News Jan 12, 2018 at 9:51 am

Comments

1
Trump's defenders are persistently shifting the narrative and getting away with it. They've always done it and they're doing it now in front of our eyes. Remember all those times when it looked like this or that was the scandal that was going to sink Trump? The Access Hollywood tapes? His tax returns? His pathetic debate performance? He hands us one gift after another, yet Trump never goes down. Why?

Calling Hati a shithole is insulting, but it's not the profoundly racist thing Trump said. The gold standard of racism is met when he said he didn't want any immigrants from Hati, or Nigeria, and probably anywhere in Africa, and then just to put the cherry on top, he prefers Norway. Yet we get drawn into debates about how nice it is in Hati rather than how racist Trump is. Why?

Here, watch: How the Alt-Right Controls the Playbook.

When you hear them say, "Hati really IS a shithole!" or "Obama said Libya was a shitstorm!" or "If it's not a shithole, how come they are so eager to come here?" pay attention. Don't take the bait.

They. Are. Controlling. The. Narrative.

Instead of confronting the fact that denying entry to all Hatians, Nigerians, or Africans, in preference for Norwegians, is racist, they want to draw you into a debate over just how shitty is Hati. Is there clean water in Nigeria? Did any Democrats ever say conditions in a country sucked?

"What about the Clinton Foundation?" "Bill Clinton did this to Hati!" Changing the subject, changing the subject, changing the subject.

They know they are losing. The reason they are controlling the narrative is that they are in a losing position. The subject is this: Trump wants to exclude entire countries, entire continents, because of the race of the people there. He prefers white immigrants. That is the racism. That is what this is about.
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@4

"Haiti is a very poor country with severe deficiencies in public health and education. That means immigrants from Haiti bring with them a lot of problems that the American tax payer has to solve."

Conservatives think life is fair. They see a person who is poor, and deprived, and disadvantaged, and their instinct is to *not* help them. Why? Because life is fair. The very fact that a person is disadvantaged is evidence that they don't deserve help.

Who does deserve help? People who *already have* advantages! People from rich countries. Or rich corporations. Or people with huge inheritances who don't want to pay taxes on them.

Yes, conservatives are profoundly ignorant as to why Haiti is poor. Ignorant of the history of Haiti's enslavement and pillaging by Europeans, and the extortion of even more wealth as punishment for revolting against slavery, and the history of simple theft of their wealth by the United States government. Why are they so ignorant? Because it would never occur to them to ask why a country is poor. Life is fair!

If you KNOW life is fair, then you don't need to ask how a country became poor. It obviously became poor because it deserves to be poor. The people are poor because something is wrong with them. If you let a poor person come to the United States, they will bring us nothing but problems. The fact that they are defective is proven by the fact that they are poor.

The existence of a poor person who is not defective is evidence that life is not fair. Conservatives will say and do almost anything to blind themselves to evidence that life is not fair. They second they admit to themselves that life is not fair, they stop being a conservative.

And then you have people who know life is not fair, but they're just fucking racist. Anyone who doesn't think accepting refugees from the Irish potato famine was a disaster for America, but fears the harm to us from accepting poor Haitians is just your basic fucking racist.
7
A shithole is a shithole, Be it natural disaster ridden Haiti, the failed state of Chad in Africa, ebola-infused Sierra Leone in Africa, the war-ravaged Ivory Coast in Africa or the entry way to the Olive Medical/Dental building were the local homeless are taking their dumps during morning rush hour. If it weren’t the fact then people would be running out and booking their vacations for spring break and this years summer-family fun in these destinations! And let us not forget all those pundit-folk here from those countries enjoying the benefits of this country. If their country is so grand then why are they working and living in the United States and not in their home country? Is it the benefits? The money and fame they may not get at home? Are they like Patrick Stewart who’s main motivation to become a citizen is to “fight Trump”, while simultaneously benefiting from the US through it’s entertaiment industry? Then if so, Republicans are correct that outside forces are being used to undermine our country and liberals are the ones helping it along. It isnt Russia or Republicans. It’s people like Trevor Noah from South Africa and Patrick Stewart from The UK who use their influence to dictate what citizens born here should think and if it runs counter to what they believe in then you’re against the liberal-backed outsider who becomes a “home nationalist” when convenient and can be used against his/her host country and that is what is really riling up the nationalist attitudes. It really is hilarious how the “echo chamber” hasn’t figured that out.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/ma…

8
What has Natalie got against armpits. That was an amazing clip Dan.
Read a book.
9
@7: you didn't read @1, did you?
10
@7, and where may your family have come from? America like Australia is full of immigrants or descendants of immigrants. American Indians or indigenous Australians... they can claim some land ownership, not the rest of us blow ins.
11
@2: "Haiti is a very poor country with severe deficiencies in public health and education. That means immigrants from Haiti bring with them a lot of problems that the American tax payer has to solve."

I have never understood what is wrong with helping others no matter where on the planet they live. If we bring others up - we all rise. We are all humans. Our need should be to help all humanity and not just Americans. If spending my taxpayer dollars helps fix another human's sad situation, that is certainly a much better use of it than to upgrade a government official's flight to first class.

All humans matter. Not just the American ones.
13
Who's Natalie, Lavagirl?
14
Ken, the reason I keep going on at length demonstrating that the basis of conservative thought is the childish belief that life is fair is because you all are in such deep denial about it. Obviously, if you want to sound like a grown up manly man, you say things like "Life isn't fair, cupcake!" I'm sure you've said it plenty of times. But the fact is, you think life is fair. You literally just proved you think life is fair and I explained it to you step by step. You want to exclude immigrants from poor countries because you don't think they deserve help, because you think it's their fault they are poor.

