number 5012 in a series

For years, I've told them nothing was going to change, but I kinda thought--hoped, at least, that I was just tamping down their expectations, protecting their hearts from breaking. Helping them wait. As if so many of them aren't already tougher than I'll ever be. But now I see clearly. Nothing is ever going to change, at least not for the better, at least not any time soon.

Because immigration is the new hot button--thank baby Jesus that mess is Iraq is resolved, that the constitution has been restored, that we all have healthcare, a place in a functioning economy, and citizenship in a nation that is not on its way to being a worldwide pariah. Not that the system of official coming and going shouldn't be fixed; on the contrary, I think everyone concerned is begging for rational, workable plans grounded in some kind of reality. But as soon as even three words are strung together that might describe even the shadow of one part of that, the gotchas and the virtual pitchforks come out, poking the spineless pols, in turn, back into their corners.

Apparently Mike Huckabee once even had a logical thought, and as governor of Arkansas backed a never-enacted plan to allow the children of undocumented immigrants--families that are legal residents of nowhere--to pay in-state tuition to state universities. In his words, ". . . the point in Arkansas was, we had kids who had been in our schools, by law. And to simply shut them out of any additional educational advancement, to me, seemed not only in their worst interests, but ours, as well as the state's."

And while he gets to the heart of it--it's better for us all if we're educated--the current mood is all Us and Them and Don't Give Mine Away (there's no "we" in willfully ignorant racism), and so now the other Rethugs smell blood in Iowa, and will use those thoughts to try to derail him for the next month, playing on their constituents' insecurities. While I can only hope the Red candidates beat each other to a bloody pulp, given my doubts about the Dem nominating process, to me the real big picture is this national mood, the one generated by people so afraid for the future, so willing to scapegoat and blame the most powerless. (Will somebody please stop me from reading the comments on these immigration news articles? Please? Just sit here beside me and click me to safety? I've been off the blood pressure meds for months now, and I sure like it better that way.) I think we should be angry, agitating for change, out in the streets. But the source of our biggest problems is not washing dishes or picking tomatoes. Guarantee it. No matter what they want you to think.