Splintered Plank - The White House spins and misses on immigration

NRO ^ | 08/26/04 | Mark Krikorian

[lonewacko_dot_com]

I posted this a couple days ago: "GOP Convention- Illegal Alien Cover-up EXPOSED!" http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1198599/posts

Later, "[Barf! MARXIST PROPAGANDA]" was added to the title.

From the report associated with that post: "While the White House works to suppress the issue of illegal immigration at the convention, there is talke in as many as adozen state GOP parties about adopting state party "no amnesty" planks."

[y2k_free_radical]

AGRICULTURE,CONSTRUCTION,FAST FOOD,LODGING LOBBYIST PING

[MegaSilver]

Leftward ho!

[WhiteGuy]

"Bush's intransigence on this issue is getting harder to ignore. He MUST know by now how wildly unpopular his position is with the rank & file."

As a big fan of "World Poker Tour" on TV, you've got to recognize that our president is quite a gambler.

That's right ! A damn bold one!

He's betting that there are enough voters that will ignore his pandering to foreigners at the expense of Americans to reelect him in November.

[raybbr]

"A growing economy requires a growing number of workers, and President Bush has proposed a new temporary workers program to match willing foreign workers with willing U.S. employers, when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs.

If unemployment was at zero there might be some validity to this horrendous plan of Bush's.

[4.1O dana super trac pak]

Bump for CIS.

[FITZ]

All that sounds so great --- but notice how Vicente Fox promised to do pretty much the same with the Mexican drug cartels --- and they are more violent and more powerful than ever before ---- with more drugs than ever coming over the border.

Look at the skyrocketing crime in Mexico --- with thousands of kidnappings for ransom in recent years.

We are total fools if we believe or trust that government.

[FITZ]

You might ask yourself --- what has the government of Mexico done for the average citizen of Mexico? They are dying by the hundreds trying to flee that hell hole and it's only getting worse. Why should the American citizens expect anything out of a government so corrupt it would rather it's citizens die leaving than make a single change that would allow them to stay in their own homeland.

[Southack]

That sort of view of eternal Mexican coruption dismisses the key fact that the ruling PRI was kicked out of power by Fox's recent Presidential victory.

Mexico's middle class has grown dramatically, and there's a good chance that whatever car you are driving was made in whole or in part there.

And that's not the sort of thing that gets done in a land of pure corruption or chaos. Cars aren't being made in Zimbabwe, but they are being made in large numbers in Mexico.

5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires

[FITZ]

That sort of view of eternal Mexican coruption dismisses the key fact that the ruling PRI was kicked out of power by Fox's recent Presidential victory.

Fox's victory wasn't recent --- it was 4 years and many dead illegals ago. Has immigration from Mexico decreased in any way? Have more people been dying trying to escape their own homeland? How many millions of people fleeing their own country is a fairly good gauge of the desperation.

Also you did notice the results of this past July's elections I hope --- PAN lost some big races, PRI won some big races and PRD won in Zacatecas which has half it's population already in the USA --- Fox's party wasn't victorious at all which means maybe the Mexicans are sick of his "get-rid-of-them" policies.

[FITZ]

Mexican politics:

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/local/9305314.htm

Mexico's Ex-Ruling Party Wins Mayor Race

About PRI's big win in Tijuana and Oaxaca in August,

and there is this:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040808/news_lz1e8shirk.html

So far, the PRI won three of the five most recent gubernatorial elections (Chihuahua, Durango, Oaxaca), while PAN and the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) held on to Aguascalientes and Zacatecas, respectively.

Thus, many believe the PRI to be in the best position to win in 2006. The PRI still holds the largest share of seats in Congress (nearly as many as prior to Fox's election) and controls the majority of state and municipal governments.

The PRI also will benefit from the growing power of its party president, former-Tabasco governor Roberto Madrazo. The growing number of congressmen, governors and mayors beholden to Madrazo will serve him well in fending off challengers for the PRI presidential nomination, and will be important allies in the general election.

Yet the PRD also has an ace in the hole. The PRD mayor of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel Lpez Obrador (known in Mexico by his initials, AMLO), holds a consistent edge in the polls. If AMLO can overcome a series of recent scandals in his administration and get the PRD nomination, he may prove the only bulwark against a PRI restoration in 2006.

Meanwhile, the PAN's chances to retain the presidency look very dim. Fox has been beleaguered by an opposition-controlled Congress, and his party lost nearly a quarter of its congressional seats in the 2003 mid-term elections.

[Southack]

You've completely missed the point. You were posting gloom and doom regarding eternal Mexican corruption. In response, I gave you a concrete example where the corruption has been cleaned up: Mexico's recent elections. Fox was outside the corrupt, ruling PRI, yet he won. That sort of thing doesn't happen in an entirely corrupt state.

Then I gave you a 2nd example to refute your image of saturated Mexican corruption: automobile factories. Mexico is building vast legions of cars now; corrupt states, thoroughly rotten governments like Zimbabwe, don't go around successfully building lots of things like that...especially with outsiders' money, as outsiders won't invest in a place if it is too corrupt.

But you went off on a tangent, acting as if Fox's PAN losing a mayoral election back to the old PRI was somehow indicative of something bad. It's not. It's evidence that their system isn't completely corrupt. The Parties that are out of power can win elections now. That wasn't always the case.

