Ease of Immigrating Illegally
Justmom, as the terrorists showed, it is fairly easy to immigrate here illegally from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. All you have to do is get a tourist or student visa and then just don't leave. Of course, you have to be able to afford air fare, but the fees coyotes are charging these days is about as steep.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
Right, but the supposition from "justmom" above was "closed borders", and that would be something new, rather than restricting immigration within certain criteria.Originally Posted by Sanford
I should mention that the ease of obtaining student visas again goes back to the willingness of foreign students to enter the math and science areas, and the number of positions needed in those fields. I suspect few Indians or Asians come here to major in things like sociology or popular culture or other fuzzy subject areas. (No offense to those out there who have majored in these areas, but I do believe a Ph.D. in Physics takes a rarer ability than a Ph.D. in "American Studies".)
Justmom, Ease of Immigration, and Closed Borders
I read Justmom differently. She seemed to be comparing the difficulty with immigrating legally from Europe with the ease of crossing the border illegally from Mexico. I was pointing out that it is fairly simple today to immigrate illegally from Europe. I should point out that a substantial number of Mexicans do immigrate legally each year, getting sponsors, waiting in line, and all that. Its just as hard for them as it is for Europeans, except that they may be more likely to have close family relatives who can sponsor them.
Here is an interesting one. It is a Reuters story from 11 August which I cannot locate from any source location. The ABC News link is no longer active and I can find nothing by searching the Reuters wire. As far as I can tell, it must be yet another one the White house successfully coerced a news outlet into pulling.
According to the article, not only does the Bush administration reserve the right to arbitrarily label you, an American citizen, an "enemy combatant," but it also reserves the right to execute you summarily, bypassing all pretense of due process. Not in America, huh?
Copied at www.bartcop.com/0866.htm:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World...00811_493.html
Bush OK's Summary Executions Of Some Designated As Terrorists
8-12-2002
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a surprise move sure to raise outcries from foreign governments, civil liberties
groups and others, The White House today announced with little fanfare that effective immediately, certain
individuals whom President Bush or other high-level Administration members have designated as terrorists
are subject to summary execution by either Homeland Security operatives, U.S. intelligence operatives,
and in some cases by U.S. military personnel.
The presidential directive applies to both U.S. and foreign citizens,
both within and outside the United States territory.
The White House gave notice of the new policy in as quiet a way as possible, making the announcement
late Sunday evening from Crawford, Texas. The unprecedented move is thought certain to generate a
firestorm of protest from numerous quarters.
I agree with Sanford. Immigration ebbs and flows in what seems like a natural process that roughly follows S&H's saecular cycle. I've seen the argument made that one thing that helped make the Great Immigration of 1890-1920 so successful was that IT STOPPED for several decades. This gave our society time for immigrants and their children to assimilate and at the same time change America forever.
From the data I've seen, immigration usually crashes at the outset of a 4T and remains relatively low through the next 1T before returning to a higher relative level in an early-to-mid 2T. But the Great Power Cycle seems to be a little different in that the immigration dearth seems to have come about 10 years early. Perhaps the reaction to the Red terrorist attacks of 1919 left a little 4T deposit, if you will, even though the country clearly had an overall 3T reaction. Any comments on this would interest me greatly.
In regards to now, August 2002, I see a premature 4T struggling to survive. In regards to the immigration cycle specifically, I see that some steps have been taken to curb immigration, though relatively minor steps. I also see some indications that America may become percieved as a less attractive place for foreigners to migrate to (between media-hyped terrorist threats and financial meltdowns, plus Ashcroft's actions, etc . . ).
That last part is important. During both the Revolution and the Civil War, my understanding is that immigration dropped not so much because immigrants weren't legally welcome, but rather because who wanted to come here during so much turmoil? Likewise, even if the 1920-24 reaction to immigration had not occurred, I think immigration would have plummeted by itself from 1929-1933 and stayed low for some time.
S&H's theory leads me to believe that there will be a relative drop in immigration (be it from internal restrictions and/or externally-percieved loss of desirability) sometime in this decade. If 9/11-WorldCom was the initial trigger, then soon, if not, then by 2009. Immigration will then stay relatively low until the 2040's. Who knows.
