EDIT: Expecting a uniform measured response from 100% of a terrorized, decimated, displaced people who've lived a living hell for years, some growing up in it, to a plan that seems to remove any hope of escape to a place where they might live a normal life, an escape they've worked towards for years at great expense and hardship, and in some cases escaping certain death due to helping America....no culture or people on earth are going to live up to that. American's certainly don't. We go off half cocked over 1% of that hardship and fly planes into federal buildings.

...Says the person advocating blaming and ruining the lives of innocent people for the acts of those that attacked and displaced them. Destroying the lives of random innocent people will never make the situation better, it will create more hatred for the US. That's the behavior I'd expect from a racist or Nazi because they're seeing everyone with a certain demographic as terroristic. We don't need more people with intolerant and inflexible attitudes.

I think it's the racism and xenophobia they already had coupled with a sudden influx of "others" that are now in their daily lives that turns them to extremism, because they've been primed to do so by the far right. If it was only a matter of "my feels got hurt" and nothing else, we wouldn't have international outrage at our horribly thought out, disastrously implemented, clearly racially and theologically motivated travel ban, but it hurts far more than feelings, it will kill some people.

HA!!!! All those groups have been labeled terrorists at one time, and all of them have committed terroristic acts. Every. Single. One. You just pulled a Bob and used an example that totally destroys your point.

Read some history, Christian extremism puts Islamic extremism to shame.

I'm certain this does happen, just as you've described. But I can't agree that it's a measured response.

Terrorizing random innocent people will never make the situation better. That's the behavior I'd expect from a racist or a nazi (because they're seeing as everyone within a certain demographic as guilty) We don't need more of people with intolerant and inflexible attitudes.

And although the xenophobia could be the last straw which turns someone to extremism, I think it's most likely because they've already been primed to do so. Because if it was only a matter of "my feels got hurt" and nothing else, then we'd be seeing terrorism by minorities such as gays, Jews, aboriginals, Tibetans and so on. But we don't. And while these groups act out in some pretty extreme ways, it's not anywhere near on the immoral levels as we've seen from islamists.

If I don't want to help you because I fear that you might be hostile, then you actually becoming hostile is not a convincing way to get my help or trust. And further it's justified my initial fear that you are indeed hostile, so now I'm definitely not inclined to help.

Rather than get angry at people who refuse to help them (out of fear), a more reasonable reaction would be for refugees to direct their anger at the small minority of terrorists and extremists - i.e. Be hostile at the actual people that are responsible for the xenophobia existing in the first place. To agree with them and join them is only going to undermine any efforts to stop xenophobia.

The other thing is, the countries that have helped the refugees most, seem to be the ones that are getting the brunt of hostilities from extremist groups. So it goes to show that this hostility not originating from xenophobia, and it seeing this happen gives other countries little reason to want to help.

You did good on that joke and on its explanation. I got it just fine without the commentary though.

I left your whole commentary here, because I make it a practice to delete all comments from my wall. Your essay needs to be saved for posterity.

So here is a quirk of Videosift.

If you are ignoring someone, and they make a comment on one of your videos, you will never get another email saying that comments have been made.

I had no idea of the implosion on that comment stream. Dear god in heaven.

What is really sad is I only wanted a temp ban. I honestly didn't know of @gorillaman's propensities. I am all for second, third and fourth chances -- even though some people have left the Sift in the past because the worst abusers were allowed back. I understood their pain, but I'm still all for more chances. If you love something enough, maybe you will change your behavior. I certainly don't change immediately. I will accord others the opportunity to learn over time.

So no edit help, huh? I think I'll use this:

As "Homeland Security" says, if you see something, SAY something. (Because here is the truth: As Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel wrote, "Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.")

Much cleaner. Don't need the snark bit. Quote marks. Gotta love 'em. (Quote marks, not parentheses, to denote snark. I'm getting old.)

I didn't address your tendency to tread lightly with me in my first response. I figured it was made up of three things:

1. My early days on the Sift, I had really thin skin. I was easily hurt and upset. One of the biggest gifts to me in my life was learning on the Sift to be clearer and stronger in my communications. And to walk away from the abusers. And to use the ignore button. I figured that my early reactions were in your brain pan still.

2. That tone of voice thing. It is real. What is a simple, clear declarative sentence in my head can be read as a whine-fest by others.

3. I think it is great that you write carefully when you write to me. Keep it up! It's called caring about the person you are talking to. I have zero problem with that. In fact, I see it as a Great Good. (Because if you aren't, and I lay my own internal tone of voice onto your words in a way that doesn't match the words in your head, you will be hearing from me. And I am just as verbose as you, my friend! A punishment worse than death!)

