martes, 31 de mayo de 2011
lunes, 30 de mayo de 2011
The Tragedy of Immigration Enforcement, @lewrockwell
Here’s the problem. If you give government a job to do, even one that seems justified in the abstract, it will use its power to make a terrible mess in practice. This is true in a host of areas from welfare to warfare, but it is even true in the complicated area of immigration.
Just imagine this. The owners of Chuy's Mesquite Broiler in Phoenix and 13 other locations around western states have been kidnapped from their popular restaurants and dragged to jail. This will be followed by trial, and certain personal bankruptcy. They could face 80 years in prison. In the raid, "Homeland Security" stole their computers, their accounting and employment records, and walked out the door – just like a gang of thieves. The only difference is that these thugs operate under the cover of the law.
And what evil did these restaurateurs do? Were they poisoning people, stealing customers’ wallets, secretly running an assassination conspiracy, sending in the predator drones against people they hate, or what? To lock anyone away for life is a shocking sentence, so surely the punishment must fit the crime. Pyscho sniper-murderers have gotten less.
What they are alleged to have done is hired people who don’t have the proper bureaucratic forms filled out for them. That’s all. Nothing more. It is being done in the name of immigration enforcement and cracking down on illegals. The workers themselves are untouched by any of this. Their benefactors – and the benefactors of society – are the ones being targeted with police-state tactics.
The government is busting up a whole series of voluntary labor relationships that are designed to provide people with good food. Let us be clear: to the extent that many people object to illegal immigration, it has nothing to do with those who go to work and make an honest living doing things like working in restaurants. The problem with illegal immigration is related to other issues that drive people crazy, like going on welfare, engaging in actual (not pretend) crime, and demanding tax-funded support services.
People finding jobs to do and other wonderful commercial things is a praiseworthy aspect of immigration, legal or illegal. In fact, there are millions of jobs in this country that would simply not be done at the current price without such immigration, and this is true in a vast range of industries from housing to horticulture. American natives think too highly of themselves to accept these jobs at the market price.
And it is this very thing that government, given the power to enforce immigration statutes, wants to crack down on, not by rounding up workers, which would be bad enough, but by criminally prosecuting the business owners themselves, the people who are not only providing jobs but also providing good food for the public. The whole thing boggles the mind.
But the utilitarian will object. Yes, these tactics are rough, with results that are regrettable for property owners and those who like to dine out, but at least it helps address our nation’s problems with illegal immigration.
But will it? If mainstream employers are afraid of lifetime jail terms, they will not hire. And that leaves only marginal employers to pick up the slack. These include drug operations, fly-by-night underground businesses, gray markets, prostitution rings, and other things from the seedier side of life.
Or the result could be no employment at all, which means turning to crime itself. In other words, these efforts attempt to stop the best part of immigration and enhance the worst. For this we can thank the government.
Try to think of this issue in terms of the risk to attempting illegal immigration. No one on the other side of the border, faced with a porous fence, is thinking: I’ll take this risk only on the condition that I can go to work for Chuy’s Mesquite Broiler.
No, they will come anyway. In order to eliminate every possible job opportunity for immigrants, the Obama administration will have to jail and terrorize vast numbers, destroying the commercial life of major swaths of the country. This is a catastrophic plan that amounts to a fundamental attack on liberty, and the nationalization of the service industry. (I should add that I prefer illegal immigration to legal, since we have far too many citizens able to vote themselves other people’s property, and too few people who want to work hard for a living.)
And why? Socialist ideology plays a role here, and another authoritarian anti-market ideology, protectionism. But if you look closely enough at this enforcement, you will find the hand of Obama affiliated big labor unions at work behind the scenes. It’s not that they are against immigrants. The unions hate any employee who works for the going market wage. As their power and influence continues to fall, if not in DC, they are resorting to ever more desperate tactics to shore up their slipping cartel.
You can see, then, that this crack down has nothing to do with nationalism or racialism or securing the borders or anything else. It is all about bolstering the power of the state and its unions over the American economy, and making the rest of us poorer.
May 31, 2011
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail], former editorial assistant to Ludwig von Mises and congressional chief of staff to Ron Paul, is founder and chairman of the Mises Institute, executor for the estate of Murray N. Rothbard, and editor of LewRockwell.com. See his books.
Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf” - George Orwell
domingo, 29 de mayo de 2011
sábado, 28 de mayo de 2011
Netanyahu’s Border War
Tel Aviv -
Binyamin Netanyahu’s furious rejection of US President Barack Obama’s proposal to use the 1967 borders as the basis for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute – frontiers that he called “utterly indefensible” – reflects not only the Israeli prime minister’s poor statesmanship, but also his antiquated military philosophy.
