It Seems To Me...

Immigration Fears: It’s All about Sowing and Reaping

2012-01-31T19:14:00.000-08:00

This article was originally posted on another one of my blog sites on Thursday, April 29, 2010.

The Arizona Legislature has dug itself into a deep hole due to the recently enacted (mean-spirited) legislation aimed at all Latinos, one that will make it extremely difficult to ever be recognized as "The Golden Rule State" again; a motto emblazened on it's cars' license plate that belies a 'help thy neighbor' status it once claimed.
There is a verse in the Bible of which I have known and believed strongly in for the longest time, which states, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows,” (Galatians 6:7).

This verse basically states that whatever a person (or a nation) does, whether good or bad, whatever seeds they plant, the net produce will yield a like-minded harvest. Some folks call it Karma, a term that comprises the entire cycle of cause and effect. Karma is a sum of all that an individual or country has done, is currently doing and will do. The effects of all deeds actively create present and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one's own life, and the pain in others.

During my years as a teacher in both Los Angeles and Riverside school districts, I always shared this sowing and reaping philosophy with my students. I used to tell them that they can’t plant wheat and expect a harvest of tomatoes. I used this analogy to tell them that they can’t sit back and watch others work harder than them and expect to be promoted or make the same salary they do. It was my way of telling the kids to work as hard as they could and never give up on trying to fulfill their dreams. Some of the students complained that there is too much discrimination and no matter how hard they try, many doors will be closed. I told them to never, ever let anyone discourage them from being the best that they can be.

[Joe Ortiz interviews Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, with Cesar Chavez, at the 20th anniversay of the Chicano Moratorium held in East Los Angeles]

At the same time, I also told the predominate community (through my radio, TV talk shows and newspaper columns), that they needed to embrace minorities and bring them into all aspects of the American experience. I supported bilingual education in the early grades because it helped immigrant kids to assimilate into the American mainstream at a more accelerated pace. I also told my students to master the English language, which is the key to excelling in any subject matter and sorely needed later in life to compete in the American marketplace. My entire career involvement included supporting numerous scholarship and other educational opportunity programs for young Latinos and Latinas, and basically seeking for them total inclusion to all economic, social, political and media institutions. I used to tell the predominate community, however, that if they continue to exclude Latinos from these institutions, one day those actions will come back to haunt them. My belief in the sowing and reaping axiom was the primary logic for this caveat.

Unfortunately, most of those doors remained closed, and no amount of civil dialogue was as affective as the walkouts and demonstrations in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Yet, many of us civil rights era activists tried. Now, primarily due to America’s incessant demand for cheap labor, immigrants from Mexico cross over to this country in droves. This didn’t bother too many folks until recently; it now scares many of them to death. Sadly, the current debate on illegal immigration has brought to the surface much inherent negativity (building high fences, community activist patrolling of the borders and mean-spirited legislation) towards Latinos in general.

The reasons cited are that illegal immigrants are taxing America’s education and the health delivery systems, taking jobs away from US Citizens, and (what they wont admit to publicly is) that their presence here is now diluting a predominately white Anglo-Saxon culture. Many even say that most of the criminals in American jails are illegal immigrants who have been arrested for sexual crimes. Basically, as the Mandingo metaphor was used to demean and stereotype African Americans as sexual savages who prey on white woman, thereby blocking them from gaining their rightful place in the American landscape, these similar tactics and fallacious accusations are being used to incite white America to stereotype Mexicans as worthless human beings and a pariah on a cultured society.

Although their epithets are baseless and amount to panic rhetoric, it is having a reactionary affect designed to keep immigrant labor from coming into this country, and it most certainly provides cannon-fodder to many American citizens who are bitterly impassioned to get rid of those who are already here, including the young Mexican American citizens who were born in the US to immigrant parents.

However, there is a major difference in the historical xenophobic saga of blacks and Mexicans. Africans did not migrate to America; they were forcibly brought here to function as slave laborers. The Mexican experience could be considered worse. While Mexico is one of America’s closest neighbors, we have always been treated (stereotypically) as “those people” from the other side of the tracks.

The United States could have openly welcomed Mexicans to share equally in the America Dream a long time ago. If for no other reason than for their help in building America's infrastructure (railroads, dams, mines and agricultural) through their blood, sweat and tears! They say they have done so, but only to a certain point, always reminding us to keep ourselves in our place. There has never truly been a sincere acceptance, but they keep insisting we have to assimilate or at least acculturate to their own identity. While many of us have tried, they still treat Mexicans as mere peons.

A former colleague of mine, Xavier Hermosillo, (the 2nd Mexican American to conduct a significant talk show on KABC Radio) made a statement on the air about 20 years ago concerning the affect unwelcomed immigration was having on this country, which received much media attention, but little follow up by America’s institutions. Hermosillo coined the phrase, “Wake up America, and smell the refried beans.”

Hermosillo was in essence stating that, whether Americans likes it or not, Mexicans are part of the fabric of this country’s freedom quilt, if for no other reasons than that they are already here. This is what scares many white Americans. No “ship them back to Mexico” legislation will change this. America has always had a chance to welcome Mexicans with open arms, to participate in every aspect of the American Dream. But it didn’t! Despite this institutional derisiveness, Mexicans have worked hard in school and have remained determined to succeed in America. They now represent a more than significant consumer power, and have made tremendous inroads into the political arena, a reality that will soon haunt those who tried to keep Mexicans from sharing in the American dream!

It’s plain and simple! America is now reaping what it sowed!
~
[As a third-generation Mexican American, born and raised in the United States, a military veteran, a law-abiding, taxpayer, who has been blessed by God with the ability to articulate the hopes, dreams and aspirations of the Latino people and their varying subcultures, my first and foremost responsibility is to God, family and then country. Many of my fellow Americans (and even some family members) are upset that I abide by my mandate from God to boldly speak up for immigrants and their basic human rights (whether they are considered legal or non-legal). What many may not realize, is that God, commands all of us to do so! ]
Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the poor and needy. (Proverbs 31:8-9)
~
Joe Ortiz is the first Mexican American to host an English-language talk show on a commercial radio station (KABC-AM Talk Radio, 1971). He is the author of The End Times Passover and Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation (Author House), two books that refute the Left Behind and Pre-Tribulation Rapture doctrines, as well as white sumpremacist and racially motivated nativist ideologies promulgated by Right-Wing Evangelicals.

He lives in Redlands and writes for several local and national periodicals. For more information about his blogs and books, click on Joe Ortiz Associates

Movie, The Alamo, Provides a Clue for Racial Harmony!

2011-12-20T05:47:00.000-08:00

I saw the movie The Alamo over the weekend and walked away with something I have always known. Half way through it, an extremely important message concerning racial unity was uttered by one of the actors, and many people will probably miss it.

Promoters of the movie before it came out touted it as being more historically accurate than the former version, starring John Wayne, Richard Widmark and other legendary actors. This version, starring Billy Bob Thornton (as Davy Crockett) and Dennis Quaid (as Sam Houston), supposedly would include much fact that native Tejanos (Mexicans born in Texas) played a significant role in defending the Alamo, and contributed greatly to Texas becoming a republic and eventually becoming the 28^th state in the Union on February 29, 1845. One of those heroes was Juan Seguin.

Seguin was born in 1806 into a long-established Tejano family in San Antonio, Texas. History records little of Seguin’s early life, but he was a staunch critic of Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, the despot leader of Mexico who had a strangle hold on Texas in the 1830's. Santa Ana personally led the slaughter of a group of Texas patriots at a former mission turned mini fortress in San Antonio called the Alamo.
Seguin was a strong political ally of William Travis, the Lt. Colonel who valiantly died defending the Alamo while commandeering its volunteer and military forces. Seguin played an active role in the Texas revolution. He served as provisional mayor of San Antonio and led a band of fellow Tejanos against Santa Ana's army in 1835. He was also at the Alamo for the first part of the siege, and survived that massacre because he was sent to gather reinforcements. Later, Seguin and his Tejano Company fought at the battle of San Jacinto, helping to defeat Santa Ana's army.

Seguin, however, would soon feel the sword of betrayal by the aftermath of the Texas Revolution. Many cities in Texas moved to expel all of their Tejano residents and, even in his hometown of San Antonio, many anglos seriously favored such a move. But his most devastating pain came when Seguin helped defeat a Mexican expedition against San Antonio in 1842. In an effort to turn anglo Texans against him, Seguin was publicly accused my some that he was more loyal to Mexico than Texas. Although Seguin was the mayor of San Antonio at the time, anglos who had been his former comrades suddenly turned on him. They drove him from the city where he had been born and forced him to flee to Mexico. Seguin's dream (that the Texas revolution would mean freedom for all Texans) was shattered.

Seguin was forced to seek shelter in Mexico amongst those whom he had fought against seeking Texas’ independence. He became separated from his homeland, parents, family, relatives and friends. The Mexican government didn’t welcome Seguin with open arms. Upon his arrival in Nuevo Laredo in 1842, Mexican authorities arrested him and told him to choose between serving in the Mexican army or face imprisonment. He reluctantly chose to join the army, and fought in the Mexican-American war against the United States. After the war Seguin received permission to return toTexas.

However, in 1867 Seguin was the victim of further racial harassment that forced him back to Mexico. He died in Nuevo Laredo in 1890, right across the Rio Grande from the land for whose independence he had fought so bravely for. The movie didn’t reveal this aspect of the heroism and dilemma experienced by many patriotic (American) Tejanos.

Sadly, this untold account of one of the most valiant Tejanos engaged in the Alamo serves as a grim reminder to many Americans of Mexican descent. Many find themselves experiencing the same agony. Thousand upon thousands of Mexican Americans (and other Latinos) have sacrificed their lives for America’s freedom on foreign land. During the Second World War, Hispanics received more Congressional Medals of Honor than any other ethnic group. A close look at today’s news reports reveals that many Latinos (some who weren’t even born in the United States), are still placing their lives in Harm’s Way to defend America. Yet, while most Latinos are proud, hard-working and tax-paying Americans, many still face derisiveness to one degree or the other. Sadly, they are also castigated by Mexican nationals who still call Mexican Americans pochos, a Spanish word which translated means sick or impure. Like Seguin, many Mexican Americans still find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

However, the movie did contain a line delivered by Billy Bob Thornton, which rang ever so loudly in my mind and heart, as a cure for racial unity. As the story unfolded, Santa Ana’s large army was encamped about a half a mile across from the Alamo. The Mexican soldiers pointed their giant cannons towards the Alamo, and continuously fired its thunder balls to chip away at their resolve. Each time before they launched their immense fire power at the hapless few defending the small mission turned into a symbolic fortress, the Mexican army’s drum and bugle corps preceded the cannon volleys by playing a gruesome sounding tune to psychologically instill terror in the hearts of the volunteers. Right before one of those attacks, Billy Bob Thornton (as Crockett) stood up and said, “I know what’s missing.”

He quickly got up to one of the Alamo’s towers and began playing a patriotic tune on his violin. As the violin sounds wafted loudly towards the Mexican encampment, both adversaries stood in stunned silence as the Mexican bugles’ and drums’ blaring cacophony melded with Crockett’s music to form a melodious and quieting sonata.

After a few moments, the volunteers manning the Alamo nervously waited for the cannons to start pounding them again, but nothing happened. The next scene shows Billy Bob Thornton musing at what had just happened, and he uttered probably the most profound line in the entire movie, one that can bode well for racial unity in this country:

“It’s amazing what a little bit of harmony can accomplish!”

-30-

[Joe Ortiz has the distinction of being the first Mexican American in US history to host an English-language talk show on a commercial radio station. He currently lives in Redlands, California and is the author of a two newly published books, The End Times Passover and Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation (Author House). For more information, click Joe Ortiz Web Sites & Blogs

[Originally posted on Sunday, April 25, 2010 on another blog]

2011-11-24T01:53:00.001-08:00

Legendary Twice Super Bowl Winning Coach, Tom Flores, Left Off the NFL Hall of Fame Semifinal List ~ Shame, Shame, NFL ~

by Joe Ortiz on Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 12:48am

He has FOUR Super Bowl Championship rings; one as a player, one as an assistant coach (under John Madden) and twice as head coach for the World Super Bowl Champion Los Angeles and Oakland Raiders.

But, that's not enough to convince the voters to consider inducting the first Mexican American quarterback and head coach in pro football, as well as the first General Manager of a professional football team (with the Seattle Seahawks), among many other accomplishments to be so honored.

Tom Flores has distinguished himself in the pro-football community as few have (much less the fact he is a Latino) in the last 51 years, and still going strong as a color commentator for the Oakland Raiders Radio Network. He is already a member of the California Sports Hall of Fame and the old American Football (and holds several records as a quarterback in that fledgling) league that reached such profound football greatness it had to be considered legitimate enough in the course of its play that it caused having to merge with the established league. Had there been no merger football fans would not be enjoying the most significant sporting event in world history, the Super Bowl. How many current inductees in the NFL HOF can present a greater resume?

Flores was recently honored by the National Council of La Raza with the coveted "Roberto Clemente Award for Sports Excellence" in Washington, D.C. That gesture was not based on a public relations ploy by the Mexican American community. It is aware (and it recognized) one individual from within its community that has not only distinguished himself above and beyond the norm, but has surpassed many of the accomplishments from other members of the predominate community with a committment to excellence rarely experienced.

If nothing else (and we all know there is a certain amount of politics that plays into the minds of the voters) the owners could have made note to the voters that based on the changing demographics, electing a Latino to the Hall of Fame would have been a stroke of public relations genius, which would obviously increase attendance. Obviously, it would have created a more appreciated atmosphere towards a consumer that will soon be the largest paying customer in the sports community.

Look out NFL, the game of soccer (which is favored by Latinos more than pro football) is rearing its ugly head.
Oh well!

