Posted on 05/13/2006 9:10:56 AM PDT by Ooh-Ah
BERLIN -- Germany needed workers. Turks needed work.
So starting in 1961, the country invited Turkish ''guest workers" to come do the dirty jobs that Germans didn't want. ...
Nobody grasped that the country -- and the continent, because neighboring nations soon undertook similar experiments -- was on the brink of a transformation whose effects are still reverberating across Europe. ...
In Germany, guest workers -- mostly poorly educated young men who were issued special visas allowing them entry for one or two years to take unskilled jobs -- helped the nation to become the third-richest in the world. The fabulous post-war prosperity of ... West European countries was also boosted by immigrant labor, mainly from Turkey and North Africa.
... recently, as economic growth has slowed, swelling numbers of Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa -- many of them arriving without any visas, or overstaying their visas and melting into the ethnic suburbs -- are being blamed for social stresses from urban blight to chaotic schools. ...
For decades, there were no efforts to integrate the newcomers. They were entitled to social benefits, but not citizenship. Their children could attend schools, but little effort was made to give them language skills. Far from a melting pot, Europe in the post-World War II era became the realm of ''parallel societies," in which native and immigrant populations occupied the same countries but shared little common ground.
Now, the presence of millions of largely unassimilated newcomers, coupled with terrorist attacks in London and Madrid, has triggered furious debates in Europe over national identity and the future of immigration. ...
''The parents took jobs that Germans didn't want -- and most of that first generation did all right," ... ''But the young people don't even get the bad jobs. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Just came across this.
Troops On The Border?http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/
They started out just doing the jobs that Germans wouldn't do
Related article here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1624701/posts
Civil war in Europe is brewing.........and America will bail it out again.
This is right. Guest workers are a boon initially then a bane.
For a citizen, you are born, then for 18 years, you are a huge leach on the economy, then you are productive until you retire, then you are again a huge leech on the economy.
Guest workers are great because the first 18 years are paid for by some other country. But you need to get rid of them before they have their own kids or retire.
Bush's first guest worker proposal recognized this. But the idiot conservative right did not recognize this.
"Civil war is brewing in Europe....and America will bail it out again."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Only if we are not busy with our own.
Does it bother anyone else that Panty-boy is popping up in the most contentious dealings?
Just glanced at this - looks good. Why the guest worker crap is crap.
Who said America can't fight two wars at the same time ?
B.S. Let's take your dubious proposition that Bush wants guest workers over 18 and then have them return to their home country at retirement.
How are you planning to prevent the guest workers from having children who become U.S. citizens at birth? Bush has no intention of changing that. There is a village looking for its idiot...and that person isn't found on the conservative right.
If one of them is our own civil war, me.
Let's not assume before we actually hear the speech. If that were to happen, what Byrd suggests just thinking about it made me ill in the pit of my stomach.
NO amnesty, place the Troops on the border, and deport the invaders would be the best speech ever.
This is wrong.
Lots of people grasped the consequences of immigration...but they wanted quick money, long-term consequences be damned. Let's be clear that these low-end jobs were taken by foreigners...because Germans wouldn't take them at the wages offered, and didn't need to...and because the people who did the hiring often had to compete against companies which used cheap foreign labor.
We had a bracero program for many years, non-european immigrants had a harder time here than europeans - especially in the 19th century, and our early immigrants were given very little help - even when compared to today's muslim immigrants to europe.
So why have we done so much better than Europeans? Partly because we are a nation of immigrants - almost anyone could become a citizen with its legal rights and be welcomed to a much greater extent than in europe. But mostly it was the opportunity this country offered. Work hard, get an education, succeed.
Some of that is still in place and just as attractive as ever. But the ever-increasing price of land, and of other basic resources, is having an effect.
bush's first proposal was guest workers could come for 3 years and then would have to go home for 5 before coming again.
It was brilliant.
Reminder to the pro-amnesty crowd:
There's nothing in the McCain/Kennedy bill to stop MUSLIM illegals from getting amnesty.
Amnesty undermines homeland security!
Not ever, never, was there a wild open influx across borders by guest workers.
Guests are registered immigrants.
Registration extends beyong name date etc. into your address of where you live.
When moving one re-registers with at the new town and address.
These days there are controls on construction sites for illegals to not make hardships for locals even harder in a country that just announced progress after unemployment dropped by 1/4%, namely from 11.5 to 11.25%.
The problems of Europe or 'Eurabia' with its dhimmi political correcteness and hordes of unassimilated Muslims whose culture and religion is antithetical to European tradition are really not comparable with our problem: a pack of Roman Catholic Mexicans, even with Mexican nationalist sentiments, are far less incindiary, *and* far more likely to Americanize with the passing of a generation than Europe's Muslims are to Europeanize.
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