This isn’t a satire on ultra-liberal California.
FOX News 40 reports: “After a violent weekend of suspected gang-related shootings, Tuesday the Sacramento City Council took action to reduce the bloodshed.”
“It approved a controversial program called Advance Peace, which offers cash stipends to gang members who remain peaceful.”
“The program targets key gang agitators, offering them cash stipends to graduate [from] school and remain peaceful…But the city would still have to pay half the cost of the program, $1.5 million out of the city’s general fund.”
In other words, Sacramento, the capital city of the state of California, has surrendered.
Investigations, arrests, prosecutions, and prison sentences won’t cut it.
Here is the scenario that comes to mind. A suburban teenager on the outskirts of the city shows up in his parents’ living room one day with the tattoo of a grinning skull on his neck.
“Don’t be upset,” he says. “I’m joining a gang. I’ll still get good grades in school, but when I graduate, the city will give me a cash prize. I can use the money to start my own tech firm in our garage…”
But this is piddling stuff. Let’s go all the way to Governor Jerry Brown’s office. Let’s have a state-wide “advance peace” program. The state, which is already $500 billion in debt, when you add in unfunded future liabilities, could throw a billion dollars into a pool.
Over a period of, say, five years, the money would be doled out to gangs, based on their performance. Subtract $250,000 for every gang killing in the state, $125,000 for every wounding, $10,000 for every property crime, $1000 for every drug bust. Whatever is left over for the gangs is their gravy.
Eventually, through negotiation, replace the California legislature and governor with gang members. Let them run things.
I’m just trying to be helpful. I see the direction policy is taking, and I want to give it a boost and quicken the pace.
After all, when gang members end up taking over the state government, all gang crime would cease.
It would be reclassified as government corruption.
Pop the champagne corks. Problem solved.
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
Got to be some kickback or skimming action up in there somewhere…
May as well pay them to go back where they came from,they`d probably live well there.
Liberace almost killed his mother when someone told him to take his piano and go back where he came from. Over 90% of all criminals were born in the US.
You probably hiz muthuh.
You probably a muthuh fuggah.
Especially the Wall Street types.
On Earth?
First generation (undocumented ) immgrants are the most law-abiding group, with a 50% lower crime rate (and most crimes paper crimes0 and a 99% lower murder rate, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The gang members are almost always US citizens. i taught at risk youth for 15 years, many in gangs, including at a youth prison. First generation, from foreign nations, are almost crime free. it is the US citizens you gotta watch out for! Where should a natural born US citizen go back to?
You’re not talking about MS 13 members. And what do you or the idiot city fathers think will be the result. Blacklmailers always up the price again and again. Why would these gang members act any differently?
You could do the same, por favor?
intelligent people know that rewarding people for good behavior has better results than punishing them for bad.
Paying people to get educated is how the prosperous nations in Europe have succeeded. It costs much less to educate than to imprison, and the educated can get good jobs; people with good jobs do not need the security of gangs or criminal activity to survive.
Stop the conventional herd thinking and judge programs by their inner logic of positive re-enforcement and the advantages of an educated population vs a criminal, recidivist population. Sacramento has not surrendered but has awakened to the fact that helping people succeed has better results than paying to punish them when they fail. Herd thinkers will be outraged, but where has herd thinking got us except to be the most violent of all high-income nations (there are 35; US has 85-99% higher gun murder rates than all other 34) and the highest number and percent of prisoners in the entire world.
You have somehow misconstrued the difference between rewarding good behavior and enabling evil people to take advantage of you.
I’m sure you can provide some peer reviewed paper written that legitimizes this nonsense.
Using the derogatory term “herd thinkers”, connected with this analogy you are professing, is the epitome of hypocrisy.
No confusion here: I taught at risk youth for 15 yrs including at a youth prison and had many gang members as students. All respond, as all people do, to being rewarded and reenforced in good behavior. None took advantage. “Evil” people are only made worse by condemnation and punishment, as the recidivism rate and US world record incarceration rates show. Evil people can transform themselves if given the right re-enforcements. I am talking from experience. I have 15 years of direct contact to confirm my ideas and you can look up positive re-enforcement studies to confirm they work better than punishment.
Herd thinking is just repeating the failed methods of the past.My thinking is based on experience and peer-reviewed studies.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/10/rehabilitation.aspx
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201001/common-misconceptions-about-science-vi-negative
You have already prejudged the evidence and discounted my experience, so I expect you have a closed mind, an example of herd thinking.
Studies made by your bleeding heart left wing peers. I’m sure that no MS 13 members were in your classes. You might as well bribe a spider to not eat a fly. Your experience was with gang members behind bars. Hit the streets and see how long you live.
He’s not as smart as a cow.
So the solution is to reward people who choose violence and to commit crimes and have those who choose to be peaceful and not commit crimes pay for it? How about just annihilate those who choose a life of crime and reward those who choose to be peaceful and product members of society?
You totally don’t understand the theory behind rewarding not violence but good behavior:
“Positive reinforcement is a very powerful and effective tool to help shape and change behavior. Positive reinforcement works by presenting a motivating item to the person after the desired behavior is exhibited, making the behavior more likely to happen in the future.”
The method is positive (rewards); the result is that the desired behavior is repeated.
It would also help to understand why youth join gangs: “Gangs have a particular appeal to some youth. Gangs sometimes serve as families for children whose own families may be dysfunctional. Gang members have said there is often little need to intimidate youngsters to recruit them because they know what youth need and are willing to provide it in return for the child’s commitment. Gangs provide emotional support, shelter, and clothing—in essence, just what the child’s family may not be providing. ” encyclopedia.com
I know this is true from having taught gang members in public schools and in a youth prison.
