illegal humans?

marjorie says...

I had a conversation with a woman today who is very upset by the possibility that these armed border vigilantes in Arizona might potentially form a similar group in New Mexico. As we continued our discussion I began to realize that she in fact doesn’t think Mexican citizens (or illegal aliens as she termed them) ought to be able to cross over to find work here, that they in fact take away jobs from people like her. But, in her own words, no rednecks are coming into this state telling us how to deal with immigration…and she wants to be there facing off with them if they do come. hmmm...she sounds pretty conflicted to me.

I shared with her my perspective, that from the very beginning our country has existed on a foundation of stratified labor - slave labor, immigrant labor, sharecropping labor, no-union labor, temp labor, part-time labor - all labor pitted one against the other to drive down wages, and divert our attention from the underlying reason for the constant struggle to make a decent living, namely, the bottom line pursuit of profit. We live in a society that is continually challenged by significant polarities: individual rights vs. collective responsibility; private property vs. social welfare. How are we to balance our rights as individuals (that we deeply cherish) with the collective responsibility we share for the outcomes of our democracy, here and elsewhere? How are we to balance survival in our economic system (that enshrines private property) with providing for the social welfare? It's a hard one, but we’re all implicated in this system that thrives on extremely low wage labor, which means we are responsible for the creation of what Roberto Rodriguez in the article below terms illegal human populations. It’s not the other way around.


COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
BY ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ & PATRISIA GONZALES
RELEASE DATE APRIL 25, 2005
Militias: Another face of terrorism
By Roberto Rodriguez

The introduction of extremist and armed militias on the Arizona-Mexico border is sending shockwaves worldwide. The message: that extremist anti-Mexican militias, supported by other racial supremacists, are welcome there.

And it's not that these extremists are saying anything unusual. They're actually just echoing the administration's rhetoric about the border having something to do with “the war on terror”… as if the 911 terrorists had all come from, or through, Mexico.

Something isn't right. This is the same administration that goes to war, and calls for permanent war, under false pretenses, sanctions torture and military “targeted assassinations” and schemes to consolidate all power in the hands of the president, minus any checks and balances.

If the presence of these extremist militias isn't violating state or national laws, then perhaps the tacit governmental support of these militias may be placing the United States in violation of several international human rights conventions, including possibly the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. They are supposed to protect the human rights of all people, including migrants, while the treaty - which is still in force today -- is supposed to guarantee the rights and safety of Mexican citizens.

If their concern is terrorism, why aren't they on the Canadian border? And it's not as if these militias are overgrown boy scouts. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the American Friends Service Committee have tracked vigilante violence along the border for decades. So why then is the administration allowing this new militia effort - heavily supported by other known supremacists - to “take the law into their own hands?” Beyond the law, it's the message.

Since 1848, there have been untold deaths along the border by Texas Rangers, U.S. Border Patrol agents and vigilantes alike. And we're not talking ancient history. Every year, migrants turn up dead on the border as a result of drownings, exposure or vigilante violence. Court cases against vigilantes are not unusual. What's unusual is justice. Rare is the punishment for the death of a Mexican.

What's also unusual is to somehow link terrorism with Mexicans.

What seems to be at work is that these militias are providing cover, or better yet, leverage for an administration that is using fear to balloon the military and “homeland security” budgets. A death at the hands of one of these extremists will trigger an international outcry… but the administration will cleverly parlay it into a call for the further militarization of an already highly militarized border.

A death at the hands of one of these extremists will also be parlayed into passing the president's proposal to create a massive “guest worker” program that will result in a permanent subclass (subhuman) of workers, without the basic rights afforded all human beings. For instance, these workers will not be placed on track for legalization, much less U.S. citizenship. Nor will they will be allowed to bring over their families nor the right to unionization.

This inhumane scheme is in complete contradistinction to practices in Europe. There, workers from member nations of the European Community can work in any other member nation - without a loss of rights, citizenship or humanity. Here, with a trilateral agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, the government pretends that “illegal aliens” are sneaking in to take peoples' jobs. (Best right wing excuse is that they are taking jobs from African Americans. The question is, who awarded a patent for the worst U.S. jobs to African Americans?). The truth is, big business and government have always been in cahoots. The existence of “illegal aliens” means exploitable non-unionized labor - one that is forced to live in fear and in shadows - always with the threat of economic and sexual exploitation and deportation.

Can the United States adopt an EC labor-type arrangement with Mexico? Absolutely. Will it? Of course not. (The border patrol would be unemployed and multinational corporations would not be able to enjoy the fruits of extreme exploitation).

Militias on the border? That's but a manifestation of a larger problem - the systematic creation of legal and illegal human populations. If we want to get rid of these extremist kooks on the border, the first step is to eliminate the greatest source of dehumanization; the existence of legal and illegal human populations. Failure to do so will lay the groundwork for a future society based largely on hunter and hunted populations.


Column of the Americas 2005
The writers can be reached at XColumn@aol.com.