Mexico, January 5th 2008

Mexico Solidarity Network had an unusually informative newsletter this week. It’s really not possible to understand immigration if you don’t understand these basic facts (Republicans, this means you):

…Congress approved a widely unpopular reform privatizing social security for State employees (ISSSTE).  Hundreds of thousands of workers challenged the ISSSTE reform and it may be years before the courts issue a definitive ruling.  Congress also passed an electoral reform which will likely reduce the number of political parties with representation in the lower house to three from the current seven.  President Felipe Calderon implemented his campaign commitment for an “iron fist” toward crime, and in the process criminalized most social movements.  With the army in the streets in many metropolitan areas, human rights abuses increased dramatically.  And finally, Calderon approved fiscal reforms that include a minimum tax for businesses and individuals, a monthly increase in gasoline and diesel prices that will amount to 5.5% in the first eighteen months, and a 2% tax on all cash bank deposits.  These measures will likely increase the already high number of tax evaders, increase inflation, and decrease the use of banks by small businesses.  Business leaders are already predicting 4% inflation for next year, up from 3.7% in 2007, and anemic growth of only 1.5%.

…

Compare And Contrast

There was a discussion going on about the extreme level of vitriol – vitriol with no known real-world justification behind it – exhibited by a couple of local right-wing gadflies.  The discussion hinged on how much of it was real, and how much of it was a put-on, and whether this actually mattered.

This morning, Digby provides us with this telling quote from right-winger Lisa Schiffrin in The Corner at The National Review:

Let’s say last night really did indicate that Hillary’s negatives will keep her off the ticket. (Or keep her from winning if she’s on it.) You know what? Deep in my psyche, in the place that kind of misses the toothache I’ve been prodding at with my tongue, I am having a tiny little pang of missing Hillary. Not her, but hating her. Hating Hillary has been such a central political impulse for so long now — 15 years — and I have had to work so hard to keep it up as she became more appealling looking, less shrill, more human — I don’t really know what I will do with that newly freed strand of energy.

As Digby says:

I’m sure someone who blandly blurts out something so devoid of reason and human decency will have no problem shifting that “strand of energy” to another designated Republican object of hate. The conservative borg always finds a way to put senseless loathing to good use for the cause.

 Or to put it another way, as George Orwell did in 1984 (h/t derek):

The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.