Exceptional American Finger Pointing
Sometimes the news cycle can be generous. The other day it offered two stories of interest, somehow missing their linkage. Allow me to connect them.
First we had Joe Biden kicking off the White House conference on countering violent extremism. Interesting that they felt compelled to add "violent." Simple 'extremism' isn't, apparently, something that requires countering. Perhaps they seek to preserve the cherished memory of Barry Goldwater, who maintained that "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice." But I don't think there are a lot of Goldwater Republicans in the White House, so we'll have to shelve that question for another day.
Biden kicked it off with a bit of old fashioned America! Fuck Yeah!
“I am not suggesting that America has all of the answers here; we are just a lot more experienced,” Biden told a roundtable in the executive office building. “We are a nation of immigrants and our strength is that we are a melting pot.”
Yes, if you want to learn how to live in peace and harmony there is no better teacher than the good old US of A. Perhaps you'd like to start your tour in Ferguson, MO? Or perhaps a little more historically in Selma? Americans don't really need immigrants to show their bad side. They have home-grown minority populations to mistreat. Their 'immigration' happened about 400 years ago and involved chains.
The plain truth is that the US is no better or more experienced at stopping violent extremism than anyone else. It's just that we have a different population of immigrants to marginalize than, say, France or England.
In Europe, immigrants arrive from places where, for various reasons, it sucks to live there. Many places in North Africa, such as Libya (right now), suck. Many places in the Middle East, such as the Middle East, suck. Syria and Iraq and the nation that ISIS is building are tough spots to raise a family. Yemen is no fun at all. Don't forget the US drones which are dropping ordinance on anything that moves with a beard in the region.
Back to America, where our immigrants are not arriving mainly from the Levant, but from nations to the South of us - Mexico, Caribbean countries, Central and South America. How are we doing with them?
Let's let the news cycle deliver the answer on the very same day Biden was clucking about America!
A federal judge in Texas stopped the Obama administration from protecting up to 5 million undocumented immigrants through executive action. Because we're so good at being a melting pot, except for those people. We're great at immigration as long as nobody shows up. America stops extremism by being lucky that the people we piss off are more civilized than we are.
Look, the Jews who showed up at Ellis Island (like my family!) weren't overly burdened with documentation. Nor were the Irish and Italians and everyone else who built the US. America was founded by people running away from something. As Bill Murray said in the classic Stripes: "our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country on earth."
The point being that we shouldn't point. I like the direction the summit seems to be taking - that to limit violent extremism we need to be more inclusive. Right France? France? We're talking to you. But until the US can get its own house in order and do something human about immigration, Joe Biden needs to stick those kind of remarks straight in his melting pot.
First we had Joe Biden kicking off the White House conference on countering violent extremism. Interesting that they felt compelled to add "violent." Simple 'extremism' isn't, apparently, something that requires countering. Perhaps they seek to preserve the cherished memory of Barry Goldwater, who maintained that "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice." But I don't think there are a lot of Goldwater Republicans in the White House, so we'll have to shelve that question for another day.
Biden kicked it off with a bit of old fashioned America! Fuck Yeah!
“I am not suggesting that America has all of the answers here; we are just a lot more experienced,” Biden told a roundtable in the executive office building. “We are a nation of immigrants and our strength is that we are a melting pot.”
Yes, if you want to learn how to live in peace and harmony there is no better teacher than the good old US of A. Perhaps you'd like to start your tour in Ferguson, MO? Or perhaps a little more historically in Selma? Americans don't really need immigrants to show their bad side. They have home-grown minority populations to mistreat. Their 'immigration' happened about 400 years ago and involved chains.
The plain truth is that the US is no better or more experienced at stopping violent extremism than anyone else. It's just that we have a different population of immigrants to marginalize than, say, France or England.
In Europe, immigrants arrive from places where, for various reasons, it sucks to live there. Many places in North Africa, such as Libya (right now), suck. Many places in the Middle East, such as the Middle East, suck. Syria and Iraq and the nation that ISIS is building are tough spots to raise a family. Yemen is no fun at all. Don't forget the US drones which are dropping ordinance on anything that moves with a beard in the region.
Back to America, where our immigrants are not arriving mainly from the Levant, but from nations to the South of us - Mexico, Caribbean countries, Central and South America. How are we doing with them?
Let's let the news cycle deliver the answer on the very same day Biden was clucking about America!
A federal judge in Texas stopped the Obama administration from protecting up to 5 million undocumented immigrants through executive action. Because we're so good at being a melting pot, except for those people. We're great at immigration as long as nobody shows up. America stops extremism by being lucky that the people we piss off are more civilized than we are.
Look, the Jews who showed up at Ellis Island (like my family!) weren't overly burdened with documentation. Nor were the Irish and Italians and everyone else who built the US. America was founded by people running away from something. As Bill Murray said in the classic Stripes: "our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country on earth."
The point being that we shouldn't point. I like the direction the summit seems to be taking - that to limit violent extremism we need to be more inclusive. Right France? France? We're talking to you. But until the US can get its own house in order and do something human about immigration, Joe Biden needs to stick those kind of remarks straight in his melting pot.
posted by fiduciary at 10:07 AM
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