I don't really see another material replacing plastic anytime soon. It's only real disadvantage as a basic material is that it's not biodegradable and some types of plastic contain toxic chemicals. The former might well get fixed if we can work out a process by which bacteria could break it down. I've heard that one type of bacteria has managed to break down one type of plastic at least partially, but we don't seem to have a large-scale process that we could use in landfills. As for the latter problem, I'm not sure--we don't fully understand the impact of plastics on the human body; we don't know if the effects are even significant (however you define the word).
Reducing the use of plastic will probably involve increasing efficiencies (3D printers might make more stuff reusable) rather than replacements. Until we have a commercially competitive replacement, we're probably going to keep using plastic for everything. Unlike oil, gas, and coal, we don't already have a strong replacement for plastic.
In all honesty, Japan's immigration policies are blatantly racist and xenophobic. They have rigged the system specifically to keep anyone the least bit non-Japanese out of the country, just to maintain ethnic homogeneity. Keeping out minorities is the whole point.
But they are not minorities are they?
The language used is really misleading. Japanese are a minority in the world.
Why shouldn't they have a homeland where they have ethnic and cultural homogeneity and ensure that it remains the same with their low birthrate if they want that?
Nobody emigrates because they wake up one day and decided they don't want to live with people like them. They emigrate for financial opportunity, why should the rest of the world provide that at the expense of seeing their countries become multicultural while the places people emigrate from stay the same?
In fact in some cases become far more reactionary, more closed because those who have emigrated and established themselves elsewhere, are rather fond of popping back home and enjoying the fact that nothing has changed. Quite often boast about how the homeland is still the same as they remember. And now because they have money, they get to enjoy the benefits of terrible inequalities and corruption.
The overiding reason for emmigration is money, why is it seen as a good thing that the world is ordered for financial reasons only? Is that all there is that needs to be considered?
As it happens I have migrated in the past, not for financial reasons but to get away from people like me- presumably so I could enjoy debating with them on video game forums remotely .
Assuming the cultural & ethnic homogenity of Japan is to unquestioningly adopt a narrative which has developed in defiance of local evidence that would detract from Japan's supposed purity. That narrative has obvious political uses of course.
For example in linguistic terms many dialects of Japanese are mutually unintelligible, which under different sociopolitical circumstances might lead to them being classed as different languages. This is especially strongly pronounced in the case of Okinawan dialects which are referred to as Ryukyuan, and were the lingua franca of that region prior to its political annexation in 1879. (Okinawans are often treated in a discriminatory fashion on mainland Japan as an aside.) From a linguistic perspective Japan has many languages, not just standard Japanese, despite local narratives that would identify language, ethnicity, & nationality.
Similarly any cultural history of Japan would include its importation of kanji, Buddhism, architecture, and political structures from west & east. All events connected to migration and trade, even in the case of a supposedly pure society. Cultures grow together, and profit in more ways than financially.
Ethnic homogenity can also be overplayed. It is relatively recent - pre WW2 imperial Japan took in a million migrants to help its economy along. One can talk of generations of Koreans who are culturally Japanese while being denied citizenship. Japanese women who lost citizenship by marrying foreigners. Children of mixed marriages. The children of Japanese who were abandoned in Manchuria who are ethnically half or full-Japanese but who culturally are mostly Chinese and have a torturous road to prove they have the right t Japanese citizenship. People who fell through the gaps and became stateless despite being culturally Japanese. Prizing ethnic homogenity in the name of purity causes suffering for real people. Not only for foreigners but also for the descendants of Hiroshima/ Nagasaki survivors, Ainu, and burakumin (a Japanese caste). Would one argue that Japanese people who have suffered from discrimination like those groups should not be able to migrate? The Okinawans who left Japan for South America in hopes of improving their financial status after suffering country-internal persecution would not be best pleased by that attitude...
There are also the 'pull' factors to be considered. The UK, like Japan, has a strong demand for foreign workers in many industries. It benefits from their labour. Japan has taken the route of allowing many migrant workers to be exploited on temporary visas, which obviously limits their employment rights (descendants of ethnic Japanese can get better rights & opportunities...). Agriculture in Japan is becoming more and more dependent on these labourers, just as farmers in the UK need seasonal labourers. So migrants are kind've required if we want to eat many foodstuffs...
Migration and transhumanistic flows predate nation states and notions that we can identify particular localities with ethnicities. They'll probably outlast them too. Here's a bit of bombast that links to a report on how the UK perceives immigration relative to the known information:
Or maybe because Cuba government is a soviet style oppressive government far worse than any right wing military dictatorship who will torture and kill dissidents and cubans are not overrepresented on criminal statistics?
Same goes for non-Cuban refugees--crime rates are low, and by definition, all refugees are fleeing horrible situations. I'm not familiar with the situation regarding Cuban refugees, and I have no particular opinion on US policy in that regard. But this doesn't seem like a vicious Obama crackdown on refugees.
