Senate candidate Kay Hagan is a reactionary

Progressive people have little choice for Senate in this election, thanks to restrictive ballot access laws and domination by rightist Democrats.  Democrat Kay Hagan (www.kayhagan.com) is only a little to the left of rightwing Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole on issues like foreign policy.  

 

One of Hagan's tactics is to join the bandwagon of scapegoating undocumented immigrants, and this is out in the open on her website.  In today's News & Observer the immigration positions of several candidates are highlighted.  Hagan had a hand in using millions of taxpayer dollars to deputize police as immigration enforcers and she voted to prevent undocumented immigrants from getting drivers' licenses.  That will not stop them from driving, it just means they drive without being being required to know the rules, so the roads are more dangerous, thanks to Hagan. 

 

On her website it says "illegal immigration is a threat to our national security and economy" and the Bush Administration has "eroded the rule of law" by not cracking down enough.  Her idea of "a practical solution that is fair to taxpayers and addresses the problem at its roots" is "strengthening the borders," cracking down "on employers who knowingly hire illegal workers," and "eliminating the shadow economy that drives down wages and working conditions" (whatever that means), and possibly an agricultural guest worker program.  Perhaps by "shadow economy" this supposedly "business progressive" candidate (coined by an N&O columnist I think) means that native workers should blame immigrants for their troubles, not the bosses, their politicians, and their anti-union and anti-worker laws.  Hagan does not admit that free trade rules and foreign policies are the cause of immigration, though she is for "fair trade," but her concern for fairness is for the US, not for our partners as well.    

 

Before listing how she would help veterans, she reveals her foreign policy mindset.  The veterans fought "repressive Communist regimes" (yet most of those dirty wars were carried out by the CIA, so the US could repress the peoples of the world, and what about WWII, when the Western imperialists allied with the communists against the "scourge of totalitarianism"), freed "Kuwait from the brutality of Saddam Hussein," and promotes "freedom around the globe."  Yet she later claims to be for withdrawing from Iraq (so Afghanistan can be kept under control).  The Iraq War was only 'mismanaged,' not wrong for the American and Iraqi people ands against freedom from the start.  Her reference to keeping "nuclear weapons out of our enemies' hands" must refer to Iran.  Hagan says he is for "cooperation," but if she becomes our senator, she is likely to back a war with Iran, launched by Obama or McCain, if Bush doesn't beat them to it in the next few months.   

 

Gangs are a problem, but I don't trust her on preserving civil liberties in combating criminals.  She wants to keep sexual offenders off of social networking sites to protect children, but that is a disturbingly broad statement.  It is good that she supports anti-bullying legislation, presumably including GLBT people, but she does not say that explicitly.