The Republicans announced earlier this year that it has no
agenda this year, save—according to a story in the Washington Post last February—focusing “on calming their divided
ranks in the months ahead, mostly by touting proposals that have wide backing
within the GOP and shelving any big-ticket legislation for the rest of the
year.” This is news? What has the U.S. Congress done since January 20, 2011
when the Republicans and the Tea Party took control of the House?
One thing they are real good at doing is not accepting blame for things they are at least in part responsible for. They would rather sit back and let the
President take all the blame for problems with Veterans Administration health care
services. Remember when George Bush was borrowing trillions of dollars to
fund his war in Iraq, he was also busy closing VA clinics and cutting funding for
the rest? And it's not like military hospitals have ever had a good reputation. Of course, all those veterans “outraged” that Obama was not “outraged”
enough at the outrageously poor quality of care at a Phoenix VA hospital—in a
state controlled by government-choking Republicans—conveniently “forgot” about
that.
And that was after so-called “leaders” of the House
Republicans (John Boehner, Eric Cantor and the rest of that lost boys bunch)
called on the President to “do something” and pass their legislative agenda. Nothing too big, of course: The Skills Act, supposedly meant to
“consolidate” federal job-training programs, but reading between the lines is
really just part of the Republicans’ meat cleaver approach to federal programs;
the Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act, meant to eliminate
environmental impact studies; and the Working Families Flexibility Act,
actually another sneak attack upon working families, allowing gullible people
to put their overtime pay into “flex” program to use when they get sick (that
is, instead of receiving sick pay)—and like flex health programs, if you don’t
use it, you lose it.
None of these bills had any chance of passing the
Senate, although in March the Gabrielle Miller Kids First Research Act managed
to get through the Senate, which would send eliminated public funding for
political conventions to the NIH for pediatric research. How nice of them to do
that. But one should never underestimate the cynicism of Republicans; everything
they have “approved” during the Obama administration has been nothing more than
partisan political posturing—and on the cheap.
The “do-nothing” reputation of Republicans in both the House
and the Senate is well-deserved. Why is anyone so “surprised” by this? Were we
not told from the mouth of the horse’s ass that their principle agenda was the
complete and total obstruction of the new administration? Didn’t the Tea Party
become “official” the day after Obama’s election in 2009? Congress’ reputation has been in the dumper
for years, and recent efforts to dispel the public’s perception have fooled
few—save those who have supported Republican efforts to cause government
dysfunction.
So what is a political party in the public opinion dumper to
do? To engage in such shameless public relations burlesque as taking advantage
of the latest “sex scandal,” the kidnapping of school girls by Muslim
insurgents in Nigeria. House Republicans, who want to take away access to
affordable health care for the poor in this country, act like giddy school
children given a day off from school when provided the opportunity to pass
something high in calories and low on protein. Republicans passed five bills
last week dealing with human and sex trafficking; naturally the Democrats—despite
recognizing the cynicism of the politics involved—couldn’t allow themselves to
be seen skipping this bus, so they were constrained to join the charade.
I’ve talked about this issue before, and how a very small
number can become a very large number once gender victim advocates—and
hypocritical right-wingers—get a hold of it. The 300,000 children “at risk” for
sex trafficking in the U.S. that the legislation refers to is a completely
bogus number. This is simply the estimated number of runaways under the age of
18; researchers who have actually hit the streets looking for these child sex
slaves have found only enough to make estimates in the “hundreds” nationally—and
few were actually “slaves,” with less than 10 percent working for a “pimp.” The
new laws would also create whole new categories of criminality based on new
definitions and reinterpretations, needlessly filling already overflowing
prison populations.
“Trafficking” of adult women is also problematic. The
reality is that most women who engage in the sex trade do it out of their own
free will. Naturally they don’t want to admit this to family and friends back
home, and it shouldn’t be surprising that they would feel somewhat uncomfortable
admitting to judgmental “victim” advocates that they are engaged in the world’s
oldest profession out of anything other than that they were “forced” to. And
this despite the fact that women—and white women specifically—have lower
unemployment rates than their male counterparts, and have a plethora of
community and government services to help them when in “need.”
The less “controversial” subject
of simple human trafficking is also subject to “interpretation.” Most people
who are “trafficked” in this country are not kidnapped slaves but people who
are trying to get from one country to another illegally, and are fully aware of
the circumstances. The numbers would naturally be inflated if undocumented
workers from Latin America are counted, but such terminology would suggest too
much sympathy for the impoverished plight of many of these people.
“Trafficking” more often would apply to Chinese and South East Asians trying to
sneak in onboard merchant ships—often dropped off in Canadian ports first.
And there are cases such as the
one that appeared in a local weekly a few years ago, about a teenage Muslim
girl who was an illegal entrant into the country, apparently in an effort by
her parents to shield her from the violence in her home country. Her uncle was
expected to keep her out of trouble in this country, and he was perhaps
“overzealous” in doing so, making her help out in his coffee shop without pay,
and “grounding” her when she stayed out too late with friends. The girl
complained about this to her American friends, and eventually the uncle was
charged and found guilty of “human trafficking” for the purpose of “slavery.”
At least this was the “politically-correct” way of interpreting the situation;
the uncle no doubt saw his responsibilities to the girl’s safety and well-being
in an entirely different light.
I am not going to sit here and say
that sex and human trafficking isn’t happening; it is, and there is real
victimization occurring. But it is cheapened when exploited and enlarged for cynical
political purposes, by both the Republicans and the media.
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