Every adult woman understands the fierceness of female intrasexual competition, having weathered it one way or another. The unlucky ones have learned first-hand just how mean a mean girl can be. From a young age, we compete in subtle and covert ways, angling for power through a series of small but critical steps. Those steps usually involve elevating oneself at the expense of someone else. Competition among females in the social sphere is often extremely indirect, but the effects of exclusion can be brutal.
While we’re growing up, we’re eager to be the prettiest girl at the ball, or, failing that, to be in her entourage. Sometimes the best we can hope for is that we’ll avoid being an outcast, left to our own devices without being picked on. As we age, we remain ever vigilant, desperately wanting to avoid being “that woman” – the outsider.
These truths, rather obvious to me, are often denied by other women. We resist swallowing our own red pill about the vicious tactics we’re capable of employing under the right circumstances.
I’ve shared before how in my career, I have found women to be the most difficult bosses. The rules were unclear, the offenses were random, and the penalties inconsistent. I have found them to be the most likely to steal credit for a subordinate’s work. I have seen them play favorites with male subordinates, introducing a component of sexual tension that amounts to sexual harrassment, though it is rarely recognized as such. (The workplace is the one place where women appreciate obsequious behavior from males.) Most unfairly, I’ve seen women actively sabotage the promotions of deserving women who worked for them, apparently in the belief that their own success would be assured if they could keep the ranks of female superiors thin.
Even in my years as a stay at home mom, I found women to be unforgiving competitors. (If you’ve seen the movie Help, the dynamic among the Junior League types was not far off.) I’ve heard women (often with MBAs, JDs, or MDs) badmouth one another for contributing less-than-gourmet quality food to the annual teacher’s brunch or dry brownies to the annual bake sale. I’ve watched them secretly rejoice upon learning that someone else’s child failed to secure admission to the college of their choice. (At one Back to School Night, the Guidance Counselor advised senior parents to avoid cocktail parties at all costs.) It wasn’t the men acting mean and antisocial during the college application process – it was the moms. (Note: I was President of the Parents’ Association at my son’s school during his last two years. I’m still recovering.)
I doubt any of this will surprise female readers, though it may depress them. Selena Rezvani, author of a book about women leaders, writes in Mean Girls at Work in the Washington Post about the problem.
While workplace studies show women are routinely underestimated compared to men, we don’t give much credence to the fact that women hampering other women is also to blame.
In nearly every leadership talk I give, whether to the women’s network of a Fortune 500 company or to incoming female MBA students, I actively steer away from this topic.
But even if I don’t bring this issue up in a women’s forum, someone will invariably—and I mean always—raise her hand and ask me the same question. “What about women who thwart other women’s success?”
It’s time these reports from the trenches get their due.
Rezvani offers several possible explanations for this rather “unbecoming” behavior:
1. Catty media portrayals
2. Sexism amnesia
Women get to the top and forget what it was like to be young and struggling.
3. Sink or swim sadism
“I was treated like dirt on my way up, so you should be too.”
4. Self-hatred
Rezvani states, “In their book Mean Girls, Meaner Women, coauthors Drs. Erika Holiday and Joan Rosenberg note, ‘…Self-hatred is the key link between girls’ early hurtful behavior toward each other and women who suppress other women. A woman with a strong sense of self and high self esteem is much less likely to hurt others.’ The authors explain that women are socialized from an early age to avert, rather than express anger, and to feel that any expression of anger whatsoever is wrong. Perhaps this is how the wires get crossed, making appropriate anger morph into backdoor, gossipy, passive-aggressive behavior.”
5. Bitchy mothers
Mothers are the figures who have greater influence in the transference of discriminatory behavior, and thus the opportunity to pass on more fair-minded behavior as well.
6. Having it all, doing it all
This is Rezvani’s own theory.
If there’s one observation I make about many professional women today—particularly working moms—it’s that they’re “doing it all,” burdened with too many demands to count and moving through life at breakneck speed. Kate Sayre and Michael J. Silverstein, coauthors of the book Women Want More , found that women’s happiness, when correlated to age, is V-shaped. Meaning, women are happiest between the ages of 18 and 25 and then again after age 50 when, for many, these converging life demands are less pronounced.
There isn’t any, and there actually never was. Feminism, the most prominent “sisterhood” of our age, is fractured, characterized by infighting and petty grievances, along with a hatred of “other.” Most notably, that means men, but there’s plenty of vitriol for women who question or disagree.
Recently I was asked to participate in a small group of Wharton women alums, charged with the task of rethinking the mission of the Wharton Women’s group, and exploring what kinds of programs and services might be of most interest. At one point, the moderator asked what we thought of a mentoring program, where older, successful women might meet regularly with recent graduates. I said I thought that was a great idea, since relations between women in the workplace are so often strained and unproductive. At first, no one else in the group spoke. The moderator asked if others also perceived that. One woman, the head of a profitable hedge fund, assured the group that she was incredibly generous and kind with her female employees. As she had been curt and abrupt with us, I didn’t give her report much credit.
Finally, the youngest woman present spoke. After being assured that her remarks would not be attributed to her, she confessed that women had actively derailed her success in some instances, and were very impersonal and businesslike at her current firm. She admitted that she has had two wonderful mentors, both male, and that women in each organization actively disapproved of and discouraged these relationships, although they had no interest in mentoring themselves. By the end of the meeting, everyone but the hedge fund guru had admitted to having similar experiences.
I do agree with Rezvani that real life reports from the trenches need to be taken seriously. What’s more, each and every woman should acknowledge that this mode of behavior is endemic to female nature. It’s an uncomfortable truth, but only by acknowledging it can we call out offenders and reward more productive ways of competing.
In the meantime, here’s my advice for dealing with women in the workplace:
This is an ugly truth. The most difficult people in a man’s world are the women.
{ 629 comments… read them below or add one }
« 1 2 3 4 5 »
Jesus M. – “Law isn’t the same as ethics.”
I know. I’m arguing law, and people keep throwing in ethics. I really don’t care about ethics when it comes to creating and maintaining the law. Ethics should come into play during the creation phase. As it stands, our immigration law is what it is, whether it is ethical or not. I’m not against fixing it at all, but I don’t think we should sit around waiting until it does. Instead, make a serious effort to find and send back illegal immigrants. If indeed we need them as some people claim, it should become apparent quickly, and that will start the ball rolling to get the law changed.
It isn’t that I don’t want things to be better, but I want things to improve by the proper process. Unless of course we are talking about a full on revolution. Depending on who is leading it, I might buy in…
Ted,
Ah, okay. I’m the opposite. I don’t care about laws. I just care about my ethics.
Revolutions are almost always led by the wrong people. Or else taken over by the wrong people after those wrong people murder the right ones. I think the American Revolution was an anomaly.
@Jesus
Re 2008: It’s not capitalism that’s to blame, it’s the failure to anticipate the degree of human greed and stupidity that can come together to create a perfect storm. Regulators fell down on the job in a big way. And it was politically expedient for everyone to look the other way. Both Republicans and Democrats enabled that fiasco. Not only that, we haven’t really solved that problem.
Re global capitalism – what are you referring to here? The Euro?
Sue, the Euro? I’m not smart enough to talk about the Euro. I was talking about globalization in general.
I thought the real estate fiasco was the result of giving bad loans good ratings and then packaging those loans to sell as “low-risk.” But honestly, I’ll believe whatever you tell me.
What I meant was that once a company or small group of companies has cornered a market, it has effectively destroyed the ability of upstarts to compete. Or no? But if yes, then the nature of capitalism changes then, doesn’t it?
@Jesus
That was the end game that brought down the house of cards. But first bad loans were knowingly given in great quantities. Both GW Bush and Barney Frank favored extremely relaxed criteria so that we could boast about the rate of American home ownership. There’s a lot of blame to go around, but it was brewing for years. So we had people with lousy credit and insufficient income taking mortgages they had to know they might default on. Greed. We had the government and banks promoting those loans aggressively. Greed. And then we had Wall St. packaging those bad loans and selling them without disclosing the risk. Double greed.
You know, I don’t think so. All my lefty friends despise Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and all the chain restaurants that took over Harvard Square. But they didn’t patronize those mom and pop stores. They went to Costco for the prices. So you have a small group of companies cornering the market on hardware, say. You have one very large company selling a large share of the books purchased in the world.
That isn’t the end of opportunity. Capitalism means someone will figure out how to offer a better product, the same product at a lower price, or the same product with service worth paying a premium for.
Doing much of my shopping via Amazon Prime and at Costco saves me time and a bunch of money. That’s efficiency.
Upstarts who add value do compete successfully. Look at Jet Blue and Virgin America.
Capitalism as an economic system is not perfect, but it’s far superior to any other system (to paraphrase Churchill), IMO.
Forgiving me if what I’m about to ask constitutes pulling a Ramble …
Stay Classy San Diego.
No, you being a non-citizen doesn’t bother me. But I support the deportation of Twilight fans. Just to let you know…
If you really think the no fans and antifans are going to make America a better place to live… :p
Anaconoa – you are married to an American, right? That counts.
I’m trying to make half anchor babies
Money is above of the law. Actually – money can buy you a citizenship.
I cant even travel to the USA because I dont have enough money on the bank.
Oh boy so true. I got rejected for my visa just because of that.
@Ted
You are assuming that 1 illegal above the law act, means that the person is leaning to always act against the law when more often than not this people are hard working people with few opportunities in their own country that thrive and work hard once they finally see their effort having fruits. And I tell you that both from the perspective that know several immigrants both in USA and as a person that was against Haitian discrimination and deportation from my own country. Haitians are doing the jobs Dominicans won’t do and they encounter similar arguments and terrible treatment from the “patriots”…patriots my ass if you pardon my french this pure Dominicans violate all sorts of laws when they don’t suit their needs even if our nation suffers as a consequences. I rather have a good illegal worker than a bad born and raised one, YMMV.
I don’t know your sources but you need to dig further immigrants do a lot more good for the countries they go than bad. Whoever sold you the image of the illegal immigrant as a resources vampire has all the wrong facts. My husband told me a story of how a state that created laws against immigrant workers and is struggling financially. You are assuming that getting rid of the illegals will make Americans take those jobs magically. They won’t.
And no I don’t take personally I can see how for someone not in the know it looks the way you see it. But you should do a bit more of research on the subject with open eyes and open mind, YMMV.
Sue,
Thanks. All of that makes good sense.
“What I meant was that once a company or small group of companies has cornered a market, it has effectively destroyed the ability of upstarts to compete”
Once upon a time, Sears Roebuck stood like a colossus over American retailing; who would have imagined that a bunch of hicks from Arkansas would succeed at their expense? The steel industry was dominated by US Steel and Bethlehem Steel, with their vast integrated steel mills…how could they take seriously a little startup called Nucor, which was using something called a mini-mill? IBM dominated the computer industry so thoroughly that the industry was called “IBM and the Seven Dwarfs.”
Entrenched market position is only sustainable when backed by government power, and sometimes not even then.
My most recent post: Author Appreciation: Rose Wilder Lane
I agree. I actually really like talking about this, it’s one of the reasons I got into social work.
Yeah this makes me sad. I know I can’t convince you otherwise, but to me, the idea of deporting children to a country they’ve never known is highly upsetting. The 14th Amendment was passed back in 1868, for good reason. It’s just dehumanizing to lump a bunch of children together and call them “children of criminals” and punish them for decisions their parents made. By the way, I’m also 100% in favor of the Dream Act, which would help children who were brought here illegally become citizens. I knew a child who came to the U.S. when she was 6 months old (hardly her choice). She was deported at the age of 10. She had to pick up her whole life and leave, she went back to Mexico, the kids made fun of her for her accent. How would you feel exposing your own kids to a drastic change like that?
Because we are partly responsible for the problem. Go back and read what I wrote. It may have been an unintended consequence of poorly thought-out policy, but now we need to team up with Mexico to figure out a solution. We also have a stake in Mexico’s political/economic situation. We are border countries. There’s some concern that gang/drug violence will spill over the border into Texas (my brother is all for military intervention, and to be honest, he has a good argument for it). The problem is you’re thinking of it as Us vs. Them. Instead, think about it like this: it’s in our own best interest to team up with Mexico. It’s not in our interest to blame Mexican workers for our problems.
Also, in case you didn’t notice, our country does benefit from illegal immigrants. I’ve read papers claiming that they contribute several billion dollars to our economy. They are hard-working, and frankly, despite what you and Tara say about people wanting to do skilled/unskilled labor, I maintain that Americans do not want agriculture jobs. Tara brought up that minimum wage is not sustainable, and that’s why people don’t want ag. jobs. I call bullshit. People do minimum wage jobs all the time.
