BKells said:
Wow. Yeah.. beacuse NY City politicians have total control over national immigration policies! Maybe you should turn off "Gans of New York" and actually read up on what you're talking about.
I've never seen "Gans of NY" or the similarly named Leo DiCaprio flick. So I'm not sure what you can't understand.
The importing of sympathetic voters is not a new idea, many nations and organisations have praticipated right back to the Greeks - and "origional" democracy.
France has a generous social system, and the largest government (highest proportion of employed citizens) in the world. It also has a strong labour movement, and many of the political parties focus on what we would consider "left" leaning policies (especially in the area of agriculture and subsidisation). The immigration policies have always been difficult for foreigners trying to gain citizenship, mostly as a metho of preventing said individuals from taking advantage of the social system. The areas that are experiencing rioting right now are largely filled with arab and african immigrants who lack the skills for gainful employment and the full french citizenship that would ease their living conditions. They are disenfranchised, and poor - and there are lots of them.
While NY city politicians did not ever have control over the immigration policies, they did have an abundance of immigrants who believed that they could work to build a better life for themselves. They were (in the 1800s) primarily Irish, Scottish and to a certain extent, western europeans (Dutch, German, French, Portugese Italian etc.) They were agrarian (that means farmers) and wanted to farm. The US had policies to encourage such immigration as they recognised that a strong rural class with land and the right to vote would expand US power and influence on the international stage with a food surplus, english speaking population and manpower for military purposes.
While the immigrants to the US in the 1800s sought to vote and work, and had the prerequisites for both, the illegal immigrants to france now are often illiterate, skill-less, disenfranchised and thus unemplyable in the current context. They are also not economic migrants in the truest sense of the word. They were often not starving or overly poorly treated where they came from - as many of the NY immigrants were (Irish potato famine) they just wanted to live in a free western democracy, with special priviliges so that they would not have to change any of the behaviours that made their countries of origin so miserable in the first place. Now that there are enough of them, their countries problems have come with them.
If you doubt the "ghetto" mentality, it exists here in Canada as well - would you walk through Dundas + Jarvis on a friday night alone? Would you fear the descendants of Scottish and french immigrants - or someone else?
Is any more reading in order? :
^-^
