Marty's Bon Mots (Selections found in: Glad You Asked)

The Fence

I watched as much of the Republican candidates’ debate last night as I could stomach. I watched them havea lot of fun stomping on Obama, and all agreed that Obama is a bum, clueless, incompetent, a wastrel and a spendthrift and should be run out of town with his pants on fire. At that point the whole crew of them should have sat around the camp fire, roasted marshmallows and sung Kumbaya in three part harmony.

And the topics were, of course, no surprise to anyone but the hopelessly clueless. The lack of jobs and high unemployment. These are entirely Obama’s fault. Hopeless economic chaos. All Obama’s fault. Health care. Oh my goodness. Health Care is the huge dark all enveloping cloak of death, madness and certain ruin. Obamacare.

The job killer. Someone will have to explain that to me one day. But it hardly matters. On the podium last night it was understood by all that the institution of an inclusive national health care coverage system would, by its very nature, ensure the devastation of the American work force.

Other topics flitted about as so many flies hovering over yesterday’s refuse. The Federal government is bad. Too much intrusion into State’s rights. Too much bureaucracy. Too costly. Somehow or another there was mention of the Federal government’s role in securing our national integrity. All agreed on this overtly bizarre state of hypocrisy. But we can let this go because the subject turned from national security to FEMA. It should be dismantled. It should be made more gooder. Whatever. But from the subject matters surrounding FEMA, the topics seemed to naturally lean towards our policies, or the respective lack thereof, regarding immigration or, more accurately, illegal immigration.

There’s still the image Republicans attempt to instill in us where it concerns the illegal immigrant. Who is the illegal immigrant? First of all, it’s a he. He’s Mexican. He brings his whole extended family. They set up in some hovel somewhere north of the border and they become a big burden to us all by having babies, doing nothing, getting drunk, getting free emergency medical care, refusing to speak English, and getting lots and lots of tax payer’s welfare money while they shoot off their pistolas in the streets going “Riba Riba!” As you all know, this picture is the epitome of insincerity and ignorance. They come across the border to get better paying jobs where they can better support their families by sending money to them.

Mitt Romney, by the way, was the only one who recognized that the true culprit in this scenario is the cheap bastard business owner who wants cheap labor and has no problem whatsoever in skirting the law and hiring people who do not possess social security cards.

However, in discussing the illegal immigrant issue, all the members of the slam fest last agreed on two principles: first and foremost, there needs to be a fence. Yes indeed, some sort of big gigantumongous biggus dickus fence. Never mind who’s going to pay for this. I would imagine this fence thing would be of local benefit but paid for by the big bad bureaucratic bastions of Federal baggage. But I digress.

What kind of fence, you ask? Somehow they never really did get into specifics about this. A chain link fence? An electric fence? A barbed wire fence? A wall, perhaps?

They all agreed that there had to be “…boots on the ground…” Boy, that sounds masculine, doesn’t it? Conjures up images of GI Joe types with a three day growth of beard (women, too) in full combat gear, helmets, M1 clutched knowingly and comfortably in both hands, unlit stub of a cigar secured in the left corner of snarling lips, scrambling hidden in the underbrush, awaiting the attack of the nasty nasties. Again, these wouldn’t be local types, would they? These are Federal soldiers, right? But why quibble.

The big issue was ‘THE FENCE’.

Let us harken back to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Cue the organ music. Fade to 60s sepia. I was in my early teens in 1964. New York City. The summer of 1964. And there … beckoning to me … in all its wonderment … lay the wonders and splendors and just sheer fun of the 1964 New York City World’s Fair.

There were exhibits and rides and shows and Belgian waffles and scantily clad young ladies. All beckoned to me and my buddies, as the Sirens beckoned to the bound Odysseus. The minor difference between us and Odysseus and the mast to which he was secured, is that Odysseus didn’t have the fifteen cents to buy a subway token. We did not secure ourselves to either a ship’s mast or even a 1959 Buick Invicta. Why, we just shuffled our teenage selves to the IRT 7 train and a day’s enchantment awaited us.

Although open to the public, the World’s Fair was not a freebie. You had to purchase a ticket to enable such a legal entrance.

On the third night of the opening of the 1964 World’s Fair, my otherwise very proper, organized and decidedly unspontaneous father posed a suggestion at the dinner table. “Hey, let’s go to the World’s Fair!” The other three in my family looked at each other as though this suggestion was uttered by Howdy Doody’s ventriloquist. Was this Dad suggesting such a thing? After the second of realization and confirmation passed, we unanimously agreed that this would be an idea unsurpassed in righteousness and downright coolness. And so we went and had an absolutely marvelous time. Perhaps one day I will elaborate on those warm memories.

However, and for purposes of this particular diatribe, that was the first and last time I saw any form of payment go between me or my respective representatives and a World’s Fair ticket vendor.

No. Separating the allure of the World’s Fair Sirens and my lawless buddies was a fence secured internally and externally by roving, bored, sometimes sleeping rent-a-cops. Neither the fence nor the men in blue posed even the remotest sense of discouragement, or disincentive or even hindrance towards free entrance into this giant magnet of enchantment.

We, like thousands of other New York City kids, quickly learned all the holes, the guards who couldn’t care less and the right moments with which we could secret ourselves into the belly of this temporary land of complete amusement.

Let me say that again to those either skimming or not paying attention here. Between us kids and the World’s Fair was a fence. That fence and the purported boots on the ground impeded our progress and goals not at all.

And so it is with a border fence between the United States of America and Mexico.

On one side are those with a purpose, a goal and the desperate need to make a better life for themselves and their families. On the other side of the fence lies a world of potential and betterment.

So let me ask you. In the analogy I have so crudely penned, we have a bunch of kids looking for an afternoon’s diversion. The other aspect of the analogy finds adults with a true fire in their belly. Do you honestly believe for more than a few seconds, that if a bunch of New York kids with one pair of pliers between them can get through a fence, a properly motivated and equipped team of Mexican nationals cannot get through in the same manner? C’mon. Think it through.

Yet there they were. Eight blowhards. Count ‘em, eight. All sanctimoniously acknowledging the wisdom of this sole strategy towards immigration strengthening.

After several minutes of suffering through this bilge, the television and I parted company and I posted my first Facebook entry in several months announcing that sticking needles in my eyes would prove to be a more convivial opportunity than allowing myself further agony from the receipt of these otherwise untoward airwaves.

The pontificating politicians are so good at their brand of spin, there were a scant few moments that I actually believed that they believed what they were saying.

posted by Marty Brounstein @ 3:22 PM