September 6, 2003
NO EXCEPTIONS:
An identity issue for Bustamante (TIM RUTTEN, September 6, 2003, LA Times)
There are few rules in life that admit no exceptions. Here is one: The pursuit of identity politics ends in an intellectual swamp that inevitably drains into a moral sewer.That's why Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante is wrong not to speak more clearly to the issues raised by his one-time membership in a Chicano student organization whose founding credo is a mind-numbing amalgam of quaint revolutionary rhetoric and pseudo-mystical racialism. It's also why the mainstream media's off-handed treatment of this issue is one of the avoidable shortcomings in their coverage of the recall campaign. [...]
MEChA is one of a handful of 1960s student organizations to survive into this era, and for inexplicable reasons it continues to carry some of the rhetorical baggage of that turbulent and extravagant time.
There is, for example, the notion that the American Southwest once was the site of the Aztecs' legendary homeland, Aztlan. What's the evidence? Don't ask. There isn't any, but in the 1960s that didn't matter.
More problematic are MEChA's founding documents - El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan and El Plan de Santa Barbara - both of which are impenetrable screeds. They're the sorts of things that occurred to people who'd read too much Carlos Casteneda and then smoked too much weed while staring for too long at the Che Guevera poster on their dorm-room wall. The difficulty is that embedded within all the liberation foolishness are irredentist rumblings about "reconquering" the American Southwest for Mexico. Moreover, while awaiting the reconquista, faithful Mechistas were supposed to resist assimilation through racial separatism.
The latter sentiment was summed up in a slogan - what would a '60s document be without a slogan? - that appears in El Plan Espiritual and continues to repeated in many MEChA chapters' literature and on their Web sites: "Por la Raza todo. Fuera de la Raza nada." (For the race everything. For those outside the race nothing.)
The neonativist organizations that maintain frenetic Web sites and dog the steps of elected Latino officials like hungry coyotes have long displayed a virtual obsession with MEChA. From the moment Bustamante entered the recall race, they began jumping up and down about his Mechista past. A couple of minor columnists on the right wing's fringe took up the issue. There the matter might have died, but two of the bloggers who have played a particularly influential role in this campaign's coverage - Dan Weintraub of the Sacramento Bee and Slate's Mickey Kaus - began to argue correctly that even kooks can have a point.
In this case, the point is that candidate Cruz Bustamante owes the voters a clear explanation of his feelings about the slogan still widely propagated by MEChA and about the other thoroughly objectionable tenets in its founding documents.
The problem is that Bustamante still has not given a straight answer to any of these questions.
Youthful membership in a racial separatist group should no more disqualify Mr. Bustamante from elective office than it does Senator Byrd, but he ought to be able, now that he's presumably a mature adult, to disavow its ideology. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 6, 2003 8:52 AM
"There is, for example, the notion that the American Southwest once was the site of the Aztecs' legendary homeland, Aztlan."
I wonder how the Native American tribes of California, New Mexico, etc. feel about MECha's denial of their unique cultural identity? Given the Aztecs' practice of raiding their Northern neighbors for captives to be sacrificed (now there's a religion to despise!) MECha's claims seem particularly offensive.
Everything I've read about the Aztecs was many years ago, and the titles are long forgotten. Good bibliographical citations, anyone?
oj-
Bustamante is a life-long, left-wing democratic moron. The attraction to groups like MECha is symptomatic of nothing more than sloppy thinking mixed with "youthful idealism", otherwise known as naive stupidity (in California, "youthful idealism" is a lifelong intellectual commitment among leftists). What other conclusion can you come to about a guy who, with a straight face, advocates a return to price controls on gasoline within his state? Let's face it, Bustamante is a product of the extremist wing of America's extremist party from it's most ideologically extreme state.
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford,Ct. at September 6, 2003 10:10 AMBustamante doesn't strike me as the mastermind of anything, and his refusal to bend on this issue seems more born out of stubborness and obtuseness -- neither one a positive characteristic for someone seeking to take over a state government with a $38 billion deficit.
The entire recall situation, as far as the Democrats go, is reminding me more and more of New York City under the Tammany machine, both in the early 1930s and the late 1940s, when first Jimmy Walker and then Bill O'Dwyer were forced from office. In both cases, Tammany put in an ethnic candidate who was not considered either very mentally sharp or politically suave, but who they hoped through identity politics would be able to perserve their hold on power. In both cases -- with John L. O'Brien in 1932 and with Vincent R. Impellitteri in 1949 -- the mayors were considered to be out of their depth and were replaced; O'Brien by liberal Republican Fiorello LaGuardia in 1933 and Impellitteri by Robert F. Wagner in 1953. Both were sharp, and while Wagner was a Democrat, he would rebel against Tammany to remain in office.
Cruz might pull out a victory next month, but it's hard to see California getting inspired leadership out of him to deal with all their crises. His best hope for re-election is a big national economic recovery over the next three years that lifts all budget revenues (though I doubt Bustamante would be able to grasp the concept that his fortunes and GWB's would be tied together over the next 12 months...)
Posted by: John at September 6, 2003 11:26 AMWell there's a difference between being a member
of what could be a potential insurgent group in the future; (Mecha) and a known member of a known
American death squad, and counterpart to the South
African AWB (Byrd's KKK)
You sure this is from the LA Times??!!
Posted by: Rick T. at September 6, 2003 3:00 PMPaul S. has a very good point: forget about whether Bustamonte's prior associations are analygous to the KKK--being connected with with the demon-possessed Aztecs is quite bad enough. Read anything about the Aztecs, it will freeze your heart. The conquistadors' reaction to this most literal holocaust that was Tenochtitlan was striking similar to that of the allies (both Russian and American) who liberated the Nazi death camps. It was horror, and disgust, and the need to, as J.R.R. Tolkien put it, ". . . drive away bad night with bright iron."
Posted by: Lou Gots at September 6, 2003 3:54 PMThe Republicans better have a few cards up their
sleave to bring Bustamante down as hard as
Lott. If they don't destroy his staewide career than they are useless as a political party.
He has not dissavowed his past yet so I think
the die is cast. All it takes is an old reunion
photo and a likage to some more unreconstructed
Mechistas.
I think Arnold's baggage is out and seems to have
met a fairly ho-hum reaction.