Nazis, Aztlan and Indymedia

You white folks might have noticed that the white nationalists always complain, endlessly, about Aztlan.

Well without saying ther e is no difference between the white right and the white left, I will only this.

Any article on this website that comes from a Chicano nationalist or indigenist way of looking at things doesn't have a chance of making it to a spot among the most approved column in the center of the Indymedia webpage.

Only tame posts that come from tame people get that.

Aztlan is too savage for that, I guess.

Just try to get any of these white organizations to do a chant with "Aztlan" in it.

Well, not the ISO or Answer.

The white left wants a tame bunch of Chicanos who will follow lamely and obediently behind them, while they control the scene and talk on the bullhorns.

They'd never dare do that in a Black protest, or in a Black neighborhood.

Not that they still don't see themselves as out to educate the savages about how to "really" be liberated.

It just goes with the turf.

I watched Indymedia posting pictures of Danza Cuatemoc - confusing people in our community about who had been killed and injured in the accident in Nebraska.

I knew that this would happen, but I stayed quiet.

I mean, how do you tell people that they don't know anything about your community, that _they_ control what gets said about your community in their media anyway, just like with the mainstram media, and that they don't _really_ care any more than the mainstream media - they just want to look good.

Well, what else is new.?

Nothing.

This will probably be "hidden," just to protect your sensibilities, while all kinds of ugly racist comments from the SOS Nazis stays up...

People are sometimes hesitant to endorse a concept they are not entirely clear on, and various definitions of this term have been seen. Do you mean making Texas, Arizona, and other conquered areas once more a part of Mexico? Most people living there, including most Latinos, would be against that , so it could only be carried out through undemocratic means. Do you mean making the areas conquered in the 1830's and 1840's an independent country? Again, it would be difficult to convince the people living there that an area so lacking in water resources would do better as an independent nation. Do you mean expelling people who are not Latinos? Two wrongs do not make a right. Kosovo was brutally conquered by Muslims a few centuries ago, but this hardly justified the Serbs' ethnic cleansing operation in the 1990's, which was supposed to right an historical wrong.

do you mean you've never read el plan espiritual de Aztlan?

do you mean you don't have enough respect for the chicano community to spell Aztlan right?

do you mean it's ok for white groups to try to dominate demonstrations where the issues don't directly effect them?

do you mean the kind of ignorance indymedia displayed about the chicano community in the Danzantes reports is ok?

do you mean that maybe you don't know the meaning of Aztlan because Indymedia is white controlled and won't post anything dealing with Aztlan to the center of the page where it draws attention, so that there is no dialog on the matter where you might learn something?

do you mean to justify the conquest of indigenous nations?

what _do_ you mean?

Is it okay to dominate any kind of forum, culture, movement or idea?
I think the process of community building should exclude such concepts as 'them and us'.

I don't need any spelling lessons from you, in view of the fact you seem to need some reading lessons. I discussed none of the subjects that you list in your rant of a post, so don't tell me what I really "mean" by them. Please answer my original question and tell me what you mean by the term, and please don't refer me to some work which 99.9 percent of the world's population has never heard of, never mind read. Otherwise people might get the (surely wrong) idea that you you are some kind of adolescent, petty bourgeois nationalist who sees himself dressed in Napoleonic uniform some day and ruling the Southwest in the fashion that Franco ruled Spain.

You can do it.

Say "cesspool." Just once.

You've trotted out every other stereotype.

Worse yet, they are boring stereotypes.

First note that I run a pirate radio station - a fact easly varified by simply driving by and tuning it in on your car radio.. (My IP shows the town)

I risk arrest and loss of my equipment everyday which is a bit more risk than the people excluding me do..

I've been seeing this going on since day 1 (when the main site had hardly any posts I was one of the first people that started posting there) and as the volume grew this shit started happening. There have been times when I've posted very good news stories with well-researched info without *any* objectionable aspects (as stated above) and yet none of my posts or pictures have EVER been "promoted" to the front page, and yet plenty of questionable and occasionally outright wrong pieces have and continue to be.

The reply and attitude (if there even is one) is always the same, as if it's run by a bunch of clones or something -

New Home Cloning Kit Instructions:

Go fuck yourself.

