I’m Not The Only One

The other day I came across the term “voodoo economics” while reading some nonsense written by Paul Krugman.

The term really gets under my skin for two reasons.  But before I get into that, a brief explanation as to to what voodoo economics refer and a history of the term. (more…)

The following is in response to “A Letter From A Republican to Hispanics” by Dennis Prager.  Reading will more easily put the following into its proper context.

Prager begins by addressing all the illegal aliens within America’s Latino community, despite the fact that most Latinos are not only here legally, but were born here.  And of those of us born here, the majority of us are not “anchor babies” but the descendants of immigrants and of people already residing in the lands the U.S. has conquered (i.e., Puerto Rico, two-thirds of Mexico known today as the U.S. southwest, Texas, etc.) whose ancestors became U.S. residents (not citizens, at least not right away, and certainly not first-class citizens) not by choice but by as a result of Manifest Destiny, the sick ideology that demands the United States dominate the entire Western Hemisphere. (more…)

If you’re not familiar with the term, Mexican hunting refers to a recent practice of white Americans (some blacks, too, although to a lesser extent) of looking for people who “look” Mexican and then beating them, sometimes to death.  Of course, for most white people, almost all Latinos can be visually mistaken for a Mexican.  Already, an Ecuadorian immigrant has been beaten to death and a Colombian immigrant was almost beaten to death.

It’s great to see that blacks and whites in America have transcended their rocky historical relations to come together to attack Latinos. I also find it interesting that this sort of violence is primarily taking place in states like California, New Jersey and New York and not places like Arkansas, Georgia or Arizona. (more…)

Yeah, I figured that headline would catch your attention.

How does legalizing drugs keep Mexicans from  illegally crossing our borders, or even encourage those already in the U.S. to go back where they came from?  To answer that  question, we first have to understand why they’re leaving, and it isn’t just because of a lack of economic opportunity.

Mexicans are leaving their country in droves because of the Mexican Drug War, which is in reality the United States imposing its will on Mexico to find and capture producers and traffickers of illegal drugs.   Our neighbor to the south is literally engaged in a civil war between the Mexican government and Mexican drug cartels. In 2005 the Pew Hispanic Center, a division of the Pew Research Center, released the results of a poll which indicated that 40% of Mexicans stated they would come to the United States if they had the means and opportunity to do so, and 20% said they would come to the U.S. illegally.  I’ve heard this poll quoted over and over in news stories regarding immigration (almost all immigration stories involve Mexicans, as if all illegal aliens were from Mexico).  Has anyone ever asked why so many people are tempted to leave their homeland?  Has anyone ever asked what the hell is going on in Mexico that so many Mexicans feel this way? (more…)

Well, every Latino blogger seems to have something to say about the whole mess in Arizona, so I might as well say my piece too.

The new law is ridiculous, for several reasons.  Let’s cut the bullshit and not pretend Arizona is looking to keep out illegal Canadians, Englishmen or Germans with this law.  It’s the illegal Mexican immigrants that have white Arizonans going nuts, and it’s that specific group for whom the law is intended.

Law enforcement are required to ask the legal status of anyone who “appears” as if they may be in this country illegally.  Aside from raiding the parking lot at Home Depot, how do they actually accomplish this?  How does one “look” illegal?  Furthermore, if such a thing existed as an illegal “appearance”, wouldn’t illegal aliens in Arizona deliberately change their appearance so as not to “look illegal”? (more…)

Remember John Rocker?

In 2000, John Rocker was a relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, and was actually enjoying a pretty successful career.  But that same year he said the following in a Sports Illustrated interview:

“Imagine having to take the 7 train [in Queens] to the ballpark [at Shea Stadium], looking like you’re in Beruit riding next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old Mom with four kids. It’s depressing……The biggest thing I don’t like about New York are the foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?”

That pretty much ruined his career.  He later apologized for the remarks, and upon playing the Mets later that year at Shea Staium, New York fans chanted “asshole” when he came onto the field.  Three years late his MLB career came to an abrupt end.

