http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/tokyos-military-options?f=puball Tokyo policy makers have been engaged in diplomatic overdrive in an effort to resolve a territorial dispute with Russia over four southern islands in the Kuril Island chain. This dispute has stunted bilateral relations for six decades. The island chain was taken by the former Soviet Union during the final day of World War […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-balkanization-of-america-part-ii-a-clear-and-present-danger
PART ONE :http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-ghost-of-bertold-brecht-and-the-balkanization-of-america
In part I of this series, we discussed some of the forces threatening the cohesion and unity of the United States, and the possibility of Balkanization. In part II, we consider the specific case of Mexico and illegal immigration from that nation into the United States.
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In present-day America, there is perhaps no better illustration of Bertold Brecht’s vision of “dissolving one people and electing another” (see part one here) than the case of illegal immigration from Mexico and Latin America into the United States.
Among the many drivers of the on-going Balkanization of the United States, none is more potent than the unchecked river of humanity flowing across our southern border.
According to recent demographic data, there are approximately 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. These data, often collected by such left-leaning organizations such as the Pew Hispanic Center and the Center for Immigration Studies, understate the extent of illegal immigration; actual figures are almost certainly higher. Some authorities place the figure in the 18-22 million range, while others place the total as high as 30 million people. Since, by definition, illegal immigrants are undocumented, a precise count is probably impossible, especially given the dynamic nature of population flows. It is estimated that some 55% of illegals were from Mexico, with an additional 22% from other Latin American countries; illegals from other nations comprise the remainder of the total.
Unofficial crossings of the border have been going on for almost as long as the nations of Mexico and the United States have existed. Regions along the U.S.-Mexican border have long-been a hybrid of the two nation’s cultures. “Tex-Mex” is an established staple in places like El Paso, Texas, where one is just as likely to hear the norteño music of Mexico as American country, western swing or blues. Prominent and wealthy Mexicans and Americans alike own homes and travel widely in both nations. Both nations depend on tourism from the other. Cross-border trade is booming.
Yet, for all of these signs of apparent normalcy, there exists an undercurrent of tension within American-Mexican relations, albeit one seldom remarked upon by the political and cultural elites of either nation. Mexico and the United States fought a bitter war from 1846-1848, after Texas was annexed by the United States in 1845. Much of the American southwest and California were originally part of the Spanish empire, just as Mexico herself once was. The U.S. has a long history of military intervention in Latin America; including the 1916 Punitive Expedition into Mexico by the U.S. Army in pursuit of Pancho Villa. Naysayers may scoff, but memories of such conflicts persist among Mexicans and other Latinos, many of whom resent the enormous power and influence of their northern neighbor. The Mexican folk saying applies, “Poor Mexico – so far from God and so close to the United States.”
The tensions are not merely as a result of wars in the now-distant past; they arise out of the specific circumstances in both nations. Politicians on both sides of the border have demagogued the issue of illegal immigration for their own purposes, and influential business leaders routinely engage in doublespeak – expressing concern about open borders, but laughing all the way to the bank on the savings they gain by hiring undocumented workers. In both nations, illegal immigration has become a very big business, not only in the declared, open economy but in the black markets and the criminal underworld. Endemic corruption and narcoterrorismo in Mexico only worsen the problem.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/cinnamon-stillwell/profs-on-mideast-turmoil-blame-america-israel-and-free-speech/
In the wake of the al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, the seizure of the American embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and the ensuing anti-American protests and riots throughout the Middle East—the latter ostensibly over an anti-Islam YouTube film trailer that originated in the U.S. months earlier—what do Middle East scholars have to say about the turmoil in the region?
As self-styled supporters of “academic freedom,” are they rushing to defend First Amendment rights instead of kowtowing to Muslim religious sensibilities? Are they denouncing the prospect of self-censorship rather than pushing YouTube to pull the “offending” video by claiming that it constitutes “hate speech?” Are they standing up for religious freedom instead of encouraging Americans to adhere to Sharia law-driven prohibitions on blasphemy? Are they putting aside their anti-Western biases and laying blame where it belongs instead of on America and Israel?
If the following quotes from Middle East studies academics are any indication, the answer to all those questions would be a resounding No!
Let’s take a look at what these “experts” have to say.
http://nation.foxnews.com/us-debt/2012/10/03/us-treasury-us-added-more-debt-monday-1776-through-pearl-harbor
By Terence P. Jeffrey
(CNSNews.com) – The federal government added $93,245,605,914.16 to its debt on Oct. 1, the first day of fiscal 2013.
That was more than all the debt the federal government accumulated between July 4, 1776 when the United States declared independence from England and sometime in October 1942, which was ten months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II.
http://newmediajournal.us/indx.php/item/7034 “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.” – President Gerald R. Ford, in an address to a joint session of Congress, August 12, 1974. There can be little doubt that the electorate, going into the 2012 General Election, […]
http://washingtonexaminer.com/ohio-shocker-gop-closes-early-voting-gap-boosting-romney/article/2509838#.UG4wCSJp4xG
IN THE MUSICAL WONDERFUL TOWN A CHARACTER NAMED RUTH SINGS “WHY OH WHY OH WHYO…DID I EVER LEAVE OHIO?
NOW MAYBE OBAMA CAN SING “WHY OH WHY OH WHYO DID I EVER LOSE OHIO?”…..RSK
In a remarkable reversal of fortune for President Obama in Ohio, the GOP has closed the huge gap in absentee ballot requests used by early voters that favored the Democrats and the president in 2008, setting up what one state analyst said could be a Mitt Romney blowout on Election Day.
