We come off on the better end in recent U.S./Mexico political travel exchange

It must be something in the air as we approach springtime, for the political people are travelling about on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border.

BACHMANN: Back from Latin America



Part of that is the fact that Mexico President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa  is coming to the United States this week. He’ll be in Washington on Thursday, and will have a face-to-face meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House.

NOT THAT THERE’S anything wrong with such a meeting – which will actually be the fifth between the two men during the past two years. Constant talk and negotiations is what is needed to ensure that our nation maintains stable relations with its neighbor to the south.

And as for those individuals who seriously believe we’d be better off without trying to maintain ties with Mexico, the only thing I can seriously say is that those people ARE the problem.

Which is why a part of me was somewhat pleased to learn of a congressional delegation (five members, to be exact) included a visit to Mexico on a trip the y made last week to Latin American nations.

CALDERON: His fifth meeting with Obama



What makes it particularly noteworthy is that the delegation included Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., one of the newly-elected politicos who got her position in the 2010 election cycle with strong support of the Tea Party types.

THOSE INDIVIDUALS ALL too often are among the ones who are the problem when it comes to trying to resolve conditions between the United States and Mexico because they would prefer to ignore reality when it comes to international ties.

Bachmann, who has shown more than a willingness in her rhetoric to pander to the people whose view of the North American continent is extremely closed, got to be on this trip because of her slot on the House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee.

So she got to meet with Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos, and also got high-level briefings on the current security status of both Colombia and Mexico – along with an update on what is being done with Mexico to try to calm the drug-related violence taking place near Ciudad Juarez AND to keep it from spreading north of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande into El Paso, Texas.

I’d like to believe that giving Bachmann this kind of information would make her more knowledgeable – and capable of making more intelligent votes when issues related to Mexico, and Latin American nations in general, come up before the Congress.

OR WILL SHE be the equivalent of that kid in high school whose notebook wound up being filled with cutesy doodles while she ignored the lecture because the subject material was just, “Soooo boring!”

Not that the congresswoman is giving us a clue as to what she got from her trip to Latin America. The Politico newspaper only reported that she went, and that her staff wouldn’t even confirm her involvement in the trip until after it was over.

I’m sure some people are going to claim there’s a “national security” factor involved in withholding such information. But does Bachmann really think some Mexican drug cartel would have kidnapped her?

Somehow, I can’t help but be reminded of that old episode of “M*A*S*H” where actor Larry Linville’s “Frank Burns” character was used as a hostage by North Korean soldiers, only to be turned loose because they got sick and tired of listening to his incessant whining.

BOEHNER: What will he gain?



I WONDER WHAT perception Mexican officials got of the United States for having a member of Congress such as Bachmann. Or did she put a cork in the political partisanship and actually try to learn something?

Which means the more serious dialogue is likely to take place on Thursday, when Calderon meets not only with Obama but with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Maybe a little personal exposure with the Mexican president is what will help the esteemed “Mr. Speaker” tell some of the members of his caucus to “Put a cork in it!” if they start pushing for blatantly partisan and hostile measures in Congress aimed at this nation’s growing Latino population.

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Weekend notes to keep you busy through Monday

Hispanic residents up 161 % in Birmingham area. 

                                         

It’s a headline from the Birmingham News newspaper, and it really isn’t unique. The Census Bureau’s 2010 population count is showing more Latinos living everywhere. If anything, it means that a place that previously had few Latinos now has a significant number. News outlets across the country are forced to run similar stories -- unless they're more interested in burying the truth about their populations/readers.

BUT I LIKE the idea of that “161 percent” figure, because I’m sure at least a few nativist nitwits read that newspaper headline and choked on their coffee – or read it on a computer screen and began swearing up a storm.

Then, there is the report on a Fox News’ website (admittedly, the Latino-oriented one), one headlined that being bilingual is a “workplace advantage” for Latinos.

I’d argue that many Latinos in this country are working to bolster their English, no matter how much the nativist element of our society wants to spin stories to the contrary. What we don’t accept is the idea that somehow a complete repudiation of the ethnic ways of the past is essential to becoming a part of this society.

Like it or not, some of the Latin American ways are going to become a part of the U.S. culture. Assimiliation means us picking up on the ways of society, which also accepts some of our mores.

ALSO, WE REALIZE that the way to increase our status in this society is through education. It makes me wonder that when political fools spew out rhetoric about how “illegals” shouldn’t be entitled to be in the public schools, what they’re really dreaming about is a day when they think they can keep my ethnic brethren ignorant.

Perhaps they think they can make us as clueless as themselves?

And while it happened a few days ago, it remains interesting that Los Angeles County Sheriff’s police has to deal with a report released this week related to the death of one-time Los Angeles Times reporter Ruben Salazar in 1970 at a Vietnam War protest.

The report provides more a picture of a law enforcement agency that was incompetent and over-reacting, rather than the Chicano conspiracies of police who plotted to kill Salazar because he was exposing their wrongdoing against Latinos (a label that admittedly, Salazar himself wouldn’t have used).

IT’S NICE TO see that some people haven’t forgotten Salazar and his contribution to boosting Chicano consciousness – which has led to our current status of feeling we don’t have to take the abuse of xenophobes with irrational hang-ups.

I just can’t help but wonder, though, how many people of today heard the name “Salazar” and immediately dismissed it as something they never heard of. Maybe if they made a movie of Salazar’s life (and work), it would capture the public’s attention.

Perhaps actor Esai Morales as Salazar (just a suggestion) could revive him in the collective consciousness the way actor Tom Hanks resurrected the name “Jim Lovell” – the leader of the Apollo 13 crew that never made it to the moon, but came off as so heroic in that 1995 film.

And now, I take my weekend rest. Go off, and learn something.

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NOTICIAS de LATINO: We have our cranky old men too

I can’t say I’m surprised to learn that some Latinos are finding an appeal in the Tea Party movement – we have our share of cranky viejos who want to be perceived at all costs as part of the establishment, instead of being with the people fighting it.

I also know there are those among us (particularly an older generation) whose views on many social issues aren’t too enlightened.

SO I DON’T consider it some bizarre move that a person of Mexican ethnic origins (albeit several generations back) is the head of the Tea Party “chapter” that exists in San Antonio, Texas. Heck, San Antonio is so overwhelmingly Latino that I’d be surprised if they DIDN’T have a Latino leader.

That is the case with George Rodriguez, who earlier this week was named president of the local chapter of people looking to provoke a political battle with the Democratic establishment (and the Republicans too, if they won’t comply with their strict ideological demands on many issues).

I do get a kick out of the chapter’s logo, which incorporates the Gadsden Flag’s snake wrapped around The Alamo. I also noticed that Rodriguez was the head of the Juan Seguin Society – which commemorates one of the Tejano fighters against Mexico, who eventually had to flee an “independent” Texas to head back to what was left of Mexico after the white settlers became hostile toward the “natives.”

Which is what I honestly think will happen to Latinos who get mixed up in Tea Party-type groups across this country. They will be used for political cover in the early days, then discarded when the ideologues no longer want to be bothered with these people they think should not be allowed to think of themselves as belonging in this country.

SO WHILE I’LL agree with Rodriguez’ statement (published on his Tea Party chapter’s website) that many Latinos, “are naturally conservative,” I’m not sure that translates into many of my ethnic brethren signing on with the GOP. It ought to, but the hostility expressed by many of these types will scare them away. Democrats by default, is the reality of today.

Now I have never met Rodriguez. I have some relatives who live in San Antonio, but to the best of my knowledge, they don’t know him personally either. But when the day comes that these Tea Party types decide they don’t particularly want Latinos on their side, I will join many others in welcoming back Rodriguez to our ranks.

At the very least, I suspect if we ever did meet, it would turn into a serious afternoon of arguing over issues. Which might be a pleasant challenge, since life would truly be boring if we all looked and thought alike.

What other items of interest to the growing Latino population were worthy of note?

