Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts

Thursday, April 17, 2025

Immigration: The Edge That Made America Great

Trump’s Trade War
Peace For Taiwan Is Possible
The Last Age of War, The First Age of Peace: Lord Kalki, Prophecies, and the Path to Global Redemption

Trump’s Trade War
Peace For Taiwan Is Possible
The Last Age of War, The First Age of Peace: Lord Kalki, Prophecies, and the Path to Global Redemption

Immigration: The Edge That Made America Great

America is often called a nation of immigrants, and not without reason. No other country in modern history has been shaped so powerfully, consistently, and positively by immigration as the United States. From its founding, waves of people from around the world—fleeing persecution, poverty, war, and seeking opportunity—have come to its shores and helped build its economy, its culture, and its global influence.

A History of Open Arms—At Least for Some

Historically, immigration from Europe was strikingly easy. For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, if you were European, all you had to do was show up. You were often granted papers at arrival. Ellis Island was more processing station than barrier. The rules were far looser, and the economic logic was clear: America needed workers. And it got them—by the millions.

That labor built railroads, dug mines, manned factories, and raised cities. Immigration didn’t just help America grow; it powered that growth.

Immigration Is an Economic Superpower

The American economy is the largest in the world not in spite of immigration, but because of it. Immigrants have filled labor shortages, fueled innovation, created companies, and contributed at every level of society. Japan, with its famously tight immigration policies, is a cautionary tale: an aging, shrinking population and a stagnant economy. America, meanwhile, remains dynamic precisely because it renews itself through immigration.

Yet today, the debate has been poisoned by fear, misinformation, and political rhetoric. Calls for mass deportations defy economic, logistical, and even legal reality. California’s farm valley, for example, cannot function without undocumented laborers. Mass deportation would collapse industries overnight. The economy would suffer. And due process is already proving a legal obstacle to large-scale removals.

The Humanity in Reform

Most who walk across the southern border just want to work. And most want to return home after earning. A common-sense response isn’t cruelty—it’s a five-year work visa. Keep people documented, out of the shadows, and contributing legally. Doing so also improves public safety. Data consistently shows immigrants—especially undocumented ones—commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens. The reason is simple: they want to avoid attention, not cause trouble.

This isn’t about letting people “get away” with breaking the law. Not all laws are equal. We don’t jail people for speeding. And many immigration violations are civil, not criminal. The question isn’t just about legality—it’s about humanity, economic logic, and national interest.

A Win-Win Future

Automatic green cards upon graduation for international students are another obvious win. The U.S. trains some of the brightest minds in the world—then sends them home to compete against it. Letting them stay benefits America’s innovation economy and strengthens ties to other nations. Immigrants send money home, invest in their communities, and become lifelong goodwill ambassadors for America.

Yes, Europe’s immigration levels may not be politically feasible today. But a middle ground is. Because there is no such thing as an illegal human being. And the assault on immigration is, in many ways, an assault on America’s greatest economic edge.

The humane response is the smart response. Let’s get people out of the shadows. Let’s choose common sense. Let’s choose compassion. Let’s choose to keep America strong.

Trump’s Trade War
Peace For Taiwan Is Possible
The Last Age of War, The First Age of Peace: Lord Kalki, Prophecies, and the Path to Global Redemption

Trump’s Trade War
Peace For Taiwan Is Possible
The Last Age of War, The First Age of Peace: Lord Kalki, Prophecies, and the Path to Global Redemption

Trump’s Trade War
Peace For Taiwan Is Possible
The Last Age of War, The First Age of Peace: Lord Kalki, Prophecies, and the Path to Global Redemption

Trump’s Trade War
Peace For Taiwan Is Possible
The Last Age of War, The First Age of Peace: Lord Kalki, Prophecies, and the Path to Global Redemption

Trump’s Trade War
Peace For Taiwan Is Possible
The Last Age of War, The First Age of Peace: Lord Kalki, Prophecies, and the Path to Global Redemption

Thursday, October 06, 2022

American Racism And Visas For Indians

Just from anecdotal evidence I get the impression the United States has been "punishing" India for "siding" with Russia. India is not. A lot of people I know are having visa issues. Visas that used to get issued within a week or two now have yearlong waiting periods. This is asinine. This is racism. Racism is a variant of the fascism virus. Liberty is the opposite of fascism. Donald Trump is a fascist. His last antic has been to threaten violence upon the Republican Senate Leader. Republican! 

