JUST SAYING
BY RAUL HERNANDEZ
[email protected]
TRUMP WWF GATHERINGS
The Trump noise machine sounds more like a political WWF rally put on by a scared man — his financial and criminal empire is slowly imploding.
So he goes to feed his crowds red meat, and in return, his insatiable ego is showered with applause and cheers. He is a rockstar, hero.
Trump loves his people, bragging that he can shoot someone on Wall Street and not lose a vote among the faithful fools.
He can say that the moon is made of cheese and the sky is purple, and they’ll believe him.
Someone said: “Being fooled does not make you a fool. You only become a fool when you continuously fall for the same sh*t.”
But Trump’s crowd love to be fooled and don’t mind being conned.
Why?
Because Trump can slay the Brown Bogeymen invading “their country.” Trump massages their fears, legitimizes their paranoia and finds scapegoats, mostly poor and desperate people, so they pin their personal failures on.
Trump knows how to exploit their ignorance, and they gleefully gulp down his snake oil. They wear his red MAGA hats, and he pretends to embrace their patriotism and values.
“Our political opponents look down with hatred on our values and with utter disdain for the people whose lives they want to run,” Trump told the crowd.
Fear and desperation are running amuck.
Many whites are terrified of losing power, and as the Browning of America accelerates, white flight is limited.
So Trump gives them quick-fix solutions – immigration roundups and a Wall are crowd favorites.
And, they applaud.
IRAN/VIETNAM
President Trump ordered another 1,000 troops to the Middle East and vowed again that Iran would not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, the NYT report states.
Sound familiar?
The U.S. involvement in Vietnam started in 1955. President Eisenhower sends first military advisors to South Vietnam to train the South Vietnamese Army
In 1961, President Kennedy sent 100 Special Forces troops as “advisors” to South Vietnam
More than a decade later, there were more than 500,000 troops in Vietnam.
Comedian Bob Hope during his visit to Vietnam looked at the huge GI audience when he came out to perform and got a lot of applause.
He looked at the audience and joked:
“Hello, advisors.”
He showered by applause, cheers, and laughter.
More than 58,000 of these “advisors” never made it home. Their names are carved on a black wall in D.C.
There are just wars to overturn tyranny/fascism like in World War II, but no American should shed blood because Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo need a political war to raise Trump’s poll numbers and get the Mueller report heat off his back.
We should also learn from the invasion of Iraq by Bush, Cheney, and Co. The whole region was destabilized and it gave birth to ISIS.
American allies are going on the record and saying that they don’t trust Trump and his administration. Why?
Sane Americans know Trump is a lying, mentally unstable con man.
The Republican Party will share the blame if Americans start coming home in body bags.
They haven’t said a word.
HONG KONG PROTESTS
This is what freedom and democracy look like when people dare to use it.
When a million people take to the streets in Hong Kong to make a statement, they cannot be ignored,
especially when the economy is weak and the corporate powers are stirring.
Opposition to the extradition Bill has led to protests across Hong Kong.
Would it be safe to travel or conduct business in Hong Kong? How much will tourism be affected? Can China afford to have millions of
Chinese without jobs? Companies leaving Hong Kong?
The power to change things with despots, in many cases, is a massive force with a huge pair of lungs taking to the streets.
This bill if the fine print is read will allow despots and crackpot dictators to start “transferring” journalists and community leaders from that Hong Kong to places like China, Russia, and North Korea where they will disappear.
One of the best cures for an authoritarian government is a sobering reminder of the death and destruction a move to silence democracy can bring to a nation.
People around the world love freedom and capitalism. They know that there are opportunities too in a capitalist system, and freedom gives rise to changes and ability to remove a government or policy that does not serve them or is oppressive.
America and the world will learn from the lessons of Hong Kong and its brave residents.
I predict Russia is next, and the ouster of Putin and gangster government is inevitable if the economy takes a dive.
Putin should worry about waking up and seeing millions of protestors on the streets of Moscow.
TRUMP TV
Trump is a cartoon character featured and milked by Fox News for ratings and profits.
Fox owner and Trump pal, Rupert Murdoch, who approves Fox scripts, sees Trump as a cash cow.
The Donald Show and all its side-show issues are Fox’s bread and butter.
Many of Fox’s viewers are older, frightened folks, and evangelicals who found their political messiah. Trump is expected (Bible prophecy) to usher the way for Jesus’ Second Coming. And, of course, others whose eyes are also glued to Fox are the “very fine” racists.
They adore The Adventures of The Donald in Liberal Land. He fights the Brown Bogeyman, Promiscuous Monsters, and The Womb Invaders.
And at Trump TV, all of Donald’s high crimes and misdemeanors can be explained away and forgiven even the current Trump Inc. crime wave, featuring Kellyanne Conway.
Fox hosts enlist the help of a Republican Congress who rush to Fox to say that Donald doesn’t always mean what he says.
But this last Trump interview at ABC with George Stephanopoulos, Murdoch must have turned more whey-face if that is possible.
Wow.
Trump told George with millions watching that he’d welcome dirt on opponents from despots including Russia, China, and North Korea. He is open for business.
Double wow.
That sucked the air out of Trump’s apologists in Congress who couldn’t defend the indefensible.
Worse.
Murdoch knows that this kind of talk tends to shoo away already skittish Fox advertisers.
Murdoch scrambled. Sean Hannity was on the phone to Trump with a new script.
Fascinating a Glassy-Eyed Dullard
The WashPo headline on Tuesday reads: “Trump doesn’t want to be impeached — but he is fascinated by ‘the I-word’
Stop the press.