And yes. We are people who hang in there. It is a blessing and a curse.
Well, only a curse to those who roll their eyes and snort "good grief, just shut up!" I'm cool with it.

Thanks for hanging in with me. And I am truly sorry about gorillaman. He did it to himself, though. He did have other choices.

In solidarity, I say to you -- Fuck Homeland Security and ginned up xenophobia and racism.

(A poet? Do you write epic odes? Surely not haikus!)

@newtboy: Trumps appeal to the LCD is successful mostly because the LCD has been allowed to grow so much in our post-Regan society. With inequality on the rise and decades of trickle-down government-by-the-wealthy-for-the-wealthy, those "left behind" have been growing faster and faster every year.

It Trump fails to win this go around then the pendulum may keep swinging further. My concern is that the next 'protest' candidate will be even worse than he.

@ChaosEngine:

We'll have to agree to disagree about some things. For me, as bad as Trump is, I'm not convinced that he is worse than what Hillary was revealted to be by the DNC Leaks...

...but perhaps instead of arguing about which shit sandwich is worse, it is more productive to work together to find out why there are only shit sandwiches on the menu?

On this:

"But things will never change until you fix your broken political system. You're barely a democracy these days."

I am in complete agreement.

When I first heard of the Brexit vote, I thought it was some nasty xenophobic/racist group that had somehow managed to capture 51% of a nation. But could Britian really be that full of xenophobes? It was in a bit of casual research on the subject when I discovered that J. Pie video I referenced in my earlier comment. I had to revise my first assumption about the group that voted to leave the E.U.. While there may have been an element of xenophobia involved, it was economic factors that was the driving force behind the Brexit vote.

People who have been screwed over by years of government for corporations which has only worsened since Glass–Steagall was repealed by Bill Clinton. The hold the wealthy have on government was tightened after Citizen's United.

Much of the support Trump has been able to marshal is a reaction to years of governance-for-the-wealthy-by-the-wealthy.

Lawrence Lessig's does a better job unpacking this quagmire in his talk: "We The People: the Republic We Must Reclaim" which has far too few views on YT or votes on the sift, IMO. For anyone who's ever been unhappy with the political system in the past number of years, I consider it a must-watch.


Link here:

http://videosift.com/video/lawrence-lessig-2016-will-have-two-elections-TED-talk

Sorry, I don't agree. Hillary wouldn't be my first choice, but of all the candidates on both sides (and independents), she'd be in my top 2 or 3. The rest are either idiots, incompetent or both (see Johnson and Aleppo). That's not that I like Hillary, but she's the least worst.

Trump, OTOH, is easily in the bottom row. The only worse candidates would be Cruz or Santorum.

Thing is, I can get past the racism, the xenophobia, the sexism and the idiotic economics. They're all terrible, but mostly they'll just fuck up the USA.

But his stance on the environment is completely unacceptable and has global consequences. He simply cannot be allowed to be president.

Saying Hillary and Trump are both bad is true, but it's also a false equivalence. Getting the flu or cancer both suck, but I'll take the flu over cancer any day.

But things will never change until you fix your broken political system. You're barely a democracy these days.

It's happening hardcore over here. It seems like sometime in the last 5 years, all the stops came out and it's become utterly shameless. They will say or do anything, and if they are wrong or found to be acting improperly they print a very small retraction - but the damage is already done. And other media outlets report on the false report!

Recently the Labour leader here has been repeatedly smeared by anti Semitism. They say his supporters are anti-Semites, that he doesn't express enough outrage in condemning anti-Semitism. The guy is famed for his tolerance and acceptance, says in almost every speech he gives that he wants to challenge any and all xenophobia, is the biggest cheerleader for women and minorities, has appointed the most diverse shadow cabinet in history, issued a full independent investigation into racism and abuse....... He does all of this, but now the stories are "claims of anti-Semitism appears to follow the Labour leader around" -- they are now reporting that they have reported false claims of anti-Semitism!

He doesn't even defend himself - he asks people instead to stop instrumentalising minorities to score political points. So then they claim he's not taking their false claims seriously enough and therefore not taking anti-Semitism seriously and the smear cycle goes on.

The worst thing about all of this is how complicit his opponents are in the game.... fair enough if you don't like him, it's ok to rubbish his policies. But this media misrepresentation is destroying a democracy that was already on its knees. And politicians, guardians of our society, manipulate and utilise this poisonous shit to get their way!

This year has completely turned me off politics again. To see what these people will to do an honest man has broken my spirit, but to that 70 year old bloke's credit, it hasn't broken his.

