Latinos

The Ultimate Reason Why The Republican Party Will NOT Win The White House In 2012: Their Promotion Of Nativism, Prejudice, Bias, Fear, And The Interests Of The Super Wealthy!

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When all is said and done, the Republican Party will NOT win the White House in 2012, no matter what the economic situation is next year, because of their promotion of nativism, prejudice, bias, fear, and the interests of the Super Wealthy!

The Republican Party promotes nativism against Hispanic and Latino immigrants with their advocacy of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants, almost all law abiding, tax paying, and living here for many years, who just want the “American Dream”, and are willing to work hard.

The Republican Party advocates prejudice against gay people by advocating against gay rights, gay marriage, and gay parenting, due to their slavish connection to religious influence in government.

The Republican Party supports bias against women by denying them their human rights, including the decision when and how they can have children.

The Republican Party promotes fear of all people of Islamic heritage by their depiction of all people from that religious heritage as being potential terrorists.

The Republican Party supports the interests of the super wealthy by refusal to consider any tax increases on the top two percent, who have seen their wealth multiply in recent years, while everyone else saw their income stagnate or decline. They will do anything to support the rich and the corporations.

Has a political party ever won the White House with promotion of nativism, prejudice, bias, fear, and the interests of the wealthy? The answer is NO, with the borderline closest cases being Richard Nixon in 1968 and George W. Bush in 2004, but even they did not advocate these ugly concepts on the level of Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney in the campaign now being waged!

Notice that the only GOP candidate who has NOT promoted the above ideas is Jon Huntsman, by far the best and ONLY decent choice they offer the voters in 2012. Again, IF Huntsman were the nominee, it would be the most legitimate and closest race for the Presidency, but apparently, very unlikely to happen, as the author writes.

Alarming Rise In White Supremacist Groups Since 2009

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The issue of white supremacist groups has always been worrisome in America, but the growth of such movements has multiplied since the inauguration of President Barack Obama in January 2009.

In less than three years, the number of white supremacist groups has gone up more than five hundred percent, from 149 to a new total of 824.

This is a very disturbing, but truthfully, not surprising trend, but it demonstrates how long a road we have to go to overcome hate and prejudice in this country.

Of course, this growth is not just about African Americans, but also Hispanics, Latinos, immigrants in general, with the general mood in politics being one of promoting fear and hatred, particularly in the heartland of the nation, as well as in the Republican Party!

Rush Limbaugh And Other Conservatives Come To Defense Of Herman Cain And Marco Rubio: The Question Is Why?

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Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh and all of the other talk shows hosts of the conservative brand on talk radio and Fox News Channel have rushed to the defense of Herman Cain and Marco Rubio, both of whom have ethical issues that are glaring.

Herman Cain has been accused of sexual harassment, a la Clarence Thomas, and already the chant is, as Thomas called it twenty years ago, that a “high tech lynching” is going on !

In other words, if a conservative African American is involved in inappropriate behavior, suddenly conservatives become “open minded” on the issue of race while utilizing it regularly against President Barack Obama. And also realize that Cain has been accused now of financial misconduct in the manner of raising money for his campaign, all this on top of his constant inconsistency on every issue that is brought up in his campaign.

At the same time, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has clearly lied about his family’s reason for coming to America from Cuba, manufacturing the false story that they were escaping Fidel Castro, who only came to power two and a half years after his family migrated to the United States. Rubio gained much of his support based on this false family history, but to conservatives, that does not matter, and they come rushing to his defense, while showing anti Latino and anti Hispanic sympathies on the issue of immigration on a regular basis on their radio and television shows.

What hypocrisy, and it is clear the reason for backing these two men is not just because they agree with their political positions, but also as a way to deflect charges of anti black, anti Hispanic, and anti immigrant actions and statements!

A Sobering Labor Day: Bad Times For Labor Unions And Workers!

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As Labor Day 2011 comes on tomorrow, it is a sobering time for labor unions and workers, whether in unions or not.

Labor unions have been under sharp and sustained attack across America, continuing a 30 year decline beginning under Ronald Reagan.

Workers’ wages are stagnant or declining in purchasing power, and most employees know they are in a weak state, afraid of antagonizing management in a time of extremely high unemployment, where any problems created with employers can lead to quick unemployment lines.

With 9.1 percent official unemployment in August, and absolutely no job growth at all, for the first time since February 1945, there is great fear among the unemployed, as well as those who have jobs, that the labor situation is going to get worse before it gets better.

African Americans have an unemployment rate nearing 17 percent, and Hispanics and Latinos have over 12 percent, and people without a college degree have about 9.5 percent, while college graduates actually have only about a 4.5 percent unemployment rate.

