1. THE RETURN OF THE DEATH SQUADS

BY

JOHN PILGER

The elevators in the New York Hilton played CNN on a small screen you could not avoid watching. Iraq was top of the news; pronouncements about a "civil war" and "sectarian violence" were repeated incessantly. It was as if the U.S. invasion had never happened and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians by the Americans was a surreal fiction. The Iraqis were mindless Arabs, haunted by religion, ethnic strife, and the need to blow themselves up. Unctuous puppet politicians were paraded with no hint that their exercise yard was inside an American fortress.

And when you left the lift, this followed you to your room, to the hotel gym, the airport, the next airport, and the next country. Such is the power of America's corporate propaganda, which, as Edward Said pointed out in Culture and Imperialism, "penetrates electronically" with its equivalent of a party line.

The party line changed the other day. For almost three years it was that al-Qaeda was the driving force behind the "insurgency," led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a bloodthirsty Jordanian who was clearly being groomed for the kind of infamy Saddam Hussein enjoys. It mattered not that al-Zarqawi had never been seen alive and that only a fraction of the "insurgents" followed al-Qaeda. For the Americans, Zarqawi's role was to distract attention from the thing that almost all Iraqis oppose: the brutal Anglo-American occupation of their country.

Now that Zarqawi has been replaced by "sectarian violence" and "civil war," the big news is the attacks by Sunnis on Shia mosques and bazaars. The real news, which is not reported in the CNN "mainstream," is that the "Salvador Option" has been invoked in Iraq. This is the campaign of terror by death squads armed and trained by the U.S., which attack Sunnis and Shias alike. The goal is the incitement of a real civil war and the breakup of Iraq, the original war aim of Bush's administration.

The Ministry of the Interior in Baghdad, which is run by the CIA, directs the principal death squads. Their members are not exclusively Shia, as the myth goes. The most brutal are the Sunni-led Special Police Commandos, headed by former senior officers in Saddam's Ba'ath Party. This was formed and trained by CIA "counter-insurgency" experts, including veterans of the CIA's terror operations in central America in the 1980s, notably El Salvador. In his new book, Empire's Workshop (Metropolitan Books), the American historian Greg Grandin describes the Salvador Option thus:

"Once in office, [President] Reagan came down hard on Central America, in effect letting his administration's most committed militarists set and execute policy. In El Salvador, they provided more than a million dollars a day to fund a lethal counter-insurgency campaign. … All told, U.S. allies in Central America during Reagan's two terms killed over 300,000 people, tortured hundreds of thousands, and drove millions into exile."

Although the Reagan administration spawned the current Bushites, or "neocons," the pattern was set earlier. In Vietnam, death squads trained, armed, and directed by the CIA murdered up to 50,000 people in Operation Phoenix. In the mid-1960s, in Indonesia, CIA officers compiled "death lists" for General Suharto's killing spree during his seizure of power. After the 2003 invasion, it was only a matter of time before this venerable "policy" was applied in Iraq.

According to the investigative writer Max Fuller (National Review online), the key CIA manager of the Interior Ministry death squads "cut his teeth in Vietnam before moving on to direct the U.S. military mission in El Salvador." Professor Grandin names another Central America veteran whose job now is to "train a ruthless counter-insurgent force made up of ex-Ba'athist thugs." Another, says Fuller, is well-known for his "production of death lists." A secret militia run by the Americans is the Facilities Protection Service, which has been responsible for bombings. "The British and U.S. Special Forces," concludes Fuller, "in conjunction with the [U.S.-created] intelligence services at the Iraqi Defense Ministry, are fabricating insurgent bombings of Shias."

On March 16, Reuters reported the arrest of an American "security contractor," who was found with weapons and explosives in his car. Last year, two Britons disguised as Arabs were caught with a car full of weapons and explosives; British forces bulldozed the Basra prison to rescue them. The Boston Globe recently reported: "The FBI's counter-terrorism unit has launched a broad investigation of U.S.-based theft rings after discovering that some of the vehicles used in deadly car bombings in Iraq, including attacks that killed U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians, were probably stolen in the United States, according to senior government officials."

