Anti-immigrant sentiment is spreading across Europe; far-right wing parties benefiting

[davidn3600]

Immigration is the biggest worry among British voters, overtaking the NHS and the economy as their main concern, according to a new poll.

Fifty per cent of the public said immigration was among the most important issues facing the country, the highest level ever recorded by the monthly Economist Ipsos Mori poll.

Since the Calais crisis erupted, immigration has overtaken the NHS as the most commonly mentioned concern, with the health service now mentioned by 37 per cent of those polled.

Bobby Duffy, the managing director of the Ipsos Mori Social Research Institute, said: “We have never seen concern about immigration this high, and when one single issue reaches 50 per cent it tends to signify that the public perceive it is something which needs to be addressed urgently.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11816808/Immigration-is-the-publics-biggest-concern-poll-says.html

BERLIN (AP) -- Right-wing rioters have attacked police in front of an asylum shelter near Dresden for the second night in a row with firecrackers, stones and bottles.

German news agency dpa reported Sunday that two police officers were injured while protecting a new asylum center in Heidenau in eastern Germany. About 600 asylum seekers are to move into the former warehouse on the outskirts of Heidenau. Some 120 people moved in Saturday amid strong police protection. On Friday night, 31 police were injured when rioters blocked the road to the asylum home.

German lawmakers have condemned the increasing violence toward refugees. So far, Germany has been largely welcoming to the tens of thousands of refugees arriving each month but the attacks on them and on refugee shelters have been on the rise.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_GERMANY_MIGRANTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-08-23-06-29-04

A deepening immigration crisis is threatening to rip the "soul" out of the European Union, Italy's foreign minister warned on Sunday.

In a hard-hitting interview, Paolo Gentiloni said the kind of chaotic scenes witnessed this weekend at the Greece-Macedonia border represented a real threat to the free movement of people across the bloc.

Separately, German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel called for the EU's asylum policy to be overhauled, and for member-states to share the migratory influx "fairly."

"On immigration, Europe is in danger of displaying the worst of itself: selfishness, haphazard decision-making and rows between member states," Gentiloni told Il Messaggero.

"I am very worried. Today it is on this issue that Europe will either rediscover its soul or lose it for good."

Gentiloni urged Italy's EU partners to stop squabbling and start working on a common solution to the crisis.

The alternative, he warned, would be the inevitable collapse of the Schengen accords which allow free travel across much of continental Europe.

https://in.news.yahoo.com/migrant-crisis-may-rip-apart-101244680.html

Stockholm (AFP) - As immigration to Sweden soars, the far-right Sweden Democrats have topped an opinion poll for the first time, illustrating growing hostility to refugees and beggars in a country known for its open-arms policy.

With a cradle-to-grave welfare state, a reputation for tolerance, a healthy economy, and a job market, Sweden is a favoured destination for the record number of migrants fleeing conflicts, authoritarian regimes and poverty worldwide.

----

But one in four Swedes appears to disagree with the generous immigration policy: 25.2 percent of voters now support the Sweden Democrats, according to a Yougov poll published in Metro on Thursday that questioned 1,527 people.

That placed the party ahead of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven's Social Democrats, which garnered 23.4 percent, and the opposition conservative Moderates, credited with 21 percent.

The Sweden Democrats, with roots in the country's most radical extreme right, entered parliament in 2010 with the ambition of curbing Sweden's immigration and refugee policy.

http://news.yahoo.com/swedens-far-posts-record-score-migration-soars-191555467.html


This is something that is becoming a topic of debate all over the world.

[elleng]

1. ONE cause, I suspect,

German wage repression.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016130677#post1

[Blue_Tires]

10. How does Germany have anything to do with what's happening in Sweden?

[Recursion]

15. Because Germany isn't buying imports from Asia and Africa

Which makes Asian and African nations poorer. People from those poorer countries wind up in Sweden as migrants.

[Blue_Tires]

29. Seriously? The EU does tens of billions in trade with African nations annually

I thought many, if not most of these folks were fleeing failed states or battle-torn nations...

