The View From Mexico
"Opinion makers and migrant advocates in Mexico said Friday that the collapse of U.S. immigration reform plans hurts Mexican workers, U.S. employers and anti-terrorism efforts. (AP)
"This is very bad news for Mexican migrants in the U.S.," said Jorge Bustamante, special rapporteur to the U.N. human rights commission for migrants. "It means the continuation and probably a worsening of the migrants' vulnerable conditions." ...
An editorial in the left-leaning newspaper La Jornada called the decision a "triple shipwreck" - a failure for the Bush administration, the United States and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. "The most powerful country on the planet will have to continue living, for many more months, with the scandalous contradiction between its laws and the real needs of its economy, thirsty for cheap labor to guarantee the international competitiveness of its exports, especially in agriculture."
You'd think the UN and the Left were worried about Mexicans in Mexico, or did I miss something? But it's not just the Mexican Left. Elites in the Third World have a found an outlet for their human surplus, not just in the US or Europe, but even in comparatively more prosperous neighboring countries. The cost in broken families in poor countries is the flip side of the undocumented "migration".
In some Third World countries hardly a week goes by without someone you know emigrating. In the last sixty days a lawyer I knew emigrated, legally, with his entire immediate family for Canada. Another acquaintance, an interior designer, left legally for New Zealand. In the Philippines fully 11% of the population -- mostly working people -- are overseas. The breadwinners live overseas. The dependents and the leeching politicians who effectively hold them hostage remain. What is extremely galling is the sight of those same politicians, whose government would be utterly bankrupt without the remittances of those poor expatriates, pretending to preside over a shambolic economy, when it is in reality simply garnishing bought and paid for by the collections imposed on the money flows pouring in from overseas. This does not prevent those same politicians and ruling "elites" from pretending to dignity. On the contrary, the more parasitic they are, the greater the dignity they affect.
Nowhere is this manifested to a greater degree than in a ritual nationalism, attended by an extreme sensitivity to the smallest slight. "Rage Boy" is not exclusively an Islamic phenomenon. Rage against imagined slights is the national industry of the Third World elite. Only last month, the Philippine Supreme Court beat back a lawsuit, filed by the Left, to prevent the teaching of English in public schools. This, in a country dotted with English academies run by Korean entrepeneurs, eager to cash in on the desperate desire by the poor to learn English -- and thereby qualify them for an overseas job. Yet this same Left, which abhors the idea of people learning English, speaks grandly of the rights of "migrants" being denied in the countries in which they have been forced to seek employment. Nor do they object to the color of the money learned by English proficiency, the better to fund their rancid "social programs".
And in the meantime the poor leave. In their thousands, their hundred thousands and their millions. With faked documents, in the care of scam artists and people smugglers, across deserts, oceans, arctic tundras, blazing warzones. To get the job. And back home is a family which might only see their father a fortnight every five years, knowing him only as a photo, taken against a background of snow, the work machinery tastefully out of sight, upon the night-table.
If the defeat of the immigration bill had one unambiguous benefit, it was in sending the message that this can no longer continue indefinitely. Somewhere, sometime, the focus of the problem has to change from how to admit persons into the First World to how to fix the Third World in order to make a better place to live in. But neither the elites nor the Left really want to hear this. Because it means fixing them.
posted by wretchardthecat at 6/29/2007 08:57:00 PM
62 Comments:
Reagan on Immigration
While Reagan’s 1986 immigration reforms (search) can at least be called rational, they were a failure. Today, there are between 8 million and 11 million illegal aliens in the United States. The majority of them crossed our southern border and has found employment — illegal employment, but employment nonetheless. This is attributed to Sen. Ted Kennedy’s eventual gutting of the enforcement mechanism for Reagan’s employer sanctions, and successive administrations refusing to give our Border Patrol the resources it needs to achieve its mission.
What the political elites in Mexico have done is to loot the govenrment oil monopoly Pemex. Think about it. In the years that oil prices have doubled -- Pemex has lost money. How can that be? Where has the money gone? Guess. They use it to fund government salaries and such. So there's no money for more drilling which they have to do to just maintain oil production. (Same is happening in Russia.) So oil production is falling along with government revenues.
What to do about people not on the government dole? Send them north to the USA. That way they don't drain the government coffers . Rather they send money south. So dollar remittances now are the greatest source of money for Mexico--totally +-20 billion last year.
Its not a game they can play forever. It doesn't answer the overriding quest.
How can Mexico become a first class country.
There are several answers to this. But the basic answer is the reverse of the current model. The current model is for the USA to become more like Mexico. However, in order for Mexico to be a first class country -- Mexico has to be more like the USA.
How can that happen? The two biggest things that the USA has that Mexico doesn't have is strong private property laws and plenty of water.
Hernando de soto wrote a book two decades ago in which he asked the basic question. Why are some countries rich and some countries poor. He said the answer is that all rich countries have strong formal economies with well respected private property laws that make it easy to transfer property titles and borrow against property. He called property mortgageability" an "invisible halo of wealth". Poor countries have byzantine property laws where they exist at all. So most of the land and assets have no "value".
Mexico is not as bad as some. Only about 35% of the economy is informal. But this is still a huge part of the economy that isn't leverageable, produces little wealth and isn't taxed.
