When the Riots Begin

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Great exchange, more thoughtful than the propaganda that splashes constantly on this issue of teaching the children of ‘illegals’. Most of these kids are born in the United States and are therefore Americans. Their parents may have broken the law, but the children have done nothing wrong other than to have crawled out of the wrong womb. Why is it that a White kid in school districts like Orange County or San Francisco deserves all the help he can get but a Latino kid in poorer districts gets shafted? If they made cuts across the board and took away the gold plated benefits like subsidized exchange programs to Europe for instance from upper class ‘public schools’, all the children could ostensibly be educated to requisite standards. It is disgusting to even think that ‘living within our means’ translates to depriving the poor of what they need most to gain some semblance of equality with their wealthier countrymen.

But as monty points out, the structure of California’s tax revenues and social expenditure has a direct correlation with its economy. Agriculture is important in California and if the grapes are to be picked or the apples sorted, farm hands are needed. These people have children and for everyone’s sake their kids must be educated. However, the real reason why California hosts so many ‘illegals’ is because the mainstay of the Californian economy by far is real estate. Construction long ceased to be regarded as an appropriate career for the ambitious young middle class man. The work is heavy, dirty and requires significant skill to accomplish. Yet cost considerations are paramount in new real estate development as properties tend to be presold before they are built. Wages are consequently low or lower than other types of white collar work when adjusted for factors like griminess or danger. Since the White Man will not do it and Asians would rather hang themselves than have their children work in construction, builders had no choice but to rely increasingly on illegal Mexican laborers. Wages were actually good enough that many of these men brought their family over and then proceeded with gusto to make more babies.

Now the real estate bust has occurred and these men are out of a job. It would not be that bad if their kids were not being thrown out or squeezed out of school because rich folks have decided to live within their means. However, the problem does not lie with these illegal immigrants, the root cause of the present crisis has to do with how California made a living all these years. Selling real estate to migrants coming from other parts of the United States who brought with them their life savings was like drinking blood to quench one’s thirst. The capital inflows created a sense of prosperity that California’s economic base structures could not provide. This incidentally is also how the country as a whole has ‘created wealth’ over the last 30-40 years or so. When the flow is reversed or simply stops as it has now, California’s capital infusion dependent economy collapsed in a thunderous halt. This is the real reason why such a huge gap has appeared in California’s fiscal budget.

The reason I recommended the AK-47 is because I hope you never have to use it. The AK-47 is a scary looking beast and if you buy a large checkered handkerchief and use it as a hood, with an AK-47 in one hand, you will look like a jihadist that people watch on internet videos. That may be enough to frighten the buggers into leaving you and your property alone. Handguns are smaller and can actually pack quite a punch but they do require significant training if you want to appear competent with them. Remember the films where the noob shakes so uncontrollably that the guy at the other end knows that even at a distance of 5 feet the sucker is going to miss? That is the reason why I would give handguns a pass. Shot guns are like semi-automatics except that the loading mechanism is manual. In times of stress, people may forget how to load a shot gun and that could backfire on you.

How can you think they are more of a manual load than an loading an AK47 clip and inserting it? Shotguns are easier. Have you handled either?

Oh hum... Zeno, friendly advice... if you're going to defend minorities (which i have nothing against, personnally) you should watch out for Brusilov if he points his head in here, he's well..... special, if you get my drift. <.<

Not to try to discredit your recommendation in any way, but the citizens of the PRK (California to you) are not legally allowed to purchase an AK, or even the magazines to go with it for that matter. The shotgun would be the most all purpose choice, and if left loaded but uncocked can be brought into action quickly and safely. I'm not sure how the PRK views the Saiga 12 (a magazine fed semi-auto 12gauge based on the AK design), but that might be the perfect choice if available, since reloads are a snap and much quicker than with a standard shotgun. The shotgun also has at least as much intimidation value as the AK, since the shooter is even less likely to miss, and the sound of one being cocked is unmistakable and menacing. For a rifle, the best thing for that area might actually be a lever action carbine in 30-30 or if you're really serious, .45-70. It's nearly as quick as a semi, compact, safe, easy to load and politically low profile, since it isn't black and plastic and is less scary looking to liberals and other mental incompetents, and plenty accurate for the job at hand. Besides, who could resist a little vigilante justice using such an iconic firearm of the American West?

Personally I hate guns, but the Singapore government forces its male born citizens to learn how to handle at least the M16. It is fun to fire off a gun, but not fun to have to clean it later. Life at a military camp was an endless round of cleaning the M16 rifle which had to be so clean that a cloth pulled through the barrel would not show up any dirt. Aside from that all soldiers would have had to carry the section automatic weapon and we were also forced to drag around a Vietnam War era machine gun. For those considered combat fit, there would have been live firing exercises involving the 84mm mortar and everyone is required to toss a live grenade at least once. So to answer some of your queries, I have handled weaponry and do not feel that I was in any way enriched by the experience.