[pampango]

30. The EU imports more from developing countries than the USA, Canada, Japan and China put together.

The EU is the most open to developing countries. The EU imports more from developing countries than the USA, Canada, Japan and China put together.

The EU is the top trading partner for 80 countries. By comparison the US is the top trading partner for a little over 20 countries.

The EU benefits from being one of the most open economies in the world and remains committed to free trade. The average applied tariff for goods imported into the EU is very low, less than 1%. More than 70% of imports enter the EU at zero or reduced tariffs.

The EU’s services markets are highly open and we have arguably the most open investment regime in the world.

In fact the EU has retained its capacity to conclude and implement trade agreements. The recent Free Trade Agreements with South Korea and with Singapore are examples of this and the EU has an ambitious agenda of trade agreements in the pipeline.

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/eu-position-in-world-trade/

All this and the best income equality figures in the world. FDR would not have been surprised.

[Recursion]

31. The EU does. Germany doesn't

The EU runs a trade deficit. Germany doesn't.

[pampango]

32. How are Germany's trade policies any different from the rest of the EU? China is Germany's

4th leading source of imports. So it does import from Asia.

In 2014 Germany's exports to China were 74.5 billion euros while imports from China were 79.9 billion euros.

https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/NationalEconomyEnvironment/ForeignTrade/TradingPartners/Tables/OrderRankGermanyTradingPartners.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

All of the EU including Germany are open to trade with the Third World. Germany is part of the EU's Generalised Scheme of Preferences which provides:

-the standard/general GSP arrangement, which offers generous tariff reductions to developing countries. Practically, this means partial or entire removal of tariffs on two thirds of all product categories.
-the "GSP+" enhanced preferences mean full removal of tariffs on essentially the same product categories as those covered by the general arrangement. These are granted to countries which ratify and implement core international conventions relating to human and labour rights, environment and good governance;
-"Everything but Arms" (EBA) arrangement for least developed countries (LDCs), which grants duty-free quota-free access to all products, except for arms and ammunitions.

[Recursion]

33. Because they hold a common currency with Greece and Portugal

Just as the euro is artificially high for Greece's economy it's artificially low for Germany's.

[Hekate]

2. This is what 7.5 Billion people + Global Warming looks like. The Pentagon did a detailed assessment

... of what their job would look like handling the upcoming global displacements back during the BushCheney administration. In other words, while BushCheney and minions were denying global climate change with every breath, there were bright people inside the Pentagon who simply got on with the job of evaluating the future based on facts.

I've never forgotten that.

[Mojorabbit]

11. Neither have I. nt

[joshcryer]

27. +1

[bemildred]

45. Yep. But you won't get our "leaders" to face up to it any time soon. nt

[hifiguy]

3. The problem is not that people are moving around the world.

It's that those who ARE moving are all headed for a very small number of destinations in the "advanced" world. That the people who have been there for centuries feel a bit put out should be understandable. Very few nations on earth were literally populated entirely by emigration from elsewhere, the US, Canada, and Australia being the most obvious examples. France has been French for over 1000 years, the Scandinavian cultures are even older.

And any individual nation, like the planet as a whole. has a finite carrying capacity.

[840high]

4. And any individual nation, like the planet as a whole. has a finite carrying capacity.

America does, too.

[smirkymonkey]

5. +1000

This.

[KamaAina]

34. "Very few nations on earth were literally populated entirely by emigration from elsewhere"

Try "no nation on earth was...". The native/aboriginal population of the three countries mentioned may be small, but it is not insignificant.

[hifiguy]

37. Good point,

Though I think the Gauls, Celts, Germani, and proto-Norsemen WERE the original post-Neanderthal populations of France, Britain, Germany and Scandinavia. Whoever may have preceded them is long-lost in the mists of time.

[closeupready]

38. Nonsense.

[hifiguy]

43. Well, they're not headed for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan,

or any of the economically rising nations on the next tier with the exception of Turkey. They are headed for the EU and the US/Canada, and in Asia, towards Australia.

