Chicanonautica: Arizona Election Fallout

by Ernest Hogan

Last time I signed off by telling of how after Obama won the election -- on a day when there were a lot of rainbows over Phoenix -- it got eerily quiet in Arizona. I had expected folks to go berserk, but instead those who would have preferred that Romney won held it in. Though in colder climates you could have seen steam coming out of their ears.

The Phoenix New Times reported that, at the Arizona Republican election-viewing party, Governor Jan Brewer went from being cheered for saying she wanted “Buh-rack Obama out of the White House” to saying “I love all of the smiles on your faces . . . Love it.” 

In Arizona, there were no spontaneous racist demonstrations like at Ole Miss, or anything like Pat Buchanan’s declaration that “White American died last night,” but the mood among the Republican party muckety-mucks was depressed, suicidal, and apocalyptic. Maybe they were “shellshocked” like Romney.

Joe Arpaio was reelected Sheriff of Maricopa County, but he felt the need to announce that he wants peace with Latinos; "I would hope to get together with the Latino community, if I could ever have them talk to me without screaming and threatening me." 

A curious event in downtown Phoenix first appeared to be the Ku Klux Klan celebrating Apraio’s victory. Univision gave it a misleading headline and Examiner.com reported it that way. But it turns out the demonstrators under the sheets were Latino activists -- just the sort that “Amercia’s toughest sheriff” is afraid of.

And in Charlotte, North Carolina, real Klansmen were drowned out by counterdemonstrators dressed as clowns.

A lot of copies of Ann Coulter’s book Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama were circulating at the library where I work. This was about the same time that she declared, “It’s over. There is no hope.”

Tom Miller informed me that in Baja Arizona they went 51% for Obama, and his neighborhood near the Univerisity of Arizona had bilingual anti-SB1070 signs.

There has been talk of Baja Arizona seceding from Arizona, just as Arizona seceding from the United States over SB1070 was threatened. Soon Arizona was caught up in the secession petition fever that eventually included all fifty states. If all the states want to secede, just what do they secede  from? 

Meanwhile the smell of marijuana hovered over the library parking lot. This is Phoenix, not Denver or Seattle. There is a lot of disorientation going on.

A few days later, a police car flashed its lights in the parking lot next door. That lot was taped off. Police tape also blocked one of the streets I usually take to get home.

Then there's the story of a woman running over her husband because he didn’t vote for Romney. “She believes her family would suffer under a second term of Pres. Barack Obama.” 

A gun store in Pinetop, Arizona put up signs saying, “If you voted for Barack Obama your business is NOT WELCOME at Southwest Shooting Authority. You have proven you are not responsible enough to own a Firearm.” So much for free enterprise.

The bizarre thing is, this story isn’t over. In Arizona, some votes remain to be counted. Who knows what will break loose when that finally happens. 

Lately, I’ve seen a pickup flying full-sized American and Arizonan flags patrolling the area. I’m not sure what it means.

Ernest Hogan is trying to convince people that his novel Smoking Mirror Blues is the book to prepare them to deal with the brave new post-election reality. 

Chicanonautica: Arizona Election Delirium

by Ernest Hogan

“Used to be all you had to be was free, white, and twenty-one!” A guy who looked like Custer in a baseball cap ranted into his cell phone. He saw me and added: “But now you have to be a minority!”

A couple of days later, I saw a police cruiser leaving the library. Some guy tried to pick a fight with one of the guards. On my way home, a woman bared her breasts at a bus stop.

The election was getting close, and delirium was percolating over Arizona. I was even hearing grumbling of “if Obama’s re-elected that mean’s the Rapture's coming.” Maybe the results can be read in the entrails of roadkill clogging the streets. I decided to cherchez la weird.

Arizona has been a center for political weirdness for some time now. Outsiders have the idea that it’s all gun-toting white racists in cowboy hats, but in my district on the west side of the Metro Phoenix Area we often elect Hispanic Democrats. “Whites” are a minority in my neighborhood. A few blocks from a street full of shrines to the Virgen de Guadalupe is a house with guard tower featuring a rifle-toting mannikin and a sign: YOU CAN TAKE MY GUN WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD FINGERS.

Folks from the east side are afraid of going west of Central Avenue. I try to assure them that the rumors of cannibalism and human sacrifice are highly exaggerated.

Politicians have found that if they promise Arizonans they won’t have to pay taxes, and that they'll protect them with laws against things like immigrants and ethnic studies, they can get elected. Then they raid all the state funds they can, while fighting each other for whatever federal money that they can funnel into their personal empires. There’s no united front -- they take chunks out of each other like piranha in a feeding frenzy.

This and changing demographics -- “I went school! And it was nothing but MEXICANS!” as a neighbor of mine put it -- make for a delirious atmosphere around election time.

The day before, they were setting up the polling place in the library where I work while a guy in a ROMNEY/RYAN t-shirt frowned and listen to whatever was playing in his earbuds.  A couple of hours earlier, people were asking about voting.

There were a lot of sirens throughout the night before. More sirens the next morning as the voting started.

Election Day was oddly calm. Voting at the library happened without incident. It was quiet in Arizona. Too quiet. No music. No whooping it up. No celebratory bursts of gunfire.

After it was called for Obama, it was an even quieter night. No sirens.

To my surprise, the disturbing calm continued through the day after the election. There were no bugged-out eyeballs, gritting teeth, or cars up on sidewalks on the streets of Phoenix. I did keep seeing a certain look -- like someone had been stunned and the extent of the impact hadn’t sunk in. The emotions were bubbling below the surface.

