On MSNBC's Tucker, radio host Mark Williams declared that immigrants "engage in slavery and prostitution," added: "As long as we have the ICBMs, they can learn English"
On the October 16 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, radio host Mark Williams baselessly asserted that immigrants "by and large, the illegal immigrants mainly" are "just here to rip off a piece and to get back to where they come from" and added that they are "drug runners, human traffickers" and "people who engage in slavery and prostitution." Host Tucker Carlson said, "I agree with that." Williams later appeared to claim that U.S. possession of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICMBs) would force Spanish-speaking immigrants to learn English, declaring: "As long as we have the ICBMs, they can learn English."
Williams also spoke of "the rise of this Aztlán movement," calling it "a heavily armed separatist organization." As Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted (including here, here, here, and here), "Aztlán" is derived from El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, the founding document of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán, or MEChA), a group with affiliates at numerous college campuses and several high schools that claims to work toward "improving the social and political situation of the Chicano/Latino community." Aztlán and "reconquista" are concepts promoted by "white supremacists and neo-Nazis" more than by Mexicans or Mexican-Americans, according to a March 30 column by Alex Koppelman, a columnist for Drexel University's biweekly online magazine, Dragonfire.
As Media Matters noted, Williams also asserted on the September 26 edition of Tucker that "people have made up their minds ... that if we vote Democrat, that just hastens the day we disappear in a nuclear holocaust."
From the October 16 edition of MSNBC's Tucker:
CARLSON: There are about ten and a half million illegal aliens living in this country right now. That number goes up every single year. The rate of immigration, legal and illegal, into this country is at its highest levels in the history of the country. So this idea that "Oh, you know, we've always had this trickle of immigration in our country, this is who we are" -- it's a lie. Things are changing faster now than in history, and I'm wondering, Mark, if this isn't yet another sign that our country is becoming a very different country, even as we watch.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, that trickle has become a tsunami, and it's not a tsunami that is here to become Americans or to assimilate and contribute the best of their culture and add it to what we've got here. We're talking about a group by and large, the illegal immigrants mainly, who are just here to rip off a piece and take it back to wherever they came from. We're talking about drug runners, human traffickers. We're talking about people who engage in slavery and prostitution. We're talking about, yeah, the occasional honest agriculture worker. But by and large, we're not talking about people who are coming here to become American. That's why, in southern California, we're seeing the rise of this Aztlán movement, which is a heavily armed separatist organization, movement, which allies itself with the Palestinian Liberation Organization, of all groups. They see themselves as the North American Palestinians. We're dealing with a cultural rift here that, unlike past waves of immigration, doesn't wish to be assimilated and absorbed, much less will work with us toward making it one country. I mean --
CARLSON: I agree. I agree with that.
WILLIAMS: Here in California, I'm having to learn how to speak Spanish to deal with my own neighborhood.
CARLSON: You and many others. Sam, I want you to sum it up here. Why is it that the environmental industry, environmental groups, the permanent environmental class of activists in this country hasn't said anything that I've heard about the 300 millionth American. What about overpopulation? Weren't liberals really afraid of that 20 years ago? Are we no longer afraid of [economist Thomas] Malthus's theories?
GREENFIELD: Well, the only -- I haven't heard that liberals are afraid of procreation. Last time I checked, we're not. And Tucker, you've added three kids to the population.
CARLSON: Four.
SAM GREENFIELD (New York radio talk-show host): Four? God, I turn my back and -- you know, holy cow, literally.
CARLSON: Check in next week.
GREENFIELD: It's now. No, but what I'm saying is this, you know, a lot of these people do come to this country to be Americans, and they do come to this country to earn a living. They come to this country because they are poor. But I do agree that illegal immigration is a serious, serious problem. And I have no idea how to address it. I'm not going to lie, I have no idea. As far as Mark learning another language, you know, we're the only country on this planet where people don't know one or two -- two or three languages. So what I say to you is, "Buenos tardes, que lástima es mi amigo."
WILLIAMS: And I say, so long as we have the ICBMs --
CARLSON: I don't know. I don't know if that qualifies as knowing another language.
