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STRATFOR on Arizona, Borderlands and U.S.-Mexican Relations; good article
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Topic Started: Aug 5 2010, 07:18 PM (409 Views)
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brenda
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Aug 5 2010, 07:18 PM
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Arizona, Borderlands and U.S.-Mexican Relations August 5, 2010 | 1245 GMT
Arizona’s new law on illegal immigration went into effect last week, albeit severely limited by a federal court ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court undoubtedly will settle the matter, which may also trigger federal regulations. However that turns out, the entire issue cannot simply be seen as an internal American legal matter. More broadly, it forms part of the relations between the United States and Mexico, two sovereign nation-states whose internal dynamics and interests are leading them into an era of increasing tension. Arizona and the entire immigration issue have to be viewed in this broader context.
Until the Mexican-American War, it was not clear whether the dominant power in North America would have its capital in Washington or Mexico City. Mexico was the older society with a substantially larger military. The United States, having been founded east of the Appalachian Mountains, had been a weak and vulnerable country. At its founding, it lacked strategic depth and adequate north-south transportation routes. The ability of one colony to support another in the event of war was limited. More important, the United States had the most vulnerable of economies: It was heavily dependent on maritime exports and lacked a navy able to protect its sea-lanes against more powerful European powers like England and Spain. The War of 1812 showed the deep weakness of the United States. By contrast, Mexico had greater strategic depth and less dependence on exports.
The Centrality of New Orleans The American solution to this strategic weakness was to expand the United States west of the Appalachians, first into the Northwest Territory ceded to the United States by the United Kingdom and then into the Louisiana Purchase, which Thomas Jefferson ordered bought from France. These two territories gave the United States both strategic depth and a new economic foundation. The regions could support agriculture that produced more than the farmers could consume. Using the Ohio-Missouri-Mississippi river system, products could be shipped south to New Orleans. New Orleans was the farthest point south to which flat-bottomed barges from the north could go, and the farthest inland that oceangoing ships could travel. New Orleans became the single most strategic point in North America. Whoever controlled it controlled the agricultural system developing between the Appalachians and the Rockies. During the War of 1812, the British tried to seize New Orleans, but forces led by Andrew Jackson defeated them in a battle fought after the war itself was completed.
Jackson understood the importance of New Orleans to the United States. He also understood that the main threat to New Orleans came from Mexico. The U.S.-Mexican border then stood on the Sabine River, which divides today’s Texas from Louisiana. It was about 200 miles from that border to New Orleans and, at its narrowest point, a little more than 100 miles from the Sabine to the Mississippi.
Mexico therefore represented a fundamental threat to the United States. In response, Jackson authorized a covert operation under Sam Houston to foment an uprising among American settlers in the Mexican department of Texas with the aim of pushing Mexico farther west. With its larger army, a Mexican thrust to the Mississippi was not impossible — nor something the Mexicans would necessarily avoid, as the rising United States threatened Mexican national security.
Mexico’s strategic problem was the geography south of the Rio Grande (known in Mexico as the Rio Bravo). This territory consisted of desert and mountains. Settling this area with large populations was impossible. Moving through it was difficult. As a result, Texas was very lightly settled with Mexicans, prompting Mexico initially to encourage Americans to settle there. Once a rising was fomented among the Americans, it took time and enormous effort to send a Mexican army into Texas. When it arrived, it was weary from the journey and short of supplies. The insurgents were defeated at the Alamo and Goliad, but as the Mexicans pushed their line east toward the Mississippi, they were defeated at San Jacinto, near present-day Houston.
The creation of an independent Texas served American interests, relieving the threat to New Orleans and weakening Mexico. The final blow was delivered under President James K. Polk during the Mexican-American War, which (after the Gadsden Purchase) resulted in the modern U.S.-Mexican border. That war severely weakened both the Mexican army and Mexico City, which spent roughly the rest of the century stabilizing Mexico’s original political order.
