Lou Dobbs « The Mex Files

Entries categorized as ‘Lou Dobbs’

Ignorance is no excuse…

22 November 2009 · 2 Comments

In addition to various Spanish language sites, the Mexican newspapers, and a couple of on-line wonkish foreign policy publications. Mex Files subscribes (via RSS feeder) to about two dozen English-language blogs. Most are in Mexico, although that includes blogs from throughout the hemisphere. Some are seldom quoted, but read regularly, and — if if not directly related to what is written about here — a joy to read. Like Bob Mrotek’s wonderful and erudite “Mexico Bob Blogspot“. Mexico Bob knows his history, his Mexican culture and a good eye for detail. His posts are thoughtful and well researched — not something I can say about the two I’ve decided to drop from my RSS reader.

Borderlands Beat (not worth the link) is a cop site… all about the murder and mayhem of the “drug war”… and, so I’ve noticed, hopelessly inaccurate. A recent post on a police assassination in my state seemed to think the either the “Port of Mazatlan” — or the whole state – has a “mayor” named Mercedes Murillo de Esquer. There is such a person, the head of a non-governmental organization concerned with safety and security issues, in Cuiliacán, but she has no official role in the municipal governments of either the MUNICIPIO of Mazatlán, nor of Navolato, where the crime under discussion occurred. This is poor investigation for a cop, and even worse for a reporter, who at least should provide a readable narrative.

Less annoying perhaps, but also being dropped is one of those “My Life in Mexico” sites (that shall remain nameless and linkless to protect the innocent) that I had hope for. The author is a dependent of the United States Embassy, but apparently happy to remain a clueless tourist. At least, not knowing that Mexico is a major agricultural exporter, including fruit, she finds the fact that there is fruit fly control something to be tagged “only in Mexico”. Please!

I’ll keep reading “Crooks and Liars” (a U.S. based “progressive” site) even though it seems to think Telemundo is a MEXICAN television network*. Telemundo is a PUERTO RICAN corporation owned by the National Broadcasting System and MSN, both United States corporations. Last time I checked, Puerto Rico as still a Commonwealth of the United States, and geographically an island in the Caribbean, not part of Mexico.

Some of the programming (especially telenovelas) are Mexican produced, and Telemundo stations can be picked up in a few frontier towns, but nope, not Mexican. Maybe the “progressive” folks at Crooks and Liars can explain why they assume a woman speaking English with a Spanish-language accent is — ipso facto — Mexican, I’ll leave to smarter people than myself when it comes to the U.S. Latino experience.

Besides, while Mexican television news programs sometimes interview in English (Conservative journalist Sergio Sarmiento often interviews foreign newsmakers in English on his television program, La entrevista con Sarmiento) and there are a few English-language news broadcasts (notably Ana Maria Salazar’s radio program for Imagen Informativa, Mexican television has no interest in a washed up hack like Lou Dobbs. Mexican Americans, and Mexican immigrants to the United States, yes. But he’s irrelevant to Mexico, and there’s no reason for him to be interviewed by Mexican television.

Nor, apparently, to trust even “progressives” to get the facts right when they talk about Mexico. Their hearts may be in the right place, but their brains are stuck up their ass.

* They must read The Mex Files… at least they’ve changed the text to read “Spanish language network…” but letting the original error through a site that is, presumably edited, and written by David Niewart, who makes a name for himself as an expert on racism and the media, this was still boneheaded.

Categories: Clueless gringos in Mexico · Lou Dobbs · Media · Political bloggers

I won’t have Lou Dobbs to kick around anymore

13 November 2009 · 1 Comment

Oh well.

I’ve mentioned the guy a total of 23 times (24 counting this one) over the lifespan of The Mex Files. I guess his resignation (a thinly disguised firing) at CNN IS a victory for everyone who had sane views on immigration and human rights, but — as I got more than a little snarky about with a guy who acted like even a bigger dickhead than Dobbs (if that’s possible) back in November 2007– it’s not really relevant to the Mex Files. At least at the time, I was living in the United States, so had some interest in U.S. newscasters, and sometimes watched Lou Dobbs’ ridiculous television program, and did comment on it — much as I have commented on other badly researched, or misleading news regarding Mexico.