To be fair, though, the Obama administration wasn't generally friendly to immigration. His administration famously deported more immigrants than his predecessor.
Sarah Sanders at the press briefing today refused to rule out either the suspension of habeas corpus OR posse comitatus in regards to the caravan. So, just to recap, 5000 US troops, and a possible suspension of basic fundamental governmental principles to protect against people who are MONTHS away. They are trying to get into the United States for asylum. Whether you agree they should be able to or not is immaterial. The Trump Administration is acting like they are coming to lob bombs over the border. This is beyond reckless.
If they want asylum, why are they not claiming it in the countries they are passing through?
I don't know why the part where I said "even if you don't believe they should be able to apply for asylum" is being ignored, but that is not even the point I'm making. Estimates are there are 4000 people in this caravan at most. Sending 5000 troops to the border to "meet" it is 1.25 trained military personal for every single person traveling. Moreover, it is a military action to stop people who aren't in any realm of reality a military threat. And also happen to be over 3 months away. Shit, even IF you viewed a bunch of refugees walking on foot as a serious national security risk, what possible reason is there to send troops 100 days in advance?? It's a political stunt with troops as the pawns. And it should be treated as such.
Shep Smith, the ONE sane voice left at FOX News after all these years (I continue to be mystified how he stays on the air) sums it up:
Same hypocrites that said Mueller shouldn't present any criminal charges within like two months of the midterms elections. Then they turn around and use the actual US military in a political stunt one week before the midterms. Then Fox News, state running media, reports 'the invading caravan stopped in Mexico because Trump sent the military, praise him!!!!!!!!'
Or maybe because Cuba government is a soviet style oppressive government far worse than any right wing military dictatorship who will torture and kill dissidents and cubans are not overrepresented on criminal statistics?
The reason for Obama ending the special treatment was the desire for normalization of relations with Cuba, i.e. it was more of a pro-Cuba than anti-Cuba policy. Originally the US guaranteed special status for anyone leaving Cuba as part of a wide suite of policies intended to undermine and destabilize the Cuban government. With the normalization of relations (covering lots of things like travel, visas and diplomatic relations), the special treatment for refugees was no longer relevant and was brought into line with other countries.
Sarah Sanders at the press briefing today refused to rule out either the suspension of habeas corpus OR posse comitatus in regards to the caravan. So, just to recap, 5000 US troops, and a possible suspension of basic fundamental governmental principles to protect against people who are MONTHS away. They are trying to get into the United States for asylum. Whether you agree they should be able to or not is immaterial. The Trump Administration is acting like they are coming to lob bombs over the border. This is beyond reckless.
I agree that the caravan is not an actual (as opposed to political) threat. With months of preparation time available, setting up a system to process a few thousand asylum seekers at once should be child's play.
The problem is not so much with the numbers arriving, but with the increasingly cumbersome system used to review them. As at March 2018 there were 690,000 open applications for removal. That figure has been climbing very sharply over the last few years and applicants can now expect to wait several years for their cases to be determined. You can see from my reference to the numbers above that this is not the result of increasing numbers applying - those numbers have actually gone down substantially as the backlog has been climbing. Rather I would say it's the result of the increasing politicization of the system.
In other circumstances I am sure Trump would have wanted to use this caravan in the same way as he previously did with the child separation policy, i.e. make an example of them to discourage others. If several thousand people took more than a year to walk to the US, only to all be immediately put on a bus back you can see how discouraging that could be to anyone else tempted (I'm not suggesting by the way that would be following proper legal protocol, but that wouldn't matter to Trump). In this case the political calculation has been that there's currently more advantage to be gaining by hyping up the situation to affect domestic voting - though of course the caravan won't actually arrive for many months so Trump still has plenty of opportunity to change the narrative again in future.
Or maybe because Cuba government is a soviet style oppressive government far worse than any right wing military dictatorship who will torture and kill dissidents and cubans are not overrepresented on criminal statistics?
The reason for Obama ending the special treatment was the desire for normalization of relations with Cuba, i.e. it was more of a pro-Cuba than anti-Cuba policy. Originally the US guaranteed special status for anyone leaving Cuba as part of a wide suite of policies intended to undermine and destabilize the Cuban government. With the normalization of relations (covering lots of things like travel, visas and diplomatic relations), the special treatment for refugees was no longer relevant and was brought into line with other countries.
Cuba is literally a North Korea style country who almost destroyed the world during the missile crisis. And Cuba was much better under Fulgencio Batista
Only one more thing. I never understood why so many Americans think that below Texas border, everyone and everything is the same but after i checked the numbers, i finally understood. Uruguayan Americans are just 66k ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Americans ) while Mexican Americans are 36,668,018 that means that for each Uruguayan American, there are 550 Mexican Americans and yes, the average Haitian, average Uruguayan and average Colombian are completely different.
Or maybe because Cuba government is a soviet style oppressive government far worse than any right wing military dictatorship who will torture and kill dissidents and cubans are not overrepresented on criminal statistics?
