Dear Friends,
As a lifetime republican it shames me that "so called" members of my party are once again spewing racist remarks. I am referring of course to this week's statement by Steven Lonegan, Mayor of Bogota NJ, and self appointed leader of the party's "Conservatives"... which criticized the McDonald's corporation choice to exercise their Constitutional right of freedom of speech to advertise to Hispanics in Spanish via a billboard in his City. He is claiming that the Billboard from McDonald's "encourages" Hispanics to not learn English and wants the corporation to eliminate them.
He once again has used the media to further regress the advances our party has made in its efforts to be more inclusive. This is the same racist that criticized Bret Shundler's campaign in Passaic County and other area's for including minorities on his ticket during the 2005 Gubernatorial Primaries in a bogus publication called the Passaic Eagle. Never in my life had I read such a piece of horrendously racist and prejudiced crap. It was anti-Latino, anti-Black, anti-Gay, anti-Semetic, anti-Asian etc...
If left to the Lonegan's in this country, respected publications like El Diario La Prensa (Spanish), Oggi (Italian), Filipino Express (Tagalog), Haaretz (Hebrew), Rzeczpospolita (Polish), would never be printed or distributed in the United States. Foriegn speaking television chains and channels would never be transmitted here.
Steven Lonegan is not a real Republican, he and his regressive types are actually just racists in Republican garb, who have joined our party because they and their ultra right wing extremists friends would never have a National sounding board if they had their own party. They have never, do not, and will ever represent the views of the mainstream Republicans in our State and Country.
If the residents of Bogota wish to allow Mr. Lonegan to continue as their leader, shame on them, but it is their prerogative. We do not have to accept the white robe and hood rhetoric he and his friends spew.
McDonald's answered Mr. Lonegan in an unapologetic press release refusing to remove its billboard or retool its advertising campaign aimed at minorities in their native tongue. They should be applauded.
Personally I am not a fan of McDonald's or their food, but suddenly I have a hankering for a BigMac and I am going over there and saying... Un BigMac porfavor... con papitas... (one BigMac please... with fries)
Jose "Alex" Ybarra
3 comments:
Alex is correct. Steve Lonegan is a racist and a hypocrite. Private industry has a right to advertise their products and services in whatever language they want to. Government on the other hand, should not.
He shields himself of criticisms from good folks with his so-called ultra conservative mantra but he undermines the very conservatism that he pretends to uphold because he’d rather loose than build up a consensus of like minded individuals. I never met such a dumb F%@#.
After all he said and did on the 2005 GOP Gubernatorial campaign trail, he had the nerve to show up at the unity breakfast the very next morning after the election with all the other 7 (Goooob) candidates holding hands and exchanging smiles with Forrester and Schundler like they were bosom buddies all along.
Make no mistake Steve Lonegan is a dictator and where I come from; we've developed an extremely low tolerance for self aggrandizing a-holes like that.
xCUBA
“An American of Cuban Descent”
Gentlemen, your points are well taken. But Lonegan is only more than delighted to create turmoil within the Republican Party.
Anyway, as my post suggests, he has made an error in this case because his actions seem to support government intervention in private enterprise rather than free markets.
I don't expect Republicans at large to react too kindly to that.
One more thing, Lonegan's actions fly in the face of Libertarian thinking - I advise you to have a look at the Spanish website run by my friend Pablo Kleinman which offers a great deal of content from a Libertarian perspective.
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