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Today's
Stories
October 31,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Scooter
and the Neocons
October 29
/ 30, 2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
The
Libby Indictment: Gotterdammerung for the Bushies?
Peter Linebaugh
The
Wedges of Hephaestus
Tim Wise
Framing the Poor: Katrina, Conservative Myth-Making and the Media
John Chuckman
Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words
Steven Higgs
Green Hoosiers: Forging a New Democracy in the Heartland
Brian Cloughley
The Fifth Afghan War
M. Shahid Alam
Israel and the Consequences of Uniqueness
Nikki Robinson
Crack Down at Kent State
Ralph Nader
Let the PIRGs Begin!: Student Activism Thrives
Joe DeRaymond
Requiem for Bethlehem Steel?
Joshua Frank
Karl's Great Escape: Did Rove Rat on Scooter?
Laura Santina
Tongue-Tied on Iraq: Why Aren't the Dems Screaming Bloody Murder?
Fred Gardner
Death of an Organizer
Michael Dickinson
Insult Your Country
Ron Jacobs
Autumn in America
Dr. Susan Block
Fear and Sex: a Halloween Greeting
Vanessa S. Jones
Self-Portrait, 1994. Bronte Beach
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Marbet, Gardner, Ford, Albert, Engel, Krieger & St. Clair
Website of
the Weekend
Red State Update
October 28,
2005
Jared Bernstein
Inflation
Up; Wages Down: Fastest Decline in Wages on Record
Virginia Tilley
Embracing
the Anti-Aparthied Movement in Israel/Palestine
Phil Gasper
The
Race to Execute Tookie Williams
Jennifer Matsui
It's Mardi Graft Time!
Manual Garcia,
Jr.
Is the US Really Against Torture?
Monica Benderman
In the Name of Justice
Jason Leopold
Fitzgerald
Focuses on the Forgeries
Dave Lindorff
Suddenly, Bush Endorses Right of Fair Trials
Otober 27, 2005
Saul Landau
The
Scandal Isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War
Stuart Hodkinson
Bono
and Geldoff: "We Saved Africa" Oh No, They Didn't!
Ingmar Lee
Stop
the Troops!: No Glory or Honor in Iraq
Lila Rajiva
License
to Bill: Gates Does India
Ilan Pappe
The
Last Moment of Hope
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Waiting for Fitzgerald
Michael Donnelly
Look Who's Talking Now: the GOP on Perjury
Ron Jacobs
Escape the Weight of Your Corporate Logo
Cockburn / St. Clair
White House in Meltdown
October 26,
2005
Kathy Kelly
For
Whom They Toll
Gary Leupp
Dialectics
of the Plame Affair
Mike Marqusee
Empire of Denial
Eric Ruder
War Crimes in Afghanistan
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq: a Constitutionally Divided Nation
Joshua Frank
Fitzgerald v. the Bushies: Hold Your Elation in Check
J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
The Legacy of Rosa Parks
Website of
the Day
Decent Work in America: the 2005 Work Environment Index
October 25,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
and Syrian Regime Change: Could Somebody Recommend a President?
Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn
Attack on the Palestine Hotel
Conn Hallinan
Sleight of Hand: Iran, India and the US
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Pulling the Court Strings
Jackie Corr
Barbara Bush: Poster Gorgon of the Houston Astros
Robert Day
Talk to Strangers
John Sugg
Judith
Miller and Me
October 24,
2005
Dave Lindorff
Revoke
Judy Miller's Pulitzer
Michael Donnelly
Shades of Iran/contra
Patrick Cockburn
A Nation Stands on Trial
Mike Whitney
Apres Rove
Norman Solomon
Iraq is Not Vietnam, But...
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Palestine
October 22
/ 23, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
When
Divas Collide: Maureen Dowd v. Judy Miller
Billy Sothern
Letter
from the Circle Bar, New Orleans
Saul Landau
Bush, an Assessment
Ralph Nader
An
Open Letter to Bush on Harriet Miers
Behrooz Ghamari
Whose Justice Does Saddam's Trial Serve?
Brian Cloughley
Bush the Strategist: Pyrrhus Without a Victory?
Diana Barahona
Venezuela's National Workers' Union
Fred Gardner
Dershowitzed!
