November 23, 2012

FDR "became more and more convinced that America’s security was tied to the security of the rest of

the world. As such, it was not enough for the United States to rely solely on the strength of its armed forces to provide for the nation’s safety; we also had to concern ourselves with the political, social, and economic health of other regions of the world since, as FDR put it in 1944, “true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence”…and “people who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”'

It was this basic idea that inspired not only the Four Freedoms, but also the many institutions and practices that were put in place during and after the war to foster international cooperation and a more prosperous, healthy, and peaceful world. Many of these institutions and practices—like the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and multilateral trading regime—are with us still, so that much of the world we live in today is the world shaped by the vision of Franklin Roosevelt.

His eloquent speech in Burma may indicate that he has decided to pursue a more progressive foreign policy agenda in his second term, one based on the recognition that the best means to keep America safe in the long term is to ensure that the hopes and aspirations of people the world over to enjoy freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear stand not, as Roosevelt said, as some “vision of a distant millennium,” but as “a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.”'

November 19, 2012

By the numbers: Just how welcoming is the U.S. to immigrants?

Ever wonder how the United States ranks in immigrant-friendliness? When you set the rhetoric aside and simply look at the numbers of people admitted, it appears at first glance to be the most welcoming nation in the world - until you compare that welcome based on immigrants as a percentage of its population.

Based on international migration statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United States ranks first on a list of 25 nations for admitting the most immigrants on an annual basis, roughly a million a year. Its rank drops impressively, though - to number 22 on the list - when you calculate this inflow as a percentage of the population. That list is topped by Luxembourg, followed by Switzerland.

And when you look at immigrants in general as a percentage of the population, the U.S. ranks 12th, below countries like Canada, Israel, Australia and New Zealand, as well as several European nations. What to conclude from all this? From the piece:

There are two important lessons from this data. First, when you consider the size of our population, we are not the most immigrant friendly country in the world. Australia, Switzerland, Canada, and other wealthy countries do a far better job than we do by more appropriate measures. This also suggests that we are not doomed to become a poor country if we move to higher rates of immigration.

Are immigrant populations like this untenable in the U.S.? The data does not suggest this is the case. Immigrants make up over 20% of the population in New York, California, and New Jersey. These states also happen to rank 3rd, 10th, and 16th by median income.

Instead of 1 million immigrants a year, these numbers suggest we could be letting in as many as 3 million a year and we would still not rank in the top 5.

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/multiamerican/2012/11/19/11150/numbers-just-how-welcoming-us-immigrants/

November 15, 2012

Europe's youth more 'European' than their parents, poll says

Young people are more likely to consider themselves "European" and to be engaged with the bloc's politics, according to an analysis released on Wednesday (14 November) by survey-group Eurobarometer.

Forty-six percent of 15-24 year olds described themselves as European in addition to their nationality and tended to have a more positive view of the EU than their parents and grandparents.

Professionals and students were more likely to have a positive view of the EU with 65 percent of 'managers' regarding their country's EU membership as 'a good thing' compared with 47 percent among blue-collar workers and 42 percent of the unemployed.

The single currency also emerges as the most identified single element of European identity, particularly in those countries most hit by the effects of the eurozone debt crisis.

http://euobserver.com/news/118209

I hope it augers well for peace and prosperity in Europe that young folks are more supportive of an interconnected continent with a shared identity than their parents and grandparents have.

November 8, 2012

Phyllis Schlafly is still out there - now ranting against UN treaties and globalists.

Beware of the Lame-Duck Session

The globalists have been plotting to use the volatility of this lame-duck session to achieve some of their internationalist goals that they couldn't get passed during the last four years. In particular, they would like to lock us into treaties that slice out various parts of our national sovereignty, a concept that they have been trying to promote as obsolete. ... The globalists could make a surprise treaty push for ratification of the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (UNATT). This treaty is coming under the radar since gun control advocates know it could never pass the U.S. Senate after debate in broad daylight.

Another plan to ratify an anti-sovereignty treaty and subject us to unwelcome global regulations is the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This mischievous document was signed for the U.S. by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice (now famous for giving big TV time to Obama's lies about the Benghazi disaster).

The globalists desperately want us to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), which was a bad idea when Ronald Reagan rejected it in 1981, and which has soured rather than ripened in its years of languishing in the Senate. This treaty cedes sovereign control over practically all the riches at the bottom of the world's oceans to an International Seabed Authority.

After ratification, treaties become part of the "supreme law" of the United States on a par with federal statutes, which gives supremacist judges the power to invent their own interpretations. The whole concept of putting the United States in the noose of global organizations, in which the U.S. has only the same one vote as Cuba, is offensive to Americans, and all these UN treaties should be scrapped forthwith.

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/2012/11/06/schlafly-beware-of-the-lame-duck-session/

Schlafly must have read: "Six most paranoid fears for Obama’s second term"

With the election only days away, the radical right is bracing for what it believes could be an Obamapocalpyse

One Thousand Years of Darkness - “socialism or something much worse”

An Obama Dictatorship - unleash a“dictatorial full monty”; instant citizenship for all Third World immigrants; forced equalization of income; the end of fossil fuel production
Obama Will Take Away Our Gun Rights - Obama’s first term was nothing but a “conspiracy to ensure re-election by lulling gun owners to sleep.”
U.S. Will Be Enslaved by Globalists - make the U.S. a “vassal state to a globalist entity.”
U.N. Troops and Civil War - “Obama’s going to send in U.N. troops”
Hunted Down Like Dogs - “If re-elected, it’s gonna be war”; “We will be hunted down like dogs.”

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/04/six_most_paranoid_fears_for_obamas_second_term/