So solution one would be to impliment hernando de soto's ideas.
Solution two is to collapse the cost of water desalination and transport so as to make it economically possible to turn the deserts of Mexico green and triple the habitable size of that country.
The research to collapse the cost of water desalination & transport is going hot & heavy in the USA right now. These costs will fall as fast as the cost of computing power & photo voltaics in the next several years.
Finally, in order for the Mexico to be a first class country that country needs to have people who know what a first class country looks like...and some inkling of how to get there. To make this happen it would be helpful to return Mexico's nationals. These people will return with some serious skills and less tolerance for the smoke and mirrors of the federales in Mexico city.
A strong stable prosperous first class Mexico is in the interest of everyone.
ie it would be better to have a conservative republican revolution in Mexico than a liberal democratic revolution in the USA.
The UN and Mexico have been joining the elites in an assault on the US's sovereignty and the average American. Who is considered the enemy.
Naturally emigres and remittances support the corrupt regime in Mexico (and every other third world tinpot dictatorship). The UN and the elites are heavily invested in continued poverty and corruption.
The LAST thing they want is the entire world to be generally prosperous, stable, and middle class. Think of the competition for the special people.
Mexicans who want an open border with the United States would do well not to chant "OSAMA" in soccer stadiums.
"The UN and the elites are heavily invested in continued poverty and corruption" in order to support themselves, their families and their statist fellow elites, if I may expand a tad.
Funny, is it me--or have I been the lone voice who has said the USA should absorb Mexico via a two country popular vote (to do so)?
Now we start to get articles that ask why so many Mexicans come to the USA. Where was that question in this Senate being debated? Where were our valiant, investigative reporters on this issue?
Murdoch wanrs the Dow Jones company. I, as an American, want Mexico. Seems like a lot of Mexicans want America.
Let's make this happen. If nothing else, it will most certainly "shake up" the Mexican culture and those who control the politics of that beautiful country and great peoples.
For me, this is nothing new, for I have lived in New Mexico for 37 years. We are the door to old Mexico in many ways. We, as a state, should have been leading our country in understanding this problem from both perspectives, and then leading all towards a workable solution.
Marriage is not such a bad idea! I propose Mexico and the United States get married.
That was simple!
Now, let's get on to the party, 'cause we all know how much fun a fiesta can be!
There are 110 million folk, in the United Mexican States.
The is no consumer banking, to speak of.
Wal-Mart, using the IBEC model developed by the Rockefellers, is beginning to change that. Mass market consumerism is the proven key to societal change, in a non-violent way. An economic revolution.
The NAFTA, the open borders, the remittances and the oil revenues are all part of the mix, leading eventually to a North American Union.
The gap between Mexican incomes and US and Canadian incomes must be narrowed before the assimulation of the Mexican States into a new Union is possible to complete.
That is underway, as we speak.
Mexican incomes are raising, US incomes are stagnate, in real terms, at the low end. Making up about 5% pf current US residents the Mexicans are on a dual track of economic progress.
It just is not openly discussed, as the majorities of both countries, the US and Mexico would object, on Nationalistic grounds.
Nationalism is no longer promoted in the US, as Bill Bennett describes here.
It is not by happenstance, amigos, that these cultural modifications are underway, both north and south of that unfenced border.
The economic elites of both Mexico and the US are of the same mind, they do inter marry, as evidenced by Jeb Bush, amongst others. The elites of both countries are educated at the same US universities, wanting what they believe best, for both countries.
It is underway, r, just not ready for that, operationally, yet.
But the foundations of that very idea are being laid, brick by brick.
The Americans in Mexico as deserving of the unalienable rights of man, as much as any other men in the Americas.
One land, one people
From the artic to the isthmus.
No longer Virginians or New Yorkers, Sonorans or Chihuahuans but Americans all.
Assimulation is possible, look at Texas, and California as examples.
Regardless of the outcome of the Presidental election, these culural and economic migrations will continue.
Ms Clinton a past Wal-Mart board member, is on board. All the DC crowd is, even if they do not know why.
Charles said...
How can Mexico become a first class country.
There are several answers to this. But the basic answer is the reverse of the current model. The current model is for the USA to become more like Mexico. However, in order for Mexico to be a first class country -- Mexico has to be more like the USA.
Well said, Charles. You've articulated the nub of the problem.
Encapsulated in your question is why do we still cling to the myth of the noble savage? Why, if you were a man dropped in from Mars, would you not adopt the behaviour of whitey?
Why do so many people want to get to the West, while at the same time so many loudmouth Westerners despise it?
Fear of responsibility. To whom much is given, much is expected.
Can't have that. Better to be full of love, devoid of blame, denigrate all around, than to stand for anything and have to decide.
Christ was wrong when he said judge not and you will not be judged. He should have said "judge not and you will not do anything"
ADE
As a naturalized citizen who arrived in America by legal means, I abhor the cheapening of my and other legal immigrants' American citizenship by the scofflaws in congress and city governments across the USA. Sanctuary cities, my ass!
I am sick of being called a hater and xenophobe. My reply to the traitors supporting "immigration rights" is that I am sick and tired of the exploitation of illegal immigrants and how they are used to reduce the earning power of the working class in the USA and how their remittances are skimmed by their home governments to prop up their ineffective, corrupt and incompetent bureaucracies.
