OK I'll try to avoid responding to the rabidly anti-Mexicans at least in this post.

For others, to whatever degree, I'm afraid it's more about not being able to see past all the immigrants who are here -- more than 12 million -- trying to get jobs bring in family, make money, send some back to impoverished relatives, etc. Meanwhile, they've been seeing what used to be good dependable middle class jobs here in our country stop paying as much, then get outsourced They've seen several decades now of growing industrial countries like Japan, Korea and old European countries such as Germany increasing imports that threaten American jobs by sucking up market share. Most recently they're seeing the increasing tide of immigrants, particularly Mexicans flow in and take jobs here, some taking advantage of social services and medical benefits -- but certainly not all of them or even most of them. They're folks with Hispanic names in the news getting in alcohol-related accidents, fights, rapes and homicides -- certainly not all Mexican or undocumented Mexicans. They're seeing Mexican organized crime doing what organized crime does -- supplying American drug demands. Under the circumstances, it's hard to see the vast majority are here illegally yes but trying to work legally within our system long hard days and hoping to be able to stay here or even just work here for a time rather than go back home to abject poverty and little hope. So in the midst of our own financial insecurity, our own fear for ourselves and the future for our kids and grandkids these undocumented aliens, these illegal immigrants seem huge and growing in our face and it's not at all surprising that we get fixated on them. To a lesser degree we're fixated on businesses that hire them, on the government who hasn't kept them out, we even spend a little time thinking the Mexican government should be doing their job fixing their country. All those things are true to one degree or another but they don't get as much focus as the undocumented Mexicans themselves and it's hard to avoid getting racist about it to one degree or another. For me it's not about blaming Americans or wanting to let the country be over-run with more cheap labor than we can afford to absorb without everybody going broke. It's about understanding the roots of the problem, finding out how it happened -- all the underlying causes found in history and political reality and thereby finding a rational way to make things BETTER. It's not going to do us any good forcing solutions that won't work, that are impractical and that in order to make them work would make of us the kind of monsters that ought to eat deeply at our conscience because we've always been brought up to think that we were better than that. We've been brought up to believe in truth, justice, mercy, fairness and the American Way. We have compassion and the strength of our confidence that our system of government works and we don't have to go to extremes in order to protect ourselves -- we believe that in spite of some very dark moments in our history and some ongoing flaws in our national character...or at least we have up until now. The kind of action we will have to take to be even partially successful in pushing 12+million people back over the border is not going to make me proud to be an American and I don't think it will many others when we watch it play out for months and years on

every media outlet. It will be ghastly, it will be bloody and it will not take all that long before any sense that justice is finally being served is overwhelmed by something far less satisfying. Not only that -- although it should be enough. It will also not be the grand success we're tempted to hope for in terms of solving our financial insecurity, our crime problems, our drug problems, any of our problems. It will feed the appetite of incorrigible racists but the rest of us...the rest of us will only be able to feel varying degrees of pain, shame and dirty. We'll want to avert our face from the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights -- and God willing for many of us -- Our Bibles and our God. And if that weren't bad enough, it will be for naught. Oh, we may have some success and maybe some remission of the current "occupation" of a large number of undocumented aliens...especially if we are as ruthless as some would have us be. That's because, again, the illegal immigrants are not the problem, they are a symptom of the problem and the problem does not go away if they go away. It will be a very expensive letting off of some steam but the pressure cooker will still be going and we'll still be in the pot. The important questions are left unadressed, unanswered. Who is benefiting from the influx of illegal aliens? Who is benefiting from the exflux of American jobs? Who is benefiting from tanking wages, tanking benefits, skyrocketing health care costs, soaring gas prices, greenhouse gas, wars of choice toothless unions, socially insecure Americans willing to keep taking it, willing to find scapegoats willing to lash out furiously and ineffectually at...the Mexicans? Look at it like this. We're in a leaky boat. We see many leaks, they've been there all along but they're getting worse. But in front of us we have one leak in particular, right in front of us and in easier reach. It's a big leak and all we have is our hands to try to stop it and the pressure is constant behind it. We reach out and try to plug this big leak with both hands. Meanwhile more leaks are appearing, all the other leaks just keep on poring in, apparently smaller in size but surprisingly strong in pressure and number. Our boat founders anyway. We never went after the folks poking holes in our boat. They can put it on our allegorical tombstone. Much better we do some real diligent fact finding, and work together to do something effective. And we're going to need some Mexican help. I've agreed with Tim Pfau that the current compromise the US Congress and the White House have been working out is our best chance to get something rational done with illegal immigration. That will be something of a tourniquet. But it won't solve the problems we face any more than ruthless action to try to force out every illegal alien. It has the saving grace of not being so damaging to US, forget about the Mexicans if you'd rather.

The question is, do we as a people have the character, the ingenuity, the intelligence, the courage, the sense of community and common sense to decide it's time we stopped attacking symptoms, stop being baffled and buffaloed, bullied and flat out milked dry by corporate "citizens" and come together with all the power of our people to do something real about it. That's the revolution I want to be a part of...so bad it hurts.