Racism, Terrorism, Immigrationism

Anyone who thinks that there couldn't possibly be an element of racism in our approach to "terrorists" is living in a fantasy world. I'm not talking about just the government here. I'm talking about the press and the blogosphere.

Look at the difference in tone here. First, the Fort Dix Six, via CNN:

"The philosophy that supports and encourages jihad around the world against Americans came to live here in New Jersey and threaten the lives of our citizens through these defendants," New Jersey U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said at a news conference Tuesday.

High drama, no? (He's probably afraid of being put on "that list.")

And then the report on "The Free Militia (from Fox, no less):

"Today's arrest and search warrants have been significant due to the success of the combined efforts by ATF, as well as our state, local and federal partners," Cavanaugh said Thursday. "The communities in the area are safer, considering the fact that large quantities of live grenades and other explosive materials have been safely removed. Excellent investigative team work led us to this point in our investigation."

A Google search under "The Free Militia" turns up 1,030 items, headed by "The Free Militia Field Manual" at Public Eye and a few news reports. "Fort Dix Six" turns up 149,000 -- headed by (you guessed it) Powerline, Hot Air, and Rhymes with Right. What's the difference? The Fort Dix Six are all -- excuse the term -- brown people. They probably wear turbans or something.

Gee, you might ask, where is all this racist slant coming from? See the leading hits for "Fort Dix Six." (Thanks to Dave Neiwert at Orcinus and TRex at Firedoglake for some good insights.)

When you factor in blowhard right-wing tools like Lou Dobbs, you start to see the despicable uses this incipient racism is routinely put to by rabble-rousing demagogues.

After being called out by Lesley Stahl last week on "60 Minutes" about his bogus report on immigrants carrying leprosy into this country, Lou Dobbs and CNN Correspondent Christine Romans still stand by their original claim. Here's a montage from the "60 Minutes" interview and his defense on CNN the other day.

Dave Neiwert, in a post titled "Lou Dobbs: Making Up Racist Shit", has the facts behind Dobbs' "facts":

On "Lou Dobbs Tonight" this past Monday, Dobbs said he stands "100 percent behind" his show's claim that there had been 7,000 new cases of leprosy in the United States over a recent three-year period, and he further suggested that an increase in leprosy was due in part to "unscreened illegal immigrants coming into this country."

Dobbs' endorsement of the claim came after CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl challenged the leprosy figure during a profile of Dobbs on "60 Minutes" this past Sunday. Stahl cited a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services document that reported 7,029 cases over the past 30 years -- not three.

... The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the number of leprosy cases diagnosed in the United States peaked at 361 in 1985. The figure reported on Dobbs' show is easily refuted with just a few minutes of research on the Internet.

HTML Mencken (the artist formerly known as "Retardo Montalban"), in a thoughtful post at Sadly, No!, confronts some of these issues head on in a very good discussion of immigration. (Let's be honest here -- immigrants, both legal and illegal, are the favorite whipping boys right now -- as long as they're brown. I don't hear much about illegal Polish cleaning ladies taking jobs away from home-grown hillbillies.)

I think I probably agree with his main points -- i.e., there is such a thing as too much immigration and you don't have to be a racist to say so. There is only so much stress any system can manage, and runaway immigration is going to stress every system we have past the breaking point. There are practical considerations here, and I don't buy into the google-eyed lefty position of taking something good and throwing it around so it's no longer good for anyone, much less everyone. You may not like the idea of nation-states, but we have them and they aren't going away soon. Let's hear some realistic alternatives if you want that kind of thinking to be taken seriously. The UN? Puh-leeze.

I see no quandary, moral or otherwise, in a nation treating its citizens differently than it treats those who are not (with some major exceptions, mostly in the areas of basic human legal rights such as habeas corpus, public trial, access to legal counsel, that sort of thing, quaint as it is considered in some quarters). I don't see that a welfare check every month is an inalienable human right. The comments at Sadly, No! are well worth reading -- they do constitute a real discussion of the issues that Mencken raises in his post. (How rare in the blogosphere.)

However, back to the main topic: there is, always has been, and perhaps always will be an element of racism in most discussions of most topics of national interest. I think it's largely due to the seemingly innate human differentiation between "us" and "them," which is something you see in hominids and simians across the board. I don't take that as definitive, however. It's just that the traditional means of differentiation fall into easily recognizable categories -- race, religion, ethnic background (and add sexual orientation as a stealth candidate -- it's not necessarily obvious, you know). "American" is not an ethnic identity, unfortunately. It's also a very fluid identity, so that totalitarian wannabes like James Dobson or Pat Robertson can call people who disagree with them "un-American" and get away with it.

It's not a matter of leaving "us/them" thinking behind, because I'm not at all convinced that's possible. I think, though, if we start redefining just who "us" is, it can make some surprising changes, not least of which is pulling the teeth of hate-mongers like Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter.

That can't be all bad.