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The dwindling U.S. economy

The United States is an economic basket case

by Paul Craig Roberts

The announcement today (April 29) of a barely positive GDP first quarter 2015 growth rate of 0.2 percent (two-tenths of one percent) is an intentional exaggeration.
Today’s GDP report is the “advance estimate.” There will be two revisions, with the first occurring in one month on May 29.
Although the “consensus estimate,” which is Wall Street’s estimate, declined dramatically over the past month, the consensus estimate was for 1.0 percent.
The BEA’s advance estimate bears the burden of impact on financial markets even though it is the least reliable estimate. Subsequent revisions receive much less attention. Because of its market impact, the advance estimate is fudged by the Bureau of Economic Affairs (BEA) in order not to upset financial markets keyed to the consensus forecast.
All indications are that the first quarter experienced negative GDP growth, that is, a decline from the previous quarter. However, if BEA reported a negative GDP when the financial markets were relying on positive real growth, the government’s Plunge Protection Team might be unable to prevent a substantial market decline.
Therefore, the BEA in its advance estimate reported a barely positive result that kept GDP out of negative territory. This gives financial markets a month to undergo an orderly reduction prior to the first and then second revisions of the advance estimate, or simply to forget the poor performance altogether until the second quarter advance estimate.
Maintaining stability and not shocking financial markets is now ingrained in US economic reporting. No government statistical department wants to be blamed for crashing the financial markets. So bad news leaks in slowly if at all.
Indications are that the second quarter 2015 will also have negative GDP growth, that is, a further decline. As John Williams (shadowstats.com) is likely correct that there has been no recovery from the prior recession, just bottom bouncing with stock and bond markets driven by the Fed’s outpouring of liquidity, the first half of 2015 will signal a second downturn in the US economy which is collapsing as a result of jobs offshoring and a deregulated financial system.
The real economic outlook, which will emerge from BEA in a month or two, should be obvious to anyone who had the introductory course to macroeconomics. The economy depends on consumer spending. Consumers have two ways of spending more. One way is from rising incomes. The other way is from rising consumer debt.
With the advent of jobs offshoring, real median family incomes ceased to rise. The ability of consumers to substitute larger debt burdens for the missing growth in their real incomes was used up by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan’s policy of expanding consumer debt in order to fill in for the missing growth in consumer income. Today consumer debt levels are too high for consumers to incur more debt. The only element of consumer debt showing an increase is student loans.
The offshored jobs were not replaced with the promised “New Economy” jobs. No one has seen any sign of the mythical New Economy jobs. The “New Economy” is the transformation of the once powerful US economy into a third world labor force where new jobs exist only in domestic non-tradable services (services that cannot be exported) such as retail clerks, hospital orderlies, waitresses, and bartenders. As there are not enough of these jobs to go around, the labor force participation rate has dropped sharply.
The United States is an economic basket case. Washington has given away the US economy to Asian countries with lower labor costs. The owners and mangers of capital have benefitted, but the vast bulk of Americans have suffered. As capital’s owners and managers are not sufficiently numerous to drive the economy with their expenditures, the fabled American economy is no more.
What will bring the US economy out of the second leg of the downturn? If massive federal budget deficits and zero interest rates could not correct the first leg of the downturn, what does fiscal and monetary policy have left in its arsenal?
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available. Infowars.

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Meet the secretive group that runs the world – Part 2 of a series

NOTE  FROM THE EDITOR:

Dear readers, I found this great article, previously published by Zero Hedge, on one of the most secretive banks: the Bank of the International Settlements. This is the bank that is above all banks, top of the top of the world controllers. Higher than all world Central Banks. Super interesting! THIS IS PART TWO OF A SERIES.

Nothing comes closer to the stereotypical, secretive group determining the fate of over 7 billion people, than the Bank of International Settlements

by zero hedge

Over the centuries there have been many stories, some based on loose facts, others based on hearsay, conjecture, speculation and outright lies, about groups of people who “control the world.” Some of these are partially accurate, others are wildly hyperbolic, but when it comes to the historic record, nothing comes closer to the stereotypical, secretive group determining the fate of over 7 billion people, than the Bank of International Settlements, which hides in such plain sight, that few have ever paid much attention.

