Contempo Magazine Blog

Politics in the area known as the Rio Grande Valley of Texas has a colorful history.  Located at the southern tip of the State the area has the highest concentration of Hispanics in the country at 90%.  Although the Democratic party has always been dominant, by nature, the Hispanic residents tend to be social conservatives who may vote with the Republicans on national issues or state issues.  Local elected Republican officials are very rare.

Some have complained that the area has a history of “boss rule” by the Democratic party whose history was written by Evan Anders, Boss Rule in South Texas: The Progressive Era (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982). In fact in 1928 national attention was drawn to the area when local businessmen tried to form an alliance against “the bosses” which became very ugly with charges of discriminatory behavior of Anglo versus Hispanic and vice versa. In the 1940s, Lyndon Baines Johnson famous career as the Senate Majority Leader was launched when he defended the right of a Mexican American soldier to be buried in a national cemetery.  This gained the edge he desperately needed to win elections in Texas from the Rio Grande Valley’s Mexican Americans who broke away from state party bosses and joined the New Deal machine against the old conservative Democrats. Today, although much of Texas is Republican in local officials, the Valley as locals call it remains the exception.

Recent events may signal a change in at least one election.

In 2007, the State of Texas created a new district court and the Republican Governor Rick Perry named a local attorney, Daniel Rios, was appointed to the bench of the new 449th District Court. Now the bench position is up for election and Rios is facing a Democratic challenger named Jesse Contreras.  Historically normal expectations would be that the Democratic candidate would win easily and Rios would have expected to have been just a temporary appointment however this time its not that simple.

A local conservative activist, Virginia Townsend, is reported to have complained that the challenger, Contreras, has a history of going on to represent as clients those who have appeared before him in Mercedes, Texas where he presides as a municipal judge as was reported in the local newspaper, The Monitor. Further, Ms. Townsend has filed a complaint with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct however no action has been taken on the complaint. Under Texas law anyone may file a complaint about a judge or attorney but the investigation remains confidential until a final disposition is made. So far no disposition has been made for this complaint.

Probably the bigger problem for Mr. Contreras is his recent arrest for driving under the influence on South Padre Island. News of his arrest was carried extensively over local television stations and newspapers.  The race got further attention this week when a much anticipated scheduled debate between the two candidates was canceled because Mr. Contreras was too busy campaigning.

According to The Monitor Mr. Contreras, a former basketball player in Mexico and criminal attorney,  is portraying himself as the product of a local underprivileged background who can relate better to the juvenile offenders which will make up much of the caseload versus Mr. Rios who is a Princeton graduate, former assitant district attorney, and city attorney.

Those familiar with Valley  politics know that the old days of Hispanic versus Anglo rhetoric have now been replaced with a new theme. Today the mantra is often affluent Hispanic from long time Valley family versus a champion of the chronic downtrodden Hispanic or newcomer immigrants.  The subtle class warfare that is so rampant in all of Latin America does sometimes prevent many from all levels of economic success from being objective.

Many locals are saying that a Republican may win while others are saying the old ways will prevail in this election.

Tony Magaña grew up in McAllen Texas, attended Texas A&M University, holds a doctorate from Harvard University. The co-founder of Contempo Magazine has participated in Valley business for over 20 years.He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Mexico today discussing many issues with the Mexican government including border security, drug enforcement, and Latin American relations as a whole. For its part, Mexico seems most concerned about getting the money finally for the Merida Initiative which promises helicopters, special sensors, and police training paid for by billions of American dollars.

The general feeling of Latin America these days toward Washington seems to be gradually sinking. Leaders in Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, and Argentina are reeling after being hit hard by the severe decline of their countries investments in Wall Street. Most of the other countries having nationalized their industries had lesser stakes in the stock market.

Most Americans are familiar with the daily rantings of Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez, but increasingly almost every leader of a Latin American country is attempting to bolster his domestic political position by espousing a diplomatic distance from Washington and declaring that the United States must have less influence in the region.

Meanwhile trade with Asian nations, especially China and South Korea, is on the increase. Although American exports of technology and imports of agricultural products as well as oil remain as major portions of bilateral trade there is no doubt that Latin America is looking to expanding trade with China with more fervor than with the United States. Latin American politicians may find that dealing with China which only talks trade and does not talk about human rights is easier than dealing with the meddlesome United States. All to often in the past, the United States has had to play the game of giving some type of foreign aid to corrupt Latin American governments as an “incentive” to enter to talks about reform.

Which brings up the point:What will be the Obama foreign policy plan for dealing with Latin America? The official Obama plan called “Partnership with the Americas” recommends:

• Doubling foreign aid to Latin America by $50 billion in 2012.

• Another $50 billion will be used to fight infectious diseases including HIV and malaria.

• Billions of dollars now owed to the United States by the poorer Latin American countries would be “written off”.

• To fight illiteracy a $2 billion fund will be started.

• An independent government agency will be started to loan money for small business start ups in Latin America and to build business schools.

• To fight the drug cartels the $700 million a year budget will need to be increased to an unspecified amount.

• Increase the size of the Peace Corps and send thousands to Latin America Mandate clean energy, labor, anti-corruption and environmental standards in revised trade agreements with Latin American countries.