You can not house liberty and racism in the same framework. 

Did you ask? Before you threatened Russia, did you ask India? Did you consult? Before you sent in weapons, did you ask? Did you consult? Was it a mutual decision that you should expect blind support? 

The Russian attack on Ukraine was a surprise to India. India did not have any say in it. India has disapproved of it. India has sent a lot of humanitarian aid to Ukraine. 

India was buying oil in the world markets. India continues to buy oil in the world markets. If high oil prices are not a problem, why is California sending oil rebates to all its people? The Indian foreign minister has made the point that what India buys in a month Europe buys in one afternoon. China buys from Russia and sells to Europe. 

India is not a party to the war. India disapproves of the war. But it is also being realistic that it is not in a position to end the war. Russia is. Ukraine is. The US is. But India is not. 

Tiny bureaucrats who used to topple elected leaders in Latin America make these decisions. They be like, India! 

India is the CEO of Google! India is the CEO of Microsoft! India is the CEO of Twitter! India is Vice President of the United States. 

India is best positioned to engineer peace if peace is possible. So far it does not look possible. 

A peacemaker is not a yes man. A peacemaker without integrity will not succeed. 

Putin is not the only one who does not want peace. The military-industrial complex in America does not want peace. It is making big money right now. Don't turn off that tap. 








Friday, November 19, 2021

Ending White Minority Rule Across America

The Donald Trump-inspired political phenomenon across America that seems to refuse to die down is not an attempt to take America to an era of white minority rule. America has always had white minority rule. It is an attempt to retain white minority rule when the demographics of the country, the economic growth happening across the world, and all-around political consciousness ask America to take yet another stride towards becoming a more perfect union. Democracy is one person one vote, no ifs, no buts about it. All human beings are created equal, white or not, American citizen or not.

But sometimes hubris takes over, like in the case of Brexit. A people refusing to let go of old attitudes, habits of mind that supported unequal structures of power will not hesitate to rob the next generation of its future. A significant proportion of the population across America right now is trying too hard to go the way of a Brexit. A country of immigrants wants to stench the flow of immigration. You might as well cut the oxygen supply.

To be fair, America has always been a messy democracy. All democracies are messy. When you let everyone speak, when you let everyone vote, you will likely end up with a cacophony. The political spectrum houses every zany idea that ever existed somewhere along its length. As someone said, the past is not even past.

Every great crisis is an opportunity. But then every great crisis is also a potential disaster. The political will has to be mustered not to keep America as the sole global superpower - that was never an ideal situation to begin with - but so as to optimize the lifestyle and living standards and spiritual well-being of current and future generations, in America as well as the world. America is still the leading nation, and its signals are still picked up around the world. Ask Bolsonaro.

China is obvious competition and a potential threat. China might have picked up the market to an extent in response to the implosion of the Soviet Union, but it still retains one party’s political monopoly. The godlessness that is at the core of the Chinese political system is the reason for its immense cruelties: organ harvesting of the Falun Gong practitioners, social engineering to turn Uighurs into Han Chinese, killing the hen that laid the golden egg, namely Hong Kong, saber-rattling in the skies of Taiwan, border disputes with pretty much every bordering nation large and small, and round-the-clock surveillance of the entire population. Always being watched robs you of your basic humanity.

But white supremacist tendencies in America are hardly godly. The black population might as well be American Uighurs. Too many Uighurs are in detention camps, too many blacks are in prison. China erased poverty, America is not even working on it. Crass wealth inequality, left on its current trajectory, will bring America down. America will go the way of the Soviet Union. It will implode.

America today is not a democracy, never has been. It is not a one-person, one-vote arrangement. America is not a free-market economy. There are too many entrenched pockets of uncompetitive terrains segment after segment, architected by bribing politicians. Money has deformed the political process. The vast majority are voiceless as evidenced by policy after sensible policy that falls on deaf ears in the corridors of power.

