GAZED

Author: wpusername4300

How to Feed 9.8 Billion Sustainably

By the year 2050, the UN estimates the global population will reach a staggering 9.8 billion. One of the biggest existential challenges facing this population projection will be the 70% rise of food demand. With most growth generating from developing nations, high-yield agricultural solutions based on food technology, sustainability, precision farming, and genetically engineered crops must be implemented. A look at past successful Green Revolutions that have lifted millions out of starvation is necessary in order to solve the problems of low-yield, waste, climate change resistance, in order to implement necessary solutions.

Currently, 850 million are malnourished, and 36 million die yearly worldwide despite there being enough food (the daily caloric intake of 2,870 calories) to feed the globe. Starvation will only be exacerbated by 2050 when food production will have to increase by 70% to meetdemand. This amounts to an estimated growth rate of 1.1% annually to cover food demand by 2050. Demand for grains used for human and animal consumption is expected to reach 3 billion tons by 2050 up from 2.1 billion tons currently. Current problems hindering increased food production are insufficient crop yield, food waste, affordability and extreme weather occurring to the detriment of crops.

By 2050 world’s population will increase by over 35% and crop production will need to double. Food production is the largest non-CO2 environmental contributor so this can

not be achieved through agricultural expansion but rather through precision farming techniques, food technology, sustainable meat production and the reduction of waste.

Food production is the single largest contributor of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emission on the planet. Therefore, increasing low-yield agriculture sustainably, in order to feed 9.8 billion, has proven to be a great conundrum. Crop yield is defined as production per seed input per unit area of land. Currently, only 38% of the planet earth is ice-free land with only a smaller fraction used for farming and livestock grazing. Furthermore, agriculture is responsible for 75% of deforestation worldwide. In order to meet a 70% increase in food demand, we will have to increase land for agriculture by more than 36 million square kilometers and cut down 61% of today’s standing forests.

“The relationship between population growth and food supply has been controversial at least since Reverend Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1807. Malthus argued that human population will grow geometrically, unless it is controlled somehow— he suggested delaying marriage to decrease birth rates ( ).”

Rising standard of living will exacerbate this land issue as demand for meat will go up. Meat production is responsible for the largest environmental pollution of the food industry. It takes 13 pounds of feed, 460 gallons of water, 7 square meters of land to produce just one beef patty. Today only 55% of the world’s agricultural calories feed people, while 36% feed livestock.

Therefore, the solution to increasing yield and doubling food production, is producing more on less land, not agricultural expansion. Precision farming techniques successfully implemented in Netherlands, and other food technologies have proven effective at this. Crop production must double by 2050 through challenges such as insufficient yield, food waste, and extreme weather.

Another issue which contributes to a insufficient food globally is food waste. It’s estimated that 25% of available calories are lost or wasted before they can be consumed. That is, 1.3 billion tons of food gone to waste every year through various stages of production and consumer handling. In monetary value that amount comes around to $1 trillion USD in lost food. Twenty-five percent of all wasted food could feed the 850 million undernourished people world-wide. In wealthy countries 222 million tons are wasted – the equivalent of all the food produced in sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tons). Americans specifically, waste about 141 trillion calories worth of food – that adds up to about $165 billion per year – four times the amount of food Africa imports each year. Furthermore, food waste generates 3.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide thereby hastening climate change.

The scale of waste is vast — out of the 200 million metric tons of food produced annually in the U.S., 60 million tons go to waste. Residential waste is responsible for 47% of all waste in addition to waste caused by improper handling, transport quality deterioration, inadequate storage and cooling infrastructure. Agricultural losses in developed countries are estimated at 24-40% in developed nations due to selective produce standards. In the West: 20% is wasted during production and 33% trimmed during preparation.

Scientists estimate climate change may reduce crop yields by 2% per decade over the next 100 years, with developing nations to be the worst affected. This issue must be adressed through sustainable or reduced meat production, halting deforestation and employing higher-yield farming techniques instead.

Sustainability moves beyond the successful Green Revolution which fed a population that increased from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6.1 billion by 2000. Sustainability is defined as defined as a “network that integrates several components in order to enhance a community’s environmental, economic and social well-being. It is built on principles that further the ecological, social and economic values of a community and region (CRC).” Implementing a sustainable system that can feed 9.8 billion people involves doing so by minimizing the intensive “use of water and fossil-fuel-based chemicals” of the Green Revolution. Increasing yield requires careful analysis and improvement on what has worked the past few decades. However, the process of modernizing the food supply began in France. France was one of the first nations to produce industrial foods as chemists and public food experts began manufacturing innovative foods (Spary).

“Some examples of things that obviously cannot continue indefinitely are harvesting natural resources (such as fish, trees, or fresh water) faster than they are replenished…Soil loss due to erosion and excess accumulation of salt in soil are two examples of intrinsic threats to sustainability. Rates of soil loss often exceed the slow rates of replacement by natural soil-forming processes, especially when soil is disturbed by plowing or cultivation to kill weeds. Irrigation water always contains some salt, which can accumulate to levels that harm plants, unless it is removed via natural or artificial drainage (Denison 21).”

The “Green Revolution” was the implementation of revolutionary agricultural practices beginning the mid-20th century which increased production of grains such as wheat and rice. High-yielding crops saw success in India and Mexico. In 1943, new agricultural techniques to help alleviate starvation and improve standards of living began in developing nations. Mexico went from importing around 50% of its wheat to being self-sufficient 8 years later, then exporting half a million tons per year. India and Pakistan lacked agricultural power to sustain population booms and Norman Borlaug’s agricultural techniques helped it become a top rice productor. India now exports 4.5 million tons of rice. Agricultural innovation in China, Vietnam, Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, and other countries helped save the lives of millions of people around the globe.

This was made possible through the development of high-yield, disease-resistant, pest-resistant crop varieties. However, these genetically engineered crops used pesticides and chemical fertilizers to produce high yields. Many poor farmers weren’t able to afford this and it caused runoff which tainted vital water supplies.

Population grows exponentially but agriculture was only able to grow at a linear rate. There was no possible way to feed the world population without implementing Bolgour’s techniques. The poor quality of soil in many developing nations of the world meant these necessary measures had to be taken.

Subsequently, the Green Revolution increased crop yield. Especially in essential crops such as wheat which makes up 45% of the daily world diet. This revolution brought wheat crops with higher protein levels and disease-resistance. An essential to developing nations suffering from malnutrition and couldn’t otherwise obtain animal protein. Farmers were able to produce more food on less land thereby saving millions of acres of grassland and rainforest from destruction.

What sparked this revolution is thought by author Curry to be a mutation breeding program beginning in the 1940s.

“The initiative, begun in the early 1940s and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, aimed to improve wheat and maize production in particular. Its successes, especially in producing high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat varieties and encouraging the adoption of intensive, industrial-style agricultural production, would later be credited with sparking the Green Revolution, first in Mexico and Latin America, and later in southeast Asia. These programs were closely tied to concerns about not only hunger but also the relationships among population growth, food security, and national and international security—concerns on the minds of governments, international organizations, and foundations alike in the early postwar (and Cold War) decades (Curry 195).”

A continuation of these food biotechnology advances enacted by Borlaug which doubled, even tripled yield, will increase productivity sufficiently to feed a growing world population. Optimizing plant breeding to maximize food output is key part of this process. Darwinian Agriculture, outlines specific actions that have proven effective, such as breeding plants for shorter stems to reduce lodging, breeding one stem plants with less leaf area and vertical leaves.

“If our goal is to increase agriculture, what do we want to improve? Some important criteria include productivity (yield per acre, to use no more land than necessary), efficiency in the use of scarce resources (to use no more water than necessary, for example), stability over years (to prevent even occasional famines), and sustainability (to maintain all of these benefits over the long term). Improvements in any of these will affect the billions of us who live in cities, both through effects on our food supply and through effects on the availability of land and water for other uses. Other important goals include the health of wildlife living on or near farms and the welfare of people who work on or near farms (Denison 74).

According to Darwinian Agriculture: How Understanding Evolution Can Improve Agriculture, experiments at the International Rice Research Institute showed “A shorter rice variety developed during the Green Revolution had much higher grain yield when grown alone than an older, taller variety, mainly because the short variety invested more (Denison 112).”

The author Denison continues, “Selection for shorter, less-competitive, but higher-yielding plants during the Green Revolution is the best-known agricultural example of reversing an evolutionary arms race, but it is not the only one.”

According to this body of research, traits that can increase crop yield in addition to shortness, and fewer and smaller leaves (Denison 113 ). ”At wide spacing, this reduced leaf area per plant would be insufficient to catch all the available sunlight.”

“Donald also advocated more-vertical more-or-less overhead, a vertical leaf will catch less sunlight a same size..Donald also suggested that plants like wheat should have only one stem per plant (Denison 113 ).”

In fact, the results of this mid-20^th century movement have been so promising that currently, 92% of corn acreage in the United States has been genetically engineered. This crop has been modified to be insect resistant, herbicide tolerant, and more. Moreover, research has not showed a significant difference in nutritional content or safety of organic foods and ones produced conventionally.

Furthermore, the use of nitrogen fertilizer and improved crop management throughout the 20^th century, has led to six-fold increase in U.S. and Canadian corn yield between 1930 and 2000 (Denison 115).

Netherlands has demonstrated that record high-yield can be achieved through precision farming; without the use of fossil-fuel-based chemicals and excess irrigation of the Green Revolution. That is target application of fertilizers, pesticides, and water through the use of computerized tractors equipped with sensors and GPS. In turn, this efficient system minimizes runoff into waterways.

Despite being a small nation, Dutch farming is also paving the way for the future of food production through climate controlled greenhouses with crops planted in hydroponics.

“First, only one of these problems is caused by excessive chemical inputs; furthermore, the input of concern is salt naturally present in irrigation water, rather than some synthetic chemical. So, although reducing synthetic inputs like pesticides may often be a good idea, that may not be enough to guarantee sustainability. Second, both erosion and salt accumulation can occur on either organic or conventional farms. If killing weeds with herbicides allows conventional farmers to use less tillage, then we need to compare the environmental impact of herbicides with possible increases in erosion from tillage (Denison 21).”

