Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Imagine It Was a Conversation...

Imagine it was a conversation
instead of a policy

You meet this nice young gentleman
with the glorious copper skin
and liquid black hair and eyes

and you notice the perfect little
circle on his forearm
and ask about it,
is that a birthmark?

No
he says
it's a scar.

what from?
you ask

one of the bullets that tore through my body
ten years ago

Oh my.
you say

My city where I live
is not safe
I would like to move to your city
he says

But, surely you don't want to leave your home?

No, surely, I do not.
But
my city,
it is not safe
Do you think I could move to your city?

Maybe that was just an isolated event
you offer hopefully
and with no basis

No, that scar is from the first time I was shot
I have others,
here

he points to his chest

and here

he points to his lower back

These men, they are part of a gang
they promised to shoot me again
and so, I would like to move to your city
Is it safe there?

Yes,
you say
pretty much

But why don't you get the police
to arrest these men who shot you?
you ask hopefully
and not knowing about his police

No
he shakes his head, sadly
The police are owned by these shooters
My city
he explains again
is not safe.
Could I move to your city?

Do you have other family there?
you ask

I used to have a mother and father
two cities away from me

Maybe you could move there
and live with them?
You offer hopefully
and without knowing about his parents

No
he shakes his head sadly
the cartel,
they killed my parents

My nation
he explains
is not a safe nation
Do you think I could move to yours?

Imagine this
was a conversation
and not a policy supported by your particular friends
and party

Would you tell this man
Yes, of course, you should move here!
I'm so sorry for the state of your nation and
the pain and
losses you've endured!

Or would you say
No, you can't move here?

and if you'd say
No
What if you were on the
other side
of that conversation?

7 comments:

Dan Trabue said...

Marshall, it's poetry.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poetry

If you want to contribute something, you can begin by answering the final question:

IF YOU were the one needing to escape your nation, would you hope that another nation would let you in, be welcoming, offer you refuge?

The answer - unless you've got a death wish - should be Yes, but you tell me.

Marshal Art said...

Well of course I'd hope that. It doesn't justify YOUR position on the issue, and my hope doesn't mean I'd be sneaking in, lying or doing anything illegal in order further "hope" I won't get caught and can get away with it.

The problem is that you want to believe that my position, and that of our nation and president, is that we're set against letting in those who are truly fleeing danger. It's absurd and an out and out lie, simply because you hate those who disagree with you on this issue. The president, and our government, is SUPPOSED to consider the American people first and foremost. It is their job and obligation. Try to use your head, rather than your corrupt heart.

Feodor said...

Marshal, you itch your own ears with shit logic and an absence of facts and reason. "The president, and our government, is SUPPOSED to consider the American people first."

Your position kills farms of all kinds, drives up prices on all kinds of things, and takes away revenue from the American people.

- A study commissioned by the dairy industry suggested that if federal labor and immigration policies reduced the number of foreign-born workers by 50 percent, more than 3,500 dairy farms would close, leading to a big drop in milk production and a spike in prices of about 30 percent. Total elimination of immigrant labor would increase milk prices by 90 percent.

- In North Carolina in 2011, 489,000 people were unemployed statewide. The North Carolina Growers Association listed 6,500 available jobs. Just 268 of those 489,000 North Carolinians applied, and 245 were hired. On the first day of work, 163 showed up, and a grand total of seven finished the season. Of the mostly Mexican workers who took the rest of the jobs, 90 percent made it through to the end.

- Undocumented immigrants’ ​labor is worth more than $180 billion a year ​to California's economy — about equal to the 2015 gross domestic product for the entire state of Oklahoma. Labor from undocumented immigrants is fundamental not just to agriculture, but to child care, restaurants, hotels and construction. This is a workforce, a supply of labor from our undocumented workforce, that actually does provide just the basic foundations of these sectors and industries of being able to succeed and thrive. Undocumented immigrants make up an estimated 10 percent of California's workforce, and the work they do is often at the bottom rung of the wage scale.

- Immigrants contribute more in tax revenue than they take in government benefits. Undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.6 billion a year in taxes.

Feodor said...