As I say, all this has been tried before – just as the preparation of the American public for an atrocious attack on Iran is similar to the WMD fabrications in Iraq. If that attack comes, there will be no warning, no declaration of war, no truth. Imprisoned in the Hilton elevator, staring at CNN, my fellow passengers could be excused for not making sense of the Middle East, or Latin America, or anywhere. They are isolated. Nothing is explained. Congress is silent. The Democrats are moribund. And the freest media on earth insult the public every day. As Voltaire put it: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

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Noam Chomsky, whom the New York Times has called the most important intellectual alive, was voted the leading living public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll conducted by the British magazine Prospect. Chomsky, Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a world-renowned linguist, writer, and political analyst. He is the author of many books on US foreign policy and international affairs, the most recent of which is Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.

This interview was conducted by phone from Beirut on May 2, 2006.

Khatchig Mouradian- In an article entitled Domestic Constituencies, you say: It is always enlightening to seek out what is omitted in propaganda campaigns. Can you expand on what is omitted in the US propaganda campaign on Lebanon and Syria after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in February 2005?

Noam Chomsky- The only thing being discussed is that there was an assassination and Syria was involved in it.  How come Syria is in Lebanon in the first place? Why did the US welcome Syria in Lebanon in 1976? Why did George Bush I support Syrian presence and domination and influence in Lebanon in 1991 as part of his campaign against Iraq? Why did the US support the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982? Why did the US support Israel's 22 year occupation of parts of Lebanon, an occupation in violation of Security Council resolutions? All these topics, and many others, are missing from the discussion.

In fact, the general principle is that anything that places US actions in a questionable light is omitted, with very rare exceptions. So if you blame something on an enemy, then you can discuss it, and Syria, right now is the official enemy. That doesn't necessarily mean that the charges against Syria are wrong. It just means that everything else is omitted.

K.M. - When speaking about regimes in the Middle East, you often quote the expressions Arab Façade and local cop on the beat. What is the role of Lebanon in the area?

N.C. - The phrase Arab Facade comes from the British Foreign secretary Lord Curzon after WWI. At the time, when the British were planning the organization of the Middle East, their idea was that there should be Arab Façades which are apparent governments, behind which they would rule. The expression local cop on the beat comes from the Nixon administration. It was their conception of how the Middle East should be run. There should be a peripheral region of gendarme states (Turkey, Iran under the Shah, Israel joined after the '67 war, Pakistan was there for a while). These states were to be the local cops on the beat while the US would be the police headquarters.

The place of Lebanon was critical. It was primarily of concern because of the transition of oil and also because it was a financial center. The US was concerned in keeping it under control to ensure that the entire Middle East energy system remains controlled. Incidentally, for the same reasons, the US has regarded Greece as part of the Near East. Greece was actually in the Near East section of the State Department until 1974, because its main role in US planning was to be part of the system by which the Middle East oil gets transported to the west. The same is true with Italy. However, Lebanon had a much more crucial role in this respect, because it is right in the center of the Middle East. The aforementioned, as well as the support for Israel's action- Israel being a local cop on the beat- were the motivating factors behind Eisenhower's dispatch of military forces to Lebanon in 1958.

K.M. - And what does the US administration expect from Lebanon today?

N.C. - The role of Lebanon is to be an obedient, passive state which regains its status as a financial center but accommodates to the major US policies, which do include control of the energy resources.

K.M. What about Lebanon's  role within the context of pressuring Syria?

N.C. - The question of Syria is a separate one. Yes, Lebanon is expected to play a role for putting pressure on Syria. However, the problem for the US is that Syria is not a subordinate state. There are a lot of serious criticisms you can make about Syria, but the internal problems of that country are of no special concern to the US, which supports much more brutal governments. The problem with Syria is that it simply does not subordinate itself to the US program in the Middle East. Syria and Iran are the two countries in the region that have not accepted US economic arrangements. And the policies against such countries are similar. Take the bombing of Serbia in 1999, for example. Why was Serbia an enemy?  Certainly it wasn't because of the atrocities it was carrying out. We know that the bombing was carried out with the expectation that it would lead to a sharp escalation in atrocities. We know the answer from the highest level of the Clinton administration, and the answer was that Serbia was not adopting the proper social and economic reforms. In fact, it was the one corner of Europe which was still rejecting the socioeconomic arrangements that the US wanted to dictate for the world. The problem with Syria and Iran is more or less the same. Why is the US planning or threatening war against Iran? Is it because Iran has been aggressive? On the contrary, Iran was the target of US backed aggression. Is Iran threatening anybody? No. Is Iran more brutal and less democratic than the rest of the Arab world? It's a joke. The problem is that Iran is not subordinating.

