One more hint to Brutus: you are not looking so good on sweeping statements like that one, since it is a genetic fallacy.
In any case, the SF Chronicle did talk to Madrid:
Anecdotal and pointless. So Mecha assumes that the 8 dead were killed by gringos. Color me unimpressed. I lived in Reynosa for a while, and they were finding dead people out in the bush all the time. 50 at one time, IIRC. All the result of drug-related killings.
Like the free pass given by the Left to Byrd for his Klan membership, Bustamante is getting a free pass from the Left for his MEChA membership. That of course includes the latino voters in California who plan on voting for Bustamante just becuase he is hispanic. There is plenty of racism, subtle and not so subtle, going on in during these recall festivities; All from the Left.
Your linkophobia shows, that was not the only example in the link, and sorry Brutus, but it is not only the left who is giving it a pass, but reasonable Republicans as well, If you want to continue this sorry defense of the right wing media, you should bring forth examples of Mecha doing like the Klan did, sorry to burst your bubble.
GIGO:
It’s nice that you found some flowerly language on the MEChA site. I’m sure you could find similar language associtated with Louis Farakan and the Nation of Islam. The fact remains that MEChA continues to propogate racist, seperatist doctrine. 100 pages singing the praise of brotherly love does not change the fact that El Plan Esperitual de Azatlan should be jetisoned from the MEChA foundation in order for that organization to be taken seriously by the rest of America.
Your argument consists solely of the fact that a Republican endorses MEChA. Big deal. The part of their docctrine that espouses the worst type of identity politics is wrong, no matter how many Rebublicans or Democrats endorse it.
John Mace:
It is nice you found some reprehensible language there. However, on the whole, I go for their actions to judge the real position they have.
No, my argument, as I notice was lost totally, was that by your fruits you will be recognized, and I already acknowledged that parts of the plan should be jettisoned, what it should be jettisoned ALSO is the assumption that because it is in a charter we must assume it equalizes KKK activities, or Nation of slam behavior, I am still waiting for your cites regarding actions that equalize that.
In other words, I believe in context: the times that charter was made was a time of avert racism towards people of Mecha, (and as I see recent examples in Arizona and elsewhere, it is still relevant) As Spock from Star Trek would say: “I said I understand why you are writing that, I did not say I approve” So yes I already concluded the charter is bad, now, however I do have to consider their actions, current and present regarding racist behavior, and I have to conclude this idea to paint Bustamante as a racist remains bananas, incidentally you still have no problem on how this whole thing on Bustamante (taking into account the original accusers and accusations) reeks of projection?
GIGO:
The connection to Bustamante reeks of projection. I agree. As was the (even worse) attempt to smear Schwartzenneger due to his father’s “NAZI past”. This is politics, and the game is played dirty.
I have no evidence of MEChA engaging in KKK or NoI. I suspect that MEChA is generally a well meaning organization that had it’s share of radicalism in it’s founding days during the 60s, but that has pretty much shed that skin in recent years. Why it keeps the whacky Plan Espiritual de Aztlan with the infamitory saying Por la raza todo, fuera de la raza nada so prominently displayed on every campus web site is just beyond me. I e-mailed that question to the chairperson of the San Jose State chapter of MEChA a few weeks ago, but got no response.
Sounds like you have some connections to MEChA at your alma mater. Why don’t you see if you can get an explanation as to why that document still exists and what the purpose is for having it appear to be integral to MEChA if it is in fact just some fringe idea from the 60s?
Should have read “I have no evidence of MEChA engaging in KKK or NoI racist type activities”.
Well, no, I was not a member of Mecha, I however did ran into them on Campus, I can tell you my experience was that I encountered the “flowery language” behavior, and not the racist thingies on the charter, and I am pragmatic enough to see that certainly the Swatcheneiger hit and this Bustamante item are indeed ditty politics, having clarified that, it is time to let this go, otherwise I think the backfire against the Republicans will be worse. Still, Mecha will get a letter from me.