GIVE IT UP, YOU WON ALREADY:  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., seems a little too eager to surround himself with people who love him, really, really love him.

For Reid on Thursday made a trip to Rancho High School in Las Vegas. That is where Reid’s opponent in last year’s election cycle got herself the negative press that did her in as an anti-Latino nincompoop when she managed to offend a group of Latino students.

Reid went to the high school to speak to those same students who are members of the Hispanic Student Union, some of whom responded to Sharron Angle’s comments by volunteering to work for the Reid re-election campaign – which he barely won.

Yes, these students want another go in Congress this year at the DREAM Act, although Reid went out of his way to avoid promising anything.

IS THE BURGER KING HOLDING BACK A LATINO-THEMED BUSINESS?:  Carrols Restaurant Group has plans this year to spin off its Hispanic Businesses division, which operates franchises of the Pollo Tropical and Taco Cabana fast-food restaurants.

Those companies had combined revenue of $439.1 million last year, according to the Reuters wire service, and sales during the fourth quarter of last year rose 10.7 percent and 2.3 percent respectively.

So why make the split? It seems the company also owns over 300 franchises of the Burger King fast-food brand. Those sales fell by 6.1 percent during the same quarter, and some speculation is that the split is to prevent Burger King’s decline from holding back the other, growing, fast-food brands.

So could it be that people are choosing to eat more Caribbean fajitas (served with chicken) at Pollo Tropical outlets? Or is it that we’re all just tired of the Whopper?

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The cost of local immigration enforcement,as seen from the home of the Braves

Perhaps the best example I can find these days of how absurd the idea of giving local law enforcement the authority to enforce federal immigration law is found in a couple of paragraphs from a story published by the Gainesville Times newspaper in Georgia.

That publication covered a Georgia state Legislative hearing held Tuesday in which people debated whether or not the Peach State should aspire to be more like the Grand Canyon State was in 2010 when it comes to this issue.

SPEAKING IS TOM Hensley, president of Fieldale Farms Corp., which produces poultry products for consumption. He says the overtones of such ethnically-motivated legislation are already impacting his business.

As he put it:

“We were 67 percent Hispanic in 2004. Our turnover was 25 percent. Our workers (compensation) cost was $50,000 a month. Our health care cost for the whole year was $8 million. It was about that time that the federal, state and local governments let it be known that these folks are not welcome.

“Fast forward to 2010, we’re about 33 percent Hispanic now. Our turnover is 75 percent. Workers comp costs are $150,000 a month. Our health care last year was $20 million. Those are staggering numbers, but that’s the economic reality.”

WHEN ONE CONSIDERS all the businesses being impacted, the financial devastation becomes all too clear.

It seems the only people who really want these changes are the ones who are all too eager to put ideology ahead of sensible public policy. The people whose prejudices are so intense that they’d rather do harm to a segment of our economy, rather than concede these individuals are making a worthy contribution to our society, and perhaps there is no legitimate reason the bulk of those now considered “illegal” ought to be.

Just a thought for the day.

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Indiana business types see Arizona-style immigration measures as impractical

People who want to make “Hoosier jokes” ought to give a break to the residents of the state of Indiana. At least a few of them are showing some signs of sense these days.

At stake is the fact that Indiana’s state Legislature is among the 20-something Legislatures that are considering following the lead of Arizona’s actions last year in imposing new laws giving their local police the authority to enforce federal immigration laws.

THE LEGISLATOR WHO is sponsoring this nonsense in Indiana is doing so largely because he has his own aspirations of running for governor, and he’d like to be the idol of the Hoosier nativists whom he envisions would support his political dreams as a reward for giving them the kind of hateful bill they desire.

But people who are more inclined to look at the bottom line are turning out in opposition to state Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel. The Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, including 120 mayors and 465 municipalities overall from across the state that every year becomes the center of the sporting world for one day with the Indianapolis 500, created a compact this week that asks legislators not to support Delph’s bill.

For having police departments devote time and resources to immigration, an issue for which most of them know nothing about, would be a financial burden.