Perhaps what America needs is a constitutional convention, ala Philadelphia. Elected representatives from across the country should gather again for the sole purpose of writing a new constitution that would expire automatically in 50 years. That might be the only way to make sure winners of the popular vote do not routinely lose the presidential election, the Senate is not a House of Lords, under the grip of less than 20% of the population, the people elect politicians and it is not the other way round. America needs to make an attempt at one person one vote democracy. America needs to try and become a democracy.

A constitution is just the playground, the football field if you will. The game is political action. Voters asserting their rights, and that of others, realizing their responsibilities, leaders challenging as well as responding to an awakening population, robustly borrowing from imaginative academics and thinkers, idea people, and all collectively seizing the future for an unprecedented Age of Abundance that is already knocking on the door: that is the clarion call of the day. There are major reasons for optimism if only the moment will be seized.

Perhaps the president should be directly elected. Open primaries might be the antidote to shameless gerrymandering. No taxation without representation was right for Boston. It is right for DC and Puerto Rico. Maybe every state should get a minimum of one Senator, but above that it should be proportional to the population for a total of 200 Senators. A state like California might as well end up with 20 Senatorial districts, or 10 even if the Senate’s number is capped at the current 100. Non-citizen white immigrants voted. All immigrants should similarly get the right to vote, regardless of what papers they carry. If you pay a phone bill, you vote. If you pay the utility bill, you vote.

You can not have one person one vote democracy at the local level but have something else at the state level, or something else at the national level. Why stop at the national borders? It is high time for a world government that adheres to the basic principle of democracy, that of one person one vote. The global economy asks for a genuine world government. The five veto-wielding powers at the UN are a relic of World War II. Nobody alive today remembers World War II. The UN is the ultimate white minority rule. Four of the five veto faces are white. And all five are male.

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Beto, Your Courage Is In Running



Beto O'Rourke presidential campaign staff, 2020
Beto O'Rourke names Texas staff for presidential campaign
Beto for America
O’Rourke bolsters senior staff with 5 hires

5 factors that could determine the strength of Beto O’Rourke’s campaign for governor The former congressman must keep elements of his 2018 campaign against Sen. Ted Cruz, while fixing mess made in 2020 presidential effort.



Beto O’Rourke hires 4 for national communications team

https://betoorourke.com/

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Has India Gone Crazy?

How Citizenship Act, NRC will alter the idea of India, writes Barkha Dutt All of us will have to prove our Indianness. And the poorest and the Muslims will be the most hit ............. The government insists that the amended new law on citizenship (the Citizenship Amendment Act or CAA) is not anti-Muslim. In fact, it claims that Indian Muslims are not even impacted by the legislation. Its stormtroopers on social media have been deployed to vociferously argue that those criticising the revamped rules — I am among them — are begrudging fast-track protection to persecuted religious minorities from neighbouring countries. .......... About 1.9 million people found themselves excluded from the NRC in Assam, but these were not just Muslim migrants from Bangladesh — the suddenly stateless included lakhs of Hindus as well. What may now happen is something like this. The citizenship law will throw a protective shield over the disenfranchised non-Muslims; the Muslim migrants will then be left to appeal before the foreigners’ tribunals. The new law also offers legal immunity to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan from jail, deportation and other criminal proceedings. In other words, the only people in internment centres will likely be Muslim migrants.............. For those who say that this does not impact India’s 200 million Muslim citizens, let me ask, how can you be untouched by the signalling that there is now a hierarchy of faiths among our people? ....... If refugees have been living in abject conditions of poverty and statelessness — and I myself have met Hindus from Pakistan living for decades in dismal conditions in Rajasthan — and deserve the magnanimity of the Indian State, that should extend to all of them, irrespective of their religion. It should include Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus and persecuted Rohingyas of Myanmar. And if our national policy is that illegal entrants are infiltrators, overrunning our land and culture, and stretching our already tight resources, then that too should apply to all of those who come into India without papers and documentation and visas. How can the BJP argue this both ways?......... In Assam, they want both the Muslims and Bengali Hindus who came in after 1971 to go back. In other parts of the east, there is similar hostility towards the Chakmas. In an area where there are more than 200 indigenous communities, ethnicity, language, and culture are as emotive, and, sometimes more, than religion. ........ begs the question. Why do it at all? Why create a crisis from two decades of peace; why fix what isn’t broken; why upend the very idea of nationhood that distinguishes India from its neighbours; and why bring religion into who can be Indian or not? ...... The CAA plus NRC equation will change not just the arithmetic but the very philosophy of India.



Modi's mandate was for double-digit growth rates. Modi's mandate was for a five trillion dollar economy. Modi's mandate was for economic development. This is social regression. This is going backward. At this pace, this is Modi's last term in office: Maharashtra shows the way. This is a gross misreading of the mandate. It is not about what you did or did not write in your manifesto. How many voters read your manifesto? Forget voters. How many of your BJP leaders read your manifesto? What you did to Kashmir, now you are doing to all of India. The social fabric of India will be in tatters at this pace.

The US is the richest country. And the US is incapable of deporting its 10 million-plus undocumented. India is less rich, to put it generously, and it has a much larger population. This attempt is bigotry outright. This is ill. This is about marginalizing the marginalized. This is cruel.

The political "genius" here is to create a refugee crisis, the largest in the world, where none exists.

If this bill is unconstitutional, its opponents need to mount a legal challenge, instead of only issuing press releases. And the political blowback needs to happen. Modi is clearly steering India back to its "Hindu growth rate" days.

‘Rahul Jinnah’ a more appropriate name for you: BJP hits back at Rahul Gandhi Veer Savarkar is revered as a Hindutva icon for the BJP but is accused by its rivals of tendering apologies to the British government to secure release from jail when India was under colonial rule. ....... Addressing the Congress’ mega “Bharat Bachao Rally” at Ramlila Grounds in the national capital, Gandhi had turned down the BJP’s demand for an apology for his “rape in India” comment, saying his name was Rahul Gandhi not Rahul Savarkar, and that he would never apologise for speaking the truth.

Citizenship Amendment Bill: India's West Bengal hit by protests
Violent clashes continue in India over new citizenship bill Protests spread to Delhi as BJP government accused of making Muslims second-class citizens
India just redefined its citizenship criteria to exclude Muslims With a new law — and massive new detention camps — the country is undermining its status as a democracy....... India is home to 200 million Muslims. ...... The legislation turns religion into a means of deciding whom to treat as an illegal immigrant — and whom to fast-track for citizenship. ...... When the NRC was published in August, around 2 million people — many of them Muslims, some of them Hindus — found that their names were not on it. They were told they had a limited time in which to prove that they are, in fact, citizens. Otherwise, they can be rounded up into massive new detention camps and, ultimately, deported. ...... So far, this measure affects potentially 2 million people, not all 200 million Muslims in India. However, Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said it plans to extend the NRC process across the country....... Muslims have faced increasing discrimination and violence over the past few years under Modi’s BJP. But the one-two punch of the NRC followed by the CAB takes this to a new level. The country is beginning to look less like a secular democracy and more like a Hindu nationalist state. .......

If the Indian government proceeds with its plan, in a worst-case scenario we could be looking at the biggest refugee crisis on the planet. The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom have all warned that this could soon turn into a humanitarian disaster of horrifying proportions.

