That Ball Has No Sides, Part 2

Every day, more and more of the physical work done in our country is done by people of one race with no economic or political power: Hispanic illegal immigrants.

This is very hard to miss unless one is rather removed from the day to day physical work that is required to build and maintain our country. Few things constitute “privilege” as much as being removed from the necessary day to day physical work supporting our existence.

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One might say about illegal immigration, “thank goodness for it, because not enough US citizens are willing or able to do the necessary physical work.” Sure, that’s one way to look at it.

Here’s another way to look at it: here is a Video of Biden speaking on Illegal Immigration during his 2008 Presidential Campaign. (This is from Kanekoa the Great’s X (Twitter) post, Jan 8, 2024.)

Kanekoa summarizes then Presidential candidate Biden:

“In 2007, Senator Joe Biden declared that no great nation has uncontrolled borders, warning that America must build a border fence and increase border agents to secure the nation against drugs, terror, and illegal immigration. Biden accused wealthy Republicans of wanting to increase illegal immigration to replace American workers with cheaper labor. "The reason the employers want this extra influx is it drives cost down... Employers have to be held responsible for the unscrupulous practice of bringing people here in order to keep wages down." "That's not fair to Americans. You have to hold employers responsible for hiring Americans First." Criticizing President Bush, Biden lamented the lack of border agents, the absence of a border fence, and the free flow of drugs into the country. "I've been arguing for the need to put more protection at our borders, meaning you have more border guards." "You have to have a significant increase of security at the border, including limited elements where you actually have a fence." "People can go over and under a fence, but you can't take 100 kilos of cocaine over and under a fence."

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My point now is NOT to wade into any particular cultural debate around illegal immigration. It’s clear that there are a lot of strong feelings on both sides of that issue.

My point now is to show that reasonable people can disagree on how to best answer the thorny cultural question of how we should handle illegal immigration, as Biden clearly demonstrates above by disagreeing with himself over time.

My point now is also, as I wrote in That Ball Has No Sides, Part 1, to highlight the juxtaposition of:

1) how prevalent and well-funded “racial equity training” is among US Blue Tribe, and

2) how absent from most “racial equity training” is any mention of illegal immigration and its contribution to how one race without economic or political power is increasingly left to do the majority of physical work in our country.

This odd juxtaposition is worthy of very deep reflection, despite the fact that it receives none.

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As Kanekoa further notes about Biden’s change of perspective on illegal immigration:

That’s an “Incredible transformation from ‘mass illegal immigration lowers American wages’ to: ‘you are racist if you don't accept millions of illegal immigrants each year’.”

Please understand that in relation to Biden, the issue of racism is clearly no sideshow. In fact, according to his own account, racism stood center stage regarding why Biden chose to run for President for 2020 in the first place:

Biden Announces for President - 2020 Presidential Campaign

From the linked CNN article, regarding Trump’s comments on the 2017 episode in Charlottesville:

“He [Trump] said there were quote some very fine people on both sides,” Biden said. “With those words, the President of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.” Biden framed the 2020 race as a “battle for the soul of this nation.”

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I find this rather odd, to base one’s primary public reason to run for President on what was simply a media mirage.

Let me explain what I mean by “media mirage”.

Note especially how ironic the intro is to this next video where CNN Anchor Don Lemon begins, “Trump supporters recently started to claim that the President didn’t actually say that Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville are ‘very fine people’…. Even though he [Trump] did say it.”

Video of Trump condemning neo-Nazis and white nationalists after Charlottesville

Trump actually said:

“But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down to them of what is a very important statue, and the re-naming of the park from Robert E. Lee to another name. George Washington was a slave-owner. So will now George Washington lose his statues? Are we going to take down statues of George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? Do you like him? OK. Good. Are we going to take down his statues? Because he was a major slave owner. So you know what? It’s fine. You’re changing history. You’re changing culture. And you had people, and I’m not talking about the Neo-Nazis or White Nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”

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It’s as if Don Lemon couldn’t be bothered to watch the two minute source video to find out what Trump did or did not actually say. To find out who Trump was calling “very fine people”. To see whether or not Trump did condemn the Neo-Nazis or White Nationalists.

Trump’s very clear point was that good, reasonable people can disagree on how to best answer the thorny cultural question of how we should remember and address our often tragic history.

My point now is NOT to wade into that particular debate. It’s clear that there are a lot of strong feelings on both sides of that issue.

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My point now is to highlight how clear it is that Trump did indeed condemn the Neo-Nazis and White Nationalists present in Charlottesville. And that he most definitely never called the Neo-Nazis and White Nationalists “very fine people”.

My point now is also to highlight how clear it is if you listen to Trump’s actual words that he was attempting to:

1) broaden the cultural conversation beyond just Charlottesville and Robert E. Lee, and

2) also acknowledge that there are “very fine people” on both sides of this particular cultural debate.

Both of which are clearly things that a responsible President should attempt to do during such a cultural conflict within our country.

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My guess is that almost none of my readers who are US Blue Tribe were ever exposed to all of Trump’s words, and have been fully falling for this media mirage for 7 ½ years since Charlottesville.

My guess is that almost all of my readers who are US Red Tribe actually did hear Trump’s original words, and that they understood his point.

I now ask my US Blue Tribe readers the same question asked at the end of the Trump- Charlottesville video above, “what else are they lying about?”

By “they”, I am specifically referring to all of the Blue Tribe media which has misled them for at least the last 7 ½ years.

By “Blue Tribe media”, I mean practically every mainstream media outlet (including NPR) besides Fox News.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not therefore endorsing Fox News.

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Folks, we live in a time 100 years after Sigmund Freud’s major work. We live in a time after Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, pioneered “public relations” and “propaganda”. (Bernays promoted doubling the cigarette market by selling them to women as “Torches of Freedom”).

We live in a time of binge-watching Netflix, whose co-founder and first CEO happens to be the grand-nephew of Edward Bernays.

We live in a time where perception management is an incredibly well developed and sophisticated art and science. ALL media should be viewed skeptically in our day and age. As Homo Narrativus (the Hominid of Narrative), we should diligently be on the look-out for any narratives we are unknowingly being sold.

Particularly if that narrative instructs us that half our country’s citizens are racist and are most certainly NOT “very fine people”; that they should be completely discounted; and, oh yeah – for the cherry on top, pay no attention to the increasing systemic racism that is actively spreading like wildfire and destroying our country right before our eyes.

Systemic racism? Let me repeat the very first words of this post:

Every day, more and more of the physical work done in our country is done by people of one race with no economic or political power: Hispanic illegal immigrants.

This is very hard to miss unless one is rather removed from the day to day physical work that is required to build and maintain our country. Few things constitute “privilege” as much as being removed from the necessary day to day physical work supporting our existence.

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You believe what you want. I’m just saying, maybe we should be a little more careful with our narratives. You know that ball has no sides!

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For clarity’s sake, I’ll finish here by stating for the record that I believe Trump was the worst President we’ve ever had.

Of course, this isn’t saying much. Because I believe every President we’ve had since I’ve been an adult has been the worst President we’ve ever had. Maybe one day I’ll tell you why I thought Trump was the worst President we’ve ever had. At least up until that point in time.

But if you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably read enough of me by now.

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Thanks for your time and attention.

Take care,

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P.S. Have you ever wondered why in the world this blog is called Clueless Honky?

Well, wonder no more. This very first Clueless Honky blog-post from Oct. 31, 2013 explains it all.

That’s right. Clueless Honky has been whispering way-out-of-the-box thinking into a mostly dark and lonely corner of the internet for over 10 years now!