It Happened Again
I’m obviously late to the party with this one. As everyone knows, Governor Greg Abbott sent his own version of a Christmas gift to Kamala Harris when he sent upwards of 50 migrants in a bus to her Washington D.C. residence. I can easily go in any number of directions here and most of them are visceral emotional reactions to the story. Most of these visceral responses are the kind of responses that MAGA folks want us to say. It’s almost like a Pavlovian response. They do something outrageous and we respond with outrage, Mission accomplished.
So, where I choose to go from here is to a place where I am going to assume that one or more of them might stumble to this place and actually read these words. The regular readers already know this stuff, so you can treat this as more of a tutorial for other people. However, it is something I feel I need to say because I’ve seen the responses from both sides. Progressives respond with outrage as I suppose they should. Conservatives usually say something to the effect that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden need to solve the problem.
Let’s start with the outrage. All of us know about trolls. Essentially, mainstream conservatives are becoming an endangered species. In their place are what I lovingly call performance artists. If you think back to the scandals concerning the National Endowment for the Arts you will remember the different exhibits that caused so much consternation. There were sculptures of Jesus made out of dung or Jesus being submerged in human urine. These were all designed to create a visceral reaction. All forms of art are created to elicit a reaction. So, these maneuvers by Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis are created to elicit an emotional response. Again, mission accomplished.
Performance artists aren’t interested in solving any problems. Problems exist to be exploited. They exist for fund raising. They exist for sound bytes. They exist so that you can frighten your base by expanding and distorting the truth. Greg Abbott has no issue in solving immigration. He has no interest in helping migrants. He has no interest in adjusting policies so that the strain on our institutions and budget are alleviated. Of course, it could be credibly claimed that many progressive politicians aren’t interested in solving the problem either. They can fundraise against Abbott and DeSantis as easily as those two can fundraise themselves.
This brings us to the second point. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can’t solve this issue on their own. It’s a problem with the low information voters. This is an issue that must be addressed in Congress. So, you can send these people to the White House or to Kamala Harris’ private residence, but the stunt doesn’t provide them any additional incentive to solve the problem. Harris literally has very little real power to do anything beyond helping those exact people. This is where you call or write letters to your elected representative asking them to work with other members of Congress to actually pass comprehensive changes to our immigration policy.
Whether one considers this just performance art or an act of cruelty, the end result is just the same. Someone decided that jerking these people around was better than actually helping them. At this point, I’m not going to judge if someone decides they can’t help them. I understand. We can’t help literally everyone that needs help and it can be hard to decide where that cut off should be. They are human beings. They deserve better than this. If we can’t help them then the least we can do is not hurt them. It’s one thing to have a sculpture made out of dung to enrage the masses. It is something else entirely to use actual living and breathing human beings for your performance art.
Abbot’s behavior fits the definition of criminal negligence, and if any of these people had died from exposure, it would be negligent homicide. There is also a civil component to the negligence laws that could be applied. Since this was an interstate matter, the DOJ could get directly involved. (all this is in my non-lawyer, possibly way-too-ignorant opinion, of course)
Charges need to be filed against Abbott and any backer of this abomination in Federal court or in the jurisdictions where these people were dumped. Scofflaws in government need to be punished and removed.
1Arrest the bus drivers and seize the busses. The drivers know what they are doing per instructions is at least immoral if not illegal. Make it a real hassle and expense for these people to get out of jail and get their busses back. This should be much easier to do than going after abbott directly.
2As for abbott, make a noise about his voters who gave him this power that they are just as, if not more so, guilty than he is for at least approving of this “christianist” heresy. Stick it to them for their hypocrisy.
I just had a verbal fight last night with a neighbor who was disparaging some poor illegals sleeping in sleeping bags on the street criticizing Tx lax border policies for allowing them in. When this person started quoting OT about how harshly these people should be treated, I very angrily demanded that she quote Jesus as to how He would treat them. The resorting to OT sourcing by these “christianists” to support a hardened mostly racist point and not much from Jesus seems to be SOP for these hypocrites.
The door almost smacked me arse as I quickly left that house.
Sue Mr Abbott – himself .
3How is this not human trafficking?
4Over the years Congress has tried to enact genuine bipartisan humane immigration reform only to see it shot down by anti-any-kind-of-immigration for people of any color, evrnif its white. The bill would only progress to a committee where it would die. An Executive Order would fade in the next administration if it were already anti-immigrant at the top. Allowing temporary status such as experienced by people from Haiti or wherever may warm pro-immgration folks’ hearts, but temporary is just that. the Anti faction can’t wait to yank the lifeboat out from under these folks. The “not in my back yard” folks are still active. This may sound like a pipe dream, but what if citizens were awarded with $$, either in the form of a check, or even a tax deduction or credit, if they helped to take in an immigrant (sponsor) or an entire family and got them settled. Or we can look at how ther Canadians do it. They make no bones about how much they want immmigrants. The Mounties actually help what this country would call “illegal” border crossers. Check it out. Its worth it.
5I think the problems are three-fold.
1) I think the whole idea of charging Abbott sounds lovely, but just isn’t horribly realistic and is ultimately incendiary. I think this is the gut reaction “they” are looking for. It’s similar when we want to see Orange man indicted. They know it will never happen. We know it won’t happen. So, we are just spinning our wheels.
2) I think this is yet another example of how progressives have a built in disadvantage. We care about too many things. We care about gun control, we care about education and censorship, we care about refugees and migrants. We are about the LGTBQ+ community. We care about other disenfranchised groups. We care about the environment. I know I’m leaving stuff out. The nature of things is that you can only fix two or three in any Congressional cycle. Our focus is too spread out to concentrate on one or two of those at a time and then we can’t decide which one to prioritize. They are all dramatically important and I’m not qualified to say which one is the most important.
3) Conservatives have a built in advantage because saying no is easier then deciding what saying yes truly means. Plus, they have thousands dedicated to each issue individually. Some people get worked up into a lather over librals taking their guns. Others get lathered up over “illegals” invading their country. Others get lathered up over minorities taking control through replacement theory. They stay lathered up while we switch from topic to topic.
I could go on for hours about how there is a tragic disconnect between Christians and the actual words and deeds of Jesus. Suffice it to say, I don’t think that argument gets “them” to change their mind. I think it is persuasive with those that are undecided, but I don’t know how many of those folks there actually is.
6I suppose this is not new and pretty simplistic- there are two kinds of people (not counting psychopaths). One that feels, cares and has empathy for other people, especially those less fortunate. The other people care about themselves mostly, especially if they’re different and if it might cost them money. Not hard to see how these two kinds of people wound up in one of our two parties. Over the past several years, hatred of others different than oneself has become a characteristic of one of those parties.
7@6 Don’t agree with you, Mr Carraway, at 1) because they then will think they can get away without being called on it and you then seem to contradict yourself at 3) pointing out the repubs doing that very thing. When good men say nothing, etc., Bonhoeffer, the Russian who went back to Russia after Putin failed to poison him (can’t recall his name at this moment)
8Your point in 1) is why I suggested going after the tools he uses as the quickest way to start holding him and the repubs to account because they can’t control what happens in other states.
to Van Heldorf: Your neighbor doesn’t know his Old Testament very well, or is quoting completely out of context: “And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.” Deuteronomy 10:19. And as for Jesus, remember that at one time he and his parents were refugees in Egypt.
9It’s not “performance art”, it’s “performance cruelty”. The cruelty is the point, and its purveyors have no interest in solving the problem. The GOP had a majority and could have addressed this issue, but they’ve been obstructing any attempts to address the underlying problems.
10So they’re not only cruel, they’re cruel hypocrites. Malignant seems an appropriate word.
Progressives need to put some focus on how people responded with care for the victims. Draw a contrast between the right wing cruelty and left wing compassion.
Use it.
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