Will Grigg's Birch Blog -- The Lost Episodes

A brief preface is in order.

On June 22, I published a Birch Blog entitled "Phony Immigration Debate vs. Real Police State Threat." Within hours it had been, um, misplaced, and never appeared in that space again -- even though it had been forwarded throughout the Blogosphere, and was reproduced in its entirety on Alex Jones's "Prison Planet" newssite.

"Where did it go?" more than one puzzled Birch Blog reader inquired of me. "Why was it deleted?" I knew where it had gone, and had been told why it was disposed of, and beyond those acknowledgements I'm really not at liberty to discuss the matter.

However....

Just this afternoon (Sunday, August 20) I came across an old copy of the essay, minus the hyperlinks (many of which probably expired anyway). In blogging, as in invasive surgery, it's a good idea to keep all of the parts, a practice I followed sporadically at best. What follows is the first of what may be a few installments from the "Lost Episode" Birch Blog file. Bear in mind that apart from the links, I've reproduced it as it was originally published, typos and all.

Although it should be obvious, I'll say it anyway: I don't support open borders. But as North Korea demonstrates, solving the problem of illegal immigration is not the summum bonum of a free society. What I attempted to do was to demonstrate how this issue was being exploited by the architects of the emerging garrison state, and how the entire conservative movement - without so much as a single exception - is falling for the deception.

Will Grigg's Birch Blog, Thursday, June 22, 2006, 12:25 PM

To understand the patent phoniness of the Republican debate over
immigration, and the very real evil that is behind it, we must resort to
the language of professional "wrestling" -- an undertaking nearly as
fraudulent, but nowhere near as malicious or corrupt, as politics.

In wrestling, a "work" is a staged event in which the outcome is
foreordained - the participant ("competitor" isn't the right word)
designed the winner will prevail in order to advance the intended storyline.
A work stands in contrast to a "shoot": In the words of the great Lou
Thesz, whose career included both, in a shoot the wrestlers are fighting for
"money, marbles, or chalk" -- that is, they're involved in a real match
for tangible stakes.

Since the 1930s, very few pro "wrestling" matches have been "shoots."
Promoters learned that it was more profitable to control process through
which champions and contenders were chosen, thereby cultivating marketable
personalities that could attract crowds across large territories.

Although "works" could often involve real bloodletting and injury (this is
sometimes called a "work-shoot"), they are always exercises in controlled
mayhem, with a scripted outcome.

Apart from what occasionally happens in a few smaller regional promotions,
the people running the steroid-enhanced soap opera that is Pro Wrestling
keep it untainted by authentic competition. The objective is to devise and
promote audience-grabbing "angles," or storylines.

The same is true of the malignant - and increasingly murderous - farce
that is American politics.

The only political objective the Bush regime cares about right now is to
preserve the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, where
impeachment proceedings or serious investigations (albeit of an
undisguised partisan variety) may erupt should the Democrats take control.

To that end, the Republican Party is preparing for a multi-city tag-team
"Battle Royale" pitting House "conservatives" against Senate "moderates"
Over the issue of immigration.

As USA Today puts it: "The congressional immigration debate took on the trappings of a national political campaign ... as each side planned a series of made-for-media events across the country to highlight the pros and cons of granting illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship.... The dueling
hearings are unusual because both the House and Senate have already passed
legislation. Normally, the next step would be a House-Senate conference
committee to reconcile differences between the bills. That now will be put
off while both sides take their case to the public over the summer."

The Los Angeles Times plays up what wrestling fans would call the "Heel turn" taken by either George W. Bush or the House Republicans: "The unorthodox plan by House Republicans for a series of hearings on
immigration policy represents an aggressive effort by hard-line critics of illegal
immigration to reassert control over the emotional debate - and wrest it from President Bush - as this year's elections approach."

Anybody familiar with pro wrestling knows that if the apparent outcome of
a "worked" match defies expectations, it will be reversed through an outrageous and unfair development.

For instance, the "referee" may be temporarily knocked unconscious,
missing the pinfall by which the Babyface (good guy) wins the match, only to be
dramatically roused from his stupor long enough to award the victory to
the Heel.

