Bruce, thank you for this provocative interview. There was appreciation and discussion about it among some members of the Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance, and I wanted to share my thoughts with you. I don't have your email address, so am posting my comments here.
Here are three things I do agree with JJ about:
--Our country is run by wealthy big money interests, to our detriment
--Operation Paper Clip was terrible and exposed our government's total lack of concern about bringing known Nazi scientists in to the country and putting them in high positions.
--Like JJ, I oppose sex change operations and hormone treatments for minors.
To the first point, I can't stress enough my invitation to JJ to actually join forces with everyone who opposes the inordinate power of the super-wealthy, including grassroots Republicans, Democrats, US citizens, permanent residents, and asylum seekers, to build a robust movement to dismantle those power structures and replace them with structures that ensure a decent life for everyone living side by side in thriving communities. That would be the biggest threat to the oligarch class and it's ultimately the only hope for humanity!
That said, I find his rhetoric about how all these illegal immigrants coming into the US are dangerous and could destroy our country from within to be highly propagandistic and designed to evoke fear in the wrong places. This has become a mainstream narrative, as a major part of the Republican presidential platform and a key priority issue for our current President and his administration. Reminds me of the fear mongering during covid where we were told to beware of people not wearing masks and to shun the unvaccinated, as any contact with them could make us deathly ill.
Who are all these "dangerous" people? He said that while working as a border agent he arrested lots of murderers, rapists and pedophiles. How does he know whether anyone crossing the border falls into any of those categories? If he witnessed or has evidence of these crimes, of course the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted, and not let into the country. Absent evidence, how can one claim they are criminals?
As one example he claimed Haitian gang members are entering the US. I'm familiar with what's going on in Haiti, have traveled there many times, and am very aware that the Haitian gang members are being paid and armed (from US sources) to stay in Haiti and terrorize the local population to the extent that many victims of those gangs are trying to leave. Because of the terrible conditions in Haiti, Haitian migrants have been given TPS (Temporary Protected Status) in the US for the past few years, meaning they can be here legally and work here. But our government has now decided not to extend their TPS status beyond early August, meaning many Haitians who are here legally and not causing problems will soon become "illegal" through no fault of their own and subject to being sent back to persecution in their home country.
Aside from the fact that JJ's numbers are likely highly exaggerated (as Richard pointed out), his top priority of urgently increasing our deportation rate at least three-fold is impractical, counter-productive and misguided. People who are not hurting anybody and have not been accused of any crime are being detained at work places or outside of immigration court on their way to their scheduled hearings. Many of them are here legally with pending asylum applications that have not yet been adjudicated. How is this a high priority?
Massively increasing arrests and deportations inevitably means putting larger numbers of people in detention camps pending processing and removal, which is a huge boon for the for-profit prison industrial complex, noted for inhumane treatment.
I wonder how many actual human traffickers JJ arrested while working on the border. That would be a higher priority to focus on in my view. It's the traffickers, after all, who help people overcome barriers and elude border guards.
If there's a problem with undocumented immigrants taking jobs form US citizens and permanent residents, then why doesn't JJ advocate first prosecuting and fining the employers, especially the big hospitality corporations and giant agribusinesses?
If any undocumented immigrants are committing crimes in the US, then collect evidence and prosecute them as with anyone else. They don't commit crimes at any higher rates (in fact lower) than US citizens and permanent residents.
The hyperbolic insinuation that non-white migrants are responsible for rising numbers of rapes in Sweden is offensive. For way too long here in the US there was a prevalent belief that black men are more likely to commit rape than white men, and we learned the hard way (after countless lynchings that incited growing movements for racial justice) how fallacious that was, or have we?
JJ contends that immigrants hate you, that they want to ostracize you and even kill you-- Whaaat? I live in Richmond CA, a community with many immigrants, likely some of whom are undocumented. They don't show evidence of hating anybody in day to day interactions!
JJ laments the high birth rate of the foreign born once they get to the US. How is that a problem? Would he rather they have abortions? Go to a local park on a Sunday afternoon and tell me which of those kids shouldn't have been born!! We should cherish them all and welcome them into the workforce as adults to contribute to our society.
JJ seems to think undocumented immigrants are dependent on federal assistance. I don't know where he gets that. We in the Bay Area live in one of the most immigrant-friendly regions of the country, and none of the immigrants I know personally who are applying for asylum receive any federal assistance at all. They are on their own financially and usually turn to their own family networks for support, or they might get some help from perennially cash-strapped faith-based non-profits (without federal funding) who provide some compassionate assistance. It seems the freebies are all happening in regions with more anti-immigrant sentiments, so stop them if you must, but don't stop viewing people as people.
