Illegal immigration: Eater or Eaten

I'll bet you never watched Babylon 5 or realized you watched contestants playing the Game of Life. Forget that B5 hung in space over a dead world. Forget the gate technology that allowed ships to traverse the darkness from civilization to civilization. See the episodes as ripped from the headlines depicting current events. The two players in the Universe were the Shadows, the Great Evil, and the Vorlons, the Light. They were more than Evil and Good. They were warring siblings fighting their battles through the people of the Universe, the younger races that looked up to the Shadows and the Light as we look to our political parties. The Shadows and the Vorlons were the two sides of a coin, separated by perspective, the two sides of the Galactic Mirror. No different, except in our perception of them. Ultimately, Shadows and Vorlons enslaved the younger races. The Shadows and the Vorlons were the masters and the younger races their slaves, puppets playing out the end game, choosing which side of the mirror reflected what they saw, the image of their deepest desires.

Mr. Mordon was the human face of the Shadows whose only question was: What do you want? The answer bound the person to the Darkness or the Light, reflections of siblings, remnants of the Old Race, brothers or sisters depending on your point of view, destroying worlds and systems in their seemingly eternal tug-of-war. The Shadows preferred kicking over an ant hill to stir up the ants to battle other ants so the winner emerged as a stronger, smarter, and better ant while the Vorlons nurtured the races, tampering with their DNA to make them stronger, better, and smarter than the ants that preceded the ants the Vorlons reshaped to create better ants. It didn't matter which species died as long as the winning side was their side. The Vorlons cared that their nurturing would win and the Shadows preferred their aggression would be the winning side.

How is the illegal immigrant question different? You may think it's a matter of degree, but essentially it is the same. It is always the same. The only thing that has changed is the label we put on it to make what has become immature, irresponsible, and wrong acceptable and palatable. It is the same thing it always was and the new label changes nothing but our perception of the problem. Labeling garbage as art or social justice. It is still garbage. The Conservatives are the Shadows and Liberals are the Vorlons. The methods vary, but the end is the same. Slaves are slaves whether they are nurtured or forced to action. Illegal immigration is just another label for slavery. All the arguments for the rights of illegal immigrants and the liberal calls for social justice change nothing. White washing manure doesn't change manure. It may look better painted white, but it is still manure.

When we discuss illegal immigration we are still discussing slavery. Let's get that straight from the outset. Give us your poor, your starving, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. They are people willing to give up everything so their children have food, shelter, and clothing, a reason to get up in the morning to earn a few pesetas or pennies or dollars to buy food, shelter, and clothing to make the future less frightening and more comfortable. Centuries ago the system was called feudalism. A lord claimed title over the land and the serfs who inhabited the land and took what they wanted from the serfs: their daughters' virginity, the food from their mouths, and their freedom to choose their own lives. Though the resources were the Lord's due (determined by the Lord and taken from the people who had no say), those resources were stolen.

