Good morning Bob and all who welcome Monday morning with a smile on
their lips.
All both of you!
The Law, according to Donald Trump:
Guilty until proven guilty! Really!
President Obama believed he was compromising with the Republicans when
he was actually conceding(see Obamacare as proof).
President Trump proclaims that we will become Great again, when
actually he is conceding to the desires of a very small
Oligarchy...White, Male, Landholders or possessors of great
wealth...and their many Lackeys(see Trumps speech before the police in
New York).
I know, it wasn't New York, itself, but I am drinking my morning
coffee and am too lazy to hunt down the actual place. The point is,
however, that this "Leader of the Pack" is leading the Pack straight
into the Gates of Hell. Turning loose the sort of permission that
protects the backs of rogue police is a blow to All Americans. It
goes against everything we have paid lip service to for years. But
openly paying lip service to violence, to assuming guilt at the point
of apprehension should scare every right minded American. The
message, and not just from this unbelievable speech, is that we are no
longer a nation of Laws. We are now a nation of Law According to the
whims of Donald Trump. Imagine a nation that learns that Lazy Boy
Company has been declared un American and all its stores around the
country have been sealed and assets seized, just because President
Trump couldn't get his footrest to work.
Imagine all reporters and papers have been banned from attending White
House press conferences because someone snickered at the President's
hairpiece?
Can't we get it through our blurry brains that our police protection
in these United States reflect the priorities handed down by those
holding the power? We have worked hard to convince the "Power" in
this nation, that kinder, gentler, more interaction with the Public,
will go some ways toward lessening violence. We have said over and
over that there is a difference between police protection and police
violence. But even as our military steps up its reckless violence
against imaginary Terrorists, so are many of our local police
departments stepping up their mimicking of the military in their
approach to defending the citizens against Bogymen and Things that go
Bump in the Night.
How many indications does it take to suggest that we are now under
military rule? How much more of our national budget will be grabbed
off by the Pentagon before we come to our senses? How much more
telling is, "Guilty until proven Guilty", to the fact that we've
turned down the wrong road? Allowing ourselves to be "Protected" from
unseen enemies, creating monsters as we recklessly bomb the Hell out
of random villages, hospitals, churches and sanctuaries around the
world, as we hand off our independence and our Freedom to oppose the
actions of this rogue government?
Can we still help ourselves? Oh, where oh where are those Space
Travelers described by Ezekiel in the Holy Bible? Aren't they overdue
to drop out of the sky and save our ratty asses?
Carl Jarvis
On 7/31/17, Bob Hachey via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
> Hi Carl,
> Well, that rally speech brings us one step closer to civil war in my book.
> Sounds to me like this sorry excuse for a president believes in the Freddie
> gray approach to law enforcement. Recall that Freddie gray died in what is
> known in the trade as a rough ride. That is, they put the suspect into a van
> while handcuffed and not seatbelted. Then they drive like a race car driver.
> That's what happened to Freddie gray in Baltimore. Seems to me that trump
> should have invited the perpetrators of this police brutality to this
> rally.
> I am no fan of violent criminals, but stooping to the level of the criminal
> is no way to reduce violence in our society and that's what I see trump
> condoning here. WE need less militarization of police, not more and, to the
> greatest extent possible, that militarization should be confined to special
> forces such as SWAT teams.
> Bob Hachey
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl Jarvis via acb-chat [mailto:acb-chat@acblists.org]
> Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2017 11:42 AM
> To: blind-democracy
> Cc: Carl Jarvis; General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a
> wide range of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
> whatever comes to mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion list.
> Subject: [acb-chat] The Leader of the Pack Speaks
>
> During a speech to law enforcement on July 28, President Trump said "please
> don't be too nice" to suspects who are arrested. (The Washington Post)
>
> On Friday, President Trump traveled to Long Island to address a group of law
> enforcement officials and speak about the administration's efforts to
> eradicate the gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. His speech stuck largely to
> that theme, though he also made note of Thursday night's failed health-care
> vote.
>
> Trump's speech was noteworthy, though, for its embrace of aggressive tactics
> by police officers. He insisted that his team was "rough" and encouraged
> police officers not to be concerned about preventing physical harm to people
> being taken into custody. The laws, he said, were "stacked against"
> the police.
>
> "Please don't be too nice," Trump told the officers, to applause.
> Below, his comments, as provided by the White House, with our highlights and
> annotations.
>
> text.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Well, thank you very much. This is certainly being home for me. I spent a
> lot of time right here. I was in Queens, so I'd come here, and this was like
> the luxury location for me. And I love it. I love the people here.
> Even coming in from the airport, I sat with Nikki Haley, who's here
> someplace. Where's our Nikki? Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is so incredible.
> (Applause.) And she's seen crowds in her life, and she said, boy, those are
> really big crowds.
> Crowds of people all lining the streets, all the way over to here. And it's
> really a special place. And so when I heard about this, I said, I want to do
> that one.
>
> But I really wanted to do it not because of location, but because, as you
> know, I am the big, big believer and admirer of the people in law
> enforcement, okay? From day one. (Applause.) From day one. We love our
> police. We love our sheriffs. And we love our ICE officers. And they have
> been working hard.
> (Applause.) Thank you. They have been working hard.
>
> Together, we're going to restore safety to our streets and peace to our
> communities, and we're going to destroy the vile criminal cartel, MS-13, and
> many other gangs. But MS-13 is particularly violent. They don't like
> shooting people because it's too quick, it's too fast. I was reading — one
> of these animals was caught — in explaining, they like to knife them and cut
> them, and let them die slowly because that way it's more painful, and they
> enjoy watching that much more. These are animals.
>
> We're joined today by police and sheriffs from Suffolk, Nassau, Dutchess and
> Ulster counties; state police from New York and New Jersey — many of you I
> know, great friends; Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers; and law
> enforcement personnel from a number of federal agencies. So we're loaded up
> with great people — that's what I call it.
>
> And I want to just tell you all together, right now, the reason I came —
> this is the most important sentence to me: On behalf of the American people,
> I want to say, thank you. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you.
>
> And I don't think you know how much the public respects and admires you.
> You're saving American lives every day, and we have your backs — believe me
> — we have your backs 100 percent. Not like the old days. Not like the old
> days. (Applause.)
>
> You know, when you wanted to take over and you used military equipment — and
> they were saying you couldn't do it — you know what I said? That was my
> first
> day: You can do it. (Laughter.) In fact, that stuff is disappearing so fast
> we have none left. (Laughter.) You guys know — you really knew how to get
> that.
> But that's my honor. And I tell you what — it's being put to good use.
>
> I especially want to thank ICE Director Tom Homan, who has done an
> incredible job in just a short period of time. Tom, get up here. I know you
> just — (applause) — Tom is determined to rid our nation of cartels and
> criminals who are preying on our citizens. And I can only say to Tom: Keep
> up the great work. He's a tough guy. He's a tough cookie. Somebody said the
> other day, they saw him on television, and somebody — they were interviewed
> after that; they said, he looks very nasty, he looks very mean. I said,
> that's what I'm looking for. (Laughter.) That's exactly what I was looking
> for.
>
> And for that, I want to congratulate John Kelly, who has done an incredible
> job of Secretary of Homeland Security. Incredible.
> (Applause.) One of our real
> stars. Truly, one of our stars. John Kelly is one of our great stars.
> You know, the border is down 78 percent. Under past administrations, the
> border didn't go down — it went up. But if it went down 1 percent, it was
> like this was a great thing. Down 78 percent. And, in fact, the southern
> border of Mexico, we did them a big favor — believe me. They get very little
> traffic in there anymore, because they know they're not going to get through
> the border to the United States.
>
> So that whole group has been incredible, led by General Kelly.
>
> Let me also express our gratitude to the members of the New York Delegation
> here today: Congressman Chris Collins. Where's Chris? Oh, Chris, right from
> the beginning he said, "Trump is going to win. Trump is going to win."
> So I like him. (Laughter.) I didn't like him that much before; now I love
> him. (Laughter and applause.) Dan Donovan — thanks, Dan. (Applause.) Thank
> you, Dan.
> And Lee Zeldin, who I supported right from the beginning, when they said he
> didn't have a chance of beating a pretty popular incumbent. (Applause.)
>
> And I saw him in a debate. I said, I think this guy is going to win.
> But he fought a pretty popular guy, and I said, I think he's going to win
> and went heavy for him, and he won. And he won pretty easily, didn't you?
> Pretty good. I'm proud of you. Great job.
>
> And, of course, a legend, somebody that we all know very well, sort of my
> neighbor — because I consider him a neighbor — but he's really a great and
> highly respected man in Washington, Congressman Peter King. (Applause.) Very
> respected guy. He is a respected man that people like to ask opinions of. I
> do.
>
> Congressman King and his colleagues know the terrible pain and violence
> MS-13 has inflicted upon this community — and this country.
> And if you remember
> just a little more than two years ago, when I came down the escalator with
> Melania, and I made the speech — people coming into this country.
> Everyone said,
> what does he know? What's he talking about?
>
> And there was bedlam. Remember bedlam? And then about two months later, they
> said, you know, he's right. So I'm honored to have brought it to everybody's
> attention. But the suffering and the pain that we were going through — and
> now you can look at the numbers — it's a whole different world.
>
> And it will get better and better and better because we've been able to
> start nipping it in the bud. We've nipped it in the bud — let's call it
> start nipping in the bud.
>
> And MS-13, the cartel, has spread gruesome bloodshed throughout the United
> States. We've gotten a lot of them out of here. Big, big percentage. But the
> rest are coming — they'll be out of here quickly, right? Quickly.
> Good. (Applause.)
>
> So I asked Tom on the plane — he was never on Air Force One — I said, how do
> you like it? He said, I like it. (Laughter.) But I said, hey, Tom, let me
> ask you a question — how tough are these guys, MS-13? He said, they're
> nothing compared to my guys. Nothing. And that's what you need.
> Sometimes that's
> what you need, right?
>
> For many years, they exploited America's weak borders and lax immigration
> enforcement to bring drugs and violence to cities and towns all across
> America.
> They're there right now because of weak political leadership, weak
> leadership, weak policing, and in many cases because the police weren't
> allowed to do their job. I've met police that are great police that aren't
> allowed to do their job because they have a pathetic mayor or a mayor
> doesn't know what's going on. (Applause.)
>
> Were you applauding for someone in particular? (Laughter.) It's sad.
> It's sad. You look at what's happening, it's sad.
>
> But hopefully — certainly in the country, those days are over. You may have
> a little bit longer to wait.
>
> But from now on, we're going to enforce our laws, protect our borders, and
> support our police like our police have never been supported before. We're
> going to support you like you've never been supported before. (Applause.)
>
> Few communities have suffered worse at the hands of these MS-13 thugs than
> the people of Long Island. Hard to believe. I grew up on Long Island. I
> didn't know about this. I didn't know about this. And then all of a sudden,
> this is like a new phenomenon. Our hearts and our nation grieve for the
> victims and their families.
>
> Since January '16 — think of this — MS-13 gang members have brutally
> murdered 17 beautiful, young lives in this area on Long Island alone.
> Think of it.
> They butcher those little girls. They kidnap, they extort, they rape and
> they rob. They prey on children. They shouldn't be here. They stomp on their
> victims.
> They beat them with clubs. They slash them with machetes, and they stab them
> with knives. They have transformed peaceful parks and beautiful, quiet
> neighborhoods into bloodstained killing fields. They're animals.
>
> We cannot tolerate as a society the spilling of innocent, young, wonderful,
> vibrant people — sons and daughters, even husbands and wives. We cannot
> accept this violence one day more. Can't do it, and we're not going to do
> it.
> Because of you, we're not going to be able to do it. You're not going to
> allow it to happen, and we're backing you up 100 percent. Remember that —
> 100 percent. (Applause.)
>
> It is the policy of this administration to dismantle, decimate and eradicate
> MS-13 at every other — and I have to say, MS-13, that's a name; rough groups
> — that's fine. We got a lot of others. And they were all let in here over a
> relatively short period of time. Not during my period of time, believe me.
> But we're getting them out. They're going to jails, and then they're going
> back to their country. Or they're going back to their country, period.
>
> One by one, we're liberating our American towns. Can you believe that I'm
> saying that? I'm talking about liberating our towns. This is like I'd see in
> a movie: They're liberating the town, like in the old Wild West, right?
> We're liberating our towns. I never thought I'd be standing up here talking
> about liberating the towns on Long Island where I grew up, but that's what
> you're doing.
>
> And I can tell you, I saw some photos where Tom's guys — rough guys.
> They're rough. I don't want to be — say it because they'll say that's not
> politically correct. You're not allowed to have rough people doing this kind
> of work. We have to get — just like they don't want to have rich people at
> the head of Treasury, okay? (Laughter.) Like, I want a rich guy at the head
> of Treasury, right? Right? (Applause.)
>
> I want a rich guy at the head of Commerce. Because we've been screwed so
> badly on trade deals, I want people that made a lot of money now to make a
> lot of money for our country.
>
> And, by the way, as I was walking up, they just gave me the numbers.
> Our numbers just came out this morning. GDP is up double from what it was in
> the first quarter. (Applause.) 2.6 percent. We're doing well. We're doing
> really well. And we took off all those restrictions. And some we're
> statutorily stuck with a for a little while, but eventually that statute
> comes up, and we're going to be able to cut a lot more. But we've sort of
> liberated the world of creating jobs like you're liberating us and the
> people that live in areas.
>
> But I have to say, one by one, we are indeed freeing up these great American
> towns and cities that are under siege from gang violence.
>
> Look at Los Angeles. Look at what's going on in Los Angeles. Look at
> Chicago. What is going on? Is anybody here from Chicago? We have to send
> some of you to Chicago, I think. (Laughter.) What's going on?
>
> I mean, you see what's happening there? There's no — do we agree? Is there
> something maybe — (applause) — is there something — I have to tell you one
> Chicago story.
>
> So Chicago is having this unbelievable violence; people being killed — four,
> five, six in a weekend. And I'm saying, what is going on?
>
> And when I was running, we had motorcycle brigades take us to the planes and
> stuff. And one of the guys, really good — you could see a really respected
> officer, police officer. He was at the head. He was the boss. And you could
> see he was the boss. He actually talked like the boss. "Come on, get lined
> up." Because I'd always take pictures with the police because I did that. My
> guys said, don't do it. Don't do it. (Applause.)
>
> Other candidates didn't do it that I was beating by 40 points, can you
> believe it? But I did it. Maybe that's why I was winning by 40 points.
> But other
> candidates wouldn't do it, but I always took the pictures with the police.
>
> But we're in Chicago, and we had massive motorcycle bridges, and you know
> those people have to volunteer. I don't know if you know that, but from what
> I understand, they have to volunteer. And I had the biggest brigades.
> I had brigades sometimes with almost 300 motorcycles. Even I was impressed.
> I'd look ahead and it was nothing but motorcycles because they'd volunteer
> from all over various states.
>
> But this one guy was impressive. He was a rough cookie and really respected
> guy. I could see he was respected. And he said, "All right, come on, get
> over here. Get over here. He's got to get to work. Get over here." And I
> said, "So let me tell — you're from Chicago?" "Yes, sir." I said, "What the
> hell is going on?" And he said, "It's a problem; it can be straightened
> out."
> I said, "How long would it take you to straighten out this problem?"
> He said, "If
> you gave me the authority, a couple of days." (Laughter.) I really mean it.
> I said, "You really think so?" He said, "A couple of days. We know all the
> bad ones. We know them all." And he said, the officers — you guys, you know
> all the bad ones in your area. You know them by their names. He said, "We
> know them all. A couple of days."
>
> I said, "You got to be kidding." Now, this is a year and a half ago. I said,
> "Give me your card." And he gave me a card. And I sent it to the mayor. I
> said, "You ought to try using this guy." (Laughter.)
>
> Guess what happened? Never heard. And last week they had another record.
> It's horrible.
