The People's Medium
Victory by victory, the Internet establishes itself as the people's medium, a forum for assembling a critical mass of opinion and a lethal weapon against rule by elites.
With apologies to Senator Kennedy, who has long been a heroic leader on many issues, including education and immigration in particular, I think it is all to the good that the so-called grand bargain on immigration has collapsed. The reason is that nothing this important ought to be done so much in relative secrecy. The President hasn't discussed the topic much, if at all, with the American people; the media havn't reported it in an ample and truthful way; and the various compromises of the bill were hardly clear to any but the bargainers.
For an issue as important as the future demographic make-up of the United States, openness is essential, and no law should be enacted without that openness.
In this case, it appears that the Internet enabled opponents and doubters on the left and right to reach a common view that the legislation should not pass. Not passing bills into law is often the best possible answer to complex topics, and I suspect it is the best answer here. That is not to say no legislation is needed; surely the current legal paradigm is cruel as well as expensive and stupid. Yet the desired outcome for immigration, and not the flaws of the current legislation, is what ought to be examined. For instance, do Americans want their country to number 400 million by mid-century? 500 million? How about a billion by the end of the century? Are we prepared to provide an adequate public infrastructure, including schools and Internet access and health care, for the people we want to bring in as American citizens? Perhaps most of all, are we ready and willing to make sure that to fuel the new America that will in all likelihood by half again as populous as today's country within two generations we will depend exclusively on green energy? Having a vision for America's future, as opposed to striking bargains among existing interests and points of view, is the necessary starting point for changing the immigration law. Can anyone explain what the authors of the failed Grand Bargain share as a common vision? Out in the Internet, in the by-ways of the blogosphere that answer is taking shape and legislation ought to abide the result.
I hope your optimistic outlook on the future of the people to influence events via the internet is borne out, however...
What passes for public discourse these days is still under the influence of the major media outlets. Blogs feed off news stories that appear in the press or on the air. There is almost no independent reporting being done yet by bloggers (Josh Marshall is the exception that proves the rule).
So what bloggers get to read, and thus to use for the basis of their beliefs, is still limited. True openness would require that bills be made public before and during the markup process, for example.
I think the failure over immigration is mostly due to the same interests that are happy with the status quo as has been the case for decades. This may be changing, but it hasn't happened yet. If all the bloggers start tossing as much cash into the pot as the big lobbyists do then they will start to be listened to.
Unless we get private money out of running for office, the people are still going to be a minor influence on legislation. Right now people don't vote - dollars do.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
June 10, 2007 8:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
rdf
You are absolutely right that there is little original citizen reporting occurring on the Internet right now, but I think it citizen journalism is building momentum. Josh Marshall's work is ground breaking. At times, especially in the beginning, he has been way out in front of the mainstream media on the Gonzales 8 story.
Even more ground breaking is the work of the gals over at firedoglake and the Next Hurrah who live blogged the Libby trial.
Blue Girl,Red State and her fellow blogger, bmaz, from upstart "Watching Those We Chose" who are both alumni commentators at Washington Monthly's Political Animal, just won a victory for bloggers by formally asserting the rights of bloggers to read letters sent the court by Libby's supporters.
There is something called theopenhouseproject.com that seems to hold promise for making the Congress more accessible to citizen journalists.
I think Reed Hundt is right on when he says "victory by victory, the internet establishes itself as the people's medium, a forum for assembling a critical mass of opinion and a lethal weapon against rule by elites."
Ron Byers
June 10, 2007 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've no love lost for the bill, but I rather thought it was covered at least as much as, well, any legislation. Certainly better than the run-up to war, Bush's spying, candidates on issues, etc., etc. True, Bush didn't articulate much of anything, but when did he last finish a sentence beyond a cliche about freedom?
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
June 10, 2007 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not sad that this immigration bill has failed. But I do think it failed too quickly. I think it served as a wonderful vehicle for highlighting the fundamental racist attitudes of the Right. The issue smokes them out. Think of O'Reilly talking about "white male power." Lose the "male" and we've got what he was really talking about -- "white power."
