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There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.— Thomas Jefferson

Vol. 15 No. 12 December 2004

My Teachers’ Lies

American Renaissance

A Mexican describes theMexican mind.

by Luis Gonzalez de Alba

Introduced and translated byRaymond McClaren

It is very unusual to find a LatinAmerican author who does notblame his country’s ills

squarely on the United States. Thisis especially true of Mexicans, whoare all taught in school that theUnited States invaded and dismem-bered their country in 1846 – 1848and has ruthlessly exploitedMexico ever since. Most Mexicanscannot conceive of the wealth andpower of the United States—andtheir own poverty and weakness—as anything but proof of Americanwickedness.

Luis Gonzalez de Alba is thatrare Mexican who is able to see hiscountry as it really is. In this short1997 essay, My Teachers’ Lies, hebrilliantly captures the delusionsand contradictions of the Mexicannational character.

Don Luis was born on March 6, 1944,in Charcas, a small desert village in thestate of San Luis Potosi. He came toMexico City in the 1960s to study psy-chology at Mexico’s leading university,the National Autonomous University of

Mexico, and was a leader in the studentmovement. The government arrestedhim in the wake of the Oct. 2, 1968, mas-sacre of students and workers, and hespent two years and eight months inprison.

Don Luis has written novels andplays, but has achieved greatest successas a science writer. Needless to say, hispolitical writing is controversial; thisessay originally appeared in a now-de-funct magazine called Tendencias, which

was published in El Salvador. In 2002,he expanded on the ideas in this essay,and published a book of the same title, My Teachers’ Lies. Neither the essay northe book was translated into English.

Don Luis’s refusal to accept the dis-tortions of the political, academic, andmedia elites is grounded in a thorough

understanding of Mexican history, andhe refers to people and events with whichAmericans are not familiar. It may seemdistracting to go back and forth between

the footnotes (page 4) and the essay, butmost Americans will find the notes nec-essary. In any case, Americans would bewell advised to learn the history of a

country that is clearly determined to playan ever-larger role in our affairs.

My Teachers’ LiesThe Demolition of Myths

The Vision of the Vanquished

he true history of Mexico isa long series of glorious de-feats and a weighty directory

of fallen heroes. Cuauhtemoc1 isour purest hero, but not for hisdeeds, nor his nation-building, norhis victories, since he did not havetime for such things, but only be-cause he is the great loser. Hidalgo2

is the Pater Patriae [father of hiscountry] by decree, not for hisachievements. Morelos3 headed an-other uprising that was scarcelynoted in our immense expanse of territory, and his defeat was abso-lute. Guerrero4 turned into a simplefugitive lost in the mountains of thesouth, where he could have stayedto die a natural death from old age,since in no way did he affect thecourse of the Spanish Empire.

Madero5 never governed, and we con-tinue to wait for a workable government.Zapata6 was shot down, and land reformhad to wait until Cardenas7 and evenlonger—enough time for the growth of the population to make it impossible to

give land to each peasant, and distribu-tion created more problems than ben-efits.

The Perfidious Victors

The accursed victors are deep withinour official hell. The greatest villain isthe absolute victor, the man who madepossible the Mexico of today, a countrythat was possible only upon the ruins of

Monument to the revolution, Mexico City.

“The true history of Mexico is a long series of

glorious defeats and aweighty directory of

fallen heroes.”

T




Letters from ReadersSir —While John Hunt Morgan’s plea

in the previous issue for a “feminineapproach” to the problems we face rais-

ing families in contemporary America isappealing, his examples reveal the diffi-culties of establishing the communitieshe envisions. Orthodox Jews and Amishare animated by deeply-felt religiousfaiths, as were the Mormons and, for thatmatter, the Puritans. Members of sectsbelieve that nothing less than personalsalvation is at stake in belonging to acommunity and adhering to its rules. DoAR readers have the same level of com-mitment?

May I suggest a few more modeststrategies than Mr. Morgan’s? Establish-

ing small private schools free from po-litical correctness seems to me a morerealistic goal than selling our homes andbusinesses, quitting our jobs, and uproot-ing our families. But even this is beyondthe means and capacities of most of us.There are two alternatives: Lobby yourschool board to require—or at least of-fer—classes in European history. Giventhe biases of texts and teachers, it’s prettyhopeless to try to improve the teachingof US History in middle schools. Thereare, however, a number of excellent col-lege-level European history texts that

could be used in high school.Students would learn, of course, about

the great issues that divided Europeansin previous centuries, and about theatrocities that accompanied Europeanexpansion, such as slavery and the epi-demics that killed millions of SouthAmericans. But they would also learnabout the genius and energy that enabledEuropeans to dominate the world and tocreate societies of greater wealth andfreedom than any that had gone before.

At the same time, we don’t have to de-pend on schools. We can teach our chil-dren European history and culture on ourown, on weekends or during the sum-mer.

It is refreshing to turn from theory topractice, as Mr. Morgan asks us to do(though anyone exposed to feministtheory might have reservations aboutlabeling approaches “feminine” or “mas-culine”). However, if the practices aren’t,in fact, practical, we are doomed onlyto more frustration and a new round of daydreams.

Jay Michaels

Sir — John Hunt Morgan has the rightidea in his article “Building White Com-

munities,” but needs to think evensmaller. Perhaps he alludes to this whenhe talks about “a small zone.” We cando something easier than trying to colo-nize a small town. A handful of familiescould buy houses in the same neighbor-hood. They would need to be within sightof each other, or at the very least, withineasy walking distance. Ideally, thiswould mean houses on the same cul-de-sac in a suburb, or a dead-end street inan older neighborhood.

This arrangement would meet themost important goals of a white com-

munity. The members could establish aconsensus on limiting television andother activities. They could nurture whiteidentity by conscious selection of books,music, games and other recreations.They could set up a home-schoolingnetwork, whose burdens could be sharedamong five or six families. Home school-ing would mean greater choice of hous-ing markets, because high house pricesare associated with better schools, andthat consideration would be removed.

By staying in the same metropolitanarea, families could preserve local ties,stay in the same job market, and main-tain contact with relatives. Local ties canbe very important for the self-employed.

Some might consider such a housingcluster overly intimate and collectivist.However, I do not advocate any mingling

of finances or work—just schooling andsocial environment.Certainly, a small town of like-minded

whites would be better than a cluster of houses, but the latter has more realisticstart-up costs, and lower costs mean abetter chance of getting off the ground.Once a group were established, it couldhave a snowball effect. Members couldeventually exercise political power in thesame way minority groups do in big cit-ies, and a growing base populationwould make it easier eventually to colo-nize an entire town.

JS, San Diego, Calif.

Sir —I greatly admire Samuel Francisand the insights in his most recent mono-graph (see review of Ethnopolitics, AR,Oct. 2004), but I’m puzzled by his ob-session with the Republican Party. Hewrites as though it could actually be sal-vaged for useful purposes, but its recordsuggests otherwise. Can you name onesocialist income transfer program theRepublicans have terminated? Didn’tthey just enact the largest increase in

“entitlement” spending (Medicare pre-scription drug coverage) since 1965?Doesn’t the party’s current leader wantamnesty for illegal immigrants? Isn’t theRepublican leadership just as enthusias-tic about affirmative action as the Demo-crats?

If we are to save our country we must,at a minimum, do three things: abolishsocialism, control our borders, and limitthe franchise to taxpayers. We could thenrely on natural selection to maintain aEuropean majority. Perhaps none of these things can be achieved by demo-

cratic means, but surely no one thinksthe Republicans are any more likely toattempt them than the Democrats.

Isn’t it time Republicans went the wayof the Whigs?

Michael Johnson, Houston, Tex.

In the November issue, we mis-spelled the name of HowardFezell, on page 10. We apolo-gize to Mr. Fezell.




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Continued from page 1

American Renaissance

Jared Taylor, EditorStephen Webster, Assistant Editor

Ian Jobling, Web Page EditorGeorge McDaniel, Web Page Consultant

the indigenous nations, not one of themremotely Mexican. Hernan Cortes is theFather of Mexico8 because without his

victory, the present population of Mexico would not exist. However, wechoose to define ourselves as the con-quered—the vanquished—in absolutedenial of the father, the Spaniard andconqueror who triumphed because of somuch evil.

The Process of Identification

Mexican social psychology has anunusual research theme in our identifi-cation with the vanquished and not thevictorious, although we are sons of both.

We say that “they,” the Spaniards, de-

feated “us.” But do we not have eyes of all colors and complexions of all shades?Do we not name ourselves Carlos,Miguel, Antonio, Maria, Carmen? Oursurnames are Gonzalez, Lopez, Aguilar,Toledo, Segovia. The idyllic and sillyimage we have of the Aztec Empire weimagine to ourselves in Spanish, andwhen we insult Spain, we do it in Span-ish. This is a country greatly in need of psychoanalysis, where in spite of so

much nativism, the Indians cannot stagean uprising without some White Manbrandishing a camera at them.