Lee Sustar
What the War on Terror is Really About
Patrick Cockburn
Murder of Saddam Trial Defense Lawyer
Laura Carlsen
Mexico City Seamstresses Recall 1985 Quake
James Petras
China Bashing and the Loss of US Competitiveness
Joshua Frank
Invading Iran: Who is to Stop Them?
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
Disasters are Us
Michelle Bollinger
When Abortion Was Illegal
Missy Comley
Beattie
CSI: Iraq
Kona Lowell
Intelligent Design: Making High School Fun
Ben Tripp
Tanks for the Memories
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening To This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert and Engel
Website of
the Day
Indictment Watch
October 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
The
Democrats' Abortion Hypocrisy
Winslow T. Wheeler
Paying for Their Mistakes: Incompetence, Deception and the Defense
Budget
Col. Dan Smith
The Destruction of the National Guard
Norman Solomon
Media at Crossroads: 25 Years After Reagan's Triumph
Madis Senner
Abusing Katrina
Michael Donnelly
Richard
Pombo: DeLay in Cowboy Boots
October 20, 2005
Dave Lindorff
Impeachment
Comes to NYC
Ray McGovern
16
Fatal Words: Cheney's Chickens Come Home to Roost
Jeremy Brecher
/
Brendan Smith
Attack Syria? Invade Iran?: By What Constitutional Right?
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Refuses to Recognize Court
Kevin Zeese
Was the Iraqi Constitution Vote Fixed?
Ross Eisenbrey
Millions Would Lose Pay and Protections Under Enzi Amendment
Randy Shields
James McMurtry Makes It in Dayton
Justine Davidson
Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture: a Small Victory
After Lucas
Cranach
Judy and Holofernes
Joe Allen
The
Scandalous History of the Red Cross
October 19,
2005
Christopher Reed
Koizumi and the Rape of Nanking
Stephen Soldz
Bush
and Avian Flu: the Excuses Begin to Fly
Chet Richards
War
and Intelligence
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam on Trial
Scott Richard
Lyons
Multicultural
Columbus?
Ralph Nader
An Interview with Rev. William Sloane Coffin
Website of
the Day
Shocking Video: Why Birds May Be Taking Viral Vengeance on Humans
October 18,
2005
Chet Flippo
Merle
Haggard: "Let's Get Out of Iraq"
Ron Jacobs
Dual Devotions: the Catholic Church and the US Flag
Keeanga-Yamahtta
Taylor
A Tale of Two Cities: From DC to Toledo
Dave Lindorff
Judy Miller: Little Miss Run Amok
Virginia Rodino
A Winter Patriot: Reflections on the Antiwar Movement
Thomas Healy
The Weather in Goshen: Still Radical After All These Years
Ralph Nader
A New New Orleans
Stephen Lendman
The Sorrows of Haiti
Patrick Cockburn
On the Eve of Saddam's Trial: a Divided Iraq
October 17,
2005
Peter Linebaugh
Spinoza
and the Black Limos
Norman Solomon
Judith Miller, the Fourth Estate and the Warfare State
Cockburn /
Sengupta
"If
the Sunnis Don't Like It, That's Their Problem"
Mike Whitney
Miller's Confession: Last Gasp Before Indictments?
Uri Avnery
Iraq Now: What Awaits Samira?
Harold Pinter
Torture & Misery in the Name of Freedom
Website of
the Day
Al Joudi v. Bush
October 15
/ 16, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ayatollahs
of the Apocalypse
Patrick Cockburn
"This Constitution Won't Get Me a Job"
Saul Landau
Two Terrorists and a Lush: Osama, Posada and Bush's Drinking
Neve Gordon
"Beyond Chutzpah": Exposing Grave Moral Distortions
Moshe Adler
Poverty in New York City
Christopher Brauchli
Lynndie England's Burden
Diane Farsetta
The Emperor Doesn't Disclose: the Fight Against Fake News
Sam Husseini
Notes on Current Reporting About Judith Miller
Monica Benderman
From Chaos to Conscience to Peace
Mickey Z.
POW Abuse by US: Nothing New Going On Here
Douglas C.
Smyth
George W. Bush, the Honorius of Our Time
Lee Sustar
Will Delphi Bust the UAW?
