Posts by Joshua Holland

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.

Smart Supply-Side Immigration Control
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on May 1, 2008 at 12:00 AM.

Over on the front page, I argue that a more intelligent and progressive approach to immigration would focus on the largely unregulated and substandard jobs that migrant workers fill, rather than on the individuals who work them.

It's a "big-think piece," and space required me to go short on the specifics. But clearly, a smart approach to immigration control would focus on both the demand and the supply.

On the supply side, a key issue is trade -- a subject near and dear to me for a long time. We see a lot of hyperbolic discussion of immigration, but virtually no acknowledgment of the way our trade policy and larger promotion of neoliberal orthodoxy worldwide fuel human migration.

A good way to understand the relationship is by looking at the history of immigration to America, and the tensions it has caused. There is always a modest flow of immigrants coming for all variety of reasons. That steady trickle doesn't lead to much acrimony among Americans. But that modest flow is occasionally punctuated by waves of mass immigration, and that's when people get touchy about the whole thing.

While individuals have all sorts of reasons for choosing to emigrate, those peaks -- "waves" is a good word to describe them -- always come in response to a shock somewhere else in the world. Those shocks might be a civil war, a natural disaster, a famine or an economic collapse.

Our trade policy, and the larger economic ideology we promote aggressively around the world, both contribute to these kinds of economic shocks and limit other governments' responses to them.

The current wave of elevated immigration began in the 1990s, and a large share of it has come from Mexico. A number of factors are in play, but a good way to understand my point is that much of today's Mexican immigration started with corn.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

It's U.S. Supported Colombia's Uribe Who Sounds like the Latin American Dictator
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 26, 2008 at 12:00 AM.

Editor's Note: This originally appeared on AlterNet's blog, PEEK.

If you read the Washington Post as religiously as I do, you probably have a pretty good grasp of the taxonomy of Latin American leaders.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is a brutal dictator whose crimes include saying mean things about George W. Bush, sponsoring leftist terror groups, using Venezuela's oil revenues to sway elections in the region and, perhaps most egregious of all, banning the Simpsons! Oh, and winning a bunch of elections.

He's followed by evo Morales, who is a walking, talking race card and just won't let bygones be bygones when it comes to Bolivia's traditional elites -- those friendly light-skinned plutocrats who own all the land. He's a dictator too.

Then there are "moderates" like Chile's Michelle Bachelet. She might call herself a socialist, but Chile's into "free trade" and has a privatized Social Security system from the Pinochet era, so, meh.

Colombia's Alvaro Uribe, of course, is a close Washington ally, a recipient of massive amounts of U.S. security assistance and is widely regarded as a beacon of democracy. Yes, he's a former narco-terrorist who was a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar, and, yes, labor leaders and protest organizers are routinely assassinated in Colombia. And, sure, Uribe's cousin and close confidant was arrested last week for his ties to right-wing terrorist groups -- joining "More than 30 current or former members of Congress, the vast majority allies of the president, [who] have been arrested for allegedly backing and benefiting from the illegal right-wing bands" -- and, OK, now there are allegations that Uribe himself might have had a hand in the assassinations of 15 lefties in the 1990s.

But he's a bulwark of democracy, dammit, and we have to sign a trade deal with him before those socialists ban The Family Guy.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Labor's First Strike Against the War Gains Momentum
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 24, 2008 at 6:11 AM.

The following is a release put out by the Vermont AFL-CIO, with thanks to reader Richard M. for sending it along ...

The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their "unequivocal" support for the first US labor strike against the war in Iraq.

Montpelier, VT -The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their "unequivocal" support for the first US labor strike against the war in Iraq. The strike, being organized by the Longshore Caucus of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), will seek to shutdown all west coast ports for a period of 8 hours on the day of May 1st 2008. The Vermont AFL-CIO is the first state labor federation to publicly back the Longshoremen; other state federations are expected to follow.

The resolution, among other things, calls the war in Iraq "immoral, unwanted, and unnecessary", states that the vast majority of working Vermonters oppose the war, and contends that the war will only be brought to an end by "the direct actions of working people." Many other Vermont labor unions and organizations, including the Vermont Workers' Center, have also made official statements condemning the war.

The resolution also calls on working Vermonters to "discuss the actions of the Longshoremen, to wear anti-war buttons, and to take various actions of their own design and choosing in their workplace on May 1st, 2008."

"Workers in Vermont and all across this nation are against this war. We have already demanded that the government end it, but they have consistently failed to heed our words. Therefore working people are beginning to take concrete steps to make our resistance known. If the war does not immediately end we, the unions and working people of Vermont, will also be compelled to take appropriate action," said David Van Deusen, a District Vice President of the Vermont AFL-CIO.

Traven Leyshon, President of the Washington, Lamoille & Orange County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, said, "Vermont labor has long called for an end to this war. The untold billions being spent on the war could instead be used to address our domestic needs. It is working people who pay the cost of the war - in some cases with our lives, but always with our sacrifices."