The BIS strictly guards the bankers’ secrecy. The minutes, agenda, and actual attendance list of the Global Economy Meeting or the ECC are not released in any form. This is because no official minutes are taken, although the bankers sometimes scribble their own notes.Sometimes there will be a brief press conference or bland statement afterwards but never anything detailed. This tradition of privileged confidentiality reaches back to the bank’s foundation.
“The quietness of Basel and its absolutely nonpolitical character provide a perfect setting for those equally quiet and nonpolitical gatherings,” wrote one American official in 1935. “The regularity of the meetings and their al- most unbroken attendance by practically every member of the Board make them such they rarely attract any but the most meager notice in the press.”8 Forty years on, little had changed. Charles Coombs, a former foreign exchange chief of the New York Federal Reserve, attended governors’ meetings from 1960 to 1975. The bankers who were allowed inside the inner sanctum of the governors’ meetings trusted each other absolutely, he recalled in his memoirs. “However much money was involved, no agreements were ever signed nor memoranda of understanding ever initialized. The word of each official was sufficient, and there were never any disappointments.”
What, then, does this matter to the rest of us? Bankers have been gathering confidentially since money was first invented. Central bankers like to view themselves as the high priests of finance, as technocrats overseeing arcane monetary rituals and a financial liturgy understood only by a small, self-selecting elite.
But the governors who meet in Basel every other month are public servants. Their salaries, airplane tickets, hotel bills, and lucrative pensions when they retire are paid out of the public purse. The national reserves held by central banks are public money, the wealth of nations. The central bankers’ discussions at the BIS, the information that they share, the policies that are evaluated, the opinions that are exchanged, and the subsequent decisions that are taken, are profoundly political. Central bankers, whose independence is constitutionally protected, control monetary policy in the developed world. They manage the supply of money to national economies. They set interest rates, thus deciding the value of our savings and investments. They decide whether to focus on austerity or growth. Their decisions shape our lives.
The BIS’s tradition of secrecy reaches back through the decades. During the 1960s, for example, the bank hosted the London Gold Pool. Eight countries pledged to manipulate the gold market to keep the price at around thirty-five dollars per ounce, in line with the provisions of the Bretton Woods Accord that governed the post–World War II international financial system. Although the London Gold Pool no longer exists, its successor is the BIS Markets Committee, which meets every other month on the occasion of the governors’ meetings to discuss trends in the financial markets. Officials from twenty-one central banks attend. The committee releases occasional papers, but its agenda and discussions remain secret.
Nowadays the countries represented at the Global Economy Meetings together account for around four-fifths of global gross domestic product (GDP)— most of the produced wealth of the world—according to the BIS’s own statistics. Central bankers now “seem more powerful than politicians,” wrote The Economist newspaper, “holding the destiny of the global economy in their hands.” How did this happen? The BIS, the world’s most secretive global financial institution, can claim much of the credit. From its first day of existence, the BIS has dedicated itself to furthering the interests of central banks and building the new architecture of transnational finance. In doing so, it has spawned a new class of close-knit global technocrats whose members glide between highly-paid positions at the BIS, the IMF, and central and commercial banks.
The founder of the technocrats’ cabal was Per Jacobssen, the Swedish economist who served as the BIS’s economic adviser from 1931 to 1956. The bland title belied his power and reach. Enormously influential, well connected, and highly regarded by his peers, Jacobssen wrote the first BIS annual reports, which were—and remain—essential reading throughout the world’s treasuries. Jacobssen was an early supporter of European federalism. He argued relentlessly against inflation, excessive government spending, and state intervention in the economy. Jacobssen left the BIS in 1956 to take over the IMF. His legacy still shapes our world. The consequences of his mix of economic liberalism, price obsession, and dismantling of national sovereignty play out nightly in the European news bulletins on our television screens.
The BIS’s defenders deny that the organization is secretive. The bank’s archives are open and researchers may consult most documents that are more than thirty years old.

The BIS archivists are indeed cordial, helpful, and professional. The bank’s website includes all its annual reports, which are downloadable, as well as numerous policy papers produced by the bank’s highly regarded research department. The BIS publishes detailed accounts of the securities and derivatives markets, and international banking statistics. But these are largely compilations and analyses of information already in the public domain. The details of the bank’s own core activities, including much of its banking operations for its customers, central banks, and international organizations, remain secret. The Global Economy Meetings and the other crucial financial gatherings that take place at Basel, such as the Markets Committee, remain closed to outsiders. Private individuals may not hold an account at BIS, unless they work for the bank. The bank’s opacity, lack of accountability, and ever-increasing influence raises profound questions— not just about monetary policy but transparency, accountability, and how power is exercised in our democracies.

