Posted on 08/30/2003 2:05:06 AM PDT by tallhappy
Here are direct source links to MEChA sites and their stated ideas and ideals.
I post these so there can be authoritative info from the actual horse's mouth -- ie Mechistas themselves.
MEChA in large part does counselling of high school and college students. They will help them with details such as simply working out their schedule of classes. This is why many people who've heard of them may not know anything about their underlying philosophy, but may think of them as a helpful group of do-gooders.
Bustamante has said he was never really in to the far out stuff, or something to that effect.
Here are the documents. They are actually rather long winded and dull as are most leftist manifesto diatribes.
First is an about page from Cal State Univeristy San Marcos' MEChA chapter, linked.
Next are two treatises expounded MEChA's philosophy linked to by the San marcos group and hosted by University of Texas:
El Plan de Santa Barbara - The Plan of Santa Barbara and El Plan Espirituel de Aztlan - The Spiritual Plan of Aztlan
What is MEChA?
El Plan Espiritual De Aztlan | El Plan De Santa Barbara | In Lakex
MEChA is a nationwide student organization. The chapter at Cal State San Marcos is just one of the many in the state of California and in the Southwest, but we retain the right to determine our own course of action under the general goals and objectives of the liberation of La Raza (i.e. Chicano Mexicano/Latino). MEChA stands for Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan.
HISTORICAL FOUNDATION
The fundamental principles that led to the founding of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán are found in El Plan de Santa Barbara (EPDSB). The Manifesto of EPDSB sees self-determination for the Chicana and Chicano Chicano and Chicana Movement in El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán (EPEDA). A synopsis of El Plan stipulates: 1) We are Chicanos and Chicanas of Aztlán reclaiming the land of out birth (Chicano and Chicana Nation); 2) Aztlán belongs to indigenous people, who are sovereign and not subject to a foreign culture; 3) We are a union of free pueblos forming a bronze nation; 4) Chicano and Chicana nationalism, as the key in mobilization and organization, is the common denominator to bring consensus to the Chicano and Chicana Movement; 5) Cultural values strengthen our identity as La Familia de La Raza; and 6) EPEDA, as a basic plan of Chicano and Chicana liberation, sought the formation of am independent national political party that would represent the sentiments of the Chicano and Chicana community.
Both EPDSB and EPEDA served as the historical foundation for the establishment of a viable Chicano and Chicana Movimiento, and are therefore, fundamental to the M.E.Ch.A. philosophy.
M.E.Ch.A.'S PHILOSOPHY
The Chicano and Chicana student movement has been plagued by opportunists that have sought to rechannel the energies of our people and divert us from our struggle for self-determination. The educational plight of Chicana and Chicano students continues to be ignored by insensitive administrators. Overall, Chicano and Chicana junior high, high school and college push-out rates have risen since 1969, forcing many Chicanos and Chicanas to a life of poverty. These factors along with a growing right wing trend in the nation are combing to work greater hardships on Chicanos and Chicanas. New repressive and racist immigration laws are continuously directed at our Gente. The Federal government is campaigning to pacify and assimilate our Gente by labeling us "Hispanic." The term "Hispanic" seeks to anglicize and deny our indigenous heritage by ignoring our unique socioeconomic and historical aspect of our Gente. These factors have made it necessary for Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán to affirm our philosophy of liberation (i.e. educational, socioeconomic, and political empowerment) for our Chicano and Chicana nation.
Joining with other community-based Chicano and Chicana nationalist organizations, M.E.Ch.A. is committed to ending the cultural tyranny suffered at the hands of institutional and systematic discrimination that holds our Gente captive. We seek an end to oppression and exploitation of the Chicano and Chicana Community
* To promote Chicano Mexicano/Latino herritage, identity, and culture.
* To educate our gente and act on issues that affect La Raza
* To encourage Chicano Mexicano/Latino students to stay in and finish high school; recruit them and help them finish college, thus so they can better serve and empower the community.
* To strive for social justice, equal and adequate education, economic and political power for La Raza .
* To build alliances and to cooperate with local and national organizations ( for example, American Indian Student Alliance, Pan-African Student Alliance, Mexicanos Unidos en Defensa del Pueblo, Raza Rights Coalition, Union del Barrio, United Farm Workers, American Friends Service Committee, National People's Democratic Uhuru Movement).
La Union Hace La Fuerza... In Unity There Is Strength
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 Aztlán 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.
We are free and sovereign to determine those tasks which are justly called for by our house, our land, the sweat of our brows, and by our hearts. Aztlán belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to the foreign Europeans. We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze continent
Brotherhood unites us, and love for our brothers makes us a people whose time has come and who struggles against the foreigner "gabacho" who exploits our riches and destroys our culture. With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before all our brothers in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we are a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlán.
Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada.
Nationalism as the key to organization transcends all religious, political, class, and economic factions or boundaries. Nationalism is the common denominator that all members of La Raza can agree upon.
1. UNITY in the thinking of our people concerning the barrios, the pueblo, the campo, the land, the poor, the middle class, the professional-all committed to the liberation of La Raza.
2. ECONOMY: economic control of our lives and our communities can only come about by driving the exploiter out of our communities, our pueblos, and our lands and by controlling and developing our own talents, sweat, and resources. Cultural background and values which ignore materialism and embrace humanism will contribute to the act of cooperative buying and the distribution of resources and production to sustain an economic base for healthy growth and development Lands rightfully ours will be fought for and defended. Land and realty ownership will be acquired by the community for the people's welfare. Economic ties of responsibility must be secured by nationalism and the Chicano defense units.
3. EDUCATION must be relative to our people, i.e., history, culture, bilingual education, contributions, etc. Community control of our schools, our teachers, our administrators, our counselors, and our programs.
