I also think that some of the comments on the UNDOCUMENTED workers seem bigoted. Many tried to follow the official course but it takes many years to get the paperwork through... I think the US is a joke for the way we are handling our border security and upholding our laws (we aren't).

By the way, MANY, protests are actually done by HIRING immigrants to stand and hold signs.

Also, I think we can learn a lot about protesting from the very active latino population (whether citizens or not) they know how to be effective in getting their message across.  They care and they KNOW that their life and livelyhood depends on voicing thier opinion and needs.  If only we all realized our life depends on speaking out also. This is the supposed american way.

Boycotts are pretty effective.

Shrek, I find these comments offensive because we are a marginalised group ourselves and how does it help our cause if we wish to marginalise others who are not as fortunate as ourselves? Would you object so much if these immigrants were white anglo saxon protestants?

Again I say, forget about fences, barbed wire & whatever. Even if there weren't so many immigrants, there is no guarantee that employers will take on many more aspies. We will still be discriminated against for not being "team players" and for our other oddities and differences. Let's stop scapegoating immigrants for our own misfortunes.

Yes.

Forcing employers to consider hiring a long laundry list of untouchables only works in a closed system, not an open one.

* disabled including invisible disabilities including Asperger
* ex convicts
* veterans including those from the Vietnam era and conflict
* people getting off welfare
* people with low levels of education and experience
* various ethnicities (African American, Native American, but also Pacific Islander, and yes, Spanish speaking people lawfully admitted)
* various social classes
* the elderly or those "to young"
* women trying to work in "men"'s jobs or vice-versia

Open up the labor system and all the bets are off.

Close off the supply of foreign labor, end welfare and reform disability, and we could force a lot of employers and employees to do things neither of them wanted to do (hire certain people, perform certain jobs). In practice this would probably drive wages up for toilet cleaners, but hey, toilet cleaners are adults with certain rights, too.

* homosexuals and bisexuals if they are "out"

It's the Rosie the Riveter theory. You gotta do what you gotta do.

At least when it is critical (riveting ships and tanks and planes during a war), employers will set aside their taboos about women working. The U.S. almost drafted women as nurses for the invasion of Japan too (another taboo).  Didn't Britain draft women?  I know the Soviets put women in combat taking Berlin (see World at War).  At that point the Germans put a rifle in the hands of every able bodied boy as young as 12, man, and old man they could find.

Someone in business needs someone, they get someone. It seems important enough. Even if they don't like the guy, if the guy they like isn't around, what else to do?  Go out of business??

Necessity shatters taboos against hiring "those people".  It may not give them the same pay but it does give them a foot in the door.

Got that???

Employer: I gotta do this, I need you, I might not like you, grrrrrr

Employee: I don't like you either, just tell me what to do and pay me on schedule, grrrrrrrr

That is the first step to acceptance and friendship- working together, by necessity.

Women were used by all combatant nations in WW2 in active service, usually behind frontlines. Training, operating stuff, delivering supplies etc.

Apparently the Germans had some active frontline women units. The Russians certainly did. But come the 1950's no side will admit to it, including us.

Switch to today, women are active in all branches and go on active frontline service. The OZ navy has quite a few active women in the Submarine service, the last frontier. This includes people from most nationalities, provided, of course they pass the necessary background checks.

We ought to have a lady sub of our own, a sub with just women on it, maybe until guys can handle having a lady around.

Us Aussies have no problem. Almost all active OZ subs (which mainly patrol around the Indian and Pacific oceans, keeping an eye on our regional enemy and the nutcase Nth Korea, not to forget China) have women as part of the crew. And surface ships are just as likely to have a female captain or officers.

It's the Americans who have sex on their minds too much.  The rest of the world can be professional and not think about sex when on duty.

They're over paid
           over sexed and
they're  over here

I remember the Weapons of Choice/Designated Targets trilogy (future military ships from 2019 are sucked back to 1943). A Hawaiian police agent can't handle the fact that a murdered vessel captain is more than just African American and female. The ship doctor is disgusted to receive a race-specific request for blood from a wounded racist, she slaps him, he *** slaps her, and plenty of volunteers start a riot.

check out the military grade industrial strength interconnected PDAs. They turn on FDR, Einstein, and possibly also Hitler, Tojo, Stalin, and Churchill.  Also the VR googles on the WW2 ship captain showing him a collage of African American future.

The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hillary Clinton, supposedly the first female President (well it could still happen, I thought in 2009-2013), but Colin Powell is not the first African American President.....

The issue of Mexican labor must be understood as a labor issue.  Mexicans who are here "illegally" will never be able to exercise democratic rights.  Nor will they ever be deported.  In essence, we are seeing capital as a transcending reality.  Call it the Golden Calf, or what have you.  Karl Marx was an atheist and a deceiver.  However, his understanding of capitalism is really common sense.  Really, to say that we have a class system is like saying that the sun comes up in the morning.  It is common sense.  Marxists and Commies call him a genius, but any fool can see it.

The reality is that Mexican undocumented workers will never be deported.  It will never happen.  So, we have two choices, both of them very stark.  

Option One:

We can continue to have the open sieve of a border, coinciding with repression against Mexicans on the border, BOTH the open border AND the repression against undocumented immigrants being necessary to Martial Law and control.  In other words, option one means that we can continue an open border policy, *right along* with the Sheriff Apaio strategy of repression, since both are necessary to maintaining elite repression against all of us, Americans and Mexicans.

This option will lead to the North American Union, with repression against all of us, American and Mexican.  

Option Two:

Coalitions between Mexicans and Americans around worker rights, and against NAFTA/GATT globalization.  Fighting back.  This is a stark option because repression also becomes a reality.  We will ALL become illegal aliens on our own soil because American citizenship will mean nothing when people who protest become "domestic terrorists."  This has happened.  It can happen.  

So, the choices are stark, but this is reality.  So, we really need to face facts.  The world is not as it seems, whether we are discussing swine flu, Kennedy, or Princess Diana over there in England.  Never mind the specifics on these things.  They are not important.  The important thing is that very little of our daily experience is really democratic.  That is the real problem here.  Mexicans, if anything, are more awake than we are.  They at least understand and are not lost in delusion.

ATM

Stupid computer did its posting trick again. I have the same books and enjoyed the unique genre very much. I liked the OZ sub captain in it and her rather efficient method.

Our gov gave the go ahead for an additional 12 subs today (looks like the W.A. shipyards will be busy), along with heavy frigates, destroyers etc (East coast OZ will be busy too) along with a purchase of 100 F35's etc.

I think there is something not being told somehow, as this buildup announced is unprecendented except just prior to entry of WW2 where OZ got caught with its pants down.

Okay, but would you please knock off the sexist, racist and ableist comments because they only antagonise and cloud the issue.

The job problem and attendent economic meltdown is a direct result of pure greed. Its all about maximum profit, never about the individual. Well, now we have a global economic mess as a result. And it seems to be gettin worse with no end in sight.

Even my area, chemistry, where work is as simple as calling someone due to the extreme shortage of chemists, is having jobs disappear. Well, at least there is academia.