From the Wall Street Journal:
Puerto Ricans Flock North Away From Battered Economy
Exodus in Past Decade Was the Largest Since the 1950s
But, hey, Puerto Rico is essential to America's national interest because it's an ideal place for Microsoft to evade federal taxes. And it would be a strategic location for a naval base for America's Great White Fleet to protect the proposed Isthmusian Canal from the Kaiser's weltpolitik and King Edward's new dreadnoughts.
We are frequently assured that we don't need to strengthen defenses against illegal immigration since nobody in Latin America will ever want to move to America again. Yet, here we are coming up on the 100th anniversary of open borders with Puerto Rico, and they just don't stop coming.
We are frequently assured that we don't need to strengthen defenses against illegal immigration since nobody in Latin America will ever want to move to America again. Yet, here we are coming up on the 100th anniversary of open borders with Puerto Rico, and they just don't stop coming.
A rising number of passengers sinks all boats, even the listing cruise ship that takes on survivors from the junks.
ReplyDeleteTypical diversionist twaddle from your type. Soooo quick to belittle our efforts to hold back the Dreadnaughts, but I note you don't even DARE to bring up the VERY REAL and dangerous ZEPPELIN GAP.
ReplyDeleteSure the Puerto Ricans still consider themselves a separate group a century after 'assimilation', but what would you suggest, that we abandon the island and allow it to become a puppet of the Kaiser? Or, heaven forbid, the Russian or the Turk!?!
No, only by allowing millions of foreigners into the nation can we secure our borders from invaders.
As a Canadian who knows the great evils and dangers of bilingualism, er, "language equality", I have always been mystified by the USA link to Puerto Rico. Frustrating the swinehund Kaiser aside, I have never seen what value or benefit America has ever gotten from its ties to the place. There is no oil or precious resource there. The island is small, poor and backward. America is a dumping ground for all its excess population. America didn't even manage to get it to switch from Spanish to an English speaking place. (At least English is the major language of Hawaii.) The USA has also suffered terrorism at P.R.'s hands, including, among other things, a near miss on president Truman. Puerto Rico still has a clear separate identity and sends its own teams to the Olympics. Why doesn't the USA just give the island its independence?
ReplyDelete"A rising number of passengers sinks all boats..."
ReplyDeleteSo true. Imagine your one of the lucky few in a rowboat from the Titanic. Your boat is already dangerously overcrowded. People in the water are trying to get onboard although there is no room. You know you will be swamped. So you try to keep them off and row away. Now imagine all the people in the water are black or brown or yellow and somebody in the boat saying, we can't row away, that would be "racist", or we need diversity et al. Such nonsense would immediately be recognized for what it is. Now apply this analogy to the west and the third world standards of living destroying immivasion
What does it say about Puerto Rico and its people that 100 years after open borders and favorable economic treatment with America, plus being able to remove its surplus population to the USA, that it is still an economic basketcase with 14% official (probably an underestimate, since it only counts those still able to receive benefits) unemployment?
ReplyDeleteYet, here we are coming up on the 100th anniversary of open borders with Puerto Rico, and they just don't stop coming.
ReplyDeleteWe've always had open borders with Puerto Rico. The first time that any quotas were placed on immigration from the Western hemisphere was 1965 (by the Immigration and Nationality Act, much reviled in these parts), and by that time, Puerto Ricans had already been made US citizens with full rights of residency. We are coming up on the 100th anniversary of citizenship for Puerto Ricans, but that's not the same as open borders.
>No, only by allowing millions of foreigners into the nation can we secure our borders from invaders.<
ReplyDeleteThe latest meme is that China is gonna nuke us and take some territory. This is the next big thing.
Battered economy?
ReplyDeleteDidn't the WSJ tell us just a short while ago how wonderful PR was because it had a territorial governor that was a Republican?
West Side Story was made in 1961 from a broadway play that began in 1957. I used to wonder why Puerto Ricans were chosen and what was the big deal about them at the time. That chart makes it clear. Almost half a million Spanish speaking strangers arriving out of the blue in the big apple in the 1950's. The social and cultural dislocations caused must have been enormous. Not to mention the ethnic tensions too. Of course our media and political elites won't talk about that.
