¿Peloteros? They're the norm, not the exception

The World Series this year is not only going to see a long-suffering city (San Francisco or the Dallas-Ft. Worth area) win a championship, it’s going to give us a “record” for the most “Latino” ballplayers taking part in such an event.

For it seems that when one reviews the 25-man rosters of the San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers, we find 17 ballplayers who come from Latin American nations. Of course, that doesn’t include U.S.-born ballplayers of Latino ethnic backgrounds (Giants pitcher Sergio Romo, just to name one).

THAT “17” FIGURE seems to be the most ever – more than the 16 Latin American natives who played in the 2003 World Series when the Florida Marlins managed to slip their way past the New York Yankees.

Yet I have to admit this so-called record doesn’t do a thing to excite me.

Primarily, it is because I know there’s a very good chance that next year’s World Series will have 18 or more Latin American-born ballplayers on its two teams. It merely reflects the reality that the reason the U.S.-based professional baseball leagues remain the world’s elite is because they draw so heavily from the world.

I honestly believe that if the American and National leagues tried imposing policies similar to the Central and Pacific leagues in Japan to try to make them a place primarily forAsians,, then the U.S. leagues would slip enough that we’d be whining about how the Japanese had surpassed this country in baseball.

MY POINT IS that at a time when Latin Americans and Latinos provide a significant chunk of rosters during the regular season, it only makes sense that the championship teams also are going to have a significant share of the talent.

It also shouldn’t be any surprise that those Latin peloteros will be significant players in the outcome of the Series. To me, the surprise would be if the Latin American athletes weren’t significant contributors on the playing field.

Giants infielder Juan Uribe (of the Dominican Republic, which accounts for eight of the 17) had his own “big hit” in Game Two, while Edgar Renteria of Colombia is laying the groundwork in the first two games to be the Series MVP.

That is, assuming the Giants manage to win two more games to take the World Series title and that there isn’t some heroic moment in a future game by someone else.

CONSIDERING THAT THE Giants have managed to find a way to lose every single World Series they have ever played in since moving from Manhattan to the San Francisco Bay, maybe we should be looking at the Rangers’ ranks (the team whose name translated en Español is “los Vigilantes de Tejas”) for a World Series Most Valuable Player.

In fact, to me, one of the interesting stories of this year’s World Series will be the performance of Rangers designated hitter/spare outfielder Vladimir Guerrero.

The Dominican Republic native has played the bulk of his 15-year career as the big star on weak ballclubs. It is only now that he gets a chance to play on a pennant-winning ballclub that wants to upgrade its legacy as a World Series winner as well.

Will Guerrero, who thus far has one hit and two runs driven in (along with one strikeout) during four at-bats, give us a performance late in his career that is reminiscent of Roberto Clemente in 1971, when his play single-handedly led the Pittsburgh Pirates to a World Series win over the Baltimore Orioles?

WILL IT BE the moment that cements a legacy of a star player who didn’t get the attention he would have warranted on more significant ballclubs than the Montreal Expos or the suburban Los Angeles Angels?

Or will he kick in a moment reminiscent of his 2005 playoff appearance for the Angels against the Chicago White Sox (one single in 20 at-bats (both batting average and on-base percentages of .050) that caused people to compare him to Dave Winfield’s awful appearance in the 1981 World Series for the Yankees that warranted the derisive “Mr. May” nickname?

Perhaps the “big story” will wind up coming from Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus, who has managed to continue a “streak” of hitting (12 games) in playoff and World Series rounds of baseball. A big series for him, and people quit thinking of him as someone with a funky first name.

Although my guess is that he’ll never get as much grief over his name as does Evan Longoria, the Tampa Bay Rays third baseman whose family originates from Colombia (he was born in California).

WHAT MAKES ALL of this interesting is that the issue will be resolved on the playing field, and it will be done soon (even if the World Series goes all seven games, baseball will be finished for the 2010 season by this time next week).

So I’ll be looking forward to seeing what these ballplayers manage to accomplish during the next few days. For those of you who’d rather not have to pay attention, just keep in mind that anything they do will be more significant than what was supposed to be the BIG STORY of this year’s Series.

The so-called pitching “matchup” of Game One between Tim Lincecum and Cliff Lee stunk. So excuse me for looking elsewhere to find intriguing story lines.