Precision farming maps crops by using sensors, satellites, and drones to identify variations in crop yield. This analyzes moisture levels, nitrogen levels and more so farmers can optimize them. These techniques have resulted in Dutch agriculture to be the second larger exporter of agriculture, producing $92 billion worth of food. With some farms in the Netherlands producing twice the world’s average yield in potatoes per acre. The Netherlands could fit into the U.S. 200 times, yet they’re overwhelmingly providing the world’s food supply.

Organic farming is another sustainable method that can reduce excess chemical and water use. It involves using mulches, compost, and water conservation. Farmers are using more precise irrigation methods such as subsurface drip irrigation.

In order to sustainably feed a growing population of 9.8 billion without excessive environmentally detrimental measures, meat production must be reformed. Livestock feed doesn’t only take away nutritious grains that could otherwise feed the 850 million that go hungry, but also occupies 26% of ice-free land thereby having the largest ‘carbon-footprint.’

It takes 13 pounds of feed, 460 gallons of water, 7 square meters of land to produce just one beef patty. Today only 55% of the world’s agricultural calories feed people, while 36% feed livestock. Furthermore, grains make up 45% of the diet yet 40% of grains worldwide are fed to cattle. The U.S. alone could feed 850 million people with the grain eaten by livestock. If U.S. grain was exported, it would boost the U.S trade balance by $80 billion a year.

Concurrent rising populations and standard of living won’t see a decline in meat demand anytime soon, as more people can afford to buy meat. Therefore, efficient ways to produce meat and a change diets will be a solution to sustaining this food production. Instead of agricultural land expansion that requires cutting down 61% of forests to meet a 70% increase in demand, switching from grain-fed beef to pastured-raised farm animals is a solution.

Increased grain-production is an essential part of feeding a world of 9.8 billion since grains make up 45% of the world diet.

“World grain production per person peaked around 1984. Since then, population growth has outpaced increases in production. 7 By 2006, worldwide grain production per person had fallen to 1.8 pounds (0.83 kilogram) per day. If none of this grain were spoiled, eaten by rats or farm animals, or fermented into ethanol, then it would provide more than enough protein and energy (3000 calories per day) for a healthy diet. However, the efficiency of conversion from grain calories to meat calories (chicken or pork) is only 15 to 25 percent, 16 so 1.8 pounds of grain would yield less than 1000 meat calories per person per day. In other words, the world currently produces enough food for an adequate grain-based diet for everyone, but not enough for everyone to eat a meat-based diet (Denison 17).”

Neither population growth or meat consumption will decrease so freeing up livestock feed for human consumption is the optimal solution ( ). “First, there are far more people of child-bearing age or younger than there are people dying of old age. Therefore, even an immediate and universal switch to two-child families would take decades to slow and stop population growth. Second, many people like to eat meat. As people who could rarely afford meat in the past become richer, global meat consumption is likely to increase (Denison 17).”

Additionally, the reduction of food waste is essential to feeding 9.8 billion. Currently, 25% of all waste food could feed the 850 million undernourished people in the world. This can be achieved using bacteria monitors such as a biosensing patch. Food manufacturers can “easily incorporate this into [their] production process ( ).”

Another factor hindering increased production is climate change. Agriculture accounts for at least 20% of total greenhouse gases emissions ( ). Climate change and agriculture are interrelated processes. That is, climate change affects agriculture and agricultural emissions aggravate climate change. This is because food production is the single largest contributor of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emission on the planet. Scientists estimate climate change may reduce crop yields by 2% per decade over the next 100 years, with developing nations to be the worst affected. This issue must be addressed through sustainable or reduced meat production, halting deforestation and employing higher-yield farming techniques instead.

Poor small farmers, and already food-insecure areas will be the worst affected in areas such as Africa were drought has caused mass devastation, and Asia where flooding and cyclones have ruined crops. In order to prevent mass starvation, extreme-weather resistant genetically engineered crops must be used.

“Today, agriculture often makes negative rather than positive contributions to some aspects of environmental quality. For example, nutrient runoff from agriculture (nitrogen mostly from fertilizer use on cropland; phosphorus mostly from animal manure on pastures and rangeland 58 ) is thought to be a cause of the oxygen-free “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico (Denison 28 ).”

Genetically modified crops have already seen tremendous increases in agricultural output following the Green Revolution. Because of this, global grain supplies are at record low prices and GMO crops have increased yield for 20 years. Higher yield without agricultural expansion is a strategy essential to preserving the natural ecosystem according to Darwinian Agriculture.

“Nevertheless, it is clear that natural ecosystems do provide major benefits to humans. Forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thereby reducing global warming with all of its risks (spread of malaria mosquitoes out of the tropics, flooding of coastal cities from melting polar ice, and so on). Both forests and wetlands purify water, benefiting fisheries as well as drinking water.

Affordability is another component of current mass starvation facing developing nations. Developing countries will be the fastest growing nations in the coming decade with sub-Saharan Africa’s population growing the fastest (!14%), while East Asia’s the slowest (13%) ( ).

Production in developing countries will need to double. Annual grain production would have to increase by one billion tonnes, meat by over 200 million tonnes. Furthermore, areable land available is scarce and “suffers from constraints (chemical, physicial, endemic diseases, lack of infrastructure) ( ).”

Water scarcity in many countries also questions the effectiveness of a genetically-engineered-only strategy. As occurred during the Green Revolution, poor farmers did not have the resources to continuously irrigate and tend to GMO seeds as was required for higher yield. These GMO seeds required higher amounts of water and fossil-fuel based chemicals such as herbicide.

Per the USDA, the implementation of genetically modified crops by farmers “has increased herbicide use over the past 9 years in the U.S.” Glyphosate for one, is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Round Up.

Genetically engineered crops date back to the mid-20^th century. Curry best described the process of genetic and breeding involved modern food and grain creation.

“It took until the 1960s for one variety of the hybrid grain, called triticale (referring to the genus names for wheat and rye, Triticum and Secale ), to finally enter commercial production. Unfortunately, the earliest varieties of triticale had many traits that rendered them unsuitable to both growers and consumers. Another decade of breeding efforts resulted in improved lines of triticale and interest in the crop resurged in the 1980s. Triticale nonetheless did not become a global economic crop as breeders had once envisioned (Curry 113).“

These developing countries spend 60-80% of their income food. While Americans spend 10%. Moreover, U.S. food insecurity rates decreased in 2015 to 12.7% from 14.0%. If massive increases in agricultural yield are not achieved, matched by massive decreases in the use of water and fossil fuels, a billion or more people may face starvation.

Works Cited

Allen, Mark W., and Terry L. Jones. Violence and Warfare among Hunter-Gatherers. Routledge, 2016.

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Green Revolution.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 12 Mar. 2009, www.britannica.com/event/green-revolution.

Curry, Helen Anne. Evolution Made to Order: Plant Breeding and Technological Innovation in Twentieth-Century America. The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Denison, R. Ford. Darwinian Agriculture: How Understanding Evolution Can Improve Agriculture. Lightning Source UK Ltd., 2017.

Foley, Jonathan. “A Five-Step Plan to Feed the World.” Feeding 9 Billion – National Geographic, www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/

Global Agriculture towards 2050. fao.org/fileadmin/templates/wsfs/docs/Issues_papers/HLEF2050_Global_Agriculture.pdf

Hoffman, Beth. “GMO Crops Mean More Herbicide, Not Less.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 2 July 2013, www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2013/07/02/gmo-crops-mean-more-herbicide-not-less/#300ec7713cd5.

Rintoul, Jesse. “Farming for the Future: 5 Reasons Why the Netherlands Is the 2nd Largest Food Exporter in the World – DutchReview.” DutchReview, 1 Mar. 2019, dutchreview.com/news/innovation/how-the-netherlands-remains-second-largest-agriculture-exporter-in-the-world/. Spary, Emma C. Feeding France: New Sciences of Food, 1760-1815.

May 5, 2019
Why Bernie Sanders Would Win in 2020

With an imminent climate catastrophe only 12 years away, healthcare being the number one cause of bankruptcy in the wealthiest country on earth (with 78% already insured), the oligarchy’s stranglehold on the working-class now stronger than ever, stagnating wages that haven’t kept up with inflation, a human rights crisis in the middle-east, and a student debt crisis that stagnates economic growth, there is only one proper agenda that can address these key issues. Vermont Senator, “Amendment King” Bernie Sanders’ has been fighting for these very New Deal style democratic policies his entire life. While the Democratic party moved right on the political spectrum, policies supported by the majority of Americans – those at the core of Sanders’ agenda – became deemed ‘fringe.’ This is what makes Senator Sanders the strongest, most viable candidate for the 2020 Presidential election. No more fossil fuel pawns with charismatic authority, mortgage fraud criminal defenders, big pharma gatekeepers, or more plutocrats selling the middle-class increased domestic survellaince powers and voting for $716 billion military industrial complex spending bill and deregulating Wall Street. Lesser of two evils doesn’t suffice.

Bernie Has the Poll Numbers Across Demographics. Republicans Like Him More Than They Like Democrats.

The American people have overwhelmingly spoken in favor of Bernie Sanders: 58% of non-white voters, that is 73% African American support among voters, 68% among Hispanics, 62% among Asian-Americans, 56% among women, 62% among 18-34-year-olds and 78% among Democrats. These are your ‘Bernie Bros,’ mainstream media.Please continue lecturing us millions of simpletons on why we should vote against our best interest and for corporate pawns.

Sanders has also proven to be an effective, mediating, bipartisan voice, reaching across the aisle in CNN town halls and making Trump voters ‘feel the bern.’ Time and time again, his centered economic message has reached coal country effectively with none of the dripping ‘liberal east coast elite’ condescension. Recall the West-Virginia townhall where a county of Trump voters thanked Bernie and clapped for raising taxes, Medicare for all, and free college. His working-class message would’ve obviously resonated with disgruntled Trump voters on it’s own, but his ability to effectively communicate across the aisle would’ve done numbers.

There is a reason Sanders, who proudly calls himself a socialist, remains the –most popular politician in America per a Fox News poll. There’s a reason he has a higher approval rating than any democrats or republicans on the hill. It’s not just his unwavering earnestness, pseudonym as the “amendment king,” or clean corporate-interest free record. It’s media obfuscated fact that the majority of the country supports progressive policies and the majority of the electorate identifies as independents.