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Watching TV increases American’s diabetes by nearly 18 percent

by Melanie Grimes

Television watching increases diabetes risk, scientists have now confirmed. By studying over 3,000 overweight Americans, a research study demonstrated that risk for type 2 diabetes increased over 14 percent in those watching four hours of television a day. The average American watches 5.11 hours of television per day. The diabetes risk increased by 3.4 percent for each hour of television watching. Other seated activities, such as computer use, may have a similar detrimental effect, but the study only investigated the impact of television watching.
The research study was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh and published in the journal, Diabetologia. Lead author Dr. Bonny Rockette-Wagner found “…a significantly increased risk of developing diabetes with increased television watching (3.4 percent per hour spent watching television).”
She went on to state, “Our finding of a relationship between sedentary behavior and diabetes incidence means that reductions in sitting can translate into a positive health effect separate from improvements to moderate-vigorous activity like brisk walking.” During the study, participants were given either metformin (a commonly used drug to treat diabetes) or a placebo. All of them participated in lifestyle interventions. The interventions including adding 150 minutes of exercise per week to their lives. During the study, participants were asked to spend 140 minutes a day watching television. Funding for the research was provided by U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Television watching in the United States
With 99 percent of American homes owning a television and 65 percent of homes with more than one, the impact of television watching on health is enormous. Sixty-seven percent of Americans say that they eat dinner while watching television, and the average child now spends 1,480 hours a week in front of a television set. Compared to the 900 hours of school that children engage in every year, the average child spends one third more time watching TV, a total of 1,200 hour a year. This also adds up to 16,000 commercials a year, and 150,000 violent acts viewed by the time children are 18 years old.

Natural remedies for diabetes
There are many natural remedies for diabetes, which can help reduce the risk of type-2 diabetes, or reduce symptoms. Herbs, vitamins and foods can be found to lower blood sugar and insulin resistance. Nutrients like magnesium and niacinamide have been shown to lower diabetes risk. Consuming small amounts of cinnamon has been shown to lower blood glucose levels after only 40 days. Figs and chocolate both help lower blood sugar as well. Dark chocolate containing 60 percent cacao can reduce chocolate risk. Research on 8,000 people who ate four ounces of chocolate per day for one month had 13 percent less occurrence of diabetes later in life. Consuming foods that are low on the glycemic index helps maintain proper blood insulin levels. These foods include complex carbohydrates, like whole grains and legumes, along with proteins and healthy fats. Limiting sugar, fruits, simple carbohydrates helps the body to stabilize blood sugar levels. Some research shows that eliminating wheat entirely is beneficial for blood glucose levels. Coconut oil has also been used to reverse symptoms of type 2 diabetes. Any nutrients that fuel or rebuild the pancreas can be added to the diet to strengthen the body’s natural ability to balance its own blood sugar.

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Latino families find eldercare a tough but beautiful mission

