June 25th 2018
With Trump on the ropes because of the vast backlash to his policy of throwing thousands of children into cages, stripping them of their families, and lying in fifteen directions at once over what he was doing and why he was doing it, his pet propagandists are out in force right now.
Most of them remind me of nothing so much as the German propaganda film from the late thirties which infamously portrayed children in a German camp as plump, happy, clean, well fed, gamboling in the summer sun while their German caretakers looked on, beaming avuncularly.
Trump’s lackeys and sycophants are emulating fearless leader, lying in all directions at once and trying to pretend that Uncle Donald just sent the little darlings off to a jolly holiday camp where they can get food and water and even use the toilet.
Some of the claims are outlandish. Some are just vile. From the Guardian comments section, I culled a few. They aren’t representative of the commentary in the Guardian, which overwhelmingly condemns the forced separations and internments of children:
“10,000 of the 12,000 children were trafficked in unaccompanied. They really need to stop illegal immigration in the first place”
Well, it they were unaccompanied, then who trafficked them? Oh, and I thought is was 3,300 children. Is there something you want to tell us?
“It happens all the time in the justice system in both the UK and US.”
England stopped such barbaric practices in the 19th century, and I don’t know if the United States ever did have children imprisoned because their parents were accused of minor crimes. Until now.
“Many of the children will stay with family members and have visiting rights to their parent. There is no risk of them becoming permanently separated.”
By all reliable accounts (this excludes the administration, obviously) the border agents aren’t even filling out paperwork to indicate what children are being separated from what parents. Now most kids over the age of six know their parents as other than “Mommy” and “Daddy” and may even have a telephone number or address memorized. So maybe they will see their parents again. The ‘tender age’ crowd (a term that sounds unpleasantly like cat food) are plumb shit out of luck. Especially the pre-vocal lot.
There was more, and of course, since the Guardian has standards, the really racist and defamatory stuff was moderated. If you really want to see examples, there’s no shortage of them on Faux News, or at Breitbart. Trump has really unleashed America’s inner Nazi.
And Nazi is exactly the right term to use in this case. The rhetoric about refugees or simple border-jumpers is on the same level that Hitler used to defame Jews and other “undesirables” back in the 1930s, and the siege of calumny and dehumanization of entire groups of people can lead only to the same horrific climax—there are no good intentions surrounding this sort of propaganda.
While the posters on the Guardian and other blogs have little to fear other than the dread that their children and grandchildren might learn their true role in these times, the sleek propagandists of Faux and other media outlets should consider what became of their fellow “dysreality advocates” over the past century:
Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf. “Baghdad Bob.” Exiled to United Arab Emirates
Mildred Gillars. “Axis Sally.” Gillars was fined $100,000 and sentenced to 30 years in prison (served 15)
William Joyce. “Lord Haw Haw.” Hanged by the Brits.
Ritta Zucca. Propagandist for Mussolini. Exiled from America, sentenced to four years by an Italian court.
Iva Toguri. “Tokyo Rose.” Tried for treason, sentenced to 10 years, served eight. Pardoned by Ford when it came to light much of the evidence against her was fabricated.
Anna Wallis. “Seoul City Sue.” Propagandist for North Korea during war. Assassinated, South Korea blamed.
Trinh Thi Ngo. Hanoi Hannah Not punished. Her side won.
It’s worth noting that with the exception of Muhammad and Trinh, all these paid liars were Americans. Contrary to American propaganda, Americans don’t hate propaganda.
Jews don’t drink the blood of Christian babies, and refugees and migrant workers don’t want to sell drugs to school kids, rape our women, or offer to take jobs by working for $3/hour. They aren’t gang members (aside from a tiny number attracted by America’s penchant for criminalizing personal behavior).
The number of refugees and other migrants is trivial; as a percentage of the American population, they are the smallest ratio since records began in the 1910s. That’s both documented and undocumented combined.
Crime rates are lower amongst aliens of all kinds than amongst native born Americans. This is particularly true of violent crime.
They don’t take jobs from hard-working Americans: they earn jobs from lazy bastards who want others to do the work. American agriculture has seen over a billion dollars in crops losses this year alone, and the main harvest season is just now approaching for many crops.
They aren’t a drain on the economy: a 2017 report commissioned by the DHS and hurriedly buried by the Administration showed that America enjoyed a net gain of $63 billion over the previous ten years from their migrant population. Migrants pay payroll taxes, pay property taxes, pay sales taxes, and in return cannot collect social security, cannot get medical care other than emergency, and in some states cannot drive on the roads they help pay for. The ones taking the good jobs are here legally, and have as much right to those jobs as anyone else.
It’s easy to vilify groups of people and make them scapegoats. Demagogues and would-be dictators have used that gambit since time immemorial, and Donald Trump is using it now.
But there’s always a horrible price to be paid, and it isn’t always paid by the intended victims. Hitler’s policies led to the destruction and disgracing of Germany.
Speaking of disgracing, there are loud howls and whines about Trump administration members being harassed and even denied service in restaurants. Apparently, it’s so very, very unfair to treat a Nazi like a Nazi when they are off the clock.
These “victims” are locking children up in cages, lying about what they are doing, and smearing the parents as they do so.
If they want to stop being treated as contemptible, vicious, demagogic lackeys to a tin horn dictator, there is a simple solution: Stop being contemptible, vicious, demagogic lackeys to a tin horn dictator. Scrape up some principles, stand on them, and resign.
And Americans need to consume some history before history consumes them.
