by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
This Thanksgiving weekend Americans were subjected to still more horror from the Trump administration. In an unbelievable demonstration of racial hatred and cruelty, agents of the government of the United States of America lobbed tear gas canisters across the border and into Mexico. The target of this needless act of aggression was an impoverished band of Central American refugees, many of them women and children.
Mothers screamed and ran, sometimes with babies in their arms and dragging toddlers, to get out of the path of the painful gas.
As outrage began growing on the U.S. side of the border about this brazen and dangerous political stunt, Trump officials rushed to declare that the tear gas was basically safe, with one toady proclaiming that it was so safe you could "eat it on your nachos." Even Trump himself began backtracking on his theatrical bravado and also declaring that the gas was essentially harmless.
Yet the trained mental health professionals who were also checking in with their opinions were quick to point out that the psychological effects of enduring a tear gas attack are likely to last well beyond childhood - and possibly throughout the entire lives of the young victims of the government violence.
But, damn, if it doesn't make for compelling television coverage, well then . . . what does?
Donald Trump and his administration are not concerned with how many poor people seek refuge in the United States, they are concerned with imagery - news photos that show American troops holding back the scary brown hordes of shoeless women and children, people they try to paint as dangerous criminals, gang members, drug traffickers, and rapists. They are cementing a coalition of angry white racists, people who form the core of Trump's political base.
Trump is a concrete thinker who casts his legacy in concrete - big skyscrapers with his name in gold above the entryways. Now he envisions a gigantic wall that will separate much of Mexico from the United States - a wall which may not bear his name, but will nonetheless come to be known as Trump's Great Wall. And he expects the ever-gullible U.S. taxpayers to pay for this grandiose monument to his own glory.
Trump created a crisis at the southern border a couple of weeks ago as an election ploy to save the Senate for Republicans. Now he is extending the crisis in order to push through funding for his wall during the critical budget negations that are scheduled in Congress during the next two weeks. This will be do or die for Trump's wall effort, because once this Congress adjourns in December his Republican majority in the House will be gone, finito, for at least two more years - and the Democratic House will not give him the time of day, much less a personal monument in the form of a wall.
Trump wants his wall, and he wants it now - and he is more than willing to shut down the government in order to get his way. We have, it seems, been reduced to government by tantrum
Here's hoping Congress stands tough, for a change, and tells Trump to sit down and shut the hell up. If he wants a government shut down, then so be it. We've survived others, and we can outlast another - and we can and we will outlast Donald John Trump.
The same Donald John Trump who told us two years ago that Mexico would pay for his damnable wall!
Oh for the days when the President of the United States was not seen by the entire world as a bully, a liar, and a total incompetent! Certainly none of those Central American immigrants huddled in Tijuana shelters pose as much real risk to the United States as Trump does.
Civilized nations do not lock children in cages - and they do not tear gas kids.
Donald Trump has brought us low - very, very low.
Citizen Journalist
This Thanksgiving weekend Americans were subjected to still more horror from the Trump administration. In an unbelievable demonstration of racial hatred and cruelty, agents of the government of the United States of America lobbed tear gas canisters across the border and into Mexico. The target of this needless act of aggression was an impoverished band of Central American refugees, many of them women and children.
Mothers screamed and ran, sometimes with babies in their arms and dragging toddlers, to get out of the path of the painful gas.
As outrage began growing on the U.S. side of the border about this brazen and dangerous political stunt, Trump officials rushed to declare that the tear gas was basically safe, with one toady proclaiming that it was so safe you could "eat it on your nachos." Even Trump himself began backtracking on his theatrical bravado and also declaring that the gas was essentially harmless.
Yet the trained mental health professionals who were also checking in with their opinions were quick to point out that the psychological effects of enduring a tear gas attack are likely to last well beyond childhood - and possibly throughout the entire lives of the young victims of the government violence.
But, damn, if it doesn't make for compelling television coverage, well then . . . what does?
Donald Trump and his administration are not concerned with how many poor people seek refuge in the United States, they are concerned with imagery - news photos that show American troops holding back the scary brown hordes of shoeless women and children, people they try to paint as dangerous criminals, gang members, drug traffickers, and rapists. They are cementing a coalition of angry white racists, people who form the core of Trump's political base.
Trump is a concrete thinker who casts his legacy in concrete - big skyscrapers with his name in gold above the entryways. Now he envisions a gigantic wall that will separate much of Mexico from the United States - a wall which may not bear his name, but will nonetheless come to be known as Trump's Great Wall. And he expects the ever-gullible U.S. taxpayers to pay for this grandiose monument to his own glory.
Trump created a crisis at the southern border a couple of weeks ago as an election ploy to save the Senate for Republicans. Now he is extending the crisis in order to push through funding for his wall during the critical budget negations that are scheduled in Congress during the next two weeks. This will be do or die for Trump's wall effort, because once this Congress adjourns in December his Republican majority in the House will be gone, finito, for at least two more years - and the Democratic House will not give him the time of day, much less a personal monument in the form of a wall.
Trump wants his wall, and he wants it now - and he is more than willing to shut down the government in order to get his way. We have, it seems, been reduced to government by tantrum
Here's hoping Congress stands tough, for a change, and tells Trump to sit down and shut the hell up. If he wants a government shut down, then so be it. We've survived others, and we can outlast another - and we can and we will outlast Donald John Trump.
The same Donald John Trump who told us two years ago that Mexico would pay for his damnable wall!
Oh for the days when the President of the United States was not seen by the entire world as a bully, a liar, and a total incompetent! Certainly none of those Central American immigrants huddled in Tijuana shelters pose as much real risk to the United States as Trump does.
Civilized nations do not lock children in cages - and they do not tear gas kids.
Donald Trump has brought us low - very, very low.
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