Modern slavery
Salon comes again with an article on Bush's immigration proposal, a plan that sounds as cheap labor for corporate interests that are Bush only concern:
It is less the legalization of laborers than the organization and control of the labor supply, less an employee benefit than an employer advantage, less an expansion of workers' rights than a major economic concession to big business. A U.S. Border Patrol chaplain has called it "the closest thing to modern slavery our country has known."
But on the same article, Sally Denton points to Alan Greenspan when she throws a surprise statistic: immigrants contribute more than US$27 billion to the economy each year. Immigrants, whether legal or illegal, pay taxes and Social Security, only that when they unemployed they have no unemployment checks, and when the inhumane conditions in which they work finally render them sick they will not receive any treatment. If they leave the country, they lose all their contributions to Social Security. If they are fired or harassed, there is almost no recourse.
And yet people believe in the image of the freeloading immigrant.
These are your new slaves, America! Wake up and feel ashamed!
Comments
I think you would also be interested in this article: http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2003/10/we_599_02b.html
WalMart that bastion of fairness and honesty in the American workplace. Does anyone even STILL remember that? All of the press about locking there workers in at night. It is slavery.
Posted by: tina | February 24, 2004 11:23 AM
Oh please... I just read an article about Mr. Bush's plans to ban gay marriages and now this? Don't make me hate that guy more than I already do.
Too bad I can't read the whole article at Salon.
Posted by: Bea | February 24, 2004 11:56 AM
Welcome to the Bush administration Camilo! If you love stomping on and holding back humanity, than Bush is your man. I for one, will be taking part in National BOOKS NOT BOMBS DAY. I will be conducting a class............in the middle of the intersection, in front of the Billy Penn, Philadelphia City Hall in protest! Bastards! I'm sick of BOTH parties. The Democrates have sold all of us out, gays included!
Posted by: Liz | February 24, 2004 11:38 PM
Bush has done away with millions of jobs and yet we Americans buy into the myth that immigrants will take away our jobs if we let them in. THERE ARE NO JOBS FOR ANYONE! Get it?
Posted by: Liz | February 28, 2004 11:43 PM