See, what's particularly disturbing about this (to me, anyway) is that he's clearly only talking about certain immigrants. A large amount of his fundraising is done among the arab-american community, who badly need some national figures speaking up to counter all the slanders going around about them, but he seems to have forgotten that not a few are first or second generation, and that to your baselevel yahoo (like, um, the ones who read Pat Buchanan) they're all scum who we should throw out of the country.

I can't imagine that he really believes that any prejudices he arouses with this kind of shit are going to stay neatly segregated in the anti-hispanic corner of his readers' minds.

I want to say right at the beginning that I am not "anti-Hispanic" or an "English is the official language" clown, but I do have several serious problems with the current immigration policy in this country.

The biggest one is that I see many American blacks unemployed while we are importing workers. (I know there is a complex reason for that, but ultimately it reduces to "I'd rather have a Meskin slave than a cranky darkie.")

The lesser elements are that I do wonder how we can absorb the number of immigrants we currently allow to enter the country--and by allow I mean legal illegal immigrants.

I generally believe immigration is good, but framing this in a manner that suggest any questioning of current policy is wrong is foolish.

And to add a couple of items to the record. I hate Nader almost as much as I hate the lying poltroon in the White House. That's a lot of hatred.

The fundamental problem with immigration, from an American worker's perspective, is that the job market is bad enough as it is, and bringing in more immigrants to compete for jobs just makes it worse. Why is it a "progressive" position that we should allow unlimited Mexicans to cross the Rio Grande and displace American workers (including the working poor) from their jobs? Or are you in favor of global levelling? (Good luck selling that to what's left of the American middle class.)

If the only way to keep US workers well paid is to leave Mexicans without jobs and starving behind an Iron Curtain on the Rio Grande, it's not "progressive" to help US workers at the expense of those who want to immigrate here.

If the US protected job rights, had a decent minimum wage, and invested in economic development both in poor areas in the US and in Mexico, there would be no job problem on either side of the border.

That Nader is not talking about that, but instead allying with anti-immigrant rhetoric, is what makes his campaign unacceptable.

Please don't give him more credit than he deserves. There is no third party involved in his deranged oddysey. Last time, he used the Green Party and the promise of matching funds as the fig leaf for his vanity.

This time there is no party building excuse for him to run.

In other Ralph news, he just go busted for using the offices of a non-profit that he set up for his campaign.
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/nation/8917630.htm

It seems that Nader is just becoming what he's always decried-- a pandering politician. Is it coincidental that Nader is spouting this anti-immigrant rhetoric just as he's picking up the Reform Party endorsement in Michigan and elsewhere? This is the same party that nominated Buchanan in 2000, after all.

I think you guys are misreading Nader's comments. In the interview, it seems to me that what Nader is advocating is a fairly progressive stance toward a fair wage/worker's rights policy for immigrants and US workers concurrently. While he does come out against legalization (an obvious play to conservatives) he ends up saying some important things, such as:

"This is the reason the Wall Street Journal is for an open-borders policy: they want a cheap-wage policy. There are two ways to deal with that. One is to raise the minimum wage to the purchasing-power level of 1968—$8 an hour—and then, in another year, raise it to $10 an hour because the economy since 1968 has doubled in production per capita."

"enforce the law against employers" [I.e., the ones exploiting these workers for low wages, no benefits and no rights.]

"they should be given all the fair-labor standards and all the rights and benefits of American workers"

"I don’t like the idea of legalization because then the question is how do you prevent the next wave and the next? I like the idea of giving workers and children—they are working, they are having their taxes withheld, they are performing a valuable service, even though they are illegally here—of giving them the same benefits of any other workers."

Nader would enforce the law against employers in the service of granting immigrant laborers all the rights and protections of other legal workers. How is this not progressive? Are you arguing that they should continue to be exploited because to protect them would put too much upward pressure on wages?

Face it: Nader sucks. Not only is he a wannabe spoiler, trying to guarantee the country another 4 years of the Uncrowned Messiah. No, now he sees an opening with the Buchanan right, endeavoring to take down the Left along with him.

F*ck Nader. I wouldn't shake that clown's hand, let alone even dream of wasting my vote on him.

I am disturbed by the views expressed by Nader and have a difficult time even believing that he spoke them (which is not to raise doubt about your source), but I am not ready to embrace the larger conclusion that "any progressive who supports Nader now is just lining up as an enemy of other progressives." That seems to go much further than the evidence of this one interview would warrant, however disturbing and unusual Nader's statements in fact are.

I would be open to your presenting further evidence of a supposed conservative (in the bad sense of the word) streak in Nader.

it's not "progressive" to help US workers at the expense of those who want to immigrate here.

Excuse me? Did you really say this? Do you understand the implications?

