The New Rome? Games and Circuses...and Bread!

In the heyday of the Roman Empire, the Emperors kept their place at the top by giving the people of the capital city what they wanted most: gladiatorial extravaganzas, circuses and cheap food. Today, the leaders of cities, states, and countries use similar methods. The modern-day 'emperors' are democratically elected so the pressure to provide for the masses is even more pressing.

Case in point: Brazil.

Brazil is in the middle of a long-term project which will make it the center of attention for the world for the next several years. The large South American country is looking to play host to the 2014 CONCAAF championship, the 2016 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. It is literally spending billions and billions on stadiums and infrastructure improvements for these showcase events. The idea was not only would Brazil show that it was stepping up on the world stage, but it would be able to score political points with its own citizens.

The leftist Brazilian government has found that it is not as easy to do as it thought.

The government has run into numerous issues with its citizens by taking money away from the subsidies it pumped into maintaining low cost public transportation and food prices. This has sparked massive demonstrations across the country protesting the relatively small increases in prices by ordinary citizens, protests whose target besides the government has been the showcase projects. The government has used strong police tactics to quell the protests.

This is very similar to the pattern of experienced by Roman emperors as they sought to balance the demands of keeping the masses satisfied while working on colossal, ego-driven monuments and public projects which drained the public treasury. When there were food shortages, then the people would riot. This would be followed by a government crackdown and a new round of bribes to appease the masses.

It will be interesting to see what the modern 'emperors' in Brazil do to calm the riots.

By Being Latino Contributor, Jeffery Cassity Jeffery Cassity is a mostly socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative Anglo male who is involved in his local Hispanic community as the widower of a 1st generation Mexican-American woman and his active, some would say hyperactive, membership in the local Council of the League of Latin American Citizens(LULAC)

Historic Challenge to Voter Rights Act---Update

Though you may have missed it in all the media attention around the ruling on California's Proposition 8, the US Supreme Court issued its ruling in the historic Shelby v Holder this week. It was a suit by Shelby County, Alabama, against the US Department of Justice challenging the pre-clearance provisions of the Voters Rights Act which I originally wrote about on Being Latino three months ago.

The Court in a 5-4, conservative/liberal split, decision ruled that while racism still exists in America-- times and people have fundamentally changed enough that the US government can no longer enforce the formula used to determine which jurisdictions that is based upon 1960sstatistics.

While the federal government is allowed to continue to enforce other provisions of the Voter Rights Act. The Court basically challenged a deeply divided Congress to fashion new standards if they want the Justice Department to be able to enforce any type of pre-clearence of changes to voting laws in jurisdictions formally under the shadow of that provision of the law.

It will be interesting to see if an ideologically-challenged Congress will be able to do so, or whether it will become the talk of political fundraisers and those running for office in 2014 and beyond.

By Being Latino Contributor, Jeffery Cassity Jeffery Cassity is a mostly socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative Anglo male who is involved in his local Hispanic community as the widower of a 1st generation Mexican-American woman and his active, some would say hyperactive, membership in the local Council of the League of Latin American Citizens(LULAC)

We need a larger pie not smaller bites for everyone!

“The idea is not to fight over the national pie(the GNP)

but to grow the pie with market-oriented economic policies that generates social mobility.”

(Tweet by Daniel Garza, Executive Director of the LIBRE Initiative)

When we have a celebration or a family get-together and more people attend than we thought were coming, do we expect that the guests(both expected and unexpected) eat less and drink less? No, of course, we don't! What we do is we prepare(or buy) more food and drink.

Why is it then that those who would not skimp on getting more food and drink to satisfy their family and friends have such a hard time with the concept of working to create a larger economic pie instead of merely dividing up the existing supply of wealth and money in a 'more equitable manner'?! Why is it that they don't take the lessons from every day life and champion an economic policy which allows for the creation of more wealth and money? Money and wealth which would be available to those who are willing to work for it and be able to experience the social mobility that is the hallmark of our country back to its British colonial days.

The names that would be part of the list of those who have come from nothing to the top of their professions or have made personal fortunes starting with little or nothing reads like a virtual Who's Who of America! Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Samuel Clemens(aka Mark Twain), John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Joseph Pulitzer, Howard Hughes, Dwight David Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jennifer Lopez, Martha Stewart, Russell Simmons, Emilio and Gloria Estefan, and Oprah Winfrey are but a few examples.

These people and many, many more like them did not get their wealth or achieve their position in American society by looking to take from others but by working to create more economic pie to share, by following their American Dreams.

Ironically, it is this striving for the American Dream, the idea of working hard, getting ahead, and making life better for those who come after you, that draws hundreds of thousands to our shores every year, both through legal immigration and through immigration classified as illegal or undocumented. It is almost comical that those who would fight to the death for immigration reform so that the undocumented can remain here and become citizens are very often the same people who disparage the reason that these foreign nationals want to come here. It is comical that these people are serious critics of the work of groups such as the LIBRE Initiative whose Executive Director provided the tweet which inspired this article and who has received unfair criticism from many people in the Latino community including other writers on this website.

