Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPierce: This Country Wouldn't Exist Without People Who Fled Violence and Oppression
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a21524970/migrant-children-detention-center/This Country Wouldn't Exist Without People Who Fled Violence and Oppression
What are we now?
By Charles P. Pierce
Jun 14, 2018
As the United States government continues to commit crimes against humanityand against human childrenalong its southern border, we now have the iconic images for our most recent national disgrace. Earlier, we had Nick Uts shot of nine-year old Phan Thị Kim Phúc, fleeing naked down a road near Trang Bang in Vietnam in the aftermath of a United States napalm attack in 1972. We had Eddie Adamss shot of Nguyễn Ngọc Loans summary execution of a Vietcong officer named Nguyen Van Lem.
We had John Filos shot of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling in Jeffrey Millers blood at Kent State. We had hundreds of shots of civil rights workers being bludgeoned and beaten and Robert Kennedy on the floor of the kitchen in Los Angeles. In a sense, you can trace this history in images dating back to Alexander Gardners tour of the battlefield at Antietam, when The New York Times wrote that, if Gardner had not brought bodies and laid them in our door-yards and along streets, he has done something very like it "
And now we have the still photos and videos of children being forcibly removed from the parents who have brought them here from the charnel houses of Central Americathe culmination of decades of brutality to which American meddling made a not-inconsiderable contribution. We see children weeping as their mothers are frisked by ICE agents up against automobiles.
We even had a little slice of a Theresienstadt strategy on Wednesday, when the people running one of the centers allowed reporters to take a tour of their facility. But even this carefully arranged visit couldnt keep the essential authoritarianism of the place out of plain sight. In this, the ploy was a debacle for the administration*. The reporters allowed into the abandoned Wal-Mart facility knew a jail when they saw one. Jacob Soboroff of MSNBC deserves special huzzahs for his clear-eyed summary of the visit.
The nations capacity for shame, which has been shrinking almost by the hour for the last couple of years, is now being tested at the outside limits. A renegade president* hired Bull Connor in an expensive suit to run the Justice Department, and the latter has proven to have even less of a conscience on this issue than the president* he serves. From CNN:
Sessions wrote that since "generally" asylum claims on the basis of domestic or gang violence "will not qualify for asylum," few claims will meet the "credible fear" standard in an initial screening as to whether an immigrant can pursue their claim before a judge. That means asylum seekers may end up being turned back at the border, a major change from current practice. "When you put it all together, this is his grand scheme to just close any possibility for people seeking protection -- legally -- to claim that protection that they can under the law," said Ur Jaddou, a former chief counsel at US Citizenship and Immigration Services now at immigration advocacy group America's Voice. "He's looking at every possible way to end it. And he's done it one after the other."
This is now clearly a war on all immigration, legal and otherwise. The history of this country would be immeasurably differentand immeasurably worseif you eliminated from it all those people who came here fleeing violence and oppression. In fact, if you did that, you wouldnt have a country here at all. Maybe we dont any more.
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
2 replies, 690 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (11)
ReplyReply to this post
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Pierce: This Country Wouldn't Exist Without People Who Fled Violence and Oppression (Original Post)
babylonsister
Jun 2018
OP
dhill926
(16,339 posts)1. the soul of our country is at stake...
we gotta vote these fascist fucksticks out...by a lot....
unblock
(52,231 posts)2. The USA wouldn't exist. But a whole lot of native Americans would....
If we as a people fled violence and oppression, we sure have had a tough time leaving it behind.