And, what’s the point anyway? Dobbs is only a symptom of what’s wrong with U.S. media coverage of Latin America, not the cause of the crappy, misguided and hostile coverage the region receives.

The only time one hears about Latin America — other than in a travel section or a scholarly publication — in the U.S. media is when the issues involve narcotics, political upheaval or threaten the financial interests of the corporate owners of the U.S. media.

While lip service is sometimes paid to the United States’ drug addictions as a reason for the cartels, one would think from listening to news from the United States that the cartels are the ONLY social and political issue in Mexico. Not hardly. Things like genetically modified corn — courtesy of U.S. conglomerates like Monsanto, agricultural policies in the United States that have destroyed the Mexican family farm, the maquiladoras, etc… have a lot more to do with the distortions in Mexican rural employment opportunity than the U.S. drug culture.

So, Mexicans — and Central Americans — have to go to work in the United States. Dobbs was not the only one pushing the idea that this was somehow a threat (or even a challenge) to U.S. hegemony in the Hemisphere.

And Latin Americans sometimes come up with new ways of meeting their social and political needs that aren’t those of the Untied States, and which might, conceivably threaten U.S. business interests. You only hear that Chavez is a dictator or Correa cancelled Ecuador’s debt, or Evo Morales is a former coca farmer… and not anything about the successes their governments have had in redefining the role of the governed and the government.

When you hear anything “positive” about Latin America, its not in terms of these nations doing anything particularly right, but in terms of their adhering to Wasthington’s wishes… Mexico’s present administration continuing its fratricidal anti-narco campagin, Colombia waging war on its own people but giving Washington special rights to maintain military operations in their nation, Honduras and Haiti accepting their humiliation and quasi-occupation.

You can’t blame Lou Dobbs for that… but he was fun to kick around. Yeah, I suppose it’s a big deal that CNN got rid of the guy, but so what? Does that affect the way the Wall Street Journal is covering Venezuela or Honduras? I don’t think Mary Anasasia O’Grady is going to lose her job any time soon, and her toxic reportage affects not the no nothings who watched Dobbs, but the policymakers and executives who make the decisions that actually affect Latin America.

I’m sure a lot of news writers and commentators are saying that Dobbs was an exception, but even “progressive” writers have begun with the assumption that there is something “wrong” with the way things are done in Latin America, and need “fixed” by the United States. While Lou Dobbs’ use of neo-nazi source material in one broadcast was shocking, it was no more a manifestation of American Exceptionalism than was John Arivosis´contention in “Americablog” that the Honduran coup was justified to prevent “another Chavez”. As opposed, to say, another Pinochet? Or, rather, another Alvaro Uribe?

As it is, Dobbs was just the most visibly bad of U.S. reporters on Latin American and Latino issues. What he said wasn’t all that relevant to Latin American politics and culture and the dialog will continue without him, but with the same misinterpretations, misreportings, misreadings and conscious distortions by the U.S. media as before.

Categories: Agriculture · Americas (outside U.S. and Mexico) · Border Issues · Clueless gringos in Mexico · Economy & Business · Emigrant labor/remittances · Gringo(landia) · Informal economy · Lou Dobbs · Media · Multinationals

Co-incidence?

27 October 2009 · Leave a Comment

I really don’t care much about U.S. television (I normally check on-line sources, and if I want to see U.S. television news, I wait until MSNBC programs are posted on the internet about an hour after their airing in the U.S. –and maybe watch two or three segments that looks halfway interesting) and have given up on a lot of the U.S. based political websites I used to read, because all they seem to talk about is how much money some politician or the other raised (what’s called bribery down here) or deconstruct whatever some TV talking head said about something. Apparently, people are shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that corporate media companies have biases like every other media outlet.

