I resent the implication that underpaid immigrants are slaves. I wholeheartedly agree that they are treated unfairly, and I believe that certain laws should be changed to correct the inequity. However, calling their plight “slavey” is dishonest and disrespectful to all the people in the world who suffer from actual slavery (I don’t need to list the places, do I?)
Also, the Jews weren’t slaves for all 120 years of Moshe’s life. Think about the narrative here.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTBlOTVlNDFkNTYwOTg4YWYxMThkZmE2MWZhMmVjMWM=

Hi Elaine,
I don’t know about your hagaddah, but the text in the one my parents use quoted several passages from the tanach that talk about helping the stranger, widow, and orphan in your midst. And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t specify.
It seems to me that a lot of your concerns should be addressed systematically, not merely by blaming individuals, or in your case, a nationality of individuals:
1) I don’t know what neighborhood you live in in Texas, but construction going on when and where seems to be problems you should take up with your neighbors, your town zoning board, not the folks hired to do the work.
2) The problem with your client’s daughter is not that other people got care. it’s that she didn’t get the care she needs. Our health care system in the US is completely screwed up. There are 46 million people uninsured, and I’m pretty sure the people you are angry about didn’t make those policy decisions or make millions of dollars off those policy decisions. Direct your anger at the people making money off the suffering of millions, not at people who got SOME of the vital care we need. If someone comes into a hospital, pregnant, dying, or in a lot of pain, shouldn’t they get care?
I am sorry about the incident in the low rider you described above, but it seems like you’re blaming a whole group of people for one person’s actions, and using it as justification for your argument. he hit and run by the uninsured driver also is a shame, but I’m pretty sure driving without insurance and having hit and run accidents is ANYTHING BUT UNIQUE to Texas drivers. How do you know these folks were Mexican? How do you know whether they are the Mexicans you love or the Mexicans you hate? And come to think of it, how do you know whether or not the people working on construction were the people you claim to love or not? Here in NYC, many people, whether they were first, second, or thrid generations immigrants came out to support immigrant rights.
As your parents’ nice jewish neighborhood, I think Amos addressed that one.
It is truly sad you have so much hate in your heart for a whole group of people you don’t know, a people who have come here in a way not so different from your parents, or your grandparents. These folks often work for less than minimum wage, without workplace safeguards, or health benefits. You want to be mad at someone? Be mad at the people who exploit these folks, the people that would rather pocket anywhere from 2 to 5 dollars an hour for themselves, the people who can then treat their workers with impunity.

No I am not a racist. My daughter’s best friend is Mexican,,,,I patronize a taqueria across the street from me everyday where the wife is Mexican….so I have nothing but love for the LEGAL Mexican ..they live good, hard working lives. Teh iilegals mock them
Wow, were you trying to be funny, or are you just this ignorant? FYI — that’s racism, right there.

Ruby,
Thanks for the cogent and historically insightful analysis of what is not only a matter of singular political urgency, but one with compelling moral implications for the progressive Jewish community. I have to confess to a good deal of defensiveness, as I’d read DT’s comment before finishing the article, and was ready to join his objection to the apparent assertion of equivalence between the conditions of our slavery in Egypt, and the impoverishment and exploitation of illegal immigrants in the United States. Oppression is not merely in the eye of the beholder, but is distinguishable by type and intensity, and to claim otherwise is to justify such grotesque claims as the “high-tech lynching” of oily sex predator Clarence Thomas, or the “mental raping” of our own charming poster, Elaine.
To my surprise, then, I discovered that your article suggested no such equivalence, but metaphorically contrasted our bitter oppression as slaves with the plight of U.S. immigrants today. That contrast reinforces our obligation to address the oppression and exploitation of the powerless, not least of all when such oppression derives from their status as strangers in a strange land.
The current attempts at immigration “reform” have met with a backlash of surprising militancy and commitment. The reason for the intensity of that backlash, I think, is the recognition that the “enforcement only” proposals of the Republican Right and their allies display no interest whatever in addressing the political, economic, social and cultural complexities of genuine immigration reform. Instead, such measures have a single, narrow purpose, i.e., the immediate transformation of 11 million immigrants into felons and fugitives. Such criminilization is the product of precisely the same lust for power that brought us the Patriot Act, secret rendition, indefinite detention, and state-sanctioned torture, all of which serve as the foundation on which the Republican police state grows ever more formidable.
As to Elaine’s observations, my feelings are somewhat ambivalent. First, I’m not entirely convinced she’s for real (and, needless to say, would prefer to believe not). Alas, assuming she means it, while I’m not so arrogant as to dismiss her as irredeemable, I unfortunately lack the humility to respond to her screed with anything other than unmitigated disgust. Accordingly, though I commend Ruby wholeheartedly for refuting Elaine’s bigotry on a point-by-point basis, I simply can’t bring myself to regard her smug self-satisfaction as anything other than the product of mind-numbing ignorance, bovine stupidity, and a bottomless capacity for self-delusion.
While I personally feel that there is no need or value in responding to Elaine’s visceral racism, there is a more substantive objection to immigrant amnesty that does compel such a response. As an excerpted letter in yesterday’s New York Times stated, “Let’s not forget that these immigrants are illegal. We do have immigration laws, and they broke the laws.” While this objection is undoubtedly sometimes used as an excuse by those motivated by racism, there are also those who are genuinely concerned with “rewarding” unlawful conduct. There are two principal arguments that militate against this objection. First, when a substantial portion of a nation’s population begins to openly flout or evade a particular law – such as Prohibition – and society’s prominent institutions – political, religious, business, etc. – acquiesce or collaborate in that evasion, the appropriate course of action is to discard or modify that law, not stubbornly adhere to its rigid and unjust application out of a fear of “sending the wrong message.” Alas, such adherence is all too frequently the result of a tendency to “fetishize” the law without regard to proportion and context, forgetting that the ultimate purpose of the law is to achieve justice, not to insure obedience for its own sake.
Additionally, it needs to be kept in mind that our legal system itself recognizes circumstances in which disobedience of the law is encouraged, or at least tolerated. Thus, conscientious objectors are excused from service in the military; victims of a flood or blizzard are excused from laws against theft in order to insure their survival; robbery and rape victims are permitted to protect themselves with deadly force, committing acts that would otherwise constitute murder; social activists are praised for committing acts of civil disobedience, refusing to comply with such immoral laws as the Fugitive Slave Act or Jim Crow. Finally – as with the above-cited example of Prohibition – there comes a point that the only reasonable course of action is to acknowledge that certain laws have failed and must be abandoned. The continued enforcement of such laws in defiance of public indifference results not in greater respect for the law, but in widespread contempt for the legal system itself.

