Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Newt Gingrich: "Abolish Bilingual Education"

roachboy · 04-03-2007, 08:36 AM

ok this thread is really sickening. between the various explosions of rhetoric that would be explicitly fascist in the old school sense of the term if you were to substitute "the jews" for "illegals"--same rhetoric, same racist underpinnings, whether you acknowledge it or not--to the delerium concerning the politics of "border protection" like the minutemen and border patrol together function as a giant condom protecting the mighty american penis from contamination....every last one of the "anti-illegal" posts here is
noxious.

before i check out, let me just say: i live in a very diverse neighborhood. for example, if you walk along fullerton ave. which is a block from here, you will pass a cuban resto, a mexican resto, a colombian resto, a puerto rican resto: you will pass a couple computer stores whcih have spanish signs in the windows; you will pass clinics that serve a largely spanish speaking demographic. if you go the other way, there is an argentine place a peruvian place...the nearest bodega is run by folk from honduras...alot of these folk speak heavily accented english and are obviously more comfortable communicating in spanish. in many cases, the same obtains for their kids.

so what?

by the "logic" of this revolting little thread, all of them would be understood as "illegals".... because the distinction being worked here is not predicated on ANY rational criteria, but rather on the relationship to english, which is understood as an index of "assimilation"--well, folks, that is idiotic.
the folk i reference above own their own fucking businesses, they work them as best they can--they have staff in some cases, on other cases they do not. their legal status is not really in question--nor would the question occur to you. but i suppose you could turn up in any of these in your minutemen camo and "protect" us from the plague of people whose english isnt fluent--but if you did, i would be inclined to join many others in kicking the living shit out of you--not "them"--but you.

the idea that migrant labor flows are adequately described as "illegal immigrant" populations is ridiculous--even within documented workers, reverse migration accounts for in many cases up to 80% of the population that enters the country. when you refer to migrant workers as "illegal immigrants" you are set up a phantasm. rather than do even the smallest amount of work to figure out what you are talking about, you prefer to lean on television banalities about the united states as the most deisrable country on the planet, constantly beseiged by the Great Unwashed who want only to Come Here and make their Squalid Lives Better blah blah blah.

the only advantages to it are: (1) because they are entering and leaving the states outside of official stats, your xenophobic-to-racist positions cannot be easily falsified--though even simple inferences can be made using what data there is that wrecks such logic as there is behind your positions and (2) migrant laborers are totally powerless, so they make easy targets for petit bourgeois neofascist style resentment. over the past 90 years or so, it has always like this: it is all too easy to channel petit bourgeois class anxiety onto populations that are even more powerless then they are. it was a significant draw for the s.a. in the late 1920s germany, a significant draw for the poujadistes, a significant draw for the entire history of whacked out american fascist organizations: it is a significant draw for every neofascist organization in europe and apparently for the lots of folk who position themselves as conservatives in the states as well.
and in every case, the ideology is the same thing.
call it something else if it makes you feel better, but the labelling is therapeutic, not accurate, a figleaf you place over fundamentally repugnant political positions.

you want to stop migrant labor flows? go after the employers who hire them. but if you do that, then you cant use this idiotic language criteria to create some hallucinated "other" that poses some vague "threat" to a white english-speaking amurica....no doubt it is much more fun to be a xenophobe-to-racist (depending only on the immediate situation) and then worry about how you are going to deny it.

the entire political logic around this issue is dangerous screwed up: it enables perfectly nice people to remake themselves into the functional equivalent of brownshirts without even their being aware that they are doing it. this too is a constant in extreme right politics--it is a twisted variant on premises that appear to be "common sense"--but they aren't. they are Other. if you cant see it, the problem is yours.

04-03-2007, 08:36 AM	#84 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	ok this thread is really sickening. between the various explosions of rhetoric that would be explicitly fascist in the old school sense of the term if you were to substitute "the jews" for "illegals"--same rhetoric, same racist underpinnings, whether you acknowledge it or not--to the delerium concerning the politics of "border protection" like the minutemen and border patrol together function as a giant condom protecting the mighty american penis from contamination....every last one of the "anti-illegal" posts here is noxious. before i check out, let me just say: i live in a very diverse neighborhood. for example, if you walk along fullerton ave. which is a block from here, you will pass a cuban resto, a mexican resto, a colombian resto, a puerto rican resto: you will pass a couple computer stores whcih have spanish signs in the windows; you will pass clinics that serve a largely spanish speaking demographic. if you go the other way, there is an argentine place a peruvian place...the nearest bodega is run by folk from honduras...alot of these folk speak heavily accented english and are obviously more comfortable communicating in spanish. in many cases, the same obtains for their kids. so what? by the "logic" of this revolting little thread, all of them would be understood as "illegals".... because the distinction being worked here is not predicated on ANY rational criteria, but rather on the relationship to english, which is understood as an index of "assimilation"--well, folks, that is idiotic. the folk i reference above own their own fucking businesses, they work them as best they can--they have staff in some cases, on other cases they do not. their legal status is not really in question--nor would the question occur to you. but i suppose you could turn up in any of these in your minutemen camo and "protect" us from the plague of people whose english isnt fluent--but if you did, i would be inclined to join many others in kicking the living shit out of you--not "them"--but you. the idea that migrant labor flows are adequately described as "illegal immigrant" populations is ridiculous--even within documented workers, reverse migration accounts for in many cases up to 80% of the population that enters the country. when you refer to migrant workers as "illegal immigrants" you are set up a phantasm. rather than do even the smallest amount of work to figure out what you are talking about, you prefer to lean on television banalities about the united states as the most deisrable country on the planet, constantly beseiged by the Great Unwashed who want only to Come Here and make their Squalid Lives Better blah blah blah. the only advantages to it are: (1) because they are entering and leaving the states outside of official stats, your xenophobic-to-racist positions cannot be easily falsified--though even simple inferences can be made using what data there is that wrecks such logic as there is behind your positions and (2) migrant laborers are totally powerless, so they make easy targets for petit bourgeois neofascist style resentment. over the past 90 years or so, it has always like this: it is all too easy to channel petit bourgeois class anxiety onto populations that are even more powerless then they are. it was a significant draw for the s.a. in the late 1920s germany, a significant draw for the poujadistes, a significant draw for the entire history of whacked out american fascist organizations: it is a significant draw for every neofascist organization in europe and apparently for the lots of folk who position themselves as conservatives in the states as well. and in every case, the ideology is the same thing. call it something else if it makes you feel better, but the labelling is therapeutic, not accurate, a figleaf you place over fundamentally repugnant political positions. you want to stop migrant labor flows? go after the employers who hire them. but if you do that, then you cant use this idiotic language criteria to create some hallucinated "other" that poses some vague "threat" to a white english-speaking amurica....no doubt it is much more fun to be a xenophobe-to-racist (depending only on the immediate situation) and then worry about how you are going to deny it. the entire political logic around this issue is dangerous screwed up: it enables perfectly nice people to remake themselves into the functional equivalent of brownshirts without even their being aware that they are doing it. this too is a constant in extreme right politics--it is a twisted variant on premises that appear to be "common sense"--but they aren't. they are Other. if you cant see it, the problem is yours. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 04-03-2007 at 08:40 AM..