Before any Republican votes to impeach in the House or convict in the Senate, he or she will have to do some serious soul searching, and ask themselves the most important question; the only question that really matters as a moral,ethical human being after seeing the horrendous conditions that these children are in…
“If I vote yes, how will this effect my re-election chances?”
ETA apologies if I have insulted anyone here, or if I am posting too many times in this thread)
I do remember, but just in case I don’t, I’ve watched All the President’s Men about 12 times since the election. :dubious: May have to watch it again tonight.
Heck, maybe I’m just blowing sunshine up my own skirt. I keep searching for reasons to be optimistic. I feel like Leonardo DiCaprio when he was hanging on to that piece of wreckage in the Atlantic. Right before he went down for good. 
I’m not the sort that gives up hope easily, and I’m not giving up now. But I’ve got to admit that this morning, I was about as despondent as I’ve been anytime in the past two and a half years.
I didn’t expect that public opinion would change in the least. But I was hoping that more than just a few Congressional Democrats might find enough reason yesterday to support an impeachment inquiry, especially since several dozen Dems in very safe districts (65 in D+8 or better districts) still haven’t said where they stand on impeachment.
Active-duty U.S. troops are now just feet away from migrants in Texas
The troops “monitor” migrants at a Texas facility. One congressman said they shouldn’t be prison guards, and are close to breaking the posse comitatus law.
From Here:
One wakes up to despondency every day now.
From that link:
One can only hope that these troops (my father was military and so was my late husband) are not infected with the law enforcement mindset of the border guards, and that they will be shocked and moved to compassion by what they are witnessing.
I applaud your optimism. What make you think these troops won’t act like everyone else?
The entire Republican party, and their voters, showed their true colors when their response to these concentration camps being called ‘concentration camps’ was to argue the term and ignore the conditions that prompted it. They are lost to humanity at this point.
I don’t know. But I was an Air Force brat, grew up around military people, have loved several military men, and married one. They’re not trained law enforcement officers. Their careers mostly don’t consist of strapping on a gun and looking for bad guys except when at war or in a war zone. But in fact, I don’t know. Maybe they will succumb to the dark side and take pleasure in torturing little children. Give me a break… I’m looking for something to be a tiny bit optimistic about, kwim?
…which is one reason I hope Tom Steyer can somehow force his way into the conversation. A long shot, I know, but I think what’s really missing here is grassroots energy. There simply is none. That’s really why I’ve been reluctant on impeachment, not because I don’t think he should be impeached or that minds can’t be persuaded, but I really think (respectfully) that the proponents of impeachment are advocating a top-down impeachment argument, which I don’t think is going to work, especially in the age of de-massified media.
In today’s digital age, it is harder and harder to get people to pay attention to issues - even important issues. That’s why there’s so many people seemingly shrug off the atrocities at the border, and why they (we collectively) shrug off so much of what Trump does. We need a grassroots coalition to come together and really push for impeachment, to have that conversation among many different constituencies. And digital media, social media, and even traditional advertising can play a role. But nothing will be good old fashioned organizing. Democrats in congress aren’t going to have the balls to impeach until they’re inspired, or frightened by, their constituents.
This is a feature, not a bug – Trump and his administration are on record as believing that harming migrant children and families is a positive good. This is what they want to occur.
Because life is a sacred gift from god, dontcha know.
A little follow-up on this.
Yesterday, ICE rounded up some 680 people at food processing plants in Mississippi.
Now, there’s plenty to think about here. Like that this raid targeted workers at plants that won discrimination lawsuits. Or that the timing is mighty suspicious given how the plant just recently unionized. How this feels like yet another example of using ICE as a cudgel against poor, disenfranchised workers, to stomp down any attempt they make to demand their rights or improve their station. That’s a discussion worth having.
But I’d like to focus on something else.
This was on one of the first school days of the new semester. Part of the fallout from this raid was that countless children ended their school day and their parents were just… gone.
This is a level of cruelty that really cannot be overstated. Imagine going to school one day, and then coming back to find out that your parents are just… gone. And so are your friends’ parents. And it’s because of their skin color - your skin color. It’s unimaginable.
Obviously, this has had a chilling effect on the latinx students of the local school districts.
While educators could not pinpoint the exact reason why each student was missing, it wasn’t hard for them to surmise. Local advocates reported that many children stayed home for fear of additional arrests, and community officials worry it will be some time before immigrant families feel safe to go out in public again. In other communities struck by worksite raids, workers have left, jobs have faded, and many have depended on charitable donations for support.
“We’ve reached out to them,” said Tony McGee, superintendent of the Scott County School District. “Part of it is fear, the fear of coming to school. There is an uneasiness of moving around the community, moving about schools but we are trying to reassure them: school is a safe harbor.”
I’d say something about how anyone wondering why I’m so angry should watch this clip of a crying child begging for her father, but it’s already pretty well-established that that won’t move people.
