Back, finally!

I’m back!

Sorry, I was out of town all last week and didn’t find a whole lot of time for posting, and I've been so busy as a result, this week has flown by as well!
I was down in Arizona, visiting out plant in Mexico. We’d heard a lot of rumors about how difficult it was going to be to cross the border (and cross back) but we didn’t have any trouble at all. We did see a checkpoint in AZ that in the past was either closed or just waved people through that was really back up (thank you Jan Brewer) but by the time we finally hit it (heading back north) we were just waved through.

Guard: What country y’all from?

Us: This one!

Guard: OK, have a nice day.

No need to check the passports or ID’s of anyone who doesn’t look illegal, I guess. (Not that I’m suggesting that they racially profile or anything!)

Since we had been to Mexico (and needed our passport anyway) we would have been prepared later that evening when we got pulled over for speeding. (You know, if the cops were still required to check for citizenship.) But there was no need (no thanks to Jan Brewer) and we were let off with a warning. (Good thing we didn’t look illegal, huh? Not that I’m suggesting that they racially profile or anything!)

Anyway, enough of that.

Although a few of these are out of date at this points, there are a few things I came accross over the past two weeks that I wanted to share with y’all...


Glenn Beck’s big rally cam and went without the Rapture occurring or the Second Coming or even free Ice Cream fro the kids. Considering how much hey pumped it up over the past few months, I’d imagine that the bulk of the crowd ended up thinking, “THAT was what I came to D.C.? Oh well, at least the weather was nice.” (But maybe not, I mean if you’re impressed by Glenn Beck, you can’t be that hard to impress!) Daily Kos had a interest first hand account of the event, from a liberal Black man who attended out of curiosity. Very enlightening read.  Worth checking out.


Robert Kuttner had a savage response to the rumblings of the Cat-food commission regarding social security. It’s amazing how easy these problems would be to sovle, and how far even the “liberal” (notice the “quotes”?) politicians are willing to go to screw over the lower 99% of the country to satisfy the top 1%. We’re NOT a "conservative country” but we sure as hell are RULED by them, aren’t we? What the hell would it take to get congress to just ACT IN THE INTERESTS OF THE PEOPLE? Why is that SO HARD? What would it take? Breaking out the tar and feathers? Shooting some of them? Seriously! But then it’s no surprise that even our “liberal” (notice the “quotes”?) politicans are so god dmaned useless, because we have such a stupid and uneducated electorate that doesn’t hold them accountable! And since the “liberal” (notice the “quotes”?) media is no better, it’s not surprising at all that we have such a stupid and uneducated populace! In fact, it’s depressingly predicatble.


And what the fuck is up with THESE PEOPLE?! Book-burning? Really? One of the most visible and recognizable hallmarks of the Nazi’s, and every other vile Dictatorship and suppression of human rights and free expression and free religious practice that America ever stood against? That’s what we’ve been reduced to? What UnAmerican SCUM. I hope their church burns down with their children asleep in the nursery


(No.  I'm not apologizing for that last bit.  Fuck 'em.)


Coming up in the next few days…

- A continuation of Steeve’s and my conversation about the origin of Christianity.

- A Republican Propaganda Video that shows just how gullible Republican’s are.

- And I’ve read and replied to all of the comments that you’ve all left over the past couple weeks, just so you know that I DO read them and very much appreciate them!

Immigration Reform

Before I get into immigration reform, I just want to reference THIS PIECE from MMFA. It should dispel the idea, once and for all, that crime increase when the number of "illegals" does.  Make sure any Right-Winger who argues along those get s a good hard dose of the facts first!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are three basic reason to want immigration reform, if you're already an American Citizen: (1) Racism, Xenophobia and Religious Bigotry.  (2) Concerns about jobs.  Someone may also say, "and resources" but I'll explain why that's nonsense. (3) Concerns about security.

