Department of Homeland Insincerity and The Myth of the “Left”

BY NOW, chances are you’ve read about the closed-to-the-Press “Hold ‘Em Off, Pep ‘Em Up” meeting that Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano held with and for numerous immigration advocacy groups last week.

Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, hosted a White House meeting on immigration last week with over 100 people. The meeting’s outcome was positive for most attendees because the Obama administration reaffirmed its commitment to immigration reform.

The goal of the invitation to activists, business people and labor organizers among others was to address the furor which was ignited by the decision to delay the immigration vote in Congress until next year. The meeting didn’t change the White House’s plans, but it did control some of the damage caused by the president’s decision, especially among Latino voters who had supported Obama and remembered his campaign promise for immigration reform in his first year in office.

—Damage Control, La Opinión

Other writeups on the event are less patient with the gestures and not so eager to cheer on the same old show:

This was the second meeting of its kind at the White House, but aside from repeating the old promises to pursue it, no new ground was broken on the road to fair and smart reform.

“Secretary Napolitano also made it clear that she received our message that she has to communicate more effectively in favor of reform,” said Frank Sharry, of America’s Voice, another national pro reform group.

Yet if you read Napolitano’s statement about the meeting, it’s hard to believe that she really got the message.

“Today’s meeting on comprehensive immigration reform was an important opportunity to hear from stakeholders and build on the significant time I’ve spent on the Hill meeting with members of Congress on this critical subject,” Napolitano said. “I look forward to working with President Obama, my colleagues in Congress and representatives from law enforcement, business, labor organizations, the interfaith community, advocacy groups and others as we work on this important issue.”

If there was a contest to pick the most noncommittal statement by a Washington official, this one would be a frontrunner.

—Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano going nowhere on immigration reform,  nydailynews.com

One source in DC informs me that the strategy in moving forward with the various means of enforcement already being employed +/-»  (which are most decidedly not waiting until 2010) is to open up some political space so that reform can move forward, and that Napolitano’s stale meeting (with POTUS swinging by to spruce it up as if a surprise visit by Dr. Dre on an Eminem tour) is a positive first step. Presumably, advocacy groups are waiting to see if Napolitano’s public presentation of the issue improves, now that she understands the problem is her publicly framing the issue better (echoes of NeoCons thinking the answer to Iraq was marketing it to the US citizenry more effectively)

Other orgs apparently signing on to this wait-a-bit-longer-and-see approach are represented by statements in the above article by Angela Kelley of the Center for American Progress, and Ali Noorani of the National Immigration Forum (NIF).

Yet, the Center for American Progress claims on their About Us page:

Our work builds upon progressive ideals put forth by such leaders as Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, and Martin Luther King. We draw from the great social movements of the 20th century—from labor rights and worker safety, to civil rights and women’s suffrage.

I wonder what Martin Luther King, Jr. would have to say about moving forward with not just the maintenance but the expansion of programs like 287g which are even now under investigation for their inherent tendency to enable and justify racial profiling?

Hm. I guess we can’t ask him. So we’ll never know.

Other groups are not so quick to cheerlead the shell game. The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC) is one.

“While the president continues with his commitment to immigration reform, we’re looking for public advocacy from Secretary Napolitano and a concrete proposal from Congress,” said Julien Ross, director of CIRC. “In the meantime, we’re asking for more accountability on enforcement measures, especially in detention centers and 287(g) programs.”

The Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), another national immigration advocacy group, solicited questions to ask Napolitano from supporters of immigration in every state. Within a day, they received more than 4,000 responses by way of new media like Twitter and Facebook.

“Most of the questions and concerns centered around timing, on wanting immigration reform done this year, not 2010,” said Marissa Graciosa, FIRM’s immigration coordinator.

And the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) isn’t even tasting the Kool-Aid:

“We’ve heard all of the beautiful oratory about immigration reform, but we have yet to see concrete actions to stop the suffering,” said Angelica Salas, director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

But the White House is leaning on advocacy groups Chicago Style; it’s important to them that they maintain the APPEARANCE of keeping promises and the APPEARANCE of progress on the issue. They are not being subtle about their wish for a unified-bullshit-messaging machine.

And it is bullshit.

All these groups could be consolidating their power to speak as loudly and boldly as the haters do, pushing as visibly and just as unapologetically. But they do not. And most of the time they try to squash and marginalize those of us who refuse to capitulate on what we see as needed and truthful discussion and action.

Why not be honest and just admit what frightens us?

As idealistic as I tend to be, of course I understand that there is a continuum; of course in a society such as we live in there will by necessity be some amount of concession in any effort to fight for and implement your ideals. And to be fair, if you search the net you can find statements by people like Frank Sharry (America’s Voice) both sighing that we need to wait for DHS to lift the curtain on the next scene, as well as statements that we need to see “concrete actions and not just meetings” going forward. Many of these “pro-immigrant” or “immigration advocacy” groups are like this; varied in message, vague in ideal, speaking out of both sides of their neck from moment to moment. Perhaps in the Grown-Up World this is thought of as Practical or Bargainy or simply Pollatix-As-Usual.

But when the “Left” is co-opting bold visionaries like Martin Luther King, Jr. and using that image to assist the Democratic party in adopting more forceful and hateful language and ideology against the Exotic Other and toeing an extremely centrist/center-right approach toward issues demanding humane courage and action—

all while the Right is ramping up a very public and unashamed campaign such as FAIR’s upcoming DC/media blitz titled ”Hold their Feet to the Fire,” +/-» the “largest gathering ever of talk radio, 47 hosts, led by Roger Hedgecock of Radio America Networks and Lou Dobbs of United Stations Radio Network” broadcasting live from Capitol Hill and deftly blurring lines between legitimate politicians and white supremacist organizations and ideology—

then we have no real “Left,” and are way off balance and unabashedly degrading the very ideals that people like MLK Jr. died for.

I leave you with one of my personal favorite quotes, while we are here discussing Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

—Martin Luther King Jr.