If society provides the support youth need, they will not need gangs. Gangs tend to thrive in poor neighborhoods, so the obvious solution is programs that reduce poverty. Gangs are also entrepreneurial organizations, sellng drugs, etc. The same skills can be transferred to legal activities…and while we are at it, most gangs would collapse if we ended the failed War on Drugs. The War on Drugs has created the need for gangs to market illegal substances. Note that there are no gangs who thrive on selling cigarettes, because their legality takes the profit margin out. The same principle should be applied to drugs.
There will still be robberies, violence, etc but this is correlated with poverty; the solution, clearly, is to eliminate poverty, which as Aristotle said “is the parent of crime.” In a world where 5 billionaires have more wealth than billions of people living on less than $2 a day, crime becomes a kind of decentralized atomization of revolution. If all those who engage in crime because they have no other means to survive banded together to overthrow a system which rewards those who make and profit from mass murder, wars, slave labor, etc, we might see a different kind of society, with none rich, none poor—-all with a basic equality and no motive for criminal activity. Is this utopian.
It has worked for thousands of years. Early societies, for over 95% of our existence, were egalitarian and sharing and non-violent; war was invented when during the Agricultural Revolution, surpluses led to classes of masters and slaves, wars were designed to seize surpluses (they still are), and the resentment of those on the bottom (the poor, the slaves, the exploited) was acted out as crime. That is how we got here.
Today, the most violent nations are those with the most inequality, the most peaceful those with the most widespread economic security. There is enough wealth to give every child economic security and thus undermine the motive for crime, but the wealth is hoarded by the ruling financial elites, which since the Agricultural Revolution have declared themselves the rulers and used their power to increase their wealth at the expense of those they exploit. It is no accident that most gangs arise out of communities which have been enslaved and exploited. End the injustice and the violence it promotes will end.
By rewarding good behavior, we can promote the social goals we desire: productive, beneficial, and peaceful.
The irony is that the worst gangs run the world in the form of aggressive nations like the US, Israel, etc and predatory corporations who exploit the resources of others and in the form of corporate fascism, have taken control of government. Then these Big Time Criminals try to persuade us that youth selling drugs, committing violence almost always against each other, and filling up our prisons are the real problem. They are a symptom and result of a deep sickness in our society, the disease of greed, inequality, and the need for scapegoats to displace anger onto targets of feared and hated populations, almost always the most vulnerable with the least power.
We will never cure this sickness until we stop the herd thinking that scapegoats youth gangs, (which commit, according to the FBI, 6% of gun murders (mostly each other) compared to the 54% of murders done by family and friends.
When is the last time a politician told you the real enemy is not the gang but the armed household? Since 9/11, there have been over 400,000 gun deaths, Guns now kill more people than cars, and guns are designed to protect us. Few politicians have the guts to tell the truth about who the true enemies of America are, for they are the corporations and banks that profit from slave labor, wars, and use the divide and conquer tactic to loot us all while convincing us to blame the hapless and abandoned 15 yr olds who seek the companionship and support of a gang.
If we provide what youth needs, there will be no need for gangs; but by using gangs as a method of fear-mongering, politicians are able to keep the public eye off of the real criminals, the corporate fascists who are ripping us off, destroying our health and environment, and then charging us for the damage.
I see you are concerned about fixing the problems but handing out freebies to reward those who initially “CHOSE” to get into gangs and crimes isn’t the answer. What about all those youth who chose not to be involved and worked hard to escape poverty only to find out those who chose violence and crime were rewarded to stop their behavior. If you want to tackle the problems end the welfare state.
I suspect you have zero expertise and no experience in programs of positive reenforcement. It works! See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3429341/
Those who avoid gangs usually have strong family support and so will not be upset if programs that correct criminal behavior work!
In fact, the best corrective to criminal behavior is improving family income, which means strengthening the welfare state. Crime is correlated to socioeconomic status so programs that raise income, by whatever means, correlates with less crime, higher academic achievement, etc.
learn the facts, my friend. Using failed dogma will not work! The US is both the most violent of all 35 advanced nations (by far) AND has the largest prison population in the world. Connect the dots.
I know you must have trouble looking into the future and what this will cause but let me ask you something. What would stop young people from realizing it’s easier to join a gang and have the tax payers pay you to stop being in gangs or just take the hard road and work to pay your way through school? If you think strengthening the welfare state is the solution you are part of the problem.
When did the welfare state start? Did we have these kinds of problems with broken families, no father in the home, emerging gangs, before or after Lyndon Johnson started the war on poverty in the 60s? You should look into that and stop trying to create more of the same problems that got us here in the first place.
I have no trouble seeing consequences,as I m a student of research which gives us evidence of what works and does not. It is not “easy” to join a gang….it usually is a result of poverty, an unstable, often cruel or abandoned family life, and it involves getting beaten up to “prove” toughness. It’s easy only in the sense that going to prison is “easy.”
Young people who have unstable families usually are doing poorly in school (I taught at risk youth for 20 years and have no employment opportunities.
The most stable and prosperous societies on earth (Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan, etc are all the most robust “welfare states.” When Johnson brought about the War on Poverty, it brought down the poverty rate and with it human suffering and violence. When the programs were watered down, poverty and violence increased.
