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As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Can We Do Anything?

The Senate refused to close debate on the immigration bill today, after an encouraging vote to sunset the now-reduced guest worker program after five years passed late last night. At this point, it's questionable whether this gets to a conference committee at all, where it could get better. The pressure is on the President to have a legacy, so I think that the Democrats could easily make the bill more progressive in conference and not risk a veto. But I don't know if they can find 60 to close debate.

A central problem in this country is that the conservative base (and to a smaller extent the liberal one) has become so amped up about every little vote, thinking that it will bring about the end of civilization itself (which Tom Tancredo actually said in Tuesday's debate), that any kind of compromise just doesn't seem possible anymore. In this sense, Barack Obama's theme of unification is appealing, though I'm not sure it will be bought by the right.

We're talking about immigration here. It's already a problem that's unlikely to be fixed simply by shutting the border down; most people who are in this country illegally did so by overstaying visas. So the alternatives are continue this underground economy and shadow America, or actually try to do something about it. The process of earned legalization seems appropriately arduous, certainly more so than the 1986 amnesty by St. Ronnie. I'm very skeptical about that the workplace enforcement aspects of the bill will actually be, you know, enforced, but a new President with a shred of respect for the rule of law is likely to do so. The relief for agricultural workers who literally can't find anyone to work the fields makes sense. The guest worker program is indentured servitude and I'm glad that the Democrats are chipping away at it.

The conservatives are acting like passing this bill will lead to the end of the world. That's exactly what Lindsay Graham is responding to even while he attacks Obama. He's mad that his party has left reason behind in favor of demonization and fearmongering. Well, tough. You have a responsibility for that as much as anyone, Huckleberry. We have to understand that putting up a brick wall and acting like every tiny issue is as important as, say, Iraq, is counter-productive, and it's why so many of us feel that you simply can't get anything done through Congress anymore. No less than Trent Lott made this point the other day. Hopefully, the post-Bush era can be defined by ramping down the rhetoric. Of course, the Republicans, who started this pie fight and continue to play the fear card at every opportunity, are going to have to take the first step. I'm not hopeful.

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