And Stonewall Patton, I was not aware of that new policy regarding summary executions of government-declared, "non-combantant" citizens. Wow. Any other links for that you can think of?!?!?!? I would like to read more.
My guess is that either last October's "Nuke in Manhattan" scare frightened the daylights out of some members of the government or they know something similarly horrendous that still threatens us that WE do not know about. Blatant power grabs by a power-mad A.G. could be another explanation of course.
Immigration and 3T/4T
** I am going to post this again to make room for Mr. Ashcroft's picture above**
I agree with Sanford. Immigration ebbs and flows in what seems like a natural process that roughly follows S&H's saecular cycle. I've seen the argument made that one thing that helped make the Great Immigration of 1890-1920 so successful was that IT STOPPED for several decades. This gave our society time for immigrants and their children to assimilate and at the same time change America forever.
From the data I've seen, immigration usually crashes at the outset of a 4T and remains relatively low through the next 1T before returning to a higher relative level in an early-to-mid 2T. But the Great Power Cycle seems to be a little different in that the immigration dearth seems to have come about 10 years early. Perhaps the reaction to the Red terrorist attacks of 1919 left a little 4T deposit, if you will, even though the country clearly had an overall 3T reaction. Any comments on this would interest me greatly.
In regards to now, August 2002, I see a premature 4T struggling to survive. In regards to the immigration cycle specifically, I see that some steps have been taken to curb immigration, though relatively minor steps. I also see some indications that America may become percieved as a less attractive place for foreigners to migrate to (between media-hyped terrorist threats and financial meltdowns, plus Ashcroft's actions, etc . . ).
That last part is important. During both the Revolution and the Civil War, my understanding is that immigration dropped not so much because immigrants weren't legally welcome, but rather because who wanted to come here during so much turmoil? Likewise, even if the 1920-24 reaction to immigration had not occurred, I think immigration would have plummeted by itself from 1929-1933 and stayed low for some time.
S&H's theory leads me to believe that there will be a relative drop in immigration (be it from internal restrictions and/or externally-percieved loss of desirability) sometime in this decade. If 9/11-WorldCom was the initial trigger, then soon, if not, then by 2009. Immigration will then stay relatively low until the 2040's. Who knows.
And Stonewall Patton, I was not aware of that new policy regarding summary executions of government-declared, "non-combantant" citizens. Wow. Any other links for that you can think of?!?!?!? I would like to read more.
My guess is that either last October's "Nuke in Manhattan" scare frightened the daylights out of some members of the government or they know something similarly horrendous that still threatens us that WE do not know about. Blatant power grabs by a power-mad A.G. could be another explanation of course.
Kiff, there's really nothing we can do to not piss them off. They aren't really upset at us for what we're doing or planning to do, they're angry at us for what we are. The actions they keep talking about are just excuses.
Re: Illegal Immigration and Borders
Let's not kid ourselves. Along with "I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door", which truly is a basic part of American psychology, there is an equally strong strain of "those damned foreigners". America alternates between welcoming immigrants and wanting to slam the door, with the later sentiment usually gaining strength during late 3T and 4T.
Also, it's a nasty reality that it's much, much easier to assimilate Western Europeans than it is people from other cultures. Many people want that not to be true, but it is true.
:roll:
1. Isn't that supposed to happen in a 4T anyway? That way we get new Silents.
2. It's fake anyway, which makes it...
3. It's stupid, which makes it...
4. It's Pointless.
1987 INTP
Kiff, there's really nothing we can do to not piss them off. They aren't really upset at us for what we're doing or planning to do, they're angry at us for what we are. The actions they keep talking about are just excuses.
BS. The US sets up puppet regimes to rule over them and, being human, they quite naturally object. Americans would object as well if the shoes were reversed. There is nothing the least bit difficult to understand about this situation but the defenders of empire continue to rationalize any excuse to stay the imperial course. Remove the US troops from their soil and quit setting up puppet regimes to rule over them and, being human, they will no longer have any need or desire to bother with Americans. Despite all the propaganda, there is nothing the least bit difficult to understand about this.