A Tale Told Backwards

If this country had been conquered bythe 300 Spaniards of Cortes with tenstarving horses and some ancient blun-derbusses, it ought to make us ashamed just to talk about it. The “Conquest” wasthe result of indigenous hatred of thebarbaric savagery of the Aztecs. The fallof Tenochtitlan9 was the result of a mas-sive popular revolt. Independent for justa hundred years in 1521, the Aztecs hadoppressed their subject nations with ex-tremes of savagery never reached by the

Nazis. The schoolboy version that“Mexico was conquered by a foreignpower” is childish, ridiculous, and dam-aging in the first place to the Indian Na-tions. If 300 Spaniards really had con-quered a city that had a population of half a million in the midst of a territorywith a population of 20 million, trulythey would have been Gods. However,1) Mexico could not be conquered be-cause it did not exist. 2) Spain was noth-ing more than a small country recentlyfreed from a thousand years of Arabdomination. 3) It was not only Spaniards,

but also thousands of Native warriorswho, oppressed by the reign of Aztecterror, took Tenochitlan and razed it withall the hatred and fury imaginable.

The Childish Sicknessof the Mexican

We are a childish nation that alwaystries to blame outsiders: “The Spaniardsconquered us,” say the children of blue,green, and chestnut eyes, whose names

are Fernando and surnamed Cortes. Welearn to degrade ourselves, and self-pitysickens us with sympathy for ourselves.We are full of willfulness, a quality thatentitles us to everything, and if we donot get it, it is because of foreign evil-doers: the Americans robbed us of theNorthern Territories, the bad Mestizos

get the good Indians drunk, and the In-dians forget their values. We explain ourpoverty as the result of the imperialismof the United States, which has openedthe veins of Latin America.10 But wenever ask ourselves why we are not theimperialistic country and the UnitedStates a poor country with open veins.Or we claim we are poor because ourpoliticians are swindlers and sluggards,but we do not observe that our govern-ments spring from ourselves.

When We Grow Up

To become adults we need two treat-ments for two failings that are, in them-selves, a paradox: excessive humility andoverbearing arrogance. First, we mustnot picture ourselves as the humbledproduct of a defeat. Second, we must not

believe ourselves to be the favorite sonof a heavenly mother who solves all. Weare poor because of our mistakes, ourhistory of violence and destruction, andbecause of our Catholic disdain of sci-ence, which is the basis of industry.11

Likewise, we do not win Olympic med-als or soccer championships,12 first of all,

The virgin of Guadalupe: not a patronessof soccer champions.




because of the Virgin. If she wanted usto win we would emerge winners in ev-erything, wouldn’t we? The second rea-son we are not winners is because weare a nation of potbellies for whom sportis a Sunday television program watchedbetween beers and rich slices of barbe-cued pork. However, no taxi-driver

would ever explain it this way. We losebecause of bad luck or the bad faith of others.

Will God Speak Throughthe Aryan Race?

The feminists have taught us tochange the gender of a phrase to discoverthe masculine sexism hidden in every-day matters. Let us try the same thingwith our vociferous racialism: “Will Godspeak through the Aryan race?”13 Let ussuppose that was the motto of Heidel-

berg University. Would demonstratorsnot be applauded if they splashed painton it? Or the mountain-climber whoscaled the rectory tower to obliterate thatdeclaration with a hammer? A monument

to the German race, to the Aryan essenceof Germany, would it not suffer everyconceivable attempt to wipe it out? Butwhat is dignity in the poor is abusive ar-rogance in the rich. Deutschland Uber Alles seems racialist to us, but “There

are not two like Mexico”14 is only simplenational pride. It is true, certainly, but aplatitude, because the same applies toGuatemala or Nigeria, and it lends itself also to the type of joke that backfires:there are not two—fortunately.

Notes

1Cuauthemoc (1495 - 1525) was thelast of the Aztec emperors. He defendedthe Aztec capital against the conquista-

dors in 1521, and after his defeat andcapture, he reluctantly went into Span-ish service. In 1525, Cortes tried him fortreason and had him executed, eventhough many Spaniards considered himinnocent. He is said to have died defi-antly, and is considered Mexico’s great-est hero.

2

Miguel Hidalgo (1753 – 1811) wasa priest whose campaigns against Spainlaunched the independence movement.In 1810, he started a revolt in the hopeof improving conditions for Indians, andmarched on Mexico City with an armyof 80,000. After winning an initial battlehe was defeated by the Spanish, flednorth, was captured and shot. Sept. 16,the day on which Hidalgo called for in-surrection, is a national holiday, Mexi-can Independence Day. It is in this sensethat Hidalgo is the father of his countryby decree, and not by achievement.

3

Jose Maria Morelos (1765-1815),also a priest, joined Hidalgo’s insurrec-tion and succeeded him as leader of therebels. He was initially successful, andissued a declaration of independencefrom Spain in 1813. Two years later,royalists defeated and shot him. LikeHidalgo, he is a hero of the early strugglefor independence.

4Vicente Guerrero (1783? – 1831)was a Mexican soldier who joined thewar for independence in 1810 underMorelos, and became leader of guerrillaforces. He served briefly as president of

Mexico in 1829 but was overthrown ina revolt, and was shot in 1831.

5Francisco Madero (1873-1913) wasthe original leader of the Mexican Revo-lution of 1910 to 1920. The revolutionagainst seven-term president and dicta-tor, Porfirio Diaz, was ostensibly for landredistribution. It led to a confused andviolent period during which local powerwas in the hands of warlords and gue-rilla bands. Madero managed to makehimself president from 1911 to 1913, butwas overthrown and shot. He is never-theless a great hero, and Mexico cel-

ebrates Revolution Day every Nov. 20,the day in 1910 on which Madero de-nounced President Diaz, declared him-self president of Mexico, and called forinsurrection.

6Emiliano Zapata (1877? – 1919) wasanother hero of the Mexican Revolution,but was an enemy of Madero, whom hethought not radical enough. Of peasantorigin, he controlled the state of Morales,where he drove the wealthy off their es-tates, and divided the land among peas-

ants. Another great hero, he was assas-sinated in 1919.

Although Don Luis does not mentionhim, Pancho Villa (1878 – 1923) is asomewhat more ambiguous “hero” of therevolution. Born Doroteo Arangol to apeasant family, he joined a bandit gangas a teenager, and adopted the name of

the gang chieftain after police killed himin a shootout. In 1910, he joinedMadero’s rebellion and operated in the

north. After Madero was shot, he quar-reled with other revolutionaries, and flednorth, where he continued as a banditand guerilla fighter. In 1916, he and hismen attacked Columbus, New Mexico,murdering townspeople and burningmost of the town. General John Pershingled an expeditionary force into Mexico

and pursued him for 11 months, butcould not catch him. Villa knew the ter-rain and was popular with the Mexicans,who refused to help Pershing despite a$5,000 reward on Villa’s head. Thisgreatly adds to his sheen in Mexico to-day, but his popularity could not protecthim from other Mexicans. He was as-sassinated in 1923, and some peasantspray to him as if he were a saint.

7Lazaro Cardenas (1895-1970) wasanother anti-Diaz revolutionary, whomanaged to avoid being shot, and servedas president from 1934-1940. He initi-

ated serious land reform and national-ized the oil industry. His was perhapsthe first honest, reasonably successfulattempt to uplift the whole country. Hedid not loot the treasury, and lived a no-tably austere life.

8Hernan Cortes (1485 – 1547) con-quered Mexico during the famous cam-paign of 1519 – 1521. He is “the fatherof Mexico” because of his affair with LaMalinche, an Aztec noblewoman whowas his interpreter and consort. Cortes

Cuauhtemoc, the unsullied hero.

ΩΩΩΩΩ




could have had many women, but wasfaithful to La Malinche during the cam-paign, and had a son, who is celebratedas the first “Mexican.” Although, as DonLuis points out, Cortes is not a hero tothe Mexicans, Columbus is. Mexico cel-ebrates October 12—the origins of themestizo—as Dia de la Raza or “day of

the race.”9Tenochtitlan was the name of theAztec capital conquered by Cortes, andwas the precursor of today’s MexicoCity.

10This refers to a popular 1971 book by the Uruguayan communist, EduardoGaleano, Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina, which blames all the ills of theregion on the United States.

11One Mexican won a Nobel prize for

literature, and another shared a peaceprize. No Mexican has won a prize inscience. Neighboring Guatemala, withonly one ninth the population, has wonone Nobel prize for literature and onefor peace, both unshared.

12Mexico has a population of 100million, which is more than reunitedGermany (82 million), France, or En-gland (both 60 million), but it won onlyone silver and three bronze medals at the2004 Olympics. Soccer is the nationalpastime, but Mexico has never won theWorld Cup.

13Don Luis has taken the motto of theNational Autonomous University of Mexico, “Will God Speak Through MyRace?” and changed it to “Will GodSpeak Through the Aryan Race?” Hecredits this type of analysis to feminists,who claim that language is riddled with“sexism.” An example would be to pointout that the masculine often stands forboth sexes, as in “Every student shouldraise his hand.”

14“There are not two like Mexico”

(Como Mexico no hay dos) is a sloganthe government used to promote tour-ism. It did not work very well, and in-stead became the butt of jokes of the kindDon Luis cites.

