Politics and ProfitsLeft vs Right Immigrants Corporate takeover Factory farming |
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The Same, but Different When you study the two maps above carefully, it's still difficult to see any real difference. Yet the one on the left is a solid liberal victory, while the one at right is a comfortable win for conservatives. It's a bizarre artifact of American politics that tiny shifts in a handful of locations spell the difference between easy victory, and seemingly crushing defeat. Without the moderating factor of a sensible Congress, seeking compromise, policy lurches abruptly from one pole to the other. | |||||||||
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Murderers and Rapists? America has always benefitted from the labor of fresh immigrants. This is true in the early days of industrial growth, and remains true in a modern world almost completely dependent upon immigrants to harvest crops, mow lawns and clean bathrooms. Yet the situation at the southern border with Mexico is clearly a mess. Congress seems unable to make meaningful changes, while spewing rhetoric often devoid of fact. Meanwhile, few Americans are aware that many immigrants also arrive (legally) at airports. | |||||||||
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Where They Finally Settle This map shows that immigrants seldom remain near the border. Almost all soon move to some interior location, where they have friends or relatives. Often the language is Spanish, but sometimes it's some unidentifiable tongue from Africa, the Middle East or Asia. Immigrant communities are everywhere, a situation which city-dwellers adapted to a long time ago. Rural communities, however, may find the influx of foreigners threatening. | |||||||||
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Concentration Camps for Animals Industry arrived on American farms a long time ago, beginning with vegetable farming in California's Sacramento Valley, and wheatfields in the Dakotas. You can tell they're corporate, because the buildings are huge, and the harvesting equipment similarly oversized. Factory farming of animals begins with chickens in the 1920s, but has now spread to all livestock. This is almost inevitable, but few Americans are comfortable today seeing how their meat is actually raised and processed. | |||||||||
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Corporate Everything Corporations create jobs and supply consumers with every imaginable product, many of which are truly amazing. This is a good thing. But when you reward humans for only one thing, making money, you tend to get some freakish results. Corporations consume literally anything of value, spitting out the rest, and moving on. Worse yet, they suck wealth from the entire planet, depositing it in banks in a few key cities. Almost nothing is retained in the location where workers actually live. This is a bad thing. | |||||||||