Yonder Lies It

As an Agonist reader, I am often appalled by what is churned out via the newswire. Not appalled because the news make it to the front pages [or blog chatter] but rather by what I consider deterioration of that America that raised me. And I think am not alone. After all, the people that bother to go through the paces of blogging a news article at the Agonist do so because they find said news somewhat touching, alarming. Disturbing.

I suppose I ought not to have an opinion on American politics but I inevitably end up doing so eitherway for reasons best explained below.

I am not a US citizen so why should I give two rats about deterioration of the America that saw me fit to be one of its own? California took care of me for many years, shaped me after its image and many of my relatives call California its home, heck, my eldest daughter is a Californian born child. Despite what Malkin might say about my previous status in California or that of my child, having grown up there and having my child born there, there is something that many US citizens fail to understand about the Southwest and northwestern Mexicans: love of land. We have historical ties to the land that law abiding citizens from the rest of the federation fail to grasp in their logic based notions of what a nation ought to be constituted of.

So even if I have no US citizenship I still belong to the culture by geographic default as well as liaisons provided by persistent US politic noise from the cherished old family.

Hence, it is therefore interesting to see this backward progression of progress catapulted by malignant organs at the very heart of the constitution of America. Yes, I know, I have a reference of an America that ceased to be a long time ago. By that I suggest the progressive and concerted effort of the dismantling of longstanding American values in favour of raw power, spoused mostly by the Rightwing of American politics. There is almost an illusion that things have been this way for a long time. Leave it to Beaver wasn’t just an American television show, for me, it was the very fabric of a lifestyle I lived.

This America, the freedom spousing one, is sadly, more and more becoming a distant memory. How has this become possible?

I don’t think that a doctoral thesis on the subject can cover enough ground to explain the latter. Yet the outcome is here, our worst nightmare come true. For many years we feared the red boogey man and our driving force was detente of this monster, a small levee preventing this night terror from landing in our shores. Alas! the wolf came dressed as a lamb.

The very society that we avoided, worked so hard to demolish, instead, we imported. We got duped. A quack came by to our town and sold us quackery at a very high price. How else can one explain the model of society in our days when we give everything to government instead of being afraid of it as our culture prescribes? At the behest of the chief in arms we are ready to dismantle America to please our modern day politburo.

There is, however, no turning back, we like macho police people who use the long arm of the law to comply with our innermost desires, and fears. I suppose white America had to be next, we Mexicans, blacks, reds and Asians have been experiencing the brunt of American law down our throats for decenniums on end. Countless politicians have played this card for personal gain, contrary to our past as a culture, but hey, who wants to look back to our past to learn from our forefathers to lead us in this brave new world?

Our own personal wild West and its gun touting sheriff lives on.

I suppose that it had to happen someday, America lives a life draped in a starry flag that twinkles to draw attention to its whole and less to its parts. So that Mexican history and its living culture in the southwest goes largely unnoticed in favor of more whole common traits such as white America or black America; direct talk about mexicans in the US tend to tilt towards the legality issues of the culture in US territory. The law this or that.

Be that as it may it still breaks my heart to read news of people being arrested for expressing thought. Every time someone gets arrested or harassed by government cronies sends shivers down my spine because there is a change going on that I dislike.

For good or bad, it is here now. The killing has been done, ’tis time to ask the questions.

Siempre me causan muecas diabólicas en la face, las ironí­as de la vida. Más si se trata de mi ciudad natal, Tijuana.

Ahí­ tengan ustedes la gran marcha anunciada por varios sectores de la sociedad tijuanense, en su mayorí­a, gente de bien, acaudalada, mediaclasera cuyos papos nuncan pisan lodo tijuanense. El Frente Ciudadano Contra de la Inseguridad cuyos abanderados son abogados hacen una propaganda que raya en lo ridí­culo pues no sé que tipo de abogados sean a sabiendas de que el ejercito no es un organo institucional que debe inmiscuyirse en problemas civiles. Desconocen, o aldrede o por ignorancia que eso está prohí­bido por nuestras leyes constitucionales.

