US Government puts children in cages.

Sean O'Torain.

We must use our imagination. These are children, these are our children.  

As you read this the US government, representing US capitalism, is seizing little children from their mothers and locking them in cages. Business Insider reports that the number of migrant children kidnapped and held separate from their parents has gone up 21% in one month. This is a monstrous crime. We must use our imagination.  Imagine if this was your child. Put yourself in the place of these mothers and children and fathers. The children do not know where they are, do not know where their mothers and fathers are. In many cases the whereabouts of these children is unknown, not only unknown to their parents but also not known to the government thugs, whether in their suits or in their uniforms, that kidnapped them. Now they are talking about building tent cities, the more accurate word would be concentration camps. Not a single person of conscience in the US, not a single person with any decency in the US, can stand aside as this happens. Imagine if your child was in a cage, imagine if you did not know where your child was. Trump, Sessions, the Republicans, the Democrats, they are all monsters.  

The capitalist class and the capitalist parties are responsible for this crime. The capitalist Republican Party is carrying out these kidnappings and caging. The capitalist Democratic Party confines itself to whining that children should not be separated from their parents. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Democratic Party believes that the whole family should be put in a cage together not separated. Remember more people were deported under the Democrat Obama than under any other president. 

The US has 5% of the world’s population and it has 25% of the world’s prisoners. Over 50% of these prisoners are people of color. The US prison policy is viciously racist. There are many undocumented people in the US from Europe. The children of these people are not being seized nor should they. This kidnapping of children and putting them in cages is blatantly racist. 

As well as being racist the US prison policy is viciously against the poor. Where are the Wall Street criminals and the Washington criminals being seized and put in cages or put in prison? As the saying goes in the US it is a question of being innocent until proven broke. The owners of the big corporations and their political hacks if they break the law pay a fine but with one or two exceptions never go to prison. It is just part of the price of “doing business”. 

 As usual the leaders of the 14 million strong trade union leaders say nothing. They could call on their members to block all transport that is used to seize and take the children from their parents and lock them up and put them in cages. Somebody has to drive the busses, somebody has to build the cages. But as usual the union leaders hide. If the unions of the cops and the immigration sector were unions, and not combinations which in most cases confine themselves to protecting their members from their own crimes they would refuse to carry out this criminal work. 

In the last two years we have seen millions of people march on the women’s marches. The apparatus that organized these must now organize mass action to defend the children, to defend the mothers to defend the families. A Defense of the Children and Parents and Family day, an End to the Kidnapping and Caging of Children Day can be organized. A date set and action called and organized by the women movement organizations.  The school student led movement against gun violence should join in organizing this. That movement is defending children also. The movement against racism and sexism, the movement against police violence, the movements to defend public education, to defend the environment, all these movements must come together to stop the kidnapping and caging of children. And while the trade union leaders, cowed as they are by the bosses and committed as they are to supporting the capitalist system will not act, this does not mean that those of us who are in unions are helpless. We can go to our union locals, we can call a meeting of our members in our workplaces, and we can participate in building a movement to stop this cruelty, this barbarism against children and families.  

A final word. Living in the US capitalist system is to live in a gigantic lie. Here is Trump the representative of US capitalism over in Asia “to spread democracy”. The US capitalist media and especially the liberal capitalist media yammers on about how terrible it is Trump is shaking hands with the North Korean leader. Not a mention of the US having 25% of the world’s prisoners, not a mention of the US government of Trump putting children in cages, not a mention of the US having invaded 30 countries since 1945, not a mention of the fact that US capitalism is the only force in the world to have ever dropped nuclear weapons in war. And deliberately dropped them on civilian populations. 

This Blog has no support for the Stalinist regime in North Korea but if there was any reason to this whole thing at all it would be the US who would be in the dock for having nuclear weapons. After all the US capitalist class is the only capitalist class that has ever used them.  In passing in the opinion of this Blog the North Korean regime will not give up its nuclear weapons. As the idiot Bolton, one of the many boot lickers to Trump reminded them look what happened to Khadafy when he gave up nuclear program. He was overthrown and dragged from his hiding place and raped by US backed militias.  

This Blog calls on all to mobilize now in whatever organization and campaign you are in to build a coalition to stop the caging of migrant children, to stop the breaking up and deporting of families. These crimes are being done in the name of the US people. That is in our name, in your name. This can be stopped if such a coalition is built and takes direct action. It is the responsibility of all of us to act. Again use your imagination. Think of the nightmare that is being inflicted on these children and families, the terror that is being inflicted on the entire Latino population. Not knowing when your door will be battered down, when you will be seized in the street or the bus, not knowing if your child will be seized from you and you will perhaps never see them again. 

All change for the better in US history in the last hundred years has come about by great mass movements of ordinary people. This can be done again here. And with victory on this front this coalition to defend the children and the families can be built on and move on to tackle the many other problems of US capitalism. The problems of war, climate change, pollution of the air and water and food, poverty, inequality, racism, sexism and oppression.