Is this the first time that the chimp and liberals are on the same page?

[IsItJustMe]

Chimp want's an easy going policy on immigration. And as far as I can tell from reading many of the posts regarding this issue, I would say many Du'ers do also. I don't know what to honestly make of it, but the positions seem similar.

[mdmc]

1. Actually , w. is in the middle

Us lefties want more and open immigration, w. is in the middle, and the neo-cons want draconian immigration policies.

[Critters2]

4. No, the Paleo-cons want draconian policies

Neo-cons want open immigration, to benefit their rich pro-business campaign contributors.

Lefties and Neo-cons on the same page. Doesn't anyone want to re-consider?!

[Just Me]

8. There is a difference between seeking more humane policies,...

,...and pursuing further exploitation of human beings.

I can distinguish between those positions, for sure!!!

[Critters2]

9. I'm not seeing many on the left around here

advocating anything but open borders. Just like the rich Republicans.

[Just Me]

17. There's me. I believe the laws pertaining to acquiring citizenship,...

,...are valuable. It's like anything else in this life, you earn privileges and rights. If everyone plays by the rules, justice and equality are better accomplished.

I believe the rule of law is integral to justice and equality, and the minute someone either avoids or finds a way around or to manipulate laws, justice and equality are unraveled. Well, corporacrats have been avoiding and manipulating laws by exploiting illegal immigrants. Now, we have a situation where injustice is the created environment and everyone is at odds (well, not everyone).

[IsItJustMe]

22. I would have to agree with you. I consider myself a Liberal, but on this

issue I would have to distinguish myself from the majority here at DU. There has to be a responsible way in solving our problems than simply to
destroy our borders.

I honestly don't think it would bring the illegals justus, nor our country and is indeed a non solution.

[mdmc]

31. open borders, strong unions, free health care and education

make it so

[mdmc]

30. where does Pete King (r) fit in?

HR4437 - that is the neo-con set up. Bush is in the middle with his visitor deal. Liberals are for open (liberal) immigration.

[misternormal]

20. "W" is always in the middle until the electrodes are put back in... n/t

[Critters2]

2. There are Duers agreeing with Bush

Ill-informed DUers. As for me, when I find myself agreeing with the US Chamber of Commerce AND the Chimp, I'd start re-evaluating my position.

[Deja Q]

11. Very ill-informed indeed.

So much has been said before Bush's new "compassionate" viewpoint about so-called "guest workers" that anybody siding with Bush on this chooses to ignore reality.

Worse, 9/11 was caused by loose security laws regarding foreigners who come into the USA. And we've made just a few more enemies since then. Surely we want to tighten the laws instead? Especially if a "guest worker" fathoms that the epithet "guest worker" is much more an insult than it is a term of endearment, but I can fathom many have decided "guest worker" isn't as kind-hearted as originally intended, partly due to an unconvincing delivery.

[leftstreet]

3. Bush DOES NOT want an easy going policy on immigration

He wants a guest worker program that would force illegals to be "sponsored" by a corporation for two three-year terms.

It's called indentured servitude.

[Just Me]

10. Exactly. BushCO & neoconsters seek indentured economic servitude.

THAT is the bottom line!!!

[leftstreet]

16. Yep. For all. Illegals today, legals tomorrow.

They call us HUMAN RESOURCES for a reason.

[Just Me]

19. Human resources or consumers.

When was it we completely lost our identity as "human beings"? The eighties? :shrug:

[leftstreet]

34. Yeah, the 80s. "Greed is Good"

:eyes:

[Marie26]

28. They are different

The guest worker program creates a permanent underclass; amnesty offers immigrants the chance to establish roots & move up into the middle class. There's a big difference between those proposals. It is true, though, that Bush's proposal is much less reactionary than the House bill - which would simply throw illegals into prison.

[Inland]

5. No, because Bush's policies are lies.

He's no more in the middle of immigration than he wanted to protect social security or reach a middle ground on environmental laws.

He pays lip service to compassion, but at the end of the day he wants a huge pool of cheap, exploitable labor that can't vote and won't ever vote.

He pays lip service to law enforcment, but at the end of the day he will continue to look the other way while employers use as much illegal labor as they can bully with the threat of a felony prosecution.

He pays lip service to a guest worker program, but every country with a guest worker program never, ever makes them leave, so the next generation will be given the exact same choice we avoid today of throwing out a person who worked in the US for three decades or giving them citizenship.

He's an asshole lying sack of shit.

[alarimer]

27. They also want this cheap labor source to have no rights

Basically, Sensenbrenner's bill would make it illegal to even help undocumented workers. The whole gues worker plan is essentially slavery. They would have no recourse if, as often happens, their employers refuse to pay them. So it just sucks all around. To me illegal immigrants are still human beings. They deserve to be treated humanely.

[Inland]

32. I think Sensenbrener wants a little bit of dickensian poverty right here.

After all, if the illegal can get his belly full at the soup kitchen, he might not accept the wages offered by the employer. If the illegal knows his family will starve if he goes to jail, he won't do something foolish like go to the hospital if his fingers are removed in some machinery and ruin everything.

My guess is we would see a lot of soup kitchens prosecuted but somehow, the employers would never be discovered, just like today. Gee, how strange that nobody knows who is employing these illegals but everyone knows who is giving them food and education and medical care.

[KharmaTrain]

6. I'm Not In Favor Of Slave Labor...Err Guest Workers...

Asshat's sticking with his big money rancher and corporate buddies here...the ones who make their big profits literally off the backs of these people. He wants to keep the cheap labor here and shut up the racists in his party. Don't even think he's thinking about the social and economic injustices that created this situation on either side of the border. All one has to do with this regime is follow the money.

[Cleita]

7. I could be convinced it's okay as the lesser of two evils

At least as a guest worker, an immigrant won't be hunted down by the INS and the Minute Men. He won't have to cross the Sonora desert and possibly die. He could ride in over the border in a bus like a human being. However, it's not a good solution in the long run.

Unions though can make this work to their advantage by enrolling these workers into the unions, since now they would have a legal status. That way it will take the exploitation for cheap wages factor out of it for a start.

[Deja Q]

12. Are you so certain? And will previous immigrants forced to leave be

allowed to return?

I used to know a person. She was an immigrant but due to State error, a loophole presented itself that forced her to go back to her home country -- with her two American-born sons...

[Cleita]

14. No I'm not certain considering the people who are behind it.

I'm just trying to look at it from an different angle. I really think this is a non-issue to distract the American people who are losing their jobs and security. The undocumented worker is a convenient scapegoat to project this disatisfaction on. btw immigrants who had American born kids used to be granted legal status. I don't know why they changed that. I think it's pure racism.

[mattclearing]

18. But he'll be a second-class citizen with limited rights.

It basically invalidates the Constitution. I can't agree to that.

[Cleita]

26. Yes, but if they pass it anyway, we are stuck with it.

So I'm looking at it as an opportunity to get these people some status and then work for something better. As it is now, they are being made into non-people by the political forces pushing them into a very bad place. There was a time, in California anyway, that we didn't worry about the undocumented worker. We knew they existed and were part of the system and none of us would have reported them to immigration. As a matter of fact immigration turned a pretty blind eye to the whole thing. Now it seems like people want to hunt them down. This is not a good situation.

[mattclearing]

29. I just worry that if we legitimize it, the corporations will run with it.

Next thing you know, it'll be the 3/5's rule again.

[mattclearing]

13. He knows that corporations want to have their cake and eat it too.

Corporations get a great deal with migrant labor, and he knows that's important to the people that put him in office.

It just happens to agree with our aversion to immigrant-bashing/xenophobia.

Ultimately, we will disagree with Bush because we demand equal pay for equal work.

[GRLMGC]

15. Creative

I'm very against the Sensebrenner bill because its incredibly inhumane. I certainly don't want cops asking for my papers because I "look" Mexican (I'm Salvadoran). Also, his bill would get rid of the visa lottery which I'm sure some, here and elsewhere, would love but is also awful. Nevertheless, I do think Bush's plan is horrible. Guest workers will only be exploited and then be sent back to their countries. I think that immigrants should be unionized so the playing ground will be leveled. The greedy corporations won't be able to depress wages and the demand for immigrant labor will probably go down. I think targetting the immigrants themselves, who are powerless to begin with, is despicable.

[Disturbed]

23. Guest Worker Program and Amnesty are Scams.

The Neo Fascists in Govt. are in the pocket of the US Corps and Multi-Corps. This is about cheap laborers that have no rights. Shrub did not dream this up. He is given his instructions and speeches by his Masters, the Corps. that funnel the cash into the Bush Regime.

[GRLMGC]

24. I believe that's what I said

That's why I don't trust Bush on anything. Workers should be unionized because that benefits all workers.

[countryjake]

21. What is liberal about a guest-worker proposal that...

allows the proliferation of globalization and bureaucratic slavery? Those guest-worker visas (which already exist for some twenty years) are used as tools by big agri-businesses to bust Unions and further keep the workers from improving their conditions. Nothing about our prez's solution addresses corporations taking advantage of "supply and demand" to claim a "shortage" so that they can ship in new waves of "guest workers"...his proposal encourages and will increase that practice!

You really should familiarize yourself with the issues, before you try and make accusations such as you've done. Read up on the cons of the "Guest Worker" visas and see for yourself. Unionization becomes practically impossible with such provisions!

[IsItJustMe]

25. It wasn't a claim. It was an observation. I own it. It is my

observation. What I percieve is that the final result will be the same. Chimp or the libs, the long term end result is the same. That's just my opinion, for what it's worth.

[Just Me]

33. Again, you seem to be missing the distinctions, very important,...

,...distinctions between pursuit of humane policies versus pursuit of legally exploiting human beings.

In the heat of passions, you may miss that distinction but, I assure you, it exists.

[Quantess]

35. Liberals and the Environment

I love the environment and I think there are too many people on this planet already. Many other liberals agree. Chimpy doesn't support birth control, and he doesn't give a rip about the environment. So * and I disagree on family planning and on protecting the environment.

Unchecked immigration does not help the environment.

(edited for grammar)

[Elwood P Dowd]

37. I agree

:thumbsup:

[Neil Lisst]

36. many on the far left agree with free marketers and the Walmarts

They like immigration with few restrictions, for entirely different reasons.

Many in the Democratic party - those who are not the far left - agree with those who feel economics dictates a sounder immigration policy, and that illegal immigrants undermine lower paying work for Americans, who are, after all, a Democratic constituency.

The big problem is the tendency so many of the far left to label all who disagree with them as "helping Rove," or "being freepers," or "being racist," or being "jingoistic."

When they whip those words out, you know they're out of logic.

[Elwood P Dowd]

40. You simply cannot reason with some on this board

My thread was locked because it was inflammatory. It was no such animal, but instead it simply stated what was happening in the real world. Some here just simply refuse to accept reality and continue to live in their own little dream world. They are philosophically 180 degrees out of phase with the freepers, yet they too possess their own version of a delusional perception of reality.

[Neil Lisst]

41. You're right.

There was nothing inflammatory in your post. The inflammatory comments were the chronic namecalling by those who opposed your point of view, but couldn't elevate their discussion above insults and judgments.

[Elwood P Dowd]

42. Hey, thanks for the help

You were one of the few that didn't thoroughly chastise me or call me a freeper.

[Neil Lisst]

43. I'm old school Democrat, and that means protecting blue collar jobs

pure and simple

First we take care of our Democratic party constitencies - the quid pro quo - and all groups who benefit should take into consideration the impact on other members of the coalition.

[Elwood P Dowd]

44. I am also old school

My grandfather on mother's side worked in a steel mill. My grandfather on dad's side was a poor sharecropper. They lived in poverty from the late-1880s until the day they died. My parents lived in poverty until the 1960s.

The New Deal is being torn apart, and the Old Deal is back in style. History repeats once again.

[Yollam]

38. Liberals are basically pro-corporate and pro-establishment, so no.

Aside from that, liberals are hardly unanimously in favor of easy immigration.

And neither are leftists and progressives.

It's just another form of third world outsourcing, except it's insourcing.

There is a certain strata of liberals that couldn't care a whit about the job security or living standards of the working classes - so that's one thing they have in common with Bush.

[sandnsea]

39. No, people just don't know how to fucking READ

The Bush guest worker plan IS NOT the same as Kennedy or other Democrats.

Immigrants are not the enemy of any worker, EXPLOITATION OF LABOR IS.

Understanding that undocumented workes aren't the enemy does not mean one support Chimp's immigration plan because it is shit too.