The Real News Network has the interview New Senate Bill Fails To Address Root Causes of Central American Migration of David Bacon.

DESVARIEUX: But, David, if you do agree with that premise that you propose, you know, people deserve a decent life, what should we as Americans be focusing our attention on if we really want to deal with this influx of children from Central America? What specific policy should we be pushing our lawmakers to be fighting for?

BACON: Well, I think that we need to stop, for instance, negotiating trade treaties which basically deepen the poverty that exists in Mexico, Central America, and other countries. You know, this administration has negotiated and put into effect three trade treaties. We could go all the way back to the North American Free Trade Agreement that was negotiated by the first president Bush and then signed by Clinton, as a result of which 8 million people came from Mexico to the United States because people really had no alternative if they needed to survive. So that’s one thing that we could do is we could have a much fairer trade regime that existed for the benefit of ordinary people, little people on the ground, rather than for large U.S. corporations.

But I think also that we have to decriminalize migration, decriminalize the movement of people. Instead of seeing that or instead of thinking that the answer to people crossing borders is to put people in prison or to fire them from their jobs or deport them, we need to treat people as we would ourselves expect to be treated as human beings. So I think both of those things are the real alternatives: the decriminalization of migration, and also taking a look at root causes and at least trying to stop doing–do the things that are causing people to lack any alternatives to leaving home in order to survive.

The previous post Three Questions to Ask During a War (and During Peacetime, Too) is apropos here. I think this is all about asking the right questions.

I just wonder when will we start to ask of proposed free trade treaties what is the cost in increased immigration to this county of refugees from the countries with which we sign these treaties?

Yes, a treaty may improve trade so that corporations (that are not people) will prosper, but what is the impact on people (who seek refuge)?

Thanks to Sarah Clark for posting a link to the article Three Questions to Ask During a War (and During Peacetime, Too).

The novelist Ursula LeGuin wrote, “There are no right answers to wrong questions.” Responsible education, responsible leadership, and frankly responsible personhood, begins with taking the time to carefully consider the questions we’re asking.

This is an article worth reading again and again over time.  That is why I prefer to post them on my blog rather than only on Facebook.  On my blog, I can search for a post, whereas on Facebook, they tend to be lost after a short time.

I may not live up to things in the above article, but they are something to which I aspire.

The UK Independent has the article The secret report that helps Israelis to hide facts.

There is a reason for this enhancement of the PR skills of Israeli spokesmen. Going by what they say, the playbook they are using is a professional, well-researched and confidential study on how to influence the media and public opinion in America and Europe. Written by the expert Republican pollster and political strategist Dr Frank Luntz, the study was commissioned five years ago by a group called The Israel Project, with offices in the US and Israel, for use by those “who are on the front lines of fighting the media war for Israel”.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is quoted with approval for saying that it is “time for someone to ask Hamas: what exactly are YOU doing to bring prosperity to your people”. The hypocrisy of this beggars belief: it is the seven-year-old Israeli economic siege that has reduced the Gaza to poverty and misery.

On every occasion, the presentation of events by Israeli spokesmen is geared to giving Americans and Europeans the impression that Israel wants peace with the Palestinians and is prepared to compromise to achieve this, when all the evidence is that it does not. Though it was not intended as such, few more revealing studies have been written about modern Israel in times of war and peace.

Well, it works for Republicans in the US, why not for Israel? I guess what drives some of us to dislike and distrust Benjamin Netanyahu so much is that he acts so much like a US Tea Partier that he drives us around the bend.  We think of him as a “compassionate occupier” just as George Bush was a “compassionate conservative”.