(Image: The SoundStrike)

A close friend and mentor and I were talking about the Occupy Movement. We both had some reservations but more importantly great admiration and excitement about it. This veteran of the Civil Rights and Black Power struggle warned me, “be careful when White folks say, Occupy!” We both laughed at his tongue in check statement. I knew what he meant.

But recently I remembered something he told me years earlier that I recently also read. He said that when the movement for social and economic justice starts to have an impact it won’t be the conservatives who attack you, “It will be the liberals,” he warned. I always kind of got that, but didn’t think much of it…until now.

Suddenly the liberals attacked!

Last week the Tucson Weekly ran a disgraceful article called, “Get out of Town! Our annual list of people, organizations and things Tucson would be better off without.” The article was appropriately written by The Usual Gang of Idiots. Read the piece here 

The part that bothered me the most was written by Linda Ray calling out Derechos Humanos. OMG, I know Linda! She was a part of the group of liberals that attacked me at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Music Festival in Austin earlier this year. It was a hard moment for me in Austin, especially, because I was smitten by Linda!

[Above] is a picture of the Angry Tucson mob really giving it to me.

I know Linda isn’t in the picture, but she was there. Oh, was she there! We could not stop looking at each other. It appeared she looked at me with hatred, but I can’t believe that. I know we didn’t agree on the musician boycott in Arizona, especially since everyone on her team was an Arizona based music industry professional. Who are we to call for a boycott of Arizona? We are just a bunch of human rights advocates, organizers and artists fighting for fair treatment of migrants.

They, on the other hand, were the ones fighting Arizona’s anti-migrant SB 1070. I was there with Sal Reza who has been fighting the attacks on migrants in Arizona for over 20 years. He seemed also smitten even though, as a 20 year activist and leader for migrant rights in Arizona, had never met any of these  tireless fighters. NEVER, in 20 Years!

But these liberals said so many important things about taking the message to the people and helping to raise opposition to Arizona’s anti migrant SB 1070.  Well I think they are liberals. At least that is what I heard at the recent Vegan, Organic, Fair Trade, General Assembly / Symposium and Bike Ride for freedom for ‘dose people in, of course, Tucson, Arizona.

My first thoughts were, how dare a bunch of music industry liberals tell a vibrant and important organization led by Chicanas who defend the rights and safety of Native Migrants to get out of Tucson? My second thought was the same as the first, as was my third, and forth thought. Then on my fifth thought I said to myself, how dare a bunch of music industry liberals tell a vibrant and important organization led by Chicanas who defend the rights and safety of Native Migrants to get out of Tucson?…

Read the rest at The SoundStrike.

Photo: Jeff Biggers

MESA, AZ — In a stunning blow to the Tea Party movement, a huge turnout in Mesa’s conservative LD 18 overwhelmingly voted out Arizona’s hardline State Senate President Russell Pearce in a historic recall election today.

As the self-proclaimed “Tea Party President,” Pearce’s national role as the figurehead for punitive immigration measures also turned the recall election into a referendum on the state’s notorious SB 1070 “papers, please” immigration law, which Pearce had made the hallmark of his legislative career.

According to the Maricopa County Recorder Elections Department, Republican moderate and SB 1070 opponent Jerry Lewis overcame the Pearce campaign’s series of dirty tricks and election war chest to win 53.4% to 45.3%. in a contest that divided the city’s influential Mormon Church.

“This is a huge shift,” said Randy Parraz, co-founder of the Citizens for a Better Arizona, which organized the recall drive in one of the most conservative districts in the state. “Russell Pearce is not only too extreme, but had remained untouched. This election shows that such extremist behavior will not be rewarded, and will be held accountable.”

Considered the de facto governor of Arizona, the seemingly invincible and right-wing extremist Pearce became the first state Senate president in American history to be thrown out of office in a recall election. Led by an inspiring citizens movement, Pearce’s downfall marks an extraordinary sea change in Arizona politics, especially in the areas of the changing electoral demographics and immigration reform policies. According to Parraz, the Citizens group registered more than 1,150 new voters in the district.

“Immigration issues are not Republican or Democratic,” said Parraz, noting that the recall effort was successful largely because of its bipartisan support that also focused on education, health care and jobs. “To have effective and sustainable change, we have to work together.”

Defying all expectations, the unprecedented bipartisan organizing effort led by the Citizens for a Better Arizona galvanized the recall movement into a statewide effort to cast out Arizona’s increasingly volatile and embarrassing extremist political leader. Only a year ago, Pearce’s ascendancy to the Senate president post was hailed by many as a watershed moment for the Tea Party movement. Within days of his reign, Pearce and his Tea Party legislators introduced a flurry of radical bills, including an effort to “nullify” federal laws.

“This election sends a message to other Democratic efforts,” said Dan O’Neal, with the Arizona chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America, “to not be afraid to take on issues and races in red states.”

Considered the architect of the SB 1070 immigration law, Pearce had worked with the American Legislative Exchange Council lobby front to shape the latest version of the bill, which had spawned similar laws in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and other states.

Beyond the bread and butter issues of jobs, education, health care and immigration reform, when voters go to the polls next Tuesday in the historic recall election of extremist Arizona state Senate President Russell Pearce, they will also be taking part in a national showdown between corporate lobby influence and local grassroots campaigners in what many consider to be the opening salvo in the 2012 elections.

With nearly 90 percent of his campaign funds coming from outside his Mesa district, the self-proclaimed “Tea Party President” Pearce has ridden the corporate lobby gravy train of donations in his desperate bid to save his ultra-right-wing career. Pearce has out-raised his moderate Republican opponent Jerry Lewis by a 3-1 margin, pulling in donations from representatives in the prison, gun and other corporate lobby fronts.

Despite the challenging spending margin, Lewis, a former accountant and charter school administrator, has gained the support of an unprecedented and enthusiastic bipartisan campaign on the ground level. In a counter to a barrage of outside-funded Pearce TV ads, Lewis and his supporters will launch a massive get-out-the-vote effort over the next five days.

Architect of his state’s notorious SB 1070 “papers please” immigration law, which Pearce wrote with the help of the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council lobby front and other corporate lobbyists, Pearce’s ranks also include right-wing billionaire Betsy DeVos and her American Federation for Children front, which has pummeled the Mesa district with outside mailings touting Pearce’s bogus education record.

Nearly a century ago, Arizona’s first state governor, George W. Hunt, warned his fellow Arizonans that a national showdown was taking place in their state. “The working class, plus the professional class, represent 99 percent,” Hunt said, in a copper town in 1916. “The remaining 1 percent is represented by those who make a business of employing capital.” Hunt declared: “It will be a happy day for the nation when the corporations shall be excluded from political activity…and vast accumulations of capital cannot be employed in an attempt to control government.”

Long before Hunt and his labor shock troops ushered in one of the nation’s most progressive state constitutions in 1912, the clash over Arizona’s vast natural resources, its native and immigrant labor ranks, and its rooted inhabitants and carpet-bagging business interests had not only placed the state on the frontlines of American politics but also helped force our nation to come to grips with America’s fundamental commitment to civil rights and democracy.

As part of their own nation battle over their state constitution, Hunt and the original Arizonan constitutional convention participants demanded one main concession: The right to recall elected officials who no longer represent the people. Once their constitution was approved by President Taft, the Arizona legislature overwhelming voted to make that plank an enduring part of Arizona’s legacy.

As the nation watches, Arizona voters in Mesa’s LD18 district will decide on November 8th if that historic legacy will be upheld.

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