THIS WEEK'S SPECIAL -- ANOTHER RED HERRING

Come on, already. Don't you people understand what this "immigration" business is really all about? Jesus, you all can't be so thick-headed and dull-witted that you don't see Rove's and the RNC's scaly fingerprints all over this thing. Oh, wait -- what am I saying? Naturally, I plum forgot that the vast mass of public-sphere ruminants out there actually does seem to enjoy gulping down the frothy wastewater so conscientiously supplied by our ruling-class opinion-makers; they naively throw back their credulous heads, shamelessly exposing their quivering gullets, and in pours the toxic stew of lies, half-truths, empty nonsense, and misinformation, gleefully compounded in the bullshit factories of the powerful and their whorish minions. Yes, that's a given, all in all. Even so ... even faced with the hard reality of a mostly oblivious and depoliticized population of distracted mendicants, amoral technocrat enablers, terminally-indebted consumerist boneheads, and mass-produced status quo junkies, it's still almost impossible to believe that so many people are so easily controlled and manipulated by evil putzes like Karl Rove. This scumbag destroyer of representative government trots out yet another red herring wedge issue -- this time concerning so-called "illegal" immigrants in the US -- and, like clockwork, everyone who's paying attention starts foaming at the mouth, in a tizzy of righteous lather. Exactly as Rove & company intend for them to do.

Regardless of what anybody might personally think about "illegals," it's an absurdity of insultingly epic proportions to believe that Republican ideologues have real practical concerns about such a huge pool of surplus labor. We're supposed to believe, indeed, that Our Great Leaders would go to such ridiculous lengths as proposing legislation to virtually outlaw a certain class of people -- deport them, lock them away in Halliburton-approved concentration camps, who knows what -- when this particular class of people serves so admirably as both an effective tool of labor discipline and a wellspring of immense profitability. So, the point is this: Republican crime bosses, along with their corporate-fascisti underwriters, are pathologically motivated by a depth of greed and avarice almost beyond comprehension; as such, they would never -- ever -- do anything to truly limit the numbers of desperate, dirt-poor wage slaves in this country, whether they be "illegal" foreigners or native-born. The complete devotion to globalization, on the part of the power apparatus, ensures and absolutely requires the creation of a permanent underclass -- no matter what its origin. Apart from threats to re-locate the few remaining well-paying jobs in the United States to, say, that worker's paradise otherwise known as the People's Republic of China, how else do you imagine the ownership class intends to consolidate and expand its already extravagantly domineering position in this society? They're certainly prepared to do just about anything, except voluntarily jettisoning the premier advantages offered by massive swarms of the hungry and destitute -- "illegal" or otherwise.

So what's the point, then, of this week's artificially contrived, Repug-inspired, red herring controversy? Well, what was the point behind the Dubai ports thing? The furor over gay marriage? The exploitation of Terri Schiavo? The "war on Christmas"? Or the million other politically-motivated far-Right circle-jerks constantly crashing over our well-bruised brain pans? Remember -- everything these people do, everything they say, everything they debase, corrupt, or co-opt, must conform to the ideological-political needs of the moment. The short-term need presently, with Rove's Bush-puppet sinking to new levels of lame-duck irrelevance, is to position vulnerable Republican incumbents more advantageously come the November mid-terms. Rove and the Neo-Con machine have to give their candidates easy, pre-fabbed straw-men-type issues with which to bludgeon their base into submission, as well as to confuse and distract their opposition; with polls suggesting a Democratic resurgence, they desperately need as much campaign-related hot air as they can get. The most recent source of such propagandistic gut-gas was the UAE ports sale, while today's immigrant-bashing serves the same nefarious purpose. Who the fuck knows what the next phony controversy might be, but since maintaining the Republican deathgrip on Congress is of paramount importance, it's sure to be hoot and a half.

Anyhow, while Rove and the rest of the Neo-Con Gestapo would love nothing more than to haul off as many brown-skinned people as possible -- barbecuing them as quickly and as profitably as the best minds of American Free Enterprise can concoct -- it's far more critical for them at this point, still in the nascent stages of the march toward an unassailable corporate dictatorship, to be slightly more crafty and politically practical. That's why we're being subjected to a seemingly never-ending parade of red herring wedge issues, one after another like Gulf of Mexico hurricanes. Rest assured, though, that once they succeed in permanently satisfying their erection-inducing dream of an overt Nazi-Republican state, complete with KZ's and Negroponte-trained death squads, then they'll have enough leisure time to implement their "final solution" for all who disagree with them. Perhaps that would be less likely to occur if more people would send Rove's endless series of Red Herring Surprises back to Lucifer's burning cockroach-infested greasy-spoon kitchen from whence they came.

Oh well, hope springs eternal ... and all that happy horseshit.