The Goat Pen

Don Anderson · Top Commenter
We saved Big Bird but killed the Twinkie. 18,000 people lost their jobs, but Big Bird and free birth control are safe. Good job.

VDH wrote:Imagine, for a minute, that the Republican leadership did attempt to negotiate the “grand bargain,” a platitude as constantly voiced as it is never defined. If Republicans were willing to grant Dream Act–like amnesty, what exactly would they ask for in exchange? The completion of the border fence? Employer fines? E-Verify? Deportation of millions of “unDream” illegal immigrants who do not meet the above criteria?

For all practical purposes, “comprehensive reform” means granting amnesty but also leaving the border fence uncompleted, having a guest-worker program, and issuing green cards to millions of illegal residents. If we were to deport the tens of thousands of Mexican nationals in our prisons, or the hundreds of thousands on some form of public assistance, does anyone believe that would win over the Latino leadership? The Reagan-era (1986) Simpson-Mazzoli Act (which required employers to verify immigration status, and which also amnestied about 3 million illegals) led to greater influxes from Mexico, did not stop calls for more amnesties, and certainly did not swell Latino support for Republicans.

Among most Mexican-Americans that I know there may have been just as much outrage at Romney for advocating legal immigration based on skills and education rather than family ties, as there was furor for his talk of “self-deportation.” Is it not hurtful (and seen as racist) to prefer that someone immigrate from Slovakia with an engineering degree and some capital rather than from Oaxaca with no money and without a high-school diploma? Under the present system, a Mexican national who is an unskilled worker can massage citizenship far more easily by virtue of ethnic clout and kindred ties to a Mexican-American than can a South Korean dentist or Greek doctor or Hungarian capitalist. Why would Mexican-Americans not favor such a system, and why would they not resent Republicans who advocated legal immigration based on higher education and specialized skills? Are the new Republican centrists to win the Latino vote by avoiding talk about basing legal immigration largely on criteria other than ethnic and family affiliations?

There are other, rarely spoken, reasons for Latinos to prefer Obama that have little to do with Republican positions on border enforcement. One is a sort of minority solidarity, in which the president, by virtue of his liberal and African-American profile, is seen as somehow more sensitive to other minorities, or at least in some vague mindset representing a shared challenge to the so-called white status quo.....

....The model for Republicans should be the Italian immigration experience. Italian-Americans were once a monolithic Democratic pool of millions. But, as immigration from Sicily and the rest of Italy greatly slowed down, and as the natural course of American capitalism brought Italian-Americans into the middle class and differentiated them into subclasses of higher and lower incomes, “Italian” ceased to be an ethnic straitjacket. Today, Italian-Americans may vote partly on the basis of tribal pride, but not in any predictable political pattern. Italian conservatives have no problem voting against Andrew Cuomo or Nancy Pelosi, while liberal Italians did not particularly rally to Rudy Giuliani. The 30 percent of Latinos who opposed Barack Obama may suggest that we are seeing the beginning of such a phenomenon.

What, then, should Republicans do? Stick to their melting-pot principles and apply them across the board, regardless of race and tribe, emphasizing the content of our characters rather than the color of our skins. Of course, avoid gratuitous polarization and loose talk. Close the border, and invest in the formidable powers of American assimilation, integration, and intermarriage to achieve for a soon-to-be-closed pool of Latinos what it has already done for Japanese and Italians. Consider the Dream Act only if it is coupled with deportation of many of those who do not meet its requirements and with employer sanctions and border enforcement. A particular Italian-American may sometimes be indistinguishable to the eye from a particular Mexican-American, but the former does not qualify for affirmative action, does not take Italian Studies courses, is not labeled a victimized minority because of ethnic affinity with millions of poor Sicilian newcomers — and is not beholden any longer to the Democratic party.....

If Republicans do not believe in a society in which race is to be incidental, not essential to our characters, and if they cannot stand on such principles, then why should anyone else?

10ac wrote:

Don Anderson · Top Commenter
We saved Big Bird but killed the Twinkie. 18,000 people lost their jobs, but Big Bird and free birth control are safe. Good job.

So yeah, blame the big, bad unions. A declining market share and predatory lenders had nothing to do with it.

