Statement from LibraryThing’s Employees on Trump’s Recent Executive Order -- Discussion

Right, then. So: go at it.

Well, it looks like it is more than a stay. In a secret directive, the president ordered the State Department to revoke the already issued visas of everyone from one of the seven designated countries.

>2 StormRaven: Strictly in line with Zunger's scenario.

The ban should be extended to at least France and Saudi Arabia, the countries that perpetrated 9/11.

Yes, I remember the French invasion of New York. Has it been 15 and a half years already?

>5 RickHarsch: We liberated our freedom fries from Gallic domination, sir. Never forget!

>6 theoria: Truly. And something I rarely mention is the pain of living in a country that calls them with stubborn anachron 'pommes frittes'.

>6 theoria:, >7 RickHarsch:

We just call them chips. They go very nicely with fish.

Freedom Fries is not half as dumb as Bourg-l'Egalité or Rue Anatole-Algérie.

No, not half.

All my US colleagues here are feeling extremely embarrassed to be from the USA at this moment. Of course by the very fact that they live and work in Africa, they are more internationalist than many of those who remain back home. They also have a much better sense of the rest of the world, its nuances and complexities which don't translate into simplistic black and white "good" and "evil", and of the error of characterising whole groups of people as a potential threat.

A couple of recent articles by US expatriates:

Prof's view of Trump’s travel ban from Sudan

As a doctor just back from Sudan, hospitality from Muslims greeted me everywhere

I have to agree with both of them that hospitality is the dominant experience of anyone who visits Sudan.

I wish that someone would get the message to Trump supporters that America First sounds like Screw You to the rest of the world.

>12 jjwilson61: I don't think that is at all necessary - I think that is exactly what they know it to mean. Of course, given the rapid repealing of such things as clean streams, dismantling controls on banks,etc. it will also translate into screw the majority of people in the US as well. To be honest, at this rate, I think that within a year there won't be much of anything left of what was once a great nation.

>12 jjwilson61: Unfortunately, I think many of them would agree with that message.

ETA crossposted with >13 alco261:

I know this is not a religious thread, but given the number of Trump's supporters who are Christians of a bible literalist persuasion, I hope I can be forgiven for sharing this morning's reading in the Catholic lectionary, which really struck me:

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?...

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday. (Isaiah 58:7, 9, 10

Where America's Terrorists Actually Come From
Syrian refugees have committed zero attacks in the United States.

...only three Americans have been killed in attacks committed by refugees—all by Cuban refugees in the 1970s...

...Between 1975 and 2015, the “annual chance of being murdered by somebody other than a foreign-born terrorist was 252.9 times greater than the chance of dying in a terrorist attack committed by a foreign-born terrorist”...

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/trump-immigration-ban-...

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Trump fears terrorists, but more Americans are shot dead by toddlers
The Guardian-3 hours ago
'An American is at least twice as likely to be shot dead by a toddler than killed by a terrorist.'

...Many of those who insist that, when it comes to terror, one must balance individual rights against collective security, become curiously silent when it comes to adapting their interpretation of the right to bear arms to the issue of public safety.

In 2002 I interviewed the late Maya Angelou about her views on the 9/11 terror attacks. “Living in a state of terror was new to many white people in America,” she told me. “But black people have been living in a state of terror in this country for more than 400 years.”

If the current administration applied just half the zeal to making sure all people in the country feel included and safe as they do to making sure some outside of it feel excluded and anxious, the impact on Americans’ sense of security would be repaid exponentially.

After a judge blocked the Muslim ban over the weekend Trump said that if there was another terrorist attack America should blame him. Between me writing this article and you reading it the chances are another child will be shot dead. Whom, I wonder, should we blame for that?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/08/trump-muslim-terrorists-gu...

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A mayors' study found communities are often safer after Muslim migrants move in, e.g., 77% less crime in Southfield, MI!
(I heard that on public radio this AM. Will post reference if/when I come upon it.)

