Hope Sinks

Ames News

A human tragedy has occurred in the Mediterranean

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, speaking after some 700 migrants were feared dead in the Mediterranean, on Sunday appealed to the international community to take swift and decisive action to avoid more tragedies.

[...]

"I make a heartfelt appeal to the international community to react decisively and quickly to see to it that such tragedies are not repeated," he said, before asking the crowd to pray "for these brothers and sisters." (Yahoo News)

Our globe is pockmarked with cauldrons of human misery, oppression, criminality and despair. People there hope for a better life in clearly superior European and North American lands. What are we to do?

Bribery Works:

In 2008, the-then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Gadhafi signed an historic friendship agreement in which Italy promised to invest $5 billion in Libyan infrastructure and Gadhafi promised to close what he described as a "spigot" of migrants. (CNN)

  Five billion was cheap compared to what Italy grapples with now.

Taking a hard line also slows the flow:

For a time, almost all migrant arrivals came from Tunisia, just 70 miles from the Italian island of Lampedusa. Because Italy sent most of those migrants who did not qualify for political asylum back to Tunisia, the flow eventually tapered off. And once a new Tunisian government was in place, after the Arab Spring, Italy signed an accord with Tunisia in which they promised to help patrol Tunisia's ports.(CNN)

Humanitarianism Abets Criminality

"Proactive Search and Rescue missions" by EU countries "were halted last October, despite saving an estimated 100,000 lives, amid fears that the operation was encouraging smugglers and migrants to organise more trips. (The Independent)

This highlights a sad irony that plays out on the Mexican border as well. Our humanitarian efforts end up supporting human traffickers and attracting more people to risk their lives to come here.

What else can Western Nations do?

* Punish the rich and the governing oligarchs by denying them travel visas. Trap them in their own nations with their teeming hordes and force them to make improvements. As it is now, the oligarchs of these stinking cesspools use the west as their safety valve.

* Return of Colonialism. Those miserable creatures cannot govern themselves, so perhaps its time to pick up the white man's burden once again.  (it's a literary reference, not a declaration of racial superiority, so spare us the mock outrage)

* Renew Western sponsorship of iron-fisted military regimes to restore order in these broken societies

* 100% return policy. No one caught sneaking in stays. Period.

What are your ideas?

The March of History

What will Western Nations do in response to the Pope's appeal? Dither and hold talks, and the flow will continue. This is part of a historical population shift that has played out many times in the past in different places around the globe. A society reaches its apex, becomes decadent, and is slowly taken over by more energetic people spilling out from less-prosperous areas seeking a better life. The west is clapped out and no longer willing to propagate itself, but nature abhors a vacuum, so others are moving in and they will eventually take over the project.

Related:  Sea of Sorrows