GREENFIELD: -- grande a ya donde. By the way, what I just said is "Geraldo Rivera is slap happy." In Spanish.
WILLIAMS: As long as we have the ICBMs, they can learn English.
wow, I didn't know that Tucker was a doomsday environmentalist. although, I'm not surprised that he is fond of malthus, as any good reactionary should be. after all, it was malthus who proclaimed that the laws of the market are the laws of god (yes the free market is based in theology...the invisible hand etc et al)...and that the poor should not be granted charity for it would interfere with god's will to smite them with a brutal life for their own incompetence. pretty much sums up the rightwing view of social policy. the poor deserve to starve to death because god hates them...or they're just lazy etc et al.
as for illegal immigration...I do think its a problem. Canada would never accept not being able to decide who gets to come here. we love immigrants, they're the backbone of our society and economy...but, we get to choose the best and brightest (although recently more of the rich ones than the brightest). the problem i have with this crazy border-wall talk is its not confined to the southern one. enough of the bullsh*t that the trrorists are coming from canada. we (Can & US) used to celebrate the fact that we shared the world's longest undefended border. but now we're lumped in with all the other republicon bogeymen. canada is not a threat...so save your money on these bogus border measures in the north.
Don't get too cocky, we're keeping an eye on you.
With your slavery and drug-running and whatnot.We're onto you.
With your serviettes and your ski-doos.Not fooling me.
The "Pencil Knecked Bow-Tie Yuppie-Puppie" has quite a mouth on him, yet he or his has never had to step up to pay the consequence of such bad ass smack they seem intoxicated by.
The Pundits on Cable are falling all over themselves to be the next "Tony Snow" or "Goebbels" of the American Fascism they seem devoted to.
Whatever happened to Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Howard K. Smith, and the like? They were professional journalists, and there for needed to be vilified and slandered, and taken off the air. Which they and their kind have been.
Happy Thoughts;
Dan Grady
There was an article in my local paper (Deep South state) recently about a meeting being held in the state capital focusing on immigration, where the reporter tied the issue of immigration to prostitution/sexual slavery.
Unless you live under a rock, it's no secret that issues related to sex mobilize the ultra-conservative base like no other issues. The Right is desperately trying to reframe the issue away from destitute families looking for a hand up, into "they [immigrants] are all monsters, sexual deviants, etc."
Williams' comment about the ICBMs is just plain nutty... and they call *us* moonbats?? ROTFLMAO.
Is William calling for us to bomb American soil? Has he gotten to the point of lunacy that dictates, "We shall bomb ourselves to save ourselves?" What a nut job!
That whole segment sounded crazy to me... until Greenfield came on and admitted he had no solution (instead of suggesting a 1,000-plus mile long wall built by illegal immigrants).
I'd just like to say, as a native Californian, I never heard of "reconquista" until I started watching news clips from Media Matters.
...my guess would be that the guy was cracking wise. Maybe not the brightest punch line ever delivered but at least a sense of humor. Where's yours?
your tired, your poor your huddled masses. This is America you jerk-offs, land of the endentured and home of the scared. You bunch of free loaders act as if freedom is free...morons. You have no inalienable right to pursue the American dream. You have no right to desire to live in the greatest nation on earth....buncha pansies. We have the bomb and we determine what is right and what is wrong...and you are all wrong.
Does that about sum it up?
Ain't it grand how, once you've started to live the oxymoronic lifestyle, it gets easier and easier?
"Freedom isn't Free" is one of my favorite bumper stickers.Very retro, "PEACE IS WAR", 1984-ish.
Trashing the rules of war supports the troops.
The government telling adults who they can marry is protecting marriage AND keeping the Gov out of your life.
And sending other peoples kids off to fight is very courageous.
Man. that feels good.
Conservatives today can't persuade the public to follow them without couching their 'ideas' in contradictory language.
No child left behind, aka promote competition with standarized testing. Reward the winners, forsake the losers.
Clear skies act, aka let the polluters decide how much they want to pollute.
Tort reform, aka cap the damage awards that the general public can seek in remuniration from unethical businesses.