In a country with growing ethnic groups more or less predisposed to vote Dem -- but perhaps only lethargically, it helps to remind people who the enemy really is. And no one does that better than the enemy himself in his own words. The Republicans have become very savvy in their use of language and they work hard at finding euphemistic ways to get their message out so that their followers understand without riling the unwashed. The immigration issue strips away a lot of their rhetoric because it hits them where they live -- their racist impulses take over and we begin to hear what they really think.
They try to couch it in terms of the "rule of law" and cry crocodile tears over the poor, poor wannabee immigrants who are patiently waiting their turn. But eventually someone like Bill O' spills the beans -- it really is about white power.
The law and order dodge is a red herring. But the whole issue is, imho, a red herring. Immigration should be seen as, at best, a 2nd tier issue for our country. I don't think immigration is worth spending much time on -- except to the degree that it reveals the dark recesses of Republican closets.
June 10, 2007 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
June 10, 2007 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Hundt says (among other things)
and
Here's my question. Is the second quotation really and "example" of the issue raised in the first quotation? I suggest not. Demographic makeup is not a question of how many, but a question of what kind. Do we want a poly-racial, poly-ethnic, multi-cultural, poly-lingual culture or don't we? Samuel P. Huntington doesn't. I rather do.
I don't think it purely accidental that the as the countries of origin of immigration change so does the cry of "too many". Infoplease provides an interesting chart to mark what's been happening. The chart reports the countries of origin for foreign-born populations in the census of 1980, 1990, and 2000. In all three decades, the greatest number of immigrants came from Mexico. But, in 1980, six of the top 10 countries were "traditional" sources of new population: Germany(2), Canada(3), Italy(4), The United Kingdom(5), Poland(8), and the Soviet Union(9). In 2000, one country, Canada, remained as a traditional source of immigrants, clinging to the number 10 spot. . . none of the European countries made the top 10. China (number two on the list in 2000) wasn't in the top ten either of the previous decades.
So perhaps it would be a good idea to divide this conflated issue into two. What kind of demography do we want, and how many do we want. In terms of numbers, few predict 400,000,000 by mid 21st. century. The Rand Organization doesn't. Phillip Longman, writing in Fortune Magazine (Courtesy, CNN) doesn't think so either. In fact, he predicts within the lifetime of generation X world population will actually start to decline. It will, however, become older as fertility decreases.
aMike
June 10, 2007 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
A part of that "what kind" are questions of class. I can't be convinced that we "need" guest workers to mow the lawn. I'm not convinced we "need" them as nannies. I'm not convinced we "need" them to serve fast food. Seems to me if you can't afford the service then maybe you're not rich enough to be served. Do it yourself!
I have a hard time believing Americans won't do any job if you pay them enough to do it and provide humane working conditions for doing it and I can't figure out why we want policies that depress wages and working conditions. I think the populist reaction against this bill isn't just about ethnic demographics, it's also class demographics.
June 10, 2007 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you may be right about the class thing...though the two may be quite interrelated. Of course if you are right about the class thing, my grandparents wouldn't have made it here. What did they do when they came a little over a century ago? Work as maids and cooks. Were they "needed"? Probably not. But then, I probably would have made as good a Swede as a Swedish-American. :-)
aMike
June 10, 2007 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
.........The reason is that nothing this important ought to be done so much in relative secrecy.
First about you comment about relative secrecy: when has this been different?
During the present administration we know very little about the reality of what is actually being done anywhere, in the agencies, in the executive, in the military, in the security agencies, in the propaganda arm of the government called the public news media.
Many in the “know” government agencies have retired early because of what they knew to be true about the agencies actions verses what was being released in documents and told to the public, oversight agencies, and Congress the few times they asked.
Victory by victory, the Internet establishes itself as the people's medium, a forum for assembling a critical mass of opinion and a lethal weapon against rule by elites.
There are national blogs that are taped into the political scene, but I ask you where is the overarching or shorter-term future view? The mother ship TPM is now more an aggregator pointing things out with a few comments about the past with implications of the past action being pointed out for inconsistencies by the Muckraker blog, but TPM has given up most original content if not all overarching views written by Josh as when he made his name in the early years.
