>Lind is not a nativist. . . .
Check what he says about the need to control immigration in one of
his books. Maybe I am hallucinating his nativist sentiment; I didn't
buy the book, just glanced through it at a bookstore. If I am wrong,
I will apologize profusely. Rakesh
Hmm. You glance thru somebody's book at a
bookstore and pronounce their essence on
that basis? I'm glad you didn't go into
law enforcement.
Try out Lind's definition of what he calls "The
New Nativism". He points out that opposition
to immigration, isolationism, protectionism,
or racial preferences are all separable doctrines.
Each may be held w/o respect to the other, and none
are essential to nativism.
He defines nativism as a definition of national
community based on race and/or religion; for the
U.S., this means a Euro-American pan-Christian
nationalism where government favors no particular
religion but Christian religions in general.
It is not necessarily opposed to
immigration per se, but only to immigration of
particular groups. It might be isolationist
with respect to, say, the Balkans conflict,
but not necessarily with respect to an assault
on some favored group by some disfavored one.
Protectionism is least intimately connected
with nativism.
To this Lind counter-proposes his preference for
a liberal nationalism, wherein the nation is
understood as shared language and culture, and
where the contributions to this by a wide
assortment of immigrant groups is duly recognized.
It's a melting pot position.
There is no whiff of state religion or racial
exclusion in this, though it could be criticized
on other grounds.
Lind's position re: immigration is strictly of a
piece with the basic idea of labor defense, a
concept our free-trade marxists have great difficulty
with. It is that the obligation of a trade union is
to fight efforts to undercut its wages with other
workers. It does not matter where they are,
what color they are, or how miserable they are.
Now you could argue that he does not execute this
idea well in his position on immigration. Obviously
the AFL is coming around to a different view, but
that is Lind's point of departure. There is no
intrinsic chauvinism in opposing the out-migration
of jobs to ANY non-union destination, domestic or
foreign. Obviously such opposition often falls
prey to or opportunistically exploits chauvinism,
but the underlying motive is totally appropriate
for a labor defense organization.
The sad truth is that many radicals reject labor
defense in favor of abstractions and fantasies.
mbs