Fast forward 10 years.  It appears African-Americans are once again breaking the color barrier, not only in the White House but in bigotry and color prejudice as well.  In a move that probably makes John Rocker proud, Los Angeles Angels center fielder Torii Hunter, who is African-American, used an interview in USA to spew his own hateful thoughts for Latino baseball players, particularly those with dark skin, wide noses, thick lips and kinky hair. (more…)

For those who wonder why Americans are seen as ignorant and Christians are viewed as narrow-minded bigots, one only has to consider the recent remarks made by televangelist Pat Robertson about the earthquake in Haiti.

Robertson’s remarks prove that he is duly ignorant of geography, (Haiti only occupies one-third, not half of the island of Hispaniola)

Unfortunately, this aging mental midget is half right.  Haiti is cursed, but not by God or the Devil, and certainly not because the Founding Fathers of Haiti drew a pact with Satan.  Looking at history, it appears that Haiti has been cursed by first Western Europe then later by the United States. and for the unthinkable sin of being black. (more…)

Yes, this gringo said it.

Brazil totally deserves to host the Olympics.  In fact, I’m shocked they’ve never hosted it before.  Most Americans have no idea why I’m saying this, mostly because many non-Hispanic whites and blacks can’t even find Brazil on a world map. much less know enough about Brazil to understand why they should host this international event. (more…)

Am I the only one who is bewildered by the $1 billion in foreign aid President Bush has proposed for Georgia?

I was even more bewildered to learn that last year Bush gave  $63 million to Georgia, a country the size of South Carolina.  Gosh, I didn’t know the U.S. economy was doing so well we could hand out millions of dollars in a heartbeat!

The title of this post wasn’t just to catch your attention but to allude to a well-known American theme of comparing drug addiction to the Devil and Hell.  Well, for about 100 years, the United States has fallen pray again and again to an addiction of its own-international interference.

This country was founded on the principles of non-intervention as its official foreign policy,which means to avoid all wars not related to direct territorial self-defense.

George Washington advised the country to avoid “foreign entanglements”. Thomas Jefferson favored “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.” John Quincy Adams wrote that the US “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.”

We’ve certainly strayed far from the philosophies of this nation’s founders.  But where exactly did we go wrong?  Most historians claim it began with the Monroe Doctrine, a Presidential agenda laid out by President James Monroe in 1823 that declared that Europe stay out of the affairs of the newly independent nations of the Americas, and that the U.S. would not get involved in the conflicts between European nations.  The powers of western Europe were warned not to attack any nations in the New World, as any such incident would be interpreted by President Monroe as a direct threat to the United States.

Even though the U.S. at the time didn’t have the military muscle to back up their words, Europe obeyed the Monroe Doctrine, especially as these countries were losing their former colonies in the Americas and became much more interested in further colonizing Asia and Africa.

The Doctrine was viewed initially viewed in the U.S. as the country’s moral opposition to colonialism.  But the Monroe Doctrine was used by subsequent Presidents as a license to intervene in the affairs of Latin America or any country in the Western Hemisphere whenever they so pleased, resulting in the U.S. ironically becoming a colonial power itself.

As European powers backed off, the Monroe Doctrine was used to support the concept of Manifest Destiny which declared the United States should be expanded all the way to the Pacific Ocean at the expense of Mexicans and Native Americans.  After the Civil War, Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine was used to expand the U.S. beyond North America.  Manifest Destiny was invoked when the U.S. invaded Hawaii and when going to war with Spain in 1898, the U.S. justified the temporary capture of former Spanish colonies Cuba (until 1902), the Philippines (granted independence in 1946) and the permanent seizure of Guam and Puerto Rico.  Manifest Destiny was considered necessary in order to enforce the Monroe Doctrine.

As you can see, interventionism can be very much like a drug, especially when one nation is unopposed by far away rivals, and whose immediate neighbors are comparatively poorer and weaker.

Washington’s addiction to interventionism continued in the first half of the 20th Century, primarily in Latin America. The details of instances of U.S. intervention is too long to describe here, but I’ll give you a brief list:

• Cuba-1898-1901, 1906-1909
• Haiti-1903, 1915-1934
• Mexico-1914-1916
• Dominican Republic-1903-1905, 1905-1941
• Nicaragua-1909, 1923-1928
• Panama/Colombia-1903

There was a brief period in which the U.S. attempted to kick their interventionism habit.  During World War I, the U.S. declared war against Germany on the grounds that they were interrupting international shipping routes.  When World War II erupted in Europe, Americans refused to participate, even refusing to sell weapons or equipment to any country involved in that conflict.  The effort for the U.S. to mind its own business ended when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Since 1945, foreign intervention has become as American as apple pie.  And you thought baseball was our national pastime!

I could go on and on giving more examples of American intervention upon foreign nations, whether or not the U.S. was invited to intervene.  But the examples are numerous enough for you to find on your own.

Foreign intervention has proven time and time again to not be the key to establish diplomatic relations (interventionism is not the same as diplomacy), fight enemies, open trade markets, gain allies, or even combat domestic issues, as in the case of the War on Drugs. If anything, intervening in the affairs of foreign nations has only created more problems for the U.S., not fewer.

The greatest example I can offer on how problematic our current foreign policy can be is the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Terrorist attacks by Osama bin Laden, a man whose Al-Qaeda group was trained in military tactics by our CIA 20 years ago when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.  A man who was angered by the presence of U.S. troops stationed in Saudi Arabia to protect the oilfields because for some reason the Saudi Royal Family does not want to hire and train their own army to do this.  A man who uses U.S. support for Israel who attacks Palestinians and invades Palestine whenever they please as an excuse for his hatred of the United States.

Interventionism has a heroin-like grip on American foreign policy and has moved the United States worlds away from the non-interventionist beliefs of the men who founded this country.

I’ve been asked that question often in my life, as if being Latino and not a liberal was a crime. As if only white people had the freedom to stray from liberal ideology.

First Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign spread the offensive and far fetched rumor that Latinos were less likely to vote for a black candidate for President, loosely basing such a ridiculous idea on tensions between Mexican/Chicano gangs and African-American gangs in Los Angeles. Now, the media has chosen to embrace a more truthful assumption about the Latino vote in this country: that many Latinos vote conservatively.

This assumption is based mostly (and solidly) on how much of the Latino vote George W. Bush won in 2000 and 2004. But I think some people-namely white liberals-are often shocked that a Latino can be anything but a blindly loyal Democrat. A lot of black people are also surprised to find out I do not subscribe to liberalism. I’m surprised why more black Americans aren’t conservative. (more…)

Last Sunday was the birthday of Jose Celso Barbosa. While he is relatively unknown to most Americans, he died a hero in his native Puerto Rico. Founder of the Puerto Rican Republican Party and the movement to make Puerto Rico a state, July 27th is a legal holiday on the island.

This particular Jose Celso Barbosa Day was more politically heated than usual, as the pro-statehood Republican Party rallied for their gubernatorial candidate in Barbosa’s name.

Jose Celso Barbosa (1857-1921) accomplished a number of firsts for Puerto Ricans. He was the first mixed race person to attend Puerto Rico’s Jesuit Seminary and in 1880 graduated from Michigan University to become the first Puerto Rican to have a medical degree and the first Puerto Rican to have a degree from an American University.

After the U.S. defeated Spain in 1898 and seized Puerto Rico, Barbosa was one of the first advocates for statehood even when the U.S. barely knew what to do with their new war prize. He founded the Puerto Rican Republican Part, solidifying his legacy as the father of the Statehood for Puerto Rico Movement. He also began Puerto Rico’s first bilingual newspaper, perhaps a testament to his eagerness to have his island join the United States as an equal and shed its centuries-long history as a subservient Spanish colony.

While I would love to see an independent Puerto Rican nation, I do favor statehood as a second choice. Anything is better than remaining a colony. I believe the best solution for Puerto Ricans is for Washington to force them to choose only between independence or statehood. (more…)

I just finished reading “Revolution!: South America and the Rise of the New Left” by Nikolas Kozloff. Kozloff is no stranger to Latin America (he has a Ph.D. in Latin American History from Oxford University) and impressively demonstrates his profound knowledge of the history and politics of South America.

