Downtown Tucson

PRETTY IN PINK OR A PALE IMITATION?

'Osama Bin Laden is either alive and well or alive and not too well or not alive.’ Donald Rumsfeld October 2002

‘And it is not knowable if force will be used (in Iraq), but if it is to be used, it is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you know, six days, six weeks, I doubt six months.’ Donald Rumsfeld February 2003

PRETTY IN PINK OR A PALE IMITATION?

What a great day! The Democrats seize control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the first self-proclaimed socialist, yes socialist, is elected to the Senate, Rummy resigns and the Nicaraguan cold war warrior, Daniel Ortega, is returned to power after 16 years. The great unwashed, aka the much maligned American electorate, have spoken. It looks like it may be the beginning of the end for the nasty neo-cons and, just to rub it in, one of their own backyard betes noires comes back to haunt them.

So can we now look forward to a more enlightened period in which progressive and rationalist elements are able to reassert themselves? Will some of the sacred cows that have been jettisoned i.e. adherence to the rule of law and a strict prohibition on torture, be reinstated?

With regard to the US, there’s clearly been a small shift back towards the centre and a desire for a more consensual politics. The black Democratic Senator and potential Presidential candidate, Barak Obama, has said that Americans are tired of the ‘slash and burn’ politics of the last few years and are searching for ‘common values and common ideals.’ That may be true but Obama himself is a good example of the lack of radicalism and continued allure of social conservatism. He wore God on his sleeve during his campaign as did other Democratic candidates, in a bid to break the Republican stranglehold on the Almighty. Bob Casey, the Democrat who was elected to the Senate in Pennsylvania, is a pro-life, Catholic. Support for stem cell research and gay marriage or legal union is about as good as it gets at the liberal end of the Party.

In Arizona, referendums proposing a whole raft of hard line immigration measures were all passed, as was one advocating a zero – tolerance approach to methamphetamine users. Illegal immigrants charged with a serious felony cannot now obtain bail and have had their access to public services severely restricted. English is now the official state language. On a more positive note, the minimum wage has been increased from $5.15 to $6.75 an hour and, last but not least, great news for calves and pregnant pigs who will now be guaranteed enough space to fully extend their limbs and turn around in their cages. Now that’s what I call radical!

And what of Ortega? He’s sold himself as a reformed character, saying that he’s no longer a revolutionary Marxist. Indeed, he actually adopted pink as his campaign colour. He’s insisted that foreign investment is welcome and that private capital would not be under threat. Astonishingly, his Vice – Presidential running mate is a former Contra rebel (right – wing American backed paramilitaries who fought against his regime). To add insult to injury, he managed to change the electoral rules by cutting a deal with a reactionary former President in the country’s Legislature. He says that he still wants to put the country’s poor first and there are many of them. After Haiti, it’s the poorest country in Central America.

Following the Sandinista movement’s accession to power in 1979, production and consumption of food doubled and serious malnutrition disappeared. Not one single baby died for a year. But, in terms of redistribution etc, when he was voted out of office in 1990 (people, desperate for an end to civil war and the US blockade, were paid $40 each to vote for Violetta Chamorra, the Washington backed candidate) most of the economy was still in private hands. So, even then, the rhetoric was unable to be translated into reality.

Hamstrung by external interference, this has long tended to be the case as far as the left in South and Central America is concerned. Salvador Allende in Chile was hardly a Marxist but was always capable of convincing class – war rhetoric. His purpose was to stimulate the economy by implementing Keynesian (stimulating demand for goods and pursuing full – employment in a mixed economy) economic policies. He never sought to dismantle the Capitalist system and initiated moderate land reform and partial nationalization.

Today, for all his anti – Bush / American imperialist polemic (welcome though it is in terms of someone as high profile as a head of state being bold enough to challenge the world's super power) Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has a bark which is worse than his bite. His anti – imperialist and redistributionist measures constitute irritants to rather than a full – frontal assault on Capital. In 2001, he introduced a law requiring the sale of untilled land to the landless and subsequently, the Venezuelan Congress voted to compel private banks to dedicate 20% of their lending portfolio to ‘micro – loans’ for small businesses and small plot farmers. He also instituted a new hydrocarbons law in 2001, such that the major oil multinationals (Exxon, BP, Shell etc), would only get to keep 70% of the revenues from the sale of Venezuelan crude, instead of 84%. In 2005, Chavez withdrew $20 billion of Venezuela’s petrodollars from the US Federal Reserve and deposited the money in an account with the International Bank of Settlement for Investment in Latin America.