People can complain all they want about how the federal government is not doing enough to address this issue. But that doesn’t mean that local government entities such as police departments have any role in this issue.

THE FACT THAT this potential cost surge is coming at a time when many local governments across the country are trying to cut their budgets as much as possible so they can cope with the tough economic conditions of the past couple of years.

The last thing they want is something that will boost the size of their police budgets – even if they happen to agree with the partisan politics that are truly behind the measure.

And for most of these local political people, they don’t care enough about the ideology to make some grand statement on the issue – particularly if it will cost them money.

There also are other members of the compact, such as Eli Lilly and Co., who think the bill is bad business because it creates the image of Indianans as xenophobes. The state already has enough troubles attracting any kind of international business (it just gets dwarfed by Chicago) that it doesn’t need such political nonsense holding it back.

IT'S JUST A shame that the politicos of Indiana were more interested in playing partisan games, as the State Senate went along with Delph's dreams and passed his bill.. It remains to be seen if the Indiana House of Representatives feels equally compelled to act dumb.

Particularly since neighboring Illinois is clearly never going to adopt such legislation.

For all those people who argue that Illinois imposed an income tax hike recently that will drive away business, the reality is that a measure that threatens the financial bottom line in the name of ideology is a bigger harm to a state’s economy.

Perhaps the next time we hear Republicans try to identify themselves as the political party most favorable to business interests, perhaps we should all throw this issue in their face as evidence to the negative.

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It’s all about the posturing

The conservative ideologues like to boast of the dozens of states that are talking about following the lead of Arizona in terms of pushing for laws allowing their local police to get more involved in enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Ideally, they’d like it if the local cops could actually boot people out of town if they don’t fit the ethnic profile of what the ideologues consider to be the preferred prototype (anyone  just like themselves).

THEY’RE MORE THAN willing to go for measures that would allow for harassment – perhaps on the theory that they can make people feel “unwelcome” enough that they will leave voluntary.

Yet while I don’t doubt that there are some state Legislatures with enough knuckleheads in the majority that they would pass such measures, I can’t help but notice that some of these states are sending these bills down to defeat.

The most recent involves Colorado, where a state Senate committee voted against the measures. Without that recommendation, the full Legislature isn’t going to consider it.

While it is always possible that someone may try some strong-arm political measure to get a committee recommendation, that would only play into the hands of the people who are convinced these local immigration enforcement measures are about nothing more than petty harassment.

THE SACRAMENTO, CALIF.-BASED Latino Policy Coalition was pleased to learn of the Colorado legislative inactivity on this issue, with Chairman Jim Gonzalez calling the vote of the Senate’s State Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, “a serious blow against those who would persecute (ethnic) minorities.”

I have to confess that the particular committee used for this measure amuses me. My guess (I don’t know for sure) is that this committee has members of a certain ideological ilk, and somebody thought it would be the most favorable place to get a recommendation for this particular bill.

Which makes it all the more pleasurable that a committee with rightward leanings had enough sense to do away with this measure when it came before them last week.

That same thing is likely to happen this spring in Illinois, where a similar measure has been introduced. Actually, I’d willing to bet that the measure never even comes up for a vote.

THIS IS, AFTER all, a state with the Legislature firmly in the hands of Democrats from Chicago who understand the ethnic undertones involved in even sponsoring such a bill. It also is a state where the governor, Pat Quinn, has said on many occasions he would veto any such measure if it were to slither its way through the Illinois General Assembly.

So what even inspires someone to try sponsoring such a measure?

In this case, it is about gaining attention. State Rep. Randy Ramey, R-West Chicago, is ensured of gaining some ink for himself (heck, I included his name in this commentary). He’ll be able to pander to the ideologues who want such ethnic harassment written into the law that he tried.

Of course, he runs the risk of ticking off the growing Latino population in Illinois (which now outnumbers the African-American population in the state), which is growing the most in the suburban areas of Chicago.

INCLUDING IN RAMEY’S very own DuPage County, Ill., -- a place where the political establishment still thinks the old days of being a Republican bastion are forever cemented into place.

