Blacklisted by the NPIC: the price of speaking out against militarization

When colonial overlords have an agenda, interference with that agenda is not usually tolerated. This is especially true when the agenda is a well orchestrated, master planned puppet show. The overlords provide the theater, the special effects, the dialogue, the actors, and the puppets. They also count on making a huge profit from the whole ordeal. If anyone has a problem with the message, it may be possible to cause a small disturbance during the show, but usually if one tries, such person is swiftly booted out the door by security. 

The overlords are well connected with law enforcement, and so they'll press charges if they can conjure up a good enough reason to do so. The captive audience, who has already invested their time and money in the performance, is often grateful that they can continue to be moved and entertained without interference from those pesky conscientious objectors. The show must go on.

The funders of NGOs often take the position of the puppeteers. These philanthropic foundations don't get their money solely by the merit of their philosophies. They get their money from various business interests, many of whom have specific business goals that they want to accomplish. If the foundations didn't function to serve these interests, there would be no funding source. 

Those who have dared to object to the content of these spectacles are well aware of these realities. In Chicago, for instance, Ze Garcia and Ann-Meredith Wootton, part of the Moratorium on Deportations Campaign, participated in an immigrant rights march organized by multiple NGOs. Garcia carried a banner which read "immigration reform bill equals more deaths" and pointed out that S 744, the bill many of these NGOs were promoting at the march, promotes militarization. 

The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), like good loyal puppets and performers, targeted Garcia and Wootton. Security was called, and the two were arrested, even though ICIRR and SEIU was well aware that Garcia was under deportation proceedings. An account of this story is available here. Similar situations have occurred in respect to police brutality marches in Salinas, CA. In addition, the story is reminiscent of when Puente sided with the police after they pepper sprayed hundreds of marchers at a protest march, myself included in the crowd. 

These overlords are smart. They not only have NGOs, security forces, and the entire police state working to ensure their well oiled machine is succinct, but they have a monopoly over academia too. You see, one cannot just simply rise through the ranks of academia and challenge these people. They are well connected, well endowed, and their greedy claws have a grip on the academic circuit as well. Even after the most well intentioned student has jumped through all the required hoops and hurdles of academia, such a person is still a product of the system and must work within that structure. 

She can try to avoid the influence of all the big shady corporations and venture out independently, but there is always that big problem of funding. When looking to assist the poor or the working class, the do-gooder academic has to recognize that many in need of help do not have the resources. So, where to turn? Those of us in the academic world are directed back to the same old drawing board we started from. Foundations and nonprofits. 

I’ve been pretty vocal in my critiques against NGOs. In particular, I have beef with the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON), and the subtle ways in which they have promoted militarization through immigration reform, such as disparaging Republicans and John Boehner for blocking S 744. In addition, I have beef with their close relationship to Puente, an organization which constantly claims to be pro indigenous and appropriates indigenous culture, yet does nothing to help indigenous people. In fact, they do the opposite. 

While Puente claims they do not support S 744, their chant of "Not 1 More" has been used nationwide to promote it, and even though this bill has everything to do with immigration, they have not let out a peep on the harms it would do. They have had flyers and promotional events advertising CIR, yet when confronted about this they always claim it was someone else who designed it. When critiqued on their silence and lack of support for Tohono O'odham who are the most impacted by militarization, their tactic as been to reach out to related tribes in order to validate their pro indigenous narrative. 

Divide and conquer is the oldest trick in the book, and it is pretty messed up when so called human rights organizations do it. Previously, I didn't want to call them out specifically, because I had hoped they would start to understand the destruction they were causing by hogging the mic and throwing others off the stage. But nope, they keep running over valid indigenous perspectives with their undocubus.

The consequence of speaking out often bears a huge emotional toll. As a result of my critiques, I’ve lost friends and possibly several job prospects. I’ve been accused of being a big mean bully. Often, when they respond, those working for these organizations play like they are the victims.