The reason for Obama ending the special treatment was the desire for normalization of relations with Cuba, i.e. it was more of a pro-Cuba than anti-Cuba policy. Originally the US guaranteed special status for anyone leaving Cuba as part of a wide suite of policies intended to undermine and destabilize the Cuban government. With the normalization of relations (covering lots of things like travel, visas and diplomatic relations), the special treatment for refugees was no longer relevant and was brought into line with other countries.
Cuba is literally a North Korea style country who almost destroyed the world during the missile crisis. And Cuba was much better under Fulgencio Batista
Only one more thing. I never understood why so many Americans think that below Texas border, everyone and everything is the same but after i checked the numbers, i finally understood. Uruguayan Americans are just 66k ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Americans ) while Mexican Americans are 36,668,018 that means that for each Uruguayan American, there are 550 Mexican Americans and yes, the average Haitian, average Uruguayan and average Colombian are completely different.
Most Americans do not think about the average Uruguayan or Haitian at all. They think about Mexicans somewhat since there are a lot of people here who came from Mexico. If you speak Spanish, expect to get the police called on you in some places. Like these right wing people did:
Ok, lets bite on the "Why America" (even though allegedly, over 1000 of the refugees have claimed asylum in Mexico, but that's besides the point).
The Caravan is made up of people from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Just using the Canadian Government's travel adversary all three have at least high degree of caution due to violence. With three cities in Honduras; Chamelecón, Choloma and Cofradía, being advised to avoid all travel.
If these people are fleeing violence, Nicaragua to the south has civil unrest and people are being told to avoid non essential travel. Belize to the north also has a high degree of crime.
That leaves Mexico, where the North and Western States have an avoid non-essential travel warning, for you guessed it, high levels of violence and organized crime.
That leaves the next most northern country, the US, as the asylum seekers best option.
In the state of Rio, the court ordered the UFF faculty to remove from the Law School facade a flag with the message "UFF Law Against Fascism". The judge even determined the arrest of the director unless the flag was removed within 12 hours.
UERJ also reported police forces removing flags in support of Marielle Franco and another one that reads "Anti-fascism UERJ". In Rio Grande do Sul, an event entitled "Against fascism, Pro Democracy" was also prohibited by the electoral court.
In Mato Grosso do Sul, a public class entitled "Crushing Fascism" was also censored. In Pará, a lecture was interrupted by the military police that questioned the professor about the ideological content of the class and threatened to arrest him. Many other student movements and organizations reported military police forces inside classrooms, student units, academic directories, confiscating any sort of materials with 'anti-fascist' or 'pro-democracy' content." '
Things are escalating so fast that now the Colombian government said they will back Bolsonaro if he decides to tackle Venezuela in a military intervention.
Normally the US would possibly be on the side of the nominal Democracy there but now Columbia and Brazil probably have the green genocide light.
Or maybe because Cuba government is a soviet style oppressive government far worse than any right wing military dictatorship who will torture and kill dissidents and cubans are not overrepresented on criminal statistics?
You can't be serious! Cuba have done it's fair share of human right abuses, for sure, but to place them as the WORST? Worse than say, Pinochets Chile? Or forget about Chile, fairly sure Saudi Arabias US supported colonial war in Yemen have killed more people than Castro have. Meanwhile, Cubans intervene to end US supported South Africa apartheid. Basically, stop romantisizing capitalism.
@ Japan: Their government policies are racist, for sure, but their people is just like everyone else. Some are racist, some aren't. That said, I am willing to not hold it against them seeing how they are fairly non-imperialist. I mean sure, they sent 5 guys to Iraq, but someone elsw started that war, and they sign every "free" trade agreement there is, but they didn't author them. They are passive. EU does not really start wars, but they sure do support them, and they instigate many trade deals. They are active... however, they also accept a shittonne of refuges, so they take their responsibility.
Now, on the other hand, USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia are the most active, but absolutely adamantily REFUSE to take ANY responsibility. So, yeah, I blame them, because they are the most guilty party. End of discussion.
Cuba is literally a North Korea style country who almost destroyed the world during the missile crisis. And Cuba was much better under Fulgencio Batista
The Cuban missile crisis represented an argument between the USA and USSR - the Cuban government was not party to the decisions or negotiations during the crisis.
As for the link you posted that was a story about Cuban exiles and there's no surprise they had no love for Castro. I've no particular desire to defend Castro, but it is the case that despite the best efforts of the US, he remained popular with most Cubans throughout his life. I suppose you could say that, as brutal dictators go, he was a pretty good one - showing far more concern for the provision of things like education and health care than dictators typically do (and he can't reasonably be compared with North Korea in that regard). He also presided over a country with far lower levels of crime and corruption than Cuba under Batista.
Trump now plans an Executive Order to abolish the 14th Amendment. There is NO getting around the wording of this portion of the Constitution. If you are someone who takes the 2nd Amendment literally, the idea this one is ambiguous or up for debate is absurd. Now just flat-out approaching tyranny:
There is no reason to assume such an order would actually carry any weight (though who the hell knows what the Kavanaugh court will decide). The fact he thinks he can, or is just using the idea of "foreign babies" to gin up xenophobia a week out from the mid-terms reveals all you need to know.
