Thread: Pandering to LA RAZA...

Cozy With 'La Raza'
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 23, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Election 2008: If a GOP candidate sought votes from a white group calling itself the "National Council of the Race," he'd rightly be shunned as a racist. But let Democrats do the same and they're called "progressive."

The difference, of course, is that in the latter case both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were appearing before the National Council of La Raza ("The Race"), a radical Latino group.

Trolling for votes, Obama pandered to La Raza's convention in Miami over the weekend, selling himself as one who marched alongside Latinos at last May 1's illegal immigrant amnesty rallies.

Clinton, by contrast, insisted she was "at home" among the La Raza crowd, having hired a top La Raza official, Raul Yzaguirre, as her national co-chair. She then whipped out a mariachi band in his honor to celebrate his birthday.

Obama challenged Clinton's flashy mariachi tactics by saying he'd "walked the walk" for amnesty and would revive the sunken immigration bill that went down in flames in the Senate this month. "We will make this a priority and get it done," he said.

But rather than either of these campaign tacks being political gaffes, both got favorable media coverage because the Latino community supposedly has been "galvanized" over the loss of the Senate immigration bill. It signaled that Obama, like Clinton, buys into the idea that the bill's end was brought on by what La Raza calls a "wave of hate" and that other American voters won't notice.

The irony is that La Raza is no ordinary organization. The name, in English, literally "the race," is something its embattled apologists now claim means "every race" or "community" — both absurd, since they both mean just the opposite of the actual word.

The organization has been around since the 1960s, with many name changes. If it really means "community," the Spanish language provides at least two completely serviceable words for that — "pueblo" and "comunidad." It's called La Raza because its leaders want to be called that.

La Raza is not only the loudest proponent of illegal immigration in the U.S. It fosters ethnic separatism in schools. It runs Hugo Chavez-type handouts for indigents and has ties it refuses to renounce to fringe groups like MEChA, whose own slogan is derived from the rhetoric of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro: "Through the race, everything; outside the race, nothing."

Today's La Raza is a $52 million not-for-profit group that lives off congressional earmarks, shakes down big corporations like WalMart and Bank of America for financial support, and has made illegal immigration and ethnic separatism its leading agenda.

Obama's spiel showed only that he understands the mentality of leftist pressure groups, with this one falsely claiming to define and represent all Latino voters.

Even La Raza's own Web site disproves that. A July 23 study by "Ed In '08" and La Raza reported that U.S. voters of Latin American extraction are more concerned about education than immigration.

That startling fact moves the debate too far into territory La Raza wants nothing to do with, like condemning failing public schools; oppressive, politically correct teacher unions; and the herding of immigrant kids into Spanish-only classes dubbed "bilingual."

What matters to La Raza is amnesty for illegals, if not through the Senate, then through the 1960s tactic of silencing opponents by smearing them as racist.

Of the candidates who attended the convention, Obama stood out as the most willing race-baiter, his Chicago activist experience coming in handy. He denounced immigration bill foes as "both ugly and racist in a way we haven't seen since the struggle for civil rights."

It's pure charlatan logic. The illegal immigration issue is about whether to reward foreign invaders who've broken the law, just because there are 13 million of them.

Obama should know that there are also 300 million other Americans of every skin color and ethnicity — including Latinos — who oppose amnesty and resent efforts to intimidate them through charges of racism. Americans have already shown they won't be intimidated. They believe in the rule of law.

Indeed, something much bigger is happening in this country with a federal government not responding to its own laws and an outraged citizenry up in arms. Maybe Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton should get a clue.
http://www.investors.com/editorial/edit ... 3444477912

What a great post MDillon.I didn't think there was any news agencies that would stand up to laraza.I'm glad to know Investors Business Daily has not bought into that rhetoric.

Wow. I know it's primary season, but this just shows how far to the left the Dems have lurched. Their ethnic pandering, it seems, knows no limits. And to think I used to buy the Clintonian rhetoric about "fighting for the forgotten middle class."

I would of loved it if the person mentione the H.R1999 that they are trying to have passed.....

I hope that paper is well read by many

The American people shut down the congressional phone system and these fools want to come out and continue to support this insane bill. Are they nuts or are they relying on the votes of illegal aliens to pull them through?? Every single democrat I know was against that bill!!

They will say whatever is required to win favor from the current audience. I don't know why they don't realize that the rest of America is listening!

I love how a group that calls them self LaRaza (the Race) is accusing anyone who's against illegals is a racist. And our tax money is funding them.

I think we should form a group called, THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR THE PRESERVATION OF WHITE AMERICA and see how far we could get before the ACLU shot us in the back. I'm serious, I would STRONGLY support a movement such as this just to see the national reaction.

TOM TANCREDO FOR PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Anti-National Council of La Raza would not only turn heads but would turn heads of the unsuspecting.