There’s a very simple idea rulers use to keep people from paying attention to what they’re doing. Distraction.
The reaction to immigrants is a case in point. While a small country suddenly receiving waves of refugees fleeing death and oppression might legitimately claim lack of resources with which to deal with such an influx, in the developed world this is a non-issue. At a minimum, it’s a problem of management, a bureaucratic matter. But it becomes an easy tool to use to create unease within the native population by scaring them into believing that these “invaders” are bringing in crime, disease, and a pool of cheap labor which will cause job loss. By leading with that attitude, states create the conditions for self-fulfilling prophecies. If you already believe immigrants are criminals, you start by treating them that way and establish the conditions in which crime will become an issue because other avenues are closed to them. As for job loss, this isn’t physics, there is no law of the “conservation of jobs” at work which requires that loss is inevitable. If jobs are lost, it’s because of very simple, basic human decisions having to do with costs and allocations, which can be handled differently. Such algorithms reduce everyone to a condition of parts and the human element is abstracted out. It becomes just numbers. It’s up to our administrative institutions and law-makers to address this and what they choose to do is play the situation politically to get votes from frightened constituents rather than do anything constructive.
While the average citizen is being tormented with images of hordes of illegal immigrants taking jobs, stealing, raping, and otherwise destroying the culture, that citizen is not paying attention to the reallocation of tax dollars into projects that cost him or her and benefit no one but the politically connected. Consider, for a moment, the seemingly uncontroversial matter of how much could be done with the tax-deferments granted to sports arenas in any city offering public support for what amount to private concerns that then charge us for the privilege of using what we largely just paid for. Homelessness has a fairly manageable dollar amount. Do the math. And this is not the only instance of this kind of resource diversion.
In no instances in history are refugees responsible for the destruction of a state. The destruction happens as a result of policies of demonization and attempted political leveraging of those refugees as a tool to gain power for one group over another. The Outsider has always been used. Even settled, native groups within a state are often redefined as invaders (Jews, African Americans, Slavs, Catholics, and on and on) in order to unsettle a population and cause divisions leading to political gain for a particular faction.
Now we’re taking children from parents and the government is telling us this is necessary and “biblically valid.” There are local businesses who have already absorbed immigrants like this into their local economies and are now suffering because people are being made to fear what should be a simple matter of human resource management.
As for taking jobs away…people lose jobs for a variety of reasons. If we rationalized migrant worker policies and put in place protections and wage requirements, a lot of this will become a non-issue. Mostly, labor fills vacancies that already exist. But actually resolving the problem would not be good for politicians who rely on fear to keep support or for businesses that use a variety of excuses to keep wages low.
The question, though, is—what does anyone think will be gained by treating human beings like this? Odds are good the loudest bigots have never been the least affected by this question. But they have been shown an issue in a particular way and have been told to be angry. Their wages may be stagnant, so it’s easy to think this has something to do with that. Your company won’t raise your salary because two thousand miles away there are refugees trying to enter the country.
Do they realize how absurd that sounds? Do they realize how they’re being played?
If we support policies that turn people into parts, we will ourselves become parts and when it seems cost-effective to the people driving these policies we will be cast aside with no recourse. It’s just business, though, nothing personal.
Just business.
We have a growing economy. We’re richer now than any nation in history and getting richer. The benefits of that growth are accruing to fewer and fewer people. It should be obvious that of all the problems that need attention, migrants, illegal or otherwise, is not a major issue. But we’ve been made to focus on it and obstinately refuse to elect representatives willing to do anything about it. The result is a festering sore on our border that is making us angrier and angrier and distracting us from actually attending to the real problems that need resolution.
It would be a good thing, maybe, to stop giving the fear-mongers so damn much power. They will destroy us in the end.