Of course Ahnold seeking approval and aid from Pete Wilson is what I see now as a better reason why, even tough Ahnold is a moderate Republican, to not support him this time.
[sub]That, and chickening out of debates, even with McClintock.[/sub]
I have never been involved with MECHa, but I have known some members personally and they don’t strike me as ‘racial separatists’. Many hang out with white people. Some even are half Anglo. Of course where I live (Texas) is not known for ‘radicalism’ as much as California, so it may be more of a regional issue. For instance here the county attorney is a former member who has some ties to the groups, and he is not exactly a ‘bleeding heart’, nor some radical racialist (he has put a few ‘Chicanos’ on death row). The main thing is that they are all over the place, and I don’t think one chapter or one document speaks for the whole group. I don’t even think they have much of a national organization.
Here is some perspective. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 gave former Mexican citizens the full rights and freedoms of American citizenship. However the reality was that most Mexican descended peoples were treated as second rate Americans or ‘foreigners’ in their own land for over 100 years. People were denied the right to vote in many cases, or if they did vote, they had “patrons” telling them how to vote. Children went to substandard schools, where they were paddled for using Spanish, and all but encouraged to dropped out. The only exceptions were a small class of ‘acceptable’ elites who controlled politics and local business in Mexican communities (patrones).
In the 1950’s and 1960’s, some Hispanic people in the southwest began to say “wait a minute, we were here first”. Combine that reality with the radical spirit of the 1960’s, and some rather outlandish statements were made. Groups like MEChA came about in that time. It was easy to understand response to a long history of discimination.
Now, MECHA are probably fools to include a lot of these materials and slogans on their website, but would it really be better if they buried their past? And if anything MEChA has gotten a spurt of free publicity from all of this.
I don’t think I would vote for Bustamante, but to me and a lot of other people, all of this seems to be a rather lame attempt at smearing Mexican-American candidates. The fact is, there are probably no Mexican-American politicians that are not connected to MEChA or other groups formed upon a ‘Chicano’ platform(unless they are quite young), so we might as well avoid any Hispanic candidates right?
If Bustamante himself has said anything racist against whites, that’s something different. Anyway, I am straining to think of one example of MEChA members actually assaulting non-Hispanic people, burning or looting anything, lynching people, or doing anything violent. Bustamante’s corrupt support from Indian casino’s is a far more compelling reason not to vote for him. I suppose this is further evidence of a ‘bronze’ plot to run whitey from California though…
There are only two groups of people that really take this ‘Aztlán’ shit seriously anyway, a handful of baby boomer radical-chic professors and the nutcase right.
Well syncrolecyne, thanks for putting more needed perspective on this issue. However, I see that now the Indian Gaming thing has appeared.
I have read about the Indian issue and it is IMO also a silly reason why not to support Bustamante, When democrats are in power Indians give more to them, (just like other groups) Time magazine reported recently that now that Republicans have the advantage elsewhere, they are beginning to get the money from the Casinos that was going before to the Democrats, If there is an Issue here, it is the one of Campaign reform.
So you say Ahnold has no money from them? You know also that he just jumped to the fray? There is no Indian money item on him. Duh! He just started! Just wait, if he gets elected, I expect him to grow into a healthy regular Republican politician and follow the money.
Until the FPPC says that what Bustamante is doing is illegal, I put this in the Republicans sour grapes column.
Some more fuel to the fire: Mecha is an american organization, not Mexican. Chicano is a term meaning mexican-american. You want to pick a fight with a mexican from Mexico, call him a chicano. They are descriminated against by mexicans as much or more than they are descriminated against by many white americans, and oddly often for the same perceived reasons (wont work, lazy, etc).
Ive met two mexicans in my life that seriously wanted to have Cal be part of Mexico again. They were both rich university brats from Mexico City who hadnt worked a day in their life and were raised on a steady diet of why the corrupt mexican system is all the fault of the US, laaa dee doo daa, and why NAFTA was bad because Daddy would lose his sacred right to own such and such a company and he shouldnt have to compete cause his ancestors founded the company in blah blah blah blah. Thats usually the type of mexican thats in favor of taking back Cal.
