PEN International represents artists and writers around the world. I am a member. It advocates for freedom of expression. It recently issued this condemnation of Trump’s travel ban.
https://pen.org/interrogation-us-border/
It begins like this:
“The Trump Administration’s draconian immigration policies, from the Muslim ban to the deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers of hard-working parents who have no criminal record and young adults who know no other home, have drawn widespread criticism and protest.
“In addition to these heart-wrenching, horrifying stories, more and more reports are emerging of travelers—including U.S. citizens returning home—being subjected to aggressive interrogations at the border that leave them humiliated, angry, and bewildered. Several prominent writers have spoken out in recent weeks about such experiences, which have altered their views of the United States and what it stands for.
“The bestselling children’s book author Mem Fox, an Australian citizen, was detained in late February at the Los Angeles International Airport while en route to a conference in Milwaukee. She was detained for nearly two hours by Customs and Border Patrol officials who reportedly believed she was traveling on the wrong visa, although Fox says she has traveled to the U.S. over 100 times before without any incident. Her interrogation was so aggressive that she said she “felt like I had been physically assaulted.” Fox, whose most recent book I’m Australian, Too is a celebration of immigration and Australia’s multicultural heritage, eventually received an apology from the U.S. embassy in Australia. But in reflecting on her ordeal, she emphasized its broader ramifications, noting, “They made me feel like such a crushed, mashed, hopeless old lady and I am a feisty, strong, articulated English speaker. I kept thinking that if this were happening to me, a person who is white, articulate, educated, and fluent in English, what on earth is happening to people who don’t have my power?”
“Also in late February, Henry Rousso, a celebrated French historian of the Holocaust who was born and raised in Egypt, was detained for 10 hours at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. Rousso, author of The Vichy Syndrome, about France’s struggle to reckon with its World War II history, was traveling to a symposium at Texas A&M University. Border officials questioned him about his visa and accused him of attempting to work illegally in the U.S. Rousso was first told that he would be deported, but was eventually released after Texas A&M learned of the situation and intervened. Like Mem Fox, Rousso’s experience has altered his view of the United States, as he wrote:
This incident has caused me some discomfort, but I cannot stop thinking of all those who suffer these humiliations and legal violence without the protections I was able to benefit from. …How can one explain this zeal if not by the concern to fulfill quotas and justify increased controls? That is the situation today in this country. We must now face arbitrariness and incompetence at all levels. I heard recently that “Paris isn’t Paris anymore.” The United States seems no longer quite the United States.
“Aaron Gach, an American media artist and founder of the Center for Tactical Magic, contacted PEN after he was detained on February 23 on his return home to San Francisco from an art show in Brussels. Gach was subjected to detailed questioning regarding an art exhibition in which he had participated in Belgium, including questions about why he was invited, who invited him, and how often he takes part in such exhibits. Gach’s pieces included in the exhibition focused on issues related to incarceration in the United States; he is unsure whether he was detained in connection with his work. Gach was repeatedly asked to allow CPB agents access to his personal phone by turning it over and providing his password; when he finally agreed, the phone was removed from his sight for several minutes before being returned to him.
“In the wake of reports like these and the expectation that a new travel ban will be issued at any moment, PEN America is hearing from artists, writers, poets, and other cultural and intellectual figures who are newly worried about making trips to the U.S., afraid of being turned away at the border, made to submit to invasive searches of their smartphones, interrogated about their political opinions and religious beliefs, or being subjected to arbitrary tests of their abilities. In a few short weeks, a pervasive fog of fear has encircled our borders, and it will deter countless people from even attempting to visit the country….”
I think the Dump truly hates anyone who is LITERATE, because he is ILLITERATE.
Reblogged this on BLOGGYWOCKY and commented:
The CBP seems to have become Trump’s Schutzstaffel. Detaining and harassing tourists, anybody even appearing “Muslim,” foreign travelers here for cultural events, even American citizens returning from foreign countries. Add to that ICE and the way they have treated families with the mass deportations. Add to that as well TSA’s recently announced more “thorough” and intrusive body searches of airline passengers.
