highlighting anti-migrant arguments
(My guess is that Mr. Vltchek (below) hadn’t chosen the above photo, but as it was on the page, I’ll use it, although I’ve added all the other images. I wouldn’t mind having one of those rugs, smile.).
From Andre Vltchek’s ‘Why are Anti-Migrant Arguments Pure Hypocrisy?’, July 12, 2019, journal-neo.org (Creative Commons with attribution)
“In this essay, let us be as concrete as possible. Let us be brief.
I declare from the start, that every African person, every Asian, every citizen of the Middle East and every Latin American (how perverse this very name “Latin” and “America” is, anyway) should be able to freely enter both Europe and North America. Furthermore, he or she should be then allowed to stay for as long as desired, enjoying the free benefits and all those goodies that are being relished by Westerners.
To back this statement, here are several (but not all) basic moral and logical arguments:
First of all, Europe and North America do not belong to their people. They belong to the people from all corners of the globe. In order to build the so-called West, close to one billion (cumulatively, according to my friends, the UN statisticians) had to die, throughout modern and the not so modern history. Virtually everything, from theatres, schools, hospitals, parks, railroads, factories and museums, have been built, literally, on the bones and blood of the conquered peoples. And nothing much has really changed, to these days. Europe and later North America invaded almost the entire planet; they looted, killed, enslaved and tortured. They robbed the world of everything, and gave back nothing, except religion and a servile and toxic bunch of ‘elites’, who are continuously plundering their countries, on behalf of the West. Therefore, Europe and North America were built on credit, and now this credit is due.
Secondly, the Western culture, without any competition, is the most violent civilization on earth. I repeat, without any competition. It cannot be defeated militarily, without further losses; losses which could be easily counted in billions of human lives. Therefore, the only possibility of how to reduce the scale of further global tragedies, is to ‘dilute’ the West and its fundamentalist culture of racial and cultural superiority. The fact that Westerners are now in minority in such cities like London or New York, has not fully stopped the UK and U.S.A. from committing monstrous crimes, attacking and pillaging foreign countries. But were Europe and North America still homogeneous, there would hardly be any free, independent country left anywhere in the world. Migration to the West is helping, at least to some extent, to save the world. Migrants, from the first and oldest generations, demand that the voices of non-westerners, would be listened to, at least some extent.
Furthermore, and this is of a course well-known argument: the only reason why people from previously wealthy countries like Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, Iran or Syria are forced to emigrate, is because their nations were either bombed back to the Stone Age, or destroyed through sadistic sanctions. Why? So, there would be change of the government, and instead of local citizens, the profits from natural resources would benefit Western corporations. Also, of course, in order to prevent the “Domino Effect”. The West hates the idea of the “Domino Effect”: read, the regional or global influence of Communist, socialist or progressive governments which would be determined to improve the lives of their people.
(The) West needs obedient, frightened slaves, not great heroes and bright thinkers! To stop the “Domino Effect”, millions had to die in the 1965 coup in Indonesia, in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, to name just a few unfortunate nations. If you come to a rich, socially-balanced nation, rob it of everything, overthrow its government, and reduce it to a ‘failed state’, in order for your own nation and people to prosper, would you be shocked if some of its people were to decide to try to follow the resources that you have stolen; meaning, moving to your own country? [snip]
“In the U.S.A., the situation is not much better. Wall on the Mexican border? Study your history! The United States robbed half of Mexico, through expansionist wars. “
“Most of (the) migrants who are crossing the border illegally, are actually not Mexicans (Mexico is, with all its social problems, an OECD country), but from impoverished Central American nations. And why are these nations impoverished? Every time they democratically elect their progressive governments which would be ready to work on behalf of the people, the US immediately applies its fascist dictatorial “Monroe Doctrine”, overthrows the government, injects right-wing death-squads, forces privatization, and strips the country of everything, like a locust. Don’t the people from Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras or Dominican Republic, have the full right to follow the loot, too, and settle near it, in the United States?”
Loot, Mr. Vltchek? Perhaps ‘subsistence’, maybe ‘existence’…
“Oh, North America, where predominately first but also second and other generations of Europeans hunted down local native people like animals. Where the great majority of the First Nation died horrible deaths. Where the native people, in the U.S.A. and Canada, are often forced to live, to this day, in total destitution. North America, but also Australia – the same culture, same pattern, same ‘logic’.
“And after murdering native people, what came next? Millions of Africans, in chains, brought as slaves by the Europeans, to build “the new world”. Men tortured and robbed of their dignity. Women tied in the fields and raped, day after day, by white plantation owners. Democracy. Freedom. Western-style.”