Fred Gardner
Cannabinoids Arrive in Realm of Established Fact
Elizabeth Schulte
A Former Panther's Georgia Campaign: an Interview with Elaine
Brown
Joshua Frank
Will the Democrats Save Harriet Miers?
David Vest
Down with Formalism! Up with Values!
Ben Tripp
Epistle II: the Reawakenign
Poets Basement
Engel, Albert, Ford and Louise
Website of
the Weekend
The
Hidden Canyon
October 14,
2005
Farrah Hassen
A
Somber Ramadan in Syria
Ron Jacobs
The
Black Panthers: They Haven't Forgotten; Neither Should We
Sasha Kramer
USAID
and Haiti: the Friendly Face of Imperialism?
Katrina Yeaw
The Student Struggle in Italy
Nicole Colson
Bird Flu: Militarizing Health Care
Raúl Zibechi
Survival and Existence in El Alto
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo
Chávez and the Politics of Race
Website of the Day
LA Filmmakers Cooperative
October 13, 2005
Jeremy Scahill
Mr.
Bush Goes to Tikrit (Sort Of)
Jeff Birkenstein
A
Thoreau for Our Time: Why Cindy Sheehan Matters
Brendan Smith / Jeremy Brecher
Harriet Miers: Bush or the Constitution?
Stan Cox
Did You Know This About Iraq?
Anis Memon
The Curious Case of Russ Feingold
Gary Leupp
Miller, Libby and the June Notes
Dave Zirin
A Tribute to August Wilson
Matthew Koehler
America's Endangered Forests
Werther
The
Two-Headed Monster
Website of
the Day
Hurricane Song
October 12, 2005
Omar Waraich
Britain
and the Quake: Mean and Stingy
William Cook
Voices
Behind the Entombment Wall
Phil Gasper
Countdown
to a Legal Lynching
Dave Lindorff
Impeachment Now and Then: Clinton, Bush and the Polls
Matt Vidal
Capital, Power and Class
John Gautreaux
New Orleans will Never be the Same
Diana Johnstone
Srebrenica
Revisited: Using War as an Excuse for War
Mark Weisbrot
The IMF Has Lost Its Influence
Brian J. Foley
Gitmo Tribunals Endanger Public Safety
Website of
the Day
Columbus Day Lies
October 11,
2005
Roger Morris
/ Steve Schmidt
Strategic
Demands of the 21st Century
Lila Rajiva
Live from New Orleans: Abu Ghraib
Bill Quigley
New
Orleans: Leaving the Poor Behind Again
Paul Craig Roberts
Natural Born Liars
Dave Lindorff
Recruiters in Schools: No Lie Left Untried
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Suspect Thy Neighbor
Mitchel Cohen
Showdown at Chuck E. Cheese
Tariq Ali
Pakistan will Never Forget This Horror
Website of
the Day
L'Heure Americaine
October 10,
2005
Cindy and Craig
Corrie
Rachel's
Words Live
Joshua Frank
Washington's War Dems
Gideon Levy
The Beautiful Life Without Arafat
Alan Wallis
The Fight for Free Speech at Union Square
Mickey Z.
In Defense of Liars
CounterPunch News Service
Vermont Independence Convention
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Police State is Closer Than You Think
Website of the Day
Dylan's Chronicles
October 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Rhetoric
and Reality in the Business of Getting Rid of Black People
Ralph Nader
Katrina
and the Growls of Greed
Jennifer Van Bergen
New American Law: Legal Strategies in the Dharfir Case
Saul Landau
An Oily Religious Dream
Jeff Halper
Setting Up Abbas
Lenni Brenner
The Millions More Movement and Zionism
Nikolas Kozloff
Bird Flu and Bush
Brian Cloughley
Training Soldiers in Iraq
Alice Slater
A Nobel Prize for Chernobyl?
John Gautreaux
A View from Cajun Country
Fred Gardner
Does the Controlled Substances Act Mean What It Says?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Leveethan Approach
M.G. Piety
Rot in the Ivory Tower: Collusion, Cover-Up and Kierkegaard
Tom Gorman
The Hitchens Doctrine
Mike Whitney
Bunker Days with George
Aseem Shrivastava
Beyond the Wasteland: Lessons from Afghanistan
Ben Tripp
Religion, an Epistle
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel and Ford
October 7,
2005
Larry Johnson
The
Plame Case: the Real Issues
Will Youmans
Why
Do We Hate Our Freedom? Recruiters and Thugs on Campus
Dave Lindorff
Bird Flu: Evolution or Intelligent Design?