K.M. - In this context, why is Europe increasingly being supportive of US policies in the Middle East?

N.C. - If you look back over the past decades, a major concern of US policy and it's very clear in internal planning is that Europe might strike an independent course. During the cold war period, US was afraid Europe might follow what they called a third way, and many mechanisms were used to inhibit any intention on the part of Europe to follow an independent course. That goes right back to the final days of World War II and  its immediate aftermath, when US and Britain intervened, in some cases quite violently, to suppress the anti-fascist resistance and restore tradition structures, including fascist-Nazi collaborators. Germany was reconstructed pretty much the same way. The unwillingness to accept a unified neutral Germany in the 1950s was predicated on the same thinking. We don't know if that would have been possible, but Stalin did offer a unified Germany which would have democratic elections which he was sure to lose, but on condition that it would not be part of a hostile military alliance. However, the US was not willing to tolerate a unified Germany. The establishment of NATO is in large part an effort to ensure European discipline and the current attempts to expand NATO are further planning of the same sort.

European elites have been, by and large, pretty satisfied with this arrangement. They're not very different from the dominant forces in the US. They are somewhat different, but closely interrelated. There are mutual investments and business relations. The elite sectors of Europe don't particularly object to the US policies. You can see this very strikingly in the case of Iran. The US has sought to isolate and strangle Iran for years. It had embargos and sanctions, and it has repeatedly threatened Europe to eliminate investments in Iran. The main European corporations have pretty much agreed to that. China, on the other hand, did not. China can't be intimidated, that's why the US government is frightened of China. But Europe backs off and pretty much follows US will. The same is true on the Israel-Palestine front. The US strongly supports Israeli takeover of the valuable parts of the occupied territories and pretty much the elimination of the possibility of any viable Palestinian state. On paper, the Europeans disagree with that and they do join the international consensus on a two-state settlement, but they don't do anything about it. They're not willing to stand against the US. When the US government decided to punish the Palestinians for electing the wrong party in the last elections, Europe went along, not totally, but pretty much. By and large, European elites do not see it in their interest to confront the US. They'd rather integrate with it. The problem the US is having with China, and Asia more generally, is that they don't automatically accept US orders.

K.M. - They don't fall in line?

N.C. - Yes, they won't fall in line, and, especially in the case of China, they just won't be intimidated. That's why, if you read the latest National Security Strategy, China is identified as the major long range threat to the US. This is not because China is going to invade or attack anyone. In fact, of all the major nuclear powers, they're the one that is the least aggressive, but they simple refuse to be intimidated, not just in their policies regarding the Middle East, but also in Latin America. While the US is trying to isolate and undermine Venezuela, China proceeds to invest in and to import from Venezuela without regard to what the US says.

The international order is in a way rather like the mafia. The godfather has to ensure that there is discipline.

Europe quietly pursues its own economic interests as long as they don't fall in direct conflict with the US. Even in the case of Iran, although major European corporations did pull out of country, and Europe did back down on its bargain with Tehran on uranium enrichment, nevertheless, Europe does maintain economic relations with Iran. For years, the US has also tried to prevent Europe from investing in Cuba and Europe pretty much kept away, but not entirely. The US has a mixed attitude towards European investment and resource extraction in Latin America. For one thing, the US and European corporate systems are very much interlinked. The US relies on European support in many parts of the world. For Europe to invest in Latin America and import its resources is by no means as threatening to US domination as when China does.

K.M. - In one of his recent speeches, Hasan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hizbullah, spoke of solidarity with the resistance movement in the occupied territories and with our brother Chavez. Let us speak about the common link that brings people on different sides of the Atlantic, and of different ideological background, together.

N.C. - The common thing that brings them together is that they do not subordinate themselves to US power. Hizbullah knows perfectly well that they're not going to get help from Venezuela, but the fact that they are both following a course independently of US power and, in fact, in defiance to US orders, links them together.

