I first published this blog, in slightly edited form, back in October of 2008, when we were in the midst of a financial meltdown the likes of which no one had ever seen, much less understood. Today we are still recovering from that meltdown, trying to figure out what happened, and on the eve of another election. I'm publishing this again because many otherwise sane, intelligent, good and moral people that I call friends are so fed up with everything and everyone- that they are actually considering voting for this "darkhorse" candidate Gary Johnson.
Yes, THAT Gary Johnson. Former Republican Governor of New Mexico, who got voted into office in 1994 essentially because he was an unknown "darkhorse" candidate with no political ties or experience whatsoever, and people were fed up with the corruption of the old New Mexico power-families who essentially run everything. He is now the Libertarian candidate for President, a title that slightly more honest but still depends on people having memories as short as his apparently is. This blog is merely a prologue to another, more up-to-date one that I'm still working on, but a necessary and hopefully entertaining introduction to why YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY VOTE FOR THIS MAN.
When this here Bush (II) administration started carpet-bombing the American public with scandal after scandal as soon as they took office in 2001, I was just as stunned into "shock and awe" as the next person. There was so much scandal coming at us fast and furious, you'd have to be a 5th-degree black belt ninja in scandal to deflect it, much less react to it in a rational way. So I, like many stunned and disgusted Democrats or anyone to the left of Jerry Falwell, thought ok, these assclowns will just fuck themselves right out of a job in a hurry and if they're not impeached by 2003, I'll be a monkey's uncle- but in any case, by 2004 we can all come back to our senses and elect a REAL President.
Then September 11th, 2001 happened- and again, I saw the guilty look on W's face as he mounted that pile of rubble with the firefighters, and thought everybody else saw it too, because gods almighty, you don't need conspiracy theories to know that that happened ON THEIR WATCH. So I still thought, and rightly so, that Moron Jr. and his gang of thugs were on their way out for mishandling everything so badly.
I didn't fully realize what they were up to until 2003, when Chimpy stood on that aircraft carrier's ramp in a flight suit and declared "Mission Accomplished" while people were dying and Osama bin Laden was scampering off to Pakistan or something. And then I got it again when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. And then again... oh hell, I don't have time to list them all here- but it came to me all of a sudden:
This is exactly what the New Mexico Governors did for something like 5 centuries, right up until Bill Richardson (and I'm still not sure he's clean).
Whether they were appointed by the King of Spain by Royal Decree, or by the Emperor Maximillian by ultra-royal (and yet, illegitimate) decree, or by the many self-appointed Generales or Presidentes who followed, OR (in case you think I'm being racist) by the U.S. Presidents who had to appoint Territorial Governors for the newly annexed Territory of New Mexico from, when class? when? That's right, from the time the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed in 1849 until New Mexico became a state in 1912. And then, after that as well. Their common denominator was that they were all corrupt to the core. Their only aim in "governance," if you could call it that, was to
steal as much as they possibly could to benefit themselves and their friends/family and then to escape with their lives, if possible.
It all started after the generation of the conquistadors, when New Spain decided that the Northern Territories (as they were called) weren't really all that, and rather than throw good money and people after bad, they'd concentrate on California which was like a Garden of Eden and much more likely to make them filthy rich.
This is hard to believe today, with real estate prices equaling or exceeding that of Manhattan, but Santa Fe was considered a backwater, and "a little hell-hole" as my New Mexico history professor put it. The northern-most territory of New Spain quickly became its Siberia. It's where bad bureaucrats were sent to die, or to do less harm than they could in the magnificent cities of Guadalajara and Mexico City. So as you might imagine, these bureaucrats who were not the cream of the crop in the first place. In fact they were criminals, but they came from high-ranking families so they couldn't be thrown in jail. These ne'er-do-well sons of rich and powerful people (ringing any bells class? Anyone? Buehler?) in their new posts in Santa Fe proceeded to whine, and bitch, and moan about their poor sad sorry lots in life like nobody's bidness.
Meanwhile, they had the natives enslaved, growing immense orchards of fruit and wine-grapes for them, harvesting all the food, basically doing all the work- and with nothing else to do, they wrote letter after letter to the King's Chancellors, Ex-Chequer of Mexico, Cortez- whoever they thought might listen- telling them what a little hell-hole Santa Fe was and how desperately they needed supplies, money, guns, strong young men, etc. because the natives were "uncooperative" and they were all "starving", blah blah blah. None of it was true. We archaeologists who know the REAL story from the undeniable material record, get into fits of hysterics, reading those letters, because those dudes were rollin' in it! Because why? Class? What was their goal? That's right,
steal as much as they possibly can to benefit themselves and their friends/family and then escape with their lives, if possible.
In fact, this is a point I love to beat my colleagues over the head with whenever we get into it about the arbitrary difference between what we call "history" in America, and "prehistory." They insist that real history started when the "written record" was introduced to this continent. So, people with writing (aka, Europeans, aka, White People) have real history, and people who weren't that "advanced" don't have anything of worth to even talk about so shut up already. I take sadistic pleasure in pointing out repeatedly how racist and arbitrary and hence, skewed and inaccurate that definition is, and this is one of my favorite examples of WHY. Because PEOPLE LIE. In verbiage, in writing, in their thoughts, ALL THE DAMN TIME. Lying was invented way before writing was, anywhere, and every culture does it. Get this in your heads, class. Now. It WILL be on the test!!
Still think I'm being kinda racist, by implying that all Hispano-americans are inherently corrupt or something? Well, even though my archaeologist friend Angelica, who is from Juchipila, Zacatecas (you can't get much more Mexican than that) told me very matter-of-factly that "el corrupcion es la sciencia de los espanoles" (Corruption is the science of the Spanish)- I'm here to tell you, it got much, much worse after the United States took hold of Nuevo Mexico and started the sendin' the white guys in. HOOO boy, howdy, that's when things really went downhill. The first white Territorial Governors were basically the former "Indian Fighters" like Kit Carson who deserved some kind of reward for herding thousands of Navajos from the Northwest corner of New Mexico to the Southeast corner, and then deciding that was a really bad idea and herding them back, into Arizona. Along the way, a lot of them died. But Carson and his cronies like George Bent were masters of the Santa Fe Trail and all its commerce- they were like big gang bosses essentially, except they would do the bidding of the U.S. Army when it suited them. They made lousy governors. And since there was already this long, upstanding tradition of corruption in Santa Fe and locals seemed to like their traditions- I mean, why buck it? So their stated and unstated goals became, what class? What was that? Can we say it all together?
steal as much as they possibly could to benefit themselves and their friends/family and then to escape with their lives, if possible.
Long story short, after Carson and Bent, the litany of Territorial Governors reads like a dirty laundry list from a rogue's gallery full of crime and intrigue. The Wikipedia list isn't near complete.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governors_of_New_Mexico_Territory
Whoever posted this was probably too embarrassed to tell the real story. As you'll notice, the average tenure was like 6 months. If it says "died in office," that means they were killed. So many white guys were offed in the first year by angry mobs, the various U.S. Presidents in charge of filling that post were in the same position as the Mexican Presidentes, various kings, etc. They were scrapin' the bottom of the barrel.
here's another pretty map of Territorial New Mexico, and Utah.
But here's why this story gives me hope. Put' near ALL of the Territorial Governors, thieving, murderous dogs that they were, were run out of town on a rail or sometimes strung up right in that picturesque Santa Fe Plaza you hippies love to hang out in. Thank God. My friend Beth's great-great-grandfather, Samuel Beach Axtell, was one who managed to escape with his life and tell the tale. The U.S. gov't brought him in from Utah Territory thinking he'd be immune to the corruption, as an outsider, which was mostly true, but even he couldn't keep his hands out of the cookie jar and he fled for his life in the middle of the night on a fast horse before the angry mob, pitchforks, torches and all, came for him. I imagine he headed straight East to Texas, and relative civilization.
"Axtell exhibited good administrative and legislative qualities while Governor of Utah and Representative from California, respectively, but his tenure as Governor of New Mexico would be so inept, a federal agent named Frank Angel would later describe Governor Axtell's administration as having more "corruption, fraud, mismanagement, plots and murder" than any other Governor in the history of the United States. This contributed to the lawlessness that prevailed in much of the territory, and Axtell's inability to understand or combat that problem. He often exhibited dictatorial practices, and when something was wrong, he would blame someone else." (Wikipedia)
Sound familiar?
