SWCAMBORNE

On the way back from our trip to Phoenix and Albuquerque last month we stopped at El Morro.  It was a beautiful day and we took some great pictures both as we approached and on the walk.

There is a year round water source at the base of the cliff and so people have been visiting here for thousands of years.  They have also been carving their names into the soft sandstone, leaving a record that shows how many immigrants have past this way.

Native American Sheep

I’m not sure if this is an argument for or against immigration.

A Spaniard in 1709

Perhaps it is as Mike the Barber says:  “Migration happens, Get used to it”

US Calvary 1859

Now of course we would call it graffitti.

Last night we held the Pasadena premiere of the movie that Dave, Brian and I have worked on so long.  The event was excellent.  attendance was well over 200 people, the equipment worked, and most of the comments were positive.  We got lots of leads for new screenings and even had some groupies.

One of the best things to come out of the event was meeting Bob Gordon who moderated the very short panel discussion after the screening.  Bob is a former head of the screen actors guild and has a call in show called From Left Field 

I’m pretty sure that our politics disagree but I could tell in the few minutes that we spoke that our objectives are the same:  To make sure that the trend toward liberty and prosperity continues.

Bob did a great job moderating the panel and giving each of us a chance to speak.  Thank him for me by visiting his web site and making a comment.

This is a new book by Mark Krikorian the president of The Center for Immigration Studies.

In my review on Amazon I wrote: “The New Case Against Immigration” is not a “new case”. Its arguments are based on the same fears that stopped immigration in the 1920’s. In the words of Michelle Wucker author of Lockout “they were wrong then and they are wrong now.”

The rest of my review of the book is on Amazon and is mostly unfavorable. Krikorian is a good writer and a clever manipulator of emotional arguments. One example is he doesn’t say “population growth” he says “artificial, government engineered population growth.” Of course I do the same thing with lines like “the right to live where you choose.”

You can read all of my review on Amazon here. You would be doing me a great service by taking a minute to follow the link and rate my review. Thanks.

Ben Wattenberg an author and thinker who has influenced me greatly over the years has a new book. I highly recommend it. He also wrote Fewer that is one of the books that created the philosophical underpinnings of Radical Immigration.

He is one of the people we interviewed for Beyond Borders

Available on Amazon

“Fighting Words” is an enlightening ramble through the thickets of American politics from the 1960’s to the present. Ben Wattenberg is the host of the long running PBS show “Think Tank” and the love of word and ideas that is so apparent on the show runs on steroids through this book. The main theme of the book is how Wattenberg who started as a loyal Democrat became a neo-con. Wattenberg makes no apology for his break with the center left coalition that now runs the Democrat party. He uses examples of the Democrat shift to the left on foreign and domestic policy and explains the rise of the neo-cons as Democrats who stayed with the old values. These old values of the Democrat party included spreading American values and liberty throughout the world and affirmative action without quotas at home. These and others are the values that according to Wattenberg’s narrative the neo-cons have stayed with as the Democrat party has moved left towards a world view that doesn’t recognize American exceptionalism and domestic policies that strive for equality of outcome (quotas).

But the best part of “Fighting Words” is not the main narrative. It is the personal stories, tangents and illuminating anecdotes that fill in the pictures of the political landscape that Wattenberg is painting. He tells a story about how Hubert Humphrey helped to insert “under God” into the pledge of allegiance in 1954. Another story about Adlai Stevenson, who ran as against Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, quotes him as explaining a newspaperman’s job “is to separate the wheat from the chaff and print the chaff.”

Politics is not linear and neither is this book. It tells why Reagan opposed Carter’s Olympic boycott and offers a theory on why voter turnout is so low in the US. Wattenberg emphasizes his most salient comments with the phrase “sound familiar” but lets us the reader make the analogy to the present.

This is not quite an autobiography and not quite a political how-to manual it is however a delightful look at the American political scene through the eyes of one of our times best political operatives, scholars and writers. “Fighting Words” is an excellent read that puts this years heated political debate into much needed perspective.

Now if you have read this far do me one more favor. Go to Fighting Words on Amazon and scroll down to the reviews. Rate my review (all you have to do is click the stars) and rate the book. By doing this you are, at no cost, boosting my ego and helping Ben Wattenberg sell some books.

We saw this “Eritrean Cab” in San Diego.

Do you know where Eritria is?

I see this as evidence of what a great country the USA is.  Being made greater by immigrants.

Visit RadicalImmigration.com