The US melting pot...

In response to a proposed letter-to-the-editor (included below) to a newspapers that wondered why people come the US and wish to keep their culture and beliefs. Wonders why they do not want to assimilate that they did in the early 1900’s on Elise Island. And thinks this is wrong and that if you come to the US, shut up and fit the mould. First, they ask why it was not actually published, why?
A decent newspaper would not print this because it they have what we up north would call morals. You may mask you bigotry in patriotism, believe that the US at the turn of the 20th century was the same Jack-boot it is now at the turn of the 21st century. For that is the same of what has been lost in the American Dream.
You mention melting pot...you may not have ever cooked, but when you make a stew, everyone brings something; that is what makes the flavour, strengthens the mean. When you insist that everyone bring nothing and can only drink the Kool-Aid (Sorry for mixing metaphors) you weakening the nation.
The Statue of Liberty was given to the US by France because it saw Liberty, Freedom and opportunity. Does anyone out there believe one today would do such a thing...the US has lost its moral compass, the high ground. People immigrate to the US because they are brain-washed by the TV (American’s biggest export) that the dream is alive; when they get here they see it is dead.
They come here, at great effort, expense and risk. Think about it, do you think they would really want to retain they traditions if they say the US you imagine. They come here and worry that they will become the soulless, greed-drive, pride-before-the-fall, arrogant products of your assimilation-pot.
The difference between the people of Elise Island and today is the people then came and saw something better, now they come and see something worse.
America can be, has been, a great nation deserving the respect and admiration. The gift of the Statue of Liberty is proof of that. But it is lost and falling into a pit of religious backwardness and empirical hubris; Iraq has shown that. Think about it, on Sept 12, 2001, the entire world was with you, EVEN IRAN! By Sept 12, 2003 she was alone and isolated.
As a Canadian, I am your friend. The people, the regular everyday people are the same as me (less hockey maybe) and in spite of see the world differently we have always been each others most honest and trusted friend, like roommates living in the same continent (sorry Mexico, you never seem to click). But now you are just plain embarrassing to be around. Your bad reputation is ruining our own. Because of our little Bush (Our Current Prime-minister “Stevy” Harper”) who used your President as a role model, bag-packers no longer can use our flag, like you have not be able to use your own for decades.
In spite of how your elites and politicians treat you, you’re not a stupid people; you are being lied too, constantly and with your knowledge. Why do you put up with it? For evil to succeed, good men need do nothing.

(Below the original letter-to-the-editor, i believe unpublished. Source, a mailinglist i am on)

Written in response to a series of letters to the editor in the Orange County Register:Dear Editor:
So many letter writers have based their arguments on how this land is made up of immigrants. Ernie Lujan for one, suggests we should tear down the Statue of Liberty because the people now in question aren't being treated the same as those who passed through Ellis Island and other ports of entry.
Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to people like Mr.Lujan why today's American is not willing to accept this new kind of immigrant any longer.
Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to the United States, people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in New York and be documented. Some would even get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good and bad times. They made learning English a primary rule in their new American households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new home.
They had waved good bye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into one culture.
Nothing was handed to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labor laws to protect them. All they had were the skills and craftsmanship they had brought with them to trade for a future of prosperity. Most of their children came of age when World War II broke out. My father fought along side men whose parents had come straight over from Germany, Italy, France and Japan. None of these 1st generation Americans ever gave any thought about what country their parents had come from. They were Americans fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of Japan. They were defending the United States of America as one people. When we liberated France, no one in those villages were looking for the French-American or the German American or the Irish American. The people of France saw only Americans. And we carried one flag that represented one country. Not one of those immigrant sons would have thought about picking up another country's flag and waving it to represent who they were. It would have been a disgrace to their parents who had sacrificed so much to be here. These immigrants truly knew what it meant to be an American. They stirred the melting pot into one red, white and blue bowl.
And here we are in 2006 with a new kind of immigrant who wants the same rights and privileges. Only they want to achieve it by playing with a different set of rules, one that includes the entitlement card and a guarantee of being faithful to their mother country. I'm sorry, that's not what being an American is all about.
I believe that the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900's deserve better than that for all the toil, hard work and sacrifice in raising future generations to create a land that has become a beacon for those legally searching for a better life. I think they would be appalled that they are being used as an example by those waving foreign country flags.
And for that suggestion about taking down the Statue of Liberty, it happens to mean a lot to the citizens who are voting on the immigration bill. I wouldn't start talking about dismantling the United States just yet.
(signed) Rosemary LaBonte

Dear Al Franken, Why do americains let it happen?

Al, this is a “hate letter”, but not directly specially at you, nor your sycophants, nor your enablers, but ALL of you. I have just listened to two of the major Democratic people (Rep. Charles Rangel and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi,) who condemned Hugo Chavez comments during his stay in NY. I would concede that they where not polite words, but you Americans must understand that you allow him(Bush) to do what he does. YOU, and I mean you AL among others, let him and his crew lie constantly, let him wage war and terror (torture, at lest, is terror) around the world in the name of the United States. Rangel said

"If there's any criticism of President Bush, it should be restricted to Americans, whether they voted for him or not," Rangel said at a Washington news conference.

He is saying that it was not the place of non-Americans to comment on “MY” president but you as a people have failed. He is, and you have said this and it is true, he is a murder. He has killed your people, killed those around the world. Like a mob boss, just because he was not the one who pulled the trigger, does not make him any less responsible. More so for this president (who would easily be convicted of war crimes and maybe crimes against humanity), he should have been stopped by the people of America and he was not. Failure to do so means, at least to the vast majority of the world, implies he speaks with the approval of the people of the US (perhaps in the same why people think that Hitler spoke for the people of Germany, not that Bush is as bad as Hitler).
You may say you have tried to stop this horror, but your and your system (for-profit politics, commercialization of news, etc) have failed and you deserve to be chastised by the world. Your president deserves to be chastised by foreign leaders because he deserves it. I found it interesting that Chavez received cheers (and not polite cheer, but honest cheers) through out his speech at the Harlem church including those comments that offended the Not-so-Democrats (and yes, they are infinitely better than the Republicans, but far worse than then Green Party).
Your failure to allow this violent, sadistic and evil individual remain in office; remain being your leaders; the face of the US in the world; has shown that the people of the US are not up to the task to restrain this thug. Because of this failure the world is stepping up to the plate; forced for the sake of self preservation; for global preservation.. Chavez is saying what YOU should be; you should be doing what need to be done (impeach?). You have commented on the fact that the US has lost the moral high ground (something those who were subject to American intervention in South America, Southeast Asia, native American, etc would say they had lost it centuries ago), that the US is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands in an unprovoked belligerent war (Iraq) and indirectly by carelessly violent intervention (Afghanistan) and we will not ever mention the number of people who will die because the US (supposedly the worlds only super-power) failed to use its superior morality to help (Darfur).
There is more to being a super-power than having military might (mostly waited in Iraq) or economic might (currently mortgaged to China), but here is moral might, something the US has avoided very well. For every step to the virtuous made by the US, it makes several clumsy leaps to the offensive.
I am NOT an Americans and that only bothers be because I do not have the power to stop this global carnage, but then again I do not have to live with the guilt. Some might say that I am being too harsh and have no right to speak. That would be true if your president had not effect on my life, true if the only people he killed; the land he harmed was American but it is not and that gives the world the right to speak about your presidents, foreign policy, morality, political system and all things related. You listen to your leaders cheat and steal, you listen to them LIE to you CONSTANTLY and do nothing but hide behind the excuse that it is our system. PEOPLE ARE DIEING, suck it up and changed it or be prepared to suffer the consequence of global condemnation and the equally evil ramification of violence against your people and your allies. Canadians are dieing.
Al, you and the Democrat party (I use Democrat, because you are no more democratic than the Republicans although the world hopes you will be less corrupt, but I think the bar has been raised and they (again I hope you will be better, you should run not as a Dem but as a Green Party member, you have the image to win)

The False freedom of free trade…

Free trade is a lie, or at least an illusion. The premise of free trade is that all countries/regions competing for markets with not constraints...or at least artificial constraint. The degree of free trade is usually measured in thing like tariffs, subsidies, ownership restrictions, monopoly laws, etc... But this is only the artificial constraint. For there to be true free trade we would also nee to remove the natural constraints, and that is impossible. Canada may wish to compete with Brazil in the production of Bananas, but there in no way we will ever have, could ever have, the same production of Bananas as Brazil. As is often mentioned with regards to artificial constraints, if the playing field is not flat, if all players are not equal, then free trade will not work, or at least it will work for those who benefit from the constraints while hurting the others. How could natural constraints have any other effect but the same!

It is this inability to achieve equality, substantial equality, which prevents Free Trade from being enacted or effective. It has become a growing movement in economics, spear headed by the progressive moments, to abandon the idea of free trade in favour of fair trade. Fair trade, is trade that acknowledged we are not equal, that in areas of your strength, you need to be willing to give ground, and in areas of your weakness, others will give you ground.

In a discussion with a friend of mine, I made an interesting observation regarding freedom. We all believe, at least in Canada we are free, that we have free trade, thanks to FTA and later NAFTA and maybe soon the FTAA, but if this true? Are you free to go south and get a job? Could you move to Mexico and make a living? Could they come here? No. But could you send you money there and could it work? Yes, and this means that you’re are not free but your money is, you are the slave, it is not. When we speak of free trade, we mean, in reality, free flow of capital.