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Latinos feel the American dream could be disappearing

New study shows Latino families are struggling with paying down debt and are the least prepared for financial emergencies

Submitted by JElena Group

Financial security and homeownership are at the heart of the American Dream, but many Latinos feel the idea of the American Dream could be disappearing, according to the latest State of the American Family Study.

The new study examines American family attitudes towards finances and financial planning, and found that one-third (38 percent) of Latinos believe the American Dream is disappearing. When asked about the definition of the American Dream, not living paycheck to paycheck is more likely to be part of the American Dream for Latinos. Latino households are more likely to have a broader definition of family that includes extended family, and one in four (24 percent) worry about being able to care for their parents as well as their own nuclear family.

Juggling Financial Priorities

Latinos face some big challenges, including having the lowest household income of all segments surveyed and being among the least prepared for a financial emergency. With an average household income of $107,801 of those surveyed, it appears that Latinos have relatively lower accumulated wealth. Latinos have diverse financial priorities:

Having an emergency fund (81 percent)
Ensuring stable income for the family in case of an unexpected event (76 percent)
Not becoming a financial burden for family (74 percent)
Developing a comprehensive financial plan (65 percent)
Paying for college education (61 percent)

Interestingly, 75 percent of those who selected homeownership as part of their American Dream are confident that they will one day own a home if they do not already. However, although short-term needs such as building an emergency fund and ensuring stable family income if the unexpected happens are top priorities, they worry about meeting competing long-term goals as well as issues beyond their control.

Paying Down Debt

Paying for higher education and wanting to play an active role in preparing children for future success through financial education are especially important for Latinos. But as student debt levels continue to rise in the U.S., many families are worried about managing both day-to-day expenses and paying down debt. The majority of Latinos carry some type of debt in the form of mortgages, credit cards and student loans:

63 percent have a mortgage. The average mortgage debt is $181,292.
64 percent have credit card debt. The average credit card debt is $9,652.
27 percent have student loan debt. The average student loan debt is $32,650.

Preparing for Financial Emergencies

Latinos are less prepared than other consumer populations surveyed for a financial emergency with 19 percent having less than a month of monthly expenses saved.

28 percent of Latinos have 1-3 months of expenses saved if there was an emergency.
23 percent of Latinos have 3-6 months of expenses saved if there was an emergency.
21 percent of Latinos have more than 6 months of their monthly expenses if there was an emergency.

Methodology

The State of the American Family survey was conducted for MassMutual by Isobar between January 19 and February 7, 2018 via a 20-minute online questionnaire. The survey comprised 3,235 interviews with American households with children under age 26 for whom they are financially responsible and polled 562 Americans who identified themselves as Hispanic with an annual household income equal to or greater than $50,000.

The Nicaraguan and US rock community is in mourning

René Mendieta, un ícono, un verdadero discípulo de la música Rock. 6 de febrero de 1953 al 28 de agosto de 2018. q.e.p.d. -- René Mendieta, an icon, a true disciple of Rock music. February 6, 1953 to August 28, 2018. R.I.P.

by Marvin Ramírez

 

After struggling with a series of liver health situations as a result of drinking, the legendary guitarist and musical composer, René Mendieta, better known as “Manito”, gave his soul to the Creator on Aug. 28, 2018. He was 65 years old. He was born in Mangua, Nicaragua on Feb. 6, 1953.

He expired without witnesses, surrounded by those who were his best friends: his musical tools.

“He died alone, surrounded by his guitars and instruments, he was at home, his wife Maxim was working outside,” his daughter, the Nicaraguan writer and poet, Madeline Mendieta, told El Reportero from her place of residence in Nicaragua.

A man full of dreams who even at the end of his life kept that tag to reach the stars with what was his passion: heavy metal rock music.

Rene ‘Manito’ Mendieta had a chance of a lifetime – how he mingled with an unknown Van Halen for three years

He proudly recounted to people about his days – approximately three years – playing with guitarist, songwriter, keyboardist, and producer, Dutch-American Eddie Van Halen, known for being the lead guitarist of the successful band Van Halen, before he reached stardom.

“When I arrived in Los Angeles in 78 … around 83 or 84, he (Manito) was practicing and playing with Eddy when nobody knew him”, confirmed Roberto Martínez Guerrero, former founder of one of the best known Latin rock groups in Nicaragua, Bwana.

It happened that right across the street from Manito’s home and place of practice, Van Halen was also practicing with another group. An agent, who was looking for a guitarist and went to that location to hire Van Halen, heard Manito playing with his band at his house on the other side of street. He went hear Manito’s band, and decided to hire both of them: Manito and Van Halen.

