The only real difference between white extremists of today and their cousins 100 years ago is ‘ Who are we discriminating against?’ In 1920 Congressman Albert Johnson of Washington State introduced legislation to slash the numbers of immigrants allowed into our country. Infatuated with the new pseudoscience of Eugenics ( a way to perfect people through genetics and scientific laws of inheritance) Johnson went after many deemed as ‘ undesirable’ to include whatever race, religion and cultural identity he wanted kept from this nation. He showed a chart to his committee entitled ‘ Approaching Extinction of Mayflower Descendants.’ Sounds like and smells like the currently used ‘ White Replacement Theory’. In his committee report he had statements made by members of American Counsels abroad describing those applying for visas towards immigration to the USA. From Athens it was reported that ‘ People of the peasant class that represent a low form of unskilled labor’. ( No more Greek diners one surmises). From Sicily, Italy, statements like ‘ Their standard of living here and their characteristics render them inassimilable.’ From Poland, where most applicants were Jews fleeing pogroms ( way popular even before Hitler and his Nazis orchestrated them): ‘ Ninety-five percent of these persons are the very lowest classes of the country… they are filthy and ignorant and the majority are verminous”‘ ( Hitler and his regime definitely copied that one).
So, Captain Ron DeSantis, our great leader here in Florida, had plenty of schooling by studying the 100 year ago past. He, and other closet eugenics lovers, just substituted color to make the case. In place of poor Greeks, Italians and Polish Jews he put the target on non white skins. As I was driving in the normal July 90+ degree Florida heat and humidity yesterday I came upon a road work area. There were literally well over 100 men digging and lifting and carrying soil, and every single one of them looked like the typical Mexican or Central American laborer we see all over. Ask yourself this question: Who in the hell else would do such oppressive labor in such terrible climatic conditions for what those men are being paid? If this was a union job the workers would, by current standards, have to be paid a minimum of $ 30 to $ 40 an hour! I would speculate that those men yesterday were lucky to earn $12 to $15 an hour… if that! Look up at a roofing job and notice how the grunts working on that frying pan roof , with really NO safety equipment, are Latino men from similar backgrounds. It becomes ‘ trickle down screwing ‘ of non union labor. They screw American workers and then factor down to screw the ( mostly) undocumented labor.
Humorously, as the far right wing descendants of Rep. Albert Johnson keep getting their way, here’s what would occur concerning certain shortages:
Not enough A) hotel chambermaids and cleaning people, B) grass mowers, C) dishwashers, D) day laborers ( who shape up each morning waiting for a new ‘ Boss ‘ for that day) E) Roofing grunts… and anyone else who is willing to labor with no guarantees like fair pay, benefits of any type, overtime, sick pay, vacation pay, health coverage… need I go on? Perhaps the ONLY benefit of this covert racism (which it really is) is that those in economic control will have to fork over better conditions if they want to find the proper help. The use of that term help seems to me to come right out of Feudalism and slavery or Reconstruction, which is how the wealthy looked upon their workers. Sad.
The most troubling thing for this writer is how so many of my fellow white neighbors and citizens become more like Rep. Albert Johnson. These folks may be from an immigrant background, perhaps three or four generations back, and the only thing they share with the WASP whites is the color of their skin. Right Captain Ron, who is, like myself, a proud Italian American? Yet, Captain Ron has always done the bidding of the WASP super rich who subsidize him. Sad indeed.
Philip A Farruggio is regular columnist on itstheempirestupid website. He is also frequently posted on Nation of Change and Countercurrents.. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 500 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘ It’s the Empire… Stupid ‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].