But thankfully the world isnt run by university kids and their juvenille and sophomoric views of fairness and justice. No Mexican who comes here for work wants Cal to be part of Mexico; theyd have to go all the way to Oregon to get back in the US. Hell, they sacrifice almost everything to get away, why would they vote to bring the system they struggled so hard to get away from up here? Mexicans arent stupid; they know what butters their bread just like everyone else.
But to the larger point, Im getting really sick of this Democrat-Republican thing about the recall. This isnt something driven by republicans, the party barely got involved until the number of signatures looked like it might make it. This was started in its infancy by quite a few independants who are perfectly willing to use the Repubs for their own purposes yes, but come on thats what political parties are for, to play off of each other. Only an insane person would want the platform of either the Dems or Repubs fully implemented. The Republican Party just jumped on the bandwagon started by others.
Democrats acting as if the whole recall thing is a ploy by the republicans is just an illustration of why the recall is occuring; too many people in Sac are divorced from reality. I and a number of friends of mine, none of whom has such low self esteem or respect as to get involved in party politics, signed that damn recall petition months ago. The republicans had nothing to do with it.
Peoples views arent motivated by political parties’ views; how more patronizing or insulting you can get I dont know. Political parties views are motivated by people’s views. Oh yes, all those signatures are by people who were the victoms of republican thought control; none of us knew what we were doing, we were fooled into thinking that Davis isnt doing a great job by those dastardly republicans. Yeah right.
And one more thing, 
The Dems just piss people off even further with their constant little juvenille crap statements like “what do we look like to other states?” What does it matter what other people in other states think? Who cares? Hell, we’re 1/50th of the states accounting for 1/4 - 1/3 of the US economy. When other states come close to pulling their own weight, we can start worrying about what they think. Until then, other states opinions carry as much weight as farts in the wind.
The Dems just dig themselves deeper with all the reasons they keep coming up with to not recall Davis. None of the reasons focuses on his ability or his acheivements; its all about Oh how expensive the recall process of democracy is, Oh how evil those republicans are because of what they say, Oh we’re just so misunderstood, Oh the voters are obviously uneducated or this wouldnt be happening…
Nothing comes from the Dems but a bunch of pompous and patronizing drivel, but its all the Repubs fault there is a recall on. Yeah right. Many of the reasons the recall is on are illustrated in the Dems attitude and reaction towards the recall.
You know what? I love the field of candidates. I love the fact that there are over 100 choices to make. People bitch about the 2 party system and the lack of choice, then when we have choice all of a sudden we’re supposed to be embarrased. Well screw that, Im not embarrassed about a damn thing. Bring it on, hell we need even more candidates.
I love the fact the majority have no experience in government. Good. People bitch about the status quo and then always want to elect someone who has a great deal of experience in maintaining it.
This is one Californian who is not ashamed at all of the recall, Im damn proud of it. The day I lower myself to letting something as digusting as a political party make me feel bad or embarrassed or ashamed of anything is the day Ill put a bullet in my head, cause Ill be no damned use to anyone or anything.
The recall campaign was going nowhere until Issa arrived with his open checkbook, and maybe you are not ashamed of it Voodoochile, but many of the original supporters of the recall have very unappealing axes to grind, the only good news was that Ahnold entering the race cut off the wings of yahoos like Issa so this backfired on the extremists that were part of the recall effort.
Of course, as a former Californian, I also wish Davis were toast but this should have been done in the general election. As it stands, the ones in the finish line will be either Bustamante or Arnold or a defeat of the recall.
My experience with Mecha was in the 1980’s which was well after Cruz was out of school and it was at a different school than his anyway. The Mecha that I know was a seriously racist organization and their newspaper was full of hate and lies. I don’t know a thing about their official charter but I know what they did and I read their propaganda.
In one article they ranted about how stupid white people were for calling refering to all hispanics/latinos as “Mexicans.” In that same exact article, they refered to white people as Anglos. I’m Slavic, not Anglo, you ignorant asshole. They constantly wrote about taking Aztlan back and making it a “brown state.” If the mainstream newspaper wrote shit like that that was switching brown for white there would be a full scale riot.
Then there was the time they protested against the INS when they were recruiting on campus. That is fine in and of itself but there was more to it. I saw all of this with my own eyes. The protest spilled in front of a used book store. When the manager asked them to please not block the door a couple of the protestors spit on her. The protest also took place on the Friday before finals and right underneath the windows of the dorm where I lived. They were screaming and yelling right in front of my home when I was trying to study. When we politely asked them to please protest quietly, they told us to fuck off and purposefully screamed louder. We ended up making fun of them and staged a very sarcastic “counter-protest.” They described us as “right wing counter demonstators” in their newspaper.
Again, Cruz was a member of Mecha. Mecha at the very least has racist elements.
Haj
hajario:
As Brutus would say: that was anecdotal and pointless
Still, Bustamante was not there and your point of repeating that he was a part of Mecha makes me think you still want to make hay of almost nothing. Of course I say those particular Mecha guys in your campus were assholes.
At UC Berkeley I saw a Chinese American group being assholes with the campus police but believe me: I will not think other Asians involved that group should be painted the same.
Schwarzenegger is a member of the Republican Party. The Republican Party, at the very least, has racist elements.
I assume that you are calling for Arnie to renounce his Republicanism?
Make no mistake, I am not a Republican and I think that Arnold is a fucking joke. Still, he has renounced some of the more offensive things within the GOP. He is in favor of homosexual domestic partnerships for example. Just my luck that the only viable moderate is an idiot.
The Mecha I experienced was nasty and racist but, as GIGObuster correctly noted, that well could have been different than Cruz’s Mecha. I don’t think it was though but I also don’t think that Cruz is a racist. He’s being politically expedient by not alienating a large percentage of his voters.
Haj
Well, I’m a latino (mixed) who was a student at UCB in the late 80s who dated a rather serious Mechista and I’d have to say my impressions of the organization were largely the same as syncrolecyne’s. It was largely a social organization–one with a political consciousness (addressing the issue-of-the-month, etc.), but more devoted to providing a network & support group for other chicano/latino students. Like anywhere at Cal, some of the dialogue would get heated, but most of the activities were either about increasing the social base (tons of parties and cultural celebrations) and some more obvious protests (grapes & migrant workers, Prop 187, etc.). There was a natural antipathy against Republicans, sure, but never against “whitey”, and certainly nothing about some of the more extreme allegations made re: the reclaiming of California, etc.
This strikes me as a smear by association. I can’t speak for the organization in keeping some of the more inflammatory sloganeering, but since most of it is rooted in the origins of the organization, such wordings need to be taken with some historical context, IMHO. There may be a few lingering “separtists” mixed in the membership, but the larger goals and activities of many of the chapters are not geared, from my experience, toward these fringe voices.
*Originally posted by GIGObuster *
**The recall campaign was going nowhere until Issa arrived with his open checkbook, and maybe you are not ashamed of it Voodoochile, but many of the original supporters of the recall have very unappealing axes to grind,…[/B}
Not at all, the recall effort went along at a pretty steady pace, as these things go; good enough to encourage Issa to open his checkbook as you put it. Noone is going to invest their money in a lost cause.
Secondly, I dont care about the motivations of the people that started it; if I agree its for my own motivations. Its not the motivation that matters, its the end result.
**Of course, as a former Californian, I also wish Davis were toast but this should have been done in the general election. As it stands, the ones in the finish line will be either Bustamante or Arnold or a defeat of the recall. **
What we are seeing is raw democracy in action, when the two parties dont have enough time to control the pace of things. That is good.