>16 margd: Wouldn't surprise me. My understanding is that Bangladeshi migrants have been really instrumental in holding Hamtramck and surrounding parts of Detroit together.

For I was a stranger and you welcomed me (National Catholic Reporter)

Again, a religious theme, but it contains interesting reflections debunking some of the common "false narratives circulating about the hardworking, often highly educated people who were forced to flee persecution or death in their native lands".

>15 John5918: It's frustrating to talk to people here who consider themselves to be devout and "Bible-believing"* Christians and who are whole-heartedly in favor of closing America's door to refugees regardless of the danger they face in their country of origin, and in favor of kicking out anyone without the correct documentation, regardless of what that does to families. Their reasoning is that while Jesus might have preached about welcoming the stranger, He lived in a much less dangerous time and didn't have to worry about being murdered in his bed. And the Old Testament is used solely to point out that God often asked the Israelites to kill everyone from other tribes, which is what they are in favor of.

It's an interesting version of Christianity, but not one likely to attract any new adherents.

*Bible-believing is a term used here to mean "holds the same cultural assumptions about Christianity that I do" and is often used to disparage Christian faith communities who welcome the wrong kinds of people.

>19 RidgewayGirl: while Jesus might have preached about welcoming the stranger, He lived in a much less dangerous time

Thanks, RidgewayGirl. As you say, "an interesting version of Christianity". Jesus lived in a country occupied by a foreign military dictatorship with a puppet king who, if the bible is to be believed (and presumably so-called "bible-believing" Christians do believe it), was not above the mass killing of babies to achieve his own political ends. Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus had to flee as political refugees or asylum seekers, almost certainly without any documents, to Egypt in fear of their lives. Hm, a "less dangerous time"...

A long time BC, at least, there was a lot of violence in the area if I recall correctly. Something like 40% of skulls buried in one village had blunt instrument injury? Archeologists think domestic injury & fights as much as small scale warfare. Way before Jesus's time, but people were settled in small villages. Roman rule and golden rule must have been a blessing for some people?

Just an fyi, but I'll post reference if I come across it. It was quite startling.

>20 John5918: Well, yes. This view does require a purposeful rejection of knowledge and history in order to thrive. And yet thrive it does. I was raised in that odd sub-set of Christianity and remember well being told to be careful not to educate myself out of my faith.

It does remain a topic that is appropriate for Pro&Con, however, since this sub-set of Christianity has chased political power for some decades, rising in the 1970s with Reed's Moral Majority and spreading from there. CPAC (The Conservative Political Action Conference), a political group associated with the Republican Party and that has strong American Evangelical overtones, has invited Milo Yiannopoulos, an alt-right gadfly who fancies himself quite the provocateur and who has a history of attacking women of color in particularly vile ways through social media, most notably Leslie Jones, an actor who had the temerity to be both black and a woman and to dare to feature in a remake of a movie that had originally starred men, to be a keynote speaker. Yiannopoulos has also been on record espousing such Christian values as pedophilia. He has also stated that both gay and transgendered individuals are deviants, which does agree with the position of these "Values Voters," along with xenophobia, racism and a virulent misogyny.

It's ugly, but at least they're laying it all in the open? It's startling to listen to a few of my Evangelical acquaintances defend this stuff, but at least no one is in any doubt as to their moral values.

Oh, hey, Yiannopoulos has been disinvited to speak at CPAC. Considering the stated reason he was invited to speak was because the evil liberals were denying him the right to free speech, it will be interesting to see how they justify doing the same thing.

Well, many Christians have welcomed refugees-- at least in Canada. My parents' church in London, Ontario has sponsored dozens of families and my parents and others help drive refugee families to get groceries or wherever they need to go (most don't have cars).

>24 madpoet: Heard on NPR: A church in Washington state is suing the federal government for preventing it from practicing its faith. The Episcopal diocese says the refugee ban stops them from welcoming strangers in need.

http://www.npr.org/2017/02/20/516292276/episcopal-church-sues-trump-administrati...

