JSA MiniConvention!

Follow the link!

As President of my former high school's Junior State of America (JSA) Chapter, I put together a mini-convention where 40+ students had the opportunity to meet with the Arizona House Majority Leader, John McComish (R), and the House Minority Leader, David Lujan (D). As well as with our District Representative, Cloves Campbell, Jr., and we also met with reps from the DREAM Act Coalition.

It was a fun and exciting even!

http://arizona.jsa.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90%3Asouth-ridge-mini-con-draws-40-students&catid=42%3Arokstories

The Voice of the Unheard

I have a friend who is a complete inspiration. He is an activist for what may be today's most pressing social issue: immigration reform. Below I have posted one of his posts which he has on his blog. I encourage everyone to read it and visit his post. I will add the link on the bottom of this post.

The Post:

" “When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel, when all that is happening, the system just isn’t working, and we need to change it…” candidate Barack Obama to NCLR in 2008.The dust has settled after the President’s State of the Union Address and we are left with one question: What now? To some the mention of immigration reform, even if only in 36 words, showed a commitment by the Administration to reform our nation’s ineffective immigration system. To others, the mere 36 words devoted to immigration reform hammered the death nail on any comprehensive legislation passing this year. Either way, what now?

The day came swiftly. The vast number of individuals inside the state fair grounds waited about thirty minutes to exit because an already multitudinous crowd of white t-shirts was formed outside the complex. I could not sleep that night, the excitement was too overpowering.

Soon, the streets of Phoenix were filled with a sea of bodies that snaked around the streets heading to the Capitol, joined with thousands more across America creating the traffic that would momentarily paralyze the nation. Step by step, these protesters inched their way to Congress, stamping their feet along the staff lines of the sidewalk and the streets—hoping to sound a better key in national immigration policy. “Today We March, Tomorrow We Vote” was their slogan; all fused into one hope—that power in numbers would prove true at the polls. Fast-forward: two years later, historic Presidential election. Obama, son of an immigrant, promised to address America’s ineffective immigration policy and 67% of Hispanic voters turned out for him. What now?

“But remember this — I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I could do it alone. Democracy in a nation of 300 million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That’s just how it is.” President Barack Obama during State of the Union Address.

Immigration Reform must be the top priority of the Latino population. According to the Pew Research Center, only 31% of Latinos viewed Immigration Reform as “extremely important to deal with.” Like the general population, Economy topped the list.

Immigration Reform is not separate and apart from the Economy. Reforming our immigration system will strengthen our economy, it will yield at least $1.5 trillion in cumulative U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years and raise the wages of all American workers. But how many people know this and why is our base on fully on board?
What do we do now? We work hard. We make noise. We get messy and we tackle a complicated challenge. We unite and we move forward.

We must inform Americans across the country, and remind our President, that communities are still being terrorized; that immigrants are still dying in detention centers; that mothers are still giving birth in chains; that students are still suddenly disappearing from our classrooms.

We must keep drumming the beat for reform. The day will come, and it will come swiftly, when our President will need our full support. So we must organize and be ready. We must keep united in action AND demand.

We must work hard and we must hold our President accountable. Hold him accountable for what he once promised us: “I will be a president who stands with you, and fights for you, and walks with you every single step of the way.”
So we will stand, and we will fight, and we will walk. But I will say this, if immigration reform is not addressed this year, the Obama Administration will have to deal with a community standing up to a government that did not stand up for them, and Congress will have to face an America that worked for a better tomorrow but did not see it because of the political rancor of today.

We must move America forward, and we must do it TODAY!" -End of post

educateorganizeact.wordpress.com

Broken System

I wrote an article about the “Broken System”

enjoy,

Broken System, Broken Dreams
Wednesday 09 December 2009
By Jose Ramon Garcia, Junior State of America

Once again, the misleading phrase America prides itself on ceases to be the phrase America governs by. “We hold these truths to be self evident (…) that all men [as in all humans] are created equal.” This belief, which our Founding Fathers so passionately believed in, has yet again been manipulated, twisted, and manhandled in order for it to mean anything other than its initial connotation. The meaning was altered during the 19th century in order to exclude African Americans, during the early 20th century to exclude women, and today this belief has been warped to exclude undocumented students.