Bernie Would Have Won

Americans made their voices heard in the 2016 primaries, but like with everything supported by middle-class, was drowned out by the corporate party elite. In 2018, ex-DNC chair Donna Brazile revealed the Democratic Nation Committee essentially rigged the primaries in favor of Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. This confirmed what we all suspected. With Sanders’ rallies regularly turning out by the tens of thousands, the results puzzled us. Undemocratic superdelegates aside, hundreds of individual reports had surfaced of voter suppression against Sanders voters. Donna Brazile, revealed the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign collusion ran deep – the victory fund agreement was signed four months after Hillary announced her candidacy, a year before the nomination. Hillary Clinton’s campaign had control of the party before voters decided. And there has been no Congressional investigation, no FEC investigation for interfering in an election.

Polls during the primary season consistently showed Sanders handily defeating Trump by 10 points or more, while Clinton led him by only a few points. This is easy to fathom considering Trump secured the nomination when Hillary lost the three historically blue states that Bernie did well in during the primaries. Sanders beat Clinton in Wisconsin and Michigan. And the DNC chosen candidate lost Pennsylvania. Narrow margins of eight-tenths, three-tenths, and 1.2% in these three Rust Belt states where Sanders’ message resonated, handed the election to Trump.

Bernie Has the Rust-Belt Part of the Obama Coalition

What happened? These states usually swing blue. Well, working-class whites who previously voted for Obama were fed up with establishment politics and an unresponsive plutocracy in general so they voted for the only general election candidate who wasn’t bought by Wall Street and promised to remedy working-class struggles. Who else had an populist, working-class message and wasn’t absolutely lying about it? Sanders who made economic inequality the platform of his campaign would have obliterated policy-outline-free and economically illiterate Trump. But he won, and the country lost thanks to democrat hubris.

Left-wing policies are were the numbers are at. And analyzing the historical loss is key to avoiding the same mistakes. Unfortunately, most pundits and strategists are tone-deaf and incapable of any self-reflection. So not only did Hillary fail to draw Obama voters, but she also experienced the downfalls of low-voter turnout that come with a centrist, No-Hope, purely opposition campaign. She won 55% of the vote compared to Obama’s 69% in 2012, seeing a decrease in support from black, Latino, young voters and non-college whites. She lost the rust-belt Bernie had won the primary in, lost the millenial vote Bernie gained more votes than both Trump and her combined, and garnered only 28% of the non-college white vote where Obama had previously won 40% of in 2012.

The first female to win the nomination for president didn’t even gain 50% support from white women against the sexual assaulter and unabashed misogynist. Compared to Obama’s 93% of the black vote, Hillary garnered 88% of the black vote against a candidate who was sued twice by the DOJ for not renting to African Americans. And 65% Latinos vs 71% for Obama against a candidate who called them rapists. Most damaging, 54% millennial support, compared to obama’s 60%. Guess who draws millennials? Bernie Sanders and his progressive policies. In fact, more young people voted for Sanders than Clinton and Trump combined. He has 62% of the 18-34 voter electorate. Teenagers literally run after him screaming like he’s a rockstar. Not to mention there wouldn’t have been a spoiler effect in Florida from disgruntled Bernie supporters who voted for Jill Stein if he would have been the nominee.

Elections Should be About Issues not Cult of Personality.

As Sanders has always said, it’s not about a person but a movement. And the majority of Americans want a new New Deal. If he were to abandon his thirty-year-spanning agenda, his supporters would turn from him. This is why the independent senator from Vermont with zero campaign money, name recognition, and a self-proclaimed democratic-socialist label managed to not only run the most progressive campaign in US history but ran the most successful independent, grassroots campaigns in modern history. Against the brand-name Clinton machine at that. The crowds upwards of 20,000 were a sign of the changing political climate and rising populist revolt. His immense, insurgent success despite the political establishment’s relentless smear campaign was a physical manifestation of polls showing tremendous favorability towards progressive policies and a growing independent base. All of this ultimately forcing the DNC to to deliver the most progressive party platform in history.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans support single-payer, 88% oppose cuts to Social Security, voters in red states want Medicaid expanded, 68% think the wealthy pay too little taxes, 64% support regulating greenhouse gas emissions,58% support breaking up big banks, 63% support raising the minimum wage to $15.00, 53% support labor union law, 64% think corporations don’t pay their fair share.

The 2016 election proved people wanted populism and a platform for the working class, not career politicians grappling with being in the pockets of big money interests and trying to get reelected. Populism won no matter how much of a lie it turned out to be.

Corporatist Establishment Democrats Would Lose

There exists much misplaced hype around petroleum industry /U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke. While his election as Senator would have been tremendous progress for Texas, an examination of his highly-ignored voter record proves it would not be so much for the United States if Democrats want to beat Donald Trump. This may be tough for the cult of personality centrists to believe, but we don’t need another corporatist politician who voted to deregulate banks, voted to fast-track TPP, is number two below Ted Cruz fossil fuel industry recipients, and “frequently voted against the majority of House Democrats in support of Republican bills and Trump administration priorities.”

The same people who brought you Hillary “Secret Wall Street Speeches” Clinton, who lost in the most easily winnable election against a reality-star con-artist demand you ignore public records while the earth will become uninhabitable in many places by 2040. Their message boils down to, “Bernie old white man bad – Biden & Beto white men good!”

No more oil company shills winning on charismatic authority, mortgage fraud criminal defenders, big pharma gatekeepers, or more plutocrats selling the middle-class increased domestic surveillance powers, voting for $716 billion military industrial complex spending bill and deregulating Wall Street. We need a candidate whose agenda stands for issues the majority of Americans support – single-payer, higher wages, access to higher education, criminal justice reform, green energy – and that is Bernie Sanders. If he were to abandon these positions his supporters would abandon him. Tough for the cult of personality centrists who rally around the insurance industry, and big oil to understand, I know. Faux populism won in 2016, and Bernie so far is the only honest candidate who has made working-class populism his career-agenda.

Bernie’s New Deal

Standing against Bernie Sanders means standing against Medicare for All, the fiscally responsible $2-trillion-saving plan which is cheaper than premiums. (Because despite paying twice as much per capita as other countries in healthcare, leaves 30 million uninsured.) It means standing against economic justice – a $15 minimum wage, closing corporate tax loopholes, unions, and pay equity for women and minorities. (If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would be $21.00.)

To oppose his agenda is to oppose ending Citizens United, ending voter suppression and gerrymandering, criminal justice reform in a country that spends $80 billion a year imprisoning more people than any other country. It means opposing aggressively combating impending climate change destruction by moving towards sustainable energy.

It means hating investing in the working-class who has the highest MPC, through $2-trillion-saving healthcare, tuition-free public college, expansion of social security, and green energy jobs. It means opposing foreign policy based on diplomacy and human rights, a cleaner planet, and enacting true economic justice. This is only possible when a leader isn’t beholden by corporate interests.

Reject Propaganda. Organize.

The unsubstantial attacks from the mainstream media outlets have already begun. Party Democratic elites with an agenda are throwing every trite ‘Bernie Bro’ narrative and the kitchen sink while failing to actually discuss any policy. The “Third Way” a group of Wall Street is already running opposition ads against Senator Sanders in primary states. We must halt these negative narratives about single-payer, and correct the record on Bernie’s positions and efficiency of his proposals. On his D- rating from the NRA, on that he wasn’t an effective legislator, and that he “made Hillary lose the election” by simply running a primary campaign with better politics.

The establishment has realized the Bernie Bros narrative doesn’t stick with the 58% non-white support he has. Could it be that economic inequality is decimating the middle-class as the wealth gap grows between minorities and Caucasian workers? African American women earn 64 cents and Hispanic women 55 cents for every dollar made by a white male. Despite what pundits might say, we’re seeing past the corporatist Democrats’ identity-politics-entrenched bromides, and looking for real economic justice. Because tokenism isn’t a measure of progressiveness when candidates sell us wars, vote against lowering pharmaceutical prices, and shill for Wall Street.

Amidst a political arena of corporatist plutocrats, in a dystopian hellscape where people die crowdfunding for insulin online, and millions will die in decades of unmitigated climate-change induced disaster, Bernie Sanders is the change we desperately need. Trump won because of faux populism, because of people who rejected corporatist war-hawk Hillary. What makes Democrats think Beto “Oil Shill” O’Rourke, Cory “Big Pharma Bro” Booker, or Kamala “Mortgage Fraud Defender” Harris are feasible contenders for the Rust Belt voters who crossed over to Trump in states Bernie won the primaries in? Or to millenials Bernie has 62% of the support from?

Bernie is the hero America needs in 2020, and wants according to poll numbers. The problem is he’s not the leader corporate interest groups or the colluding DNC wants. Bernie Sanders needs to run in 2020 because he’s been on the right-side of history regarding health care, economic justice, climate change for decades, and he would represent ordinary Americans’ best interest.

January 2, 2019
Mexico’s Gilded Economic Inequality

From the Spanish crown to the corrupt camarilla elite, Mexico’s leaders have long kept a strangle hold on middle-class growth in Mexico. It’s the stimulus in the Mexican negative feedback loop of political turmoil – widespread poverty in the 12^th world’s largest economy is the issue to end all other issues. Poverty fuels organized crime, and crime fuels corruption. Yet despite vast economic growth per foreign trade, investment, and a series of new government programs – 43.6% of the country has been left behind to fair without education, access to healthcare, or the sufficient income to buy food. Upwards trending GDP has left GDP per capita trailing at staggeringly low rates for the past years – $19,500 in 2017 according to The World Factbook (just above China.) Productivity of the labor force is not to blame for the country’s destitute conditions, there is a government and education system suppressing the flourishment of the middle-class.

The Mexican government has forlorn its pact to Article 123 of its constitution. It states, “the minimum salaries should be sufficient to satisfy the normal necessities of the worker’s life, his education and honest pleasures, as head of a family.” Yet 43.6% of the country can not afford to put food on the table. Such is the case food basket cost $10.53 a day. Based on the $4.70 daily minimum wage, a worker could only afford 44.5% of the food group. This stagnant minimum wage (12 times lower than the U.S. daily ‘wage’ of $58.00) is not only suppressing basic human rights, but Mexicans’ purchasing power.

