COMMENTARY: by NPG President Donald Mann

            Is our nation staring at a permanent state of decline?
            That question would certainly have seemed very far-fetched in recent decades.  Since 1980, America’s economy has been riding a roller coaster that started with a major recession, then rose high with record growth through the late 80s and into the 90s.  And while it suffered a few economic setbacks along the way, it consistently rebounded in a short time.
            Yet, as we near the second anniversary of the country’s massive economic collapse in 2008, many Americans are bracing for a long period of economic stagnation. After 48 months, despite colossal government spending and creative programs to once again jumpstart the economy, we still haven’t found the elusive magic formula to get our country back on track.
            What ever happened to the good ol’ “can do” American spirit?
The answer is:  It’s simply not there these days.  For many people our problems are starting to become overwhelming.
            A clue to what’s going on can be found in a recently released NBC/Wall Street Journal poll where nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believe the country is in a state of decline and that they are no longer confident “that life for our children’s generation will be better than it has been for us.”
            The New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, writing on this trend and trying to explain today’s political turmoil, recently noted:  “People feel that the country is going to hell, that the system itself has broken down….”
            Herbert’s article goes on to blame the Obama administration as well as the Republicans for our nation’s current woes.  However, I think he is missing the real story. 
            The bottom line is that there’s really no “quick fix” to make America whole again and bring back the boom years. 
            With each passing day, Americans are becoming more aware of the realities that we are going to face in the future.  The facts are clear – our problems are more costly and complex and they reach into every segment of our lives.  As our population mushrooms and grows faster than ever, more people will compete for jobs…we’ll face giant tax increases to pay for more hospitals, schools, roads and to repair the nation’s infrastructure…huge sums of tax money will be needed to fund Social Security, Medicare and unfunded pensions…we’ll confront a never-ending shortage of already-limited water and energy supplies…and our already-deteriorating environment will fall victim to too many people.
            All of these problems will continue to grow if our leaders consistently put off taking immediate and radical action to severely restrict future immigration and create a viable National Population Policy.  They will definitely continue to spin out of control if we continue to do nothing and let our nation add another 140 million people in the next 40 years, as is predicted by current projections
            No wonder Americans are full of despair.
            NPG members understand the profound threats posed to our future by today’s lax border security and immigration enforcement, as well as record population growth.  They are well aware that it will be impossible for our children and grandchildren to enjoy a decent quality of life unless we work to address these critical problems before it is too late. 
            Today as a major segment of Americans wake up to the huge social, economic and environmental disasters that loom on the horizon, NPG must work even harder to reach out to them, educate them about the critical need to press our elected leaders for positive action on immigration and population issues, and recruit them as allies and activists in our battle to address these critical concerns.

POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION NEWS

GEORGIA LAW ON ILLEGALS VOTING ALLOWED TO STAND

            An article in The Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary on August 27th related how the Obama Justice Department has backed down from challenging a Georgia law passed in 2008 that set up a verification process to check if a potential voter was a citizen.
            According to the story written by WSJ reporter John Fund, “Apparently, Justice lawyers realized they were heading for a clear defeat in court.  Had they pursued their case against a Georgia voting law and lost, it could have threatened a key section of the Voting Rights Act that gives the feds power to ‘pre-clear’ changes in election laws by the states.”
            Fund notes that “The program worked well.  Using existing databases, Georgia identified 4,000 potential noncitizens and sent them letters asking for citizenship verification.  More than 2,000 failed to comply, and a likely reason is that many were ineligible to vote.”