Don’t you see all the good we are doing? Why would you attack us? Our organization never had any affiliation with any of the atrocious things you are claiming. Yeah, well, okay… we did that. But you don’t understand the circumstances. Have you checked out all the good we have done? You should really ignore all the bad things and just focus on how great we are. Our huge platform and massive following makes us immune from all criticism. Oh! And guess what? If you speak out against us we will do everything in our power to ruin you. Either join us or cease to exist in this movement.

These types of responses have been frustrating. I'll admit, there were times where I have offered criticisms in ways that were not very tactful. At first I was totally nice. But after noticing the betrayals on the militarization issue, I became severely jaded. In addition, I felt used. Back in the day, I participated in many of Puente's marches and protests. Years later, I would find out that this effort was for nothing, and that all that time I dedicated my time to the movement, I was just a pawn in the greater reform agenda. 

I went to law school because I wanted to stop militarization on indigenous lands and marginalization of indigenous people. I wanted to fight against racism, xenophobia, human rights abuses, and the relentless targeting of the undocumented.  So forgive me when I become enraged when those who claim to be on the human rights train start to derail and push others off the train. 

Law school was hard. No joke. It is probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. It had so many emotional tolls. I was broke most of the time, and had to fake it in a world where everyone seemed to have an endless cash flow. Just about every semester, I had to hustle for books, food, and rent. I often felt inadequate and almost always felt like an outsider. I was from a completely different world. 

This world didn't get my struggle either. Oftentimes, I felt like I had nobody. When I looked to my former comrades, I found out they had completely turned on me. Maybe they had always been shady and I just hadn't seen it before. Either way, I felt very alone and hopeless. I lashed out. I even got blocked from NDLON's Facebook page for offering my critique. Meanwhile, I was going through other struggles in law school.

Why wouldn’t you have the required books for class before the semester starts? This is law school. We have expectations. There are no excuses.

Besides fearing that I would have to drop out because of money, my other biggest fear in going through law school was that I would lose my soul. It felt like I had to accept the system I was working within in order to fulfill its requirements. It would have been a lot easier if I could have just accepted it without question. But the system doesn’t ask for critique. Instead, it demands adherence. My mind doesn't let me do that though. All these pesky thoughts kept getting in the way. I'm not the best at rogue memorization. And logic based on settler colonial principles is entirely illogical to me.

In some ways, law school is inherently designed to be a soul killing process. On the first day of orientation, they provided us with some staggering statistics about how law students and lawyers are the most depressed, the biggest substance abusers, and tend to have high suicide rates. These statistics blew my mind. And yet, people still encourage this process?

They warned us that after graduating, if we have too much debt, we can be denied the character and fitness portion of the state we choose to practice within. I saw this as just another one of the many ways they filter out poor people and prevent them from having any power. There is no way to find out if they are going to deny you until you've already completed the process. Man, it is a lot of stress.

I wanted to do everything I could to prevent myself from selling out. I liked to philosophize and ponder what justice really meant, as I did not find it in most of what I studied. I did, however, relish in that moment whenever I did get that chance. In my Lawyers and Ethics class my first year, we read Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. Many of the words stuck with me.

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth--certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate , that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

 I still can't fathom why they had us read this other than as a sadistic ploy to torture our conscious, if any of us happened to possess one. As future lawyers, we can't break the law. They'll deny our license. They'll take it away once we have it. But.... I simply cannot function as a mechanical object. I can’t. I knew that I adhered to their dogma, if I adhered completely without a word, I would be forced to become just another one of the mechanical parts.  

In a last ditch effort to save my own soul, I had to do something. I felt like they were trying to take my essence. The law school Skeksis were up to no good, trying to extract it from me. I had to fight back. I had to keep my essence, my soul, and the only way to do so was to start talking. 

Law school is like this....

Meanwhile, militarization was happening before my eyes. When I'd visit Arizona from Michigan, I couldn't believe the pace in which it was taking over. And what was Puente doing? What was NDLON doing? Not a word about it. When I'd bring it up to anyone else, they'd point to these organizations as the ultimate authority on human rights abuses. I felt like I had no other choice but make others aware of these discrepancies. I made a lot of people upset in the process.

I’m an emotional person. It hurt to lose friends. And my empty wallet wasn’t faring any better. How much easier would my life be if I had just conformed? But I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.

I went to law school because I grew up bearing witness to some pretty awful circumstances affecting the future of Arizona. I went because I don’t want my grandkids to have to be harassed by the Border Patrol. I went because I knew how corrupt the police are in my hometown. I went because when bad things happened to myself, my friends, or my family, we had nowhere to turn because the system wasn’t there for us. I went because racism and militarization were taking a huge toll, and I was sick and tired of being powerless to stop it. I went because I was at the end of my rope. 

So you see, NPIC, I'm not the bully. It was you who betrayed. I did everything for you.... I marched, I protested, I dedicated myself. It was you who turned your back. Maybe it wasn't actually you who caused this whole mess. But you certainly aren’t doing much to stop it. You should be called out. This betrayal affects everyone who trusted human rights organizations to fight for them. When the NPIC started to promote militarization under the guise of human rights, they did so in the most manipulative and deceptive ways possible. It cut deep. I wish these organizations would stop trying to cover up their manipulative traits by ostracizing those who have critiqued them. Instead of dividing and conquering, they should start listening. When strategy fails, rethink it. Critique isn’t such a terrible thing. It’s how we learn and get past our mistakes. It can make us better.

It is my hope that we can build a better, stronger movement. I would hope that organizers who truly want to make a difference might someday step away from the NPIC dark side and into the light. We need a partnership of attorneys and a fleet of influential civil rights warriors in order to bring on a movement that sends a clear message. This movement would take all sides of the people into consideration and include indigenous perspectives. This movement would be people centric and accountable and aware of its actions affecting all of its people. We just have to get our act together.

 Feedback? Email jupiternmars3@gmail.com

When Racist Intent is Disguised as Philanthropic: the Ford Foundation, the NPIC, and Immigration Reform

In the past 3 years, there have been many things I have grown to love about Michigan. However, there is one prominent figurehead from this state that gets no love from me. Henry Ford may have made history when he established the first modern assembly line in 1913, but that doesn't outshine how he lived his life philosophies. So what if he made strides in developing "lean" production methods and changed the way industries do business up until this day? I'm still not impressed, even as many of those around me, including a number of law professors think he's great. There is more to a person than business practices, and that is especially evident when those business practices are heavily involved in promoting the most xenophobic of causes.

Maybe I can't appreciate his industry because I'm stuck on the fact that dude was a Nazi sympathizer and idolized Hitler. How am I supposed to appreciate his innovations when his vision was so corrupt? His capitalist cronyism did not do the world a favor. I get that people believe that he did Michigan a favor by bringing his manufacturing techniques to the state's economy. But I still don't like that Michigan is Ford obsessed. Its Henry Ford everything, even though the man possessed strong beliefs in eugenics, joining other prominent business tycoons of the day such as Nelson Rockefeller. Nelson believed in the family mission and along with John Rockefeller, perpetuated his beliefs through a foundation that funded pro eugenic studies and research. Ford contributed to this, and many people's car payments provided the means necessary to conduct this research. Ford himself played a big part in funding the powers that gave rise to the horrors of concentration camps, mass killings, etc.

I feel like everybody in Michigan needs to learn this history before spouting of his greatness. They celebrate the man like he is a God. The Henry Ford Museum, the Henry Ford Hospital, the Henry Ford academy in his home town of Dearborn are just a few of his progeny.

