Xenophobia, Syrian refugees, US Governors , Nothing beats human kindness. nothing

We have a Xenophobia problem here in American and people have short memories.

What is xenophobia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia

Xenophobia is the fear of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange.^[1][2] Xenophobia can manifest itself in many ways involving the relations and perceptions of an ingroup towards an outgroup, including a fear of losing identity, suspicion of its activities, aggression, and desire to eliminate its presence to secure a presumed purity^. Xenophobia can also be exhibited in the form of an “uncritical exaltation of another culture” in which a culture is ascribed “an unreal, stereotyped and exotic quality”.

What Americans really think about the Syrian refugee crisis

A Pew Research Center survey released on September 29 shows a mixed and polarized response among Americans to the Syrian refugee crisis. By a narrow margin of 51 to 45 percent, the public approves of the Obama administration’s decision to accept more refugees. Democrats favor this move by 69 to 29 percent, while Republicans oppose it by a similar margin of 67 to 30. The split among Independents, with 51 percent in favor and 43 percent opposed, closely mirrors the population as a whole.

Breaking down the response by subgroups, some familiar patterns emerge. Accepting more refugees is backed by racial and ethnic minorities, young people, those with college and professional degrees, and by Catholics and religiously unaffiliated individuals. Groups in opposition include whites, older Americans, those with less than a college education, and white mainline as well as evangelical Protestants.

When asked a more general question—whether the United States should be “doing more” in response to the refugee crisis, the response was less polarized. Fifty percent of Democrats said we should do more, 11 percent less, while 35 percent thought our current level of effort is about right. Among Republicans, 35 percent favored an increased effort, 28 percent thought we should do less, and 29 percent supported our current policies.

The European Refugee Crisis and Syria Explained

It’s a great video and explains  how the Syrian people got to where they are.

Here is another

Syria’s war: Who is fighting and why

Gov. Rick Scott says no Syrian refugees to Florida

Scott wants Congress to take action

Rick Scott King of the Xenophobes. I think he really thinks these people are terrorists and not people who being killed by terrorists.

Maybe someone in his office can do a google search and explain what the crisis is about.

Maybe you could tell him it’s about climate change. Then he’ll make you wash you mouth out with soap.

It’s always about the water
Climate Change Helped Spark Syrian War, Study Says
Research provides first deep look at how global warming may already influence armed conflict.
But their report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, compiled statistics showing that water shortages in the Fertile Crescent in Syria, Iraq, and Turkey killed livestock, drove up food prices, sickened children, and forced 1.5 million rural residents to the outskirts of Syria’s jam-packed cities—just as that country was exploding with immigrants from the Iraq war. (Related: “Half of Syrians Displaced: 5 Takeaways From New UN Report.”)

What is a crisis but something happens when you don’t deal with an issue. The world has ignored the issue and now we have a crisis and the world needs to deal with it.

What if we had a room where we could send representatives to all sit down and try to figure out a solution. Ohhh we have one. This is what they have been up to.

Syria Regional Refugee Response

The Palm Beach Post Asking for Compassion

“But it’s important to remember: The brutal leaders of Islamic State, or ISIL, do not represent Islam. This is a truly extreme death cult, and it should not be succeeding in the 21st century. There are an estimated 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, while the number of fighters for ISIL number perhaps 30,000, according to CIA estimates. So why has this fringe cult accomplished as much as it has? Why are candidates for the U.S. presidency, including former Gov. Jeb Bush, seriously talking about abandoning such basic constitutional principles as separation between church and state, proposing that the United States help only Christian refugees?

One word: fear.”

The GOP wants you to be scared so you’ll vote for them. You’ll crawl from under you bed and run quickly to the polls or get a mail in ballot and then go hide your bed because the boogie man is going to get you.

Fear motivates people to behave irrationally. To throw away all human kindness.

Mista Gimleteye from Eye on Miami wrote this today.

GOP Sillly Season Leaks Into “War Against Terrorism” … by gimleteye

His conclusion: “The real enemy is not terrorism: it is hopelessness. ”

and it is.

Here is a great paper

Understanding terrorism

Psychologists are amassing more concrete data on the factors that lead some people to terrorism—and using those insights to develop ways to thwart it.

By Tori DeAngelis

“While researchers now agree that most terrorists are not “pathological” in any traditional sense, several important insights have been gleaned though interviews with some 60 former terrorists conducted by psychologist John Horgan, PhD, who directs the Pennsylvania State University’s International Center for the Study of Terrorism.

Horgan found that people who are more open to terrorist recruitment and radicalization tend to:

• Feel angry, alienated or disenfranchised.
• Believe that their current political involvement does not give them the power to effect real change.
• Identify with perceived victims of the social injustice they are fighting.
• Feel the need to take action rather than just talking about the problem.
• Believe that engaging in violence against the state is not immoral.
• Have friends or family sympathetic to the cause.
• Believe that joining a movement offers social and psychological rewards such as adventure, camaraderie and a heightened sense of identity.”

We are human. No one one wakes up in the morning asks to be disenfranchised, alienated or angry.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tampa Bay, FL – “Governor Scott’s demand that Congress act to prevent Syrian refugees from settling in Florida reminds me of another shameful time in U.S. history,” said Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida President Susan Smith. “Seventy-six years ago, the S.S. St. Louis, carrying almost 1,000 Jews seeking refuge from the Nazis, was refused entry into the United States. Those refugees were forced to return to Germany where many of them did not survive the Holocaust.

“Republican governors and politicians are feeding hysteria that threatens to poison our country for years to come,” said Smith. “By falling into this trap, we inadvertently support and further the mission of ISIS to foment hatred and division, and we will once again find ourselves on the wrong side of history.”

President Obama calls this rejection of Syrian refugees “a betrayal of our values.”

“In school, we all learn the words to the poem which is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty,” Smith said. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

“And who, today, is more tempest-tossed than Syrian refugees? No one is suggesting that we open our borders without security checks. But as leaders on the global stage, we have a responsibility and an opportunity to demonstrate the values on which our country was founded: welcoming those who seek safety and freedom from oppression.

“We can do better. We must do better.”

The Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida is a chartered caucus of the Florida Democratic Party.
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let love not hate and common sense and compassion prevail.

Lyrics to Thick as a Brick.  (Jethro Tull) Sing with me!

Really don’t mind if you sit this one out.

My words but a whisper your deafness a SHOUT.
I may make you feel but I can’t make you think.
Your sperm’s in the gutter your love’s in the sink.
So you ride yourselves over the fields and
You make all your animal deals and
Your wise men don’t know how it feels
To be thick as a brick.

And the sand-castle virtues are all swept away in
The tidal destruction
The moral melee.
The elastic retreat rings the close of play
As the last wave uncovers
The newfangled way.
But your new shoes are worn at the heels and
Your suntan does rapidly peel and
Your wise men don’t know how it feels
To be thick as a brick.

And the love that I feel, is so far away
I’m a bad dream that I just had today and you
Shake your head and
Say it’s a shame.

Spin me back down the years
and the days of my youth.
Draw the lace and black curtains
and shut out the whole truth.
Spin me down the long ages, let them sing the song.