Pendejos Si Pueden is a tribute to public figures that do big things not because of their skill or persistence, but because of their willingness to undermine the community they claim to represent. In this episode of our podcast, Misfit Los Angeles we honor el pendejo de Jorge Ramos.
Jorge Ramos is a Pendejo
Whether it be in communist Cuba, Bolivarian Venezuela, Indigenous empowerment or the Social democracy spreading throughout South America and Mexico, Univision reporter Jorge Ramos is known for prefacing his questions to Latin American heads of state with hard right propaganda and red baiting. Ramos is a Chilango born Ladino who immigrated to the US as a young boy. He is the son of an Architect and corporate America’s favorite Mexican news teller, effectively the successor of the conservative political propaganda of Jacobo Zabludovsky. And, the highest paid “journalist” in the world.
Ramos’ seems obsessed with trying to discredit a wave of progressive populism spreading throughout Latin America. Ramos’ is on a mission to get Latin American heads of state to denounce one another in an effort to discredit the growing populism that seeks to alleviate 500 plus years of oppression. For right wing Presidents of Latin America former Mexican Presidents Fox, Pena Nieto and others, it is easy to pounce on their colleagues. But for others who refuse to fall for the bait, Ramos berates them disguised as a journalist.
In interviewing the man known as “the world’s humblest head of state” Ramos out of nowhere insists President José Mujica of Uruguay denounce what he calls failed socialism and dictatorship in Venezuela and Cuba with no mention of positive gains there nor does Ramos mention the absurd poverty in virtually every other Latin American nation. With Bolivian President Eva Morales, Ramos insinuates Morales removed US military base from Bolivia on behalf of drug traffickers, never mentioning Morales does so on behalf of peace and autonomy, as is his right. Ramos told Venezuelan President Maduro in person Maduro the illegitimate President because a first term deputy member of the Venezuelan National Assembly Juan Gaido declared himself Interim President and swore himself in admitting later it was at the behest of US Vice President Pence.
Ramos is not above fake news and manipulation to push his right wing agenda. Recently, Ramos claims to have miraculously encountered two anti-Maduro Venezuelan homeless men digging for food in a garbage truck while denouncing the Venezuelan President. Even if Ramos’s footage were legitimate news, which is questionable, that is not cause for a coup, as Ramos and US President Trump both support. If so, is Trump responsible for 500,000+ homeless in America? Is Obama? Bush? Clinton? If so, should we all promote a coup? That’s not my logic, it is Ramos’. But Ramos doesn’t go that far. Ramos only exposes poverty on behalf of the right, seemingly admitting so to a reporter. That is the problem with Ramos. He is a propagandist disguised as a journalist.
In Mexico, newly elected Mexican President Manuel Lopez Obrador or AMLO, as he is called, began his progressive reforms and Ramos could not help but to go to AMLO’s daily press briefings to try to discredit AMLO. According to Ramos, just a few months is plenty of time for the leftist President to reduce murder in Mexico caused by decades of drug cartel warfare and government complicity. Ramos reports to AMLO that, contrary to all reports, he has proof murder is on the rise. But AMLO refuses to take the bait and walks Ramos on stage, and off stage with his tail between his legs as AMLO put on a huge screen a gigantic graph showing murder has gone down, albeit not as much as anyone would like. When AMLO questions Ramos on where he got his inflated murder stats, Ramos refuses to cite his data simply saying it was given to him. He is a joke.
Ramos’s recent target is our own nation’s Bernie Sanders. In a recent televised Presidential “bilingual” debate with ABC and Univision guess who asked the first spanish question and guess to whom? Yup, Bernie Sanders the self declared Democratic Socialist. Luckily Bernie Sanders refused to take the bait. In a shameless unveiling of his own journalist credentials, Ramos prefaced his question to Sanders by first denouncing Sanders for not calling Venezuela a dictatorship then red baiting Sanders by asking Senator Sanders how his “socialism” compared to the “failed policies” of Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba. Clearly Bernie has benefited from his press training and ignored the Ramos rant and gave a powerful denunciation of poverty, wealth inequality and the unbearable student debt and health care crisis in American. But the damage had been done.