“As a part of the Great Society, Johnson believed in expanding the federal government’s roles in education and health care as poverty reduction strategies.[1] These policies can also be seen as a continuation of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which ran from 1933 to 1937, and the Four Freedoms of 1941. Johnson stated “Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it”
One of the key components was aid to education, the path out of poverty, and the job corps. “In the decade following the 1964 introduction of the war on poverty, poverty rates in the U.S. dropped to their lowest level since comprehensive records began in 1958: from 17.3% in the year the Economic Opportunity Act was implemented to 11.1% in 1973.” wiki
Today, with the old programs dismantled, poverty is rising again.
“Young people who have unstable families usually are doing poorly in school (I taught at risk youth for 20 years and have no employment opportunities.” So in all your years and experience what is the biggest factor as to why there are unstable families?
Gangs succeed because they offer positive re-enforcement and satisfy needs. Why not use these methods to attain positive soclal goals such as attending school, etc?
“When one’s physiological needs are not met, individuals yearn to satisfy them however they can (Maslow, 1943). Poverty has been found to be a correlate of food insecurity and unstable housing, as well as gang involvement (Pyrooz & Sweeten, 2015; Tapia, 2011). Thus, while money itself may not be a physiological need, hunger and housing (e.g. shelter from dangerous elements and weather) are related to gang membership where food insecurity and unstable housing are predictive of involvement (Carlson, Andrews, & Bickel 1999; Voisin, King, Diclemente, & Carry, 2014). Maslow’s (1943) theory would suggest a causal relation between these variables in which individuals are using gangs as a source of income to meet their physiological needs of food and shelter. Because legal means of income may not be accessible to youth under the legal working age of 14 (U.S. Department of Labor, 1938), or simply unattractive due to the long hours and minimal pay, joining a gang may appeal to a youth in need of money. Gangs can provide income through criminal activity such as drug and weapons trafficking (U.S. Department of Justice, 2015). In addition to money, gangs can give members a feeling of protection by providing them with weapons and a sense of safety in numbers, or a sense that they have people who will fight with them if needed (Decker & Van Winkle, 1996). Such provisions may help youth to address their safety needs.” http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/appsych/opus/issues/2016/spring/sonterblum
I have taught gang members and so have a deep understanding of their needs and motives. If we provide what they lack and gangs supply, there will be no need for gangs. They need respect and basic needs met, including food security, housing stability, and some form of income. I suggest a massive work program offering alternative and positive social settings (work gangs) and financial rewards.
Punishment does not work. “Within three years of release, about two-thirds (67.8 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested. Within five years of release, about three-quarters (76.6 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested. Of those prisoners who were rearrested, more than half (56.7 percent) were arrested by the end of the first year.” https://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/recidivism/Pages/welcome.aspx
I worked in a youth prison. I know what I am talking about. Why repeat failed methods?
Do not think of rewards as ‘freebees’ but rather as investments in positive social conduct and as a way of saving both youth and money, since the 30K a year to imprison criminals, who will only come back, is wasted?
“State and local spending on prisons and jails has increased at triple the rate of funding for public education for preschool through grade P-12 education in the last three decades, a new analysis by the U.S. Department of Education found.”
Why not spend that money to reward youth for getting an education, which leads to employment and decreases both violence and state costs for incarceration? There is no real rebuttal, but the prison industry needs prisoners, the more the better, so for them, failure is profits! Those who benefit from this failure are: those who employ prison (slave) labor, private for profit prisons, and prison guards, who in California can often make more than 100K a year with overtime.
Prison guards need only a high school education, and
“Average Correctional Officer Yearly Salary in California
Correctional Officers earn a median salary of $75,880 per year. ”
“CDCR, as the department is known at the State Capitol, employs more people and spends more on staff than any of the other 150 departments delineated in the salary data provided by the State Controller’s office. In calendar year 2009, the corrections department employed more than 68,000 people, paying them more than $4.78 billion. The next closest department was Transportation, better known as CalTrans, which employed more than 23,000 people and paid them more than $1.49 billion in salary, overtime and other wages.
Corrections has been roundly condemned by reformers, federal courts and state lawmakers as poor performing and ineffective at rehabilitation. But the department has the most state employees who received more than $100,000 in 2009, the most receiving more than $200,000, the most receiving more than $300,000, the most receiving more than $400,000, the most receiving more than $500,000 and was tied for the most receiving more than $600,000 (one, equal to the State Compensation Insurance Fund).” ocregister.com
This is why a failed program is growing! We can undercut this failure and waste by adopting proven methods of actual ‘correction.” Pro-active programs that keep potential prisoners out of prison save the most in terms of human and financial waste.
Don’t let the failed dogma promoted by those who profit from a failed system control your thoughts on how to reduce violence and the massive cost of being the most incarcerated population in the world.
So what next,bribing Muslims to not behead you. That’s called paying the Jizyya. You think that is an intelligent way to live? I say it’s the cowards way. Go ahead and live on your knees. I prefer to stand.
in other words
the government is funding gangs
They are at least co opting them.
Rome did the same thing when they lost strength and numbers in their military.
They outsourced.
Needless to say, the replacements eventually turned on their employers because after all, who could stop them.
Talk about a self defeating plan. The stupidity is almost humorous.
The evidence is that in prisons, and in life in general, positive re-enforcement works better than punishment to attain desire results. What is stupid is not to understand this.
They’ve been doing it with banksters for ages.
The government is spending billions to lock up gangs, only to re-enforce their anti-social behavior leading them back into criminal behavior. The idea is to spend the money to hire them to do good things.
