Posted on 06/27/2003 11:17:05 PM PDT by LdSentinal
Never a party to be outdone, California’s Democrats are now pushing their class-warfare tactics to new heights, or depths, depending on how one examines the issue.
Now in control of every level of state government, they manifest an abject reluctance to address (let alone acknowledge) their financial negligence. The governor deflects rumors that he will resign, and Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson trots around the state campaigning for increased taxes, seeking a vindication of reality only he can understand.
The Democratic majority, the "Untouchables," move further left, continuing to push for driver’s licenses as well as Mexico-issued ID cards for the millions of illegal immigrants living in the state.
Late-night comedy shows consistently find material from the crazy legislation and knucklehead ideas that surface out of Sacramento and become law. We tend to examine what each of the parties does on a partisan basis, without any real discussion of who the individual legislators are, what they believe or what they say. In fact, very few people in California can even name their assembly person or state senator.
This piece examines what several very powerful California politicians have revealed in their own words, perhaps divulging where ultimate loyalties reside, using words many would consider incendiary and racist. If one definition of loyalty is "faithful in allegiance to one’s lawful government," then we may have some real problems on our hands.
The outward appearance of California Democrats actually performing the job they raised their right hand and swore to do is both a myth and a strategy.
The myth is that they are looking out for the public’s best interest. The strategy is to thrust new taxes upon the public to pay for services for illegal immigrants, knowing the "brotherhood of silence" in the press has rubber-stamped a Hispanics-as-victims script that trumps neutral pursuit of facts.
If this party had even a modicum of concern for both the financial and security interests of California, it would engage in an honest and open debate about the costs and sustainable assimilation of immigrants, most of whom are decent people, balanced against the overwhelming burdens on strapped taxpayers, enforcement of immigration law, and the legitimate threats posed by porous borders.
Pictures From Below the Surface
The following quotes show these Democrats' true feelings.
Art Torres, California Democratic Party chairman, at the Latino Summit Response to Prop 187 at U.C. Riverside (Jan. 14, 1995):
"Power is not given to you, you have to take it! People say to me when I was on the Senate floor, when I was in the Senate, why do you fight so hard for affirmative action programs. And I tell my white colleagues: because you're gonna need them. Remember, 187 is the last gasp of white America."
Antonio Villaraigosa, former speaker of the California State Assembly and present Los Angeles City Council member-elect, discussing Prop 187 with a KABC-TV, Los Angeles reporter (July 29, 1999):
Reporter: "What happens to the will of the people?"
Villaraigosa: "Well, the will of the people is something all of us have to respect, but when the will of the people is unconstitutional, the will of the people is null and void."
Mario Obledo, former California secretary of health and welfare and co-founder of Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), interviewed on radio station KIEV, Los Angeles (June 17, 1998):
"We're going to take over all the political institutions of California. California is going to be a Hispanic state and anyone who doesn't like it should leave. If they [Anglos] don't like Mexicans, they ought to go back to Europe."
Gloria Molina, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, speaking at the 1997 Southwest Voter Registration Education Project:
"We demand to be counted. And what we know as well is that the big giant that they keep talking about is awakening. And he's pretty angry about what's going on. Ya basta! [Enough!] This community is no longer going to stand for it. … And our vote is going to be important. But I gotta tell you that a lot of people are saying, 'I'm going to go out there and vote because I want to pay them back.'"
Pay who back?
Fabian Nunez, California assemblyman, at the Latino Summit Response to Prop 187 at U.C. Riverside (Jan. 14, 1995):
"Each of you, get ten people to go with us on that march in Washington, D.C., and I guarantee you just as we mobilized 150,000 to the streets of Los Angeles on October 16, we will mobilize 1 million people and bring Washington to a standstill, and those rednecks that are out there making decisions for the betterment of their communities will think twice before they push forward anti- immigrant legislation against our community."
State Sen. Nell Soto, D-Ontario, June 25, 2003, San Bernardino Town Hall meeting to discuss SB60, the bill that would grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, responding to critics who say the legislation promotes illegal immigration:
"Guess what?" Soto said. "The immigrants are already here. I welcome them. I hope they keep coming."
Do any of these quotes strike anyone as marginally racist or irresponsible?
'Since We Stole It, Let Them Steal It Back'
On June 17, I watched an incredible exchange during the legislative hearing over the Matricula Consular card (SB522) introduced by Manny Diaz, D-San Jose. The bill would require every state public officer or employee to accept, for identification purposes, the card as equivalent to a California driver’s license or ID card issued by the DMV.
Statements in favor included MALDEF, La Raza, the League of California Cities, the City of Los Angeles, and The Friends Committee on Legislation.
When the speaker stated "Opposition to the Bill?" a clearly audible "Oh God, same jerks" could be heard by all.
Statements opposed included several law enforcement and police organizations and the Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform (FAIR). Yeh Ling-Ling, the executive director of the Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America (DASA), stated:
"It frightens me to see that our government is accepting ID cards issued by foreign governments. For example, in the land of my ancestry, China, the level of fraudulent documents is very high. Let’s say from the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, where I lived, with money you can buy basically anything. Including documents.
"After the bombings [Sept. 11], I urged Congress to protect our borders. Very few congressional members listened. After the bombings, where thousands of people died, people were saying, it was unthinkable. Please, think of the list of what Mexico has been trying to do. What Mexican-American leaders, what many of them, have said. Mario Obledo said in 1998, quote, ‘eventually we are going to take over all the political institutions of California.’