Quieren combatir crimen con crimen, fire with fire, razonan. Pobres, ni saben lo que les espera. No saben que son titeres en manos de Castilla, pues detrás de todo, el fantasma de Franco recorre tierras mexicanas, quieren un dictator gachupí­n y por demás dead. Yunquismo what not. No saben que la iglesia católica ha sido hijacked, como el espí­ritu gringo lo ha sido para manipular al gobierno de las people by the people for the plebe. A ver quién los aguanta cuando los putos no puedan chingarse su vinito rojo tranquis porque los militares están tocando sus puertas nice o porque periodistas están being killed by ”el regimen” que ellos escogieron al gritar SOS para que los militares entraran a sus muladares highlife.

Quieren que la Carta Magna petateé now para poder gastar sus dólares a sus anchas en Los.

Punto y aparte la otra ironí­a me causa miles de sonrisas diabólicas. La mayoria de ese llamado Frente son gente de bien, de la clase media que, a ser verdad, no les cabe que tengan que pagar la seguridad que sus estilos de vida causa.

Jode, como es posible que uno no pueda ganar unos centavitos de más sin tener que andar uno por ahí­ con el miedo en la mano a flor de piel. Eso no es posible, dicen nuestros ofendidos medioclaseros. No podemos disfrutar de nuestras ganancias sin causar envidias o rencores o algúna inconformidad en los que no tienen nada.

Y es que la ironí­a yace en el clamor que estos señores hacen al Estado mexicano, aka, la federación.

Ellos quieren que el Estado mexicano les resuelva sus problemas ya sea porque al alcalde municipal le tiembla la mano o porque al gobierno estatal simplemente nunca ha tenido la intención de fumigar las instituciones de tanta rata en sus locales.

Quieren que la federación hago algo, pero si ya, a sus problemas existenciales.

Pero cuando los pobres le piden a la federación ayuda para resolver sus problemas ¿qué dicen estos mismos medioclaseros que ahora piden de manera lujosa, un SOS a sus demandas?

Pónganse a trabajar dicen, no sean flojos, etc. Aí­ tienen al puto obispo de Tj, de seguro pederasta como sus demás colegas, Alfonsino hasta las chacas, que cuya solución a la pobreza es cero ayuda de la federación, todo debe de ser esfuerzo personal, un pequeño lujito clasista, pero venga, ¿quién se fija en esos detallitos? Válgame.

Pues pónganse ustedes a trabajar más duro, hagan el esfuerzo, para que no los atraquen, aí­ tienen al Hank, ni quién lo moleste.

Lo risible de estos sectores es que no saben que ellos mismos contribuyen al deterioro social de nuestra sociedad.

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Technorati Tags: Tijuana, inseguridad, Baja California

can’t feel niunacosa
I don’t know if I should después de todo
lo
that has happened en mi
short life
este
insane
world
runs loco
like
raging rapids
in my veins

mexican veins
entrapped
in this scandinavian world
that has rivers
which take their trickle time
to flow
as if
there wasn’t a morrow en sight.

Lo siento por ti, que tienes al mundo en tus manos, after all, qué más da, ser rico, pobre, con todo, sin nada, nadie hace nada para cambiar el mundo period

Am I the last
to seek
the truth (diogenes]
in this dirty stained
water llamada vida
which carries currents
forced by unnatural forces

I sought
the canals
of liberty and found them busy
interceded
by forces
whose purpose are unclear
a world sin lí­deres.

yet somehow
el cauce
continues
like on Mars.

---

Technorati Tags: poema, dikt, poem

sent to: sensenbrenner@mail.house.gov.

Congressman Sensenbrenner:

Kimberly Clark’s illegal actions in Mexico, as documented by the electoral tribunal, caused the demise of our fledging democracy. In addition, the racist bills you have introduced show the kind of poor insight you have. I do not intend to ever again buy any of Kimberly Clark’s products.