[seveneyes]

6. It's been coming for a while now

If the left won't tackle it, the people will lean to the right for answers to the problem. And it is a problem.

Many of the incoming want to recreate the society they ran away from and that will not sit well with local customs.
Adherence to black robed women and other other belittling shit like that is doomed to fail.

[hifiguy]

7. Agreed. If you are going to relocate to a completely different culture,

and there is nothing wrong with that, assimilation with respect to the basic social norms of your new home is absolutely necessary. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" is ancient, wise advice.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

13. The western left has to confront Islamic fanaticism

If your go to when confronted by this issues is moral relativism, to the right for solutions people will go. That is going to mean throwing some mullah assholes out of the country and they're going to have to just deal with that.

The funny thing is, most of the European Muslims I know would like nothing more than for a mass deportation of fundamentalists.

[moondust]

8. Are those responsible for the invasions

of Iraq and Afghanistan, thus lighting the fuse under the "powder keg" that was the Middle East, taking any responsibility for this mass migration largely from the war zones they created in Afghanistan, Iraq and neighboring Syria? If Condi Rice couldn't imagine anyone flying airliners into tall buildings, there's virtually no chance she and her pals could fathom the long-term consequences of their disastrous military adventures in the "powder keg."

Maybe "Old Europe" knew something the neocons didn't.

Hillary?

[pampango]

9. Liberals need to fight the urge to become "RW-lite" and become as anti-immigrant as the right.

Liberals need to do better at defending liberal immigration laws and improving them where necessary. As Harry Truman said, if you give voters a choice between a conservative and a conservative-lite, liberals will never win elections.

The right in Europe and the US hate diversity. Anti-immigrant sentiment is growing and dangerous but is still very much a minority opinion. We don't defeat the right on any issue by copying their policies.

A surge in support for right wing parties based on any issue - anti-immigration, fiscal austerity, homophobia, Islamphobia, anti-EU, anti-UN - is no reason for left wing parties to adopt a "me too" mentality and mimic the right's policies.

[davidn3600]

14. But you have to have answers

Simply telling people, "don't be racist" isn't going to work for very long.

You need to provide proof that the social, political, and economic systems in place can withstand the influx. If it appears the immigrants are putting a strain on the system...a leadership will go down in flames in ANY democracy. That's true for the US too.

Also, people get angry over the idea that people who are coming in legally have to go through a long and difficult process. While people coming in illegally seem to have supporters that just want to hand out citizenship or residency like candy. Do you realize how difficult it is for an immigrant to come to the US legally? There is a long line waiting. Are you saying that those people should keep waiting while we nationalize people who came in illegally? It's a fair question to ask.

[AOR]

16. You have it backwards and are blaming the victims...

Global Capitalism on the march...and ruling class parasites and pirates in search of consolidated profit are putting a strain on the masses and the commons. The masses and immigrants are not putting a strain on the system.

[davidn3600]

17. Im not blaming them, I'm simply explaining the situation

Throughout human civilization, there has always been societies more wealthy and more technologically-advanced than others. That's been that way even long before capitalism. I wish it wasn't this way...but it is.

When you have a society that has put in place social-welfare programs and political systems that have created stability and economic power, the citizens of such society will benefit from increased quality of life. If that quality of life becomes threatened (or even a belief that it is threatened), the citizens are going to react to whatever they believe is causing the threat. This is why a political party in Sweden with ties to Neo-Nazis are now gaining support. The populace sees the immigrants as a threat to their quality of life. And the leaders are doing nothing to mitigate those concerns.

[AOR]

18. Stability and economic power for whom I might ask ?

Quality of life for whom I might also ask. Human beings are not "illegals." There is one rock called earth and nobody asked to be born onto it. Your post is pure apology for ruling class power, exploitation, and pitting the oppressed against each other. Your post is also one that divides and lacks solidarity with ALL workers. Railing against immigrants and "illegals" for "stealing our jobs" and "our quality of life" entirely misses the point of where the real problem lies and that is with Capitalism and all it's insidious tentacles around the globe in whatever form they may take. There is no "Socialism" going on as long as a ruling class of profiteers calls the shots and owns the means of production and the commons of the masses and that includes "Nordic Socialism" and "Euro Socialism."

You're not examining why the situation gets worse every day. "Illegal immigration" and immigration is the end result of capital moving across borders and the capitalist theft of people's resources, expropriation of their lands, labor, and resources for profits. "We" stole half of Mexico and then wonder "why in the world this is happening." Labor represents the many, and is the source of all wealth. Capital represents the few, and is the source of all exploitation and expropriation everywhere and results in "our illegal immigration" problem.

The capitalists move their capital across borders in search of profits and cheap labor and exploit and drive people off their lands in despair and hunger. Some are under some illusions that there is some "us" that can't afford "them" rather than "us" being part of "them." I think there are a lot of "us" who need someone to blame for our failure to do anything about the underlying problem - which is Capitalism and all its insidious tentacles - that causes these types of conditions. Rather than even thinking about taking a stand against a ruthless and oppressive system that destroys and treats human existence like a commodity many of "us" want to blame "them" for stealing "our" jobs and "our" resources.

The first illusion is that "we" can't afford things and that there is not enough to go around. The second illusion is that when one group of people does well, other groups of people must suffer because that's "human nature" and "that's just the way it is." Those two illusions have existed - from the time the struggles between labor and capital began - to defend a ruling class of elites. The reason that there isn't enough for "us" and "them" is because the few are expropriating for profit every resource and the commons while human existence is reduced to a commodity.

Stop doing their dirty work and identifying with the exploiters by making it about "us" vs "them." If we are working class then we are workers regardless of race, immigration status, or anything else that would divide us. Groveling for the owners to give us our jobs back and our "quality of life back" that "those illegals" and "those others" are stealing is not a solution. "Workers of the world unite" is more than just a slogan. It is the only rallying point that can save us from the savage exploitation, destruction, and inequality that Capitalism and Empire has wrought around the globe.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people."

“I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth; I am a citizen of the world.”

― Eugene V. Debs

[Syzygy321]

20. The extra-crappy thing is that

many of the immigrants to Sweden also seem to think the system is broken. They get money and housing but their lives are frustrating - and some are now huddling in gang-infested neighborhoods, thanks to the criminality of other, not-so-nice immigrants who happily rushed through Sweden's open door. Stabbings, grenades, and hate crimes are becoming common in one area. The cops can't stop it. IOW basically it's like a ghetto in the making, with plenty of helpless innocent immigrants trapped inside.

Question: if you adopt seven orphan kids, and three of them are troubled and need help: should you ignore them and keep bringing home more orphans? Reminds me of old ladies who hoard a ton of sickly cats.

[pampango]

22. "Liberals need to do better at defending liberal immigration laws and improving them where necessary

I agree with you that we need to be able to provide proof that liberal immigration laws work in the long run.

Are you saying that those people should keep waiting while we nationalize people who came in illegally? It's a fair question to ask.

It is a fair question to ask. Obviously there is no simple answer or something substantial would have been done already.

On one extreme is the Donald's 'round them all up and deport them along with their US-citizen children' solution. On the other extreme is, I suppose, what be what the right would view as 'instant amnesty' for everyone here illegally.

Neither of those is, I hope, going to happen. Then the question becomes what do you do? "Self-deportation" has been discussed, most recently in 2012, and both rejected electorally. And studies show that it would not work anyway. If forced deportation is not going to happen, I hope, and 'self-deportation' has been rejected, what happens to the large number of illegal workers who are not protected by labor laws and hence are easily exploited? Some path to legal status - either citizenship or legal residency, both of which are favored in the polls over deportation - are the best solutions.

Of course, a path to legal status does not lend itself to political histrionics like the Donald and other GOP candidates love. "Fear sells" and republicans are good at selling it.

[Syzygy321]

19. But: what do you do when some of the immigrants ARE the homophobes?

and some of them do plenty of intolerant (eg xenophobic, antisemitic, misogynist) hateful shit that violates liberal western mores?

Not a rhetorical question.

