Red, White, and... Green?

The sight of demonstrators waving the Mexican flag may actually galvanize the majority of Americans against some “liberal” immigration reform measures being debated in Congress. Hallelujah.

Rarely do the House Republicans make much sense. All the more reason to acknowledge the unusual event. The bill they passed would apply meaningful sanctions on employers who hire illegal immigrants. Maybe the representatives are listening (gasp!) to small business owners who do the right thing and hire Americans or legal immigrants. These employers have been undercut for years by employers who are willing to cut corners, flout the law, and exploit illegal immigrants. The Senate, on the other hand, is hosting an unholy alliance of politicians (redundant) in thrall of exploitative employers or a misguided subset of civil rights leaders.

Reform should be based on protecting American citizens, legal immigrants, and illegal immigrants. I think that can be accomplished by (1) punishing employers who hire illegal immigrants, (2) protecting the border, and (3) deporting illegals. Jobs bring the illegals into the country and displace legal job seekers, so employer sanctions are essential. Any meaningful reform must be based on real control of the border else it's just more hot air. Rewarding the illegal immigrants by legalizing their status would only encourage more illegal entry and frustrate those who try to immigrate legally.

Most developed countries in the world do not depend on dirt-poor immigrants for labor. Instead, they have living wages for cleaning, landscaping and other unskilled labor. Sure, their cost of living is high but their standard of living is higher still. Labor exploitation is a race to the bottom that almost all of us will lose. For example, look at construction, which was until recently a reasonably well paid job. Now the labor pool is dominated by illegals and the pay has plunged.

The debate should focus on real concerns instead of specious claims or scary stories. Some Catholic clergy (bless 'em) claim that provisions in the House bill against providing aid and comfort to the illegals will make it illegal to offer them soup or even say mass with them. It is obviously unlikely that any “good Samaritan” would be arrested. Also senseless is the claim that since we are a nation of immigrants, the illegals should be welcomed. The poor immigrants of 100+ years ago had practically no social services. Today, illegal immigrants cost local communities large amounts in services that are not recompensed through taxes.

It's great that Mexicans are proud and want to wave their flag. But why don't they want to contribute their efforts to improving their own country?

Buushism: George W. Bush is a Baathist

Saddam Hussein used the Baathist party to control the Iraqi economy and society. Baathism was styled after the European fascism of the mid-20th century, supporting nationalism and industrial cooperation (monopoly). Fascist politicians do the bidding of industrialists and money managers, usually to the detriment of small business owners and average citizens. Fascist politicians transfer state assets to cronies through favorable contracts. They love arms manufacturers. Meanwhile, they pander to the workers with populist rhetoric and a veneer of a "regular guy" image. They make frequent appeals to patriotism to distract and cover up incompetence and nepotism.

Hey, this sounds a lot like what's going on in Washington, D.C.! Defense contractors, most notably Halliburton, are given huge, no-bid contracts. Opponents are labeled unpatriotic or even treasonous. Nepotism? Dad and brothers Bush have a made politics a successful family enterprise (their only business success). Who knows, maybe with good campaign managers, Saddam's sons might have won election as governors of large states. It doesn't stop with the Bush clan. Colin Powell's son chaired the FCC and the brothers McClellan are White House communications director and (former) head of the FDA. It doesn't even stop with legally recognized relationships. Dr. Rice has referred to W as her husband!

This may seem, ahem, heretical? Perhaps this is because fascism deifies the state as a hand of god, with the president as god's representative, spokesman, and highest priest. This is also aspect of Bushism. People say that they have abiding faith in Bush, a faith that withstands all earthly fact. Bush thinks it is enough for him to anoint his appointees with his assurance that they are a "good man" or woman. Even Reagan said that one should trust but verify. (Though that was in reference to the USSR. Reagan's own administration had freelance, extra-constitutional operatives whom he praised even as he fired them, like Colonel Ollie North and Admiral Poindexter.) Bush reduces this to just "trust", which is an appeal to faith, not reason.

Obviously, the scale and consequences of disobedience and disagreement are different. Fascists often kill opponents and their families and even destroy their villages. These are executive powers that even Cheney would probably find overreactions (but worth keeping among the other executive privileges, like torture). But it is revealing that when Paul O'Neil resigned as Secretary of the Treasury, after seeing the behavior of this administration, up close, he said that he was freer to criticize because he was "rich and an old man". Ditto Richard Clarke. Both were characterized as nuts and dismissed. Would-be critics who are less established, younger, and less rich, be warned: it's just you against us and we will crush you. This approach is responsible for miring our armed forces in Iraq and burdening our children with historic debts. Meanwhile, the chosen few are doing very well, thank you.

