Letters to the Editor
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Illegal Irish
The day Lou Dobbs does just one show on the issue of present illegal Irish immigration to the Bronx, is the day he might have 'some' rationale to say his show isn't just a constant daily jermiad against 'brown people'.
Don't hold your breath. He is starting to remind me of "Father Coughlin."
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Lou Dobbs is no bigot
Unless, by the same token, you characterize anyone who condemns pimping and prostitution as a misogynist.
Undocumented workers, or illegal immigrants, or whatever the hell you want to call them, are being used to propagate an increasingly untenable labor/economic situation in the US, in addition to to propping up a thoroughly untenable labor/economic situation in Mexico.
Whatever benefit the use of illegal labor might provide in the short term, it will surely prove to be of the utmost detriment in the long term. It drives down the average wage of the American worker, props up Mexico's corrupt political system through the practice of "remittance," and creates a convenient political scapegoat in the form of a permanent underclass of brown-skinned, non-english-speaking laborers, who are exploited by their employers while at the same time being condemned by legal citizens of the country they live in.
So, the only winners are politicians and business.
To castigate Lou Dobbs for bringing attention to these inarguable facts is absurd. Cesar Chavez used to call INS on illegals because they were used to break union farmworker strikes. I guess Cesar Chavez was an "agent of intolerance" also.
If anyone wants to make a positive difference in the lives of workers, Mexican or not, they should focus their attention on the labor and economic situations of all citizens, in all countries, regardless of race or immigration status. Unfortunately for Janet Murguia's political grandstanding, Hispanic immigrants to the US constitute only a small fraction of that huge problem. "Worker" is not a race.
And by the way, Lou Dobbs is married to a Mexican-American.
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Mexico
The main reason we have so many immigrants from Mexico is because the Mexican economy is a shit box. Trouble is, the reasons are U.S. agricultural policy, NAFTA and our drug 'war'. The other part is the corrupt neo-liberal government, supported by our government for many years.
Solution to immigration from Mexico? Make Mexico a livable place by changing U.S. policy to Mexico in very fundamental ways. Encourage the Left and the PRD. Fund unionization in Mexico. Stop destroying Mexican agriculture. Get rid of GMO corn and other foodstuffs. Legalize pot. Get rid of NAFTA. Rebuild the U.S. labor movement by changing the U.S. laws against unionization.
Otherwise, the situation will continue, laws or no laws.
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Dobbs v. La Raza
No, no more than featuring Putin makes him a communist. Anyway, the "debate" was a boring "I accuse you...."
La Raza lady does not know the difference between free speech and hate speech. She hoped that her continual haranguing would prove her point, not so. She appeared ignorant to me.
She was shrill, constant and oblivious to what she was saying.
La Raza is just that: her attributes incarnate.
Dobbs' problem was that he did not forcefully interupt her and tell her to shut up. He did not use the mass of statistical data to whack her around, he failed!
The only thing that I could be sure of was that Dobbs said many things the La Raza lady did not like. SO WHAT?
According to her thinking her internal standard is the hate standard. What one dislikes is not racism, or hatred. What a midget mind that lady is.
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@elydog,
illegal Irish were a problem in the 1980s. But ever since The Troubles quieted down, the Irish economy took off. Many of the young Irish who came and overstayed their visas went back.
I agree with the Anon poster before you. I don't demonize these people who are here illegally. They are desperate to feed themselves and their families. The American and the Mexican oligarchies are in cahoots to monopolize the wealth. We should meet these poor people at the border; give them some clean clothes, hot food, and some rest; and send them back home with a rifle and some bullets to change their country.
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@elydog,
Mexico is a very rich country. The problem is the distribution of wealth.
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@ELYDOG
"Stop destroying Mexican agriculture. Get rid of GMO corn and other foodstuffs."
Yeah, let's make Mexican agriculture less competitive worldwide.
"Legalize pot."
Hard to see what this has to do with anything - not a bad idea though.
"Get rid of NAFTA."
Yeah, definitely reducing Mexican access to the US market will help Mexicans. Absolutely.
"Rebuild the U.S. labor movement by changing the U.S. laws against unionization."
How exactly expanding the US/Mexican wage gap reduces illegal immigration is beyond me. Also, what laws against unionization are you referring to?
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Canada
Surely Dobbs ain't talkin' about us!
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Lou Dobbs is not a purveyor of hate speech
Both the minutemen and La Raza are hate groups, but a journalist is not a purveyor of hate for interviewing them. They are both very real influences on an issue that is dearly important to many Americans. It is the very purpose of free speech in a democracy to inform the electorate about the variety of ideas out there. Murguia's attempt to squelch this debate is nothing less than anti-democratic.
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Blaming the victim.
Lou Dobbs isn't really a bigot. He's just paid that way.
He's sponsored by Cheap Labor Conservatives to keep attention away from the Cheap Labor Conservatives who 'hire' illegals. There wouldn't be any 'crisis' with illegal immigration if Cheap Labor Conservatives didn't demand Undocumented Slave Labor and rig Latin American labor markets to make sure they maintain a supply of willing destitutes.
The Dobbs Tactic gives gullible wingnuts some scapegoats to hate and serves the interests of corporatists besides. Both are Very Conservative things to do, so what could be better?
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Salon is 1 billion % right
We should open the floodgates and welcome an infinite number of illegals in to drive the wage base down to zero. That way when no one has a job and can't pay their taxes we'll fire all the teachers, cops and firefighters and let the whole shebang burn to the ground like it's 1499. I'm with ya, liberals. Of course I also have an easy exit to citizenship elsewhere.