So race and ethnicity and lack of adequate education are key factors in unemployment. But also, alarmingly, many people between 50-60 years of age are experiencing long term unemployment for the first time in their adult lives, with little opportunity to retrieve an equivalent job and salary anytime, and with Social Security and Medicare still years away from occurring.

Also, while the unemployment rate remains stagnant at 9.1 percent, the REAL unemployment rate of those with only part time hours added to those who have no work, is closer to 18 percent, an unacceptable and dangerous number!

We must not forget that it is young people, plus discontented older people, who have led for change in the “Arab Spring”, and also now are demanding major change in government policies in our Mideast ally, Israel.

How much longer can labor conditions continue the way they are going without a reaction which might include radical action, some of it violent or incendiary?

So the urgency of a serious jobs program by Barack Obama, and cooperation by Congress is needed, but not likely due to the divided Congress, and the power of the Tea Party Movement, which wants no government involvement in creating jobs!

So crisis conditions and divisions are bound to get worse very soon, a troubling scenario!

Herman Cain Vs Muslims, Mormons, And Latinos!

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Herman Cain is one of the lesser GOP candidates for President, and has hardly been mentioned by the author because of the belief that he was going nowhere, having had NO political experience, and whose major accomplishment in life has been as the CEO of Godfather Pizza, and a conservative talk show host on radio.

But Cain, who is African American, and therefore, should be more sensitive than most about prejudice, has now become embroiled in controversies over religion and nationality, and is coming across as whacky and loony as a result!

Cain has opposed building of a mosque in Tennessee, claiming it would lead to the adoption of Sharia Law, even though only 25 percent in a poll in Tennessee are against its construction. There is no justification for preventing the building of ANY religious building anywhere in America!

Also, Cain has come out against the Mormon faith, saying Mitt Romney cannot be elected President because many Southerners don’t like the Mormon church!

The fact is that it should not matter if ANYONE likes or dislikes someone for being Muslim, or Mormon, or Catholic, or Jewish, or even African American, or any other religion or ethnicity! Does Cain really believe, for instance, that many Southerners would have no problem with him, an African American, becoming President, when so many, as it is, have been shown to be against Barack Obama, to a great extent because he is African American?

We do NOT decide who should hold public office, or whether a religious house of worship should be constructed, based on bias or prejudice or narrow mindedness!

And while we are at it, Herman Cain should also be criticized for telling Latinos that he favors building of a 20 foot “Berlin Wall” along the Mexican border, with electrification and moats that would contain alligators!

How can anyone take such a whacko seriously as a Presidential candidate? Cain sounds just as whacky and loony as Congressman Allen West of Florida and South Carolina Congressman Tim Scott, both also African American and conservative, but just as outrageous in their assertions and beliefs!

Bill Clinton Reminds Us About “Jim Crow” Voting Restrictions On Blacks, Warns Against Them Returning!

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Former President Bill Clinton has made a major speech criticizing Republican Governors and legislatures passing restrictions on voting rights, comparing them to the old “Jim Crow” restrictions that ruled the South for nearly one hundred years until passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The new restrictions being promoted and put into law with the backing of Florida Governor Rick Scott, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and many other Republican Governors would require drivers license ID cards to vote, shorten hours and days of early voting, require college students to vote at home instead of where they live, and restrict felons who have completed their obligation to society from being able to cast their vote. The theory is that these states are trying to prevent voter fraud, which in reality, is a very slight problem historically!

This is all designed to harm groups–African Americans, Latinos, the young, and the poor–who are perceived as likely to vote for Democrats.

Clinton reminding us of “Jim Crow” should lead to law suits to stop this new limitation and discrimination of the right to vote, something supposedly overcome by Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s as part of his Great Society.

Somehow, we seem to repeat history’s mistakes over and over again!

Barack Obama’s Puerto Rico Visit: The Politics Of 2012

Ronald 1 Comment

President Barack Obama paid a visit to the island of Puerto Rico this week, the first such visit since John F. Kennedy fifty years ago.

Puerto Rico has a 20 percent unemployment rate, far greater than the mainland, but Puerto Rico cannot vote for President, although it can participate in the nomination contests in the primaries and at the conventions of the major political parties.

But Puerto Ricans are the second largest Hispanic group in America behind Mexicans, and their voting bloc can make a dramatic difference in the Presidential Election of 2012.

IF they vote in large numbers for Obama, they can swing the vote in many states in his favor.

So the emphasis of the President is to insure that the Hispanic vote, of both Mexican Americans and Puerto Rican Americans and other Hispanic and Latino groups, is mobilized to help the Democratic Party win back the House of Representatives, keep the Senate Democratic, and reelect the President.

Certainly, the Hispanic vote would be wise to realize that the Republican Party does not have its interests at heart, and that, therefore, the need to support the Democrats, rather than sit on the sidelines, is urgent!

Census Revelations: Upper New England And West Virginia Replace Florida As Oldest Population

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The 2010 Census reveals that Upper New England and West Virginia have replaced Florida as the oldest population states.

