American jobs for American workers?

[Sea-Dog]

Controversial, Racist, meaningless and a slogan normally associated with the Right.

Whats your view?

[HiPointDem]

1. My view is that your view plays nicely into the hands of those who want to drive down wages

and divert attention from that fact by pitting immigrants against native-born.

As for racism, I think the fact that black Americans have a 13% unemployment rate is pretty racist.

[Sea-Dog]

7. there is no mention of driving down wages.

but I reckon you've got to dress up racist slogans somehow

[HiPointDem]

15. See, that's how the union-busters and wage cutters try to get people to stop talking about

the issues that affect them. Nope, Americans can't talk about immigration policy, h1b visas, whether supposed labor shortages are real or not -- because it means they're racist. Cool how well that works for the union-busters and wage-cutters.

[Zalatix]

34. Any argument that subordinates the interests of American workers is inherently failed at its core

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. Immigrants are citizens or are seeking citizenship.

Foreign workers who send their paychecks "home" aren't. What you really mean is "pitting foreign workers and illegals against the native born and naturalized citizens"... and I'm okay with that.

Fewer foreign workers means more jobs for ethnic minority americans.

[rucky]

2. It's been used in a racist context, but at face value

it seems like a worthy objective. Create more businesses and hire more people. Pretty non-controversial to me.

[liberal N proud]

3. It's a phrase used by the right in doublespeak

They say it, meaning something entirely different thus attempting and some times achieving in deception of the American people, namely the voter.

But then everything the right says or does is deceptive. Never take anything from the right for what it looks like it says.

[FreakinDJ]

4. Then what is "Free Trade"

because to me that is the inverse

[HiPointDem]

5. It is. It's just that the right poisoned the saying with racism, so now anyone who says it is

racist.

So now you can't argue against h1b visas and the war against labor without being called a racist.

[Sea-Dog]

8. that's because it is

[HiPointDem]

14. Nope, it's not. But the union-busters and wage-cutters would like you to perpetuate that meme.

[Zalatix]

20. So why don't you give up your American job and give it to someone outside the country?

Walk the walk, Sea-Dog. You having an American job is racist and anti-foreigner.

[Trillo]

6. So you're saying

President Obama's Congressional to-do list is racist?

[Sea-Dog]

11. that's what your saying

I changed American with british and it is the slogan used by the nf and bnp.

[Zalatix]

19. You just don't like American workers having jobs. Admit it. It galls you.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. My view? Damn right.

"American workers" including african americans, native americans and hispanic americans.

We taxpayers educate the children of foreign countries to take our jobs and send the proceeds home. It is stupid, unless you personally profit from cheap labor or selling education to the highest bidder.

[Sea-Dog]

12. what you've got against them is that they are foreign.

I wouldn't hear about Americans taking your jobs would i?

[HiPointDem]

16. I doubt he has anything against "them" at all. But he probably has something against the

legislators and business types promoting union-busting and wage-cutting policies like historically high immigration levels and h1b and similar visas that allow capital to hire cheap foreign labor and fuck them *and* american workers with a big stick.

See, that's the difference between the right and the left. The right doesn't like having foreigners in the country. The left doesn't like cheap-labor policies, and their concerns over such policies include the royal screwing the cheap labor gets.

[Zalatix]

18. What you've got against Americans is that they're American.

Every job we get is a blow to the third world, in your worldview.

[Rochester]

13. Couldn't have said it any better myself :)

Protect our jobs!

[Zalatix]

17. The alternative is to discriminate against American workers and cut them out of the global economy.

[RZM]

21. I get the sense that this OP is sarcastic flamebait

As are your responses in the thread.

It seems that you are trying to draw out DUers who strongly support American workers so you can insinuate that doing so is racist, while also attempting to get statements on the record from the other side arguing that foreign born workers (including the undocumented) are as deserving of jobs as native-born workers are.

[Zalatix]

22. Ever notice how the free traders never answer you when you ask

"Are American workers just as deserving of foreign jobs as natives there are?"

