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| Courtesy U.S. News |
I waited to blog anything hoping to find local Mexican reactions to the 2018 State of the Union Address two nights ago. Personally, I found it to be disgusting and frightening and the response from Joe Kennedy to be weak. Plus, who trusts the Democratic Party anymore ? Later I found out about his ties to the corporates from the Intercept. So, if you had your hopes up, forget about it.
Finally this afternoon I did find an op-ed piece by Leo Zuckerman who hit the nail on the head, that is that Trump is a Fascist. ( Leo, he's a Nazi: "Chicago's Promise" by Maryam Saleh) Thank God someone said something down here (locally)...for a few seconds I thought maybe they were afraid to say anything because of the NAFTA talks.
This is an important podcast with transcript from Jeremy Scahill featuring Naomi Kline, Marcy Wheeler and our favorite Juan Gonzalez:
The Intercept
1/31/2018
INTERCEPTED PODCAST; HATE OF THE UNION
Jeremy Scahill
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More on everything Seig Heil Trump here:
Democracy Now !
Donald Trump
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Here is Leo Zuckerman's op-ed pasted for you:
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"He is a fascist"
Leo Zuckermann
Yes, Donald Trump, he's a fascist. He has no shame. His propaganda techniques are emetic.
On Tuesday, in his first Government Report, he again accused undocumented immigrants of criminals. He used, once again, the fallacy of generalization. "For decades, open borders allowed drugs and gangs to fill our most vulnerable communities [...] tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives." He then introduced two black couples who were in the audience: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado and Robert Mickens, parents of Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens, murdered on Long Island, New York, in 2016. "Many members of gangs have taken advantage of flagrant gaps in our laws to enter our country as foreign minors without company ending in high schools like those of Keyla and Nisa, "said Trump. "Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy and Robert: Tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in the United States is suffering for you. 320 million hearts have been broken by you. We can not imagine the depth of his grief, but we can make sure that other families never have to endure that pain. "
The President proposed, then, his immigration reform. "My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend the Americans: protect their safety, their families, their communities and their right to the American dream. Because Americans are also dreamers, "Trump finished, clearly referring to the young people previously protected by President Obama's DACA program and known as" the dreamers ".
Go piece of performance and manipulation. From grief see the US politicians standing, applauding both couples, who painfully cried in the gallery of the House of Representatives. Of course I can not even imagine the pain of those parents. But I'm afraid they were used for a propaganda piece of a fascist regime. Black people, with Hispanic surnames, victims of some gang members of the worst kind. The perfect stamp to generalize that the undocumented are a ball of criminals. The use of an emotional image to manipulate the truth.
To Trump, the empirical evidence is worth a cucumber. For him, all undocumented immigrants are criminals that have to be stopped and deported. That is your "truth". The statistics of serious institutions, academic findings and even common sense can go to the pipeline.
What Trump did on Tuesday, and what the US rightwing media such as FOXnews and Breibart are doing, is using the fallacy of generalization. Stereotyping social groups to discriminate them. "Jacobo is a miser. Jacobo is Jewish.
All Jews are greedy. " Sounds familiar? Goes another: "Pedro is a lazy guy. Pedro is Mexican. All Mexicans are lazy. " A conclusion is inferred from insufficient evidence. Racists love this kind of fallacious thinking. Here Trump's on Tuesday: "Gangs murdered Keyla and Nisa. Some of those gang members were undocumented. The undocumented are murderers. " This, of course, leads to the magical solution of the demagogues: "Let's sport the undocumented, let's build a wall so that they do not re-enter and, voila, the crime will disappear".
Let's see, now, the reality. According to data from the Migration Policy Institute, an organization that studies the issue of immigration without taking a position on how to resolve it, the incarceration rate for US-born citizens is 3.51%. The incarceration rate of those born outside that country is 0.86%, that is, only a quarter of the first (the undocumented is a subset of the population of the unborn in the US).
According to the Department of Justice, about 5% of inmates in state and federal jails are "non-citizens." One of two: either the police detain less undocumented than citizens or the undocumented commit fewer crimes. Which one sounds more feasible? For the second, man, for a reason of common sense: the undocumented live in fear of being caught and deported; they respect the law thoroughly so as not to confront the authorities. Of course, there are some misguided sheep who rape and murder because that is what, unfortunately, is the human condition. But you can not stereotype a whole social group for what a few do.
