The Haves need to get a grip

Four on line stories, one from the Daily Mail, one from a California radio station, and two from Guardian, reinforce the class divisions. This is just a sample.

In sunny California, paying for access with celebrity royals as citizens protest cuts. Most people will ignore the struggles, compartmentalize them as they prefer the diversion of polo and Pimm's; even if they don't (or cannot afford) to participate, they'll live it vicariously by reading about it.

Daily Mail:

The billion pound brand of William and Kate Inc
Next month’s US trip has already made millions for charity. The royal couple's potential earning power for Britain is immense, says Gordon Rayner

KALW News:

16 arrested in Downtown Oakland “anti-austerity” protest

Crazy insanity of consumerism and crazy desperation to survive and obtain the good life: About 15 years ago my partner and I went to Las Vegas and had lunch at the Debby Reynolds casino and hotel (now defunct). There was a museum attached and I swear we saw the Monroe dress among the "antiquities."

Guardian:

Migrants run Mexican gauntlet to make leap of faith to US

And placed just under this story is

Marilyn Monroe dress sells for $4.6m

TRNN video: 'But my Mom doesn't have papers'

I recommend that you look at the Context links on the right hand side of this link.

Video: The Real News Network

Slave labor conditions in Holland

Eastern European workers - mainly Roma - are to The Netherlands what Hispanic or Asian laborers are in the United States: targets of exploitation and inhumane working conditions. The annual asparagus harvest in Holland has prompted the authorities to raid a farm.

The owner of an asparagus farm in the province of Brabant is being investigated by the Social Intelligence and Investigation Service (SIOD) to see if criminal charges can be brought against her after 50 East European workers were discovered to be living in "near-slavery" conditions.

The SIOD - a body of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment charged with criminal investigations - had been given the go-ahead to raid the farm on Friday because the sleeping quarters were in breach of fire regulations. It was then that the extent of the conditions came to light.

The 50 farmhands, many of them Romanian, were not allowed to leave the premises and were sleeping in a filthy room without a window. The workers were being paid less than the agreed wage.

The farm owner has already been fined five times by the labour inspectorate since 2005 for employing illegal immigrants, paying under the minimum wage and failure to report an on-site accident. The fines amounted to more than 500,000 euros.

'HICH' YEZZA JAILED FOR 9 MONTHS

I've been following the arrest and trial of writer and Nottingham University grad student Hicham Yezza. From Lenin's Tomb we have learned that he has been 'sent down for nine months.'

EXPATS IN HOLLAND: NOT WHAT YOU'D THINK

From nrc.nl/international

The "knowledge worker":- Counter to previous trends, the largest group settling in the Netherlands the last three years from outside of Europe is now highly educated people from India.

Most Indians live in the country's larger cities - where the majority of the technology businesses are located - particularly in Amstelveen, a suburb of Amsterdam. Indian businesses have also sprung up. Already there are 33 in and around Amsterdam, mainly front offices of large Indian companies.

"Free movers seldom put down roots in Amsterdam":- Young Europeans who come to Amsterdam to live and work have trouble fitting in. Initially attracted by the Dutch reputation for tolerance and openness, most leave the city after little more than a year. This is because “free movers” feel excluded from Dutch society, claims Adrian Favell who is sociology professor at the University of California.

Favell is not talking about discrimination. “It’s much more subtle than that. Foreigners have difficulty breaking the social codes and can’t find their way through the Dutch bureaucratic maze. One of the people I interviewed pays 2,000 euros a month rent for his apartment whereas his Dutch neighbour one floor down pays just 250-300 euros.

“And why is that? It’s because his Dutch neighbour has been a member of a housing cooperation for years and he hasn’t. Life in Amsterdam is full of such subtle ways to exclude you and it’s one of the reasons expats tend to leave. The Netherlands has one of the smallest percentages of European residents in Europe.”

Difficulties in an international Den Haag:- At the entrance to the shop there is a recommendation for ‘haggis,’ a typical Scottish product made from sheep’s innards, oats and spices. On the shelves lie English biscuits, crisps, marmalades and countless other British products. This branch of the Thomas Green’s chain is located on the Frederik Hendriklaan in the Statenkwartier neighbourhood, the centre of The Hague’s international district. About one in three residents is of foreign extraction, but there are hardly any non-Western immigrants here.

