Arizona

Why Conservatives Punish Their Victims: A Lesson From Arizona

Richard Eskow — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 22:40:53 -0400

So far from God, so close to the Republican National Committee

When some Simpsons characters took refuge in the local church after a hurricane, the church marquee read "God welcomes his victims." With that invitation, Reverend Lovejoy (an underrated Simpsons character second only to Apu on my favorites list) was alluding to that thorniest of theological questions: If the Almighty loves us, why does He subject us to so many disasters?

Modern conservatives don't need to wrestle with that kind of moral dilemma. Today's Right hates its victims, and its leaders do everything in their power to make their suffering even worse. Arizona's Republican legislators, most of them self-professed Christians, aren't singing from God's hymnal. Instead they're channeling Lyle Lovett's memorably bitter and resentful song, "God Will," as they survey the people who have been trapped in the economic wreckage of their ideology:

"God may love you but I don't/God will but I won't/and that's the difference between God and me."

Kicking 'em while they’re down

Arizona's conservatives have committed an extraordinarily mean and petty act, even by the low standards of today's Right. They've refused to change one word in a state law - a change that would have let at least 15,000 people keep receiving unemployment benefits. And they've done it even though it wouldn't have cost their state a penny.

Even Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, the guiding force behind last year's draconian anti-immigrant law (and at times so cartoonishly mean that she could be a Simpsons character herself), tried to get them to change their minds. Their response was, in effect, "You didn't ask us nicely enough." As Business Week reports, they were really holding this money hostage to push their usual corporate and rich-person menu of tax cuts and deregulation.

These Republicans used the usual right-wing euphemisms for their fealty to the rich and powerful, of course, by deploying the tired and discredited argument which Business Week summarized as "taking action on long-term measures such as business tax cuts and regulatory changes to spur the economy." Translation: They wanted more giveaways for their wealthy campaign donors.

A double dose of poison

What's happened to unemployment in Arizona?

A recession caused by deregulation nearly doubled Arizona's unemployment rate, and that's not even counting discouraged workers or the underemployed. Once their jobs were destroyed by deregulation, tax cuts failed to create any new ones. What are these Republicans pushing now? More deregulation and more tax cuts, of course. And the they're willing to sacrifice the people they've hurt to make it happen.

That's like forcing poisoning victims to drink a second helping.

Of course, these Arizona Republicans aren't just pushing financial deregulation. They're also pushing other kinds of deregulation, the kinds that will pollute the air and water, poison our kids, and endanger the safety of the fortunate few who actually have jobs.

But it's this act of gratuitous cruelty toward the unemployed that demands our attention. How can anybody live with themselves when they do something like this? Maybe every one of these Cruel Conservatives has his or her own motivation. Perhaps, like snowflakes, no two are alike.

One of them was from Snowflake, as a matter of fact – Snowflake, Arizona. State Sen. Sylvia Allen claims that she wouldn’t vote for the one-word change because it would just be a “Band Aid” for a much deeper problem, one that can only be solved by – you guessed it – deregulation and tax cuts.

Blaming the Victims

But that doesn't answer the basic question: Why? Why attack people whose lives have been shattered by conservative policies? One answer is: Because their lives have been shattered by conservative policies. Once you accept the fact that the misfortune of the unemployed isn't of their own making, then you have to ask what caused it. And since that leads to an indictment of the right-wing agenda, these conservatives can't let that happen.

Which isn't to say that there aren't people who do believe the unemployed created their own problems, despite all evidence and logic to the contrary. Undoubtedly some conservatives are sincere in their loathing for jobless people, although that calls for a nearly sociopathic lack of empathy. But then, it's easier to develop that lack of empathy when entire cable networks and news organizations are dedicated to promoting it.

Other right-wingers may be acting from a more nakedly cynical calculus. But whatever their motivation, they're all arguing that unemployment benefits encourage people not to look for work. They're saying the unemployed don't want to work. But look at the graph again: They wanted to work in 2006, but they don't want to work now?

Of course, they'll say. The Democrats have created a welfare mentality. Sure. Everybody knows you can live like a king or queen on $240 a week, which is Arizona's maximum unemployment benefit. (It has the second-lowest unemployment benefit rates in the nation.)

Conservative Freeloaders

From Business Week:

"Eventually we have to quit paying unemployment benefits," said Republican Sen. Ron Gould of Lake Havasu City. "And when does it stop being unemployment benefits and begin just being cash assistance?"