Afterword:‘La Raza Cosmica’

or ‘La Raza Comica?’

by Raymond McClaren

There is another historical figureDon Luis might have mentionedin this essay, who perhaps better

than anyone exemplifies the Mexican na-tional character. In his excellent article

“The War With Mexico” inthe September 1995 Ame-rican Renaissance, EricPeterson asks: “Why

would they [the Mexicans]make war with the UnitedStates when they had beenunable to subdue abreakaway territory[Texas]? Astonishinglyenough, they fully ex-pected to win.” Further inthe same paragraph Mr.Peterson writes, “Indeed,the Mexican dictator of themoment, Mariano Pare-

des, boasted that he would notnegotiate until the Mexican flag flew

over the capitol dome in Washington.”There is nothing astonishing about the

Mexican expectation of victory or theblowhard boast of President and Gen-eral Paredes. He is a character entirely

at home in Don Luis’s Mexico, and al-most single-handedly justifies the oldSouth American observation that Mexi-cans say, do, and believe in things thatare unnatural ( Los Mexicanos dicen,hacen, y creen en cosas que no son natu-rales). Despite Paredes’s claim, it wasthe American flag that flew over the Cita-

del of Mexico City, El Castillo deChapultepec.It is unusual to encounter a perfect

representative of a national type, but theillustrious Mariano Paredes fits the pro-file. Like so many figures from Mexi-can history, his biography reads like anopera plot. He was a general who helpedput Santa Ana in power in 1841 butturned against him when Santa Ana didnot reward him sufficiently. He helpedoverthrow Santa Ana, but the presidencywent to Jose Herrera. In 1845, he led arevolt against Herrera, charging him with

compromising the honor of Mexico bynegotiating with the United States overTexas rather than taking up arms. Hebecame president for part of 1846, butbungled the war he so actively sought.

Rather than fight the Americans,Paredes led a campaign into Jaliscoagainst domestic enemies. Meanwhile,General Winfield Scott, whom the Dukeof Wellington called “the greatest sol-dier alive” for his Mexican campaign,defeated larger forces in four battles onhis way from Veracruz to take MexicoCity. Paredes was kicked out of office

in 1846 because of the war, briefly wentinto exile in 1847, came back and plot-ted yet another revolt, which failed. Hemanaged to avoid being shot, and actu-ally died of natural causes in 1849. De-

Library of the National Autonomous University.




Ruins at Palenque.

spite his complete failure during thewar with the United States, Mexi-cans consider him a great militaryleader. Paredes is just one moreloser to be added to Don Luis’s list,and he, too, is a kind of Mexicanhero.

More bombast than bombs, he

started an unwinnable war, but tothe Mexican mind he accomplishedgreat deeds because for Mexicans,words are deeds. Mexicans aremasters of the most primitive psy-chological defense known: denial. Thus,despite the fact that Paredes wanted warwith the United States, and intended toconquer great chunks of it, as everyMexican knows, “the Americans stole

the Northern Territories.” The Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848 broughtAnglo-Saxon order to 525,000 squaremiles of Latin squalor and chaos, but a

complex blending of corruptAmerican motives and Mexicanpredation is reestablishing thesqualor and chaos.

Because of the psychologicalcapitulation of its neighbor to thenorth, Don Luis’s nation of losershas a chance to win after all. What

Mexico could not conquer by forceof arms or by economic or culturaldominance, it may win throughsheer fecundity. What Mexicanscould never achieve on their own,

they may conquer because of the unwill-ingness of Americans to defend whatthey have created. Today it is thenorteamericanos who believe in thingsthat are unnatural.

Voter Fraud on the Increase

John Fund, Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy, Encounter Books2004, 173 pp. (softcover) $15.95.

Third-World habits aretaking root.

reviewed by Thomas Jackson

Despite much self-congratulationabout the quality of Americandemocracy, our elections are

surprisingly vulnerable to fraud. As WallStreet Journal writer John Fund explains

in Stealing Elections, we may have someof the worst-protected balloting systemsof any country that holds regular elec-tions.

There is great variation from jurisdic-tion to jurisdiction, but our elections areeasy to jimmy because they are basedon the honor system. In the past, elec-tion boards have assumed only eligiblecitizens would register and vote, andthere has been only cursory protectionagainst fraud. Now, as Mr. Fund boldlyexplains, blacks and Hispanics often takeadvantage of lax enforcement—some-

times in the most brazen way—and thencall their critics “racists.”

Despite persistent charges that Re-publicans kept blacks away from thepolls during the 2000 election and woulddo the same this year, vote fraud islargely Democratic. There are severalreasons for this. First, it is easier to buyvotes from poor people. Second, Demo-cratic candidates are often life-long poli-ticians desperate to keep their jobs,whereas Republicans who lose elections

often have private sector professions towhich they can return.

Third, liberal notions of “inclusion”go along with the view that making sure

everyone gets a chance to vote is moreimportant than worrying about strict eli-gibility. This year, for example, Kerrysupporters split 62 to 19 in favor of theimportance of inclusion over procedure,whereas by 59 to 18, Bush supportersthought integrity of eligibility standardswas more important than making sureno one was wrongly excluded. These po-sitions reflect partisan interests—thedoubtful voters kept out by the rules arelikely to vote Democrat—but conserva-

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tives like rules and procedures more thanliberals do. Women tend to be liberal andworry more than men that eligibilityrules could unfairly exclude someone.

Finally, although Mr. Fund does notsay so specifically, it stands to reasonthat blacks and Hispanics are morefraud-prone than whites. They break al-most all laws more often than whites, andThird-World immigrants are used to cut-ting corners. As a consequence, voter

fraud is concentrated among black andimmigrant populations.

Varieties of Fraud

When Americans think of electionfraud they imagine Africans or SouthAmericans shooting opponents or con-fiscating ballot boxes. That doesn’t hap-pen here. Fraud is less blatant, and usu-ally involves phony registrations andgimmicky ways to cast absentee ballotsrather than deliberate miscounts. Sincefraud is at the margins rather than at the

heart of the system, it is usually not pos-sible to steal an election unless it is close.

The long-standing Democratic cam-paign to increase turnout by making iteasy to register has made it easy to break the law. The National Voter RegistrationAct (the “motor voter law”) was the firstbill President Clinton signed. It imposedfraud-friendly rules on every state byforcing driver’s license bureaus andwelfare and unemployment agencies tooffer no-questions-asked mail-in voter




As Mr. Fund boldly ex-plains, blacks and His-

panics often take advan-tage of lax enforcement—

sometimes in the mostbrazen way—and then

call their critics “racists.”

. . . for the second time today.

Perhaps asking for trouble.

registration to everyone. The law alsomade it hard to challenge new registrantsor to purge “deadwood” from the voterrolls—people who have died, movedaway, or gone to prison.

Lax registration means non-citizens,minors, and felons can register. It makesit easy to register in several locations and

vote more than once. When it is hard to

purge voter lists, enterprising citizenscan cast ballots in the names of neigh-

bors they know are dead, in jail, or outof state.

Voting in someone else’s name is oneof the most common types of fraud. Na-tionally, 12 percent of registered votersnever vote, and political activists oftentake their places at the polls. The “mo-tor voter” law made this problem worsebecause only about five percent of thepeople it put on the rolls bother to vote.The more inactive voters there are, theeasier it is for someone to “borrow” theirfranchise.

Clearly, it would be much harder to

vote in someone else’s name if peoplehad to show photo ID at the polls,but only 17 states require this.Eighty-two percent of voters favorrequiring identification, but Demo-crats have consistently headed off reform by arguing it would “intimi-date” poor and non-white voters.

In 1997, Louisiana wanted torequire ID at least from new voterswho had registered by mail andwhom no election bureaucrat hadever seen. The state was under 1965Voting Rights Act requirements to

get federal permission for anychange to election rules, and theClinton administration refused, ar-guing that asking for ID would re-mind blacks of the days when theycouldn’t vote. The feds backed downonly after it was widely pointed out thatMr. Clinton’s FDA had just ordered allretailers to card anyone who wanted tobuy cigarettes and did not look at least27 years old.

The pretense that an ID requirement

will terrify blacks lives on. In Missis-sippi, anyone over age 65 is exemptfrom the requirement because elderlyblacks might be reminded of the daysof fire hoses and police dogs. (How dothey prove to poll watchers they are over65 without showing ID?)

Sloppy registration has serious con-

sequences. The voting age population of St. Louis, Missouri, is 258,532 and thenumber of registered voters is 247,135,for a completely unrealistic registrationrate of 97 percent. Not surprisingly, thecity gets unusual results. After electionsin 2002, an investigation turned up nofewer than 24,000 fraudulent voters. Of this number 4,405 had voted in thenames of dead people, 2,242 were in-eligible felons, and 15,963 were regis-tered in more than one place and couldhave voted more than once.

For four years, a St. Louis dog named

Ritzy Meckler was registered to vote.Her owners put the dog’s name in thetelephone book as a privacy measure,and someone “harvested” it for a phonyregistration.

St. Louis does have procedures topurge the rolls of people who have notvoted in four years, and who cannot bereached at the address they gave whenthey registered. A voter must re-registeror go before an election judge to be re-instated. Mr. Fund writes that recentlyall the judges were Democratic andmany were openly partisan. He writes

that some black judges reinstated vot-

ers only on condition that they voteDemocratic.

Anyone who proposes cleaning upthis loose system faces accusations of “racism.” William Lacy Smith, the city’sblack congressman, promises racialtrouble if anyone investigates.

Absentee Voters

Mr. Fund argues strongly that absen-tee ballots are the most vulnerable tofraud. Because they do not require a trip

to the polls, the authorities never reallyknow who cast them or under what cir-cumstances. When mail-in registration iscombined with absentee voting, electionofficials may never see a voter at all.

