Current Events > Photos of migrant center in Texas leak online

(+) Yeah! (+)

pure_temper posted...

it's basically saying the opposite

pure_temper posted...

reason to doubt this interpretation.

Reason to doubt isn't saying the opposite.

ButteryMales posted...

Reason to doubt isn't saying the opposite.

your first post about 1989 and this cherrypick bullshit lead me to distrust you

the narrative about USA coups to replace left-wing elected leaders with authoritarian ones is contradicted by what i posted

i am not interested in anything else you have to say if this is the extent of your argument

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pure_temper posted...

your first post about 1989

Wut?

ButteryMales posted...

Wut?

sorry I meant your other post*

You were the one who said last night in that other thread that humanity peaked in 1989, right? If not I apologize

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pure_temper posted...

sorry I meant your other post*

You were the one who said last night in that other thread that humanity peaked in 1989, right? If not I apologize

That wasn't me. I only have 9 active posts and I think 2 in this topic. 10 and 3 now, I guess.

ButteryMales posted...

That wasn't me. I only have 9 active posts and I think 2 in this topic. 10 and 3 now, I guess.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/400-current-events/79363343/952008152

youre right, my bad

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What the hell, Biden, you had 7 weeks to solve half a century of bad foreign policy and immigration issues and you blew it!

pure_temper posted...

relying on a really old narrative

Even if we pretend that US interventionism in Latin America has completely stopped (it hasn't), it's not like the affected countries aren't still suffering from the effects. The facts are still there; US destabilized countries, installed military dictators and despots throughout the whole region. To recognize that that history plays a large part in the region's current situation is very reasonable, no matter how old you think the narrative is.

That said, in very recent times we've seen coup attempts in Bolivia and Venezuela, both backed by the US. By some freak coincidence, there's vast amounts of lithium in Bolivia that the coup government tried to privatize and sell to foreign actors before she was defeated in an election she tried her best to prevent. By another freak accident Venezuela has huge oil reserves and other natural resources. We've seen nationwide protests in Chile against the constitution that hails from the days of Pinochet. Not really sure why you would dismiss US activities in Latin America as an "old narrative".

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https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/us-haiti-wikileaks-minimum-wage-petrocaribe/351514/

Prval's campaign to raise the nation's minimum wage caught the attention of the Obama administration. The bump 37 bump seems small by American standards, but considering it would raise wages by 150 percent--from 24 and hour to 61 an hour--the new rule stood to dramatically affect the lives of poor Haitians. However, it would also dramatically affect the bottom line of American companies, like Hanes and Levi Strauss who contracted labor in Haiti to sew their clothes. The companies insisted on capping the wage increase at 7 an hour, and the U.S. ambassador pressured Prval into a $3 per day wage for textile workers, $2 less than the original $5 a day that Prval had wanted. The Nation's report* on the negotiations show continued disapproval with the politics of the whole thing:

Still the US Embassy wasnt pleased. A deputy chief of mission, David E. Lindwall, said the $5 per day minimum did not take economic reality into account but was a populist measure aimed at appealing to the unemployed and underpaid masses.
Ryan Chittum at the Columbia Journalism Review did a little bit of math to put these figures into perspective. The proposed $5 per day falls well short of The Nation's estimated $12.50 per day needed for a Haitian family of three to make ends meet. But how dramatically will the even lower $3 a day affect the American companies with a stake in the matter?

Zooming in on specific companies helps clarify this even more. As of last year Hanes had 3,200 Haitians making t-shirts for it. Paying each of them two bucks a day more would cost it about $1.6 million a year. Hanesbrands Incorporated made $211 million on $4.3 billion in sales last year, and presumably it would pass on at least some of its higher labor costs to consumers.
Chittum notes that Hanes's CEO Richard Noll could cover the losses with just one sixth of his $10 million compensation package. That makes American Apparel and their no sweatshop policy look angelic, sex-crazed CEO Dov Charney and all.

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scar the 1 posted...

Even if we pretend that US interventionism in Latin America has completely stopped (it hasn't), it's not like the affected countries aren't still suffering from the effects. The facts are still there; US destabilized countries, installed military dictators and despots throughout the whole region. To recognize that that history plays a large part in the region's current situation is very reasonable, no matter how old you think the narrative is.

I'm actually very disappointed in your response because you straight up ignored the entire post. So allow me to just repaste what your own link's citation says because I honestly have no idea what else to say. This is what you completely ignored:

https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/handle/123456789/52153

We contribute to the extensive literature on international influences on democratization and democratic breakdowns by conceptualizing hegemonic mechanisms of regime change and assessing them empirically. Our findings are based on a multi-methods approach and highlight the varying importance of hegemonic influences in post-1945 Latin America. We argue that US support for democratization was consistent in the wave of transitions to democracy that began in Latin America in 1978 and that it was decisive in many of these transitions. While past work has attributed responsibility to the US for the waves of democratic breakdowns from 1948 to 1956 and 1964 to 1976, an examination of the 27 breakdowns from 1945 to 2010 gives reason to doubt this interpretation. Future research could use these conceptual and methodological tools to explore the role of other powers in waves of democracy and authoritarianism.

So not only is your broad argument not even to be taken at face value, but we see that without US support democratization wouldn't exist there at all. Amongst the cases you may point to, it's only "some scholarship" that is in your defense and that scholarship is the target of your own link's citation.

How can you ignore this without me just thinking you're not interested in anything except what you already held to be true 5+ years ago?

scar the 1 posted...

That said, in very recent times we've seen coup attempts in Bolivia and Venezuela, both backed by the US. By some freak coincidence, there's vast amounts of lithium in Bolivia that the coup government tried to privatize and sell to foreign actors before she was defeated in an election she tried her best to prevent. By another freak accident Venezuela has huge oil reserves and other natural resources. We've seen nationwide protests in Chile against the constitution that hails from the days of Pinochet. Not really sure why you would dismiss US activities in Latin America as an "old narrative".

This is just very disappointing. I've not studied Bolivia yet but I've looked deeply into Venezuela and that claim about a coup is just not true unless you hold to Maduro's bullshit propaganda about what happened. If we wanted to take Venezuela's oil, we'd have it already. We don't need it. Venezuela did this to itself and that is why I mentioned Venezeula in post #86.

I'll read about Bolivia and Chile but so far I have a hard time trusting your assessment because of what you said about Venezuela and just how you straight up ignored my other post to you and settled on a single fragment of a sentence.

So one more time, let me paste what your own link's citation said:

While past work has attributed responsibility to the US for the waves of democratic breakdowns from 1948 to 1956 and 1964 to 1976, an examination of the 27 breakdowns from 1945 to 2010 gives reason to doubt this interpretation.

Not only that but yeah, deferring to Maduro so easily when he's a dictator who everyone knows blocked the opposition from even running in the election, and sends armed goons around town to control everything, and ignores international aid and denies that there's any humanitarian crisis in Venezuela or human rights abuses...I dunno man, either you're not as informed about these things as you let on or you just straight up don't care.

I'd hope it's not the latter because you otherwise seem decent, but if it's the former then you should join me in a deeper dive by reading that entire study w/ me and we can share findings. Otherwise whatever.

Edit: sources:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/2/8/they-have-no-medicine-or-food-venezuelas-healthcare-crisis
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/02/08/us-says-maduro-is-blocking-aid-starving-people-venezuelan-says-his-people-arent-beggars/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/world/americas/venezuela-noticias-guaido-maduro.html

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soft @ for scar

That study I linked earlier actually talks about Bolivia and Chile.

In Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru, US ambassadors were key promoters of democratic transitions in critical moments during the late 1970s and 1980s

In his assessment of the role of US embassies in the third wave of democratization, Huntington concluded that it was critical in the Dominican Republic (1978), Ecuador (1979), EI Salvador (1984), Guatemala (1986), Honduras (1982), Panama (1990), Peru (1980) and U ruguay (1985) - eight cases - and a contributing factor in Bolivia (1979, 1982) and Chile (1990).20 The US also played a decisive role in transitions in Nicaragua (1984), Peru (1995), and Haiti (1995).2 1

If we put these assessments together, the US embassies played a relatively important role in 22 out of 37 cases of democratization. Among the cases where Washington was less important were Argentina (1958, 1963, 1973, and 1983), Brazil (1945-46 and 1985), and Mexico (1988), the three biggest economies in Latin America at the time. US impact was limited and tended to follow locally driven trajectories in these three cases, yet the US supported the transition in all of them.22

Will share more tidbits as I read it.

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I ignored the link because it doesn't contradict my point. It's one paper arguing that, what, US have been giving democracy to Latin America actually? I'm not very impressed that US embassies have been "supporting democratization". Antifar showed quite clearly what such support looked like in Haiti. You say the paper talks about Bolivia, but I was talking about the coup in recent years where an American "independent" organization questioned the validity of the election, even though there was no reason to suspect any sort of wrongdoing. It happened right before our eyes.
And don't mistake my criticism of US activities in Venezuela for support of Maduro. It's perfectly possible to be critical of him but also recognize that the US have been heavily contributing to Venezuela's current shortages, and have been actively trying to install Guaido as leader.

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Antifar posted...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/us-haiti-wikileaks-minimum-wage-petrocaribe/351514/

depressing as fuck. Thanks for sharing that though.

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We need to start taking a more strict approach with immigration. Even as a pretty far left leaning person, I always thought the ways Canada and Japan are more strict with allowing immigrants is the better option these days. BUT it's only racist for the US to take a move like that. Just looking at France and Sweden... yeah, I'd rather not start taking those kinda approaches.

We need less focus on helping people from other countries and put more of that focus on Americans. We can obviously do both, but a better focus on the folks we have here already and less on people wanting to come here would be better.

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They should stop putting kids in these facilities. Its really bad PR. Like how about Biden try not looking like Trump. Try not being the bad guy putting kids in facilities.

If there are unaccompanied children crossing the border then just wish them luck and look the other way.

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Middle hope posted...

Is this really better than what they got down there?

We straight up ruined their country through our drug consumption and trade regulations leaving little to no paying opportunities for folks

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Deport them back to Mexico.

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Migrants vs the middle class are on the scale. Who will win out and which will lose?

toadfan64 posted...

We need to start taking a more strict approach with immigration. Even as a pretty far left leaning person, I always thought the ways Canada and Japan are more strict with allowing immigrants is the better option these days. BUT it's only racist for the US to take a move like that. Just looking at France and Sweden... yeah, I'd rather not start taking those kinda approaches.

We need less focus on helping people from other countries and put more of that focus on Americans. We can obviously do both, but a better focus on the folks we have here already and less on people wanting to come here would be better.

Im pretty far left, but im going to espouse far-right rheroric about European countries and refugees

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Phynaster posted...

Im pretty far left, but im going to espouse far-right rheroric about European countries and refugees

For real

Far right immigration views are getting more popular here though. Somehow immigrants are at fault for an underfunded pubic sector while right-wing politicians steal money right under the nose of everyone, and keep strangling budgets

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Open borders seems like a pretty easy solution to this problem imo

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