This afternoon one of the guys who often walks this way stopped to talk for a few minutes. After discussing the fireworks show of a week ago and couple other local events we bounced around some topics that are making headlines. When we landed on the shameful display that came out of Murrieta, California last week we both agreed that words were hard to come by to describe the level of disgust we had felt when watching the video on television.
Three busloads of immigrant mothers and children were passing through Murrieta and heading to a border patrol station but were met by angry protesters who were clearly not representative of the type of America that I call home. They shouted, screamed, rant and raved, and acted like damn fools.
There is no way that the heartless display that took place in Murrieta would have ever happened in the city where I live, Madison, Wisconsin. And if there had been any such attempt of hatred and bigotry I know with every fiber of my being that within hours a protest march from the good-hearted folks of this city would have turned out to underscore our revulsion over such behavior.
But following the absurdity with the busses and passengers guess what Murrieta did for a follow-up performance?
More than a thousand of their residents jammed into a high school auditorium where for four hours they had a xenophobic orgy of anger. One can almost image the spittle that must have splattered about as the conservatives spewed and cranked away over the injustices that the average white person in Murrieta has to put up with these days.
The whole episode with the busses happened in the light of day, but it is not hard to see how things play out when racists and those who lack proper education and instead are guided by fear are allowed to act out. Does anyone think it was any different when white racists with sheets and torches rode at night in the south to lynch blacks?. The source of where hate and the lack of humanity resides comes from the same place be it Murrieta, California or the backwoods of Mississippi.
Since today is Sunday I am certain that many of the conservative Christians in Murrieta who blessed themselves or absolved themselves in some other way of the sins from the past week feel they are off the hook. But in America in 2014 when busses carrying women and children, many of whom fled their homes in Central America to escape violence and death, are treated in the fashion that the whole world witnessed means that more than pew-sitting and genuflecting needs to take place. One has to wonder it any pastor had the backbone to preach about what Jesus would have done when the busses arrived.
While we can agree that there needs to be a change in federal law about these types of immigrants from Central America coming to our country in this fashion we also must agree that a humanitarian display should have been the default reaction for those who live there and pretend to be so ‘patriotic’ with their flag-waving. I am not sure where these people in Murrieta were raised but clearly they do not have mid-western values where we first offer a hand and then seek long-term solutions to the needs that are presented.
What happened in Murrieta has left a dark stain on not only that thoughtless community but also has cast this whole nation in a harsher looking place as a result. Murrieta is an embarrassment. And embarrassing.
SHAME!
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 
I surely agree with your point of view on this matter, sir. You advocate for mid-western values, which is understandable. I must say, I was raised in the northeast and still live in that region, and am proud to say our values coincide with those of yourself. It is plumb shameful what we`ve seen from some of those ignorant and thoughtless folks in Murrieta who demonstrate zero empathy for the innocent children involved.
When I see the U.S. flags and ugly faces screaming at the buses with women and children, I think of the newsreels of white teenagers, parents and grandparents screaming at the one or two black kids who braved the gauntlet to integrate the schools in the south. I wonder what they tell their grandkids today. And the gonadless Mayor of Murrieta who initially defended the mob, many of whom are “foreigners” or not from town, apparently got marching orders from the Chamber of Commerce and is now saying the town is compassionate. Apparently out-of-town bigots are welcome. And where were the Murrieta poh-lees?! So, if I don’t agree with a federal policy I can close down a highway? Wonkette said it right…
“As Jesus said, when I was hungry, you screamed in my face and chanted USA, when I was thirsty, you screamed in my face and chanted USA, and when I was a child thousands of miles from her mother or father trying to escape a failed state, you said “Who’s going to pay for them?” he asked. “What kind of criminality will happen?” “The Democrats are making it easy for them to come here so they can produce more Democratic voters,” he said and then you blocked my bus until it was turned around and sent to a different baby jail, because we don’t want yer kind in Murrietta, and NOBAMA better stop luring disease-ridden children to our glorious land with a promise of super-cush prison cells before they are deported.”
Read more at http://wonkette.com/553398/california-gets-in-on-hot-fun-screaming-at-brown-babies-action#FwQjydqjTvigzOey.99