Full text of the resolution after the jump ...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Life Expectancies Dropping, Wages Falling, Food Rationing Reported -- What the Hell is Going on?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 23, 2008 at 6:00 AM.

Editor's Note: This post originally appeared on AlterNet's blog, PEEK.

For years, we've been financing our consumption with debt, offshoring our manufacturing base and living large -- at least some of us -- off of one speculative bubble after the next.

We can talk about stagnant wages and how dramatically inequality has increased, but that frames it passively, as a sort of natural phenomenon. But that obscures the fact that it's been an active process, with the wealthiest Americans gaming the system for a bigger piece of the pie at everyone else's expense. Meanwhile, we've been investing bupkis in our future, expecting, perhaps, to remain on the top through nothing more than raw American exceptionalism.

It's a model that was never sustainable. As the GAO once put the obvious, famously, "By definition, what is unsustainable will not be sustained." And it appears we're paying the piper, although nobody knows how much the bill will be, exactly.

A few signals of what's shaping up to be quite a crisis ...

According to the New York Sun:

Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

CNN/CBS: Hillary Clinton Wins PA
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 22, 2008 at 6:52 PM.

According to CNN's exit polls, Clinton is up 52-48 in the Keystone state.

With 35 percent of precincts reporting, the first returns have Clinton up 54-46.

With 61 75 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton is up 54-46.

With 94 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton is up 55-45.

Penn fun fact: according to 2000 census data, Pennsylvania had the third oldest median age, and the 6th lowest share of residents aged 18-24. There's been lots of talk about women, blacks and white working-class voters, but it's also the case that Pennsylvania skews older than most of the rest of the country, and Obama's done well among younger voters throughout the primaries.

Anyway, it looks like we'll have no knock-out punch for Obama, no landslide win for Clinton, and on we go to Indiana and North Carolina.

And another few weeks of watching Clinton and Obama supporters rip each other's throats out. Oh, joy.

Have fun in the comments, and remember: if you like Clinton you're a racist and if you favor Obama you're a sexist pig. And either way, the media's totally biased against your candidate.

Apparently, the Ron Paul Revolution Is Being Televised
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 22, 2008 at 11:54 AM.

Regular readers know that I disagree with a lot more of Ron Paul's views than I support. Actually, I find some of those views downright scary.

But when it comes to an accessible critique of American militarism, nobody else articulates the simple point that empire is incompatible with small R republicanism as well as the Texas rep.

The video to your right has been playing in Pennsylvania markets leading up to today's primary. It's a trippy, animated 60-second spot in which a Max Headroom-like (I'm dating myself, I know) Paul wanders back through American history to condemn today's hubristic foreign policy consensus.

For readers who are unable to view video clips online, there's a transcript after the jump ...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Colbert Report: Finally, the Voices of America's Long-Suffering White Males Will Be Heard [VIDEO]
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 20, 2008 at 9:14 AM.

It's gray and pissy here in the Northeast. So here's a little fun on a gloomy Sunday, courtesy of the Colbert Report ...

Americans Have a God-Given Right to Take This Job and Shove It! [VIDEO]
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 19, 2008 at 6:25 AM.

Ron Wyden (D-OR) is running this ad touting health care portability, and it’s really quite good. Humor, well-executed, is one of the best ways to reach people.

It’s a take-off of Ronald Reagan’s famous ad, “It’s Morning Again in America.”

As Atrios says ...

There's a weird retro vibe to this ad as it harkens back to a simpler time when saying your job sucked and your boss was an asshole was a perfectly normal thing to do. Now I get the sense that social pressure demands we worship our corporate overlords and thank them for the privilege.

One in Three Returning Vets Suffer from Brain Injuries, Mental Health Problems
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 18, 2008 at 6:00 AM.

Last month, hundreds of veterans who had served in the "War on Terror" gathered at the Winter Soldier hearings in Washington. They had come from across the country to give testimony about what they'd experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere).

They were young -- young enough to make this 38 year-old observer feel over the hill. Some fit the stereotype of the rough-and-ready American soldier -- the invincible John Rambos of American lore -- but most were average, some skinny. Many appeared small without the bulky body armor with which we're accustomed to seeing them in news reports.

They are our nation's kids. They might have been young men and women on any American campus -- there was the usual abundance of tattoos and piercings -- but there was a difference.

Many were broken, some grievously injured in battle, some missing limbs. All of the vets with whom I spoke had obvious psychic scars; several exhibited unconscious facial ticks as they spoke. As I talked to one young woman -- she couldn't have been more than 22 or 23 -- I thought to myself, 'oh, that's what those Vietnam vets mean when they talk about a thousand-yard stare.'

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Hey George: How's That Plan to Lower Gas Prices by Sucking Up to Oil Producers Working?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 17, 2008 at 10:22 AM.

Hey, remember 2000? We had an election that year!