In an era of ballistic missiles and other weapons of mass destruction, and in which the planned Palestinian state is supposed to be demilitarized, why is it so vital for Israel to see its army “sit along the Jordan River”? If such a tripwire is really necessary, why shouldn’t a reliable international force carry out that task? And how can hundreds of isolated settlements spread amidst a hostile Palestinian population ever be considered a strategic asset?
Netanyahu should, perhaps, have studied the lessons of the 1973 Yom Kippur war on the Golan Heights before denouncing Obama’s idea. When the war started, the first thing the Israeli army command sought was the evacuation of the area’s settlements, which Israel’s generals knew would quickly become an impossible burden, and an obstacle to maneuver, for their troops. Indeed, the last war that Israel won “elegantly” – in the way that Netanyahu imagines that wars should be won – began from the supposedly “indefensible” 1967 lines.
That is no accident. Israel’s occupation of Arab lands in that war, and its subsequent deployment of military forces amidst the Arab population of the West Bank and close to the powerful military machines of Egypt in the south and Syria in the north, exposed it to Palestinian terrorism from the east. At the same time, occupation denied Israel’s army the advantage of a buffer – the demilitarized zones that were the key to the 1967 victory against both Egypt and Syria.
For borders to be defensible, they need first to be legitimate and internationally recognized. But Netanyahu does not really trust “the gentiles” to supply that type of international recognition of Israel’s borders, not even when America is behind him, and not even when Israel today has the most powerful military capabilities in the Middle East.
The son of a renowned historian who served as the personal secretary of Zeev Jabotinski, the founder of the Zionist right, Netanyahu absorbed from childhood his father’s interpretation of Jewish history as a series of tragedies. The lesson was simple: the gentiles cannot be relied upon, for Jewish history is one of betrayal and extermination at their hands. The only remedy to our fragile existence in the Diaspora lies in the return to the Biblical Land of Israel. Our Arab neighbors should never be trusted; hence, as Jabotinski preached, the new Israeli nation must erect an Iron Wall of Jewish power to deter its enemies forever.
To be fair, such an existential philosophy was not the right’s monopoly. The legendary General Moshe Dayan, who was born in a socialist Kibbutz on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, was no less a skeptic about the chances of coexisting with the Arabs. A gifted orator, this is how he put it in a eulogy to a fallen soldier in 1956:
“Let us not be deterred from seeing the loathing that is inflaming and filling the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who live around us. Let us not avert our eyes lest our arms weaken….This is the fate of our generation, this is our life choice, to be prepared and armed, strong and determined, lest the sword be stricken from our fist and our lives cut down….We are a generation of settlers, and, without the steel helmet and the cannon’s fire, we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home.”
Yet the same Dayan, who in 1970 said that “the only peace negotiations are those where we settle the land and we build, and we settle, and from time to time we go to war,” was forced by cruel reality to admit that the best security to which Israel can aspire is that based on peace with its neighbors. Eventually, he became the architect of a historic peace with Egypt. His bookAre We Truly Condemned to Live by the Sword to Eternity? marked the transformation of the soldier into a statesman.
If Netanyahu is ever to lead a historic reconciliation with the Palestinian people, he should start by endorsing a courageous, almost post-Zionist insight reflected in Dayan’s 1956 eulogy. Fully aware of the bitter legacy of Palestinian disinheritance following the 1948 war, Dayan refused to blame the murderers. On the contrary, he understood their “burning hatred.”
Unfortunately, Israel today has a prime minister with the mentality of a platoon commander who nonetheless likes to cast himself as a latter day Churchill fighting the forces of evil bent on destroying the Third Jewish Temple. Of course, a great leader must always have a sense of history. But, as the French philosopher Paul Valéry put it, history, “the science of things which are not repeated,” is also “the most dangerous product which the chemistry of the intellect has ever evolved,” especially when manipulated by politicians.
Menachem Begin, a hawkish predecessor of Netanyahu as prime minister, once had the insolence to say to the great historian Yaakov Talmon that, “when it comes to the twentieth century, I am more an expert than you are.”
Talmon responded with “The Fatherland is Imperiled,” a pivotal article whose conclusions are as relevant today as they were in 1981. Not until occupation ends, Israel lives within internationally recognized borders, and the Palestinians recover their dignity as a nation will the Jewish state’s existence be finally secured.
Shlomo Ben Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister who serves as Vice-President of the Toledo international Center for Peace, is the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: the Israeli-Arab Tragedy.