The last time a study was conducted, Arizona was a "freeloader state" state that took in $1.30 in Federal money for every $1.00 it contributed in Federal taxes. Which raises the question: At what point does that 30-cent giveaway to bolster the prosperity of Sen. Gould's constituents stop being a case of one group of Americans helping another, and start "just being cash assistance?"

At last, after attending all those ribbon-cuttings for stimulus programs they opposed, these hypocritical conservatives have finally turned down some Federal money. They won't turn down money that boosts Arizona businesses, of course, but they'll happily refuse money that gives the unemployed the support most Americans know they deserve.

God may welcome his victims, but the Right doesn't.

Pardon my language

Somewhere there's a different United States, a nation that existed in the past - or perhaps just in the imagination. In that United States, conservatives are sincere and well-meaning individuals who merely have a different view of the world. That United States is invigorated and strengthened by an honest exchange of ideas between these conservatives and people of the moderate Left. Through high-mind debate they eventually agree on wise and judicious policies.

That's not the country we live in today. People like these Arizona legislators aren't high minded or well-meaning. That's why I'm not a big fan of bipartisanship - or what's called "moderation" nowadays, but is really just appeasement of a radical fringe.

Hey, I try to be thoughtful, considerate, well-spoken. I try to respect all points of view. It would feel good to adopt that lofty, "above the left and right" posture that makes a person look judicious and even-tempered in Washington nowadays. I've even been trying to clean up my language. But you know what? To me, Sen. Ron Gould of Lake Havasu City just seems like a dick.

I'm sure the Senators from Snowflake and Lake Havasu City are nice and decent enough as individuals. But politically they're neither. The pain they're inflicting is too brutal, too senseless, too pointless, to warrant "civil discourse." The kindest thing to be said right now about these Arizona conservatives and all those who support them is this: God may love Sen. Sylvia Allen, but I don't. God may forgive Sen. Gould, but I don't.

I guess that's the difference between God and me.

A Moment of Silence

Richard Eskow — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 18:23:16 -0500

It begins with a moment of silence.

"Poetry is about the grief," said Robert Frost. "Politics is about the grievance." This is a time of grief, not grievance. This morning I assembled a litany of criticisms about what might have led up to yesterday's events, but I couldn't bring myself to publish it. That's the work of politics, not poetry, and I'm not sure enough of my own motives to know if I'm responding appropriately. I agree with Keith Olbermann about the need for self-vigilance, as well as vigilance toward the words and deeds of others.

The violent rhetoric pervades one side of the political debate. But the harsh tone is widespread, and the culture itself is drug-sick from its addiction to violence: violence as entertainment, violence as communication, violence as a medium of human exchange. There is rhetorical and literal violence against women, minorities, those of different religions (or none at all), and anyone who causes us to reflexively recoil. The president called for "a moment of silence" today, and that seems right.

Here's are some lines from Rudyard Kipling, brought to mind by the nine-year-old girl who was born on 9/11 and died at a gunman's hand yesterday:

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!

Her name was Christina-Taylor Green, and she was in the third grade. She had just won her first elective office, as a member of her school's student council, and she deserves a silence all her own. She was apparently there because of her love for politics. I was Christina-Taylor's age when John Kennedy was murdered, and let's hope that her generation doesn't grow up equating politics and violence the way mine did. That path can lead to escapism, rage, and despair. Christina had just taken her First Communion at the Catholic Church.

I don't believe we're "done with Hope and Honour," or that we're "lost to Love and Truth." But we're in desperate shape if we can't recognize that our society's dropping rung by rung down a shadowy ladder. A nation that claims to live by Judeo-Christian principles seems not to have read the book of Proverbs: "The mouth of a righteous person is a well of life, but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked." If that's true of those we oppose, it can also be true of any poorly chosen words -- including our own.

Proverbs goes on to say "he that refrains his lips is wise." It seems that every religion shares the same wisdom: "Do not speak unless it improves on silence," said the Buddha. "Silence robes you in dignity and spares you from making excuses," said the Imam Ali. And the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell warned against being too certain of one's own rectitude.

I'm not falling victim to a false equivalence, nor am I suggesting that the rhetoric is equally violent on both sides. It's not, and there will be a time to talk about that. But today I choose silence over the risk that I could add to a flood of angry words. It's the weight of those words that keeps knocking us down that ladder.

Kipling said that "a people always ends by resembling its shadow." For me, that means doing nothing that might resemble the shadow that haunts us. How can I be sure that I won't make that mistake now, today, while I'm still filled with anger and grief?

I choose silence.

Welcome to The State of Hate: Armed Nazis To Patrol AZ Border

Sara Robinson — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:22:21 -0400

The racist outrages are coming so thick and fast out of Arizona these days that was only a matter of time before some Nazi group took advantage of the situation to put itself on the media map.

