What Representative King took umbrage with in the President's position is two-fold: First, like any other 'line-item' Conservative in the United States, he opposes 'amnesty'. That is, pardoning, those who commit the crime of entering the United States. Of course, attention in the public debate is not paid to factors of trade policy that have caused mass flight from México since the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Nor is the attention paid to the fact that Central Americans are fleeing a region that has turned into a virtual warzone due to the drug trade.
In this debate, like any other media debate in the United States, major structural forces are not addressed. It is not even stated that roughly half of the United States used to be México. In the small scale of time that the United States has even existed, this period was not that long ago. Nor was the armed conflict betwixt México & the neophyte US long ago either. Were we not meant as (North & South) Americans to experience some sense of continental unity? Or was the 'freedom of movement' only intended for capital (or drugs)?
The NAFTA regime has been a raw deal for the peasant farmers of México, & this is why they stream out over the border. They also stream over the border because of the aforementioned violence, a product of the (truly) free market of the drug trade. In this system, the 'freedom' of the market appears in its unvarnished form. It is only in uncontrolled, anarchic orgies of business that the true, revolutionary, destructive power of Capitalism is realized. The potential of this brand of bandit Capitalism to change the status quo scares the bastions of staid, state-sponsored Corporatism in Washington.
They may recognize some of themselves in the Narco-Millionaires of the South. The same ideology of unrestrained profit accumulation reigns. A member of the Washington Bourgeois milieu would have reason to harbour envy towards the Southern Narco-traffickers: They get to operate with no onerous regulations. If they do not approve of an action that government implements, they have the power to simply kill off or bribe the officials that are tasked with enforcement. Neither do the cartels have to deal with pesky constituencies, that must be coaxed to rubber-stamp government action. The barons of the drug trade derive their power from the barrel of the gun quite openly.
The same motive lies behind the ambitions of our bourgeoisie, & if given the change, will seek to emulate this programme of terror. Emergency law has reigned in the United States previously, and it will reign again when the authorities find it necessary.
In the Mexican drug trade, the Universe has given us a spectre of "unrestricted free market principles." And that is why we must accept our brothers & sisters from the South with open arms. We must learn from their experience. There will be a time & a place when we will need it. An alliance of all the American peoples, in a unified front against market hegemony would be a real "support" to "the will of the people," not whatever Representative King vomits onto C-Span.