None of this should be shocking to anyone. There are thousands of materials that document this history. It is no secret. But what is shocking to me, is that his philanthropies continue to have a grip on our society even to this day. The Ford Foundation, started by Henry Ford's son, Easel Ford, was started in order to fund "charities" which also contended with Henry's sick world view. Ford had a knack for marketing though, so it isn't surprising that his son was able to market this control mechanism as something positive:

After the deaths of Edsel Ford in 1943 and Henry Ford in 1947, it became clear that the nonvoting stock of the Ford Motor Company they bequeathed to the Ford Foundation would create the largest philanthropy in the world. In response, the foundation’s board of trustees, led by Henry Ford II, Edsel’s son, commissioned studies to chart the institution’s future.

The seven-member Gaither Study Committee, headed by future Ford Foundation president H. Rowan Gaither, a respected San Francisco lawyer, recommended that the foundation become a national and international philanthropy dedicated to the advancement of human welfare. Perhaps most significant, the panel urged the foundation to focus on solving humankind’s most pressing problems, whatever they might be, rather than work in any particular field, which, at the time, was the traditional and accepted approach taken by foundations.

This philanthropy is as much BS as Henry Ford's views. I'm not buying that a racist eugenics supporter possessed the forethought required to save the world. What I find to be most disgusting though, is the power Henry Ford's progeny still has over the nonprofit world to this day.  Even posthumously, Ford's money is being used to control the philanthropic intent of hundreds of thousands of organizations across the country.

This form of deception through the Non-profit Industrial Complex was first brought to my attention by listening to a speech by Andrea Smith, a fierce scholar and feminist, who does an excellent job of breaking down the role of the NPIC by preventing people on the ground from organizing themselves. In one of her lectures, Smith relates how the grant process interferes with attempts to curb domestic violence:

...the state being the sneaky thing that it is comes in says, 'little ladies, it looks like you all have a problem with violence, and we'd like to give you a grant to solve this problem. However, when you accept our grant, you accept all the stipulations that go with this grant. So we are not going to fund any unseemly rabble-rousing activities. No, we think the problem is that survivors are victims, they are ill and need professional therapy from somebody with an MSW or a PhD, and you wanna do any activist work we want you to work with the state. We want you to work with the criminal justice system because as it so happens, we are building up the prison industrial complex and we'd like to co-opt your feminist rhetoric to support our repressive anti-crime agenda.

Specifically, the Ford Foundation was one of these grantors she spoke of.

 ...the most obvious way we can see is the huge foundations and how they impact our work, like the Ford Foundation. For instance, it's been documented how the Ford Foundation used its funding deliberately to ensure that the anti-apartheid struggle against South Africa would not have an anti-capitalist critique.

I could say on a personal level, with INCITE, we had a little run-in with the Ford Foundation ourselves because they gave us this $100,000 grant and told us to go spend it, so after we committed all our funds, they then retracted it over our statement on Palestine. So we had like $60,000 we had to raise in like three weeks, and what we found was we actually did raise it by calling a lot of people, so that goes to show that sometimes you don't need the funding that you think you need to do, but this also shows what these big foundations dictate the terms by which you may think to struggle or organize.

Its pretty crazy to think about how much influence and control these supposedly philanthropic foundations have over our lives. According to guidestar.org, the Ford Foundation has an income of $1,501,033,240.  In recent years, it has used a portion of its wealth to allocate grant money on a mission devoted to "protecting immigrant and migrant rights."  Yeah, right.  

I've written about how bills disguised as human rights, such as S 744, propose to further militarize Tohono O'odham lands and how many nonprofits are now staging hunger strikes that deceptively benefit the prison industrial complex. There is also plenty of reading available on how CIR in it's current form is anti indigenous and also anti immigrant. In addition, an array of resources and material educating migrants on the affects of such reforms are available on Moratorium on Deportations' page.

