The Pronoun Plague sweeps the US.

[Are_grits_groceries]

America has the Pronoun Plague, and it is reaching epidemic proportions. It can be fatal to the recovery of the nation from a lot of woes.

I had a mild case of it when I was growing up. I would be going somewhere with my Mama and she would say, "We made a wrong turn." I would look at my hands, and ask her when they were on the wheel. I could have paid attention and stopped her, but I was busy daydreaming or whatever.

The border states do need help. The number of people illegally crossing the border is rising daily. In addition, Mexico is in a state of chaos because of the drug cartels, and that makes the situation much more dangerous. Everybody is affected because those cartels have been behind a lot of illegal drug activity in this country. That is increasing, and those people are truly scary.

States do not have the manpower they once had because their National Guard units are depleted by the 2 wars. In addition economic woes have forced a cut in services. And irony of ironies, the people supporting those wars in Congress and resisting economic change represent a lot of those states. Hello McCain and Kyl!

People are scared, and the stage was set for just such a draconian law to be passed in Arizona. Scared people agree to a lot of things they might not in other situations. The danger in this law goes much further than its inherent racism. People will irrationally think that this will be a major way to stop the problem.

This law can no more help stop the flow of illegal immigrants than the swatting of single mosquitoes would have helped find a cure for malaria. It will waste a lot of manpower and money on detention and deportation while the real issue gets worse. There has to be effective border control and a sensible immigration law.

Everybody has this plague. Jindal made fun of volcano monitoring. Hello E-kull and the ramifications from that. There are volcanoes in the US Bobby. Some people who live in the heartland view the oil spill as a coastal problem.

It is "THEY" who have this problem. "WE" don't. When in fact, if one follows the possible results of these events, we are all affected.

If THEY doesn't change to WE in a lot of areas ASAP, all of us will soon be at the headwaters of Shit Creek. Everybody can end up there.

[One_Life_To_Give]

1. There you go making sense,

Can't have that! It doesn't fit in a 3 second sound bite.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. I know. My bad. nt

[zipplewrath]

3. Devaluing community

A side effect of the "individual responsibility" crowd is that there is a devaluing of the concept of community. Even predating western european colonization, there was a sense of shared resources in this country. Even after their arrival, there was a sense of shared community. Boston still has their "common" today, although I suspect that one can't graze their sheep there anymore. (was I the only one that found the irony in the Tea Party folks gathering on that "socialist" feature known as the Boston Common?). There are many traditions in the American culture which are centered around the concept of community. The "barn raising" is probably the most enduring. But the bake sale is really a part of that tradition. Communities acting on concert to address common needs. We are losing the concept that communtities can address common needs, and do it through the instrument of their own government (We The People, do we remember that concept?).

I have to chuckle, only because the right doesn't seem to get the concept of irony. But a community near where I live, filled with all manner of right leaning, upper income folks was having trouble with the for profit power company that served their community. So they bought it and turned it into a not for profit public utility. Strangely, I heard no cries of socialism or a "government take over". The only argument was whether it was cost effective.

[formercia]

4. We shouldn't put up with this.

How is anybody going to get any sleep around here!!oo!o!!OO!

[azmouse]

5. K&R

[slackmaster]

6. It's called "diffusion of responsibility"

It's nothing new.

[Morning Dew]

7. "Scared people

agree to a lot of things they might not in other situations"


That's the truth. We've been fed a steady diet of fear since 2001.

I don't know the solution but I do know that I'm sick of fearmongering and I'm sick of the cowardly country we've become.

Good post - thanks for the "think"


I'm sick of lots of things and I shouldn't be here on DU today.

[BurtWorm]

8. Stemming the drug violence on the border should be the first priority.

The problem is, the Mexican "authorities" are knee deep in the cause of it, so saying "we" (you should pardon the expression) should support the Mexican government in this fight somehow doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what "we" really need to do (which is beyond me, alas).

Legalizing all the drugs they're fighting over would be an interesting outside-the-box approach, but it's too radical for most politicians' blood. Which tells you how much most politicians in this country (and Mexico) really want to solve the violence-at-the-border problem. They'd much rather rail against sneaky illegal aliens stealing jobs and government services from honest, hard-working Americans (or evil drug lords murdering masses of Mexicans). That keeps them getting elected.

Immigration needs to figure out who is here as a refugee from the violence and who is here to take advantage of the underground employment system in place that benefits the employers as much as (or, really, more than) the employees. They ("we") should provide refuge for the former and have a plan to legalize the latter. In fact, if we were serious about ending illegal immigration, we would smash that system and make it highly costly to get caught partaking in it. And I'm talking about the supply side of it. We would target the people whose money it is paying for the labor illegally. It's difficult not to conclude that "we" don't do that because it's too efficient a system and we get more out of it as a nation than we are comfortable letting on.

My feeling is that most Americans who are so hot and bothered by illegal immigration are not directly threatened by the people committing this victimless crime. It's not their jobs that are threatened. It's not Mexicans who are making the cost of health care and prescription drugs go through the roof. But it just seems right to think they are. They feel like victims and are made to feel like it by media gasbags, who claim "those people" are not just stealing "our" jobs, but stealing "our" services without paying for them. That's what ticks "us" off the most. Seeing alien people living and working and partying and getting sick and having children right under our noses as if they were "us!" Speaking their alien language inside their alien skin. Damn it, we just made our own colored people have to work for their welfare! Now we have to pay for these freeloaders? It's just the politics of resentment all over again--America's favorite kind of politics.