THIS PROGRAM MADE POSSIBLE BY.....

A comment over at GMD:

Has anyone else noticed that lately the sponsorship list for NPR News / All Things Considered has included funding the the Department of Homeland Security???

I just mention it in case anyone still thinks of NPR as any kind of neutral news organization (I guess it was here that someone suggested NPR = Nice Polite Republicans).

But it still gives me the heebie-jeebies. The blurb is about how DHS is working to help employers by "confirming" the employable status of foreign workers. Uh huh. I don't think they've made those services available to the farmers of Vermont.

I'm no fan of National Propaganda Radio. I'd call the DHS 'sponsorship' an invitation for media collusion; they've done everything else in the past 8 years to push the government agenda. Not to mention any criticism of DHS by NPR could now be seen as....dissident. I wonder what the NPR ombudsperson would say.

Spitzer Capitulates: "Scarlet Letter" Drivers' Licenses for Immigrants

TALK LEFT - Spitzer Capitulates: "Scarlet Letter" Drivers' Licenses for Immigrants 28 October --

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has given in to the feds and agreed to water down his plan to grant drivers' licenses to undocumented immigrants.

Now, there will be a three-tier system with the undocumented getting licenses that make them prime targets for state and local law enforcment officials who want to turn them over to ICE for removal.

Read the rest here.

PRINCESS MÁXIMA, WORLD CITIZEN

"Identity" has already for some years been an item in the Netherlands. Princess Máxima, the spouse of the heir-apparent, recently and unwillingly put some oil on the fire that refuses to go out. (See my earlier post.)

World citizens?

As an indication of her world citizenship, Princess Máxima pointed to a signpost outside her house the gives the distance to all the most important places in her life; Buenos Aires, New York, Brussels, The Hague and Wassenaar.

She's got some nasty criticism. Almost every day there are articles, LTE's, and polls about her speech. Toby Sterling, an American living in Amsterdam, chimes with his humourous opinion of this recent Dutch media navel gazing.

What she probably meant is that this is a multicultural society, with recent immigrants from many places mixing together with 'native' Dutch (native as in Germanic/Scandinavian/Frisian/Spanish/Celt/Pict/Gaullic/Roman) _ who themselves are divided into many categories (Rich/Poor _ Catholic/Protestant/Secular _ Homosexual/Heterosexual _ Randstand/Countryside _ politically right or left: SGP/PVV/VVD/CDA/D66/PvdA/SP/GL/PvdD _ etc., etc.).
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If we're going to call this "the Dutch identity," why don't we just throw in all the rest of the cliches, including cheese, clogs, bikes, dikes and windmills, as long as we're at it?

The reality is that, on reflection, Maxima was totally right.
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All Maxima really demonstrated is that this country is a little high strung about its identity right now; and she walked right into the tripwire.

If she had said _ "all Dutch should share the ethos that made this country one of the richest and most powerful in the world in the 1600s. Long live the VOC (Far East Indies Company) spirit!" _ a lot of people would have jumped down her throat too.
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You can think of Dutch society as a "melting pot" or a "salad bowl," but either way the idea that it's some Aryan civilization is untenable. People resist it, but that's because they're dreaming of good old days that never existed, or chasing an illusion.

I think Máxima was speaking for the marginalised, but also about the inter-connectedness of all people. Indeed, we may connect to a "place," but we are also "of the world." I have certainly connected with the places and people where my life has brought me. Bloom where you are planted, as the 60s peace poster reminded us. I recall a quote from Sister Joan Chittister, the Benedictine nun from her interview on the radio program Speaking of Faith.

In the United States, we've lived on a very, very large ice cube that's melting now. The world is coming in, the boundaries are going down. What we're about now is the unification of the world. That means that the whole world is not going to come to us; we have to be prepared to walk with the rest of the world on the path it knows.

Related: Radio Netherlands Amsterdam Forum program on Dutch multiculturalism

Hazelton Law Tossed

TalkLeft: A Pennsylvania judge has declared unconstitutional the Hazleton law banning the undocumented from living or working within city limits.

And a good thing. Then - in opposition to hazealotry? - there's New Haven.