DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Episode 2017: Xenophobia And Islamaphobia Strike Back!

What country do I even live in, anymore?



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Seems like "White America" by Eminem is quite appropriate right now, too.

Then move?

I love how guys like you act like we are such a terrible country, yet people from many other nations are trying to enter this country by whatever means possible.

Why would they do that if what guys like you say is true?

I am all for free speech, but all some of you do is bitch about how terrible this country is. It isn't terrible and people are doing everything they can to enter this great country.

Stop being spoiled brats who stomp your feet at everything that doesn't go your way!

I'm shocked that no one is talking about the gag order he put on government scientists today. But I'm also not.

A great country doesn't overreact in fear.

Local municipalities find ways to integrate local refugees. Search "Toledo Ohio Syrain Refugees" for wonderful stories. But, the success story in Toledo flies in the face of the narrative that many want to believe.



You know, we were doing so well agreeing on education...

Vers, there's great parts of our nation. But, such a path like this casts a huge blot on our idea of what we stand for. We don't stand for fear, and we stand to welcome those with open arms. Imagine if we weren't "let in" by Native Americans due to some idiots who viewed Native Americans as savage. Is that fair to those who try their best to do as they need to.



Receipts, please. Explain how I'm spoiled, a brat, and stomping my feet. You truly fail to know what I do on a daily basis, and how I try to impact my own future to help with a change from idiotic political decisions.

I brought it up somewhere. It's disgusting.

Sorry Rocket. I just despise one-sided rhetoric.

If people fail to be objective and look at things from both sides......I feel they are narrow minded and part of the problem rather than the solution.

Trump is becoming a megalomaniac tyrant in the first week. He needs to be stopped. The Press, both parties, the court, activists, and each one of us needs to watch and be critical of every action he takes. We have to limit the damage he causes some how.

This isn't xenophobia, this is caution. I was gonna post a link to the trailer for the new Mark Wahlberg movie about the Boston bombing, or the images of the San Bernardino victims, but I don't have the energy to bother anymore.

I'm glad that Toledo is such a wonderful success story, but as Clem always points out, they've been at that for years. They've got people there who've wanted to be Americans since they got here.

We're not sure about these people. Yet.

The prevailing thought of refugees is that they're all "ticking time bombs" waiting to kill someone due to extremist ties.

For months I've posted stories that refute the one sided claim on here about refugees. What happens? Well, silence...and a post from Clem from when he started posting about Syrian refugees in Toledo shortly after I left Northwest Ohio for Alaska.

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Sorry I don't post "good stories" that support a fuzzy warm reality about things.

There's enough attitude here about how cops can do no wrong, how the poor are poor because they choose to be, etc.

I come to the table with critical thoughts. I don't look to change minds, but at least I can get people to think. I don't want to change minds, and I want people to come to their own conclusions.

You can keep up at it with the thinly lined personal attacks, but I'll never resort to the same tactics as you. I'll stick to the facts.

I dont know why you guys are so surprised. Trump said he wasnt gonna allow refugees unless they are vetted. So he put a stop to it until they have a vetting system in place.

PaaaLeeze Eve, this is no place for truth and logic!

Gee, that isn't a thinly disguised attack. LMAO

Look man, I admire your passion and conviction. I actually believe that you view yourself as open-minded and a crusader for the truth.

I hope you grow wiser as you grow older. Experience is a good teacher for some.

I maintain that there is good and bad in all races, both sexes, the religious and non-religious, conservatives and liberals, etc, etc and that people who see things ONLY from side are part of the problem rather than the solution.

You will probably take that as another personal attack, but I am just hoping that one day you will view ALL people and groups w/an open mind rather than a narrow-minded viewpoint.

You see, you have become what you have hated. I get how that can happen. It's a common thing. However, it solves nothing. Instead, it only increases the divide.

I work to bridge the divide rather to to lengthen the divide. Perhaps one day you will understand that is a more productive course of action. I believe you have a good heart and I am still holding out hope that one day you will become an objective citizen.

And for what it's worth...............I don't hold out hope for the majority of the population. So, there's that........

Weren't you the guy on here boasting how you weren't going to vote because of what happened to Bernie? If true, you really have no right to complain.

