News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Mar. 25, 2011: A group that provides assistance to Caribbean athletes at the Penn Relays annually is taking an innovative approach to its fundraising efforts this year.
Non-profit group, Team Jamaica Bickle, founded by Jamaican migrant Irwine Clare, has launched the TJB Business to Business (B2B) 50×50 relay.
According to Clare, the Relay concept was launched to engage local Caribbean businesses to support the group and the athletes while driving enthusiasm for the April Penn Relays experience.
Clare says the goal of the TJB B2B 50×50 Relay Campaign is to bring a core group of fifty community businesses together in an effort to raise the targeted amount of $50,000.
“These funds will strengthen Team Jamaica Bickle’s programs for Penn Relays 2011 thru 2012, culminating in the 2012 Olympics,” he said. “The relay expresses an each-one-bring-one effort.”
Each business owner is being asked to commit a minimum $500 hundred dollars to kick start the effort and bring a fellow business to the table. A TJB B2B 50×50 collection container will also be placed in each business location so that members of the public can make their donations.
Several local businesses have already pledged support for the program including Jamaica Air Express Couriers, (lead partner) Health Conscious, Vegan Delight, Sams Caribbean Marketplace and local Restaurants: Super Wings, The Door, Footprints and Port Royal.
For more log on to https://www.teamjamaicabickle.com/
The annual Penn Relays is set for April 28-30 in Philadelphia.
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Mar. 25, 2011: President Obama wrapped up his tri-country visit to Latin America this week with another empty promise in El Salvador to push for immigration reform in the U.S. that includes a pathway to legalization for the undocumented, many of whom are from El Salvador. Sadly the promise resonated hollow since it lacked any real substance and was much like those he made on the campaign trail years ago.
Infact, it sounded to me just like President George W. Bush’s promise to Latin American, especially Mexican leaders on the same issue. And we all know where that got us – nowhere.
In a country which has about 25 percent of its population living undocumented in the United States, Obama was asked by a reporter where he stood on immigration reform.
And out came the staid answer that he has repeated for the past three years – yes he is for immigration reform but damn those Republicans and yada, yada yada. Same spiel, different day!
And wow – out came that word HOPE! Remember the one we fell in love with and had the audacity to believe in?
Here was Obama in El Salvador: “I still have hope … that they begin to recognize over the next year that we can’t solve this problem without taking a broad, comprehensive approach.”
And there was more: “It is the right thing to do. This is the time to do it. And I will continue to push hard to make it happen. It won’t be easy. The politics of this are difficult. But I am confident that ultimately we are going to get it done.”
Really? When exactly pray tell because there have been absolutely no concrete moves to make this happen, not even through a simple executive order that could have handed us a Dream Act.
The reality is that President Obama had two years of full Democratic control of the House and the Senate while he took control of the White House. And in all those 730 days, he did nothing but talk once in a while – when it suited him – about his commitment and support to immigration reform while his border agents rounded up and deported more migrants than ever under any previous administration.
Infact, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Border Enforcement agency’s director is very happy to announce that it has iced close to 1,000,000 criminal and non-criminal immigrants in the past two years since Obama has been in office and that number continues to grow. Obama has also resumed deportation to Haiti – a wrecked nation.
And while he made deals with Republicans to give tax breaks to the wealthy, no deals were made for the poor immigrants or their children who are working in the farms, restaurants, homes and businesses of many of the same rich.
If the President is serious about immigration reform and about getting re-elected in 2012, he will do his darnest to not alienate the Latino and immigrant voting bloc but doing something concrete to help make his promises become a reality. The governor and lawmakers in Utah and have the right idea on the solution to the problem – the immediate solution lies in a guest worker plan that allows the undocumented to live and work freely on a work visa and travel back and forth as they wish. It is an economic solution that would help end the nightmare so many live in and it is the right thing to do.
The writer is founder of News AmericasNow, CaribPR Wire and Hard Beat Communications.