Judith Scherr
Haiti's Children's Prison
Russell D. Hoffman
Nukes for Peace, Revisited?: Nobel Prize Debacle
Jared Bernstein
Katrina and Jobs
Jennifer Van
Bergen
New
American Law: the Case of Dr. Dhafir
Website of
the Day
FBI Witchhunt
October 6, 2005
P. Sainath
"Take
That, Tom Friedman": Indian Masses Reject NYT's Neoliberal
Idol Again
Scott Parkin
When Antiwar Activists Get Mugged
Paul Craig
Roberts
Blundering
into Syria
Andréa Schmidt
Haiti's Biometric Elections: a High-Tech Experiment in Exclusion
Dave Lindorff
Easy
Money in the Big Easy
Joshua Frank
In Defense of Lew Rockwell
M. Junaid Alam
Jackboots at George Mason
Matthew Koehler
Cock and Bull on the Bitterroot
Robert Pollin
Is
the Dollar Still Falling?
October 5,
2005
Heather Gray
Militarization is Not an Answer for
Reconstruction: the Case of the Philippines
Robert Jensen
Is
Bush a Racist?
Ramzy Baroud
Bush's Final Choice: America or
the Empire
Col. Dan Smith
Keeping Promises to Iraq: "Everything
is Bad"
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds Laughs Last
Paul Craig Roberts
Liberal Guilt? How the Neocons
Took Over
Alan Maass
Doing
the Right Wing's Dirty Work
October 4, 2005
Nikolas Kozloff
Shocking the Two Party System:
a Political Opportunity for Sheehan and the Antiwar Mvt.
Mike Roselle
Houston,
You've Got a Problem
Joshua Frank
The Scoop on Harriet Miers
John Chuckman
War
Porn: What the Gruesome Images Say
Alan Farago
Storm Warning for Jeb: Developers,
Hurricanes and the Keys
Mickey Z.
An
Interview with Thaddeus Rutkowski
Christine & Ethan Rose
Home Depot Exploits Hurricane Victims
Gary Leupp
An
Earlier Empire's War on Iraq: a Lesson from Roman History
Website of the Day
Rodney
Crowell on Bob Dylan
October 3,
2005
Vijay Prashad
Desperation at Holyoke
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
Rice: Gunslinger
Joshua Frank
An Interview with Cindy Sheehan
Seth Sandronsky
The
Hiring Crisis for Black Teens
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Great Green Scare
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Onward,
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Halloween Edition
October 31, 2005
Exploited,
Preyed Upon, Beaten Up
Scapegoating Immigrants
By NICOLE COLSON
Investigators
called them "ready-made victims"--the six men killed
and six others gravely injured at the end of a night of robberies
in southern Georgia. They were mostly migrant workers who scraped
by working long hours in cotton fields and on peanut farms. Other
immigrants had been robbed before in the area--in a string of
assaults stretching back for months.
But while bats and a gun did
the damage to their bodies, the legal hurdles facing undocumented
immigrants made them the perfect targets.
Since most undocumented immigrants
are unable to obtain the paperwork necessary to open a bank account,
they are more likely to carry their wages in cash. And the robbers
may have been counting on the fact that undocumented immigrants
are less likely to report being the victims of a crime--for fear
of being deported. Nevertheless, police say that racism wasn't
a factor in the crimes.
These are all elements in a
larger picture of injustice and inequality. Undocumented Latino
immigrants remain largely segregated in a low-paying workforce
that is open to exploitation in some of the nation's most dangerous
and degrading jobs--the meat industry, construction, janitorial
and other service industries.
The same right-wing myths continue
to be recycled--that undocumented immigrants are too "lazy"
to go through legal channels to get a green card; that the border
is being "overrun"; and that immigrants "steal"
jobs from native-born workers.
The truth, however, is that
immigrants face tremendous hurdles in applying for status as
legal immigrants. Currently, the wait for an employment-based
green card is more than five years on average.
The U.S. border with Mexico
isn't "overrun"--just 1 percent of all crossings are
unauthorized. Both documented and undocumented immigrants are
a tremendous boost to the economy in the form of federal, state
and local taxes--while they are increasingly denied access to
social services like Medicare and food stamps.