Time showed the destiny of the two rock guitarists: one from Nicaragua and one from Holland parting to different ways over the years. What happened and why, at the end, only God knows. The Nicaraguan guy remained a financially poor musician, while the Dutch guy, became a multimillionaire. But despite of not having reached the same success as his Dutch friend, Manito sticked to his dream and love for rock music, and never gave up at his Los Angeles barrio.

Within his economic limitations, Manito’s creativity never stopped, always sticked faithfully to his genre of music. As the years passed he continued creating original music, which he dreamed of recording it some day, or sell his compositions to other musicians. A recording studio that he was building to fulfil part of his dream, never came to sound, because death surprised him, just two days after seeing his brother Ivan Mendieta, with whom he had big plans.

His brother Iván, a former member of world famous and successful bands such as the Los Solitarios, Los Grillos de Argentina, Los Bondadosos and los Diablos, is looking for a way to recover – among Manito’s belongings – what his brother left behind in music and record it.

“I’m going to try to get it out and offer it to the public, and record it,” he said, to El Reportero, referring to some of Manito’s works, such as the composition, The Last Judgment, among many others songs.

Despite not having reached the same fate as Van Halen, within his economic limitations, his creativity never stopped, as over the years he continued to create original music, which for him would be useful for recording and for other musicians to buy it. A recording studio that he was building to fulfil part of his dream, never came to sound, because death surprised him, just two days after seeing his brother Ivan Mendieta.

“His death has affected me a lot, because I thought to record with him, especially The Last Judgment, a tremendous song especially in these times,” Ivan said.

“They are compositions that nobody has,” said Manito in life, while proudly enhancing the Latin culture in his compositions.

“His death has affected me a lot, because I thought to record with him, especially The Last Judgment, a tremendous song – especially in these times,” Ivan said.

Manito knew about the value of his works

“They are compositions that nobody has,” said Manito when he was still alive, while proudly enhancing the Latin culture in his compositions.

Since he arrived in the US, in 1972, in the wake of the earthquake that destroyed most of the Nicaraguan capital that year, Manito dedicated himself to rock music, unlike his friends and former fellow musicians of the dean rock group, Los Heller’s in Nicaragua – in which he played for nine years. Los Heller’s former members, for reasons of survival, took refuge in Latin music, playing cumbias and rancheras at local night clubs and cabarets. Manito rejected that. He kept his principles, he came to the US to just play rock, was his mantra.

His poet daughter Madeline describes through her poetry below, who was Manito, her father, and how she visualized him.

 

“I do not play Rock, I’m Rocanrolero (Rocker)”
For Manito, for being irremediably my father.

Strident sound
that appeases the shadows
In sharp re,
purple note breaks spectrum
your diminished figure
with wetted longhair.

Manito, as a child the soul remained intact
that afternoon of a rugged park
challenging all science
phalanx movement.

you infringe the guitar
with syncope arrhythmia
screeching sharp notes
electronic filaments
infernal rock star, seventies hippie.

Rolling stone, of lustrous acoustics
Stormy decile,
torn throat
Rolling and Rolling like Heller’s stones!

Rock acid, legendary soloist
performer hammered solos
with your fierce index
the ropes exhaled fire.

Rough gender, rebellion causes
uppercase exponent of Hendrix,
Zeppelin and Morrison
Tadpole, nobody beats you.

In your way, “knock, knock, the heaven doors”
You will expire with the pants
and leather boots.
Mumbling your anarchist emblem
“I do not play Rock, I’m Rocanrollero”

René Mendieta is survived by his children: Madeline Mendieta, René Mendieta, Natasha Youngwolfe Mendieta, Rachel Mendieta,  Nicole Mendieta, Max Mendieta.

His brothers and sisters: Indiana, Sandra, Edwin, Mario Danilo, e Ivan Mendieta; and six nephews and nieces.

The staff of El Reportero, especially its editor Marvin Ramírez, give their sincere condolences and join in the pain of the grieving family.

SAM-e the “Supernutrient” vital bio-chemical

by Ben Fuchs

Back in the 1990’s SAM-e was popular as an antidepressant and energizer. Although its effectiveness may have been overstated, the fact remains that SAM-e can be a very important nutritional supplement for a lot of mental health issues, anxiety, bipolar disorder and depression.   SAM-e, which was first discovered in the 1950’s, is involved in the production of the stress management hormone serotonin and the pleasure and reward brain chemical dopamine.

SAM-e, a derivative of the amino acid methionine, is a vital bio-chemical that’s involved in the healthy functioning of the brain and the nervous system.  SAM-e is also required for helping keep the insulation of nerves resilient and intact.  This insulation which is called myelin is required for keeping the conduction of electrical energy flowing smoothly.  Movement disorders, neuropathies, paralysis, impaired vision, numbness, muscle weakness, difficulties with speech or with hearing, even incontinence and weak bladder control can all be examples of health issues that can be associated with myelin defects.  SAM-e is made in the body so it’s not really technically “essential” but rather it is said to be “conditionally essential”.  That basically means you don’t absolutely have to be ingesting it on a regular basis, but doing so might not be a bad idea! 

However, just because you have been making sure you’re eating lots of methionine doesn’t mean you’ll be making enough SAM-e.   SAM-e is an activatedversion of methionine.  That means that not only is the intake of plain old methionine required, but, because activation requires nutrition and cellular energy, adequate nourishment and a healthy biochemistry are necessary.  If the biochemical milieu in the body is disturbed in any way activation of SAM-e may not occur.  That’s why the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) has called SAM-e a “supernutrient”.  In other words it’s no mere nutrient, it’s an activated nutrient.   And, according to a 2002 article in the AJCN, supernutrients like SAM-e, while not themselves essential (the body can make them), they…

“…must be provided to meet the normal cellular requirements when its endogenous synthesis from a nutritional precursor becomes inefficient”. 

In other words, according to the fine scientists at the AJCN,  if your body can’t make enough, you might want to consider supplementing!

 And, SAM-e isn’t just important for mental health.  It also plays a part in improving the symptoms, the pain and inflammation associated with arthritis.  It has been shown to increase the productivity of cartilage making cells and also to upregulate the squishy, gummy proteins called proteoglycans that have protective and shock absorbing benefits for joints.  Proteoglycans conduct electrical energy and trap water which can make cartilage more effective.  Proteoglycans keep the skin thick and robust and also keep bones and blood vessels healthy too.  Because SAM-e upregulates proteoglycan synthesis, that makes it beneficial for the skeletal system and the circulatory system too.

SAM-e may also relieve the pain and inflammation associated with arthritis.  It has been shown to increase the productivity of cartilage making cells and also to upregulate the squishy, gummy protein-sugar complexes called “proteo-glycans” that have a protective and shock absorbing benefits for joints.  Proteoglycans conduct electrical energy and trap water and can make cartridge more effective.  Proteoglycans can also keep the skin thick and robust and stimulate the production of skin-firming collagen.   That makes it helpful for keeping the visage youthful and wrinkle-free.  And because SAM-e upregulates proteoglycan synthesis; in addition to helping keep smooth,  that makes it beneficial for the skeletal system and the circulatory system too, both of which depend on the gel like protein-sugars  for healthy functioning.

SAM-e’s fat metabolizing functions make it a very liver-friendly supplement.    The liver is the main fat processing organ in the body and when it’s working too hard or health is compromised it tends accumulate fat.  This buildup of fat in known as “Fatty Liver Disease” and it’s a serious health issue that affects one out of three Americans.  Alcoholics are at even higher risk for fatty liver disease as are patients on multiple prescription drugs.  And because a great deal of SAM-e production takes place in the liver, SAM-e deficiency can be both the cause and an effect of an unhealthy and/or fatty liver.

The best way to make sure you’re getting the benefits of SAM-e is to supplement.  You can take 400-800 a day.  It’s a little pricy, a month supply will cost you around 40-60 dollars, depending on how much you take.  But you’re not going to get SAM-e from food, so if your health is compromised in any way you might not be making enough of it adding a 200mg tablet or two to a daily supplement program might not be a bad idea.

Kaiser hospital workers to stand up for patient care in labor day protest, civil disobedience

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

More than 1,000 healthcare workers and their allies will march and engage in civil disobedience and protest this Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 3, to protest the corporation’s plans that would undermine patients and the people who care for them.

  The workers will be joined by U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-San Jose) Mark DeSaulnier (D-Richmond).

Kaiser Permanente, which reported $29 billion in reserves in 2017 and whose CEO is paid $10 million a year, is seeking deep cuts that would harm patient care. It has refused to engage in bargaining over the issue, while becoming more strident in its attitude toward workers, deepening the rift between the corporation and its employees. 

The march will kick off from Mosswood Park, 3612 Webster St., and continue to the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, 275 W. MacArthur Blvd.

Job fair with many jobs oportunities

Bring 10-15 Resumes. Dress Business Professional. This is a free event for job seekers.

Job Opportunities include:

Inside Sales Reps, Outside Sales Reps, Account Executives, Retail Managers, Account Managers, Insurance Sales, Customer Service, Technical Sales, Sales Managers, Pharmaceutical Sales, Telesales, Sales Trainer, Merchandiser, Mortgage Brokers, Financial Planner, Route Sales, Retail Sales, Retail Management, Human Resources and much more!

In San Francisco, Thursday, Sept. 13, from 9 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco, 345 Stockton Street, San Francisco.

Parking Sutter-Stockton Garage: $3/hr

VIVA! Celebrating Latin Hispanic Heritage

Concerts, Dance, Crafts, Food & Films at the San Francisco Public Library

Join the fiesta at the San Francisco Public Library this fall with ¡VIVA!, a citywide celebration of Latino Hispanic cultures with more than 80 music, food, film, dance, crafts and author talks happening mid-September through October.  

Special ¡VIVA!  events include concerts with Grammy award winners Lucky Díaz and the Family Jam Band and Jose-Luis Orozco.  Attend a storytime with Caldecott Honor Award winner and Pura Belpré Award winner Yuyi Morales as she reads from her new book, Dreamers.  ¡VIVA!  kicks off on September 15 with a performance by legendary Bay Area band Mariachi Mexicanísimo.  

 Throughout the fall, take part in salsa and guacamole-making programs, workshops on Repujado, the craft of Mexican embossing, Mission mural tours, piñata workshops and multiple screenings of everyone’s favorite film, Coco. On October 13, in cooperation with San Francisco’s 2018 Litquake Literary Festival, ¡VIVA! welcomes National Book Award finalist author Cristina Garcia as she discusses her latest work Here in Berlin.

 

Participate in Día de los Muertos festivities by painting masks at North Beach, creating tissue paper marigolds at Richmond and decorating sugar skulls at Mission and Golden Gate Valley. Día de los Muertos altar workshops celebrate those who have passed on, and take place in library locations across the City. Contribute by visiting a participating branch to place an ofrenda (offering) at the altar.

 Visit sfpl.org/VIVA for more details and to view the ¡VIVA! Program Guide. ¡VIVA! is funded in part by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. All programs at the Library are free.

  ¡VIVA! Kickoff Event with Mariachi Mexicanisimo – Sept. 15, 1 p.m., Atrium of the SF Main Library.

Nights with Platanito Premieres New Season

by the El Reportero’s news services

With almost five years of existence, Noches con Platanito (Nights with Platanito) is the critically acclaimed “late night” program and the only Spanish-language program of its kind during Prime Time in the American Union that has become an essential part of program circuit of “late night “and practically a mandatory publicity visit for any actor, singer or artist from Hollywood and Latin America who wants to promote his most recent work. “Many actors are super excited to be in Platanito’s chair,” said actor Curtis Lum of the hit series Sirens.

Recorded in the city of Burbank in front of a live audience and entertained by Mexican comedian Sergio Verduzco, also known as Platanito, and his buddy also actor and comedian David Villalpando, Nights with Platanito has been a continuous success and one of the favorites of the public of the EstrellaTV channel, and one of the most popular programs among the coveted demographic group of young Hispanics.

Spielberg’s Oscar-Winning ‘Schindler’s List’ Set For 25th Anniversary

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, Universal will be re-releasing the movie in a limited engagement on Dec. 7, with picture and sound digitally remastered as overseen by the filmmaker. This includes a release in formats such as 4K, Dolby Cinema and Dolby Atmos.

Schindler’s List was a very personal film for Spielberg and it went on to win seven Oscars including Best Picture and his first as Best Director. It also is one of the top-grossing black-and-white films at the domestic box office with $96M, part of its $321.3M worldwide take.

Schindler’s List tells the story of German industrialist Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), who saved the lives of more than 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust. The movie was released on Dec. 15, 1993, and played limited before breaking 1,000 theaters in the middle of March 1994.

Co-starring Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes, the film also earned Oscars for composer John Williams, screenwriter Steven Zaillian and director of photography Janusz Kaminiski, as well as art directors Allan Starski and Ewa Braun, editor Michael Kahn and producers Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen and Branko Lustig.

Venice Film Festival Ready for 2018 Edition

The Venice International Film Festival continues the countdown for the inauguration of its 75th edition in which Mexican Alfonso Cuaron has a favorite place along with the Cohen brothers.

With Cuaron as the president, the organizers of the event predict a close contest for the precious Lion of Gold award, while the followers of filmmakers like Orson Welles await interesting proposals like ‘On the other side of the wind,’ an unfinished film of the emblematic director and actor whose shooting began in 1972.

The jury will be chaired this year by Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro, winner of the Golden Lion in the previous edition for ‘The Shape of Water,’ with which he accumulated 13 nominations and won prizes in the most important categories.

The list of competitors in the event includes Damien Chazelle’s First Man (‘La La Land,’ 2016), which will open the event with the main role of Ryan Gosling, as protagonist of the mission of American astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man who walked on the surface of the Moon.

The film ‘No Country for Old Men’ by Joel David and Ethan Jesse Coen is considered among the most anticipated, while the Italian director Luca Guadagnino (‘Call Me By Your Name,’ 2017) presents in this edition the film ‘Suspiria,’ in the horror genre.

5 examples showing America has become a state of undeclared martial law – Part 1

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

Dear reader, the following piece, published by The Free Thought Project, a website whose mission is to “foster the creation and expansion of liberty-minded solutions to modern day tyrannical oppression. It is a well-described article that details how our nation, the United States of America, has taken the wrong path in its mission to securing the real liberty dream that the Founding Fathers envisioned for this nation and its people, but greed and corruption sequestered that coveted American dream. THIS IS ONE Of A THREE-PART SERIES.

America has been turned into a state of undeclared martial law by an authoritarian federal government and their power hungry enforcers who see citizens as their enemies

by The Free Thought Project

“A government which will turn its tanks upon its people, for any reason, is a government with a taste of blood and a thirst for power and must either be smartly rebuked, or blindly obeyed in deadly fear.”—John Salter

Police in a small Georgia town tasered a 5-foot-2, 87-year-old woman who was using a kitchen knife to cut dandelions for use in a recipe. Police claim they had no choice but to taser the old woman, who does not speak English but was smiling at police to indicate she was friendly, because she failed to comply with orders to put down the knife.

Police in California are being sued for using excessive force against a deaf 76-year-old woman who was allegedly jaywalking and failed to halt when police yelled at her. According to the lawsuit, police searched the woman and her grocery bags. She was then slammed to the ground, had a foot or knee placed behind her neck or back, handcuffed, arrested and cited for jaywalking and resisting arrest.

In Alabama, police first tasered then shot and killed an unarmed man who refused to show his driver’s license after attempting to turn in a stray dog he’d found to the local dog shelter. The man’s girlfriend and their three children, all under the age of 10, witnessed the shooting.

In New York, Customs and Border Protection officers have come under fire for subjecting female travelers (including minors) to random body searches that include strip searches while menstruating, genital probing, and forced pelvic exams, X-rays and intravenous drugs at area hospitals.

At a California gas station, ICE agents surrounded a man who was taking his pregnant wife to the hospital to deliver their baby, demanding that he show identification. Having forgotten his documents at home in the rush to get to the hospital, the husband offered to go get them. Refusing to allow him to do so, ICE agents handcuffed and arrested the man for not having an ID with him, leaving his wife to find her way alone to the hospital. The father of five, including the newborn, has lived and worked in the U.S. for 12 years with his wife.

These are not isolated incidents.

These cases are legion.

This is what a state of undeclared martial law looks like, when you can be arrested, tasered, shot, brutalized and in some cases killed merely for not complying with a government agent’s order or not complying fast enough.

This isn’t just happening in crime-ridden inner cities.

It’s happening all across the country.

America has been locked down.

This is what it’s like to be a citizen of the American police state.

This is what it’s like to be an enemy combatant in your own country.

This is what it feels like to be a conquered people.

This is what it feels like to be an occupied nation.

This is what it feels like to live in fear of armed men crashing through your door in the middle of the night, or to be accused of doing something you never even knew was a crime, or to be watched all the time, your movements tracked, your motives questioned.

This is what it feels like to have your homeland transformed into a battlefield.

Mind you, in a war zone, there are no police—only soldiers. Thus, there is no more Posse Comitatus prohibiting the government from using the military in a law enforcement capacity. Not when the local police have, for all intents and purposes, already become the military.

In a war zone, the soldiers shoot to kill, as American police have now been trained to do. Whether the perceived “threat” is armed or unarmed no longer matters when police are authorized to shoot first and ask questions later.

In a war zone, even the youngest members of the community learn at an early age to accept and fear the soldier in their midst. Thanks to funding from the government, more schools are hiring armed police officers—some equipped with semi-automatic AR-15 rifles—to “secure” their campuses.

In a war zone, you have no rights. When you are staring down the end of a police rifle, there can be no free speech. When you’re being held at bay by a militarized, weaponized mine-resistant tank, there can be no freedom of assembly. When you’re being surveilled with thermal imaging devices, facial recognition software and full-body scanners and the like, there can be no privacy. When you’re charged with disorderly conduct simply for daring to question or photograph or document the injustices you see, with the blessing of the courts no less, there can be no freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

And when you’re a prisoner in your own town, unable to move freely, kept off the streets, issued a curfew at night, there can be no mistaking the prison walls closing in.
This is happening and will happen anywhere and everywhere else in this country where law enforcement officials are given carte blanche to do what they like, when they like, how they like, with immunity from their superiors, the legislatures, and the courts.

(PART 2 WILL CONTINUE NEXT WEEK).

Beyond an artificial world

Futurists are inclined to predict a world in which AI (artificial intelligence) will take over a major portion of what is now human activity.

In a matter of decades, for example, they say one computer will have more capacity than all the human brains on the planet put together.

Then, the prediction goes, AI will be virtually human, or more than human.

However, just because AI has greater computational skills than any person or group of persons, where is the quality that makes it human?

In order to answer that, you have to perform a little trick. You have to downgrade your assessment of humans. You have to say that humans are really only high-class machines.

Many pundits have no difficulty with this.

Consider their genes-cause-everything hypothesis: Since all existence is assumed to take place on a material level, on a physical level, it’s only a matter of time until we figure out which genes create which human qualities; eventually, we’ll have a complete map.

To change humans, we just fiddle with the genes.

Of course, this style of reasoning can be used to justify external control of Earth’s population. The assumption is: we are already living in a closed system of cause and effect, and that system IS controlling all human behavior. Gene tinkering and handing over immense decision-power to advanced computers is nothing more than re-arranging the closed system. It was closed and it is closed and it will be closed. No problem.

Right now, the system appears to dictate wars and pain and suffering, so won’t it be much better when the gene-reconfiguration and the AI computers-in-charge eliminate that aspect of things?

Believe me, many scientists are thinking along these lines, and they are serious about their goals.

They consider themselves humanitarians.

I bring all this up, because there is really only one way to defeat this kind of thinking.

YOU NEED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT A PRIME ASPECT OF EXISTENCE IS NON-MATERIAL.

Non-material means: without a rigid cause-and-effect structure.

To put it another way, the individual human being has freedom, and he also has imagination and creative power. These qualities are not material or physical in nature, they are not generated by the brain or by genes.

In all societies, past and present, those people who agree that these non-physical capacities are quite real explain them by opting for ORGANIZED religion, promoting one church or another.

Only a tiny number of people state that such non-material qualities and abilities are INHERENT in the human being and need no explanation or embroidery.

Believe me, this inability to put all life under the umbrella of science is frustrating to obsessed rationalists. They refuse to allow the possibility that imagination and freedom are outside the boundaries of physical cause-and-effect…and if they have to, they will try to prove their position by imposing one system after another on humans, in order to wipe out the freedom they claim doesn’t exist in the first place.

In every technological society, power is thought of as physical, and the greatest power is produced by machines. To say that human power is ultimately a non-material capacity, and is equal to or greater than what a machine can do…this is considered the height of absurdity.

Yet there are thousands, perhaps millions of artists all over the world who’ve glimpsed, or know deeply, what I’m talking about in this article. They know they’re creating beyond any closed system of cause and effect. Their problem, if they have one, stems from believing they have to be psychological underdogs, in order to invent their art. This is a cultural artifact, this belief, and it can be cast aside by nakedly comprehending the unlimited power of imagination they possess.

Imagination creates reality.

(Jon Rappoport is the author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed, Exit From The Matrix, and Power Outside The Matrix).

Political prisoners explain hunger strike against abuses in prisons in Nicaragua

by the El Reportero’s wire services
Some 120 political detainees left in the National Penitentiary System (SPN) arrived Thursday on their third day with an indefinite hunger strike in protest against the ill-treatment they suffer and for their liberty removed by the political revenge of the repressive regime by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua.

The strike was published in a letter sent by the Executive Secretary of the Permanent Commission for Human Rights (CPDH), the Marcos Carmona organization to which the letter was sent.

According to the document, political prisoners refrain from eating solid food since Aug. 28.

“The political prisoners of La Modelo, who live constant threats from this moment, begin an indefinite strike (…) to get our righteous edition”, expressed in the letter.

Political prisoners, whose signatures are included in the letter, reject the ruling against young Brandon Lovo and Glen Slate, accused of the assassination of journalist Ángel Gahona “for a crime they did not commit” and the victim’s family blames the police in the service of the dictatorship.

Human rights commission condemns murder of Brazilian journalist

The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) condemned the murder of the journalist Marlon de Carvalho Araújo and urges the Brazilian authorities to investigate the possible connection of the crime to the journalistic work of the victim.

According to the information available, the journalist Marlon de Carvalho Araújo was shot to death at his residence in the town of Chapada, a rural area of the city of Riachão of Jacuípe, Bahia, on the morning of Aug. 16.

Bill to increase access to Ethnic Studies moves to governor’s desk

Assemblymember José Medina’s (D-Riverside) bill AB 2772, which increases access to ethnic studies education, was concurred upon on the Assembly Floor on Thursday.

AB 2772 was amended in the Senate to create a pilot program that would allow up to 11 school districts add the completion of a course in ethnic studies to high school graduation requirements through an opt-in grant program, starting in the 2021-22 school year. The original version of the bill would have required high schools students to take a semester of ethnic studies in order to graduate.

The ethnic studies curriculum that will be implemented is currently being developed by the Instructional Quality Commission of the State Board of Education. AB 2772, as amended, will also require the California Department of Education to provide resources and technical assistance to districts who are participating in the opt-in pilot program. Districts who participate in the pilot will be required to report to the Legislature by 2024 with best practices and findings from the pilot.

“Ethnic studies courses are shown to better engage and empower students, as well as improve academic performance. All students can benefit from this holistic curriculum that will help will them better understand the rich histories and cultures that make up the United States,” Medina said.

 The bill now heads to the Governor’s desk for signature.

San Francisco Marriott workers to hold mass labor day civil disobedience

Thousands of UNITE HERE Local 2 workers in 55 hotels had their contracts expire just weeks ago on August 15. Although Marriott is the biggest hotel employer in San Francisco and the most profitable hotel company in the world, after multiple negotiation sessions throughout the summer, we remain far apart on the issues that matter most to us. This Labor Day, instead of grilling out and picnicking, Local 2 hotel workers will participate in a direct action to hold the company accountable for jobs that are enough to afford the cost of living, to support our families, and to retire with dignity. 

This action comes just weeks after 1,500 hotel workers picketed Marriott hotels hours after contract expiration.

U.S. is denying passports to Hispanics, questioning citizenship

by the El Reportero’s wire services 

 

 

The Trump administration is accusing hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Latinos along the border of using fraudulent birth certificates since they were babies, and it is undertaking a widespread crackdown on their citizenship.  

 

In a statement, the State Department said that it ‘has not changed policy or practice regarding the adjudication of passport applications,’ adding that ‘the U.S.-Mexico border region happens to be an area of the country where there has been a significant incidence of citizenship fraud.’  

 

But cases identified by the Washington Post and interviews with immigration attorneys suggest a dramatic shift in both passport issuance and immigration enforcement. In some cases, passport applicants with official U.S. birth certificates are being jailed in immigration detention centers and entered into deportation proceedings. 

 

In others, they are stuck in Mexico, their passports suddenly revoked when they tried to reenter the United States. As the Trump administration attempts to reduce both legal and illegal immigration, the government’s treatment of passport applicants in south Texas shows how U.S. citizens are increasingly being swept up by immigration enforcement agencies. 

 

The government alleges that from the 1950s through the 1990s, some midwives and physicians along the Texas-Mexico border provided U.S. birth certificates to babies who were actually born in Mexico. 

 

Under President Trump, the passport denials and revocations appear to be surging, becoming part of a broader interrogation into the citizenship of people who have lived, voted and worked in the United States for their entire lives. 

 

In its statement, the State Department said that applicants ‘who have birth certificates filed by a midwife or other birth attendant suspected of having engaged in fraudulent activities, as well as applicants who have both a U.S. and foreign birth certificate, are asked to provide additional documentation establishing they were born in the United States.’  

 

“Individuals who are unable to demonstrate that they were born in the United States are denied issuance of a passport,” the statement said. The State Department says that even though it may deny someone a passport, that does not necessarily mean that the individual will be deported. But it leaves them in a legal limbo, with one arm of the U.S. government claiming they are not North Americans and the prospect that immigration agents could follow up on their case. 

 

It’s difficult to know where the crackdown fits into the Trump administration’s broader assaults on legal and illegal immigration. Over the last year, it has thrown legal permanent residents out of the military and formed a denaturalization task force that tries to identify people who might have lied on decades-old citizenship applications. 

 

Now, the administration appears to be taking aim at a broad group of North Americans along the stretch of the border where Trump has promised to build his wall, where he directed the deployment of national guardsmen, and where the majority of cases in which children were separated from their parents during the administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy occurred. 

 

The State Department would not say how many passports it has denied to people along the border because of concerns about fraudulent birth certificates. The government has also refused to provide a list of midwives who it considers to be suspicious. 

 

The denials are happening at a time when Trump has been lobbying for stricter federal voter identification rules, which would presumably affect the same people who are now being denied passports, almost all of them Latino, living in a heavily Democratic sliver of Texas. 

 

 

López Obrador meets with Latin American and Caribbean ambassadors 

 

President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador will hold a meeting today with ambassadors and consuls from Latin America and the Caribbean in Mexico.  

 

The meeting will take place at the transition house, located on Chihuahua Street in Colonia Roma, south of the capital, where access was restricted by fences. 

 

The next foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said a few days ago that the meeting will address bilateral, multilateral and group agendas such as the Southern Common Market and the Pacific Alliance. 

 

He added the next administration will focus on relations with the countries of Central and South America and the Caribbean. 

8 years after Los Zetas’ massacre of 72 migrants, ‘no real investigation’

11 have been charged in Tamaulipas mass murder, but no one sentenced

by Mexico Daily News

Eight years after 72 undocumented migrants were killed in a massacre in Tamaulipas, authorities still haven’t conducted a “real investigation” into the crime, charges the head of an NGO that represents the families of 10 victims.

Ana Lorena Delgadillo, director of the Foundation for Justice and the Democratic Rule of Law (Fundación Justicia), told the newspaper El Universal that despite 11 people being charged in connection with the San Fernando massacre, allegedly committed by the Zetas drug cartel in August 2010, not one person has been sentenced.

“To date, we don’t really know what the truth is. There is no real investigation of the state to find out to what extent there could have been complicity of authorities,” she said.

Documents made public by the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) in 2014 revealed that local police had collaborated with organized crime in the murders.

At the time, Delgadillo said, the release of the information was an important step toward finding the truth, but lamented that the amount of information released was limited.

Now, she says, while the PGR has allowed Fundación Justicia to see its investigative file, it has repeatedly refused to furnish it with copies which, in turn, could be passed on to the families the NGO represents in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Brazil.

“For us it is very regrettable that this information doesn’t get to the families in Central America, they don’t have access to the information,” Delgadillo said.

One of the most recent developments in the case was the arrest of Martiniano de Jesús Jaramillo Silva, the presumed mastermind of the massacre, in Ciudad Victoria last November.

However, the regional leader of the Los Zetas Vieja Escuela criminal cell in Tamaulipas spent only two days behind bars before he died of kidney failure in a Mexico City hospital.

The massacre came to light when authorities found the bodies of the 58 male and 14 female victims on a farm in August 2010 after a survivor, a migrant from Ecuador, reported the incident.

He said they were offered work as gunmen for Los Zetas with a salary of US $1,000 every two weeks but were killed when they didn’t accept.

To mark the eighth anniversary of the massacre, representatives of Fundación Justicia along with human rights activists and priests yesterday participated in a ceremony to place memorial crosses on the ranch where the bodies were found.

Father Pedro Pantoja, an advisor at the Casa del Migrante (Migrant Shelter) in Saltillo, told El Universal that 72 crosses — one for each victim — were erected. He said a meeting with the wives of massacred migrants will be held at a later date in Guatemala.

“It wasn’t just a genocidal massacre . . . it was a cry of terror for all Central American migration,” he said.

“[Our] hearts are full of indignation, sadness and pain. As defenders [of human rights], we have to take on their pain, place ourselves in their flesh.”

In other criminal justice news in Mexico:

10 years on and Mexico’s justice system is not yet world class
Senior security official says better standards required

Ten years after the New Criminal Justice System (NSJP) was first introduced, the system is still not “world class,” a high-ranking government security official has acknowledged.

Álvaro Vizcaíno Zamora, executive secretary of the National Public Security System (SNSP), said yesterday that one of the system’s main shortcomings is that it has created a “revolving door,” with people detained and released time and time again.

“. . . We still need to achieve better standards in order to be able to offer Mexicans the justice they deserve,” he said.

Speaking at the second International Forensic Sciences Symposium in Mexico City, Vizcaíno added that building the system “is not easy” because it requires the political will of all three levels of government as well as money, which, he explained, is usually not enough.

The new accusatory system, which replaced a Napoleonic system based on written arguments with trials in which evidence was presented orally, was approved constitutionally in 2008 but states were given eight years — until June 2016 — to make the transition.

Under the new system judges have more leeway to release suspects pending trial and increased power to dismiss a case if they believe a suspect’s rights have been violated.

Vizcaíno said the solution to the “revolving door” problem is “pre-trial units,” whose role is to conduct a risk analysis for each person accused of a crime.

The analysis could subsequently be used as the basis for a prosecutor’s argument to a judge regarding what precautionary measures should be adopted as the accused awaits trial, he explained.

“. . . If its preventative prison, then let it be imposed,” Vizcaíno said.

He explained that the pre-trial units were not created in the first years of the implementation process and now more work needs to be done to make them more effective.

“. . . Two years ago, only four states had this piece of the justice system [in place] at intermediate to optimal [levels]. Now there are 32 units but they have to mature and continue to advance,” he said.

Vizcaíno also said those charged with implementing the new system — such as police and officials in security and justice institutions — needed more and better training.

Source: Milenio (sp)

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