Re: U.S. militias on the Border

pgissource observes:

->>They were pointed both ways. Spies and agitators couldn't get in,
disgruntled citizens couldn't get out.<<-

Bilge: Well, they let ME in, albeit just for a visit to look at real live
Cawm-nists...

 Some would assert that my entry was far more a threat to the Socialist
Workers' Paradise than a whole boxcar load of refuseniks and other malcontents
jumping the People's Fence.
  Jest doing my bit to defeat the spread of global Cawmnism.

->>argue for and get escalation until the border looked like something out of
Stalin's wet dreams.<<-pgissource

Bilge: I read Martin Amis' "Koba the Dread" during the voyage. I don't think
Uncle Joe HAD wet dreams...might have been part of his "trust issues".

->>Nah. It's time for *real* conservatives to wake up to reality, Bilge. It's
generally their buddies in the corporations, not the immigrants, who create the
problem. In many, many areas. Naturally the corporations do like when folks try
to distract from that by blaming the immigrants<<-pgissource

Bilge:Sure, the fascists who inhabit the corporate world are a pack of assholes
of the first water...I "houseboated" for Tyco, y'know. But everybody knows
this...t'ain't news. The illegal immigrant is, despite your protestations to
the contrary, certainly a very large factor in this stewpot o' turds. 
 Imagine what a wet dream for a petit-fuhrer manager a crew of illegals
be...hard-working, conscientious, in many cases quite skilled...and utterly and
totally committed to keeping all levels of government out of the workplace,
even unto such items as workplace safety, overtime pay, harassment in all
forms, lack of benefits, nepotism...the whole stinkin' greasy enchilada of crap
that workers usually have to swallow. These flunkies do it and keep comin' back
for more.
 Such workers form an economic "lowest common denominator" in the labor
marketplace...one that more and more American workers are learning firsthand
about...to their detriment. So these illegals are by and large, honest and
hard-working folk...so what? So are we.

 And frankly, when you put the bullet to the bone, WE are the problem. We
tolerate this nonsense. We allow the Kapitalisti to screw everyone in range
while gushing about what business geniuses Lay, Kozlowski et al are, while we
entertain propagandists who expect us to weep tears of blood for the plight of
some damn unwanted, unwelcome and undocumented trespasser.

 It's a seaman's right to bitch, and Lord knows I've fulfilled my quota in the
15 years I've been before the mast, yet...I keep coming back. And when I'm at
sea doing my "thug" thing, and I have to wear my "crying towel" for me mates to
wail into, I always ask 'em why they keep returning. I s'pose we just ain't too
bright, or it doesn't suck ENOUGH for us to tell the scumball shipping
companies, (and their pet unions), to go pull their own fookin' oars.

  I'm seeing a glimmer that some of us might not be tolerating this crap
anymore. I've always maintained that the "militia phenomenon" sure looked a
great deal like the working class organizing and arming itself, since damned
near everything else us clock-punchers had in our corner has been corrupted or
co-opted. I read Erich Fromm's "Escape from Freedom" while riding the steel,
and I was intrigued by his identification of the classes from which Nazism drew
its strongest support.

->>Interestingly, often the immigrants come in *after* wages fall. This has
been the case in this area here. With various base closures and factory
closures,etc, wages dropped to where the majority of folks in a survey said
they wished they could get a job paying $7.50/hr. Wages continued to drop and
higher pay jobs left.<<-pgissource

Bilge: Umm... Propter Hoc, Ergo Hoc? Well, on Saipan, a journeyman level
tradesman knocks down $3.20 an hour. Check the classifieds in their local
paper. And the determinant in that market is legal immigration, since the CNMI
controls its own policies...part of the Compact of Free Association.
  $7.50 an hour? Jesus! I won't get out of bed for less than $20.00 an
hour...after taxes. Thems as take issue can go piss up the rope.

->>That was my point, too. Go after the corporations and see that existing laws
are enforced. That's far better than resorting to neo-fascist totalitarianism
like having a Stalin-style border.<<-pgissource

Bilge: Oh, we'll have a neo-fascist totalitarianist (is it possible to BE
totalitarian without being a fascist?), society...it'll just manifest the facet
where there are informers everywhere...waiting to profit on your Honduran
cabana boy and your Irish nanny. What fun, huh? The problem with the existing
laws, dear fellow, was that they were written by the very dirt merchants who
hire the illegals. We need to bankrupt the muck-suckers that undercut everyone
else in the labor market. That will also, btw, have a salutary effect on that
small biznessman that you mentioned...as long as his workers' papers are in
order.
  Also read Steinbeck's "In Dubious Battle" on the trip, (ship has a pretty
good library).

->>The only way that could be fixed would be to wrest control of the major
political parties from the neo-cons who control them. Good luck on
that.<<-pgissource

Bilge: Hmmm, well with Pelosi and H. Clinton swinging the major meat around the
Democratic Party "Love Shack", that might not be so far fetched. The last
President to ever really give a shit about workin' slobs was Nixon...a) because
his Dad was a lunch-bucket type, and b) he wanted the hard-hats to bust the
hippie radic-libs in their overly hairy college-educated nuggets to keep them
from causing a ruckus over VietNam.

 So as I see it, let a few of the more whack-a-doodle policies the Dems keep
around to mollify their vital Gay Black Atheist Left-handed Lesbians on Welfare
constituencies get passed, and we might just end up with some serious
butt-smooching from the Rich Shitpoke Party to bust some heads. In fact, a Dean
Presidency might fit that bill quite nicely.

 Or maybe the other way around...4 more for Dubya, then 8 for Jeb, and by that
time, the Dems might be so desperate that they might make Kennedy buy an
assault rifle and Schumer join the NRA. Make Feinstein bitch about  the moral
bankruptcy of abortionists, and Dig up Charlton Heston to run as the Democratic
version of Ronald Reagan, take Prop 1-87 national...who knows where the
merry-go-round stops?

->>I presume it was a safe one and you survived. I'd hate to think that I was
arguing with a ghost.<<-pgissource

Bilge: Yeah, it was swell. Changed a few light bulbs. Got up to Suicide Cliff
again, this time no Japanese tourists, had it all to myself for the afternoon.
Strange vibe at the place...poor chumps.

  Victory;