  -30-

We’re split. ¿What else is new?

It seems I’m in the “28 percent” grouping.

The Pew Hispanic Center came out with a study this week concerning what the growing Latino population really thinks about immigration, and it seems that our thoughts are all over the place on the issue.

IT SEEMS THAT 13 percent of Latinos are inclined to think in ways that would make the conservative ideologues completely happy – they’re willing to see deportations of the 11.1 million people now living in this country without citizenship or a valid visa.

There is another 53 percent of Latinos who have no problem with those 11.1 million being fined (similar to a traffic ticket), but they don’t want to see deportations.

Another 28 percent think that any focus on penalties misses the point – there really was no reason the bulk of the “undocumented” shouldn’t have been able to get papers in the first place, except for a bureaucratic mess that complicates the situation.

We think that punishment is not the point. We ought to be focusing on figuring out which of the 11.1 million can make a worthwhile contribution to our society, and fix the paperwork situation so they can come out of society’s shadows and live in the open.

THAT IS A plus for everybody, even though some of us don’t fully appreciate it.

I’d even include the 13 percent of Latinos who are willing to support deportations in that latter category. They seem so eager to be seen as part of the pack, as defined by people with a warped definition of what the “pack” is that they’re willing to sell out their ethnic brethren.

Personally, I view the situation as one where I realize there are people who are either too ideological or too stupid to be able to differentiate among Latinos born in the U.S., those with visas and those without. Some want to believe that even the ones with visas shouldn’t have them.

That is why I see it being in my interests to stick up for the legal rights of the undocumented, a significant share of whom are of Latin American ethnic backgrounds not because of any degenerate characteristic but because of the proximity of those nations to the United States.

SERIOUSLY, SOMEONE WHO is Croatian who is in this country without a visa probably did something more underhanded to get into this country or to remain here than anyone who is of a Latin American background. His (or her) “crime,” so to speak, is mere existence.

Now I do notice that the biggest group of Latinos on this issue are the ones willing to support a “fine” of some sort for the people who committed the civil violation of being a non-citizen without papers within the boundaries of this country.

In theory, I don’t have a problem with the issue. It is in practice that I worry about it, because I wonder if political people whose true desire is to reduce the number of foreigners they consider “undesirable’ are going to construct a system filled with so many glitches that it is meant to “catch” people in the act of screwing up.

Then, the violation of that glitch becomes some sort of criminal offense that is used as justification for taking harsher legal action against nuestros hermanos. If I reads like I’m writing that I don’t fully trust the motivations of the people who would set up the system, you’d be correct.

MY SKEPTICISM DRIVES me into the place that I’m in, which is to say that many of these people are working harder (and for less money) than any human being should have to.

Which is why I’m also a “29 percent”-er – the share of Latinos who think immigrants provide a positive influence on our nation. Another 31 percent are saying it’s negative (some people are just too anxious to mix in) while 30 percent think it makes no difference.

Of course, my favorite statistic in this study is 6 percent. That is the total of Latinos who “don’t know” or “refused” to say what should be done with undocumented individuals living in this country.

In all likelihood, they’re the ones who wish we’d all shut up about this boring public policy talk so we could focus attention on Shakira’s jiggling hips.

  -30-

Counting down the days ‘til Election Day ¿What will our message be?

Where I live, Thursday is the final day for people to use an Early Voting Center if they want to cast a ballot without having to resort to absentee ballots or an Election Day visit to a polling place.

So we’re at the point where we’re counting down the days until Election ’10 is a mere memory – and potentially a bad one for the growing Latino population, since the segment of our society that sees itself as gaining next week is the one that is more than willing to demonize our existence for their benefit.

WHICH IS WHY I’d enjoy it thoroughly if there were a strong Latino voter turnout. Because that would produce significant numbers of votes for Democratic candidates that would dump all over the conservative ideological vision many of these people are dreaming of.

Latino Decisions, a group that has been doing various polls trying to get a sense of how much Latinos care about this election cycle, came up with a study that claims the Latino turnout will be 75.1 percent.

That figure is significant because it is about 10 percent higher than a figure the group came up with a month ago.

 If they’re to be believed, then we really have had a significant jolt during the past four weeks, when the Pew Hispanic Center came out with its own study that said Latinos favored Democrats for Congress over Republicans by a 3-1 ratio, but that only about half of Latinos felt motivated enough to even want to vote.