> 99.9 percent of the world's population has never heard of, never mind read.




Results 1 - 10 of about 797 for el plan espiritual de Aztlan

A simple search pulls up several hundred places to read about it, including;


http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/mecha/archive/plan.html

http://latino.sscnet.ucla.edu/research/docs/struggle/aztlan.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Plan_Espiritual_de_Aztl%E1n

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~esc/clubs/mecha/docs/epa.html

http://www.cudenver.edu/Student+Life/EducationalOpportunitiesPrograms/UMAS-MEChA/El+Plan+Espiritual+de+Aztlan.htm

http://www.georgetown.edu/organizations/mecha/documents/aztlan.htm

http://www1.pacific.edu/student/clubs/MEChA/esazt.html

http://www.calstatela.edu/orgs/mecha/planespiritual.htm

http://www-scf.usc.edu/~mecha/ElPlandeAztlan.htm




Perhaps the reason "99.9 %" of the people don't know about it is BECAUSE it's marginalized -


Results 1 - 10 of about 757,000 for "independent media center"



As we see here doing a quick search, IMC has 1000 X the reach as Aztlan..

And we see Results 1 - 10 of about 12,200 for universities "Aztlan"

It's the Universities that are covering it insted..

Then we look for specific mention of Aztlan within IMC and get -

Results 1 - 10 of about 552 for "independent media center" "Aztlan"

Many which are negative..




Crunching the numbers we see:


797 Aztlan - all by themselves (specificly "el plan espiritual de Aztlan")

265,000 for "Aztlan"

12,200 for universities mentioning Aztlan

552 for IMC mentioning Aztlan - often bad too




This shows that IMC's coverage is sorely lacking - biased against - Aztlan..

When even Universities cover them 24 X better.



99.9 % indeed !

The real point is that our inarticulate poster wants us to endorse his personal concept of what Aztlan is but he either can't or won't explain what exactly he means by this concept. Everyone who follows political internet forums or reads the left press knows that there are various definitions of it; yet he expects us to endorse his interpretation without even knowing what it is. In other words, we are to let him do our thinking for us. I don't even let people whose intellects I respect do my thinking for me, and I'll be damned if I am going to let some snot who responds to a civil question with slander and accusations of racism do so.
As to IMC's failure to place advocates of the concept (presumably photos of him) in the center of the page, I had nothing to do with that. However, I would like to point out that pictures of the Baldwin Park anti-SOS demonstration were prominently featured there. If the demonstrators pictured were not carrying signs endorsing Aztlan or endorsing him, perhaps his real dispute is with the demonstrators. At the next demonstration maybe he can tell them that they should be carrying such signs; of course in that case they might tell him to go back to his college dorm and throw away those old pizza boxes, or perhaps they will just give him a good swift kick in the rear.
One more point: if the poster wants his posts to be more centrally placed at this site he might consider being a little less obnoxious and rude, throwing around fewer insults and less slander, explaining his ideas in clear and understandable prose, and dropping the attitude that everyone here has some moral duty to kiss his behind.

is still marginalization - the data shows the issue is bigger than him, far bigger

also the attributes you seem to value are from white culture - the very thing he was complaining about

you've conviently boxed it in to 1 person, 1 crowd

the data shows many people and specificly shows thousands of people and dozens of universities who are dealing with it - appearantly the movement will have to become _too big to ignore_ before it stops being ignored here

but by then the complaint will have come full circle

2 words come to mind

exclusionary
elite

with all other smoke blowing merely supporting it..

in some people's eyes its all about the same and the truely revolutionary people will always be on thier own

I understood his message clearly and can see where he's coming from as I used to expect some sort of support, at least as much as other people automaticly and routinely get for doing far less

but seeing the evolvement over the past 6 years with its various players and outcomes, now I don't expect anything at all

Fortunately I'm not so marginalized here..

Are you some kind of remote viewer or something? He never explained where he was coming from or what gives him the right to speak for the demonstrators at Baldwin Park or anyone else but himself.
If you think that such values as common courtesy, refraining from slander, clear, understandable and graceful prose, refraining from infantile name-calling when someone asks you a civil and legitimate question, and refraining from demanding that one's self and own's personal opinions be the centerpiece of the discussion of any particular topic are only part of "white culture" perhaps this only demonstrates the very low opinion you have of cultures that are not white. Why do I have this sneaking suspiction that you believe that people from such cultures are too infantile or uncivilized to be held to standards of decency?
As for some alleged duty to give this fellow and his idea of what the southwest should be called "support," I'll give him support for his personal interpretation of the concept of Aztlan if and when he explains what this interpretation is and only if I agree with it as a concept that is not reactionary, anti-semitic, or indulgent toward ethnic cleansing. Neither he nor you are going to tell me what to say, write or think on the basis of political correctness.

> cultures that are not white.


I'm not white




> standards of decency


cultural differences




> reactionary, anti-semitic, or indulgent toward ethnic cleansing


I provided the so easyly obtained (because others ARE covering Aztlan) links to *self-educate* (which is something I do all the time) just to dispell the requirement that one person personally jump through the hoops you've set up in order to do *only what you do automaticly because of culture* do for others.


Your reaction, attitude and choice of words only confirm the issue..



I tried to expand the picture to show it's not one person but an entire movement that IMC (and this is just one of many examples I can think of) marginalize due to this exclusionary and self-rightous attitude (the proof is in the fact that other cultural groups are never talked to this way and gain automatic and complete support *without* these obstacles being thrown up in thier face as an excuse)

Boxing in the entire Aztlan movement based on the experience of one (1) person's qualities while failing to do your own homework (as an intellectual its considered to go with the turf to self-educate or "do your own thinking") then trying to shield your own bias by cloaking it with negative stereotypes derived FROM lack of self-educating is circular logic.

Or in "infantile uncivilized" terms - bullshit

Sorry but not everyone sings to your tune - in this case I happen to emphasize with AZTLAN's plight based on my own experiences with IMC (or more specificly the people who run it)



Take these terms for example ;

"clear, understandable and graceful prose/civil and legitimate"


What determines what you consider to encompass these values is based on culture hence anyone who's culture doesn't happen to fit into your gets labeled and rejected, marginalized and ignored.

Just another form of discrimination.

People in Aztlan see it and I see it, you don't need to be a mind reader have something in common and relate to it, you only need to be a *victim of it as well*.


Now delving into reading between or below the lines, what I see is exactly what he put in less glamorous (graceful and civil to you) terms - I especially relate to that, but exercise restraint in saying what I really feel about some of the people who run (control) IMC as;

A - we're suppost to be of liberal minds and working together and doing so risks being labled "divisive" (a term reserved exclusively for outsiders with people already in IMC's click'e being immune no matter how much harm they cause or how many people or groups they alienate)

B - it doesn't do any good anyway because between the weasel passive-aggressive back stabbing and talking behind the back games that statisticly most people engage in (so it's no surprise IMC has them too) coupled with the popularity card, and the extreme need to control themselves by controlling other's dysfunction these people have, unless I immurse myself into group think and group activities to match, I have a bat's chance in hell of ever rising to an equal standing with them anyway.


and frankly I have better things to do with my time and energy


Which is why I withdraw and just do my own thing, where as a true troll would hang on and keep being "divisive"..

Funny thing though that actual trolls sometimes get treated better than simply being "uncivilized" but otherwise very smart and decent people, simply due to playing along with the group think and popularity game


*I've seen it happening personally*


It's not what you know or what you do - it's WHO you know and who you capitulate with..

That in a nutshell is what his beef is with IMC - and mine

I do not run and control IMC; I am just a poster here. If you and your whining friend have complaints about IMC, I suggest that you take them elsewhere, not to me.
Speaking of dreadful prose, your post is a perfect example of that (in my own subjective, no doubt pro-imperialist point of view).
As for your not being white, it is a sad fact that some non-whites share the belief of Nazis and other racists that people of color are inferior and cannot be held to any standards of performance in argument or anything else. This is called self-hatred.
As for holding your sidekick to different standards than other people on this board, that is either a lie or proof that you have not read most of my posts. To give just one example, I have regularly attacked zionists who hold that they are exempt from criticism for their oppression of Arabs because of what happened in the Holocaust. Anyone who has read my posts over the past two or three year already knows this.
Lastly, asking a person who demands that I support his concept of what to call previously Mexican -controlled areas in the US what his concept actually entails is not racist, elitist, reactionary, culturally chauvanist or unreasonable. Not to ask him to explain himself would be, in my opinion, to assume that he is incapable of doing so and thus highly racist.
In any event, this exchange is turning into a bit of a waste of time. We are going around in circles. Perhaps you can find something else to troll about as you brood about your victimization by IMC.