What is the solution?

The usual solution (?) is to yell, "That question is racist! Shut up!".. then stick fingers in ears and throw liberal values (along with gays, women, Jews, and other immigrants) under the bus and pat ourselves on the back for being "tolerant.".

No one has found a real solution yet.

[pampango]

23. "some of them do plenty of intolerant ... hateful shit". Agreed. 'Some' white Swedes,

'some' Hispanics, 'some' African Americans and 'some' Anglo Americans do "intolerant, hateful shit".

No one has found a real solution yet.

True. The Donald and the far-right in Europe think they have found a "real solution" - deport them all. Fortunately, Trump and his far-right cousins across the Atlantic do not yet make immigration policy. Liberals do. And we do not punish groups of people for the actions of a few or "some" members of their group.

Donald and his cousins dream of ethnically- and culturally-homogenous countries. (The right seems to hate diversity (and its evil cousin - multiculturalism) everywhere they see it). They are not the first to have such dreams nor will they be the last. The history of what happens in countries where this "dream" is implemented is not an encouraging one for liberals.

[Syzygy321]

25. I know. I agree and I want diversity too.

But ii think I wasn't clear in my question. Basically I am asking how one ensurea that ALL liberal values are safeguarded.

Just one example: after the Hebdo murders, when France had a moment of silence for the murdered artists and Jews, teachers in immigrant-heavy banlieus noted that many students said the murdered people deserved what they got . That wasn't an isolated opinion of a couple wack job kids: it was the opinion of lots of the kids. They are French kids who think murdering people (who are Jewish or who draw pictures) is normal. Is that what France's artists and Jews deserve to live next door to?

A kid like that grww up, bought a Kalashnikov, and just got tackled on a train.

That's a problem. That's France's home-grown terrorism by an ultraconservative who kills people who don't pray like he does.

How would you fix ithe problem? That's my question. And I don't see where you addressed it. Criticizing Crazy Donald doesn't fix the problem. It ignores it.

The problem is I think more serious in small countries (Europe), where an influx of immigrants who are ultra-conservatives
- literally wanting to end freedom if expression, hating gays and Jews, oppressing women - can make a big impact and change demographics and voting patterns.

The US is huge so we can absorb a lot more people - even ultraconservatives raised on bigoted values - without lit changing the mainstream.

But I still want an answer. A real solution. Repeating "we aren't Trump" doesn't solve anything. It's rhetoric.

[pampango]

28. "But I still want an answer. A real solution. Repeating "we aren't Trump" doesn't solve anything."

Criticizing Crazy Donald doesn't fix the problem. It ignores it.

It sounds like you want a simple, quick 'real solution'. If you have offered your own "real solution" I have missed it. I trust you would not go in the same direction as "Crazy Donald". While I suppose the "Trump solution" would be 'real' it would hardly be quick or simple. What is your solution? Should we sound more like Donald and the anti-immigrant right in Europe? What would such a solution look like?

Frankly I don't think there is a quick, simple 'solution'. Assimilating immigrants has always taken time, often generations. It was true of Irish immigrants, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, etc. That can undoubtedly be speeded up with liberal programs to teach language, culture, etc. so that the assimilation process is quicker but it will never be fast enough for conservatives who constantly rail against the 'refusal' of immigrants to assimilate - going back to our Know Nothings and before.

... an influx of immigrants who are ultra-conservatives - literally wanting to end freedom if expression, hating gays and Jews, oppressing women ...

That sounds like a pretty broad brush you are painting all immigrants with.

Irish immigrants were depicted as all drunks and papists (blind followers of the Pope). German and Italian immigrants supposedly refused to learn English or were all members of organized crime. The Asiatic 'hordes' from China and Japan were all here to rape our women and take our jobs. It turns out that immigrants, like the rest of us, are mostly good people though there are exceptions. I lived in Asia for 4 years. I know it is difficult to adjust to a new culture and language. Some do it quickly. Others take longer.

[mmonk]

12. Like the years of the Great Depression.

Immigrants and minority groups are blamed for the problems.

[closeupready]

40. People are lazy, and thinking is hard. As it was with BLM attacking Bernie

rather than Jeb Bush or Walker, pick the low-hanging fruit because it's not as hard work as picking the ripe ones further up requiring a ladder, dexterity with an instrument, tenacity, etc.

[Waiting For Everyman]

21. Maybe it's time to look at the polcies that have changed

that prevented this from happening before.

Secondly, look at what people are fleeing from and fix that. Masses of people running around the world is always going to be unstable and unsustainable.

The common people in Europe and here are sick of it, and if liberals don't face that and listen to them, people will turn to any party that will tackle it. Then, of course, RWers will make it worse. It's libeals' refusal to face this which will hand the right even more power and control. It's win-win for them, and lose-lose for us until we smarten up. Libeals should be defending the grass roots, but that isn't happening.

It's ideology vs. realism: realism will eventually win, no matter what. Too many policies today are just delusional nonsense. Open borders, free trade, trickle-down economics and neoliberalism are all absurdities, which any slight amount of common sense would make readily obvious.

[GliderGuider]

24. Population growth runs headfirst into climate change.

Anybody who has been looking deeper than simple partisan politics has seen this coming for the last decade or two. Well, it's here.

Expect it to get worse and more widespread as the years go by. In response, we should expect people around the world to start looking for their next wave of strong-man leaders.

[DetlefK]

26. I will give you an example why immigration is a problem:

Just last week, there was riot in a refugee-shelter in the town Suhl in Germany.
(article in german)
http://www.n-tv.de/politik/Polizei-kann-Lage-in-Suhl-beruhigen-article15757966.html

One 25-year old Muslim from Afghanistan tore pages out of a Quran and threw them demonstratively into a toilet-bowl. After that, about 100 Muslims from Syria tried to lynch him. He fled into the office of the guard, which was then literally under siege.

When police arrived, the rioters attacked them with iron bars and pelted them with rocks, pieces of concrete and pieces of furniture.





This is what you get from immigration. The reason is simple: The mindsets are totally different. And the immigrants have to adapt to the european definition of tolerance. Tolerance in the Middle-East is easy, because no matter where you are from, there is always Islam as the lowest common denominator. (Except when you have the wrong denomination.)

Europe doesn't have such a lowest common denominator. (No, Christianity is way less important than you think. We have two explicitly christian parties in Germany, and you won't find a single instance of one of those politicians mentioning God in public. Your religion is your business, not other people's business.) Europe learned tolerance not through finding similarities but by finding out in the bloody, grudging, ugly way that tolerance is better than the alternative.

In Europe, tolerance is not one blanket peace-deal with a group. It's a billion cease-fires with individuals and situations.

The muslim immigrants think that tolerance is okay except that some things are beyond criticism. Well, in Europe nothing is beyond criticism. It's just a question of time until somebody from some culture insults your feelings or your religion.





Immigrants have to learn the mindset of their new society. That's why immigration has to be slow and controlled and coordinated, so the immigrants can be absorbed into society in a regulated manner. And as of lately, so many people have fled to Europe that this slow absorbation-process is beyond capacity. And then you get attempted lynchings.

Just one more example: There have been several cases in Germany where a muslim girl was gruesomely killed by its family because it dated/married a christian guy. The girl had "dishonored" the family and therefore it had to die. That is not what happens when an immigrant gets absorbed into the country's society. This is what happens when immigrants form parallel societies.

[snagglepuss]

36. Spot on. I agree immigration needs to happen gradually however

the millions of refugees SYria, Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be abandoned for years in horrific camps. I wonder if the solution is to accept those refugees who will agree to assimilate in terms of dress and be monitored for x many years.

Not ideal but perhaps such requirements would lessen the rising hostility to refugees and immigrants as there would be some assurance that immigrants were open to new ideas and adaptable.

[hifiguy]

39. Outstanding post

that cuts straight to the heart of the issue.

[pampango]

41. Of course, Muslim immigrants are all alike, just like Irish immigrants were all alike, Italians,

Chinese, Germans, etc.

