At this point I reach for that line from Goethe: “I thank God that I am not young in so thoroughly ruined a world.” Usefully it offers a choice: take it at face value, or consider that he wrote it early in the nineteenth century and yet humanity is still—just about—clinging on.
I don't think 'unfettered internationalism' describes anyone in the US with any sort of power or influence at all.
It is hard not to be pessimistic about climate change, especially as it affects places like South Asia. It's already very bad and only going to get worse. Conversion away from fossil fuels has been accelerating, I think, and there's still much to be done on that. Conversion costs money, yes, but if our government stopped going out of its way to subsidize fossil fuels, that wouldn't be a bad step here.
In the US, the need for more immigration becomes ever more apparent. There are help wanted signs everywhere, and unemployment is at all time lows. It's not internationalism to say that to maintain the proper ratio of employed people to retirees to keep the retirement system afloat, we're going to need more young people than our nation is producing. And look, there are a bunch of young people willing to brave a dangerous and stealthy trip across our southern desert for a shot at one of those jobs with a help-wanted sign. We need to build more housing, which means we need more construction workers, and on it goes.
Lieven's point would be that in times of mass immigration people don't come across as individuals or fungible units of labour, but as members of pre-existing social networks, few of which share Western civic norms. That doesn't have to be universally true to be damaging — look at Sweden. Or, for that matter, rewatch The Godfather.
See
"The desire of environmentalists simultaneously to issue dire warnings that climate change will increase migration and to downplay the results of migration can produce some curious effects. Thus chapter 14 of Christian Parenti’s otherwise excellent book Tropic of Chaos is called “Golgotha Mexicana” and includes both a dire warning of environmental degradation and the threatened impact of climate change in Central America, and a truly terrifying (but apparently wholly accurate) portrait of drug wars, predatory police, corruption, rape, and murder in Ciudad Juarez, on the other side of the Rio Grande from Texas."
(p. 38)
I don't know what the answer is, because you're also right.
I think the situation in North America is just very different in this regard. Latin American culture is not nearly so alien.
Also, our crappy social safety net, and insistence that refugees get little in terms of assistance means that immigrants here, even asylees, and working 2 or 3 jobs to raise their kids.
Some immigrants have turned to crime, a reality since the first European settlers arrived in North America, but most do not. Even in the Godfather, most Italian Americans are just trying to go about their lives, some few needing favors from fewer still to deal with political failures. In the opening scene, the undertaker's daughter was abused and, trying to assimilate, he went to the police. Only for the criminals to get light punishment. Only then does he go to Corleone for justice.
I wholly agree that most immigrants do not turn to crime. My point with "universally" was (meant to be) that it only takes a small minority of immigrants to do so to have disproportionate effects. That's certainly been the case in Sweden, where the overwhelming majority of refugees were just that. But this didn't prevent the emergence of well-armed criminal networks anchored within these ethnic groups.
And criminal subcultures (with their own economics) do cross borders, in both directions. AS far as I remember, the monstrous gangs of El Salvador had their origins in the US penal system. But then of course they re-enter the US once they have trashed their own country.
The other relevant difference, I think, is the internet, and modern communications generally. The Mafia in New Jersey was largely cut off from the parent organisation in Sicily, but ubiquitous smartphones with end to end encryption mean that doesn't happen today. Similarly, electronic payments make ransoms much easier and more profitable to demand.
At this point I reach for that line from Goethe: “I thank God that I am not young in so thoroughly ruined a world.” Usefully it offers a choice: take it at face value, or consider that he wrote it early in the nineteenth century and yet humanity is still—just about—clinging on.
I don't think 'unfettered internationalism' describes anyone in the US with any sort of power or influence at all.
It is hard not to be pessimistic about climate change, especially as it affects places like South Asia. It's already very bad and only going to get worse. Conversion away from fossil fuels has been accelerating, I think, and there's still much to be done on that. Conversion costs money, yes, but if our government stopped going out of its way to subsidize fossil fuels, that wouldn't be a bad step here.
In the US, the need for more immigration becomes ever more apparent. There are help wanted signs everywhere, and unemployment is at all time lows. It's not internationalism to say that to maintain the proper ratio of employed people to retirees to keep the retirement system afloat, we're going to need more young people than our nation is producing. And look, there are a bunch of young people willing to brave a dangerous and stealthy trip across our southern desert for a shot at one of those jobs with a help-wanted sign. We need to build more housing, which means we need more construction workers, and on it goes.
Lieven's point would be that in times of mass immigration people don't come across as individuals or fungible units of labour, but as members of pre-existing social networks, few of which share Western civic norms. That doesn't have to be universally true to be damaging — look at Sweden. Or, for that matter, rewatch The Godfather.
See
"The desire of environmentalists simultaneously to issue dire warnings that climate change will increase migration and to downplay the results of migration can produce some curious effects. Thus chapter 14 of Christian Parenti’s otherwise excellent book Tropic of Chaos is called “Golgotha Mexicana” and includes both a dire warning of environmental degradation and the threatened impact of climate change in Central America, and a truly terrifying (but apparently wholly accurate) portrait of drug wars, predatory police, corruption, rape, and murder in Ciudad Juarez, on the other side of the Rio Grande from Texas."
(p. 38)
I don't know what the answer is, because you're also right.
The appalling situation in Juarez is capitalism gone wild.
I think the situation in North America is just very different in this regard. Latin American culture is not nearly so alien.
Also, our crappy social safety net, and insistence that refugees get little in terms of assistance means that immigrants here, even asylees, and working 2 or 3 jobs to raise their kids.
Some immigrants have turned to crime, a reality since the first European settlers arrived in North America, but most do not. Even in the Godfather, most Italian Americans are just trying to go about their lives, some few needing favors from fewer still to deal with political failures. In the opening scene, the undertaker's daughter was abused and, trying to assimilate, he went to the police. Only for the criminals to get light punishment. Only then does he go to Corleone for justice.
I wholly agree that most immigrants do not turn to crime. My point with "universally" was (meant to be) that it only takes a small minority of immigrants to do so to have disproportionate effects. That's certainly been the case in Sweden, where the overwhelming majority of refugees were just that. But this didn't prevent the emergence of well-armed criminal networks anchored within these ethnic groups.
And criminal subcultures (with their own economics) do cross borders, in both directions. AS far as I remember, the monstrous gangs of El Salvador had their origins in the US penal system. But then of course they re-enter the US once they have trashed their own country.
The other relevant difference, I think, is the internet, and modern communications generally. The Mafia in New Jersey was largely cut off from the parent organisation in Sicily, but ubiquitous smartphones with end to end encryption mean that doesn't happen today. Similarly, electronic payments make ransoms much easier and more profitable to demand.