Comments on: Sheriff Joe’s Desert Disaster: What Happens When Nativists Get Their Way

By: pajarito

pajarito — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:54:42 +0000

Joke Arpaio has also cost the Phoenix taxpayers millions in court settlements, largely due to a number of people who die after being arrested. Death by excessive restraint seems to be their favorite post-arrest game. The local free weekly newspaper, New Times has done some great reporting on his abuses.

By: bmaz

bmaz — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:37:08 +0000

Bingo! We have a winner. That is exactly right.

By: azportsider

azportsider — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:38:02 +0000

You needn’t be confused, DWR1. Arpaio’s probably neither a nativist, nor particularly interested in catching undocumented aliens, much less the coyotes. What really interests him is any camera he can put his face in front of; that, and pandering to the old people in Sun City who are terrified of Hispanics, despite the fact that a lot of those Hispanics come from families who’ve been Americans longer than their own families have, and who keep reelecting him.

By: jackalexander2

jackalexander2 — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:05:21 +0000

The phrase ‘America’s Sheriff’ sticks out in my mind while reading this article. It seems we had an ‘America’s Sheriff’ too. Named Carona. Now he’s under federal indictment. How soon for Joe? I’m just guessing he doesn’t understand what a local sheriff is and what an ICE officer is, unless he is the racist described above and as I recall that tends to be a crime under several Federal Laws… Our present Sheriff here in Orange County and the former sheriff (as well as many others in other counties and States) don’t seem to know anything but racism and brutality. How soon for them? We need a change in this country-yesterday would be fine. Why wait?

By: DWR1

DWR1 — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:35:56 +0000

I guess I’d also ask David for his take on Cesar Chavez and his take on illegal immigration. Wikipedia has an entry on Chavez that is worth reading.

By: DWR1

DWR1 — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:05:53 +0000

David, should you check back, I happen to agree with you on most points. What you seem to miss about me is that I believe that the employers should be held accountable. I have no problem with the workers who are undocumented. They are not the ones causing the problem. Except that I do believe that their willingness to work for depressed wages does hold down wages for other workers. I have also experienced that neighborhoods can be depressed when multiple persons live in single family homes. I personally know a woman who rents out every inch of her house. A farm worker pays $300/month to rent the living room couch. And my sense of it is that it is the employers who are making the most of the situation. No benefits; low wages. I feel for the workers who are disadvantaged…..legal and illegal. I just think that the employers should be spotlighted……and with energy. We’ll see if the meat packer group get much attention. I don’t think anything will change until employers are held to account. And, yes, we will all pay more for the produce/products that the workers bring forth. I’m willing to do that. Every person who hires illegals and enjoys the cut rate needs to do some serious thinking about their own ‘progressive’ attitudes. I believe you want to see change….but I think we all need to stand up against illegal hiring because it allows employers to enslave decent and hardworking people and leave them powerless to stand up for themselves.

By: Marretta

Marretta — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:08:53 +0000

I have to say it still shocks me to hear individuals that appear to be otherwise sane go into long tirades about how immigrants are ruining Arizona. These are people who benefit from immigrants cleaning their homes, manicuring their lawns, caretaking their elderly relatives, parking their BMWs and doing damn difficult physical labor in 115 degree heat for crap pay and no benefits. Most of these jobs are jobs no white person would be caught doing in a million years. I have often wondered what would happen if the racist fearmongers actually got their way and deported everyone here illegally. With escalating ICE raids and detention centers popping up like mushrooms after a rain, we are starting to see that playing out. Now the businesses are whining because they don’t have enough slave labor. Ask me who I pity.

I have plenty of brown friends, and even those who are legal citizens have faced a lot of discrimination because they are hispanic. Racial profiling is real and ugly and pervasive here in Arizona. The good news is that the local police hate Sheriff Joe because he is a bully and a grandstander. He stirs things up and makes more work for them because he is obsessed with being in the news. That is really all this asshole cares about. This is the kind of guy Dick Cheney loves. He is a human hand grenade, pull his pin and toss him.

I keep hoping that at some point he will go too far and piss off the wrong people, but I have been hoping that for almost 20 years. I have underestimated the racist feelings of the average citizens of Maricopa County too many times already. Lately I have just been hoping for some instant karma to visit Barney Fife’s mirror universe evil counterpart. If it is true that a man reaps what he sows, Sheriff Joe should be harvesting some toxic crops indeed.

By: David Neiwert

David Neiwert — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:17:04 +0000

Thank you, Dakine. I don’t know why people who complain about illegal immigration don’t get that the problem is with the laws, not with the immigrants.

It seems to escape the notice of folks like DWR1 that their beef lies with the absurdly difficult and restrictive immigration laws on the books, particularly the quota system, which isn’t the least responsive to economic realities of supply/demand, as well as the various push/pull factors involved in immigration flow. When NAFTA destroyed more than a million Mexican jobs, it was only a naturally foreseeable outcome that they would come looking for work.

More to the point, if citizenship were simpler and cleaner, these people could be not just citizens but union members. And in both instances, they would no longer be subject to being screwed by slave-labor employers.

Incidentally, reclaiming one’s heritage — that is, making the quite reasonable claim that they belong here as much as anyone — is not the same thing as trying to take the Southwest back for Mexico. Nearly every immigrant I know wants the former, not the latter. But when DWR1 sees them marching, he seems to only see the latter.

By: dakine01

dakine01 — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:43:35 +0000

Not sure where “down here” is for you but I assume you’re somewhere in the South, whether Florida, Georgia, Texas, or Arizona or somewhere in between.

But I don’t think anyone posting at FDL and most of the commenters are in anyway excusing the actions of the growers or food processors or any of the other employers who use the cheap, undocumented immigrant labor to push down wages and benefits for all. We tend to recognize that wages for all need to go up and that includes in the home countries of those here without documents. We also recognize that those emplyers who act as you’ve described are basically low life scum.

So I think you are just commenting on another aspect of the same problem, an aspect that DOES get covered here at FDL, although maybe not at a time and place of your choosing. I know I have seen many posts concerning the treatment of undocumented immigrants. I have also seen a number of posts from folks like Tula and Ian who have connected the dots of the treatment of undocumented immigrants with the treatment of US workers and the blowback caused by the NAFTA/CAFTA type so-called “free trade” agreements.

And as well, tying it all in to how the employers never seem to face any punishment for their actions.

By: jaango

jaango — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:32:53 +0000

As a Chicano from the Sonoran Desert, earlier today, I wrote an item about Sheriff Joe and regarding his recent visit to Tucson for his latest book signing event. He was met with a demonstration. However, the street theater, has turned into a much larger incident than could have been imagined even by the Right.

Thus, take a gander over to the web site for the Chicano Veterans Organization and click onto the Cactus Juice Commentaries page, and you will be sort of amazed at where this incident has taken the Arizona’s Hispanics in their dislike for sexism and racism. The item is titled, “Derechos Humanos in the Sonoran Desert”.

Jaango