Also I wouldn’t call agriculture “unskilled labor.” You don’t know how much skill it takes until you do it.
Re: ethics vs. law, laws come out of ethics. We cannot separate the two, and it’s silly to try to do so.
Ted,
2 more points (damn I missed a lot yesterday).
1) I think you’re suggesting that we send every single illegal immigrant back to his own country (for the record, there are about 12 million of them). Talk about a cluster fuck. Sounds like a logistical nightmare. Let’s just fix the damn laws. I don’t understand your need to punish every single person who has come to this country illegally. Have they not suffered enough, walking through the Arizona desert, risking rape and heat stroke? Living with the fear that making the smallest mistake (even something as simple as running a red light) could get them deported? Knowing that if they do get deported, they will go back to a country full of gangs and extortionists, with half the police force working for them?
Mexico is a fucking disaster right now. For a lot of reasons. But who can blame someone for wanting to get the fuck out? Who can blame someone for risking his life to pay a coyote several thousand dollars to help his family trek across the desert, to come to a place with more opportunities? I dunno Ted. In my opinion, you have a very simplistic view of the issue. Do you have any Mexican friends? How would you feel if you found out your best friend was an illegal immigrant? Would you report him to the police?
2) I don’t get where you’re going with this:
What? No trade? The number one libertarian position on international policy is that we should be taking full advantage of free trade with as many countries as possible. Otherwise we only miss out on the opportunity to import goods that we cannot make in the U.S., and export goods that other countries cannot make. Your fellow libertarians love that shit.
I’m with Anacaona on this one, Ted. I think you need to do some more research. And hang out with some Mexicans. I can give you a list of really good Mexican restaurants in Pittsburgh.
And the reason I’m pounding away is because it’s voters like you to whom the politicians are trying to appeal right now. It’s the reason we can’t find any solutions to the damn problem. Because the minute someone mentions some sort of comprehensive immigration reform beyond “border security,” he risks losing the next election. So for now, everyone just uses it as a way to get more voters. There’s no effort to solve the thing.
Re: immigration. My parents and I were legal immigrants, but with a catch. My father was studying at an American university on a student visa, and my mother was here as his spouse. They had both gotten medical degrees from Chinese universities and were considered doctors in China, but that doesn’t count in America, and getting a degree from an American university is more prestigious.
A few years after that in 1989, Tiananmen Square happened, and all of the Chinese students abroad received green cards (permanent residence status) because of that incident (a political amnesty of sorts). So my parents both got green cards, and then I was able to get a green card as well under those rules. Later, my mother and I both officially became U.S. citizens.
So if that violent incident had not happened in China, I would not be here. There are lots of little accidents that lead to people becoming American citizens. It was still a huge, long, expensive and convoluted process to for us come here as legal immigrants, and it does rub me the wrong way that others can get citizenship so much more easily. Illegal immigration happened throughout history, and it will likely continue to happen. Funny thing is that China also has some issues with immigration from North Korea and other neighboring nations. I believe most other countries are rather harsh on this type of thing, much harsher at least than America. It is to America’s credit that it is as tolerant of multiculturalism as it is.
cancer is actually a fungus that a doctoer is curing with sodium bicarbinate. Look it up. The reason cancer is not cured in the US is because it is a 200+ billion dollar industry.
Dont be fooled by “misinformation” nothing more than propaganda
How many times did you speed on the highway? Does that make you a criminal?
Also changing my tune a little to discuss healthcare.
The problem with the healthcare system, as Yohami has already hinted at, is that we have private providers, but the largest payer is public. Since Medicaid and Medicare were funded in the early-mid 20th Century (actually I should look up the exact date, coming up on one of my tests
), healthcare costs have gone through the roof. As Ted notes, insurance companies determine healthcare costs to a great extent, and they can charge the fed an obscene amount of money, because the fed has “unlimited spending power,” so to speak. It’d be much different if consumers were paying for healthcare directly. Yeah who knows how to solve that problem.
Actually, I’d argue that something very similar is happening with education. The government is the primary upfront payer (loans), and the educational institutions are private (even public schools operate privately, to a certain extent). The more loans the government offers, the more schools know they can jack up their tuition rates. Great way to fuck over students so you can build that nice new gym and… attract more students! I wonder what would happen if fewer student loans were offered.
This was a fascinating article. (A friend of mine pointed me to one of your more recent posts and now I’m hooked!)
I’ve had two female bosses thus far. The first, a VP at an international E/A firm, was amazing. I had (and still do) so much respect for her. I admired how talented, independent and feisty she was. I miss working for her. I learned so much and she treated me very well.
The second female boss I had was given the job of “boss” by her mother, the founder of the biz. This boss snorted coke in her office and screamed at people over really strange stuff. She spent more time on shopping websites than doing any actual work, stole ideas, and at one point, told my husband if he’d invent an excuse to get away for a weekend, they could meet up and she’d f*ck his brains out. (Nice, huh?) The business was very successful when I worked there. But it’s gone now. This boss ran it into the ground.
What I’ve taken away from both experiences is that one person’s toxicity can infect an entire group (or office) of people. A leader gets the best results from their workforce if they treat people with respect, set a positive example, treat others with fairness, and give credit where credit is due. It is unfortunate, though that some people never figure that out.
@LisaB
Welcome to HUS, thanks for leaving a comment. Hope to see you again soon!
I have heard of some companies with 360 degree evaluations, given anonymously, of course. This tends to identify the toxic employees, based on how their peers and subordinates experience them, and they may be given special counseling or work with a coach to improve their skills. In the cases I’m aware of, this hasn’t had much effect, unfortunately. People usually don’t get fired for having poor interpersonal skills if they’re delivering on the goals assigned by the organization. Of course, it’s much more difficult to quantify what results might improve with a different approach, so it often gets overlooked.
This reminds me of Queen Bee syndrome.
My workplace’s CEO is a man, but honestly it’s the two women working alongside him who run the show. My boss’s boss is a man, but he has unfortunately succumbed to whatever is their running of the show. I refuse to call it leadership.
What happens in the workplace is quite the experiment. It’s amazing to see what happens when someone has a title. A title does not entitle one!
This tends to identify the toxic employees, based on how their peers and subordinates experience them, and they may be given special counseling or work with a coach to improve their skills. In the cases I’m aware of, this hasn’t had much effect, unfortunately. People usually don’t get fired for having poor interpersonal skills if they’re delivering on the goals assigned by the organization.
In my sub-group (within the overall department) there are 3 financial analysts, 2 women and myself. One of the women is conniving, manipulative, two-faced, gossips about the boss behind his back, gossips about other people and that just scratches the surface. I have a hard time imagining a worse human being. That said, she is very, very, very good at the work and truly masterful at Excel and any sort of quantitative analysis, much better then I’ll ever be (and she has taken opportunities to make me look bad). They’d have to hire 2-3 more analysts to replace her output especially on crunch-time analysis.
I have to admit I am perplexed why she is such a total b*tch. The other woman in our group who I am friendly with sits next to here cubicle and overhears her bitchiness on a daily basis.
“People usually don’t get fired for having poor interpersonal skills if they’re delivering on the goals assigned by the organization.”
I agree! I had a (male) boss (editor) who was especially nasty to work for. He started out as a reporter. But he’d alienated so many people that most of the city council, police, and other community leaders refused talk to him. So the newspaper promoted him to editor where he wouldn’t have to interact with sources. So yeah, he was REWARDED for his lack of personal skills.
@MikeC (#470)
Mike C, regarding your co-worker’s source of weakness (unkindness towards others, “back-biting” etc):
Have you noticed anything that sets off a disproportionate reaction in her? (Reaction: Like touching a hot stove :: Response: Involving thought before action, I mean.)
Some people have had crazy backgrounds — not that it’s any excuse for her behavior. But more of an understanding.
I know someone (who is EXTREMELY successful at his profession) got hit with a belt for each mark below 100 on his tests. 93 = Hit 7 times
You don’t want to be around if anyone even insinuates he may be *possibly* mistaken.
This co-worker could be just a jerk. But I would watch for things that ellicit “over the top” reactions and observe the body language, tone, kinesthetics, visuals, words or any submodalities that stick out. She may be spitting clues at you.
Hope she gets better or gets transferred. And SOON!
@Olive & Ted (#462)
I have to co-sign Olive’s belief that laws are derived from ethics. If we don’t have ethics, what good are our laws? What’s the point of obeying them if they aren’t grounded in ethics?
This came up today with a client: If by some strange happenstance, we were at war and I was drafted and was expected to kill people, I would rather be jailed.
We were talking about Thoreau’s _Civil Disobedience_ . The dude was jailed for not paying taxes (among other things!) and he said he was immensely more free in jail by living according to his conscience.
This is completely off topic! Sorry for the rambling…
PS: But I did love how HDT described how people greeted those recently released from jail: They would make a kind of bar pattern with their fingers, hands at 90 degree angles; and they would hold their hands in front of their face to make it look like a prison grate and ask the jailbird “How do ye do?”
LisaB…”So the newspaper promoted him to editor where he wouldn’t have to interact with sources. So yeah, he was REWARDED for his lack of personal skills.”
Terrible management, and whoever made the decision to do that should have been fired himself. But what happened next? I would think the editor’s obnoxious personality would have made it difficult for him to hire/retain good employees, and this would have shown up sooner or later in his own results.
My most recent post: Rose Wilder Lane
@Susan:
You’re absolutely right, 360-degree evaluations don’t work. Quickly to set the background, I’m on the unemployment line because I left my old job for a promising director position, which was taken away when one executive did not want the business going in the direction I was specifically hired to take it. (It hurt like hella. But I’m mostly over it.) So when I was on my way out of my old job – and when I say “old job” on HUS, I’m referring to the position I held for quite a while, where I was a strong manager, performer, and innovator – my boss, an executive, wanted me to do a 360-degree evaluation of another department leader. He had learned this was the latest thing in management trends, and decided he was implementing it. He was implementing it also specifically because he wanted the documentation needed to remove that department leader, who was an under-performer.
So while I myself had far more setbacks at that job than my performance and accomplishments warranted, and was thus VERY wary of upsetting my boss (I certainly don’t blame “all men” – I work in tech in a Midwestern city with one of the worst gender pay gaps and most gender-segregated workforces in the country, and the setbacks I’ve experienced are not unique here), I also knew the departmental manager I was supposed to evaluate was in my boss’s crosshairs. My boss always sounded disgusted with him when we had our one-on-ones, and told me all the things he had done unintentionally to screw up. He was hired about a year into my tenure there, and though he had a good heart, he was not effective. Many times, he nearly lost us major clients because of stupid mistakes, and I and others had to fix them.
But I also knew that this under-performer, we’ll call him “Mike,” had suffered several major setbacks in his time there. An illness that he was unable to sufficiently recover from due to his workload weakened him, and several other male department heads and senior employees sabotaged him, which he did not combat quickly enough, because he’s not astute in office politics. Worse, my boss was doing some major things unknowingly to facilitate the inefficiencies, and since he was seldom in, he didn’t see the day to day effects of his doings, but they impacted Mike, and the well-being of Mike’s department, disproportionately. So I had to point out where Mike was failing, but I was painfully aware of the fact that it wasn’t totally his fault, either. I also had to weigh judging him against judging mitigating factors, which could ultimately look like a diss of my boss’s competency and management abilities. It was one of the most excruciatingly difficult things I’ve done in my working career to date. It made me feel trapped, and damned no matter what I ultimately wrote.
Finally, in the evaluation, I decided to go into “Computer Mode” and stick to facts. “Mike did X, Y, and Z well, and here’s why. Mike did not do A and B well, and here is what he can change to do A and B well this year.” It saved Mike’s job, but my boss wasn’t totally happy about my alluding to some organizational difficulties causing Mike’s poor performance. (He did get over it though – we spoke on the phone during my last day, and he said, referencing me, “You don’t know you have a good thing sometimes until it’s gone.) But Mike is upset with me. Fortunately, a female employee who indirectly reported to me offered a lovely recommendation, which I can use as my character reference in lieu of Mike’s. She is a rising star, and I endorsed her to my boss and advocated for her being tracked to management, not out of the spirit of “women must stick together,” but because she was deserving – I also endorsed a rising-star guy while there. But, Mike’s name and title carry more weight than hers does.
I’m sad that the 360-degree evaluation caused a rift between Mike and me. And more than that, I’m sad about the fact that, in the best of circumstances, this type of evaluation forces you to be blunt, pragmatic, and cautious about reviewing someone’s performance all at once, and breeds feelings of resentment once its contents are unveiled. And in the worse of circumstances, it facilitates lying, backstabbing, and sabotage. While it’s COMPLETELY useless as a business tool, it it will expand in prominence and popularity because it’s the “hot thing” for management. It enables executives to shift the burden of running the business to managers down the chain, freeing them up for higher-value tasks.