Frankly, I’d rather just see people freak out and get it over with.

Meanwhile, Arizona maintained its dystopian status quo. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is still going to do his performance art mojo to protect the citizens of Maricopa County from the invading horde. We will probably be seeing more legislative mayhem soon.

The state is like a boiling cauldron with lid clamped on it. Looks like I’ll have plenty of flaming weirdness to write about soon.

I’ll keep reporting.

* * * * *

In other news: November 10, Xánanth Caraza will be doing a poetry workshop (12:30-3:30pm) and reading (5pm) at Tía Chuca’s Cultural Bookstore in El Lay. 

Ernest Hogan’s Smoking Mirror Blues is available for Kindle for $2.99 -- 70% of which goes to the Ernest Hogan Defense Fund. Thanks to all of you who downloaded it for the Dead Daze giveaway. Please review it on Amazon. Colorful quotes will be immortalized.

Apropos of Nothing

Manuel Ramos

Apropos of nothing. Always liked that phrase. It’s a ticket to conversation anarchy – everything goes because nothing is implicated.

Speaking of which … there’s an ugly surrealism surrounding the politicos who are praying and preying to unseat Obama. These freaky people grab, punch and pinch for attention, and their audience responds accordingly. Last year, Tea Party goons stepped on the head of a non-supporter; more recently, the Republican debate audience cheered death for anyone too poor to buy health insurance; more cheers for a record-setting executioner; and the pizza guy excused his call for electrocuting people, whose crime is risking their life and liberty to work in the U.S., by saying that he was only joking (or maybe not.)

tricks or treats?

Halloween is coming up and in timely fashion we have an overabundance of monsters. Unfortunately, it's politics as usual. The presidency has always attracted scoundrels and miscreants, but you'd think the modern crop of power parasites would have a bit more class, or discretion at least. Hell, these people attack their fellow contenders’ religion and race, and, gasp, the creation of jobs taken by immigrants! It’s as if these “challengers” have been injected with mad dog serum. The Republicans make it too easy. One of the more ridiculous and highly offensive rants comes from the pizza guy, again – “Jesus was killed by a liberal court.” Good God.

And none of the above crazy examples includes Michele Bachman or Sarah Palin. Talk about wicked witches. Just sayin' ...

I want to grab these misfits and delusional demagogues by their collective throat and give them a good shaking, then send them to the corner of the room to read the collected works of Twain, Spinoza, Sartre, and Bolaño because … well, just because.

The good thing is that we have only another year of this before the election.

“You’re being selfish” used to be a call down. Now it’s a badge of honor. As Tony Garcia, Artistic Director of Su Teatro, said recently, “It's really hard to talk to people who are coming from a place of deep, narrow self-interest.”

Meanwhile ...

Occupy Hawaii

Occupy Denver

Occupy Puerto Rico

Not to be left out of the zaniness, the Democrats are on a magical mystery bus tour when they should be taking care of business. They can’t get a comprehensive jobs bill passed in the Democrat-controlled Senate, can’t defend their health care plan from legalistic attacks (and have already scrapped a major piece of the plan because of inadequate planning and foresight), are willing to “leave no banker behind,” and appear disposed to sell out the elderly, poor, infirm, and uneducated in the name of debt crisis “compromise.” Remember the promise to reform the immigration system? Turns out that meant meeting a quota of at least 400,000 deportations a year. Occupy the White House?

Moving on -

Here's an announcement from Joseph Torres, Senior Adviser, Government and External Affairs, Free Press.

From revolutionary pamphleteers to websites, our media have reflected America’s racial divisions throughout the centuries. Communities of color have confronted prejudice in establishment media by creating their own vibrant alternative press and fighting for a just media system.

Juan González of Democracy Now! and I tell this important story in our new book, News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media.

Juan and I will be in Denver on Thursday, Oct. 27, to discuss how our book puts race at the center of the story of American media. We’ll also be signing copies of the book.

Details are below:

What: News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media: Benefit for KGNU Community Radio

When: Thursday, Oct. 27. 6 p.m.: special reception ($100 tickets required. To purchase, visit http://act2.freepress.net/go/6812?akid=2944.9527107.VM89al&t=2.)

7 p.m.: presentation and book signing (Tickets are $10 for KGNU members and $15 for the general public. To purchase go to http://act2.freepress.net/go/6812?akid=2944.9527107.VM89al&t=4.)

Where: Highlands Church, 3241 Lowell Blvd., Denver, Colo.

Who: Juan González, award-winning journalist and co-host of Democracy Now!; Joseph Torres, Free Press senior adviser for government and external affairs and Tina Griego, Denver Post columnist

Finally - we note the passing of Piri Thomas on Monday, October 17. In an introduction to a recording of Thomas reading Born Anew at Each A.M, Neal Conan of NPR said: "Writer and poet Piri Thomas died this week at his home in El Cerrito, California, at the age of 83. As a young man, he robbed people on the streets of New York, used and sold drugs and served seven years in prison. After he got out, he wrote a memoir called Down These Mean Streets, first published in 1967. It described growing up in what was then called Spanish Harlem in vivid, angry language that continues to be taught in universities today."

The N.Y. Times obituary is here.

QEPD

That's it for now. Remember that you can always read a good book. You might check out Down These Mean Streets.

Later.