>24 madpoet: Certainly, and I'm not casting aspersions on all Christians, but rather on a sub-set of American Evangelicalism that emphasizes right-wing politics over the teachings of Jesus.

And, as an aside, I wonder if your parents attend the same church as my father's best friend. His church has sponsored several refugees and has developed a program teaching other churches how to successfully sponsor refugees, as it requires quite a bit of sustained support to do so effectively. It's also in London, ON, so it may be the same church. Small world.

>26 RidgewayGirl: They attend a non-denominational community church, North Park, but there are several like-minded churches of widely different denominations in the city doing the same thing. North Park is an evangelical church, though, whose statement of faith is 'Bible literalist' as some would call it, and the congregation is socially conservative on most issues.

'Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.' Exodus 22:21

'So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.' Deuteronomy 10:19

>27 madpoet:

Thanks, madpoet. It's good to hear the example of this church. I come from a Christian tradition which is not bible literalist, but it has always seemed to me that on this particular issue there should be no disagreement between literalists and non-literalists, as the bible seems pretty overwhelmingly in favour of welcoming the stranger, the foreigner, the alien.

It's important to remember that Evangelical and Bible-literalist (Bible-Believing in the US) mean very different things in the US and the rest of the world. I grew up in Canada and moved to the US at sixteen, where the church we went to was radically different than the same denomination up north.

Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus had to flee as political refugees or asylum seekers, almost certainly without any documents, to Egypt in fear of their lives. Hm, a "less dangerous time"...

As you know, I'm completely pro-immigrant. But the use of the Flight into Egypt in these contexts makes me twitchy. If I could name the incident in the entire New Testament most likely to be a theological story without basis in fact, it would be this!

>30 timspalding:

I agree with you completely. But I was referring to bible literalist Christians who presumably believe this to be absolute historical fact and ought therefore to be moved by it.

But even for the rest of us Christians, the important thing is not whether this little theological story is literally true or not, but what does it mean for us. I would suggest that "be kind to refugees" would be a credible lesson that one could infer from it.

>23 RidgewayGirl: it will be interesting to see how they justify doing the same thing.

Supposedly because of an interview from a couple years ago where he allegedly condones paedophilia.

Simon and Schuster has also cancelled the publication of his book, apparently for the same reason.

>32 southernbooklady:

Cupcakes are a valuable and good thing. I used to eat a lot of cupcakes, and I think they're great.

"Tim allegedly condones cupcakes."

>32 southernbooklady: It's like virulent misogyny, xenophobia, islamophobia, racism and harassment are all fine, but pedophilia is suddenly a bridge too far. Maybe CPAC will choose Richard Spencer for the keynote now - he's a Nazi untainted by the NAMBLA stuff.

And let's not let Simon and Schuster off the hook here. All of a sudden they were set to lose money on the publication of Yianoupolous's book. It was always a business decision, no matter how many statements were issued on the topic of free speech.

I think by embracing the alt-right and their minions, the conservative party has lost the moral high ground, if they ever really had it. (I know they like to think they did.) Thus, I am happy to see pushback from some churches. Right now, conservatives are in power, but at what cost? This can't be sustainable.

By the way, I don't think that CPAC rejecting Milo is regaining the moral high ground. They were fine with his hate speech, his promotion of bigotry, and his willingness to threaten anyone who disagreed with him. They might have been fine with his pedophilia remarks as well, if there hadn't been such an outcry.

>34 RidgewayGirl: I cross-posted with you. :-) Also see Roxane Gay's response. As you recall, she pulled her book from S&S because they were publishing him, and I think her response yesterday to their dropping the book was spot on.

http://roxanegay.tumblr.com/post/157506508260/all-i-really-need-to-say

>34 RidgewayGirl: Regarding freedom of speech: so, who wants to place bets on who picks up the contract? My money's on Arktos...

