The Business Insider is
reporting an excerpt from a book by NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff on
the Trump administration’s continuing family separation policy, keeping
children locked-up in cages in unhealthy conditions within the DHS
concentration camps. In the excerpt, Soboroff asks a then DHS official her
thoughts on the subject: "My family and colleagues told me that when I
have kids I'll think about the separations differently. But I don't think so
... DHS sent me to the border to see the separations for myself — to try to
make me more compassionate — but it didn't work." Stupefied, Soboroff
responded "It didn't work? I will never forget what I saw. Seriously. Are
you a white nationalist?” The official’s response? "No, but I believe if
you come to America you should assimilate. Why do we need to have 'Little
Havana'?"
This kind of racist stereotyping
comes from the same person who justified the use of tear gas, pepper spray and
smoke grenades at migrants (many of them children) during one incident by
citing the unconfirmed claim by border agents that some were throwing rocks at
them in this way: “Once again we have had a violent mob of migrants attempt to
enter the United States illegally by attacking our agents with projectiles. As
has happened before—in this and previous administrations—our personnel used the
minimum force necessary to defend themselves, defend our border, and restore
order." Note that, in light of what I talked about in my previous post,
there seems to be no “compassion” or “empathy” in evidence for people who wish
to escape the violence in much of Mexico and Central America that the
uncontrollable American gluttony for illegal drugs has fostered.
This was Katie Waldman, who at
the time was the spokesperson for DHS before becoming Mike Pence’s press
secretary and contracting the COVID-19 because she is just another
“freedom-loving” hardhead who refuses to wear a facemask—and before becoming
Mrs. Stephen Miller, no “pun” intended. Let’s not forget who Stephen Miller is;
he is the white nationalist an administration aide claimed in Vanity Fair was
someone who “enjoys seeing those pictures at the border. He’s a twisted guy. He’s
Waffen-SS.” He is more than very likely the person who put that "shit-hole countries" idea into Trump's head, and he is the man that Cliff Sims, a former aide to former Chief of Staff John Kelly,
claims told him, “I would be happy if not a single refugee foot
ever again touched America’s soil”—and Miller has been doing his level best to
insure that never happens during his time in the White House.
This is also the Katie Waldman
who was a student government “senator” at the University of Florida, representing
a “conservative” student group called the “Unite Party,” which is of course what
a white nationalist party would call itself when they want to ignore racial
issues, because white racists just want you to shut up and leave them
alone about how their bigotry effects your life; you know, it's the let's-all-just-be-one-big-"happy"-family, just as long as you know who the "boss" is. The now “Mrs. Miller”—that was
the name of Julie Christie’s whorehouse madam in the Robert Altman film from
the early Seventies—was not just infamous during her college career as a purveyor
of bigoted far-right student radicalism, but seems to have had a reputation for
the kind of election-gaming we’ve come to expect from the Republican Party.
It was in 2012 when Mrs. Miller
was implicated in a scheme to deny the freedom of speech rights of not just the
coach of the football team, Will Muschamp, but that of student voters’ right to
hear him. The student newspaper, The Alligator, published Muschamp’s
endorsement of a player on the team, Jesse Schmidt, as student government vice president;
Schmidt’s Students Party was the principle opposition to the Unite Party.
However, many students were unaware of the endorsement, because nearly 300
copies of the newspaper in which it was published mysteriously wound-up in trash
bins. After first denying it, the former student president and member of the
Unite Party, Jason Tiemeier, admitted in a guest op-ed that yes, he was the one
witnesses saw gathering up the newspapers and trashing them.
But the witnesses also reported
the presence of another Unite Party member: then Katie Waldman, now Mrs. Miller. Although
she denied it, the witnesses claimed that they also saw Mrs. Miller gathering
up and discarding newspapers. Student leader Max Stein called for Mrs. Miller
to resign from her student government position, calling her unfit morally and
ethically, and a liar to boot. Tiemeier admitted his guilt and apologized; Mrs.
Miller read from a clearly scripted statement admitting that she was present
but “citizens” have no responsibility in stopping criminal activity, which sent
many students howling with indignation at this mendacity—especially when the
Unite Party actually “promoted” her rather than punishing her.
Another student, Justin Hayes,
wrote an op-ed in The Alligator which was curiously prescient of the kind of “governance”
we are seeing in the Trump administration these days:
Of course, these recent events
only scratch the surface of the Swamp/Unite Party’s corruption. In one story
last year, a sorority member “described a social environment that catered to
the Unite Party by coercing members to vote and pass out fliers for Unite to
get privileges and that generally perpetuated a silent mandate to support the
party or be subtly ostracized, even reprimanded. Don’t let the name change and
the flashy new shirts fool you; the Swamp Party is the same party of
corruption, favoritism, backroom deals, dirty politics and intimidation that
has been at UF for a long time. Whether they call themselves Unite or Swamp,
just remember that they will continue to behave this way until they are held to
some level of accountability.
Yes indeed. We know what needs to
happen on November 3.
No comments:
Post a Comment