Help Me! I'm becoming an "ISOLATIONIST!"

[KoKo]

I'm turning against "illegal immigrants" while I know my ancestors were immigrants. I'm suddenly thinking that we need to "close our borders" and give a "breather" to anymore immigration whether it's "agricultural, home building, service" or any other industry that's getting off "on the cheap" by employing illegals...and I'm suddenly having UTOPIAN VISIONS of an AMERICA ringed with "Enterprise Zones" where we in certain regions of America CREATE OUR OWN ENCONOMY!

We in "Enterprise Regions of the US" could plant, grow and harvest all our agricultural products, we could make our own clothes (or pay people who would make them for us), we could put in solar or wind power and fuel our homes and needs by whatever ways we CAN to "get off the grid" Those of us who can't sew or make things could use Thrift Shops and Second Hand Stores until we "unwind the excess" of all we've bought from China all these years and until we can RAMP UP our OWN Manufacturing Needs. We could: "Use it UP, Make Do...or Do Without.." UNTIL WE TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.

What we can't grow or produce in our "Enterprise Zone" we trade with other "Enterprise Zones" here within America (those "Regions" who might have climate or natural resource abundance) that differ with our own Region. If we did this we might have a chance of getting rid of all that Globalist NAFTA/CAFTA/WTO/IMF...CRAP! that we were SOLD a bill of worthless goods on.

I know...I'm freaking out. Why, though would this NOT WORK? :shrug:

[barbaraann]

1. Me, too but it has to be coupled with policies that ameliorate the

need for desperate people to come here illegally.

[Quakerfriend]

2. Actually, I'm in total agreement with you.

My husband came here from Colombia when he was six. He and his entire family (45 first cousins) live 15-30 minutes from us. They are the most wonderful, hard working, fun 'Americans' I know.

However, as all of the open space is gobbled up at an alarming rate I fear for our country. I want to close the boarders all together. I don't want anymore people here. So sad. I feel like a hypocrite.:cry:

[KoKo]

6. I know....it makes me cry to since we here were ALL IMMIGRANTS and

our ancestors had to live through the terrible times where they were treated as scum. All of us here are products of "immigration" even the BUSHIES!

BUT...isn't it time for a "breather?" A time to sit back and assess that we might just need to do a moratorium on any new folks when so many are being outsourced and downsized. And aren't alot of "Illegals" here just to "SERVICE THE WEALTHY?"

What if we gave it a break ....and I'm not talking just about Mexicans or South American workers here...I'm talking about Students from other countries who are filling our Universities Undergraduate and Graduate because the Professors say "American kids just aren't smart enough or work hard enough."

[question everything]

23. Were it not for foreign students, who pay full tuition

the universities would be in a bad shape.

Were it not for foreign students, the graduate schools of science and engineering would be empty and closed.

American kids want it easy. They do not want to study hard and, frankly, one can have a more secure financial life going to "business" then going to science and engineering.

As anyone who has ever been associated with a business based on engineering (and innovation), once a project is done, the bean counters at corporate tell the scientists and the engineers: thank you and good bye.

Look at the high tech in California and you will see that high percentage of them started by foreign born.

And it is the high tech industry tat has been screaming at Congress to increase the quota of H-1 visas, since they cannot find qualified scientists and engineers in this country.

Yes, there is a problem with illegal immigration, but the universities in an entirely different subject.

And I really like the attitude of people immigrating, or moving to crowded regions in the south and then want to close the doors behind them.

Look at the census - which really may signal the end of the Democratic party as we know it - there is a vast migration from the blue northern states to the red south and southwest states. There is plenty of empty space in the old industrial regions of the northeast and the midwest, with plenty of local incentives for entrepreneurs to come over.

A friend who specialized in demographics ten years ago observed that fifty percent of the populations lives within 50 miles of water (and I was thinking about this yesterday when I heard about the impact of global warming, a different topic, of course).

But, again. We want to have decent wages but we are not ready to pay them, so we hire the immigrants, legal or not, who can offer the same service at half the price and when we I wanted to paint the new house that we purchased several years ago, and an American contractor offered to do this at $8,000 and a Vietnamese one at $5,000, and then called immediately to give me a 10% discount, there really was no comparison. (And only a year earlier, in California, where the competition is higher, for the same size house, I paid $1,500).

[1932]

18. There's no gobbling of open space in America.

Drive from Los Angeles to NYC and you'll see a nation of cities that are at 50% capacity and, beyond the exurbs, a nation of open space.

And if you're agains inmmigration because of this false fear, does that mean you're for forced sterilization? If population growth is your problem, immigration is the wrong target. (In fact, I bet people would have more children if they'reforced to be poor, living in poor countries because you'd need more people to help support the family.)

[MissMarple]

3. Because it's too late. The ships have left the port.

Honest. We are catching up to a different reality that moved ahead while the American people fell asleep at the wheel. The Dubai Ports deal showed us that. And we can't stop immigration, we can only control it. We are joined at the hip with the rest of the world.

Energy independence is quite doable, though. IMHO.

:shrug:

[John Barrett]

5. Where Are We, The USA, Going?

The question is where have we been and where are we going, and it should scare the hell out of many Americans.

As example it wasn't that long ago (40 years) when a family of 4 or 5 in the USA with the supposed "head of family" having only a high school degree working in a factory, with a stay at home spouse, could buy a house, a TV, a new car, and send the kids to college and retire with security. Where has that gone?

If anyone believes that this deterioration has nothing to do with the corporate interests that control our country, support globalization, and exploit cheap labor through illegal immigration have your interests and compassion at heart, better think twice.

[MissMarple]

16. To hell in a hand basket?

"As example it wasn't that long ago (40 years) when a family of 4 or 5 in the USA with the supposed "head of family" having only a high school degree working in a factory, with a stay at home spouse, could buy a house, a TV, a new car, and send the kids to college and retire with security. Where has that gone?"

What you said was never a given...it happened, sometimes. I lived that time. Financially, things could be pretty rocky.
And, always a new car...no...retiring with security...not for most folks. Health care... don't make me break out into cynical laughter. I worked in a hospital in the 60's...that was a pitiful experience for the working poor. My mother was an RN in a rural hospital in southeast Missouri, she has quite tragic stories. We helped with some of the mop up.

Any business needs to be regulated, corporate or local. I'm just saying...we need to deal with what is happening now. And, it's not pretty. We are too far behind in our responsibilities. The American people may be exploiting third world countries, but we are, by too far, being exploited by corporate interests.

And, yes, I'm scared. Truth to tell.

And, welcome to DU John Barrett! :hi:

I'm glad you checked in.

[question everything]

25. Good observation, and Welcome to DU

When Henry Ford - no great humanitarian by any means - started his factory, he paid a decent wage to the workers because, he said, he wanted them to be able to purchase the product they were making.

Today, even Wal-Mart employees, oops, associates, cannot afford to purchase Wal-Mart merchandise; forget abut Bloomingdale.

Starting in the 80s, with Reagan voodoo economics, we have shifted from manufacturing and farm industries to the service one, so that by the 90s, two-thirds of our economy was service oriented. Now it is close to 70%. This was the time of merging and acquisitions, when it paid more for businesses to acquire another one and to "reduce the force" then to invest in a new one, or to expand their own.

In many cases, this is unskilled labor. So we lost good paying jobs, with "benefits" including secure retirement, and no one has ever stopped to wonder who this impacts our society.

And this is something that the Democratic party needs to realize. It still operates on the notion of the masses working for large employers, for all their working life, looking at the "responsibilities" of employers to its workers, placing demands on small businesses.

The reality is that more and more, through unemployment and underemployment have started their own consulting services, or started their own business, or are working for small business and the survival instinct takes precedence over wishing for the common good.

