Dan,
On the issue of whether or not we have an “open border,” I admit to a bit of hyperbole on the part of people who typically use that term, but I don’t think it’s xenophobia. I think it’s a reflection of the situation in which we are reaching record amounts of people coming into the country, and whereas they once came on ships from Europe through Ellis Island, they now are largely coming across the extent of the southern border, mostly from Mexico and Central America with larger numbers increasingly coming from other various places in the world as well--and being smuggled in by cartels. See the stats below. While perhaps the per cent of the overall population is similar, I think from the chart you can see that in the last few years there is a tremendous increase that dwarf the numbers assimilated previously. It seems that something is out of control. So, to me, if you don’t want to be accused of fostering this massive influx, in the way that it is taking place, then you will actually do something about it (“you” standing for the current administration who reversed the Trump initiatives that had slowed the rates in question and gotten a relative handle on it).
You asked how I didn’t see the language of xenophobia. Let me ask this: was it xenophobia that prompted the UK to withdraw from the EU? Some would say yes. However, to me both what happened in the election of Trump and the Brexit movement reflects a desire for a course correction to unbridled globalization. That globalization, to be sure, was not simply a policy of one particular party or the other, and it was sourced as much in industry, where corporations could make more money by using cheap labor in other countries, and where deals could be made with large markets in Asia. Globalization gutted manufacturing in the USA and in some cases made us dependent on countries that don’t hold our interests in high esteem (i.e. China). So, the situation is more complex than simply calling populists racist or xenophobic. It’s not that they hate other people. They care more for themselves at this point than they do for others. And that is self-regulation.
Having said that, I also want to say I have reached the point of wanting everyone to stop attempting to brand the opposition with slurs and derogatories. Those things are, in the spirit of Levinas, violence. They are simplistic thematizations of the opposition in an effort to score political points, to gain advantage over an opponent.
I admit to being influenced by media on the right, but I have been listening as well to people on the left, and I have been watching and listening to outlets in Europe because of the war in Ukraine. I am more than ready to “go home.” I’m sick of the world, but evidently I’m here still, and while I’m here I want to rise above. The trouble is who and what to believe. Everything comes with a slant.
Phil
"Between 1880 and 1930, approximately 28 million immigrants entered the United States. In contrast to earlier waves of immigrants, most of whom had originated in western and northern Europe, this group arrived from eastern and southern Europe." (Digital Public Library)
"Between 1860 and 1920, immigrants' share of the population fluctuated between 13 percent and 15 percent, peaking at 14.8 percent in 1890 amid high levels of immigration from Europe." (Migration
Polity.org, Mar 14, 2023)
The United States experienced major waves of immigration during the colonial era, the first part of the 19th century and from the 1880s to 1920. Many immigrants came to America seeking greater economic opportunity, while some, such as the Pilgrims in the early 1600s, arrived in search of religious freedom. (
history.com)
"The United States has more immigrants than any other country in the world. Today, more than 40 million people living in the U.S. were born in another country, accounting for about one-fifth of the world’s migrants. The population of immigrants is also very diverse, with just about every country in the world represented among U.S. immigrants.
Pew Research Center regularly publishes statistical portraits of the nation’s foreign-born population, which include historical trends since 1960. Based on these portraits, here are answers to some key questions about the U.S. immigrant population.
How many people in the U.S. are immigrants?
The U.S. foreign-born population reached a record 44.8 million in 2018. Since 1965, when U.S. immigration laws replaced a national quota system, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. has more than quadrupled. Immigrants today account for 13.7% of the U.S. population, nearly triple the share (4.8%) in 1970. However, today’s immigrant share remains below the record 14.8% share in 1890, when 9.2 million immigrants lived in the U.S.” (Pew)
On May 17, 2023, at 1:25 PM, Dan Bloom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I am glad to find a ground for discussion so long as we avoid distortions and misstatements.
On May 17, 2023, at 2:53 PM, Philip Brownell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dan,
I don’t think it’s fair to claim that the populism that swept Trump into office is anti-immigration. That populism continues to exist in at least half the population of the country—70-80% of the population think that Biden’s progressive direction is the WRONG direction). The right is not against immigration. They are against an open border that has no controls on how many or what kind of people are streaming into the country.
No one is for open borders. No one. No one..
It is also propaganda to label such concerns as racist. Most of the people coming into the country are not well educated and cannot fill needed positions in society. Where are we going to get those kind of people?
That is the same thing that was said about my grandparents, by the way. And the Italians. And all the Southern and Eastern European immigrants. And the Asians. Look as the history of of the US immigration laws.
I can’t understand how you don’t see the language of the MAGA-right doesn’t repeat the historical xenophobia of American nativism.
It’s too simplistic to say that we’ll just educate the ones climbing through the fences and fill our own needs from the folks coming across right now. I work in a clinic that serves lower income people, and many of them have come here recently from another country. Are we sending their kids to Stanford, NYU, etc? No. That is not happening. I met with a very bright 16 year old and his mother this morning whom I found myself rooting for. They were a pleasure. But he wants to join the army and become a chef and a bartender. We don’t need a generation of bartenders. We need people who can help control AI, make our economy work, and contribute to science. It takes a deliberate immigration policy to do that, and we don’t have one. Any time someone wants to correct the current chaos they get tarred with the racist term, and I’m sick of that. It’s such a lazy way of operating. You don’t have to even THINK about it anymore. Just wave the flag of white privilege and try to shame others into silence.