That said, I have been not paying attention to the BIG ISSUE on the local expat message board (something that was of so little interest to me, I dropped my membership)… the local cable-TV services have been dumping the U.S. based CNN English channel. CNN (en Inglés) seems to be dropping off the Mexican cable box, and I wonder if there isn’t a connection to another news story I only caught because I follow immigration-rights news:

CNN last week took steps to repair its tattered image with the Latino community by running a heart-warming series, Latino in America, that does a reasonable job of exploring the realities of daily life the nation’s fastest-growing minority bloc.

But what they really don’t want to talk about is Lou Dobbs — the most Latino-bashing media figure of them all. And it’s already biting them in the butt…

I’ve been hearing for years from the Latin American left (and center-left, the Mexican political mainstream) complaints that CNN En Español is — if not an active propaganda organ of the United States — prone to intrerpret the news through the lens of United States thinking and coverage of issues outside the United States is as scanty as coverage of “foreign” news in other U.S. sources (Not to say that CNN en Español is worthless… the United States is the third largest Spanish-speaking country — second if you include Puerto Rico — and there’s a need for a “mainstream” Spanish language news channel. The issue for Mexicans is whether or not it serves Mexican news viewer’s needs, and mostly, they say it doesn’t).

As to the disappearance of CNN “en Inglés” the local forum’s group think seems to be just that there aren’t enough English-language customers to justify carrying that particular channel. But, then again, maybe it’s something else. Maybe the Mexican company is asking itself why it buys a service that insults the intelligence of its English-language subscribers. And all Mexicans… and Guatemalans, and Hondurans, and Salvadorians… and…

Categories: Americas (outside U.S. and Mexico) · Clueless gringos in Mexico · Economy & Business · Gringo(landia) · La Raza (Mexican cultures and peoples) · Lou Dobbs · Media · Multinationals

Rivera was nutz, but this dude’s crazzzzzzzzy!

4 September 2009 · 8 Comments

rivera-hombre-en-la-encruci

I haven’t seen U.S. television in several years now, so my idea of toxic television was limited to the merely spiteful, like Lou Dobbs and Bill O’Reilly. Little did I suspect that major U.S. television networks gave air time to the completely insane, like this guy going on about the Rockefellers, commies, and Diego Rivera.

By the way, the Rockefeller Center mural was never finished. It was only about two-thirds finished when the Rockefellers canceled the project specifically because they objected to an image of Lenin, and had the work destroyed before the building was open to the public.

I’m not sure why the guy is including it is his commie propaganda tour of New York. Rivera’s smaller version of Man at the Crossroads (to which he added some unflattering caricatures of the Rockefellers — John D. and John D. Junior — is, of course, in the Palacio de Bellas Artes across from Parque Alameda in Mexico City. Walk up the stairs and turn left.

Categories: Artists, Writers, Philosophers, etc. · Bill O’Reilly · Ciudad de México · Crack-pots · Diego Rivera · Lou Dobbs · Media · Mexican visual artists · Palacio de Bellas Artes · Right Wing Idiots

New skins for old whines…

2 April 2009 · Leave a Comment

Is green the new white? Via Stace Medellin’s “Dos Centavos” (which focuses on the overlapping fields of Mexican-American and Houston area Democratic Party politics) I learned about “Progressives For Immigration Reform” — which promotes a more environmentally-friendly version of white supremacism.

Progressives for Immigration Reform is the latest in a series of “progressive” front groups set up by John Tanton to present a plausible excuse for racism and, more to the point, limiting U.S. immigration to the “right kind” of people (white ones from Europe). The rationale this time is that “those people” aren’t as environmentally conscious as Europeans or white middle-class U.S. nationals, therefore will never be environmentally conscious, therefore are a drain on resources. This on top of Tantton’s claims that immigrants don’t practice birth control (which has more to do with U.S. health care policy, Mexico… the largest source of U.S. immigrants … having one of the world’s best records on making birth control available to all, and on sex education).

