MEChA Hair-Splitting
Apparently, a new meme is circulating among MEChA apologists, to the effect that conservatives shouldn’t be upset about the phrase “por la raza todo, fuera de la raza nada” because it is a “slogan,” not their motto. Say what? Am I missing something really deep, or are the Bustamante boosters trying to outdo Bill Clinton’s infamous “meaning of is” nonsense? Is there any meaningful difference between a “slogan” and a “motto,” which somehow makes the former more benign than the latter? If not, why are the Cruz Boosters so keen on this supposed distinction?
At the same time, I have also heard some Cruz supporters argue that the infamous slogan/motto/whatever is a relic of the past, that got used a little way back in the 1970s, and has long since been abandoned. Don’t believe them. Their “for the race everything” motto/slogan/whatever is widely quoted by MEChA chapters around the country, on web sites that didn’t even exist in the 1970s, when the Internet itself only barely did. Interestingly, though, you will only find a handful of the above links using a Google search, as many of them contain a mass-produced typo, causing them instead to read “for la raza to do …” rather than “por la raza todo.” I’m more inclined to chalk this up to mass incompetence and/or idiocy than some nefarious plan to slip under Ted Barlow’s low-tech radar.
