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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Thoughts on America Bashing
Message-ID: <305@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Aug-85 15:16:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubvax.305
Posted: Mon Aug 19 15:16:34 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 07:50:33 EDT
References: <895@uscvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
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Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca.
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In article <895@uscvax.UUCP> kurtzman@uscvax.UUCP (Stephen Kurtzman) writes:
>Mr. Taylor, have you ever wondered why so many people wanted to leave
>Cuba during the Mariel exodus? Have you heard or seen hoards of people
>forsaking their homes and friends to flee oppression in the US?

Mr. Kurtzman is forgetting that Cuba permitted NO emigration to the US,
and the US permitted NO immigration from Cuba, for many years until the
Mariel exodus.  If the Mariel exodus were divided up between all the
years in which no emigration/immigration was permitted, it wouldn't
add up to more (and probably less) than any other Latin American country.

There are many countries in this world where people itch to leave and
try life somewhere else.  And there are also many countries which have
large segments of their population living permanently abroad and urging
everybody else to leave and join the good life abroad.  For instance,
Ireland, Norway, and Switzerland, along with the Philippines, Mexico,
and Portugal, along with India, Hong Kong, and Korea.

Many countries have their whole social support system organized around
the presence of an escape valve.  For instance, Switzerland can have
such strict public laws in part because it knows that people who don't
like them can and often do leave.  Mexico can do less in rural economic
development because people can and do leave.  Ireland doesn't have to
worry as much about its huge unemployment because people can and do leave.

Many in the Mariel exodus, as reported in the news, want to go back to
Cuba.  For instance, most of the Marielistas are dark-skinned and don't
like American racism.  Many Mexican immigrants plan to return home,
as do many Filipinos.

Nothing new in this, unless you believe the ideology that people who
come to the US come to stay, rather than just try it out.  Or that the
desire of people to leave a country is a fundamental indictment of
that country's system.  Not so.

Tony Wuersch
{amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw