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To: Vicomte13
"""There is nothing to worry about here."""


Bull!!!!

Get you head out of the sand and take a look around.

Stop playing nicey nicey with other peoples lives.

I said it before, until the Arab countries clean up their own backyard I don't want them in mine.

I live in Philly near one of these ports.

I am not a big fan of Rendell, but at least he has a trump card on the books with reference to the ports. The port lease is up for renewal in May, and it is a state issue. The state was going to review it even before this deal. Rendell said he will not renew the lease if this company gets the deal through.

The only people I've have heard that supports this deal is a few on this web site and a few politicians. Somethings the majority is right and you can't ignore that.
117 posted on 02/23/2006 5:42:03 AM PST by commonerX (n)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 94 | View Replies ]


To: commonerX

"Bull!!!!
Get you head out of the sand and take a look around."

Explain to me, very specifically, where the THREAT TO SECURITY is in having a foreign owner of a port unloading facility in the US.

He does not own the Coast Guard or police, and cannot restrict their operations in any way. We are long, long past the day when a private owner has any power to block national security and police actions on his own private property. Some people have mythical beliefs in what property rights OUGHT to be, but the reality is that the Coast Guard and various port authority police and inspectors are going to continue to operate at will in these ports no matter who owns them. "Ownership" of a port unloading facility or a lease gives diddly-squat power in America to stop the authorities from their security mission.

So, the same security officials will be there.

The owner of the company does not own the workers. He doesn't control the immigration or labor laws of the United States. Business people in America have no liberty at all anymore to "import their own" workers or anything like that, even if they wanted to. The owner of this company has to use unionized workers. The same people unloading the ships NOW will be doing it then. No owner of anything can change that. This is a heavily unionized industry. Owners do not have power over labor. They cannot replace the American stevedores with foreign imports.

Having an Arab boss is not going to in any way make an Irish-American dockworker or a Polish-American Teamster more likely to assist in terrorism.

So, WHERE IS THE THREAT?
Americans are still going to be doing all the loading or unloading. All that changes is the upstream cash flow. Now it goes to Britain. Then it will go to Dubai. No difference on the ground.

You tell me to get my head out of the sand. It is. I'm looking at the sand crabs, and looking straight and hard at how a port works. Spent a long time at sea and in ports around the world, and years in American ports. You tell me, specifically WHERE the SECURITY risk is.

I think you can't, because there ISN'T one.
You just don't like the IDEA of an Arab owning something that has something to do with a port. While I understand the concern, in the abstract, if you're going to get down to the point of telling me to get MY head out of the sand, I must retort: EXPLAIN WHERE THE THREAT IS. Concretely.
What will change? Will the Irish stevedores be corrupted? Will Teamsters start carrying bombs? Will the unions collapse and get off the docks because some Arab somewhere wants to ship in foreign Arabs to unload ships? How the hell is THAT going to happen without a massive strike and intervention by the immigration authorities?

There is no threat here.
The problem is purely optical.
You say otherwise. So walk me through the scenario, of how having an ultimate upstream Arab owner makes it more likely that a bomb is going to get into an American port.


122 posted on 02/23/2006 6:30:12 AM PST by Vicomte13 (Et alors?)
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