>
> But we're just getting started. We will restore law and order on Long
> Island. We'll bring back justice to the United States. I'm very happy to
> have gotten a great, great Justice of the United States Supreme Court, not
> only nominated, but approved. And, by the way, your Second Amendment is
> safe. (Applause.) Your Second Amendment is safe. I feel very good about
> that. It wasn't looking so good for the Second Amendment, was it, huh? If
> Trump doesn't win, your Second Amendment is gone. Your Second Amendment
> would be gone.
>
> But I have a simple message today for every gang member and criminal alien
> that are threatening so violently our people: We will find you, we will
> arrest you, we will jail you, and we will deport you. (Applause.)
>
> And, you know, we had some problems with certain countries. Still do with a
> couple, but we'll take care of them — don't worry about it.
> Anytime we have
> a trade deficit, it's very easy — which is almost everywhere. We have trade
> deficits with almost every country because we had a lot of really bad
> negotiators making deals with other countries. So it's almost everywhere, so
> that takes care of itself.
>
> But we had certain countries in South America where they wouldn't take the
> people back. And I said, that's okay, no more trade. All of a sudden they
> started taking their people back. It's amazing, isn't it? They used to send
> to the former Secretary of State of the country, "Please call. Would you
> please work it so that we can take" — and they used to just tell her, "No,
> we won't take back." They take back with us, every single time. We're having
> very little problem. Are we having any problem right now with that? Huh? You
> better believe it. Give me the names of the few problems. We'll take care of
> it, I'm telling you. (Laughter and applause.) It's unbelievable.
>
> One of the old people — one of the people that represented the other
> administration — I said, why didn't you use that, the power of economics?
> "Sir, we think one thing has nothing to do with another." I said, oh,
> really?
> So we'll have big deficits and they won't take back these criminals that
> came from there and should be back there? Well, believe me, to me,
> everything matters. But they're all taking them back.
>
> ICE officers recently conducted the largest crackdown on criminal gangs in
> the history of our country. In just six weeks, ICE and our law enforcement
> partners arrested nearly 1,400 suspects and seized more than 200 illegal
> firearms and some beauties, and nearly 600 pounds of narcotics.
>
> The men and women of ICE are turning the tide in the battle against MS-13.
> But we need more resources from Congress — and we're getting them. Congress
> is actually opening up and really doing a job. They should have approved
> healthcare last night, but you can't have everything. Boy, oh, boy. They've
> been working on that one for seven years. Can you believe that? The swamp.
> But we'll get it done. We're going to get it done.
>
> You know, I said from the beginning: Let Obamacare implode, and then do it.
> I turned out to be right. Let Obamacare implode. (Applause.)
>
> Right now, we have less than 6,000 Enforcement and Removal Officers in ICE.
> This is not enough to protect a nation of more than 320 million people. It's
> essential that Congress fund another 10,000 ICE officers — and we're asking
> for that — so that we can eliminate MS-13 and root out the criminal cartels
> from our country.
>
> Now, we're getting them out anyway, but we'd like to get them out a lot
> faster. And when you see these towns and when you see these thugs being
> thrown into the back of a paddy wagon — you just see them thrown in, rough —
> I said, please don't be too nice. (Laughter.) Like when you guys put
> somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you
> put their hand over? Like, don't hit their head and they've just killed
> somebody — don't hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay?
> (Laughter and applause.)
>
> It's essential that Congress fund hundreds more federal immigration judges
> and prosecutors — and we need them quickly, quickly — if we're going to
> dismantle these deadly networks. And I have to tell you, you know, the laws
> are so horrendously stacked against us, because for years and years they've
> been made to protect the criminal. Totally made to protect the criminal, not
> the officers. If you do something wrong, you're in more jeopardy than they
> are. These laws are stacked against you. We're changing those laws. But in
> the meantime, we need judges for the simplest thing — things that you should
> be able to do without a judge. But we have to have those judges quickly. In
> the meantime, we're trying to change the laws.
>
> We're also working with Chairman Bob Goodlatte on a series of enforcement
> measures — and he's a terrific guy — to keep our country safe from crime and
> terrorism — and in particular, radical Islamic terrorism. (Applause.) A term
> never uttered by the past administration. Never uttered. Did anybody ever
> hear that term? I don't think so.
>
> But you heard it from me.
>
> That includes cracking down on sanctuary cities that defy federal law,
> shield visa overstays, and that release dangerous criminals back into the
> United States' communities. That's what's happening. They're releasing
> them.
> So many deaths where they release somebody back into the community, and they
> know it's going to end that way. That's the sad — they know it's going to
> end that way. We're ending those procedures. (Applause.) Thank you.
>
> We have to secure — I spoke to parents, incredible parents. I got to know so
> many parents of children that were so horribly killed — burned to death,
> beaten to death, just the worst kind of death you can ever — stuffed in
> barrels. And the person that did it was released, and you'd look at the
> file, and there were letter after letter after letter of people begging not
> to let this animal back into society; that this would happen, it would
> happen quickly. It wasn't even like it would happen over a long period of
> time. They were saying it would happen quickly. It's total violence. He's a
> totally violent person. You cannot let this person out.
>
> They let the person out, and sometimes it would happen like on the first
> day. And then you have to talk to the parents and hold the parents and hug
> them.
> And they're crying so — I mean crying. Their lives are destroyed. And nobody
> thinks about those people. They don't think about those people.
> They're devastated.
>
> But we're ending so much of that. We're ending hopefully all of that.
> The laws are tough. The laws are stacked against us, but we're ending that.
> (Applause.)
>
> So we're going to secure our borders against illegal entry, and we will
> build the wall. That I can tell you. (Applause.)
>
> In fact, last night — you don't read about this too much, but it was
> approved — $1.6 billion for the phase one of the wall, which is not only
> design but the start of construction over a period of about two years, but
> the start of construction for a great border wall. And we're going to build
> it. The Wall is a vital, and vital as a tool, for ending the humanitarian
> disaster brought — and really brought on by drug smugglers and new words
> that we haven't heard too much of — human traffickers.
>
> This is a term that's been going on from the beginning of time, and they say
> it's worse now than it ever was. You go back a thousand years where you
> think of human trafficking, you go back 500 years, 200 years, 100 years.
> Human trafficking they say — think of it, but they do — human trafficking is
> worse now maybe than it's ever been in the history of this world.
>
> We need a wall. We also need it, though, for the drugs, because the drugs
> aren't going through walls very easily — especially the walls that I build.
> I'm a very good builder. You people know that better than most because you
> live in the area. That's why I'm here. (Applause.) We'll build a good wall.
>
> Now, we're going to build a real wall. We're going to build a wall that
> works, and it's going to have a huge impact on the inflow of drugs coming
> across.
> The wall is almost — that could be one of the main reasons you have to have
> it. It's an additional tool to stop the inflow of drugs into our country.
>
> The previous administration enacted an open-door policy to illegal migrants
> from Central America. "Welcome in. Come in, please, please."
>
> As a result, MS-13 surged into the country and scoured, and just absolutely
> destroyed, so much in front of it. New arrivals came in and they were all
> made recruits of each other, and they fought with each other, and then they
> fought outside of each other. And it got worse and worse, and we've turned
> that back.
>
> In the three years before I took office, more than 150,000 unaccompanied
> alien minors arrived at the border and were released all throughout our
> country into United States' communities — at a tremendous monetary cost to
> local taxpayers and also a great cost to life and safety.
>
> Nearly 4,000 from this wave were released into Suffolk County —
> congratulations — including seven who are now indicted for murder. You know
> about that.
>
> In Washington, D.C. region, at least 42 alien minors from the border surge
> have been recently implicated in MS-13-related violence, including 19
> charged in killings or attempted killings.
>
> You say, what happened to the old days where people came into this country,
> they worked and they worked and they worked, and they had families, and they
> paid taxes, and they did all sorts of things, and their families got
> stronger, and they were closely knit? We don't see that.
>
> Failure to enforce our immigration laws had predictable results:
> drugs, gangs and violence. But that's all changing now.
>
> Under the Trump administration, America is once more a nation of laws and
> once again a nation that stands up for our law enforcement officers.
> (Applause.) _______________________________________________
> acb-chat mailing list
> acb-chat@acblists.org
> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> acb-chat mailing list
> acb-chat@acblists.org
> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>
>
>
Monday, July 31, 2017
Saturday, July 29, 2017
The Leader of the Pack Speaks
During a speech to law enforcement on July 28, President Trump said
"please don't be too nice" to suspects who are arrested. (The
Washington Post)
On Friday, President Trump traveled to Long Island to address a group
of law enforcement officials and speak about the administration's
efforts to eradicate
the gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. His speech stuck largely to that
theme, though he also made note of Thursday night's failed health-care
vote.
Trump's speech was noteworthy, though, for its embrace of aggressive
tactics by police officers. He insisted that his team was "rough" and
encouraged police
officers not to be concerned about preventing physical harm to people
being taken into custody. The laws, he said, were "stacked against"
the police.
"Please don't be too nice," Trump told the officers, to applause.
Below, his comments, as provided by the White House, with our
highlights and annotations.
text.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, thank you very much. This is certainly being home for me. I
spent a lot of time right here. I was in Queens, so I'd come here, and
this was like
the luxury location for me. And I love it. I love the people here.
Even coming in from the airport, I sat with Nikki Haley, who's here
someplace. Where's
our Nikki? Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is so incredible. (Applause.)
And she's seen crowds in her life, and she said, boy, those are really
big crowds.
Crowds of people all lining the streets, all the way over to here. And
it's really a special place. And so when I heard about this, I said, I
want to do
that one.
But I really wanted to do it not because of location, but because, as
you know, I am the big, big believer and admirer of the people in law
enforcement,
okay? From day one. (Applause.) From day one. We love our police. We
love our sheriffs. And we love our ICE officers. And they have been
working hard.
(Applause.) Thank you. They have been working hard.
Together, we're going to restore safety to our streets and peace to
our communities, and we're going to destroy the vile criminal cartel,
MS-13, and many
other gangs. But MS-13 is particularly violent. They don't like
shooting people because it's too quick, it's too fast. I was reading —
one of these animals
was caught — in explaining, they like to knife them and cut them, and
let them die slowly because that way it's more painful, and they enjoy
watching that
much more. These are animals.
We're joined today by police and sheriffs from Suffolk, Nassau,
Dutchess and Ulster counties; state police from New York and New
Jersey — many of you I
know, great friends; Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers; and
law enforcement personnel from a number of federal agencies. So we're
loaded up
with great people — that's what I call it.
And I want to just tell you all together, right now, the reason I came
— this is the most important sentence to me: On behalf of the American
people, I
want to say, thank you. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you.
And I don't think you know how much the public respects and admires
you. You're saving American lives every day, and we have your backs —
believe me — we
have your backs 100 percent. Not like the old days. Not like the old
days. (Applause.)
You know, when you wanted to take over and you used military equipment
— and they were saying you couldn't do it — you know what I said? That
was my first
day: You can do it. (Laughter.) In fact, that stuff is disappearing so
fast we have none left. (Laughter.) You guys know — you really knew
how to get that.
But that's my honor. And I tell you what — it's being put to good use.
I especially want to thank ICE Director Tom Homan, who has done an
incredible job in just a short period of time. Tom, get up here. I
know you just — (applause)
— Tom is determined to rid our nation of cartels and criminals who are
preying on our citizens. And I can only say to Tom: Keep up the great
work. He's
a tough guy. He's a tough cookie. Somebody said the other day, they
saw him on television, and somebody — they were interviewed after
that; they said,
he looks very nasty, he looks very mean. I said, that's what I'm
looking for. (Laughter.) That's exactly what I was looking for.
And for that, I want to congratulate John Kelly, who has done an
incredible job of Secretary of Homeland Security. Incredible.
(Applause.) One of our real
stars. Truly, one of our stars. John Kelly is one of our great stars.
You know, the border is down 78 percent. Under past administrations,
the border didn't
go down — it went up. But if it went down 1 percent, it was like this
was a great thing. Down 78 percent. And, in fact, the southern border
of Mexico,
we did them a big favor — believe me. They get very little traffic in
there anymore, because they know they're not going to get through the
border to the
United States.
So that whole group has been incredible, led by General Kelly.
Let me also express our gratitude to the members of the New York
Delegation here today: Congressman Chris Collins. Where's Chris? Oh,
Chris, right from
the beginning he said, "Trump is going to win. Trump is going to win."
So I like him. (Laughter.) I didn't like him that much before; now I
love him. (Laughter
and applause.) Dan Donovan — thanks, Dan. (Applause.) Thank you, Dan.
And Lee Zeldin, who I supported right from the beginning, when they
said he didn't
have a chance of beating a pretty popular incumbent. (Applause.)
And I saw him in a debate. I said, I think this guy is going to win.
But he fought a pretty popular guy, and I said, I think he's going to
win and went
heavy for him, and he won. And he won pretty easily, didn't you?
Pretty good. I'm proud of you. Great job.
And, of course, a legend, somebody that we all know very well, sort of
my neighbor — because I consider him a neighbor — but he's really a
great and highly
respected man in Washington, Congressman Peter King. (Applause.) Very
respected guy. He is a respected man that people like to ask opinions
of. I do.
Congressman King and his colleagues know the terrible pain and
violence MS-13 has inflicted upon this community — and this country.
And if you remember
just a little more than two years ago, when I came down the escalator
with Melania, and I made the speech — people coming into this country.
Everyone said,
what does he know? What's he talking about?
And there was bedlam. Remember bedlam? And then about two months
later, they said, you know, he's right. So I'm honored to have brought
it to everybody's
attention. But the suffering and the pain that we were going through —
and now you can look at the numbers — it's a whole different world.
And it will get better and better and better because we've been able
to start nipping it in the bud. We've nipped it in the bud — let's
call it start nipping
in the bud.
And MS-13, the cartel, has spread gruesome bloodshed throughout the
United States. We've gotten a lot of them out of here. Big, big
percentage. But the
rest are coming — they'll be out of here quickly, right? Quickly.
Good. (Applause.)
So I asked Tom on the plane — he was never on Air Force One — I said,
how do you like it? He said, I like it. (Laughter.) But I said, hey,
Tom, let me
ask you a question — how tough are these guys, MS-13? He said, they're
nothing compared to my guys. Nothing. And that's what you need.
Sometimes that's
what you need, right?
For many years, they exploited America's weak borders and lax
immigration enforcement to bring drugs and violence to cities and
towns all across America.
They're there right now because of weak political leadership, weak
leadership, weak policing, and in many cases because the police
weren't allowed to do
their job. I've met police that are great police that aren't allowed
to do their job because they have a pathetic mayor or a mayor doesn't
know what's
going on. (Applause.)
Were you applauding for someone in particular? (Laughter.) It's sad.
It's sad. You look at what's happening, it's sad.
But hopefully — certainly in the country, those days are over. You may
have a little bit longer to wait.
But from now on, we're going to enforce our laws, protect our borders,
and support our police like our police have never been supported
before. We're going
to support you like you've never been supported before. (Applause.)
Few communities have suffered worse at the hands of these MS-13 thugs
than the people of Long Island. Hard to believe. I grew up on Long
Island. I didn't
know about this. I didn't know about this. And then all of a sudden,
this is like a new phenomenon. Our hearts and our nation grieve for
the victims and
their families.
Since January '16 — think of this — MS-13 gang members have brutally
murdered 17 beautiful, young lives in this area on Long Island alone.
Think of it.
They butcher those little girls. They kidnap, they extort, they rape
and they rob. They prey on children. They shouldn't be here. They
stomp on their victims.
They beat them with clubs. They slash them with machetes, and they
stab them with knives. They have transformed peaceful parks and
beautiful, quiet neighborhoods
into bloodstained killing fields. They're animals.
We cannot tolerate as a society the spilling of innocent, young,
wonderful, vibrant people — sons and daughters, even husbands and
wives. We cannot accept
this violence one day more. Can't do it, and we're not going to do it.
Because of you, we're not going to be able to do it. You're not going
to allow it
to happen, and we're backing you up 100 percent. Remember that — 100
percent. (Applause.)
It is the policy of this administration to dismantle, decimate and
eradicate MS-13 at every other — and I have to say, MS-13, that's a
name; rough groups
— that's fine. We got a lot of others. And they were all let in here
over a relatively short period of time. Not during my period of time,
believe me.
But we're getting them out. They're going to jails, and then they're
going back to their country. Or they're going back to their country,
period.
One by one, we're liberating our American towns. Can you believe that
I'm saying that? I'm talking about liberating our towns. This is like
I'd see in
a movie: They're liberating the town, like in the old Wild West,
right? We're liberating our towns. I never thought I'd be standing up
here talking about
liberating the towns on Long Island where I grew up, but that's what
you're doing.
And I can tell you, I saw some photos where Tom's guys — rough guys.
They're rough. I don't want to be — say it because they'll say that's
not politically
correct. You're not allowed to have rough people doing this kind of
work. We have to get — just like they don't want to have rich people
at the head of
Treasury, okay? (Laughter.) Like, I want a rich guy at the head of
Treasury, right? Right? (Applause.)
I want a rich guy at the head of Commerce. Because we've been screwed
so badly on trade deals, I want people that made a lot of money now to
make a lot
of money for our country.
And, by the way, as I was walking up, they just gave me the numbers.
Our numbers just came out this morning. GDP is up double from what it
was in the first
quarter. (Applause.) 2.6 percent. We're doing well. We're doing really
well. And we took off all those restrictions. And some we're
statutorily stuck with
a for a little while, but eventually that statute comes up, and we're
going to be able to cut a lot more. But we've sort of liberated the
world of creating
jobs like you're liberating us and the people that live in areas.
But I have to say, one by one, we are indeed freeing up these great
American towns and cities that are under siege from gang violence.
Look at Los Angeles. Look at what's going on in Los Angeles. Look at
Chicago. What is going on? Is anybody here from Chicago? We have to
send some of you
to Chicago, I think. (Laughter.) What's going on?
I mean, you see what's happening there? There's no — do we agree? Is
there something maybe — (applause) — is there something — I have to
tell you one Chicago
story.
So Chicago is having this unbelievable violence; people being killed —
four, five, six in a weekend. And I'm saying, what is going on?
And when I was running, we had motorcycle brigades take us to the
planes and stuff. And one of the guys, really good — you could see a
really respected
officer, police officer. He was at the head. He was the boss. And you
could see he was the boss. He actually talked like the boss. "Come on,
get lined
up." Because I'd always take pictures with the police because I did
that. My guys said, don't do it. Don't do it. (Applause.)
Other candidates didn't do it that I was beating by 40 points, can you
believe it? But I did it. Maybe that's why I was winning by 40 points.
But other
candidates wouldn't do it, but I always took the pictures with the police.
But we're in Chicago, and we had massive motorcycle bridges, and you
know those people have to volunteer. I don't know if you know that,
but from what
I understand, they have to volunteer. And I had the biggest brigades.
I had brigades sometimes with almost 300 motorcycles. Even I was
impressed. I'd look
ahead and it was nothing but motorcycles because they'd volunteer from
all over various states.
But this one guy was impressive. He was a rough cookie and really
respected guy. I could see he was respected. And he said, "All right,
come on, get over
here. Get over here. He's got to get to work. Get over here." And I
said, "So let me tell — you're from Chicago?" "Yes, sir." I said,
"What the hell is
going on?" And he said, "It's a problem; it can be straightened out."
I said, "How long would it take you to straighten out this problem?"
He said, "If
you gave me the authority, a couple of days." (Laughter.) I really
mean it. I said, "You really think so?" He said, "A couple of days. We
know all the
bad ones. We know them all." And he said, the officers — you guys, you
know all the bad ones in your area. You know them by their names. He
said, "We know
them all. A couple of days."
I said, "You got to be kidding." Now, this is a year and a half ago. I
said, "Give me your card." And he gave me a card. And I sent it to the
mayor. I
said, "You ought to try using this guy." (Laughter.)
Guess what happened? Never heard. And last week they had another
record. It's horrible.
But we're just getting started. We will restore law and order on Long
Island. We'll bring back justice to the United States. I'm very happy
to have gotten
a great, great Justice of the United States Supreme Court, not only
nominated, but approved. And, by the way, your Second Amendment is
safe. (Applause.)
Your Second Amendment is safe. I feel very good about that. It wasn't
looking so good for the Second Amendment, was it, huh? If Trump
doesn't win, your
Second Amendment is gone. Your Second Amendment would be gone.
But I have a simple message today for every gang member and criminal
alien that are threatening so violently our people: We will find you,
we will arrest
you, we will jail you, and we will deport you. (Applause.)
And, you know, we had some problems with certain countries. Still do
with a couple, but we'll take care of them — don't worry about it.
Anytime we have
a trade deficit, it's very easy — which is almost everywhere. We have
trade deficits with almost every country because we had a lot of
really bad negotiators
making deals with other countries. So it's almost everywhere, so that
takes care of itself.
But we had certain countries in South America where they wouldn't take
the people back. And I said, that's okay, no more trade. All of a
sudden they started
taking their people back. It's amazing, isn't it? They used to send to
the former Secretary of State of the country, "Please call. Would you
please work
it so that we can take" — and they used to just tell her, "No, we
won't take back." They take back with us, every single time. We're
having very little
problem. Are we having any problem right now with that? Huh? You
better believe it. Give me the names of the few problems. We'll take
care of it, I'm telling
you. (Laughter and applause.) It's unbelievable.
One of the old people — one of the people that represented the other
administration — I said, why didn't you use that, the power of
economics? "Sir, we
think one thing has nothing to do with another." I said, oh, really?
So we'll have big deficits and they won't take back these criminals
that came from
there and should be back there? Well, believe me, to me, everything
matters. But they're all taking them back.
ICE officers recently conducted the largest crackdown on criminal
gangs in the history of our country. In just six weeks, ICE and our
law enforcement partners
arrested nearly 1,400 suspects and seized more than 200 illegal
firearms and some beauties, and nearly 600 pounds of narcotics.
The men and women of ICE are turning the tide in the battle against
MS-13. But we need more resources from Congress — and we're getting
them. Congress
is actually opening up and really doing a job. They should have
approved healthcare last night, but you can't have everything. Boy,
oh, boy. They've been
working on that one for seven years. Can you believe that? The swamp.
But we'll get it done. We're going to get it done.
You know, I said from the beginning: Let Obamacare implode, and then
do it. I turned out to be right. Let Obamacare implode. (Applause.)
Right now, we have less than 6,000 Enforcement and Removal Officers in
ICE. This is not enough to protect a nation of more than 320 million
people. It's
essential that Congress fund another 10,000 ICE officers — and we're
asking for that — so that we can eliminate MS-13 and root out the
criminal cartels
from our country.
Now, we're getting them out anyway, but we'd like to get them out a
lot faster. And when you see these towns and when you see these thugs
being thrown
into the back of a paddy wagon — you just see them thrown in, rough —
I said, please don't be too nice. (Laughter.) Like when you guys put
somebody in
the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put
their hand over? Like, don't hit their head and they've just killed
somebody — don't
hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay? (Laughter
and applause.)
It's essential that Congress fund hundreds more federal immigration
judges and prosecutors — and we need them quickly, quickly — if we're
going to dismantle
these deadly networks. And I have to tell you, you know, the laws are
so horrendously stacked against us, because for years and years
they've been made
to protect the criminal. Totally made to protect the criminal, not the
officers. If you do something wrong, you're in more jeopardy than they
are. These
laws are stacked against you. We're changing those laws. But in the
meantime, we need judges for the simplest thing — things that you
should be able to
do without a judge. But we have to have those judges quickly. In the
meantime, we're trying to change the laws.
We're also working with Chairman Bob Goodlatte on a series of
enforcement measures — and he's a terrific guy — to keep our country
safe from crime and
terrorism — and in particular, radical Islamic terrorism. (Applause.)
A term never uttered by the past administration. Never uttered. Did
anybody ever
hear that term? I don't think so.
But you heard it from me.
That includes cracking down on sanctuary cities that defy federal law,
shield visa overstays, and that release dangerous criminals back into
the United
States' communities. That's what's happening. They're releasing them.
So many deaths where they release somebody back into the community,
and they know
it's going to end that way. That's the sad — they know it's going to
end that way. We're ending those procedures. (Applause.) Thank you.
We have to secure — I spoke to parents, incredible parents. I got to
know so many parents of children that were so horribly killed — burned
to death, beaten
to death, just the worst kind of death you can ever — stuffed in
barrels. And the person that did it was released, and you'd look at
the file, and there
were letter after letter after letter of people begging not to let
this animal back into society; that this would happen, it would happen
quickly. It wasn't
even like it would happen over a long period of time. They were saying
it would happen quickly. It's total violence. He's a totally violent
person. You
cannot let this person out.
They let the person out, and sometimes it would happen like on the
first day. And then you have to talk to the parents and hold the
parents and hug them.
And they're crying so — I mean crying. Their lives are destroyed. And
nobody thinks about those people. They don't think about those people.
They're devastated.
But we're ending so much of that. We're ending hopefully all of that.
The laws are tough. The laws are stacked against us, but we're ending
that. (Applause.)
So we're going to secure our borders against illegal entry, and we
will build the wall. That I can tell you. (Applause.)
In fact, last night — you don't read about this too much, but it was
approved — $1.6 billion for the phase one of the wall, which is not
only design but
the start of construction over a period of about two years, but the
start of construction for a great border wall. And we're going to
build it. The Wall
is a vital, and vital as a tool, for ending the humanitarian disaster
brought — and really brought on by drug smugglers and new words that
we haven't heard
too much of — human traffickers.
This is a term that's been going on from the beginning of time, and
they say it's worse now than it ever was. You go back a thousand years
where you think
of human trafficking, you go back 500 years, 200 years, 100 years.
Human trafficking they say — think of it, but they do — human
trafficking is worse now
maybe than it's ever been in the history of this world.
We need a wall. We also need it, though, for the drugs, because the
drugs aren't going through walls very easily — especially the walls
that I build. I'm
a very good builder. You people know that better than most because you
live in the area. That's why I'm here. (Applause.) We'll build a good
wall.
Now, we're going to build a real wall. We're going to build a wall
that works, and it's going to have a huge impact on the inflow of
drugs coming across.
The wall is almost — that could be one of the main reasons you have to
have it. It's an additional tool to stop the inflow of drugs into our
country.
The previous administration enacted an open-door policy to illegal
migrants from Central America. "Welcome in. Come in, please, please."
As a result, MS-13 surged into the country and scoured, and just
absolutely destroyed, so much in front of it. New arrivals came in and
they were all made
recruits of each other, and they fought with each other, and then they
fought outside of each other. And it got worse and worse, and we've
turned that
back.
In the three years before I took office, more than 150,000
unaccompanied alien minors arrived at the border and were released all
throughout our country
into United States' communities — at a tremendous monetary cost to
local taxpayers and also a great cost to life and safety.
Nearly 4,000 from this wave were released into Suffolk County —
congratulations — including seven who are now indicted for murder. You
know about that.
In Washington, D.C. region, at least 42 alien minors from the border
surge have been recently implicated in MS-13-related violence,
including 19 charged
in killings or attempted killings.
You say, what happened to the old days where people came into this
country, they worked and they worked and they worked, and they had
families, and they
paid taxes, and they did all sorts of things, and their families got
stronger, and they were closely knit? We don't see that.
Failure to enforce our immigration laws had predictable results:
drugs, gangs and violence. But that's all changing now.
Under the Trump administration, America is once more a nation of laws
and once again a nation that stands up for our law enforcement
officers. (Applause.)
"please don't be too nice" to suspects who are arrested. (The
Washington Post)
On Friday, President Trump traveled to Long Island to address a group
of law enforcement officials and speak about the administration's
efforts to eradicate
the gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. His speech stuck largely to that
theme, though he also made note of Thursday night's failed health-care
vote.
Trump's speech was noteworthy, though, for its embrace of aggressive
tactics by police officers. He insisted that his team was "rough" and
encouraged police
officers not to be concerned about preventing physical harm to people
being taken into custody. The laws, he said, were "stacked against"
the police.
"Please don't be too nice," Trump told the officers, to applause.
Below, his comments, as provided by the White House, with our
highlights and annotations.
text.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, thank you very much. This is certainly being home for me. I
spent a lot of time right here. I was in Queens, so I'd come here, and
this was like
the luxury location for me. And I love it. I love the people here.
Even coming in from the airport, I sat with Nikki Haley, who's here
someplace. Where's
our Nikki? Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is so incredible. (Applause.)
And she's seen crowds in her life, and she said, boy, those are really
big crowds.
Crowds of people all lining the streets, all the way over to here. And
it's really a special place. And so when I heard about this, I said, I
want to do
that one.
But I really wanted to do it not because of location, but because, as
you know, I am the big, big believer and admirer of the people in law
enforcement,
okay? From day one. (Applause.) From day one. We love our police. We
love our sheriffs. And we love our ICE officers. And they have been
working hard.
(Applause.) Thank you. They have been working hard.
Together, we're going to restore safety to our streets and peace to
our communities, and we're going to destroy the vile criminal cartel,
MS-13, and many
other gangs. But MS-13 is particularly violent. They don't like
shooting people because it's too quick, it's too fast. I was reading —
one of these animals
was caught — in explaining, they like to knife them and cut them, and
let them die slowly because that way it's more painful, and they enjoy
watching that
much more. These are animals.
We're joined today by police and sheriffs from Suffolk, Nassau,
Dutchess and Ulster counties; state police from New York and New
Jersey — many of you I
know, great friends; Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers; and
law enforcement personnel from a number of federal agencies. So we're
loaded up
with great people — that's what I call it.
And I want to just tell you all together, right now, the reason I came
— this is the most important sentence to me: On behalf of the American
people, I
want to say, thank you. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you.
And I don't think you know how much the public respects and admires
you. You're saving American lives every day, and we have your backs —
believe me — we
have your backs 100 percent. Not like the old days. Not like the old
days. (Applause.)
You know, when you wanted to take over and you used military equipment
— and they were saying you couldn't do it — you know what I said? That
was my first
day: You can do it. (Laughter.) In fact, that stuff is disappearing so
fast we have none left. (Laughter.) You guys know — you really knew
how to get that.
But that's my honor. And I tell you what — it's being put to good use.
I especially want to thank ICE Director Tom Homan, who has done an
incredible job in just a short period of time. Tom, get up here. I
know you just — (applause)
— Tom is determined to rid our nation of cartels and criminals who are
preying on our citizens. And I can only say to Tom: Keep up the great
work. He's
a tough guy. He's a tough cookie. Somebody said the other day, they
saw him on television, and somebody — they were interviewed after
that; they said,
he looks very nasty, he looks very mean. I said, that's what I'm
looking for. (Laughter.) That's exactly what I was looking for.
And for that, I want to congratulate John Kelly, who has done an
incredible job of Secretary of Homeland Security. Incredible.
(Applause.) One of our real
stars. Truly, one of our stars. John Kelly is one of our great stars.
You know, the border is down 78 percent. Under past administrations,
the border didn't
go down — it went up. But if it went down 1 percent, it was like this
was a great thing. Down 78 percent. And, in fact, the southern border
of Mexico,
we did them a big favor — believe me. They get very little traffic in
there anymore, because they know they're not going to get through the
border to the
United States.
So that whole group has been incredible, led by General Kelly.
Let me also express our gratitude to the members of the New York
Delegation here today: Congressman Chris Collins. Where's Chris? Oh,
Chris, right from
the beginning he said, "Trump is going to win. Trump is going to win."
So I like him. (Laughter.) I didn't like him that much before; now I
love him. (Laughter
and applause.) Dan Donovan — thanks, Dan. (Applause.) Thank you, Dan.
And Lee Zeldin, who I supported right from the beginning, when they
said he didn't
have a chance of beating a pretty popular incumbent. (Applause.)
And I saw him in a debate. I said, I think this guy is going to win.
But he fought a pretty popular guy, and I said, I think he's going to
win and went
heavy for him, and he won. And he won pretty easily, didn't you?
Pretty good. I'm proud of you. Great job.