All the world will be your enemy,
viernes, 27 de mayo de 2011
Writing Advice From An Elementary School Cafeteria, @journalistics...
Today is my son’s last day of kindergarten. I had lunch with him for the last time of the school year yesterday (I’ve made an effort to do so on a regular basis since last August, when I first came up with this post idea). In his cafeteria, there’s a random banner about The Writing Process (the photo to the right). I’m not sure of the banner’s origin, and I’m not sure which grade they start teaching this stuff in (I know it’s not kindergarten), but I know it’s writing advice we could all use to improve our work. I’ve added a few additional thoughts to the outline from the banner (feel free to add your own advice in the comments).
1. Pre-Writing- Brainstorm Ideas – grab a piece of paper, head to the white board or get out your iPad and start getting all your ideas out of your head and into a more manageable format
- Organize, Decide on Text Structure - what format will your piece be? How long? Will you have sidebars, pull quotes or infographics to break up the text? Each format has its own flow and requirements – thinking about the end before you begin is a good idea.
- Story Maps, Webs, Lists – this is all about the flow of your ideas. How will you present the start, middle and end of your information? What headings or sub-headings will you use along the way? Think of your writing as a GPS system – what queues will you give the reader along the way so they will know where they are, and have a good idea about where you’re taking them.
2. Drafting
- Create a Rough Draft - you know your topic, you have an idea how you want the information to flow, now you just need to get it written. Resist the temptation to revise and edit as you go along, just get it all down there for now. If you hit a spot you’re not sure about, just make a note like [THIS WOULD BE A GOOD PLACE FOR A STAT ON X] and keep writing. The goal is to get all the text down – if you stop during the process, it will take you much longer.
3. Revisions
- Make Changes to Improve Written Work – if you were successful in Step 2, you’ll now have to go through and rewrite sections. I usually read the article and see where I have gaps or need make things more clear. Sometimes I’ll read it out loud, as it reveals much more.
- Add/Delete words, Ideas or Details – I always come back to the timeless Elements of Style advice, “Omit Needless Words” when revising. What can you take out without changing the flow or meaning of your writing? Take it out. Less is more.
4. Editing
Notice ‘Editing’ comes after ‘Revisions’? I’ve always thought of edit/revise as one step, but it makes sense that you would edit your final draft, not things you may end up cutting out during the revision process. This is a more logical and efficient approach. Don’t worry about editing until your final draft – that makes a lot of sense to me.
- Proofread for correct:
- Spelling – don’t trust spell check, if you’re not sure, look it up (you know, in a dictionary)
- Grammar usage – this one is difficult if you aren’t a grammar whiz – if you’re not, have someone help you on the editing step of the process
- Capitalizations – this one is really geared towards elementary school, but yes, you should capitalize letters at the beginning of sentences
- Punctuation – again, geared towards children, but make sure you’re not using commas where there should be periods – or dashes where there should be semicolons (get it?)
5. Publishing
- Final Draft – if you follow steps 1-4, you should just get here. Any great writer will tell you there’s no such thing as a final draft, you can always improve it, but at some point (usually a deadline), you’ll need to let it go
- Share - I’m sure this banner is at least five years old. Think of how different the meaning of ‘Share’ is today? In elementary school, they’re suggesting you share your writing with the audience – this is the event that signals completion of the writing process. Outside of elementary school, in the world we work in each day, it’s still the same. The last thing you do in the writing process is share your writing.
Reality Check
Can you follow this process start to finish when you’re on deadline and want to get a blog post out before lunch? Probably not. Few of us have enough time to plan and construct words the way we’d like to (or the way we did when we were in school). As a perfect example, I didn’t follow this process for the post you’re reading. Would the post have been better if I had? Maybe. Could this process help you write better white papers, press releases and other marketing content? I think so. Could it help you write better love letters? Maybe not.
jueves, 26 de mayo de 2011
La Oficina del Sheriff Arpaio, un Nido de Narcotraficantes
El 'sheriff' más duro de Estados Unidos, apodado “el Hitler de Arizona”, tenía
La impactante noticia se conoció este martes, cuando fueron detenidas 12 personas involucradas en el narcotráfico. Según la policía, el grupo criminal desmantelado trasladaba cada semana partidas de heroína por valor de 56.000 dólares y estaba involucrada en el tráfico ilegal de personas. Entre los detenidos había tres empleados de la oficina del controvertido 'sheriff' Joe Arpaio, de Arizona, que lleva años encabezando los grupos de ultraderecha estadounidenses contra los inmigrantes indocumentados de América Latina.