You've also managed to dismiss the solid growth of Mexico's middle class.

If you aren't interested in these facts, why are you bothering posting?

5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires

[FITZ]

I think you are forgetting that millions of people have left Mexico and millions more will leave Mexico --- that does not show improvement, it does not show a strong middle class. We'll know by the level of people fleeing whether they have any hopes in having a middle class. A true middle class is one that anyone willing to work can become -- and that isn't the case in Mexico.

Fox hasn't done a thing about violence in places like Ciudad Juarez, he hasn't slowed down the drug trade --- the drug cartels are having it out right now --- it's a blood bath in Juarez these past few days and couple of weeks.

Mexico is almost completely dependent on the USA for jobs, they aren't creating their own jobs.

[Southack]

Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Mexico's unemployment rate probably held at a four-month high in July as companies hold off on hiring to keep costs in check, a Bloomberg News survey of economists showed ahead of a government report today.

The jobless rate was 3.8 percent in the month, unchanged from June, according to the median forecast of 10 economists. A 3.8 percent rate would also be higher than the July 2003 rate of 3.5 percent. Mexico's census bureau is slated to release the July report at 2:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. New York time).

Rising productivity has allowed many companies to boost output and meet growing demand from the U.S. without adding staff, said Alfredo Thorne, an economist with JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Mexico City.

``We are experiencing growth with very little job recovery,'' Thorne said. ``Companies are still under a lot of pressure to keep costs low.''

The economy expanded 3.9 percent in the second quarter following growth of 3.7 percent in the previous quarter, up from growth of 1.3 percent last year.

A job fair in the northern industrial city of Monterrey attracted more than 7,000 job seekers vying for about 2,500 jobs offered by 100 companies, said Hector Maldonado, president of the state of Nuevo Leon's council for work relations and productivity.

[4Freedom]

"I like the Constitution Party."

I heard Mike Petrouka on a radio talk show and he handled the big-mouth, Liberal host, that was attacking him, very well.

Petrouka said he would do his "Constitutional duty" to secure our borders in no uncertain terms.

After waiting almost 4 years to hear those words come out of Bush's mouth, it was like music to my ears.

I still might write Tancredo's name in, because there's no way that could be misconstrued by the Republican Party as anything other than a vote against amnesty, but the Constitution Party is worth a look.

[FITZ]

If their economy was really as good as those statistics imply, you would see fewer people dying trying to come here and that isn't the case --- deaths along the border are higher than ever and many (not all) are coming to work. When there is a meaningful middle class in Mexico, we will see a sharp decrease in immigration and we could likely see a reversal --- immigrants going back home. They have a very small very insecure middle class and the working poor do not have a way to attain middle class status by working their way up to it in Mexico.

For as many of our jobs and money that we have shipped over, you would expect far far greater achievement. People don't leave their homeland by the huge numbers we're seeing from that country when things are going well.

Here is a rather pro-Fox article:

http://www.mexidata.info/id256.html

Mexico is at a worrisome crossroads

It discusses some things that are wrong -- but it doesn't talk about Fox's big failures -- he had a chance -- he blew it -- when he took office, one of the first things he should have a addressed was the crime situation in Ciudad Juarez where many women and girls were and still are being murdered. That's a bigger issue than he apparently believed and he ignored it. He allowed the drug lords to continue and made only a couple arrests for show. He should have addressed the problem of millions of people fleeing his country and tried to stabilize that --- keep them home to build it up --- but instead he only encouraged much more and massive migration only brings on more instability.

[FITZ]

Plus --- you look at the unionization of Mexico's labor --- it's over 70% compared with about 10% of ours --- we blame the unions for many of our problems --- yet their union membership is 7 times higher than ours -- there are serious problems in Mexico.

[Southack]

http://laboris.uqam.ca/babillard/eupact.htm
"Car and truck production in Mexico will top 1.5 million this year (1999), double the 1990 total, and production is expected to grow by at least an additional million units by 2004."

There are serious problems in Mexico, but you are commenting on an environment that hasn't existed there since the early 1980's.

You haven't even begun to take into account Mexico's 2.5 million cars per year that are being made there now.

I've taken the trouble to give you links to government data on unemplyment, and rather than link to figures of your own, you simply espouse that my links can't be right.

That's called talking out of your a$$.

Come back to me with hard facts, or else don't come back at all. You can give me some excuse such as you "don't have time" or "things just can't be that way" or whatever. Knock yourself out. Use your best fight or flight response as you flee, but don't bother me with your mere *opinion* if you can't for yourself accept facts.

Look above. I've given you a link showing that Mexico's unemployment rate is 3.8%, the highest that it has been in 4 months.

Now compare that unemployment rate to our own.

You are making numerous weak assumptions such as that Mexico hasn't made some progress, that people are solely immigrating due to economic, rather than social, reasons, etc. And you aren't paying attention to facts. Hard facts.

That means that it's safe to say that whatever conclusions that you are drawing are founded on weak intellectual ground, and that they probably won't stand up to any level of significant scrutiny.

5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires

[Owen]

Gentlemen,

It is not clear to me how threads of this sort at this point in time contributes to denying John Kerry the White House.

[swarthyguy]

One good thing, now all the hotel maids won't shortsheet the beds the Repubs are staying in.