Slightly Offensive - Elijah Schaffer - Protesters Fight Against Immigration Enforcement | FLECCAS + SLIGHTLY OFFENS*VE
Aired: 2018-06-17
Duration: 09:16


=== People's Protests (08:08) ===

[00:00:04]  This is not America.
[00:00:05]  And if this is America, I'm done with America and I'm out.
[00:00:08]  How's everyone doing?
[00:00:09]  We're doing great.
[00:00:11]  Awesome.
[00:00:13]  Are we angry?
[00:00:14]  We are pissed.
[00:00:18]  This is a collaboration that was slightly offensive with Flexus Talks.
[00:00:21]  Sorry I didn't have time to buy any hockey tape today, so we're going to have to deal with an iPhone cable and a studio backdrop clip, which is all you need to make some great journalism.
[00:00:32]  Let's see what people have to say today.
[00:00:33]  Robin?
[00:00:34]  Robin.
[00:00:34]  Okay, cool.
[00:00:34]  So what does your sign say?
[00:00:36]  My sign says cruelty is not an American value.
[00:00:38]  Families belong together.
[00:00:39]  Okay, and so what does this sign mean to you?
[00:00:42]  Actually, I borrowed this sign.
[00:00:45]  I was just thinking I would like to, I would change it now because I'm here representing an interfaith organization and I would also say cruelty is not an American value.
[00:00:52]  It's also not a Jewish value or a Christian or a Muslim value.
[00:00:56]  It's nothing that we hold dear and I'm here because this idea of separating children from their families at the borders goes against everything I believe in.
[00:01:04]  What's up, man?
[00:01:04]  This is Eli.
[00:01:05]  I'm out here with what's your name?
[00:01:06]  Melissa.
[00:01:07]  And what's your name?
[00:01:08]  Atha.
[00:01:08]  All right, so what do our signs say here today?
[00:01:10]  Mine says these are my American values and you can read them all.
[00:01:14]  It says all people, actually hold on.
[00:01:17]  All people are equal.
[00:01:18]  Love wins.
[00:01:19]  Black Lives Matter.
[00:01:20]  My body and my choice.
[00:01:21]  People before profits.
[00:01:22]  Climate change is real.
[00:01:24]  Immigrants and refugees are welcome here.
[00:01:26]  Celebrate diversity and respect disability and trans rights are human rights.
[00:01:30]  All right, what's up?
[00:01:30]  I'm here with what's your name?
[00:01:31]  Edith.
[00:01:32]  Edith, Edith, so what does your sign say?
[00:01:34]  It says children are not animals.
[00:01:36]  All right, what's up?
[00:01:36]  So what are you here for?
[00:01:37]  What are you holding your sign for?
[00:01:39]  Abolish ICE.
[00:01:40]  And the second thing that we want to do too is we want to abolish ICE.
[00:01:46]  I'm out here with?
[00:01:47]  Buddy.
[00:01:48]  Buddy, and what does your sign say today?
[00:01:50]  So it's Dumb Trump.
[00:01:52]  Kenneth Mejia.
[00:01:53]  And then you mentioned that you were the youngest person running for Congress in the general election in Los Angeles, correct?
[00:01:58]  You were the youngest person running for office.
[00:02:00]  No fear.
[00:02:01]  No papers, no fear.
[00:02:07]  So is communism the answer?
[00:02:09]  Yes.
[00:02:10]  We believe that no human is illegal.
[00:02:12]  And we believe that full legal status is the way to go.
[00:02:16]  And so how do we go about implementing full legal status for everybody?
[00:02:19]  Yeah, so I think what we got to do is we need to talk to our representatives for all.
[00:02:24]  And essentially, no borders, no walls, and people can come in as they please.
[00:02:31]  And we could put so many people to work.
[00:02:33]  There's so much work to be done.
[00:02:35]  Wherever we have to go!
[00:02:37]  Woo!
[00:02:38]  Woo!
[00:02:39]  What does your sign say?
[00:02:40]  American values are not just about America, but that they speak to the human dignity that resides in every person in the world.
[00:02:46]  That was a quote from Hillary Clinton.
[00:02:47]  Pretty much everyone I've interviewed so far has been very pro-open borders.
[00:02:50]  And then I asked them, like, did you vote for Bernie?