Re: :roll:
Obviously, our worst fears about our educational system have been realized.1. Isn't that supposed to happen in a 4T anyway?
The strongest is always hated. It's true we've done a lot of idiot things, but if we ceased and desisted entirely, our mere existence would still infuriate huge swaths of the world. We haven't set up puppet regimes over Europe, but that doesn't make them like us any better.Kiff, there's really nothing we can do to not piss them off. They aren't really upset at us for what we're doing or planning to do, they're angry at us for what we are. The actions they keep talking about are just excuses.
BS. The US sets up puppet regimes to rule over them and, being human, they quite naturally object. Americans would object as well if the shoes were reversed. There is nothing the least bit difficult to understand about this situation but the defenders of empire continue to rationalize any excuse to stay the imperial course. Remove the US troops from their soil and quit setting up puppet regimes to rule over them and, being human, they will no longer have any need or desire to bother with Americans. Despite all the propaganda, there is nothing the least bit difficult to understand about this.
[quote="Stonewall Patton"]
Kiff, I have the same questions you do. I can tell you that he does indeed have an axe to grind in that the Bushes owe him $200,000 or something like that from something having to do with Iran-Contra, and he openly stated this in a column a few months back. Furthermore, I think we have seen evidence in his past columns of that axe influencing him. If you recall his comparing of a new US postage stamp to Nazi symbology, that was definitely a little over the top. Without a doubt, he has an axe to grind, he has freely admitted it and explained the nature of it, and I think it is fair to say that it has affected his objectivity in the past."
So does this 57 cent stamp exist??
If it does, it certainly looks nazi-like. What's the story?
And DID Ed McMahon make those ads for Neighborhod Watch?
And were they as creepy as they are described?
The National Neighborhood Watch Web Site used to be run by the Sheriffs.
Now it has George Bush's face and Eagles plastered all over.
Yes, very creepy.
And you will note that Europeans are not committing "acts of terror" against Americans either. You reap what you sow. The bitch of it is that only a small cadre of elitists sowed this. Yet the rest of us must reap what these base types have sown.
Are you saying that you believe that the Bush administration specifically intended to promote Nazi symbology as their private little joke? I really do have a hard time believing that. I don't doubt for a minute that they crave the absolute power of the Third Reich. In fact, their actions make it obvious that they do. But even if some of them are sick enough to privately sing praises to the glory of the Third Reich, I cannot believe that they would overtly "honor" the Third Reich in this way. That would be about the sickest joke imaginable and I cannot see where they would be that open about their depravity if it indeed runs that deep.
BTW, there were very elementary factual errors in Martin's account of that stamp which I posted here at the time. I cannot remember precisely what those errors were but I believe in one case Martin passed off a term from a mineral hardness scale as one from a coloring scale. Did someone hoodwink him with this information or was this his idea of a joke? There is a distinct possiblity that Martin is propagating disinformation. Yes, Martin does also pass off some good information, but he still needs to be read with caution.
I do not know it is funny or not, however I will post it.
State finally puts end to WWII
16Aug02
SOUTH Australia has declared an official end to World War II - 57 years after the halt to hostilities in Europe and the Pacific.
The declaration was necessary to revoke extraordinary powers that were bestowed on the state government during the war years.
Premier Mike Rann said the government had just discovered that the Emergency Powers Act of 1941 had never been repealed.
"It is a quirk of history that World War II was never proclaimed at an end in this state," Mr Rann said.
"The Act was supposed to expire at the time that peace treaties were signed, as they were at the end of World War I.
"However, peace treaties were never signed because the Axis powers surrendered.
"In 1952 the Act was amended to enable the state government to issue a proclamation declaring World War II had ended.
"But there is no evidence that the proclamation was ever made."
Mr Rann said the powers given to the state government included the right to remove any civil population from any portion of the state and to authorise any person to enter or search any premises.
It could also regulate and ration the production and supply of food, water, fuel, gas and electricity.
The premier said it became necessary to officially revoke the Emergency Power Act because it was now considered in breach of national competition laws.
