The most damning is the three-count murder charge against the GEO Group (formerly known as the Wackenhut Corrections Corporation) for allowing “one or more inmates to physically assault” Gregorio de la Rosa Jr to death with padlocks stuffed into socks. He was incarcerated at the GEO Group-operated facility when he was brutally murdered by two other prisoners on April 26, 2001; he was four days away from completing a six-month sentence for a drug-related offense.

The local news stated that nothing will come out of this indictment because Cheney is immune from criminal prosecution, however, this is not true. According to the Memorandum for the United States Concerning the Vice President’s Claim of Constitutional Immunity, filed Oct. 5, 1973 by the Attorney General’s Office, a Vice President could be subject to indictment and criminal prosecution. This was in response to Vice President Spiro Agnew’s argument that both he and the President were immune from criminal prosecution.

Is this finally a dream coming true?

You can find more in depth analysis on this breaking news on my blog.

UPDATE: AP is now reporting that Cheney’s indictment in South Texas moves forward.

A Texas judge has set an arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other officials accused of involvement in prisoner abuse.

Presiding Judge Manuel Banales (buh-NAHL’-ehs) said Wednesday he will allow them to waive arraignment or have attorneys present rather than appear in person Friday.

Recently, a story broke out about Barack Obama’s Kenyan aunt, Zeituni Onyango, she was living in public housing in Boston. However, now with less than 72 hours till the election, there is a twist to this story. According to the Associated Press, reported that Onyango is an “illegal.”

But it doesn’t stop there. It was later found out that somebody within the Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaked the story to AP. The AP wrote:

Onyango was instructed to leave the country by a U.S. immigration judge who denied her asylum request, a person familiar with the matter told the AP. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no one was authorized to discuss Onyango’s case.

For those who have lived in Texas during the 80’s and the 90’s, this story suddenly becomes very suspicious. In fact, any Texas Democrat who has been involved in Texas prior to the 2000 election this was “the Mark of Rove,” there are no fingerprints.

For me, I immediately had flashbacks of Lena Guerrero’s demise.

Shortly after former Governor Ann Richards appointed Lena Guerrero to a vacant seat on the Railroad Commission, someone serving on a University of Texas committee selecting distinguished alumni learned that Guerrero had never graduated, contrary to her claims during her campaigns for a House seat and later for the Commission. Rove held on to the information until the time was right, then turned it over to the Dallas Morning News; confronted with the question, Guerrero unraveled.

I had a chance to meet her and to get to know her. As people jumped ship, I supported her until the very end. At that time, I didn’t know who Karl Rove was, or what he was capable of doing. It was not until I saw the movie Bush’s Brain by that I found it was Rove who leaked this information. He did not just forced her to tearfully resign, but destroyed her political career.

There are countless of people lives he destroyed through his vile smear campaigns, and sadly, he does it without reservation. Without a doubt, his fingerprints can be found all over the Auntie Zeituni story. Whether or not this story will have an effect swaying independents or moderate Republicans to vote for John McCain, we not be known until Tuesday; what does matter is the individual who was just demonized, harassed and persecuted because it made good political fodder.

As Duke, a fellow Sanctuarian, writes, there is a bigger picture to the Auntie Zeituni story, it exemplifies the current problems found in our broken immigration policy.

Knowing there is a major focus in the current debate in the US over immigration policy concerning people; red flags should have gone up immediately considering this story surfaced in the last 72 hours of a national election, especially on an issue that has taken a back seat.

According to the AP, Onyango was instructed to leave the country four years ago by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya. However, instead of leaving, she was living in public housing in Boston.

It is easy to see why nativists are in hysterics and are crying foul. To them, they see the world in black and white. You are either denied or accepted. If you are denied, the person should leave. In reality, however, the asylum process is much bigger and more complex.

Asylum is the legal protection against deportation. It is the status sought by non-US citizens, either legally or illegally, asking for refuge based on claims of persecution or fear of persecution in their home country. According to the Office of Immigration Statistics, there are two routes to gaining asylum, “…affirmatively through a USCIS asylum officer or defensively with an immigration judge as part of a removal hearing.”

Since Onyango had a hearing with an immigration judge, she went through the defensive route. The defensive process is triggered automatically for individuals placed in removal proceedings who have expressed a “credible fear” of persecution if they are returned to their homeland. I would not be surprised if Onyango expressed fear.

It is understandable why the progressive blogosphere would rather consider this a non-story instead of defending the issue. Why rock the boat when victory is so close? However, considering this story a non-issue is also considering Zeituni Onyango a non-person. Here is a woman whose life was ripped apart, much like the families who are broken up due to our ineffective system. By ignoring Onyanga’s plight from her country, which recently exploded into violence over a disputed election, is to play into the bureaucratic machine of oppression that works tirelessly to strip people like Onyanga of their human rights and to keep them faceless, so they can simply remain as non-persons.

The current situation is the product of our current political establishment. As an asylum seeker is seeking refuge, there are a number of factors they must over come, particularly which immigration judge is assigned to the case. It is not surprising she was denied asylum, only a few hundred women have been given asylum.

Recently, has been found that the Bush Administration appointed immigration judges who espoused conservative priorities and Christian lifestyle choices. An extensive report by the department’s Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility found that Monica Goodling, former Department of Justice’s (DOJ) White House Liaison, had broken civil service laws, run afoul of department policy and engaged in “misconduct.”

Many Americans believe that the process of being granted asylum is easily abused by persons who seek this status in order to come to and stay in the United States, whether to work, to commit crimes or to endanger national security. There are many details that were left out in this AP story. All we have been told she was denied asylum, it is possible she may appeal the denial to the Board of Immigration Appeals and thereafter to a US Court of Appeals.

It is obvious Karl Rove has corrupted John McCain in his thirst for power. Hopefully, Rove’s immigration ploy really did not have an effect like some are wishing, as they remain silent. However, it must be advised, the longer the Democrats and progressive bloggers let him get away with it, the more influence he’ll have on other Republican candidates.

The immigrant community faces a real challenge that our inability to fix our immigration system has engendered. If the Democrats and progressive bloggers feel it is better to handle Rove, hopefully, this stunt did serve as a reminder of a system that requires our immediate attention. One that can no longer be ignored.

x-posted: at Para Justicia y Libertad

It is ironic with less than a week for the election, I am proven correct again. According to the Los Angeles Times, ICE once again mistakenly detained a US citizen. Guillermo Olivares Romero, 25, was held in a detention center for two weeks.

Federal authorities have released a Los Angeles man from immigration detention after acknowledging that he is a U.S. citizen.

Guillermo Olivares Romero, 25, was held at an Otay Mesa detention center from Sept. 25 until Oct. 9, when an American Civil Liberties Union attorney presented his birth certificate, school and vaccination records to immigration authorities. He was released that day.

In an interview with HOY (h/t to el profe of Latino Like Me), Olivares said “No me creyeron. … Me decían que yo era mexicano porque me parecía a los mexicanos.” (They didn’t believe me. They told me I was a Mexican because I looked like a Mexican.)

If it wasn’t for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Olivares would probably have spent more than two weeks detained in the privately run Corrections Corporation of America’s Otay Mesa detention center. Olivares was only released after ACLU provided ICE with his birth certificate, vaccination and health records, and old school records.

Olivares first run in with immigration officials was in 2000 when Border Patrol accused Olivares trying to sneak his cousin across the border. It was not until his mother came down with his birth certificate, Olivares was allowed to cross.

Later in 2007, unbeknownst to him, Olivares did not realize he was being deported when he was serving time in a state prison awaiting his deportation. It was not until he was handed over to ICE. Immigration officials told Olivares he has signed a document acknowledging he was a Mexican National, even though he insisted he was not. The document in question is ICE’s voluntary departure order.

One of the most commonly heard complaints are the tactics used by ICE to pressure detainees to sign papers, whether they understood them or not. If they refuse to sign, guards tend to exert psychological pressure with verbal threats and physical intimidation. If ICE is claiming Olivares signed this form and was suddenly surprised he was being deported, it sounds like what he experienced the same treatment many undocumented immigrants have reported..

Olivares decided to live with relatives in Jalisco but when he wanted to return because his father was ill, he was denied entrance. Desperate to see his father, he crossed illegally and was caught and deported the same day that his father died. When his mother tried to help him get in legally, Border Patrol, did not believe he was a UC citizen, and that she was his mother.

When Olivares and his mother tried again last month, ICE once again tried to force him to sign “deportation papers.” However, this time he refused and demanded to see a judge. It was at this time; ICE arrested him and shipped him off to the detention center near San Diego.

As usual, ICE does not think they did anything wrong because he told ICE he is a Mexican. According to Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for ICE claims Olivares said he was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and that his criminal record from the California Department of Corrections also shows that he was born in Mexico.

This is not the first time ICE deported a US born Latino. Last year, ICE detained and deported Pedro Guzman, a mentally disabled man, to Mexico, where he spent 89 days alone in an unfamiliar place. Again, ICE also said Guzman had falsely contended that he was Mexican.

While ICE can provide evidence to show that Guillermo Olivares Romero and Pedro Guzman contended they were Mexican citizens, however, there are certain incidents they cannot spin. There is mounting evidence demonstrating ICE has a pattern of targeting people based on a person’s skin color or a person’s Spanish surname, such as the incident with Marie Justeen Mancha, a Mexican-American US, citizen who was home alone in Southeast Georgia when four federal agents stormed into her house, shouting “police! Illegals!”

The unfolding record of ICE’s deportation protocol is further evidence that comprehensive immigration reform must be made top priority during the next Administration. It is also vitally important for the next president and the new Homeland Secretary to investigate of the inhumane tactics practiced by ICE. There is a human tragedy in people who are wrongfully deported and detained. However, it is a greater tragedy when racial stereotypes have influenced ICE’s perception with the idea that all Latinos/as can be considered an immigrant.

In a two part investigative report, Greenblatt exposes the voter suppression tactics – which tend to be passed off as “simple mistakes” or “human error” – being used to disenfranchise thousands of voters their right to vote in Harris County. These tactics are being carried out by Republican elected Paul Bettencourt, Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar.

It seems Bettencourt, has a nasty habit of excluding certain voters out of the voter rolls and is willing to lie to the Texas Legislature to make his case. Prior to this investigative report, the state office of the League of Women Voters and elections expert Lauri Van Hoose already noted that Harris County had “serious and widespread voter registration problem.”

Here are some of the details from part one of Mark Greenblatt’s report.

Van Hoose said that in Harris County there are “a high number of people being rejected due to inconsistent practices of reviewing applications.”

Van Hoose knows this because she reviewed registration records from the tax assessor’s office.

Greenblatt: “These aren’t just numbers you’re coming up with on your own?”

Van Hoose: “Right.”

Greenblatt: “These are numbers based off his information?”

Van Hoose: “Right.”

Van Hoose’s conclusion is that the problem is bigger than we think.

“This is not one or two registrations,” she said. “This is thousands of registrations.”

But on top of it, she found the county was in no rush to tell would-be voters they were ‘no good.’
….
Van Hoose passed her findings onto the non-partisan statewide League of Women Voters.

“Some people who tried to do this in July are just now hearing that their form is being rejected, and now its too late,” state board member Mary Finch said. She adds, “Putting roadblocks up in front of people, it’s not good”

Ultimately, Finch has come up with a conclusion for the voting troubles in Harris County.

“The problem is competence or actual election fraud,” said Finch.

As KHOU attempted to get to the bottom of this, it is obvious Bettencourt was hoping to spin this as human error, and that some people were unintentionally left off the voter rolls. While it is true honest mistakes do occur, given the number of people registering in the 3rd largest county in the US, however, it appears Houston/Harris County is not the only one experiencing this problem, but there is mounting evidence demonstrating similar patterns occurring throughout the US.

Not only was Bettencount’s demeanor during his interview a dead give, but the run around Mark Greenblatt received from the Director of Voter Registration & Gov. Liaison, George Hammerlein, in his attempt to get certain information was also telling. In one of the email exchange between Greenblatt and Hammerlein, Greenblatt had to remind Hammerlein in caps that they obligated to release “ALL DOCUMENTS AND DATA” he had requested under the Texas Public Information Act.

Part one of the report, do note Paul Bettencourt’s demeanor as he is being pressed to explain these “mistakes.” Also notice how Bettencourt easily placed blame on a temporary employee who is no longer working there.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In part two, Mark Greenblatt exposes the false information Paul Bettencourt gave to the Texas House Elections Committee in the beginning of the year.

Bettencourt’s statement to the 11 News Defenders was similar to one he made nearly a year ago. It was all a part of his testimony before the House Elections Committee in January of 2008.

“We have had a history of illegal voting as well as documented fraud cases in Harris County,” he said then. “What I’m providing to you are 381 absolutely verified and documented cases.”

