Know-Nothing Position

The first half of Jerry Ortíz y Píno’s “Youth Speaks Out, But Who’s Listening” [June 2-8] well describes the eye opening and consciousness raising of Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granados on their South American odyssey. It also mentions the revolutionary things they did as a result. But then it goes off into some La-La-Never-To-Be-and-Never-Was stuff about corporations and governments setting up structures for the young to speak to power. What bull stuff!

Those in power don’t give it away voluntarily. Especially to the young, especially if they’re not well to do or white. At most, the powerful will listen to what they want to hear and a few of them will listen to things that tell them of the changes they can make to help themselves stay in power.

Che and Alberto didn’t translate their insights into action through any government-created “Youth Alliance” or “Civic Engagement.” They did a revolution. The young people who brought about the civil rights movement’s victories and the end of the draft and Vietnam War did it in spite of government programs, in the face of opposition, often violent, from established institutions. César Chávez, Corky Gonzáles and their many compañeros and compañeras were young, too, when they started movements that faced down entrenched interests that would have loved to put them into “Youth Alliances.”

So please, young people, follow your truth, act on your insight. Do that, don’t let it get shunted off into government and corporate programs. Tell Jerry Ortíz y Píno to keep doing his good job in the Legislature while you do your dream where it lives. Don’t let the programs distract you.

Please, for God’s sake, get rid of Rachel Heisler. I know that Michael Henningsen left you in the dust when he jumped over to Rocksquawk (although we still read his name in your masthead) but this girl’s breakdown of Coachella reads like a 12-year-old’s blog entry. This is the type of writing that is more suited to The Daily Lobo than the Alibi. Can’t we find some kind of balance between Henningsen’s righteous arrogance (slamming Jimmy Eat World while cooing over U2’s new album—how passé) and Heisler’s amateurish inclusion of herself in a picture with Perry Farrell? Please.

Bizarro world just keeps getting more and more bizarre. The pathology affecting the psychotic morons who control bizarro world gets more illogical and hypocritical every day. It's actually kinda fun to watch (in a perverse way …). In the last few weeks, the Bush “administration” criticized Newsweek magazine for running a (true) story about interrogators at Gitmo flushing the Koran down the toilet—not the fact that the incidents actually occurred (they are well-documented and have been going on for some time) but the fact that they ran the story! Clearly, Bush and his evil minions are more concerned with PR than facts. Nothing seems to enrage these loathsome creatures more than the truth. The message is loud and clear: To love truth is to hate America.

Now, Amnesty International has dared to report that (wait for it …) the U.S. is violating international law and making a shamble of human rights by illegally detaining and torturing people at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station. Amnesty correctly equates the situation in Gitmo to a Soviet gulag, but in fact the former Soviet Union's got nothing on the international criminals who now control U.S. policy. The very concept of Gitmo was created to circumvent international law. This was their purpose and intent, but boy if you bring that up … well, you just hate America. Simple as that. Bush actually said, “It's absurd … The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world.” OK, so this must be true because Bush says so. What more do you need? If you doubt his words, you just hate America. Let's face it. …

A recent State Department study also showed clearly that terrorist acts have increased three-fold worldwide since Bush's “war on terror” began–but never mind. We all know how much the State Department hates America, right?

And how about that stem cell issue? Bush claims (in perfect bizarro world fashion) that he is concerned about “science which destroys life in order to save life.” Hmmmmm. Obviously that statement doesn't apply to the hundreds of thousands of formerly living persons in Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention our own young men and women) whose lives were destroyed by U.S. military technology, all on his behalf. Ooops! There I go hating America again!

So, where is our “liberal press” in all this? Well, what a surprise—there is no such thing! For those of you too lazy to do the research yourselves, here's a quick primer on media control: There are only 7 major corporations that own all of the mainstream media in this country (Disney, Vivendi Universal, Bertelsmann, AOL Time-Warner, Viacom, Sony and GE) and guess what? None of them are owned by liberals!