Conservatives in recent years have used the phrase "and under jurisdiction thereof" to argue that illegal residents aren't under that umbrella. They should really chew on what that means for a few minutes before making that argument. Because if that's true, you're arguing we have no right to do anything to them from a law enforcement perspective at all.
Trump now plans an Executive Order to abolish the 14th Amendment. There is NO getting around the wording of this portion of the Constitution. If you are someone who takes the 2nd Amendment literally, the idea this one is ambiguous or up for debate is absurd. Now just flat-out approaching tyranny:
There is no reason to assume such an order would actually carry any weight (though who the hell knows what the Kavanaugh court will decide). The fact he thinks he can, or is just using the idea of "foreign babies" to gin up xenophobia a week out from the mid-terms reveals all you need to know.
Conservatives in recent years have used the phrase "and under jurisdiction thereof" to argue that illegal residents aren't under that umbrella. They should really chew on what that means for a few minutes before making that argument. Because if that's true, you're arguing we have no right to do anything to them from a law enforcement perspective at all.
The common sense meaning of it would be that common citizens coming here and having children, their kids would be American citizens.
But if...Putin's daughter (does he have one?) came here and had a kid, that kid would not have citizenship, because diplomatic immunity means they are NOT subject to the jurisdiction thereof of America.
I picked Putin because he was the first name to come to mind, not for any political reason.
I like your comments on renewable energy. I work for a chemical company so I keep apprised on current technologies myself. I have no problem with renewables as long as they're at least close in price to what we're paying now. What rankled me was this 'carbon tax' BS. Talk about a regressive tax. That would have taken the cake. The Democrats are probably lucky that idea died on the vine.
Btw: the oil industry will not go away just because of renewable energy. Too much of our very existence is tied to petroleum, from plastics, to cosmetics, inks, drugs, lubricants, roads, rocket and airplane fuel, and probably a lot more that I can't think of right now. It will always be one of the most powerful industries.
The fact is that not all the costs of using petroleum are reflected in the price of petroleum.
Second, there was a time that everything we built used lumber and timber. From our transportation to our food, to our buildings, to our energy use.
You ever think about the timber industry as being one of the most powerful industries any more?
They actually are still pretty powerful believe it or not, especially since they're also allied with the paper industry.
It's not obvious to me that anti-Semitism is one of Trump's prejudices. To my knowledge, the only generalizing statement he's made relating to Jews was a very old one, decades ago, in which he complained about some of his accountants being black, and that he wanted his accountants to be guys wearing yarmulkes. It's not a great statement for multiple reasons, but that doesn't seem like quite enough.
Trump has criticized Soros, yes, and Soros happens to be the target of a lot of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. But unless Trump has directly referenced those specific anti-Semitic ideas, this is more of a "guilt by association" thing. I think it's more accurate to say that anti-Semites have similar ideas as Trump. I think the same holds for Fox and anti-Semitism.
As @Balrog99 has noted, you don't need to know Soros is Jewish to be critical of him. Some of his family members were surprised to learn the man was Jewish.
Took the words out of mouth regarding Soros and Trump's lack of anti semitism.
I would be surprised if you could find even one bad thing Trump said about the Jews. Attempting to pin him for some random dudes antisemitism is absurd. I thought politicizing a tragedy was a bad thing, anyway.
This is a perfect example of why the news is utter trash. Three hit pieces, not one sentance where be actually makes a disparaging remark or anything of the sort. Instead, they are picking apart memes, events he didnt go to, and talking about how he referenced "Jewish sounding names". Desperately reaching to a truly absurd extent.
You clearly don't need a lot of facts to back up a hit piece, as these articles prove.
Trump now plans an Executive Order to abolish the 14th Amendment. There is NO getting around the wording of this portion of the Constitution. If you are someone who takes the 2nd Amendment literally, the idea this one is ambiguous or up for debate is absurd. Now just flat-out approaching tyranny:
There is no reason to assume such an order would actually carry any weight (though who the hell knows what the Kavanaugh court will decide). The fact he thinks he can, or is just using the idea of "foreign babies" to gin up xenophobia a week out from the mid-terms reveals all you need to know.
Conservatives in recent years have used the phrase "and under jurisdiction thereof" to argue that illegal residents aren't under that umbrella. They should really chew on what that means for a few minutes before making that argument. Because if that's true, you're arguing we have no right to do anything to them from a law enforcement perspective at all.
All the more reason to vote Democrat to put a stop to this lawlessness from Trump. Republicans have proven to be unwilling or unable to stand up to his blatant corruption and complete disregard of the law. They are completely impotent. Vote blue and once Trump's hold over them is done you might help Republicans regain their goddamned senses.
"Wouldn't you like to see, when a man talks about his bad hair day rather than people killed in a synogogue or sent bombs, 'Get that bum outta that office! Get him outta here!'?"
