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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: State of the USA (in reply to Guest)
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quote:
I am used to the knee jerk reaction from Americans like Bill when you criticize ANY part of the society or the country. It's the classic: "Well, if you don't like it, why did you come here in the first place!?" What an ignorant and ridiculous response! And to see Ricardo back some of these ideas up was the most surprising. I don't think you folks understand why people come to this country.
Since you have the arrogance to both criticize me by name on the Foro and misrepresent my statements and thoughts, I have no choice but to respond. Your first mistake is in assuming my response was a "knee jerk reaction." to criticism of "ANY part of the society or the country." My response was to the claim that the United States is "empty on the inside," which implies there is nothing worthy of the society, it is a moral vacuum. It was not knee jerk, and it was meant to rebut such a sweeping generalization that lacked evidence.
As for racism, of course it exists, and there are plenty of racists out there, but what you fail to recognize is there are plenty of good people who have fought against it and continue to do so. If your complaint is that racism has not been banished, then say so. But don't suggest that the US is a complete moral vacuum that the phrase "empty on the inside" implies just because racism remains a problem.
Nowhere in my comment will you find the quote, or anything close to it, that you attribute to me: "Well, if you don't like it, why did you come here in the first place!?" Nowhere! You have made this up out of whole cloth. I challenged the statement that the US is "empty on the inside." I did not, explicitly or implicitly, question the poster on his reasons for coming here, even if he considers it "empty on the inside." I don't believe the poster in question believes it is completely "empty on the inside" either, as he saw fit to advance his medical education here.
Finally, I don't know if you have a problem with reading comprehension or if you deliberately misrepresented my statements and thoughts in order to create a straw man to criticize. Either way, I suggest you carefully consider your responses to comments you might find problematical.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 22 2020 18:41:08
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: State of the USA (in reply to Guest)
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quote:
I didn't misunderstand or misrepresent anything. Your posts in the other thread said it all. You know what you said. And you just lost all my respect (if you had any to begin with that is). But of course, you won't care about the opinion of an immigrant that wasn't born in this country. 'Merica!
You certainly did misrepresent what I wrote, and I referred to my posts in my response to your unsubstantiated criticisms above. In fact the quote you attributed to me is a total fabrication, and with your latest rant I assume it was deliberate. And your latest diatribe regarding "an immigrant that wasn't born in this country. 'Merica!'" makes no sense and can only be attributed to your fevered imagination.
That's all I have to say on the matter, as I refuse to engage with someone who misrepresents others' statements and obviously is looking for a pissing match. Look elsewhere, my time is too important.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 23 2020 0:24:46
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rombsix
Posts: 7805
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon
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RE: State of the USA (in reply to Guest)
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Hey folks,
I sent a PM to Ricardo and Bill to clarify my original post, but I don't know if the PM's went through because I never heard back.
What I meant when I said "shiny on the outside, empty on the inside, like a bubble" is not about the country. I think it's a country that has pros and cons, just like any other country (including my own).
What I was trying to say was that in my country, if someone is racist, they just say it and behave that way, without trying to claim otherwise or hide it.
In my experience of living in the south of the USA, people here don't seem to like confrontation/conflict at all, so they often like to sugar-coat things to make them sound/seem more palatable. As such, they behave in a racist way, but they try to portray that they are not being racist. I think the better term here is "discrimination" rather than racism.
That is what I was referring to with "shiny on the outside, empty on the inside". I meant that folks here make it sound like they are not discriminating, but they are, and this is often related to the seemingly always-increasing need to be politically correct in the USA for fear of litigation. I sense the country here has a very litigious culture that ultimately boils down to one gaining or losing money, which seems to be the MAIN driving factor for mostly everything in the USA (and I see this especially so in healthcare, and increasingly so as quickly as over just the past 8 years I've been here).
I have lived most of my USA life in the south, so this may be a biased view, and perhaps it is. When I lived in the northeast for a year, people were more prone to just say it like it is, more so like folks would function in my country. If they don't like you, they'll just say so.
I would much rather prefer that if someone doesn't like me because I'm an Arab or whatever, that they simply say they don't, rather than try to make it seem like they do, when in reality they don't. That's what I meant by saying "shiny on the outside, empty on the inside". It means that the person is trying to appear good on the outside but then stabs you in the back when you turn around.
One simple way of showing this is how many universities (which is the realm in which I work) often say they are "equal opportunity employers" but then they very clearly discriminate against you because of visa reasons, background reasons, etc. That is another example of "shiny on the outside, empty on the inside".
Of course, I think the education, training, and work I received and am doing here would likely never have been possible in my country, which is why I've stayed (and for other reasons of course). That is NOT what I was referring to with "shiny on the outside, empty on the inside".
Clearly every country has its issues and its strong points, with the USA and other countries being no different in this regard. I just don't like how strong the effects of political correctness have been in the USA to the point that it has really gotten somewhat ridiculous, and I think this may have driven the reactionary take on why Trump became president (because people were so sick of political correctness, that they were still fine with someone who does egregious things just because he's not afraid of speaking his mind, even if what comes out of his mouth can be horrible in many cases).
