KAUS's E-Response re: BUSTAMANTE/MEChA

[UTUSN]

----- Original Message -----
From: Mickey Kaus
To:
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 3:42 PM
Subject: Re: the MEChA Allegations About Cruz


thanks. will check it out. sounds like the same old defense.

----- Original Message -----
From:
To: [e-mail]
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: the MEChA Allegations About Cruz


I've only recently dipped into your KF, and not closely, so I'm not on solid ground on whether your theme of the allegedly racist MEChA slogan that Cruz stolidly refuses to disavow is still current in KF.

But here's a rebuttal from an unfriendly (to Cruz) source, Ruben NAVARRETTE, somebody I usually don't agree with, since he is one more Affirmative Action product who finds his way into disagreeing with most things Democratic and pretzeling himself into tortured support for all things Shrub.

******QUOTE*****
http://www.postwritersgroup.com/archives/nava0909.htm
.... Today at colleges around the country you're likely to find better attendance at a meeting of the Hispanic Business Students Association. Those who do join MEChA are likely to find a majority of the organization's time and energy dedicated to planning festivals, forums and folklorico dancing.

Now, I ask you, is that any way to lead a revolution?

Just don't try telling any of this to the gaggle of right-wing pundits who have convinced themselves that MEChA is all about racial separatism and the Chicano equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis. It all started when syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin incorrectly identified the group's motto as: Por La Raza todo. Fuera de la Raza nada. (For the Mexican people everything, for others nothing.) Actually, the phrase comes from "El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan," a poem espousing Chicano nationalism that emerged at a Chicano youth conference in Denver in March 1969. MEChA wasn't founded until the following month at another conference in Santa Barbara. Its real motto is, La Union Hace La Fuerza (Unity Creates Strength). ....

*****UNQUOTE****

[pop goes the weasel]

1. I doubt Kaus will change his mind.

He seems very threatened at the notion that Mexican Americans might actually like their cultural heritage, want to preserve it, and at the same time hope to gain power and status in US society as a whole. He reads the rhetoric of some of the MEChA clubs as if it constitutes a plan for bloody revolution rather than an inspiring cultural mythos, and he loves his fear so much that he refuses to credit the truth.

[oasis]

2. Ann Coulter was asked "Is there any liberal you do like?" Her reply:

Mickey Kaus.

[UTUSN]

3. Yep to #1 & 2

He hears actual Latinos - like even NAVARRETTE for what HE's worth - give their answer and to KAUS it's "the same old defense." Uh, could it be because it's true?

His latest item on this topic is partly convincing, about the translation of the slogan, how "FOR the race" might be "THROUGH the race..." -------then a second part tracing the slogan to CASTRO and before that, the Church.

And re: COULTER/KAUS - KAUS's father said something like, "My son, the Fascist."