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“Once Gay” Christians defend their right to counseling, but legislators remain unmoved

by Greg Burt

Hundreds of Christians from throughout the state gathered at the California state capitol last week to defend the liberty of “once gay” citizens to receive counseling and resources to help them live lives in accordance with their faith.

AB 2943, introduced and sponsored by the LGBT legislative caucus, threatens anyone, even churches, with lawsuits for “advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in for sale, or selling services constituting sexual orientation change efforts.”

This includes any resources, books, conferences, programs, college classes, or counseling that seek to change same-sex desires, behaviors, or gender expressions.
Despite having more than 20 former homosexual and transgender individuals, and over 350 citizens testify against AB 2943 in the Senate Judiciary Committee, legislators approved the bill anyways, with a vote of 5 to 2.

Before the Tuesday, June 12, afternoon hearing, the California Family Council, in partnership with the Equipped to Love, Capitol Resource Institute, and Faith and Public Policy hosted a “Day of Action” rally on the west steps of the state capitol. Starting at 9 a.m. “once gay” men and women with Equipped to Love told testimony after testimony, for over two hours, of how God had led them out of homosexuality and how they were helped by the biblical resources and counseling AB 2943 seeks to ban. The day prior, these same individuals visited every senator’s office and presented them with a book of their testimonies titled, “Changed.” Personnel invitations to the rally were also given out all 120 legislative offices, along with encouragement to visit oncegay.com, a website offering proof that change is real.

Williams went on to say legislators claim they are trying to be inclusive, but he feels excluded. “I have dealt a lot with mockery and rejection for being effeminate growing up, but I have never been discriminated against,”Williams said. “For the first time in my life, I feel discriminated against…and it was because of AB 2943.”

After the morning testimonials, Senior Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, President of William Jessup University John Jackson, Pastor Jim Domen of Church United, President of California Family Council Jonathan Keller, President of the National Center for Law and Policy Dean Broyles, and the Executive Director of Capitol Resource Institute Karen England addressed the crowd.

At the conclusion of the rally, hundreds entered the capitol and lined the hallways for an opportunity to voice their opposition to the bill. Bill author Assemblyman Evan Low and co-author Senator Scott Wiener stood first to speak. “Conversion therapy is psychological torture,” Wiener said. “It assumes that being LGBT… is a illness or a problem to be fixed, as opposed to who someone is.” Low told committee members the intent of the bill was to declare the sale of sexual orientation efforts a “fraudulent business practice.” Low went on to say that he amended the bill to apply only to services and not goods, such the sale of Bibles.

But according to several legal experts, the bill still applies to goods, such as books, even with the amendments. Pacific Justice Institute Attorney Kevin Snider explains that the recent amendments did not take out the word ‘good’ from the bill. “This amended bill tosses a frigid damp blanket on the bright fires of free expression,” Snider wrote in an opposition letter. “In the event of passage, California sits poised as the only state to subject a bookseller to civil liability because of government disagreement over the idea contained in the literature.”

Domen and the other co-founder of Equipped to Love, Elizabeth Woning, testified of their sexual orientation change and their hope that legislators would not take away the rights of LGBT people to question their sexuality, and get resources to help make their own decisions about their sexual identification. Then for the next hour over 350 people, including many of those who experienced sexual orientation change themselves, stood up at the hearing microphone and gave short statements of opposition against the AB 2943. (Watch the hearing below.)

After the testimony concluded Republican Senators John Moorlach and Joel Anderson, who opposed the bill, asked some additional clarifying questions. The Democratic Senators affirmed their believe in religious liberty, but said they believed the bill would not affect religious practice in a way that would justify opposition.

For example, Senator Robert Hertzberg supported the bill even though he acknowledge reading “Changed”, holding the book up for all to see. Since the bill still lets churches preach its beliefs, give out resources, go to counseling, and hold conferences as long no money is exchanged, Herbert said religious rights are not being violated. “When you go to church… there is no cost to that,” Hertzberg said. But the 1st Amendment isn’t just for those who give away their services or goods for free. Churches charge for conferences, counseling, and books to cover their costs, and that has always been their right under freedom of speech and freedom of religion protections.

In the end, five Senator (Hannah-Beth Jackson, Robert Hertzbert, Bob Wieckowski, Bill Monning, and Henry Stern) voted yes and two Senator (John M. W. Moorlach, Joel Anderson) voted no. The bill now goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee Monday, June 25, and then to the Senate floor for a full vote of the Senate. If the Senate approves the bill, the full Assembly will also have to vote on this amended bill again before the Governor makes his decision. All of this could happen before the summer legislative break, which begins on July 5.

How a journalist’s death live on air became a symbol of Nicaragua’s crisis

Ángel Gahona was live-streaming a protest against President Daniel Ortega when he was shot dead. His family believe the aim was to silence him

Carl David Goette-Luciak in Bluefields

Two weeks before broadcasting his own death on Facebook, Ángel Gahona admitted fearing his days were numbered.

“If I turn up dead one day, don’t be surprised,” his father recalled him saying as the pair stared out at Bluefields Bay one blustery afternoon.

It was not the first time Gahona – a crusading Nicaraguan journalist known for his investigative reports on police abuse and drug trafficking – had made such remarks. “I can’t remember how many times he told me they were going to kill him,” said his father, also called Ángel.

But on 21 April – day four of a continuing popular revolt against Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega – the journalist’s grim prediction finally came true.

As Gahona used his smartphone to stream the aftermath of clashes between police and protesters just down the street from his home in the Caribbean coastal city of Bluefields, a shot rang out and his body slammed on to the concrete.

“I’m thinking he fell, or he’s joking,” recalled Neyda Dixon, a fellow journalist who was also covering the protest. “[But] when I see him bleeding out, I start to scream.”

