Table
of Contents
1.
Introduction
2. The Waukegan Music Festival Controversy
3.
Young Waukegan Residents Urged to Join Police Force
4. Council Tolerates Poor Set of Local Career Opportunities
5. Why the Council Urges Cooperation with the Census
6. Census Carries Deportation Danger
7. Local and State Government Must Avoid Betraying the People
8. Religion in the Public Square
9.
Conclusion
Content
1.
Introduction
My name is Joe Kopsick, I'm originally from
Lake Bluff, and moved to Waukegan a year and a half ago.
When
I last spoke here, on July 15th,
I talked about garage sales, the census, immigration, and permits. I
meant to explain my criticism of the casino approval, but I didn't
have time then, so I'll address it today. But not before sharing my
thoughts about the Waukegan Music Festival.
2.
The Waukegan Music Festival Controversy
At
that last city council meeting, a citizen shared her concern that it
might be a case of illegal taxpayer fraud, that the mayor appears in
advertisements for the Waukegan Music Festival. I feel that that
citizen's concerns were not adequately explained.
Please
imagine, for a moment, that someone else is the mayor of Waukegan. We
don't know the person's name. But they're facing re-election, like
all mayors do. If the mayor's name, likeness, and/or title, appear in
advertisements for public events, then it's reasonable to expect that
that incumbent mayor would get an edge in the election, because of
that ad, right?
We
should not blame the current mayor personally for the fact that he
has
appeared in advertisements for public events, because – as he
explained - this is a tradition which was started by an earlier
mayor. But we can
blame the mayor who started
it (if
indeed this is an improper and illegal use of taxpayer funds). We
can't blame Mayor Cunningham for starting this tradition, but we can
blame him if he doesn't end
it.
Elected officials – or at least those whom are incumbents and are
actively running - gain an unfair advantage from being allowed to
appear in ads for public events. The issue of whether this
constitutes taxpayer fraud, should best be decided by either the
Illinois Supreme Court, or by the voters gathered here in this room;
not through a shouting match between the mayor and an alderman.
The
city council allowed the mayor to be his own judge, and acquit
himself, without any charges being filed. The mayor should have done
the legally appropriate thing, and recused
himself from
this controversy, seeing as he is a party to it. Either the state
Supreme Court should be consulted on the legality of this matter; or
if there is no question about the illegality of these ads, then
charges should be filed against the mayor (and/or the city department
that plans public events).
The appearance of incumbent candidates in advertisements for public
events, unfairly hurts the election chances of new candidates who
wish to unseat incumbents, whom should have the same chance as the
current mayor to get elected. Finally, the name of the festival
should not contain the name, nor title, of any public
official, for all the reasons I have explained above.
3. Young Waukegan Residents Urged to Join Police Force
I have to express my concern about the city council congratulating
high school students, who have their whole lives ahead of them, to
sign up to be police officers. Eighteen-year-olds may be adults, but
they are not old enough to decide whether to sign up to work as
police officers and soldiers.
What
would you sacrifice to make sure that your child has a good career?
Would you sacrifice their very health and safety? Police and military
recruits are often subjected to being pepper
sprayed and tased.
Military recruits are injected with strange mixes of chemicals that
they're never told what it is.
Do
Waukegan parents really think that whatever their kids are getting
paid,
is enough to offset the emotional and
medical cost of
enduring beatings in the military, and an onslaught of poisonous
chemicals? Is this what you're willing to put your kid through, in
order to secure them a job?
We're
told that we're supposed to be proud
when young adults – especially racial minorities – join the
police force. “Make the police look like the communities they
serve”, they tell us. Well, it just so happens that tyrannical
regimes throughout history, have co-opted the local communities, and
found members of them who were willing to sell all the others out,
and chalked it up as a mark of social progress and racial equality.