And the list continues.
Keep on keepin' on HBL.
Tucker is well within his rights to ask the question about environmentalists complete silence on the issue of our liberal immigration policies. Environmentalists who are overwhelmingly Democrats, have been for the most part silent on the subject of population increase due to illegal immigration. Don't they care that in less then 100 years our population will double? That the majority of that astronomic increase is from legal and illegal immigration plus their descendants? Don't they care how our infrastructure and resources, already strained, will be tested and strained to the limits as our population expands? Or are they just caught between their commitment to the environment and their political favoritism towards liberal immigration laws? Many Deomocrats in general are silent on this issue and that's a damn shame. I'm a Democrat And I speak out on it as often as possible.
I really don't understand this apathy and in some cases exuberance over reaching 300 million on our way to 600 million in less then 100 years. When do we as a nation of civilized, rational people take a look at history and reality and admit that sooner or later we have to slow down the growth?
Are we embarrassed to admit in a democratic free society that there are limits to freedom in growth and population? Will political correctness, keep us from discussing pulling back immigration levels to replacement levels, because it hurts certain ethnic groups feelings. Will political correctness allow us to increase our population astronomically until we are at the edge of an abyss? A critical point where humanity will be forced to make crucial decisions we could have made earlier with the added benefit of time and population numbers on our side. Why do we have to wait till it's almost to late? Why make our country a great petrii dish to experiment in? How far can we go before we begin to break?
Hey Netram;
Longwinded way to say the make hay of avoiding the obvious answers.
We have had the answer to illegal immigration for over 40 years, and the Republicans have resisted methodically. They put up fences, send troops, vilify immigrants, and make racial slurs; but what they won't do is solve the problem.
Cesar Chavez made the obvious proposal in the 60's that if employers were made to pay the fines under existing laws, and if employers of illegal immigrants were made to hire only legally documented, unionized workers we would be debating issues of how to democratize Mexico and modernize their economic model.
We keep wallowing in the mud, when the obivous answer has been ignored for 40 years. Republicans are so adicted to the most devisive commentary that doing the job right takes away a half of the issues they have left to campaign on.
Happy Thoughts;
Dan Grady
While population growth IS a serious global problem that must be dealt with, panicking & resorting to draconian measures of immigration control WON'T HELP! You're assuming that population growth will continue on unabated if we don't crack down hard on illeagals. History disputes this belief.
Virtually every immigrant group that has turned up on our shores has been met with the same concern. Their rate of population growth has been far greater than that of the natives. And every time, their population growth has slowed within a generation or two, until it nearly identically matched that of the general population.
Education is the key historical element. The higher that education rates grow among ANY demographic, the lower the birth rates. This cuts across ALL ethnic groups, regardless of cultural, racial, & religious factors. And every immigrant group HAS raised its education rates once the opportunity has presented itself to them.
The higher the education rates, the lower the birth rates. The more education that people achieve, the fewer children they choose to have. Education opens up possibilities to people that they wouldn't otherwise have. It is the ultimate modifier of traditional behaviors.
Now, this is not to suggest that I think that illegal immigration is not an issue that needs to be addressed. We DO need to at least SLOW the now unchecked numbers of people crossing our borders, because it is occurring in at rates that ARE finally suppressing wages... particularly in the construction trades. I'm just saying that it is essential that we not all freak out & begin seeing immigrants... legal or not... as the subhuman barbarians that they are too often being portrayed as in the corporate media. They're human beings, for God's sake... with the same essential humanity as EVERY SINGLE F*CKING POSTER ON THIS SITE! They have the SAME dreams & desires as the rest of us, & are as easily hurt & aggrieved. We need to stop demonizing them & portraying them as some sort of mindless plague of locusts.
Now, I didn't mean to go off on Netram. I'm not suggesting that you are an immigration nazi. You seems quite intelligent actually. I'm just urging you to keep this problem in perspective, & to remember that these are human beings that we are talking about. Solutions do exist. If we panic, though, & resort to harsh measures, we will create bigger problems than we are solving.
