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The agenda of the Illuminati – 23nd part of the series

by Marvin Ramíre­z­­

­Marvin  J. Ramírez­Ma­rv­in­ R­­a­m­­­í­r­­ez­­­­­­­

They considered it a necessary sacrifice to further their Illuminati oneworld plot just as the slaughter of the many millions in the wars that followed was a similar necessary sacrifice. And here is another grisly detail about those concentration camps. Many of the Hitler soldier executioners in those camps had previously been sent to Russia to acquire their arts of torture and brutalization so as to emphasize the horrors of the atrocities.

All this created a new world-wide hatred for the German people but it still did not provide a cause for a war. There upon Hitler was incited to demand the “Sudetenland” and you remember how Chamberlain and the then diplomats of Czechoslovakia and France surrendered to that demand. That demand led to further Hitlerian demands for territories in Poland and in the French Czar territories and those demands were rejected. Then came his [Non-Aggression] pact with Stalin.

Hitler had been screaming hatred against communism (Oh how he ranted against communism), but actually nazism was nothing but socialism, and communism is, in fact, socialism. But Hitler disregarded all that. He entered into a pact with Stalin to attack and divide Poland between them. While Stalin marched into one part of Poland (for which he was never blamed [the Illuminati masterminds saw to that]); Hitler launched a “blitzkrieg” on Poland from his side. The conspirators finally had their new world war and what a horrible war it was. And in 1945; the conspirators finally achieved the United Nations, their new housing for their one-world government. And truly amazing; all of the American people hailed this foul outfit as a Holy of Holies. Even after all the true facts about how the U.N. was created were revealed, the American people continued to worship that evil outfit. Even after Alger Hess was unmasked as a Soviet spy and traitor, the American people continued to believe in the U.N.

Even after I had publicly revealed the secret agreement between Hess and Mulatoff that a Russian would always be the head of the military secretariat and by that token, the real master of the U.N.. But most of the American people continued to believe that the U.N. could do no wrong. Even after Trig D. Lee, the first Secretary general of the U.N. confirmed that Hess-Mulatoff secret agreement in his book: For The Cause of Peace, Vasialia was given a leave of absence by the U.N. so that he could take command of the North Koreans and Red Chinese who were fighting the so-called U.N. police action under our own General McArthur, who, by orders of the U.N., was fired by the pusillanimous president Truman in order to prevent him from winning that war.

Our people still believed in the U.N. despite our 150,000 sons who were murdered and maimed in that war; the people continued to regard the U.N. as a sure means for peace even after it was revealed in 1951 that the U.N. (using our own American soldiers under U.N. command, under the U.N. flag, in collusion with our traitorous State Department and the Pentagon) had been invading many small cities in California and Texas in order to perfect their plan for the complete takeover of our country. Most of our people brushed it off and continued their belief that the U.N. is a Holy of Holies.

­Do you know that the U.N. Charter was written by traitor Alger Hess, Mulatoff, and Vyshinsky? That Hess and Mulatoff had made within that secret agreement that the military chief of the U.N. was always to be a Russian appointed by Moscow? Do you know that at their secret meetings at Yalta; Roosevelt and Stalin, at the behest of the Illuminati operating as the CFR, decided that the U.N. must be placed on American soil?

Do you know that most of the U.N. Charter was copied intact, word for word, from the Marx Communist Manifesto and the Russian, so-called, constitution? Do you know that the only two Senators who voted against the U.N. Charter had read it? Do you know that since the U.N. was founded, communist enslavement has grown from 250,000 to 1,000,000,000? Do you know that since the U.N. was founded to insure peace there have been at least 20 major wars incited by the U.N., just as they incited war against little Rhodesia and Kuwait?

Do you know that under the U.N. set up, the American taxpayers have been forced to make up the U.N. Treasury deficit of many millions of dollars because of Russia’s refusal to pay her share? Do you know that the U.N. had never passed a resolution condemning Russia or her so-called satellites; but always condemns our Allies?

Do you know that J. Edgar Hoover said: “the overwhelming majority of the communist delegations to the U.N. are espionage agents” and that 66 Senators voted for a “Consular Treaty” to open our entire country to Russian spies and saboteurs? Do you know that the U.N. helps Russia’s conquest of the world by preventing the free world from taking any action whatsoever except to debate each new aggression in the U.N. General Assembly? Do you know that at the time of the Korean War there were 60 Nations in the U.N., yet 95 porce of the U.N. forces were our American sons and practically 100% of the cost was paid by the United States taxpayers?