Johnette's Daddy wrote:

Don Anderson · Top Commenter
We saved Big Bird but killed the Twinkie. 18,000 people lost their jobs, but Big Bird and free birth control are safe. Good job.

The problem with Hostess is/was the vulture capitalists

innocentbystander wrote:Basically, what it boils down to is this: the more education Latinos get, the more they get access to the middle class (instead of being servants to the middle class), the more likely they are to vote GOP.

Johnette's Daddy wrote:

innocentbystander wrote:Basically, what it boils down to is this: the more education Latinos get, the more they get access to the middle class (instead of being servants to the middle class), the more likely they are to vote GOP.

Please listen to Dr. Hanson! In another 50 years, the gap will be almost even.

Seriously, he completely ignores the race-based white-brown politics that have defined the western US pretty much since the Mexican-American War. The primary political objective of whites in Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, California and Oklahoma for the past 120+ years is to make sure that Central-Americans don't become the major voting block in the region.

Shoot, the whole reason marijuana was first outlawed was because Texans felt that it would curb Mexican immigration, since a lot of Mexicans with native heritage used mj for medicinal purposes (in teas, etc.).

Hanson does not acknowledge that European immigrants and central american immigrants are treated in vastly different ways. Even though most Mexicans consider themselves "white"," they have to self-identify as such. Italians, Poles, Spaniards, Brits, etc., do not.

Toemeesleather wrote:The best part is that unions just voted for 4 more yearzzz!!!! of declining wages/malaise....welcome to the new normal....

innocentbystander wrote:

Johnette's Daddy wrote:

Don Anderson · Top Commenter
We saved Big Bird but killed the Twinkie. 18,000 people lost their jobs, but Big Bird and free birth control are safe. Good job.

The problem with Hostess is/was the vulture capitalists

What is the definition of "vulture" capitalists and how are they differenciated from any other kinds of "capitalists?" While you are at it (Pastor) what are the possible kinds of "capitalists?" Which ones are good and which ones are bad (and why?)

Johnette's Daddy wrote:

innocentbystander wrote:What is the definition of "vulture" capitalists and how are they differenciated from any other kinds of "capitalists?" While you are at it (Pastor) what are the possible kinds of "capitalists?" Which ones are good and which ones are bad (and why?)

I'm all for capitalism - my retirement fund is managed by cold-eyed, flinty-hearted puritans who vomit blood at the thought of paying one extra nickle in taxes or giving up a single penny in profit. They also, however, follow the Rotary code and don't get involved in shady deals just to make a buck.

"Vulture capitalists" are those who jeopardize the system by making predatory deals with the idea that they're going to screw someone and it doesn't matter what the fallout is.

Perfect case in point - the sub-prime collapse. From 2004-2009, I pastored in one of the fastest growing communities in southern California with a housing market that was meteoric. During testimony time, I would invariably have a member testify about how they were able to buy a beuatiful new home despite having no job/low income/monumentally awful credit.

In one case, a member who had no job came to me to get my opinion on the deal she was offered: for $12K down (which she would borrow from her parents), she'd get a 4 bdrm/4 bath house in a gated community across from the golf course for $975/month (which she could swing with SSI and her grown kids who lived with her chipping in).

Johnette's Daddy wrote:I advised her against it -

Johnette's Daddy wrote:betting on the market staying hot was risky after so much sustained growth - and I confronted the loan people, one of whom was an officer at my church. Long story short, I asked him not to market his services at the church, he got pissed at me, bad mouthed me and left the church to go to the big non-denominational church where all the white folks attended.

Johnette's Daddy wrote:The lady I was advising left the church and bought the house, too. A year later, the market crashed and a year after that, she lost the house.

Jungle Rat wrote:Romney = Vulture

bluetick wrote:Give it up, JD. This guy doesn't know anything about how certain private equity firms work. Outfits like Bain operate on a corrupted form of capitalism calculated not so much to produce more revenue for the corporations it takes charge of as to transfer their assets into the pockets of those who've taken them over. You can call it vulture capitalism but it's really a form of self-enrichment. Togh shit - for the Bain's to achieve their mercenary purpose, workers have to be fired or have their pension voided, or just as likely the business itself must be driven into the ground. Hey - it's just business.