Here's the hopeful part. It wasn't political rivals who came for them, by and large, it was the people. People had the power then, exploited and enslaved and oppressed as they were- people damn sure have the power now. Not that I am in any way advocating violence.
I guess the difference with today's gang is that incompetents were purposefully chosen, (Mike "heckuva job" Brown, college roommate of one of Bush's pals) and told to screw things up as much as possible, so that people get the impression that government never works and we should get rid of it/privatize everything.
Mark my words, that is the end goal. They are now trying to pull off the greatest heist in human history. Not just what's in the Treasury now, but what might be in the Treasury for a few generations to come. Make no mistake, this is a stick-up. This time, the Shock and Awe is coming from Wall Street, the Weapons of Mass Destruction are the credit banks and the mortgage banks, threatening to implode and take us all down with them if we don't do what they say.
Send money, guns, and young men, and quickly! The natives are at my door! (yes, they're bringing you your apricot wine, like you asked, Senor....)
Same thing.
It's another big, fat, whopping lie.
yawn.
Don't fall for it.
On a side note, this monkey business didn't end with Statehood for New Mexico. Ohhhh no. Because what is their stated goal, class? One more time? oh yeah-
steal as much as they possibly could to benefit themselves and their friends/family and then to escape with their lives, if possible. And it continues to this day, down to the smallest State bureaucrat in that 3rd world country to the South of me (even the secretary of graduate studies at UNM who held my NSF Fellowship-winning roommate's new computer hostage for months, trying to figure out a way she could profit from it)- but my favorite stories are from the "governor" who presided when I lived there, and that's "gov'nr" Gary Johnson.
He was so incredibly bad and inept, NPR did a TWO-HOUR long special on his amazing badness. The theme was, the same backdrop I've set for you, that he even out-badded the Territorial Governors, and the lying ne'er-do-well hidalgos from the Colonial days. In 1994 he ran on a platform of "reform", and smaller government. He had no political experience, just ran a huge commercial construction company that his father-in-law handed him. You guessed it, he was actually a Libertarian in Republican clothing. Within a month of taking office, he had done two things that crack me up to this day:
First thing, he dissolved a whole helluva lotta state agencies because he found them "unnecessary," e.g. they provided essential regulatory services that "got in the way of business." This included the Livestock Inspection stations which are positioned at points of entry on all four sides of New Mexico (*as well as most of the rest of the State agriculture Department). He said, "New Mexico beef is the finest in the world! Everyone should trust us and take our word for it!" The next day, all those livestock inspection people who had voted for him lost their jobs. And the guy who was the head of the USDA at the time, the agency that requires all states to have these livestock inspection stations, was like, "Uhhhmmmm, okay, you can do that I guess, but we're going to have to treat you like a foreign country now. And you will have to pass much stricter regulations and standards, because you are behaving like a foreign country, with exotic foodstuffs."
Gov'r Johnson quickly and quietly reversed course and stationed like one guy, whom he probably found at "Rent-A-Livestock-Inspector" for $5 an hour, at each port-of-entry.
The next thing was even better- he also ran on a platform of getting the Indian gaming under control because white people were getting totally pissed off that the goddamn 'Ndns were finally getting some money, and power, and fighting for their rights. So the next thing he did in office was try and shut down all the Indian casinos except for a few roulette wheels or something. He started with the Pueblo of Pojoaque, which is close to Santa Fe and had just opened a spankin' brand new casino and had plans for even more. The highway that runs from Santa Fe to Espanola (and on up to Bandelier, Los Alamos, Chimayo- all that tourist stuff) runs right through Pojoaque land, and several other pueblos for that matter. The Pojoaque Tribal Council had been expecting some shenanigans like this and they were ready. They said, okay white boy, you could do that but uh, you realize that we are a sovereign nation and your State highway runs through our land at our discretion? So we'll just have to shut down that highway and turn it into a toll road to make up for the lost revenue.
We'll be nice - we'll only charge oh, maybe 8, 10 dollars a car.
Gov'nr Johnson quickly and quietly reversed course and promised never to bother them again, if they let him live. They did. And yet, somehow, he was re-elected.
Let's not make that mistake again.
