Thank you for touching the live wire again, Charles. THIS is the article I've been looking for about this issue. I assume that over the years, it must feel like you're repeating yourself, because you've been familiar with and talking about a different way of seeing issues like immigration for probably decades, but I'm 33 and this is the first article I've ever read on immigration that really helped me understand why I feel pulled by the concerns of both sides on this issue, but ultimately deeply unmet by both. I just want you to know that this article really made a difference for me.
Thanks. Yeah I do feel like I’m repeating myself. Most of what I said here I have written before. So I assume, “Yeah everyone is sick of me saying this.” But I guess some things bear repeating.
Somehow it doesn't feel like repeating...I know it's so different as a reader/listener - I obviously haven't come across everything you've written and said. But even when you've said something similar before, it still feels like there's a fresh aliveness with the way you talk about each new event. (And if it doesn't feel like that, if it feels like you're getting sick of saying it, you usually write about feeling sick of saying it, and then change gears, which also helps it feel alive.)
I was thinking about the sense of futility...I obviously feel it too, sometimes a lot. But it seems like Life wants you to write about (in part) issues that you may never actually change, at least in a direct way. I know that, in some way, change does happen with every article, and everyone who reads it and feels about it and maybe talks about it and generates their own deeper truth from it. That leads to something, but it might never be a change in US policy on immigration...it's possible that the change will happen outside of those old structures entirely, yet for some reason, it's important to talk about those old structures and how they affect people. I feel the truth of that, even though it's a bit mysterious to me.
We need to hear this again and again, said in different ways, over and over. Just about everything important needs to be repeated over and over. It is how we learn. After all, when someone says, "I love you," do you really not want to hear that again --- many many many times again?
Thank you Charles, a great article. I agree with all you say here.
My only suggestion would be that many on the left (the real left, not the neoliberal Democratic Party) do indeed criticise and try to grapple with these underlying causes that you so rightly identify.
But yes, you’re right, without looking deeper than the flashpoint of the moment to the socio-economic root causes (and othering root root cause), nothing will be solved.
Thank you for eloquently illuminating the connection between immigration and the role of US foreign policy. I was born in Jamaica, and in the 1970's the World Bank and IMF convinced the government to borrow heavily with the argument that by borrowing money the country could boost its exports and pay back the debt. Of course, the increased supply (sugar, coffee, etc.) from not only Jamaica but numerous other countries lead to a glut of supply and a crash in commodity prices, leaving no money to pay back the debt. Jamaica still has not paid off the debt, in spite of 50 years of payments. I rarely see any examination of the why - why are these countries so badly off that people will risk everything to get to the US. Thanks for providing your perspective.
Yes. THIS is the issue that should be at the forefront of the immigration discussion. The IMF and World Bank lending programs were basically demanding that countries like Jamaica make their resources and labor available for global capital to exploit, and, because the loans came with interest, to keep most of the proceeds for itself while leaving none for the people of Jamaica. Only the Jamaican elites get a little bit of it as a kind of kickback.
It is amusing and ironic that someone who makes this kind of argument is branded as “right wing”.
I'm also becoming concerned for the protesters (the ones who inted to peaceful assembe to oppose the apparent government power grab). I've seen some plausible info about the government capturing cell phone data, scanning license plates, and using facial recognition tech to build lists of people participating in the demonstrations.
Undoubtedly this will happen. The apparatus of surveillance and harassment that was wielded against Covid dissidents has not been dismantled, as far as I can tell, but merely taken over and applied to new enemies.
As a “Global Citizen”, rather than a citizen of any tribe or nation, one of our main ideas is that “There is no them”.
I like the concepts of “the plutonium seed” and “othering”. They are a cancer that feeds on our noxious qualities and have nothing to do with “Compassion” for others. If we could address these issues of immigration, justice, economic gaps, and others in the light of Compassion, we might make some headway.
(Compassion is the third leg of Love. Love consists of Sympathy, a feeling; and Empathy, an understanding; and Compassion, an action. Sympathy is feeling the same as another person. Empathy is really understanding what and why a person thinks and feels the way(s) that they do. And Compassion is the resultant action springing forth from Sympathy and Empathy. The three of them is what we mean when we talk of Love.
The story/parable here made me think of the song, “One Tin Soldier”:
Othering is indeed a poison. It seems we humans are tempted to create Caste systems wherever we gather. What depresses me is that the efforts we had seemingly lately been making to actively unlearn this inhuman human trait of othering are increasingly under fire or being denigrated. As if kindness and open-ness or willingness to view our neighbors as equally important and valuable beings as ourselves is no longer desired. How did Diversity become suddenly a dirty word? Why is Inclusion no longer a quality to work toward? How did the notion of Equity get sullied? Has Empathy been completely wiped out?
And... (this speaks to your earlier work like Sacred Economics) not only is Intolerance on the upswing, it seems to me that Capitalism has totally run amok, and out-of-control love of money is fundamentally to blame. In a world that is literally breaking apart, how can Greed and Selfishness be defended?
In my 75 years on earth, I have lived through Flower Power and race riots and anti-War protests and Women's Liberation marches and the War on AIDS...... but this is the most distressing time yet.
What a poignant comment. I can only say that none of these movements have been in vain, although each was hijacked by unresolved shadow forces to turn off the road of love. Things look bad now, but as long as we keep trying, there is hope. By trying, we keep the possibility alive.
It’s hard to imagine how anyone left or right could argue with this, but I recognize you grabbed the plutonium hot potato for yourself by publishing it. Thanks.
Thank you again Charles! This is why you need to keep writing/talking and being 'out there' - you present sense where there is no-sense. While blindness continues, many of us are lifted by your sight and the light it provides. Not said to turn you into a transformational guru or leader to follow but you do present maybe the only way through. This is to encourage you to continue. We'll all need that crack in the darkness when sanity finally emerges from the non-sense of distortion.
Great essay, Charles. Many people need to hear your thoughts about othering and planting toxic seeds, with self-examination rather than fingers pointed. We tend to convince outselves it is not we who sow unrest but "the others," and so the cycle continues. I appreciate the insights very much and look forward to your thoughts on Israel/Iran. Oy vey ):
Thank you dear fellow subscribers for your wonderful comments and perspectives. To David Kimball - I was in a choir during Jr. High and High School and sang the song One Tin Soldier many times. I don't think I ever realized what it was about till your post!
Thank you once more Charles for clarifying complex issues that suddenly don’t seem so dense, and in fact much more simple in nature. (You’d probably make a good therapist too!) The parabel was also very helpful in that regard.
We know deep down, don’t we, us economically privileged North Village residents. I live in the southern hemisphere where of course the situation is not much different. Thanks again.
"Othering" is a form of hatred or contempt. Insofar as we allow these feelings for others to grow in ourselves, they allow similar feelings for ourselves to similarly infect our minds. However the issue of "immigration" appears to be not quite as you say. Some of the illegal immigrants are here to escape the poverty and dire circumstances we, or should I say, our government, helped create through exploitative foreign policy. Some are here for nefarious reasons, political migrants who have been paid to sneak in for the sole purpose of creating political trouble. Michael Yon has so reported, at least. It is now apparent that the Biden administration, through numerous NGO's funded a well organized program of illegal immigration, likely for political purposes, to improve the fortunes of the Democratic Party. Many of these immigrants were lavished with free transportation, credit cards, free housing, and driver's licenses. All to induce them to support their benefactors. There are no illegal immigrants who are legal immigrants, naturally.
Part of the animosity and devaluation of the illegal immigrants by those who support ICE's actions likely grows from the frustration of how politics has been used to subvert the will of the people by those in power. Part of it comes from the fact that the rule of law is being flagrantly flouted and people become very anxious about what can happen in a lawless society, as well as simply standing on moral ground, that the laws are not laws which are not enforced.
Part of it likely comes from the crimes of gang members who, however small in numbers, have terrorized local population and even murdered people. Part of it may come from the generalized sense of being helpless prey of more powerful forces that dictate the policies of our country, whether it be lockdowns, masking, mandated vaccinations, endemic corruption of regulatory agencies, foreign policy servicing secret societies of the wealthy and powerful, and the influence of malign forces, domestic and foreign that appear to have infiltrated government.