Or perhaps the match will degenerate into what is called a "schmazz" -- an
ending in which the good guy appears to win, as wrestlers from the contending camps pour into the ring, hurling chairs and other objects at each other in what appears to be a chaotic melee. Of course, that apparent victory is reversed on further review.

For promoters looking to create and exploit "heat" among the audience, either of those outcomes is desirable, since it reinforces the image of the Babyface as the innocently wronged champion.

This is exactly the image House Republicans are trying to sell to the
conservative public - in order to advance the White House's objectives: No
impeachment or serious inquiry into administration wrongdoing, and
eventual enactment of amnesty in some form.

That's right.

Write this prediction down in ink: If the Republicans succeed in using the issue of border enforcement to retain control over Congress, we will get amnesty anyway - maybe in a lame-duck session, most likely no later than a year from now.

How can I say this with such assuredness?

Easy: That's the position staked out in the most recent manifesto issued
by the self-appointed leaders of "respectable" conservatism.

The "open letter" from the Hudson Institute, signed by a bevy of faux
conservatives - from William F. Buckley to Bill Bennett to David Horowitz
(as well as the occasional misled legitimate conservative, such as Phyllis
Schlafly) - declares:

"We favor what Newt Gingrich has described as `sequencing.' First border
and interior enforcement must be funded, operational, implemented, and proven
successful - and only then can we debate the status of current illegal
immigrants, or at least the need for new guest worker programs."

In principle, this differs not at all from George W. Bush's approach,
which is to enhance border enforcement - and then nullify it by granting amnesty
and tearing down our border with Mexico through the Security and
Prosperity Partnership.

One thing we see here is that Gingrich - though abundantly disgraced and
in bad odor with legitimate conservatives - hasn't lost his mojo as a judas
goat.

Back in 1994, when the grassroots were in full rebellion against both the
Clinton administration and the Washington Establishment, Gingrich cobbled together a "Contract With America" intended to nationalize the congressional elections. The idea was to impose message discipline on Republican candidates - to take untamed populist conservatives and break them to the saddle of the Beltway GOP leadership.

And immediately after the Republican victory in November, Gingrich and Senate GOP leader Bob Dole sold the grassroots out by holding a lame-duck session to approve US membership in the World Trade Organization,
opposition to which was exactly the kind of issue that propelled Republican
congressional candidates to victory at the polls. Gingrich and Dole made
sure that the debate over the WTO ended before the new Congress could
convene.

This is exactly the type of perfidy we're dealing with here - and the
conservative movement, without exception, is falling for it. Which makes
me think that the movement is being led by the kind of people who are
surprised when the results of WWE events aren't reported in the sports section.

The details of the current sell-out differ from the 1994 edition, of
course.

For instance, rather than being a hands-on political player, Gingrich is a
presumptive presidential candidate and GOP dogmatist without portfolio.
And it's possible, given the extent to which the Republican congressional
leadership has turned their party into a support mechanism for Bush's
authoritarian personality cult, that no lame duck session would be
necessary.

But the fact remains that a Republican victory in November will mean
amnesty in some form for illegal immigrants, a renewed push for merger with
Mexico, and - most importantly - an even more vigorous drive to build a domestic
garrison state on a permanent war footing.

In fact, the Hudson Institute manifesto makes that pretty clear:

"We are in the middle of a global war on terror.... Today, we need proof
that enforcement (both at the border and in the interior) is successful
before anything else happens."

A step-to-the-side translation of this would be: Build the police state
first, and then we can talk about amnesty.

Militarizing the border would certainly go a long way toward that
objective.

For a long time our would-be rulers have been looking for an issue that
could entice people into surrendering their freedoms: The threat of
Communism, the scourge of narcotics, the menace of international
terrorism.... They seem to identified the threat of illegal immigration as
just the thing they've been searching for. Right now, tens of millions of
conservatives, including many who have been suspicious about the Patriot
(sic) Act and similar measures, appear willing to submit to invasive,
militarized enforcement measures in order to curb illegal immigration.

This fits nicely into the "angle" being scripted by the GOP, as well. As
long as we're talking about immigration, we're not paying attention as the
Bush regime builds the Reich around us.

No matter what tumult or conflict is orchestrated for our consumption over
the next several months, the public has to remember: This isn't a real
debate, it's a "work," and the angle it is advancing will end with the
extinction of our existence as a constitutional republic.