MELTING ARCTIC ICE

            Where did the issue of global warming go after the world’s nations failed to lock-in a major commitment to resolve the crisis in Copenhagen last December? 
            One certainly does not see as many news articles related to our planet’s future perils triggered by a quickly changing earth climate.  It is as if the entire issue has been put on the back burner and will be revived as soon as a new catastrophe triggers the worldwide media’s interest once again. 
            One reporter who is determined to remain focused on global warming and to get the story out is Thomas Holmes-Dixon who wrote an eyewitness account in The New York Times on August 24th about what’s happening at the top of the world.  He filed his story from the Louis S. St-Laurent, a Canadian Coast Guard ship, which is both one of the world’s most powerful ice breakers and a floating laboratory for Arctic science.
            Included in his lengthy story is this update on the impact of global warming on the Arctic:

            “The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and this summer its sea ice is melting at a near-record pace.  The sun is heating the newly open water, so it will take longer to refreeze this winter, and the resulting thinner ice will melt more quickly next summer.

            At the same time, warm Pacific Ocean water is pulsing through the Bering Strait into the Arctic basin, helping to melt a large area of sea ice between Alaska and eastern Siberia.  Scientists are just beginning to learn how this exposed water has changed the movement of heat energy and major air currents across the Arctic basin, in turn producing winds that push remaining sea ice down the coasts of Greenland into the Atlantic.

            Globally, 2010 is on track to be the warmest year on record.  In regions around the world, indications abound that earth’s climate is quickly changing, like the devastating mudslides in China and weeks of searing heat in Russia.  But in the world’s capitals, movement on climate policy has nearly stopped.”

A PROBLEM SCREAMING FOR A SOLUTION

            We have written quite a bit in recent months regarding the growing crisis of “anchor babies” here in the U.S. and the increasing national debate over whether our elected leaders need to act immediately to restrict the current policy that presently rewards birthright citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil.  In the last issue of The NPG Journal we reported on the growth of birth hotels across the nation.  However, as this issue comes more to the fore, new research is revealing how extensively those who wish to take advantage of automatic U.S. citizenship are working the system. 
            Earlier this month, Hans A. von Spakovsky, a Senior Legal Fellow at the respected Heritage Foundation included this paragraph in a well-written column entitled “The Cost of Birthright Citizenship:”

            “The Tucson Medical Center in Arizona, for example, ‘actively recruits in Mexico’ for expectant mothers and offers them a ‘birth package.’  Three California Chinese-owned ‘baby care centers’ recruit foreign mothers to give them the ability to have their babies in the United States and ‘take advantage’ of the law according to the owners (who started the business after coming to the U.S. to have their own child). Turkish doctors and hotel owners (including the Marmara Hotel in Manhattan) have set up a birth tourism business that has ‘reportedly arrang[ed] the U.S. birth of 12,000 Turkish children since 2003’ in order to obtain U.S. citizenship because, as one of the Turkish mothers said, ‘American citizenship has so many advantages.’”

“AGING UP”

            In his commentary section in the September 2010 issue of the AARP Bulletin, editor Jim Toedtman notes that:  “An important new study by the Stanford Center on Longevity puts a wider lens on familiar statistics.  America will continue to ‘age up’ for decades.  The over-65 sector will double – from 40 million today to 89 million, and from 13 percent of the population to 20 percent, by 2050.”  He goes on to relate how such a dramatic demographic shift will not only put tremendous financial pressure on Social Security, Medicare and pension systems but will also touch “every aspect of American life” including our families, our neighborhoods, our health and our economy.  He also notes, “‘As a society,’ the Stanford study concludes, ‘we can no longer afford to ignore the reality of the tremendous population shifts already underway – the opportunities and costs are simply too significant….’”

TAKING DOWN THE SHERIFF

            If there’s one man in all of America who is hailed by those who want to see real enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws, Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff Joe Arpaio fills the bill.  He’s a no-nonsense official with one main goal – to do his job.
            Now, in concert with other actions to deter true enforcement of our country’s immigration laws, “Sheriff Joe” is being sued by the Obama Justice Department.  The lawsuit alleges “racial profiling, unconstitutional search and seizures, police misconduct and discrimination.”  In relating the story, the newspaper Human Events noted: “Arpaio said the Justice Department investigation began after allegations were made by local media outlets, but after more than a year of DOJ lawyers ‘roaming around the state,’ there is no evidence of racial profiling or discrimination.  He said a Homeland Security audit of his department ‘came out great’ and showed no evidence of rights violations.”
            In commenting on the lawsuit, Robert N. Driscoll, counsel to the Maricopa County sheriff’s office stated: “Today’s lawsuit by the Department of Justice is part of a deliberate media strategy to ‘get tough’ on Sheriff Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, and undermine immigration enforcement by a local sheriff who is trying desperately to make up for this administration’s own indifference to the topic.”

ANOTHER SMALL TOWN INTIMIDATED

            There was once a time in America where the citizens of cities and towns passed local laws and then lived by them.  Now, their actions – especially in trying to deal with out-of-control problems triggered by an influx of illegal immigrants – are subject to threats of costly lawsuits from outside forces which strike fear in the hearts of elected leaders.  That problem showed up again last week when the City Council members in Summerville, SC, a town of about 45,000 people that’s 20 miles northwest of Charleston, voted 4-3 to set aside any action on a proposed ordinance that would require renters to prove they are U.S. citizens or are in the country legally.  The proposal was defeated 4-3 with several council members specifically citing concerns about the financial drain a costly lawsuit would place on the city.  In defeating this effort, the pro-immigration lobby dealt another blow to democracy.
           

WHEN GUILTY, PLAY THE VICTIM

            You can’t say that Mexican President Felipe Calderon isn’t brazen.  He came to the U.S. earlier this year and stood before the U.S. Congress to denounce our nation’s immigration policy.  Now, he has openly disputed a statement made last week by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying that [the violence in] Mexico today resembled the nation of Colombia two decades ago.  Calderon was quoted on the Spanish network Univision as stating:  “These kind (sic) of comments like the ones made by Secretary of State Clinton…so careless, so lacking in seriousness, are very painful for Mexico, because they damage Mexico’s image terribly.”  He added, “I think the main thing we have in common with Colombia is that both of our countries suffer from the U.S. drug consumption.  We are both victims of the enormous American consumption of drugs, and now the sales of weapons.” 
            Concurrent with Calderon’s comments, 85 inmates scaled the walls of a prison near the Mexican-U.S. border.  It was that country’s largest jailbreak in recent memory.
            NPG believes that it’s about time Mexico starts to take responsibility for restoring law and order within its own border before blaming others for their problems.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS:  FEWER COMING IN, NONE RUSH OUT

            An editorial that ran in The New York Times on September 4, 2010 related the following:
            “A nonpartisan study on illegal immigrants in the United States came out Wednesday.  Here is the gist:  Unauthorized immigration peaked three years ago, and is sharply receding.  It is declining all over, but especially in housing-bust states like Florida, Nevada and Virginia.
            Harsher enforcement probably has something to do with it.  But so does the Great Recession, and while the total population of illegal immigrants has fallen somewhat, to about 11 million, there is no exodus.  They are not flooding in as much, but they are not flooding out.”
            The study cited was conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center which also states the fact that:  “By region of origin, the population of unauthorized immigrants from Latin American countries other than Mexico has declined most markedly.”

CHINA GRIDLOCK

            The Associated Press carried a story a few weeks ago about a traffic jam in China that extended more than 60 miles and had traffic moving at a rate of about a half a mile each day.  At the time of the story, some people had been caught up in the gridlock for more than 10 days.  The cause was related to road construction and a rush to build new roads to bring coal to Beijing via truck from the recently discovered coalfields in Inner Mongolia.  Imagine the long-term economic and environmental effects of traffic jams like this if population continues to grow to unsustainable levels and as automobiles become more common in developing nations.                   

