Push button politics . . .

First let me direct you to the Thurvey, which is the next post after this one. A few changes there, including a simple poll on the right. But the Thurvey staff still encourages you to go for the essay questions.

I like politics. I like to talk about it, I like to read about it, and I like to hear others talk about it.

But sometimes it makes me sick.

Last week I had my first professional brush with the effects of the new Alabama immigration bill. Someone asked me a question about child custody. The caller said he was Hispanic, but was here legally. He is divorced. His ex-wife has custody of their one child. His ex-wife is illegal. She is moving to another state to escape the harshness of the new law. The caller was upset. He said his ex=wife is a good mother and he had no desire to hurt her, but he couldn't bear the thought of his child being on the run for the rest of his childhood, nor could he bear the thought of not being a part of the child's life. I explained to him his options. Do nothing and lose his relationship and possibly security for his child. Go to court and get custody of the child, but, if the judge is doing his job, his ex-wife will be put in jail and possibly deported. He sounded as if he were about to cry.

I went to a meeting of a government body this morning. The issue being discussed was the juvenile justice system in our county. The Juvenile Probation Office supervises probation and provides and monitors other services for delinquent juveniles. Ours is a smaller county, population wise. The current JPO office is staffed with three probation officers and one administrative assistant. Last year they handled approximately 800 cases.

The State of Alabama has ordered that two of the four be let go. Either two probation officers or one probation officer and the administrative assistant. They might as well close the whole office.

At the meeting I attended the discussion centered around finding local funding, from the county government and from the local school boards.

It was a civil meeting. No one was mean. And no one on the government body said a word about the children. It was all about the money, or lack thereof, and properly placing the blame on the state government. There was no indication that help was forthcoming.

I have worked for years representing juveniles. I have seen suicidal teens brought back from the brink. I have seen youth strung out on drugs to avoid the problems at home get clean and counseled and move on. I have seen kids whose parents blame them for all the parents' problems find a reasonable ear and reasonable discipline to help them know what the world is supposed to be like.

I didn't do any of that. It was the Juvenile Probation Officers. We need more of them, not less.

So today politics makes me sick. There is not enough money to save our children, but plenty to buy fleets of government cars to drive around and new buildings to be built and meaningless state publications to be printed and thrown away.

For years every time there was an election one of the gubernatorial candidates would run an ad claiming that he wouldn't make the taxpayers pay for anymore air conditioned prisons. It played well with the people, but it was a lie. The only place that was air conditioned in Alabama's prisons was the warden's office.

We the people must wear big buttons on each of us that invite politicians to push. Plush prisons. The horrors of illegal immigrants. Evil public school teachers. Gambling or no gambling. Gay unions or none.

Meanwhile our children are languishing, some dying, some destined to kill, or steal, or end up for some other reason in big boy prison, which we don't have enough of now to handle the load.

Because the names and faces of those children are not on our buttons for the politicians to push and be guaranteed a vote. And the politicians know it well.

If you want new buttons, let me know. And help me pass them out.

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