After doing some research on Ford and the NPIC, I also discovered that they are heavily invested in diversity, which I find very interesting given Henry's eugenics advocacy. What I find more interesting is their investment in migrant social justice.  The Ford Foundation only provides grant money if the mission is to "educate and move public opinion to support reform of immigration systems."  Notice there is a catch to this education clause. Nonprofits aren't supposed to educate unless it is to move public opinion towards supporting immigration reform. In addition, they want these grantees to be engaged in "promoting advocacy and legal support for enforcement issues specific to the Mexico-U.S. border," along with other flowery language that pretends that the Ford Foundation cares about migrant lives.This misnomer is about as genuine as the myth that Henry Ford himself was a good person. You get an idea of where the foundation's priorities lie when the criteria specifically states, "We do not support work on refugee issues."   

Most disappointing of all though, is noting who is most manipulated by this marketing of grant funding. The most targeted and vulnerable populations depend on nonprofits as their only sources of advocacy. Many are cut off from speaking out themselves because they have the entire system working against them. Nonprofits are the only visible and vocal microphone that supposedly represent the interests of the people.  The problem is, nonprofits, because of their funding sources, work from the top down. Many in leadership positions are well read about the ill effects of reform but stay silent. Some organizations are explicit in their reform advocacy, others don't say a word. Sometimes silence is complicity. As in the words of an organizer at Moratorium Against Deportations, they aren't going to bite the hand that feeds them. These nonprofits who support immigration reform most likely can't speak out against it, or else they would cease to be an organization.

That doesn't mean they should get a pass though. When nonprofits push for comprehensive reform, it lacks substance. They package it as this super deal and never even discuss what the reform does. What is worse, they disguise it with language such as "not one more," failing to note that the bill they promote would deport a lot more. That is deceptive. That is straight up lying to your people. My question to them is: At what point does your organization become greater than the cause? When are you (as people, not an org) going to dump these failing strategies and fight for real? 

Reform is nothing revolutionary. Not only that, it has an "Indian problem" to address. Some of these organizations even claim to be pro indigenous as they promote these Andrew Jackson-like colonial policies that threaten the very existence of indigenous peoples along the border and their connections across.

Some organizations claim to be from the ground up rather than the top down, but when one understands how these orgs are held hostage by grant gatekeepers, that premise is harder to believe. When are the demands of the people on the ground going to be heard? When are people going to finally rid themselves of this divide and begin to recognize their own power en masse? Any entities playing politics should be informing people of what ultimately threatens many. These organizations are supposed to be advocating for the people, but they don't inform them of certain nuances that come with the reforms they advocate (e.g. militarization, hefty fines, a long and difficult process, and deportation for many criminalized non-DREAMers). Staying informed is key to survival as a movement, and until that happens, these so-called ground up impostors funded by the Ford Foundation will continue in their ability to succeed in their corporate sponsored campaigns of mass deception. 

Related: Beware of the Funders of Immigrant Rights

roses are red, violets are blue, which type of police state has your political party chosen for you?

both lobby for prisons, a scandal indeed

they have your relatives AND your vote under lock and key

they tell you there is this path in a bed of roses they've made

the ultra violent violets straight up have you played

CIR is a facade, enough with the charade

the head of the reform lobby is a militarization parade

thick with thorns, slimy with snakes
S 744 is a trick, funded by fakes 

when are the activists, the reform backers going to see

that they've now just become a pawn to a prison lobby company

Geo Group, the Corrections Corporations of America, its true

hide your kids, hide your wife, they're coming for you

cuz when they run low on immigrants to house in their jails

they'll need to make a profit, so get ready to make bail

Additional links:

Whose immigration reform?

Comprehensive Immigration Reform is Anti-Immigrant and Anti-Indigenous

What, exactly, is meant by Comprehensive Immigration Reform?

