Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Congenidal-Speak #64

I can't believe I have to tell anyone this, but Trump IS NOT GOD. He is not above the law, and in sporadic trickles, his crack staff is dissenting from his reign of insanity, ignoring his heartless mandates. Into the mainstream of Democratic politics has drifted the demand to abolish ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Pressure by demonstrators has be put on Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen. She kow-tows to Trump, telling bold faced lies to the American people, an act that hasn't gotten this much air-time since Vietnam. The ICE men and women are finally coming forth. They, in sections, are liquefying, breaking away, wanting nothing to do with the maliciousness of his policies. Trees fathom the forest. It's seen and rejected at last. There are outcroppings in this administration, especially in light of the immigration policy, that don't want to be complicit with policies as immoral as the interment of Japanese during WWII. Nineteen agents within a HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) unit requested, in a letter, that ICE be broken, that they not be asked to participate in the indefinite detaining or separation of families seeking asylum at our southern border. They contend that being asked to do so is interfering with more fundamental aspects of their job.

Mending the fence

An Arizona rancher, a white male, believes that a wall is imperative. It is needed not only to keep out immigrants, but also animals such as fox and coyotes. Go figure. In El Passo, a woman of some color, possibly well-tanned, concerned only with marauding critters, sides with a fence, maybe heavier border patrol, but definitely not a wall. A New York Times report estimates a wall will cost 70 billion and 150 million annually to maintain. A wall along the southern border is NOT going to happen. It stands little chance of erection because, the budget may be blown from the cost ($2,000 per person per day) of the current policy of immigration. Also, contrary to Trump's red meat scenario, Mexico—even more so with this new president—will NEVER pay for a wall. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, a wall—or the presumption of one—is a ready piece of red meat, reliable, tendered, irretrievable, for Trump to throw to his base. It is a herring, a perfect metaphor to enhance his immigrant problem and closet racism.

If a wall is ever built, a major bargaining chip will be lost to keep the Trump sheep at bay. It is an existential relationship. The, now almost mythical, promise of a wall is a grandstanding center-piece of Trump's maintaining himself as a sham of a president. And what would be the future of a wall? More evasive actions, border crossings, commerce? GPR (ground penetrating radar) is finite. With a maximum depth of 100', with variants hinging on the minerals involved, a wall finds new parameters. I time, over years of collective human intellect and resourcefulness, like in Berlin, Vietnam, or the intricate series of tunnels and mazes built at the back of speakeasys during prohibition, I can see many deep tunnels under the wall making the transport of ANYTHING into the U.S. becoming much easier. Future generations of Mexicans, Guatemalans, Colombians will be thanking Donald Trump, his bigotry, and his paranoia.

There is karma. Bush is said to have created networks for Al-quida, for ISIS by stirring the tempest Iraq. Could it be that Trump could be writing the future of the kids he's traumatizing, stirring up, ala Bush? Perhaps like the many Vietnam Veterans who took home lasting scars, turning them prone to violence, these kids will grow up—and the irony should be clear—angry and unloved, fearful and untrusting. They will fall into a gang, perhaps MS-13, who actually germinate mostly in America, on the east and west coasts.

A higher power

Drug trafficking into the U.S., according to the CBP (Customs and Border Protection), saw a sharp increase in apprehensions between 2012 and 2015. The number of traffickers arrested rose from 364,768 to almost half a million. The bulk of the drugs, massive amount of cocaine and tons of marijuana, are coming into the U.S. from the southern border. However, drugs like Ecstasy come from the North, small amounts of methamphetamine, and a dash of cocaine. Drugs enter on the western border. They're coming in on the East. Trump is surrounded and he is taking it out on families. He is a racist and anyone loyal to him, complicit to his demagoguery, is racist by proxy.

The real deal

Mexico does not produce cocaine. The drug cartels move Colombian grown cocaine through South America, Central America, on the way to North America. On the way, innocent bystanders are either collateral damage, they become mules, or trek to America seeking asylum, fleeing a fairly certain death. They flee torture, rape, gang violence, or the forcible rectal insertions of condoms full of cocaine. The cartels are larger than Trump, but no one will ever eclipse an ego that size. America has been at war with drugs since Nixon. It is an industry enmeshed, co-dependent of America, with the voracity of the sale of alcohol, tobacco, or firearms. Slowly, states are seeing through the haze, though the pot clouds that filled coffee houses during the Beat generation, and removing the criminal component from the equation. If administered in equal doses, ultimately eliminating demand for drugs in America, the cartels will dry up, or find other buyers. Maybe, if drugs were sold on the free market, subject to tax—or even tariff—one day, time would buoy Central America's economy and make coming to America less of an attraction.

A bed-ridden hacker is bound to cough

I woke up November 9, 2016 to see my visibly upset wife. I never shed a tear for Clinton's loss and its consequence. I was info...