‘U.S. Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses’, Michael Hudson, July 22, 2019, counterpunch
“U.S. officials bear a special hatred for countries that they have injured, ranging from Guatemala in 1954 to Iran, whose regime it overthrew to install the Shah as military dictator. Claiming to promote “democracy,” U.S. diplomacy has redefined the word to mean pro-American, and opposing land reform, national ownership of raw materials and public subsidy of foreign agriculture or industry as an “undemocratic” attack on “free markets,” meaning markets controlled by U.S. financial interests and absentee owners of land, natural resources and banks.
A major byproduct of warfare has always been refugees, and today’s wave fleeing ISIS, Al Qaeda and other U.S.-backed Near Eastern proxies is flooding Europe. A similar wave is fleeing the dictatorial regimes backed by the United States from Honduras, Ecuador, Colombia and neighboring countries. The refugee crisis has become a major factor leading to the resurgence of nationalist parties throughout Europe and for the white nationalism of Donald Trump in the United States.” [large snip]
“The first existential objective is to avoid the current threat of war by winding down U.S. military interference in foreign countries and removing U.S. military bases as relics of neocolonialism. Their danger to world peace and prosperity threatens a reversion to the pre-World War II colonialism, ruling by client elites along lines similar to the 2014 Ukrainian coup by neo-Nazi groups sponsored by the U.S. State Department and National Endowment for Democracy. Such control recalls the dictators that U.S. diplomacy established throughout Latin America in the 1950s. Today’s ethnic terrorism by U.S.-sponsored Wahabi-Saudi Islam recalls the behavior of Nazi Germany in the 1940s.”
When you have the time and inclinaion, do read it all. The depth and breadth of it is simply breathtaking, the best thing he’s ever written, in my opinion. It’s long, but in plain-speak, and covers a lot of history of the increasingly blistering blowback of the unipolar Western hegemon’s economic warfare, and the many economic realignments in response to it. Most of what’s been published at his own site have been interviews, no transcripts. This piece seriously rocks! Oddly, his website’s offline right now: michael-hudson.com
‘The mass drownings off Libya and the fight to defend refugees’, 27 July 2019, Alex Lantier, wsws.org
“The ongoing wave of atrocities against refugees demonstrates that it is impossible to defend immigrants without a mass, international movement against the capitalist system. Despite mounting outrage at crimes committed against refugees by the world’s wealthiest states, these governments are determined to continue anti-immigrant policies condemning tens of thousands of innocent people to death.
On Thursday, a ship carrying 270 to 300 refugees fleeing Libya capsized and sank in the Mediterranean, en route to Italy. Fishermen who spotted the boat called the Libyan coast guard, who rescued around 140 refugees from the waves. The remaining are missing and presumed drowned.”
“The refugees who survived the shipwreck are still in grave danger. Like all refugees delivered to Libya’s coast guard—a force built and funded by the European Union (EU), after the 2011 NATO war against Libya destroyed that country’s government and armed forces—they risk internment in EU-funded concentration camps. There, they face assault, rape, being sold into slavery, or murder, as the United Nations, human rights groups and major media have repeatedly documented.
Responsibility for refugee drownings in the Mediterranean, which have claimed 14,000 lives since 2016, lies with the European Union (EU) and the capitalist system.”
‘US liberals self-destruct over migrant crisis, guaranteeing Trump 4 more years in power’, Robert Bridges, July 26, 2019
(sorry, but I can’t get rid of the underlines)
“It would be very difficult to argue that Americans are natural born racists. Over the years, they have graciously thrown open their door to millions of migrants with only isolated episodes of racism rearing its ugly head. At the same time, however, Americans are deeply imbued with a fierce sense of fairness and equality. Thus, when they see images of thousands of desperate immigrants streaming towards their flimsy border – not with the intention of applying legally for entrance through official channels, mind you, but rather with the intent of gaining entrance illegally and even violently – this incites the greatest revulsion. There is no cutting in line at an American supermarket, right? So why should there be cutting in line at the border? Yet it seems the liberals greatly underestimated this fundamental characteristic of ‘fair play’ that is inherent to the American mindset.”
“Today, the Democrats, together with the ‘progressive’ freshman wing of their party – comprised of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib, otherwise known as ‘the Squad’ – have taken sides with the illegals, practically arguing that to deny them a free pass into the United States is tantamount to being affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan. At the same time, high-ranking members of the party, notably Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, have obstructed Trump’s efforts to build a wall on the Mexican border every step of the way, once again calling such measures ‘racist.’ [snip]
“And that is exactly why Donald Trump is happy to continue stoking the embers of immigration, keeping the American people in a suspended state of fright and paranoia with each news report that describes the situation in the most harrowing ways – by the liberal-leaning media, no less. It may also explain why Trump has not built the promised wall, as well as why he will most likely be re-elected in 2020. Once again, the Democrats will have nobody else to blame for their imminent failure except themselves. I am guessing they are already hatching a way to blame it all on Russia.”