While undocumented immigrants
in particular take on many of the most dangerous jobs in society,
their wages are often far below that other workers. And contrary
to the stereotype of undocumented migrants as single males with
little education, a Pew Hispanic Center study recently found
that most of the unauthorized immigrant population lives in families,
and that one-quarter has at least some college education.
* *
*
IMMIGRANTS ARE a convenient
scapegoat for politicians and the right wing--all the more so
since Washington declared its "war on terror" in 2001.
That's why some in Tifton,
Ga., aren't convinced that race wasn't a factor. Blanca Perez,
who lives in the same mobile home park as some of the victims,
told reporters that her car had been shot at in the past. And
according to resident Savanah Marin, Latinos had been recently
targeted with both violence and accusations. "We hear that
we are 'invading their country,'" she told the Atlanta
Journal Constitution. "There's a lot of prejudice in
South Georgia."
Courtney Gear, who lives in
the same Tifton mobile home park where three of the victims were
killed, said he sometimes hears resentment towards Latinos. "Some
people are like, 'They are taking these jobs,' that this is bad,"
said Gear.
The attacks in Tifton are an
entirely predictable outcome in a system where some lives are
seen as "disposable."
Today, there are laws on the
books to protect undocumented immigrants who are the victims
of crime--but the government refuses to enforce them. Earlier
this month, lawyers for a group of undocumented immigrants filed
a lawsuit to force federal officials to implement a provision
of the federal Crime Victims Act of 2000, which allows undocumented
immigrants who are the victims of crimes and cooperate with law
enforcement the chance to apply for and receive protective visas
allowing them to stay in the country.
The lawsuit's plaintiffs include
six people who claim that a gun-wielding vigilante threatened
them at an Arizona highway rest stop, a live-in domestic worker
who charges that her Beverly Hills boss beat her, and a woman
who said she was a victim of domestic violence. As lawyer Peter
Schey told Copley News Service, "If this were a million-dollar-investor
visa, [immigration officials] would have jumped to attention
and implemented a procedure within a matter of weeks."
* *
*
THE ATTACKS in Tifton are only
the latest example of anti-immigrant violence across the country
in the wake of the whipped-up hysteria since September 11.
In July, in Hamilton, Ohio,
after a Latino man was accused of sexually assaulting a white
girl, vigilantes spray-painted "Rapest" on the house
where he lived--and later set it on fire. According to the Associated
Press, "Men roamed the streets wearing pillowcases with
eye holes, and Ku Klux Klansmen in hoods and robes showed up
to pass out pamphlets. There were rumors of assaults and beatings."
And in April, a masked vigilante
in military fatigues carrying an assault rifle and speaking in
"broken Spanish" accosted a group of 18 Mexican immigrants
on the border near Columbus, N.M. After stopping their car and
ordering immigrants out of the vehicle, the man proceeded to
shoot the driver, Apolinar Ortega Sanchez, in the head at point-blank
range, before racing to the U.S. side of the border.
No one has been arrested in
the death of Ortega Sanchez, but there is speculation that the
murderer could be a member of one of self-styled border patrol
groups that have sprung up this year. In fact, days before the
attack, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had praised the
"border patrols" of a group of vigilantes called the
Minutemen, who descended on Arizona.
Schwarzenegger isn't the only
politician to join the anti-immigrant chorus. New Mexico's Democratic
Gov. Bill Richardson--who proudly touts his status as the nation's
only Latino governor--declared a "state of emergency"
at his state's border in August, freeing up $750,000 to hire
additional law enforcement personnel and pay officers overtime.
And just last week, George
W. Bush promised to expel from the U.S. every "single illegal
entrant, with no exceptions."
Bush also took the opportunity
to reintroduce his proposal for "immigration reform"--a
plan that would create a temporary guest-worker program allowing
the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.,
and those wishing to enter the U.S., to apply for a three-year
work permit with one renewal.
But this "reform"
is nothing more than an expanded version of the previous "bracero"
program for immigrant farm laborers. It would keep immigrants
segregated into a low-paying workforce, open to exploitation
at the whim of employers. Workers would be prevented from striking
or joining unions--and would not be allowed to seek citizenship
at the end of their work permit.
