Friday, November 23, 2007

Paisano program helps visitors: Vida En El Valle

Paisano program helps visitors

By MARTÍN E. MARTÍNEZ and JUAN ESPARZA LOERA / Vida en el Valle
(Published Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 11:05AM)
From last Saturday through next Jan. 8, Mexican immigration authorities will implement the 2007-08 Paisano Program, which is designed to help the millions of Mexican nationals who travel back to their home country during the Christmas holidays.
Mario Pérez, who represents the program in the U.S. western region, visited the Mexican Consulates in Sacramento and Fresno last week to explain how the program works.
"The program's objective is to make sure that all our countrymen who go to México this year for the Christmas holidays do so in a safe manner and that they are well treated at the points of entry, whether it be by land or by air," said Pérez.
The Mexican government, he said, will send 1,200 observers to points of entry at the border to consult with travelers and, at the same time, find out if customs officials are asking for bribes or attempting to illegally confiscate a visitor's item.
The way to identify those observers is through their attire, said Pérez. The observers wear blue plants, white shirts and a cap with the Paisano Program logo.
It is estimated that 1.2 million Mexicans will cross the border to spend the Christmas season with their families and friends. The majority of them will go to Michoacán, Jalisco, Guanajuato and Zacatecas, said Pérez.
As is done during the Christmas break -- Nov. 20 through Jan. 8 -- the value of items a person can carry increases from $50 to $300 per person who travels in the same vehicle, said Pérez.
For those persons who go over the $300 limit, they must pay a 15 percent tax and should go to the special lane at the border crossing to make their declarations.
Pérez also revealed the list of products that can not be taken into México so that people are not surprised at the border crossing.
Any type of food that is packaged as turkey, or up to 15 kilograms of pork. Both must have a seal of certification. The same goes for sports articles, toys and portable computers.
Each family is allowed up to two pets, be they dogs or cats. If the family brings in more pets, it must obtain a certificate. Animals like parrots, birds, and eagles are not allowed.
Strictly prohibited are firearms of any type, psychotic drugs, dirt, plants, and fruits with seeds or roots.
Pérez said it is very important that travelers present their auto permits, which can be obtained at the Mexican Consulates in Los Ángeles, Sacramento or San Bernardino. Motorists will have to prove they are legal residents, present a car title, and pay a $30 fee.
According to Pérez, a 2006 survey of 16,000 visitors conducted by the university Colegio de la Frontera Norte showed that 73 percent of travelers knew about the Paisano Program.
"Of those, 99.8 percent said they were happy with the program," said Pérez.
However, he said travelers must file a grievance if they find Mexican officials try to take advantage of them. Pérez said the university survey showed that 1.4 percent of travelers indicated they had experienced an incident during their visit. "And of those, only 1.4 percent filed a complaint," said Pérez.
Pérez said the complaints can be filed by telephone, e-mail, at in person at a Mexican Consulate.
Copies of the Paisano Program guide are available at the Mexican Consulate offices.
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Come Together and Create!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka:Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/

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C/S



Reach out to American Indians the other 364 days of the year: By Andrew L. Yarrow

