Over the months I have railed against the coming of the future as imagined by Trump and its coming to life but yesterday's events shocked me to a point where I have never been before. So what happened? Well, we experienced the first true day of living in Amerika, living in a police state where people are asked for papers and the echoes and images of Nazis stopping people and demanding, "Papieren? Papieren?" just ripped through my mind. My heart. My soul. The future.
Five hours from San Francisco to NY and millions of miles from our founding values. Agents came on to the plane to ask for papers, to check each passenger. Hey, our new government at work, checking for that dangerous criminal, you know, the one who shoplifted twenty years ago and never mind the productive years in between.
I shudder with fear when I read of the joy, of the "uplifted morale" of ICE and Border Patrol officers who will no longer be 'forced' to concentrate on dangerous criminals, violent criminals, but will now be allowed to stand outside immigration lawyers' offices, outside schools, outside labor stations, and just sweep up all these dangerous people. And hey, don't forget the boon of school dismissal time when so many families are there. Why thousands could be gathered in one small area of a city and what, what was that? You cannot hear me because there is a soul piercing shriek. Not to worry, just the three year old kid's mother has been grabbed from him and he wants his mommy. He will learn. Oh, yes, he will learn.
"It can't happen here." So we are constantly reminded and yet now we are told that the agents are so happy, no more rules, no more borderlines in arresting people and you tell me you do not see not only how it can happen here but IS happening here? And think of the consequences. Never mind the moral consequences. Never mind the cost to humanity. Never mind the pain and terror and fear and harm we cause to people, to children, to families. Be tough and practical and think of the economy.
So senators from the flyover states are worried where their constituents will sell their farm products and farmers over the entire country, from California to Florida to Michigan and anywhere there are crops of fruit and vegetables -who is going to pick the crop? Who will help get it to market? And no, there are no 'Americans" who will do this job. Get their hands dirty? Never!!
Why is it that among the sentences I spoke to my daughter last night as she waited to board a plane to Israel were to warn her to have her documents in order and easily available when she returns. I could not believe that those words were said and meant. Here. In America. In JFK. And the image of the four presidents on Mt. McKinley with tears pouring down their faces flitted through the mind's eye. While their faces were of stone, guess their inner souls remained true to America.
Where are we going and where will we end? Before 1967, yes, that 1967, the one in our lifetime, interracial marriage was forbidden in many areas of the country. In fact, go watch a movie Loving and see it in action or go see Showboat and the tragedy of "miscegenation". And then walk around a mall and look at all the "criminals" who walk with their kids freely, without fear and now? What? Will that man with the olive skin be pulled aside as he walks with the light haired toddler? And what if he is an immigrant? Oh, DCFS will take care of the kid, stick it in the system and maybe after a few weeks they will find the mother. Or not. What the hey, at least Amerika is safe for another second. Oh, what if the man was a citizen, naturalized or native born? Oh, the bully agents were just doing their job, following orders!!!!
Let's get in a tad closer to these brave and intrepid law enforcers. Oh, look who they "captured"!! Ali's son from his second wife. Ooohhh, they have Arabic sounding names. And gasp! They have confessed to being Moslems when they were pulled aside, Surely that rated a barrage of repetitive questions as to where they got their names and all about their religion and never mind that the son was born in Philadelphia and as American as their own children!!! But never mind, keeping Amerika safe for the bigots and that guy, the one from Saudi Arabia, the older kid, the one with a funny bulky looking body profile, well, never mind, he is from Saudi Arabia and Trump has a hotel there so all is good with the world. The situation is dangerous and unfair and yet there it is, the new reality of Amerika.
So let us take a look at what we now have and what we might have had were we so determined to close our gates in the past and present and future. So.....the Erie Canal has disappeared. So does the railroad, you know, the one the Chinese and Irish built? Uh oh, there go the food crops so abundant in the markets of the country - sorry, no labor, no farmers either. And the steel mills? Forget that - Carnegie is banned, that immigrant! Yikes, what about all those Nobel prizes won by so many Jews, immigrants or children of immigrants? Well, there they go and hey, forget the Salk and Sabin vaccines. The doctors in many rural areas are fading out and damn, there goes my doctor right here in West Palm and there goes another. There goes the tech who took an x-ray and the one who put the cast on my leg. There go the research fellows in our labs and companies and OMG, just look at the wild and uncontrolled garden areas of the cities and suburbs! Those bodegas which are so convenient in the big cities, well, screw that. They are gone too. And so are the Korean run markets as well. Oh, and you know, the motels roadside when one is taking a long road trip, well, there they go as the Pakistani and Indian families who own them who work hard to keep them - well, tough on them, huh!!
"I do not believe the press is an enemy to the American people," but this man's leader says otherwise. We have immigrants hiding in the dark, empty desks in classrooms, empty offices of doctors whose patients are afraid to venture out lest they run into those oh so happy agents. We have hatred running rampant through our society as the chief hater, Bannon, enjoys his new found place in the so called mainstream and propagates his hate filled philosophy all over the country and here they come, right out of the woodwork! New words invade the language - fake news, alternative facts, alt -right, the enemy press, the enemy little guys - but never the Fat Cats - and the truth is ignored, run right over. The Big Lie is back in style. And as for Trump, he is skipping the White House Correspondents' Dinner this year as his fragile ego evidently cannot take the roasting he will get. Other presidents did it, but this man and his malignant narcissism are just too fragile. Tsk. Tsk. It will not save him anyway so he had better get his tweeting finger ready for that night and the next day!
I am tired of the attempts to justify the bad and mad rules of this new police state. Not every immigrant prior to today was "legal" so enough with that attempt. The Chinese women who were smuggled in against the law, the Japanese workers in Hawaii, the Irish, the Jews, the Italians, whomever and one and all - some were legal and some not. Would it be better to return to the days when we turned away a ship full of Jewish refugees fleeing definite death in Germany? Too many scientists have tried to show via the "science" of eugenics why they were right in their murderous ways. Science has been perverted before and will be again and it is up to us to ensure that it gets thrown back on the garbage heap of history before it truly endangers us all, body and soul.
Casey Affleck said in his speech as he accepted an award for Manchester, “The policies of this administration are abhorrent and they will not last. You don’t have to clap out of obligation – They’re really un-American,” he told the audience. “It’s a time to struggle for the future and the soul of our nation. I know this feels preachy and boring… but I’m just lending my voice to the chorus here…You are struggling – you’re doing it so well and speaking up.” And I ask, why is it that so many of the acting and theatrical community have found the courage to speak up? Where is the rest of the world? Where is the moral courage that seems to have totally fled from Republicans? Where is the soul of so many? Where and how did they grow to be so cruel, all in the name of power, power, power.
Amerika. Police state. A new country that is unrecognizable, A country that would have had my Bubby crying for she was so proud of becoming an American citizen, a member by law and by right, of a free society, where she did not have to worry for her life or her home because she was Jewish or had an accent.
Amerika. Police state. The lady with the torch held high is shedding tears, turning rusty, even as the principles she represents grow rusty as well. The statues of the American heroes in the Capitol shake even as the ground under their feet trembles with the devolution of their country and in that big and beautiful and meaningful pavilion, there is a big man who sits on a big chair, who has tears running down his face, crying over what has happened to his country, the one that went through hell in a way and now - it is poised on that point again. His tears keep rolling and my heart and soul keep trembling. Please, not here. Not here.
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