Again, welcome to DU

:toast: :bounce:

[texastoast]

4. Who's "We"?

Are you talking about gasoline/TV/running water/technology/convenience/concrete/credit card-addicted neighbors I have? I don't think they want your common-sense world, even though it very much was like what you are talking about in earlier America.

[brokensymmetry]

7. We can't have that! My God, man! Think!

First thing you know, the ordinary folks would start getting a living wage - perhaps with benefits!

Oh, sure, we might pay a few pennies more for food, or a very few dollars more for clothing, but the real problem is that working people might get uppity! And you know where else that could lead - Social Security might become solvent again. Why, we might not even have an excuse to get involved in other nation's wars.

Now, to be clear...there's a lot of sarcasm in my post. But the real reason for massive illegal immigration is that employers want it and maintain it - all because they want to keep labor costs at a minimum. Unless one is part of the top 0.10%, lower wages for workers is bad.

So, count me among the isolationists. And to make isolationism work, frog-march certain CEOs that hire illegal immigrants from their office suite to a jail cell.

[magellan]

8. Why do you think it's isolationist to be against illegal immigration?

It'd be isolationist if you were against immigration of any kind. Illegal immigration is what shouldn't be tolerated. Yes, the immigration laws need to be fairer, and those who hire illegal workers need to be handed their heads, both true. So we work to fix these problems. We don't circumvent laws we don't like, for whatever the reason, because a "good excuse" can always be found to do so...as BushCo have proven.

[KoKo]

9. I think I've gotten "darker" than that in my thoughts.....Enterprise

American Zones ...is pretty isolationist in view...

[magellan]

10. Everywhere in the US should be an American Zone!

By that I don't mean to the exclusion of the global community, but smarter than it's being done now, with a preference for US workers and US businesses that are loyal to this country. We do that by regulating business and getting serious about illegal immigration control. That requires a government made up of people with level heads and no conflicts of interest behind the scenes. And that requires an end to corporate lobbying, which is the #1 scourge on our democracy.

We simply can't afford isolationism as a nation any more than we can afford the current situation. But it doesn't need to be one extreme or the other.

That said, achieving a happy medium where the US can prosper economically within the give and take of a true global free market is not something I expect to see within my lifetime. We simply do not have anywhere near enough people in politics with the integrity and an interest in anything outside satisfying their own greed to make it work the way it could and should.

[John Barrett]

11. Well said!!! EOM

[KoKo]

13. I never thought that being an Isolationist was a good thing..believe me

but, I wonder how we can go on like this. Sometimes pendulum has to swing one way extreme to get back to the middle. Right now America just isn't self sustaining. One can only trade when one makes something to trade. We seem to be losing on all fronts on that one.

I've come to the conclusing this last few months that we need time to "regroup." Get our heads together and decide how we move forward economically. You can't have "free trade/fair trade" when it's all one way with China and Japan. It's not good for any of the countries involved to keep buying our debt so we can keep buying their goods "CHEAP." Then, there's the "outsourcing" to India. How long can that go on? Engineers, Radiologist, Computer Tech, Banking and who knows what else. It's out of hand. What are the Indians, Chinese and Japanes buying from us? Just Weapons and Planes and probably some Spying equipment know how that they then produce themselves. Some grain and some animal products but even Japan won't accept our beef because Bush won't test it.

We manufacture little these day...so what's left?

[magellan]

14. I share your concerns

And I sure do wish I could offer some words of hope, because then I wouldn't feel so hopeless about it all myself. Oh, I suppose a few little things will be fixed here and there in future to mollify the masses and win votes, as always. Unfortunately those things, like illegal immigration, are just minor problems that are relatively easy to fix compared to the behemoth of a monster that spawned them.

I hope I'm wrong. But the more I learn, the more I come to believe this train is off the tracks and hellbound.