The hearing was part of a push to strengthen laws that could prohibit voter fraud laws.

“The 381 cases that we have provided to you with this documentation are we believe are ironclad,” he testified.

It turns out those 381 “ironclad” cases were not so ironclad after all. After his testimony, Representative Rafael Anchia discovered that out of Bettencourt’s “381 ironclad cases” only 121 are still under investigation. Adding insult to injury, only one was charged in Harris County in the past eight years.

It gets worst too, it also seems Bettencourt was adding fuel to fire xenophobic fire. He also claimed his office found 315 non-citizens trying to commit voter fraud. However, it turns out that 34 actually had openly disclosed they were not a US citizen, yet, the “County registrar gave those individuals voter cards.” One has to wonder if this was a set up, so the GOP can say “Gotcha!” and drag them out into the public square as proof that “illegals” are trying to commit voter fraud. From part two of the series:

In addition, there were also reportedly 22 non-citizens who Bettencourt testified were able to register and actually vote. But Anchia and his staff found that five of those 22 were actually U.S. citizens. Another member of the 22 had also truthfully disclosed his status as a non-Citizen, and yet Harris County gave him a voter card anyways.

It is funny when they are caught red handed in their bombastic accusation. This was very evident in the interview when Paul Bettencourt lost it and was forced to catch himself and compose himself.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Oh what a tangled web they weave when the GOP practice to deceive.

Truth be told, I am concern when elected officials can easily make alarmist statement such a Bettencourt while nobody holds them accountable for these false claims. If we stand idly by while the right to vote is denied to some “other,” it is our own right that is lost. In the latest poll, Rasmussen found that 50% of Texans surveyed believe voter fraud will occur, but it comes to voter suppression, only 31% of Texans surveyed believe voters will be disenfranchised on election day.

While I applaud Mark Greenblatt for a great job exposing what is taking place in the office of our GOP elected Tax Assessor-Collector, however, this shouldn’t be a partisan issue. I really hope he does a follow up because I have already encountered a person who was questioned during early voting. They were fortunate and this person was allowed to vote. But will the next person be so lucky?

Originally posted at Para Justicia y Libertad

As the power companies take their time restoring electricity, I wonder if anyone has noticed how Houston is serviced by one power company, CenterPoint Energy, that furnishes electricity to the area. Even though I signed up with a different electric provider, I am still at the mercy of CenterPoint because they are the local grid operator, which handles and services the electric grid. This is a result of the deregulation of electric services in Texas. Since CenterPoint controls the grid, they are responsible for all power failures.

As of last Friday Sept 19, of the total 2.2 million who lost power, 1.3 million are still without power. Not only that, my entire apartment complex did not have water for the entire week, despite Mayor Bill White’s assurance that water pressure is back to normal levels. During that time, I had to look for places that were open so I could avoid a build up of dirty dishes, while at the same time my laundry began piling up, my appearance began to suffer, and the water I stored in my bathtub for flushing my toilet was beginning to run critically low.

This is not the first hurricane I have been through a hurricane. In fact I did go through Hurricane Alicia. I also went through several tropical storms. This also not the first time I actually blogged a major hurricane. In 2005, I did the same thing with Hurricane Rita. There was something about Ike that made this one different than the previous ones I went through.

One day before Ike made its presence felt, on Sept 11, Harris County and City of Houston officials told people who weren’t living in Zone A & B of the evacuation zone to ride this out. This was done so the city would repeat the same mistakes three years ago and the steps New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin took with Gustav.

It is hard for people who live outside the Texas Gulf Coast to fully understand why so many decided to stay and ride out the storm. For some, the Rita evacuation process that took place three years ago is still fresh in people’s minds. When Rita was predicted to hit Galveston and Houston, more than 3 million people hit the roads almost simultaneously. When it was our turn to leave, it was being reported that people were stopped in traffic for hours in the Texas heat, many ran out of fuel waiting to get out, and there were rumors of traffic accidents. The gridlock was so bad, there was a fear if Rita did come in at a certain angle, it would have been a “death trap” if you were stranded on the road. As fellow Houstonian and blogamigo DP put it, “that was an experience I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.” I don’t except people to “get it” because it is something one has to personally experience to fully understand.

When Ike finally arrived Saturday morning, the National Hurricane Center reported that the hurricane maintained it’s 110mph wind speed, therefore classifying it as a strong category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, 1 mph shy of becoming a major category 3 (winds 111-130 mph). In other words, Hurricane Ike was a borderline Category 2/3.

I would be lying if I said Ike didn’t have an impact on me. Recently, I seem to have trouble concentrating, my sleep patterns is a bit off, my apatite has decreased, and for the past couple of days I have been reminiscing about the roaring wind and rain of that night. I hate to say it, but it seemed like it went on for hours with no end in sight. I think I only got 2 hours of sleep. During the storm, I noticed something very eerie outside my window, the natural light that normally enters through the window, there were periods when the light would disappear right before my eyes, as somebody put a was putting a cover over the apartment complex because the room would suddenly become pitch black. I found some accounts of others reporting the same thing. Those who survived the storm in Galveston also noticed the same phenomenon. Nanc, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “it turned completely black, you couldn’t see five feet in front of you.”

As the southern eyewall approached, that is when things really started rocking. A storm chaser noted that the “southern eyewall was very similar to Katrina in duration and relentlessness.” Around 5:30 AM, the winds began pounding my apartment so hard I was sure that the next massive gust would implode my sliding glass door or my bedroom window. Because the rain fall sideways during a hurricane, the pounding of the blistering rain against my sliding glass door sounded like someone got a handful of pebbles and threw it at my door non-stop. Throughout the night, as I hunkered down in my walk-in closet located inside the bathroom where the wall muffled the frightening sound, however, Ike made sure it’s presence was still felt. As I huddled on the floor with my dogs, I felt the apartment sway back and forth a couple of times, which brought about flashbacks of the first time I experienced an earthquake in Los Angeles.

I do have to admit, I was lucky. Despite the rocking, there was no damage to my apartment, however, there were some within my apartment complex that weren’t so lucky. Throughout the week, it was obvious that the people who lived on the bottom floor or in the mid-rise part of the complex were has rain enter as they were drying their towels outside. One tenant told me their entire ceiling was filled with water. As for my parents’ condo, they did sustain some minor flooding.

I think in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, there has been an unfair comparison between the tragedies Katrina left and the one left by other storms. In today’s post-Katrina coverage, if damage pales in comparison to Katrina, in the eyes the national media, it’s not going to be seen as a “big deal.” What people and the media have to keep in mind, Houston isn’t dependent on vulnerable levees or below sea level.

However, damage from the storm was extensive. Thousands of homes and government buildings flooded, roads were washed out, power lines were down and parts of trees and roofs were everywhere. Highways were full of debris, shredded billboards and cars stalled in high water.

It will take several months and millions of dollars to replace the glass in Houston’s skyscrapers that was shattered by Hurricane Ike. Some of the city’s big corporations did not open their offices until Tuesday because the building sustained water damage.

The city’s theater district was flooded and shards of glass blown out of downtown skyscrapers littered the streets. Ike’s winds ripped off windows on Chevron Corp’s two main towers at 1500 Louisiana and 1400 Smith. All windows on one side of Chase JP Morgan were blown out. The retractable roof of the newly constructed Reliant Stadium was damaged by Ike. HoustonPBS sustained experienced extensive damage to the section of their roof which covers the TV studios and set storage during Hurricane Ike. The damage downtown was comparable to Hurricane Alicia in 1983.

As of this writing, the Houston Independent School District just announced that more than half of their schools are unable to open next week because damage sustain by the Hurricane. On top of that, they will also take in all the students from Galveston Independent School District as the City of Galveston begins the rebuilding process.

The situation in Galveston and the adjacent Bolivar peninsular is more serious. The visible evidence is dramatic enough: parts of Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula are reduced to matchsticks because the stilted homes were ripped from their pilings.

Even though more than 2 million residents in Texas and Louisiana heeded evacuation orders, it is estimated that between 90,000 and 140,000 ignored evacuation orders and decided to ride out the storm. While not all those who chose not to evacuate were put in harm’s way, federal officials reported that 2,000 people were rescued – almost 400 by air – in 2,500 search and rescue missions. However, there are some who suffered greatly.

In the beginning there was constant coverage of the aftermath, however, the fate of Bolivar remained unknown. If houses are destroyed and people were there, where are they? What we do know is that the death toll in Texas from Hurricane Ike stands at 23.

Many local and online news sources have gone either silent regarding the casualties and deaths from the devastation the hurricane inflicted on Galveston or provided the occasional glimpse of the devastation it left behind…

to remind us of the full extent of the damage wrought by Hurricane Ike.

Unfortunately, the exact number of people who died as the result of Hurricane Ike is anybody’s guess, and most likely it will take weeks and months to get an answer to that question. Sadly, Galveston authorities are now conceding that the waters of Galveston Bay and nearshore waters could have washed them out to the Gulf, which apparently happened to one woman on the peninsula.

In the midst of the presidential election, one would wonder if the blackout is part of a concerted effort by the corporate media and political elites to trivialize the disaster so those outside the impacted areas won’t ask the vital questions.

In Part II I how FEMA is slowly turning Houston and Galveston and the surrounding area into another New Orleans as the Texas GOP plays with peoples lives.

Originally written on my blog Para Justicia y Libertad

In the wake of the ever-expanding enforcement operations conduced by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a “hidden system” has been created where there is no concern to the fate of those detained. They simply have become the sacrificial victims of a broken immigration system.

In the closing line of the song “Mojado,” Ricardo Arjona featuring Intocable asks a question of immense relevance to those whoshut their eyes to the recent surge in immigration raids around the country and the increase in militarization projects at the border: “¿Si la visa universal se extiende el día en que nacemos y caduca en la muerte, Por qué te persiguen, mojado, si el consul de los cielos ya te dio permiso?” (“If the universal visa begins when we are born and expires at our death, why do they persecute you, Mojado, if the consul of the heavens has already given you permission?”) Note: The images in the video are quite vivid and stir up a lot of emotions. Ricardo Arjona – Mojado

While it is important to criticize the consequences of the immigration raids, the hard question we should start asking ourselves, “What drives a person from one society to hate another person from another society to the degree that they want to segregate them, even demoralize them?”

Exposing the massive violations that took place in Postville, Iowa, this past May, Marisa Trevino of Latina Lista, writes:

The secretive and isolationist nature of how the federal government conducts deportations and immigrant detentions naturally lends itself to abuse of the system and the erosion of human rights.

It is difficult for the average American to believe all of this happening within our borders because many of us would like to believe we are courageous enough to resist unjust authority and would never abandon our core beliefs in the face of social pressures. However, the reality is, we can never predict our actions without being placed in similar situations.

Perhaps no one understands the roots of cruelty better than Philip Zimbardo. He is known for conducting the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, which demonstrated how, under the right circumstances, ordinary people could quickly become amoral monsters. In his latest book, The Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo describes his recent prison experiment that documented the quick transformation of a group of ordinary young men into power-hungry “guards,” humiliating equally ordinary “prisoners” in the basement of Stanford’s psychology building.

The recipe for behavior change is not complicated. Dehumanization is the central process that changes a normal person into someone indifferent. The process clouds the mind of ones thinking and fosters the perception that “other people” are less than human. Powerful enough to even drive some people to see the “others” as enemies, deserving of torment and torture. It is through this process that provides the justification for xenophobia and the conversion of these “illegal” residents into criminals in the popular consciousness.

I had the opportunity to meet with the families who were affected by immigration raids in Houston. I have written many posts on how these raids have destroyed many families. While I have expressed my concerns, however, I was also grateful their problems were not mine. When I was in graduate school, I was taught it was better to separate yourself from the other person’s pain because it would protect you from feeling overwhelmed and helpless.

However, I have come to realize this only perpetuates a fear that if the situation were to happen to me personally, I would not be able to bear it. It was easier to keep an emotional safe distance, so I could avoid the truth of their experience. While it is natural to feel sympathy when someone is hurting, however, this only limits the amount of meaningful support.

During the meeting, I failed to find the right words to comfort them. It was not until I let go my professional detachment that I could not stop the sadness that quickly engulfed me. To hear the stories on how ICE treated them was truly heart breaking, but not surprising. The underlying story can be found throughout the country. The New York Times, the Washington Post and CBS News have all provided alarming evidence of shoddy care, inadequate staffing, lax standards, secrecy and chronic ineptitude. Because Congress has failed to act on reform, more than 40 states have been busy trying to crack down on undocumented immigrants, whether they are parents or minors.

As I left the meeting, I could not help but break down because there are animals who are treated more humanely. How anyone could not shed a tear after hearing their traumatic stories is beyond me.