Gracias-Thanks to Senor Yarrow for the article!~ Don Peta
Reach out to American Indians the other 364 days of the year
By Andrew L. Yarrow
November 22, 2007
Inevitably and sadly, Thanksgiving is the one day of the year when American Indians cross the minds of most other Americans. Other than at our yearly commemoration of Pilgrims and Indians giving thanks, in early elementary school, in occasional movies or as tourists in the Southwest, most Americans give about as much thought to - and have as much knowledge of - their country's first inhabitants as they do the people of Outer Mongolia. This needs to change.
While America's 298 million non-Indians generally express good will and considerable sympathy about past injustices and present poverty afflicting Indians, they largely view the nation's Indians as relics of a past that ended with Custer and Wounded Knee. Or, because of lack of knowledge, they frequently see them through a caricatured and stereotyped lens forged on old Hollywood back lots. For the most part, they are oblivious to the vibrancy and difficulties of present-day Indians' lives and culture, or to their social and legal status, a recent study of non-Indians' thinking about American Indians by Public Agenda has found.
Despite some recent, politically correct romanticizing of Indians as spiritual, and model environmentalists, to most Americans, knowledge and thinking about Indians begin and end with Pocahontas and Sacajawea (good) and half-formed notions about primitive savages and alcohol-riddled reservations (bad).
The good news, according to the report, "Walking a Mile: A First Step Toward Mutual Understanding" - one of the most exhaustive attitudinal studies ever done on this subject - is that non-Indians want to be better informed about Indian life today and in the past. (Indians, also surveyed, strongly second that sentiment.) The bad news is that there is very little public education about America's native people out there.
After centuries of post-1492 microbial and military decimation, and further generations of discrimination, Indians largely have vanished as historical actors on the U.S. stage, at least in the minds of most non-Indians. When asked what comes to mind when they think of Indians, many non-Indians ticked off such images as teepees, wampum, warriors, casinos and alcohol. They picture Indians as "stoic," "brave," "fierce" or "spiritual," sporting ponytails and wearing exotic dress and jewelry.
Although two-thirds of America's Indians live in urban areas, and only a half-million inhabit reservations, in non-Indians' minds, Indians exist only on "the res." This perception flows into one of poverty, unemployment and social pathology. Nevertheless, many non-Indians - particularly those who live close to Indian populations - resent the perceived "preferential treatment" and "loopholes" to establish profitable casinos that Indians receive, and are opposed to large-scale public funding.
Indians are painfully aware of their invisibility and bitterly resent the stereotypes and ongoing sub rosa prejudice against them. Contrary to non-Indians' beliefs that Indians are coddled by the U.S. government, the Public Agenda study found that many Indians feel that they are still victims of government policy, and that supposed governmental largesse is actual public stinginess. They also sense an ongoing devastation of their culture, symbolized by such diverse phenomena as using Indian land in Washington state for the Hanford nuclear-waste reservation to portrayals of Thanksgiving and Columbus Day as holidays implicitly celebrating the subjugation of Indians.
Although Indians believe that much needs to be done to redress widespread poverty, unemployment, poor health and low educational attainment, they are also proud of their cultures and justifiably prickly about unawareness of their successes in professional, urban, middle-class America. Yet, even there is a rub: Many Indians feel they straddle two worlds, torn between their historic cultures and modernity, and between identities as Indians and as Americans.
Clearly, more sophisticated education about Indian life is needed. It should not be relegated to third-graders. And memory should not be left to the fourth Thursday in November. It should be integrated into curricula throughout high school and college. Media and popular culture need to do more thoughtful portrayals, and not simply report on Indian crime and substance abuse, or continue to craft dramas with either old, disparaging or new, flattering stereotypes.
The lives of urban and other non-reservation Indians, many successful, need to be showcased. Museums, too, need to go beyond natural-history-cum-anthropological displays that reinforce the notion that American Indians are a dead culture, denizens of pre-1890 America - and improve upon potentially outstanding institutions such as the National Museum of the American Indian.
As a starting point, as one Indian said, "Maybe you should just tell them that we still exist."
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Andrew L. Yarrow is vice president and Washington director of Public Agenda, a nonpartisan think tank, and a professor of U.S. history at American University. His e-mail is ayarrow@publicagenda.org .


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Come Together and Create!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka:Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/

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http://www.networkaztlan.com/
C/S


e.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The Big Oil Leak: The Secret Plan to Beat Hugo Chavez: VenezuelaAnalysis

The Big Oil Leak: The Secret Plan to Beat Hugo Chavez

November 21st 2007, by Aldo Vidali - Communication Evolution
Washington's Brain Society (W's.B.S.), a conservative think tank, inadvertently leaked to the press the secret plot that will render Hugo completely harmless. Many propagandistic schemes have been spawned by W's.B.S.'s cagey corporate executives, clever military strategists, and cunning politicians, but never a plot so brilliant and undefeatable as "Operation Crush Chavez."
Major elements of the CIA infiltrating the popular barrios of Caracas and cocktail parties of the oligarchy have returned to W's.B.S. with a frightening intelligence report on the activities of Hugo Chavez that could spell the doom of our free wheeling-and-dealing capitalist system. The good news is that after examining the report, a diabolical plan by W's.B.S. was approved by the DOD, State Department, the major oil cartels, and the White House that will outdo, squash, and vanquish all support and world admiration for Hugo Chavez.
Everyone at W's.B.S. planning meeting was agape, agog, and dumbfounded to learn that dastardly Chavez has persisted in launching his populist, liberal, and socialist acts of provocation against our neo-conservative free-for-all market created by the generous free world nations under the wise guidance of the U.S.
Chavez, through his sneaky oil company CITGO, has been giving large discounts on heating oil to poor households in the U.S. A slap in our fine oil industry's face! That evil Venezuelan company has committed $3.6 million to nine Bronx initiatives that foster community empowerment and clean-up of the urban environment. Can you see the nasty Chavez conspiracy? is the question W's.B.S. asks our government and the American people. By the winter of 2006-2007, Chavez's program doubled, delivering 100 million gallons to 1.2 million poor Americans, from Alaskan natives to Vermont citizens. CITGO expects to supply 110 million gallons to America's poor this winter. Isn't that awful? It's just to embarrass the superrich U.S. oil companies that receive meritorious subsidies while faithfully accepting Americans' financial sacrifice at the pump and concurrently refusing to pay abusive oil royalties owed to the American people who never lifted a finger to earn them.
According to W's.B.S., President Chavez is a terrible blackmailer! Imagine sharing Venezuela's oil wealth with his poor and spoiling our own people with unwanted welfare, which keeps our own poor from learning how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps in the dead of winter. Nevermind! Here is how W's.B.S proposes to fix this evil do-gooder Chavez.
Politicos and big oil at W's.B.S. meeting agreed that this is outrageous. Chavez' generosity is only propaganda and peanuts thrown to "useless eaters," as Kissinger called the world's poor. "Operation Crush Chavez," with full approval from big oil, a bribed Congress, and the White House, will generously give 50 time as much, not just to a few peripheral low class neighborhoods, but to every state in the union. Get it?!!! When the American people discover that their own great oil companies are much more generous than Chavez and his socialist love-of-the-people nonsense, Chavez' popularity will sink and he'll learn a lesson in humility. Since he's putting his money where his mouth is, we'll outdo him 50 to 1!
According to W's.B.S., CITGO's nasty commie executives have been visiting needy people in the Bronx more often than any American corporate donor. How stupid can our business community be? We have to outdo these radicals. The commies have been asking community groups what kind of grants are needed, and based on what people wanted, awarded one for a child care cooperative that helps working mothers make a living. And the nerve of the nasty do-gooder and his Pollyanna socialists to celebrate the completion of the cooperative with locals over Venezuelan food — arepas and carne mechada — and Latin American music!
"We'll show them towel-head lovers," said W's.B.S.'s Chair, "that U.S. companies can do better than that. Our oil corporations will quadruple that celebration with millions of healthy MacBurgers, hotdogs, and Cokes, not just in the Bronx, but in every poor neighborhood in America and at every gas station. And we'll double it in Venezuela as well, to take the battle for hearts and minds to Chavez' shores, just as we did in Iraq. That'll embarrass Chavez and turn him green with envy. We know all kids love fast food, which is excellent for their health according to Chamber of Nonsense & Research financed by the fast food industries."
CITGO's winter oil program for the American people cost a paultry $80 million, which is about the same amount that America's largest publicly traded oil companies — with roughly 10 times the revenue — spent on charity in the United States in 2006. How inconveniently embarrassing. The Chair concluded: "We can do better for the American people because we have the means to counterattack Chavez once we decide to dip in our own deeper pockets."
Well, okay! "Operation Crush Chavez" intends to do much better! According to W's.B.S., American capitalists have got to appear less like Scrooges and more like Santas. They must throw an $800 million bone to the public beast and show the whole world that America's big oil and the Republican compassionate government are true Christians, just like Pat Robertson, except for his stupid suggestion to assassinate Hugo Chavez. (As BBC's investigative reporter Greg Palast has suggested, Pat Robertson, in his Christian goodwill, cannot separate Church and Hate).
We are pleased that our media is doing such a great job making Chavez look like a petty miser commie. We instructed corporate media to never publish important facts, like the fact that Chavez presided over an 18% reduction in infant mortality, or the fact that Venezuela enjoys a hearty 9.5% average annual economic growth rate, independent of oil revenue, or the fact that 9 out of 10 media outlets in Venezuela are private concerns, many of which are freely screaming opposition voices that routinely attack the Chavez government.
The things Hugo Chavez has been doing have made our petroleum industry executives very, very nervous. The Chavez-CITGO program is "designed to embarrass us," stated Larry Goldstein, president of the New York based Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, when it was launched in 2005. "[The Chavez-CITGO program] is not designed to help poor people," said that super rich executive. "Chávez is astute, clever, with a major political agenda, largely to get under our skin, and he does that everywhere and anywhere he can."
We don't want the world to ever again hear appalling facts about America's beggar class – its increasing homeless men, women, and children, often freezing to death in the winter for lack of heat. Unfortunately, as well policed as it is compared to the old Soviet media, U.S. media is still too loose, and the damned Internet is letting out too many disturbing facts. Control of the damned Net is our next goal. Our citizens must never get facts about capitalist oppression in the free world, but they do need protection from socialist and environmental propaganda and from do-gooders like Chavez!
Gary Farber, a very poor American who can't afford medicine for his very serious illness, offered some powerful suggestions to help America. On his blog, Amigdala.blogspot.com — which he manages to keep going thanks to small donations, even when he cannot afford to buy food — this brave, poverty-stricken intellectual had the patriotic instinct to help his country against Hugo Chavez by sparking the idea of organizing the poisonous "Operation Crush Chavez." He wrote:
Wanna know how you can really get back at the evil commie dictator Chavez for this propaganda coup? Really embarrass him and make him squirm and sweat? Get under his skin?
Up your charitable donations by a factor of twenty, no, thirty, and put the money largely in the form of long-term endowments and grants to organizations and programs in poor neighborhoods around America, and beat Chavez at his own game!
Make poor people love you! Think of the fantastic image improvement you'll have! Imagine how Chavez will be put in the dust!
That'll show that oppressive 'ol creepy dictator-y guy.
Upping your donations fifty times would be even better.
Do it because you hate Chavez so much. Use your hatred: it will make you stronger yet in the Dark Side.
I'm looking at you, Larry Goldstein. You'll serve your master well by doing this and you'll be rewarded. With that Gary will assuredly lift his fist in a commie salute using his extended middle finger.
W's.B.S. feels that the biggest challenge our government has with Chavez is how to put down Venezuela's constitutional achievements. Like the fact that it recognizes work at home is an economic activity contributing to social welfare and wealth. Consequently, mothers, as homemakers, are entitled to Social Security. Like Chavez' program called "Mothers of the Barrio" — one more evil communist trick! Of course, all the mothers among the vast majority of poor people love Hugo Chavez. How can we beat down mothers?!
On top of that kind of relief for the poor, the evil dictator has created free universal health care and free education, all the way to college. Try and take that away from them and tell them we're civilized! We need to double media misinformation or this commie do gooder will cook us out of our comfort zone. Too much truth is leaking out!
Our response must be one that will definitely crush Chavez. We must divert 400 billion dollars of military illegal aggression expenditures to give every American citizen free education and healthcare. Another great idea! We can save 50% of current medical costs by firing all bloodsucking, paper shuffling insurance companies. And another: we can intensively regulate the pharmaceutical Frankenstein industry and save many lives and countless billions. But, hold it! That's going to be hard to accomplish cause we already spend billions for campaign finance bribery. In fact, I'll probably get fired for writing this.
The money savings for our country will be so immense that we might even end up paying all our debts in a few years and then Chavez' socialist threat will vanish forever.
Imagine: in one single year we can bring Chavez to his knees, restore peace and prosperity to our country, and end terrorism by depriving all terrorist fools, both foreign and domestic, of any motivation for killing us. It's so simple. All we need to do is stop aggression, stop stealing others' resources, stop torture, end violations of international law, and restore justice. Now I know for sure that Washington will ask W's.B.S. to fire me and send me to Guantanamo for leaking this story.
Anyway, before they do…by pretending we are civilized, we'll show ourselves as worthy of respect as Hugo Chavez is…maybe even more, since we'll have to spent more money than he. But our profits will more than double, you can bet on that!
Source: Communication Evolution Blog
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Come Together and Create!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka:Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/

