Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
The Minutemen: Mad at the Wrong Guys
It's the Boss, Not the Workers
The image and the idea of the Minuteman is attractive: the patriot, the typical working guy, prepared to take up arms at a moment's notice to defend his country. Minutemen and Minutewomen too: the ordinary people fighting the good fight to protect the American way of life: a good job, a home, a living wage, health care and education, and some left over for entertainment and eventually a retirement with dignity.
The contemporary Minutemen, mostly white guys with guns, have taken their stand on the Mexico border. The stand with binoculars, gazing South, yearning to fire off a few rounds at their enemies the immigrants.
The problem is that the Minutemen are mad at the wrong guys. The guys they want are back East. The enemies they're after are not short, dark-skinned guys with names like Jesús Martínez but tall, fair-skinned fellows with names like Jack Welsh, Sam Walton and Richard Farmer.
Answer these questions, and you see where the Minutemen have gotten lost.
Who closed the auto plants and steel mills taking away hundreds of thousands of unionized jobs with high pay and good benefits? Who sent the auto parts plants, television plants, hospital supply plants, and many others to Mexico? American corporations sent them South looking for lower wages. The foreign workers had no hand in it and weren't even allowed to say a word.
Who declares bankruptcy to take awake workers' contracts, wages, benefits and pensions? Not immigrant workers. American corporations like LTV, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, United Airlines, Delphi have turned to bankruptcy to screw workers. The immigrants worker now takes a job in a place that plays little more than the minimum wage-but the employers drove down the wage, not the immigrants.
Who took your son or daughter-or is about to take them--and sent them to kill or die for oil in Iraq? An American politician, a congressman, probably a former corporate lawyer, threatens your kids' lives-not the immigrant worker. Most immigrants I know oppose the U.S. imperial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Who lowers income taxes for the rich and raises sales taxes on the poor? You can bet it was politicians who receive money from corporate PACs. Immigrant workers didn't raise our taxes. Most of them can't even vote and congressmen pay even less attention to them than they do to us.
Who was it that--after they got rid of the union jobs--hired the immigrant, paid her or him low wages, denied them basic benefits like health care, and worked them like they were pack animals? Who advertised for immigrants in Mexico or Central America, brought them here illegally, hired them illegally, and often worked them in violation of the wages and hours act? Well, it wasn't Juanita.
Who discriminates against African American workers, preferring to hire Latin American immigrants who have no rights? It's the boss-not the immigrant worker.
Who was it that destroyed Mexico's economy with NAFTA, forcing the Mexicans to come here? Who was it that supported Guatemala's dictators as they turned Indian communities into killing fields, leaving many Guatemalans with no alternative but to come here? Who was it who destroyed the economies of South America, creating mass unemployment followed by mass migration? I think you know who it was, and it wasn't the wretched family trying to cross the Sonora-Arizona desert with a few gallons of water, a few dollars in their pocket and a prayer on their lips.
Who should you be mad at, Minutemen? It wasn't the foreign worker and it wasn't immigrant who took away our jobs, high wages, good benefits and decent working conditions. It was that congeries of scoundrels and lawyers, that complex of interlocking directorates and corporate hierarchies, that network of good old boys with Texas oil money and that clique of New York bankers with sheaves of stocks and bonds, that system of political payoffs, favoritism and nepotism that taken all together we call the American power elite--what the old school called the ruling class-that's who did it. They're white guys, they wear ties, and they live on this side of the border.
More
http://counterpunch.org/labotz08192006.html
The contemporary Minutemen, mostly white guys with guns, have taken their stand on the Mexico border. The stand with binoculars, gazing South, yearning to fire off a few rounds at their enemies the immigrants.
The problem is that the Minutemen are mad at the wrong guys. The guys they want are back East. The enemies they're after are not short, dark-skinned guys with names like Jesús Martínez but tall, fair-skinned fellows with names like Jack Welsh, Sam Walton and Richard Farmer.
Answer these questions, and you see where the Minutemen have gotten lost.
Who closed the auto plants and steel mills taking away hundreds of thousands of unionized jobs with high pay and good benefits? Who sent the auto parts plants, television plants, hospital supply plants, and many others to Mexico? American corporations sent them South looking for lower wages. The foreign workers had no hand in it and weren't even allowed to say a word.
Who declares bankruptcy to take awake workers' contracts, wages, benefits and pensions? Not immigrant workers. American corporations like LTV, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, United Airlines, Delphi have turned to bankruptcy to screw workers. The immigrants worker now takes a job in a place that plays little more than the minimum wage-but the employers drove down the wage, not the immigrants.
Who took your son or daughter-or is about to take them--and sent them to kill or die for oil in Iraq? An American politician, a congressman, probably a former corporate lawyer, threatens your kids' lives-not the immigrant worker. Most immigrants I know oppose the U.S. imperial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Who lowers income taxes for the rich and raises sales taxes on the poor? You can bet it was politicians who receive money from corporate PACs. Immigrant workers didn't raise our taxes. Most of them can't even vote and congressmen pay even less attention to them than they do to us.
Who was it that--after they got rid of the union jobs--hired the immigrant, paid her or him low wages, denied them basic benefits like health care, and worked them like they were pack animals? Who advertised for immigrants in Mexico or Central America, brought them here illegally, hired them illegally, and often worked them in violation of the wages and hours act? Well, it wasn't Juanita.
Who discriminates against African American workers, preferring to hire Latin American immigrants who have no rights? It's the boss-not the immigrant worker.
Who was it that destroyed Mexico's economy with NAFTA, forcing the Mexicans to come here? Who was it that supported Guatemala's dictators as they turned Indian communities into killing fields, leaving many Guatemalans with no alternative but to come here? Who was it who destroyed the economies of South America, creating mass unemployment followed by mass migration? I think you know who it was, and it wasn't the wretched family trying to cross the Sonora-Arizona desert with a few gallons of water, a few dollars in their pocket and a prayer on their lips.
Who should you be mad at, Minutemen? It wasn't the foreign worker and it wasn't immigrant who took away our jobs, high wages, good benefits and decent working conditions. It was that congeries of scoundrels and lawyers, that complex of interlocking directorates and corporate hierarchies, that network of good old boys with Texas oil money and that clique of New York bankers with sheaves of stocks and bonds, that system of political payoffs, favoritism and nepotism that taken all together we call the American power elite--what the old school called the ruling class-that's who did it. They're white guys, they wear ties, and they live on this side of the border.
More
http://counterpunch.org/labotz08192006.html
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$75.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network