If and when I manage teams again, I will never use it. And I don’t want to work for a company that does, lest I fall under the wrath of someone out to get me, like some of the “bad bosses” and “bad employees” mentioned in this article and its ensuing comments. In this economy, no one can take such a risk. I’m on the market now. It’s brutal out there.
@Lindsay
There is no way that 360 evaluations can work in small groups. None! Anonymity is key, or the feedback won’t be honest. Also, as you’ve just described, they’re too easily turned into a weapon. I know one woman who is a real shrew at the office, and her evaluations were devastating. She is quite senior. Her response to her sit-down with HR was to call the department together and demand to know who said what. Of course, no one spoke up, at which point she said that the whole group would pay, literally. Bonuses are expected to reflect her displeasure. Meanwhile, her own superiors, who have to be aware, are avoiding dealing with it.
Off-topic, but Susan, I thought this was interesting. I recently reviewed the work of Rose Wilder Lane (daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, of “Little House on the Prairie” fame)–although Lane is basically known as a writer on political philosophy, she was also a novelist, and I thought her 1919 book “Diverging Roads” was fascinatingly modern in aspects of its portrayal of the relationship between the sexes. The following scene, in which the protagonist’s friends are discussing the shortage of good men, could have been lifted from the Atlantic Monthly article of a couple months back or maybe from some threads on this blog…
***
Dodo sat up, sweeping her long, fine hair backward over her shoulders.
“Of course not. Jim ‘s all right to play around with—” But when it comes to marrying him — exactly. There are only two kinds of men, strong and weak. You despise the weak ones, and you won’t marry the strong ones.”
and
“Willetta ‘s right, just the same,” Dodo declared through their laughter. “It ‘s the money that’s at the root of it. You don’t want to marry a man you’ll have to support — not that you’d mind doing it, but his self-respect would go all to pieces if you did.And yet you can’t find a man who makes as much money as you do, who cares about music and poetry and things. I’m putting money in the bank and reading Masefield. I don’t see why a man can’t. But somehow I’ve never run across a man who does.”
***
My most recent post: Rose Lane Wilder
@David
You’re right that it is fascinating.
I wonder how much rationalization and/or projection is in the line, “Not that you’d mind doing it, but his self-respect would go all to pieces if you did.”
@david foster
That’s incredible. From 1919 to 2012 just like that. So – the dynamic was clearly the same. Is it the numbers that have changed?
I think it’s numbers that have changed. From the continuation of the same discussion:
***
“If you ‘re right, Anne, it *s a poor outlook for
the race. Think of all the women like us — thous-
ands more every year — who don’t have children.
We ‘re really the best type of women. We ‘re the
women that ought to have them.”
“We are not!” said Dodo. “We’re freaks.
We don’t represent the mass of women. We go
around and around in our little circles and think
we ‘re modern women because we make a lot of
noise. But we are n’t. We ‘re of no importance at
all, with our charity boards and our social surveys
and our offices. It ‘s the girls who marry in their
teens — millions of ‘em, in millions of the little
homes all over America — that really count.”
***
The protagonist’s women friends at this point in the novel as San Francisco intellectuals with careers, surely a much rarer species in 1919 than now.
Lane also draws an interesting portrait of the man Helen was involved with before going off to the city and meeting her bad-boy real estate developer…initially he is drawn as pretty Beta, but when she considers getting back with him after the marriage with real-estate guy implodes, he has become extremely rigid and dominating, and doesn’t want Helen to even drive a car.
Worth reading…it’s available free on-line in full text, PDF, and Kindle formats.
Olive – “The 14th Amendment was passed back in 1868, for good reason. “
I agree. And 2012 is a totally different time. When the 14th Amendment was passed we were not under invasion by mass numbers of border crossing illegals.
“By the way, I’m also 100% in favor of the Dream Act, which would help children who were brought here illegally become citizens. I knew a child who came to the U.S. when she was 6 months old (hardly her choice). She was deported at the age of 10. She had to pick up her whole life and leave, she went back to Mexico, the kids made fun of her for her accent. How would you feel exposing your own kids to a drastic change like that?”
If the “Dream Act” is legally passed, then I will support it. And, as far as it goes, it is 100% the parent’s fault for “exposing your own kids to a drastic change like that.” That responsibility rests solely on them.
“ It may have been an unintended consequence of poorly thought-out policy, but now we need to team up with Mexico to figure out a solution. We also have a stake in Mexico’s political/economic situation. We are border countries. There’s some concern that gang/drug violence will spill over the border into Texas (my brother is all for military intervention, and to be honest, he has a good argument for it). The problem is you’re thinking of it as Us vs. Them. Instead, think about it like this: it’s in our own best interest to team up with Mexico. It’s not in our interest to blame Mexican workers for our problems.”
I’m sorry, but it IS us against them. The Mexican government will NOT work “with us” to solve this problem because they are profiting from it. All the U.S. money sent back to Mexican families means more money in the Mexican economy. I am ALL FOR military action to stop the border violence. But, I’m not talking about a “military presence”, I mean a full on “shoot first ask question later” kind of operation.
“Also, in case you didn’t notice, our country does benefit from illegal immigrants. I’ve read papers claiming that they contribute several billion dollars to our economy. “
I’ve also seen stories about how some small towns in California are almost completely supported by marijuana growing. It doesn’t make it legal, and it should either be made legal, or stopped. I have no doubt that illegal workers are contributing to our economy, but they are not doing it legally, and that money is hard to account for since it isn’t made legally. I think our economy would be helped just as much if they were all legal and paid taxes.
“I maintain that Americans do not want agriculture jobs.”
Correction: I maintain that Americans do not want agriculture jobs at the wages currently paid to illegal workers. If it paid more, in this kind of economy, I suspect there would be people willing to do the work. Again, we won’t know until the illegal workers are out of the equation.
“ethics vs. law, laws come out of ethics. We cannot separate the two, and it’s silly to try to do so.”
I stated that ethics come into play when a law is created. Our immigration law is established. The only legal way to fix this is to change the law. But, that does not mean we should give a free pass to illegals while we wait.
“Do you have any Mexican friends? How would you feel if you found out your best friend was an illegal immigrant? Would you report him to the police?”
Yes, I know several people of Mexican lineage. They are all legally here. If I found out my best friend was here illegally, I would do my best to get him to get ‘legit’, but I don’t know what I would do if he didn’t. I would stop associating with him at least, but in the end I can say I certainly wouldn’t protect him from deportation. But actually calling the cops on him? Man, I honestly don’t know.
“Your fellow libertarians love that shit.”
I said I only tend to lean libertarian on some social issues. Mostly the ones that say the government needs to get out of my personal business. Other than that, I’m pretty conservative in general.
“And the reason I’m pounding away is because it’s voters like you to whom the politicians are trying to appeal right now. It’s the reason we can’t find any solutions to the damn problem. Because the minute someone mentions some sort of comprehensive immigration reform beyond “border security,” he risks losing the next election. “
It’s cool. But know that I’ve felt and voted this way for several decades now, and it is unlikely to change. I understand where you are coming from. You view this as a human problem. I don’t. I view this is a policy and security problem. Again, I have NO problem with anyone coming here to start a better life. I have a huge problem with people coming here illegally to do so. My primary concern is to secure the border, no matter what it takes. Then, we can talk about ways to fix the other issues.
“How many times did you speed on the highway? Does that make you a criminal?”
yes it does. And when I was caught I was given a ticket. If you are here illegally, and you are caught, the process says you go back from where you came.
Jackie – “I have to co-sign Olive’s belief that laws are derived from ethics. If we don’t have ethics, what good are our laws? What’s the point of obeying them if they aren’t grounded in ethics?”
Like I said, ethics come into play when a law is created. Our immigration law is created and in place. Not much to discuss ethically. We should enforce it. If you want it changed, work within the process to have it modified. Don’t use a bad law as an excuse to do things illegally.
“This came up today with a client: If by some strange happenstance, we were at war and I was drafted and was expected to kill people, I would rather be jailed.”
I don’t know what army would want my 41yo out of shape ass, but if I was drafted I would serve as best I could. That is the price for being a citizen. I may not like it, but if it was my duty I would serve.
Jesus M. – “Ah, okay. I’m the opposite. I don’t care about laws. I just care about my ethics.”
Following process and procedure is a big thing for me. I completely understand the need for ethics when establishing laws. But once they are established, they should be enforced. If they are not “ethical”, then they should be changed through the proper process, or we should revolt. Probably the J in my ISTJ speaking here, but intentionally breaking the law is NOT a valid way of protest, despite what Martin Luther King Jr. and others may have said. Civil Disobedience should result in jail time if the protesters are breaking the law.
Ted,
In some ways, we’re polar opposites. You said, “Don’t use a bad law as an excuse to do things illegally.” I would counter that with, “Don’t use a bad law as an excuse to do things unethically.”
Jesus M. – “In some ways, we’re polar opposites. You said, “Don’t use a bad law as an excuse to do things illegally.” I would counter that with, “Don’t use a bad law as an excuse to do things unethically.””
Touche
“Revolutions are almost always led by the wrong people. Or else taken over by the wrong people after those wrong people murder the right ones. I think the American Revolution was an anomaly.”
It just happened much slower.
“We’re freaks.
We don’t represent the mass of women. We go
around and around in our little circles and think
we ‘re modern women because we make a lot of
noise. But we aren’t. We ‘re of no importance at
all, with our charity boards and our social surveys
and our offices. “
Suffragettes.
” I completely understand the need for ethics when establishing laws. But once they are established, they should be enforced. If they are not “ethical”, then they should be changed through the proper process, or we should revolt.. Civil Disobedience should result in jail time if the protesters are breaking the law.”
There are bad laws, just as there are bad people, & it is the duty of every citizen to judge when to obey & when not to obey their government.
Revolution necessarily requires the breaking of laws.
+1.
Every new yes rests atop a no.
@Byron
) but I’m not a blind follower the origin of law is to bring justice and fairness if the law fairs to do that in an individual case we should be instructed enough to act accordingly.
Cosign. I love laws and rules (I could had marry laws and have little half laws and half human babies
Ted reminds me of Inspector Flaubert in Les Miserable so in love with the law to incarcerate Jean Valjean that he was blind to the fact that the purpose of punishment was not needed anymore he reformed and he was making more good outside in the world than if he got committed, no to mention the crime was not in line with the punishment by any measure. I just hope he doesn’t do what the inspector does once he finds out that he ValJean is a more moral and ethical than he will ever will.
Yep, these matters have been on my mind of late. There was a case here a little while back where a man who had sent letters to the police 30 years ago claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper (a serial killer from the early 1980′s) got pulled over for drunk driving in the present day. He was identified because of his DNA (never lick another envelope, people) & given at least 10 years in jail, if I remember correctly.
Now, I can understand wanting to make some sort of example of him to deter others in future, but literally every single cell of that man’s body is different (several times over) from the person who broke the law 30 years earlier: they’re not even punishing the same man. What is the point of locking up a person who is no danger to others?
I don’t like it. I don’t for that matter like the hunting down of geriatric men in wheelchairs because they once served in the German army, 70 years ago. There is justice & there is vengeance. Unfortunately, vengeance plays much better to the crowd.
“There are bad laws, just as there are bad people, & it is the duty of every citizen to judge when to obey & when not to obey their government.”
I disagree. It is the duty of every citizen to follow the law, and work within the established processes to change those laws that are flawed. I never “obey” the government, but I honor the law and the social contract it implies. Imagine a world where everyone simply selected which laws to follow, and which to disregard. There would be no sustainable way for a society to function if everyone did not follow the rules.
Anacanoa – I’m not in love with the law at all. In fact there are many laws that I feel are completely useless and/or outdated (including immigration law), but that does not mean I should break them. Without law, we would have chaos. I have no problem with revising the laws as we evolve, but the first step should never be break the law and then change it. Again, we have procedures for changing established law. They should be followed until the day the changes are completed.
I never claimed to be any more or less moral than anyone here. Again, morality isn’t the issue for me here. And I have no doubt at all that there are people here at HUS that may be more moral and humane than I am. This is a security and policy issue. Simple and clean. Our borders are not secure, and immigrants are not following our policy in regards to legal immigration. I don’t really consider the actual people this affects, as that would bring emotion into the equation, and when it comes to law and justice I don’t think emotion has any place in it.
Byron – so, this guy admitted to being a serial killer years ago, was caught by accident, and you have a problem with him being sent to prison? He broke the law. It isn’t about vengeance, it is about cause and effect. He caused people’s death, got caught, and was sent to jail. It doesn’t matter to me in the least that he is now a “different person”.