“Feds seize more than 16 tons of cocaine at Philadelphia terminal”

But sick-in-the-head Marshal wants a Wall!

Feodor said...

“A Justice Department attorney this week argued in court that the federal government should not be required to provide soap, toothbrushes or even beds to detained children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border. Government lawyer Sarah Fabian argued Tuesday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that forcing children to sleep on cold concrete floors in cells is both “safe and sanitary.” 

Republican morals: deprivation for children once they’re born.

Feodor said...

Responging to Craig's latest half-slanted words on abortion and his diversion to the UK and away from the US letting children die in cages.

While there is no full "body autonomy" of person with the mental age of 8 equal to a mature adult woman (don't know if you're aware of the difference, though, Craig, teh way you treat women in your writings) - neither is there a basis for the judge to reach the decision she has. If she is not in distress and the family seem ready and willing and able to help her through this and care for the child, then all the judge has decided on are only hypothetical alternative facts.

But let's stop you from diverting from your own abandonment of humanity in our own society.

Let's get a solid moral condemnation from you for our nations' currently criminal policy of caging children while they die and fall ill by the hundreds:

- Six migrant children have died in government custody, or soon after being released, since September of 2018. That's according to reports released by the Trump administration, including news of a previously unreported death that surfaced on Wednesday. Now, advocates and politicians have raised the alarm that there could be more deaths the public does not know about. This week began with the announcement that another minor had died in government custody: Carlos Hernandez Vásquez, a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy, was found dead in a Customs and Border Patrol detention facility in Texas.
The last time Juan de León Gutierrez, the 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant who died in government custody at the end of April, talked to his mother on the phone, he told her that he hoped God would send their family corn, salt, or beans. Climate change-fueled drought in the Guatemalan highlands had forced the teenager's family to eat just one meal a day, and, at the beginning of April, de León Gutierrez began the journey north alone.

- Immigration attorneys said four toddlers, all under the age of 3, were hospitalized last week after spending time at a U.S. Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas. Toby Gialluca, a Florida-based attorney, told HuffPost on Friday that the children, who have teenage parents or guardians, were feverish, coughing, vomiting and had diarrhea.

- In a report out Friday, the Homeland Security inspector general has found “dangerous overcrowding” and unsanitary conditions at a Customs and Border Protection facility in El Paso, Texas, where 900 or more migrants were being housed in a center designed to hold 125. “Border Patrol agents told us some of the detainees had been held in standing-room-only conditions for days or weeks,” the office of inspector general wrote.

- A group of 250 infants, children and teens has reportedly spent 27 days without adequate food, water and sanitation at a U.S. Border Patrol facility near El Paso, according to the Associated Press. Several attorneys who visited the station said they found at least 15 children sick with the flu, some of whom were being kept in medical quarantine. They described seeing a sick and diaper-less 2-year-old boy whose “shirt was smeared in mucus.” Three girls, from the ages of 10 to 15, were taking turns watching him. The allegedly dangerous and unsanitary conditions reported from inside the El Paso-area shelter are just some of the many accusations that have surfaced from detention facilities in recent months. In June, the Office of Inspector General released a report detailing concerns about detainee treatment at four Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities across the country. Inspectors found nooses in cells, expired food and inadequate medical care in California, New Jersey, Louisiana and Colorado.

Don't bother posting, I'll send this around and we'll all watch to see what balance of justice you have the capacity to acknowledge. Shame on the UK judge. And on our country's dealing with thousands of migrant children, none of whom have a mental age higher than their own age?

Feodor said...

The Justice Department lawyer who last week argued in court that the federal government should not be required to provide soap, toothbrushes or even beds... is this lawyer, Sarah Fabian:

2018 - “The fate of hundreds of children ripped from their migrant parents was still up in the air Friday, but a Trump administration lawyer working on the case has a side gig to attend to — dog-sitting.

At a hearing in San Diego Federal Court Friday, the Trump administration asked Judge Dana Sabraw to extend deadlines he set last month for officials to reunify the hundreds of migrant families separated because of its zero tolerance policy. The first deadline is July 10.”