Readers of this book may be especiallyrninterested in Professor Abernethy’s explanationrnof sustainability and carryingrncapacity, botfi based on the questions:rnWhat is an acceptable standard of living,rnand how many people can we supportrnat that level without running downrnthe resource base? Here Abernethy marshalsrnan impressive array of evidence tornsupport her contention that, should thernUnited States fail to create a sustainablernsocioeconomic environment, the futurernis bleak, not only for this country butrnfor those that are dependent upon ourrnfood surpluses: “by the year 2000, 64rnout of 117 third-world countries willrnhave become dependent on donatedrnfood, and a majority of these 64 will bernunable to support as many as one-half ofrn[their] projected numbers. . . . ThernUnited States will have ceased by thenrn[sometime in the 2007-2025 period] tornbe a net exporter of food.”rnAbernethy uses recent U.S. CensusrnBureau population projections, whichrnhave since been sharply revised—upward,rnof course. (In 1989, the Censusrnhad projected a United States populationrnin 2050 of 303 million—it’s currentlyrnabout 255 million; three years laterrnthey upped this to 383 million! Thisrninflation is due chiefly to the increasedrnimmigration mandated by Congress inrn1990, plus the high average fertility ofrnimmigrants.) She offers a particularlyrndevastating comparison of immigrationrncontrol efforts in other countries withrnthe lack of such by the United States.rnOne wonders if we haven’t permittedrnthe Constitution to be transformed intorna suicide pact.rnThe penultimate chapter, “Let FreedomrnRing,” will interest those concernedrnwith preserving personal libertyrnin America. As Abernethy observes,rnjamming more people into the samernspace is generally not conducive tornmaintaining personal freedom: “Manyrnchoices vanish when we live close tornother people. Your right to swingrnyour fist ends where my nose begins.”rnCongressional constituencies in 1790rnamounted to 30,000 people; today theyrninclude 20 times that number. At arnpopulation of 435 million, which werncould easily reach in the next century,rnthe ratio would be 1 million constituentsrnto one representative. What will be anrnindividual’s chance of being heard amidrnsuch a mob? Or do we prefer SenatorrnEugene McCarthy’s proposal to doublernthe size of Congress as a means of loweringrnthat ratio?rnUnfortunately, Professor Abernethyrnprovides no information on the politicalrnstructure of the immigration issuernin Congress or the Executive Branch,rnnor any suggestions for what the nowrngalvanized reader might actually do:rnthere is no list of organizations onernmight join, no numbers of hot lines torncall, no suggestions on what or when tornwrite one’s congressman.rnStill, the only major bone I’d pickrnwith Abernethy is her characterizationrnof the immigration policy she opposes asrna liberal one. I believe that what shernmeans by liberal is large-scale, lax, openended,rnopen-door, or even promiscuousrn—but surely not liberal in the classicrnpolitical sense of the term. By this applicationrnof the word, she invites confusion.rnWe want our friends who seernthemselves as political liberals to join usrnin the quest for immigration reformrnwithout having to commit the apostasyrnof rejecting a liberal immigration policy.rnLet us eliminate that hurdle, then, byrnstigmatizing the opposition’s policy asrnsomething—anything—other than that.rnJo/in Tanton is founder of both thernFederation for American ImmigrationrnReform (FAIR) and U.S. English(USE).rnTheir Third WorldrnProblem—And Oursrnby Amanda Hill and James HillrnLos Angeles: Capital ofrnthe Third Worldrnby David RieffrnNew York: Touchstone;rn288 pp., $12.00rnProcrastinating readers can pat themselvesrnon the back if they waited tornpick up David Rieff’s Los Angeles: Capitalrnof the Third World until it came outrnin paperback. For one thing, the LosrnAngeles riots, which so captivated television-rntransfixed Americans for a couplernof days last year until the weekendrnarrived and the networks had to get backrnto what they consider to be more importantrnmatters, such as the NBA playoffs,rnrather put to rest any assumptionsrnone might have had about Los Angelesrnas the great melting pot of the late 20thrncentury. Boiling pot would be a morernapt description—a boiling pot of hooliganrnelements out to have a murderousrngood time because the “system” as exemplifiedrnby trial by jury worked just asrnit is supposed to work. (Fortunately,rnDavid Rieff hurried in an afterward—rnquite good, in fact—including his ownrnthoughts on the subject.) For another,rnthe storms that pounded the WestrnCoast early this year have probably endedrnthe great seven-year Californiarndrought—a pity, in some respects, forrnRieff was at his best when imaginingrnever-booming Southern California tryingrnto boom on with no water.rnThis said, is there any reason to readrnin 1993 a writer’s 1990 observationsrnabout one of the country’s great, yet alsorngreatly misunderstood, cities? Maybe.rnBut one of the problems with such arnstudy is that, as already mentioned,rnevents have a way of overrunning assumptions.rnDavid Rieff’s Los Angeles,rnincreasingly looking outside America’srnborders for the people needed to continuernfueling a century’s worth ofrngrowth and riches, is nearing the pointrnwhere it resembles not Paradise by thernPacific but the apocalyptic vision of arncity-turned-nightmare depicted in thern1982 movie Blade Runner. One couldrnreasonably ask whether Los Angeles hadrnnot long ago reached its breaking pointrnand whether what Mr. Rieff was observingrn(or perhaps discovering) was not arncity beginning its process of irreversiblerndecay, but one already well advanced onrnthe downhill slide.rnCertainly, the Los Angeles we (myrndaughter and I) moved to in 1979 wasrnno urban Utopia, and had not been sornfor some time. Proposition 13, the taxrnrevolt that destroyed the ability of California’srncities, counties, and special taxingrndistricts to provide services as theyrnhad always been delivered, was alreadyrndrying up government coffers. Property,rnfreed from the tax man’s persistentrnreach, continued to climb in valuern(though the boom had gotten underrnway long before Proposition 13), makingrnmiddle-class housing about the mostrnexpensive in the nation. Many whitesrnin the San Fernando Valley had alreadyrnabandoned the L.A. city schools, not becausernthe schools were filled with immigrantrnchildren but because blacksrnwere being bused across the Santa MonicarnMountains in a social-engineeringrn36/CHRONICLESrnrnrn