rednecks down at the border are really humanitarians, don't you know? Try to "help" those poor folks from being exploited by the corporations by swaggering around and packin' guns.

Talk about spin!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

18. Where were you in the draft thread? Are Americans exempt from the law?

I love this part here:

"This whole issue is about a lot of laws being broken and one side saying let the starving people into the country - don't enforce the laws and the other side saying - hey, Americans won't work for below living wages, but illegals will, so I will hire them and save money and then the people who cannot or will not come into this country legally, so they break laws and enter illegally."


Whatever. The "would you break the law to save your child from the draft" thread had over 100 responses and every one of them except one said they would break the law. Not one person, including people who will look at immigration and say "but they're breaking the law!", told those parents that they had to just sit there and watch their kid get hauled off. So apprently when a Mexican needs to save their children "sorry, laws must be followed" but an American needs to save their children "well, it's MY child".

Just like the people who say "every abortion is wrong except mine"

[cidliz2004]

23. I did answer, Illegal War, Illegal response to draft = Positive..outcome!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

24. So it's ok for Americans to break the laws, if you don't like them.

[cidliz2004]

31. As I said, the War in itself is Illegal

So fighting in it, to me would be breaking the law. I am not condemning the soldiers, so don't go off on me, they really had no choice.

If a draft had to be instituted and somebody didn't want to serve, then they would directly bear the consequences of those actions. They would either be leaving the country or possibly serving jail time. (which in essence is already paying for their "crime")

There is a major difference when you are doing something in protest of something for ideological reasons and legal reasons and doing so at your own jeopardy where there are there are definite negative repercussions of this choice, whereas doing something illegally for gain (albeit survival) are actions taken on a different level.

There is another issue: these would be American citizens breaking the law in protest of "their own countries" actions and law or lawlessness, where the Mexicans entering into this country not U.S. citizens are entering into this country, breaking a law and then hopefully working creating another broken law. (They should be producing documentation to be hired), then of course the "employer's" breaking a law......

The action of breaking a law and entering this country illegally produces MANY MORE broken laws and complex issues are then raised - like DRIVERS LICENSES FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS SCHOOLING FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS EMERGENCY MEDICAL CARE FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS.... So many more problems and issues result from this than declining the draft and fighting against 1 issue.

To simplify this, draft dodgers are IMMEDIATELY experiencing the repercussions of their actions, illegals try to avoid the repercussions of their actions and are willing to break other laws (albeit forced).

[SemiCharmedQuark]

34. The government in Mexico is hardly immaculate. Further

Those that flee to Canada do so illegally. If they ask for amnesty, they probably won't get it in which case they face a choice. Either they can stay anyway illegally, or go back to their crappy life in the U.S.

Americans breaking Canadian law by staying illegal are not doing it in protest of their country's actions. And if you argue that their breaking of the U.S. law is ok because "it's their own country", you could say the same thing about Mexico. They have a broken system that is beyond anything you could possibly imagine.

Again, Canada has made it clear they want nothing to do with our soldiers this time around. So the choice is live there illegally or stay in the U.S.

[cidliz2004]

40. What is Mexico's policies on illegal immigration into their country?

Who said that draft dodgers are fleeing to Canada? The draft dodgers are facing jail time, the illegal immigrants are not.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

45. Oh yes they do.

But since that would be better than their lives in their home country, and because most places don't want to bother, they just send them back.

If Americans did flee to Mexico, they wouldn't live the life real Mexicans live.

[cidliz2004]

47. Not really

But since that would be better than their lives in their home country, and because most places don't want to bother, they just send them back. THANKS, MADE MY POINT FOR ME - THEY SEND THEM BACK

If Americans did flee to Mexico, they wouldn't live the life real Mexicans live. NOT TALKING ABOUT AMERICANS....TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE FROM SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA. CHECK IT OUT

Wouldn't increasing Foreign Aid to Mexico be a better plan all the way around? Wouldn't any intermediary actions be better? It doesn't have to be a black and white issue.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

48. Treating them like crap and letting white supremacists hunt them like

animals isn't the answer.


Illegal immigration is wrong, but the people who act with no sympahthy make me sick. We expect sympathy but we give none.

[cidliz2004]

91. Sympathy was also given to Terri Schaivo and her family

did you agree with that. Sympathy by itself with no objectivity, facts or science should stand by itself then for the Schaivo situation. Forget the courts, why do we have them, Throw out laws, why do we need them. Just answer to our hearts.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

93. No, sympathy was shown in pulling the plug since THAT is what she wanted

:eyes:

[cidliz2004]

98. Its all in the perception isn't it?

It depends who is on the short end of the stick now doesn't it? People wanted Terri Schaivo to be fed, because they considered her starving to death to be "cruel and inhuman" treatment. They couldn't fathom how anybody would want to see a poor innocent disabled person could be tortured and discarded in that way. They thought it inhumane. That's what THEY thought. They had emotions on their side to.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

114. Yeah right. Those Republicans are real softies.

:eyes: They wanted to violate her rights and they treated her like an object instead of a human being.

[cidliz2004]

121. And the Christian loonies felt so sorry for her that they wanted the

feeding tube reinserted. WE WERE THE HEARTLESS ONES TRYING TO STARVE HER TO DEATH. ..... PERCEPTION

[SemiCharmedQuark]

126. Caps don't make your agruments any better.

By your logic, any bit of sympathy shown to anyone is wrong. Use statistics and science to prove that we need to give the U.S. citizens healthcare. Use statistics and science to prove that we need to help the homeless. Use statistics and science to prove that children should never go to bed hungry.

[Darranar]

81. And slaves running away pre-Civil War?

That was illegal, too, and slavery was certainly legal.

The American Revolution? That was treason, and illegal.

Those who resisted the Nazis before and during World War II? That was illegal, yet it probably saved countless lives.

And so on.

[earth mom]

29. Sorry, but you're talking two extremely different issues

Saving your own kids from an illegal and immoral and unethical war is an entirely different sitution.

I, and most others here on DU have empathy and sympathy for the situation these illegals are in. But, you have to admit that they are causing a strain on this country and the economy. I lived in Southern California for years and believe me, it's a mess! How long can THIS COUNTRY SUPPORT A SECOND COUNTRY?! Have you ever looked at it that way? Wages are down-way down-more and more U.S. citizens are sinking into poverty as the working poor! Employers will hire the cheapest person they can find-they don't give a rats ass! Trying to frame this as a racist issue is B.S. simply because you could also say it's reverse racism against the people of this country-that the illegal aliens come BEFORE the citizens! C'mon now! Take the emotion out of it and look at this logically. You can't have it both ways. That is unless YOU want to be working for less than minimum wage and sharing your home with 2 or 3 other families or living in your car!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

32. Illegals are trying to save THEIR children too.

Reverse racism. Oh brother :eyes: Yeah. Americans really have it tough.

[cidliz2004]

33. Maybe you don't have it rough and you obviously don't have care about Amer

ican citizens that do have it rough.

Go ahead really let it fly...... Knowing that they were so poor w/o anyway of supporting themselves, why did they have children?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

37. No, but I know that Mexicans that have it rough would make even U.S.

homeless cringe.

You're talking about a place where the poor don't live in run down houses, they live in garbage dumps. If you're lucky, you can have a one or two room house with a dirt floor.

If you think the poverty levels are even CLOSE you don't know anything about the rest of the world.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

39. 40% of the population lives below the poverty line and the PCI is 9,000

[earth mom]

41. You must be living really well

Well, I've lived as the working poor-I know what the hell I'm talking about! You can sit there and put your blinders on about this situation but you are living in la la land if you don't see that this country is quickly becoming a 3rd world country! When it hits you PERSONALLY then you may understand what I'm talking about.

And BTW-Is there a country U.S. citizens can turn to for jobs when we reach 3rd world status? Probably not. :eyes:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

46. lol, I grew up in PILSEN!

One of the poorest places there is. Geez. My mom's home was condemned! And I STILL have the decency to recognize that even at our poorest, we weren't living in a community built on a trash pile.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

54. Aren't you going to come back and tell me how fabulously wealthy I am?

You don't see a difference in a country where the PCI is 9,000 vs. a country where the PCI is 35,000?

And the "we're going to become a third world country!" is the same cry people shouted when they were afraid of the Chinese, Polish, Japanese, Irish, Italians..

[earth mom]

59. You just want to be right

you don't want to SOLVE the problem or admit there even is a problem. Whatever. I could give a rats ass what nationality people are who coming over here-they could be from ANY country. THAT'S NOT THE ISSUE. The issue is a FLOOD of people coming here and employers hiring them for next to nothing-getting two for the price of one-instead of hiring people here who need jobs that pay a living wage. If the federal government wants to OPEN up immigration like it used to be back in the 1800s and early 1900s-so be it. But they aren't doing that. You know why? So they don't have to foot the bill for it. They are deliberately turning a blind eye to the problem and putting it on the states individually to handle an overwhelming problem. WE-THE PEOPLE-ARE PAYING FOR IT. With lower wages, higher health care, higher property taxes for school-etc., etc, etc.

WHY don't you get that?! :eyes:

And BTW-I am so DONE arguing this with you.

[Sapphire Blue]

60. Can I step in with a question

... that doesn't seem to have been considered yet in this thread?

How do 'Minutemen' supporters feel about Bush's 'Guest Worker' program, and the impact it will have on the job market, wages, unionization, and 'Corporate Slavery'? What effect are these vigilantes having on proposed 'Guest Worker' legislation... other than providing Bush with a perverted rationalization for alleviating border security 'problems' to which they are drawing attention?

I'm aware of the economic impact associated with illegal immigration, but vigilantes going after incoming illigal immigrants will not affect American employers ready & eagerly willing to take advantage of them.

I agree with an earlier suggestion that these 'Minutemen' should be outside Wal-Mart HQ, as well as the numerous sweatshops hiring our disadvantaged neighbors.

Perhaps the 'Minutemen' could also lobby Congress to provide adequate funding for border security?

Or are we all racing toward the bottom?

[cidliz2004]

102. Since the Minutemen originated the action, they have the right to

choose their target. The Government just so happened to hire an "additional" 250 border patrol right about the time that the Minutemen started their "patrols".

I don't agree that their tactics may be the best in the long run, but I respect their rights to voice their opinions in a legal and orderly way. If their numbers grew and spread out nationally, maybe these other areas could be covered as well. Helping to focus the problem where it basically originates is the inadequately patrolled U.S. borders - 1,900 miles of them - is ONE of the important places where the influx of 10,000 cross over daily. Many of these "Minutemen" live in the local communities where these borders lie open and the communities are the ones baring the crushing weight from the impact of this.

The American employers that are taking advantage of the situation should be heavily penalized - that is one of the major ways that their participation will be stopped.

The U.S. Government, though is just turning a blind eye to this PURPOSELY, they are benefiting by this and complicit in the whole mess.

"What effect are these vigilantes having on proposed 'Guest Worker' legislation... other than providing Bush with a perverted rationalization for alleviating border security 'problems' to which they are drawing attention?" I am honestly not sure, except that I feel it will divert the attention and offer a solution that is really just a delusion. It will be used to mask the problem and to manipulate the media to lull the American voter into complacency on this issue. I think that it may offer a "secondary" cheap labor force as well. One that is paying into the system but has no real hopes of collecting out of it. Like I said earlier, I really don't know yet.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

65. Ah, the "la la la la la la I can't hear you" of the internet.

As I said earlier, illegal immigration is wrong, but treating people like animals isn't helping the situation. Check the stats. Most undocumented workers don't even use the services of the U.S., not even for their children if their children are citizens. The times they do go the doctor are usually when it is life or death. And what would you have them do? Just sit there and die? And what, you want their kids to remain illiterate so they can never even improve their lives? They're people for heaven's sake. THEY. ARE. STARVING. And you and others just expect them to sit in their hovels and watch as their children get sick and die.