Every year 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school. Of those students only five-to-ten percent will attend a university, compared to 67 percent for American citizens. These undocumented students have lead a limited life in the United States, such as limited work opportunities and not being eligible financial aid.

There is hope amid all the confusion and fear. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, sponsored by Sen. Richard (D- Illinois) and Sen. Richard Lugar (R- Indiana) is a proposal to provide undocumented students with road to citizenship if they follow certain guidelines. However, the DREAM Act was proposed in 2001, and has been stalled ever since. According to Janet Napolitano, immigration reform still remains as top priority for President Obama. It is surprising, and quite disheartening to me that an act such as the DREAM Act has taken almost an entire decade to merely be heard by the legislature. Yet the decision to go to war, as demonstrated by the myriad of wars America has fought, only takes a few weeks.

To say that America’s immigration system is broken would be an utter understatement. Something has to be done; the DREAM Act must make progress, because until then 65,000 individuals will not be able to better their lives and that of their families. Most importantly, these 65,000 individuals will be void of the opportunity to seek higher education to better America.

JSA2

Here is a video on the Junior State of America organization which I am a part of. I am also the founder of the JSA Chapter at my high school!
We met with the controversial, Arizona Maricopa County Sherrir, Mr. Joseph Arpaio or Joe Arpaio

JSA

As some of you may know, I am apart of the Junior State of America (JSA) national youth organization. In fact, JSA is the largest student-run organization in the country! JSA events are composed of debates, though talks, and other likewise political agendas. JSA aims to spread political awareness to the youth, because everyone must be aware and active in a flourishing democracy. JSA moto: DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT.


Anyway, during JSA's Fall Convention, in Phoenix, AZ. I was the Pro speaker for the followeing resolution-
Resolved: The embargoes are an ineffective method to effective governmental change.

The resolution failed; we lost by two votes! Anyway, here is the speech I gave in the opening 6min. time slot.

