Photographs by my son John Althouse Cohen.
I love the variety of messages on the signs, from the things the mildest apolitico may embrace...
To the things the protesters antagonists could seize upon in an effort to undercut everybody at the protests.
February 13, 2017
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
40 comments:
Great pictures. Not sure what "illegal immigration started in 1492" means.
Immigration sure didn't help the native Americans much, did it?
Great photos, JAC! Thanks for sharing.
One of the photos shows a protester with a simple sign, "Destroy all Borders."
That pretty much sums up the cultural/political divide in this country.
Probably, 30-40% of Dems actually believes that we should "destroy all borders." They think, in the short them, they could politically capitalize on this. "We are the world. There's no race, but the human race, blah, blah, blah."
Of course, this is an epic falsehood. See Sweden, for example. Some foreign cultures are simply worse than others.
I am all for allowing the best of the world to meet our high standards, to follow the immigration laws, to assimilate into American culture, to embrace our culture of freedom and capitalism.
What the Dems and the Left want to do, however, is to take the worst of the world, have them ignore our immigration laws, get them on myriad welfare programs, reject American culture, and vote Dem.
You want more Trump? This is how you get more Trump.
Hmmm...looks like the fashion show finally let out.
Doesn't the Q in LGBTQ mean "questioning," not "queer"?
Hasn't "queer" been moved back into the insult column of the Newspeak dictionary?
As a cartographer, that map in the second example really bothers me. Usually the "upside down" map crowd uses a Gall-Peters or other SJW preferred projection that distorts the map in favor of southern hemisphere continents, but this looks like an exaggeration of the Mercator protection that those types generally eschew because it (supposedly) favors there northern hemisphere. If you're going to be a loon who tries to make a point with a map, make sure you know what your map it's saying. This one says the sign maker is a lazy idiot.
rcocean said...
Great pictures. Not sure what "illegal immigration started in 1492" means.
Immigration sure didn't help the native Americans much, did it?
Yeah, that's one of those self-refuting slogans I love so much.
"Destroy All Borders" is silly enough it doesn't even rise to the level of an argument. Ok, let's start with the borders of your house, buddy.
I like the "Stop Deporting Our Friends" sign, too. Kinda lays it bare--"don't enforce the law against people I like," that kinda thing. Undercuts its own implicit claim to nobility/principle.
Something positive: doesn't look like anyone there wore masks, beat anyone up, attacked police, nor destroyed property. By the standard of the day that's pretty good, so well done protesters.
Looks like they're having fun. There's that.
I'd like to see someone hold up the Destroy All Borders sign in China. That would be hilarious.
People living in a bubble. It must make them feel wonderful to gather with their 50 so like minded friends. Whatever turns them on.
If they truly felt he was a dictator, they'd not be protesting, given that there'd be a chance of being killed.
Having encountered some of the job ads for paid protest, it would be interesting to be able to track the percentage and placeemt of "pros" at these things.
Yes, great pics!
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
Destroying borders is of course an act of war. They want to virtue signal that they are at war with America. That's is he rest of the world's job. Why should a fifth column helping our enemies be so proud of itself? Are they all Manchurian Candidates?
No "The End is Nigh" sign?
That's a bad sign.
"One of the photos shows a protester with a simple sign, "Destroy all Borders.""
This is actually a thing. There is a set of movements behind this, a mix of far left and libertarians.
I don't know if the particular people with those signs are there just pour epater les bourgeois or if they are serious.
Taking the movement seriously requires serious consideration of the consequences, which I think will not be significantly different from Raspails "Camp of the Saints". I have not heard of a favorable treatment, a realistic scenario, of the consequences of such a policy.
Among other things, looking at less emotionally-sensitive matters first, there will be an incredible downward pressure on wages, approaching an equalization of first-world and third-world incomes, consumption and standards of living.
A Hadrian's Wall reference. Built in 6 years. Lasted as an effective barrier for 300 years.