>37 davidgn: Someone said that soon poor Yiannopoulos will be unemployed (even Breitbart thinks that this is going too far, although they probably were fine with it until it became widely known) and no one will want to give him a platform, except Bill Maher.

He and Maher did get along like peas in a pod when he appeared on Real Time and why not? They're both publicity hounds willing to say anything to get a moment in the spotlight.

http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/2/18/14659650/larry-wilmore-milo-yiannopoulos...

I've linked to the Vox.com link as it has the saving grace of focusing on Larry Wilmore speaking Truth to Assholes, rather than the utter ethical void of Maher and Milo, The Bromance.

>35 sturlington:

I think the key to Milo isn't what he believes, but who hates him. You rarely see people on the right discussing the content of his talks at all. Rather, conservatives love how much he pisses off liberals, especially on campus. After that, they love how they think he deconstructs political correctness--"the left hates a gay person," "so much for the tolerant left," etc.

Oh, hey, Yiannopoulos has been disinvited to speak at CPAC. Considering the stated reason he was invited to speak was because the evil liberals were denying him the right to free speech, it will be interesting to see how they justify doing the same thing.

I don't think Milo should be invited to speak. Nor should a publisher with any taste or morality publish his book. I applaud the small number of book-industry professionals who attempted to get S&S to rescind his book deal by threatening boycotts, review bans and so forth. The people involved in his book deal, not to mention the various campus groups that invited him, should be shunned as enablers.

But there is a difference here. Inviting or disinviting someone is a matter of legitimate discretion. But attempting to stop someone from speaking by repeatedly shouting them down, rushing the stage, blockading the way in, or staging a small riot, are not; they are violations of free speech.

>34 RidgewayGirl: And let's not let Simon and Schuster off the hook here. All of a sudden they were set to lose money on the publication of Yianoupolous's book. It was always a business decision, no matter how many statements were issued on the topic of free speech.


Slightly OT, but in a capitalist society that's how "free speech" and business works. A business ultimately always responds to the market. It's not really about moral high ground for them.

Years ago one of the Big Six publishers found themselves in a similar situation when OJ Simpson planned to publish a novel called "If I Did It" -- ostensibly a fictional account of how Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered, but widely seen as a thinly veiled confession. The book was sold to the trade blind -- meaning without any information about the title or author, just assurances that it was going to be the biggest book of the season, massive print runs, etc. Not a completely uncommon practice. But when the information about the book was released, people where appalled, the outcry was deafening, and booksellers cancelled their orders en masse. The publisher eventually caved, cancelled the book and fired the editor who had signed it.

It was eventually picked up by someone else and published.

So "moral high ground" is just one of the factors that goes into consideration when a business makes a decision. But ultimately profitability is the final goal.

>34 RidgewayGirl:

It's like virulent misogyny, xenophobia, islamophobia, racism and harassment are all fine, but pedophilia is suddenly a bridge too far.

Yes. And, if I may digress, I wonder whether the effect would be the same if he'd been talking about younger girls and older men. I frequently get the impression that sexual abuse of boys is seen as somehow worse than abuse of girls, at least when the abuser is male. With boys it's an infraction, but girls are just getting their due. I've seen this attitude pop up regarding religious abuse--priests who abuse girls are somehow more "normal" and excusable than those who go after boys.

(I used to think it was a cultural thing, having lived in places where sexually harassing and abusing women is normal over an incredibly wide spectrum of abusive behaviours, but after seeing someone elected to US presidency despite bragging about sexually assaulting women and generally being a misogynistic pig, I'm deciding, no, it's something happening everywhere.)

But to get back to your point--yes, this demonstrates perfectly just how much evil is tolerable to people, as long as it targets women and non-whites--and where the breaking point lies.

Don't touch the white boys, Milo. Never, ever the white boys.

