Do we ever really know The Deep Down Inside Truth About What goes On Within The hidden depths Of our Country??? americans On The Outside Are Kinda Like immigrants Ourselves! we Only Hear What "IT" wants Us to Hear!
We Only see What "IT" wants us to see! we dont even Know The guy! we only know What we read. Pumped Up To excite??? Everyone Has Some Kind Of Intention, Goal. How Do QWe Ever Really Know For Sure? The Real Truth?
(This essay is adapted from an earlier version published in September 2002 on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington)
Patriotism these days is like Christmas — lots of people caught up in a festive atmosphere replete with lights and spectacles. We hear reminders about “the true meaning†of the occasion — and we may even mutter a few guilt-ridden words to that effect ourselves — but like most people, each of us spends more time and thought in parties, gift-giving, and the other paraphernalia of a secularized holiday than we do deepening our devotion to the “true meaning.†The attention we pay the fictional Santa Claus rivals that which we pay the One whose name the holiday is meant to hallow.
So it is with patriotism. Walk down Main Street America and ask one citizen after another what it means and with few exceptions, you’ll get a passel of the most self-righteous but superficial and often dead-wrong answers. America’s Founders, the men and women who gave us reason to be patriotic in the first place, would think we’ve lost our way if they could see us now.
Especially since the attacks of 9/11, Americans are feeling “patriotic.†For most, that mere feeling suffices to make one a solid patriot. But if I’m right, it’s time for Americans to take a refresher course to appreciate what being a patriot should really mean.
Patriotism is not love of country, if by “country†you mean scenery — amber waves of grain, purple mountains’ majesty and the like. Almost every country has pretty collections of rocks, water, and stuff that people grow and eat. If that’s what patriotism is all about, then Americans have precious little for which we can claim any special or unique love. And surely, patriotism cannot mean giving one’s life for a river or a mountain range.
Emma Goldman, in a 1911 essay, rightly disparaged this parochial, location-based concept. That kind of patriotism, she said, “assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.†Like Emma Goldman, I’d like to think there’s something about being a patriotic American that’s far removed from the young Nazi soldier who marched into battle for “the Fatherland.†After all, he thought he was patriotic too.
Patriotism is not blind trust in anything our leaders tell us or do. That’s just stupidity, and it replaces some very lofty concepts about the true meaning of the word with the mindless goose-stepping of cowardly sycophants.
Patriotism is not picnics, fireworks, or a day off work. At best, those are outward manifestations of something which could be patriotism, but it might also for some be nothing more than a desire to have a little fun.
Patriotism is not simply showing up to vote. You need to know a lot more about what motivates a voter before you judge his patriotism. He might be casting a ballot because he just wants something at someone else’s expense. Maybe he doesn’t much care where the politician he’s hiring gets it. Remember Dr. Johnson’s wisdom: “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.†Others have wisely counseled that an ill-informed people can easily vote a democratic republic into bankruptcy and oblivion.
Waving the flag can be an outward sign of patriotism, but let’s not cheapen the term by ever suggesting that it’s anything more than a sign. And while it’s always fitting to mourn those who lost their lives in its defense, that too does not fully define patriotism.
People in every country and in all times have expressed feelings of something we flippantly call “patriotism†but that just begs the question. What is this thing, anyway? Can it be so cheap and meaningless that a few gestures make you patriotic?
Not in my book.
I subscribe to a patriotism rooted in ideas that in turn gave birth to a country, but it’s those ideas that I think of when I’m feeling patriotic. I think a patriotic American is one who reveres the ideas that motivated the Founders and compelled them, in many instances, to put their lives, fortunes and sacred honor on the line.
What ideas? Read the Declaration of Independence again. Or, if you’re like most Americans these days, read it for the very first time. It’s all there. All men are created equal. They are endowed not by government but by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Premier among those rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Government must be limited to protecting the peace and preserving our liberties, and doing so through the consent of the governed. It’s the right of a free people to rid themselves of a government that becomes destructive of those ends, as our Founders did in a supreme act of courage and defiance more than two hundred years ago.
Call it freedom. Call it liberty. Call it whatever you want, but it’s the bedrock on which this nation was founded and from which we stray at our peril. It’s what has defined us as Americans. It’s what almost everyone who has ever lived on this planet has yearned for, though only a few have ever risen above selfishness, ignorance, or barbarism to attain it. It makes life worth living, which means it’s worth fighting and dying for.
I know that this concept of patriotism puts an “American†spin on the term. But I don’t know how to be patriotic for Uganda or Paraguay. I hope the Ugandans and Paraguayans have lofty ideals they celebrate when they feel patriotic, but whether or not they do is a question you’ll have to ask them. I can only tell you what patriotism means to me as an American.
I understand that America has often fallen short of the superlative ideas expressed in the Declaration. That hasn’t diminished my reverence for them, nor has it dimmed my hope that future generations of Americans will be re-inspired by them. Whatever our shortcomings, the fact remains that our Founders bequeathed us a marvelous mechanism whereby we can fix those flaws and perhaps someday shepherd our form of government to as close to perfection as may be humanly possible. This brand of patriotism, in fact, gets me through the roughest and most cynical of times.
My patriotism did not flag when one president debased the Oval Office with a young intern, or when another one covered up an illegal break-in. My patriotism is never affected by any politician’s failures, or any shortcoming of some government policy, or any slump in the economy or stock market. I’ve never felt my patriotism to be for sale or up for a vote. I never cease to get that “rush†that comes from watching Old Glory flapping in the breeze, no matter how far today’s generations have departed from the original meaning of those stars and stripes. No outcome of any election, no matter how adverse, makes me feel any less devoted to the ideals our Founders put to pen in 1776.
Indeed, as life’s experiences mount, the wisdom of what giants like Jefferson and Madison bestowed upon us becomes ever more apparent to me. I get more fired up than ever to help others come to appreciate the same things.
During a recent visit to the land of my ancestors, Scotland, I came across a few very old words that gave me pause. Though they preceded our Declaration of Independence by 456 years, and come from three thousand miles away, I can hardly think of anything ever written here that more powerfully stirs in me the patriotism I’ve defined above. In 1320, in an effort to explain why they had spent the previous thirty years in bloody battle to expel the invading English, Scottish leaders ended their Declaration of Arbroath with this line: “It is not for honor or glory or wealth that we fight, but for freedom alone, which no good man gives up except with his life.â€
Freedom — understanding it, living it, and teaching it to posterity. That, my fellow Americans, is what patriotism should mean to each of us today.
Originally posted by dcwtech: Pink/greener you Go Girl!!! everyone be Friends again By Next week Anyway!
LMAO @ girl
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- God Bless America - God Bless Immigrants - God Bless Poor Misguided Souls Too Mr S.U.
We Will never Know the Real truth about Our military Ways!! Why They do what they do? Military = Secrets!! if we knew It Wouldnt be the military! There Aint no Hammer or screwdriver In This World That Costs $5000!
Originally posted by 4now: Inquiring Minds want to know?
Again, it is all relative.
Does the USA meet the description of what we would deem a terrorist act, if in fact it was not us doing the action?
This is the question that needs to be answered
Pehaps we should pull of definition of terrorist or description of terrorist acts
I don't think that question can be answered, 4Now. The US is guilty of some of the same actions that we condemn other countries for. But, in my heart, I don't believe the US has terrorist mentality. I'm not sure if we'll ever know the whole truth behind what started the war, but I do think it will be a black mark against the US for many, many years to come.
Businesses Say New York’s Clout Is Emigrating, With Visa Policies to Blame
By PATRICK McGEEHAN and NINA BERNSTEIN
New York officials have long taken pride in the city’s status as a global gateway. But lately, senior executives of some of the country’s biggest corporations, like Alcoa, have been complaining that American immigration policies are thwarting New York’s ability to compete with other world capitals.
Every big employer in the city, it seems, can cite an example of high-paying jobs that had to be relocated to foreign cities because the people chosen to fill them could not gain entry to the United States.
In Alcoa’s case, one of its chief financial executives, Vanessa Lau, who is from Hong Kong, is working from the company’s offices in Geneva when she should be at headquarters on Park Avenue, according to Alain J. P. Belda, the chairman and chief executive.