And legalizing blackmail.
That would make fiscal sense. It costs the taxpayers at least $500,000 just to prosecute one felon, and then at last $100,000 a year to keep them locked up. So if someone got 5 years in prison, that would be a Million dollars, where giving hem $30K a year to keep clean would only be $300,000 over the same period. This does not count the cost to the victim and to society for taking care of the victim and his or her family.
Would you pay an arsonist not to burn your house down or would you report him?
If I reported him to my local police he would burn my house down with impunity. Who would you expect me to report him to?
Not if he was in jail for a terrorist threat Einstein. You would bribe him? You would make a great target.
Who is going to put him there………..Einstein?
Have you ever heard of the police?
Yes I have. They do nothing. I stated that at outset, but hey, one more example of your selective and twisted attention.
They sit on their fat butts and eat doughnuts all day right Bozo?
Arson is a very rare crime – trying to cover up something, insurance fraud, or just thrills. Robbery is very common with high risks for very little money. Night clerk at the convenience store a couple of blocks away from my inlaws house was killed for probably less than $200, and the criminal got life – 50 years of 3 hots and a cot on my tax dollars.
Kid on the Mall in Boulder several years ago had sign that read ‘Donate or I will vote for Palin”, and was probably getting close to $500/hr.
By the way, I don’t lock my doors because someone might think that there is something valuable here – ever seen any on taking a grandfather clock that weighs over 200 pounds away. Truck keys are in the ignition – Pink 1985 Econoline Box Van – how far would you get with that?
Why do you never answer a simple question without going on irrelevant rants? Will you do the same now? You obviously live in a safe neighborhood or you wouldn’t react like you did. Have you always lead a sheltered life? You’re too old to learn from the mean streets like I did. The saying is true. There’s no fool like an old fool.
What fools they are, the gangs are happy to take anyones money no matter who it is from and it just gives them more to purchase drugs which helps the cartels. As usual asinine reasoning from the leftist liberals.
Didn’t this used to be called a “Protection Racket”?
Nailed it !!!
By dale and apzzyk’s reasoning, they would find it acceptable, (even advantageous) to pay someone for NOT breaking out the windows in their houses. (Hope the gangs don’t have the addresses)
This is how far some have fallen in lack of intelligence and common sense.
Both of them are trolls,block them.
I have been following apzzyx for a year. He is a hopeless socialist. He mentions his PHD in almost every post. He sees himself superior.
Gee. I’m a hopeful socialist, and I don’t have a PhD. Just for the sake of argument, can you be sure he’s NOT superior?
As he has refrained from answering several comments from me where I challenge him and his silly notions I can say YES I’m sure. Being a hopeful socialist is an exercise in futility. I can cite many examples of failed socialism and Communism The USA is the most prosperous system in history and got there through a free market system. The only problem we have now is globalist/Communists trying to bring us down. The hope you have can’t save the dogs,cats, rats and other pets and assorted vermin destined to adorn the dinner plates of otherwise starving Venezuelans under what hopeful socialistic system you see as the fairest system. Socialism/Communism always results in two classes. The very rich and powerful and the dirt poor.That is one thing azzpyx refused to address. To quote Maggie Thatcher “sooner or later you run out of other peoples money”
Amen Daniel, good statement to educate the leftist brainwash youngsters…
Thanks;unfortunately a lone voice on the internet can’t compete with teachers and professors who will fail any student who resists their left wing indoctrination.
Shall I cry you a river, poor booboo?
I was stating a fact you imbecilic poltroon. It is your side that cried rivers of crocodile tears when Queen Hillary failed in her second try at the throne.
You wouldn’t know a fact if it bit you on the ass. My side loathes Hillbillary. Idiot. Since you seem to think I’m a poltroon, why don’t you give me your address and we can discuss it over a cup of coffee? Yup, that’s what I thought.
Many on the left feared Clinton more than Trump. You clearly do not read the progressive press….get out of your right wing propaganda bubble, daniel. It’s not to late to learn who is lying to you (Goebbels wrote: “displace anger onto targets of hatred.”_ and why.
He also said tell a lie enough times and it becomes the truth. I understand exactly who is lying. I was a liberal long ago. I grew up. What happened to you?
Yes, Trump learned that lesson well when read the collection of Hitler’s speeches The New Order given to him by a friend and which is ex-wife said was his bedside reading.
In a Vanity Fair interview, Trump said that a friend, “a Jew….gave me Mein Kampf.” His friend is not a Jew and the book was not Mein Kampf. Then Trump went on to say: “I didn’t have that book……………..and if i did, i didn’t read it.” He obviously did read it and used its tactics of the Big lie and displacing anger onto targeted groups well.
I am not a liberal but an independent free thinker. You make bad assumptions, daniel.
Since you don’t read the cites I present as anti-establishment left, you are unqualified to claim their are propaganda. Tout means “attempt to sell (something), typically by pestering people in an aggressive or bold manner.” I merely gave examples of left media that is independent and rejects MSM propaganda. SPLC exposes hate groups; does that offend you. Your prejudice is exactly to judge media you admit you have not read. You cannot discern or judge what you have not read. I am bored with you.
The SPLC labels people who oppose their uber-leftist beliefs as hate groups. You haven’t heard the latest about them,have you. They have been exposed. They are a “non profit” that deposited about $60 million in off shore accounts. Labeling those who tell the truth about jihad terror as hate groups supports genocide. Why do you support genocide?
They do not label conservative groups hate groups despite having “opposing views.”