And Bridge is correct: the Dems are getting trounced in polls on the issue, see gjonsit here, although he’s assuming that most USians are single-issue voters. Too bad the D team spent so much time and political juice on Russiagate. Oopsie. Bridge brings as facts things that may or not be so, but I’d offer that many of the D ‘brands’ have virtue signaled one thing, then voted ‘to fund’ the opposite way, but no, I wouldn’t want to have to bring evidence of that. There may even be some true facts in his diatribe, but nonetheless, given confirmation bias, belief is just a swallow away.
Next, a self-explanatory but depressing narrative:‘If Left Unchecked, Trump Will Obliterate the Right to Asylum’, Marjorie Kohn, July 21, 2019, truthout.org
Yes, Mount Rushmore might have looked far different had it not been for the European invasion forces…of what they’d deemed ‘an uninhabited land’.
(cross-posted from Café Babylon)
Comments
Polemics polarize
and like all polemics this one is very one-sided. There is much uncomfortable truth to it, but also a rather severe slant and some lies by omission.
To claim that "Western culture...robbed the world of everything, and gave back nothing" is to state that power elites are the only reality and power is all that matters - that philosophy, art, music, drama, science, all intellectual and creative pastimes, are of negligible importance and worthless. This is the kind of unforced concession that the barbarians in charge love to see, and are strongly encouraged by.
Painting a picture can be as revolutionary an act as picking up a gun - just ask Pablo Picasso (Guernica) or Diego Rivera (whose murals have been and are under constant attack because they celebrate the oneness of humanity and condemn the oppressors of it).
Quiet research in a library (Karl Marx) can have greater historical impact than all the armies that ever were or ever will be.
Music can bring people together the way nothing else can, because it appeals directly to the emotions, vizt. the "An die Freude" section of Beethoven's 9th, or any of Woody Guthrie's or Pete Seeger's folksongs....
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
given that your comment
damning vltchek's essay has recived 16 recs', i'd like to expand my response an negate my 'free-fire zone' claim. first, at the top of his essay, he'd written:
in the portions i'd brought he'd also noted:
so it's not that he doesn't appreciate culture, and he's a world traveler, global citizen, and champion of the oppressed classes, and his books are full of artwork, as are my media files, including goya and frida kahlo and many others.
rather than 'western culture' he might have used 'western hegemon' but later he does find fault with the elite classes in a few european nations. but 'lies as sins of omission' just doesn't fit here, imo. anyway, gotta get to my sunday chores.
on later edit: yes, art, poetry, theatre, and even treet art can be revolutionary. but it hasn't stopped western imperialism, nor capitalism, although many artists believed their art contained the seeds of revolution.
michael hudson is no polemicist, but came to many of the same logical conclusions as andre had, even while vltckek realizes, i'm sure, that no one will heed his prescription, nor be able to given the status quo especially on turtle island and in central america. i consider it his art form, as i do chris floyd's, and others.
i take your point about vltchek's
polemics including 'western culture'...but 'did not give back' as incorrect.
consider this a free-fire zone, as many are divided on this issue; thank you.
on edit: i do hope you read past vltchek's essay.
on second edit: the purpose of a polemicist (chris floyd, empire burlesque, comes to mind), but others as well, is to wake people up with extremes, so that they pay attention, and sift towards the heart of the matter.
Yes yes. There's always enough for everyone in Kumbaya
We are about to learn that corn and wheat don't grow under water. I don't have a moral right to my lifestyle, but soon if I don't defend it from the locusts no one will have it, and my great grandparents don't disqualify me. We've denied Malthus for 100 years, it's time to face reality.
On to Biden since 1973
actually,
margaret sanger, bill gates and now david attenborough (twice now) are all Negro malthusians, well, was in sanger's case). i won't bring links, but then...you might agree with them. oh, the dark continent makin' too many babies! (not that their carbon footprints aren't an order of magnitude smaller than western ones.)
thanks for reading and commenting, doh.
Actually
Birth rates in Africa and China and India and all those non us people are below replacement level and declining, (like "us") they're just about 5 billion people too late - like "us".
It's really just blind chance that the migrants happen to be what caucasians call minorities (well at least in this context) It really doesn't matter what color the hordes of people who will be starving next to us will be.
Pick your problem, pick your remedy, people will procrastinate until they start facing the consequences, and then they will deny. Politicians are just the worst, because they have to conform to our desires to retain their status.