Mexico’s GDP is higher than Canada, Australia’s, and two places lower than the United Kingdom’s, yet the individual quality of life, and GDP per capita remains manifold times lower than all its successors at with $19,500 at the 89^th place. As an effect, a consumer driven economic boom has been halted. Subsequently, so has been progress and development. This dissonance is testament to the extreme wealth inequality of the country – the top 10% own 42.2% of the wealth, while the bottom 10% own 1.3%. It ranks 4^th with the most number of poor among richest economies. While GDP per-capita has grown 98.7%; over the last 20 years, there are still 3.5 million people in poverty for every millionaire.

Some might blame the labor force for these conditions, but statistics show this not to be true. Mexican workers worked a total of 2,255 hours in 2016 – the most of the 35 OECD members, compared to the 1,783 U.S. hours worked. Despite this, workers earned the lowest in the OECD rankings, on average $14,867, while U.S. workers earned $58,714. Mexicans are working longer hours than any other country a year yet earning the least. What can account for this unjust disparity?

Once the relationship with inflation and wages is analyzed, it’s evident that government monetary policies are to blame for conditions of poverty. The minimum wage lost 75% of its purchasing power in the past 30 years according to The Conversation. The nominal minimum wage has increased 12.8% but prices increased 26.9% due to inflation – lowering purchasing power by 11.11% in the last 3 years, according to Animal Politico. Mexico’s Central bank wants to keep the wage this way to prevent inflation at the expense of the average Mexican citizen. The Consejo Nacional de Evaluación de la Política Social, calculates that “for a daily minimum basket for two people to live on, the minimum wage would need to increase more than 145%,” to $8.75 a day. Mexico’s bottom 20% doesn’t make enough to eat three meals a day.

Poverty needs to be at the forefront of Mexican politicians’ agendas, overall GDP growth has only deepened the wealth gap and lined the top-earner’s pockets. This is because previous administrations have focused on private investment rather than poverty-combating programs. So much is evidenced by 2016’s lagging GDP per capita growth rate of 0.96%, compared to its respective 2.3% GDP growth. Despite anti-poverty efforts such as Prospera and a 16% increase between 1990 and 2012 in the budget of social programs poverty has been reduced by less than 2%. Under President Peña Nieto’s it fell by a measly 0.3% from 2012-2014, and “poverty rates have increased in many Mexican states.”

To combat this epidemic (and the domino effect it has with surging crime and corruption), Mexico should embrace leftist economic reforms. Doing so by gradually increasing the minimum wage $8.75 a day to combat inflationary effects and fuel a consumer-driven economic boost. The middle and working class do have the largest marginal propensity to consume. After all, private consumption accounts for “over two thirds of gross domestic product.”

A highly-skilled and educated majority class must be developed to eradicate mass poverty. Although the number of students enrolled in school has grown since the 1950s, 700,000 students dropped out in 2009, 7.9% of the population is illiterate, and “73% of households have a member with education below the 7^th grade.” Mexico must broaden it’s education efforts by investing a larger percent of their budget into the system.

Mexico was governed by a single party for 60 years, the entire country was organized to enrich those in power so it’s no surprise that widespread poverty is the natural outcome. The OECD even found Mexico was the most corrupt of all of its members. To move forward with policies helping the working class it must eradicate corruption and weed out bad politicians. To complete its transformation into a developed country it must liberalize individual economic freedom and increase access to educational opportunities. The government must be held accountable to Article 123.

December 23, 2018
Legalization: The End to Mexico’s Drug Violence

Over a decade after former President Felipe Calderon launched a militarized crusade against drug cartels, Mexico has recorded its highest homicide rate of 19.4 since the interior ministry began keeping records, with a staggering 29,168 murders in 2017. Despite lethal military deployment and a winning ‘kingpin-strategy’ (Nieto has neutralized 89% of drug-cartel leaders on his list), it has only culminated in spikes of drug-violence that have left over 175,000 dead in the last 10 years. That is, because military force won’t halt the leading U.S. demand for drugs (and weapon smuggling), eliminate the incentive to join cartels in a poverty-stricken country with farmers hurt by NAFTA, or the corruption which the narco-state burgeons on.

The cartel violence reigning down in Mexico is the result of a profitable illegal industry competing for territory, empowered by corruption, and sustained by poverty. A decade of failing drug war policy requires a different kind of diplomacy – a way to remove the profit incentive altogether. The government has amped up organized-crime-combatting efforts, but security analysts agree that they’ve unwittingly led to a violence-wave as kingpins fight for control. Legalization of drugs is the quickest death to cartels and their endless terror.

Although such a far-fetched proposal is considered political suicide on both sides of the border, it’s a strategy which has been economically and statistically proven to work by the growing number of U.S. states legalizing marijuana. Marijuana legalization has already slashed cartel profit and decreased violence in Mexico. Marijuana seizures on the U.S.-Mexico border are down from 4 million pounds (2009) to 1.5 (2015) with the Mexican army seeing a 32% drop in confiscations. (The lowest levels in the last decade.) Subsequently, this has resulted in what military force has failed to do – decreased violence.

Legalization eliminates the astounding U.S. demand fueling the black market. Nonetheless, to understand solutions, we must understand the causes. The U.S. is the leading consumer of drugs – more drugs are purchased by them than the rest of the world combined. After the Decada Perdida where 800,000 jobs were lost, by the 90s, 85% of U.S. cocaine came through Mexico. During Felipe Calderon’s term, the Mérida Initiative of militarized-combat was put into effect as the mean to a fruitless end. A whopping U.S.-sponsored $1.6 billion later, and the war between drug cartels has killed 63,000 in the past six years.

Without demand for an illegal good, there would be no black market. Black markets fuel violence since disputes can’t be resolved within legal institutions, but rather with U.S. smuggled guns. (Seventy-percent of guns seized in Mexico and traced by the US Bureau of ATF from 2009 to 2014 came from the US). Without demand there would be no drug crime, or the skyrocketing levels of corruption generated by participants infiltrating municipal police forces, and bribing the legal system. A level so high it leaves the country ranked at 123rd among 176 countries in the 2016 CPI. Legalization would eliminate the profit-incentive for cartels to exist – and therefore impose violence and corrupt the governmental system.

According to the Washington Post, it’s estimated that a “$2,000 kilogram of cocaine could be imported for less than $50 and sold for a small markup from its price in Colombia.” While criminalization drives the cost to $20,000, retailing for over $100,000. Without these profits, the cartels and their heinous crimes against humanity would cease.

Public health qualms about such a radical proposal are often raised, but countries that have decriminalized have seen little to no increase in drug use. For one, Portugal’s drug decriminalization has reduced drug-related harm. Drug use has decreased since, with rates maintained below the European average (far lower than the U.S.) Furthermore, state-control prevents overdoses and spread of disease caused by a lack of regulation.

However, drug violence doesn’t operate in a vacuum; the epidemic is created through decades of complex sociopolitical conditions. One of those being the 45.5% poverty rate of a country ranking 13^th in GDP. In a recent presidential debate MORENA candidate Obrador rightfully argued that reducing poverty was the only way to fight cartels. It’s join or starve for many that find themselves without job prospects or educational attainment. And cartels recruit from this urban unemployed sector. The 1980s economic crisis which resulted in 800,000 job losses exacerbated inequality and eliminated upward mobility opportunities.

These conditions were aggravated by NAFTA which hurt farmers with the removal of tariffs and quotas on imports. Farmers then resorted to growing marijuana to survive due to the removal of these subsidies.

Furthermore, corruption facilitates mass violence. The country earned the narco-state label due to the number of police are involved in kidnappings, extortions, and protection for organized crime in exchange for bribes. They’re considered the most corrupt public-institution in the country, with the lowest reliability for crime protection. To decrease corruption levels, they must continue down the path of firing corrupt officials as Attorney General Morales has with 10% of the police force. It must also raise police salaries of $588 a month. The benefits would exceed the cost (which is over 10% of GDP.)

Decades of the drug war has resulted in Mexico’s highest homicide rate since its recorded history. It’s cost the country not only US $134 billion, but endless lives. Mexico must eliminate the black market by decriminalizing, expand poverty-relief programs to prevent cartel recruitment, clamp down on corruption by overhauling its police force, and end weapon smuggling.

November 27, 2018
The Rise of U.S. Domestic Terror
The Third Reich didn’t begin with supporters of a nationalist demagogue bombing places of worship, killing worshiping Jewish people, vandalizing Jewish property, targeting political opponents, running opponents over with a car, violently attacking ethnic minorities on trains and shooting them in grocery stores, it rose in prominence through hateful rhetoric. These acts of violence conducted by white supremacist supporters of a fuhrer didn’t occur in 1939, but since the 2016 Presidential election. Are people who want universal-healthcare meant to coddle the white supremacist brown shirts and their sympathizers in unity? Quiet tolerance in the face of state-sponsored, violent intolerance is consent for the dozens of lives taken by an ideology of hate.

Radicalized by self-proclaimed nationalist President Trump’s cabinet of nazis, affirmations calling the Charlottesville nazis “very fine people,” repeated incitement of violence with promises to pay their “legal fees,” scapegoating of the media as “the enemy of the American people,” repeated spats with political opponents , “sh*thole countries” comments, immigrant child internment-camps, scapegoating of all immigrants as “drug traffickers and rapists,” and anti-semitic rhetoric, the ideological vermin of this country have been emboldened to carry out domestic terror attacks against American minorities and political opponents.

The tragic terrorist attacks on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania aren’t isolated, they follow a pattern of deathly attacks by avid conservative supporters of President Trump. While Trump didn’t pull the trigger, he created an environment where supremacists were emboldened to act on beliefs shared by the president. An environment built by “the second-amendment people” stopping 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, by all Mexicans being “drug-traffickers and rapists,” by Muslim bans, and a “very fine people” pat on the back to the neo-nazis who murdered Heather Heyes.

