Back in the days of the high life, people could live in fantastic wealth in this isolated Western paradise and enjoy wide-screen color TV sets, watch golf, and all the ridiculous pursuits the idle rich consider entertaining. Previously that was a secret because no-one else knew about it. There was no overt effort to hide it, the technology simply didn't exist for anyone to learn.
No-one in Russia or China was lusting after the American lifestyle because, for the most part, they didn't know about it. No-one in Africa was thinking, man, we're really getting screwed when they live so well and I live on whatever I can catch to eat. No-one in the Middle East was thinking, man, I just have to build a mosque in Smallville, Iowa.
The Internet blew all that wide open and there's no way to hide it anymore. Sooner or later people were going to start thinking, fuck it, I want a piece of the action. Now they're on the move and it's not likely anything can physically stop it because it's not a physical problem. That people are moving is obvious, why they are moving is not.
The secret is out, Big Daddy.
The sooner you get a grip on that fact, the sooner we can start talking about what will be done to deal with it. My own proposal has not changed in, oh, decades. To the extent to which America invests in other countries is the extent to which they become future trading partners rather than liabilities. Moreover, people will stay home because they want to be there. We saw that with the Marshall Plan That only leaves one question to me: why are we not seeing it now.
Combat in the Middle East gave people the motivation to move. The monstrous disparity in lifestyles has always been the reason. America, in general, and Hollywood, in particular, are where the streets are paved with gold. Everyone knows this, we saw it on the Internet.
No-one in Russia or China was lusting after the American lifestyle because, for the most part, they didn't know about it. No-one in Africa was thinking, man, we're really getting screwed when they live so well and I live on whatever I can catch to eat. No-one in the Middle East was thinking, man, I just have to build a mosque in Smallville, Iowa.
The Internet blew all that wide open and there's no way to hide it anymore. Sooner or later people were going to start thinking, fuck it, I want a piece of the action. Now they're on the move and it's not likely anything can physically stop it because it's not a physical problem. That people are moving is obvious, why they are moving is not.
The secret is out, Big Daddy.
The sooner you get a grip on that fact, the sooner we can start talking about what will be done to deal with it. My own proposal has not changed in, oh, decades. To the extent to which America invests in other countries is the extent to which they become future trading partners rather than liabilities. Moreover, people will stay home because they want to be there. We saw that with the Marshall Plan That only leaves one question to me: why are we not seeing it now.
Combat in the Middle East gave people the motivation to move. The monstrous disparity in lifestyles has always been the reason. America, in general, and Hollywood, in particular, are where the streets are paved with gold. Everyone knows this, we saw it on the Internet.
16 comments:
I thought you were against the NAFTA deal
Immigrants have been lusting for the Americas since forever
Ask Boston and the Irish
Zinzinnati and Germany
San Francisco and the Chinese
Or Detroit and the Sudanese
or countless other waves of immigrants
Oldest Mosque i. USA 1934. Cedar Rapids Iowa. Gotta love Google
I remain against NAFTA as it only took jobs from here and sent them there. It didn't raise all boats but sank one at the expense of the other. Witness: Detroit.
How an equitable 'load balancing' is to take place is undetermined but there needs to be some kind of way as I don't believe anything else is likely to quell what happens now. Somewhere there's a balance between investment in other countries and gutting American union workers.
Cessation of hostilities may reduce it but I doubt it ever stops.
Yes, immigrants have lusted after it but most of them came from Europe. I submit others probably didn't know about it until much later. Now everyone knows about it.
That's amusing about Iowa but I'm not exactly picking up a trend out of it. I didn't have any active awareness of Muslims doing anything but being Muslims until only a few years ago. That was the first time I met someone with Muslim beliefs and we talked. I'm sure I met others but we didn't talk so I would know one way or the other.
More waves from China back to mid-Nineteeth Century or earlier, I guess. I'm sure you're right about military bases. I suspect part of what the Internet brings is the idea you really can get here whereas I suspect prior to that maybe America has been regarded like Oz, streets with gold but impossible to get there, maybe not even that.
I don't think early Chinese fared very well for some while, maybe because of obvious difference in appearance.
Same general memory of treatment of early Chinese immigrants.
I'm sticking to the basic premise, tho. We don't see immigrants so much from Africa, at least I never have. The family building models from other countries have been incredibly strong but I have seen very little of that from Africa. Maybe it's because I missed it or maybe it's not there. I do believe Internet penetration is reaching places even radio didn't find ... it seems to me, anyway.
In fact, Voice of America was radio into the Soviet Union for many years and this was broadcast so powerfully as to get past jamming as much as possible. The view they had of the U.S. there and in China was radically limited and distorted as much as possible regarding Western decadence, etc. Governments know they can't stop it now but it doesn't matter as the secret is already out.
Stick to it if you choose but it is flawed
I don't contest your facts regarding previous waves of immigration but I do think it's significant where they originated and there seems to have been little from Africa, except forced by slavery, so I think there is merit to the premise of the Internet bringing awareness wider and thus bringing about more migration.
It may play a small part. America has always been the promised land. The strict quotas against the African nations would hold that back a lot. But Somalia and Sudan are the main stay for southern michigan I am sure there are others.
We have a very large Sudanese community her that is at least 40 years old
These quotas are unusual then when we have seen so much immigration from elsewhere as with, say, Irish or Italian populations which are huge. Even Vietnamese communities seem larger. Cadillac Man would have a good perspective from working a lot in inner city Detroit. He said there were people from all over the world in Detroit and it sounded much more cosmopolitan than I would have expected.
The US has had immigration up until the 60s And still have a form of quotas today
I knew about quotas but that hasn't seemed so restrictive as it looks like it has actually been for some areas. I'm not trying to get racial for it but there does seem some disparity. Likely that's true for other places I don't know as well.
The per capita income of the country would be very restrictive of much of the third world immigration.
Too poor to escape would do it handily
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