What interests me in no small part is the ethos at play here. We are dealing with unimaginable cruelty. The kind that should lead people to stop and think, “Whoa, are we the bad guys?” even without the obvious historical parallels to what is universally seen as the most monstrous doctrine in human history. The list of horrific atrocities just keeps piling up (here’s another recent one where we deported a diabetic man to a country he never lived in and he died)… And yet, the overwhelming response I keep seeing from the right is “Here is a reason not to care.”
If you want to understand right-wing thought in the USA today, this ethos is the #1 thing you have to understand. So much of what they do or say is finding an excuse not to care about human suffering.
Cops shoot an unarmed man? “He shouldn’t have resisted arrest.”
Poor people die because they can’t afford medicine? “Should have worked harder.”
ICE deports hundreds of people, leaving hundreds of children suddenly without parents? “I blame their parents for coming here illegaly.”
ICE runs concentration camps in abysmal conditions with consistent atrocities where people just keep dying? “They shouldn’t have crossed the border.”
It’s never our fault. It’s never the fault of our policies, our institutions, our politicians. It’s always their fault. “They provoked us.” “They forced our hand.” “What option do we have other than to put them in concentration camps?” “What, you expect cops to risk their lives?” Any reason not to care about the suffering of others. Does it matter that there are alternatives? No - they’re not interested in fixing the problem, they’re interested in finding reasons not to care.
Look through this thread, you’ll find that exact same thought pattern.
“The problem isn’t that we’re funnelling people into concentration camps, it’s that we’ve allowed immigration to get to this point!” Never mind that immigration isn’t actually worse now than it was under Obama, and that we are choosing to put people in camps as a means to deter illegal immigration. This means octopus doesn’t have to care about the policy or the cruelty; he has his excuse.
“It’s just fake news.” This is the most basic variant of the argument - the easiest way to not care is to just claim that it isn’t happening. That this is an utterly asinine take that directly contradicts the evidence we have and could easily be used to deny literally anything doesn’t matter - he has his excuse to not care.
“See, if these refugees agree to be sent back to the places they are fleeing (and where they will probably be murdered), they could leave the camps!” And there’s his excuse - he doesn’t have to care about how awful the camps are.
It’s important to understand where people are coming from. I linked this video earlier, but it is worth watching in full - “How Societies Turn Cruel”. It’s by a German history youtuber, talking about the gradual turn from liberal 1920s Germany to Nazi 1930s Germany, and drawing some rather horrifying societal parallels. And it really does come down to this - they don’t care.
If I could beg all of you for just one thing, it would be this: care. Care about the monstrous policies at play here. Care about the unbelievable suffering we are causing. Don’t look for an excuse, don’t grasp for a rationalization, don’t tune it out because it seems unbelievable. Notice how they are suffering and care. Because there are a great many forces in our country that are doing everything they can to snuff out that spark of empathy, and convince us not to care. Entire propaganda networks dedicated to convincing us not to care. And down that road, madness lies.
And even more evil.
Well said, BPC.
The raid was intended to terrify Hispanic communities, and it was also intended to impress white Christian nationalists.
I’d say it succeeded at both of those.
U.S. defends secretive Mississippi ICE raids as local, state officials decry effect on children
My bold.
So… we can’t tell the president ahead of time when we’re going to pull off something secret, 'cause he’ll blurt it out over Twitter. Right. :dubious:
My bold.
Now that we got maximum impact and cranked up the fear factor, we let a bunch of 'em go anyways. Win-win!
But wait! There’s more!
The ICE raids in Mississippi may indefinitely separate some children from their parents
My bold.
The fact that you’ve missed the context of my post you are quoting doesn’t inspire confidence in the rest of your interpretation. My question about whether people in the camps could leave was in the context of discussing the definition of “concentration camp” and whether it was accurate to use such a label if people were voluntarily entering and could leave if they so chose.
I find it useful to have an accurate understanding of the fact pattern when discussing issues and rarely find an emotional response that elides these facts to be informative or productive.
If your options are “stay in the concentration camp” or “be sent back to the place you fled to be murdered”, the idea that it’s a meaningful choice to begin with is asinine. Hell, it turns out US citizens can leave the camps too, if they agree to sign off on being deported! And the conditions were so bad, he nearly did.
I’d make a quip about “Sophie’s Choice” but we’re so far gone that we really can’t make jokes referencing that:
“So at that point, according to the family, the Border Patrol agent they were with said, ‘Okay, one parent will go back to Mexico then, and one parent will keep the kids and be allowed stay in the United States.’ The agent then turned to three-year-old Sofi and told her to make a choice: which parent did she want to go with?”
I will concede that it was a bit of a stretch, as your other posts in the thread indicate that you’re willing to care about the atrocities. I retract my statement that your post indicates that typical thought pattern. But it’s something you encounter over and over and over again when engaging the right - they will search, often very aggressively, for any justification not to care about the suffering of others. And that’s how things get really, really bad.
That post was a month and a half old, dude.
Here is a better article that doesn’t avoid pointing out that he was a career criminal.