Republican's Create Alien Terror Threat -- Giuliani and others say: "Build Up That Wall."
Watching the Republican debate the other night, I kept thinking of Ronald Reagan. He was hardly my favorite president, but when the wall came down in Berlin...there was Ronald Reagan as the champion of glasnost (openness) and the spreading of democracy. Back then democracy was about sharing the values and principals of an American sense of freedom and opportunity. Baked into this spirit was a sense of boundless innovation, and limitless horizons. With those ideas in play, America was a shining light, a beacon of hope for those less privileged to strive for. America was a land that invited dreamers and builders to be part of the dream.
It was that spirit that Reagan was celebrating when he said with his relentless enthusiasm -- "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
Now -- the Party of Ronald Reagan is united in its belief of one thing -- that America should be in the wall building business. Does this look like this?
And now -- in an effort to either remake America -- the party that brought us Reagan is now untied in its belief that our greatest danger comes in the shape of those very strivers who built this country by arriving with hopes and dreams just two generations ago. America -- the land of immigrants -- is closed for business.
The ironies of this are many.
First of all -- this is the same party that has more American soldiers on foreign soil any time since World War 2. We don't seem to have any problem tromping on other sovereign nations or crossing any boarders to protect ourselves from the nebulous and often undefinable 'terrorist' threat. But perhaps most interesting is just how bizarrely out of step this Walled America vision is as we stand in a new century. Hasn't anyone gotten Rudy Giuliani a computer with an internet connection to play with? If they had, he'd notice that all kinds of economic changes are shifting from physical boarders to digital boarders. Heck, all he needs is to phone American Express and he'll find his billing questions are being answered from a phone center in India. Unless his vision of his Border Wall includes blocking internet access to off-shore internet providers -- he's going to find that the increasingly flat world isn't going to best stopped by cement and barb wire.
The changing demographics of America are presented in brilliant detail by Juan Enriquez in his recently publish UN-Tied States of America. Enriquez provides stark and irrefutable data that presents the shifting and increasingly hispanic demographics of the America citizen. It's not like information has been lost on the Republicans -- Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' platform openly embraced this new emerging group of voters. 
Says Enriques: '"How we treat each other today, what we call each other today -- not just brown/white but religious/non-religious, Northern/Southern -- is going to resonate for a long time." Which is to say the Republican's cynical decision to use Immigration as the lynchpin issue for 2008 may be good politics, but it is clearly terrible for the long term stability of the Nation.
Prophetically -- Enriquez says: "Countries are actually very fragile entities. Three-quarters of the flags, borders and anthems in the world did not exist 50 years ago. It's a lot easier to split a country than it is to keep it."
So why has the GOP shifted and decided that this election will be focused on Immigration? Because fear is a powerful motivator. And in looking at the polls -- the Democrats will win if the election is about change. If the election is a referendum on Iraq, the Republicans will lose. But as long as the economy continues to soften, and American's feel that their lives are under siege, there is an opportunity to create a new 'villain' on whom to place the blame. Are America's shifting fortunes truly being driven by migrant farm workers and undocumented gardeners and domestic workers? No on really believes that. But pointing fingers and placing blame is far easier that running a campaign that embraces change, invites the continued spirit of renewal, and connects our actions with the words this country was built on.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.Emma Lazarus - 1883
