White Hispanic Politicos: The Weirdness Of It All
12/03/2012
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 I've added a couple of more faces to my gallery of Latinos frequently called upon by the media as natural interlocutors on the subject of immigration amnesty. 
A commenter points out:
Now, anywhere else in the world if a distinct population group (white hispanics) were in power and an oppressed group (hispanic hispanics) were fleeing en masse, the US would lead the way at the UN in calling that 'ethnic cleansing' and we'd promptly establish embargoes, no-fly zones and call for NATO forces to be sent in. Remember what happened when all those Albanians fled Kosovo? 
Yet, with the current situation not only do we not call it ethnic cleansing, which I think would not be too hard a case to make, but the white hispanics actually get to negotiate on behalf of the oppressed hispanic hispanics in this country. 


This widespread assumption that Sen. Marco Rubio, a tanned Cubano, should negotiate a deal with the Democrats over amnesty for Mexicans is pretty weird when you stop and think about.

So don't.

Then again, the media was totally on board in the summer of 2001 with George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell negotiating an immigration foreign policy deal with Vicente Fox and Foreign Secretary Jorge G. Castaneda. (House Republicans quietly sank it a few days before 9/11.) By the way, did you ever get a gander at those guys? Mexican politicians try to stay tanned (which isn't hard to do at 7,000 feet altitude and 19 degrees of latitude), but still ...

 

 

Fox looked like the actor Televisa would choose to play Don Draper's role in the Mexico City-set telenovela remake of Mad Men. And Castaneda, whose mom was a Soviet translator at the UN, was known in Mexico as El Guero. Castaneda, on the other hand,  has this whole Miami Vice thing going:

 

My commenter continues:

If the US were the least bit consistent with its foreign policy, they'd train and arm the hispanic hispanics and send them back to Mexico to overthrow the white hispanics and maybe help create a nation where the masses might actually be able to own property and make a living. In fact, many on the right might actually suppport this type of intervention if it could help spread the wealth in Mexico.

Well, let's not do that. 

Yet ... can we at least remind ourselves that Mexico is home to the world's richest man? Granted, Carlos Slim (nee Salim)  bailed out the New York Times, so that's not really considered an appropriate topic for discussion in the national news, but the notion that all these people have to move to America because there's no money in Mexico seem to be overlooking a few folks.

Here's what Castaneda had to say about modern Mexico in 1997:
A government undersecretary (one level down from the top echelon of public service) earned in 1994 (prior to devaluation) approximately $180,000 after taxes … — almost twice what his U.S. counterpart earned before taxes. His chauffeur (provided by the government, of course) made about $7,500 a year. The official addresses the employee with the familiar "tu," while the latter must speak to the former with the respectful "usted." The official and his peers in the business and intellectual elites of the nation tend to be white (there are exceptions, but they are becoming scarcer), well educated, and well traveled abroad. They send their two children to private schools, removed from the world of the employee. The employee and his peers tend to be mestizo, many are barely literate, and they have four or five children, most of whom will be able to attend school only through the fifth grade."

Castaneda went on to argue that America better not try to tighten the border, because without that safety valve, the poor of Mexico would rise up and slit the throats of the rich, and by the time the rich got done getting their revenge (and, trust me, they would get their revenge), there'd be 10 million refugees over the border.
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