I’m don’t have a strong feeling on whether this will have an important effect on his candidacy, the California recall already being a circus and even Fox not finding any questionable policies weighed against “Ye gods, this group sounds nuts” could go either way. What do you guys think?
Note: I haven’t seen this story elsewhere yet, raising the usual media questions.
I’m glad you started this thread, Telcontar (and thanks to Daisy Cutter as well).
AFAIK Bustamonte was active in MEChA in college, a long time ago. I don’t know whether he has maintained association or support for them. He’s been accused of “not disavowing” them, but that’s a cheap shot. Disavowing them would bring him adverse publicity. If he hasn’t been involved with them since college, then this issue doesn’t concern me.
I am hoping that some posters here know something about MEChA. I checked their web site. They’re a big, widespread organization. I’d never been aware of them before now. Are they as bad as the Fox article portrays them? Or, are they merely a well-intentioned Latino support group?
I’m hardly an authority, but there was a MEChA group at my university, and they never struck me as an extremist group, just as an organization that promoted Latino political awareness.
[quote]
As the official voice of Chicano/a students at the University of Oregon, MEChA’s main objective is to provide a feeling of community and security, while increasing the recruitment and retention of Oregon Chicanos/as. This intent, along with the academic support, the cultural events, the visitation days we host, and our work in the community is meant to inspire success in U of O Chicanos/as and ensure that the Chicano culture and ways of thinking be represented at the UO.
[/quote
Mind you, their “liberation” of “Aztlan” would require a great deal of ethnic cleansing these days, but they seem to be quite happy for that to happen.
I don’t see a problem. People who aren’t going to “vote for a Mexican” have probably already made up their minds. He wouldn’t have gotten this far w/o distancing himself from the radical elements of this group when necessary. It’ll be easy for him to say something like: “MEChA does a lot of good in providing support for the Hispanic community. I in no way support the idea of a so-called liberation of Aztlan. I represent all ethinc groups in CA equally.”
BTW, I did some googling on MEChA earlier this morning, and I always got a dead end (site not found, or url unavailable) whenever I tried to access links like “Position Papers of MEChA”. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d think they were trying to hide something.
I could not find the motto “For the race everything, for those outside the race, nothing” on any of their web sites. Their traditional emblem: Eagle with a machete in it’s talons and dynamite stick in it’s mouth get’s styalized on some web sites so that the machete and dynamite are no longer clear. I’d guess that this group had it’s fringe radical elements back in the day, but has struggled to become more mainstream recently. But that’s just a guess. The web sites that are dedicated to denouncing MEChA, never give original sources for their quotes, so I wasn’t able to verify any of their negative claims.
What I don’t get is this…“Hispanic” is essentially a recent United States invention. Latin America is multiracial. So what “race” are these MEChA racists favoring? The white Spaniards, the Native Americans, or Mestizos (mixed race people).
Either way there is a serious flaw in their logic if they indeed are racist, as Mexicans are wither one of those three groups. Perhaps they are anti-Spanish (some militant Chicano rhetoric is) yet there are Mexican-Americans who are clearly mostly or completely Spanish - or completely Indian- or Chinese for that matter.
Anyway this isn’t supposed to make sense. I went to a school with an active MEChA chapter, and my impression of them was that they were no more harmful than any other left-wing fruitcakes. I don’t think they are racist in the serious sense of the word.
Aparently the “indiginous” nature of the group does not prevent them from identifying themselves with the Spanish term for people: gente.
The web site looks like rehashed Marxist class rhetoric. I’d actually like the press to pin this on Bustamante and ask him how much of MEChA’s agenda he supports, with specifics. Won’t happen, though.
Has anyone actually found something that ties MEChA and Aztlan yet? I see some folks are co-mingling the two groups, but as far as I know, Aztlan are the only certified nutjobs here – they just happen to like MEChA for having compatible views.
I don’t think there is much there rjung, just wishful thinking of the extreme right, (Is this enthusiasm for a virtual non issue is what they call a circle jerk?)
So La Voz de Aztlan hates the guts of Bustamante, and according to the guilt by association crowd they are buddies? Please!
If the mainstream media is not making much of this phantom connection, is because it looks manufactured only to impress people like Daoloth or december.
Although I called them affiliates, I digress and say that they are merely of like mind, with Aztland frequently overstepping the boundaries. Still, according to MEChA’s own documents, they seem to advocate some sort of quasi-indpendent nation, if we are to work under the assumption that isn’t a metaphor for something.
I thought that guy in the subway looked really shiny…
Seriously, the ONLY thing ‘uniting’ the millions of people that inhabit the Americas south of the current US border is that, hundreds of years ago, they were colonized by people who spoke a European langauge, Spanish (or another one, Portugeuse, or French, or English, or Dutch…) I can understand getting mad about the process or working to abate the lingering aftereffects, but getting mad about the fact that Spanish is a European language? Kind of late.
CB went to Fresno State, but my post was directed more towards the general idea of how radical MEChA is. If you read more of the SJSU web site, it’s actually comical some of the ideas they advocate. I guess it sounds serious to 20 yr olds just discovering the political world.