People are mostly afraid of reason. They should be afraid of stupidity. If only they knew what was really fearful.
J.W. Goethe
Any trekkies among us? There is an episode in the Star Trek Voyager when Voyager gets into the Borg Space. There they stumble on the war between the Borg and the Species 8472 from the 'liquid universe'. Turned out that the Borg were losing big time and that the Species 8472 were aggressive and angry with everyone. Captain Janeway allies with the Borg and they together manage to stop the Species 8472 with the new weapon they designed. In the course of action they find out that the Borg provoked that war by invading the liquid domain first. Further on Captain Janeway discovers the training facility in the normal space that the Species 8472 designed to simulate the Federation, learn the human ways and even emulate humans to defend themselves from the possible attack with those new weapons. Having learned her lesson Captain Janeway starts talking to them, reduces their fears and eventually convinces them that Voyager is not an enemy of theirs. Peace is restored between Voyager and Species 8472 and they talk under the tree.
I remember that episode frequently when I read the articles dedicated to the 'immigration problem' or when I hear Lou Dobbs, that self-proclaimed friend of the middle class. It is ironic, folks. Liberals or Conservatives, you unanimously reject the Marxist analysis, the concept of the class warfare, the imperialist explanation of the inevitability of wars but you all sing like canaries when it comes to the middle class. Middle class is everything- everyone loves it, everyone cares for it and He is the King, 'le tiers etat c'est tout', like the French said 160 years ago under Napoleon III. That is when he first became a President and then orchestrated a coup and proclaimed himself an Emperor. Kind off like we have now. Nothing is new under the sun. Ever seen the portraits of Napoleon III? The dwarfish man with curvy legs and an ugly stare. Looks like someone we all know very well except for the mustaches. Feodor Dostoevsky in his 'Traveler's Notes' wrote that he was surprised that the French middle class was so afraid of everything. We are the US middle class, le tiers etat, and we are afraid. Plenty of things we have to be afraid of. Like now we are afraid of the '7000 angry jihadists' from Iraq, that unfortunate quota of Iraqi refugees which we, the ones who caused the disaster at last authorized to admit. We tremble with fear, the Kings of the Hill. In 1999 we trembled too. During the abominable war in Kosovo when Clinton and his cronies engaged in the bombardment of the European country and pushed off the land thousands of people, we here admitted some Albanians (temporarily, of course, not like those dumb Icelanders who took refugees permanently). And, lo and behold, one Albanian woman happened to be pregnant. What a row it was! All the top officials had to go on TV calming us down that it was an accident, that all the Albanian, Caledonian, Haitian, Zambian women would be screened beforehand, so that there would be not a chance for the hordes of illegitimate children to besiege our shores. If Monica Levinski got pregnant we would not be so afraid and angry as we were at that unborn, down to the discussing of the forced abortion to be imposed on that poor woman ( pro-lifers were silent, of course), until we settled for the deportation of her back to Kosovo as soon as our brave soldiers devastated Serbia enough. Wag the dog. In all that bacchanalia we never found out what was the name of that woman, same as we never cared for the names of those 900 children our bombs killed in Belgrade. Yes, we have all the reasons to be afraid. 'Our borders are not secure!'- roars the suite on TV. Doesn't matter what suite; there are plenty of those on both sides of the aisle. What borders? With Mexico? Not with Canada? I remember how in one of the 'Awful Truth' episodes Michael Moore gathered a group of Canadians and they proceeded openly through the checkpoints to the US with posters stating that they were going to get some jobs illegally. No one paid attention to them. I bet if he does that now the only thing they would be asked would be their passports. New regulations are enforced since January Y2007. But not in the wildest dream we will see the Buffalo Minutemen patrolling the border and hunting those 'snowflakebacks'. Why? Because we want to go to Canada and visit the Niagara Falls and we do not want some angry Canadians to throw tantrums at us or poison our food in the acts of revenge for the behavior of our stupid brothers in Upstate New York. Thus one fear cancels another. But on our Southern border we want a fence. A big one with electricity and other gizmos. We want border patrol. We engage our murderous administration and we want to use the unlawful ACTs to fulfill our long-lasting dream- to stop those pesky illegal immigrants and prevent us from having '100 million more Americans' with the 'inevitable destruction of our way of life'. Come to think of it if all