I have seen first hand the results of the failed existing policy of not enforcing the laws on the books and the flaunting of the immigration law breakers. While this goes on, the rights of the working class continues to erode contributing to the decay of the American Dream.
Salaam eleikum
we MUST separate the issue of illegals in the usa and national security...
it is NOT the same issue.
are the wetbacks illegals? yes are the vast majority terrorists? ask ANY Texan, the answer is no.
point: Mexican illegals must be segregated from the others who are illegals in america.
point: any illegal from any country who is a felon, gang member or terrorist should either be deported, imprisoned or shot.
point: any mexican that has come here illegally and who is NOT a felon, gang member or terrorist should be given some sort of guest worker program, not citizenship
point: dropping a baby out of your vagina on american soil should no longer be automatic citizenship.
let's start there and see AFTER that is taken care of where we are at
Self Described Radical Jew,
Separating the sheep from the goats not feasible. Secure borders first, then deal with those other issues.
By the way, the gang issue is a very big one and links with terrorism. AlQueda is resourceful enough to understand the usefulness of contracting those criminals/gangsters to smuggle in terrs and material.
Shalom Dude.
crazy marzouq redneck muslim said...
Self Described Radical Jew,
Separating the sheep from the goats not feasible. Secure borders first, then deal with those other issues.
By the way, the gang issue is a very big one and links with terrorism. AlQueda is resourceful enough to understand the usefulness of contracting those criminals/gangsters to smuggle in terrs and material.
Shalom Dude.
dear redneck moslem,
separating the turds from the whey, ops did i say turds? i meant curds... well ok, no i didnt..
secure borders?
in theory yes, in practice it's called pushing pudding up a incline..
one MUST secure borders as best as possible..
WHILE ( not instead of... ) we create a database of illegal wetbacks that can be processed into legal guest workers, that can be tracked (biometrics) into a database.
If cops could issue a $200 ticket to a mexican illegal that can PROVE who he is and his mexican nationality and create a guest worker id on the spot we can drive the desirable illegals to become legal guest workers, all the while making the undoc'd illegals an ever shrinking group of finite retards..
I could see immigration squads with portable bio-metric scanners, swooping in on meat packing plants to create databases of workers and only arresting any felons, watch list people.
it may not be perfect but we need to separate the wetbacks (not a BAD term to those who understand Texan from the the retards we really want to deport, torture, humiliate or shoot...
sorry that was the texas jewboy in me...
shabbos shalom ya'll
Perhaps some water might go well with this discussion. A news article on Fox News yesterday touted the village sized condensation unit that had already been used in a couple of places. This is more of a pinpoint application item.
Marriage is not such a bad idea! I propose Mexico and the United States get married.
Just remember what happened when West Germany welcomed East Germany in with open arms. I'm pretty certain I'm not prepared to suffer a decline in my standard of living to maybe offer a better standard of living to a bunch of desperate illiterates who don't understand the meaning of the word "legal" ... or much of anything else, from what I can see of the Mexicans I'm forced to rub up against every single day in Los Angeles.
* * *
Following from a long boo-hoo article about the plight of the illegals in today's NY Times:
'“It’s the same that they have always done — they say they will do it but they don’t,” said René Leon, as he left a Western Union office where he had picked up some money wired by his brothers in New York. “It’s a game to them.”'
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/us/30reactweb.html?pagewanted=5&_r=1&hp
So, living off of American dollars wired to you from New York is evidently NOT a game to Mr. Leon.
I recall a “60 Minutes” piece from the mid-1980’s on the hiring of Hispanic workers to do domestic labor and gardening in Los Angeles. Someone had hit upon the idea of creating simple little signs that said in Spanish what the homeowner wanted done: “Weed the flower bed”, “Vacuum the floor” etc. They managed to find someone who thought that the use of such signs was simply terrible. “Using signs such as that shows disrespect because people won’t take the trouble to learn their language.” Of course, it also shows how the workers respect the country they have come to work in as well, but that was not mentioned.
Another piece I saw on Fox News the other night was on the implications of denying US farms access to cheap labor. One US farmer decided that he would go to where the labor was and moved a portion of his operation to Mexico. The fact that an American can start a successful farm in Mexico but a Mexican cannot says it all. So much for “The reason we are poor is because you Yanqis stole the best part of our country from us.”
The key thing that everyone must come to admit is that such migrant workers are fleeing failed societies for ones that are more successful. I have no doubt that Wretchard understands that. I have no doubt that the blogger at The Mesopotamian understands that as he and his family move to Canada. The ordinary Hispanic driving nails or picking lettuce is encouraged to believe it is the other way around – people from a successful society coming to bail out the lazy gringos. Of course, when the guys at iRobot and similar firms apply themselves to the problem the true time of human obsolescence may well be at hand. Advanced technology may be able to seal off borders – but it is even more likely to make simple manual labor by Manuel a thing of the past.
r: The idea of absorbing Mexico into the US is about as bad an idea -- if you like the United States as a civilized country in which we have the rule of law, a generally educated population, and do not generally tolerate corruption in all aspects of life -- as it is possible to have.