On to Biden since 1973
certainly china's replacement rate
.
has declined, but this fella stephen corry says that while rates are falling in subsaharan africa:
"the rate of population growth is high (2.7%)[7] but the population density is actually very low. In fact, in every one hundred km sided square, there are half a million people in Africa compared to well over four million in England.[8] So, Africa does not have anything like the overpopulation problem that England has."
India? he doesn't say, even scanning again; but yes:
"The world’s population is indeed increasing, but the rate of population growth has actually been falling since the 1970s. Not only that, but the fertility rate has been decreasing too. In the Global North, the richer countries (let’s call them the “North” as shorthand), it’s now below “replacement level,”[2] as it is in nearly half the world’s countries.[3] If that half were cut off from the rest of the world, the population there would be shrinking. This would bring problems for them fairly quickly because there wouldn’t be enough working people to look after those not able to look after themselves, but leave that aside."
but paul erlich's population bomb ha been the cry ever since!
but this is simply not true, as the post is trying so hard to explain:
"It's really just blind chance that the migrants happen to be what caucasians call minorities (well at least in this context) It really doesn't matter what color the hordes of people who will be starving next to us will be."
making me wonder if you even read it? it's because of the havoc wreaked by the US, Nato, and coalitions of the willing, added to regime change operations bringing more US-friendly puppet governments who wreak havoc on those who flee. i mean: the locusts. yet you want less of those locusts?
but thanks for responding, doh. and why
If you ignore facts...
such as that the Native American poverty rate is 22% and the Black American poverty rate is 20% and that drug abuse, alcoholism, crime, and misery pervade America's inner cities, reservations, and many rural areas, then, yes, we should open the borders and allow in as many people as possible. After all, misery loves company.
my apologies, amigo.
was this by the way of satire? i've been blown away by the responses (as well as the thumbs ups to them) to this diary, to say the truth. let the cockroaches rule! i say; they may be the only species that survives when capitalist climate chaos (and/or nuclear war) has its final say. we used to posit the dolphins, as well, but with the condition of the oceans now, i'd guess not they (the darlings), either.
on edit: ping! no! locusts, as in 'a plague of locusts'; rather biblical, no?
I don't understand.
I cannot understand why you feel such compassion for migrants for other countries while many of our own citizens are living in such dire circumstances. That floors me. How can you be so callous toward people living in misery right here, right now? Do you ever get out of your ivory tower suburban existence and actually look at the reality faced by far too many Americans?
my compassion comes from the fact
that most migrants are fleeing conditions caused by the Western Imperium's war machine and war by other means: heavy economic sanctions (see michael hudson, for instance and the wsws piece)) i don't believe that allowing more of them to enter the US would actually increase the poverty and immiseration of so many amerikans; why do you think so, edg?
the poverty rate and wealth gap in the US has been increasing in leaps and bounds especially since the 2008 financial meltdown, especially among the black underclass, but of course first americans largely never had any 'wealth' to begin with. the owners own what, 90-95% of amerikan wealth by now? but that's due to capitalism, and we're ruled by the Next Generation Robber Barons.
imagine, for instance, how the recently military budget of $138 billion bucks could serve ordinary amerikans instead. imagine how the trillions of bucks in off-shore tax havens were taxed and how those taxes could aid the disappearing social safety net? imagine a government not ruled by a corrupt political class; yeah, pretty impossible.
but as to my suburban ivory tower: i live in a 900 sq. ft. hand-built 12-sided hogan in the tulies of SW colorado, on 20 acres we homesteaded 40 (?) years ago. it needs a new roof we have no money for, our ancient ford 8-n tractor needs tires and repairs desperately, we're living on social security that nets us a total of under 2 grand a month due to a bureaucratic fuck-up by the social security self-employment system after a life-time of work, and mr. wd does work when he's able (right now as a gardener at his former master-carpenter hourly wages), but he's 70 and tired as hell. i won't embarrass myself telling you on the boards why i can't work any longer (on edit: nor why mr. wd has to do all my outdoor chores by now, including the gardening, mowing what we fondly call 'the yard),etc., and he still has all of the farm chores to do, as well).
the short version of why i care about migrants: 'we broke it, we fix it'. and yeah, we have a black son and first american daughter, live in 'indian country', so we know the drill. luckily we both have a lot of practical skills and tools, so can do repairs of a lot of things, don't mind used items, etc. our local natural food owner allow us to tag on with orders cost plus 15%, which helps a hella lot, especially as we tithe a lot of food out into the community to those in need we hear about.
but that's my ivory tower, edg. we scrape by on a wing and a prayer.
i hope you accord me the honor
of responding to my comment, edg.
feel free to explain how
cutting immigration is going to result in a more equitable distribution of america's ludicrous wealth.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
amen.
