"Immigrants. Taking our jobs and public assistance. The cause of all our problems."

Give Us Your Lavishly Rich, Your Xenophobic
by Paul Buchheit
July 22, 2010

Immigrants. Taking our jobs and public assistance. The cause of all our problems.

But it's not true. We're blaming people who are struggling day-by-day to survive on their own or support their families, while we applaud a system that allows a financial expert to make enough money to pay the salaries of 50,000 police officers.

Here are some facts:

The Census Bureau and the World Wealth Report 2010 both report increases for the top 5% of households even during the current recession.

Based on Internal Revenue Service figures, the richest 1% have TRIPLED their cut of America's income pie in one generation. In 1980 the richest 1% of America took one of every fifteen income dollars. Now they take THREE of every fifteen income dollars. That's a TRILLION extra dollars a year.

Some ultra-rich individuals, like hedge fund managers David Tepper and John Paulson, made $4 billion in a year (on most of which they paid only a 15% capital gains tax rate). This is enough to pay the salaries of every public school teacher in New York City.

But we blame the immigrants instead of the people taking unimaginable amounts of money from society.

Howard Zinn wrote about the petty thieves who go to jail for crimes averaging $1000 per offense, while sophisticated financial insiders get probation for swindling millions from the system. The only difference now is that it's "legal" to use financial trickery to divert funds from education and infrastructure to a few well-positioned money managers.

Read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/22

We could afford health care for all, and eliminate our debt in short order. But no... the guide to class warfare says to continue blaming the poor brown people for everything. That keeps the poor white people whipped to an evil froth, and that keeps the poor brown people whipped to a froth. In short, what you get is class warfare disguised as race warfare. All this hate keeps the eyes on each other, over a minuscule slice of the pie, when the real robber of tax dollars is evil war that sucks nearly two thirds of our taxes and puts it into the pockets of the 2% that control all of the money.

The rest of the discussion is just fertilizer.

In case you were wondering why no one in Congress is rushing to solve the immigration problem.

I have never understood why the proponents of illegal immigration think they are helping them by allowing them to be exploited.

We should have no exploited workers in America.... period.

when single gay people die, we all get to keep their social security..if they are allowed to legally marry, a spouse would have a claim on it..

to their ignorant masses. They are hammering at the idea that the more "THEY" have the less "WE" have.

It is obviously an idea that is easily sold to people who are ignorant, fearful, economically threatened, and/or can use it to further their own agendas.
There must be a push to prove what we found out during the Clinton Administration...a rising tide lifts ALL BOATS!!!!

EDIT; Will I EVER learn to spellcheck before hitting post?

Huh. This could have been a political poster from 1910...and here it is 2010. The more things change...

Sad that many descendants of hated immigrants from 1910, are now joining the hatred against the new immigrants.

A contributing factor? Absolutely.
A weapon used by the people identified in the article to break the back of American labor? Yes.
Race to the bottom wages is a terrible long term strategy - that's why every country with a decent standard of living has strictly enforced immigration laws.

Some labor unions are now trying to organize undocumented workers, as labor should, to lift everyone up!

All the 'organizing' in the world doesn't change the fact that there are 6 people applying for every job opening.

So your solution is to round-up and drive out 12 million undocumented workers .... perhaps holding them at internment camps until they can be processed?

The other option is to organize ALL workers in North America no matter where they may have been born so that all will be lifted up and to demand Jobs for All. There is a great deal of useful work that needs to be done and if sufficient government resources are devoted a massive public works and reconstruction program we would have a labor shortage in this country!

The difference between you and me is that I look at it from an international working class standpoint. And you seem to look at it from a very limited and narrow nationalistic viewpoint.

This is an international campaign to drive down the living standards of working people in all nations and to fight it effectively we must put aside national chauvinism and become internationalists.

That's why countries with decent standards of living enforce their strict immigration laws - to protect and maintain the standard for their citizens.

And they cut wages by crippling the union movement more than anything else beginning with the 1980 PATCO air traffic controllers strike. The many millions of union members who have been downsized out of jobs over the past 30 years have not been replaced by undocumented workers.

Since 1980 the labor movement has been in decline with only about 7% of workers in private industry presently organized. Undocumented workers aren't responsible for that. And the employers didn't need or feel any pressure from undocumented workers to launch their wage and job cutting plans. But, it's sure a good idea for big business to scapegoat undocumented workers. How convenient!

was the supporter of 'amnesty'. That amnesty was part and parcel of his assault on American labor.

That's 30 countries (the EU 27 plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) whose citizens are free to live and work anywhere in that 500 million person bloc of countries. Unions are healthier in Europe than they are here.

Immigration is not what hurts our standard of living. (Europe and Canada have a higher percentage of foreign-born than we do.) It's the absence of progressive government that hurts us and the presence of which helps the others.

Moving between EU 'states' is equivalent to moving between states here in the US. The immigration from OUTSIDE the EU states is, in fact, regulated.

we have a much higher movement ratio...

Also some countries like Ireland are actively trying to kick the Poles out.

and taking assistance from our government and using our natural resources for their enrichment. The list goes on, negligent homicide on their oil drilling operation, ecocide in the Gulf and environmental pollution, getting a convicted terrorist released and freed, and now the latest is the slaughter of mustangs during the foaling season resulting in the bloody death of pregnant mares and foals because they are in the way of a gas line they want to put in. They are the immigrants I don't want here.

That is what is taking our jobs from us.

Keep them showing up on time to those jobs.

--George Carlin

They were promoting the idea of "Sending them all back to Africa.", as I recall.

We sure have evolved haven't we?

Don