First, go read BadTux's post about the ICE concentration camps for children.
I'll wait.
First off, as I mentioned there, One Day in the Life of Ivan Desniovich was not meant to be an instruction manual. (I mention that one in particular for it is among the thinnest of Solzhenitsyn's works. You can read it in a few hours and if you haven't, then get thee to a bookshop for elsewhere.)
Second. Almost every one of those kids will grow up. They will know that it was the United States government which tore them from their parents. Wherever they end up being deported to, and regardless of whether they are eventually reunited with family or not (I'm betting "not"), they will know that it was our government with separated them from their parents.
They will grow up with that knowledge. They will tell the tale to their friends, their children, their nieces and nephews and their grandchildren. They will tell the story to their children of how Abuela Maria taken from her parents by American goons and she never say them again.
Regardless of whatever good this country does in the remainder of this century, we are planting an incredible legacy of hatred and bitterness. Forty or fifty years from now, some of those children, now sitting in places that would even make Stalin blush, will be leaders in business or politics in Central and Southern American countries. They will remember that the seemingly friendly American diplomat or businessman siting on the other side of the table represents a nation that inflicted cruelty and degradation on children.
Because the one thing that we will not do for a century, or more, is admit that the horrors that we are inflicting on children today were, in fact, horrors, our own children and grandchildren will reap a bitter harvest from our cruelty.
Not Playing Around With The Playful Signs
57 minutes ago
5 comments:
Exactly, short term political gain, and a joy in inflicting pain, for long term damage.
The simple fact that HS and ICE arguing they can starve children for 1-3 days because they aren’t “required” to feed them makes the indignities of the School Lunch Program seem minor, but they stem from the same poisoned well, Ayn Rand. By buying into the fallacy of makers and takers, they mirror Donnie’s ignorant supposition that international trade is a zero sum game. These mental midgets are diminishing the United States in the eyes of the world, and once again priming the pump for another series of wars that will culminate in the Third World War.
The problem is that now we genuinely have the ability to destroy our enemies, and they us. It is far from supposition that Russia and China would be willing to work together to topple the United States and divide the world. The U.S. cannot defeat even these two together without resorting to nuclear weapons, and it is likely that the rest of the world would turn on the U.S. for this. So we face the future as a small, regional power, hemmed in by our history of dishonest diplomacy and negation of agreements, hamstrung from projecting power by the loss of bases that is likely to occur if we continue this way.
As the economy staggers under the growing U.S. National Debt and the dismantling of the last of the safety net (Welfare toward zero, Social Security cuts, Medicare massively underfunded and Medicaid destroyed), it will become clear that the U.S. can no longer sustain the spending on “Defense”. As the decisions are made to pull back from bases where we are no longer welcome, we will start decommissioning the older boats, moving to a “more agile” naval force (translation, limited blue water capacity), reducing the Marines and Army by “right sizing” the capacity (translation, we can’t afford all these people, arm the robots), and changing to a “technologically superior” Air Force (translation, fewer, more advanced aircraft).
When this happens, the decision makers become fearful to ever commit forces, as losing just a few aircraft or ships is now a significant portion of your forces. Yes, nuclear forces will keep the enemies at bay, as we sit inside our fortified bunker of a country and watch the rest of the world go about their business. When the Third World War begins, we’ll find out if our bunker has a roof.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and as the United States retreats into its orange-colored shell, others--in particular China--will step up and fill the gaps left in its wake.
If you have Hulu, watch Wolf Warrior 2. It's a Chinese film that came out last year and was the highest grossing Chinese film in history. On the surface it's a silly action movie, in the vein of Rambo-type movies.
However, it has an uber nationalist message that positions China as the world's savior and policeman, stepping in on the side of the UN and other countries during times of military and humanitarian crisis. There are tons of beauty shots of Chinese military hardware, strapping Chinese soldiers, and Chinese medical aid being rendered to a third world populace. And the main bad guy is an American mercenary.
At one point, the hero is driving with the female lead, who is trying to call the US consulate for the war-torn country they're in. She gets an answering machine. He says to her, "Do you think the US Marines are the best in the world? Well, where are they?" He goes on to tell her that he saw multiple ships abandoning the embattled city's harbor, and some of those ships were flying a "star spangled banner". There's actually a shot of this early in the movie: US Arleigh Burke destroyers in a column, running for open waters, tail between their legs, while the Chinese Navy sails bravely into the fray.
Like I said, it's a silly action movie at first glance, but it represents a very real sentiment in China and its people.
All for a new round of tax cuts.
-Doug in Oakland
We are exceptional and entitled country. Exceptional in our blindness, bigotry, our hard-hearted compassionless immorality; entitled to the best and lion's share of everything by divine right.
Realpolitik is a dandy game while you're the dealer and on top of the game, but a whole lot less fun on the downslide.
And, as with all such human follies, it didn't have to happen these way, or with breakneck speed. Every morning our feckless prez debates whether to put sugar or a match in the gas tank.
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