Según la prensa norteamericana, un asistente de Arpaio, Rubén Navarrette, de 37 años, y las empleadas de la oficina Marcela Hernández, de 27 años, y Sylvia Nájera, de 25 años, fueron denunciados por el propio 'sheriff'.
Según las investigacions, Navarrette regularmente entregaba en México información sobre la actividad y operaciones especiales de la policía de Maricopa, ayudando a los criminales de este modo a evitar las detenciones. Además, supuestamente formaba parte de un grupo que trasportaba indocumentados de Arizona a California. En la oficina Navarrette era precisamente el responsable de la lucha contra la inmigración ilegal.
 Maricopa County Sheriff's Detention Officers MCPO |
A su vez, la funcionaria de prisiones Marcela Hernández, que está en el
La tercera detenida, Sylvia Nájera, está acusada de facilitar la entrada de mujeres centroamericanas y mexicanas a Arizona.
Durante la operación fueron decomisados 200.000 dólares, siete armas, cuatro kilos de heroína y siete automóviles. "Esto muestra el enorme poderío de los cárteles de la droga mexicanos. Nos enfrentamos a un enemigo muy poderoso", comentó Arpaio en el momento en el que informó de las detenciones a la prensa.
El legendario 'sheriff' reaccionó a la detención de su asistente y de otras dos empleadas del servicio de seguridad de una manera tranquila. Declaró que los cárteles mexicanos son capaces de penetrar en cualquier lugar. Según su opinión, los recientes arrestos demostraron la necesidad de reforzar la frontera y endurecer la lucha contra los indocumentados.
"Que el ayudante del 'sheriff' facilitara información a los contrabandistas que suministraban drogas es una vileza”, añadió Arpaio, que lleva ya diez años trabajando en la policía.
Experto de RT: Hay mucha corrupción en las fuerzas de seguridad de EE. UU.
El presidente de la organización "Vamos Unidos USA.", Juan José Gutiérrez, opina que este caso no es el único y que refleja la situación que se vive en todo el país.
“En realidad no se tienen elementos de juicio definitivos que nos puedan indicar qué tan extensa es la corrupción que afecta las dependencias y las corporaciones policíacas de EE. UU. […] Yo pienso que es extenso y que lo que acabamos de ver es apenas una pequeña muestra de lo posiblemente podrido que pueda estar todo el sistema de policías en muchas partes de Norteamérica”, aseveró el experto.
“Me parece que como este ejemplo demuestra de forma categórica hay mucho dinero involucrado en el tráfico humano, en el tráfico de las drogas. Ese es un negocio muy rentable y por lo tanto no es tan difícil poder penetrar y corromper oficiales de las fuerzas del orden para poder llevar a cabo este negocio. Pienso que se puede controlar más el desorden que se viene planteando por parte de los cárteles de la droga y del tráfico humano. Si existe el tráfico humano es porque las leyes de inmigración actuales en EE. UU. son obsoletas y no funcionan y están forzando a las personas que tienen necesidad o desean inmigrar a EE. UU. para trabajar acá a que estén dispuestas a pagar fuertes cantidades de dinero a los contrabandistas”, considera Gutiérrez. Articulo completo en:http://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/ee_uu/issue_24664.html
FBI Targeting Political Activists as Terrorists
Anti-terrorism resources are being used to target environmentalists, peace, animal and political activists who hold different views than the government.
It was recently revealed that a counter-terrorism firm spied on individuals who attended film screenings of the documentary Gasland. The film focuses on the practice of natural gas fracking and what impact it has on the environment and in the communities where it is used.
The FBI and other government agencies are cracking down on those who are not willing to say in line with the status quo.
In Pennsylvania, activists have faced terrorism charges for writing slogans in chalk on sidewalks. In California, 27 individuals are set to go on trial stemming for protest actions Elsewhere 23 anti-war, pro-labor and international solidarity activists may face a grand jury on trumped up charged. The FBI boasts 164,000 suspicious activity reports that are made up of activists who do not follow the governments view on matters.
The US government is using taxpayer money to squash the competition as opposed to protecting the American people from true terrorist threats, all while stomping on freedom of speech rights.
Carlos Montes, a co-founder of the Brown Berets Chicano Movement explained there is a marked rise of the US government using tools at their disposal designed to fight terrorism to impose oppression on political activists.
“The protest movements are directly exposing and challenging the lines that the US government puts out,” he said, yet law enforcement authorities continue to crack down without just cause. “It’s a war against dissent.”
The government is working to stop the movement which is merely seeking to exercise its right to free speech and the right to protest
“They’re trying to stop us but we’re not going to let them do it,” Montes added.
martes, 24 de mayo de 2011
Al lado del camino
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