[Click this link to see Tom Flores' acceptance speech. It will make you proud to be an American]

The semifinalists for the 2012 National Football League Hall of Fame are listed below, in alphabetical order:

Steve Atwater, S — 1989-1998 Denver Broncos, 1999 New York Jets
Jerome Bettis, RB — 1993-95 Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams, 1996-2005 Pittsburgh Steelers
Tim Brown, WR/KR — 1988-2003 Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders, 2004 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Cris Carter, WR — 1987-89 Philadelphia Eagles, 1990-2001 Minnesota Vikings, 2002 Miami Dolphins
Don Coryell, Coach — 1973-77 St. Louis Cardinals, 1978-1986 San Diego Chargers
Roger Craig, RB — 1983-1990 San Francisco 49ers, 1991 Los Angeles Raiders, 1992-93 Minnesota Vikings
Terrell Davis, RB — 1995-2001 Denver Broncos
Dermontti Dawson, C — 1988-2000 Pittsburgh Steelers
Edward DeBartolo Jr., Owner — 1979-2000 San Francisco 49ers
Chris Doleman, DE/LB — 1985-1993, 1999 Minnesota Vikings, 1994-95 Atlanta Falcons, 1996-98 San Francisco 49ers
Kevin Greene, LB/DE — 1985-1992 Los Angeles Rams, 1993-95 Pittsburgh Steelers, 1996, 1998-99 Carolina Panthers, 1997 San Francisco 49ers
Charles Haley, DE/LB — 1986-1991, 1999 San Francisco 49ers, 1992-96 Dallas Cowboys
Cortez Kennedy, DT — 1990-2000 Seattle Seahawks
Curtis Martin, RB — 1995-97 New England Patriots, 1998-2005 New York Jets
Clay Matthews, LB — 1978-1993 Cleveland Browns, 1994-96 Atlanta Falcons
Karl Mecklenburg, LB — 1983-1994 Denver Broncos
Bill Parcells, Coach — 1983-1990 New York Giants, 1993-96 New England Patriots, 1997-99 New York Jets, 2003-06 Dallas Cowboys
Andre Reed, WR — 1985-1999 Buffalo Bills, 2000 Washington Redskins
Willie Roaf, OT — 1993-2001 New Orleans Saints, 2002-05 Kansas City Chiefs
Donnie Shell, S — 1974-1987 Pittsburgh Steelers
Will Shields, OG — 1993-2006 Kansas City Chiefs
Paul Tagliabue, Commissioner — 1989-2006 National Football League
Steve Tasker, ST/WR — 1985-86 Houston Oilers, 1986-1997 Buffalo Bills
Aeneas Williams, CB/S — 1991-2000 Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals, 2001-04 St. Louis Rams
Ron Wolf, Contributor — 1963-1974, 1978-1990 Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders, 1975-77 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 1990 New York Jets, 1991-2001 Green Bay Packers
George Young, Contributor — 1968-1974 Baltimore Colts, 1975-78 Miami Dolphins, 1979-1997 New York Giants, 1998-2001 National Football League

Tom Flores has earned 4 Super Bowl Championship rings

An Open Message to Lamar Smith, Texas Congressman ~

2011-09-14T18:45:00.000-07:00

The following 'open letter' to Texas Congressmen Lamar Smith is in response to his efforts to enact H.R. 2885, the most powerful bill ever to be considered in Congressional Committee, ostensibly designed to turn off what Smith believes is a job magnet for illegal immigration and ostensibly to protect jobs for the American worker. Let's call it what it really is, a hate bill designed to appease the out-of-control xenophobia that pervades the American spirit!

You are to distribute this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. 22 You are to allot it as an inheritance for yourselvesand for the aliens who have settled among you and who have children. You are to consider them as native-born Israelites; along with you they are to be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. 23 in whatever tribe the alien settles, there you are to give him his inheritance," declares the Sovereign LORD (Ezekiel 47:21)!
We have been sharing the above group of scriptures with friends, neighbors and relatives (actually, with the entire general public) through this blog, making the case that government bodies (local, statewide and national) cannot supersede God's laws. Those folks who are vehemently and adamantly opposed to immigrants in this country, always use (as their last resort and feeling it's) the most powerful argument in their political arsenal, that immigrants who cross the border to this country are law-breakers, therefore they need to be punished.
If anyone presents logical or common sensical arguments that proposing new laws such as H.R. 2885 and SB1070 that was enacted by the government of Arizona does not address the concerns they have about American unemployment, terrorist fears or drug trafficking, (such as Doris Meisner's article that appeared in the Washington Post on May 5, 2010, which more than sufficiently argued that immigration problems are more myth than fact), proponents of the law always come back and say, "Regardless, they are breaking the law."

Even when Meisner pointed out that 40% of the alleged "illegal immigrants" came through with proper credentials and visas, but over-stayed their time limits, their retort is, "They are now illegal even though they crossed over with proper documents, they are still law-breakers."

Yet, we did not hear any complaints about immigrants taking jobs away from Americans when they were here with legal documentation! Why? Because immigrants for the most part were holding jobs most Americans would ever dream of doing. Has anyone seen a non-brown person picking grapes lately? Or any complaints that farmers are discriminating against non-brown people seeking those back-breaking, heat exhausting to near death jobs?
When we point out that there is a greater principle to this immigration saga, they poo poo the scripture we send them (we have posted over 190 Bible verses on my other blog last year) that clearly state that God has a special place in His heart for the poor and the alien, and He will punish those who mistreat these people.
Yet, they come back stating that God does not favor law-breakers, therefore "Illegal Immigrants" must be arrested and pay for their crimes (of crossing the border without documentation to find work to feed their family)."
Well, folks, what can we say? If they don't believe what God most clearly states through His spoken word, maybe they will believe someone else. As we were pondering this matter, we see printed in today's Internet an article that more eloquently states our case; one that reminded us of a statement Jesus made when He delivered a parable concerning Lazarus and Rich Man to His disciples.
As the parable went, Lazarus was a beggar who died and the angels carried Him to Abraham's house (heaven) and when the rich man died he was sent to hell. The rich man is seen pleading for mercy, asking that at least Abraham will send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, because he is in agony in this fire.'
"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.' 27" He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.' 29" Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.' 30" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'31" He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "(Luke 16:25-31)
The point in the parable by Jesus is that people basically are very hard headed when it comes to things of God. Most don't believe in authorities (like Moses and the Prophets) and many are so thick-headed, they won't believe even Jesus who rose from the dead.
But, not Christians! Right?
They believe in Jesus' resurrection, which (for the most part they claim) guarantees their right to spend eternity with Christ when He returns to rule and reign on earth forever!
Unfortunately, that belief seems to be the only thing they cling to and many of them also feel that they don't have to obey God's laws anymore because they now have salvation, by grace. Not only individual Christians believe this way, but many governments, whether it be companies, churches and all (local, state and federal) governing entities, believe thus because they possess the power to enact laws to suit their own purposes, based on the "cash-heavy" contributors who assured their elections. They stir up the emotions of the public by using their media manipulators (from both the left and the right sides) to eventually do their bidding, and then they claim the people (their constituents) demanded these new laws!
These politicians and their contributors (largely major corporations and very wealthy donors, who control most media) pretty much dictate how laws are enacted in the US, in order for them to benefit their compatriots' pocketbooks. And, many times those laws they enact actually negate the proverbial laws established by the same person who gave and clearly set forth their duties of governance. Hallelujah! Instead of governing the body as God intended, they rule the way they want to, feeling they now know better than God!
Well, they don't believe Moses, nor the Prophets, and most certainly do not believe nor obey (as Jesus stated in the parable) someone who rose from thedead!
OK! OK! Let's give this proclamation effort one more human try.
The writer of the following article makes some powerful points in regards to what the governing bodies' responsibilities are all about, and one thing they most definitely should not do, is to supersede God's immutable laws.

Let's Bring Down Political Gods!
By Gary DeMar | Published: May 7, 2010

Rep. André Carson, an elected official from Indiana’s 7th District, believes that people who are involved in calling this present civil government (both Democrats and Republicans) to account are similar to Islamic terrorists. Here’s an exchange between Washington Times reporter Kerry Pickett and Carson:
KERRY PICKET: Do you think the people outside are generally dangerous or no?
REP. CARSON: Oh absolutely. I worked in homeland security. I’m from intelligence, and I’ll tell you, one of the largest threats to our internal security…. I mean terrorism has an Islamic face, but it really comes from racial supremacist groups. . . . It’s the kind of thing we keep a threat assessment on record [for].
PICKET: From groups like this?
REP. CARSON: Oh absolutely.
Does Carson offer any evidence of terrorist acts? No. He doesn’t have to since he believes that to question what this (his) government is doing is by definition a terrorist act. Criticism and the warning of removing someone from office through the electoral process are terrorist threats for the simple reason that government has become a god, and as such, “No other god can be put before it.” To criticize god, is to blaspheme and commit treason.
Rep. Carson needs a lesson in civil government from God’s perspective. God established civil government to be an avenger who brings wrathupon those who practice evil. The civil government's power to use the sword is legitimate in certain limited cases. The Bible has mandated that the power of the sword is to keep the peace, to protect those who do what is right. Civil rulers are said to be “ministers of God” similar to the way pastors are “ministers of God.” They are God’s “deacons” in their designated governments, one ecclesiastical and the other civil.
Not all rulers live up to the honorable title of “minister.” Paul is speaking of the ideal. Not everyone who rules is ministering in the biblical sense: “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock ... I know that after my departuresavage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:28–30).
What’s true in the church is equally true in civil government. Not every ruler who seizes power or who is elected to office will minister in a just way (e.g., Pontius Pilate, Herod, Hitler, etc.). Paul is describing what a ruler’s proper function is. The apostle is not making a moral judgment about any particular ruler or political policy. Rather, his words describe what civil governments ought to be and ought to do. Every ruler should seek to minister as Christ ministered.
Jesus called Herod “that fox” (Luke 13:32). Jesus was not calling the legitimacy of civil government into question. He was making a value judgment about the government of Herod. This shows that it is biblically proper to criticize a ruler. Of course, our own Constitution gives us that right in that we can petition the government for a “redress of grievances” (First Amendment) and vote anyone out of office for any reason.
The typical ruler of Jesus’ day was a tyrant. “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them” (Luke 22:25). The distinguishing characteristic of true leadership is that of a servant. The ministry of the civil magistrate does not exist to serve its own end; it’s not a god. The true minister (servant) exists to serve others, but never apart from the laws of God. This means that the citizenry should not appeal to the magistrate to govern outside his designated ministerial duties.
The rulers in the realm of civil government must rule according to God’s law, the standard of good and evil. No government has the freedom to rule by some arbitrary man-centered standard of good and evil or the “will of the people.” The civil magistrate is a true minister when it operates according to biblical guidelines. The additional duties of civil governments are the well ordering of society and the maintaining of peace so that Christians are free to worship God, unhindered by forces hostile to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The State has the duty to preserve law and order so that the Church is free to spread the gospel of peace. The civil government must be made to realize that there is no real peace without the presence of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
This climate of peace can only be accomplished by administering justice and righteousness to everyone. Justice and righteousness are defined in terms of God’s law. Civil rulers are commissioned to represent God as the judge. They act in such a capacity when they punish those who do evil (i.e., break God’s laws), as well as publicly commend those who do good (Romans 13:3–4).

Thanks Gary DeMar! They laugh when we try to point this fact to them. Hopefully, your eloquent article will resonate. As we stated above, they no longer listen to the words of Moses nor of the Prophets, nor of the one person who sacrificed so much just to give His creation the opportunity to live with Him forever!

For more information about this blog and Joe Ortiz' two newly published books, The End Times Passover and Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation (Author House), please click here Joe Ortiz

Rare Tape of a Radio Show on the Evolution of Chicano Rock Music Found!

2011-08-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

The tape contains music and interviews with Chicano rock pioneers TIERRA,YAQUI, Mark Guerrero and Chicano rock music producer, Art Brambila, which aired40 years ago on KLOS-FM in Los Angeles, CA.

Memories,precious memories!
There isn’t a Chicano alive today whodoesn’t recognize the title of the 1980 hit record made famous by the legendaryEast Los Angeles-based Chicano rock group, TIERRA!

Little did most Chicano rock music devotees and aficionados know that TIERRAactually recorded an album almost ten years before its giant “Memories” hit that,which, for the most part, contained and important message about the Chicanoculture, with original music that has become the standard sound that epitomizesthe indeginous East Los Angeles music style, which combines a unique blend ofrock, soul, R & B, salsa and Latin Jazz.

Well, lo and behold, a rare radio show that showcasedTIERRA’s music along with other pioneers of that unique musical sound, has beendiscovered and it includes an interview and the music of the person who foundthe tape among others loaned to him by friend and former manager, Chicano musicproducer, Art Brambila.

“I was simply going through some old reel to reel tapes in an old box that Art loaned me a couple of years ago, looking for material to add to myChicano music history web site, “ said Mark Guererro, a veteransinger-songwriter who hosts a web site that probably contains more informationabout Chicano music artists than anyone else in the world.
"When I started playing this one tape, I couldn't believe what I was hearing,"Guerrero said.

The tape that Guerrero found contained a recording of ashow on KLOS-FM radio station in Los Angeles where he was interviewed in 1972 byJoe Ortiz, Chicano talk show host pioneer, along with members of Chicano Rockband legends TIERRA and YAQUI and their manager, Art Brambila.

“Here I sat, stunned, listeningto my song I'mBrown and being interviewed on a radio show that wasbroadcast 40 years ago,” said Guerrero.

After listening to the entire show, Guerrero quicklygot on the phone and called Ortiz, a close friend since they met back in 1972when he appeared on Ortiz’ television show on Channel 2, The Siesta is Over, a month before the radio interview. Guerreroalso quickly called Art Brambila, who was the president of Brown BagProductions, who produced his song as well as the first albums for TIERRA and YAQUIforty years ago. Guerrero told both Brambila and Ortiz that he would email thema copy of the show as soon as he was finished dubbing the tape into MP3 format.

“I have many tapes of radio interviews I conducted onmy shows in the mid 80’s to the 90’s, said Ortiz, “but nothing going back tothe days when I first began working as a talk show host in 1971 at KABC-AM, andthen the following year at its sister station, KLOS-FM. This interview tape thatMark discovered is like finding a golden nugget in the penny jar of Chicanorock music history.”

