por Marvin Ramírez

Marvin J. Ramirez

‘If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.’… Thomas Jefferson.

As I said last week, I kept receiving information online stating that something of great magnitude was about to happen before the presidential election. They predicted the economic crises we are living right now, the fall of the dollar to levels never seen before, the collapse of the current financial system, and that Martial Law would be declared in the United States. All this has happened or is happening. Visit this link and see when the Congress declared Martial Law, it also shows President Bush joking about becaming a dictator himself. http://www.republicmedia.tv/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=248.

According to another email, a ‘Bank Holiday’ is about to be declared under the declaration of an economic emergency, which might happen within the next two weeks and possibly before.

The information says that it will be announced that it may last one or two weeks and that all banks and financial institutions will close during that period.

“No access to your deposits will be possible, ATMs will not work, credit cards will not work, and brokerage accounts will not be accessible either,” according to the document.

“This would be done under a state of martial law though troops may not appear on all streets immediately under the faint hope that the populace will simply accept these matters, but the banks and financial institutions will be heavily guarded whether overtly visible or not,” the information reads.

Customers are starting to debate whether they should pull their money out of the bank now. I have heard people in the neighborhood saying that their bank branch’s tellers and managers are telling customers not too worry. But it is my opinion that you should worry about it.

The email says that one of the largest banks in America has already informed their branch managers that a ‘bank holiday’ may take place and that signs for branch windows may already be made telling bank customers that the banks will be closed for a certain period of time and that no deposits or transactions will be possible ’til then. Many local or smaller banks may not yet have any indication of any of this information nor if they did, would they admit it. This crisis may cause civil protests.

For this, if riots or civil upheaval break out, which of course would be expected in many locales, says the document, then you will see troops, law enforcement officers, swat teams, private security contractors, and even federally authorized U.S. government, state government, and local government workers operating under the regional military governors or FEMA continuity of government controllers to attempt to put down the riots and upheaval with sanctioned force if necessary.

In previous information, I read that this coming election might be suspended under emergency powers by Bush, who may continuing being the president as Commander-in-Chief.

According to Toward Freedom, a progressive online publication, in 2006, in a stealth maneuver, President Bush signed into law a provision which, according to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law. It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President’s ability to deploy troops within the United States.

The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.

For the current President, “enforcement of the laws to restore public order” means to commandeer guardsmen from any state, over the objections of local governmental, military and local police entities; ship them off to another state; conscript them in a law enforcement mode; and set them loose against “disorderly” citizenry – protesters, possibly, or those who object to forced vaccinations and quarantines in the event of a bio-terror event, says the publication.

The law also facilitates militarized police round-ups and detention of protesters, so called “illegal aliens,” “potential terrorists” and other “undesirables” for detention in facilities already contracted for and under construction by Halliburton. That’s right. Under the cover of a trumped-up “immigration emergency” and the frenzied militarization of the southern border, detention camps are being constructed right under our noses, camps designed for anyone who resists the foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush administration.

All accomplished amidst ongoing U.S. imperial pretensions of global domination, sold to an “emergency managed” and seemingly willfully gullible public as a “global war on terrorism.”

The banking dilemma is even more serious and much larger than is being stated by U.S. government officials, with worldwide implications.

So, take this article as you please. Do what you think is appropriate. But remember, CNN, FOX, Univisión or Telemundo, will not say anything to you about this because their owners do not allow the directors of local news outlets to say a word, since their work is to help keep you out of the reality.

by Marvin Ramírez

Miriam Zamora, from San Peter Housing Committee, asks for support for Prop. M, surrounded by tenants who have been harassed or evicted. (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)

The city of San Francisco is known as the city of the Golden Gate, for the beautiful architecture of his Victorian-style houses. One of his districts, the Mission, is known for having the best climate of the city, his restaurants with food from many parts of the world and comfortable prices, especially Latin American, and the best transportation system. Two BART stations are a part of the serviceability the district offers to its residents and visitors.

Nevertheless, the value of property, in contrast to other cities nearby that have seen their prices go down due to the current economic crisis, in San Francisco remains one of the most expensive cities to live in in the U.S.

Those who have been able to buy properties have faced a disagreeable law that is bad for new housing owners, the San Francisco rent control ordinance, which not only prohibits increasing the rent more than 7 percent per year, but also, if the property was built before 1979, does not allow proprietors to evict tenants unless the proprietor moves in to it. Many buy properties as investment, to rent it and allow the property to pay for itself, or to obtain an extra income.

The situation is chaotic, as proprietors get trapped in mortgages so big that sometimes they choke them, while tenants cannot go away to live somewhere else due to a lack of sufficient affordable housing in San Francisco.

The couple Manuel Corado and María Alvarado are victims of these circumstances.

They have lived for several years in their small apartment on Capp Street, next to 24th Street, and pay very little rent compared to current market price.

Now they claim that the landlord wants to throw them out so she can increase the rent, and for it she is making a hell our of their life.

On Sept. 27, Corado and Alvarado joined San Peter Housing Committee in an act of condemnation against harassment of tenants by landlords, and to gather support for Proposition M, which they say, will help stop these cases of abuse against tenants, many of them undocumented and Latinos. The case was reported to the police, but the tenants complain that they ignore them in the majority of cases.

When the tenants called the police, the one the police handcuffed was Corado, the husband, after Sánchez-Guzman accused him of attacking her, which Corado denied. He was later released.

In another case of tenant harassment, a Hispanic man who was serving as apartment manager for an apartment building on 21st Street, harassed Florinda Boch and her husband for several months. It didn’t stop until finally the harasser was caught by the police on Sept. 18, when he was on the verge of attacking the husband.

“He said to me that he was going to mark my face for the rest of my life. He owed the owner two months rent, so he wanted that we pay him (the rent), so he could use the money to pay for his debt. But the owner told us not to give him the money. That angered him,” said Boch to El Reportero.

“He was given 60 days notice to leave, and then he took it against us and threatened us with death,” added Boch.

In San Francisco, approximately 65.5 percent of housing are rental units, and there are approximately 750,000 people.