It's ok to break the law when it's YOUR kids, but when it's someone else's the hell with them. Like someone said earlier, the Minutemen, if they REALLY cared, would be at places like Wal-Mart.

[Me.]

103. This Is The Crux Of The Matter Isn't It?

In a lot of places the infrastructure is buckling under the strain. Lou Dobbs has been making the point every night. As for the Mexican gov., so much money is being sent home that it is becomming an important financial underpinning for their government.

[cidliz2004]

122. That is why Fox campaigns in the U.S. for elections

Big joke isn't it?

[BringEmOn]

21. Scapegoating the illegal aliens....

I'd bet a dollar to a hole in a dounut that everybody here knows a U.S. citizen who works construction (or other job)and gets paid under the table.

[cidliz2004]

25. My husband is in construction and I did payroll in construction some time

ago. The area that I live in is heavily unionized and the wages are quite high #1, #2 I-9s legal paperwork and Identification required to be hired, if they have "fake" documentation up here, then there was no way for me to know it. Which is interesting in view of many of the other states that are not union where I hear that illegals being hired is much more prevalent. Funny thing is that in those states, wages are much lower to.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. Yep. But, they're generally white 'murikans.

And, you sure as hell won't catch them picking lettuce or cleaning bedpans like those evil "illegals" are willing to do.

A lot of "liberals" around here sound like "compassionate conservatives".

[cidliz2004]

36. What came first? The chicken or the egg?

Do you believe in outsourcing to? Those "poor" people are just as qualified to do those jobs, why shouldn't they be able to compete for them......they have starving kids to.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

57. Why not indeed?

I'm all for poor people having jobs anywhere they happen to be.

[jukes]

27. entirely misleading

RW "minutemen" are pursuing their own racist agenda. any troll that thinks otherwise needs to NOT be disrupting DU.

[Jesus Saves]

35. I don't know if you can

label them all rascist.

[jukes]

51. i can

and i bet i'm @ least 99% correct, too. think there's even 1 afroamerican or native american, not to mention latino, minuteman in that bunch? BTW, a hefty percentage of border patrol agents ARE of latino extraction.


any rhetoric that characterizes these people in any way that is acceptable in a liberal forum is outright obfuscation and intentional disruption.

[cidliz2004]

42. Duplicate

[cidliz2004]

43. Thanks for proving my case, name calling is so common with

people that are against the Minutemen. I swear if every post against the Minutemen were "erased" if they name called. There would be NO posts. Not respecting another viewpoint is very much what racists are guilty of to.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

50. And defending bigots is so common with those who support them.

Chris Simcox is a disgusting excuse for a human being. He has tried this same tactic before under different names. THe result? Mexicans ending up shot or killed.

[Maestro]

58. Isn't it amazing how many conservative views come out of the woodworks

SCQ? I mean really, how can anybody defend these guys? :shrug: But apparently you and I are supporters of illegal immigration and we are against the American worker. I challenge anyone to do a search of SCQ or my name to find where we state that we support undocumented workers. What we do is understand their situation and we, along with others, have tried to explain the ties to the neo-cons that several anti-immigration groups have, the racism involved and the fact that if we should be upset with someone it is Corporate America.

Wasn't Tyson Foods, the poultry producer, that was busted for hiring and then keeping in horrible working conditions, thousands of undocumented workers? :shrug:

[jukes]

53. oh, please!

that strawman won't stand!

calling them "minutemen" is name-calling. you're in a rhetorical slough.

again, this "discussion" is mere disruption. these self-styled "minutemen" have no connection to liberals. as far as i'm concerned, you're dismissed. after i hit "alert" again, i'll hit "ignore".

[G_j]

44. fighting against Corporate Slavery?

as others have pointed out, if they were fighting against Corporate Slavery, they would be in Bentonville at Walmart corporate HQ.
If these folks are "fighting against Corporate Slavery" then they have it completely backwards. I don't buy it.

[Sapphire Blue]

55. Another viewpoint - "humanity knows no borders" - 'The Gatekeeper'

If you haven't seen this movie, please do.

The Gatekeeper: http://www.gatekeeperfilm.com/




http://www.gatekeeperfilm.com/synopsis.html

Available @ Hollywood Video: http://www.hollywoodvideo.com/movies/movie.aspx?mid=139413

[Maestro]

56. I can't believe I just read what I read

It started off good but then you go on to have sympathy for these idiots. If you believe they are really fighting corporate slavery why are they on the border? And no one here supports illegal immigration. Yet again I see posters saying that some at DU would rather support illegals than Americans. This is totally false and those that post that are not reading with any intent to try to understand our point of view.

The Minuscule Men need to be sitting in front of known corporations, factories, small businesses that continue to hire illegals. That is why they come; they find employment and American business makes more profit. Focus your anger and frustration at the right entity. Focusing on poor individuals who are defenseless and voiceless in our land smacks of, at the very least, an extreme misunderstanding of the situation, or racism. Take your pick.

For more info see:

Pay attention to the links in this thread on immigration

Another good thread on the Minuscule Men

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

62. She justifies that the Minutemen are led by racists by stating Jefferson

owned slaves. :eyes:

This is why the democrats lose...we used to be AGAINST racism..THAT IS A VALUE...that is something WORTH standing for....all these centrists with their nuanced agendas that give aid and comfort to racists should probably take a look at this.
The only thing the Minutemen are missing is the white hoods and crosses.

[Sapphire Blue]

63. They no longer need to hide under the white sheets,

but they really seem to get behind displaying their crosses & other 'religious' symbolism, don't they?

God Bless America:sarcasm:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

66. Right, because racism is being "moderate" now.

provided you are racist against the right people.