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People of Watsonville take migrant education seriously

por David Bacon

Hijos de trabajadores migrantes, muchos de ellos de familias indígenas Mixteca de Oaxaca,: asisten a la Escuela de Enseñanza Primaria Ohlone. Gracida-Cruz de Natalia, una tutora que habla Mixteco, ayuda Ruth a Espinoza, Héctor Cruz y Gabriela Díaz. (PHOTO BY DAV ID BACON)Children of migrant farm workers, many of them from indigenous Mixtec families from Oaxaca, attend Ohlone Elementary School. Natalia Gracida-Cruz, a tutor who speaks Mixteco, helps Ruth Espinoza, Héctor Cruz and Gabriela Díaz. (PHOTO BY DAV ID BACON)

WATSONVILE, California – Migrant Education is a product of the civil rights and farm worker movements of the 1960s. California’s Migrant Education Program was established in 1967, two years into the five-year historic grape strike by the United Farm Workers.

That strike, and the farm workers movement that it helped to ignite, gave migrant workers and their allies the political power necessary to get the state’s educational system to respond to their needs. Today migrant education programs are one of themost important ways that farm worker families can win social equality and a future for their children beyond the fields.

The Pajaro Valley district includes thousands of students who travel with their families every year because their parents are migrant farm workers. The demographics of farm labor have changed radically over the last three decades. Today a large percentage of families come from Oaxaca and the states of southern Mexico. Many come from communities where people speak indigenous ­languages that were old when Columbus arrived in the Americas. The most common language among Watsonville students is Mixteco, although a few students speak Triqui or Zapoteco.

Families qualify as migrants because the parents work in farm labor, and have moved at least once in the last few years. In addition to education programs, children also get help with medical and dental care.

The program has a very active parents group, with large meetings every month during the work season.

Watsonville is close to the campus of the University of California in Santa Cruz, and university students help farm worker kids begin to think about the possibility of going to college.

 

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International Medical Council on Vaccination refutes vaccine propaganda with myth-busting report

by Mike Adams

Natural News

(NaturalNews) To hear it from proponents of the vaccine industry, vaccines are based on rock-solid science that proves them to be completely safe and widely effective. These beliefs, however, are not factually based on real science but rather a persistent vaccine mythology that has been propagandized by the vaccine industry, medical practitioners and even governments which underwrite vaccine risks.

Today, the International Medical Council on Vaccination (www.VaccinationCouncil.org) has released, exclusively through NaturalNews.com, a groundbreaking document containing the signatures of over 80 family physicians, brain surgeons and professors of pathology, chemistry and immunity, all of which have signed on to a document stating, on the record, that vaccines pose a significant risk of harm to the health of children and that there is no real science backing the “vaccine mythology” which claims that vaccines are somehow good for children.

This groundbreaking document, called Vaccines: Get the Full Story, is available as a free download from NaturalNews.com. Click the report cover image on the right to go directly to the download page, where you’ll find downloads available in 9 languages, including Spanish, French, Hebrew and Russian.

You have permission to share this report. Please also share the download page with others so that moms and parents can get educated about the risks associated with vaccines and thereby protect their children from the risk of harm caused by vaccines.

The vaccine industry’s message is like a broken record: Vaccines are “safe and effective,” they say. But repeating a lie over and over again does not magically make it true. Any such declaration of vaccine safety or effectiveness must be based on actual scientific inquiry, and the real science is utterly lacking on vaccines. Did you know, for example, that MMR and seasonal flu vaccines have never been clinically tested against nonvaccinated individuals?

Did you also know that even though vaccines can cause longterm damage in children, with symptoms appearing months or even years later, they are typically only assessed for side effects for two or three weeks?

What you’ll find in this free downloadable report

Here’s some of what you’ll find in this eye-opening report from the International Medical Council on Vaccination (www.VaccinationCouncil.org)

• A list of the many MDs, PhDs, NDs and other medical professionals who are signing onto this document and taking a stand to critically question the myth that vaccines are proven to be both safe and effective.

• Why vaccines have NEVER been proven safe or effective.

• A list of some of the serious health side effects caused by vaccines.

• Why autism is associated with vaccines.

• The profit motivation behind the pharmaceutical industry’s persistent vaccine push.

• A list of which institutions and organizations profit from your sickness.

• The shocking truth about what’s used to make vaccines ­(aborted fetal tissue, 59 different chemicals, DNA from diseased animals and more).

• An overview of some of the most dangerous vaccine ingredients, including aluminum and formaldehyde.

• The truth about conflicts of interest in the vaccine community and why doctors profit from vaccination policies.

• Why vaccinated children have far worse health outcomes than unvaccinated children (and why the vaccine industry refuses to test vaccines against the long-term health outcomes of unvaccinated children).

• How to opt out of “mandatory” vaccines.

• Important advice for parents about how to protect the health of your children while saying NO to vaccines.

• Online resources for learning more about the dangers of vaccines.

Why this is a must-read report

This report by the International Medical Council on Vaccination (www.VaccinationCouncil.org) is an absolute must-read for parents everywhere.

It describes little-known facts about vaccines, children and immune health that the vaccine manufacturers and government health authorities don’t want circulated. Whether or not you choose to vaccinate yourself or your children, you owe it to yourself to hear both side of the story before making a decision, and this report tells you the side of the story that your doctor probably doesn’t know and your government absolutely does not want you to hear.

That’s because governments underwrite vaccine risk through their government compensation programs. Thus, it is in the interests of governments that vaccines never be shown to cause harm.

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Mexico lurching towards failure

by the El Reportero’s news services

Felipe CalderónFelipe Calderón

February has got off to an awful start for the government of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. The centers of the country’s second and third biggest cities, Guadalajara and Monterrey, looked like war zones as drug gangs challenged the authorities on 31 January and 1 February. The national employers’ organization, Coparmex, says that the violence is now running at intolerable levels.

Referendum raises real disquiet over direction of Correa’s Revolution

There is nothing Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa likes more than an electoral challenge. It is fair to say, however, that he would not have expected one on the scale he now faces when he drafted a referendum calling for constitutional reforms to the penal code and the judiciary.

The referendum has caused ructions in his left-wing coalition Alianza PAÍS (AP): two cabinet members and four deputies have departed so far. But perhaps more worryingly, estranged allies and founders of his ‘citizens’ revolution’ are taking arms against the referendum, which ­they are portraying as an unabashed power grab. Correa is accusing them of personal betrayal; they are accusing him of betraying the principles of the Revolution. A febrile political atmosphere will prevail over the coming months.

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Shenandoah students await sentence in ‘hate crime’ killing of immigrant

by Gustavo Martínez Contreras

SHENANDOAH, Pa.— The scheduled Jan. 24 sentencing of two local high school football stars following their federal convictions relating to the beating death of a 25 year-old immigrant worker from Mexico, runs a baffling path through the U.S. jurisprudence system and its application of “hate crime” law.

First tried in state court by an all-white Schuykill County jury in 2008, Brandon J. Piekarsky and Derrick M. Donchak were acquitted of racial intimidation charges.

Now both men face up to life in prison for violating the rights of Luis Ramírez Zavala following a different set of charges brought on by the U.S. Justice Department. Two years after the attack, a federal jury in Scranton, Pa., convicted these young Ramírez Zavala’s brutal beating.

They were accused of violating the criminal component of the federal Fair Housing Act, which makes it a crime to use a person’s race, national origin or ethnicity as a basis to interfere, with violence or threats of violence, with a person’s right to live where he or she chooses.

The jury also found that Donchak conspired to, and did in fact, obstruct justice.

On the night of July 12, 2008, Piekarsky and Donchak, then 16 and 18 years old, were among a group of six young men who confronted Ramírez Zavala and began screaming racial slurs, “Go back to Mexico” and “Tell your fucking Mexican friends to get the fuck out of Shenandoah.”

HIS BRAIN OOZED OUT

Ramírez Zavala was beaten, kicked and stomped on. An autopsy showed that his skull had a double fracture: one in the back of the head and another on the left side. His brain oozed out and swelled up, causing his basic functions to stop.

He was taken to Geisinger Regional Medical Center, where he died two days later due to his massive head injuries.

In the first trial, the allwhite jury found Piekarsky guilty of one count of simple assault, while Donchak was found guilty of one count of simple assault, three counts of corruption of minors and three counts of furnishing alcohol to minors.