The correct thing to do is to generalize based on statistics and probabilistic models. If Trump did that, he would come to the opposite conclusion. But he, as a fascist, is interested in manipulating the truth to advance his racist and anti-migrant agenda."
* - The author is a political analyst / research professor at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE).
On Tuesday, in his first Government Report, he again accused undocumented immigrants of criminals. He used, once again, the fallacy of generalization. "For decades, open borders allowed drugs and gangs to fill our most vulnerable communities [...] tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives." He then introduced two black couples who were in the audience: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado and Robert Mickens, parents of Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens, murdered on Long Island, New York, in 2016. "Many members of gangs have taken advantage of flagrant gaps in our laws to enter our country as foreign minors without company ending in high schools like those of Keyla and Nisa, "said Trump. "Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy and Robert: Tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in the United States is suffering for you. 320 million hearts have been broken by you. We can not imagine the depth of his grief, but we can make sure that other families never have to endure that pain. "
The President proposed, then, his immigration reform. "My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend the Americans: protect their safety, their families, their communities and their right to the American dream. Because Americans are also dreamers, "Trump finished, clearly referring to the young people previously protected by President Obama's DACA program and known as" the dreamers ".
Go piece of performance and manipulation. From grief see the US politicians standing, applauding both couples, who painfully cried in the gallery of the House of Representatives. Of course I can not even imagine the pain of those parents. But I'm afraid they were used for a propaganda piece of a fascist regime. Black people, with Hispanic surnames, victims of some gang members of the worst kind. The perfect stamp to generalize that the undocumented are a ball of criminals. The use of an emotional image to manipulate the truth.
To Trump, the empirical evidence is worth a cucumber. For him, all undocumented immigrants are criminals that have to be stopped and deported. That is your "truth". The statistics of serious institutions, academic findings and even common sense can go to the pipeline.
What Trump did on Tuesday, and what the US rightwing media such as FOXnews and Breibart are doing, is using the fallacy of generalization. Stereotyping social groups to discriminate them. "Jacobo is a miser. Jacobo is Jewish.
All Jews are greedy. " Sounds familiar? Goes another: "Pedro is a lazy guy. Pedro is Mexican. All Mexicans are lazy. " A conclusion is inferred from insufficient evidence. Racists love this kind of fallacious thinking. Here Trump's on Tuesday: "Gangs murdered Keyla and Nisa. Some of those gang members were undocumented. The undocumented are murderers. " This, of course, leads to the magical solution of the demagogues: "Let's sport the undocumented, let's build a wall so that they do not re-enter and, voila, the crime will disappear".
Let's see, now, the reality. According to data from the Migration Policy Institute, an organization that studies the issue of immigration without taking a position on how to resolve it, the incarceration rate for US-born citizens is 3.51%. The incarceration rate of those born outside that country is 0.86%, that is, only a quarter of the first (the undocumented is a subset of the population of the unborn in the US).
According to the Department of Justice, about 5% of inmates in state and federal jails are "non-citizens." One of two: either the police detain less undocumented than citizens or the undocumented commit fewer crimes. Which one sounds more feasible? For the second, man, for a reason of common sense: the undocumented live in fear of being caught and deported; they respect the law thoroughly so as not to confront the authorities. Of course, there are some misguided sheep who rape and murder because that is what, unfortunately, is the human condition. But you can not stereotype a whole social group for what a few do.
The correct thing to do is to generalize based on statistics and probabilistic models. If Trump did that, he would come to the opposite conclusion. But he, as a fascist, is interested in manipulating the truth to advance his racist and anti-migrant agenda."
* - The author is a political analyst / research professor at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE).
January 2018 execution stats according to the authorities stand at 185 dead:
Frontera
por, Angel F. Gonzalez 01/02/2018
You can follow the Police Reports here:
And, of course Zeta:
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Meanwhile I think Paris is just about ready for a little road trip out to the desert, Dr. Jackson released her ! She is back to hopping into the bathtub, last night she partially ate my Dead Sea Mineral Soap. I'm still wearing the boot.
Jeremy Scahill had an interesting interview on the "Hate of the Union" broadcast with "Algiers", here's a slightly more recent song of theirs: (Hey, why weren't these guys nominated for a Grammy ?)