A friend forwarded a scary email targeting immigrants this morning, and asked what I thought. The word that comes to mind immediately is scapegoating.

Just when Americans are beginning to understand how the Wall Street banks and mega-corporations have sunk the economy, our attention is being refocused on ... immigrants.

The Wall Street bailouts of $700 Billion cost every man, woman, and child in the U.S. $2,000 each. Then in 2010 the Supreme Court said corporations could give unlimited money to political campaigns. This made regular people angry, no matter what their political affiliation.

Historically, when we look at what has dramatically damaged our economies and budgets, we see how Enron in the late 1990s and early 2000s bought off both Titanic parties in the California legislature, got the laws they wanted, faked energy shortages, and took California for billions. Before that in the 1980s and 1990s the savings and loan crisis resulted in regular people footing the bill to bail out S&Ls.  Right now we see oil companies making record profits, paying less and less in taxes, and charging us more and more at the gas pump. "Supply and demand" – does demand refer to demand for higher executive pay?

Immigrants were not involved in any of these devastating economic blows, and yet they have been targeted by some in the government and media and  internet to distract our attention from those people and corporations who are really destroying our budgets and economy.

Scapegoating.

Someone came up with the phrase weapons of mass distraction. Let's not let anyone distract us. The mega-corporations and billionaires are the big-money threats working against the California we want: the California that has great  schools, parks, libraries, healthcare, transportation, water, and job opportunities – for all of us.