It is the overproduced, government subsidized agricultural goods that are exported to South America that drive down the price of food. This cheap, accessible food creates less demand for homegrown produce which displaces native farm workers. They can go work in a factory for 5 dollars a day or they can come to the U.S. and start trying to work their families out of destitution.
Meanwhile, instead of clamoring for a fair market in which the taxpayers subsidize local growers and family farmers, the taxpayers are funding agrigiants to flood the global market with cheap food.
Folks can moan about undocumented workers in the U.S. but it is the conservative model of the 'free market' that brought them here.
Most importantly, immigrants are human beings and deserve to live with dignity. Their labor provides benefits for the common good, they deserve access to the commonwealth.
Mescal:
You would not be a Mexican, now would you?
In California we have lost 87 Hospital Emergency rooms, 70% cannot graduate from LAUSD, 10 billion a year is lost to the Illegals that are Invading us from Mexico.
They are stealing American Jobs and driving wages down by under cutting American Workers.
They are Human Beings that have no right to be here because they have not crossed our Borders Legally.
Throwing the employers in jail would be a great thing but allowing them to stay is Illegal and wrong. They should all be deported.
Most of the Illegals coming from Mexico are illiterate in their own language, Spanish, let alone illiterate in English.
Why should Americans be forced to subsidize Illegals just because they are Human Beings? Should we subsidize the millions in Africa and Asia that want to come her too?
Some of my ancestors arrived in Boston in the 17th Century, fleeing Cromwell & the civil war that was rocking England. Others came from Ireland 2 centuries later, fleeing the Famine, & the genocidal policies of the British. In other words, their common factor was that they were economic & political refuges. They didn't ask anyone's permission to do come here, as they were hardly seeking after ways of making their survival MORE problematic. They simply did what they had to. They quickly surged out onto the frontiers, hunting, & farming, & doing whatever else offered them the possibility of a better life, & you know what? They never even asked permission from the native Americans who were the legal occupiers of this entire continent. They just kept moving their feet until better opportunities could be found.
I try & keep that in mind when passing judgement on the 'illegal' actions of others. In fact, I like to think that if I WERE an impoverished citizen of Mexico that I would cross that border in a shot, & do my best to secure a better future for my family & myself. That is, after all, what MY ancestors did.
Wouldn't you?
Maybe its just me, but do I notice a certain distain on your part toward Mexicans? Maybe its the fact that you insist on capitalizing the first letter of each word when you refer to them as "Human Beings." It betrays a certain reluctance on your part, I think, to consider them as part of the same species as you. Of course, maybe I'm just infering that, largely from your willingness to ascribe every problem in the world to their existence on this side of the border. Nothing like a little old fashioned scapegoating, is there?
By the way, I was born & raised in Los Angeles. The people that I work with are of as many ethnicities as can be imagined, but the largest segment is indeed hispanic. I've witnessed the immense demographic shift that has occured here in my 52 years, & I can comfortably say that I don't give a rat's ass, because they're all just as much my people as the 90% white populations of my childhood. Its individuals, after all, that we actually & substantially connect with. Race & ethnicity are the poorest indicators of a persons charactor & trustworthiness.
If I've misjudged the intentions of your post, then I apologise. I hope that I AM wrong. I look forward to hearing from you that you do indeed recognise the basic humanity of ALL people,& not just of those who look & sound like you.
Quite an achievement, when you and the so-called President can barely speak English. Perhaps these illegal immigrants can also help Tucker with Geography, given he beleves that Puerto Ricans in the US are immigrants. There was once an honest media in this country. Now, it has descended into the sewers, spewing bile. Perhaps, one day we will go back to the days of Morrow and Moyes, when honesty, integrity and accountabilitymeant something. Perhaps, it might be a stretch, but it would be nice to have oppsing points of view.
the photos of these "commentators" at the top of this page and I'm having trouble determining their tribal origins...Cherokee? Iroquois? Seminole? Anyone? Bueller?
You come to Media Matters and try to RACIALLY PROFILE two guys on TV because you don't like what they said?! How did you get in here?
