it’s not about my politics

How desperate for ad revenue does the self-proclaimed “flagship of the left” have to be in order to run this ad on the back cover of the May 17, 2007 issue? I’ve been reading The Nation on a regular basis for over a decade now, and I thought I had gotten used to the eccentricities of their usual gang of advertisers: the classified ads for progressive dating services or pamphlets definitively disproving the existence of a higher power, full-page spreads hawking the latest Bose’s latest compact sound system or “the accumulated sum of Western knowledge/philosophy/literature” on tape, even the non-compromising rants from FLAME (which the editors later apologized for running). The magazine even ran a couple of ads for the Fox News Channel on their back cover a few years back, which could been taken as a case of taking the money and running or a breach of principles born of financial urgency, depending on one’s mood.

Magazine publishing is a tricky business these days, especially when the purpose of the publication is to take to task the same entities (big oil, big pharma, defense contractors, the automotive industry) who help prop up more mainstream magazines via advertising revenue. So I’m usually willing to cut The Nation some slack when it comes to their ad clients.

The ad in the above link, though? That’s just inexcusable. For the record, the spokesperson for the Coalition for the Future American Worker is part of a network of questionably “grass roots” immigration reduction organizations with some rather unsettling ideologies in play, according to this report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Cute, eh?

It’s no surprise. The anti-immigration movement is predicated on a sanctioned racist subtext in much the same fashion as the “Defense of Marriage” movement draws support from not-so-thinly-veiled homophobic sentiments. The issues surrounding illegal immigration are many and varied, and interwoven within larger economic, social, and political questions, but an opportunity to scapegoat “the other” will trump nuanced debate every time. Border fences, “English only” laws, and other manifestation of the persecutorial impulse are viscerally “sexy.” Drug War-styled forfeiture of asset laws, with no wiggle room for plausible deniability (i.e. subcontracting through straw bosses), targeted at American firms who profit from the influx of illegals? Not so much. (Not that I endorse such a plan. I’m merely positing a more holistic policy than the typical “let’s crack some skulls” approach.)

It’s all just pandering, anyhow, part of the Grand Distraction policy of the moneyed interests, playing up to social conservative bugaboos to keep a grip on reins of power, secure in the knowledge that no one will notice their ongoing smash-and-grab-athon. Does anyone think for a minute that should the flow of immigrants to the country stop, these people would start offering living wages or reinvesting in impoverished communities? The old rules of wages based on available labor versus demand don’t apply in the freewheeling realm of modern global capitalism. For the jobs that can’t be outsourced, there’s always the zero sum rule of pay rates versus warm bodies to keep the profit margins nice and healthy. It’s easier to ignore disgruntled customers than jittery stockholders, after all.

But hey, there’s an election coming up next year, and with the Democrats undergoing a tentative resurgence, buoyed by high levels of support from African-American and Latino voters, a wrench tossed into the party’s traditionally fractious coalition could work wonders. It infuriates me that The Nation, for whatever reason, made the decision to aid and abet this disgusting little sideshow. I know, based on the FLAME response that The Nation sees it as a free speech issue, but it's hardly "free" when money changes hands. I wouldn't be as bothered by a letter to the editor or opinion piece uttering similar statements (though I would grit my teeth and shake my head, as I did with Alexander Cockburn's recent pooh-poohing of the human causes of global warming), but I'm less charitable where commercial considerations are involved.

Hüsker Dü – Divide and Conquer (from Flip Your Wig, 1985) – I know I posted a Dü track not that long ago, but it was just too perfect for today’s topic to pass up.

Depeche Mode – People Are People (from Some Great Reward, 1984) – I can’t listen to this song without remembering my wife getting misty-eyed while watching the video for it right after 9/11.

Brian Ferry – Let’s Stick Together (from Let’s Stick Together, 1976) – At least until we can wrest the Oval Office from the Republican assholes, ok? Then what passes for the left wing in America can get back to the customary infighting and pointless bickering with my blessing.