Right-wing populists are exploiting the migration issue in both the United States and Europe, but dismissing their arguments would be a mistake. Instead, an honest assessment of the economic and regime-change policies that fuel migration is needed, reports Andrew Spannaus.
By Andrew Spannaus
Anti-establishment political forces in the both the United States and Europe have seized on the issue of illegal immigration, seen by many voters as a threat to both economic well-being and cultural identity, as a key component of their electoral strategies. While Donald Trump has made the wall with Mexico one of his priorities and has worked to uphold a ban on immigration from a number of Muslim nations, in Europe, numerous political parties have been following this script for many years.
Main irregular border crossing routes into Europe. Source: European Union
Drawing on the economic anxiety of the middle class, tied to fear of being undercut by low-wage work and worries concerning terrorism and cultural changes, anti-immigrant sentiment has become a key weapon of right-wing populist forces. These forces have drawn on the narrative of governing elites that pursue their own, limited interests, while seeking to hold down the majority of society through policies that rob them of both economic opportunity and their cultural heritage.
The sentiment is significant and growing, contributing to the growth in support for populist causes in a series of recent elections in Europe – including in Germany and Austria – as well as a noticeable shift in attitudes towards immigration in the past two years, even among more moderate segments of the population.
A major factor has been the recent surge in migrants coming from the Middle East and Africa – mainly the consequence of the disastrous “regime change” wars starting with the invasion of Iraq in 2003, through to the more recent conflicts in Libya and Syria – and the resulting perception of an impossible-to-stop “invasion” that is changing the character of Europe.
International organizations that deal directly with the management of undocumented migrant flows are working actively to combat this perception. They stress not only the importance of defending the human rights of migrants under international law, but also that even with the recent peak – that exceeded one million in 2015, but dropped back to below 200,000 last year – the numbers involved are manageable.
Further, migration should not be seen as a threat, but rather as an opportunity, international organizations stress.
Counter-Narrative
This approach was discussed in depth in Vienna, Austria last month, during events for the “2017 International Migrants Day” sponsored by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which works closely with the United Nations on migration.
In opening a high-level panel discussion on Dec. 19 entitled “Perception is not reality; Towards a new narrative of migration”, OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger spoke of the need to develop a counter-narrative to that currently dominating public discussion. This involves highlighting the positive contributions of migrants in economic terms, based, for example, on the circulation of skills and knowledge among different countries.
Immediately afterwards, Gervais Apparve, Special Policy Advisor to the IOM, waded into the thorny issue of the relationship between migration and globalization. Apparve began by citing Thomas Friedman’s 2005 book “The World is Flat,” which speaks of the disappearance of barriers to trade, the exchange of resources, and the transfer of capital, creating an interconnected world. Apparve lamented that this interconnectedness has not yet been extended to the area of unrestricted mobility, which for the most part remains the province only of the well-to-do.
With this comment, the IOM representative inadvertently exposed the weakness in the approach taken by international organizations: the perceived link between migration and the economic policies of globalization in recent decades.
Globalization, Migration and Paranoia
There is a widespread, and understandable, reaction against the disappearance of barriers in areas such as trade and the transfer of capital, which have had negative effects for many in the Western world. The reduction of regulations on commerce and finance has often allowed large corporations to exploit low-cost labor and prioritize short-term financial gain over stable investment. The result has been a race to the bottom in numerous sectors, entailing job losses, instability and poverty for the (former) middle class.
Yet, the attempt to create a positive attitude towards migrants from impoverished areas by linking their plight to globalization can inadvertently stoke fears that migration is part of a deliberate process to lower the living standards of wide segments of the population, creating competition for scarce resources among those who are unable to access the massive wealth being concentrated near the top of society.
The organizations that seek to combat negative views of migration seem reluctant to recognize that aiming to build a positive narrative by emphasizing benefits rather than risks is not enough. Indeed, changing negative views without dealing with the underlying political and economic problems that fuel the current turmoil could prove impossible.
In political terms, the relationship is obvious. Opposition to political elites, as well as “political correctness,” is often linked to distrust of the elites’ economic policies. Indeed almost all of the populist groups that promote anti-immigration views also draw on economic discontent. In Europe, they attack European Union economic policies, just as outsiders attack Wall Street in the United States.
Although their solutions may be circumspect, it would be a mistake to call anti-establishment forces insincere, or to dismiss them as lacking serious policy proposals. Instead, the issues they raise should be tackled directly.
If governments ignore the issues, they contribute to the image of a political class refusing to admit mistakes, an image all too easily exploited by right-wing populists. The elite’s head-in-the-sand approach confirms the criticism from outsiders that status quo politicians are avoiding accountability and blocking change, which opens the door to whomever effectively identifies the problems felt by the population, regardless of whether they propose valid alternatives or not.
Reality-Based Discussion
On the issue of migration, moving towards what the international community calls a “reality-based discussion,” i.e. avoiding exaggerated fears that fuel racist attitudes and closure, will be difficult without facing head on the negative effects of economic globalization in recent decades, as well as the results of foreign interventions and regime change wars in the Middle East and North Africa.
As Swiss parliamentarian and chair of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Ad Hoc Committee on Migration Filippo Lombardi recently stated, policymakers must “honestly assess the political mistakes of recent years,” which have destabilized so many countries and created the conditions for mass migration from Africa and the Middle East.
“Only such an honest and responsible approach can lead to solving the crisis we are now facing,” he said.
Seeking to shift the overall view of migration from negative to positive, the new narrative of the international community is based on several assertions: first of all, that migration is perfectly normal, it has always existed, and neither can nor should be stopped. Indeed, the overall number of migrants to Europe, including those who move for work, study or family reasons, remains at a level of over two million per year; thus a few hundred thousand undocumented arrivals should be entirely manageable in this context.
The goal expressed by many participants in the Vienna event, for example, is to eliminate the distinction made between those who come through official channels, and the migrants who arrive undocumented, making the dangerous journey through Northern Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. This is not an easy sell with public opinion at this time though, as in the latter case the cost of the migrants’ survival is covered by the public welfare system, in the hope they will eventually be integrated into society and the work force.
This brings us to another argument: that migrants actually provide a positive contribution to the economy, with many European countries’ low birth rates lagging below replacement levels and the population aging rapidly. An influx of younger workers from other nations contributes to rebalancing the workforce in demographic terms, thus avoiding a situation in which the ratio of active workers to retirees becomes so low as to call into question the sustainability of pension and welfare systems.
Beyond Narratives
While the aging of European populations is a problem, here again there are some hidden assumptions that indicate the need for a deeper policy shift, beyond simply “changing the narrative.” Demographic surveys confirm that people marry and put off having children in part due to economic circumstances. Improving the financial prospects of young workers, or getting them out of the ranks of the unemployed, could have a rapid impact on birth rates and population trends in general.
It is also somewhat cynical to claim that poor immigrants provide a positive economic contribution based on the fact that they are willing to work low-wage jobs. It’s one thing to encourage the fruitful exchange of skills and knowledge among different populations, or celebrate diversity as a way of enriching culture; it is quite another to undermine wages by ensuring a vast pool of desperate workers available at any time.
This contradiction brings the discussion back to the economic policies associated with globalization, putting both low-wage European workers and migrants in the same boat, so to speak. Playing destitute migrants against unemployed Europeans is not a recipe for social cohesiveness; rather, it shows the deeper policy problems facing the Western world as a whole.
A return to an approach based on promoting a decent standard of living even among those doing labor-intensive jobs, could go a long way towards reducing the fears in European nations regarding the arrival of undocumented migrants. Extending such an approach globally, by making a serious commitment to combatting poverty in the least developed countries around the world, would also change the equation for many migrants, making migration a choice rather than a necessity in order to survive.
Andrew Spannaus is a journalist and strategic analyst based in Milan, Italy. He is the founder of Transatlantico.info, that provides news and analysis to Italian institutions and businesses. He has published the books “Perché vince Trump” (Why Trump is Winning – June 2016) and “La rivolta degli elettori” (The Revolt of the Voters – July 2017).
War is a resultant, failed politics coupled to greed and avarice.
The innocent suffer death and total destruction of their way of life and the result is refugees and poverty migrating to escape it.
WWII saw 2/3 of the deaths being civilians caught in war, Vietnam and the Middle East reflect the same numbers.
It isn’t “regime change or globalization” that destroys and kills people for gain of economic slavery. It is the 1% owning the wealth to own governments and the clandestine subversive agencies necessary to create chaos through deceit and lies necessary to cause war.
Thanks, Joe. We are a country of immigrants, except for the Indians who preceded us! I love the ethnic enclaves and neighborhoods, and hope each one retains much of its original culture; because really it’s hard to identify what is American culture. Thank goodness for all that American Blacks have contributed in music and dance — especially the old blues, jazz, rag, and tap. That IS America and without it, what would we be known for? That is, aside from gross capitalism, wars, and regime change!
Very nice of you to comment, Joe. Cherish your ethnicity as well as your assimilation, as all should. Maybe that will be key to holding onto it.
As they say, when in Rome do as the Romans do. Although, you must admit us Italians won the love of Americans with our delicious food… pizza, pasta, and red wine. Now that’s Italian. Stay well Virginia. Joe
That’s right. Italian food, …one of my all time favorite cuisines. I can eat it when nothing else will do! I forgot that huge contribution to America! Tell me, was pizza really invented there, or here? I will say Americans have been good at innovating. As English, Dutch and Irish, I didn’t grow up with a particular culture. Ballroom and Elvis were about it! It’s of later years that I began a great interest in what each group has to offer, but I want none that is good extinguished. Years ago I thought I had originated the phrase “diversity in unity.” Still, I like it — both diversity and unity.
And oops, we must never forget baseball!
I will just say this Virginia, about Italians and Pizza. On New Years Eve 1971 another sailor and I walked, and then walked a lot more the streets of Genova Italy until we found a pizza shop. It was a beautiful brick oven pizza shop, but it was like the only one we could find at that time. I would agree pizza maybe Italian, but it’s popularity is definitely American. Why am I hungry for a pizza all of a sudden? Joe
Tomatoes were one of the “New World” foods brought by the Conquistadors to Europe. Potatoes and squashes, too. But I’ve often wondered what Italian cuisine was like before the tomato was brought over.
Thank you, Andrew Spannaus, for this very thorough thought provoking article. The discussion that followed it is also very important. Given that MSM usually doesn’t provide for comments and discussion, that makes this site all the more valuable. I’m a nationalist myself, which doesn’t mean I’m against all immigration. But I’m very much saddened that people very unlike the citizens of countries they are migrating to are allowed to do so with no regard for culture, established societies, families, ethics and mores. Yes, it will mean the dissolution of Western society if something isn’t done to stop it. No good can come of mixing all grades of people together. But the elite globalist seem to have this in mind while they reserve for themselves places of greatest luxury for camaraderie among themselves.
Virginia you needn’t make any excuses for being a Nationalist. Why, a nationalist may just be the perfect companion for a new immigrant to learn the American lifestyle ways. You Virginia only want things to remain orderly, and no doubt believe our culture should be respected as well. In my mind, there is nothing wrong with that.
Okay story time, my Italian grandma, demanded that her children speak English, so as she might learn this new language. The same grandma who wore black after her husband died, was eventually convinced by her American born daughters to wear colors instead of the morning black, because that’s what we do now that we are living in America. Yes, we kept many of our customs, but we also became Americans. First the children by going to school. Then grandma by going to the market, and pap by going to work. It all worked out for the good, and we still have connections to our original Italian relatives in Italy.
Nothing wrong with being who you are Virginia. In fact we could use more Americans such as yourself, because you show kindness in your thought, and you serve it up with a clear conscience. Joe
The European people had better darn sure know what it is they want for the futures of their countries before leaving the critical decisions on immigrants and refugees to their politicians. Do they want to be Santa Claus to the whole world and deprive their children and grandparents guaranteed social programs to support a big influx of immigrants? Do they want to rigorously enforce a strict egalitarian code even at the expense of their own ethnic identity and long term existence? Do they think immigration from any and every source is the solution to their negative population growth and will keep the social welfare systems flush with revenues? Or, do they want to preserve their own unique gene pool and cultural traditions as long into the future as possible? There is lots to consider. If the rank and file citizenry of Germany, Sweden and Britain want to open their doors wide to all comers, who am I to chide them? I don’t live there, even though a sizable percentage of my genome is from these places. Likewise, I would not tell Poland, present home to my Kashubian ancestors of the Baltic coast, that they must open their borders because imperious Brussels insists that they do. Just be aware of the fact that demographers now project that Italians will become a minority in their own country by the year 2080 if migration trends and birth rates do not change. The whole issue of whether the enormous influx of black African and Middle Eastern settlers into Italy will assimilate into Italian culture, a persistent balkanization of the country will emerge or if the Italian population will be forced to acculturate to the newcomers, most of whom are Islamic, is discussed in this paper:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-18/incredible-shrinking-population-2080-italians-will-be-minority-their-own-nation
One of the major tenets of globalization and the New World Order is to increase “migration”. The whole of Western Civilization will be lost.
This forced immigration problem seems like a huge infrastructure program would fix this issue, of unwanted migration. For instance, why not rebuild what we helped destroy in the Middle East. China appears to have the right idea with their OBOR program, and when implemented many nations who participated will be the better for it.
I can’t see how any other solution to these wandering refugees will work, unless we fix what we broke. I’d also prefer that the U.S. rip a page out of China’s handbook, and build infrastructure over blowing things up all the time.
Maybe I’m over simplifying this problem, but my thoughts would seem at least worth reviewing for a solution. Joe
Initially, it was Hillary Clinton and Sidney Blumenthal who together, concocted a convincing story that cajoled Obama into bombing Libya. Gaddafi warned the West and I quote him “You’re idiots, and you will burn in Hell for thousands of migrants from Africa and for supporting Al-Qaeda. It will be so. I never lie. And I do not lie now,” and so his predictions came to pass! Secondly, preserving the fiat system controlled by western banking cartels (Federal Reserve) compelled the Obama administration to destroy Gaddafi’s gold backed currency plans. There were commodity speculators who added their voice to the war mantra, based on known but yet vastly unexplored oil riches, and third, his removal from office would flood the EU with cheap labor thus dissolving minimum wage law, working conditions and the the dissolution of significant numbers of middle class jobs. Those jobs, preserved by generations of organized labor strikes and dispute resolution(s). Finally, in my opinion, it was Gaddafi who successfully tapped a deep underground water resource that, over time, would have fed all of Africa with bumper crops of grains grown in the southern areas of Libya. The “culture of death clique” who preserve and promote Malthusian ideas and government policies in the Western Occident found this to be an intolerable situation! R.I.P. colonel, you weren’t such a bad actor after all…
Yep. Gaddafi had built the “Great Manmade River,” which was an irrigation project that tapped into a gigantic aquifer and had turned vast swaths of the Sahara Desert into verdant farmland. When we served as the Terrorists’ air force and bombed Libya, we specifically targeted that irrigation system. And then, just to make sure that the famine we were creating would last for decades, we also bombed the factories where replacement parts were manufactured.
According to those emails between HRC and Blumenthal, it was Sarkozy who first proposed the time was right to destroy Libya, but clearly it was a group effort. The three goals specified were:
1. Steal the Oil
2. Steal the gold/silver to prevent Libya’s gold-backed pan-African Dinar currency
3. Prevent Libya from establishing an African development bank to compete with the IMF/World Bank. In fact, a Rothschild Central Bank was established before the ‘provisional government.” They have their priorities!
In summary then, the true objective was to use Gaddafi to dismember Europe, to cause cultural and religious frictions, huge population dislocations, union busting, terror acts and keep the USD on top. Instead of adopting a policy of negotiation with the BRICS -SCO and their basket of currencies concept (gold backed), our banksters chose just the opposite path. There will be hell to pay for this kind of economic leadership, if indeed that’s what it is. In my estimation the same Intel operatives who pulled off Gaddafi’s murder and Libya’s destruction are just as eager to do the same thing here in the US-this all began with JFK’s murder. These guys are a border-less, lawless, well funded group of highly intelligent gangsters with a single goal in mind, turn the world’s countries into a homogeneous, sovereign-less, mass of impoverished peoples without cash to remain free, just a ID card that the banksters can suspend, at any time and for any reason.
Migration is part of a deliberate process to lower the living standards of wide segments of the population.
https://youtu.be/LPjzfGChGlE
never forget: Africa is rich, they have rare earth, oil, diamonds, land to grow food etc, but the money doesnt stay in the countries, they get ripped off by corrupt politicians in collaboration with big corrupt companies and the rich countries, and so the african (etc) people have no money for infrastructure like hospitals and schools etc. To keep the status quo a lot of arms and IT to supress the people and maintain corrupt politicians is sold to those countries.
