Senate Votes To Build That Fence! High!

Yesterday the Senate passed, 54-44 an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010 authored by South Carolina extremist Jim DeMint that requires he completion of at least 700 miles of reinforced fencing along the southwest border by December 31, 2010. Most Democrats voted against it and most Republicans voted for it. However, it was, obvioulsy far from a party-line vote. Some mainstream Republicans, concerned about their party's xenophobic, anti-Hispanic face-- like Mel Martinez (R-FL), George Voinovich (R-OH), Dick Lugar (R-IN), and Susan Collins (R-ME) --voted with the Democrats.

Most of the Democrats who crossed the aisle to vote with the anti-Hispanic Republicans are from Evan Bayh's anti-Obama Bloc of Conservadems: Bayh himself, of course, plus Max Baucus (MT), both Nelsons (FL & NE), the two Arkansas cretins (Pryor and Lincoln), Arlen Specter (PA) and Mary Landrieu (LA). Funny that Gillibrand, in a tough election battle, voted no while Schumer's reactionary side slipped out on this one. The newest member of the Senate, Al Franken, voted no, while Amy Klobuchar, also from Minnesota, voted with the Republicans.

Earlier, Democrats were beaten-- despite their 60 vote majority, unable even to get to 51-- when they attempted to kill an anti-immigrant amendment by Alabama KKK member Jeff Sessions. Every Republican voted in favor of turning the screws on immigrants trying to work while a dozen Democrats strayed over to the Dark Side, again led by the hard-core conservatives inside the Democratic caucus: Bayh, Baucus, Ben Nelson, Lincoln, Pryor and Landrieu. Lieberman voted with them.

I've been reading Dave Neiwert's excellent new book, The Eliminationists and he goes into a disturbing thread throughout American history dealing with xenophobic and Know Nothing anti-immigration sentiments. It may be Mexicans and Central Americans radical right kooks like DeMint, Burr, Isakson, Vitter, Grassley and their followers are targeting now but their political antecedents were justas hate-filled towards Jews, Germans, Irish, Chinese, Japanese, Italians and Slavs at one time or another.

The immigration debate is rapidly becoming the most prominent current example of the American Right's attempt to persuade the public to launch into another monumental mistake on the basic of provably false information. And... the nation's media have played an outsize role in helping it happen.

In the spring of 2008, a coalition of progressive immigration reform groups commissioned a poll to help political candidates who were looking to change their strategy and the nature of the immigration debate. One aspect of the polling stood out as a prime example of how deeply right-wing misinformation infects the public discourse. One of the first sections of the poll, headlined "Biggest Concerns About Illegal Immigration," featured the public responses to a set of concerns identified by the pollsters as the most common issues raised in focus groups. Poll respondents named their "one of two biggest concerns about illegal immigration today." These were the results:

- Immigrants receiving free public services such as health care (48%)

-Immigrants not paying taxes (35%)

-Takes jobs from Americans and lowers wages (20%)

-Too many immigrants aren't learning English (20%)

-Weakens our security against terrorism (18%)

-Causing crime problems in many communities (17%)

If you look down that list, something stands out: each item reflects a fear based either on outright false information or on gross distortions from a highly selective set of facts.

This kind of misinformation has been-- and still is-- used to justify and even encourage hate crimes, hate crimes Republicans and many right-wing Democrats refuse to outlaw. Neiwert examines the effectiveness of hate crimes in terrorizing immigrant families. He quotes a study by Yale political scientist Donald Green: "If the point of hate crimes is to terrorize the population into maintaining boundaries between these perpetrators and the victimized populations, at least in some areas-- certain parts of town, certain parts of the country, etcetera-- you know, certain kinds of romantic relationships , whatever-- then it does succeed in that. Because people really do feel they have to constrain their behavior lest they open themselves up for attack." ... There is no small irony in the conservative movement's steadfast opposition to hate-crimes legislation. Their flimsy pretense is that they are doing so in the name of protecting people's free-speech rights."

Again, this is pattently-- and provably-- false, although you might not know about that by listening to the barrage of hate-tinged right-wing radio and TV, not just Limbaugh, Dobbs, O'Reilly and Coulter but even from more mainstream sources. Last time an anti-hate crimes bill came up for a vote, not only did every single Republican in the House oppose it, but 15 reactionary Blue Dog Democrats joined them, homophobic bigots within the Democrat caucus, frequently crossing the aisle to vote with the GOP, like Dan Boren (OK), Chris Carney (PA), Travis Childers (MS), Joe Donnelly (IN), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Parker Griffith (AL), Baron Hill (IN), Frank Kratovil (MD), Mike McIntyre (NC), Walt Minnick (ID), Heath Shuler (NC), Gene Taylor (MS), etc. When Iraq War vet Patrick Murphy (D-PA) took over the sponsorship of the House bill to repeal the homophobic Don't Ask Don't Tell military policy, he declared that "he is targeting fellow Blue Dog Democrats" as sponsors. Is it possible that Patrick is so blind that he missed the fact that every single homophobic asshole in the Democratic caucus is a Blue Dog and that the only Democrats to oppose the Hate Crimes bill were all Blue Dogs? Or is he just playing word games to please wealthy donors in the New Hope area? In this case, their fangs were barred towards gay and lesbian families. But these are among the same right-wing Democrats who also target immigrants and whose violent rhetoric encourages hate crimes from deranged people who feel empowered by them. It's bad enough we have Republicans like this; it is unconscionable that there are, in 2009 Democrats this narrow-minded as well. (Funny, many of these are part of the same crew also opposing health care reform, some actually saying they oppose the public option out of fear that immigrants' children may wind uo being treated!)

A headline in yesterday's Oregonian explained why both of the state's Democratic senators, moderate Ron Wyden and progressive Jeff Merkley, voted to get tough on immigration. it's clear that immigration policy-- even for two of the better members of the Senate-- like so much of our government processes, are a gobblygook of ineffective laws and regulations primarily determined by special interests and campaign donations. The Senate should never have been included as part of the government and should have long since been abolished as the anti-democratic throwback it always was meant to be. At least one disgrace to that disgraceful body, Roland Burris, has decided to not run for a full term.