I shouldn't have to explain the bigotry angle, especially in light of my last two posts.  And it's not just Mexicans either.  How about those Muslims?  I've actually heard people say we shouldn't give them student visas!  In the words of Gorobei Katayama, "Are you kidding me?" How else do you expect the Middle East to progress and modernize and (dare we say it?) WESTERNIZE if they're young people are not given an opportunity to see first hand what the West and Modern Life has to offer?   But bigotry is not a motivation most people are willing to admit to.  So let;s give them the benefit of the doubt for now and I'll show you why this IS in fact the primary motivation.

The second reason is JOBS, and more specifically WAGES.  Now this is the one area where elements of the Left actually get on board.  Unions and Labor advocates would rather see these jobs pay higher, and go to American labor.  But the Left's opposition to immigration reform is relatively modest compared to the full-on rant-like fear mongering of the Right.  Which is funny, because it seems that this is about the only argument the Right EVER makes in favor of American Labor. Remember: Thea re the people who hate union, fight minimum age increase, outsource jobs to china, put profit ahead of safety (Massey, I'm looking at YOU!)  It seems the only time they give a shit about American Labor is when a Mexican comes looking for an opportunity to work hard, send his kids to school and make a better life for his family.  Seeing as how every WHITE person's family did that at one point, I'd say this is, at best, despicably hypocritical and at worst... well... see reason number one.

As for them 'draining our resources'?  Look: This cheap labor?  It IS a resource.  It's a resource that every single one of us benefits from.  Sure... we could force the farm owner to pay market wages for American Labor.  They'd pay several; times as much and it would certainly cut into their profits, even as it made the bulk of our produce skyrocket in price!  Would more Americans be employed?  Maybe.  And that can be good.  But does it really HELP if everything costs more and the industry that feeds us is no longer profitable?  Those people put food on your table.  You think you do, because you PAY for it? Cry me a river.  Without them there wouldn't be enough food to BUY.  At least until those good ol' market forces kicked in and drive the price high enough to justify the production and increase the supply.  And THEN you'd be complaining about how much it cost!  So rather than bitching about your kid sitting next a Mexican in the classroom (see reason #1) maybe you should try THANKING those people who busted their asses, getting paid shit, with no benefits, for helping YOU make a better life for YOURSELF.

Now the final reason might be the most principled one.  In a post 9/11 world (doesn't it seem like every Right-Wing argument starts out that way?) we can't risk having a loosey-goosey border because a terrorist could sneak in and steal our cheese.  Now... I can get behind that REASONING... But as most of you have figured out by now, I have kin of an upside-down way of looking at things and I draw a completely different conclusion from it. I say, "Let them [pretty much]  ALL in."  Here's why:

Consider what you need for security, especially knowing that we're talking about people who can just WALK here.  You need to know WHO they are, WHERE they are and you need the ability to do a BACKGROUND CHECK to look for... Terrorists, yes,  but also Drug Dealers, Fugitives, Bandidtos, etc... (Yeah, I'm kidding about the Bandidtos.)  And in order to GET this information, you need people to be WILLING to give it.  And if you keep telling people, "No, you can't come in" and "If we find you we'll you to jail or back to Mexico" then they have no reason to comply.  Especially since it's so hard to keep track of them  anyway!  So thank about the result of having a system that tries to keep people out (IOW: Panders to reason #1): In doing so, you INCREASE the opportunity for a terrorist to sneak in and hide amongst the millions of undocumented folks.

So what would I do?  Simple.  I let anyone in who passed a simple background check, provided they registered and kept us informed of their address.  I'd let them work, they'd pay taxes (as almost all do anyway) and Id let them make a life for themselves.  They can't vote, until they're citizens, but that's their choice.  As long as they obey the law?  I'd leave them be.