(Specifically this refers to the fact that you have a better chance of being struck dead by a car than being allowed INTO a foreign country to work a job there.)

[RZM]

26. It's something of a sore spot here

Sometimes politics and social issues can produce some strange interest alignments. While their reasons are different, pro-immigration folks can often find more in common with 1 percenters than with the average American worker.

[white_wolf]

23. Free trade sucks.

It forces people in poor nations to work for virtually nothing. It is basically slavery. The U.S. should pass laws that require any trade agreements mandate that the companies involved pay the workers in foreign countries the at least a U.S. minimum wage or face heavy tariffs. As to the slogan you mentioned, it has a nasty history often associated with the far-right.

[Zalatix]

24. Yup, free trade is pro slavery.

[Starry Messenger]

31. Exactly.

It's not about people being from other countries, it is that companies exploit the guest workers. If they were required to bring pay up to parity with domestic wages, this would change things considerably.

[Sea-Dog]

39. couldnt have put it better myself

[ingac70]

25. American jobs for American and resident alien workers.

everyone else on the planet can kiss my ass.

[limpyhobbler]

27. Such slogans are used to pit working people against each other and benefit only the bosses.

The bosses and owners like it when native born workers fear immigrants and see them as the enemy.

Reality is it would be much better for US-born workers to join forces with Mexican-born workers to demand a better deal for all of us.

Not only Mexicans but the same is true for exmaple for US high tech workers and workers in India, who work over the Internet so they don't even need H1-Bs for that, in some cases.

Debates about H1-B's and immigration controls are legitimate. But in my opinion that is not going to end well if we base our struggle as US-born workers around the issue of keeping foreigners out.

Money is always going to go where wages are cheap. If we build a giant electric fence to keep Mexicans out, it's just going to increase the misery. It's not going to keep them out if they are determined to come.

Instead we ought to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Mexican-born workers, or workers in India, and demand a better deal for all of us. As a side benefit, we'll feel much better about ourselves than we would if we used our energy vocally complaining about foreigners all the time.

Just my 2 cents.

[Zalatix]

29. Foreigners do a damned good job of keeping American workers out.

[baldguy]

28. Unfortunately, there's a deep racist, nativist vein running through America that this taps into.

I used to work in a call center with a woman who had a typical South Asian accent. She was born a US citizen, but she grew up in Indonesia, India and Thailand. Often, she'd get some blockhead on the line who didn't want to talk to her, who wanted an "American" rep instead. Had nothing to do with where she was or how she did her job. It was only because they perceived her as foreign - as if an American can only come in one or two flavors.

[Odin2005]

30. Beware the Corporatist Neo-Liberal framing.

The Corporatists have done this for years, framing opposition to Globalist Corporatism as xenophobic and racist in order to scare the Cultural Left into supporting "Free Trade" BS.

[WinniSkipper]

32. It's anti-illegal immigration

The right's not talking about the 85K (or so) annual applications for H1Bs. They are talking about undocumented workers, here in America (American Jobs). They are not talking offshoring or manufacturing moving to other places.

[Romulox]

33. Too over the top. 2/10. nt

[Hubert Flottz]

35. American jobs for American workers

I guess "Latter Day Saints" don't believe in that statement . Mitt will export your job, torture your hound and steal Granny's social security. And that's just on the first day.

Mitt is what we'd call a SCAB at work. He'd be a worse disaster than Bush.

[cherokeeprogressive]

36. What other kind of jobs could there be for American Workers?

[jp11]

37. American workers need American jobs

not all of them can work for another country or foreign company.

[Bluenorthwest]

38. This is a play on the British Jobs For British Workers thing, right?

It is not a slogan I hear in the US, and certainly not from the right. They don't talk about jobs at all. Also, Americans are of literally all races so the slogan would have to be called nationalist if anything. The US and British situations are not similar enough to apply the same thinking in each place.

[maria2]

40. ....

...mhh ok....