Ramos effectively introduced the 2019 Bernie Sanders campaign to America’s Spanish speakers as a communist tool. Even though Sanders had a great answer, his campaign should have publicly denounce Ramos for the inflammatory frame of the question. It was a perfect opportunity to denounce the extreme poverty of each and every single Latin American and Caribbean nation. Surely, the American spanish speaking audience would have agreed. In fact, here is a sample tweet Bernie: “@pendejoramos If poverty and hunger in Cuba and Venezuela is proof of failed socialism, is extreme poverty in Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, and even the US proof of failed capitalism?’
I know some Sanders advisors understood the damage Ramos did introducing him as a communist. Imagine the ramifications of presenting Sanders as a communist devil to refugees of the Latin American cold wars? Keep in mind, these are refugee workers living in America in poverty, living week to week at physically demanding jobs that will eventually break down their bodies, their spirits and in the end leave them with virtually no wealth whatsoever, and for many no social safety net they qualify for.
It is not that Spanish speaking immigrant voters in American are particularly anti communist, but it is the case that far too many of them are basically refugees still traumatized by the murder of loved ones, and mass tortured or kidnapped in the civil wars of their home countries that brought so much violence and repression to their door and hunger on their dinner tables.
To be fair to the Sanders campaign, none of the Democratic Presidential candidates have credible leadership in the Latino community that could stand up to Ramos because it doesn’t exist. Instead we have a ton of talking heads and pundits limiting the political discussion with spanish speakers to immigration reform. In particular, the Democratic establishments view that Latinos have no choice but to unite with the only party that defends the attacks on immigrants.
But immigration does not speak to the economic problems in the Latino community, nor do Democratic policies regarding the undocumented and their disenfranchisement. Immigration is a political crisis resulting from the criminalization of civil immigration policy. In my opinion, the immigration issue is a genius and evil detour to avoid a fight for political, social, and economic power from a system of savage economic exploitation of America’s boy — the immigrant family. Sure Ramos sheds journalistic tears along with others in covering the international crimes against immigrants in the US, but he never reports on the core issues facing the Latino community such as poverty, neglect, and exploitation. Ramos does not challenge the corporate powers that exploit Latinos, instead he works on their behalf. Ramos red baits progressive ideas and leaders and hypocritically blames progressive politics for poverty while giving capitalist nations a pass on their immense poverty, including America.
But the most important lesson here is not Ramos. It is us. Ramos is only possible because the Latino community lacks a true voice that speaks to the working immigrants. To go even further, Latinos do not have a voice that fearlessly critiques the status quo, lights a path towards justice, galvanizes our power, and unites us in a fight for true justice and equality. That is why we cannot accept that the only major piece of legislation being proposed “for Latinos” is to allow certain numbers of undocumented to stay in the country. It obsolves the establishment of having to deal with the englect of services like health care and education in our communities, the corporate power that legally and illegally exploits our labor, the failure of government to address the massive wealth inequality and poverty in our communitie. While a worthy and necessary fight, the fight for immigration reform is a political football that the Republicans and the Democrats value more in play, than resolved.
What we need is working class heroes in the Latino community. But finding working class leadership has proven to be a difficult task with people like Zabludovsky and Ramos attacking and attempting to discredit real policies for reform, regardless of your opinion of those movements. Instead we are buried in fake news, and propaganda in between titty fest game shows, bourgeois telenovelas and all the music and soccer you can handle. This while you watch ads for alcohol and fast food that will kill you, cars you can’t afford, and household and consumer products that eat up your paycheck while filling a temporary void in your emptiness. Genius. Maybe, no son tan pendejos after all.
-Javier Gonzalez