The verdict outraged immigrants’ rights organizations as well as politicians, who pressured the U.S. Department of Justice to open a separate investigation.

It wasn’t until December 2009 that a fed- eral grand jury indicted both men on a hate crime charge, thus avoiding a finding of double jeopardy — the instance in which a person or group of persons are prosecuted twice for the same crime — that the defense sought to prove until the trial’s end.

In a 14-page opinion, Judge Richard Caputo wrote, “In the present case, the federal prosecution serves divergent interests for the state prosecution, including equal protection rights and the integrity of federal criminal investigations.

This Court is not the proper forum to reverse more than 80 years of Supreme Court precedent permitting subsequent prosecution by separate sovereign without violating the double jeopardy clause.” In opening statements, defense attorneys downplayed race as a factor in Ramírez Zavala’s death.

Both James Swetz and William Fetterhoff, who represented Piekarsky and Donchak, respectively, said the fatal beating was a product of factors other than ethnic hatred. “We’re talking about alcohol, youth and testosterone. Those are the themes in this case, not race, and certainly not federally guaranteed housing rights,” Swetz told the allwhite jury.

But testimony from Colin Walsh, a key witness, showed Donchak felt deep hatred toward Shenandoah’s growing Hispanic community. “Yes, he didn’t like Hispanics; he really didn’t like them,” Walsh, 19, said. “He called them fucking Mexicans, fucking spics.”

He also said that Donchak would listen to racist music, and specifically sing the song “White Man Marches On” while driving around with friends. The song is taken from the sound track for the movie American History X.

In his account of the attack, Walsh, who reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors and is now awaiting sentencing, said that both Donchak and Piekarsky yelled racial slurs at Ramírez Zavala. “Derrick punched him in the face and called him ‘spic’, and Piekarsky yelled racist slurs. He was yelling at him, ‘fucking Mexican’.Later I heard him yell, ‘Tell your fucking Mexican friends to leave Shenandoah or you’ll be fucking lying next to them’ as we were leaving.”

Donchak is also charged with conspiring with some of his friends, their parents and members of the Shenandoah Police Department to obstruct the investigation of the fatal assault immediately after the beating.

Witnesses testified that Piekarsky told them not tell anyone he had kicked Ramírez Zavala in the head.

“I asked who kicked him,” witness Benjamin Lawson testified. “Brandon  Piekarsky said, ‘I did, shh!’” The group began to make up the cover-up story they would tell police, Lawson recounted.

Another witness, Brian Scully, told the jury that Piekarsky arrived at the Donchak house with his mom as the teens talked about the fight. “We got to get a story. This is bad,” said Scully. “We thought if we had the same story it would be believable.” He added that Piekarsky cautioned him at least twice not to tell anybody he had kicked the deceased in the head. Former Shenandoah policemen Matthew Nestor, William Moyer and Jason Hayes face charges of conspiring to obstruct justice during the investigation.

The three of them, along with the Shenandoah Police Department, are standing trial this week in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

A federal indictment ­charges them with conspiring to obstruct justice during the investigation into the fatal beating The federal investigation shed light also onto the wrongdoings of the Shenandoah Police Department. Matthew R. Nestor, William Moyer and Jason Hayes, three former policemen of that department, face federal charges for participation in the coverup of the crime. Just after Luis Ramírez’s death, many Latino residents expressed fear of the police. Those who spoke, under anonymity, told stories of abuse and intimidation done unto them or somebody they knew

FEDS INDICT POLICE

Even I, as a journalist, was denied information several times. “Nothing happened here,” then-Lieutenant Moyer told me once.

“We don’t have anything for you here.” As it turns out, they probably had plenty of information from everybody, and were hoping it would go away.

In a federal indictment, Nestor, Moyer and Hayes, who were chief, lieutenant and officer, respectively, along with the Shenandoah police department, are charged with conspiring to obstruct justice during the investigation into the fatal beating. Moyer has also been charged with witness and evidence tampering and lying to the FBI.

If convicted, the defendants face 20 years in prison on each of the obstruction charges and an additional five years in prison for conspiring to obstruct justice. Moyer faces an additionalfive years in prison for making false statements to the FBI.