Tanton was originally involved in Zero Population Growth, which was a fairly respectable idea back in the 1970s, but the organiztion veered into racial stereotyping (assuming that high birthrates among non-European countries were somehow innate, and not a reflection of two important 20th century events — the nearly continuous warfare in Europe in the 20th century up unil the 1950s which killed off a lot of “white” people and the emancipation of women… a job being the best birth control life there is). With ZPG eventually losing progessive support, Tanton moved to the Sierra Club, pushing the idea that non-whites (specificially Latin Americans, and more specifically Mexicans) were environmentally dangerous. His baleful influence on the Sierra Club and other environmentalist groups is still felt here locally in Mazatlan, where the tuna fleet is harbored. We can’t sell tuna in the United States because of specific “dolphin safe” rules designed not to save dolphins (Mexican dolfin-safe tuna is available, and Mexican fleets use the recommended nets that prevent dolphin deaths), but because… well… it’s Mexican tuna. When the Sierra Club got to the point where they were lobbying Congress to prevent Mexican tuna sales on the grounds that cocaine COULD be smuggled in cans of tuna (as opposed to dolphins, which was the whole issue), I don’t think I’m the only one who realized the respected environmental organiztion had gone around the bend.

Tanton went on to found the reasonable sounding “FAIR” — Federation for American Immigration Reform” — the “reform” being envisioned being restrictive immigration, even more arcane legal hurdles for would-be immigrants and outright racial stereotyping. When last July two Pennsylvania yahoos beat Luis Ramirez to death, in what was a racially motivated hate crime, FAIR was falling all over itself to distance itself from the conclusion that its own inflamatory rhetoric on immigration might have some effect on people.

FAIR’s media outlets being more and more those associated with the far right and the lunatic fringe (Lou Dobbs reguarly includes their information on his television program), its time for a new, improved, greener and cleaner racism. So… Progressives for Immigration Reform. Given that one of the usual side complaints about immigration (the less than legal kind) is that people wandering through the desert leave stuff behind — i.e., litter — I expect they’ll be focusing on that. It sound better for people to claim they’re not against immigrants, but they are against littering.

I notice, being supposedly “progressive,” the newest whine from this group is that economic stimulus assistance might reach “illegal” immigrants. So? The point is to get consumers to spend money. OH well, idiocy marches on.

It’s not easy being green. Or progressive.

Categories: Border Issues · Environment · Gringo(landia) · Human Rights · Indocumentados · Lou Dobbs · Media · Nativist groups · Right Wing Idiots · Spin doctors

Sunday Readings: 30 November 2008

30 November 2008 · 2 Comments

There will be time, there will be time

For visions and revisions, which a minute will reverse…

(T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”*)

Changing images:
Isn’t Colombia supposedly the big U.S. ally in the “war on terror and drugs and EVIL?” …
Sibylla Brodzinsky reports for the Christian Science Monitor on the latest in crime-fighting image makeovers in Bogata:

In most parts of the Western world, the figure of Osama bin Laden inspires fear and loathing. But in one Bogotá neighborhood, “Osama” is now a symbol of protection and safety.

Wearing a turban fashioned out of a strip of white, eyeleted cloth and sporting a long gray beard streaked with white, Colombia’s “Osama” patrols one of central Bogotá’s most dangerous neighborhoods carrying a stick and a homemade machete. He’s not an Islamic militant, or a Muslim. But his presence draws gratitude from residents and the prostitutes who work here.

Changing the channel

Heidi Beirich (reprinted by the Southern Poverty Law Center on their “Hatewatch” site) looks at Lou Dobbs, the CNN commentator with “ansomewhat flexible relationship with reality.”

Dobbs, who has a long track record of defaming immigrants by linking them to crime, disease and other horrors, would probably like to pretend that immigrant bashing doesn’t lead to hate crimes. But the facts of the Lucero case show otherwise. …

Dobbs … took issue with the idea that hate crimes targeting Latinos are a problem. Dobbs’ report cited the FBI’s annual hate crimes statistics to make the point that hate crimes nationwide had dropped from about 7,700 in 2006 to 7,600 in 2007. …

And as limited as the FBI figures are, they show that hate crimes against Latinos are on the rise, having gone up by 40% since 2003. Dobbs left out that fact .

