I’VE TOUCHED ON THE SUBJECT in a couple small ways lately. I don’t have much more than that to say now…except to remember out loud that when I lived in Miami Beach for a few years—a place that brought me great happiness as an adolescent aged boy—Haitian gente were as common as Cubanos, just part of the everyday. No doubt, the island of Quisqueya (Hispaniola) cannot be further from Florida than where I happen to live now.

And then I think of how much I miss Florida….

How will Haiti and Haitians come out of this? Will the big players in the First World take their revenge and remove any vestiges of independence from the only nation to rise from a successful revolution of slaves? Shock Doctrine in hyperdrive? I don’t know. But we can learn a lot about our world just by watching—and truly seeing—Haiti, I think.

Here is a video featuring the voice of Telesur and Narco News Authentic School of Journalism reporter Reed Lindsay that gives a small street level glimpse of Port-au-Prince, Haiti:

And here is some more reporting by Narco News vatos:

• Nobody is Coordinating the Aid
(Haití: “Nadie esta coordinado la ayuda”)

• Video Footage of Immediate Aftermath of Earthquake in Port au Prince, Haiti

Hope you and your family are well. And warm.

THE RICH PEOPLE ON TELEVISION work very hard to convince us that we need to stay poor. They spend tireless hours under hot lights and thick makeup as they play their roles each day. As they spin the drama, and create the impression that we need to keep mowing their lawns and watching their babies and sewing their ties and walking in line. That we like things the way they are, and that it’s a fair place because we have the lottery, American Idol, and the illusion of possible millions one day if we just keep working hard.

And all you really need to do to stay clear on this is remember that every single one of those fools on the set working as an anchor makes so much damn money in a day that you’d be hard pressed to spend it. Unless maybe you got the work on your teeth done that would if you could afford it. I’ve worked in (NYC) TV only a little, but enough to know what kind of salaries these mouthpieces pull, and they are phenomenal. But they are just flunkies for the even bigger rollers, of course. People like Rupert Murdoch (who has been busy rehabilitating his image to the Left after finishing help BushCheney destroy almost everything in the world). And people like him manage, support, and groom the faces on TV and together, they all work hand in hand with the executive and judicial and legislative branches to keep Their World safe.

The Press probably meant something a long time ago. Probably something like what blogs mean now. I do believe that. Which is why we have to be ever vigilant now to guard the integrity of our voices and agendas. The TV Stations and the Papers have been co-opted by greed, by those who profit from a world fueled by greed. And the same fever is now causing so many TV people to lose their minds. Glenn Beck, O’Reilly, putos like Rick Santelli, this dandified jerkoff in the image to the left—all these idiot uppercrusters. The unmitigated stones they have to rant about us, about our fate, to argue so intensely for the system that now threatens to fall upon you and me. And sucking up space in the current cacaphony, they have the nerve to raise their voice to sell us a spot hoisting their tassled seat across town so their nose can be up in the sun while we breathe in their fetid high-class omelette and espresso fart fumes. 

Why would we trust them? They are nothing more than rich brats who see a scary juncture ahead of them, and more importantly, in front of you and me. They see a possibility that the great imbalances that keep them on a sunny crest and so many of us in sodden rooms at the foot of the hill may be whittled away. And they are scared. Terrified. Watch them contort! It’s tremendously educational, though not how they may imagine.

These pendejos were never scared one bit of dropping cluster bombs where children would find them. They were not in the slightest bit scared that entire communities were being drowned in New Orleans and poisoned in the govt trailers given them afterward. They are not scared one bit of our nuclear facilities, still not properly guarded or protected from their imaginary global jihadalicious food fights. They are not scared of floating secret prisons and torture being undertaken in the name of the US.

No. But they are actually freaking the hell out over the idea that their superdestructive hyperadvantages and well-practiced manipulations of the system may be tamped down a bit. I listen to them in this light, and grin.

So flurries of articles are written assuring us that The People support them. That we support the crumbling status quo. They lie about polls. They lie about everything. In their mind, they fight in the service of a holy divide and so every last con job is sanctified. And with the fire of End Days blazing in they ojos, they come on TV in hordes, spitting passionate palabras ’bout the end of time. 

The end of their time. Just add that word in when you listen, if you are unfortunate enough to listen to them or read these modern missives mailed straight from the royal reading room. The end of their time. Measures that finally push back against the disgusting profit motive run amok sans soul or wisdom are not an indicator of the end of anything but perhaps a modicum of serious imbalance. Not the end of your and my world or THE world. They are scared of the end of their world. The world that allows them soft, fluffy cushions for all their well-powdered parts and a high buffshine on their gold accoutrements while at the same time, through labyrinthine mechanisms and legal device, profiting from our being charged ungodly amounts of fees and interest for barely keeping up on payments that don’t even touch the principal. The world that keeps them well stocked with cutting edge sunroofs and skylights, air and water purifiers, top-notch linens and school systems while the rest of us muck about in the polluted water, underfunded schools, and whatever is left over. These well-manicured and well-fed and well-suited scarecrows scream to preserve a way that keeps a doctor by their side and an overcrowded emergency room in town for us. They come on TV and yell and wave their arms about so that they can keep a world in place that insures them a fifty thousand dollar smile while we suffer with broken teeth for want of some medical attention that doesn’t compete with the cost of a small car.

And many listen to them! It’s quite the caper they’ve been pulling over time. It’s time it ended.

What do they fear? More than us funding a collective pool that helps us all (Social Security, College Grants, Universal Health Care, etc), they fear such philosophies taking root in the public square. They fear actual morality becoming part of our American Way. It’s one thing if we all espouse greed and superficiality and big numbers in the bank. After all, then we are at their gate waving signs that glorify them and their lives! Like the hip-hop artists that settle for validation of the only kind ever dangled in front of their eyes, who get paid and then offer soulless rants praising the motions of the system that crush their own kind. When we are but more hungry capitalists believing in this crooked game, these fatcats can just peek their head out the window as they move a hand through their $300 hairdo and smile to see us moving our sweaty bodies around to the beat of their drum. 

We’re All in This Together and Share the Wealth for the Common Health are philosophies that stalk awful close to their gated green gardens and shiny onyx auction-bought carvings. These elites don’t give a shit about the Common anything. Hell, they don’t even believe in borders. They only get on the border issue because they fear the same thing, once again. Too many poor people, or too many people not interested in upholding “the White Christian Power Structure” pollutes this mix only because it might begin to sway the pillars that keep them high above the mob. But look at how they invest, from where comes their monies, and in what places they jet, and where they own houses. What borders restrain or contain them?

We are not even part of the conversation, in reality. We are not in most of the ones that matter. We are to be managed. That’s what all that superblunt talk about what we “watch on our TV screens” and how it should and does influence our thoughts. Bush was very useful in a way. Once we get past the revulsion and clean the puke from the couch cushions, we can sit back and peer into his thought process. Because he was raised on the teat of the stankfoul elite creepshow beast. But never got the silver tongue, see, peeps? This is very useful. Because he spills to us their thinking without the gloss it normally has. Remember him talking about how raising taxes only really hurts the proles? Clearly, I’m borrowing from Orwell for a reason here, but that’s what he said nonetheless. That rich people can afford to hire accountants who keep their money safe.IN other words, our President told us that the most successful in the US understand they have the right to game the system so that we carry their slack.

Instead of refusing to look at the creep because his term in the Oval Office is up, we ought to study the rich punk’s words. Because see, they have a lot to do with the greater problems we suffer now and have suffered behind for years. So we ought to find a way to stop rich people from stacking advantage upon advantage upon advantage when it all means weights on the scales that the rest of us shrink under. Because if that’s really what America is about, what the USA is about? If it’s really all just about getting everything you can stuff in your hands and not getting caught, and not minding who it harms? Well, the proles can play that game too. We might not use accountants, though. But what’s good for the goose is good for the ten wet hens in the caboose, so you choose. Do your philosophies predicate that someone’s gotta lose?

The telescreens work one way only, the conversations are neutered. Even when we discuss such pivotal and worldshaking events such as this economic crisis. We are still not talking honestly. So much dialogue in the service of maintaining so many divisions. And the Dems are afraid. Timid. They need a good strong kick from the left. And then another. What is all this bowing and capitulating and treading soft for the Neoconjobs? Don’t the Dems know the best way to get beat is too come on like a beat dog?

Oh. But that’s reasoning as if those rich people are my neighbor, too. As if they want to run the nation in a way that chips away at their ivory, too. As if what they enjoy every day they want for me and you. 

I’m glad this class warfare is coming out into the open. Because it’s always been here. And the systemic separations between us, the happiness hoarded by means of stolen and siphoned resources, the entrenchment of philosophies that keep our People Power scattered—these things won’t be healed until the problem has manifested in an undeniable and aggressive fashion. I think we can safely say this has happened. So we ought to make sure the right conversations are happening and that our wants and needs are not papered over again with propaganda.

We arrive at many junctures. The Epic Religious Battles rage on and seem to be crowding each other on a global level. The Petroleum Wars are upon us all. Nuestra planeta has had about enough of our abuse, and it’s important to realize and admit that many of these Elites have already been pouring massive dollars into their own disaster contingency plans. That’s why they want to funnel more money to their own banks and convince us that taxes are a burden and not an investment. They are investing, all right. But not in the People. Only in their small clans. That’s why people like the Bushes and Cheneys and Clintons (let’s remember some of Bill’s great deeds on Welfare Reform) are fine if our foundations fall apart in the coming storm. They can afford not only accountants to see them over tax gaps that trip up the rest of us, but vehicles, properties, and possessions that will allow them to filter out, avoid, and step over the toxic mire they and their kind produce daily, the very swamp fluid that threatens eventually to envelop us if we do not do the simple math and shake up the formula.
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UPDATE MARCH 6; Mediamatters says it politely.

PUT OUT YA PLATO! We have a variety of flavors today, going to dip briefly into areas in the main of the stream as well as some news from tha Blogarrio™. 

As we’ve already talked about, John “Chickenshit” McCain’s is not quite getting that when it comes to us Latinos/Hispanix, the road to the White House will not be reached via Avenida Pander! Yet, the lesson is coming home to him anyway.

Oye, perhaps not every single Latin@ cares as much about Immigration reform as much as I do or some of the amigos y amigas  I chill with do, but believe it that enough of us do notice when hypocritical stances get nuestra gente harassed by police, raided and terrified, killed in prison, or deported. Believe that, Pinche McCabrón! These are new times and your base can no longer be the top 1 percenters or that fearful horde that now lumbers after the slimy tracks of ya Straight Crock Express. We are all people out here. We matter. We remember.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Cindy Florez can’t always remember the name of the man who will get her vote for president, but she knows his party and that’s enough.

“I will vote Democrat,” the 23-year-old hotel housekeeper said, in broken English, moments after registering to vote at a John McCain campaign booth in a Latino neighborhood market.

It’s an insult-to-injury moment for the Republican presidential candidate. And when it comes to McCain’s relationship with Hispanic voters, it’s not the first.

The man who once took a big political risk by joining with Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to propose a comprehensive immigration reform bill that was embraced by Hispanics is now struggling to win these same voters, and falling perilously below the level of support that helped lift President Bush to the White House.

The candidate who won nearly 70 percent of Hispanic voters in his last bid for Senate in border-state Arizona is watching a first-term Illinois senator run away with those voters.

—McCain missing the mark with Hispanics

NEXT UP, if you have time, interest, and ability, consider lending your hand to the cause of Democracy in this fine nation of immigrants that is the USA:
 

(KSL News) Latino organizers are recruiting volunteers to help first-time immigrant voters learn the ropes of casting their ballots. They want every vote to count in such a high-stakes election.

“Latinos throughout the country will be looking for candidates who want to treat people with compassion, who want to address the issues our communities are facing, not for those who want to build tent cities,” said Tony Yapias, with Proyecto Latino de Utah.

Post and video here. Might not wanna read the comments there, though. Sounds like a McCain/Palin rally by the end. Ay. By the hostility and anger, you’d think that “first-time immigrant voters” atually means “Cackling Fence Hopping Welfare Stealing Criminal” instead of “Legal Citizen Performing Important American Duty and Right For First Time Needing Assistance.” But that’s what happens when your brain tissue gets rank and stagnant with self-administered septic effluvium. Words come apart and everything looks ugly. Muy triste.

• BARACK OBAMA busts out with a new health care vid. Hang in for the “Soy Barack Obama” at the end part. It’s fun.

The article where I found this video talks about how the Obama campaign is “shifting from immigration, its recent topic of choice, to health care and taxes” and I’m sure sorry to hear that in light of all that’s been going down in the last half year or more, especially in the last few months.

Related, I talked to a blogmigo today from The Sanctuary, and we are thinking it may be a good idea to start talking to our contactos in the MSM again on this survey ignorando that McCain is doing, todavía. Stay tuned for info if we do, I’ll letcha know wassup.

 THIS COULD BE NOTHING AT ALL or it could develop into something worth watching. I have no reason to think so…it just struck a chord of curiosity in me. These are tense times for Latin@s all over. I pay close attention to anything like this. 

DES MOINES, Iowa – The administrator of the Iowa Division of Latino Affairs has abruptly quit his job. 

Walter Reed, the director of the Iowa Department of Human Rights, says Armando Villareal turned in his resignation on Sept. 29 and left without further explanation. Reed’s office oversees the Latino affairs division. 

Salvador Alaniz, a member of the Iowa Commission on Latino Affairs, says Villareal’s departure was a surprise. 

The Latino Affairs Division has become more visible in recent years with the growth in Iowa’s Hispanic population. 

• EL BLOGARRIO: Manuél contributes some beautiful pumpkin arte for Yes We Carve. La Mala, La Poeta kicking it live esta noche in NYC. Problemchylde (Sylvia) informing us with no hesitation that The Revolution Will be Horny! Kai breakin’ down the Economy con estilo! XP’s open letter that Yo No es un PC! Kyle tells the tale of the Illegal Gringa. Y Duke at the Sanctuary telling us of Sheriff Bizell’s longing for the Good Ole South and why that’s a problem for Elizabeth Dole!

• LASTLY, not all of us pray and hope for hurricanes to blow into Mexico, as one anchorman intoned over the TV while I was in Denver for the DNC. 

A hurricane set to hit the west coast of Mexico has weakened slightly but remains “life-threatening”, meteorologists have warned.

The US National Hurricane Center has downgraded Hurricane Norbert, with wind speeds of up 110 mph (175 km/h), from Category 3 to 2.

Norbert is due to hit Mexico’s Baja California peninsula in the Pacific on Saturday.

Forecasters have warned of torrential rain and the threat of mud slides.

“Preparations to protect life and property in the hurricane warning areas should be rushed to completion,” said a public advisory from the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Mexican authorities have issued warnings and are preparing an emergency plan.

Meteorologists said the hurricane was likely to produce rainfall of up to 10 inches (25.4 cm) in some parts of southern Baja California which could result in “life-threatening flash floods and mud slides”.

My thoughts, good energy are with you, México! Am lighting una vela. 

And hope all my friends out here in blogworld are doing well today. It’s cold here!

I AM IN ” AIRPLANE MODE” which means no signals are being sent out, but I can write a draft of this post and post it when we hit the ground. It is 9:43 am. I am not on the intended flight, but have been moved to a different series of flights, given one extra layover and one extra plane. Part of wanted to get frustrated and annoyed but I just didn’t have the energy. So I went with the flow.

Amazingly enough I am getting used to all the flying around. I have actually been flying since I was un niño pero over the years I somehow grew less comfortable with the whole ordeal. But I have been flying a lot more since UMX gained more notice and gente have been flying yours truly to various functions and events, sometimes when I’ve won something such as MTV’s Choose or Losey attempt to co-opt “Citizen Journalism” and I was chosen to rep Oregon for 2008, or when I was given a grant to attend Ykos07/Netroots Nation in 2007, or flown to NYC Immigration Strategy Meeting as one of the top Latino bloggers in the cosmos. I’ve become a regular pinche jetsetter. This last time I didn’t even unpack. I just sort of “reshuffled.”

The Mac Store was closed so I need to check out a place in St. Paul. I can’t do video without my laptop and Coño!–I now say to myself with a smile, as I realize I forgot to bring my FCP install discs. Ay. Well, guess even if I get the laptop fired up, I will be using a very fundamental setup. Quicktime Pro or something.

It’s so bright outside, here thousands of feet up in the air. Hard to remember that a violent storm is ripping into the coast as I type this. Hard to believe I am purposely going to surround myself with all the gaiety of a Republican celebration. Glad a couple UMX readers have offered airport rides and other hospitalities. I am sure that these will come in handy so mil gracias, gente.

Meanwhile I am feeling tired so I think I will siesta. Paz y Justícia, amig@s.

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UPDATE: I’ve landed and it’s now el segundo de septiembre. Last night I had some drinks with a 50-something year old Republican who, at the end of the night picked up my tab “because I can.” She lives in Arizona and we discussed the Spanish language. I talked about the Treaty of Hidalgo Guadelupe and Polk, Slidell and some other junk which sort of blew her mind that (I guess) I knew some history. She said “most people can’t back up their arguments” with history. It never crossed my mind to point her to my blog. She made a joke about my tattoos. She liked my long hair. She had the most contrived laugh I’ve ever heard and everytime she made it I felt sad.

HURRICANE GUSTAV bears down and threatens destruction to the gulf coast. Here are some links to take action and stay informed. If you follow them you should find all you need. 

– Volunteer, discuss, get updates: http://gustav08.ning.com/ 

– Gustav info wiki: http://gustavwiki.com/

– Andy’s blog post: http://tinyurl.com/6oqh8d

– Kevin’s blog: http://slanttruth.com/2008/08/31/hurricane-gustave-information-and-links/

 2.0-style news:

– Official NHC alerts: http://twitter.com/GustavAlerts

– (slightly overwhelming) Twitter stream on Gustav: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Gustav

UPDATE: (from amigo robvato) ICE has put out statements that it will not arrest anyone at any checkpoints and that the undocumented should evacuate along with everyone else. And it’s not just NOLA, but the entire region. Some Spanish language media is sending the ICE message out.

UPDATE: Kyle blogs on migrants’ vulnerability in this crisis.

UPDATE: GOP cancels all but business and formal procedures for first day of RNC convention.

Stay safe, gente.