Maine is now the oldest state in average age, followed by Vermont, West Virginia and New Hampshire.

What this also reveals is that these four states, all of which are among the most “Anglo white” states, have aged due to lack of reproduction by whites in the general population nationally. This is connected to the reality the country at large is becoming less Anglo and white as a whole, with the reproduction rate of minorities much higher, along with the immigration of people of Hispanic and Latino heritage seeing a dramatic increase.

America is becoming more diverse every year, and by 2040-2050, the Anglo white population will be less than a majority.

All this affects the Republican Party in a detrimental way, and if they continue their present policy stands, they will be “dinosaurs” in thirty years, as the Democrats will have the edge in most states, although maybe not in these states that are less diverse!

The Effects Of The Latino-Hispanic Vote On The 2012 Presidential Election

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With the rapid growth of the Latino-Hispanic population, from one eighth in 2000 to one sixth of the population in 2010 according to the Census Bureau, the 2012 Presidential Election will be giving President Obama a tremendous edge in states that otherwise would be major battlegrounds.

Assuming a decent turnout for Obama among Latinos-Hispanics, as well as African Americans, Obama is now seen as likely, statistically, to win Nevada and Florida again and have a real shot at winning Georgia, which he failed to win in 2008.

Obama only needs to win 25 percent of the white vote in Georgia, 35 percent in Nevada, and just under 40 percent in Florida to win those states in the electoral college.

Obama’s call today for comprehensive immigration reform, calling on the Republican opposition to work together on this important issue, may be a political ploy, but realistically, if the GOP continues its hard line view on illegal immigrants, as in Arizona, the result is likely to be a smashing defeat in 2012, and this is not considering the issue that the Republicans seem unable to come up with a winner, someone that turns party members on and is likely to draw the votes of other than whites in the population.

It seems to the author that only Jon Huntsman, and possibly Mitt Romney, even have the potential to appeal to non white voters in 2012, but the odds of either being the nominee seems remote at this point of time.

The Ignorance Crisis In America: Belief In Conspiracy Theories Runs Amuck, Danger Sign For America’s Future!

Ronald 6 Comments

America is in deep trouble for the future in so many ways, but it is likely that the greatest crisis the country faces is the Ignorance Crisis, in which Conspiracy Theories run amuck!

It is shocking how many people, and we mean adults over the age of 18 but working its way up to include even the elderly, display such ignorance and lack of a sense of reality, that they truly believe in conspiracy theories, accepting false evidence as factually true. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but millions of citizens seem to be unwilling to face reality and accept factual details, choosing to believe what they want to believe, no matter how crazy or loony it is!

Among the Conspiracy theories widely believed are the following:

1. President Franklin D. Roosevelt engineered the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, crippling our naval fleet, in order to get us into World War II!

2. Aliens landed in Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947, and our Defense Department has covered it up ever since, keeping the aliens under lock and key!

3. The assassination of John F. Kennedy was engineered by elements within the government, and involved multiple gunmen who made Lee Harvey Oswald the patsy!

4. American astronauts did not land on the moon in July 1969, but were instead part of a great coverup by the news media and government officials, and they actually were landing in the deserts of Arizona!

5. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld engineered the attacks of September 11 on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, in order to increase Presidential power and put us into a world wide war against Islamic civilization!

6. Barack Obama was born in an Islamic country, either Kenya or Indonesia, not the United States, and there was a great conspiracy to plant a birth announcement in Hawaii newspapers in 1961, so as to allow us to elect him the first black President, and allow him to promote Sharia law and Socialism in America fifty years later!

7. In a more generalized way, the Masonic Order has been involved in a conspiracy to control the government and economy of the United States from George Washington to the present!

8. The Federal Reserve Banking System, created under Woodrow Wilson in 1913, is part of a great conspiracy by powerful capitalists and bankers, many of them foreigners, to control and manipulate the American economy, so as to exploit the average American citizen, and enrich the international conspiracy against America’s interests!

9. There is a great conspiracy by people from Latin America, particularly Mexico, to take over the American nation, and dilute it with the “inferior” racial stock that Hispanics and Latinos represent!

10. The United States is threatened by “old Europe”, the “inferior” nations and laws of nations such as Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other countries all over Europe, who are trying to undermine our laws and traditions! Also, all international organizations, including NATO and the United Nations, are working to undermine American “exceptionalism” and values!

When one examines all of these conspiracy theories and how many Americans truly believe them, despite lack of evidence and facts, one must mourn for the long term future of this great nation, which has allowed the development of an inferior education system and poor family values to undermine what was once a great nation, but is now in great danger and under great threat of collapse over the next few generations!

All good, educated, sensible people want our nation back to what it once was, and mourn the serious mental illness we are now suffering through!