The US has been trying, unsuccessfully, to topple the Cuban government for more than 45 years now and it remains. The rise of Chavez to power was very frightening to US elites. He has an enormous popular support. The level of support for the elected government in Venezuela has risen very sharply and it is now at the highest in Latin America. And Chavez is following an independent course. He's doing a lot of things that the US doesn't like a bit. For example, Argentina, which was driven to total ruin by following IMF orders, has slowly been reconstructing itself by rejecting IMF rules, and has wanted to pay off its debt to rid itself of the IMF. Chavez helped them, and he bought a substantial part of the Argentine debt. To rid oneself from the IMF means to rid oneself from one of the two modalities of control employed by the US: violence and economic force. Yesterday, Bolivia nationalized its gas reserves; the US is only (only??) opposed to that. And Bolivia was able to do that partly because of Venezuelan support.

If countries move in a direction of independent nationalism, that is regarded as unacceptable. Why did the US want to destroy Nasser? Was it because he was more violent and tyrannical than other leaders? The problem was that it was an independent secular nationalism. That just can't be accepted.

K.M. - You talked about the Chavez government's popularity at home. The polls show that the same is not true about the Bush Administration and its policies, both at home and abroad. Despite the discontent on a wide range of issues, little has changed in terms of US policy. How do you explain that?

N.C. - In a book that just came out, I talk about this at some length. The US has a growing and by now enormous democratic deficit at home; there's an enormous divide between public opinion and public policy on a whole range of issues, from the health system to Iraq. The Bush administration has a very narrow grip on power- remember in the last election Bush got about 31 percent of the electorate, Kerry got 29 percent. A few changes in the votes in Ohio and it could have gone the other way- they're using that narrow grip desperately to try to institutionalize very radical and far reaching changes in the US. They can get away with it because there's no opposition party. If there were an opposition party, it would have totally overwhelmed the Bush administration. Every week, the Bush administration does something to shoot itself in the foot, whether it's Hurricane Katrina, corruption scandals, or other issues, but the formal opposition party can't make any gains. One of the most interesting things about US politics in the past years is that while support for the Bush administration, which was always very thin, has declined very sharply because of one catastrophe after the other, support for the Democrats hasn't increased. It is increasing only as a reaction to the lack of support to the Republicans. This is because the Democrats are not presenting an alternative.

K.M. - You mentioned your recent book, Failed States. In the Afterword of that book, you say, No one familiar with history should be surprised that the growing democratic deficit at home is accompanied by declaration of messianic missions to bring democracy to a suffering world. How much are these messianic missions helping the Bush Administration?

N.C. – They're helping the administration among the educated classes. I discuss this in some length in the book. The messianic missions came along right after the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The invasion was only on the ground that Iraq was just about to attack the US with nuclear weapons. Well, after a few months, they discovered that there were no weapons of mass destruction, so they had to find a new pretext for invading and that became the messianic mission. The intellectual classes, in Europe as well, and even in the Arab world, picked this up: the leader said it therefore we have to believe it.

Among the general population, however, I don't think these messianic missions have much influence, except indirectly. This whole rhetoric is a weak effort, and in fact by now it's pretty desperate.

K.M. - My final question is about Turkey, one of the local cops on the beat. I was quite disturbed by the recent developments in the Southeast of the country. You have been to Turkey a number of times, and you have also visited the Kurdish regions. What is your take on the current status of freedoms in Turkey?

N.C. - As you most probably know, the leading Human Rights Watch investigator in Turkey, who is an extremely fine person, Jonathan Sugden, was just expelled from the country because he was investigating human rights violations in the Southeastern zone.

In 2002, the situation in Turkey and especially the Kurdish zone was pretty bad, but in the next few years it improved and now it's regressing again. Let me just give you a personal example. I was there in 2002 to participate in the trial of a publisher who was being tried for publishing some remarks of mine about Turkey. Now he is again on trial for a different book.

There are many reasons for the regression. The military is exerting a much heavier hand; the reforms that were slowly taking place are reduced. My own feeling is that one of the reasons for these developments is the hostility of Europe towards allowing Turkey into the EU. There's a pretty strong element of racism in that, which Turks are not unaware of.

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3. SOCIAL SECURITY REPORT—THE SKY IS NOT FALLING

BY

MIKE HALL

(Ohmigawd…Look out…Everybody Run…The Sky Is Falling!!!!)
 
Yesterday’s media coverage of the latest Social Security trustees’ report wasn’t quite that hysterical. But you can be sure we’re going to hear loud and repeated calls that Social Security is in a huge “CRISIS” from the Bush administration and other groups with a big stake in privatizing the cornerstone of America’s retirement security.

Most media outlets trumpeted how the report’s figures show Social Security will pay full benefits through 2040, a year less than last year’s report predicted. After that, without any changes whatsoever, it will be able to pay out 74 percent of scheduled benefits. Social Security trustees, three of whom are Bush cabinet members, annually update the status of Social Security.

(The report follows the Bush administration’s move to eliminate traditional pension plans for workers employed by private contractors at the U.S. Department of Energy.)

The loud cries of crisis and extremist talk show banter about grandma and grandpa living in a refrigerator box unless we privatize Social Security and let Wall Street take care of the nation’s seniors are likely to grow following the report. But the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities took the kind of deep breath we all should:

The new trustees’ report is consistent with previous reports. It shows that Social Security faces a significant but manageable challenge. While acting sooner rather than later will help reduce the size of the eventual adjustments, the trustees’ report indicates that Social Security does not face a deep structural crisis requiring drastic changes.

The panic mongers always point to the huge impact of the Social Security shortfall (estimated at $4.6 trillion over the next 75 years) on the deficit. Center Executive Director Robert Greenstein points out there is an even larger threat—President Bush’s tax cuts:

The Trustees’ report places the size of the Social Security shortfall at $4.6 trillion over the next 75 years, a little more than one-third the cost of the tax cuts over the same period. The cost of the tax cuts just for the top 1 percent of Americans—people with annual incomes today of more than $400,000—itself is about equal to the cost of closing the Social Security shortfall.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reminds us that when Bush took up residency in the White House, he inherited a $5.6 trillion budget surplus—and immediately squandered it:

Rather than using the Clinton surpluses to strengthen Social Security or Medicare, the President and the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress chose to go into debt by recklessly giving massive tax cuts to the wealthy.

She also says the report’s findings that Social Security can pay full benefits through 2040 and 74 percent after that:

…flatly contradicts Republican efforts to manufacture a ‘crisis’ in Social Security to justify a privatization plan that is unaffordable, unnecessary, and unwise.

Of course, a manufactured “Social Security crisis” was the battle cry of Bush’s failed attempt to privatize Social Security. His so-called solution would have eliminated guaranteed benefits, reduced benefit levels and boosted the retirement age.

The AFL-CIO, the Alliance for Retired Americans and other groups long have pointed out how Social Security is the cornerstone of retirement security and should be strengthened—but not through risky privatization schemes.

On the lighter side, over at Daily Kos, Gumby, who also notes the mainstream media’s “sky is falling,” coverage of Social Security, posts a poll: “Is the President trying to destroy Social Security again?”

Gotta admit, it’s a little snarky, but take a look.

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4. IPOD COMPUTER VOLUME AND APPLE

BY

AUTHOR(S) UNKNOWN

(Apple Computer has released volume-capping software that will allow iPod portable music player users to set "personal maximum volume limits".)

The software also lets parents set volume limits on children's iPods and lock settings with coded combinations on the latest models.

The software release comes in the wake of legal action taken against Apple in a Silicon Valley court on behalf of those who claim to have developed "iPod ear" - loss of hearing due to the device.

Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice-president of worldwide iPod marketing, said: "With the increased attention in this area, we want to offer customers an easy to use option to set their own personal volume limit."

Decibel limit

Steve Berman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the Silicon Valley case, said Apple had done "next to nothing" to inform consumers about potential hearing damage.

"It is good to know that Apple finally acknowledges that there is a serious flaw with its iPod product, and is giving US purchasers the same protection it has been giving French purchasers since 2002," he said.

"Unfortunately, this patch doesn't help the millions of people who own older models. It is a jack-legged workaround that falls well short of what consumers demand and deserve."

Apple pulled devices from stores in France after the country imposed a limit of 100 decibels for personal listening devices, according to the legal action.