They identify hate groups such as the KKK. Their chief makes $350,000 a year about 3% of what many corporate heads make. What groups telling the truth about jihad terror have they labeled as hate groups? You never give sources but clearly only read the far right propaganda machine.
Your claim that i support genocide is both libel and laughable. I support exposing hate groups: that is hardly supporting genocide, my friend. i am thoroughly bored with your right wing cliches. Let;’s call it a day.
The SPLC has labeled jihad watch headed by Robert Spencer and Bill Warner, The head of the center for the study of political Islam haters. If you support exposing haters then stop supporting the SPLC. Here’s a link to the “Islamaphobe” list directly from the SPLC Mr. know it all.https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/anti-muslim
Nice one. You knew that posting a link would get the post removed,didn’t you. Look up the David Horowitz group and Robert Spencer of jihad watch. Look up Dr. Bill Warner of the center for the study of political Islam. They are both on the SPLC hate list as Islamiophobia orgainizations.
True. I don’t read left wing propaganda. I gave that up with the Berkeley barb. I remember Haight Ashbury. And you thought I didn’t understand your point of view.
If you don’t read it, you have no grounds to call it “propaganda.” Intercept, Counterpunch, and other left media are very much anti-establishment, anti-propaganda. You have just admitted prejudice. Remembering Haight Ashbury has zero to do with knowing what the real left is thinking and writing and criticizing.
Not now it doesn’t. Sorry but you tout propaganda, not news sites. It is more like the SPLC that they get their “facts” from. What prejudice have I admitted to? Proper discernment is more appropriate.
So say the uneducated, brainwashed by their corporate masters through Nazi style propaganda.
The youngsters have rejected the propaganda of the last century and have finally asserted their independence. You may call them names…childish.
The most prosperous country for the upper crust, to be sure. Y’know, patriotism is methamphetamine for stupid people and I think you’ve overdosed.
If you hate this country then I won’t try to persuade you to stay. There are millions in the countries you support desperately trying to get here and breathe free. I remember a story about an east German defector who was surprised that people were sneaking INTO the USA rather than the other way around. Can you explain why that is true? If it’s so bad here then why stay?
Oh I will stay. With a 40,000 year tenure, I think it’s appropriate. I love America but I’m not so enamored of the United States.
You have taught for 40,000 years?
What do you mean this country, Daniel. Surely, you do not mean the people, who rejected Trump, who want single payer healthcare, free college, and a whole host of progressive programs and find socialist Bernie Sanders the only national politician with majority approval. People are fleeing countries destroyed by US wars and policies……..and fucking Trump is trying to stop them. Since 2008, more undocumented immigrants have left the US than entered. Can you explain why that is true?
“More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to the U.S. | Pew Research …
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/
Nov 19, 2015 – More Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the U.S. than have migrated here since the end of the Great Recession, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from both countries. .”
Ultra-nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment is the core ideology of fascist movements. Wake up, brother!
America, right or wrong. When right, to be supported; when wrong, to be corrected. Dissent is the highest form of genuine patriotism; nationallistic flag-waving and immigrant bashing is the lowest form of fascist thuggery.
The core ideology of all forms of fascism is ultra-nationalism, as tho being born in the same country conferred identity that trumps all other human bonds. “When fascism comes to America, it will be called Americanism.” Sinclair Lewis in It Can’t Happen Here.
it’s happening!
I disagree a little. The core ideology is defense of bourgeois property rights and the general defense of capital and capitalism in crisis. Ultra-nationalism has historically proven to be an effective tool for fascism, but it isn’t the heart and soul. I have seen fascism as a threat in America from my junior high school days. I live in a state that worships authority and capitalism (and racism). It CAN happen here (I’ve read that book numerous times) and it indeed IS happening here. Resistance is not optional. If you have a scintilla of morality, resistance is mandatory.
The core agenda of fascism is not ultranationalism, which is used as a way to unite a racial or ethnic group and exclude the “enemy.” The core agenda is totalitarian control based on some form of racism or superior nation or group. Ultranationalism unites an atomized lumpen proletariat and sets up an Us vs Them mentality, by which some vulnerable group is scapegoated, thus displacing anger onto targets of blame and hatred, whether Jews, Muslims, or immigrants.
Ultranationalism is thus a tactic to gain power and control people.
“Ultranationalism is defined as “extreme nationalism that promotes the interest of one state or people above all others”, or simply “extreme devotion to one’s own nation”.[1][2]
Blamires asserts that ultranationalism is essentially racist and is known to legitimise itself “through deeply mythicized narratives of past cultural or political periods of historical greatness or of old scores to settle against alleged enemies”.
Fascism in Gemany and Italy came to power by denouncing capitalism but once in power, it aligned with the capitalist class in a merger of state power and corporate interests (profits), primarily through the military/industrial complex whereby dominant industries like Krupp and Messerschmidt and IGFarben demanded (against the wishes of Hitler, but he lost the argument) slave labor and got lucrative war contracts.
War is the primary vehicle by which fascism transfers (we call it neo-liberalism and privatization today) public wealth into private hands, a business model whic both expands state power and increases corporate wealth. Today, the state and corporate elites have not just joined forces but the corporate elites actually sit in the seats of state power and run the country. For example, Trump has appointed 7 Goldman-Sachs alumni to key positions…..fascism has become not just the merger of state and corporate interests but the identify of state and corporate power.
The Secretary of Treasury is a Wall St. hedge fund manager; the Secy of State is the ex CEO of Exxon, etc.