ReplyDeleteFunny how all of the islands in the Carribbean are economic and political basketcases. None of them seem to have their act together. Wonder why?
ReplyDeleteSo is Puerto Rico America's mini-me?
ReplyDeleteBillionaire University of Texas donor who has donated $100 million to the university says he and other rich UT donors are pissed at UT's selection of its new head football coach. The man is 86 years old. You'd think he'd have grown up by now and not care so much about college football. Maybe focus on the permanent things and some more pressing concerns, like the declining state of our civilization.
ReplyDelete"Billionaire Texas Donor Calls Charlie Strong Hire 'A Kick In The Face' To Rich Boosters"
http://www.businessinsider.com/red-mccombs-slams-charlie-strong-texas-hire-2014-1
"University of Texas booster Red McCombs slammed the school's decision to hire Charlie Strong as head football coach in a radio interview on ESPN 1250.
McCombs, who's worth $1.2 billion, said that the university brass didn't take enough to time to gather the opinions of boosters. He also said Strong doesn't belong at one of the biggest programs in the country.
Here's what he told ESPN 1250:
"I think the whole thing is a bit sideways. I don't have any doubt that Charlie is a fine coach. I think he would make a great position coach, maybe a coordinator. But I don't believe [he belongs at] what should be one of the three most powerful university programs in the world right now at UT-Austin. I don't think it adds up."
He went on to criticize Texas athletic director Steve Patterson for not taking his time and listening to the boosters before making the hire"
Lothrop Stoddard praised the Danes for their common sense, because when Denmark was offered all of Schleswig-Holstein, they only took "all that is Danish".
ReplyDeleteWe should have done the same in the Caribbean. All that was Danish was the Virgin Islands!
Digital Divide?
ReplyDelete" African Americans and Technology Use "
http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2014/African-American-Tech-Use/Detailed-Demographic-Tables/Internet-mobile-and-social-networking-adoption.aspx
"90% of whites and 92% of African Americans own a cell phone of some kind"
"Smartphone ownership is equally common among blacks and whites—56% of African Americans and 53% of whites are smartphone owners."
"Social networking site adoption is identical among white and black internet users1: 72% of online whites and 73% of online blacks use online social networks."
"As has consistently been the case since we began studying Twitter as a standalone platform, African Americans have higher levels of Twitter use than whites (22% of online blacks are Twitter users, compared with 16% of online whites). Younger African Americans have especially high rates of Twitter usage—a full 40% of African American internet users ages 18-29 say that they use Twitter, compared with 28% of whites of the same age."
"Whitey sucks! Hey whitey, where you livin? I wanna live there!"
ReplyDelete- The non-whites
"We are frequently assured that we don't need to strengthen defenses against illegal immigration since nobody in Latin America will ever want to move to America again. Yet, here we are coming up on the 100th anniversary of open borders with Puerto Rico, and they just don't stop coming."
ReplyDeleteIn a couple of decades when the US officially changes its name to Mexibabwe Arabia I think we will look back on the assurance as a liberal self-fulfilling prophecy.
"As has consistently been the case since we began studying Twitter as a standalone platform, African Americans have higher levels of Twitter use than whites (22% of online blacks are Twitter users, compared with 16% of online whites). Younger African Americans have especially high rates of Twitter usage—a full 40% of African American internet users ages 18-29 say that they use Twitter, compared with 28% of whites of the same age."
ReplyDelete-Now, what kind of world would this be without the witty, enlightened and perceptive Tweets of 18 yr old African Americans?
"Almost half a million Spanish speaking strangers arriving out of the blue in the big apple in the 1950's. The social and cultural dislocations caused must have been enormous. Not to mention the ethnic tensions too."
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly, Archie Bunker saved the worst of his invectives for the Puerto Ricans. I also remember hearing back in the 70's how there were more Puerto Ricans living in NYC than were living in San Juan.
NP as that place is going to be empty by the end of the year and then the post-bankrupt PR will be full of retired boomers and become English speaking at last.
ReplyDelete---
Why doesn't the USA just give the island its independence?
---
Didn't you read Steve's explanation? He's only being about 5% sarcastic; goes to explain what a mess the U.S. has become.
Billionaire University of Texas donor who has donated $100 million to the university says he and other rich UT donors are pissed at UT's selection of its new head football coach. The man is 86 years old. You'd think he'd have grown up by now and not care so much about college football. Maybe focus on the permanent things and some more pressing concerns, like the declining state of our civilization.
ReplyDelete"Billionaire Texas Donor Calls Charlie Strong Hire 'A Kick In The Face' To Rich Boosters"
Let me guess, you haven't seen a recent photo of Charlie Strong?
Nice post, and nice comment, David. I made a quibcag out of it:
ReplyDeletehttp://ex-army.blogspot.com/2014/01/immigration-quibcag.html
Amazing how well a gay Jew nailed the situation so many years ago.
ReplyDeleteANITA
Puerto Rico
My heart's devotion
Let it sink back in the ocean
Always the hurricanes blowing
Always the population growing
And the money owing
And the sunlight streaming
And the natives steaming
I like the island Manhattan
Smoke on your pipe
And put that in!
GIRLS
I like to be in America
Okay by me in America
Everything free in America
BERNARDO
For a small fee in America
ANITA
Buying on credit is so nice
BERNARDO
One look at us and they charge twice
ROSALIA
I'll have my own washing machine
INDIO
What will you have though to keep clean?
ANITA
Skyscrapers bloom in America
ROSALIA
Cadillacs zoom in America
TERESITA
Industry boom in America
BOYS
Twelve in a room in America
ANITA
Lots of new housing with more space
BERNARDO
Lots of doors slaming in our face
ANITA
I'll get a terrace apartment
BERNARDO
Better get rid of your accent
ANITA
Life can be bright in America
BOYS
If you can fight in America
GIRLS
Life is all right in America
BOYS
If you're all white in America
GIRLS
Here you are free and you have pride
BOYS
Long as you stay on your own side
GIRLS
Free to be anything you choose
BOYS
Free to wait tables and shine shoes
BERNARDO
Everywhere grime in America
Organized crime in America
Terrible time in America
ANITA
You forget I'm in America
BERNARDO
I think I'll go back to San Juan
ANITA
I know what boat you can get on
BERNARDO
Everyone there will give big cheers
ANITA
Everyone there will have moved here
If Puerto Rico was a U.S state, it would be the state with the highest per capita murder rate in the country.
ReplyDeleteYet at the same time it is listed as 80 percent "White" according to the census.
But how can a supposedly 80 percent "White" island have so much out of control violence ?
Or maybe the truth is those violent so-called "Whites" in Puerto Rico are actually Black Afro Puerto Ricans and Triracial Puerto Ricans.
Maybe Puerto Rico is not a 1st world Whitopia after all and is actually a 3rd world land full of racially mixed mystery meat people.
Amazing how well a gay Jew nailed the situation so many years ago. --Peterike
ReplyDeleteTo which gay Jew are you referring? Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins, or Larry Kert?
It took five of them to make West Side Story.
"The man is 86 years old. You'd think he'd have grown up by now and not care so much about college football. Maybe focus on the permanent things and some more pressing concerns, like the declining state of our civilization."
ReplyDeleteI've met Red McCombs a couple of times through one of my dad's best friends who's father knew him in San Antonio, although he has no idea who I am. He's a super prick in person and in general, and hated by the masses in SA for threatening to move the Spurs when he owned them. (If you ever wondered why the useless Alamodome was built...)
Anybody who gives 9 figures to an already filthy rich university just to have their name on the business school doesn't give a damn about what really matters. I don't get it either.
"Funny how all of the islands in the Carribbean are economic and political basketcases. None of them seem to have their act together. Wonder why?"
ReplyDeleteWrong - Barbados is better run than most the white world.
On a related note 'economists' and their meat puppets, the politicians, insist incessantly that the western nations 'need' mass immigration from the third world as an 'imperative' otherwise the shrinking birth-rates of the west will 'ensure its economic doom' and at the very least they jabber non-stop that 'there will be too small a tax base to pay for old age pensions'.