Finally, I have to again ask what JJ and you, Bruce, mean by "American culture" that you see being threatened by the influx of foreigners. If you look at the body of US citizens and permanent residents, it is already extremely diverse, including people with family origins from throughout the world. I myself have wonderful extended family and friends with roots all over the map, including a variety of religions and cultural perspectives, and I love them all. The face of undocumented immigrants simply mirror the face of many US citizens and permanent residents, so what's to fear?
To me, the real threat that has been wearing away at our social fabric for decades lies elsewhere: Ignorance and fear of "the other", increasing dependence on digital devices rather than face to face interactions, job insecurity (increasing reliance by many on gig work), housing insecurity (from rampant real estate speculation), economic stressors that tear families apart, massive infusions of drugs aided by the CIA, an over-emphasis on "individualism" that can create alienation, and the list goes on.
So, to come full circle, I invite JJ and everyone in the grass roots to join in banning billionaires, even if we don't agree on certain other policies. It is possible to reconfigure our economic system to make it actually work for all of the people instead of against most of us. Particulars of how to do so we can discuss another day!
Marilyn, thank you for your comment above. I've been forwarded some of the emails among the 9/11 group (which I'm now part of but not on every email yet), and I plan to reply there, too. Here I'll reply to your question, "... what JJ and you, Bruce, mean by "American culture" that you see being threatened by the influx of foreigners." ... I mean the ideals of the American founding and the traditions that prevented government, for the most part, from trampling our Constitutional rights. Huge percentages of a few generations now barely know the founding ideals, due to abysmal neglect in school and neglect by real-life civics and politics and journalism. They are not discussed in their full import, which has allowed generations now to tolerate the evisceration of our rights, especially since 9/11. Large numbers of destabilizing foreigners seem unlikely to learn them in time to contribute to the effort to wrench our rights back from federal and state edicts that have stripped away so many of them. Absent an education in our ideals and lost traditions, large numbers, newly arrived, will think current conditions (violated Constitutional rights) are normal. What's a "destabilizing foreigner"? The kind that is flown and bussed from the border into towns and cities that will, to a large extent, fear and loath them (in no small part resenting the assistance many have gotten through our taxes). If the media has overblown their numbers, as J.J. is being accused of overblowing their numbers, let's challenge everyone to come to a table and prove their point and let's all agitate for an honest and open accounting. I thank you very much again for caring enough to comment above. Till the next Zoom, I am, yours truly, your friend.
Bruce, thank you for this provocative interview. There was appreciation and discussion about it among some members of the Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance, and I wanted to share my thoughts with you. I don't have your email address, so am posting my comments here.
Here are three things I do agree with JJ about:
--Our country is run by wealthy big money interests, to our detriment
--Operation Paper Clip was terrible and exposed our government's total lack of concern about bringing known Nazi scientists in to the country and putting them in high positions.
--Like JJ, I oppose sex change operations and hormone treatments for minors.
To the first point, I can't stress enough my invitation to JJ to actually join forces with everyone who opposes the inordinate power of the super-wealthy, including grassroots Republicans, Democrats, US citizens, permanent residents, and asylum seekers, to build a robust movement to dismantle those power structures and replace them with structures that ensure a decent life for everyone living side by side in thriving communities. That would be the biggest threat to the oligarch class and it's ultimately the only hope for humanity!
That said, I find his rhetoric about how all these illegal immigrants coming into the US are dangerous and could destroy our country from within to be highly propagandistic and designed to evoke fear in the wrong places. This has become a mainstream narrative, as a major part of the Republican presidential platform and a key priority issue for our current President and his administration. Reminds me of the fear mongering during covid where we were told to beware of people not wearing masks and to shun the unvaccinated, as any contact with them could make us deathly ill.
Who are all these "dangerous" people? He said that while working as a border agent he arrested lots of murderers, rapists and pedophiles. How does he know whether anyone crossing the border falls into any of those categories? If he witnessed or has evidence of these crimes, of course the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted, and not let into the country. Absent evidence, how can one claim they are criminals?
As one example he claimed Haitian gang members are entering the US. I'm familiar with what's going on in Haiti, have traveled there many times, and am very aware that the Haitian gang members are being paid and armed (from US sources) to stay in Haiti and terrorize the local population to the extent that many victims of those gangs are trying to leave. Because of the terrible conditions in Haiti, Haitian migrants have been given TPS (Temporary Protected Status) in the US for the past few years, meaning they can be here legally and work here. But our government has now decided not to extend their TPS status beyond early August, meaning many Haitians who are here legally and not causing problems will soon become "illegal" through no fault of their own and subject to being sent back to persecution in their home country.
Aside from the fact that JJ's numbers are likely highly exaggerated (as Richard pointed out), his top priority of urgently increasing our deportation rate at least three-fold is impractical, counter-productive and misguided. People who are not hurting anybody and have not been accused of any crime are being detained at work places or outside of immigration court on their way to their scheduled hearings. Many of them are here legally with pending asylum applications that have not yet been adjudicated. How is this a high priority?
