1st of May tomorrow - general strike and march

A 1st of May poster by Aly De Villiers. (Take a look at her other paintings - I especially like the "aurea" series based on the golden ratio.

I'll be blogging tomorrow but will try to otherwise follow the strike. Also, I will not carry ID on me... a tiny gesture.

Comments

[Iris]

Is there a site that explains this situation? As a European I can think of nothing more dangerous and disruptive to society than unregulated mass immigration.Though perhaps it has a much more obvious effect on our small, crowded countries?

[Rook]

Hey. I'm in Stockholm now and was noting some of the May 1 protests here, but I haven't had a chance to really talk to the people there.

The issue in the U.S. is that for decades we've had a hypocritical policy of sorts. We only selectively enforce the immigration laws, allowing an underclass of people who are technically illegal (and thus have almost no rights) but whom we depend on for cheap labor.

The conservative line tends to be to blame the immigrants for this, whereas the demonstrations emphasize that it isn't the supposedly illegal workers who are causing the problem -- it is the people who are hiring them who encourage them into the country and who have the primary power (and thus responsibility) for the situation.

[elswhere]

The history of the U.S. as a nation of immigrants, in which almost every citizen is a descendant of people who immigrated here either legally or illegally, also contributes to a different sense of the illegal immigration issue here than in Europe.

[Jo]

It's the damn Canadians! Coming in and ruining our country!

[badgerbag]

If the illegal immigrants all suddenly left Deadwood City it would be a pretty empty town.

[Benjamin]

Thanks for the poster!

[badgerbag]

There's some more discussion here:
blogher may 1 thread

[e]

er, well, um, actually, my father was an illegal canadian. back when canadians were his majesty's subjects. he came over the border illegally and was here for years with no papers and then the war came along (II) and there were all these posters up about beware of blonde people and all (i'm not making this up) and he fit the bill perfectly. eventually, when he was working in east texas, an employer offered to sponsor him and he said "I'll just go over the border here and come back in" and employer said "are you nuts? we'd never get you back out!" so they sent him from texas all the way up to Canada again (this was pre-airplane, remember) and he reentered that way and was then legal, whatever that meant. I have his british passport from that time. then, when i was on the way in the baby boom (after the war) he decided to become a citizen and naturalized. but illegal canadians was not so far fetched.

he also told a story about, when he was in canada still, getting a job riding on the railroad across canada from vancouver to toronto, or some such, with rich chinese, who weren't allowed to cross the US so they came to canada and crossed the continent up there, and the railroad hired kids like him as babysitters. the guys, long fingernails and all (meant RICH rich to him) would send him off the train at stops to pick up live chickens and such, for food preparation. he learned a lot, especially about elegance and immigrants, riding through cowtowns with mandarins.

immigration has never been particularly straight forward here, we just tell ourselves it was. there was always some brahmin class calling the shots over people who wanted to come in, we're no better. we're just the brahmin class, now.