(he who shouts loudest wins, but wins what?)

The hot button issue of SB 1070, the Arizona Immigration bill, is raging out of control. It's bringing to the forefront all kinds of issues related (and unrelated) to Immigration. Racial profiling, racism, scapegoatism, extremism, the economy, and somewhere in the turmoil, our Immigration policy. And it's polarizing people all over the place. It is almost as though a rational view of the situation is impossible to achieve by way of our domestic mainstream media.

So with that in mind, I stumbled across this BBC Radio 4 documentary produced last week, tackling the issue in Arizona. He spends a lot of time bouncing back and forth between ideological camps. The results are interesting and well laid out. And the politics as always, are revealing:

Rob Walker (BBC): “The strength of these kind of views among Primary voters means J.D. Hayworth has been able to mount a strong challenge to John McCain. And that’s forced Mr. McCain to radically change his own position. He previously supported proposals that would have given illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. Now he’s come out in support of the law SB1070. And he’s not the only one who’s under pressure. Republican candidates across Arizona are competing with each other to be tough on illegal immigration.”

Elias Bermudez (campaigner for Immigrant Rights and a Republican): “It is so important to note this: the Republican Party is digging its own grave if it doesn’t cater to the Latino community. Because the Latino community will be the future of the Republican Party. We are the fastest growing minority in the United States. So, if they don’t look down to the Latinos and say to the Latino’s “you know, we have a lot of things in common. We are religious, we are pro-life, we are pro-family, we like to pull ourselves by our own straps. We don’t want government assistance. We come from Socialist countries. We hate socialist countries. So, if you look down to us as your allies and you continue to attack us on this issue of illegal immigration and you don’t want to solve it? Then you’re gonna pay the price.”

Bermudez has been the target of a lot of smears in recent weeks, with a goodly number of right wing blogs calling him out for statements like the one above. However, history has shown Bermudez' argument to be mostly right.

There's nothing like shooting yourself in the foot in order to make your point.