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Teachers march in México City before talks with government

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Teachers marched on Tuesday, July 12 in Mexico City to protest against the educational reform before resuming talks with Minister of the Interior (Segob) Miguel Ángel Osorio to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict. Members of the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) held sessions on Saturday evening in a national representative assembly.

Teachers from 18 states determined that all demonstrations and actions agreed in the local and national areas should be on behalf of the CNTE and not one single section.

Members of the teachers’ national leadership insisted that the dialog with federal authorities should focus on the solution to the conflict’s origin, which is the educational reform, which they describe as punitive.

They said they hoped that during the dialogs with the Interior Minister on Monday, they could move on in that direction.
Another agreement of the assembly is that every contingent or section defines an action plan in its state, with mass demonstrations, road and railway block.

On Monday, teachers will join a demonstration to support the families of the 43 Ayotzinapa’s school teachers, whose forced disappearance took place between Sept. 26 and 27, 2014.

Meanwhile, next Wednesday teachers will carry out a mega march from teh Fina Arts Museum to the Senate Building.
In Nochixtlán, last June 19, a clash between police officers, teachers and villagers left a death toll of at least 8 dead and dozens of people injured and arrested.

Hundreds of Hondurans Attend Funeral of Murdered Environmentalist

Hundreds of Hondurans accompanied the body of the environmental activist Lesbia Yaneth Urquía, who was assassinated in the central department of La Paz on Wednesday, July 6, local media reported on Saturday.

According to El Heraldo, those people paid their last respects to the prominent activist, after a mass at a Catholic church. Urquía was a member of the Civic Council of Indigenous Peoples Organizations of Honduras (Copinh).

Copinh members demanded that the government and authorities promptly investigate the assassination of Urquía, who opposed the privatization of energy projects in La Paz.

They also called on the Executive to stop crimes against those activists who defend the rights of communities.

After Urquía’s body was found, the police reported that the victim had an open cranial trauma caused by a sharp object.

The assassination of the social activist occurred more than four months after armed individuals murdered Berta Caceres in the western department of Intibuca. Caceres was the general coordinator of Copinh and a defender of the rights of indigenous peoples.

Puerto Rico could record 200,000 cases of Zika virus

About 200,000 people could be infected in Puerto Rico with Zika virus by late 2016, according to a committee established by the island’s government, which promotes Naled aerial spraying.

State epidemiologist, Brenda Rivera, said there has been a dramatic increase of 30 percent of infection of the virus. She stated that one of four Puerto Rican adults would be infected by 2017.

The number of infected pregnant women last week has increased a 28 percent, Rivera said.

Puro Bandido with its original Latin rock taste

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

One of the groups that has persevered time and the stone age, is Puro Bandido, which will performing nearby the Mission as a tribute to Diamond John, Life Celebration. Come everyone to Slim’s, at 333 11th Street, San Francisco. Doors open at 7 p.m. and show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at Slims 415-255-0333.

Yahir Durán brings his trova to San Francisco

Yahir Duran (1973) Singer-Songwriter, is one of the most notable representatives of the new Mexican trova. As a writer of narrative, has a literary work in the form of stories and chronicles in which recounts his childhood and family roots in autobiographical tone, his memories and the magical surroundings of his native Topolobampo, Sinaloa in a book called Amar adentro.

At the Community Music Center, on Saturday, July 16 at 7 – 9 p.m., 544 Capp St, San Francisco, California 94110.

John Leguizamo Returns to the Bay Area with John Leguizamo: Latin History of Morons

The outrageous, multifaceted performer attempts to teach his son (and the rest of us) about the marginalization of Latinos in U.S. history and the vital roles they played in building this country. From a satirical recap of Aztec and Incan history to stories of Latin patriots in the Revolutionary and Civil War and beyond, Leguizamo breaks down 3,000 years into 90 irreverent and uncensored minutes in his trademark comedic style.

History was never so mind-blowing…or hysterical! Latin History for Morons plays July 1-August 14 at Berkeley Rep. Discounts for under 30. Bring a group: Buy 10, save $10 (each ticket!). Visit BerkeleyRep.org for tickets. 

“My Brother’s Keeper? Expressions of Our World Today” art exhibition

Are we our brother’s keeper? When it comes to the earth, equality, and the harmony of our fellow humans, do we bear a responsibility, regardless of who or where we may be? Back To The Picture presents six artists and their vision of our world today through powerful depictions on our present state.