A Temporary Resolution The U.S. defeat of Mexico settled the issue of the relative power of Mexico and the United States but did not permanently resolve the region’s status; that remained a matter of national power and will. The United States had the same problem with much of the Southwest (aside from California) that Mexico had: It was a relatively unattractive place economically, given that so much of it was inhospitable. The region experienced chronic labor shortages, relatively minor at first but accelerating over time. The acquisition of relatively low-cost labor became one of the drivers of the region’s economy, and the nearest available labor pool was Mexico. An accelerating population movement out of Mexico and into the territory the United States seized from Mexico paralleled the region’s accelerating economic growth.
The United States and Mexico both saw this as mutually beneficial. From the American point of view, there was a perpetual shortage of low-cost, low-end labor in the region. From the Mexican point of view, Mexico had a population surplus that the Mexican economy could not readily metabolize. The inclination of the United States to pull labor north was thus matched by the inclination of Mexico to push that labor north.
The Mexican government built its social policy around the idea of exporting surplus labor — and as important, using remittances from immigrants to stabilize the Mexican economy. The U.S. government, however, wanted an outcome that was illegal under U.S. law. At times, the federal government made exceptions to the law. When it lacked the political ability to change the law, the United States put limits on the resources needed to enforce the law. The rest of the country didn’t notice this process while the former Mexican borderlands benefited from it economically. There were costs to the United States in this immigrant movement, in health care, education and other areas, but business interests saw these as minor costs while Washington saw them as costs to be borne by the states.
Three fault lines emerged in United States on the topic. One was between the business classes, which benefited directly from the flow of immigrants and could shift the cost of immigration to other social sectors, and those who did not enjoy those benefits. The second lay between the federal government, which saw the costs as trivial, and the states, which saw them as intensifying over time. And third, there were tensions between Mexican-American citizens and other American citizens over the question of illegal migrants. This inherently divisive, potentially explosive mix intensified as the process continued.
Borderlands and the Geopolitics of Immigration Underlying this political process was a geopolitical one. Immigration in any country is destabilizing. Immigrants have destabilized the United States ever since the Scots-Irish changed American culture, taking political power and frightening prior settlers. The same immigrants were indispensible to economic growth. Social and cultural instability proved a low price to pay for the acquisition of new labor.
That equation ultimately also works in the case of Mexican migrants, but there is a fundamental difference. When the Irish or the Poles or the South Asians came to the United States, they were physically isolated from their homelands. The Irish might have wanted Roman Catholic schools, but in the end, they had no choice but to assimilate into the dominant culture. The retention of cultural hangovers did not retard basic cultural assimilation, given that they were far from home and surrounded by other, very different, groups.
This is the case for Mexican-Americans in Chicago or Alaska, whether citizens, permanent residents or illegal immigrants. In such locales, they form a substantial but ultimately isolated group, surrounded by other, larger groups and generally integrated into the society and economy. Success requires that subsequent generations follow the path of prior immigrants and integrate. This is not the case, however, for Mexicans moving into the borderlands conquered by the United States just as it is not the case in other borderlands around the world. Immigrant populations in this region are not physically separated from their homeland, but rather can be seen as culturally extending their homeland northward — in this case not into alien territory, but into historically Mexican lands.
This is no different from what takes place in borderlands the world over. The political border moves because of war. Members of an alien population suddenly become citizens of a new country. Sometimes, massive waves of immigrants from the group that originally controlled the territory politically move there, undertaking new citizenship or refusing to do so. The cultural status of the borderland shifts between waves of ethnic cleansing and population movement. Politics and economics mix, sometimes peacefully and sometimes explosively.
The Mexican-American War established the political boundary between the two countries. Economic forces on both sides of the border have encouraged both legal and illegal immigration north into the borderland — the area occupied by the United States. The cultural character of the borderland is shifting as the economic and demographic process accelerates. The political border stays where it is while the cultural border moves northward.