ReplyDeleteWhat's good for the goose is urely good for the gander. Instead of exporting people, by rights Puerto Rico should be opening its doors and welcoming all comers from the third world who are poorer than they are. After all, their shrinking population 'demands' it in their 'self interest' if nothing else.
Don't hold your breath.
"Funny how all of the islands in the Carribbean are economic and political basketcases. None of them seem to have their act together. Wonder why?"
ReplyDeleteWrong - Barbados is better run than most the white world.
If Barbados is run so well why are so many Bajans in Toronto? It's was -28C here yesterday for God's sake!
Puerto Rico must be a very dangerous place since they have so many disability claims, no wonder they all move to the US
ReplyDelete"""""Nine of the top ten zip codes in terms of SSDI beneficiaries are found in the US territory of Puerto Rico."""
http://www.socialsecuritydisability.tv/blog/puerto-rico-disability-investigation
Ha! I'm David, not Daniel, but that is cute, Baloo.
ReplyDeleteOn Puerto Rican thing: wasn't the defendant in "12 Angry Men" a Puerto Rican kid accused of stabbing someone to death with a switchblade?
Where the hell did I get Daniel? I must be getting old. Quibcag fixed:
ReplyDeletehttp://ex-army.blogspot.com/2014/01/immigration-quibcag.html
To Jefferson said...
ReplyDeleteAnyone who says that Puerto Rico is 80% "white" or "whitish" is not playing with a full deck. Even with the loosest possible interpretation of "white" (I.E. "White Hispanic" George Zimmerman) that claim is simply not true. I've been to Puerto Rico and know this first hand. What to do? Believe some bogus census or my own lying eyes?
"Funny how all the islands in the Carribbean are economic and political basketcases. None of them seem to have their act together. Wonder why?"
ReplyDeleteWrong - Barbados is better run then most [OF] the white world.
Oh really? You cite no sources to back this up. If Barbados is such a paradise, how come so many Bajans have left the sunny garden of Eden to move to the U.K and Canada and elsewhere? Explain that? How about all the other places there? Look at Haiti, that island of eternal loads of illegal boat-people, Voodoo and Aids? How about super-violent Jamaica? Or anywhere else? Barbados has about 280,000 people. There must be hundreds of millions of black people in the world. Even if I accept your view, Barbados would be the exception that PROVES the rule. In any event the island is about 10% composed of whites and Asians. I suspect these two groups give Barbados the 'boost-up the ladder', places like all black Haiti, etc, don't even have.
The Spanish Club at my Boston-suburban high school was comprised only of recent puerto rican immigrants.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was thirteen, I got jumped by two puerto ricans.
When I was a kid, two puerto ricans stole my bicycle from my family's garage.
We've always had open borders with Puerto Rico. The first time that any quotas were placed on immigration from the Western hemisphere was 1965 (by the Immigration and Nationality Act, much reviled in these parts), and by that time, Puerto Ricans had already been made US citizens with full rights of residency. We are coming up on the 100th anniversary of citizenship for Puerto Ricans, but that's not the same as open borders.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I think the island povery is closer to Mexico than the Latin America norm which is 27 percent now averaing the high pefromers and low performers.. PR is over 40, an island Rio Grande. Mexico is 51. Chile is 16. Too bad more Latin countries can't be Chile.
Well, the immigration is better than Mexico or Central America where all the immigrants would do service jobs not professional jobs but it adds to job competition. Maybe, it includes more professional immigrants since the poor of Puerto Rico get US Welfare. I thought that giving welfare to Mexico might have the same effect since its probably cheaper to subsidized food for Mexicans in Mexico than the free and reduce lunch program here.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I think the island povery is closer to Mexico than the Latin America norm which is 27 percent now averaing the high pefromers and low performers.. PR is over 40, an island Rio Grande. Mexico is 51. Chile is 16. Too bad more Latin countries can't be Chile.
