The way to get the borders loosened up and later dissolved is from the bottom up, from a popular movement at the bottom of society up to the middle of society within each country on either side of any given border. It will never happen from the top down in most cases. An example of a possible route to take is the European Union, but there are some definite problems there too.
If the peak oil predictions are valid and the year of peak oil is already near or even passed and we are about to enter a period of very high energy costs, a new movement toward sustainable communities may soon arise. And those communities are much easier to sustain in a warm climate that is agrarian. Neither the sustainable movement nor the anti-border movement are much more than remote possibilities right now, but given severe energy price changes and more dramatic US demographic changes {both of which are already reality in a moderate way} a new kind of borderless society may be about to develop.
So, perhaps we should free ourselves from mental slavery right now and start identifying and also designing those societies, communities, towns and economies. It is hard for people to accept that there is an alternative unless they can see it already functioning.
There are many already existing sustainable societies in the US and in Mexico and we should be studying them to learn the ideas they have already been using for hundreds or thousands of years.
Massive change is occurring right now in the US economy and society, but most citizens are not sure just what that change is and most fear it. The more that the coming era can be defined and understood by the population the easier the transition will be.
The problem right now is that the dominant emotion controlling thoughts about the future in this hemisphere is fear. That has to change first.

great thoughts.

The 1965 country-quota system was judged discriminatory as it favored Europeans. If that discrimination in favor of Europeans was wrong, then why is de facto discrmination in favor of Mexicans ok today?

What happened to diversity? and I don't mean: Latino-this, Hispanic-that, Chicano-the-other and Mexican-everything.

i dont know what you are saying.

Borders exist now only to please the governments. Borders are not useful to you and I...Borders. They regulate the corrupted and encroaching status quo, they hurt you and I, they exist for the powerful and for those who have been brainwashed by the powerful. I dont need them. You don't need them.

So powerfully and eloquently put.

Question: What would your reaction be to someone who argued that the free exchange of goods between consenting parties - regardless of race, religion, gender, or national borders - is a civil right and the government has no moral authority to block such actions? A person who argued that all barriers to free trade - be they quotas, tariffs, or taxes - be permanently abolished…regardless of the ‘national interest’? That anybody who supported such barriers were ipso facto racist? Opposed to NAFTA, you are a nationalist! Opposed to CAFTA? racist!

The arguments in favor of such a (radical?) belief are very similar, some would say identical, to arguments in favor of immigration. Libertarians, and especially libertarians of the anarcho-capitalist flavor, would whole heartedly agree with both views.

I generally agree with everything you say here (and,consistently, the pro-free trade view I mention above) but I can also see why others would be turned off by such bombastic language. To argue for immigration on facts and with an open mind is one thing, but to argue for it with a language of rights and moral condemnation is a turn off to many and more importantly, to many initially sympathetic to the immigration cause - just look at what the immigration marches have done, we hardly have a country more sympathetic to immigration than we did before the marches.

i understand your point.

i feel my role is to speak my heart as it feels right to me. others play their parts. you play yours, now, by making your points and leaving your comment. i dont feel my post is "bombastic," as "bombastic" implies a lacking of substance in lieu of noise and arrogance, as i understand it. but yes, i do write loudly and i do write drawing from my own feelings and awareness of right and wrong, and i dont tiptoe. many people have written to thank me profusely over time, and with words and corazón so sincere. others have written, feeling that i am wrong in my method. far more are moved positively than negatively, yet that is irrelevant. i can not zig and zag with each message i receive. i consider them all, as i will think on yours. but in the end, i must do what feels right to me, to speak from my belly. i would not suggest that you do other than follow your heart as well.

i gave up a long time ago on worrying about who i "turned off." i won't start now.

Muchas Gracias por todo.

and hispanic pundit...i completely disagree that humans moving over land through time, unregulated by political inventions such as "borders" is analogous to the unfair practice of "free trade," which takes advantage of many political power dynamics ultimately to exploit and take advantage of those with less power in that system. not the same at all. but then again, you dont really stand behind that argument, right? you are just saying "some people" say that it is the same.

I did not mean to imply that your language was in fact bombastic, only that it would be taken as such by those who disagree with you, and as such, would be morally repugnant - even by many who are sympathetic to the immigration cause. I also did not mean to imply that I am somehow asking you to self censor yourself in what you say. My only point here was a general critique of where the immigration cause is going and to step back and rethink the direction, especially in light of how it will affect the lives of many real immigrants.

i completely disagree that humans moving over land through time, unregulated by political inventions such as "borders" is analogous to the unfair practice of "free trade," which takes advantage of many political power dynamics ultimately to exploit and take advantage of those with less power in that system. not the same at all.

You nativist you! ;-)

I actually do see the two as very similar though not identical - free trade and immigration are so closely linked that it would be very difficult to argue for one and not the other...this is why, even in the latest political climate, you see the 'right-wing' economists consistently on the side of open borders, it flows naturally from their previously held premises.

But the "political power dynamics" that free trade uses to "exploit" people depends on the very existence of political borders! In other words, free trade doesn't really work WHEN YOU LET THE GOODS IN BUT KEEP THE PEOPLE OUT! If people are free to trade their labor across international borders the same way the corporations are allowed to trade goods across international borders, then you have TRUE free trade. I pray that is where the US/Canada/Mexico are heading.

I agree that a consistent open border and free trade society is better than one that limits either, but that is different than saying open borders or free trade in isolation is bad.

Correct me if I am wrong here, but if I am following your logic correctly you are arguing that a free trade policy, by 'exploiting' the people of underdeveloped countries, makes them poorer and that resulting poverty can only be alleviated by a greater open border?

If so, the problem is in your assumption that free trade makes underdeveloped countries poorer - it does not do so, and you can only argue that it does by using the same arguments that nativists use to argue against immigration. Free trade harms the environment! Free trade undermines trade unions! Free trade harms the poorest, especially black citizens, of society! Free trade benefits greedy evil corporations at the expense of the citizenry!

In every example mentioned above, it is no coincidence that you can substitute the word 'free trade' with the word 'immigration', and you would basically get the modern day arguments against immigration.

From an economic standpoint, it is no coincidence that nativists like Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan are both against free trade and against immigration - the two are so closely linked together.

Well, I think that your misconception stems from the fact that there is no such thing as free trade, since such "free trade" is invariably controlled by the U.S, and is done on its terms. Its a nice sound bite, but its not true. What we should be looking for is "Fair Trade" where both nations can negotiate at the proverbial "arms length" and not be subject to the needs and wants of the dominant "trade partner".

Correct me if I am wrong here, but if I am following your logic correctly you are arguing that a free trade policy, by 'exploiting' the people of underdeveloped countries, makes them poorer and that resulting poverty can only be alleviated by a greater open border?

Ugh, okay, fine, you've got me, count me trolled.

Free Trade is a method by which western businesses can make a profit using third world laborers at cheap ass prices without giving the countries those people live in the infrastructure or financial benefits of their labor - I.E. they dump a factory in a random country, pay the workers in it less than a living wage, mangle them in teh machinery because of unregulated working conditions, keep them from unionizing because the local governments are readily bribable and have remarkably well supplied armed and police forces, and poison their natural resources because the factories don't have to conform to the barest minimum enviromental requirements they'd have to to stop mercury getting into the water and asbestos getting into the air

And then, to add insult to injury, they don't build the roads, rails and airports, the hospitals, the court houses, the bureaucracies and the public services that similar manufacturing processes required and produced as a by product when western countries themselves were the world's source of manufactured goods.

And that infrastrucutre is of course what now forms the basis on which teh west's living "wealth" - such as low infant death rates, high life expectancies, and managable population growth (if any) that doesn't lead to starvation and mass deprivation of neccesities being a norm - rests upon, and which, due to not being able to start local businesses that might allow such infrastructure to grow in the third world, is kept from the third world as a result of freetrade.

In short, free trade gives third world countries nothing in return for the third world countries giving western businesses huge profits, which they keep to themselves.