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Mar. 25, 2011: It appears the Obama’s – Barack, Michelle and their two daughter, the mother-in-law and God knows who else in their traveling entourage, enjoyed their free time in Brazil, Chile and El Salvador.
Who cares? If you do my advice is get yourself a life.
Obama’s down time was not why we voted him President. Nor that he really, really enjoys Air Force One. We elected him to get the job done. You can add Latin America to the list of jobs he has not gotten done. The list is long and growing.
But there is good news from Michelle. We’ll save it for the end.
The President carried plenty of Empty Rhetoric on his recently completed trip. Doesn’t he always? But once you get past his and his speechwriters’ rhetoric, Obama came to Latin America empty handed.
Repeat after me Barack Obama has only one agenda to get reelected. He has decided the best way to do that is to be invisible in clear sight. It’s easy just say nothing.
The less he says the less he is a target for the Republican wannabes who crave The White House. It may be good for him to keep his plush lob but it sure isn’t Leadership. And it isn’t any good for Americans or for example Latin Americans.
Brazil and their new President Dilma Rousseff wanted to see an
American President with bold ideas and who would prove there is
a new vibrant relationship between the United States and Latin America and nowhere more so than in Latin America’s juggernaut – Brazil.
If only saying so over and over and over again would make it so. I lost count on CNN of how many times in 3 short days Obama told Latin Americans there is a new partnership of equals that embraces the United States and Latin America. Then he did absolutely nothing to prove it.
Brazil most of all is looking for a place on the international stage that can be solidified in only one way the symbolism of a seat on the Security Council of the United Nations.
Logic would have President Obama leading the campaign to have both Brazil and India made permanent members of the Security Council. At least Obama has told the Indians he “believes” they should have a seat not that he is serious about it. But in Brazil, far closer to home and where he could have even more of an impact supporting Brazilian membership, Obama said nothing except he acknowledged Brazil would like a seat. Gee. Wow.
Unfortunately for the Brazilians, supporting membership for them will upset some other countries who don’t agree which is not good for Obama personally but worse madden China that does not want India in and India can’t gather the necessary support unless a Western Hemisphere country also gets in.
Even more important to Obama is the American Right Wing which opposes anything that upset the myth that the United States controls the world stage and any hint of other countries as powerful in American eyes makes the Right Wing foam at the mouth and work even harder to unseat Obama in 2012. Too bad Brazil. You lose.
Biofuels, specifically Brazil’s world leadership in clean cheap efficient ethanol made from sugarcane rather than being a blessed when it comes to the United States is a curse for Obama because he is wedded to the American farm lobby that just LOVES wasteful corn ethanol which is making big American farmers even richer because of its required mixing with gasoline in the U.S.
Growing corn for fuel is as wasteful as anything you might conceive and if U.S. corn farmers had to compete against sugarcane ethanol they would lose. So Obama can’t let that happen and here also he arrived in Brazil empty handed with no offers to lessen the prohibitive tariffs on imported sugarcane ethanol from Brazil. Do you get the picture? It’s all about getting re-elected.
It was the same in Chile and El Salvador. Carefully chosen audiences and leaders desperate for the embrace of the U.S. President they still think is a hero in the U.S. maybe news flows slow to them? They crave Obama’s embrace even though nothing but empty words kept flowing from his mouth. It looks good in the local media. Then they trash him after he leaves for doing nothing.
Of course as U.S. Presidents always do he spent much of his time bemoaning the destructiveness of drugs and guns. But offered absolutely no new U.S. initiatives to stem the real drug problem the market for hard core drugs in the U.S. Even less to offer anything to curb the open pipeline of weapons to low lifes in Latin America bought by the truckload in the US. Where virtually anyone can buy as many of any weapon including the biggest assault weapons they like no background checks required or allowed. Then ship them south to cause mayhem in Latin America.