And, of course, a legend, somebody that we all know very well, sort of
my neighbor — because I consider him a neighbor — but he's really a
great and highly
respected man in Washington, Congressman Peter King. (Applause.) Very
respected guy. He is a respected man that people like to ask opinions
of. I do.
Congressman King and his colleagues know the terrible pain and
violence MS-13 has inflicted upon this community — and this country.
And if you remember
just a little more than two years ago, when I came down the escalator
with Melania, and I made the speech — people coming into this country.
Everyone said,
what does he know? What's he talking about?
And there was bedlam. Remember bedlam? And then about two months
later, they said, you know, he's right. So I'm honored to have brought
it to everybody's
attention. But the suffering and the pain that we were going through —
and now you can look at the numbers — it's a whole different world.
And it will get better and better and better because we've been able
to start nipping it in the bud. We've nipped it in the bud — let's
call it start nipping
in the bud.
And MS-13, the cartel, has spread gruesome bloodshed throughout the
United States. We've gotten a lot of them out of here. Big, big
percentage. But the
rest are coming — they'll be out of here quickly, right? Quickly.
Good. (Applause.)
So I asked Tom on the plane — he was never on Air Force One — I said,
how do you like it? He said, I like it. (Laughter.) But I said, hey,
Tom, let me
ask you a question — how tough are these guys, MS-13? He said, they're
nothing compared to my guys. Nothing. And that's what you need.
Sometimes that's
what you need, right?
For many years, they exploited America's weak borders and lax
immigration enforcement to bring drugs and violence to cities and
towns all across America.
They're there right now because of weak political leadership, weak
leadership, weak policing, and in many cases because the police
weren't allowed to do
their job. I've met police that are great police that aren't allowed
to do their job because they have a pathetic mayor or a mayor doesn't
know what's
going on. (Applause.)
Were you applauding for someone in particular? (Laughter.) It's sad.
It's sad. You look at what's happening, it's sad.
But hopefully — certainly in the country, those days are over. You may
have a little bit longer to wait.
But from now on, we're going to enforce our laws, protect our borders,
and support our police like our police have never been supported
before. We're going
to support you like you've never been supported before. (Applause.)
Few communities have suffered worse at the hands of these MS-13 thugs
than the people of Long Island. Hard to believe. I grew up on Long
Island. I didn't
know about this. I didn't know about this. And then all of a sudden,
this is like a new phenomenon. Our hearts and our nation grieve for
the victims and
their families.
Since January '16 — think of this — MS-13 gang members have brutally
murdered 17 beautiful, young lives in this area on Long Island alone.
Think of it.
They butcher those little girls. They kidnap, they extort, they rape
and they rob. They prey on children. They shouldn't be here. They
stomp on their victims.
They beat them with clubs. They slash them with machetes, and they
stab them with knives. They have transformed peaceful parks and
beautiful, quiet neighborhoods
into bloodstained killing fields. They're animals.
We cannot tolerate as a society the spilling of innocent, young,
wonderful, vibrant people — sons and daughters, even husbands and
wives. We cannot accept
this violence one day more. Can't do it, and we're not going to do it.
Because of you, we're not going to be able to do it. You're not going
to allow it
to happen, and we're backing you up 100 percent. Remember that — 100
percent. (Applause.)
It is the policy of this administration to dismantle, decimate and
eradicate MS-13 at every other — and I have to say, MS-13, that's a
name; rough groups
— that's fine. We got a lot of others. And they were all let in here
over a relatively short period of time. Not during my period of time,
believe me.
But we're getting them out. They're going to jails, and then they're
going back to their country. Or they're going back to their country,
period.
One by one, we're liberating our American towns. Can you believe that
I'm saying that? I'm talking about liberating our towns. This is like
I'd see in
a movie: They're liberating the town, like in the old Wild West,
right? We're liberating our towns. I never thought I'd be standing up
here talking about
liberating the towns on Long Island where I grew up, but that's what
you're doing.
And I can tell you, I saw some photos where Tom's guys — rough guys.
They're rough. I don't want to be — say it because they'll say that's
not politically
correct. You're not allowed to have rough people doing this kind of
work. We have to get — just like they don't want to have rich people
at the head of
Treasury, okay? (Laughter.) Like, I want a rich guy at the head of
Treasury, right? Right? (Applause.)
I want a rich guy at the head of Commerce. Because we've been screwed
so badly on trade deals, I want people that made a lot of money now to
make a lot
of money for our country.
And, by the way, as I was walking up, they just gave me the numbers.
Our numbers just came out this morning. GDP is up double from what it
was in the first
quarter. (Applause.) 2.6 percent. We're doing well. We're doing really
well. And we took off all those restrictions. And some we're
statutorily stuck with
a for a little while, but eventually that statute comes up, and we're
going to be able to cut a lot more. But we've sort of liberated the
world of creating
jobs like you're liberating us and the people that live in areas.
But I have to say, one by one, we are indeed freeing up these great
American towns and cities that are under siege from gang violence.
Look at Los Angeles. Look at what's going on in Los Angeles. Look at
Chicago. What is going on? Is anybody here from Chicago? We have to
send some of you
to Chicago, I think. (Laughter.) What's going on?
I mean, you see what's happening there? There's no — do we agree? Is
there something maybe — (applause) — is there something — I have to
tell you one Chicago
story.
So Chicago is having this unbelievable violence; people being killed —
four, five, six in a weekend. And I'm saying, what is going on?
And when I was running, we had motorcycle brigades take us to the
planes and stuff. And one of the guys, really good — you could see a
really respected
officer, police officer. He was at the head. He was the boss. And you
could see he was the boss. He actually talked like the boss. "Come on,
get lined
up." Because I'd always take pictures with the police because I did
that. My guys said, don't do it. Don't do it. (Applause.)
Other candidates didn't do it that I was beating by 40 points, can you
believe it? But I did it. Maybe that's why I was winning by 40 points.
But other
candidates wouldn't do it, but I always took the pictures with the police.
But we're in Chicago, and we had massive motorcycle bridges, and you
know those people have to volunteer. I don't know if you know that,
but from what
I understand, they have to volunteer. And I had the biggest brigades.
I had brigades sometimes with almost 300 motorcycles. Even I was
impressed. I'd look
ahead and it was nothing but motorcycles because they'd volunteer from
all over various states.
But this one guy was impressive. He was a rough cookie and really
respected guy. I could see he was respected. And he said, "All right,
come on, get over
here. Get over here. He's got to get to work. Get over here." And I
said, "So let me tell — you're from Chicago?" "Yes, sir." I said,
"What the hell is
going on?" And he said, "It's a problem; it can be straightened out."
I said, "How long would it take you to straighten out this problem?"
He said, "If
you gave me the authority, a couple of days." (Laughter.) I really
mean it. I said, "You really think so?" He said, "A couple of days. We
know all the
bad ones. We know them all." And he said, the officers — you guys, you
know all the bad ones in your area. You know them by their names. He
said, "We know
them all. A couple of days."
I said, "You got to be kidding." Now, this is a year and a half ago. I
said, "Give me your card." And he gave me a card. And I sent it to the
mayor. I
said, "You ought to try using this guy." (Laughter.)
Guess what happened? Never heard. And last week they had another
record. It's horrible.
But we're just getting started. We will restore law and order on Long
Island. We'll bring back justice to the United States. I'm very happy
to have gotten
a great, great Justice of the United States Supreme Court, not only
nominated, but approved. And, by the way, your Second Amendment is
safe. (Applause.)
Your Second Amendment is safe. I feel very good about that. It wasn't
looking so good for the Second Amendment, was it, huh? If Trump
doesn't win, your
Second Amendment is gone. Your Second Amendment would be gone.
But I have a simple message today for every gang member and criminal
alien that are threatening so violently our people: We will find you,
we will arrest
you, we will jail you, and we will deport you. (Applause.)
And, you know, we had some problems with certain countries. Still do
with a couple, but we'll take care of them — don't worry about it.
Anytime we have
a trade deficit, it's very easy — which is almost everywhere. We have
trade deficits with almost every country because we had a lot of
really bad negotiators
making deals with other countries. So it's almost everywhere, so that
takes care of itself.
But we had certain countries in South America where they wouldn't take
the people back. And I said, that's okay, no more trade. All of a
sudden they started
taking their people back. It's amazing, isn't it? They used to send to
the former Secretary of State of the country, "Please call. Would you
please work
it so that we can take" — and they used to just tell her, "No, we
won't take back." They take back with us, every single time. We're
having very little
problem. Are we having any problem right now with that? Huh? You
better believe it. Give me the names of the few problems. We'll take
care of it, I'm telling
you. (Laughter and applause.) It's unbelievable.
One of the old people — one of the people that represented the other
administration — I said, why didn't you use that, the power of
economics? "Sir, we
think one thing has nothing to do with another." I said, oh, really?
So we'll have big deficits and they won't take back these criminals
that came from
there and should be back there? Well, believe me, to me, everything
matters. But they're all taking them back.
ICE officers recently conducted the largest crackdown on criminal
gangs in the history of our country. In just six weeks, ICE and our
law enforcement partners
arrested nearly 1,400 suspects and seized more than 200 illegal
firearms and some beauties, and nearly 600 pounds of narcotics.
The men and women of ICE are turning the tide in the battle against
MS-13. But we need more resources from Congress — and we're getting
them. Congress
is actually opening up and really doing a job. They should have
approved healthcare last night, but you can't have everything. Boy,
oh, boy. They've been
working on that one for seven years. Can you believe that? The swamp.
But we'll get it done. We're going to get it done.
You know, I said from the beginning: Let Obamacare implode, and then
do it. I turned out to be right. Let Obamacare implode. (Applause.)
Right now, we have less than 6,000 Enforcement and Removal Officers in
ICE. This is not enough to protect a nation of more than 320 million
people. It's
essential that Congress fund another 10,000 ICE officers — and we're
asking for that — so that we can eliminate MS-13 and root out the
criminal cartels
from our country.
Now, we're getting them out anyway, but we'd like to get them out a
lot faster. And when you see these towns and when you see these thugs
being thrown
into the back of a paddy wagon — you just see them thrown in, rough —
I said, please don't be too nice. (Laughter.) Like when you guys put
somebody in
the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put
their hand over? Like, don't hit their head and they've just killed
somebody — don't
hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay? (Laughter
and applause.)
It's essential that Congress fund hundreds more federal immigration
judges and prosecutors — and we need them quickly, quickly — if we're
going to dismantle
these deadly networks. And I have to tell you, you know, the laws are
so horrendously stacked against us, because for years and years
they've been made
to protect the criminal. Totally made to protect the criminal, not the
officers. If you do something wrong, you're in more jeopardy than they
are. These
laws are stacked against you. We're changing those laws. But in the
meantime, we need judges for the simplest thing — things that you
should be able to
do without a judge. But we have to have those judges quickly. In the
meantime, we're trying to change the laws.
We're also working with Chairman Bob Goodlatte on a series of
enforcement measures — and he's a terrific guy — to keep our country
safe from crime and
terrorism — and in particular, radical Islamic terrorism. (Applause.)
A term never uttered by the past administration. Never uttered. Did
anybody ever
hear that term? I don't think so.
But you heard it from me.
That includes cracking down on sanctuary cities that defy federal law,
shield visa overstays, and that release dangerous criminals back into
the United
States' communities. That's what's happening. They're releasing them.
So many deaths where they release somebody back into the community,
and they know
it's going to end that way. That's the sad — they know it's going to
end that way. We're ending those procedures. (Applause.) Thank you.
We have to secure — I spoke to parents, incredible parents. I got to
know so many parents of children that were so horribly killed — burned
to death, beaten
to death, just the worst kind of death you can ever — stuffed in
barrels. And the person that did it was released, and you'd look at
the file, and there
were letter after letter after letter of people begging not to let
this animal back into society; that this would happen, it would happen
quickly. It wasn't
even like it would happen over a long period of time. They were saying
it would happen quickly. It's total violence. He's a totally violent
person. You
cannot let this person out.
They let the person out, and sometimes it would happen like on the
first day. And then you have to talk to the parents and hold the
parents and hug them.
And they're crying so — I mean crying. Their lives are destroyed. And
nobody thinks about those people. They don't think about those people.
They're devastated.
But we're ending so much of that. We're ending hopefully all of that.
The laws are tough. The laws are stacked against us, but we're ending
that. (Applause.)
So we're going to secure our borders against illegal entry, and we
will build the wall. That I can tell you. (Applause.)
In fact, last night — you don't read about this too much, but it was
approved — $1.6 billion for the phase one of the wall, which is not
only design but
the start of construction over a period of about two years, but the
start of construction for a great border wall. And we're going to
build it. The Wall
is a vital, and vital as a tool, for ending the humanitarian disaster
brought — and really brought on by drug smugglers and new words that
we haven't heard
too much of — human traffickers.
This is a term that's been going on from the beginning of time, and
they say it's worse now than it ever was. You go back a thousand years
where you think
of human trafficking, you go back 500 years, 200 years, 100 years.
Human trafficking they say — think of it, but they do — human
trafficking is worse now
maybe than it's ever been in the history of this world.
We need a wall. We also need it, though, for the drugs, because the
drugs aren't going through walls very easily — especially the walls
that I build. I'm
a very good builder. You people know that better than most because you
live in the area. That's why I'm here. (Applause.) We'll build a good
wall.
Now, we're going to build a real wall. We're going to build a wall
that works, and it's going to have a huge impact on the inflow of
drugs coming across.
The wall is almost — that could be one of the main reasons you have to
have it. It's an additional tool to stop the inflow of drugs into our
country.
The previous administration enacted an open-door policy to illegal
migrants from Central America. "Welcome in. Come in, please, please."
As a result, MS-13 surged into the country and scoured, and just
absolutely destroyed, so much in front of it. New arrivals came in and
they were all made
recruits of each other, and they fought with each other, and then they
fought outside of each other. And it got worse and worse, and we've
turned that
back.
In the three years before I took office, more than 150,000
unaccompanied alien minors arrived at the border and were released all
throughout our country
into United States' communities — at a tremendous monetary cost to
local taxpayers and also a great cost to life and safety.
Nearly 4,000 from this wave were released into Suffolk County —
congratulations — including seven who are now indicted for murder. You
know about that.
In Washington, D.C. region, at least 42 alien minors from the border
surge have been recently implicated in MS-13-related violence,
including 19 charged
in killings or attempted killings.
You say, what happened to the old days where people came into this
country, they worked and they worked and they worked, and they had
families, and they
paid taxes, and they did all sorts of things, and their families got
stronger, and they were closely knit? We don't see that.
Failure to enforce our immigration laws had predictable results:
drugs, gangs and violence. But that's all changing now.
Under the Trump administration, America is once more a nation of laws
and once again a nation that stands up for our law enforcement
officers. (Applause.)
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Trump Tweets, "No Transgender shall be called upon to protect America"
Dear Beleaguered Friends...and Others.
Things may be looking up, if we can just take the latest Tweet from
Donald Trump at face value. After discussing the matter with his
generals, Donald Trump, in his position as Leader of the Pack...Oops,
as Commander in Chief, has declared that Transgender Americans will no
longer be allowed to serve in the USA's Military.
Now if we can convince Mister Commander in Chief to declare Gay's to
be banned, followed by the Tender Sex(His term for Women), and finally all boys
under the age of 25, we might be onto something radical. I believe
with all of my brain, that those wanting their interests protected,
should be the first to head the charge into battle. No one in the
Jarvis Tribe has anything to gain, financially, from putting their
lives on the line. But the Koch Brothers? Now there's a bunch of
folks who have everything to lose. And along with the fellows down at
the Billionaire's Club, including the "Great Pretender" Donald Trump,
those are the fellows who should be out on maneuvers. Besides,
shouldn't those who have the most to lose, and have lived long enough
to enjoy it, and have the interest of their own children,
grandchildren and beyond, at heart, be prepared to lay down their
lives, rather than the lives of my children, grandchildren and beyond,
who have little to gain besides a Heroes Death?
Well, I suppose someone by now is thanking their God that Carl Jarvis
doesn't have a Twitter account, or an Oval Office from which to Tweet
his rants.
It's going to be in the mid 80's today, out here on the Great Olympic
Peninsula. A perfect day to take these creaky old bones into the
lovely fresh air of this glorious Wilderness and fill pot holes in our
quarter mile road. Certainly this activity will be far more
productive than standing by, waiting for President Trump's next
tantrum.
And by the way, if anyone can find today's Flashpoint, it's well worth
hearing Josh Green discussing his interviews with Russian President
Vladimir Putin. He presents a rather more believable image of what
appears to be a competent leader, rather than the comic character the
Corporate Media presents.
Carl Jarvis
Things may be looking up, if we can just take the latest Tweet from
Donald Trump at face value. After discussing the matter with his
generals, Donald Trump, in his position as Leader of the Pack...Oops,
as Commander in Chief, has declared that Transgender Americans will no
longer be allowed to serve in the USA's Military.
Now if we can convince Mister Commander in Chief to declare Gay's to
be banned, followed by the Tender Sex(His term for Women), and finally all boys
under the age of 25, we might be onto something radical. I believe
with all of my brain, that those wanting their interests protected,
should be the first to head the charge into battle. No one in the
Jarvis Tribe has anything to gain, financially, from putting their
lives on the line. But the Koch Brothers? Now there's a bunch of
folks who have everything to lose. And along with the fellows down at
the Billionaire's Club, including the "Great Pretender" Donald Trump,
those are the fellows who should be out on maneuvers. Besides,
shouldn't those who have the most to lose, and have lived long enough
to enjoy it, and have the interest of their own children,
grandchildren and beyond, at heart, be prepared to lay down their
lives, rather than the lives of my children, grandchildren and beyond,
who have little to gain besides a Heroes Death?
Well, I suppose someone by now is thanking their God that Carl Jarvis
doesn't have a Twitter account, or an Oval Office from which to Tweet
his rants.
It's going to be in the mid 80's today, out here on the Great Olympic
Peninsula. A perfect day to take these creaky old bones into the
lovely fresh air of this glorious Wilderness and fill pot holes in our
quarter mile road. Certainly this activity will be far more
productive than standing by, waiting for President Trump's next
tantrum.
And by the way, if anyone can find today's Flashpoint, it's well worth
hearing Josh Green discussing his interviews with Russian President
Vladimir Putin. He presents a rather more believable image of what
appears to be a competent leader, rather than the comic character the
Corporate Media presents.
Carl Jarvis
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Re: [blind-democracy] This week's Chris Hedges column Eugene Debs And The Kingdom Of Evil
On 7/19/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> I was finally able to find this in accessible form.
> Miriam
>
> Eugene Debs And The Kingdom Of Evil
>
> Mr. Fish / Truthdig
>
> By Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com
> July 18th, 2017
>
> TERRE HAUTE, Ind.—Eugene Victor Debs, whose home is an infrequently visited
> museum on the campus of Indiana State University, was arguably the most
> important political figure of the 20th century. He built the socialist
> movement in America and was eventually crucified by the capitalist class
> when he and hundreds of thousands of followers became a potent political
> threat.
>
> Debs burst onto the national stage when he organized a railroad strike in
> 1894 after the Pullman Co. cut wages by up to one-third but did not lower
> rents in company housing or reduce dividend payments to its stockholders.
> Over a hundred thousand workers staged what became the biggest strike in
> U.S. history on trains carrying Pullman cars.
>
> The response was swift and brutal.
>
> "Mobilizing all the powers of capital, the owners, representing twenty-four
> railroads with combined capital of $818,000,00, fought back with the courts
> and the armed forces of the Federal government behind them," Barbara W.
> Tuchman writes in "The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War,
> 1890-1914." "Three thousand police in the Chicago area were mobilized
> against the strikers, five thousand professional strikebreakers were sworn
> in as Federal deputy marshals and given firearms; ultimately six thousand
> Federal and State troops were brought in, less for the protection of
> property and the public than to break the strike and crush the union."
>
> Attorney General Richard Olney, who as Tuchman writes "had been a lawyer
> for
> railroads before entering the Cabinet and was still a director of several
> lines involved in the strike," issued an injunction rendering the strike
> illegal. The conflict, as Debs would write, was a battle between "the
> producing classes and the money power of the country."
>
> Debs and the union leaders defied the injunction. They were arrested,
> denied
> bail and sent to jail for six months. The strike was broken. Thirty workers
> had been killed. Sixty had been injured. Over 700 had been arrested. The
> Pullman Co. hired new workers under "yellow dog contracts," agreements that
> forbade them to unionize.
>
> When he was in jail, Debs read the works of socialist writers Edward
> Bellamy
> and Karl Kautsky as well as Karl Marx's "Das Kapital." The books,
> especially
> Marx's three volumes, set the "wires humming in my system."
>
> "I was to be baptized in Socialism in the roar of the conflict. … [I]n the
> gleam of every bayonet and the flash of every rifle the class struggle was
> revealed," he writes. "This was my first practical lesson in Socialism."
>
> Debs came to the conclusion that no strike or labor movement could
> ultimately be successful as long as the government was controlled by the
> capitalist class. Any advances made by an organized working class would be
> reversed once the capitalists regained absolute power, often by temporarily
> mollifying workers with a few reforms. Working men and women had to achieve
> political power, a goal of Britain's Labour Party for workers at the time,
> or they would forever be at the mercy of the bosses.
>
> Debs feared the rise of the monolithic corporate state. He foresaw that
> corporations, unchecked, would expand to "continental proportions and
> swallow up the national resources and the means of production and
> distribution." If that happened, he warned, the long "night of capitalism
> will be dark."
>
> This was a period in U.S. history when many American Christians were
> socialists. Walter Rauschenbusch, a Christian theologian, Baptist minister
> and leader of the Social Gospel movement, thundered against capitalism. He
> defined the six pillars of the "kingdom of evil" as "religious bigotry, the
> combination of graft and political power, the corruption of justice, the
> mob
> spirit (being 'the social group gone mad') and mob action, militarism[,]
> and
> class contempt."
>
> Debs turned to the Bible as often to Marx, arguing "Cain was the author of
> the competitive theory" and the "cross of Jesus stands as its eternal
> denial." Debs' fiery speeches, replete with words like "sin" and
> "redemption," were often thinly disguised sermons. He equated the crucified
> Christ with the abolitionist John Brown. He insisted that Jesus came "to
> destroy class rule and set up the common people as the sole and rightful
> inheritors of the earth." "What is Socialism?" he once asked. "Merely
> Christianity in action." He was fond of quoting the poet James Russell
> Lowell, who writes:
>
>
> He's true to God who's true to man;
> Whenever wrong is done.
> To the humblest and the weakest,
> 'neath the all-beholding sun.
> That wrong is also done to us,
> And they are slaves most base,
> Whose love of right is for themselves
> And not for all the race.
>
> It was also a period beset with violence, including anarchist bombings and
> assassinations. An anarchist killed President William McKinley in 1901,
> unleashing a wave of state repression against social and radical movements.
> Striking workers engaged in periodic gun battles, especially in the
> coalfields of southern West Virginia, with heavily armed company goons,
> National Guard units, paramilitary groups such as the Coal and Iron Police,
> and the U.S. Army.
>
> Debs, although a sworn enemy of the capitalist elites, was adamantly
> opposed
> to violence and sabotage, arguing that these actions allowed the state to
> demonize the socialist movement and enabled the destructive efforts of
> agents provocateurs. The conflict with the capitalist class, Debs argued,
> was at its core about competing values. In an interview conducted while he
> was in jail after the Pullman strike, he stressed the importance of
> "education, industry, frugality, integrity, veracity, fidelity, sobriety
> and
> charity."
>
> A life of moral probity was vital as an example in the face of capitalist
> exploitation, but that was not enough to defeat the "kingdom of evil." The
> owners and managers of corporations, driven by greed and a lust for power,
> would never play fair. They would always seek to use the law as an
> instrument of oppression and increase profits through machines, a reduction
> in wages, a denial of benefits and union busting. They would sacrifice
> anyone and anything—including democracy and the natural world—to achieve
> their goals.
>
> Debs, if he could hear today's proponents of the "free market," self-help
> gurus, positive psychologists, talk show hosts and the political class as
> they exhort Americans to work harder, get an education, follow their
> dreams,
> remain positive and believe in themselves and American exceptionalism,
> would
> have scoffed in derision. He knew that corporate power is countered only
> through organized and collective resistance by workers forced to fight a
> bitter class war.
>
> Debs turned to politics when he was released from jail in 1895. He was one
> of the founders of the Socialist Party of America and, in 1905, the
> Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), or "Wobblies." He was the Socialist
> Party candidate for the U.S. presidency five times in the period 1900
> through 1920—once when he was in prison—and he ran for Congress in 1916.
>
> Debs was a powerful orator and drew huge crowds across the country. Fifteen
> thousand people once paid 15 cents to a dollar each to hear him in New York
> City's Madison Square Garden. In his speeches and writings he demanded an
> end to child labor and denounced Jim Crow and lynching. He called for the
> vote for women, a graduated income tax, unemployment compensation, the
> direct election of senators, employer liability laws, national departments
> of education and health, guaranteed pensions for the elderly,
> nationalization of the banking and transport systems, and replacing "wage
> slavery" with cooperative industries.
>
> As a presidential campaigner he traveled from New York to California on a
> train, called the Red Special, speaking to tens of thousands. He helped
> elect socialist mayors in some 70 cities, including Milwaukee, as well as
> numerous legislators and city council members. He propelled two socialists
> into Congress. In the elections of 1912 he received nearly a million votes,
> 6 percent of the electorate. Eighteen thousand people went to see him in
> Philadelphia and 22,000 in New York City.
>
> He terrified the ruling elites, who began to institute tepid reforms to
> attempt to stanch the growing support for the socialists. Debs after the
> 1912 election was a marked man.
>
> On June 18, 1918, in Canton, Ohio, he denounced, as he had often done in
> the
> past, the unholy alliance between capitalism and war, the use of the
> working
> class by the capitalists as cannon fodder in World War I and the Wilson
> administration's persecution of anti-war activists, unionists, anarchists,
> socialists and communists. President Woodrow Wilson, who had a deep animus
> toward Debs, had him arrested under the Sedition Act, which made it a crime
> to "willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane,
> scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the Government of the
> United States" or to "willfully urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment
> of
> the production" of anything "necessary or essential to the prosecution of
> [a
> U.S. war, in this case against Germany and its allies]."
>
> Debs did not contest the charges. At his trial, he declared: "Washington,
> Paine, Adams—these were the rebels of their day. At first they were opposed
> by the people and denounced by the press. … And if the Revolution had
> failed, the revolutionary fathers would have been executed as felons. But
> it
> did not fail. Revolutions have a habit of succeeding when the time comes
> for
> them."
>
> On Sept. 18, 1918, minutes before he was sentenced to a 10-year prison term
> and stripped of his citizenship, the 62-year-old Debs rose and told the
> court:
>
>
> Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I
> made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I
> said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it,
> and
> while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in
> prison, I am not free.
>
> I listened to all that was said in this court in support and justification
> of this prosecution, but my mind remains unchanged. I look upon the
> Espionage Law as a despotic enactment in flagrant conflict with democratic
> principles and with the spirit of free institutions. …
>
> Your Honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to the social
> system in which we live; that I believe in a fundamental change—but if
> possible by peaceable and orderly means. …
>
>
>
> Standing here this morning, I recall my boyhood. At fourteen I went to work
> in a railroad shop; at sixteen I was firing a freight engine on a railroad.
> I remember all the hardships and privations of that earlier day, and from
> that time until now my heart has been with the working class. I could have
> been in Congress long ago. I have preferred to go to prison. …
>
> I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and the factories; of
> the
> men in the mines and on the railroads. I am thinking of the women who for a
> paltry wage are compelled to work out their barren lives; of the little
> children who in this system are robbed of their childhood and in their
> tender years are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon and forced into
> the industrial dungeons, there to feed the monster machines while they
> themselves are being starved and stunted, body and soul. I see them dwarfed
> and diseased and their little lives broken and blasted because in this high
> noon of Christian civilization money is still so much more important than
> the flesh and blood of childhood. In very truth gold is god today and rules
> with pitiless sway in the affairs of men.
>
> In this country—the most favored beneath the bending skies—we have vast
> areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in
> inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth,
> and millions of eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery
> to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child—and if there are
> still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose
> lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at
> last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to
> dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty: it cannot be charged
> to nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we
> live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling
> masses but in the higher interest of all humanity. …
>
> I believe, Your Honor, in common with all Socialists, that this nation
> ought
> to own and control its own industries. I believe, as all Socialists do,
> that
> all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned—that
> industry, the basis of our social life, instead of being the private
> property of a few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common
> property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all. …
>
> I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does
> absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of
> millions
> of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their
> lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.
>
> This order of things cannot always endure. I have registered my protest
> against it. I recognize the feebleness of my effort, but, fortunately, I am
> not alone. There are multiplied thousands of others who, like myself, have
> come to realize that before we may truly enjoy the blessings of civilized
> life, we must reorganize society upon a mutual and cooperative basis; and
> to
> this end we have organized a great economic and political movement that
> spreads over the face of all the earth.
>
> There are today upwards of sixty millions of Socialists, loyal, devoted
> adherents to this cause, regardless of nationality, race, creed, color, or
> sex. They are all making common cause. They are spreading with tireless
> energy the propaganda of the new social order. They are waiting, watching,
> and working hopefully through all the hours of the day and the night. They
> are still in a minority. But they have learned how to be patient and to
> bide
> their time. The feel—they know, indeed—that the time is coming, in spite of
> all opposition, all persecution, when this emancipating gospel will spread
> among all the peoples, and when this minority will become the triumphant
> majority and, sweeping into power, inaugurate the greatest social and
> economic change in history.
>
> In that day we shall have the universal commonwealth—the harmonious
> cooperation of every nation with every other nation on earth. …
>
> Your Honor, I ask no mercy and I plead for no immunity. I realize that
> finally the right must prevail. I never so clearly comprehended as now the
> great struggle between the powers of greed and exploitation on the one hand
> and upon the other the rising hosts of industrial freedom and social
> justice.
>
> I can see the dawn of the better day for humanity. The people are
> awakening.
> In due time they will and must come to their own.
>
> When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary
> watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning luridly above
> the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the southern cross
> begins to bend, the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry
> finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of time upon the dial of the
> universe, and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the lookout knows
> that the midnight is passing and that relief and rest are close at hand.
> Let
> the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the
> midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.
>
> Three years later, Debs' sentence was commuted by President Warren Harding
> to time served, and, in broken health, he was released from prison in
> December of 1921. His citizenship was not restored until five decades after
> his 1926 death. The labor movement and socialist party he had struggled to
> build had been ruthlessly crushed, often through violent attacks
> orchestrated by the state and corporations and mass arrests and
> deportations
> carried out during the Palmer Raids in November 1919 and January 1920. The
> government had shut down socialist publications, such as Appeal to Reason
> and The Masses. The "Red Scare" was used as an ideological weapon by the
> state, and especially the FBI after it was established in 1908, to
> discredit, persecute and silence dissent.
>
> The breakdown of capitalism saw a short-lived revival of organized labor
> during the 1930s, often led by the Communist Party, and during a short
> period after World War II, and this resurgence triggered yet another
> prolonged assault by the capitalist class.
>
> We have returned to an oligarchic purgatory. Wall Street and the global
> corporations, including the fossil fuel industry and the war industry, have
> iron control over the government. The social, political and civil rights
> won
> by workers in long and bloody struggles have been stripped away. Government
> regulations have been rolled back to permit capitalists to engage in abuse
> and fraud. The political elites, along with their courtiers in the media
> and
> academia, are hapless corporate stooges. Social and economic inequality
> replicates the worst excesses of the robber barons. And the great civic,
> labor and political organizations that fought for working men and women are
> moribund or dead.
