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I remember him (barely) as a thin, bald, little old man with a white mustache and a cane. As I write this, I’m looking at a photo of him in 1947, holding the hand of little Tommy Engelhardt who had just turned three that very July day. They’re on a street somewhere in Brooklyn, New York, Tommy in shorts and a T-shirt and his grandfather, Moore (that wasn’t his original name), wearing a suit and tie. It’s hard to imagine him as the young Jewish boy from the Austro-Hungarian Empire who ran away from home — somewhere in modern-day Poland — after reportedly “pulling the Rabbi’s whiskers” in a dispute. By his own account, he spent two desperate years working to scrape together the money for passage alone in the steerage of a ship from Hamburg to America and finally made it here in the early 1890s with the equivalent of a 50-cent piece in his pocket. And he was a lucky man.
He died when I was five, but sometimes I try to imagine him arriving in New York harbor and seeing that lady, the Statue of Liberty, for the first time. A century and a quarter later, I still wonder what, at that moment, he dreamed of when it came to the country that would indeed welcome him (though his life, in those early years, was — at least as family stories had it — anything but easy). How could I imagine myself as I am now (a bald little old man with a white mustache) without him, without that moment? So today, as Donald Trump does his best to keep every imaginable modern version of my grandfather out of this country and eject so many of those “Moores” now living here, I wonder about the grim cruelty of our world.
I wrote this about my grandfather early last year and, of course, it still applies:
“In other words, my grandfather was a kind of nineteenth-century equivalent of a DACA kid (though without even parents to bring him here). Like so many other immigrants of that era, he made it to the United States from a shithole part of Europe… and he was lucky… A few decades later, Jews like him, or Slavs, or Italians, or Asians of any variety — the Haitians, Salvadorans, and Nigerians of that era — would essentially be put under the early twentieth-century equivalent of Donald Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ and largely kept by law from entering the country. In those days, the analog to Trump’s bitter complaints about Muslims and others of color was: Europe was ‘making the United States a dumping ground for its undesirable nationals.’ (So said Henry Fairfield Osborn, the then-president of New York’s American Museum of Natural History, in 1925.)”
So, as I focused on today’s chilling piece by TomDispatch regular Karen Greenberg on the Trumpian assault on citizenship and so much else, I couldn’t help thinking about those 16-year-olds of our moment so desperately trying to make it to this country across our southern border, often alone, and just how they’ve been “welcomed,” as well as about the future Tom Engelhardts who will never come to be, at least not here in this — as Greenberg points out — increasingly walled-in and xenophobic land.
- Citizenship in the Age of Trump
Death by a Thousand Cuts
Karen Greenberg • March 21, 2019 • 2,100 Words
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Your grandfather also couldn’t have immigrated if there was no America. He didn’t save up his money for a boat ticket to Guatemala.
Karen Greenberg is right, America doesn’t deserve the Statue of Liberty, much less that plaque underneath that contains that glorious sonnet from Emma Lazarus. It’s time to take them both down, wrap them up and send them on to Israel, the real land of the free, beacon of hope for all the world’s “wretched refuse”, especially now that the Pence administration is Making Israel Great Again.
Right, we should welcome people who think the idea of America, the Bill of Rights and The Constitution are for shit and needs to be transformed into the alien by their communist ideals.
What’s that word now? Ah yes, “transfection.”
“The original meaning of transfection was “infection by transformation”, i.e., introduction of genetic material, DNA or RNA, from a prokaryote-infecting virus or bacteriophage into cells, resulting in an infection. Because the term transformation had another sense in animal cell biology (a genetic change allowing long-term propagation in culture, or acquisition of properties typical of cancer cells), the term transfection acquired, for animal cells, its present meaning of a change in cell properties caused by introduction of DNA. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfection
I wonder why you don’t recommend the same immigration principles to Israel, especially with respect to ” those 16-year-olds of our moment so desperately who would want nothing more than to make it to THEIR OWN country across the illegal walls implanted on their land by the Jewish squatters.