I wonder if our tourism industry has figured out yet that these are the reasons tourism is down since Trump was inaugurated.
I hope this report is widely circulated. Trump/Bannon policies are designed to earn disrespect from the “intelligencia’ (my mother’s word).
Elite knowledge is openly scorned and placed in opposition to their bi-polar base of support–working stiffs and Wall Street wheelers and dealers.
There is some good news. According to BCI/ICE, illegal border crossings are down 40%. As a spouse of a legal immigrant, I believe this to be an excellent development.
We are living through a transition period from a republic to a fascist dictatorship.
Lloyd,
We won’t let that happen.
I hope so.
The Author’s Guild issued this statement. I am a member.
We Are Not the People’s Enemies
First President Trump complained that “the media” was biased against him. “Dishonest.” Presidents have made such complaints before, in moments of weakness and self-pity.
Then he labeled the media as “the opposition party.”
Now he has declared journalists to be “the enemy of the American People.”
We at the Authors Guild hear that as a declaration of war. We know our history. Enemy of the People is a phrase long favored by authoritarians and tyrants. The “correct Russian term,” Gary Shteyngart points out, is врагнарода, vrag naroda. Long before Lenin and Stalin used it, Robespierre inaugurated the Reign of Terror by declaring that the Revolutionary Government “owes nothing to the Enemies of the People but death.”
An earlier president, John F. Kennedy—when he was taking a beating in the press after the Bay of Pigs fiasco—was asked if he resented the media. He said this:
“It is never pleasant to be reading things that are not agreeable news, but I would say that it is an invaluable arm of the presidency, as a check, really, on what is going on in the administration … I would think that Mr. Khrushchev operating a totalitarian system, which has many advantages as far as being able to move in secret, and all the rest—there is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily …Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn’t write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn’t any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press.”
President Kennedy was a member of the Authors Guild. So are many of the journalists now covering the Trump presidency, the historians who will soon reflect upon it, and the novelists who challenge us with their imaginative—and, yes, subversive—visions.
The administration is now said to be preparing the elimination of the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities under the false guise of budgetary necessity. We understand this, too, to be part of an attack on the free expression of diverse views.
The Authors Guild serves writers as a nonpartisan advocate. Our members represent a broad spectrum of social and political views. But blanket attacks on writers and journalists, as a class, are not a partisan issue; they are attacks on democracy itself. And, as advocates for authors and the first amendment rights of writers, we cannot let these attacks go unanswered.
We are not the people’s enemies. We are the eyes and ears of the people. And we are the people’s memory.
Dear Dr. Ravitch, What are your thoughts on transitional kindergarten or transitional 1st grade classes? Thank you! Jim Shelton
Sent from my iPad
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Jim,
That’s a question for the teachers on this blog, not for me. I am a historian with experience in the federal government
Jim. Your question is too vague to answer.
Hi Jim:
The wisest people on earth are who treasure, live and die for believe in humanity, for instance Saint Gandhi, Saint Mother Theresa…in our time.
My mother taught her children that in Vietnamese aphorism, being wise will show in human beings as early as they are just 3 years old, however, being ignorant will be with people as old as they live.
So, to answer your question about the transitional kindergarten or 1st grader = 4 to 6 years old, please observing the parental, educational, cultural and environmental background of those children.
The more being articulate and well manner in music, art and literature children learn from, the better civilized children are.
The more being barbarous and greedy in family, PRIVATIZED school and society CHILDREN ARE EXPOSED TO, the more savage children become.
In short, it is no mystery, and it does not need to look in 1000 + years ago in history of mankind. Please try to be honest and altruistic with yourself in order to come to your own conclusion. From your own background, what was your transitional kindergarten and/or 1st grader when you had been 60+ years ago?
We can reflect from our own experience in order to sympathize or empathize with others. In my own experience, until we fall into being destitute, we will learn to extend our SINCERE love to others with ONE CAUTIOUS WORD – “beware” of con artist’s manipulation. Back2basic