>
> We have to begin all over again. And we must do so understanding, as Debs
> did, that any accommodation with members of the capitalist class is futile
> and self-defeating. They are the enemy. They will degrade and destroy
> everything, including the ecosystem, to get richer. They are not capable of
> reform.
>
> I walked through the Debs home in Terre Haute with its curator, Allison
> Duerk. It has about 700 visitors a year. Rarely do these visits include
> school groups. The valiant struggle by radical socialists and workers,
> hundreds of whom were murdered in labor struggles, has been consciously
> erased from our history and replaced with the vacuity of celebrity culture
> and the cult of the self.
>
> "Teaching this kind of people's history puts a lot of power in
> working-class
> people's hands," Duerk said. "We all know what that threatens."
>
> The walls of the two-story frame house, built by Debs and his wife in 1890,
> are covered with photos and posters, including pictures of Debs' funeral on
> the porch and 5,000 mourners in the front yard. There is the key to the
> cell
> in which he was held when he was jailed the first time. There is a photo of
> Convict No. 9653 holding a bouquet at the entrance to the federal
> penitentiary in Atlanta as he accepts the nomination from leaders of the
> Socialist Party to be their 1920 presidential candidate. There are gifts
> including an intricately inlaid wooden table and an ornately carved cane
> that prisoners sent to Debs, a tireless advocate for prisoner rights.
>
> I opened the glass panel of a cherry wood bookshelf and pulled out one of
> Debs' books, running my fingers lightly over his signature on the front
> inside flap. I read a passage from a speech he gave in 1905 in Chicago:
>
>
> The capitalist who does no useful work has the economic power to take from
> a
> thousand or ten thousand workingmen all they produce, over and above what
> is
> required to keep them in working and producing order, and he becomes a
> millionaire, perhaps a multi-millionaire. He lives in a palace in which
> there is music and singing and dancing and the luxuries of all climes. He
> sails the high seas in his private yacht. He is the reputed "captain of
> industry" who privately owns a social utility, has great economic power,
> and
> commands the political power of the nation to protect his economic
> interests. He is the gentleman who furnishes the "political boss" and his
> swarm of mercenaries with the funds with which the politics of the nation
> are corrupted and debauched. He is the economic master and the political
> ruler and you workingmen are almost as completely at his mercy as if you
> were his property under the law.
>
>
>
> I leafed through copies of Appeal to Reason, the Socialist party newspaper
> Debs edited, which once had almost 800,000 readers and the fourth highest
> circulation in the country.
>
> Debs, like many of his generation, was literate. He read and reread "Les
> Misérables" in French. It was his father's bible. It became his own. His
> parents, émigrés from Alsace, named him after the French novelists Eugene
> Sue and Victor Hugo. His father read Sue, Hugo, Voltaire, Rousseau, Dumas
> and other authors to his six children. Debs found in Hugo's majestic novel
> the pathos of the struggle by the wretched of the earth for dignity and
> freedom. He was well aware, like Hugo, that the good were usually
> relentlessly persecuted, that they were not rewarded for virtue and that
> those who held fast to truth and justice often found their way to their own
> cross. But there was no other choice for him: The kingdom of evil had to be
> fought. It was a moral imperative. It was what made us human.
>
> "Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable than material
> improvement," Hugo writes in an appendix to "Les Misérables." "Knowledge is
> a viaticum; thought is a prime necessity; truth is nourishment, like wheat.
> A reasoning faculty, deprived of knowledge and wisdom, pines away. We
> should
> feel the same pity for minds that do not eat as for stomachs. If there be
> anything sadder than a body perishing for want of bread, it is a mind dying
> of hunger for lack of light."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Eugene Debbs and Chris Hedges. Two of my all time favorites.
Debbs hit the nail on the head when he came to the conclusion that no
strike or labor movement could
ultimately be successful as long as the government was controlled by the
capitalist class. Any advances made by an organized working class would be
reversed once the capitalists regained absolute power, often by temporarily
mollifying workers with a few reforms.
> I was finally able to find this in accessible form.
> Miriam
>
> Eugene Debs And The Kingdom Of Evil
>
> Mr. Fish / Truthdig
>
> By Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com
> July 18th, 2017
>
> TERRE HAUTE, Ind.—Eugene Victor Debs, whose home is an infrequently visited
> museum on the campus of Indiana State University, was arguably the most
> important political figure of the 20th century. He built the socialist
> movement in America and was eventually crucified by the capitalist class
> when he and hundreds of thousands of followers became a potent political
> threat.
>
> Debs burst onto the national stage when he organized a railroad strike in
> 1894 after the Pullman Co. cut wages by up to one-third but did not lower
> rents in company housing or reduce dividend payments to its stockholders.
> Over a hundred thousand workers staged what became the biggest strike in
> U.S. history on trains carrying Pullman cars.
>
> The response was swift and brutal.
>
> "Mobilizing all the powers of capital, the owners, representing twenty-four
> railroads with combined capital of $818,000,00, fought back with the courts
> and the armed forces of the Federal government behind them," Barbara W.
> Tuchman writes in "The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War,
> 1890-1914." "Three thousand police in the Chicago area were mobilized
> against the strikers, five thousand professional strikebreakers were sworn
> in as Federal deputy marshals and given firearms; ultimately six thousand
> Federal and State troops were brought in, less for the protection of
> property and the public than to break the strike and crush the union."
>
> Attorney General Richard Olney, who as Tuchman writes "had been a lawyer
> for
> railroads before entering the Cabinet and was still a director of several
> lines involved in the strike," issued an injunction rendering the strike
> illegal. The conflict, as Debs would write, was a battle between "the
> producing classes and the money power of the country."
>
> Debs and the union leaders defied the injunction. They were arrested,
> denied
> bail and sent to jail for six months. The strike was broken. Thirty workers
> had been killed. Sixty had been injured. Over 700 had been arrested. The
> Pullman Co. hired new workers under "yellow dog contracts," agreements that
> forbade them to unionize.
>
> When he was in jail, Debs read the works of socialist writers Edward
> Bellamy
> and Karl Kautsky as well as Karl Marx's "Das Kapital." The books,
> especially
> Marx's three volumes, set the "wires humming in my system."
>
> "I was to be baptized in Socialism in the roar of the conflict. … [I]n the
> gleam of every bayonet and the flash of every rifle the class struggle was
> revealed," he writes. "This was my first practical lesson in Socialism."
>
> Debs came to the conclusion that no strike or labor movement could
> ultimately be successful as long as the government was controlled by the
> capitalist class. Any advances made by an organized working class would be
> reversed once the capitalists regained absolute power, often by temporarily
> mollifying workers with a few reforms. Working men and women had to achieve
> political power, a goal of Britain's Labour Party for workers at the time,
> or they would forever be at the mercy of the bosses.
>
> Debs feared the rise of the monolithic corporate state. He foresaw that
> corporations, unchecked, would expand to "continental proportions and
> swallow up the national resources and the means of production and
> distribution." If that happened, he warned, the long "night of capitalism
> will be dark."
>
> This was a period in U.S. history when many American Christians were
> socialists. Walter Rauschenbusch, a Christian theologian, Baptist minister
> and leader of the Social Gospel movement, thundered against capitalism. He
> defined the six pillars of the "kingdom of evil" as "religious bigotry, the
> combination of graft and political power, the corruption of justice, the
> mob
> spirit (being 'the social group gone mad') and mob action, militarism[,]
> and
> class contempt."
>
> Debs turned to the Bible as often to Marx, arguing "Cain was the author of
> the competitive theory" and the "cross of Jesus stands as its eternal
> denial." Debs' fiery speeches, replete with words like "sin" and
> "redemption," were often thinly disguised sermons. He equated the crucified
> Christ with the abolitionist John Brown. He insisted that Jesus came "to
> destroy class rule and set up the common people as the sole and rightful
> inheritors of the earth." "What is Socialism?" he once asked. "Merely
> Christianity in action." He was fond of quoting the poet James Russell
> Lowell, who writes:
>
>
> He's true to God who's true to man;
> Whenever wrong is done.
> To the humblest and the weakest,
> 'neath the all-beholding sun.
> That wrong is also done to us,
> And they are slaves most base,
> Whose love of right is for themselves
> And not for all the race.
>
> It was also a period beset with violence, including anarchist bombings and
> assassinations. An anarchist killed President William McKinley in 1901,
> unleashing a wave of state repression against social and radical movements.
> Striking workers engaged in periodic gun battles, especially in the
> coalfields of southern West Virginia, with heavily armed company goons,
> National Guard units, paramilitary groups such as the Coal and Iron Police,
> and the U.S. Army.
>
> Debs, although a sworn enemy of the capitalist elites, was adamantly
> opposed
> to violence and sabotage, arguing that these actions allowed the state to
> demonize the socialist movement and enabled the destructive efforts of
> agents provocateurs. The conflict with the capitalist class, Debs argued,
> was at its core about competing values. In an interview conducted while he
> was in jail after the Pullman strike, he stressed the importance of
> "education, industry, frugality, integrity, veracity, fidelity, sobriety
> and
> charity."
>
> A life of moral probity was vital as an example in the face of capitalist
> exploitation, but that was not enough to defeat the "kingdom of evil." The
> owners and managers of corporations, driven by greed and a lust for power,
> would never play fair. They would always seek to use the law as an
> instrument of oppression and increase profits through machines, a reduction
> in wages, a denial of benefits and union busting. They would sacrifice
> anyone and anything—including democracy and the natural world—to achieve
> their goals.
>
> Debs, if he could hear today's proponents of the "free market," self-help
> gurus, positive psychologists, talk show hosts and the political class as
> they exhort Americans to work harder, get an education, follow their
> dreams,
> remain positive and believe in themselves and American exceptionalism,
> would
> have scoffed in derision. He knew that corporate power is countered only
> through organized and collective resistance by workers forced to fight a
> bitter class war.
>
> Debs turned to politics when he was released from jail in 1895. He was one
> of the founders of the Socialist Party of America and, in 1905, the
> Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), or "Wobblies." He was the Socialist
> Party candidate for the U.S. presidency five times in the period 1900
> through 1920—once when he was in prison—and he ran for Congress in 1916.
>
> Debs was a powerful orator and drew huge crowds across the country. Fifteen
> thousand people once paid 15 cents to a dollar each to hear him in New York
> City's Madison Square Garden. In his speeches and writings he demanded an
> end to child labor and denounced Jim Crow and lynching. He called for the
> vote for women, a graduated income tax, unemployment compensation, the
> direct election of senators, employer liability laws, national departments
> of education and health, guaranteed pensions for the elderly,
> nationalization of the banking and transport systems, and replacing "wage
> slavery" with cooperative industries.
>
> As a presidential campaigner he traveled from New York to California on a
> train, called the Red Special, speaking to tens of thousands. He helped
> elect socialist mayors in some 70 cities, including Milwaukee, as well as
> numerous legislators and city council members. He propelled two socialists
> into Congress. In the elections of 1912 he received nearly a million votes,
> 6 percent of the electorate. Eighteen thousand people went to see him in
> Philadelphia and 22,000 in New York City.
>
> He terrified the ruling elites, who began to institute tepid reforms to
> attempt to stanch the growing support for the socialists. Debs after the
> 1912 election was a marked man.
>
> On June 18, 1918, in Canton, Ohio, he denounced, as he had often done in
> the
> past, the unholy alliance between capitalism and war, the use of the
> working
> class by the capitalists as cannon fodder in World War I and the Wilson
> administration's persecution of anti-war activists, unionists, anarchists,
> socialists and communists. President Woodrow Wilson, who had a deep animus
> toward Debs, had him arrested under the Sedition Act, which made it a crime
> to "willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane,
> scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the Government of the
> United States" or to "willfully urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment
> of
> the production" of anything "necessary or essential to the prosecution of
> [a
> U.S. war, in this case against Germany and its allies]."
>
> Debs did not contest the charges. At his trial, he declared: "Washington,
> Paine, Adams—these were the rebels of their day. At first they were opposed
> by the people and denounced by the press. … And if the Revolution had
> failed, the revolutionary fathers would have been executed as felons. But
> it
> did not fail. Revolutions have a habit of succeeding when the time comes
> for
> them."
>
> On Sept. 18, 1918, minutes before he was sentenced to a 10-year prison term
> and stripped of his citizenship, the 62-year-old Debs rose and told the
> court:
>
>
> Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I
> made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I
> said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it,
> and
> while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in
> prison, I am not free.
>
> I listened to all that was said in this court in support and justification
> of this prosecution, but my mind remains unchanged. I look upon the
> Espionage Law as a despotic enactment in flagrant conflict with democratic
> principles and with the spirit of free institutions. …
>
> Your Honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to the social
> system in which we live; that I believe in a fundamental change—but if
> possible by peaceable and orderly means. …
>
>
>
> Standing here this morning, I recall my boyhood. At fourteen I went to work
> in a railroad shop; at sixteen I was firing a freight engine on a railroad.
> I remember all the hardships and privations of that earlier day, and from
> that time until now my heart has been with the working class. I could have
> been in Congress long ago. I have preferred to go to prison. …
>
> I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and the factories; of
> the
> men in the mines and on the railroads. I am thinking of the women who for a
> paltry wage are compelled to work out their barren lives; of the little
> children who in this system are robbed of their childhood and in their
> tender years are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon and forced into
> the industrial dungeons, there to feed the monster machines while they
> themselves are being starved and stunted, body and soul. I see them dwarfed
> and diseased and their little lives broken and blasted because in this high
> noon of Christian civilization money is still so much more important than
> the flesh and blood of childhood. In very truth gold is god today and rules
> with pitiless sway in the affairs of men.
>
> In this country—the most favored beneath the bending skies—we have vast
> areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in
> inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth,
> and millions of eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery
> to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child—and if there are
> still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose
> lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at
> last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to
> dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty: it cannot be charged
> to nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we
> live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling
> masses but in the higher interest of all humanity. …
>
> I believe, Your Honor, in common with all Socialists, that this nation
> ought
> to own and control its own industries. I believe, as all Socialists do,
> that
> all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned—that
> industry, the basis of our social life, instead of being the private
> property of a few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common
> property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all. …
>
> I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does
> absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of
> millions
> of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their
> lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.
>
> This order of things cannot always endure. I have registered my protest
> against it. I recognize the feebleness of my effort, but, fortunately, I am
> not alone. There are multiplied thousands of others who, like myself, have
> come to realize that before we may truly enjoy the blessings of civilized
> life, we must reorganize society upon a mutual and cooperative basis; and
> to
> this end we have organized a great economic and political movement that
> spreads over the face of all the earth.
>
> There are today upwards of sixty millions of Socialists, loyal, devoted
> adherents to this cause, regardless of nationality, race, creed, color, or
> sex. They are all making common cause. They are spreading with tireless
> energy the propaganda of the new social order. They are waiting, watching,
> and working hopefully through all the hours of the day and the night. They
> are still in a minority. But they have learned how to be patient and to
> bide
> their time. The feel—they know, indeed—that the time is coming, in spite of
> all opposition, all persecution, when this emancipating gospel will spread
> among all the peoples, and when this minority will become the triumphant
> majority and, sweeping into power, inaugurate the greatest social and
> economic change in history.
>
> In that day we shall have the universal commonwealth—the harmonious
> cooperation of every nation with every other nation on earth. …
>
> Your Honor, I ask no mercy and I plead for no immunity. I realize that
> finally the right must prevail. I never so clearly comprehended as now the
> great struggle between the powers of greed and exploitation on the one hand
> and upon the other the rising hosts of industrial freedom and social
> justice.
>
> I can see the dawn of the better day for humanity. The people are
> awakening.
> In due time they will and must come to their own.
>
> When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary
> watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning luridly above
> the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the southern cross
> begins to bend, the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry
> finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of time upon the dial of the
> universe, and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the lookout knows
> that the midnight is passing and that relief and rest are close at hand.
> Let
> the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the
> midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.
