Editorial: Do WE Really Know Roland Garza? "Please Return My $100!"

Editorial: “DO YOU REALLY, REALLY KNOW R-O-L-A-N-D G-A-R-Z-A?”
“ROLAND GARZA, Refund My $100 For The Plate I Bought To Help You!”
Nueces County, TX – Roland Garza, who has become a shady public figure, due to the fact that he has a show on KTMV (sponsored mostly by key Republicans) is now the talk at most political circles. A function was held at his request to help him pay for his “medical bills” – plates were sold at $100 each. Due to the humanitarian slant he spiced up his “fast talking” request even the Police Officers Association became involved. Roland Garza – as unpredictable as ever – cancels the function at the last minute. “But where is the money that was raised?” – this is the question being asked.
An angry and disappointed Nueces County employee called this publication (El Defenzor) and specified that he bought a plate to “help Roland out” but since the function was cancelled he wanted his “$100” return – pronto. He said he saw Roland Garza in his brand new vehicle, a lime green Camero, and tried to follow him but could not keep up with the animated swiftness.
The employee added: “This incident has made me ask: ‘Do I really, really know Roland Garza? Upset as I was, I get up the next morning and turned on the radio and as I am turning the knob at random I hear his (Roland’s voice) on the Jim Lago Radio Show. As slyly bouncy as ever Roland is praising County Commissioner Mike Pusley for his job and slamming Democrats for questioning the ‘Redistricting issue – that many of the general masses feels dilutes the Mexican American voice and that of other minorities… Be that as it may, I began chanting in my car as I listened to the show, ‘Roland where is my money? BUT I realized at that moment that something much more is involved here – words like ‘tappy’, ‘misleading’, ‘artful’ came to mind… Yet I had a bias, I want my money back.”
Who is this shady public figure? A Civil Rights Leader? Union Leader?
Of course not! Joe Ortiz, a civil rights coordinator for over a decade and a half for the American GI Forum and LULAC, said Roland Garza is not a member of any of the regional organizations. “He is out on his own doing his own thing. The agenda from a credible civil rights organization he does not carry… He makes up his own.. The title is one he imposed on himself, making a mockery of the organizations – yet he is cunning enough many believe he is legitimately tied into a respectable organization.”
Civil Rights Coordinator Ortiz is disenchanted in that initially he had great expectations for Roland Garza when he first met him – taking him on as an assistant in that Ortiz was too busy at the time with the pressing demands of other responsibilities. But those high aspirations were soon puffed into the distance like cobwebs when he saw a deviant, guileful side to Roland Garza. The day came when Roland Garza publically “tongue-lashed” the late Dr. XICO Garcia to the point of what was considered an act of cruelty by many activists. Bullying the late Dr. Xico (brother to the founder of the American GI Forum – Hector P. Garcia) on many an occasion. It was normatively perceived as incorrect in that Dr. Xico was elderly and had a heart condition. According to Agnes Horne (early founding activist of the American GI Forum), he (Dr. Xico) before passing on (due to a major heart attack) was listening to a harangue again him on Spanish radio. “I will never forget that day. I saw an organized poison that was now inside our own community.”
Later, Roland Garza tried to link with the extreme leftists and then the unions; then the remnants of La Raza Unida; then joined the “WE THE PEOPLE” and milled around with know state party SOCIALISTS who want to transform the institutions of America and want to do away with the military and the Free Enterprise System – but even many within those extremists groups caught a peek beyond Roland Garza’s impression management, and with time eyed the back region of who he really was: stratified and distanced themselves from him.
After being brushed aside from credible civil rights circles, Roland Garza tried to reintegrate himself in the political scene using his friend’s influence – Councilwoman Pricilla Leal – to make deals and rebrand himself in the public eye. Many established political observers with a high moral fiber feel that Councilwoman Leal seems has a sincere cause and is perceived as a highly respectable official. However, many feel her only drawback was that Roland was someone she knew and he (Roland) took advantage of the relationship. Roland Garza went as far as to use it for lobbying and landing deals behind her back. She might have been quite aware of it but she at first took it with a grain of salt. During this course of time he was orbited by powerful movers and shakers of the city and county, so he decided to latched on in the past two elections to key Republicans who were looking for hook a Mexican American “Joe The Plumber”-type recruit affiliated with the Democratic Party that would echo and validate their agenda – but did they really know about his dappled track record?
Roland Garza, feeling he was a pillar of respectable society and a sleek power-broker, submitted an application to sit in the Appraisal District Review Board. But after a brief perusal of Roland Garza’s application by the entity’s attorney he was turned down… The attorney, after noticing Roland Garza had not one or two encounters with the law as well as past infractions, concluded: “Roland Garza does not meet the minimum qualifications of the definition the Comptroller expects….” Many in the community that found out were shocked because they only knew about the Roland Garza in the limelight (and many had fallen for slick marketing and had a somewhat “positive” bias injected with all the spin doctoring of Roland Garza) and had never bothered to look at his past record – especially his encounters with the law – his apostasy to those who had brought him on board in mainstream organizations.
His own political “buddies” circle has even caught been verbally victimized by his wrath: he called Abel Alonzo – “Es Puro Republicano” and “A billboard on wheels”… John Longoria, he called him “Coconut of the Month” and “Turkey of the Month”. Amusing and entertaining? Abel Alonzo, was so upset at one time, that he went as far as to a statement to El Defenzor in years past that Roland Garza was trying to knock him out of his wheelchair and hurt him physically after a Coffee Club session.
ONE DOOR CLOSED – ANOTHER OPENED: ROLAND GARZA LATCHES ON TO KEY REPUBLICANS:
Roland Garza, kept low key for a few months and then set out in his course again – hooking up with a sector of the community that had been too historically and socially distant to know about El Pueblo’s history). He chose to latch on to County Commissioner Mike Pusley, an overly ambitious Republican that wants to climb the latter of the political arena quickly. Here, with this power clique, Roland Garza found a ready-made clientele, a loaded “cottage industry” so-to-speak to fund his new sly endeavor – “The Roland Garza Show” on KTMV – a Tejano TV Station (a show dedicated to push out “Who Not To Vote For”). And KTMV (a television that is struggling to stay afloat amid a tough economy) accommodated him due to expediency.
Republicans had regrouped, especially the well-funded CITIZENS AGAINST LAWSUIT ABUSE movement under the key leadership of a couple -- Mike and Connie Scott. Angelica Hernandez has been supposedly recruited by Mike Scott to run first (unsuccessfully) against Bobby Galvan and then against District Judge Manuel Banales (who to Angelica’s advantage had received a mount full of bad publicity after he was involved in a vehicle incident that result in injuries to a state employee). Key Republicans needed to validate their party especially at a time that the “anti-Mexican, Anti-Immigrant” xenophobic fervor was high and being pontificated by extremist zealots. Ambitious Key Republicans, on the other hand, needed a Mexican American “token-head” (as a politico put it) to validate their agenda. They needed someone (a Mexican American) to POSITION as an equivalent of “Joe The Plumber”(used by the McCain strategists in a past Presidential Election). They needed someone they wanted to position as representing the “Average Jose and Maria” who would validate their whims.
Angelica Hernandez, who knew Roland Garza well and about his present predicament and had worked alongside him in the past, brought him into the fold for a very specific purpose – to pull on a single string (that is, D-FLAT) on a pre-turned political harp. The key Republicans themselves did not know much about Roland Garza’s past and his bouts with the law and the “squashing” of his records at the courthouse and municipal courts by alleged politicos who owned him favors. They taught he was a typical “Joe The Plumber” and looked bribable enough to pull on the “D-Flat” note
Roland Garza was hired as “political consultant” by key Republicans (and there is a hefty paper trail to confirm this point) while still serving (against State policies) as a Democratic Precinct Chair… State policies dictate that a Democratic Precinct Chair cannot receive money from the Republican Party nor their candidates. Roland Garza refused to step down after being asked, and unethically grasped on to the title because he needed it to use it in his show to legitimize his statements of supporting Republican colleagues over Democratic ones. Rose Meza Harrison, Democratic Chair of Nueces County at the time, after reading our previous article, said: “I had to replace him because he was clearly in violation of state policies.”
ROLAND GARZA IS NO “JOE THE PLUMBER” … WHEN ONE LOOSES One’s “PRINCIPLES”, One LOOSES One’s “INTEGRITY”:
“For a moment, put aside Roland Garza serving as a paid consultant for key Republicans and being an echo for Conservative Radio Jim Lago’s rants and serving to validate a Republican’s elite agenda – and ask the question: ‘Do I really know Roland Garza? The one before me today, not the one I had impressions of yesterday?’” – this is the question now being asked by both Democrats and Republicans as well as Independents. But the question remains: “Why would law enforcement officers contribute their time to make a fundraiser to pay Roland Garza’s bills and knowing he has defied police instructions in the past and asked his close family members to do so also?
A disenchanted Police Officer interviewed by this publication said: “Is it time law enforcement start being relative in the application of favors and the law and put aside political expediency and union interests in favor of a much larger cause -- the public good and thus and so practice a universal code in applying the constitution of the United States of America. Law enforcement should be a helping agent, not reinforce cunning, harming agent to the community just because they want to placate play sly politicos. If a fund-raiser (where tickets amounting to $100 a plate were sold), should or shouldn’t Law Enforcement return the money in all fairness to the parties who purchased them in good will?”
Clearly a deviant culture is taking root because even those inside the system are legitimizing the bullies on the political pulpit who mercilessly target and silence those voices that are not to their advantage.
(In a Subsequent Article We Will Be Looking At The Money Trail to fund THE ROLAND GARZA SHOW).