Because Mexico Isn’t S*&t On Enough….

…the governator, Arnold Swarzenegger has brain-farted out the idea of outsourcing our inmates to cheaper, Mexican, prisons.

But do Mexicans think Arnie is "Numero Uno"? Lo dudo.

From SFGate, via Foreign Policy’s Passport blog:

“We pay them to build the prisons down in Mexico and then we have those undocumented immigrants be down there in a prison. … And all this, it would be half the cost to build the prisons and half the cost to run the prisons,” Schwarzenegger said, predicting it would save the state $1 billion that could be spent on higher education.

About 19,000 of the state’s 171,000 prisoners are illegal immigrants, according to the most recent statistics available online. The state spends more than $8 billion a year on the prison system.

Aaron McLear, spokesman for the governor, said later that Schwarzenegger’s comments did not represent a concrete proposal, but “a concept somebody mentioned to him” and he could not say where the governor came up with the $1 billion figure.

Who let him go off script?! Silly handlers, I bet their kickin’ themselves over this.

This is quite relevant to the thoughts I’ve been mulling over recently about globalization, particularly while I was reading Zygmunt Bauman’s Wasted Lives (finished now, btw, and it was awesome).

The reason people get upset about globalization, is cuz only the crappy stuff gets globalized (i.e. exported from rich countries to poor countries): slave wage level jobs, low labor standards, pollution, garbage, corruption, and, now, if the governator has his way, prison populations.

Why don’t we just go ahead and ship all our difficult things to Mexico?  Let’s ship our elderly, and mentally disabled to Mexico too, I’m sure there they could be cared for for cheaper. (They could certainly get their meds for cheaper).

Just as its crappy to send our garbage to China or Bangladesh (which we do a lot of), or to burden other countries with the pressure to produce all our goods on the cheap (quashing labor rights if need be), or to force other nations to open their economies to imports so we can thrive (oh, just read the Shock Doctrine), it’s immoral to outsource any other problem that is produced within our society.

And no, I don’t care if he’s talking about outsourcing “illegal” immigrant offenders. The criminal trials took place here, and we are responsible for them.

(And btw, the sfgate journo mentions that 19,000 of the 171,000 prisoners are illegal immigrants, but it would be helpful to know how many are Mexican illegal immigrants, unless the Schwarz is planning on shipping Guatemalans, Vietnamese, Russians, and whoever else to Mexico too.)

 

100 Cheesiest Movie Lines of All Time?

[via crooks and liars]

Someone has put together a clip reel of very very cheesy movie lines, and claim they are the cheesiest EVER! Of course, this is merely fodder for debate.

What would you include?

My contribution on the C&L thread was this

Daniel Day Lewis all sexy and wet in a cave in Last of the Mohicans, avowing:

“Just stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you, no matter how long it takes, no matter how far! I will find you!”

Cheese moment extraordinare, perfectly complimented by the use of the Clannad song “I Will Find You” later in the soundtrack. Sublime cheese.

 

Pick Me!!! Pick Me!!!! – On Writing A Graduate School Application Personal Statement

I have just been sitting here for about 4 hours trying to write a personal statement that I have to submit online by Feb. 1.

I know. That’s cutting it close. They tell you you should leave tons of time, but hey, I’m applying for a journalism program, if I can’t write in 4 days, what kind of a writer am I right? (She laughs nervously to herself).

I can write. I know this. For all my neurotic insecurities about a million stupid things, I know I can express a reasonably clear thought in written form.

I cannot, however, write about myself. Call it my Achilles heel, but it has long been evident to me that I would not be hired to write my own autobiography.

For example. I have managed to pour out 1056 words (for a 750 to 1000 word essay) so far, and have not managed to convey the significance of my time in Spain,  nor have I explained why I would be a good student. But I have babbled about “the big questions in life”, and  mentioned my favorite children’s book. Ugh. I just lose it.

Double UGH!!!

Really, the essay sucks because in the end the voice you are having to temper is the one in your head squealing “Oooooh! Pick me!! I’m ever so good!!!” like Lisa Simpson when the teachers went on strike. They tell you you should be honest, be yourself, but if I did that I’m afraid my essay would come out as follows:

“Hey! All I do is read, write, and argue. I’m a big fat book worm, but also a people person. I can talk into a camera well and that is my most marketable skill. I’ve been in Spain for six years, so I’ve got a second language, and international experience (beyond just dating Europeans I swear!!). I’m coming home to a country I haven’t know for the better part of my adult life, and need a boost back into the job market, which is shit right now cuz of the crisis, so please let me into grad school. Oh, and by the way, do you know anyone willing to give me thousands and thousands of dollars to help pay for this cuz I’ve been an illegal immigrant for 6 years and have no savings? Thanks.”

Ah. That was therapeutic. I think I’ve done all i can do today. Time to sleep on it.

 

Help! Looking for Shipping Advice!!

Hi there, just in case anyone is reading and has info, I thought I’d ask: What’s the cheapest way to ship my things from Spain to DC? I have a lot of books and this is causing me some anxiety. I don’t want to leave or sell them, but damn, they’re heavy. I don’t care if it takes a long time to get to the states either. I just want to find the cheapest way to ship a few heavy boxes. Any advice appreciated!!!

 

Glen Beck Adopts Rhetoric of Ideological Cleansing, just like the Nazis, the Soviets, the Fascists, etc….

The other day I saw this Glen Beck tirade on crooksandliars.com. Now, I could spend years on what is wrong with it but I’m gonna focus on one thing in particular. The part where he starts to characterize progressives as a disease.

The same day I saw this clip, by happy coincidence, I was reading Antony Beevor’s Battle of Spain. I’m getting to the end. Its the sad part. (I’m almost finished! only taken 7 months!) And in talking about the massacres perpetrated on the populace after the nationalists took power Beevor writes the following:

Another paradoxical parallel between Franquism and Stalinist Russia was the obsessive fear of ideological contagion. While most of the senior Soviet advisers from Spain were being forced to confess by the NKVD to treasonous contacts abroad and then shot, in nationalist Spain the rhetoric called for drastic surgery of the body politic. The Bishop of Vic called for a ’scalpel to drain the pus from Spain’s entrails’. Franco’s press attache, the Count de Alba y Yeltes, said during the war to one Englishman that they had to rid Spain of the virus of bolshevism, if necessary by eliminating a third of the male population of Spain. Now that the nationalists had almost all the republican prisoners in their power, they could embark on their thorough cleansing. [emphasis mine]

Eerily similar to the rhetoric Beck is employing now. From the vid above, starting around 1:15:

 

Spotting Hypocrisy: Save Haiti!!! But Keep Those Awful Poor People Out!!!

Stumbled across a blog post in the online part of Publico, a Spanish paper, that very concisely reminded us that if we’re sincere about solidarity with places like Haiti in times of crisis, and we really want to help, we can’t also whine about immigration and insist on closing borders.

Says “El Gran Wyoming” (and no, I have no idea why that’s his name):

With the earthquake in Haiti, the wave of solidarity and understanding that the Spanish have towards the underprivilaged has been unleashed. We unite before great tragedies. All citizens, no matter their ideology or religious beliefs, demonstrate their indignation at the poverty in which these people live. It has not occurred to any politician to step to the podium to say “you’ve made your bed, now lie in it.” No, that would give itself away as cruelty, and the electorate won’t go there. Nevertheless, here, because of the proximity of the regional and municipal elections, a witch hunt for immigrants is brewing. The president of the PIMEC [an association of small business owners in Catalunya] links immigration to citizen’s security; the People’s Party [conservatives] via Alberto Fernandez Diaz, is asking for a immigrant commerce inspection plan; Trillo wants to reform the law to avoid repeat offenders who are immigrants; Esperanza Aguirre is supporting the town couselour of Torrejon in limiting municipal registration of immigrants; Alicia Sanchez Camacho – candidate for the PP in Catalunya – is basing her campaign on unemployment, security and immigration and claims that this can make the PPC the governing party. Her slogan “We can’t all fit”. It’s open season: being xenophoic isn’t a sin, it’s self defense. The subtext is: they take our jobs and our bread. The damage they’re doing with these xenophobic propositions is terrible who knows if it’s irreversible.