Gahona, a 42-year-old father of two who ran the local news website El Meridiano, is one of scores of people to have been killed since protests began to sweep Central America’s largest country on 18 April.

At first, the upheaval was fueled by opposition to unpopular pension reforms that Ortega’s government had proposed. But when pro-government forces violently cracked down on demonstrators – in many cases with live ammunition – the focus of the uprising shifted to the septuagenarian Sandinista himself, who now faces the greatest political crisis of his 11-year rule.

Since the one-time revolutionary returned to power in 2007, social programs, such as his “Zero Hunger” initiative, have benefited many. But protesters also accuse Ortega of turning Nicaragua into an authoritarian one-party state, run in cahoots with his widely loathed first lady and vice-president, Rosario Murillo.

A month after the unrest began, violence returned on Monday when riot police confronted protesters and students demanding Ortega’s resignation seized a university in Managua, the capital.

Government supporters quickly gathered to end the takeover, but anti-government protesters rallied to support the students.

“We’re not here to hold a dialogue. We’re here to negotiate your departure,” the student leader Lester Alemán told his president at the start of talks last week to defuse the escalating crisis.

If the students want to see the back of Ortega, the priority for Gahona’s family is finding out who killed him – and why.

On 8 May, 17 days after his death, two young men were detained on suspicion of shooting the journalist with a homemade gun. They were paraded before the media by masked police officers and transferred to El Chipote, a notorious Managua jail.

But Gahona’s family and friends are unconvinced by that narrative and instead point the finger at police, who they suspect took advantage of the chaos on the streets to dispose of a journalist they considered an irritant.

“We believe the police killed Ángel to send us a message. To tell all the journalists here to shut up, to stop supporting or covering the protests,” said Hayzel Zamora, 27, a fellow journalist who witnessed Gahona’s death.

Attempts to contact police in Bluefields were unsuccessful. Managua police officials said they had no information to share on the case and nothing to say.
Gahona’s mother, Amanda, said her son’s childhood in 1970s Nicaragua – during the brutal dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza – had instilled in him a deep-rooted fear of the police.
But after becoming a professional journalist, he never shied away from covering their activities. He became known in Bluefields for covering thorny stories such as police corruption and drug trafficking that other journalists preferred to ignore.

“He wasn’t afraid of anything,” said Suyen Sánchez, a journalist and friend.

Colleagues say it was that fearlessness that took Gahona out on to the streets on the afternoon of 21 April as anti-Ortega protests swept Bluefields.

Sánchez, who works for a local station called Radio Unica, remembers arriving on the scene at dusk to find a group of protesters setting fire to a billboard featuring the image of Ortega and his wife.

Gahona, always first on the scene, was already there.

According to Sánchez, the shooting started shortly after, as police opened fire on demonstrators, hitting an 18-year-old – one of the same men later detained for Gahona’s killing.

“I ran upstairs to tell his brother,” remembered the journalist’s wife, Migueliuth, who had been following his livestream from their home, just a few blocks away. “I only thought that he had been hurt.”

In 1978, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, an outspoken critic of the Somoza dictatorship, was assassinated. His murder stirred public outrage and the following year a popular revolution, which Ortega helped lead, toppled the regime.

When Ortega kicked off the peace talks in Managua last week, he was interrupted just seconds into his speech, by cries of: “Justice for Ángel Gahona!”
One month after his death, however, relatives say there is little, if any, sign of justice.

Determined that Gahona’s name will not be forgotten, his mother has joined protests in Managua, marching alongside dozens of other mothers carrying photos of their slain children.

“We as a family don’t hate anyone,” she insisted. “We forgive Ángel’s killers. But we want the truth, I don’t care if they only spend a day in jail.”

Gahona’s case may still be unsolved, but if his shooting was an attempt to snuff out dissent, his father is convinced that it has failed.

“They wanted to silence Ángel’s voice,” he said. “But they only made it spread.” (the Guardian).

The link between potassium deficiency and cancer

by Dr. Veronique Desaulniers

You may have heard of natural medicine maverick Max Gerson, MD, and his pioneering work around cancer and metabolism in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. If so, you may also know that one of the conditions Gerson focused on in preventing and healing cancer was potassium deficiency. Gerson discovered that balanced potassium levels are vital for prevention. Here’s why.

The importance of the electrolytes

“Electrolytes” are minerals that have an electrical charge; they will separate into negatively and positively charged ions when dissolved in water. The major electrolytes in your body include calcium, magnesium, sodium and, of course, potassium. They exist in bodily fluids like blood, sweat, and urine but are not produced in the body. They must be obtained through what you eat and drink.

Electrolytes are especially important for nerve function. Nerves communicate with each other through electrical and chemical exchange. Electrolytes also help with blood clotting, bone building, maintaining a steady heart rhythm and muscle contraction. Studies such as a published in the Journal of Hypertension have also found that daily potassium intake and maintaining potassium-sodium balance can help keep blood pressure stable.

The cancer-potassium deficiency connection

Gerson noticed that a large percentage of his cancer patients were . This led him and others to inquire about in the body and what this has to do with cancer progression. The answer can be found in how electrolyte imbalance and low potassium levels effect cellular processes.

Research beginning in the 1970’s discovered that when cells are stressed through exposure to toxicity, three things happen. First, the cell loses potassium. Second, the cell accepts more sodium. Third, the cell swells with too much water. This is called . The result of this is that normal cells lose the ability to generate energy (ATP) in a healthy way. They become vulnerable to mutation—and cancer.

Normal function is turned upside down when cells turn cancerous. Cancer cells do not generate ATP, i.e. energy, in the normal (through balanced mineral input and oxygenation). Instead, they generate their version of energy through consuming glucose in an anaerobic environment.