> whining

yet another form of dismissal




> dreadful prose


Well we can't all be as spectacular and stellar as you I guess



> self-hatred.


I was so sure that would be the next thing you would say I almost addressed it in my last post but I decided to see how far you would take it first


And it's amazing how you can know so much about me to be able to make such a claim in the first place (yet not even know my race)


it also sounds circular to say (assuming I'm white) I'm biased against non-whites then when it's revealed I'm not white (shows how much you do know right there) I'm still biased anyway


damned if I am - damned if I aint




> your sidekick


another wrong assumtion, I only see his position reflected in my own experiences and said so






> Anyone who has read my posts over the past two or three year(s) < "dreadful" ?



Ditto - obviously you haven't read mine either otherwise you would know even the most basic things like my race, attitudes and abilities

However in your case I was actually addressing this TO people of IMC with your "education" being only ancillary to my "whine"




> assume that he is incapable of doing so and thus highly racist


the road to hell is paved with assumsions



> troll about as you brood about your victimization by IMC.


nice characterizations. Considering that I'm free to participate or not, do you actually think that if it was as bad as you've attempted to paint it, that I would be here at all ?


It comes off as shallow as dismissive to characterize as so -


If I was to describe you in one word however the word would be catty

and a catty person isn't courteous, civil or graceful - they just want to appear to be

You are wasting my time, Hex, and the time of anyone else who might for some unknown reason be following this exchange. You substitute personal attacks for arguments about ideas, respond to challenges of your assumptions by hiding behind claims of victimization, wrongly state that I hold your pal up to intellectual standards that I don't require of anyone else (such as making sense, I guess), and make ridiculous claims that deserve to be dismissed and then complain when they are dismissed. By the way, your prose is still dreadful and you, like your co-thinker, do indeed whine. If you didn' t understand what I've said for about the eigth time, you are not going to understand it on the fiftieth, either, so this is the end of our exchange. Bye Bye. Have a good time in the sandbox.

you know I don't need to hide my head in the sand to deal with the results of my own in/action or claim to speak for any/everyone or the other catty games you play. My "sandbox" consists of listeners whereas yours consists of fantasies you make up to comfort yourself

I'm an anti-nationalist, but, I really don't have any issue with cultural nationalist movements of people liberating themselves from oppression. 90% of the time "whatever works" is cool.

I think the entire scope of the Aztlan story is mythical, but don't disagree with the premises, which are based on concrete evidence. I think that the idea of Aztlan is pretty integral to understanding the struggle for civil rights and community empowerment in Los Angeles.

I do think the issues of the center column are salient. I'm not sure what's going on.

Here's a link to a page about the Chicano movement, and how the idea of Aztlan fits into it. That's for Hex.

http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol3/chicano/chicano.html

I was reading that linked story and saw a broken link to Harry Gamboa, so I googled him, and found a good interview from the Smithsonian. From there, I ended up looking for Gamboa and Asco, his old art group, and found a great quote about Aztlan.

Mind you, Gamboa is not a cultural nationalist. He's more in the tradition of conceptual art.

"I have stated in various public forums that the Hollywood sign is the ugliest example of graffiti in North America and that it should be whitewashed and replaced with a simple neon sign that points the way to Aztlan. Such heresy has been responded to with personal attacks by individuals who have invested their lives in perpetuating negative stereotypes as well as those who value the glittering falseness of playing a 'bit part' in the nullification of the important history of Chicanos and Mexicans in Los Angeles. There have been many who have been invited to drink at the fountain of the oasis only to discover that they have quenched their thirst with the sands of a vast hypnotic wasteland." ("Light at the End of Tunnel Vision," 100)

I agree completely with this statement, not only politically, but as art.

http://www.aaa.si.edu/oralhist/gamboa99.htm

http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v613/gamboa.htm