How we lost our culture while we slept…

I grew up with some general assumptions. Somewhere along the line I learned that we were a nation of immigrants and as a white kid with mixed European heritage I was not brought up with what might be called an ethnic identity, other than American.

Even though I have a German surname, I did not grow up thinking of myself as German. And I would learn along the way, I was part German but also part French, and English, and maybe Irish, and I’m not sure about anything else.

I also learned that as white people we were in the majority and I guess I assumed we would stay that way. But I also was taught by my parents and school teachers that I was not supposed to look with disfavor or prejudice upon those with other skin colors or ethnic backgrounds or religious beliefs. In fact, in my household we were not church goers at all (and to anyone who knows any members of my family, I am only talking now of my childhood and am not speaking for anyone but myself).

Along the way I also learned that not all people had such a tolerant view, but I accepted that getting along with people of other backgrounds was really the right thing to do.

And I’ll bet you that pretty well, with some slight variation, sums up the background and attitude of the majority of white people in this nation.

As for black people, most of them have ancestors brought here against their will. With freedom, most have assimilated into the western culture and have added their own special imprint on the American culture.

We white folks never really worried about this being the melting pot because we assumed that our culture (European and supportive of modern democracy, and yes for the most part Christianity, and to some extent Judaism) would continue on and anyone coming in would adjust and assimilate.

The religious thing is always tricky here. Our Constitution’s Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of religion (and I would say by implication the freedom to not be religious), but the majority was always kind of comfortable in assuming that it would be for the most part the freedom to worship at what ever Christian church, or perhaps synagogue, you wanted to. Oh yes, also at a mosque or temple or whatever for those few who might wish to do so, no problem.

But things have changed.

While in the 19^th Century it was still popular to have large families and so much of the population lived down on the farm where more children meant more farmhands, as we moved into the 20^th Century we urbanized and modernized and decided that well maybe we did not need so many mouths to feed (the Great Depression showed what a burden that could be) and maybe it would be better on the earth’s resources if we held down the population.

That idea of having smaller families was the prevailing view that took hold in Western Europe and the U.S. and has carried on into the 21^st Century.

But in other less developed areas of the planet people continued to have large families (although sometimes the survival rate was low). In fact, their religions, Islam in particular, promoted having as many children as, well, people might have.

Of course, even in the modernized western world Catholics, as an example, were expected to adhere to the traditional doctrine that having sex was basically all about having children and it was God’s plan. Doing anything to interrupt that process was a no no.

But even many Catholics somehow found a way around all of that, possibly by just disregarding their own doctrine.

Also during all this time Europe (and to a much less extent the U.S.) managed to kill off a large part of its population, particularly males, via two world wars and other hostilities. That led to the need for increased immigration into Europe to fill labor positions, especially ones others did not prefer to do.

Also in Western Europe and the U.S. increased education and higher living standards led to increased immigration that put many immigrants in lower paying jobs, many of which became to be seen as dirty work.

But still, all was good in the white world. We had our position as the leaders and for those of us church goers we had our traditional religion, while for the most part thinking well of ourselves as being benevolent in letting others in our midst worship as they chose.

And so the minority multiplied and the majority subtracted.

And one day the majority woke up to find that while they were sleeping others were doing something else and there were more of them and they did not necessarily hold to our traditional way of life.

We offered them freedom. And wouldn’t you know it, they took us up on it.

 P.s.

I wrote this off the top of my head in response to being sent a YouTube video warning that Islam is taking over the western world. Since we don’t know the source nor the intentions of such videos on the web we are better off to go by more reliable sources with footnotes and such. But we do know just by observation that the values and traditions many of us hold dear are being endangered by the break down in our own society and the rise of other societies. And it is accepted fact that the third world culture and the Islamic culture (no matter where) is multiplying faster than western culture. While I would say that to simply be prejudiced over race and religion and ethnicity is wrong, it is not wrong to believe and try to preserve a way of life and culture you believe in. This nation was or is a great experiment. By quirk or fate of history it was founded primarily by Anglo-Saxon white males. In our own open-mindedness we may have set our own trap. While the U.S. remains a draw and large numbers of the immigrants of different cultures tend to assimilate, not all do. Western Europe faces the same situation, some go along and some don’t. We saw the riots in France not long ago. I have no concrete answer nor suggestion other than we should decide as a nation whether the traditions and culture that has brought us this far should remain. I vote yes.

