Wednesday, February 20, 2019

EMERGENCY??

by Ruth A. Sheets

On Friday, February 15, 2019, Donald Trump declared a national emergency.  He claimed the United States desperately needs a wall on our southern border, you know, the one with Mexico.  He told us he really didn’t need to do it now, but he was going to do it anyway.  He didn’t get the money he wanted for his wall.  Boo Hoo!

I realize Mr. Trump’s knowledge is severely limited, but one would expect a 72-year-old man would know what an emergency is.  For a situation to be an emergency, there must be an actual impending or ongoing disaster where many lives and property are in jeopardy.

No one should be able to declare An emergency unless there is actually a bombing, a missile coming in our direction, an earthquake shaking America, a volcano erupting, a flood happening, a tornado forming, a hurricane barreling down on our coast, a blizzard overwhelming territory, wildfires spreading, or climate change threatening to destroy our planet.  There are a few other things that MIGHT be considered emergencies, very few.  A stupid destructive, racist unnecessary wall on our southern border does not fit the criteria.

It seems to me the only emergency here is a child-man president who constantly throws tantrums that Republicans/conservatives feel they need to respond to by giving him what he wants.  Every parent knows this is not the way to deal with a spoiled whiny child. 

Republicans know our southern border is not a crisis or any kind of emergency in the traditional, English language definition.  It is, however, a way of energizing white people who have been immersed in thoughts/beliefs that non-white people are bad, well, dangerous and those people are coming across our southern border in hordes.

Reality, of course, is quite different.  People are not swarming across the border and for the most part, are crossing at actual border crossings and requesting asylum.  They are mostly families desperate to get away from the death threats and destruction in their own countries.  For those people, getting to the border is an emergency.  They need help.  They have travelled a thousand miles or more to find safety.  The US border is just one more barrier to safety for those families.

Mr. Trump has been informed of these facts, but he does not care.  Truth does not penetrate his wall obsession, a “beautiful wall, the biggest, most beautiful wall ever.” 

He visited the border states, but saw only what his handlers wanted him to see.  What did they want Mr. Trump to see, the parts of the wall that exist and the crowds of people in groups that have been forced to wait for their asylum pleas to be heard.  Did Mr. Trump hear the people who are suffering?  Of course not!  Did he talk to the land owners whose land will be stolen through eminent domain?  Of course not!  Did he get to see kids in cages?  Of course not!

When you don’t see the actual problems, and you are as limited in ability to understand as Mr. Trump is, you cannot imagine the true suffering that is occurring.  A “simple” wall seems the solution to a problem that does not even exist.  That is, for anyone beyond the scared white people who rarely have contact with people of color, in other words, Mr. Trump’s base.       

This poorly informed group of people forget they will be paying for a wall Mr. Trump told them Mexico would pay for.  Those scared followers of Mr. Trump assume he will take care of them and protect them from the brown hordes at the border, so they are OK paying for it.  Or, they are until they see their taxes go up, then whine about taxes.  Their Republican, white representatives passed that tax deal one dark night after midnight in December 2017.  They are only now reaping the fruits of the ridiculous tax law, not even read by those who voted for it.

Tell me again, what is the emergency?  Are people from all over the United states rushing to help build the wall as they rushed to New Orleans after Katrina or California during and after the wildfires?  Is Mr. Trump deputizing everyone on the border to stop people and drugs?  The answer to both is “NO.” 

That makes this “crisis” an emergency only in Mr. Trump’s childish mind.  That is true, but someone is benefiting from encouraging this insanity. 

We can and should speculate who that is.  Perhaps it is just Mr. Trump’s scared white supporters.  Maybe it’s the contractors who will build the wall.  It could be the agencies that will gain all that land on the border taken from the people who have lived there and owned the land for generations.  Maybe it’s all of the above and more. 

The media should be looking for the beneficiaries of this emergency declaration.  Investigating them would be worth our trouble because clearly these people/corporations have too much power and influence on our government. 

Strong laws to protect our nation from presidential caprice would also help.  I suspect Republicans in Congress currently don’t want to do anything to make the man-child in the White House angry with them.  Who knows what he might do in his next tantrum?  He could take money from their pet state projects as Mr. Trump proposes to do to California, stopping their high-speed railway development. 

It is not acceptable that this nation be ruled by fear of a childish president, but it seems there are just not enough Republican adults in the room, and Democrats can’t do it alone.    