Twenty states have no-excuse absen-tee voting, which means people can mailin their ballots for reasons of pure con-venience, not because they will be outof town. In many states, the aged andincapacitated can vote absentee, andnursing home managers have been

known to rent out the residents to activ-ists who “help” them fill out bal-lots. In 2002, Democratic opera-tives were caught on video giv-ing food and money to mentallyill people in exchange for absen-tee votes.

In three of the no-excusestates—California, Utah, andWashington—a voter can leave astanding order with the electionsboard to mail out an absentee bal-lot before every election. Peopledie or move away, and the ballots

keep coming. The resourceful canintercept ballots, forge signatures,and keep voting for years. Opera-tives sometimes go through the

projects and sign everyone up for regu-lar absentee ballots. When the ballotscome, the activist makes the roundsagain, distributing small gifts in ex-change for the right vote. One great ad-vantage of absentee balloting is that abought vote stays bought whereas vote-buyers can never be sure what someone




Tomorrow’s voters?

will do in the voting booth.Oregon has a 100 percent mail-in bal-

lot system. This means registered votersget ballots in the mail without even ask-ing for them. It is easy to steal a ballotfrom a mail box, and the large numberof people who don’t vote anyway nevermiss them. Many of these ballots are, of

course, cast by someone else.Even if it did not lend itself to fraud,Mr. Fund opposes voting by mail. Pro-ponents say it increases voter turnout,but this is a false claim. He also thinksthe pilgrimage to the polls is part of theritual and solemnity of democracy, andshould not be given up. Finally, absen-tee voters have to decide early, and maymiss late developments. In California,some women who voted absentee forArnold Schwarzenegger would havevoted for someone else if they hadwaited until election day and learned of

his record as a groper.Convictions for violations of cam-

paign and election laws are very rare,and Mr. Fund doesn’t hesitate to pointto race as one of the reasons. Most of the criminals are Democratic—oftennon-white—and Republicans are afraidto make a fuss. They have not even beenable to quash the completely unfoundedcharges that they kept blacks from vot-ing in 2000, and it is now an article of faith among blacks that Republicans willdo anything to bottle up the black vote.

Mr. Fund cites only one case in which

Republicans could conceivably be ac-

cused of targeting blacks. In 1986, theLouisiana Republicans sent letters to allthe voters in precincts in which Repub-licans got less than 20 percent of thevote, to see if the voters were still at thoseaddresses. When they got 31,000 lettersback, they asked the election authoritiesto purge those voters from the rolls.These Democratic neighborhoods wereoverwhelmingly black, and the Repub-

licans never heard the end of it. Sincethis episode—nearly 20 years ago—Re-publicans have had an abiding terror of doing anything even faintly “racist.”

Republicans used to stand outsideheavily Hispanic polling stations, carry-ing signs in Spanish that said “Non-citi-zens can’t vote.” This, too, has gone

down in the annals as outrageous intimi-dation of non-whites, increasing Repub-lican timidity.

With prosecution unlikely, manypeople do not bother to hide what theydo. Among the Mexicans in Texas thereis a profession called politiquero. Prac-titioners regularly persuade elderly or il-literate Chicanos to get ballots by mail,and then bribe or browbeat them to votethe right way. Herminia Becerra, whocalls herself the queeen of Brownsville politiqueros, is proud of what she does,claiming that she helps choose candi-

dates who are good for the community.Republicans control the state house, butare afraid to tighten the system for fearof being accused of “racism.”

In South Dakota, corruption is mostcommon on Indian reservations, whereDemocrats register all sorts of doubtfuland bogus voters. It is common forDemocrats to herd Indians to the pollsin vans, and sometimes to give themmoney for voting. The reservations alsohave a tradition of reporting their resultslast, after the count is in for the rest of the state. This makes it easy to know just

how much extra help a candidate needs.Recently, Democrats offered a $3

bounty for new voter registrations on thereservation, and Becky Red EarthVilleda collected no less than $13,000for her efforts. She saw to it that peopleregistered as Democrats but also forgeda huge number of new registrations.When this came to light, tribal officialsdefended her and fought every attemptto get evidence against her, claiming thatthe white man did not have subpoenaauthority on the reservation. Accordingto a prosecutor who worked on the case,

the government gladly dropped its in-vestigation into what was promising tostir up embarrassing charges of “racism.”Reporters who looked into irregularitiesfaced the same charge.

Wherever there are large numbers of immigrants, there is the risk that non-citizens will vote. In 1996, OrangeCounty discovered that in one five-month period 125 registered voters hadexcused themselves from jury duty onthe grounds that they were not citizens.

No charges were filed. In the county’svote that year that ended Robert Dor-nan’s congressional career and replacedhim with Loretta Sanchez, the INS esti-mated that as many as 4,023 non-citi-zens voted. The election was decided byfewer than 1,000 votes.

Mr. Fund reports that Hawaii is an-

other swamp of dirty politics, whereformer Governor Benjamin Cayetano

did not hesitate to use his power to pun-ish people who tried to keep fraud un-der control. Non-citizen voting and ab-sentee-ballot fraud have been so badthere have actually been a few convic-tions.

Other rare prosecutions have been inMiami, which, as Mr. Fund explains,“has long since supplanted Chicago asthe epicenter of the country’s most col-orful political life.” The 1997 race formayor was so rife with vote buying andabsentee-ballot fraud that prosecutorseasily convicted City Commissioner

Humberto Hernandez. All along, he hadboasted to friends he could head off trouble by claiming racial persecution.He screeched as promised, but went to jail anyway.

Many jurisdictions are switching toelectronic voting machines in the hopethat they will eliminate ballot ambiguityand faulty counts. So far, they have notfallen victim to the mass tampering orpartisan hacking that some people fear.Mr. Fund does note, however, that un-like the machines used to run state lot-teries, there are no standard reliability

protocols for voting machines. Eversince the Help America Vote Act of 2002dangled a potential $3.9 billion overwhat had been a sleepy industry, therehas been a rash of corruption and con-tract kickbacks.

One possible advantage of votingmachines is that when they go haywireit can be so spectacular no one fails tonotice. In a 2003 election in BooneCounty, Indiana, the machines recorded140,000 votes in a jurisdiction in which




only about 5,000 people cast ballots.Well-tested software should solve theproblems of security and reliability, buteven the cleanest vote counts will donothing to stop fake registrations andabsentee-ballot fraud.

Franchise control is one area in whichAmericans could learn from Mexicans.

To get a voter card, a Mexican must havehis picture taken, sign his name, and givea thumbprint. The voter card has a se-rial number, and a photo with a holo-gram over it. Every voter must producethe card and have his thumbprintscanned at the polling station to see if itmatches the one on file.

This system is clearly designed to dealwith Third-World corner cutting. Thehonor system may have worked when theUnited States was largely European andblacks could not vote. An increasinglyThird-World population needs Third-World safeguards.

Race and the Election

Were Hispanics - or whites- the key to victory?

by Stephen Webster

O

n November 2, President GeorgeW. Bush won reelection by aconvincing, if not overwhelm-

ing, margin of 3.5 million votes (51 to48 percent) out of more than 115 mil-lion cast. His Electoral College victoryof 286 to 252 is less impressive, the clos-est for an incumbent president sinceWoodrow Wilson in 1916. Still, withmost pre-election polls showing the raceeither a dead heat or with Pres. Bushnarrowly ahead, the President exceededthe expectations of most of the main-stream media.

Why did Mr. Bush win? Most pun-dits are happily telling us it was becausehe increased his share of the non-whitevote. In 2000, when he lost the popularvote and eked out an Electoral Collegevictory, he polled poorly among minori-ties. Blacks voted for Al Gore 90 to ninepercent, Hispanics, 62 to 35 percent;Asians, 55 to 41 percent; and Jews, 79to 19 percent. White House politicalstrategist Karl Rove started courtingthese voters, particularly Hispanics, andthe Bush amnesty proposal announcedearlier this year is a prime example of Republican “Hispandering.” Mr. Rovedismissed worries that this strategy could

anger the GOP’s white base, arguing thatconservative whites had nowhere else togo. Mr. Rove seems not have noticed thatthe easiest way for Republicans to winelections is to maximize their share of the white vote. With one percent moreof the white vote, George W. Bush wouldhave won easily in 2000.

According to media-commissioned

exit polls, the Rove strategy appears tohave produced mixed results. AlthoughMr. Bush increased his share of the Asianvote to 44 percent (up three percent), andhe received a quarter of the Jewish vote(up six percent), taken together these twogroups represent only five percent of thevote. And while the President did see hisshare of the black vote increase two per-cent, an 89 to 11 result is hardly a vic-tory. The only non-white group fromwhom Mr. Bush received a significantnumber of votes was Hispanics—an al-leged 42 to 44 percent, up from 35 per-cent in 2000. As we will see, these num-bers may be fishy, but if they are accu-rate it would mean the Hispanic vote al-most exactly mirrored the Asian vote.Accurate or not, we can be sure that theywill be trotted out for ever after as proof that Hispanics are assimilating, and vot-ing more and more like white people.