While U.S. foreign policy focused more on Mexico and the Middle East in the last 20 years, South America (with the exception of Colombia) was left to its own devices, without interference from their powerful neighbor to the north.  Most Americans may vaguely recall South America as a continent full of banana republics ruled by totalitarian thugs who are as corrupt as they are brutal. But as Kozloff explains in “Revolution!”, over the last few decades, the nations of South America have shed the dictatorships which held them hostage and caused many a dissident to disappear.
In its place are an array of leftist governments headed by socialist leaders like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales who seek to use their country’s newly nationalized natural resources to finance various social programs, all the while demonizing capitalism and the United States.

As Hugo Chavez has replaced Fidel Castro as the ideological enemy of the United States, it is no surprise that the bulk of the book focuses on Chavez and his Bolivarian Revolution. Not only is Chavez mentioned on almost every page (Jesus Christ gets fewer mentions in the New Testament of the Bible!) but an entire chapter is devoted to the Venezuelan President’s propaganda campaign conveyed through the country’s state-owned television stations, state-sponsored art exhibits, state-owned movie studio, state-owned publishing company and laws requiring that 50 percent of what DJs play be Venezuelan music.

Kozloff does not hesitate to expose the endless arrangements between Chavez and former Cuban President Fidel Castro, or Chavez’ lofty goal of creating institutions to rival U.S. institutions such as Mercosur, a free trade bloc between South American nations, a movie industry to rival Hollywood and El Presidente’s obsession (bordering on fetish) with Simon Bolivar, the liberator of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.
The book is an exercise in outstanding, insightful investigative journalism, a kind rarely seen in this country.  The research in Revolution dives deep into the histories of South America’s largest economies, detailing past dictatorships (many of which were supported by the U.S. in exchange for allowing American oil companies to freely drill into natural oil and gas reserves while leaving behind environmental disasters) such as the Pinochet regime in Chile, Roberto Viola in Argentina and many other military-driven coup d’etats resulting in totalitarian regimes elsewhere in the continent.

The author does a pretty good job of remaining objective, interviewing both supporters and critics of Chavez, Morales and other key players in the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru.  But Kozloff’s true political leanings as a leftist certainly come forth in his writing.  The word neo-liberal appears almost as frequently in the book as Chavez’ name does.  As I turned the pages, I could almost feel Kozloff rooting for this ideological shift in South American politics, this trend towards, as Chavez calls it, “socialism for the 21st Century”.

Revolution! is definitely an eye-opener for any American who gets all of their news from the mainstream media.  If nothing else, readers will become aware of the diverse history and political culture of South America’s nations.  That South America is not a monolithic demographic, but a cluster of neighboring societies that have fought as well as allied with each other, not unlike the countries of Europe.

After reading Revolution! it becomes obvious that the rise of the new left is not a comprehensive one in the continent, as governments focus on the social welfare aspects of socialism and not much else, as countries like Argentina, Peru and Chile shy away from the notion of mimicking Venezuela, and as Colombia remains a strong U.S. ally.

Chavez is bent on creating a South American version of the European Economic Union, with the mission of undermining U.S. supremacy in the Western Hemisphere.  But after reading Revolution! it becomes obvious that if such a union materializes in the future, it will most likely not resemble Chavez’ vision but will rather be an awkward compromise between free market principles and socialist values, with ideological differences set aside in the name of a united South America.

Hillary Clinton has remained in Puerto Rico, feverishly campaigning and telling voters there they can have it both ways, in other words, the advantages of being a U.S. state while pretending to be a sovereign nation.

Here’s a brief rundown on Puerto Rico’s current political status (To avoid confusion, I will refer to residents of Puerto Rico as Puerto Ricans and U.S. mainland residents of Puerto Rican descent as Nuyoricans): Puerto Rico has its own Olympic team and enjoys representation in the United Nations.

Puerto Ricans don’t pay federal income taxes (except for those working for federal agencies located in Puerto Rico), but pay into Social Security and Medicare. Despite paying into Social Security and Medicare, Puerto Ricans cannot receive any Social Security Income and are allocated 15 percent fewer Medicare funds than if it were a U.S. state.

Spanish is the official language with English as a widely taught second language. The U.S. dollar is the only currency used on the island and all Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, except for those few who have denounced their U.S. citizenship as a political statement. Puerto Ricans are not allowed to vote for U.S. President and only have one representative in Congress who has no vote.

Puerto Ricans are allowed to enlist in the U.S Armed Forces, and Puerto Rican men were drafted into the military during World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Puerto Rico has a National Guard but relies on the U.S. military for defense. Puerto Ricans have fought in every U.S. war since 1900.

While Puerto Rico’s political status is unclear, there’s no doubt that the relationship between the island and the U.S. is one of a colony subservient to its mother country.  To use a sports analogy, Puerto Rico isn’t on the U.S. team, and it isn’t its own team either, but rather the team’s towel boy.  Whatever goes on in Puerto Rico does so at the approval of Washington, yet Puerto Ricans have no power over the Congressmembers or President who literally reign over the island from 1,000 miles away.  Such is the life of a colony.

What few Puerto Ricans seem to understand is that when you try to have everything you end up not having much of anything.  And that’s exactly what they have.

But Hillary is telling Puerto Ricans the exact opposite: that they really can have it all.  This New York Times article quotes the following:

“At a rally on Saturday evening in Aguadilla, at the western end of the island, Mrs. Clinton struck many of those same themes. To cheers, she said, “I believe you should have a vote in picking the president,” even before the issue of the island’s status is resolved.”

Hillary also promised to give Puerto Rico a greater voice and even a vote in Congress.  If Puerto Rico wants to be granted the same rights as a U.S. state, let them become a state.  Some Puerto Ricans aren’t interested in the Democratic Primary at all.  If they want to distance themselves from the U.S. and hold tightly onto their Puerto Rican identity, they can become an independent country.  But this colony garbage has got to go.

I’ve only visited Puerto Rico a few times in my life, and from my experiences I’ve found most people there blame the United States for most of their problems.  So much disdain for the U.S., yet when it comes time to vote for their future political status, it’s always a dead heat between colony and state, with independence getting a measly 3 or 4 percent.

But Hillary is determined to catch up with Barack Obama by nabbing as many popular and delegate votes as possible by telling Puerto Ricans the biggest possible lie.  And if by some unbelievable fairy tale scenario in which Clinton wins the nomination and the general election, she would either forget her promise to Puerto Rico or introduce some half-assed bill and blame the Republicans for keeping her from giving Puerto Rico all the perks of being a state without having to be a state.

Personally, I think the next President can solve Puerto Rico’s status dilemma by abolishing their “commonwealth” status, thus forcing them to choose between independence or statehood.  But don’t expect Hillary to tell them the cold, hard truth.  She certainly has broken the glass ceiling for her gender-thanks to her, now women can be political hacks as well, complete with the same empty gesture, grandiose promises just waiting to be broken and great big phony smiles you’d expect from most male politicians.

From a New York Times article covering the Primary race in Puerto Rico.

As in other recent primaries, race may also end up playing a role in determining how people vote. But here, Mr. Obama’s biracial identity is perceived as working to his advantage.

“On the mainland, Obama is black, but not in Puerto Rico,” said Juan Manuel García Passalacqua, a political commentator. “Here he is a mulatto, and this is a mulatto society. People here are perfectly prepared to vote for someone who looks like them for president of the United States.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

With the Oregon and Kentucky Democratic primaries behind us, only three primaries remain: Puerto Rico on June 1 and Montana and South Dakota on June 3.

Most gringos are absolutely confused about Puerto Rico’s inclusion in this primary race, mostly because they think Puerto Rico is somewhere in Mexico.

The island’s current relationship with the U.S. is an ambiguous one whose status resembles that of a colony. Puerto Ricans living on the island do not pay federal income taxes but pay Social Security and Medicaid taxes.  Anyone who believes the Clinton campaign’s lies about Latinos not willing to vote for a black person for President will find that Puerto Rican electorate will defy their misconceptions even further, especially when one recalls that Puerto Rico overwhelmingly voted for Rev. Jesse Jackson as when he ran in the Democratic Presidential Primary back in 1988.

Real Clear Politics wrote about Puerto Rico’s involvement in the 2008 Primary race, offering a lot of insight into this matter.  And for those who don’t think Puerto Rico will make a significant impact in this race, bear in mind that the island has 63 delegates, more than Montana and South Dakota combined (48). (more…)