Author: mopress

Received via email.

It looks like this Minuteman thing is going to serve as the pretext for getting out of Iraq. Clearly, the Iraq war is lost and Bush will have to, as they say, “declare a victory and leave” before the mid-term elections. He will claim that the situation has stabilized, that Iraq is safe for democracy etc., and, of course, the Iraqis will play along with this, since about the only thing that unites them is their fervent desire to wish the last American soldier “God speed”.

The National Guard is “needed” on the border and as Governor Terminator says, if America can afford the war in Iraq (which, of course, it can’t!), it can afford to patrol its borders. Of course, it cannot do both, and everybody knows that, but nobody will be churlish enough to say so! Moreover, more young Americans may be willing to join the Guard if all it involves is, say, a month’s full-time service per year harassing the ever-polite Canadians or pushing Mexicans around. Indeed, a Swiss-style “draft”, making such service compulsory, could probably be introduced without too much opposition.

I have always believed that the psychological reaction to defeat in Iraq of Americans, still traumatized by the defeat in Vietnam, would be to withdraw into the homeland and circle the wagons. That, in fact, will be a blessing for everybody: for us in the rest of the world, who are thoroughly sick and fed up with American meddling, both public and private, in our affairs, and for Americans, who will then be able to get on with the job of taking back their country from the crazies and re-building it on a sound basis.

I also saw in the BBC website the other day a report that some conservative groups are starting to attack the gas-guzzling SUVs that Americans are so fond of on the basis that America’s profligate ways are making the US dependant on foreign oil and that should be corrected. Clearly, even the crazies are starting to realize that they’re crazy!

A final point. The EU official in me reads about this “Northern Wall” and says “Whatever happened to NAFTA?” You couldn’t build a wall between EU Member States, nor, indeed, have a system of work permits. All of this seems to amount to a tacit admission that NAFTA has failed and will now be quietly buried, although, here again, nobody will say that out loud.

ACLU Press Release received via email May 18.

On Friday, the Senate may take up and vote on HB 2465 by Representative Denny, a bill that closes the recently opened meetings where the state’s voting machine examiners review
voting technology.

“We had to take the Secretary of State to court to make the agency abide by the Texas Open Meetings Act,” said Will Harrell of the ACLU of Texas. “Now, after a court declared that
citizens do, in fact, have a right to see how the state certifies these machines, the Secretary of State wants the legislature to close the door again.”

The ACLU of Texas and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit under the Texas Open Meetings Act last year, and in January a Travis County judge found in favor of public
access. The next meetings to certify voting equipment, scheduled for May 25th and 26th will be held in public.

“If the Senate does not amend this bill, the May meetings may be the first and last time the public can watch the state’s certification meeting process,” said Adina Levin, Project
Director for ACLU’s Cyberliberties Project. “That would be a terrible shame and a disservice to the computer security professionals, polling place volunteers, public interest groups, county administrators and others that have an interest in opening up this process.”

Instead of allowing the public to attend the actual examiners meetings, the bill creates a public forum where members of the public can comment to the agency on voting machines.

“A public forum is fine,” said Harrell, “and we appreciate that the Secretary of State has agreed that there should be public input. But this public forum does not replace the need for
access to the meeting where the examiners look at the systems, question the venders, and deliberate with each other.”

“The process for deciding which electronic voting machines are good enough for Texas is too important to be held behind closed doors,” said Levin. “If the public is watching, the
examiners will do a better job, the vendors will be better prepared, and the Secretary of State will get better advice from both the examiners and from experts in the public who can intelligently comment.”

By Sonia Santana

The Texas Senate was presented a trojan horse bill in HB2465 last night, and they accepted it. Section 8 barely concealed in the belly of the bill would kill the open public process for vendor certification at the Sectretary of State.

The bill passes the Senate last night on a recorded vote of 31-0. HB2465, authored by Elections Committee Chairwoman Mary Denny (R-Flower Mound), had a carefully worded caption promoting public hearings conducted by the SOS, when in fact the bill does exactly the opposite in closing a process that should be open to the public.

Initially the House bill, was in fact only a requirement for a public hearing, after the examination process, to be conducted by the SOS. Public hearings are great; who would be opposed to a public hearing, right? That was exactly the point of Denny’s strategy. Write a nice little innocuously captioned bill and get all kinds of support for it including the ACLU-TX.

Why was it important for ACLU-TX to be on board supporting the bill? Well because the ACLU-TX and The Electronic Freedom Frontier Foundation (EFF) had sued the Secretary of State last year to open those secret vendor certification meetings, and they had won a temporary injunction in district court.

The Secretary of State and the Texas Attorney General contend that this appointed board of examiners is not subject to the Open Meetings Act because they aren’t a governmental body. District Court Judge Stephen Yelenosky reviewed
the documentation and recorded tapes of those secret meetings and disagreed with the Attorney General. Yelenosky ruled that these meetings were subject to the Texas Open Meetings Act.

When a substitute HB2465 was voted out of the Elections committee, it contained a poisoned pill in Section 8 that reads “An examination conducted or determination made under Chapter 122, Election Code, before or after the amendments made by this Act, was and continues to be not subject to Chapter 551, Government Code.”

That single word “not” in that section has now created a very bad law for Texas voters. Texas voters now do not have the right to substantive review and input into the examination process of our voting systems. You just have to trust the Secretary of State to do the right thing, a sort of “faith based” public policy.

I do encourage Texas voters to come to the next examination hearing. It will be the last time they get to view the examination meeting in an open and transparent process, the way it was supposed to be.

Texas voters may get an interim study for a verified paper ballot trail. That amendment was successfully added to the Senate version of the bill. Hopefully that will be acceptable to the author Mary Denny. [Stay tuned for the date.]