These points are not made to justify ICE's activities. Those I know who object to ICE appear to object more to their methods than their aims, more to their style than their substance. Compassion for those who are here illegally has been buried under a mountain of fear and resentment, which really has more to do with the zeitgeist than with the migrants themselves. The same is true in European countries who have been flooded with migrants over the past decades with the disingenuous and politically motivated assistance of government. People are sick and tired of being pawns in a chess game played by the powerful, where their opinions appear to matter little, and democracy has become a travesty. This is not the fault of the migrants. However, they did come here knowing they were breaking the law, and if apprehended would be subject to the consequences. Law and order have broken down in our society, and need to be restored. It would be best to restore it with compassion and not resentment and hostility, but we are human and are likely to fail to varying degrees in such endeavors.
In the end, the issue of ICE, illegal migration, and our government's role in the disposition of this problem they largely created is not really the main issue. The issue is our culture in crisis, and loss of faith in our political system. How we can emerge from this to a better more compassionate and just world I am not sure. But we surely need to aim for that better world.
Much of value here. I tend to believe lax migration policies are not so calculated in electoral terms, but I could be wrong. It does not bother me that the migrants knowingly broke the law. I’ve been breaking laws my entire life, starting when I began experimenting with altering my consciousness with entheogens in 1989. When you are desperate to feed your family or escape violence, you hark to a higher moral law that supersedes immigration law.
This is what I love about your writing. Always looking at the bigger picture. Sounds so easy and yet, apparently not as we still have wars; between ourselves and thus between our countries.
You hit the bullseye on everything again with this article! It reminded me of a book I read years ago, Ishmael. About the takers and the givers. I also had a good friend who worked for IMF and World Bank, she related a few situations to me, down through the years that tie in perfectly to what you have stated. She finally left because of how our country was exploiting
"other" countries under the guise of helping them. If anyone knows their history that is why the civil war in this country was fought. The industrialized north was running out of resources and wanted what the agricultural south had. It had nothing to do with slavery. The north was full of slave labor of a different type. What strikes me here with these situations is that I see this going on in our country when real estate co. and developers find charming small towns and ruin them with the zealous buying up of lands and over developing areas. Property taxes rise along with water, utilities rates, etc...driving out the very people who made it a lovely place. This is what is happening across Tennessee at the moment and greedy local politicians call it progress? Bah Humbug..water quality is gone, pollution is off the charts, people throw trash everywhere because they do not care about the area, they were not raised there, roads cannot be kept up...and no amount of taxes fixes anything! Some grand billionaire gives money to help build a museum or hospital, neither of which would be needed if the dam land grabbers would not have made a miserable and most of the time, ugly mess in the first place. Pass through, enjoy, and leave it be as it is. The locals will make improvements as they deem fit, when needed. The macro of the micro of so called human endeavors.
Thank you. One thing I have to keep reminding myself is that these “takers” aren’t made of worse stuff than any other humans (besides, if I divide the world into leavers and takers I’d have to include myself in the latter category). They are playing roles laid out by the system and the story that has grown over centuries. One of its key features is artificial scarcity. Artificial scarcity is built into the money system. So many people doing whatever it takes to get by, to feel secure. But even people with a million dollars or a billion won’t feel secure if they are separate from community and the web of life. What situation does one have to experience in order to take more than they need? So, I have to remind myself not to divert my grief at the taking onto the specific individuals doing it most aggressively.
Thank you for touching the live wire again, Charles. THIS is the article I've been looking for about this issue. I assume that over the years, it must feel like you're repeating yourself, because you've been familiar with and talking about a different way of seeing issues like immigration for probably decades, but I'm 33 and this is the first article I've ever read on immigration that really helped me understand why I feel pulled by the concerns of both sides on this issue, but ultimately deeply unmet by both. I just want you to know that this article really made a difference for me.
Thanks. Yeah I do feel like I’m repeating myself. Most of what I said here I have written before. So I assume, “Yeah everyone is sick of me saying this.” But I guess some things bear repeating.
