The tack of "blaming the victim" and passing the scapegoating buck down to the lower rungs of the social ladder is a tried-and-true political ploy. Legal chicanery and open financial thievery in Arizona. The uses of Racism and Xenophobia.
Blame the poor migrant worker, the "welfare queen" ( in other states ) or other "undesirables" - Use Racism and Xenophobia to make money and gain political power.
Huffington Post
As Goes Arizona, Whither Goes the Nation?
September 5, 2010
By Randall Amster
Peace educator, author, and activist
Randall Amster, J.D., Ph.D., teaches Peace Studies at Prescott College, and is the Executive Director of the Peace & Justice Studies Association. His most recent books are the co-edited volumes Building Cultures of Peace: Transdisciplinary Voices of Hope and Action (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009) and Contemporary Anarchist Studies: An Introductory Anthology of Anarchy in the Academy (Routledge, 2009), and Lost in Space: The Criminalization, Globalization, and Urban Ecology of Homelessness (LFB Scholarly 2008).
As Goes Arizona, Whither Goes the Nation?
Some excerpts :
It turns out that the governor's inner circle of advisors includes a number with various personal and professional stakes in the prison-expanding revenues likely to be generated by the influx of immigrant detainees yielded by SB 1070. The governor is guided by lobbyists and close operatives of the Corrections Corporation of America, which capitalizes to the tune of millions per month on warehousing transferred undocumented individuals. While the racialized nature of "breathing while brown" laws is obvious, equally so is the financially interlocking character of the legislative parties involved and their pecuniary interests. It is likely that similarly dubious connections exist whenever race-baiting politicians fan the flames of ignorance and persecution.
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The tack of "blaming the victim" and passing the scapegoating buck down to the lower rungs of the social ladder is a tried-and-true political ploy. In a time when powerful interests have been consolidating their reign through various forms of legal chicanery and open financial thievery, we are likely to see (and have in fact seen) a rise in overt xenophobia to deflect our outrage from the robber barons to the huddled masses. Sociologists sometimes call this a "moral panic" when it reaches widespread levels of knee-jerk persecution of "the other" -- but it might more aptly be called an "immoral panic" since its architects are happy to advance their entrepreneurial interests at the expense of vulnerable segments of the populations. Most horrifyingly, this tack sometimes comes with bloodshed, hate crimes, and other forms of victimization in its wake.
You may be tempted to buy into the notion that "illegal immigrants" and other "undesirables" are the source of all our social ills and economic woes. Perhaps your fear in these uncertain times motivates a subtle embrace of such notions. The sensationalization of crimes by people of color -- while the crimes of the well-to-do go far less reported -- contributes to an air of demonization. The power elite are largely hidden from view and immune from direct contestation, whereas the poor migrant worker or "welfare queen" in our midst can be slurred in polite company without much fear of societal repercussions. Political uncertainty and (in particular) economic anxiety need an outlet, and the construction of the dangerous "other" as a lightning rod for these purposes is part and parcel of the Machiavellian playbook.
In this light, it can plausibly be argued that Arizona has stepped to the national fore of the immigration debate precisely because it is also within hailing distance of ground zero for the financial meltdown. Rampant foreclosures, major property devaluations, teeming unemployment, the erosion of public healthcare, a race-to-the-bottom education system, firewall tax increases of last resort -- and only the prisons as a tangible growth industry. This, then, is the "Arizona Model" of imposed austerity, public sphere evisceration, scapegoating, and prison profiteering.
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......................
The tack of "blaming the victim" and passing the scapegoating buck down to the lower rungs of the social ladder is a tried-and-true political ploy. In a time when powerful interests have been consolidating their reign through various forms of legal chicanery and open financial thievery, we are likely to see (and have in fact seen) a rise in overt xenophobia to deflect our outrage from the robber barons to the huddled masses. Sociologists sometimes call this a "moral panic" when it reaches widespread levels of knee-jerk persecution of "the other" -- but it might more aptly be called an "immoral panic" since its architects are happy to advance their entrepreneurial interests at the expense of vulnerable segments of the populations. Most horrifyingly, this tack sometimes comes with bloodshed, hate crimes, and other forms of victimization in its wake.
You may be tempted to buy into the notion that "illegal immigrants" and other "undesirables" are the source of all our social ills and economic woes. Perhaps your fear in these uncertain times motivates a subtle embrace of such notions. The sensationalization of crimes by people of color -- while the crimes of the well-to-do go far less reported -- contributes to an air of demonization. The power elite are largely hidden from view and immune from direct contestation, whereas the poor migrant worker or "welfare queen" in our midst can be slurred in polite company without much fear of societal repercussions. Political uncertainty and (in particular) economic anxiety need an outlet, and the construction of the dangerous "other" as a lightning rod for these purposes is part and parcel of the Machiavellian playbook.
In this light, it can plausibly be argued that Arizona has stepped to the national fore of the immigration debate precisely because it is also within hailing distance of ground zero for the financial meltdown. Rampant foreclosures, major property devaluations, teeming unemployment, the erosion of public healthcare, a race-to-the-bottom education system, firewall tax increases of last resort -- and only the prisons as a tangible growth industry. This, then, is the "Arizona Model" of imposed austerity, public sphere evisceration, scapegoating, and prison profiteering.
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