“What is the point of locking up a person who is no danger to others?”
Because he never paid for his crime. It is not a matter of vengeance, it is a matter of justice. He took the lives of people. Ripped them from their family and friends, and then lived for 30 years free and clear of his crimes. I have NO problem at all with him living the rest of his days in prison.
” I don’t for that matter like the hunting down of geriatric men in wheelchairs because they once served in the German army, 70 years ago. ”
To an extent I agree on this. Unless we are looking for military leaders, “war criminals” were in most cases simply following their orders. The way I see things, those men have little to answer for legally speaking. Ethically and morally? I don’t know how they can sleep at night. But legally, I don’t see the point in hunting them down.
Ted, the guy wasn’t a serial killer – maybe I didn’t make that clear – he was just a stupid man who wrote crazy letters to the police while the real killer was out there. My point was that whatever was happening in his head 30 years ago, he hasn’t reoffended & is no threat to anyone, so to give him the same sentence as some murderers get can only be an act of vengeance, as locking him away protects no-one & harms both him & his family. Plus costs the taxpayer 12 years room & board at the crowbar hotel. Serves no beneficial purpose & makes no sense.
I don’t really get your rigidity over The Letter Of The Law but I understand & respect your concern for justice & order, & the necessity of shared values in holding civilization together. I’ll leave it at that.
Ted,
I can see I’m not going to change your mind. I wish to God I could introduce you to all the children I’ve ever known who were brought here illegally (as a side note, apparently we’re not allowed to use the term “illegal immigrant” in social work. How’s that for PC?). I’ve known dozens.
Your obsession with the law is, at this point, preposterous. I don’t know how you think laws get changed, but they don’t just get changed because some old dude in Congress says “oh hey, I have an idea!” They get changed because injustice is done, and someone makes a point to raise awareness about this injustice. That’s what social movements, progress, and change are all about.
But as long as we’re talking about existing laws, I’d like to point out that under the law, a minor child is not responsible for his/her actions. A two-year-old cannot get in trouble because his parent left him at home with a gun and he accidentally shot someone (God forbid, but I’ve heard stories…). So how is this any different? Why should children be punished for the actions of their parents?
A quick story: I know a man who came here illegally as a child, nearly 25 years ago. He’s about your age, and he’s gravely ill. He will die if he does not get immediate medical attention, but because of the stupid law, he does not have access to medical insurance, and his family cannot pay hospital bills. Is it okay for him to die of a curable condition, because 25 years ago, his parents made a decision that he could not control? That’s the kind of fucked up situation that makes me hate this country and its bigotry some days.
What I’m saying is, the law is not as cut and dry as you claim. There are loopholes and gaps. That’s why there are so many lawyers… they have a heyday finding all the places where the law doesn’t line up as was intended.
And when bad laws aren’t eliminated, it is the responsibility of the people to challenge them, and in some cases, break them. The Civil Rights Movement never would’ve happened otherwise, and frankly I’m shocked that you think Martin Luther King should’ve never broken the law.
The perfect way to create a docile, exploitable people is to teach them that laws should never be challenged.
They do, as long as the idea has enough funding from the lobby.
Correction: we are not working to solve the problem, because WE are profiting from it. Check the meat packing industry.
Entire communities have lost residents in Mexico. I hardly call that profit. It’s true that 1% of the Mexican GDP is remittances (money that immigrants send back), but then again, how much bigger would their GDP be if people just stayed and worked in Mexico?
That’s fucked up. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s people who say we should shoot people as they’re walking over the border. That’s nothing more than pure racism, IMO.
Also that border wall is a damn waste of money. No physical barrier is going to keep people out. We’ll waste much less money if we fix the policy problem. Now. Border be damned.
Watch this movie. For real.
http://www.theothersideofimmigration.com/
Oh you mean the rich people?
Regulations get passed to benefit the people with the most money, who are backing and impulsing the laws. From food to healthcare to technology to you name it. Its rarely about fixing injustices.
A crying shame.
P.S. Sorry if I offended anyone, I get really fired up about this topic. I didn’t care about the issue at all until I was a freshman in college and worked at a tutoring center for Latino children. Now it’s my main political issue of interest. I get aggressive lol.
I don’t really consider the actual people this affects, as that would bring emotion into the equation, and when it comes to law and justice I don’t think emotion has any place in it.
Interestingly enough your desire for security is an emotion. You are taking your emotions and rationalizing them into an action.
I also talk from a place of practicality.
And if you think not having a human case makes people to care about changing and injustice law you just need to see inform yourself better every single law has been about someone breaking the law and deciding to fight for it and ammend the law. You might google search virginia vs loving (for the ones that don’t know this couple married ILLEGALLY because she was black and back them interratial marriage was illegal and once they got fined and arrested they went to court and fought for the right to stay married, thanks to them everyone even you if you want to can LEGALLY marry a person of another race. This premise can be traced back to almost every single law you enjoy now Ted. The only reason we have laws is because of human emotions. Sitting and waiting for someone to think “Oh well maybe this is unfair” doesn’t cut it, you have an irrealistic vision of how justice and law work.
Ted,
This is interesting. I also agree with Byron’s assertion to an extent, but for different reasons. I don’t believe in the “following orders” argument–but then, I would sooner break laws that I had no part in enacting than betray the values upon which I live my life.
What I find most interesting, though, is that you are aware of the moral and ethical anguish that a soldier who was “just following orders” might endure in the process of discharging his duty, and yet you still remain steadfast in your insistence that the “rules” must be followed. If you recognize that it would be near impossible to live with oneself for carrying out crimes against humanity in the name of “doing one’s duty”, how can you still aver that there aren’t times at which a person must evaluate the “rightness” of a law?
I like my namesake’s view. “The sabbath was made for man,” he said, “not man for the sabbath.” I’d say that still holds true today. Even for us atheists.
@Olive (#494)
@Anacaona
Co-signed with both you ladies.
Today I was reading about “The 3/5ths Compromise” of 1787, in which a slave counted as 3/5th of a person. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise) This was “the law” until slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment in 1865.
Ted, imagine if you were a black person in the 19th century. Would you be okay with waiting SEVENTY EIGHT years before this was changed? What is the right thing to do in this instance? Accept your lot as a slave? Wait for your grandchildren to stop being bought and sold as property?
Have you heard this quote from Edmund Burke?:
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
For some people it means petitioning representatives, others it means civil disobedience, some people it might mean doing that which is right instead worshiping the letter of the law.
Ted, your posts have mentioned you live by Catholic values? You may be interested to know the church is 1) pro-immigration reform and 2) pro-family. Here is a PDF describing their position:
http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org/documents/immigration-and-catholic-social-teaching.pdf
@Jesus M (#501)
I was just about to reference that *EXACT* same verse!!! (Mark 2:27, I think)
*cue spooky X-Files music*
Jackie,
Thanks for providing that link! This quote is particularly relevant to this discussion:
Persons who enter a nation without proper authorization or who over-stay their visas should be treated with respect and dignity. They should not be detained in deplorable conditions for lengthy periods of time, shackled by their feet and hands, or abused in any manner. They should be afforded due process of the law and, if applicable, allowed to articulate a fear of return to their home before a qualified adjudicator. They should not be blamed for the social ills of a nation.
@Ted
Ted, I hope I am not coming down on you too hard here. My position is based on my experience assisting my mentor, who works with the poor in Guatemala, and the Guatemalan immigrants I have known here in the US.
There is horrific violence in Central and Latin America. The stories I have heard from my mentor were unfathomable to me.
And the story of my dad’s elderly friend, Mike.
He was just a kid– only about 12 or 13 I think?– when he was rounded up from Poland and put in a concentration camp. Bergen-Belsen, I believe. I’ve seen the numbers on his arm.
His dad was killed in front of him. Shot. He and his mom were shipped in a cattle car to the camp. This was in 1945– very close to the end of the war.
His mom bribed a guard — I don’t know the specifics and don’t dare ask– and Mike was smuggled out shortly after. He came to America at age 13. He never saw his mom again. His dad lies in an unmarked grave.
The reason that the Nazis were able to succeed to the extent they did was because of the stereotypical “Good German.” One who follows the law and obeys orders, regardless of whether or not they are just.
That Edmund Burke quote– “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”– is what I think about when my dad visits Mike. Or when we turn the other way when a child is being abused. Or when we ignore a grave injustice.
We can’t do everything, but I do believe we are called to seek justice in whatever way we can. Again, just my three cents. Others may feel differently.
Olive – “That’s fucked up. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s people who say we should shoot people as they’re walking over the border. That’s nothing more than pure racism, IMO.”
First of all, this is NOT about race. It is about the sovereignty of our nation. People blatantly walking over our border are breaking the law, and INVADING OUR SOVEREIGNTY! To you they are starving workers, to me they are an invading army. I firmly believe it. Why? Because they DO NOT come here to be part of our society. They come here to live off of OUR hard earned bounty, without considering the lack of respect they are showing US by breaking our law.
And I’m sorry that I appear to be pissing you off. I understand the heart ache of people that are so involved in helping the poor. But this isn’t about helping anyone. This is about OUR law, OUR sovereignty, OUR security.
Anacanoa – “Sitting and waiting for someone to think “Oh well maybe this is unfair” doesn’t cut it, you have an irrealistic vision of how justice and law work.”
I’m not sitting and waiting for someone to think. I’ve decided that illegal immigration has to stop, and I have been, for several years, making that desire known to my government representatives. Should we change our immigration laws? Surely. But that is not my first priority, and it won’t be until we shore up our security first.
Laws get changed when we the people make it known that we don’t like them. If enough people make noise, things get changed. (Although Yohami has it right that money has more pull, which is utter bullshit. But find a government untainted by money, and I’ll show you a unicorn.)
Jesus M. – “”If you recognize that it would be near impossible to live with oneself for carrying out crimes against humanity in the name of “doing one’s duty”, how can you still aver that there aren’t times at which a person must evaluate the “rightness” of a law?”
Because if I truly believed in a cause, and it required the killing of others, I would do that duty. Sometimes bloodshed is necessary. Is there nothing you would kill for? To defend your family? Your friends? Your neighbor? Your country?
Or to put very crassly: A Marine sniper was asked what he felt when he pulled the trigger on a live target. The sniper replied; “recoil”.
And I’ve never said we should not change our immigration law. In fact, I’ve said repeated that I am fully aware of how screwed up it is. But, that still does not make it right to BREAK the law. Petition to have it changed all you want, but willfully breaking the law as a sign of protest is IMO pure BS. To me, it does nothing to further your cause, and frankly it makes me trust you less. It is the adult version of throwing a temper tantrum to me.
Jackie – “Ted, imagine if you were a black person in the 19th century. Would you be okay with waiting SEVENTY EIGHT years before this was changed? What is the right thing to do in this instance? Accept your lot as a slave? Wait for your grandchildren to stop being bought and sold as property?”
I’m not going to compare illegal immigration with slavery. The U.S. owned slaves, just like most every other western country in existence today. We were one of the last, so I get that we are still getting spanked over it. But MY family wasn’t here then, and we owned NO slaves. I have no dog in that fight…
“Ted, your posts have mentioned you live by Catholic values? You may be interested to know the church is 1) pro-immigration reform and 2) pro-family. Here is a PDF describing their position:”
I parted ways with the Catholic Church in my early 20′s. It was exactly because of this type of political tripe along with their completely ludicrous ideals of denying birth control that turned me away. But as far as it goes, it is a good thing that the Catholic Church and others are supportive of illegal immigrants and immigration reform. To me, that is exactly the type of thing religion should do, watch out for and support humanity. To me, that indicates the system IS working. The “people” are concerned about others and the government should respond to their wishes. Again, I’m not against anyone coming here, becoming a citizen, and making a go at it. I just want them to stop slapping me in the face by being so blatantly obvious about their lack of respect for our law.
I get all the emotion around this subject. And on an emotional level I completely sympathize. But, I won’t engage on that level until we do something to control our borders first. THAT is primary. Without control of our borders, we have no control of who comes and goes, and for that matter WHAT comes and goes. A country without control of its borders is hardly sovereign!
Everyone – Please understand something. I get all the emotional responses on this topic, I honestly do. And I’m not immune to them. But, I intentionally do not focus on “the people” involved in this issue for a reason. To me, the more important thing for the U.S. to do is secure the border and regain our sovereignty because:
1. We should be able to secure the border relatively quickly
2. Immigration law reform will take time probably years. While that process churns, we should be stopping any further illegal immigration.
3. In addition to undocumented workers, having our borders so open allows anyone to bring anything in and out of the country. I don’t think I need to explain why this is bad.
