Russell Contreras zeroes in on findings of the PRRI "Challenges to Democracy" study. Who, precisely wants to round up immigrants and put them into camps?

Canadian Crone

@wdlindsy Having a poll on this subject validates it. It cannot be validated under any set of circumstances. Like polling Germans on whether Jews should be rounded up, or the disabled, the mentally challenged, anyone whom they disliked. It’s unconscionable to insinuate that having an opinion poll makes the act of rounding people up and deporting them, legitimate

Katrina Katrinka :donor:

@wdlindsy
Since he's including legal immigrants, maybe Trump wants to seize Elon's stuff for himself and deport him.

Lot⁴⁹

@wdlindsy Well this is awfully scary.

Pablo Martini (Geezer)

@wdlindsy

as he comes from an immigrant family (Germany) it's all a bit weird?
But as all the 3 generations avoided fighting for the USA weird is normal?

William Lindsey :toad:

@PabloMartini German and Scottish immigrants: his mother was a Scottish-born immigrant. But many of the Republicans now cheering from Trump have very recent immigrant roots. Sununu, for instance, is the son of an immigrant. They just want to target the "bad" immigrants with brown and black complexions, they tell themselves.

William Lindsey :toad:

@12thRITS For sure.

William Lindsey :toad:

@katrinakatrinka Touché. And Melania's….

William Lindsey :toad:

@CanadianCrone I'm not quite sure that I understand why trying to ascertain what people think about an issue — and we need that information — validates the issue under discussion.

William Lindsey :toad:

@npaulreads Isn't it, though? They seem to have a very … eccentric … version of the Christian gospels.

William Lindsey :toad:

@Tattered I wonder if Moira Donegan's statement in any way implies that the history of the US is not deeply rooted in slavery and genocide. I don't read it that way. And, of course, the same has to be said of one European country after another that was heavily invested in the system of buying and selling people as enslaved property.

William Lindsey :toad:

@aka_quant_noir Yes, I agree. A good question.

Canadian Crone

@wdlindsy It’s like discussing the rights of children. Whether people agree or not with children having rights, there is no discussion to be had on the subject. Children have rights! To even open a discussion on it seems to validate the belief that it is a debateable issue.

William Lindsey :toad:

@CanadianCrone Polling and discussing seem to me two very different things.

Canadian Crone

@wdlindsy To my mind, polling implies reflecting on a subject in order to provide my opinion. A discussion is throwing ideas around, causing me to reflect. In both cases, we are touching on subjects that are non-debatable. People should not be put in concentration camps, people should not be rounded up and have their movements restricted within walls because of the circumstances of their birth. Like children’s rights. Discussing their legitimacy implies their rights can be removed.

A Tattered Scrapbook

@wdlindsy Indeed; and the same countries continue to profit from maintaining the same inequalities. I think this is one of the reasons that BRICS represents a real challenge to the hegemony.

As both dominant parties in the US and UK support colonial war and domestic deportations, there is little to hope for there, or in Europe. How far will the West go to cling onto its power?

William Lindsey :toad:

@Tattered I suspect that imperial nations just don't ever concede power without a fight. A big part of the problem in getting more of those nations to recognize their shameful complicity in the slave system is that they scapegoat and blame the US, and the US certainly deserves tremendous blame. But enriching itself via slavery was hardly unique to the US, as Edward Baptist's magisterial The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism shows us.

William Lindsey :toad:

@CanadianCrone If polling in some way legitimates unacceptable behaviors, then I can see the point you're making. I don't see that clear link between trying to ascertain what people think about an issue by polling and legitimating unacceptable behaviors.

Canadian Crone

@wdlindsy I’ll go back to my example about children’s rights. If I poll people asking: “Do you believe children have rights?”, to my mind that implies there is a possibility that if a majority felt children should have no rights, then we could remove children’s rights. Whether people agree or not with children’s rights, or whether people think children should have rights, is irrelevant. But my poll gives them the impression that their opinion on the subject can impact this fact.

A Tattered Scrapbook

@wdlindsy I agree that there are cases to be made. The Commonwealth conference has drawn that into sharp relief. I like the Irish response that if the king does not wish to be blamed for the past, then he cannot continue to enjoy privileges based upon that past.

And that, I am afraid, is why the focus must be on the US. Its hegemonic power is not only the continuation of a past racism, but is also a current racism, with Gaza and the Southern border as evidence.

William Lindsey :toad:

@Tattered Focusing exclusively on the US and pointing to it as a scapegoat — as much as the US deserves scathing critical scrutiny — is too easy. It allows other nations who have large complicity in what's taking place now, the horrors now taking place in the Middle East, to deny and pretend. When they are very much complicit…. I think best that each of us work on our own turf to call the powers that be to responsibility, and not engage in dysfunctational scapegoating and pretending.