Psst: Trump would be fascinated AND mesmerized AND follow AND try to swat down a red-dot laser light on the wall like a house cat on steroids. He has the attention span of a Rhesus monkey and the IQ of a slug.
Just look at those dull, glassy eyes. Yeah, the lights are on but Elvis and everybody else left the building years ago.
This is America’s Go-To Guy. The guy with the broke brain who has the nuclear launch codes in his pocket.
I swear if the crazies reelect this guy for another four years I’m packing and heading to one of the poles.
HISPANICS AND THE SILVER SCREEN
In an opinion piece Saturday in the NYT, Sesali Bowen notes: “I’m often confronted with two kinds of black people on TV. Criminal masterminds who dominate industries stereotypically associated with black people (music, drugs, basketball). Or black people who live and work in white communities without any racism. Neither captures the realities of race in America.”
I very rarely watch TV shows for basically these same reasons and some. Hispanic TV character scripts are often written by young, “talented” Hollywood writers, many are hired by hip, well-meaning, bigots who know the true-and-tested formula to get cheap laughs from a white audience at the expense of others.
Has there been progress? Yeah, slow and painful since TV 1970’s shows like “Chico and the Man” — The man to Chico (Actor/comedian Freddy Prinze): “Take your flies and get out of here.”
What about TV shows like “George Lopez Show?” That was funny and well-written.
Also, comedy shows like “The Office” with its diverse characters, (I loved Dwight Schrute), intricate plots and solid writing. I was never a fan until I once watched a re-run by accident while flipping channels. It made me laugh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO8N3L_aERg
(When it’s hard to laugh I watch, “The Office” for a quick cure.)
However, in a nutshell, Hispanics are still routinely portrayed as servants or sidekicks to white characters. Or, we are Homies; fugitives from the Border Patrol; Cartel bosses or living in poverty.
Where are the successful, educated, and prosperous Hispanics?
If the media is the message, Donald Trump and other racists are quickly finding material from the silver screen to spook, already-terrified whites who only see the Invasion of the Latino bogeymen.
Hell, if this is all I knew about Latinos from the movies and media 24/7, I wouldn’t want to live next to one of them either.
Moreover, on the other side of the ledger, there are movies made and directed by Hispanics like “El Chicano.” I watched the trailer and read the bad reviews. It has made $1.3 million in gross profit, so far according to Rotten Tomatoes. I am going to wait to rent the movie on Netflix. Then, there is “La Llorna.” Also a bust with bad reviews.
“While first-time feature film director Michael Chaves has a great eye for detail, the choice to turn, dare I say, a sacred Latino folklore into a jump-scare monster movie was not the wisest decision.” — Critic Yolanda Machado from the Wrap.
Some Hispanic groups were actively encouraging Hispanics to see this movie because it will let Hollywood know that Hispanics go to the movies and want to see themselves on the silver screen.
Bottom line: We are Hollywood’s best-kept secret of being hard-core moviegoers. Hispanics have the highest movie rate in the U.S. Says who?
Well, according to Variety Magazine 2018, “Latinos Still Have Highest Moviegoing Rate in U.S., but Asians Are Close Behind.”
Click here for Hispanic movie attendance: “Latinos Still Have Highest Moviegoing Rate in U.S., but Asians Are Close Behind”
There is a saying: If you tie a goat to a pole, he’ll only eat the grass that he can reach. Hispanics are only watching the movies that Hollywood is putting on the silver screen.
Hispanics are like other moviegoers. They will only go watch good movies and especially, movies that portray them in a good light on the American stage like “Mi Familia,” “Tortilla Soup” and many others.
The good news that an organization is trying to change all that through advocacy and education: http://www.nhmc.org/issues
There is a wealth of talent in the Hispanic community: The Oscar-dominating trio of Alejandro González Iñárritu, Guillermo del Toro, and Alfonso Cuarón are three directors who have done incredible work in Hollywood.
Many of the Hispanic creative writers on the George Lopez Show made that show a success.
In animation, the Disney movie, “COCO” was a beautiful and creative tale. The script was outstanding and passionate.
I commented on an online COCO post about how much I loved COCO, and asked what about movies about people living north of the border? Why are we only watching made-for-TV Mexican novels or drug cartel series, especially on Netflix?
That drew some criticism: What do you have against Mexicans? Why don’t you write your own movie if you are unhappy?
In this politically-correct climate in the Land of the Easily Offended, I was surprised that I wasn’t called a racist or Mexicanphobe or something like that.
Hollywood needs better scripts from Hispanic-American writers, and it will find many of those outside the Hollywood City limit, in the American Southwest and online.
Many books written by Hispanics about the Latino experience in the U.S. can be turned into screenplays.
The book, “The Dirty Girls Social Club,” by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, should be made into a movie. It was written some time ago. It’s about Middle-Class professional Latinas. I highly recommend it.
(And, now time for some shameless promotion.)
I finished writing, editing and will publish my third novel: “The Serape Notebook” a love story about two brothers growing up in El Paso during the time of the Vietnam War. It is about how Vietnam impacted Hispanics. I will be working on the screenplay later this year.
Here are a few the opening lines of the novel:
Chapter I
It was the day of the fight in that summer of long ago.
I was eight and had a front-row seat. I also had a dog in the fight. A pit bull who grew up on the mean streets of El Paso and used his wits and a shine box to hustle at neighborhood dives. —_ Mi carnal, Carlos Vega._
As far as fights go in the barrio, this was Ali-Frazer, a classic.
The brawl happened after my brother knocked out Lizard, a street thug who had mastered the art of the ambush.
The fight pitted my brother’s 14-year-old legendary left hook against a tough street kid, Gabriel Luna, who smoked Camels.