As to the last two items (re: TSA protocol spreading to buses and trains and having to have a license to grow plants in your backyard)

1) TSA protocols spreading. Vanishingly improbable. The problem with airplanes is not just that you can kill the people on the plane, you can kill a lot of people on the ground. Most of the dead on 9/11 were on the ground, not on the airplanes.

2) Once again, you are buying into a right-wing fantasy that has as much to do with real law as Star Wars has to do with real science--meaning none-at-all. Provided that you aren't trying to SELL your vegetables you won't have to have a license to grow vegetables. If, however, you are trying to SELL your vegetables then you would--and SHOULD--be required to have a license just as any other food-seller would. Why? Because if we exempt *you* then we have to exempt the next larger size seller, and the next one, and the next one, and the one after that. Eventually, you have a company the size of Monsanto, growing vegetables and no longer having to worry about pesky things like food safety. Is that what you want?

There's a real world out there, popcorn, and real world has facts about it. Those facts are not up for contention--interpretation of those facts, sure. Your opinions about those facts, certainly. But not the facts themselves.

Well, I remember how it was reported to be undemocratic when an ID had to be shown in Europe during WW11 everywhere. Remember airport scanners? Now it's okay? I know you all will say this has nothing to do with illegals, but we are all illegals if we do not bow down to these government protocols and told to step out of line.

*sigh*

Firstly, while both France and England had national ID cards during WW II only France kept it after the war, the English abolished theirs immediately following the war. As far as what happened in the nations conquered by the Germans--it was the Nazi's of COURSE it was not democratic.

As far as your second statement, what could you possibly mean by "we are all illegals if we do not bow down to these government protocols"? Are you saying that not going through a scanner or submitting to a pat-down somehow makes you undocumented? How's that? How could it *possibly* effect my citizenship status?

While this isn't the thread for it (and I'm happy to engage in a more full-bodied argument about the relative merits of the TSA full-body scanners) let me run this past you. So, we get rid of the scanners and we stop the pat downs. For reasons that I won't belabor at this moment, we do not profile either.

Sometime next year another group of enterprising young men from Saudi Arabia hijack a three or four aircraft out of LAX and fly them into the freeway at rush hour. What would your reaction be then, popcorn? Would you shrug and make some comments about omelets and eggs or would you be saying that the administration allowed it to happen and/or was too incompetent to stop it? The point I'm driving at, Popcorn, is that you can't have it all.

You can have (relatively) safe air travel.
You can have (relatively) unobtrusive security protocols.
You can have no security protocols.
You can have (relatively) unsafe air travel.
You can have obtrusive security protocols.

Pick the combination you like the most knowing that some of these options preclude others. For example, you cannot have no security protocols and safe air travel and this obtained LONG before those enterprising young men from Saudi Arabia hijacked airplanes one fine September morning.

Likewise, you can have any of the following:

No Latin American immigrants
Cheap lettuce
Expensive lettuce
Large numbers of Latin American immigrants

Again, certain options preclude other options. The minute you decide that you really don't want to pay $6.00 a head for lettuce you are tacitly choosing to have a large number of Latin American immigrants to pick the lettuce at wages that keep the prices depressed. The cost-of-living in the United States is, at present, artificially depressed in two areas--food and fuel. Absent migrant workers lettuce (and everything else) would quickly rush upward. Absent sweetheart deals with Saudi Arabia gas prices would move to where they 'should' be, which is around $9.00 to $10.00 a gallon. Your vacation or your night out with your honey are artificially cheaper than the market would otherwise predict in large part BECAUSE of undocumented workers.

Now, as a supporter of Labor, I would like to see a guest-worker program. The reason being is that if people can work over-the-table, they have rights. If they have rights, they will exercise them (or attempt to) which will raise the wages of those low-wage earners.

Cheers
Aj


Cheers
Aj

I totally agree with you, AJ...and I get what you are saying. Bring on the boycott!! Radical change begins with radical notions and I am wholeheartedly leading the pack (so to speak, of course :) ).

The film A Day Without A Mexican is a rather poorly acted satire based on life in California without migrant labor. Not a fabulous film but it did make me think about what life would be like without a menial labor force.

I am curious...given the artificial food and fuel deficit (artificial meaning?? we are lacking or there is a presumed/perceived lack??) what are your thoughts on empowering a more sustainable future. And by sustainable I mean something that can survive and flourish well into the next century.

By artificial, I mean this: if pure market forces were to prevail with the U.S. gas market gas would be closer to the $8 to $10 a gallon range. However, two factors conspire to keep gas prices in the United States in the $3 to $4 a gallon range: Saudi Arabia insists on doing oil sales in dollars, meaning that the price of oil is pegged to the price of the dollar. This keeps oil prices stable (relatively speaking) and lower than they would be if oil could be sold in the currency most advantageous to the seller. Secondly, the Saudis structure oil deals in a form that is advantageous for the United States.

