Contempo Magazine Blog

by Dr. Tony Magana

A curious and growing schism is developing between the values of the American public measured in polls and the perception of their desires as propagated by Democratic leaders.

Watch the evening news or read the local newspaper in most communities of the United States and one garners the impression that the most important notion the people want is for the government to pass quickly legislation influencing just about every circumstance of American life with a devil may care attitude about who pays the bill.

The election that brought the Democratic party to power is often called a triumph of progressive European style contemporary certitudes of government over the old outmoded and worn traditional American values. The Bush administration and the Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, were vigorously refuted in the election of Barack Obama not because the ideals they were presumed to represent had lost their luster but on account of government having lost its way.

This month, Texas Lyceum, a nonpartisan leadership group in Texas, performed a poll on opinions held about policy issues influencing the residents of Texas and the nation as a whole. The query revealed that the number one issue for Texas was the economy, 62% of Texans labeled this and unemployment over the next highest issue, health care reform, which alighted at only 12%. Even though only a quarter of Texans identified themselves as Republican and 28% as Democrat , almost half of Texans (46%) categorize themselves as conservative in political philosophy contrasted with only 19% liberal.

Texas has not suffered as much economic distress as numerous regions of the country but there has still been a significant downturn. Although many politicians have remarked the worst is over most Texans do not agree. They have concerns not only about the current economic condition albeit what the future will bring. The country is worse off now then a year ago declare 58% and 53% expect the situation to deteriorate further.

Liberals could adroitly attempt to excuse the poll as representing only biased voters however the poll comprised demographic groups by ethnic identification and income proportional to the state including 32% of the responders being Hispanic. The very liberal Dallas Morning News amazingly reported the poll embodied that “Texas is not as steep on some spending and social issues as many believe”and focused on the pronouncement that 57% of Texans favor gay unions or marriage and 48% stem cell research while ignoring the more obvious conclusions. The media are confusing libertarian social values which are held are by many economic conservatives and not usually coincident with the ideas of progressive government spending.

Texas nevertheless is not an outlier in the fashion current political views are evolving in the population across the United States. A CBS News/New York Times poll this week disclosed that 52% of Americans want the federal government to focus on the reducing the deficits while only 41% considered spending tax dollars was appropriate to stimulate the economy.

After the election the country was about evenly split as to the timeliness of temporarily increasing government spending to stimulate the failing economy. Initially President Obama had the approval ratings approaching 80% but since April national polling by Gallup, Rassmussen, and others has confirmed that the sentiments being expressed in Texas reflect national trends not just the conservative South. President Obama’s overall approval rating has continued a steady decline since April although it is still over 50%. Rasmussen polls report that over the past few months Republicans have been regaining status as being the lead party for ideas relating to taxes, national security, and the economy. The percentage of Americans who see the economy degenerating has remained about 60% for the past several months according to Gallup.

Despite these findings and feelings of the American people, the liberal establishment including the media and the progressives in government are venturing to muddle through undeterred to get their agendas passed. The tactic of hastily writing legislation for massive new government spending schemes which began with corporate bailouts by the stimulus plan is now being adopted as the norm for the way to get things done. At the time Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the urgency of the moment required a one time only skirting of the long honored Congressional processes of deliberation. Secret partisan committee meetings, limited Congressional hearings, and virtual stoppage of the customary amendment proceedings for bills under consideration are now hallmarks rather then oddities of the Democratic Congress. The two biggest Democratic initiatives, health care reform with a government health plan and the cap and trade energy tax legislation, are following the same path of secrecy and haste.

In desperation today, MSNBC “Hardball” host, Chris Matthews, even went so far to say succinctly what his other progressive Democratic allies have been afraid to vocalize outright that these schemes should be actuated now without regard for how to pay for it because somehow down the road we will [magically?] find a way. Now that the evidence that Pay-go is a “no go” and that all the predictions of saving money with alternative energy and government healthcare have been proven indisputably arrant confabulations it is time to commence doing something in the right direction, the direction in which the American people really want to go.

Thanks for reading Contempo Magazine blog which discusses issues for McAllen, the Rio Grande Valley, and America from a conservative Hispanic point of view. Tony Magaña grew up in McAllen Texas, attended Texas A&M University, served as an officer in Army Reserve, and 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 and also writes for the American Daily Review. Follow him on twitter http://twitter.com/contempomagazin

by Dr. Tony Magana

In response to the recent Iranian protests and their relation to the prevalent access of Iranians to the Internet, some are saying in America including a few conservatives that we need to promote President Obama further on government sponsored media like the Voice of America. But is creating a government bureaucracy bolstering and cultivating a stronger government controlled official media the right message to send? I rarely conflict with the Heritage Foundation, nevertheless, this time I disagree with at least a part of Helle C. Dale’s recommendation to strengthen American government broadcasts.

