Bustamante's ties to student group at issue

FResno Bee ^ | 9/6/03 | Jim Steinberg

[NormsRevenge]

Politics swirling around Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's appearance on recall ballots have leapt back three decades to the Fresno State campus and its Hispanic MEChA club in the turbulent 1970s.

Bustamante critics say his MEChA membership while a student at Fresno State should disqualify him from the governorship. One Web site equates MEChA, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, with the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis.

[Sabertooth]

Sen. Tom McClintock, a Republican candidate in the recall election, has called on Bustamante to renounce MEChA, and likened Bustamante's claims to have been a moderate member to someone calling himself a KKK moderate.

Any other Republican politicians had the guts to say this?

[junta]

Roaches in the light no matter what puff pieces their liberal conspirators write about them.

[Plutarch]

The article, for some reason, doesn't mention Bustamante's (D) more recent associations with Mecha. He was at Fresno State a year or two ago for an Latino-only event. Does anyone have a link?

Also, no mention of Bustamante's interesting use of racial epithets, in an article discussing his membership in a racist organization. Do you think that if McClintock (R) or Arnold (R)had been blurting out N-words the Bee might have found a way to include that little nugget in an article discussing racist organization membership?

[Duramaximus]

"Any other Republican politicians had the guts to say this?"

None of the other candidates has the cajones to speak the truth like Tom McClintock. Certainly not Arnold Schwarzenkennedy.

[Dialup Llama]

Its typical of any commie or thug organization to have a wing of violent memebers that the public organization 'can't control.'

[07055]

But in fact, Aguilera says, this is not her group's motto anyway. It is: "With unity comes strength."

Unity? Unity is a racist construct. *Diversity* is the only thing that matters.

[Soliton]

MECha rejects "latinos" as invaders too. They differentiate themselves as "chicanos" the "Ch" in MECha. Latinos are post Columbian, they see themselves asPrecolumbian decendants of the Azteca from Atzland (Socal and Mexico). Ironically so do the Indian tribes of SoCAl who donated to Boostyourtaxes.

[raybbr]

I can see your face getting redder as you type this post. :}

[daviddennis]

It's because of the MEChA manifesto, which says, in part:

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.

I think the following is pretty clear:

• La Raza does in fact refer to their "bronze" racial group, not to all people at large as this thread's article attempts to imply
• The programme of the organization is declaring independence from the USA.

If you read further into it, you will find that they scorn the money-based system we have and desire something that seems suspiciously like a Communist/Socialist state. They would create a government of kinship networks, and if you were not part of the networks, nada is what you would get.

What they appear to want is a Mexican-style government in the US, which is odd considering that the Mexican government is such a disaster. Mexico should be a wealthy nation, but, well, it's not.

It is unclear to me how much connection, if any, MEChA itself has to this manifesto. But it's on most MEChA web sites, so I have no choice but to believe that it does in fact represent their views.

That being said, even if MEChA was entirely benign today, that does not answer the questions behind Bustamante's connection to it, which happened during its most volatile years.

Frankly, I think the real scandal is that someone with Bustamante's intelligence and command of the English language is even vaguely in the running for Governor. I don't think he's smart enough to understand what MEChA is about; I do not believe he has read the Manifesto, or if he has, that he necessarily understood what it said.

That actually could let him off the hook for the current scandal, but his obvious debt to Indian tribes and the usual union suspects is blatantly clear and should entirely disqualify him for governor - especially in times like these.

Hope that helps.

D

[Rabid Dog]

Let's hope that Bustamante takes time to research the group he doesn't want to disassociate from so that he has a clear understanding of the message he is sending out to California voters.

His unethical handling of the monies from tribes and unions should be enough of a transgression for him to lose the vote. It's a much "cleaner" and current, real-time, happening right now offense.

[Saundra Duffy]

Thanks for posting this. Oh, the spin machine! What a fluff piece. Fresno Bee stings us again.

[DoctorZIn]

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[FITZ]

I'm not sure I understand how a hispanic student attending a sanctioned hispanic student club at school can be in any way compared to the KKK.

MEChA is worse than the KKK --- they are very racist and they want to overthrow the US government. They want a Mexican style government, total rule by Mexicans over the Western half of the USA.

[FITZ]

She and one-time MEChA members who long ago left Fresno State point to the late Cesar Chavez as the club's inspiration. They call Chavez, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, a teacher of nonviolent protest who inspired them to demand change assertively but peacefully.

She's lying about that too --- Cesar Chavez was the inspiration of the United Farm Workers and was against illegals coming in and breaking his strike ---- in fact the UFW went to the border to help keep the illegals from coming in --- Cesar Chavez was not a Mexican, his was a labor union movement and he didn't preach for the overthrow of the USA and his wasn't a racist group. MEChA is very racist and very anti-American and isn't about labor unions.