US unemployment supplement expires, setting the stage for mass hunger and homelessness
1 August 2020
The $600 weekly unemployment insurance supplement enacted in March as part of the bipartisan multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street expired Friday, leaving some 25 million US workers laid off due to the coronavirus pandemic facing destitution.
The loss of the federal supplement to state jobless insurance will cut benefits by up to 80 percent in some states, dropping the average national payment from $920 a week to $520, according to some estimates.
People line up at a food distribution site in Chelsea, Massachusetts [Credit: AP Photo/David Goldman]
In addition, a moratorium on evictions of tenants in buildings with mortgages backed by the federal government, affecting 18 million of the 44 million renter households in the US, expired last week. This means that 11 million households could be served with eviction papers over the next four months, according to the global advisory firm Stout Risius Ross LLC.
With home mortgage payment moratoriums also expiring, a vast growth of homelessness is looming.
Mile-long lineups of cars at food distribution centers have already become commonplace. A cutoff or reduction in the unemployment pay supplement will greatly increase the spread of hunger and even starvation in the US. Already, almost 40 million people do not expect to be able to make their next rent or mortgage payment, and nearly 30 million say they did not have enough to eat during the week ending July 21.
The official unemployment rate, at 11.1 percent, remains the highest since World War II, and the government reported Thursday that new jobless claims for the week ending July 18 rose for the second week in a row, climbing to 1.43 million.
The Labor Department reports that 33.8 million workers are either receiving jobless benefits or have applied and are waiting to see if they will receive them. These workers account for fully 20 percent of the US labor force.
Moreover, the expiration of the unemployment supplement follows Thursday’s report from the Commerce Department that the nation’s gross domestic product fell at a record annualized rate of 32.9 percent in the second quarter, a decline of 9.5 percent from the first quarter of 2020. And this past week, Levi’s, United Air Lines, American Air Lines and Wells Fargo added to the wave of layoff announcements with the warning that tens of thousands of their employees face being furloughed or terminated in the near future.
Under these conditions, the stalemate in Congress over an extension of the unemployment pay supplement, which is certain to result in either the total elimination or a major cut in the benefit, amounts to a declaration of war by the capitalist ruling elite against the entire working population.
This was underscored by the response on Wall Street, where the financial oligarchy reacted to the expiration of benefits on Friday by driving up stock prices on all of the major indices. The Dow climbed by 114 points and Nasdaq shot up by 157 points.
The ruling class is demanding the elimination of the $600 benefit or its reduction in order to carry through its drive to force workers back to work under conditions where its incompetence, indifference and sheer greed have led to the uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus pandemic and the deepest social crisis since the 1930s Depression. Workers are being given the “choice” of going back to factories and workplaces that are breeding grounds for the virus, without any serious protection for themselves or their families, or seeing their families go homeless or hungry.
The Republicans openly denounce the $600 benefit as a “disincentive to work,” because a majority of workers laid off due to the pandemic are receiving more income in jobless pay than they did when they were working. This fact is a stark commentary on the near-poverty wages of most American workers.
But the Democrats echo the Republican line, agreeing, as in the New York Times editorial of July 30, that replacing only “a portion of the income of the average unemployed worker” is “reasonable in normal times,” because it “encourages people to find jobs,” but not in the midst of a pandemic.
In any event, there are no jobs for millions of laid-off workers to return to. As the Economic Policy Institute noted: “There are 14 million more unemployed workers than job openings, meaning millions will remain jobless no matter what they do. Slashing the $600 cannot incentivize people to get jobs that are not there.”
The Republican leadership of the Senate on Monday put forward a series of bills that would immediately slash the federal jobless benefit from $600 to $200 a week through September, and thereafter calibrate the federal addition to state benefits to provide 70 percent of the worker’s previous pay, with a combined maximum of $500.
The Democrats, who passed their so-called HEROES Act in the Democratic-controlled House in May, which would extend the $600 benefit until January, rejected the Republican proposal, setting off negotiations between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer on one side and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on the other.
President Trump weighed in this week, calling for a stopgap measure that would temporarily extend the federal jobless benefit, at an unspecified amount, as well as the federal moratorium on evictions. In talks on Thursday and Friday, the Democratic leadership rejected a piecemeal deal, nominally insisting on other components of their HEROES Act, including federal aid to state and local governments and additional funding for coronavirus testing.
With no settlement in sight, Senate Republicans adjourned for the weekend, while it was reported that talks would continue between the representatives of the White House and the Democratic leadership.
CBS News reported Friday, citing an unnamed source “with knowledge of the negotiations,” that Meadows first proposed a simple one-week extension of the $600 supplement and then put forward a scaled back bill that would include four months of benefits at $400, along with funding for the reopening of schools and additional funding for the corporate slush fund known as the “small business” Paycheck Protection Program. He agreed, as part of the latter proposal, to strip out the Republican demand for a five-year legal immunity for businesses from lawsuits related to the pandemic.
The Democrats reportedly rejected these offers. However, they made clear they were prepared to accept a substantial reduction in the federal jobless pay supplement.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said Tuesday on CNN, “Look, it’s not $600 or bust.” He went on to signal his agreement with the Republicans that the current benefit was a “disincentive to work,” saying, “I think that’s an argument that… has some validity to it, and we ought to deal with that.”
Schumer is jointly sponsoring a bill along with Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat of Oregon) that would progressively cut the federal unemployment supplement by $100 for every drop of 1 percentage point in a state’s unemployment level.
And on Friday, Pelosi reiterated on CNN her position that, prior to the August 7 adjournment of Congress for the party conventions, “We’ll find our common ground” on a relief bill.
Any cut in the benefit, already inadequate given the added costs of dealing with the pandemic and rising staple goods prices, will have devastating consequences for workers already struggling to pay rent and put food on the table.
Bonnie Armstrong, a laid-off server from Naples, Florida, told the local CBS television affiliate WINK, “I won’t be able to pay my rent. The fact is, if you’re offered your position back and you say no, you don’t get any more unemployment.”
Saying she would be glad to return to work, she added, “For every job, there are hundreds of people applying. It’s going to be difficult.”
There are tens of thousands of laid-off workers who have not received any unemployment benefits because their state unemployment offices failed to process their claims. In Wisconsin, where 13 percent of claims were still not processed as of July 7, workers have set up a Twitter group called “Empower Wisconsin.”
One member recently posted: “I haven’t received any money either and I filed on March 24th. Friday I called the phone line and actually got through. I was very nice and respectful and I asked, ‘This Sunday will be week #13, when will I receive benefits?’ Guess what!? She hung up on me… no lie.”
A DACA amnesty would put more citizen children of illegal aliens — known as “anchor babies” — on federal welfare, as Breitbart News reported, while American taxpayers would be left potentially with a $26 billion bill.
Additionally, about one-in-five DACA illegal aliens, after an amnesty, would end up on food stamps, while at least one-in-seven would go on Medicaid. JOHN BINDER
THE NEW PRIVILEGED CLASS: Illegals!
This is why you work From Jan - May paying taxes to the government ....with the rest of the calendar year is money for you and your family.
Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, with his fake Social Security number, he gets an "earned income credit" of up to $3,200..... free.
He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent.
He qualifies for food stamps.
He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care.
His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.
He requires bilingual teachers and books.
He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.
If they are or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI.
Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare. All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense.
He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance.
Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.
He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits.
Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after Paying their bills and his.
The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up.
Cheap labor? YEAH RIGHT! Wake up people!
JOE LEGAL v LA RAZA JOSE ILLEGAL
Here’s how it breaks down; will make you want to be an illegal!
THE TAX-FREE MEXICAN UNDERGROUND ECONOMY IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY IS ESTIMATED TO BE IN EXCESS OF $2 BILLION YEARLY!
Staggering expensive "cheap" Mexican labor did not build this once great nation! Look what it has done to Mexico. It's all about keeping wages depressed and passing along the true cost of the invasion, their welfare, and crime tidal wave costs to the backs of the American people!
AMERICA: YOU’RE BETTER OFF BEING AN ILLEGAL!!!
This annual income for an impoverished American family is $10,000 less than the more than $34,500 in federal funds which are spent on each unaccompanied minor border crosser.
A study by Tom Wong of the University of California at San Diego discovered that more than 25 percent of DACA-enrolled illegal aliens in the program have anchor babies. That totals about 200,000 anchor babies who are the children of DACA-enrolled illegal aliens. This does not include the anchor babies of DACA-qualified illegal aliens. JOHN BINDER
“The Democrats had abandoned their working-class base to chase what they pretended was a racial group when what they were actually chasing was the momentum of unlimited migration”. DANIEL GREENFIELD / FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE
As Breitbart News has reported, U.S. households headed by foreign-born residents use nearly twice the welfare of households headed by native-born Americans.
Simultaneously, illegal immigration next year is on track to soar to the highest level in a decade, with a potential 600,000 border crossers expected.
“More than 750 million people want to migrate to another country permanently, according to Gallup research published Monday, as 150 world leaders sign up to the controversial UN global compact which critics say makes migration a human right.” VIRGINIA HALE
For example, a DACA amnesty would cost American taxpayers about $26 billion, more than the border wall, and that does not include the money taxpayers would have to fork up to subsidize the legal immigrant relatives of DACA illegal aliens.
Exclusive–Steve Camarota: Every Illegal Alien Costs Americans $70K Over Their Lifetime
JOHN BINDER
Every illegal alien, over the course of their lifetime, costs American taxpayers about $70,000, Center for Immigration Studies Director of Research Steve Camarota says.
During an interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Daily, Camarota said his research has revealed the enormous financial burden that illegal immigration has on America’s working and middle class taxpayers in terms of public services, depressed wages, and welfare.
“In a person’s lifetime, I’ve estimated that an illegal border crosser might cost taxpayers … maybe over $70,000 a year as a net cost,” Camarota said. “And that excludes the cost of their U.S.-born children, which gets pretty big when you add that in.”
LISTEN:
“Once [an illegal alien] has a child, they can receive cash welfare on behalf of their U.S.-born children,” Camarota explained. “Once they have a child, they can live in public housing. Once they have a child, they can receive food stamps on behalf of that child. That’s how that works.”
Camarota said the education levels of illegal aliens, border crossers, and legal immigrants are largely to blame for the high level of welfare usage by the f0reign-born population in the U.S., noting that new arrivals tend to compete for jobs against America’s poor and working class communities.
In past waves of mass immigration, Camarota said, the U.S. did not have an expansive welfare system. Today’s ever-growing welfare system, coupled with mass illegal and legal immigration levels, is “extremely problematic,” according to Camarota, for American taxpayers.
The RAISE Act — reintroduced in the Senate by Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), David Perdue (R-GA), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) — would cut legal immigration levels in half and convert the immigration system to favor well-educated foreign nationals, thus relieving American workers and taxpayers of the nearly five-decade-long wave of booming immigration. Currently, mass legal immigration redistributes the wealth of working and middle class Americans to the country’s top earners.
“Virtually none of that existed in 1900 during the last great wave of immigration, when we also took in a number of poor people. We didn’t have a well-developed welfare state,” Camarota continued:
We’re not going to stop [the welfare state] tomorrow. So in that context, bringing in less educated people who are poor is extremely problematic for public coffers, for taxpayers in a way that it wasn’t in 1900 because the roads weren’t even paved between the cities in 1900. It’s just a totally different world. And that’s the point of the RAISE Act is to sort of bring in line immigration policy with the reality say of a large government … and a welfare state. [Emphasis added]
The immigrants are not all coming to get welfare and they don’t immediately sign up, but over time, an enormous fraction sign their children up. It’s likely the case that of the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, more than half are signed up for Medicaid — which is our most expensive program. [Emphasis added]
As Breitbart News has reported, U.S. households headed by foreign-born residents use nearly twice the welfare of households headed by native-born Americans.
Every year the U.S. admits more than 1.5 million foreign nationals, with the vast majority deriving from chain migration. In 2017, the foreign-born population reached a record high of 44.5 million. By 2023, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the legal and illegal immigrant population of the U.S. will make up nearly 15 percent of the entire U.S. population.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
California’s Woke Hypocrisy
Leaders offer platitudes and counterproductive policies rather than opportunities and better living standards for the state’s minorities.
July 29, 2020
California
Economy, finance, and budgets
Politics and law
No state wears its multicultural veneer more ostentatiously than California. The Golden State’s leaders believe that they lead a progressive paradise, ushering in what theorists
Laura Tyson and Lenny Mendonca call “a new progressive era.” Others see
California as deserving of nationhood; it reflects, as a
New York Times columnist put it, “the shared values of our increasingly tolerant and pluralistic society.”
Despite these progressive intentions, Hispanics
and African-Americans—some 45 percent of
California’s total population—fare worse in the
state than almost anywhere nationwide. Based on
cost-of-living estimates from the U.S. Census
Bureau, 28 percent of California’s African-
Americans live in poverty, compared with 22
percent nationally. Fully one-third of Latinos,
now the state’s largest ethnic group, live in
poverty, compared with 21 percent outside the
state. “For Latinos,” notes longtime political
consultant Mike Madrid, “the California Dream is
becoming an unattainable fantasy.”
Since 1990, Los Angeles’s black share of the population has dropped in half. In
San Francisco, blacks constitute barely 5 percent of the population, down from 13 percent four decades ago. As a recent
University of California at Berkeley poll indicates, 58 percent of African-Americans express interest in leaving the state—more than any ethnic group—while 45 percent of Asians and Latinos are also considering moving out. These residents may appreciate California’s celebration of diversity, but they find the state increasingly inhospitable to their needs and those of their families.
More than 30 years ago, the Population Reference Bureau predicted that California was creating a two-tier economy, with a more affluent white and Asian population and a largely poor Latino and African-American class. Rather than find ways to increase opportunity for blue-collar workers, the state imposed strict business regulations that drove an exodus of the industries—notably, manufacturing and middle-management service jobs—that historically provided gateways to the middle class for minorities. As a recent
Chapman University study reveals, California is the worst state in the U.S. when it comes to creating middle-class jobs; it tops the nation in creating below-average and low-paying jobs.
Following Floyd’s death, even environmental groups like
the Sierra Club issued bold proclamations against racism, but they still push policies that, in the name of fighting climate change, only lead to
higher energy and housing costs, which hurt the aspirational poor. Many businesses, including small firms, must convert from cheap natural gas to expensive, green-generated electricity, a policy
adamantly opposed by the state’s
African-American, Latino, and Asian-Pacific chambers of commerce.
Meantime, California’s
strict Covid-19 lockdown policies, imposed by a well-compensated (and still-employed) public sector, have imperiled small firms. “There’s a sense that there was major discrimination against local small businesses,” said Armen Ross, who runs the 200-member Crenshaw Chamber of Commerce in South Los Angeles. “They allowed Target and Costco to stay open while they were closed. Many mom-and-pops may never come back.” Many restaurants—roughly 60 percent are minority-owned—may never recover, notes the
California Restaurant Association.
In the past, poor Californians, whether from the Deep South, Mexico, or the Dust Bowl, could look to the education system to help them advance. But California now ranks 49th nationally in the performance of poor, largely minority, students. San Francisco, the epicenter of California’s woke culture, has the worst scores for black students of any county statewide. Yet educators, particularly in minority districts, often seem more interested in political indoctrination than in improving scholastic results. Half of California’s high school students can barely read, but the educational establishment has implemented ethnic-studies courses designed to promote a progressive, even anticapitalist, and race-centered agenda. Unless the education system changes, California’s black and Hispanic students face an uncertain future. A woke consciousness or deeper ethnic identification won’t lead to successful careers. One can’t operate a high-tech lathe, manage logistics, or engineer space programs with ideology.
California’s failure to improve conditions for Latinos and blacks was evident even before the lockdowns and recent unrest. What the state’s minorities need is not less policing, or
systematic looting of upscale neighborhoods, or steps to reimpose affirmative action, or kneeling politicians; they require policies that empower working-class citizens of all races to ascend into the middle class.
The state’s leaders should prioritize improving middle-class jobs and opportunities, replacing indoctrination with skills acquisition, and encouraging local businesses. Considering the nature of California politics, this can happen only if minority Californians demand something different. That could happen if enough of these residents realize that the state’s ruling progressive class is interested in their votes—but apparently not in improving their lives.
Joel Kotkin is the presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, executive director of the Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His new book is The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class.