In the state of Rio, the court ordered the UFF faculty to remove from the Law School facade a flag with the message "UFF Law Against Fascism". The judge even determined the arrest of the director unless the flag was removed within 12 hours.
UERJ also reported police forces removing flags in support of Marielle Franco and another one that reads "Anti-fascism UERJ". In Rio Grande do Sul, an event entitled "Against fascism, Pro Democracy" was also prohibited by the electoral court.
In Mato Grosso do Sul, a public class entitled "Crushing Fascism" was also censored. In Pará, a lecture was interrupted by the military police that questioned the professor about the ideological content of the class and threatened to arrest him. Many other student movements and organizations reported military police forces inside classrooms, student units, academic directories, confiscating any sort of materials with 'anti-fascist' or 'pro-democracy' content." '
Well, that seals it. Jair Bolsonaro is indeed a full-blown fascist in the strongest sense of the word, and that is not a word I use lightly. He's using military force to stamp out dissent and censor history. He will make himself a military dictator unless he is stopped.
There is no alternative explanation for these events. There is no other motive than crushing the opposition through violent force.
He all but said he was going to be a dictator. He repeatedly praised the old military dictatorship.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
They are never who your tricked brain hopes that they would be and people rarely change that much. Especially when there is already years of evidence of their true self.
This is true with Trump as well. With Trump there was plenty of evidence that he was a lying conman but people wanted to believe the image in their head.
Voters somehow convinced themselves that a thrice married guy who cheated on all his wives and obviously never read a Bible was a man of faith.
They believed that the Trump University scammer who even lied about the number of floors in his Trump Towers was a straight shooter.
They felt the guy who said on tape that he can get away with sexual assault and who ran a newspaper ad calling for the death penalty for men who were proven innocent was going to expertly navigate foreign policy.
They imagined the guy with seven bankruptcies who stiffed contractors all the time and managed to fail at running a Casino was a fiscal Conservative and was going to 'get the best deals'.
They thought the guy that inherited his wealth, lied to Fobes about how much money he had, and has a star on the Hollywood Wall of Fame was a champion of Joe Mainstreet.
People fool themselves with the help of a conman. Maybe they hoped he was 'only' a racist with their best interests at heart, despite all the evidence otherwise. But when someone shows you who they are you have to believe them.
Comments
Reducing the use of plastic will probably involve increasing efficiencies (3D printers might make more stuff reusable) rather than replacements. Until we have a commercially competitive replacement, we're probably going to keep using plastic for everything. Unlike oil, gas, and coal, we don't already have a strong replacement for plastic.
Assuming the cultural & ethnic homogenity of Japan is to unquestioningly adopt a narrative which has developed in defiance of local evidence that would detract from Japan's supposed purity. That narrative has obvious political uses of course.
For example in linguistic terms many dialects of Japanese are mutually unintelligible, which under different sociopolitical circumstances might lead to them being classed as different languages. This is especially strongly pronounced in the case of Okinawan dialects which are referred to as Ryukyuan, and were the lingua franca of that region prior to its political annexation in 1879. (Okinawans are often treated in a discriminatory fashion on mainland Japan as an aside.) From a linguistic perspective Japan has many languages, not just standard Japanese, despite local narratives that would identify language, ethnicity, & nationality.
Similarly any cultural history of Japan would include its importation of kanji, Buddhism, architecture, and political structures from west & east. All events connected to migration and trade, even in the case of a supposedly pure society. Cultures grow together, and profit in more ways than financially.
Ethnic homogenity can also be overplayed. It is relatively recent - pre WW2 imperial Japan took in a million migrants to help its economy along. One can talk of generations of Koreans who are culturally Japanese while being denied citizenship. Japanese women who lost citizenship by marrying foreigners. Children of mixed marriages. The children of Japanese who were abandoned in Manchuria who are ethnically half or full-Japanese but who culturally are mostly Chinese and have a torturous road to prove they have the right t Japanese citizenship. People who fell through the gaps and became stateless despite being culturally Japanese. Prizing ethnic homogenity in the name of purity causes suffering for real people. Not only for foreigners but also for the descendants of Hiroshima/ Nagasaki survivors, Ainu, and burakumin (a Japanese caste).
Would one argue that Japanese people who have suffered from discrimination like those groups should not be able to migrate? The Okinawans who left Japan for South America in hopes of improving their financial status after suffering country-internal persecution would not be best pleased by that attitude...
There are also the 'pull' factors to be considered. The UK, like Japan, has a strong demand for foreign workers in many industries. It benefits from their labour. Japan has taken the route of allowing many migrant workers to be exploited on temporary visas, which obviously limits their employment rights (descendants of ethnic Japanese can get better rights & opportunities...). Agriculture in Japan is becoming more and more dependent on these labourers, just as farmers in the UK need seasonal labourers. So migrants are kind've required if we want to eat many foodstuffs...
