I read Davenport Jr's column on immigration before I read Frank Rich's column on Palinology, and I was struck by the way the latter anticipated the former.

Rich talks about the politics of "resentment and victimization." Davenport claims to speak on behalf of a majority portrayed as "benighted, knuckle-dragging masses."

Rich says, "The politics of resentment are impervious to facts." DJ wants immigration to be all about "left-wing activists" and "liberal agitators," as if big business and its media mouthpieces had not been driving forces behind immigration policy, and as if GW Bush had not pushed for amnesty.

Which is not to say that immigration is not a problem, or even that swaths of the population lack reasons to feel disaffected -- just that the cult of victimization and the blaming of the Other are tired memes that won't fix anything.

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[Beelzebubba]

During the credit/nondollar asset mania, companies and employers encouraged their hires to learn Spanish and be "diverse." As the bear market makes another hitch in everyone's giddy-up, people will become more polarized and identify with and subdivide into even smaller groups. "We are the children" will not be played at functions. Copies of the song will be burned and it will not be heard in elevators. Anyone humming or strumming the song will end up like the guy singing the love ballad on the stairs in Animal House. Anyone who profited from the most recent manias will be the targets of the knuckle-draggers. People who wouldn't work if you held a gun to their head will be blaming a Mexican, a banker or whitey for their condition. This is already on the books in Europe, Middle East and the Caribbean. Xenophobia and dissolution of old alliances will be a common theme. Concerns about gay marriage, global temperatures and recreational drug use will be of little or no concern. Trying to alter the course of these trends will get you run over.