Bush said securing borders was a top priority of immigration reform but invoked the country's history as "a nation of immigrants."That about sums up the entire Bush family outlook on labor: "doing jobs that Americans will not do," meaning if you work hard and sacrifice much for your family, you're a sap (a point Carville and Begala go to great pains to make in "Take It Back," mentioned below). Much better to sit back and reap the benefits of capital appreciation, and let legality and salaries trickle down on the help.
"As we debate the immigration issue, we must remember there are hardworking individuals, doing jobs that Americans will not do, who are contributing to the economic vitality of our country," Bush said.
Y'know, the immigration debate is such a non-issue, aside from the border security concern, that it rates a little below gay marriage and slightly higher than what our national fruit should be (I think it's the cherry, but I couldn't tell you for sure.)
Immigration is the backbone of this country. Immigrants and their descendants have created the great dynasties of wealth: the Kennedys, for one. The Rockefellers, Roosevelts, hell, even the Bushes, came to this country with little, and made themselves what they are: our nobility. I'd lay odds that among those four names, there are several shady immigration scenarios that contributed to there presence here in the States. Given the Bush family criminal history, you have to know which family I'm thinking snuck under the ropes.
Sad commentary on the President, then, that he wants to legislate who comes in next, like the guy who finally gets into Studio 54 and then begs the bouncers to close the rope line behind him.
As always, Bush takes the wimp route: let's let those who are here already stay, work at menial jobs, and then they have to leave and get back in line to come here permanently. I call bullshit on that. That's pure exploitation, but that's what Republicans are all about.
It's not like "guest workers," are going to be terrorists. And if they are, they're here already and as 9-11 so clearly points out, the Bushies couldn't keep an eye on terrorists, either in this country or not, if you painted a big fucking arrow in the sky that followed them around like on a Google map.
Or have the lessons of Tora Bora been lost on us?
I propose this: nothing. Things are fine the way they are. The only thing we need to do is to learn how to distinguish between terrorists and people looking to feed their families back home. I think we can figure that out, with a Democratic Congress and President, because clearly these guys are too scared to try on their own.
Illegal immigration shouldn't be punished by anything more than rounding them up as they cross the borders (sorry for the impersonal "they" here) and carting them back across the line, and alerting the authorities in Mexico and Canada to what happened.
Yes. Canada. Although I usually cross the border into Canada at checkpoints, I know many places in New York State and across the upper Midwest, Plains, and Northwest, where towns straddle the border and the coffee shop is in America but the bus depot is in Canada, or some such arrangement that one can drive or even walk from one nation to another not only unchallenged, but not even observed.
You think Al Qaeda doesn't know this? Or in our bigotry, are we only assuming that because they come from a desert region that somehow they're blood is too thin to handle a Canadian winter day?
Afghanistan: temperature range -2 to 90 F. Iraq: temperature range 38 to 120. Neither of those sounds particularly tropical in winter, do they?
So which is worse? The fact that a bunch of Holy Roller white guys are trying to stuff our jails with undocumented workers because the fastest growing industry in America is detention (you could look it up), or that the Holy Roller President has to look on in terror as his party slips away from him further and further? Hell, even at the height of the Lewinski affair, Clinton could count on Democratic votes on legislation AND could hold his nose and work with the opposition to enact new laws to his liking!
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