It’s an odd truth that we tend become what we hate - and hate others for what we dislike most about ourselves. Spielberg's current movie 'Munich' shows how the secret agents who hunted down the murderers of the Israeli athletes developed some of their opponents' calloused inhumanity. Here is the real cycle of hate: project, personify, objectify, vilify, ... and emulate. All the more reason to avoid hating. So let's not hate Buushism, let's just reject it.

Is G. W. Bush a Baathist? Given the family's obsession with Hussein, it's either take a Baathist label or risk being labeled closet Saddamites.

God and me and you

Who is God? God is the Creator of all (that is seen and unseen). That said, I think He made us to challenge and entertain (delight, disappoint, exasperate, and probably boor) Him. Job certainly challenged Him, albeit deferentially. Job's fundamental question – why do the just suffer – seemed to anger Him, perhaps because He knew that His “answers” weren't very convincing. “Because I said so!” is a parental response and dissonant with the sense of justice He gave us. I like Jung's idea – that Jesus is God's Answer to Job. (I'm growing more skeptical of Jung's idea that Jesus had something to learn, as God, of the human condition.) The Answer is a retelling of God's parental love for us, assuming a form better suited for a more mature humanity.

The universe is challenging and entertaining for us. It is the mysteries that best hold our interest, like a closed door for a cat or just beyond any boundary for a kid. Even if apples were part of the daily diet in Eden, those on that one certain forbidden tree would still hold a special allure, an irresistible attraction for the first humans.

In response to our persistent questioning, maybe He creates alternate universes, one after the other, as needed, on the fly, out of His infinite inventiveness. Physicists confirm what our intuition tell us – that observation changes everything*. They tell us that some things are actually several (potential) things until they are observed, whereupon they resolve into one of the options. He is managing an awful lot of options!

We keep trying to figure it all (the universe) out. We see evanescent patterns and make little rules – but they are not His rules. Our rules become our little gods, our little idols, which we follow diligently until they prove unreliable. His omniscience and omnipotence keeps His ever new universe consistent over time, more or less, so that our world doesn't degrade into a relativistic nightmare. It seems a miracle. But maybe the consistency is simpler than we think. Maybe it simply stems from His constant love and consistent rule – that we love one another. Oh, and have no other gods before Him.

* Physicists boldly go one link further up the causal chain. Not only might a tree falling unobserved in the forest make no sound, it may not even have fallen until someone sees it on the ground (or still standing).

A Bush in the China Shop

Bush's trip to India and Pakistan is all about trying to counter China's influence. Oh, and acting as an unpaid traveling salesman for the nuclear power industry and weapons manufacturers. He will be successful for his corporate benefactors because that job is like selling drugs to addicts. The job he is paid for by the American taxpayers is much more difficult. Balancing China will require some long term thinking, so we'll count ourselves fortunate if this gang of Mayberry Machiavellis* arrives back home without having made things much worse.

There is no consistency in the administration's thinking (being charitable). They tell us that nukes in Iran are intolerable, nukes in India we've got to live with, nukes in Pakistan are ignored, nukes in Israel we just don't talk about, and nukes in North Korea we should apparently forget about. There are many obvious differences between these countries that could support a more rational, consistent policy. Left unspoken, but necessary for a truly consistent policy, is whether anything justifies the continued possession of so many (>10,000) nuclear weapons by the US. Please, let's be reasonable and leave any intellectual heavy lifting for the next administration**, hopefully a gang that can shoot straight (and not at friends).

* the gang formerly known as the neocons or their own favorite: vulcans. They wanted to sound tough and rough (if necessary), but think Barney Fife, Sheriff Andy's bumbling Deputy (memorably played by Don Knotts, who died recently at 81).
** Bush Sr. was US ambassador to China. Fortunately, Nixon and Kissenger ran the show from the White House else we might have gone to war over something (Tibet, anyone? Taiwan?). Consequently, Bush Jr. can probably say "my dad is the US ambassador" and maybe "where's the party?" in a couple Chinese dialects.