Another Immigration Discussion

[vanitybinge]

Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank based in Washington, said three pieces must be in place to solve the problem: Illegal workers should be here legally to reduce their incentive to get false documents, the government should carry out effective enforcement, and businesses should have access to the workers they need, more in expansive times, and fewer during a recession.
Otherwise, he said, the fake document industry will continue to thrive and sabotage the system.
"That's the real challenge here," said Chishti, who runs the institute's office at the New York University School of Law. "Unless you get all three things working tofether, we wont have anywhere close to a good, functioning system."

That's the end of an article about New England firms facing steep fines for hiring illegal workers.

It's such a shitty situation. I feel for the guy who lives in some third world drug-lord run piece of shit city and risks his life to make a better life for his family, sneaks over here and works for five years until he can afford to move his family to a better part of Brazil, or wherever. But if the US is the nicest house in the American neighborhood, the truth is we just don't have enough couches to be letting all our neighbors come in and surf. We're hurting for jobs. I know that at least 90% of my heritage is immigration Statin-Island and Mayflower style, I know we stole this house from the people who lived here before and now some people think we're assholes for trying to lock the doors against the rest of the Refugees in the world, but you and I aren't the people who stole this land or got on the boat a hundred years ago. We're not the ones who shot the natives, enslaved them and made them walk the Trail of Tears in smallpox ridden blankets until they died off. You and I were born here, raised here, and learned to love and hate, here. We're the natives now, and there just isn't enough fucking couches in this house.

Some of you are more cold blooded than I am, and could really give a fuck about the plight of people in other countries. I'm jealous of that sometimes, because the rational side of my brain is constantly at arms with the humanitarian, or what my friend Joe would call "the Communist Hippy Bullshit" side of my brain. Lately I agree fully with the rational side, which says we need to clear out the guests for a while and get our own house cleaned up, or it's gonna burn to the fucking ground.

But it's not that easy it it? We can't just load every illegal man, woman, and child up into the paddywagons and fly them all home, can we? No really, I mean, couldn't we? If we really decided to, I think we could round up most of them. But the politics prevent that. The problem is, not every illegal is just some nice guy trying to help his family. Many are drug dealers, and drugs make our government a TON of moola. From cops to courts and the overall unstoppable economy of hand-to-hand deals, drugs are possibly the most successful form of capitalism in the United States today. it's not going to end any time soon. We love our drugs, and dealers love our money. Are any of us ready to give up our pot and cocaine and barbiturates and all the tasty pills made here and elsewhere? Hell no. I'm not giving up that pain medication for shit. If I've got some kind of mutating cancer in my knees, I want your drugs. I want your pot, your vicodin, your E, and some Mescaline if you got it.

But, I want our jobs too. I might be a punk at heart and hate authority and most government systems, probably more for the corruption and stifling of independent freedom that comes with it, and abuse of it, than for the concepts themselves, but I've grown up just enough to realize that we need our capitalist system to work, if we're to get anything fixed. We need our jobs back here in U.S. factories, and we need all the couch surfers to go home for a while. Maybe when we're thriving again we can do another Statin Island and have another melting pot, but right now we need to keep our money here.

The other problem is, a lot of people in this country wont take the jobs that many aliens take. Three fucking people showed up for the 'Open Employment' day in Arizona. Three people, when there's twenty million out of work. I see too many scheming people in my own town who would rather collect unemployment than scrub toilets. That's a problem. We're heading for real Idiocracy if we keep rewarding selfishness at this level. I don't want bigger government by any means, but a re-arranging of jobs on The Hill could lead to much needed oversight on those collecting, and figure out who's getting the money because they're a lazy white trash fatass single mom who just doesn't give a shit, and which ones are productive work-ready white-trash fatass single moms who are really just having a hard time finding work. "Ooh, I've been collecting Unemployment for the past 99 weeks. I need Congress to extend my benefits. I need the banks to..." Shut the fuck up! Get off your lazy ass!

I'm not gonna say I have the solution, but I want to do something. So, I've decided to keep track of everything I buy over the next thirty days, and see how many of those items can be found here in-country. I can't play Super Immigration Guy, but at least I can make an effort to keep my money in the local economy.

Wether this guy's three-tier system would and could work, I'm not sure. Right now, it seems about as much of a pipe dream as my idea.

[lerxstcat]

Be ready for a shock when you go to the grocery store and start reading labels to see if you're buying US products. Oh, don't even ask at restaurants, they're not gonna know where the ingredients came from.

We have to find a valid form of integration with the close to one BILLLION people of Hispanic background that we will share this hemisphere with within the next 20 years. Because even though they identify as Hispanic, very many of them ALSO identify as Native American. Thart leaves those of us of Northern European extraction as the more obvious interlopers in this hemisphere.

So we are outnumbered over 4 to 1 in this hemisphere ethnically. We ARE going to be absorbed into that, there is NO stopping it. So will Asians and blacks. Personally, I embrace it, because to swim aainst the tide is to drown more quickly, no?

"They" are becoming "US", more so every day. The whole world is getting crowdedm man, India has 4x as many people as we do crammed into a space lexx than 1/3 the size of our country. China also has about 4x as many people in a country roughly the same size as our own.

IOW, the world is not sympathetic to us saying we are running out of room.

[vanitybinge]

To swim with the tide is different than swimming against the current, Mr. Mixed Metaphor

Also, you're failing to acknowledge the sub-point I made at the start. You're going right back into the nativity thing.

No one is arguing that different ethnic groups shouldn't be mixing with each other. You're having an entirely different conversation. We have legal immigration, that is a valid form of integration.

Listen, when I say WE or 'You and I', I'm talking about us U.S. born citizens, not just white people or red people. US also includes indigenous American, African American, Japanese Americans, those are US, WE. Those who sneak over, are them.

I think you need to re-read my blog because you totally missed the point, my friend.

[lerxstcat]

To swim with the tide is different than swimming against the current, Mr. Mixed Metaphor

Also, you're failing to acknowledge the sub-point I made at the start. You're going right back into the nativity thing.

No one is arguing that different ethnic groups shouldn't be mixing with each other. You're having an entirely different conversation. We have legal immigration, that is a valid form of integration.

Listen, when I say WE or 'You and I', I'm talking about us U.S. born citizens, not just white people or red people. US also includes indigenous American, African American, Japanese Americans, those are US, WE. Those who sneak over, are them.

I think you need to re-read my blog because you totally missed the point, my friend.

Well, what I see is that ethnically Hispanic people in the western half of the U.S. do not see the immigration issue as a problem. Ever heard of the term Reconquista? It originally meant taking spain back from the Muslims; today it means taking the formerly Mexican parts of the U.S. back from the Anglos.

It's not exactly a unanimos sentiment, but it IS pretty strong among Latinos in the US. More so than they might admit to an Anglo in New England, let's say.

"Hey, they took our land with their badass army? Well, we'll just walk across the border and take it back!" They have the perception that this was ALREADY their land, and that we can't stop them from taking it back. You'd be surprised how many U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent feel exactly this way about it - but they ain't telling just any Anglo who asks. They don't want INS raiding their houses for relatives, so the talk a strong Anglo line.

Just like all the 80s metal bands who made "Just Say No" commercials for the Reagans and were gakked when they did it. No one wants to be busted. Do a PSA for the administration and you're less apt to be hassled.

[vanitybinge]

I get where you're going Lerx, but are these Hispanics claiming to be Mayans? Show me the Mayans!

The indigenous peoples of 1700/1800s pre-California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, etc. we're not "Mexican". There was no such thing as a Mexican. They were natives. They were Lakotas, Cheyennes, Crows, and Comanches.

Then U.S.A. and Mexico happened, but today's Hispanic population is not Mayan.

So you're also saying that all my Hispanic neighbors are on some level conspiring to flush out the Gringos from the inside. Because they're the Native Hipanics of the Western US with the Spanish name.