And Muslim immigrants will never assimilate. Just like Irish immigrants would never assimilate and Italians and Chinese and Germans, etc.

Starting with our Know Nothings in the 1840's, some segments of society have always contended that immigrants are just too 'different', that they do not want to assimilate and never will. And then they do. Then the nativists move on to the newest group of immigrants and claim that they are too 'different', do not want to assimilate and never will. And so on and so on.

Some do not realize that people, on a fundamental level, are not that different even when the process of adaptation is not quick or painless.

[DetlefK]

44. Germany has a huge muslim minority that is perfectly integrated.

After WWII lots of Turks came to Germany because the expanding german economy needed workers. Nowadays, most Turks are perfectly integrated into the german society and if there are problems, Islam is the least of it.

However, as I said, there is always a risk of conflict if two different mindsets exist in parallel. These parallel societies are where extremism grows, be it Neo-Nazis or muslim extremists.

[Hekate]

35. Four of us in this thread have mentioned overpopulation & climate change. Those are inexorable press

Those are inexorable pressures.

While the rest of you are arguing about homophobic immigrants (!) and whether radical-right politics are going to win in this country (they aren't conservative), people elsewhere are absolutely desperate and trying to save their families.

7.5 billion is an unsustainable number of people. Coastlines everywhere are rearranging themselves. Drought and desertification are worldwide problems.

I don't want to build a Great Wall, for any number of reasons, including: It's cowardly and un-American, and It doesn't freaking work. The US has coped with great waves of immigrants before this. The illiterate Irish were said to be unassimilable and now they are "white" and long ago assimilated. Eastern European Jews likewise. Masses of Italians.

It takes two generations and boy-howdy, are immigrants ever assimilated in America. Other countries sometimes not so much, especially when they do not have birthright citizenship, and most of them do not.

We absolutely need to have sensible intake policies, because this time migration pressures from Latin America are intense, and are related not just to politics (though that is bad enough) but to global climate change. We (the media and politicians) spend a lot of energy talking about what's going on in the Middle East and Europe, but anyone South of Texas is just another Mexican and we should build a wall (um, there's a whole continent South of Texas that is not populated by Mexicans).

Politics aside, look at human migration patterns across the globe. Look at Al Gore's maps of the globe.

[hifiguy]

42. There's a big difference in the nature of cultures, too.

The Poles, Germans, Scandinavians, Italians and Eastern European Jews who immigrated to the US in the late 19th-early 20th century WANTED to assimilate into the larger culture around them. My mom's parents were immigrants from Germany when they were children. Parents would refrain from speaking their original language to their kids because they wanted their children to speak idiomatic American English so they couldn't be singled out by the way they spoke. My maternal grandparents were perfectly fluent in both German and English but my mom, aunts and uncle didn't know more than 50 words of German between them. English only for them growing up.

This was the pattern that held for all of the major immigrant groups settling in the west until very recently. Here in Minnesota, a fairly remote place, the numerous Vietnamese and Hmong immigrants of the late '70s and early '80s have assimilated completely. Grandma and Grandpa may still speak the language of the old country, but the second and third generations are, as the old saying goes, as American as apple pie. There's also a vibrant, thriving Mexican/Latino community about which the same can be said, the only difference being that both English AND Spanish are commonly spoken by adults and kids alike.

The Somalis, not so much, and many have been here 20 years. Some very much seem to want to transplant the old country here, doctrinaire Islam. hijabs and all. And much to the distress of some assimilated leaders in the Somali community, a number of Somali kids from Minnesota have turned up in ISIS and other fanatic groups in the ME.

[pampango]

46. Perhaps most German immigrants wanted to assimilate but American nativists did not see them that way

The ... Know Nothing movement was an American political party that operated on a national basis during the mid-1850s. It promised to purify American politics by limiting or ending the influence of Irish Catholics and other immigrants, thus reflecting nativism and anti-Catholic sentiment. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, whom they saw as hostile to republican values and controlled by the Pope in Rome. Mainly active from 1854 to 1856, it strove to curb immigration and naturalization, but met with little success. Membership was limited to Protestant men.