IF THE FIGURE really is up around three-quarters of the Latino population that is registered to vote, then that could produce significant numbers of votes that could cost the GOP candidates who are counting on nativist-leaning supporters to elect them to office.

It sounds nice. But I am skeptical, in large part because I’m always skeptical.

What this latest poll does is merely confirm what I already knew – the potential is there for Latinos to step up on Tuesday and provide an antidote to the poisonous political rhetoric we have been hearing from Tea Party types, whose idea of “taking back” government all too often means excluding our growing numbers.

It is nice to read reports about activity in Texas, which has become a solidly Republican state in recent years. But it is one that could flop back to Democrats (and not the old Dixiecrat kind) because of the growing Latino population.

IT WAS ENCOURAGING to read state GOP Chairman Steve Munisteri tell the Ft Worth Star Telegram newspaper, “we can’t wait until we lose the state before we go talk to Hispanics.”

For some political people, it is going to take “losing” their territory because of the Latino vote before they finally accept the reality that we’re in the 21^st Century and that their talk of “taking back” is more about going backward.

But for that to happen, it means there needs to be a decent voter turnout. Which is why those activist types who seriously talk about “sending messages” by staying home are absurd.

That “message” will be interpreted by these types as, “Lazy Mexicans staying home. Good riddance.”

REAL MESSAGES HAVE to be sent with significant numbers of votes. While I’ll be the first to admit that current Democratic leadership hasn’t done much on issues of concern to Latinos, we have to focus on those who would try to do our interests harm.

That all too often means going after those people whom the Republican Party is willing to rely on for support.

So are we going to send a message to our enemigos come Tuesday. That new poll sounds nice, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

  -30-

If we're so "irrelevant," why are the ideologues concerned about our votes?

Perhaps it is because it comes so soon after a media campaign meant to discourage Latinos from bothering to vote for Congress, but I can’t help but think that the exact same tactic of disinformation is now being used on Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

That media campaign claimed Latinos would be punishing Democrats for not moving forward with long-needed immigration reform measures, ignoring the fact that the people who put the ad campaign together were those with Republican interests who were the ones who interfered with Democratic efforts to advance the issue.

WE NOW HAVE a Washington-based group coming up with its own radio spots in Spanish that are telling Latinos who live in California that we should vote for Republican Carly Fiorina instead of Boxer.

It was during the weekend that she was on a Univision interview program and said she didn’t think her votes on issues related to gay marriage and abortion would be too much of a turnoff to Latino voters, who include a segment whose ties to the Catholic Church are so strong that they might be offended.

The Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles is the group behind this new effort against Boxer, and an English-language translation of their ad says that Boxer, “is not a friend of Latinos. In fact, she has worked against the values Latinos hold sacred.”

Supposedly, those “values” include her votes on an immigration reform bill that was attempted in 2007, along with a proposed guest worker program for citizens of other countries wishing to work here to send money back home, along with the abortion and gay marriage issues.

AS I WROTE earlier this week, I don’t think the latter two issues are going to be a big deal. I will concede that there is a religious-oriented chunk of the Latino electorate that will get worked up over those issues.

But that is far from a majority of Latinos. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that when it comes to those issues, the Latino “perspective” is about as divided as the rest of the population.

There was a University of Southern California poll that showed Fiorina taking only 28 percent of the Latino vote for Tuesday’s election. I honestly believe that is about the size of the Latino population that cares enough about those two issues to base their ballot choice on them.

In short, Fiorina already has all the support she’s getting from Latinos who have hang-ups over abortion being a legal medical procedure, or the gay marriage issue.

THE IDEA, AS stated in the ad, that “Latino voters move to Fiorina because she shares their values,” is just so absurd.

There also are the other two points the group tries to bring up – those concerning past immigration reform failures and guest worker programs.

We need to keep in mind that the bulk of Democrats in Congress were opposed to those measures because of the way they turned out. The immigration reform measure that was attempted three years ago wound up getting so twisted about with various amendments that it likely would not have created any significant change.

A Boxer negative vote was mere recognition that the concept had become bungled up to the point where it was essential to start over.

GUEST WORKER PROGRAMS are a different deal. Those were always the rhetorical preference of conservative ideologues who want the cheap labor, but aren’t the least bit interested in the human beings who are coming to this country to find work to better their lives.

As originally proposed by then-President George W. Bush, there would have been no provisions for people coming here from other countries to have an option to build up any kind of credit toward staying in this country.

As perceived by the ideologues, guest worker programs are about coming, working for a few years, then going back home – to be replaced by another batch of newcomers who come, work, then go home.

The fact that Boxer wouldn’t be supportive of that concept is probably what will gain her support among Latino voters.

THERE IS ONE other aspect to this new ad campaign. The Latino Partnership claims to be a “leading voice” for the Latino population. I am skeptical of that fact – particularly after checking out their presence on the Internet, where I learned the group’s advisers include Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist and conservative pundit Linda Chavez, who has held significant positions in the presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush the elder.

I’m not saying these people don’t have a right to an opinion about Boxer, or Latino issues. It’s a free country.

But Norquist is the anti-tax activist who once famously said he’d like to shrink government down to a size where he could take what was left and, “drown it in the bathtub.” Somehow, I suspect that much of what he wants to cut would be measures that would be to the benefit of the growing Latino population.

Which means I’m hesitant to take anything he’s connected to and overstate it into being the beliefs of the bulk of the Latino segment of society. The bulk of us will speak for ourselves when we cast out ballots in Tuesday’s elections.

  -30-

Obstacles need to be removed for U.S. to live up to our ideals



No el Rey de los E.E.U.U.

Whenever the issue of reforming the nation’s immigration laws comes up, invariably some crackpot will try to argue that treating people without papers as criminals is justified because of the number of immigrants who do things “the right way.”

As though these masses from Latin American nations are somehow unworthy of being thought of as immigrants because the byzantine maze of a process was not followed to their satisfaction.

ONE MUST CONSIDER the real reason these particular individuals like the current process is that it creates enough muck so as to keep people out. This country that gained its strength from being a place where, theoretically, anyone could come in search of a new life is a place that they want to be more exclusionary.

The reason I have a problem with these people is that I realize the process is such a mess that some people wishing to come here have virtually no chance of ever winding their way through the maze.

That is why our laws are in need of reform. Of course, even a reform of our laws wouldn’t completely resolve the problem, because there also are government officials on the “other” side who have the right to stop people from leaving.

The sad reality is that becomes an obstacle in and of itself, which is what motivates many of those people to just come – regardless of any paper trail that certain people may want to have created on their behalf.

I COULDN’T HELP but be reminded of that fact when I read the results of a recent study by the Gallup Organization. They surveyed people living in Latin American nations as to their thoughts about government.

That study focused on what people thought of the government’s cooperation with people wanting to start a business – 66 percent of people living in 20 nations across the Americas think their governments make the paperwork and permit process more difficult than it has to be.

Only 25 percent thought their governments were sympathetic to encouraging business interests.

By comparison, only 40 percent of people in the United States and Canada thought their governments were uncooperative to business interests.

FOR THOSE WHO want it broken down more, 70 percent of Mexican citizens thought that their federal government was uncooperative when it came to backing business interests. But that wasn’t the worst.

People in Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil and Panama thought their government was as bad or worst – with people from Argentina having the least faith (79 percent) in their government.

People of Uruguay had the most faith in their government to back business – but even there it was a 51 percent majority who think their government is unsupportive of business interests.

Now I know some people are going to claim that this study is irrelevant – it addressed business interests, and not immigration policy.

BUT I WOULD argue that it is reflective of the attitudes toward government that many people from these Latin American nations have (which in some ways would make them seem like natural allies of those people in our society who want to see conspiracies in every utterance that comes from President Barack Obama’s mouth).

To me, that is more the reason why these people just come to the United States. It’s not so much any disrespect for the “rule of law,” as a knowledge that those “rules” can be so stacked that the only way to get something done is to just do it.

Or in the case of immigration, to just come. Waiting to play the game by two sets of rules, both of which are meant to create more obstacles, means that nothing gets accomplished.

At the very least, we in the United States ought to be trying to live up to ideals of democracy by ensuring that our end of the process is as legitimate as it can be.

IT WAS THAT point that Obama was trying to address when, during a recent radio interview in Los Angeles, the president said that he is, “a president. I’m not a king.” He can’t just ram through an immigration policy that tries to eliminate the bureaucratic roadblocks that were put up by people who’d rather have fewer of certain types of people trying to get into this country.