I feel that the public media commentators can't crossover to the blogs because they try to keep their consistently reigned in, controlled and consistent view & voice. This is not the way of the web. I feel the bloggers can't be called on to be a reliable commenter without having it change them for the same reasons. The “powers that be” would not stand for the web reality to be presented.
Subjects of interest split up readers and posters in the local blogs and I know of none that have a reach across a broad local geographic area that the public news outlets call The Community. I have seen a rewrite of the zoning ordinances hidden from the public for a year and the paper and the blogs both not covering it.
The best was to reach the community is with guerrilla theater. That is to have enough citizens carry signs stating the issue important to them. This will make news about the group and the depth of the coverage of the issue typically is what is on the posters.
News today is what happened yesterday. No future looks and notices to the community about coming attractions that may affect their existence. No notice about ordinances changes in processes and such that if the citizen of the local community wanted, they could state their opinion on the date of public comment.
But alas I dream, and the newspaper wonder why they are losing readers. Why read that you have been sold down the river, it is like the 60’s except but the story is “tune out, turn off and drop out of subscribing.”
Hear that, that is another editor saying that is not news, both we and the citizens have been “missing from the community” for years, our real problem today is finding enough journeymen writers who will work for cheep!
If you newspaper were not covering an important problem or situation in the community what would you do to get the story out?
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Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking
June 10, 2007 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I probably would have made as good a Swede as a Swedish-American. :-)"
Were you half-born in Sweden? No, you were not. Therefore, you are in no wise Swedish, which is a nationality, not a race.
Nor is it your ethnic identity, as being born in the US makes you a "USian".
If you're going to use the competititve and supremacist "I'm not you" hyphenated nonsense, then put it in correct order: US-Swedish. And if you do that, I'll ask, "How soon will you be returning to Sweden?"
June 11, 2007 12:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I stand by what I wrote as common usage. Americans generally identify themselves by three factors: country of family origin, religion, and profession. A fourth factor is political identification. These have been stable points of self-identification since sociologists began to investigate the issue.
There is utterly no competitive or supremacist content in conventional statements of this kind. Listen to A Prairie Home Companion sometime. The only thing those of us of Scandinavian descent compete in is self-effacement and understatement. This kind of fond remembrance of roots is the opposite of "100% Americanism--love it or leave it" ideology.
aMike
June 11, 2007 4:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ted Kennedy was a strong supporter of the 1965 Hart-Celler Act signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson — which dramatically changed US immigration policy.
This is what Ted Kennedy said about the 1965 bill.
"The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."
Kennedy is now the chair of the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship, and remains a strong advocate for immigrants, both documented and undocumented
About the same time there wasn't enough room for citizens to have children.
The Unacknowledged Holocaust
Back in the 60’s the Federal Government came into the public schools and brainwashed us as little children with the message that the children we were about to have were unwanted because the population was rising so fast. They launched a program called Family Planning. They pushed birth control pills. I think you and I now both know that you only have to trick people for their few child bearing years and there is no going back.
Many of us never had a say.
I am the result of two living cells. One from each of my parents. They are the result of two living cells, one from each of their parents. I wasn't just born. I am a continuation of life. I am a living thing that reaches back into time perhaps 400 million years and the result of billions of joining of pairs of cells. It is possible that if you were to follow my cells back to my parent’s cells and beyond that my family tree touches every living thing here on earth. That is if we limit ourselves to believing life was created here on earth. If it rained down from the immensity of the universe it could reach back into that immensity of time and space, and who knows what relationships and who knows what species.
At least until I came up against the Federal Government and their plan to control the population.
I have seen the Federal Government do little else to control the population.
The open border, United States laws only apply to some, is a serious slap in the face. No, not a slap in the face, it reaches well beyond that. Maybe back to the beginning of time and stretch to the bounds of the universe.
June 11, 2007 5:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow.
June 11, 2007 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink