My cousins husband(doctor) had a clinic in Ft Lauderdale. They treated a lot of children and would run hundreds through at back to school time. Most of the patients were expat cubans.
I asked him if he had a lot of people handling all the paperwork for insurance, welfare and state aid? He said 96 or 97% paid cash. :biggrinba

I do not ENDORSE any such principle. I made an observation about the most fundamental difference between the USA and the European nations.

No, I didn't say Italy or any other nation MUST DIE OFF for that or any other reason. Italy has not been prosperous for a very long time, but I know nothing about their economy. I do know that they are constantly kicking out boatloads of Albanians, so they must not "need" the laborers as much as you believe they do.

I stand by my assertion that the FOUNDATION for the Cuban reshaping of Miami was already in place before the Marielitos got there. Castro did NOT ship his political prisoners (criminals only according to Castro politics). Castro's motive was to harrass and overburden the US with the flotsam and garbage of Cuba, he literally ordered the emptying of the prisons and mental institutions, and only permitted boats to leave during that amnesty period if he filled them FIRST with people who the soldiers brought to the docks. I read the account of one captain that he had to go and return THREE TIMES with such cargo until he was permitted to leave with his family. What was the percentage of "honest" or "worthwhile" people who left as opposed to the scum? I have no idea. What I do know, from first-hand accounts by my Cuban friends, is that by the time of Mariel (which is the name of a port which all the boats were required to embark from) any Cubans with money or connections or abilities had already made it out if they wanted to. Those who remained behind were mostly family members and friends of people in the first wave. My friend Rolando still got tears in his eyes while telling how his father had taken them all the way to the boat which was smuggling him and his sister to Florida when Castro first came into power, and then refused to leave with them. Some people just could not make the wrenching change, they stayed, but most family members were desperate to join the others in Florida. Castro held those people hostage, even though the bribes were paid, until he could ship the bottom of the barrel off with them. A lot of money was extorted from earlier refugees in order to have their families together again and Castro wiped out the prison population and other inconvenient and destitute people in the bargain. Not bad for a few month's work. Hope the history books you read made that clear.

I did not assume any such thing. See my comments above. I said that the cream of Cuba rose again to be the cream of the USA. The same thing applied to the educated and highly talented Jews who fled Europe when the Nazi cloud loomed on the horizon. You should not make the assumption that more bodies create more productivity, because they don't. A lot of "shaking out" had to take place after Uncle Sam clamped the lid on Mariel finally. I unfortunately know TWO girls who behave like gutter trash, they happen to be Cuban and brag about how they came over as children from Mariel. They appear to be unfortunately true to the stereotype. But even so, the true story lies in the fact that many decent people, motivated and eager, made here to join their families and had a strong helping hand to integrate them into the American lifestyle and economy. That is why they were productive. They were not "alone".


You haven't been reading my posts, I see. I've been too busy posting about the mental midget president who is destroying our prestige throughout the entire world, erasing our Constitutional rights, and sending our unequipped and outnumbered young men to be slaughtered like sheep far from home. THEN I will get to work on the problems with Big Agriculture and the Bracero economy. Gimme time ;)

Totally agree with you. But are you prepared to live packed like sardines with the other billion people around the world who think that if they can just get across the US border everything will be better from then on? I loved "Blade Runner, the Movie", I will not love the reality if it arrives in California within my lifetime. But we can discuss that later, I believe we agree in most of the basics and can have a fine time with this topic since we are fellow Kalifornians

Oooo, no. Don't think so. Rome is a completely different situation. Rome made the peoples of their conquered territories CITIZENS OF ROME so that they would have a stake in the administration of their countries without having massive troop contingents stationed everywhere to keep order when they were needed to move onward into new fields of conquest. They would have been stretched impossibly thin, you see. Now THAT sounds familiar, doesn't it? By your logic, perhaps we should have made all the IRAQIS citizens of the United States :lol:


I'm also voting against all of Ahnuld's phony propositions. He has collected enough money from special interests by now to have balanced the State budget if it had been applied to the treasury instead of withdrawing another $10 Million to run his "special election". Talk about "business as usual" :mad:

Italy has been a very productive and prosperous country. Why is it part of the G-7? Because Italy is prosperous. Italy's growth rate is about 2.8% - quite good. But Italy has fallen slightly on the competitiveness scale. Of the 25 EU nations, Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries are higher. And this is one of Italy's serious problems. Northern Italy needs workers desperately. They have illegal immigration problems like Germany, France, the US, etc. But when your news becomes abridged, then one would assume only Albanians are their illegal immigrants. Albanians are only a part of Italy’s immigrants.

Italy, just like the US, needs those illegal immigrants and probably more. But when political extremists hype their fears, then suddenly a rare criminal immigrant becomes the example of all illegal immigrants.

The US also needs those immigrants. Those immigrants need jobs that politics subsidizes to keep in the US. Yes, many Mexicans send money home. And they would prefer to do those jobs back home. So why is US Sugar, et al not moving to Mexico? Your government pays for 50% of your sugar so that US Sugar will not make jobs where jobs are most needed. Classic pork and corruption - sometimes called corporate welfare.

There is no way around that fact. We need those illegal immigrants. Extremist politics hypes myths such as illegals who would bankrupt the Social Security fund. Ironically, illegals make that fund even wealthier and more stable as previously and accurately posted by others - was it Rich Levy?

Any rate, a country that expects its immigrants to conform to the standards of the host is racist. Immigration means immigrants are assimilated by the host country AND the country changes to be assimilated by its immigrants. Anything less contributes to racism.

The only problem we have with illegal immigration is that WE will not address this reason for its problem. We even increase the price of steel 400% just to protect companies too anti-American to stay in America. That George Jr illegal tariff increase. Therein lies but another example of why illegal immigration exists. It’s called 'addressing the problem at its source'. 'Curing symptoms' is what political rhetoric does when it blames the immigrants for wanting jobs.

BTW, what happened to 'cordial' relations that George Jr was going to have with Mexican leaders? George Jr, as a classic MBA, also could not come to grips with this a major reason for illegal immigration. For all his boasts about free trade, George Jr instead has taken anti-free trade and anti-Mexican agendas. He refused to do what Mexico needed to help solve the illegal immigration problems.

Listen to what happens when George Jr meets with Brazilians. It is the George Jr, enemy of globalisation, that may sour those meetings. To appreciate a major reason for illegal immigration - why we so need those people - then understand how both George Jr and France undermined and terminated a Cancun Meeting of the WTO Doha round three days early.

Did you even know about those WTO talks? Did you even know who contentious most of the world becomes with US and French trade restrictions? Why not? How can one have an opinion on illegal immigration and yet not know how anti-globalisations policies by France and the US only aggravate illegal immigration?

It just too financially profitable for many politicians to protect reasons that encourage illegal immigration. Immigrants need the jobs. And we need people to perform those jobs. Politics and 'purchased politicians’ will not even permit those jobs to go where they are needed. So we instead blame the illegals.

How myopic. Exactly what happens when Rush Limbaugh logic is applied. Why do we need them here to do the jobs? Rush spinning must avoid that question. We have a leadership problem - not an illegal immigrant problem.

I have to admit I have not read all of the above.
That said, I think I'm going to surprise most people by saying I think it's time to bring out the French Foreign Legion troops stationed in north africa and send them in to these hellholes with simple orders to detain all rioters, use deadly force if they resist and then promptly deport them and their families all back to wherever they came from without right of appeal and permanently blacklist them from re-entry.

What it comes down to is this, there are some immigrant communities that work, and some that don't. You can tell those that do, they learn the language, open businesses and their kids all speak the native tongue perfectly and often do better than average in school. Example: the indian community in most of the UK or the Vietnamese community in melbourne. Stereotype? Maybe, but overall, it's true.

These days though you seem to have a new class of migrants, I've heard the appropriate term is transmigrants, they're there, they make no effort to integrate, learn the language, culture or vales of where they have moved and resent being there. They are there purely for economic reasons. This has to be dealt with.

The first thing is to wake the fuck up about it. We live in an age where any kind of serious political debate about immigration is stymied very effectively by saying that anyone who has an issue with any kind of immigration is a racist, end of story. If you want to know who is the most racist group in the UK is, I'd start looking more closely at the caribbean/west african community, because sure, there may be some racism left in middle england but if I walked down the street in milton keynes talking about how all the nigger women were were stealing the white men, I'd be lynched yet I've heard exactly that more than once, races reversed, on the public busses in london and much worse. That needs to be address in open, frank, public discussion. The double standard has to go.

Secondly, there needs to be proactive measures to stop large enclaves of single ethnic minorities moving into one area, it creates what are essentially, closed colonies, guaranteeing problems in the future.

Thirdly there needs to be a stop to ridiculous kowtowing to 'multiculturalism'. I love multiculturalism, melbourne, my home town has one of the most amazing multicultural societies in the world but when someone tells me I shouldn't be kissing my girlfriend on the bus because it might offend the two devout muslim women sitting opposite, it's gone too far. It's not about assimilation, it's about integration. If you don't like the value system of the country you've moved to, go home.

Fourthly, once you've kicked the shit out of every rioter that thinks his personal disaffection gives him some kind of god-given right to destroy property and take life it's time to not only break the ghettos up but invest some serious money in them, in the schools, in job creation programs and in culturally-aware policing. Then, maybe, you'd deal with the problem.

This isn't like immigration in the past TW, and you have to face up to that.

jaguar for president :thumb:

The real Jaguar is going to be mad when he finds his account has been broken into and taken for this...!

Indians in UK have really improved its cuisine!! But can you imagine the French embracing such a thing?

I feel kind of dirty.

ur sexc. a/s/l?

Get a couple more years on yah and you'll be an actual conservative.

I still believe in socialized healthcare, social security, income tax brackets, corporate manslaughter & strong environmental laws before you get any ideas.

No, he's a facist fighting, rational progressive!

Unfortunately, Jaguar, you have described immigration of the past AND problems created when the intolerant fear to assimilate or integrate those immigrants. Assimilate and integrate are the same thing when it comes to the bottom line. I see nothing in your post that defines current immigration different from immigration of generations and millenium past. But I do read so many of the same biases that caused immigration problems in generations past. Feel free to post better and specific examples. But somehow we and France must immigrate people as America did in the 1800s and early 1900s. That is the reality of the world.

Clearly those rioters are the only reasons for these problems. Therefore massive strongarming and bullets will solve the problems. Well more police only expanded the outbreaks into cities from Normandy, to the Perennes, to the Med coast, and to the border with Germany. Outbreaks even in Belgium. Clearly we need more force - rather than address why things have been getting this bad for so many decades.

The home country has some standards that need be maintained. One is a common language. Another is that no religion should ever demand political action (outside of basic human rights and religious freedoms). But problems are created - integration / assimilation does not happen - when racist attitudes are problematic especially at the individual level.

Notice comments from Frenchmen literally on the other side of the tracks. They claimed they had no problem with those other people. But where on their side of the tracks were those other people? Racism exists when communities do not share the same streets. Integration and assimilation does not exist when it is only their side of town and our side.

Is that overt racism? No. But Jaguar is talking about overt racism when he claims it does not exist. He also posts as if I was discussing overt racism.

When confronted with specific examples, then we see so many who deny they are racist and yet don't even know any of 'those people'. If your circle of friends does not include those people, then why are you not routinely asking why? Circles that don't include the 'others' are not overtly racist. We just don't associate with them. Is that racist? Yes.

Is it natural to hate everyone who is different? Yes. Of course. It is naturally inbreed in how humans think. Those who don't logically acknowledge that racism naturally exists in everyone and then don't overtly confront that racist tendancy, are therefore passive racists. To not be a racist, one must intentionally cross that divide between 'them and us'. And that applies to both them and us. That is how immigrants assimilate into a nation as a nation assimilates into that new immigrant culture.

Confronting passive racism may even mean hiring a minority that is less qualified because your organization is too myopic; desperately needs multicultural attitudes.

jaguar - do you intentionally cross class and race lines especially when you are not comfortable doing so? If not, then you are part of a racism problem - a passive racist. People that a progressive country with immigrants cannot tolerate.

What has obviously contributed for over a decade into inevitable France wide riots? Passive racism. "We don't have any problem with them." Then are 'they' also shopping in the same stores? Then 'they' are also properly represented (in proportinal numbers) in your employment? At what point do the citizen of France address their own passive racism?

Why is multiculturalism a topic? Passive racism exists in us all if we all don't confront it every day.

I'm sorry, if I don't engage in positive discrimination (which is still, be definition, racial discrimination) rather than say, treating everyone equally I'm a racist? That's almost admirably warped. Thankyou for making my point perfectly - question the situation, you're a racist.

Now personally I can say I do have friends from diverse backgrounds, young black muslims, irish catholics, first/second/third generation algerians, chinese, indians and sri lankans, kenyans, italians, iraqis and others but unless I actively chose not to engage with people on the basis of race your accusations are frankly, insulting. I don't count these people amongst my friends because I think I should, I do it because I interact with people I want to, regardless of colour or creed.

Yes, there probably is some latent, passive racism in plenty of people here but guess what: you have culturally accepted, very overt racism inside minority communities here, I think that's a much bigger problem right now, why don't you? What are you suggesting? That white people (and lets be blunt here, the incumbent majority in europe is white so I'm not going to pussyfoot about it) have an obligation to go out on a limb and somehow try and go out of their way to make friends with communities that often want nothing to do with them or they are to blame when those same minorities start trying to kill their police forces and burn down business? That double standard is half the problem. Who's the passive racist now?

In France right now you're dealing with hardcore criminals who have a stated goal of burning police officers to death before they will stop burning cars and shops, how do you suggest we stop that? Today. Not some long winded social policy that may or may not have an impact in 20 years. Should we just pick a couple of random officers and string them up as a sacrifice on the altar of multiculturalism? I'm sorry, I don't care who people are but they need to obey the law, if they aren't, they need to be bought into line with force if necessary. I don't see people standing up for football hooligan's rights to trash city centers after matches, why should this bunch of thugs get away with it? They're socially disadvantaged? Boo fucking hoo, try engaging with the society you live in, that might be a good start. I listed to an interview with a bunch of them today, most of them didn't seem to want anything except going back to morocco because, and I quote "there are too many jews here, I hate this place". They also said the London Bombings were great. These are not constructive immigrants, why should they be allowed in the country exactly?

As I said and you conveniently ignored, force isn't a long term solution but it is a short term one while you implement a long term one. And as I also stated above and you also conveniently ignored that should revolve around massive investment in culturally-aware policing, education and job creation. If you do give carrot without giving a stick you also reinforce the idea that rioting is a way of getting what you want. I also said that you need to integrate communities to stop creating these closed ghettos, which you then repeated as your own point in more fluffy language.

This is different, if I'm wrong, prove me so but I don't believe immigrants came to America in the same spirit as many immigrants do today. Today they feel forced by economics but dislike where they move to, have no interest in becoming part of that place or interacting with it. That is fundamentally different. It's not all, it's not all in any one group and probably not some in all groups but it's there and it's a very big problem.

Assimilation is not the same as immigration, assimilation means to absorb and make similar, integration is simply intermixing and combining, it's not semantics, it's fundamental to how you handle immigration. I don't think assimilation is the answer, usually both the locals and the newbies mix and learn from each other over time but then the concept of immigrants who actively resist integrating is new to me, i don't know the answer to that.

When waves of immigrants came to the US, mostly they went to where their own kind were. Irish went to the Irish neighborhoods, Italians went to Italian neighborhoods and so on. Even the Swedish, Norwegian and German farmers went to farm areas populated by similar groups. It was often to seek the help of a family member or someone from their village that had come before and might even be sponsoring them.

When they were congregated in their “ghettos” they were often at odds with and sometimes battled, outsiders. Over time, the kids at school or people at workplaces started to get to know each other and become more tolerant but it took a couple generations.

When people started moving out of the old ‘hoods to Levittown (suburbs) things really started to coalesce, probably because they had something in common…….crabgrass. ;)

And therein lies your mistake. You somehow know these people do not want to have anything to do with France? That is absurd and is only a party line from government officials who are part of the problem; not part of the solution. The street interviews say this government line, that apparently Jaguar reiterates, is wrong.

Those are second and third generation immigrants who complain for decades they have been treated as outsiders. Are you now going to tell them to go home if they don't like it? Is that not what those racists in America's deep south would say to 'niggers'? Of course it is. Are you telling these Arab and African immigrants that they should go home if they don't like it? Jaguar. They are home. They were born in France.

BTW, some of what I am saying has only been repeated by member of the French National Football (soccer) team.

What should these marginalized people have done? The situation today is same as its was 10 years ago. Ten years ago, immigrants dealt peacefully with this situation - and you did not even know about the anger and discrimination. Why not? Now you tell them that they are wrong for no longer doing what was not working? Part of the problem here is that Jaguar did not even know how tense things were getting ten years ago. So instead of discussing the problem, Jaguar addresses the symptoms: calls them thugs and criminals. Well if that were true, then the riots would not be in (last count) 254 cities in France and expanding into Belgium. Or most all immigrants must be thugs and criminals. Which is it?

Yes, violence is not a good solution. Yes, desperately needed was a Martin Luther King to lead a peaceful solution. But Dr King's and Ghandhi's are rare people. Therefore what is happening in France is, unfortunately, inevitable. Some racists are defined or exposed by a denial of the why; to complain only about the riots while ignoring the underlying long term cause. If one does not start by dealing with the riots, then yes, a racist attitude is suspect.

Yes when I went through those 1968 riots, suddenly many hereto unknown racist teachers exposed their true feathers. As one specifically told my friend in a private repremand, "Why do you a jew give a damn about those niggers". Until those riots, we would have never known. To this racist teacher, it was only about the violence - not about the reasons for the violence.

Using your definition of assimilation and integration - in nations that have immigrants - both words must define the same thing. Both things must happen simultaneously as if they were the same thing. And that was my point albeit misunderstood. When it comes to immigrants, assimilation and integration must be the same thing even though - as you have demonstrated - the definitons are slightly different.

Argue all you want with contradictions stated above. That only if you want to argue. But to understand the point, then find and understand a condition where assimilation and integration become the same. A concept where immigrants become that 'so productive' part of a nation. A problem that France - and other European nations - must learn.

Yes the violence and rioting are wrong. However it was also inevitable. Like it or not, due to attitudes that the government is has now exposed, the riots were inevitable. Good people are now becoming criminal types for reasons that should have never existed. AND for reasons that other western nations should be looking at within their own borders. France is not an exception in Europe. Hatred of Turks in Austria is also severe. Europe does have pockets of severe immigrant racism - and I am not just talking about the Balkans either.

To talk about the French riots as wrong is to ignore a far bigger and more important problem. Part of it involves a expression called 'passive' racism. An assumption that *they* don't want to associate with others is a typically racist assumption. An assumption that many have and that most don't know about until things like these riots start exposing those biases.

I can tell you from personal experience, it took those 1968 riots for us to see how racist some around us really were. Otherwise we would never have known. You are now seeing same in the responses from some French government officials.