The problem isn’t immigrants who commit crime at lower rates than native-born Americans, it’s not Muslims, or other minorities it’s the:

Domestic Right-Wing Terrorist Attacks on Muslims, Jews, Minorities, and Democrats:
- Between 2014 and 2016, hate crimes rose 10 percent.
- White supremacists committed the largest share of domestic-extremist related killings in 2017.
- On August 19, 2015, two men attacked a homeless man in Boston who they wrongly believed to be an undocumented immigrant. He was quoted saying “Donald Trump was right.illegals need to be deported.”
- On October 14, 2016, the FBI arrested three men for plotting bomb attacks in Kansas (Two of them, Trump supporters.)
- On January 29, 2017, a man opened fire on worshippers at the Islamic Cultural Center in Quebec City, Canada, killing six and wounding 19. ( He was obsessed with Trump and searched for him more than 800 times. )
- Jewish cemeteries were vandalized across the country, including Philadelphia, Seattle, and Missouri.
- Arm-bearing neo-nazis with MAGA hats terrorized the streets chanting “Jews will not replace us,” & “blood and soil,” at a “Unite the Right” rally.
- A white supremacist Trump supporter killed Heather Heyer, a woman protesting white supremacism. But “both sides.”
- A xenophobic conservative man yells “Get out of my country,” and lethally shoots two Indian men in Kansas.
- Three members of a conservative militia bomb the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota on August 5, 2017.
- On January 9 and 10, 2018, a19-year-old threatened to kill employees at CNN’s Atlanta headquarters. He idolized Hitler like Trump reportedly does, and viewed them as the “enemy of the American people” as Trump does.
- February 14, 2018, Nikolas Cruz, pictured wearing a MAGA hat on his social media, shot and killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
- Jeremy Christian, who allegedly stabbed two people to death on a train in Portland, Oregon, and wrote, “If Donald Trump is the Next Hitler then I am joining his SS”;
- “Proud Boys”- an anti-Muslim, proto-fascist, Trump-supporting group of beta brown shirts, assaulted peaceful protestors on Manhattan streets while the NYPD protected them.
- A Trump supporter in Kentucky murders shoots and kills two black men in Krogers. He’d tried to previously enter a black church.
- A Trump supporter sends pipe-bombs to 14 Democrat targets of Trump’s attacks.
- A Trump supporter kills 11 Jews in a synagogue. He blamed Jews for helping “evil” Muslim immigrants come to this country. “All these Jews need to die,” he told police on scene at Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.
This large rise in hate crimes post-2016 election is no coincidence. Trump’s scapegoating of immigrants (including legal immigrants), Muslims, anti-semitic dog-whistles (“America First”, attack ad against only Jews, “globalist” attacks) creation of an immigrant-children human rights crisis at the border, admiration of Hitler speeches, calling neo-nazis “very fine people,” 1970s housing discrimination, and appointment of white supremacists such as Stephen Miller, former Breitbart-owner Steve Bannon, Hungarian nazi Sebastian Gorka, and Sessions – man deemed too racist to pass a Reagan-era confirmation in the South, has radicalized right-wing terrorists.

This all, on top of his incitement to violence of course, telling his supporters he’ll pay their legal fees, and that he’d like to punch a protestor himself.

Trump of course, victim-blames the media and synagogue: “If the press was fair, I’d have a much different tone all the time. But I’m fighting the media, I’m fighting — the media is not being honest & I’m fighting that lack of honesty so I have to have that tone.

When asked about gun laws, he said the synagogue should have had armed security and the gunman wouldn’t be able to do what he did. This callous comment completely ignoring the three officers that were shot, and not condemning the perpetrator. Trump’s thoughts and prayers provide zero solutions. An AR-15 was used in Aurora, Orlando, Parkland, Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, Waffle House, San Bernardino, Sutherland SPrings, and the Pittsburgh Synagogue, but we must uphold the right for Republicans to blast deer into a million pieces with weapons of war.

Tolerance in the face of domestic-right-wing-terrorism and their party of sympathizers who can overlook the state-sponsored hate and incitement to violence, is consent. Hate isn’t just a differing opinion. The dichotomy has switched from ‘big versus small government,’ to either supporting a fascist regime and its hateful minions, or being a country for all Americans upholding the values that brought non-English speaking migrants fleeing religious persecution or poverty to the land of the free. We must not forget our own history, German immigrants once faced discrimination for their cultural differences.

There have been more bombs sent to kill Americans from Trump supporters than from ISIS. This isn’t how it started in Germany in the 1930s, it’s several phases into the fascist agenda. The fascism alarms should be ringing when over 35,00 people signed a letter to President Trump from the leaders of a Pittsburgh-based Jewish saying he won’t welcome in the city unless he denounces white nationalism and stops “targeting” minorities.

There’s no reason for right-wing extremists to be emboldened enough to target people for their faith and ethnicity 75 years after the Holocaust. Make racists afraid again – vote, protest, and stand up for vulnerable communities under attack.
October 29, 2018
The Paradox of Tolerance for Intolerance

The extremist side of child-drugging internment camps, Obama effigies, Roy Moore, sexual assault, and mocking the disabled doesn’t care about civility; what they want is compulsory compliance, and dissent silenced in their administration’s persistent crimes against humanity. There is something seriously wrong with a nation showing more concern for wealthy operatives of administration rampant with human rights violations being kicked out of restaurants than said human rights violations. There can be no civility — no silence — in the face of caged babies, Muslim bans, and SCOTUS-approved gerrymandering thanks to a stolen seat. Civil disobedience is free speech that fights against hate and injustice. Tolerance of intolerance only empowers the intolerant to carry out their crimes. There is no reasoning with people like Trump who think abused, caged immigrant children’s stories are “phony stories of sadness and grief.”

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”

-Albert Einstein

To Trump’s America, civility isn’t defined by the civil disobedience of publicly questioning public officials, it’s defined by complacently standing silently in the face of oppressors. Also, defined by sending death threats to a restaurant unaffiliated with the one who asked a neo-nazi operative to leave (after employees democratically voted.) Republican civility involves Trump’s White House adviser calling for journalists to be gunned down.

We do not have to offer an olive branch to an administration that burnt down the tree. To an administration who’s made it its grounding philosophy to target immigrants , Muslims, the media, and Democrats while embracing nazis as “fine people” qualified enough to run our agencies and craft policy oppressing the lives of millions. The masters of spin have made the problem not the policies themselves, but the targeted groups not gleefully jumping into internment camps and embracing their oppressors.

There exists a cognitive dissonance between what those more outraged by oppressive administration’s propaganda minister being asked to leave a restaurant, than children being beaten and drugged in concentration camps, consider “civil.” Asking a customer to leave your restaurant is civil. Publicly confronting public officials by questioning their baby concentration camp policy is civil. What’s uncivil is the 45th President and his klan’s character, dehumanization of immigrants, and oppressive, unjust policies. We are asked to coddle an administration who has marginalized every non-white group in America for the sake of a ‘civility’ ideal severely lacking on the morally bankrupt right.

It starts by silencing protest against police brutality by making the argument about the flag while calling players “sons of b-tches.” Their agenda involves making semantics the argument over the definition of concentration camps, instead of, the policy of jailing 3-month-old babies after ripping them from their breastfeeding mothers. It’s lambasting the “lugenpresse” for showing images illegally obtained of crying children, instead of blasting the policy of detaining immigrant children.

Respect is earned. We are expected to respect a man who’s mocked the disabled, called countries with majority brown citizens “sh-tholes,” called murderous neo-nazis in Charlottesville “fine people,” endorsed pedophile Roy Moore, bragged about sexual assault on tape, or called his daughter a “piece of ass.”

A man who has called Mexicans rapists, was sued twice by the DOJ for housing discrimination against blacks, pardoned Arpaio, a barbaric, convicted racial profiler who ran concentration camps, attacked a Mexican judge for his ethnicity, enacted bill curbing legal immigration, retweeted neo-nazi false crime statistic reports about blacks, rolled out voter suppression commission, hired nazi Gorka and white supremacist Miller, threw out Latino names and hypothetical crimes they’d commit, described immigrants as invaders, constantly touts immigrant crime and claims “it’s not true” that immigrants are “better people” than others.

Trump has encouraged his supporters to “rough up” protestors and they did cheerfully, he told cops to “rough up suspects,” and “second amendment people” to get Hillary, made a thinly-veiled threat to Maxine Waters, and endorsed Greg Gianforte who body slammed a reporter.

Republicans do not only support the most vile, racist, misogynist monster, but they claim false moral high-ground. Where was all this “civility” talk when birther, “anti-PC,” MAGAs: sent death threats to the Red Hen D.C., when a WH adviser affiliate called for journalists to be gunned down., when they were burning Obama effigies, started an “anti-Obama” campaign in Congress the night of his inauguration, called the Obamas monkeys, started the birther movement, used Seth Rich’s death to smear Hillary Clinton.

They’re upset that a member of a racist administration destroying the environment, sabotaging healthcare, slashing the educational budget, and dividing America, can’t eat out in public. Well, guess who hasn’t been able to even breathe out in public since the fuhrer’s inauguration? America’s ethnic minorities. The U.S. citizens unlawfully detained by ICE-Gestapo.

They’ve all suffered racist harassment from Trump conservatives after being emboldened by the President and even nazi-retweeting U.S. congressmen. When a white woman cited Trump while attacking a college-educated Latino man as a “rapist, animal, and drug dealer.” When a New York City lawyer berated and threatened two Spanish-speakers for holding a conversation in Spanish accusing them of being illegal welfare leeches. After he previously hunted down a man through the streets who he called the police for being an “ugly, f-cking foreigner.” When a Hispanic woman was told to “go back to Mexico.” When a Trump supporter shot up a mosque in Quebec killing 6 people.When another set fire to a Florida mosque. Is it a mark of civility for hate crimes to have risen to a 5-year-high after the election of Trump?

There is no tolerating those who unlawfully lock brown children of asylum-seekers up while claiming “civility.” Republicans gleefully ignore these human-rights crises, even rejoice in them, and expect us to sit quietly without peaceful protest. We can’t hold hands and sing kumbaya with an administration who empowers an extrajudicial, authoritarian force who’s killed 97 migrants beaten and sexually abused children,and released them to abusers and trafficking rings. We can not stand by idly while Trump seeks to turn ICE’s de-facto practice of prolonged detainment – without legal counsel or due process – de-jure. We can’t coddle and serve the propaganda-artist gatekeepers who gaslight America while children are given psychotropic drugs, beaten, locked in solitary confinement nude, shivering in concrete cells. While the sick are neglected and chickenpox is spreading like a wildfire, all whilst the Red Cross is being denied access their detention centers.

