It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world....
From the song "Lola" by the Kinks.
At times it is easy to wonder if we are living in some terrible Greek or Shakespearean tragedy. Maybe there is something to all that quantum physics mumbo jumbo about string theories and multiple dimensions which questions the very notion of reality. Let's face it, the absurdity of America and much of it's population points to a Celestial Author who possesses a darkly twisted and downright sick sense of drama. Indeed, the notion we are acting the way we do because we choose to is becoming not only distasteful, but downright repulsive.
The AP is reporting 50 or so citizens of Oracle, AZ showed up on a highway today protesting the possible arrival of 40 undocumented immigrant children at a local "academy for troubled youths." They were carrying signs which said things like, "Return to Sender" and "Non Yankees Go Home." They have promised to block the road and turn the bus, or buses back like the people in Murrieta, CA did a scant few days ago.
One of the organizers, Loren Woods was quoted as saying, "We are not going to tolerate illegals forced upon us." Oracle has a population of a little over 3,500. Nearly four out of every ten people there is Hispanic. Practically everyone else is of Anglo/European descent. I say practically because, according to Wikipedia, 1.54% of the town is Native American. The odds of each and every one of them laughing their asses off at what Mr. or Ms. Woods had to say are, at this moment, firmly sitting in the rarefied range of what is known as a sure thing.
So, who riled up the riffraff? According to the AP his name would be Sheriff Paul Babeu. Reportedly, the chief law enforcement officer of Pinal County shouted out the alarm yesterday through social media postings and a press release. In addition he leaked arrival news to anti immigration activists. He claims he is concerned some of the kids might have gang affiliations-- something they were presumably trying to escape from when they risked life and limb to cross all of Mexico to get here.
Meanwhile Barack Obama, in his never ending quest to placate everyone and please no one, has put the rush job on deportations. A charter plane, carrying 17 undocumented women, 12 girls, and nine boys, ranging in ages from 15 years to 18 months landed in San Pedro Sula, Honduras today. San Pedro Sula has the highest murder rate per capita in the world.
Also today, Reuters is reporting a co-founder of the pro immigration activist group "Define American," Jose Antonio Vargas, was arrested as he attempted to go through airport security in McAllen, TX. Vargas, 33, came to the United States from the Philippines when he was 12 years old to live with his grandparents. When he turned 16 he went to the California DMV to get his driver's license. That's when he found out his immigration documents had been forged and he was here illegally.
He is a graduate of San Francisco St. University and in 2008 was a member of the team of Washington Post reporters who won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre. In addition he won an award from the Sidney Hillman Foundation for his June 2011 essay in the New York Times Magazine in which he described what is like to live and work in the United States as an undocumented alien.
It is unclear at this time what his status with Immigration Services is, or even why he was detained, although one has to fear the worst given the rising clamor of pale skinned mobs in the streets.
Finally on Monday our old pals the Bundys were back in the news. Cliven Bundy is the Nevada rancher who rallied so called militia members and other unsavory elements, including Fox News around him a while ago. He managed to manufacture a grotesque cause celebre when Bureau of Land Management agents tried to confiscate his cattle which had been grazing on federal property for years while he refused to pay for the privilege. He was particularly fond of telling everyone he didn't recognize the authority of the federal government in Nevada, although he did, on more than one occasion, say it while holding an American flag.
It didn't take long for ol' Cliven to screw the pooch. When he publicly revealed himself to be a virulent racist, right wing politicians and Fox itself ran for the hills. Yesterday a warrant was issued for his son's arrest.
Cliven Lance Bundy, who is 34 and helped organize Les Resistance against the feds, was charged with failing to appear in a court which is overseeing his drug rehab program. Lance claims he was recuperating from out patient surgery and couldn't make the date. Unfortunately for him the judge wasn't buying it, probably because this isn't the first time he's skipped an appearance. He is facing two to eight years in the joint. The AP reported that in February of 2013 he pleaded guilty to charges of felony burglary and weapons theft.
Oh yes, like his Dad, he is quite the patriot. His mother and father say they thought their son had obtained a release from the program.
There we have it. Raging, xenophobic, crowds are howling for mass deportations of kids. We just shipped a bunch of mothers and their children off to the murder capital of the world out of political expediency. And the government may well be in the process of deporting an award winning journalist who grew up here, went to school here, and has been working productively in this country for years.
But, just because they were born here, we are stuck with a lunatic racist who has been, for all practical purposes, a welfare cheat for decades and his son--a drug addled felon.
Ray Davies didn't know how right he was when he first sang those lyrics so many years ago.
7-15-14
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