Officials of large investment banks on Wall Street said the difficulty in obtaining visas for foreign workers, many of them graduates of American universities, had caused them to shift dozens of jobs to other financial capitals this year. In some cases, foreign-born professionals have grown weary of the struggle to get and renew a work visa in the United States and moved on to cities like London, where they say they feel more welcome.
“In a company like ours, we have people moving all over the place all the time,†Mr. Belda said. “This visa situation is causing difficulty.â€
Mr. Belda is particularly frustrated, given that he is a Moroccan-born citizen of Brazil whom Alcoa brought to the United States in the early 1990s when immigration rules were looser. Now, with visas for immigrants with special skills tightly controlled and awarded in an annual lottery in early April, managing a global enterprise from New York can be a competitive disadvantage, he said.
“After 9/11, it just became more and more complicated,†Mr. Belda said. “You’re fighting to get everybody in, “he said, then fighting for renewal of their visas so that they can stay more than three years. “How do you move somebody with a family if they don’t know they’re going to be renewed?†he said.
Until now, visa restrictions have been seen as a problem that primarily affected technology companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the West. Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, has been railing against them for years.
But according to the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group, there is more demand for visas for specialized jobs in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut than in California, and most of the demand comes from small and midsize companies, not the largest corporations. The partnership, whose members include many of the city’s biggest employers, has lobbied legislative leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles E. Schumer, for a relaxation of visa policies.
“New York’s ability to compete with London, which has much more open immigration, or with the emerging financial capitals in Asia and the Middle East, depends on mobility of talent, both in terms of new and current employees,†said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the partnership. “What people miss is, New York’s standing as an international capital of business and finance depends on the professionals within these companies being able to come to New York to be trained and groomed for leadership positions around the world.â€
Indeed, companies are capitalizing on more open visa policies elsewhere to recruit some of the leaders educated and trained in New York. Gaurav Gaur, for example, an Indian who earned his M.B.A. from Cornell in 2004, said he seized the chance to leave New York last year for London to work for Barclays, though it meant turning his back on opportunities at Bloomberg L.P. and other American companies.
“The whole visa situation was one of the biggest reasons that I took the job,†Mr. Gaur said in a telephone interview from London, where he is a senior project manager for the British bank. “I didn’t want to keep going through this uncertainty — it’s just a nightmare.â€
In New York, Mr. Gaur, 33, had managed to secure one of the three-year visas for professionals known as H-1B visas, and he probably could have renewed it for another three years, he said. But after that he knew he would be faced with the prospect of year-to-year renewals while he waited in a long and unpredictable line for permanent residency — and remained tethered to whatever company was sponsoring him for a green card.
Moreover, he said, his wife, Bhavna, who has a master’s degree in social work from Washington University in St. Louis, had work visa woes of her own in a field where few employers were familiar with the H-1B program.
In Britain, he said, “it’s drastically different.†There is no cap on work visas, and since he had a work permit, his wife was automatically allowed to work; she quickly found a good social work job.
“If I stay here for five years,†he added, “I automatically become eligible for a green card, for permanent residency.â€
In the United States, companies apply for the three-year H-1B visas annually, starting on April 1. The demand typically far outstrips the total supply of visas, limited to 65,000 a year, with an additional 20,000 available for those with advanced degrees from American universities. Last year 120,000 applications came in on April 1 alone, including hundreds of duplicates, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services conducted a lottery for the first time.
This year, officials warned, multiple petitions by the same company for one candidate will be disqualified, to prevent businesses from trying to game the system.
In 2006, more than 10,000 companies sought H-1B visas for jobs in New York City, according to the partnership’s analysis in a soon-to-be-published report. Only about one-tenth of those applications came from the country’s 1,000 biggest companies, it said.
Data about who holds these visas and where they work is closely guarded. But judging by the applications filed, the partnership concluded that the greatest demand is from the New York area.
More than one-fifth — 21 percent — of the applications were for jobs in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, according to the report, titled “Winning the Global Race for Talent.†In contrast, about 18.2 percent of the H-1B visa applications were for jobs in California. Texas ranked fourth behind New York and New Jersey with about 7.7 percent of the applications, according to the report. A survey by the partnership found that employers had complaints about other immigration policies, including long delays in obtaining visas for employees transferring from offices in other countries and visas for their employees to make short-term visits to the United States. They also said they were constrained by big backlogs on applications for employment-based green cards, which offer permanent residency to sponsored workers.