Silence in the face of oppression is complicitness. Compromise in the face of injustice is defeat against injustice. There is no compromising with the hypocritical “pro-life” crowd who take joy and show indifference to the suffering of innocent children at the hands of the U.S. government. This isn’t politics as usual. We can’t tell the oppressed to treat their oppressors with a respect they don’t hold for them. To a 10-year-old girl with Down Syndrome Trump’s former campaign manager says “womp womp,” Trump calls asylum-seekers crisis actors, and Laura Ingraham says the abusive detention centers for children are “basically summer camps.” While Fox and Friends says, “Like it or not, these aren’t our kids. Show them compassion, but it’s not like he’s doing this to the people of Idaho or Texas” But it isn’t just top conservative figureheads, it’s the public. A public so blinded by their hatred and indoctrinated by Trump’s dehumanization of immigrants campaign

These are the inhumane cretins we’re supposed to be civil with?

June 26, 2018
Abolish ICE: The Loss of 1,475 Children and Human Rights Violations

Declaring that children inhumanely separated from their asylum-seeking parents “are not innocent” is alarmingly on nazi, authoritarian levels, not on par with U.S. democratic values or the presidency. We are living through the second coming of Hitler with the Trump administration sanctioning state-violence against immigrants by planning military concentration camps for children, (unlawfully) separating migrant children from parents, and facilitating egregious ICE abuse of detainees by allowing the destruction of it’s paper-trail. If you ever wondered how nazi ideology rose to prominence in 1940s-era Germany, this is how. This is the context for the “animals” comment – Trump’s routine dehumanization of immigrants has been militarized most recently culminating in the murder of 20-year-old, unarmed Guatemalan migrant Claudia Gonzalez and 1,475 lost migrant children as young as 53 weeks. Some of released to human-trafficking rings and others with convicted sexual assaulters. These draconian, morally abominable, unlawful policies serve as “deterrent” according to John Kelly.

What did Trump have to say about his victims of family separation after backlash? “Phony stories of sadness and grief.”

When you dehumanize a people, it’s easy for the “family values,” “evangelical,” “pro-life” and even “Pizzagate” party to treat brown children as livestock. It’s easy to completely disregard their human rights, physically abuse them, and separate them as slave families were in the 18th century, because of a legal status irrespective to their intrinsic human rights. Thus, 18-month-olds are easily ripped from their mothers screaming, the 4-month-old premature baby and her 16-year-old mother are left without medical care, the 16-year-old sexually abused, all without accountability. Losing 1,475 children – some to human trafficking, opening up military concentration camps, and shooting 20-year-old unarmed migrant Claudia Gonzalez.

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

-Nelson Mandela

As a nazi propaganda minister once said, “Blame the other side that which you are guilty of,” — and that’s precisely what Trump is doing in response to outrage over his own policy. A policy announced at a press conference by Jeff Sessions. Separating children from parents isn’t only a mark of America’s institutionally depraved core, but it’s also not legal. Our due process law does not have the power to separate children for no reason unless there’s abuse. This is an unprecedented new policy from the Trump administration to punish asylum seekers.

We’re rejecting migrants that are seeking asylum after fleeing death threats and violence – presenting themselves to officials at the border, just as we did Jewish refugees during WW2 — Anne Frank was denied a Visa. FDR claimed this ethno-religious group fleeing genocide was a “threat to national security.” Sound familiar? That’s because the Trump administration runs on this brand of politics of fear. After much dehumanizing generalizations of Latinos as “drug-traffickers,” “rapists,” and animals, they recently lamented that America’s asylum laws are “dangerous loopholes” and placing “our communities at risk,”

ICE Is Disproportionally Targetting Latinos in their Ethnic-Cleansing Campaign

Pew Research estimates the number of unauthorized immigrants as follows: 1.6 million Central Americans, 1.5 million Asians, 0.6 million South Americans, and 0.5 Europeans/Canadians.

Central America (1.6) and Asia(1.5) have similar numbers of illegal immigrants. Despite this, 97.2% of ICE’s deportations are of Latinos (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador,etc.), while the number is only 0.5% for Asia (China, India, Philippines, South Korea, etc.) This makes it clear that this is about race. America’s Gestapo is actively engineering the racial makeup of this country as nazi Germany did through genocide.

It’s also not about economic status of immigrant populations — poorer Asian and European countries are ignored.

Populations of immigrants: China: 2,420,000, Philippines: 2,080,000, Vietnam: 1,410,000, Honduras: 600,000ICE Deportations: China: 525, Philippines: 182, Vietnam: 71, Honduras: 22,381

Repeat it with me — ICE is a fascist, extrajudicial, terrorist organization with the sole purpose of purging Latinos from America while ignoring similar illegal immigrant populations of other races. It has zero accountability to due process, hence their rampant abuse of children, sexual assault, and carelessness in releasing children to abusers and trafficking rings. It unlawfully detains legal residents and terrorizes immigrant communities.

Children As Young as 18 Months Are Being Separated

What does Trump have to say about the crying 18-month old children of asylum seekers being ripped from their parents, the abused children? “They’re not innocent.” The Charlottesville white supremacists however? “ Very fine people.” No word on the myriad of white mass shooters like the Florida one who’ve sported MAGA apparel online. We are officially living in the time of history future generations will look back on in bewilderment over how the country which fought against fascism, arrived at it. Since October, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has taken 700 children from their parents.

Under Trump’s new policy children as young as 18 months are put into government run shelters to serve as “a tough deterrent against illegal immigration according to John Kelly. A 7-year-old was kept away from her asylum-seeking mother for several months in a Chicago jail. Whereas before, parents were processed with the child. This is absolutely reprehensible and undemocraticv.

A person’s legal status does not negate their basic human rights and separating children from their guardians violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the Asylum Statute, and the Due Process Clause. The U.S. government doesn’t have the power to conduct such inhumane, senseless actions unless there’s abuse. Trump hiding from these inhumane policies and blaming Democrats is ludicrous considering they’ve asked him to reverse his policy and Republicans control Congress.

Rest easy though, John Kelly said “The children will be taken care of – put into foster care – or whatever.”

1,475 Lost Children – Many Released to Human Traffickers

Oh wait, 1,475 children have been lost track of by federal agencies with many being released to human traffickers by HHS. With a 2016 congressional committee report finding that it failed to protect minors from traffickers and other abusers. These are crimes against humanity – but they’re the scapegoated minority so nothing will be done.

Murder of Unarmed Migrants by Border Agents

As if this wasn’t disturbing enough, our recently-militarized border patrol shot and killed 20-year-old unarmed Guatemalan migrant Claudia Gonzalez. This is the latest among the 97 fatal shootings of migrants by border agents. If these extrajudicial, senseless murders of brown people don’t count as ethnic-cleansing then I don’t know what does.

Trump Administration is Opening Military Detainment Camps for Children

After releasing children to traffickers, losing 1,475, and having open-season on immigrants the next phase are military detention camps according to the Trump administration. Here comes the concentration camp portion of republicans’ ethnic cleansing program. Right after cancelling Indian’s HB-1 visas, curbing legal immigration, and wanting to ban migration from “shithole countries.” The moral depravity bar has reached hell.

ICE Records of Abuse Authorized for Destruction

ICE will start destroying immigrant abuse records including “sexual assault and deaths in custody. A paper trail for constitutional abuses will be destroyed.

Records of the tens of thousands of children beaten, deprived of food and medical care by federal border agents will be destroyed. ICE-Gestapo left a 4-pound premature baby and her minor mother in an overcrowded and “dirty cell full of sick people, against medical advice.” They’ve violated a 16-year-old girl, ran over a 17-year-old then beat him up, denied a pregnant minor medical attention, preceding a stillbirth.

In response to this ACLU report detailing the countless abuses, DHS nazis which systematically enable physical, sexual, and psychological child abuse dismissed the complaints calling them “baseless allegations.” In response to these institutional crimes against humanity, the White House called them “fake news.” Allegations which “span multiple years..states..different backgrounds.”

The Legal Case for Abolishing ICE

This has all gained mainstream attention after a long barbaric history of their heinous actions including prolonged detention, no due process that has culminated with thousands of U.S. citizens deported, 7-year-old asylees jailed, 10-year-olds with cerebral palsy arrested at the hospital.

ICE should not only be abolished, but prosecuted for their unlawful prolonged detention of lawful residents and citizens, an egregious 97 killings along the border, separation of children, and appalling sexual abuse of detainees – many among them, children. This is an undemocratic, criminal, ethnic-cleansing organization operating above the law. Illegal immigration cases should go back to being dealt with by the courts as it was before the reprehensible undemocratic Patriot Act (2003.) This authoritarian force operates extrajudicially with zero accountability to due process – a breeding ground for abuses of power. We must prosecute these cruel, lawless officials and go back operating through the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) an agency of the DOJ.

We lived in a country pre-ICE for 2___ years. If those concerned with individual liberty look back on the 2003 Patriot Act and Iraq war in shame — this ethnic-cleansing organization established in 2003 should be no exception.

These heinous, unlawful actions are of course no surprise coming from the Czar who campaigned and won on politics of fear by characterizing all Mexicans as “drug dealers, criminals, rapists,” who’s called white supremacists “fine people,” but immigrants “animals,” and Africa and El Salvador “shitholes.” When someone shows you who they are – by starting the birther movement, being sued by the DOJ for housing discrimination twice, calling hispanic Miss Universe “miss housekeeping,” and throwing out hispanic names and potential crimes they’d commit – believe them. It starts with rhetoric and ends in 1,475 lost children, with children at the hands of human traffickers, and military concentration camps.

We must demand answers from Congress (202-224-3121), from ICE (1-866-DHS-2-ICE), and E. Scott Lloyd, the Director of The Office of Refugee Resettlement in DHS (202-401-9246) about #WhereAreTheChildren. We must support the institutions fighting for human rights by donating to the ACLU, and contacting the UN. These barbaric monsters must be held accountable for their systematic abuses of power.

