In 2009 I wrote a piece about how at some foreseeable future, the right of the people to rule could be dismantled by other forms of power, simply due to a shift in perception over what constitutes legitimate authority. We will recall that the Catholic Church exercised control over many countries. For centuries, the only thing that maintained the Church’s authority over these different countries was its moral authority.

Kings paid loyalty to the Church and obeyed the Church for little other reason than because it was seen as the moral authority. The Church’s place in society was eventually displaced by two important shifts.

First there was revolution in thinking that the civil government, and not the church, had the right to govern. Secondly, there was a shift in power in that sovereign governments eventually became militarily and economically powerful enough to no longer need the blessing of the Church.

I bring this up to give some frame of reference for the rest of my argument. If the Church controlled a large section of the world simply because it had the moral authority to do so, and if its power was displaced by a force that had simply become more powerful, it may be possible to displace democracy with the same formula, a formula which already exists in many ways.

When I wrote the piece originally in 2009 my point was that about ten years earlier corporations had already began disregarding certain laws enacted by the people. In 1998, Citigroup and Traveler’s, for example, announced that they were merging, contrary to existing laws. The companies made the announcement, expecting that they could change the laws quickly enough to accommodate their merger. They were right. The Glass-Steagall Act was repealed the following year, which, by the way, was the first step toward our current financial crisis.

Since then, however, there have been more troubling developments. The Supreme Court Decision in Citizens United v F.E.C. decided that corporations had the same right to political speech as any human being, and that they could use an unlimited amount of money to produce political propaganda.

The threat to the country’s power, even militarily, has become clearer since then, as reports and even popular Hollywood movies continue to expose the point that private military contractors have relatively similar or superior tactical combat capabilities as the US. Their private mercenaries are better paid than even US military personnel. Today, private space tourism is a reality as NASA is being defunded.

In the United States the same formula that led to the decline of the Church’s authority is already in place. This time, however, democracy’s, not the Church’s, unquestionable moral authority is in a vulnerable place. I do not believe that in our lifetime we will see a cabal of CEOs formally seize power and occupy the White House.

Instead, I believe that the formula is in place in which a democratic government might just become less relevant and may simply, albeit slowly, be surpassed in power and influence. It is foreseeable that one day, a corporation whose interest is threatened, need not appeal to Congress for an invasion of a foreign power, but may simply send its own private army. Democratic government will continue to exist, just as the Holy Church exists. It may become optional, something to do on Sundays, something to ask others if it’s something that they believe in. The people and Democracy may still even be influential in elections, just as the Church is.

I don’t believe that there is a conspiracy by corporate America to formally seize governmental power, even though corporate America has been very vocal about diminishing it. I do believe, though, that the conditions to diminish Democracy in favor of corporate rule are increasingly being developed. A shift in relevancy and power has already occurred. The only force that can reverse the trend is the will of the people.

Also damning is a recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center which reports that more Latino children live in poverty than do white children, despite the significant difference in the total population count. Over six million Latino children in the United States live in poverty today.

One recent statistical bright spot, however, is also cause for pause. Latino college enrollment rates spiked significantly from 2009 to 2010. College education has always been an important vehicle in this society for upward economic mobility. A college education will serve the graduates very well. More power to them.

However, the benefits largely are individual and do little to alleviate the greater problems that the community faces. We simply can’t study our way out of this community problem. The model that the white community has used for generations simply will not work for us as a community. For generations, the white community has sent their children to college, which leads to a career and a family. It works for them because they have a much greater base of wealth in their community.

If we emulate this pattern without implementing any collective efforts to uplift our community, we will only produce a class of Latinos which will effectively be isolated from the bulk of our people, with little interest in the community’s well being. Some of this has already taken root, as policy initiatives like the Dream Act favor granting residency to college graduates before “regular” working class people.

Our success as a group is directly related to our ability and will to work together. What we need is group empowerment. Our most important first strategy in seeking this empowerment is support for mechanisms that can and do support empowerment in the community. Advocacy groups, conscientious small businesses, alternative media, mutual aid societies, progressive houses of worship all have the ability to help empower our community as whole because, by nature, they are collective enterprises.

Too often people are turned off by my direct discussion of race. People prefer to see our problems as something different than a racial issue. Some see it as exclusively a class issue. Some simply don’t like defining ourselves via race or ethnicity. In reality, until the statistics suggest that we do not constitute more than half of all felons, and that we do not have more poor children than any other group, it is nothing less than a racial problem…like it or not. The disparity is too great to call it anything else.

Our goal as individuals should be to support the mechanisms of power that, apart from having the ability to help our community, actually do so. Join the community organizations, spend at those businesses that give something back, pray with those who empower, and most importantly, tell others to do so. These are our first steps.

To the extent that that is true, to the degree that Black America remains more concerned about how Obama is doing as he seeks another term in office, rather than how the African American people are doing under Obama’s center-right, Wall Street- and war-loving regime – Blacks are doomed to a period of suffering unprecedented in the modern age.

Presumably to protect the dignity of First Black President – her highest priority – Jackson-Lee joined the 95 House Democrats that voted for the certainty of losing trillions of dollars for tens of millions of needy citizens, rather than risk the possibility of unknown financial dislocations. The same number of Democrats said “No” to the president and his GOP interlocutors. Among the 40 full-voting, Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus, the split was 15 “Yes,” 24 “No” and one Non-Voting (NV).

In essence, the report concluded that Latinos’ wealth, the little that we had accumulated over the past few years, has been devastated by the recent economic crisis. The major culprit in the sixty six percent decline in our wealth was the mortgage crisis.

The study reported that almost a quarter of Latinos had no assets other than a car, and that over 30% of Latinos has zero or negative net worth. Similarly 2010 report on the wealth gap reported that single Latinas had about $120 of wealth, compared to over $40,000 in wealth that white women owned. Generally, assets are considered any sort of cash savings, retirement accounts or property.

This portion of the story is clear, and I think unsurprising. It tells the story of a significant portion of our people who simply own barley enough wealth to get by, and perhaps not even that. With $120 of assets, a person is unable to get sick, without facing homelessness, and spending patterns become less about building wealth and more about surviving a physical and emotional stress.

The Pew study indicates that the average net worth of Latinos fell from about $18,000 in 2005 to about $6,000 in 2009. The story indicates that the mortgage crisis was mostly to blame. The study reports, “Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of Hispanic household wealth in 2005 was derived from owned homes.” Moreover, Latino homeownership fell four points from 51% to 47%.

It is also significant to note that Latinos are concentrated in states in which the housing declines were most devastating-California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona. Perhaps this is not a coincidence, but rather a cause of these states’ great trouble in the mortgage industry, since it became clear that many lenders encouraged minorities to take risky loans.

This portion of the story continues to tell more about the intentions of our people. One argument that many people make about minorities in general is simply that we are poor because we choose to be poor, or that we are poor because we choose to spend our money on frivolous items, rather than focusing on savings.

This portion of the story disproves that. It speaks of a people who were very much interested in “doing the right thing” with their money by purchasing homes, while there was mortgage products that gave them the opportunity to do so.

Sadly, it also tells the story of Wall Street manipulators, and their agents, who took advantage of our interest in bettering our economic lot.

It is generally true that people of all races are worse off now than they were in 2005. The net worth of whites, for example dropped from about $134,000 to about $113,000, still twenty times more than the net worth of Latinos. But my analysis is not about all races, it is about dispelling the myth that our people are poor simply and only because we make defective decisions, which is not true.

This is story, is only a four-year slice of the same story that our people have faced for a century and a half of US occupation. It is the story of a people who have unfailingly tried to fit in to the society, to play by the rules, to do what is asked to succeed, only to find out that the system, be it economic, political or cultural, continues to make sure that they remain locked out.

It is the same story of my grandfathers’ generation who went to fight WWII, because that was what was asked of them, only to come back and find, again, that their children were not allowed into the best schools, and that their brothers in arms could not be buried in the white cemetery.

Yet generation after generation, parents teach their children to continue to comply, to do what is asked of them, to chase, well, a dream.

Last year, the United Farm Workers (UFW) responded to the conservative charge that immigrants were “stealing” jobs from United States citizens. The UFW and many other groups always argued that immigrants were taking jobs that others did not want. They started the “Take Our Jobs” campaign, a campaign which dared “Americans” to apply for and take the jobs of many farm workers. This justification for immigration, that Mexicans do the dirty jobs that nobody wants, has tended to rub me the wrong way. As one of the Original People of this hemisphere, I do not believe that we constantly need to justify our presence. Our survival of the American Holocaust is, for me, justification enough.

Nevertheless, I understand that many groups concerned with practical concerns, such as working conditions, need practical arguments to move their agendas forward. Even more importantly, the UFW’s challenge seems to have been effective in its premise. After a few months of running this campaign, with spots on numerous national programs, less than ten “Americans” had applied. Many dismissed the information as bias or unreliable or perhaps just a media stunt with no practical applications.

In June, the state of Georgia made national headlines, because of its shortage of farmworkers. The state, after having passed extreme anti-migrant laws, has been unable to fill 11,000 agricultural jobs. The shortage is so extreme that fruits and vegetables are becoming over ripe right on the vines. The state decided to experiment by attempting to fill the empty positions with probationers. The experiment seems to be failing.

Ray Henry of the Associated Press reports, “LESLIE, Ga. — It’s 3:25 p.m. in a dusty cucumber field in south Georgia. A knot of criminal offenders who spent seven hours in the sun harvesting buckets of vegetables by hand have decided they’re calling it quits — exactly as crew leader Benito Mendez predicted in the morning…On the first two days, all the probationers quit by mid-afternoon…Those guys out here weren’t out there 30 minutes and they got the bucket and just threw them in the air and say, ‘Bonk this, I ain’t with this, I can’t do this,’ said Jermond Powell, a 33-year-old probationer. ‘They just left, took off across the field walking.’”

The UFW’s argument seems to be more tangible now that probationers, a group who is required to work by their agreement with the court, are unwilling to take this particular job, risking a return to jail if they are unable to find other employment.

Even so, the UFW still encounters resistance to laws which promote a more humane work environment for both unionized and non-unionized farm workers. UFW President Arturo S. Rodriguez released a statement on July 13. “(at ranches where there is no union contract) the dozen workers labored who died from the heat since 2005, when the heat regulation was issued. Farm workers sacrificed so much for SB 104, the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act, to make it a little easier for them to win union contracts.” Unfortunately, the law was vetoed by the California governor.

Even so, there have been recent successes in protecting the farm workers from extreme conditions. Earlier this year, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, reinstated certain wage protections for farm workers which had been cut by the Bush administration.

I try to give thanks as often as I can for the food on our table and the people that have helped to put it there.

Many are quick to tell you of experiences that they have had in grocery stores in which someone paying with a Lone Star card rang up some luxury item or beer separately, or about the Medicaid patient who drove out in a Lexus.  I understand the frustration of working hard only to feel that others are getting a free ride and living the same or better quality of life, while sponging off the system because they don’t want to work.  But this is really what it is…a feeling.  It is a feeling based on a few observances or stories, and it is not representative of the average aid recipient.

Let me be clear.  Statistics say that people who abuse the system in this way are an anomaly.  A recent study suggested that nearly sixty five percent of the people on welfare were not able to work due to their age (too old or too young), disability, or the lack of jobs.  The majority of people face poverty because of job loss, a reduction in wages, abandonment or other health crisis.  In many cases, getting a job does not end poverty, because most poor people do work.  They simply do not make enough to support their families.

At the same time, this is the profile of people that most of us come into contact with.  We do not come into contact with the beneficiaries of billions of dollars in corporate welfare.  For example, the US spends twenty billion every year in agricultural subsidies, which often go to multi-million dollar corporations.  And most of us don’t remember the most notorious case of corporate welfare, the seven billion dollar no-bid contract that the Bush administration granted to Halliburton for its operations in Iraq.  I could mention the bank bailout, and the list is endless.

We simply don’t run into enough CEOs to become disgusted with what they leech off of the government.   We do run into the guy at the store who gets a couple of hundred dollars for groceries every month.

I do not deny that there are people who simply do not want to work, who simply would rather live off of the rest of us, and who throw their luxury items in our faces occasionally.  This profile of aid recipient, albeit a small minority, does bother me.  However, it is not the small percentage of my tax dollars that they take up that worries me.  I am concerned for other reasons.

It is the lack of motivation in this small subset of people that truly worries me.  I hold no rancor for the few dollars that they have taken out of my pocket, but it is simply a glaring reminder of how much our people are in need of a program to guide, motivate and lead us out of the effects of our centuries’ long mental colonization, a program which I call Our Restoration.  I do not envy their lifestyle one bit, not even their cars, not their jewelry.