I guess our perception on all these things depends on whether we see the glass as half full or half empty. Liberals in the US tend to put a positive gloss on any gains, however miniscule, which is fair enough. Unreconstructed socialists who hark back to a pre-Reagan / Thatcher era are less easily placated.

It remains to be seen whether the Democrats can re-claim the Presidency in 2008 and if those sacred cows can ever be fully restored. As for the first self-proclaimed socialist in the Senate, his name’s Bernie Sanders and he was elected in Vermont. He calls himself a ‘democratic socialist’ and has vowed to fight for the rights of working families and immigrants and against the war in Iraq.

Check out an excellent magazine called Dissent. On the Home Page there’s a great article by Daphne Aviater on Bolivia as well as the postscript to Nicholas Jahr’s article entitled ‘Corruption and Reconstruction in Liberia’ which I also highly recommend and can be found at: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=653

A MEMORABLE KISSINGER DIATRIBE

I wanted to share with you this delicious Henry Kissinger put down by Molly Ivins in the October 7th edition of the Arizona Daily Star:

The Old War Criminal is back. I try not to hold grudges, but I must admit I have never lost one ounce of rancour towards Henry Kissinger, that cynical, slithery, self-absorbed, pathological liar. He has all the loyalty and principle of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, whom Napolean described as “a piece of dung in a silk stocking.”

Come to think of it, Talleyrand looks pretty good compared to Kissinger, who always aspired to be Metternich (a 19th-century Austrian diplomat). Count the number of Americans and Vietnamese who died between 1969 and 1973 and see if you can find any indication he ever gave a damn.

As for Kissinger’s getting the Nobel Peace Prize, it is a thing so wrong it has come to define wrongness – as in, “As weird as the time Henry Kissinger got the Nobel Peace Prize.”

TUCSON TOPS THE MILLION MARK

Tucson’s population has reached a million, making it the 39th most populace city in the US. It’s growing rapidly and is expected to be the 5th most populace by 2040. Maybe I was the millionth resident, I better get myself down to the Town Hall to see if there’s a prize on offer. You never know, maybe I’ll get a gift token for the local Reptile Store (photo on the way). Quite fancy a pet snake. Could call it Henry Talleyrand or Charles Maurice de Kissinger which I’m sure would please Molly! But I digress……

The population mix here is as follows: White: 58%; Hispanic: 32%; Black: 3%; American Indian: 2.5%; Asian/Pacific Islander: 2.5%; 2 or more races: 1.5%; Other: 0.5%. I have been pleasantly surprised at the diversity in Tucson, it’s greater than I expected. Tucson was under Spanish rule until 1821 when Mexico won its independence. In 1853/4, it became part of the US following the purchase of 30,000 square miles of Mexican territory for $10 million. Most of Arizona, along with nearly half of Mexican territory, was transferred to American ownership in 1848, following the Mexican / American war.

Apparently, there are 752, 270 vehicles registered in Pima County (in which Tucson is situated), 107,160 licensed dogs, 364 schools, 489 churches (there seems to be one every 200 or so metres), 68,000 residents with asthma,
41,258 swimming pools, 129 ATM’s, 645 traffic lights, 244 gas stations and 20,000 + streetlights. They do love licensing and logging everything here. There’s a notice in the park downtown which says that it’s illegal to drink beer without a license. I think I’ll apply for one just for the hell of it. Watch this space.

GET BACK

When I said to people that I was emigrating to Tucson, Arizona, more often than not they would say ‘Wasn’t that the place that was mentioned in a Beatles Song? I would say ‘Yes, in Get Back, you know, the one that goes’ and I would then make a pathetic tone deaf attempt to render the first line ‘Jojo was a man who thought he was a woman but he knew it couldn’t last, Jojo left his home in Tucson Arizona........’ I couldn’t even complete the sentence.

A couple of days after I got here it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to google ‘Get Back’ and find out what it was all about. The lyrics are as follows and reveal that I couldn’t even get half of the opening line right:

Jo Jo was a man who thought he was a loner
But he knew it couldn’t last
Jo Jo left his home in Tucson Arizona for some California grass

Chorus:

Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged
Get back Jo Jo. Go home.

Chorus repeated.

Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman
But she was another man
All the girls around her say she’s got it coming
But she gets it while she can

Chorus repeated

Get back Loretta
Your mama’s waiting for ya
Wearing her high - heel shoes
And a low neck sweater
Get back home Loretta

It seems that all roads in my life lead to immigration. Question: How do you go from Tucson, Arizona to Enoch Powell’s (right - wing anti - immigration British politician 1912 - 1998) rivers of blood speech (in which he used a reference in Virgil to the river Tiber foaming with blood to describe what he thought would happen if the tide of Commonwealth immigrants was not stemmed) ? Answer: Get back by the Beatles.

Apparently, in a jamming session, McCartney came up with the satirical lyric ‘You’d better get back to your commonwealth homes’ based on the Powell speech. The song developed as a protest song and, at one point, the draft third verse referred to 19 Pakistanis living in a council flat. It seems that the group shied away from including such overtly, racially charged lyrics.

Prior to its’ official release on 11th April 1969, the Beatles played Get Back, along with other songs, on the roof of Apple Studios in Savile Row in London’s exclusive Mayfair district. The third and final rooftop performance was interrupted by the police. Once released, it became the only Beatles’single to enter the charts at number one, staying there for 6 weeks. Please have a look at the live rooftop performance of Get Back, it’s awesome. Clock the city gent with the umbrella arriving on the roof. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xra3UKhbG1o Also, the Let It Be - naked version which includes Billy Preston: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnfAmz_Oah0

There is rarely a consensus on Beatles lyrics but the California grass in the first verse is thought to be a reference to Marijuana and Linda McCartney’s former residence in Tucson is believed to be the reason for the city’s inclusion in the song. As regards the second verse, it is often said to be a playful dig at George Harrison, who had a brief fling with a transsexual.

Apparently, Paul looked at Yoko when he sang the line ‘get back to where you once belonged’ and both John and Yoko took it as a slight. Finally, the broad concept was for the Beatles to ‘get back’ to their roots and play new songs for live audiences without studio craft.
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I was buying a bagel the other day and the white working class woman who took my order was complaining that Mexicans in Tucson didn’t bother to learn English. Instead, the locals were expected to communicate with them in Spanish. Where have I heard that particular grievance before? As always, it’s an initially persuasive argument but, as is the case with many controversial issues, it’s over simplistic.

I actually think that it’s advisable to learn the lingo if you move abroad but it’s easier said than done. I don’t know about Tucson yet but, in London, it has never been a foregone conclusion that immigrants of any age and both genders are able to learn English, even if they are motivated to do so. Often, cultural, social and bureaucratic issues obstruct someone from doing so. For example, refugees in the UK often have difficulty getting into English classes which are either over subscribed or require a fee which they can’t afford and women are often expected, or made, to stay at home by their husbands. By and large, it’s harder for older people to learn languages than the younger generations.

Naturally, most people who arrive in a new country feel vulnerable and insecure, especially if they’ve escaped persecution. They'll pick up very quickly on any negative vibes and self - preservation will take priority over integration and language learning.

The language issue is one of many issues around immigration which is being hotly debated in the run up to the mid-term elections in the US. The Senate has voted in favour of a measure calling on the government to ‘ preserve and enhance the role of English as the national language’ although it also passed a milder amendment describing English as the ‘common and unifying language.’

Local councils are debating and voting on similar proposals. The whole language debate is being driven by right - wingers who are spreading the usual alarmist propaganda about threats to American identity and culture. The academic, Samuel Huntington, best known for his ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis, has said that ‘Mexican Americans feel increasingly comfortable with their own culture and often contemptuous of American culture.’