He’ll get his quickie shot of glory among certain ideologues. But in the long run, he’s going to be the problem for his own community, AND his political party.

But in talking about the Colorado situation, Gonzalez made mention of the long-term solution to stopping all these ideologues from trying to go state to state to find ways to harass newcomers – many of whom aren’t really new to this country at all. It is going to involve our Congress making the reforms to the federal immigration policies that are necessary in order to provide this nation with sensible measures.

Otherwise, the one-time schoolyard bullies who apparently have grown up to become ideologically conservative political geeks will continue to try to devise these measures all over the country – which are a pain in the nalgas to fight off, even if we know most of them are destined to NEVER become law.

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Future of the planet brings out the nitwits

It’s one of those stories that has horrific-sounding elements, but is also so incredibly generic, that it can be picked up anywhere.

Which is why an Agence France Presse story headlined, “Planet could be ‘unrecognizable’ by 2050, experts say,” is turning up on dozens (if not hundreds) of websites around the globe, and is spurring reaction from thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of ideologues who are determined to see this as evidence for their paranoid view of what this world should be like.

FOR THE RECORD, the story is an AFP dispatch from Washington about the gathering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. One academic said that the expected population growth of 2 billion more people (to 9 billiion people) by the year 2050 is going to tax the current production of food.

There won’t be enough food in the poorest of countries, which is where the bulk of the population growth is taking place. That is what caused the official to say the planet will be “unrecognizable” if things do not change starting now.

Personally, I feel like there have been variations on this kind of talk for decades. I’m not sure I really see the “news” in this particular report – even taking into account that this happened on a Sunday when there wasn’t much else happening that could be reported on for the Sunday night television newscasts or the ayem editions of the Monday newspapers – which are likely to put a truncated version of the story on page A7 atop a most-definitely-unerotic department store ad featuring women in brassieres.



A serious problem draws ridiculous debate



But my “ho hum” reaction isn’t the same as what is being derived from those people who like to comment anonymously about everything, even though a serious reading of what they write shows they usually know nothing at all.



I LITERALLY SAW the story at the Yahoo.com site with about 950 comments attached to it. About 15 minutes later, that figure was up to 1,423. Just for kicks, I checked again five minutes after that.

It was up to 1,827. By the time you read this, I don’t know how many thousands of people who forgot to take their medication this morning will have weighed in their thoughts on this “crucial issue.”

I’m letting the sarcasm ring loudly because I think it is the only way to respond to the people who are complaining about population overgrowth.

Literally the first response I saw was from someone who said this story was the justification for harsh immigration policies that keep those foreigners out of this country.

BARRICADING THE BORDERS and keeping the poor people out is the way to isolate ourselves from the world’s problems. Never mind the fact that isolationism and policies inspired by it have always failed.

Some people just want to stick their heads in the sand. Or use it as a reason to rant, since I literally read some people who want to say this “issue” is being caused by poverty in Latin America – although a repeated reading of the AFP dispatch doesn’t seem to place this problem on the American continents.

Some people just want to believe the worst, which is why I have a hard time taking much of the rancid rhetoric of the nativist sympathizers seriously. It’s just too stupid.

Then again, I also got to read rants on this issue saying it is the justification for the death penalty (kill the criminals, and we’ll reduce our population?), or the reason to get rid of “hippie garbage” (although I don’t have a clue what was meant by that).

THIS UN-INTELLIGIBLE LEVEL of debate is what too many of our serious issues have come down to – such as the nit-wit who put on a website a comment that the world’s food shortage will not be a problem because, “Chinese people taste like chicken.”

Groan!?!!

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¿El alcalde de Chicago?

Gery Chico outpolls among Latinos ...

I’m not sure who’s going to get elected as the new mayor of Chicago. I literally won’t be shocked if former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel winds up making the conservative ideologues gnash their teeth at the thought of continuing to have a political career.

Then again, he may just fall short because of the growing Latino vote in the city; a significant chunk of whom will remember Emanuel’s failure to do much of anything to advance immigration reform in this nation.



