Scapegoats (R) Us

Warning: Partisan pontification ahead.

I know this will strike many of my friends on the Republican side of the aisle as unfair, but having been the recipient of such cynical political posturing, I don't mind saying that the GOP's penchant for creating and then campaigning on the pledge to contain or eradicate some dangerous "other" in our midst is the single greatest reason I don't trust their party as a whole. The approach is antithetical to my belief that "united we stand" (in which I assume "we" is inclusive), and perhaps most offensive to me is how in private (I lived and worked in the cesspool of national politics we call the nation's capital for five years) many of them will confess to not really feeling personally the way they campaign, especially when it comes to the party's rhetoric surrounding a presidential campaign season's chosen scapegoat (when the stakes are so high, good soldiers must simply fall in line).

The last time around (2004) the main domestic scapegoats were "the gays" (which reminds me, you have to see this video). But, even though I expect plenty of gay bashing from the GOP in the 2008 elections, it'll be somewhat tempered by the dual facts that 1) after you propose removing every book from a library that was written by a homo or features a gay character, you haven't really left your fellow gay haters much in the way of novel legislation to campaign on, and 2) shining too bright a light on the threat that gays pose to "normal" Americans risks reminding the base of the seemingly never ending parade of closet cases in the GOP who just yesterday were right there beside the rest of them fighting the scourge (and, let's face it, eventually even the dimmest among them will connect the dots and realize that means there are probably others right there beside them, or ---gasp---standing behind them, at the "Blame the Gays" rally).

But not to worry, the GOP already has its next main scapegoat lined up, the next biggest threat to our way of life, the scourge for 2008: "the illegals." Now, I'll be fair and note that I believe we have some significant problems with our immigration laws at the moment. But I also strongly believe that resolving them is possible without the sort of demonization we're seeing the Right stir up in its radio hack shows and blogs. Of course, Congress is working (heh) on the issue, but with the true Red-White-and-Blue believers in no mood to compromise (and I believe it's fair to assume that's because they're more interested in using immigrants as a wedge issue than they are in actually solving the problems), a national, compassionate approach is not on the horizon. Therefore, we're seeing a hodge-podge of local and regional initiatives that reveal a hatred so vicious it quite literally frightens me.

I read a bit of graffiti the other day calling for civil war in the US to stop immigrants from taking over, claiming that the number of "illegals" was higher than the total number of police and military in the country (implying that immigrants could band together and overthrow the country). It was so paranoid and hateful I seriously considered calling the police to have them track down the author before he/she hurt someone. But in the absence of comprehensive unified legislation, and given the fear being mongered by the Right's PR machine, is it any wonder average citizens are dreaming up their own (twisted) solutions? But as horrific as such paranoid mutterings are, what's actually happening officially is even more inhuman.

The New York Times nailed the resulting atmosphere and ad hoc strategy perfectly in an editorial titled "The Misery Strategy" today:

The path the country has set on since the defeat of immigration reform in the Senate in June enshrines enforcement and punishment above all else. It is narrow, shortsighted, disruptive and self-defeating. On top of that, it won’t work.

What it will do is unleash a flood of misery upon millions of illegal immigrants. For the ideologues who have pushed the nation into this position, that is more than enough reason to plunge ahead.
[...]
The federal government’s abandonment of comprehensive reform has been matched by unprecedented crackdowns at the state and local level. Lawmakers this year have introduced more than 1,400 immigration-related bills in all 50 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and enacted 170 of them. Many of the bills severely restrict where immigrants can live and work, and leave them vulnerable to exploitation and fearful of the police. It’s the federal approach of raids and aggression, metastasized across the continent.

The country will have a long time to watch this approach as it fails. The politicians who killed the Senate bill for offering “amnesty” have never offered a workable alternative. Their one big idea is that harsh, unrelenting enforcement at the border, in the workplace and in homes and streets would dry up opportunities for illegal immigrants and eventually cause the human tide to flow backward. That would be true only if life for illegal immigrants in America could be made significantly more miserable than life in, say, rural Guatemala or the slums of Mexico City. That will take a lot of time and a lot of misery to pull that off in a country that has tolerated and profited from illegal labor for generations. [emphasis mine]

That bears repeating. The current, piecemeal strategy, spearheaded and/or supported by Republican Senators, like John McCain, Jon Kyl and Lindsey Graham, and even reluctantly tolerated by moderates Republicans like Arlen Specter, is to create a permanent noncitizen immigrant underclass, and make life more miserable for them here than it was in the country they left to come here. In other words, to create a scapegoat and collectively and systematically oppress them.

God reserves a very special place in Hell for folks who operate like that.