Migration and transhumanistic flows predate nation states and notions that we can identify particular localities with ethnicities. They'll probably outlast them too. Here's a bit of bombast that links to a report on how the UK perceives immigration relative to the known information:
http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2018/10/29/new-study-shows-brexit-is-drenched-in-fake-news
To be fair, though, the Obama administration wasn't generally friendly to immigration. His administration famously deported more immigrants than his predecessor.
The US generally rejects most asylum applications (over the last 20 years the numbers accepted each year have been around 25,000 a year). That compares with the far larger numbers who have been removed/returned to their countries - that's been running at about half a million a year recently, but was well over a million annually for the period 1990-2008). I would certainly expect the pattern to hold true in this case, so the likelihood is that a few hundred people at most would successfully gain asylum status - which hardly seems the existential threat currently being portrayed.
The problem is not so much with the numbers arriving, but with the increasingly cumbersome system used to review them. As at March 2018 there were 690,000 open applications for removal. That figure has been climbing very sharply over the last few years and applicants can now expect to wait several years for their cases to be determined. You can see from my reference to the numbers above that this is not the result of increasing numbers applying - those numbers have actually gone down substantially as the backlog has been climbing. Rather I would say it's the result of the increasing politicization of the system.
In other circumstances I am sure Trump would have wanted to use this caravan in the same way as he previously did with the child separation policy, i.e. make an example of them to discourage others. If several thousand people took more than a year to walk to the US, only to all be immediately put on a bus back you can see how discouraging that could be to anyone else tempted (I'm not suggesting by the way that would be following proper legal protocol, but that wouldn't matter to Trump). In this case the political calculation has been that there's currently more advantage to be gaining by hyping up the situation to affect domestic voting - though of course the caravan won't actually arrive for many months so Trump still has plenty of opportunity to change the narrative again in future.
Cuba is literally a North Korea style country who almost destroyed the world during the missile crisis. And Cuba was much better under Fulgencio Batista
Only one more thing. I never understood why so many Americans think that below Texas border, everyone and everything is the same but after i checked the numbers, i finally understood. Uruguayan Americans are just 66k ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Americans ) while Mexican Americans are 36,668,018 that means that for each Uruguayan American, there are 550 Mexican Americans and yes, the average Haitian, average Uruguayan and average Colombian are completely different.
A white lawyer threatened to call ICE on Spanish-speaking restaurant workers.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/5/16/17362712/white-man-lawyer-threatens-spanish-speaking-workers-new-york-aaron-schlossberg
A Guatemalan woman, eating with her 7-year-old child, according to NBC4 Washington had a white woman come up and scream at her "Go back to your f*cking country! You do not f*cking come over here and freeload on America!" she yelled at the diners, as captured on video.
https://www.bustle.com/p/a-white-woman-harassed-a-spanish-speaking-family-at-a-virginia-restaurant-in-a-racist-tirade-12796799
The Caravan is made up of people from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
Just using the Canadian Government's travel adversary all three have at least high degree of caution due to violence. With three cities in Honduras; Chamelecón, Choloma and Cofradía, being advised to avoid all travel.
If these people are fleeing violence, Nicaragua to the south has civil unrest and people are being told to avoid non essential travel. Belize to the north also has a high degree of crime.
That leaves Mexico, where the North and Western States have an avoid non-essential travel warning, for you guessed it, high levels of violence and organized crime.
That leaves the next most northern country, the US, as the asylum seekers best option.
Mexico is attempting to turn away another caravan that is now on their border with Guatemala and this caravan is allegedly more violent that the first.
In the state of Rio, the court ordered the UFF faculty to remove from the Law School facade a flag with the message "UFF Law Against Fascism". The judge even determined the arrest of the director unless the flag was removed within 12 hours.
UERJ also reported police forces removing flags in support of Marielle Franco and another one that reads "Anti-fascism UERJ". In Rio Grande do Sul, an event entitled "Against fascism, Pro Democracy" was also prohibited by the electoral court.
In Mato Grosso do Sul, a public class entitled "Crushing Fascism" was also censored. In Pará, a lecture was interrupted by the military police that questioned the professor about the ideological content of the class and threatened to arrest him.
Many other student movements and organizations reported military police forces inside classrooms, student units, academic directories, confiscating any sort of materials with 'anti-fascist' or 'pro-democracy' content." '
Things are escalating so fast that now the Colombian government said they will back Bolsonaro if he decides to tackle Venezuela in a military intervention.
Normally the US would possibly be on the side of the nominal Democracy there but now Columbia and Brazil probably have the green genocide light.
@ Japan: Their government policies are racist, for sure, but their people is just like everyone else. Some are racist, some aren't. That said, I am willing to not hold it against them seeing how they are fairly non-imperialist. I mean sure, they sent 5 guys to Iraq, but someone elsw started that war, and they sign every "free" trade agreement there is, but they didn't author them. They are passive. EU does not really start wars, but they sure do support them, and they instigate many trade deals. They are active... however, they also accept a shittonne of refuges, so they take their responsibility.
