Re: real world colonization

>>From: GBailey@aol.com

>>Space travel is hard and dangerous,
>>it's not like making a boat or wagon out of wood and
>>going somewhere.

>Gee, you make it sound like it was a walk in the park.  But nothing
could be

>more untrue

>Almost no immigrant family made it to Oregon without at least one
death.	

>That's just the Expoerience of the Oregon Pioneers, not to mention the 
>original colonists coming over on ships from England.	In addition, I'n
sure

>the Aussies, Kiwis, and descendants of the Boers could tell equally
vivid 

>tales of hardship.

Not forgetting the thousands of boat-people we get every year, and the
many
more thousands who die before getting even close to Australia.

Such hardships, or worse, with Pirates preying on them, are being
suffered as
I write this. Then when they get here, they get put in Concentration
Camps we've
built in the desert, far away from our major cities and prying media
eyes, and
after between 6 months and 3 years of appeals and legal challenges, the
majority
are deported.

Fortunately the Concentration Camps appear to be run fairly well, and
humanely.
I'd feel a lot more comfortable about the situation if they weren't so
isolated
though...

Many of the current crop come from the Middle East, which basically
means Iraq,
Iraq and Iraq. Many have been told that there will be an amnesty here,
either
as part of the Millenium celebrations, or because of the Olympics this
year,
or some other equally specious reason. It's - funny isn't the right word
- how
gullible people can become when they're desperate, and they pay their
life savings
for just a chance at a better life.

When Carmel and I first saw "Bladerunner", the adverts for immigration
to the
Colony Worlds both gave us a cold shiver. Conditions on the colonies
must be
really, really bad if they're pushing it that hard...