Stench From The Camps Is The Defining Smell Of U.S. Government Rotting

Palestinian child being evicted, and not for the first time, by apartheid-state Israel in 2018. Yesterday Israel was admonished by the UN for demolishing dozens of Palestinian homes.
(Image by UNRWA/Lara Jonasdottir)

Sometimes the news is so sad, so troubling, and so bizarre that my feelings about current events are best expressed in a digest of what I've been reading.

So, here goes for the final week of a very hot and very ugly July with dollops of fierce kindness and (probably unfounded) optimism.

Trending on Twitter July 18 after the demagogue with bad hair had a crowd in South Carolina chanting "send her back" about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

 Omar has been a naturalized U.S. citizen for 16 years, which is longer than the demagogue's current wife. Stochastic terrorism is the demagogue's specialty. Indeed, two police officers in Louisiana were fired this week after posting and liking on Facebook that someone should use one of America's 300,000+ guns on another member of "the Squad" whom the demagogue loves to target, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It would take an week of posts to list all the threats of violence against the four women of color who make up the Squad.

Note the asymmetry on Twitter, the demagogue's presumed home court: 134,000 versus 39,800.

(My eternal optimism was deflated by a convo with my youngest who explained that Area 51 is a morally vacant millennial joke -- not a metaphor about storming government facilities to free "aliens" being held captive as I had hoped.)

Speaking of so-called aliens being held captive, here is a long post from an immigration lawyer who is doing a difficult job in worsening times:

Then, for some dark comic relief, a letter from my "representative" in Congress who this week represented General Dynamics, not me, when he voted to authorize $733 billion in Pentagon funding for 2020. His statement on the vote is predictable, while his expressed views on justice for Palestinians makes him sound like a poorly informed middle school student.

To say that Golden is in AIPAC's back pocket so soon in his maiden voyage as an elected official would be disappointing except that I expected no better. After all, he ran as a Democrat and veteran bragging about his role in U.S. wars of aggression against Israel's foes.Is the fact that the Pentagon's bloated budget and insatiable appetite for petroleum are causing a climate emergency lost on him? No reply on that topic of my communications with him. Nor any meaningful response to the humanitarian disaster of brown babies and children being held in U.S. concentration camps.

Photo credit: USA Today

The stench from the camps is the defining smell of our times.It has become ever more necessary to hold your nose while attending to the media circus of which candidate will get the Democratic Party nomination.I'll bet you that, no matter who else is running, the oligarchs will keep the demagogue with bad hair in office by hook or by crook. They find 8-year terms much more convenient than taking on a whole other group of Katie Johnsons and Stormy Daniels to pay off, hush up, etc. every four years.Of course I'm praying he goes down with Jeffrey Epstein. But I'll believe it when I see it.

Outpouring Of Grief And Rage Across A Nation Caging Children #LightsForLiberty

Waterville, Maine  July 12, 2019

My husband and I attended two events yesterday in Maine protesting the child concentration camps and family separations employed by the federal government to terrorize asylum seekers and other immigrants.

Waterville, Maine July 12, 2019

50 people turned out in Skowhegan to stand for two hours on the bridge, ending with a candlelight vigil.

Skowhegan, Maine  July 12, 2019

It was part of the nationwide Lights for Liberty campaign to bring the demand to the streets and, where possible, to the concentration camps themselves.

50 is a lot of people at a protest in central Maine, but there was no press at the well-publicized event.

Many of my own children's retired teachers were there, as well as current teachers and several children. Organizer and educator Aliza Jones was there with her daughter who was eating ice cream -- what children should be doing on a summer night, rather than crying for their parents while laying on concrete in a cage near the border.

Skowhegan, Maine July 12, 2019

Lots of signs called on the federal government to do better. Some expressed a belief that the USA is better than this.

Waterville, Maine  July 12, 2019

I wish I could agree that our country is better than this. Built on the genocide of Native people and the labor of slaves, we do not have an admirable history. My white people always seem to be forgetting that many of us could be holding Bobby Hayes' sign above: Grandchild of Immigrants. 

But many people do not know the true history of this nation: the U.S. government turned away boatloads of Jewish refugees who died in concentration camps, knew about the Holocaust but allowed it to proceed anyway, and, after tardily "liberating" the camps, ran show trials at Nuremberg while quietly bringing Nazi rocket scientists to the USA.

Skowhegan, Maine   July 12, 2019

But we, the people of the U.S., can do MUCH better than caging toddlers and torturing them by withholding food, showers, and hugs.

Bourassa family together in Skowhegan  July 12, 2019

As the Japanese-Americans interned during WWII hysteria have said, At least we were with our parents. 

Even for adults, even if they are alleged to have broken a law (note that seeking asylum is not a crime), indefinite detention goes against the rule of law the U.S. claims to have been founded on.

It could be you or a toddler you love next.

Skowhegan, Maine  July 12, 2019

Get busy now demanding that your elected officials shut down the camps and reunite the families: 202-225-3121.