By Being Latino Contributor, Jeffery Cassity Jeffery Cassity is a mostly socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative Anglo male who is involved in his local Hispanic community as the widower of a 1st generation Mexican-American woman and his active, some would say hyperactive, membership in the local Council of the League of Latin American Citizens(LULAC)

Aren't Most Crimes 'Hate Crimes' by Definition?!

Do we really need hate crimes laws? Aren't MOST crimes “hate” crimes?

                                                    John Stossel on Twitter(6-6-2013)

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a 'hate crime' as: any of various crimes (as assault or defacement of property) when motivated by hostility to the victim as a member of a group (as one based on color, creed, gender, or sexual orientation).

The question raised by John Stossel in his statement on Twitter is this: if someone who harbors an inner prejudice commits a murder, assault, robbery, vandalism or other crime against a particular individual based that person's membership in a particular group, should there be addition punishment handed out to the criminal? Is a crime any more heinous if there is a bigoted or prejudiced motivation behind the crime?

First, I would like to take a look at the second part of Mr. Stossel's statement. Most crimes are not motivated by hate or malice. They are crimes of opportunity, need, or spontaneous acts of aggression such as the drug addict seeing an unattended purse; the domestic dispute or family argument which gets out of hand.

Hate crimes, on the other hand, are the result of a planned, organized attacks on individuals or institutions who represent the groups for whom the perpetrator has a developed dislike for such as the Neo-Nazi hatred of minorities and Jews; homophobes who hate and fear homosexual males(or males they perceive as being homosexuals base on stereotypes).

To answer the first part of Mr. Stossel's statement, YES, we do need hate crimes laws. It is an unfortunate reality of not only our society but even more so in other countries. Almost weekly, on a frequency higher than in our country, we see stories in the media of 'hate crime' attacks in supposedly more sophisticated and cultured Europe. Their societies which view themselves as far more enlightened and mature than our 'Wild West' America have found themselves having to deal with the questions of integration of minority groups which we have been working on over the past fifty years and which they are coming to grips with now for the first time.

The point that Mr. Stossel should have made about hate crimes here in the U.S. is that we have to make sure what we call 'hate crimes' are really that and not just run-of-the-mill urban violence and crime or publicity stunt or innocent act of self-defense. We have seen the cases that have been exploited for ill by such men as the Rev. Al Sharpton(i.e. The Tawana Brawley case). We have to wait for all the facts of cases to come out(i.e. The George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case which is currently going to trial).

Do hate crimes exist? Yes! Should there be added punishment beyond the simple underlying act of violence for those convicted of hate crimes? Yes! Does every crime committed against a particular member of a particular group whose history includes being the victims of hate crimes constitute a hate crime? No!

The answer is to look at each case on its merits not to put it automatically in the category of a hate crime. The answer is to act like responsible and thoughtful adults and not like immature children allowing ourselves to be herded like sheep by some self-aggrandizing, pompous shepard, no matter who that shephard is.

By Being Latino Contributor, Jeffery Cassity Jeffery Cassity is a mostly socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative Anglo male who is involved in his local Hispanic community as the widower of a 1st generation Mexican-American woman and his active, some would say hyperactive, membership in the local Council of the League of Latin American Citizens(LULAC)

Image Issues: Ending Stereotypes!

New York Puerto Ricans, specifically Boricuas For A Positive Image, are working to ban Coors Beer as a sponsor of this year's Puerto Rican Day Parade because they feel that it is not only a symptom of the commercialism which has taken over the event but also because they want to promote a healthier lifestyle for Boricuas and other Latinos.

Many Boricuas want the organizers of the parade to move the celebration back to the original idea of a celebration of Puerto Rican culture and families and be less the promotion of the increasing number of commercial sponsors such as Coors.

Boricuas For A Positive Image also want Coors to remove the image of the Puerto Rican flag from the commemorative beer can that the company has planned on releasing for the event. "[The can is] an insult to our culture, history, and flag. We will not allow Coors to insult us," Lucky Rivera of Boricuas for a Positive Image commented.

The group has promised protests if Coors does not comply.

The protest is also an attempt to change the popular perception of Latino men that is too often and inaccurately portrayed in the media, especially film and television, of 'el borracho', the heavy-drinking Mexican or Boricua(Puerto Rican). This myth is the staple of many police procedural series set in New York City as well as many 'gangsters in the hood' movies. A notable exception to this stereotype can be seen in the movie, Trouble in the Heights, which I wrote about earlier this year for Being Latino! Instead, community leaders want the positive characteristics of being responsible, hard-working grandfathers, fathers, sons, and brothers to be what is emphasized when the general public think of Latino men.

By Being Latino Contributor, Jeffery Cassity Jeffery Cassity is a mostly socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative Anglo male who is involved in his local Hispanic community as the widower of a 1st generation Mexican-American woman and his active, some would say hyperactive, membership in the local Council of the League of Latin American Citizens(LULAC)