I’VE WRITTEN THIS issue up before, and don’t have much new to say other than that I will be waiting to see Election /Day results that come out Tuesday night.

... opponent Miguel del Valle by a 2-1 ratio



But I did stumble across a pair of pieces about the politicking taking place and how the Latino population (which the latest Census figures show has grown by just over 3 percent during the past decade within the city limits) will influence Tuesday’s outcome. They’re both worth reading.

And I’m not posting this piece of reporting just because it was done by one of the best reporter-type people I have ever encountered while working in the news business.

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Only the “un-American” would think China’s immigration policy is a role model for U.S.

I got my chuckle from reading some letters published recently in The Hill, a Washington-based newspaper oriented exclusively to covering Congress.

The letters were rants against immigration reform, although the one that most caught my attention was the one that was (for the most part) written semi-intelligibly.

IT WAS FROM the executive director of the Alliance for a Sustainable USA – a group consisting of immigrants to this country who are willing to tout the line of the nativists in urging restrictions on who should be allowed to come here.

The group’s director, Yeh Ling-Ling, aside from saying that many people coming to this country “exacerbate(s) problems we are trying to solve,” said that China has a tough immigration policy.

“The U.S. should use China’s immigration policy as a model to reform our immigration,” she wrote.

Which strikes me as having the same sentiment as those crackpots of three decades ago who, whenever someone would point out something wrong in this country, would suggest that we go live in “Communist Russia” (they rarely understood the country was actually called the Soviet Union).

IT ALWAYS GAVE me the feeling that they wished our country was the totalitarian society.

Because using Google to find information about the phrase “China immigration policy” produces documents detailing a policy where people are imprisoned (or executed if they come from certain countries), where women can be subjected to rape and abuse before being deported and where the few people allowed to live there who are citizens elsewhere are forbidden to demonstrate, make political statements, or fly foreign flags.

It is the totalitarian society “nightmare” that ought to be considered the antithesis to the “American Way” of life that we like to think our society is all about.

Only a fool would see such a policy as something to model ourselves after.

YET WHAT IS most amusing is the fact that China itself sees the need to lighten up the tone of its immigration policy – that if it truly wants to become one of the world’s most desirable nations, it is going to have to be more accepting of the world.

Xinhua News Agency (the propaganda arm of the Chinese government, admittedly) reported last year how discussions were taking place to figure out how to bring in the workers and professionals needed so that international companies will want to be a part of China, instead of viewing it as some sort of necessary evil they must deal with – and would pull out of at the first sign of trouble.

In fact, there is another change in China that catches my attention. Their national Census conducted at the end of 2010 is now counting foreign residents in the population count.

Which goes against the very notion that some people in our country propagate – that somehow, our Census count should just be a citizen count, rather than what it is at its very essence, a people count.

I’M NOT SAYING China is perfect these days. Their immigration reform still has a long way to go before it even achieves the level of our policies these days – as mixed up as they are.

But the key to success is that immigration policies have to be welcoming of individuals. Anyone who thinks that being restrictive is the key to success is little more than absurd.

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As bad as Obama does among Latinos, GOP doing much worse

OBAMA: 2/3, or 3/5?

I can already hear the conservative ideologues trying to put their spin on a new poll conducted by a group with interests in increased Latino political empowerment.

The Latino political support for Barack Obama is nowhere near as strong as it was two years ago. They’re going to offer up simplistic explanations about how this means the GOP’s nominee (whomever it will be) has already won the 2012 presidential elections.

FAT CHANCE. BECAUSE if I were one of those people, I’d be more embarrassed by which it said about Latino support for their people than anything it says about Obama.

Now it is true that the poll conducted last week by the Latino Decisions group for ImpreMedia (a collection of Spanish-language newspapers in this country) shows lesser support for Obama now than in 2008 – when the various exit polls came up with a 67 percent figure of Latino support for the former senator from Illinois when he ran against Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

This poll says that 70 percent of Latinos approve of Obama. But that doesn’t mean they are inclined to vote for him.