by Melody Miranda Aulet
Mundo Hispanico/New America Media

ATLANTA, Ga.- For 10 years Gloria Frías has had a full time job, but she receives no compensation for her work.
This is because ever since her mother suffered a fall that confined her to a wheel chair she has had to change her lifestyle completely, becoming the primary caregiver of Paula Frías Vázquez, who turned 91 years old last February.
“I had to leave my family for eight months to deal with my mother’s medical emergency in Mexico. My youngest son was 12 years old et at the time, and I had to leave him with my former husband so I could take care of her, since my brothers never showed up to give me a hand,” Gloria said.
While in Mexico her ex-husband sent her some money to cover her mother’s medical expenses, but when she came back with her mother to the United States everything changed and she stopped receiving support from everyone around her.
8 Million Latino Caregivers
Gloria Frías explains how difficult it was at first to take her mother on the bus to medical appointments while she was in a wheel chair. “Now I can take her in my car, but I have to carry her. And then at the doctor’s office I have an even harder time since they take so long for the physician to see her. They treat her like any other patient, not taking into consideration her advanced age, how she cries because of the pain she feels.”
This Mexican woman is one of more than 8 million Hispanics taking care of family elders without receiving any compensation, according to the 2008 study, “Hispanic Family Caregiving in the U.S.” conducted by the Evercare organization in collaboration with the National Alliance for Caregiving.
According to Henry Pacheco, MD, medical director of the National Hispanic Council on Aging, “What motivates Hispanics to become caregivers to their elders is familiarismo, their cultural values that are passed on from generation to generation.”
Pacheco, who is from Bolivia, said Hispanics learn the obligation to care for family elders from an early age. “In many cases it is an honor or a cultural obligation, just like the responsibility of taking care of your children,” he added.
Most Latinos prefer to take care of their elders at home were they can speak their native language and eat Latino cuisine, instead of sending them to nursing homes.
Also, it is almost impossible for most Hispanic families to pay between $8,000 and $10,000 a month for institutional care in a nursing home, Pacheco said.
A Challenge for Women
According to the Hispanic family caregiving study, a third of Latino households in the United States have at least one family member in charge of taking care of an older person. Three-quarters of them are women like Gloria Frías.
Elena Mola, takes care of her 96-year-old mother, and María Ramírez, became the caregiver for her husband, Abdonias, after he suffered a stroke that almost took his life.
Mola, a retired Cuban teacher, has dedicated her golden years of retirement to the caregiving of her mother, Cristina. She is in charge of controlling her diabetes and her high blood pressure. She misses the regular eight-hour working schedule. Today, caregiving is a full-time job–24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
However, Ramírez found ingenious ways to take care of her husband’s health, turning to alternative medicine for his treatment. She prepares juices for him with natural ingredients she learned from elders in Colombia in order to relief him of his ailments. Otherwise, prescribed medications would have cost her around $1,200 a month, she said.
Frías faces these same challenges day by day. During the first years of taking care of her mother she did what she could, working in restaurants and babysitting. Her children helped her with some money when they were still single and living at home.’
“Once they grew and left Georgia, I couldn’t work like I used to before. I had no one to cover for me while I was working. It was hard because when my mother went blind, I lost all control over the situation. I couldn’t leave her alone whenever I wanted to go run errands or work,” Frías remembered.
In the past, Frías had given her mother a cellphone so she could phone in case of an emergency, but her mother lost the ability to make such calls.
Huge Stress
Pacheco of the National Hispanic Council on Aging emphasized, “That pressure of having to look for other alternatives to take care of their loved ones–who depend solely on them–causes a lot of stress because they are caught in a predicament where they have to choose between their personal needs and the cultural obligation of taking care of their elders. The pressure is huge for them.”
That stress is what Frías feels constantly by having to dedicate her entire life to the care of another person. “I have forgotten about myself, the feeling of going out and having time for myself. I don’t have a social life; all my time and effort is for her,” she added.
Adding in the anguish of seeing her mother, Paula, sick with being in constant fear of a relapse in her health, and mixing in the possibility that Gloria might lose her mom at any second results in the recipe for what most caregivers experience on a daily basis.
“I think I’m depressed, because you see that your loved ones don’t come and visit you; they don’t come to see her and even less to help me out with her care,” Frías lamented with tears in her eyes.
She confessed that her family always has an excuse for not visiting and when they do they ignore her mother. She admitted that she has started to feel resentment towards them because of their lack of consideration and support.
Frías, as well as María Ramírez have received many donations and help from church groups and neighbors, who care deeply about the well-being of Paula and Abdonias.
“What they are doing for their family members is valuable and impressive,” said Prof. Kerstin Gerst of the Institute of Gerontology at the University of Georgia.
With a joyful tone, Gerst added that if she were to need someone to take care of her when she got older, she would want it to be one of them. Over the years, she said, Frías and Ramírez have learned on their own how to provide proper care and they have done so because of the responsibility they feel towards their elder family members.“
(Melody Miranda Aulet wrote this article for Mundo Hispánico through a journalism fellowship from New America Media and the Gerontological Society of America, supported by AARP).

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NYC & the Post targeted NYPD officer who spoke out on Eric Garner