I don't know much about politics, so this is just my simple extrapolation, but I hope this helps clarify my original post that sparked this current thread.
_____________________________
Ramzi
http://www.youtube.com/rombsix
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Date Jan. 23 2020 1:55:56
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: State of the USA (in reply to rombsix)
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Ramzi,
Like Ricardo, I, too, sent you a reply to your message, but unfortunately got the return message that your in-box was full. I appreciated your response and clarification but still took issue with the way you formulated it. Nevertheless, you offered a reasonable explanation, and I think we could have had a good exchange of views. I don't want to get into it anymore here because it has obviously become overheated in this thread. I will say that I agree with you regarding your take on one of the reasons Trump was unfortunately elected president. Trump has upended everything the United States has stood for during the last 70 years, both domestically and internationally. I hope we can get back on even keel in 2020.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 23 2020 2:51:48
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: State of the USA (in reply to rombsix)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: rombsix
I have lived most of my USA life in the south, so this may be a biased view, and perhaps it is.
I have a fairly long view of U.S. history. My first immigrant ancestor arrived in America in 1635, the last in 1720. My mother's family, loyal to the United Kingdom and foreseeing the Revolution, emigrated from the Colony of New Hampshire to Nova Scotia, now a part of Canada, in 1750. Some of them played a role in the unification of that country.
Four of my ancestors served as officers in the Continental Army under General Washington.
I never knew my great-grandparents, but they lived vividly in the memories of my parents and grandparents, so they were figures of some influence in my childhood.
One of my maternal great-grandfathers immigrated back to the USA in the early 19th century. Two of his sons volunteered to fight for the Union in the Civil War. The other great-grandfather on that side descended from early 18th century immigrants to America. He fought for the Union, some of his ancestors fought on the American side in the Revolutionary War.
Both of my paternal great-grandfathers were descended from long lines of large scale southern landowners and slave holders. They were high ranking officers in the Confederate Army.
My father was the commanding general of the first integrated U.S. Air Force Base, in Washington, DC in the 1950s. I attended all four years of high school in a white suburb of that city. The overwhelming majority of the population of DC were black. Most of the city was seen as unsafe for white people after dark.
Two years before that, we lived in Anchorage, Alaska. At the time there were nearly no black people in Alaska. Virulent white racism was directed toward the Native population.
Racism is the besetting sin of the USA. But every culture I have spent enough time in to qualify having an opinion has had some form of racism or class discrimination. In the USA one often hears that racism must be taught. My girlfriend who grew up "hafu" [half European] in Tokyo regarded racism as the default human condition.
In the long view, racism has declined in the USA, evolving from slavery before the Civil War, up to the point where it is socially unacceptable and kept covert in Tennessee.
A week ago or so I read an article about the science fiction writer William Gibson. His novels are set in the near future. He commented to the effect: the future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed geographically.
Much of the time I have lived in the USA it's been in Texas. Texas shares many characteristics with the South, particularly in East Texas, but it differs significantly in many respects. It's a big state. Most writers on the subject divide Texas into at least five different cultural regions. Racism varies in character and intensity in the different regions.
I lived for a while in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I found racism and government corruption much more widely and deeply rooted there than in Texas. Both were freely acknowledged as cultural features of the state. It was a relief to me to move back to Austin.
I lived in Palo Alto and Santa Barbara, California, each for a few years. No government is totally free of corruption, nor have I encountered a society free of discrimination based on race or class--or both. But the places where I lived in California seemed much less plagued by these ills than Alaska, Washington, DC, Texas or Louisiana.
However in Santa Barbara I was warned by a few friends against eating at Tacos al Pastor in the tiny barrio, lest I should get knifed. It was a safe and congenial family place. I thought it might have been frightening to my friends because everybody, including the staff, spoke only Spanish.
In the San Francisco Bay Area my girlfriend warned me about going to the Mission district after midnight for tacos, but it was not a racist view. She worried about the gang members spaced out on drugs. In San Francisco there were Chinese Tongs, Latino and Vietnamese gangs. Even the Japanese Yakuza pulled off an occasional murder, but I was told their hit men generally came from Japan, did the job and returned home promptly. Across the Bay in Oakland there were black gangs and violent political movements like the Black Panthers. Crime and violence were a multiethnic enterprises, and seemed to generate little racism.
I believe the long arc of history in the USA has swung a good distance toward diminishing racism, but the arc has kinks in it. Barack Obama remarked that progress is not constant, sometimes there is progress followed by backsliding. I think we are in a backsliding phase at the moment, but I am encouraged by the long term history of the USA.
I derive a good deal of my identity from my citizenship, but not nearly as much of it as many white natives of the South do. I was fortunate in my childhood not to be indoctrinated in racism, and I have lived in enough different cultures to see some of the values of my own as less than absolute.