- they were not allowed to close the door whenever someone needed to use the restroom
- sexual harassment. women being touched in private areas in from of the men
- guards exerted psychological pressure with verbal threats and physical intimidation to force them to sign the voluntary deportation order, if they refused, they were told deportations proceedings could take over a year, which would mean they are not allowed to work.
- no water was granted to them. One said when they asked for water, ICE dumped the water on the floor, saying “There is no water for you.”
- one woman fainted because she was thirsty and still no water was given to them
- before they were interviewed, they remained in a hot van with no running a/c for over an hour forced to share among 10-13 detainees one bottle water.
- when given something to drink, it was one of those frozen concentrated drink that was still unthawed.

Although the politics of immigration policy play out regularly in the media, issues around family separations and the actual conditions and violations of rights receive little attention. The construction of modern day human zoos, such as the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, TX or the Willacy County Detention Center in Raymondville, TX or the numerous deportation prisons throughout this country, one must come to the realization that this is a representation of the collapse of a system that is not capable of making good on its promises of liberty, justice and democracy.

Attending the meeting has opened my eye and led me to view this humanitarian crises differently. I have come to realize that the best gift I can give to the thousands who have been victimized by our broken immigration system is my willingness to share their experience of the “hidden system” to others.

Originally posted on The Sanctuary

We have had our fair share of critics who questioned us and asked who did we we think we were to make such a lofty demand and who did we represent and why should we expect the presidential candidates to answer our questions.

But make no mistake on the impact online activism has on politics in general. As Marisa Treviño noted, in light of the $20 million the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign are spending to outreach Latino/a voters, “the questionnaire was a bargain.”

It is obvious that the Obama campaign understands this because his campaign has fulfilled their promise and filled out the questionnaire. However, the McCain campaign, aside from the Spanish-language ads, and his trip to Mexico and South America, has yet to fill out our questionnaire.

Taking notice of our frustrations about the campaigns “tip-toeing” and “lip service” on immigration are CNN, XM Radio’s P.O.T.U.S. ‘08, and Huffington Post.

The Sanctuary recently distributed a call for presidential candidates Obama and McCain to answer what the organization called a “comprehensive survey on Latino issues.” Since both candidates have been courting the Latino vote, the Sanctuary editors wrote in a press release, we wanted open and honest information about their positions. “We were tired of seeing the candidates tip-toe around the issues and merely pay lip service. So we created this questionnaire posing specific policy questions for the candidates to answer,” said Sanctuary editor Edmundo Rocha.

During the week, Sanctuary spokesperson and CrossLeft.org founder, Kety Esquivel was interviewed on XM Radio’s P.O.T.U.S. ‘08 and on CNN to discuss the questionnaire, the response from the Obama campaign, and the lack of response from McCain campaign.

There is no doubt that the Netroots phenomenon is still in its infancy. However, it is obvious the Netroots is not limited to general electoral politics; it also incorporates other issues that influence this country. In other words, I and the other founding members of “The Sanctuary” are part of a complex Internet community called the Netroots where the function is really not the sum of the parts but much bigger.

The video of Kety on CNN’s American Morning

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our investigation found that Goodling improperly subjected candidates for certain career positions to the same politically based evaluation she used on candidates for political positions, in violation of federal law and Department policy. With regard to requests from interim U.S. Attorneys to hire [assisant U.S. attorneys], we determined that in two instances Goodling considered the candidate’s political or ideological affiliations when she assessed the request. For example, in one instance when the interim U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia sought approval from Goodling to hire an AUSA for a vacant position, Goodling responded that the candidate gave her pause because judging from his résumé he appeared to be a “liberal Democrat.”

In addition, we determined that Goodling often used political or ideological affiliations to select or reject career attorney candidates for temporary details to Department offices, including positions in EOUSA that had not been filled by political appointees. Goodling’s use of political considerations in connection with these details was particularly damaging to the Department because it resulted in high-quality candidates for important details being rejected in favor of less-qualified candidates. For example, an experienced career terrorism prosecutor was rejected by Goodling for a detail to EOUSA to work on counterterrorism issues because of his wife’s political affiliations. Instead, EOUSA had to select a much more junior attorney who lacked any experience in counterterrorism issues and who EOUSA officials believed was not qualified for the position.

Goodling also admitted that she took into consideration the candidates’ political leaning for positions as Department immigration judges (IJs) and Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) members. Justice investigators also found Kyle Sampson and Jan Williams also improperly took political and ideological affiliations into account in “selecting immigration judges.”

According to the report, Sampson had changed the selection process of hiring immigration judges. In an internal Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) e-mail from an Assistant CIJs (ACIJs) to the Chief Immigration Judge (CIJ), stating that Laura Baxter, a Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, had recently informed EOIR that “the Dept. is going to take a greater role in [immigration judges] hiring.” The e-mail noted further that Baxter “emphasized that she wanted us to know that this is coming from the AG [John Ashcroft].” The email contained an attached file entitled “Appointment of Immigration Judges.”

“Many lawyers seeking positions within the Administration, including judgeships, become known to the White House offices of Political Affairs, Presidential Personnel, and Counsel to the President.” The document stated that some lawyers might qualify to be IJs, and that “coordination” was needed to ensure that such lawyers were “informed of the opportunity” to become IJs. The document included a “Proposed Process,” which was substantively identical to the process that became established under Sampson, Williams, and Goodling, and which is quoted below:
A. EOIR informs DAG (Baxter) of current or upcoming IJ vacancy.
B. DAG (Baxter) informs OAG (Sampson) of the vacancy.
C. OAG (Sampson) informs WH OPA . . ., WH PPO . . ., and WHCO . . . of the vacancy and solicits names of possible applicants.
D. OAG (Sampson) transmits application package to possible applicants; DAG (Baxter) transmits a list of possible applicants recommended by WH to EOIR.
E. EOIR recommends candidates for AG appointment.
F. AG appoints.

According to the report, the proposed process for hiring immigration judges was implemented in 2004.

Part of the selection process, applicants were required to “identify their political party affiliation, their voting address for 2000 and 2004, involvement in the Bush/Cheney campaigns of 2000 and 2004, and a point of contact to verify their involvement in the campaigns.”

Sampson had used Jan Williams, a non-attorney Federalist Society from 1997 to 2001, to get “ideas for immigration judge postings” when she was working at the White House. When she later was moved to the Justice Department, Sampson would ask her to “contact the White House to get any candidate ideas that they had for immigration judges,” Justice investigators found.

While Williams was serving as the Department’s White House Liaison, she used the Internet and LexisNexis, a data mining company, to search information about the applicant’s political leaning. According to the report, Justice investigators found an email Williams sent to Goodling that “contained a search string, and stated: ‘This is the lexis nexis search string that I use for AG appointments.’” The search sting that was forwarded to Goodling was:

[first name of a candidate] and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict! or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or firearm!

Emptywheel of Firedoglake just posted that House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. and Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sánchez are now considering a “criminal referral for perjury.”

This is a travesty to our democratic system. The political screening went so far to deny even qualified moderate Republican applicants because they were “not Republican enough” for the Bushites. I hope this is further proof why we in the Latino/a community must stay vigilant when it comes to taking pride whenever we see a fellow Latino/a being appointed into office. The report clearly shows that Alberto Gonzales had lied to the Congress about these matters, and it should make one wonder what other anti-immigration skeletons are hiding in his closet.

The time for revamping our broken immigration system is now. We must stop the charades and hold our politicians accountable, even if they are Democrats.

cross-posted on Para Justicia y Libertad and The Sanctuary

Blogger Matt Ortega reports that the event was attended by Rosanna Pulido, State Director for the Illinois Minutemen Project, who was not too thrilled with McCain’s double talk on immigration.

“I have friends in Washington, DC, on this issue,” she says. “We’ve had conversations on this issue.” After comprehensive immigration reform was killed in the Senate and McCain changed his rhetoric on the subject on the campaign trail, Pulido says, “we were hopeful after John McCain started saying, ‘I understand where the American people are coming from, there’s gotta be enforcement first,’ we thought great, he’s had a change of heart.”

So she went to the meeting, a room full of 150-200 people. “Sure enough,” Pulido says, “his mantra at the meeting was comprehensive immigration reform.’ And there were cheers and applause whenever he mentioned comprehensive immigration reform.”

“Then he said, ‘I bet some of you don’t know this — did you know Spanish was spoken in Arizona before English?’ And the crowd roared. I was appalled,” Pulido said. “He was pandering to these people — that’s what they wanted to hear.”

McCain knows he cannot win the election without the Latino vote. However, by pandering to his audience when it comes to immigration, John McCain is playing a dangerous game – one that will cost him the Latina/o vote come election day.

The same right-wing populist fears that fueled the Cold War anti-communism, rallied against the Civil Rights Movement and brought about the armed citizens militia movement in the 1990s have reappeared with an elaborate conspiracy theory about the reconquering of America – La Reconquista – the idea that Mexicans are invading America to reclaim it for Mexico.

Recently, Media Matters reported that G. Gordon Liddy, on his nationally syndicated radio show, stated that undocumented immigrants from Mexico “want to reconquer America.” From Liddy’s June 5 radio show:

LIDDY: Well, now, America’s a free country. And everyone who is here legally has the protections of the Constitution, and one of them is the right to gather together peacefully to petition government, you know, with respect to any grievance that you might have. Now, I don’t have any problem with that. What I have — the problem –

LIDDY: Now, wait a minute. Now, the problem that I have is with people who come over here and instead of wanting to become Americans, you know, fly the American flag, learn English, and so forth, they want to fly the Mexican flag, they want to speak Spanish, you know, and other varieties of illegal alien. And that’s — that is what distinguishes these people from the previous immigrants. Previous immigrants said, “Man, we can’t wait to get out of” — you know, whatever the country was they came from. “We can’t wait to get to the United States. We want to be Americans, we want to learn English, and, we want, you know, the best for our children,” and what have you. And they proudly displayed the American flag. Not so, especially these illegal aliens up from Mexico and what have you. They want to reconquer America, they say. They have this outfit called the Reconconquista [sic] or something of that sort, whatever it is in illegal alien.

The tone of the national debate over immigration is being set by organizations deeply rooted in hate. Too many people, from the media to community leaders, have stood aside with other hateful sources updating their tactics of Jim Crow for the more sophisticated media environment of the 21st century.

Millions of Americans are exposed to the conspiracy theories, either through television or through the Internet. The question is where did the “reconquering” idea originate? One possibility could be traced back to 1917 when Arthur Zimmermann sent his infamous telegram to Mexico’s President Venustiano Carranza, at the height of World War I, known as the Zimmermann Telegram. The telegram offered to form an alliance between Germany and Mexico, while trying to remain neutral with the US. However, if US were to enter the war, the Mexican government would agree to enter the war to support Germany, while trying to persuade the Japanese government to join the new alliance. Germany also promised to provide Mexico with financial assistance and the restoration of its former territories of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to Mexico. It was in this telegram that the word reconquer was used.

We intend to begin on the first of February, unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we propose an alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you. [emphasis mine]

You will inform the President [of Mexico] of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves.

Please call the President’s attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace.

Most people assume that it was the sinking of the Lusitania that brought the United States into World War I. However, some will ague that was this message that helped draw the U.S. into the war. The military alliance’s main purpose was to keep the US out of the European conflict by convincing Mexico and Japan to attack the US.

The sentiment at the time, both anti-German and anti-Mexican sentiment in the United States was high – Americans where still angry over the loss of Americans lives in the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 by a German U-boat and because of Pancho Villa’s recent raids into US border towns. The idea that the part of United States would possibly go back to Mexico, had Mexico complied with offer, was not very popular with the American people and did not bode well for President Woodrow Wilson.

Maybe one possible explanation for the strains between Latinos and Whites, especially in the Southwest, could be that Carranza did consider Zimmerman’s offer. Carranza assigned a general to consider the realities of a Mexican takeover of their former provinces. The general concluded that it would not work because taking over the three states would definitely cause problems and possibly war with the US; Mexico would also be incapable of accommodating a large Anglo population within its borders; and Germany would not be able to supply the arms needed in the hostilities that would surely arise. On April 14, Carranza declined Zimmermann’s proposals, by which time the US had already declared war on Germany.

Currently, nativist pundits associate “reconquista” with El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, the manifesto that is considered to be founding document of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA). However, according to Jorge Tapia, MEChA has its founding based on a conference held in Santa Barbara, CA, El Plan de Santa Barbara, El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan and ideas from other student organizations. In fact, “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán” was not just instrumental in the founding of MEChA, but it also became the framework of the Chicano movement.

In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal “gringo” invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlan from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny….With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our mestizo nation.

