June
8, 2006
The Roar of the Crowd
By
Jack D. McNamara
Delegates to the
Republican state convention in San Antonio last week roared their
approval of Governor Rick Perry’s stern border stance.
The party faithful met Friday and Saturday. On Thursday the draft
platform was circulated to the press so comments were heard as the
delegates met.
One statement … “in at least one documented instance the Mexican
military entered Texas in support of organized drug trafficking
operations …” seemed to cite the incident at Neely’s Crossing in
Hudspeth County. Neither the U.S. Government nor the Mexican government
has concluded the incident involved the Mexican military.
The “order on the border” section states, “The party believes that all
necessary physical, financial, legal and technological means must be
deployed immediately to stop the flow of illegal aliens, organized
crime and potential terrorists across our borders.”
The draft platform challenges the federal government in no uncertain
terms and instead actively promotes an expansion of Texas state
programs.
We have come a long way from the 2000 elections of George W. Bush and
Vicente Fox, “Los Dos Amigos.” Back in that gentler time the Texas
President was seen as a break from our Yahoo past. The free
enterprise/free market Mexican president had just cracked the 70-year
reign of the corrupt PRI party and George W. Bush was celebrated far
and wide for his sensitivity to ethnically Hispanic issues. Speaking of
those who come here from Mexico, Bush said that as a nation we wanted
anyone who crossed the searing northern Mexico deserts to find
employment so he could support his family.
On the hardheaded angle of political calculation, Bush was lauded for
achieving as much as 40% of the U.S. Hispanic vote in succeeding
elections. Political professionals have taken it as a given that the
Republican Party will be at a great demographic disadvantage in the
years to come if the party cannot increase its percentage of the
Hispanic vote because the Hispanic population is the most rapidly
expanding U.S. minority.
We repeat these oft-repeated facts because in a world where political
expression is minutely calibrated for effect at the polls the draft
language released last Thursday evening is notable.
The term “illegal alien” in the draft has been outside polite politics
(politically correct) for several years. Immediately after the 2000
election in Mexico, President Fox’s Administration let it be known that
neither he nor his countrymen appreciated the term. In simplified terms
they noted that “alien” was a ridiculous word to apply to people who
have been residents of the Southwest for thousands of years. The term
“illegal” is also condemned because it is self-evident that those
Mexicans working in the U.S. without benefit of government
documentation are nevertheless working for legitimate employers.
President Fox’s first Foreign Secretary, Jorge Casteñeda,
declared that the persons under discussion were in fact “migrants.” The
new term was intentionally broader, suggesting a population movement
perhaps centuries in development, an idea inviting both intellectual
accommodation and practical deal making.
The literati often referred to the economic and cultural integration of
Europe as a model, suggesting occasionally that all of North America
was clearly a community.
Over the weekend Texas Republicans said adios to both the “Amigos.” The
party’s inclinations are hard line law-and-order politics. The
newspapers are full of the delegates’ direct criticisms of the Waco
rancher George W. Bush. As an unidentified politician said, it is
getting “ugly.”
As if that were not bad enough, both Perry and the delegates said “No
amnesty. No how. No way.”
By the time the Sunday papers were reporting the convention the
preferred term was “illegal immigrants.” But “aliens” is injected into
the Internet and now flies around the world. From “illegal alien” to
“migrant” and then back again in six years is a long journey in
political rhetoric.
Much of the heat in this rhetoric is derived from the pro-immigrant May
Day and Cinco de Mayo demonstrations. But whatever the spark the heat
is unmistakable and it will likely be with us through Election Day in
November.
Governor Perry did not endorse all the conventions’ proposals. It is
not unusual for a Republican candidate to deviate from the delegates’
line on many specifics propounded by the grass roots. Ample room is
provided for an ongoing discussion of just what specifics are desirable
to achieve the “border security” in the draft platform.
The most significant is the enthusiastic support for coordination of
law enforcement in the campaign against “illegal immigrants.” About
$100 million was proposed by Governor Perry for enhancement of
Operation Rio Grande, the program to increase support for border county
sheriffs.
At the same time the Republicans loudly deplored the 31% reduction of
Texas’s Homeland Security appropriation. We join New York and
Washington, D.C. in our outrage.
The use of offensive border security terms was dwarfed by news of
Governor Perry’s webcam initiative. All over the world people are
reading of the governor’s $20 million proposal to place real-time,
online webcams along all of Texas’s 2000-mile border. The idea seems to
be that we will be able to tune into a camera and watch illegal
immigration along the Rio Grande.
Now this is a significant advance in the march of civilization. Soon we
will be able to change channels from border incursions to the Alpine
City Council in action on Channel 5.
Changing political channels from international to national to state to
local gives new meaning to “not in my back yard.”
This is overwhelmingly a good thing because the May 13 victory by Mayor
Mickey Clouse's faction in the Alpine municipal election suggests a
political bloodbath of epic proportions. The agenda for the council
meeting of June 6 includes 26 items of “new business.”
Buttressed
by the majority she wants (and reinforced by a 200-vote-plus
margin of victory), Madame Mayor proposes to purge five committees and
one mayor pro tem. She also proposes to hand the keys to the city
treasury back to the city hall staff.
Such are the spoils of victory.
Alpine provides a continuing example of political irony. The 2006
election displaced two of the most aggressive budget hawks on the
council, Ward 2 Representative Anna Monclova and Ward 5 Representative
Bob Brewer. Along with Avinash Rangra and Katie Elms-Lawrence that
majority struggled for three years to first discover what was going on
in city finances, then control it, and lastly maybe balance the budget
in accordance with state law. They did that.
As a result a new majority takes over with a possible surplus of
several hundred thousand dollars. Which means of course that the new
majority gets to spend the revenues their predecessors secured.
We anticipate a long line of claimants to that money. Spending public
money is a celebratory event in our contemporary political communities.
The George W. Bush Administration, in six years, has turned a $300
billion-plus federal government surplus into a $600 billion deficit. •
(Also published by the Big Bend
Sentinel of Marfa, Texas June 8, 2006.)
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