NPG NOTES

NPG REACHES OUT TO PARTNER WITH OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS

            “It’s a proven fact in politics that there’s power in numbers.”
            That’s the opening line in a letter NPG will soon send out to hundreds of environmental groups throughout the U.S. – both large and small – inviting them to join us in co-sponsoring a set of powerful media ads to get members of Congress, policymakers, and other elected leaders focused on the critical need for a National Population Policy.
            Our efforts of partnering with multiple organizations to take our message to Capitol Hill will hopefully increase the clout of our combined grassroots memberships to advance our complimentary goals. 
            The goal of this effort is to help reinforce the critical tie-in between population growth and protecting our environment.  We all know that there are countless millions of environmentalists throughout America and it is important that we stand united and speak as one if we are going to rescue and preserve our nation’s environmental treasures and create a decent quality of life for future generations.
            NPG will create the National Population Policy ads and list the other organizations as co-sponsors in the ad copy if they approve the text.   We expect to run the ads in respected national publications including E-Magazine, The Washington Times Weekly, and The Hill newspaper.
            In extending our invitation to join in this project we reminded environmental leaders what former U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, who many consider the “Father of Earth Day,” wrote a decade ago:

            “A sustainable society may be described in several ways:  a society whose activities do not exceed the carrying capacity of its resource base; or a society that manages its environmental and resource systems so that their ability to support future generations is not diminished.”

QUOTES

            “Thank you for the opportunity to participate in your [NPG] scholarship.  It was a fantastic experience.  I appreciate the letter and press release – they were very thoughtful. Thank you for the money, it will be put to good use.”

                          Camille Kirch
                          2010 NPG Scholarship Winner

            “So there you have it…the state [Arizona] that has taken the lead in cracking down on illegal immigration is now the target of Obama and his legal team.  Forget enforcing the law.  Forget protecting U.S. Citizens.  Forget ridding sovereign U.S. land from foreign drug dealers and human traffickers.  Forget all of that.  According to Obama, if it’s an immigration law, enforce it at your own peril.  What a country!”

                          Bobby Eberle
                          National Columist

            “Janet Napolitano, the current DHS secretary, argues she is making better use of scarce resources by directing them at the greatest threats.  But this assertion strains credibility.
First of all, if resources are scarce, why doesn’t she ask for more?  Even given our present fiscal difficulties, Congress had no trouble throwing an extra $600 million at border security.  Why wouldn’t it fund immigration enforcement?  Internal enforcement is just as important as border security.”

                          James Jay Carafano
                          The Washington Examiner Columnist

 

WHY THE NPG JOURNAL?

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            The NPG Journal (offered free to all recipients) exists to give more widespread distribution to timely news stories and articles related to population, immigration, environmental and political issues that currently affect our daily life – or have the potential to seriously impact our future. 

            We realize not all news stories covering population issues will reflect NPG policies and goals.  One of our main purposes in creating the NPG Journal is to expose these items to a wider audience, and to draw attention to the fact that so many articles speak to immigration and population issues but often fail to address the central cause of many problems – TOO MANY PEOPLE. 

            Ultimately, NPG would like to see writers at all levels make the obvious (to us, at least) connection between environmental and resource problems and the growing number of people in both the United States and the world.  Unfortunately, most do not.  To that end, we comment as necessary to help our readers see those links in hopes they will continue to speak out on what we deem to be the most pressing issue of our time – population size and growth and its negative impacts on our environment, resources and quality of life.

            NPG President Donald Mann offers his personal insight and commentary on individual stories, especially those that challenge, confirm and/or complement our NPG Research and Forum Papers.  The goal of the NPG Journal is to greatly expand NPG’s educational programs.  NPG’s activities continue to emphasize the need for Americans to speak up on population issues and keep our nation – especially our elected leaders on the national, state and local level – focused on taking action to help resolve today’s immigration crisis and work to halt, and eventually reverse America’s out-of-control population growth.

            We welcome your feedback to articles posted on the NPG Journal and urge you to forward to us the e-mail address of friends you think would like to receive a complimentary copy of the NPG Journal on a monthly basis.  Contact us at www.npg.org.  

 

ABOUT NPG:

            Negative Population Growth, Inc. (NPG) is a national nonprofit membership organization with over 30,000 members nationwide.  It was founded in 1972 to educate the American public and political leaders about the devastating effects of overpopulation on our environment, resources, and standard of living.  We believe that our nation is already vastly overpopulated in terms of the long-range carrying capacity of its resources and environment.

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