Ortiz added that the few Chicano broadcasters they hadback in the days before digital video and audio were too focused on takingadvantage of the few media venues available to them to think about recordingthe historical relevance those interviews represented in the late 60’s andearly 70’s. “But, obviously someone recorded that show unbeknownst to me andthe guests on the show.”

“After listening to the MP3 Mark sent me, I called himand Art and told them that they may not realize it, but that show is probablythe only interview in existence where these visionary musicians were presenting the Americanaudience with the most intelligent and profound expression of what has becomean indigenous musical genre that has touched the lives of most Latinosthroughout the world. “

(Mark Guerrero and Art Brambila)

Most certainly, Brambila has always had a dream and avision about the unique sounds he grew up with on Clover Street in the LincolnHeights area of East Los Angeles, the same community where his nephews Rudy andSteve Salas, the founders of TIERRA, were raised, along with Eddie Serrano ofYAQUI.

(Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers ofAmerica,

listens to songwriter Art Brambila’s lyrics of the song he wrote for

the organization called Manana is Now,circa 1976)

“Ihave always known that we (Chicanos) had great talent in all areas, especiallyin the music field, “said Brambila, who later in his career launched atelevision show in the late 70’s called TheMean Salsa Machine, thefirst bi-lingual major market TV show on an English Speaking station, Channel 9,in LosAngeles. Brambila also excelled as a songwriter himself with a tune he penned, Mañana Is Now , for the album Si Se Puede, the 1976 charity album debut of Los Lobos, of which theproceeds from the album went towards the United Farm Workers of America.

(Original cover of TIERRA’s first album, autographedfor Joe Ortiz

by the original members, which he still has in his possession)

“WhenI first started managing these gifted musicians, I knew they had a unique andmarketable sound that would revolutionize the recording industry,” saidBrambila, who hadmuch experience in the marketing division at Capitol Records, but littletechnical in studio experience, but I used that knowledge to promote thesetalented guys,” added Brambila. His efforts resulted in Mark Guerrero, TIERRA andYAQUI signing a contract with major labels Capitol Records, 20^thCentury and Playboy, respectively.

Although Brambila’s vision was being fulfilled duringthose early and trying times, he knew this evolution from being mere Chicanomusic performers would one day not only touch the hearts of Chicano audiencesthroughout the southwest, but the heartfelt message about Chicanos and theirculture would soon provide the predominate community with crucial andinsightful messages they needed to hear.

“When I first heard about Joe’s radio show, we contactedhis producer, Luis Torres, and he booked my guys (TIERRA, YAQUI and MarkGuerrero) right away, said Brambila.”

JoeOrtiz (center) with the founders of TIERRA, the Salas Brothers (Steve on the leftand Rudy far right)

Ortiz, the first Mexican American to conduct a radioshow on an English-language commercial radio station, was known best for promotingenterprising Latinos, groups and organizations on his shows.

“When Joe told us no one had ever discussed nor hadheard the history behind this unique emerging Chicano rock sound on Americanairwaves, little did we realize that the predominately white KLOS-FM audience,was being introduced to the Eastside Soundfor the very first time,” added Brambila.

“Mark, Art, Eddie, Steve and all the guys poured outtheir heart and soul that evening, providing our listeners with informationthey had never heard before,” said Ortiz. “The intelligent and easy tounderstand manner in which they conveyed the cultural nuances of Chicano rockmusic was like listening to music professors giving a lecture to their studentsat a major university.”

Ortiz said those who listen to the tape will be movedby the phone-in callers and their intelligent questions, KLOS audience members whogenuinely were captivated by the sound and wanted to know more about the music’shistory and inspiration.

While the birth of Chicano music goes back to the early 20^thcentury, it began a unique and evolutionary transition in the late sixties,spurned by the Chicano Civil Rights movement. Besides the traditional I love you baby tunes that many Chicanomusicians were playing in the late fifties and early sixties, this new andemerging Chicano rock music containedand was delivering messages in a Dylanesque motif about the lives, hopes andaspirations of Mexican Americans in the greater Los Angeles area.

(Mark Guerrero and hisbrother Dan chat with Bill Clinton after the President bestowed the NationalMedal of Arts to their father, Chicano music icon, Lalo Guerrero, at the WhiteHouse)

“Mark Guerrero’s involvement with Chicano music began rightbefore that era, and much of his heart and soul for this genre is historicaland runs deep,” said Ortiz. “It’s obvious he was influenced to a great degreeby his father, Lalo Guerrero, who is recognized as the Father of Chicano music.”
Yet, Mark developed his own unique style, which is stillevolving; but he does credit Chicano Study classes at Cal State Los Angeles andhis father for instilling in him unique pride in his Chicano heritage.
Prior tohis death on March 17, 2005, Lalo Guerrero, the iconic Chicano music hero was presented the National Medal of Arts by then President Bill Clintonfor a lifetime of achievements, the only Chicano to receive our nation’shighest arts award.

(MarkGuerrero singing I’m Brown

The newly found KLOS-FM interview tape startsoff with Mark’s recording of I'm Brown,of which the lyrics bespeaks his passion for music, the emerging Chicanoculture of that era, and its demand for respect.

(Yaquimembers, left to right, Rudy Regalado, LarryCronen, Ray Rodriguez, Eddie Serrano and Ronnie Reyes. Squatting left to right,George Ochoa and Art Sanchez)

The tape also features YAQUI lead singer George Ochoa’srendition of “Brown Baby” which also cries out the heart and soul of a Chicanoculture indigenous to the East Los Angeles Mexican American community. One of the group’s original tunes and one ofits biggest hits (before Barack Obama capitalized on the slogan) was It'sTime For a Change.

"It's Time for a Change (Tiempo Para UnCambio)," which shows all three artists on Brown Bag Productions, were alsowriting and recording socially relevant music,” said Guerrero. “That songappeared on a compilation in the 90s called "Ay Califas- Raza Rock"(1998) and has also been recorded by Tierra on their latest CD.”

Eddie Serrano (since passed away) left YAQUI and laterbecame the lead singer for another famous Chicano rock group, Cannibal and theHeadhunters, which gained international acclaim for their mega hit,Landof a 1000 Dances.
The tape, which did not have the traditional introduction that normally opened Ortiz’ radio shows, also does not have a closing segment. Mark told Joe the tape was so old that parts of it were practically glued together and he didn’t want to chance destroying it by pulling it apart. Nevertheless, the tape ends with TIERRA's original tune called Barrio Suite, a seven and a half minute musical anthology that virtually encapsulates the Chicano cultural ethos.

(Steve Salas being interview by Joe Ortiz on KLOS-FM)

“To me, personally, BarrioSuite and I'm Brownare probably the two most profound Chicano tunes ever written,” said Brambila.

“Mark’smessage in I'm Brown speaksof the deep-seeded feeling most Chicanos have about their community. Rudy andSteve Salas and the members of TIERRA at that time produced in BarrioSuite a seven and a half minute musical train that takes thelistener on a musical Mexican American culture journey through the barrios ofEast Los Angeles.”

TIERRA

“These talented musicians are still going strong, afterthe forty intervening years, from when that unique interview show
aired,”saidOrtiz. “TIERRA and Mark are still the poet laureates of the Chicano experiencethey were back then, and very few if any new Chicano musicians, will everduplicate their historical work.”

(Left to right, Mark Guerrero and Art Brambila, and JoeOrtiz in the background, meet at Las Fuentes Restaurant in Redlands, CA to discuss what to do with the
tape)
Having found this rare tape, the three discussed thehistorical and educational significance of the show and what they wanted to dowith it. They all agreed the tape represents a significant piece of Chicano rock history and that they should at least post it on their respective websites for fans to download and hear the tape, and also send it out to as manyChicano media and web sites they could find.

“At the least, for thousands of Chicano rock music fanswho listen to this rare interview tape, it seems to me it will definitely bring back manyprecious memories!”

The 50 minute KLOS-FMinterview tape will also be available for those who wantto hear or download the show on the Mark Guerrero website, which also contains the most comprehensive information on the Internet aboutChicano music, its birth and evolution throughout the last 50 years.

Positive Latino Images Did Not Evolve Overnight, It Took Hard Work By Many!

2011-08-24T05:02:00.000-07:00

[Joe Ortiz, event publicist, fields reporter's questions as legendary actor Rita Moreno was presented Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame on June 15, 1995]

There are many Latinos throughout the country who feel they are not getting the respect they deserve for their life's work. Personally, not getting respect is not as important as knowing you did the best you could with the tools you we're given,(Joe Ortiz)!

Latino entrepreneurs are the largest self-employed, innovative business leader group in the country, because they are bold and adventurous. Latino legislators (albeit few in the national window) are strewn all over thousands of small cities and counties throughout the nation, biding their time and learning the power game for the future. In sports, especially in baseball, they are becoming the majority of players. In media, movies and on stage Hispanics are gaining more recognition than ever before, slowly, but steadily, but their visibility didn't evolve automatically. It took much hard work from many dedicated individuals, especially in these last 40 to 50 years!

As I rapidly switch from channel to channel with the remote control in my hand, I’m sometimes moved almost to tears as I see more Hispanic faces on the TV screen than ever before. We still have a long way to go. Nevertheless, I marvel at the handsome and beautiful Latino faces, playing roles on various series that do not depict solely gang bangers, gardeners, maids or hookers. Latino actors like Rosalyn Sanchez, Sara Ramirez, Michael Pena, Vanessa Marcil, Adam Rodriguez, Judy Reyes and Eva Longoria (to name a few) now play leading roles as detectives, doctors, entrepreneurs, lawyers and politicians.

It’s no accident these fine actors are playing significant and non-stereotypical roles. Back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, there were hundreds of Hispanics in the front lines doing battle with executives of the television, radio and motion picture industries to open their once closed doors.

In those days, there were virtually no Hispanic images Latinos could look up to. Yes, Desi Arnaz of I Love Lucy fame was visible; however, what wasn’t known was many Hispanics had to anglicize their names to enter the arena, such as Margarita Canseco, Anthony Rudolph Oaxaca and Luis Antonio Damaso De Alonso - better known as Rita Hayworth, Anthony Quinn and Gilbert Roland, respectively.

Yes there were a few back then who made us proud as we witnessed stars like Rita Moreno, Ricardo Montalban and Cesar Romero, who were the most notable of great actors with a Spanish surname.

Unknown to many in the Hispanic population, as well as the current faces we see on television and the movies now, there existed a vanguard of Hispanic warriors that were struggling to open the ways for positive Latino images. What they contributed to this movement may not appear as significant as those who today are reaping much glory and fame, but their building-block efforts lay a prolific foundation that has to be remembered.

In television news, especially in Southern California, early broadcasting pioneers such as Pete Moraga, who decades ago distinguished himself as a journalist in the international stage, ended his career in Los Angeles in the late 1990's, as did David Garcia.

Locally Bob Navarro had a legendary career for over 30 years in Los Angeles, (who in 1967, as a young high school dropout who grew up near USC), landed one of the most sought-after jobs around: a news writer at then-KNXT-TV Channel 2 on "The Big News," considered by many to be the premier local TV newscast in the country.

Then followed other Latino journalism pioneers such as Frank Cruz, Joe Ramirez, Frank Sotomayor, Joel Garcia, Henry Alfaro, Yolanda Nava, Luis Torres and Diana Munatones, who were a few of the media gladiators who fell on the barbed wire fences of Los Angeles’ media institutions, providing a new generation of Latino actors, newscasters and television personalities the opportunity to piggy-back on their achievements and move into those arenas.

Public service program hosts, such as Fernando Del Rio, Ray Gonzales, Alicia Sandoval, Mario Machado and Linda Alvarez (who is still reporting the news at CBS), also laid their heart and soul to the current foundation.

There were but a handful of Latino print and broadcast news folk back in the early 70’s. One of the founders of the California Chicano News Media Association, Frank Del Olmo, took the Latino journalism baton from the slain journalist, Ruben Salazar, who was killed by a LA Sheriff’s Deputy during the Chicano Moratorium march in East LA on August 29, 1971. Del Olmo (now deceased) wrote thousands of articles and commentaries about Latinos for 33 years at the Los Angeles Times.

The Godfather of Chicano journalism teachers, Professor Felix Gutierrez, has quietly prepared thousands of Latino journalists at USC’ School of Journalism throughout his tenured career. Other print medium pioneers that helped shape positive images of not only actors, politicians and community leaders as well, include Dolores and Jonathon Sanchez of Eastern Group Publications, and one of its finest writers, Rose Soto.

There were also many advocacy groups that helped pry the door open for positive Latino images. Beginning with Ray Andrade’s JUSTICIA organization, many others followed the quest of opening doors to Latinos in the motion picture and television industry including renowned Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban, who founded NOSTROS (Us) in 1970 to improve the image of Hispanic actors. Other groups such as IMAGEN (founded by Helen Hernandez), Bi-Lingual Foundation of The Arts (founded by actress Carmen Zapata) and the National Hispanic Media Coalition, (founded by Alex Nogales and Esther Renteria), have played more than a significant role in their quest for positive Latino images.

In motion pictures, Moctesuma Esparza has made more than a significant impact on the Latino image, a filmmaker whose credits include Gettysburg, The Milagro Beanfield War and Selena, which featured Edward James Olmos, a Latino media icon himself. Luis Valdez’ movies Zoot Suit and La Bamba are now cult films if not legendary. Jesus Trevino, a film maker who documented much of the Latino struggle during the Chicano Movement era now directs many of today’s network television shows, some featuring the Latino stars of today. There are many Latinos who have contributed and impacted greatly to the film genre, including screen writer Frank Zuniga and casting director Robert "Blackie" Morones, among others.

Each and every one of these individuals mentioned, as well as many others too numerous to include, may not be household names to the current crop of Latino actors and broadcasters. But each, in their own unique fashion, played a significant role in shaping the positive Latino images we see today. Those who contributed to this valiant cause and who played unique roles in that struggle, seek no reward or recognition for their efforts. They merely ask that the new guard conduct themselves with the same dedication, dignity and honor we displayed during our respective struggles.

[This article was initially written and posted on Joe Ortiz' blog on October 2009]

Joe Ortiz has the distinction of being the first Mexican American to host an English-language talk show on a commercial radio station (KABC Talk Radio, 1971). He is the author of The End Times Passover and Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation (Author House) two books that refute the Left Behind theories and many right-wing evangelical doctrines. He lives in Redlands and writes for several local and national periodicals. For more information, visit Joe’s web site: The End Times Passover

The following photos represent a small selection of the hundreds and thousands of individuals, groups, community organizations, Latino media and entertainment icons who fought to open doors of opportunities for Latinos in the communications industry in the last 4 to 5 decades. And many more battles loom in the horizon, our work is not complete. To see another 250 or so photos, log in to the PHOTO GALLERY at Joe Ortiz Associates

Producer Benjamin Esparza and Chicano music icon Lalo Guerrero

Music Ethnomusicologist Phillip Sonnichsen and radio pioneer and salsa promoter Chico Sesma.

Emmy Award-winning talk show host, actor, writer and comedian, Cris Franco (photo by Joe Ortiz)

Actors Evelyn Guerrero and Carmen Zapata with friends

Journalist/actress/public information officer Diana Munatones

Frank Del Olmo, nationally acclaimed Latino Journalist and co-founder of the National California Chicano News Media Association

Nationally acclaimed Latino director, Jesús Treviño, as a pachuco during production of Yo Soy Chicano.

Comedian pioneer Hank Garcia

Nationally renowned artist Ignacio Gomez and Latino rock music pioneer, songwriter, performer and Historian, Mark Guerrero

Producer, Director, Performer, Dan Guerrero

Actor Dyanna Ortelli and producer Nancy de los Santos

The most prolific and highly acclaimed Latino Filmmaker in the United States, Moctesuma Esparza

Newspaper publishing pioneer and founder of La Opinion, Ignacio Lozano

Media and community affairs specialists Rose Soto, Dolores Sanchez, Robert Alaniz, Giselle Acevedo, Victor Franco, Alycia Enciso, Minerva Perez (photo by Joe Ortiz)

Latino journalism pioneer Pete Moraga and renowned actor Edward James Olmos

(photo by Joe Ortiz)

Community Services pioneer Dionicio Morales and legendary actors Ricardo Montalban and Anthony Quinn.

Acclaimed Latino Journalist Ruben Salazar

Legendary professional football quarterbacks and twice Super Bowl Champions, Jim Plunkett and former quarterback and four Super Bowl ring-bearing NFL Coach, Tom Flores.

Latino media guru and entrepreneur Pete Moraga Jr. and acclaimed space planner and designer Alycia Enciso (photo by Joe Ortiz)

Latina actor and singer Liz Navar and actor Irma Garcia (photo by Joe Ortiz)

Legendary Latino filmmaker Luiz Valdez (Zoot Suit, La Bamba) with brother, acclaimed singer/composer/actor Daniel Valdez, co-founders with Augustine Lira of El Teatro Campesino

Latino demographer and physician Dr. David Hayes-Bautista

Actor Esai Morales, community servant Magdalena Duran and public affairs expert Victor M. Franco (photo by Joe Ortiz)

Legendary Latino country music performer Freddy Fender

Legendary Latino actor-comedian-artist Cheech Marin

Veteran performers and former NOSOTROS leaders, singer Mark Allen Trujillo and actor-singer Richard Yniguez

Freddie Sanchez, El Chicano

Latino community activists Rosalio Munoz and David Sanchez (photo by Joe Ortiz)

Actor/comedian Paul Rodriguez

Legendary multiple award-winning actress and Latina actor icon, Rita Moreno

Latina Journalist and news anchor, Linda Alvarez

Character actor Marco Rodriguez

Latino Journalism pioneers Frank Cruz and Dolores Sanchez

Community activists and market pioneers Joe and Laura Balverde-Sanchez

Radio Traffic Reporter Pioneer Jorge Jarrin

Radio TV Talk Show Host pioneer Mary Helen Barro

Community activists and educator, Salvador Castro

Latino Rock Music pioneers Steve and Rudy Salas (The Salas Brothers and TIERRA)

Legendary Latino Rock Pioneers, TIERRA

Acclaimed Latino Actor Henry Darrow

Community activist and Salsa radio broadcast pioneer, Tony Salazar

Journalism and public affairs broadcasting pioneers Fernando Del Rio and Mario Machado

Nationally renowned Latino Muralist and musician Willie Herron

Former Rock critic for the Daily News and Latin Publications pioneer, Victor Field

Jazz and Music Pioneer Eddie Cano

East Los Angeles College Students and Faculty throughout the years! (Drawing by Ignacio Gomez)

Community and Elected Leaders Gloria Molina and Dionicio Morales

The Latin Business Association, Throughout the Years!

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund

Esther Renteria, public information specialist, co-founder of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, associate producer for Latino television show (in the English-language) BIENVENIDOS on KCBS Television.

Hollenbeck Police Business Council and its annual Spring Celebrity Festival, featuring seasoned and emerging Latino performers.(photo by Joe Ortiz)

Legal minds, community and government leaders, Percy Duran, Esq., Ana Barbosa and Alberto Juarez, Jr. (photo by Joe Ortiz)

To Rodri Rodriguez and every Mariachi group to ever to perform in the greater Los Angeles community throughout history.

Rose Soto, Journalist at Eastern Group Publications and blogger of “Coast2Coast.”

Of course, a lot of community pressure helped

....and tons of Latino ingenuity! God Bless Them All!

2 comments:

nilki benitezsaid...: Oh, Fabulous, Joe! What a gem of a photo album! Thank you for sharing.; October 10, 2009 9:57 PM
Brenda Herrerasaid...: What a great walk down media images memory lane. Thank you. I would like to throw in Latin Heat Entertainment into the mix which was and is the only entertainment trade publication which is focused on Latinos in Hollywood and all media. Established in 1992 it continues to carry out its mission on the web now www.latinheat.com; October 15, 2009 1:50 PM

Two Time Super Bowl Winning Coach, Tom Flores, Was Honored by National Council of La Raza Last Tuesday!

2011-08-05T12:20:00.000-07:00

Renata Soto, NCLRExecutive Committee Member, presents Roberto Clemente Award to Tom Flores

Tom Flores, the first Mexican American to play quarterback for aprofessional football team, was honored on Tuesday, July 26, 2011, by theNational Council of La Raza with its Roberto Clemente Sports Award.

Flores, who has won four Super Bowl rings (as a player for theKansas City Chiefs (1970), assistant coach for the Oakland Raiders (1977) andtwice as head coach of the Los Angeles and Oakland Raiders), was presented theaward at ceremonies held in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, July 26, 2011.The event, was streamed live from the National Council de La Raza web site aspart of the organization's four day conference.

[TomFlores Fan Club Leadership Team includes (top, left to right, Joe Ortiz, RichardRamirez; and below, left to right, Tom Flores and Lori Lara]

"The leadership team of the Official Tom Flores Fan Club, who nominated Tom Flores for the award, is extremely proud and excited that Tom was honored by this prestigious Latino organization," said Joe Ortiz, President of the fan club.

"Tom Flores is one of the greatest examples and positiverole models for Mexican Americans and other Latinos for the greatness he hasachieved in pro football," added Ortiz. "Not only forexcelling as a professional quarterback and Super Bowl winning head coach, butfor his commitment to youth throughout the nation, especially as the founder ofthe Tom Flores YouthFoundation based out of his hometown of Sanger, California."
Among his many honors, the football field of Sanger High Schoolhas been named the Tom Flores Stadium. He has also been inducted into the American Football League's Hall of Fame, aswell as the California Sports Hall of Fame, and has been honored by many otherinstitutions including the City of Los Angeles. Flores praised Janet Murgia, President of the NCLR and its boardfor their historical leadership in advocating for Latinos. Flores who creditshis parents (who came from Mexico and worked as sharecroppers during hischildhood), said one of the keys to succeeding in America is basically workinghard and getting a good education.

In a brief moment of levity, the normally quiet and stoic Florespointed to the finger that he was wearing one of his four Super Bowl rings, andteasingly joked with the mostly Washington, D.C. crowd.

“This is the ring I got for beating the Washington Redskinson Super Bowl XVIII.” On January 22, 1984,the then Los Angeles Raiders, won Super Bowl XVIII by a score of 38 to 9. Afew in the crowd hissed Flores for a few seconds but then it all broke out intoa raucous laughter.

Joe Ortiz, tournament publicist for the Boy Scouts/Tom Flores Celebrity Invitational Golf Tournament, huddles together with Jim Plunkett, former Heisman Trophy winner and Super Bowl MVP, and long-time friend Tom Flores, 4 time Super Bowl winner as a player, assistant coach and twice as head coach of the Los Angeles and Oakland Raiders.

Appearing in the introductory video before Flores accepted hisaward, Ortiz said "My personal opinion is that when the Oakland Raiderscame up with that great slogan for their football team, "A Commitment toExcellence," they had to be thinking of Tom Flores.”

Link to view Tom Flores' Acceptance Speech

Are Mexicans Planning to Conquer the United States?

2011-08-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

Who is La Raza, What is a Chicano and What is Reconquista?

There is a big hue and cry (mostly from radical whiteAnglos-Saxon nationalists’ camps), that Mexicans are bent on conquering theUnited States (through a Reconquista) andwant to reclaim what they believe is land that originally belonged to Mexico.These folks charge both Mexican nationals as well as many Mexican American (whowere born in the United States) are secretly developing a plan to take back (atleast) portions of the US (such as California, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico,Arizona, parts of Florida and a big chunk of Nevada. Their clarion call heardoften on talk radio and on the Internet is that the Mexicans’ call for Reconquistahas been launched.

This audacious rant has been ignited mostly from the incendiaryseeds planted by Christian xenophobes like Eric John Phelps, author of Vatican Assassins and also by oncePresidential candidate and political commentator, Patrick Buchanan, who chargedthus in his 2006 book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasionand Conquest of America:

“Paralyzed by guilt, we are inviting La Reconquista, the reconquest of theSouthwest by Mexico, even as Ferdinandand Isabella affected LaReconquista of Spain in 1492 from the Moors who had invaded eighthundred years before. What Mexico’s elites have in mind, what they aresystematically pursuing, is a sharing of sovereignty in these lost lands andtheir ultimate recapture, culturally, linguistically, by Mexico, no matterwhich nation holds title to them.” (State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest ofAmerica).

Phelps, on his VaticanAssassins web site, is more salacious in describing this so-called conspiracy ashe posted a picture of young angry Mexican protesters flipping the bird at those detractors who were taunting them from the sidewalks, and implies thatthis demonstration is a preview of a reconquistaplan being orchestrated by Jesuit Catholics:

“These insulting,arrogant, Alien Roman Catholic Mexican invaders will be registered to vote for the Democratic Party(the Order’s “SocialJustice” Communist Party) in Rome’s plot to drive all Whites into the arms ofthe Jesuits ruling the RepublicanParty (the Order’s anti-Communist, anti-Black, anti-Jew, White Fascist Party).

Hatefully Racist Alien Roman Catholic Mexican Invaders Occupiedwith Fighting and Fornicating, Southwest US, 2010.

As you can see viathe attached picture, these uncivilized, crude and lewd, Alien RomanCatholic Mexican Invaders are constantly fighting and fornicating, birthing babies as fast as they can soas to have their “anchor babies” receive14th Amendment citizenship further seeking to justify their presence here in the Pope’s 14th Amendment American Empire (1868-Present). This unpunished, lawless criminal activity has virtually enraged the vastmajority of White men—including your Editor—and they have joined theOrder’s 80 million-member WhiteTea Party Movement that is to end in a military dictatorship—the Black Pope’s quest for the last 80years! In reaping what they have sown, these fighting and fornicating invaders are to be rounded up and sent to the concentration camps for extermination—thatis, after the women have beengang-raped and the men are half-beaten to death. When thesecriminals have served their purpose for the Order, they will be betrayed by those they trustedmost—the Society of Jesus!”

Now,mind you, these incendiary statements and images like the one above are being putforth on the Internet to incite Americans throughout the world. They are notcoming from radical Nazi skin-heads or members of the KKK, they come fromself-proclaimed Christians who use many Bible quotes in their rhetorical rants!Sadly, mainstream media is equally guilty of promoting these xenophobicmessages as they selectively use such negative images when they report storiesabout these protesters!

One can clearly understand the concerns many Americans experience whenthey see civil rights and immigrant protesters, especially when theysubliminally project what appears to them as “Anti-Americanism” rather thanwhat it really is: anger, frustration, rejection and disappointment! I say disappointmentbecause most Mexican kids have been taught early on that “America” (as we usedto hear at the opening of the Superman movies and TV shows) stands for “truth,justice and the American way.”

Like me, youngsters throughout the nation grewup with this mantra that spoke about the American Dream, where anyonecould grow up to be President if they only worked hard and obeyed the laws ofthe land. But, unfortunately, most Mexican American kids not only found outlater that this slogan isn’t true, they realized they actually were beingviewed and portrayed as being inferior! While they were told (and actuallytaught in the classroom) was that the American Way is the best ideology everinvented. They were taught that American Culture is vastly superior to anyother in the world. What they were not told was that the American Way is rathera white Anglo-Saxon culture that all other ethnic groups will never be a partof regardless of any civil rights or other equality legislation may be enacted.

Many Americans speak about how their AmericanIdentity and culture is the idealism upon which the country was founded: life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is admirable and inspiring. But theirpractice in reality is not a philosophy that portends equality based onideology, but rather one that inherently demonstrates haughtiness (by their actions against minorities) and pride in the Anglo-Saxon culture, which to them is the true "American" Identity.

In response to this, many Mexican Americaneducators developed classes (primarily called “Chicano Studies”) for thesestudents that showcased the reality that Mexican kids were not inferior toother races (the predominate white culture) but rather their respective Latino forefatherscontributed much towards the enhancement of this once great nation. The main(inherent) goal of Chicano Studies, which initially was provided and offered aselectives in high schools and later career fields of study in colleges anduniversities, was to familiarize the students with their rich cultural heritage. It was primarily taught in the halls of learning in schools throughoutthe southwestern states. Above and beyond providing historical data about thecontributions that were made by Mexican Americans, it was also designed toinstill an attitude of pride and self esteem to a group of young Mexican kidswho for the most part of their lives were told they were insignificant.

They learned that through much blood, sweatand tears, Mexicans (either born here or who have migrated across re-aligned borders) played an integral role in building the United States into thestrongest country in the world.

These educators (through diligent research)assembled much data that Mexicans not only represented much the labor forceused to build America’s infrastructure and agricultural power, geniosity onbehalf of certain Mexicans produced some of the most innovative inventionsever. Thomas Alva Edison, for example, the inventor of the light bulb andphonograph (precursors to inventions we could not do without nowadays) was bornof Mexican heritage (although this claim is highly distorted and denounced bymany). Also, a little know fact is that Luis Miramontes,a Mexican American chemist, co-invented thecontraceptive pill in 1951. Speaking of birthing babies, what would America look like now had we not had that little contraption...er contraception?

We could spend a couple ofmonths citing other great achievements by Mexican nationals and other LatinoAmericans that have played an integral role in making America a great nation; however,the point here is that Chicano Studies has resulted in young Mexican studentsbeing made aware that they (as an ethnic group) need not hang their head inshame by the scurrilous, stereotypical epithets that Mexicans are mere banditsand whores as they have been portrayed in the early history of motion picturesand television.

In addition to teaching young MexicanAmerican students about their rich cultural heritage, ranging as far back asthe Aztec and Mayan cultures (besides the Mexican food and Mariachi music),they were also updated about their most recent history leading up to theannexation of the American southwest. This included a proven blow-by-blowdescription of how America’s expansionist policy resulted in the arbitrarytakeover of much of the southwest. Many people debate this issue and splithairs over details, but, by and large, early Americans were not the indigenouspeople of the Americas.

Some Chicano Studies teachers also meldedinto their curriculum the notion there exists a mythical nation called Aztlan. The concept of Aztlan as the place oforigin of the pre-Colombian Mexican civilization has become a symbol for variousMexican nationalist and indigenous movements. While some Mexican Americanstudents describe Aztlán as a “motherland” paradise (a kind of American versionof Atlantis, if you will), it nevertheless became a popular mantra of pride foryoung Mexican American students during the Chicano Movement of the sixties andseventies, and still promoted by a few (very, very few) entrenched leftoverradicals at certain high school and college campuses in the southwest.

This new found knowledge had a disconcerting reaction on many of the youngidealistic Mexican American students who obviously felt a certain degree ofanger when they learned this information. Combined together with knowledge oftheir past, recognizing theirs has been a rich and vibrant culture going back before the Puritans even landedon Plymouth Rock, when apprised how their native land had been confiscatedthrough nefarious tactics, they were obviously upset. This is one of thereasons many of these students and their college professors can sympathize withthe plight of the Palestinian people, who after residing in the so-called HolyLand for over 2000 years, a once privileged nation of Jews has come back andseized that parcel of land in the Middle East and has virtually kicked outthrough military force those indigenous peoples. There lies a giant conundrum.On one hand Mexican youth feel the animus from those who conquered theirforefathers, and on the other hand, they want to pursue the same goal Jews arecurrently pursuing by establishing their own homeland which they call Aztlan.Paradoxically, the inherent parochialism inherent among the contending factionscreates a divisiveness that goes contrary to the desired cohesiveness that allethnic groups should strive for, a truly United States!

The sad part of this is that nativists groups are not aware they areactually being stirred up and manipulated by secret societies who use puppetsand lackeys like the Pat Buchanan's and Eric John Phelps of the world, and have actuallylaunched mean-spirited and defamatory media campaigns to not onlybesmirch these frustrated youths, but to discredit and even promote thedestruction of and defunding such groups as the National Council ofLa Raza,whose sole goal is to advocate the development of resources for Latinos tobecome self-sufficient. This organization is no worse or better than a myriadof ethnicorganizationswhich have advocated for their respective communities since the founding of ournation, such as the Jewish Federation of North American, the NationalAssociation for the Advancement of Colored People and the Japanese AmericanCitizens League. Instead of commending and supporting this organization forpromoting self-help efforts among its constituents, they accuse NCLR ofteaching young Latinos to hate American and white people, which is a blatantlie.

In reality, NCLR provides young Latinoswith the opportunity to learn and prepare for the world of work through its economy andworkforce projects,orientation to enter the labor market, leadership training and specializedinformation they seldom receive through traditional education. Moreover, if anyof these folks had attended a recent NCLR conference in Washington, D.C., wheremany successful Americans (such as twice Super Bowl-winning coach Tom Flores) were honored fortheir contributions to America in communications, sports and leadership, theywould have heard the plethora of ‘pro American’ speeches that blatantly decrythose allegations. For that matter, Flores’ acceptance speech was filled withseveral comments about him being proud of being an American.

Yet, a myriad xenophobes (through variousmedia campaigns) continue to mock, taunt and demean Latinos and their advocacyorganizations simply because the use the word La Raza, which is a phrase that bespeaks solely the fact thatMexican Americans are not ashamed of their cultural background, but also proudto be American. Sadly, most (Anglo) Americans feel threatened and respondnegatively when they hear the words LaRaza and Chicano and connect themsolely with dissident groups who have demonstrated for various causes nodifferent than organizations such as The Tea Party and the Lesbian Gay BisexualTransgender and other American organizations, who practice their right ofprotest, the oldest and most honorable tradition in America.

Both phrases(La Raza and Chicano) are self adopted to reflect pride in their ethnicity asopposed to the government imposed nomenclatures such as Hispanic which have been used to identify or classify all peoplewith Spanish surnames into one specific group. These self-identifying phrasesgrew mostly during the civil rights movement of the early sixties as youngMexican American demonstrators who were tired of being put down by thepredominant community were heard chanting “YoSoy Chicano (I am proud of my Mexican heritage) and “Viva La Raza” (Our people will endure), but never intended todemean or defame their belief also in being born in America. In essence theseyouths have been saying is that they are “proud to be an American but pleasedon’t put me down because my forefathers came from Mexico, I have brown skin,can speak two languages and have a Spanish surname.”

In conclusion, like the many articles wehave written to biblically prove that Jews fell out of favor with their Messiahdue to lack of faith and disobedience, as well as written extensively in mybook, The End Times Passover, no oneowns any land in this world but God. Any temporary residence in any land is bythe grace and the will of God, as He states through thousands of verses in HisHoly word, (Leviticus 25:18-23,KJV)

Sadly, by virtue of its own disobedience toGod’s word and His will, America is reaping what it has sowed. But it mostcertainly is not going to be brought down by a small group of disgruntled Mexican Americans.

Buchanan, Phelps, and many othernationalists will continue to fan the flames of this unfounded straw man andpoorly researched Reconquistaconspiracy; and, at the same time, will continue invoking the name of Jesus totheir own peril! As a matter of fact, I hear more about Reconquista on Christian-oriented radio and televisions shows (aswell as on the Internet) than I see on the MSM. Why do these provocateurscontinue to incessantly pound this lie into the uninformed American and eventhe mainstream Christian community? They do so because it works! The only way to check this leaven is to present ALL thefacts to those who will listen. Not only present more data so people can becomemore informed, but also ask them to use some common sense.

Ask yourself this question: Do these few adherents of theromantic Aztlan notion really pose any or potential threat to the future of theUnited States? Does our government believe this scurrilous notion? If so, whyaren’t they arresting these so-called conspirators? Actually, the governmentturns its head in the other direction and allows conspiracy provocateurs likePhelps, Buchanan (and let’s not forget Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh and evenAlex Jones) to do their dirty work for them, inciting their passion, so when itcomes time to vote on immigration reform, congress people can say, “I’m merelyconveying to you the wishes of my constituents."

We ask, can a handful of Mexican American students, or evenadvocacy organizations like the National Council of La Raza organize andimplement a plan to conquer America? The booster club of 1963 World ChampionLos Angeles Dodgers has a better chance, and is more militarily organized toconquer the United States than any group of young Mexican Americans, whosebravado poses a non distinct threat to no one but to their machismo.

But yet, the Kool Aid manufacturers (and drinkers) of this nefarious ploywill stretch this little often heard word – Reconquista- to instill fear in the hearts of gullible Americans (many of them Bible-believingChristians), to motivate them to turn on immigrants whose main purpose forendangering their lives to cross the border is solely to work hard to feedtheir family.

Unbeknownst to many people, those behind these nefariousplots have a bigger agenda than most Americans who do believe in the AmericanDream, and who do believe we are a nation of immigrants, who do believe in theGolden Rule for the most part, and would like to see this country move forwardwith its historical pioneering spirit and genuinely caring heart. But, theKabbalistic, Pharisaical money-changers of the world will continue using thePhelps of the world to light the incendiary dialogue to keep our great countrydivided and fighting amongst itself.

I’llclose this message with something I read the other day, by a Jewishcommentator, Uri Avnery, a contributor to The Politics ofAnti-Semitism, who was discussing the nefarious media campaigns launched by the Nazi to keep the masses in Germany confused, divided and pitted against each other, in order to maintain complete control of its diabolical agenda:

It is the beginningswhich are critical, when political opportunists realize that arousing fear andhatred is the easiest way to fortune and power, when social misfits becomenationalist and religious fanatics, when attacking helpless minorities becomesacceptable as legitimate politics, funny little men turn into monsters.

Is that Dr. Goebbels Ihear laughing in hell?

2011-07-29T00:41:00.000-07:00

In Loving Memory

Sally Ann Ortiz Wilson

November 19, 1948 - July 29, 2011

My sister Sally Ann Ortiz Wilson quietly passed away Thursday night, around 10:45 PM. Her two sisters (Julia and Anita), her three sons (Jason, Nick, Garry and his fiance Kelsey Frank), and her granddaughter Vanessa, were all by her side. She was at peace and suffered no pain.

Sally Ann is now with our Mother, Sally Nieto

Sally Ann is also reunited with sister Diane and brother Robin

Sally Ann with her boys, Jason, Garry and Nick

We called her "Cher" for obvious reasons!

Sally Ann, embracing our mother Sally Nieto's ashes at memorial

Sally Ann with her son Jason, grand kids Vanessa and Lil Jason

Sally Ann, doing what she did best: Gourmet Cook.

She fulfilled her dream and opened a Mexican restaurant

(Peppers) in Cole Camp, MO

Sally Ann with son Nick, and sisters Julia and Anita

Sally Ann with son Nick and niece Christen

Sally Ann at her Uncle Joe's Wedding

Sally Ann with mother Sally, father Pete and her seven brothers and sisters

Tom Flores To Be Honored by National Council of La Raza On Tuesday!

2011-07-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

Tom Flores, the first Mexican American to play quarterback for a professional football team, will be honored on Tuesday, July 26, 2011, by the National Council of La Raza with its Roberto Clemente Sports Award.

Flores, who has won four Super Bowl rings (as a player, assistant coach and twice as head coach of the Los Angeles and Oakland Raiders), will be presented the award at ceremonies being held in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, July 26, 2011. The event, which begins at 4:30 PM (Pacific time) will be streamed live from the National Council de La Raza web site as part of the organization's four day conference.

[Tom Flores Fan Club Leadership Team includes (top, left to right, Joe Ortiz,

Richard Ramirez; and below, left to right, Tom Flores and Lori Lara]

"The leadership team of the Official Tom Flores Fan Club, who nominated Tom Flores for the award, is extrememly proud and excited that Tom is being honored by this prestigious Latino organization," said Joe Ortiz, President of the fan club.

"Tom Flores is one of the greatest examples and positive role models for Mexican Americans and other Latinos for the greatness he has achieved in professional football," added Ortiz. "Not only for excelling as a professional quarterback and Super Bowl winning head coach, but for his commitment to youth throughout the nation, especially as the founder of the Tom Flores Youth Foundation based out of his hometown of Sanger, California."
Among his many honors, the football field of Sanger High School has been named the Tom Flores Stadium. Flores has also been inducted into the American Football League's Hall of Fame, as well as the California Sports Hall of Fame, and has been honored by many other institutions including the City of Los Angeles.

     "Tom has earned every commendation he has ever received," said Ortiz. "He has also earned the right to be inducted into the National Football League's Hall of Fame. All of his fans know this; it's only the voters of the Hall of Fame who have failed to acknowledge this reality and need to give him the honor he deserves."
     "My personal opinion is that when the Oakland Raiders came up with that great slogan for their football team, "A Committment to Excellence," they had to be thinking of Tom Flores," Ortiz beamed.
                                       ~
Flores achievements are monumental, to say the least. Hegraduated from the University of the Pacific in 1958, but was unable to find ajob in professional football. He was cut by the Calgary Stampeders of the CFLin 1958, and then by the Washington Redskins of the National Football League(NFL) in 1959. In 1960 Flores finally landed a position as a quarterback withthe American Football League's Oakland Raiders, who began play in 1960 as acharter member of the league. Flores became the first Hispanic quarterback inAmerican professional football. He became the Raiders' starting quarterbackearly in the 1960 season.

Flores had his mostproductive season in 1966. Although he completed only 49.3 percent of hisattempts, he passed for 2,638 yards and 24 touchdowns in 14 games. Oaklandtraded him to the Buffalo Bills in 1967. After serving primarily as a backup,he was released by the Bills and in 1969 signed with the Kansas City Chiefs,where he was back up to Len Dawson on the Chiefs' World Championship team,where he earned his first Super Bowl ring. He retired as a player after the1970 season. He was one of only twenty players who were with the AFL for itsentire ten-year existence. He is the fifth-leading passer, all-time, in theAFL.

After stints as an assistant coach in Buffalo and Oakland (he won his 2nd SuperBowl XI ring as an Assistant Coach under John Madden), Flores became theRaiders' head coach in 1979, following John Madden's retirement. Flores thenbecame the NFL's first minority (and Mexican American) head coach to win aSuper Bowl, winning his third and fourth Super Bowl rings for Super Bowl XVand Super Bowl XVIII.

After a 5-10 finish to the 1987 season, Flores moved to the Raiders' frontoffice, but left after just one year to become the president and generalmanager of the Seattle Seahawks. He returned to coaching as the Seahawks headcoach in 1992, but returned to the front office following three disappointingseasons. Flores resigned from the Seahawks in 1994 following Paul Allen'spurchase of the Seahawks.

Flores left Pro Football with a lifetime coaching record of 97-87(52.7%), as well as an 8-3 playoff record, and with two Super Bowl victories.Flores, Jimmy Johnson, and George Seifert are the only eligible coaches withtwo such victories, who have not been selected to the Pro Football Hall ofFame.

Tom Flores has distinguished himself in so many ways in the pro football arenaas a player, assistant coach, head coach, President and General Manager of anNFL Football team, and now as a commentator for the Oakland Raiders footballteam along with Greg Papa on KSFO (560 AM) during the radio broadcasts ofRaiders games.

Maybe there are many other football players and coaches who have garnered morewins as a quarterback, or as an assistant coach or as a head coach, but veryfew professional football players and coaches (as well as fans) who have workedwith Tom Flores among his many capacities in football or with numerous civiccommunities, can never say he isn't deserving to be inducted into the NFL'sHall of Fame!

This coming July 31, 2011, Tom Flores will also celebrate 51 years involvment as a member of professional football community in the United States (not including high school, college and a stint in the Canadian Football League), where he became the first quarterback to play for the old American Football League as the quarterback for the embryonic Oakland Raiders.

"I'm a Raider for life," said the iconic Flores.

The Baron of Broadcasting: Saturday 11pm EST/ 8pm PST- Guest: Joe Ortiz- WWZN 1510 AM

2011-07-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

The Baron of Broadcasting: Saturday 11pm EST/ 8pm PST- Guest: Joe Ortiz- WWZN 1510 AM

Independence Day Hypocrisy

2011-07-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

Hypocrisy! What a word that is! The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform to; pretension!
Many of my posts focus on both Christian hypocrisy and on American hypocrisy based not just on philosophical, doctrinal or cultural views but based on mere observation. What you see is what it is!

This past 4th of July, I committed that great sin of hypocrisy. Last Sunday, as I looked around and saw that many of my neighbors had hoisted American flags on their property, I remembered my wife had bought one that she said she wanted to hang on the front of our house on the 4th of July.

     Now, my wife knows I'm not a "flag waving' type of guy, but I indulged her. In the back of my mind, I felt it would be best to do so to also avoid people looking down on or sneering at me for being unpatriotic if I didn't go along with all my neighbors. By the way, my wife is an immigrant from Mexico and still has her Green Card, even though she went to grammar and high school and college in the US and has been a practicing Registered Nurse for over 35 years.
      I have to admit that (mostly these past four to five years), America's attitude towards immigrants has not made me feel very proud of my country, one that I have served throughout my entire life, in the military, always paying taxes on time, no criminal record, registered voter (once as a Republican), and basically conducting myself in what one would call a good old conservative American lifestyle.
      Nevertheless, I felt this queezyness deep inside my gut about hoisting the American flag. First of all, I don't believe in the displaying of any iconish symbols, especially any that folks may immediately identify as being loyal to anything other than to Jesus Christ. I am already instantly marginalized as being "one of those Latinos" by virtue of the color of my skin and my last name and therefore have learned to accept the fact that people already have a fixed concept of Mexican people.
      Regardless, the American flag is still on display on the front of my house and I don't know how soon I will take it down and pack it away until the next 4th of July. Most of my neighbors have it on display 365 days a year. As I looked at the flag this morning, I still had that queezyiness in my gut and I kept wondering why. It wasn't until I sat down in front of my computer and noticed an item on the Internet, with the title "Independence Day Hypocrisy."

Independence Day Hypocrisy!

By Stephen Lendman

         "All US federal holidays wreak of hypocrisy, representing notions and events other than what they commemorate. Besides Christmas, none perhaps is more celebrated than when America became independent from Britain on July 4, 1776.
      Coming in the summer, parades, outings, barbecues, other celebratory events, and baseball highlight the day for many - relaxing, not reflecting on the same independence we deny nations globally, waging imperial wars and other ways to prevent it.
     July 4 also commemorates America's history, liberation and traditions most people don't know, never learned, or forgot. Instead - in school to the highest levels and through media managed news - they've been force fed distortions, half truths and illusions to believe what, in fact, isn't true now and never was, a sanitized rewritten history, what historian Howard Zinn corrected in his "People's History of the United States."
      First published in 1980, it became an extraordinary non-fiction best seller with over two million copies sold and counting, followed (in 2004) by "Voices of a People's History of the United States," presenting words and thoughts of labor and anti-war activists, anti-racists, feminists, socialists, and others rarely heard.
     Zinn himself called his signature work "a biased account, one that leans in a certain direction. I am not troubled by that, because the mountain of history books under which we all stand leans so heavily in the other direction - so tremblingly respectful of state and statesmen and so disrespectful, by inattention, to people's movements - that we need some counterforce to avoid being crushed into submission." His exhaustive, informative, and gloriously original work includes material on America's Declaration of Independence and war waged for it not taught the way he did it.
      In the July 2009 edition of The Progressive, he headlined an article, "Untold Truths About the American Revolution," saying:

Was waging war then really worth it, taking perhaps 25,000 - 50,000 American lives, the "equivalent today to two and a half million (at the lower estimate) to get England off our backs."

      Canada ended British without war. So did Western Massachusetts farmers "driv(ing them out) without firing a single shot. They had assembled by the thousands and thousands around courthouses and colonial offices and they had just taken over (and) said goodbye to the British officials" nonviolently.
     America's revolution was much different, but who "gained what?" Most Americans were poor. "(T)he Founding Fathers were rather rich" with much different interests from ordinary people. "Do you think the Indians cared about independence" or Blacks held involuntarily as slaves?
     "Slavery was there before (and) there after. Not only that, we wrote slavery into the Constitution. We legitimized it."
      "What about class divisions?" America was a racist class society then and remains one today to benefit elitist interests at the expense of working households, especially Black and Latino ones. "We try to pretend in this country that we're all one happy family. We're not."
      In fact, America's revolution wasn't "a simple affair of all of us against all of them," any more than today, sending young men and women abroad to "liberate" countries for capital, slaughtering people to save them, ruining the lives, welfare and futures of thousands of US forces at the same whose minds and bodies are irreparably harmed by the experience.
      As a result, Zinn said "(w)e've got to rethink this question of war and" decide it's unacceptable, no matter what the reasons given, or the excuse." In fact, they're no more valid now than rallying Americans against Britain's King George III, letting everything change but stay the same. The elite few always win against the ordinary many, but great pains are taken not to tell them.
      As a result, young minds are programmed to believe in America's exceptionalism, inherent goodness, and unique democratic values under governments of, by and for the people that never existed earlier or now.
In "Democracy for the Few," Michael Parenti said "the Constitution was consciously designed as a conservative document" with provisions included or omitted to "resist the pressure of popular tides" and protect "a rising bourgeoisie('s)" freedom to "invest, speculate, trade, and accumulate wealth" the way things work for capital interests today.
     In fact, it codified in law what politician, founding father, jurist and nation's first Chief Supreme Court justice, John Jay, said the way things should be - that "The people who own the country ought to run it (for their benefit alone)."
      It's hardly reason to celebrate, especially today after decades of massive wealth transferred to America's super-rich already with too much, and a nation without enemies at war simultaneously with six nonbelligerent states, spending trillions of dollars unavailable for vital homeland needs. At America's birth, only adult white male property owners could vote. Blacks were commodities, not people, and women were childbearing, homemaking appendages of their husbands.
     Until 1810, religious prerequisites existed, and all adult white males couldn't vote until property and tax requirements were dropped in 1850. Moreover, states elected senators until the 1913 17th amendment enfranchised citizens, and Native Americans had no rights until the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, in part, returning what no one had the right to take away in the first place. In addition, women's suffrage wasn't achieved until the 1920 19th Amendment after nearly a century of struggle for it.
      The 1865 13th Amendment freed Black slaves. The 1870 15th Amendment gave them what wasn't gained until passage of the landmark mid-1960s Civil and Voting Rights Acts, abolishing Southern Jim Crow laws now reappeared in new forms. Today, virtually all hard won gains are lost, hardly a reason for Blacks to celebrate, struggling in a repressive, uncaring America, wanting them mainly to fight imperial wars to enrich corporate predators globally.
      Native Americans perhaps have least to celebrate after centuries of extermination, persecution, denial, and isolation in poverty on reservations. Moreover, they're been mocked and demonized in films and society as drunks, beasts, primitives, savages, and lesser beings to be Americanized or warehoused and forgotten.
      As a result, their cultures are willfully denigrated. Their legacy includes betrayal, treaties made and broken, lands stolen, rights denied, and themselves criminally ignored to this day. For them, justice delayed was never gotten, giving them no reason to celebrate, nor America's growing impoverished millions on their own and out luck in an increasingly uncaring society, focused solely on serving privilege, not popular needs.
      So many others also are denied, persecuted, vilified, and gravely harmed in today's America, notably Latino immigrants and Muslims for their faith and ethnicity to give Washington convenient enemies to incite fear to wage wars for power, profit, and plunder at a time America's only enemies are manufactured, not real.
      Celebrants this holiday enjoying outings, picnics, barbecues, ballgames, outdoor concerts, parades, fireworks displays, visits to the shore on vacation, and other pleasures might reflect about growing millions of victimized/deprived Americans in need, besides billions more worldwide, hoping to survive another day.
      Imagine a future free from today's despair, depravation and perpetual wars. That indeed would be reason to celebrate and give thanks. It's also a goal everyone should support and dedicate themselves to achieve. It won't happen any other way for sure.
     Reflect about that on holiday Monday, as well as America's intolerable legacy of shame."
                                                       ~
     Excuse me folks, I'm feeling a little bit hypcritical at this precise moment, and have to go to the front of my house right now ~

     For information about the author's two books, pleace click on the titles of both The End Times Passover and Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation. To access his web sites and blogs, pleasce click on Joe Ortiz.
     As an added bonus, we have attached a great radio interview by renown national radio talk show host Derek Gilbert, who intervies Joe Ortiz on a subject Derek calls The Flag or The Cross?

American Evangelicals on Immigration: The Culture or The Cross?

2011-06-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

The following article was written and posted on the Internet on January 29, 2007, by Alexander Zaitchik, a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.. Photos and slug line added by Joe Ortiz.

[Focus on the Family, which maintains a Spanish-language website and has been cautious on the issue (of how much the role of American culture plays in the Immigration debate). Last summer, the group's website chose to run a shining review of Victor Davis Hanson's Mexifornia, a lament for the defunct white-majority California of Hanson's youth. "Jobs do indeed have a lot to do with the issue (of immigration)," the Focus reviewer wrote. "But not as much as culture -- and that's what should really concern Americans most."]

A grassroots movement is forming in which anti-immigrant rhetoric dovetails with the odes to God and country that have long constituted conservative evangelical boilerplate.
When Joan Maruskin took the podium last April at a Family Research Council (FRC) immigration conference in Washington, D.C., it was hard not to think of Daniel in the lion's den: The liberal director of the Church World Service Immigration Program was addressing an audience convened by a major force on the Christian religious right. It was not her crowd.

It turned out that the Book of Daniel was among the few books of the Bible that Maruskin didn't quote. While making the Christian case for amnesty, she demonstrated that the Old and New Testaments are chock-full of sound byte-ready advocacy for the "stranger." All told, she counts more than 300 scriptural admonishments to mercy toward immigrants.
"The Bible is an immigration handbook," Maruskin told the FRC audience. "'Cursed be the person who oppresses the alien.' Can we forget that Christ himself was a migrant and a refugee, born in a stable? Under our laws, Mary, Joseph and Jesus would be sent to three different prisons."

A powerful image, but Maruskin's position is far from dominant on the religious right. In a FRC member poll conducted last spring, 90% of respondents chose forced deportation as the appropriate fate for America's estimated 11 million-12 million undocumented immigrants. This response aligns the FRC base with fire-breathing hard-liners like U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), the evangelical co-sponsor of an immigration reform bill notable for its criminalization of those who "aid and abet" illegal immigrants, something many religious leaders and laymen see as a Christian duty.

So it wasn't surprising that Maruskin's social-gospel message received a tepid response from the FRC audience. Heartier applause greeted the conservative Catholic journalist John O'Sullivan, who followed Maruskin to the podium and scoffed at her liberal "proof-texting" of Scripture. Arguing that such selective quotation did not "contribute to the debate," he tried to debunk the argument for amnesty and dismissed Maruskin and her ilk as "moral bullies."

"The fact is," said O'Sullivan, "most Christians are more hard-line when it comes to immigration than their Church leaders. Are all of these people going to hell?"

A better question might be: When did immigration assume a place next to abortion and traditional marriage as a "family" issue for the religious right? And is this new and highly charged issue a threat to that movement's much-vaunted "culture war"? Or is it a legitimate part of it?

The 'definitive divide'?

The ascendance of immigration as a burning issue on the religious right has been swift. Conservative commentators and politicians have both fueled and responded to a grassroots movement in which anti-immigrant rhetoric dovetails with the odes to God and country that have long constituted conservative evangelical boilerplate. Hard-right evangelical politicians like Tancredo have built national constituencies by blending anti-immigrant rhetoric into broadsides against secular liberals and Islamist radicals.

After languishing for years in smaller Christian nationalist groups like Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, the immigration issue has now landed squarely on the agenda of larger religious right groups with political clout. Tony Perkins, president of the influential FRC, signaled this shift while opening last April's immigration conference. "At question today is, do we have an immigration policy that is serving to strengthen the cultural fabric of our nation, which has a great influence on the family?" he asked. "The answer is no. We must get this right."

Getting it right will not and has not been easy for the religious right, any more than it has been for the country as a whole. Unlike abortion, the immigration issue has sharply divided the movement's leaders and political allies. Fierce "pro-family" culture warriors stand on both sides of the debate, with religious right advocates in Washington backing two radically different visions of immigration reform as symbolized by the House and Senate immigration bills unveiled last winter.