Join us in July for a commentary, sometimes raw and intense, sometimes playful. What at first may seem light on the surface, soon pulls a deeper truth from within.

On display works of Art Hazlewood, Jessie Aquire, Kathy Aoki, Consuelo Jiménez-Underwood, Mark Harris, Robyn Kralique. July 3 – 31, 2016 Curated by Derek Hargrove.

Opening reception with the artists Saturday, July 9, 2016 7-10 p.m.

La Gente extends its marathon of live music at American Music Hall

LA GENTE will be headlining in the most historic music Venue in San Francisco: The Great American Music Hall! We will be teaming up with our brethren from across the bay: the infectious, funk-madness of PLANET BOOTY! And San Francisco’s newest up and coming soul group: The Histville Soul Sisters! We also will be featuring a slew of specials guests from all the top bands of the Bay Area. This is going to be a historic night for the Bay Area Music Scene! Get your tickets today!

Saturday July 16, 850 O’Farrall, San Francisco, at 8 p.m., $16 cover.

Archealogical pieces returned to Bolivia

by he El Reportero’s news services

A group of 22 Bolivian archaeological pieces which had been in possession of a German family will return to the country, as anounced here today.

The archaeological pieces are from the Inca and Tiwanaku cultures.

According to the Bolivian embassy in Berlin, the works were in possession of Tobias Wagnerberger in the city of Munich, who obtained them through his grandfather, photographer and war correspondent Hans Ertl.

Ertl was also an explorer who settled with his family in Bolivia at the end of World War II, like many Germans in the 50s of last century.

Wagnerberger explained to the Bolivian authorities that the pieces were stored in a tank of his residence and when he realized the interest that could have for the South American country decided to contact the embassy.

President Evo Morales expressed his gratitude during the ceremony to welcome the New Andean-Amazon Year 5524.
“We welcome and are grateful that these pieces are already in our embassy in Germany and we will soon recover them”, the leader said.

He showed pictures and stressed that Bolivian archaeologists will classify the information and origin of the valuable objects.

According to Morales, Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca carries out permanent management to recover similar pieces, like it happened with the return of the Illa del Ekeko.

The 16-cm stone idol, which represents a God of abundance and prosperity, was repatriated in November 2014 after spending 157 in a museum in Switzerland.

The leader thanked the good will of “some German brothers who have conscious”, like Tobías Wagner Berger, son of photographer Hans Elrd, who arrived in Bolivia in 1954, after World War II.

He also urged families from other countries to return more archaeological pieces that exited the country in an uncertain way.

Argentine singer Fito Páez gives his heart to Havana

Argentine singer, Fito Páez, gave his heart again to Havana last night, in a concert dedicated to the city he fell in love with in 1987.

The concert that closed Páez’s tour of Latin America, celebrating 30 years of his album ‘Giros’, took place in the packed Karl Marx Theater.

The singer, who is celebrating the album that catapulted him to international fame, opened with ‘Giros’ to a standing ovation. In an unforgettable concert, he also sang 11 y 6, Taquicardia, Cable a tierra and Alguna vez voy a ser libre.
The first chords of Yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazo’ welcomed unto the stage one of Cuba’s most important musicians, Pablo Milanés, who Paez thanked for having invited him to the island in the late 1980s.

The musician also shared the stage with troubadour Carlos Varela, flutist José Luis Cortes, known as ‘El Tosco’, and singer Diana Fuentes.

Organized by PM Records studios, the concert which lasted more than two hours, was attended by Cubans of several generations and is a tribute to the cultures of Cuba and Argentina through the universal language of music.

$30 billion in losses, 24 billion victims

Just once, I would like to see Wall Street held accountable

by Richard Lawless

SAN JUAN/TEMECULA – Let’s face it, if you or I were to participate in a scheme that caused $30 billion dollars in losses, we would be sent away for the rest of our natural lives. Unfortunately, if you work for one of the big three Credit Rating Agencies (Moody’s, Fitch or S&P) or a major Bank, like Chase, Citibank or Goldman Sachs, you have a get out of jail free card.

Starting back in 2007 and 2008 when the mortgage backed securities crisis brought our country to its knees, it became clear that Wall Street would have to find another vehicle to replace the huge fees they were earning from rating and selling junk mortgage bonds as safe investments. Before 2007 came to an end, it was clear Wall Street decided to transfer that very same business model to the municipal bond market. The very same strategies that caused the 2007-2008 financial meltdown.

