The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss - Current Events: Noam Chomsky on Refugees & Border Policies

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

Listen to our newest mini-series "Current Events with Noam Chomsky"! This episode covers a variety of topics around Refugees and Border Policies in the United States and other countries.   Show your support and access exclusive bonus content at https://www.patreon.com/originspodcast Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to the Origins Podcast and the Origins Project Foundation. I'm your host here, Lawrence Krause. And I want to introduce what may be a new continuing series, which is really goes back to one of our first guests and one of our most popular podcasts with none other than Noam Chomsky. I asked Noam if we could periodically update our discussion by talking about current events. So here you go, current events with Noam Chomsky.

Apparently, a situation at the border where for the last month, the largest number of refugees at the border in recent times, the Bush, the Biden administration was originally said, we're not going to take any more refugees than the Trump administration did. And then there was pushback. That's the concern at one end. At the other end, maybe there's movement towards the dreamers and maybe taking care of children.

But what's your assessment of where this? is heading well first of all we should remember that the republican leadership is publicly salivating with glee um and the more people storm the border uh the better it is we can frighten americans with the you know the the great replacement they're coming here to kill all the white people, we've got to have lots of guns and assault rifles and defenders. So they love it. And if the Democrats make any minimally humane move, the whole Republican establishment all over them, you're communists, you want to kill the Americans, we can come back to office. Okay, we know that's going to happen. They're saying it. So the question is, what should be done? Well, what should

should be done is first of all eliminate this over, get rid of the structure that's been imposed since Clinton actually got much worse under Trump. The program since Clinton, early 90s, was try to drive refugees into the most hostile, brutal areas, like right south of where I live. You know what it's like. It's miserable. You can't barely survive. So drive refugees into there.

They'll die or get killed or something, and then it'll stop other refugees from coming. Well, that Clinton policy didn't work. The situation we've created, we've created notice in Central America. It's so murderous and destructive that they're still coming. In fact, they're coming. We're responsible for that after all. It's not just, you know, century of terror and building up to Reagan's terrorist wars in the 80s.

People are still fleeing from that. But many other things. For one thing, we pour guns into the region. Most of the guns there coming from the United States can't buy guns in Mexico. It's very hard. But you can come across the border, ask me. I can, I don't even know which end of a gun to hold, but I could go into a gun store and say,

I want to buy an assault rifle, hand it over to my favorite cartel guy. It's the kind of, I'm exaggerating, but that's the kind of thing that happens. So the place is flooded with guns, homicide, murders, gangs all over. It's exacerbated by the severe effects of global warming. Obama made his contribution by supporting the military coup in Honduras, Obama and Clinton.

There was a military coup in 2009, which eliminated a moderately reformist candidate, Mel Zelaya, restored the extreme brutality of the Honduran, so-called 14 families, the aristocracy that owned the place. became one of the murder capitals of the world. There was an election under military rule condemned by the whole hemisphere, except the United States. U.S. talked about the very favorable steps of a move to democracy, the usual line. Places unlivable, combination of global warming, murders, atrocities. So that's the plurality of,

refugees. They're coming from a recent atrocity, but it goes way back. So what can we do? First of all, we should remove the punitive savage policy of driving refugees into areas where we're going to get killed and die with a brutal border patrol chasing after them. Free to do anything they want. There's no surveillance in Portland where you were when Trump wanted to smash the place up. He couldn't send the military because they were unwilling to do it. So he sent the shock troops of the border patrol. Their training is just, you know, kick everybody you like in the face. That's what we do.

So we'll do it in Portland. So get rid of all that stuff. allow the relief systems to work. Now, there are very courageous, honorable people. No More Deaths is the group that goes out into the desert, tries to provide a little bit of help to any refugee who doesn't die on the way, maybe a water bottle or some medical treatment, allow them to work.

Reconstruct an asylum system, a decent legal asylum system, in which people can come through the easy areas, not the harsh desert, come through the easy areas, apply for asylum. That means hiring more judges, more lawyers, facilities, it's kind of a rounding error in the budget, you know, it's not even there. And so they can be credited more or less decently,

stop the policy of trying to compel Mexico to drive them, keep them away from our borders, brutal, malicious policy. But the only good thing you can say about it is Europeans are even worse, okay, if that makes anybody feel good. But the end that, and then do something about what's driving them out of Central America. I mean, they're not leaving because they want to live in Portland. Yeah. They want to live at home, but home is impossible.

That's why people are refugees because home is impossible in general. So they do whatever we can to help reconstruct the wreckage for which we're largely responsible. This episode of the Origins podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. We all have things that interfere with our happiness,

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including technology, and try to help them rebuild the places we've destroyed. Stop the flow of guns, absolutely essential to stop the massive flow of guns to Mexico and Central America. murdering people all over. All of these things can be done, but there's one big impediment. As soon as the Democrats try to do anything minimally humane, the Republican establishment comes down on them like a ton of bricks with all the kind of propaganda we know,

and it helps get them back into office and then tell you the honest truth if they get back into office, we may be finished. Well, it's, but because of global warming. Well, there's lots of reasons. That's a reality that we face. Now, there are, well, three follow-ups here.

Like the case of Afghanistan, if people, if one has faith, if people know what's really happening, they might do the right thing. It seems to me that there are two areas where public opinion, at least where a publican pushback, one doesn't seem to be working.

One is the dreamer. and two is the treatment of children at the border. Those are two areas where it seems to me that humane treatment actually will help the Democrats. No? Depends. It depends how powerful the famous mighty Whirlitzer is, a huge propaganda system,

which can be used very effectively to demonize, condemn, you know, frightened and so on, that we're not the only country in the world who have done it. Look at what Hitler was able to do about the Jews. And Germany was the most civilized country in the world in the 1920s. Unfortunately, these things worked. Yeah. No, well, we've said it before.

And you'll correct me, because I can remember whether it's Goebbels or Goering, who said that if you want people to do what you want to do, it doesn't matter whether you have a democracy or dictatorship, just make him afraid. It works very well. And this is a very frightened country. Yeah, yeah. Actually, I just, you may have seen it. There was a poll, a couple of days ago, quite interesting. It gave people 15 choices as to what were the major problems facing the country.

among Republicans. At the very bottom, 14% was climate change, the least important, only the most important question in human history, but the least urgent problem. At the top was illegal immigration and the federal deficit. That's the world we're living in. A lot of, if you want to know the answer to all of these problems, a lot of it is educate the American people. Yeah.

A very severe problem right here. We don't have to go abroad to fix things up. We have a lot of work to do right here. Yes, we do. To create a civilized society. If you're the hiring expert for your company, what you really need is help making your short list of quality candidates. You need a hiring partner who helps make your life easier. You need Indeed.

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I, you know, as a sort of immigrant, I mean, you know, I was born in the United States, but I grew up in Canada and then moved to the United States. That was a very important thing for me. Living in two different countries really dispelled any sense of nationalism I had. because you realize that the picture you've been given on one side of the border is very different than the other. But maybe this, I know this is utterly naive, but I've often wondered, would it be the end of the world? I mean, would an open border, if everyone who wanted to come to the United States came, would it destroy the United States? I mean, let's say from Central America and Mexico.

I mean, could we, could, if we had a relatively open border policy, Would that be a disaster? Probably improve the economy. There's a lot of studies which showed that the first generation of immigrants is some kind of cost. Second generation usually improves the economy. Yeah. Hardworking. They do the jobs that other people don't want to do, establish businesses, pay taxes.

Pretty soon you get a better economy. Probably would be good for the country. Yeah, certainly. It's a very empty country after all. Exactly. It's pretty empty. And I remember when I lived in Phoenix here and the ridiculous sheriff, you know, they were arresting people who were helping the economy, who were paying their taxes and doing jobs and instead costing a tremendous amount of money.

And the net effect was to hurt the Phoenix economy by these ridiculous waves of rounding up immigrants. That's generally true. I mean, you know, after all, that's been the history of the country for a long time. Up until the 1920s, the United States welcomed immigrants because you had to replace the population you were exterminating. It's not exactly the way we put it. It's not only welcome, but tricked them into coming, giving them land and telling him it was productive when it wasn't. A lot of Jews. I was just speaking to a physicist whose family came from Poland to Wisconsin. because they thought they could farm.

Yeah. Well, that's, you know, same with my parents. Yeah. Right before the ban. 1920, of course, except for Orientals. They were kept racist grounds. Yeah, yeah. But 1924, the major immigration law was passed, which was aimed specifically

at Italians and Jews. They didn't say that, Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans, which meant Italians and Jews. And that lasted until the 1960s. Lots of people went to gas chambers because of that. My whole extended family for some to get into the United States. Even after the Holocaust survivors couldn't get into the United States. I mean, it was a very brutal policy.

Since then, there's been other modifications. You know, Mexicans were allowed in to do the dirty work of fruit picking, which nobody wants to do. Apple picking and Washington and so on. But, and then the educated sectors like skilled Indian engineers, we want them, you know. But it's if the policy is designed for our benefit, what are pursuing. fieved benefit, I should say, because it's not actual benefit. Yeah. But the accommodating to racism, fear, irrational fear, and so on, all part of the society.

Again, but the only good thing you can say about this is the Europeans are worse. Genuinely, racism is more extreme. Their policies on refugees are more brutal and vicious. I don't think that should make us feel good, but we're dealing with broad questions.