...... Shashi Tharoor, whose Congress party opposes the CAB, dubbed it “fundamentally unconstitutional.” ..... Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit priest and human rights advocate, said in an emailed statement that by “assuring citizenship to all undocumented persons except those of the Muslim faith, the CAB risks ... destroying the secular and democratic tenets of our revered Constitution.” ...... India’s Constitution guarantees everyone equality under the law. Religion is not a criterion for citizenship eligibility, a decision that goes all the way back to the 1940s, when India was founded as a secular state with special protections for minorities like Muslims. ....... Harsh Mander, a noted rights advocate of Sikh origins, wrote that the CAB represents “the gravest threat to India’s secular democratic Constitution since India became a republic.” He said that if the bill becomes law, he’ll declare himself a Muslim out of solidarity. Meanwhile, he’s also calling for Indians to fight the CAB with a nationwide civil disobedience movement. ...... Already, protests are underway. In Assam’s capital, authorities have shut down the internet and implemented a curfew. ................ “The idea of India that emerged from the independence movement,” said a letter signed by more than 1,000 Indian intellectuals, “is that of a country that aspires to treat people of all faiths equally.” But this bill, the intellectuals said, is “a radical break with this history” and will “greatly strain the pluralistic fabric of the country.” ......... The US Commission on International Religious Freedom said India is taking a “dangerous turn in the wrong direction,” adding that the US should weigh sanctions against India if it enshrines the bill in law. ......... The only hope for those who oppose it is that it will be struck down in court on the grounds that it’s unconstitutional. ........ Those in Assam whose names do not appear on the NRC have been told the burden of proof is on them to prove that they are citizens. But many rural residents don’t have birth certificates or other papers, and even among those who do, many can’t read them; a quarter of the population in Assam state is illiterate........... Residents do get the chance to appeal to a Foreigners’ Tribunal and, if it rejects their claims to citizenship, to the High Court of Assam or even the Supreme Court. But if all that fails, they can be sent to one of 10 mass detention camps the government plans to build, complete with boundary walls and watchtowers. ........ The first camp, currently under construction, is the size of seven football fields. Even nursing mothers and children will be held there. “Children lodged in detention centers are to be provided educational facilities in nearby local schools,” an Indian official said. ....... If the detainees in the camps end up being expelled from India — and that is the government’s plan — this could constitute a wave of forced migration even greater than that triggered by Myanmar in 2017, when hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were displaced........ And it’s not clear where the newly stateless people would go. Neighboring Bangladesh has already said it won’t take them. All this has induced such intense anxiety that some Muslims are committing suicide........ Under Modi, vigilante Hindus have increasingly perpetrated hate crimes against Muslims, sometimes in an effort to scare their communities into moving away, other times to punish them for selling beef (cows are considered sacred in Hinduism). And this summer, Modi erased the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, which had previously enjoyed considerable autonomy over its own affairs. ........ “These infiltrators are eating away at our country like termites,” BJP president and home minister Amit Shah said at an April rally. “The NRC is our means of removing them.” Shah has openly said the goal is to deport those who are deemed illegal immigrants...... Last month, Shah said the government will conduct another count of citizens — this time nationwide. This could be used to clamp down on Muslims throughout India, potentially triggering a huge humanitarian disaster.




India passes controversial citizenship bill that excludes Muslims
India Passes Controversial Citizenship Bill That Would Exclude Muslims

Friday, December 06, 2019

Step By Step To Solving The Big Problems

I think it would be a good idea to start with basic accounting. This is very pro-market. This is pro-capitalism. And I don't think the Chinese have anything against basic bookkeeping. So accounting is ideology-free.

All wealth has to be put on the Blockchain. Everything every person on earth owns has to be put on the Blockchain. That is in the great interest of the property owners. That will secure property rights. It is said the biggest thing you can do for wealth creation in the poor countries is to secure as to which land plot belongs to who. Modern technology has now made that possible. Satellites can now put borders down to the inch. Once every person in the Global South knows exactly who owns what plot of land, suddenly they have all this collateral they can use to borrow money from banks and can invest in new businesses. The biggest risk-taking entrepreneurs are in the bottom billions. They will give immense growth.

There does not have to be a loss of privacy. Most people probably would not like the idea that now anyone with internet access can find out how much you are worth. For one, that might seriously jeopardize online dating! Privacy is important. Privacy is an important, fundamental human value. There is a way to put all property on the Blockchain and still preserve privacy. Maybe there can be an arrangement such that only authorized organizations, like the four layers of government - local, state, national, and world - should have access to your property records.

But we don't have a world government right now. Maybe we can start with a one percent wealth tax. Everything you own above a certain value (say a million dollars) should be subject to a wealth tax of one percent that you pay directly to the world government. To that every member country gets to pay one percent of its GDP every year. That would be the membership fee.

The super-rich should not be allowed to "hide" their money. A great tragedy of the 2008 Great Recession was that the world economy was staring at an abyss and there were trillions of dollars simply parked in so-called "safe havens."

This one percent wealth tax would work as a constant stimulus. If your wealth is not generating income, then that one percent tax might be a burden. And so there will be pressure on all wealth to grow.