Analysts say more Hispanics weredrawn to the Republicans because of theamnesty plan, increased GOP advertis-ing in Spanish-language media, and es-pecially the President’s opposition tomarriage for homosexuals. This combi-nation is supposed to have producedsomething approaching a miracle: thebiggest share of the Hispanic vote sinceRonald Reagan’s 46 percent in 1984,including 59 percent of the Hispanic votein Texas, 56 percent in Florida and Geor-gia, and an overwhelming 74 percent inOklahoma. Thirty-four percent of Cali-fornia Hispanics reportedly voted forMr. Bush, as did 43 percent in Arizona,and 44 percent in New Mexico.

As VDARE.com columnist SteveSailer has pointed out, some of thesenumbers are hard to believe. If Mr. Bushreally got 59 percent of the Hispanic votein Texas, why did he lose in counties thatare overwhelmingly Hispanic? Mr. Bushlost 15 Texas counties—13 of whichhave Hispanic populations of 75 to 94percent. If a strong majority of Hispan-

ics was voting Republican he shouldhave won these counties with no trouble.One of the other counties he lost is hometo the liberal college town of Austin, andthe other is heavily black.

Even stranger, if 59 percent of His-panics voted for Mr. Bush, it meanswhite support for the Republicans in

Texas dropped by one percent whereasin other states, it rose by an average of about three percent. Why would he sud-denly lose votes in his home state? Like-wise in New Mexico, for Mr. Bush tohave carried 44 percent of the Hispan-ics, he would have had to lose a chunk of the white vote. This, too, makes nosense.

Mr. Sailer points out that pre-electionpolls showed Mr. Kerry winning theHispanic vote by about 60 to 30, and pre-election polls for the vote as a wholewere pretty accurate. Furthermore, ac-cording to a 14-state exit poll taken by

ΩΩΩΩΩ




the non-partisan William C. VelasquezInstitute, the Hispanic split was 67.7percent to 31.4 percent in favor of Mr.Kerry, which would be a decline in theHispanic vote from 2000, and is consis-tent with strong Hispanic opposition tothe war in Iraq.

But let us assume Mr. Bush really didget 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. Thiswould mean he got about 1.5 millionmore Hispanic votes than in 2000. Theywere nice to have, but were just 1.3 per-cent of all votes cast. Subtract them, andPresident Bush still wins the popularvote, 50 to 49—thanks to whites.

Hidden in all of the post-election spinabout how Republican “outreach” toHispanics won the presidency is whatSamuel Francis and others have consis-tently pointed out (see “It’s Race, Stu-pid,” AR, January 2001): Mr. Bush lost

the popular vote in 2000 because just54 percent of whites voted for him. Inorder to win, Republicans have to getabout 56 percent of the white vote, andthat percentage will increase as the elec-torate darkens. Mr. Bush exceeded thisthreshold on Nov. 2, winning 58 percent,which means he got 5.65 million morewhite votes than in 2000. This represents4.8 percent of all votes cast in 2004, andtherein lies the President’s victory. With-out those whites, he would be on his wayback to Crawford. If the President hadmade even a soft racial appeal to whites

by repudiating amnesty or denouncing

affirmative action, his white vote mighthave approached 60 percent, and givenhim an Electoral College landslide.

For all the talk about bringing non-whites into the party, Republicans real-ize that whites stand between them andpolitical extinction on the national level.And contrary to what Karl Rove may

publicly profess, he knows whites dohave somewhere else to go: They canstay home, as many did in 2000. The Re-publican Party made a huge effort tobring out conservatives in 2004, espe-cially the evangelical Christians, whooppose homosexual marriage and sup-port the Iraq war. These voters—over-whelmingly white—were the President’sstrongest supporters. Nearly a quarter of the electorate, they voted Republican 78to 21 percent.

Without another contentious “moral”issue like homosexual marriage, the Re-

publicans may not be able to repeat the2004 victory, especially if they think thatis what won Hispanic votes. Further-more, pandering to Hispanics will runheadlong into growing anger amongwhites over illegal immigration. Withboth presidential candidates equallyboneheaded on immigration, the nationalvote told us nothing, but congressionalraces told us a lot.

According to Mark Krikorian of theCenter for Immigration Studies, everyshift in Congress replaced an incumbentwith someone who is at least no worse

on immigration and, in some cases, con-siderably better. In two races—JohnThune v. Tom Daschle in South Dakotaand Pete Sessions v. Martin Frost inTexas, the Democrats’ illegal-coddlingwas a campaign issue that helped pushthem out. Tom Tancredo of Colorado,who is the best man on immigration inthe whole Congress, easily beat back achallenger fueled by rich pro-immigra-tion backers, and every member of hisCongressional Immigration ReformCaucus who was up for reelection wonanother term.

One disappointment was the failure

of the “Fire Dreier” campaign in South-ern California against Republican DavidDreier, a notorious wet on illegals. Theanti-Dreier movement, led by two popu-lar radio hosts did force him to his nar-rowest victory margin in 24 years (54 to43 percent, and the lowest margin of anyCalifornia incumbent), and seems to

have knocked some sense into him. Hehas changed his tune on immigration,and is now a good bet for a vote in favorof strict control.

The most gratifying results, however,were in Arizona, where Proposition 200,which requires proof of citizenship orlegal residency to vote or to receive pub-lic benefits, passed 56 to 44 percent.According to polls, no less than 47 per-cent of Hispanics—and there are a lotof Hispanic voters in Arizona—sup-ported the measure. The political estab-lishment, big business, and the media

were all behind the well-funded “VoteNo” campaign, but as they always do onimmigration, the electorate showed moresense than its rulers. Similar ballot ini-tiatives are now likely in other Western

states, and at least a few politicians willhave paid attention.

One who did not appears to be Mr.Bush. Amnesty is a losing proposition,but he is pushing it again anyway. Hisown party will rebel, and the voters willbe furious. If he actually manages to passan amnesty, whites will desert the GOP,and as amnesty adds more non-whitevoters, prospects for the RepublicanParty will dim. Survival is the first law

of politics—even for Mr. Bush.

Strategist Rove.

O Tempora, O Mores!

Had some effect.

ΩΩΩΩΩ

The 11th Hour

Turkey has wanted to be a memberof the European Union since 1963, buthas been kept out because it does notmeet requirements for democratic gov-

ernment, human rights, and respect forminorities. In September, the EuropeanCommissioner for Enlargement, GuntherVerheugen, toured Turkey and found itis close enough to requirements to jus-tify membership negotiations. Mr.

Verheugen made no promises: Talksshould be suspended if Turkey renegeson human rights reforms or fails to staydemocratic. He also suggested that if theEU did admit Turkey, it should considerlimiting Turkish immigration. European




leaders are expected to endorse Mr.Verheugen’s recommendation thismonth. [Stephen Castle and Pelin Turgut,The Turkish Question, Independent(London), Oct. 7, 2004.]

Still, there is a good chance Europe-ans will block Turkish membership.Politicians who oppose Turkey havebeen afraid to say so publicly, but nowthat accession has become a real possi-

bility, they are speaking up. In early Sep-tember, outgoing European Commis-sioner Frits Bolkestein of the Nether-lands warned that the EU could “im-plode” if it expands too quickly. He citedthe example of Austrian imperial expan-sion a century ago: The incorporation of 20 million Slavs threatened Austria’sown culture, and the EU risks becoming“an Austro-Hungarian empire on a grandscale.” He worries that some of Europe’sgreat cities, including Rotterdam andAmsterdam in his own country, will soonhave Muslim majorities, and pointed out

that Turkish membership would hastenthis transformation. If Europe becomesIslamicized, he added “the liberation of Vienna [from Turkish armies] in 1683will have been in vain.”

Shortly after Mr. Bolkestein’s speech,Franz Fischler of Austria, another out-going commissioner, expressed his owndoubts about Turkey. He published aprivate letter he had sent fellow commis-sioners saying Turkey was “far moreOriental than European” and “there re-

main doubts as to Turkey’s long-termsecular and democratic credentials.” Inlate September, French Prime MinisterJean-Pierre Raffarin asked, “Do we wantthe river of Islam to enter the riverbed

of secularism?” [Christopher Cald-well, Islamic Europe? Weekly Stan-dard, Oct. 4, 2004.]

Commissioner Verheugen’s recom-mendation prompted an impassioneddebate in the European Parliament.One German member claimed, “Thefuture of the European Union as apeaceful community is at stake.” Onthe other side, French member FrancisWurtz stated that the West “is no longera Europe of white Christians,” and toexclude Turkey on the basis of religionis “irresponsible and loathsome.”[Elaine Sciolino, Turkey Advances inits Bid to Join European Union, NewYork Times, Oct. 6, 2004.]

The incoming European Commis-sioner for Enlargement, Olli Rehn, op-poses Turkish membership. Moreover,France has now declared that it willhold a national referendum on Turk-ish membership, and Jose Barroso of Portugal, incoming head of the Euro-

pean Commission, says he welcomes na-tional referenda on the issue. [EU Fine-Tunes Crunch Report on Turkey’s Mem-bership Bid, EU Business, Oct. 4, 2004.Turkey Entry Splits EU Executive,EUPolitix.com, Oct. 7, 2004.]

Polls show Europeans would soundly

reject Turkish membership. Fifty-sixpercent of the French oppose accession,and only 36 percent support it.Fifty-seven percent of Germansoppose membership, as do threeout of four Austrians. [JohnHenley, French Poll Shows Depthof Hostility to Turkey, TheGuardian (London), Sep. 29,2004. Turkey Faces Long RoadAhead as EU Opens Door, AFP,Oct. 6, 2004. Austrian President Sup-ports Start of Turkey’s EU Talks, AFP,Oct. 25. 2004.]

The United States supports Turkishaccession. In June, Pres. Bush calledTurkey a “great and stable democracy,”and said membership in the EU “wouldexpose the ‘clash of civilizations’ as apassing myth of history.” He went on topraise Turkey as “Europe’s bridge to thewider world.” These remarks infuriatedEuropeans. Pres. Jacques Chirac, whofavors Turkish membership, said Mr.Bush should mind his own business. [Su-san Jones, Turkey Belongs in the Euro-

pean Union, Bush Says, CNSNews.com,June 29, 2004.]

Old South Sympathies

Although they are now unenforceable,many Southern states still have segrega-tion-era laws on the books. One example

is the Alabama constitution, which stillrequires poll taxes and separate schoolsfor white and “colored” children. ManyAlabama politicians, including the gov-ernor, think these provisions are dis-graceful, and they backed an initiativeon the Nov. 2 ballot to strike them down.

Many people opposed the initiative,including Roy Moore, who was oustedas chief justice of the Alabama SupremeCourt last November for refusing to re-move a Ten Commandments monumentoutside his courthouse. He said what thepeople behind the amendment really

wanted was to raise taxes. Besides elimi-nating the school segregation clause, theinitiative would have removed languagesaying Alabamans have no right to aneducation at public expense. Legislatorsadded this in 1956 in an effort to getaround the requirement for school inte-gration. Mr. Moore argues that if Ala-bama declares education a right, courtscould require that the state increase fund-ing for public schools, which could meanhigher property taxes. [Jay Reeves, Op-ponents To Striking Vestiges Of Segre-gation From Alabama Constitution Ac-

cused Of Racism, AP, Oct. 21, 2004.]Mr. Moore seems to have prevailed

with the electorate, who voted againstthe initiative by a small margin, thoughthe final outcome will not be known un-

til provisional ballots are counted. Mr.Moore accused the initiative’s backersof having a hidden agenda, but he mayhave one himself. He has never publiclyendorsed segregation, but he is friendlywith those who do. Recently, when hespoke at the Indiana Baptist Temple, hehad his picture taken with a minister whoadvocates segregation and believes Godmeans for whites to lead other races. Thevictory over the initiative means it ismore likely Mr. Moore will run for gov-

Voice of the people.




ernor in 2006. [Mary Orndorff, MooreSpeaks to Controversial Church Group,Nov. 5, 2004.]

The motives of Alabama voters arealso unclear. Although they may havevoted down the initiative because itcould have led to higher taxes, fouryears ago 40 percent voted to keep an

unenforceable ban on interracial mar-riage in the constitution. Gabriel J.Chin, a University of Arizona law pro-fessor who is an expert on Jim Crowlaws, says, “Some people still supportsegregation. They won’t say it in pub-lic, but they will say it in the votingplace.” [Alabama to Vote on Segrega-tion Language, AP, Oct. 13, 2004.]

Nov. 2 brought another victory forMr. Moore: Alabamans elected TomParker, his former aide, as SupremeCourt Justice. The Southern PovertyLaw Center (SPLC) campaigned against

Mr. Parker. They published a photographof him handing out small Confederatebattle flags at the funeral of the last Con-federate widow. Flanking him in thephoto were members of the Council of Conservative Citizens and the League of the South, which the SPLC calls “hategroups.” The SPLC also reported thatMr. Parker had attended a party com-memorating the birthday of Gen. NathanBedford Forrest, founder of the Ku KluxKlan.

To his credit, Mr. Parker shrugged off the finger-pointing, saying he “must be

doing the right things” if the SPLC wasattacking him. “If there is any more ap-propriate place for the display of theConfederate battle flag than the funeralfor the last Confederate widow, I wouldlike for someone to explain it to me,” headded. “Political correctness should notcause people to dishonor our history.”[Parker Defends Handing Out Confed-erate Flags at Funeral, AP, Oct. 19, 2004.Jay Reeves, Ala. Vote Shows Some OldSouth Sympathies, AP, Nov. 5, 2004.]

Very Superstitious

Diana Cortez and Sandra Lopez, theformer mayor and bookkeeper of thesmall border town La Grulla, Texas, re-cently pled guilty to misusing federalgrant money. Between 2001 and 2003,the town, which has a median income of only $16,400, received $410,000 fromthe Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment for subsidized housing andcommunity development. Instead of spending the money on housing, the

mayor put it into the town’s general fund,which the two women tapped for pay-ments to psychic Cesar Macias. Theywrote checks totaling $53,700, whichwere payable either to Mr. Macias or to

fictional businesses with titles like“Macias Machinery & Equipment Sup-ply Company Contractor” and “Macias

Equipment Company.” [Former MayorPleads Guilty to Using Money for Psy-chic Readings, KGBT 4 (Harlingen,Tex.), Nov. 4, 2004.]

Mexican-style medicine

Richard Sanchez, a 23-year-old Mexi-can who was adopted by a Kansas couplewhen he was a child, visited his countryof birth in September to meet his birthfamily. Unfortunately, while at thefamily’s ranch in Chihuahua City, hefell 40 feet from a cliff and badly in-

jured his head. He had just changed jobs, and had no health insurance. Hisfamily took him to the hospital butdoctors would not treat him becausethey had no assurance of payment. Asecond hospital kept him on life sup-port for three days before he died.He might have lived if he had re-ceived immediate treatment.

According to a Mexican consul,it is not unusual for Mexican hospi-tals to refuse uninsured patients. “In gen-eral, Mexican hospitals will not starttreating patients without some prepay-

ment of the estimated charges or somesort of evidence of how the person plansto make payments, even in life-threat-ening cases.” The State Departmentwarns that Mexican doctors are likelyto charge foreigners more than locals andto charge for services not rendered.[Chris Strunk, Newton Man Finds Trag-edy in Mexico, Newton Kansan, Octo-ber 1, 2004.]

The laws are, of course, different inthe United States, where hospitals must

provide emergency medical care to all-comers, including Mexican illegal aliens,who are usually uninsured. The cost iscripplingly expensive. Los AngelesCounty hospitals alone spend $350 mil-

lion a year on illegal immigrants. Inthe last 15 months six county hospi-tals have closed their emergency

rooms because of these costs. [Federa-tion for American Immigration Re-form, Immigration Impact—Califor-nia, www. fairus.org. Jason Felch,Valley’s Oldest Hospital to Close, LosAngeles Times, August 20, 2004.]

Holy Hurricanes

For most Floridians, hurricanes arean inconvenience, and for some, a ma-

jor disaster. To Mayan priest MiguelAngel Chinquin Yat of Lake Worth, theyare an opportunity to commune with

God—or at least the god of the hurri-cane. Mr. Yat is the director of the Or-ganization of Maya People in Exile, andlast September, while most residents of Florida were battening down the hatchesor preparing to evacuate ahead of Hur-ricane Jeanne, Mr. Yat was organizing a“welcoming” ceremony for the storm.

Mr. Yat believes hurricanes are theforces that helped create the universe,and that spirits reside in them. When

Hurricane Frances came ashore he spentthree hours a day speaking to its spiritand to his departed ancestors. He says

the arrival of Hurricane Jeanne soclosely on the heels of Frances meansthat “Mother Earth has suffered greatly.”[Tanya Wragg, Local Maya Priest Wel-comes Hurricanes, Palm Beach Post,Sept. 25, 2004, p. 10A.]

None of the Above

The Census Bureau has a hard timeclassifying Hispanics. In 1930, the cen-sus introduced a “Mexican” category but




dropped it in 1940. In 1960, the Bureauannounced that it considered Hispanicswhite unless they were “definitively of Negro, Indian or other non-white race,”and the Bureau continues to use this clas-sification today (see “Who is White?”AR, Jan. 2001).

In 1950, the bureau first introduced

an “other race” option, intended forsome Asians and people of mixed race,but now, it is most commonly used byHispanics. The 2000 census race ques-tion asked people if they were white,black, American Indian/Alaska native,or one of many varieties of Asian or Pa-cific Islander, including Chinese, AsianIndian, Filipino, and Samoan. Forty eightpercent of Hispanics said they werewhite; two percent, black; 1.2 percent,American Indian; 0.3 percent, Asian; and6.3 percent, two or more races. The re-maining 42.2 percent chose “Some other

race.” In the blank, most wrote “His-panic,” “Latino,” or geographic descrip-tions like “Mexican” or “Puerto Rican.”

The trouble is that the Latin Ameri-can system of racial classification is dif-ferent from the Census Bureau’s. Thereare many mixtures in the region, andpeople use dozens of categories, such as jabao, indio, trigueno, moreno, or mes-tizo, to describe different ancestries andskin colors. Hispanics have other quirks.Many Dominicans, for example, whomAmericans would say are black, considerthemselves white because they think of

Haitians as black.The Census Bureau has to come up

with a race for all respondents becausegovernment, business, and researchersneed this information for electoraldistricting, “civil rights enforcement,”and the like. Vague Hispanic answers area nuisance. Census demographers try toguess the race of “other race” Hispanicsby checking relatives’ answers, and look-ing up the racial makeup of the neigh-borhood.

