Posted on 08/02/2018 10:47:34 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In early June, I traveled to “The Valley,” as the McAllen-Brownsville area of Texas is called, down where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
This river, one of the longest in the U.S., forms the entire Texas-Mexico border, meandering south and east 1,250 miles from our far-west desert city of El Paso to the semi-tropical tip of my state. Its cartographic function aside, the narrow and shallow Rio Grande has historically been viewed by families in the region as more a connector than a divider, and it has long fostered a rich, cross-fertilized culture along its length, uniting generations of us Americanos with our Mexicano neighbors.
Though I had gone there to talk politics at a union conference, I wasn’t about to pass up the chance to wallow awhile in the rich Tex-Mex experience. So I took an extra half day to savor some fresh shrimp from the Gulf, quff a couple or three good Mexican cervezas, let my mind drift to the lazy tempo of palm trees swaying in the sea breeze and generally absorb the area’s unique spirit, character and centuries-old sense of place. It was an altogether pleasant experience.
Well, except that, just beyond the palms where I was floating in blissful reverie, a time bomb of sadistic immigration policy was ticking.
Only a couple of days later, the border would explode in a media conflagration that would char Washington and burn across America as the public learned that our tempestuous, tweety-bird president had decided The Valley would be ground zero for his political mugging of border-crossing families. Suddenly (and stupidly) he and his agents mounted a full-scale terrorist attack on thousands of migrant children -- 10-year-olds, 4-year-olds, toddlers and even babies!
Many of these tykes have trekked hundreds of miles with parents and other adults along the dangerous route to El Norte. Others have migrated alone in an urgent attempt to escape rampaging gang violence and life-crushing poverty stalking them in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and parts of Mexico. Hoping for humanitarian refuge in the Land of the Free, these vulnerable people are instead being met at the Rio Grande by Trump’s newly fabricated “zero tolerance” policy against Latinx asylum seekers. His Customs and Border Protection agents had been brusquely separating distraught children from their parents -- mostly moms -- whom they hauled to a McAllen detention jail run by ICE (the ruthlessly cold Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency). Some of the terrorized children have been taken 60 miles away to Brownsville to be incarcerated in chain-link cages inside a windowless, 77,000-square-foot warehouse (a converted Walmart Supercenter) run by a private corporation under contract to Trump’s Refugee Resettlement. Other “alien children” have ended up in facilities as far away as New York City.
There’s no need for me to chronicle each step in this Trump-run-amuck saga, for nearly everyone has seen shocking videos and photos of his troops seizing and ripping apart families.
Again, and again, we’ve heard recordings of bewildered, anguished and sobbing children and absorbed weeks of 24/7 coverage and commentary about this flagrantly immoral assertion of Trumpist autocracy. And we’ve heard the bizarre twists, turns and tweets of Trump, Sessions, Spence, Kelly, Huckabee-Sanders, Nielson, et al. trying to rationalize their intentionally cruel policy. The deeper issue of what their relentless pursuit of zero tolerance says is not just about the implementers of this tortuous policy -- it’s also about all of us.
Although deportation injustices have long been a blot on our country’s “Give me your tired, your poor” pretensions, Trump has turned immigration policy into a despotic nightmare of presumed guilt, mass incarceration and what amount to death-sentence deportations.
The policy of “zero tolerance” violates the rights of immigrants, while undermining our own rights and, in the process, shriveling the basic value of fairness that binds democratic societies together, as well as our own.
A blast from the past. Last time he ran for office, he got his butt kicked. So, apparently his opinions don't matter much in Texas.
Pet peave. AMERICA IS NOT A DEMOCRACY!!!
Since when does actual enforcement of the illegal entry laws “undermine democracy”, whether it is Italy, the UK, Canada or the USA ?
What “undermines democracy” is a lawless elite who deliberately does not enforce the illegal entry laws of the country.
This corrupt elite does not pay any personal price for the consequences of mass illegal immigration. They have no skin in the game.
They live in elite liberal enclaves that exempts them from any of the problems. They get cheaper domestic servants with more illegals. And they think they will benefit politically when they “grant” illegals amnesty.
Unfortunately for the decadent Weimar elite of America, Canada, the UK and the EU, the ordinary people have caught on to their self serving corruption !
Trump and Brexit are the first stage to deal with these destroyers !
If they are lucky they will get Trump. If they really get what they deserve, they will be dealt with by the likes of Vladimir Putin !
Morón
Come in legal
Or go home
“Texas Democrat” sounds like such an oxymoron. And this Hightower sure puts the moron in oxymoron.
Jim Hightower has always been a commie puke. Shiploads of illegal aliens undermine our Republic. We have a Republic not a democracy Jim but commie scumbags like Hightower are apparently unaware fo that fact..
I didn’t know the moron was still alive. I used to hear him on the car radio when I was a kid and he was a commie then. He does not appear to have changed.
I truly thought he was dead until I saw this article. Oh well, I can dream.
My gosh these people who report news are stoopid.
I’m so sick of these lying scumbags.
Democracy?
It’s liberals’ mobocracy.
Someone needs to take some of Trump’s people aside and give them a good caning.
Kirstjen Nielson on Russia interfering in our elections:
“Our democracy itself is in the crosshairs,” Nielsen said. “Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and it has become clear that they are the target of our adversaries, who seek ... to sow discord and undermine our way of life.”
Is the loss of democracy the loss of illegal voters? I suspect that is the root of Jim Hightower’a piece.
Hightower has been running with the Marxists since at least the 1980’s, esp. the Democratic Socialists of America.
At one time he was a liberal gadfly and made some sense I n his observations and comments but now he’s just another old Marxist fart, like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
What the heck is he talking about?
That Americans won’t be able to vote if America protects her borders?
It makes no sense.
What an idiot
The Democratics are having a problem winning without a larger Non-working Class of voters.
WHAT DID BEN FRANKLIN SAY?
The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately.
A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” (Benjamin Franklin)
Feel free to copy & paste the above as needed!
Jim Hightower... in other words, laws don’t matter.
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