Ultranationism is the drug that controls the masses, since the corporate elites are all globalists (“I am a globalist.” Donald Trump) but need to use the divide and conquer tactics of nationalism and racism to enable the looting of the public treasury.
In the beginning, fascism may begin as a revolt against capitalism (as in Nazi Germany) using populism to gain support but in the end, it is the end stage of capitalism, by which the ruling class takes over government and uses this power to transfer public assets into private hands, through government contracts (the F-35 fighter jet will cost 1.5 trillion for a failed plane), war contracts, privatization, and monopoly power granted by government to favored corporatioins.
i think we agree we have slipped into a nasty form of fascism (the friendly fascism of the past is history) and that we have no choice but to resist. “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke, founder of modern conservativism, who today, would be horrified at the radical and reactionary fascism of the corporate state.
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The Fascism you tout is called Antifa and BLM. They are the ones beating people for exercising free speech,burning down cities and murdering cops. I’m sure you’re proud of them. You have no shame.
How many cities have Antifa and BLM burnt down, daniel.? Has it occured to you that Antifa may be a false flag operation to discredit the antifascist movement. How many cops have Antifa and BLM murdered. You are now descending into fascist fear-mongering and lies. Please get out of that right wing ghetto of lies that breeds fascism, daniel. Let’s end this now. It has becoming boring and meaningless to hear you repeat the lies you no doubt believe.
BLM arsonist sentenced to 15 years in prison and $100,000,000 fine for LA fire. Source-the LA times (not right wing). July 7 2016 five Dallas cops killed seven wounded by sniper. Dec,2014 two NYC cops killed in patrol car. That is seven too many dead. Your attachment to realty is slipping. Antifa MAY be a false flag? There has been a second “white supremacist” outed as a former occupy protester and Obama supporter. It is the left that has proven over and over to be the true racists and violent agitators. BLM protesters in Ferguson MS. and Baltimore burned and ransacked entire business districts over justified or accidental police actions. Baltimore prosecutor being disbarred for her actions that sparked The riots in her city. There is so much more but your head is firmly in the sand. It is also inserted into another cavern I will not mention.
The 57 yr old was not a member of BLM but said he had been inspired by their movement.
Johnson, the veteran who killed the Dallas police, was not a member of the BLM.
The left, which you do not identfy or define, has been the traditional supporter of civil rights all over the world. I am bored with your right wing mythology. Let’s end it, daniel. I wish you well from the independent anti-fascist left. I will not respond anymore…..
Thanks I’m getting sick of your guff, Just remember that it was Democrats who fought tooth and nail to keep slavery here. From before the civil war to Jim crow laws to filibustering the civil rights acts of the 60s to the Democrat voter plantation we have today. Your ignorance and hypocrisy is noted.
1. I am not a Democrat
2. The Democrats became the champions of civil rights, trading places with the Repubicans, 60 years ago Calling today’s rule by a Republican Congress, President and 3/4 of governors being Republicans “the Democrat voter plantation.” is funny.
I am well educated and a straight shooter, daniel. Your insults do not touch me but only reflect back on you.
You certainly act like contemporary Democrats. You’re Totally indoctrinated in the same leftist Alinsky;Cloward/Piven political tactics they use.The Democrat plantation is a fact of history. There was no party switch. Of the Dixiecrats of the 50s and 60’s only one became a Republican. When LBJ realized he could “Make those Ni**ers vote Democrat for 200 years”, that’s when the Democrat party plantation morphed from cultivating free labor to guaranteed votes. Your educators have effectively erased true history from your brain. You may have an education I don’t, but I lived through the 50s and 60s. I have memories that I can recall. I was raised a Democrat. My dad and granddad were union officials and staunch Democrats. I was raised to despise Republicans and employers as greedy slave drivers. That lie of the Democrat party is still part of the playbook. I have heard the fables of the parties switching and the “southern strategy” enough times to nauseate me. You are not the first or will you be last to try to gaslight me with revisionist history. I realize that the facts about you I pointed out haven’t effected you. Any sense of shame has long ceased to be part of you. You believe you side with the angels. You’re wrong.
The most prosperous anywhere,PERIOD. Poor people here would be considered well off in most of the world. You make a good living but I would wager all you do is whine about how bad you have it. Leftists always whine about social justice. You think the government is the solution to your problems. The government is the source of most ills. Grow up crybaby.
When you demand answers after declaring someone’s views are silly, you aren’t really asking a question but disguising a judgement as a question. It is then hypocritical to criticize the person for not complying with your insincere question. Calling people vermin, etc is how Nazis justified and promoted genocide.
it is capitalism that results in two classes; master and slaves, bosses and workers. Today, 5 billionaires have more wealth than 3 billion abjectly poor people. Socialism is based on equality, and the social democracies of the world are the most prosperous and freest of all nations. To quote Maggie Thatcher, there is no such thing as society.”
Forget it. You’re not worth the effort to type an answer again.I keep trying to fix the stupid in others, my mistake.
That’s it? All you have are insults? That’s a sign of defeat, my friend. you are wise to hold your tongue.
Defeat,No A realization that some never learn to accept reality. Socialism leads to misery and despair. You can’t name a more prosperous nation than the USA. If you can then name one. To you the truth is an insult. Grow up old man. You don’t know everything. You just think you do. I’m now done casting my pearls before swine.