illegal Mexicans resembled Salma Hayek we wouldn't mind at all. Or if they all were 18years old hot babes ready to join Hef in his Paradise. But unfortunately they are not that kind. They are men, women, children. They want to work. They are desperate. And they are... oh, who cares, we do not want to know their names. Just get them outta here. We authorize everything and we want to know nothing. It would be good though to know certain things besides the places where Girls Go Wild or the Cruise- controlled territories. Why are those people coming more and more? What's the cause of their desperation? Here is the quote from the paper by Mike Nuess 'Nicaragua, CAFTA and CIPPRES' in the Z-magazine on-line: http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Jun2006/nuess0606.html 'CAFTA will require eventual removal of the tariffs that now slightly protect Nicaraguan farmers and subject them to unlimited dumping of subsidized products from the U.S. It will be just like NAFTA in Mexico where income drastically dropped for 15 million small producers and forced over a million families off the land and into Free Trade Zone (FTZ) sweatshops. Mexican agricultural production has halved in the decade of NAFTA. Though some of it looked good on paper-a tripling of foreign investment into FTZs, a doubling of exports from FTZs, and 800,000 new jobs after 7 years- this "trade" was merely "paper transfers" that contributed poverty -level wages to the Mexican economy. Raw materials were "imported" into the FTZs, assembled products were "exported," but the dollars and profits passed right through to multinationals. Even the poverty-level wages were short term: most of those 800,000 jobs are gone, as the multinationals "found" cheaper labor in other depressed and desperate FTZs. '
Whoa! Mexican agricultural production tanked as a result of NAFTA, that another child of Bill Clinton's beautiful mind. And Bush, the heir wants to continue that trend. No wonder both Papa Bush and Bill, the Zipper are so close now. More people to come to our shores; we successfully destroy their sustenance. Family farming is no joke. The destruction of the family farms is not just some capitalistic trick; it is an attack on the very fabric of the people' s way of life. Ask Wendell Berry, the Kentuckian, he knows. So, eat your words, my dear middle- class liberals; we destroy their way of life and then they come here to destroy ours. That's what happens. People in Mexico are exactly the same as everyone else. Family farming economy has a tendency to develop cooperatives, some very sustainable and successful. Like the one described in this link: http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/sdrp/coffee.html. People grow organic coffee. Good deal. Works for everyone. Such cooperative approaches should be very much encouraged. Granted, that would mean that such organizations could become independent, even powerful, maybe influence the prices and politics, God forbid, they can become a political force! And they are becoming one! Andres Obrador, the 2006 candidate for the Mexican Presidency was on their side. Here's what he said in his interview: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700570.html OMG! He wanted to reduce the amount of the Mexican people coming to the US! He wanted to create jobs for them in Mexico! Hey, why then we here, the Kings of the USA did not support him at all? Moreover, according to Greg Palast, the sticky fingers of our Bushites contributed to the election fraud and coming to power of the big business candidate. See 'Stealing Mexico' by G. Palast :http://www.gregpalast.com/stealing-mexico. Why neither that loudmouth Tancredo nor Lou Dobbs cried wolf? The secret of their silence is also in that Obrador's interview above. He wanted to control the foreign investments and stop altogether the foreign mingling in the Mexican energy sector. That was a statesmanship: whoever controls energy controls the country. But our energy predators howled in rage and the terrorism rhetoric flourished and Mr. Obrador was proclaimed the second Castro, and he lost. Hey, the fence lovers- go thank Bush for all your troubles. I'll tell you about the fence. I lived on the inner side of a fence for a very long time. It works both ways. In fact no: at first it works both ways but with time its 'inner' purpose tramples over the border protection function. Less and less it is used to protect and more and more to abuse those very citizens it is there to serve. Those electric wires, those guards, those guns- they serve only the power. And the time comes when suddenly you realize that you cannot leave your country freely, that there are fences everywhere and that those fences you built yourself. The world is free and you are in the crate. What an irony for the 'land of the free'. Fear first creates fences in the souls and then the real ones are erected. That simple. Now, let's return to Captain Janeway. What did she do when she encountered the Species 8472 facility? In the confrontation she saw an opportunity. And she went for it.