A unified evangelical position could do much to determine the shape of immigration reform, which was to be taken up again by Congress after the midterm elections in November. How the religious right tilts or fractures over the issue also holds stakes for the movement itself. A deep rift or further right turns could jeopardize the religious right's political coherence as well as its potentially natural alliance with America's growing and culturally conservative Latino and predominantly Catholic population.

Already, there are signs of a split. According to the Pew Research Center, 63% of white evangelicals view immigrants as a "threat to U.S. customs and values," compared to 48% of the population as a whole. (Only 39% of secular respondents held negative views of immigrants.) Though the two most influential Christian Right groups -- James Dobson's Focus on the Family and its spawn the Family Research Council -- have avoided taking an official position on the issue, their mostly white flock has already tacked hard right.

Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, says the Latino community is aware of rising anti-immigrant sentiment on the religious right and is "very concerned" about attitudes such as those reflected in the FRC poll.
"Before immigration came along, we were building an alliance," says Rodriguez. "We had agreement on traditional marriage, partial birth abortion -- so many threads were being woven together. Immigration threatens to become the definitive divide."

The Secure Borders Coalition is where the religious right meets and meshes with the extreme end of anti-immigrant politics. An alliance of Christian Right groups, hard-right organizations like Accuracy in Media and the Swift Boat Veterans, and strident but secular anti-immigration outfits such as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, the coalition in June issued a strong statement opposing all amnesty and guest worker proposals. It vowed to oppose any candidate, regardless of his or her stance on other issues, who does not toe the line on immigration. Remarkably, it also calls for a near-freeze in legal immigration.

"We favor a policy of attrition of the illegal population through strong enforcement of our nation's immigration laws, which includes, first and foremost, the securing of our borders," reads the coalition statement. "[W]e dedicate ourselves to defeating any 2008 presidential candidate who [disagrees]... . We pledge to do so regardless of political party and in both the primaries and the general election."

The list of religious-right figures signing the coalition statement is long and varied. It includes Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition, Howard Phillips' Conservative Caucus and Bishop Harry R. Jackson of Hope Christian Ministries. The signatories concerned primarily with immigration include English First, the American Council for Immigration Reform, the Center for Immigration Studies, Pro-English, and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

One possible future for this nexus can be glimpsed in the budding relationship between two Secure Border Coalition members -- a relationship that links religious-right political muscle to the literal muscle of the vigilante border-patrol movement. Last spring, Chris Simcox put his Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) under the wing of Alan Keyes' Declaration Alliance, a group dedicated to overturning Roe v. Wade that also believes in a "founding mandate to freely and publicly acknowledge the authority of the Creator God." Along with imbuing the Simcox group with a touch of the divine, the MCDC/Keyes arrangement saw Simcox's mailing lists handed over to Response Unlimited, a Keyes-connected Christian mailing and telemarketing firm that now sells lists of MCDC donors for $120 per thousand names.

Another, similar relationship is developing between the Eagle Forum (founded in 1972 and one of the oldest religious right groups) and the Minuteman Project of Jim Gilchrist, Simcox's former organizational partner (Gilchrist did not join the Secure Borders Coalition). The Eagle Forum's Schlafly, a long-time gay-basher, believes that guest-worker programs and amnesty are "immoral." The Christian thing to do, argued Schlafly in her newsletter last January, is to "erect a fence and double our border agents in order to stop the drugs, the smuggling racket, the diseases, and the crimes." Gilchrist, who holds a similar view, was a featured guest at the 35th annual Eagle Forum Conference in September.
Other religious right groups may not be officially aligned with the border-vigilante movement, but hold views indicating sympathy or approval.

"As the United States Senate continues debate on an immigration reform bill, the American people are backed up by the Bible in their demands that America's national boundaries are to be respected," writes Roberta Combs, national president of the Christian Coalition. "The left wing in this nation is thoroughly wrong when they argue that 'because Christ showed compassion to all of God's children, Christians should ignore violations of the law by aliens.'"

'Culture,' Christianity and Race'

The kind of first-principle absolutism found in the Secure Borders Coalition statement, once reserved for the so-called culture war, indicates that immigration has touched a central nerve on the religious right. But it is not simply a national-security or law-and-order nerve, as no other national security issue generates so much heat within the movement.

So what's going on? In the words of FRC's Tony Perkins, what's at stake is not so much guarding America's security as protecting its "cultural fabric."

Gary Bauer, president of American Values and an icon of the religious right, has said as much. In June, Bauer wrote an op-ed for USA Today that decried the failure of Latino immigrants to integrate into American society. "Hyphenated Americans put other countries and affiliations first, and they drive a wedge into the heart of 'one nation'," he wrote.

In choosing to highlight the "cultural" dimension of Latino immigration, Bauer echoed the nativist argument offered by Patrick Buchanan in his bestselling anti-immigrant screed, State of Emergency. Bauer also lifted a lid on the motivations of many anti-immigration voices on the Christian Right -- motivations more commonly cloaked in the rhetoric of law and order. Bauer admits as much, calling culture the "unmentioned undercurrent" in the immigration debate.

Some, farther out on the intellectual fringes of the movement, are more blunt. Thomas Fleming, president of the Christian-flavored Rockford Institute and, like Buchanan, a Catholic, says "culture" sits at the heart of his anti-immigration position. At a September institute-sponsored conference in Washington where Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) delivered the keynote address, Fleming said that "the cultural ambience aspect of [the immigration debate] is the only one that interests me." Writing in the Rockford Institute magazine Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, Fleming was plainer about what he means when he says "culture," admitting, "Whatever we may say in public, most of us do not much like Mexicans, whom we regard as too irrational, too violent, too passionate."

"Some American Catholics think we should welcome the hordes of pro-life Catholics swarming across our southern border," continued Fleming. "But this is a mistake. Mexicans quickly become acclimated to America's culture of consumerism and infanticide. What they do not appear to relinquish is their own traditional style of violence."

Nor has the contentious question of culture completely escaped the notice of James Dobson's much larger and more mainstream Focus on the Family, which maintains a Spanish-language website and has been cautious on the issue. Last summer, the group's website chose to run a shining review of Victor Davis Hanson's Mexifornia, a lament for the defunct white-majority California of Hanson's youth. "Jobs do indeed have a lot to do with the issue [of immigration]," the Focus reviewer wrote. "But not as much as culture -- and that's what should really concern Americans most."
The issue of immigration, it seems, not only threatens the success of the religious right's larger culture war by alienating conservative Latinos. Immigration is also a growing component of that culture war.

Nativism has been a recurring obsession among religious Americans since the colonial era. As they assume battle positions in the 21st-century immigration debate, today's hard-line crusaders echo mid-19th century Know-Nothings who decried "ignorant and depraved foreigners" from Italy and Ireland. Ditto 20th-century nativists like FDR's Assistant Secretary of State, Breckinridge Long, who thought Jewish and Slavic immigrants were "entirely unfit to become citizens of this country. ... They are lawless, scheming, [and] defiant."

Such bald sentiments are not often heard in the larger religious-right groups, many of whose positions are informed by Biblical injunctions to mercy toward the "stranger," the groups' connections to the business wing of the Republican Party, and a desire to cultivate Latinos as religious and political allies in the culture war. But there is a clear trend-line running right among a segment of culturally conservative Christians, one that worries moderate evangelicals and Latinos alike. What remains to be seen is whether the larger Christian Right will drift into the arms of the hard-line anti-immigration camp, and how this will affect the movement.

"I don't think white evangelicals are racist," says Rev. Samuel Rodriguez of the Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. "But the Latino community is starting to have some concerns that need to be addressed. We must start changing hearts and minds through dialogue. The risk of polarization is real."

[Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance writer in Washington, DC.]

Is our race and culture more important than God and performing His will, to love and care for our neighbors, regardless of their difference to ours? Do we allow our own personal feelings about race and culture to come between us and God's written word? To view specific scripture concerning God's will and His advocacy for the poor and the alien? Click here to see How God Supports the Alien and what Happens to Those Who Don't.

Joe Ortiz is the author of two books that refute the Rapture to Heaven theory, The End Times Passover and Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation.

SALLY ANN WILSON: She Knows Where She’s Going, Because She Knows Where She Has Been!

2011-06-14T16:47:00.000-07:00

First of all, I want to thank so many of you folks who responded to prayer request concerning my sister Sally Ann Wilson, who has been battling cancer for over a year and her condition turned worse the other day. I personally believe (due to preliminary reports I received late Saturday night), that her condition worsened and it looked like she was leaving us.

Therefore, I rushed down to my hometown of Indio, California yesterday morning (Monday) to hopefully see her one more time.

As I arrived at the hospital, carrying my Bible and prepared to even administer ‘last rites,’ I was stunned as I walked into her room and there she sat, upright, with a straw in a glass of water, as the nurse instructed to her to gulp the water slowly. I say stunned because as she looked towards me with a big smile on her face, I couldn’t take my eyes off her face which appeared to be glowing with beautiful hues of pink, brown and a rosiness on her cheeks that totally contradicts the look one would expect from a person who doctors had said hours earlier that the family should begin making last minute ‘preparations.”

As I sat down next to her bed, she immediately said, “Hey big brother, I heard you have not been feeling well lately.”

“What?” I mused to myself. “Here I come, the unofficial ‘priest’ of the family, prepared to console and impart the word of God to a woman who I was told was barely hanging by a thread, and she asks about my health!

But, then, that is the Sally Ann I have known for over 63 years, the one member in the family that has always greeted each and every one of us with a big smile, always with warm greetings and friendly salutation.

I asked her how she was feeling and she said she was fine, that she was going home on Wednesday and would be under-going more radiation treatment on the fast spreading cancer that has grown into her neck, which she said does make it hard for her to swallow food and water. I looked at her nurse, Shannon, with a quizzical look on my face as if to say, “I heard her condition had turned for the worse,” but that’s not what I see on my sister’s face.” Shannon smiled back as if to say that Sally Ann came in the night before in a very serious condition and the doctors were not optimistic at all. But, here my sister is looking better than the last time I saw her back in December of 2010. Could it be that God had immediately answered the prayers of all of those folks on Facebook whom I asked to pray for Sally Ann?

I began to tell her that many family members were also on the way to see her and suddenly a slight scowl came to her radiating face as if to say, “Please, family, just let me get some rest; I don’t need a houseful of people doting on me, I’m fine!”

We spent another 45 minutes talking about the family, trying to remember family birthdays, when other members of the family had passed away, such as our father, our youngest brother Robin, our sister Diane (who also died of cancer in 2001) and most of all our mother Sally (her namesake) who passed away in February 2008.

We also talked about her son Nicholas, who at 19 years of age was injured in a car crash in 2001, left immobile and wheel chair-bound for the rest of his life. Nick was hardcore into gangs then, but was rescued in a unique fashion few can understand. The doctors had told Sally Ann that Nick was going to be totally paralyzed from the neck down and she immediately said, “No way.” She and her other sons Jason and Garry have nurtured Nick with exercise and therapy and he is more mobile than anyone ever expected. In addition to holding a regular job managing a business machine store, and also opening up her dream taco shop she calls “Peppers” in Cole Camp, Missouri during the summer time, Sally Ann has devoted her life to eventually having her son Nick pick up his pallet and walk.

That’s the kind of person Sally Ann has been throughout her entire life. Always putting other people first, always shunning offers of help and assistance in her personal affairs. Life has not been a bed of roses for Sally Ann. Like so many others, she has experienced broken marriages and other normal disappointments in life. She never complains. But, it has always been about helping others before herself. Unlike so many who wear their religion on their sleeves (like I have rightly been accused) Sally Ann displayed hers by her actions.

Right before I left the hospital, being the detailed and always planning type of guy that I am, I asked her if she needed any help with anything and she said no, everything has been taken care, she meaning funeral arrangements, and all of her legal matters have been taken care of. Then, being the theology-minded person that I am, I asked her if she had any Bible questions, and she smiled back and said, with a big grin on her face, “Hey, me and God are OK and we have resolved all of our issues. I know where I’m going, big brother, because I know where I have been.”

I blew a kiss towards her as I turned away to leave; I didn’t want her to see me crying, not knowing if my tears were tears of joy because I knew where she was going once she passes away, or sadness that I may not be close by to kiss her one last time before she goes.
Her statement reminded me of the song by that same name which was recorded by Queen Latifah, which she sang in the film Hair Spray. I began humming that beautiful song as I got into my car to drive back to Redlands. I kept humming the song all the way home, as the tears continued to roll down my cheeks.

(click to start the song and then click back on her photo as you listen to it) I Know Where I've Been.

Happy Mother's Day, Especially To Single Moms!

2011-05-08T07:25:00.000-07:00

Holy Daughter, Glory Woman

From beginning, there was Love; celestial ceilings emit the power,

Forever searching His creation; love is bound His Holy nation;

Infant fragile is the woman, vessels golden do not cower,

Seeking Eros, strength and beauty, longs the heart appreciation;

Lifting head in braided awe, splendor lights in eyes of hope,

Like a magnet’s pulling power, now is future so revealed;

Fearing loss of life’s true longing, cataclysm now to cope,

Hearts and shaking mind it flows, lone confusion never sealed;

Love’s impression many colors, rainbows face is filled with fire,

Seeks its passion, pools of doubt, splitting hearts a new;

Three dimensions are the vision, hopes that flame desire;

Shattered glories, strength desired, souls adrift and time is few;

Standing upright Fem in glory, lifting pride where it belongs;

Humble maiden, priceless treasure, needs no reason for her right;

Love has entered open-hearted; your own love has healed all wrongs,

Needing little re-assurance, forever destined filled with might;

When new Eros remind it enters, without the body still complete,

Humble not your blessed honor, from beginning true Love given;

Spirit leading, wisdom offers, filling truth do not compete,

Cling to Love is not for last, upholding birthrights now forgiven,

Moving love in all directions, needless grasps the tarnished halos,

Love reminders all His glory, chosen from beginning;

Fragile beauty filled with power, wisdom en los cielos,

Shatter not your love’s foundation, touching hearts in lovers winning;

Reach His Love in humble service, trumpet regal high it hovers,

Contended courage in the distance, victory’s chalice flowing free;

Darkness passion, heart is shrouded; endless clouds the soul it covers,

Reach instead His Love so freely, true love shines eternally;

Love in motion, moment grasping, sifting sands in moments passion,

Holy Daughters from creation, upright standing pain the story;

Crowning glory in your strength, holds His loves eternal fashion;

First was Love, O Holy Daughter, come now woman, share God’s glory!