Changing the tune:
Tariq Nelson is willing to “…discuss a lot of taboo subjects and typically look at things from an angle that others will not.” He’s a thoughtful, incisive writer, and the only possible blogger who could ask the question “Will Obama Influence Positive Change in Hip Hop?“

The narrative has changed from it’s either rap, the trap or basketball to it’s rap, the trap, basketball or you could be the president too. He’s inspired black men to send out mass emails to other black men, saying, “We gotta stop saying ‘n—-’ so much. We gotta take care of our families. We gotta raise our babies.“

Changing the story

Glenn Greenwald (Salon.com) on the New York Times’ attempts to re-write the history of its own support for the attempted 2002 coup in Venezuela:

It’s nice that the Times — with a disgraced George Bush on his way out the door — has come to view the Venezuelan military coup as the destructive, anti-democratic event which, by definition, it was. And it’s also nice that the Times is now willing to assign blame for anti-U.S. sentiments in Latin America at least partially to the actions of the U.S. Government itself. But it’s important that the Times not be allowed to delete its own involvement in those events.

Changing the rules:

While there is a lot riding on this fight in terms of dollars and ethnic pride riding on the 6 December match-up between Manny Pacquiao and Oscar de la Hoya, there is serious controversy within the boxing world over fudging weight classes (Pacquiao is a champion in the Junior Lightweight class, and de la Hoya in Welterweight and Middleweight classes).

And… perhaps more seriously… and somthing only Zuky (“Open mind and open hand strike”) has noted, this will bethe first time two pop singers will slug it out on pay per view.

… the first truly significant fact I want to draw your attention to regarding the big fight is that, to my knowledge, this will be the first high-profile matchup in which both fighters have also dipped into careers as pop singers. Who wins the battle of cheesy music videos?

And, the times… they are a’changin’:

El Latino de Arkansas? I would have never guessed that there were enough Spanish-speakers in Arkansas to support a weekly newspaper, but I learn something new every day.

* Every once in a while, I try to remember that I have a degree in English Literature.

Categories: Americas (outside U.S. and Mexico) · Boxing · Economy & Business · Gringo(landia) · Human Rights · La Raza (Mexican cultures and peoples) · Lou Dobbs · Media · Oscar de la Hoya · Spanish/Spanglish · Sports

Sunday readings: 22 June 2008

22 June 2008 · Leave a Comment

CascadeBob, Adventure Tourist (on Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree):

Since we were guests of one of the more influencial Tarahuamara, we had been accepted into the group, but now it was dark, Francisco wasn’t around, folks were getting drunk, some were armed with pistols and knives, and eyes were turning towards our gringa companions (the women).

Duke1676 (MigraMatters) tells “A Tale of Two Borders“:

“I’ve said from the beginning that we can’t reform immigration laws until we control immigration, and we can’t control immigration unless we control our borders and our ports.” – Lou Dobbs

We’ve heard that statement in various forms a millions times, repeated ad infinitum by various politicians and talking heads since Frank Luntz first advised anti-immigrant Republicans to stress that ““A country that can’t control its own borders can’t control its own destiny” to sell an anti-immigrant agenda to the American public.

But it has always gone without saying that the border that needed to be controlled has been the one to the south. Rarely, if ever, has the northern border been mentioned in most border security screeds.

Want to be one of the gang?

Carlos Castenda believed that if you didn’t like your history or that it was holding you back then you should change it and make up one that would create the kind of person you want to be. This philosophy a been incorporated in San Miguel by Gangs as one of the requirements for Gang membership. Who doesn’t want to be in a gang made up of former chefs, artists and tycoons. “I was in retail” won’t get many people to join a gang but “I was a buyer” will.

Speaking of gangs …

Pederast prelate (and founder of the fascist-inspired Legionaries of Christ) is the subject of a new 90-minute documentary, “Vows of Silence” produced by U.S. journalist Jason Berry. Berry and Hartford Courant reporter Gerald Renner’s were the co-authors of a 2004 book by the same name on sexual abuse by Catholic clergymen in the U.S. and Mexico, and on the coverup of the Marcial and the Legionary scandals.