If the US protected job rights, had a decent minimum wage, and invested in economic development both in poor areas in the US and in Mexico, there would be no job problem on either side of the border.... That Nader is not talking about that...

He is not? In fact raising the minimum wage was the main item he stressed in response to the question on immigration.

Any progressive who supports Nader now is just lining up as an enemy of other progressives, especially those who care about basic human rights of immigrants.

Nader emphasized his support for full rights, including economic, for illegal immigrants. He stopped short of offering citizenship because that would invite more illegal immigration.

Does Mr. Newman have an upper bound for the number of immigrants the US can absorb in ten years? If so, can we hear it? And, how to enforce it?

He is not? In fact raising the minimum wage was the main item he stressed in response to the question on immigration.

Raising the minimum wage won't have the slightest effect on illegal immigration. Do you think illegal immigrants are getting paid $5.15 an hour now? Do you somehow believe that businesses which don't employ U.S. workers at $5 will do so at double that?

Nader has sorely disappointed me here. He's clearly pandering to Buchanan's coded racism, more likely I think in a conscious attempt to garner the Reform vote than because he actually believes it, but that's only barely better. If Nader has decided that he can use any tactic at hand in order to challenge the power structure, then he's not my candidate any more.

Ralph had exactly one thing going for him; he was simply the most qualified person for the job. He had the best ideas and the best stances on the issues. That no longer seems to be the case. Why would I vote for Nader now? To teach the Democrats a lesson that they need to be a different kind of nattering politico? I'm anti-establishment, but I won't cut of my nose for facile spite.

I think Nathan's response is closest to the problem yet without getting there. THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH JOBS. We are in a jobs crisis and any presidential candidate should be explaining how many million jobs s/he will create and by what means and how soon. The extreme lack of work, I mean jobs that will support a family, is the undiscussed elephant in the room and that applies to the US and Mexico. Talking about immigration is like talking about how to sweep up after the elephant, without facing the actual elephant. Let's deal with problems directly.

Nick Simmonds, minimum wage came up in this context: Nathan complained that Nader isn't intetested in talking about it, and I pointed out that Nader not only talks about it but actually made minimum wage the centerpiece of his immigration position (which means that Nathan didn't read the full interview he was commenting on). Whether Nader is right or wrong on minimum wage I don't know. However, his position on it cannot be said to be anti-progressive. And by the way, your comments indicate that you haven't read the interview either (which is ok). His argument is that raising the minimum wage will make jobs that Americans do not want more desirable to them, thus providing a more natural check on immigration. I know that many illegals get less than m.w. Nader knows it too. None of us like that, I presume. Except for many businesses which like near-zero-cost labor, and some "progressives" who believe our economy should be run in such a way as to import and feed the hungry of other nations.

JS- I know Nader talks about the minimum wage, but if he was serious about talking about raising the minimum wage and workers rights in both the US and Mexico, he wouldn't have to talk about opposing immigration. Most immigrants, if they could make a decent living, would rather stay in their home country.

So calling for restricting immigration assumes that life will continue to be so crappy in developing countries that they will be clamouring to leave. And if life sucks there, it is not a progressive position to build an Iron Curtain on the Rio Grande or shoot-to-kill patrols in the desert to stop them.

at the risk of belabouring my point, I'd like to point out that Nader has not taken a position on border patrol and certainly has not endorsed a "shoot to kill" policy for illegal immigrants. His position is on legalization of residency for current illegal immigrants. Its fair to ask Nader why not legalization if he would grant them all the other benefits of citizenship. But he's not advocating an Iron Curtain, at least not in the cited article. Furthermore, he tacitly assumes Mr. Newman's point regarding the role of US economic policy in creating the economic conditions that would discourage immigration, albeit Nader does this by recognizing the opposite, that is, that NAFTA has displaced one million corn farmers and now they want to come to the US for work. Nader argubly implies that part of the solution to the immigration problem is a more fair trade policy with Mexico.
Perhaps what irks so many people here is that Nader also accepts the basic conservative argument that immigration is a problem to begin with. But if its not a problem yet, the burden is on progressives-- and I count myself among them-- to explain then at what level of influx of illegal immigrants does illegal immigration actually become a problem. Or to explain why its not and never will be a problem. That's missing from the immigration debate.
I see Mr. Newman's point on international investment, however. Obviously, conservatives won't vote for someone who says we should invest in job creation in Mexico. But Nader should say that if in fact he belives it. Not saying it is a far cry from advocating a totalitarian solution.
I know that Democrats aren't too happy with Nader's bid for president this time around (they never are anyway) But let's not sacrifice Nader on the altar of hyperbole.

I appreciate the reply -- but it seems to me that he does put a lot of emphasis on precisely what you say: focus on improving the lot of Mexicans in Mexico, and they will want to stay there. That's true in the Buchanan interview as well.