>
> Three years later, Debs' sentence was commuted by President Warren Harding
> to time served, and, in broken health, he was released from prison in
> December of 1921. His citizenship was not restored until five decades after
> his 1926 death. The labor movement and socialist party he had struggled to
> build had been ruthlessly crushed, often through violent attacks
> orchestrated by the state and corporations and mass arrests and
> deportations
> carried out during the Palmer Raids in November 1919 and January 1920. The
> government had shut down socialist publications, such as Appeal to Reason
> and The Masses. The "Red Scare" was used as an ideological weapon by the
> state, and especially the FBI after it was established in 1908, to
> discredit, persecute and silence dissent.
>
> The breakdown of capitalism saw a short-lived revival of organized labor
> during the 1930s, often led by the Communist Party, and during a short
> period after World War II, and this resurgence triggered yet another
> prolonged assault by the capitalist class.
>
> We have returned to an oligarchic purgatory. Wall Street and the global
> corporations, including the fossil fuel industry and the war industry, have
> iron control over the government. The social, political and civil rights
> won
> by workers in long and bloody struggles have been stripped away. Government
> regulations have been rolled back to permit capitalists to engage in abuse
> and fraud. The political elites, along with their courtiers in the media
> and
> academia, are hapless corporate stooges. Social and economic inequality
> replicates the worst excesses of the robber barons. And the great civic,
> labor and political organizations that fought for working men and women are
> moribund or dead.
>
> We have to begin all over again. And we must do so understanding, as Debs
> did, that any accommodation with members of the capitalist class is futile
> and self-defeating. They are the enemy. They will degrade and destroy
> everything, including the ecosystem, to get richer. They are not capable of
> reform.
>
> I walked through the Debs home in Terre Haute with its curator, Allison
> Duerk. It has about 700 visitors a year. Rarely do these visits include
> school groups. The valiant struggle by radical socialists and workers,
> hundreds of whom were murdered in labor struggles, has been consciously
> erased from our history and replaced with the vacuity of celebrity culture
> and the cult of the self.
>
> "Teaching this kind of people's history puts a lot of power in
> working-class
> people's hands," Duerk said. "We all know what that threatens."
>
> The walls of the two-story frame house, built by Debs and his wife in 1890,
> are covered with photos and posters, including pictures of Debs' funeral on
> the porch and 5,000 mourners in the front yard. There is the key to the
> cell
> in which he was held when he was jailed the first time. There is a photo of
> Convict No. 9653 holding a bouquet at the entrance to the federal
> penitentiary in Atlanta as he accepts the nomination from leaders of the
> Socialist Party to be their 1920 presidential candidate. There are gifts
> including an intricately inlaid wooden table and an ornately carved cane
> that prisoners sent to Debs, a tireless advocate for prisoner rights.
>
> I opened the glass panel of a cherry wood bookshelf and pulled out one of
> Debs' books, running my fingers lightly over his signature on the front
> inside flap. I read a passage from a speech he gave in 1905 in Chicago:
>
>
> The capitalist who does no useful work has the economic power to take from
> a
> thousand or ten thousand workingmen all they produce, over and above what
> is
> required to keep them in working and producing order, and he becomes a
> millionaire, perhaps a multi-millionaire. He lives in a palace in which
> there is music and singing and dancing and the luxuries of all climes. He
> sails the high seas in his private yacht. He is the reputed "captain of
> industry" who privately owns a social utility, has great economic power,
> and
> commands the political power of the nation to protect his economic
> interests. He is the gentleman who furnishes the "political boss" and his
> swarm of mercenaries with the funds with which the politics of the nation
> are corrupted and debauched. He is the economic master and the political
> ruler and you workingmen are almost as completely at his mercy as if you
> were his property under the law.
>
>
>
> I leafed through copies of Appeal to Reason, the Socialist party newspaper
> Debs edited, which once had almost 800,000 readers and the fourth highest
> circulation in the country.
>
> Debs, like many of his generation, was literate. He read and reread "Les
> Misérables" in French. It was his father's bible. It became his own. His
> parents, émigrés from Alsace, named him after the French novelists Eugene
> Sue and Victor Hugo. His father read Sue, Hugo, Voltaire, Rousseau, Dumas
> and other authors to his six children. Debs found in Hugo's majestic novel
> the pathos of the struggle by the wretched of the earth for dignity and
> freedom. He was well aware, like Hugo, that the good were usually
> relentlessly persecuted, that they were not rewarded for virtue and that
> those who held fast to truth and justice often found their way to their own
> cross. But there was no other choice for him: The kingdom of evil had to be
> fought. It was a moral imperative. It was what made us human.
>
> "Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable than material
> improvement," Hugo writes in an appendix to "Les Misérables." "Knowledge is
> a viaticum; thought is a prime necessity; truth is nourishment, like wheat.
> A reasoning faculty, deprived of knowledge and wisdom, pines away. We
> should
> feel the same pity for minds that do not eat as for stomachs. If there be
> anything sadder than a body perishing for want of bread, it is a mind dying
> of hunger for lack of light."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Eugene Debbs and Chris Hedges. Two of my all time favorites.
Debbs hit the nail on the head when he came to the conclusion that no
strike or labor movement could
ultimately be successful as long as the government was controlled by the
capitalist class. Any advances made by an organized working class would be
reversed once the capitalists regained absolute power, often by temporarily
mollifying workers with a few reforms.
Re: [acb-chat] Robots... They are pretty darn lifelike
You know,...we truly are in trouble when we've come to creating our
sex partners. Of course, God set the example by taking Adams rib and
manufacturing a sex partner for him. But Eve was able to reproduce.
And we all are the result of that mistake by God. I wonder, do you
think that if every man and woman were issued a sex robot that the
Earth's population would decline to a place where we could survive?
And just think of it guys, a female robot that never says, "not
tonight", and never complains that, "You got yours and now you just
roll over and go to sleep?" But can she fry bacon, make good coffee
and do up my eggs broken and over?
And as for the ladies out there, wouldn't it be a relief to have a sex
partner that only went into action when the mood struck you? And
since he is a sex robot, he never will leave the toilet seat up, or
scatter his clothes around the house.
Ah...progress is so sweet!
Carl Jarvis
On 7/18/17, Demaya, Diego via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>
> Sex Robots Are Here And Could Change Society Forever
> Sexual interactions between humans and robots are a seemingly inevitable
> phenomenon, as many people around the world and throughout the course of
> history expand their sexual options as time and technology progress.
> With rapidly growing automation capabilities also comes the advent of sex
> robots and along with them difficult questions, including what implications
> such devices will have on society. Will sexbots reduce human interaction?
> Will they reduce marriage? What about child sexbots? Should they be legal?
> "Moving in lockstep with technological developments - from printed words,
> drawings, photography, film, video, and the Internet - sexual robots are the
> newest twist in masturbatory enhancement," Paul Abramson, professor of
> psychology at UCLA, and author of the new book "Screwing Around with
> Sex<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Screwing-2DAround-2DSex-2DIndictments-2DAnecdotes_dp_0692870520&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=u-3U55c5Sja7Nc5AIJbtnXQRWOsTkbY2-UfEKHERSHk&e=>,"
> told The Daily Caller News Foundation. "The legal implications of robots are
> similar, in many respects, to all of the previous masturbatory enhancements.
> The question is largely about differentiating tangible harms from moral
> pontifications in the guise of societal rules."
> In other words, Abramson, who has written a number of published works
> relating to human sexuality and the intersection of sex and law, is arguing
> that robots and sex robots by themselves aren't necessarily an imminent
> problem but rather what people do with them.
> In a recently published report titled "Our Sexual Future With
> Robots<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__responsiblerobotics.org_wp-2Dcontent_uploads_2017_07_FRR-2DConsultation-2DReport-2DOur-2DSexual-2DFuture-2Dwith-2Drobots-5FFinal.pdf&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=lBG-_a-AdDtgzdZUoruf3dN9eiPs_LlzhJ5_r0boUIo&e=>,"
> researchers for the Foundation for Responsible Robotics aimed to study and
> further understand all of the possible kinds and uses of sex robots, as well
> as what effect they could have in the the next five to 10 years.
> They pointed out that several companies are creating and selling sex robots
> with a price range from roughly $5,000 to around $15,000. Some products,
> like
> Harmony<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__realbotix.systems_index.html-23products&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=pXoTrcib-i9uBDv77CFnrJ3jqGRMBQZCdw1OYClBcKA&e=>
> by Abyss Creations, are
> sold<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__secure.realdoll.com_projects_harmony-2Dboy-2Dtoy-2Ddolls-2Dc-2Dseries_&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=YaCKb9CnQcAlRWG7E_U_fEekjhVGlZpKOp5_kPCb-7A&e=>
> with specific body configurations and characteristics including weight, bra
> size, nipple size, skin tone, eye color, and lip color. Others, like Roxxxy
> from TrueCompanion.com, are customizable, giving consumers a chance to
> choose<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.truecompanion.com_shop_roxxxy-2Dtruecompanion-2Dsex-2Drobot_roxxxy_&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=gZKpWkvd70fP-weN5DREQ7DTsQN01hqSlRvgqKaXRGI&e=>
> among many options for complexion, from "Caucasian," "Asian," "Tanned," to
> "Light Skin African," or "Dark Skin African."
> Another anthropomorphic feature for the androids are personality traits.
> Harmony can display simulated orgasms through facial expressions, shifting
> eyes and the emulation of sounds she "hears." Depending on consumer
> preferences, Roxxxy Gold can be pre-programmed with distinctive
> personalities, including "Wild Wendy," an outgoing and audacious
> personality, and "Frigid Farrah," which exudes bashfulness.
> Many of these robots are also embedded with sensors throughout their bodies
> so that they can respond to touch and movement. The "Frigid" setting causes
> the sex robot to act more reserved and "turned off" from sexual advances,
> especially when it is touched in an area humans consider private, according
> to the Foundation for Responsible Robotics study. "Rapists don't give a shit
> about the victim, and worse yet, don't believe they will ever be caught,"
> Abramson said when asked if sex robots could possibly decrease sexual
> assault rates. "If marriage doesn't deter rape, why would a robot?"
> Abramson also says that sex robots created with the likeness of a child
> would not automatically prevent perpetrators but could help in certain
> circumstances. Moreover, he doesn't think society should treat pedophilia as
> a curable disease.
> Pedophiles are everywhere that kids are, Abramson stated. "They are
> teachers, coaches, boy-scout leaders, priests, stepfathers, friends, and
> boyfriends of a parent and so forth."
> For Abramson, who has 40 years of experience working as an expert witness in
> some of the most atrocious child sexual abuse cases, pedophilia is not a
> choice. Pedophiles have a hardwired attraction to children.
> Civilized societies have placed a number of "formidable obstacles" in the
> way of pedophiles. Deterrence - whether it's harsher prison sentences,
> lifetime registering as sex offenders, and the worst of public shaming, he
> notes - keeps failing as evident by the
> high<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.health.harvard.edu_newsletter-5Farticle_pessimism-2Dabout-2Dpedophilia&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=yrrTA_TuKHCqCd0s6Xm_zNn4Y4NsTTAoXqSLUKpX4NE&e=>
> recidivism rates.
> Shin Takagi, an admitted pedophile who runs his own child sex robot company
> in Japan, agrees that people like himself are genetically compelled to be
> aroused by such widely-disgusted behavior.
> "We should accept that there is no way to change someone's fetishes," Takagi
> told<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.theatlantic.com_health_archive_2016_01_can-2Dchild-2Ddolls-2Dkeep-2Dpedophiles-2Dfrom-2Doffending_423324_&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=FX-8jI0X6z3gBqzZeLUuplkPGvJ-7E1iEB7epsPqyis&e=>
> The Atlantic. "I am helping people express their desires, legally and
> ethically. It's not worth living if you have to live with repressed
> desire."
> Abramson suggests expanding the prevention methods for pedophiliac crimes by
> placing an undergraduate education student in every classroom to act as a
> teacher's aid.
> "I've had countless cases of teachers who sexually abuse elementary school
> kids, treating their classes as their fiefdom," Abramson said.
> Another far more contentious recommendation he proposes is providing
> salacious digital imagery with the likeness of a child (but not actually of
> a real child) or a child sex robot only for pedophiles who register, through
> a state agency, as a pedophile.
> The benefits to the pedophile, Abramson contends, is that they will not be
> prosecuted for possessing such material (as settled by a Supreme Court case
> to be discussed later). In this hypothetical, possessing authentic-looking
> child pornography or a child sex robot would be a felony offense if a person
> is not formally registered. Furthermore, the benefits to the state are that
> pedophiles who have not committed the crime of pedophilia are able to be
> tracked, according to Abramson, who adds that this is just an abridged
> version of his proposal.
> A far less sinister but perhaps just as impactful societal implication of
> sexual robots is that it could potentially increase social isolation. A
> Chinese man, for example,
> married<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.theguardian.com_world_2017_apr_04_chinese-2Dman-2Dmarries-2Drobot-2Dbuilt-2Dhimself&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=au4C8oTDU9hoAixAeoPFBcb2kb32KhJreY7zU-8l3Mw&e=>
> a robot he built at the age of 31 after he tired of trying and failing to
> sell himself as a suitor.
> "By 40 or 50 years, everyone of a marriageable age will have grown up with
> electronics all around them at home, and not see them as abnormal," David
> Levy, author of "Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot
> Relationships,"
> said<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.scientificamerican.com_article_humans-2Dmarrying-2Drobots_&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=pZQnCkRtfRgLs-g-sDlNGvAFFAdLSZUCPXkVaDYUpUs&e=>
> in a 2008 interview with Scientific American. "People who grow up with all
> sorts of electronic gizmos will find android robots to be fairly normal as
> friends, partners, lovers."
> Levy predicted that since "the nature of marriage has changed" humans will
> be marrying robots in around 50 years. This could decrease the amount of
> (human) marriages, subsequently causing collateral consequences.
> Dr. Kate Darling, a specialist at the MIT Media Lab and a fellow at the
> Harvard Berkman Center,
> says<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DmsL1rbgJLlM&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=F8AmVxl9BCm6E6U38CZFylEG5rAuRp7ah51U_ec0Nv8&e=>
> while she and others don't know what to fully expect with robots, it could
> conceivably increase the social confidence of a hermit, or even a relatively
> timid person, by acting as a mechanism for practice. Such an influence could
> possibly increase rates of marriage.
> Nevertheless, she uses the science fiction show Westworld to describe a
> telling example of the uncertainty of robots' effects.
> "What we don't know is whether if you go and play around in Westworld,
> whether that is just an indication of how callous you are, or if it can
> actually desensitize you towards that human, or whether it is a really
> healthy outlet if you have violent tendencies," Darling said on the
> podcast<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DmsL1rbgJLlM&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=F8AmVxl9BCm6E6U38CZFylEG5rAuRp7ah51U_ec0Nv8&e=>
> "Waking Up with Sam Harris," adding that this general question is the most
> interesting to her in the whole far-reaching topic of the robot-human
> relationship.
> "You can go and you can beat the crap out of this really lifelike robot, and
> you know that you're not hurting a real person. And maybe that makes you a
> much better person in real life; you've gotten all of your aggressions out.
> We just have no idea what direction this goes in."
> James Grimmelmann, a law professor at Cornell University, agrees with
> Darling's belief that the future effects of robots is highly uncertain due
> to the all of the potential nuances of the implications.
> Like sex robots, "There's a strong argument that the ready availability of
> pornography on the internet has caused" more social isolation and depraved
> behavior, Grimmelmann told TheDCNF. "But there's also a strong argument that
> it has helped some people who are already isolated better understand
> themselves sexually and led to better relationships with others. It might
> help some people and harm others, and it's overall hard to tell."
> One perspective is that sex robots may be therapeutic, allowing individuals
> to satisfy their deepest, most carnal desires without harming anyone.
> "On the other hand, they may be like gateway drugs, leading more people to
> develop these harmful deviances or worsening already horrible deviant
> conduct," Justin "Gus" Hurwitz, a professor of law at the University of
> Nebraska, told TheDCNF. "There is evidence that either or both of these
> views could be accurate."
> The legal questions in particular, which naturally intertwine with the
> societal implications, are also plentiful and difficult.
