Time Magazine Article - "Blame Mexico: The Mess Starts At Home"

http://www.tradealert.us/news_item.asp?NID=2047513

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Blame Mexico: the Mess Starts at Home
Shameful neglect by the country's leaders is a big reason people want to leave

By PO BRONSON

Posted Monday, May. 08, 2006
I've lived in California for 24 years. I've always taken the most liberal line on immigration, without much question. I supported amnesty for undocumented workers and I marched against California's propositions that made it harder for immigrants to receive social services. My patriotism is rooted in their perspective; their appreciation for how good life is in America serves as a valuable check on all those who complain that life was better 50 years ago or life is better in France today.

But my preset acceptance has been a blindness. Liberals like me have ignored the way the steady trickle of new Americans has become a massive repopulation program, primarily from Mexico. During the 1970s, 120,000 Mexicans came to the U.S. every year. During the 1980s, it was about 200,000 a year. During the 1990s, it was 350,000 a year. Today, it's estimated at 485,000—every year. One out of every eight Mexican-born adults are now living in the U.S.

I no longer think it's okay to give the Mexican government a free pass. Pushing its poor towards the U.S. seems to have become Mexico's primary social policy. The migration rate is the highest from the areas with the poorest people. But the Mexican government has not pushed money into those areas to ease the conditions that force Mexicans to leave. It's doing the opposite; the World Bank says those states are receiving the least government help.

This has been a threefold victory for the Mexican government. First, it eliminates the financial concern of how to care for these people. Second, the citizens who would be the angriest about the government's inadequacies keep leaving the country. Those who would vote, protest, stage walk-outs, and revolt—instead keep voting with their feet. Which in turn protects The Powers That Be. And third, as a reward for watching entire communities empty out, they receive a huge influx of cash.


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It's fine to welcome immigrants and support their rights. But why do we attack our own government so loudly, and yet remain so silent on how their government is failing them? For a good liberal, there's nothing more damning than looking culturally insensitive. And Vicente Fox knows this; he knows that half of America will never dare criticize anyone who speaks another language. So he pushes his poor our way, knowing we good liberals will only rise and applaud.

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—Po Bronson is the author of What Should I Do With My Life? and Why Do I Love These People? His website is pobronson.com.

our leaders!

Its the Mexican Govt that refuses to advance the life of its people.

The Mexican government denies it is encouraging people to leave. But Mexico has still not made human trafficking illegal. They distributed 1.5 million comic books with instructions on how to cross the border safely. Yucatan distributed a similar book, complete with bonus DVD. Last December, Mexico began a publicity campaign reminding Mexicans that they were entitled to a $5.15 minimum wage in the U.S. — but it has not adequately enforced its own minimum wage of 60 cents.

Should make for good relations between the two, no?

The primary reason that Mexico is "poor" is that the elites like it that way. Mexico's ruling class routinely confiscates an obscenely large share of the country's considerable wealth.

Mexicans are poor because of the extreme inequality that plagues Mexican society. Mexico is NOT some kind of resource-stripped famine zone that actually can't provide for its people, and it pisses me off when gullible "liberals" insist on treating it as though it were.

The elites in the US are happy b/c they get to drive wages down.

See, everyone's HAPPY, and if you don't GET THAT you're just a xenophobic asshole!!!! :sarcasm: