To Secede Or Not Secede?

Courtesy of Yahoo

Wow!  There is a petition for Texas and other states to secede from the Union.  Since I live in Texas, I am really only concerned with this one.  As of 11/12/12 11:41 pm, 56,424 people have signed it.

What happens if this is successful?  Do all of us have to go or just the 56,000?  The whole state goes or do we divide it up?  Maybe carve it out a little corner.  Do we have to build a fence around the Red River too?

So many questions!  Are we really in good position to just up and leave?  I thought we were bad shape.  Didn't we just have to fire a bunch of teachers because we were out of money?  Will our education system support an educated workforce for our new economy?  Aren't we ranked 49th out of 50 states in verbal SAT's scores and 46th in average Math scores? (Not sure if this fits here, just wanted to point out what Rick Perry has done to our education system)

If Texas secede, who would be in charge? Rick Perry, George W, George P?  Would the casino shuttles still run to WinStar? 

If Texas becomes, its own nation will our national drink be Texas Tea?  I think these are important questions to ask ourselves.

An even more important question would be to ask is why are these 56,000+ working to have Texas secede instead of having Texas succeed.  Why aren't they working together to figure out how to fix our education problem?  Why aren't they concerned with 22.9% of Texas children living below the poverty level?  No solution for 86.2% of Texas households with no retirement income?

Seceding is a lazy person's way out.

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The Real Focus

Our friends at NewsTaco.com posted a blog post by Dr. Henry Flores Ph.D entitled Hispanic? Latino? Mexicano? Chicano? Does it Matter?

This post brings to light a conversation that, according to Dr Flores, Latinos are having "online and in various closed door meetings." I agree with him. In fact I find myself discussing this issue quite often in both venues. I am not going to get into the "I don't like labels but I label myself this way" conversation, which usually ends with me looking for BC Powder in my wife's purse to make the sharp pain in my head go away. It seems some are looking for people to rally under one banner and trying to figure out what the banner should be.

Some of the titles suggested and used by some are Hispanic, Chicano, Mexicano, Latino, and/or Tejano. Everyone has their own preference on how to describe themselves whether it is one of these or a host of others to choose from. Each one has its own meaning and personal connotations attached to it. At the end of the conversation, I don't think people are brought closer together and ready to unify under one banner.

I would equate stopping "to find our banner to unite under one voice" to "waiting for our time"; both slogans tend to stop the progress of a movement. In my opinion, once we picked a name to call ourselves, we will alienate some portions of our coalition. If we choose the word Hispanics, some people who prefer Latinos will either drop out of the movement or start their own movement under a different banner and vice versa. I think it is detrimental to our cause to label ourselves. It benefits the movement to focus on our agenda instead.

Our banner should be our issues. We should let them figure out who and what we are and how to deal with us. I contend it does not matter what we call ourselves if we do not succeed in advancing our agenda. Always remember, the winners write the history books and we can pick a name when it is time to write.

When they want to talk about Hispanics, Latinos, Chicanos, Mexicanos, and Tejanos, we should talk about education, healthcare, comprehensive immigration, jobs, and other issues that affect our community. I honestly believe that we should not waste time or energy debating each other over what we are going to call ourselves or what uniform we are wearing, and instead use that energy to define and advance our agenda.

If we are really intent on wearing a label, let's start with this: "Voter"!

~Andres

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Whether we are parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, teachers, mentors, or community leaders, we encourage children to do good in school, work hard to be whatever they want be, and encourage them to be leaders. We want them to be successful, productive people so we are constantly reminding and trying to set the best example.

Prepping them to be leaders or at least not simply be blind followers starts early with sayings like "if Timmy jumps off a cliff, would you?" or chastise them by saying "monkey see, monkey do" when they get in trouble for following someone else's lead. We would rather our children plow their own path as opposed to someone else dictating their route.

More often than not, we are probably repeating the same themes our parents tried to instill in us. One of the simplest ways we can take a stand, be a leader, and not blindly follow decisions others have made for us is by voting.

For some reason a lot of us don't vote. In Dallas County alone, where municipal elections were just held, only 11% of registered voters participated. Let me put that another way: out of 1,074,042 registered voters only 119,077 voted. That means 954,965 did not. Wow, pretty sad!

We are content in letting people make rules, ordinances, and laws for us to follow with no input from us. We are content with missing an opportunity to show our kids how to practice what we preach. We are content with sending the message to our kids that our words are empty. To me it is very hypocritical to expect our kids to do what we can do ourselves, yet we don't.

Are we all just hypocrites?

~Andres

Episode Five

The TNA Crew has recorded another episode. Listen to Turo and Andres with John Anthony and Rich predict the fate of the Texas Rangers and the Dallas Cowboys. They tackled the Border Patrol deporting an American and state of our education system. They also talked about their favorite things at the State Fair of Texas! Don't forget to tell your family friends about the TNA Show!!!!