Likewise the other all important issue U.S. immigration reform. Obama made it clear by his silence on the issue he will do nothing to push his so called immigration reform agenda because let’s say it together it won’t help Obama’s re-election.
So what was Obama’s Latin America trip about. Sameole sameole. New Black packaging same empty box.
Latin America and the dozens of countries that comprise it will continue to grow in power, wealth and influence and embraced by the world community while the United States under Obama continues to play the same word games the U.S. always does. As U.S. influence and rapport among Latin Americans continues to decline. Wait a minute.
Here’s some “important” news about the Obama trip I can conclude with. It turns out Michelle Obama has ended her war of words with clothes designer Dian Von Furstenberg and was reported to be “dressed head to toe in the designer’s clothes” during the Obama’s stops in Brazil.
Praise the Lord! Fashion diplomacy Michelle Obama decked out in an American European’s clothes on a visit to Latin America. That should impress Latin Americans that she can’t find Latin American designers to suit her expensive clothing needs on a trip to Latin America. It’s called colonialism Michelle.
She’s as clueless as her husband. At latest they’re back home now and only visited 3 Latin America countries.
Call it damage control.
Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.
News Americas, BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Thurs. Mar. 24, 2011: The Chairman of The Caribbean Tourism Organization has welcomed the British Chancellor’s announcement that the country’s Air Passenger Duty will be frozen this year.
Chairman and Minister of Government, Richard “Ricky” Skerritt said Wednesday that the Chancellor’s statement to the British parliament is a clear recognition of the strong lobbying efforts by the CTO and its allies in the private sector, the Caribbean High Commissions and the Diaspora.
But he warned that advocacy on the APD is not over.
“All Caribbean tourism interests must continue to fight for APD reform in a manner that further removes any competitive disadvantage, and does not hamper our efforts to achieve sustainable growth in tourism, for the benefit of the people of the Caribbean,” said Skerritt.
Chancellor George Osborne this week told the House of Commons that passengers would not have to pay the increase – planned for November – until April 2012 due to ‘hefty’ rises in the tax last year.
APD in the UK is already up to 8.5 times more than the European average. And a family of four travelling to the Caribbean would pay £300 (based on four people at £75 per flight).
Osborne said this week he would look to consult ‘from today’ on how to change the banding system ‘which appeared to believe that the Caribbean was further away than California.’
News Americas, SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, Weds. Mar. 23, 2011: President Obama yesterday insisted in El Salvador that he is still very much in favor of comprehensive immigration reform for undocumented immigrants.
In a country which has about 25 percent of its population living undocumented in the United States, Obama again voiced his support but little else as he once again insisted there must be a path way to legalization.
“We also have to make sure that those who are in the United States illegally at this point, but in some cases have been there for a long time, in some cases have children who were born in the United States and are United States citizens, that they have a pathway to get right by the law,” said the President in response to a reporter’s question at the press conference in El Salvador following his meeting with the country’s head of state, President Funes.
Obama blamed a lack of Republican support for a failure to pass the measure in his first two years in office, despite the fact that he held a majority in the House and Senate.
But he insisted, he still has “hope … that they begin to recognize over the next year that we can’t solve this problem without taking a broad, comprehensive approach.”
“It is the right thing to do. This is the time to do it. And I will continue to push hard to make it happen. It won’t be easy. The politics of this are difficult. But I am confident that ultimately we are going to get it done,” he added.
Obama meanwhile promised $200 million to fight drug trafficking and gang violence in Central America. He said the program would tackle the poverty and social factors that drive young people towards crime. El Salvador is plagued by violence, much of it linked to drug trafficking gangs.
El Salvador was the final leg on his tour of Latin America that has also included stops in Brazil and Chile.
CaribPR Wire, NEW YORK, NY, March 21, 2011: It’s been half a century already since Jamaican-born jazz great, Monty Alexander, has been performing professionally.