For example: European colonizers got African tribal chiefs drunk,
and bribed them into letting the colonizers round up their people as
slaves. Other colonizers got Native American tribal chiefs drunk, and
bribed and defrauded them into letting them claiming the land and
kick everybody off. When the Nazis conquered Ukraine, Poland, and
Western Russia, they found local military leaders who were willing to
compromise with the Nazis. Similarly, the Jewish Ghetto Police
enforced Nazi rule over the ghettos (with some degree of Jewish
self-governance), while maintaining communications between imprisoned
Jews and Nazis.
Tyrannical regimes co-opted native peoples they conquered, and used
the fact that a representative has been chosen from among them, to
pretend that that conquered people has given their consent to be
ruled. It is a lie, and the idea that more minority police officers
will improve a deeply racist, intrinsically violent law enforcement
mechanism, is a complete hallucination.
We
should not be encouraging our children to join the police force,
especially not at such a young age. God forbid they get shot to death
at the age of 18; not even in a war zone, but on
the streets of America while
doing their job (when they could have chosen any other job, most of
them much safer for a young adult whom, again, has their whole life
ahead of them).
Lastly,
I must note that I find it laughable that the city noted that the
students present, decided to become police officers because of their
feeling that “being a cop isn't just for the stupid kids”. I
mean, if these are the smart kids, I'd hate
to see the stupid
kids!
Especially the ones who want to become cops. By the way, I hope the
city council warns those students against becoming police officers in
New Jersey, where courts have ruled it's legal to refuse
to hire police applicants if their I.Q. is too high.
Because I'm not so sure that the world has any need for smart cops;
not until we start training them to de-escalate
violence
(instead of escalate it) in the course of carrying out orders.
4. Council Tolerates Poor Set of Local Career Opportunities
And
what career opportunities the graduates of Waukegan High School have
these days! Why, they can volunteer for the police, and get pepper
sprayed and tased as part of training! Hell, why not bring police
training directly
to the high school,
as one town down south did? Why not tase and pepper spray these kids
right in their
classrooms!?
God knows that school security officers have tased and pepper sprayed
younger children in public school classrooms in recent years; why
stop now?
But suppose the kid doesn't want to be a cop. They can go to Great
Lakes Naval Station, and sign up to be in the military! And be
injected with mysterious chemicals, and routinely beaten up as part
of basic training, for a very difficult to determine amount of money.
Fantastic.
If
your kid doesn't want to be a cop or a soldier, luckily, that new
casino
is coming to town! Your 17- and 18-year-old daughters can take this opportunity
to work at the casino, dealing cards or serving drinks to older men.
Men who will probably leer at them, and get away with it because your
child will be expected to flirt with them as part of earning tips.
Swell.
Don't want your kid to be a cop, soldier, casino employee, or
bartender? Well, she can work at Medline, or a cement company, or the
local Sterigenics plants. Why not help her make some money polluting
the air that we all have to breathe?
Waukegan City Council, you are not protecting us. You're not
protecting our job opportunities, because none of them are any damn
good. You're not protecting public health, nor public safety. And
you're not protecting our children's prospects for a clean
environment, and a future with decent, honest, respectable careers.
5.
Why the Council Urges Cooperation with the Census
Anyone
who was paying attention during the last meeting, will remember
exactly why
the city council urged us to cooperate with the 2020 U.S. Census
survey. The first reason was that a court ruled that the Trump
Administration could not include the citizenship question on it. But
I ask the members of the city council: What will you do to protect
us, if the administration insists on including it anyway (whether
they figure out how to do it legally or not)?
The Constitution authorizes the federal government and its census
takers to collect no information other than the number of
people. All questions about ethnicity, race, religion, country of
origin or birth, and citizenship, are thus illegal, and laws
providing for those questions to be asked are unconstitutional. We
cannot legally be obligated to answer any of those questions, and I
urge residents not to answer them.
