Thanks for the reply! I know these are hard questions and I appreciate the conversation.
So what are the reliable means,
I freely admit I don’t know this for sure or in any detail. But I don’t think any of us do. The existing strategies obviously aren’t working (look at what they’ve gotten us) and I think we need to recognize that whether or not we have a good way to fix it. I agree that’s not quite a strategy, but I don’t think there’s much benefit to signing on for futile or counterproductive strategies, just because they are strategies.
But what I’d tentatively suggest is that any serious change on this issue probably has to come about by pushing hard to change the conversation and broader culture around immigration, putting social pressure on candidates regardless of their party and regardless of promises they make, and providing moral and social support, and where possible material aid, to currently undocumented immigrants. I think these are things we can all “lead†on with or without endorsing or voting for any particular candidate. If you want to vote or endorse that’s your business as far as I can see but my point is the most important changes that have to happen are changes in the social landscape that politicians face, which are continuous ongoing changes that are linked to continuous protest, education, criticism, activism, etc. not limited to election cycles. Nor limited to voters which I think is important since of course the people most affected by this political debate are legally excluded from voting for anybody. And that if we lead in making those changes then politicians will have to follow regardless of how elections go.So I think we have to see our base and our leverage in the community, not in the electorate or in the DNC. But I think the ability to do all this is seriously compromised if we stop doing them or talking about them every 2-4 years to make elections easier for politicians like Obama.
and what plan would you suggest when we get Romney?
Well just to be clear what I was saying was not “This guy is the worst, therefore we should try to get Romney elected instead.†If we get Romney, then my suggestion is the same as my suggestion for if we get Obama again: social movements to put pressure on government, call out and stigmatize anti-immigrant bigotry and support a more welcoming culture, and which make it harder for the security-creeps to get their way politically. Marches, walk-outs, know-your-rights workshops, and everything else. My point here was that the last 4 years seem like a pretty convincing demonstration that the important changes are not changes in the governing party (because we got those changes, in a landslide, and, in spite of the promises, what then happened is that everything got measurably much worse), and probably we need to focus our energy on changing something else. But if we keep compromising our demands every 2-4 years and studiously avoid the topic when broaching it might make things harder on an elected Democrat, then that directly harms our ability to seriously change the moral and social conversation around immigration freedom.
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