Helots and Immigrants: Response to Cruz

Ted Cruz let slip his plans for illegal immigrants in the 1/28/15 debate:, according to his short amendment (138 words, I think he said) anyone who entered the nation illegally, no matter the reason, could get “legal status,” after passing through many tests, but could never earn citizenship.

A life-long handicap simply because they came through US borders without the proper papers and procedures? Even if they were fleeing inhuman conditions wherever they came from.

What does this mean?

In Sparta and ancient Athens, “foreigners” were a large part of the population, and an important part of the economy: they were helots, not slaves, but not really free, because they had no rights. They were easily exploited and abused.

What Ted Cruz was proposing was the creation of just such a class. So, unlike the Donald, he won’t ship all 11 or 12 million illegal immigrants “back to” anywhere. He’ll just create an easily exploitable class of never-citizens, doomed to work for others in demeaning, low-paying positions.

If one followed Cruz’s logic, these helots would also lose a lot of other rights, not all at once, but piecemeal: after all, if they can never vote, even their protests won’t mean much. If a President Cruz didn’t move to eliminate the minimum wage, rather than raise it, he’d certainly propose a significantly lower minimum for the helots. Maybe, he’d even try to make them ineligible for membership in unions or political groups.

Further, helots would populate the lower rungs of society, probably commit a disproportionate share of crime, and would “take away” good jobs, by their own vulnerability to exploitation. They would lower the bar. The new helots would be a legally defined underclass, convenient for keeping other working Americans from successfully demanding higher wages, or better working conditions.

The new helots would also be a large, restive class, vulnerable to groups like Daesh aiming to take advantage of their discontent. Cruz could be creating a rejectionist “fifth column,” inside the fearful, authoritarian, billionaire-dominated United States.

The Republican re-made nation would no longer be a haven for the displaced, oppressed and desperate.

Ironically, while Republicans, excepting Jeb, excoriate paths to citizenship or amnesty, more illegal entrants are going home than are entering the country.

The angry, punitive approach to immigration appears to be the general Republican position, despite the presence of at least three primary Presidential candidates, who are first generation Americans: Trump, Cruz and Rubio.

Their theme seems to be: I’m here, dammit, so close the door!

War with DAESH/ISIS?

Are these the times when even the NYT promotes war? Yesterday, 12/7/15, in ‘Obama Says of Terrorist Threat: 'We Will Overcome It,’ the NYT reported on Obama’s oval office speech.

You’d think the “paper of record” would cover significant points put forward in the President’s address, but you’d be wrong. There was much about what Obama had done and was doing about Daesh*, aka Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL militarily, but no mention of his major, multilateral initiative with Russia, Iran, China, France and Saudi Arabia (number 4 of his points), in which tentative agreements have already been reached on a process to establish a cease-fire between ‘moderate’ opposition forces and the Syrian Government, with the further tentative agreement that the initial result would be an interim government. Without an agreement, no progress against Daesh is possible. Why? Arab Sunnis rebelling against both Iraqi and Syrian Shiite/Alawite dominated governments are not going to fight against Daesh, which is also Sunni Arab, though extremist thugs, until the conflict between the rest of the (Sunni) opposition is at least tentatively resolved.

Russia’s initial solution—backing Assad—won’t bring Sunnis to its side; it can drive them into the arms of Daesh.

American Republicans call for war with Daesh, inching towards US troops on the ground, but that’s precisely what Daesh wants. It would empower it to portray itself as Islam attacked by Infidels, which would make its current successful worldwide recruiting look pale by comparison.

Yes, it would lose on the battlefield, but we’ve been down that road too many times: The US lost no battles in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan, but it effectively lost all three wars. Attacking Daesh directly would have the same result, but it could be global; the West, even Russia and China, could be under constant attack of the kind demonstrated in San Bernardino. We might call it Terror by Example, or Inspirational Terror, instead of a Terror Network.

Further, to demonize and alienate Muslims, as Trump and his ditto-heads advocate, would be counter-productive: it would prime Muslims all over the world, including those in the US (relatively well integrated and prosperous up until now) to be even more receptive to Daesh than its small thuggish fringe has been already.

*Daesh is the Arabic acronym for Islamic State in Syria and the Levant, but it sounds like the Arabic words for one who crushes something underfoot, or one who sows discord, hence it is intensely disliked by Daesh adherents. IS is not appropriate, since it is not a true state, only a conquest gang or a global mafia.