When you substitute rational discourse with insults, that means you are out of ammunition and are slinging mud. The most prosperous nations are all social democracies, such as Canada (where the average wealth is greater than the US, the ten nations with higher per capita incomes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita)
Grow up old man is another insult that shows you have no rational discourse, just right wing lies and ad hominems. How sad you are. When you call insults the truth, you are living in an Orwellian world of delusions. You have cast no pearls, and calling me a swine is just another case of admitting you have no rational discourse. Sad.
So calling me a Nazi,a Fascist, a hater, delusional,Orwellian,sad,irrational,a mud slinger,a liar and more is not an ad homenim attack on me? As for income differences in other countries,you can thank LBJ’s great society and the American welfare/plantation for that.
If he has overcome the massive anti-socialist propaganda, he probably is a superior mind. Herd thinking is a sign of mental decay
What massive anti-socialist propaganda? Are you typing your resopnse from an alternate reality?
No, I am coming from a deep understanding of US history and the agenda of the capitalist ruling class to demonize any alternatives. It is a historical fact that fascism, from Hitler to our day, based their power on anti-communism. Hitler’s first victims of the concentration camps were the liberals and Social Democrats, who were sent to Dachau. Many in the West supported him because they feared the bogeyman of communism and socialism more than fascism.
All my life, the conventional wisdom has been that socialism is evil and always fails.
“‘SIXTY YEARS of the Cold War helps explain it,” said Patricia Moynagh. “The association of socialism with ‘bad places’ like North Korea, Cuba, the former Soviet Union. It became the ‘boogie monster.’ ”
Moynagh, a political theorist, said that the extreme antipathy toward the term “socialism” in America could be explained in theoretical terms.
“There’s a great line by Karl Marx that I think is appropriate, something to the effect that ‘the ruling ideology in every epoch is the ideology of the ruling class.’ If you’ve got 60 years of maligning socialism, and you’re trying to promote your own interests and the interests of your class,” she said, it’s understandable how the term “socialism” has “taken a beating.”
Moynagh says it’s ironic that GOP candidates are trying to stick President Obama with the “socialist” tag.
“He’s really a center-right politician, in practice,” she said, “though he thinks of himself as a progressive.
“Had he been a socialist, he would have approached the banking crisis a few years ago differently, maybe nationalizing some of the banks — not all of them, but some of them. But he didn’t do anything like that.
STEVEN SNOW observed that, while democratic socialist parties are a routine feature of the political landscape in most Western countries — including our next-door neighbor to the north — the United States has never had a socialist party that was politically successful. The result is that most Americans have no first-hand experience of what a real, ordinary socialist party looks like.
“The closest thing we had to a successful socialist candidate for president was Eugene V. Debs, who ran his 1920 campaign from a prison cell,” Snow said. “He was fantastically popular in comparison to any other socialist who’s run — but in terms of real electoral success, he didn’t come close.”
Why not?
In part, Snow said, because of our history of immigration.
“The large numbers of working-class immigrants have been divided from one another by ethnicity, language and religion,” Snow said. “Race is also a key issue here. White workers have had a very difficult time expressing class solidarity with African-American workers due to racism. This has translated into little electoral support from a united working class for socialist parties. Because the socialist parties in the U.S. have been exceptionally weak, and have never held national power, Americans have had little experience with or understanding of socialism.”
Like Moynagh, Snow concludes that “socialism” became the bogeyman of American politics as a result of the Cold War.
“Due to the Cold War, the U.S. population has been fed a constant diet of anti-socialist propaganda,” Snow said. “When President Truman wanted money from Congress in 1947 to fight the Cold War, for example, Senator Vandenburg told him that if he wanted to be effective, his speech must ‘scare the hell out of the American people.’ This was precisely what happened, and I think it has influenced our attitudes about socialism ever since. Socialism was equated with the Soviet Union — which, we were told, was our mortal enemy.” http://wagner.edu/newsroom/node-302/
You didn’t know that? You must have been napping when the FBI was demonizing Dr. King or when the right was trashing Obama as a Marxist or socialist.
“History buffs will be impressed to learn just how intent the government was in attempting to destroy Martin Luther King, Jr.’s character.
An uncensored and truly vitriol-filled letter was sent directly to the Civil Rights leader following his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. Serving as a haunting reminder of just how vehement the federal government can be, the letter berates the married father of four as an “evil, abnormal beast,” and tries to convince him to commit suicide.
King, who was supposed to believe that the letter stemmed from a disenchanted follower, believed that it originated from the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover. His hunch was later confirmed by the Senate’s Church Committee on intelligence overreach. “King, like all frauds your end is approaching,” the letter read. “You could have been our greatest leader.” http://www.blackenterprise.com/news/old-fbi-letter-demonizes-martin-luther-king-jr/
Perhaps you are unaware that the FBI has long executed false flag operations to discredit the left, and that the CIA has assassinated dozens of elected socialist leaders because they preferred to serve their own people rather than US corporate interests.
“The US has made more than 50 attempts to assassinate political party leaders according to William Blum in his 2003 book Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions since World War II, which is “far and away the best book on the topic” according to Noam Chomsky,[1] and “the single most useful summary of CIA history” in the opinion of former CIA officer John Stockwell.[2] All such operations are illegal, performed for undisclosed reasons by undisclosed people, and rarely if ever is a clear humanitarian benefit identifiable.” wikispooks
For a summary, see https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/cia-long-history-kill-leaders-around-the-world-north-korea
Almost all the leaders were socialists, so it goes beyond name-calling to actual murder. Assassination is the ultimiate anti-socialist propagand of the deed. Recent attempts to destroy socialist nations include: Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela, etc etc.