[00:02:53]  Or did you support Bernie?
[00:02:54]  And they usually say, I'm like, well, Bernie was against open borders, right?
[00:02:57]  And he said that's a Koch brothers policy when he was interviewed by Ezra Klein.
[00:03:01]  And I asked them, what do they think about that?
[00:03:03]  Because, you know, they say they want corporate interests, they want illegal immigrants because of cheap labor and it benefits corporate America and it hurts the American workers.
[00:03:11]  So what do you think about that?
[00:03:11]  And they're like, oh, I don't know.
[00:03:13]  So I asked them little questions like that and I think it's some interesting responses.
[00:03:17]  Communism is from each according to ability to each according to need.
[00:03:22]  Communism is no borders.
[00:03:23]  Communism is no money.
[00:03:25]  No rich, no poor.
[00:03:26]  Everybody works together.
[00:03:27]  Everybody shares.
[00:03:29]  That's what we need.
[00:03:30]  And so if you think about it, undocumented immigrants only make up 12 million people.
[00:03:33]  That's a small percentage of the country.
[00:03:35]  But that's still a ton of people.
[00:03:37]  It's a ton if you think about it in terms of millions.
[00:03:39]  Like bigger than Los Angeles.
[00:03:40]  And that's why we're fighting for them because we have bigger problems to think about.
[00:03:46]  Who's currently saying they're animals?
[00:03:48]  Well, they're being treated like animals.
[00:03:50]  They're in cages.
[00:03:51]  They're without their family.
[00:03:53]  I don't even know if they're eating or not.
[00:03:55]  It's just horrible conditions.
[00:03:57]  All right, so I actually just was listening to a report from NPR today where a bunch of journalists were allowed inside children holding facilities and they found out that those pictures of them being in cages were actually from 2014 when Obama was in office and right now that children holding facilities mostly look like schools.
[00:04:11]  Oh, so you're one of those.
[00:04:12]  No hate, no hate, no fear, no fear.
[00:04:15]  In the game, our welcome.
[00:04:16]  No hate, no hate, no fear, no fear.
[00:04:19]  In the game, our welcome or refugees now.
[00:04:21]  Wow, that is definitely a mouthful.
[00:04:23]  That's awesome.
[00:04:23]  It's all inclusive, really.
[00:04:25]  Yeah, that's the most inclusive sign.
[00:04:26]  I've actually, I've been to a lot of marches and rallies and it has more people included than anything I've ever seen.
[00:04:30]  Did you make that one yourself?
[00:04:31]  I did and I also just keep it in the back of my car because literally every weekend there's just some crazy outrage that happens all the time now.
[00:04:38]  Literally literally, you're right because I didn't even plan on coming here and I just tied my phone to an electrical wire to record audio and I left my mic at home.
[00:04:47]  I appreciate the wood stone.
[00:04:48]  That's good.
[00:04:48]  But this great grassroots so you can't beat it.
[00:04:50]  No, you can't.
[00:04:51]  We're marching because this administration has started separating parents and children at the border and putting them in separate places and sometimes hundreds and thousands of miles apart.
[00:05:04]  What I'm finding, I represent Leobeck Temple as well and it resonates with Jews because it echoes the Holocaust when children were separated from their families, whether they got to freedom or not.
[00:05:16]  The whole idea of people being, of babies being torn away from their mothers is an image that's all too familiar and haunting to us.
[00:05:23]  Communism on three.
[00:05:25]  One, two, three.
[00:05:26]  Just communism.
[00:05:28]  Yeah, thank you.
[00:05:29]  That was good.
[00:05:29]  That was good.
[00:05:29]  That was really good.
[00:05:30]  I don't know.
[00:05:31]  It's just too much.
[00:05:33]  Too much.
[00:05:34]  I don't know.
[00:05:35]  Probably the wisest thing I've heard all day.
[00:05:37]  Yeah.
[00:05:39]  What is they protesting for?
[00:05:41]  Immigration?
[00:05:42]  I think so.
[00:05:45]  I don't think anyone here really knows what they're protesting about, though.
[00:05:47]  To make them legal, come over.
[00:05:49]  I don't know, something about, as long as we're fighting against Trump, I think it's good, right?
[00:05:53]  Yeah.
[00:05:54]  All right, so what system could we switch to then if Athenian democracy isn't working for our country currently?
