After spending a day to recover and to take care of other things going on in my life, Three Sonorans has made a difficult decision.

Rodney Glassman came by the Parraz HQ today to ask for their support and to help reach out to the Latino community.

I have decided to endorse Glassman. This should be a huge endorsement considering all my articles on him.

The choice was simple actually. I used to work in the cotton fields in Marana as a teenager, and so did my father and my grandparents. My grandmother was born at the turn of the century in Yuma, Arizona, home to other farmworkers such as Cesar Chavez.

I also met some other farmworkers who had family that worked in the Glassman-Britz family operations, owners of such quality fresh produce from the SunWest Fruit Company and other operations.

My immediate thought was “if you want to help out the Latino community, how about you take the millions of dollars you have made from a migrant labor force, some of which you have sprayed with pesticides (which is why Cesar Chavez conducted his fast for 36 days for farmworkers being sprayed by the Fresno grape farmers), and increase their pay and enhance their working conditions.

That was my activist passionate side speaking. Then I thought about it differently and came to my senses.

What would Grijalva do?

Three Sonorans found himself in the same situation Grijalva was in recently.

I have come to realize how much power he has. When he calls for a boycott of Arizona to show his street cred, we all jump aboard to support him. But then once he finds it to be politically unpopular, he can bail on the boycott leaving his supporters bewildered by his flip-flop.

That’s how he rolls.

Grijalva has shown how complex he is in this election year. Consider the following exchange that took place in 2002 that was written about by the Tucson Weekly.

Rodney Glassman insists he “is a farmer from Fresno.”

“My base of support and the people around me know I’m not going to sell them out,” Grijalva said. “Money is important. Rodney is a nice kid, he sings the national anthem at the hockey games and all that, but his interests and his family’s interest are the growers’ interests. My interests are the farmworkers’ interests. That is not going to change.”

Rodney Glassman’s response: “You can’t have farmworkers without farms and growers.”

That led Grijalva to turn off the happy talk.

“Rodney would not be a help, but a liability to my campaign,” Grijalva said last week before heading to Yuma and San Luis, where Chavez was born 75 years ago and where he died on April 23, 1993.

In the race for cash and votes in a crowded field, Grijalva admitted he is calling anyone — including enemies and those he slapped with a rejected rezoning, county contract, or county position — for campaign money.

“I call who is on the lists I get,” Grijalva said. He said he will not get contributions from the Glassman-Britz operations, which include related agriculture businesses like fertilizer.

“They support the Republican version of the farm bill,” Grijalva said. “I support the Democratic, the Senate, version. Subsidies should not go to the big guys. They should go to the little farmers, the guys with 40 acres.”

via Breaking Bread – Tucson Weekly.

And after a few contributions from the Glassman-Britz family, Grijalva went from “that is not going to change” and Rodney being “a liability to my campaign” to endorsing the farmer over the farmworker organizer (Randy Parraz, who was also the only Latino democratic US Senate candidate in the entire nation).

I figured if someone with as much Latino support and street cred as Grijalva can support the farmer who sprayed farmworkers with pesticides, then so could I.

And screw that darn Arizona boycott. Show me the money!

Why I am endorsing Rodney Glassman

I think the Tucson Democratic Party is too Poor and too Progressive.

I think what we need is an infusion of rich Republicans who have money the Democrats do not, then simply have them switch parties to have a “D” in front of their name, and then we get to benefit from their millions of dollars and conservative values. Heaven knows the Democrats have a lot to learn about family values.

Like that one time Rodney was speaking to young Hispanics on the south-side and said publicly why are you all teenage and pregnant? What gives Latinos, don’t you know reproductive rights only extend to those who have more money later on in life? With all those brown babies you will only cause more racial tension.

Then again, with more brown babies there will be more workers for Glassman’s farms!

You see, what we need is people like Giffords who last ad featured a Republican talking about Giffords’ toughness on border issues, whatever that means.

Then Glassman went on KPHO in Phoenix and said that Grijalva was misguided on the boycott and that Glassman knows better. This strategy was so popular that Giffords adopted it in her latest ad campaign chastising Grijalva for his boycott.

This is exactly why rich former Republicans-turned-Democrats are needed in Tucson, to keep our truly progressive and liberal Democrats like Grijalva in check. What would Grijalva know since he probably has family who has worked in the fields, maybe he did also, and thus he is forever biased on the side of laborers.