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

THE WALL

by Ruth A. Sheets

For nearly four years. Mr. Trump has ranted about a wall on the US southern border with Mexico.
He and his followers claim that all the ills of our nation are coming through that border and that we can fix everything if we only build a wall. 

What kind of a wall?  Well, that changes on a regular basis. 

When Mr. Trump preached to his crowds, his devoted cult, he sent up a variety of test balloons to see what kind of wall they would respond best to.  It seems he got the most cheers when he called out 30 feet, a 30-foot concrete wall!!

Beyond the rally attenders, it was not clear just who wanted the 30-foot wall.  Eventually, pollsters did ask the question.  It appears the farther you are from the southern border, the more you like the idea of a wall, and, oh yes, the whiter you are too.

The folks who want the wall most, rarely encounter outside of media, anyone who is not of their racial, religious, or ethnic group, although racial is the greatest defining factor. 

The “far from the border gang” tends to be very conservative, believing in their “small government” stances, their certainty that reverse racism (whatever that is) is the most pressing problem white people face.  Or, maybe the most pressing problem is that hordes of dark-skinned immigrants who don’t share their values/look like them are going to come and take their jobs.  It’s a toss-up, I think and nurtured by fear and hate.

How did Americans, so completely ignorant of people from different groups come to their hatred of the others.  It probably started with their family and community.  Whenever they had contact with other people, non-white people, they returned to their homes in their carefully maintained white zones where they were warned often that if a family of color moved in, the property values would fall and their homes would be worthless.  That can be pretty scary to new home owners. 

Local and Federal Government sponsored programs endorsed this idea and primarily lent to white, reliable  families.  These entities made sure the fear and hatred of the other was stoked well enough to ensure that particularly, black families would find no welcome.  Realtors only showed people of a particular color the “right home for your family,” in the correct color zone.

This has been going on for many decades, and has resulted in segregated communities of color that somehow manage to have the poorest schools, the worst cared-for streets and infrastructure, the most poverty, while neighboring white enclaves have “superior” schools, lovely clean streets, parks, etc.  The white families rarely even have to encounter children of color in schools because they just don’t attend them.  And, anyway, they couldn’t keep up.  They’re too lazy, uncaring, and well, not bright enough, you know, “I don’t mean anything by that, of course.  I’m not racist.  I respect everyone.” 

The residents of Far From The Border  claim to love small government while sucking everything they can from it.  Gotta have those farm subsidies, good internet and postal services, good roads “so we can get to our jobs,” good jobs in government contracted companies, help to keep their local hospitals open, drug programs available to those facing the opioid crisis, and on and on.  They are insulated from everything but what they want while living in their own narrow world.  They don’t see that so much of what they want is paid for by taxpayers from all over the country, even those people of color they disdain.

What makes residents of Far From The Border think a wall of any kind will stop that imagined menace? 

The fuel for their fear and hatred of what is on the other side of the southern border is perfectly directed by social media, Fox news, and current government leaders who tell them that everyone has ignored them and their problems, particularly Democrats. 

These residents are fearful of being exposed to ideas that are not already their own.  They seem to loathe change, certain they cannot face it, that they will be inadequate to its demands.  They appear to be afraid America won’t be the America of their childhood and all those people are the cause.  They truly don’t know that America has moved on, changed to adapt to new realities.

The purveyors of fear and hate work to change their patrons’ worldview and the way they feel about and treat the people they meet and interact with. 

I saw this happen with my mother who was generally a welcoming person who read the newspapers and checked out whatever was in the news.  a little over a decade after my father died, she married a man I had known for years and had seen as caring, sensible, and nice.  He had started to listen to Rush Limbaugh and had him on the radio every day, getting my mother listening too as it was always in the background.  In conversations, Mom started making disparaging remarks about black people (even though her beloved granddaughter’s father was black).  She talked against gays and transgender people (even though her oldest daughter was both).  She started commenting that women were getting too much above themselves (even though she was an enormously competent, powerful woman in her jobs). 

Mr. Limbaugh spouted these things on his shows.  I heard it when I was visiting and would challenge her.  My sisters and I asked her to turn Rush off when we visited.  She eventually did, but I think the damage had been done.  I suspect Mom is not unique.

So, back to the wall.  The wall is a figment of Mr. Trump’s imagination fueled by people and institutions that want to preserve white America as America.  The wall will stop nothing and refugees and other immigrants will continue to come here, but this wall, whether 30 ft. concrete or “steel slats,” gives this crowd of scared white people (who would never consider a 30-ft. wall on our border with Canada) a symbol and Mr. Trump something else he can put his name on.