[00:06:00]  Well, I don't really have any big answers or any big solutions.
[00:06:03]  I just know that what is going on now is not working.
[00:06:06]  It's not working.
[00:06:07]  Would you think socialism or communism would be better?
[00:06:09]  I think a socialist system definitely would be better.
[00:06:14]  So what we're seeing here today is that people are fighting for a lot of things against ICE, against Donald Trump, against separating immigrant families, for communism, for love, against hate, against fascism.
[00:06:27]  After all, I'm not entirely sure what we're marching for, but I know that we're marching for something that we're all passionate about, which is resisting this administration.
[00:06:37]  Let's keep marching.
[00:06:38]  Si, se cuede.
[00:06:40]  So what do we do to protect our borders if we get rid of ICE?
[00:06:43]  We were already doing it.
[00:06:44]  There's just a lot of fear-mongering right now and basically blaming Mexicans for literally everything that's wrong with our country.
[00:06:49]  So we are basically just starting to imitate Nazi Germany now, which is insane, not to throw the Hitler comparison, but straight up, like we have, no, we're housing children in cages.
[00:06:59]  Like, I know we've been doing this before Trump, so let's get that, let's keep that real.
[00:07:02]  Yeah, it was definitely during Obama for sure.
[00:07:03]  How do we fight?
[00:07:04]  Well, that's why we're here.
[00:07:05]  We're actually hoping to find out what else we can do.
[00:07:08]  I mean, as soon as I heard about this, I'm like, maybe they'll tell us.
[00:07:11]  What else can we do?
[00:07:12]  What do we need to do?
[00:07:12]  Like, what is it going to take?
[00:07:13]  I know it's not just showing up, but I don't know what to do.
[00:07:17]  And I'm hoping to find that out.
[00:07:18]  Because we need people to tell us what to do, because if we don't know what to do, how are we going to do it?
[00:07:22]  Exactly.
[00:07:22]  Faith.
[00:07:23]  No, seriously.
[00:07:24]  I can't even know what they're saying, but I agree with it because that's what this is about.
[00:07:27]  It's not about knowing what we're talking about.
[00:07:29]  It's just about agreeing with people because that's what it's cool to do.
[00:07:33]  We got to stop the fascism and we got to help the immigrants and stuff.
[00:07:36]  Yeah, let's do it.
[00:07:38]  We have a system that's based on Athenian democracy, which is obviously prefaced on white supremacy.
[00:07:44]  So we have an entire system that is predicated on you really only have rights in this country if you're white, male, and owned property.
[00:07:51]  That's the history of what this country is built on, the genocide of its entire, almost entire, the genocide of its indigenous population, the enslavement of Africans and the continued subjugation of people that are in the minority.

=== Democrats Search for Next Leader (01:17) ===

[00:08:09]  So who's the next Hillary then?
[00:08:11]  I don't know.
[00:08:12]  Your guess is as good as mine.
[00:08:13]  I think Nancy Pelosi, maybe?
[00:08:15]  I think the Democrats are trying to figure that out right now because there's not, I don't think there's anybody that's clear head and shoulders above anybody else.
[00:08:21]  So you think that the Republicans are going to take it again in 2020 or no?
[00:08:27]  You know, I sure hope not, but I think we have a good shot of changing this.
[00:08:31]  We'll see what happens in the 2018 election coming up here in November.
[00:08:35]  We always have Elizabeth Warren, right?
[00:08:37]  There's, sure, there's Liz Warren, and she's, you know, I think she's a Democrats love her, but whether she has the broad appeal, we'll see.
[00:08:44]  Noam Chomsky says the Republican Party is the most dangerous organization on the face of the planet.
[00:08:50]  He also says it's an outrageous statement and he would like anybody to prove him wrong and I really don't think anybody has.
[00:08:56]  Right, that's true.
[00:08:57]  The Republicans are basically the most dangerous party, but we're here to fight against it.
[00:09:00]  So support your DNC this season around and let's make America great again together.
[00:09:07]  Yeah, I don't support the Dent Democratic Party either.
[00:09:10]  So, I mean, you're completely free to do that.
[00:09:12]  We don't support anything.
[00:09:13]  Okay.
[00:09:14]  I saw you were DNC.
[00:09:15]  I'm not the DNC.