The underlying fear of those opposing this process is not economic (although it is frequently expressed that way), but much deeper: It is the fear that the massive population movement will ultimately reverse the military outcome of the 1830s and 1840s, returning the region to Mexico culturally or even politically. Such borderland conflicts rage throughout the world. The fear is that it will rage here.
The problem is that Mexicans are not seen in the traditional context of immigration to the United States. As I have said, some see them as extending their homeland into the United States, rather than as leaving their homeland and coming to the United States. Moreover, by treating illegal immigration as an acceptable mode of immigration, a sense of helplessness is created, a feeling that the prior order of society was being profoundly and illegally changed. And finally, when those who express these concerns are demonized, they become radicalized. The tension between Washington and Arizona — between those who benefit from the migration and those who don’t — and the tension between Mexican-Americans who are legal residents and citizens of the United States and support illegal immigration and non-Mexicans who oppose illegal immigration creates a potentially explosive situation.
Centuries ago, Scots moved to Northern Ireland after the English conquered it. The question of Northern Ireland, a borderland, was never quite settled. Similarly, Albanians moved to now-independent Kosovo, where tensions remain high. The world is filled with borderlands where political and cultural borders don’t coincide and where one group wants to change the political border that another group sees as sacred.
Migration to the United States is a normal process. Migration into the borderlands from Mexico is not. The land was seized from Mexico by force, territory now experiencing a massive national movement — legal and illegal — changing the cultural character of the region. It should come as no surprise that this is destabilizing the region, as instability naturally flows from such forces.
Jewish migration to modern-day Israel represents a worst-case scenario for borderlands. An absence of stable political agreements undergirding this movement characterized this process. One of the characteristics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is mutual demonization. In the case of Arizona, demonization between the two sides also runs deep. The portrayal of supporters of Arizona’s new law as racist and the characterization of critics of that law as un-American is neither new nor promising. It is the way things would sound in a situation likely to get out of hand.
Ultimately, this is not about the Arizona question. It is about the relationship between Mexico and the United States on a range of issues, immigration merely being one of them. The problem as I see it is that the immigration issue is being treated as an internal debate among Americans when it is really about reaching an understanding with Mexico. Immigration has been treated as a subnational issue involving individuals. It is in fact a geopolitical issue between two nation-states. Over the past decades, Washington has tried to avoid turning immigration into an international matter, portraying it rather as an American law enforcement issue. In my view, it cannot be contained in that box any longer.
Read more: Arizona, Borderlands and U.S.-Mexican Relations | STRATFOR
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“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.” ~A.A. Milne
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Mikhailoh
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Aug 6 2010, 02:59 AM
Post #2
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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As usual, an excellent, insightful article.
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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blondie
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Aug 6 2010, 03:22 AM
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This is helpful for my understanding of the issues. I never learned the geopolitical history til now.
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Axtremus
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Aug 6 2010, 04:08 AM
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So, brenda, do you agree or disagree with the article? Or just sitting on the fence commenting only that it's somewhat interesting?
My take is that STRATFOR is blowing smoke on this one. It's highly unlikely that even the wingnuts who drafted Arizona's SB1070 had the American-Mexican war of 1830's/1840's crossed their minds, much less the tea-partiers giving it legs or the > 50% of Americans that polls suggest support SB1070.
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Mikhailoh
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Aug 6 2010, 04:20 AM
Post #5
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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Wingnuts. By that derogatory term I assume you mean the highly effective folks who jumpstarted the illegal immigration debate in this country.
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Axtremus
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Aug 6 2010, 04:23 AM
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Heck, I'd venture to state that even the non-wingnuts among the highly effective folks who jumpstarted the illegal immigration debate in this country are unlikely to have think of the immigration debate as having anything to do with the American-Mexican war of 1830's/1840's.
So do you agree with me that STRATFOR is blowing smoke on this one?
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Steve Miller
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Aug 6 2010, 05:17 AM
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- Axtremus
- Aug 6 2010, 04:23 AM
the non-wingnuts among the highly effective folks who jumpstarted the illegal immigration debate Both of them? Or just the one?
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Wag more Bark less
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Mikhailoh
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Aug 6 2010, 05:30 AM
Post #8
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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I'm not going to engage in a supposedly serious discussion with those types of terms thrown around.
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Steve Miller
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Aug 6 2010, 05:32 AM
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- Mikhailoh
- Aug 6 2010, 05:30 AM
I'm not going to engage in a supposedly serious discussion with those types of terms thrown around.
I do hate having to be politically correct all the time.
Don't you?
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Wag more Bark less
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1hp
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Aug 6 2010, 08:29 AM
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Maybe this will put a different spin on securing the border.
Mexico: Cartels move beyond drugs, seek domination
MEXICO CITY – President Felipe Calderon said Wednesday that Mexico's cartels in many cases have moved beyond drugs as their main money-earner and are even trying to supplant the government in parts of the country.
Speaking at an anti-crime conference, Calderon said gangs are imposing fees like taxes in towns they dominate, extorting money from both legitimate and unauthorized businesses.
"This has become an activity that defies the government, and even seeks to replace the government," he said. "They are trying to impose a monopoly by force of arms, and are even trying to impose their own laws."
Calderon said cartels may even be taking money from churches. "I do not doubt that they are also extorting money from priests and pastors in this country," he said.
Drugs are becoming less of a focus for the gangs, he said.
"Their main business is not anymore even drug trafficking, sometimes," Calderon said. "Their business is dominating other people."
Calderon told the gathering that some people are urging him to leave the cartels alone, after more than 28,000 people have died in drug violence since he launched an offensive against the cartels upon taking office in late 2006.
"Really, they are telling me, 'Mr. President, don't bother the criminals'," he said.
Calderon called that "simply an unacceptable option."
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There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................
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John D'Oh
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Aug 6 2010, 11:09 AM
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- Mikhailoh
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I'm not going to engage in a supposedly serious discussion with those types of terms thrown around.
If every political debate was stopped the minute someone used an offensive term, there wouldn't be any political debates at all.
Now, that gives me an idea......
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What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Axtremus
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Aug 6 2010, 11:16 AM
Post #12
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- 1hp
- Aug 6 2010, 08:29 AM
Maybe this will put a different spin on securing the border. Mexico: Cartels move beyond drugs, seek dominationMEXICO CITY – President Felipe Calderon said Wednesday that Mexico's cartels in many cases have moved beyond drugs as their main money-earner and are even trying to supplant the government in parts of the country.
Speaking at an anti-crime conference, Calderon said gangs are imposing fees like taxes in towns they dominate, extorting money from both legitimate and unauthorized businesses.
"This has become an activity that defies the government, and even seeks to replace the government," he said. "They are trying to impose a monopoly by force of arms, and are even trying to impose their own laws."
Calderon said cartels may even be taking money from churches. "I do not doubt that they are also extorting money from priests and pastors in this country," he said.
Drugs are becoming less of a focus for the gangs, he said.
"Their main business is not anymore even drug trafficking, sometimes," Calderon said. "Their business is dominating other people."
Calderon told the gathering that some people are urging him to leave the cartels alone, after more than 28,000 people have died in drug violence since he launched an offensive against the cartels upon taking office in late 2006.
"Really, they are telling me, 'Mr. President, don't bother the criminals'," he said.
Calderon called that "simply an unacceptable option." This is completely outside the STRATFOR article -- surely the drug cartels aren't doing it due to some lingering resentment over the 1830/1840 American-Mexican war; this further supports of my view that STRATFOR is blowing smoke on this one.
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brenda
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Aug 6 2010, 12:15 PM
Post #13
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- Axtremus
- Aug 6 2010, 04:08 AM
So, brenda, do you agree or disagree with the article? Or just sitting on the fence commenting only that it's somewhat interesting?
