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APRIL 9, 2006 –
It's been amazing to watch.
The GOP, desperate and declining in the
polls, did what they always did and what we knew they'd do - they
riled up hate and blame to try and rally their supporters. In
2000 it was "Hate Clinton," in 2002 it was "Hate and Fear Iraq," in
2004 it was "Hate Gays (i.e. gay marriage was made an "issue".)
The amazing thing is not that the
Republicans have managed to find yet another new target.
What's astounding is that not a single media source has pointed out
what this obvious ploy is.
Even the straight shooter comedy/news
types seem to be missing the point. For example, Bill Maher
said on his HBO show last week simply, "This immigration issue
seemed to come from out of nowhere this past week."
Not nowhere, from the GOP's strategy
plan. And for anyone who doesn't understand how GOP-controlled
the media is, just look at how dominant this debate - caused by no
incident or new situation - has been. They needed to change
the topic from Global Warming, Iraq, domestic spying.
And before we get into showing you what
the "immigration debate" is more clearly, just think about this:
there was a hearing about censuring the President for violating the
Constitution - that was largely ignored and went away from the media
after one day; there was a major press conference by Democrats
laying out their foreign policy strategy - ignored entirely.
The mastery of GOP media control is that
not only can they feed non-stories to the media as if they are top
news, but they then - with their hundreds of planted "commentators"
- keep "debating" and "discussing" it again and again until people
are so saturated it becomes the topic of the day.
And, of course, it has their desired
affect of successfully changing people's thoughts about what is
important and who to vote for, as
this poll
today confirmed: as many Americans suddenly, from "out of
nowhere," are more concerned about those darkies from Mexico than
about the economy. Almost as many see immigration as the most
important issue as see Iraq as the most important issue.
This is no joke.
So why or how would the GOP create a
crisis about immigrants from nowhere and use it shift blame toward
the Democrats?
On Bill Maher's show,
Congressman
Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) helped lay it out so clearly it could
not be mistaken. During a roundtable discussion, he flatly
laid blame for declining worker wages in America on those Mexicans.
Now, Rohrbacher is a man who votes
repeatedly against raising the minimum wage, is a staunch supporter
of allowing outsourcing, keeping the laws that let companies set up
offshore, handing lots of money to companies in tax cuts with no
incentive to increase worker pay, backing GATT and NAFTA without
worker wage provisions.
In short, he is one of the GOP leaders
who are directly responsible for driving down worker wages.
But now that his butt is on the line as
his policies are coming home to roost, he and the rest of the GOP
need someone to rally their base to hate and blame. The
Democrats haven't been in charge of anything for a while.
So they have turned, once again, to racism.
How they did it was simple. The
GOP decided they wanted to make immigration the front-and-center
topic of the moment. They figured they could tell the nation
that it is illegal immigrants responsible for economic/wage woes,
and say them crossing the border is a national security threat. And
then, they could blame the Democrats for this when they,
predictably, want to give amnesty to illegals and not take a strong
a stand on militarizing the borders, also shifting attention from
Republican national security failures with the actual War on Terror
and in Iraq.
So, for no reason other than to start
the shifting of the nation's attention, the GOP introduced a very
extreme bill in the House directed at illegal immigrants that
included absurd
things like building a wall on the border. And so it was off
to the races.
And for more than two weeks now, for no
real reason, as there has been no new occurrence or crisis related
to illegal immigrants, a sudden "debate" about illegal immigrants
has become virtually the number one issue of concern for Americans.
Almost as many see it is the number one issue as see Iraq as the
number one issue.
Illegal immigrants, who were here all
along, for decades now, suddenly, as the election approaches,
are as large a concern for the nation as Iraq or the economy.
This is how we got the GOP in total
control of the nation, and how - whether or not they slip this next
election - unless their control of the media is broken, they will
only come back stronger in the future.
All arguments about illegal immigrants
being the cause of current economic woes are easily disproven.
The same illegal immigrants were here during the boom times of the
90's as are here during the low wage and debt times of the GOP era.
But that doesn't matter. The GOP
controls both sides of the debate in TV and media land, and so for a
large number of Americans, their frustration can now be vented on
those dumb wetbacks. It's them, and the Democrats who want to
give them citizenship, who are to blame.
The GOP is actually using their control
to not only make sure this story doesn't disappear any time soon,
but to play both sides of the fence. This past week, they
pretended they were for a "compromise" that would have granted
amnesty for many illegals. This was to cover themselves with
Latinos. Then, they killed the bill by offering extremist
amendments they knew the Democrats wouldn't accept. And when
the bill died due to the Democrats shooting down these extremist
amendments, they snapped their fingers and the entire media ran the
headline that it was the Democrats who killed the immigration bill.
Not one story ran the headline that
Democratic Leader Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) blamed GOP bill-killing
amendments for stalling the legislation. Instead, every single
media outlet ignored what they know to be reality - that the
Democrats have long welcomed a bill granting such amnesty, and that
the GOP killed this bill - and instead ran articles reporting of the
GOP blaming the Democrats.
Quite nice. The issue stays alive
so they can continue to use racism to rally their base, while at the
same time they can pretend they are really the ones for helping
Latinos.
And lest you wonder if they really would
do such a thing, I would ask how short term is your memory?
Have you forgotten already about a "compassionate conservative"
Presidential candidate who regularly has promised he would help
people and programs that he then slashes? In fact, that is the
basis of their Latino outreach, which has always been a two-faced
fraud.
Or more directly, have you forgotten the
Homeland Security deal, where it was a Democratic idea that, like
immigration reform, the GOP opposed, but the GOP then pretended it
was their idea and put untenable amendments on it so the Democrats
had to vote against the bill, after which the GOP then walloped the
Dems for "opposing Homeland Security" during the election cycle?
Yes, sounds very familiar to what is
happening now, doesn't it? But don't ask the media to notice.
They go along as good puppets like always, allowing the GOP to use
them at will. So much so that the very focus of the entire
nation has been switched to a non-issue within weeks.
This is the new GOP, how they operate
and what they do. Fortunately, there are other issues resulting
from the fact that their policies have created disaster that are
overriding this issue for many. But still, unless Democrats
start educating America on how the right-wing domination of the
media works, they will be in great trouble if not sooner, then
later.
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