The poll shows only 55 percent of the 70 percent (or 43 percent of all Latinos surveyed) were willing to say now that they will vote for Obama’s re-election as president.

FOR THE RECORD, another 12 percent say they “probably” will vote for Obama, while another 6 percent are undecided, but “lean” to Obama. That is 61 percent overall, which means Obama has dropped from about two-thirds of Latinos liking him to about three-fifths.

If that were the whole story, then maybe there’d be a point, since three-fifths is about the same amount of Latino backing that John Kerry got when he ran for president in 2004 – a year that we now consider as a high-point when it comes to Latinos taking seriously someone of the Republican persuasion serving as U.S. president.

The problem for the ideologues is that if you look at the  remaining figures, one sees only 9 percent of Latinos “certain” to vote for a Republican presidential hopeful, with 8 percent “probably” voting GOP and 4 percent “leaning” toward a Republican.

That’s 21 percent, which means the Republican Party has the potential to have an even more humiliating year in 2012 than they did in ’08.

IN FACT, THE number of Latinos who truly are “undecided” (the remaining 17 percent) are the ones so unlikely to go to the GOP, unless that political party puts a gag on its nativist nitwits and engages in some serious changes in public perception during the next year and a half.

The real trick will be if Obama can sway enough of these undecideds to decide it is worth their time and effort to cast ballots. Otherwise, the bulk of these people will decide to stay home on that Election Day some 20-and-a-half months from now.

Now the approach being taken these days by those political groups trying to boost Latino interests in the Republican Party (the “9 percenters,” we can call them) is to claim that Obama didn’t do a thing with immigration reform. He certainly didn’t use any political capital to try to push people to vote for it.

Whether people will believe that line is questionable. This poll claims that while only 52 percent of Latinos think the Democratic Party is really concerned about our ethnic interests, it shows 66 percent think the Republican Party is hostile.

PALIN: 23 percent?????



IT ALSO DOESN’T help that the woman who is trying to peddle the image of herself as the inevitable GOP nominee, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, stinks when it comes to Latino perception – only 23 percent of us think of that woman favorably.

Which means that for all the work Obama can do to bolster his support among Latinos, the true factor in terms of the outcome of the ’12 election cycle is probably in the hands of the Republicans themselves.

They can make efforts to reach out for our support. Or they can be stubborn, and get their butts handed to them come the ’12 election cycle.

Your pick which option they will use.

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ACADEMIA AT WORK: Research rhetoric all too predictable

There were a pair of studies released recently that I have been ignoring because a part of me finds the “conclusions” to be way too predictable.

The Gallup Organization did its annual survey of what people in this country think of various other countries, while the Pew Hispanic Center found that the percentage of Latinos with Internet access is below the national average.

OTHERS HAVE CHOSEN to write extensively about these studies, which just don’t move me.

I think the Gallup study is the one that really does little for my mind. Guess what? Many people in our society don’t think much of Iran or North Korea, while Canada and Great Britain get the most favorable ratings. Could it just be the common language? It’s easier to be favorable if one can understand what is being said and read.

As in past years, only two Latin American nations were included – with 30 percent of people here viewing Cuba favorably and 62 percent having bad thoughts about the Caribbean island nation.

Then, there is Mexico, which the Gallup study says is a country that has fluctuated in recent years – from highs of 74 percent favorable in both 2003 and 2005 to a near split this year (45 percent favorable and 51 percent unfavorable).

IT IS THE first time the unfavorable for Mexico has been higher since 1994; back in the days when NAFTA was in the works and some of the opposition to free trade was from people whose xenophobic thought processes were such that they didn’t want our nation entering into any agreement with Mexico.

This time, Gallup thinks it is a reaction to the drug-related violence along the U.S./Mexico border, combined with the people who want to think of immigration as being a problem of “illegal” Mexicans.

Should it really be a surprise that when some people in our society persist with screaming and shouting, others will make the mistake of presuming there must be something wrong? This reaction is just way too predictable. In fact, I feel like I already wrote this commentary last year – when the favorable/unfavorable feelings toward Mexico were in percentages of 49/46, respectively.

