The War on Immigrants

Don’t you hate when you were sure something was going to happen, and then it did, but because you never told anyone, when you say “I knew it! I’m totally psychic!” everyone says “Sure, right. Psychic my future ass!”

So let me guess – you know this just happened to me. Wow, you must be psychic!

I just knew that somehow the current distraction from Iraq discussion – I mean – the current immigration discussion was going to end up as some sort of windfall for the Military Industrial Complex. (See Bush Turns to Big Military Contractors for Border Control – New York Times – May 18, 2006.)

How did I know? Is it really psychic to predict that what goes up will come down? No, that’s just knowing how the world works. 

Orwell outed the tactic long ago of keeping The State in perpetual war. It’s good for rulers because it keeps people scared. Citizens are less likely to question why you’re listening in on their phones. “Just looking for terrorists, sir! Please just continue your discussion. Pretend we’re not here.”

Perpetual war also keeps tax money flowing into the businesses that will buy you the votes you want. However, I think this is a new spin on an old trick.

After all, this isn’t exactly a war, no one is saying let’s kill the immigrants. Well, some people surely are, but let’s ignore overweight ogres in coonskin hats and any up-and-coming radio hosts looking to make a name for themselves in the already over-crowded bigot media circle.

The MIC, like any business, can’t just stop with actual wars. They need more. More. MORE! There is no such thing as enough in business. In fact, because of the darn liberal media that always focuses too much on people DYING, an actual war is hard to come by these days (though I’m sure that the MIC has wet dreams where China nukes Hong Kong in 2015 and King George the Third decides to retaliate with force.)

So Military Contractors need to apply their skills in similar trades. They probably even have a hyphen-heavy term for it, such as “Non-Combat-Application-Of-Conflict-Technologies.”

In short, war isn’t their goal, but they can still use the skills of war in a less violent context. As long as the MIC can keep selling weapons, incarceration materials, vehicles and surveillance gadgets to the US Government, it is one happy conglomerate of evil!

And as wars go, the War on Immigrants, like the War on Drugs, is a profitable war because it can never be won; it will go on forever. The border isn’t going anywhere. This is one war you can really sing your teeth into.

That’s the other key: while attacking China would be a boon to the MIC, it wouldn’t last forever – it’s too extreme. The MIC is smarter than that – they want lots of small-scale contracts that never end.

My crystal ball tells me this is the future press release: “Immigrants are always coming up with ways to thwart our technology. So we need to upgrade.” Hey, if you change “immigrants” to “drug dealers” it sounds like the script from the War on Drugs. What if we change “immigrants” to “terrorists?” It still works! This is more fun than Mad Libs! Run down all the enemies of the moment:  space rocks, rap stars, prisoners, communists, liberals, bird flu! It all works!

In keeping with the philosophy of MORE, don’t be surprised if some all-terrain-robot combat device is already being retro-fit to pick up dog crap.

There’s no endeavor that can’t be converted to war. I’m stretching my psychic powers to the limit now, trying to guess what will be the next. I’ve got my money on Water. The War on Water. That’s right! It’s water that plans to invade our borders next – as the polar ice caps melt, water will invade our nation. In fact, that damned life-saving chemical already took out New Orleans! Someone get on the hotline to the MIC – we need buckets for every man, woman and child in this nation – at $50.00 a pop!