Let's recall then-candidate George W. Bush's pitch about how he'd lower gas prices, which at the time were averaging $1.66 per gallon [ht: Jill C.]:

Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude.

"I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply," Mr. Bush, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, told reporters here today. "Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot.''

He'd just build up a boatload of goodwill within the Arab world and then tell those rag-heads to open up the spigot! Unlike that loser Clinton ...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The Daily Show Takes Down Fox News
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 12, 2008 at 8:04 AM.

Conservatives are good at reinventing their Dear Leaders' images after they leave office. The best example is Reagan, a not-terribly popular president who's been re-cast as a universally-beloved "Great Communicator" (among the past ten presidents, Reagan's average approval rating, 52 percent, puts him in sixth place, behind Kennedy (70 percent), Eisenhower (66 percent), George H.W. Bush (61 percent), Bill Clinton (55 percent), and Lyndon Johnson (55 percent)).

I guess Fox News is trying to get a jump on the process, with the release of a glowing, Riefenstahl-esque hagiography of Bush before he's even left office and had a moment to contemplate what project he'll screw up next.

But the Daily Show's John Oliver hit back, with a hilarious look at Fox's purported fairness and balance.

Part I:

Part II after the jump:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Washington Spins “Democrats’ Iraq Fantasies”
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 11, 2008 at 3:26 PM.

If you wander over to the Washington Post and click on the headline “The Democrats’ Iraq Fantasies,” you will be taken to “Stumped,” a regular “Ask Amy” type WaPo column by Andres Martinez (it should be called “Ask a Moron”).

Once there, you will find this ganglia-jarring bit of stupidity:

Dear Stumped:

Although invading Iraq was a mistake, pulling out hastily may only compound it. How, exactly, do Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton propose to withdraw American troops from Iraq while preventing a civil war and the ensuing instability in the region? If, in the final analysis, the conclusion is that things were better before the invasion, then the pullout will definitely mark the beginning of the end for America's leadership role in the world.

-- Carl from Caracas

Dear Carl,

This week's testimony on Capitol Hill by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker once again made clear that it is easier to criticize the status quo, and the Bush administration's past decision-making on Iraq, than it is to offer a wise exit strategy for the future.

That, folks, is called analysis-by-assertion. The testimony only showed that A) Petraeus and Crocker are bald-faced liars, but we already knew that, and B) the greatest barrier to withdrawal is, in fact, the DC political class.

While John McCain is stuck supporting the surge ad infinitum, assuring Americans that we will prevail in Iraq in this century if not the next (and don't ask him to define success, you'll know it when you see it), the two Democratic presidential candidates have now embraced campaign-driven (i.e., fantasyland-based) tidy exit timetables.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Note to Sen. Clinton: It's an Occupation, not a War, and all That Matters is Who Will Finish Ending it
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 10, 2008 at 8:35 AM.

I’m as cynical about modern American politics as the next guy, but honestly, this is simply too much:

Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday she is the only presidential candidate who will begin a prompt drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq next year.

Voters need to understand that it’s not about who will start drawing down troops — the military is breaking as we speak and any new occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will be forced to cut down the number of forces in Iraq — the issue is who will finish withdrawing the troops, and when.

[Senator Hillary] Clinton said McCain is unwilling to withdraw troops, and Obama cannot be trusted to do so.

"One candidate will continue the war," she told an audience at Hopewell High School, near Pittsburgh. "One candidate only says he'll end the war. And one candidate is ready, willing and able to end the war."

I’m so sick of this perverse kabuki dance.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Mother of Two Soldiers Latest to Allege Rape, Cover-up by KBR
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 10, 2008 at 5:18 AM.

Via ABC News, the third allegation of rape (and cover-up) against KBR to emerge in recent months:

Yet another woman has come forward saying she was brutally raped in Iraq while working for the U.S. contractor Kellogg Brown Root (KBR).

Dawn Leamon, who has two sons on active duty, says she was raped earlier this year by a U.S. soldier and a KBR colleague.

She will tell her horrific story to members of Congress today at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Death by Lack of Health Insurance
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on April 9, 2008 at 2:56 PM.

Families USA has been crunching numbers compiled by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and the findings are quite eye-opening.

I'm a bit too lazy to add a lot of analysis right now, so here's the press release:

In 2002, a groundbreaking national study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrated the direct link between a lack of health coverage and deaths from health-related causes. Drawing on that study, Families USA, the national organization for health care consumers, has today made available reports for all 50 states that show how many people are expected to die in each state each week because they don’t have health coverage. A separate report is also available for the District of Columbia.

The individual reports, available on the Families USA Web site, provide eye-opening numbers for every state. Among the figures cited is the fact that more than seven working-age Texans die each day due to a lack of health insurance. Other reports reveal that, on average, approximately 960 people in Illinois died in 2006 because they had no health coverage, and nearly 9,900 uninsured New Yorkers between the ages of 25 and 64 died in the years 2000 to 2006.

“Our report highlights how our inadequate s