Destroy all borders is a pretty good description of the creation of the United States as a coast to coast nation.
"Don't you have a part of you, a part of you that secretly hopes everything gets worse?"
- George Carlin
This idea helps me understand why people lucky enough to be in the U.S. would carry signs suggesting that we destroy borders, reject western values and embrace multiculturalism.
I wonder how that Destroy All Borders goes over in Canada, which sets great store by its border with us, and its distinction from us.
Just like the old commies. Sing the praises of the ideology. But never leave to live in the country that practices said ideology.
And as to the abortion patch my standard response is, "It's a shame your mother didn't practice what you preach."
Enablers of the immigration of military age, Middle Eastern males to the US, oblivious to the results of such in France and Germany and ISIS and Assad's assertions that terrorists are among them. The Democrat base in all its glory.
Islamists' tools.
By now everybody knows the Günter Grass via Tom Wolfe quote about the Dark Night of Fascism, but there's another great one from the same essay:
"For the past hour, I have my eyes fixed on the doors here," he said. "You talk about fascism and police repression. In Germany when I was a student, they come through those doors long ago. Here they must be very slow."
"Destroy All Borders" say the people who live in security buildings. Or buildings with doormen.
My uncle and I disagree on the level of openness. I think one should look and see who's at the door before opening it. He agrees more with the protesters John has documented. He said he wants to leave a better country for his granddaughter.
I asked him if he wanted her to be safer in the park when he took her there to play. Reasonably sure that there wouldn't be a pressure cooker bomb like recently in NYC, or at the Boston Marathon, or something like San Bernardino, or the Somali guy who tried to run over students in Columbus, Ohio.
He said she was in more danger from people already here than from people who could come.
Really?
I asked him if he was in a security building and someone was outside just ringing all the bells if he'd just buzz the person in without asking who they were and what they wanted. Because he'd be more in danger from someone already in the building. He never answered me.
The kid with the love your neighbors sign looks great juxtaposed with the red and black fist sign.
"Your borders are a farce let the empire crumble."
My dear indignant airheaded cat-ladies and proto-cat-ladies: when empires crumble, you get more borders, not fewer. Lots more borders. Sometimes right up to your front gates. You better be ready to defend that front gate when "empires crumble". (N.B.: pink pussy-hats aren't going to protect you in situations like that. Sorry.)
If you don't like empires and don't relish the thought of every man for himself and God against all, consider the nation-state. A nice coherent nation-state can be like the mama-bear's bowl of soup: just right, in terms of the security, internal and external, that comes with political integration and strong defensive capability.
You can work for a nation-state that won't get all imperial in other people's faces while at the same time recognizing that a nice coherent nation-state with definite, protected borders can be proof against the unpleasantness that accompanies political disintegration and fragmentation.
But understanding that requires thinking about something beside your own twat for more than five minutes straight, so, nah, I guess not.
Do these people stop and think that no borders would mean potentially tens of millions of immigrants per year? These are the same people who just say no to building any houses, roads, pipelines, anything, who insist we are harming the environment just by living. So how is that going to work, exactly?
Blogger hombre said...Enablers of the immigration of military age, Middle Eastern males to the US, oblivious to the results of such in France and Germany and ISIS and Assad's assertions that terrorists are among them. The Democrat base in all its glory. Islamists' tools.
One of these days these jihadists among the refugees will do a big-league attack in the U.S. Hopefully it will not be innocents caught in this operation. Just think if they did a large attack on the Grammys presentations. Maximum schadenfreude!
Not only Canada. The idea of a "United States of North America" will not be met with any enthusiasm south of the present border either.
buwaya: I don't know if the particular people with those signs are there just pour epater les bourgeois or if they are serious.
Look at the faces in the photos. Now, there are serious, adult serious, open-borders' ideologues. Serious as death. On the other hand, those faces in the photos are the faces of the childlike serious.
