How else would you describe someone who knowingly implements a law that will inflame white fears against the growing brown (Latino) population. Yes, I know Arizona has a problem with illegal immigration, but that problem has been around for decades, long before Brewer got there. And it probably won't go away soon.
As long as Arizona borders Mexico, a poor, crime-ridden country, people will cross the border to seek work. And as long as American employers continue to employ migrant labor, the flood of workers is not going to stop.
Brewer's new anti-immigrant laws have more to do with bolstering her political support by tapping into white rage. White people are still currently a majority, but with the growing Latino population, that is going to end soon. Brewer knows her laws appeal to white voters who are angry with some of the current problems in Arizona, unemployment, crime and overcrowding, which they blame on illegal immigrants.
But in reality, crime is down in Arizona. Although you wouldn't know it if you listened to Brewer, who has warned of headless corpses (proven to be false) and accused all illegal immigrants of being drug mules. According to a story by CBS 5 reporter Morgan Lowe, FBI figures show that Arizona has seen a 50 percent drop in crime since 2003. The Border Patrol also says that migrant traffic is down.
It's bad enough that Brewer and other white-leaning politicians have appealed to the worse part of the American psyche. Arizona has now become a destination for white supremacists, some who have taken to patrolling the border.
But Brewer also has a financial stake in this issue, news reports says that several people in the Brewer administration have ties to the private prison industry. So if Brewer passes a law that will lead to mass arrests, guess who is going to benefit from this? The state run prisons will probably turn this problem over to private prisons, and this is where Brewer's cronies clean up.
According to Lowe's story, Paul Senseman, Brewer's deputy chief of staff, is a former lobblist for the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a company that bills the government $11 million per month to hold detainees. Chuck Coughlin, a Brewer policy adviser and campaign chair, currently lobbies for CCA.
In the 1990s, under Gov. Frank Keating, Oklahoma passed several get-tough-on crime laws and outsourced prisons to CCA, who had made large donations to Keating's campaign fund, according to an article by the Journal Record.
According to a letter from the Oklahoma Senate, Keating approved a contract worth $6-15 million for the government to buy additonal beds from the private prison industry. He also signed the Truth in Sentencing law, which made offenders serve longer sentences.
I believe the idea of a corporate-run prison is evil. The main goal of a corporation is to generate profit. When corporations get involved in the corrections industry, they are generating profit off bondage and misery. In addition, politicians like Brewer and Keating, have a vested interest in keeping inmates locked up for long periods of time. The longer inmates are incarcerated, the more money the corporation makes. Making profit off bonded labor sounds dangerously like slavery to me.
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini once said that the correct definition of fascism was the melding of state and corporate interests, which sounds like a perfect definition of what is going on in Arizona.