If we want to even approach the issue of immigration properly and constructively we need to know those people. They must not be the Species 8472 to us. We need to push for the joint US- Mexican groups, lots of those with migrants and immigrants included as reps. We need to hear them and they have to hear us. We need to be connected. We need to encourage the Americans to take the jobs they do not want to take now; we need reasonable pay for the jobs and we need the universal health insurance. We need to stop NAFTA. We need to stop the murderous war and redirect the funds to the proper places in our country. Maybe we should encourage Congress to support the business organizations eager to invest into Mexican cooperative movements, those who want to expand the organic food base? Oh yes, we have to lot to do together but under the two crucial conditions: we have to treat them as equals and we have to stop being afraid of them. We should be afraid, very afraid of those werewolves we put to power, those who now smirk in our faces while killing our children. They are our problem. The immigrants are our opportunity.
A writer is a rogue goose. All other gees fly in a flock formation; every goose knows his place and time for honking. The rogue goose is undisciplined. He leaves the formation indiscriminately to have a look at it from aside. He roams back and (more...)
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I am uncertain as to several things within this article, though I do agree in substance with others. In the short bio following the article Mark notes that he attempts to understand and love the country he has to live in....do you really HAVE to live here?
I noted a sort of animosity towards the middle class within this that puzzles me. Traditionally it is precisely that class from which the impetus for reforms and progress comes. It is why the right seeks to diminish and shrink that class.
I do not watch TV and understand nothing of the reference to mythic species and space battles and consider this an unfortunate analogy but perhaps others find clarity within it. I do understand that the real problems with immigration are those who employ them not those who are forced here by economic inequalities within their own nations. The battle to end this tidal wave of illegals lies with a twofold solution, I believe. One , as stated, is the battle to force employers to become responsible for those whom they employ and the second is to end economic practices and things like NAFTA, GATT and CAFTA that create such vast poverty and lack of economic security within the so-called third world.
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ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments) on Sunday, Feb 25, 2007 at 9:30:41 AM
I belong to the middle class too, at least for now. But I do understand when the interests are really considered and when it is just a demagoguery and rhetoric. Classes are irrelevant when it comes to people, though. As for TV, everyone defines his own domain but that is why I asked in advance about the trekkies. Take it or leave it, Captain Janeway and her crew are the ones we see every day and they are the part of the realities we see. That is what is good about USA, among other thing.
Animosity? There is no such thing as animosity towards the class or a group. I mean in real life, not in the world of Lou Dobbs. I am hostile towards extremism and I am hostile towards stupidity. As I have to live here (and we all have to live somewhere) I sort out the good things and bad things. Then I support the good and fight the bad. Last time I heard about such approach it was called Love.
Good Day
Mark Sashine
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Mark Sashine (72 articles, 19 quicklinks, 269 diaries, 4101 comments [131 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Feb 25, 2007 at 9:43:16 AM
and makes for inaction. So, Ok Im a curmudgeonly sort.
I would note that, whenever this nation swings left, whenever, throughout history, our government works to better working conditions, education, and strengthen social safety nets it is the middle class that provides the impetus for such changes. This is one reason that the right diminishes the middle class at every turn, why we have seen a shrinking of this class in this nation, and why it is important to nurture such as they within this country, if not the world.
Live long and prosper...oops wrong show, huh?
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments) on Sunday, Feb 25, 2007 at 7:00:52 PM
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