Julio César Martí­nez

Congresista Sensenbrenner:

Las acciones ilegales de Kimberly Clark de México, tal como lo asentó el tribunal electoral, causaron la muerte de nuestra naciente democracia. En añadidura, las leyes racistas que ud. ha propuesto muestran la clase de persona que es ud. De ahora en adelante jamás compraré mas sus productos.

Julio César Martí­nez

Reading the blog of the year, Sendero del Peje, I found this post on their site:

Ya empieza a chillar la Kimberly por su relacion con el racista hijoeputa James Sensenbrenner.

En www.kimberlyclark.com sacaron esta nota:

”Kimberley-Clark is a publicly owned company, and has no heirs, as has been alleged in unfounded statements circulating in the internet. Congressman James Sensenbrenner is simply one of thousands of shareholders of our company, and his political beliefs on immigration are solely his own.”

I was tempted to pass the torch and allow the propaganda to go on but as I searched the above site there was no news release as Sendero del Peje states.

Either way, the boycott continues as I see it.

And get a load of these hipocritical muthaf***ers:

Rep. James Sensenbrenner is at the center of what appears to be a classic case of hypocrisy and crony capitalism. In case you’ve forgotten, Sensenbrenner is the chief advocate of a get-tough approach to undocumented immigration. He rails against illegal immigration as this nation’s biggest national security threat and pushes harsh enforcement and builiding a wall around America as solutions. Now a new report reveals that Rep. James Sensenbrenner is not only making money from companies that use undocumented labor but also from his investments in firms receiving contracts for the government’s border security program that Sensenbrenner champions. No wonder he has pursued the immigration issue so fiercely he’s earned the name ”pit bull .”

Go read Tom Paine for more on this.

ON THE FRONTIER Mi Casa Es Su Casa America’s porous border enables Mexico’s misrule. BY Victor Davis Hanson

Traducción: Julio César Martí­nez

SELMA, Calif.–”Vergonzante” dice el Presidente de México, Vicente Fox sobre la propuesta de extender la barda de seguridad a lo largo de la frontera Sur de los EEUU. ”Estúpido”, ”Deshonesto” y ”Xenofóbico” gritó su secretario de Relaciones Exteriores, Luis Ernesto Derbez, en forma de advertencia: México no permitirá que este muro se construya”.

Las alusiones que los agraviados polí­ticos mexicanos hacen al muro de Berlí­n hace que la ironí­a se les escape: los comunistas intentaron contener el flujo libre de sus ciudadanos y no indocumentados afuera. Más vergonzoso aún, la comparación recae en México, ya que México y no los EEUU, es el que más se parece a la Alemania Oriental en distanciar a sus ciudadanos al grado de que quieran huir de México a toda costa. Si hay algo que deberí­a de ser nombrado ”Estúpido”, ”Deshonesto” y ”Xenofóbico” en la debacle de la immigración ilegal eso serí­a la conducta del gobierno de México.

”Estúpido” caracteriza a un gobierno que está sentado arriba de reservas masivas de minerales y petróleo, disfruta de largas costas marí­timas, clima templado, grandes campos de cultivo — y no puede, o no quiere llevar a cabo las reformas económicas y polí­ticas necesarias para alimentar y proporcionar vivienda para su propia gente. La elección de Vicente Fox, el TLAN y los cambios cosméticos al sector bancario y la jurisprudencia no ha detenido la corrupción ni el éxodo de millones de mexicanos.

”Deshonesto”, por igual, resume la postura de México, enmascarando con términos humanitarios la exportación abyecta e inmoral de sus propios desposeí­dos. En verdad, tal cinismo proteje al status quo. El éxodo de los pobres de México es la versión aberrante de la teorí­a de la válvula de seguridad que propusó Fredrick Jackson Turner. Mas en vez de pioneros llendo hacia el Oeste, los empobrecidos van hacia el Norte, preferiendo marcharse de México en vez de cambiar su gobierno.