In a review for Amazon.com, Gail Hudson said of Marcial, :

[He is] more like the antichrist: Father Marcial Maciel, who was the influential founder of the cult-like order of Legionaries of Christ and accused of being a particularly cruel and long-term sexual predator.

… the militaristic Legionaries of Christ [is] an extremely powerful and conservative order of priests and laymen that are affiliated with a worldwide web of prep schools and universities. Berry and Renner offer a fascinating conspiracy theory about how this international legion managed to protect its abusers and contribute to the long-term secrecy and cover-up. The bold accusations eventually land in the lap of Pope John Paul II, who seemed more invested in protecting the legion and the vow of silence than addressing the abuse.

Most reviewers thought the weakness of the book was it’s attempts to cover too much territory — both the Marcial/Legionary story and the coverup of other clerical pedophilia cases unrelated to Marcial.

The new film focuses squarely on the Legionaries and Marciel. It has been shown in New Orleans and Madrid, and will be playing in Mexico City (at the III Festival Internacional de Cine Documental de la Ciudad de México, DocsDF) running 25 September to 4 October.

Besides being a Mexican, and having founded the order in Mexico (in 1941, at the height of the Synarchist movement (Synarchism, as an ideology, was rooted in both Franscisco Franco’s Falangism and reactionary Catholicism. Its adherents were active in founding PAN), Marciel and his movement are important to Mexico in other ways.

Jose de Cordoba of The Wall Street Journal reported in early 2006:

The order concentrates on ministering to the wealthy and powerful in the belief that by evangelizing society’s leaders, the beneficial impact on society is multiplied. Like the Jesuits who centuries ago whispered in the ear of Europe’s princes, the Legion’s priests today are the confessors and chaplains to some of the most powerful businessmen in Latin America.

“The soul of a trash collector is as important as the soul of Carlos Slim, but if Slim is converted, think of the influence and power for good he would wield,” says Luanne Zurlo, a former Goldman Sachs securities analyst who organized the benefit. Mr. Slim, Latin America’s richest man with a fortune estimated at $24 billion, says he’s not a highly devout Catholic but is helping the Legion …

The Legion operates in some 20 countries, including the U.S., Chile, Spain, Brazil and Ireland, but its influence is greatest in Mexico.

De Cordoba goes on to report on not only Marcial’s ties to then first-lady Martha Sahugen de Fox, but to the Monterrey elite and other political and business leaders tied to what some critics dub the “Millionaires of Christ.”

Categories: Americas (outside U.S. and Mexico) · Border Issues · Canada · Catholic Church · Clueless gringos in Mexico · Evil-doers · Gringo(landia) · Guanajuato · Homeland Security · Human Rights · Humor · Indocumentados · Lou Dobbs · Media · Provincia · Religion · Rich people behaving badly · Right Wing Idiots · San Miguel Allende

Another reason to shoot your television

22 May 2008 · 1 Comment

Paul Waldman (The Sanctuary) reviews a worthwhile “Media Matters” report on U.S. cable news (the idiots I’m spared watching — Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck — since I don’t have American cable television, and don’t want it) coverage of immigration and inter-American affairs:

If your only source of news is cable during prime time, you might be among those who believe that the U.S. government and American society are groaning under the weight of undocumented immigrants. You might believe that there is a terrifying crime wave attributable to illegal immigration. You might believe that undocumented immigrants feast on a cornucopia of social services, while avoiding paying taxes. You might also believe that they are voting illegally in large numbers, and that they bring with them all sorts of diseases. You might also believe that there are secret plans afoot to give away American sovereignty, as the United States joins with Canada and Mexico in a North American Union similar to the European Union. You might even believe that there is an enormous “NAFTA Superhighway,” running all the way from Mexico City to Toronto, in the works as we speak.

