manufactured hate.
civilisationally . . .
why buy the product?

“The west is being destroyed, not by migrants, but by the fear of migrants. In country after country, the ghosts of the fascists have rematerialised and are sitting in parliaments in Germany, in Austria, in Italy. They have successfully convinced their populations that the greatest threat to their nations isn’t government tyranny or inequality or climate change, but immigration. And that, to stop this wave of migrants, everyone’s civil liberties must be curtailed. Surveillance cameras must be installed everywhere. Passports must be produced for the most routine of tasks, like buying a mobile phone.

By stoking voters’ fear of migrants, promising to ban new immigrants and to take away the rights of immigrants already in the country. Once in power, they energetically set about depriving everyone else of their rights, migrants or citizens. “

From Trump to Orbán, politicians are winning votes by stoking age-old hatreds. Where does this fear of migrants come from? By Suketu Mehta

I highlighted this line from the article:

Multiple studies have found that people who have direct contact with immigrants have much more positive views about their work ethic and reliance on welfare, and are much more open to increased immigration. 

Come to a Gwinnett County park or visit the fountain at Suwanee Town Center.

See some folks who are not buying the hate made here.

meaning of the past
understanding memory
listen, carefully

Today’s Haiku is cribbed from reporter/author Tony Horwitz in a round about way.

It resonates for me back to college, when I had a class titled, “The Revolution Through the Documents.”

The point of the class was to learn how to use historical 1st person reports and letters to understand historical events.

The class was designed to take advantage of the amazing archives at the William Clements Library on the campus of the University of Michigan.

The class had 7 other students beside me.

The Professor was wonderful.

He introduced this small group of cocky 20-something year olds to the world of historical research.

He had three rules.

1. Take the reader by the hand. You are the expert. Do not expect the reader to know what you know.
2. Avoid a sense of present-mindedness. Do not assume that the people in the documents knew what you now know or had access to the information you now have. For example, in 1776 there wasn’t one decent map available that could come close to a throw away map of the eastern United States that you get free at a gas station.
3. Compassion.

The philosopher George Santayana is credited with saying, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’.

I hesitate to quote someone like George Santayana because I have not read anything by him but this quote.

Churchill changed to the quote to the more remembered, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

Today, it is in fashion to condemn the past in an overwhelming sense of present-mindedness, then to try and learn from it.

Compassion?

Compassion is one of the great words, greater concepts and the greatest personal quality that has been abandoned in this century.