It is high time we funded a UBI, which I have never defined as American Basic Income.

Too many people still don't have proper IDs. Well, now we can do that easily. All someone has to do is place their fingers on a touchscreen, and their unique fingerprint will give them a more secure ID than the US social security number. And every such biometric ID could have an instant online bank account. The UBI would be an automatic transfer of money into every bank account.

Poverty is a lack of cash. If we were to transfer something like $100 per month to every single human being every month, poverty is past tense.

Why should people who are not poor support something like that? Because UBI is infrastructure. What electricity was for the second industrial revolution and the internet was for the third, UBI (Universal Basic Income) is the same for the impending fourth industrial revolution. The fourth industrial revolution that will unleash tremendous wealth creation and usher an Age Of Abundance is not possible unless you put in place the UBI.

Everybody who can touch a touchscreen can get an ID, or look into a smart screen camera. And it does not even have to be a screen you own. And everyone can directly vote on those screens. We could have a directly elected President of the World.

There is the climate crisis. There is urbanization and the housing crisis. There is poverty. There is immigration. There is terrorism, a needle in a haystack problem. All these big problems are global in nature and scope. I am not saying the world government will solve them all. But only a world government can provide the framework in which the problems can be solved.



New Capitalism Is Techno Capitalism, Hello Marc
The Blockchain: Fundamental Like The Internet
Inequality And Climate Change Are Existential: A Blueprint For Survival
Towards A World Government
Universal Basic Income (aka Freedom Dividend) Is Not Free Money


Saturday, July 20, 2019

This Orange-Utang Of A President


This orange-utang of a president ("Orange is the new black!") who wants to send Ilhan "back," and Alex and Tlaib and Pressley "back," well, I have bad news for him. The mayor of the town in Germany from which his grandfather came to America has put out notice saying, "We don't want him back!" Looks like there is no place for Donald in Germany.




Video: Mayor says Trump will have to 'go back to hell'

Friday, July 19, 2019

These Are Concentration Camps On The Border

The US President is on record telling the top immigration law enforcement officer, if you break the law, I will pardon you. As in, break the law as much as you want. When you create such an environment, you will see the sociopaths and the sadists in such organizations gravitating towards the scenes of action. Obviously, the policy is break the families, traumatize the too young, torture as necessary. So as to send the message. Don't be coming over to the US border.

Then you bar journalists from getting anywhere near. Unless you are doing the illegal and the inhumane, why will you feel the need to deprive US journalists of their lawful rights? And how is it being possible to deny those rights? Of the journalists.

What are concentration camps?

These people are fleeing gang violence. They are fleeing other forms of violence. They are fleeing acute destitution due to things like hyperinflation brought about by US policies like economic sanctions.

This is cruelty. America is losing its character, slowly but surely.

The definition of a concentration camp is, are they being dehumanized before they are being eliminated? You don't need copycat gas chambers. Elimination by gang violence can also be counted. Dehumanization through the mouth of the President Of The United States counts. Filthy, racist talk, whether or not it be supported by polls counts. Racism is not okay, poll-tested or not.

The world is watching. God is watching.

Concentration camps are places where you keep people against their will (and, in this case, against the law) to dehumanize them so that when you later eliminate them there is little outcry. So the question is, are these people being dehumanized. They are. By the dude holding the biggest microphone in the country.

If the likes of them stay away from the border, might they be eliminated? Yes. Most of them are fleeing violence.

The Statue Of Liberty has become unnecessary in the New York harbor. It is an anachronism. Take it to the southern border. That land is the new ocean.

To call these camps concentration camps is not disrespect for the Holocaust victims. The only true way to honor them is to act so such acts are not repeated. Standing against border racism is honoring the Holocaust victims.

This country needs to protect itself first and foremost. Right now it is busy eating itself from the inside. It is fast losing its character, at least the official version of it.

Before Germany became officially a fascist country, it was a vibrant democracy of very well educated people. Before Hitler became a dictator, he was thought of a clown.

The time to speak up is now.

A lot of Americans opposed Jewish immigration in the 1930s. How is that for a comparison? There were organized efforts.