The company was able to resume selling iPods there after modifying software to limit the volume, but did not offer similar safeguards in the United States, Berman said.

Air raid sirens

Apple devices can reach decibel levels in the range of 115 DB, considered on par with chainsaws, jack hammers and air raid sirens, according to documents submitted to the court.

Studies indicate that hearing loss may occur after 28 seconds of sound at such levels, the plaintiffs claim.

The documents charge that iPods are "inherently defective in design" and do not bear adequate warnings about possible hearing damage.

The plaintiffs also say that "ear bud" earphones sold with iPods do not properly disperse the sound.

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5. NO TO TROOPS AT THE BORDER – YES TO AMNESTY AND FULL LEGALIZATION!

BY THE STAFF

OF

A.N.S.W.E.R.

Caught between his extreme right wing and racist base, and fearful of the power of the people that has exploded on the streets in the last two months, Bush was compelled to go on national television tonight to announce his version of immigration reform. His announced plans show that militarism is not only the favored method but the actual goal of the Bush administration as it deals with every issue from the Middle East to the struggle for workers rights inside the United States itself. 

As a direct response to the heroic mobilizations of millions of immigrant workers and their families seeking to achieve basic civil rights and workers rights, Bush went on national television tonight to announce that he is sending thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexican border as a support apparatus for the arrests of millions of immigrant workers as they try to cross the border in a desperate search for employment.

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition calls on people all over the country to take to the streets at emergency protests tomorrow May 16 in New York City and on Wednesday, May 17, in Washington DC, to demand: No to Bush’s anti-immigrant campaign! Stop racist deportations and border militarization! Support full civil rights, legalization and amnesty for all undocumented workers! This week Congress is debating immigration bills, Bush wants to sign a measure by the end of the months - it is urgent that the voice of the people be heard.

Immigrant Rights Groups, Unions, Civil Rights Organizations and the Anti-War movement are Building Unity to Stop the Racist and Anti-Worker Campaign of Bush and the Right-Wing.

As with every political program based on racism, the campaign against immigrant workers is based on dehumanizing, stereotypical lies and propaganda. Uprooted from their homelands by the process of corporate globalization and so-called Free Trade, which has led to massive unemployment, millions of workers from Mexico, Central America and elsewhere have migrated to the United States, where they are forced to take employment in low-paid, back-breaking jobs.

In the last year, 1.2 million people have been arrested at the U.S.-Mexican border. Since 1994, when the Clinton Administration further militarized the border at common crossing sights, more than 3,600 immigrants - forced into ever-more dangerous routes - have died in the Arizona desert, in the mountains in California, in other remote locations, or have suffocated in the back of trucks stuffed with human cargo. Bush tonight announced that he would use the military to erect "high tech fences in urban corridors," a decision that will inevitably consign an ever larger number of people to silent death. This is an effort to force people into ever more dangerous and deadly crossings through the deserts and mountains.

The struggle of the undocumented worker

Those undocumented workers who make it across the border are employed at poverty wages and live with ever-present fear of arrest, ICE raids and deportation. Undocumented workers are viciously exploited by bosses who know that it is difficult for these workers to participate in union drives that would offer protection and higher wages.

Undocumented immigrant workers pay taxes and have deductions taken from their paychecks and yet they are ineligible to collect any benefits. Undocumented immigrants pay more than $7 billion into Social Security each year but unlike other workers who pay Social Security taxes, they can receive no benefits from the program. Likewise, they pay more than $1.5 billion into Medicare each year even though they are ineligible for Medicare. (New York Times, April 5, 2005). Undocumented workers pay sales taxes and property taxes.

Background to the Current Immigrant Rights Struggle -- NAFTA’s Impact

In 1993, after negotiating for several years, the governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States signed the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA went into effect in 1994. 

The results have devastated workers' communities in all three countries.

First, NAFTA prohibits the Mexican government from subsidizing agricultural production. But at the same time, it allows the government of the United States to continue providing subsidies to U.S. agriculture to the tune of billions of dollars every year. The practical result is that U.S. producers are dumping in the Mexican market their subsidized products at prices with which Mexican producers can’t compete. With no jobs, and in order to survive, many Mexican farmers are left with only one choice: to migrate to the United States. 

