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Baja Arizona

Baja Arizona Revived! ¡Viva Baja!

Blogging & Writing, Business, Politics and Government, Tucson

Thank you Paul Eckerstrom for showing the world, via Alex Wagner on MSNBC a few minutes ago, that Tucson is not nuts, like much of the rest of Arizona.  You can see an earlier MSNBC interview with him, from 2011, on the Tucson Weekly site.  Free Baja Arizona!  You have done more than Representative Ron Barber, a DINO, Democrat in Name Only, has done for our part of the world with his voting with the Republicans on key issues. Anything that gets individuals and businesses to check out Tucson rather than Phoenix as the place to be in Arizona is a good thing.

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The map area with the yellow fill is the area purchased from Mexico in 1854 known as the Gadsen Purchase. Contemporary state lines and cities are shown.

I wrote about this vital, eclectic energy that Tucson possesses on my business site this week.  Timely!
Seriously, Tucson is a bastion of sanity in the wack-job of a political entity that is Arizona.   Start Up Tucson, Tear Down the Walls, and the All Souls Procession are just a sampling of the great events that are happening, and could only happen in the Old Pueblo, within the next couple of weeks.
Find out about the real Baja Arizona movement by reading the statement of purpose that was on the site when the secession movement had a home page which it does not now have by reading the following statement.  Then go check out an unofficial one that captures the attitude of Baja Arizona.  For a great article about Southern Arizona, check out the wikipedia page.

Start Our State – Statement of Purpose

Breaking away from the State of Arizona is a serious business. As we enter Arizona’s 100th year, all Arizonans should be coming together to celebrate the accomplishments of our State and our coexistence and cooperation not only with other states but other nations, who send their children to Arizona universities in great numbers.
Instead, our state legislature and our governor, with great determination, are intent on pushing us back into the know-nothing nativism of the 19th century. Arizona has real problems that require intelligent and reasonable discussion and resolution. But our state government has ceded all authority to legislate to one man, Russell Pearce, who has repeatedly proven himself incapable of reason or tolerance.
As a result, while Arizona shares the struggles of all other states to achieve economic recovery, our legislature is enamored with xenophobic attacks on people of Mexican descent. Though done in the name of “securing our borders,” the solutions in no way address the very real problems our State faces, and the legislature’s desired result is to harass an entire population into abandoning their country, even if those people were born here and have known no other home. Furthermore, these laws have been, and will continue to be, struck down in the courts because they are so clearly contrary to the United States Constitution.
Now, in flagrant defiance of the realities of existing constitutional law and the rights of those who live within our borders, Pearce and his supporters in the legislature have passed legislation permitting them to nullify all federal laws with which they disagree – including the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects the rights of all Americans.
Most attempts to nullify federal laws by states have been met with a confrontation with the United States Army, whether it be the Civil War or the Whiskey Rebellion. This is particularly true where the basis for nullification has been to deprive certain peoples of basic rights, as is the case with our state legislature and governor. The vast majority of the citizens of this State wish to preserve our citizenship and our rights under the United States Constitution and avoid another civil war.
Because Maricopa County contains more than half of the population of Arizona, citizens of the other fourteen counties can never hope to take back Arizona government at the ballot box. Therefore, we must express our self-determination by breaking our political ties to the State of Arizona and endeavor to form a new State. We welcome all counties of Arizona to join us in our effort to secure the blessings of liberty.

I love  the Primeria Alta, and was so glad to turn on the TV and see a depiction of the Arizona I know that is so different from extremist state upon which most media coverage focuses.

Conservative Calls Labor Members Slobs and Animals

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Just heard, on the Lawrence O’Donnell show, The Last Word, on MSNBC,  State Senator Grothman of Wisconsin refuse to apologize for calling the protesting constituents who are camped out in the Capitol “slobs.”  In not doing this he also managed to dig a deeper hole for himself.   It seems union workers, public servants and the like are a different “breed” of people from the Walker supporting constituents of his district.  Just click on the link above and start watching the video 1:45 min. into the clip.


Does this consdescending, pompous *bleep* really understand that he is calling the public servants of his state animals?  He might as well have said, “Oh the common people, I do think they should be kept out of sight when the upper classes are about.”

This shows a basic BIG problem in the U.S. that is presenting itself all the way from Wisconsin to Arizona.  Somehow ignorant people, truly ignorant people who despise education and knowledge, people that did not finish college and have found themselves in the upper socioeconomic brackets of society, through no efforts of their own, have taken over much of our political system.

These authoritarian elitists really think that they inherently are better than every one else and have the right to impose their beliefs on the rest of us and force us to do the work as they reap the benefit.  These folks are no better than anyone else and in my opinion have no class, no honor, and no conscience.  Our country was founded to help regular people have control over their own property.  We attempted to eliminate the power of the Monarchy with our War of Independence.  We created our country so rule would not be consolidated and inherited by a privileged few.  Common landowners were citizens with equal voice in governance; there were to be no rulers. 

While the common person was watching TV and consuming the opiate of the masses, the same little *bleepers* that would have been the simpering tax collectors of the monarchy switched their loyalties to the new monarchy – the corporation.    The U.S. originally gave the corporations no rights.  They did this for a very important reason.  The East India Tea Company was buddy, buddy with the Monarchy, Lords, and Ladies.  If you haven’t read about corporate personhood, you should. 

I sincerely hope that legislatures start listening to their constituents because we are not that far away from another bloody revolution.   I don’t want that.  You don’t want that.  If anyone in your family works for the city or state, or receives any assistance from the county or state, or belongs to a private union you are cutting your own throat by supporting corporate interests.  Forget Repulicans, forget Democrats, look at who is in favor of progressing the state of the common person.  Traditionally Democrats support labor and Republicans support management.  This is no longer true.  Democrats now support labor and management.  Republicans support corporate management and owners.  Progressives support labor and local business.  Conservatives – well that word has been co-opted to the point where it means nothing.  If you are talking about religious conservatives, well that has no place in our governance structure.  Fiscal conservatism… well, no one has been fiscally responsible for decades.  Let’s just get back to government of the people by and for the people.

And if our government refuses to represent the interests of the people, well we have to change the government.  I was at a PDA meeting last week and it was amazing, a couple hundred people showed up rather than the group of 20 that were present when PDA tried to start up in Tucson a few years ago. There was an energy there that was calling to be channeled into an aggressively progressive. 

At the same time that PDA is gaining steam, the Start Our State, or Baja Arizona, movement is getting attention.  Phoenix has been draining the coffers of Tucson returning far less than than an equitable amount to our community, allowing religious conservatives and pseudo-libertarian corporatists to impose anti-American legislation on our state, gut our K-12 and Higher Education systems, and insure a low wage workforce.  People are getting fed up. 

I for one am very tired of living in states that are absolutely regressive, but I love Tucson. When you are connected to a person who teaches and does research at a University level, you are tied to working in states that may not be your first choice if all other things were equal.  I would love to live in a state that somewhat supports my belief in democracy and equality.  Baja Arizona might just do it for me. 
But if elitists like Walker run Wisconsin, and wackos like Brewer run Arizona, I’m not sure where is safe to go other than metropolitan areas, and I don’t want to have to do that.  Somehow I feel like my rights are being stepped on. 

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