Re: :roll:
2. It's fake anyway, which makes it...
3. It's stupid, which makes it...
4. It's Pointless.
If we stopped executing people, it might help.Kiff, there's really nothing we can do to not piss them off. They aren't really upset at us for what we're doing or planning to do, they're angry at us for what we are. The actions they keep talking about are just excuses.
IIRC, you and I are both opposed to the death penalty, though perhaps not for the same reasons.
Sure, there are people in the world who will always hate us for "what we are." They envy our freedom and our wealth. They despise (with some justification, IMHO) our trashy pop culture.
But Stonewall is right; when we support regimes that are favorable to our economic interests but that oppress their own people, then we are wrong, morally as well as politically. And I think this country needs to find a way to disengage from this kind of game-playing.
I do have a feeling that people on this group are making assumptions about the Americian economy and political developments which I think are frankly untrue.
Despite the fall in Wall Street the US Economy has remained strong with unemployment lower than just about every other western nation. America?s levels of crime are far lower than that of Britain, France or Australia. The Political momention in the United States still remains firmly on the right and GW Bush is a quite underrated president, I do think he could show quite insightful political intelligence in the next few years.
Maybe we might be headed into a politically conservative 4T; there is a prescient for it. Britain in the Revolutionary war Crisis (which climaxed with the fall of the Bastille).
The Reluctant President
Frank Bruni's insight into Bush
By Andrew Sullivan
Despite the mounds of ink expended on the current president of the United States, he's still in many ways a mystery. Before September 11, he was widely ridiculed in the press - especially abroad - as a know-nothing, word-mangling, privileged hick who barely won the election. After September 11, his measured and calm response to the attack, his handling of the international crisis, his oratorical skills, and his deft management of the military have given an altogether different impression. In a matter of months, the conventional image of Bush has been effectively whip-lashed. And now that we have a little distance from the alleged turning point of last September, the result is unnervingly incoherent. Who, after all, is the real Bush? The jokester or the statesman? The bumbler or the war leader? The cipher or the captain?
A terrific, if modest, little book, "Ambling Into History," has just attempted an answer to that question and it has Washington chatting. It's by the New York Times' political reporter, Frank Bruni, who covered Bush during the election campaign. Bruni's no conservative; in fact, he's a moderately liberal man working for a left-liberal paper. But he's a good reporter and, because he wrote fair columns on Bush throughout the campaign, became a favorite of the president-to-be. Dubya called him "Panchito" - a diminutive, Spanish version of Frank. He'd pinch Panchito's cheeks, hug him from time to time, and tease him about his bosses. "At least twice, on the campaign plane," Bruni writes, "I felt someone's hands closing tight on my throat and turned around to see the outstretched arms of the future president of the United States, a devilish and delighted gleam in his eyes. He once even put his index fingers in my ears to illustrate that a comment he was about to make would be off the record. On another occasion, he grabbed the sides of my head with his hands, pressed his forehead against mine and made a sound not unlike that of a moderately exasperated pooch."
This is the goofy Bush, the man who allegedly started waving at Stevie Wonder at a recent Washington concert, only to realize his stupidity and crack up at the whole interaction. This is the Bush who started a "stickball" team at college and christened it "the Nads," so as to ensure that the chants from the stands would be "Go Nads! Go Nads!" This is the Bush who does a mean Dr. Evil impression from Austin Powers (one of his favorite movies), who "when he ate French fries, dipped them into puddles of ketchup deeper and broader than anyone over the age of twelve typically amasses," and who, when asked what he had in common with Tony Blair ventured Colgate toothpaste. One of his favorite gags was going up to bald friends and colleagues, laying his bare palms on their heads and intoning like Billy Graham, "Heal!" Like most jokes, these are all a matter of taste. But if, like me, your most treasured videos are Animal House, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Airplane!, you might get along with the current occupant of the White House quite well.
