A new form of slavery

The creation of a guest worker program is tantamount to creating a form of temporary slavery. Ditto the failure to enforce labor laws relative to employing illegal immigrants.

And to threaten the workers with arrest and not the employers is so absurd it would be unimaginable in another context. (Isn't this the legal swamp of slavery in the south where the slave could be punished for fleeing the brutality of a plantation owner, but the plantation owner wasn't punished for his brutality? What in heaven's name are we becoming? How did we get here?)

And having this discussion going forward in a nation founded on slogans like "No taxation without representation!" is tantamount to societal amnesia. Let's be clear about what we have learned in our trek forward in becoming the United States of America:

Democratic government is how we ameliorate the otherwise harmful or limiting effects of all the other social, economic, and political structural forms under which we live. It is our forum or court of last resort to make those adjustments that become obviously necessary.

A democracy requires everyone's participation ... and in the definition of "everyone" relative to this participation, we define ourselves. If there is a "class" or "group" of people who are contributing to the betterment of a society, but have no say in determining the distribution of that "betterment" other than take what is offered or reject it ... and rejecting what is offered is—again—tantamount to their having no chance of pursuing their life dreams for themselves or their families ... then have we not established a form of slavery?

As Paul Krugman points out in today's column in the NY Times—titled The Road to Dubai,

"Imagine, for a moment, a future in which America becomes like Kuwait or Dubai, a country where a large fraction of the work force consists of illegal immigrants or foreigners on temporary visas — and neither group has the right to vote. Surely this would be a betrayal of our democratic ideals, of government of the people, by the people. Moreover, a political system in which many workers don't count is likely to ignore workers' interests: it's likely to have a weak social safety net and to spend too little on services like health care and education."