THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D.

Years ago the cover of The New Yorker was an imaginary map of the United States with only the East Coast and the West Coast included and the Middle West and the West left out. The map reflects the mind of the federal government. If the BF’s oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico has occurred in the Chesapeake Bay, Long Island Sound, and Cape Cod, the government’s response would have been far more effective. If the violence overflowing from Mexico into Arizona was taking place in either Maryland or Virginia, the National Guard wouldn’t be called up, the 101st Airborne would be sent in.

Of the U.S. Supreme Court nine justices, two came from Trenton, N.J., one from Buffalo, N.Y., one from Brooklyn, one from the Bronx, and one from Manhattan, three from New York City. Two come from San Francisco and Sacramento. The New Yorker was on the button.

Coupled with that, the Arizona legislature and governor, playing Indians and cowboys, are making political capital out of Washington’s myopia by passing nasty legislation that appeals to a latent racism in much of the American psyche. Ironically, the bad cats aren’t kept from coming in, but the decent ones are being chased away.

Further, it victimizes police officers by turning them away from protecting and serving, and transforming them into agents checking the citizenship and immigration documents of wayward citizens. The act was political cowardice, making the police do the dirty work the legislature was afraid to tackle.

SOCIALISTIC PENITENTIARIES

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (8/15/10)

Capitalistic multi-national corporations exploit our natural resources for profit as in British Petroleum’s exploits in the Gulf of Mexico, just as capitalistic corporations exploit our criminal justice system for profit as in the State Prison near Kingman. The results have been the same: disaster. Capitalists cut costs to improve profits to keep the investors happy.

Cutting costs means cutting corners. BP shaved safety regulations to cut costs, and the Kingman prison cut costs with the result that prisoners could easily escape. As a consequence, we have had the worst ecological disaster in American history in which 11 workers were killed and 17 injured and an escape of three murderers with at least two murders as a result. The costs for tracking and apprehending the escaped murderers are borne by the public taxpayers, not the capitalists who own the prison.

Penitentiaries are designed to hold dangerous criminals in order to protect society from their mayhem. Cutting corners on safety and protection to increase profits is a sociopathic policy in which the public is damned.

Ever since Ronald Reagan, the Republicans have run on an anti-government platform with the ludicrous claim that politicians opposed to governing are better at governing. Claiming that privatizing Social Security will make for a healthier retirement system, they want to put Wall Street bankers in charge of Social Security. In fact, capitalistic privatizing makes things worse. Throw capitalism out of the prisons and return the penitentiaries to socialism as in throwing out the Republicans.