With regard to food, both the price of transportation (oil/gas) and the price of farm labor (immigrants) makes the price of food lower than it otherwise would be. Imagine that gas prices were where they 'should' be (we'll call it $9 a gallon). Imagine also that farm workers were paid the prevailing minimum wage AND had to be covered by health insurance if they were full-time workers. That head of lettuce (or that evening out) would have all of that cost passed on to you. At present, iceberg lettuce at my local Safeway is $1.08 a head. That $1.00 head of lettuce should, if market forces prevailed, should probably be closer to a $5 or $6 head of lettuce but because of the factors above, it's much, much cheaper. Even if I'm wrong by half, we're *still* talking about that head of lettuce being 300% more expensive at market value.

As far as sustainable future--that's a hard one and I don't want to derail this thread too much. If you start a thread, though, I'll participate.

Cheers
Aj

Precisely what I thought. And I don't think it would be derailing the thread to actively explore the notion of sustainability as a result of empowerment. In my eyes the two go hand in hand in order to effect change.

Peace :)

A Demon-haunted world
 

I wanted to go back to something a couple of folks brought up yesterday which is the inherent danger of demonizing a group of people.

On Friday, I woke to find out that a 19 year old Somali immigrant had been arrested by the FBI because he had conspired to set off a bomb at the local X-mas tree lighting in downtown Portland. This young man is a naturalized citizen and has been here since he was very young. On the news site where I was following this story (Huffington Post) there were numerous comments of the 'arrest 'em all let God sort them out' variety. On Sunday, I woke to find out that this young man's mosque in Corvalis (just south of Portland) had been firebombed.

Now, this kid had not been radicalized in his mosque--he went and found radicalism on his own. No one was hurt this time but the key is this time. If you make Muslims 'The Problem' then burning mosques is the next logical step.

My concern with SB 1070 and a law in Oklahoma making Sharia law illegal (and no, NO jurisdiction in the United States does nor can it ever make Sharia law authoritative without a Constitutional amendment repealing the First Amendment--anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you) is that their purpose is to demonize the Other. SB 1070 isn't about making sure that Sven is on the first KLM flight back to the Hague the very hour his visa expires. It isn't about making certain that Bonnie from Sheffield isn't on the first boat back to England when her visa expires. SB 1070 is about making sure that Pablo, from Mexico, and Isabel, from El Salvador are made to know that they are not welcome here. No one looking like my wife is going to get picked up on suspicion of being in the country illegally--she has red hair and hazel eyes. No, they are going to be looking for someone with darker skin, darker hair and brown eyes. It may make us all feel better to pretend that it is otherwise but half-an-hour with just 20th century United States history will put the lie to that. (And yes, I'm quite aware that Irish, Poles and Italians all faced discrimination--keep in mind that with each group there was SOME phenotypic difference that made them easy to spot whether that was accent, name, skin color, religion.)

Now there is serious discussion about repealing or changing the 14th Amendment so that people born here are not automatically citizens. The 14th Amendment is written the way it was for a reason--to keep citizenship *away* from the vagaries of outrageous political fortune. We mess with it at our peril. NO person of color should look at any attempt to amend the 14th Amendment lightly (and yes, it is something that the effects would disproportionately fall upon people of color--despite all our feel good, kumbaya singing most people, when they hear the word "American" think of someone several shades lighter than my brown skinned self whether they want to or not).

Cheers
Aj

It's true. I'll own up to that.

Mind you, the white person who I think of when I heard the word "American" also has huge hair and tapered jeans and a sweatshirt with a really ugly emblem on it and is loud and probably cut in front of me in line somewhere and has a gun in her purse / down the back of his pants and is selfish and inconsiderate and mean and watches too much television. I mean, seriously, it's NEVER an attractive, friendly, and smart white person who comes to mind for me. Ever.

That doesn't make me any less of a jerkface, of course. Probably a bit more of a jerkface.

And in some ways, it is understandable WHY people think 'white' when they think 'American'. America is now far *more* diverse than it has been since at any point since the late 18th century and, if my math is correct, the United States is still about 80% white. Now, that said, I still find the idea to be disturbing to me *as an American* because--and here my romantic naivete is on full display--I actually bought into this idea that what makes an American is nothing more than buying into a particular set of principles. Americans aren't defined by race, we aren't defined by ethnicity, we aren't defined by religion, we are defined--as the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote--by commitment to an ideal. If you buy into this ideal of individual liberty, freedom of conscience, the rule of law and not of men, equality before the law and some kind of egalitarianism then you are an American. So when Sarah Palin talks about 'real America' and makes it clear that she's not talking about people who either look OR think like me, I have a problem.

Cheers
Aj

Based on your / Arthur Schlesinger Jr's definition of an American...well, I am an American. Except that I'm not and wouldn't want anybody to confuse me with one (the reason for this is probably 60% because I think that the US isn't a great place and 40% because I want everybody to know that I'm Canadian.)

I think that someone like me views a certain type of person as American BECAUSE OF people like Sarah Palin and -their- ideas of what it is to be an American. Palin has her idea of a white, christian, homey American archetype and views that as something positive. People from outside of the US (that would be me) hear/see Palin and because her and people like her are SO GODDAMN LOUD we begin to also see the white, christian, homey American archetype - but we do not view it as something positive.