Signs of potassium imbalance

According to (USDA), normal potassium intake is 4,700 mg/day for adults and 3,000 mg/day for children. Anything below that could result in a deficiency. Some signs that you may be low in potassium include:

-fatigue and weakness
-constipation
-muscle cramps
-irregular heartbeat

In addition, individuals with cancer commonly suffer from two other potassium-related conditions. is when high levels of calcium are found in the blood. It is most often seen in individuals with as well as lung cancer and multiple myeloma. sometimes happens after chemotherapy. This is when cancer cells spill their intracellular contents upon destruction, which can cause severe electrolyte imbalance. Both conditions can be dangerous and even deadly if left untreated since they can affect the kidneys and result in a seizure.

Almost everyone is potassium deficient

According to the , the daily average intake of potassium for most Americans is about half the USDA recommendation. This means that more than likely you are low in potassium!

If you have any of the symptoms mentioned above or if you are being treated conventionally for breast cancer, you may consider getting an electrolyte balance test. Including potassium-rich foods such as nuts, squash, lima beans, broccoli and salmon in your diet is also a great idea.

Minerals play such a huge role in the body and potassium is a vital one. Take measures to get enough potassium from healthy sources every day. Staying in electrolyte balance is crucial for those on a healthy breast journey as well as anyone who wishes to stay vital at any age. (Natural News).

Immigrant children were drugged at US center, lawsuit says

by the El Reportero’s wire services

WASHINGTON – Undocumented children detained near the US city of Houston were forced by the authorities to take a variety of psychotropic drugs, according to a lawsuit filed in April, which local media reported today.

According to the legal action filed by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, based in Los Angeles, California, and made public this Wednesday, the events occurred at the Shiloh Treatment Center in Texas, and would also affect minors separated from their parents.

The infants who are in that place, specialized in services for young people with behavioral and emotional problems, will almost certainly receive the drugs, regardless of their condition, and without the consent of their parents, the lawsuit claimed.

If a child is placed in Shiloh after being separated from one of the parents, then it is almost certain that he is taking psychotropic drugs, said Carlos Holguín, a lawyer for the organization that filed the legal appeal, cited Thursday by Newsweek magazine.

The document brought to the court alleges that the minors who refused to take the drugs were retained and received injections.

He also noted that some workers tricked them into believing that the drugs were vitamins.

‘The staff told me that some of the pills were vitamins because I need to gain weight. Vitamins changed about twice, and each time I felt different,’ said one child mentioned in the lawsuit.

The action alleges that the infants detained at the Shiloh Treatment Center, a government contractor housing immigrant children, were told they would not be released or see their parents unless they took medication.

Both adults and the infants themselves told the lawyers that drugs prevented them from walking, they were afraid of people and they wanted to sleep constantly, according to the affidavits filed on April 23 in the United States District Court in California.

Two more candidates for mayor assassinated in Michoacán
They were shot and killed by armed civilians in Aguililla and Ocampo

The violence against political candidates continued yesterday and today with the murder of two candidates for mayor in the state of Michoacán.

Omar Gómez Lucatero, who was running as an independent in Aguililla, was killed yesterday when armed civilians opened fire on him as he left his home in this Tierra Caliente municipality of about 16,000 people.

Gómez had run for office before with the Institutional Revolutionary Party but this time round he was running as an independent.

A security operation involving municipal and state police was implemented following the murder, but no arrests have been reported.

The second murder took place this morning in Ocampo when three armed men entered the home of Ángeles Juárez and shot and killed him.

Juárez was the Democratic Revolution Party candidate for mayor of Ocampo, a municipality of about 50,000 in the eastern part of the state.

The two murders come just a week after another Michoacán candidate was gunned down. Alejandro Chávez Zavala was killed last Thursday in Taretan.

He too was running for mayor.

There have now been 47 candidates assassinated during the election process that began last September.

Meanwhile, a 10-million-peso ransom (US $491,000) has been posted for information leading to the arrest of two brothers believed to have been behind the assassination of a candidate for federal deputy in Coahuila.

Governor Miguel Riquelme announced the ransom yesterday for information that would lead to locating and apprehending Erik and Ignacio Arámbula Viveros.

They have been identified as the authors of the assassination June 8 of Fernando Purón, the Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate for federal Congress.

Source: El País (sp)

Salvadoreans March Against Water Privatization

The Salvadoran people are staging a march today to the headquarters of the right-wing ARENA party in rejection of the maneuver to privatize the administration of the human right to water.

The organizations drawing together the Trade Union Front in El Salvador will march from the Cuscatlán Park to the ARENA general headquarters, in another protest against a measure that the oligarchic organization tries to mask.

The government of Nicaragua is chaired by a National Destruction Board

This June I have immersed myself so deeply in the human pain that my Nicaraguan compatriots are experiencing, that I missed some important dates in my life, such as the 14th anniversary of the death of my beloved father, the journalist José Santos Ramírez Calero, died on June 12, 2004 in SF, to whom I apologize for not even being able to go to the cemetery to leave some flowers. But I love you father, and you will always be with me in my heart. And the other date that has very bittersweet memories for me is Father’s Day as my father died five days earlier.

The month of June has been a month of human disaster in my beloved Nicaragua, which has caused me such deep pain that it has also led me to be absent for long hours, days and months from my normal daily work in front of the computer, from where I bring you El Reportero every week – as I have been following the events of the government killings of national destruction.

The ruthless war that the Nicaraguan government has unleashed against the Nicaraguan people has brought me so close to my homeland in spirit and soul from here in the US, that I have not been able to concentrate on my daily work.