USA’s main security threat may be Mexico and there are valid reasons to keep their trucks out…

While we are still fighting wars in the Middle East for somewhat nebulous reasons and no clear idea of our goals, the nation on our own southern border, Mexico, is in the midst of what might as well be called a civil war, with 7,000 deaths in the last 16 months, including high officials in its federal government, as well as town mayors and police chiefs, some of whom have sought political asylum in the U.S.

The Obama administration has announced a kind of token response on the border, but as I understand it, they are pulling immigration personnel from out of our interior to do so, conveniently letting the enforcement of the hiring of illegals slide as a sop to those who for some strange reason support the underground economy of illegal aliens, many of whom come from Spanish speaking nations to the south, most notably Mexico.

While some of the illegal migrants have gone back south because of the higher unemployment numbers in the USA, they face a problem in their homeland because their government is still corrupt after all these years, but it is trying to fight off drug lords, some of whom employ paramilitary against the Mexican soldiers and police.

Meanwhile, the violence is spilling across the border and is reaching into our northern cities, such as Chicago. Much of it involves illegals fighting over drug disputes, but sometimes hapless illegals, maybe not involved in the drug trade, get caught in the crossfire or become victims of kidnapings and ransom schemes, another popular line of work for criminals south of the border.

Mixed in with all this somehow is an ongoing dispute between Mexico and the United States over a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) program to allow a limited number of Mexican trucks to be able to cross the border and have a run of our country. Congress cancelled funding for the program recently, but the Obama administration has indicated it might resume the program in the future.

In retaliation, Mexico, one of our top trading partners, has applied tariffs on 90 U.S. products. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Mexico to smooth things over in the dispute and to promise the President Felipe Calderon administration there that the U.S. will help it in its fight against the drug cartels. And amidst all this, a Mexican defense official has warned the U.S. against any military incursions into his country (ala the Mexican-American War of the 1840s and the chase after Pancho Villa in the 1920s, I would suppose).

The truck program was cancelled in part supposedly over safety concerns, but probably also because the Teamster’s Union, a supporter of Democrats, was worried about the loss of American jobs.

Now before you go thinking I think this was a bad thing, think again. I was a trucker and as things stand I don’t think Mexican trucks should be allowed past our border. And I know something – not everything – about this subject, because as I said I was a trucker (and never a Teamster member) and furthermore I dealt with the border trucking scenario and know the landscape (my experience was at Nogales, Az. and Otay Mesa, Ca., and San Diego, Ca.).

Now first you need to know that our northern neighbor Canada runs its trucks throughout the U.S.

But the Canada/U.S. situation is nothing like what we face with Mexico.

A U.S. trucker can cross the border into Canada and go just about anywhere.

On the other hand, American trucks do not cross into Mexico and who would want to?

Canada is a civilized nation with the rule of law (probably more so than the USA, in some respects).

Mexico is highly corrupt (despite the efforts to clean things up by Calderon) with the bribes and intimidation as a standard operating procedure in business and law enforcement and everyday life there.

I once talked to a Mexican trucker and he told me that when he drove in his country there were no truck scales. But a policeman might stop a truck out on a lonely stretch of highway and decide supposedly by eyeballing a truck that it was overloaded and assess the fine and pocket it on the spot.

Who in their right mind would take their truck south of the border?

And working down on the border where my loads were transloaded into Mexican rigs, I got to see some of the wrecks they run up and down the highway. While not all USA trucks are up to par, many of the trucks the Mexicans use would not pass the same inspections USA trucks are given.

While they were running the pilot program allowing Mexican trucks in, I believe I saw some pretty questionable rigs running up and down our highways. I do not believe that these trucks were subjected to the same standards as USA trucks, probably due to political considerations.

Another problem is that while Canadian truckers speak English (and yes I know some of them speak French too), many of the Mexican truckers do not (they can’t even read our road signs).

(In the interests of fair play and full disclosure, I should note that some USA-licensed drivers, some of them from Eastern Europe, do not speak English. I actually watched one of these guys at a warehouse once and the freight receivers could not communicate with him. They had to make hand signals and lead him around and show him what to do with his paper work.)