[Maestro]

75. Totally agree

[cidliz2004]

86. They have a right to address their concerns in the way that they see

fit. Racism really shouldn't come into this, but it always does because people that don't have a problem with the Minutemen are called Bigots PERIOD. That is why I take offense. I say that anybody crossing any border is wrong. I also say that anyone that volunteers their time to help patrol the borders shouldn't be ridiculed just because the people on the other side are Hispanic. If there were Minutemen at the Canadian Border would you still have a problem?

The race card was PLAYED by the opponents of the Minutemen, much like the race card was brought up in the OJ trial. It had little to nothing to do with the broader picture, it was/is just flame bait and diversionary.

OK, they cross the border and then they have to live like fugitives, that is OK with you, because that is what happens and these people are victimized and exploited. They are also used to drive down the living wages. When I look at a situation, I try to analyze it and I have been told that my analytical skill are way above average and that I use both sides of my brain equally. Which means I am as creative as I am logical. So, when I look at issues, I can see the whole picture quite clearly. I'm also not confined to "in the box" thinking.

If your main concern is that these people are in dire need of help, than YOU organize help for these people, get behind a cause to directly help these people. It is easy enough to sit back and condemn others for following and then acting on their beliefs, but I say if you honestly feel that you are doing something for the right reasons and you are acting within the law then you have the RIGHT to follow your convictions. THAT is what this country is supposed to be about.

Maybe some of these people are racist, too bad, because something good could have come out of this, if no personal agenda's were being fulfilled. Time will tell. In the mean time though, why do people jump to condemnation of other people acting on their beliefs because they are in opposition. Why not just say that you think it may cause difficulties because of this and that, instead of saying "All people that support the Minutemen are bigots." Really fair intelligent statement- Offers exactly NOTHING in the way of solutions to the problem of the Border Patrol being severely understaffed. 250 Border Patrol just so happened to be added to the Patrol right about the same time that the Minutemen started their activism.

I really get tired of all of the name calling when people don't agree. The Democrats are supposed to be the Party with the big tent.
I'm beginning to wonder if it is becoming the Party of the Hippocrates.

[countryjake]

67. Your support of a united labor force is lacking...

in your post & such a naive breakdown of "the system" & issues facing American workers explains why you fail to see those thugs at the border for what they are...tools of a system which can only thrive with its working-class hopelessly divided & blaming one another for a crumbling standard of living.

The organized labor in this country have been "off of their dead asses", as you put it, for a long time now, but they are protesting in Washington demanding legalization, not criminalization; recognition of the earned rights of everyone who works in this country; labor regulations & protection for every employee of American businesses & corporations; supporting the right to organize for documented & undocumented workers, alike; & understanding of the tragedy awaiting all of us if we fail to demand equal justice & basic rights for all workers.

I see your heroic minutemen as nothing more than government goons, defying the principles of organized labor & actually promoting the agenda of corporate America.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

68. Beautiful post.

[ewagner]

69. Nice post

I think something is lost in this discussion though. That is, the results of the Minuteman's efforts may be to thwart Corporate Slavery, which our side would applaud, but I think they are doing it for totally different reasons. They are not doing it for the same interests as we believe.

Sometimes the issues aren't all that clear.....

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

74. hear hear!

[Maestro]

76. Excellent post

Thanks!

[Darranar]

82. Yes, exactly...

Theoretically, any worker anywhere could say "why should I care about any of the others? All they do is depress my wages and decrease my chance of advancement."

But if every worker says that then no progress is made at all. Progress, and the defeat of the corporate power centers that form the enemies of both the workers of the United States and the workers of Latin America, is only possible with the moral ability to state decisively that one fights not merely for his or herself, for his or her own advancement, but for the advancement of all workers. It is on this basis of solidarity that the organization of labor can begin, and effective counters to the powers of corporations can be formed.

To do as the Minutemen and those who support them do is to sever this spirit on national lines, and in an era of corporate globalization, this can only result in harm to almost all workers in the end.

[cidliz2004]

95. Here are some of the facts that I based my opinions on

"only thrive with its working-class hopelessly divided & blaming one another for a crumbling standard of living."

I AM NOT BLAMING PEOPLE AROUND ME FOR THE "CRUMBLING STANDARD OF LIVING", I AM BLAMING A WHOLE SYSTEM BUILT ON TURNING A BLIND EYE TO THE INFLUX OF "CHEAP LABOR"


"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."


CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html

Abraham Lincoln 1809 - 1865

HERE ARE SOME OF THE FACTS IF YOU CARE TO READ THROUGH ANY OF THEM

CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html

"CAIR"
Economic costs of legal and illegal immigration
Why borders can not be open
"Business interests however are short-term. Easy immediate access to labour will always be preferred to the costs of training and capital investment for the longer term. In the nature of economic cycles, yesterday's essential labour can often become, as the defunct factories and mills of Europe have shown, today's unemployed. Employers who demanded immigrant labour are not held to account for this or required to contribute to subsequent costs of their unemployed former workers. Few things are more permanent that temporary worker from a poor country. If business were made responsible for the lifetime costs of their migrant labour in the same way as they must now deal with the lifetime environmental costs of their products, perhaps enthusiasm for labour migration might be moderated and make way for longer-term investment in capital-intensive restructuring."7

"Economic and social costs of illegal immigration
The economic and social consequences of illegal immigration across the 1,940 mile long America-Mexico border are staggering.

An average of 10,000 illegal aliens cross the border every day - over 3 million per year. A third will be caught and many of them immediately will try again. About half of those remaining will become permanent U.S. residents (3,500 per day).

Currently there are an estimated 9 to 11 million illegals in the U.S., double the 1994 level. A quarter-million illegal aliens from the Middle-east currently live in the U.S, and a growing number are entering by crossing the Mexican border."

"Mexican ambulance drivers are driving their hospital patients who can't pay for medical care in Mexico, to facilities in the United States. They know that the federal Emergency Medical Act mandates that U.S. hospitals with emergency-room services must treat anyone who requires care, including illegal aliens.

Medical service for Americans in affected communities is being severely damaged as hospitals absorb more than $200 million in unreimbursed costs. Some emergency rooms have shut down because they cannot afford to stay open. Local tax-paying Americans are either denied medical care or have to wait in long lines for service as the illegals flood the facilities. In California, the losses are calculated to be about $79 million, with $74 million in Texas, $31 million in Arizona, and $6 million in New Mexico."1

These costs are staggering. The Cochise County, Arizona Health Department spends as much as 30 percent of its annual $9 million budget on illegal aliens.3 The Copper Queen Hospital in Bisbee, Arizona, has spent $200,000 in uncompensated services out of a net operating budget of $300,000.3 The University Medical Center in Tucson may lose as much as $10 million and the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, also in Tucson, has lost $1 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2002.3

HOW MANY OF PEOPLE THAT CALLED US BIGOTS LIVE IN THE AREAS WHERE THESE HOSPITALS ARE BEING BLED DRY AND CLOSED

As noted above, in a recent year in Colorado, the state's emergency Medicaid program paid an estimated $30 million in hospital and physician delivery costs for about 6,000 illegal immigrant mothers - average of $5,000 per baby."





AND YOU ARE GOING TO TELL ME THAT THESE NUMBERS DON'T ADVERSELY AFFECT OUR ECONOMY???????

"CAIR"
Illegal aliens have cost billions of taxpayer-funded dollars for medical services. Dozens of hospitals in Texas, New Mexico Arizona, and California, have been forced to close or face bankruptcy because of federally-mandated programs requiring free emergency room services to illegal aliens. Taxpayers pay half-a-billion dollars per year incarcerating illegal alien criminals.

In the NAFTA era, a staggering 87 percent of Mexico's imports go to the United States, while Mexicans living in the United States send home more than $8 billion annually. Fox has said he considers his constituency to include the 22 million to 24 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States. Mexican candidates now make campaign stops in U.S. cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Fresno, Calif." (Mexico's muddle, Ruben Navarrette Jr., March 26, 2003

"CAIR"

The total K-12 school expenditure for illegal immigrants costs the states $7.4 billion annually—enough to buy a computer for every junior high student nationwide.


LOU DOBBS
"illegal aliens cost the nations tens of billions of dollars in social services, principally in healthcare and education, but they depress wages for American citizens by an estimated $200 billion a year. American business is exploiting cheap labor and paradoxically doing so with the blessing and support of national unions

An estimated 6 million illegal aliens work in the underground economy, where neither they nor those who employ them pay taxes. That accounts for part of an additional $400 billion a year in taxes that should be paid to the Internal Revenue Service."

"......3 million illegal aliens who entered this country last year, "



I KNOW, I KNOW THIS REALLY DOESN'T MATTER AND/OR AFFECT OUR COUNTRY NOW DOES IT?????

[countryjake]

117. Sorry, I don't trust info from known racist orgs...

Maybe your eyes are blinded to the fact that this system, this country we live in was built on the exploitation of cheap, foreign labor...that it's a "Built-In" tradition. That "influx" was quite deliberate, always has been; read up on some history of the Chinese immigrants brought here, when building up transportation was "needed"; look at all of the past "guest worker" programs that our government has implemented, after out-and-out slavery was no longer policy. One group of immigrants gain strength & unity in their trade, then whammy, suddenly laws are made with severe restrictions on them, & RACISM is DELIBERATELY fanned by those in power, to drum up hatred & resentment. Problem solved...worker strength is crushed, that particular group of immigrants is shit-listed by public, a new & improved bunch of immigrants from another foreign land are imported, CHEAP LABOR is guaranteed!

You're right, those kinds of policies DO matter & that needs to be where our focus is directed. Are you even aware that long-time migrant workers in Washington state are now being pushed out by the revival of the "guest-worker" program, which is shipping in South Asians to upset the gains that have been slowly made by LEGAL HISPANIC MIGRANT FARMWORKERS??? Can you recognize any patterns, at all, in the need of big business to keep workers divided & weak, in order to continue exploiting ALL of them & keep wages as low as possible & conditions miserable? Attacking & condemning any immigrants most certainly affects us all!


Recognizing Our Common Bonds
http://www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/magazine/commonbonds.cfm

When eight undocumented Mexicans working as housekeepers for Holiday Inn Express in Minneapolis joined with their fellow workers in seeking a decent wage by voting for a union with the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees, hotel management retaliated by turning them in to immigration officials.

Last October, the manager called the workers into an office where they were greeted by an Immigration and Naturalization Service agent, who promptly arrested them. The manager said he called the INS because he was afraid he would be penalized for knowingly hiring undocumented workers. "I felt a lot of rage and impotence, because we were doing nothing wrong, we were just working." says Estella Albino Granda, 29, one of the workers. "I felt that we were being discriminated against because only Hispanics were called in."

The National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices ruled in January that the workers had been fired illegally and discriminated against. The hotel agreed to pay each one $8,000 in back pay and compensatory damages. But that was little consolation to the workers, who were certain they would be deported—without a job they could not support their families or send money back home to relatives who needed help. "I am the only one who is able to help my mother back in Mexico," Norma Del Toro, 29, says through an interpreter. "We were very worried."

Their union, HERE Local 17, and the AFL-CIO took up their cause and argued that the eight should not be deported because they helped the federal agencies investigate charges of race bias, retaliation and document abuse at the hotel. The investigation and settlement "sent a powerful message to workers and employers across this country that unlawful discrimination in the workplace will not be tolerated, regardless of a person’s immigration status," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. But that message was in danger of being undermined if the workers had been forced to leave the country.


