Is America a sovereign nation, or not?

[Skidmore]

We have large groups of people demonstrating on the streets of our cities because apparently our borders mean nothing any longer. I know I'm going to get fried to a crisp over this thread, but dadgummit, I don't care. We can't sit here and scream for those in power who break the law to be held accountable, and yet let people who refuse to obey immigration law, those who hire them illegally, and the legislators skate. I by no means support Sensenbrenner's legislation. I do believe that if we are going to preserve the integrity of this nation, we need to quit selling it off bit by bit and we need quit enslaving people. This climate that has allowed people to enter in droves allows them to be exploited and enslaved. We don't hold their nations accountable for the deplorable living conditions in their own nations, nor do we hold the have's who think they are entitled to cheap domestic help accountable for their exploitation and creation of this mess.

What is wrong with us? Greatest nation on the face of the earth? I think not. We are not a nation. We have allowed our nation to be sold.

And don't give me any of that "people aren't illegal" crap. I've posted my opinions on this multiple times on this board. The Rs have it wrong and the Dems do as well. Someone had better sit down and seriously hammer out some solution to this. Stop griping about job loss and outsourcing.

[kenny blankenship]

1. Was America a nation, really a nation, meaning a distinct people, ever --

or just a temporary & convenient business relationship that is now over with, fading before the outward march of a globalized, borderless capital-owning class?

this is not meant as a rhetorical question, to invalidate yours. I think it's an open issue--which even if it were decided would still leave the question of what to do now?, as posed in your question.

Certainly we who grew up in the 20th century and under the social contract post-New Deal were always taught to believe in the nationhood of America. But it has to be admitted that many people who were similarly indoctrinated have consistently demonstrated with their money and political choices that if they see a financial advantage buying from or investing in China or South Asia or South America, or through importing coolie labor from south of the border, then they feel no loyalty to the American "nation" and their fellow Americans. Loyalty is a mile wide but an inch deep it turns out. How can there be sovereignty without loyalty?

[Deep13]

10. semantics. ...

Traditionally a nation-state is a group of people with similar ethnic background, language, religion etc. I don't know if that ever was a viable defintion. Look at England circa 1100 AD. You have a population of various German tribes, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, who invaded in the dark ages, indigenous Celtic Britons, Romans, Welsh, Pics, some Jews, Irishmen and Scots all being ruled by French Normans (French-speaking Scandanavians). Is THAT a nation-state? This example is pretty typical, too.

A sovereign state has:
population,
territory,
the ability to control the territory and successfully protect the borders. That means the ability to exclude others. That may sound like an unkind remark, but it is the basis of all property and terrirtorial rights.

[kenny blankenship]

14. The question about sovereignty presupposed something

that we understood nationality, and that American nationality was a settled issue which needed no examination. The existence of contradictions within other nation states' national makeup hardly weakens the point: in fact it's very consonant. America is even now a very young "nation" and one which underwent a vicious civil war only a short time ago, and a nation which continued to deny a significant minority population, defined by race/color, full citizenship status for a century following the conclusion of that civil war. The country you mentioned has existed for almost a thousand years longer. Countries like Britain and France which historically were composed from different provinces and kingdoms have had longer to forget whatever once separated them and longer to experience situations that required "national unity" to get through. The substance of nationality in my post is not determined by bloodlines, as you seem to assume, but relationships of loyalty--or perhaps convenience. I suspect that American nationality is questionable and shifting over some deep fault lines. If it has ever been solidly shared from one end of the country to the other, it probably never could be said to be very secure as a "nationwide" phenomenon before WWII. And now those fault lines which only recently closed, are opening up. It long pleased many Americans to dwell with a separate people in their midst as long as those aliens were kept separate and kept down by law and the color of their skin. It has pleased many Americans to admit anyone from anywhere as long as the newcomers would work for small pay and not agitate for rights as equal citizens. And today many Americans are now also pleased to invest their money abroad, shuttering factories at home and shunting more and more fellow Americans into McJobs, while simultaneously demanding an open border policy to bring 3rd world labor in to do those things that can't be outsourced. This--they claim, and they're probably right-- is the necessary consequence of what is permitted under the Constitution's respect for individual liberty--meaning property and an individual's right to dispose of it as he pleases.
Across generations, these Americans have often been representatives of the same business class, the same propertied class that wrote the guidelines of our laws and government. I suspect that what we have been instructed by this government to regard as the indissoluable bond of nationhood, has actually been an exchangable and temporary arrangement for the people who own and operate that government. For them it has ALWAYS meant this--they define the nation and nationhood for their convenience. Now their interests are served by using this country's strength as a giant Rent-A-Cop for their global business operations, to collect debts and serve eviction notices, but beyond that they have little further use for their "fellow Americans" except as indebted consumers for foreign made goods, and as paper hatted service industry drones.