by Nick Divito

The New York Post excoriated a retired cop who publicly decried the chokehold death of Eric Garner as a murder, he claims in a $200 million federal lawsuit.
Corey Pegues made the comments about Garner in an August 2014 appearance on the “Combat Jack Show,” a podcast his April 8 lawsuit describes as targeting black males “who embrace the hip hop culture.”
The podcast aired as horrifying footage was going viral of Garner’s death at the hands of Staten Island police the month before.
Though the New York City medical examiner ruled Garner’s death a homicide, it would be several more months before the grand jury refused to indict Daniel Pantaleo, the police officer who maintained the fatal chokehold on Garner as he gasped repeatedly, “I can’t breathe.”
In his lawsuit, Pegues says he had appeared on the podcast because he had been lobbying for police reform ever since an on-the-job injury in 2011 forced him to retire from the New York City Police Department.
Talking about the various adversities he overcame to join the force in the 1990s, Pegues allegedly told podcast listeners about trouble he got into as a black youth while “running the streets” on the Southside of Jamaica, Queens.
Pegues said he served in the Army after getting a misdemeanor juvenile arrest dismissed and sealed in 1986, and joined the force after his honorable discharge.
On “Combat Jack,” Pegues encouraged listeners that “your life does not have to define you or your future,” the complaint states.
Nearly a month after this podcast appearance, Pegues says the New York Post featured him on its front page as a “Thug Cop” with a “shocking life of drugs and crime.”
The splashy Sept. 8 headline allegedly prompted Nassau County Police Chief Thomas Krumpter to pull a “political favor” for New York City Police Chief Bill Bratton and other mostly white brass in the department to go to his home and seize his guns.
Pegues says Krumpter told a Post reporter, “This is my authority to do this and if [Pegues] doesn’t like it, he can take me to court and sue me.”
The Post did another “Gangsta cop” story about Pegues on Sept. 10, 2014, that quoted the retiree as saying his background made him better at his job, according to the complaint
On Dec. 6, as protests about Garner continued to rock the city, Pegues says Commissioner Bratton sent him an undated letter revoking his “Good Guy” status and demanding he give back his department ID.
He says the department then tried to discontinue his accidental disability retirement pension for alleged fraud.
The Post’s articles buoy its “support for conservative political views including law enforcement where African-Americans, Hispanics and other disenfranchised persons are openly racially and politically stereotyped for its commercial and political gain among Caucasian males and conservatives their target demographic,” according to the complaint.
Pegues also says the Post published the stories “in collusion” with Nassau County, New York City and their police chiefs to “destroy his personal and professional reputation” in the law enforcement community and black activists as a “political favor” to the mostly white heads of the New York City Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, the Captain’s Endowment Association and others.
All of these individuals have been “publicly very critical of his police reform lobbying efforts,” according to the complaint.
Pegues says his First Amendment rights are being trampled for “discussing his life experiences, police interactions with communities of color, the Abner Louima, Sean Bell and Oscar Grant cases, [and in particular, calling Eric Garner’s death a murder.”
Louima was sodomized by cops with a broken broom handle in 1997. Bell was shot repeatedly and killed by undercover officers the morning before his wedding in 2006.
Grant was fatally shot by a transit police officer in Oakland, Calif., on New Year’s Day in 2009.
Several activist groups led a charge to unseal deliberations by the grand jury that investigated Eric Garner’s death, but a judge shot them down.
Pegues wants $200 million for free-speech violations, race discrimination, conspiracy and defamation.
His complaint names as defendants Nassau County, New York City, News Corp., Krumpter, Bratton and Joseph Reznick, deputy commissioner for the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau.
The Post declined to comment on the case. Nassau County and the New York City Police Department have not returned requests seeking comment.
Pegues is represented by Eric Sanders.

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Mexico hosts world economic forum for Latin America

by the El Reportero’s news services

The tenth edition of the World Economic Forum for Latin America (WEF Latam) starts today in the Riviera Maya, in the southern state of Quintana Roo, México.
The meeting is a space for high level dialogue which gathers state officials, leaders of opinion and businesspeople to expose, debate and present strategies for the improvement of the region, says Mexican Secretary of the Economy.
The focus of this tenth edition will be on the axles and dialogues regarding reforms and structural changes which promote the progress of Latin America and the Caribbean.
According to Mexican sources, the forum will be attended by the presidents of Honduras,   Colombia, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago and the hosting country. There will also be ministers of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Japan, New Zealand, Panama, Paraguay and Peru.
Vicepresidents of El Salvador and Panama, mayors of Colombia, the United States, Ecuador and Mexico will also participate.
Over 700 businesspeople, among which stand out presidents of multinational companies and leaders of opinión will also be present. This is the third occasion that this country hosts the meeting.

Russia wishes to export more civilian helicopters to Latin America
Despite controlling 20 percent of the market for military helicopters in Latin America, Russia expressed regret today that it occupies only two percent of sales for civilian use, according to official sources.
Victor Kladov, director of International Relations of the Rostec corporation, said that the business group is working to change this situation and started a campaign of market management directed to countries of Central and South America.
Referring to the results of efforts on marketing, the official said that Moscow managed already to deliver two Ka-32 to Brazil, a figure that Rostec expects to expand in the future, according to the source.
On another potential big buyer, Argentina, he recalled in statements to the media portal Sputnik that this nation is already operating successfully Russian Mi-171Es.
Kladov was emphatic in stating that should Buenos Aires request any additional batches, Moscow will be happy to supply them.
The inventory of this type of aircraft of Russian production in the region increased in three years by six percent, from 385 units sold in 2011, to 409 in early 2014, said sources of RostVertol (Russian Helicopters), a branch of Rostec.

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Mi pueblo supermarket chain announces launch of scholarship program

More than $200,000 will be awarded in Scholarships to Community Members and Employees

 
SAN JOSE, CALIF. –The San Jose-based Hispanic grocery chain in Northern California demonstrates its commitment to education and helping the community prepare for a brighter future with the launch of its 2015 scholarship program. From now through April 30, community members and Mi Pueblo employees who are enrolled in college or wish to continue their education will be able to apply online for one of the 100 scholarships being granted as part of the program.

 

The $200,000 scholarship monies will be awarded to applicants who are college-bound, graduating high school seniors with a minimum 2.7 cumulative GPA, residents of a Mi Pueblo county, and demonstrate community involvement as well as financial need.  Current full- and part-time Mi Pueblo employees in good standing will also be eligible for scholarships, in particular those who have demonstrated excellence at work and/or school, a commitment to continuing their education, and financial need.

 

“Many of Mi Pueblo’s customers and employees came to the United States in search of a better life for themselves and their families. At Mi Pueblo, we recognize that education is the first step towards achieving this goal,” said Javier Ramirez, President and CEO of Mi Pueblo. “We are thrilled to once again offer the community and our valued employees an opportunity to better prepare themselves for the future and fulfill their dreams.”

 

Since 2011, when the scholarship program was originally launched, Mi Pueblo has helped award more than $550,000 in scholarship monies to over 350 individuals in the Bay Area, Central Coast and Central Valley regions.

 

For the complete list of eligibility requirements and to submit an application please visit https://mipueblo.awardspring.com/ or www.mipueblofoods.com

Submitted by Havas FORMULATIN

 

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Poetry & Jazz: A mashup concert at Berkeley Public Library

by the El Reportero’s staff

April is National Poetry Month and the Berkeley Library is going all out with our Poetry & Jazz @Central Concert.
We have a great lineup: Al Young  accompanied by John Wiitala on bass; with three more sets of notable poets and musicians as they present the words and music of poetry: Avotcja with Val Serrant on steel drums, Phavia Kujichagulia with Ron Williams on guitar, The Word-Music Continuum with poet Kirk Lumpkin and musicians: Paul Mills, Mark Wieder, and special guest, Q.R. Hand, Jr. For questions regarding this program, call 510-981-6150.
Al Young was named Poet Laureate of California in 2005. “Like jazz, Al Young is an original American voice.” Muriel Johnson, former Director of the California Arts Council is the award-winning author of several screenplays and more than 22 books of poetry and non-fiction. His work has appeared in Paris Review, Ploughshares, Essence, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone.
Avotcja is an award winning poet & multi-instrumentalist. Her writing is published in English and Spanish in the USA, Mexico and Europe.
This free program is sponsored by the Friends of the Berkeley Public Library

http://www.berkeleylibraryfriends.orgwww.berkeleylibraryfriends.org
On Saturday, April 18, 2-4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library at 2090 Kittredge Street in the 3 floor, Community Meeting Room.

MCCLA presents two full hours of original and traditional music
The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA) will host “Transcending Borders,” a two-hour concert by local musician Diana Gameros with her band, and special guest artist Edna Vázquez.
Both Gameros and Vázquez are Mexican singer/songwriters and guitarists with music that reflects influences from across the Americas with traditional songs and rhythms bringing the feeling of Mexico’s Folkloric music to their audience. Versatile and authentic with soaring vocals, both Edna and Diana captivate and inspire, uniting communities across borders.
Their talent and growing following has brought them each a steady stream of high profile gigs and appearances with such other artists including: Lila Downs, Gloria Trevi, and Latin Grammy-nominee Ximena Sariñana. The MCCLA invites community members interested in contemporary Mexican-inspired music and Latin Indie folk to join us for this festive event that transcends borders.
In 2014, Diana Gameros was featured in the MEX-I-AM Festival and was the recipient of the Emerging Leader Award from the Chicana Latina Foundation. Recently, Gameros’ Tiny Desk submission was featured on NPR’s All Songs Considered as the video who caught Alt. Latino’s Ear. For more information visit: www.dianagameros.com.
Edna Vazquez has achieved international exposure by singing in television shows like Tengo Talento, Mucho Talento in Los Angeles and Sábado Gigante Internacional con Don Francisco, where she won first prize with her rendition of Cucurrucucú Paloma accompanied by Mariachi International in Miami, Florida.
More recently, Edna has performed across the country and for national radio audiences on Public Radio International’s Live Wire Radio with Luke Burbank. Edna is currently touring in support of her first full-length album, Ser Abstracto, which was released in November 2014. For more information visit: www.ednavazquez.com.
On Saturday, April 25, 2015 at 7 p.m., Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission Street, San Francisco. Tickets $15 Advance, $20 on day of the event.

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Vigil of Eduardo Galeano’s remains in Uruguayan Parlament

by the El Reportero’s news services

The remains of Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, who died at 74 years old, will be veiled today in the Hall of Lost Steps of the Legislative Palace, where he will receive official and popular honors.
The Uruguayan Parliament confirmed that the wake will be held between 3 and 9 p.m.
Along with the highest national authorities, numerous political, trade union and cultural figures expressed their grief over the death on the eve of the author of Open Veins of Latin America.
Uruguayan media messages of condolence highlighted several rulers, politicians and intellectuals from across Latin America and elsewhere.
Galeano after two years died fighting against a lung cancer but did not interrupt his literary and journalistic work, always in defense of identity and Latin American culture.
His friends recall that in February last Bolivian President Evo Morales, visited him to give him the Book of the Sea, with which Bolivia defends his claim to the Pacific.
The Uruguayan intellectual immediately renamed the ‘Book of Stolen Mar’, referring to the loss of the Bolivian coast after an ancient war with Chile.
Also, remember that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave US President Barack Obama a copy of Open Veins of Latin America, during the Summit of the Americas in Colombia in 2009.
From a young age, Galeano wrote newspaper articles and became editor of the weekly newspaper Marcha and manage Era, both emblematic for their anti-dictatorial positions.
After the coup of 1973 in Uruguay, Galeano had to exile in Argentina, where he founded and directed the magazine Crisis. In 1976, after a coup in Argentina, had to go into exile again, this time in Spain.
The writer returned to Montevideo, after the end of the Uruguayan dictatorship in 1985.
He holds numerous awards, including the Stig Dagerman prize of Sweden, the Casa de las Americas, of Cuba, and the prize of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

Matanzas will host danzón festival
From Nov. 12 to the 15, the city of Matanzas will host the Cuba-Danzon Matanzas Festival, to celebrate the music genre created 136 years ago, organizing committee announced today.
Organizing committee spokesperson Luis Ortega told Prensa Latina that dancing couple from across the country will participate in the festival, as well as others from abroad.
“The competition will take place during two nights, and at the end the committee will grant a Grand Prize as well as other awards in categories like Best Elders Couple, Best Youth Couple and Best Foreign Couple”, he added.
Ortega said the panel of judges will be integrated by important figures of the Cuban culture and representatives of Cuban dancing associations.
Ortega added that the Festival will also include theoretical events, with the participation of musicologists, musicians, researchers, professors and experts on the genre.
The Danzon, which since 2013 has been considered as part of the country’s intangible heritage, is an originally Cuban rhythm that originated from the Danza.

Romeo Santos, Juanes & Natalia Jimenez to perform at Latin Billboard
The 2015 Latin Music Billboard awards show will include performances by “The King of Bachata” Romeo Santos, Colombian rocker Juanes, and Spanish singer and “La Voz Kids” Coach Natalia Jimenez, who join previously announced performances by Wisin, Daddy Yankee, Carlos Santana, J Balvin, Carlos Vives, Julion Álvarez y Su Norteño Banda, Ana Gabriel, Lucero, Alejandro Sanz, and Roberto Carlos.
(Prensa Latino contributed to this report).