This government – led by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo – if you can call it a government, since for me it is nothing more than a criminal enterprise group that has seized the administration of the state of Nicaragua in a mafia-like, turbulent way, through the destruction of the ideals and the human dignity of all the people, through bribes, blackmail, murders, lies and the dismantling of all state institutions, including the destruction of public and private properties.

All a monstrous work.

Can it be called ‘Government of National Destruction’ in Nicaragua?

And I saw it coming.

About eight years ago, at a table in a popular Nicaraguan Restaurant on Mission Street in the Mission District of San Francisco, while eating a delicious mondongo soup, I told Denis Galeano, Consul General of Nicaragua in San Francisco, “Denis, Daniel Ortega is creating a monster that no one is going to be able to over throw …” We looked at each other in silence. His look was deep. He made no comment about it. Just as recently, when a group of Nicaraguans came to the consulate offices to protest and asked him to speak out about the murders that the Nicaraguan government has been perpetrating against the Nicaraguan people throughout the country. He just said coldly: “There’s no comment.”

When he arrived in San Francisco to occupy the consular chair during the first administration of Ortega, it was I who introduced him to the Nicaraguan community in a front-page article in El Reportero. I honored him for his position of a great commander, because he led 5,000 men of the Contra in the north of Nicaragua, in the Segovias, where he is a native.
The Sandinista Front had managed to convince the members of the Contra’s guerrilla force to lay down their arms in exchange for their complete integration or submission, and to receive land benefits, positions in the government, etc., during their National Reconciliation Government.

“Then the Front bought them”? I asked him in a conversation on another occasion during one of my many friendly visits in his office. Can it be called ‘Government of National Destruction’ in Nicaragua?

“Yes,” he answered quickly.
I kept thinking: “Are you sure you understood my question”?

Of course, his benefits as the Nicaraguan diplomat of more than one rank in Northern California, a good salary and perhaps land in Nicaragua, were something he could not obtain on his own if he ceased to be a Consul or criticized his supreme boss, Daniel Ortega.

While the government was giving itself away as dictatorial, my attitude was changing, which was reflected in my public criticism. Obviously, I no longer received invitations to social events at the consulate, and my relationship with the Consul was reduced to a casual greetings.

With the recent events that have shaken the life of the entire Nicaraguan population since April 18, Nicaragua has placed itself on the world news. The unarmed people have turned to the streets asking for the resignation of the presidential couple, and in response, the president – who until recently enjoyed the blessing of the great capital in Nicaragua to govern politically at will – has massacred the people with bullets, so violently that it does even compare to the Somoza dynasty in its brutality.

An unusual fact that has left me perplexed is that the so-called Latin American ‘Left’ has remained silent before the massacre against the people who are asking for the resignation of their executioner, the leftist Daniel Ortega, and who, as of today, has left approximately 170 dead, thousands of wounded and missing.

It seems that the ‘Left’ only obeys the ideology and the party, and not the lack of justice and human values. I add that I never use the words ‘left’ or ‘right’, because I consider that these are terms used by the ruling world elite to divide humanity.

It also causes me sadness that most of the Nicaraguans I know in the United States, and whom I see regularly on Facebook, have not spoken out against the pain the people of Nicaragua suffered at the hands of the government. Have they become so cold that they no longer feel? I wonder.

Today, on the closing day of this edition, something unusual happened in the city of Masaya, where it was expected that the guard of Ortega – anti-riot and paramilitary – carried out the ‘Operation Cleanup,’ which would dismantle with violence the barriers that the town has been raising to prevent them from entering their neighborhoods to kill more people and to put pressure on the rulers to leave power. It was expected to be a slaughter of large proportions.

The bishops of Nicaragua, in one of their many interventions in defense of the population, were present in Masaya in a long caravan of vehicles along with the thousands of villagers who joined them, managed to stop the massacre. They spoke with the police commissioner so that, in the name of God, they would not repress the people and he beseeched them.

It remains to be seen, after this issue has come out on the street, if the commissioner also released the dozens of protesters who were detained for protesting against the government – peacefully – as promised.

The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) will hold a special session on Nicaragua this Friday, June 22.

And we hope that by Monday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the OAS and the EU, will already be in Nicaragua, which is the people’s last hope for the government to stop repressing and killing.

The INE guarantees the sending and receiving of the Electoral Package Postal for the vote of Mexicans abroad

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Until Sunday May 27, the National Electoral Institute (INE) has registered the sending of 140 thousand Postal Electoral Packages (PEP), of a total of 181 thousand 256, to Mexicans living abroad so that they can vote this 1st July by president, senators and, if applicable, by governors.

At the moment, four thousand packages have been returned to the country with the suffrage of the nationals. The sending and receiving of the PEPs has been carried out thanks to the UPS courier company, which has been awarded for the tenth consecutive year as one of the most ethical companies in the world (World’s Most Ethical Company) for its star practices.

This company exclusively designed guide numbers for the PEPs for the electoral process in Mexico, to ensure that all votes reach the INE-owned winery (Avenida Tláhuac #5502, Col. Granjas Estrella, CP 09880, Iztapalapa, Mexico City ) where the votes will be protected by the Mexican Army.

Teachers set up camp in Mexico City after chaotic Monday

Officials estimate 3,500 arrived in city for protest

Teachers from six states set up camp in front of the building housing the Secretariat of the Interior (Segob) in Mexico City yesterday after a chaotic day in the capital.

From 9:00am yesterday, members of the dissident CNTE union set up roadblocks at various access points to the city, while thousands marched to protest against the 2013 educational reform. Chaotic traffic conditions were reported in various parts of the city.

The teachers are demanding dialogue with the federal government but their ultimate aim is for the reform — which includes compulsory teacher evaluations — to be repealed.

At the toll booth marking the entry point to the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway, a confrontation between protesters and police left three officers injured.
Teachers threw backpacks, sticks and stones during the clash while the police retaliated with the use of tear gas.