Piekarsky and Donchak are being held at the Pike County Correctional Facility pending their Jan. 24 sentencing. Both face life in prison. Hispanic Link.

(Gustavo Martínez Contreras is a freelance writer and contributing columnist with Hispanic Link News Service. Email him at pasajero@gmail.com.)

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Boxing

Friday, Jan. 14, 2011 — at Key West, FL (ESPN2)

  • ­Peter Manfredo Jr. vs. José Rodríguez.
  • Edwin Rodríguez vs. Aaron Pryor Jr.

Friday, Jan. 28, 2011 — at TBA, USA (ESPN2)

  • Chris Arreóla vs. Joey Abell.
  • John Molina vs. Raymundo Beltran.

Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011 — at Pontiac, MI (HBO)

  • WBC/WBO light welterweight titles: Devon Alexander vs. Timothy Bradley.
  • Ryan Coyne vs. TBA.

Saturday, Feb. 19, 2011 — at TBA, USA (HBO)

  • WBC/WBO bantamweight titles: Fernando Montiel vs. Nonito Donaire.

Saturday, Mar. 5, 2011 — at Copenhagen, Denmark

  • Evander Holyfi eld vs. Brian Nielsen.
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Teatro Raw-Dios

by the El Reportero’s staff

Theatro Raw-DiosTheatro Raw-Dios

Teatro Raw-Dios Head-Rush Productions presents its new play Raw-God. When a popular radio DJ publically questions the war, he is forced to elect between the prestige and his principles. Meanwhile, the radio you listen will also have to decide what side they are in. Josie Talamantez, leader of Programming in the Counsel of Arts of California said “Master Raw-God, is a contemporary and incisive piece that combines a rich history, artistic quality and social comment.”

January 20, 21 and 22, at 7:30 p.m. Admission $15. Young, students and seniors $12. Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission Street, San Francisco. (415) 821-1155.

Salsa in Sausalito with Edgardo Cambon y su Orquesta Candela

Edgardo Cambon and his Orchestra “Candela” will be playing this coming weekend. Make a fun and different afternoon tour trip to the Bay Area with your friends by Ferry, and have dinner at the Seahorse, or just simply come to dance!

Sunday Jan-23, from 4 to 8 p.m. $5 cover charge .At 305 Harbor Drive, Gate Five Road. Sausalito, CA 94965. For more info call at 415-331-2899.

Art Exhibition in the Mission Southern Exposure, a nonprofit visual arts organization founded in 1974 and located in the Mission district, will be exhibiting the works of three artists in Jan. 2011. Universal Remote, an exhibition created by Jaime Cortez, is a meditation on the life and death of pop musician Michael Jackson; Both are True, by Ginger Wolf-Suárez, deconstructs experience into its sensory particles; Every Stone Unturned, by Kenneth Lo, is a self-examination, by the artist, of his life’s purpose.

The exhibitions run from Jan. 7 to Feb. 11, with a reception to introduce the artists and their exhibitions on Jan. 7.

Uncertainty of the ExpandedIn addition, two of these artists, Cortez and Wolfe-Suárez, will present public programs. On Jan. 29, Cortez will curate a performance of Truth Be Told, which, like his exhibition, will explore the meaning of Michael Jackson’s death. Singer Cedric Brown, and authors Tisa Bryant, Joel Tan and Ignacio Valero will also be on hand to eulogize the selfproclaimed King of Pop. On Feb. 10, Wolfe-Suárez will lead a discussion, entitled Field, which will be, in fi ne, a lecture on the history of West Coast sculpture, followed by a panel discussion. Southern Exposure, 3030 20th St., SF. (415) 863- 2141 or www.soex.org.

Liminal Takes – Arte Contemporáneo Latinoamericano

Root Division, with the support of Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, is thrilled to exhibit work by 15 Latino-based or born artists from Mexico, Costa Rica, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Perú, Croatia, and France. A quality of “in-between” is one of the current circumstances that artists face when producing in new scenarios. Liminal Takes poses the questions of what is Latino art today and how are artists responding to globalized conditions of production.

The work shows stimulating modes of production that oscillate between craftwork, mainstream, and other cultural ideas through installation, video, drawing, sewing, and other media.

This exhibition takes ­place in the Mission District of San Francisco, a liminal point between the US and Latin America. It proposes an approach to contemporary Latino art away from fi xed folklorist associations and preconceived notions. Liminal Takes functions as a cultural thermometer for contemporary Latino art, not only for people immersed in the art scene, but for everyone living and working in-between. Opening Reception on Saturday, Feb. 12, 7-10 p.m. Sliding Scale Suggested Donation: $2-$20.

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Salma Hayek get wicked for ABC

by Latin Heat

Salma HayekSalma Hayek

PASADENA — The Hollywood buzz today is that actress/producer Salma Hayek along with her producing partner José Tamez, the same production team that brought you Ugly Betty, will team up once again with ABC to bring you an 8 hour miniseries based on Gregory Maguire’s best selling novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. When asked, ABC president, Paul Lee was sure to state that they are only in the development stage and that only the pilot script has been greenlit.

Maguire’s book, which also served as the inspiration for the film Wizard of Oz and the Broadway musical, Wicked revolves around two very powerful witches, Glinda, the good witch and Elphaba, the wicked witch of the West. However, unlike the stage production or the Wizard of Oz, this miniseries will not feature any music or dance numbers. (The adaptation of the stage production Wicked: The Musical into a feature film is being developed by Universal Pictures.)

Erik Jendresen (Band of Brothers) is writing the TV miniseries adaptation and will also serve as one of the producers. Shows about witches in the past have either been comedies (Bewitched, Sabrina, The Teenage Witch) or lighter fared dramas Charmed, Buffy, The Vampire Slayer) , and they have all enjoyed a great following and fairly long runs (average run of 8 years each). The mini-series, which will more closely follow the book, will be a very different take from any of the other adaptations and the buzz is increasingly positive.

­John Leguizamo fans will be delighted to hear that, once again, he has begun his journey towards Broadway. Leguizamo is prepping for a 12-week engagement on Broadway by performing his latest solo show Ghetto Klown at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago from Feb. 1-12. Then it’s on to Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre (149 West 45th Street), opening on Feb. 21 and running through March 22.

Leguizamos Ghetto Klown is broadway bound Ghetto Klown is the next chapter in Leguizamo’s hugely popular personal and professional story. It follows in the unabashed, uncensored, and uninhibited tradition of his Mambo Mouth, Spic-O-Rama, Freak, and Sexaholix…a Love Story. In Leguizamo’s trademark style, the piece explodes with energy, leading audiences on a fever-pitch adventure and heating up the stage with vivid accounts of where he’s been and the colorful characters who have populated his life. Leguizamo takes audiences from his adolescent memories in Queens to the early days of his acting career during the outrageous 80s avant-garde theatre scene, and on to the sets of major motion pictures and his roles opposite some ­of Hollywoods biggest stars.

Leguizamo explains, “Ghetto Klown is all the things I say to my therapist and my manager, but would NEVER want the general public to know. It’s cheaper than a lawsuit and I get to take a bow at the end. It’s like Wikileaks but with no international manhunt. Yet.”

Lequizamo has a habit of trying out all his shows in Chicago.

­

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California poorest should not be asked to shoulder more austerity, says Green Party

­Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

In a written statement ­the Green Party for governor candidate Laura Wells, criticized Gov. Jerry Brown’s inaugural speech last week, for asking the poorest in state to carry more austerity even while he wealthiest in the state get wealthier. “Governor Brown is talking about austerity for the majority of Californians.

A Green Governor would be talking about fairness and balance, and continuing to have great schools, environment, healthcare and jobs. We would be talking about the kind of California we want.” Citing a report that shows the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, Wells said hypothetically to imagine a ballot proposition “would give the richest one percent an INCREASE in income of three times the TOTAL income of average Californians. Would that pass? No! “

Libertarian Party to participate in “Stripping of Freedom” at TSA conference

Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict will join Ralph Nader and Cato Institute information policy expert Jim Harper on Jan. 6, as a panelist at a public conference examining TSA security procedures, according a written statement. The conference is sponsored by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and titled “The Stripping of Freedom: A Careful Scan of TSA Security Procedures.” TSA agents strip-scan and grope people when they want to take an airline fl ight. “We need to treat their security theater with just as much scrutiny. Terrorists win by tricking us into letting government trample on our rights.”

New human rights report condemns rise of immigration policing

The Obama Administration and Congress need to shift away from the immigration policing regime that the government has been building over the past decade, according to a new report issued within days of International Migrants Day, Dec 18.