México recibe entre 10 y 15 billones de dólares anualmente en remesas de parte de los emigrantes ilegales en los EEUU, un subsidio que no sólo oculta el fracaso polí­tico de la nación mexicana sino que se hace bajo grandes penas para los expatriados. Después del todo, tales transferencias masivas de capital tienen que venir de algún lugar. Trabajores pobres que envian la mitad de su salario a sus familiares están siendo obligados a librarla en un paí­s de altos costos como lo es los EEUU por medio de dos exigencias — disminuyendo su modo de vida aquí­, en los EEUU y de depender frecuentemente de subsidios estatales o federales para su vivienda, educación, seguridad social y alimentos.

En el gran debate sobre emigración ilegal, raramente enmarcamos la cuestión en tales términos morales: si es que la vida allá en México está mejorando gracias a las remesas enviadas, la vida de las colonias de mexicanos en los EEUU permanecen en la miseria por no invertir donde viven y trabajan.

[…]

Mr. Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is the author of ”Mexifornia: A State of Becoming” (Encounter, 2003).

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Technorati Tags: México, Emigración, Immigration

Finally, I think I pretty much got rid of all the readers that I accumulated over the years. Intrinsic nihilism what not.

Well, not entirely, I am afraid that I have to be more honest in my rudeness.

Fact of the matter is that I am a trilingual writer. No if’s and’s or but’s, fair and square I must admit that being the trilingual as I so often laud ain’t a piece of cake. I often argued that there was no diference between languages since in the rock bottom end I am but one person who happens to master three languages. I argued, in all earnest, that I am the sum of all those languages hence I should have been able to be a consistent writer in the aforementioned languages. Alas! I wasn’t.

I suppose if I kept my opinions shorter these might contribute towards a smoother and more manageable enterprise. This so happens to be my achiles heel. I tend to write long pieces and this tends to wear me out. So writing in three languages is no easy task.

If I count the days when I did manage to write reasonable bits of text based elocutions then the numbers will not tend to be impressive at all.

Since the balance of the past years, a little more than 3, has been heavily tilted to Spanish it is Spanish where you will find more consistency in blogging as far as daily entries are concerned. Neither English nor Swedish can match the overwhelming expression of thought that I have dedicated to it using Spanish as the language medium to express said thinking.

Spanglish gets token use, few pieces in my repertoire of blog entries in both Spanish and English.

Truth be I am mostly a Spanish writer. So far. I say so because I believe I have finally come to a point were the things I had to say in Spanish have practically been said. I find myself leaning more towards the germanic aspect of the linguistic sphere that dominates my thought process.

The experience has been enriching for a number of reasons. One, I found out I am not the language I speak but that which I use.

This tends to cause a tectonic shif in a host of values. Were I am a certain value carrier in the one language this vale tends not to directly be carried over to the next language. Most monolinguals will fail to appreciate the last cognitive piece. Monolinguals will tend not to experience beyond their own point of reference that their language gives them. There is no trascendence beyond what Spanish calls as a cosmovision. That is, the realm that encompasses every language. I suppose politicians of all sorts tend to argue for the nativists approach, after all, it is easier to deal with monolinguals than bilinguals.

Negación.

No sé porqué los ricos en México insisten en querer vivir en paz cuando causan tantas guerras.

Para que vean que los manipulados no es uno sino los ricos que insisten en creer que aquí­ no pasa nada.

Y el pedo es que los medioclaseros después se agíüitan. Dicen: tu no eres clase media, fuchila, pero a la hora de las broncas, como siempre, se dejan llevar por la ilusión, semos ricos, se dicen los unos a los otros. Otros, dicen, joder, ya tenemos un flat screen. Ya la hicimos; los que no, chusma etc.

Mas a la hora de reunirse con los que se encuentran en Francia, Los Porfirio Dí­as, en el exilio, bajo suelo extraño, dicen, siempre no, mejor con los pobres what not.