>41 LolaWalser: I have never gotten the impression that church-related or inspired of abuse of females was any less egregious than that of males. Never.

A general observation: The Hmong refugees in the Midwest were brought over by church groups.

But attempting to stop someone from speaking by repeatedly shouting them down, rushing the stage, blockading the way in, or staging a small riot, are not; they are violations of free speech.

No, those are example of free speech.

>43 StormRaven: Good point.

To my point about the right's loss of the moral high ground, I thought this was good essay. TL;DR? Here's the crux.

For today’s evangelical leadership, though, “Now go, and sin no more” seems to have become inconvenient to the church’s newest idol and most precious mission: Republicanism.

Electoral victory, obtained seemingly at any cost, has become more important than all other moral or religious obligations one might assume come with the role of spiritual leadership. Scarcely a month into this brave new version of conservatism, my suspicion is that we have not yet begun to see how far evangelical standards will yield to the Church of Winning.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/milo-yiannopoulos-immoral-a...

I saw a segment on some news channel where they interviewed the CPAC guy about this creep and they basically had to wring out the admission that there was anything wrong with him. In the end it totally came across as a "sorry not sorry".

The paedophilia hoopla is just a giant inconvenience, they are still behind Milo Y. on everything else.

>45 sturlington: how far evangelical standards will yield to the Church of Winning

That's interesting. A lot of evangelical churches already preach a "gospel of prosperity" (follow the teachings of this particular pastor, who has already become a millionaire off the tithes of his or her followers, and you too will be rich and successful as Jesus wants you to be), and in Africa many new denominations have sprung up whose names are variants of "Winner's Chapel".

No, those are example of free speech.

Nonsense. Certainly demonstrations are free speech. But they stop being free speech when they use coercive force. You can burn a newspaper and that's free speech, if you bought it. But if you burn the newspaper building down, you are suppressing speech.

The paedophilia hoopla is just a giant inconvenience, they are still behind Milo Y. on everything else.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest:

Lola: "What's your evidence that every single priest accused of or found guilty of abuse is actually a paedophile? Some certainly are or may be, but in the main it's definitional bollocks designed to make you feel better about what your religion does to people."

Certainly demonstrations are free speech. But they stop being free speech when they use coercive force.

Shouting someone down is not coercive force. Rushing the stage is not coercive force. The examples you gave were not of "coercive force", they were of people engaging in their own free speech rights in reaction to someone else. Nothing about free speech says it has to be done politely.

British Muslim teacher taken off US-bound flight: I was treated like a criminal (Guardian)

Shouting someone down is not coercive force

First, Milo has been shut down repeatedly by expressly coercive force--riots, stone throwing, bomb threats, etc.

Second, universities have a policy of not allowing a speaker to be drowned out so nobody can hear them, just as they have policies against grabbing hundreds of school papers before anyone can read them. Students who act in these ways are at a minimum violating university policies; these policies are put in place to allow speakers to, ya know, speak.

"Rushing the stage" might be understood ambiguously. If students occupy the stage, refusing to let the speaker be present, or talk, they are, again, attempting to shut the speaker up.

Nat Hentoff is probably only half-right on the law here, but his point stands:

First Amendment law is clear that everyone has the right to picket a speaker, and to go inside the hall and heckle him or her—but not to drown out the speaker, let alone rush the stage and stop the speech before it starts. That's called the "heckler's veto." ( http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printView/6426615 )

These situations would be obvious in reverse. If pro-date-rape students blockaded the room of Emma Sulkowicz, the student who carried a mattress around in protest of her date-rape and date-rape generally, preventing her from leaving, or leaving with her mattress, it would be rightly seen as an attempt to suppress her speech. If talks by, say, Roxane Gay, were met by droves of conservative white bros, who rushed the stage, occupied where she was to speak and sang "Dixie" so loud nobody could hear Gay wherever she was, well, it would be equally clear.