Feudalism became colonialism and serfs became slaves, conquered tribes, the losers in tribal warfare or stolen to be sold as slaves for money and goods that could be sold or traded for more food, shelter, and clothing. The serfs were slaves to their Masters as surely as the tribesmen, women, and children were slaves to be chained, bound, and packed like sardines in the holds of ships and given just enough to eat to keep them alive until they could be hosed down and sold at auction. Tribes preyed on their neighbors as predators prey on the old, the sick, the weak and vulnerable, and the young to be brought down and killed to feed themselves and their offspring. It has always been thus: the larger and more powerful prey on the weaker and their continuation was assured. Big fish prey on little fish and the bottom feeders get the scraps, but every species wins as they prey on weaker species, and sometimes on each other, in the never ending struggle to continue. Might makes right. Vegetarians point to the grass eaters as harmless because grass eaters consume only grass. What about the grass? Does grass not live? Does grass not grow, procreate, and live? So you choose not to eat animals, make a point of eating nothing with a face; you eat plants. You are harmless, as harmless as a cow, sheep, or buffalo. What if plants don't want to be eaten? What if plants have feelings? Are you not destroying another species for food, to quiet the rumbling in your belly? You kill to eat. Plant or animal, you end their life to continue your own. That is the cycle of life on this planet and in this time. That is also the reality of slavery. Illegal immigrants are the slaves who choose to walk through any danger, endure any hardship so they can feed, clothe, and house themselves by any means necessary. Those means in this time and in this country mean breaking this country's laws, the United States of America's laws to sell their labor, their time, and themselves for food so they can continue another day, another hour, another minute as long as they continue to exist. When this country was a colony belonging to Great Britain, an extension of the Great British Empire, people sold themselves and their children for a specified period so they too could come to this unexplored land to make their fortune, but really to ensure they would have a place to live, clothes to wear, and food to eat. These indentured slaves were guaranteed a certain quality of life and they were fed, usually with the scraps from their Master's table, but they were fed. Captured enemies were sold to enterprising men and sent across the vast oceans in the bellies of ships where they might die, but they might also live to be sold as slaves. Slaves were cheaper than indentured servants and there were no contracts. Masters paid more for indentured servants than slaves and that cut into profits. It is a simple equation. Cost must never equal or exceed profits. Smart Masters spent less in producing a crop in order to reap great rewards. Indentured servants cost more than slaves. Indentured servants worked only for the term of the contract. Slaves worked until they were traded, sold, or died. Pay one price and slaves will work, breed more slaves who will breed even more slaves. Slaves were an investment for the future that continued paying dividends for generations to come. Illegal immigrants are the latest label for slaves. These slaves provide the labor to pick the crops that will be sold at the market and cost less than hiring documented workers. That means more profit after the crops are sold. Call them resources, undocumented workers, illegal immigrants, whatever label you choose to salve your conscience and give slavery a makeover. In the end, these poor huddled masses are still slaves, resources that will make more money for their employers. These resources with faces and names are the latest on the list to be plundered, raped, and pillaged. Yes, there are good employers (masters) and bad employers, but ultimately they are Masters and the people are slaves. You are either the big fish that eats or the smaller fish that is eaten. No matter the perspective and no matter how you agonize over the rights of the fish that ends up as food, the fish is still eaten and nourishes another. Why else would the wealthy and powerful hire illegal immigrants? It is not to save them from poverty and ignorance. It is to cut the cost of the labor so that there is more money to buy bigger and better comfort. It's economics. The best economy is one where the cost never exceeds the profits and comfort at a cheaper price is much more comfortable. It all comes down to degree. Will you sell yourself for enough food to live another minute, another hour, another day or will you sell someone else for your comfort to someone who is buying so they will have more money to buy more comfort? It is always one species preying on a smaller, weaker, more vulnerable species. Have no doubts about that. Whether you eat meat or plants, you prey on life. What do you want? When you play the Game of Life, you eat or are eaten.

That is all. Disperse.

The End of Feudaism

Insight often comes from strange places. At least it does for me.

I was watching Cranford and one of the characters, Lady Ludlow, was opposed to young Harry being taught to read and write. She didn't want to end up like her cousins across the channel in France with her head lying in a revolutionary's basket beneath a guillotine because she had allowed her serfs, or retainers, to learn to read and realize they could have a better life with an education. Slaves, serfs, peons, and servants who could read could topple her from playing Lady Largesse, the magnanimous and gentle tyrant that allowed then to work for her for tuppence and have regular meals, wear nice clothes, and wait to serve her at her pleasure -- or be dismissed to a life of poverty without a reference.

Of course, all of this is going on in my head in about 2 seconds and I realized how much like feudalism is publishing, especially now that the masses who want to publish their own books have gained control of the presses --  virtual and real. How the aristocracy must have cringed when the printing press became a reality and religious institutions no longer had to illuminate manuscripts and keep safe the written word, often for monarchs and landed gentry that couldn't read. They had servants to do that sort of thing in the good old days.

As books became cheaper and easily available, revolutions began. The Catholic church, once a nearly global power and anxious to convert newly discovered savages to the worship of the Trinity and Jesus Christ, began to topple as people learned to read and question the status quo. Why should the clergy be the last word on who does and does not go to heaven? Why should the poor pay the wealthy to pray for their souls and sell candles to light so a loved one would spend little time in purgatory and ascend to heaven?

Feudalism is built on the backs of the working classes, the serfs, peons, and slaves, a lesson that Rome learned at the point of a sword when Spartacus, and several other slave leaders, rose and threw off their chains. Even when a slave is treated well, he remains a slave, the person who does all the work and gets none, or few, of the benefits. How is that different from publishing? Oh, that's right. It is no different.

