Eff you, Tim Cahill!

Respectful and civil... (0.00 / 0)

Towards other post-ers and commentators on here, sure. Otherwise, no reason not to tell TC or whoever to go fuck himself.

That said, immigration's a tough call. Easy enough to bash Cahill, who's going to play the lowest-common-denominator card throughout the camapign (well, he DOES represent the views of a certain constituency, so he's entitle to his place at the table--funny to see him enmeshed in a squabble with Howie Carr, since their demographic is pretty much one-and-the-same)--but what is the solution? I haven't figured it out yet. My heart tell me one thing, but my brain, alas, leads to me to James H Kunstler and David Pimentel (though JHK's nuts if he thinks a damn wall's gonna work).

The thing that always impressed me most about this country, which I do love after my fashion, is that we're a nation of mongrels. We have no "natives," aside from those whitey pretty much annihilated; none of us has any true claim to the land, or to any nonsensical religio-tribal heritage that defines the damn place. Interbreeding = evolutionary success. And that extends to culture as well as to biology. Fact is, hispanic culture is going to transform this country into something very unlike what it is and was--and that includes our language. GOOD.

BUT ... what's our carrying capacity again?

Like I said, I don't have a solution. Yours?

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by: michael horan @ Thu Sep 09, 2010 at 19:33:31 PM UTC

natives, carrying capacity (0.00 / 0)

who do you think's feeding us?! (since you're learning agriculture, i know you actually know darn well who and what's feeding us)

i think carrying capacity is a vicious flag to hoist in the immigration debate, with a sorry history of racism. we're sucking down 25% of the resources and spewing up 25% of the pollution, and that probably doesn't even include the manufacturing and shipping that gets our stuff to us (i've never been sure of that one). yes, we have to worry about carrying capacity, and as Earth Overshoot Day this year was August 21st, it's something we need to take very, very seriously. but why in the context of immigrants increasing US population numbers?

i think we need to start thinking like homo sapiens, like world citizens, and give up this nationalistic protectionist and individualistic mode. the jobs in industrial agriculture that latin american migrants are traveling here for would better serve the planet if they never existed ... but US trade policy has worked to destroy their livelihoods, and the consolidation of the food industry has helped create these exploitative jobs. it's a lose-lose, and a win only for the profiteers. acting like "they took our jobs" (have you seen the full Goobacks episode of South Park? it's good stuff) is simply b.s.

by asking for my solution, you give credence to the mythology of the problem. yes, our current immigration policy is a gigantic problem. but by accepting the framing of how and why it's a problem, we fall into the divide-and-conquer trap that Cahill is so graciously setting. Jill's response in the debate was key... calling out the true culprits. i think we need to be engaged in problem-solving with everyone affected. it's not like people are psyched to risk their lives, and split themselves from their families, and take jobs with horrific conditions, and embrace being treated as second-class citizens, or worse, as ALIENS. the problem is huge: national-level policies, state-level policies, employers looking for submissive, dirt-cheap labor and the political influence they wield, discrepancies between legal and illegal immigration, the impact of the labor force, issues of taxation, licensing, etc.

immigration policy has to be sane and compassionate. detention centers,  massive deportation, militarized borders, racial-profiling, and anti-immigrant hotlines serve no useful purpose other than driving profit and fear, which is what we seem to be good at. guest worker programs would create  a cheap labor force than can be exploited, and used to pit workers against each other.

in addition to changing immigration policy, economic relocalization, cooperative enterprise, and truly organized labor are also key parts of the solution.  

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by: eli_beckerman @ Fri Sep 10, 2010 at 22:57:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Racism blows. Period. (0.00 / 0)

http://www.carryingcapacity.org/

Ahh yes, the threat of "Cultural Marxism".   Immediate Immigration Moratorium, :: nods head, vomits ::

Sigh.  I'm not as hip with the arguments, counter-arguments, or the facts concerning carrying capacity as some others.  But I can at least say that because carrying capacity is an ecological and biological concept, it cannot be properly comprehended in human terms without recognizing and including sociological concepts.

Otherwise you get a "social blindless" that misrepresents and distorts the relationship between human beings and the natural world.  In theoretical discussion, and discussion meant to explore differing scenarios and possibilities, you can let that slip a bit because its not about implementation.

However once you jump into social and political action, when you begin to consider solutions and policies, you better damn well have your ideas straight regarding how ecology and society interrelate.  And you have to concern yourself with ethics, as well as simple political sense.  

Cahill is playing on racism, pure and simple, there is no positive or constructive thinking going on there.  The American immigration debate is almost entirely consumed by the specter of institutional racism.   Its a messy cauldron of fear, scapegoating, and projection of economic and social insecurity.  

If you want to actually come to "solutions" (to any of the issues that get lumped in here) you have to get outside the immigration "debate".  

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by: Patrick Burke @ Fri Sep 10, 2010 at 05:59:16 AM UTC

homosapiens vs homo- know-nothing-nativist (0.00 / 0)

I know who's playing a large part in feeding us--and so does the business-end of the GOP, who have no intention of sending all the unauthorized immigrants home no matter what the teabaggers say. Nor of providing them with any benefits or protection whatsoever, of course.

I don't think mentioning the precarious state of our nation--in so many respects--necessarily implies vicious racism. It's a reality, and a massive influx of immigrants--at any point in our history--has to be taken into account, even if the problem is wildly exagerrated here in MA (Obama's aunt ain't exactly the root of our economic woes). My point is that while you can trumpet homosapienism and the need to think beyond national and tribal boundaries--it ain't happening, and it won't for another millenium. There are very real issues now, and while I agree with you that the unauthorized wouldn't represent the "drain" on our budgets that they ostensibly do if we shifted priorities, it IS still an issue. See Ireland for a good example.

You can call out Cahill et al for sure. I'm sickened by the anti-immigrant rhetoric as well (and also believe that the "anti-illegal immigrant" talk is simply cover for "anti-immmigrant" in general, pace Pat Buchanan and other fuckwits who are aghast that our "western heritage" is bing "watered down" by all these non Anglos), and I was horrified while working for the past few years in Bostons Maine Industyrial Zone seeing so many IMF vans pulling up outside the fish processing plants--and leaving fuller than they arrived.

But willy nilly, the nation isn't about to simply drop it's nationalistic posture (I'm actually a fan of nation-states, myself--and of competition to boot), so what I'm looking for is a sane alternative plan. On the state level--on the federal level, Jill's dead on about the effect of two decades' worth of trade policy on indigenous ag and trade.

Maybe the guest worker idea. How will that affect the MA state budget? I'm not really arguing with you here--I'm just more interested in numbers than in the idea that we all start thinking like homo sapiens. You know better than anyone that we're about to start experiencing a steep decline in that affluence you cite--and you know what happens in those cases. I do not believe that this is the dawning of the age of aquarius, and I know too well what happens historically in periods of declining resources.  

So I'm hpoing to see, not simply blame cast at the system, but a genuinely workable plan, here in MA, that will stand in stark counterpoint to the inhumane "round 'em up" philosophy Cahill seems to epitomize. BEFORE things get any uglier.

(An aside: not sure what you mean by "the jobs in industrial agriculture that latin american migrants are traveling here for would better serve the planet if they never existed...?")

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by: michael horan @ Sat Sep 11, 2010 at 01:52:08 AM UTC