“What is driving that kind of growth? Over 10-12 million legal immigrants in California were born abroad. Immigrants birth 900,000 babies annually. (www.cis.org, Dr. Steven Camarata) Something in the range of 4 to 5 million illegal immigrants live and work in California. Most do not pay taxes and others pay on forged identification.”
Therefore, when we say the Golden State "won't be much like anything that people who have lived here for awhile have known," that isn't hyperbole or agenda motivated exaggeration. It's simply reality. The most basic function of government is to protect people and property. California's government increasingly can't because the money is all gone, and so are many of the citizen taxpayers who never wanted any part of this grand liberal immigration experiment and politically correct nonsense, to begin with.
CALIFORNIA: AMERICA'S FIRST FAILED STATE
By Frosty Wooldridge
NewsWithViews.com
In 1965, California housed a reasonable 15 million people. No traffic jams, little air pollution and everyone spoke English. Route 66, from Chicago to Los Angeles, ended at the Santa Monica Pier. Americans drove to Yosemite National Park for a delightful weekend of hiking. Tony Bennett sang, “I left my heart in San Francisco.”
California ranked among the top five educational systems in America. Hollywood produced incredible movies with Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward, John Wayne, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Redford, Paul Newman and Jane Russell. I loved Gary Cooper. Bing Crosby sang away our troubles and Bob Hope laughed away our cares.
Few criminals plied the streets of cities in California. Everyone pledged their allegiance to the United States of America and our stars and stripes. Skiers and surfers plied the waves and moguls.
But in 1965, something happened in the Halls of Congress called the “Immigration Reform Act” pushed by the late Teddy Kennedy that changed the 200,000 annual incoming immigrants from compatible countries to 1.2 million third world immigrants annually. Senator Howard Metzenbaum said, “He let the flood gates wide open.”
Within 40 years, the United States galloped from193 million people to 315 million in 2012. Kennedy’s bill will add another 138 million people by 2050-a scant 38 years from now. From a net exporter of oil, we now import 7 out of 10 barrels at a cost of trillions of dollars. Kennedy’s egregious mistake changed the ethnic, linguistic and cultural foundation of America into what we see in California today. Also, Houston, Chicago, Miami, Detroit and New York.
His single act changed the entire history of America from success to utter and growing chaos on multiple levels.
California reached a mind-blowing 38 million people in 2011. It adds 1,655 people net gain daily. It adds over 400 vehicles 24/7 on its already crushed highways. (Source:www.CapsWeb.org) California expects to add 20 million people within 30 years.
What is driving that kind of growth? Over 10-12 million legal immigrants in California were born abroad. Immigrants birth 900,000 babies annually. (www.cis.org, Dr. Steven Camarata) Something in the range of 4 to 5 million illegal immigrants live and work in California. Most do not pay taxes and others pay on forged identification.
For every added person, 25.4 acres of land must be destroyed to build homes, schools, roads, malls and everything else to support that person. Known as “ecological footprint”, it destroys wilderness and arable land. Thus, California leads the country in animal and plant extinction rates.
Worse, California with its seething, hungry human mob sucks up so much water from the Colorado River that it fails to reach the ocean. As it adds another 20 million people, it will destroy millions upon millions of acres of farmland.
On the educational front, over 100 languages now paralyze California school systems. From the top five states in education, California sank to the bottom five in the United States. English has become a foreign language in California.
As to crime, MS-13 gangs work with the 20,000 member “18th Street Gang” to power drugs, guns and other contraband into the streets of America. Pot farms grow in national parks.
As to cultural breakdown, California now features major Mexican cock fighting organizations throughout the state. Police caught one group of 300 Mexicans last week as they roared and screamed at their blood sport:
In Freemont, California, the call to worship for its dominant Muslim immigrant audience heralds from the growing network of Mosques. Women’s rights degrade, female genital mutilation grows, arranged marriages are commonplace and honor killings take place. (Covered up by the liberal press, of course.)
Yosemite features wall to wall crowds that make any chance for a wilderness experience a hike into human dominated wilderness frenzy.
Most of the children born in California today feature Mexican parents living on American welfare. The EBT program or Electronic Benefits Transfers rewards single mothers unlimited financial support for every baby they produce. And they produce them by the tens of thousands. One mother said on a recording, “I get everything for free…I don’t know why anyone would want to work in America.”Write me at frostyw@juno.com and I will send you the live video of the interview.
