Do you believe this? What do you think?

[Lorrie]

Below is a list of U.S. Senators who just voted to give illegal aliens Social > Security benefits; in essence, your FICA monies. Money to people who are here illegally.
They'll now share in an account already in deep trouble.
Remember this at election time. They depend on us to forget, and most do.

THESE ARE THE SENATORS WHO VOTED TO GIVE ILLEGAL ALIENS SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS. REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL PARTY, THESE POLITICIANS NEED TO BE DEFEATED
IN 2006, 2008 OR 2010 WHENEVER THEY COME UP FOR OFFICE.

SEND THIS TO ANYONE YOU KNOW IN ANY OF THE STATES LISTED. THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO KNOW THIS INFORMATION. THAT IS UNLESS THEY DO NOT MIND SHARING THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY WITH FOREIGN WORKERS WHEN AMERICAN CITIZENS ARE BEING LEFT OUT.

Grouped by Home State
Alabama:

Alaska :
Stevens (R-AK), Yea

Arizona :
McCain (R-AZ), Yea

Arkansas:
Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
Pryor (D-AR), Yea

California:
Boxer (D-CA), Yea
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea

Colorado:
Salazar (D-CO), Yea

Connecticut:
Dodd (D-CT), Yea
Lieberman (D-CT), Yea

Delaware:
Biden (D-DE), Yea
Carper (D-DE), Yea

Florida:
Martinez (R-FL), Yea

Georgia:

Hawaii:
Akaka (D-HI), Yea
Inouye (D-HI), Yea

Idaho:

Illinois:
Durbin (D-IL), Yea
Obama (D-IL), Yea

Indiana:
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Lugar (R-IN), Yea

Iowa:
Harkin (D-IA), Yea

Kansas:
Brownback (R-KS), Yea

Kentucky:

Louisiana:
Landrieu (D-LA), Yea

Maine:

Maryland:
Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Sarbanes (D-MD), Yea

Massachusetts:
Kennedy (D-MA), Yea
Kerry (D-MA), Yea

Michigan:
Levin (D-MI), Yea
Stabenow (D-MI), Yea

Minnesota:
Mississippi:
Missouri:

Montana:
Baucus (D-MT), Yea

Nebraska:
Hagel (R-NE), Yea

Nevada:
Reid (D-NV), Yea

New Hampshire:

New Jersey:
Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea
Menendez (D-NJ), Yea

New Mexico:
Bingaman (D-NM), Yea

New York:
Clinton (D-NY), Yea
Schumer (D-NY), Ye

North Carolina:

North Dakota:
Dorgan (D-ND), Yea

Ohio:
DeWine (R-OH), Yea
Voinovich (R-OH), Yea

Oklahoma:

Oregon:
Wyden (D-OR), Yea

Pennsylvania:
Specter (R-PA), Yea

Rhode Island:
Chafee (R-RI), Yea
Reed (D-RI), Yea

South Carolina:
Graham (R-SC), Yea

South Dakota:
Johnson (D-SD), Yea

Tennessee:

Texas:
Utah:

Vermont:
Jeffords (I-VT), Yea
Leahy (D-VT), Yea

Virginia:

Washington:
Cantwell (D-WA), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Yea

West Virginia:
Rockefeller (D-WV), Not Voting

Wyoming:

Wisconsin:
Feingold (D-WI), Yea
Kohl (D-WI), Yea

["Mad" Miles]

Re: Undocumented / Illegal Immigrants/Aliens getting Social Security

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Social Security get deducted from every paycheck that an employer who is paying those taxes writes? So aren't these workers (whatever you call them and whatever you think of their presence in this country) earning the money to pay those taxes? So why shouldn't they get funds from the fund that they pay into like everyone else? And if they are without papers, how are they able to collect those funds? Any experts in these matters out there willing to fill in the blanks?