Thing about jizm tsunamis is that the people at the bottom get the worst of it.

Also, "nothing" is a hyperbole. They most certainly have more to lose, and they'll feel every loss that much more keenly than the better off.

I think there is more to this than just the disillusioned working class sticking two fingers up to the EU elite and taking a gamble on prosperity - frankly I think that is an ugly characterization - it suggests a rash and vindictive people when really I think (or hope?) the bulk had the best intentions for themselves and this country. Desperate for change perhaps, but I don't think they saw it as a gamble.

As for blame...hmm. Can't say I'm particularly sad to see Cameron go, but you do get a feeling of "better the devil you know" when you see the other contenders. This referendum would have been up for play at the next election regardless too. Boris and Gove were the greater opportunists by far. You want rash and reckless? Look no further - Power at any cost. I think the greatest blame is with the media. Not just the tabloids either, even the BBC gave disproportionate coverage to Farage - its the classic chicken-egg thing of them simultaneously wanting to cover what is popular whilst also having massive influence over what is popular.

Anyway, I do think he is dead right about engaging with the leave crowd. What would Jo Cox do, innit. We must answer the bigotry and xenophobia not in kind, but with kindness and compassion.

I know it's Colbert's shtick and I never really got into it, but still...

"I have friends who live and work in London. They said "don't worry,we're very sensible people."

What's sensible for people in London might not be sensible for people in Salford. Or Boston. Or Wolverhampton. London, or the South-East in general, is as representative of the UK as the East/West Coast is of the US.

The hinterland has been drained at the expense of the center, on both a global and a national scale. If you live and work in the City of London, things might look quite ok, and whatever issues there are only need some reforms to no longer be an issue. But if your factory, the factory that provided jobs for the people in your home town, closed down ten, twenty years ago and now the best you can get is zero-hour contracts, then no, things are not ok.

People up top keep telling you that the economy is growing, that everyone's gonna be better off, that it's ok for multinational corporations and rich individuals to optimise their taxes, while they cut your welfare. Banks get a bailout, you get to pay the bedroom tax.

So no, your sensible friends, if they exist, live in a different universe than many of their countrymen. That's the disconnect we've been talking about.

-----
"The British economy is tanking. The pound has plunged to its lowest level since 1985... The Dow lost 611 points."

Again, so what? If the economy is growing and it has no effect on you, why should you give a jar of cold piss about the value of the pound or the stock exchange? Arguably, a drop in the exchange rate of the pound makes it easier for you to export your goods and raises the prices for imports, thereby encouraging you to produce the shit yourself. The UK does have a sovereign currency, unlike the Spanish, the Greeks, the Portuguese or the Italians who have to suffer internal devaluations, because Wolfgang Schäuble says so.

"Equity losses over $2 trillion"

Why should that matter? QE has pushed up stock prices beyond any resonable level, so what meaning do these book values hold? Not to mention that a lot of people made a shitload of money by shorting these stocks, including George Soros against Deutsche.

"There'll be no more money"

QE never trickled down anyway, makes no difference. Corbyn's people call their version "QE for the People" and "Green QE" for a reason: the previous version was only meant to prop up banks and stock values.

--------------

On a more general note, the hatred, the racism, the xenophobia... in most cases, it's a pressure valve. You leash out against someone else, you need someone to blame. The narrative is that we're living in a meritocracy, which makes it your fault that you didn't inherit an investment portfolio. So you start blaming yourself. You're a fuck-up. You worked hard and not only didn't climb the ladder, you actually went down. There's depression for ya. Guess what happens if someone, a person of perceived authority, then comes along and tells you it's not your fault, it's the fault of the immigrants. That narrative is very appealing if history is any indication. Even the supposedly most prosperous country in the EU, Germany, has the very same issue in the eastern parts, where there is no hope for a meaningful job.

People need work, meaningful work. Wanna guess how many of those "xenophobes" would be out in the street protesting against immigrants if they had a meaningful job with decent pay? Not to many would be my guess.

So the likes of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson are providing the narrative. But the lack of social cohesion is a result of market fundamentalism, of Thatcherism, of Third Way social-democrats leaving the lower half of the income distribution to the wolves. You can't exclude large swaths of the population from the benefits of increased productivity, etc. Social dividend, they called it. It's what keeps the torches and pitchforks locked away in the barn.

I would argue that the UK would still have been better off IN the EU than out of it, but I fully agree that there are valid reasons to question the EU. Read some of @radx's posts... he eloquently outlines some of the fundamental problems with it.

