Defending the Truth

Improbable as it is, ultra liberal David Podvin has finally scared up enough integrity and testosterone to make a decent call on the immigration debate.
Here is a sample of his analysis:

::The argument made by corporate sophists is that there are some jobs Americans refuse to do. Left unsaid is that those jobs offer noncompetitive wages or provide insufferable working conditions or both. The problem is solved by requiring business to honor market forces and obey the law. The grape grower who refuses to pay the going rate should witness his crops rot in the field. The manufacturer who creates a treacherous workplace should be incarcerated. Absent accountability, employers have found that hiring illegal aliens provides carte blanche to circumvent labor standards.

There are many victims in the illegal immigration saga, foremost among them blue collar American workers who are besieged from all sides. The right wing disdainfully views them as mere fodder for the corporate juggernaut. The left wing empathizes with employees’ angst while sacrificing their interests at the altar of political correctness. Trapped in a thirty-five year trend of falling real wages, working class Americans are steadily losing ground. To make matters worse, whenever workers bemoan the pernicious effects of illegal immigration they are smeared as being nativist, as though demanding a fair wage in exchange for hard work somehow reveals malice.::

See the rest at
http://www.tikkun.org/rabbi_lerner/n...-26.3799618492

I noticed an inaccuracy here though:

:: Political posturing notwithstanding, many congressional Democrats and all congressional Republicans refuse to deny business the peonage it so cherishes.::

Absolutely untrue. Apparently Podvin is unfamiliar with Republican Representative Tom Tancredo, as well as various other Republican legislators like Sensenbrenner, D.A. King, Dan Haworth, to an extent Cornyn and Kyle, and so forth.

Well, we are having thunder; guess I gotta shut down.

I hope this gives people something to think about, and a little support for disengaging from the standard tripe that they usually hear on this topic.

Just whacking this back up for anyone who missed it.

I'm a member of my synagogue's Tikkun Olam organization. I've never read the magazine, but I am familiar with the concept.

Obviously, this magazine is embracing the act of Tikkun Olam as the end, and not the means. I feel the same way. I think their idea of bringing religion into leftist politics is somewhat alien... I'm against a religious left and a religious right.

That being said, the left has been saying that all along. Just not the Democrats. Because the current Democrats are primarily spineless jackasses.

Progressives/liberals - who actually think deeply - will eventually "snap". It's inevitable, because their "solutions" just don't work.

I hate the word "Progressive" so damned much... Anyone who has any background in American history should recognize the ethnocentric WASP implications of the word.

As for dismissing left liberals offhand... I don't think that's very condusive to democratic exchange.

I see the old Jefferson is back. What the hell does this post even mean? That is like saying that conservatives eventually snap because they realize their whole spiritual belief system is based upon thin air.

Bubbling drivel.
There are many conservatives - especially fiscal conservatives - who are agnostic or atheist: Jesse Ventura is a fine example.
You ask "what the hell this post even means"? It means that every liberal I've heard so far is for open borders or the equivalent.

Dylan, first off let me apologise for using the word "Progressive"; I thought that was the word preferred by the left ! That is the name of one of their magazines, and so forth.
Now,

I listened to Rabbi Lerner on Book TV and so then I checked out his site. He seems a very intelligent and charismatic person. In fact, if Dems listened to him and picked up on some of his ideas, they would not be in the shape they are now.

Am I right in guessing that you mean *repair of the world as an end in itself* vs. *world repair in order to usher in the Messianic Age*? I'm just guessing with my limited knowledge of the Judaic paradigm.

That is where you are mystifying me...WHAT left has been saying that all along? Less than one month ago, for instance, I noticed Katrina Van den Huevel carrying on about the supposed "demonization of immigrants".
If any of the left support securing the border, they must be speaking in whispers.