Then, there is Internet use. Or actually, technology use.

THE PEW HISPANIC Center found that 65 percent of Latinos use the Internet (compared to 77 percent of white people). In terms of the numbers of people who are connected at home (meaning they don’t have to share their Internet access and can see what they want when they want in the privacy of their own casa), it comes to 45 percent Latino compared to 65 percent of white people.

Then, there is cellular telephone usage. Some 85 percent of white people were found to own a cell phone, compared to 76 percent of Latinos.

And when it comes to cell phones, my ethnic brethren are more likely to think of them just as phones – something to be used to make a telephone call to talk to someone.

Only 58 percent of Latinos were using non-voice applications on their phones (compared to 64 percent white people) and only 55 percent of Latinos were sending text messages, compared to 61 percent of los blancos.

BUT THERE WAS one area where Latinos led when it came to such technology. Six percent of Latinos use their cell phones to access the Internet in place of any kind of Internet access at home. By comparison, only 1 percent of white people rely on their cell phone so heavily.

Which just strikes me as Latinos being very practical – using the Internet when they are in serious need of information, rather than seeking out stupid video snippets on YouTube or the latest photograph of Sofia Vergara wearing a see-through blouse.

Oh, who’s kidding whom? That’s probably the one common goal we all have.

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What a mess these ideologues want to create

Perhaps it was all too predictable. A lawsuit has been filed in Texas over the way the state’s population was counted, because conservative ideologues don’t like the fact that the boost in people is directly attributable to the growing Latino population.

That means any fair reapportionment for purposes of political maps is going to give more political representation to areas that have significant Latino population.

HOW CAN THESE ideologues have their “revolution” when the people whom they find most revolting are the ones who will gain? Which is evidence of the overall justness of our society, in that “right” (as in correct, not conservative) usually prevails eventually.

The lawsuit in question was filed last week in U.S. District Court for east Texas (based in Sherman, not in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio or any significant city in the Lone Star State). It takes aim at the way Latinos were counted.

Specifically, it does not like the fact that the Census Bureau made no effort to ask people about their citizenship – which means these ideologues want to believe a whole load of “illegal” people from Mexico got counted when they shouldn’t, which means the Latino population boost gains way too much.

Anybody with sense knows that rhetoric is ridiculous, and here’s hoping that the federal courts see this as the frivolous lawsuit that it truly is.

THE CENSUS BUREAU has made it clear that they are counting people – their goal with the Census conducted last year (the results of which are spilling out state-by-state in coming weeks) was to find out how many “people” lived in the United States on April 1, 2010 – not how many “citizens” lived here on that date.

What it really amounts to is the ideologues engaging in last-ditch efforts to try to undermine reality – which is that the states of the southwestern U.S. that gained the most in terms of population and political representation are going to have to acknowledge Latino political empowerment.

Yet these individuals want to believe that last year’s election cycle was some sort of revolutionary movement – instead of just the last-gasp, dying breath of the nativists who can’t handle the 21^st Century population growth – one that is going to have Latinos at roughly one-third of the nation by the year 2050.

Perhaps they think that by filing this particular lawsuit in one of the lesser federal court districts of their state, they can ignore the real world and impose the views of their segment of society upon the rest of Texas (and eventually, the rest of us).

YET I’M WILLING to place enough faith in the court system, particularly the federal judges, who will see the level of nonsense in trying to challenge the Census Bureau system for their own political gain.

Personally, I can’t see what these people truly are upset about. Since the reality is that non-citizens can’t vote in U.S. elections. I would think that the non-Latino officials living in newly-strengthened Latino areas would be pleased, because it would be districts where a lot of people will have to sit on the sidelines – unable to respond by casting a ballot.

Unless there’s a chance that these people realize that immigration reform is inevitable. It is something that has to be done eventually (the sooner, the better), and it will create the day when many of these individuals who are working and being productive members of our society will get their chance at citizenship (and that beloved ballot).

In which case, this lawsuit becomes even more frivolous, because it is nothing more than an attempt to thwart the inevitable.

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