4. We can’t help anyone else in the world if we are not stable ourselves. The U.S. is a bit of a mess at the moment. I think we should circle the wagons and fix our own crap before we worry about fixing the rest of the world.
I’m sorry I can’t give you the reaction you all want, which is to break down in tears and profess how horrible I was for feeling this way. I know that from a human perspective my views are ugly. I’m willing to accept that. If it was me living in Mexico with a starving family, I would be figuring out how to cross the border today. But it isn’t, and this country is my home. Just like I would protect my personal home from an invader, with force if necessary, I want our borders protected the same.
Once that is accomplished, I would be more than willing to completely focus on how to fix immigration law to make it easier for people to come and live here. But, to me, there is no point when coming here illegally is so damned easy.
Ted,
You’re confusing the issue now. We were talking about following orders and not truly believing in a cause. If you truly believe in a cause, then you should act on those beliefs. But, if that’s the case, then you’re not simply “following orders”; you need to take personal responsibility for your actions. You can’t say, “if I didn’t do it, I woulda got in trouble” if you’re acting from personal responsibility. If you’re following orders against your own sense of ethics or morality, then the only belief that your actions are sourced in is the belief that someone else’s sense of “rightness” matters more than your own.
You can’t say you’re not talking about ethics, because you are. Your ethic simply states that the authorities should be obeyed, which roughly translates into “might makes right.”
Ted,
Nah, my goal was to get you to reconsider your political perspective, and to recognize that securing our borders (incidentally we’ve put a lot of money into that lately, especially in metropolitan areas… how’s that workin’ out?) isn’t going to stop people from coming here. Hence my description of the policy situation, and the U.S.’s role in the problem, which you dismissed by saying you didn’t care.
It’s telling that you call illegal immigrants “invaders,” not “people who are trying to find a better life.” Invaders come with guns and swords, working people come without weapons. To me, the whole debate is about race. It’s all about Us vs. Them, the Bad Guys vs. the Good Guys, the Foreign vs. the Familiar. It’s all very tribal. And again, I’m not saying you’re racist. I’m saying the media has done an excellent job of creating a stereotypical, racist image of the dangerous criminal Mexican, and many people have bought into it. It’s a good time for creating scapegoats.
Other than that, I think I’ve said what I wanted to say. I’m sorry that I couldn’t change your opinion, it’s the number one political issue I set out to clarify these days. There’s tons of ignorance about what illegal immigration involves, and I want to set people straight. But if they don’t want to hear me, I can’t change that. I got emotional, but there’s also stuff woven in my arguments rooted in the law and historical fact. It’s useful, if you’re interested.
Ted,
The circling the wagons argument sounds valid. There may be some merit to it, actually. I don’t know for sure. However, the borders have been obliterated. They were obliterated by huge international corporations, with the help of our government.
I’m not against globalization per se (its just gonna take a lot of “frame-changing” to adapt to it), but I’m always curious about people who make illegal immigrants the target of their ire, instead of emphasizing the real issues that are changing this country.
Sovereignty is obsolete. When the people who run our government have their campaigns funded by (and their every thought lobbied by) conglomerates who have no respect for borders (or anything other than profit), the notion of absolute rule is obsolete drool.
That’s a really good point. As I said above, some have argued that the exchange of labor should be a part of “free trade” NAFTA.
Also, the point of free trade is that there’s no government intervention. No tariffs, no subsidies, no taxes. To me, “free trading” with subsidized products (ahemcorn) doesn’t count as free trade.
In other words, we’re operating under a “borders for me, not for thee” strategy. We get to flood the Mexican market with cheap corn, they don’t get to flood our market with cheap labor without complaints from our citizens. It’s like Goliath giving David a slingshot, while he gets a bazooka. And then pissing at David for using the slingshot because “it’s not fair!”
Sue,
Regarding the increased efficiency of life being ushered in by bigger and bigger businesses…
It’s always seemed to me that my freedom is, in part, insured by the inefficiency of others. In part because inefficiency allows people to fall between the cracks (the cracks being where all the good stuff goes down) and in part because inefficiency keeps us human. Highly efficient people/companies/organizations are like “10′s”–they don’t stumble enough to be human in any type of meaningful way.
Olive – “In other words, we’re operating under a “borders for me, not for thee” strategy. We get to flood the Mexican market with cheap corn, they don’t get to flood our market with cheap labor without complaints from our citizens. It’s like Goliath giving David a slingshot, while he gets a bazooka. And then pissing at David for using the slingshot because “it’s not fair!””
If we are indeed flooding Mexico with cheap corn, I assume we are doing it legally. Not saying it is ethical, but we are not breaking the law. If Mexico is OK with that, I don’t really care. If they are not, they should either add fees to U.S. corn, or simply stop trade completely. And again, I’m all for “cheap” Mexican labor, if they can come here legally. Look, maybe they don’t even become citizens, but at least make it so they can get a real visa and can be documented. Until then, they should stay out.
Look, we are not a part of some benevolent world organization that mediates this stuff. (Please don’t bring up the UN, they are a total joke at best.) As it stand, each and every country is on their own looking out for their best interests. If those interests are best served by playing nice, I’m all for it. But, it seems to me that the U.S. has been playing nice for decades, and as of now most other countries are still playing protection politics. We CAN NOT compete with this. I get that many people want the United States to be the “moral” country. To always take the high ground. I’m tired of it to be honest. I want our government to look out for our best interests, and to me allowing any job to go unfilled by an American while allowing someone to illegally take it is NOT looking our for my interests.
When the rest of the world decides to play nice, we can smile and welcome them aboard. Until then, it should be all about what is best for the U.S.
I do see this as an invasion because when large volumes of illegal immigrants come here, they tend to “setup shop” together and convert areas of the U.S. into mini-Mexican towns. They often don’t even bother to learn English, let alone participate in American culture. I’m Polish and German. When my mother was a young women, she asked my grandmother to teach her Polish. My grandmother’s reply? “You don’t need to speak Polish because you are an American.” This is the same woman that came to the U.S. and taught herself English by reading and going to the movies. And yet, we have Mexican families here for years that still can’t speak basic English.
So yes, it IS an invasion. If I wanted to live in Mexico, I would move to Mexico.
Jesus M. – “The circling the wagons argument sounds valid. There may be some merit to it, actually. I don’t know for sure. However, the borders have been obliterated. They were obliterated by huge international corporations, with the help of our government.”
And that is a real issue to me. Unless we signed on for some world government (please no UN…) then we are still a sovereign nation. And, as you and I have pointed out, you cannot be sovereign if you do not control your borders. Hence, my reasoning that border control is one of our biggest issues. Sure, immigrant work makes some of our products cheaper, but what do you see as a bigger threat?
1. Lettuce prices go up
2. Someone brings several “dirty” nuclear bombs over the border from Mexico (Or Canada for that matter. We need to lock down the north as well!)
To me, expensive lettuce is much less of a threat than a nuclear explosion.
I would be 100% behind complete isolationism if I thought it stood a rats ass chance in hell of working. But, we sold ourselves to the devil long ago, and we have little to no chance of ever being completely self-sufficient again. At least not without some very serious changes, including economic and social.
We are. It’s called NAFTA. And we shouldn’t be allowed to “free trade” with subsidized products, but no one’s thought of that for some odd reason.
They can’t. Because of NAFTA.
This is the crux of my argument. NAFTA should allow for the exchange of labor, legally speaking. But it doesn’t, because NAFTA is not on Mexico’s terms, it’s on U.S. terms.
The problem is that we’ve created a monster, and now we’re blaming it on a country with very little power. Let’s just solve the problem, in a way that makes economic sense. Spending billions on “shoot now, ask later” policies is a terrible waste of my tax dollars, thank you very much.
Okay. Here’s what I want you to do. For the next week, don’t use a single foreign product. Don’t wear clothes made in China. Don’t eat veggies grown in Chile. Don’t drink vodka distilled in Russia. Don’t drive a car made in Japan. Don’t touch a single foreign product. Then come back and we’ll talk about how that worked out for you.
I know globalism is scary and means we have to associate with those damn foreigners, but for heaven’s sake, we are benefiting. Take something as simple as food. We cannot grow food all year in the northeast. And even when we can grow food, we can’t grow bananas or avocados or cacao. That stuff grows well in extremely hot climates, not in the frozen tundra. And this is the beauty of trade: we can eat fruits and veggies no matter the time of year. We can consume goods that cannot be made efficiently in this country.
I know life is not about consuming goods. But globalism has made our lives more comfortable. My economics professor once said that anyone against global trade is an idiot. I fully agree. The nature of global trade is questionable, but to advocate its complete elimination is just ignorant. Unless you live like Laura Ingalls Wilder and smoke ham in some weird totem pole thing during the winter, don’t talk about the Evils of Globalization. I hate when people live in their comfortable heated homes and talk about self-sufficiency. You don’t know what self-sufficiency is until you’ve lived in a subsistence farming community in the middle of nowhere. And I can tell you I lived it, and I talked to the people in the community, and they don’t want to live like that. And neither do I, to be honest.
Ted,
Baby romaine or spring mix? You’re going to think I’m joking (I’m not), but good lettuce has probably saved more lives than tight border control.
Bottom line is that the whole issue of border control is just another manifestation of your need for certainty. But Ted, the end can be waiting just around the corner; there’s little you can do to prevent it. Life is a dangerous risk.
People thought of it. The corn industry just paid them money to shut their pie holes.
The notion that parents bring their kids to the U.S. and that all of them stay in a little Mexican pea pod and don’t associate with Americans is another myth. The kids go to school. They learn English.
But to be honest, the reason the Mexican parents don’t associate with you, don’t try to make themselves American, is because you don’t want to associate with them. You think they’re grimy and dirty. I wouldn’t want to hang with someone who thought I was grimy either. Frankly, I don’t like to hang with people who think I need to prove that I’m a human being in order to be treated with the slightest amount of respect (and I’m not talking about respect in the SMP sense, I’m talking about respect in the sense of not figuratively spitting on someone).
But the good hardworking men of America would never do something like that. (coughTimothyMcVeighJaredLoughnerColumbine).
Your argument is based in fear. You don’t know who these scary Mexicans or Canadians or Chinese or Arabs are, and you think they’re all criminals. You don’t trust them because you’ve never met them. You can’t tell me you haven’t brought emotion into this.
I wonder what would happen if your kids made friends with Mexican children at school. Would you forbid them from coming to your house?
Nah, Tyson did. And Pepsi. The meatpacking and soda industries benefit way more from the cheap corn than corn farmers do.
@Ted
I heard your argument before in my own country. “If we don’t control the borders we are going to have an Haitian president in less than 20 years” moot point there as well as here.
You decided to secure the borders out of fear of America not looking like America anymore. Too late for that, if you really think legal immigrants are trying to preserve America the way it was before they arrived you are wrong, they are not trying to destroy it of course they are mostly taking what it works and incorporate them to their culture. We are giving birth to a different kind of nation and that is good, change is good. You might be an staticist though and for you change is scary.
American’s problems don’t come from immigration the SMP didn’t got destroyed because Mexican showed women to sleep with assholes and delay marriage forever. You are focusing in the wrong thing. A closed America wouldn’t change anything. If anything the only reason you are one of the few only first world nations that is not below replacement levels is because of the immigrants. Most first world nations had started to relax their implementation of the laws to allow more people to come because without young blood there is no nation or sovereignty if more people though like you this will be an even bigger mess than it is now.
Fair enough. Someone’s making a ton from corn, that’s for sure.
I’m assuming many of you have never lived in a border town or really have any idea of how things are down there right now. There’s actually been footage of gunfire coming across our border pretty frequently as of late- the drug wars are spilling over. Being a border patrol agent is becoming a pretty dangerous job lately.
How do you think the majority of Mexicans are coming across? They don’t just sneak through holes in a fence, they’re transported by Coyotes. They pay the coyotes out of pocket, or, if they’re too poor, they become part of a sophisticated underground drug courier network, dropping their “packages” where directed.
Not that they’re the only ones being snuck across. Slang calls them ‘OTMs’ or other than Mexicans. If up to a thousand are caught per week, imagine how many make it through. Chinese, Russians, Iranians, you name it. I suppose they’re all just looking for a better life right?
The sheer amount of drugs coming through is insane. They often let smaller caches (100-500lbs) through to try to nail the bigger fish. It’s not uncommon to bust tractor trailers with over a thousand pounds of pot or cocaine. Those are numbers that would make a state cop’s career anywhere else.
A shitload of weapons are flowing south from the US for use by the cartels. If you don’t hear about this it’s because journalists are threatened with death for reporting it down there.
Many do come across with peaceful honest intentions, but that doesn’t negate that fact that having such a porous border undermines our actual economy by propagating a shadow one that undermines it. Crime flows through freely and this becomes even more dangerous when one country becomes more and more unstable.
And of course this isn’t even taking into account the worst cast scenario, a nuclear weapon being snuck across for detonation on our soil, which is the most likely a scenario of all the doomsday ones.
(my info is based on a mixture of research in my major, my former job with DHS, and individuals I know working on the border).
It’s easy to keep your head in the sand about this stuff when it’s not overtly affecting you. Even if Ted is coming across as harsh or inhumane, at least he’s being a realist.
Also I just want to clarify that I’m not trying to say something about “dangerous white men” here. My point is that a regular American can be just as violent as someone who came here illegally, just as they can both be equally nonviolent. One is not more inherently violent than the other, regardless of what Doug1 says about race.
Olive,
Not just mexico. Every country in latin america except maybe brasil is the playground for the USA.
USA doesnt need a visa to come here. American products come here and sell. Dollar is the base unity to measure the local currency. Right now, the dollar is 4.5 the local currency, which means if any gringo comes here they are automatically 4.5 times richer – it also makes any native 4.5 times poorer.
Digest that for a minute. Regardless of your talent or the work you do, working the same hours etc, at the same level, all it takes is you are in a third world country under the economical rules of the USA and everything you do is worth
4.5 times less.
Then if you want to purchase products, the local tax doubles the price of some products. Say, the $1000 ipad costs $2000 USD here. Multiply that by 4.5 and the local cost…
Imagine a world where the ipad costs 9000 USD and you make the same money as now? where a 10K car costs 90K ?
I for example want to make a record, and I want my music to compete sonically with what´s going on in the world – which means among other things audio equipment. I need 100K USD in equipment. Now if I was playing by the rules, that would mean 200K after local prices and 900K after conversion.
So that´s how the game is set up. 100K vs 900K. Any wonder why there´s not a single studio around with the same equipment than what you have in USA, and, any wonder why every single act sounds like crap and cant compete in your market? any wonder why there´s no industry here, and why local products cant compete?
The game is rigged.
And yeah, instead of working my ass to circunvey laws and import gear through the black market (breaking laws here) and paying “only” 30% + 4.5 MORE… instead of doing that crazy thing, I could just fly to the USA and spend money renting a studio there right?
No, because USA wont let me go there. I cant travel. I cant go there and compete.
So fuck laws. Seriously.
Wow. I should just quit typing these long posts from my iPhone. Damnit.
Also I want to film my stuff at “professional” levels if I want to compete. That means I need a RED camera and lenses. 25K + 10K minimum.
35K x %200 x 4.5 = 315K is the price I would have to pay
35K x %30 x 4.5 = 204K in the black market
This is just ONE camera. A gringo can have the whole production company equipment for the same amount I pay for ONE camera.
Then gringo can sell their products cross borders and collect from the whole continent.
Any wonder why the local scene is a joke?
Sox,
You’re right, I’ve never lived in a border town. I spent time in various parts of Mexico, though, so I know the story. When I was studying there, my host mom was robbed at knife point, just walking in the street. I’ve heard Acapulco (I went there just three years ago!) has been overrun by extortionists. Shit is bad, and it’s getting worse. No wonder so many people want to GTFO. I would too.
But I also spent my entire college career living in a place known for its agriculture. There was a huge Mexican community in my college town, and I got to know people who belonged to it. They were wonderful. They were not drug lords or gang members. We need to be careful about how we characterize Mexico. I realize the economic/political situation is deteriorating rapidly there, and frankly Felipe Calderon needs to get his shit together. It’s a crying shame what’s happening to Mexico, especially because the country is so beautiful (Riviera Maya!) and the people are so hardworking. There are a lot of historical and political reasons for Mexico’s situation, but we shouldn’t use it as an excuse to criminalize an entire country’s population. IMO, we need to work with Mexico to solve the issue. And not just because we feel particularly charitable, as a nation, but because it’s in our own interest. It is a security issue, to some extent.
The question isn’t whether or not closing our borders would make our nation safer. Obviously it would (if it were possible… or even desirable to our leaders). This started out as a discussion of how to handle people who come to the US illegally for work.
We could probably more effectively police our borders if we made it easier for people to enter the country.
Olive, I’m sure your responses to Ted are well-meant, but be careful about putting words in his mouth or turning this into an argument where you have the high ground and he’s just ignorant. He made it easy with that comment about Mexicans not assimilating but I never saw him write that all Mexicans or dirty, or criminals. And the idea that self-segregation occurs because we’re all so xenophobic is a little ridiculous. It might happen on a small level but there are much better and understandable reasons for it.
Yohami,
Dude I get it. The whole thing fucking sucks. Ecuador and Panama even use U.S. currency. Frankly I hate the way this country treats Latin America, and I get this sense that it doesn’t even show up on our radar. When we think of Third World, we think of Africa. Maybe even Asia. We don’t think of our neighbors to the South.
The way immigration works right now is stupid. It sets a cap on the amount of people who can come to the U.S. from each country each year, but it doesn’t really treat Latin America differently than, say, India. Which is bullshit because geographic proximity has everything to do with likelihood to migrate.
FWIW, I come from a intl relations/nat’l security background and I’m active duty military so I’m obviously a little biased, but no less informed. I’m much less worried about illegal immigrants working for cheap than the other crap I mentioned.
IMO my perspective is juxtapositioned to the one that calls some paranoid and insecure- the fact is most Americans don’t know the breadth of shit that goes on that challenges our country every day, so they don’t care. Idealism is commendable but it has to be tempered with the knowledge that it comes from a place of privilege that had has to be earned and defended on behalf of the beneficiary without them even knowing how, when, or at what cost.
Anyway, porous borders are just a bad idea, whether you’re talking about enemies or those looking to profit from them through illicit means. Terrorists and criminal networks are very, very good at working together to make this happen.
@Ted (#506)
“I’m sorry I can’t give you the reaction you all want, which is to break down in tears and profess how horrible I was for feeling this way.”
Dude, I don’t want anyone to break down in tears and think they are horrible! I hate I-Win-You-Lose mentality, as it’s based in scarcity and destructive to boot. If you said, Interesting viewpoints and reconsidered your perspective, that would be awesome enough for me.
That said, you seem to pick and choose applying your principles, unless I am misunderstanding you:
The whole “3/5th compromise” example was that was THE LAW. You believe we should obey the laws. The point isn’t whether or not your ancestors participated in slavery, or whether or not you “have a dog in this fight.” The point was, If you were a black man in that era, you’d be totally screwed by following the letter of the law.
You dismissed my example because the laws don’t always look so great in the rearview mirror of history. Maybe immigration will look like that, maybe not.
That is what I was attempting to convey, at least.
Sox, Ted,
Yeah sorry about that. I could’ve sworn I read something, but I think it was the “dirty” bomb thing that I internalized and read differently. So sorry ’bout that, I take that comment back.
Well, yes and no. I think we’re all xenophobic to a certain extent. Put a bunch of people in a room and watch them separate based on appearances (race, height, hair color, etc.). At our core, we are tribal. We gravitate towards people like us.
But that doesn’t mean we have to characterize the foreigner as an “invader.” The most frustrating thing about this discussion, for me, has been the implication that illegal immigrants are horrible criminals and they don’t belong here. That is not what you guys have said, but that’s the sense: that we need to throw everyone out because if we let them in, something really bad might happen.
@Olive
Point taken. Although i guess it would depend on whether or not you consider tax evasion a crime. I believe Ted said that was one of his biggest issues.
Cosign. But as Yohami has said, we have a “porous” border with pretty much all of Latin America. So for us to get all high and mighty about securing our borders, in my mind, is a little silly. We benefit from porous borders every day.
I think what would keep people from coming to our country is allowing them to have opportunities in their own country. Right now, there aren’t a lot of opportunities, and it’s been suggested that the U.S. is at least partly responsible.
It’s not total tax evasion if you have a fake SS number.
Also, if tax evasion is such a big deal, then change the system. But the suggestion to send all 12 million people back to their home countries is, in my mind, a terrible idea logistically. Why is that necessary? To make a point that people shouldn’t break fucked up laws, because people should never break laws, period?
@Sox (#533)
Wait– so the crux of this discussion on immigration is about taxes?
This is confusing to me: The people here most exploiting tax laws here are those oligarchs in the top 0.3%: Massively wealthy people who bought and paid for congressmen to support tax cuts on the wealthiest. Those people have hurt the average citizen’s way of life WAY more than any undocumented immigrant.
@Olive
True, and that’s a foreign policy issue that requires someone with some long term thinking that is pretty uncommon. In the end it’s really not our responsibility to force a government to better provide for its citizens (IMO). We may choose to as a nation if it’s in our ostensibly in our best interest to do so. I suspect you may disagree with me there.
@Sox (#530)
Hey Sox,
You mentioned you were active duty military; thank you for your service!
The scared journalists in Mexico you referred to earlier– are you talking about those who have been targets of the Zetas? Because after reading about and being linked to a video of their methods (refused to watch it– too gruesome
) I could understand the desperation and fear a LOT more. Unfortunately. 
@Jackie
I don’t think it’s the crux of it, I just brought it up as an example of why an illegal immigrant may be technically a criminal. I honestly don’t know enough about that part of the issue to have an opinion.
@Jackie
Olive,
100% reponsible.
Taking aside local responsibility – corruption that let it happen. Which was pretty much bought with dollars to allow for it.
The only reason I disagree is because this problem came out of NAFTA and subsidized agriculture in the U.S. (at least, that’s how some are beginning to understand it). In other words, it’s a U.S. domestic-foreign policy problem. So if we change our policies, perhaps people will have opportunities in their own countries. And we will benefit. Sort of. We’ll lose a lot of cheap labor, but I think U.S. citizens won’t be too upset about that, just the corporations.
Yohami,
I mean, you could just marry a citizen. That’s what Anacaona did.
In all seriousness, I totally agree. Why should you feel like you have to come to the U.S. to make it big? Why can’t you make it big in Argentina? (We know the answer.)
You guys will find it interesting that I went to Capitol Hill with a school group once, and we met with guys from the Dept. of Homeland Security. We tried to explain the NAFTA-agriculture issue, and they totally talked their way around it. I suspect people in Washington know exactly what’s going on. They just want to keep it that way.
Right now, the dollar is 4.5 the local currency, which means if any gringo comes here they are automatically 4.5 times richer – it also makes any native 4.5 times poorer.
In my country the rate is 1 dollar 38 pesos. And like everyone here say USA is free to sell come and go as they please, so yeah the system is fucked up bit time.
Because the U.S. owns the frame and Yohami’s buying into it.
Olive – “I know life is not about consuming goods. But globalism has made our lives more comfortable. My economics professor once said that anyone against global trade is an idiot. I fully agree. The nature of global trade is questionable, but to advocate its complete elimination is just ignorant. “
I am against global trade as it exists now. We cannot compete with countries that can and do make goods cheaper than us because they treat their people badly. We cannot by law run sweat shops!
“You think they’re grimy and dirty. I wouldn’t want to hang with someone who thought I was grimy either.”
Apology accepted. I have and continue to have friends of many different lineages. All of them are legal citizens or legally here on visas.
“Your argument is based in fear. You don’t know who these scary Mexicans or Canadians or Chinese or Arabs are, and you think they’re all criminals. You don’t trust them because you’ve never met them. You can’t tell me you haven’t brought emotion into this.”
Well, they ARE criminals if they are here illegally. Are we really going to argue that point?
“I wonder what would happen if your kids made friends with Mexican children at school. Would you forbid them from coming to your house?”
Nope. In fact, they have a few “latin” friends (I honestly don’t know if they are Mexican or some other south American lineage) and they come over often. I’m not a racist, but I guess I’m a bit of an elitist. *shrug*
““It’s not total tax evasion if you have a fake SS number.”
Olive, I love your debates, truly. But SS is NOT, I repeat NOT paying federal, state, and local taxes! And I find it hard to believe that most of the migrant farm workers even bother with a fake SS number. Why would they when the farm owners often pay in cash? And you know what? THAT is where we should hit hard. Immediate forfeiture of ALL business assets if you are found to knowingly hire and pay an illegal worker. The risk of losing the farm might curtail all that under the table payout.
Oh, and NAFTA is crap. I hated it when it was passed, and still think it is a load of shit.
Jackie – “You dismissed my example because the laws don’t always look so great in the rearview mirror of history. Maybe immigration will look like that, maybe not.”
I fully expect much of our law to look terrible in the rearview mirror. I dismissed your example because it wasn’t relevant. But, if you want an answer, if I was a black man during U.S. slavery, I wouldn’t have had a choice. Thankfully, I bunch of white men realized that what we were doing was highly immoral, and worked to change it, resulting in a civil war that cost lives. (There is some debate that says Lincoln didn’t “free the slaves” for their own sake, but I am fine believing that it was done because it was the right thing to do.)