On the U.S. side, NAFTA has meant that many good-paying jobs have gone to Mexico. For example, U.S.-owned auto plants have set up shop in various parts of Mexico where workers earn a fraction of what those companies were required to pay under the terms of their collective bargaining agreements to their U.S. workers. 

Unlike their displaced Mexican counterparts who migrate to the United States, American workers choose not to migrate for obvious reasons. U.S. workers do not have the incentive to migrate to Mexico to earn one-tenth of their former salaries.  

What happens next? The agents of Corporate America distort the terrible situation created by so-called Free Trade. They do so by working long and hard to exploit the anger of the U.S. worker to foment racist feelings and attitudes against the undocumented and against everything foreign, especially against non-European immigrants. This is done in order to divide, weaken and maintain effective political control of the working class, and to ensure their continued economic exploitation. 

That is why today the U.S. government—instead of offering legalization, equality and amnesty—promotes the Bush “guest worker” immigration plan, which in effect amounts to indentured servitude for immigrants. This after Bush had promised his “good friend,” Mexican president Vicente Fox, an amnesty plan for Mexican immigrants.  

In order to leverage the Bush immigration plan, the political right wing in the United States funds and promotes groups like the so-called Minutemen. This fascist group and others like it are spreading like wildfire throughout the country, increasing racist attitudes against immigrants and sowing confusion amongst the working class about who their real class enemies are.

Yes to Amnesty and Full Rights -- No to a Guest Worker Program!

Everyone in the immigrants rights movement agrees that the HR4437, the Sensenbrenner Bill that turns undocumented workers into felons, must be defeated. But there are differences over what should take its place. Some in the union movement and the immigrants rights movement support the McCain-Kennedy Bill or the Hagel-Martinez Bill under the assumption that this is “the best we can get.” Many corporations and banks support these “compromise” bills because they are tailor-made to benefit corporations who want low-wage workers who have no rights and are dependent on the employer to prevent deportation.

Some in the labor and immigrant rights movement, reacting to the pressure of the racist right-wing’s opposition to the demand for amnesty insist that the word “amnesty” should never be uttered. This is self-defeating and does not in any way correspond to the sentiments of the immigrant worker community. When people at the mass marches are asked: “What do we want?” no one yells back “a guest worker program.” The chant that resonates at the base of the movement is Amnistia or Amnesty -- and it is heard everywhere. The people want equality. They want equal protection under the law, an equal right to join a union, an equal right to live in dignity.

What is wrong with a Guest Worker Program?

The historical record of “guest worker” programs shows that the main beneficiaries are rich business owners, not immigrant workers. The United Farm Workers, under the leadership of Cesar Chavez, worked to overturn the Braceros guest worker program as a key element to eventually organizing farm workers into the union.

The Bracero program initiated in 1942, lasted until 1964, by which time the program’s federal director, Lee G. Williams, deemed it “nothing short of legalized slavery.”

In 1942, many U.S. citizens working in agriculture were either drafted into World War II or sent to factories to help with military production. U.S. agribusiness faced a labor shortage crisis and called on the government for help. The U.S and Mexican governments quickly instituted the Bracero program—bracero means “hired hand”—that brought in Mexican laborers for seasonal harvests or a set period of time. After their contracts expired, most of the workers were deported to Mexico.

The braceros were cheated out of hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid labor. After a long, organized struggle, now elderly survivors have only recently won some of this money back. The Mexican government just announced a program to compensate former braceros and their families. Mexico’s program falls far short of what the braceros are actually owed. The U.S. government has offered nothing.

The new proposed guest worker program is nearly a repeat of the Bracero program. Most of the guest workers, like the majority of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., come from Mexico.

This time, the program is meant to expand far beyond agriculture. Employment and deportation will not be based on seasonal harvests. According to the White House website, “The program will require the return of temporary workers to their home country after their period of work has concluded. The legal status granted by this program would last three years, be renewable, and have an end.”

As John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO stated about the "compromise" legislation: they “tear at the heart of true reform and will drive millions of hard-working immigrants further into the shadows of American society, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation.” By dividing immigrants already here into three different classifications, the…proposal will create an undemocratic, three-tiered society that degrades and marginalizes millions of immigrant families in our communities while driving down wage and benefits standards for everyone.” 

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