National Poop Month of Action Against Sell Out NGOs

Chicago's SEIU Arrest and Stock Photo
Change.org petition denouncing ICIRR and SEIU policing
Colonization under the guise of "immigrant rights"
Colonial attitudes are not so subtile - we are hella perpetuating them

How Influential Immigrant Rights Group Used Police to Suppress Other Immigrant Rights Activists on May Day

Ze's Testimony - Chicago May Day
Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex

Red and Brown Solidarity A Must Says Hip Hop Duo Shining Soul
Caught in the Crossfire: U.S.-Mexico Border Militarization Threatens Way of Life for Native Tribe

Related:

Anti Police Signs Not Allowed At Salinas March

Their Dream is Our Nightmare: How the Prison Industry is Holding the Human Rights Movement Hostage

Civil rights eras of the past convey inspiration and hope. Hunger strikes have been used as a technique throughout history as a mechanism of both awareness and prayer. It is a sacrifice indicative of struggle and a plea to end oppression. It is symbolic and meaningful in this way, in many ways symbolic of strength in the face of adversity. The will to survive when deprived of necessary elements. This will is a source of inspiration and solidarity for that struggle. It brings public awareness to a cause often greater than the hunger strike itself, bringing awareness to suffering and a call for alleviation of it.

The private prison industry has a lot of power. It has a lot of money, influence, and is well connected with many people within the system. It IS the system. It can detain, incapacitate, steal, silence, torture, and kill. It represents an unchecked authority that is sick with power. This sickness continues infect society as long as it remains unchallenged.

Comprehensive immigration reform is a legal reflection this sickness. With the border surge amendment included, S. 744 allocates billions of dollars to the private prison industry, military contractors, and border patrol. It ensures that the industry is well endowed with money, prisoners, lots of ammo, and and much more. 

So how are nonprofit human rights organizations addressing these injustices? Do they make people aware of these discrepancies? Do they fight against militarization? Nope. Instead they put on a hunger strike to promote Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Instead they deceptively work to promote the very system they claim to campaign against—feeding into their prison industry power with legislation ensuring their profits.

I have to give it to the private prison industry. They are master minds! They have the perfect set up. With the nonprofit orgs now in full effect promoting CIR... hunger striking even... the prison industry now has a perfect hostage situation in which all of their demands are met and more. The nonprofit orgs are there, eager and ready to throw up signs, rally their paid cheerleaders, and fast for the cause. But what cause is this? Taken at face value, it sounds like they want to stop deportations. But then they continue...

“Comprehensive immigration reform now!”

“The time is now!”

The prison industry must love these tactics. It is the perfect power play! Not only are these hunger strikers advocating for legislation that the prison system helped create, the prison system can now use the strikers to their advantage, enabling the perfect hostage scenario to play out. As each hostage is released, the nonprofit organizations cheer and declare victory. As they dance around and celebrate, the hostage takers do also. They only have to release a few at a time for this master plan to work. Not only do they get to keep the majority of their prisoners in chains, they get billions of dollars in ransom! And of course, these hostages are hand picked to ensure maximum media coverage in the human rights circle. This ensures the sexiness and allure of the demonstrating nonprofit, so that they can continue to use them to do their dirty work. The private prison industry must be laughing their way to the bank!

Why do they give prisoners up to these hunger strikers?  If a non affiliated group of concerned citizens set up camp and did the same thing minus the CIR promotion, would they let anyone go?  Is it really normal for prisons to free prisoners just because people have demanded it? If this were the case, wouldn’t Leonard Peltier have made it out years ago?

When you pray, is there meaning and purpose behind your prayer? What do you pray for? What do you strike for? What is the goal? Is it to further human rights? Is it a fight against the status quo? Shouldn’t we be asking ourselves those questions when we take it upon ourselves to promote mass actions of resistance against oppression? Shouldn’t we be evaluating the effectiveness of this strategy?

When the Gadsden Purchase established the border line in 1853, nobody consulted Tohono O'odham when it effectively cut our land in half and divided us among two nations. Similarly, nobody gave these non profit organizations ownership of indigenous lands. Yet they take it upon themselves to compromise them and subject them to militarization. Nobody gave them the right to  Tohono O’odham, Hia C-ed O'odham, Lipan Apache, or any lands in the area. That also includes Ajo! The border patrol has been harassing, invading, and discriminating against indigenous people for as long as I can remember. The abuses are too many to list.  If they are willing to sell out indigenous lands and support legislation that actually encourages deportations, what human rights do they really advocate for?