Sox – its funny. I know several military folks, active and not, and most of them feel the same as you and myself. I have a friend that lives in southern Texas, and he says it is a scary place to be some days. I think it is a mindset. Some people value absolute freedom of choice over security and safety, some people favor security and safety over freedom of choice. I fall into the latter camp. I very much enjoy my lifestyle, and would welcome anyone to join in. But, they have to do it legally, for my safety and the safety of the entire country.
Jesus M. – Dude. You should know by now that in just about everything I choose safety first. I know I can’t get any guaranties in life, but I do my damndest to hedge my bets. Securing our borders will not prevent an American from building a bomb and blowing it up in a stadium, but it will prevent someone from bringing one in. And, I honestly believe it would be MUCH easier to build a nuke outside and bring it in, than to figure out how to get that material into the country and assemble it here. Maybe I’m wrong, but either way we should have control of our borders. The real issue here is, we are the only country on this side of the planet anyone is trying to get INTO. Of course Mexico isn’t worried about its borders, how many Americans are crossing into Mexico illegally? Even if they do, they probably bring U.S. dollars with them, and that means more money in the economy. And it seems pretty obvious to me that Mexico is incapable or unwilling to police their own, which means we should do everything in our power to keep it from spilling into our territory, including armed border guard if necessary. Hell, let the Air Force keep some predators up 24/7. I bet after a few of those unleash fury on the ground, people will think twice before running for the border.
Jesus,
Yep. But its not a mental frame, but an economical frame. Buying into it is called “reality” this time. Then the economical reality shapes everyone´s minds.
Olive – “You guys will find it interesting that I went to Capitol Hill with a school group once, and we met with guys from the Dept. of Homeland Security. We tried to explain the NAFTA-agriculture issue, and they totally talked their way around it. I suspect people in Washington know exactly what’s going on. They just want to keep it that way.”
Unfortunately I agree with you 200% here. As if you don’t already think I’m a conspiracy theorist, I fully believe that there are people within our government that are running their own or some higher power’s agenda. Looking at the things our government has done in the last few decades, I find it hard to believe that they all feel like they are doing the best for the country. I dislike the UN, partly because it is inaffective. But also, I don’t feel like the world is anywhere NEAR ready for a global government. But that seems to be the direction we are being pushed, and I resent that it is coming at the cost of the U.S.’s strength and power. Instead of selling us out cheaply, I would much prefer our government work with other countries to bring them to our level. But, there is no money to be made that way, so there is little to encourage it. And as much as I’d love to concentrate on the human side of all this, I have to live. And to live I need gainful employment. And to have that, I need the economy to be doing well.
So, before I can even consider the plight of Mexicans, Cubans, or any other nationality, I need to consider the plight of my own country. We are in no condition to rescue the world when we can’t even help our own people.
Olive,
I dont feel like “I have to go to the USA to make it big”. Yet, I want to make it big and “big” doesnt exist here. What I feel is that Im fighting against the flow as long as Im playing by the third world rules.
Thank you internet, though.
Yohami,
The sometimes terrible and costly lesson of guerrilla warfare and terrorism is that even the economic frame is, essentially, mental.
Jesus,
It is mental, in the sense that money is a virtual currency (with nothing to back it at this point), and laws are all mental, and the whole system relies on people´s minds to accept support and follow.
So yeah, its all a big mental game.
I still “need” the physical tangible goods that cost mental money and a product so I can channel some of that mental money to my pocket and win the mental game.
Yohami,
Maybe. Depends on your goal. If you have an internet connection enough bandwith and an equivalent amount of creativity, you could probably make waves though.
Bandwith? My god. An internet connection WITH enough bandWIDTH.
It really isn’t fair Argentina keeping Luisiana Lopilato to yourselves for 25 years, then marrying her to a Canadian ferchrissake.
You guys must really hate us.
Jesus,
Sure. There are some stuff that have an advantage. Writers have one – all you need is a pc if so. Graphic design. Coding. 3D. Illustration. Etc. If the pc is your main and only tool, internet levels the field with everyone else in the globe and that´s HUGE.
I make games for a living. All I need is the computer. Im doing more than fine, and if this was my primary area of interest there´s so much I could be doing to make it big in this area, with pretty much no obstacles. The dollar conversion plays on my favor since collect in dollars but spend in pesos. Labor is cheap here. Rent “can” be cheap.
For some other stuff like making tangible products, anything where you need machines, polished products etc you´re doomed thanks to the conversion.
The business is for major international companies – to come here and train people and stay for 20-30 years and then leave, then some of these trained monkeys can attempt to make their own products and compete. That unless the country has strong regulations against (the case in Argentina)
So. Whatever.
I question what Im doing everyday because its absurd. But I dont see any other choice. I pile x 4 the money and work x4 as hard to be able to measure 1 to 1. And I´ll win.
@Ted
Hey Ted,
I appreciate you replying to me. And I agree that we need to care for our own here in the US. (Before I moved, I was living in one of the “hungriest states” in the US. I had a bunch of food that I couldn’t take with me or give to a food shelf– perishables, opened dry beans, frozen etc. Anyway, I put it on CraigsList “free” section. There were 25 responses in less than 15 minutes. For opened bags of lima beans and lentils.)
We are probably not far apart: I really want to see the US economy improve ASAP. I do NOT want to see the US become a strictly “service” economy.
For me, though, I see the immensely wealthy people who buy congress in order to “legally” exploit the system, unethically maximizing profits, are doing far more damage to you and me than undocumented workers.
They are the ones outsourcing your jobs “legally” and far more dangerous. That is all I am saying.
Yohami,
Idk. One of the results of both the internet and postmodernism in general is that esthetics have changed drastically, to the point that high-budget directors for TV and film are aping the effects of amateur home video makers and even a lot of music outside of the top 40 (I can’t speak with any certainly about what’s going on within the top 40) is being produced with a very low-budget, unproduced, “raw” sound and sculptors mine for materials in trash.
Seems to me that the mark of a true artist is a. a “vision” and b. the ability to realize that vision with the tools at his or her disposal. You can save up for expensive American equipment while Americans search for ways to copy amateurs, or you can use the tools at your disposal right now and create something that’s really a product of you and your life.
@Jesus
I’m not sure what you mean, could you try explaining again?
Jesus,
From the artistic point of view you´re right. I can make art, music and stuff with the tools at my disposal. And that art can be appreciated. There´s ton of material being produced all around the world, in the cheap. Sometimes one of such gets picked by a major distributor and makes it big, or, brings it to the mainstream. That happens all the time in games too.
I got a couple of my raw-cheap sounding mixes on the radio, one of them made into the local top 10, beating evanescence and some other bands.
But “raw and cheap” isnt part of my vision
Sound production is like being a chef – the better the quality of the ingredients, the more you can squeeze and create your own flavor. Im striving for excellence. Which happen to be expensive.
Sue,
Sure. If we accept the premise that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely (and even if we don’t buy that wholesale but acknowledge that it’s true in too many cases), then it becomes clearer, I think. Inefficiency (from laziness, bureaucracy, unwieldiness, or any other cause) is one of the prime forces keeping power in check. Efficiency equals the ability to exert total power.
Jackie – Surely
“For me, though, I see the immensely wealthy people who buy congress in order to “legally” exploit the system, unethically maximizing profits, are doing far more damage to you and me than undocumented workers.
They are the ones outsourcing your jobs “legally” and far more dangerous. That is all I am saying.”
NO argument from me on that point. But its tough to find the bad guy in all that legal mess, most likely on purpose. However, when it comes to illegal immigration (and many other particular topics) the criminal is easy to determine. Now I’m not saying that all illegal immigrants combined even does a quarter as much damage to the U.S. economy as one single multinational corporation does, but we CAN enforce current laws to diminish that quarter.
I’m not blaming our poor economic condition on illegals only, I’m just saying that to me it seems to be an easy problem to solve. Close the borders, find the ones here and send them home (or change immigration law to make them legal), and the problem is solved. Plus, to me its a win/win because it would greatly increase the security of our nation AND at the same time solve the illegal immigration problem.
I see this as low hanging fruit. We already have laws for immigration, we *should* have control of our borders, and since we have the law on our side, we are completely within our rights as a nation to close the borders and demand that everyone coming here do it on our terms. No different than me asking you to take of your shoes before you walk into my house from the doorway. I want you to visit, and stay as long as you want, but don’t make a mess of my carpets.
As far as large corporations operating on a “barely legal” mindset, I find that a much harder problem to solve. There is so much corruption in our government that it is damn near impossible to keep these back room deals from being made. I am fully aware that our own government sold us out decades ago for big money/business and I don’t like it one bit. But honestly, I don’t even know where to start.
So, I’m concentrating on the issues I feel like I have a grasp on. Now, Olive and others feel like my grasp on illegal immigration is tenuous at best, and that is their opinion. But, as far as I’m concerned, I’ve got the solution in hand. Now I just want my government to do what it was MADE to do, protect the borders and uphold the law.
@Jesus
Wouldn’t an efficient opponent get more done? I’m thinking of the early labor unions, for example.
Ted,
Yay we agree!
Yes, here’s where I think we totally agree, and here’s what I think we should be exploring. The government/corporations want to keep illegal immigrants around for two reasons: 1) they’re easy to exploit, and 2) they divert the attention of the public (i.e. they make really awesome scapegoats). So while you’re coming at it from a “get them out,” perspective, I’m coming at it from a “let’s change policy so we’re not holding the carrot in front of their noses” POV.
The real culprits are the people who want to exploit workers, but know they cannot exploit citizens. They are the people who want to keep selling us cheap crap to make a fortune. And they want to fuck with us.
Yohami,
Right. That’s what I meant.
Regarding currency and relative currency values…
It is a mistake to think that relative currency values are somehow rigged or that there is some conspiracy to keep the real purchasing power of the U.S. dollar artificially inflated versus other currencies. Global currency markets are amongst the most liquid markets in the world. The Bank of England lost its battle against George Soros to prop up the British pound.
Currency values are driven by many variables. The currency of a country is essentially its “stock”. In that sense, it directly reflects the total wealth creation and productivity of that nation. The U.S. is among the most productive countries on Planet Earth hence why its value is going to dwarf that of Uzbekistan or some other third world backwater.
Interest rates also matter as the responsible management of the currency via the government or central bank. Historically, the U.S. has been very prudent although in the last 5-10 years there has been some deterioration on that front. In contrast, many South American countries are notorious for currency mismanagement. Argentina and hyperinflation are almost synonymous. There is a “risk premium” that many of those nations might at any time devalue or try to print more currency. Brazil has gotten religion and I’d actually consider savings in reals. Many other South American countries are basket cases.
I’m short on time right now, but there has been a good deal of flat out incorrect information on this thread regarding currencies, finance, economics, and trade. If I have time later, I might circle back.
Jesus, for not being an economist or having a finance background, you had some spot on comments earlier in this thread somewhere.
Now I just hope my short euro trade turns profitable
For those interested, some reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity
Mike C, thanks for the link, reading
Mike C,
Actually I’m glad you showed up. Am reading the link as well, hope you make it back.
Sue,
Sure, of course. I love reading about the early labor unions, btw. And I have nothing against efficiency in and out itself; it’s concentrated power that makes me uncomfortable. I can take pleasure in your efficiency and yet look with a take a more unsettling view of the efficiency of big business in developing, producing, distributing, marketing, and even lobbying on behalf of whatever it is trying to sell to the public.
Mike C,
Yea, thanks for the link. I find economics (along with most things that pass through my consciousness) fascinating, and I interrogate people about it often when I come across folks who are knowledgeable about it. But most of my crowd is not very knowledgeable about it, and I grew up with a family that wasn’t good with money, so I’m fairly clueless about finances.
Yohami,
I disagree with all of this. Sure, good quality ingredients make it easier to produce great dishes, but excellence in art is about the artist’s vision and not the materials so much.
As far as food goes, imagine how many men threw out skins full of rotten milk that sat too long before someone discovered cheese. Or how many barrels of grape juice were discarded before it was discovered they were wine. Artistic vision means finding excellence where it wasn’t formerly perceived.
Not that I’m negating anything you’re trying to do. Follow your own bliss.
“Sound production is like being a chef – the better the quality of the ingredients, the more you can squeeze and create your own flavor. Im striving for excellence. Which happen to be expensive.”
*sigh* Yep, it sure is.
“But most of my crowd is not very knowledgeable about it, and I grew up with a family that wasn’t good with money, so I’m fairly clueless about finances.”
My family never had enough money to worry about being ‘good’ with it.