---

Technorati Tags: México

One hardly sees so many subtitles on a book, but in Greg Grandin’s book, Empire’s Workshop, we do. More aptly, we are bombarded by the word Empire, just in the cover book we find it three times over. I resisted this term because I have a hard time believing that the US is a design meant to be an Empire, not yet anyhow. Our western narrative has made sure that empires are not good, that its ultimate destiny is to unravel into oblivion. Asimov what not. For a country based on Republican values this tends to send shivers down the spine of the few who retain nostalgia for the Old America.

Even more appaling regards visuals in the book is the flag of the US in an upside position which to most knowledgeable people means distress. Perhaps the more succint example of this kind of flag use is best described by the movie titled the Last Castle where Eugene Irwin (Robert Redford), ”a military hero by all accounts, is killed for calling attention to atrocities committed by ugly Americans.”

In Empire’s Workshop, Grandin describes the US as grappling for its very soul. Grandin’s book is a refresh button for us that have enough RAM that stretches back a while. A fortysomething book perhaps, a book for the ageing X generation or university students taking foreign relation courses. It is intented to be provocative not because it opens old wounds but because it details how the wounds were opened in the first place. Both physically and spiritually.

Grandin analysis how Latin America has served as a training ground for its Empire designs. I suppose I am to be appaled by the atrocities being commmited or that were comitted, documented and all; pondered upon, at times, in huge swaths, in Grandin’s book. [He tends to get ahead of himself at times]. Yet the fact of the matter is that personal psychology helps little in this case. I can feel disgust at what the narrative so vividly brings fourth, but let us face the facts, I was not in in El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras nor belong to the upper echeleons of the Latin America créme de créme hence little simpathy can be drawn from me there either. I have long known that the rich class of Latin America is far from being the patriotic ideal spoused by any decent country in the world whose foundations are based on Republican values.

Suffice to say, after reading the Latin American passages I find it rather ironic that those very mercenaries the US trained during the Cold War are now at the service of the mexican mafia, Kabiles I believe they are named. Or that Ecuadoreans are serving as hired guns to protect the Green Zone. Which is kind of actual as we speak now.

On a slight humoristic side, we are reminded of that great actor of our times, Ronald Reagen, in an astonishing manner tha it provokes the imagination to believe that perhaps Reagen kept its senses to the end while we believe it to be otherwise, purposesly or not. Is Elvis in the house?

Spiritual wounds are ones whose core is always open. There is no closing. Grandin maps, however crude, America’s eternal mana, predestination. The problem with predestination is that it never achieves a climax. There is always more one is predestined to do. But allow us to assume that we have achieved the goal set. And this is where the problem begins because the job is never done. So we are asked to envision the unimaginable. Worse yet, Grandin assures us that the US Empire design proyect is unfullfilled. Except that perhaps we have now turned a corner, flipped a coin what not. Lull before the storm etc.

Like I said, I suppose that one can be appaled by the atrocities Grandin describes in Empire’s Workshop, it is, after all, in our christian nature to deplore crimes against humanity. Consistent with our times open debate about christianity in our present time, I suspect Grandin also suggests, however slight, that predestination mechanisms are being used for ill purposes. Our modern day theocracy maluses the most common drive in America: the belief that we are meant for something aka we are predestined for schemes alien to the founding fathers intentions of our beloved land. Grandin never mentions the Calvin in all of us who nurture America in our hearts, but somehow he insuniates in the narrative that we are a herd whose leaders are awry.

Lastly, I was amused by the Mary Shelley prologue quote. Shelly warns us that resurrection is futile. No matter how grand our proyect. Yet Frankenstein remains in our minds, forever, no matter how monstrous the beast is. Is Grandin suggesting that Empire is not a business the US should not be resurrecting?

As an American myself I have always mulled the fact that we are a new race of people. It would behove us not to imitate the dirty concoctions of our European ancestors. We ought to come up with grander designs for our continent. I hope we do so.

One hardly sees so many subtitles on a book, but in Greg Grandin’s book, Empire’s Workshop, we do. More aptly, we are bombarded by the word Empire, just in the cover book we find it three times over. I resisted this term because I have a hard time believing that the US is a design meant to be an Empire, not yet anyhow. Our western narrative has made sure that empires are not good, that its ultimate destiny is to unravel into oblivion. Asimov what not. For a country based on Republican values this tends to send shivers down the spine of the few who retain nostalgia for the Old America.

Even more appaling regards visuals in the book is the flag of the US in an upside position which to most knowledgeable people means distress. Perhaps the more succint example of this kind of flag use is best described by the movie titled the Last Castle where Eugene Irwin (Robert Redford), ”a military hero by all accounts, is killed for calling attention to atrocities committed by ugly Americans.”

In Empire’s Workshop, Grandin describes the US as grappling for its very soul. Grandin’s book is a refresh button for us that have enough RAM that stretches back a while. A fortysomething book perhaps, a book for the ageing X generation or university students taking foreign relation courses. It is intented to be provocative not because it opens old wounds but because it details how the wounds were opened in the first place. Both physically and spiritually.

Grandin analysis how Latin America has served as a training ground for its Empire designs. I suppose I am to be appaled by the atrocities being commmited or that were comitted, documented and all; pondered upon, at times, in huge swaths, in Grandin’s book. [He tends to get ahead of himself at times]. Yet the fact of the matter is that personal psychology helps little in this case. I can feel disgust at what the narrative so vividly brings fourth, but let us face the facts, I was not in in El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras nor belong to the upper echeleons of the Latin America créme de créme hence little simpathy can be drawn from me there either. I have long known that the rich class of Latin America is far from being the patriotic ideal spoused by any decent country in the world whose foundations are based on Republican values.

Suffice to say, after reading the Latin American passages I find it rather ironic that those very mercenaries the US trained during the Cold War are now at the service of the mexican mafia, Kabiles I believe they are named. Or that Ecuadoreans are serving as hired guns to protect the Green Zone. Which is kind of actual as we speak now.

On a slight humoristic side, we are reminded of that great actor of our times, Ronald Reagen, in an astonishing manner tha it provokes the imagination to believe that perhaps Reagen kept its senses to the end while we believe it to be otherwise, purposesly or not. Is Elvis in the house?

Spiritual wounds are ones whose core is always open. There is no closing. Grandin maps, however crude, America’s eternal mana, predestination. The problem with predestination is that it never achieves a climax. There is always more one is predestined to do. But allow us to assume that we have achieved the goal set. And this is where the problem begins because the job is never done. So we are asked to envision the unimaginable. Worse yet, Grandin assures us that the US Empire design proyect is unfullfilled. Except that perhaps we have now turned a corner, flipped a coin what not. Lull before the storm etc.

Like I said, I suppose that one can be appaled by the atrocities Grandin describes in Empire’s Workshop, it is, after all, in our christian nature to deplore crimes against humanity. Consistent with our times open debate about christianity in our present time, I suspect Grandin also suggests, however slight, that predestination mechanisms are being used for ill purposes. Our modern day theocracy maluses the most common drive in America: the belief that we are meant for something aka we are predestined for schemes alien to the founding fathers intentions of our beloved land. Grandin never mentions the Calvin in all of us who nurture America in our hearts, but somehow he insuniates in the narrative that we are a herd whose leaders are awry.

Lastly, I was amused by the Mary Shelley prologue quote. Shelly warns us that resurrection is futile. No matter how grand our proyect. Yet Frankenstein remains in our minds, forever, no matter how monstrous the beast is. Is Grandin suggesting that Empire is not a business the US should not be resurrecting?

As an American myself I have always mulled the fact that we are a new race of people. It would behove us not to imitate the dirty concoctions of our European ancestors. We ought to come up with grander designs for our continent. I hope we do so.

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Technorati Tags: USA, Greg Grandin, America