I also wonder, given your professed heart-melting empathy for the Hispanics trying to enter the US illegally, how many of them you have offered to sponsor.
I can’t imagine a greater assault on citizenship than its dilution via mass immigration.
The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France for eliminating slavery, which is why she has chains around her ankles. It has nothing to due with immigration. Many plaques were added years later, including that one about immigration. Even then, every immigrant who arrived at Ellis Island did so legally.
The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States celebrating our political freedoms. It was defaced with a disgusting homage to cheap labor by wealthy oligarchs who were using an excessively high rate of immigration to force wages for the many down and profits for the few up.
The majority were never in favor of this brutal cheap-labor policy, and fought greatly against it, but the elites had too much power. Sure, in 1924 there was finally a vote to limit immigration to more sensible levels – but it was largely ignored by the elites, and by the eve of the Wall Street crash immigration levels were still sky high.
After 1929, immigration rates were held very low until about 1970. Illegal immigration was essentially zero. Once the depression ended, with a tight labor market wages shot up – and profits were held down! How terrible. So starting around 1970, the elites have progressively opened the doors to the overpopulated third world. Wages are going down, and rents and profits are going up. Duh.
My grandparents came to the US from Sweden around 1910. They were good people. They were nonetheless part of a massive wave of immigrants that, collectively, created great misery amongst the working class of the United States. Only when the rate at which additional people like my grandparents were allowed to immigrate was reduced, did the average person start to do better.
I see no reason to worship the Statue of Cheap Labor as God, that’s propaganda forced on us by the rich and powerful. If we allow the endless hordes of people fleeing the consequences of having more children than they can support to come here without limit, we will be overwhelmed and before too long we will be living like they do in Bangladesh.
And where then will we go?
Ahh here we go with another Jew and the ole blood and soil for me but open borders for thee. How about Israel open up its borders and allow the Muslim invaders that spread across Europe after the wars that were fought for Israel? How about Israel tear down the walls they built on the land they stole and allow the rightful owners of the land back in? Just another vile, disgusting Jew with more Jewish anti-white BS.
You mean turbo-rich .001% heiress Emma Lazarus, the gal who lived off her Old Knickerbocker sugar-slave/refining, booze distillery, banking, and real estate family money?
Emma Lazarus, whose Tammany Hall-cahoots family’s cruelty to animals and bilking of the poor was noted in press of the time in the “swill milk” scandals that led to modern food safety legislation and was credited with killing 8,000 New York City babies a year?
That Emma Lazarus?
http://stevelindsay.net/DickeyLindsay/BRADISH_JOHNSON_AND_ME.pdf
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/jwagner/180117
https://tracingthetribe.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/
While we’re at it, let’s address the Musulman squatters in Constantinople, Alexandria, Hippo, Damascus, and the rest of Assyria, Asia Minor, etc. They are the result of the worst immigration policies in history.
The Crusades were a noble attempt at irredentism.
This article is a joke, right? I mean, no one could seriously think that the US should be a “refuge” for all the billions of people being cranked out by the round-the-clock illiterate baby-makers of equatorial countries?
A neighbor I know had a maid who had no education n didn’t speak English. The maid would bring her underaged daughter with her to help clean the house. Next thing I saw, both daughter and mother had babies at the same time, the teenage daughter preferring to clean house with her new baby in her arms rather than attend the free public school that our taxes so generously and naively provided, right alongside her mother who cleaned house with her own new baby in her arms.
I wonder who paid for the maternity hospital?
The Statue of Liberty should be renamed the Statute of Stupidity. Better yet, torn down.
Israel is welcoming of foreigners, let Ms. Karen Greenberg plant the statue of liberty on the beach at Tel Aviv. She is all for it, right?
Ron should give you your own blog here.
Oh, they were the Haitians, Salvadorians, and Nigerians of their time??
Maybe they had to have a sponsor to go on Ellis Island, maybe they had to pass health exams, but they had no handouts. They staggered off their boat, knowing they would work hard and make something of themselves with no help from the US government. They would go to night school and learn English properly and, if necessary, learn a trade as fast as possible-
The so-called melting pot was made up of Europeans and European Jews. Guess how high their IQs were and how unshakable their motivation was. Sorry to be so obvious, ,but it’s very tedious to hear comparisons between 3rd worlders arriving now and immigration up to the early “20th C.
There is this thing known “carrying capacity” and to preserve that “lifeboat ethics” , HAS to be followed or the whole place sinks. This so-called “melting -pot” HAD a carrying capacity.
Just listen to the band play like on the Titanic and hope the cold kills you before drowning does.
“The Statue of Liberty should be renamed the Statute of Stupidity. Better yet, torn down.”
You do realize that your ancestors came here as immigrants, right? Are you willing to tear down their legacy just to sate your appetite for destruction?
It’s a real shame Emma Lazarus, the Frankfurt School filth and all the rest of that 30’s shtetl trash didn’t end up in a ditch somewhere in Eastern Europe with the back of their skulls blown out instead of sliming up on American shores.
Imagine a nation without all those grifters, carnies, rag collectors, ambulance chasers, race pimps, pornographers and abortionists etc…
Sorry if I ran on, I’ve had that stuff in the drawer for awhile.
interesting post Olorin, thx. that boshevik commie screed slapped on the base of Liberty, most certainly didn’t include Gentiles.
from the horse’s mouth.
She said “…I have no thought, no passion, no desire, save for my own people.”
http://www.jewishmag.com/93mag/emmalazarus/emmalazarus.htm
If there was place like that in America it may very well be Montana. But when the super volcano blows ??? Upper Michigan I guess.
Oh puleaze. Not the old “we’re all a nation of immigrants” trope. That’s as relevant as saying we should abolish the borders because the sky is blue. ALL nations are ultimately nations of immigrants. So what? The point is we are here n we built this place, n they are not n they didn’t. If length of residency is important, which is arguable only if someone invaded n set up a few houses n statues overnight, whites have been in North America for 400 years. That’s 200 years longer than Bantus have been in South Africa, 200 years longer than Muslims have been in the Philippines, the same length of time that Russians have been in Siberia, n 150 years longer than any Spanish were in California before their eponymous inheritors, Mexico, laid claim to “Aztlan”. If you want to argue that no one in possession can ever have a prior right to keep out migrants, you may as well take the front door off your home. I’ll bet the farm that you haven’t done that.
Nope, we need to hear more of what you have to say. I guess I can start following you, or however it’s done on this site.
They are all like that, to coin a phrase.
Corvy thinks that he’s cleverly sowing the seeds of discord among the Caucasians here. So far virtually everyone’s figured it out, but onward he trudges.
Worth remembering is that the Statue was intended to commemorate Freedom, not Immigration. It got perverted later on, in part by the Emma Lazarus who’s mentioned in this comment thread, but mostly by people in positions of power, who hijacked the iconography for the express purpose of trashing this once-great nation.
The Ruling Tribe considers itself safer when it has all the other people at one another’s throats. That explains most of the wreckage you see around you today.
“Oh puleaze. Not the old “we’re all a nation of immigrants” trope.”
It’s not a trope, it’s an integral part of our nation’s history.
“ALL nations are ultimately nations of immigrants.”
Since when?
“That’s 200 years longer than Bantus have been in South Africa…”
Actually, the Zulus (Bantus) predate whites here.
“Corvy thinks that he’s cleverly sowing the seeds of discord among the Caucasians here.”
It’s an echo chamber here. Rarely is there discord here. However, you will need to get normies on your side if you want to make any headway. That requires propaganda on your part. So what have you been doing to ensure that this goal is met?
“Worth remembering is that the Statue was intended to commemorate Freedom, not Immigration.”
Actually, it was both–freedom and immigration.
Actually, it was both–freedom and immigration.
LOL nope.
Your grandfather would have slapped the shit out of you if read the garbage you scribbled.
The point is that it applies not just to our nation, but to all. That makes it a trope.
Exactly my point. Since when? Asking the question shows its irrelevancy.
No, actually the Zulus, along with most of the other Bantu-speakers, post-date the arrival of Europeans in South Africa by almost a century. Read Washing of The Spears. Incidentally the Bantus eradicated the stone-age Bushmen who pre-dated both Bantus n Whites by millennia. While the Whites were no angels, the Bantus committed wholesale genocide against the Hottentot/Bushmen when they arrived. The idea that Whites are alien interlopers in South Africa is a myth.
“The point is that it applies not just to our nation, but to all. That makes it a trope.”
Not to ALL nations. Some nations. China and Japan do not have rich histories in immigration.
“Exactly my point. Since when? Asking the question shows its irrelevancy.”
My point was rhetorical. Regardless, the United States compared to other nations was built generally by immigration.
“No, actually the Zulus, along with most of the other Bantu-speakers, post-date the arrival of Europeans in South Africa by almost a century. Read Washing of The Spears. Incidentally the Bantus eradicated the stone-age Bushmen who pre-dated both Bantus n Whites by millennia. While the Whites were no angels, the Bantus committed wholesale genocide against the Hottentot/Bushmen when they arrived. The idea that Whites are alien interlopers in South Africa is a myth.”
The Zulus arrived in South Africa in the 16th century. At the end of the 15th Century the Portuguese sailed past the Cape of Good Hope. However it was not until 1652 that the Europeans founded a colony in South Africa. And, indeed, both the Bantus and Dutch/English were no angels. But the Whites were interlopers as far as grabbing as much free stuff and gimmedats as possible.
In the part of British North America that became the U.S.? Not hardly!
A chronology of emigration to the earliest British colony in North America may be found here:
http://www.jamestowne.org/chronology-1606-1700.html
English colonists arrived in April of 1607, landing at the present site of Jamestown on May 14.
As may be seen, the first 20 negroes did not arrive until 1620 (this date is sometimes reported as 1619 because the ‘old style’ New Year began on the ides of March, not January 1, and was moreover on the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar). The black population did not increase rapidly. By 1647 the colony’s population was 15,000 English and only 300 negroes. It grew in rough proportion; by 1671, the colony’s population was 48,000, with 6,000 being indentured servants and only 2,000 negroes.
Whites assuredly preceded blacks in British North America, and considerably outnumbered them in early Virginia. Inportation of negro slaves did not take place on a larger scale until long after the earliest settlement of English colonists.
Other peoples need to fix their own countries. Not everyone can live here.
High wages and cheap land means happiness for the average person. Throttle immigration and kick out troublemakers and call out aliens with alien ideas for who and what they are every time.
We should have reparations for the descendants of actual slaves-coupled with permanent separation. If they feel America is no good because of slavery, let them go, indeed, make it well worth their while.
“In the part of British North America that became the U.S.? Not hardly!”
LOL. South Africa, NOT British North America. Never made that charge nor reference. Next time try to follow along more carefully.
“LOL nope.”
Our liberty was derived by settlers and immigrants who forged a great land and became free from British tyranny. Per usual, you are in over your head here.
The more you know….
and whether they’re from mejico, sudan, somalia or the Middle East, they all have plenty of land of their own and there’s nothing stopping them from building great mejico, somalia etc unless they’re too stupid or too lazy, which isn’t our fault anyway
where the Zulus there when the whites showed up ca 1500?
if not, why not?
how many tribes did the zulus exterminate on their way down from central Africa?
this is how you can tell he’s not one of us – they always overdo the statements like “our nation’s history”
Nice try. You wrote that they “predate whites here.” Had you been referring to South Africa woukd you not have written that they predate whites there?
“Here” is, for the overwhelming majority of readers of this forum, North America – not South Africa.