Again?
Hey guys..remember when the USA didn't have this huge migration problem and the government made sure that all of the social programs were fully funded and there was no homeless, no children not getting enough to eat or any of the other social problems that cropped up after congress started giving billions to feed and house immigrants? Yeah me neither.
I have railed against the defunding of the social programs before I came to rely on them. I've seen Wendy talking about this and other injustices that our government ignores.
What a rude and childish comment, edg. It's not your first here though.
Bottom line for me is that people are fleeing their countries because of the actions of this one. We overthrew the Honduran government not too long ago as well as futzed in the other ones people are coming from and Trump cut off the funds that used to go to those countries. Think he took the money and dumped into HUD so they can build more low income housing to get people off the streets and into homes? No he didn't and he won't because he wants to do away with altogether. But I guess we can then blame that on immigrants too. I'm betting that they were the ones that kept congress from passing single payer too.
Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.
bless you, amiga.
thank you for your excellent comment, support, and i appreciate your having echoed my understandings. i'd grown so tired of the early comments on this accursed thread.
You're most welcome
This straw man argument that immigrants are taking money from us has gotten very old here. The reason we're spending so much more money is because Trump is making his buddies rich by holding them for so long.
Another thing I'm bitching about is people going completely off topic in so many essays. In of my recent ones only 1/14 of the first comments were on topic and one was about something else altogether. I find it rude when people do that. I was going to point that out last night in this essay, but just didn't. Should have.
Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.
yeppers, that argument baffles me
as well, including doh's 'locusts' and malthusian dreams. i remember a commenters at the café and other paces i'd blogged often declaring that migrants were 'stealing amerikan jobs', but in general, most were hired for shit wages for work their legal counterparts wanted, like: plucking chickens, or as jesse jackson used to say: 'they're good enough to bend over and pick up the food we eat off the ground'.
but the AMLOization of DT's 'great jobs in mexico' kettling amounts to sweatshop labor (what, the equivalent of two bucks a day?) in the maquiladoras at the border that are owned by: tada! amerikan bidness, MAGA!
how funny, i guess in my shock at the comments on the first day and a half on this thread, i hadn't even noticed OTs, lol. i started feeling as though i were drowning in dreck! so thanks again, and to ripped and sirena as well.
this diary doesn't
even deserve a closing song, so i'll end with this again:
‘Every single empire, in its official discourse, has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort.’
~Edward Said
g' night, all.
“Debating immigration restriction: The case for low and slow”
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/public-policy-journal/wp-content/uploads/...
Anti-migration arguments from Amy Wax.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Wax
thanks, amiga
for both links. i only made it thru 3 and a half of the 28 pages, ay yi yi. the 'controversies' section on her wiki does make her sound classist and racialist, and in the pages i've read of the 28, she mirrors that in her 'calm and delibertative' analysis. for instance her section on criminality fails, as far too often the 'crimes' in the US have been petty ones, jailed but not charged for months, hence not even public defenders, or 'fail to answer a bench warrant because: said criminal was already locked away, but hidden in the system.
'muslim bans by trump'? she seems to find that acceptable in the main?
and that was true during the obomba deporter-in-chief administration, and yes, he kept kids in cages as well, but i can only verify males older than what looks to be 12 in the photos i'd seen at the nation.
and yes, obomba did some amount of tinkering with immigration law, his 'dream act', which was a compromise that most lauded, iirc. his admin also approved vast numbers of Hb-1 visas for desired highly-educated professionals who could eventually become citizens? well sure, and as with the dreamer teens, they'd contribute to gdp and tax bases!
now as for miz wax's anecdotal evidence about her last lunch with her friend about 'trump's wall', and it contains some the evidence i'd remembered contra robert bridges post:
‘Supreme Court approves construction of Trump’s border wall’, Eric London,
27 July 2019
but this is worse, imo: the AMLO-ization of Mexico, but now:
and again, those nations were broken by the US by regime changes and drug wars resulting in wars on everyday people who were in the paths of the new fascist governments.
iirc, you'd earlier mentioned immigration problems in germany, but i've forgotten by now what you'd said. hadn't mutti merkel been pretty open-armed about it? perhaps not like tiny lebanon, as per andre vltchek, but more welcoming than the far right could abide?
Less academic & more pop-culture than Amy Wax: “Taki’s Magazine”
https://www.takimag.com/article/our-new-planet-is-going-to-be-great/
please offer me some enticement to read
at the link, esp. after your last one. i'd add that you've never answered my Qs, but then i'd been trying not to put you on the spot about your own reaction to the 'abundance' of migrants in germany. sorry to be cranky, but the comment thread on this diary has seriosuly harshed my mellow.
Do you think being able to see both sides makes one a bad person
I supported the German Green party for decades — “I was a Green before it was cool.” Had the standard Green-left position on migration, de facto open borders, without thinking very much about the long term.
After moving to former East Germany, I now see I used to have only one way of thinking about issues like migration. That is, didn’t actually think but got emotional. Just tried to bulldoze down with a moral steamroller anyone who disagreed with me. No need to understand or listen — they’re racists, I’m better than them.
Now I am open to listening to and trying to understand even “problematic” views. There was value in the old honest-debate idea of being able to restate the other person’s position fairly. Even when previously my first reaction would merely have been shock, anger, or disgust.
It’s old-fashioned and certainly not the way tribalism and social media work these days. But I still try to ask myself, do I have an actual coherent answer to this view I don’t like? Beyond the Orwellian response of seeking cover among like-mindeds in a rally to condemn thoughtcrime?
FWIW, I have now come to the conclusion that the basis of society and civilization is undermined when a government allows a precedent of lawlessness to become established in any field — a sphere where, on an ongoing long-term basis, authorities not enforcing the law is the norm and successful lawbreaking and lawbreakers are celebrated. Migration is not an exception and neither Merkel’s Germany nor the U.S. are exempt.
not at all, meine freundin.
but as you hadn't my Qs about Miz wax's (i'd thought racialist, classist) document i'd wanted you to express yourself more clearly as to her seeming to say the DT's muslim ban was understandable, etc. rightly or wrongly, i'd assumed you were endorsing it, but never saying why, nor giving any synopsis of her main recommendations in the 28 pges. i have no idea what conditions are like in germany with migrants, asylum seekers: are they deported, allowed in, caged as in greece, and as you mention 'racism', what color or culture are most represented?
do the german media, as in the US, pre-criminalize them just for showing up? do they acknowledge germany's part in creating such an epic diaspora, if even by way of NATO and other coalitions? i'd certainly think that the AfD wouldn't. ; )
i've heard it said that george soros is a key proponent of open borders, although in my ignorance i'm agnostic about that, including what that might mean. which colors of people are considered second class citizens in germany, if any? i have no idea.
now that well though out paragraph presents a bit of a conundrum for me, as the Deciders in any nation decide what 'the law' is, whether by the courts, by executive order, or brutal enforcement...or not, as in the US on migrants. and then there's international law to consider, as well. but yes, just and comprehensive immigration reform might have been a good thing at one point, but at least in the US might be a bridge too far right now. obomba's reform...well, not so much more than pandering...but that's another story.
when i'd written: 'Loot, Mr. Vltchek? Perhaps ‘subsistence’, maybe ‘existence’', i'd almost added: maybe in the EU, but no free goodies here. so my next question is do migrants make life economically harder for germans, as doh and edg believe is true in amerika?
thank you for your considered response, lotlizard, on this is a hot-button issue. oh, and one more Q: did miz wax imply/state that his anti-migration stance was the main reason DT was elected?
German mainstream media is extremely pro-migrant and anti-AfD
Rather than having an adversary relationship, in Germany the political establishment and key parts of the media establishment are joined at the hip. Not wishing to be accused of helping right-wing populists by making Merkel and the government look bad, media tend to play up happy stories involving migrants and play down stories that might put migrants or migration in a negative or unsympathetic light.
Not really an expert on Amy Wax. I chose to link to her because she seemed representative of anti-migrant thought while still retaining serious establishment credentials. Most of the other people making similar arguments are lone-wolf bloggers, nowadays mostly banned by the big name web services and easy to dismiss as right-wing cranks.
then i'll guess that
mutti merkel was indeed fairly open-armed to migrants? i wonder if you might answer some of my other Qs, as well, so that we might get the full flavor. i have vague recollections of you and mimi having kicked it around, but i never put the discussion on (what's left of) my brain's hard drive.
i'm trying to remember which US media are solidly anti-migrant, but i reckon by now it's a very partisan (T v. O) issue, including congressional virtue signaling, then voting the opposite.
anyhoo, i'll add this regarding marjorie kohn's essay at the end of the OP:
from the center for constitutional justice this morning:
'Victory! Federal judge blocks Trump's new asylum rules'
as i said above: legal is what the Deciders make of it. but yes, a small victory for now.