In reality, El Plan is a manifesto that appeals to nationalism as a way to achieve a self-awareness and self-esteem. El Plan never asked for the return of lost territories back to Mexico. So where did the idea of “Aztlán” come from? The concept of Aztlán began with the poet Alurista in a 1969 Denver Youth Conference that was organized by Corky Gonzales. He was one of the first poets to establish the concept of Aztlan in his writings. In an interview, Alurista said:

And while still calling California “occupied Mexico,” the poet disavows any lingering territorial claims. “People call California, Arizona, Nueva Mexico and Colorado Aztlán, but really, Aztlán is wherever we are. We don’t recognize borders. It’s more a matter of cultural/political identity. When I say this is our land, I don’t mean that we own it. Who owns anything?”

Aztlán was a spiritual concept, which was meant to unite all Chicanos/as. The reality is that Latinos are not a homogenous group and throughout the US one can find divisions within the same Latino sub-groups in the Southwest. There are considerable differences between Latinos in each State because each sub-group has their own history of discrimination and oppression. Because of this, there are consequences. Such as, Tejanos see themselves differently from those in New Mexico, Arizona and California. Maybe because Mexico lost Texas first, this probably explains why the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo is not celebrated in the state. Nuevo Mexicanos, in New Mexico also view themselves different from those in Arizona and California and vice versa, however these states have a common history, they were established from the Treaty. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
In other words, “Aztlán,” is a spiritual concept that we, as Latinos/as, have a spiritual homeland.

It is not just right-wing pundits who are fanning the flames of strife; there are prominent anti-immigrant activists such as Barbara Coe of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, John Vincent of the American Immigration Control Foundation, and Rick Oltman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform who are avid supporter of the reconquista conspiracy theory and are vehemently anti-Latino. The growing backlash against illegal immigration is creating an atmosphere of antagonism toward all Latinas/os. And many of these hate groups are eager to exploit mainstream fears.

When a society is undergoing change or turmoil, social movements can arise out of an idea that the idealized nation as being destroyed by foreign ideas. This can involve with the idea that the subversion is part of a conspiracy. In a healthy society, only a handful of people will actually consider conspiracy theories seriously. However, when conspiracy theories create a mass following, as a society, we should view this as a red flag because it is a clear indication that something is amiss in society.

Conspiracy theories about Mexico re-conquering lost territories have already seeped into conservative circles. It is just a matter of time it will make its way into progressive political circles. This not only is a waste of time and energy, but it undermines the struggle for human rights. It is important for people of all political stripes to denounce conspiracy theories as toxic to democracy.

Most people don’t know that back in 1912, Hellmann’s mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after its stop in New York. This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know, the great ship did not make it to New York. The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was forever lost.

The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss. Their anguish was so great that they declared a National Day of Mourning, which they still observe to this day. The National Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo.

Fooled ya!

Cinco de Mayo is often mistaken for Mexico’s Independence Day here in the US. Mexico’s Independence Day is celebrated on September 16 because it was day that Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, in the small town of Dolores, in the state of Guanajuato, rang the church bell and made the call to retaliate against the Spanish. Every year at midnight on September 15, Mexicans led by the president of Mexico shout the Grito, honoring the crucial and impulsive action that was the catalyst for the country’s bloody struggle for independence from Spain.

Cinco de Mayo is the celebration of the victory of the Mexican Army, led by Texas-born General Ignacio Zaragoza, over the French expeditionary forces in the “Batalla de Puebla” (Battle of Puebla) on May 5, 1862. On that morning, history was written that continues to serve as a reminder that with patriotism, valor and pride, one will overcome any and all obstacles. Cinco de Mayo is a day of great importance for the Mexican and Chicano communities. Cinco de Mayo’s history has its roots in the French Occupation of Mexico. But Cinco de Mayo also plays an important historical role in US history.

French intervention took shape soon after the Mexico-US War of 1846-48 and the signing the “Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo”, which settled the war with fifteen million dollars in payment for the annexed lands.

Much like today’s war in Iraq, many felt that the war with Mexico was an “unjust war.” Freshman House member and future President Abraham Lincoln spoke out and accused President James Polk’s motive as a desire for “military glory – that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood.” In his speech to Congress, Lincoln said:

“God of Heaven has forgotten to defend the weak and innocent, and permitted the strong band of murderers and demons from hell to kill men, women, and children, and lay waste and pillage the land of the just.”

Like Iraq today, Mexico entered a period of national crisis during the 1850s. Years of not only fighting the Americans but also a Civil War, had left Mexico devastated and bankrupt. In 1861, the newly elected democratic President Benito Juarez issued a moratorium to defer their debts for two years, with the commitment to start making payments after that period.

On October 31, 1861, Queen Isabella II of Spain, Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Emperor Napoleon III of the Second French Empire refused the request, so they sent their troops to Mexico to collect their debts. The English and Spanish quickly made deals with Juarez and left. The French had other ideas. A month after the Spanish and British withdrawal, France brought 4,500 troops and began marching inland on its war of occupation. Their intention was to dispose of the Mexican Constitutional Government and create an Empire in Mexico under Napoleon III, who also detested the growing power in the US because Napoleon III believed that the US would eventually become a power in and of itself if left unchallenged. At that time, the US had already entered into the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Not too may people realize that Napoleon III came very close to officially recognizing the Confederacy because he was driven by a desire to keep the Union split. All through 1862, Napoleon III entertained Confederate diplomats, raising hopes that he would unilaterally recognize the Confederacy. Napoleon III also had plans to impose a monarchical government upon the nations of Central and South America. By doing this, France would have been able to provide raw materials and trade for the European nations as well as put the US in check.

Napoleon III had help from the plutocratic and conservative landowners of Mexico who feared loss of land and political power to the newly elected constitutional government of Benito Juarez. In 1862, Napoleon III began to advance by sending his army of the Second French Empire into Mexico. Napoleon III planed to seat Maximilian I, a Hapsburg prince, as Emperor of the new Mexican empire. The French Army had never lost a battle in 50 years, and thus invaded Mexico confident of success. The French Army was equipped with modern weaponry and with a newly reconstituted Foreign Legion. Historians believe the French established the monarchy, especially since the US was already in its own Civil War.

At this time, President Juarez (a full-blooded Zapotec Indian) was already taking countermeasures. President Juarez commanded General Ignacio Zaragoza to block the advance of the French Army at the fortified hills of Loreto and Guadalupe by the city of Puebla. Under the command of General Zaragoza, the Mexicans awaited with 5,000 ill-equipped Mestizo and Zapotec Indians. On May 5, 1862, General Zaragoza beat back repeated French assaults and ended up defeating the French army in Puebla. Before the day was over, more than a thousand French soldiers were dead.

General US Grant told President Lincoln in 1865 that the Civil War would not have been over if the French continued to stay in Mexico. The 1962 Mexican victory did contribute to the Union victory in our Civil War. If not, Napoleon III would have continued to supply weapons to the Confederate Army, and American history would have been different.

The importance “Cinco de Mayo” is not that it only memorializes a historical event, but it is a cultural emergence coupled with a history that has taken place that defines who we are as Latinos/as. The significance of the Battle is not about who won or lost, nor is it about a battle that took place in Mexico or how it indirectly helped the Union win, it is about respect. It is respect for those, the Mestizos and Zapotecs, who were often taken for granted, ignored and without any resources other than their patriotism, which has helped defined a moment in Latino history.

The victory at Puebla does have specific meaning to me because it is about putting a spotlight on my heritage as a Mestizo and how we took part in shaping the course of history for both Mexico and the US. Even though I am born in the United States and have nothing to do with Mexico, I cannot ignore my Mexican familial roots and their role in Mexican history, as I also cannot ignore my American familial roots and their role in shaping the US.

Eighteen of the girls removed from the compound were put legally into state custody because they appear to be “under threat of physical, mental or sexual abuse, or of neglect.” The remaining children have been taken to a local civic center for questioning and until authorities have found them foster homes.

The Eldorado Success reported that the investigation began after Child Protective Services was notified by a 16-year-old girl at the YFZ Ranch who suffered physical abuse at the hands of 50-year-old Dale Barlow. Police set up roadblocks and blocked off the entrances and exits to the compound.

According to the San Angelo Standard-Times, a search warrant authorized police to enter the compound and to look for evidence of a marriage between the girl and Dale Barlow. The warrant, signed by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther, reportedly allowed authorities to seize any records or documents detailing the marriage and fathering a child with the 16-year-old girl victim. The search warrant said the girl had a baby eight months ago, when she was 15.

YFZ Ranch is the site of FLDS’ first-ever temple. The 1,900-acre property was purchased in 2003, where the polygamous sect completed building the ranch in 2006. “YFZ” stands for “Yearn for Zion,” after a song penned by FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.

The community was led by Warren Jeffs, who succeeded his father Rulon Jeffs in 2002. Warren Jeffs resigned his leadership of the FLDS Church in 2007, shortly after being convicted of being an accomplice to rape by the state of Utah. It is still unknown who is leading the FLDS church. However, several enclaves can be found in Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, South Dakota, and in British Columbia, Canada.

It is important to keep in mind that Mormon fundamentalism, like FLDS, is considered a splinter group from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormons. Mormon fundamentalists embrace the doctrine and practice of polygamy, also known as “plural marriage” or “plurality of wives,” as it is generally referred to. Polygamy is not practiced by any, active contemporary member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons have stopped practicing polygamy since 1890, after the Mormon Church officially disavowed polygamy.

Mormon Fundamentalists, however, believe that acceptance into the American mainstream came at way too high a price. They felt that the Mormon leaders sold them out and splintered off from the Church. Fundamentalists have formed numerous small sects, often within cohesive and isolated communities in areas of the Western United States, Western Canada, and northern Mexico.

We should take this moment to reflect and recognize the importance of this day for women worldwide. Yesterday, women around the world celebrated the achievements they have made in their struggle for power and recognition that’s been waged for hundreds of years. In South America, we witnessed a change and attitudinal shift in both women’s and society’s thoughts about women’s equality and emancipation. In Argentina, the people spoke and elected Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, making her the first woman to be elected president in Argentina’s history. In 2006, in Chile, Michelle Bachelet became the first woman president. And Ellen Johnson Sirleaf made history by becoming Africa’s first elected female head of state and Liberia’s first elected female president. Fernández de Kirchner, Bachelet, Johnson Sirleaf and millions of women like them in many parts of the world have begun celebrating a new song of power, liberty, and justice.

However, the harsh realities in the day-to-day struggles women face can never be minimized. Violence affects the lives of millions of women worldwide. It continues to be a global epidemic that kills, tortures, and maims – physically, psychologically, sexually and economically. In Pakistan, the year ended with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The death of “The Rose of Pakistan” marked a dark day in Pakistan’s history.

Recently, it was reported that a young mother in London was drugged, repeatedly raped for hours in front of her screaming children. The horrible ordeal was later posted on YouTube for the world to see. The three-minute clip was later removed from YouTube after a local reporter complained about its graphic nature. And we must not forget Megan Meier, the 13 year-old girl who hung herself last year after being bullied on MySpace.

I had a hard time writing this post because I wanted to do the subject justice. I wanted to express how grateful I am not only to my mother and my sister, but also to all of the women who have touched my life personally and professionally. As I was looking up the links I wanted to use, I happened to come across this power picture on a post about International Women’s Day, by Adil Najam from All Things Pakistan. She was moved by the photo because “[t]here is both dignity and determination in the posture of this young woman as she tries to cross the road.” I couldn’t agree more!

Reading his post gave me pause to reflect on current state of affairs in this country and how sexist, misogynist, patriarchal ways of thinking and behaving can still seen in the prevailing values in our society, values created and sustained by a system dominated by patriarchy. Najam wrote:

For me, here is a woman who is not waiting for someone to ‘help’ her cross the road. She is not demanding any special treatment. Not waiting for assistance. Not invoking the chuvinism of the men around her. She is ready, prepared, even eager, to overcome whatever hurdles come in her way.

There are some who doubt we can move toward a society that’s color-blind, rational, and humanist, where a common goodwill overpowers narrow self-interest. As some move forward for a better future, others choose to live in the past. The truth is, the only way we can realize the fully humanist goal is to have the willingness to listen and the determination to bring down the current power structure.

I was reminded of a passage from Paolo Friere’s classic Pedagogy of the Oppressed:

The oppressor is in solidarity with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor – when he stops making pious, sentimental, and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love. True solidarity is found only in the plenitude of this act of love… To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce.

Such “acts of love” are possible. Being Latino, not only do I have an insight into identifying racist behavior taking place within the Latina/o community, but I’m also able to identify the subtle sexist behavior that also takes place because, as a male, I understand the male privilege that has been given to me by society’s patriarchal rules. Although there are some who assume that not being involved in the oppression of women is enough, but the reality is this is nothing more than passivity. As bell hooks once said, “if we don’t change our own consciousness, we cannot change our own actions or demand change from others.”

We can argue with or agree with the old Virginia Slims ad from 1978: “You’ve come a long way, baby.” Unfortunately, there are still miles to go before we arrive at true equality.