Grijalva actually should have listened to Rodney who was right all along. You know how some pro-corporation people talk about how sweatshops are actually welcomed in the third world since they actually have it better now than before they showed up, and how all these liberal bleeding heart workers-rights folks are actually hurting the poor? Well it’s the same with farms.

In the quote above Glassman responds “You can’t have farmworkers without farmers and growers.”

This caused Grijalva to change his mood because Glassman was right!

We’ll ignore for now how our agriculture subsidies and NAFTA have destroyed the farming industry in Mexico, causing many self-sufficient farmers to now become immigrants to work for the other American farmers, but what the Glassman-Britz operations does is benefiting these Mexican farmers. You see, now that our policies have destroyed Mexican farming, Glassman’s agribusiness is the benevolent boss now, giving jobs, albeit at poverty rates and hazardous working conditions, to the Mexicans who NEED Americans to survive. Duh!

While Cesar Chavez and his UFW fought against the Fresno grape farmers and he boycotted them and even fasted against them, that is so yester-year! But Grijalva is learning and evolving from boycotting the farmers to endorsing them.

Why fight them when you can join them!

Dolores Huerta already figured this out. You see, the UFW of the past was too radical, too “pro-justice” and “workers-rights.” Now there is a huge AgJOBS bill going through Congress right now that is being co-sponsored by the UFW and California growers, including the Glassman-Britz’s own SunWest. Yummy!

AgJOBS represents the coming together of historic adversaries in a rare opportunity to achieve reforms supportive of these goals, as well as our nation’s agricultural productivity and food security.

Remember when Glassman kept talking about immigrants “paying a fine and going to the back of the line” and Jim Nintzel of the Tucson Weekly kept asking him what he meant? What Rodney was talking about was the AgJobs legislation that his family is working on.

In a nutshell, the farmers get a supply of Mexicans or other Latin-Americans to exploit while they make their millions, and in exchange the immigrants get to earn a “blue card,” which is sort of a pre-cursor to the “green card.”

And as long as these “wetbacks” (as Rodney Glassman refers them) keep whistling why they work and obey their masta then the Glassman-Britz family will make it to the billionaire club with government agriculture subsidies, the same ones that Shirley Sherrod was fighting to get for black farmers who are still being discriminated against.

Then if Rodney Glassman deams these “illegals” (another term Glassman uses to refer to them) worthy, he can help them become Americans, or at least to stay here legally so they can keep making him lots of money.

This is not a bad bill for immigrants, and Grijalva himself is a co-sponsor of HR 2414.

The immigration measure announced last week includes an “Ag Jobs” bill that has languished in Congress for a few years but which Mr. Schumer, D-N.Y., and other supporters are counting on to secure votes from farm states.

In addition to protecting people already working on farms, the bill provides a new program to bring temporary farm workers into the country and expands dairy farmers’ ability to hire immigrant workers to year-round positions on a temporary basis. Under current law, dairy farms do not qualify for a federal guest worker program, although Hispanic immigrants have become a big part of the work force on dairy farms in Northern New York and other areas. The measure would apply the H-2A guest worker program to dairy and sheep farms for the first time.

To gain legal status, undocumented workers would have to work in the United States for at least a year and pay a $400 fine, as well as show payment of federal income taxes.

Mr. Schumer, chairman of a Senate immigration subcommittee, has emerged as a player in the immigration reform debate in recent months, working with Republicans including Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina. A spokesman for the Northeast Council of Dairy Farmer Cooperatives, Robert Gray, said Mr. Schumer has sided consistently with dairy farmers on immigration, supporting the Ag Jobs bill introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

So combine this joint UFW and SunWest venture, and hire Dolores Huerta’s cousin on your campaign team, and you have the perfect recipe for a Dolores Huerta and UFW endorsement for Rodney Britz Glassman!

Beautiful isn’t it?

We will ignore for now that Dolores did not vote for Rodney Glassman on election day, and that there are no organized farmworkers in Arizona.

And this is how you can treat your migrant worker force like crap and use dehumanizing terms to refer to them and still get the endorsement of the ones who are supposed to protect them.

Glassman is an expert at this. He was able to get some GLBT endorsements while supporting Proposition 8 since he also does not support same-sex MARRIAGE (“the definition of marriage belongs to religion” – Rodney Glassman). Maybe this was how he was able to get the Planned Parenthood endorsement — by chastising teenage mothers for getting pregnant.