The talk of guns was something of a morbid joke, but the question of social dysfunction is not. Although the criticism that someone like me who sits in safe comfort in Singapore cannot possibly understand the full extent of the unfolding horror, I do believe that my call on the matter is right. Thanks to the Uyghers in Xinjiang, Barrack Obama was not able to meet with Hu Jintao in Italy for some very important talks. The reason that the U.S. Federal government cannot move more aggressively to deal with the looming social crisis is because they do not know how the Chinese would respond. As the largest holder of American debt and the country that must agree to any plans which the American government has regarding large scale social spending, the Chinese have in effect a veto on American domestic policy. If the Chinese get pissed, the American economy would rapidly tailspin into an Argentinean scenario.

Is there anyone who disagrees with me that there is a growing number of Americans who are becoming permanently disfigured by the financial crisis? When unemployment stretches to over a year, the individual actually becomes almost unemployable. This is particularly true for people who are less educated and less skilled. What will these people do in their growing desperation? What do you do when unemployment benefits run out and even Providian will not extend you any credit? Not everyone has a body that people will pay to enjoy.

The ugly head of jingoism has started to rear its head. Americans like to look down at other societies as broken and flawed. Take the coverage of the recent showdown in Iran for instance or the gleeful reporting of Han Chinese versus Uyghers in China. More than 150 people died and more than 1,000 people were wounded in the Xinjiang incident but major American news outlets let loose a barrage of Schadenfreude. So if you detect a certain delight in my writings at the prospect of further crisis in the United States, you are spot on. There is no reason why America should enjoy the trappings of wealth when you do not even really work to make the goods you so greedily consume.

Yes, lots of people are hurting economically. I don't think being out of work for a year makes one unemployable anymore - there is a reason for it now. Five years ago, it would be interpreted as a personality defect. Not today.



Always a concern.



Schadenfreude? I don't think people in the US is taking pleasure at the suffering in Iran or the Uighur autonomous regions. It is a tragedy, and the media recognizes it as such. The media can be faulted for paying too much attention to certain celebrities, but not for enjoying the misfortune of others in Asia.

My only concern about these incidents is to watch how they all turn out. It is obviously rather sad that much people have to die at the hands of their countrymen, but meh, it'd be lying if i said it never happenned before. =.= I get slightly excited wondering how those events might turn out, it's stuff like these that can change a nation's direction. :p

The most worrying developments in the last year or so have all occurred in the United States. Politics in Iran has always been testy and separatism in China has long been a problem. An uprising in Xinjiang would be like a revolt in Chechnya, it will be painful but unlikely to have any long term impact on even a weakened state. From my vantage point as Singapore’s very own selectively mute recluse spying at the world through a cheap laptop, I do see an American society that is rapidly unraveling. People are lost and they do not know what they should do next. The major news outlets try to be rah-rah and upbeat about the whole mess to harness the power of positive thinking, but even they have to confront reality every now and then. It is in the regional dailies and message boards that people’s growing despair becomes evident.

The crazies at stormfront.org for instance are gleefully preparing for what they call Civil War II. Apparently the Aryan Oracle thinks that civil conflict will start later this year or latest next year but like all good seers there are lots of caveats just in case history does not cooperate. It is not a Black President that drives men into the arms of racist organizations like the Nationalist Coalition, but economic dislocation which breaks what these men consider to be a sacred promise that have swelled the ranks of hate.

There is a good reason for people to be unemployed in the last year or so, but justified or not, damage is still done to both how the individual is perceived and to their self image. The Wall Street Journal ran an article recently about employers who are only willing to look at presently employed candidates while ignoring the unemployed ones. Their reasoning is that if you are any good, you would not have lost your job. Even in bad times companies try to hold on to their best workers while taking the opportunity to shed their worst ones. So for the people who have become members of the long term unemployed, it is likely that they have also become unemployable. One must not forget the sort of trouble that people who have too much time on their hands and a depleted self esteem get into. Think alcohol, drugs or any other kind of self destructive hobbies.

The real problem is that the jobs which have been lost are not coming back. As a nation, America consumes far more than its economic structures could possibly produce. Many of the jobs that were created in the last 20-30 years promoted and assumed this overconsumption. Now that the country (not just the Federal government) has run out of ways to write IOUs that the rest of the world is willing to accept, there is no way for America to continue with this consumerist misadventure.

Providian is ancient history, man-they collapsed in 2002, too many bad loans. HOW long has it been since you've lived here?

