From a "Cheese and Wine Liberal"
====================================
April 30, 2001
Actually, the only thing I heard about Villaraigosa other than from your site is that he went to Clinton and pulled strings to get a major drug trafficker pardoned. This really irks me, because I am particularly sensitive to politicians and elected officials being involved with un-American and destructive activities to get themselves elected or become wealthy. If Mr. V has ties to the drug traffickers, ties to Mexico, and is a power broker here in Los Angeles with a huge Latino following, it doesn't take a genius to see that something smells like lots of dirty money and more drugs and crime on our streets.
As for bilingual education...ask any of the Latino rights advocates this question... If an American walked into Mexico or Guatemala or wherever, and tried to open up a little hot dog stand with all his signs painted in English, menus in English, and preferred not to speak Spanish to the customers, and then went on and on about how he should be able to force the locals to speak English to converse with him...what would the government of Mexico/Guatemala/wherever do with this guy? They'd tell him to get out and stop disrespecting their country and their official language. Then if this same guy brought over half of Illinois to live there, started breeding like cockroaches until the locals were a minority, and then decided that they'd demand that the government taught English in the schools... THEN what would happen to the guy? Oh shit that makes me sound like a racist asshole. Well, whatever, I've lived in LA for all my life and I have had to accept that the truth is somewhere between the idealism and "accept diversity as a blessing" I was raised with, and the harsh reality of "protect what's yours or else someone else will come in and trash it or steal it" that I learned in the real world.
I have a very hard time being torn between having a good, decent soul and being very angry about what is happening to Los Angeles with the "invasion" of other cultures that look at America as a stupid country that they can take advantage of at will. I do not want to hate any specific group and I do NOT want to be a hate monger in any way. I just wish that LA and America put limits on how much it can be taken advantage of. I know people who went out and willingly risked their lives for "their country" and now cannot qualify for the same assistance and free help that illegal immigrants are suing over.
Name Withheld
