Comments

1

CM--for me, deleting the last sentence would be clarifying. Respectfully suggested.

2

Good Afternoon Charles,
"And the white population started declining the year Trump was elected." Actually, that's not true. The 'white population' whatever that may mean has been in decline way before Trump entered office.

"and he has thrown thousands of brown children into cages." I know you mean that figuratively. As I mentioned last week, this happened under Obama's watch as well. And it routinely happens in another context any time a parent is arrested by a police officer or other authority in front of her or his children. It's no less traumatic then as it is now.

Finally, I'm not sure that I'd call crossing a border illegally "heroism". Daring perhaps, but not heroic. In fact, one could argue it's foolish and dangerous especially if a parent does so with his or her children in tow. Isn't it putting that child in some kind of risk? Isn't that irresponsible parenting?

Charles, we don't have open borders. We can't have open borders. Very few sovereign countries have them, open borders (the exception is the EU which has its own immigrant crisis). Weren't your 'papers' (passport, visa, identity card etc.) reviewed when you entered the USA? I know my papers are whenever I cross a frontier. I expect it.

Look, for too long we, the USA has had a porous border especially in the southwest. Obama knew that, Clinton knew that and Trump most certainly does. While I appreciate the 'desperation' (political asylum, domestic violence etc.) argument for some people entering the country without documentation, I simple don't believe that applies to ALL illegal immigrants. I believe they largely are here for our economic largess.

Today, I find it odd that anyone would want to cross a border illegally. I too, wonder "Why are these people so dogged? " I reckon it's similar to humans of African descent that emigrated from the Caribbean a hundred years ago, some knowing that they would be entering a land of state sponsored segregation and visceral hatred among their neighbors. And, my understanding is they largely entered the country legally.

That took courage.

3

Saturn drive glittering transport idealism instant rings?

Charles, I know you love nothing more than imagining the mind-palace of the imaginary white person, but you may have applied just a little too much weed to the problem this time.

4

Great post, Charles.

6

@2:

If our border is porous, it's because that suits the interests of certain segments of our Capitalist economic system; basically the same one that's been in operation since the slave-trade, namely, the presumed need for cheap, compliant labor.

If it weren't for the Agricultural Industry essentially depending on an undocumented immigrant workforce to pick their lettuce and avocados and apples and what-not, we'd have a lot more control over this situation, because there would be far fewer people taking the risk to cross in the first place (people fleeing political turmoil, war, ethnic-cleansing, et al, is another line of discussion altogether). That industry is already starting to feel the effects of this "zero tolerance policy" in a big way: tens of millions of dollars worth of crops rotting in the fields and orchards, because there aren't enough people willing to work for near-slave wages to harvest them. And with their pipeline to cheap labor becoming increasingly more restricted, the situation is only going to get worse, with the end result being increased prices passed along to the consumer, either because of shortages of some items, or pressure put on producers to increase wages to the point of making them attractive to U.S. based workers, who have demonstrated in no uncertain terms they won't work under current terms and conditions.

And then of course, we'll see the inevitable response from Conservatives: "WHY ARE MY AVOCADOS SO DAMNED EXPENSIVE?"

This is America...

7

@5:

Either you're making a really bad attempt at some kind of satirical comment, or else that is literally one of the most ridiculous non-correlative assertions, EVER!

Most countries that have low-carbon footprints do so because they're fucking poor as dirt, and don't have infrastructure to build out massive power-generation and distribution systems like we're fortunate enough to have here in the states. That's pretty much born out by the fact that many towns and villages in those same impoverished Third World nations have very little access to electricity - if they have any at all. So, it goes without saying: low electrical generation equals low-carbon footprint, duh. So, it's not the low-carbon footprint they're trying to escape from, it's the social and economic conditions that fail to provide something so basic - regular, consistent on-demand electricity - a thing we in this country take so much for granted we rarely give it any thought at all.

Now, again, if you were trying to be snarky, well, okay then, but with you - who's to know, really?

8

@7

I mean, you're mostly right there, but the world is several decades past the point where you could reasonably claim that Third World nations have little access to electricity.

The poorer parts of the world have been modernizing rapidly for a good long while now. As a result, those parts of the world have been rapidly catching up in terms of things like life expectancy, literacy, urbanization, telecommunications, and even electrification.