Editorially, the hysteria about "but they're breaking the law!!!!!?" leaves me cold. From what I've read the amount that undocumented / illegal labor depresses the prevailing wage is minimal, and the cost to consumers to pay the wages that legal American citizens and residents would demand for the same work would be quite significant. I have not been convinced that the numbers prove that we pay more in education, health care, emergency services, etc. than we as a society gain from vast supply of cheap exploitable labor.

It seems to me that the only realistic approach to the problem of hordes of desperate people from other countries coming here to work in order for they and their families to survive, is to improve the economies of the countries that they come from so they can make it there and are not compelled to come here. That'll be the day. And if it ever does come, who's going to harvest the crops, clean the offices and homes and do the brutal assembly work in sweat shops, abattoirs and other industrial operations?

Cheers,

"Mad" Miles

[potterac]

Thank you for your comments Miles. I am a school counselor and work with many undocumented families in rural West County. Not only are their wages much lower, they work incredibly long hours, and live in conditions that are unsuitable for most animals let alone humans. Many of the ranches that they work for require kids as young as seven or eight to start contributing to the work. In high school, teens are expected to get up before school at about 4 am and do ranch chores, go to school for eight hours, work after school until dark, and then have homework to do. All while living in sheds without water or plumbing. In my opinion, these people contribute more to the economy of America than they get rewarded for. To call them illegal is shameful. They are hardworking humans, and no person should be called illegal or alien. Where's the human compassion in that? So, yes, they should get worker's benefits. They should get worker's rights. They should get basic human rights. I am going to call Senators Boxer and Feinstein and thank them for their work on this issue.

[Peanut Yogi]

With all due respect to Mad Miles, the attitudes that our "economy" "needs" "cheap exploitable labor" and that people here illegally "deserve" to be treated fairly are the paths that have lead us to the state we as a society are in. A state in which people are living in abject housing, working in slave labor conditions and the majority of americans are sitting on the backs of these people enjoying (sort of) too many plastic toys and too much poor quality "food".

When we enforce the laws created to keep too many people from entering our country faster than our incredibly large society and system can handle, we will find a balance. Employers will begin to pay their employees "living wage", americans will begin to pay a fair price for the goods and services we receive. And for a while, people will feel frustrated because they will have to find a new way to enjoy life. We will no longer be able to pretend to be "wealthy" by paying Rosa $4 per hour to clean our house. Instead we will clean it ourselves or pay her well. We will no longer be able to pretend to be "wealthy" by taking cruises and overeating at the buffet. Instead we will purchase food from farmers at a price that supports the farmer, his family and his laborers or we will grow it ourselves. We will no longer pretend to be "wealthy" by filling our closets with clothes we rarely wear. Instead we will "think globaly and act locally".

The employers did not pay poorly and then people crossed the borders illegally. The people crossed the borders in numbers larger than the job market could bear and THEN the employers paid poorly. It's ECON 101 - supply and demand.

It's not our (america's) or my responsibility to fix the ills of every country outside of ours. It's only our responsibility to manage and defend our people and resources to our utmost best.

My door and dinner table are open to anyone who needs to eat. But the day more people show up than our household and garden can sustainably (over the long run) feed, I shut the door. And yes, people may be sitting on my porch starving, but better they sit there figuring out how to make change than I let them in and eventually everyone, including my children, starves because of over-used resources.

just my two sense
peanut


Re: Undocumented / Illegal Immigrants/Aliens getting Social Security

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Social Security get deducted from every paycheck that an employer who is paying those taxes writes? So aren't these workers (whatever you call them and whatever you think of their presence in this country) earning the money to pay those taxes? So why shouldn't they get funds from the fund that they pay into like everyone else? And if they are without papers, how are they able to collect those funds? Any experts in these matters out there willing to fill in the blanks?

Editorially, the hysteria about "but they're breaking the law!!!!!?" leaves me cold. From what I've read the amount that undocumented / illegal labor depresses the prevailing wage is minimal, and the cost to consumers to pay the wages that legal American citizens and residents would demand for the same work would be quite significant. I have not been convinced that the numbers prove that we pay more in education, health care, emergency services, etc. than we as a society gain from vast supply of cheap exploitable labor.