I have every right to complain. He's the President. And not voting for hillary doesn't take away my right to free speech.

I thought you guys were all about executive action when Obama was president, now it has to be stopped. That's the problem when you give someone power, people tend to not think far enough ahead to a time where their guy won't be the one wielding the power.

I'm listening. I get your calls for caution. I've heard them for many, many years.

Until I moved here, and started taking an interest in such matters as immigration/assimilation, I even harbored some of those 'cautious' sentiments myself. I'm still not an 'eyes-closed/let'em all in' citizen. But at the same time, I know that we already have a system in place that's more stringent and careful than the lion's share of 1st world countries, and that it's worked quite well, for the most part.

Caution is always prudent, but let's face it- it's easy to slip from caution into fear. It's for the cautious among us that I continually post as I do. It's my hope that these real-life stories will help the cautions continually evaluate the source of their position. Those who are already convinced that even tighter restrictions is a good thing will not care what these posts say.

Still, I keep trying. This one doesn't come from Toledo. It comes from Brooklyn.

(4-minute read)
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https://www.marketplace.org/2017/01/24/w...entrepreneurial



This would-be dentist embodies entrepreneurial spirit of Syrian immigrants


Thirteen-year-old Obay Saidee sits on his living room couch in Brooklyn, taking part in an American pastime: daydreaming about what he’s going be when he grows up. A basketball player? A musician? A superhero?

Nope. A dentist. With his own practice.

It’s not the flashiest of career choices. But Obay, who moved from Damascus, Syria to Brooklyn with his family in 2012 because of the war, wants to be his own boss. He said it’s a Syrian tradition. “People in Syria have a certain pride that they don't like working for others,” he said.

Obay would be one of many Syrian entrepreneurs in the United States. Eleven percent of Syrian immigrants to the U.S. own businesses, according a new report from the Fiscal Policy Institute and the Center for American Progress. That compares to four percent of immigrants overall and three percent of people born in the United States.

Obay’s father, Mohamad, owned a manufacturing facility back in Syria and is now a mechanical engineer at a factory in Brooklyn. The Syrian entrepreneurial spirit is borne of necessity, he said. “In Syria, when you work for somebody, for a company or for the government, the income is not going to be enough to live a good life,” he said.

Syrians also drill it into their children’s heads that they have to be self-reliant, because there’s little safety net in the country, said Shadi Martini, a Syrian immigrant and a realtor who lives in Michigan. “Since we grow up, our parents will tell, don’t rely on government. They won’t help you. You have to do it by yourself,” Martini said. “Government is not there for us. It’s there for some people who are in high positions and that’s it.

Martini used to live in Aleppo, where he ran a hospital owned by his family. It was part of a network illegally providing medical care to wounded civilians who opposed the Assad regime. He left Syria in 2012 when that got too dangerous.

There's a reason to think the percentage of Syrian immigrant entrepreneurs might drop. The latest numbers are from 2014. But most people who left Syria because of the war, some 16,000 refugees, have come to the United States in the past two years.

Martini said the two groups are different, because the people who left before mostly did so to get a degree or to open a new business. “People who are leaving now, they had no choice,” he said. “They had to leave.”

Many of those refugees won’t have the resources to start a business, at least not right away. But Martini, who leads a group that provides aid to refugees, said they bring the Syrian ethos of self-reliance with them. “Their No. 1 priority, whenever you meet them and ask them, is how can I work?” he said. “Because that’s the way they knew in Syria.”

Arriving Syrian refugees may actually have an advantage: an existing network, said David Dyssegaard Kallick, director of the Immigration Research Initiative at the Fiscal Policy Institute. “Syrian immigrants happen to be a group that have been very successful here, and so they can help in a number of ways to bring along the new refugees,” Kallick said.

Even so, starting over isn’t easy.

In Brooklyn, Zobaida Almajzoub sets down a chocolate cake, topped with strawberries, on the table in front of her son Obay, the aspiring dentist.

They’ve lived in the United States for almost five years, and Almajzoub says it’s still hard. “The weather is different, the language is different, school is different. Everything in the life different to my country,” she said. “But I start again.”

Like her son, she dreams of opening a business, maybe an import/export firm, in her new country.