It’s too early to state what will be the ultimate outcome of the public uprising in Iran- a major regime change or much less, however, like other upheavals before it, communication among participants made organizing protests feasible in the face of an oppressive and vigilant tyranny.

Observers have even identified the recent incidences in Iran the “Twitter Revolution” because many allege that dissidents in Iran have been communicating with one another and conveying their message through the outside world via the internet social website tools, Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, MySpace, and the Asian website Orkut.

Media pundits are remarking that the inspiration for the revolt was at least in part if not markedly due to the recent speech by President Barack Obama made in Cairo calling for increased understanding between America and the Islamic world.  The Internet savvy Obama administration used sophisticated internet technology to get the message out to Arabs and other Muslims throughout the world via text-messaging, podcasts, live webcasts, and social media websites in their native languages including Farsi, the language of most of Iran.

The societal conflict in Iran has much to do about internal broken promises in a failing economy and a perception of election misdeeds and little to do in reality with a sudden shift towards pro-American views.  The use of this technology in a time of crisis gave the Persians an experience at democracy in action which no speech ever could.

The United State continues to broadcast information in Arabic and Farsi through Radio Free Europe and video via the Internet on Voice of America.  Portions of funding for these particular programs was cut during the Bush administration, and now is finding new advocates, including conservatives, asking for reinstatement or even expansion.

If we compare the countries of Iran and North Korea we can clearly identify a difference in exposure to world news and opinion. Many young people and the middle class in Iran live in cities with access to the Internet and computers. Unfortunately in North Korea, the average resident is lucky to get a few hours of electricity per day to watch to their black and white television featuring only North Korea news. They unlike the Iranians, have no real ties to the outside world. Access to outside world very likely does embolden populations to want better lives with more democracy.

The real question to be asked then was Obama’s speech that which inspired the uprising or was it the fact that a technology had been made available to the average citizen of Iran that made the difference? No disrespect to President Obama but I think the technology and its availability might have made the difference when the Iranian’s became upset over the election even if the President had not made his speech.  You see the very existence of such technology and that it is not a part of any official government is the real revolution that likely sparks the Iranian people. This technology says that someone other then a government official can give an opinion and disseminate it freely.

Our government should absolutely continue to foster a free press and the development of more communication tools that allow the free exchange of ideas between individuals and groups anywhere in the world.  Rather then creating our own version of “official propaganda” we just need to let the world have access to the same types of unfiltered vigorous and sometimes very contentious discussions that make up American life.  The visualization of free open debate without punishment for expressions of view that conflict with authority is the American message we most want to transmit.

Establishing official government networks which give the official American credence on Voice of America or Radio Free Europe is too Orwellian for my tastes. If we do not let government control what the content will be for substantive broadcasts in our own country than why should we let the government choose what gets broadcast in our name abroad.  Government should expand the world’s access to free speech, a free press, and not ever use the new technology to allow government to supplant the function of the press or to potentially gain the control of the message. This time the media was the message.

Thanks for reading Contempo Magazine blog which discusses issues for McAllen, the Rio Grande Valley, and America from a conservative Hispanic point of view. Tony Magaña grew up in McAllen Texas, attended Texas A&M University, served as an officer in Army Reserve, and 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 and also writes for the American Daily Review. Follow him on twitter http://twitter.com/contempomagazin

by Dr. Tony Magana

A government report purporting to examine the policies to prevent gun smuggling from the United States to Mexico comes to political conclusions urging stricter gun control in the face of incomplete and contradictory evidence about border security.

This week the Government Accounting Office(GAO) released the results of their investigation on U.S. efforts to combat arms trafficking to Mexico. They claim that 87 % of firearms seized by Mexican authorities and traced in the last five years originated in the United States. Many of these weapons are obtained they estimate by a mechanism called “straw purchase” where a American citizen without a criminal background, who can clear a background check, goes to a gun show or gun shop to purchase weapons and then illegal transfers the weapons to a Mexican drug trafficking organizations(DTO) who take them across the border to Mexico. Once a firearm has been purchased and transferred illegally into the hands of the DTO the report says that firearms are normally transported across the border by personal or commercial vehicle.

A key issue raised in the GAO report was the lack of coordination between both national and international law enforcement and border security agencies. Although the United States has established the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) to facilitate inter-agency cooperation the GAO found a lack of cooperation between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in developing strategies to confront gun smuggling.

As has been previously chronicled when Homeland Secretary Napolitano asserted that legal gun sales in the U.S. were the major instruments used to supply the Mexican DTOs there are statements in the new GAO release that are self-contradictory. The report specifically states on page 44 “that the ATF was unable to provide data on the number of arms trafficked to Mexico involving “straw purchasers” or unlicensed sellers ( by this I assume to denote legal gun sales between state residents) because the agency does not systemically track this information.”

After surrogates of the Obama administration all but took imputation for the U.S. supplying weapons to the Mexican DTOs earlier this year, a program called the Outbound Inspection Program (OIP) was commenced at border crossing spanning the U.S.-Mexican border. Secretary Napolitano reported initially at the Border Trade Alliance International Conference on April 21, 2009 that the program was confiscating “unbelievable” quantities of weapons. The program cost $95 million and involved shifting many Border Patrol officers and other law enforcement assets and personnel for other areas and duties to the Mexican border. Mexican officials said that 2000 weapons would suspected of being illegally smuggled across border crossings per day so expectations were high at the beginning.

However, a comprehensive examination of the “success” of the OIP between March 12 and April 30 from all the border crossings between the U.S. and Mexico which experiences over 27 million vehicles crossing just the Texas border contradicted Secretary Napolitano’s remarks. Only 51 pieces in total consisting of ammunition, weapons parts, and guns were confiscated.

Meanwhile the local economies of many cities on the Texas and California border with Mexico have suffered negative affects. One of the rare bright areas in the U.S. economy during the recent recession has been trade with Mexico. The OIP program caused waits, sometimes approaching two hours, never before seen on south bound traffic as well as more delay in the north bound traffic with little benefit. The only consequence was a significant decrease in international traffic which has negatively impacted the local economies and the robust growth of the prosperity of Texas.

The most significant issue raised by the report is whether Mexican authorities are substantially executing their responsibility. Very few cases referred to Mexican officials were prosecuted, just 22 out of 73 over the last year. Although the U.S. government has trained almost 400 Mexican law enforcement officials on the operation of eTrace to track weapons it is almost never applied. The assumptions about the actual numbers of firearms smuggled to Mexico and how they arrive there are conjectures based on a small sample of the weapons captured by Mexican authorities that are actually put through eTrace. In fact, the report specifically discusses the concern that there is corruption in the Mexican law enforcement process assigned to enforcing and prosecuting weapons smuggling.

This GAO report will be exploited by those that favor more gun control to to foster demand for revisions in federal and state law to require the tracking of all gun transfers of ownership and demand that all gun sales occur exclusively through licensed dealers.

Many of us familiar with the border have not been in favor of the one dimensional border security plan of the border fence that was passed by the Congress without much forethought to examining how to best spend the money for border security. So far the $70 billion dollar fence project remains mostly incomplete, over budget, and without funds. Over the past four years smugglers of drugs and weapons have built 69 tunnels under the fence and built hundreds of vehicles with movable ladders to scale over the top of the border structure. Enterprising thieves have stolen parts of the fence to sell for scrap metal. In one location, human traffickers even installed a “gate” to which only they had the key.

A recent review noted that the Southern Border Initiative project (SBInet) created by the Bush administration although initially plagued by difficulties with the integration of electronic surveillance systems are now showing promise. Over 4000 apprehensions have occurred recently as a result of the application of advanced technological detecting equipment. Sensors for radiation, facial recognition software, unmanned aerial systems, sophisticated high altitude manned surveillance sorties, and sophisticated financial investigations into Mexican DTO resources are important tools.

The optimum border security will involve the continued development of the SBInet, bolstering of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel, better coordination of the Federal agencies charged with protecting our border and law enforcement of laws already in place, developing better intelligence on Mexican DTOs, and demanding that Mexico not play the blame game but step up to the plate.

Mexico needs to use eTrace on every weapon they capture and establish more accountability in prosecuting weapons smugglers because only then will the facts be known. On the American side those that participate in illegal gun transfers should be vigorously prosecuted and given the maximum punishment under the law. Legislating new gun laws that would be unconstitutional infringements on the legal activities of citizens will not accomplish anything.

Currently McAllen, Texas is rated number one in the country for economic growth and job growth by the Brookings Institute which looked at all the major metropolitan areas of the country. A part of this achievement is due to the legitimate trade and commerce across the international bridges which benefit both Mexico and the United States. The abiding development of technology that scans or detects illegal smuggling activities in a manner that does not impede legal traffic flow is vital technology research that can be implemented at airports, ports, and border crossings. Ultimately our security will depend more on human intelligence and technology then medieval buttresses.

Thanks for reading Contempo Magazine blog which discusses issues for McAllen, the Rio Grande Valley, and America from a conservative Hispanic point of view. Tony Magaña grew up in McAllen Texas, attended Texas A&M University, served as an officer in Army Reserve, and 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 and also writes for the American Daily Review. Follow him on twitter http://twitter.com/contempomagazin