By Joe Ortiz, originally penned on February 14, 1998

Illegal Aliens Contribute More to US Economy Than They Receive!

2011-05-01T04:58:00.000-07:00

Illegal Aliens Contribute More to US Economy Than They Receive.

Prescience, Prophecy or Payback?

2011-03-21T00:47:00.000-07:00

Is America Becoming A Hispanic Country?

Ruben Navarrette's article (click above) hit CNN yesterday and the Hispanophobes have loaded their anti-Latino Gatling guns and spraying Xenophobic bullets in any blog comment boxes they can find. Just like the Rapture-to-Heaven-to-Escape-Tribulation groupies, just mention demographic data that proves their culture is on the wane and the veins in their necks begin to bulge like a water hose attached to an over-heated 1974 Toyota engine that's on its tenth replacement in the last 9 weeks, and there is no duct tape in sight.

Hey folks, it's called the Census Track results. Ruben didn't write an article filled with militant Latino rhetoric designed to put down America and its citizens. Neither was the article about whites being racially oppressed written recently by Esther J. Cepeda, concerning the half century influx growth of Hispanics (not just by those who crossed the border without papers) but by the changing demographics impacted as the older white population is on the decline due to death and retirement. Ancient Rome experienced the same problem after a two hundred year power reign; the U.S. culture has broken that record by 150 years or more. Nevertheless, Cepeda has no more rubbed salt in the wounds of a predominately Anglo Saxon culture anymore than Navarette.

"Our country is changing and we need to face those changes together, said Cepeda, Washington Post Writers Group, "and this has to start with honest dialogue based on mutual acceptance. Just as the majority must understand the value of uplifting minorities' quality of life for the betterment of our whole society, so must minorities be willing to respect concerns about the new order of things as more than just the ravings of racists."

There was no hint of any revolutionary rhetoric in her statement, but yet bloggers and commentators throughout the Internet have gone ballistics. Just like they go ballistics every time I mentioned that God loves the aliens (according to Ezekiel 47:22 and some other 250 or more scripture verses) and wants us to treat them as natural born citizens, with equal civility, dignity and respect instead of the vitriol that has become the commonly accepted trash talk text heard through cell phones and Internet chat rooms, and by those who gather around the water coolers of America. No!Navarette and Cepeda did not write ethnic slanted, gloating commentaries as if by some communist, anti-American, left-wing radical, revolutionary "reconquista" solder who has failed to pay his MEChA dues for the year. By the way, MEChA is student group of young Latinos and Latinas attending colleges throughout the nation, primarily in the southwestern states, which is now viewed as possibly one of the most feared terrorists groups in the country. Yea! Right.

Nevertheless. Navarette and Cepeda have become the anti-Hispanic poster kids for millions of Mexiphobes throughout the nation in the last year, hated each day more so as the immigration debate has turned from a heated discussion into a virtual flame thrower war. Their detractors are gaining quick ground on the ADL types who cry "Jew Hater" whenever anyone suggests we need to have a discussion concerning legitimate issues being voiced by Palestinians in the Middle East.

Mind you, many American folks are not asking people to take sides between Jews and Palestinians. They are wondering what is really going on in that region, because they are seeing stuff on the Internet they have never heard about nor even seen before. Stuff like Jewish and Christian Zionism, Illuminati, New World Order, Bielderbergs, Pharisaic Money-Changers and Nephilim. Most folks call these topics the new Cool Aid being sipped by conspiracy freaks. But us normal folks want to know what this stuff is all about and what it means. But, even raise the question as to what role Jews may be playing in these topics and the ADL whistles begin tweeting and screaming louder than a referee in the last few seconds of a Lakers Trail Blazers championship game. The anti-Semite card is drawn faster than my wife's credit card the moment I say the words, Walmart. The vitriol explodes in your face like a warm shaken can of beer being opened too quickly whether you are at the deli or in a Christian chat room.

Nevertheless, I digress. But not really, because the issue of Hispanics crossing the Mexican border into the US merely to seek work to feed their family, are being viewed (or should I say portrayed) by media and many patriot groups as they being on the same level as HAMAS Jihadists bent on destroying America and its culture. I find this to be more prevalent amongst my Christian brethren. Let me mention one or two scripture to my loving, faith-believing in Jesus Christ, born again, Bible thumping Christians, that God says we are to treat aliens as if they were native born citizens and you would of thought that Pontius Pilate himself jumped over the Guillotine guard rail with a baseball bat and commenced to play home run derby on my knee caps.

But this doesn't surprise me one bit. As a matter of fact, I saw this coming down the pipeline a few decades ago, as I was driving my Jewish friend Michael Bass down Cesar Chavez Boulevard in East Los Angeles back in 1985. I pointed out to him two young Latina mothers pushing their baby strollers down the street and told him: "See that? Those kids in the strollers will multiply faster than you can say Bugs Bunny, and they will be the political and economic wave of the future." Michael just smirked at me like, "Yea, right" and then commenced to change the subject matter.

A few years later, as I had returned to my hometown of Indio, California after spending over 30 years in the fast lane of media, politics and the social services arena, I began writing for several southland newspapers and expressing my feelings about a subject I was familiar with: The hopes, dreams and aspirations of the Latino community, an advocacy role I had played in Los Angeles for over 3 decades.

One of those articles included my spiritual assessment of the entire issue concerning how America has treated its Mexican neighbors for over a century, and it appeared in La Prensa San Diego on June 30, 2006. I revised and updated the same article about one year ago on one of my current blogs, Our Daily Bread, because I felt it was relevant to the smoldering illegal immigration dialogue that permeated almost every discussion on media and the Internet.

Some people may view my article as prescience, prophecy or even payback. But, it isn't. It's about reality. We (Americans) can view this changing ethnic demographic as a problem (or blessing) that needs to be addressed in a mutually acceptable fashion. Some may simply continue to hang onto their pride or prejudice. It really doesn't matter.

As the scripture verse states in Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”

Alycia Enciso Receives Latina Style Magazine's "Entrepreneur of the Year" Award

2011-03-08T04:53:00.000-08:00

Renowned space planner and interior designer, Alycia Enciso, recently received Latina Style Magazine’s “Entrepreneur of the Year Award.”

Enciso was presented the award as Latina Style Magazine celebrated the Grand Finale of its 12th Annual Tour in Los Angeles on November 18th at an event held at the Regency Century Hotel in Los Angeles. She was among several other legendary Latinas participating at the event including internationally renowned media mogul Nely Galán, and founder of annual Mariachi Festival at the Hollywood Bowl and entertainment producer, Rodri J Rodriguez, President and Ceo of Rodri Entertainment, Inc.

Founder of Alycia Enciso Associates in 1979, the popular business woman and community activist has received numerous awards, including two international recognitions, the International Design for Excellence in Interior Design Award at the Design International Conference in Paris, France, and also the Women in Design International Award for Excellence in Interior Design by the Congress of Women Architects and Town Planners in Berlin, Germany. She has also received the Home Fashion League Award in Los Angeles. But Enciso stated this particular award is special.

“I am most proud of this (Latina Style) award because it comes from a great organization that recognizes Latinas for their significant accomplishments to the business world and our (Latino) Community,” stated Enciso.

Latina Style Magazine has a national circulation of 150,000 and a readership of over 600,000. LATINA Style is unique in its ability to reach the seasoned Latina professional, the Latina civic and political leader, and the young Latina entering the workforce for the first time. The culturally sensitive editorial environment of the magazine showcases Latinas’ achievements in all areas of endeavor, including business, corporate America, science, education, civic and political affairs, to name a few.

Initially based in Los Angeles for 25 years, Alycia Enciso is now back in her hometown of San Bernardino, California. Enciso also founded Purchasing Furniture Systems, a furniture dealership company, which has earned a reputation for outstanding professional skill, expertise and service in residential, corporate, senior housing and health care planning and design. Above and beyond her professional endeavors, she has a renowned reputation for community service, as well as
photography.

“I cannot think of anyone more deserving of the “Entrepreneur of the Year” award from Latina Style Magazine than Alycia Enciso, “said Victor M. Franco, Vice President, Public/Media Affairs, Telemundo 52, NBC/Universal. “She is a one woman army in our Latino community, supporting and volunteering countless hours for so many organizations that are working to improve our quality of life. Her passion to serve is contagious, inspiring those of us that have had privilege of working with her.” Franco, who is recognized as one of the most effective Latino public and community relations executives in the country, also commented on Enciso’s photography skills.

“Alycia is the consummate photographer, chronicling the evolution of our collective growth, capturing our community’s success, frame by
frame so that young, future leaders can learn from our past and motivate them to believe that we can accomplish even more, state Franco. “I congratulate Latina Style Magazine for acknowledging a great visionary.”

Friends of Alycia Enciso gathered together a few days after she wins the Latina Style Magazine Award to congratulate the community activist, including Victor Franco, Joe Ortiz and actress Liz Navar. At a recent event held in Redlands, California, several of Enciso’s close friends were overjoyed to hear about her receiving the award.

“I had the honor and privilege of representing Alycia for many years in Los Angeles and was amazed by her energy and commitment to the Latino community,” said Joe Ortiz, former radio and television talk show host turned public relations specialist.

“Alycia has a big heart and a deep conviction for our (Latino community, and an amazing sense of timing that is inculcated in her photo shoots, said Ortiz. “Somehow, she manages to capture a specific moment in her photos that sort of freezes a significant historical moment for posterity’s sake.”

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraosa was among the dignitaries who congratulated Alycia Enciso upon receiving Latina Style’s Entrepreneur Award.

Prior to opening her own company in January 1979, Ms Enciso held positions in interior design, fashion consulting, showroom sales
and design. She was chairperson and director of a variety of design-related activities while at U.C.L.A. Extension.

Enciso serves as the vice chair and is currently the chair emeritus of the 34^th Congressional District Student Art Competition. From 1993 to 2004, Enciso served as a commissioner of the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission and was appointed by former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan as the Chair of Civic Design. Enciso formed part of the Greek Theater Advisory Board and was appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley as Founder/Chair of the "Youth at the Greek Festival 1993."

Enciso has served as a member of the Board of Directors
of Design International and Women in Design, professional organizations. She has been recognized for her fund-raising and special events, as active program council member of the National Network of Hispanic Women. Enciso was a member of the Board of Directors of the Latin Business Association of Los Angeles as vice president of Ways and Means Committee and was member of the Latin Business Foundation, the Vikki Carr Scholarship Foundation, and the Board of Trustees of Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (HOPE) and the General Services Advisory in Sacramento and was President of HOPE Education and Leadership Fund.

Enciso founded and is the chair of “Latinos in Hollywood,” a photographic exhibition. She has actively collected photographs for the exhibit for 13 years and has a large collection of life in California and of her travels. Enciso was involved in the San Bernardino “Arts on 5^th” Grand Opening with Latinos in Hollywood and special guest actor Barbara Carrera. She is currently a board member of the San
Bernardino Symphony and was currently appointed to the Historic Preservation Commission and the Bicentennial Commission in
San Bernardino, California by Mayor Patrick Morris. Enciso is a board member of the Latino Theater Company and is currently working on a multimillion dollar renovation of the New Los Angeles Theater Center, a World class Multicultural Cultural Center, and is currently a member of ICUC working on issue affecting the environment and the pollution created by BNSF railroad operation in San Bernardino.

MacPherson/Ortiz Family ReVisit Disneyland

2011-03-07T05:29:00.000-08:00

MacPherson/Ortiz Family Disneyland Pictures of Facebook

Author Dave MacPherson, his wife Wanda and close friends Joe & Martha Ortiz, revisit Disneyland

MacPherson has the distinction of being the first paying customer at Disneyland on opening day, July 18, 1955. See attached story here>This Day In Disney History

2011-03-07T05:27:00.001-08:00

A Pictorial History of Joe Ortiz Associates

2011-02-28T06:48:00.000-08:00

Click here to see>>> A Pictorial History of Joe Ortiz Associates

60s Eastside Sound Reunion Show Set for March 20, 2011

2011-02-22T02:36:00.000-08:00

60's Eastside Sound Reunion Show Set for March 20, 2011 - Google Docs

Introducing Joe Ortiz

2011-02-17T06:07:00.000-08:00

Introducing Joe Ortiz.

It Seems To Me...

Immigration Fears: It’s All about Sowing and Reaping

Movie, The Alamo, Provides a Clue for Racial Harmony!

Legendary Twice Super Bowl Winning Coach, Tom Flores, Left Off the NFL Hall of Fame Semifinal List ~ Shame, Shame, NFL ~

An Open Message to Lamar Smith, Texas Congressman ~

Rare Tape of a Radio Show on the Evolution of Chicano Rock Music Found!

Positive Latino Images Did Not Evolve Overnight, It Took Hard Work By Many!

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Two Time Super Bowl Winning Coach, Tom Flores, Was Honored by National Council of La Raza Last Tuesday!

Are Mexicans Planning to Conquer the United States?

Tom Flores To Be Honored by National Council of La Raza On Tuesday!

The Baron of Broadcasting: Saturday 11pm EST/ 8pm PST- Guest: Joe Ortiz- WWZN 1510 AM

Independence Day Hypocrisy

American Evangelicals on Immigration: The Culture or The Cross?

The following article was written and posted on the Internet on January 29, 2007, by Alexander Zaitchik, a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.. Photos and slug line added by Joe Ortiz.

SALLY ANN WILSON: She Knows Where She’s Going, Because She Knows Where She Has Been!

Happy Mother's Day, Especially To Single Moms!

Illegal Aliens Contribute More to US Economy Than They Receive!

Prescience, Prophecy or Payback?

Alycia Enciso Receives Latina Style Magazine's "Entrepreneur of the Year" Award

MacPherson/Ortiz Family ReVisit Disneyland

A Pictorial History of Joe Ortiz Associates

60s Eastside Sound Reunion Show Set for March 20, 2011

Introducing Joe Ortiz