Why not talk about that from time to time? people flee conditions, that are maintained by the countries and corporations, that cry about the extreme migration…
but they dont wanna change that. the bad conditions are to be imported too…slowly and steady… see Greece, is all i can say.
and about population explosion: in europe birthrate is declining because of poisons (endocrine disruptors) and because the women have medical aid and education. give this or allow the money of their richness to be invested in this kind of infrastructure and their birthrate will decline too (but spare them the endocrine disruptors;).
The African continent is still much of a mystery to me. I’d like to share some references I have been collecting on the subject[0-28].
[0] 44. Africa – TTC | Youtube
[1] General History of Africa Vols 1-8 | Unesco
[2] The African Experience | TTC-The Great Courses
[3] The Africans | David Lamb
[4] Africa’s Great Civilizations episodes 1-4 | Youtube
[5] Lost Kingdoms of Africa episodes 1-4 | Youtube
[5] The Fight Against Slavery episodes 1-3 | Youtube
[6] Ancient Africa, A History Denied | Youtube
[7] Wonders of the African World episodes 1-6 | Youtube
[8] Ancient Africa’s Golden Times | Youtube
[9] History of Africa, Parts 1,2,3.1,3.2,3.3 | Youtube
[10] The Causes of Conflict in Africa | Consultation Document | UK Government Website
[11] The Roots of African Conflicts: The Causes & Costs of War in Africa | Paul Tiyambe Zeleza
[12] The Causes & Dynamics of Conflict in Subsaharan Africa | Arthur T. Moe | 2009
[13] 549 Conflicts in Africa: Meaning, Causes, Impact and Solution | Aremu | 2006
[14] Why Are There So Many Civil Wars in Africa? | Ibrahim Elbadawi| 2000
[15] Natural Resources & Conflicts in Africa | Abiodun Alao | 2007
[16] List of conflicts in Africa – Wikipedia
[17] Shaka Zulu, Black Napoleon
[18] The Boer War 1899 – 1902 | Youtube
[19] The Other Boer War – The First Boer War of 1880 – 1881 | Youtube
[20] In Zululand with the British Throughout the War of 1879 | Charles Norris-Newman
[21] Cecil Rhodes | Dr Jameson
[22] Lord Cromer: A Biography | HD Traill
[23] Al Madhi and Britain | Youtube
[24] Gordon of Khartoum | Youtube
[25] Kitchener in the Soudan | GA Henty
[26] Life of Lord Kitchener | George Arthur
[27] The Art of the Possible: TE Lawrence & Coaltion Liaison | Curtis Milan | 2001
[28] US Africa Command | Sean McFate | 2008
and the African Union which may soon include Haiti[29]:
[29] African Union Handbook | 2014
Please take 17 minutes to watch this amazing TedTalk about Africa by Mallence Bart-Williams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfnruW7yERA
Once we found out about Weapons of Mass Destruction[1],
and complex Weapons of Financial Destruction[2,3],
we learned about Weapons of Mass Instruction[4]
Now, we see Weapons of Mass Migration[5]
What were government officials and prominent businessmen thinking? [6]
Now that Republicans have signed on for more ‘guns'[7],
Democrats insist on more ‘butter'[8].
It’s incredible to watch our tax dollars at work around the world,
as real wages shrink, prices rise, national debt soars and tax dollars go missing[9,10].
Personally, I’m ready for a tax regime change(my axe to grind) that eliminates
income taxes and sales taxes, something like [11,12] with some upward limit on inheritance,
but tax revenues that are distributed to the community level and then
bubble up through municipal & State legislatures to the national level,
where lobbying becomes decentralized, the propaganda megaphone toned down
and more attuned to community issues.
[1] Dying Iraq War Veteran Tomas Young Reacts to George W. Bush Joke About Missing WMDs | Youtube
[2] Financial weapons of mass destruction | Finance & Capital Markets | Youtube
[3] All the Plenary’s Men | Youtube
[3] Before You Send Your Child to Public School | Youtube
[5] Who Is REALLY Behind the EU Migrant Crisis? – Newsbud Roundtable | Youtube
[6] Our Leaders Are Psychopaths | Corbett Report | Youtube
[7] Paul Ryan touts increase in military spending | Youtube
[8] Senator Bernie Sanders: There Is Widespread Support For Compromise | Youtube
[9] Catherine Austin Fitts: 21 Trillion Missing From Pentagon / DOD Announces Audit Under Trump | Youtube
[10] Pigs Fly As Pentagon Gets Audited – #NewWorldNextWeek | Youtube
[11] APT Tax | Youtube
[12] Automated Payment Transaction tax | Wikipedia
Grete Mautner asks the question, was the Arab Spring worth it, after all it bore 15 million refugees?
https://journal-neo.org/2018/01/21/what-are-the-results-of-the-so-called-arab-spring/
F William Engdahl reports on Germany’s forcing upon the Visegrád countries an ultimatum whereas the Visegrád countries must accept refugees. Will this lead to the break up of the EU?
https://journal-neo.org/2018/01/21/the-refugee-dilemma-germany-plays-economic-chicken-with-central-europe/
Absolutely. Regime Change executed by Bush and Obama and Clinton in Bosnia were all Crimes against Humanity and those three Pepsodents should be in The Hague. Trump, His Tweetlyness , as well but he’s really not to blame since he so obviously is an effete, hedonistic puppet for the MIC , NeoCons in the Press and the Intelligence Community. After all, he thought he was better than this. Realizing a childhood fantasy to become President isn’t suppose to play out like this even though it always does. It’s not in the job description, IT’S JUST THE PILL THEY ALL HAVE TO SWALLOW.
It’s refreshing to read an article (like AS’s above) — on a liberal/progressive website like CN — where some criticism of the economics of the current immigration situation can be discussed WITHOUT people reactively being accused of being racists. Too often the racism charge is simply a naive knee-jerk response to immigration discussions, OR (when done by manipulative politicians) a distractionary tactic to divert attention from the larger discussion of pre-emptive wars/regime changes/’military actions/humanitarian interventions’ — many by the US — that UNCONSCIONABLY CREATE so many of the desperate, most-troubled refugees. Additionally, as well-noted in above comments, there are the inter-relationships with globalization, which is already reducing the number of jobs at the low-end of the employment world (and eventually the upper-end, because how many companies will continue to hire expensive white-collar workers in the US when — with NO rules to prevent them — they can just as easily go to a 3rd world country and get the same tasks done?) in conjunction with automation.
With the right-wing ‘conservatives’ in ascendancy since St Ronnie’s reign started in 1980, and their subsequent assimilation of virtually all Democratic national leaders, we are apparently moving towards an economy based on a large mass of unemployed/underemployed people, with diminishing govt benefits available, with a militaristic govt and non-progressive tax system.
One point that I didn’t like in this article was the seeming justification for European population growth near the end that “…avoiding a situation in which the ratio of active workers to retirees becomes so low as to call into question the sustainability of pension and welfare systems”. I think most individuals in most countries — IF presented with the advantages/disadvantages of a large influx of unskilled (and thus low-income) immigrants, vs pension & welfare systems, would favor some sort of DOMESTIC solution (ie; higher taxes, and/or slightly reduced benefits) as opposed to the ‘immigration solution’. I get very tired of reading about how societies have to supposedly adjust to the capitalist system instead of the other way around! Economic systems are a human construct — there’s nothing ‘natural’ or ‘innate’ about them, be it capitalism, socialism, communism, fascism, or whichever ‘-ism’ you choose — it’s created and managed by human intentionality. We need to be making these systems conform to our society, NOT vice-versa. We can’t keep growing/expanding our population in order to supposedly invigorate an economic system, when population growth is already creating environmental destruction, global warming, and resource wars.
Having a family owned business, and all the obstacles that come with it, I once said to my Dad, ‘we should be running the business instead of us allowing the business to run us’. This observation turned out for our family business to be the exact day the earth for us changed course, and we then began to run the business instead of letting the business run us.
Eddie, you make a valid point, because all of this in regard to migration of refugees should have been better well thought out. For instance, why can’t this be a UN problem, or better yet, why not make those guilty of breaking international law, with illegal invasions, be made to make reparations? Wouldn’t it be better to fund a rebuilding project in these countries where we had illegally violated their sovereignty with our invasions? Would not the refugee be thrilled to return to their homeland, and get a job rebuilding their devastated nation? Don’t just send food, send seeds, so as the recipient may grow a lifetime garden, rather than having them wait for the relief truck to arrive.
Finally quit with the playing of the race card to when someone voices concern, or shows angst towards the arrival of these unexpected, and not necessarily wanted refugees when they arrive.
