What is an American.

Articles like this one scare me because they lend significant canon fodder to all the bigots in American society and those folks that believe there is a conspiracy to create a North American Union.

Primero Hay Que Aprender Español. Ranhou Zai Xue Zhongwen.

American society views the world in very limited and simplistic terms: a zero sum game that we cannot afford to lose, but yet our close minded anti intellectual schizophrenia is leading to our sure downfall.

Teaching in West Texas and now Arizona, I have many students who do not believe in evolution and generally oppose ideas that we not introduced in their home life. But no worries, as I frequently tell them, stay in your bubbles. You will make good landscapers and roofers for all the homes owned by the Chinese, Indians, and my kids. Yes, my kids who are being raised bilingual and will learn a third language before completing high school. My kids who are curious about the world and do not fear immigrants, but embrace multi culturalism.

More Jobs, Not More Science Fiction!

Now that Republicans will assume control of our lower house of Congress, expect more fictional legislation about the need to create more jobs. Republicans are not serious about protecting the American workforce. If they were they would focus on limiting the number of jobs being outsourced, not trying to "secure our borders" to protect landscaping jobs for Americans. According to today's LA Times:

The number of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. is down by more than 50% from five years ago, to about 300,000 a year, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report released in September. That is less than the 400,000 people deported each year.

And did you know that Killing in LA drops to 1967 levels. Immigration is down and cities such as Los Angeles with large numbers of immigrants are safe.

C'mon unemployed Americans, if you lost your job to an undocumented worker, it's your fault. You should have studied more in high school and maybe even gone to college.

But according to Texas Republican, Lamar Smith:

"We could free up millions of jobs for Americans and legal immigrants if we enforced our immigration laws against illegal workers..."

Do you really want a roofing job in Arizona? C'mon Congressman Smith, help Americans secure good paying white collar jobs. 

when you’re carrying an armload of hammers, every problem looks like a nail.

What a great and to the point quote from Nicholas T. Kristof. The current wars and U.S. military policies are killing the United States. This is in addition to all of our American military personal who are paying the ultimate price along with their families.

But economically, what's the point? President Obama is as conservative as I feared. And yes I know if you are a Republican, he's a commie and a fascist. Republicans consistently complain about government waste, but only focus their attention on domestic programs. Republicans oppose health care reform, support cuts on education spending, and generally believe a balanced budget is a far superior objective than say having sufficient fireman and police officers.

But let's invade another country, build more prisons, and add more security to an already saturated Mexican/US border, well no problem. If you don't believe me than read the following statistics provided by Kristof.

• The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It says that we spend more than six times as much as the country with the next highest budget, China.
• The United States maintains troops at more than 560 bases and other sites abroad, many of them a legacy of a world war that ended 65 years ago. Do we fear that if we pull our bases from Germany, Russia might invade?
• The intelligence community is so vast that more people have “top secret” clearance than live in Washington, D.C.
• The U.S. will spend more on the war in Afghanistan this year, adjusting for inflation, than we spent on the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War combined.
•  For the cost of one American soldier in Afghanistan for one year, you could build about 20 schools.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the unemployment rate for November 2010 was 9.8%.

Do the math.