Somehow it doesn't feel like repeating...I know it's so different as a reader/listener - I obviously haven't come across everything you've written and said. But even when you've said something similar before, it still feels like there's a fresh aliveness with the way you talk about each new event. (And if it doesn't feel like that, if it feels like you're getting sick of saying it, you usually write about feeling sick of saying it, and then change gears, which also helps it feel alive.)
Thanks. I’m not really sick of saying it. Although sometimes I have a sense of futility.
I was thinking about the sense of futility...I obviously feel it too, sometimes a lot. But it seems like Life wants you to write about (in part) issues that you may never actually change, at least in a direct way. I know that, in some way, change does happen with every article, and everyone who reads it and feels about it and maybe talks about it and generates their own deeper truth from it. That leads to something, but it might never be a change in US policy on immigration...it's possible that the change will happen outside of those old structures entirely, yet for some reason, it's important to talk about those old structures and how they affect people. I feel the truth of that, even though it's a bit mysterious to me.
Yes, please keep saying it. I also really appreciate reading this today in light of what is happening. You put words to my feelings. Thank you.
We need to hear this again and again, said in different ways, over and over. Just about everything important needs to be repeated over and over. It is how we learn. After all, when someone says, "I love you," do you really not want to hear that again --- many many many times again?
Thank you Charles, a great article. I agree with all you say here.
My only suggestion would be that many on the left (the real left, not the neoliberal Democratic Party) do indeed criticise and try to grapple with these underlying causes that you so rightly identify.
But yes, you’re right, without looking deeper than the flashpoint of the moment to the socio-economic root causes (and othering root root cause), nothing will be solved.
My thanks to you for your clarity.
Thank you for eloquently illuminating the connection between immigration and the role of US foreign policy. I was born in Jamaica, and in the 1970's the World Bank and IMF convinced the government to borrow heavily with the argument that by borrowing money the country could boost its exports and pay back the debt. Of course, the increased supply (sugar, coffee, etc.) from not only Jamaica but numerous other countries lead to a glut of supply and a crash in commodity prices, leaving no money to pay back the debt. Jamaica still has not paid off the debt, in spite of 50 years of payments. I rarely see any examination of the why - why are these countries so badly off that people will risk everything to get to the US. Thanks for providing your perspective.
Yes. THIS is the issue that should be at the forefront of the immigration discussion. The IMF and World Bank lending programs were basically demanding that countries like Jamaica make their resources and labor available for global capital to exploit, and, because the loans came with interest, to keep most of the proceeds for itself while leaving none for the people of Jamaica. Only the Jamaican elites get a little bit of it as a kind of kickback.
It is amusing and ironic that someone who makes this kind of argument is branded as “right wing”.
Very ironic!
BRAVO! Very well said. I felt your fire.
I'm also becoming concerned for the protesters (the ones who inted to peaceful assembe to oppose the apparent government power grab). I've seen some plausible info about the government capturing cell phone data, scanning license plates, and using facial recognition tech to build lists of people participating in the demonstrations.
Everyone stay safe this weekend.
Undoubtedly this will happen. The apparatus of surveillance and harassment that was wielded against Covid dissidents has not been dismantled, as far as I can tell, but merely taken over and applied to new enemies.
This essay resonated with me in several ways:
As a “Global Citizen”, rather than a citizen of any tribe or nation, one of our main ideas is that “There is no them”.
I like the concepts of “the plutonium seed” and “othering”. They are a cancer that feeds on our noxious qualities and have nothing to do with “Compassion” for others. If we could address these issues of immigration, justice, economic gaps, and others in the light of Compassion, we might make some headway.
(Compassion is the third leg of Love. Love consists of Sympathy, a feeling; and Empathy, an understanding; and Compassion, an action. Sympathy is feeling the same as another person. Empathy is really understanding what and why a person thinks and feels the way(s) that they do. And Compassion is the resultant action springing forth from Sympathy and Empathy. The three of them is what we mean when we talk of Love.
The story/parable here made me think of the song, “One Tin Soldier”:
Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago
About a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley folk below
On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath a stone
And the valley people swore
They'd have it for their very own
Go ahead and hate your neighbour
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of heaven
Justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away
So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill
Asking for the buried treasure
Tons of gold for which they'd kill
Came an answer from the kingdom
"With our brothers, we will share
All the secrets of our mountain
All the riches buried there"
Now the valley cried with anger
"Mount your horses, draw your sword!"