If your brothers house had burned down, and you offered for him to stay with you, how long would be considered to long before you would be tired of your overstayed brother? Wouldn’t you at least think to help rebuild his burned out home? How long would you feed your refugee brother until you would be expecting him to chip in on food purchases? Maybe, thinking this through with everyday examples could at least help to understand ourselves, but by making this into a black and white issue ‘literally’ we all lose something of coalescing value.
Oh one more thing, you were the one who lit the match that burned down your brothers house…forgot to add that part.
Good comment Eddie, just thought I’d throw my comment in behind yours…good going. Joe
Thanks Joe — that’s a good analogy you cited about (intentionally) burning your brother’s house down and the different situations it would create! As you noted, even in a situation like that, involving blood relatives, patience wears thin and people’s nerves get frayed. You mirrored a lot of the ideas that I (and obviously a number of others on this site) share, regarding refugees — most of us liberal/progressives/whatever label we fall under are sympathetic to their plight, but we want to see our governments try to first PREVENT the casual creation of these poor souls, desperately living in the their tent cities in abysmal conditions. As you also correctly noted, most of them were/are NOT interested in emigrating but are fleeing for their lives from wars that many-times are fomented by our leaders for non-defensive reasons. But too often our US leaders want to bomb-bomb-bomb and destroy infrastructure (which of course is against the UN charter, as are pre-emptive wars) in a terror campaign under the insidious ‘humanitarian intervention’ ruse, and then ignore the refugees they’ve created or try to guilt/coerce other countries into taking them. (“We did our part and destroyed much of their infrastructure, now YOU can absorb the hundreds of thousands of refugees we’ve created and deal with them for the next 50 yrs or whatever it takes to enculturate them.”)
PS – I always enjoy reading your comments, especially your references to the wide range of experiences you’ve had and how you can intertwine them into concepts.
Smart people do dumb things, I’m sure you’ve heard this before Eddie. I bought a house where the drain in the the garage was stuffed up. The previous owners, both he and her engineers, installed a pump, to pump out the water. I then came along, and had the drain replaced. It’s not that I’m smarter, I actually thought the pump thing was kind of cool, but it didn’t fix the initial problem. So, that’s the problem when we fix, or try to fix, everything around a core problem. Like a doctor relieving you of the constant headache by his working on your feet…actually that might work, but for the sake of examples use this one as how we go to great lengths to fix something, while instead working on the symptoms of the core problem, and not what’s causing the problem itself.
Thanks for the compliment Eddie, I like reading all these comments, sometimes even the trolls can be fun to read …..stay good Eddie. Joe
freidmans book is sh*t.Another zionist tome.The author of this article been ashamed to include it.
Amazing that discussion of immigration hasn’t fingered the reasons for the crisis, first globalization and then the chaos created by the disastrous regime change invasions promoted by the “Wolfowitz Doctrine”. Ajamu Baraka spoke of this recently on Black Agenda Report, saying we should force the warmongers right out in front and expose them as cause of the crisis, and groups are starting to organize. Let Kristol, Perle, Wolfie, Cheney, etc. do their own damn fighting if they’re so enthused, those chickenhawks! Good article, about time this conversation leaves the realm of problem description and goes to root of problem.
The NWO plan is going along as ” planned” in the US, Europe and parts of Africa and the ME. USG plan to keep the populace preoccupied with war, scandals, shutdowns, racism etc. is working. So is the plan to depopulate North America that no one is seeing. The scenario is textbook by now – shock troops and awe is the police state and false flags, all the leaking nuclear waste sites and reactors are a good start but the best one was the sabotage at Fukushima that has poisoned the Pacific and sent plumes of radiation in the atmosphere weekly. Of course the climate change weapons have done immense damage as in helping those radiation plumes reach the states as fast as that polar vortex can be pushed, not to mention that they create tsunamis. The ” Rad Readings” in most of our major cities are off the charts but you won’t know this unless you understand where to find out those readings – look up what Chernobyl did to the people caught in the plume and Xs by 100. Fukushima had 3 China syndromes and they are still puking out. The War started decades ago and the Americans are in the most fatal denial of their lives. These are my thoughts – and these are the facts –its not fun.
The more people continue to discuss issues like globalization, immigration, the outsourcing of jobs, debate the necessity of endless wars, wonder why there are refugees, the more the elite will tighten the screws on the Internet. This is already happening and will only get worse. They do not want people to be discussing these issues. This is their turf and the riffraff are not wanted here.
“More than 100 non-government organizations (NGOs) and government agencies around the world help police YouTube for extremist content, ranging from so-called hate speech to terrorist recruiting videos.
All of them have confidentiality agreements barring Google, YouTube’s parent company, from revealing their participation to the public, a Google representative told The Daily Caller on Thursday.
A handful of groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and No Hate Speech, a European organization focused on combating intolerance, have chosen to go public with their participation in the program, but the vast majority have stayed hidden behind the confidentiality agreements. Most groups in the program don’t want to be publicly associated with it, according to the Google spokesperson, who spoke only on background.”
They don’t have to give a reason why you are shut down. The “thought police” are here!
Here’s the link for the above article:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-20/google-has-actual-secret-speech-police
Globalisation of the labour market might have played some part in the recent wave of immigration into Europe, but that was not the main motivation for that policy.
There’s some truth in the idea that the business elite encouraged immigration because they wanted cheap labour that could be played off against low paid European workers. However, even those supporters of globalisation would have preferred a more controlled flow of foreign labour than the sudden influx that happened a couple of years ago.
It just wasn’t possible to provide the necessary training, work and language skills that was required for the million “asylum seekers” that moved to Germany in such a short period of time. Instead of being integrated into the labour market, they became marginalised and a burden on the economy. That’s something that the business elite does not generally like.
The real reason why Chancellor Merkel opened the gates to all immigrants in September 2015 can be seen in what was happening in Syria at that time.
The danger that hardline Islamists like IS and Al-Nusra would take power was so great that even the leader of America’s Kurdish allies, Saleh Islam was warning that the overthrow of Assad would be a disaster. By the end of that month, Assad’s position was getting so weak that Russia felt compelled to send in its forces to support him, for the first time after first four and a half years of war .
So the effect of Merkel’s action was to drain Syria of many its most productive and useful people, just at the time when it needed them for its survival. To most western governments, the “Assad must go” policy was more important than the disaster that might follow his overthrow.
That’s why announced that there was no upper limit to the number of asylum seekers allowed into Germany. She was luring Syrians who were productive and educated and seeking good jobs, or who wished to avoid military service in a war zone.
Of course, Merkel’s supporters – and even many of her pseudo-liberal critics – would say that she acted on purely humanitarian grounds. That’s very unlikely, considering that she never showed much concern for the victims of all the other wars she supported. Neither did she ever have much enthusiasm for multi-culturalism, which she had previously described as “dead” and nothing more than a delusion.
Correction of my comment.Many of the older refugees are illiterate and will not find a way into the labor market.Concerning undocumented immigrants especially from sub-Saharan Africa: Are they really all decent people who just want to make a living? Who knows what they did in their home countries? Were they mass murderers or torturers? Who knows that? If there is no certified identity one will never find out.And all the mass migrations in the past never went without bloodshed.European migration to the Americas,the Vikings,the Mongols to Europe,the Romans,the Arabs to North Africa and many more.That’s human nature.Since mankind began to walk the planet have been gory fights for resources and the destruction of the environment.Who really and honestly wants to change that.Maybe there are peoples who want to change that but who begins?
Theo – yes, you can’t have free immigration AND a welfare state. It doesn’t work because if you provide incentives, people will come to get them! Years ago, when the Europeans came to North America, there was no welfare state. Your ethnic community might have helped you out, but that was it. Jobs were plentiful then, though, factories were humming, and all that was required was low-skilled labor, which is what these immigrants were.
Today is a whole different ball game. Low-skilled immigrants are competing with low-skilled citizens for fewer and fewer jobs, and more supply than demand keeps the wages down. Great for business.
The immigrants coming from Africa are economic migrants. They are being picked up by NGO boats (probably George Soros money) right off the coast of Libya and then taken to Italy. This is a well-orchestrated operation. Again, the governments could be stopping this, but they are not trying very hard, are they? They only pretend to want to stop it.
Thomas Friedman’s book “The World is Flat” is mentioned in the above article. This is what they want, a one-world government, no borders, no cultures, no traditions, low wages. The new feudalism.
Tradition and culture, a sense of country and belonging is important. It is what has been passed down from generation to generation. I worry that we won’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone.
These people (globalists/internationalists) must be stopped.