The second reason why the city council urged us to cooperate with
the census, is that our elected officials use the census to make
money off of us. Making sure that everyone participates in the
census, is how government makes sure that congressional districts
have equal numbers of people. But the number of people in the
district also secures that district federal funding, as
part of its “equal share” of federal funding. Of course, it
matters to almost nobody that spending and the tax burden are
not shared anywhere near equally by the districts and states.
But the fact that equality is not furthered in determining where
these districts lie, should show that the census's main purpose is to
secure whatever funding the district can manage to get.
This is nothing more than a scam to defraud us, the voters and
taxpayers and residents, of our financial power (through our right to
those funds), and our legal power (through allowing our elected
officials to take away some of our power of attorney, and in so
doing, to appropriate more of those federal funds towards themselves
and their own offices than towards We the People).
6. Census Carries Deportation Danger
Aside from the census being a money-making scheme for our
legislators, it is also a plot to track us, and harvest
our private personal information. Government-regulated credit rating
agencies and banks routinely lose millions upon millions of
people's personal information; do you really trust government to
handle your personal information wisely?
Moreover, the census could potentially be used as a way to round-up
non-citizens and other “undesirables” or “enemies of the
state”. I repeat, what do you – the city council – plan to do,
if the Trump Administration goes forward with its plan to include a
citizenship question on the 2020 Census (whether legally or
illegally)?
Well, I know what you're going to do; You're going to urge
cooperation at all times, because to do otherwise would be against
the law, and the opposite of what you're supposed to do as elected
officials. Which is to urge faith in all public institutions at all
times. And you might think that elected officials and police have an
obligation to do their jobs, and do as ordered.
But if your job is to threaten force against people who entered this
country illegally but without threatening force themselves, then your
job is immoral, and you doing your job conflicts with the public's
moral obligation to peacefully resist unjust laws.
The Waukegan City Council should urge Governor J.B. Pritzker to
instruct the Illinois National Guard, and all public police in
Illinois, to refrain from cooperating with federal authorities. And
that goes for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.), and
agents of the 2020 census, alike. That's because the vast majority
of these agencies' activities (and questions) are unconstitutional.
Under no circumstances should the Illinois public be urged to
cooperate with federal authorities in pursuit of these
unconstitutional aims. The governor should immediately issue an order
nullifying the federal law which authorized I.C.E.; effectively
removing the authority of I.C.E. to operate legally within the
boundaries of the State of Illinois. If necessary, Illinois National
Guard troops should be mobilized to arrest federal troops or agents,
and/or prevent more of them from entering the State of Illinois, if
they insist on enforcing unconstitutional federal laws.
7. Local and State Government Must Avoid Betraying the People
Just as the Waukegan City Council is doing its residents no service
to help them find a clean environment or decent careers, it is also
doing them no service to recommend that they cooperate with the Trump
Administration.
Even if the administration doesn't use the census to carry out
deportations, it's deporting peaceful undocumented immigrants now.
I.C.E. is hassling Hispanic-Americans who were born in America now.
Seasonal farm workers are being trapped in America at the end of
harvest season, and mocked and driven into the shadows for being here
illegally (through no fault of their own), now. Immigrants are
being funneled away from points of entry where they could
easily declare asylum, and instead are forced to trek through
dangerous desert, now.
Whether the Trump Administration's immigration, deportation, and
census policies going forward, will be legal and constitutional or
not, why should you urge us to cooperate with those
“authorities”? Aren't you supposed to protect public safety? The
city government is supposed to work for the people, not the other way
around.
If the police and National Guard of Illinois do not come to the aid
of all non-violent residents (not just citizens who pay them)
during deportation raids, then neighbors will come together to
protect vulnerable residents of Illinois who are in the United States
without proper permission.
And if that happens, then it will be the members of local government
– of this city council - who will have urged resident and police
cooperation with federal authorities, whom will be remembered as the
people who urged cooperation with a blatantly authoritarian regime,
and nearly suckered us into becoming fascist collaborators (in
turning-in our undocumented neighbors).