Two of my earlier comments
What’s being left out about the Mediterranean sea rescue issue:
https://caucus99percent.com/comment/430690#comment-430690
What the MSM don’t tell you: “No Third Country” is law in the EU
https://caucus99percent.com/comment/432025#comment-432025
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Regulation
thanks, miz lizard;
your second comment rang clear to me, the first, not so much, as i hadn't known the Mediterranean sea rescue issue.
so the background: who are the people of color, are they unwelcome even if in germany legally, not that i'm assuming it's like israel and palestinians, or (alleged indiscriminate attacks on muslims) after the Trumpeter's 'muslim ban'. but as i'd meant to say earlier, my take is that we're all at least a bit racialist (ascribing general qualities to any group we know as 'the other' in our ignorance of cultures, religions, skin color, etc. i'm not saying that correctly, so i hope you might able intuit my meaning.)
yes, Chancellor Merkel was open-armed to migrants,
even without being a Mutti, she was just that. She herself migrated between East and West Germany back in the days, as did her parents, so that might explain something about her being open to migrating people and pretty much untouchable by anti- or pro Russian polemic. People tried to smear her for it. I think history will show that she did the right thing. That's of course just my own opinion.
And yeah, it's beautiful that Federal judge has blocked Trump's new asylum rules'. That gives me lots of hope.
Now with all that EU stuff making everything impossible to understand what's going on, I just leave you with a little song that seems to fit in:
[video:https://youtu.be/n2xODjbfYw8]
Wendy, I think once upon the time I called you big sister, you still are and I appreciate what you shared about your personal life a lot. Thanks for the song by Buffie Sainte Marie I learned to love her songs way back through what I could learn back in the days on Dailykos. It was there I learned about many Native American issues. But that time has passed. And even more I thank you for the little poster image of the good 'ol protectors of homeland security. It hang in my office directly behind my many computer screens, when I was still working (before 2014) and I always loved and laughed about it.
https://www.euronews.com/live
It’s so depressing — are these killers *trying* to help the AfD?
Two dead in one week by being pushed in front of trains: a woman in Voerde by a Kosovo Serb, and an 8-year old boy in Frankfurt by an Eritrean.
https://www.abendzeitung-muenchen.de/inhalt.tatverdaechtiger-festgenomme...
https://m.bild.de/news/inland/news-inland/voerde-er-stiess-diese-junge-m...
I know the story, nobody sane would assume
that just because you are a migrant from the Northern parts or from sub-sahara regions of Africa, they are holier than the rest of human clans everywhere. Just because you have criminal and insane behavior in one of those, doesn't justify to deduct a political ideology from that. If they want to help the AfD? They are themselves the AfD of other parts in the world, imo.
Well, what do I know.
https://www.euronews.com/live
how fascinating that you've
seen mutti's early history as underlying her current migrant welcomings; well done, ma soeur, as well as her being inured to anti-russian fervor (if i understand your correctly).
thanks for the sandy denny version of the song; i'd only the known judy collins one. yeah, i love buffy and her friend john trudell (RIPower). there was a photo on her twit account long ago i wish to the gods i'd saved: she and john in profile across the table from each other. he was bald from chemo, and emaciated, but the zzzzzzzt of love between them was easy to see. in fact, i'll use his last recording as the closing song tonight.
heh; i bought mr. wd a t-shirt with that original homeland security on it, and when he wears it to cortez (20 mi. west of here to shop) , the native americans go wild for it, and laugh uproariously with him.
as for my personal life, i thought edg needed to hear it, and i didn't really mind if others heard it or not, especially as an 'assumption breaker', yanno?
English-language essay re how German politics got to where it is
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n14/adam-tooze/which-is-worse
thank you;
it's a long un, isn't it? i've only managed to read about a third, and got a bit confused about poverty rates and the rise of the AfD in different areas, as well as much of the historical narrative of the various parties and leaders, but for now, i'll paste in these telling parts, although i can't swear i'll be having the time to finish the tome soon. the part i've bolded i have no clue about, perhaps you could explain?
Several incidents involving migrants soured public perception
on migration to some extent (and, to people who already viewed migration negatively, made government and media efforts to portray migration in an unreservedly positive light appear manipulative and dishonest).
The article doesn’t try to get this specific in detailing possible causes of voter disenchantment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_New_Year%27s_Eve_sexual_as...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%BCrzburg_train_attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Maria_Ladenburger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Berlin_truck_attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Mireille_B
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Susanna_Feldmann
I get it. Thank you for your essay, Wendy
We rape and pillage other countries, and then we are surprised they show up at our doorstep in destitution/desperation???
And then we try to criminalize them?
And people stand up and say but we are more in need.
Maybe so, maybe not, doesn't matter, because it was the same faction that is doing it to us all.