Who would I keep out?  Only convicted criminals, wonted men, people of the FBI's terror list, etc... Now, you might think that THESE people wouldn't bother to register.  Well, yeah, they probably wouldn't.  But if you have someone here, who's NOT in your database, who you CAN'T confirm the status off, they'd pretty much STAND OUT, at least as compared to now, where they're one of MILLIONS.  And under a system that GIVES THEM what they want, rather than tries to DENY THEM, I 9and most people) would have a lot less sympathy for those who break the rules. And hey: If every legitimate migrant worker is registered, you can bet far more confidently that the one dude that ISN'T really does have something to hide.  In any case, it would make the authorities jobs a LOT easier, if for no other reason than they have about 0.1% of their current caseload,, and THAT would make us more secure.

As for the background check?  Shoot.  They're not applying for security clearance.  It don;t take more than a few days to (1) confirm their identity, (2) Check for warrants and (3) Check for convictions.  Clean sheet? Come on in.  But we can only do those checks if people are WILLING to cooperate.  And there's no reason to expect them to if we make them wait for YEARS, and always tell them NO, and threaten to jail or deport them.  Not when then can just walk around.

If you really want to know the difference between reason 1 and reason 3, just ask yourself : Are we trying to keep out Muslim Terrorists or Migrant Farmhands.  It an both nearly impossible and completely unnecessary to TRULY secure our southern border and let NO ONE in.  Just ain't going to happen, and I don;t know why you'd want to.  Your taxes would go up to pay for it, and your grocery bill would go up because of it.  We only need to know WHO and WHERE people are.  And anyone who;'s NOT a terrorist or a drug-dealer will gladly tell you that, if you're helping them get what they want.


If anyone wants to argue these points, please review your argument against reason #1 before doing so. ;)

On Stereotypes

Following up my last post, I wanted to take the opportunity to explore stereotypes. Now, to some extent there is something in our DNA that causes us to instinctively fear that which is different. It’s ingrained in us, and it is unnatural for us to move beyond this. And I don’t believe this is God given – meaning that we were just made this way. I believe that the bulk of this fear is evolutionary. Back when human society more closely resembled the wild, the tribe that was welcoming would have been wiped out by the more aggressive, or more xenophobic tribe. Survival came from strength, and aggressiveness, rather than cooperation and sharing. And in that environment it, it behooves one who wearing the BLUE face-paint to be wary of the one wearing the RED face paint. (And don’t get me started on that other tribe, in the GREEN face-paint!) But now we’ve filled in most of the available space, and the maps don’t have any more blank spots left on them, to get along as a society, we cannot continue to live in this manner. Now we have to work together.


So why do these racist stereotypes persist? The way I see it, it’s a special form of Magical Thinking strongly reinforced by Confirmation Bias. Those links will connect you to arguably the BEST material available on those subjects, but I think my claim of ‘Magical Thinking’ might require some explanation.

First of all, ‘Magical Thinking’ is basically non-scientific causal reasoning. In other words: It’s where superstitions come from. Here’s a completely non-partisan example of what I talking about. My Das is an avid golfer. He also had a bad back, and occasionally this affects his game. For many years he swore by the medicinal (magical) power of wearing a copper bracelet. He swore this improved his game, and he had the data to back it up! He put on the bracelet… his game improved. He took it off… it got worse! How could I argue with that?! Well, I might cite the regressive fallacy. You see, chronic pain comes and goes. It gets worse, then it gets better, then it gets worse again. And it’s reasonable to conclude that when it’s BAD, it would affect your golf game. Now… ask yourself this: When are you MOST LIKELY to put that bracelet on? Probably after a few days of bad pain that have started to affect your game. And when would you be most likely to take it off? Probably when you’ve felt pretty good for a few days, and don’t have that nagging reminder in your back to put it back on. If you think about that for a moment, you’ll realize that when you have a condition that waxes and wanes, and you’re sort of being tricked here: You’ll try your magical solution when it’s bad, and then credit it for the inevitable improvement – one that would have happened anyway! And you’ll take it off, and then BLAME THAT for the pain inevitably coming back! Now, this same fallacy is why we have superstitions, religious ritual, alternative medicine, 'as seen on TV' products and any number of other bullshit things that people swear WORK.