Elaine,
Whether or not your presence on this blog is appropriate is entirely up to you, but let me assure you that the question has nothing whatever to do with your age.
Though you now seem to object to being perceived as a racist, your earlier post seemed to be intentionally written to convey precisely that impression. Your comments not only came across as deliberately snide and hostile (“dolt,” “idiot,” “revolting” “jacking off,” “uninsured Mexican,” etc.), but appeared to revel in stereotypes designed to show how politically incorrect and iconoclastic you are.
If you really care, you should review Ruby’s earlier responses, who went out of her way to treat your observations with dignity and respect. As for me, I consider the few most offensive of your comments to consist of the following:
….No one has ever been “mentally raped,” and this incident doesn’t come within miles of making you the first. There’s simply no way to adequately convey the monstrous insensitivity of comparing the brutality inflicted on a rape victim to unpleasantness of having some guy jerk off in the next car over. Even a Mexican.
….You’re nice to everyone, except those “breaking the law of the land.” It’s worth noting that before their extermination in the Holocaust, the Jews of Europe were exploited and ostracized for years during which they were guilty of “breaking the laws of the land” on a virtually daily basis. The Nuremberg Laws. The point is that whatever the basis of your contempt for and discrimination against Mexicans, you’ll have to find some better justification than the fact that their presence in the United States violates the law.
….My sister died of brain cancer, and the notion of using her illness as an excuse to deny medical care to sick immigrant children is obscene. Incidentally, the man who stood by her side every day of her sickness, who never missed a night in her hospital room over the course of five separate brain surgeries in six years, happens to be an immigrant from Ecuador, as well as a tzaddik.

Ruby K –
I believe that to some degree, we must argue about “who is more oppressed” – because it influences how we deal with the oppressors. Someone who employs illegal immigrants is, in my opinion, doing something wrong. But it’s not the same amount of wrong done by an actual slaveholder, or by a coyote, for that matter.
It’s like the temptation to call everyone with whom you disagree a facist. Coyotes are doing something very bad, but they are not committing genocide. There have to be gradations of evil in order to have gradations of punishment.
For the record, I do not believe in amnesty for all illegal immigrants. I believe in making citizenship easier to obtain, especially for those who pay taxes.

“No one has ever been “mentally raped,” and this incident doesn’t come within miles of making you the first. There’s simply no way to adequately convey the monstrous insensitivity of comparing the brutality inflicted on a rape victim to unpleasantness of having some guy jerk off in the next car over. ”
Very true. We should all try to express ourselves carefully and not exaggerate. We should especially avoid statements like
“Such criminilization is the product of precisely the same lust for power that brought us the Patriot Act, secret rendition, indefinite detention, and state-sanctioned torture, all of which serve as the foundation on which the Republican police state grows ever more formidable. ”
I think perhaps someone needs to experience, or at least consider, what a police state actually is.