“I’m committed to making it happen, but I’ve gotta have some partners to do it,” Obama said, during that interview.

Which makes me wonder if the people who are most vehemently opposed to immigration reform are really living in the wrong nation themselves. Their strong-arm attitude might very well be a better fit for some of those Latin American nations where the local governments act all-powerful.

It makes me wonder how much those immigrants view our Congress, and see a governmental body that appears to be no better than the ones that led the nations they were leaving.

  -30-

Boxer didn’t give her campaign a vicious upper-cut with abortion comment

"Sen." Barbara Boxer

The political observers of a conservative ideological bent want to believe that Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., did her re-election bid some serious damage Sunday when, while appearing on a weekend interview program on Univision, she started speaking about abortion.

To be specific, Boxer appeared on the Univision program “Al Punto,” where she was asked her thoughts about a new broadcast campaign ad meant to make Latinos think that anyone who supports abortion being a legal medical procedure or marriage being legitimate for gay people is too different from the fastest-growing segment of our society.

BOXER DIDN’T TRY to engage in gobbledygook or spin.  She admits she is completely like a growing segment of our society in being supportive of both of those stances. She said it is a matter of being “respectful” of other peoples’ views.

She also said she could sympathize with those Latinos whose Catholicism is so intense that they feel the need to be opposed on both issues.

It sounds like a sensible view to me. But the ideologues are trying to claim that Boxer shot herself in the foot, and that enough Latino votes will now skip away from her so as to make the campaign of Republican challenger Carly Fiorina somehow competitive.

"Opponent" Carly Fiorina

It strikes me as odd that these ideologues have gone for months claiming that the Latino voter bloc is an insignificant one, thereby making any government activity supportive of our interests a waste of political time and energy.

BUT NOW AS the Election Day gets closer and closer (eight more days), we see more and more attempts to urge Latinos not to back the Democrats. Whether it is an attempt to discourage all Latino votes for members of Congress, or just swaying some from Boxer, it seems to be a contradiction.

Or could it be that those ideologues know, deep down in their cold hearts, that I have been correct for the past few months when I write that the Latino voter bloc has the potential to be the “antidote” to the Tea Party-type virus that threatens to spread through parts of this country on Nov. 2.

Insofar as where Latinos stand on abortion and issues related to gay people, there is no single stand. Some people, particularly those of an older generation, are more inclined to be hostile toward showing sympathy to anyone directly affected by those matters.

But the same trends of our society as a whole that show the younger generation being less hostile apply to the Latino population as well.

SO SURE, IT is possible that some people heard Boxer’s rhetoric and were unsympathetic. But I’d say that what they really got was reinforcement of the fact that they already were not going to vote for her.

A University of Southern California poll commissioned for the Los Angeles Times shows Boxer taking 60 percent of the Latino vote, with Fiorina getting only28 percent.

To me, that looks all too similar to a Pew Hispanic Center study done earlier this month that showed Latinos as a whole favoring Democratic candidates for Congress over Republican ones – by a 65 to 22 percent margin.

Which is why I think that while it is true that some Latinos will despise what Boxer had to say on those two issues, those people have already made up their mind against her. The remaining Latinos are ones who will not be influenced by this rhetoric.

THAT 28 PERCENT shown in the latest poll of the U.S. Senate race in California is likely to be the extent of the Latino vote that Fiorina can hope for. Many of those people who haven’t made up their minds yet probably won’t vote. Or they’ll come around and go Democratic because of much of the hostility expressed by GOP candidates nationwide.

When it comes to the Latino vote, Fiorina is going to pay for the antics of her newly-found partisan allies who are quick to shoot off their mouths with anti-Latino rhetoric if they think it will strengthen their support with other segments of the electorate.

Which is what Boxer was driving at when she later said during the interview program, “I’ve worked very hard on immigration, so (Latinos) know what side I’m on and my opponent supports the Arizona law, which is clearly targeting Latinos. It’s not good and she’s there and I’m on the other side of that.”

Which means the real bottom line is this – the same USC poll showing Boxer kicking Fiorina’s buttocks among Latino voters also has Boxer leading the campaign overall by a 50-42 percent margin.

WHO KNOWS. PERHAPS Fiorina can find a way in the final week to close the “gap?” Perhaps she will be the ultimate evidence of the truth to the old cliché, “The only poll that matters is Election Day.”

But based on what I’m seeing, I hope Fiorina hasn’t been guzzling down too much tequila to make her think the Latino vote is going to be the source of support that enables her to close the gap.

That would be even more ridiculous than the new broadcast campaign ad by film director David Zucker, which tries to mock Boxer for a moment last year when she insisted that a military officer address her as “senator” rather than “ma’am,” which she found to be condescending.

  -30-

Voter turnout the focus of Latino observers, why not the pols?

It is pathetic that it took evidence of a “dirty trick” campaign against the Latino voter bloc to get some interest from people with some authority to focus on the issue of getting Latinos to take the time to cast votes in the upcoming general elections.

Yet what may be even more sad is the fact that it isn’t the political interests themselves that are taking on this project, which is one that I have been screaming about for months.

WE’RE GETTING A “bring out the vote” effort in these 10 days leading up to Election Day, and it is being inspired by the two television networks in this country that cater to the growing Latino population.

We’re talking about Univision and Telemundo – both of which plan in coming days to urge people to vote.

The Associated Press reported that Univision was giving President Barack Obama airtime, giving him an interview where he will get to plead with Latinos to show up at the polling place, either this week at early voting centers or on Nov. 2 for the actual Election Day festivities.

Telemundo (the sister network of NBC) is developing its own ad campaign (Tu Voto, Tu Futuro) that will try to bang the message into peoples’ minds that it is in their best interest to cast a ballot.

WHILE I HAVE no problem with a news-gathering shop having some sort of editorial opinion, so long as they are honest about their biases, I find it sad that these broadcast efforts seem to be the most vocal efforts to try to get Latinos (who comprise about 16 percent of the U.S. population, but about 9 percent of registered voters) to take elections seriously.

It’s not coming from the campaigns themselves. In fact, earlier this week, the government-oriented website Politico reported about the disgust level felt by Latino political operatives who think their campaigns are getting next to no support from the Democratic National Committee.

Considering that Democratic operatives will give lip service to the idea that they need Latino votes in order to overcome the anticipated surge of Tea Party types anxious to undo the political gains of recent years, this clearly is a case of political actions not matching their rhetoric.

  -30-

Campaign tactic still misses the point

I must confess that when I wrote a commentary a couple of days ago about the Latinos4Reform group that was urging the Latino voter bloc to ignore the part of the ballot related to Congress, I didn’t realize how directly the group was connected to the Republican Party.

Not that it matters in the least. My view then was that it would be stupid for Latinos to think they would accomplish anything by not voting. That view remains the same now that we realize this was purely a political tactic.

IN FACT, IT is partisan politics at its most coarse.

The key to winning elections is for candidates to encourage the types of people most inclined to vote for them to actually turn out on Election Day, while making people who don’t support them not care enough to cast ballots.

So no matter how much the Tea Party types want to think they’re leading a “revolution” that is swaying the minds of our society, what is really going on is that Democrats may get done in by the apathy of their own ranks.

Which means they won’t have anyone to blame but themselves for election losses. That probably goes double for the Latino voter bloc, which if we turned out in the same strength as we have in recent elections could go a long way toward thwarting the electoral desires of those political people whose agenda includes measures that are hostile toward our growing presence in this society.

THERE IS A real sense that Democratic political officials who want to think they’re our allies haven’t done squat on our behalf – making, at best, half-hearted gestures that claim we will get their firm support, “someday.”

But those of us who are paying attention (which at times does not include Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos) know that the real problem is the potential for increased influence for people who want to use us as their punching bag to gain the support of the nativist element of our society.

Which is why it makes perfect sense, from the Republican perspective, to try to get Latinos to think it is in their best interest to sit back and do nothing. Since there’s no chance that we’d do anything in any significant numbers to benefit them, they’d rather we benefit nobody.

My commentary earlier this week was meant to say that it is never in our best interest to sit back.

BUT PARTICULARLY AT a time like this, we need to think of aggressive actions to grab the attention of political people. Because as much as some people want to think we need to send a message to Democratic politicians about their apathy, what we really need to focus on is the GOP hostility.

The way we Latinos bring an end to hostile rhetoric from politicians is to teach them that they will hurt themselves severely by engaging in such trash talk.