"They said publicly that they are going to use immigration to control the Southwest, retake the Southwest, and eventually, take over the entire U.S. So please listen to those statements carefully."
Interruption by State Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose: "Since we stole it from them, why do you say it’s unfair to steal it back from us?"
Yeh Ling-Ling: "I’m sorry?"
Vasconcellos: "We stole it from them in the first place."
Yeh Ling-Ling: "Exactly what do you want to have happen?"
Vasconcellos: "I found your testimony (shaking his head, putting his glasses down) … I don’t want to debate you."
Yeh Ling-Ling: (with a questioning look) "Exactly?"
Vasconcellos: "I don’t want to debate you. I’ve listened to what you’ve had to say, period."
Since nobody in the chamber voiced any objection to Vasconcellos’ remarks, the reasonable inference is, yes, the Left is moving even further left, and American legislators like Vasconcellos believe that since Mexico was stolen by the U.S., there really isn’t anything to debate.
It should be noted as well that Ling-Ling has been confronted by other California Democrats while delivering similar testimony. Recently, during a hearing on SB60 (driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants), Sen. Nell Soto castigated Ling-Ling in a manner similar to Vasconcellos’, stating that her remarks were "blatantly racist," had no place at a legislative hearing and "really insulted the intelligence of some of us here."
Ling-Ling, whose group is based in Oakland, responded from the audience: "They were quotes, OK, from Mexican-American leaders."
What could Soto say? It was an embarrassing moment for SB60 backers.
We All Need to Remember Our History
There are as many arguments that promote integration and assimilation as promote separatism. What we need to be well aware of is the history nobody can deny. In a nutshell, and not to oversimplify:
1821: Spain accepts Mexican independence.
1836: Texas breaks free of Mexican rule.
1846-48: Mexico loses much of its territory in the Mexican-American War. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed.
1867: American Union Army assists Mexico’s Benito Juarez, a democratic reformer, removes France from Mexico.
1910: Mexican Revolution.
1914: U.S. Marines enter Veracruz.
1916: U.S. chases Pancho Villa out of New Mexico.
1938: Mexico nationalizes PEMEX. Cardenas and Roosevelt sign Good Neighbor Policy.
1942: Mexico supports U.S. in WWII. Relations generally stable during postwar years.
1960s: Tourism industry thrives, Mexican nationalism rises.
1971: U.S. imposes 10 percent tariff on all imports, hurting Mexico, which sends almost 70 percent of its exports to the U.S.
1980s: Mexico supports nationalist movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador. U.S. drug war creates mutual tensions.
1992: North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed. U.S. moves plants to Mexico to exploit cheap labor.
1995: Devastating Mexican peso devaluation.
2003: Mexican population in U.S. reported to have increased 10 percent in just three years, mostly as a result of illegal immigration.
History is never pretty, but ultimately, each nation is responsible to its own citizens first (the U.S. apparently excepted). Since Mexico is unable to reform its endemic corruption, forcing the majority to live in poverty and squalor, it exports its economic problems to the U.S., then blames the U.S.
California is a state where many schools today, as a policy, suppress references to our nation’s Founding Fathers. Portraits of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are prohibited. In San Francisco, a student needs a lawyer to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
To these ingrates, some wisdom and common sense from Thomas Paine ("Common Sense," March 21, 1778):
"To argue with a man who has renounced the authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture."
Our laws, and generosity with taxpayer dollars, are literally inviting Mexico’s poor to migrate to California at a time when we claim to be broke, while we increase border enforcement and deportations. It’s an absolutely crazy situation.
Meanwhile, back in Sacramento, the place where race is everything, laws are pushed to make the situation worse. And nobody will talk about it, except perhaps those who claim California belongs to Mexico.
The irony in all this is that the "progressives" actually want to go backward in history to find justification to correct past injustices and keep their followers on the plantation. "Conservatives" want to be realistic about where we are today and go forward, but are accused of being stuck in the past. Go figure.
Until the dishonesty and tactical bluster cease, California is at serious risk of becoming a Third World entity, and the longer Democrats are in power, the more businesses will continue to flee the state, the more wealthy taxpayers will relocate and the more our standard of living will continue to decline.
The country knows few Democrats who can sustain an argument in favor of the policies of their party. But they know many who will sling the mud when reason, fact and common sense fail. All the reason why "Throw the bums out!" has become California’s new pastime.
It's called selective amnesia. Traumatic events are stifled when one's brain can't handle it. All I need to know is that I didn't vote for them...
These are the real racist in California, their statements are well documented. They are nothing but traitorous, racist criminals, with clear anti-American agendas....
Pray for bankruptcy.
It may be the only chance for California to set things right.
Look, I don't really give a baboons butt what some leftist screw worm governor, or the democrats did regarding 187. As far as I am concerned the Federal government which initially stepped in and burned our ballots was in conspiracy with the politico bozos on the state level to bury 187.
The bottom line here is the fish stinks from the head and it's the FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS RESPONSIBILITY TO SECURE AND PROTECT OUR FEDERAL BORDERS, GAWD DAMN IT.
Look at the states all over this country, the same damn thing is happening, I mean everywhere! Once these millions of illegals enter, the politicos in almost every state are pandering to these criminals and we are paying the big price. The fish stinks from the head, it's the federal government!!!
Running away aint my style.....You can't run from this government sponsored invasion. LOL. Hell, they are behind you and in front of you, where you going to run too?
Ya, once California becomes part of Mexico they'll just pick up and move North again to Oregon then Washington. Eventually they'll have to go up into Canada and discover thier nice socialist system.
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