The Old and the Useless
It's like the young and the restless, except for Congress. What we've seen this week is a preview of coming attractions from a GOP majority in Congress. Rather than addressing a very real issue facing this country (immigration, including a refugee crisis), they've done nothing but posturing, pontificating, and basically being a bunch of windbags.
We're a nation of immigrants. When the Europeans arrived, they treated the ACTUAL locals like shit, giving them lovely new diseases, killing them by the thousands, and ultimately "relocating" them to "reservations." Every group that arrived here has very quickly taken the position that, wherever the next wave of immigrants is coming from, "THOSE people are going to ruin the place so we have to keep them out!" The English and Germans fought to keep out the Irish and Italians. Today it's the Mexicans we have to keep out. "Build a wall!" At various points in our history we've treated Africans, Asians (in particular the Japanese, but the Chinese too, and today the Indians) and other groups pretty awful, so the angry old white people who who are throwing fits today about "those damn Mexican illegals," are actually just carrying on a long tradition of xenophobia and racism. Way to go.
But none of that is in the news. CNN and Fox can't be bothered to review actual history, as their viewers are too stupid and it's too boring so it doesn't sell commercials as well as talking about the controversy of the President's actions and the ongoing narrative of "us versus them." Right. When can we move on from this and recognize that Americans don't neatly fit into "A" versus "B" categories? We're a diverse people with a wide range of values and perspectives, and opinions, yet the media invariably oversimplifies everything into liberals versus conservatives, GOP versus Dems, regardless of how inaccurate that portrayal is. Those words don't even have meaning anymore - conservative didn't used to be a bad word. Some guy called me a libtard this week. Libtard.
Some news outlets have at least noted that Obama is far from the first president to take executive action on immigration. At least 4 other GOP presidents have also issued executive orders on the matter, but ask any ignorant Faux News fan and they'll be happy to tell you how all of those other examples are completely different and unrelated to what Obama the Emperor Tyrant is doing today. But one point where even the most ignorant of conservatives can't argue is this: John Boehner promised comprehensive immigration reform last July, and he's failed to deliver. He couldn't even get his own party to agree on a House bill. President Obama is absolutely grandstanding here, but he's also taking action in a situation where Congress has absolutely failed to preform its duty. For the President to NOT act in the face of the immigration crisis we're seeing today would be awful.
Here's what the GOP still doesn't get: old, white, xenophobic, ignorant, racists are dying. That doesn't describe all Republicans, by any means. It does describe a number of them though, and they still exist in numbers sufficient to help the GOP win state and national elections, SO LONG AS the GOP continues to say and do the right things to keep them happy. Boehner takes his cues from Ted Cruz on that, make no mistake. Here's how those people think: all Mexicans are terrible people here to take American jobs WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY signing up for all our welfare programs AND committing election fraud. Since that's completely inaccurate and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of, well, everything (economics, geography, criminology, who actually commits election fraud, the fact that Americans are too lazy to work the manual labor jobs that immigrants are taking - just ask Alabama farmers what happened when they kicked 'em all out a few years back), the GOP has to stay away from any logical way to deal with the border crisis.
So rather than take a compassionate, logical stance on immigration, one that could win them some votes with one of the fastest growing demographic groups, the GOP will propose building a wall and putting landmines at the border, and busing those immigrants already here back to Mexico (even though many of them in the current crisis come from Central America). Rather than passing a bipartisan bill to address immigration long term, they will instead focus all their efforts on suing the president and holding the budget hostage until he agrees to undo whatever he's just done. Then they'll go about their tired old mission of repealing Obamacare. There are 21 million Hispanic voters in this country. There are 10 million people who have health coverage thanks to Obamacare. So, by all means, let's sit back and enjoy the circus as the GOP throws out 31,000,000 votes in the next election to placate the Yosemite Sam contingent from Texas and Arizona.
We're a nation of immigrants. When the Europeans arrived, they treated the ACTUAL locals like shit, giving them lovely new diseases, killing them by the thousands, and ultimately "relocating" them to "reservations." Every group that arrived here has very quickly taken the position that, wherever the next wave of immigrants is coming from, "THOSE people are going to ruin the place so we have to keep them out!" The English and Germans fought to keep out the Irish and Italians. Today it's the Mexicans we have to keep out. "Build a wall!" At various points in our history we've treated Africans, Asians (in particular the Japanese, but the Chinese too, and today the Indians) and other groups pretty awful, so the angry old white people who who are throwing fits today about "those damn Mexican illegals," are actually just carrying on a long tradition of xenophobia and racism. Way to go.
But none of that is in the news. CNN and Fox can't be bothered to review actual history, as their viewers are too stupid and it's too boring so it doesn't sell commercials as well as talking about the controversy of the President's actions and the ongoing narrative of "us versus them." Right. When can we move on from this and recognize that Americans don't neatly fit into "A" versus "B" categories? We're a diverse people with a wide range of values and perspectives, and opinions, yet the media invariably oversimplifies everything into liberals versus conservatives, GOP versus Dems, regardless of how inaccurate that portrayal is. Those words don't even have meaning anymore - conservative didn't used to be a bad word. Some guy called me a libtard this week. Libtard.
Some news outlets have at least noted that Obama is far from the first president to take executive action on immigration. At least 4 other GOP presidents have also issued executive orders on the matter, but ask any ignorant Faux News fan and they'll be happy to tell you how all of those other examples are completely different and unrelated to what Obama the Emperor Tyrant is doing today. But one point where even the most ignorant of conservatives can't argue is this: John Boehner promised comprehensive immigration reform last July, and he's failed to deliver. He couldn't even get his own party to agree on a House bill. President Obama is absolutely grandstanding here, but he's also taking action in a situation where Congress has absolutely failed to preform its duty. For the President to NOT act in the face of the immigration crisis we're seeing today would be awful.
Here's what the GOP still doesn't get: old, white, xenophobic, ignorant, racists are dying. That doesn't describe all Republicans, by any means. It does describe a number of them though, and they still exist in numbers sufficient to help the GOP win state and national elections, SO LONG AS the GOP continues to say and do the right things to keep them happy. Boehner takes his cues from Ted Cruz on that, make no mistake. Here's how those people think: all Mexicans are terrible people here to take American jobs WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY signing up for all our welfare programs AND committing election fraud. Since that's completely inaccurate and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of, well, everything (economics, geography, criminology, who actually commits election fraud, the fact that Americans are too lazy to work the manual labor jobs that immigrants are taking - just ask Alabama farmers what happened when they kicked 'em all out a few years back), the GOP has to stay away from any logical way to deal with the border crisis.
So rather than take a compassionate, logical stance on immigration, one that could win them some votes with one of the fastest growing demographic groups, the GOP will propose building a wall and putting landmines at the border, and busing those immigrants already here back to Mexico (even though many of them in the current crisis come from Central America). Rather than passing a bipartisan bill to address immigration long term, they will instead focus all their efforts on suing the president and holding the budget hostage until he agrees to undo whatever he's just done. Then they'll go about their tired old mission of repealing Obamacare. There are 21 million Hispanic voters in this country. There are 10 million people who have health coverage thanks to Obamacare. So, by all means, let's sit back and enjoy the circus as the GOP throws out 31,000,000 votes in the next election to placate the Yosemite Sam contingent from Texas and Arizona.
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