Publishing has been the gatekeeper for centuries, built on the words and hard work of every person who ever wanted to write a book and was found worthwhile to promote. It's much like allowing a slave to serve in the main house instead of in the fields, as long as the slave learned his place -- beholden to the whims of his master.

Publishing is feudalistic. Think not? The feudal system is based on a 3-tiered pyramid. A lord, king, or ruler is at the top and determines the fate of everyone beneath him. Knights, mercenaries, and retainers keep the peace and protect the lord. Serfs, servants, and peons, the poor working class, do all the work and tend the land, livestock, and businesses that supply the lord; they are the base of the pyramid, without which the lord would be a deluded aristocrat ruling nothing and unable to work for his bread or even know how to mill and bake it into cake or bread.

In publishing, the publishers are the lords. Agents are the knights, the strong arm of the lord that protect the publisher's business and vet the more acceptable serfs (writers) to work as servants to the publisher, those chosen from among the poor who have some talent and ability that can be exploited to make more money for the publisher. And then there are the remaining slaves/serfs who buy the books produced by the servants for the publishers and pay for the lavish lifestyle to which the publishers have become so accustomed. Better to live on Park Avenue with a view of the park than to live in Alphabet City or Harlem among the poor.

Contracts that keep the lion's share of earnings in publishers's pockets so they can maintain their vast wealth polished and intact, are part of the chains that bind the writer in servitude. There are certainly writers that have made millions, even hundreds of billions, but who has stopped to ask how much the publisher made on the deal. If a writer is worth $200 billion and they get 12-15% royalties on net profit, what the publisher keeps is an obscene amount of money, even after they pay employees, marketing staff, and the cost of creating books, something much more profitable since the advent of pulp wood paper instead of the more expensive and longer lasting rag and hemp paper. Paper that crumbles and turns to dust in 5 years means selling more copies as readers replace worn out books. More books means more sales and more profit for the publisher, most of which the writer will never see.

With the introduction of POD (Print On Demand) publishing and electronic books, the game changed. Publishers continued to denigrate the vanity presses, but e-books changed things forever. A book that never goes out of style, takes up no warehouse space, and can be kept virtually forever undermines the whole structure upon which publishing was built. Writers finally had control and could strike out on their own and rise above the masses by writing and selling good books that had a shelf life beyond 3 months. No more remaindering. No more binding contracts to greedy publishers. No more supporting someone else's lavish lifestyle when a lavish lifestyle, or at least publication of books publishers turned down. The gatekeepers are out of a job, which is why publishers and Apple decided to fix prices on e-books at near or above the cost of paperback books. If a paperback book is cheaper or the hardback, when discounted, was not much more expensive, then books were safe and the e-book revolution would go away. Writers would get tired of doing all the work of producing a book, from cover art to marketing and sales. I'm sure the aristocrats felt the same way before the French revolutionaries arrested and led them up to Lady Guillotine. Look where it got them.

The revolution has come and the class war between the people who produce the books -- writers -- and the people who have profited the most from books -- publishers -- are at war. What we need is a truce and a coalition of forces that benefits everyone, just not with the 90/10 split that has ruled publishing for so long, or 88/12 split that currently passes for business as usual. Not everyone is J. K. Rowling or Danielle Steel. Most people have been relegated to the middle ranks, writers that produced good quality books in genres that sold well, but not spectacularly, the mid list writers that have been the bread and butter of the publishing industry, writers that never got fabulously wealthy but were upper middle class with a solid back list that still sold books decades after they were published.

Instead of struggling to the bitter end, publishers would be better served to give a hand up and offer their services as book packagers, marketing specialists, and sales teams to up and coming writers instead of trying to maintain a crumbling edifice. Publishers have vast resources that could benefit revolutionaries without all the rancor, price fixing, and game playing that currently exists. It's a choice of adapting or dying, and dying is a distinct option right now as more and more published authors are fleeing publishers for more lucrative deals that offer better benefits and more freedom creatively and financially. It's the choice of 12-15% or 35-70% of sales, and not net sales but gross sales.

The class war is waging with no end in sight. Emotions are high and at this point the results are volatile. Better to work with writers, those hard working people who dream in prose and are the only reason for publishers to exist, than to fight to maintain a system that no longer works.

The slaves, serfs, and servants have learned how to read. They have educated themselves and now know the score. I wonder if publishers have gotten the message yet or if they are still in denial as they climb the stairs to the guillotine while the masses surrounding them howl for blood and their heads.