Douglas Rivelin of the National Immigration Forum, has hit back, impressively I think, at this massive and incendiary claim. ‘He (Huntington) is totally missing what is going on in the US. The same thing could have been written in 1924 about Irish or other immigrants, and it would have been equally wrong. Bagels and pizzas and spaghetti were new things at one time...immigrants come and change America and are changed by America.’

The friend who doesn't care

A friend of mine emigrated from his native country (he does not want me to specify which one) to the states about 6 years ago after winning an immigration lottery. At his U S citizenship interview a few months ago, he was pressurised by the female officer to say who he would fight for in a war between the US and his homeland. His instant retort was that such a scenario would not happen, particularly as both countries are close allies. The officer was not prepared to let him off the hook. ‘We need to know that you’re with us. We have to know that your loyalty has no limits.’ ‘Yes but...but....’he stammered, as he felt his temperature rise. ‘No buts Mister’, the officer was unyielding.‘Yes but....yes but.....OK, YES.’

After that, he recounted to me, his attitude changed and he answered questions matter - of - factly. ‘I did not care anymore if they accepted me or not.’ He need not have worried. His citizenship was duly granted. Just as well, because he has precious little else to show for his 6 years here.

A qualified and experienced computer programmer back home, he has never been able to secure a job in his chosen profession in the US. 9 - 11 happened a few months after he arrived and the change in attitudes towards a large chunk of foreigners, he says, put paid to his chances of being given a fair crack of the whip. Her has spent most of his time doing night shifts in gas stations or convenience stores.

He even applied to join the National Guard but was turned down because of a large scar on his knee, the result of a ligament operation years ago. Apparently, they were suspicious that he might have been a spy with a chip (micro not fried) implanted in is leg.

A few weeks ago, his shop was held up at gunpoint and he was so shaken up that he has not worked since. From what I can see the victim support network is pretty good, although my friend has turned down the offer of counselling. He has received a letter informing him that the perpetrator of the crime has been caught and has agreed to a plea bargain. The advantage of this, the letter says, is to save the taxpayer the cost of a trial. Furthermore, the offender will be the one responsible for any compensation which may be paid to the victim and will not be eligible for release until he has served a minimum of 85% of his custodial sentence. Thereafter, he will have to undertake community service for the remaining 15%.

No doubt all of this would please Daily Mail readers and the law and order lobby in the UK.

I’m not sure whether it’s a defence mechanism but my friend is professing indifference to everything. ‘I don’t care’ is his stock response. When I asked him what his views on the plea bargain were and whether he thought bail should be granted, he just said ‘I don’t care. In prison, out of prison, not a bother for me.’

Rather like a character from one of the French author, Michel Houellebecq’s books, he’s full of comic nihilism, ennui and misanthropy. He has turned down the offer of counselling and shows no interest in applying for compensation for loss of earnings. ‘But you could use the money couldn’t you? I asked, in the hope that he might change his mind. ‘I don’t care’ he said, ‘what will happen if I get compensation? They will rob me again on street or I will get cancer from 30 cigarettes every day I smoke. What’s going to happen is going to happen. It all sucks.’

After that, I decided to leave him to his own devices. But the next day, I couldn’t resist asking him one last question. I enquired as to whether his capitulation in the citizenship interview still weighed on his mind. In all fairness, he did dwell on the question for a few seconds before replying ‘I don’t care. All the government’s suck.’
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I read that Wal - Mart banned the sale of the 2004 debut album by the Scissor Sisters which sold millions in the UK. Apparently, they objected to the lyrical content. Presumably songs about transvestites selling their bodies whilst on acid did not go down well in the Wal - Mart boardroom. Interestingly, the album is said to have only sold about 283, 000 copies in the US.
The group believe that the fact that 3 of them are openly gay and that they all act and dress flamboyantly does not meet with approval in the highly puritanical atmosphere in the states.

I haven’t been in Tucson long enough to make any meaningful judgements about local people’s attitudes. However, from listening to local radio stations and reading local newspapers I have been quite impressed with the issues being debated. The environment, domestic violence and the advantages of firms employing people in their 50's and 60's are all being discussed.

In terms of the immigration issue, it’s clear that it’s every bit as contentious, and divisive, as in the UK.

But I won’t dwell on that right now because I’m off to Whataburger for a quadruple cheeseberger with mayo on the side, hash browns with melted jalapeno peppers, super size fries and a quart of root beer. A big thank you to my friend Smita for suggesting this fab meal.

A BLEEDING HEART LIBERAL LEFTIE FROM LONDON (BHLLL) who emigrated to Arizona, U.S.A on 30th September 2006

Tucson, Arizona Monday 2nd October 2006. 9.30am

Hello everyone. I hope my very first blog posting finds you well and full of vim and vigour at the start of a new week. I certainly feel energised as I listen to a stonkingly good recording of Hendrix live at the Albert Hall. Just the ticket when it comes to brushing off jetlag (I got here 36 hours ago)

OK, so first things first. Why the BHLLL label I hear you ask? Well someone's gotta wear it, don't they? and I do so with pride. The first time I was called a Bleeding Heart Liberal (BHL) was in 1992 on my first day at Nottingham University. I arrived at my digs and the first thing I saw was a Daily Telegraph on the kitchen table. I place my Guardian beside it and said to myself 'Let battle commence'. As I looked down at the table, I caught sight of an outsized foot entering the room. It reminded me of when, as a kid, I was lying down on the edge of the cricket pitch at Lords and a giant white cricket boot belonging to the 6' 7'' England captain, Tony Grieg, appeared beside me. Now, as I looked up, and up, and up, and up, I experienced a feeling of deja vu.

Mark, an abrasive, ex - merchant navy sailor from Blackburn, was a similar size to Tony Grieg and didn't suffer fools lightly. He made it clear from the off that he had no truck with Guardian reading, BHL, southern softies, like me. All of a sudden, my battle plans were shelved. Survival became my first priority. As it turned out, Mark's bark was worse than his bite and, in the main, notwithstanding a couple of bust - ups, he was quite good company.

As I write this, Hendrix sings a song called 'Bleeding Heart'. Just the kind of quirky coincidence that I love.

I am sure that my fellow immigration and asylum legal practitioners will verify the fact that we are looked on with utter disdain by the tabloid reading masses, so-called Middle England. In recent years, New Labour's attacks on human rights lawyers have given our detractors a lot more confidence. A BHL tag is normally used by the zero tolerance mob as a preamble to much more scathing vitriol. Nonetheless, it never seems to lose currency and rightists love to use the term. In the U.S, there are variants such as bedwetting liberal or bleeding ass liberal. Say no more. I even read a lonely hearts column (social research only!) which specified ‘No liberals please’. Christ, what would she have made of a BHLLL?) But more of the fascinating personal columns in a forthcoming post.

In the states, you often hear or read phrases like ‘liberal extremist’. That’s hard for us Brits to get our heads round. It’s an obvious oxymoron from where I’m standing. As far as I'm concerned, if you're called a BHL you must be doing something right.

I have just read an excellent article from the Independent on Sunday (3rd September 2006) entitled 'The Great Divide'. It is about the BHL's who counter the anti-immigration, vigilante groups by seeking out and helping illegal Mexican immigrants who are lost and in mortal danger along the 370 mile Arizona / Mexico border (124 have died in Arizona alone in the last 11 months and some 3,000 along the entire 2000 km US / Mexico border since 1998). All sorts of people join humanitarian groups, a 52 - year old schoolteacher from Massachusetts, an anarchist with 'Burn the Flag' tattooed on her knuckles and a young, middle - class, West Virginian student were 3 examples given in the Article. Apparently, there have been demonstrations in dozens of cities in America during 2006 in which hundreds of thousands demanded immigration reform and legal rights for the country's estimated 11 million undocumented workers.

There are good people in America who will not be cowed by the neo-cons.

That rebellious spirit within me just will not lie down and die. I feel a warm glow when I think about how I was able to smuggle in my red CCCP T-shirt, replete with hammer and sickle, my 'KGB - still watching you' T-shirt and my Lenin - Cocaine T-Shirt, not to mention my bag of magic mushrooms.....(alright, that last one may be a fabrication!?) without detection. Burgess 1 U.S. Immigration 0. Yippee!! As the pilot on the North West airlines flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix said ' Thanks for coming along folks. Appreciate your business.' Have a good day now!