Happy International Womens Day.

In the latest edition of Capital Eye, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics’ newsletter, it’s reported that Democratic superdelegates have received $904,200 in campaign contributions from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the last three years.

The newsletter says Obama, who currently has a slim lead of pledged “non-super” delegates (1,112), has shelled out nearly $700,000 to superdelegates through his Hope Fund political action committee or campaign committee since 2005. As of Feb. 12, according to Capital Eye, 43 percent of the superdelegates (35 of the 82) who announced they would be supporting Obama have received campaign contributions from him for the 2006 or 2008 election cycles, for a total of $232,200.

As for Clinton, her HILLPAC and campaign committees have distributed $205,500 to superdelegates, according to the newsletter. Only 12 percent of the superdelegates (13 of the 109) who have said they will back her have received campaign contributions, totaling about $95,000 since 2005.

The superdelegates themselves all say the same thing – that any money flowing from the presidential candidates to the delegates’ own campaigns hasn’t had any sort of influence on their decisions, but where have we heard that before?

Perhaps the Capital Eye data provide a clue as to how we might evaluate that claim. As it turns out, 29 of the superdelegates have in fact received cash from each candidate. Let’s exclude the 11 who have received identical sums from both Clinton and Obama and then look at how the remainder are committed.

• Pledged to candidate giving greater sum: 8
• Pledged to candidate giving lesser sum: 4
• Not yet pledged: 6

So while we lack a huge sample size, the 2-1 ratio of superdelegates backing the candidate who’s ponied up the most money hardly supports the claim that the cash doesn’t matter.

Candidates can donate more in the coming months and superdelegates can change their votes, so it’s still too early in the game to make conclusive statements about the influence of large sums of money on the decision-making process. However, there is that old adage: money talks and bullshit walks. At this stage of the game, it looks as true as it ever was.

• Capital Eye’s list of campaign contributions to superdelegates

At the time of the report, there were about 180,000 in federal custody, 1.2 million in state custody, and 760,000 in local jails. The BJS statistics also reported there were over 90,000 immigrants (both documented and undocumented) who were held over 12 months by three jurisdictions: the Federal system housed 33,701; California housed 15,849; and Texas housed 9,227.

In a recent “year in review” report, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had rounded up more than 30,000 immigrants – doubling the number from last year. According to Detention Watch Network, a D.C. based advocacy group, more than 186,600 immigrants were deported in 2006. However, more disturbingly, in 2007, ICE had detained more than 300,000 immigrants. These frightening statistics only confirm this country’s commitment to lock up an insurmountable amount of people; and the reality of it all, this is an integral part of the globalization of capital.

Prison Construction Continues to Mushroom
Private prisons are changing the face of American incarceration. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like winning the lottery. Analysts say profit margins are higher at detention centers than prisons, according to a 2006 New York Times article. The explosive growth in the detention business has drawn many cities and counties to partner these corporations in exchange for lucrative federal contracts.

Last month, Louisiana-based Emerald Correctional Management LLC made a pitch to the Caldwell Commissioners Court to build a $30 million, 1,000-bed private detention center in Central Texas. The proposed facility would be built between Lytton Springs and Dale, about 30 miles southeast of Austin. ICE would house men and women separately. In November, Homeland Security agreed to pay Los Angles County $51 million to house 1,400 immigrants at the Mira Loma Detention Center, making it the largest facility of its kind in California. According to the contract obtained by the Daily Journal, County officials will charge the Homeland Security $100.09 a day to house a detainee.

One week before Christmas, the city of Aurora, Colorado held a town meeting to debate the proposed plan to expand the existing 400-bed facility, Aurora ICE Processing Center, into a 1,500-bed center, making it the second largest detention center. The largest is located in Raymondville, TX with 2,000-beds. The Aurora ICE Processing Center is run and operated by the Geo Group (formerly known as the Wackenhut Corrections Corporation). According to Geo, the facility can currently hold up to “400 males, females, children (unsentenced).” The detainees being held in the Aurora Processing Center are the immigrants that have been picked up from Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and Utah.

In order to defuse the tension that was beginning to build up in Aurora, Carl Rusnok, a spokesman for ICE, made sure to state that ICE had no influence in GEO’s decision to expand their facility and that there is “no guarantee” that ICE would require an additional “1,100 beds at the Aurora facility.”

Recently, the Miami Herald reported on the military’s plan to build a tent encampment to detain up to 45,000 migrants seeking asylum in the event of a Caribbean migrant crisis. Last May, at a cost of $16.5 million, “the Navy hired a Jacksonville contractor to build concrete buildings with 525 toilets and 248 showers on an empty corner” at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

This is part of a larger plan by Homeland Security, dubbed “Operation Vigilant Sentry.” Vigilant Sentry is a massive operation that also includes federal, state and local law enforcement agencies “to thwart a mass influx of boat people fleeing political upheaval or natural disaster in the Caribbean.”

According to Reuters, part of the encampment was finished a few years ago. The site can currently “hold up to 400 migrants in tents and cots stored in shipping containers on the base. A barbed-wire fence separates it from a neighboring galley and bar.” Reuters is also reporting that is will cost the federal government $110 million to finish the site.

However, one must be concerned if the Bush administration is planning to replicate Australia’s use of ‘offshore’ processing camps – infamously known as the ‘Pacific Solution’ – to process all asylum claims. Adopted in 2001 by the Howard Government, the ‘Pacific Solution’ was the name given to Australia’s immigration policy to detain all asylum seekers who arrive independently, without permission to offshore detention centers in the Pacific Ocean such as Christmas Island, the tiny island nation of Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island until it can process their asylum requests.

The Pacific Solution has been criticized by human rights groups and by the UN. Asylum-seekers in offshore processing centers had no recourse to the appeals system available in Australia. Part of the policy included mandatory detention for adults and children seeking asylum for the duration of their processing by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA). Particular concerns have been expressed by many over the detention of children in Australia’s Immigration Detention Centers. Although the US military did not mention if the new site will also house the children of asylum seekers, one does have to wonder what will happen to the children once the asylum seekers are captured by the Coast Guard.

If so, it would be wise for this government to also take note of the latest developments regarding Australia’s Pacific Solution. During the latter months of 2007, the newly elected Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, began dismantling the discredited policy. Rudd confirmed that the detention centers on Manus Island and on Nauru would be closed.

Influencing Incarceration
The private prison industry exerts whatever pressure it can to encourage state legislators to privatize state prisons. The rise of modern prison privatization was based on the notion that government was doing a poor job of incarceration. The phenomenon of private prisons and their corollary industries, private inmate transportation, private inmate food services and private inmate medical services, came into the public eye in the mid-1980s, when the fledgling Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) opened its first detention center in Houston, TX. Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (now Geo Group), the prison-management division of global security giant Wackenhut Security, entered the market soon after. These developments drew little attention, but this changed in 1985 and 1986 when governments began to contract with private firms to operate secure facilities that functioned as county jails and state prisons.

For too long now, the American public has looked on in despair or resignation as private corporations shape public policies to advance the interests of their industry, often at the expense of the common good. Nearly, 50 years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us of the dangers of “a permanent arms industry of vast proportions” in addressing the looming “military-industrial complex.” While the former general was well aware of the military threat posed by the Soviet Union, he also was well aware that war profiteers in the US had their own agendas, too.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

What makes this industry so complex is that it’s comprised of think tanks, former corporate executives, consultants and shareholders of top US defense companies “who profit by manufacturing arms and selling them to the government.” Subsidized by the Complex, pro-war think tanks have become a major force in promoting our current (Afghanistan and Iraq) and upcoming (Iran) wars. Billions of dollars are sent, without hearings and often unquestioned because they’re ostensibly for “defense,” to Congressional districts across the country. This process, of course, fuels incumbent campaigns for re-election.

The fact is that politicians, regardless of party affiliation, march to the drums of US multinational corporations who fund their political careers. As we try to understand the prison-industrial complex, we have to look at all of these pieces together.

Like the military-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex is also driven by a set of bureaucratic, political, and economic interests that encourage increased spending on imprisonment, regardless of the actual need. One of the principal mechanisms used to advance their cause comes from a little-known organization called the American Legislative Council (ALEC), a conservative public policy think tank with members that include private corporations, trade organizations, and 2,400 state and federal legislators. ALEC’s primary function is to draft model legislation for legislator-members to take back to their home jurisdictions and do their best to turn into law; it’s essentially a forum for corporations and government to “co-author” laws.

In 2000, over 3,100 bills based on ALEC’s model legislation were introduced into legislatures by its members, with 450 such bills signed into law. According to ALEC itself, the most productive of its various divisions is the Criminal Justice and Homeland Security Task Force, which has repeatedly turned its model legislation into real laws. Due in large part to these new industry authored laws, the number of incarcerated Americans has risen dramatically – from 740,000 prisoners in 1985 to more than 2.2 million in 2006. As much as ALEC downplays the corporate benefits accruing from its legislative initiatives, it should come as no surprise that both CCA and Geo Group have been private-sector members of ALEC, and that both have been among its major benefactors of ALEC’s Criminal Justice Task Force. It is also important to note that CCA executives have co-chaired Criminal Justice Task Force for many years.

It is hard to say what role, if any, CCA and/or Geo Group has played in the drafting and promoting of ALEC-sponsored legislation aimed at expanding our prison population. However, one thing is for certain, each company pays thousands of dollars in annual membership dues for a seat at the drafting table with influential legislators. While some try to downplay the idea that government has been taken over by powerful special interests, the simple fact is that for-profit prison operators need to maintain a steady flow of prisoners in order to prosper.

Politics is the only reason the Bush Administration feels bound to continue with a policy that is demonstrably inhumane and unjust. It has exploited our broken immigration system and manufactured a political crisis by demonizing immigrants. Today, the calculated and ubiquitous use of pejorative rhetorical descriptors define every element of the government’s framing of the immigration issue – “terrorists,” “Muslims,” “illegals,” etc. – a process that only serves to establish a socially accepted discourse around racism and the repression of all people of color, whether they live in the US or not. The prison-industrial complex is profiting from an evil in the US that neither Democrats nor Republicans will seek to remedy.

The corporate will has replaced the will and conscience of the people. Both the Democrats and the Republicans have abdicated their responsibility to their constituencies. How many people must be restrained, denied human dignity and treated as inhuman for society to finally wake up? How many people must be detained under the name of so-called safety and morality for society to finally realize our society is inching toward totalitarianism?

Immigration reform should not lie in an uncompromising policy of deterrence based on detention as a form of collective punishment, but instead on treating those who arrive unlawfully with compassion and justice. Nor does it lie in a draconian system, which is costly and difficult to enforce, but more importantly perpetuates the inhumane elements of a flawed system that has undermined the integrity this country.

It is not in this country’s best interests to deprive people of their dignity and the right to earn a living. This can only reduce them to a state of fragility that will leave them ill-equipped to make sensible decisions about their future. Further, it seriously undermines their integration into society as strong, independent and resourceful citizens with existing and beneficial links to the community.

By definition, human rights are universal; however, by detaining these unfortunate immigrants, this country not only has isolated them from society but also has deemed them unworthy of the most basic human rights. As a result, this country now faces a legal and moral crisis of such monstrous dimensions that it threatens our centuries-old understanding of human rights, of what is fair, humane and just.

There is much to be done to help reunite these people with their families and to heal their fractured minds and broken spirits. Now is the time to demand that this country show the same care and compassion to all immigrants whether they arrive on these shores armed with the relevant visa or not. Seeking a better life is a human right, not a crime.

x-posted on Para Justicia y Libertad

Acosta’s name is not one that rings many bells today, and if it does, most people remember him as being the inspiration for Dr. Gonzo, the character immortalized in Hunter S. Thompson’s book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In Fear, the character of Dr. Gonzo—a man with a gargantuan appetite for food, drugs and dangerous living—is the perfect complement to Thompson’s journalist alter ego, Raoul Duke, who uses his assignment to cover an off-road race as an excuse to overindulge in booze and drugs in Vegas.

Oscar, however, is more than simply an inspiration for a character, albeit an important one. Acosta was a gifted writer and storyteller, an activist, a civil rights attorney, and is considered the Malcolm X of the Chicano/a community. He wrote two of the most important novels of the Chicano Protest Movement; his books were precedent-setting works and in the literary style of Gonzo journalism were pseudo-documentaries of California’s Latino movement; they set the writer/attorney at the front lines of literary Chicanismo.

His mysterious disappearance happened three years after the notorious drug-fueled bacchanalia in Vegas – the “mythical journey to the heart of the American Dream.” Oscar has twice been portrayed on-screen in film adaptations of Thompson’s work; first in an Anglo characterization by the late Peter Boyle in Where the Buffalo Roam, and more recently, by Benicio del Toro in a memorable performance that hews closer to the characterization in the book.

Thompson’s book and the subsequent films provided but a small glimpse into Acosta’s real story, not the true essence of the Brown Buffalo.

Oscar was born in El Paso, Texas, and was raised in California’s San Joaquin Valley. According to Acosta in an unpublished essay in Ilan Stavans’ Oscar ‘Zeta’ Acosta: The Uncollected Works, his family left El Paso during the Depression and moved to California so his family “could work as migrant field workers.” Acosta writes about his father, Manuel Mercado Acosta, who was naturalized after he served in the US Navy during World War II:

My father was a little different than the other people where we lived. He wanted me to compete more than anything else, so he pushed me into competition with himself. When I was five he encouraged me to argue and fight with him, which is unusual in a Mexican family. I guess that is where I became as nasty as I am.

Elsewhere, Oscar describes his father as “an indio from the mountains of Durango” who “operated a mescal distillery before the revolutionaries drove him out.” He credits his mother, Juana Fierro Acosta, for his love of music. In his autobiography, he writes that he inherited her passion for music, becoming a clarinet player and always nurturing a love for jazz. As an adolescent, he would often play in bands. He was so good he even got a music scholarship to the University of Southern California, but for romantic reasons decided to join the Air Force Band.

Oscar had fallen in love with a Caucasian girl. In Brown Buffalo, the character Jane Addison is the girl who broke his heart because her parents rejected him over his ethnic background:

I got a music scholarship … but I was going with this Anglo girl whose parents didn’t like me so I decided to get out of the way by going into the Air Force Band. We planned to get married when I came out. After a year of her visiting me and hiding around, she split and I was stuck in the service.

The scar of the racial division between lovers would haunt him forever and played a key role in his development of brown pride, so named because of the color of the buffalo.

It was not until adulthood that Acosta saw racism and injustice through a new lens and made his transformation from Oscar Zeta Acosta to Buffalo Z. Brown, Chicano lawyer. His entrance to the theater of Chicano history was extremely timely.

Having exited the service, he completed college and went on to graduate from San Francisco Law School in 1965 and passed the California Bar exam in 1966. Acosta worked as an attorney for the East Oakland Legal Aid Society in Oakland, CA, for a year. He left frustrated with the inequalities his clients faced before the legal system and his inability to make significant change. After Acosta left his position, he traveled to Colorado where he met Hunter Thompson and picked up odd jobs in construction and restaurants. He had long wanted to write a novel and recognized the activism arising from the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles as a way to get back before the bar and as a source of literary inspiration. Soon he began sharing the stage with Angela Davis and Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, the militant poet who wrote I Am Joaquín/Yo Soy Joaquín.

Reenergized, he became an anti-poverty, civil rights, people’s lawyer who represented activists such as the Saint Basil 21 (Católicos por La Raza), Brown Berets member Carlos Montes, Corky Gonzales, the Biltmore Six, and East L.A. Chicanos. He was an outspoken critic of racism and anti-Mexican sentiment, and he further saw himself as the Robin Hood of the Chicano poor in the Southwest, taking something away from the rich: power and authority. From Revolt:

All through law school, my secret dream had been to work with [César] Chávez and the campesinos… My fantasies ran to the vineyards and orchards at César’s side, a union organizer rather than a courtroom attorney.

Both cases – East L.A. Thirteen (Carlos Montes et al. v. Los Angeles County) and Biltmore Six (Carlos Montes et al. v. Los Angeles County) – were among the first civil disobedience and protest actions in Los Angeles to gain national media attention. The cases would later server as a basis for activists to articulate discrimination against Mexican-Americans, as well as to express their Chicano identity.

The first trial case he took was the defense of thirteen Chicano militants (East L.A. Thirteen) who were indicted by a Los Angeles County grand jury on charges of conspiracy to disrupt public schools. In 1967, under the guidance of civics teacher Sal Castro and members of the United Mexican American Students (UMAS), professors, professionals, clergy, and the Brown Berets, a group of high school students began organizing to protest conditions in the schools. Demonstrations took place in support of the East L.A 13, and the Los Angeles Police Department responded with violence. The trial revealed that the LAPD, in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies, informants and undercover officers, were planted in communities and student organizations identifying with the Chicano Movement. As a lawyer, he argued and won the case on the grounds that the LAPD violated the defendants’ First Amendment rights of free association and free speech.

There was more at stake in the Biltmore case. On April 24, 1969, the California Department of Education invited then-Governor Ronald Reagan as the keynote speaker at the banquet held at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. An attempt was made by Chicano demonstrators to drown out Regan’s speech with shouting, stomping, and clapping. However, a fire broke out in a linen closet on the tenth floor. Firefighters arrived immediately, yet no public attention was drawn to the fire. Later, a grand jury responded by indicting ten people—six for arson, burglary, malicious destruction, and conspiracy to commit felonies. Three of the six were formerly defendants in the East L.A. Thirteen case: Moctezuma Esparza, Carlos Montes, and Ralph Ramírez. The defendants in this particular case became known as the Biltmore Six. However, because Esparza and Montes had been previously indicted, both were now facing possible life sentences. As the lead defense attorney for the Biltmore Six, Acosta fought to show that Mexican-American citizens, particularly those with clear Spanish surnames, had been excluded from participating in the Los Angeles County grand jury. This move by authorities compromised fairness and the pursuit of justice, he argued. Oscar would twice be jailed for contempt of court before the Biltmore Six finally walked free after several years of legal wrangling.

Then in 1970, Buffalo Z. Brown ran for sheriff of Los Angeles County under the La Raza Unida Party. From his candidacy statement:

Neither the expenditure of huge sums of money nor an increase in the personnel of all the law enforcement agencies throughout the county has diminished the decay inherent in our communities. On the contrary, history is replete with examples to prove that the privilege of bearing guns and their use under color of law has in all probability increased the incidence of violence. There can therefore be no justification for the continued waste of millions of taxpayers dollars in the maintenance of the militia within the confines of the county. Because the forces of oppression and suppression—the law enforcement agencies— continue to harass, brutalize, illegally confine and psychologically damage the Chicano, the black, the poor and the unrepresented, I hereby declare my candidacy for the office of Sheriff of Los Angeles County.

When he entered the race, he knew that his chances of winning were nil. Still, he ran a spirited campaign promising to disband the Los Angeles police force. According to Ilan Stavans in Bandido: Oscar Zeta Acosta and the Chicano Experience:

He pledged the ultimate dissolution of the sheriffs department; the interim actual and symbolic demilitarization of deputies; the immediate withdrawal of concentrated forces in the barrios and ghettos ; the immediate investigation into criminal activities of law enforcement officers; the implementation of community review boards from the various areas; the immediate use of personnel, equipment, and facilities for utilitarian and socially beneficial programs as recommended and approved by community review boards; and equality of treatment and justice for all.

Oscar ultimately lost by a wide margin, but he still received more than 100,000 votes. Hunter Thompson captured the excitement level Acosta engendered even in defeat:

[I]n defeat, Oscar managed to create an instant political base for himself in the vast Chicano barrio of East Los Angeles- where even the most conservative of the old-line “Mexican-Americans” were suddenly calling themselves “Chicanos” and getting their first taste of tear gas at “La Raza” demonstrations, which Oscar was quickly learning to use as a fire and brimstone forum to feature himself as the main spokesman for a mushrooming “Brown Power” movement that the LAPD called more dangerous than the Black Panthers.

But rather than capitalize politically on the momentum of his campaign, Oscar underwent another major existential change. By spring of 1972, he had given up practicing law and decided to go back to his first love, writing, which cemented his place in American literary and counterculture history.

In 1974, Acosta disappeared while traveling in Mexico. Nobody knows what exactly happened to him, except that witnesses say they saw him board a boat and head out into the ocean. To this day, his disappearance is still unresolved. No death certificate, no letters home, no clues, no body. Some believe the civil rights attorney was shot during a dope deal gone bad. Others believe he suffered a final nervous breakdown, succumbing to the damnation of all the years of drugs and debauchery, as famously depicted in Thompson’s book.

Perhaps it’s best to invoke Hunter’s raw, moving obituary of Oscar. Thompson wrote, in the exaggerated language and rough camaraderie of crazy, heroic giants:

The weird grapevine will not wither for the lack of bulletins, warnings, and other twisted rumors of the latest Brown Buffalo sightings. He will be seen at least once in Calcutta, buying girls out of cages on the White Slave Market … and also in Houston, tending bar at a roadhouse on South Main that was once the Blue Fox … or perhaps once again on the midnight run to Bimini: standing tall on his own hind legs in the cockpit of a fifty-foot black cigarette boat with a silver Uzi in one hand and a magnum of smack in the other, always running ninety miles an hour with no lights and howling Old Testament gibberish at the top of his bleeding lungs…

Yeah, that’s him, folks – my boy, my brother, my partner in too many crimes. Oscar Zeta Acosta. Stand back. He is gone now, but even his memory stirs up winds that will blow heavy cars off the road. He was a monster, a true child of the century – faster than Bo Jackson and crazier than Neal Cassady…When the Brown Buffalo disappeared, we all lost one of those high notes that we will never hear again. Oscar was one of God’s own prototypes—a high-powered mutant of some kind who was never even considered for mass production. He was too weird to live and too rare to die…

Goodbye, ese. And welcome back.

In an effort to confront the “immigration problem,” both parties have been walking a very thin rope, which could bring monumental, long-term damage to both Democratic and Republican Parties. These effects have already been felt. During last year’s Congressional election, when Democrats swept control of Congress, it is widely believed that the current Republican tone toward immigrants widely cost the GOP the Latino vote. Things can get worse for the Republican Party during the 2008 elections. According to Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, 12 million new immigrant voters will now be able to participate in the 2008 elections.

In 2007, times seem to have gotten nastier. When the subject of immigrants and their children comes up, Republican Presidential candidates are more interested in building walls and deporting undocumented workers then creating a pathway to citizenship. It is safe to say the Republican candidates will be lukewarm this election cycle when it comes to courting Latinos. But where did this xenophobic rhetoric originate?

Some feel, like Roberto Lovato, that this sentiment originally began with California’s Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot initiative that sought to deny social services, health care and public education to undocumented children. True, most Republican candidates historically ignored the broad Latino voting community. Sadly, 1994 was a prime example where the Republican Party used Latino and immigration issues as wedge issues to gain the support of white conservatives. It was a dark year for the state of California, because the electorate consciously decided that it would be the only state in the Union to roll back the welcome mat for the “tired,” the “poor” and the “huddled masses.”

One would have assumed the Republican Party had learned its lesson after the Prop 187 debacle, since President George W. Bush was able to capture about 40% of the Latino vote in his presidential bin in 2000. In order for him to accomplish this task, Bush, while Governor of Texas, had to work hard to create a favorable Hispanic image prior to the 2000 election campaign.

In a strategic move, in 1994, Bush proclaimed that he was against CA’s Proposition 187. As a result of this, Hispanics began to see Bush in a different light. Throughout his governorship, Bush slowly gained more recognition and trust from the Latina/o community. Last year, the Los Angeles Times explained how Bush challenged Pat Buchanan in the 1996 Presidential race to avoid anti-immigration attacks. All this would later aid Bush in the 2000 presidential election.

During Bush’s presidential bid, Lionel Sosa, GOP political and advertising consultant, would create an image that emphasized Bush’s openness, respect and acceptance towards the Hispanic community. According to the LA Times, Sosa created several “emotion-laden” campaign videos to woo the Latino vote. One video included Bush waving a Mexican flag during a Mexican Independence Day parade in San Antonio in 1998 when was running for reelection as governor.

It would seem the Republican Party finally realized the importance of the Latino vote. They were able to tap into the emerging Latino voting community successfully, then they stopped using wedge issues that were perceived as hostile and antagonistic by most of the Latino community. So why aren’t they continuing with this formula? More importantly, where and how did this current xenophobic rhetoric arise within the Republican Party?

This xenophobic view has arisen with the belief that Latinos/as do not have the values that the Americans see as central to the entire political system, such as Patriotism and economic self-reliance. These sweeping generalizations were popularized by influential political scientist Samuel Huntington and politicians such as Colorado’s Rep. Tom Tancredo are now expressing similar views. Huntington’s simplistic and politically-motivated conceptualization distorts the reality on the ground. Huntington wrote:

The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two people, two cultures, two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream US culture forming instead their own linguistic enclaves- from Los Angeles to Miami- and rejecting the Anglo protestant values that build the American dream. The United States ignores this challenge at its perils.

It is this statement captures the essence of the fear that exists in the US. Anti-immigration positions have been used by many Republican politicians, such as former Gov Pete Wilson, to gain votes from Anglo Conservatives.