So… how does this apply to racism? One of the most common arguments I hear, living in Southeast Michigan, is, “Just look at Detroit.” It's 98% Black, and they’ve ruined it! Now, I will grant you that there IS a connection between Detroit’s Blackness and its state of urban decline, but I hope that I don’t have to explain to most of you why this is not a simple, causal connection. The number of economic factors that lead (and are caused by) to urban decline, the relative impoverishment of minorities, white flight, crime, corruption, etc, etc… Are far too numerous to describe here. But white people left, black people moved in, and the place went to hell. What more proof do you need?!

Correlation is mistaken for causality all the time. And a justification for racist sentiment such as this one is no exception. The logic here is the same as with magical thinking, and it ignores every factor except our desire to blame all the world’s problems on that other tribe while exonerating our own. But it’s not superstitious thinking alone that perpetuates it. There’s also a heavy dose of confirmation bias.

This fallacy basically describes how we are far more likely to remember, and place far more value and emphasis upon, those incidents that reinforce what we already believe than those that contradict it. A man who thinks women are lousy drivers, for example, will remember every woman who ever cut him off, or paused when the light turned green, or lost her way and had to bang a euie, forget about every MAN who ever did the same, and feel that he has more than sufficient data to conclude that women are the inferior drivers. And no amount of auto-insurance industry data that shows that MEN make more at-fault accident claims than women will convince him that what he saw with his own eyes is somehow an incomplete picture. I’m sure you can find numerous parallel examples like this one that support SEXISM, but the same is true of RACISM.

How many people, when discussing immigration, will tell you about all the crimes that these ‘filthy, lazy, uneducated Mexicans, who come in here and drain all our resources’ have caused? Now… first of all, you already know that they’re filtering out most all crimes committed by whites from their minds. And if they DO acknowledge any 'white crimes,' they’ll still BLAME them on the influence of minorities. (After all: We had NO CRIME before all these damned Mexicans moved in, right?) It's like mixing coloreds and whites in the laundry: The whites just get more colored, the coloreds don't get more white now, do they? Now, one only has to consider what was going on in Boston and Chicago and New York in the early 20th centry, for example, back when these cities were almost completely white and yet riddled with violent crime and political corruption,  to realize just how much bullshit this conclusion really is. (And if you want to blame the (white) immigrants of the day, I’ll remind you that Tammany Hall was hardly staffed by anyone fresh off the boat!)

I discussed in my last post what my experience with Mexico and with Mexicans has been, and I’ll add that I’ve never worked with, or gotten to know a Black that I could respect and get along with either. And I’m not ignoring the crimes committed by minorities. I’m merely also not ignoring crimes committed by whites. Hey: Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay, and Jeff Skilling, and Goldmann-Sacks and Bernie Ebbers… THESE crimes are 100% White, and each has caused more harm to our country and our economy, and cost us more, than every crime ever committed by a Mexican or a Black in this country combined. But hey: They wear the BLUE face-paint instead of the RED face-paint, so they’re in OUR TRIBE. So it’s only natural that we forget about them, and forgive them, even though they’ve wiped out the life’s saving of millions of people, and the average Black or Mexican can only steal your car or what’s in your wallet. Wrong face paint? We’re just going to fear you more, and we're just more incluined to remember your crimes.

The other reason I think we are naturally drawn to negative stereotypes is our own fragile egos. We can’t stand the thought that we might be inferior in some way, any way, and so we slander the other in what amounts to a defense of our own egos. Mexican’s are lazy? Every one of the hundreds of Mexicans I’ve met make the average American look like a outright bum. And it’s not just negative stereotypes that work this way: Ostensibly positive ones work this way as well.

Take for example, ‘Asians are good at math.’ Well, I went to go to an 80% Asian high school, and I can tell you quite clearly that Asians are NOT ‘better at math’ (or science) on the whole, as a people than the Americans or Europeans are. Do you want to know why they get good grades in these subjects? THEY WORK GOD-DAMNED HARD FOR THEM! And that’s why ‘Asians are good at math’ is in fact a NEGATIVE stereotype: It deprives them of credit for the great effort they put into their studies, dismissing it instead as merely a genetic superiority. And we’d rather do THAT than just admit we’re lazy or try to match their work ethic. (And the more we see how hard we have to work to match them, the more we'd like to think - hope, relly - that they do have sort of genetic advantage.  Again: we'd rather make an excuse that admit defeat and give credit where it's due.

Also, one also has to realize that the average American only sees the BEST of what, say, China or Japan has to offer. Many Americans have gone to school with the son or daughter of a Asian-American engineer or businessman or entreprenuer. How many have met a typical Chinese subsistence farmer? And I’m not denigrating them either. There are plenty of illiterate, uneducated white people as well, right in this very country. Hey: Every country has their share of people like this.  But to claim that this is ALL that’s in say, Mexico, or to deny that there are any in Japan, is every bit as harmful and insulting to both groups, and to every individual within each group.

And I don’t want anyone to think I’m claiming to be any better here! I still check my door locks when a group of black people walk by my car. And I would still feel more comfortable if I was carrying a gun when I’m in Mexico. And as I’m not ignorant of the dangers that certain situations pose, I’m also not completely immune to the irrational thoughts that something comes with from those situations, into other areas of our lives. Also, I have to say that I LOVE IT when I catch a Japanese or German engineer (both of whom I've worked with in my career) really screw something up.  In my experience these groups both look down on American engineers, the way Americans look down on Mexican labor.  So I love it when they accidentally reveal a little bit of good old fashioned HUMANITY. You can call it schadenfreude, but I take it as a reminder that these people are not machines; that they are, in fact, perfectly imperfect HUMAN BEINGS.  And I’d love to say or think that I’m perfect, but I know the fact is that I’m not. The only advantage I have is that I realize this and that I want to be better than that.

For a more humorous take on stereotypes, please see Cracked.com's skewering of the five most statistically full of shit national stereotypes.

Life in an Arizona, and Mexican, border-town

I’ve been on the road, traveling on business the last couple of days, so I haven’t had a chance to blog. Coincidentally, I’ve been staying in Arizona and crossing over to our assembly plant in Mexico. It’s been interesting to see and hear peoples reaction to the new immigration law – especially from those American Citizens of Mexican decent; people who were born here and have lived here they’re whole lives, went to school here, married here, had kids here but who now may face the possibility of having to proove that they’re Americans.

Now… it should go without say for any of my regular readers that I am completely opposed to this new law. It’s beyond racist – it’s downright fascist. It’s the kind of thing the Nazi’s did to root out suspected Jews and that we did in our country, prior to the civil war, to Blacks and Freedmen and escaped slaves living in the North, who, lacking the proper paperwork, faced deportation and enslavement to the south. There is such a long, dark and despicable history of this kind of nonsense that I fail to see how “Show me your papers” can be remotely acceptable to ANY American.

Or, as the Mexican-American driver who picked us up and drove us to the plant said, “You can be pulled over now for driving with a sun-tan.”

I was a bit surprised that there was not MORE venom, to be honest, but perhaps he figured he should keep things polite in mixed company. That and this particular gentleman is also one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met, so maybe that's just not his way. Seriously, it’s like taking a ride with Cheech Marin. He even looks and sounds a bit like him. But I digress.