All of these ideas are false, but you might believe them if you watch prime-time cable news.

Categories: Bill O’Reilly · Border Issues · Economy & Business · Gringo(landia) · Human Rights · Indocumentados · Informal economy · Lou Dobbs · Media

Watch their language

31 January 2008 · Leave a Comment

Anti-immigrant paranoid, conspiracy mongering lonewacko.com tipped me off to this compliation of the greatest hits of the … uh… usual gang of idiots.

Categories: Bill O’Reilly · Gringo(landia) · Human Rights · Indocumentados · Lou Dobbs · Media · Michelle Malkin · Nativist groups · Right Wing Idiots · Spin doctors

Nobody likes rats

25 November 2007 · Leave a Comment

Courtesy of Burro Hall’s favorite newspaper, I came across a small item about Irving Texas. Seems Irving’s great attempt at ethnic cleansing has run into a bureaucratic roadblock. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has told Irving Police to stop bothering them with turning in indocumentados charged with minor crimes.

The feds are trying to implement a policy of charging EVERY illegal border crosser — which even crazy Lou Dobbs reports is clogging the courts (not that I need a reference to Lou Dobbs, but it makes “The #1 Hispanic Website” publisher happy — all I have to do is walk down the street to the Brewster County Jail … which is looking at expansion to meet the need to house the additional federal prisoners they expect).

ICE doesn’t even want to talk to people already here with minor crime citations from some hick[suburb police department.

Categories: Border Issues · Bureaucracy · Courts · Crime and Punishment · Legal system · Lou Dobbs · Policia · Texas

Whatever…

13 November 2007 · 7 Comments

Lou Dobbs is a moron, but I’ve said that many times already. Fourteen times to be exact. Tom Tancredo is a raving loon, but I’ve said that a few times, too (only three, but then, Tancredo isn’t to be taken seriously). Apparently though, I don’t say it enough. Well, that’s some guy named Jon Garrido’s opinion anyway.

I never heard of him either, but a quick google search turned up page after page after page of hits — written by Jon Garrido, about Jon Garrido. I found one mention of him in a San Diego Union-Tribune news story… about Lou Dobbs.

Garrido’s got a thing about Lou Dobbs.

I got a thing about history… and about checking sources.

I received an e-mail this morning from one of the groups I belong to, forwarding an article about Tancredo’s latest wacky anti-immigrant bill — the only thing really new being that dim-bulb North Carolina Democrat Heath Shuler co-sponsored it. Yeah, it’s a bad bill, and the author has serious questions about it, but it purported to be from the Washington Correspondent of something called “Hispanic News” (one of about a dozen websites run by Jon Garrido) that claims to be “number 1 Hispanic website on the Internet”.

I never heard of “Hispanic News” or Jon Garrido — which seem to be one and the same, but I guess if I can be “Mex Files”, he can be a dozen or so websites if he wants… and even have “Washington Correspondents.” However, when a news story on a Congressional bill starts out — not by talking about the congressmen, or the bill, but about the author’s family, I wonder what’s going on. This bit of family history caught my attention:

Dad … helped establish one of the first Catholic Masses and Churches in Michigan.

Being a snarky historian (I’ve only spent the last couple of months finishing up a history of Mexico — and corresponding with Catholic Church historians about Vatican II’s impact on Latin American political culture), and the e-mail being irrelevant to our group (which deals with the proposed border fence) I sent the person who’d forwarded it to me a note –

I’m not sure how much credibility to give [the "Hispanic News" writer]. She claims her father started one of the first Catholic Churches in Michigan. Uh… there have been Catholic Churches in Michigan since about 1670 . Michigan Territory’s Congressional Representative was a Jesuit priest, and the French, Irish, German, Polish, etc. immigrants have been there for a long long time.

She’s probably correct in her details about the Tancredo-Shuler bill, but I’m not sure it’s going to go anywhere. Tancredo is already on his way out, and Shuler is managing to alienate all his democratic party colleagues his first term.