The Waukegan City Council is either against fascism and for its own
people, or else it is against its own people and it is enabling the
fascist Trump Administration and the companies that are polluting our
air and our social culture. Now is the time to choose.
8. Religion in the Public Square
Finally, I must express my dismay at the fact that these city
council meetings begin with a public prayer. Participating in the
prayer may be voluntary, but for some 98% of audience members to
stand at being urged to pray for the officials here gathered today,
should by any reasonable person's standards constitute at least the
appearance of government endorsement of religion (even if not
some particular religion).
The people should not be instructed to pray for their legislators.
If it is a legislator's job to be concerned with the problems and
salvation of the people, then if anything, it's the legislators
who should be instructed to pray for the people, not the other
way around.
Residents, look at the way your elected officials are gathered
before you. How was Jesus displayed when he was crucified? He was
elevated, as a mark of sarcastic reverence towards someone who
was said to be a king. Well, your elected officials are elevated in
front of you too. Of course, modern legislative chambers and
courtrooms are modeled after royal courts; so it should be
obvious that this was done intentionally. Under monarchies, kings got
their power from God, and everyone below the king (including judges)
got their power from the king, who got it from God.
Fellow citizens, I came to the Waukegan City Council meeting on a
Monday evening. I did not come here to pray. I did not
come here to watch 98% of you turn this place, intended to promote
civic engagement, into a place where we pray for our king as if we
were in feudal times, ask the government to answer our prayers, agree
to sacrifice our own neighbors for the sake of federal funds and the
illusion of civil order, and agree to sacrifice our children's health
and safety for the sake of humiliating jobs and depreciating money.
9. Conclusion
Waukegan City Council: You have no intention of protecting us
against fascist federal authorities enforcing unconstitutional
deportation orders. You are poisoning your people physically and
morally. You are behaving as if the public commons were a church. You
are thus a usurpation of God. Everything you are doing is wrong and
has no authority, because it comes from neither God nor the people.
I urge the people to arm themselves, and to resist the census. The
federal government has the authority to establish a uniform rule
of naturalization, not to enforce it, nor to establish any
other types of immigration policy; and the federal government has no
obligation to collect census data in addition to the number of
people.
Moreover, the governor would be fully within his right to nullify
I.C.E., deportation orders, and additional census questions, and in
so doing make Illinois a “Sanctuary State” (although I would not
recommend that this designation be made in a way that secures
Illinois federal funds). Thus, I also urge the people, and the
police, to refuse to cooperate with federal authorities enforcing all
immigration laws.
The Waukegan City Council, and Governor J.B. Pritzker, have a
decision to make: Whether they are on the side of freedom and the
American people, or whether they want government to be a religious
cult, in which we may trust nobody to solve our problems, except for
the elected officials who happen to be in charge at the moment. And
those officials may only attempt to solve those problems by enforcing
whatever set of laws happens to be on the books.
The Waukegan City Council does the youth of this community no
service, by ruining their respect for the importance of civic
engagement for the remainder of their lives, by blindly urging
cooperation with - and trust in – government, even when the
officials and laws we are expected to trust have authoritarian and
fascist intentions.
But even if the city council does put a generation of young adults
off of the idea that the government deserves to be trusted, then
frankly, so be it; it's not such a bad thing after all. Because
government doesn't work - more bad untested laws and more violent
enforcement don't work – and so, we should not teach young
people to trust the government. If we do, then the next thing you
know, their baby is missing, and they've been pepper-sprayed in the
eyes, injected with toxic chemicals, and handed a wad of cash.
Until the Waukegan City Council can start offering more than words
when criticizing the Trump Administration's desire to implement
legislation they know damn well is unconstitutional – if the
council could offer condemnation and plans for action – then
it could show a generation of young Waukegan residents that America
is about not only civic engagement but also freedom and resistance to
tyranny, and that the American people stood up to fascism, and will
stand up to it again.
Edited on August 19th, 2019