That said, that's not why people voted to leave. Opinion polls show that people overwhelmingly voted to leave based on xenophobia and lies.

So much for "I'll defend you in court", huh. Just about as honest as everything else he says though.
*promote his real message of intolerance and xenophobia (look it up, Trump supporters).
It's just astonishing to me that SOOOO many pretend they don't really understand he only wants to make America hate itself again....but Southpark was right, at least 1/4 of all people are completely mentally retarded. (and no, that's not a slur against the actually mentally challenged, it's an apt description of people who, for various personal/political reasons, intentionally do not mentally evolve)

I've not been watching the news at all in the last few years (especially being an ex-patriot), but holy shit that guy is scarier than I even thought.

From the first debate and the few things I've seem about him I figured he was just a jingoist asshole.

But, man, he's bordering on Nazism. Xenophobia and scapegoating. Just place Islamists (or really any minority) into the place of Jews.

Scary.

3 things, I may have mixed them a bit.

1 - past experience specifically with muslim migrants (some may have been refugees) in Europe - overall not great, mostly they consider our social system and political correctness as signs of weakness. They consider themselves superior, the first generation may be grateful for a better life than back home but the second and third generations feel superior to non-muslims (especially jews and atheists, but also christians) and entitled to benefits while hating the secular state. Will the current and future waves accomodate better? This has nothing to do with our imperative to help those in need, it is a practical problem. Also not racist - although I do admit racism and xenophobia are a major problem in many parts of Europe and trouble me very much in my own country. More so than the Vietnamese or Ukrainians or people from the Balkans "these people" organize in clans and tribes and will try to impose their view of the world on us, who organise in tiny families and on facebook. Albanian thugs are well organised but they dont hold the view that everyone else should be an Albanian thug too.

2 - current wave of migrants and refugees - lets assume we are talking only about real Syrians boarding boats in Turkey trying to reach Greek islands and not people from all over north africa trying to reach Italy or anyone else trying to reach the EU (possibly pretending to be Syrian). So we have this exemplary Syrian family which has run away from a war to Turkey. They are safe there, only they have to either stay for a couple of years in a refugee camp before they can try to find work or they have to survive in a grey economy sort of like Mexicans in the USA. They know that if they dont apply for asylum in Turkey and manage to set foot on EU soil they can ask for asylum there and be treated better than in Turkey. So these boat people are actually not running from war to asylum but rather from one asylum to another. They make sure not to stop in Greece or Croatia or Austria or Hungary but head for Germany or Sweden. Mostly I believe they have no idea of political geography but they have mobile phones and friends who have already made the journey and know how to milk the local system. So for purposes of compassion they are refugees and totally need our help but from a clinically economic (yes, materialistic) point of view they are very much migrants. Migrants we feel obliged to help because they are sort of refugees too.

3 - the mass and speed of the exodus means we are stretched to accomodate them and they will later start to passionately hate us because Europe will not be the heaven they expected it to be.
A few thousand refugees every year are no big deal even for a small EU state. Hundreds of thousands will be very difficult to take care of in the entire union. Inviting more is just irresponsible.

The good news is that the real Syrian refugees who make it to Europe will probably be the more resourceful, better educated part of the current wave of incoming people and will be able to take care of themselves fairly quickly by my estimate. Also they are mostly variants of Shia - the less orthodox branch of muslims. I am worried more about future waves than the current one.

Maybe we have messed up a bit but we need to learn from our mistakes, and even Germany is now guarding its borders. It would be better if we were able to guard the Shengen perimeter.
Then if we wanted to save more refugees we could send trains or planes to pick them up in Turkey or Jemen. You know, set up an EU consulate there so they could directly apply for asylum in the EU country of their picking. But we have to make a conscious decision first - how many people from the desolate and failing parts of the world do we want to save over a given time period so that we dont fail ourselves. Are we failing? Ask the jewish families who used to live in Malmo until recently.

The irony is that many European countries stand to gain significantly in the long term from new migrants who tend to be young because of their ageing populations and need to sustain elderly pensions with working age income tax. Even for border countries who are struggling now with capacity, it is probably worth taking that down cost.

One of the benefits of the US bordering Mexico is not being able to control immigration is that they will automatically benefit from this regardless of what the politics of day decides the right amount of immigration should be.

The problem is the usual mix of lump of labour fallacy, short termed stinginess, xenophobia, nationalism, and a general fear of foreign cultures.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'John Green, vlog bros, refugee, crisis, Syria' to 'John Green, vlog bros, refugee, crisis, Syria, xenophobia' - edited by MrFisk