More ammunition for your calls and faxes to your senators this week. How ridiculous can a situation be as our own government furiously attempts to set up its own “Guest Worker Program” and “Temporary Permanent Workers” while simultaneously condemns another nation for its Guest-Worker program having turned into an Enslavement Program.
For the businesses of Australia, their “guest workers” are Chinese, Indian and South Korean. For us, the Mexicans. Our own State Departmentis now criticizing Australia for its ‘Guest Worker” program as one that has devolved into nothing more than servitude. The road is the same, and so is the moral depravity that is furthered by the idea that only people of a certain complexion will do certain jobs. Our keeping the Amnesty Bill dead is a deeply moral responsibility and a great opportunity for our generation to not codify and legitimize so-called ‘worker’ programs and the human trafficking and slavery it inevitably installs.
Australia criticised over guest ‘slaves’
Australia has retained its status among the top-ranked countries in dealing with people trafficking, but a US State Department report said it has concerns about the treatment of temporary guest workers being brought to Australia from India, China and South Korea.
The report’s investigators said they had had reports about some of these workers “whose labour conditions amounted to slavery, debt bondage and involuntary servitude”. [Surprise–ed.]
The Howard government recently toughened the penalties for employers who exploit foreign workers and last year, former Immigration minister Amanda Vanstone temporarily halted the grant of 457 visas to the meat industry amid concerns of abuse.
This included employers demanding repayment of large placement fees, contracts that forbid contact with unions, and sub-standard living conditions…
The US report looks at all types of human trafficking from people who are coerced into bonded labour, bought and sold in prostitution, exploited in domestic servitude, enslaved in agricultural work and in factories, and captured to serve unlawfully as child soldiers.
Driven by its own heritage of slavery, the US has made people trafficking one of its focus areas [Ha! Yeah, like how to make it easier with our own Guest Worker program–ed.] and has a special ambassador responsible for monitoring the trade in human beings as well as taking other nations to task.
Releasing the report, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had noticed a greater commitment from nations to confront and tackle the issue.
“Many countries are now seeing it for what it is – a modern-day form of slavery,” she said.
My God, our hypocrisy on this issue is mind-boggling. It is inevitable, when you codify the notion that some people are workers and workers only, you devalue them as worthy only of serving you, therefore beneath you, and ultimately, sub-human. All slavery has been implemented in the name of altruism and business, or saving people from themselves. The same mentality that thinks those poor brown people south of the border need the benevolent White Man to give him a limited, but decent life, is the same mentality that decides they can bypass the usual committee hearings, votes, and public discussion that surrounds the matter.
Let’s stop this depravity here and now. Securing the border is how to best respect the people of Mexico and the people of the United States, while working hard to end the patronizing and racist use of ‘immigrant’ labor. Our efforts should be in supporting those who want actual democracy in Mexico, which would bring radical change. If we’re serious about wanting free people everywhere to choose their leaders, who are we to say, ‘Except for South America’?
This explains why the economy needs “illegal” immigration rather than just plain immigration.
Reading this rant makes me sad that Orwell is not alive to produce an updated version, or perhaps even a sequel, to his famous and brilliant essay “Politics and the English Language”. Certainly the anti-‘amnesty’ polemic being circulated today would give him ample material, and this piece is no exception.
First let me present this challenge: tell me, what is your definition of slavery? I think our vocabulary is dense enough to limit its usage to coercive, unpaid labor – or to describe a state of involuntary bondage. (I understand that some definitions are liberal enough to include just arduous, low-pay work. But the word ‘slavery’ evokes a specific kind of practice, and so using the word here is language not designed to be precise or clear, but to be emotional and propagandistic)
That is not what illegal immigrants perform. Instead, they enter a voluntary, contractual agreement with their employer, whereby they promise to do some work – be it digging or cleaning or serving – in return for a wage agreed upon beforehand.
Such is the case, or at least ought to be the case, with every person in this country with a job – legal or illegal. The conditions of the job do not change this fundamental fact; a janitor or a roofer has it worse than most, but no one could refer to them as slaves. And this is the irony, really. For if we pursue your point to its logical end, then we are left to believe that many corporations and businesses in America are nothing more than slave owners. I have already read that from Marx, Tammy, I do not need to read it again.
Then there is also this epically false antithesis: “Our efforts should be in supporting those who want actual democracy in Mexico, which would bring radical change.”
Our foreign policy in regards to Mexico – which by the way, has been consistently pro-market and pro-democratic – is quite a separate issue from our position on illegal immigrants in this country. Mexico is actually one of the most advanced states on our Southern Hemisphere, aside from perhaps Chile or Argentina. It is 53rd on the United Nations HDI; and the United States is 8th. A hardline approach to immigration is not going to change that gap – people will still come.
If it matters, I am with you on the gross inaccuracy – if not outright racism – of the “only mexicans will do this work” theme. Of course all groups of humans have roughly the same physical capabilities. Americans will and can do the work Mexicans do. They will not, however, do it for the same price – and that difference, speaking as a customer, matters.
Oh, neal, don’t be a useful idiot.
This amnesty bill is about creating a north american superstate, but where the State part doesn’t function, and the Big Business elite can do whatever it likes.
Neal,
Are you saying it’s ok to exploit desperate people?
America has done quite well throughout its history without a HUGE influx of illegals. Are we that selfish that we have to have a head of lettuce for a dollar rather than 25 cents more? And do we the people really benefit? We pay the social bills and businesses collect the profits. How about putting slothful welfare recipients to work – they can fill the employment gap when illegals finally go home. As an advanced and compassionate nation, wouldn’t the U.S. better serve Mexico if we didn’t shoulder it’s economic and domestic problems or exploit its people? Let’s help Mexico help itself by stopping illegal immigration. It’s time for some tough love. Let’s encourage Mexicans to change their own society NOW rather than running across the border.
Performers of menial labor have always been subjected to degradation because the nature of their work implies inferiority. As civilized as the human race tries to be, there are always the depraved sickos whose dark side takes over when they feel themselves in a superior, controlling position. They abuse small animals, children and other humans who are weak and vulnerable. It was the bane of women’s lives for all of history. When outsiders (even if we call them “guests”) perform menial labor, the inclination for exploiters to dehumanize them is intensified.
Personally, I do empathize with the illegal immigrants on a human level. It enrages me to hear proponents of the bill speak as though they are saviors of these desperate people by graciously permitting them to clean our toilets while calculating how much they’ll offset the social security shortfall in years to come. That attitude isn’t so far removed from the exploiters who let those men starve on the fishing boat.
I oppose the bill for many specific reasons but in general because we’ll have chaos that will ultimately serve no one well. I am for orderly, controlled immigration. That will not be possible until the border is secured. We will never be able to take in all who wish to come.
It’s only recently in history, with the advent of democratic governments and capitalistic economies, and in just a few places, that humans have had the opportunity to escape from the nasty, brutish and short life that was the norm, into a life of comfort and dignity. A mad rush to cram into these oases of prosperity will doom everyone. The answer is to export prosperity through the institutions of democracy and capitalism. Underlying those institutions is the greatest value of all, the dignity of the individual–not the group, not the race, not the class—the individual.