And no, giving employment to people who are only unemployed because western governments subsidize their own lame ass agri-corps and turn a blind eye to the horrific working conditions that all the other busineses utilize to make entirely pointless and just plain over the top extra profits and so ensure that third world businesses cannot emerge and provide employment to local workers, is not a generous or good thing.

And that's without getting into the way that all this immigration business wouldn't even make the slightest bit of sense if the world had a shared currency like the €U countries have the euro, because that would require getting into the whole nonsensical world of currency trading amd how THAT works, and so on and so forth...

Oh, and one more thing:

From an economic standpoint, it is no coincidence that nativists like Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan are both against free trade and against immigration - the two are so closely linked together.

That gibberish btw, lou dobbs and pat buchanan are monnumental idiots, and so would quite happily rant against both because they don't understand what the hell free trade is - they probably think it involves International Communism, The Elders of Zion, The Gay Agenda, or the vile gangster rap which is destroying our once proud american society, or something like that.

r mildred, thank you for kicking ass as per usual, and susana: de nada y gracias. :)

I enjoyed reading these comments and I will continue to study the dynamics of Fair Trade, Free Trade, immigration law, labor practices, international banking practices, union organizing and dozens of other related topics in order to be able to think about the forces that are operating in this hemisphere at present.
I definitely won't be watching TV or listening to Talk Radio for any direction.
Thanks to the commenters and to Nez for thoughts on these topics.

Nice job, R. Mildred. As usual, everything that emerges from that mind of yours sparkles.

I'd only add (or emphasize, I guess) that not only does "free trade" operate as you've described, but the World Bank/IMF acts as loan shark putting up money to build Western corporate-profit-generating factories and supporting infrastructure, then hold the people in those countries hostage to that money which they themselves had nothing to do with borrowing; so that the "free traders" can force "moderate" governments in those countries to "restructure" their economies by dismantling social services such as healthcare and public transportation and infrastructure which serves public rather than corporate interests. Meanwhile the WTO forces countries to repeal environmental protections and bust unions (since both are considered "trade barriers") in the name of "free trade". In a nutshell, "free trade" is a complete hoax, a purposefully-deceitful misnomer designed as a propaganda "purr word" (the "snarl word" on the other side of the propaganda coin is "protectionism") to get middle-class US Americans to support an elaborate ruling-class scam in which Western corporations steal resources and exploit labor in the Third World, hanging the US working-class out to dry too while they're at it.

From my perspective, Iraq provides many excellent illustrations of how "free trade" works.

Peace.

excellent essay, thank you.
i believe you have used the exact tool and the exact tone for this debate, that of moral indignation. this hatred is immoral, it is repugnant, we should be indignant. we should all be angry about the racism and nativism that permeates this debate. to try to find a way to "say it nicer" is a fool's folly: it is not nice, we shouldn't pretend it is. and the idea that if you just talk nicely with bigots they will respond positively is lunacy, there is no arguement that will sway them.
as for those unfortunate souls who claim not to be racist, but are under the nativist spell, "nice" language is also not he answer. they need to hear the uncensored unfiltered truth, that this "illegal" immigrant bashing is nothing more than bigotry, no different than any of the other nativist bigotry that has marred our country throughout it's history (ask the Poles, the Irish, the Italians, the...)

i'll skip the obviously specious link between free trade and better treatment of immigrants, but will note the absolute innaccuracy of hispanicpundit's claim that the immigration marches or using the language of rights caused Americans to be unsympathetic to the plight of immigrants. this is outrageous, the "unsympathetic" feelings directed at immigrants is the result of the demonization spread through the culture like wildfire by right-wing hate radio, and national commentators like Dobbs & Buchanon. to blame it on the marchers is just shooting the messenger.

we should keep using the language of rights, because this is undeniably a human rights issue. and when human rights are abused so hideously, as they know are for immigrants, moral outrage and indignation is the only fitting response.

(and "mescaline-minted memory in a mountain of momentary minutia" is one of the most wonderful lines i've ever read.)

Oh and yes, R. Mildred, I also agree that US currency hegemony is deeply related to all this mess...let's discuss on some other occasion...

Here's a good piece on immigration and free trade by Deepa Fernandes...

