Peter Andreas: "Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-03-28/peter-andreas-smuggler-nation-how-illicit-trade-made-america
As Congress continues to hammer out the details of immigration reform, many are demanding measures to regain control of the nation's borders. But a new book argues that politicians suffer from historical amnesia and America’s borders have never been secure. In fact, smuggling and porous borders have played a key role in America’s birth and economic development, according to a book by Peter Andreas, "Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America." Far from being a new danger to the country, the illicit underside of globalization is actually an American tradition.
Guests
Peter Andreas
political science professor at Brown University and author of "Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide."
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Read An Excerpt
Excerpted from "Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America" by Peter Andreas. Copyright © 2013 by Peter Andreas. Excerpted by permission of Oxford University Press, USA. All rights reserved.
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I really enjoy your show. But I am skeptical regarding the multitude of authors in the last years that focus on a narrow topic and then try to convince their readers that it is representative of the whole. Typically, the title of their books has the following format: A two or three word catchy statement followed by an inflammatory "How such-and-such led to such and such". This appears to be the case with your current guest. With all due respect to him, I doubt that the entire American economy since 1776 has been a by-product of illegal trade/activity and that it is the major factor that "made America" into a world power. It goes without saying that illegal activity has existed since the beginning of civilization. But can I then extrapolate and say "Sinful World: How Despicable Human Activity Built Civilization"? or maybe this title as an example of an overly ambitious conclusion: "Life: How being born inevitably leads to death"? Obviously, at the time of this posting I have not heard the show, and I will give the author the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully, I am wrong.
Human smuggling yet exist into the U.S. How extensive is it? I wish that Diane and her guests would admit that the immigrants, including visa guest worker programs effect the competition for jobs in today's USA. Also unions become less effective, allowing wages and benefits to lag decent living standards. Lastly, jobs can and are being performed outside the U.S. that were performed in the U.S. (Phone calls are answered in India)
Please Diane, thoroughly discuss these points. Thank you.
This topic interfaces well with the CIA discussion in the first hour. Intelligence agencies, big business and wealthy people can boat or fly anything in or out they desire. For instance, the Walkers and Bushes of Walker's Point Maine originated the designation "cigarette boat" not from the shape, but to designate the speedboats they and their friends used to traffic non-tax paid cigarettes and other contraband. The very idea of a "playboy" originally designated a connected man who lives by such black market activity, a person who garners a large income by playing at something, thus the modern word "player". High financial gambling in exotic instruments and moving electronic currency rapidly and remotely is the logical outcome of such an elite attitude. It tickled me how our first commenter today doubted the corrupt origins of the US Oligarchy with phrases such as "all due respect" and "benefit of the doubt."That's just the point. Our Justice Department seems to have been taught "respeto" very well by our fascist overlords. But it is true that all value outside of natural resources and solar energy comes from labor, predominately of the poorest 99% of humanity. Now the planet is doomed and the economy stifled because a few with power take it all.
*Errnest is correct about the way publishers nowadays tend to market narrowly focused books, and how they construct provocative titles. The CIA has had strong publishing connections too, and has engaged in the suppression of particular books.
Marvin W.- It is estimated that at least one third of the US economy is in illegal transactions: drugs, arms, sex slaves.(Most of the legal economy is financial speculation: 70%.) If one adds pirating and the gray employment economy it would be about half. One major reason sovereignty is breaking down is disregard for the law and selective enforcement. If a state is discouraged from levying and from collecting taxes and duties and fees, and instead distributes exemptions and corporate welfare it will drown in its own bath. Right now most of our enforcement dollars are spent on social control of maligned people here and abroad. At some point the authority is bankrupted by the hiring of mercenaries and torturers. Dirty wars are self-extinguishing, but they leave a fatalistic and lethargic and disillusioned result. I believe we've been already policed mentally by media and schooling and indoctrination so long that the American public has already reached that burned-out condition. When zombies revolt it ain't pretty. I always suggest "to deregulate from the bottom up; end welfare (and impunity and secrecy) from the top down."
Opium was said to be the drug of choice of the Chinese workers building our railroads. Bigots got opium criminalized,telling citizens,the Chinese workers will tempt our women with these drugs,and turn them into prostitutes..
Pot/hemp/marijuana got criminalized by BIG OIL,seizing the opportunity in eliminating hemp as a competitor,a far superior source,rather than corn for ethanol....
WE HAVE BEEN PLAYED..
BillBob: They global playez! What you 'spect?
They make the cheese melt here and congeal there: It's magic!
John Hancock, major Rum smuggler.
Your speaker maligned a liberal arts education that does not prepare one for anything. Please stay with your topic sir. You have been asked to comment on smuggling, not to malign liberal arts disciplines.
The Primary reason we won the American Revolution is because Ben Franklin spent more than one year in France soliciting their help. The French supplied 90%of the ammo and 50% of the solders.
Without the French, the American Revolution would have been a major defeat for Americans.
End the unconstitutional drug war.
I grew up in upstate New York on the St. Laurence river. I'm now over 60 but I remember hearing the 'old timers' up there talking about smuggling across the frozen river; bodies from here to Canada for medical schools, and cigarettes and liquor from Canada to here. It was not looked on as wrong, only as a way for poor people to make a living in tough times in a tough area. I got the impression that the local law enforcement was in on it by looking the other way.
I would like to know why there is so much focus on the Mexicans. Immigration from the north is almost just as bad and the borders (in the north) are not monitored as much.
This is hardly news. Dishonesty (and best friend, smuggling) has been around as long as people have.
The slaves brought to New Orleans by the French in fact were chosen for their skills and this is well documented. Please see our exhibit http://bambara-noaam.org/
The French captains were instructed to find Bamara and other West Africans who were skilled in indigo production and other specific technologies, trades and farming techniques. The documentation for the French slave trade is perhaps better than for other European empires.
An interesting fact about New Orleans is that the connection to particular peoples of Africa is known, both by scholars and to some extent popularly. In part this is due to the specific period of the slave trade there, but also to the traditions of cultural transmission in South Louisiana.
And the book of 2011, AMERICAN TEMPEST
.