I'm not necessarily opposed to, nor afraid of immigrants.
Not all Americans are Captain America either, nor ethical, nor moral, nor just, nor intelligent, nor productive, nor safe, etc.
I am not a xenophobe.
I've personally known far more immigrants whom have been far more productive than I have born citizens.
I've personally been subjected to far more crime by white-trash citizen types than I have either "minorities" and/or immigrants.
But there is another oft-ignored problem to consider:
The population of the U.S. in 2000 was about 281,421,906.
The current population is about 331,449,281.
As per the BLS, the Labor Force in 2000 was about 159,607,317.
Currently, the Labor Force has been reduced to about 151,844,011.
So, an increase of about 50.02 million people.
But a reduction of about 7.8 million jobs.
As per the Federal Reserve, the number of publicly-listed companies in the U.S. has been reduced by about 70 percent, since the late 1990's.
Due largely to mergers & acquisitions, in this era of massive consolidation of most everything.
Those mergers & acquisitions have resulted in far fewer jobs, as Corporate America seeks to cut costs, i.e. numbers of employees, to boost profits for their largest institutional shareholders.
Plus, the number of new small businesses starting yearly has also been reduced by about 70 percent, since the late 1990's.
Again, meaning far fewer Americans (and non-citizen immigrants) working.
The true unemployment rate is about 25.4 percent.
Higher than during the Great Depression.
But artificially suppressed by the magic of statistical manipulation (often via revised definitions of "Labor Force", "unemployed", etc.).
The last thing this country needs is even more people.
Whilst there technically may be enough land area to accommodate more people, certain ultra-wealthy land Barons are hoarding millions (tens of millions?) of acres of space, that they're often not using productively.
Thus forcing that growing number of people to cram into relatively smaller spaces.
And people wonder why disease may be rampant (wasn't NY City supposedly the largest "covid" hotspot, whether SARS-CoV2 or even just influenza)?
But hey.....
At least Big Banks like JP Morgan get richer by managing the growing numbers of EBT (aka food stamp) cards (now more than 40 million).
And the Big Asset Management firms, like Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Fidelity, Invesco, the Capital Group, et al., make more money by investing in more residential homes, for rental property.
And as they invest in more government subsidized low-income housing units.
And invest in more utility and energy companies that get more government subsidies for low-income earners.
Until corporate media is severely restrained from their sycophant relationship with government bureaucracies and elected officials, everything else is moot. The average American has been tamed into contented lemmings, and media feeds them filling tripe as they envision prime rib.
I think it's hilarious at how long "Republican" & "Conservative" types have caved in to the fear mongering, as a prelude to everlasting wars.
War on drugs.
War on terrorism.
War on immigration.
Etc...
And how "Liberals" often criticized that seemingly perpetual fear mongering.
And yet now those same "Liberals" are caving into similar fear mongering tactics.
And now many "Conservatives" are criticizing them for behaving near exactly as they have.
Both are demonstrations of Groupthink at their finest.
Often, one of the best tactics of war is a multi-fronted offensive, i.e. attacks from multiple/all sides.
Surrounding your target.
I grew up during the "Cold War", a time when public schools regularly held Bomb Shelter drills, in preparation for the oft promulgated nuclear Armageddon.
The Doomsday Clock was often the news narrative du jour.
And yet there is now growing substantial evidence that the realistic chances of a nuclear war was quite low.
But it sure help prompt anxiety spending, as many households looked to stock their pantries, shelters, and other cubbies, with excess durables in anticipation of war & shortages.
The perpetual war economy of the U.S. is based on far more than just fighting foreign wars.
The funny thing about propaganda is that most everyone thinks they can recognize it, but most everyone still succumbs to it, regularly.
They're often all so busily distracted looking for the phallic symbols in the ice cubes (or similar such cliché ) that they're missing the more effective, albeit covert, methods.
There's an entire school of Marketing dedicated just to uses of colors in packaging to manipulate perceptions (dark colors on chocolates packaging to infer "richer", "finer" taste, and such).
And this holds true to the upper-echelons of society (Corporate Executives, Politicians, the Elite, Military Leaders, etc.).
Effective propaganda only works when it isn't recognized as such.
And those that seek to drive "instincts" of the herds, spend billions revising & improving their methods.