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C/S



Monday, November 19, 2007

Comment regarding: Assoc. of Raza Educators, Post-Conference Follow-up!!!

11-19-07 @10:03 PM ~ Gracias Hermano Ron ~ I pray that Raza Educators continue to grow as a powerful force in local, national and global forums that address and advocate a host of critical issues in these times of troubles, plagues and persecutions!
Much remains to be done. As always, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Vanguard leadership is a critical factor at this point in our collective struggle. We have gone far yet so much more remains to e done, especially with ourselves and our ridding ourselves of the counter revolutionary character defects that we have inherited and been conditioned into from our general reactionary environment.
If we are to be free we will eventually have to stop thinking like the oppressor, stop thinking like asinine Amerikans and come to the firm conclusion that if we are to be free in conjunction with all peoples that we must first free ourselves from old repressed mentalities and old bad behavior patterns. Our patriotism is indigenous, without borders and opposed to all manifestations of narrow cultural nationalism!
An educator must 'lead forth' in the open battlefields of praxis or else is a mere parrot for the parasitic ruling class in our classrooms or a mere pawn in a three-tier chess game with a square checkers mind-set .
I really appreciated the website: http://www.razaeducators.org/
I am glad to see that the Spirit of Paulo Freire lives on! I was blessed to meet him at a small conference we had at Sac State decades ago one Saturday after Marianna Castorna invited me. There was a small dialogue and I got the impression that I was in the presence of a humble master. He had a grandfatherly way about him. I did a little research on him today.
It is clear and certain that a lot of the kinds of essential work he was doing back then in the field of basic literacy still needs to be done by us ~ by all of us concerned with raising a critical consciousness to higher levels of praxis. Action makes the frontlines!
We must really know our people and never distance ourselves from the collective genius of the people. Thus, the basic urgency of community literacy programs in conjunction with the building of a liberated free zone composed of a solid community-based infrastructure ~ learning community centers ~ right here now in the brain of the fascist beast!
Our youth will continue to be our own shock and awe troops in the times to go, especially their adept willingness at utilizing new forms of communications media technology, including Text Messages, Video Clips and utilizing the Power of the Internet with bold imagination!
A few years, the old vanguard of the Chicano Movement overestimted their organizing powers and underestimated the natural power of La Raza Cosmica during the Grand Marcha and failed to see that the basic community work had yet to be done and still remains to be done.
A lot of related complexities were not properly analyzed and estimated
into their calculations.

Nevertheless, some of us contine to plant seeds, grow our harvest and nurture new crops. We have a whole new generation of people who only have a vague idea of what a Chicano is or what the Chicano Movement was in the past. Where is La Raza Unida?
Hell, we are such a complex intricate people that we have not even reached a general understanding of what to refer to ourselves as as a unique people of Aztlan!
Yo soy Chicano yet I identify with all indigenus and Latino peoples. Plus, we need to reach our to our African-American brothers and sisters and all progressive peoples of all races, not corner ourselves into a racial bag and make it easier for our armed class oppressors to isolate us!
Venceremos Unidos!
Towards Total Liberation!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka Peta
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com
Sacramento, Califas, Aztlan
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Ron Gochez <mexicanoatucla@aol.com> wrote:
Dear Conference Participants,
Please see below for access to a conference survey, as well as a video short on the conference. The Association of Raza Educators thanks all participants, speakers, presenters, and organizers who made this event a reality. We are planning a 2nd Annual Conference on Colonialism and Urban Education with the goal of furthering existing projects and creating a Teachers of Color Congress. Join us and help us organize this amazing conference!!! All progressive educators are welcomed!

In the Movement,

The Association of Raza Educators


Become a member of the Association of Raza Educators in Los Angeles:
General meetings are held the first and third Thursday of every month, from 4:00 - 5:30pm,
at Santee Education Complex. 1921 Maple Ave.
LA, CA 90011 (Third Floor)

For more information please contact us at:
razaeducators@aol.com or (626) 617-0401.

Progressive Educators Institute:
Join us on a curriculum exchange and reading circle
Saturday, December 1, 2007
.
Reading Circles provide the space for educators to reflect on their pedagogy, and develop a critical consciousness of their roles as teachers.

Access the article online at www.decolonizing.com/pedagogyliterature.html .
Place TBA. Visit our website or contact us for more information.
The Institute is FREE of charge.

DONATE TO THE ARE UNDOCUMENTED STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP FUND!!
Make your donation at www.razaeducators.org
Our youth need your donations!! Thank you!!!


Access the Conference Survey:
Access the Conference Video Short:



The Association of Raza Educators
Educators for Critical Consciousness and Democratic Education
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Come Together and Create!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka:Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com

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