While any given individual from Mexico may be perfectly assimilable, charming, hardworking and looking forward to learning English fluently, the country -- which has immense natural resources -- is run like a third-rate banana republic by corrupt people who preside over a society with caste divisions -- almost racial divisions between the almost white mostly Spanish elite and the largely indian and mestizo lower classes.
No thank you! I want none of a population of 100 million plus brought up with socialism, hatred of the US, corruption and an utter lack of understanding of the rule of law.
It would take at least 3-5 generations educated in American and British history, the constitution, religious and political liberty, basic economics and the like before we could even begin the conversation about making Mexico part of the US.
The last thing in the world the US and the world needs is for the US to look any more like Mexico than it already does in California and the Southwest -- in fact, Southern California is a basket case in terms of crime and social services outside of the elite 'burbs.
No, sealing the border tighter than a drum is the only way. If the Mexicans can get their acts together and develop a modern country, then we can talk. But only in English.
A reasonable view, to say the least, rob.
Just one reason the North American Union is not a matter of open discussion, but of Executive Orders and multi-lateral working committees.
When discussed it is a free and open trade, with Border Inspection Stations in Kansas.
A rather complimentary piece from the Council of Foreign Relations describes without hysteria what is already online .
Congressman and Presidental candidate Ron Paul of Texas describes the same situation here in a bit different tone.
Congressman: Superhighway
about North American Union
Paul says goal is common currency,
borderless travel, bigger bureaucracy
The Rockefellers and their ilk have been working that program since right after WWII, they have patience. They also believe they are extending the principles of the Revolution, which are Universal, not bounded by geograpjy or limited by standards of living.
Granted by the Creator, taken seriously by the revolutionary stalwarts. Building on past successes, one brick at a time.
The Catherdrals of Europe took hundreds of years to build, the Catherdral that is the Americas may take as long.
But 200 years of expansion and building won't be stopped now. There is nothing sacred about the number 50, amigos.
the CFR piece
And as Bill Bennett says, the US no longer promotes US history, or citizenship in its schools.
Nationalism was the enemy.
Socialism is not.
It was so decided right after WWII, to demonize the Nationalism and ignore the Socialism of the National Socialists of Germany.
Damned NAZIs.
Regardless Mr Bennett describes
Our National Alienation & Amnesia
How do we ask our children to fight, and perhaps die, for a country they do not know?
here at the NRO online
r, the US had its chance to "merge" with Mexico back in 1848 when the American army marched into Mexico City and dictated the terms for the end of the Mexican-American War. For numerous reasons the Americans didn't want the whole of Mexico as the victory prize. If you wish to expand the United States I think the Western provinces of Canada would be better candidates.
They're in the Union, too, tarnsman
Check out the CFR link, look at the folks on the Board, check the resumes.
Quite a cast.
From the folks at the World Net Daily:
Bureaucrats from agencies throughout the Bush administration are meeting regularly with their counterpart bureaucrats in the Canadian and Mexican governments to engage in a broad rewriting of U.S. administrative law and regulations into a new trilateral North American configuration, Corsi contends.
"We have hundreds of pages of e-mails from U.S. executive branch administrators who are copying the e-mail to somewhere between 25 to 100 people, a third of whom are in the U.S. bureaucracy, a third of whom are in the Mexican bureaucracy and a third of whom are in the Canadian bureaucracy," said Corsi.
"They are sharing their laws and regulations so we can 'harmonize' and 'integrate' our laws into a North American structure, not a USA structure."
Corsi claims the process is well along the way.
"This is totally outside the U.S. Constitution, virtually an executive branch coup d'etat," he said. "SPP is creating new trilateral memoranda of understanding and mutual agreements which should be submitted to Senate for two-thirds votes as international treaties."
Corsi said the documentation he received is missing key pieces.
"We received very few actual agreements, though many are referenced," he said. "Many of the work plans described lack the work products which the groups say they produced."
Now I do not know if it is a coup, but it is an integration of the three entities, which is planned to become a Union.
In America
450 million people.
50, 80 or 100 United States, there used to be 13, chart the trend.
The Union forever, Hurrah boys hurrah, down with the traitors and up with the up with the stars.
And we'll fill our vacant ranks with
A million free men more,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
We will welcome to our numbers
The loyal, true and brave,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom;
And although they may be poor,
Not a man shall be a slave,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
So we're springing to the call
From the East and from the West,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
Across the Americas
We hold these rights to be selfevident,
All men are created equal.
Endowed by their Creator..,
and no man nor law can morally restrain another man from life, liberty or the pursuit of property.
Based upon color, creed, or national origin.
My dear Belmont Club friends, gringos, wetbacks, fascists, socialists, I can't go on listing this diverse group!
Good news, the marriage between America and Mexico needs to go forward for this reason:
One of the parties is pregnant!
Let's do the right thing here, for God's sake and ours!
Bullfights in Bismarck, North Dakota. Ice Hockey in San Felipe!
Can it get any better? We're expecting our first born, so hurry!
Spaceship Earth is here already, amigos and friends of Bill and Hillary!
Don't worry, I like Canadians too!
Bonjour Montreal!
We hold these rights to be selfevident,
All men are created equal.
Endowed by their Creator..,
and no man nor law can morally restrain another man from life, liberty or the pursuit of property.
Based upon color, creed, or national origin.
