This morning I read an article in this week's Fort Worth Weekly that totally disturbed me. The article is titled
Concrete Limbo.
Even though what you read in this article is disturbing, I think you should read it.
Not that it will do any good that you read it, or that any good will come from FW Weekly telling this story.
I remember a time long ago when I was young and naive and thought the world was fixable, that all one had to do was make the case that something was wrong and good-hearted, right-minded people would fix it.
And then I grew up.
I am currently reading "
The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder" by Vincent Bugliosi, he being the famous California prosecutor.
Richard Nixon had to cease being president due to way too much outrage over various things that were all wrapped together in this thing called the Watergate Scandal.
The Watergate Scandal.
Such innocents were we to turn such a thing into such a scandal. No one died due to the scandals that brought down Richard Nixon.
However, thousands of American kids are dead, due to Bush's War in Iraq. Thousands upon thousands of Iraqis are dead due to Bush's War in Iraq. Saddam Hussein could have been neutralized, was neutralized, without a war, had a wiser head been at the head of the American nation.
And yet, where were the Congressional Hearings into the Iraqgate Scandal? I am only part way into this Bugliosi indictment of that man who should never have been president and it's got me totally aggravated.
I get the idea that Vincent Bugliosi totally despises George W. Bush, and so far he is making a really good case for feeling that way.
Back to the article in FW Weekly. It is about the detention centers where those suspected of being illegally in this country are kept til their fate can be decided by a judge. These are called detention centers, but what they actually are is Concentration Camps.
To me it is just a bit shameful to have anything that smacks of a Concentration Camp in America.
Long ago I read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's
Gulag Archipelago and was appalled that such inhumanity on such a scale existed in the Soviet Union, and got worse after World War II. The Soviet citizens did not have that free speech thing us Americans have. Nor did they have mass communication available to help right a wrong.
Yet, even with America's free speech and mass communication, a lot of evil, government sanctioned, festers unfettered.
An entity called Detention Watch Network compiled a list of the 10 Worst Illegal Immigrant Concentration Camps in America. Two are in Texas.
How many of these Concentration Camps are there in America, if there are enough to have a Top Ten?
Way back in 1996, as part of a long roadtrip that started with houseboating on Lake Powell, and continued on to Taos, then Alamogordo, then Douglas, Arizona, with Douglas, Arizona being the reason I am bringing up this particular roadtrip.
Douglas is a bordertown. Across the border, in Mexico, is the much bigger town of Agua Prieta. By the time I got to Douglas, on that day's drive, I was tired and needed a motel. A 6 Motel filled that need. It was a very busy 6 Motel.
After checking in and finding my room I wandered around and saw there was a former motel next door, completely surrounded by high fence topped with concertina wire. It looked rather dire. I saw what looked like guard towers.
I went to the 6 Motel office to ask what that was next door. I was told it was a Detention Center where suspected illegals were held, and that a lot of the people staying in the 6 Motel were relatives trying to free their incarcerated relatives.
I found this all very disturbing.
But, not nearly as disturbing as the
Concrete Limbo article in FW Weekly.
Other than the horrific conditions in which these people in the American Concentration Camps are kept, the thing that bothers me most is the fact that these American Concentration Camps are operated by giant, for profit, private businesses.
Even Hitler did not do anything so galling as to contract out to private business his Concentration Camps. Nor did Stalin.
Those incarcerated in the American Concentration Camps are kept there while they await a hearing in front of a judge, regarding their status. A shortage of judges causes the long incarcerations, supposedly.
Would it not make more sense to hire a lot more people to do the judging, than pay to warehouse thousands of potential innocents in American Concentration Camps?
Of course, that method would not be profitable for the private businesses running the American Concentration Camps.
I'm not going to get into how much it annoys me how much our Mexican neighbors are demonized, by some, for crossing the border into the the land that used to be Mexico, before America used a 19th Century version of an American Anschluss to gain more Lebensraum. Methinks we could be, should be, a bit more accommodating of our Mexican neighbors, even when they visit their old home without an invite.
And we certainly should not throw our totally welcome, albeit, un-invited guests, into American Concentration Camps. That is just un-American, un-friendly and un-neighborly.
And very very very stupid.
