Wingnuts’ gross war on children: Screaming and spitting at endangered kids

[DonViejo]

This is what it's come to: As children flee horrifying violence in their home countries, the right assaults them

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

It has to come as a shock to decent people everywhere to see the vitriol and rage written on the faces of anti-immigrant protesters toward the recent wave of unaccompanied Central American children seeking asylum at the United States’ southern border with Mexico. One can perhaps understand on some level the angst of American workers who feel their standard of living is being challenged by low wage labor (although truthfully, low wage migrants are the least of their worries.) And despite the narrow-minded nativism that fuels so much of this anxiety, a tough economy and scarcer resources always tends to reinvigorate ancient tribal conflicts.

But this is something else.

These are kids whose desperate parents are sending them away on their own to escape horrifying violence in their home countries. According to the New York Times these countries have been overrun with gang warfare, with kids as young as 6 and 7 being kidnapped and tortured to death.

And what is the response of the right wing? The protests in Murrieta, California over the past week show scores of Americans screaming and spitting at busloads of kids and mothers with infants calling them diseased and worse. Major right wing groups and media organizations are demagogueing the humanitarian crisis as an invasion of dependent leeches coordinated with the Democratic Party to bolster its voter rolls. (If only the Democrats were that far thinking…) And not to put too fine point on it, they are now calling for the president to rescind his executive order halting deportation of kids who would qualify for the DREAM act. Those are people who’ve spent their lives in this country and are as American as any of us who hold the passport. Talk about collective punishment.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/11/wingnuts%E2%80%99_gross_war_on_children_screaming_and_spitting_at_endangered_kids/

[pleinair]

1. It IS a shock to decent people everywhere

and an embarrassment to all Americans how these children are being mistreated by our own citizens

[librechik]

2. Digby! She's the best! n/t