Starting in 2007 the Municipal Bond market exploded; not by accident, but by design. In 2007 there was less than a trillion dollars in bonds in the market. Today that number is over 4 trillion dollars. This kind of reckless expansion takes cooperation between all parties, the Issuing Agencies, the Ratings Companies and Wall Street’s biggest Banks.

Everyone knows that the 2007-2008 financial crisis was a result of the big three Credit Rating Agencies, knowingly and willingly, issuing high credit rating for packages of mortgages that everyone in the industry knew were unpayable. The Banks then knowingly and willingly sold those mislabeled investments to innocent investors. The Rating Agencies and Banks earned record fees and the American economy lost trillions of dollars. Only one poor Banker was ever prosecuted. Why not do it again? So they did.

We know that trillions in Municipal Bonds are now in the market place carrying ratings that indicate they are safe investments. A simple read of the bonds offering memorandum shows the Issuing Agency to be technically bankrupt with huge, unmanageable pension obligations. Many of these Agencies are also facing significant lawsuits, are in violation of critical bond agreements and reflect actions that indicate unsafe management by the Agencies leaders. Still, they receive investment grade ratings.

Like the mortgage bond crisis, the Agencies could never pay for the debt they issued, so they are required to refinance this debt frequently to avoid the inevitable defaults non-payment would create. The Ratings Agencies and Banks make record fee income as long as the refinancing continues. This is called a Ponzi Scheme and Bernie Madoff went to jail for the same thing.

Well, the house of cards collapsed in Puerto Rico this year and all these facts have come to light. We know the personnel who signed off on the fraudulent credit ratings; we know the personnel who sold these junk bonds as safe investments. None of these folks have been interviewed by the SEC or the FBI. All of the Wall Street firms are in clear violation of the newer Dodd Frank legislation and any number of criminal codes.

Once again the power of Wall Street and the political corruption will only guarantee future defaults. Today it is $30 billion, next year, Chicago, Connecticut or California and maybe a few trillion in losses. All created intentionally by what one could only consider a criminal enterprise.

(Richard Lawless is a former senior banker who has specialized in evaluating and granting debt for over 25 years. He has a Master’s Degree in Finance from the University of San Diego and Bachelor’s Degree from Pepperdine University. He sits on a number of Corporate Boards and actively writes for a number of finance publications).

The Fascism of Feminism that hasn’t been shown – PART 2 AND LAST

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Dear readers;

As I was growing up, I observed how men were being cornered by society, little by little. The police, the courts, and other parts of the government have weakened men’s position of power. No longer are they treated with respect and have been taken out of the traditional role of the ‘man of the house, the breadwinner;’ they are losing court battles, and sometimes landing on the streets with almost nothing after a divorce, while the court chase him for not paying child support even when they had no job. They sometime are put in jail.

Sometimes this happens while the woman is employed and is making more than is necessary to live comfortably, and while is accompanied by a new man in her life.

The following article, which has no author, should be read by everyone in order to better understand the injustices committed against men by a brainwashed society that has been made to believe that men are the evil ones, while for whom no one raises a hand on his behalf. PART 2 AND LAST.

The Fascism of Feminism that hasn’t been shown

This essay examines some of the issues closely related to feminist campaigning, providing gender balance on subjects such as domestic violence, dispelling feminist myths, while analyzing the behavior of women in 21st century Britain.

by anonymous author

Many unsuccessful or unhappy people project their own failings onto different social groups in society, sub-consciously blaming others for their own personal issues. It’s a common psychological process and feminists are no different. This scapegoating invariably leads to persecution.

Many of these feminist campaigners have an irrational fear of men, and want to create a more feminized society where men are demasculated and controlled. They attempt to hijack every issue, and are only capable of viewing these issues from a self-interested, narrow-minded perspective.

These feminists are not interested in men’s opinions or understanding their emotions, they just make narrow-minded assumptions, feeding off each others ignorance and paranoia. Leaders of feminist groups, especially the more accessible internet pages on social network sites frighten and manipulate young women into seeing men as the enemy, exploiting their fears and fuelling their paranoia. Every man is a potential killer, rapist, sex offender or pedophile in their eyes, and this irrational fear is inherited by young impressionable women who may think the causes are just. It’s a form of grooming which needs to be urgently addressed.

Many influential feminists appear to revel in creating a barrier between men and women, fortifying it at any given opportunity, failing to understand the dynamic between men and women as a result of their own sexual orientation. These humorless, profoundly negative women need a war, a fight to give their life meaning.

No matter how powerful women become in society, these feminists will always pursue this agenda. If these campaigners are so intelligent and so useful, why don’t they contribute to society instead of consuming much of their time seeking out perceived sexism on the internet? How useful are these feminists in society?

They certainly don’t help society by propagating hate, and I doubt they help the majority of fair-minded women. They seem to have so much campaigning time as a result of their misanthropic tendencies but seem unable to put their rhetoric into practice. They are destructive, not constructive people. Their motivation is negative, not positive. Healthy women do NOT become feminists. Women are more likely to succeed in life if they haven’t been brainwashed with stifling feminist dogma. It gives them an excuse for failure, a reason not to try, and a persecution complex. Most women will grow out of feminist campaigning by their early/mid twenties, as they realize that sitting at a computer, developing a persecution complex does nothing to further their career, or their emotional development.

Some feminist organizations campaign vociferously against men’s playful, gentle ‘sexism’ which often involves complementing women on their physical appearance, celebrating the female form as art has always done, yet they seem oblivious to their own brand of harmful, spiteful, sadistic sexism, intended to make men feel inadequate, useless, and humiliated.

They believe women are viewed as sex objects in the media, yet men’s magazines are far less harmful than women’s gossip magazines, which show nasty undercover photographs of women with cellulite, or without make-up intended to humiliate the celebrity and comfort the lesser attractive readers. Their agenda is bitchy and spiteful, an attack on women, not a celebration.

Men would never disrespect women in this way. Women are the enemy of women, they always have been. The campaign against ‘lads’ mags’ in the UK by groups such as UK Feminista and Women’s Aid is a prime example of their controlling, fascist agenda. They believe that photos of semi-naked women cause men to act violently towards women.

This clearly demonstrates their contempt and lack of understanding of men. By their own terms, violence by women towards men must result from sexual images of men in girl’s and women’s magazines too then? Or does this psychological phenomenon not affect women? There are many semi-naked images of boy bands and sports stars in these publications. Maybe the content in women’s magazines creates a profoundly negative perception of men, which we find offensive? Do they consider this?

Clearly some women are intolerant of men interacting with women in a sexual way. This could easily be construed as heterophobia. Who decides what is pornographic, art, or fashion? Feminist extremists? Just because we don’t like something that doesn’t mean it should be banned. I’m sure many people are offended by hunting magazines in supermarkets showing carcasses resulting from ‘sporting’ endeavors. Some supermarkets have felt compelled to remove men’s magazines from their shelves as a result of legal threats and bullying by these feminist organizations. They even claim that female supermarket workers are being sexually harassed by being in the presence of these magazines!

The campaign to ban men’s magazines is one of the most misguided and ineffectual campaigns ever staged by feminists, and the battle to save them has become a metaphor in the fight against the control feminists seek to impose on men. Banning them would amount to a token act of symbolism, unlikely to have any meaningful impact on society.

Individuals and small groups should never be allowed to control society, that’s not what democracy is about, but then UK Feminista is an anti-democratic organization which believes that feminism should be at the centre of politics, which clearly demonstrates a desire for self-righteous control, and not equality. Organizations such as this create a climate of misogyny and man-hating, which is far more likely to cause sexism and domestic violence than the men’s magazines they seek to ban.

The editor of the first magazine to feature the voyeuristic photos of Kate Middleton was a woman. These feminists never campaign when women letch over other women and view them as sex objects. There’s more sexual predation by lesbians than men per head of the population but they never speak of this. Attacking men is their only motivation. These feminists drown in the bile of their own hypocrisy. They also believe women are exploited by men.

In fact, men are exploited by women for children, money, power and status. There is probably more disrespectful, sexist behavior in society by women. A good example of their casual unwitting sexism revealed itself the BBC documentary Panorama, where an episode discussed sexism in football. Many of the comments on the program by women were deeply sexist, the sort of gender stereotypes men are chastised for. Phrases like “women are better communicators than men”, “women behave with less bravado”, “men are angry because we are taking their jobs.”

Unfortunately the irony seemed lost on them. Many women and girls watch football because they are sexually attracted to players, they have half naked posters of footballers on their walls but when men do this they are considered shallow and sexist. The hypocrisy is staggering sometimes. Let’s not forget how women exploit footballers and other well-known celebrities by seducing them in nightclubs and then sell stories to national newspapers. Maybe campaign groups like Object should visit a modern hen night or nightclub to observe women’s behavior.

99 percent of GMOs could be excluded from labeling

by Jonathan Benson

There’s a new GMO labeling bill moving through Congress that, contrary to what its backers claim it to be, is nothing more than a covert anti-labeling bill that threatens to undo many years’ worth of hard work by true GMO labeling advocates pushing for meaningful reform in this important area of food policy and public health.

Known as the Roberts-Stabenow Bill, S.764 is the outcome of an exhausting negotiation process between Senators Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman; Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.); and a powerful food industry lobby that’s proven it will stop at nothing to keep Americans in the dark about what they’re eating. On its surface, the bill seems to be about developing a comprehensive labeling scheme for genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) in food – but dig a little deeper and it’s something much more sinister.

In an open letter to the two senators, the Center for Food Safety (CFS), Food and Water Watch and a consortium of other food safety, farm, environmental and consumer advocacy groups is urging a rejection of S.764, citing the fact that rather than implementing a workable GMO labeling system, the legislation would instead exempt as much as 99 percent of the GMOs currently in use from ever having to be labeled.

The letter also points to failures in the legislation, including its lack of enforceable consequences if food manufacturers fail to comply, as well as its ridiculous proposal to “label” foods with so-called “smart” barcodes that can only be scanned with smartphones – something that as much as 50 percent of rural and low-income Americans don’t even own due to their high cost.

“It exempts major portions of current and future GMO foods from labeling; it is on its face discriminatory against low income, rural and elderly populations; it is a gross violation of the sovereignty of numerous states around the nation; and it provides no enforcement against those who violate the law.”

S.764 was crafted in secret without any input from constituents

Another major issue with the Roberts-Stabenow legislation is the fact that it was crafted in secret without any meaningful input from the people who will be affected by it: the constituents. The details of what it would entail were never shared prior to its unveiling; hearings were never held; and testimony either for or against was never given.
“The bill addresses a critical issue for the American public, yet it was neither subject to a single hearing nor any testimony whatsoever,” the letter adds.

One of the obvious reasons for this is that meaningful GMO labeling legislation that was already passed by constituents in states like Vermont and Connecticut would be wholly deconstructed under S.764, and replaced with draconian exemptions that favor the food industry rather than the people. S.764 would effectively steamroll both state and municipal sovereignty on the issue of GMO labeling, preempting the will of the people in order to pacify GMO purveyors and producers.

“The proposed law … is a fraud,” says Mike Adams, the Health Ranger. “It would not require any sort of GMO labeling that’s readable by human beings, and it would destroy the only existing labeling law that requires real, honest labeling (the Vermont law).”

You can contact your state senators by visiting the following link: USA.gov/elected-officials
If you’re interested in truly organic products that are transparent and honestly labeled, check out some of the offerings by Health Ranger Select.

Aging in the fields – no alternative but to keep working – Part 1

SATICOY, CA - 18APRIL12 - Immigrant farm workers graft seedlings for avocado, citrus and other fruit trees at Brokaw Nursery, which supplies them to orchards all over the world. Most workers come from Mexico, but a few are from El Salvador. Pictured: Consuelo Mendez worked forty years at Brokaw, then retired, but came back to work because Social Security benefits didn't cover her bills. Copyright David Bacon

by David Bacon

As soon as  Anastasia Flores’ children were old enough, she brought them with her to work in the fields. “Ever since 1994 I’ve always worked by myself, until my children  could also work,” she recalls. “In Washington, I picked cucumbers, and in Santa Maria here I worked picking strawberries and tomatoes. In Washington, they allowed people to take their children to work with them, and to leave them at the end of the row with the older children taking care of the younger ones.”

She didn’t think bringing her children to work was unusual. It’s the way she had grown up herself. Today she’s is in her mid 50s, getting to the age when she will no longer be able to work. Just as she once depended on the labor of the kids for her family’s survival, she will still depend on them to survive as she gets old. Without their help, she will have nothing.

Anastasia was born in San Juan Piñas in Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. The small town is in the heart of the Mixteca region, where people speak an indigenous language that was centuries old long before the Spaniards arrived.

In the 1970s and ‘80s, people began migrating from Oaxaca looking for work, as Mexico’s agricultural policies failed. Anastasia, like many, wound up working first in northern Mexico, in the San Quintin Valley of Baja California. “I picked tomatoes there for five years,” she remembers. “It was brutal. I would carry these huge buckets that were very heavy. We lived in a labor camp in Lazaro Cardenas [a town in the San Quintin Valley], called Campo Canelo. It was one room per family, in shacks made of aluminum.”

Before leaving San Juan Piñas she’d gotten married and  brought her first child, Teresa, with her to Baja. “I began to work there when I was 8 years old, picking tomatoes,” Teresa remembers.

Anastasia then decided to bring her family to California, because her husband had found work there in the fields. “I needed money and I couldn’t afford to raise my family in Baja California,” she remembers. “There were three kids and I couldn’t manage them. It was hard to bring the children across the border since they were so young, but compared to now, it was easier in the ‘90s. It only took us one day to cross.”

“My memories of that time are very sad because I had to work out of necessity,” Teresa says. “I started working in the United States at 14, here in Santa Maria and in Washington State. My mother couldn’t support my younger siblings alone, and I’m the eldest daughter. I couldn’t go to school because my mother had many young children to support.”

Anastasia’s son Javier, who was born in Santa Maria, shares those memories. “Whenever I got out of school, it was straight to the fields to get a little bit of money and help the family out,” he recalls. “That’s pretty much the only job I ever knew. In general we would work on the weekends and in the summers, during vacations.”

The Flores family was part of a big wave of migration from Oaxaca’s indigenous towns into California fields. According to Rick Mines, a demographer who created the Indigenous Farm Worker Study, by the 2000s there were 165,000 indigenous migrants in rural California, 120,000 of them working in the fields. “At that time there were few old people coming,” he says. “And because almost everyone came after the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, they didn’t qualify for the immigration amnesty and are undocumented.”

Indigenous migration changed the demographics of the farm labor workforce in many ways, he explains. “A third of farm workers in the ‘70s and ‘80s shuttled back and forth between Mexico and the U.S. every year. Most were migrants, living in more than one place in the course of a year. That has all changed. The average stay in the U.S. now is 14 years.”

Because indigenous workers are undocumented, going back and forth across an increasingly-militarized border is practically impossible. Many are stuck in the U.S. If they go back to Mexico, it’s for good. As people grow older, some return because the cost of living there is lower. “But those who go back to Oaxaca depend on their family in the U.S. to send them money,” explains Irma Luna, a Mixtec community activist in Fresno. “They come from towns that are very poor, so they don’t have any income other than what their children can send them.”

Collecting Social Security benefits is not possible, because people with no legal immigration status (an estimated 11 million people in the U.S.) can’t even apply for a Social Security card. In order to work they have to give an employer a Social Security number they’ve invented or that belongs to someone else. Payments are deducted from their paychecks, but these workers never become eligible for the benefits the contributions are supposed to provide.

The Social Security Administration estimated in 2010 that 3.1 million undocumented people were contributing about $13 billion per year to the benefit fund. Undocumented recipients, mostly people who received Social Security numbers before the system was tightened, received only $1 billion per year in payments. Stephen Goss, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, told VICE News in 2014 that that surplus of payments versus benefits had totaled more than $100 billion over the previous decade.

Recognizing this problem, the Oaxacan Institute for Attention to Migrants, part of Oaxaca’s state government, has established a fund for starting income-generating projects in communities with returning migrants, including greenhouses, craft work andcarpentry. Nevertheless, most older migrants returning home still have no support other than money sent from the U.S.

Many older indigenous farm workers don’t intend to return to Mexico. “I’ve spent almost 20 years working in the fields,” Anastasia says. “A long time. I’m 56 now. I hope I will eventually stop working in the fields, but I don’t have land or a house in Mexico, so I plan on staying here. I’m used to living in Santa Maria. I have all of my kids here, so I want to stay where they are.”

DUE TO LACK OF SPACE WE WERE NOT ABLE TO PUBLISH THE COMPLETE ARTICLE. FOR THE COMPLETE STORY, VISIT:
http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2016/05/no-alternative-but-to-keep-working.html

Americans have no “independence day”

Americans have no “independence” to celebrate – what Fourth of July has become in a police state

by Claire Bernish

We have failed, as a nation, the experiment intended by the founders to limit the size of government and the scope of tyrannical rule — as if that could come as a shocker, given our exclusionary founding based in genocide and the systematic enslavement of an entire population would dictate.

Perhaps the romantic love affair America claimed to have with democracy — through the vehicle of a constitutional republic — amounted thus to so much farce, or at least misguided hope. When the people’s call to terminate British rule in favor of popular governance, ignited by Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, ultimately led to a government whose very framework ensures elitist control, that failure, again, can hardly be surprising.

It’s Independence Day; though through carefully crafted semantics over the years, the significance of the day has been truncated to the uniquely strange celebration of a date — a telling bit of propaganda, itself.

How did we veer so severely off course? How did the summary call for revolution — based in shirking the twins of monarchical control and tyrannical over-governance — land all of us in a modern police state empire guilty of crimes against civilians domestically and worldwide?

Scholars argue the democracy-based constitutional republic that so defined America has since birthed an oligarchy; however, the incestuous marriage of the monied class consistently in power and profit-crazed corporate interests would best be described a corporatist plutocracy.

For the fetters of imperialism-driven, police-state corporatism to impart this stranglehold, the populace had to take one hell of a nap — akin, actually, to democratic dereliction of duty.

Consider the complacency necessary to abide the government’s prying eyes in every facet of even ordinary lives with nothing more than an eye roll, for just one example. Or, consider the Ponzi scheme of the Federal Reserve system, for another.

But the true heartbreaker exists in the sheer volume of liberty-thwarting examples now plaguing daily life in the United States — and how telling of the post-9/11 world that each tragedy instantly starts the debate over which freedom the government will yank next in the name of heightened security.

Yet, despite this telling pattern, Americans eagerly clamor to accept whatever new manacles the corporatists insist will protect them — usually from the horrors of terrorism carried out by terrorists those corporatists created in their hubristic empire-building.

Worse, the schemers and scammers now heavily populating various arms of the U.S. government have so effectively cloaked their maniacal power trip in red, white, and blue patriotism, irate and sizable segments of ‘ordinary’ Americans will berate those who criticize the plot. This is the genius of nationalistic propaganda — as well as the reason blind patriotism is the hollowest celebration of the spirit on which the country had putatively been birthed.

Americanism is, therefore, a nonpareil demonstration of collective Stockholm Syndrome. When affection for a government who’s become a captor outweighs compassion and tolerance for neighbors — fellow captives — the corporatist kool-aid might be a little too strong for its own good.

Though the American government’s tyrannical oppression domestically is only bested by its war machine’s indiscriminate use of terror in various corners of the globe, proffering either example to a nationalist will win you only indignant vitriol — if not violence.

But rather than pontificating too vehemently on the ironies of what it means to be a patriotic American in 2016, here’s a thought worthy of the closest scrutiny.

Setting aside, for the sake of length, the pitfalls of founding a relative democracy on the bones and blood of every demographic not described as both white and male, the revolutionary fervor of those escaping British autocracy has been wholly lost in modern Police State, USA.

Trading tyrannical monarchy for repressive, restrictive plutocracy can hardly justify celebrating anything approximating a true Independence Day. Calling the U.S. a nation of freedom-lovers doesn’t reckon well with the planet’s largest incarceration rate — a fact made possible by overstuffing private prisons with nonviolent criminals whose sole wrong, vice, would appall the revolutionaries of 1776.

No wonder the sweatshop products of the artificially-palliative consumerist culture are sold for dirt cheap prices in ‘Happy July 4th’ sales — since anything suggesting the independence spirited 240 years ago would now be considered watchlist-worthy dangerous.

But, perhaps, this nation largely comprised of willing hostages so bereft of true independence — and so enamored of the shackles of tyranny — should officially trade the holiday monikered Independence Day for simply The 4th.
Otherwise, we risk being disingenuous — until, at least, the rekindling of that American moment when it was understood a totalitarian government is only as strong as its ability to deceive the people into its acceptance.

The CNTE is alert and maintains road blocks in Mexico

by the El Reportero’s wire services

In Mexico the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE, in Spanish) is today maintaining roadblocks in Oaxaca despite warnings from the Interior Secretary, Miguel Ángel Osorio.

The roadblocks have affected the supply of food to the area and the government has declared that time has run out for the protesters.

Protest leaders have, however, vowed to continue their fight. José Antonio Altamirano, the leader of the coordination chapter in Oaxaca, told the newspaper El Universal that the educational reform bill would have to be decided in the Representative National Assembly.

However, he said that the protests would continue in Oaxaca, Michoacán and Chiapas, the main regions opposed to the reform, which has already been approved by congress.

In response to government accusations that the roadblocks are affecting food supply, he stated that the teachers have intermittently opened roads. The government has for their part set up airlifts to deliver food basics to Ministry of Social Development shops, especially in poor communities.

Meanwhile, there are voices advocating the resumption of dialogue between the parties, including those of deputies, senators and leaders of civil organizations.

The bishops of Chiapas have asked the government not to try to move the protesting teachers. Eight were killed and dozens wounded in attempts to evict protesters in a village in Oaxaca on June 19.

Members of the National Single Commission for Negotiation said the teachers opposed to the aforementioned reform, which they call punitive, would continue with mobilizations, road blockages and acts of protests planned throughout the country.

Mexico restores food supply in Oaxaca

Meanwhile, 82 percent of the 2,021 stores of the Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL) in Oaxaca, Mexico, were resupplied with food, reported that federal agency. SEDESOL said that operations continue today to complete the supply of basic items, which was affected by roadblocks and other forms of protest against the education reform taking place in this southern state.

The supply strategy was launched in coordination with the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) and public agencies DICONSA and Liconsa.

Is guaranteed food supply of the basic basket for the next 15 days, noted SEDESOL.

Food supplies are moved airlift as well as alternate routes and rural roads, at different times, even at dawn. On the eve arrived at the airport of Huatulco, Oaxaca, two Hercules C-130 aircrafts of the Mexican Air Force carrying 18 tons of corn each.

During the day, at least 200 additional stores are in the way to be stocked.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry maintains its warning that it will restore the roads in Oaxaca and other areas where demonstrations and roadblocks by the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) continue, along with settlers.
Political and social sectors, in turn, demanded both the government and the CNTE begin a genuine dialogue to end the teaching conflict.

Puro Bandido with its original Latin rock taste

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

One of the groups that has persevered time and the stone age, is Puro Bandido, which will performing nearby the Mission as a tribute to Diamond John, Life Celebration. Come everyone to Slim’s, at 333 11th Street, San Francisco. Doors open at 7 p.m. and show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at Slims 415-255-0333.

Yahir Durán brings his trova to San Francisco

Yahir Duran (1973) Singer-Songwriter, is one of the most notable representatives of the new Mexican trova. As a writer of narrative, has a literary work in the form of stories and chronicles in which recounts his childhood and family roots in autobiographical tone, his memories and the magical surroundings of his native Topolobampo, Sinaloa in a book called Amar adentro.

At the Community Music Center, on Saturday, July 16 at 7 – 9 p.m., 544 Capp St, San Francisco, California 94110

John Leguizamo Returns to the Bay Area with John Leguizamo: Latin History of Morons

The outrageous, multifaceted performer attempts to teach his son (and the rest of us) about the marginalization of Latinos in U.S. history and the vital roles they played in building this country. From a satirical recap of Aztec and Incan history to stories of Latin patriots in the Revolutionary and Civil War and beyond, Leguizamo breaks down 3,000 years into 90 irreverent and uncensored minutes in his trademark comedic style.

History was never so mind-blowing…or hysterical! Latin History for Morons plays July 1-August 14 at Berkeley Rep. Discounts for under 30. Bring a group: Buy 10, save $10 (each ticket!). Visit BerkeleyRep.org for tickets. 


“My Brother’s Keeper? Expressions of Our World Today” art exhibition

Are we our brother’s keeper? When it comes to the earth, equality, and the harmony of our fellow humans, do we bear a responsibility, regardless of who or where we may be? Back To The Picture presents six artists and their vision of our world today through powerful depictions on our present state.

Join us in July for a commentary, sometimes raw and intense, sometimes playful. What at first may seem light on the surface, soon pulls a deeper truth from within.

On display works of Art Hazlewood, Jessie Aquire, Kathy Aoki, Consuelo Jiménez-Underwood, Mark Harris, Robyn Kralique. July 3 – 31, 2016 Curated by Derek Hargrove.

Opening reception with the artists Saturday, July 9, 2016 7-10 p.m.

La Gente extends its marathon of live music at American Music Hall

LA GENTE will be headlining in the most historic music Venue in San Francisco: The Great American Music Hall! We will be teaming up with our brethren from across the bay: the infectious, funk-madness of PLANET BOOTY! And San Francisco’s newest up and coming soul group: The Histville Soul Sisters! We also will be featuring a slew of specials guests from all the top bands of the Bay Area. This is going to be a historic night for the Bay Area Music Scene! Get your tickets today!!! 

Saturday July 16, 850 O’Farrall, San Francisco, at 8 p.m., $16 cover.