Labor Camps
Republican gubernatorial candidate has called for creation of a forced labor camp for illegal immigrants:
Don Goldwater, nephew of the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, caused an international stir this week when EFE, a Mexican news service, quoted him as saying he wanted to hold undocumented immigrants in camps to use them "as labor in the construction of a wall and to clean the areas of the Arizona desert that they're polluting."
The article described Goldwater's plan as a "concentration camp" for migrants.
Goldwater, a candidate for governor in Arizona, said in a statement Friday that his comments were taken out of context. He said he was calling for a work program for convicted nonviolent felons, similar to "tried and tested, effective and accepted practices" used by state and local jails
True, labor camps for immigrants may be no worse than using felons as slave labor. But as Miriam at No Capital comments, "A Final Solution... Perhaps not THE final solution". This brings to mind the conspiracy hysteria over "FEMA detention camps", which flared up a few months back when USACE expanded a contract by Haliburton subsidiary KBR to build facilities for "foreign-born refugees". I'm not going to reach for my tinfoil hat just yet, but it is very worrying that the idea of labor camps is now acceptable enough that a candidate for governor can openly espouse it.
posted by slomo at 5:52 AM
1 Comments:
Wow, the typical right wing strategy -- when lacking concrete, feasible solutions to important public policy related problems, and desperate for attention and desparate to use the "hot button panic" button to mobilize the right wing base -- just appeal to Race Hate. Let's see how the Latino and general voting population and incumbant in Arizona react... I think this issue is important to watch, because the "hate button panic" strategy may be played out, or may still have traction with a large majority of voters. We shall see. Until then, educate, educate, educate.... Interesting how things work these days. White Supremecist politicians used to have to hide behind closed doors to express this sentiment, and it seems this guy maybe thought he was pushing his "Himmler camp" plan just to the party faithful. But what happened? EFE, the Mexican news services caught him out, and here it is on the web in English., forcing the old "oh, taken out of context" chestnut as a backtrack approach.
Call me a dumb optimist, but I think the netroots, many prominente bloggers being highly trained and educated professionals (unlike the wage slave reporters of corporate media) are getting exceedinly good at tracking and making public this kind of trash talk shite.
Thanks for the heads up on what's up in Arizona, slomo!
--B.
10:26 AM
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