If the progressive approach to world poverty is to let all the world's poor come to the US, then it doesn't sound realistic to me. Unrestricted immigration would cause a tidal wave. And it would be like trying to solve the homeless problem by opening our homes to the homeless.

As further evidence that it is hard to assign a progressivism quotient to positions on immigration, the Wall Street Journal, as mentioned by Nader and referenced by david x hume above, calls for an open borders policy and, in supporting it, includes this:

In 2001, undocumented immigrants filled 1.4 million jobs in the wholesale and retail trades alone.... Without these immigrants, employers would be forced to raise wages to attract Americans..."

Ergo, the WSJ concludes, "undocumented" (not illegal) immigrants are a good thing. (For whom, we might ask).

JS--

Just so you know, "undocumented" immigrants ARE illegal immigrants. The documents that this term refers to are citizenship papers and work permits.

It should be obvious that legal immigration has far less impact on wages and benefits than illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants can be more easily coerced into accepting sub-minimum wage, working off the clock, inadequate safety, etc. That's why the WSJ likes a hands-off approach to those who employ undocumented aliens.

The number of Mexican immigrants tracks much more closely to the poverty rate in Mexico than to any other factor. Making border crossings more dangerous and cutting off public benefits have been completely ineffective in cutting the number of undocumented immigrants, so the only strategy that can significantly mitigate the damage to American workers is to give more of these immigrants legal status.

There's really only one way to substantially slow the rate of immigration--take steps to reduce poverty in the countries of origin. Nader says that he's for this, but as his nonsensical responses on the tax questions show, he has no clue as to how to bring it about.

Buchanan: What would you do about [illegal immigration]?

Nader: We have to control our immigration. We have to limit the number of people who come into this country illegally.

Thanks, Ralph, that was very enlightening.

JS-- Yes, the WSJ supports equal treatment for native-born Americans and immigrants, which is half of a progressive position. They of course oppose minimum wage and guaranteed health care for native-born Americans, so their form of equality is to lower the standards for the native-born.

Nader supports strong standards for workers in the US, but wants unequal treatment for those not born in this country through his thumping defense of American sovereignty, which he shares with Pat Buchanan. So Nader is the opposite of the Wall Street Journal position-- unequal treatment but defense of high standards for the native-born.

Buchanan of course as the worse of both positions-- opposition to wage and health standards for the native-born AND unequal treatment of immigrants.

But if Nader is running around with a position that shares even half of Pat Buchanan's bigotry, he has no claim to be a standard bearer of progressives. Any appeal to bigotry-- and that's what his interview with Buchanan was about-- is disgusting.

I'm not sure exactly where you find evidence that Nader wants unequal treatment for those not born in this country.

PB: Should illegal aliens be entitled to social-welfare benefits, even though they are not citizens and broke into the country?

RN: I think they should be given all the fair-labor standards and all the rights and benefits of American workers, and if this country doesn’t like that, maybe they will do something about the immigration laws.

My impression from the interview is that Nader thinks that the "immigrant problem" is not that it is bringing foreigners into the country, but that it contributes to the non- or de-development of foreign countries and to the continuation of poor working conditions for workers in the US (not only US citizens). As far as appealing to bigotry, I think Nader does a reasonable job of not rising to Buchanan's bait:

PB: There are currently 8-14 million illegal aliens in the United States. The president is mandated under the Constitution to defend the States against foreign invasion, and this certainly seems to constitute that.

RN: As long as our foreign policy supports dictators and oligarchs, you are going to have desperate people moving north over the border.

That Nader doesn't hop on board the amnesty train indicates to me that he would rather focus on the problems behind illegal immigration than to will it away by naming illegal immigrants legal.

If gordo thinks that Ralph doesn't offer much in the way of solutions, that seems much more valid than the "Any progressive who supports Nader now is just lining up as an enemy of other progressives, especially those who care about basic human rights of immigrants" argument. Did I hear that right? You're either with us or you're against us?

gordo -- agreed, my point was that tje WSJ likes them so much that it avoids calling them "illegal". Agreed also about RN's confused answers on taxes -- it's obvious he wasn't prepared for that. But I agree with him that immigration must be restricted, while helping other countries raise their standard of living.

Nathan, a major underlying question here is whether progressives must totally ignore national boundaries, and whether progressive politicians in particular should have a greater concern for the welfare of the citizens of their country. I don't see this as a problem, as long as they also make an effort to help people elsewhere. And I think, as I said, that allowing in everyone who wants to come to the US would create an unsustainable situation and make the US more like Mexico rather than the reverse -- a net loss to everyone. But I understand that there is disagreement on this.

