On Iran, North Korea: Little Input from HispanicLatinos

It would seem we are headed for a national security moment with Iran almost certainly and with North Korea by happenstance probably.  One or both of these nuclear-charged events might take form during the presidential campaign.  The timing would probably help Barack Obama win re-election, most of the country rallying behind its commander-in-chief.  A national security crisis – especially one dealing with Iran – in which the United States either participates in militarily or is thought to support the actions of any ally – would encumber serious repercussions on American foreign policy and set it on a course for decades to come.

On Iran, not one credible HispanicLatino is known generally or publicly to have been engaged in developing any of the provisional strategies to deal with an armed conflict or its aftermath.  Since HispanicLatinos already fight – often disproportionately – in the nation’s wars and will do so in greater numbers as their population grows, the decisions that might generate future conflicts must be developed with the active participation of qualified and credible HispanicLatinos lest any policy of war or peace adopted lack credibility as it unfolds or lose it over time.  Unbeknownst to most policy decision-makers the war in Iraq was hugely unpopular within the HispanicLatino community. Continue reading

The Soldiers Return, the Soldiers Vote

All the left-over hubbub about Iowa yesterday left me thinking about a truck that drove by on a freeway near Dallas with white-washed lettering splashed across its rear cab window.  It was not a new truck.  It had the weathered look of real work.  The driver was not displaying his support for a team involved in the high school football playoffs.  Instead, the ghostly lettering proclaimed, “Welcome home!  Merry Christmas!”  On either side of the window, a red and gold decal of the Marine Corps framed the message.

I have no idea how the returning soldier population and their immediate families are going to vote in this year’s election.  I wonder if any or all of them will remember that Barack Obama brought them home from the useless and costly lie that was Iraq.  I think about those who died, were maimed or are now psychologically impaired, and I am thankful that Obama defeated John McCain.  Had he been elected, McCain would not have ended Iraq and might have expanded military operations there.  That is what military men do. Continue reading

Rick of the Saints

It seems so long ago that in the 1960 presidential election a Catholic candidate was fighting for his political life.  John F. Kennedy won by a whisker, fending off religious bigots.  Probably 75 percent of the country has been born since then and Catholicism no longer matters, for the most part, to a vast majority of voters.  It means more to people today that Mitt Romney is a Mormon, yet it says as much that a Catholic, Rick Santorum, might be the choice of evangelical Christians when the conservative wing of the Republican Party makes its stand in the South against Romney – whose forebears were the ones who feared Kennedy the most.

The fact that the South might block Romney’s push for the nomination says more about the Catholic Church than it does about the Republican presidential circus.  That a Catholic candidate like Santorum (whose name in Latin means “of the saints”) is so right-wing in his philosophy tells us how the Church has changed – and how it intends to grow its role in national political affairs.  Continue reading

After Iowa, a GOP for the Future?

Iowa Republicans today will begin to decide which version of the Republican Party will prevail for this election year but more so the immediate future.  Not really understanding how the world has changed around them, Republicans have allowed anger to walk them into a social and demographic trap.  In almost every way, Republicans do not understand that their perception of the world does not remotely comport with reality – and that most people are tired of nastiness. Continue reading

Eleven Months of Dithering?

So as the new year starts, where do we stand?  It seems like things are poised to stay about the same or get worse.  Nothing on the horizon suggests that the economy will start moving again on its own.  All of the long-term factors and components of a changed structural economy are in place and will remain in place for a long time, mimicking an economy in recession.  What is true this week was true last week.  And with Congress dithering on the payroll tax cut extension and undecided on continuing aid to the long-term unemployed, the signs are not encouraging.  Add to that the presidential campaign that officially starts tomorrow in Iowa and that will not be resolved for another 11 months – tempting businesses in and outside the United States to hold back from investing in their own growth.  Hard to make a new year’s resolution to remain optimistic.  However: Continue reading

A Very Chávez Christmas, and it’s not Hugo Boss

Another gift from Hugo Chávez to the United States and the rest of the countries of the Americas.  How touching.  Just in time for Christmas.  Not just any kind of gift, but one with long-term strategic complications: His announcement that the Chinese have loaned Venezuela another $4 billion in loans on top of the $26 billion already outstanding.  The loans, secured by future sales of Venezuelan oil, ordinarily would be a normal transaction between sovereign nations, but, of course, it isn’t.  The Chinese also have pledged to invest another $40 billion in other energy-related projects. Continue reading

Etched in Stone: The Mayan End of Time

A year from today on Dec. 21, 2012, time in our world is going to end.  This is attributed to the Mayan astronomers and priests who are not around to explain themselves, much less to defend their letting us in on the secret of an attendant possible demise.  What a really nasty thing to do, letting people know months ahead that the end is near.  Like knowing that your beloved pooch is going to get run over by a car next year.  Hurtful and insensitive.

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Newt: Not America’s BFF

When writing, it takes effort and discipline to not hurl labels at people.  By now, though, Newt Gingrich has revealed himself for what he is: Aside from being labelled as unstable by people who worked with him, he has all the makings of a budding fascist.  Gingrich’s attacks on the judiciary are nothing less than breath-taking.  His suggestions that judges be hauled before legislative committees by police to explain their decisions speaks to a time and place that the History Channel deals with every day.

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Turning Back History

The long arc of the immigration story has gotten us here, literally.  Yet on one hand, the demographic and economic forces which are structural in nature and in place have led to the assertion of immigration as a population change agent.  Immigration, as it has always, is adding to the population of the country and changing it in the process.

On the other hand, the countervailing sentiment is also asserting itself, so that states like Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and Texas are leading the equally natural anti-immigrant reaction.

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