Socialism will always fail, and if it doesn’t, we will kill it.
In your “deep understanding” of history you have forgotten to mention the fact that the first governmental system in North America was one that preceded the USA. The Plymouth colony was socialist in nature. It failed’quickly. You rail on the ruling class but forget the fact that every system you tout is, or was totalitarian in nature. The USSR, China, N.Vietnam, N.Korea Cuba,Campuchia ( Did you forgot the killing fields?) and other leftist regimes murdered about 250 million people in their quest for equality. Mao’s “great leap forward” alone managed to starve an estimated 36 million Chinese alone. The only equality they brought was the equal misery,starvation and squalor imposed on the people by the ruling class. Committing deliberate genocide against your own people isn’t a very good way to show your compassion. You can quote anyone you want but the fact remains that you are no more than one of Lenin’s “useful idiots.” As for the assassinations and other murders in the USA you mention,you can thank the NWO oligarchs,bankers and their puppets in the Democrat party and even some neo cons like the Bush’s. The people attempting to subvert our free system are neo Commies such as BLM and Antifa financed by the NWO operative the Nazi collaborator himself George Soros. You forget that Democrats killed MLK JFK and RFK. You can thank LBJ for those things. He was neither left or right. He was just a wannabe dictator. Your purely uber leftist sources have poisoned your mind.
Block me too, PLEASE!
appzzyx says he is moving to Canada. Good riddance.
We already do that. Paying people to do the right thing is both cheaper and more effective than punishiing them when caught doing the wrong thing. If we want to end gang criminality, create a just society where all are treated with respect. Young people join gangs for the respect it gives them. Don’t surrender to that mentality. Give minorities respect, good educatations, opportunities, and rewards for good work and watch the thrive. Gangs thrive when society leaves a vacuum with lost youth seeking respect and a sense of belonging. Punishing them just makes it all worse. I taught at risk kids, including MS13 members, including at a youth prison so I know what I am talking about. All this Trump fear-mongering is just manipulation to justify more punishment, which will lead to more gangs.
if you reward good deeds, you won’t need to punish bad. That is basic psychology and the opposite leads to criminality and the highest prison population in the world…only making things worse. Wake up!
Except when capitalists take advantage of it.
If it works we could pay our congress critters to stop attacking every nation on earth. End a war, get a bonus. Ten dollars for every bomb you don’t drop.
That is no re-enforcement theory: the idea is to reward people when they do things right, and they will be motivated to do right things.
Until they decide to demand more. You don’t know much about the protection racket,do you?
When people are rewarded for doing good, they do good. You don’t understand positive re-enforcement, and i do understand how protection rackets work. They are not run by uneducated young lost youth. They are run by the militarized police, the FBI, the CIA, those with the power to extort. Please read up on the psychology of re-enforcement and stop assuming that young people are inherently evil and therefore immune to being led in a positive direction with rewards, opportunities, and respect.
The disrespect you show is WHY they are anti-social. The real gangs are the weapons producers, Big Oil and Coal, the Drug Companies, etc. They want you to think that a bunch of immature youth are the real threat. Don’t buy their propaganda, daniel. They are using you while picking your pocket and getting you to blame others.
If the War on Drugs, which is the agenda of Big pharma and the Police State, ended, most gangs would fall apart. if lost youth were offered respect and opportunities, the gangs would have no function. Wake up! The real powers that be are using you as a tool……I taught at risk youth, gang members, including at a youth prison….I know what I am talking about. You are repeating propaganda myths you have read. Wake up!
This isn’t about reward. It’s about giving into blackmail. I have been around the block hundreds of times. You seem to think I am an ignorant kid. I’m not.
In other words the peaceful law abiding citizens will fund this program? Our taxes are already high enough…if this really happens watch Californians leave this state. This is just stupid!
You’ll be replaced in droves, hopefully (and quite likely) by natives of this continent.
Instead of paying the criminals give the money to law enforcement agency so they can do their job better.
We’ve seen what kind of job they do, and we don’t want it.
Pay people not to be criminals; it’s cheaper than promoting crime by leaving them no options but crime.
I know,Lets send a couple of trillion dollars to pay N. Korea to not nuke us. That’ll teach em.
Or.. they could just authorize open carry. Not a dime of taxpayer funds would be needed to be spent.
Except for the innocent bystanders.
This is the way mercenaries are recruited.
Ask Erik Prince.
The article says nothing about requiring the gangs to stop selling drugs, pimping or human trafficking.
Selective attention, anyone?
Facts anyone?
None from you.
This just in: Violence broke out in Sacramento today when one gang found out it was being paid less than a rival gang.
If you pay someone to do the right thing, he will not be a gangster but a worker. Violence breaks out when only punishment is used to shape behavior, and it almost always fails, since anti-social behavior is based on a sense of being disrespected, punished, and not offered positive options.
Government can not create moral Character by giving people money and gifts, Following the way of California is absolute lunacy. BUT WHAT is needed is parents taking charge of children, IT TAKES involved parents to rear children, not a village of socialists. Parents don’t be afraid to use the rear end if needed, just ensure that you teach and explain right and wrong. Awarding poor behavior is lunacy. Mercy, California, You idiots elected this corrupt governor.
Did you know that moonbeam is in his fourth term? He served two terms in the 1970s. What he did was to wait until a new generation of brain dead libs turned 18 and most of the libs who elected him the first time were dead. Please don’t blame me. I was a Reagan fan.