The partnership recommended adjusting the cap on H-1B visas to meet demand and more than doubling the annual limit on employment-based green cards to 290,000 from 140,000. It also suggested exempting workers with advanced degrees in science and math from any cap on H-1B visas and extending the term of visas for workers receiving practical training to 29 months from 12 months.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which advocates less immigration, dismissed the partnership’s argument as merely “trying to bend the law to benefit them financially.â€
The H-1B visa program creates a form of indentured worker whose pay, on average, is lower than that of American counterparts, Mr. Krikorian contended. The only morally defensible way to bring workers into the country, he said, is with green cards that allow them to quit working for the sponsoring employer and stay in the United States. Still, he added that he opposed increasing the number of such green cards without the immigration service’s raising its standards “so that it’s really Einstein immigration.â€
Ms. Wylde disagrees.
“It’s a 20th-century, pre-globalization mentality that thinks somehow American companies and jobs can grow if we cut ourselves off from foreign talent,†she said.
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
Mexicans deported from U.S. will get free ride home
Program to provide additional services
By Sandra Dibble UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
April 1, 2008
TIJUANA – Mexicans who are deported from the United States or leave voluntarily after being apprehended are being offered free trips back to their hometowns under a pilot program launched yesterday.
The Tijuana program, dubbed Humanitarian Repatriation, will also ensure that returning Mexicans receive shelter, food, emergency medical care and temporary employment upon their return to Mexico. President Felipe Calderón announced the program in December, and federal officials hope to expand it to other communities along Mexico's northern border. Ten Mexican federal immigration agents trained to work with returning migrants have been assigned to Tijuana under the program. The agents will assess the returnees' psychological health and help them contact family and obtain identification papers.
Mexico's federal government has not allocated additional funds for the program, but by shifting around existing resources as well as coordinating efforts among government agencies, religious organizations and nonprofit groups, officials say they hope to step up support for Mexicans who are forced to return.
“We're joining together talents, resources, energy,†said Ana Teresa Aranda Orozco, deputy secretary of the federal Interior Ministry.
Up to now, deportees and others forced to return have had half the cost of a trip to their home communities paid by the Mexican government. From now on, they will receive free bus transportation home, said Francisco Javier Reynoso Nuño, head of the Baja California office of Mexico's National Migration Institute.
Mexico's federal government officials say about 1.5 million Mexicans are sent back from the United States each year, and about 40 percent are sent through Baja California.
Yesterday's ceremony at Puerta Mexico, across from San Ysidro, was briefly interrupted by the arrival of a half-dozen returning minors who appeared exhausted and startled by the crush of media and officials that greeted them as they walked into Mexico.
Osuna said after the ceremony that his two brothers crossed without documents to the United States in 1972. “They walked across the hillside, and I stood watching them at Playas de Tijuana,†he recalled. They were later able to legalize their status under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, he said.
Environmental rules waived for Mexican border fence
Denis Poroy / Associated Press A zigzagging second fence runs along side the original border fence, far right, along the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego.
Homeland Security says it will go around state and federal laws in a push to finish 670 miles along the boundary with Mexico this year.
By Richard Marosi and Nicole Gaouette, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
April 2, 2008
WASHINGTON -- In an aggressive move to finish 670 miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of the year, the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday announced plans to waive federal and state environmental laws.
The two waivers, which were approved by Congress, will allow Homeland Security to slash through a thicket of more than 30 environmental and cultural laws to speed construction.
Environmentalists and local officials have strenuously opposed some of the planned infrastructure projects, saying they will damage the land and disrupt wildlife.
But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that the department was committed to minimizing the impact on the environment. The draft environmental assessments, he said, show the projects will have only "insignificant impacts on the environment and cultural resources."
"DHS is neither compromising its commitment to responsible environmental stewardship nor its commitment to solicit and respond to the needs of state, local and tribal governments," Chertoff said in a prepared statement.
Critics, however, said the waivers were intended to sidestep growing and unexpectedly fierce opposition -- especially in Arizona and in Texas, where concerns have been raised about endang
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but i will take charge of the ocean 
Wet and Wild Pink deep sea.
