Trump stoops still lower
Quite the set of disturbing U.S. news on the day before we celebrate the Declaration of Independence.
A Navy SEAL was acquitted of murder of a wounded enemy captive in Iraq and the attempted murder of civilians, but still was held responsible for photo ops with the dead captive.
President Donald Trump joked with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit about the Russian undermining of the American democracy.
Ivanka Trump traipsed along with the president for photo ops at the G-20 summit and the Korea DMZ, commenting about the “surreal” experience.
The humanitarian catastrophe at the Mexican border, with the immigrant children who are victims of family separation concentrated into filthy cells, and imprisoned migrants pleading for help as government inspectors and U.S. lawmakers try to expose these inhuman conditions.
In war, soldiers are trained to dehumanize enemy combatants in order to develop the will to kill what are otherwise their fellow human beings. We see a secret Facebook group of border patrol agents trading violent and obscene stink talk toward immigrants and representatives in the U.S. Congress.
It is the same dynamic. Faced with a job that amounts to a crime against humanity, the only way the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can do their work is to dehumanize the immigrants.
On July Fourth, we will have the president-wannabe-emperor fiddling in another photo op campaign speech before the statue of Abraham Lincoln with the U.S. Army and heavy armaments in reluctant attendance.
As Ivanka said in the Koreas, “Surreal.”
Yes, in the darkest sense of the word.
William Mautz
Hilo
Take back Kam Avenue
I applaud Mayor Harry Kim for cleaning up Mo‘oheau Bandstand and taking it back from the homeless people. But how about cleaning up Kamehameha Avenue near the soccer fields next?
There are homeless camps all along this wonderful stretch of Hilo’s Bayfront area. Not the best image for all the visitors to our fine community.
And where are the nonprofits that supposedly help the homeless? Why can’t they do something to help these folks?
A. Yamamoto
Hilo