(no subject)

[raybear]

Dear Democratic Party,

Please please please please please please please make immigration a platform issue and push it as hard as your weak selves can go, not because I think you currently have anything viable to say or do on the matter, but because it will split the conservatives in half, separating out the white elitist panicky racist xenophobes from the white elitist corporations who honestly know on whose backs the flow of their money relies, and frankly, this is a road I would love for them to go down.

OR, um, see comments.

Comments

[unscrambled.livejournal.com]

I disagree. Whenever immigration is the issue, immigrants lose.

The two halves of the Repubs are super at sucking it up and compromising if it means winning, which if the Dems make immigration the issue, will certainly happen.

Also, Big Labor is Anti-Immigrant (think about the jobs that undocumented people work), so the Dems will never take it up in a good or real way.

however,

[broqued.livejournal.com]

Big Labor is anti-immigrant on face value, not in practice.

Re: however,

[unscrambled.livejournal.com]

Ok, but things like Democratic Party Platforms count as the face, don't they?

Re: however,

[broqued.livejournal.com]

indeed. but the ball has already started rolling:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, said Monday it would be unrealistic to round up and deport the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. Instead, he told CBS' "The Early Show," the United States should create a "path toward legalization" based on whether the immigrants are law abiding, pay takes, are learning English or demonstrate other "positive behavior."***

i think a platform, on consensus, could do better than individual dems shooting the likes of this about.

***that noise you heard was my stomach turning.

Re: however,

[unscrambled.livejournal.com]

Yuck.

I think that if the Dems come up with something together, it'll be even worse than the crap that Richardson is pulling in New Mexico--immigrant communities are a lot less politically powerful in most places in this country relative to NM. Think about South Dakota (or Ohio or PA, where the Dems have to win if they're going to win), where undocumented people and immigrants generally still do tons of work, but there's not the old institutions and political will of the Albuquerque families, etc. In some ways, Richardson's message might be one of the best of the bunch. This is why I say, no message is good message, on this issue at least.

But you're right, I may be pipe dreaming that this can get ignored. I just think if it's not ignored, it's going to be Way Way Worse.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

Whenever immigration is the issue, immigrants lose.

True. My comment was very much in the macrocosm context of the "mainstream two-party system of primarily talking and not doing", i.e. news, not the microcosm of peoples lives, which generally I take a greater interest in. The actual significant good and real work tends to happen on a grassroots level far, far, far away from DC anyway, because of the Big Labor issues.

I agree that Repubs do tend to band together and suck things up, which I find fascinating (and maddening), hence me also thinking about what could possible happen to split them in a significant way. I've also been reading a lot about living wage as a possible developing platform in this way.

[unscrambled.livejournal.com]

Right, my point is that if the big people take up the issue, then the immigrants get fucked.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

Point taken.