The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride. (Fall of 2003)
http://www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/magazine/0903_iwfr.cfm

“Immigrants built this country and the union movement,” says HERE President John Wilhelm, chair of the AFL-CIO Executive Council Committee on Immigration. “Today, millions of immigrants are working hard at jobs many of us don’t want to do, paying taxes and playing by the rules. They deserve the same freedom and equality we all strive for in America.”

The Freedom Riders—who include documented and undocumented immigrants and union and community allies—will stop in dozens of communities across the country to spotlight the need for immigration reform. With the 2004 elections approaching, the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride also will put immigration issues squarely on the national political agenda while encouraging greater participation by immigrants, whatever their immigration status, in the civic life of the nation.

“The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride is about standing beside each other and standing up for the founding principles of our country—that what matters isn’t where you’re from but where you’re striving to go, and that exploiting any group of workers is an attack on the living standards of all workers,” says Laborers President Terence O’Sullivan.


Defending the Rights of Immigrant Workers
What Union Members Should Know About the
AFL-CIO Policy on Immigration
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/immigration/upload/AFLCIOPO.pdf
(pdf file)

Labor's principles
We believe the following principles should form our national immigration policy. Specifically:

Undocumented workers and their families make enormous contributions to their communities and workplaces and should be provided permanent legal status through a new legalization program;

Employer sanctions and the I-9 system should be replaced with a system that targets and criminalizes employers who recruit undocumented workers from abroad for econmic gain;

Immigrant workers should have full workplace rights, including the right to organize and protections for whistle-blowers; more...

The AFL-CIO supports a broad legalization program that makes no distinction based on country of origin and that allows undocumented workers and their families who have been working hard, paying taxes and contributing to their communities the opportunity to adjust to permanent legal resident status. We should recognize that one of the reasons for undocumented immigration is that our current legal immigration system for family members and for workers is in shamefully bad shape. A broad legalization program providing permanent residence status, rather than a large new guest worker program, should be the focus of our efforts.


Immigrant Workers
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/immigration/index.cfm

The United States often has been called “a nation of immigrants,” and most Americans—with the notable exception of Native Americans—have ancestors who arrived from other countries, either voluntarily or involuntarily as slaves. Throughout American history, immigrants helped build America’s cities, towns, farms, businesses, economies and civic and cultural institutions. Immigrants from around the world also helped build the American union movement, providing a generation after generation of members, activists and leaders.

But today, immigrant workers in America often face the harshest forms of workplace problems that affect all workers, immigrant and nonimmigrant alike: employer interference with our rights to improve wages and working conditions through unionization, discrimination and abuse at the hands of unscrupulous employers and the enduring struggle for dignity and respect, both as workers and human beings. When one worker’s rights are abused, all workers are harmed.

Today’s unions are standing strong to demand protection for the rights of immigrant workers and to thwart employers’ attempts to exploit immigrants and pit workers against each other.

[EFerrari]

71. If the minute men are fighting corporate slavery

why aren't they patrolling Wall Street?

Puh-leeeeeeeeze.

[Turn CO Blue]

77. Nope. Not gonna buy it. The Minutemen should be patrolling

the House and Senate...trying to get the laws enforced or changed, if they feel so strongly about it.

This whole thing is gonna get ugly, and I predict some poor guy trying to cross over, who just wants a better life, will be bludgeoned by a bigot.

It's an UNACCEPTABLE "macho" I'm-a-big-man-and-ain't-I-tough way to deal with the issue.

[Darranar]

78. Proud "illogical bleeding heart enabler" here...

Since quite obviously the immigrants prefer to be in the United States where they are paid horrible wages than in their home countries, helpfully kept in the dirt by US and EU global economic policy, forcing them to go back home will likely subject them to even worse conditions.

That does not mean the current situation is tolerable. Far from it. There should be laws to better aid immigrant workers, instead of laws to deal them further harm. And if you really want to stop it that can be managed, too - stop the policies that interfere with third world development, and instead formulate ones that facilitate it.

[Sterling]

83. Yes if they made hiring an illegal a felony the problem would stop

I think both border patrol strengthening as well as harsh penalties for hiring would do a lot. I blame the illegals less than the fat cats personally.

[izzybeans]

85. Equating this with slavery is nonsense.

Ever hear of exchange rates?

on edit: perhaps you could scratch your post all together add the subject line "Unions unite to fight corporate exploitation". At least that would be true.

These assholes give no shit about corporate slavery. If they did they'd run into the walmart rip the guns off the wall, snatch some binoculars and set up camp waiting for the regional manager to walk out on to the sales floor. Then they could have their photops with an "illegal". They are just afraid they're children will learn spanish and marry someone a shade darker someday. That's all it ever was. The rest is just an excuse to hate.

[tyedyeto]

96. As per your post title...then protest against those Corporations!!! n/t

[jukes]

104. this is nothing new

this vigilante activity has been going on for years in this same area, promoted by a variety of like-minded groups and excused by a variety of like-worded rhetoric.

the ADL has compiled a listing of the precursors to the "minutemen" patrols, with commentary on the resultant violence and murders perpetrated under guise of the same excuses and apologia offered here.

if you really want to know how horrible this situation is, go to this link: http://www.adl.org/extremism/arizona/arizonaborder.pdf

adobe format.

[Adelante]

106. Protest in Washington, instead of crucifying the Minutemen

It's the Minutemen who should be protesting in Washington. This action at the border is drawing every right-wing nut job in the country. Aryan Nation types are jumping for joy.

I happen to be in favor of *legal* immigration and have been saying for years the system is broken and dishonest and has to be fixed. But it can and should be done in a way that does not harm and mortally offend hardworking Mexicans who are only looking for a way to survival.

Enforce the laws, yes, but make the system logical first. Let the Minutemen coordinate that through Congress and the media.

I don't know, but are these people working the Canadian border?

Illogical bleeding heart enabler, that must be me.



edit: Sorry, jukes. Responding to OP.