4. INSTITUTIONS shall serve our people by providing the service necessary for a full life and their welfare on the basis of restitution, not handouts or beggar's crumbs. Restitution for past economic slavery, political exploitation, ethnic and cultural psychological destruction and denial of civil and human rights. Institutions in our community which do not serve the people have no place in the community. The institutions belong to the people.
5. SELF-DEFENSE of the community must rely on the combined strength of the people. The front line defense will come from the barrios, the campos, the pueblos, and the ranchitos. Their involvement as protectors of their people will be given respect and dignity. They in turn offer their responsibility and their lives for their people. Those who place themselves in the front ranks for their people do so out of love and carnalismo. Those institutions which are fattened by our brothers to provide employment and political pork barrels for the gringo will do so only as acts of liberation and for La Causa. For the very young there will no longer be acts of juvenile delinquency, but revolutionary acts.
6. CULTURAL values of our people strengthen our identity and the moral backbone of the movement. Our culture unites and educates the family of La Raza towards liberation with one heart and one mind. We must insure that our writers, poets, musicians, and artists produce literature and art that is appealing to our people and relates to our revolutionary culture. Our cultural values of life, family, and home will serve as a powerful weapon to defeat the gringo dollar value system and encourage the process of love and brotherhood.
7. POLITICAL LIBERATION can only come through indepen-dent action on our part, since the two-party system is the same animal with two heads that feed from the same trough. Where we are a majority, we will control; where we are a minority, we will represent a pressure group; nationally, we will represent one party: La Familia de La Raza!
Action
1. Awareness and distribution of El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán. Presented at every meeting, demonstration, confrontation, courthouse, institution, administration, church, school, tree, building, car, and every place of human existence.
2. September 16, on the birthdate of Mexican Independence, a national walk-out by all Chicanos of all colleges and schools to be sustained until the complete revision of the educational system: its policy makers, administration, its curriculum, and its personnel to meet the needs of our community.
3. Self-Defense against the occupying forces of the oppressors at every school, every available man, woman, and child.
4. Community nationalization and organization of all Chicanos: El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán.
5. Economic program to drive the exploiter out of our community and a welding together of our people's combined resources to control their own production through cooperative effort.
6. Creation of an independent local, regional, and national political party.
A nation autonomous and free - culturally, socially, economically, and politically- will make its own decisions on the usage of our lands, the taxation of our goods, the utilization of our bodies for war, the determination of justice (reward and punishment), and the profit of our sweat.
El Plan de Aztlán is the plan of liberation!
The Cal State San Marcos MEChA link page is here
Links
| Other MEChAs | National MEChA |
| Mecha Regions | MEChA Central |
| La Voz De Aztlan | Mexicanos Unidos en Defensa Del Pueblo |
| EZLN | La Jornada |
| The Barrio Defense Committee | BrownPride.com |
| The Uhuru Committee Note: The last link to the Uhuru committee was bought by a pornography site, please excuse the inconveniences this might have caused. |
The Azteca Webpage |
| The Mexica Movement | Prensa Latina |
| Union Del Barrio | World Conference Against Racism |
| Vos Fronteriza | Old Page Of Links |
If you have more links or would like to add something else, please let us know!
Documents of the Chicano Struggle -- has some info on when this started -- back in 1971.
Froma larger web site at University of California at Riverside called CLNet Website, which stands for Building Chicana o Latina Communities Through Networking.
Just in case, following is the "Link" site.
http://public.csusm.edu/student_orgs/mecha/
Thanks for the warning.
If history teachs us anything about this, it is that the politicans supporting factions like Mecha are commenting suicide in slow-motion in that once Mecha no longer has use for these politicans, they will be hanged, or murdered in another fashion.
In other words, private property will be seized and nationalized, down to the smallest plot of land. People will be told where they will work and what they will be paid, and they will not have the right to quit their jobs, organize unions, or even complain. Armed thugs will form a militia and/or secret police to enforce the "economic ties of responsibility" by sending hapless citizens to collective farms and gulags. This has been tried already, from Stalin to Pol Pot. Creating a "new order" based on racial identity and nationalism hs already been tried by -- what were their names -- Oh, yes! I remember. Hitler and Mussolini. If this is what "moderate" Democrat politicians believe, we are in deep trouble!
This all sounds like a Mexican version of the old Nazi "Blood and Soil" myths, with a heavy dose of Marxism thrown in. The Nazi myths spoke of some idyllic past where people were of an ethnically "pure" race, lived a collectivist, agrarian existence, and worshipped their pagan, pre-Christian gods.
I think this appeals to racist losers of all races -- they all romanticize a past that was in fact brutal drudgery for their ancestors.
This is also a revolt against modernity. For millions of years, humans subsisted in small bands or tribes that were based on ethnic identity and kinship. They lived in what were essentially primitive collective farms (and before that, they were hunter-gatherers). People didn't vote -- everything was determined by a small class of priests and elders. Civilization, with its emphasis on money, trade, written language, contracts, and political organization not based on race or tribe changed all of that.
At the heart of all totalitarian movements is the desire to turn back 5,000 years of civilization. There are those who see themselves as a new class of priests, eager to rule over the peasants. There are also those who see themselves as peasants -- they get a false sense of security by imagining that they belong to a "tribe" or "race" that will protect them from "those people" (whoever "those people" happen to be), and they imagine that the would-be priests will take care of them rather than expliot them.
Civilization is a new invention, and in the best of circumstances it hangs on by a thin thread. The enemies of civilization are always among us -- whether they be communists, or Nazis, or Luddites, or religious fanatics.
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