The "Father of Spin", Edward Bernays, whom often bragged about learning to use his Uncle Sigmund Freud's developments of psychoanalysis to manipulate human minds, described the masses as irrational and subject to herd instinct—and outlined how skilled practitioners could use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them.
"If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have been stamped on it by the group influences."
-Edward Bernays-
But of course effective propaganda has been used for thousands of years.
The ancient Greco-Egyptian Inventor Heronis of Alexandria reportedly used (or was used to use) early pneumatics and other Engineering methods to deceive the masses into worship of gods, into loyalty to the government, into fear mongering.
Imagine if the rest of the world judged every single citizen of the U.S. as if they were all Ted Bundy's, or Timothy McVeigh's, or David Berkowitz's. or Jeffrey Dahmer's, or Wayne Eaton's, or Albert Fish's, or John Wayne Gacy's, or Ed Gein's, or Dennis Rader's, or Henry Lee Lucas's, or any one of the hundreds of American serial killers.
Imagine how absurd.
It would be as ridiculous as saying that every single person from the Southern U.S. is racist.
And/or that all Confederate Fighters were pro-slavery (when there were many, many other issues underlying the Civil War).
Most Afghani's are regular people whom are caught up in a terrible nightmare.
The Taliban are estimated at some 60,000 core strength.
The population of Afghanistan is over 32.8 million people.
There's a logical fallacy called "Hasty Generalization", i.e. the bad habit of judging all or most things solely on the basis of a relatively few, that is employed quite often in truly covert propaganda.
It seems to me that a lack of true, well-developed Critical Thinking skills is far more dangerous to the U.S. than some Afghanistan people.
A few months ago a Texas newspaper refused to print a description of a wanted criminal "to avoid perpetuating harmful stereotypes". The European press made this Texas paper look like a bunch of punters. It was long a running joke among the Europeans that violent sexual assaults were committed by "young males" who somehow never contained any other descriptive characteristics. The fact that Afghans started to get called out showed just how extraordinary the problem was. Of course if this problem is already present in the US among middle eastern groups I am not sure how we would know. For example, every now and then I see a suggestion in print that the Somali migrants to Minnesota brought their clan warfare with them, but such topics are studiously avoided by our legacy media.
I'm not necessarily opposed to, nor afraid of immigrants.
Not all Americans are Captain America either, nor ethical, nor moral, nor just, nor intelligent, nor productive, nor safe, etc.
I am not a xenophobe.
I've personally known far more immigrants whom have been far more productive than I have born citizens.
I've personally been subjected to far more crime by white-trash citizen types than I have either "minorities" and/or immigrants.
But there is another oft-ignored problem to consider:
The population of the U.S. in 2000 was about 281,421,906.
The current population is about 331,449,281.
As per the BLS, the Labor Force in 2000 was about 159,607,317.
Currently, the Labor Force has been reduced to about 151,844,011.
So, an increase of about 50.02 million people.
But a reduction of about 7.8 million jobs.
As per the Federal Reserve, the number of publicly-listed companies in the U.S. has been reduced by about 70 percent, since the late 1990's.
Due largely to mergers & acquisitions, in this era of massive consolidation of most everything.
Those mergers & acquisitions have resulted in far fewer jobs, as Corporate America seeks to cut costs, i.e. numbers of employees, to boost profits for their largest institutional shareholders.
Plus, the number of new small businesses starting yearly has also been reduced by about 70 percent, since the late 1990's.
Again, meaning far fewer Americans (and non-citizen immigrants) working.
The true unemployment rate is about 25.4 percent.
Higher than during the Great Depression.
But artificially suppressed by the magic of statistical manipulation (often via revised definitions of "Labor Force", "unemployed", etc.).
The last thing this country needs is even more people.
Whilst there technically may be enough land area to accommodate more people, certain ultra-wealthy land Barons are hoarding millions (tens of millions?) of acres of space, that they're often not using productively.
Thus forcing that growing number of people to cram into relatively smaller spaces.
And people wonder why disease may be rampant (wasn't NY City supposedly the largest "covid" hotspot, whether SARS-CoV2 or even just influenza)?
But hey.....
At least Big Banks like JP Morgan get richer by managing the growing numbers of EBT (aka food stamp) cards (now more than 40 million).
And the Big Asset Management firms, like Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Fidelity, Invesco, the Capital Group, et al., make more money by investing in more residential homes, for rental property.
And as they invest in more government subsidized low-income housing units.