And they killed the mountain people
So they won their just reward00
Now they stood beside the treasure
On the mountain, darkened red
Turned the stone and looked beneath it
"Peace on earth" was all it said
Go ahead and hate your neighbour
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of heaven
You can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away
Hi Charles,
Othering is indeed a poison. It seems we humans are tempted to create Caste systems wherever we gather. What depresses me is that the efforts we had seemingly lately been making to actively unlearn this inhuman human trait of othering are increasingly under fire or being denigrated. As if kindness and open-ness or willingness to view our neighbors as equally important and valuable beings as ourselves is no longer desired. How did Diversity become suddenly a dirty word? Why is Inclusion no longer a quality to work toward? How did the notion of Equity get sullied? Has Empathy been completely wiped out?
And... (this speaks to your earlier work like Sacred Economics) not only is Intolerance on the upswing, it seems to me that Capitalism has totally run amok, and out-of-control love of money is fundamentally to blame. In a world that is literally breaking apart, how can Greed and Selfishness be defended?
In my 75 years on earth, I have lived through Flower Power and race riots and anti-War protests and Women's Liberation marches and the War on AIDS...... but this is the most distressing time yet.
What a poignant comment. I can only say that none of these movements have been in vain, although each was hijacked by unresolved shadow forces to turn off the road of love. Things look bad now, but as long as we keep trying, there is hope. By trying, we keep the possibility alive.
It’s hard to imagine how anyone left or right could argue with this, but I recognize you grabbed the plutonium hot potato for yourself by publishing it. Thanks.
lol
Thank you again Charles! This is why you need to keep writing/talking and being 'out there' - you present sense where there is no-sense. While blindness continues, many of us are lifted by your sight and the light it provides. Not said to turn you into a transformational guru or leader to follow but you do present maybe the only way through. This is to encourage you to continue. We'll all need that crack in the darkness when sanity finally emerges from the non-sense of distortion.
Great essay, Charles. Many people need to hear your thoughts about othering and planting toxic seeds, with self-examination rather than fingers pointed. We tend to convince outselves it is not we who sow unrest but "the others," and so the cycle continues. I appreciate the insights very much and look forward to your thoughts on Israel/Iran. Oy vey ):
Thank you dear fellow subscribers for your wonderful comments and perspectives. To David Kimball - I was in a choir during Jr. High and High School and sang the song One Tin Soldier many times. I don't think I ever realized what it was about till your post!
Thank you once more Charles for clarifying complex issues that suddenly don’t seem so dense, and in fact much more simple in nature. (You’d probably make a good therapist too!) The parabel was also very helpful in that regard.
We know deep down, don’t we, us economically privileged North Village residents. I live in the southern hemisphere where of course the situation is not much different. Thanks again.
Ironically, the North Villagers are no happier than the South. Less in fact. Their elites get most of the benefits. Yet they aren’t very happy either.
"stop making an irredeemable other of those with whom you disagree." So true, so important ... thank you ...
"Othering" is a form of hatred or contempt. Insofar as we allow these feelings for others to grow in ourselves, they allow similar feelings for ourselves to similarly infect our minds. However the issue of "immigration" appears to be not quite as you say. Some of the illegal immigrants are here to escape the poverty and dire circumstances we, or should I say, our government, helped create through exploitative foreign policy. Some are here for nefarious reasons, political migrants who have been paid to sneak in for the sole purpose of creating political trouble. Michael Yon has so reported, at least. It is now apparent that the Biden administration, through numerous NGO's funded a well organized program of illegal immigration, likely for political purposes, to improve the fortunes of the Democratic Party. Many of these immigrants were lavished with free transportation, credit cards, free housing, and driver's licenses. All to induce them to support their benefactors. There are no illegal immigrants who are legal immigrants, naturally.
Part of the animosity and devaluation of the illegal immigrants by those who support ICE's actions likely grows from the frustration of how politics has been used to subvert the will of the people by those in power. Part of it comes from the fact that the rule of law is being flagrantly flouted and people become very anxious about what can happen in a lawless society, as well as simply standing on moral ground, that the laws are not laws which are not enforced.