My take is that STRATFOR is blowing smoke on this one. It's highly unlikely that even the wingnuts who drafted Arizona's SB1070 had the American-Mexican war of 1830's/1840's crossed their minds, much less the tea-partiers giving it legs or the > 50% of Americans that polls suggest support SB1070. I agree that the writers of the bill were not thinking about the history from a hundred years ago. However, I think there is a great deal of truth in the cultural aspect that STRATFOR presents, and I think they are correct in their assessment of the WH position and actions.
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“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.” ~A.A. Milne
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brenda
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Aug 6 2010, 12:19 PM
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BTW, Ax, if all you intend to do is hang your hat on the background history being presented in the STRATFOR article, saying that it somehow relates to the writers of the bill, then you have missed the most important and pertinent part of the article.
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“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.” ~A.A. Milne
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Axtremus
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Aug 6 2010, 01:24 PM
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Brenda,
STRATFOR spent half the article on the "background history" to get to this point, one that the rest of their arguments hang on:
- from the article
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The underlying fear of those opposing this process is not economic (although it is frequently expressed that way), but much deeper: It is the fear that the massive population movement will ultimately reverse the military outcome of the 1830s and 1840s, returning the region to Mexico culturally or even politically. STRATFOR has made it their central argument that every player in the Arizona immigration debate is responding to the 1830/1840 American-Mexican war. That is why I call the STRATFOR article "blowing smoke."
- brenda
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However, I think there is a great deal of truth in the cultural aspect that STRATFOR presents, and I think they are correct in their assessment of the WH position and actions. Which are???
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brenda
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Aug 6 2010, 03:15 PM
Post #16
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- Axtremus
- Aug 6 2010, 01:24 PM
Brenda, STRATFOR spent half the article on the "background history" to get to this point, one that the rest of their arguments hang on: - from the article
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The underlying fear of those opposing this process is not economic (although it is frequently expressed that way), but much deeper: It is the fear that the massive population movement will ultimately reverse the military outcome of the 1830s and 1840s, returning the region to Mexico culturally or even politically.
STRATFOR has made it their central argument that every player in the Arizona immigration debate is responding to the 1830/1840 American-Mexican war. That is why I call the STRATFOR article "blowing smoke." - brenda
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However, I think there is a great deal of truth in the cultural aspect that STRATFOR presents, and I think they are correct in their assessment of the WH position and actions.
Which are???  From the article posted:
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When it lacked the political ability to change the law, the United States put limits on the resources needed to enforce the law. The rest of the country didn’t notice this process while the former Mexican borderlands benefited from it economically. There were costs to the United States in this immigrant movement, in health care, education and other areas, but business interests saw these as minor costs while Washington saw them as costs to be borne by the states.
Three fault lines emerged in United States on the topic. One was between the business classes, which benefited directly from the flow of immigrants and could shift the cost of immigration to other social sectors, and those who did not enjoy those benefits. The second lay between the federal government, which saw the costs as trivial, and the states, which saw them as intensifying over time. And third, there were tensions between Mexican-American citizens and other American citizens over the question of illegal migrants. This inherently divisive, potentially explosive mix intensified as the process continued.
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The problem is that Mexicans are not seen in the traditional context of immigration to the United States. As I have said, some see them as extending their homeland into the United States, rather than as leaving their homeland and coming to the United States. Moreover, by treating illegal immigration as an acceptable mode of immigration, a sense of helplessness is created, a feeling that the prior order of society was being profoundly and illegally changed. And finally, when those who express these concerns are demonized, they become radicalized. The tension between Washington and Arizona — between those who benefit from the migration and those who don’t — and the tension between Mexican-Americans who are legal residents and citizens of the United States and support illegal immigration and non-Mexicans who oppose illegal immigration creates a potentially explosive situation.
