Max Blumenthal feverishly uncovers the "anti-immigrant" movement

Max Blumenthal - aka "Son of Sid" - was interviewed by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! about the "anti-immigrant" movement with predictable results:

...there are several components of the anti-immigrant movement in this country, and they're all working very closely together. They have a longstanding program to forcibly remove the twelve million undocumented immigrants in this country, and they're specifically targeting brown-skinned immigrants, people who come from the third world. That's what their target is. So they're actually not a xenophobic movement. They're a nativist movement...

Tom Tancredo is allegedly at the "top" of the movement. And, of course, very few people are talking about forcibly removing all illegal aliens. I'm also not aware of any even slightly mainstream groups specifically targeting either "brown-skinned" people or "immigrants". He follows with the stock SPLC discussion of John Tanton, originator of FAIR, CIS, and other groups. Including, of course, this perennial favorite:

FAIR, took $1.3 million from the Pioneer Fund, a group that advanced Nazi propaganda in the 1930s and which exists to fund the science of Hitlerian eugenics.

Henry Ford had some interesting thoughts as well, yet the Ford Foundation tends to fund a large variety of far-left groups. Both have the same level of relevance. Pioneer has also donated to major universities, including Stanford and one in Tel Aviv. That appears to have been left out of his analysis. While I don't know whether they supported "Hitlerian eugenics" in the 30s, I highly doubt that they do now; in fact, I hope the Pioneer Fund sues him for slander. See their explanation for more information on this and other smears.

Then:

You have people like Lou Dobbs, who works very closely with Tom Tancredo's office, who works closely with these think tanks, and he advances extreme conspiracy theories, like the idea of a North American Union, which came from the far shores of the right, from groups like the John Birch Society.

Obviously, Bush could give a televised speech promoting the NAU and people like Blumenthal would still seek to deny it.

Then, it gets even worse. Baby Blumenthal tries to tie those who oppose illegal immigration into the KKK, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the recent arrests of loony militia members in Alabama.

Comments

1 - the argument that illigal immigrants "do the work no one else wants" is simply false. supply and demand says that the bigger the supply of labor the less that labor is worth, so having millions of people added to the labor pool undermines the value of everyone in that labor pools labor, period. 2 - If there wasn't cheap immigrant labor available to work the fields, slaughterhouses, resteraunts, janitorial positions, etc those jobs would not simply dissapear into thin air. The employers would be forced to raise wages and improve working conditions to attract local workers and the living conditions of poor and working class americans would be dramatically improved. That's a fact, you don't have to like it but you can't ignore it. We live in a market-based economy, you can't just wish the market away or pretend it doesn't exist. This is a function of capitalism. If you like capitalism you have to accept it. 3- patterns of seasonal migration from mexico through the southwest pre-date the mexican-american war and go back to the time when the southwest was part of mexico. thinking those patterns can be stopped by building a wall is just stupid. The actual result of the tightening of border control has been to INCREASE the number of illegal immigrants in the US. Since the costs and erisks of entry are so much higher it takes a longer stay to make it worthwhile, so now - instead of coming and working for a year and then going home - people from mexico and elsewhere come, find a job, and stay. and then invite their friends and relatives to come too. So border control has actually made the situation worse and is the real reason why the illegal population has gotten so incredibly big in the last ten years. 4 - The people who gain the most in a climate of mass illegal immigration are the owners of the business that violate the law & exploit and abuse people seeking a better life. That's why the government has never and will never take serious action to resolve the issue. Illegal immigration is good for business and bad for working class people, and the government is far more interested in protecting the interests of business then they are of protecting poor people of any nationality. By framing the issue as "immigrant rights" wealthy people co-opt leftist rhetoric to protect a fundamentally right-wing agenda that enriches a minority at the expense of the majority. The actual "illegals" are being used and manipulated as pawns. 4 - The people who suffer the most are the immigrants who spend decades living in fear and uncertainty working obscene hours in obscene conditions. The other big losers are poor americans, especially african americans (who used to perform the low-wage jobs but are now suffering from chronic unemployment). 5 - so this IS an issue of class and race, it's just that most of the so-called radicals have their analysis completely backwards. Fighting for the rights of poor people and su

Typically, this guy appears to have zero concerns about U.S. population growth. Or if he does, it must not occur to him that immigration is the cause of the vast majority of U.S. population growth. I find that a lot of people just can't believe that one can be against immigration except as motivated by racism. This makes them incapable of even listening to anti-immigration arguments of any kind. However irrefutable your case might be, they simply won't hear it. Figuratively, they cover their ears and shake their head.