Now what did the Kinks say about paranoia…? I’m not 100% thrilled with everything in the Patriot Act myself, but we’ve faced a tradeoff between greater freedom and greater security since the beginning. The recent expansions on the side of security are, in the grand scheme of things, modest. Now why don’t you point out who may be wiretapped? (Ooh, SECRET: yeah, the not-secret wiretaps just weren’t doing it.) Which types of information can be obtained without a warrant?
As for the President and Congress, you’ll have to focus on a debate that goes beyond a one-line rabble-rousing rant or glib charges of criminality. Why would you assume that that the President must follow any law from Congress in the first place? If that were so, the President (any President) would soon be little more than a figurehead. Congress could pass laws arrogating to itself Executive power (which it is forbidden to do under the Constitution, but that doesn’t necessarily stop it). If the President can make a credible argument that Congress is doing that, and the Judicial branch hasn’t ruled on it, why is Congress “better” than the President? Or to put it another way: what if the President had the administrative agencies start creating laws that were contradictory to Congress’? Would Congress have to accept it? Does whoever hits first win?
“where the government can charge you with being a terrorist and put a gag order on you indefinitely ”
Presumably you don’t have a problem with the charging part (what government can’t charge?). Why don’t you tell us about the gag order -who and what is being gagged, and why? Is there judicial scrutiny?
Maybe we should also consider that if the country is being turned intoa police state, who is behind it and what’s the motive? Bush and Cheney and the rest of the Administration are out in less than three years (except those that President McCain keeps on) (just kidding, don’t have a coronary). Do you think they’ll try to stay on longer? Run the country from behind the scenes? Or is it someone else? Shadowy figures? (The guys from the Oliver Stone movies? The Israel lobby? KAOS? Magneto?)
And here’s the final irony: you complain about a “police state”, but if such measures against terrorism weren’t taken and there was another Sept. 11 -type attack, you’d be the first one to make hay out of it. Come to think of it, if Bush is responsible for New Orleans, where the local and State governments had primary responsibility, he must be even more responsible for preventing terrorism, primarily a Federal concern. It’s been more than 4 1/2 years now since Sept.11. What odds could you have have gotten right after Sept. 11 that there wouldn’t be another major attack for 4 1/2 years? Clearly the President is doing a spectacular job.

I’m short of time, but I wanted to respond, since you took the time out to write such a long post.
I asked those questions not because I was clueless about the answers but because too often I see words or phrases thrown around that are meant to look ominous and novel when in fact the underlying ideas or events are neither.
My general approach regarding these issues is this:
First, ask two questions. 1) Is it constitutional (yes, no, arguable). 2) Is it a good idea (based on cost-benefit).
Regarding those accused of crimes: Relative to what we generally accept within the criminal justice system, how does any innovation in procedure
provide the protections of right to an attorney, speed of resolution, and judicial oversight? How far should the danger of terrorism allow us to stretch these (and I do believe that we can reduce the protections generally afforded, to a degree – think of Lincoln during the Civil War).
Re the wiretaps, do you have any more mainstream sources? I’m a bit leery re obscure websites.
Re Bush’s bypassing of legislation, as I said before, and as your articles also show, it’s not cut and dried that a President must always obey Congress. This is part of a long-running constitutional debate. For each piece of legislation, we would have to examine them individually to see th estrengths of the argument on each side. Probably in some cases I would disagree with Bush’s position. But even then, there’s no crime involved, and a President being aggressive about his powers is not the same aa a potential police state or coup de’tat.
Re the gag order, I think you are making too much of it. Agreed, it’s not a great experience being thought of as a terrorist and being unable to speak publicly about it, but the main issues in criminal prosecution, and the greatest concern for the accused, are the speed and fairness of the process, including independent judicial oversight and right to defense. Gag orders may be something we have to tolerate in order to defend ourselves.
“You can mock the present administration’s power grab all you like, and you can mock me for keeping an eye on it all you like.”
I don’t think the point for the Administration is power. Even where I don’t agree with what they do, the motive is more likely ass-covering from unfair criticism (like, for example, “Bush had a report August 5th, 2001 and he still got it wrong.” – you know that the contents of that report were far too vague to justify any concrete action -cheap shot). While expanding powers for the purpose of ass-covering is not ideal, it’s a far cry from creating a “police state”.
And I don’t mock you for keeping an eye on all this. Not at all. I do, and I think we always should, regardless of who’s in office and whether we like him. I mocked you for giving (some) credence for the notion that the government might be heading toward police state status. You can criticize policies ( I might even join you sometimes) without resorting to paranoid exaggeration.
“Now we’re in Iraq for no reason and turning every bit of goodwill we had after 9/11 into hatred. ”
A whole ‘nother can of worms. But the notion that the world’s sole superpower has need of “goodwill” (or that such goodwill really exists in any practical sense) generated by victimization is very troubling. Sounds like more Holocaustism.