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A single cartel for the whole planet

by Jon Rappoport
NoMoreFakeNews.com

“It’s not always possible to find out ‘who started a fire or blew up a building’, but you can count on the State using such an event to escalate its control over the citizenry. Deploying any excuse to expand its power is what big government does. It’s an obsession. The State has the DNA of a fungus. It spreads. That’s what it does. To put it another way, the State hopes that by committing more crimes, it can escape notice for having committed prior crimes. And yes, this is the same government untold numbers of people put their trust in for a better future.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport) .
Let’s start here. In the wake of purported terrorist attacks, or crimes that appear to involve several nations, international cross-border cooperation is the watchword.
This means strengthening structural connections, permanent connections, among government agencies—intelligence, military, medical, and so on.
That’s the whole point.
Far more threatening than the loss of life and damage from the crimes, the integration of government agencies among nations forwards the plan to manage sectors of the planet from above.
Surveillance operates in the same fashion. Although there is friction when one government spies on another, the overall trend is toward multinational spying efforts, in which whole populations are the targets.
A metaphor for this is rendition: “We won’t set up torture sites inside our borders, but we’ll ship suspects to you, so you can hold, interrogate, and torture them, and share the information with us…”
Consider money, currencies, banking. On one level, there is fierce competition among nations. But on a higher level, there are continuing efforts to integrate international credit, financing, and digitized uniform “cash.”
One world, one money system, one army, one intelligence agency, one medical system… it’s the Globalist wet dream. Their moves in this direction meet with opposition. It’s not a slam-dunk. Two steps forward, one step back. But on the whole, they’re gaining ground.
The ideal for them is: corporation-government nexus; larger cartels; integration of those cartels into a single whole.
Many, many, many people in this world are systems-oriented. They always want larger systems, which of course deeply affect populations, rigidifying them. But this is not a problem for “systems-people.” The apparatus comes first; humans are secondary.
Systems-people aim for perfection. Their minds mirror this: excessively structured geometry, balance, equilibrium, symmetry, order.
They want everyone’s mind to operate from this foundation.
They believe any other basis is disruptive.
Now we are getting into a deeper level of Matrix—the embrace between external systems of control and the interior patterning of minds.
“Oh yes, I can recognize that system. It is shaped like my mind. That’s good. It must be good. I feel a harmonic relationship.”
At the deepest level, we are talking about a cartel of the mind.
This is the purpose of programming.
Analogy: a student of music is conditioned to approach the classics as systems to be analyzed. The effect, after years of training? The student no longer hears the music.
Deadened, he accepts structure as primary. He looks for structure everywhere. When he finds it in social, cultural, political, economic arenas, he enlists, he signs up, he gives in, he commits.
“We must organize society. Every person must have a function that contributes to the whole.”
And in order for this to work, there must be an upper level of management. It decides where food, water, energy, and other goods and services are distributed. This “problem” is solved.
The solution is presented as symmetrical, balanced, harmonious.
On the every-day level of events, such as epidemics, terror attacks, plane crashes, hacker incursions, mass shootings, racial conflicts, no matter how these events actually originated, the payoff is always: better, larger, more inclusive systems that will “prevent this from happening again.”
These systems are, more and more, propagandized and explained as “automatic.” Machines (computers and robots) will run them, to ensure there are no errors.
For many people, this notion is attractive, because their own minds are shaped in that direction, in that way, in that pattern.
It’s worth noting that the primary creative impulse in individuals, before it is stifled and buried and reconfigured, is: asymmetrical.
Which is to say: the impulse is dynamic, forward-thrusting, highly energetic, exploratory, and “unfinished.” It is not patterned. It does not automatically seek balance.
Its outcome is unpredictable, open.
Therefore, from an early age, humans are taught symmetrical restraint. This “perfection” is portrayed as highly valued. Alternatives are characterized as crazy and incomprehensible.
It’s no accident that psychiatry has based its entire (false) hypothesis of mental disorders on the notion of a chemical Imbalance in the brain

.
“Restoration of balance” plays well to the masses. It gives them a sense of rightness. Of course it does, because unthinking automatic symmetry/balance are key factors in the cartel of mind control.
In my 30-plus years of research and reporting, I have spoken, at length, with hundreds and hundreds of people who have seen through various ops, staged events, conspiracies, and elite strategies—and yet have absolutely no idea how to create something different.
They can’t imagine how they would begin.
This is because they are still dealing with their own minds, which have been indoctrinated into the all-systems all-the-time approach to reality.
They are prisoners to the symmetry/balance program. At best, they hope for a better system to replace the old one.
That dead-end is part and parcel of the Matrix.
(Jon Rappoport is the author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed, Exit From The Matrix, and Power Outside The Matrix).

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