I hope I need not add that none of this means I support Milo. On the contrary, I couldn't think less of him. I fully support every private university in their efforts to exclude him from ever being invited to talk. Private universities are in a somewhat different boat, but whether or not he can be excluded, no decent person should do anything other that protest or shun him.

>51 timspalding: How incredible feeble. From 'violations of free speech' to violations of campus rules.

and:

Riots: not a violation of free speech.
Stone throwing: nothing to do with speech.
Bomb threats: not violations of free speech.

What strikes me about those disagreeing with the LT employee's statement is the sheer lack of facts in what they say. The US just let anyone in before Trump, regardless, just like that monolithic entity called Europe does now.

It might be interesting (if disheartening) to debate whether or not to allow in immigrants and what safeguards are necessary, but that's not happening. Instead there seems to be a willingness to believe things that are easily proven false with only a cursory bit of simple research. I'd expected more of the members of a literary site (granted this is a very small subset of the entire group).

>53 RidgewayGirl: Agreed. If Trump's election proved anything to me, it's that a frightening number of people don't even inhabit the same reality as I do.

>54 sturlington: a frightening number of people don't even inhabit the same reality as I do

Lies, propaganda and fake news: A challenge for our age (BBC)

There is a large proportion of the population in the US living in what we would regard as an alternative reality... They share things with each other that are completely false. Any attempt to break through these bubbles is fraught with difficulty as you are being dismissed as being part of a conspiracy simply for trying to correct what people believe...

>12 jjwilson61: Actually from Trump supporters "America First" means "Screw You" to over half of their fellow Americans.

No African citizens granted visas for African trade summit in California (Guardian)

Every single African citizen who requested a visa was rejected...

>57 John5918: Wow--it's this sort of nonsense that has organizers choosing to meet anyplace other than the US. (Next time meet in Africa?) Article in The Week reported that Mexicans of means are more and more choosing to ski in Canada this winter rather than their usual US haunts. These travel decisions will add up, I'm afraid, and the economy will feel the pain.

Border officials here in MI just reversed a decision to deny work visas to nurse practitioners from Canada. Detroit hospitals hire quite a few, apparently, under NAFTA, and some Trump-empowered official decided no more. Hospitals fought back and are now requesting the reversal on work visas be in writing.

Then there was a retired NC police chief who was detained 90 minutes at JFK. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article139485398.html

Rogue border guards sure are showing us the danger of unsupervised policing... :-( Can only get worse if standards are loosened to hire the (10,000?) new guards, as Trump plans. I suppose, too, guards fear the wrath of Trump if they make some inevitable mistake and admit a bad guy.

>58 margd:

It's the first time I've heard of a 100% failure rate, and that probably is a Trump-era policy, but actually we have always had problems getting visas for people to attend international conferences in Europe and the USA. There's always a few people missing because of visa rejections. This week we're on tenterhooks waiting to see whether one of our bishops will get a visa for a World Council of Churches-sponsored conference in Geneva - and this despite having the proactive support of the Swiss Embassy in South Sudan, who know the bishop and are aware of the work he is doing.

I frequently find myself being asked by colleagues, "Are you going to such and such a conference in Geneva (or London or Washington DC or wherever)?" and my first reaction is, "That's months away! I haven't decided yet", to which they reply, "But if you don't decide soon, you won't have time to apply for a visa!" Having a European or US passport is another one of those little privileges due to an accident of birth which people often take for granted.

When insulted as brainless or ignorant of a subject, once—just once—I'd like a button to press that would whisk us both to a magical island where a team of crack psychometricians and specialized academics would administer a two-person combination IQ- and a subject-knowledge test.

>60 timspalding: Sometimes it helps just to go to a genuine barber shop and get the whole treatment.

Border Control from Hell: How the EU's migration partnership legitimizes Sudan's 'militia state

This is about EU immigration policy, not the USA, but I think it helps demonstrate the unintended consequences of the current obssession with immigration controls.