Thus, California runs a $24 billion debt that cannot be paid. Ultimately, California will bankrupt into chaos. It suffers from a Faustian Bargain that degrades into Hobson’s Choice.
With so many languages, so many ethnic tribes and so many cultures fighting for dominance in California, how will it survive the next 20 million added people? The TV journalist Bill Moyers asked the famed science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, “Which is the greater danger - nuclear warfare or the population explosion?
“The latter absolutely!” said Asimov. “To bring about nuclear war, someone has to DO something; someone has to press a button. To bring about destruction by overcrowding, mass starvation, anarchy, the destruction of our most cherished values—there is no need to do anything. We need only do nothing except what comes naturally—and breed. And how easy it is to do nothing."
Asimov followed up with a penetrating reality check brought about by overpopulation: “...democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.”
California will become our first third world country within our country. It pretty well has reached that status in 2012. It’s a failing state like Mexico. Corruption is a mechanism by which a third world country operates. Illiteracy drives a failed state. California defines that reality.
I suspect that Houston, Chicago, Detroit and other heavily dominated immigrant cities will follow California. How come I see this “thing” accelerating and most Americans apathetically sit by and do nothing? Our kids will curse our inaction and historians will laugh at the stupidity of mass immigration, diversity and multiculturalism as it took the greatest country in the world down to its knees. Tragically, we did nothing to stop it.
To show you where we’re headed in-depth, read Pat Buchanan’s epic work: Suicide of a Superpower.
Listen to Frosty Wooldridge on Wednesdays as he interviews top national leaders on his radio show "Connecting the Dots" at www.themicroeffect.com at 6:00 PM Mountain Time. Adjust tuning in to your time zone.
BOOK: Mexifornia: SHATTERING OF AN AMERICAN DREAM (illegals call it their DREAM ACT)
BOOK:
MEXIFORNIA – THE SHATTERING OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
WITH THE MEXICAN INVASION AND OCCUPATION
"Victor Davis Hanson brings a lifetime of experience in California's Central Valley to this indictment of multiculturalism and mass immigration." -- Mark Krikorian, Center for Immigration Studies
READER’S REVIEW (source: AMAZON)
If you don't understand something or disagree with a concept then the best way to conceal your ignorance or discredit the idea is to call it "racist". Dr. Hanson did not have to go very far out on a limb to make the point that non assimilation of Chicanos to American culture is divisive and destructive - and that it is the new immigrant that is failing to adapt. Great book, on point and very timely.
*Starred Review*
Classics professor Hanson is also, like generations of his family before him, a fruit farmer in California's central valley. He has employed immigrants, seen them flood his community during the last 30 years of mass flight from Mexico, and endured the crime associated with illegal immigrants. Hanson is immensely sympathetic to poor Mexicans, however, and the most powerful chapter here outlines the harried life of the illegal alien. But he hates to see the ordered culture in which he grew up drowned by an alien inundation whose undeserving beneficiaries are Mexico's kleptocratic rulers, for whom an open border is a safety valve expelling the potential for democratic change. The four solutions to the mess that Hanson enumerates include continuing de facto open borders but insisting on rapid acculturation; patrolling the border effectively and reducing legal immigration; imposing "sweeping restrictions on immigration" and ending Mexican chauvinism in the U.S.; and allowing present policies to make California increasingly mirror an unreformed Mexico. Hanson thinks that the U.S. "still need not do everything right" to prevent social collapse in the Southwest and that the totalitarian uniformity of valueless mass culture may soften that collapse. He also sees very clearly what has brought this crisis on: the American globalist ideology's lust for cheap labor and emphasis on "raw inclusiveness" instead of "standards and taste."
*
Review
"Hanson's 'Mexifornia' is that rare book that combines scholarship with personal experience to provide genuine insight into a complex issue." -- Linda Chavez, author of An Unlikely Conservative
"Victor Davis Hanson brings a lifetime of experience in California's Central Valley to this indictment of multiculturalism and mass immigration." -- Mark Krikorian, Center for Immigration Studies
• Hardcover: 150 pages
• Publisher: Encounter Books; 1 edition (July 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893554732
• ISBN-13: 978-1893554733