The reason why otherwise sensible officials are willing to push such rhetoric is because they see it turns out voter support from certain people, and doesn’t seem to cost them anything from us.

We need to make them realize that former Rep. Bob Dornan, R-Calif., in 1996 was NOT the aberration when he lost to Loretta Sanchez. It is the wave of the future for our society.

WHICH IS WHAT makes this particular campaign tactic to try to reduce the Latino vote so pathetic. A part of me actually wishes that the Latino voter bloc would become so offended by this lame attempt to reduce our influence that it would actually help to increase it.

Show our anger by casting our ballots. That’s what the American Way should be.

It is why there are various people who now feel the need to pile on their opposition to the alleged “Latinos4Reform.”

Some of it is predictable, such as Democratic National Committee chair Tim Kaine calling the effort, “the GOP’s dirty work.” While a group calling itself The Latino Coalition dumps on the effort for another reason – it’s bilingual nature.

THE GROUP HAD prepared its “don’t vote” spots both in English and in Spanish, but the Latino Coalition claims their Spanish skills are seriously challenged. Because the Spanish version tells people not to vote at all, rather than the English version which simply says that Congress should be ignored because of Democratic “apathy.”

Like I wrote earlier, this is a campaign tactic. I can understand it on that level as being a part of the process of trying to get one’s candidates elected to office.

Which is why I’m not offended by the spot as much as amused by it.

Because I know one theme that runs through many of the hostile responses I receive from the commentary published at this site is that Latinos are irrelevant in this society and that I am trying to distort their significance to make it appear as though we could mean something.

IT JUST SEEMS to me that if the political operatives seriously believed that thought, then a response like this would be seen as the biggest waste of campaign cash imaginable.

Why waste time, effort and money on encouraging people NOT to vote if you really don’t believe they have any influence whatsoever.

Could it be that, deep down, these people realize our potential strength? If they had sense, they’d be trying to figure out ways to tap into our strength and use it on their behalf. Instead, they’re more eager to play partisan games to postpone the inevitable.

If anything, that alone ought to be our reason to get off our nalgas and cast our ballots for those Nov. 2 elections.

  -30-

Hardly anybody wants to be the police along the border

At first glance, it seems like a bad comedy sketch from Saturday Night Live. In fact, I’m wondering if the saga of Marisol Valles Garcia is destined to get some airtime on that long-lasting program.

Valles is 20, and she’s a college student. She has aspirations to work in law enforcement. Which makes her like thousands of people who live in this country.

VALLES EVEN TOOK a job with a police department, which also makes her like many young people taking crummy jobs in hopes that the line looks impressive on the resume come the future when she tries to get gainful employment.

But what makes Valles so unique that her saga is being reported around the world is that Valles took a “police chief” position (her actual title is “Director of Municipal Public Security”) in one of those towns along the U.S./Mexico border where the narcotics-related violence has reached such intense levels that some people have tried fleeing across the border into Texas to escape it.

Either that, or they move to Ciudad Juarez. You know things are bad in your community if you think that the city named for Benito Juarez is a safer place to live.

We now have the image of a 20-year-old girl as a big, bad police chief taking on the drug cartels.

THERE ARE TWO facts to take into account.

The border township whose police department Valles now heads – Praxedis Guadalupe Guerrero – is small. Her department has one squad car, and a dozen full- and part-time police officers.

Basically, Valles is on her own.

Also, Valles herself admits she’s not about to go walking the streets with a shotgun looking to hunt down drug-dealers. She’s not even focusing much attention on those dealers, because Mexico’s military still has its presence in the northern part of the country to try to enforce the drug laws.

SHE SAYS SHE will leave the hunt for drug traffickers to the Army, and will focus her attention on programs that urge drug prevention. Which in my mind almost makes her sound like an over-glorified DARE officer – one of those cops who visits school classrooms and tells kids about the dangers of drugs, while also trying to build up some rapport with the young people so that they will be trusting of police later in their lives.

The real question is to determine how much the narcotics traffickers take her seriously. This region is a place where the dealers have gained so much arrogance that they have taken to getting violent with law enforcement officers who actually try to do their jobs.

Even now, the Internet is loading up with people who feel the need to make the dull-witted observation that Valles will find herself beheaded sooner, than later.