One thing is sure and that is that Rodney Glassman is classy. He knows exactly how to get a job done.

The trick? Get your rich papa to take care of it for you.

Like if you are the only Jew in an all-Mormon Boy Scout troop (I have video of Rodney bragging about this), the way you get to be an Eagle Scout at age 13 is to have your rich father on the board of the anti-gay BSoA.

The way you get to move to Tucson at age 19 to manage an ice rink? Get your father to pay for it.

The way you get a brand new luxury car at age 14? Get your father to buy you one.

Too young to drive it? Get your father to hire a personal chauffeur for you.

Almost killed someone who required the Jaws of Life to be removed from their vehicle because of your reckless driving? Get your father to pay a nice settlement with the person who was severely injured.

How to get through school and get all those degrees without having to teach? Get your father to pay for it.

And how do you donate $500,000 of your own money, when the only business you ever ran failed and you tried to get the City of Tucson to bail you out for your horrible business management skills? Get the money from papa.

And this is what the Arizona Capitol Times wrote about this last week. Apparently there are some interesting FEC violations since the money came not from Rodney, but once again from his father who controls the purse strings.

Rodney’s father also determines which office he will run for, and which ones he will fund. It’s a fascinating article, one you should all read.

We’ll forget for now that the Glassman-Britz family is heavily Republican and that they donated to John McCain’s presidential election in 2008, including other contributions to great GOP leaders such as Pete Wilson, Bob Dole, Larry Craig, and of course the Governator.

Who cares that a Fresno Republican millionaire is deciding who runs for US Senate in Arizona and how much they money they will get? We have already proven that in Tucson we are like dogs begging for table scraps. That’s why in the Tucson Weekly article above Grijalva admits to getting money from even his enemies. It’s amazing what a politician will do for dirty money. Or maybe it’s okay since that money came from the sweat and tears of migrant laborers on the Glassman farms.

Nevermind, it’s not ok.

I support Glassman because I really love a candidate who can’t answer questions.

I love that Rodney is not independent and has to do what his rich papa tells him to do. That’s exactly what I’m looking for in a US Senator!

I love that he was reaching out to the TEA Party in the primary. That’s awesome, especially since he did it the same week the NAACP was denouncing them for racism. Classy.

I love that he doesn’t march with the reasonably suspicious in the hot sun. Hey, if he distances himself from the reasonably suspicious in his fields, some of who may be undocumented, why would he join us in Arizona? He’s not getting paid for our marching labor anyways.

But the reason I love Glassman is because he could take a true Chicano veterano, one who says on the record that he will not side with the farmers since

“My base of support and the people around me know I’m not going to sell them out,” Grijalva said. “Money is important. Rodney is a nice kid, he sings the national anthem at the hockey games and all that, but his interests and his family’s interest are the growers’ interests. My interests are the farmworkers’ interests. That is not going to change.”

And even though Glassman continues to make six-figures in agricultural subsidies, more in income for doing nothing than Grijalva makes as a Congressman, thus proof that these subsidies are going to the big guys, somehow Glassman was smart enough to convert Grijalva to his side. That’s because Glassman has a Ph.D. and is smarter than Grijalva.

If Grijalva could make the switch, then so can Three Sonorans!

It is not hard to convert people to your side when you are rich though. Would Glassman have all these supporters were it not for his rich father and the money he sometimes lets Rodney spend? Three Sonorans is ready to abandon his principles and work for Rodney. Just leave the bag of money behind the dumpster of the Parraz HQ.

Unmarked bills are preferred.

I always thought the Tucson Democratic Party should be run by rich Republicans who change their party affiliation, and that money from a rich Fresno family should be the carrot that the party of the ass follows because of their hunger for cash. I’m poor, progressive, and hungry. Check please!

Where there is a bill, there is a way.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 9:48 pm and is filed under Election 2010, Headline news, political news. Tags for this post: arizona news, cathy eden, clean elections, cnn, epic failure, fail, feathered bastard, Headline news, john dougherty, john king, john mccain, national news, nogales news, npr, phoenix new times, phoenix news, political junkie, political news, polls, progressive news, randy parraz, rodney glassman, staff departures, talk of the nation, tucson news, US senate news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.