Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [OT] facism gaining ground in US

[Pierce T . Wetter III]

On Jul 20, 2004, at 4:32 PM, nadim wrote:

> On Wednesday 21 July 2004 01:00, Pierce T.Wetter III wrote:
> > > Anti arab aracism in france is not subttle at all,
> >
> >   So you live in Paris, and are possibly arab? If so, one of the 
> > things
> > I was
> > trying to bring up was that it seems to me that there is this huge
> > muslim
> > population in france that is very badly treated by the French.
> >
> >   How true is my impression?
>
> My guess is that arabs are treated as mexicans are treated in the US. 
> It
> has nothing to do with the place or time but with the people.
>
> You import people because they make you rich with their cheap labour 
> but
> after 10 years or so they have installed thmeselves and their kids are
> going to schooll. When depression hits, guess who the easiest victime 
> is.

 Oh its even worse then that. At least France acknowledges the practice.
Here in the Southwest we have this huge illegal Mexican population that
everyone basically winks at. Though a lot of the illegal immigration 
don't
want to live in the US, they just want to make enough to retire early to
Mexico.

 Since you like personal experience about the US: Basically, we have 
this law
where an employer is required to copy some form of ID from everyone, 
since
employers have better things to do then try to figure out if someone is 
an illegal
alien. Since our laws have to be racially neutral, this applies to 
everyone. At the
riding center where my wife used to work, the stall cleaners were all
mexican and probably illegal (don't ask, don't tell?). They way this 
worked
was that basically, there's one head mexican, so one someone came in to
get hired as a stall cleaner, and they didn't have ID, my wife would 
tell
them to talk to Arturo. They'd come back the next day with brand new 
ID...
my wife would joke about the ink being wet, life would go on.

 I would love to see Bush's suggesting of bringing back the bracero 
(sp?)
program make it through. (His proposal of allowing work visas into the 
US
to stop winking at illegal immigration and make it legal.) The problem 
isn't
the Southwest so much, since everyone here knows that the border is 
such a
giant sieve that it would be much better to have _legal_ immigration, 
but
outside of the Southwest, its a labor issue.

> Arabs are put into ghettos, like black in the states. Generosity is low
> (I'm not talking about money) and when an angry arabs makes it up, you
> have on angry son of a b.. that is going to show he goes for. 
> Fortunately
> what you can't muzel with force (France is still the country of free
> expression and freedom and (I'm no french remember)

 Presumably the arabs aren't forced into the ghettos, there's just some
degree of societal pressure for that. How strong is that?

> the US has a a few
> generation before it before it reaches the same level of politic
> maturity))
> so what you can't muzel with force you can bribe with money (by
> the way the most intelligent move of the US during the Irak war (if 
> there
> was any inteligent move that is) was to bribe officer in the Iraki 
> army.


 You know, you slam me for defending the US when you toss out these
snide asides all the time...I don't think its quite fair to slam me for
defending if you're going to attack...

> Well arabs are not _very_ badly treated by the French. (did you mean 
> the
> people or the government). If it's the people you meant, there are
> frictions but since the arabic community is rather large, you can't 
> just
> go and lynch . The governement does what it can to make everybody's 
> life
> painfull. France is France you can't put people in camps, you can't
> discriminate in the legislation, etc... but it could definitely be 
> better.
>
> Now I haven't live in France the last 10 years, things might have 
> changed
> but I doubt it.

 Ah, ok. I've been trying to find an arab living in France to see how 
things
are going. I'd heard that with the recession they'd gotten worse, but 
perhaps
not. There was some weird thing about outlawing headscarves in France 
for
instance. I'm sure it got defeated, we have stupid people proposing laws
here all the time just to say they did that get roundly defeated (Gay 
Marriage Amendment).
> A propos France, I there was a mistake Bush did and the americans were
> stupid enough to do, it was to think that France was the ennemy of the 
> US
> (hopefully this has taught a lesson to the French and they'll keep 
> kicking
> you ass in the future). French have always been a true friends to the 
> US a
> friend that dare to say when things go too long. Your lose.

 We're not annoyed at France (at least no more then normal), we're 
annoyed
at Chirac. We find him even more egotistical then Bush.

 Pierce