image: pixabay.com
I just watched Donald Trump speak and some initial impressions are the following:
-large focus on Radical Islamic Terror threat and tied in to recent attacks on the US
-large focus on opponent Hillary Clinton as contributing to current risk environment
-at one point, he read a poem about a snake analogous to the Trojan Horse to make point about lack of screening and vetting
-poignant words about being judged 200 years from now if immigration policy fails to screen properly.
-make America great again message including inner city improvements, stating they have been neglected far too long
He seemed to close on uplifting hopeful tone...in sharp contrast to very detailed description of medieval-like practices by radical Islamists and the failures on US foreign policy.
The world indeed is a scary place because it is so connected these days. Crazy things once far away, can now happen anywhere. The fact that 65.3 million people have been displaced is also uncharted territory.
http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2016/6/5763b65a4/global-forced-displacement-hits-record-high.html
The juxtaposition between technological advancement and unmet human potential is striking. People have cell phones with GPS and instant information, and I think it's a perfect storm of environmental and human made disasters pushing people to move now that they can actually move in the millions and take their chances with cheap modern smartphones.
Let's hope a collective agreement on differences can be reached. Diverse traditional culture can survive in modern states, perhaps a renewed sense in local community would help, building connections across diverse backgrounds rather than holding onto a separate homeland culture (easily done in an era of satellites and internet), instead of melting into the new homeland's pot wholeheartedly.
I'm sure previous waves of immigrants also took time to integrate, but the distance across the ocean was more perceived, and information traveled in letters rather than instant images and emails. Clearly there needs to be adaptation for our time. And I'm hopeful it will happen in a respectful way regardless of who wins the election.