AMERICA REVEALED…AGAIN

Would you be OK with asylum-seekers moving to your town?

As the immigration fiasco rages on, with young children heartbreakingly taken from their parents in what for many will likely be the last time they see each other, we see a conflict in America that has existed since the very birth of the nation.

This conflict is exposed in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, which reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Written almost entirely by slave-owner Thomas Jefferson, who clearly did not view slaves as his equal (nor did any slave-owners extend the rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness to their slaves) the Declaration of Independence is equally brilliant and maddening, as is the U.S. Constitution.

Today, despite claims they are devout Christians guided by the Bible, many Evangelicals who, along with Donald Trump, control the Republican Party, are making a mockery of the Bible in the same way the men who signed the Declaration (unwittingly?) made a mockery of the concepts of freedom and equality.

Today, 242 years after the Declaration was penned, we see many examples of America still wrestling with the notion that all men are created equal, with the right to freely pursue happiness.

During the past year or so, two Chicago neighborhoods, Jefferson Park and Norwood Park, were considering building multi-family apartment buildings that included below-market-rate units, set aside for lower income and disabled residents. In Jefferson Park, the alderman supported the proposal. In Norwood Park, the alderman stood steadfast against it.

In both Jefferson Park and Norwood Park, vocal locals hoped to slam the door shut on the idea of bringing low income and/or disabled people to their idyllic neighborhoods.

Residents came up with perfunctory rationale, lamenting the potential density problems the buildings would cause, leading to more traffic congestion; arguing that schools would be overwhelmed with more students; and, most notably, professing that low-income people moving in would bring crime with them. Opposition, overt or covert, was largely driven by “we do not want ‘those people’ moving here.”

The real crux is xenophobia, fear of the other guy, a topic The Weekly Opine commented on a couple months ago with “Boo! Are You Scared Yet?” which can be read at the link theweeklyopine.com/blog/2018/4/26/boo-are-you-scared-yet.

In a true sense, low-income Americans living in tough neighborhoods are seeking asylum from crime and gang-infested environments that exist without much resistance from government and business. At the local, state and federal level, it doesn’t appear many people care about low-income Americans. (The evidence is found in poorly funded, below average schools, loss of living-wage job opportunities, police brutality and few, if any, nutrition-providing real grocery stores.)

Often, residents living in nice towns who try to keep other Americans from pursuing happiness are playing on stereotypes, like Trump did when he labeled Mexicans drug dealers and rapists. The locals in Jefferson Park and Norwood Park would have you believe that all low-income people are accompanied by crime. That they are troublemakers. This of course, is not true.

Which does beg the question: Would the people rightfully expressing outrage about parents being separated from their children along the U.S. – Mexico border welcome these immigrants moving into their hometown?

What we have along the southern U.S. border is a horrific, life-destroying situation. But in many ways, it should not be a surprise that some Americans are not really that bothered by it (e.g., Make America Great Again hat-wearers).

Some Americans rally when the U.S. government goes awry, such as when the Trump administration exacerbated a life-threatening situation in hurricane ravaged Puerto Rico. Other Americans rally at the sight of cruise missiles streaking into the night sky over the Middle East and when the “Mother of All Bombs” is dropped on Afghanistan. Some rally when puppy mills are uncovered.

But should we be surprised at what is being done to asylum-seeking immigrants, given America’s dubious track record when it comes to fear-mongering and the treatment of “undesirables?”

· The U.S. lied to the world about Iraq hiding weapons of mass destruction. The Big Lie led the U.S. to invade, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians (including children), e.g. a family merrily celebrating at a wedding reception and a bomb falls on them. Thousands of American troops, many of them parents, were killed and permanently separated from their children because of the Big Lie. (Laura Bush weighing in on the current asylum issue is a bit over-the-top, considering her husband, President George W. Bush, was among the loudest voices spreading the WOMD Big Lie.)

· The worn-out, go-to cliché “this is not who we are as Americans” begs the question, Who/what exactly is America? Not just now, but throughout history. Because we have been where we are today many times before. Africans separated from their children before being loaded onto slave ships. After arriving in America, slaves having their children taken away to be sold at auction, never to be seen again. Native American families separated as they were pushed off their glorious land onto reservations. Japanese-American families separated at internment camps.

· A criminal justice system that is all-too-eager to turn a misdemeanor into a lengthy prison stint, separating fathers and mothers from their children.

· Turning our back on our fellow U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico, in the aftermath of the devastation that was Hurricane Maria. The Trump administration claims the storm killed 64. Truthful, fact-based experts say the death toll is around 4,600. And Puerto Ricans are still suffering.

· Refusal to solve the solvable challenge of access to affordable healthcare for all its citizens, a denial that makes where we are today conceivable; the aberrant abuse of less-fortunate citizens of humanity who seek our compassion.

So, should we be shocked that a government who capitulates to the National Rifle Association, refusing to protect American children from mass school shootings, is also capable of separating non-American children from their parents, placing these kids in what is tantamount to prison?

Are we truly caught off guard when a government that looks, sounds and behaves authoritarian and fascist views these asylum-seeking, non-American kids as expendable pawns on a political chess board?

Sickening is a word that aptly describes what the Trump administration is doing to these frightened immigrant families. But then we already knew Trump is a sick man, surrounded by sick people such as Jeff Sessions, Kirstjen Nielsen, John Kelly, Sarah Sanders, Rudy Giuliani, Kellyanne Conway, and Trump’s own wife and daughter.

Yes, Melania is twisted (how could she not be, having married a creep like Trump). She is a feeble soul, and tone-deaf with her anti-bullying initiative, living in the shadow of the biggest bully of them all. Melania should’ve packed her bags and returned to New York a long time ago.

Everyone who questioned how/why Hillary Clinton could stay with Bill during MonicaGate should pose the same question to the current First Lady, as she endures PornGate, RussiaGate, TaxGate, SexualAssaultGate, FakePatriotismGate, FakeChristianGate, etc., etc.

Melania deserves zero pity. She’s a grown woman who may have even gamed the immigration system years ago, entering and/or remaining in the U.S. illegally at the time.

As for Ivanka Trump, The Weekly Opine took her to task last fall with a commentary titled “One Very Uncool Millennial” at the link theweeklyopine.com/blog/2017/12/14/one-very-uncool-millennial.

Despite her efforts to be one of the ‘cool kids’ (somewhere Pink is laughing), Ivanka is a dud who has more baggage than the hotel lobby room where guests check their luggage.

Coming full circle, it is heartening to see Americans displaying sincere outrage at the immorality being foisted upon asylum-seekers by Donald Trump and his administration. The media reporting has been phenomenal, notwithstanding the usual fake-news organizations, like Fox News and Breitbart.

Going forward we must ask ourselves, when a proposal for affordable housing is up for discussion in our hometowns, will we stand up for less-fortunate, law-abiding American citizens who seek to freely pursue happiness?

Douglas FreelandJune 21, 2018