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# Apologizing for Murrieta and Our Shameless Elders
July 03 2014
Written by Sara Roos.
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MAKING POINTS-What is it with [babyboomers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babyboomers) and their parents that they should [express such shameless contempt](http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/02/us/california-immigrant-transfers/) for their youngers? The spectacle of protestors old enough to be my parents [barring political respite](http://www.vox.com/2014/6/30/5842054/violence-in-central-america-and-the-child-refugee-crisis) for the destitute and desperate zero-somethings in Murrieta this week is enough to make me want to send up flares of apology to the whole world.
[Generating refugees](http://www.jrn.com/kgun9/galleries/Our-first-look-inside-the-CBP-holding-center-in-Nogales-housing-hundreds-of-children-263710951.html) can be understood to be an act of war, but one does not mete out punishment among its innocent civilians: take that up with the aggressors. These children and families are the innocent collateral damage. It is the fault of our [entangled governments](http://www.nationaljournal.com/domesticpolicy/why-90-000-children-flooding-our-border-is-not-an-immigration-story-20140616) that bear responsibility — and [blame](http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2012/08/30/explaining-high-murder-rates-in-latin-america-its-not-drugs/) — for this situation.
In the meantime, whatever happened to Matthew’s formulation of a Blessed [Meek who were slated to inherit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_5:5) the earth?. Oughtn’t America’s Christian righteousness dictate benevolence? What manner of monster would treat children so?
It’s the same sort of savagery evident in our [depauperized district school budgets](http://projects.scpr.org/static/applications/lausd-2014-2015-school-by-school-budgets/) across [this entire fair land of ours](http://www.nationofchange.org/starving-americas-public-schools-1318561153), as it happens. The disdain is not reserved for foreigners of sepia’d skin. It is dispensed with equal vigor among those of domestic persuasion of any skin hue inhabiting a non-trending, non-”choice” school of the public district variety.
Simply put: In [hoarding resources](http://closetheloophole.com/history) our Elders [disavow younger generations](http://www.evolve-ca.org/facts_13). Today’s domestic public district school children face the same [slathering denial](http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/proposition-13-then-now-forever) that the unfortunate youth trapped in today’s Murrieta-San Ysidro axis suffer. Our public policies, including Education’s and its resources, are [straight-jacketed](http://www.dailycal.org/2014/02/11/reform-prop-13-fund-education/) by an unwillingness to spend money on children.
As a parent, this is just baffling to me. The reason I awaken every morning is to work for children directly or indirectly; my own, your own: Children. Plenty of us, parents and otherwise, draw our next breathe essentially for this purpose alone. Where does the disconnect appear derailing the actual manifestation of our purpose by refusing our life’s work? How can someone’s grand/parent stand in a street, or in a ballot box, and [crusade for policies that deny children](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/05/public_schools_and_reform_u_s_schools_cost_way_too_much_and_should_be_cheaper.html) sustenance?
Raving, petty-tyrants must be ostracized for the greater good of society. The self-serving should have no more influence on [public policy regarding civilian jeopardy](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/01/us-usa-immigration-children-centralameri-idUSKBN0F64Y520140701) than [student entitlement](http://www.mdpolicy.org/policyblog/detail/too-little-education-about-school-spending). It costs money to sustain a civilized society and it costs money to educate our young to buttress it. No one wins by holding the children hostage to hubris.
(Sara Roos is a politically active resident of Mar Vista, a biostatistician, the parent of two teenaged LAUSD students and a CityWatch contributor, who blogs at[ redqueeninla.com](http://redqueeninla.com/))
-cw
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