ReplyDeleteWhat does that have to do with what I said? Before 1965, there were no quotas on immigration from any Latin American countries at all, no matter how poor. That includes Puerto Rico. There were prohibitions on the immigration of criminals, prostitutes, radicals, Chinese, and "aliens likely to become a public charge," but even the last of these did not apply to Puerto Ricans after the Supreme Court's 1902 decision Gonzales v. Williams gave Puerto Ricans, even those likely to become a public charge, full rights of residency. The point is, Puerto Ricans have always been able to come to the United States virtually unrestrictedly.
They moved to states across the U.S., with Florida, New York and Texas topping the list.
ReplyDeleteI heard a lot of cocky conservatives or Republicans on Texas, Puerto Ricians along with Mexicans means in the future less Republican stronghold. It seems Texas is becoming along with New York and Florida the destination for other than Mexican Hispanics while California bad economy has discourage the non_Mexicans and Central Americans.
"The point is, Puerto Ricans have always been able to come to the United States virtually unrestrictedly."
ReplyDeleteOkay. But......
1) Is that a good or a bad thing?
2) Why after a hundred years of political and economic association with America is Puerto Rico still such a poor and backward place?
3) How much more of Puerto Rico's surplus population does the USA have to absorb before Peurto Rico gets its economic house in order?
Anon @ 1/8 7:08,
ReplyDeleteWhy after a hundred years of political and economic association with America is Puerto Rico still such a poor and backward place?
You write as if the intention was to turn Puerto Rico into anything other than a poor and backward place. The purpose of American colonialism in Puerto Rico, like other countries' colonialism elsewhere, was to make it an economy dependent on one crop, with the mother country as the only export market. As Carmen Teresa Whalen writes:
"US sugar corporations purchased large tracts of land and invested heavily in huge grinding mills or centrales. U.S. policy provided a privileged and sheltered market for Puerto Rico's sugar [produced by American corporations]. Puerto Rico became a classic monoculture economy, producing one crop, for export, to one market. Land concentration and an economy based on cash crops reduced households' abilities to meet their subsistence needs. Instead of households growing food for home consumption, food was now imported. Indeed, restricted to trading with the United States, Puerto Rico became the twelfth largest consumer of U.S. goods in the world by 1910. In short, Puerto Rico's economy became tied to and dependent on the United States" ("Colonialism, Citizenship, and the Puerto Rican Diaspora" in The Puerto Rican Diaspora: Historical Perspectives eds. Carmen Teresa Whalen & Victor Vasquez-Hernandez, p. 7).
If Puerto Rico's economy is a basket case, "political and economic association with America" hasn't done anything to alter that reality, nor was it designed to.
How much more of Puerto Rico's surplus population does the USA have to absorb before Peurto Rico gets its economic house in order?
Again, you write as if emigration was supposed to help the Puerto Rican economy. Rather, US colonialism deliberately created the conditions for Puerto Rican emigration. From the beginning, US planners attributed Puerto Rico's economic problems to "overpopulation", rather than US colonial policy, and began intensive labor recruitment efforts to "solve" this "problem". Hawaii was an important initial destination for Puerto Rican cheap labor (ibid, pp. 7-8). US corporations and colonial officials continued to encourage Puerto Rican laborers to emigrate well into the 20th century, as US policy continued to undermine the domestic basis of the Puerto Rican economy.
Generally, people don't pick up and leave their homes and native country en masse unless there are massive changes in their home country that make their previous way of life impossible. Often, these changes are imposed from outside. The point generalizes far beyond Puerto Rico.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYou are right about the importance of Puerto Rico. If you play one of those Avalanche Press Great War at Sea series (l War plan Black) You would know that without the coaling station at San Juan, it is hard for American Dreadnoughts to keep the Kaiser's or the limy navy out of the Caribbean.
I read an article by Michael Barone that New York and Florida in 2011 could more legal immigrants than California, the Puerto Rican connection is one immigrant group that explains this.
ReplyDeleteTo anon at 8:00 PM;
ReplyDeleteThen I take it you agree with me sir. Lets just give Puerto Rico its independence and end the colonial exploitation it suffers from. Right?