I hope for the disappearance of some of the cultural values held by some Americans at present. But I hold the vision of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the framers of the Constitution in admiration and respect, despite the individual flaws of some of the men themselves.
RNJ
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Date Jan. 24 2020 0:14:42
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: State of the USA (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
I have a fairly long view of U.S. history.
Racism is the besetting sin of the USA. But every culture I have spent enough time in to qualify having an opinion has had some form of racism or class discrimination. In the USA one often hears that racism must be taught. My girlfriend who grew up "hafu" [half European] in Tokyo regarded racism as the default human condition.
In the long view, racism has declined in the USA, evolving from slavery before the Civil War, up to the point where it is socially unacceptable and kept covert in Tennessee.
I agree with your comment, Richard. It is necessary to take a long view of history (U.S. and otherwise) if one is to see the actual trend over time and not just the immediate hills and valleys. The Chinese certainly take the long view. When Henry Kissinger made his secret trip to China in 1971 to prepare for Nixon's trip, he met Zhou En Lai, a true intellectual. Kissinger asked Zhou what he thought the effects of the French Revolution were on history. Zhou answered: "It's too soon to tell."
Racism has definitely declined in the U.S., but unfortunately it still remains very much alive. Growing up in Arizona, my family never expressed racist tendencies. As a result, when I joined the Air Force and was sent to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi to attend a seven-month intelligence course, I was shocked to see public facilities with separate water fountains and bathrooms labeled "White" and "colored." That ended long ago, and now many cities in the South are governed by Blacks.
We are living in a political era that has enabled more blatant expressions of racism than has occurred in a long time. Nevertheless, I don't think racism has increased; rather, I think that the existing racists have been more emboldened to express their venom publicly.
I have lived in enough countries and societies, from Asia to Latin America, to know that they all have their own forms of racism. Perhaps your girlfriend was right.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 24 2020 17:48:13
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: State of the USA (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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Richard--Your excellent piece on racism in the U.S. prompts me to offer some thoughts on the second issue brought up in this thread--immigration. I don't present these thoughts as "ground truth." Rather, I have developed them over a lengthy period of time based on my experience and knowledge of U.S. immigration and asylum law, as well as international refugee and asylum conventions. I have had direct, first-hand experience with immigrant visa cases overseas. As a junior Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, I spent one year of my assignment split between acting as a liaison officer between the Embassy and Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Base, and working in the immigrant visa section adjudicating cases.
I have always supported legal immigration, as I think it enhances the American gene pool. I also think the United States should exercise one of the core elements of sovereignty by determining who may legally enter the U.S. and who may remain as Legal Permanent Residents. To the extent possible, illegal immigration should be halted. There is no overarching right to illegally enter and remain in the U.S.
The United States has a very generous immigration system and has no reason to be ashamed of maintaining reasonable limits. We admit approximately one million legal immigrants as Permanent Residents annually. That is more than the rest of the world combined accepts. In my opinion, we should continue accepting that number, as it is large enough to inject needed new blood, yet not so large as to hinder the process of assimilation.
The major current issue revolves around the Central Americans--primarily from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador--circumventing immigration law and regulations by attempting to claim asylum. Under both international conventions and U.S. law, a person can claim asylum if he fears return to his country will result in persecution (to him personally) due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.
The vast majority of Central Americans are simply illegal immigrants “gaming” our immigration and asylum systems. They are leaving generalized violence and lack of economic opportunity, not fear of personal persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Knowing they do not qualify for legal immigration, illegal immigrants are both coached and learn through the grapevine that if they apply for "asylum" they will be able to remain in the US and not be immediately deported. (Of course, many now wait in Mexico.) Statistics demonstrate that of those who actually show up for their asylum hearing before an immigration judge, fewer than 20 percent are granted asylum. And that doesn't include those who fail to show up for their hearings and disappear into the woodwork.
Many years ago I was assigned to our Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. At that time it was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, now overtaken in that regard by Haiti. I cannot blame them for wanting a better life, and the violence now is much more pronounced than it was when I was in Honduras. Nevertheless, the U.S. cannot take in every person dissatisfied with his lot in life.
Moreover, illegal immigrants who remain in the United States represent a slap in the face to the many hundreds of thousands of would-be immigrants awaiting their priority date to legally immigrate to the U.S. There are literally hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, Filipinos, Indians, and others patiently awaiting their priority date in order to apply for their immigrant visa. In my opinion, those who jump the queue should not be rewarded for “gaming” the system.
I support legalizing the so-called "dreamers," the children of illegal immigrants brought here by their parents. They had no say in their parents' action. I also support legalizing eligible illegals in the U.S. who arrived here before a certain date in order to "clear the decks" so to speak and bring them out into the open. But along with legalizing those here illegally, we need to put a real "bite" into punishment for employers who hire illegal immigrants. We can bring in skilled and unskilled workers as needed under the appropriate visa categories. Unfortunately, many businesses like things the way they are in order to exploit the illegal workers.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 24 2020 18:44:46
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