As for the Xinjiang problem, most Americans know virtually nothing about it-the media has been focused for over two weeks on mythologizing the freak Michael Jackson than on focusing on world issues. I was eating a burger in a Burger King in Auburn about a week or so ago, and the TV in there was on CNN. They stopped the MJ coverage at the half hour for a 90 second bulletin on the latest news from Iran, then went back to MJ. I have not really noticed much coverage of Xinjiang in US media except for the WSJ, and I considered their coverage middling but not overly tilted.

Maybe you are watching too much Fox News, please don't because Fox News is like watching Al Jazeera for news on the jihadists. Fox News borrows heavily from the American talk radio scene, and talk radio is filled with hate. A lot of Americans don't care much for Rush Limbaugh. Perhaps you have your shortwave radio out and are listening to our domestic shortwave outlets, in which case you are really out of it because domestic shortwave here caters to crazies. The stations are privately owned, not owned by the government, and there is virtually zero enforcement of broadcasting laws for them. Few Americans own shortwave radios, only fellow crazies and a handful of aging hobbyists even know what it is anymore.

Most Americans are not wealthy, we have been coasting on our laurels for 40 years. There are a handful of the very rich and greedy, but most societies have them, even societies that call themselves communist do. Americans are quite stupid, and will consume if told to by their leaders, which is exactly what George W Bush did after 9-11. The consumption boom was more lemming behavior than greed. The rich own the media, and portray consumption as wonderful, so the lemmings follow. Most Americans do not have the money to conspicuously consume, however.

From the outside looking in, all this appears as just desserts. But most Americans have no clue how evil their government has been to the world over the last 70 years. It was only after 9-11 that the secret history of the CIA in Iran was revealed, how we overthrew Mossadegh because we thought he was disloyal and set up a standard issue right wing dictatorship there, only to get our asses kicked.

Riots...hmmmm....

Nope haven't seen any riots lately....

Things won't get bad until our bankrupt government can't make peoples' welfare and social security payments anymore. That's going to happen too. We have way too much debt that we can't pay off. Thanks to NAFTA and its ilk, the US has lost a huge portion of its production. The only major manufacturing sector we have left, automobiles, is quickly dying. Well... I guess our government owns GM now. Oh boy! I can't wait to get my new car from Government Motors! (They don't even have to change the abbreviation either!) Well, anyway, in the long run you can only consume as much as you produce. If we keep producing less, we're going to become poorer...

Wow... I thought only we Oregonians hated that place. We hate Californian immigrants here more than anything else. I've only gone there twice, but that's enough to know it sucks. It's amazing how many scary and violent towns they have. In Oregon, there is no place I could go to where I would fear for my life. I can think of plenty in California...

All this talks about gun.... you american are crazy...
Really if more and more peoples get gun, is likely to be far worst in the event the society break down.

There already been worst cases. What the meda covered the most during the Rwanda genocide?
The genocide? No.....
They covered O.J. Simpson trial.
They're also been much much much more coverage for the death of lady Diana that for the death of Mother Theresa (they died the same month.)



In long term it's better to pay them educations if you them to be productives and educated adults. But even without the costs/benefices issue, each kid have the right to education. Maybe their parents have broke down the law, but it's not a reason to make their kids pay. I found disguting the idea that the earth most powerfull nation will deny some children the opportunity to go to school, and let them rot without even learning to read and by so denying them acess to knowledge and culture.
There also that without school to occupy them, and no hope of a future, kids are more likely to fall in a life of violence and crimes.



I must say, there not only povertry who create social problems, wealth recently created problems too. The society had gone more and more into materialism and superficiality. The crisis got a least the merit to obligate peoples to reconsider their lives and to come to more essential values.

Well, that's where the magnificent federal owned television network comes in! We have pretty fair coverage of events, not only for MJ (he does get some ofc <.< ) but just today, i read /saw that in Eastern Canada we have had our own little Madoff! Earl Jones has apparently pulled a Ponzi scheme and stole ~ 50 million dollars by doing so. Charming isn't it? :> And of course he's now a wanted man.... He's apparently escaped.... <.<

We have some pretty good quality information here in Canada overall .

And hum Zeno, not to be overly mean with you, but is it morally right to entice distrust and promote gun use? <.<

Yet firearms do have their uses. An armed society is a polite society.

If we do go down and dirty, I would prefer landmines and I.E.D. to firearms.

The ratio of blood to money is highest for explosive devices.

ruveyn

Nuclear land mines are best for protecting one's home - put one in the front yard and one in the back yard ... chances are slim that you will need to use both.

Don't expect your friends to visit often if you mine your own field.... <.<