Wannial Catraz is a huge shame for Florida

A year ago, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the law on the path to compensation for a boy who endured unspeakable torture. For decades, these boys were beaten and raped, with spirits and bodies broken at the state’s infamous reform schools. Others were murdered in taxpayer dimes, their bodies buried under a dirt covering, and reduced to a horrifying archaeological discovery.

Those boys stole things. They were true. They broke the law. But at the time, exactly a year ago, society agreed that their crimes did not justify their fate. No matter how indiscreetly these boys committed, they didn’t deserve that humanity was crushed and awakened in hell.

So why can’t we see it so clearly?

Today, leaders are willing to launch Wannial Catraz to please Red Devil Daddy, not even bothering to hide their descent. They are fundraising campaigns by selling T-shirts with the words “nowhere you can run, nowhere to hide,” selling branded golf balls and beer coozy, and cutting public services to dollar stores. President Donald Trump clearly realizes this sycophantic Rush to kiss his toes, it’s hilarious. He can say that he wants to be unharmed and not challenged in a meaningful way, and he knows it. When he visited the Everglades site on Tuesday, he warned him to escape by saying, “Don’t run in a straight line.”

Republican leaders in this country and state have been mentally bankrupt. They at least don’t care between us. They do not welcome the tired, poor, secretly sniffed public. They are ruthless, merciless, rotten from the soul.

Not me, some are looking for exemptions to prove ambiguous, unusual mercy. I am in favor of detaining only undocumented immigrants who disregard the rule of law, they explain. They highlight the worst criminal cases to excuse the mound of evidence in the opposite way: family amputation and immigration seizing midway through hearing. They will blame the last regime for inspiring this sinister act.

They ignore reports coming out of facilities like the Chrome Detention Center in Miami, detainees who have body-to-body signals “SOS” and “Libre”, overcrowding, sleeping on the floor, seeking food and water, and instead are being blown away by rubber bullets. They include five people who died this year under Florida immigration and customs enforcement custody, a 75-year-old man who has lived in the country for 60 years.

This is probably you. In this case, let’s assume the best. Let’s say this new tent city, as DeSantis says, is temporarily holding and handling only the most despicable criminals, as it offers merciless access to air conditioning, clergy and laundry. Let’s say that if detainers must be foolish enough to escape, they will get what comes to them in regards to wildlife.

Well, maybe you’re OK with using humans as store gator baits. Perhaps your compass is ruled by the God of Revenge by a violent sense of justice. Maybe you’ll sleep a great night.

Then again, maybe you’re unstable.

Maybe you’re beginning to suspect that inflection points like Wannial Catraz offer a moral test. Maybe you quietly believe this arrangement is archaic, demonic and strange. Maybe you just think we’re better than this.

If so, say that. Not only are you in the horns of your soul before your head hits the pillow, but also your friends and neighbors, your stubborn spouse, other small league parents, scout parents and dancing parents, people who cut your hair, in the bottomless hole of the internet. For anyone who listens.

Tell them that you still care about immigrants, poor people, vulnerable people, hungry, refugees, addicts and even criminals. Tell me you laugh at the notion that your family and flesh are torn apart because you aren’t too lost and you’re not drunk with the cult of personality.

Do not sink into a mismatched grey. This allows us to “see both sides” as to whether humans can be eaten in the swamp.

Tell it before it’s too late. Before he wakes up, he wakes up and wanders through the background of a story that was always clearly wrong, in order to crystallize his hindsight.

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