When does it stop? When are we really going to fight back?

The prison industrial complex has demonstrated their weakness. They fear what they have effectively prevented: power to the people becoming an effective mantra—a collective mass taking matters back into their own hands. They want to keep us misinformed so that we keep fueling their power play.

For any real, effective movement to really work, people need to actually be informed on what they promote. Knowledge, information, and truth should be prized. In addition, the marginalization of indigenous voices has got to stop. Before any human rights struggle can make any motions to intervene, it must first show respect for indigenous people, the land, and also recognize that borders crossed people and not the other way around.

Why I'm Not Sold on the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Package

Truth is a rarity these days. We rarely get an honest glimpse of what is really happening on the ground. When that truth is found, it is so amazingly and profoundly refreshing, like an ice cold glass of water in the midst of the desert heat. My heart, mind, and spirit are constantly seeking this truth, and I search for it on the daily. It exists, but it is seemingly hidden. But why though? I've been trying to figure out why.  In my attempts to figure out why mistruths are perpetuated, I've heard it helps to follow the money. Often it takes money to influence people on a massive scale. Once these figureheads are identified, it is interesting to note who controls information and how it is distributed.   It is all in the packaging. Essentially, news and information are part of a greater marketing scheme. 

We are not being told the truth when it comes to Comprehensive Immigration Reform and why we should or shouldn't be supporting it. This has a lot to do with how the debate has been framed. The public was given two adversarials to choose from in the CIR debate: bigots and human rights activists. CIR was originally presented as a compromise.  But then, of course, bigots opposed it because it wasn't bigoted enough. In response, the human rights activists became preoccupied with telling the bigots to bug off. Meanwhile, all these xenophobic people continued to make a scene about needing more border security and deporting people... and 'Merica! And.... because of the xenophobic extreme, political strategists were easily able to frame CIR as being on the human rights end of the spectrum, even when it does little to nothing to preserve human rights. Which makes it easy for everyone to forget about what we should actually be discussing - context.

Lets backtrack to the mid 2000s. Blatant and frequent injustices were occurring in Arizona and thousands upon thousands of people took to protesting in the streets on more than a few occasions. There were decries all over social media, impromptu movements, and last minute mini protests following the most deliberate and grandiose acts of oppression. Some of the protests were huge! The media barely covered it, but I was there and saw it happen. I used to show up to these actions because I felt like it was the only way to fight back, and I know many others did the same. There was a clear demand for the oppression to stop. There was solidarity. In the midst of despair there was an air of hope, strength, inspiration, and resolve.  

What happened to the strength in that movement?  The outrage? The courage? The truth? 

The oppression did not cease… but, the plug was pulled, somehow. Arguably, there are still demonstrations, but they lacked the same substance and ferocity they once had.  While the movement's fires have not become completely extinguished, the flames have become controlled. Now we have non profits putting on the majority of the demonstrations, and much of the message has been diluted. The feelings and demands of many were taken note of, compressed into a box, put into a nice pretty package decorated with revolutionary artwork, and sold as a strategy mechanism to the non-profit industrial complex.  This new package contained Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Its contents are still being sold, at the behest of brilliant marketers, to those at the heart of these movements - those of us who where there when it all began. That is what I find to be the most disheartening. This activist vs. tea party adversarial model just isn't working. There is so much missing from this discussion.