The piano virtuoso will kick-off his 50th anniversary celebration next month with a special five-night performance at the Birdland Jazz Club – 315 West 44th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues in New York City.
Alexander, declared one of the greatest jazz piano players of all time in Hal Leonard’s 2005 book, and with a whopping 60 albums under his belt, is set to thrill fans from Tuesday April 5th to Saturday April 9th with two nightly shows at 8:30 p.m. and 11 p.m., respectively.
“This engagement is the first in a series of concerts in celebration of my 50th year in music,” commented Alexander. “It gives me a special opportunity to look back musically to 1961 and my first jobs in Kingston, Jamaica, with my first group, Monty and the Cyclones and the recordings I did for Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reed. I also look forward to reflecting musically on adventures I had through the years with, among others, Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson, Quincy Jones, Ray Brown and other legends of Jazz.”
The performance comes on the heels of the release of ‘Uplift,’ a new album from Alexander and Jazz Legacy Productions that includes such pieces as “Come Fly With Me,” “Sweet Georgia Brown,” “Body and Soul” and “Home.”
Over his stellar career, the Kingston-born musician has performed with international stars including Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Ray Brown, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Clark Terry, Quincy Jones, Ernest Ranglin, Barbara Hendricks, Bill Cosby, Bobby McFerrin, Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare.
Infact, it was Sinatra and his best friend Jilly Rizzo who hired Alexander after he moved to the United States in 1961 at the age of seventeen. And it was at Jilly’s famed New York City nightclub that this Jamaican teen caught the ears of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Milt “Bags” Jackson.
It was Jackson who introduced him to the great bassist Ray Brown, and the rest as they say, is history, including Alexander’s 1976 Montreux (Switzerland) Jazz Festival performance with drummer Jeff Hamilton and bassist John Clayton, which has become one of the most celebrated live recordings in contemporary jazz.
His extraordinary contribution to jazz globally led tothe Jamaican government awarding Alexander the title of Commander in the Order of Distinction for outstanding services to Jamaica as a worldwide music ambassador in 2000.
Tickets for the April 5-9th shows can be purchased by logging on https://www.birdlandjazz.com/calendar/ and clicking on the date of the performance you’d like to purchase tickets for the Alexander celebratory concerts.
And for more on the Caribbean’s greatest jazz pianist and his music visit www.montyalexander.com.
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Mar. 18, 2011: Dozens of Caribbean teachers recruited from their homelands a decade ago live under the threat of deportation with promises by New York City’s Department of Education to secure them green cards, still unfulfilled, News Americas has learnt.
The plight of the teachers came to light this past weekend as Berthia Lewis of The Black Institute and Judith Hall Jones, a Jamaican teacher recruit who now heads up the Association of International Educators hit the airwaves of WWRL’s “Caribbean Corner” radio show. The two organizations recently teamed up to release a full study on the case titled “Broken Promises: The Story of Caribbean International Teachers In New York City’s Public Schools.”
In the study, it is revealed that in 2001, 500 Caribbean-born teachers, from several countries, including Jamaica, were aggressively recruited by the then New York City Board of Education to come to the United States to work in the city’s public schools.
According to the report, they were promised New York State teacher certification, Master’s degrees, housing assistance and ultimately, a pathway to permanent United States residency for themselves and their nuclear families.
But both Hall and Lewis say the promises were never kept and while the teachers have remained in the city’s school system, teaching in license areas where there are teacher shortages, they have been classed as “unskilled workers” by lawyers filing their labor certifications petitions with New York State’s Department of Labor and many remain caught up in the certification backlog without the promised legal residency.
As such, most of the teachers are forced to live under constant threat of termination and deportation while their spouses and children are dependent on them since they cannot work under the present immigration system.
The teachers group says the stress of renewing temporary work visas has been a constant part of these teachers’ lives for the past decade and the financial costs have been steep since they have paid many thousands of dollars to the DOE’s designated attorneys to maintain their legal status yet many remain in legal limbo.
