I should really stop watching it until election season is over.

At the moment, there are a bunch of really loathsome ads about these guys running constantly. They're all Republican candidates, competing for the a seat in the House of Representatives; naturally, the ads are all about asserting the candidates' conservative credentials. Which they mostly do by treating "liberal" like it's a filthyfilthyfoul insult and describing their opponents as "liberal" in every other sentence. I guess the district is safely Republican, and whoever wins the nomination doesn't have to worry about currying favor with liberal-leaning independents in order to secure the seat, because 8 months of watching this would certainly make me vote for whichever Democrat runs against the eventual "winner" - if I got to vote and were undecided, which I don't and I'm not, so mostly I'm just really really irritated by that aspect of these ads. 

What brings the rage, and what I am sure will upset me more and more as this year wears on, is that these ads make a point of casting "illegal immigrants" as the great scourge that only one of these brave, stalwart, paper-pushing, glad-handing privileged white men has the courage to face down in order to defend OUR WAY OF LIFE.  I hate everything about this rhetoric, especially the crafting of immigrants as the enemy. I shudder to think what we're in for, as the economy struggles and the election year rolls on: "[f]ear thrives in a bear market, as we try in vain to trade our fear for security; and fear is the currency of war propaganda." 

The propaganda about illegal immigration is at a ridiculous pitch, and so much of it is wrong, ethically and factually.  In a recent interview, Amy Goodman described taking on Lou Dobbs (who she aptly compares to Father Coughlin): "We asked Dobbs about assertions he continually repeats, like a third of our prisoners are illegal aliens. Well, it’s just not true: 6 percent of prisoners in the state and federal systems are immigrants. And that’s divided between legal and undocumented, well below their representation in the population."

Another popular lie: that undocumented immigrants are freeloaders draining national resources.  In fact, migrants often purchase fake social security cards in order to acquire jobs, making contributions that most of them will not end up accessing. In 2002 an estimated "3.8 million households headed by illegal immigrants generated $6.4 billion in Social Security taxes."  More than one scholar has argued that the benefits of illegal immigration outweigh, on balance, its detrimental effects.

And the jobs that undocumented immigrants take? Just read this. It prompts a few questions from me: 1) How many Americans would tolerate working under these conditions? 2) Given #1, who benefits most from the status quo? Who would pay the price if working conditions were safe, health risks minimized, and the pay was sufficient to tempt large numbers of American workers to take the jobs? Who benefits from increased border checkpoints and patrols? Who benefits from building prisons to house undocumented immigrants - from a whole industry springing up around controlling illegal immigration without regulating or stopping it? 

It makes me sick that this exploitation of workers fuels our economy, and the demonization of immigrants fuels our political debates. Bad enough that we cultivate ignorance about the conditions they work under, or the conditions in their home communities that make immigration to the US the most viable alternative. To add insult (and injury) to (insult and) injury, we allow our leaders to make undocumented immigrants scapegoats for crime, overtaxed public services, and economic woes. I would emigrate to get away from this if I thought it would do any damn good.  

Amy Goodman, again:

This drumbeat against immigrants has really turned many Republican Latinos against the Republican Party. They feel like this debate has crossed the line to anti-immigrant and racist, as opposed to a legitimate debate on what we should do about immigration.

I wish I felt like the Democrats were better than the lesser of two evils in this debate. Especially certain Democrats. I am not looking forward to what I will be hearing in US political discourse for the rest of the year.