Much of this proposal is noble in the ideal world but realistically is unattainable. Latin America suffers from backward, corrupt and greedy government leaders who are historically the most manipulative in their negotiations. They are using “meddling” by the United States as an excuse for their own failures. The United States will never be able to pay a high enough price in aid to cause real reform in Latin America.

Instead of sending in thousands of Peace Corps workers, in my opinion, it would be better to use faith based organizations and multinational nongovernmental entities. Opposition leaders will identify Peace Corps workers as representatives of a singular foreign government and target them.

From a Latin American point of view having some trade competition between Asia and the United States might increase the value of their exports and improve their economies. However, that improvement will only happen if real government reform does take place. The United States should take notes of the engagement mechanism that was used by the Nixon administration to begin trade with China.

Accountability of use of our financial assistance has always been a difficult issue. Even discussing this issue is very offensive to many Latin American leaders who really just want a free hand out with no strings attached. Therefore, I propose that instead of one sided aid we should really in the future enter in trade deals where each party has its specific interests meet. Free trade is a better instrument of foreign policy than giving away a blank checkbook.

We must negotiate security and law enforcement measures under the concept of mutual benefit. At the same time we must raise the level of threat we consider the drug cartels to the same as that of other terrorists. Given the amount of manpower, weaponry, and propensity for violence they are now propagating we should seriously consider using our military assets against them instead of just the law enforcement model.

Recently illegal immigrants have begun returning home because employment availability is much less due to enforcement and the economic downturn. The ill advised border fence will do nothing to stop illegal aliens, drug cartels or terrorists. Instead of wasting the estimated $70 billion dollars necessary to complete the fence as it is currently planned, this money should be used to increase border surveillance, technology, and patrols. We must find incentives other than payoffs to get the Mexican government to better manage its own borders.

We must have patience and firmness in dealing with Latin America. A careful balance must be established to maintain being a good neighbor without being too “interventional” for this will only result in further alienation between the parties. One sided financial assistance by its very nature requires some form of accountability which damages the good neighbor relationship from the outset. Contrarily, mutually beneficial trade constructed under terms agreeable to both parties is not as paternal an entity. In addition, we cannot afford to waste billions of dollars in foreign aid programs that are likely to be at best misconstrued as invasive or at worst detoured nefariously for misdeeds.
Tony Magaña grew up in McAllen Texas, attended Texas A&M University, holds a doctorate from Harvard University. The co-founder of Contempo Magazine has participated in Valley business for over 20 years.He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
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Professor David Schweickart of Loyola University has been a long time advocate of what he calls “economic democracy” or “market socialism” for many years.  He has asserted for some time that capitalism will eventually die out and should be replaced by an alternative process. Ideally his proposed system would include ownership by the workers of means of production with leadership democratically elected from the workers, government ownership of the banking system, and strict limitations of trade between nations. Corporations would pay all earnings to government banks. The government would distribute the income as it saw fit.

In 2002 he described his now famous “L-Curve” which is a graphic representation of the wealth and income distribution inequities in the United States. He noted that the wealth distribution was much worse than the income distribution. Notably he remarked that people who have an income like doctors and lawyers of just over one hundred thousand a year were more like the lower class than the upper 1/2% of the wealthy. Flat tax rates and tax cuts could only increase these disparities especially the wealth disparity. He felt that society must find a way to rebuild the community after capitalism to a better system.

When Barack Obama joined the Presidential race, Professor Schweickart become one of the founding members of the Progressives for Obama (website http://progressivesforobama.net/ ). Members of the organization include many Hollywood celebrities including those who may have paid $40,000 to be with Obama recently in California for his private Barbara Streisand concert.  Other members include editors for the Huffington Post, AFL-CIO leaders, and many others.

Many outsiders initially questioned why Obama would agree to the bailout and in fact even his friends on the Huffington post were initially skeptical that it would not appropriate for a Democrat. However, a recent review of a debate that occurred in 2007 in which Professor Schweickart was discussing which alternatives to capitalism were better may shed light on the matter. In this debate, Dr. Schweickart made some predictions about how progressives could start to lay down some groundwork for taking over the economic system and changing it away from capitalism. This scenario was set with the initial conditions being that a progressive party candidate would be in place to take charge if there was a sudden collapse of the stock market. If done correctly, a takeover could occur he said without any violence or revolution.

The Professor advocated that the following steps would be done. First, the government would buy up and take over the assets of the corporations. He was very enthusiastic that a stock market crisis would make such a take over “not very difficult”. There would an enormous clamor for the public to push the government to act quickly which would be advantageous for the takeover.

The next step would be turn the corporations over to the workers to run. (How this was done he did not explain exactly but it would seem plausible to assume that government take over would be the first step.)The capitalist class would disappear because all the paper wealth would be gone. Corporations would stop paying dividends. (Further removal of wealth from capitalist could be done by taxes). Corporations would send all their profits to government owned banks. Basically all wealth would be given to government to hand out as it sees fit.

Here is an MP3 of David Schweickart’s takeover scenario in his own words:

More than a year ago, Professor Schweickart made some amazingly accurate predictions about what Barack Obama would be in a position to accomplish. Given his close association with Obama and his supporters does it not seem very reasonable to question how Mr. Obama’s tax plan, removal of free trade, Employment Free Choice Act, and capital gains tax might now seem to fit into the socialist take over model.

Does Mr. Obama want to convert the economy from capitalism to “market socialism”?




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