Ahhh…the "Land of the Free"

But you will notice that Sauron lives in Canada. Easy to justify one countries immigration service from another isn’t it?;) Given his history of happily kissing American backside I would regard him as being a far more uncreditable source than a professional press reporter who would not be employed again if she was found to be making things up…
But lets concentrate on the negative images.
Have you never been in a situation where your mind is running fast and you notice everything? I was in a riot in London a few years ago; I remember a guy with a scarf around his lower face, I remember the fear on the face of a photographer standing between him and the police, I remember then seeing a lump of paving slab in the rioters hand, I remember seeing the lights on the pedestrian crossing we were straddling set on red for the traffic and green for pedestrians, I remember checking the settings on my camera – 1/125th at f5.6, and most of all I remember the regret when I picked myself up off the floor to see that a police grab team was dragging the guy away – having charged in from behind me…
I can well believe that this woman can remember the TV, the rubber gloves, the glass wall, the shouting officers; it is things out of the ordinary that you recall time and time again.
Pucker up again, Sauron; undoutably you will come back with some nugget of pure truth which proves that this woman hates America despite her daughter being born there, etc. Now use a breath freshener…

Flood.™

You have to give this woman credit for the number of negative images she was able to fit into this short piece of fiction.

Oh. You were there at the time were you, Sauron?

Is that how you can be so sure that the story is fictional? :rolleyes:

Xenophobia and paranoia have never been a pretty sight…….

Perhaps lame stories such as this one are necessary to conger

Would that be the large eel or is it a typo for that fantastic dance performed in a line-astern fashion at drunken gatherings? 😀

You have to give this woman credit for the number of negative images she was able to fit into this short piece of fiction. She must have received top marks in her creative writing class. The parts about the porn star, the glass wall, the TV on the shopping chanel” all night long”, the rubbers gloves, the Austrian govenor, the Nazi reference, the phone call from hubby, her American child, etc, etc. It gets better the more you read over it.

Given the source of this artical and the fact that it was published on the 5th of June makes me wonder if it wasn’t meant to detract from the fact that today is the 60th aniversary of the D-day landing during which the Americans played such a key role.

Perhaps many Europeans are still ashamed of the atrocities they commited and are resentfull that they had to rely on America to resue them and protect them during the cold war that followed.

Perhaps lame stories such as this one are necessary to conger up enough anti-American resentment to mollify such feelings.

Sauron

Read the comments above Arthur – this incident is now being extrapolated to encompass the whole ‘Land of the Free’ sounds like a gross generalisation to me?!

Okay, Steve, I’ll take this at face value.

Let’s forget the ridiculous way the lady was treated, the part of her story and background that most stood out for me was the piece of legislation dragged-up from 1952 which led to her initial arrest.

If “Land of the Free” squares-up with foreign nationals who also happen to be journalists needing to make that be known at any frontier then we have a VERY different view of freedom and the values associated with it.

Steve

Arthur,

But it does give insight that at least SOME of the people working in the uniform of the US Immigraton System are a draconian bunch of jackbooted fascists, and considering these incidents have been occuring for some time now suggests that not much is done to take away these (rather prominent i might add) immigration-thugs.

Fair, but, a long way from a problem that justifies “Ahhh….the Land of the Free”. Of course making a title and implication that was closer to the actual truth in the paragraph than the easy potshot at the US above isnt quite as snappy or fashionable is it?

Steve so your suggesting that the poor, doubtless inexcusable, handling of a dozen journalists at LAX over the course of 2003 equates to proof that the entire US Immigration system is staffed by a draconian bunch of jackbooted fascists?.

You think this is an honest statement do you?.

Funny that I need to explain further to a fellow Brit as intelligent and erudite as yourself, Jonesy, when young Art gets it right away don’t you think? 😀

I guess it’s the case have having been there and bought the t-shirt :p

Art: never been ‘cuffed in the “Good Ole” either…but have spent many a fine hour with some humourless folk from about six different ‘agencies’, including my own personal favourite the OSI. You may have already heard about the heavy-handed and over-zealous security at NAS Lemoore’s Open House back in March (a number of your compatriots were present) which included pages being torn from notebooks in the static and people being told not to look at the ramp full of spanking-new Super Bugs with scopes and bins from the car park ‘cos they “weren’t part of the airshow”.

Steve

Steve so your suggesting that the poor, doubtless inexcusable, handling of a dozen journalists at LAX over the course of 2003 equates to proof that the entire US Immigration system is staffed by a draconian bunch of jackbooted fascists?.

You think this is an honest statement do you?.

That’s not an honest statement, and while definately suggested by me (although AFTER the initial comments!) i always considered most people smart enough to read my tongue-in-cheek remarks. Apologies if that point was missed.

But it does give insight that at least SOME of the people working in the uniform of the US Immigraton System are a draconian bunch of jackbooted fascists, and considering these incidents have been occuring for some time now suggests that not much is done to take away these (rather prominent i might add) immigration-thugs.

It also mentions that a law (being the visa regulation) has been put into use in the US which used to be only found in nations which don’t have the audacity to consider themselves the pinnacle of freedom.

EDIT: yes, i grossly exaggurated.

Read the comments above Arthur – this incident is now being extrapolated to encompass the whole ‘Land of the Free’ sounds like a gross generalisation to me?!

As for the ‘gross generalisation’ comment:
Any idea how stupid some of you gents sound thinking a description of an individual’s treatment during eviction for reasons usually found only in dictatorial countries is a gross generalisation? Sounds pretty paranoid to me.

Steve so your suggesting that the poor, doubtless inexcusable, handling of a dozen journalists at LAX over the course of 2003 equates to proof that the entire US Immigration system is staffed by a draconian bunch of jackbooted fascists?.

You think this is an honest statement do you?.

I never got handcuffed, but then again the only countries in which my visa was repeatedly not in order were China, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Never had any visa problems in the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. But then again, I’m sure the reporter was a real threat. That’s probably why the Guardians of the Home of the Brave handcuffed her.

Yeah, Jonesey, it’s all made up.

So’s this:

“Subjected to a body search, handcuffed and locked up – this journalist was treated like a criminal,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard protested in the letter. He pointed out that in 2003, 12 other journalists were arrested, treated in a similar fashion by immigration officials at Los Angeles airport and subsequently expelled, whereas only one such case was reported at any other US airport. “Los Angeles immigration officials should urgently be informed that such methods must stop,” Ménard said.

Why does personal ignorance of situation(s) make something a “generalisation”?

Erm…that was quite the point I was making Grey?

You wouldnt be suggesting that I was making a generalisation by pointing out a generalisation would you? Thats not very clever either is it?

What was that about gross generalisations again? 😀

Oh and at every port of entry you get the exact same treatment because all Americans are nasty like that.

Any idea how stupid some of you gents sound buying into this gross generalisation?

Maybe she was just anoyed she couldn’t get laid on the flight over and made up this pile of crap.

Is she a writer of fiction?

Of course she writes fiction – you don’t really believe that American immigration would treat anybody the way she describes do you? :rolleyes:
Good grief – no country that would describe itself as the liberators of the free world would treated anybody like that; if they did just imagine how they would treat people picked up and held pending questioning in places like Iraq? :rolleyes:
Of course it does depend on if you believe the xenophobic propaganda put out by the American government.

Flood.™

Freedom of speech I guess, I wonder how America would react if US citizens would be treathed as we foreigners would be in the US.

Is she a writer of fiction?