And -- whaddaya know! -- here they come, right on schedule. According to Stephen Lemon of the Phoenix New Times (which had done courageous coverage of that state's wingnut movements for decades), armed vigilantes -- including active duty military members -- from the National Socialist Movement have announced that they'll be coming in from all over the country this Saturday to patrol Arizona's Vekol Valley against drug runners and undocumented aliens. Lemon writes:

Ready has announced a "Border Ops" alert for this Saturday via his profile on the white supremacist New Saxon site, inviting participants to "bring plenty of firearms and ammo."

"Camouflage or earth tone clothing [is] preferred," according to the announcement. "Bandanas, balaclavas, or other identity concealing items are permissible and encouraged."

Ready's statement promises that, "This is the Minuteman Project on steroids! THE INVASION STOPS HERE!"

What does the local constabulary think of this? They're not pleased. Ready told Lemon that he has a "law enforcement liaison flying in," and hopes the local cops will back them "with choppers and SWAT teams and so on." But Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu told them not to hold their breath: "I do not ask or encourage them to come here."

And for good reason. Lemon points out that, like most right-wing vigilantes, Ready isn't someone you really want running around the desert with a gun:

Ready has a criminal record. He was twice court-martialed and drummed out of the Marines. And he has swallowed whole and fully digested the rhetoric of the right-wing lunatic fringe. The idea of him running around the desert with a high-powered rifle on the hunt for "narco-terrorists" is not a comforting one, to say the least.

Usually, this kind of small-potatoes wingnut uprising isn't worthy of much attention. But I'm pointing it out for two reasons.

First: this a perfect example of how right-wing vigilantism, once permitted, quickly escalates. The Minutemen weren't uniformed, only casually armed, and careful to cloak their deep racism -- though it tended to leak out at inopportune moments anyway. Now, because we enabled and tolerated that, we've got self-proclaimed Nazis down there in full battle dress, carrying military weapons and telling us quite openly that they're on a mission to cleanse the country of the brown scourge. If Arizona officials -- already overwhelmed by a situation that they're getting no federal help in resolving -- don't find a way to stop these guys, they're creating the conditions for the paramilitary right-wing scene on their border to become the national breeding ground for a full-on armed militia movement -- a movement that could, in time, endanger the whole country.

Second: This is also the next step down the road for the state of Arizona as a whole. They've put the country on notice that they're just fine, thank you, with being the State of Hate -- and in doing so, opened the door to the whole national circus of haters. Ready and his National Socialists are out front of that parade, but you can bet that there's a long line of acts queuing up to come out to the desert and follow them. (Note to Gov. Jan Brewer: be careful what you wish for, for you will surely get it.)

The thing about far-right radicals is that they only get to take up as much space as we'll allow them to have. Arizona's governor and legislature have consciously chosen to make their state a free-fire zone for every flavor of right-wing crazy. But the good news is that other places are making other choices. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center's latest Intelligence Report, two small towns -- one in Oregon, the other in Missouri -- have made that other choice, and then made it stick:

When self-described Aryan Nations national director Paul Mullet went looking in February for a place to establish a new headquarters, he headed west to Grants County, Ore. Rugged, rural and about 95% white, it must have seemed an ideal place to resuscitate the remnants of a once-leading neo-Nazi group.

Mullet, 36, showed up in the town of John Day, population 1,850, wearing a blue shirt with a swastika patch and accompanied by three other men. They spent the night at a local motel, where they displayed a swastika banner for the benefit of a black and a Hispanic motel worker. Then they toured the town a second day. "John Day is the perfect place for us," Mullet told a reporter.

Local residents vehemently disagreed. They turned out in such large numbers for two community meetings organized by the local newspaper that some were turned away. Dozens of folks took to the streets, carrying signs with slogans like "No room 4 hate." Everybody from the mayor and the police chief to ranchers and business owners voiced their opposition to the racist group coming to their town. Ironically, Mullet left spewing threats to sue the town for discrimination....

In a related matter, Charles Juba, a former Aryan Nations official, showed up in Odessa, Mo., in February, saying he planned to open a new, under-21 nightclub called the Black Flag. He was met with a reception similar to that given Mullet, with townspeople decrying his club and ideology, and he soon abandoned his plans.

This is what we know about hate groups: they are an evil that can only flourish where good people do nothing. The State of Arizona is now issuing what amount to official engraved invitations to the country's far-right vigilantes, sovereign citizens, would-be fascists, self-styled "patriots" (we need to take that word back, seriously), and paranoid race warriors. They cannot be surprised when people like J.T. Ready and his New Saxons take them up on the offer.