But does this make Bush unserious or somehow dumb? On the latter question, few but hardcore Democratic partisans in Washington still dispute the man's sharp intelligence. He has mangled words, but he has hardly mangled his politics. From beating a popular incumbent governor of Texas to winning a landslide second term as governor, he kept turning his opponents into political puree. Against an incumbent vice-president who should have won in a landslide, Bush eked out a victory and, with shrewd tactics, played the post-election recount game better than Gore. Before September 11, he barely dipped below 57 percent approval ratings, and since he has barely hovered below 80 percent. This record is not that of a stupid person. And, of course, on a simple level, there was never any evidence that he was the moron he was made out to be. Bush got better marks in college than Gore or John McCain. He's a graduate of Yale and Harvard. As Bruni points out, the current president is also "a pretty steady consumer of books." Bruni admits his early dismissal of Bush's book-smarts was more prejudice than reality.
The truth is that Bush is both serious and unserious. He larks about but he also concentrates. He started prepping for his campaign debates with Gore months before they happened, and beat Gore handily in all three. His sometimes hilarious locutions are not a function of stupidity or dyslexia. They are a kind of genetic defect. His father was far worse. But no-one accused the father of stupidity. Dubya's occasional recitation of stock phrases is also not because he can't think of anything else, or doesn't know anything else. They're part of his famous ability to maintain message discipline, even at the expense of making himself look stupid. To understand his hesitancy to go off the cuff, you have to put yourself in the shoes of someone whose every word is recorded and every mistake read back to him. What's amazing in retrospect is not that he hasn't screwed up verbally plenty of times - but how few occasions there have been in which it really mattered. And then there are the simple urban legends. He is renowned for having said, for example, "is our children learning?" One Democratic party hack even published an anti-Bush book with that as the title. What Bush actually said was, "Is ... are children learning?" He started to say one thing and then said another. By making 'are' 'our,' his opponents thought they had located his obvious weakness.
They didn't. As Bruni realized, Bush's simplicity, his gaffes, his colloquialisms, his goofing around, actually turned into a political advantage. 'I always got the sense," Bruni writes, "that his antics were in part an acknowledgement or assertion that a well-adjusted person could not approach all of the obligatory appearances, grandiose pageantry and forced gallantry toward the news media with a totally straight face. It made him likable. It made him real." Compared to the straight-laced, humorless, pious Gore, Bush was a godsend to the country's culture - a bit like electing Rory Bremner to succeed Tony Blair.
But the other side to Bruni's portrait is an underlying gravity that keeps the lightness anchored. Like many deeply religious men, Bush engages the world with a certain detachment, and that detachment can sometimes be expressed in frivolity, irony, fun, or self-mockery. There is a very bearable lightness about being Bush. But he can only be so playful because he is so anchored. He is connected to faith but he is also connected to a profound love of his country and its destiny. This connection is, like all patriotism, rooted not in the head but the heart. At one point in a summer lull in the campaign, Bush spoke with Bruni on the campaign plane and inexplicably got teary-eyed. Looking back on his campaign, he was asked about his feelings if Gore were to win. "Seriously, I would respect that. I'm not going to like it. But this is democracy," he said. He went on: "I love the system and I love the country. I love what America stands for. I don't want to sound Pollyanna-ish about it, but I do... I am so honored to be one of two coming down the stretch. I am." He meant it. And tears welled up.
One of his most memorable moments in the days after September 11 was when tears came again. He was in the Oval Office and he was asked how these events had affected him. "Well," Bush said, "I don't think about myself right now. I think about the families, the children. I am a loving guy." And his voice cracked. That's when the country bonded. And only from the depths of such sorrow can come the iron determination to see the crisis through, to ensure to the best of his ability that it would never happen again. His emotional core is connected to his lightness of spirit. He is secure in what he loves. And the very simplicity and depth of his patriotism is more in tune with most Americans than with some other members of the media or political elite. That's why the bond is so strong. And that's why it will last.
But perhaps the most striking thing about Bruni's account is its picture of an essentially reluctant president. It took Bush a long time to be reconciled to the huge sacrifices - of privacy, leisure, routine, family - that becoming president would entail. In the campaign, he'd long to get back home; he missed his children; he brought his own pillow at all times to remind him of the familiar. Even now, he loves being on his Texas ranch, he carves out immovable personal time, he is religious about his workouts, he leaves work early. This isn't merely good management style. It's a statement of what's important. It's about not losing yourself, or your familiar landmarks and habits, while you enter truly unknown and terrifying territory. At an almost ridiculous level, you can see this entirely in one simple incident. One on particularly grueling campaign flight, Bush "glanced in horror at the slivers of sushi that we had been served during the flight and held his peanut butter and jelly sandwich high like a chalice. 'This is heaven, right here,' he proclaimed."