But Guerrero, who has one college degree and is doing work on a doctorate in criminology, isn’t exactly hiding from this, telling reporter-types earlier this week, “we’re all afraid in Mexico now. We can’t let fear beat us.”

SO ASSUMING SHE doesn’t manage to come into harm’s way, there’s a good chance she’s going to get that Ph.D in the near future and will have that “police chief” line on her resume. She may well turn out to be a worthy public servant.

Yet I have to admit a part of the attraction for me to this story is her gender. The spirit of machismo runs so strong in Mexico (Why else would there be a segment of the population that would glorify the narcotics dealers as being some sort of rebellious element in society?) that I’m sure the first thought of some will be to snicker at the thought of a lady chief – who in all honesty looks more like she’s about 16 in some of the photographs I have seen of her.

It could wind up being her advantage if it makes people underestimate her to the point where she is able to reach out to the public and gain trust. A police department (unless it is prepared to behave like tyrannical thugs) cannot operate unless it has the support of the public.

The world that has been watching to see Valles sworn in will now be observing to see if she can reach out to the public and get their support. Because that is the point at which the narcotics trafficking in the region will go on the decline.

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“Don’t vote” for Congress misses the point

There is a batch of activists out there who would probably argue that I blew it big time when, earlier this week, I went to an Early Voting Center to cast my ballot for the Nov. 2 elections.



Anybody who thinks Congress is going to do anything but snicker at the tought of a Latino voter boycott is missing the point. Photograph provided by Architect of the Capitol.



Because as I worked my way down the list of candidates, I came to my choice of people to represent me in the House of Representatives. I picked one. In my case, I picked Rep. Bobby Rush for yet another term in Washington, largely because the opposition was perennial candidate Raymond Wardingley.

I JUST DON'T think the guy who has never held office and once performed as Spanky the Clown is qualified to serve in Washington.

But a group calling itself Latinos4Reform thinks I should have skipped over that portion of the ballot. They’re trying to stir up the Latino voter bloc to not cast votes for members of Congress, in what they allege is an attempt to send a message that we’re tired of being ignored.

I’ll be the first to admit the performance of Congress these past two years when it comes to acknowledging the growing Latino population is pathetic.

Too many Democrats don’t seem to like having us on their side, while too many Republicans are eager for blood, so to speak. They seem to want to push for measures that are hostile toward our interests, and disrespectful toward our existence.

BUT AS I have written before, I’m not sure what is accomplished by holding out on voting for members of Congress.

As the group put it in a statement they issued earlier this week, “We have been betrayed by the Democratic leadership. Now, when they need our votes, they are at it again with more empty promises.”

So not voting, they would claim, is a way of catching their attention. The problem is that it will catch their attention in the wrong way.

The reality is that many political people act in ways that benefit the people who vote for them. All of those nativist nitwit elected officials are behaving in such a manner because they sense that their particular constituents will approve of such behavior.

THE WAY IT ultimately will stop is when it becomes clear that behaving in a political manner that is hostile to the interests of the growing Latino population will mean many votes for an opposing candidate.

Which means we ought to be trying to figure out a way to take down some of these candidates who push for absurd measures or who do anything possible to thwart issues such as immigration reform.

It is why I disagree when the activist group says, “If, however, we don’t vote for these politicians, then we will command the attention and respect of both sides of the aisle.”

Nonsense!

NOT VOTING AT all will be interpreted by the political powers-that-be as a sign that we don’t care. If anything, it will be seen by the Democratic officials who should be our allies that they did the right thing by not bothering to support our issues.

After all, if we really cared, we’d be upset enough to vote people out of office.

And as for the Republican officials who have become our opposition, they will see it as a sign that they can get away with their antics. After all, if we won’t even support their opposition, why should they care at all about what we do.

All of this means that sitting back and leaving a portion of the ballot blank is a pointless action. I have always thought that not voting means I lose my right to complain. That goes for voting for everybody except members of Congress.

ANYBODY WHO ACTUALLY follows this pointless tactic is giving up their right to complain about Congress and its actions for the next two years.

Personally, I’m pretty sure they’re going to screw up many more things before they finally get this particular issue right. So at the very least, my vote for Bobby L. Rush should be interpreted as a sign that I intend to continue to complain about ineptitude in Congress.

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