So when you use the Global South as an argumentative cudgel (and you can, because it's still a lot poorer than the first world) you need to be careful not to present it as fetishistically primitive; it might feel righteous, but it's inaccurate and arguably pernicious.

9

"Finally, I'm not sure that I'd call crossing a border illegally "heroism". Daring perhaps, but not heroic. In fact, one could argue it's foolish and dangerous especially if a parent does so with his or her children in tow. Isn't it putting that child in some kind of risk? Isn't that irresponsible parenting?"

Once the field of cultural anthropology moved away from moralistic concepts of "degeneracy" as the cause of crime, it arrived at a more subject-oriented perspective and learned that most human motivations could be categorized as either "Smart" or "Proper" strategies.

"Proper" actions are motivated by desires to follow the group's 'social rules' for behaviour, to fit in: Don't steal, be polite, help a person, etc. Rules (later laws) that derive from needs in the middle section of Maslow's Hierarchy (love/belonging, esteem); once all the base needs are taken care of. A cohesive, inclusive society takes care of a human's basic needs, so we can afford to "follow the rules" and be proper in polite society.

"Smart" actions are motivated by more fundamental desires: survival, shelter, food, safety. If a society does not include certain people or even entire groups, actively restricts their access to fundamental resources, or constantly threatens their safety, those people will dispense with "rule following" and act on the basis of self-preservation. They will make choices based on the relative risks versus the likely benefits.

If I am homeless, unable to get a job (money), and literally trying to survive each day, "laws" about theft are irrelevant to me: I will steal to eat, that is lesser risk, and the smart strategy.

Similarly, if I grew up in a town, and the jobs have dried up due to the "global economy", and now narco-traffikers are operating unchecked, sometimes killing people, people I knew... then the risk of illegally crossing the border for the potential benefit of not watching my children murdered and possibly having a better life, then that is the smart strategy.

The cynical manipulation within the Orange Turnip's compassion-free 'framing' of the issue --that crossing the border is "illegal" and therefore worth violent punishment-- relies on the fact that his audience, "middle class white culturally-insulated Americans", live in a largely violence-free society where food is plentiful, everyone lives in houses and says 'good morning" to the mail carrier. They cannot imagine the literal horrors from which Mexicans are attempting to escape, --it's not in their news-- so they do not seem to understand that "laws" stand on a lower tier than the moral choice of trying to prevent your and your child's death by gunfire or starvation...

"Isn't it putting that child in some kind of risk?"

Of course, but given the choices, --potential death versus survival in the margins of the world's richest country--, which risk would you take? Which is more irresponsible?

There is definitely a heroism in trying to escape mortal odds and face a Kafkaian bureaucracy to provide a better life for your children.

(Let's just ignore the fact that America's demand for "illegal" drugs, combined with our State's violent suppression of such trade (except when the State benefits) is actually driving the narco-cartels and violence in Mexico, and therefore is in part responsible for the pressure to cross the border illegally.)

10

@6 & @9,
Good responses. Thanks for keeping it civil.

12

I am not impressed by the administration's sudden re-classification of asylum seekers as illegal immigrants. These people have trekked a couple of thousand miles to get to a place that has publicly represented itself for generations as a haven for the oppressed, only to find that the ignorant racist currently in charge is looking for any possible way to keep them out no matter how dire their circumstances.

The last time there was a government crackdown on illegal labor, by the way, wasn't there quite a to-do about all the crops that were rotting in the fields because it turned out white folks didn't want that kind of work, it wasn't those jobs the illegals were stealing?

Either we're a nation with a heart or we aren't. It seems under this administration, we aren't.

13

Why do democracies elect sociopaths?
Posted by Christina MacPherson
Ken commented on Nuclear news to 24 June 18

The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich. It is what is happening. He wrote it in 1933, and most of the book tries to answer the question why democracies continually elect psychopaths to rule them. I think you would really like it.

Here’s a free link to the PDF: http://www.wilhelmreichtrust.org/mass_psychology_of_fascism.pdf

You know Trump is a narcissist– a malignant narcissist. Every psychopath is also a narcissist and it’s clear that Trump is also a psychopath. You probably knew that too.
The question is, how did a malignant narcissist psychopath become president– not just president but a horrific monster who is intentionally destroying the protections that have made Americans and America save from the predations of the worst corporations and his fellow billionaire psychopaths? And what should we do about it.

It’s a long story. Before civilization, humans evolved, over at least seven million years, to live in small hunter-gather bands where they were bottom-up beings– empathic, kind, cooperative, sharing, interdependent, living with bottom-up connection consciousness– awareness of how decisions and actions affected all the people around them– and the natural ecosystems they depended upon. Anyone who tried to take more than their share of the bands resources would be seen as insane, or would banished or killed. for example, one expert on psychopaths told me that in the far north, a psychopath living amongst the indigenous peoples would be put on an chunk of ice and pushed off into the ocean to float away.

The creeping opening of vulnerability to the depredations of narcissists and psychopaths started with the onset of civilization, when food surpluses and possession of domesticated animals led to the creation of police and soldiers to protect them. That led to hierarchy, centralization, authoritarianism and domination. Narcissists and psychopaths began to flourish because there was no band of people to stop them.

Most of history (as opposed to prehistory)has been, until the past 3040 years, the top-down history of generals and rulers, i.e., despots, monarchs and worse. Civilization, while bringing some wonderful good advances came with a high price– slavery, serfdom, feudalism, privatization of the commons and brutal exploitation of the people at the bottom.

The narcissistic, top-down ideas of privatization and exploitation have been framed and celebrated by the right as aspects of “liberty” and individualism, as described by Ayn Rand. These narcissistic behaviors have become values that are supported and encouraged by religious and political leaders

Today, some businesses actually seek out psychopaths as employees. That gives them increasing access to wealth and power. Trump is a born-on-third-base child of wealth. These people are, I believe more at risk for developing the characteristics of psychopaths– particularly callousness, hard-heartedness, absence of empathy, propensity towards lying and disrespecting laws and morals. Of course, Donald Trump fits this profile perfectly.

His massive scale child abuse is a clear sign of his having all the signs– callousness, hard-heartedness, absence of empathy, propensity towards lying and disrespecting laws and morals. Worse, his deranged behavior is contagious, as evidenced by the many supporters and flunkies who defend this depraved policy. Even worse, ripping away children from their loving parents will permanently traumatize them and make them, the victims more at risk of becoming narcissists and psychopaths themselves. We have to take serious, aggressive action.

I’ve written many articles, in my article series, Psychopaths, Sociopaths and Narcissists, on the challenge narcissists and psychopaths present to a decent society. Trump and his enablers have made my message even more urgent. We need to develop a science and culture that reject the “values,” really, pathological behaviors and thinking, as the vile, evil things they are. People who engage in such behaviors, people with strong narcissistic and psychopathic tendencies and characteristics should be identified, just as sexual predators are. This is not bigotry, not separating out any particular religion, race, or culture. This is what is done with sexual predators and carriers of highly contagious diseases.

We need to deal with the reality that these people are dangerous, malignant, destructive people. At one level, they are predators who take life savings from innocent victims who love them. But they are also the same people who gave us the multi-trillion dollar economic collapse of 2008, and the people who profit from war and drugs– addictive and pharmaceutical.

These are the people who set examples of the worse kind, so we see massive increases in hate, bigotry, intolerance and discrimination. We need to identify them and protect the whole, healthy people who are not narcissists and psychopaths. This should be a conversation that is on the table. It will not be easy. There are billionaire narcissists and psychopaths who will fight it and they will fight dirty, attacking the messengers, attacking the idea. But we’ve gone far too long without doing this necessary work.

https://www.opednews.com/articles/How

From Paul Street article on Trump
“There have been many tyranny tests under the monstrous orange-tinted white nationalist Twitter clown Donald Trump. Where to begin:

The opening day trip to CIA headquarters, where he half-jokingly rambled about the US going back to Iraq to “get the oil”?
The repeated attempts to repeal even Obama’s inadequate health insurance measure and thereby remove tens of millions of U.S. citizens from health coverage?
The insane claim to have won the popular vote but for the votes of illegal immigrants?
The idiotic call for a southern border wall combined with the asinine call for Mexico to “pay for it”?
The noxious description of Mexican and other Central American immigrants and asylum-seekers as rapists and murderers?
The praise and dog-whistling cover he offered to murderous fascist racists in Charlottesville in the summer of 2017?
The giant tax cut that the racist real estate mogul trailblazed for the already obscenely super-opulent Few last Christmas season – a socioeconomic atrocity in a nation where the top 10thof the upper 1 percent already owned as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent?
The advance pardon that the Tangerine Satan offered to the sickening racist and nativist tent-camp murderer Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona last year?
The racist shaming of federal judges who happen not to rule his way?
The repeated transparent attempts to place himself above the rule of law?
The open assault on basic environmental protections and the eco-exterminist determination to advance the extraction and burning of every last fossil fuel in U.S. reach?
The clear and transparent affection he shows for blood-drenched authoritarians the world over?
The snap approvals of the planet-cooking Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines?
The open embrace of Saudi Arabia’s practically genocidal war on Yemen?
The repeated ugly embrace of the National Rifle Association after yet another and then another mass shooting that amounts to homeland terrorism sponsored by the proto-fascistic and white supremacist gun lobby?
The open advance of prison privatization and mass incarceration combined with clear disinterest in curbing the ongoing epidemic of racist police shootings?

That’s just a short list.

What would it take to send millions of U.S.-Americans into the streets to confront the total evil of “their” government in the age of Trump? How about this: “Dragging young children kicking and crying and screaming from their parents, separating those children from their parents indefinitely, locking those children up in cages (‘dog kennels’) like animals, and subjecting them to the predators of the American police sta

14

I have been praying that the RepubliKKKan Party of None would finally metaphorically shoot itself in the foot and make itself extinct for decades.
@13: Kendal piling: I couldn't agree with you more.

15

Among Mudede's finest, I think.

16

The immigration crisis was not "manufactured" by the right; for them it is real. "Make America Great Again" is code for "Make America White Again". If nothing is done, minorities will be a majority in this country by 2050 which is a problem for the Republicans who are predominately white, aging and Christian.

17

@16 You serious? You realize 30% of Asians and 30% of hispanics voted for Trump.

Mudede thinks less White people will mean less Republicans. I've voted Democratic my whole life. Your strategy will lose. You're racialized hatred for Whites is clouding your judgement.

Both the hispanic, and the Black community are much more inclined to being socially conservative.

18

Charles, why not just stop beating around the bush and declare your support of open borders? Let's just abolish the federal immigration authorities. Let's allow anybody into the country who has the "courage" to cross the Rio Grande, regardless of their skills, education or criminal record. In fact, let's send some air-conditioned buses down to Mexico and Honduras for recruiting purposes.

21

@20: “take away food stamps, section 8 housing, medicaid and free cell phones and I guarantee Americans will go back to work on the farms without much of a pay increase.”

‘Pay increase’? Hell, there hasn't been a 'pay increase' for the "bottom" 90 percent since Ronnie Raygun. They’ll work for food or clothing or water or whatever shit you might have lyin’ around. Or, make ’em desperate enough, they won’t work for it at all – they’ll just fucking take it. (Can I assume you're well-arsenaled?)

Brilliant. Take America back – to feudalism.

“And we'll be a helluva lot better off as a nation.”

You must be either a King, a Princess, or a lady-in-Waiting.
MAGA.

22

@18: "In fact, let's send some air-conditioned buses down to Mexico and Honduras for recruiting purposes."

OR -- we might consider NOT overthrowing democratically-elected Central American governments so's we can install our own brand of "democracy" -- you know, where the far-alt-white 'Business Class' trumps any government by and for The People living there.

They're not 'immigrants' -- they're fucking Refugees.

Oh and by the way -- better get prepped for Climate Refugees.
They're a' comin', too.

23

@2- They are not here for our "economic largess". They are here because they have little or no chance to work in their own countries. And they are not being supported by the mythical "largess" of which you speak. Most of the immigrants I have known work two or even three jobs. They are the ones standing outside Home Depot waiting to make a few bucks. They are the ones cleaning offices in the evenings after they finish their day jobs.

Frankly, I think that the reason a lot of Americans have so much animosity towards immigrants is because they have a much stronger work ethic and raise the bar for the rest of us. Makes it harder to justify spending all of your time drinking Bud Light and watching TV when others in the community are actually working.


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