May 27, 2018
Discrimination Against Bilingualism Goes Back to WWII

A Trump-supporting New York attorney with a documented history of launching unhinged, racist tirades against strangers was recently caught on camera again verbally assaulting two bilingual people for speaking Spanish in public. Aaron Schlossberg berated an employee and a customer for conducting an order in Spanish saying, “Your staff is speaking Spanish to customers when they should be speaking English,” and, ”My guess is they’re not documented, so my next call is to ICE to have each one of them kicked out of my country.. I pay for their welfare; I pay for their ability to be here. The least they could do, the least they could do is speak English.” Such an unprofessional, racially biased individual can not uphold his oath as an attorney and must be disbarred.

This stain on our legal system was immensely triggered over two bilingual women minding their business in a city with a 55.4% ethnic population, with the highest Latino population where, 49% speak more than one language, in the land of free of speech and no official language. Not only that, but he assumed all Spanish speakers are illegals. And in all his nazi legal expertise conceived that a woman at work was on welfare and that illegals can somehow collect it.

The bigotry runs deep. This deranged cretin has also berated fellow Jews for being pro-Palestine and is a bilingual speaker himself. Apparently you can’t speak another language unless you’re paying him for biased, wrong-counsel. And has also harassed another stranger raving, “What country are you from? I’m gonna call the police. You’re not a citizen, you’re an ugly f****** foreigner.”

All these irrational conditions aside, the U.S. has no official language. This is not a dictatorship, so it’s not only socially but legally acceptable for two women to place a damn sandwich order in one of the the other 799 languages spoken in New York City. Any insecure, racist, xenophobic imbecile who lives in America and doesn’t want to hear other languages should go back to where they came from because this country was founded on the work of immigrants.

Hopefully he doesn’t go through Greenpoint and encounters Polish speakers. Or through Williamsburg, Brooklyn where everything’s written in Yiddish and English is seldom spoken. Oh wait, it’s not about linguistic abilities, it’s about hating the scapegoat – brown people. Someone as depraved and pathetic as he is, can only gain a false sense of superiority through the biologically-meaningless virtue of skin color. One that runs with the blood of 6 million genocided jews persecuted by an immigrant-hating nazi like the one he donated $500 to.

Nevertheless, this unabashed vitriol is never about linguistic ability, it’s about race. European languages and accents are romanticized not scorned while Latin ones are ridiculed. While Native Americans were once slaughtered for refusing to assimilate and their population, decimated. All for doing things like the “Ghost Dance” because cultural differences threatened the white psyche which was once an immigrant in this country. During the slave trade religious and cultural practices were banned against and a culture was erased.

It looks like those who forget history, are doomed to side with the oppressors. This Jewish man not only has attacked other Jews, but also has the audacity to be a white supremacist whilst being part of the ethnic minority which was genocided on the basis of ethnicity. Just how

The racist language police force quickly forget about 1920s-era anti-German sentiment marked by discrimination and violent attacks for practicing the German language. Their newspapers were run out of business, books burned, and German speakers threatened.

Still, I digress. It was not enough for this lawyer to command people to cease their free speech, he also burst his superiority complex by making the claims that one, the women were illegal because they’re bilingual. Two, illegals can collect welfare. Finally, three, that illegals don’t pay taxes when they actually pay $13 billion a year in payroll taxes for benefits they can not receive – because they’re – wait for it – illegal. Such logical argumentation. Incredibly fit and mentally stable for the job in the country’s most diverse city.

The reason our judicial system is so corrupt with an astonishing sentencing racial disparity is because of individuals like him. Those with such a clear racial bias can not uphold their oath as an attorney while calling someone an “ugly f****** foreigner” and stating Spanish-speakers are welfare-using illegals. This type of legal misconduct must be reprimanded before more New Yorkers are at the mercy of wrong counsel from a second-rate bigot.

May 16, 2018
America’s Gestapo: Redefining the Rule of Law

A 7-year-old asylee girl being locked up by ICE for four months at a Chicago jail has become America’s heralded “rule of law.” With the new Supreme Court ruling stating that immigrants, even permanent residents, and asylees, can be held indefinitely, internment camps have become the law of the land. As if the violation of human rights wasn’t already rampant within this terror organization full of prolonged detentions, lack of due process protections, and the wanton breaking up of families, this administration just launched a war against the 10-year-olds with cerebral palsy, the asylum refugee children, and the people showing up for green cards. So much for ‘bad hombres,’ this is the Gestapo of a fascist oligarchy (which, has pardoned actual concentration camp runner Arpaio.) ICE, a terror instilling, ethnic cleansing organization, must be defunded now.

Standing against inhumane mass deportation, which operates by violating human rights and targets tax-paying, hardworking families seeking refuge from their homeland violence, does not mean being for open borders. No one is for illegal immigration despite what alternative-facts media propaganda artists might say. Felons should be deported, tighter border control and immigration reform should be enacted. What people miss in this polarizing debate is the moral argument; that is, there is no plausible reason to leave children without their mothers literally on the side of the street. There’s no plausible reason to mass deport people already here who pose no economic or national security threat, much less arrest children indefinitely and illegally.

President Trump’s actions (surprisingly) don’t match his rhetoric. He’s repeatedly vowed to focus on, “getting gang members out [and] drug lords out.” That “bad hombres” would be the target for deportation. However, the reality is jarring and dystopian.

Most recently, political asylum refugees fleeing violence from the Congo – a 39-year-old mother and her 7-year-old daughter – were arrested and separated. The 7-year-old has been held in a Chicago prison for the past three and a half months for no legitimate reason. There’s been zero evidence or accusation of abuse. This traumatic and unjust separation is in violation of due process protections according to the ACLU, who is taking the case up. These, are your “bad hombres.”

Then there’s the 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who was detained while on an ambulance to an emergency surgery. These depraved, scoundrel of the earth literally staked outside of the 10-year-old girl’s room after surgery to send her back to a country she only resided in until she was 3-months-old. This lack of basic humanity is obscene. The lack of distinction between an adult crossing the border illegally and a child – a baby in this case – being brought here illegally without any jurisdiction, is egregious. This follows of a pattern of detaining asylum seekers.

It’s not just the children who had no jurisdiction over coming here who are targets or just the asylum seekers, it’s also the green card applicants. ICE recently arrested a dad of four with zero criminal records as he went to finalize legal residency. And the mother married to a U.S. citizen, with no criminal record who was pursuing legal status who was arrested.

There’s also the 43-year-old janitor at MIT whose three children are U.S. citizens and mother, a permanent resident who planned was going to sponsor him for a green card. He didn’t have a criminal record, ran a business, and paid taxes – a model American. But instead of focusing all our efforts on the criminals, they’re detaining children and hard-working, contributing members of society.

Their malevolence knows no bounds – this Gestapo-like organization has even gone after Visa holders. A chemistry professor named Syed Ahmed Jamal was arrested outside his home while he was getting ready to take his daughter to school. Surely an “economically anxious” deplorable will be stepping in to take the job of a man holding degrees in molecular biosciences and pharmaceutical engineering. Isn’t this man the poster-child of Trump’s “merit-based” immigration system? I suppose he’s no Melania Trump, who immigrated to the U.S. under an “elite EB-1 program.. designed for renowned academic researchers, multinational business executives or those in other fields, such as Olympic athlete…”

These are just a few of too many senseless, inhumane arrests being made in the name of an imaginary threat – the asylum seekers, the 10-year-old brought here as a baby with cerebral palsy, the green card applicants, the Visa holders, and the quintessential hardworking immigrant doing the jobs nobody else will to provide for his family. (No, they don’t take jobs away.) All because there is no path to citizenship and the barriers for the poor, non-English speaking masses which Anglo-Saxon Americans’ poor ancestors fleeing persecution and famine didn’t face, simply exist now.

Why target the most harmless, contributing members of society as a scapegoat instead of focusing limited resources on crime? Was arresting the dangerous mother married to a U.S. citizen and pursuing legal status the most effective use of time and resources? Was locking a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy just as valuable as investigating a human smuggling ring or tracking down drug trafficking? Arrests are supposed to be made for the collective good of American society. What collective good does it serve in kicking out the most harmless, hard-working, and vulnerable?

It serves the white supremacist collective good. It’s all apart of a long-growing ethnic cleansing campaign – per Trump advisors such as Stephen Miller – that operates on the basis that immigrants as a monolith are an inherent threat. That all Mexicans are “rapists,” “drug traffickers.” That all “Haitians have AIDS,” and Africans come from “shitholes,” and by that measure should be barred from entering the land of poor, huddled immigrants. A government hijacked by actual white supremacists and nazis (like Sebastian Gorka) is against all immigrants period – tremendous efforts are already being made to curb legal immigration.

White supremacist agendas fueled by politics of fear and control do not care that illegal immigrants have lower incarceration rates and crime rates than native-born Americans. (People fleeing violence from economically stagnant countries actually come to the US in search of a better life for their families? Shocking!) They care about protecting white conservative interests in the face of an impending minority-majority, which so far they’ve done through gerrymandering. After all, conservative talking-head Rush Limbaugh said what they’re all thinking thereby proving this theory:

“I would be willing right here to support an effort to grant permanent citizenship to whatever number of illegal immigrants there are in the country, tomorrow, if you will make as part of the deal they can’t vote for 15-25 years.”

I wonder what’s there to fear about becoming a minority, could it have something to do with the way minorities are treated in this country?

While such brute, senseless actions are nothing new, this administration is amping up their ability to violate basic human rights opening the way up for internment camps with the new Supreme Court ruling and conducting arrests outside of schools, in courthouses, in hospitals and homes like modern-day brown-shirts. It is heinous enough that even lawful residents and U.S. citizens have been incorrectly detained for months or years before being able to prove their legal status.

Such actions perfectly conform to the 14 characteristics of fascism Trump has exhibited since his candidacy. They’re the brown shirts of a kleptocracy that wants to control the media, wants police to “rough up” suspects, wants to end term limits, that wants the death penalty for non-violent drug offenses. The brown-shirts of a Wall-street deregulating, Muslim-ban creating, immigrant crime tracking misogynist who praises dictators.

so bad that ICE spokesman resigned

The war against immigrants has gotten so harrowingly abysmal that an ICE spokeman resigned, saying he could “no longer spread falsehoods for the Trump administration.” Fortunately, many are seeing through the fear-mongering: illegal immigration isn’t an all-time high epidemic – it’s net negative. In fact, legal immigration has soared. They have lower incarceration rates and crime rates than native-born Americans, and American cities with more illegal immigrants do not have a higher crime rate. They don’t “take” jobs in our full-employment economy. And they pay $13 billion a year in payroll taxes for benefits they can’t receive.We don’t need a 2,000 mile, 30-foot high, $30 billion wall.