There's plenty for all, except for that of the greedy.
thank you for getting it,
amiga. this thread (and myself as well) has taken the most baffling drubbing. and your comment seems exactly right to me.
big al just emailed this comment
he'd desired to contribute, but as he's forgotten his password, he's unable to log in.
i'm not sure that's what
vltchek was saying, but yes, i'm glad he'd penned it if for no other reason than to widen the discussion. i hope you have time to read michael hudson's whole pied when you have time, albeit even with his financial plain-speak, he lost me here and there. he's a marxist economist, but a heterodox one many say, but i can't remember the distinction (dagnabbit), which i'd imagine is important.
as to your objections to global government, i don't know what that would even look like. my only frame of reference is the john birchers having decried 'One World Government', but that may have been targeted at the UN, which no one pays much attention to...unless it's in their political best interests.
amerika claims to be 'a democracy (laugh track), as does israel (ha ha!), and i try to hear you on national soverignty, but here's william blum's list (may he be kickin' ass & takin' names on the other side)
of attempted and successful regime changes/coup d'etats (* indicates successful ouster of a government):
China 1949 to early 1960s
Albania 1949-53
East Germany 1950s
Iran 1953 *
Guatemala 1954 *
Costa Rica mid-1950s
Syria 1956-7
Egypt 1957
Indonesia 1957-8
British Guiana 1953-64 *
Iraq 1963 *
North Vietnam 1945-73
Cambodia 1955-70 *
Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 *
Ecuador 1960-63 *
Congo 1960 *
France 1965
Brazil 1962-64 *
Dominican Republic 1963 *
Cuba 1959 to present
Bolivia 1964 *
Indonesia 1965 *
Ghana 1966 *
Chile 1964-73 *
Greece 1967 *
Costa Rica 1970-71
Bolivia 1971 *
Australia 1973-75 *
Angola 1975, 1980s
Zaire 1975
Portugal 1974-76 *
Jamaica 1976-80 *
Seychelles 1979-81
Chad 1981-82 *
Grenada 1983 *
South Yemen 1982-84
Suriname 1982-84
Fiji 1987 *
Libya 1980s
Nicaragua 1981-90 *
Panama 1989 *
Bulgaria 1990 *
Albania 1991 *
Iraq 1991
Afghanistan 1980s *
Somalia 1993
Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
Ecuador 2000 *
Afghanistan 2001 *
Venezuela 2002 *
Iraq 2003 *
Haiti 2004 *
Somalia 2007 to present
Honduras 2009 *
Libya 2011 *
Syria 2012
Ukraine 2014 *
Q: Why will there never be a coup d’état in Washington?
A: Because there’s no American embassy there.
but yep, the D team's messing with the issue in some epic and disturbing ways.
oh and big al:
file under: even a dim bulb lights up once in a while...please email me if you'd like me to DM or PM, whatever it's called to ask JtC if he knows your password. but also a Q: have your changed your email address since you first registered here?
I don't get it, does Big Al have no internet access
and just go to C99p page and ask for a new password?
https://www.euronews.com/live
*if* i'd understood him,
that request didn't work. that's why i offered to message jtc, and had wondered if he's using a different email address than he'd originally used. iirc, one can sign in with a screen name, or an e-address, but i'd forgotten to ask him about the former.
i really need to sign off;
i had a date to watch 'grantchester' on pbs with mr. wd.
this will be tonight's closing lullaby:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX_AhL2SsUs]
Who brought the bomb wrapped up in business cards And stained with steak?
Who hires a maid to wash his money?
Who keeps politicians on the take?
Who puts outspoken third-worlders in jail Just to shut them down?
Oh the lies vary from place to place but the truth is still the same,
Even in this town
Money junkies all over the world Trample us on their way to the bank
They run in every race... Windego
Third-worlders see it first:
The dynamite, the dozers, the cancer and the acid rain
The corporate caterpillars come into our backyards And turn the world to pocket change Reservations are the nuclear frontline; Uranium poisoning kills
We're starving in a handful of gluttons
We're drowning in their gravy spills
g' night.
i'll close this puppy down,
as i seem to have a case of them Ol' Cosmic Blues, and as i'd promised mimi, here's the last song john trudell had recorded before 'his ride came for him', as he put it.
‘Time Dreams’ - The Pines featuring John Trudell & Quiltman
I’m just a human being trying to make it in a world that is rapidly losing its understanding of being human.
~ john trudell
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRTMe_EPgSM]
A 12 minute video history about John Trudell
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foQKPMGA1Ws]
‘Happiness is the dream time...’
the longer version of the late, great, alchemist john trudell's bio...who turned poison into medicine and became the Voice of The People, and enriched us all.
g' night; dream well.