El Peregrino

'American Empire' is a much debated term. Smarter and more connected people than I have spilt gallons of ink over the question. Most have focussed on the external aspects of the Empire, i.e. its relations with and agression toward states that stand in its way.

Well, I'd like to focus a moment on the internal aspects of Empires in general, specifically their population policies, and see if we can draw parallels to America in the early 21st century.

One of the most salient facts of empire the demographic changes induced -- intentionally and unintentionally-- by their policies. Take the Ottomans. An Ottoman conquest was typically accompanied by resettling of the newly conquered land with foreign settlers. For example, in Bosnia the Ottomans replaced the native slav population (which fled before the Sultan's armies). The farmsteads were settled with Vlachs -- former nomads whom the Ottomans encouraged to settle down. These Vlachs were in essence beholden to the Ottoman state for their lands. Even better, they had no collective memory of the social structure before the Ottoman takeover -- and certainly no memory of the prior Bosnian state. Cut off from such sources of collective identity and oweing their position to the Sultan, they were a perfect pool of exploitable agricultural labor.

Of course, there are many more examples of the manipulation of populations in pursuit of Empire. Slavery is the obvious example. African slaves had no institutional stucture and very few symbolic sources of identity which could serve has focal points for mobilization against their oppression. In contrast, indians in North America, Mexico and further south did have resources which allowed resistance against being enslaved and even against being dispossed of their land.

Now, to American empire, current version. It seems the elite that run this empire are determined to engage in the same sort of demographic manipulation. The political, economic and cultural establishments in the US have all spent quite a large amount of effort in promoting mass immigration, getting Americans to accept ridiculously high levels of immigration, and vilifying anyone who pointed out the obvious ill effects of said immigration. The benefits for the empire builders is obvious -- a poorly paid, culturally disoriented and politically divided population which will provide an eager and cheap workforce and killing force for their imperial project. This is a hard thesis to prove -- but there have to be some critical and operationalizable variables which can provide an 'experimentum crucis'

Wedge Issues Play Big Part in Campaign.

Just as a box of Crackerjack ^(tm) is hopelessly incomplete without a prize, a story on 'wedge issues' is fatally lacking without a reference to Pete Wilson and immigration. Or so I thought. But reading the above story I began to doubt. No, the reporter was analysing how the 'republican controlled' congress was dividing the nation over burning issues like gay marriage, flag burning, and 'keeping God in the pledge of allegiance'.

As is typical in these stories, a couple of academics were trotted out, one (if not misquoted) saying ''The traditional wedge issues are designed to make voters feel that their traditional lifestyle is somehow under attack and that things are moving way too fast in the wrong direction." Which begs the question: What is the acceptable speed for moving in the wrong direction? Then we were treated to a few remarks by the ever media friendly Gary Bauer. I began to doubt my hypothesis.

I should have had more confidence. Scrolling down...down... and arriving at the antepenultimate and penultimate paragraphs, I hit paydirt.

In recent years, especially at the state level and in some congressional races, candidates have also used wedge issues to pit white voters against Hispanics or blacks by using issues such as immigration, affirmative action, crime and drugs.

For instance, in 1994 Republican Pete Wilson managed to turn around his campaign to win re-election as governor of California by backing an anti-immigration ballot initiative. He won but the issue left many Hispanics angry and they took it out on Republicans in later elections.

Oh, me of little faith.

Ten years, and they still won't leave the guy in peace.But how many times does it have to be repeated. Pete Wilson won! No other Republican even vaguely broached the immigration issue until Ahnold with his promised veto of driver's licenses for illegals ... a promise he kept in a very clever way, knowing that his political future depended on it.


Meanwhile, why do the Republicans feel free to be 'divisive' over issues that will make about an once of difference in 96% of peoples lives, while letting communities, states, and the whole nation be crushed by the weight of an insane immigration policy?

Yet another beheading, this time of American Eugene Armstrong. I'll admit to watching a few of these, dating back to the Daniel Pearl murder. It took me quite a while to decide to watch that one. I don't think I should have.

This one, however, is the worst I have seen. I will never succumb to the temptation again. I will not describe it out of respect for Mr. Armstrong, but the God ... unlike others, the sound is perfect, and horible.

Now, to the meaning of these acts. These beheadings are simply Muslim ritual slaughter. They view their victims, the view us, as animals. And by submitting to this, by not finding and killing these vicious dogs, we are simply inviting more slaughter against us. We have 130,000 troops in Iraq, and yet we are powerless to stop this vicious and humiliating -- beyond humiliating-- spectacle.

I was against the war in Iraq. We have no business being there. We have created the atmosphere in which these groups can operate. But the mess is made; these crimes simply cannot go unpunished.

One Mr. Bandow at NRO suggests letting 1,000 Burmese orphans into the country. Now,1000 orphans is not a big deal, but where do you draw the line? The world --the 'third world'--is very good a producing orphans. Should we take them all in? If not, by what criteria do we discriminate?

It might be objected that there are willing homes for these children. But of course the communities these children settle in will be impacted. Something called 'externalities'. I might be more disposed to letting more orphan immigrants -- at that is what they are, immigrants -- in if there weren't 8-12 million illegal aliens in the US right now, in no small part because of the intellectual smoke screen that Bandow's Cato Institute provides for cheap labor loving big business.

With the current immigration situation running so out of control, every effort to import more people should be opposed.

My advice to Bandow: You want to do some good work? Go help the kids right where they are.

Steve Sailor notices a strange similarity in a bit (the only bit?) of "good news" coming out of Iraq. Newsweek and WSJ both praise the "lack of ethnic violence" in Iraq.

Well, leaving aside the Tal Afar situation, where the US dodged a bullet (make sure to read the last paragraph), this development doesn't exactly bode well for multicultural Iraq.

asdf

I wonder if I can do it ... Ra^ther.

The Futility of Intelligence Reform

How many thousands of dollars have been spent, how many expert's consultancy hours have been billed, how much ink has been spilled, over intel reform?
Unfortunately intelligence is only as good as policy makers willingness to take it on board and craft policy based on it. This precludes:

1) setting up a separate intel body, full of people with dubious motives, to second guess your professionals

2) unwillingness to accept intelligence that contradicts your notions



Still, he [the President] insisted to supporters in St. Cloud, Minnesota: "This country [Iraq] is headed toward democracy."

The blogosphere is relishing its latest success. Quite obviously CBS got hoaxed. Quite obviously they are as yet unwilling to admit it and take the 5 minutes of humilation that such an admission would entail.

But let's be realistic here. 'Conservative' bloggers are 1) engaging in more than a little self-adulation 2) this 'issue' is creating a lot of noise that is just helping El Presidente

Yeah, I know being able to say 'gotcha' is a good feeling. But maybe there are more important issues such as number 1000-1005 Americans being killed in Iraq, or American helicopters (well actually their weapons officers) opening fire on an unruly, but seemingly unarmed crowd.

Here's a spanner in the works, though. Absolutely pure conjecture, and not original to me. But why would any anti-Bush operative do such a lousy job forging documents. I mean jeez, all they had to do was set the font to Courier (monospaced vs. proportional font) , and deactivate the autoformatting (the raised 'th'). So, Republicans are benefitting from this, a forgery that looks like it was designed to be descovered. I am not saying this has anything to do with the RNC -- but it does sound like something one of these 'tech-savvy', hot shot bloggers would think of. In other words, was CBS set up?

Looks like one John Derbyshire has thrown in the towel. Have to love that 'People of Iraq!' business.