You can and probably should make fun of this. But at a deeper level, it's also revealing. Bush knows what he knows. He knows who he is. He likes who he is. And this small piece of wisdom is doubtless what keeps him sane. He has an instinctive understanding of limits, of what can and cannot be done, of the human scale by which all political achievements must be measured. It's redolent of a natural, temperamental conservatism that prefers, in Michael Oakeshott's words, "the familiar to the unknown, the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss." That doesn't mean that such an instinctively conservative person like Bush cannot be energetic, or wage war. In fact, I think Bush's rage at the disruption to the meaning of America on September 11 is the fuel for his ruthless determination to fight back and win. So lightness begets seriousness, detachment begets engagement, and a natural conservatism begets a determined and adventurous war. These are just some of the more interesting paradoxes of its man once dismissed as a bumbling moron. And he's only a little over a year into his first term.
Re: Illegal Immigration and Borders
Hopeful, the assimilation of the Irish and then the Eastern Europeans was not an easy thing. If you look at 19th century definitions of "racial groups", you will find Italians, Poles, and Eastern European Jews considered to be inferior races; indeed, even the Irish were so tarred. And of course, the Eastern and Southern Europeans did not speak English.
Back in WWI, large numbers of recent immigrants and their first-generation sons were rejected for military service because of "low intelligence". Back in the twenties, we all know about Italian gangstas, but there were lots of Jewish thugs too. And of course, there was a strong Yiddish culture and lots of foreign-language presses.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
So that 50% of value which people have lost in their IRAs and 401(k)s is scheduled to be magically restored on some day next week or next month? The real estate bubble in fact is in no danger of bursting? The banks in fact will not have to write off their massive loans to these now bankrupt corporations? Pro-Bush Republican analyst Larry Kudlow was only kidding when he stated that the US narrowly averted a bank run a week or two ago?
Investor confidence is way down...and for good reason. And if you want to compare unemployment rates, you have to determine what methodology the US government is using this week in order to doctor the numbers. What are they calling full employment this week? All but 8% of the population working?Despite the fall in Wall Street the US Economy has remained strong with unemployment lower than just about every other western nation.
Is this why the Bush administration has been implementing the Democrats' agenda?The Political momention in the United States still remains firmly on the right
Pinnochio was fiction. It was not a true story.and GW Bush is a quite underrated president, I do think he could show quite insightful political intelligence in the next few years.
Then how do you plan on blaming Bush for the stock market slide which began an entire 372 days before he took office?So that 50% of value which people have lost in their IRAs and 401(k)s is scheduled to be magically restored on some day next week or next month? The real estate bubble in fact is in no danger of bursting? The banks in fact will not have to write off their massive loans to these now bankrupt corporations? Pro-Bush Republican analyst Larry Kudlow was only kidding when he stated that the US narrowly averted a bank run a week or two ago?
Investor confidence is way down...and for good reason. And if you want to compare unemployment rates, you have to determine what methodology the US government is using this week in order to doctor the numbers. What are they calling full employment this week? All but 8% of the population working?Despite the fall in Wall Street the US Economy has remained strong with unemployment lower than just about every other western nation.
Is this why the Bush administration has been implementing the Democrats' agenda?The Political momention in the United States still remains firmly on the right
Pinnochio was fiction. It was not a true story.and GW Bush is a quite underrated president, I do think he could show quite insightful political intelligence in the next few years.
1987 INTP
I've come around to agreeing with you, Sanford. I was wrong. I overreacted in my own desiccated ignorance.
The stock slide occurred because of the bubble. The bubble was made possible by the Stock Market Bubble Act of 1997 (It actually had a different name that I can't recall--but that was its objective). So if you have to blame someone blame Congress in 1997.