To end the confusion, the CensusBureau has proposed to eliminate the

“some other race” option for the 2010census, and force everyone to choose acategory. Hispanic groups like the PuertoRican Legal Defense Fund and the Mexi-can American Legal Defense Fund haveyelled. Carlos Chardon, the chairman of the Census Bureau’s Hispanic advisorycommittee resents being forced tochoose. “We don’t fit into the catego-ries Anglos want us to fit in. The censusis trying to create a reality that doesn’texist.” If the “other race” option is elimi-

nated some Hispanics may refuse to an-swer the race question.

There has been heated debate withinthe Census Bureau between those who

want clarity and those who defend His-panics’ rights to racial ambiguity. Indeed,during a meeting on the question, twoofficials on opposite sides argued sofiercely that the bureau asked the parti-san of the “other race” question to re-sign—which he did. [Rachel L. Swarns,Hispanics Debate Racial Grouping byCensus, New York Times, Oct. 24,

2004.]

Multi-Culti Sears

As part of an image overhaul to boostflagging sales, Sears has decided to turn97 of its 870 outlets into “multiculturalstores,” in which clothing, signs, décor,and displays are geared to Hispanics,blacks, and Asians. The remodeledstores are in areas where at least 60 per-cent of customers are non-white.

As part of the makeover, Sears is hir-ing more bilingual staff, using more non-

whites in advertising, and introducingclothing designed to appeal to non-whites. After two years of research, Searsdiscovered that non-white women havedifferent tastes from whites, and thatwhat fits the average white woman is toosmall for many blacks and too big formany Asians and Hispanics. They foundthat Hispanics want “stylish,” form-fit-ting clothing in bright, loud colors likeorange and crimson, and high heels—the higher the better. Blacks need more

“plus” sizes. In the multicultural stores,Sears displays the loud clothing promi-nently on racks near the entrances. Cloth-ing white women buy, like the more con-servative Land’s End line, is relegatedto obscure corners.

Although Sears has been marketingto Hispanics for years (it started publish-

ing a Spanish language magazine Nuestra Gente in the 1990s and has longfeatured signs in Spanish), the multi-cultural stores are a more open pitch tonon-whites. [Christina Hoag, RightLook, Right Size: Sears Woos Minori-ties, Herald (Miami), Oct. 7, 2004, p.1A.]

IRS v. NAACP

Federal law prohibits tax-exemptcharitable organizations “from interven-ing in any political campaign on behalf

of or in opposition to any candidate forpublic office.” The IRS is investigatingwhether NAACP chairman Julian Bondviolated the law in a speech last July inwhich he criticized Pres. George W.Bush.

In remarks representing the officialNAACP position, Mr. Bond said, “Theelection this fall is a contest between twowidely disparate views of who we areand what we believe. One view wants tomarch us backward through history—surrendering control of government tospecial interests, weakening democracy,

giving religion veto power over science,

curtailing civil liberties, despoiling theenvironment. The other view promisesexpanded democracy and giving thepeople, not plutocrats, control over theirgovernment.” If the IRS determines thatthe speech was electioneering, theNACCP could lose its tax exempt sta-tus.

That, says Mr. Bond, would be “cata-strophic. It would mean that people whogive $100 and who write it off their in-come taxes couldn’t do it anymore.” He

Dominicans say she’s white.

Not an endorsement, of course.




admits his speech was highly critical of the President, but denies it was done insupport of Sen. John Kerry (Sen. Kerryspoke before the NAACP conventionwhile Pres. Bush declined). “It isOrwellian to believe that criticism andpartisanship are the same thing. It’s justunbelievable that criticizing the Presi-

dent would bring the weight of the IRSdown on you.” Mr. Bond believes theIRS investigation is intended to stop theNAACP from registering black voters.The IRS denies this. [Tony Pugh,NAACP Speech Prompts Tax Probe,Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 29, 2004, p.A1.]

The Mount Airy Church of God inChrist, a black church in Mt. Airy, Penn-sylvania, is also in hot water with theIRS and may lose its tax-exempt status.On Oct. 24, following MassachusettsSenator Edward Kennedy’s pro-Kerry

stump speech from the pulpit, BishopErnest Morris told the congregation, “Ican’t tell you who to vote for, but I cantell you what my mama told me lastweek: Stay out the bushes.”

The remarks prompted a complaint tothe IRS from Americans United forSeparation of Church and State, the fifthmade this year against pro-Kerry activ-ity in black churches. Director BarryLynn says Bishop Morris’s statement“shows blatant disregard for federal taxlaw.”

The law allows churches to hold bi-

partisan candidate forums and distrib-ute voter guides, and they can invite can-didates to speak as long as opponentsget equal time, and there are “no dem-onstrations of approval or disapprovalof any candidate.” Pastors may evenendorse candidates, provided they makeit clear they are doing so as individualsand not on behalf of the church, and notduring worship services.

Melissa Rogers, professor of religionand public policy at Wake Forest Divin-ity School in North Carolina says BishopMorris may have crossed the line. “The

IRS has said it’s not just a flat-out ‘votefor Kerry’ but the use of code words thatwill get you into trouble,” she explains.“He made a biased statement.” Still, shesays the bishop may not need to worry,noting that the IRS “is pretty cautious”about going after churches because theagency “doesn’t want to be seen as abrigade of spies in the pews.” [JimRemsen, IRS Asked to Probe PoliticalActivity at Mt. Airy Church, Philadel-phia Inquirer, Oct. 29, 2004, p. B10.]

Churchill on Race

Like most men of his era, WinstonChurchill had realistic views on race—so realistic, a modern biographer hasdecided to censor them. As GretchenRubin writes in Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill:

To shield his reputation, this accounthas downplayed Churchill’s deplorableattitudes toward race. Churchill usedopprobrious terms like blackamoor ,chink , wop, and baboo and distinguishedbetween the white race and others. [em-phasis in the original] For example, hewrote that at a September 1944 confer-ence, he was “glad to record” that “theBritish Empire . . . was still keeping itsposition, with a total population, includ-ing the Dominions and Colo-nies, of only seventy million

white people.” He never out-grew his views. His doctor re-called that in 1955, Churchillasked whether “blacks got meas-les . . . . When he was told thatthere was a very high mortalityamong negroes from measles, hegrowled, ‘Well, there are plentyleft. They’ve a high rate of pro-duction.’ ” [Gretchen Rubin,Forty Ways to Look at WinstonChurchill, Ballantine Books(New York), 2003, p. 222.]

Dereliction of Duty

Last October, local authorities ar-rested 25 illegal aliens working at RappBros. Pallet Services, Inc. in WilliamsTownship, Pennsylvania. They chargedthe men—all from Mexico or CentralAmerica—not with immigration viola-tions, but with identity theft and/or tam-pering with public records because theyused fake or stolen Social Security num-bers to get jobs.

On Nov. 3, the men appeared beforeJudge Leonard N. Zito to plead guiltyand be sentenced. Prosecutor Jay W.Jenkins asked for terms in the county jail,pointing out that identity theft and tam-pering with public records are seriouscrimes. Judge Zito agreed, but said themen apparently didn’t mean any harm.

He then found the men guilty, but or-dered them released without punishment.“Their crime was simply to go to work,”he says. “In some ways, it’s a sad dayfor this country.” The men face deporta-tion as criminal aliens, but since theyhave been released, it is unlikely ICE willever find them. [Tyra Braden, MoreThan 2 Dozen Admit Working Illegally,The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.),Nov. 2, 2004.]

Crazy

American Indian descendants of chief Crazy Horse, who helped Sitting Bulldefeat George Armstrong Custer and hismen at the Little Big Horn in 1876, aredemanding that a Paris strip club changeits name out of respect for their ances-tor. The swanky Crazy Horse Paris clubopened near the Champs-Elysées in1951 and is widely known for its risquéentertainment.

On Oct. 16, Alfred Red Cloud, amember of the Oglala Sioux tribe, de-

livered a letter from the tribe to the club’sowners, saying, “The name is sacred toour people. Nobody uses that name back home—even our own people. I’m nottrying to close the establishment down,I just want the name changed.” The let-ter, written by Harvey White Woman, adescendant of Crazy Horse and the ex-ecutor of his estate, adds, “I want theyoung people of my tribe to rememberhim as a strong leader and warrior andnot some nightclub in Paris.” [Crazy

Crazy Hourse monument under constructionin the Black Hills.




Horse Kin Want Club Renamed, AP, Oct.17, 2004.]

Browning the Congress

When the 109th Congress convenesnext January it will include more non-whites than the previous Congress. The

Congressional Black Caucus will growby three, to 40 members. Says Rep.Elijah Cummings of Maryland, “I think the caucus will play a major role and willbe listened to very carefully.” The num-ber of Hispanics in Congress will in-crease by one, to 23. There will be threeEast Asians in the House, one SouthAsian, and one Indian, Rep. Tom Coleof Oklahoma.