BTW, I have heard both of these guys on the radio. Sam is outspokenly proud of being a self-hating Jew and Williams calls himself "indigenous to the United States". When challenged on that to the point of indicating where his people came from he points out that "American Indians are immigrants via the Bearing Strait" . Sometimes he will go off on a rant about being an "African American" because "science has traced all of our DNA to the same biped."
All in all Williams is the first right-winger I have ever heard point out the plain fact that illegal immigration is driven by a 21st Century version of the same plantation mentality that made rich men of 4-centuries of Dutch (and other) slave traders and Southern US "gentlemen" and that what we see is not people swarming toward hope, but is in fact an exploitation of mostly brown and mostly Spanish speaking people by global corporate interests.
It is shocking that somebody in this forum would defend that by attempting a racist attack on the speakers.
Perhaps, you miss the point. These guys obviously share a common history of immigration. Their ancestry (apparently) is not that of indigenous people to North America.
Did JSCOTT make a true statement? Who knows. Did he make a racist statement? No.
No, you miss the point. There are no people indigenous to North Americ, or anywhere else on the planet outside of Africa, Kenya to be precise. There is no evidence of human, or any hominid anywhere in this hemisphere beyond 30,000 years ago. For that matter, evidence of humans here before around14,000 years ago is in dispute.
What is the point of racially profiling these guys on TV if not to attack their race?
You are taking a statement, based on a commonly held presumption that native Americans are indigenous to N. America and refuting it with specific sociologic/paleologic findings that may or may not be common knowledge. Don't get me wrong, educating folks on the finer points prehistoric hominid migration is swell in my book.
Where we sharply diverge is your accusation of racism. Based on commonly held precepts; native Americans were here first. Based on actual fact; native Americans were here before Europeans. So, if you are not native American, i.e. Cherokee, Iroquois or Seminole as JSCOTT put it, then you are most likely an immigrant. And as such, having immigrant ancestry, would seemingly preclude sensible folks from bashing immigrants. That's all. Just my interpretation. You are welcome to yours.
bash immigrants. Now, the issue over Illegal Immigration is different.
I was born in the United States. My brother in law from South America was an immigrant, he ceased being an immigrant the day he took the oath of citizenship 4 years ago. Another relative by marriage was and remains an immigrant because she chooses to retain her native citizenship, which is fine, she is here legally.
There is no reason to bring race into the discussion of legal versus illegal immigration unless the purpose is to divide the discussion along ethnic lines for the purposes of defending the continuing exploitation of the oppressed.
The race card is always pulled out of a deperate deck of cards on here.
"All in all Williams is the first right-winger I have ever heard point out the plain fact that illegal immigration is driven by a 21st Century version of the same plantation mentality that made rich men of 4-centuries of Dutch (and other) slave traders and Southern US "gentlemen" and that what we see is not people swarming toward hope, but is in fact an exploitation of mostly brown and mostly Spanish speaking people by global corporate interests."
Except for the difference that Europeans and Americans forcefully detained then subjugated their captives with torture, I'm with you on the global corporate interest part. Also, that 'plantation mentality' is part and parcel of the prevailing free market model. A model that views labor as a resource to be exhausted as cheaply as possible.
...in the world of human traffickers. How about 16,000 cases of actual slavery investigated by the US Justice Department - just last year alone - nearly all involving Latinas sold to whore houses (Chinese women frequently suffer the same fate. Those not marketable as whores wind up in sweat shops)?
How about MS13 & The 18th Street Gang and their collection of enforcers, mules and "workers" either purchased from coyotes or obtained by those gangs own human trafficking operations?
Does the Iowa meat packing plant staffed by illegals have any less control over them than did the overseer have over his boss' Africans?
Do you think these people volunteer for this? Those who are not here to be intentional criminals (beyond the obvious collection of laws they break simply by being here) are the prey of those who are here to be intentional criminals. They offer false hope of opportunity and more frequently than not wind up owning the illegal alien or someone close and dear...like his wife or daughters.
How anybody in this forum can defend that, or attack the messenger - Williams, Carlson or otherwise just boggles my mind.
Take a pill or something you jerk. I was pointing to the pitfalls of the 'free market economy' and how that perpetuates the cycle to which you are alluding.