Thanks backwardsevolution for your answer.Your are absolutely right about European immigrants and welfare benefits.A brother of my grandfather was a sailor on a ship left it when it came to New York in 1910! . He left it and entered illegally American soil.Right away he went to the authorities saying I want to stay in America what do I have to do.I have nothing but I’m 18 years old and strong.They asked if he had problems with sea sickness.He said no.They told him to join the navy.And that’s what he did.After the service he got American citizenship.He married got children and earned his way into American society.And as you can imagine it wasn’t always easy.But he never came in conflict with the law.During the depression in the thirties he was an active member of the miner’s union.He became a true blue working class American.Never visited Germany.These immigrants were quite different from those who come now.They don’t ask what can I do for your country.They come sometimes even forcefully and say here we are and we want welfare benefits decent housing free top health care and you have to put up with our way of living like it or not.There was even a so called Sharia police in one of our cities who harassed Muslim people who didn’t live up to the rules of the Koran.Do we really need this kind of people? We shouldn’t wage war in faraway countries.We shouldn’t export chicken parts to Africa (highly subsidized)which nobody wants to eat in Europe and destroy local farming and agriculture.We should commit to fair trade deals with poor countries we should not sell arms to who ever pays for it.Wouldn’t that be great?But that’s a pipedream.And yes the mass migration is indeed big business.Even here Germany.For building contractors,private security firms,catering firms who supply the big refugee camps etc.But it is tax money and not private money.
The author hides behind seeming journalistic neutrality that is anything but. When he speaks of the apparent indifference of elites to the problems created by open borders or their position on regime change which is at the root of most of the Middle East mass migration to Europe these past several years, he is hiding. The reality is actual indifference on the part of the elites. The populists have got it right. And there is no sign of that indifference to realities on the ground abating. A couple of weeks ago at his press conference with visiting President Erdogan of Turkey, Emmanuel Macron explained very precisely that he stands by the USA in seeing an end to the Syrian crisis only after Assad is gone. In other words, France stands shoulder to shoulder with the USA on regime change and refuses to recognize that Russia, Iran and Turkey are now the guarantors of Syria’s constitutional change ahead.
It is one of the ironies of our age that the cause of European or American workers is being defended by the conservative Right. Once upon there were labor unions in the United States with some political muscle who were the backers of restrictions on immigration. The Republicans, being the party of the bosses, took the opposite stand. Now the labor unions in the USA are mostly dead. Why the much stronger European unions are silent on this issue beats me.
The author is also obviously a blind believer in the merits of cultural diversity. There he is at one with the elites and their political correctness. On the ground it doesn’t look so pretty, especially in Europe. The largely Muslim composition of the latest immigration wave creates real and not phony issues in all of Europe because Europe is going through an identity crisis and rampant atheism is killing off the most salient and durable element in the national and European identity.
Gilbert, I’m going to jump into the conversation here if you don’t mind to support your thought about cultural diversity.
I have come to realize that the single great advantage that America has, is that it truly is, “the melting pot”. Of course, business has taken advantage of this through low wages and dangerous work-place conditions and that must be a constant struggle between the workers and owner/management. My object here is to point out the often surprising advantages of cultural mixing.
Agriculture is the primary business where I live because of the local conditions. We have an excellent agricultural university which was principally endorsed by “industry standards” (read as corporate farming or efficiency). While one can’t deny the many innovations derived be academic research, there were disasters as well like tasteless foods. Because of the Vietnam War, we received large populations of refugees, and with them came their long history of farming skills. Over time, and often illegally, they demonstrated the advantage of small, sustainable farming which helped restore the “flavor” that had been sidelined by Corprate farming. That insight, has now been embraced by academia and is responsible for a new sense of sustainability. Truly a win/win scenario.
Interesting article.But when we speak about refugees coming to Europe we speak about refugees coming to Germany.That’s their target country because of our sumptuous welfare system.Every sixth welfare recipient is a refugee (family) who arrived after 2015.Apart from Scandinavian countries no other European country has taken so many refugees as Germany.The Baltic states have taken refugees but they didn’t want to apply for asylum there because the welfare benefits were not as sumptuous.There is a cherry picking which I understand.Who wouldn’t if they have the chance? But to understand the anxieties of the people one has to know that many of the older refugees are illiterate and will find a way into the labor market.There aren’t many doctors or scientists or engineers among the migrants.Here in Germany we have already parallel societies in the Muslim community where Sharia law is illegally practiced.These are closed circles to which the German judiciary and law enforcement lost access completely.And nobody wants that.For outsiders who don’t have to cope with these challenges it’s easy to point a finger.This finger pointing mostly comes from countries which have no refugees at all.Huge challenges are still to come.Affordable housing for example and job opportunities infrastructure and so on.And the low income taxpayer has to shoulder this.He is certainly not amused.The rich elite reap the benefits and dump the huge burden on the rest.The populists regretfully benefit from it.To say these challenges are manageable is easier said than done.And by the way: Germany didn’t join the coalition of the willing in the Iraq war nor was it party of the regime change bombing spree in Libya.
Germany is still constrained by that ugliness and horror of Hitler, or they too would be in the slaughter. Despite being the richest country in Europe, their military budget is only 1.2% of GDP, about a third of the US. Even pitiful Greece spends 2.8% on military funding (probably for protecting German banksters).
Thank you Theo, for saying it so well. Once again Germany takes crap from people too stupid to look in the mirror. Germany stayed out, as you said, of the fake “War on Terror” started here in the USA. A twice non-elected “President” and his evil twin Cheney are the two more well known instigators of this. For more names, read Kevin Ryan’s “Another Nineteen”. I have always said to put all the poor refugees driven out of their own homeland ( where they would rather live) onto the multiple properties of W. and Cheney. Let these two evil pieces of shit look at all of them every day. And when these two pass away, the poor refugees get to keep the properties.
Thanks geeyp for your answer.You know when I went to school in the sixties we were taught that no German soldier must ever set foot again on foreign soil.The defense begins at our borders and not for example in Afghanistan.And that lecture sticks till today.Especially the older folks are terrified when they hear that German troops are involved in military operations abroad.I remember well when NATO troops started to bomb Serbia in the nineties with support of German jetfighters.My father was outraged.How dare they.We once came as aggressors and bombed Serbia and now we do it again.They said they must put an end to the atrocities.But German military should be no part of it.We have no right.And that’s an unwritten agreement in Germany.
The allies and the Sovjets were much worse than the Nazi’s. I know that this shouldn’t be written but it is the naked truth. Germany never bombed cities like the US did in Germany, Germany never locked up prisoners in meadows for years like the Americans did. Germany never killed tens of millions of people like the Sovjets did. Germany has never dropped a nuclear bomb like the US did twice, on a country that wanted to surrender. Germany did not invent the labour camps like the English did.
Germany was the only country with a decent economy, good housing and many jobs, to the horror of Britain and France. Even with their vast colonies their people lived a much poorer live than the Germans, which shows how corrupt their leadership must have been. Their fear was that their citizens would demand what was already the norm in Germany.
By destroying the biggest European army the Americans have de facto conquered Europe twice.
I have a list to remind me not to “reply” to GW Deniers, but this extended post has shown me that some of them are living in ga-ga land in other ways as well. I can’t imagine what contortions this person has gone through to be able to ignore/warp reality in such a multitude of ways.
Antares, Please read MASTER OF SPIES by Frantisek Morivek, a Czech spy who uncovered what Germany was doing leading up to WWII, and into it. In fact, I recommend this fascinating book to all. For example, Morivek lays out the false flags Germany planted, the likes of which we see copied today, as in so-called “Assad chemical assaults on Syria’s own citizens.” No way, Jose!
Theo – I completely agree with you. “For outsiders who don’t have to cope with these challenges it’s easy to point a finger.” Yes, and don’t they point! And don’t they throw their fellow citizens under the bus while they do it! They elevate the importance of non-citizens over their own countrymen. It’s like they think that the louder they cry out for diversity (and the more diverse, the better!), the more points they’ll score on the stairway to Heaven or something.
I like what Trump has done. I like that he used the word “sh*thole” because it threw a monkey wrench in the works and made everybody sit up and listen. Andrew Klavan said in his article entitled “Of Crudeness and Truth”:
“Enter President Donald Trump. He is a rude and crude person. He speaks like a Queens real estate guy on a construction site. And because he does not have good manners, he thoughtlessly breaks the rules with which the Left has sought to muzzle those who disagree with them. In this regard, I frequently compare Trump to Randle Patrick McMurphy, the loudmouthed, ill-mannered roustabout from Ken Kesey’s brilliant novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. McMurphy comes into an insane asylum controlled by a pleasant, smiling nightmare of a head nurse named Ratched. Nurse Ratched, while pretending to be the soul of motherly care, is actually a castrating, silencing tyrant. Her rules of good manners, supposedly fashioned for the benefit of all, are really a system of mental slavery. All of McMurphy’s salient character flaws suddenly become heroic in the context of her oppression. Only his belligerent ignorance of what constitutes good behavior can overturn the velvet strangulation of her rule.