The Senate will have two Hispanics,Democrat Ken Salazar of Colorado, whowon the seat vacated by Republican (andIndian) Ben Nighthorse Campbell, and

Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida.There hasn’t been a Hispanic senatorsince Joseph Manuel Montoya of NewMexico was defeated in 1976. The in-coming senator gaining the most nationalpress attention is Barack Obama of Illi-nois, the son of an African immigrant anda white mother. Mr. Obama, the darlingof the 2004 Democratic convention, willbecome the first black male senator sinceEdward Brooke of Massachusetts left in1979. Elijah Cummings says Mr. Obam-a’s election is a “tremendous victory” forblack candidates, adding “It shows that

an African-American who has the rightkind of message and is bright and has alot on the ball can win in a situationwhere it is predominantly white.” The

media are already raising the possibilitythat Mr. Obama will appear on a nationalDemocratic ticket, perhaps as early as2008. The next Senate will also includetwo returning Asians, Hawaii senatorsDaniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye. [JimAbrams, New Congress to Look MoreLike Real America, AP, Nov. 5, 2004.]

The sole South Asian elected to the

House of Representatives is Piyush“Bobby” Jindal, whose parents immi-grated from the Punjab in 1970. Mr.Jindal ran unsuccessfully for governorof Louisiana, but won a Louisiana con-gressional seat in suburban New Orleanswith a crushing 78 percent of the vote.Mr. Jindal graduated from

Brown University and was aRhodes Scholar. Just 33 yearsold, he has had a meteoric ca-reer, no doubt helped by thefact that he is a non-white Re-publican. In Louisiana, he hasbeen secretary of the state’shealth system, president of the state university system,and director of a nationalcommission to reform medi-cal care for old people. In2001, he was an assistant sec-retary in the Department of

Health and Human Services,which made him the highest-ranking Asian Indian in the US govern-ment. Like Barack Obama, Mr. Jindal isalready being touted as a rising star innational politics.

Mr. Jindal’s election was cause formuch celebration in his parents’ home-town of Sangrur. Residents are said tohave thronged the pharmacies operatedby his first cousins, Subhash Jindal andHarvinder Kumar. [Bobby Jindal WinsLouisiana, Sify.com, Nov. 3, 2004. TownErupts into Joy as Bobby Romps Home,

Sify.com, Nov. 4, 2004.]

Another Sad Story

Josaia Gucake, a Fijian, served as asenator of his country’s MulticulturalParty at a time when non-native Indiansdominated the government of the SouthPacific island nation. When native is-landers staged a coup in 2000 and over-threw the government, Mr. Gucakefeared he and his family would be killedas race-traitors for having collaboratedwith the Indians, so he fled to the United

States with his extended family, and be-came an illegal resident of suburban Se-attle. Mr. Gucake applied for politicalasylum in 2002, but was denied. His ap-peal was denied in December 2003, andlast month, federal agents arrested him,his wife, and several of their siblings.

Media coverage of the story has beentypically maudlin. Mr. Gucake report-edly became a senior pastor at ChristTabernacle Church in Lynnwood, Wash-ington, studied to become a paralegal,

and helped other Fijians with their im-migration paperwork. His wife Gracecared for old people. His nephew, JoeNawaciano, worked for a local charity.“We do good things for the community,”he says. The children are heart-brokenat being separated from their parents

while in custody, and at the prospect of leaving school friends. The locals are,of course, fond of their illegal neigh-bors—“They are kind, gentle and beau-tiful people,” says Chris Kratz, a secre-tary at the high school attended by theGucake’s eldest daughter Adi—andraised money to help with legal andmoving expenses.

Immigration authorities held firm, anddeported the Gucakes on Nov. 2, or at

least the ones they could get their handson. They sent back eight adults and fivechildren, including Mr. Gucake, hisbrother, and various cousins and/or in-laws. Two adults, including the kindlyMrs. Gucake who cared for old people,are on the lam.

As for Mr. Gucake’s fears for hissafety back in Fiji, Nirmal Singh, aspokesman for the US Embassy says hehas nothing to worry about. “There hasnot been any politically motivated kill-ing,” he says, since the military trans-ferred power to a democratically-elected

government. “Everything is back to nor-mal.” [Bill Sheets, Fijian Families FaceDeportation, The Herald (Everett,Wash.), Oct. 21, 2004. Bill Sheets,Fijians Lose Fight to Stay in US, TheHerald, Nov. 4, 2004.]

The (Republican) PartyLine

An AR reader recently wrote Presi-dent George Bush, to complain about

The Gucakes’ destination.

Piyush Jindal.



plans to grant stealth amnestyto millions of illegal immi-grants. He received a politereply that included the follow-ing:

“The President is commit-ted to keeping America andour borders safe. He opposes

amnesty for undocumentedworkers and believes that mi-gration to the United Statesshould be legal, safe and or-derly while addressing oureconomic, security and hu-manitarian needs . . . .”

“Without jeopardizing thelivelihoods of American citi-zens or control over our bor-ders, we can make our immigration lawsmore rational and more humane. For thisreason, the President recently askedCongress to develop legislation that

would match willing foreign workerswith willing employers when no Ameri-cans can be found to fill the jobs . . . .”

“The President’s proposal would helpdeter illegal immigration by increasingenforcement against employers who hireundocumented workers . . . .”

“President Bush respects and valuesthe role that immigrants continue to playin building our Nation, and he believesthis temporary worker program reflectsour country’s heritage as a welcomingsociety. If enacted by the Congress, hisproposal will strengthen our economy

and make our homeland more secure.”[Heidi Marquez, Special Assistant to

the President and Director of Presiden-tial Correspondence, Letter of June 28,2004.]

Fighting Back

On Oct. 22, 30 members of theLeague of the South demonstrated out-side the Montgomery, Alabama, head-quarters of Morris Dees’s Southern Pov-erty Law Center, denouncing it as ananti-Southern hate group. They waved

Confederate flags and held up signs thatcalled Mr. Dees a scalawag. They alsoset up a toilet with a sign reading, “Flushthe SPLC.” Passersby honked andcheered.

“They hate everything that has to dowith the South and with Southern Cul-ture. They hate Christianity,” says Rob-ert B. Hays, director of the League’sSouth Carolina chapter. League memberJim Walters of Texas says of the SPLC,“I think they’re a group of race hustlers.

They are anti-Christian, anti-Southern,and anti-American.” [Crystal Bonvillian,SPLC Called ‘Hate Institution,’ Mont-

gomery Advertiser, Oct. 23, 2004, p.1B.]

Amnesty Alert

Vicente Fox’s biggest disappointmentduring his term as president of Mexicowas to see his plans for a “comprehen-sive” immigration accord (read amnesty)derailed by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.Mr. Fox hopes Pres. Bush’s reelectionwill get the amnesty ball rolling again.After the election, Mr. Fox told the Presi-dent that “given that neither of our coun-

tries will be in elections” next year, “wehave a year to get this accomplished,”adding, “we have to be optimistic thatwe will take advantage of this one-yearwindow of opportunity we have.”

Mr. Fox and his government were tomake the pitch for amnesty in mid-No-vember when Secretary of State ColinPowell, Homeland Secretary TomRidge, and several other cabinet offic-ers were in Mexico City. Mexican Inte-rior Secretary Santiago Creel recentlyhinted at what the Americans could ex-pect to hear, saying, “It’s absurd that (the

United States) is spending as much asit’s spending to stop immigration flowsthat can’t be stopped . . . .”

The Americans will also hear aboutMexican unhappiness over Proposition200 in Arizona (see article on page 9),which the Mexican Foreign RelationsDepartment charges will “foment racialdiscrimination and limit migrants’ accessto basic services like health and educa-tion.” [Mexico Seeks US ImmigrationChanges, AP, Nov. 6, 2004.]

Catholic Compas-

sion

The church of Our LadyQueen of Angels, commonlycalled “La Placita,” in down-town Los Angeles has his-

torically been the heart of thecity’s Hispanic population. In1910, the Pope encouragedMexicans to go there formarriage and baptism be-cause the church was run bySpanish missionaries whowere friendlier to them thanAmerican priests. FatherLuis Olivares, son of Mexi-

can immigrants, took over the church inthe 1980s, and in 1985, he declared it asanctuary for illegal immigrants. At onetime he was sheltering as many as 200

people a night. The influx of illegals ledto fights, drug-taking, and begging. Thechurch is in the old part of Los Angeles,and local shopkeepers depend on tour-ists. Crime kept the tourists out, and busi-ness dropped 40 percent. Families fledthe area.

In 1990 the church got new leaderswho stopped housing illegal immigrantsin an effort to bring back families. Tour-ism rebounded and merchants werehappy. In 2001, however, the parish wentback to its old ways. In 2002, it hiredtwo activist priests, believers in “libera-

tion theology” who declared the churchonce more a sanctuary. Two hundredhomeless people now come to the churchfor food every night, and the priests de-nounce government immigration raids,and sponsor petitions and marches in fa-vor of driver’s licenses for illegals. Ev-ery Sunday, 10,000 worshippers attend11 masses. Between masses, there ismariachi music for the faithful, and thepriests exhort the congregation to activ-ism.

All this has sent the neighborhooddownhill again. In one 30-day period

earlier this year, thugs beat up two localemployees, a handgun turned up in theplaza outside the church, and a vagrantdied nearby from a drug overdose. Theneighborhood is once again full of bumsand their trash, and the tourist trade hastaken a dive. The new management isunrepentant: “While others are saying noto immigrants, let’s have compassion,”says a spokesman. [Teresa Watanabe,Bringing Back the Fire, Los AngelesTimes, Nov. 3, 2004.]

A young Confederate demonstrates against the SPLC.

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200412 American Renaissance

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