Rival plans are hardly any
better. Sens. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.)
recently announced that they will soon put forward their own
immigration reform plan that stresses--what else?--national security.
"First and foremost, we've got to do border enforcement,"
Martinez told reporters. "Then we have to have a worker
program."
Actually, what we "need"--rather
than hyped-up border control or a new spin on "guest worker"
programs--are real labor rights, for immigrant and native-born
workers alike. And increasingly, immigrant workers are on the
front lines of making those struggles happen.
Leticia Corona, a Mexican immigrant
who in June was fired from her job as a janitor in Indianapolis
for joining in a one-day strike, told Agence France Presse that
she and her coworkers were given no protective gear, had vacuums
with cords so frayed that they would catch on fire, and got wages
that could be knocked down from $6.50 to $5.50 an hour if they
called in sick or came in late.
Now she is picketing her former
employer, GSF, in the hopes of forming a union and fighting for
her rights. "We work at night and nobody sees us,"
she said. "We don't have benefits, we don't have vacations,
we don't have anything."
Making sure that workers like
Leticia Corona are "seen"--and win the right to a decent
job, good pay and union recognition--should be a top priority
for anyone who hates injustice and inequality in George Bush's
America.
Used as cheap labor in New Orleans
"HOW DO I ensure that
New Orleans is not overrun by Mexican workers?" New Orleans
Mayor Ray Nagin was actually applauded when he put that question
to a meeting of local business leaders.
Nagin later claimed his comments
were innocent--that he was simply concerned about whether Louisiana
companies and residents were getting their fair share of reconstruction
jobs. But his comment about an influx of immigrants into New
Orleans is just one part of a growing chorus blaming immigrants
and "outsiders" for supposedly taking jobs away from
residents.
Latino immigrants are in many
cases becoming the latest victims of Hurricane Katrina--scapegoated
even as they take on some of the dirtiest and most dangerous
jobs of Gulf Coast reconstruction, often under horribly exploitive
conditions.
The Bush administration ensured
the easy exploitation of immigrant workers. Following Katrina,
the administration suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires
contractors to pay workers at least the local prevailing wage,
and the Homeland Security Department announced that it would
temporarily stop prosecuting contractors who fail check the legal
status of workers.
That was a green light to Gulf
Coast employers to take advantage of immigrant workers. And now,
many immigrants are finding that promises of easy money and accommodations
used to lure them to the Gulf Coast are the cover for a very
different reality.
Myron Moran, an undocumented
immigrant from Guatemala, came to New Orleans on the promise
of good-paying construction and cleanup jobs. Today, he works
14-hour days and pays $30 a night to live in a room in an abandoned
hotel on Canal Street, with no electricity or running water.
His roommate, Ruben Lopez,
a U.S. citizen who drove from Fresno, Calif., to New Orleans
after he heard about jobs at a job fair, says he is still owed
$1,200 by a local contractor for house gutting and other clean-up
work.
Lopez and others say that the
climate in the city is becoming increasingly hostile to Latino
immigrants. "I walked up and asked this white guy if he
knew where we could get some food," Lopez told Salon,
"and he said, 'I don't know a place where you can eat, wetback.'...There's
lots of racism here."
Meanwhile, to many employers,
workplace safety laws seem to have become little more than a
suggestion. An investigator with the Laborers Union, Rafael Duran,
recently told the Associated Press that outside the New Orleans
Arena he encountered Mexican teenagers as young as 15 and 16
years old removing carpets covered in excrement. The teens said
they were sleeping in a field under a tent.
In Gulfport, Miss., the New
York Times recently found a group of 32 undocumented Guatemalan
immigrants being paid just $8 an hour to tear down Sheetrock
for 10 hours a day. All 32 were being housed in just three mobile
homes. One of the men, Arnoldo Antonio Lopez, said that he had
paid $70 a month to live in the trailer--and that the first contractor
who had hired him for $7 an hour failed to pay him. A second
contractor to hire the men also failed to pay them.
