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There was a massive ICE raid a couple of days ago on the east side of Madison, one which I apparently missed by mere moments. The Madison law enforcement were NOT notified of this, as stated by both Mayor Soglin and Police Chief Koval...though, of course, their primary concern (at least on the air) was "breakdown in communications" rather than "Jesus fuck, WHY are these people conducting damn near paramilitary raids without warning?!"

There is a way to fight illegal immigration. This is not how. Instead of enforcing the laws we have and going after the causes of the problem--this being large businesses like meatpacking plants who bring illegals in as essentially slave labor--they go after the individuals themselves. Not only is this about as useful as locking the barn door after the horse bolts, not only is it a tacit wink and nod to said virtual slavers, but it ends up being open season on these people. Because they're illegal (presumably; we do NOT know everyone targeted in these raids is!), they are not truly human in the eyes of many, and I guaran-fucking-tee you the kind of person who signs up for ICE is even less likely to see them as human beings than the average Joe or Jane on the street.

It's Happening Here.

"Oh, it's JUST the spics," people will say. "They ought not to come here illegally," they say. Well, that last one is true, but they ARE here, and how we deal with them speaks to who and what we are as a nation. There are better ways to handle this. What is being done is possibly the worst way aside from simply rounding up any suspected illegal immigrant and summarily executing him or her...and, frankly, not that far off. What is being done is, again, tacit approval to the big businesses profiting off these peoples' vulnerability in the first place.

One of the reasons I am not a fan of Franklin D. Roosevelt for any reason aside from his economic policy is because he ran internment camps. Or as they are better and more properly called, *concentration camps.* And I don't know how else to describe what ICE is doing in these so-called "detention centers." If you ask me, "detention center" is to concentration camp as "enhanced interrogation methods" is to *torture.* Call it what you want, but if it concentrates "undesireables" it's a concentration camp.

It's Happening Here.

Because people say it can't happen here, when it *is* happening here, they refuse to understand that it is. It's not in their worldview. This is why the euphemism treadmill that, among others, George Carlin called out for its dishonesty and evil is so sinisterly effective: because It Can't Happen Here, when it *does* happen here, people will latch onto anything to believe that it's not happening here.

It's Happening Here.

What's next? Where is this going? Once the infrastructure for concentration camps is in place, once warrant standards are lax and paramilitary action against citizens is legalized, once we have secret courts, once We The People "have a reason" to suspend the Constitution--whose basic clauses apply to EVERYONE, NOT just citizens!--a turnkey fascist state is in place, just waiting for the right crisis to come along, or indeed, to be manufactured.

It's Happening Here. First they came for the illegal immigrants...