And their choice demands a response from everybody in the other forty-nine as well. No American state has voluntarily chosen to go down this path since the KKK takeover of Indiana and Oregon in the 1920s. And when hate holds that much state power, the only way it stops is when the voters of Arizona decide they've had enough, and vote the bastards out of office.

That won't happen until they realize that walking away from America's constitutional values is costing them far more than it's worth -- which is why the boycotts matter. My own Unitarian Universalist Church will decide next week whether to reverse its commitment to hold its 2012 national convention in Phoenix. Changing the venue at this late date will cost the church into the high six figures; but as UUs have so often affirmed in the past, there are principles on the line here that are far more important than mere money.

As John Day, OR and Odessa, MO can tell you: it's so much easier to put a stop to this absurdity before it even starts. We know, for absolute certain, that a hard, fast public pushback against the first sprouting signs of hate is all it takes to keep those first toxic weeds from taking over our civic lives. The recipe is straighforward and well-understood: Aggressive enforcement and prosecution, followed by rallies and store signs ("Not in our town"); uncompromising op-eds in the local paper; and a strong unified stance from religious and civic leaders -- and it all ends right there. But if good people let that first instance go unremarked, and then keep looking away through the next and the next, before you know it you've got unabashed racists running your state and Nazi stormtrooper wannabes guarding your borders. It happens faster than you can even believe.

This is, as I've so often warned, how fascism infiltrates a democracy. Arizona is now as far down that road as any American state has ever gotten, and shows no signs of even wanting to turn back. But the rest of us still have the choice -- and because the people of Arizona are no longer with us, we're going to have to be that much more watchful, and work that much harder to keep the infestation from spreading.

You get what you allow. It's that simple. And that hard.

Immigration Officials Turn to Schoolyard Bullying

Corinne Ramey — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:04:08 -0400

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in California have stooped to a new, almost unbelievable low: intimidating schoolchildren.

Allow me to state the obvious: schools should be safe. And they should feel safe for the kids, their parents, and the teachers and staff who work there. But for the students at four Oakland schools and Berkley High School on Wednesday, school felt anything but safe. That day, rumors spread throughout the schools that ICE were nearby, possibly planning raids at the schools. Parents text-messaged their kids, warning them that ICE agents were close by so that the undocumented parents couldn't come to the schools to pick their children up. The Berkley school district became so overwhelmed with calls that they set up an automated voice message for parents, which according to the San Francisco Chronicle, stated that the administration would "not allow any child to be taken away from the school." The schools -- including Stonehurst Elementary, where immigration officials were parked across the street -- became a panic scene. Undocumented parents called friends and neighbors, asking them to pick up their children since the parents were afraid to come near the school. ICE spokespeople claimed that their intention was not to raid the schools but rather to make arrests at nearby locations.

Unfortunately, yesterday's Berkley and Oakland cases are not isolated incidents. ICE agents have routinely engaged in intimidation of workers -- both documented and undocumented -- and students. In Tucson, Arizona, a 17-year-old undocumented student at Catalina High Magnet School was arrested for possession of marijuana. Police came to the school, and then called the Border Control. When Border Control found out that the student was undocumented, they deported his father, who returned to Mexico accompanied by his wife and two sons.

The incident created an outrage in the school and community. The teenagers quoted in the Tucson Citizen article about the event state the facts that the adults around were apparently missing. "We think that shouldn't be allowed, because school is where we're supposed to be safe," said 16-year-old Mario Portillo. "No matter if you're an illegal alien, you have the right to an education." Eighteen-year-old Jorge Guerrero asked the somewhat obvious question, "How can we learn if we've scared the Border Patrol is going to come for us?" Araceli Sanchez, 14, said that she knew that the arrested student and his family were undocumented, but said that "he was just another student." And it was up to 14-year-old Ener Lopez to state the really obvious. "We should be safe in school," he said. Following a protest by more than 100 students in front of the Tucson Police Department headquarters, Tucson police have said that they will no longer call U.S. Border Patrol into schools or churches.

More recently, ICE agents in the raided 11 Taqueria El Balazo restaurants in the Bay Area, detaining 63 immigrant workers, including two 17-year-olds and a 15-year-old. Given the recent May Day protests by immigrant rights groups, it's unlikely that the timing of the raid was a mere coincidence. As Larisa Casillas, director of Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, said, “I don’t think it is a coincidence that this happened a day after May Day. It wreaks havoc on the community." She sees the target as a strategic one. “When they hit a popular taqueria with a series of raids it sends a message, and our message back is that we need immigration reform. These are people who are working and contributing to the economic health of our region,” she said.