"They hadn't eaten for
three days when we got to them," Vicki Cintra, the Gulf
Coast outreach organizer for the Mississippi Immigrant Rights
Alliance, told the Times. "They had no blankets,
nothing. They were sleeping on the floor. They had no money to
buy food." Bill Chandler, president of the Mississippi Immigrants
Rights Alliance, added, "These workers are super-exploited
by contractors in horrible living conditions. People are working
without any kind of inoculation--tetanus or anti-hepatitis. They
don't have goggles, they don't have gloves, they don't have any
safety protection at all."
Also in Gulfport, Knight Ridder
found a group of 17 migrant workers who had left jobs in Florida
on promises of $150-a-day construction jobs and apartments to
live in. The men ended up living in small tents on a Frisbee
golf course, with no electricity or running water. After two
weeks of heavy construction work, they were paid just $300 each--one-fifth
of what they were expecting.
"Some labor contractors
will bring our people up for two or three weeks of work, and
then leave them there," Tirso Moreno, director of the Farmworker
Association of Florida, told Knight Ridder. "Sometimes they
are paid too little and sometimes not at all." But, says
Moreno, because the workers are often undocumented immigrants,
"there's nothing they can do to fight it."
Unfortunately, even some labor
organizers are echoing the anti-immigrant backlash. Roman Feher,
an organizer with the Laborers Union, recently told the Associated
Press that: "It's really a shame. We're trying to get people
back on their feet. The last thing we need is contractors bringing
people in from out of state."
Comments like Feher's and Mayor
Nagin's do nothing but blame the victims of a system that views
some people as expendable. As Malik Rahim, a former Black Panther
and housing rights activist in New Orleans, told Salon,
this is "the kind of scapegoating that only worsens an already
difficult situation."
Discrimination
at the Red Cross
SOME IMMIGRANTS displaced by
Hurricane Katrina have been doubly victimized--once by the storm
and once by the system that's supposed to protect them. According
to media reports, police and U.S. marshals have charged into
at least two Red Cross shelters for hurricane refugees and threatened
to deport people.
The Wall Street Journal
reported that in late September at a shelter in Long Beach,
Miss., police and marshals blockaded the parking lot and exits,
and then demanded identification from about 60 people who "looked
Hispanic"--including some who had been pulled out of the
shower and bathroom. Dozens of shelter residents were told to
leave within two days, or else they would be deported.
"They asked me where I
wanted to go: to Houston, Atlanta or back to Mexico," Jose
Luis Rivera, an undocumented construction worker, told the Journal.
"I lost everything I own in the storm," said Rivera,
whose apartment and pickup truck were destroyed in the flood.
"But they said they didn't care. They told us that if we
didn't leave, they would return [two days later] with buses to
take us away."
Assistant shelter manager and
volunteer Jesse Acosta was forced to show two forms of ID and
wait 20 minutes while being screened for outstanding arrest warrants.
He told the Journal that the line of men, women and children
who were screened included no whites or African Americans. "I
was singled out because of my skin," Acosta said. "These
people went through Katrina and went there to be taken care of,
not to be hassled."
The Harrison County Sheriff's
Department claimed that no one was threatened with deportation--and
it was making sure that those staying in the shelter were hurricane
victims. Capt. Windy Swetman even called the raid " more
of a humanitarian mission." The following week, another
40 people were forced to leave a Red Cross shelter in D'Iberville,
Miss., under similar circumstances.
Even more disturbing, however,
are reports that the Red Cross itself has targeted Latinos. Vicky
Cintra, of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, recently
told New America Media that staff at Red Cross shelters
in Hattiesburg and Laurel, Miss., cities with large Latino populations,
had asked people to show social security numbers and birth certificates--a
violation of Red Cross policy, and an incredible request given
that many seeking shelter had just lost everything they owned.
Also, the Red Cross allegedly
told Latino clean-up and construction workers staying in some
shelters to leave within 48 hours to make space for Katrina victims
whose houses were condemned by FEMA.
This policy--to move workers
out of shelters in order to free up space for hurricane evacuees--is
"only being implemented against Latinos," Cintra said.
"The Red Cross has always thought that everybody who even
look like a Latino is a clean-up worker." Even some who
could prove that they lived in the area and were victims of Katrina
were frightened into leaving, she said.
As Cintra told the Wall
Street Journal: "These people have already lost everything
they had, and now, they have been victimized all over again."
Nicole Colson writes for the Socialist
Worker.
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disasters in American history. It is worse than Vietnam because
the enemy is punier and the original ambitions greater."
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