Conservatives have nothing but good things to say about James O’Keefe
and Breitbart’s tactics of using hostile video crews to harass people
in public. They don’t complain when abortion protestors bomb clinics, or
when Trump encourages violence at his rallies.
(“Knock the crap out of them, would you? I promise you, I will pay your
legal fees.”) But they think it’s awful when liberals confront Trump
apparatchiks who orchestrated the unthinkably horrific practice of mass
child cagings. Liberals are rude and uncivil! Bill O’Reilly, who
harassed women so viciously that he had to pay $32 million to buy their
silence and lost his platform at Fox News, is aghast that a restaurant
owner privately told Sarah Huckabee Sanders to dine elsewhere. Some
Democrats are also telling protestors to pipe down. But Michelle
Goldberg, opinion columnist for The New York Times writes that “we have a crises of democracy, not manners.”
The entire column is worth reading, but here is one of many highlights in here piece.
“The civility police might point out that many conservatives hated Obama just as much, but that only demonstrates the limits of content-neutral analysis. The right’s revulsion against a black president targeted by birther conspiracy theories is not the same as the left’s revulsion against a racist president who spread birther conspiracy theories.”
“Sarah Sanders just again complained that Democrats support “open borders and rampant crime” that she claims comes with “open borders.” These are straight up lies, so blatant and frequently repeated that I thought it was important to provide links here which can allow anyone who is willing to state and repeat the actual facts again and again and again.”
On this coming Fourth of July, it’s
worth pondering the true meaning of American patriotism – as opposed to the
malignant, distorted view of it propounded by Donald J. Trump.
For Trump, the central challenge of
American patriotism is to secure our borders. “Without borders, there can be no
nation,” he says.
But excluding foreigners has never
been a dominant part of American patriotism. For most
of its existence America has been relatively open to people from the rest of
the world, especially those fleeing tyranny and violence.
America’s core struggle has been
one of inclusion, not exclusion. We have strived to extend equal citizenship to
Native Americans, African Americans, women, and
LGBTQs.
The poems of Walt Whitman and
Langston Hughes, and the songs of Woody Guthrie, expressed loving devotion to
America while turning that love into a demand for justice.
“This land is your
land, this land is my land” sang Guthrie. “Let America be America again,”
pleaded Hughes: “The land that never has been yet–/And yet must be – the
land where everyone is free./The land that’s mine – the poor man’s, Indian’s
Negro’s, ME –.”
Trump’s patriotism centers on
symbolic displays of loyalty like standing for the national anthem and waving
the American flag.
But such displays haven’t been at
the center of American patriotism, either. Historically, American patriotism
has meant taking a fair share of the burdens of keeping the nation going.
This includes volunteering time and
energy to improving the community and country. It has meant paying taxes in
full rather than lobbying for lower taxes, seeking tax loopholes, or
squirreling away money abroad.
It also means refraining from
making political contributions that corrupt our politics, and blowing the
whistle on abuses of power even at the risk of losing one’s job.
Real patriotism involves
strengthening our democracy – defending the right to vote and ensuring more
Americans are heard, not claiming without evidence that millions of voted
fraudulently and pushing for laws that make it harder for blacks and Latinos to
vote.
True patriots don’t inundate
government with industry lobbyists, attack the freedom of the press, criticize
judges who disagree with them, or fill the airwaves with lies. They don’t
direct employers to fire employees who exercise their freedom of speech.
True patriots don’t court foreign
dictators, and don’t excuse tyranny by denigrating America.
When asked whether Vladimir Putin is a killer, Trump responded “you think our
country’s so innocent?” When asked about Turkish strongman Erdogan’s disdain
for civil liberties, Trump said “when the world looks at how bad the United
States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don’t think we’re a
very good messenger.”
True patriots don’t fuel racist,
religious or ethnic divisions. They aren’t homophobic or sexist. To the
contrary, true patriots seek to confirm and strengthen and celebrate the “we”
in “we the people of the United States.”
Trump is the first United States
president to use the term “we” to refer only to his supporters. “My supporters are the smartest, strongest, most hard working
and most loyal that we have seen in our countries history,” he tweeted
recently. “As we get stronger, so does our country.”
A majority
of today’s Americans do worry that the nation is losing its national identity.
But that identity has never been centered on our support for a particular
president or his policies.
Nor, more fundamentally, has our identity
depended on the whiteness of our skin or the uniformity of our ethnicity.
Our national identity has been our
shared ideals.
If we are losing our national
identity it is because we are losing those ideals: a
commitment to the rule of law, to our democratic
institutions, to truth, to tolerance of our differences, to equal political
rights and equal opportunity, to participating in our civic life and making
necessary sacrifices for these ideals we hold in common.
We must share these ideals if we are
to have a functioning society. Without them, there is no America.
Trump is doing everything he can to
destroy these ideals. We must do everything we can to strengthen them.
Do you like restaurants with “live and dead cockroaches” in the
kitchen and “slimy/mold-like build-up” in coolers and freezers? Try one
of Trump’s fine dining establishments, then. From The Daily Beast:
The comparative conditions in his own properties don’t even matter, to be honest.
What should be driving Congress to draft legislation or censure this shitty piece of crap is the fucking President of the United States of America is attacking a single small business, with the deliberate goal of destroying the business, and the American citizens who own it.
I know that we’re just starting to tune it out when he does these things, but not only is this totally beneath the office of the presidency, it’s reprehensible that the fucking PRESIDENT would attack a private business and private citizen this way.
Hey everyone? This is not okay. In May, the US government officially adopted a policy separating children from their parents when they crossed the border. It was meant to act as a deterrent to anyone seeking to immigrate to this country. Don’t come with your kids, or we’ll arrest you and take your children away. Children should never be used as political pawns like this. It’s inhuman and cruel.
Parents, after being separated from their children, are being tried as criminals. According to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, “If you cross the Southwest border unlawful, then we will prosecute you. It’s that simple” So not only are families being torn apart, parents are being sent to jail. It’s really hard to be reunited with your child if you are in federal prison.
Please pay attention to what is happening at our southern border. Please care about these people. I know there is a lot gong on in the world, and it’s hard to care about everything all the time, but please don’t forget about the immigrant families. Call you representatives. Vote the people who support this policy out of office in November. Find a local rally/protest. Donate to a charity. Don’t let the people in power get away with this.
Sources are from The New York Times, the Boston Globe, and a video interview with Jess Session found on NBC news. Jacob Soboroff is a reporter for NBC news and MSNBC. 13 June 2018
And keep in mind this is the NICEST of the centers and these journalists were INVITED in imagine what the facilities are like when no one is watching? the scariest part of this to me is the fact that they were ok with him there but normally media get an immediate police call, meaning normally they don’t want people to see what goes on in there but they made it look nicer in order to try and deceive us about how bad they actually are
That Trump mural looks downright Orwellian, to say nothing of EVERY OTHER PART OF IT.
“The first thing everyone should understand is that Trump’s executive order was not a reversal, or a cave, or a capitulation. This crisis was caused by the administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy, under which everyone crossing the border illegally, even those who present themselves to officials and say they are seeking asylum, is subject to criminal prosecution. That policy is still in place. As Trump said yesterday, “We are keeping a very powerful border and it continues to be a zero-tolerance. We have zero tolerance for people that enter our country illegally.” The goal of the executive order is to shift from detaining children and parents separately to detaining the families together. But this would still be a harsher system than it had been previously, in which a family seeking asylum would usually be released while their case moved through the system. That can take months or even years; those families would now be imprisoned for extended periods for the crime of crossing the border — a misdemeanor. And we should note that the administration doesn’t seem to have decided if or when it’s going to reunite the more than 2,300 children that have already been removed (likely more by now) with their parents.”
And don’t be fooled by Melania’s “surprise” trip to a Potemkin Camp. They are cynically using a woman and a mother to try to soften the grotesque cruelty and child abuse that is being perpetrated by Trump and the Republicans.
if you’ve seen the breaking news that trump just signed an executive order today to end the family separation policy here’s some quick info to keep things in perspective
this doesn’t end the “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting anyone who crosses the border “illegally”
the only thing this changes is that going forward, entire families will be detained together while awaiting prosecution
this offers no solution for freeing the thousands of children currently held in ICE child prisons or any path to reuniting them with their families
children will still be detained and treated as criminals
this will likely lead to thousands of families being held in ICE facilities and tent cities that will face the exact same issues of overcrowding, abuse, and inhumane conditions that exist in the child prisons
this is not a victory or a solution. This is the administration trying to cover their asses and avoid any more public outrage. They want people to see this as the end of the news story and go back to their lives. They want people to forget the thousands of children they are still keeping in cages in ICE facilities across the nation. This issue is not over and we cannot stop being outraged until we are given proof that the thousands of kidnapped children are returned to their families, and that the policy of arresting and prosecuting people who cross the border is ended.