Okay I'm done. Thanks for letting me rant slightly off topic, Nez, this stuff hits so close to home because it is so fundamental to so much of what's happening in our world right now.

Keep sayin your thing, 'mano, the world's gotta hear it.

"Well, I think that your misconception stems from the fact that there is no such thing as free trade, since such "free trade" is invariably controlled by the U.S, and is done on its terms."

Free trade does, sadly, sometimes come with clauses that shield American companies from foreign competition and while this is certainly troublesome, it does not take away from the fact that any increase in free trade is good for both countries involved.

If you don't believe me, just look at the countries asking for free trade. It is not the USA, for example, that is knocking down the door of underdeveloped countries and forcing free trade on them - quite the contrary, it is underdeveloped countries demanding that the United States open up its borders to them (remind you of immigration?). Underdeveloped countries know that the only ticket out of poverty involves a significant amount of free trade - without it, you cut off any chance of escaping poverty.

It should also be noted that it is not the 'economic right,' the strongest supporters of immigration, that push for these economic exceptions. It is almost always the economic left, the trade unions, the ones less supportive of free trade and immigration, that are the ones most in support of these trade exceptions.

"Free Trade is a method by which western businesses can make a profit using third world laborers at cheap ass prices without giving the countries those people live in the infrastructure or financial benefits of their labor - I.E. they dump a factory in a random country, pay the workers in it less than a living wage, mangle them in teh machinery because of unregulated working conditions, keep them from unionizing because the local governments are readily bribable and have remarkably well supplied armed and police forces, and poison their natural resources because the factories don't have to conform to the barest minimum enviromental requirements they'd have to to stop mercury getting into the water and asbestos getting into the air. . ."

And much can be said of immigrants in the United States...but yet we all know that reducing poverty is in increasing immigration, not reducing. The same with free trade.

Nobody is arguing that free trade brings utopia to these underdeveloped countries, it certainly does not. But what it does bring is a marginally better working environment than what they previously had. Sure, working 12 hour days sucks, but it sure is better than digging in the trash for food, or prostitution, or child enslavement, or mass starvation. If you want to see if free trade is good, look at how these countries were before corporations went and opened up shop there, and you would see why even though the working conditions suck, people wait in line and often times bribe to get a chance to work in these 'sweatshops'. As Paul Krugman so famously wrote, "In Praise Of Cheap Labor, Bad Jobs at Bad Wages Are Better Than No Jobs At All" see here.

The reason that free trade is so important is because there is not "an even playing field" between developed countries like the United States and underdeveloped countries, for example, underdeveloped countries have many problems that developed countries do not: weak to no property rights, very little to no rule of law, bribery overhead, gross levels of corruption, crime, lower education levels, higher health problems, higher operating costs, language barriers, etc and as such it is a wonder that companies operate there at all. Which again, is why lower pay and such is so critical, it is only through lower pay and weaker labor laws that underdeveloped countries can try to create "an even playing field," for without them they have nothing.

And, more importantly, in addition to better working conditions than they previously had, free trade gives them that path, that ladder, out of poverty. Remember, no country, no place, no people, in the history of man has escaped poverty without a significantly large amount of free trade.

Btw, this talk about how free trade (along with capitalism in general) has markedly reduced world poverty is not a hypothetical, it is happening all around us. For example, look at East Asia, a place that has experienced the greatest alleviation of poverty in the history of man. In half a century, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea have gone from subsistence to First World status. And what free trade and capitalism did to Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, it is now doing to India and China. Millions, and I do mean millions, of people are being lifted out of poverty every year in these two countries - all because of changes towards greater free trade and capitalism. It is no wonder that India and China, instead of the United States, is the one pushing for greater levels of free trade - they know very well that their economy and life depends on it.

The phrase "free trade" is being tossed about like the nebulous "family values."

I assure you that "free trade" is not like the proverbial rose. It is not the same for everyone, or every country, or economic interest. Free trade by some is only one way. Free trade being talked about and being sought by others is more equivalent to "equitable free trade." Equitable free trade..........in lieu of what was crammed down one orifice and up another in the glorious promotion of "free trade."