_______________

Through all the caution, suspicion and mistrust, THESE are the kind of people we've already allowed in. Re-read the quoted lines that were spoken by them:

"Government is not for us."
"You have to do it bu yourself."
"Become your own boss- it's better than working for someone else."
"“In Syria, when you work for somebody, for a company or for the government, the income is not going to be enough to live a good life,”

Wow.

These quotes sound like America#1USA!USA! to me. In fact, they sound like they were lifted from the "Republican Talking-points Handbook"
( If you follow the link, you find the audio that accompanies this article. These quotes are in perfectly intelligible English. So these 'foreigners' learned 'our language,' as well).

Is this not the very definition of the ideal immigrant that 'cautious' people hold up- when they argue to keep certain immigrants out?

These bombed-out refugees on the run are former bakers, bankers, welders, nurses, teachers and small business owners. We vet so thoroughly that it takes 2-4 years for some to get here. It's why our numbers are so drastically lower than Europe's- and why we've had more successes than failures/tragedies.

Ted: I don't expect to be able to 180° change the thinking of a poster who is in favor of building a wall across our SW border. That would be a waste of my time. But there are posters here who are trying to look at all the crazy angles this complex issue presents- and there's always a chance that those folks might appreciate knowing these backstories that are already happening.

In many ways, this is just the newest extension of what every immigrant/refugee has experienced when coming here. Greeks. Irish. Sicilians. Italians. Eastern-bloc Europeans. Viet Nam boat people. Heck... we even incarcerated every Japanese American family (sometimes, multi-generational Japanese families) we could round up... and hauled them into concentration camps.

So here's why I do it in these threads.
My own family's history is absolute proof to me that our country, however great it can be, is never more than one or two bad decisions away from forgetting who we are and what our country stands for. And every time we've had lapses of character like this- every single blessed time... we've done something that History records as a nasty inkblot in our country's narrative.

Regarding Muslims, Syrians, and Middle Easterners in general, we are seriously close to making those same inkblot choices all over again. Prejudice masquerading as 'Protectionism' has never worked, it has always manifested itself in the worst of our behavior, and America has always been made better/stronger/smarter by the contributions of those who want to come here, even when they were 'welcomed' by nationwide hazing.

Vers was right. And these folks are proof. Syrians are the exact people he was talking about.
Guess what? Rocket was right, too. Because the way we've historically treated 'the new kid on the block' has been pretty.... well, deplorable.

Since 1776. Ain't nuttin' new, Ted.

This is yet another of those Watershed Moments in American History, Ted. It's more important than many realize: we risk (one again) the erosion of the principles that founded us. It's an existential moment that will effect who we are (and how the world deals with us) for decades to come. And it will also effect how we deal with each other domestically, as well.

This is serious, complex stuff... and it's now being handled by a man who isn't known for nuance or deep scholarship. That sacres me. But it scares me more to know that folks who have long advocated for immigrants who fit this description are now willing to 100% back a man whose policies actively seek to keep such people out. I just can't make sense of that. The numbers are off.

So... as a 'cautious' one- now is your chance to sell me on why I should chuck everything I've been taught, learned, seen... and studied in numerous History books (over 60 years)- and place my faith/fate in the hands of Donald Trump.

Like I said at the start: I'm listening.

Clemmy

""Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.""

I guess this isn't the case anymore.

I understand that times have changed and we have to be more cautious than ever before. There are many folks that wish to commit terror on our shores. I get that and absolutely, we need to be more careful.

Be careful Donnie...

It never was the case. I've talked about this before, but the United States made it very difficult for Asians and other "different" looking folks to enter the country through Angel Island.

You can read more about it here: http://immigrationtounitedstates.org/342-angel-island-immigration-station.html

You know what sucks about suspending Visas from Iraq?

There are so many people who were promised visas by the government when we first invaded.

So many translators, guides, people running convoys, risking their lives because they believed in what we were doing.

They were promised by our government that if they assisted us, we would take care of them and their families.

And that just got broken. They risk their lives for absolutely nothing.

If Trump does indeed go through with this, then as a combat vet, I'm truly ashamed as to what we have become.

