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I’m Angry….

I am very angry. I wanted to write this week about something intellectual, something meaningful, something thought-provoking. I had several topics in mind. I am angry because I can’t. It would be as inhumane as the policy I’m mad about not to write about it. Can I not write about those children?

I spent 33 years of my career with the American Jewish Committee looking at pictures of Nazis taking children from parents, of Nazis pointing “to the left, “to the right” each direction meaning life or at least living a little longer or death. The picture of the little boy in his cap and jacket holding his hands above his head haunts me in ways it hasn’t haunted me since I first saw it. I have been to half dozen or more Concentration/Work/Killing camps. Back to the southern border, as Pogo said, “I have seen the enemy and he is us.”

Another thought: Are the big human rights organizations so beholden to their big donors that they can only do something under cover of a pack, each afraid to stand out on its own and snarl?

We are past the point, except maybe for history’s sake, of signing petitions, sending letters, giving sermons, even marching, unless thousands of thousands participate. It all means nothing to a man who is moved only by heavy negative political pressure.

It galls me that any woman who is a mother can support this policy of internment, with separation or not. Is one baby worth less than another? I guess so, at least to them.

How dare this government not tell the people, no less the press, where these children are and who is caring for them. How dare this government quelch the institution that made us free and kept us free, the press? How dare Americans allow themselves to be so stupid as to accept terms like “alternate truths?” Where I come from alternate truths are called lies, and the people who tell alternate truths are called liars, no matter what title they hold or position they were elected to. Where are the lawsuits demanding this information?

How can this government allow itself to be so stupid as to issue an executive order that first has a misspelling and secondly creates a bigger not smaller problem? Is nobody home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? What about the families and children caught in the legal limbo the day the order was signed? Do those who came before the signing get separated and those who came a few minutes later stay united? And if united, where do they go to live re-united lives. I hope the company that makes electronic ankle monitors is turning them out 24-7.

Ask some pediatrician this question. At what age will a child separated from his mother not be able to remember who she is? And how long does that separation take? My wife and I have seen our 9-month-old grandson every week since his birth at least once, a few times two or three times a week. It has taken almost 7 of those months for us to feel like he really recognizes us. If we don’t show up for two months, three months, six months, a year, will that memory hold?

Can no genius figure out that the problem of immigration is there not here? The problem is that takes diplomacy to fix and we don’t happen to have enough people who do that even if they believed in it. We should be involved in deep, strong, direct negociations with Mexico, with Honduras, with El Salvador and with Nicaragua. Clean out the drugs and gangs with all-out inter-agency, inter-govermental action and then provide enough money to create the industries that will create jobs.

Donald Trump is to visit Great Britain next month. This past week her Prime Minister criticized the president’s immigration policy in a speech before Parliament. She and/or the Queen should cancel the visit. G-d forbid the president should infect them with whatever virus he’s afraid the immigrants will infect us.

Maybe we need to move The Statue of Liberty. I just can figure out if it should go on the mall facing the West Wing or on the Southern border somewhere–and quickly before it ends up in the trash.

There is an old story told of the lady who sees a drover hit his donkey over the head with a board. She runs over and excoriates him for his behavior and for not guiding the animal to do the right thing. The man says, “Ma’am first I gotta smack’im in the head to get his attention. Once I done that, he guides real easy.

If the moral eludes you then go find a civics teacher to explain public policy action to you before we come “the brave 600” riding into a hopeless battle.

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