The AIE want the New York State Education Department to resolve all certification issues for international teachers immediately and to have all certified NYCPS teachers to receive professional EB-2 work classifications on their permanent residency petitions, rather than the less skilled EB-3 classifications the Caribbean teachers have been assigned to date.
The group is also calling for a joint oversight hearing by New York city and state lawmakers to assess the DOE’s treatment of all international teachers and determine their current immigration status; the creation of a special immigration classification for these teachers, enabling an expedited green card process/citizenship and an investigation of how international teachers are recruited throughout the country and a review of how their employment and residency is handled.
The number of New York City Public School teachers who have been certified by the Department of Labor to acquire green cards over the past six years show only 641 have achieved permanent residency status.
This represents less than 20 percent of the total number of international recruits. Of the green cards certified, 276 went to teachers from Caribbean countries. An estimated 19,000 teachers were working in the United States on temporary visas in 2007. The number of overseas-trained teachers being hired in the United States is increasing steadily.
The Board of Education yesterday did not respond to a request for comment on the issue as of press time.
“That’s Right I Have One Agenda So What?”By Arthur Piccolo
News Americas, New York, NY, Fri. Mar. 18, 2011: My theory is that President Obama lives in a constant state of confusion. Once he figured out being President means more than having a good time at taxpayer expense. Or should.
Does that mean I’m saying Barack Obama is UNQUALIFIED to be President? Dear reader I will leave that pregnant topic for a later episode to keep your attention. For now I will talk around that issue unless you prefer to read between my lines.
For now allow me to issue a disclaimer if you have not figured this out after just 3 episodes here at News Americas with my weekly commentary Obama’s Americas ……..
I am not the President of the Barack Obama Fan Club. To be more precise I no longer am. I would certainly have qualified back in 2004 when Obama was running for U.S. Senate and still during his Presidential campaign. But since then he has given us our WAKE up call all of us who are not tone deaf.
Barack Obama is about Barack Obama. Which is fine in its own way his way but it often does nothing for you or me. Nor the rest of progressive America. Although its good stuff for the Status Quo freaks. And not all that bad if you are a Republican as long as you have not fallen off the right wing cliff.
Which finally brings me to Obama’s agenda. Barack Obama has just one agenda. To get himself re-elected. Surprise. Like any of the many President before him Barack Obama and include Michelle craves re-election. Hello. Well think again. That does say it all. Barack Obama is just like the Presidents before him. My turn to say. HELLO.
That is not why most of us voted for him. It is certainly NOT what he preached during his campaign that won him the Presidency in 2008. That created a frenzy. Now it all has very real implications.
None of it good for those who want more than more of the Same. We start from the fact there has been nothing special about the Obama Presidency even before he recently told us for all practical purposes he and his administration is already in re-election campaign mode. The official announcement is likely this month. If not then next.
His minions and he himself are already beating the golden fund raising path proclaiming as much as Obama raised 4 years ago well he’ll need even more this time around. No surprise there since he won’t be able to run on his hollow promises this time. He’ll need even more cash to fool us.
Here is the Reality. Obama’s claim on many votes is pure fact. Sad fact that it is. Even as a run of the mill Democratic Party President he is the only choice compared to the scary range of Republicans who fantasize beating him. Many of the smart and/or younger ones will wait to 2016 to run for the Big Prize. Broken down old war horses like Newt Gingrich can’t wait four more years. By then he will be officially certified senile.
The larger point is we can expect nothing more from Obama than he delivered the first two years. The next two years. Correction less. His strategy is to be as likeable to as many voters as he can. That means doing nothing to offend anyone.
He is kissing up to any Big Business Czar he can find. Likewise any Republican proposal to slash and burn that doesn’t involve witch burning or the mass deportation of anyone who does not look like Michelle Beckman.