And no one says we don’t need a better immigration policy. We need bipartisan immigration reform, not demagoguery. Nothing comes from lies about saying anyone wants open borders. We once had a real bi-partisan plan that was about to pass. It was scuttled by the ultra-right when they became dominant. John McCain
Phil
On May 17, 2023, at 11:18 AM, Dan Bloom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Peter:
Yes, years before Trump.
The Tea Party was small potatoes. MAGA has its roots in American Nativism, anti-immigration, America First, and other ultra-conservative movements. (The US was damn near not entering WW II because of the America Firsters. It’s hard to imagine how Britain could have held out without the US.)
Trump is a narcissistic carnival barker in the PT Barnum tradition. He has a history of selling worthless products. Steaks. Casinos. Condos. Wines. Clothing brands. University. TV shows. Wrestling. He has the talent of not needing to believe in anything. So what difference does it make to him if something he says is “true.”
So with Trump, this streak is now in control in a way it hadn’t been in a long, long, time. It has a charismatic leader. It has a banner to wave and a red hat to wear.
Dan
On May 17, 2023, at 1:02 PM, Peter Philippson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi Dan,
I read it differently. The Tea Party and the MAGA right were fostered by people who used them to do their dirty work while looking clean themselves. That has been developing for years before Trump arrived on the scene.
Peter
On Wed, 17 May 2023 at 17:49, Dan Bloom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Peter:
Among the too many problems here in the US is how the MAGA right has dominated the right-wing. It is no longer easy to hear the voices of the "kinder, gentler, conservatives” who didn’t lead their arguments with hate, paranoia, and division.
We have a crash-and-burn politics. The MAGA’s seem hell-bent on an armageddon political strategy regarding the national debt, for example, that is playing out as we speak.
I don’t think it is fair to condemn the entire “right.” I have a lot of hope for some conservatives and moderates to find the courage to push back against the MAGA cult that’s overtaken their party.
Dan
On May 17, 2023, at 12:01 PM, Peter Philippson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Personally Phil, I give the right as much respect as they give to the poor, including the poor in need of medical services, minorities, people who have no religion or a different religion...
Sometimes they even persuade those people to support them, usually against another external threat or imagined threat. They use fear and paranoia as recruiting tools, and deliberately turn people against each other.
It is very clever to give themselves a mantle of victimhood, like their hero Putin complaining about 'Russophobia' while bombing and massacring civilians. The division you complain of was a deliberate policy of the right, 'the Left hate America', 'Traitors'. Turning 'woke', which originated in people fighting oppression, into a term of abuse, again of which they are 'victims'.
Peter
On Wed, 17 May 2023 at 16:49, Philip Brownell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dan,
And so here we are again. The divide in our country has only deepened. And yet, occasionally, there is light shining through a spot in the clouds—as when Jake Tapper admitted that the report did exonerate Trump. There was no Russian collusion—only dirty tricks paid for by Clinton that got picked up by the FBI and the congress, who had confirmation bias (which is, frankly, if you really understand what confirmation bias is, synonymous in that context to political preference). I think one person put it well, saying that if you really believe Trump to be the devil incarnate, a new-Hitler, someone who would turn our country over to the Russians, then you have to stop him at all cost. The RIGHT thing to do is to stop him. Whatever it takes. So, a peaceful transition of power? There was not one. It was an active resistance that dominated the attention of the country and usurped the energies of the new administration.
Trump is an obnoxious, narcissistic person (I refrain from diagnosing with a personality disorder because I have not met him). I don’t like the direction I sense he would take the country with regards to Ukraine (nor DeSantis for that matter). I don’t want him to be president and send us into another four years of drama. I prefer many of his admin’s policies, and I think we were in better shape as a country during his presidency, but I don’t want him. But that is not the issue that is presented in the Durham report. It’s not about Trump, for me, because it is about the way government operates, and by government I include the unelected people who actually do run the government and the enablement of the popular, left leaning and complicit media.
Dan, I don’t expect you or anyone else here to understand, but it would be nice to experience more of our gestalt community, who have lauded dialogue for so many years, to consider what it’s like for people who lean to the right. The Durham report is not a nothing burger. An unbiased reading reveals some deep problems. Or else why would the FBI itself admit that before the report came out it had attempted to correct the mess the resulted in a constant harassment of a sitting president and an entrenched and active resistance? The report identified an uneven playing field in which people associated with Clinton were not prosecuted and people associated with Trump were. How much more of an obstruction can you get than scrubbing the servers and smashing the phones with a hammer?
Phil
On May 17, 2023, at 8:02 AM, Dan Bloom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
<16dc-durham-zgjk-facebookJumbo.jpeg>
After Years of Political Hype, the Durham Inquiry Failed to Deliver
nytimes.com
On May 16, 2023, at 3:29 AM, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/15/probe-of-fbis-handling-of-trump-russia-investigation-ends?traffic_source=KeepReading
______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
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Peter (Philippson)
[log in to unmask]
______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
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Peter (Philippson)
[log in to unmask]
______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.