[cidliz2004]

108. Minutemen go to Congress??????? Isn't that where all activism is killed?

These people are living in communities that are being crushed by the weight of the unsustainable influx of illegals. These people are living the day to day results of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S turning a blind eye to the problem. They are dealing with it the best way that they can...they are defending their homes and local Governments that are being crushed and bankrupted by this issue. If they are not perfect people going about this in the perfect way, well you know what.....since when did you become perfect and since when did protecting your home become a biggoted action?

The Minutemen, if nothing else is drawing attention to the lack of funding by the Federal Government and possibly forcing SOME attention and maybe even maybe SOME action ..... as in 250 additional Border Patrol being put at the Borders. Something good has already come of it.

In the mean time while you point fingers and find fault with people that aren't offended by the Minutemen, why don't you also propose and work on solutions to some of these issues:


Lou Dobbs

"illegal aliens cost the nations tens of billions of dollars in social services, principally in healthcare and education, but they depress wages for American citizens by an estimated $200 billion a year. American business is exploiting cheap labor and paradoxically doing so with the blessing and support of national unions

An estimated 6 million illegal aliens work in the underground economy, where neither they nor those who employ them pay taxes. That accounts for part of an additional $400 billion a year in taxes that should be paid to the Internal Revenue Service."

"......3 million illegal aliens who entered this country last year, "

CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

Abraham Lincoln 1809 - 1865

HERE ARE SOME OF THE FACTS IF YOU CARE TO READ THROUGH ANY OF THEM

CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html

Economic costs of legal and illegal immigration

Why borders can not be open

"Business interests however are short-term. Easy immediate access to labour will always be preferred to the costs of training and capital investment for the longer term. In the nature of economic cycles, yesterday's essential labour can often become, as the defunct factories and mills of Europe have shown, today's unemployed. Employers who demanded immigrant labour are not held to account for this or required to contribute to subsequent costs of their unemployed former workers. Few things are more permanent that temporary worker from a poor country. If business were made responsible for the lifetime costs of their migrant labour in the same way as they must now deal with the lifetime environmental costs of their products, perhaps enthusiasm for labour migration might be moderated and make way for longer-term investment in capital-intensive restructuring."7

CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html

"Economic and social costs of illegal immigration
The economic and social consequences of illegal immigration across the 1,940 mile long America-Mexico border are staggering.

An average of 10,000 illegal aliens cross the border every day - over 3 million per year. A third will be caught and many of them immediately will try again. About half of those remaining will become permanent U.S. residents (3,500 per day).

Currently there are an estimated 9 to 11 million illegals in the U.S., double the 1994 level. A quarter-million illegal aliens from the Middle-east currently live in the U.S, and a growing number are entering by crossing the Mexican border."

"Mexican ambulance drivers are driving their hospital patients who can't pay for medical care in Mexico, to facilities in the United States. They know that the federal Emergency Medical Act mandates that U.S. hospitals with emergency-room services must treat anyone who requires care, including illegal aliens.

Medical service for Americans in affected communities is being severely damaged as hospitals absorb more than $200 million in unreimbursed costs. Some emergency rooms have shut down because they cannot afford to stay open. Local tax-paying Americans are either denied medical care or have to wait in long lines for service as the illegals flood the facilities. In California, the losses are calculated to be about $79 million, with $74 million in Texas, $31 million in Arizona, and $6 million in New Mexico."1

These costs are staggering. The Cochise County, Arizona Health Department spends as much as 30 percent of its annual $9 million budget on illegal aliens.3 The Copper Queen Hospital in Bisbee, Arizona, has spent $200,000 in uncompensated services out of a net operating budget of $300,000.3 The University Medical Center in Tucson may lose as much as $10 million and the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, also in Tucson, has lost $1 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2002.3

HOW MANY PEOPLE THAT CALLED US BIGOTS LIVE IN THE AREAS WHERE THESE HOSPITALS ARE BEING BLED DRY AND CLOSED? HOW MANY PEOPLE MIGHT BE MOVED TO DO SOMETHING REALLY RADICAL IF THEY LIVED IN AREAS WHERE THINGS LIKE THIS ARE HAPPENING……LIKE VOLUNTEER TO GUARD BORDERS…….KIND OF LIKE GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND THE NORMAL BEHAVIOR WHEN YOU LIVE IN A HIGH CRIME AREA AND YOU BAND TOGETHER WITH YOUR NEIGHBORS AND FORM A “NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH GROUP” PEOPLE THAT ARE NOT DIRCECTLY
AFFECTED BY THIS CAN BE SO “COMPASSIONATE” WHILE PEOPLE LOSING HOSPITALS, JOBS, GOOD SCHOOLING… CAN UNDERSTANDABLY BE MOVED TO MAKE MORE RADICAL MOVES TO PROTECT WHAT THEY ARE PAYING FOR. THEY DON’T WANT THEIR FAMILIES TO SUFFER EITHER!

As noted above, in a recent year in Colorado, the state's emergency Medicaid program paid an estimated $30 million in hospital and physician delivery costs for about 6,000 illegal immigrant mothers - average of $5,000 per baby."

CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html
Illegal aliens have cost billions of taxpayer-funded dollars for medical services. Dozens of hospitals in Texas, New Mexico Arizona, and California, have been forced to close or face bankruptcy because of federally-mandated programs requiring free emergency room services to illegal aliens. Taxpayers pay half-a-billion dollars per year incarcerating illegal alien criminals.

CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html
In the NAFTA era, a staggering 87 percent of Mexico's imports go to the United States, while Mexicans living in the United States send home more than $8 billion annually. Fox has said he considers his constituency to include the 22 million to 24 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States. Mexican candidates now make campaign stops in U.S. cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Fresno, Calif." (Mexico's muddle, Ruben Navarrette Jr., March 26, 2003

CAIR http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html
The total K-12 school expenditure for illegal immigrants costs the states $7.4 billion annually—enough to buy a computer for every junior high student nationwide.