There is an alternative for Obama. Laugh now why wait. President Barack Obama could decide to run on a positive agenda of change and hit hard at the real phony Americans. The Right Wing Whackos whose real agenda is to destroy the American social fabric and turn us all into a nation of “freed slaves.”
The radical idea that Obama NOT make his own re-election his ONLY priority. I hope you already had your laugh. Imagine Barack Obama actually being the candidate and the President he conned us into believing he would be.
Then he would be the master of CHANGE we can believe in. Fat Chance. Obama never learned that technique in acting school. Sorry as a community organizer in Chicago while moon lighting as a high paid big law firm attorney or hiking it back East to attend Harvard law School where he felt no financial pain.
Still you can argue he was being truthful during the First Campaign in a deceitful way. What change should we believe in? The change that is never going to happen. Again what change should we believe in. The change Presidential candidates talk about during the campaign but don’t deliver. That’s right Obama can argue he did bring us “change” we can believe in. No change at all.
Let the campaign begin! Sorry it already has.
Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.
News Americas, WASHINGTON, D.C., Fri. Mar. 11, 2011: For all the talk of economic prosperity in Brazil, one would think that would mean fewer of its nationals would be undocumented in the United States. Well think again.
According to U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials, there were an estimated 180,000 undocumented Brazilians in the U.S. as of last year. That’s a growth by 30,000 from 2009, according to latest immigration statistics from the DHS analyzed by News Americas.
The undocumented Brazilian population also showed a steady growth between 2000 and 2006. In 2000, there were 100,000 undocumented Brazilians but the number grew to 170,000 by 2005 and 210,000 in 2006.
There was a slight fall-off to 190,000 by 2007 and 180,000 in 2008. In 2009, the total of 150,000 was the lowest recorded in the 10 year period but by 2010 it had spiked again to levels of 2008.
Still Brazil was one of few Latin American countries to register fewer undocumented migrants when compared to Mexico, the leader with representing 62 percent of the unauthorized population, as well as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. In 2010, El Salvador had an estimated 620,000 in the U.S. followed by Guatemala with 520,000 and Honduras with 330,000).
Overall, the unauthorized immigrant population living in the United States stood at 10.8 million in January 2010, unchanged from a year earlier but 8 percent below the peak of 11.8 million in January 2007. An estimated 8.6 million (80 percent) of the total 10.8 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in 2010 were from the North America region, including Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. The next leading regions of origin were Asia (1.0 million) and South America (0.8 million). Between 2000 and 2010, the greatest increase in the unauthorized population occurred among natives of the North American region (2.5 million). The greatest decline occurred among natives of Asian countries (0.2 million).
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Mar. 25, 2011: A group that provides assistance to Caribbean athletes at the Penn Relays annually is taking an innovative approach to its fundraising efforts this year.
Obama’s Americas Episode #5 – Obama Clueless In Latin America
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Mar. 25, 2011: It appears the Obama’s – Barack, Michelle and their two daughter, the mother-in-law and God knows who else in their traveling entourage, enjoyed their free time in Brazil, Chile and El Salvador.
Who cares? If you do my advice is get yourself a life.
Obama’s down time was not why we voted him President. Nor that he really, really enjoys Air Force One. We elected him to get the job done. You can add Latin America to the list of jobs he has not gotten done. The list is long and growing.
But there is good news from Michelle. We’ll save it for the end.
The President carried plenty of Empty Rhetoric on his recently completed trip. Doesn’t he always? But once you get past his and his speechwriters’ rhetoric, Obama came to Latin America empty handed.
Repeat after me Barack Obama has only one agenda to get reelected. He has decided the best way to do that is to be invisible in clear sight. It’s easy just say nothing.
The less he says the less he is a target for the Republican wannabes who crave The White House. It may be good for him to keep his plush lob but it sure isn’t Leadership. And it isn’t any good for Americans or for example Latin Americans.