Children can be intensely serious and sincere about what they're doing. But "what they are doing" here is giving expression to an inchoate mass of emotions and frustrations, the sources of which they understand only dimly, if at all. This of course does not involve thinking through the consequences of the real-world policies to which they happen to have attached those emotions this week.
They are useful to the adult serious, though.
Manhattan is its own special polyglot bubble of provinciality, in some ways the most unrepresentative spot in America. Wasn't in favor the American Revolution, for instance, nor the Civil War. In the days after 9/11 there were nothing but peace signs between Wall St. and 96th St. https://goo.gl/VcediJ
For those who wish no borders the UN just needs to create a universal passport that is UN sponsored. Then get countries to sponsor the sponsoring. I am sure Syria and North Korean will sign on.
Thanks for these photos. I have friends who live in Queens but work in Manhattan and who were there.
"Destroy All Borders" means destroy them everywhere. "Illegal Immigration Began in 1492" is flat-out wrong. If it means "to the US," it's wrong because I don't think Cristobal Colon so much as set foot in what's now the US. And if it means anything else, it's immediately inundated by claims going back literally thousands of years. And before anyone brings up the Crusades, I will mildly point out that their intent was to "take back Jerusalem." Who had it at that point, and who had it before them?
hombre said...Enablers of the immigration of military age, Middle Eastern males to the US, oblivious to the results
--
well..many of the signs aren't specific to origin. Note the one pic showing what might be viewed as a Middle Eastern male "refugee" with baby under coat.
"Refugees are welcome here"
Thanks to your son for the great pictures. I especially like the sign that says " Let's talk about the elephant in the womb", very clever.
Unknown said...
Do these people stop and think that no borders would mean potentially tens of millions of immigrants per year? These are the same people who just say no to building any houses, roads, pipelines, anything, who insist we are harming the environment just by living. So how is that going to work, exactly?
The "destroy all borders" crowd is doing nothing more than virtue signaling. "I'm a good person!", they say with their signs. They feel, not think, that letting anyone move anywhere is kindness. They don't stop to consider what the implications would be.
Should anyone who feels this way be here, please tell me, what would happen if 100 million people or more flooded into the US? Where would they live? Could we afford to feed, house, clothe, educate, and provide medical care for all of them? How many of these people would you be willing to let live in your home? Even mundane but essential things like providing drinking water and sewage capacity for all of those people would be a severe challenge.
You can have free immigration or a welfare state. Take your pick.
Michelle Dulak Thompson:
"Destroy All Borders" means destroy them everywhere.
Well, to be fair, some of the deep thinkers from whom these chuckleheads derive their notions have had a go at justifying destroying the borders only of European or European-diaspora countries. Gotta give 'em credit for at least being upfront in their racism or ethno-masochism.
"Illegal Immigration Began in 1492" is flat-out wrong. If it means "to the US," it's wrong because I don't think Cristobal Colon so much as set foot in what's now the US. And if it means anything else, it's immediately inundated by claims going back literally thousands of years.
Yeah, but if you restrict this to European or white-majority countries, vis-à-vis the claims of non-Europeans, it's probably totally do-able!
And before anyone brings up the Crusades, I will mildly point out that their intent was to "take back Jerusalem." Who had it at that point, and who had it before them?
Is the answer to the first part of your question not "European Christians"? Then not a problem. See above.
The beauty of this approach is that you can make decisions about what to scream and yell and get up on your moral high horse about without knowing any more history than can be gleaned from one course in Angry Studies or watching a couple of movies or television series.
Maybe the Sartorialist can do a feature on how folks pair signs with outfit.
One must be well put together as well as well intentioned.
Hitler made the Autobahn run on time.
My program is "America without borders" where up to eleven million senior citizens get to go to Mexico where it's warm and the living is inexpensive and we go without visas, we can buy houses, we have driver's licenses, we pay no taxes, we complain about their police and their historic attitude toward gringos, we use their social services and vote in their elections. And they just apologize if we aren't happy.
Post a Comment