> "There's a big difference, for instance, between regulating 'sex robots' and
> regulating 'robots that can be programmed for sex,'" Hurwitz explained.
> "This is especially true because the robot is a product, but its programming
> may be speech that is protected by the First Amendment."
> In Ashcroft. v. Free Speech Coalition (2002), the Supreme Court
> ruled<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.nytimes.com_2002_04_16_national_supreme-2Dcourt-2Dstrikes-2Ddown-2Dban-2Don-2Dvirtual-2Dchild-2Dpornography.html&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=iQR2RxCnULEpjO9eCjKSpLS6HHmcPtUpPQG6MPZnuw8&e=>
> 6-3 that a ban against virtual child pornography through the Child
> Pornography Prevention Act was overly broad and unconstitutional.
> "Congress may pass valid laws to protect children from abuse, and it has,"
> Justice Anthony Kennedy
> wrote<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.law.cornell.edu_supct_html_00-2D795.ZO.html&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=-2bxQ4J_RwxDZZMo3Uwa5LX80qOAfMja8ILxOKdsDK0&e=>
> in his opinion at the time. "The prospect of crime, however, by itself does
> not justify laws suppressing protected speech."
> Such kinds of lewd content (animated pornography with the likeness of a
> minor) is not completely analogous to sex robots. Darling argues that there
> is a substantial difference between a physical robot and a virtual, abstract
> entity.
> While comparing the correlation - or lack thereof - between violent video
> games and subsequent human violence, Darling argues that there is "no reason
> to believe we can't mentally compartmentalize in that case."
> "But we do know that we respond very differently to physical things than
> things on a screen. We have this more visceral response to the physicality
> of robots," Darling said.
> Whether Kennedy and the five other justices would apply their ruling to sex
> robots is not clear. What is clear, however, is that like the inevitably of
> growing consumership, the Supreme Court will almost certainly have to
> interpret the legality of sex robots in the not too distant future.
> Follow Eric on
> Twitter<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__twitter.com_-5FEricLieberman-5F&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=7pASlg47ZmsmHK5MlE-Bs9Pilql3HGtBAP05pqTqVOI&e=>
> Send tips to
> eric@dailycallernewsfoundation.org<mailto:eric@dailycallernewsfoundation.org>.
> Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without
> charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For
> licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact
> licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__dailycaller.com_2017_07_17_sex-2Drobots-2Dare-2Dhere-2Dand-2Dcould-2Dchange-2Dsociety-2Dforever_licensing-40dailycallernewsfoundation.org&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=1XrgpVf4tc60GZHemRTKG8iVmg_p7mXwpr7dtzWcc_0&e=>.
>
>
>
sex partners. Of course, God set the example by taking Adams rib and
manufacturing a sex partner for him. But Eve was able to reproduce.
And we all are the result of that mistake by God. I wonder, do you
think that if every man and woman were issued a sex robot that the
Earth's population would decline to a place where we could survive?
And just think of it guys, a female robot that never says, "not
tonight", and never complains that, "You got yours and now you just
roll over and go to sleep?" But can she fry bacon, make good coffee
and do up my eggs broken and over?
And as for the ladies out there, wouldn't it be a relief to have a sex
partner that only went into action when the mood struck you? And
since he is a sex robot, he never will leave the toilet seat up, or
scatter his clothes around the house.
Ah...progress is so sweet!
Carl Jarvis
On 7/18/17, Demaya, Diego via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>
> Sex Robots Are Here And Could Change Society Forever
> Sexual interactions between humans and robots are a seemingly inevitable
> phenomenon, as many people around the world and throughout the course of
> history expand their sexual options as time and technology progress.
> With rapidly growing automation capabilities also comes the advent of sex
> robots and along with them difficult questions, including what implications
> such devices will have on society. Will sexbots reduce human interaction?
> Will they reduce marriage? What about child sexbots? Should they be legal?
> "Moving in lockstep with technological developments - from printed words,
> drawings, photography, film, video, and the Internet - sexual robots are the
> newest twist in masturbatory enhancement," Paul Abramson, professor of
> psychology at UCLA, and author of the new book "Screwing Around with
> Sex<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Screwing-2DAround-2DSex-2DIndictments-2DAnecdotes_dp_0692870520&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=u-3U55c5Sja7Nc5AIJbtnXQRWOsTkbY2-UfEKHERSHk&e=>,"
> told The Daily Caller News Foundation. "The legal implications of robots are
> similar, in many respects, to all of the previous masturbatory enhancements.
> The question is largely about differentiating tangible harms from moral
> pontifications in the guise of societal rules."
> In other words, Abramson, who has written a number of published works
> relating to human sexuality and the intersection of sex and law, is arguing
> that robots and sex robots by themselves aren't necessarily an imminent
> problem but rather what people do with them.
> In a recently published report titled "Our Sexual Future With
> Robots<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__responsiblerobotics.org_wp-2Dcontent_uploads_2017_07_FRR-2DConsultation-2DReport-2DOur-2DSexual-2DFuture-2Dwith-2Drobots-5FFinal.pdf&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=lBG-_a-AdDtgzdZUoruf3dN9eiPs_LlzhJ5_r0boUIo&e=>,"
> researchers for the Foundation for Responsible Robotics aimed to study and
> further understand all of the possible kinds and uses of sex robots, as well
> as what effect they could have in the the next five to 10 years.
> They pointed out that several companies are creating and selling sex robots
> with a price range from roughly $5,000 to around $15,000. Some products,
> like
> Harmony<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__realbotix.systems_index.html-23products&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=pXoTrcib-i9uBDv77CFnrJ3jqGRMBQZCdw1OYClBcKA&e=>
> by Abyss Creations, are
> sold<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__secure.realdoll.com_projects_harmony-2Dboy-2Dtoy-2Ddolls-2Dc-2Dseries_&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=YaCKb9CnQcAlRWG7E_U_fEekjhVGlZpKOp5_kPCb-7A&e=>
> with specific body configurations and characteristics including weight, bra
> size, nipple size, skin tone, eye color, and lip color. Others, like Roxxxy
> from TrueCompanion.com, are customizable, giving consumers a chance to
> choose<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.truecompanion.com_shop_roxxxy-2Dtruecompanion-2Dsex-2Drobot_roxxxy_&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=gZKpWkvd70fP-weN5DREQ7DTsQN01hqSlRvgqKaXRGI&e=>
> among many options for complexion, from "Caucasian," "Asian," "Tanned," to
> "Light Skin African," or "Dark Skin African."
> Another anthropomorphic feature for the androids are personality traits.
> Harmony can display simulated orgasms through facial expressions, shifting
> eyes and the emulation of sounds she "hears." Depending on consumer
> preferences, Roxxxy Gold can be pre-programmed with distinctive
> personalities, including "Wild Wendy," an outgoing and audacious
> personality, and "Frigid Farrah," which exudes bashfulness.
> Many of these robots are also embedded with sensors throughout their bodies
> so that they can respond to touch and movement. The "Frigid" setting causes
> the sex robot to act more reserved and "turned off" from sexual advances,
> especially when it is touched in an area humans consider private, according
> to the Foundation for Responsible Robotics study. "Rapists don't give a shit
> about the victim, and worse yet, don't believe they will ever be caught,"
> Abramson said when asked if sex robots could possibly decrease sexual
> assault rates. "If marriage doesn't deter rape, why would a robot?"
> Abramson also says that sex robots created with the likeness of a child
> would not automatically prevent perpetrators but could help in certain
> circumstances. Moreover, he doesn't think society should treat pedophilia as
> a curable disease.
> Pedophiles are everywhere that kids are, Abramson stated. "They are
> teachers, coaches, boy-scout leaders, priests, stepfathers, friends, and
> boyfriends of a parent and so forth."
> For Abramson, who has 40 years of experience working as an expert witness in
> some of the most atrocious child sexual abuse cases, pedophilia is not a
> choice. Pedophiles have a hardwired attraction to children.
> Civilized societies have placed a number of "formidable obstacles" in the
> way of pedophiles. Deterrence - whether it's harsher prison sentences,
> lifetime registering as sex offenders, and the worst of public shaming, he
> notes - keeps failing as evident by the
> high<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.health.harvard.edu_newsletter-5Farticle_pessimism-2Dabout-2Dpedophilia&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=yrrTA_TuKHCqCd0s6Xm_zNn4Y4NsTTAoXqSLUKpX4NE&e=>
> recidivism rates.
> Shin Takagi, an admitted pedophile who runs his own child sex robot company
> in Japan, agrees that people like himself are genetically compelled to be
> aroused by such widely-disgusted behavior.
> "We should accept that there is no way to change someone's fetishes," Takagi
> told<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.theatlantic.com_health_archive_2016_01_can-2Dchild-2Ddolls-2Dkeep-2Dpedophiles-2Dfrom-2Doffending_423324_&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=FX-8jI0X6z3gBqzZeLUuplkPGvJ-7E1iEB7epsPqyis&e=>
> The Atlantic. "I am helping people express their desires, legally and
> ethically. It's not worth living if you have to live with repressed
> desire."
> Abramson suggests expanding the prevention methods for pedophiliac crimes by
> placing an undergraduate education student in every classroom to act as a
> teacher's aid.
> "I've had countless cases of teachers who sexually abuse elementary school
> kids, treating their classes as their fiefdom," Abramson said.
> Another far more contentious recommendation he proposes is providing
> salacious digital imagery with the likeness of a child (but not actually of
> a real child) or a child sex robot only for pedophiles who register, through
> a state agency, as a pedophile.
> The benefits to the pedophile, Abramson contends, is that they will not be
> prosecuted for possessing such material (as settled by a Supreme Court case
> to be discussed later). In this hypothetical, possessing authentic-looking
> child pornography or a child sex robot would be a felony offense if a person
> is not formally registered. Furthermore, the benefits to the state are that
> pedophiles who have not committed the crime of pedophilia are able to be
> tracked, according to Abramson, who adds that this is just an abridged
> version of his proposal.
> A far less sinister but perhaps just as impactful societal implication of
> sexual robots is that it could potentially increase social isolation. A
> Chinese man, for example,
> married<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.theguardian.com_world_2017_apr_04_chinese-2Dman-2Dmarries-2Drobot-2Dbuilt-2Dhimself&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=au4C8oTDU9hoAixAeoPFBcb2kb32KhJreY7zU-8l3Mw&e=>
> a robot he built at the age of 31 after he tired of trying and failing to
> sell himself as a suitor.
> "By 40 or 50 years, everyone of a marriageable age will have grown up with
> electronics all around them at home, and not see them as abnormal," David
> Levy, author of "Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot
> Relationships,"
> said<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.scientificamerican.com_article_humans-2Dmarrying-2Drobots_&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=pZQnCkRtfRgLs-g-sDlNGvAFFAdLSZUCPXkVaDYUpUs&e=>
> in a 2008 interview with Scientific American. "People who grow up with all
> sorts of electronic gizmos will find android robots to be fairly normal as
> friends, partners, lovers."
> Levy predicted that since "the nature of marriage has changed" humans will
> be marrying robots in around 50 years. This could decrease the amount of
> (human) marriages, subsequently causing collateral consequences.
> Dr. Kate Darling, a specialist at the MIT Media Lab and a fellow at the
> Harvard Berkman Center,
> says<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DmsL1rbgJLlM&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=F8AmVxl9BCm6E6U38CZFylEG5rAuRp7ah51U_ec0Nv8&e=>
> while she and others don't know what to fully expect with robots, it could
> conceivably increase the social confidence of a hermit, or even a relatively
> timid person, by acting as a mechanism for practice. Such an influence could
> possibly increase rates of marriage.
> Nevertheless, she uses the science fiction show Westworld to describe a
> telling example of the uncertainty of robots' effects.
> "What we don't know is whether if you go and play around in Westworld,
> whether that is just an indication of how callous you are, or if it can
> actually desensitize you towards that human, or whether it is a really
> healthy outlet if you have violent tendencies," Darling said on the
> podcast<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DmsL1rbgJLlM&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=F8AmVxl9BCm6E6U38CZFylEG5rAuRp7ah51U_ec0Nv8&e=>
> "Waking Up with Sam Harris," adding that this general question is the most
> interesting to her in the whole far-reaching topic of the robot-human
> relationship.
> "You can go and you can beat the crap out of this really lifelike robot, and
> you know that you're not hurting a real person. And maybe that makes you a
> much better person in real life; you've gotten all of your aggressions out.
> We just have no idea what direction this goes in."
> James Grimmelmann, a law professor at Cornell University, agrees with
> Darling's belief that the future effects of robots is highly uncertain due
> to the all of the potential nuances of the implications.
> Like sex robots, "There's a strong argument that the ready availability of
> pornography on the internet has caused" more social isolation and depraved
> behavior, Grimmelmann told TheDCNF. "But there's also a strong argument that
> it has helped some people who are already isolated better understand
> themselves sexually and led to better relationships with others. It might
> help some people and harm others, and it's overall hard to tell."
> One perspective is that sex robots may be therapeutic, allowing individuals
> to satisfy their deepest, most carnal desires without harming anyone.
> "On the other hand, they may be like gateway drugs, leading more people to
> develop these harmful deviances or worsening already horrible deviant
> conduct," Justin "Gus" Hurwitz, a professor of law at the University of
> Nebraska, told TheDCNF. "There is evidence that either or both of these
> views could be accurate."
> The legal questions in particular, which naturally intertwine with the
> societal implications, are also plentiful and difficult.
> "There's a big difference, for instance, between regulating 'sex robots' and
> regulating 'robots that can be programmed for sex,'" Hurwitz explained.
> "This is especially true because the robot is a product, but its programming
> may be speech that is protected by the First Amendment."
> In Ashcroft. v. Free Speech Coalition (2002), the Supreme Court
> ruled<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.nytimes.com_2002_04_16_national_supreme-2Dcourt-2Dstrikes-2Ddown-2Dban-2Don-2Dvirtual-2Dchild-2Dpornography.html&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=iQR2RxCnULEpjO9eCjKSpLS6HHmcPtUpPQG6MPZnuw8&e=>
> 6-3 that a ban against virtual child pornography through the Child
> Pornography Prevention Act was overly broad and unconstitutional.
> "Congress may pass valid laws to protect children from abuse, and it has,"
> Justice Anthony Kennedy
> wrote<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.law.cornell.edu_supct_html_00-2D795.ZO.html&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=-2bxQ4J_RwxDZZMo3Uwa5LX80qOAfMja8ILxOKdsDK0&e=>
> in his opinion at the time. "The prospect of crime, however, by itself does
> not justify laws suppressing protected speech."
> Such kinds of lewd content (animated pornography with the likeness of a
> minor) is not completely analogous to sex robots. Darling argues that there
> is a substantial difference between a physical robot and a virtual, abstract
> entity.
> While comparing the correlation - or lack thereof - between violent video
> games and subsequent human violence, Darling argues that there is "no reason
> to believe we can't mentally compartmentalize in that case."
> "But we do know that we respond very differently to physical things than
> things on a screen. We have this more visceral response to the physicality
> of robots," Darling said.
> Whether Kennedy and the five other justices would apply their ruling to sex
> robots is not clear. What is clear, however, is that like the inevitably of
> growing consumership, the Supreme Court will almost certainly have to
> interpret the legality of sex robots in the not too distant future.
> Follow Eric on
> Twitter<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__twitter.com_-5FEricLieberman-5F&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=7pASlg47ZmsmHK5MlE-Bs9Pilql3HGtBAP05pqTqVOI&e=>
> Send tips to
> eric@dailycallernewsfoundation.org<mailto:eric@dailycallernewsfoundation.org>.
> Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without
> charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For
> licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact
> licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__dailycaller.com_2017_07_17_sex-2Drobots-2Dare-2Dhere-2Dand-2Dcould-2Dchange-2Dsociety-2Dforever_licensing-40dailycallernewsfoundation.org&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=EFDy9K-vLxYzkhb8q1fxMaq6kgFXlT00k_QoOUPqAUs&s=1XrgpVf4tc60GZHemRTKG8iVmg_p7mXwpr7dtzWcc_0&e=>.
>
>
>
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)