The other thing that surprised me at first was that I saw no support, at all, from ANYONE, regarding this law. And you’d think in a border town, you’d have a considerable amount of support. I mean… if there’s a THREAT, it’s going to hit them first, right? But I as talked to more people, I found over and over that the people in border towns have a unique perspective on the issue: To them, the issue of immigration has a HUMAN face to it. They invariably have friends and co-workers on both sides of the border. To them, these people that will now face this unreasonable harassment are their friends and their neighbors and co-workers and in some cases employees. They LIVE with and WORK with and PLAY with these PEOPLE. And thus they see them as PEOPLE. And when you put a human face on a problem, it becomes a lot harder to look another human in the eye and say, “No. I will not help you. I will not protect you. I will not respect your rights, or your humanity.” The only people who can look at someone and say that, who can look as some, living and breathing right in front of them and feel nothing but fear and hatred, are racists.

Now, I’m not suggesting that those living farther from the border, who feel this same fear, and who support the law, are racist. Not at all. If you’ve never MET a Mexican, then there’s no reason to expect your opinion of them to be educated by more than stereotypes, and the imagery that Fox News shows you, with the intention of feeding that fear. The racist is merely the person who, upon meeting someone who doesn’t FIT the stereotype, refuses to let go of it. I’ve met precious few people who have actually gotten to actually know Mexicans, who still buy into the stereotypes afterwards. And those that do? Well, they’re either cops or racists. And I say cops, because police officers are another group that have unique perspective on humanity: They typically only ever see the worst of it. So while I don’t excuse a cop who’s racist, in that case, I can at least understand where it comes from. All the [name your racial subgroup]’s that s/he’s interacts with are usually being arrested and charged with crimes. And while they should recognize this fact, I can’t fault someone as much who’s merely reaching the conclusion that the data they have supports. Although… as my relatively racially insensitive cousin would attest to, even after going on a fairly racist tirade about all the various immigrant groups he’s had to deal with: There’s no trash like white trash. Even in his Right-Wing eyes, they’re STIILL the worst. He still dreads the trailer-park call more than any other.  I find that oddly and ironically amusing. But I digress.

As for the stereotype? Let me tell you something about Mexicans: These people work hard. They work like dogs and get paid SHIT. And I’ve met no shortage of Mexican managers and engineers that are smart as whips, and work harder than I even try to. I consider myself to be fairly intelligent (if you’d gathered that yet) but I’ve stood awestruck at some of the things these guys have come up with, and the production lines they’ve designed and built. No way I could ever do that. No way in hell. And I’m an engineer! And the line operators? Oh my god, break neck speed, with many, many steps in each operation, and yet this plant has won quality awards! So these people should be the poster children for hard work and ingenuity, and instead they’re described as lazy and stupid. And do you know what they’re paid for this, including the cost of benefits? $65 dollars a WEEK. For a 40-hour shift! Now, I do realize that $65 dollars goes a little farther in Mexico than it does here, but still! For $65 a week, you’d be lucky to get me to even show up! Let alone give a shit about the job, or do it well! And the ones that DO come here? Those hardened criminals, who’s only crime is walking across an arbitrary line in the sand as the sought a better life for themselves and their family? These people work the SHITTIEST jobs available, again get paid SHIT, and in this country get NO benefits for doing so. These people work hard in a way that puts most Americans to shame.

I thought we were a country that valued hard work? I thought we were a country that valued entreprenuerial spirit? That valued that drive to excel, to build a better life for yourself and your family? That celebrated a person who, like my father and so many of our parents, the first in their family to go to college? Well… apparently only if your brown skin really did come from the sun, and wasn’t something you were born with.

Well, these people are my colleagues and co-workers and many have become my friends. And I’ve had a human face put on that stereotype and on the "problem" of immigration, and I can no longer abide the racial sentiments of those who have experienced no more of the Mexican culture than what Taco Bell has to offer. I CARE about these people, because I KNOW these people. And I won’t stand by while their hard work and talent and ingenuity are slandered.

As far as I’m concerned, Governor Jan Brewer and Senator John McCain are unfit to serve the public, for giving into to this fear and xenophobia.

----------------------------------------------------------------

I plan to do a separate post on stereotypes before doing one on immigration.