And you have to understand that once you let an over-the-road truck over the border, it goes all over. It may deliver its original load into the country from Mexico at one place, but then haul other loads within the country between cities and only return to Mexico after hauling several loads.

If Mexico had actual law and order and was not corrupt, and if their truck safety standards and practices were better, it might well have a valid argument that its trucks should be allowed into our country and in turn we could also operate in Mexico.

It is unfortunate to have a dispute with Mexico because it is one of our top trading partners, but realities have to be accepted.

And back to the turmoil in Mexico. I don’t know why it has been downplayed. It threatens Mexico and it also threatens our own security.

Part of the problem is that the U.S. offers such a good market for the south-of-the-border drug cartels. Personal guns are illegal in Mexico, so guns from the U.S., to include high powered assault rifles and other powerful weapons, are basically traded from the north for the drugs from the south.

Combating the drug trade is a tough problem that we have not ever solved in the USA. I find calls to simply “legalize” illicit drugs to be dubious at best (and that was not some kind of marijuana pun – doobie is it?).

But meanwhile I don’t think we should tolerate cross border incursions, be they illegal aliens looking for work or engaged in the drug trade.

We need a military show of force at the border, as well as  a strong commitment of the various appropriate law enforcement agencies where needed to fight the drug cartels. And we should not let up on our enforcement of immigration laws at the workplace in the process.

We may well find that the biggest threat to our security is not in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan or the deserts and urban areas of Iraq but instead at our own southern doorstep.

In the long run we need to work hand in hand with the Calderon administration in Mexico, which from all reports is doing its best to fight both the drug cartels and to turn the tide on corruption that has existed so long in Mexico.

(Copyright 2009)

Mulling over the libertarian option…

(Copyright 2009)

During our recent presidential election we chose between the two major parties, but there was a third way, libertarianism. Maybe we should have elected Ron Paul president, but of course we would not have done that because as most libertarians he came across as kind of cranky and he has that kind of whiny and raspy voice and he’s totally out of the mainstream.

What made me think about this is an article I read a few hours ago by libertarian economist Jeffrey Miron of Harvard University.

I was also mulling over an opinion piece written by President Obama and published in the Washington Post. And I caught a few minutes of Republican right wing radio.

As we know, Obama wants to push through an ever-expanding “stimulus” bill – it started out at $800 billion the first time I heard about it and now the new reports put it at $900 Billion. It has been heavily criticized for containing all kinds of pet projects, often called “pork”, to include things that seemingly have nothing or nothing directly to do with immediately stimulating the economy, such as family planning and health care.

The Republicans are calling for more tax cuts, their idea being that the economy can be stimulated better by cutting taxes than increasing government spending. By a little legerdemain, Obama proposes to increase taxes and cut spending (by borrowing money).

Obama wrote in his opinion piece that cutting taxes alone as an approach to stimulate the economy is part of the “failed theories” from the previous administration that have been resoundingly rejected by the electorate.

My view of what the traditional Democrats and Republicans want is unchanged. Despite what they claim, they are basically both in support of huge, overbearing government because it is the status quo with which they are accustom.

The Democrats want that big government to use its resources to do all kinds of things for a wide range of people. The Republicans want to use the resources of government to help the business class (there may be somewhat of a split between Wall Street and Main Street).

So anyway, even though I mentioned Ron Paul, I’m really thinking of what Mr. Miron wrote.

I don’t necessarily agree with all of what he wrote, but I think he made some good points. So I thought I might list some of them and give my response:

REPEAL THE CORPORATE INCOME TAX: I’m rather sure the Republicans would agree with this one. Miron thinks this would free up more money for more corporate investment, thus stimulating the economy. Also some argue that corporate income taxes are double taxation since shareholders must also pay income taxes on their dividends. I think this is worth consideration (taxes do have to be collected somewhere, though, and corporations benefit from the services and protections government affords).

INCREASE CARBON TAXES WHILE LOWERING MARGINAL TAX RATES: Miron opines that upping carbon taxes would be a more efficient way of going green because it would give industry an incentive to clean up its act without risking the likely boondoggles of so-called government green programs. It would also reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. I like it.  As far as lowering tax rates, I don’t know. Everyone wants to have their own tax rate cut, but someone has to pay the bills. Perhaps a flat tax or a consumption tax is a better way to go. A lot of resources are wasted and and a lot of taxable income is hidden under the present hodgepodge.

MODERATE GROWTH OF ENTITLEMENTS: Our libertarian friend suggests raising the retirement age and putting a hold on increases in various social programs. For my part, I am sure those who have no need for the entitlements (and I don’t like that term) programs don’t mind cutting back. Social Security does need a stable and equitable funding system that is secure from raiding for other uses. Unlike libertarians and Republicans, I think government ought to be able to provide the citizenry with some protections as long as we all pay for it on an equitable basis. But it is true that while all industrialized nations provide social protections, they all face the problem of ever increasing costs. So entitlement spending does have to be kept in check. It could indeed bankrupt the nation. And I want to add that I don’t think raising the Social Security retirement age again is a good idea. We already have too big of a labor pool with too few jobs, and why do we want to work all of our life?

ELIMINATE WASTEFUL SPENDING: And who could argue with this? Problem is that one person’s wasteful spending is another’s much needed project. But included in Mr. Miron’s examples of wasteful spending are fixing levees in New Orleans, thus encouraging folks to live below sea level, farm subsidies, Amtrak, when, according to Miron, buses are more efficient, and the U.S. Postal Service when Fed Ex is more efficient (and I would add e-mail). I could actually write in defense of some farm subsidies because of the stability in agriculture that benefits all, but the problem is that a large portion of those subsidies unfairly go to the super rich (who are super rich due primarily to the subsidies) and also to people not involved in farming. As to the other examples, truly food for thought.

WITHDRAW FROM IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN: And this is true libertarian doctrine. To my knowledge libertarians believe in using our military for direct defense of our country only. During the Cold War era, which included some hot wars (Korea and Vietnam, for example) we were locked into a military spending competition with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union finally and essentially went bankrupt. What we do about our present engagements in the Middle East is a question. But I for one would hope we resist being suckered into war here and there and everywhere. Our present military adventures are a major drain on our failing economy and threaten the immediate defense of our own country by stretching us too thin. And then there are the moral considerations.

LIMIT UNION POWER: The big issue nowadays is card check. It is a system that circumvents the secret ballots workers use to vote a union in. Under card check, union organizers can bully workers into signing cards (and there is no protection of secrecy) in order to push through a union. I am against card check. I am neutral on unions themselves. But workers should not be required to belong to unions. In some cases businesses might find it advantageous to employ workers who belong to unions that stress professionalism. In my own working experience I have witnessed both the good and bad of unionism. The good: excellent wages and benefits and job security (except possibly in this economy). The bad: Work slow downs, refusals to work at a related job when the help is needed, indifference to the needs of the employer. (My experience primarily is from working as a non-union truck driver, who at one point did nonetheless benefit from a wage scale related to union contracts).

People who are paid well indeed help the economy.

EXPANDING LEGAL IMMIGRATION: The libertarian here calls for making it even easier for employers to hire foreign workers with specialized skills. I am not against this if it can be proved that U.S. citizens with the needed skills are not available, but I am against companies using the special visa program to undercut wages, and I think it is highly unpatriotic for them to do so. If we do have a dearth of skilled workers, industry should sponsor education programs to rectify the situation. And needed skill training should get more attention in public education as well.

RENEW OUR COMMITMENT TO FREE TRADE: This is a tricky one. We know from experience that during the Great Depression (the last one) raising tariffs brought on reprisals from other countries and exacerbated the economic woes. Right now, like it or not, we are a consumer nation and our whole economy is structured around free trade. While I think it might not be a good idea to raise tariffs or otherwise officially discourage imports, I do think we need to expand or rebuild our own industry and become more competitive on the world market.

STOP BAILING OUT BUSINESSES THAT TOOK ON TOO MUCH RISK: Nothing more I can say on this other than I agree. As the bailout billions (to become trillions) multiply and the nation goes deeper and deeper into debt and as the economy spirals downwards it may become all too apparent that bankruptcy was the answer the whole time. Bailouts, which have been done in times past, send the message to the marketplace that risk can be hedged at the cost of the taxpayers – wrong message.

Separate from all of the preceding, and of libertarian thought, I personally suggest an expansion of or creation of federal job corps type programs that put people to work doing things that the private sector never gets around to doing but are needed nonetheless.

Also, reinstating the military draft could help relieve our stressed armed forces and provide relief in the ever-shrinking job sector. It would also make our presidents and the electorate itself become more circumspect in ordering or supporting military interventions. Just an idea.

Migrations: characters, circumstances change

(Copyright 2008)

John Steinbeck made a prediction back during the Great Depression that the migrants who came to California from Oklahoma would change the face of the state, that they would take over the farmlands, and that politics would move leftwards.

Hmmm. My sense of it is they did indeed change the face of California and, yes, many did become successful farmers, along with successful skilled tradesmen and businessmen and professionals. I don’t think the politics of the state moved left, though, at least not on their account.

Many people were desperate back then, not the least of which were the uprooted poor tenant farmers from Oklahoma and Kansas and Texas, and Arkansas, areas that were suffering from the double whammy of the Great Depression and the drought that had turned much of that part of the nation into what was called the Dust Bowl, where top soil blew away in the dry winds. Back then, among various groups from the various strata of society there was agitation to move far to the left (socialism, even communism – although you would have a hard time finding anyone admit to it now), anything to buck the status quo which was not keeping things together (sound familiar?). But a funny thing happens to folks. Once they settle down and life settles down and especially if they become successful, it is not uncommon for them to become somewhat to quite conservative. I quickly add that this is not always the case, but it does seem to be a quite popular occurrence.

What made me think of this is that while surfing the internet I ran across an interview a relatively young reporter did with John Steinbeck, who at the time was a young author who had already had some success, but was working on a novel that would become known as the Grapes of Wrath. But at the time of the interview, his working title was “The Oklahomans”. Steinbeck of course went on to eventually win the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes in literature.

That young reporter who wrote the story was my dad, Louis Walther. The story appeared in the Jan. 8, 1938 edition of the San Jose Mercury News. My dad would have been 32 at the time and Steinbeck 35. Dad was still relatively new in the newspaper business and I think that interview was one of the proudest of his career, because Steinbeck at the time was hiding out from reporters, being shy by character and busy with his writing project.

And Steinbeck’s comments in the newspaper story and of course his book, the Grapes of Wrath, are an eye opener into the thinking and mood of the times.

I was not there, of course, but I think in my own lifetime I have witnessed part of the progression of the very people he was talking and writing about.

Although born in San Francisco, I moved with my family to California’s Central Valley when I was about four. We lived in Tulare, a farming town between Bakersfield and Fresno, for many years and then later moved to Yuba City, which is north of Sacramento, and finally to Red Bluff, north of Yuba City.

Many of my school friends were either from Oklahoma or more likely their folks were. The term “Okie” was till used somewhat, sometimes proudly and sometimes in a derogatory fashion. But really, by the time I was around, many of the poor folks who had been driven out of Oklahoma and other nearby areas due to drought and the resulting Dust Bowl conditions and the Great Depression had long since quit being migrant workers and had moved out of the camps where they once had to live and had good jobs or professions.

Now to be sure, just because you come from a certain part of the country or a certain class of people does not make you successful anymore than it makes you unsuccessful and each person who came out of that 1930s era exodus out of the Dust Bowl has his or her own story.

But what happened in California is that there was a major influx of people who were at the time called “okies” (not all of them were actually from Oklahoma), and they were desperate for food and shelter and work and it was in the Great Depression. Workers already here were scared that they would take what little work was left. And farmers wanted their labor, but were also afraid that they might squat on the land and claim it to be theirs.

But World War II came along and relieved much of the pressure (temporary Mexican workers were imported and that’s a different story) and in the intervening years the Okies blended in. Well, actually, blended might not be the right word, at least not when I was a kid, in the 50s and early 60s, because successful or not, they had somewhat their own culture, with a twangy speech and a proclivity to play and enjoy country music. Many towns in the valley became what you might call: Oklahoma West. In fact, there used to be a joke that many people thought Bakersfield was the capital of Oklahoma.

But the Okies or Oklahomans did eventually blend into the fabric of the local culture and become quite status quo.

A few years ago as a truck driver picking up produce I visited several of those towns in the southern end of the valley I knew from boyhood, ones that seemed like Oklahoma West. But there is a difference. All the signs are in Spanish.

Things change and so do the people.