It seems to me that the only realistic approach to the problem of hordes of desperate people from other countries coming here to work in order for they and their families to survive, is to improve the economies of the countries that they come from so they can make it there and are not compelled to come here. That'll be the day. And if it ever does come, who's going to harvest the crops, clean the offices and homes and do the brutal assembly work in sweat shops, abattoirs and other industrial operations?

Cheers,

"Mad" Miles

[saysni]

What an incredible and difficult issue this is (il/legal immigration)...makes my head spin. I'm glad to see/hear people engaging it sans unnecessary head-bashing...so far at least. Much thought and hand & heart-wringing will no doubt ensue as it plays out. My thoughts:
There is a brown-skinned tsunami tidal wave of humanity to the south that is heading this way no matter how many (and how high) fences are built [see Sunday's PD for topical article];
The nature of capitalist economies demands a low-paid "working class" to provide "cheap" goods for "consumers" and wealth for industry owners;
I can't imagine even "Rosa" working for $4/hr, not in Sonoma Co. at least - there seems to be a pervailing "minimum wage" for which even "illegals" will work, at least twice that amount [whoever pays another human being that ridiculous amount ought to be...well, just use your imagination];
With social security projected to "run out" right around the time i theoretically would qualify, the only hope i see on the horizon of ever collecting [that's a hoot in itself!] is an injection of funds from new/younger workers, and lord knows it ain't gonna come from white-skinned folks, we just are not reproducing at a rate that will support the cashing out/boomer generation, let alone those who follow!;
Meanwhile, love the life you have like it's the only one you'll ever know, and respect life in all its forms however it arrives. It's a crazy mixed up world it seems, always has been, always will be. I try to acknowledge the geologic-time perspective, which morphs nicely into: "And this too shall pass"...[I would LOVE to be on an archaeological dig that is sifting through the strata of these times trying to figure out just who the hell these people were and wtf they were doing and why?]...it helps to maintain my somewhat tenuous hold on what little sanity i seem to have left.
Glad to know your door is open, peanut, for now at least, i may have to come knocking some day! Mi casa es su casa, tambien.

[lagallinaazul]

perhaps you could be of some assistance as they are out there starving.

we are far from "full" and even when we are, closing the door isn't going to be a solution. the expectation isn't that they need to figure it out.
it's us.
all of us.

[Faethdragon]

You take care of your family first, then your neighbor, then your neighbor's neighbor etc., as long as you can care for all equally well. When you cannot do this then you have to start reducing the numbers of those to whom you are LENDING a helping hand. Personal opion only of course. :)

[Tars]

When we enforce the laws created to keep too many people from entering our country faster than our incredibly large society and system can handle, we will find a balance. Employers will begin to pay their employees "living wage", americans will begin to pay a fair price for the goods and services we receive. And for a while, people will feel frustrated because they will have to find a new way to enjoy life. We will no longer be able to pretend to be "wealthy" by paying Rosa $4 per hour to clean our house.

Interesting comments peanutyogi, thanks for those. I happen to be one of those exploitive greedhead fatcat Americans who employs foreign workers. They are the only viable solution for me, if I want to stay in business.

I don't know anyone around here who pays anyone $4.00 an hour. The going rate I see is $10-$12 an hour for manual or semi-skilled labor.

From my perspective the problem really is that American workers have too high an expectation of the value of their labor. My business requires some simple uncomplicated repetitive labor. It's boring and unglamorous but safe & easy. I've tried finding Americans to do it. They require at least $15/hour, more usually $20/hr to do the work. Even then, they work slower, take more breaks, and usually quit after a very short time.

It seems like every trade person, who does anything requiring even a modicum of skill, charges $70 an hour. I have ongoing projects that require simple carpentry, irrigation, etc. I have to have these projects done. My choice is to pay someone $400/week to do them, or pay $2800/week. Yet, I do, from time to time, try to contact the $70/hour trades people. It usually requires alot of effort from me to find one willing to do the work. When I call to get a quote, or to set up a job, more often than not, even at $70/hour they are unwilling to do the work! More often than not they just don't call me back. I admit that I go less-and-less often to the "skilled" tradespeople, they just make it too difficult.

I wish that life was simple black & white, and that my clients would be willing to accept the costs of American labor being passed on to them, but they won't. My choices right now are to pay people $10-12 for unskilled or semi-skilled labor, or to spend a lot of my time & effort to locate a tradesperson who feels like showing up to do the work at $70/hour, and by paying that amount, price myself out of the business.

Our country needs immigration reform. We need to make it legal and simple for "guest workers" to come here, cover their social costs while here, and then go home when they're done. Americans are being forced to face the realization that it ain't just the U.S. anymore, they have to compete against workers from all over the world. Supply and demand will force the payrate for American workers to rates which are more closely competitive to the rest of the world. Market forces are bigger than legislation.

[Dixon]

Having spent many hours beating this topic into the ground on wacco-bb just a few months ago, I was gonna ignore it this time, but I just can't let this noxious wind pass without challenging it (briefly this time):

I'm sick of hearing mostly white people acting and talking as if the (white) power structure owns this part of the continent so that it's somehow appropriate for us to tell brown people where they can or can't go. We need to think more deeply and honestly, and less self-centeredly, about our underlying assumptions, to wit:

1. Stealing does not really make something yours. The Americas were stolen from their millennia-long inhabitants during the course of a centuries long genocidal bloodbath which, considered as a whole, is surely the most heinous crime our planet has yet seen. The bad guys won, and founded this country, among others. But the real owners of the "Americas" (to the extent that Mother Earth can be owned at all) are surely the indigenous people of these continents.

2. Our white ancestors who founded "our" government were all illegal aliens (we can be sure that it was illegal by all existing Indian laws for people from Europe to take over the "New World" and slaughter those who resisted). If the Indians had had a tighter immigration policy in 1492, we wouldn't have these problems today. For white folks to decry "illegal immigration" is ludicrously hypocritical.

3. Our government, having been founded on genocide and slavery to rule part of a stolen continent, is an invalid entity with zero moral authority. Imaginary lines called "borders" drawn by this invalid government are equally invalid and, as such, appropriately ignored.

4. For white people to draw lines on this continent and stop indigenous people from crossing them is not just immoral and obscene; it's bizarre.

5. To act as if this government and its hypocritical immigration policies are valid implicitly validates racism, imperialism and genocide.

peanutyogi says: "It's not our (america's)..."

Dig this: When we in the USA arrogate to ourselves the terms "America" and "American", as if they're synonymous with the USA, we gratuitously insult Canadians, Mexicans, Guatemalans and the citizens of over 30 other countries who are American every bit as much as we are--they live in the Americas just as we do! It's another example of the USArrogance that makes people the world over disgusted with us.

"...or my responsibility to fix the ills of every country outside of ours."

But many of these other countries' ills were largely caused by the ongoing effects of the unimaginable trauma and resource theft visited upon them by the invading colonial powers and the countries founded here by those invaders, as well as the institutionalized oppression and poverty that is business as usual to this day. Surely you know that our prosperity continues to be supported by gross exploitation of many of these other countries. After we've paid back the indigenous people the trillions and trillions of dollars we owe them and start treating them as our equals, then let's see how many ills remain to be fixed.

"It's only our responsibility to manage and defend our people and resources to our utmost best."

It's clear that when you say "our people", you're leaving out most of our brothers and sisters on this little planet. Why? Do "Americans" (USAmericans) mean more to you than others? Do we deserve prosperity more than Mexicans or whoever? Do you think you work as hard as the average Mexican? And by the way, what did you do to earn your citizenship? With all due respect, peanutyogi, you don't sound much like a yogi to me, unless there's some right-wing yogic sect I haven't heard of. If you're really a yogi, meditate on this: We are One Planet, populated by One people. Nationalism, sometimes called patriotism, is a form of bigotry, not unlike racism, sexism, etc.

Thanks for listening;
Dixon

["Mad" Miles]

Dixon Baby!

Simon Cabron!! 'xept for the personal stuff at the end. I forebore responding to py because I chose to give her the benefit of the doubt as to motivation and scope of analysis.

D Man just remember, when you make it personal, that's when it gets nasty. There's nothing like the internet for engendering pissing matches. Been there, done that. (Anybody not on the Left Green Alliance list back in 2000-2002 certainly missed out. That was a circular firing squad debate populated by bruised puffy egos like nothing ever seen on wacco!) Just leads to "sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Barry, welcome back from Harbin, never been myself, always wanted to go. I was tempted to provoke some kind of dubious flame war in your absence, just for fun and to prove your irreplaceability. But the "better angels of my nature" prevailed and I stayed mum.

How come so little traffic on the debacle in Lebanon/Gaza? Even if it is not a "local" issue it seems to me the most horrific and sickening thing happening lately (among the rest of the human tragedy). When are we going to get our government to quit uncritically supporting Israel's savagery in the Occupied Territories and neighboring environs?

(And please don't tell me the Palestinians have been offered "95%" of what they want and have refused peace. That claim is blatantly false and anyone who has been paying attention to the sad history of Palestinian / Israeli relations knows it. Yet I still see that claim made in the PD Letters to the Editor and elsewhere.

For a nuanced and informed view of the whole mess, see Rabbi Michael Lerner's analysis that can be found in Tikkun Magazine. I may not agree with his views about the Democratic Party but he's a pretty good representative of an informed, rational and compasionate Jewish point of view.)

Dixon, again, great historical, political, sociologic perspective.

Thanks,

"Mad" Miles

:giggle:

[Barry]

Barry, welcome back from Harbin, never been myself, always wanted to go. I was tempted to provoke some kind of dubious flame war in your absence, just for fun and to prove your irreplaceability. But the "better angels of my nature" prevailed and I stayed mum.Thanks, Miles! I have no desire to be irreplaceable (ie chained!).


How come so little traffic on the debacle in Lebanon/Gaza? Even if it is not a "local" issue it seems to me the most horrific and sickening thing happening latelyI agree. I'll kick it off:

First, let me state that I am Jewish (and trying to remain proud of that!). I thought the pullout from Gaza was brilliant. There was no one to negotiate with so they just pulled out. Of course it doesn't make all the problems go away, but now it is not complicated by the Israeli occupation.



The Lebanon invasion seems be a case of arrogance that backfired, and may yet lead to true peace. Isreal thought they could just impose their will to stop the attacks by forcibly removing the "Terrorists" from southern Lebanon. Clearly it has not been the cakewalk they expected. This is good! Israel now knows they can't get what they want militarily, so they will have to try to get it diplomatically if possible.

But that's the key, "if possible", its hard to negotiate with somebody who's stated goal is to wipe you off the map. I think the Palestinians have achieved their goal that they must be taken seriously. But now they must be willing to negotiate for a settlement that includes Israel 's right to exist (with the 1967 borders) and live in peace.

[lagallinaazul]

As long as you continue to call these people illegal aliens, you have lost sight of humananity (ie. what it means to be human) and compassion.
You are missing out on life.



Below is a list of U.S. Senators who just voted to give illegal aliens Social > Security benefits; in essence, your FICA monies. Money to people who are here illegally.

They'll now share in an account already in deep trouble.
Remember this at election time. They depend on us to forget, and most do.

THESE ARE THE SENATORS WHO VOTED TO GIVE ILLEGAL ALIENS SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS. REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL PARTY, THESE POLITICIANS NEED TO BE DEFEATED
IN 2006, 2008 OR 2010 WHENEVER THEY COME UP FOR OFFICE.

{Snip}