Casillas, I think, hits the nail on the head. Not only are these incidents -- both the school and taqueria raids -- likely part of a purposeful campaign to intimidate the Latino community, but in both cases the intimidation is bad not just for undocumented workers but for their communities at large. School raids cause widespread fear among students, parents, and teachers, and, at the very least, cause serious disruption in the ability of students to learn and feel safe in what should be a guaranteed safe environment. And, as Casillas says, immigrants -- even undocumented ones -- are vital to the economies of the regions where they live.

Immigrants make up 15% of the civilian workforce, and account for half of the labor force growth in the past 10 years, according to a White House report. They pay a significant amount of taxes and produce goods and provide services that are vital to the American middle class. They're vital to keeping our social security system afloat, pumping $6-7 billion a year into the Social Security system, most of which they can't claim because of their immigrant status. According to the same White House report, immigrants increase the earnings and productivity of native-born workers a significant amount, estimated at $37 billion a year. The bottom line is, decent, humane treatment of immigrants isn't just good for immigrants -- it's good for the current and aspiring American middle class.

This kind of conduct by ICE is incredibly destructive to families as well. If schools continue to be a scene of ICE intimidation, undocumented parents are less likely to send their native-born children to school, fearing that raids could result in families being deported. With immigrant families already being hit hard by the current recession and recent crackdowns on undocumented workers -- according to a recent Times article, remittances to Latin America have dropped significantly, yet another sign of the economic squeeze on immigrant families -- worries about deportation because of their kids attending schools are the last thing that immigrant families need.

Notably, it's not all bad. When reading news reports of the raids, in between all the eye-rolling at the fairly inane things that ICE agents said, I've been impressed by how supportive mayors and local officials have been of immigrant rights. "In my view, that is the ugly side of government," Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums said. "No way children should ever be treated to that kind of harassment and fear." Mayor Dellum said that Oakland should be free from raids. "As a sanctuary city," Dellums said, "we're all in unison. We don't want this type of intimidation. Immigrants are human beings, and need to be dealt with respect." Vice Mayor Larry Reid said that local officials were never told about the raids. "ICE just rolls in and tells our police department after the fact," he said. "The students are upset and crying. The school's administration said some of the kids are very shook up."

These local officials get it. When will ICE and the Border Control figure out that schoolyard bullying isn't an effective -- or humane, for that matter -- route to immigration reform?

Rocky Mountain Realities On Feb. 5

David Sirota — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:58:47 -0500

When I took a leave of absence from my job in Washington in 2000 to work in the Montana Senate race, I didn't have much clue what I was in for. Growing up on the East Coast, I thought of the Intermountain West as a huge, far-off, mysterious place of square states and cattle herds — and like many people on the coasts, I didn't know much else.

In the years since that first campaign, I have been working in and reporting on the West, telling people what I say in my new nationally syndicated newspaper column today: That this region is the most politically misunderstood place in America.

Many people scoffed at my writing, saying the West was a backwater — one that would remain a Republican stronghold forever. That is, until the last few years when many Democratic strategists in Washington realized that the West has become a political swing region — one that could decide the direction of national politics for the next generation.

Sadly, when you read the typical national reporter's occasional article about the West or watch national politicians drop in for a visit, you sense either condescension, stereotyping — or both. The West is still portrayed as a weird hinterland whose politics supposedly adhere to Washington, D.C.'s inaccurate notions of lockstep "red state" behavior.

But as I say in the column, the West defies the professional pundits' portrayals. On issues from national security to energy to the role of government, the Rocky Mountain region's nuances are far more complex than "red state" stereotypes — just like most places in America. And as this region prepares to vote on February 5 and then take center stage in the general election, the candidates who ignore the fictions and appreciates these nuances are the candidates who will likely win here.

As the only nationally syndicated newspaper columnist living in and reporting regularly on this region, I felt it was particularly important to write this piece before Tuesday's voting because the West is only going to become more prominent in American politics as this election year progresses. That prominence, I believe, will either allow inaccurate stereotypes to flourish, or let the more complex realities shine through. I hope it is the latter.

Go read the whole column here. If you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site.

One additional note: You may have noticed that I am trying to use my column to promote solid progressive voices whenever I can. Today's, as you can see, includes the use of material from a diarist at OpenLeft.com - a terrific progressive site. I want to continue doing that kind of thing — the Right promotes its voices very effectively like this. And I want to do the same with my column.