When The Boogie-Man Is Us

 Posted by  Foreign Policy, Latin America  No Responses »
Sep 222006
 

I just saw a report on CNN International which showed how President Hugo Chavez has gotten many people, especially among his urban-poor base, convinced that the United States plans to invade Venezuela soon. He has promised that he will burn Venezuela’s oil fields if that happens. He’s publicly stated that he is training the army in how to fight a guerrilla war. And he is urging his people to be prepared to take up arms against the coming imperialist occupier.

It is a win-win situation for President Chavez, and a brilliant short-term political strategy. He gets to claim credit for deterring us when we don’t invade. He can continue to proclaim hatred for the United States. And if we ever respond to any of his provocations, diplomatically or economically, he can claim this as evidence that we really do plan to invade, and therefore strengthen his own position as Venezuela’s protector. (Pat Robertson should have considered that before suggesting that we assassinate the man.) He can even claim that all of his political opponents are simply apologists for the Great Imperialist (and our twice-elected President Devil).
Continue reading »

Border Security

 Posted by  Bush Administration, Immigration, Latin America, Terrorism, U.S. Politics  No Responses »
May 162006
 

President Bush says that we need to secure our borders. He has proposed added 6000 new border patrol agents (increasing the total border patrol force by 50%) and supplementing the border patrol with national guard units until the new agents can be fully trained. He wants to put cameras, fences, and unmanned vehicles on various parts of the border to catch people coming across. He wants to end “catch and release” programs, and make sure that illegal immigrants are actually sent home, to make it more difficult to simply try again. Of course, the President is not alone here; most of these ideas have appeared in either the Senate or House immigration bills over the last few weeks, and both parties commonly speak of the need to “secure our borders”. But what does that really mean, to secure our border?
Continue reading »

America’s Tolerated Intolerance

 Posted by  Immigration, Issues, Latin America, Racism, The Media  2 Responses »
May 122006
 

Things I “learned” by watching parts of the Minutemen rally in Washington, DC today:
Continue reading »

“Nuestro Himno”

 Posted by  Bush Administration, Latin America, U.S. Politics  5 Responses »
May 012006
 

Lean on Me is a movie about a black principal who is trying to restore self-respect and dignity to a failing, inner-city school named Eastside High. One of the ways the principal, played by Morgan Freeman, goes about this task is to insist that all students learn the school song, and be able to sing it on command, as a way of demonstrating pride in their school. So, one day he catches a group of boys who, he believes, are miscreants, and he confronts them by demanding that they sing him the school song. And so they do; except the song they sing isn’t the staid traditional school anthem, but an R&B rework sung in three-part harmony, which had been developed by the choir teacher. The choir teacher recognized that the students, if they were to have pride in their school and in their school song, needed to take that song and make it their own. The principal is so pleased, he marches down to the choir teacher immediately and commends her for doing a job well done.

Oddly enough, that same basic scene is being played out in today’s political realm. Last week, a group of Hispanic artists released a Spanish-language version of the “Star-Spangled Banner”. The lyrics and tune are essentially the same, although the pacing is somewhat different (both as a stylistic matter, and as a result of the different cadence of the Spanish language). The real difference, however, between the fictional story of Eastside High’s school anthem, and the real story of the American national anthem, is the reaction of our leaders. Whereas Principal Clark recognized that the new version of the school song was, in actuality, a tribute to their school and a sign of their loyalty and respect, President Bush has criticized the Spanish-language version of the anthem saying that people ought to learn how to speak English and “ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English”.
Continue reading »

Being American

 Posted by  Foreign Policy, Issues, Latin America  1 Response »
Apr 112006
 

What does it mean to “be American”?

Throughout American history, that has been perhaps the most important political and social question we have faced. And we’ve never had a good answer to it.

When this country was founded, “being American” meant that you were ancestrally English and Protestant, and that you lived somewhere between the Hudson Bay and Florida. (Yes, at that point we didn’t distinguish between “Americans” and “Canadians”; it was only after the War of 1812 that the Americans finally got the point that our neighbors to the north didn’t want to be “liberated,” thank you very much.) It did not include Blacks, American Indians, Spaniards, or Catholics.
Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries
© 2012 leftfielder.org login Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha