Come’ on Victorians!

I take a lot of pride in my hometown, and it’s embarrassing to see how a few posters can literally turn a mole hill into a mountain with the same stale arguments that don’t make any sense  but I can’t get away from it because it’s in my local newspaper.

The other day the Victoria Advocate ran a story about the Victoria Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; thus opening the door for the same insane comments about racism. There’s the same old. “ what would the cry be if it was a white Chamber of Commerce?” This is akin to “a white Miss America contest and the white congressional caucus arguments of the past.” The so-called white race is made of hundreds of ethnicities,so that’s not even a valid argument. In the business or political world, breakout  groups are referred to as special interests groups and what they are doing is called networking. It’s no different from the Masonic Lodge, Lions Club the local Veterans of Foreign Wars. I could see if the members were in the back rooms plotting against whitey but there’s no evidence of that. This is about twenty-five or more members of the Hispanic community lobbying for maybe ten or more Hispanic businesses. For example, let's pretend some Fiesta store executives were looking to locate in this area. It just might be a plus if they could contact someone in the  Victoria Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for some in-depth information they couldn’t get from the Victoria Chamber of Commerce. Everyone’s a winner and we just might get a new company to share the tax load. Some people need to get out of the back woods, book a flight to New York and go enjoy Little Italy,China Town and Spanish Harlem to see how some cultures remain in tact but are still tax paying patriotic  Americans. There is single definition for the word American;it’s whatever you want it to be.

Another example of needlessly stirring the pot are the words of VA forum poster, Rachel Johnson, over an incident of a 20 year –old mother and her 14-month infant being ejected from their vehicle when she said"CAR SEATS Mexicans! CAR SEATS! For crying out loud I am soooo sick of seeing this happen. "  There is not person reading this blog who doesn’t wish that the mother and her child were buckled up but somehow this woman(Johnson) felt her words were necessary. Someone called her out for racial remarks, but she said she calls them as she sees them and cited a study that stated that minorities don’t tend to restrain their toddlers. The article in the USAToday said it was because of economic reasons or educational ones. What she left out (which is usually the case) is “seat belt use among African Americans increased nationally from 51% in 1996 to 77% in 2002. That growth was due partly to the efforts of groups such as the NAACP, the National Urban League, the National Council of Negro Women, Meharry Medical College and the Congress of National Black Churches, among others….There’s those special interest racists groups again;doing some good.

Before I start on Carl Bankston’s letter, I have to admit I was wrong for thinking that Senator McConnell knew anything about a letter a young staffer wrote to the Pentagon (using McConnell’s stationary) inquiring about detainees getting G.I. bill rights.That’s all the information I had at the time, but I should have known McConnell was too smart to ask a dumb question like that.

Mr. Bankston would have us believe that President Obama has started a domestic surveillance program from inside a department President Bush created only after much resistance and pressure from the 9/11 Commission.

It’s awfully suspicious but all the concerns Mr. Bankston  wrote about has not been reported by the New York Times or the Washington Post. If you highlight DHS bought 450 million rounds of hallow –point ammunition and domestic surveillance arm of the  United States Government and place the link into your favorite browser,  all you will pull up is right wing blog sites. Oh, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard someone from the right quote the “dedicated to fundamentally changing America”by President Obama to always mean something cynical,I'd be a rich man.

Our government is fulfilling a contract made with the previous regime of Egypt but perhaps it should be rescinded and we should ask Lockheed to keep their jets and refund the taxpayer’s money.We could send those tanks to the Las Vegas graveyard where the rest of our standby tanks are.

I don’t know Mr. Bankston, but I went to school with my Republican friends, attended funerals of friends we had in common, and we share warm greeting  every time we meet  but I would hate to think that they actually believe a president of the United States or our government is plotting against us in a tyrannical way. I’ve gone through one “black helicopter” era and that’s enough.