In a Friday Tweet angrily condemning the “Obstructionist Democrats,” President Trump has threatened to fully close the US-Mexico border.
He says this will happen unless Congress changes immigration laws to
suit his tastes, and agrees to fully fund his border wall.
Democrat strategist Jesse Ferguson said that Trump had “taken taxpayers
hostage” by shutting down the government, and that this latest threat
amounted to “upping the ransom demand.”
The US government is in a state of partial shutdown for now over demands
by Trump to fund the wall. Congress has no votes scheduled, and isn’t
even intended to meet until late next week.
Trump’s comments were vague, as it’s unclear how the border closure to
legal traffic would do anything to impact illegal crossings, and
similarly unclear how Trump proposes to seal the border without a wall.
Mmmmm, if spanky thinks he can shut the border, why, exactly, does he even need a wall ?
What will the drug cartels and coyotes tunnel under if we don’t have a wall ?
It’s a special wall that no one can go under, over or thru.
Including US citizens trying to flee the country after being deemed terrorists for demanding basic human rights and freedom from corporate fascism.
…But it only exists if you truly BELIEVE!
He saw it on the TeeVee
Good point. I wonder how all the guns sent to Mexico could get through a “closed border.”
They should have more than enough by now…
Gotta admit, that’s a good point.
Of course, officially sealing the border only impacts legal traffic that cares about official niceties.
How does this make it to antiwar.com?
The border issue is a product of the empire’s violence and economic stranglehold upon the rest of the world.
When we expect people to stand under our bombs and starve their children while our elites try to make their elites submit, smarter folks try to find safety and sustenance.
Or more specifically, the US role in supporting drug cartels running central America nations.
The lack of context is a bit glaring. The U.S. has long made many Latin American countries unlivable for ordinary people with overt and shadow warring.
Enough with the anti-Trumping and more with the anti-warring.
Perhaps Trump can be persuaded to butt out of Latin America.
Because mass immigration is war at a slow pace.
Oh my God, you’re right! When we recently needed a new roof put on our house, and those Mexicans were up there for 3 days working their asses off, they were planning how to kill us in our sleep, or take over our town! Silly me, I thought we just had a beautiful new roof!
In your fevered imagination, perhaps. In the real world, people moving around to make better lives for themselves is only war at any pace if you decide that you should get to run everyone else’s life and act violently to try to do so.
“[Trump said] ‘we’re going to build a wall with cement, and Mexico’s going to pay for it’ while he’s already backed off of the cement,” Pelosi said. “Now
he’s down to, I think, a beaded curtain or something, I’m not sure where
he is.””
That’s exactly right Pelosi, the way you respond to a wacko making wild demands is to mock him. The democrats are wisely not even paying attention to the latest nuances of Trump’s tantrum… he’ll shout himself out eventually.
all hat and no cattle!
he’s the biggest hot air balloon that has ever sat in the Oval Office
Maybe we could run tape along the boarder and call it a wall. Similar to Les Nessmen’s walls for his office in the “WKRP in Cincinnati” sitcom that aired in the ’70’s and ’80’s.
I remember a country neighbor, who upon learning his home Insurance would be cheaper with a fence, built a 10″ to scale fence around his acre…painted it too.
Ladies and gentleman, the Ozymandias Doctrine. Pull (some of) the troops and build a wall around the ruins.
Could be worse.
if the US would stop supporting coups (Honduras etc) and right wing governments in Latin America, and/or if the people in Latin America would rise up and throw off this neo-liberal economic model which has impoverished hundreds of millions in the continent, well, that would be a good start in stemming the tide of refugees in this hemisphere
just like if we could end all the endless wars that America (and NATO etc) has started since 2001 in the middle East and that northern Africa area, the refugees to Europe and beyond would nearly stop, and people could start returning home, as they are slowly but surely doing in Syria
Diversity + Proximity = War.
If you want to end war, you need to end diversity.
Trump’s wall is not necessarily a bad idea. The late-stage Roman Empire bought itself time with its ‘limes’ system of fortified border crossings, the most famous being Hadrian’s wall.
The Roman walls for the most part worked, allowing that the Romans had no well-developed concept of civilian policing and used their regular legions. Modern archaeology has figured out the Roman limes weren’t military barriers so much as policing barriers. They controlling the flow of people and goods through defined points of entry so as to better control (and profit) off them.
https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=wH937WBhYGs
Roman infighting brought down the Roman Empire; the invaders simply took advantage of the weaknesses presented by intense internal divisions within the Roman state. The pattern is disturbingly reflected in the U.S. and some Western countries today, complete with factions of rioting plebes.