And invest in more utility and energy companies that get more government subsidies for low-income earners.
And so on.
Welfare is now profitable.
Bring in more unemployed people.
Make the ultra-rich even richer.
Until corporate media is severely restrained from their sycophant relationship with government bureaucracies and elected officials, everything else is moot. The average American has been tamed into contented lemmings, and media feeds them filling tripe as they envision prime rib.
It’s an amazing time to be alive!
I think it's hilarious at how long "Republican" & "Conservative" types have caved in to the fear mongering, as a prelude to everlasting wars.
War on drugs.
War on terrorism.
War on immigration.
Etc...
And how "Liberals" often criticized that seemingly perpetual fear mongering.
And yet now those same "Liberals" are caving into similar fear mongering tactics.
And now many "Conservatives" are criticizing them for behaving near exactly as they have.
Both are demonstrations of Groupthink at their finest.
Often, one of the best tactics of war is a multi-fronted offensive, i.e. attacks from multiple/all sides.
Surrounding your target.
I grew up during the "Cold War", a time when public schools regularly held Bomb Shelter drills, in preparation for the oft promulgated nuclear Armageddon.
The Doomsday Clock was often the news narrative du jour.
And yet there is now growing substantial evidence that the realistic chances of a nuclear war was quite low.
But it sure help prompt anxiety spending, as many households looked to stock their pantries, shelters, and other cubbies, with excess durables in anticipation of war & shortages.
The perpetual war economy of the U.S. is based on far more than just fighting foreign wars.
The funny thing about propaganda is that most everyone thinks they can recognize it, but most everyone still succumbs to it, regularly.
They're often all so busily distracted looking for the phallic symbols in the ice cubes (or similar such cliché ) that they're missing the more effective, albeit covert, methods.
There's an entire school of Marketing dedicated just to uses of colors in packaging to manipulate perceptions (dark colors on chocolates packaging to infer "richer", "finer" taste, and such).
And this holds true to the upper-echelons of society (Corporate Executives, Politicians, the Elite, Military Leaders, etc.).
Effective propaganda only works when it isn't recognized as such.
And those that seek to drive "instincts" of the herds, spend billions revising & improving their methods.
The "Father of Spin", Edward Bernays, whom often bragged about learning to use his Uncle Sigmund Freud's developments of psychoanalysis to manipulate human minds, described the masses as irrational and subject to herd instinct—and outlined how skilled practitioners could use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them.
"If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have been stamped on it by the group influences."
-Edward Bernays-
But of course effective propaganda has been used for thousands of years.
The ancient Greco-Egyptian Inventor Heronis of Alexandria reportedly used (or was used to use) early pneumatics and other Engineering methods to deceive the masses into worship of gods, into loyalty to the government, into fear mongering.
Imagine if the rest of the world judged every single citizen of the U.S. as if they were all Ted Bundy's, or Timothy McVeigh's, or David Berkowitz's. or Jeffrey Dahmer's, or Wayne Eaton's, or Albert Fish's, or John Wayne Gacy's, or Ed Gein's, or Dennis Rader's, or Henry Lee Lucas's, or any one of the hundreds of American serial killers.
Imagine how absurd.
It would be as ridiculous as saying that every single person from the Southern U.S. is racist.
And/or that all Confederate Fighters were pro-slavery (when there were many, many other issues underlying the Civil War).
Most Afghani's are regular people whom are caught up in a terrible nightmare.
The Taliban are estimated at some 60,000 core strength.
The population of Afghanistan is over 32.8 million people.
There's a logical fallacy called "Hasty Generalization", i.e. the bad habit of judging all or most things solely on the basis of a relatively few, that is employed quite often in truly covert propaganda.
It seems to me that a lack of true, well-developed Critical Thinking skills is far more dangerous to the U.S. than some Afghanistan people.
A few months ago a Texas newspaper refused to print a description of a wanted criminal "to avoid perpetuating harmful stereotypes". The European press made this Texas paper look like a bunch of punters. It was long a running joke among the Europeans that violent sexual assaults were committed by "young males" who somehow never contained any other descriptive characteristics. The fact that Afghans started to get called out showed just how extraordinary the problem was. Of course if this problem is already present in the US among middle eastern groups I am not sure how we would know. For example, every now and then I see a suggestion in print that the Somali migrants to Minnesota brought their clan warfare with them, but such topics are studiously avoided by our legacy media.