July 4, 2019

posted on 7/4/2019 by the Salt City Sinner

It is, perhaps, a function of middle age to see with unforgiving clarity the folly of one’s youth. As 2019 grinds on and the frost creeps into my beard one thread at a time, I look back now upon myself circa 2003 or 2004, in the thick of the Bush years, and wonder how I could have been so naïve as to assume that those were the darkest days of right-wing ascendancy in America. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in the “I miss Bush” camp that some lefties are. I remember the lawless reign of that dimwitted son of privilege too well to ever find that beady-eyed visage cuddly, or his trick with the cough drops charming. George W. Bush started a needless, lie-based war that we are still suffering through. His legacy will forever be one of brutal, bloody quagmire: of torture, rendition, detention, and atrocity abroad.

Many inhumane policies predate our present situation. There’s the US prison system – a network of semi-privatized gulags that stretches from sea to shining sea, from purple mountain majesty and the Supermax in Florence, Colorado to the fruited plains of Leavenworth, Kansas. Largely-unrepentant bastards on both sides of the aisle (at least one of whom is running for president on the Democratic ticket) helped take America to the top of the ranks when it comes to incarceration rates, either of citizens as a raw number or of the percentage thereof. The prison-industrial complex predates the current occupant of the White House – predated Obama, predated Bush, and predated Clinton (although he contributed massively to it).

But I was wrong to think that Bush and his brand of aggressive militarism abroad and “compassionately conservative” Evangelical moralism at home were the zenith of the right wing in America. Back then, in my innocence, I could never have imagined the rise of the current regime, with its marriage of capitalistic amorality to Puritanical hatreds, its conservatism of cruelty. Our country now openly runs ethnic concentration camps where children are tortured, and their cries for help are mocked by Dear Leader’s pet agency of rapists, sadists, thugs, and sneering bullies. The right has done what “small government advocates” naturally would do; they’ve stood up and cheered raucously for the men in jackboots, the doughy dotard with his ridiculous insecurities, his cowardly schoolyard sadist’s tough-guy theatrics, and his contempt for every and anything but himself.

At this moment in American history, on this July 4^th, it’s worth thinking of two reactions to the situation at our border. One came from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the lightning rod from New York’s 14^th. AOC reported that undocumented migrants detained there were forced to drink from toilets due to a lack of running water, while guards nearby laughed. On a previous visit to detained children, she wept. In other words, the young Democratic Socialist acquitted herself like a human being, caring for the least among us and attempting – to the best of her abilities – to remedy the suffering of people in the midst of a terrible ordeal, at least part of which has taken place at the hands of people who ostensibly represent our government. I’m damn glad AOC was there. I’m damn glad that she has the moral clarity she does on this issue.

The second reaction to the border that I would like to draw your attention to comes from the Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and adviser to the current administration, who told Fox News:

 I must be living in a parallel universe somewhere...I did not find soiled diapers. I did not find crying children. I did not find deplorable conditions. Quite the opposite. I found amazing people on both sides trying to make a very difficult circumstance better. I don't know where everyone else is visiting! I spoke to border patrol agents, the vast majority of which are Latino and many attended churches that are part of our network, and I asked, 'Hey guys, did you stage this? Did you flip the script to accommodate people like me?' And they went 'Pastor Sam, absolutely not. You are looking at the very thing that existed here for a number of weeks, so it's not that we shifted because of any deplorable conditions that were discovered.

Far be it from me to accuse the Reverend of bearing false witness. It’s possible that he is just a very stupid man, or that he is deliberately deceiving himself. Despite Rev. Rodriguez’s feeble protestations that there are very fine people on both sides of this dispute (sound familiar?), the more grim picture of the border has been backed up by elected officials, lawyers, reports from the DHS’ own inspector general, and, in case any doubt remained, the words of current and former Border Patrol agents themselves. So with all due respect, Reverend, your sweet little anecdote about a church friend telling you that conditions are fine and that you shouldn’t trust evidence to the contrary is worth nothing in terms of truth. It is, however, quite indicative of where we stand this July 4^th.

When it comes to the torture of children, there is no neutral ground or flyover-ready, tepid centrist position. The two sides are arrayed before you: democratic socialists and white Evangelicals. The socialists want a compassionate immigration policy – bread and roses, if you will, an America that is an open society and one that promotes humanity and freedom. 75% of the Evangelicals, on the other hand, want mass deportations, and 68% think the US has no moral obligation to house refugees.

I hope that people are paying close attention to the Reverend Rodriguez and the theological and political position that he and his kind occupy. And I hope that, when they think of Evangelical support for the current administration, they consider Matthew 7:15-20, which begins “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but are actually ravenous wolves,” and closes with “Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”