As a footnote Representative Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin), authored House bill HB3383 that specifically wrote into our election code the right of the public to view this examination process. That bill was killed in committee by Representative Mary Denny.

Note: Sunday evening in the second-to-last episode of Pioneer House
on PBS a tiny colonial enclave was visited by native peoples who
presented themselves as living witness to history made whole. For the
second time in the show’s season, modern-day colonists discarded an
opportunity to radically re-evaluate their re-enactment. The first
opportunity was the early morning departure of an African American
freeman who became deeply disturbed at the experience of colonial
economy. He could feel the natural birth of slavenomics coming, so he
left. In both cases, neither the departure of an African American nor
the arrival of Native Americans posed anything more than a brief
distraction from the main game. Soon enough colonists get back to work
for the company. Every night the colonists return to their beds. We
know they sleep, but do they ever dream?—gm

* * *

The following letter from Ramsey Muniz was received via email from Irma L. Muniz on May 19.

Please distribute the enclosed message regarding our ancient past and spirituality.

"As I embrace our ancient sacred indigenous spirituality, I’m
transformed by a passion I have only heard in our past; confined in
these prisons now I feel it in my own Mexika soul. I have been given
access to a great and universal profound secret. Now I know the
suffering, sadness, sorrow, and sacrifices of my ancestors, and now it
has become my own."–Tezcatlipoca (Ramsey Muñiz)

It gives me great honor and pride to share with nuestra gente the
second part of what I wrote late into the night, after awakening from
an ancient Mexika dream. These are the exact words I wrote: "It is
evident from our ancient Mexika writings, symbols, and manuscripts that
eventually the primary principle of our cultural realization was the
power of spirituality of the hearts of the masses of our people –
spirituality in the sense of its liberation, teachings of justice, and
the universal philosophy of a free humanity."

Our most profound and challenging ancient history is like no other
history on this earth. The vision, the intelligence and cosmic power
within the creation of our existence, is like no other in the past
present, and/or future. Even before the invasion of our Mexika Empire,
our wise council of elders was preparing for this disaster.

Our ancient history reveals and teaches us our creation, our
foundation, philosophy of life, cultural structures, constantly
demonstrating the power of our spirituality. It is this hidden
spirituality that has provided the power and pride of resistance
against oppression and atrocities. It doesn’t matter what policies
and/or criminal penalties America brings upon the lives of our sisters
and brothers who came to join us here in Aztlan. It is done! We are
only following the direction and teachings of our ancient Mexika past
into our present world of today. We are not just anybody. We are a
universal cosmic people who lay claim to our spiritual culture from our
past to rehabilitate ourselves, and to begin justifying the
presentation of our national cultural existence.

Perhaps we have not sufficiently demonstrated that present American
colonialism is simply not content to impose its rule upon the present
and futures of a dominated country. American 21st century colonialism
is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip, and emptying
the Mexicano/Mexicana brain of all form and content. By a kind of
perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people and
distorts, disfigures, and destroys it. This work of devaluating our
pre-colonial history takes on a dialectic significance today. When we
consider the efforts of the colonial epoch to carry out our spiritual
cultural estrangement, we realize that nothing was left to chance, and
that the total result looked for by colonial domination was indeed to
convince Mexicanos that colonialism came to lighten their darkness.

The effect consciously sought by America was to drive into
Mexicanos’ minds the idea that if the settlers were to leave, they
would at once fall back into barbarism, degradation, and bestiality. On
the unconscious plane, colonialism, therefore, was considered by the
Mexicanos as a mother who restrained her fundamentally perverse
offspring from its evil instincts. She protected her child from itself
– its ego – its physiology – its biology, and its own unhappiness,
which became its very essence.

We must teach and share with the youth of today the importance of
our ancient Mexika history. How sad to be poor, sad to be chained and
shackled by the injustices of the oppressor. But nothing is sadder than
to witness the fact that our raza does not even know who we truly are.
Our history teaches that we would pass through these periods of
cultural/spiritual uncertainties. It also reveals that certain destined
Mexicanos/Mexicanas would rise within the era of our Sixth Sun. It is
written and destined that our raza will return to its creation and
construct the means of once more becoming a free race, a free land, a
free nation, a free spiritual/cultural Aztlan of today.

Our sisters and brothers from Mexico who had the heart and courage
to cross the borders into the United States will also one day return to
Mexico and share the truth of the fact that we are one. That the
Mexicanos living in the United States have the same roots as the Holy
Land of Mexico. We are finally learning and accepting the truth of our
ancient spirituality. We must have the courage, pride, and honor to
free ourselves and provide the assistance to free our people as well.
We must be a proud and respectful race once again. We must begin in our
preschools, teaching our history, cultura, and spirituality. We must
reunite once again! Our children, our youth, and the masses of our
people must feel proud once again.

We will soon be the majority of the population throughout the entire
southwest of the United States. If we have been able to accomplish
this, then the time has come for us to rise again, to reach out, and
share with the masses of nuestra raza how we will fulfill the great
destiny of our race.

We of our Sixth Sun will continue to strongly advocate the
implementation and existence of our own political party in Aztlan. It
will happen! Our Holy Land of Mexico is also experiencing political and
cultural changes among the masses. The time has come and many of us
continue to suffer, but destiny will eventually remove the sacrifice,
suffering, and imprisonment. No one can change what history brings to
our lives and creation. We are a people who constantly live in the life
of history.

"We are Indian, blood and soul; the language and civilization are Spanish."–Jose Vasconcelos

In exile,
Tezcatlipoca
freeramsey.com