The Great Mexican Wall

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...The situation is multi-faceted. Daily headlines and the present discussion do not make the situation very clear....[/url]

At least we are slowly moving away from the simplistic, sensationalistic angle of "the monster who cages children."

[Robert Roaldi]

At least we are slowly moving away from the simplistic, sensationalistic angle of "the monster who cages children."

True, but that part hasn't gone away.

[RSL]

Oh dear! If it's on NPR it must be true.

[Alan Goldhammer]

I can't access any more Washington Post articles without paying money.  They may not like Trump.  But they're just as greedy as him.

In any case, there's load of cultural and other differences between different parts of the US.  But we still think of ourselves as Americans.  So much the more so with Germans, Italians, etc.  I think language is the great emulsifier.  Which is why I want English as a single legal language in America.  Look at the problems with two languages in Canada.  Added to cultural differences, it almost broke up the country a few decades ago when Quebec province wanted their own country.

Irony of ironies that Steven Miller's (Trump's immigration advisor) grandmother could not speak English..  There are still many parts of New York city where English is secondarily used.  Spanish, to be sure, is prevalent among first generation immigrants as was the native language of Germans, Italians, Koreans, Japanese, etc. but the kids learn English pretty quick.  In many ethnic grocery stores, English is not the first language (we have a fine Asian supermarket that has the best fresh fish in the area and all of the staff are multi-ethnic with lots of different languages being spoken.

[Alan Klein]

Irony of ironies that Steven Miller's (Trump's immigration advisor) grandmother could not speak English..  There are still many parts of New York city where English is secondarily used.  Spanish, to be sure, is prevalent among first generation immigrants as was the native language of Germans, Italians, Koreans, Japanese, etc. but the kids learn English pretty quick.  In many ethnic grocery stores, English is not the first language (we have a fine Asian supermarket that has the best fresh fish in the area and all of the staff are multi-ethnic with lots of different languages being spoken.

My grandmother on my mother's side couldn't speak English either.  She never became an American citizen but her husband did.  My parents were born here so they are naturalized citizens as I am.  Back when you had to register as an alien (I guess you still do?!), my grandmother would pester my father every year to file her immigration papers at the Post Office.  She was always afraid she'd be sent back to the "old" country wherever that was.  I don't think those towns even exist anymore.

As a New Yorker, I'm familiar with with all the neighborhoods where so many different languages are spoken.   Well, 40% of NYC are immigrants.  But NYC has always been that way.  However, English is the official language of government in the USA.  Usually, when you speak English, these people will switch to English.  Chinese in public will speak English; I assume they speak Chinese at home.  It's like a rule for them.  But many Spanish speaking people will continue to speak Spanish in public.  They suffer educationally and economically because of that.  Chinese understand they have to adapt to the culture they live in to get ahead.  Indians do well here too because they have the advantage of already speaking English.  I'm always very impressed with so many posters here who not only speak English but understand idiomatic English.  So even though I often disagree with them, they impress me with their language skills. 

[Robert Roaldi]

Oh dear! If it's on NPR it must be true.

Right on cue.

[Alan Goldhammer]

But many Spanish speaking people will continue to speak Spanish in public.  They suffer educationally and economically because of that.  Chinese understand they have to adapt to the culture they live in to get ahead.  Indians do well here too because they have the advantage of already speaking English. 

I think only the top level university graduates from India come here.  The vast majority of Indians do not speak English at all.  There are a significant number of Indian MDs in the Washington DC area, and a large number of gasteroenterolgists (I have no idea why this is so).  It has been reported that Steven Miller's antipathy to immigrants was a result of his experience at Santa Monica High School where many of the Latino students spoke Spanish with one another and according to a Los Angeles Times story, "As he was finding his voice at Santa Monica High, Miller bemoaned the school's Spanish-language announcements, the colorful festivals of minority cultures, and the decline, as he saw it, of a more traditional version of American education."  Personally, I have no problem at all with people speaking in their native languages.

[Rand47]

Oh dear! If it's on NPR it must be true.

I make it a habit to listen to about 3 hours of: NPR, Fox News, several US Network news programs, per week. They are all biased toward their editorial perspective(s) and by listening to all of it, I might on accident stumble across something worth knowing - doesn’t happen very often. 

Who, or what organization doesn’t have their worldviews influencing their output?  If you think anyone or any organization is objective, you, my friends, are the most naieve people on the planet.  In fact, if they didn’t promote their perspective it would be very strange indeed.  They all lie, slant, leave things out, make stuff up, etc. to promote their perspective.  When you add to that the very poor journalistic training they’ve received “as a group” in the last generation, and that once a “story” is “written” it lives forever as boilerplate on some server somewhere (inaccuracies and all) waiting for the next installment of “the truth” to be written by some lazy-ass “journalist,” it gets pretty weird.

I get real kick out of all of us here, hanging on for dear life to “our” favorite version of BS being spewed, and going to battle with “the other guy who is undoubtedly got it wrong!”  Talk about a waste of bandwidth. 

Rand

[Alan Klein]

I make it a habit to listen to about 3 hours of: NPR, Fox News, several US Network news programs, per week. They are all biased toward their editorial perspective(s) and by listening to all of it, I might on accident stumble across something worth knowing - doesn’t happen very often. 

Who, or what organization doesn’t have their worldviews influencing their output?  If you think anyone or any organization is objective, you, my friends, are the most naieve people on the planet.  In fact, if they didn’t promote their perspective it would be very strange indeed.  They all lie, slant, leave things out, make stuff up, etc. to promote their perspective.  When you add to that the very poor journalistic training they’ve received “as a group” in the last generation, and that once a “story” is “written” it lives forever as boilerplate on some server somewhere (inaccuracies and all) waiting for the next installment of “the truth” to be written by some lazy-ass “journalist,” it gets pretty weird.

I get real kick out of all of us here, hanging on for dear life to “our” favorite version of BS being spewed, and going to battle with “the other guy who is undoubtedly got it wrong!”  Talk about a waste of bandwidth. 

Rand

I happen to agree with much of what you said.  But something else has happened recently.  And that's the media have made a financial and business decision to be deliberately biased to match what they conceive as the best way to increase their ratings.  So Fox caters to conservatives.  And the rest cater to liberals.  The Washington Post has become a liberal screed. 

It wasn't always like this.  While there was bias, often there was an attempt to create some balance.  Now there's none.  The objective is to hold your supporter group to hold your ratings.  Damn the truth.  Even late night comedians have boarded that train.  In the past, they would knock the presidents.  But they also would knock the opposition.  Now they've made a decision to go fully left as they seem to believe their ratings are tied into the generation that thinks like that. 

If only they could be as fair minded as the posters here. 

[RSL]

Well said, Alan, and on the money.

[Rand47]

I happen to agree with much of what you said.  But something else has happened recently.  And that's the media have made a financial and business decision to be deliberately biased to match what they conceive as the best way to increase their ratings.  So Fox caters to conservatives.  And the rest cater to liberals.  The Washington Post has become a liberal screed. 

It wasn't always like this.  While there was bias, often there was an attempt to create some balance.  Now there's none.  The objective is to hold your supporter group to hold your ratings.  Damn the truth.  Even late night comedians have boarded that train.  In the past, they would knock the presidents.  But they also would knock the opposition.  Now they've made a decision to go fully left as they seem to believe their ratings are tied into the generation that thinks like that. 

If only they could be as fair minded as the posters here. 

Alan,

It mostly only “appears” more obvious because all sides are less talented “journalists” than in the past.  And, let me add this, if anyone thinks media “news” of any sort are in the information business (or ever have been) rather than the entertainment business - well that’s even more amusing.

Rand

[Robert Roaldi]

There's a report on "thehill.com" this afternoon that the administration will probably not meet the deadline for re-unification of the families. That NPR podcast I mentioned earlier provided a good explanation of why that might be the case, involving different agencies who do not have easy ways to share info with each other, along with some procedural problems which led them to NOT being able to identify which parents belonged to which kids.

Was it politically bias to report that information? Don't you think it's important for you, as citizens, to know things like that about the people doing things in your name?

[RSL]

One reason they can't identify which parents belong to which kids is that in a lot of cases the kids hauled across the border illegally aren't the haulers' kids.

What's so terribly hard to understand about all this? These people came across our border illegally. That makes them criminals. I realize people don't like to use that word when it's applied to people who haven't committed assault or rape or murder, but the fact is that they broke the law. That's a crime. The makes them criminals.

I understand that they're coming here because of wretched situations in their home countries. But that's a political problem for them to solve, not for us to solve. On their way here they crossed Mexico. Why didn't they stay in lovely Mexico? You know damned well why.

I think we should handle these criminals as gently as possible. That's the Christian thing to do. But this crap has to stop somewhere, and we finally have a president who's willing at least to try to stop it. That's a change and a relief.

