world citizenship, personal soverignty and a commitment to economic justic are anathma to the state - but this is the larger mission.

in the meantime, if all that dough going into border security were simply given to mexico as a token reparation for the damage done by free trade agreements, plus the equivalent of a fighter jet or two or three in cash, that might be a start toward strengthening the motivation among many south of the rio grande to continue working in and on their own country.

in the wider economic collapse that is coming, all those undocs may find some stiff competition in the job market they currently tend to dominate.

The idea that some people are "legal" and others "illegal", not due to any crime they may or may not have committed, but simply because of the circumstances of their birth, is outdated and immoral.

The idea that a person could be a "noble", exempt from taxation and many laws, simply because of her or his birth, was rightly discarded by the new American Republic.

Later, after the Civil War, the idea that a person could be a "slave" simply because of her or his birth, was discarded by the American Republic.

Since then, other forms of discrimination, whether because of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc, have been discarded or relegated to the category of outdated, immoral folkways outside the legal framework.

Now the US, like many other countries -- such as Canada, Australia, Germany, France, South Korea, etc -- are confronted with the presence within their borders of large numbers of people who are still subjected to various forms of legalized oppression, simply because they have crossed borders to find work or refuge.

As governments and corporations work hard to do away with all kinds of restrictions on trade and the free flow of money, they have failed to face up to the inevitable consequence of these policies: the free movement of human beings.

While ready to stand up to all kinds of public resistance to "free trade", all kinds of opposition to the kind of money scams that have plunged the world into a deep recession, these government and corporations throw a cheap bone to their citizens by pandering to racism, xenophobia, intolerance and discrimination against women and men who are as much a part of globalization as the free flow of trade.

While abdicating any responsibility to police the unfair trade practices of many companies who exploit labour, poison the atmosphere, and undermine human rights, governments gratefully take on the task of restricting the free movement of human beings, often resorting to violence in their futile attempts to stop "illegals" from passing their increasingly fictional borders.

Governments are grateful to take on the responsibility to "control the border" because they hope to salvage some shred of relevance for themselves in a world where borders are disappearing. It's as if they said "We won't even try to protect you against corporate globalization, against mass layoffs and the destruction of whole industries, against falling wages and growing unemployment. But we welcome the job of closing our borders to "illegal" immigrants, and of tormenting the "illegals" who are already here."

People like Sheriff Joe Arpaio have found well paid jobs upholding this hypocritical and brutal policy, have won plaudits by passing themselves off as defenders of legality, when their real job is to prop up the fiction that the movement of humans across borders can be controlled by the use of force.

The former Communist Bloc nations went to great lengths in order to control their borders, building walls, using lethal force, internal passports, and other methods. In the end, those efforts undermined their power rather than strengthened it. Thus it was the destruction of the Berlin Wall that came to symbolize the overthrow of a system of oppression that relied on tight control of borders to hold power.

Now the US, Israel, and some European countries are putting their faith in border control to prop up their power. They will fail, just as the Communist Bloc failed.

The question for the US not, can we control our borders? That question has already been answered -- with a resounding No -- millions of times, not just by immigrants from Latin America, but by thousands of new Irish immigrants in New England, by people from Canada, from Asia, from every part of the world.

The question is, can the US overhaul its laws and policies to bring them into line with the reality of the free movement of people, or will the US go down in the attempt to block that flow?

Progressives in the US, In Europe, and other places should make a point of standing with the "illegals". They should strongly oppose the immoral, futile attempts to block freedom of movement, and they should help and welcome all those who come to the US to seek a better life.

No one is illegal. Everyone is "endowed with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" -- not just corporations and their owners. or at least, so Americans claim to believe.

"Are all men created equal? If that is to be a cherished national value, then the color of a person's skin, his religion, and the location of his mother at the time of his birth are all irrelevant. Prejudice based on geography is no more acceptable than prejudice based on race, creed, ethnicity, or economic status."
Quote from BANNED IN VERMONT

the other side, irrational hate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta_r6hduY9c&feature=digest_mon