Yesterday’s protests affected more than 12,000 businesses and resulted in the loss of 36 million pesos (US $1.76 million) in revenue, the Mexico City business chamber Canacope said.

The capital’s Public Security Secretariat said that around 3,500 teachers arrived in Mexico City on 47 buses, although the CNTE had anticipated that as many as 12,000 teachers would arrive.

Teachers from Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, Michoacán, México state and Mexico City arrived at the Segob building at around 4 p.m.

One CNTE member from Guerrero told the newspaper El Universal that in addition to anger at the government over the educational reforms, Mexicans are fed up generally with the current situation in the country.

“That hartazgo [feeling of being fed up] is going to be noticed when it’s time to elect a president,” Salvador López said.

Among the teachers’ demands is the reinstatement of almost 600 teachers who were laid off when they refused to write evaluation tests.

“Carry on teachers, to victory, we will only get ahead with the triumph of our president Andrés Manuel López Obrador…” one protest participant said.

Protests continued today in front of the Mexican Stock Exchange building, leading authorities to bolster security at the site.

In addition to the Mexico City protests, CNTE teachers have occupied public locations in Oaxaca and blocked access to that city’s airport and central bus station.

A week-long strike in Oaxaca spread to Guerrero, Michoacán and Chiapas and teachers have vowed that it will continue until the government agrees to restart negotiations.

The federal Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) warned yesterday that it would dock the pay of teachers who missed classes but the protesters have remained defiant and CNTE members have previously shown that they are prepared to be patient.

A 2016 teachers camp set up around La Ciudadela Park in downtown Mexico City remained in place for three months.

Source: El Universal (sp), El Financiero (sp)

Socialism equals triumph for corporate criminals

By Jon Rappoport

In several recent articles (all here under category: socialism), I’ve exposed the myth that socialism is a revolution of and for the people.

I’ve presented evidence that socialism is actually a movement owned, operated, and funded by ultra-wealthy elites.

Dupes, foot soldiers, blind idealists, indoctrinated students, and low-level thugs are recruited through cutouts to serve the agenda of Rockefeller Globalists, for example, who are determined to bring about worldwide socialism.

Socialism, in a nutshell, equals ultra-rich elites (represented by the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, etc.) owning the free market, cutting out competition, and creating more powerful, overarching, central governments.

Hidden in the plan is the granting of greater dominion to mega-corporations. This is a key fact.

The US Constitution was a document that established extremely limited central government. Regardless of the motives of the authors and the state legislatures that ratified it, the ideas contained in the Constitution were, and are, extremely oppressive toward large centralized structures controlling the people.

But there was another factor present at the beginning of the American Republic.

At the dawn of the United States, corporations were chartered and thus allowed to operate by the individual states. If a corporation, in the eyes of a state legislature, violated a basic trust by harming the people, committing offenses against the citizenry, the legislature could summarily cancel their charter and literally exile them from the state.

This power followed, in part, from the fact that corporations were not and are not individuals. They do not have the rights and freedoms of individuals. Corporations were not granted the rights of citizens in the Constitution.

Richard Grossman, an activist and scholar of US corporate history, unearthed and made lucid these facts.

At the birth of the American Republic, therefore, there was a double limitation on power. Central government and corporations were both strapped and shackled.

Of course, just as the federal government has been allowed to expand like an unchecked fungus, so has corporate power.

Under socialism (aka Globalism), mega-corporate power is the prow of a ship that sails on and on and conquers the economies of the world.

Corporate crimes go unpunished.

Contrary to popular belief, the real agenda of socialism has nothing to do with prosecuting those crimes.

The idea, for example, that greater socialism in America would defeat Monsanto is ludicrous in the extreme.

Monsanto is one of the components of actual socialism—the real, not the fake, version.

Again, socialism is by, for, and of the ultra-wealthy elites. It is not a movement on behalf of the downtrodden.

As Gary Allen puts it in his 1971 classic, None Dare call It Conspiracy: “…pressure from above and pressure from below… The pressure from above comes from secret, ostensibly respectable Comrades in the government and [elite Globalist] Establishment, forming, with the radicalized mobs in the streets below, a giant pincer around middle-class society. The street rioters are pawns, shills, puppets, and dupes for an oligarchy of elitist conspirators working above to turn America’s limited government into an unlimited government with total control over our lives and property.”

“The American middle class is being squeezed to death by a vise. In the streets we have avowed revolutionary groups… Virtually all members of these groups sincerely believe that they are fighting the Establishment. In reality they are an indispensable ally of the Establishment in fastening Socialism on all of us. The naive radicals think that under Socialism the ‘people’ will run everything. Actually, it will be a clique of Insiders in total control, consolidating and controlling all wealth. That is why these schoolboy Lenins and teenage Trotskys are allowed to roam free and are practically never arrested or prosecuted. They are protected. If the Establishment wanted the revolutionaries stopped, how long do you think they would be tolerated?”

Gary Allen wrote that passage in 1971. Does it ring a familiar bell now?

As philosopher George Santayana famously wrote in 1905, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Equally famous is the prescription for all advertising: repeat the same message over and over, so it sinks into the mind and forms a false impression of truth.

Thus it has been with the basic message of socialism. “This is a form of government that finally serves the people. It is the people rising up to take the reins of power.”

Once that notion is rigidly fixed in consciousness, it is impossible to believe socialism is actually emanating from the elite of the elite.

Fortunately, more and more people are waking up to the basic con of fake news, which doesn’t only broadcast distorted current events spooling out through screens, day by day.

Basic themes of fake news also span decades and even centuries.

What will happen when enough young people, who want to tear down the structures of the monopolists, realize those same men are bankrolling them in the streets?

What will happen when these young people realize their teachers and mentors and handlers and professors have been feeding them the precise reverse of the truth?

As long as independent media continue to proliferate, that day is coming.

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

Socialism equals triumph for corporate criminals

By Jon Rappoport

In several recent articles (all here under category: socialism), I’ve exposed the myth that socialism is a revolution of and for the people.

I’ve presented evidence that socialism is actually a movement owned, operated, and funded by ultra-wealthy elites.

Dupes, foot soldiers, blind idealists, indoctrinated students, and low-level thugs are recruited through cutouts to serve the agenda of Rockefeller Globalists, for example, who are determined to bring about worldwide socialism.

Socialism, in a nutshell, equals ultra-rich elites (represented by the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, etc.) owning the free market, cutting out competition, and creating more powerful, overarching, central governments.

Hidden in the plan is the granting of greater dominion to mega-corporations. This is a key fact.

The US Constitution was a document that established extremely limited central government. Regardless of the motives of the authors and the state legislatures that ratified it, the ideas contained in the Constitution were, and are, extremely oppressive toward large centralized structures controlling the people.

But there was another factor present at the beginning of the American Republic.

At the dawn of the United States, corporations were chartered and thus allowed to operate by the individual states. If a corporation, in the eyes of a state legislature, violated a basic trust by harming the people, committing offenses against the citizenry, the legislature could summarily cancel their charter and literally exile them from the state.

This power followed, in part, from the fact that corporations were not and are not individuals. They do not have the rights and freedoms of individuals. Corporations were not granted the rights of citizens in the Constitution.

Richard Grossman, an activist and scholar of US corporate history, unearthed and made lucid these facts.

At the birth of the American Republic, therefore, there was a double limitation on power. Central government and corporations were both strapped and shackled.

Of course, just as the federal government has been allowed to expand like an unchecked fungus, so has corporate power.

Under socialism (aka Globalism), mega-corporate power is the prow of a ship that sails on and on and conquers the economies of the world.

Corporate crimes go unpunished.

Contrary to popular belief, the real agenda of socialism has nothing to do with prosecuting those crimes.

The idea, for example, that greater socialism in America would defeat Monsanto is ludicrous in the extreme.

Monsanto is one of the components of actual socialism—the real, not the fake, version.

Again, socialism is by, for, and of the ultra-wealthy elites. It is not a movement on behalf of the downtrodden.

As Gary Allen puts it in his 1971 classic, None Dare call It Conspiracy: “…pressure from above and pressure from below… The pressure from above comes from secret, ostensibly respectable Comrades in the government and [elite Globalist] Establishment, forming, with the radicalized mobs in the streets below, a giant pincer around middle-class society. The street rioters are pawns, shills, puppets, and dupes for an oligarchy of elitist conspirators working above to turn America’s limited government into an unlimited government with total control over our lives and property.”

“The American middle class is being squeezed to death by a vise. In the streets we have avowed revolutionary groups… Virtually all members of these groups sincerely believe that they are fighting the Establishment. In reality they are an indispensable ally of the Establishment in fastening Socialism on all of us. The naive radicals think that under Socialism the ‘people’ will run everything. Actually, it will be a clique of Insiders in total control, consolidating and controlling all wealth. That is why these schoolboy Lenins and teenage Trotskys are allowed to roam free and are practically never arrested or prosecuted. They are protected. If the Establishment wanted the revolutionaries stopped, how long do you think they would be tolerated?”

Gary Allen wrote that passage in 1971. Does it ring a familiar bell now?

As philosopher George Santayana famously wrote in 1905, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Equally famous is the prescription for all advertising: repeat the same message over and over, so it sinks into the mind and forms a false impression of truth.

Thus it has been with the basic message of socialism. “This is a form of government that finally serves the people. It is the people rising up to take the reins of power.”

Once that notion is rigidly fixed in consciousness, it is impossible to believe socialism is actually emanating from the elite of the elite.

Fortunately, more and more people are waking up to the basic con of fake news, which doesn’t only broadcast distorted current events spooling out through screens, day by day.

Basic themes of fake news also span decades and even centuries.

What will happen when enough young people, who want to tear down the structures of the monopolists, realize those same men are bankrolling them in the streets?

What will happen when these young people realize their teachers and mentors and handlers and professors have been feeding them the precise reverse of the truth?

As long as independent media continue to proliferate, that day is coming.

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

La patronal de Nicaragua rompe con Ortega

Los empresarios afirman que el modelo corporativista “se agotó” y apoyan un cambio en el Gobierno

por Carlos Salinas

Entre los cambios que ha generado la inédita rebelión popular en Nicaragua, que desde hace 43 días exige en las calles la salida del presidente Daniel Ortega del Gobierno, está el fin del modelo corporativista que durante diez años fue uno de los principales pilares que le daban estabilidad al régimen.

La noche del martes el Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada (COSEP), la principal cámara empresarial del país, demandó a sus miembros a renunciar de “forma inmediata” a cualquier relación que mantuvieran con el Ejecutivo de Ortega, mientras que dos de los más poderosos empresarios del país, Carlos Pellas y Piero Coen, afirmaron que ese modelo corporativista “se agotó” y que es necesario un cambio de Gobierno.

El COSEP afirmó en un comunicado hecho público la noche del martes que a partir del 18 de abril –cuando Ortega desató una feroz opresión contra las manifestaciones que se oponían a una reforma a la Seguridad Social impuesta sin consenso– suspendió su participación “en cualquier reunión con las autoridades del Gobierno como consecuencia de nuestro rechazo a la represión y nuestro compromiso con la justicia y la democracia de Nicaragua”. Muchos miembros de la cámara, sin embargo, mantenían cargos en comisiones, comités o justas directivas de instituciones públicas, dentro del modelo de alianza entre el sector privado y el Gobierno desarrollado por Ortega. Desde ayer esa relación quedó rota.

Los empresarios criticaron la represión y los actos de violencia desatados desde el Ejecutivo, que no ha implementado las recomendaciones hechas por la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH), que exigió el fin de toda forma de represión, el respeto al derecho de los nicaragüenses de protestar de forma pacífica, la protección de los manifestantes y la creación de un mecanismo internacional, autónomo, para investigar y esclarecer las violaciones a los derechos humanos en del país desde abril.

El lunes, Nicaragua vivió una de las jornadas más violentas desde abril, después de que huestes del Frente Sandinista, grupos parapoliciales y oficiales antidisturbios atacaran el campus de la Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería (UNI), donde se habían atrincherado un centenar de estudiantes que exigía el fin del Gobierno sandinista. Las imágenes retransmitidas en vivo por la televisión mostraban a los oficiales disparando a mansalva en el que es el corazón comercial y financiero de Managua.

La violencia dejó dos muertos, más de 40 heridos, una veintena de jóvenes apresados, comercios atacados, quemada la fachada de una radio progubernamental y periodistas agredidos.

Familiares de esos detenidos se presentaron el martes a la sede de la Dirección de Auxilio Judicial, en Managua, popularmente conocida como “El Chipote” y denunciada como centro de torturas. Las madres de estas personas exigían su liberación y tras varias horas de presión un grupo de sacerdotes pudo acceder al edificio. Tras una rápida negociación lograron la promesa de las autoridades de liberar a 22 jóvenes capturados el lunes. Fueron entregados en la Catedral Metropolitana de la capital nicaragüense, pero otras madres informaron de que en la lista no estaban sus hijos, a quienes dan por “desaparecidos”.

“Demandamos la inmediata liberación de los jóvenes y ciudadanos que todavía continúan ilegalmente detenidos”, dijeron los empresarios en su comunicado.
Los empresarios del sector turístico de Nicaragua –uno de los pilares de la economía de este país– también se pronunciaron la noche del martes. Este gremio ha sido duramente golpeado por la crisis. Hay hoteles en las ciudades coloniales de Granada y León –postales de presentación de este país frente al mundo– que no cuentan con huéspedes, otros que funcionan al 20 por ciento de su capacidad, mientras los restaurantes informaron de pérdidas de hasta el 50 por ciento.

En su comunicado la Cámara del Turismo responsabilizó al Gobierno de la violencia e instó a todos sus miembros a participar en una manifestación nacional que se realizará este miércoles, Día de las Madres en Nicaragua, que sería encabezada por las madres de los muertos por la represión. La manifestación, a la que se unirían todas las cámaras empresariales, los universitarios, campesinos y organizaciones de la sociedad civil prometió ser gigantesca.

“Reiteramos nuestra posición firme y clara al lado del pueblo que lucha para alcanza justicia para los asesinados, heridos, torturados, desaparecidos y detenidos ilegalmente”, dijeron los empresarios. “El turismo, algún día, cuando la paz brille en nuestro suelo patrio, podremos recuperarlo, pero las vidas de más de 90 hermanos nicaragüenses, en su gran mayoría estudiantes en la flor de la juventud, no podremos recuperarlas jamás. Por eso y por ellos exigimos justicia”.

Las declaraciones más sintomáticas de la ruptura con el Gobierno vinieron, sin embargo, de dos de los principales empresarios de del país.

Piero Coen, presidente de un grupo de empresas con intereses en el sector agroindustrial, de finanzas y bienes raíces, criticó la feroz represión del Gobierno en una entrevista con el periodista Carlos Fernando Chamorro, director de la revista Confidencial.

Coen abogó por una salida “rápida, ordenada y pacífica” de la crisis y afirmo que el modelo corporativista era “insostenible”. Para Coen los empresarios “ya no marcamos la pauta”. En términos similares se expresó Carlos Pellas, el poderoso empresario que lidera el Grupo Pellas, productor del famoso Ron Flor de Caña, quien en una entrevista con el diario La Prensa dijo que “el modelo que traía el país se agotó” y que se necesita “de forma urgente” un cambio, lo que pasa por adelanto de elecciones y “profunda transformación institucional”.

Ortega había impuesto durante 10 años un modelo económico en el que las decisiones se tomaban entre él y la cúpula empresarial. El mandatario les garantizaba a los empresarios estabilidad y ventajas para hacer negocios, mientras estos no intervenían en las decisiones políticas de Ortega y su deriva autoritaria. Así, permitieron el secuestro de las instituciones, la reforma a la Constitución para que el exguerrillero sandinista se perpetuara en el poder y desarrollara un Gobierno dinástico, con su esposa como vicepresidenta, y con denuncias de graves violaciones a los derechos humanos y la libertad de prensa.

“A Ortega ahora se le ha configurado el peor escenario. Tiene a la gente en las calles, la demanda ciudadana que exige que se vaya del poder y ahora se le ha caído el modelo que era uno de sus pilares, la relación con el capital”, explica a El País, Azahaléa Solís, jurista participante en la mesa del Diálogo Nacional que pretende hallar una solución a la profunda crisis política que sufre el país.

“Este escenario es más sombrío para Ortega”, agrega. Solís añade que ahora no puede haber “aterrizaje suave”, es decir, una solución a largo plazo a través de un acuerdo configurado con la OEA, que apostaba a que Ortega terminara su mandato en 2021.

“Ese acuerdo queda desfasado y es anacrónico”, ha dicho la analista. Aunque es difícil prever cuál será la respuesta de Ortega frente a la ruptura de los empresarios, una acción simbólica del mandatario demuestra su debilidad: ordenó construir más barricadas con enormes piedras alrededor de su casa, en el capitalino barrio del El Carmen, y aumentó el perímetro de seguridad, con decenas de oficiales armados en la zona.

The employers of Nicaragua break with Ortega

The employers of Nicaragua break with Ortega

Business sector says that the corporatist model “got exhausted” and they support a change in the government

by Carlos Salinas

Among the changes generated by the unprecedented popular rebellion in Nicaragua, which for the past 43 days has demanded the departure of President Daniel Ortega from the government, is the end of the corporatist model that for ten years was one of the main pillars that gave it stability to the regime.

On Tuesday night, the Higher Council for Private Enterprise (COSEP), the country’s leading business chamber, demanded that its members resign “in an immediate manner” to any relationship they had with the Ortega Executive, while two of the most powerful businessmen of the country, Carlos Pellas and Piero Coen, affirmed that this corporatist model “was exhausted” and that a change of Government is necessary.

The COSEP said in a statement made public on Tuesday night that from April 18 – when Ortega unleashed a fierce oppression against demonstrations that opposed a Social Security reform imposed without consensus – he suspended his participation “in any meeting with government authorities as a consequence of our rejection of repression and our commitment to justice and democracy in Nicaragua.” Many members of the chamber, however, held positions in commissions, committees or just directives of public institutions, within the model of partnership between the private sector and the government developed by Ortega. Since yesterday that relationship was broken.

The businessmen criticized the repression and acts of violence unleashed by the Executive, which has not implemented the recommendations made by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), which demanded the end of all forms of repression, respect for the rights of Nicaraguans to protest in a peaceful way, the protection of the demonstrators and the creation of an international, autonomous mechanism to investigate and clarify the violations of human rights in the country since April.

On Monday, Nicaragua experienced one of the most violent days since April, after forces of the Sandinista Front, para-police groups and riot police attacked the campus of the National University of Engineering (UNI), where a hundred students had barricaded themselves that demand the end of the Sandinista government. The images retransmitted live on television showed the officers shooting at close range in what is the commercial and financial heart of Managua.

The violence left two dead, more than 40 wounded, a score of young people imprisoned, businesses attacked, the façade of a pro-government radio and journalists assaulted.

Relatives of these detainees were showed up on Tuesday at the headquarters of the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, in Managua, popularly known as “El Chipote” and denounced as a torture center. The mothers of these people demanded their release and after several hours of pressure a group of priests could access the building. After a quick negotiation they obtained the promise of the authorities to release 22 young people captured on Monday. They were delivered to the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Nicaraguan capital, but other mothers reported that their children were not on the list, whom they call “disappeared”.

“We demand the immediate release of young people and citizens who are still illegally detained,” the businessmen said in their statement.

The tourism business sector of Nicaragua – one of the pillars of the economy of this country – also declared their stand Tuesday night. This union has been hard hit by the crisis. There are hotels in the colonial cities of Granada and Leon –postcards of this country in front of the world- that do not have guests, others that work at 20 percent of their capacity, while the restaurants reported losses of up to 50 percent.

In its statement, the Chamber of Tourism blamed the government for the violence and urged all its members to participate in a national demonstration to be held on Wednesday, May 30, Mother’s Day in Nicaragua, which would be led by the mothers of those killed by the repression. The demonstration, to which all business chambers, university students, peasants and civil society organizations would join, promised to be gigantic.

“We reiterate our firm and clear position next to the people who fight to achieve justice for the murdered, wounded, tortured, disappeared and illegally detained,” said the businessmen. “Tourism, someday, when peace shines in our homeland, we can recover it, but the lives of more than 90 Nicaraguan brothers, mostly students in the prime of youth, we will never be able to recover them. For that reason and for them we demand justice. ”

The most symptomatic statements of the break with the government came, however, from two of the country’s leading entrepreneurs.

Piero Coen, president of a group of companies with interests in the agribusiness, finance and real estate sector, criticized the government’s fierce repression in an interview with journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, director of Confidencial magazine.

Coen advocated a “quick, orderly and peaceful” exit from the crisis and claimed that the corporatist model was “unsustainable.” For Coen the businessmen “we no longer set the tone”. In similar terms, Carlos Pellas, the powerful entrepreneur who leads the Pellas Group, producer of the famous Ron Flor de Caña, said in an interview with the newspaper La Prensa that “the model that brought the country was exhausted” and that is needed “urgently” a change, what happens by advance elections and “deep institutional transformation.”

Ortega had imposed for 10 years an economic model in which decisions were made between him and the business leadership. The president guaranteed the entrepreneurs stability and advantages to do business, while they did not intervene in the political decisions of Ortega and his authoritarian drift. Thus, they allowed the kidnapping of the institutions, the reform of the Constitution so that the Sandinista ex-guerrilla would perpetuate himself in power and develop a dynastic government, with his wife as vice president, and with denunciations of serious violations of human rights and freedom of press.

“Ortega has now been configured the worst scenario. It has the people in the streets, the citizens demand that that he leave power and now it has fallen the model that was one of its pillars, the relationship with capital”, explains to El País, Azahaléa Solís, participant jurist at the table of the National Dialogue that seeks to find a solution to the deep political crisis that the country suffers.

“This scenario is darker for Ortega,” he adds. Solis adds that now there can be no “soft landing”, that is, a long-term solution through an agreement with the OAS, which bet that Ortega would finish his term in 2021.

“That agreement is outdated and anachronistic,” the analyst said. Although it is difficult to predict what will be Ortega’s response to the rupture of the businessmen, a symbolic action by the president shows his weakness: he ordered to build more barricades with huge stones around his house, in the capital El Carmen neighborhood, and increased the perimeter security, with dozens of armed officers in the area.