Immigrant Crisis

A small group of immigrants from foreign shores arrives in a new place. Although in completely unfamiliar surroundings, they set to work at once establishing themselves. Their vigor & general robustness -- often enhanced by difficult conditions they had to overcome in their previous home -- quickly gain them a foothold, and soon their numbers are growing. Indeed, they find the conditions in their new home so conducive to their development that they flourish, and the face of their new neighborhoods rapidly changes.

Evidence of the new presence is visible everywhere, and indeed the neighborhoods are much more crowded than before; but there's no denying the explosion of energy the newcomers have brought. The natives are perhaps caught off guard at first, but most begin to adjust to the changing circumstances as natives usually do. The initial stresses give way to accommodation, and the vast majority -- who after all just want to get along -- well, they pretty much manage to get along.

But one group doesn't like the new developments at all. They see this eruption of new life not as part of the normal give and take of existence, but as a grave threat. Their objections are always couched in general terms, but it's clear that they can't abide the disruption of what they see as a perfectly good way of life as it was before -- a life that was comfortable, and just fine with them, until these foreigners arrived. They fear their economic interests are in jeopardy, and worse, their somewhat delicate aesthetic sensibilities are offended by the crowding and the exotic sights that have changed the face of their neighborhoods. Or, rather, that have changed the face of some neighborhoods -- for oddly enough, the objectors for the most part don't actually live in the areas that they consider contaminated by the invaders. They just don't like the look of it all.

Noises begin to be heard in polite society -- noises about the deleterious effect of the immigrants on what were once predictably familiar and pretty areas; noises about the economic losses they are causing; and ugliest of all, noises about their rampant and indiscriminate breeding. Of course the actual residents of these "breeding grounds," both the older inhabitants who have adjusted and the lowlife newcomers, are pretty much oblivious to such talk. They wouldn't give it a moment's thought if it came to their attention (and if they could understand it) -- they're much too busy getting on with their own parts in the great cycle of life to have any response to such malice from the upper crust.

Such talk is unfortunate, of course, but most folks assume that the ugly sentiments are pretty much on the fringes. A few skeptical souls even have gained enough perspective to see that in fact the influx would never have occurred in the first place were it not for massive disruptions to the affected populations: the devastation caused by invasions, occupations, and other grave dislocations. And the disruptions that have led to the influx are often indirectly caused, ironically enough, by the brutal expansion of the complainers' own society, which, driven by its members' voracious consumption, ruthlessly exploits other populations around the globe. But the perspective required for reflections like these is getting rare, and of course voicing them becomes distinctly unpopular in polite society. Pointing out these contradictions is in poor taste, and such dissenting talk hardly has a chance of being heard above the increasing nativist hysteria.

Things gets worse. The nativists have friends in high places, pseudo-scientists on the government payroll who are easily drafted into the cause. They stir things up with authoritative-sounding warnings about impending catastrophe: the purity of the native stock is threatened by the foreign invaders; the "lost" beauty of the now changed neighborhoods is lamented as the defilement of virgin spotlessness; the vermin must be exterminated for the common good!

And indeed, what should happen next but the rise of roving bands of zealots, who now set about the work of destruction -- with the blessing of government agencies infiltrated by the nativist extremists. It does not suffice merely to set the torch to the immigrants' habitations, and destroy the occupants with their bare hands, and with pickaxes and other crude tools -- although, sad to say, such base butchery comes to furnish diverting weekend recreation for ordinary citizens; no, many of the gangs are supplied with advanced weapons of biological warfare, purchased at taxpayer expense from munitions manufacturers who have a huge stake in furthering this orgy of destruction. Some are mere poisons that kill broadly and indiscriminately. But some are highly sophisticated agents of modern scientific destruction, fine-tuned to exploit genetic weaknesses -- killing the target populations, but leaving other races unharmed. And the weapons makers are only too happy to participate in large-scale breeding experiments to ensure the survival of favored races -- at a tidy profit.

At a level somewhat removed from the ongoing pillage, strict immigration policies are put into place; no one but members of approved races will be admitted under any circumstances. The door is slammed shut on once-open borders. Trade suffers.

Concerned citizens, many of them scientists and employers, others drawn to speak up by their appreciation of the immigrant cultures or, if nothing else, by their simple dislike of recreational killing, attempt to voice their objections to the nightmarish government policies, but are rebuffed. Indeed, window-dressing "requests for comment" on the new policies garner overwhelmingly negative responses from those sectors of the public that bother to respond, since the extremists are still, after all, really only a minority among a predominantly decent population. But bureaucracies never let mere public outrage get in the way of their planning.

And in one of the surreal twists that always seem to characterize such bizarre episodes of nativist hysteria, new recruits for the brutal extermination crews come almost entirely from the decent, well-intentioned ordinary folk -- folk who really are concerned about "protecting diversity," who in other times wouldn't dream of the kind of butchery in which they're now happily participating. Good folk, who make a point of professing their "reverence for all life."

And the killing goes on . . . and on . . .

* * *

Chilling story from the long-ago twentieth century?

Scenario for an object-lesson movie-of-the-week?

No, it's your tax dollars at work right here in the good old USA, exterminating "exotic" "invasive" "non-native" plants and animals -- even butterflies -- courtesy of the US Department of Agriculture and other gullible agencies caught up in a wave of hysteria based on faulty pseudoscience as destructive as any other racial ideology. And if you're curious about where such loony ideas come from, well, there's quite a nasty little surprise buried in that part of the tale.