LA Weekly — I have often appreciated their tough reporting on educational discrepancies in Los Angeles. The unfair termination of charter schools, or the inexplicable extension of charters for substandard schools.
Then the reporting on poorly performing schools should startle enough establish types to do more for poorer communities beyond recording the complaints and filing the grievances in a loose file lost in the back of a district office.
The notion that the United States is declaring war on Mexicans, however, as bluntly stated in the June 8-14 edition of the alternative paper bypasses any rational explanation.
Do the editors of this paper really believe that such empty sensationalism commands any respect with the intelligent and belligerent voters and activists in Los Angeles?
I can understand the LA City Council jumping into the frayed immigration debate, but those politicians will score points any way they can, just to rile up their constituents and get reelected. The moneyed and working voters in the Southland know and believe better, I am sure.
The Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina, and other state immigration laws discouraging illegal immigration are not targeting any one ethnic group, per se. The racist implications of liberalized elements which view any investment toward protection and security as fraud and discrimination deserve greater scrutiny and calumny.
The war on Mexicans is taking place in, surprise, Mexico, where drug cartels have intimidate the corrupt and bereft political class into cowering submission, slaughtering state and federal law enforcement agents, even scaring away idealistic police chief to run for safety in the United States. The war on Mexicans goes back to the growth of the state as primary benefactor, to the collusion of one-party rule and increased poverty, to the unchecked misconduct of police and other public officials who can ask for a bribe without doing time. Many friends of mine who left Mexico could no longer abide the political anarchy which flourished unabated while Mexican legislators spent more time lying on the ground of the Chamber of Deputies, or when roaring crowds refused to recognize the legitimate election of Felipe Calderon in 2006. Mexico City looked like one big mosh-pit of unjustified grievance, illustration how the notion of respect for the rule of law and the outcome of ballot box still did not resonate with the radical classes.
The war on Mexicans is in Mexico, not the culture, but the state, and the current President is doing no one any favors when he castigates this country for not opening up the borders even wider to permit every person to flee into the United States without proper naturalization.
Immigration is an acceptable policy, when done legally. In the meantime, Mr. Calderon should spend more time enforcing the rule of law in his own country. Decriminalizing drugs, although a radical and controversial proposal, would do much to impoverish the cartels who shoot first, take all, and ask no questions while doing so.
The end of Big Corp and Big Govt must end, and as soon as possible in Mexico. Like weakened serpents who can slither not further than the shade of drooping cactus, small businesses take in small and shrinking profits. The major industries are still state-owned. If the legislature cannot convene with any effectual regularity, what business does the Mexican political class have in determining any economic policies?
The War on Mexicans, sadly, is in their homeland, not in the heartland of the United States. It is appalling and distressing that any media organ would scream racism and discrimination at a country where the rule of law has attracted many disenfranchised people, the majority of whom are looking for some semblance of free enterprise, where they do not have to shrink away in fear every time they see a police officer or go to a public agency to get something taken care of, where local gangs exists, but do not persist in bringing down or decimating the law-abiding citizen.