Rodriguez has now expanded one of the trailers, for a film called Machete, into a full-length feature starring Danny Trejo, a fixture in many Rodriguez movies, including the family-friendly Spy Kids series in which Trejo also played a character named Machete.  I hope parents don’t confuse that Machete with this one, however, as the new “illegal” trailer makes clear (warning: NSFW language and violence).  In the new film, Machete is a former Federale and migrant laborer who drifts around Texas looking for work.  He is hired by a businessman (played by Jeff Fahey) to kill a corrupt senator who’s trying to kick all of the illegal immigrants out of the state.  But it’s all a setup; Machete is the patsy for a deeper conspiracy to whip up anti-immigration hysteria so that tough new laws can be passed without much protest.  Machete then goes on the signature Rodriguez rampage of killing bad guys and scoring with hot women.

The real fun may be in seeing this movie played out against an all-too-real backdrop of anti-illegal immigrant hysteria.  The senator in Machete, played by Robert DeNiro, uses rhetoric not much different from that heard by officials such as Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, who warned of an epidemic of cop shootings by illegals after one of his deputies was wounded by suspected drug smugglers near the border.  No evidence of such an epidemic exists — only one cop in Arizona has been killed by an illegal immigrant since 2008 — but the amplification effect of non-stop media coverage lends credibility to Babeu’s histrionics.

Then there’s the condemnation of forcibly removing illegals from the country, and the rallying of immigrants by Machete’s compadres to fight back, echoing the political and cultural backlash against Arizona’s new legislation.  Even professional sports have gotten in on the act; the Phoenix Suns wore “Los Suns” jerseys on Wednesday to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and take a swipe at the immigration bill.

Whether Machete is just a Mexploitation flick using illegal immigration as a pretext for a gory revenge fantasy, or represents a deeper political statement by Rodriguez, won’t be known until the film is released in September.  Of course it can be both; politics and pop culture often make strange, not to mention lucrative, bedfellows.  Such is the wonder of American enterprise!

There may be some debate over what weapons this group of people were carrying, but there is no debate over what happened after U. S. helicopters opened up on them with 30mm cannon fire.  They then proceeded to shoot unarmed civilians, including children, trying to evacuate the wounded.  At least 12 people were killed and the two children wounded.

Perhaps most sickening were the comments on the radio after the engagement, urging one of the wounded, Reuters driver Sameed Chmagh, to pick up a weapon (if indeed that’s what he was doing) so he could be shot again, or that it was these people’s fault for “bringing their children into battle”, never mind that they weren’t looking for battle; the Army helicopters shot them without warning as they tried to assist the wounded.

Perhaps someone can explain how we’re any more free now, because I’m having difficulty seeing it.  In fact there’s no rational explanation for how these wars, or any wars, have ever helped us maintain our freedoms.  We seem to be less free now than at any point in the past 200 years, and it’s not because radical Muslims hate our wealth and decadent culture.  It’s because our rulers must continually find “enemies” to threaten us, from within and without, to maintain their authority.

These wars were started by the last regime, and this atrocity occurred on George W. Bush’s watch; yet Barack Obama has made no real effort to reduce American troop presence in either Iraq or Afghanistan, and in the latter case has even escalated military operations.  Yet Obama campaigned on promises to get troops out of Iraq and harshly criticized Bush’s handling of both wars.  The president has changed, the party has changed, but the regime has not.  Nor has the rhetoric to justify the continued prosecution of overseas conquest.

Republican wars, Democrat wars — it hardly matters anymore who is to blame for them.  They are now just imperial campaigns, with all the horrors and enormous cost in blood and treasure they entail.  But empires inevitably fall.

[Cross-posted from The Libertarian Standard]

The Daily Cuts:

152. Eminent domain abuse continues four years after Kelo, but some folks are fighting back.  More here from reason‘s coverage of eminent domain issues.

153. It’s just no fun being a teenager in Texas.

154. New York state bureaucrats treat “direct-to-consumer” genomics firms as laboratories, burdening them with needless regulations.

155. Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton is my new folk hero.  He decided to check out of this world on his own, rather than have the Feds put him in prison for the unpardonable crime of distilling his own moonshine.  His tombstone reads “POPCORN SAID FUCK YOU”.  Here’s to you, Popcorn.

156. Warren Meyer over at Coyote Blog presents this easy-to-follow checklist on how to start a business . . . in Alabama.  The other 49 states may be different.

157. Congress shovels $182.5 billion dollars into the AIG furnace, then heroically recovers 0.09% of it for taxpayers.

93. First Amendment follies:

• A Santeria priest sues a Texas town over their prohibition against animal sacrifice.
• An Illinois delegate for Barack Obama resigned after she used the word “monkeys” to refer to black kids playing in a tree. The real insult, however, is that she was issued a $75 citation for disorderly conduct.
• A professor at Lake Superior State University faces a formal reprimand for offensive material posted on his office door. The university claims the cartoons and other material create a “hostile environment”; the professor says he’s being singled out for his conservative political views.

94. Now go away, or we shall punish you a second time: an Orange County, CA man was wrongly convicted for carjacking and spent 16 months in prison before he was freed. Now the state says it has no obligation to compensate him for the wrongful imprisonment because he implicated himself by accepting a plea deal on the original charge.

95. Infamous until proven innocent: police in Arizona are posting mug shots of accused shoplifters online as a “deterrent”. Hell, what are they waiting for? Just lop off their right hand when they arrest ‘em!

96. Our incorruptible public servants:

• So if you’re convicted of accepting bribes, you lose your job, right? Not necessarily, if you’re a public school teacher.
• Don’t worry, Daddy will take care of it: Federal employees have been racking up personal charges on government credit cards to the tune of $2 million.