The chasm between us

Phil Gurnee ♦ June 18, 2018 ♦ 2 Comments

My Fathers Day may have gone the way of many my age, as the ability to communicate with my father is limited due to age and geographic proximity.  He is going to turn 90 this year, he lives 350 miles away, and the ability to talk with him via the phone has zero rewards.  Forget Skype, he simply can’t articulate a conversation and is in full-blown dementia.  The chasm between him and I seems too wide to navigate unless I’m in his presence hence the reason I’ll be doing the 350 drive very soon.

The chasm bothers me but there is nothing I can do about it, however, the chasm that has developed between myself and 40% of the American Population is more troubling. The 40% that feel, President Trump is doing a good job.  I guarantee you that my Dad would have considered Trump and his campaign associates traitors.  I would so much like to talk to him about our current political situation. With the man who was a West Point graduate in 1950, who was serving in Korea when I was born, who gave me many a stimulated political conversation as I grew up and into a man. Oh man, that is what I miss right now.

This little column was going to be about my father, but I think all of us should be thinking about the fathers who just made a long risk-filled journey to seek political asylum for their families and instead of being treated with the dignity that asylum seekers should receive from this country, had found their children being taken from them as they await their hearings.  I don’t have children, so I can’t imagine for you who do, what that would feel like, but as this information gained light, I could hear the collective moan of empathetic parents throughout North America.  The Trump admin may have finally crossed a line, a line they may not have thought existed but even the evangelicals who have supported him unwaveringly finally wavered when the soulless White House mongrel Steven Miller admitted that the policy was put in place to be a deterrent so that future political asylum seekers would think twice about leaving their country for a better life in the United States.

As deterrents go, you would think this one will probably work, as what family would take the chance of losing their children? Maybe the Berduo family would, given the other choice is possibly death if they stayed in their own country? That is not quite Sofie’s choice is it? Death or separation of a family?

I’m pretty sure the lady in NY harbor has her own view on this policy.

This is the policy right now. It is complicated and the issue of separating families who have been charged with a crime was in place before the Trump admin, so what has changed? This

There is no law that requires immigrant families to be separated. The decision to charge everyone crossing the border with illegal entry — and the decision to charge asylum seekers in criminal court rather than waiting to see if they qualify for asylum — are both decisions the Trump administration has made.

This new policy seems short-sided. They will create enemies of this country from both the children separated and from the parents they ripped those children from. Especially if they are never united again which has been documented as happening. If you want to create terrorists this is the way to go about it.

The asylum seekers are now being accused of a misdemeanor crime and thus are legally having their children removed from them as they await trail.  If you are no longer going to recognize asylum seekers without charging them with a crime, tear down the Statue of Liberty because you can’t advertise something you can’t deliver. I understand the need to vet those who come calling at our borders. I fail to understand why we can’t treat them with respect.

We are a wealthy country and some forget or don’t care that we are here simply by the luck of the draw. I was born a white man in California,  the lottery of luck when it comes to being born but why should someone not so lucky, someone born into poverty and a dead end not seek the opportunity for their family that beckons for them in the United States?

Many will say because we don’t have room.  I don’t have an answer to that, but I do know that any policy that relies on something such as child separation for deterrent purposes is a policy that should not stand for long.

Just imagine how bad your life is for you and your family that you make the choice to leave everything you and your family ever knew, to make a long arduous journey to a place you hope can be your families salvation only to arrive and have them forcefully take your children? Or tell you that the children need to be bathed and take them away never to see them again without any communication from the authorities? Imagine that shit? One man killed himself and you could understand why? He had failed his three-year-old son and wife based on a policy put in place by a man of extreme privilege who never felt a hunger pang in his life but has made it is his life’s duty to punish those who seek a better life.

Will we let him?

While I was reading  Infamy:The Shocking Story of the Japanese-American internment several years ago I wondered what I would have done if I had been around during that time.  I concluded I would have done nothing, that I would have believed the Government rhetoric that our citizens were a danger to our democracy during the time of war but I also know that I would have tried to make sure they were taken care as best they could be while being interned.  A pathetic response to be sure, maybe I’d done more as many did but I don’t think so.