Well, actually, there are a couple of things I would like to see done that are relevant here.

1) I, for one, will dance on the grave of the nation state. Was it an improvement over feudalism? Yes. Was it an improvement over the divine right of kings? Absolutely! Is it time for this dinosaur to stop moving? Probably so. The United States, Mexico and Canada form a 'natural' economic sphere. I would love to see all three nations functionally dissolve their borders, create one job market with a common set of labor laws (the ones MOST on the side of workers, thank you very much), a common set of environmental laws and a common currency. I think that regional alliances are the next natural progression until we can go to some kind of international Federalist state. (And yes, I'm talking about a single planetary government and before anyone says boo about biblical prophecies, I simply do not care. I don't think we should make public policy based upon multi-thousand year old tales, told around the fire by desert nomads and a single, common federal government on the model of the EU but for the whole planet makes sense to me.)

2) Achieving number 1 would allow us to move on to number 2. Corporations need to be put back on the leash. At present, the nation state *serves* the corporate state because if, say, Canada takes the whole idea of labor and environmental laws too seriously and the company in question is run by venal enough people, the corporation will just move to some other country where the labor laws are less in existence and the environmental regulations exist only in speech if at all. With only a single, Federal planetary government these corporate behemoths have nowhere to go, no where to hide.

3) We need to reset expectations. The idea that every quarter a company must grow, grow, grow is insane. There really ARE limits to growth, we need to learn to live within them.

4) The widespread dissemination and dispersion of scientific knowledge. More people, live longer and healthier lives because of science. In a state of nature, I was dead certainly by thirty-three. My appendix burst when I was 32. 100 years ago, I was dead. In 1999, I was in the hospital for about 36 hours and home for about 10 days. Wherever and whenever modern public health methods and medicine is introduced very predictable things happen--infant mortality drops, life span extends, women gain more power over their reproductive choices and thus their lives.

5) We need to reset expectations. I think we need to recognize that we need a more locally based economy. That may mean that in some places--Salt Lake City, for instance--you just can't get lobster. Maybe in Alaska, you just can't get beef. That means a return to regional cuisines.


The thing is, we may not have a choice in the matter. The die may already have been cast and Nature may impose limits we were neither intelligent enough or wise enough to put on ourselves.

Cheers
Aj

And in the case of Canadians, I think that both nations are defined more by an ideal than by an ethnicity or religion. I think that the three Anglophone daughter-nations of England are all, more or less, in the same boat with America and Canada being the most dramatic. We are products--in ways that, say, a German may not be--of the English and Scottish Enlightenment. The fact that so many of us hold so loosely to nationalism is one symptom of what I'm talking about. Sure, the Star Spangled Banner can make me choke up, but I’m basically neutral about the flag. The Constitution, on the other hand, I hold dear with a feeling that borders on the religious. Flawed as it is, incomplete as it is, I still think it is a remarkable document, a crowning achievement not just of Europe but of humanity. This is what makes me an American--as I've told people who are far more jingoistic than I am "when I was in the military, I didn't take an oath to the flag nor did I take an oath to whatever temporary occupant was living in the White House. I took an oath to the Constitution. To me America is two really important things--her people and her laws. The land is nice but take the people and the laws, move them to Central Europe and we would still have America. Take away the people and the laws and whatever remained on this soil would not be America.

Cheers
Aj

No, I don't think it helps to know my neighbor doesn't support it. But I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about the assumption by some that somehow we (AZ residents) should claim the hatred and discrimination in this state just because we live here. I don't think that helps either.

Somebody said you should *claim* hatred and discrimination in your state? I don't understand.

Denying that it IS happening around is claiming it. How can you NOT know what is happening in a State that wanted to enforce racial profiling.

How does one not take a stand?? Does privilege allow this?

I am confused how one can not care or is it the "eh, it's not me they are targeting so.. Whatever"

:wallbreak:

I'm going to bed totes!

New law jeopardizes ethnic studies classes

A month from now, a new law will jeopardize ethnic studies within the Tucson Unified School District. Sunday, one group that calls itself neutral is calling for a review of these classes.

Attorney General Elect Tom Horne, spent the latter part of his career as the Arizona schools chief taking aim at TUSD Mexican-American studies.

Then came the passage of a law banning the courses based off the idea they promote racism. Now a group called Tucsonans United for a Sound District wants the classes reviewed by an independent panel.

Hi again.

This sentence doesn't make a lot of sense to me because I don't know what you mean by the word, "claim." Without further information, Snowy's interpretation was the closest to how I read your words too - which is why I asked for clarification.

Perhaps you could pick the sentence below that is most similar to your meaning - or clarify in your own words? I would really appreciate it.

A. Some people think Arizona residents should embrace hatred and discrimination just because they live in Arizona, and I disagree.

B. Some people think Arizona residents should acknowledge that hatred and discrimination exist in Arizona, and I don't think Arizona residents should be expected to do so.

C. Some people think Arizona residents should stop denying that hatred and discrimination exist in Arizona, but I disagree.

D. Some people think all Arizona residents are in support of racism and discrimination, and that's not true.

E. _____________________________________