Jello Biafra: Deke Dickerson's Commentary On Los Angeles

3. Naturally, people were upset when anonymous, plainclothes ICE agents kidnapped people off the streets (these were folks working their jobs, celebrating children's birthday parties, even waiting in line to finalize their LEGAL immigration paperwork--NOT drug dealers and dangerous criminals), and so there were peaceful protests. This is important for the old folks in Iowa and Alabama to understand: there is a huge, enormous difference between "peaceful protest" and "rioting." There are so many people I talk to who literally think they are the same thing. Los Angeles had peaceful protesters (protected by the constitution's first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."). This is the important distinction: will there always be some bad players who come in and only want chaos and trouble? Of course. There were peaceful protests followed by people setting cars on fire and breaking stuff and throwing stuff at the police. These were not peaceful protestors. These people should obviously be jailed and prosecuted. But it's important to understand that what you're seeing on TV (especially Fox News and Newsmax, who go out of their way to push a far-right agenda and obscure the truth) is basically political theater to agitate and upset you. It's a very small percentage of what is happening, and the peaceful protestors are NOT the same people who are "rioting." There is a constitutional right to protest. There is no constitutional right to burn cars and loot 7-11's. Know the difference. Trump and Fox News will have you believe that there is no difference and that all protestors should be jailed, but there is a huge difference. Again, Trump constantly lies and is completely full of shit on this issue.

4. Trump is doing illegal things right now. By sending in the National Guard and now the Marines, he is breaking the law that says that the state government must ask for Federal help. The governor, the mayor of Los Angeles, and the chief of the LAPD have all said they don't want the National Guard or the Marines coming in. Do you "patriots" remember freaking out a few years ago over a thing called "state's rights?" yes, another one of the ways that the founding fathers devised to keep tyranny out of our government--Trump is using this as an excuse to blast away those rules and laws and norms and become an all-powerful dictator and authoritarian leader. The nonsense he's saying about how he has to send these military forces in because the state government won't do it? Complete nonsense. He's doing it to make a TV production for Fox News and Newsmax. He's doing it to pit his radical authoritarian ideology against the blue states who he views as the enemy. No other reason. He envisions himself as a strongman, even though he is pathetically, almost comically weak; so he is doing stuff like this to prop up his image with the people who support him. It is bullshit, like everything else that Trump does.