My small circle of friends includes a couple that are pretty up on economics, and at least one old fashioned gun-toting conservative. In fact, of anyone I know, he would be the most likely to start and/or join a full on revolution if he thought it would succeed. He is actually one of my closest friends, and not only is he very interesting (and opinionated like me LOL) but if the shit does ever hit the fan, he has lots of guns and knows how to survive. So, he may come in handy if there ever is a revolution, or zombie apocalypse.
Mahoney,
you’re right, but especially in the digital age, EVERYTHING is being filtered through the machines, & depends enormously upon the quality of the machines. You’d think less of an action movie filmed on an iphone, even if it had amazing ideas in it, you’d be very aware it could be so much better. Same goes with music, & sound.
You have so much more control with a novel, it’s just you & the page.
I’ve heard some really great music recorded with crappy gear being played on crappy instruments. But, those are rare, and in most cases it is actually the fact that it IS crappy that makes it sound so good. (I assume this is the same effect that the classic “B” horror movie inspires. They suck so bad they are awesome)
But in general, it does take quality equipment and recordings to produce a quality song. Technology helps a lot though! You can get a very decent condenser mic from Blue for around $300 that can be used analog or directly digital over USB. And I’ve seen the costs for DAW software dropping over the years as well as faster/cheaper PCs for running it.
In short, I think right now we have a pretty good mix of equipment and software available for recording without needing to invest $50k into a studio.
I’m currently putting together a home studio built around an iPad 2 with Garageband, an Alesis iO Dock for it, the Blue condenser mic, and a set of M-Audio near field monitors. I’m also re-purposing a dual-core PC I have at home to be my new DAW with Cubase software (I would LOVE Pro Tools, but I don’t have $600 for the full version…) I already have a collection of guitars and bases, as well as a small Simmons drum kit.
Of course, I’m not planning on using this to actually make a living, so my standards are probably not as high as others. But I fully expect to make decent quality stuff. And, I’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised once I get everything setup and running.
Ted,
that sounds a nice little set-up. It seems in this age the pre-amp/digital convertor might be the biggest determining factor of the quality of what you’re trying to capture with microphones, & the good ones cost many thousands. It was easier in the analogue days to capture the actual sound because it wasn’t having to be being translated into zeros & ones. In the digital age it seems the ability to make adequate recordings has become affordable to just about anybody, but to make truly excellent recordings may be even more expensive than before.
Byron,
Of course. I wouldn’t try to make an action movie on an iphone. You need special effects, stunt people, a huge budget, special permits, etc… I would allow my materials to dictate the limits of my style.
When I was composing music, I wouldn’t attempt to write a symphony if the only musicians I knew were a cellist, a DJ, a percussionist, and a guy who liked to scream into microphones rigged with distortion boxes. I would write something offbeat and weird and look to have it performed at some funky club or art gallery in Soho.
You didn’t see Van Gogh attempting paintings of royalty because he lived with peasants. Rossellini and the whole Italian Neorealist movement with it’s use of documentary-style footage wasn’t a result of loads of theoretical thought, it was the product of the environment: low budget, poor materials, etc…
Look at DJs (you’re a DJ, right?). DJs became popular because it was cheaper to have one guy manning a record player than it was to have an entire band perform. The esthetics of DJing all stem from an artist accepting and working from the environment he found himself in rather than searching for the ideal environment.
That’s true, working joyously within your limitations is the key to greatness, it seems. Finding a way to do something new with an i-pad, a rubber band & a contact mic. It’s just pretty heartbreaking to be hearing symphonies for five bassoons & a triangle in your head & be sat alone at a bontempi organ.
Jesus,
I said “sound production”, not “writing music” and certainly didnt say “art”.
This is the angle where I usually give a fuck about art. Start off with a decent script . Take Byron´s suggestion and film it with an iphone, then add bad lighting, bad screenplay, bad audio, bad music, bad acting – bad ingredients overall – and see what you get.
You can call it “art” for all I care.
In music – when it comes to production, there´s something called “mixing engineer” who doesnt do anything “art”, his job is to mix the ingredients and cook a good sound. That´s where the sound production thing applies. But it starts on the instruments, then the room where they are recorded, the microphones, the preamp, the eq, compressors, the medium where they are stored, then there are one thousands techniques to mix them all and make soup.
And the sound can make or break the music. Otherwise no one would care – we would film movies with an iphone / my bathroom mixes would be huge.
Jesus and Byron,
Yes, limitations make for great art. There are movies and ideas that can be done with an iphone, bad lighting, bad acting, and still be awesome.
For that you embrace or self impose limitations or play within limitations and see where it takes you.
The limitations of having bad instruments, bad recording and bad mixing gear, though, dont fit my vision.
Byron,
Yea. And I love how you stated it.
Yohami,
That’s cool. I’m sure that for most musicians who were stuck DJing in the early days of that phenomenon, the thought of playing the music of others on a crummy turntable didn’t fit their vision of art either. It took someone with a different vision to make it work.
I’m not knocking you or your vision at all. I was just saying in response to Olive’s comment yesterday that it’s rooted in the conventional “frame” of what constitutes “greatness.” You might win, but it will be at someone else’s game. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily.
Jesus,
Yeah, the game is called contemporary music, it uses guitars, microphones, vocals, choruses, hooks, synths, drums, and a lot of other tools to record and process these sounds. Man I didnt come up with any of that myself.
Van Gogh didnt come up with lienzo oleo brushes and painting either. But his technique and painting with his own blood are remarkable.
*Contemporary pop music…
We all play someone else’s game to a certain extent. Artists generally push the boundaries though, adding their own rules to the game, personalizing things to one extent or another. Pop musicians and songwriters (with some exceptions, the most contemporary examples of which I can’t name b/c I don’t follow pop music anymore) generally aren’t pushing boundaries. They generally aren’t artists in any real sense, either. That goes for popular fiction, too. And film, of course.
Jesus,
Yep agree. The art part is been absent for a while. Im not making “pop” though, at least not in the top 40 sense.
Yohami,
I used to love Prince’s early stuff in the 80′s, I still can’t figure out how he did what he did back then. Back in the day he was changing & growing & discovering something completely new every day. His first great record is this weird grimy punk/funk album called ‘Dirty Mind’, which he recorded testing out his first home studio. Stripping everything down to the bone gave him a new sound which soon became ‘his’ sound (no bassline).
It all went bad after about 1988, & he’s been putting out worse & worse music ever since, all the while getting richer & richer & richer, & more closed off from real life.
I often think the best thing for him artistically would be for him to lose everything he has & have to start all over again. Live in the real world, get himself some dirt under his fingernails, an 8-track tape recorder & a drum machine & prove his genius from nothing once more.
Byron,
I never paid attention to Prince, listening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsUTfZW2kcI&feature=related
Great music… I only know of this guy because of “kiss” and shinead oconnor and purple… thing.
Im amazed this stuff got huge
“Do It All Night” – I like it
The sound though… the world was a very different place 30 years ago if this even had a chance.
Just like now actors have to be gorgeous to be able to act, musicians have to be gorgeous to have a chance at music, etc, the layers of candy are more important than the talent behind. Right now the “sound” is more important than the truth behind the sound.
Somewhere post nirvana everything started sounding the same. Something is hard rock because its played with the hard rock set of sounds, not because the music has any hardness to it, etc. All the acts are interchangeable.
Byron,
I think you nailed it about Prince when you said he was, “discovering something completely new everyday.” There’s something vital about early Prince, just like there’s something vital about groups Mr. Bungle in its early days and even the stuff from Beck in the 90s, which I think is all about that sense of discovery and trying new things. Of course, once greatness is achieved, too many people just try to replicate it rather than moving on and end up going stale as a result.
Byron,
Yup, if you develop something with a set of limitations, you get lost when these limitations get removed. Some guys (beatles) seek for new limitations and paradigms. Most just get lost.
Its a common discussion on the recording / mixing world. How having too many tools and channels is harder than have just a few. Having too many options lets you stay uncommitted, so you dont make hard decisions early, and that has a negative impact on your vision.
Yohami – ” my bathroom mixes would be huge.”
I still maintain that my current bathroom as great acoustic properties, provided I’m looking for a natural ambient sound on whatever I’m recording with a mic. I actually knew a guy that put a set of speakers in his bathroom, and then setup two mics in an X pattern suspended from the curtain rod, JUST so he could pump his mix into the bathroom and record it as a “reverb chamber”. I gotta say, it sounded pretty unique.
Of course he didn’t do it often, as the rest of his family wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of waiting outside the bathroom door for the noise to stop so they could utilize the facilities. LOL
Ted D,
Share some!
Yohami,
How does this inform what you do with your music?
JM,
Me & a guy I used to live with used to make people lay down between two speakers & play them Mr Bungle’s “Merry Go Bye Bye”. Amazing stuff, but there was usually genuine terror in their eyes after a couple of minutes.
“The sound though… ”
yeh, but that was literally recorded at his home on an 8-track. The sound got much better: Check out the Parade album or Sign O The Times, most eclectic, experimental, all-bases covered pop music of that era.
Byron,
Yea, I was a big fan of the entire album, though I’d have to say that I think my favorite track from it was…. My Ass is on Fire. Or Dead Goon. But the whole thing was amazing.
Jesus,
The story goes like this.
I made my first album in Venezuela in 1996, in a studio. A lot of people loved the music, as I did, but it got nowhere. It sounded like crap when compared to international music -> it didnt open doors, it didnt compete on the market. My singing wasnt good either.
I “discovered” pc recording in 1998 when I was studying sound engineering. I made an album myself, on the pc, using nothing but the free microsoft microphone, playing all the instruments, it sounded raw and cheap and I loved it, it got nowhere.
In 2000 I had some tiny money and went to a studio again. Went half the recording process and stopped. Something was missing. I did some research on the brand new internet thing. I found the vocal mic, instruments and the techniques etc were off. I saved money for a year and a half and bought a home studio.
In 2002 I had a home studio that costed me 5K, which was a lot of money for me back then. I recorded 8 songs. The sound was more in tune with what people liked, and people liked it. I got offers from record labels but they wanted me to do concessions, so I passed. My sound wasnt ready though, I felt it was sketchy.
In 2006 I recorded again with better gear. I made a couple of recordings and got one in the top 10 in Argentina.
In 2008 I knew about Game and Alpha and stuff and decided to quit from my corporate life and pursue music for real. I spent about a year making music on the pc and the bathroom, and formed a band, and played live, and did all of crazy things and had a lot of fun.
In 2009 I realized I wasnt good enough as a recordist to make the album myself and started hitting the best studio in Argentina. I rehearsed and went there and spent a ridiculous (for me, back then) amount of money and hired the best audio engineers around.
In early 2010 I had the album. It sounded like crap. So what the fuck?
I compared my raw mixes vs the studio mixes and my own stuff was better, yet the studio still sounded better in some regards.
So I researched. Why is my own stuff sounding bad and why dont I like what Im getting from studios?
So besides technique, it came down to instruments, gear tools and room.
The gear from the studio was better than my pc plugins, but I was using my plugins better, for my vision, than the engineers were using their gear at the studio, towards their own vision.
Plus the gear and equipment here dates from 1980. Which would be good if I wanted to sound like 1980s (the local music scene here does)
So. I either piled money and traveled where there were better instruments, gears and rooms and vision on a limited amount of time, or I piled money and built my own room with gear and instruments, and do my vision on my own on whatever timeline it needs.
And now its two years later and about 100K and I have a lot of stuff in my living room and looking for places to move.
Any anything I record here now, on my untreated and noisy room, sounds better than anything I had before, better than my raw bathroom stuff and better than the best studio here.
So, that. I didnt plan to engineer the sound myself. Most artists dont. Originally I just wanted to make music and let someone else care about sound / distribution / product and what not. But my story now is Im going to be doing most of that myself, before I hire anyone to do it for me.
Yohami,
I could list loads of songs, but check this one out & think about what he’s achieving in words & music, the things he’s singing about & the way he’s singing about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtveZ0t48p4
This was 1987, rap was only just beginning to be heard & very little of it was political but this was a huge hit single. On top of that, think of the fact that he played & produced every sound on it (before computers).
“The gear from the studio was better than my pc plugins, but I was using my plugins better, for my vision, than the engineers were using their gear at the studio, towards their own vision.”
I know EXACTLY what you mean, that’s really well put & describes the situation you’d get in most recording studios I would say, unless you’re bringing in your own producer.
My god, we’re waaay off topic, aren’t we?
Yohami,
I meant how does the “homogenization” of music post-Nirvana inform your sound? Are you looking to create something comparable to what’s currently being made or something that departs from that norm?
« 1 2 3 4 5 »
{ 1 trackback }