Arizona and Immigration “Crisis” is a Sham War on the Poor

Just one stray word to this effect: would anyone with any decency *want* to live in Arizona, now? I mean shit. It’s like living in a racist state. I have friends who do, and I don’t blame them. But Arizona, under the policies of the cul-de -ac and the current Sheriff has long been a second Texas. The truth is half the country is fascist in overt policy, and a good chunk of the rest are fascist in intentions (willing to force their better answers on the rest of us).

Here’s another truth, though: the campaign against immigrants (you can say “illegal immigrants” if you want, but that’s simply untrue – the changes in policy have actually been largely aimed at legal immigrants) are a facade for something else – a comprehensive campaign against the poor. The truth is, the most visible representation of the organized poor in this era is not labor unions, but communities of immigrants. Again, if you’ve read Sharlet’s book The Family, you know what I mean.

Look at the proponents of these changes, after all – they’re mouthing the same constructs of their intellectual betters – the one who know the way to move people is with the superficial – the verisimilitude of social and political issues, crises, motivations, and pressing needs – namely, law and order. To the degree “illegal” immigration is emphasized, it is this force at work. To the degree ‘chaos’ and rampant disregard for the law is emphasized, this is the subliminal appeal. But in reality, it’s the poor, especially the organized poor that are the target.

It’s hard to digest Sharlet’s contention that the real motivation – not  of Soccer Moms and Dads and redneck fascists and nazis – not of all those “I’m a social liberal, and an economic conservative, but when it comes to immigration, I’m with the right” purveyors of cognitive dissonance, inflicting their own internal conflicts on the rest of us – but of the necessarily smaller contingent of those who *create* issues and drive them into the public consciousness through campaigns of pretense – the real motivation is actually an opposition to the poor for its own sake – it is the polarization of power vs. its lack, wealth vs. its lack, influence vs. its lack. The rest of us, when mouthing their ready-made justifications are, in every sense of the word, merely tools.