Massively increasing arrests and deportations inevitably means putting larger numbers of people in detention camps pending processing and removal, which is a huge boon for the for-profit prison industrial complex, noted for inhumane treatment.
I wonder how many actual human traffickers JJ arrested while working on the border. That would be a higher priority to focus on in my view. It's the traffickers, after all, who help people overcome barriers and elude border guards.
If there's a problem with undocumented immigrants taking jobs form US citizens and permanent residents, then why doesn't JJ advocate first prosecuting and fining the employers, especially the big hospitality corporations and giant agribusinesses?
If any undocumented immigrants are committing crimes in the US, then collect evidence and prosecute them as with anyone else. They don't commit crimes at any higher rates (in fact lower) than US citizens and permanent residents.
The hyperbolic insinuation that non-white migrants are responsible for rising numbers of rapes in Sweden is offensive. For way too long here in the US there was a prevalent belief that black men are more likely to commit rape than white men, and we learned the hard way (after countless lynchings that incited growing movements for racial justice) how fallacious that was, or have we?
JJ contends that immigrants hate you, that they want to ostracize you and even kill you-- Whaaat? I live in Richmond CA, a community with many immigrants, likely some of whom are undocumented. They don't show evidence of hating anybody in day to day interactions!
JJ laments the high birth rate of the foreign born once they get to the US. How is that a problem? Would he rather they have abortions? Go to a local park on a Sunday afternoon and tell me which of those kids shouldn't have been born!! We should cherish them all and welcome them into the workforce as adults to contribute to our society.
JJ seems to think undocumented immigrants are dependent on federal assistance. I don't know where he gets that. We in the Bay Area live in one of the most immigrant-friendly regions of the country, and none of the immigrants I know personally who are applying for asylum receive any federal assistance at all. They are on their own financially and usually turn to their own family networks for support, or they might get some help from perennially cash-strapped faith-based non-profits (without federal funding) who provide some compassionate assistance. It seems the freebies are all happening in regions with more anti-immigrant sentiments, so stop them if you must, but don't stop viewing people as people.
Finally, I have to again ask what JJ and you, Bruce, mean by "American culture" that you see being threatened by the influx of foreigners. If you look at the body of US citizens and permanent residents, it is already extremely diverse, including people with family origins from throughout the world. I myself have wonderful extended family and friends with roots all over the map, including a variety of religions and cultural perspectives, and I love them all. The face of undocumented immigrants simply mirror the face of many US citizens and permanent residents, so what's to fear?
To me, the real threat that has been wearing away at our social fabric for decades lies elsewhere: Ignorance and fear of "the other", increasing dependence on digital devices rather than face to face interactions, job insecurity (increasing reliance by many on gig work), housing insecurity (from rampant real estate speculation), economic stressors that tear families apart, massive infusions of drugs aided by the CIA, an over-emphasis on "individualism" that can create alienation, and the list goes on.
So, to come full circle, I invite JJ and everyone in the grass roots to join in banning billionaires, even if we don't agree on certain other policies. It is possible to reconfigure our economic system to make it actually work for all of the people instead of against most of us. Particulars of how to do so we can discuss another day!
Thank you for listening--
Marilyn, thank you for your comment above. I've been forwarded some of the emails among the 9/11 group (which I'm now part of but not on every email yet), and I plan to reply there, too. Here I'll reply to your question, "... what JJ and you, Bruce, mean by "American culture" that you see being threatened by the influx of foreigners." ... I mean the ideals of the American founding and the traditions that prevented government, for the most part, from trampling our Constitutional rights. Huge percentages of a few generations now barely know the founding ideals, due to abysmal neglect in school and neglect by real-life civics and politics and journalism. They are not discussed in their full import, which has allowed generations now to tolerate the evisceration of our rights, especially since 9/11. Large numbers of destabilizing foreigners seem unlikely to learn them in time to contribute to the effort to wrench our rights back from federal and state edicts that have stripped away so many of them. Absent an education in our ideals and lost traditions, large numbers, newly arrived, will think current conditions (violated Constitutional rights) are normal. What's a "destabilizing foreigner"? The kind that is flown and bussed from the border into towns and cities that will, to a large extent, fear and loath them (in no small part resenting the assistance many have gotten through our taxes). If the media has overblown their numbers, as J.J. is being accused of overblowing their numbers, let's challenge everyone to come to a table and prove their point and let's all agitate for an honest and open accounting. I thank you very much again for caring enough to comment above. Till the next Zoom, I am, yours truly, your friend.
Correct. Makes sense. Full-spectrum attacks!
https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/reversal-turning-bureaucratic-weaponry