Now, on the other hand, USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia are the most active, but absolutely adamantily REFUSE to take ANY responsibility. So, yeah, I blame them, because they are the most guilty party. End of discussion.
As for the link you posted that was a story about Cuban exiles and there's no surprise they had no love for Castro. I've no particular desire to defend Castro, but it is the case that despite the best efforts of the US, he remained popular with most Cubans throughout his life. I suppose you could say that, as brutal dictators go, he was a pretty good one - showing far more concern for the provision of things like education and health care than dictators typically do (and he can't reasonably be compared with North Korea in that regard). He also presided over a country with far lower levels of crime and corruption than Cuba under Batista.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-plans-executive-order-to-limit-birthright-citizenship-today-2018-10-30/
There is no reason to assume such an order would actually carry any weight (though who the hell knows what the Kavanaugh court will decide). The fact he thinks he can, or is just using the idea of "foreign babies" to gin up xenophobia a week out from the mid-terms reveals all you need to know.
Conservatives in recent years have used the phrase "and under jurisdiction thereof" to argue that illegal residents aren't under that umbrella. They should really chew on what that means for a few minutes before making that argument. Because if that's true, you're arguing we have no right to do anything to them from a law enforcement perspective at all.
But if...Putin's daughter (does he have one?) came here and had a kid, that kid would not have citizenship, because diplomatic immunity means they are NOT subject to the jurisdiction thereof of America.
I picked Putin because he was the first name to come to mind, not for any political reason.
You clearly don't need a lot of facts to back
up a hit piece, as these articles prove.
Makes me laugh when people say the media is fair.
Trump confirms FBI report: White nationalists are as threatening as ISIS
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/30/1808297/-FBI-reported-white-nationalists-are-as-big-of-a-threat-as-ISIS-and-here-we-areGab, Site Where Synagogue Shooting Suspect Posted, Is Suspended
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/28/661532688/a-look-at-gab-the-free-speech-social-site-where-synagogue-shooting-suspect-poste?fbclid=IwAR2W39BCkrt-FrgYYLKYqa3IvRnVMRYC_YBqAt6FfFXv8HU3afDpMQGTbwMU.S. Citizen, Detained Without Charge by Trump Administration for a Year, Is Finally Free
https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/detention/us-citizen-detained-without-charge-trump-administration-year?fbclid=IwAR1NLY2M78jR4aGlVlu4r0cugTpDckLK4uB-87miCe1pbOcs9PhJJuMOo5YMissouri House GOP Primary Winner: ‘Hitler Was Right’
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2018/08/missouri-house-gop-primary-winner-hitler-was-right/?fbclid=IwAR2EqrOg3K0ndiTjdwbyO1uoSAoR8Ph0wgqNm-2D8VR2Mdrj2wr4o0vBVRsMSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace: Is it ‘a fluke no Republicans took to the airwaves to condemn Trump’ after shooting?
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/msnbcs-nicolle-wallace-fluke-no-republicans-took-airwaves-condemn-trump-shooting/?fbclid=IwAR0u3wRcBgJkArIbVpdp9ac41zldsvo_g3Ycilu62Fp6nYvgK2YAnQ6xMecDespite calls to stay away, Trump to visit Pittsburgh after massacre
https://www.washingtonpost.com/?reload=trueMuslims Raise More Than $180K For Pittsburgh Synagogue Victims
https://forward.com/fast-forward/412885/muslims-raise-more-than-180k-for-pittsburgh-synagogue-victims/Lawsuit accuses President Trump and his family of misleading investors
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lawsuit-accuses-president-trump-his-family-misleading-investors-n925851?fbclid=IwAR31ROdV3IcIU73Bojt6swcI8ZMGuGjV3wUw_n9HSMt_0BAAwLV3DDMb_aMPentagon to deploy 5,200 active duty troops to U.S.-Mexico border to halt migrant caravan
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/29/migrant-caravan-troops-border/1805864002/?fbclid=IwAR1BK1P_PrDSMt-pRiJlj5y5FPqTyG0wVS0xMi3xRYNe4H6e6hOhv-VxF08And something on the History side...
Archaeologists find 300,000-year-old stone tools in Saudi Arabia
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/10/archaeologists-find-300000-year-old-stone-tools-in-saudi-arabia/?fbclid=IwAR3FzGdJwTLChrSDK6SvBBSIjxPoYZcIkwYg5C4WkLMuDc_VPRM5NJxNfskTrump eyeing executive order to end birthright citizenship, a move most legal experts say runs afoul of the Constitution
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-eyeing-executive-order-to-end-citizenship-for-children-of-noncitizens-born-on-us-soil/2018/10/30/66892050-dc29-11e8-b3f0-62607289efee_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3cffeec2d43a"Wouldn't you like to see, when a man talks about his bad hair day rather than people killed in a synogogue or sent bombs, 'Get that bum outta that office! Get him outta here!'?"
