Frankie Boyle in the Guardian:
We invade their countries and justify it by saying that our way of life is better, then boggle at the idea they might think living here is great. We pay no attention to how our actions in other countries have precipitated this situation. There has to be something wrong with a world where the best employment option for a farmer in sub-Saharan Africa isn’t being a farmer in sub-Saharan Africa, but crossing the Mediterranean on a punctured lilo, only to spend days dangling under a lorry so that he can end up selling lollipops in a nightclub toilet. Our indifference is staggering. For a lot of these people, their best chance of survival may be to dress up as a leopard and hope to get Twitter onside.
Of course, the true existential threat to us might come from ourselves. If we can look at another human being and categorise them as “illegal”, or that chilling American word “alien”, then what has become of our own humanity? To support policies that dehumanise others is to dehumanise yourself. I think most people resist that, but are pressed towards it by an increasingly sadistic elite. If you’re worried about threats to your way of life, look to the people who are selling your public services out from under you. The people who will destroy this society are already here: printing their own money, printing their own newspapers, and responding to undesirables at the gates by releasing the hounds.
Via Liam Cunningham (yes, Sir Davos Seaworth, shut up).
A.
Thank you Allison, as a child of Greek immigrants, sheepranchers to boot, out in Western Colorado, (predominantly cattle country), I always knew that we were seen as “other”. No one actually threw rocks at our house in town, but we knew we were not entirely welcome, we had very smart parents, however, who made certain that education and exposure was the most important element in our upbringing. Educated in the East and the fine universities of Colorado, and armed with various college degrees, we set out on our own life paths as proud Americans, never forgetting and always embracing our own Greek heritage….aren’t all of us, after all,(except the children of the Great Native American cultures),immigrants?