We must arrest criminals and strengthen the already secure border for the collective good of U.S. citizens, but there’s no economic or national security reason to target children, Visa holders, or green card applicants.

March 18, 2018
Gun Control Has Always Worked

Since 2012 there have been 1,624 mass shootings in the U.S. We’re responsible for 31% of global mass shootings despite being 5% of the population, but guns are the only aspect of society we can’t seem to regulate. Since 1996, 167 of mass shooters’ weapons were obtained legally (49 were obtained illegally.) Somehow keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the violently mentally ill has become a partisan issue costing endless lives. Stricter gun laws have proven time and time again to work – from our 1930s machine gun ban to reforms around the world in Australia, Germany, and Canada. The shooters at Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Pulse, Las Vegas, and most recently, Parkland all bought guns legally, but the system isn’t failing us.When is enough, enough?

We’re not safe at our schools, movie theaters, concerts. The money generating death cult of the NRA is fueled by the politics of fear; Democrats don’t want to require universal background checks, those “crisis actors” want to take your guns. We can have laws against drugs, against machine guns but not the tools of death and destruction (not hunting) that easily fall into the wrong hands and are able to take 17 lives at a place of learning in minutes.

After the deadly mass shooting in Parkland left 17 dead, gun control is pertinent. Yet the system shows no signs of doing literally anything to prevent mass shootings. It was only a year ago that Trump signed an executive order making it easier for those with mental illness obtain guns. And just last week, the Florida House rejected a ban on assault weapons thanks to the un-elected governor of Florida, NRA lobbyist Marlon Hammer. Our President after meeting with victims at a hospital threw a disco party and then pulled back support for universal gun background checks after meeting with the NRA. While our Senate will “skip the gun debate” and instead turn to a banking bill next week according to Majority Leader McConnell.

“Criminals will obtain guns illegally anyway”

When we have a higher rate of gun deaths than any other place in the middle east except Iraq and a gun homicide rate 25 times higher than other high-income countries, we’ve clearly forlorn our constitutional pact to “well-regulated militia.” The system has failed us when the overwhelming majority of guns used in the past 19 mass shootings were bought legally, through a background check despite criminal backgrounds or documented mental health issues. When the law can’t guarantee the pursuit of life and liberty to America’s children, the moral rot ingrained in the fabric of our hijacked system rises. Guns were legally given to the San Bernardino, Parkland, the Texas church shooting, Las Vegas, and Pulse murderers, some among who had been reported to the FBI for threats, were convicted criminals and had alleged terrorist ties.

Clearly, the majority of mass shooters are obtaining guns legally when their criminal background shouldn’t have allowed them to. Yet conservative gun fanatics believe we shouldn’t stop these depraved monsters where we can because extensive background checks will somehow repeal the second amendment. They point to an illegal weapon market as a basis to oppose stopping criminals from legally obtaining guns. If that logic follows, we shouldn’t have drug laws, and anti-machine-gun laws are useless. Why should guns be the only area not regulated? Oh, that’s right, because the NRA profit machine demands it at the sake of American lives.

The Automatic Weapon Ban Worked

In the 1920s and 1930s, Prohibition-era mobsters used portable machine guns to terrorize towns, which – like AR’s – fired multiple rounds with the single pull of a trigger. Often times children and civilians were caught in the middle. President Roosevelt witnessed this as governor in his city, and in turn got Congress to pass the National Firearms Act of 1934. Since then, fully-automatic weapons have not been responsible for any of the last 81 mass shootings. A fully-automatic weapon ban worked then, and a ban of semi-automatic weapons – the weapon of choice in have been used in the country’s deadliest shootings, such as those in Newtown, Orlando, San Bernadino and Las Vegas, should work now.

The Assault Weapon Ban Worked

Guns do kill people – and taking the ones responsible for the past mass shootings out of the equation has been proven to drastically reduce the number of mass shootings in the U.S. Such was the case with the 1994-2004 automatic weapon ban. The federal Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Act banned “19 military-style assault weapons, assault weapons with specific combat features, “copy-cat” models, and certain high-capacity ammunition magazines of more than 10 rounds,”  according to Politico. During the ban period “the number of gun massacres plunged by 37 percent and gun massacre deaths, by 43 percent. After the ban massacres skyrocketed by 183%. Yes, we can prevent death from raining down on our schools, movie theaters, and concerts – it’s successfully been done before.

Mental Illness is Not Solely to Blame

Many are quick to blame shootings solely on mental illness as if America has a monopoly on it. (Less than 1% of firearm homicides are committed by a person diagnosed with a mental illness.) Nations around the world are not exempt from mental illness yet they’re not responsible for 31% of the world’s mass shootings. We are 5% of the world population. No other country has had close to 290 mass shootings since 2013, or any mass shootings for that matter after passing serious gun reform.

Gun Control Worked Worldwide

There were four mass shootings between 1987 and 1996 in Australia. Their legislature did not hesitate in passing gun reform requiring 28-day waiting period to obtain a weapon, a ban on semi-automatic weapons, and a national gun registry. There have been zero mass murders in the 20 years since while the U.S. has had 1,624 shootings just in the last 5 years. In the UK there the 1996 mass murder in Scotland, prompted the government to ban all handguns, (in addition to the ones already banned in 1987), and there has only been one mass shooting since. After gun reform in Germany ,violent gun deaths fell to 0.12 per 100,000 people compared to the U.S.’ rate of 3.85 violent gun deaths. Comparatively, Canada has a rate of 0.5.

Japan is the quintessential example on what to do about gun violence. The population of 127 million had just six gun deaths in 2014 compared to 33,599 in the US. That’s right Donald Trump, despite practically inventing video games, the country has virtually eradicated gun violence. Video game sales per person in Japan is $96.06, compared to the U.S.’ $63.45 in sales. Respectively gun deaths are 6 per 10,000,000 people per year and 1,016. It looks like the video games, or mental illness aren’t to solely blame for gun violence (given Japan’s high suicide rate.) This is because of the country’s strict gun control measures best summarized by Business Insider:

“ If Japanese people want to own a gun, they must attend an all-day class, pass a written test, and achieve at least 95% accuracy during a shooting-range test. Then they have to pass a mental-health evaluation, which takes place at a hospital, and pass a background check, in which the government digs into their criminal record and interviews friends and family. They can only buy shotguns and air rifles — no handguns — and every three years they must retake the class and initial exam.”

Gun Reform Now

At 19 you should not be able to buy an AR-15 military assault-style weapon, much less with no waiting period or ammo restriction. AR-15’s were used in the Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, Aurora, San Bernardino & Orlando shootings. No civilian should even be able to buy a semi-automatic weapon at all – they are weapons of war not for blowing deer’s brains off and protecting your home. Furthermore, bump-stocks – which capacitated the Las Vegas shooter with the ability to kill 58 people and injure 851 within the span of minutes by turning a semi automatic rifle into an automatic one, should be outlawed.

This is just phase one of a much needed reform which in no way infringes second amendment rights – not one public official has much less called for taking anyone’s guns away. It’s a baseless NRA soundbite designed to fear-monger and distort common sense gun regulation targeting criminals and the mentally unstable in order to keep profiting off the sale of weapons of war. Phase two is actually tightening background checks so that convicted criminals and those with suspicious, violent backgrounds reported multiple times to the FBI can’t get their hands on any weapon. We must also end the “gun show loophole” which allows for the private sales of guns without background checks.

“”When you’re going to buy a gun, you put down your money but you don’t get to pick up your gun for several days because investigation is then made to make sure you’re not a felon..don’t have mental illness or anything. Then you can cocme back and get your gun. I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen to own guns for sporting, hunting or home defense. I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun is not a sporting weapon or needed for defense.”

– President Ronald Reagan

The “Good Guy With a Gun” fallacy

Contrary to popular belief, more guns don’t stop crime. Sadly, instead of addressing the root cause of the gun problem with preventive measures, the national conversation has turned to arming overworked, underpaid teachers to end up being killed by the shooter anyway or taken down by a confused SWAT team. Teachers are educators, not trained killers.  In fact, Trump’s proposal to arm teachers has been panned by experts as a “colossally stupid idea.”

It’s absolutely ludicrous that we expect to train teachers a little better than the greatest American sniper in military history who was killed by a “bad guy” with a gun. To be trained superior to six Secret Service agents who couldn’t save Reagan from being shot. Surely an overworked educator would have saved: Vegas: Orlando, a Texas church. Furthermore, the “right to carry” gun laws don’t suppress crime, but increase it by 15 percent. The “good guy with a gun” scenario has proven to be as disastrous as you’d expect. Recently, a Texas man disarmed a possible school shooter only to be shot by police. And an armed teacher in Georgia was arrested after he barricaded himself in a classroom and fired his handgun.

If 63% of mass shooters were Hispanic men or Muslims the GOP would have been as quick to enact gun reform as they were to roll out an immigrant crime tracking database reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s. But since 63% of the last 184 mass shootings in the U.S. were white men, Trump can have a disco party while the Senate moves to a banking bill.

“In 2016 there were 1.2 million violent crimes, or 23,077 a week. If that number held last week, the WH only found two crimes linked to immigrants in the country illegally, meaning native-born Americans committed the other 23,075.”

In 2017 there were more than 300 gun murders in the US in February alone, in the entire year, only 22 serious crimes were committed by undocumented immigrants in the US.

Putting up the Ten Commandments in public schools  selling bulletproof shields, and  banning backpacks will not prevent this. The only solution is common sense gun reform that has been proven to work both around the world and at home twice with the National Firearms Act and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.) These semi-automatic weapons ban should only function in conjunction with more extensive background checks, and an end to private gun sales loopholes. By our lack of responsiveness after countless shootings it’s evident this can only be done through an NRA political boycott. All those who value the sanctity of life, the pursuit of liberty and happiness must vote out those beholden to the NRA over human lives. Those who walk back on promises of universal background checks after meeting with the NRA, who’s son likes tweets smearing parkland shooting survivors. There’s no “fighting tyranny” by submitting to the oligarchy, by not votingfor progress, and life.

March 9, 2018