Kansas Mosque Bomber's Attorney Asks for Leniency Because Bomber Listened to Trump.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/30/1808403/-Kansan-Mosque-Bomber-s-Attorney-Asks-for-Leniency-Because-Bomber-Listened-to-Trump?detail=emaildkreAttorneys representing a Kansas man convicted of a 2016 plot to massacre Somali Muslim refugees by bombing a mosque and apartment complex in Garden City, Kan., have asked a federal judge to consider a more lenient sentence, arguing that President Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric should be taken into account as the “backdrop” for the case.
Synagogue shooter explained exactly why he killed—Republican conspiracy theories
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/27/1807716/-Synagogue-shooter-explained-exactly-why-he-killed-Republican-conspiracy-theories?detail=emaildkrePittsburgh suspect Robert Bowers posted this AM “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people..I’m going in” https://archive.fo/1gI5n pic.twitter.com/Bj7T7E8Yzh
11 People Dead in Pittsburgh, drumpf Jokes About Having "A Bad Hair Day."
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/27/1807738/-11-People-Dead-in-Pittsburgh-drumpf-Jokes-About-Having-A-Bad-Hair-Day?detail=emaildkreFox News Blurring Images Of Stickers On Bomber's Van. Here's A Clear Shot:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/26/1807448/-Fox-News-Blurring-Images-Of-Stickers-On-Bomber-s-Van-Here-s-A-Clear-Shot?detail=emaildkreTrump's 'this Bomb stuff' tweet gets even worse
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/26/1807493/-Trump-s-this-Bomb-stuff-tweets-gets-even-worse?detail=emaildkreWelp, There's One RW Meme Shot to Hell - MAGABomber Sayoc's Van Photographed in December, 2017.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/26/1807534/-Welp-There-s-One-RW-Meme-Shot-to-Hell-MAGABomber-Sayoc-s-Van-Photographed-in-December-2017?detail=emaildkrePolitico: White House Fears Electoral "Wipeout" in Florida.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/26/1807348/-Politico-White-House-Fears-Electoral-Wipeout-in-Florida?detail=emaildkreThere's a stronger defamation case against Trump, and it's headed for a deposition
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/25/1807149/-There-s-a-stronger-defamation-case-against-Trump-and-it-s-headed-for-a-deposition?detail=emaildkreFlorida official citing 'stand your ground' defense charged with murder after shooting shoplifter
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/20/1805981/-Florida-official-citing-Stand-Your-Ground-defense-charged-with-murder-after-shooting-shoplifter?detail=emailLLKushner gave the Saudi Crown Prince a "hit list" of enemies from US intel, including Khashoggi?
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/22/1806322/-Kushner-gave-the-Saudi-Crown-Prince-a-hit-list-of-enemies-from-US-intel-including-Khashoggi?detail=emaildkreAn indicted Republican used racism, lies and Trump to attack his opponent. It didn’t go well.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/17/1805145/-An-indicted-Republican-used-racism-lies-and-Trump-to-attack-his-opponent-It-didn-t-go-well?detail=emaildkreKavanaugh's dragging the Supreme Court down and taking the GOP with him
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/19/1805638/-Kavanaugh-s-dragging-the-Supreme-Court-down-and-taking-the-GOP-with-him?detail=emaildkreJust one in three Americans has a lot of confidence in the Supreme Court following Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation. That’s more people than think Kavanaugh told the truth: Just one in four believe Brett was completely honest before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Conservatives got caught running a program to get federal clerks to influence their judges
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/19/1805716/-Conservatives-just-got-caught-running-a-program-to-get-federal-clerks-to-influence-their-judges?detail=emaildkreThere is no alternative explanation for these events. There is no other motive than crushing the opposition through violent force.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
They are never who your tricked brain hopes that they would be and people rarely change that much.
Especially when there is already years of evidence of their true self.
This is true with Trump as well. With Trump there was plenty of evidence that he was a lying conman but people wanted to believe the image in their head.
Voters somehow convinced themselves that a thrice married guy who cheated on all his wives and obviously never read a Bible was a man of faith.
They believed that the Trump University scammer who even lied about the number of floors in his Trump Towers was a straight shooter.
They felt the guy who said on tape that he can get away with sexual assault and who ran a newspaper ad calling for the death penalty for men who were proven innocent was going to expertly navigate foreign policy.
They imagined the guy with seven bankruptcies who stiffed contractors all the time and managed to fail at running a Casino was a fiscal Conservative and was going to 'get the best deals'.
They thought the guy that inherited his wealth, lied to Fobes about how much money he had, and has a star on the Hollywood Wall of Fame was a champion of Joe Mainstreet.
People fool themselves with the help of a conman. Maybe they hoped he was 'only' a racist with their best interests at heart, despite all the evidence otherwise. But when someone shows you who they are you have to believe them.
Boston gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger killed in prison: Boston Globe
https://www.yahoo.com/news/boston-gangster-james-whitey-bulger-found-dead-prison-165646636.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews
Nobody seems to know yet if he died of natural causes or had "help"...