You guys even think being born there is their fault. Which means you believe in karma and reincarnation, apparently. Or Calvinist predestination, most likely. Although obviously conservatives are hardly Christian. Pretending to be Christian is par for the course, as when you guys pretend you know that life isn't fair. Or pretend you're not racists.

You are racist as fuck and you haven't out grown your six year old's faith that all in the world is naturally as it should be. Life is not fair, babies.
15
Keep repeating his words, Dan.
You're helping him maintain control of the media with artificial "controversy".

You're only making his worldview --and control-- stronger.
16
(@14 - Psst, google "Ken Mehlman" some time... )
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@18: so you support fighting ACC with every dollar we can spare, then?

because if the equatorial zone become uninhabitable, they're coming. en masse.
21
Ken, what are you protecting us from by excluding every single Haitian solely on the basis that they are Haitian? What do you know about them?

Two things:
1. Haitians are black
2. Haiti is poor

You’re denying it’s because they’re black and doubling down on the poor conditions in Haiti. Why exclude every single person from a poor country? Because you believe it they are defective people. Their presence here would be a net drain on our resources. Instead of being productive workers, innovators, or job creators, you believe they are takers. Countries are poor because the people there are irredeemably unproductive, unimaginative and servile. You can’t accept that Haitians could have just as much potential as anyone because that would force you to admit to yourself that Haiti doesn’t deserve to be poor. And that you don’t necessarily deserve your relative wealth.

Weirdly, Norwegians know nothing but taking from the cradle. If anyone is going to come here expecting free stuff from the government, it’s immigrants from a Scandinavian socialist utopia. Haitians have hardly any idea of their government taking care of them. See how backwards you can go if you don’t let go of your six-year-old’s belief that life is fair?

Of course, Trump doesn’t want any black people. Even from places that aren’t poor. His supporters think excluding all Africans keeps us safe from defective people even if they aren’t from a poor country. They’re still black.

It’s crude and ignorant to call all predominately black countries shitholes, or a more polite term that means the same thing. But this “no blacks” policy. That’s naked racism, full stop, no qualifications. Racism, period.
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What mass immigration are you even talking about? The topic here is Trump's proposal to cut off entirely what little immigration we do allow from poor countries, specifically carving out the black people. Since we don't have mass immigration happening from Haiti or anywhere else, and no proposal to begin mass immigration is being considered, what has happened that would even draw your interest to this subject? You're here defending Trump and his "no blacks" policy.

If conservatives believed deficiencies in public health and education produced people who are detrimental to society, how come they work day and night to cut off support for public health and education? How come you guys are saying you prefer the products of socialist welfare states like Norway? You want more dyed-in-the-wool socialists coming here to vote for Scandinavian levels of taxation and government services? It makes no sense. You say people from places with poor public health and education are detrimental to the countries they emigrate to, yet why not point out the effect of millions of unhealthy, uneducated Irish pouring into the US in the 19th century? How come they didn't wreck the place? They failed the same test you say Haiti fails. What's changed? What's different? Oh, wait, I see the difference. (psst: they're black!)

If Haiti is as bad as you guys imagine, the only Haitians who grew up and lived long enough to even attempt to come here have survived on the strength of their rugged individualism. These are people who are used to a government that does little or nothing for them. You don't want them, but you'd love to have Sven and Hans, who expect big government at every turn?

It makes no sense at all. Unless... you don't care how socialist those Norwegians are. You don't care how self-reliant those Haitians are. You care about only one difference: race. You don't want the blacks. The whites, sure.

The bullshit piles even higher when you consider the defects in public health and eduction we find in rural America. Republican country. Trump's base. Are conservatives now telling us that the products of those benighted parts of the US are a drain on the system? That we don't want them? The electoral map that the Trumpers keep touting seems to indicate they value the judgement of rural America. They value the electoral college system and the congressional districting system that gives such disproportionate rights to people from areas with deficient public health and education.

What a load of racist bullshit. We see you. Everybody can see you for what you are. You're racist as fuck, and you think like a six-year-old, you think life is fair. Haitians deserve to be poor and Donald Trump deserves to be rich. You like the whites, you don't want any blacks. Simple as that.

Do go on. Keep trying to change the subject. Explain it away. Make excuses. But you're not fooling anybody.
25
Ph'nglui, once I was a twentysomething who believed life was fair, basically. Oh, I would have told you of course it's not fair, but I believed a ton of "why wouldn't they just..." that equates to a belief in a lot of fundamental fairness. Big-time cognitive dissonance.

Reading what people wrote opened my eyes, gradually. It wasn't any one thing, but it was a lot of arguments where somebody laid it out, and somebody else didn't listen for shit. But I listened a little bit, just a trickle over time.

So thanks for the work. It beats sitting around with your thumb up your ass. Because that's an awkward arm position.
26
Exactly. When you hear "why wouldn't they just...", that's a red flag: they don't really believe bad things happen to good people.
27
@26, I second Mtn. Beaver. Some of us, sometimes, need a brick to the head. Thank you for taking the time to connect the dots. Your posts sure humbled me.
29
donald trump is a horrible person. The only people who defend him are horrible people themselves, no matter how much they try to rationalize it.

30
As if Norwegians are looking to immigrate by the bucketload from a country that ranks higher than the US in just about every measurable way, except for deeply embedded, puritanical, willful ignorance.
It only might seem to us to be a thing because, we have a teeny tiny Skando neighborhood in our midst.
Also, trumpettes, Norwegians as a whole, did not do all that well the first time they actually did immigrate in a wave and more Norwegians moved back to their home country than did any other countries people.

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