While in 2008, 33 percent of the 1,158,301 absentee ballots went to Democrats and just 19 percent to registered Republicans, a 14-point gap, this year 29 percent are being requested by Democrats and 24 percent by Republicans, a five-point gap.
And in a sign that the enthusiasm of 2008 voters is depressed, just 638,997 absentee ballots have been requested, according to American Majority Action, which culled the statistics together from Ohio college professors who are tracking the state’s absentee ballots used for early voting. The group provided Secrets with the details.
Even more dramatic, while the GOP has cut the Democratic advantage in early voting throughout the state, the changes favoring the Republicans in certain counties has been huge. In Franklin County, home to Columbus, for example, a 2008 Democratic advantage of 5 percent is now a 5 percent GOP advantage. In Cuyahoga County, home to Democratic Cleveland, the GOP has shaved six points off the Democrat’s 2008 advantage. And in Hamilton County, home to Cincinnati, Republicans have expanded their 2008 advantage to 13 percent.
Israel, ‘Palestine,’ And The Law Of War (Second of Two Parts) Historically, viewed against the background of extensive and unapologetic terrorist perfidy in both Gaza and Lebanon, Israel has been innocent of any alleged disproportionality. All combatants, including all insurgents in Gaza and Lebanon, are bound to comply with the law of war of international […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443759504577627460056905918.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion On Oct. 10, the Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of granting racial preferences to African-American and Hispanic college applicants over whites and Asian-Americans. The defendant is the University of Texas at Austin. The plaintiff, Abigail Fisher, a white woman, was denied admission in 2008 and filed suit (along with another plaintiff who has […]
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/10/04/gaza-flotilla-sponsor-blames-jews-for-holocaust-on-twitter/
Petros Karadjias/The Associated Press filesGreta Berlin of Free Gaza said her tweet was only supposed to be posted to her private Facebook account.
The Free Gaza Movement, a U.S.-based activist group known for provisioning ships to run the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza, was hit with charges of anti-Semitism on Wednesday after posting a tweet claiming that Jews were responsible for the Holocaust.“Zionists operated the concentration camps and helped murder millions of innocent Jews,” read a tweet posted Sunday to @freegazaorg, the official Twitter feed of the group, which includes Canadian author Naomi Klein and Bishop Desmond Tutu on its board of advisors.
An embedded link led to a video of a speech by known conspiracy theorist Eustace Mullins claiming that the word Nazi is an amalgam of the words “National socialism” and “Zionist.”
“[Hitler] allied with the Zionist Party, and the mission of the Nazis was to force the anti-Zionist Jews to accept Zionism — and this is what the concentration camps were about,” said Mr. Mullins, who died of a stroke in 2010.
Although the tweet was eventually deleted, it was picked up on Monday by Avi Mayer, head of social media with the Jewish Agency for Israel. In a Wednesday blog post, Mr. Mayer posted a screenshot of the post along with a link to the video, which he claimed revealed Free Gaza as “the lowest anti-Semites.”
Within hours, the American founder of the movement, Greta Berlin, tweeted that she had intended only to publish the link to her private Facebook account, but it was accidentally redirected to the Free Gaza Twitter feed.
“I shared it without watching it. I am sorry that I just sent it forward without looking at it. It won’t happen again,” read a tweet from the Free Gaza Movement account, posted Wednesday afternoon.
http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2012/10/the-lefts-only-enemy.php?pf=yes
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s legal term in office expired nearly four years ago. But his supporters don’t care. In Israel, Washington and throughout the world, Abbas’s supporters extol the authoritarian leader as a great moderate. In 2002, desperately searching for a face for the Palestinians that wasn’t Yasser Arafat’s face, the Left pushed Abbas out from behind Arafat’s shadow. Abbas, who served as Arafat’s deputy for 39 years, was upheld as a great moderate and placed in the invented position of Palestinian prime minister.
The fact that Abbas was an inveterate Jew-hater who spent four decades in the senior leadership of a terrorist organization and whose doctoral dissertation was a long denial of the Holocaust, was brushed aside.
His leftist supporters don’t care that he says Israel has no right to exist. They are untroubled by his 2008 rejection of then-prime minister Ehud Olmert’s unprecedentedly generous offer of peace and Palestinian statehood. They don’t mind that Abbas has refused to negotiate peace with Israel for the past four years. They don’t care that he has signed two unity government deals with Hamas or that he seeks to gain sovereignty for a Palestinian state through the UN and so establish a Palestinian state in a formal state of war with Israel.
They don’t care. But most Israelis do. Due to their recognition of his hatred for Israel and due to the terrorism Abbas has condoned and financed for decades, the vast majority of Israelis do not consider him a potential partner for peace. They do not believe that either Abbas or the Palestinians as a whole are remotely interested in being appeased by Israel.
As a consequence, most Israelis greeted Abbas’s speech at the UN General Assembly last week with indifference. In that speech, Abbas made clear – yet again – that he remains Arafat’s loyal deputy. The majority of Abbas’s speech involved a litany of libels against Israel, which he accused of everything from terrorism to apartheid, colonialism, racism, murder, theft, etc., etc., etc.
Then he moved on to his demands. In addition to reinstating his demand that Israel agree to every Palestinian demand as a precondition for negotiations, Abbas demanded that Israel release all Palestinian terrorists from its prisons.