Brazil and their new President Dilma Rousseff wanted to see an
American President with bold ideas and who would prove there is
a new vibrant relationship between the United States and Latin America and nowhere more so than in Latin America’s juggernaut – Brazil.
If only saying so over and over and over again would make it so. I lost count on CNN of how many times in 3 short days Obama told Latin Americans there is a new partnership of equals that embraces the United States and Latin America. Then he did absolutely nothing to prove it.
Brazil most of all is looking for a place on the international stage that can be solidified in only one way the symbolism of a seat on the Security Council of the United Nations.
Logic would have President Obama leading the campaign to have both Brazil and India made permanent members of the Security Council. At least Obama has told the Indians he “believes” they should have a seat not that he is serious about it. But in Brazil, far closer to home and where he could have even more of an impact supporting Brazilian membership, Obama said nothing except he acknowledged Brazil would like a seat. Gee. Wow.
Unfortunately for the Brazilians, supporting membership for them will upset some other countries who don’t agree which is not good for Obama personally but worse madden China that does not want India in and India can’t gather the necessary support unless a Western Hemisphere country also gets in.
Even more important to Obama is the American Right Wing which opposes anything that upset the myth that the United States controls the world stage and any hint of other countries as powerful in American eyes makes the Right Wing foam at the mouth and work even harder to unseat Obama in 2012. Too bad Brazil. You lose.
Biofuels, specifically Brazil’s world leadership in clean cheap efficient ethanol made from sugarcane rather than being a blessed when it comes to the United States is a curse for Obama because he is wedded to the American farm lobby that just LOVES wasteful corn ethanol which is making big American farmers even richer because of its required mixing with gasoline in the U.S.
Growing corn for fuel is as wasteful as anything you might conceive and if U.S. corn farmers had to compete against sugarcane ethanol they would lose. So Obama can’t let that happen and here also he arrived in Brazil empty handed with no offers to lessen the prohibitive tariffs on imported sugarcane ethanol from Brazil. Do you get the picture? It’s all about getting re-elected.
It was the same in Chile and El Salvador. Carefully chosen audiences and leaders desperate for the embrace of the U.S. President they still think is a hero in the U.S. maybe news flows slow to them? They crave Obama’s embrace even though nothing but empty words kept flowing from his mouth. It looks good in the local media. Then they trash him after he leaves for doing nothing.
Of course as U.S. Presidents always do he spent much of his time bemoaning the destructiveness of drugs and guns. But offered absolutely no new U.S. initiatives to stem the real drug problem the market for hard core drugs in the U.S. Even less to offer anything to curb the open pipeline of weapons to low lifes in Latin America bought by the truckload in the US. Where virtually anyone can buy as many of any weapon including the biggest assault weapons they like no background checks required or allowed. Then ship them south to cause mayhem in Latin America.
Likewise the other all important issue U.S. immigration reform. Obama made it clear by his silence on the issue he will do nothing to push his so called immigration reform agenda because let’s say it together it won’t help Obama’s re-election.
So what was Obama’s Latin America trip about. Sameole sameole. New Black packaging same empty box.
Latin America and the dozens of countries that comprise it will continue to grow in power, wealth and influence and embraced by the world community while the United States under Obama continues to play the same word games the U.S. always does. As U.S. influence and rapport among Latin Americans continues to decline. Wait a minute.
Here’s some “important” news about the Obama trip I can conclude with. It turns out Michelle Obama has ended her war of words with clothes designer Dian Von Furstenberg and was reported to be “dressed head to toe in the designer’s clothes” during the Obama’s stops in Brazil.
Praise the Lord! Fashion diplomacy Michelle Obama decked out in an American European’s clothes on a visit to Latin America. That should impress Latin Americans that she can’t find Latin American designers to suit her expensive clothing needs on a trip to Latin America. It’s called colonialism Michelle.
She’s as clueless as her husband. At latest they’re back home now and only visited 3 Latin America countries.
Call it damage control.
Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.