[Adelante]

109. Here's one idea

Go after the EMPLOYERS. Go after the CORPORATIONS. Go after the US GOVERNMENT.

I do not deny the problem. I want secure borders. I think everybody does. But this is not the way to go about it. Thanks to NAFTA Americans lost jobs, but blaming the Mexicans for that is absurd - their jobs are now in China.

[Adelante]

110. Did you not say this?

"Protest in Washington, instead of crucifying the Minutemen"

And now you're saying this:

"Minutemen go to Congress??????? Isn't that where all activism is killed?"

Which is it?

[Me.]

111. I Applaud Your Efforts Here

It is a difficult discussion to instigate but one that must be had. The minutemen aspect is clouding an issue which is becoming a huge problem. And as the economy continues to go downward and the jobs exodus remains unabated the burden will become even more weighty. What may be the benefit of the immigration issue is that it could turn out to be the tipping point to confronting so many other problems in this country; corporatism, jobs, the deficit, our broken health care system, so on and so forth.

[cidliz2004]

120. Thank you for one of few intelligent and thoughtful responses.

This is not an easy issue. I just became really amazed at the hypocrisy on this issue. NO ONE is saying that anybody should starve, NO ONE is saying that there may be some racists or bigots among the Minutemen, YET, posters against this issue call people who don't agree with them bigots - across the board! What hypocrisy! As far as I am concerned NOBODY should have to live in hunger or poor conditions. What I cannot accept that is that people here don't see that this is a multifaceted problem. 10,000 illegal immigrants coming across the border everyday is a joke to the laws in place for immigration. We either respect the legal system or we don't. If we don't like the laws then we have to commit to AT LEAST MAKE THE EFFORT TO CHANGE THEM, instead of finger pointing at the "racists", "bigots" while they continue to sit back and allow the "hunger" that they are so concerned with, continue.

Show me facts and figures on how this isn't affecting state Governments, local government and/or American's quality of life in the border states and then tell me why it is O.K. for a Mexican to cross the U.S. border illegally, but not O.K. for the poor slob whose job was "outsourced" by "in sourcing" cheap labor to organize and guard borders for self preservation LEGALLY. Then there is the fact that the illegal immigrants are exploited and forced to live like fugitives for years. Is that what "they" are supporting, condemning people to live in the shadows underground?

THIS IS A SYSTEM THAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED FOR EVERYBODY'S SAKE SO GO AHEAD AND SHOOT ONE OF THE VICTIM'S.

I HAVE A REAL PROBLEM WITH PEOPLE THAT HAVE ONE DIMENSIONAL THOUGHT PROCESS FOR COMPLEX ISSUES. THE "BLACK AND WHITE" GROUP THAT LOVE TO PRONOUNCE THEIR SIMPLE INDICTMENTS OF PEOPLE AT LEAST TRYING TO DO SOMETHING - NO MATTER HOW POSSIBLY MISGUIDED.

THE ONE THING IS THAT THE MINUTEMEN HAVE PROBABLY TRIGGERED AN ADDITIONAL 250 BORDER PATROL TO BE HIRED. ALTHOUGH ARIZONA SAYS THEY NEED AT LEAST 10X THAT AMOUNT.

WHY CANNOT PEOPLE POST THOUGHTFUL DISCUSSION TO THIS AND STOP DOING THE SUPERFICIAL NINNY NANNY BULLSHIT THAT KIDS DO. I WOULD ONE DAY LIKE TO WAKE UP AND FEEL THAT I AM LIVING IN WORLD THAT CONTAINS THOUGHTFUL INTELLIGENT PEOPLE. INSTEAD I MUST ACCEPT THAT THERE ARE FEW PEOPLE OUT THERE THAT WANT TO DEBATE AN ISSUE AND DEBATE BY THE "RULES" USING RESPECT, FACTS, FIGURES OR JUST A DEEPER THOUGHT PROCESS THAN "EVERYBODY THAT SUPPORTS THE MINUTEMEN ARE BIGOTS"

AGAIN THANK YOU FOR YOUR THOUGHTFUL POST AND I THINK (OR AT LEAST HOPE) THAT YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT. MAYBE THIS ISSUE WILL START TO TURN SOME OF THOSE SOUTHERN RED STATES ANOTHER WAY.....ARIZONA - MAYBE NOT (CONSIDERED) SOUTHERN, BUT RED NONE THE LESS. I READ THAT GEORGIA IS BEING HIT PRETTY HARD BY THIS AS IS NEW MEXICO AND TEXAS.

[BootinUp]

123. loved your post. :)

quite logical, actually.

[Crunchy Frog]

112. I agree with you about corporate exploitation of immigrants.

I can't agree with you about the Minute Men, or about vigilantism being a good solution to the issue. If the vigilantes were going after corporations, it might be different. Not hunting down people though. That just looks to me like violence and racism.

[Adelante]

127. "Corporate Slavery" is what the OP called it

Correctly.

Yet, rather than go after the slavemasters, the Minutemen go after the slaves.

Where is the logic?

Where is even the wisdom? What kind of half-assed strategy pits the workers against each other and lets the exploiters off the hook? The usual kind, that's what.

I don't say that all these people are racists. Some are, most likely, and some are not. Naturally, there are those who are genuine in their belief that what they are doing is right for their families and for the country. But sincere people can be played for suckers. And this action is a sucker play if I've ever seen one.

[notadmblnd]

119. Here in Michigan all Lawn Care and Landscaping work

is being done by illegals. They live in houses owned by the companies they work for and very often give their paychecks right back to thier employeers. So many of them have to live together 12-24 in a home is not unusual. There was a big write up in the local paper here, but nothing ever come of it.

I tried to explain to one of my neices boyfriends (he is illegal) how the hispanics were being enslaved here. He understood and agreed to a certain extent. But he feels that enslavement to a corporation in US is better than their existance in Mexico.