//////////////
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html
Frank Warner has suggested that the easiest way to end illegal immigration is to end the incentive. Believe it or not, the solution is quite simple. Just pass a law doubling the the minimum wage for illegals. In addition, or even instead, you could give illegals the right to sue for back wages at any time without prejudice regarding their location or status. The suit would apply to the company that hired them illegally and the officers of record at that time. This cascading liability would represent a pretty imposing challenge. The abusers could then be easily identified by the kinds of legal contortions they would resort to. See here and here.
As stated earlier the prototype test for cultural modification through consumerization was in Italy, starting in 1957.
US interests intensified their efforts in the United Mexican States with Wal-Marts entry into that market in 1991.
The effects are beginning to be seen, now, 15 years on.
There has been a stunning decline in the fertility rate in Mexico, which means that, in a few years, there will not be nearly as many teenagers in Mexico looking for work in the United States or anywhere else. If this trend in the fertility rate continues, Mexico will resemble Japan and Italy—rapidly aging populations with too few young workers to support the economy.
According to the World Bank’s 2007 Annual Development Indicators, in 1990 Mexico had a total lifetime fertility rate of 3.3 children per female, but by 2005, that number had fallen by 36 percent to 2.1, which is the “break even” point for population stability in developed nations.
...
What has changed? Better education and improved job opportunities for women mean that it has become quite expensive for them to leave the labor force to have more children. The improved availability of birth control technology and liberalization of abortion rules in some countries mean that it is easier for women to avoid that outcome.
Another reason for the particularly sharp decline in Mexico is the cultural influence of the United States. Some politicians fear that we are being “Mexicanized.” In fact the opposite may be underway. NAFTA, our mass media, the more widespread use of English, and the large number of people going back and forth (legally or otherwise) mean that Mexicans are increasingly influenced by our culture, and that implies fewer babies, The United States also has a fertility rate of 2.1, but that is the same as it was in 1990. Mexico is becoming more similar to the United States, which must frustrate their nationalists.
The game is afoot.
here is the piece by Robert M. Dunn, Jr. is a Professor of Economics at the George Washington University, at American.com
Listen and learn.
A little cause and effect, IBEC style.
The backgroound is here for those that care to know
for now the NAU game has been repudiated.
something simliar happened in Europe when the european constitution was repudiated by france and holland. however, since they are statists in europe they are going to do the same thing by doing an end run around the people.
the elites will not be able to do the same thing in north america.
I dont know where things will be in 50 years. but the efforts of the next 10-20 years in north america will be to roll back the political integration efforts of the last 20 years while continuing the efforts to further modernize Mexico.
I do not think so, charles,
The SPP is moving ahead, the Kansas Border Stations are still online.
Slient Amnesty continues.
The border is still unsecured, the migration continues.
The NAU movement has run over a speed bump, not hit a roadblock.
But we'll see.
Mr Bush has not changed course, he will not now jump to the frontier and seal it against the migration.
They will not move aggresively in the workplace to enforce the laws.
Mr Chertoff of DHS has already said that was impossible, as were large scale deportations.
AZ Governor, Ms Napalitano has said that Mr Bush has already cut National Guard support of the Border Patrol, for this year, by almost half.
What leads you to think that the next 10 to 15 years will lead to a reversal of past policies?
The Congress will not even readdress the Immigration issue until '09, now. By then another 8 million will have crossed the frontier, with 6 million of them, according to Mr Durbin, staying as residents.
Why would Mr Bush change course?
Definately out of character, for him. Popularity and polling does not enter into his decision making, or so he claims.
He is doing what is "right" for the country, on the frontier, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Regardless of what the majority of people may think of his decisions and actions.
I don't think bush will change either. so I think policies in effect now will remain in effect to the end of his term.
however, in order to continue current policies a democrat would have to be elected. if another republican is elected president--he will seal the border.
I don't think that a democrat will get the white house in the next election--for the same reason that a socialist woman couldn't beat sarcozy in the french elections. the conservatives are bad or stupid but the liberals are the walking dead.
Maybe I missed it, but I don't think anyone has pointed out that in 1847, during the Mexican-American War, American General Winfield Scott actually took and occupied Mexico City after defeating the Mexican Army at the Battle of Chapultepec.
From that war, the US took the northern half of Mexico, gaining Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The new border was established at the Rio Grande River.
I've often wondered why the US only took half of Mexico, and didn't just take the entire country. Strategically, for the men of the time, it would have been the ideal time to do it.
I've often wondered why the US only took half of Mexico, and didn't just take the entire country. Strategically, for the men of the time, it would have been the ideal time to do it.
//////////////
the US army followed the settlers. There were no american settlers south of the rio grande.
Ah. It looks like I found my answer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_of_Mexico_Movement
One can only now ask "What If?" and see if Harry Turtledove will write an alternate-world story about the possibility.
The All of Mexico Movement was a movement of those in the United States who wanted the U.S. to annex all of Mexico in 1848 in the Mexican-American War. The possibility had been under discussion for decades, but the success in the war made it a real possibility. However, letters home from thousands of American soldiers in Mexico strongly objected to annexation, saying the Mexican and American social, religious and political norms were so different that assimilation would be impossible.
//////////////
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_of_Mexico_Movement
Excerpted from
January 15, 2007 Issue
The American Conservative
Fragmented Future
Multiculturalism doesn’t make vibrant communities but defensive ones.
In America, you don’t need to belong to a family-based mafia for
protection because the state will enforce your contracts with some
degree of equality before the law. In Mexico, though, as former New York Times correspondent Alan Riding wrote in his 1984 bestseller Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans,
“Public life could be defined as the abuse of power to achieve wealth
and the abuse of wealth to achieve power.” Anyone outside the extended
family is assumed to have predatory intentions, which explains the
famous warmth and solidarity of Mexican families. “Mexicans need few
friends,” Riding observed, “because they have many relatives.”
Mexico is a notoriously low-trust culture and a notoriously unequal
one. The great traveler Alexander von Humboldt observed two centuries
ago, in words that are arguably still true, “Mexico is the country of
inequality. Perhaps nowhere in the world is there a more horrendous
distribution of wealth, civilization, cultivation of land, and
population.” Jorge G. Castañeda, Vicente Fox’s first foreign minister,
noted the ethnic substratum of Mexico’s disparities in 1995:
The
business or intellectual elites of the nation tend to be white (there
are still exceptions, but they are becoming more scarce with the
years). By the 1980s, Mexico was once again a country of three nations:
the criollo minority of elites and the upper-middle class, living in
style and affluence; the huge, poor, mestizo majority; and the utterly
destitute minority of what in colonial times was called the Republic of
Indians…
Castañeda
pointed out, “These divisions partly explain why Mexico is as violent
and unruly, as surprising and unfathomable as it has always prided
itself on being. The pervasiveness of the violence was obfuscated for
years by the fact that much of it was generally directed by the state
and the elites against society and the masses, not the other way
around. The current rash of violence by society against the state and
elites is simply a retargeting.”
These deep-rooted Mexican attitudes largely account for why, in
Putnam’s “Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey,” Los Angeles ended
up looking a lot like it did in the Oscar-winning movie “Crash.” I once
asked a Hollywood agent why there are so many brother acts among
filmmakers these days, such as the Coens, Wachowskis, Farrellys, and
Wayans. “Who else can you trust?” he shrugged.
It should be understood that the soldiers who went to Mexico in 1848 --- split up and turned their guns on each other in 1861.
Mexico seems to have some similarities to Saudi Arabia. A wealthy elite staying in power by spreading around the countries oil wealth to cronies while exporting troublemakers to the rest of the world. All that is missing is the Wahabism and terrorists.
As for Mexico becoming part of the USA. Let them go through the same process that states in the Midwest and West did. become Territories first with an appointed Territorial Governor, policed by the US Army and US Marshals and then prove to the satisfaction of the rest of the nation that they can be free and peaceful and are ready to assume the responsibility's of being a State in the United States of America
On this matter I'm on the side of the Mexican nationalists--as well as American nationalists. The internationalists are just a bunch of homeless vagabonds. Rich vagabonds. But vagabonds nevertheless. It is not for prudent men to trust the likes of these.
But not how the Republic of Texas enter the Union. Not at all.
You are comparing apples to oranges, geoffb, not apples to apples, historicly.
In their first election after Texas won its independence, Texans voted overwhelmingly in favor of annexation to the United States. However, throughout the Republic period, no annexation treaty was approved by both countries. When all attempts to arrive at a formal annexation treaty failed,
the United States Congress passed—after much debate and only a simple majority—a Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas to the United States.
Under the terms, Texas would keep both its public lands and its public debt, it would have the power to divide into four additional states "of convenient size" in the future if it so desired, and it would deliver all military, postal, and customs facilities and authority to the United States government. Neither this joint resolution or the ordinance passed by the Republic of Texas' Annexation Convention gave Texas the right to secede.
A popularly-elected Constitutional Convention met in Austin in July 1845 to consider this annexation proposal as well as a proposed peace treaty with Mexico which would end the state of war between the two nations—if Texas remained an independent country.
The Convention voted to accept the United States' proposal, with only one delegate dissenting: Richard Bache, Benjamin Franklin’s grandson. The Annexation Ordinance was submitted to a popular vote in October 1845.
That will be the path taken, in Mexico, over time.
About twenty, thirty years, give or take.
It'll be the oil, in the end, that drives us to the North American Union or the 81 United States of America.
Oil and Empire, when the population is assimulatable
desert rat said,
"But not how the Republic of Texas enter the Union. Not at all.
You are comparing apples to oranges, geoffb, not apples to apples, historicly."
I understand your point that Texas entered the Union as a sovereign State unlike the western territories and that Mexico is a sovereign state so it would enter the same way.
My point is that Mexico may be recognized as a sovereign state but like many countries is actually a territory run by a gang of thugs for their own benefit. They use the forms of democratic rule but are not an actual democracy. Until they can prove that they can exist as free democratic society they should not and could not be part of the USA.
It'll be the oil, in the end, that drives us to the North American Union or the 81 United States of America.
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you're not following the science & technology. All the science and technology of the 20th century required a massive amount of vertical integration. its not going to play out that way in the 21st century. Everyone stepped onto the power grid in the 20th century. Everyone is going to step off the power grid in the 21st century. Places like mexico & texas won't get their power from oil beneath the desert or the gulf of mexico. They'll get it directly from the sun or the salt water in stand alone devices.
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The existing infrastructure of oil using equipment, the housing heating and cooling needs will all be handled in twenty years, pretty much as they are today.
The coal to oil home furnace transition took that long, longer, in most parts of the world. Including the US.
In fact the Dept of Energy says this about the transition, in home heating use:
Long after homes were being lighted by electricity produced by coal, many of them continued to have furnaces for heating and some had stoves for cooking that were fueled by coal.
The easiest example of oils continued economic dominace, in twenty years, the median age of cars and trucks today:
The median age of passenger cars in operation in the United States increased to 9.2 years in 2006, a record high, according to RL Polk & Co.
That puts almost as many cars at 20 years of age, as there are new ones, so to speak.
And the newer autos are lasting longer, the median age increasing with each passing year.
Most all the cars on the road today, will still be there in ten, even twenty years time. Still burning gasoline.
No matter how many hybrids are sold this year, and there were not many.
Oil will still be King, in twenty years time, do not kid yourself.
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geoffb
Truer in 1999 than it is today.
There has been steady progress made in the transparency of Mexican politics. There is an ongoing social change underway, that, if it contiues will lead the United Mexican States to a modern society, hopefully.
The 72 years of Institutionalized Revolution did great harm to a society that was quite dysfunctional to begin with, 78 years ago, by my understanding of history.
That World Net Daily piece, cited some where above describes the current course the North American government are on. That will not change in '09. It is systematic, not a election day spoil.
No matter which candidate, announced or not, today, wins the White House.
If we look to production figures of gas burning vehicles:
According to cumulative data[1] by the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) the number of motor vehicles has also increased steadily since 1960, only stagnating once in 1997 and declining from 1990 to 1991. Otherwise the number of motor vehicles has been rising by an estimated 3.69 million each year since 1960 with the largest annual growth between 1998 and 1999 as well as between 2000 and 2001 when the number of motor vehicles in the United States increased by eight million.[1] Since the study by the FHA the number of vehicles has increased by approximately eleven million, one of the largest recorded increases. The largest percentage increase was between the years of 1972 and 1973 when the number of cars increased by 5.88%.
The largest growth in vehicles have come since 1999, meaning that, with a median age of 9.2 years, as many cars built before then are still in use as have been built since then. During the growth years.
According to the US Bureau of Transit Statistics there are 243,023,485 registered passenger vehicles in the US.
So over 120 million vehicles are over 9.2 years of age and still operational.
With replacement costs skyrocketing, older vehicles will be maintained, rather than replaced. Proof positive that Oil will still be a vital economic requirement of a vibrant North American economy.
Factor in Chinese demand rising and instability in Saudi Arabia, the United Mexican States will become ever more vital to the Union.
Oil will still be King, in twenty years time, do not kid yourself.
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I think you're dead wrong.
GM has been saying for the last 18 months or so that they expect the cost of their hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to collapse by a factor of ten to reach parity with internal combustion engines by 2009.
They repeated this again recently.
GM has already said that by 2009 they will have the cost of the their fuel cell system down to cost parity with current internal combustion engines at $50/kW.
One thing to know about hydrogen fuel cell cars is that they have very few moving parts. Once the fuel cell system is mastered, they can be produced much more cheaply than internal combustion engines.
In any case, when the hydrogen fuel cell cars cars meet the price points of the internal combustion engine...the world changes...including all the calculations based around oil.
Already, all the price points have been met for hybrids. Bush signed an executive order in January authorizing all federal agencies to buy hybrids as they have the opportunity.
Granted charles in 2009 price parity may be reached, give you that point.
But there will not be a 100% shift in production, no, the hybrids will be transitioned into mass production, with GM not the only producer.
Despite a record number of new heavy and light truck registrations in 2005, scrappage rates still decreased. This implies that vehicles are lasting longer and, based on the light truck to car ratio for new vehicles, the data shows that light trucks are continuing to make up a larger percentage of the vehicle population.
—Mike Gingell, VP Polk Aftermarket
The median age of US vehicles also increased across all major vehicle categories. The nine-year median age of cars continues a four-year record-setting trend. For all trucks, the median age increased to 6.8 years in 2005. Light truck median age in 2005 increased to 6.6 years.
Light vehicles are on the road longer today than they have ever been. As vehicle durability and technology continues to improve each year, we expect the trend of increased vehicle longevity to continue.
—Dave Goebel, consultant for Polk’s Aftermarket
With each that passes, the median age of the fleet increases by a year, only 4% of the inventory moving off the road.
240 million in the fleet in '06
with annual sales of over 16.7 million per year. A salvage rate of 4% of 240 million or 9.6 million.
Factor in 07,08 and 09 at 16.7 million each, or 50 million deduct 27 million salvage and there will be 263 million vehicles in the US in 09 that are not hybrids.
Even if every vehicle sold from 2010 onward were hybrid, which they won't, by 2020 there will still be 175 million gas powered vehicles on the roads of the USA.
That is 73% of todays fleet.
Today the US uses 20,730,000 barrels of oil per day. 73% of that is 15,135,900 barrels per day.
Continue the trends if you wish, with or without the favorable, to your arguments assumptions.
Oil will still play a vibrant role, in 2020, 2030 as well, since AKK the vehicles built from 2009 to 2015 will not be hybrids.
In fact:
The combined hybrid production plans of major automakers will amount to 1000000 hybrid cars annually by 2009. Energy Storage for Future Vehicles ...
www.advancedautobat.com/market.html -
1 million per year is the projected production from all sources, against annual sales of 16.7 million vehicles. 6% of sales will be hybrids in '09.
So 100% hybrid sales will not be reach bt 2015, production capacity will not be there. Not if only 6% will be in '09
If you have other data, not just feelings, hopes and beliefs, please share.
If hybrid sales and production were to increase by 1 million units annually, which is not likely, but we'll use as a base line.
Using the same 16.7 units per year of sales.
2010= 15.7 gas powered
2011= 14.7 ditto
2012= 13.7
2013= 12.7
2014= 11.7
2015= 10.7
So, 22 million hybrids and 79 million gas powered vehicles will be added to the fleet, from 2010 to 2015, with 60 million salvaged.
Mostly we'll assume gasers.
So the base line, at 2015, when we'll assume all cars go hybrid.
is 282 million gas powered vehicles in the US, with a salvage rate of 4% a year.
Gives us a projected 179 million oil powered vehicles in 2025. Which @ $5,000 USD average value each, is $895 Billion bucks, to much to write off
They'll all need gas, over 16 million barrels a day.
But there will not be a 100% shift in production, no, the hybrids will be transitioned into mass production, with GM not the only producer.
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I don't think that oil will be entirely displaced any more than coal was displaced by oil in the 20th century.
I'm sorry I mentioned hybrids. I think they're just a transitional technology.
You have some interesting datapoints on the increasing median age of vehicles. I wonder if that's a function of increasing durability of cars or the increasing cost of buying new cars--relative to incomes of americans. After all the remark that people often make about Cuba is that its the best place to go for vintage cars.
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If you have other data, not just feelings, hopes and beliefs, please share.
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Both the right side (for national security reasons) and the left side(for environmental reasons) of the American Establishment want to get the freak out of the oil based economy.
This is a set of feelings hopes and beliefs on a scale it is not even a little bit prudent to ignore.
What's also true is that in the near term -- say five to seven years the probability of oil price volatility to the upside is just immense.
What happens for instance if in say 2009 --as promised the cost of fuel cell cars comes down to price parity with 2007 cars and a year later in 2010-- the cost of oil doubles to $120@ barrel.
It takes no great stretch of the imagination to see this coming
The Russians in the 1990s allowed US companies in to do their drilling for them and raise production -- and in the last couple years they've taken back control of their oil production. (thank you very much )Now they're pocketing all the revenue. It goes to their various state and criminal enterprises. No money is going back to renewed oil exploration and drilling. With oil they have to keep drilling just to maintain production. So pruduction will fall. Same is happening in Iran where production is already falling. Same is happening in Mexico where production is already falling.
Even without peak oil the likelihood of oil production falling in the face of increasing demand -- is just immense.
So its not unreasonable to think in 2010 --that the price of oil goes to $120@barrel while the cost of running hydrogen based cars will have just fallen a year earlier to 2007 levels or $70@ barrel. At the same time the cost of producing the hydrogen based cars is cut in half. (Which is what happens when the number of movable parts is greatly diminished.)
So now its 2010 and hydrogen cars cost half as much to produce and half as much to run as gasoline cars.
What will happen?
(imho There will be a couple years of party time for oil producers and people in the junk car business.)
That is why, charles, those United Mexican States assets will be oh so much more valuable, to the Union.
As the produce right around 1.3 million barrels per day.
About 10% of the continued daily need.
Especially if the supply side tanks, in the ME.
Oil won't be discounted in the future, it will still be the prize.
That is why, charles, those United Mexican States assets will be oh so much more valuable, to the Union.
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Rat,
There is a bunch of that to current elite thinking. the trouble is that it envisions government as being the top predators rather than the top farmers.
Think about that line "oh so much more valuable, to the Union."
that's not valuable to you and me or the neighbors.
The same sort of thinking is going on currently with regards to water. The elites are contemplating massive water transfers from Canado to the USA southwest and mexico. I blog about this here.
The crazy thing about this is that the cost of water desalination is already cheaper--and will be much cheaper -- than bulk water transfers from Canada to points south.
What's maddening is that the Australians have considered the issue of bulk water transfers vs desalination and come out in favor of desalination research based on the promise they've seen in American Research.
My point here is that the cheapest most efficient means to obtaining water and energy --for you, me and the neighbors--doesn't involve jiggering borders.
3-5 years from now people will pay the price of higher oil but on the first opportunity they'll jump to the cheaper to buy, run & maintain hydrogen fuel cell cars. The plants to make them will come online fast.
We haven't even begun to talk about how fast solar power chips are falling.
In the end Mexican sunlight will be more valuable than Mexican oil.
I do not disagree, charles, but that is not where we are going.
The Skull & Boner elites have other priorities, that is a reality.
There are only a few times those realities even raise their heads above the water, to be seen.
Gotta go, the fireworks are blastin', tt's always quite the show.
Rat,
There's an old observation that goes somethiing like this.
"the observation of a thing changes it."
imho the flattening effects of the technology will move faster than the pyramid building efforts of the elites.
but we'll see.
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