It is the fact that such a mentality exists in our community that bothers me the most.  Our Restoration will never come about from a mentality that puts laziness, leisure and luxury first.  We must first destroy these values if we are to destroy this sort of welfare abuse, and if we are to shine light on the shadow of the people we once were hundreds of years ago.

The answer to the problem of welfare abuse is not cutting off the aid for thousands of people who work hard at their jobs, at finding employment or at dealing with their disability.  The answer is promoting the positive values of hard work, communalism and integrity to the few people who lack it.  Above all else, the answer is to realize that the real culprits of welfare abuse is not Juan Fulano from around the corner, it is John Doe from Wall Street.

Aún así, Fernández ha hecho un contrato con Budweiser, una corporación que tiene enlaces fiscales con el Senador John McCain, un gran amigo de la ley notoria de Arizona SB1070.

Activistas pro-mexicanos, como los que trabajan con el grupo Puente, actualmente están promoviendo un boicot contra Budweiser, y ahora están organizando una protesta contra el concierto de Fernández.

No te dejes engañar por un hipócrita como Fernández. No dejes que te cuelguen con tu propio dinero. Hasta los bueyes peleen cuando los quieres matar. Si Fernández actúa contra el bienestar de nuestra gente, tú debes de actuar en contra de él.

¿Palabra De Ley O De Buey?

I write about wealth, because soon after college, I realized that wealth is simply another form of power, whether we like it or not.  I think the most obvious example of how I realized that our movement was at a disadvantage without it is how many, including myself, had no other responsible option except to leave the movement in order to support our families.

The simple fact is that few are sufficiently wealthy, as an individual, to focus many hours per week on rebuilding our people, especially those with a family.  Further, we have not organized wealth in a collective fashion in order to cover a salary for those who would like to work for our people.  Black churches have done so in their communities, and while I would venture to guess that our we have a stronger strain of entrepreneurialism in our community, almost nothing has been done to organize wealth in a collective fashion in order to better our community.  This, in part, answers the fashionable question as to why there is no national so-called Latino leader.  There is no black church organizing the wealth in our community to pay the leader.  MLK had many black churches behind him.  Malcolm had the Nation of Islam paying his expenses. 

Of course the radical solution to this is simply to neutralize and overturn the existing order, take over and then have a redistribution of wealth.  I agree, but it won’t happen anytime soon, so as we yell “Chicano Power” and “Power To The People,” we must remember that wealth is simply another form of power.  It is true that just as there are better ways to organize political power than what the current order offers, there are also better ways to organize the wealth than what the current order offers.

I understand, but don’t agree, with the argument that things like voting and wealth creation is simply a validation of the current occupation.  I found quickly that you can’t pay your rent with morals and ideas.  And that’s really all I mean by wealth creation, a way to cover our expenses, personal and organizationally, so that we can go about the business of Our Restoration.  I don’t mean big cars; I don’t mean flashy watches. 

I would guess that Corky Gonzales was so effective because he had created personal sources of wealth for himself that freed up his time.  He sold insurance and had a neighborhood bar.  A few local organizations today come to mind.  Centro Aztlan has a model which allows itself to cover its own bills, and America Para Todos does as well.

There exists today a whole cult/industry of wealth creation, which I had never paid attention to.  I’ve never read or heard much about it except the title.  Yesterday I was given a CD to listen to by Robert Kiwasaki (or however you spell it), author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad.  He is one of the icons of the wealth creation cult.  A lot of what he said was sales BS so that you could join his multi-level marketing company.  I was surprised, however, how some of his ideas echoed some of what we already know.

He said that the schools intentionally underducate us so that the rich can keep us as good, hard workers for their companies.  He criticized the typical middle class buying patterns as having been suckered into thinking that luxury items equated with wealth.  He said essentially, that we are trained to be (debt) slaves from the time that we are born.

I fear that if we discount the power of organized wealth, in favor of only political power, we are ignoring an important part of the equation for liberation.  I realize that part of why we have ignored it is because wealth creation is not easy, fun or glamorous.  There is little immediate gratification in collectively creating wealth.  The gratification comes when you can fund your own projects without bowing your head to anyone.