Injustice for All: The Rise of the Immigration Policing Regime, is published by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) and points to the dramatic growth of a multi-faceted immigration control system that is normalizing government abuses against immigrants in the U.S.

The report is based on over 100 stories of rights abuses documented during 2009-2010 by HURRICANE: The Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network, an initiative of NNIRR. Injustice for All raises concern that increased policing through Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) with state and local agencies, along with heightened border security, is undermining the health and safety of entire communities. Injustice for All is the third report from HURRICANE, which maintains a national database of rights abuses against immigrants. Ada Volkmer, coordinator of the Western North Carolina 100 Stories Project that contributed to the report, explained, “We found that when local police have immigration enforcement authority they are more prone to perpetrate abuses, including racial profiling.”

The North Carolina project was started by community groups to document abuses and organize for redress following widespread experience with law enforcement discrimination and abuse in the region. “Immigration-police collaboration makes our communities more vulnerable to abuses and exploitation because people do not trust the police and will not go to them to report crimes,” Ms. Volkmer added.

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The new face of small-town América

by Arlene Martínez

Book review

As a boy living in a tiny town in the Mexican state of Zacatecas, Edgar Sandoval dreamed of becoming a superhero who doubled as a journalist and lived in a metropolis. The superhero thing never really panned out, but being a journalist did. In 2000, 25-year-old Sandoval arrived in Allentown, Pa., to begin work at The Morning Call.

It’s a city he’d never heard of and didn’t especially want to be in, and he didn’t really want to cover Latino affairs, a beat sometimes disparagingly referred to as “The Taco Beat.” The Morning Call saw it as answering a need to cover the town’s surging Spanish- speaking population. Still, Sandoval felt pigeonholed. His editor, Mary Ellen Alu, asked him to look at it in a different way. “You can give a voice to a group who feel they’re being ignored,” Sandoval recalls her saying. For three years, Sandoval did that, telling the stories of business owners, immigrant workers, teenagers and others who often had little in common but a language.

Many of their lives are the essays that make up his new book, The New Face of Small-Town America: Snapshots of Latino Life in Allentown, Pennsylvania. (Penn State University Press, 168 pp; $29.99) There is the story of the two young mothers who emigrated from Honduras with hopes that one day their children would join them. It never happened for one of them, Naomi Eda Zelaya. Walking across an Allentown street, she was struck and killed by a car, leaving behind five children.

There is the story of Mexican immigrants Armando Cervantes and Sergio López, both 26, whose deaths in a van accident bared a bigger story on the plight of workers’ attempts to assimilate in communities where they are not always welcome.

There are others — about Edith Morales’s pride in watching the launch of the region’s first Spanishlanguage broadcast station and of Roberto Clemente Charter School principal David Vázquez’s efforts, sometimes frustrated, to improve student achievement.

One of Sandoval’s favorites, and the one with which he opens the book, is of Nerivonne Sánchez, whom he visited regularly in the months leading up to her lavish quinceañera, 15th birthday milestone. Sandoval captured Nerivonne’s struggle in transitioning from her Tweety stuffed birds to French manicures. His account was “not about a tiara or a party,” he says. “I focused on this girl who was having a hard time being a woman.”

Born in Los Angeles to parents who emigrated from Mexico, Sandoval was familiar with the customs, food and music of the country he lived in until he was 16. When Sandoval began at The Morning Call, the U.S. Census Bureau was in the midst of releasing data that showed the Hispanic population in the area had rapidly grown from 2000 over 1990.But Sandoval had less experience with the Puerto Rican and Dominican populations that make up most of Allentown — and his accent and occasional word choices outed him as being not from any island in the Caribbean.

He began learning the slang, the customs, the foods. ­The community grew to embrace him and his stories. “They liked to be shown for what they were, real people,” he said. The book is available at Barnes & Noble, www.amazon.com or by request. A paperback version is slated for release next year. Though many of the stories fi rst appeared in The Morning Call in a different version, there are some original pieces.

As for the fantasy a young Sandoval dreamed of, another piece eventually came true. Not that of being a superhero but of living in a metropolis. In 2007, Sandoval became a reporter for the New York Daily News. He lives in Hell’s Kitchen. Hispanic Link. Former Hispanic Link editor Arlene Martínez reports for The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa.)

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