Pro CIR people often ignore this, but militarization is part of the packaging now and it definitely isn't pretty. Pretending it doesn't exist isn't going to make it go away. Why is this aspect repeatedly ignored when discussing immigration reform?  For instance, why aren't we talking about the “border surge” amendment also known as the Corker-Hoeven amendment? This amendment calls for many security measures the die hard border security folk have been begging for.  The amendment doubles the seemingly exponential amount of border patrol, and it calls for more check points, more drones, and no end in sight to the subjugation. It is also a lot of moolah!  46.3 billion for these additional measures. This part of the bill is made out the dreams and desires of all the racist people - the demands of the neo-Nazis, Jan Brewer, Joe Arpaio, Russell Pierce and the late JT Ready have been all been included in this package. Through its inclusivity, the bill really is comprehensive!  Is that acceptable though?

In selling this package, I've heard Obama declare that it will provide revenue and a boost to the economy. What? How? By funneling more funds into the military industrial complex and the prison complex? By fattening the pocketbooks of already fat and greedy prison profiteers? This is a new low being perpetuated by the non profit industrial complex.  My mind is blown with the amount of complexities they have sneakily woven into this package. 

It should be simple. Do we want militarization? No. We want the government to stop that along with this xenophobic deportation/anti brown craze that has taken over our homelands. We want the government to stop being all crazy and turning simple demands into complex issues that leave everybody confused and misguided. Just stop it. We don't win when we compromise with bigots, and when we do compromise with them, we only give them what they want. The more we concede on the bargaining table, the more we are left high and dry. The militarization of the borderlands in Arizona is making things so much worse. We also lose, because we have to give up everything we've fought for. And lets face it, for those of us from the border area, we are literally having to give up everything for this "compromise."

So what are the other aspects of Comprehensive Immigration Reform?  I keep hearing that it is this wonderful all encompassing deal which would provide a pathway for 11 million undocumented citizens to attain citizenship. That sounds great, right?  Shoot, it sounds like it… considering the beast we’ve been fighting for over a decade now. But one has to question its motives, especially when that very same bill is being promulgated by opposing forces. The gang of eight includes John McCain and Jeff Flake - foes. People that want deportation and militarization. CIR has many aspects that please these people and their supporters.  It has a lot of conflicting, contrasting hype.

I’ve been pretty jaded when I look at what a lot of these movements have become. At first, I was all about uniting and solidarity.  We needed strength in numbers, and it seemed like the only way… especially considering that the belly of the beast had media, corporations, and a huddled mass of scared zombies that chose to place the blame for every societal woe on either the undocumented or the poor. It is this strength in number paradigm that is setting us back, though.  In the interest of pleasing everyone, of getting the non profit industrial complex on our side, the movement has sold its grassroots soul, and with it, its honesty. The movement itself has become industrialized, homogenized, repressed, and toxic.

The movement has been sold to the highest bidder—and those who control the purse strings are not concerned with the real day to day struggles faced by many who were compelled to be a part of it in the first place.  That many of us have a problem with what this package holds doesn’t matter. It is being re-gifted, re-branded, and resold over and over and over again.  I see it every day.  I see many of my former activist allies going out into the world promoting this package. The problem is, they don’t even know what it is that they are selling. 

I hope that any reader of this blog, especially if you feel me on re-strategizing this whole mess of a moment for social justice, will take the time to educate her/himself on what is really going on here. If you are already educated and would like to add some insight, please do so.

If you are a CIR person who would like to prove me wrong, please by all means… I don’t want to be right about this, but nobody even argues with me about it, they just restate the main talking points promulgated by the figureheads... which leads me to the conclusion most CIR promoters are themselves deceived.

Feel free to add links, blogs, or anything more to add to the discussion, but please no lies or bullshit.

If anyone is interested, here is a starting place for those interested in additional research or for anyone who wants to understand the complexities of CIR:

Here is a youtube video explaining the CIR process proposed.

Here is the current bill.

Here is a glimpse of reading available on the militarization of the border.

Note:  I’ve borrowed the term “non-profit industrial complex” from Andrea Smith.

Here is a link to her insights about it.  

Here is another link referencing the term.

Here is a book, also.