Abuse of the Public...

Our long time readers will know that Jorge Ramos is one of the most influential figures in the Spanish speaking media in the United States. Millions of Spanish speakers rely on his nightly newscasts, newspaper columns and books to inform themselves about news and politicis.

Unfortunately Mr. Ramos and large segments of the Spanish speaking media abuse their near monopoly by presenting extremely biased and limited information. As you can imagine they are unabashedly in favor of Obama, the Democratic Party and statist intervention. And in regards to the issue of immigration reform, individuals and politicians with reasonable reservations are never presented. The end result is that people who receive their news from these outlets have formed a highly inaccurate understanding of the American social and political environment, which will limit the chance of pursuing

This is especially troubling because Spanish speakers do not have any conservative media outlets that offers alternative perspectives. And without competition to hold them in check, most monopolies abuse the welfare of the public.

In the following paragraph (from the August 14, 2009 edition of Hoy Newspaper) Mr. Ramos presents his readers a blatantly biased and inaccurate view current political events. To read the paragraph in the original Spanish, scroll to the bottom of the page:

According to Ramos, during conversations with functionaries of the White House, the strategy of the Obama Administration was clear. "They think that if Obama achieves health reform he will be a stronger, more popular president and this will help us achieve immigration reform."

If Mr. Ramos was honest with his readers, he would have questioned and critiqued Obama's staff member's presentation of events and followed up with something along the lines of:

During my interview with President Obama he promised that he would pursue comprehensive immigration reform within the first 6 months of his presidency. As you're well aware, he has not done so. Clearly, the reason is that the President has expended an enormous amount of political capital pursuing corporate bailouts, his pork filled stimulus plan and highly controversial health care reform. Most of the President's supporters are at best lukewarm about these measures, owing to their concerns about our rapidly expanding national debt. And the opponents of these measures are resolutely and passionately against them. In fact, it could be said that health care reform has galvanized the opposition camp. The end result is a net drop in his approval rating from over 70% to 47%. What this means is that President Obama has less political capital to pursue a controversial and divisive issue like immigration reform.

President Obama and his advisers are aware that outside of the Hispanic voting block, even liberal voters are lukewarm about pursuing immigration reform in the midst of a major economic recession and ongoing assaults from the conservative camp. They realize that Obama cannot afford to add the contentious issue of immigration reform to his already overflowing plate, to do so would further weaken his faltering efforts to reform health care.

Obama is aware that the democratic party exercises a near monopoly over the Latino voting block, so much so that even if Obama never follows through on his promises of immigration reform, a mass defection of Latino voters to the republican party is extremely unlikely. But, let's say a mass defection occurred and the 65% democratic share of the Latino vote (which comprised 7.4% of the voters in the last election) dropped to 40%, that would only equal an actual loss of 1.85% for Obama.

But, on the other hand, if in the pursuit of immigration reform caused Obama's share of the white voter (which comprised 76.3% of the voters in the last election) to drop from 45% to 40%, that would equal an actual loss of 3.81%.

In other words, current political realities dictate that Obama cannot pursue immigration reform. Let this be a lesson - in Washington and Oaxaca, campaign promises are quickly forgotten once a politician is in office.

But, we will never hear such sentiments from Mr. Ramos, becasue he like most of his American counterparts is biased, partisan and predictable.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1209/racial-ethnic-voters-presidential-election

Según Ramos, tras conversaciones con funcionarios de la Casa Blanca, le queda clara la estrategia de la administración Obama. "Creen que si Obama consigue un plan de salud será un presidente más fuerte y más popular y que eso ayudará a la reforma migratoria".

http://www.vivelohoy.com/noticias/localidades/chicago/vvl2-pp._6_ramosaug14,0,1478966.story