Dear sirs/mesdames of the center, constitutionalists, and Catholics: those whom you are pointing your fingers at as though they were usurping delinquents are the same people trying to get out from under the rocks in Haiti. They are the same. Don’t build your power on top of mountains of the starved-to-death. [emphasis mine]

Amen.

 

Reporting and Race – Do “Immigrant” Reporters Disproportionately Cover Immigrant Issues? Does it Matter?

[via votersthink.org, via crooksandliars.com]

There’s a lot that could be said in response to this segments content, but that’s not actually why I posted it. What interests me is the presentation.

 

Haitian Deportations Halted. Long Overdue, and Not Nearly Enough. Temporary Protected Status NOW!!

In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, both the U.S. and France have announced that they will stop deportations of Haitians that are residing illegally in their countries.

Well, it’s the least they could do, I guess. Some people, though, are pushing (and have been for years) to give Haitians “Temporary Protected Status” which is granted to “certain immigrants in the United States who cannot safely return to their countries because of armed conflicts, natural disasters or other emergencies.” (via the Village Voice) TPS would give recipients a visa to work for 18 months and is often renewable.  People have been pushing for this for years, because the country has  been in such a state for so long that everyday life there counts as pretty much disastrous, and it would be cruel to send anyone back who managed to make it out.

From Newsweek:

In Miami today, a variety of groups, including South Florida’s congressional delegation, immigrant advocacy organizations, and the Catholic Church, held press conferences calling on the administration to act. “If they don’t grant TPS in this situation, they have effectively repealed TPS,” says Randy McGrorty of Catholic Charities Legal Services. “This is exactly what TPS was designed for.”

You can go here to send your elected representatives a letter urging them to grant TPS to all Haitians residing in the US.

 

A Child of the Ring of Fire Thinks About Haiti’s “Big One”

[Pssst - this Ring of Fire!]

As someone from an earthquake prone area (the house I grew up in is about 100 yards off the Hayward Fault and has almost no right angles anymore) I have always been fascinated by earthquakes. Maybe even a little obsessed. [Btw - favourite book on the subject: A Dangerous Place by Marc Reisner ] But not just by the geological phenomenon, by the social phenomena associated with it as well, like the weird California “denialism” that leads us to laugh about earthquakes that will someday (it’s a “when” not an “if” with these things) totally f*&k our s!$t up (though not as bad as Haiti).

Everytime these things happen, like with the tsunami a few years back, I think there’s a little voice in the heads of many Californians secretly whispering “soon, it will be our turn.” And somehow, morbidly, I think “damn, I hope I’m there to see it.” …..But maybe that’s just me.

Actually, now that California’s going down the tubes, it makes my thinking on earthquakes much darker. Imagine how much worse our own Big One could be, with the Gobernator slashing all sorts of social protections, and Cali nearly a “failed state“. Shudder.

Because really, money is a big factor in how bad an earthquake could be. Remember the big quake in California in 1989? It was a 7.0 or 7.1, just like the Haitian quake. 63 people died. 63. That’s amazing.

So the tragedy in Haiti isn’t really the quake. It’s the shameful (for all of us, her neighbours) state the country has been in for some 200 years.

Which is why David Rothkopf’s post in Foreign Policy is right on:

 

Deport Any National From A “Terrorist” Country? Impossible! Oh wait….

[Meant to post this a few days ago, then it got lost in the drafts pile ]

Ah yes, right on time, the anti-immigrant hysteria is flaring up after the underpants bomber incident.

Congressman J. Gresham Barret, from South Carolina’s 3rd District, has decided to reintroduce legislation that deport, and bar entry of, all nationals from countries marked “State Sponsors of Terror”. Oh, but of course, he’s going to throw in Yemen too, because, this poorly crafted legislation doesn’t include Yemen, but in light of recent events, we’ve got to get all those new Yemeni-haters on board too.

The inclusion of Yemen is quite telling, actually,  because it’s a blatant admission that terrorists can come from places that aren’t “State Sponsors of Terrorism,” which is just one tiny reason why the idea of this law is stooooooopid to begin with.