Now, do you think I am overinvested in the concept of nationality?

This still leaves the question of what to do? as posed in the OP's subject. But if nationality nationalism or nationhood cannot be reliably appealed to, and I kind of doubt they can be, then where do we go from there?

[Jara sang]

2. Sovereignty is a moot point.

Transnational corporations have essentially dissolved our borders. Welcome to one world government.

[electropop]

3. Wasn't it the right that used to screech that the UN was a world govt?

My how the message changes, now that the right has implemented the very thing they used to screech about.

[RB TexLa]

9. apparently the Ubernationalist have a vibrant left wing n/t

[Deep13]

11. That is nonsense.

Multinationals take advantage of government and live to a large degree outside the law. That does not make them the new government. Besides, how does that change the basic facts of this matter?

[Jara sang]

15. Corpoarations exist within boundaries that the government set?

BWaaaaaaaahahahahahahah! Good one.:rofl:

Corporations make the friggin' laws.

[Deep13]

4. A reverse of NAFTA...

...instead of sending the jobs to the cheap labor, we allow the cheap labor to come to the jobs.

If we really need to expand out population beyond 300 million (and convert more open space to suburbs), there are plenty of people willing to come here who have not sneaked in without a passport and now willingly live as criminals.

People who have no right to be here are illegal as long as they remain.

[0rganism]

5. Whatever you do, don't ask the preznit about sovereignty

"Tribal sovereignty means that, it's sovereign. You're a—you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And, therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities."
:eyes:

[Deep13]

12. I won't. I won't ask about his plan for victory in Iraq either.

I won't ask him to regale his guests with impromptu recitations of Virgil's minor works either.

[shamrock]

6. oops posted in wrong place

[leftofthedial]

7. screw immigration. it's a red herring wedge "non-issue" issue

the real sovereignty problem is that we now have an imperial executive branch and it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of OPEC.

[jody]

8. U.S. is a sovereign nation under neocon control but no other nation is. nt

[Strelnikov_]

13. The Oligarchs Are Smiling

I have a big problem with the symbotic relationship between illegal immigration and the labor black market.

It appears to me that (uncontrolled) immigrant labor fills a void that it perpetuates, low wages that make the jobs undesirable due to an oversupply of labor, the classic supply/demand relationship. All the current immigration policy of this country does is create a black market for labor, exploiting those who are here illegally, and driving down the wages and working conditions so for legal residents and immigrants the job is a step backward.

Of course, from the lofty perch of a tenured teaching position, a defined benefit/trust fund annuity, or college paid by the parents, the impact of the labor black market on the middle and lower class working people of this country seems to be, well, no problem at all. The minute there is any discussion of tightening up immigration, a civil war revolving around accusations of racism breaks out, nothing gets done, and the Iron Heel (GOP Corporatists) laugh all the way to the bank.

What we need is a guest worker program to stop the exploitation of immigrants and end the flooding of the labor market due to uncontrolled immigration. This will address illegal immigration by dealing with demand (employers).

Hiring of guest workers by businesses would be coordinated through workforce development (unemployment) offices. These offices would maintain a set of procedures/surveys to verify a shortage of labor in a classification before guest workers could be hired. A wage rates system would have to be maintained to prevent low wages from being used as way to create a labor shortage.

All labor laws, including minimum wage rates and social security payments, would be strictly enforced for guest workers, with severe penalties for violators. After participation in the program over time, the guest worker would be eligible for a retirement SS annuity based on what they paid in.

Some thoughts on immigration policy from John Sayles which sums up my feelings on this issue.

John Sayles
From:A People's Democratic Platform

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040802&s=forum

The Democratic platform should call for an end to the hypocrisy of our immigration policy. Our current policy, an enormously expensive cat-and-mouse game, most notably on our southern border, calls on the INS to enforce immigration laws that are openly expected to be ignored by countless US industries and private employers. Some sort of regulated guest-worker program is needed.

Once it is in place, if immigrants continue to enter the country illegally and can't find work, word will filter back and the numbers will decrease dramatically. While in our country, however, those guest workers need to be protected from exploitation--to be assured they will be paid for their work, that their working conditions will meet state and federal safety standards and that they will receive no less than the federally mandated minimum wage (which needs to be raised).

Employers would be required to withhold some percentage (perhaps the equivalent of federal taxes and Social Security) from wages to help defray the costs of the program. Penalties for hiring foreign workers outside of the program would be high enough (and sufficiently enforced) to end the black market in labor that is thriving now.

Protecting all workers in this country is an important first step toward the amendment or abolition of NAFTA and the protection of workers throughout the world.