For Nurse Ratched, read Hillary Clinton, CNN, the New York Times, Yale University, Twitter, and Google/YouTube—all the tender ministers of polite silence and enforced dishonesty. If Donald Trump’s boorishness crashes like a bull through the crystal madhouse of their leftism—well, good. It’s about time.”
Regime change and war is causing refugees to flee. It’s not enough to keep acknowledging this fact; we must act to stop it. The one person who wanted to stop the wars was President Trump. Did the Left, who profess to care so much about the refugees, back up President Trump? No, they did not. They spit in Trump’s face, and in the faces of Russia and Syria too. They tied Trump up in knots over Russiagate. In their illogical minds, it is better to destroy countries and bring in refugees than to listen to the Orange Buffoon re stopping wars. Go figure!
But I don’t believe the refugees were unwelcome at all by the German government. In fact, Merkel practically fell over herself trying to bring them in. I remember reading an article that said that Merkel doesn’t move her lips without first consulting with business leaders. As you said, “The rich elite reap the benefits and dump the huge burden on the rest.”
Same with the other countries that took them in (Sweden, Norway, France, etc.) I think it’s a given that if these refugees were not wanted by the business leaders, if they were not going to benefit them, they would have had tanks on the streets preventing the refugees from coming. No way they would have allowed this if there wasn’t money to be made off them. The elite are not in the habit of being benevolent for nothing.
Most of the refugees that I saw on the news were young military-aged men. I would have thought they would have stayed behind to defend their country, but they did not; instead they headed for the countries with the best benefits. I have read stories about American and European NGO’s in Syria, Turkey and other countries who were soliciting refugees to flee to Europe, advising them on where to go and how to get there. I am wondering how great these new citizens will turn out to be when they have turned their backs on their own country and sought out the countries with the best benefits.
President Trump wants to stop globalization and bring jobs back. Does the Left, who used to be the party of labor, try to help him? No, the Left is apparently now the party endorsing the outsourcing of well-paying jobs and cheering on mass immigration of low-skilled labor from Third World countries. Go figure again! Additionally, high-skilled labor is also brought in from India and elsewhere because they’ll work for less in the tech industries, taking jobs away from American citizens.
The school system suffers because half of the class doesn’t speak the language. Social services are strained, emergency rooms are over-crowded, housing is…..you already know the rest. Not to mention the physical violence, the gangs, the rapes, the loss of existing culture. There is no time for assimilation before the next wave comes in.
It is a terrible mess, and it is occurring precisely because the elite are getting rich off of it. In their minds, we do not even enter into their equation.
These elite need to be stopped. The wars must end. Countries that have been destroyed should be built back up again, on the West’s dime, and then the people should be sent back to the countries they undoubtedly love, to their own cultures.
You without a doubt backwardsevolution are my most favorite Trump supporter. Although I have a hard time accepting a lot of what Trump stands for, or at least in a retail way of how he comes off, I would stand shoulder to shoulder with you brother for the sense you make while describing our worldly condition. It goes without saying, how whether by engineered mass influence, or for how it always just turns out, that we are consistently by the MSM being divided from each other. This ‘divide and conquer’ strategy is what is keeping us citizens apart, and thusly we can’t come up with reasonable solutions to practical problems.
I always make it a point to read your comments backwardsevolution, so please continue. Joe
Joe Tedesky – “You without a doubt backwardsevolution are my most favorite Trump supporter.” Ha! That’s because I’m the ONLY Trump supporter on here!
Thank you, Joe. What a sweet man you are, always so considerate and kind. I wish someone like you were President, but they’d probably bump you off, so I’m glad you’re not. LOL
It’s not so much that I’m pro-Trump. I’m just anti-Swamp. In his rude way, he is forcing people to get angry and discuss/debate topics they wouldn’t ordinarily discuss. IMO, this is a good thing.
You take care, Joe.
Funny, and my wife won’t allow me to run, plus why would I want to live in that White House dump anyway? Also, it’s not only that you are the only Trump supporter here, it’s that you are definitely unique in your own way backwardsevolution. Joe
Right on.(or left on?)The msn is a traitor,witness the backing of democrats.I believe Trump when says he “fake news”.
A year into the Trump Presidency, and most people still believe the MSM narratives. And it is truly amazing to me.
“The Left” who have been the target of brutal State policies for 150 years now eagerly swallow every drop the Alphabet Agencies regurgitate into their mouths.
Trump supporters, who KNOW the MSM lies to us and manipulates us about everything, still totally believe the MSM narrative about Trump.
Both Trump-haters and Trump-supporters totally believe that he is “an outsider” whom the “establishment” abhors and first tried to prevent from getting into power and ever since has been “the resistance” against him.
Meanwhile, NOTHING has changed (except expansions and escalations of the neoliberal economic policies and neocon war-making foreign policies).
And Trump supporters are using the same arguments that Obama-bots used for the previous 8 years to deny or even defend the consistency of US policy regardless of which party flavor controls the Congress or sleeps in the White House They’re even using the exact same talking points, like “He’s playing 4-D Chess that you can’t understand.”
When I get into a George Carlin frame of mind where I know there’s nothing any of us can do, and so just sit back and enjoy the show, it can be quite humorous. But I keep remembering the horrors being visited upon peoples as I type, and the increasing horrors surely soon to visit us in the “West,” and it takes the fun out of it.
Thanks for an cogent attack on pseudo-humanitarianism, and an interesting defense of Trump.
Still I have not found a defense of his carelessly aggressive statements, right-wing positions on abortion, arms sales and subservience to Israel and KSA, support of promiscuous surveillance, nor his refusal to simply exit the Mideast and work with Russia and China regardless of the mass media lies.
Yes, the “elite need to be stopped. The wars must end. Countries that have been destroyed should be built back up again, on the West’s dime” and I suggest that as we rebuild the US and provide full employment, we re-purpose our military for massive humanitarian projects that will bring security and meaning to the lives of US citizens. That will be no more costly than our present warmongering, for which it may atone.
Sam F – agreed. Trump is far from perfect. It’s just too bad he didn’t know more about government and politics before he went into this, but on the other hand maybe it’s a good thing because if he were more knowledgeable, I’m quite certain he would be a dead man by now. I keep cutting him some slack because I figure he’s doing stupid things on purpose (Iran, Jerusalem) in order to form alliances. You can’t take on everybody at one time. That’s my thinking, anyway. Yes, it’s probably naive. Paul Craig Roberts had this to say:
“Inattentive people have mistakenly characterized Trump as the ruling Oligarchy’s candidate from day one. They dismiss the idea that he was sincere about either goal. There are many large problems with their dismissing of Trump’s sincerity. One is that if he were the Oligarch’s candidate, why did all their money go to Hillary? The other is that if Trump was insincere about normalizing relations with Russia, why did the military/security complex, specifically the CIA and FBI, invent Russiagate and why is Russiagate being used in an effort to impeach Trump or to drive him from office if Trump is the Oligarch’s candidate? The presstitute media is owned by the Oligarchs. If Trump is the Oligarchs’ candidate, why is the presstitute media trying to drive Trump from office? […]
If Trump is real, he will arrest Mueller, Comey, Brennan, Hillary, Obama, the DNC, and break the presstitute media monopolies into a thousand pieces. He might also arrest senators and representatives who are engaged in a campaign to overthrow the elected government of the United States. Abe Lincoln provided the precedent by exiling a US Representative and arresting 300 northern newspaper editors.
If President Trump fails to defeat the agenda of those driving the world to nuclear war with Russia (and China), he will be the US President who failed humanity and snuffed out life on earth.”
Link for above article:
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/01/18/the-twitter-president/
Sam – there is a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes, as I’m sure you’re aware of. There is the four-page classified document that lays out the treasonous behavior of the FBI, Department of Justice and the DNC. If that blows wide open, things could change quickly. Here’s Paul Craig Roberts again:
“It is exactly as I told you. Russiagate is a conspiracy between the FBI, the DOJ, and the Hillary campaign to overturn Donald Trump’s election. We have treason committed at the highest levels of the FBI and Department of Justice and the Democratic National Committee.
If you believed one word of Russiagate, you now must laugh or cry at your incredible gullibility.
This scandal should also bring down the presstitute media who have done the dirty work for the conspiracy against Trump.”
Link for the second article:
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/01/19/explosive-finding-corruption-top-level-fbi-doj/
Thanks, Back, for your comments. I agree.
The German refusal to take part in Iraq and Libya was well noted in Sweden and, I am quite certain, generally praised and seen as assuming European leadership , standing up for common decency.
Unless mistaken, I believe that Sweden took part in the Libyan operations, and Germany in Syria (Sweden, too, but on a small scale). Sad!
It can be noted that while Sweden has received a huge amount of refugees (the town of Sodertalje, pop 70,000, has received more refugees from Iraq than the entire USA – which says a lot about both entities), neighbouring Denmark accepts around nil. Finland is similar.
The inability of Europe to share the work of receiving refugees demonstrates the weakness of the EU, and helps split the Union. Again, this may suit the agenda of the neocons?
Of course, not a word is printed or broadcasted in the MSM about what caused the influx. That would serve the agenda of Russia!
Probably, forcing all EU countries to assume a similar share or fair share of refugees, is not conceivable and not constructive. If, say, Polish opinion is firmly anti-immigrant, it is probably wiser to allow time for the sentiment to change, and work on that, to a reasonable degree.
The overall solution remains to stop the regime change operations.
Thanks for an excellent article!
I find it takes a comprehensive grip on the situation. The traditional responsibility for the fellow man of social democracy (or feudalism perhaps) in Europe seems to be withering, and so the trust in the elites and the societal contract.
Of course the regime change operations, terrible working conditions, unfair trade, are outrageous and must be halted.
Migration is blamed for all the middle class woes but the biggest threat to the middle and working class must surely be automation.The loss of jobs and good wages allegedly caused by immigrants pales into insignificance compared with automation. Its hard to imagine just how many jobs have been lost as a result of robotic automation in the last fifty years. Employers have ceased every opportunity to replace workers in all classes with a robotic infrastructure and they continue to do so at a pace. Regime change is about keeping the war dollars rolling in and taking control of the worlds resources. I some times what would happen if those who’s regime is being challenge just agreed willingly to capitulate and thus made the need for war unnecessary. The military industries would go and cry in their soup!!
This cannot be denied. But because the robots haven’t yet been even invented for some jobs, and are in any event hardly free, they can’t yet compare with disposable humans for many situations. That’s why Big Dirty and others still want semi-open borders. The latter will mean there is enough enforcement so that a single telephone call will bring “enforcers” to remove a difficult or now-useless illegal previously employed at the crud job site.
Automation should be great. Humans should not be required to toil at repetitive and dangerous jobs that machines can do for us. When I was growing up in the 1950s, the “smart people” were pointing out that productivity was skyrocketing, which would lead to over-production. But if the capitalists just fired “excess labor,” then the market for those products would collapse.
So, the solution floated consistently was that we would all work shorter days and fewer days per week for fewer years of our lives. But, we would still be paid the same. That way, the market would stay strong, and production would be matched to demand.
But, the psychopathic 0.01% decided to just keep the juice squeezed from the fruit of our labor and resources, so that today, more people work more hours for more years to earn less.
The same solution I grew up with is still the only sustainable one. But the 0.01% fear that such a system would reduce their wealth and power. They are, of course, correct.
They won’t give away their power and wealth. We must find a way to take it. And that robots can do much of the labor would then be a great thing
Humans will have more time to be creative, to nourish our families and loved ones, to engage in that “Pursuit of Happiness” that was foundational to the creation of the USA.
Immigration of people from low income countries into industrialized countries on H1-B and other visas is not the answer. Throughout Europe and the US there are corporations that are using visa programs to suppress the wages of workers. American wages have been stagnant for 20 years BY THE DESIGN OF THE GLOBALISTS!
The best path is to: 1) stop disrupting countries with wars and 2) to develop robust economies in poor countries. The truth is the UN and the IMF and BIS and globalists are to blame because the plan all along has been to drive global citizens into poverty to “control” them – because the sociopath globalists think they are better than other people.
To date the globalists have been decimating industrialized nations and driving citizens in modern countries into poverty using wage stagnation and the use of credit checks to dismiss qualified candidates who suffered from globalist banker nonsense during the last recession while bringing visa holders into the country with perfect credit scores so they are “more qualified” than Americans (Europeans) who have better educations – all to destroy families and lower wages.
The opioid crisis and the suicide rate in the US is the partial outcome of these evil economic and immigration policies. The debt held by American families is another. The globalists are to blame. They are not stupid. They know EXACTLY what they are doing – they are trying to destroy industrialized countries to bring in world government and control populations through poverty.
But I have news – their plan is not going to work. The time of this great evil perpetrated on humanity is coming to an end. It turns out the people are not as stupid as they had hoped. Thanks to Almighty God.
Hi Lucy, your post has much to commend it but your last paragraph and reference to the almighty God is akin to living in cloud cuckoo land. As far as God is concerned he seems to have been seriously lacking in his care for human kind pretty much since humans first walked the earth! As for people not being stupid, well look around you, we are living in an ocean of monumental stupidity and this affliction seems to be getting worse, not better. The only thing we have is hope and even that’s in short supply.
John I agree, and although I believe in God, but not the Judeo-Christian view of God, since I’m a Unitarian Universalist, However Lucy does believe that her God will save us and I think that should be respected.
Disagreement does not necessarily imply disrespect. The jump from, “I don’t agree with your idea” to “You are stupid” need not be taken.
Respected yes.
Accepted as a legitimate argument absolutely not.
Please look up at the stars once and awhile and remember – there is much black between them and the “matter” you see with your own eyes only makes up 5% of the universe, which means 95% of the universe is unknown. Supernatural forces do exist but your “eye” has to be open.
90% of the global population believes in higher powers. I wonder why? Is it because all those people are crazy – or is it because they understand this life is a test. Good and evil do exist. And evil is manifest in the actions of those that turn a blind eye to the homelessness, war, sex trafficking, pedophilia, slavery and poverty brought about by globalism.
Earth’s resources do not belong to the rich – they belong to God – i.e. the aliens running the experiment on the species on this planet – and must be distributed equally.
Almighty God is growing impatient with what is occurring on this planet and the experimental time window is closing – therefore the warning shots will increase – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/asteroid-expected-closest-pass-earth-40-years/ – but every December will not be the same.
Do not be fooled, those that sit atop governments all around the world would like for their populations not to believe in “God” but they know better – they have experienced God with their own eyes and have been keeping secrets from those they consider inferior.
The truth is out there.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Lucy. Generally here at CN our diverse views are immensely and deeply respected, as they should be. That’s one thing that makes this site very special indeed. There’s an underlying moral code that doesn’t condone mocking or ridicule, although trolls sometimes deservedly get called out. Thanks for speaking up, Annie.
Good comment John. Our cultural belief in a God who will make everything nice for us, if we are only nice in obeying him, is not helpful in taking responsibility for our troubles, many of which are of our own making, and are waiting for our intelligent action to fix them. This misguided faith in a nonexistent “God” only serves to keep us in ignorance and ineffectiveness. This is not to deny the possibility of a Higher Power with different attributes than the myths of long ago, which unfortunately tend to perpetuate the childhood of humankind.
Hard to believe that a left-oriented media outlet publishes an article espousing right-wing racial propaganda as a legit starting point (“Right-wing populists are exploiting the migration issue in both the United States and Europe, but dismissing their arguments would be a mistake”).
What is more alarming, though, is the historical revisionism the article is based on, namely the complete erasure of the fact that the current migration wave is a result of the murderous tendencies of the Libyan and Syrian regimes as expressed by the massacres following the Arab Spring protests, which in Syria resulted in a collaboration with the Russian expansionism and support the second-generation tyrannical Assad regime.
For a person who has already spoken of Hillary as a “main stream politician” this probably seems to be a reasonable assessment.
It is not an assessment, but an historical fact.
substitute “fabrication” for “fact” and you’ll be on to something
“Murderous tendencies” of the Libyan regime? The Libyans only had the highest living standard among 54
African nations. No need for an Arab Spring there. Now Libya is a failed state, thanks to NATO. So, be proud of the shite-state YOU support.
If only the Europeans along with us Americans were to quit injecting ourselves into NGO covert regime changes, and stop invading every nation who doesn’t seem to quite fit in with our bankers schemes, then this abstention from chaos would be a good place to start the end of the struggling migrants search for a safe home.
Another good place to start, would be to create enough real jobs, as to employ not only the migrant but to employ the naturalized citizen as well. The Western nation’s need to quit offshoring, and start planting the industrial seeds at home which will only blossom and grow, in a way as to provide adequate employment for most. This will also help the statistical decline of racism to dissipate down to it’s unwanted but unavoidable low number.
