0032 - 30APR2014 - "Is Cliven Bundy a role model?"

Ok folks, here is something worth talking about a bit (or is it?)… By now most of you have probably heard about one Cliven Bundy, a rancher in Nevada who has made a stand against an institution he does not recognize: the US Government!

Bundy's fight with the Federal Government (the Bureau of Land Management specifically) goes back to ‘93 when the BLM eliminated livestock grazing in the area, citing the protection of an endangered tortoise species. That was when Bundy decided to stop paying grazing fees. Now, the agency says he owes more than $1.2 million. A federal judge first ruled in 1998 that Bundy was trespassing on federal land. Last year, a federal judge ruled the agency could remove the cattle. When the BLM started the process of removing the cattle, Bundy and his family took up arms against the BLM; shortly after that the BLM, in order to defuse tensions, returned the cattle to Mr. Bundy. However, the machinery was in motion and even after the returning of the cattle hundreds (some reports say thousands) of people who sympathize or identify with Bundy’s position have flocked to the area North East of Las Vegas where all this drama has been unfolding… These people call themselves many names amongst which are ‘Patriots’, ‘Constitutionalists’, ‘ Militias’…

Politicians and other public figures have either supported or condemned his stance and/or actions… He’s been called everything from ‘hero’ to ‘terrorist’ and many have already brought out references to, and comparisons with, Randy Weaver in Ruby Ridge, ID. Whether you agree with his position or not, he deserves the credit for taking a stand on it. This level of civility, however, may soon change and here’s why: in an interview with the New York Times, he referred to black folks and ‘the negro’ (a pre-Civil Rights term, also used by people who consider black people inferior) and then proceeded to say of them “And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children; they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.” Now folks, that kind of statement really changes the discourse landscape, since he seems to suggest that (a) all black people behave the same; and (b) they seem to be better suited to be slaves and not free people… Now he’s gone from a Randy Weaver like-thinker to a pro-slavery sympathizer (maybe he’s also throwing his hat in the ring as a candidate for Grand Wizard of the KKK!) He’s also gone from the voice a citizen airing a grievance, to somebody with questionable credibility since he seems to be a practitioner of egregious double standard: on one hand he complains about ‘the negro’ being subsidized by the government and on the other hand he is claiming as a right the subsidy he’s been getting from the US Government for decades by letting him graze his cattle on land that is not his, paying a pittance, and then he even refuses to pay the fees demanding that he should have the grazing rights for free (from subsidy to full ‘gift’ from the Feds!).

Now you see the likes of Rand Paul - the Junior Senator for Kentucky - going from “There is a legitimate constitutional question here about whether the state should be in charge of endangered species or whether the federal government should be” to “His remarks on race are offensive and I wholeheartedly disagree with him” and Dean Heller – the junior US Senator for Nevada - from “Bundy and his supporter are Patriots” to “Senator Heller completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy’s appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way" via a spokesperson… Now it is time to backpedal, my friends, now that Mr. Bundy is showing his hand... This was truly an “Oh shit” moment for many politicians and people in the media… It is time to put some dirt between them and this whack job, at least publicly, because he is ‘radioactive’!

Now, I have not seen much in the ‘mainstream’ media about this issue; I have no idea what the staff of the ‘Fair and Balanced’ are saying now (although I heard that many of them are also running for the hills), or other radio personalities are spewing out; I read that Beck said something about it “being in danger of representing the ‘right’ version of occupy Wall Street” to which Bundy responded that Beck didn’t know what he was talking about! Last, but not least, bow-tie man Tucker Carlson has gone on record saying that, in fact, the land does not belong to the Bundy clan as they claim; for this, he will be excommunicated, his credentials revoked, and his rear end will be thrown out of Paradise!

However, all of these prominent politicians and other personalities were – seemingly - ‘asleep at the switch’… Anybody worth their salt could have recognized the true sentiments underneath this Bundy character’s rhetoric… When you hear someone with the argument that they don't recognize the Federal Government, that they are Constitutionalists, that they believe in states’ sovereignty, it is usually a big and loud clue into (a) their allegiance to the 4th Article of the Constitution where it says that some persons are considered personal property (read slaves); (b) their disagreement with the Emancipation Proclamation and the fact that the civil war ended up being an anti-slavery war (regardless of what they choose to call it); and (c) they are against the 14th amendment, and having to consider all persons legally equal - as that amendment mandates - is against their very fiber. I wonder: were they really asleep at the switch? Or were they fully aware of Bundy’s core ideology and ran away from it when those beliefs became very apparent to all, and quite toxic – I may add - for certain political ambitions? Hmmmm…

There is a couple of points, at the very center of this story, which I think are worthy of further commentary: first, the issue of states being considered exempt from Federal oversight. The Pledge of Allegiance says “One Nation, Under God, with Liberty and Justice for all…”; it one does not say “50 States, Under God, with Liberty and Justice for all…” The Federalists Papers (#9-Hamilton and #10-Madison) address this issue with all the arguments for there to be an Union, a Federation of States acting as, and reaping the benefits of being, one Nation. And the second point is the misuse and hijacking of the term Patriot, and here’s why:  a true Patriot does not pick and choose which parts of the Patria (Father Land) he or she will defend or support; a true Patriot does not choose which of the amendments to the Constitution they are willing to die for if necessary, and which ones they choose to ignore, depending on convenience; a true Patriot does not ask for (and much less demand to have) the right to pledge allegiance only to those parts of the nation they happen to like… Being a citizen is not like being in a restaurant where you can pick from the menu what you want to consume (i.e. what laws you want to follow or ignore): being a citizen or a patriot is all or nothing; the law applies to all equally; the rights are the same; the duties are also the same!…

0031 - 25APR2014 - "Everything is relative"...

Ever since Albert Einstein introduced his Theory of Relativity in 1905, and was last validated in 1938, many of us have grown accustomed to the thinking that everything is relative, although sometimes it is still a foreign rationale for some who believe in terms such as ‘absolute’, ‘perfect’, ‘never’, etc.

Some days ago I was at a gathering with some friends and a delicate subject was brought up: people who live in this country and do not speak English. There were people of somewhat diverse backgrounds, some of them multi-lingual, some bilingual and some who only spoke the language they were born into and grew up with.  There were opinions, some strong ones, about the situation where if you live here, you must speak English, period. And I could not agree more. And I usually take it a step further: even if you come here to do business, or to go to school, or to simply visit, you’re expected to speak English. The discussion ensued – very animatedly - with several points of view being expressed; some in the form of simple comments and others more passionately… Some of the most interesting ones were:

a)     I am quoting: “How is it possible that a person goes to a public establishment, and either they are expected to speak other languages, or there are no English-speaking people in the establishment?” (End of quote). This was a very passionate point for, and commonly experienced situation by, some folks…

b)    We want people to speak English when they come here; however, we generally neglect, is not even in our 'Radar Screen', or sometimes refuse to learn other languages; so, when we go elsewhere, we expect – and often demand – that people address us in English, even though they speak another language in that particular country we are visiting… We, at times, seem to be very comfortable with double standards, and are proud of it!

c)     There are some other countries, developed countries like us, where people proudly speak more than one language and where they have more than one official language. In almost every country in Europe, people speak two languages, and many times more than that; they do business (officially) in more than one language; even our most esteemed neighbors (the ones to the North, of course) have two official languages: English and French Canadian. In some Caribbean Islands that belong to the Netherlands people must speak, at least, five languages (that is 5!) to work in anything related to the public. However, we somehow consider it inappropriate - sometimes - for people to ask us if we speak another language… I have witnessed this dialog more than once: “Do you speak Spanish?” “No, I do not!” and the left-hand conversation goes like ‘who do you think I am?’ or 'where do you think you are?' as if they had been offended (or mistaken or misplaced) by the question…

At any rate, in the middle of all these worthy and enlightening arguments, a friend tried to give an example to the point they were trying to make (their point being that people must learn the language of the country they live in) and said something to the effect that “English is not John Doe’s first language but they speak it perfectly…” (I will omit the names to protect the innocent and the guilty alike). Another friend made a gesture of surprise and said under their breath “Oh my God, is he serious?” apparently taken aback by the 'perfectly' assertion, since John Doe clearly speaks with a distinct accent… Being a natural introvert, I sometimes need my time to process certain topics properly and I hold back any reaction until I have had time to really ponder all the variables at play and formulate an answer; of course, by the time I was ready to participate in the discussion with an adequately thought-out opinion, the gathering was over and I had nobody to share my answer with; so I decided to use this as my outlet to offer my opinion… And here it is: as I said before, likely my friend’s 'surprised' reaction to the original comment was based on the accent John Doe has when speaking English; they most likely consider that accent a language flaw, in contradiction with the original comment. Again, John Doe does have an accent when they speak English but, in all reality, who does not? Who can cast the first stone? Within the US alone there are over 25 different dialects and accents of English… (Easy examples: people with a Boston-urban accent do not pronounce r’s, and people with the Virginia-Piedmont accent add r’s where there are none!) So, even those who were born and raised here in the good ole US of A, have an accent when they speak English; everything is relative.

In the wider scope, everybody around the world who speaks English has an accent; some more pronounced than others, some worse and some better; everything is relative… Try to listen to a conversation being carried in ‘English’ between a person from Texarkana (Texas) and one from the Transvaal (South Africa); let me know after that ‘experience’ if you still think that people born in English-speaking lands have no strong (and sometimes hard to understand) accents… Or try one, also in ‘English’, between a Cockney (London East End) and a Guyanese (South America)… If you think there is no accent there, or that one is better than the other, or that one accent is more understandable than the other, think again… Everything is relative.

You see, historically, English is and has been for millennia a dynamic language; it has been evolving constantly since its Teutonic origins… The initial British Isles dialects were modified (some may say bastardized) by the pseudo-Latin the Roman Legions spoke while occupying the territories for over 300 years… They were further modified radically when the Saxons (with a more modern German or Teutonic version of their language) conquered the Isles, and lately refined by all the words adopted from all the colonies while the British Empire was in place (Hindu, Spanish, Farsi, Arabic – yes Arabic! – amongst the most influential ones). Even among themselves, the British Isles still feature four major groupings of regional dialects and accents of English, such as English itself, Scottish, Irish and Welsh; people with more knowledge than I are able to point out many other variations within those groupings…

For those who still think they speak perfect English and, as such, think they have earned the right – by birth, or otherwise self-adjudicated – to feel somewhat better suited for communications than those who do not speak like they do, the bubble is about to burst: there is no such a thing as ‘perfectly spoken [language]’ (still a truism regardless of what language is inserted between the brackets); what may be perfect for some, is flawed to others; everything is relative…

Bottom line folks, there are many versions of English and many ways in which those version are spoken (i.e. accents). The beauty of it all is the diversity and richness of the language, how it evolves over time, how it bends according to needs and geographies, how one never ends learning it (thinking otherwise is folly), and how humbling it could prove to be to even the most proud, confident and self-proclaimed ‘Perfect English’ speaker…