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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (175141)	11/17/2005 10:49:11 AM
From: neolib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The way I understand it, France let a lot of those people into France because they fought on France's side during the Algerian conflict. And I think that trying to blend them into French culture is better done belatedly than not at all. I read an article recently which claimed many of these people were imported for labor starting in the 1960's. Labor the french didn't want to do. It was part of the grand rebuilding of France after WWII. Reminds me of the various economist that tout the importance of immigration for the USA. I doubt our problems will be as severe as France's because we are bigger, we're better at assimilating, and the numbers moving here are likely to be a lot smaller. I'm sure that France's problems are uniquely French, but I suggest that your own grandkids will have a 50-50 chance of speaking Spanish. Oddly enough, the reason they will is exactly the same as the French problem: a few generations of their elders desiring cheap labor for jobs they'ed rather not do, while ignoring biology. LOL!

To: Bilow who wrote (175141)	11/17/2005 8:03:26 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Respond to of 281500

The way I understand it, France let a lot of those people into France because they fought on France's side during the Algerian conflict. And I think that trying to blend them into French culture is better done belatedly than not at all. This has much more to do with the fact that Algeria is in close proximity to France, and was part of their former colonial empire. This proximity to northern Africa (Maghreb) is a significant factor, much the way proximity to the US leads so many Latinos to the USA. When the French bailed on Algeria, the French expats (pieds noirs) that returned to France were not very well received, and all that is part of their collective consciousness the way Vietnam is part of ours. [They had Indochina too, but Algeria is a far bigger deal.] One of the greatest strength of the US is its ability to turn foreigners into natives. France, in fact any country, would do well to imitate us. This is something we're better at, but is deeply ingrained in our culture. The fact that the Middle Ages didn't happen here makes a huge difference. Many things, like French socialism are so profoundly cultural in origin they can't be realistically expected to change overnight. And that's a Western culture ! After the collapse in Iraq, we'll probably have a lot of Iraqis move to this country just like we had Vietnamese move here after the collapse there. I doubt our problems will be as severe as France's because we are bigger, we're better at assimilating, and the numbers moving here are likely to be a lot smaller. It's possible, but this administration is doing its best to make the US an uglier place for foreigners to come to, with initiatives like the Permanent Patriot Act and other reactionary paranoia. I happened to be looking on the web to see if anything possibly new had come along in synthesis of passive impedances from real frequency data, and came across this paper presented on the 100th anniversary of Wilhelm Cauer's birth. cs.princeton.edu His son Emil recalls : After his term at MIT, Cauer worked for three months for the Wired Radio Company in Newark, N.J. During the turbulent years which followed, my parents often recalled this impressive year in America, which broadened their outlook and made them critical of German visions of omnipotence. This is the America that the Bush/Cheney administration is busy destroying. Probably the main thing that will finally limit the damage is their abject incompetence.

To: Bilow who wrote (175141)	11/18/2005 12:21:22 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Views of a Republican Senator: Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) strongly criticized yesterday the White House's new line of attack against critics of its Iraq policy, saying that "the Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them." With President Bush leading the charge, administration officials have lashed out at Democrats who have accused the administration of manipulating intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. Bush has suggested that critics are hurting the war effort, telling U.S. troops in Alaska on Monday that critics "are sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy. And that's irresponsible." Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran and a potential presidential candidate in 2008, countered in a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations that the Vietnam War "was a national tragedy partly because members of Congress failed their country, remained silent and lacked the courage to challenge the administrations in power until it was too late." "To question your government is not unpatriotic -- to not question your government is unpatriotic," Hagel said, arguing that 58,000 troops died in Vietnam because of silence by political leaders. "America owes its men and women in uniform a policy worthy of their sacrifices."