The migration problem, is only part of the bigger problem. That problem stems from a New World Global Order who seeks only to enrich their tiny little group of elites, while the other 99% do without. This is unsustainable, and if left undone it will deny equality to flourish, as this is a recipe for social unrest.
Stop wasting every blooming dollar and euro on war, and start investing into your respective motherlands, and then see how that works out for peace and tranquillity to thrive. What do you got to lose, a nuclear war?
Well, what you said was succinct and to the point whereas I found the article a bit of a ramble. You mentioned in a previous post you had an Italian grandma, and so did I, and many years after her death I became interested in her ancestry which takes you down many paths. The Risorgimento brought down the Bourbon rulers of Sicily and united the country, but brought about a more repressive regime, Northern Italy, ergo the mass migrations to America. Once here Italian immigrants were used to bring down wages of a predominately Irish working class in New York. Italians crossed picket lines and were used to undermine unions. Since the industrial revolution one group has been pitted against another to enrich their overseers. With globalization the same thing but on a broader scale. People have always been leery of immigrants, and for the same competitive reasons. Prejudice also enters the picture since Italians, southern Europeans, were seen as inferior to those of northern Europe, and today prejudice shows up again, but today it’s directed at Muslims, Blacks and Hispanics. The persistence of these dynamics makes me feel nothing will change, and biology and survival plays it’s role as well.
I saw a video clip on Facebook of a rally held in Poland and they were determined to maintain Poland as a Christian nation. No Muslims here, but if one knows the history of Poland, a divided nation, a conquered nation, you also know that plays a significant role as well. Most posts are anti-Trump and you would think he alone will destroy America, the greatest nation, the exceptional nation, and the nation who does no wrong in the world. Too many Americans view what is going on now with no understanding of our history whether it’s old history, or new.
Another video clip was an interview done by CNN with Lindsey Graham who started off talking about immigration policy which veered off into is Trump a racist, and war-monger Graham said he wasn’t, but he was a street fighter, who likes you if you like him. Graham said, if the Pope wasn’t nice to him he wouldn’t be nice to the Pope, but if Putin were nice to him, he would be nice to Putin. I brought in some history that helped to create the “shit-hole” countries Trump was referring to, and the immigration problems we’re now dealing with, and it wasn’t appreciated, in fact it became a joke in one person’s post. Another said every country does sneaky, underhanded things. So if you reference the multiple wars in the Middle East that have destroyed whole countries, killed well over a million people, and displaced millions, it’s thought of as sneaky, and underhanded. I give up.
Intimation, jealousy, and fear of the unknown, will never leave the human nature, but Annie if leadership weren’t so more concerned with profit over resolving any thing, or at least attempting to tackle any problem other than wage war, wouldn’t this be a wonderful world?
Why even have leadership, when all leadership does is create chaos? Sometimes we often think the Deep State Chaos Making is conspiracy, and that it is, but ask yourself of how many times the geniuses may have just got it that dumbass wrong, and did something that seriously flat out stupid?
I liked what you wrote, you get historical and detailed …enjoyed it Annie. Joe
If these immigrants and refugees were such good people, would we have killed two million of them? Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize! Surely you are not saying that it is correct to kill a million or so civilians in our War on Terrorists, but we also should be accepting these very same people into our societies (so the wages of our working class will decrease even more)? With wholesale slaughter by our incompetent militaristic government (Bush/ Cheney/ Obama/Hillary/ now Trump), we purposely create upset, vindictive, bitter people; why would we risk any of these people entering our Western societies?
First off; “WE” didn’t do anything against other people of the World. Our government is effectively taken out,of the hands of the citizens. As Karl Rove said; we’re an empire now. Secondly; the imperial elite view western nations every bit as much a threat to their reign, as the MENA nations (we are talking about a new Roman Empire), so therefore, chaos and failed-state status is the policy for ALL nations concerned, MENA and the Trans-Atlantic West. There is an effective antidote to this situation, requiring intervention from a more powerful force. It is being pursued. I will not talk about it though, as it’ll just get moderated out of existence on this “controlled opposition to The Establishment” website.
There is a huge influx into Europe. I state this as a fact, without valuation.
Can it be that Europe has agreed to assume “responsibility” for rebuilding the countries destroyed by the US (and the U.K. – which assume the responsibility for waging wars) and to receive the resulting wave of immigrants? This could apply to Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
An effect, too, is the destabilisation of the EU, and the division between the EU and Russia. Neocon policy?
In my country (Netherlands) people decided to have less children. This happened in the time of the Club of Rome (limtis to the growth) coupled with a feeling of responsibility towards what was still left of our tiny natural areas. We are a small country with a large population, so it made sense.That is how it has always appeared to me. It is however very strange that this happened in all western European countries at the same time. Where we induced into having less children?
Then came the mass immigration. From that time on the government has done nothing but to attack their own people. We were too lazy to do the hard work. But if people get less children there will also be less workers. Then we were told that we are graying but that was our intention. Then we are accused of racism and xenophobia. They can say that because they are the ones who introduce people from other continents. Of course they look and behave differently so that is easy targeting at us. Now they come with slavery. This did indeed happen until after thousands of years it was stopped when the white male christians gained power but they will keep this silent. The list goes on.
It is a replacement of peoples.
This was a rather difficult essay for me to decipher, but I believe Mr. Spannaus and I are mostly in agreement on this issue. The problem I see with his conclusion is that I cannot imagine any of the World’s Elites making the slightest effort to help out anybody other than themselves.
A world in which the citizens of all nations have a comfortable standard of living means there isn’t going to be much incentive for many people to leave their homes and depart for places where customs are different and the language is unknown. Where is there any profit in a steady-state situation like that?
Look at the industries wanting a constant influx of desperate people willing to work at dangerous and low-paying jobs. They’re throw-away workers – get injured or poisoned or sick and there is no recourse whatever for them.
https://cis.org/Business-and-Labor-Immigration-Contrasting-Views-Leaders-vs-Rank-and-File
Andrew Spannaus, thank you.
To cure the problem at its deepest level is to attack the heart of it — the Nuremberg Principles:
Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity … is a crime under international law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_principles
On this all the rest can be associated. A kind of “stop the war against humanity”, but not a hodge podge of slogans, but a simple and clear statement of why this and our impoverishment cannot be separated.
For instance, the nuclear weapon’s problem, how can we get rid of them if we have not punished the perpetrators of aggressive war? How can we stop the massive interference in the life of Africa, if the foreign state and corporate agents of war are not even publicly denounced (Rwanda for instance, but a little looking will find a lot of culprits).
Andrew you are absolutely on the right track with this, please write more.
War and Plunder.
That our Global War OF Terror would create millions of desperate refugees was easily foreseeable. Wars ALWAYS create refugees.
That economic plundering of resource-rich countries by neo-colonial powers that impoverished citizens of those countries would create economic refugees, seeking some relief for themselves and their families was also easily foreseeable. History is replete with examples.
When the US and France were bombing Libya, Gaddafi warned them that the Libyan government was all that prevented a “flood” of economic refugees from Africa from crossing the Mediterranean, but they chose to destroy Libya anyway.
When Erdogan chose to open NATO member Turkey’s borders to the EU, it was obvious that large numbers of war refugees would enter the EU.
And the map in this article shows that almost all of the refugees entered Europe from either Libya or Turkey.
And when a Europe still reeling from the worldwide economic crash of 2008, and European people struggling with brutal “austerity” measures enforced by the IMF, it was easily foreseeable that the already rising nationalist, right-wing movements would grow exponentially as masses of desperate foreigners arrived to compete for jobs and aid with the native populations.
That “conservatives” would demand these migrants be kicked out, and “liberals” would demand that they be welcomed and given stuff was also easily foreseeable.
It has looked to me like the goal was to destroy Europe from the start. And once the turmoil has risen sufficiently, then the Global Fascist World Order will be welcomed by the suffering masses.
Let me also add this quote from Barbara Lerner Spectre, an American-born Jewish woman who “made Aliyah” to Israel and then moved to Sweden to work on teaching Europe to be multicultural. Note: She said this in 2010, BEFORE the “Refugee Crisis.”??”I think there’s a resurgence of anti-Semitism because at this point in time, Europe has not yet learned how to be multicultural. And I think we are going to be part of the throes of that transformation, which must take place. Europe is not going to be the monolithic societies that they once were in the last century. Jews are going to be at the center of that. It’s a huge transformation for Europe to make. They are now going into a multicultural mode, and Jews will be resented because of our leading role. But without that leading role, and without that transformation, Europe will not survive.”