As for the rest of your post, provide some links for your information. I'll check the DOJ website.
...if I misunderstood or if my tone put you off. Please understand that human rights abuses greatly offend me and illegal immigration is perhaps the most flagrant human rights abuse within our power to directly address. Yet when I come to his forum I see speculation over what the facial features of three guys on TV indicates about their heritage...as if that has anything to do with anything other than to define their "standing" or lack of standing to voice a valid opinion on the matter!
Fact is these conservatives are right! They are as frightened of the implications of a free market as are you. They understand that exploitation of the oppressed is a natural consiquence of a Darwinian approach to economics, and enslavement is enslavement even if it comes cloaked in a veneer of compassion. Right wingers don't want to be dominatted by corporate interests any more than they want to be dominated by statist or collective interests contrary to their own. That is why most of America embraces a mixed approch that strives for maximum freedom coupled with ever adapting rules that attempt to level the playing field. To our credit we are the first society on Earth to ever even make the attempt at such equality and with each failure we learn and adjust as best we can. They see illegal immigration as an undermining of that principle by the very same plantation mentality that ripped this nation apart with so much moral agony that we broke down into war, despite the world wide acceptance at the time of the slave trade as a legitimate business.
Take note of the fact that every poll that can be cited shows mainstream and conservative America totally disgusted with both the right and the left on this issue. Dubya gets more grief from his own base on this issue than he does from the left!
So please pardon me, the guys on TV and their blood lines are totally meaningless to me and they should be to Jscott and everybody else.
...and to answer the question of how I know and came to understand what is in the last two posts..... For starters; I listen to what is said and pay no attention at all to the color of the face from which the words come.
Then I proceed to avail myself of as much information as I can absorb while maintaining a life. Then and only then do I form an opinion, which itself is subject to change upon the offer of new information or changed circumstances.
I find books a wonderful source of mind-expanding information as well. For example "Limits to Friendship" is a fine work that provides the very basics of US - Mexican relations and is a fine starting point for understanding the foundational issues between the two government institutions and that have caught Mexicans (and US citizens to a lesser extent) in the middle.
A few conversations with people on both sides of the border can provide you with more information than you could ever get here. Perhaps your next vacation should be in one of the interior Mexican states? I have done that, mostly because I love Mexico and Latino culture and spend time there. You will also hear much of the racist oligarcy that has had a death grip on Mexico (with the full support of the US) for 150 years and the unholy alliance between it, corrupt US political figures of all politcal bents, and international corporations to export Mexicans to the US for exploitation. This allows an importation of the Third World to do those remaining jobs in America that cannot be outsourced to the Third World...like ag business, hospitality, etc... This denies the working man in America his birthright job and the Mexican his human rights.
I only mention Mexico because it is the primary target of the effort. The free market nets sweep up anybody within reach but Mexico is thier target for this hemisphere.
And I too apologize. I was wrong about your intentions and responded rashly from the start. Your post to JSCOTT seemed to read like a smarmy partisan attack, that kind of stuff happens all too often here. You have a very balanced view of the problems of the market and its human entanglements and I thank you for sharing.
This site highlights the worst aspects of conservatism and as I don't have cable TV I don't see the full context of many of these clips. I'm at a disadvantage and should just hush most of the time concerning these pundits.
Keep on keepin' on, RADIOWATCHER.
[link to ccir.net]
I have been personally affected by a illegal immigrant male prostitution ring here in the bay area. A young mevican kid about 18 years of age, paying his way into America John by John.... That is Slavery and Prostitution. How could I get mad at him, for it was his pimp that should be shot.
not make a racist comment. If you're not referring to JScott, then who made a racist comment? I took his/her comment to be irony, not racist in any way.
....than why was it made? I ask again: what is the purpose of noting the ethnic heritage of any of those people on TV is not to create an artificial racial divide? I don't know about them, but I even though I look white I am a total mutt with any number of blood lines, some of them found in people far more exoctic looking than I.
Only a full-blown biggot filters words spoken through the color of the face that speaks them. How vile!