Monday, January 07, 2019

Out of Many, One...

Here in London, the news is dominated far more by the issues surrounding the UK’s imminent crashing out of the European Union;  so the constant tornado of chaos that is the Trump Administration  can seem light years away. Yet Donald Trump’s ridiculous stunt of holding the entire US Federal government hostage for 5 billion dollars has not escaped notice even on this side of the world.

The media here (even the Rupert Murdoch owned media) has pointedly mentioned that the rationales for his “Wall”, trotted out by both Donald Trump and his various mouthpieces are in fact, total bunk. The vast majority (more than two-thirds) of undocumented foreign nationals in the United States didn’t sneak across the Southern border in the dead of night. They landed at an Airport entered the country legally on a tourist or student visa and then just stayed. 

Likewise, the claim a wall is needed to keep drugs and terrorists out is just as much a load of bull-puckey. So much so, that even FOX News’s Chris Wallace wasn’t willing to let White House Spokesperson Sara Sanders get away with it.



The whole issue of the wall is nothing more than a racist dog whistle to Donald Trump’s base supporters. And those who are cheering the idea of that wall are people who respond to racist whistles. People who have fallen for the con-job that somehow America’s multiculturalism, our diversity is responsible for the problems in their lives. 

They have bought into the ridiculous lie that arresting people trying to come here and who are picking lettuce, or making hotel beds in California, Arizona and Texas; THAT is going to make life better in Hancock County Tennessee, Dubuque, Iowa or La Crosse, Wisconsin. 

Let’s get a few facts out into the open, shall we? There is no wall, there never was going to be a wall, and there never will be a wall. A wall on the US southern border is a physical and geographical impossibility. Which is why you have started to hear Trump shift to using the phrase “border security”. 

The key thing Trump doesn’t want you to know is, when you hear him say we need five billion dollars for “border security”, what he is talking about is a massive giveaway of billions of dollars in taxpayer money to the private prison industry. Who are major donors to the Republican Party generally, and the Trump campaign specifically.


 Apparently, there is a lot of money to be made kidnapping children and locking them up. 

I have always held firm to the belief that America’s greatness comes from our incredible diversity. E Pluribus Unum - Out of many, one. It is the story or our Nation. A new nationality as Ben Franklin called it. Like nothing that had been seen before in the history of man.  But it is also the story of my family as well.    In 1987 I was studying in Germany, and my Sister went to study in Hong Kong. 

My mother likes to tell the story of the reaction of one of her friends who upon hearing what we were doing exclaimed; “Have you just given your children to the world!?”  

Indeed, in many ways she had. In more ways than either she, or my Dad could have ever imagined. Now more than thirty years later, Those lessons in the value of other cultures, traditions and peoples shaped not only our paths life, but that of the next generation as well.  As  I sit in London writing this I am in the middle of  packing for a trip next week to India. Where I will  attend my niece’s wedding. My brilliant, beautiful niece. Oldest child of my Sister and her husband, my French Brother-in-law.   She is marring an amazing young Indian man , who grew up in Singapore

Add to this mix her younger Sister, with her Indian-American boyfriend, her younger Brother with his Mexican-American girlfriend, and her Iranian-American best friend with her Latino boyfriend and you have the most American family wedding portrait you could ever imagine. 

E Pluribus Unum - Out of many cultures, languages, religions and parts of the world, we are creating one great global family. One that breaks down walls, builds bridges across the world, and is more truly American than anything. 

Something that Donald Trump, even being a Grandson of Germans Immigrants, who married a Slovenian, will never understand.