And this:
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Ultimately, this is not about the Arizona question. It is about the relationship between Mexico and the United States on a range of issues, immigration merely being one of them. The problem as I see it is that the immigration issue is being treated as an internal debate among Americans when it is really about reaching an understanding with Mexico. Immigration has been treated as a subnational issue involving individuals. It is in fact a geopolitical issue between two nation-states. Over the past decades, Washington has tried to avoid turning immigration into an international matter, portraying it rather as an American law enforcement issue. In my view, it cannot be contained in that box any longer.
Ax, you have used up my patience.
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“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.” ~A.A. Milne
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ivorythumper
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Aug 6 2010, 05:14 PM
Post #17
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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- Axtremus
- Aug 6 2010, 01:24 PM
Brenda, STRATFOR spent half the article on the "background history" to get to this point, one that the rest of their arguments hang on: - from the article
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The underlying fear of those opposing this process is not economic (although it is frequently expressed that way), but much deeper: It is the fear that the massive population movement will ultimately reverse the military outcome of the 1830s and 1840s, returning the region to Mexico culturally or even politically.
STRATFOR has made it their central argument that every player in the Arizona immigration debate is responding to the 1830/1840 American-Mexican war. That is why I call the STRATFOR article "blowing smoke." Reading FAIL, Ax.
The articles does not say or even imply that that every player in the Arizona immigration debate is responding to the 1830/1840 American-Mexican war. It is simply stating that the Mexican American War created a set of geopolitical and economic forces that continue to affect us today. The focus of the article is not on the history, but on the continued effects. You might have had an argument if you had said " every player in the Arizona immigration debate is responding to the geopolitical and economic and cultural conditions which developed after the 1830/1840 American-Mexican war." -- much like WW2 was a response to the conditions which developed after the Treaty of Versailles -- but then you would not have been able to use your "blowing smoke" rhetoric.
If you are hanging your argument on the statement "the massive population movement will ultimately reverse the military outcome of the 1830s and 1840s," then you are missing the point of the following paragraph: "The problem is that Mexicans are not seen in the traditional context of immigration to the United States. As I have said, some see them as extending their homeland into the United States, rather than as leaving their homeland and coming to the United States."
You probably don't know anything about Atzlan or MEChA, or you would understand that this is very much the goal of the Chicano movement.
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The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Copper
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Aug 6 2010, 05:26 PM
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- 1hp
- Aug 6 2010, 08:29 AM
MEXICO CITY – President Felipe Calderon said Wednesday that Mexico's cartels in many cases have moved beyond drugs as their main money-earner and are even trying to supplant the government in parts of the country.
Yes, we always get fooled into thinking we are so sophisticated now.
This is Sean Connery and the bootleggers and the untouchables.
The bad guys get it.
They will happily, and so far successfully, kill anyone in their way.
What to do? What to do?

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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
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ivorythumper
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Aug 6 2010, 05:33 PM
Post #19
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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- Copper
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- 1hp
- Aug 6 2010, 08:29 AM
MEXICO CITY – President Felipe Calderon said Wednesday that Mexico's cartels in many cases have moved beyond drugs as their main money-earner and are even trying to supplant the government in parts of the country.
Yes, we always get fooled into thinking we are so sophisticated now. This is Sean Connery and the bootleggers and the untouchables. The bad guys get it. They will happily, and so far successfully, kill anyone in their way. What to do? What to do?  I think Calderon needs to go all Mussolini on the cartels. Il Duce cleaned out the Mafia from Sicily, Calabria and Naples.
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The dogma lives loudly within me.
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1hp
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Aug 6 2010, 05:36 PM
Post #20
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"The problem is that Mexicans are not seen in the traditional context of immigration to the United States. As I have said, some see them as extending their homeland into the United States, rather than as leaving their homeland and coming to the United States."
