Welcome Afghan Refugees

We Must Welcome Afghan Refugees

Help Those who Helped Us

 

With all of the hand wringing and teeth gnashing surrounding the blame game over the end of the war in Afghanistan, the GOP leadership fails to addresses the humanitarian disaster caused by the swift Taliban take over. 

 

President Biden choose to follow his predecessor’s deal with the Taliban to end the war and withdraw American troops from the war-ravaged country. Biden’s administration did not foresee the swift collapse of the Afghan military and government and plan for evacuation of U.S. personnel before the current chaos ensued. They could not safely evacuate the thousands of Afghans that worked with our troops, much less their families before the collapse.

 

We have seen the ensuing madness at the airport in Kabul with Afghan civilians chasing a U.S. Air Force cargo plane, clinging to its side like Tom Cruise, as it taxied down the runway. The desperation on their faces was patent.

 

We have been able to secure an agreement with the Taliban to allow all foreigners to leave safely. No so clear is Taliban willingness to let Afghans who worked with us leave for America.

 

Those Afghans who have made it out and all those who might be allowed to leave in the future are coming to America on special visas to their new home. They will start out at processing centers on U.S. military bases. One of those is our own Fort McCoy, near Tomah.

 

Governor Evers issued a proclamation welcoming those who come to Fort McCoy. He recognizes our obligation to those who helped our soldiers and diplomats to keep them safe from Taliban retaliation.

 

While the Republican National Committee ghosted its previous praise for the former President’s deal with the Taliban, it has searched in vain for a unifying message about the incoming refugees. The alt-right GOP base has beat them to it. They proudly waive the white nationalist flag and tell us more people of color are not welcome here, their prior service to American efforts notwithstanding.

 

One of the former president’s chief white nationalist advisors, Stephen Miller, sought to frame the issue on Twitter. “It is becoming increasingly clear that Biden and his radical deputies will use their catastrophic debacle in Afghanistan as a pretext for doing to America what Angela Merkel did to Germany and Europe,” Miller wrote.

 

Newsmax’s Stephen Cortes picked up the cudgel. “The very last thing America needs right now is a swarm of migrants from a battle-torn wasteland,” he tweeted. 

 

Not to be outdone, Fox’s Tucker Carlson told us, “[i]f history is any guide, and it’s always a guide, we will see many refugees from Afghanistan resettle in our country, and over the next decade, that number may swell to the millions. So first we invade, and then we are invaded."

 

Our own TV Channel 12 interviewed a woman who lives next to the Wisconsin military base where the refugees will be housed on Tuesday. While recognizing the need to offer a safe haven to those who sacrificed to help us, she clearly was concerned about the influx of “foreigners” about to become her neighbors. She took a classic “not in my backyard” stance expressing her concern for the upcoming changes.

 

On August 17, GOP Congressman Tom Tiffany, whose district includes Fort McCoy, tweeted that bringing Afghan refugees here was too dangerous and reckless and suggested they should be sent to a third country where they could be vetted before being allowed to enter the U.S. On the 19^th, Tiffany tweeted that the Afghan refugees are coming from a very dangerous country, the implication being that the refugees pose a threat to our country. 

 

Like the Hmong and Laotians who helped us in Viet Nam, we owe a debt to those Afghans who risked their lives and the lives of their families by helping us during this war. Those previous Asian immigrants also came from war-ravaged countries and have skin tones different from most Anglo-European Americans. They were welcomed as they settled among us after that war. We thanked them for their service and helped them make new homes here. 

 

We need to put aside our fear of those who look different and speak different languages and pay our country’s debt to them by welcoming each and every one and making them feel safe.

CRT Misinformation

Combatting CRT Misinformation

Facts and Truth Win

 

When I see a coordinated campaign of misinformation, I start looking for motivation. The coordinated campaign to ban the teaching of systemic racism in our public schools is but the latest example. 

 

A conservativ writer, Christopher Rufo, picked up on an established law school course called Critical Race Theory, concocted a campaign to sweep K-12 public education into the maelstrom created by the Black Lives Matter movement by accusing public school teachers of indoctrinating youngsters that all white people are racists. He developed a series of talking points, all inaccurate, about how this was a Marxist conspiracy designed to pollute young minds. He set up a strawman caricature of the actual CRT course and it was off to the races. 

 

Many extreme conservatives, lacking a positive message or platform, resort to oppositional messaging designed to scare and get their followers to join in the fray.

 

Ad hominem attacks are the most common. This is a debate device which ignores the content of an opponent’s argument and attacks the opponent’s character. Labels like “Socialist.” “Godless,” “Marxist,” “morally bankrupt,” “leftist,” “liberal,” or, one of my favorites, “lefty gadfly” are just some that folks who cannot debate the issues based on fact throw into their comments. 

 

Conflating things that are not alike to justify a position is another one of these devices. “A drug addict gets free needles or methadone, but my insulin costs a thousand dollars” is a current example meant to disparage one group while invoking sympathy for the other. Effective addiction treatment has nothing to do with the cost of insulin. If you want to complain about the cost of insulin, go after big pharma or support universal health care.

 

Scare tactic messaging is another common way of avoiding a debate on the merits. “Immigrants are taking our jobs,” “Democrats will take our guns,” “that government program will lead to SOCIALISM” are meant to scare people into action without understanding what is really at stake.

 

Exaggeration is another form of deflecting an opponent’s argument.  Saying, “all lives matter” in response to “Black lives matter” ignores the problems faced by African Americans at the hands of police officers by sweeping them into a bigger population. Of course, all lives matter, but not “all of us” have experienced racial profiling by police embodied in the complaints about “driving while Black.”

 

Outright lying about something one opposes is, unfortunately, all too common in today’s political debate. “Covid vaccines contain microchips that allow the government to follow your movements,” is a perfect example meant to discourage vaccination efforts. “Masks don’t work and forcing us to wear them destroys our freedom,” are among the most egregious.

 

Getting back to the Critical Race Theory debate, clearly those opposed rarely really know what they are opposing. Labels are used to invoke fear. The labels are supported by exaggeration and outright lies to bolster the ephemeral arguments made against a practice that does not exist. But, what lies beneath the vehement opposition?

 

Let me suggest that the vocal opposition to the teaching of systemic racism in our public schools is rooted in the very racism that fuels the movement to destroy public education all together. 

 

Fear that white kids mingle with “others” or actually learn about our country’s real history of white invaders’ treatment of peoples of color helped fuel segregated schools in all parts of the country. When racial segregation in public schools was declared unconstitutional, private schools sprang up to shelter the offspring of white folks from peoples of color. 

 

As people of more modest means, taught to fear the public-school melting pot, wanted access to private schools for their kids, churches ramped up religious education for their members as an alternative. 

 

As the costs of these alternatives to public education rose, those not wanting their kids exposed to the “others” or curricula they could not control, demanded their public-school taxes be diverted to private school funding. With that, GOP controlled state legislatures created “school choice,” “charter” and voucher systems that take tax dollars away from public schools and send them to private ones following the flight of white kids.

 

Current extreme conservatives are still not satisfied. Public schools still exist and teach things they do not like. They already lost trying to ban teaching about evolution, human sexuality, gender identity, same sex relationships, equality for women, abortion, stem cells, climate change and a host of other issues. This explains the vehement opposition to teaching real history. The opposition is adding more fuel to fires already burning to drive more away from public education and into the arms of the private and “for profit” charter school industry where a rosier world view and white supremacy are the prevailing norms.

 

When looking for the motivation behind the current CRT misinformation campaign, it always helps to follow the money.