The immigration of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics to the United States in the period between 1830 and 1860 made religious differences between Catholics and Protestants a political issue. Violence occasionally erupted at the polls. Protestants alleged that Pope Pius IX had put down the failed liberal Revolutions of 1848 and that he was an opponent of liberty, democracy and Republicanism. One Boston minister described Catholicism as "the ally of tyranny, the opponent of material prosperity, the foe of thrift, the enemy of the railroad, the caucus, and the school." These fears encouraged conspiracy theories regarding papal intentions of subjugating the United States through a continuing influx of Catholics controlled by Irish bishops obedient to and personally selected by the Pope.

Know-Nothings scored startling victories in northern state elections in 1854, winning control of the legislature in Massachusetts and polling 40% of the vote in Pennsylvania. Although most of the new immigrants lived in the North, resentment and anger against them was national, and the American Party initially polled well in the South, attracting the votes of many former southern Whigs.

The party name gained wide but brief popularity. Nativism became a new American rage: Know-Nothing candy, Know-nothing tea, and Know-Nothing toothpicks appeared. Stagecoaches were dubbed "The Know-Nothing". In Trescott, Maine, a shipowner dubbed his new 700-ton freighter, Know-Nothing. The party was occasionally referred to contemporaneously in a slightly pejorative shortening, Knism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing

It is interesting how the conspiracy theory of the mid-19th century regarding the Pope's plans to "subjugate the United States" through Catholic immigration mimics our modern RW's belief that Muslim immigrants will bring Sharia Law here.

Some things never change. Many of Trump's policies are reminiscent of the good ol' Know Nothing days.

[hifiguy]

48. The Know-Nothings are an excellent parallel.

My German ancestors were Lutherans who straight came to Minnesota where, as Garrison Keillor has told the world for years, the countryside was full of German and Scandinavian Lutherans.

[pampango]

47. Guardian: Angela Merkel to visit asylum shelter after wave of far-right attacks

Angela Merkel is to strongly condemn a recent wave of attacks on refugees in Germany when she makes her first visit to an asylum seekers’ shelter that is under round-the-clock police protection following violent far-right protests.

In the early hours of Tuesday morninga planned shelter for asylum seekers in Nauen, near Berlin, was destroyed in a fire that police said was very likely to have been an arson attack. The shelter, in a gymnasium attached to a vocational school, was due to house around 130 asylum seekers from next month. The mayor of Nauen, Detlef Fleischmann, said there had been an angry campaign by extremists on social media who were against the shelter, and attacks on the offices of several local politicians. “If this was caused by arsonists, as far as I’m concerned they’re criminals,” he said.

Dietmar Woike, prime minister of the state of Brandenburg, where Nauen is located, condemned the attack and appealed to citizens to “distance yourself from the racist mob”. He called the recent attacks “shameful and unworthy of Germany”.

Norbert Lammert, president of the Bundestag, described the violence as “embarrassing for our country”. There have been more than 200 similar attacks this year.

In the light of the xenophobic attacks, the Bundestag president Lammert said it was important to stress the huge effort being made by volunteers across Germany to help care for refugee newcomers, as many had shown willingness to provide everything from food and accommodation to language lessons. Lammert told the Westdeutschen Allgemeinen Zeitung that the good deeds outweighed xenophobic attacks “by about 20 to one”.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/25/angela-merkel-visit-asylum-shelter-attacks

[Blue_Tires]

49. There won't be any simple answers

For starters, the EU needs to set up a unified immigration policy instead of shipping these folks to the border and dumping them off in the next country like you would grass clippings into a neighbor's yard...

Secondly, something has to be done about the extremism, since nobody wants to let in a bunch of future ISIS recruits, either...

[One_Life_To_Give]

50. Tribal Reaction we Humans have had for Millennia

When resources are plentiful we humans may not mind a few additional interlopers around. But when resources start to appear scarce we get defensive and rally the tribes warriors to fend off the invaders. In that respect we are not unlike some of the other animals on this planet.