[Alan Goldhammer]

I happen to agree with much of what you said.  But something else has happened recently.  And that's the media have made a financial and business decision to be deliberately biased to match what they conceive as the best way to increase their ratings.  So Fox caters to conservatives.  And the rest cater to liberals.  The Washington Post has become a liberal screed. 

IIRC you stated earlier that you don't read the Washington Post because of the paywall.  If this is in fact correct, how can you make such a pronouncement?  What aspects of the Post are "liberal screed" and why?

[jeremyrh]

I understand that they're coming here because of wretched situations in their home countries. But that's a political problem for them to solve, not for us to solve.

I wonder what exactly you understand. What caused their "wretched situation"? Anything to do with the US? Hands all nicely washed?

[Robert Roaldi]

One reason they can't identify which parents belong to which kids is that in a lot of cases the kids hauled across the border illegally aren't the haulers' kids.

What's so terribly hard to understand about all this? These people came across our border illegally. That makes them criminals. I realize people don't like to use that word when it's applied to people who haven't committed assault or rape or murder, but the fact is that they broke the law. That's a crime. The makes them criminals.

I understand that they're coming here because of wretched situations in their home countries. But that's a political problem for them to solve, not for us to solve. On their way here they crossed Mexico. Why didn't they stay in lovely Mexico? You know damned well why.

I think we should handle these criminals as gently as possible. That's the Christian thing to do. But this crap has to stop somewhere, and we finally have a president who's willing at least to try to stop it. That's a change and a relief.

You seem to be assuming that they are all criminals. And that all the kids were hostages or decoys. Maybe some are, but it seems far-fetched to assume they all are. I don't think it's a good idea to abandon due process based on feelings, do you?

You, and others, keep using the term criminals a lot, but it's not exactly the same thing as someone who holds up a liquor store, is it? That liquor store thief gets due process and the government doesn't kidnap his kids to coerce a plea bargain.

In your shoes, I would have no idea what to do. But there had better be something better than Trump working the crowd rallies up into a frenzy about criminals, animals and rapists. That's not even remotely civilized and beneath America's dignity. You should know better.

[Alan Klein]

IIRC you stated earlier that you don't read the Washington Post because of the paywall.  If this is in fact correct, how can you make such a pronouncement?  What aspects of the Post are "liberal screed" and why?

The WP allows x number of free articles per month which I read.  Once I go above the free limit, I can't read any more until the next month.  The entire paper is against Trump.  Everything they write is slanted against him.  He could walk on water and they'd complain that he doesn't know how to swim.  Regarding my comment about how they play to their readers, when you read the email "letters" underneath an article about Trump, 95%+ of the postings are against Trump, with many just being vile vituperations.  You get the same thing with the NY Times, although it's probably 90-95% anti Trump.  But at least the NY Times doesn't allow the vileness of the letters the WP posts.  NY Times readers hate Trump just as much as WP readers.  They're just a little more classier. 

[Alan Klein]

Alan,

It mostly only “appears” more obvious because all sides are less talented “journalists” than in the past.  And, let me add this, if anyone thinks media “news” of any sort are in the information business (or ever have been) rather than the entertainment business - well that’s even more amusing.

Rand

It's as if they never went to Journalism 101.  But I could accept it on the so-called cable news like Fox (some of it is more balanced and not just opinions), MSNBC, CNN.  The problem is that the main broadcast stations like NBC, CBS, ABC have allowed their copy to shift into political activism.  They've always been that way; even before cable.  But its really gotten a lot worse.  Ditto with the NY Times.  Everyone;s got an agenda.  No one plays it straight.  It's like a ball game and everyone is choosing up sides.  Actually, watching ballgames are more honest.  The announcers seem to stick to the facts. 

[degrub]

The WP allows x number of free articles per month which I read.  Once I go above the free limit, I can't read any more until the next month.  The entire paper is against Trump.  Everything they write is slanted against him.  He could walk on water and they'd complain that he doesn't know how to swim.  Regarding my comment about how they play to their readers, when you read the email "letters" underneath an article about Trump, 95%+ of the postings are against Trump, with many just being vile vituperations.  You get the same thing with the NY Times, although it's probably 90-95% anti Trump.  But at least the NY Times doesn't allow the vileness of the letters the WP posts.  NY Times readers hate Trump just as much as WP readers.  They're just a little more classier.

Isn't the WP owned by Bezos ? and isn't Amazon a "special" target of Trump ?
no surprise then.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Does this headline leave any doubt where the WP bias is?