For the most part, Democratic strategists have done little to challenge the latest change in Latino voting behavior. Instead of countering it, the Democratic leadership would rather take advantage of the political fallout as a result of the actions of antagonistic Republicans that would push conservative and independent Hispanic voters back into the Democratic Party. And this is exactly what’s happening. In a recent poll, the Pew Hispanic Center found “Hispanics returning to [the] Democratic Party.”

Although, they may appear to be returning to the Democratic Party, in reality they’re nothing but DINOS – Democrats in Name Only – whose only interest is in tugging the party to the right for cold cash and to punish the Republican Party for their betrayal. Once they have settled into their new home, these newly converted Democrats can be expected to start whispering in the ears of prominent party leaders, advising them to contort themselves to fit a centrist view so as to accommodate the US mainstream.

What if there are some Democrats who are getting advice from people who wish them no good, advising them to say whatever they believe will help them win political currency. For example, Lionel Sosa, after a lifetime serving as a Hispanic outreach consultant for the GOP, is now supporting Democratic candidate New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s presidential bid. Sosa’s reason for supporting Bill Richardson is the same reason many Latino civil rights organizations supported Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General, but in this case, as Sosa puts it, “blood is thicker than party.” While this would help Democrats win back a major segment of conservative and independent Hispanics, Sosa continues to be a “Bush backer and a Republican,” according to Cox News Service.

Because of the current Latino backlash, other pro-Republican organizations, such the Latino Coalition, are adamant about sending their party a message by supporting Democrats in competitive races. The coalition is chaired by Hector Barreto, the former administrator of the Small Business Administration under Bush and former strategist for the Republican National Committee.

Another blow to the Republican Party is the recent defection of Rev. Luis Cortes, a Republican who founded the annual National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast that has featured Bush every year. While close to Bush, Rev. Cortes latest move proves he is more than willing to prostitute himself out to the highest bidder. Recently, Cortes met with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean to discuss how the Republican presidential candidates are using immigration as a wedge issue and scapegoating immigrants.

What is more troubling; the Democratic leadership is willing to overlook Rev. Cortes’ close ties with the Bush Administration and other conservative Republicans. According to the National Council on Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), Cortes was awarded a $2.5 million grant in the first round of President Bush’s Compassion Capital Fund grants for faith-based organizations in 2002 ; and $2.76 million as the first installment of $11 million over three years from the Bush Administration’s Department of Labor in 2004. These funds are spent with little or no oversight, and unfortunately, with the latest Supreme Court ruling, no possible avenue to challenge them.

In 2005, Associated Press revealed that former Senator Bill Frist’s AIDS charity, World of Hope, Inc., paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, which included Cortes.

World of Hope gave $3 million it raised to charitable AIDS causes, such as Africare and evangelical Christian groups with ties to Republicans — Franklin Graham’s Samaritan Purse and the Rev. Luis Cortes’ Esperanza USA, for example.

It is no surprise the Baptist minister has long sought to build a national network of Hispanic churches, one that would bring new power to an emerging minority. Operating in North Philadelphia, Cortes’ organization, Nueva Esperanza Inc., has one of the largest contracts of the 44 groups chosen to provide the training to smaller organizations and distribute the federal cash. Cortes is one of the most prominent Hispanic evangelicals in politics. One does have to wonder if Rev. Luis Cortes will say or do to insure his faith-based organization is not cut from future funding.

With people like Rev. Cortes, loyalty goes out the window at the drop of a hat. In 2005, Pensacola’s Independent News reveals Rev. Cortes’ true colors when it comes to partisan loyalties.

“This is what I tell politicians,” he adds. “You want an endorsement? Give us a check, and you can take a picture of us accepting it. Because then you’ve done something for brown.”

Even as Mr. Dean criticizes Republicans, many Democrats in Congress have adopted the same enforcement-only approach Republicans advocate. The Democrats’ silence on the brutal raids on immigrant workers shows how much they intend to do about it.

Realizing they cannot win without a large Latino/a turn-out, Democrats tend fail to understand the impact DINOS like these have on the Latina/o community. Right now there is a large infusion of Republican Latinos/as into the Democratic Party, but be forewarned, they will change when the immigration debate dies down. History shows that the Democrats’ assumption of Latino support provided Republicans with the opportunity to attract significant levels of Latino voters around the nation.

Reuters recently reported that a Los Angeles company, Morusa Media, is marketing a new reality game show called “Who Wants to Marry a US Citizen.” Like other reality dating game shows, the show is also hoping to create a love match; however, the goal is to create marriages between immigrants who already have their temporary visas (green cards) and US citizens. Unlike other reality dating shows where a contestant eliminates several potential suitors until there is only one suitor left, the show will use the same format as the 1960s The Dating Game where a bachelorette (US citizen) will ask three bachelors – who are legal immigrants – a variety of questions. The twist: at the end of the show, the bachelorette will decide which one she would like to marry. Angelo Gonzales, the show’s host, says the “show [will] NOT marry people nor do [they] guarantee a marriage will result from the show.” However, they are willing to pay for both the wedding and the honeymoon should a marriage result from the show. A statement on the show’s website, hookacitizen.com, also makes this claim.

Show creator Adrian Martinez argues that the program wants to demonstrate that “true love knows no boundaries.” Nevertheless, the show has received its fair share of criticism from both sides of the immigration aisle. The minute word got out, the usual anti-immigration pundits were on top of this story. Not surprisingly, Michelle Malkin manages to mislead her readers by implying that the show is part of an evil plot by Islamic fundamentalists. She writes, “Hezbollah gives the show ‘two thumbs up!’” By way of explanation, Malkin provides her readers with a couple links. One link leads to an old article she wrote – “Protect America: Stop marrying terrorists!;” the other links is to a current post, “My God, she’s married to one of our people.” Malkin’s arguments suggest that she is incapable of grasping anything more than she really detest any one who is brown. But then again, this is coming from the same person who authored In Defense of Internment, where she explicitly defends racial profiling.

“Make no mistake: I am not advocating rounding up all Arabs or Muslims and tossing them into camps, but when we are under attack, ‘racial profiling’ — or more precisely, threat profiling — is justified.”

On the other side of the immigration debate, Yave on Citizen Orange contends that Who Wants to Marry a US Citizen will hurt the immigration process.

…any marriage that resulted from a game show with marriage to a U.S. citizen as the prize would lead to a strong presumption that the marriage was entered into for the sole purpose of circumventing the country’s immigration laws—hence, no green card.

Gonzales argues that the purpose of the show is to play matchmaker and that it’s a “win-win situation for all involved” because there are “thousands of US citizens seeking a spouse … just as many immigrants seeking the same.” As much as this is true, Yave points out that even if the couple were able show evidence that the couple entered into a marriage in good faith, “the suspicion of marriage fraud might be too great to overcome” because during the the marriage interview process an immigration officer could enter “any statements made by a winning contestant during the course of the show into consideration in making [their] decision.” If an immigration officer feels the marriage is a “sham,” the removal and deportation proceedings most likely would begin.

The real question is who are Adrian Martinez and Morusa Media? According to a 2000 Hispanic Business article, Martinez is a producer, songwriter, musician, recording artist and record company owner. In June 2000, he was awarded “Micro Business of the Year” by Los Angeles-based La Opinion newspaper and Bank of America. Interesting enough, two years ago, Martinez founded DogCatRadio.com, an online radio station geared for pets and their humans.

One cannot help but wonder what Martinez’s real intent is for a show like this, because reality game shows are a very mixed bag. The problem with dating shows, when it comes to entertainment and matchmaking, is that the contestants who participate are pretty much devoid of all emotions or feelings. When it comes to selecting the game’s contestants, the producers and the television networks are primarily focused on amusing the audience (as opposed to demonstrating any concern for a person’s happiness or compatibility). Another problem: contestants are supposed to magically fall in love, even though they have little or no knowledge of each other.

Like other reality-dating shows, the show will make light of people’s real feelings because in the end these shows are not about true romance; they are about making good television. People don’t tune in to see true romance, but to see other people fail and/or make asses out of themselves. As Gonzales points out on CBS’ Early Show with Hannah Storm:

“We’re just trying to set an arena for these people to just get to know each other. We’re not trying to get involved with the immigration process. We’re in the business of love, it’s that simple. We’re just trying to have fun.“

Gonzales added that the show will be “a lot edgier.” What does that exactly mean? Today’s reality dating shows provide a solid understanding of the changing economics of contemporary television. In order capture an audience, to be “edgier,” producers are forced to push the envelope so they’re able to win time slots and beat competing networks. This is the reason why shows like ElimiDATE tend to place attractive men and women into obviously tantalizing situations. Let’s all face it … as the age-old advertising adage goes, sex sells.

There is nothing wrong with sexually liberated adults, and there probably will be thousands of legal immigrants willing to become a Who Wants to Marry a US Citizen contestant, but the possibility this will lead to matrimony and becoming a full US citizen is tiny. When a dating reality show is willing to put a contestant’s green card at stake while making a game out of love, it’s not matchmaking, It’s exploitation of the worse kind. And the fact that Adrian Martinez and Angelo Gonzales are offering thousands of legal immigrants in the US a dream of a better and fuller life through a game show rather than a political organization is a sad but characteristic reflection of contemporary reality.

Here’s the video promo for Who Wants to Marry a US Citizen.
x-posted on ¡Para Justicia y Libertad!

Outside of the public view, the number of hate crimes taking place in the US is on the rise. This new climate of hate taking place in neighborhoods, educational institutions, and workplaces has made African-Americans, Latinas/os, Asian/Pacific Americans, immigrants, those with “unacceptable” gender and sexual orientations, and the disabled particular targets. Hate crimes driven by racist and other discriminatory animus are no less serious and no less pervasive, adding to everyday injustice a new constant of fear for those under threat.

Intolerance Is In
Has hatred has become hip? Whether or not intended as such, we are in the midst of a growing culture of hate. Bias crimes may be motivated by racist or religious hatred, or by discrimination because of a person’s gender, sexual orientation, or disability or some combination of these factors. Graffiti is also used to intimidate and terrorize individuals and communities. On Aug. 19, in Campbell, CA, the United Church of Christ was vandalized with hateful epithets spray-painted on both sides of a church sign with the words “Fags Go to Hell” and “God’s Rule.” Although this kind of hate crime does not receive the same amount of attention as high-profile attacks, the fact is, these types of hate crime can have a more devastating effect than other crimes because of the psychological impact it has on both the victim and the victim’s community – the perpetrator is indistinguishable from the ordinary mainstream populace.

In the same way that some young men get together on a Saturday night to hang out, certain hatemongers gather to destroy property or to bash people based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, national origin, or disability. They look merely to have some fun at someone else’s expense. This was the case in Antioch, CA. Recently, two teenagers were arrested for a hate crime after they allegedly taunted a group of deaf people at a party and later attacked them. Phillip Hale, 18, and a 17-year-old boy whose name was not released attacked the 23-year-old deaf man because of his disability. The victim and witnesses told police the two teenagers approached the group in a garage and began “taunting and mimicking them, making exaggerated sign language gestures.” The pair was asked to leave but later returned with a stick, a hoe and a concrete brick, and a fight broke out.

There has been a disturbing increase recently in the use of negative stereotyping to characterize various minority groups in the United States. Due to the nature of the crime, hate crimes engender a particularly high level of psychological stress, fear, and anxiety. There is no way for potential victims to protect themselves since it is difficult or undesirable to disguise their inherent identities. Hate crimes and the resulting climate of fear and intimidation can blight all aspects of life while also disrupting the larger society. Such as the case that occurred at the University of Maryland when somebody decided to hang a noose outside the school’s black cultural center. The noose was found on the campus hanging from a tree outside UM’s Nyumburu Cultural Center, which houses the Black Faculty and Staff Association, the Black Explosion newspaper and other organizations. Just recently, it was reported that campus police believe the small noose had been hanging for about two weeks before it was found. Given the historical injustices symbolized by the noose, it not only outraged students, but it has united the students of color on campus to “fight for racial equality.”

We commit our full solidarity with the students of color on this campus in their fight for racial equality. We call on students to support affirmative action programs and the African-American studies department, all of which continue to challenge racism by identifying, developing and amplifying the voices of black students and faculty.We call on student groups and the university as a whole to support any and all actions taken by the campus community against the hate crime within the upcoming weeks.

It is hard to deny the glaring fact that there is a chilling connection between this incident and the case of the Jena 6 in Jena, LA. There seems to be a resurgence of nooses following the situation facing the Jena 6. In Warrenville, IL, it was reported that nooses, racist graffiti and other items were found inside the human resources director’s desk of Navistar International, a company that builds trucks and buses. In another incident, somebody hung a noose with an African attached to it in director’s office of the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission in New Bedford, MA. The investigation is continuing.

Last month, three stage workers were fired from the Germantown Performing Arts Centre for hanging nooses from the stage riggings in Germantown, TN. The investigation into this case revealed that an employee had asked two of his co-workers if they could demonstrate to him how to tie a noose, even though he admittedly knew this particular knot is rarely used in the theater industry. It was also discovered, after the employees placed the ropes on the stage riggings, jokes were being made in reference to a “hangman’s noose” as one of the employees placed his head through one of the nooses.

The United States is a dangerous place to live for racial/ethnic minority citizens. Hate crimes pose a serious social problem in many ways, more threatening to civil society than other types of crimes. When threats go from random to constant, the likelihood of a blow becoming a beating is high, because a beating then can become a stabbing or a shooting or even worse murder. When it come to race or gender, there is a tendency for hate crimes to be excessively brutal.

Recently, in Chicago, Du Doan, a 62 year-old Vietnamese man was apparently pushed into Lake Michigan and subsequently drowned. According to the forum on Chicagoland Fishing, Du was fishing alone off Chicago’s Montrose Harbor when a group of individuals, 4 males and 1 female, walked up Du and pushed him into the water and then turned around and started laughing as they walked away. Du, who couldn’t swim, quickly drowned.

This was the third incident since late July in which fishermen who appeared to be Asian were targeted in the area. The Chicago Police do have the some suspects in custody after 3 of them turned themselves in. John Haley, 31, is charged with the murder of Du Doan and is also charged with aggravated battery for a similar incident on July 31 in which he shoved another man at the same location. His friends, told police that Haley was laughing and bragging about pushing the man into the harbor. Shortly before the group approached Doan, another fisherman of Asian descent was confronted by the same group. A former marine, the fisherman stood his ground, and the group left him alone after spitting at his feet.

Prior to that day, on July 31, Haley was drinking with friends when he asked a fisherman for a lighter. After the two men had a conversation with the fishermen, Haley stuck him in the back of the head and pushed him into the water. The man was able to swim to safety.

Investigators have said they found no evidence to indicate the murder was racially motivated even though each victim happened to be Asian. Police told reporters that Haley did not use racial “epithets during the event”, which is evidence this was a “senseless” murder.

It is not surprising that crime was changed from a hate crime to a random act of “senseless” and “out-of-control” murder, since Asian Americans are the most proportionally under-represented racial/ethnic group in American politics and media. Nevertheless, the horrific crime is no less alarming because the victims were of Asian decent or had Asian features.

Racism in America is a cancer that has feasted on the very soul of this country. For all the alleged gains in equity, racism has finally reared its ugly head again. Attacks motivated by gender bias instill a fear in their intended victims that not only threatens their lives, but also can restrict where they work, study, travel, and live. Such crimes are particularly insidious because they target individuals for who they are and thus put victims at risk at all times and in any situation.

On Monday, I was informed of an article in the San Francisco Gate about the growing epidemic of hate crimes against women. In Charleston, West Virginia, six people are under arrest after an African American woman was lured to a home over the Internet and was she was savagery beaten, sexually abused, and humiliated at the hands of her white abductors for a week.

Megan Williams, 23, was freed Saturday after cops responded to the home of Frankie Brewster for a “welfare check on a female that was reportedly being held against her will.” When cops arrived, Brewster claimed she was the only one home, but then the victim limped to the door with her arms stretched out and said, “Help me.” According to the criminal complaints, Megan, had been stabbed four times in her left leg and had been repeatedly sexually assaulted and humiliated. (Warning: the text contains graphic detail of the heinous crime)

According to the criminal complaint, Megan stated that she was forced to “lick the toes, vagina and anal cavity” of one of the female abductors, Frankie. She also stated that Frankie threatened to kill her if she was to stop. Megan also stated that Brewster’s son Bobby had forced her to eat rat and dog feces, lick up blood, and drink from the toilet Megan also stated that it was Danny Combs who held her at knifepoint as she was forced to perform oral sex, and he also had raped her at knifepoint. Megan also had been choked with a cable cord and her hair cut by Karen Burton, another female abductor. During her ordeal, as Karen cut Megan’s ankle with a knife she told her, “This what we do to N* around here.” In one of the criminal complaint, it stated she doused with “hot water while being sexually assaulted.”

The six accused, ranging in age from 20 to 49, are facing a long list of charges, including kidnapping, sex assault, and battery. Two others are still being sought. According to The Associated Press, authorities won’t pursue hate crime charges in the case. Despite strong evidence suggesting just the opposite.

Reason Why New Hate Crime Bill Should be Pass
At the root of hate are radical ideologies, radical religious beliefs and pent-up anger and frustration, all of which can lead to violent acts ranging from hate crimes to terrorism. As much as we like to belief extremists live beyond America’s shores, the truth is, some of those dangers originate within our own borders, and multitudes of homegrown haters exist with beliefs that are equally dangerous.

What makes individuals hate, and what makes some act on that hate while others would not? Why is hate of the other so often denied by those who practice it, but justified in the next breath as love of self? In the political world, hate only seems to come up when a leader says something embarrassing, or one party or the other is accused of playing the “race card.” The truth is, hate crimes function to maintain the status quo; they protect the people in charge, the men and women who are responsible for making important decisions at the highest levels of society. Blame tends to move away from the top, minimizing the possibility that profound changes could ever occur.

The winds of race hatred are blowing toward those who desire a more just, multi-political America. What we are witnessing today is the out of control and barbaric behaviors of whole societies that have been infected with ideologies that encourage and demand dysfunctional behaviors. By design, these behaviors are meant to intimidate and threaten.

Threats and violence against ordinary people who stand out as being different from their neighbors only serves to divide Americans against each other and cause immeasurable harm to whole societies. These are indeed extraordinary times. As progressives must collaborate with each other and demand that our leaders be responsive to the needs of the masses. Hate crimes require a strong response from the entire community, but law enforcement must be willing to do their part. It is vital to reassure people that hate crimes are not condoned by our government or by other communities of people.

x-posted on Para Justicia y Libertad

Officials have said that the eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery, was in the midst of being repaired and two lanes in each direction were closed when the bridge buckled. It was reported that the center section of the bridge dropped straight down and pancaked in the middle of the river, leaving several vehicles stranded on a broken island of wreckage. As divers plumbed the waters, other rescuers searched frantically for victims amid broken, zigzagged sections of blacktop. Some of the injured were carried up the riverbanks.

Minneapolis’ major interstate bridge, Interstate 35W, was jammed with rush-hour traffic when suddenly huge sections of the arched bridge broke and collapsed into the Mississippi River. Authorities they are expecting the death toll to climb because some people were still trapped inside the vehicles that were hurled into the river. The recovery effort might take at least three days because of the river’s fast-moving currents. Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek and Minneapolis police chief Tim Dolan told reporters that there are cars are trapped beneath the water under crumpled concrete and Stanek knows bodies are there. However, recovery efforts stalled because it was reported that divers were not allowed to go into the water until officials were sure that the surviving structure of the Interstate 35W bridge was stable.

In one of the first news conferences, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty told reporters that the bridge was inspected by the Minnesota Department of Transportation in 2005 and 2006 and that no structural problems were found. He also said that only minor details needed attention. However, it has since emerged that officials were warned as early as 1990 that the bridge was “structurally deficient” due to significant corrosion.

It’s interesting how the state tried to downplay the reason they were resurfacing the bridge, despite knowing that it needed extensive work. As the story broke Wednesday evening, UK’s Institution of Structural Engineers chief, Keith Eaton, told the BBC that the only way a complete bridge can collapse like it did “is either because the load is too heavy, or the connections between the bridge’s structural elements are too weak.”

“The engineers will have to see where the collapse started. Clearly a failure occurred somewhere which imbalanced the whole thing,” he said.

Now that more information is coming to light, it seems to be supporting Eaton’s conclusions as to why the bridge collapsed. The Star Tribune earlier reported that the former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Jim Burnett, was intrigued by a 2001 University of Minnesota study that found signs of “fatigue cracking” in the bridge supports. He added that a 2005 federal study found that the bridge was “structurally deficient.”

“A structurally deficient bridge might be one not adequate for the traffic it takes, but not necessarily dangerous,” Burnett said. “But a lot of structurally deficient bridges are dangerous.”

Eaton also debunked an earlier speculation that hot weather contributed to the accident by weakening the concrete or expanding the steel framework; that was not a likely explanation, since modern bridges are built to cope with those extremes. I can see why some people may have jumped to this conclusion considering that back in April, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that North American cities should anticipate “an increased number, intensity, and duration of heat waves.” According to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), between 2000 and 2006 Minnesota experienced its 4th, 6th and 8th warmest years.

The 2001 University of Minnesota study went on to express concerns that a single crack could “theoretically” lead to the entire bridge’s collapse. However, it also said that even if there was a crack, the load could “theoretically” be redistributed along the steel trusses or the concrete deck of the bridge, keeping the bridge from collapsing. (Truss is a type of framework – skeletal structure – that was used to construct the bridge. A truss bridge is comprised of connected rafters, posts and struts, which the trusses dissipate, or spread out, the compression and tension forces through the structure when a load is applied.) The report also indicated there was weakness at the joints of the steel that held the concrete deck above the river, due to “unanticipated out of plane distortion” of the steel girders.

Eaton concluded that there is a downside to truss bridges.

“They are made of lots of complex pieces of metal, interconnected bolts or rivets,” Mr Eaton told the BBC.”They have little corners between two pieces of steel where water can collect and cause corrosion.”

Nesting pigeons could also be an issue.

“Their droppings are very corrosive, which can be a problem,” he said.

More intriguing is how the White House was quick to toss this political hot potato back to the state, even though their own 2005 report found “structural deficiencies” on the bridge. White House press secretary Tony Snow said that even though the 40-year-old Interstate 35W received a rating of a 50 on a scale of 120 for structural stability, that didn’t “mean there was a risk of failure, but if an inspection report identifies deficiencies, the state is responsible for taking corrective actions.” Sure enough, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, immediately tossed it back to the Feds after he ordered an immediate inspection of all bridges in the state with similar designs. He added that the state had never been warned that the bridge needed major repairs or should be closed. Did the Department of Transportation and the White House lie again to cover up their errors?

One does have to ask, is this tragic event another Katrina type clusterf**k, so to speak? Maybe so. The White House did send in the clean-up to show his remorse for this tragedy. The administration also has sent Federal help from the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the FBI, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency.

But isn’t the role of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to ensure that our Federal highways are safe to drive on? FHWA’s role

FHWA is charged with the broad responsibility of ensuring that America’s roads and highways continue to be the safest and most technologically up-to-date. Although State, local, and tribal governments own most of the Nation’s highways, we provide financial and technical support to them for constructing, improving, and preserving America’s highway system.

In 2002 and in 2006, the Transportation Department’s inspector general criticized the oversight of major highway and bridge projects. In a 2002 GAO report, the Inspector General noted that since 1997, the FHWA has “done little” to improve the “management and oversight of major highway and bridge projects” to “ensure that cost containment was an integral part of the states’ project management.” The also reported that FHWA acknowledged that “needed improvements,” however they never “addressed many of the concerns … raised in the past.”

In fact, many of the concerns that were raised by Minnesota’s lawmakers were also raised in the GAO report. The report provided a few of the concerns many states had about the cost and management of major highway and bridge programs.

In July 2000, Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission reviewed the Virginia Department of Transportation’s 6-year transportation development plan because of concerns that road construction projects were facing large cost overruns or were encountering delays. The commission concluded that cost estimates prepared during the design phase were substantially below the final costs and that final construction costs for projects exceeded the amounts budgeted by substantial amounts. … The study also found that major design errors and the failure to detect significant field conditions contributed to construction costs that exceeded the amounts budgeted for construction.In January 2002, the Connecticut auditors of public accounts reported that the state department of transportation’s use of change orders substantially increased costs through major revisions in the scope of projects.

In February 2000, the Texas state auditor’s office found that increases in workload had strained the state department of transportation’s ability to manage the design process and minimize cost overruns and delays.

In another GAO report, the Inspector General found incorrect or outdated maximum weight limit calculations and weight limit postings in the National Bridge Inventory and in states’ bridge databases and said the problems could pose safety hazards. The Federal Highway Administration agreed that improvements were needed, the same way they have agreed with all the other improvements that have never been made.

Incorrect load ratings could endanger bridges by allowing heavier vehicles to cross than should, and could affect whether a bridge is properly identified as structurally deficient in the first place, the inspector general said.

Not all the blame of this horrific mistake should be placed on the Bush Administration – there’s plenty of blame to go around here.

However, it is time to start asking the really hard questions regarding government accountability. Isn’t it time that our government officials stop passing the buck? It is easy to avoid matters that might disturb our relatively secure and content lives. Maybe this is why many of us prefer to accept what is being told to us by the news. But as long as we choose complacency over awareness, these horrific events will continue. How many more catastrophes must we endure until people are finally forced to open their eyes to the uncaring bureaucratic machine that only waits for needless deaths to occur before it responds?