Part of it likely comes from the crimes of gang members who, however small in numbers, have terrorized local population and even murdered people. Part of it may come from the generalized sense of being helpless prey of more powerful forces that dictate the policies of our country, whether it be lockdowns, masking, mandated vaccinations, endemic corruption of regulatory agencies, foreign policy servicing secret societies of the wealthy and powerful, and the influence of malign forces, domestic and foreign that appear to have infiltrated government.
These points are not made to justify ICE's activities. Those I know who object to ICE appear to object more to their methods than their aims, more to their style than their substance. Compassion for those who are here illegally has been buried under a mountain of fear and resentment, which really has more to do with the zeitgeist than with the migrants themselves. The same is true in European countries who have been flooded with migrants over the past decades with the disingenuous and politically motivated assistance of government. People are sick and tired of being pawns in a chess game played by the powerful, where their opinions appear to matter little, and democracy has become a travesty. This is not the fault of the migrants. However, they did come here knowing they were breaking the law, and if apprehended would be subject to the consequences. Law and order have broken down in our society, and need to be restored. It would be best to restore it with compassion and not resentment and hostility, but we are human and are likely to fail to varying degrees in such endeavors.
In the end, the issue of ICE, illegal migration, and our government's role in the disposition of this problem they largely created is not really the main issue. The issue is our culture in crisis, and loss of faith in our political system. How we can emerge from this to a better more compassionate and just world I am not sure. But we surely need to aim for that better world.
Much of value here. I tend to believe lax migration policies are not so calculated in electoral terms, but I could be wrong. It does not bother me that the migrants knowingly broke the law. I’ve been breaking laws my entire life, starting when I began experimenting with altering my consciousness with entheogens in 1989. When you are desperate to feed your family or escape violence, you hark to a higher moral law that supersedes immigration law.
This is what I love about your writing. Always looking at the bigger picture. Sounds so easy and yet, apparently not as we still have wars; between ourselves and thus between our countries.
You hit the bullseye on everything again with this article! It reminded me of a book I read years ago, Ishmael. About the takers and the givers. I also had a good friend who worked for IMF and World Bank, she related a few situations to me, down through the years that tie in perfectly to what you have stated. She finally left because of how our country was exploiting
"other" countries under the guise of helping them. If anyone knows their history that is why the civil war in this country was fought. The industrialized north was running out of resources and wanted what the agricultural south had. It had nothing to do with slavery. The north was full of slave labor of a different type. What strikes me here with these situations is that I see this going on in our country when real estate co. and developers find charming small towns and ruin them with the zealous buying up of lands and over developing areas. Property taxes rise along with water, utilities rates, etc...driving out the very people who made it a lovely place. This is what is happening across Tennessee at the moment and greedy local politicians call it progress? Bah Humbug..water quality is gone, pollution is off the charts, people throw trash everywhere because they do not care about the area, they were not raised there, roads cannot be kept up...and no amount of taxes fixes anything! Some grand billionaire gives money to help build a museum or hospital, neither of which would be needed if the dam land grabbers would not have made a miserable and most of the time, ugly mess in the first place. Pass through, enjoy, and leave it be as it is. The locals will make improvements as they deem fit, when needed. The macro of the micro of so called human endeavors.
Thank you. One thing I have to keep reminding myself is that these “takers” aren’t made of worse stuff than any other humans (besides, if I divide the world into leavers and takers I’d have to include myself in the latter category). They are playing roles laid out by the system and the story that has grown over centuries. One of its key features is artificial scarcity. Artificial scarcity is built into the money system. So many people doing whatever it takes to get by, to feel secure. But even people with a million dollars or a billion won’t feel secure if they are separate from community and the web of life. What situation does one have to experience in order to take more than they need? So, I have to remind myself not to divert my grief at the taking onto the specific individuals doing it most aggressively.
Yours are commentaries that invite digestion and possibilities of discussion of all reports.
Thank you
Thank you Charles as always for your compassionate, intelligent and deeply considered words. I will share far and wide.