[rucky]

12. Best way to fix illegal immigration...

is to give them no reason to want to leave their home countries:

1) help governments provide basic needs so people can sustain themselves and their family in their home country
2) help raise the standard of living in those countries by boosting homegrown industries - creating a new consumer market.
3) buy and sell our goods in the system of fair trade that you described

[KoKo]

15. Sure would be a start....but the Bushbots aren't interested and

there's no money left for us to offer help when we are determined to "spread democracy" by killing folks to liberate them.

Mexico was supposed to be helped by their oil discovery...where did that go. Bush was supposed to work with Vincente Fox to increase trade...well
we are importing lots of veggies from there (which I worry about buying because of pesticide regs being different) but somehow the construction jobs that Bush's Real Estate Boom has caused has given too much incentive for "open borders."

Bush must feel that he can keep his Real Estate Boom going long enough to sustain the immigration and when it's over he thinks everyone will just go back. His BIG BUSINESS folks love all that cheap labor. The agri-business works em cheap in the massive processing plants....and the construction industry doesn't mind much one one or two are killed a month in "accidents" on the job. No safety laws apply to "illegals." Who's gonna ever miss em..:-(

[1932]

17. So long as capital is free to cross borders to chase cheapest labor

and exploit other countries' natural resources for the gain of the wealthiest nations, it's unfair to prevent labor from crossing borders to chase capital and flee exploitation.

[question everything]

19. Sure, but you do want to pay the workers decent jobs, right?

And will you be prepared to pay $5.00 for a head of lettuce? $10.00 for a basket of strawberries? $50.00 for a T-Shirt?

No, I cannot substantiate these prices but I know that many go to Wal-Mart to purchase the cheap T-Shirts and even the dress shirts and pants and they are cheap because those who made them are paid, what, a $1.00 a day?

This is the bi-polarity of the American people that I do not get. Everyone is hurting because of outsourcing, yet, everyone likes the cheap prices of stuff at Wal-Mart and the cheap produce.

I really do not know the answer and I don't think that anyone can provide it. Perhaps someone can find all the economic answers. One way, of course, is to keep prices down by slashing the compensations of CEOs to, say, 20 times that of the average worker instead of 500.

Same with health care. One has to wonder whether cost of health care would spiral upward if our payments went to the health care providers - doctors, nurses, lab technicians - and not to the CEOs of the HMOs and the Insurance companies.

[divineorder]

20. We'll Pay More

Because we'll be paid more. And the reduction in the need for social services, the improved infrastructure, the lowered misery index all around will be worth the extra pennies. And prices won't be as high as feared. They weren't that high even when it was mostly American manufacturing. Not to mention we'll keep prices low enough for export and trade by efficiencies. And national health care will take a layer of cost off the businesses small and large.

[1932]

21. If the relationship between wealth and population were inverse,

then why does Canada trying to lure immigrants according to the theory that it's good for the economy (and why has their economy improved while they've been doing this)? Why does China have one of the fastest growing economies? (which is sharing a large degree of that wealth with the middle class) and how have they completely elminitated hunger in the process?).

[John Barrett]

24. CEOs

I really do not know the answer and I don't think that anyone can provide it. Perhaps someone can find all the economic answers. One way, of course, is to keep prices down by slashing the compensations of CEOs to, say, 20 times that of the average worker instead of 500.

Same with health care. One has to wonder whether cost of health care would spiral upward if our payments went to the health care providers - doctors, nurses, lab technicians - and not to the CEOs of the HMOs and the Insurance companies.


On that I agree 100%. Compensation to the CEOs and senior management is far removed from what it should be and has reached the point now where it negatively affects corporations, shareholders and employees. They are taking an absurd chunk of the profits because they are greedy and they can, and it is squeezing those who actually produce.

[Atman]

22. How are your teeth?

In case you can't read the tiny print, Uncle Sam is sailing through jagged rocks labeled "Foreign Entanglements" and "Between Meal Snacks." Sam is saying "Let's steer clear of these!"

Isolationism and Tooth Care

Remember when Lampoon used to be funny?