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| Federal Building, Bangor, July 3, 2019. Both Maine's senators have offices there and received visits from angry constituents who want concentration camps for kids closed NOW. |
About 20 people gathered in Bangor today in solidarity with hundreds of other places where people are heading into the Independence Day holiday thinking about a national disgrace: concentration camps for children. Camps where the children are mistreated, starved, deprived of medical care, clothing, soap and beds.
Most in the U.S. are waking up to the fact that their government is cruel, deliberately evil, and not responsive to humanitarian appeals.
Native Americans and Black people understandably are not expressing the same levels of shock at forced family separations, forced relocation, and being kept in horrible detention facilities without access to due process.
Neither Facebook nor Instagram could post photos from the protests today.
TV news reporters were on hand in Bangor, but a station whose reporter tried to film office visitors to Senator Susan Collins was denied.
Constituents were giving statements to office staff there in a completely nonviolent way, while some of us continued holding signs outside.
A 2 year old in a tutu wandered onto the lawn and an alarm went off. An armed security guard hurried over to kick the child off the federal building lawn. It was about 87 degrees, and the pavement was hot.
That didn't stop another family from making chalk drawings on the sidewalk.
The youngest child looked about 3 and said spontaneously at one point, "I wuv you, dad."
"I love you, too," his dad said. I'm sure we were both thinking about all the little boys and girls separated deliberately from the people who love and hug them.
We used the bullhorn for some chants:
NATIONAL DISGRACE! NATIONAL DISGRACE!
and
WHAT DO WE WANT? CLOSE THE CAMPS! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW!
Lots of people honked and waved, except one lady in a big pickup truck from Arizona parked across the street and shook her head in apparent dismay at our messages. At one point she even flipped my husband the bird. As we departed, she was blasting a patriotic country western song about how glad she was to live in the USA and be free.
"Too bad the children in the concentration camps aren't free," I commented as I passed her open window. She made no reply.
Pollsters are reporting that on the eve of this 4th of July, pride in the U.S. government is at an all time low.
No shit.
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| Testimony gathered by attorneys allowed in to child concentration camps in El Paso, Texas |
We can only hope.
Thank you Lisa. This issue has finally caught the attention of the country and world. Let's hope our representatives decide to get on board with empathy and do something about it. But to be honest, I've never been more disappointed with our state reps as I am now. I too am obviously one of the naive ones in that it took me this long. Our reps need to go to the border, either to Homestead, FL or Clint, TX. How can they vote on millions of dollars of funding bills regarding this issue like they did less than a week ago when they haven't been there to see for themselves? How can they not state strongly that Mainers do not support this?
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