Hillary Clinton: 'What is more uncivil than taking children away?'

[niyad]

Hillary Clinton: 'What is more uncivil than taking children away?'

She has made peace with losing the election – but not with Donald Trump. Now she is fighting to undo the damage of the president’s child-separation policy – and has no time for debates over civility

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Hillary Clinton … ‘I hoped I wouldn’t see the worst of my fears come true.’ Photograph: Harry Borden for the Guardian

When Hillary Clinton made her first public appearance after losing the 2016 election, it was her admission that she had felt like “never leaving the house again” that made headlines. Twenty months later, other details of the speech seem much more significant. That Clinton had left her house to address the Children’s Defense Fund, a child advocacy organisation, said a lot about where the defeated candidate saw her future. Her warning about “the little girl I met in Nevada who started to cry when she told me how scared she was that her parents would be taken away from her and be deported”, told us more about her country’s future than we knew. But when I quote her words back to her, it’s not the accuracy of her prescience that makes her shudder, but its inadequacy.

. . . .

Clinton has no doubt that Trump deployed the policy for the strategic purpose of making his wall look like a more palatable option. “He is playing to his base – and his base was attracted to him for a number of reasons, one of which was his anti-immigrant rhetoric. And that was exemplified by the wall. So the wall became more of a symbol than a real plan. He has now decided that he has to do whatever he can to get the wall, to satisfy the base. And I think,” she adds, “he has gone so far in that direction that he does things which are truly unimaginably cruel and unrelated to the outcome.” What does she mean by that? “I mean, you do not have to take children away from their parents to negotiate to get what you want on the wall. There are enough different strands in the immigration debate that he could give a little somewhere and try to get [something] in return, like you do in a democracy, in a political legislative process. But he has chosen instead to be very oppositional to anyone who criticises him, to be very intimidating to everyone in his own party by threatening to unleash his base against them. And so he has adopted these all-or-nothing positions.”

Trump called it off, Clinton believes, only because “even for him, the optics were terrible”, but she says that his executive order ending the policy has not even begun to solve the problem. “The question of how we reunite the children who were taken from the parents is the one that’s keeping me up at night.” Does she worry some may never be reunited? She looks stricken. “Yes, I do. Absolutely I worry about that. I’m worried that some children will not be reunited.”

Clinton’s expression grows increasingly bleak as she catalogues the bureaucratic chaos. For a start, many of the children are nonverbal; others don’t speak Spanish, but obscure Mayan languages. And all are confused and traumatised. Having been “funnelled through a whole panoply” of Homeland Security agencies notorious for “very poor record keeping and incompetence”, many of which are privately run, some babies have been transported all the way from the border to Detroit and New York. Others have gone to foster care families; some parents have already been deported without their children. “You just could not even imagine a worse child-welfare tragedy.”


. . . .
(oh,yeah, real dangerous job--big guns, little boy. FUCK anybody who defends this shit!!)
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A boy and his father from Honduras are taken into custody by US border agents near the US-Mexico Border on 12 June.
. . .

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/29/hillary-clinton-on-trumps-child-detention-policy-it-keeps-me-up-at-night

[JHan]

1. literally the only sane response to the civility arguments.

finally.

thank you Hillary.

"“Oh, give me a break,” she erupts, eyes widening into indignation. “Give me a break! What is more uncivil and cruel than taking children away? It should be met with resolve and strength. And if some of that comes across as a little uncivil, well, children’s lives are at stake; their futures are at stake. That is that ridiculous concept of bothsideism.” She adopts a mockingly prim voice. “‘Well, you know, somebody made an insulting, profane remark about President Trump, and he separated 2,300 children from their families, that’s both sides, and we should stop being uncivil – oh and, by the way, he should stop separating children.’ Give me a break, really,” she growls, rolling her eyes. “I mean, this is a crisis of his making that will damage kids for no good reason at all, and I think everybody should be focused on that until the children are reunited.”"

FUCK YES!

[riversedge]

2. " others don't speak Spanish, but obscure Mayan languages.".....

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/29/hillary-clinton-on-trumps-child-detention-policy-it-keeps-me-up-at-night#img-2



Clinton’s expression grows increasingly bleak as she catalogues the bureaucratic chaos. For a start, many of the children are nonverbal; others don’t speak Spanish, but obscure Mayan languages. And all are confused and traumatised. Having been “funnelled through a whole panoply” of Homeland Security agencies notorious for “very poor record keeping and incompetence”, many of which are privately run, some babies have been transported all the way from the border to Detroit and New York. Others have gone to foster care families; some parents have already been deported without their children. “You just could not even imagine a worse child-welfare tragedy.”
A boy and his father from Honduras are taken into custody by US border agents near the US-Mexico Border on 12 June.
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A boy and his father from Honduras are taken into custody by US border agents near the US-Mexico Border on 12 June. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images
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She tells me she has raised $1.5m in the days before we meet, to “flood the border with lawyers, interpreters, experienced social workers, psychologists. We just have to get as much expertise down there to force the federal government to give us everything.” It’s the kind of resource-focused, pragmatic response we would expect from someone with a reputation for technocratic efficiency, so I’m a bit taken aback to see tears fill her eyes. When the MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow broke down and wept on air while reporting plans to build “tender age” detention facilities for infants, “didn’t that make you cry?” Clinton challenges me. “Well, I felt exactly the same way.” Dabbing her eyes, she lets rip.

“I mean, you just … who thinks like that? Who does these things? How can anybody look in the mirror? How can they actually live with themselves? If you heard about it in some third-world banana republic, you’d say: ‘That’s horrible! Stop it! Who would do that?’ Now it’s happening in our country, and it’s just so distressing. I think a lot of us keep waiting for the bottom – and it just seems to be bottomless.”

Throughout the presidential campaign, Clinton was criticised for exercising a degree of emotional self-control that looked cold and inauthentic, while Trump’s volatility was taken as evidence that he meant what he said and really cared. Lately, however, Democrats have been provoked to condemn the president with a passion some on the left warn is becoming “uncivil”. I’m curious to know what Clinton thinks of this.

This administration should be working 24/7 to reunite those kids. And if they aren’t, yes, there should be consequences

“Oh, give me a break,” she erupts, eyes widening into indignation. “Give me a break! What is more uncivil and cruel than taking children away? It should be met with resolve and strength. And if some of that comes across as a little uncivil, well, children’s lives are at stake; their futures are at stake. That is that ridiculous concept of bothsideism.” She adopts a mockingly prim voice. “‘Well, you know, somebody made an insulting, profane remark about President Trump, and he separated 2,300 children from their families, that’s both sides, and we should stop being uncivil – oh and, by the way, he should stop separating children.’ Give me a break, really,” she growls, rolling her eyes. “I mean, this is a crisis of his making that will damage kids for no good reason at all, and I think everybody should be focused on that until the children are reunited.”...................................

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/29/hillary-clinton-on-trumps-child-detention-policy-it-keeps-me-up-at-night

[niyad]

3. this just gets more and more horrifying.

[spicysista]

4. The People's President Speaks!

A pitch perfect assessment of the nightmare on loop that has become our immigration policy. This is visceral. If you aren't hurting for those families, you aren't human.
I'm so glad to hear from Hillary. I hope she speaks out as often as she feels. Thanks for posting this and the link, Niyad!

[niyad]

5. she is indeed the Peole's President, and you are most welcome.

I am so glad that she remains active and vocal, despite the demands that she shut up and go away!!