Which my recipient sent on to the prolific Jon Garrido. Who sent me THIS (reproduced in it’s full glory… only the other recipient’s name and email address has been redacted)…

Date: Tue Nov 13 18:38:26 2007

From: The Jon Garrido Network <Jon@JonGarrido.com>

To: ‘Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.’ <jay@villadelrio.com>, <richmx2@excite.com>

Subject:RE: [noborderwall] A new problem for the border…

Dolores is proud of her heritage and her father. The French were Catholic (I know first hand for I once live in Paris, France) and their missionaries probably were first in Michigan. Dolores simply omitted ?Hispanic Catholic churches?????.?

This has nothing to do with her creditability. I too, told Dolores, that Shuler?s bill would not make it out of committee.

With the all the anti-Hispanic bashing being done daily, I published her article to energize American Hispanics to support migrants more so because everyone with a brown face is suspect.

If you want belittle someone?s creditability, get off your pompous ass and holier than thou attitude and write an editorial blasting Lou Dobbs.

I resent your accusations directed at Dolores. As for me, I welcome her to Hispanic News. She has the balls to tell the world what is happening all across America. Much more than any of you are doing.

And do not reply back with some lame justification. You have pissed me off and any reply from you, I will share with my entire email list what assholes all of you are which will include all of your email addresses.

Jon Garrido

JonGarrido.com

602.244.1000

What man is a man who does not make the world better? ? ‘The Kingdom of Heaven’

Holiness is in right action. ?’The Kingdom of Heaven’

In 2006: 13% of all Hispanics voted, 27% of all blacks voted, and 39% of all whites voted. So long as Hispanics do not care to exercise our freedom to vote, those who wish to tyrannize us will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping Hispanics. ? Jon Garrido/Voltaire

So, if I understand this right, Mr. Garrido is publishing a news article about something that isn’t going to happen, and doesn’t bother to edit even simple facts on the theory that it will “energize” people (to do what?). And then links himself — at the very end — to Voltaire?

And I’m an asshole?

Categories: Crack-pots · Lou Dobbs · Media · Political bloggers · Right Wing Idiots · Tom Tancredo · Voltaire

Photos of the week

20 July 2007 · 2 Comments

Free #$%^!!ing Speech?

New traffic laws take effect this week in the Federal District, which among other things, mandate a 20 times the salario minimo (after the 1990s inflation, fines and fees are often set based on multiples of the daily minimum wage, to avoid having to revise the civil code every time the currency changes) for swearing at the traffic police.

Ahi es un problema, as the master of Mexican swearing would have said. There’s no mention of who brings charges. You gonna take some pinche cabron of a tamarindo’s word over mine? ¡Chinga su madre, güey!

On the other hand, maybe some old traditions deserve to die:

El Universal photo by Adrián Hernández. No word on whether or not the officer actually wore the button

He’s #1… and #1

You gotta admire Manuel Uribe. He should be suffering, unhappy and a freak. But, Manuel is no gringo. He celebrated his weight loss with a parade through Monterrey, and has earned TWO cititations in the Guinness Book of World Records — the biggest weight loss by a human being (200 Kg) and the heaviest human.

What’s amazing about Manuel is that he’s a relatively healthy guy (why he doesn’t have high blood pressure or diabetes at his weight is a medical mystery) with a positive self-image. For you chubby-chasers, sorry… he’s got a girlfriend, though he’s willing to show (a little more than) some skin.

Photo: APF

Lou Dobbs cloned… by Mexicans

What’s worse than Lou Dobbs? How about a bunch of Lou Dobbses. Nah, it wasn’t that bad:

Wearing Lou Dobbs masks and chanting ‘Facts NOT Fear’, 130 members of Voces de la Frontera gathered outside Milwaukee’s Federal Courthouse yesterday for a lunchtime rally asking: “Do you have to look like Lou Dobbs to have a voice in the immigration debate?”

The action, which was widely featured by local and national media, also led to an approach for Voces’ Christine Neumann-Ortiz to appear on Dobbs’ show. Appearing live last night, she was able to firmly challenge his framing of the issue.