Sweet.

[vlad]

I get where you're going Lerx, but are these Hispanics claiming to be Mayans? Show me the Mayans!

The indigenous peoples of 1700/1800s pre-California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, etc. we're not "Mexican". There was no such thing as a Mexican. They were natives. They were Lakotas, Cheyennes, Crows, and Comanches.

Then U.S.A. and Mexico happened, but today's Hispanic population is not Mayan.

So you're also saying that all my Hispanic neighbors are on some level conspiring to flush out the Gringos from the inside. Because they're the Native Hipanics of the Western US with the Spanish name.



Sweet.

I have met some "Mayans"...people who have come from southern Mexico and Central America. Probably not legal, but one look at their faces, especially their profiles...there is no doubt that they are the descendants of the Mayans. Just because the civilisation fell, doesn't mean the people ceased to exist. Another interesting thing to me was that their first language was not Spanish, but their native speech. Watching them trying to communicate with their fellow "Hispanic" workers in Spanish, let alone in English...it was educational. We tend to get a lot more illegals from southern Mexico and Central America here abouts. Maybe other regions of the country get a different crowd. Kind of like the Scandinavians originally went to certain parts of the country, like Minnesota and the PNW...

Like all groups, or created groups...."Hispanics" are not a monolith. And a great big chunk of "Hispanics" (really just a language designation) are indeed mostly indigenous peoples. Some of whom aren't even fluent in Spanish.

It's interesting that you only mention the big, famous primarily Plains Indians. There were many smaller tribes in the West that were part of a continuum that crossed the yet to be created borders.

The same thing happened to the Arctic peoples that were separated by an artificial border between Alaska and Siberia. Literally families were split apart. Modern Western nationalistic paradigms do not ever take into account the actual "boundaries" of the peoples who were here first. Or...see the middle east. Who created the countries there, many of them anyway...or on the African continent. They certainly aren't organic boundaries and one shouldn't be surprised if, when the populations is large enough, that these boundaries become tenuous.

This is certainly true for Native Americans, many of them anyway. Take a look at the map of Oklahoma (formerly known as Indian Territory till the US changed it's mind)...especially the NW corner. The names of tribes moved there, thrown together from many different parts of the eastern US, north to south...can be seen in the names of the towns there.

I also do find it hilarious when white folks in the west, from towns with obvious Spanish names, hell some entire states, complain about Spanish. Hello!

Am I too "morally detached"? Maybe, but I do find it funny that white Americans, certainly interlopers themselves, get bent about another group of people coming to the same place. Especially in places like Arizona...snow birds.

I just can't get worked up about it. And I do think that while there is a point about jobs, many of the same people who are riding the anti-immigration wave don't really seem to care that jobs American jobs are bleeding into Asia (and Mexico)...They love their cheap foreign goods...

It reminds me of the "spotted owl controversy"...lumber execs were pushing the mem that mills were being closed because of some hippie shit...and so there were protests by lumber workers. Except, the same lumber execs were happily shipping raw timber overseas ( and closing local mills to cut overhead, read mill workers)...there used to be a huge log dump here, and freighters would come in to take the lumber, unmilled, overseas. Never once did I see the lumber workers protesting that. The logging companies did a good job of deflecting there. I'm not anti-logging btw.

[bane]

It's entirely possible, even probable that Navajos, and the rest of the Pueblo tribes are decended from Aztecs, Olmecs and Mayans. The shared physical characteristics, agricultural methods and building methods are a bit too coincidental otherwise.

[Anne_Thrax]

Three fucking people showed up for the 'Open Employment' day in Arizona. Three people, when there's twenty million out of work.

Something seems weird about this. When was this?

[Anne_Thrax]

I want your drugs. I want your pot, your vicodin, your E, and some Mescaline if you got it.

vanity you are a funny motherfucker! i've always liked reading your posts. Just letting you know you are one of my favorite writers on here.