Resolved: That embargoes are ineffective methods of effecting governmental change.
Pragmatic definitions for an embargo read in like manner to this: An embargo is the partial or complete prohibition of commerce and trade with a particular country in older to isolate it. Thus, the isolated country is expected to mold its political, social or economic policies in order to please the country imposing the embargo. In other words, the embargo-imposing country is using the threat of economic immobility in an attempt to affect change in another nation. Embargoes are ineffective methods for affecting governmental change for two distinct reasons. First, is the notion of an ever-connecting world, a globalized international community which will greatly be affected by any, and all, embargoes implemented; the embargo-imposing country must be willing to face off against all other countries wishing to have commerce with the embargoed nation. Secondly, an embargo forces the isolated country to comply with any rules, or face economic detriment. Essentially, an embargo is nothing less than one country oppressing another country and in such settings we must question the candor of a nation’s obedience when under coercion. Furthermore, from the Embargo of 1807 on Europe, to America’s present embargo on Cuba, a large majority of past and present embargoes failed to achieve their initial goals.
The interconnectedness of the world is undeniable, as time progresses globalization progresses with it. America has a myriad of ties with a chief majority of the nations on Earth, as do other countries. If the United States were to prohibit commerce and trade with a country like France or China, though that country will be initially hurt, there is great potential for that country to turn to other foreign economies for trade and economic growth. In an article published by The New York Times titled, “The World; Trade Embargoes: Do They Work?” Keith Bradsher, the author, notes, that today’s globalized economy, an embargo is illogical, he goes on to say that the prohibition of commerce and trade by one country is like “one bank not lending you money, in a town with 108 banks”. What theoretically makes an embargo successful is the economic harm done to the embargoed nation, and that nation will thus be forced to modify its policies. However, this can only work if the United States was the only nation importing and exporting goods and services to that country, which in today’s world is not an actuality. A large majority of developed and undeveloped nations contribute to the world economy by either exporting, importing or both; in 2003 alone America exported $767Billion out into the world and imported $1.67Trillion- this fact tells us two things, 1) no wonder the US is in an economic recession and 2) it demonstrates the extent of a country’s, in this case America’s, involvement in an world economy. And although in other times, countries have agreed to follow embargoes implemented by America, in tough economic times like today’s, a country simply cannot afford to refuse the import and export of another country, which contributes to the ineffectiveness of an embargo- since the embargoed nation will continue to take part in the world economy, minus the embargo-imposing nation.
Aside from the economics of an embargo, we must question the integrity of a country’s obedience when embargoed. If in fact a nation is greatly harmed by an embargo, it makes sense to that nation to simply “pretend” to follow the provisions of the aggressor in order to gain back economic strength. A lot of times, America, will chose to place an embargo on a nation if it is cruel or “undemocratic”. For example, the embargo placed on Beijing, China because of the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989. Though there are good intentions in such embargoes, America is only really forcing a country to appear “democratic” or humane, but truly it takes much more than economic peril to socially change a nation. Moreover, a majority of the nations which America chooses to place embargoes on, are governments lead by corrupt and tyrannous oligarchies, like China, Iran and the Middle East, and Cuba. So when that country’s economy is weakened, the only people that suffer are the people whom have suffered under tyranny all along not the leaders, which does not change a thing. Past and present dictators and tyrants like Cuba’s Castro, and Iran’s Hussein were, and are able, to protect themselves and their regimes from the consequences of an embargo, while the lower class suffers; yet another reason which contributes to the infectiveness of embargoes.
In fact, embargoes have never really worked on any level in America. When British ship Leopard fired on American ship Chesapeake in the summer of 1807, inflicting 21 casualties, at-the-time President Thomas Jefferson declared complete and total embargo from Europe and the rest of the world- no ships left and no ships came in, this is known as the Embargo Act of 1807. Though, the goal of the embargo was for Britain and other nations to respect America as a country, the Embargo Act eventually harmed the US itself more than it did the world, due to the fact that trade plummeted by 80% and prices fell 23% all around the country. Consequently, states like Maine and New York and others along the Canadian border took part in smuggling operations in a desperate struggle to end the economic depression. By August of 1808, while the nation was severely affected by the economic hardships, it became vehemently clear to officials that the embargo was a failure; needless to say the Embargo Act of 1807 was later lifted. Another example of a failed embargo would be that of the embargo on Cuba by the United States. The initial goal of the embargo, initiated in 1962, was to pressure communist leaders Fidel and Raul Castro to move towards a democratic government. 47 years later, Cuba continues to be a communist-lead country by Fidel Castro, which is a prime example of a failed embargo. So much so, that earlier this year, Sen. Richard Lugar- a Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee- released a draft report saying it is time to reconsider longtime U.S. economic sanctions on Cuba. His report says, “After 47 years…the unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of ‘bringing democracy to the Cuban people… we must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances U.S. interests”.
Though an embargo might have at one point appeared effective, in today’s fully globalized world, an embargo does not make sense and perhaps may only harm the embargo-imposing country. As our world further develops, it is time for leaders to draft new EFFECTIVE means to affect governmental change- ones which prove successful from the start as oppose to the negative, inclement beginnings and present state of unsuccessful embargoes.


Ehh, I know I could have done better, but it was pretty last minute, and I though it was good.

What are you thoughts about embargoes? Do they work?

A World Forever Changed.

The following is an elegy style poem for my AP English Lit. class, I am not so great @ poetry. However, it is in memory of Mr. Martin Luther King. Jr.

Un Mondo Cambiò Per Sempre.

April 4, 1968-

Creates, relates all of the hate.

His speeches and essays, his eyes and his mind,

His power and strength,

Oh how the world now seems blind!

Our hopes and our dreams, our progress and intellect,

Now whimper greatly- since, of them, he was a chief architect.

April 4^th, created a gloomy, weakened room,

A room bleeding sorrow, bleeding flight,

Bleeding doom!

His life was not his, it was ours,

That moment of hate did not kill him;

The bullet shot us, it terminated our powers.

Yet, he had dreams that not many of us dream,

He longed for us, to unite together

And be supreme

-together.

Black, white, red, or yellow or brown,

Stand tall, we must!

And never shall his dream drown.

Drown the way he did, in a bathtub of hate-

Never shall Earth suffer what we did, in a bathtub of hate.

Though humanity was able to recover, partially-

His life is lost, his ideas are gone,

Earth now walks with an injured gait.

Since April 4, 1968,

Creates, relates all of the hate.

Weakening U.S.D. - good or bad?

This is a video provided by one of the followers of this blog. Great video, the website is awesome as well.

What do YOU think?