Once we help them have their own safe and secure Country (Iraq),
those people will be exactly the kind of people the Nation will need to help run it.

I'm with swish on that one. As long as this has been going on, those people ought already be here.

That's a major promise broken.

Don't know how to do it, but we need to find out if all those promised are here or not.

Some are. A lot are waiting because the process takes a long time.

Because we actually vet people, contrary to popular belief.

Anyway, why isn't Saudi Arabia on this list? I mean, it was saudi's who flew the planes into the towers.

Get it through your head that we are no longer "Limp Wristing" our way through National Security!

Find it offensive that we are no longer going to import people from parts of the world that mean us harm? Tough!

We find nothing more offensive than a pile of dead Americans!
Be they Christian, Muslim, Jewish, LBGTQ, Native or otherwise!

America First!

Differing people have differing reasons why they didn't vote.

For me, I expect a certain minimum standard for our president. Neither of the two candidates running met that standard. Neither were what I considered worthy of my vote. Some people choose to vote no matter the character of the candidate as is their right.

But I don't believe putting lipstick on a pig make them any less pigs.

IMO you still show up at the polls and vote for the local candidates and write in whoever you want for president.

Who's we?

I just didn't vote for president. I could have written GM in I guess.

Real Americans, followers of our Constitution, those who still care
about things like God, Country, and Family!

Those who lead the victory of Capitalism over Socialism.

WE!

Someone who received a promise 15 years ago, and has not taken advantage of it by now ..... especially after we pulled most of our troops out ....... well, how badly can they want to come here?

lol what? Do you really think they have a say in the matter on when they want to become citizens?

That's after they do what was asked for them, which wouldn't start at the beginning of the war, bro.

The people were promised. They have put their applications in, the process takes a while, but suspending visas now puts those at a halt.

You're starting to come off as real insensitive lately. It's sad.

This is what Swish said:



If they haven't received a Visa in the past 15 or so years, I doubt that they are holding their breath for one now.

Really? We're being deceitful now? I thought that was a sin in the Bible?

This is what I said:



Just in case you miss this part:

So many translators, guides, people running convoys, risking their lives because they believed in what we were doing

They were promised by our government that if they assisted us, we would take care of them and their families.

________

So why would they offer the visa at the beginning of the war? First they have to asssist us.

Which a whole bunch did, and they did apply for their visas, which is either taking forever, or got denied, which wasn't the promise.

Don't take what I said out of context.

I am holding off till 2020.

If I am still alive

#gmstrong.

Umm .... I'm not sure I understand your point.

You said:



Then you said:



Of course they would have to help us 1st ..... but no one in their right mind would do so for (sorry) 14 years without getting what they had been promised, "When we 1st invaded". We "first invaded" in 2003. It is 2017 now. No one would help back then, and continue to help, based on a promise, that never was fulfilled. Thus, the idea that we might restrict Visas from that area is some sort of betrayal is not really reasonable. Those who would have received Visas in some sort of deal would have received them by now, or would have given up on the idea. No one says" I'll help you if you get me out of here!", and expects to wait for 14 years. It's just not a reasonable statement. Now, if their Visas were denied for cause, then it won't matter what we do with Visa policy, because they were denied.

If you are an illegal alien living in this Country, best get yourself
to one of those Sanctuary Cities right away! Move now!

They will take all 11 million of you in with no problem! They want you
to flood their cities. Now!

Trump is the one who claims America needs to be great again.

It's the whiney snowflakes calling everybody else snowflakes that don't make sense. It's your country. The rural, fly over state, elites have control.

Stop crying snowflake.

It seems like it would be best if Trump supporters grabbed like 4 or 5 of those elite red states, move in, build a wall, govern each others' lives, keep out refugees and say Merry Christmas everyday of the year.
Then real Americans can lead the world again.

I would prefer to see New Mexico turned into a Reservation and all Liberals sent there to run their own show.

You could be socialists and you wouldn't even have to say the word America anymore.

You could spend your entire budget on building bathrooms for all your people. Fat Men, skinny men, men who identify as women, woman who identify as men, fat women who identify as men, skinny women who identify as men, tall men, short men, tall men men who identify as women, short men who identify as women.

Everyone would be given a tear bucket as they entered.