In the context of illegal immigrants from Mexico this is true. A simple test could be administered to determine if an illegal gets amnesty, and the results of the test made public for all to see. The test consists of one question, and the question is (and remember the answer will be made public for all to see):
"When the United States national soccer team plays the Mexican national team, which team will you be supporting".
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There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................
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Axtremus
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Aug 6 2010, 11:29 PM
Post #21
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- brenda
- Aug 6 2010, 03:15 PM
From the article posted: - Quote:
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When it lacked the political ability to change the law, the United States put limits on the resources needed to enforce the law. The rest of the country didn’t notice this process while the former Mexican borderlands benefited from it economically. There were costs to the United States in this immigrant movement, in health care, education and other areas, but business interests saw these as minor costs while Washington saw them as costs to be borne by the states ...
This is not merely the Whitehouse's position and actions. This is the whole elected government's position and actions since Reagan's amnesty - every Congress and every President from Bush 41 down.
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The problem is that Mexicans are not seen in the traditional context of immigration to the United States. As I have said, some see them as extending their homeland into the United States, rather than as leaving their homeland and coming to the United States. Moreover, by treating illegal immigration as an acceptable mode of immigration, a sense of helplessness is created, a feeling that the prior order of society was being profoundly and illegally changed. And finally, when those who express these concerns are demonized, they become radicalized. The tension between Washington and Arizona - between those who benefit from the migration and those who don't - and the tension between Mexican-Americans who are legal residents and citizens of the United States and support illegal immigration and non-Mexicans who oppose illegal immigration creates a potentially explosive situation. Even if accurate, is still a stretch to tie that back to the 1830/1840 war - who among the Mexican would do it to reverse or avenge the 1830/1840 US victory?
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[And this:]
Ultimately, this is not about the Arizona question. It is about the relationship between Mexico and the United States on a range of issues, immigration merely being one of them. The problem as I see it is that [1] the immigration issue is being treated as an internal debate among Americans when it is really about reaching an understanding with Mexico. Immigration has been treated as a subnational issue involving individuals. It is in fact a geopolitical issue between two nation-states. Over the past decades, Washington has tried to avoid turning immigration into an international matter, portraying it rather as an American law enforcement issue. In my view, [2] it cannot be contained in that box any longer. [1] Yes, the immigration issue is being treated as an internal debate among Americans, but No, it's not about reaching an understanding with Mexico. There is no plausible endgame "understanding" that can make both sides happy, and few Americans want to reach any understanding with Mexico, least the ones who most vocally support SB1070-like maneuvers. They don't say "let's have more bilateral talks with Mexico" (never mind adding "to understanding what they want"), they say "go build that wall."
[2] Containing the Mexican immigration issue in the "law enforcement" box -- yes, it can continue to be contained in that box. Until the Mexico develops the political will and the credible military capability to force the US to negotiate the issue, the US can contain the issue in the "law enforcement" box for as long as it wants. On the American side, the vocal supporters of SB1070-like maneuvers only want to treat it as an law enforcement issue. Even if you count "secure the border" as treating the matter as an "international issue," every politicians in Washington still sees that as a unilateral decision that the US should make, no one wants to have bilateral talks and achieve "understanding" with Mexico about what to do -- and there is nothing Mexico can do about it.
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Ax, you have used up my patience. Gave you the whole evening to recharge, didn't I? Do I get a cup cake for being so considerate?
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jon-nyc
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Aug 7 2010, 12:15 AM
Post #22
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- Mikhailoh
- Aug 6 2010, 05:30 AM
I'm not going to engage in a supposedly serious discussion with those types of terms thrown around.
So two weeks ago it was 'that damn bastard in the whitehouse' and now this?
If you were two pick just one of your two standards it would be easier for us to take it seriously.
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In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Mikhailoh
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Aug 7 2010, 06:36 AM
Post #23
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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It doesn't matter which I take because you've already made up your mind. You won't consider what I say past trying to either run rabbit trails around it or condemn the messenger.
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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