Basic issue-- if someone lives in Beverly Hills and wants to keep poor people out, is that a progressive position, if they'll take care of the poor people already living there?

If someone says they are willing to extend equal protection to blacks already in the suburbs, but no new ones should be allowed to move there, is that a non-racist position?

The right to travel is a fundamental right.

To "take care of ones own" when ones own are privileged is anti-progressive in any form.

How one can argue for welfare for someone in San Diego, while denying a resident of Tiajuana a few miles away the same right is inconceivable.

That's exactly my question, actually -- do all the political/social issues that apply to the wealthy suburb vs. inner city tension apply equally across national boundaries? Is there an equal level of responsibility to the poor of another country as there is to the poor of your own? That seems to me to be a leap that not all liberals (or even those further on the left) would make.

In practical terms -- how do we deal with the fact that a significant portion of the world's population would like to immigrate to the US (and EU) if they could? Do we have to allow that to happen?

Well, I read it. Ralph is still a progressive and doing just what he said he would do--trying to appeal to conservative voters as best he can, maybe siphoning a few away from Bush. I didn't detect that anti-immigrant hatred--he said he was in favor of illegal immigrants having driver's licenses and receiving the same social welfare benefits other workers get in the US. Yeah, that sounds exactly like an anti-immigrant racist to me. And raising the minimum wage to 10 bucks an hour--this guy has a funny way of pandering to anti-immigrant racist conservatives, wouldn't you say? And coming out for gay marriage--the man clearly has no shame when seeking the rightwing vote.

Yes, he wants to control immigration, but then most people, rightly or not, still want to live in a world where countries can control how many people they allow to come in and claim citizenship. Maybe Kerry is more progressive than Nader on this--I don't know. But if so, it's probably about the only position he takes that is to the left of Ralph.

I'm not voting for Ralph, but I'm glad you linked to the article, Nathan, so I could compare your demonizing to what Ralph actually said. I'm a big fan of your blog and find myself nodding in agreement with nothing to add most of the time, but I'll have to remember just to ignore you (and a bunch of other progressives) when Nader's name comes up in the future. There's a simple reason not to vote for Ralph--he can't win. But he's obviously a lot closer to the progressive side on most issues when compared to Kerry.

Nathan,

Add my name to those above who said you demonized or misread Nader's comments to Buchanan. Nader was beautifully progressive and showed a touch of RFK in understanding conservative ire and then showing how to speak of their issue in a way that transcends ideological blinders--except you were unable to get there, surprisingly.

I am not voting for Nader this year and have told him so many times via email and regular mail--also telling him to get the hell out of the race for president.

One more point: His speaking to Buchanan and Buchanan giving Nader a chance to state his views in detail will do alot to help some conservative readers of Buchanan's mag to leave Bush II for good. This was an important article and your hatred of Nader at this point caused you to miss that. If anything, Nader's interview should be sent to all conservatives who are doubting Bush II right now.

And Nathan, I still think you're a great guy and I share your views on just about everything. Just lay off the Nader demonizing. You're better than that.

Given the present reality of nation-states and their presumed obligations to their citizens and legal immigrants,what is the acceptable progressive position?
Ralph Nader is anti dictator/oligarchies that favor the IMF/World Bank/corporate agendas that contribute to miserable living conditions in the third world,anti(race to the bottom) trade agreements,for extending social benefits to anyone currently working and paying taxes in this country,for raising minimum wage and enforcing employer sanctions,rightly cynical about the motivations of big labor,for an open national debate about immigration policy-I certainly can understand why you dislike the reactionary bastard.
Because of our dumb-ass,winner take all electoral system I will vote for Kerry-I'd just feel better about it if he could match Nader on immigration,Iraq,health care,corporate crime,campaign reform-I'll stop before I convince myself to vote for Nader(which I may end up doing anyway if Kerry goes any farther in ingratiating himself to the pro-Zionist,anti-Castro/Chavez dark side-I understand why a national politician in this country has to bend over for them,just try not to enjoy it so much.)

In case anyone is still on this thread...
How about a 'one-state' solution to the immigration problem, i.e. the US and Mexico merge? Pie in the sky, I suppose...

rs, you're still seriously considering voting for Nader?!? Yeah, you'll totally send a "message." Who gives a fuck what Nader says he's "for" if his actions -- in getting GWB reelected -- are MONSTROUSLY counterproductive to his stated ideals.

And I hope to GOD all you progressives out there don't think "triangulating" the immigration issue to pander to nativists is going to provide the Democrats with any significant boost. It won't. Immigrants have always and will always be the engine of this country -- the best way to fulfill the Republican dream of ending Social Security would be to cut the revenue that is paid in by our 8 million illegal residents (and that's assuming we COULD ever deport them all and stop future flows...)