Author: mopress

“John Miller at the AP has reported that the Idaho Department of Corrections will move inmates to the GEO Group’s Val Verde Correctional Facility and Jail in Del Rio, Texas,” writes Bob Libal at the texasprisonbidness blog. Go there. Read that.

This demonstration is in solidarity with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), who have called for various actions of support in the third week of July, including a call for international activists to plan demonstrations that draw attention to Mexico’s many political prisoners. We as human rights activists would like to connect these struggles to include all imprisoned people. We support the EZLN and see the relationship between colonialism, U.S. foreign policy and immigrant detention here in Texas.

Friday, July 20, 12:00 noon – 1:00 PM

PROTEST OF CCA AND HUTTO DETENTION CENTER

CCA office at 8015 Shoal Creek Blvd, Austin, TX.

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is the world’s largest and most notorious private prison corporation, operating more than a dozen prisons and immigrant detention centers in Texas alone. Demonstrators will protest CCA’s profiting from immigrant detention expansion around Texas, including the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor which holds migrant families and asylum seekers, about half of whom are children.

More info: Rebecca at rebecca415@gmail.com or (415) 902-2794

NOTE: see: mocahete at myspace

Is It Time?

"They did not wish to join with the foreigners (Spaniards), nor did
they desire Christianity. They did not know that they would have to pay
tribute. The lords of the birds, the lords of the precious stones, the
lords of the carved stones, the lords of the tigers had always guided
them and protected them. One thousand six hundred years and three
hundred years more and then their life had to come to an end!

"For they had always known within themselves the length of their
days. The moon, the year, the day and the night, the breath of life
were fulfilled and they passed. The blood was fulfilled and came to the
place of its rest. As also it had come to its power and its dignity.
During their time they had repeated the good prayers; they had sought
the lucky days when the good stars watched over them. Then they kept
vigil, when the good stars watched over them. Then all was good.

"In them there was wisdom. Then was no sin. In
them there was holy devotion. Life was wholesome.
There was no sickness then; there was no aching of
the bones; there was no fever for them; there was no
small pox; there was no burning in the chest; there
was no pain in the stomach; there was no consumption.
Raised up straight was the body then. It was not
thus the foreigners did after they came here. They
brought shameful things when they came. Everything
was lost in carnal sin. No more lucky days were
granted us. This was the cause of our sickness."

—Chilam Balam of Chumayel

The Storm

It will be born out of the clash between the
two winds, it will arrive in its own time, the coals
on the hearth of history are stoked and ready to
burn. Now the wind from above rules, but the one from
below is coming, the storm rises, so it will be.

The Prophecy

When the storm subsides, when the rain and fire
leave the earth in peace again, the world will no
longer be the world, but something better.

–Ramsey Muniz – Tezcatlipoca. 2005.

Is it time? Yes, our time has come as a race,
as a people, and as a nation within all nations. Our
time has come to rediscover our most precious ancient
spiritual and cultural past. It is life within life
to reach into the hearts and minds of our ancestors.

They knew beforehand, many years before the arrival
of the foreigners (Spaniards), that they would come
only to destroy and conquer the essence of our people.
The teachings and writings of our ancestors were for
the purpose of the day that we of the Sixth Sun,
los Mexicanos of Aztlan, would once more engulf the
spirituality and history that would set us free once
again.

History has a purpose, history tends to repeat
itself. Our history, our cultura, and our spirituality
as Mexicanos will bring about liberation, justice,
and the return of Aztlan.

The roots of all revolutions come from our past.
Our history carefully reveals how great Mexicano leaders
rose with the desire and power of fulfilling prophesies. Is it
time? Unless we return to a past which is not yet
past, we will continue to be modern day slaves of
the oppressor in the world today. Why must we as a
race change who we are? Why must we deny the power
and spirituality of our past? Why must we as a people
change every ten years to what the oppressor decides to
label us? These and many more are the qualities of
life we have changed for the sake of acceptance.

Our history, our cultura, and our spirituality are so powerful that for
the last five hundred years the oppressor has attempted to destroy
them. But we resisted with our lives and have sacrificed like no other
race on this earth. During my confinement in solitary for three years,
I journeyed into our ancient Mexicano past as if I were a student at
the "university of unfaithfuls." Gradually I came in contact with all
our Mexicano and Mexicana heroes of our times and they too returned to
their ancient past.

It was during these times of darkness that I also found my brother,
Ricardo Flores Magon. He too was confined in the same dungeons of
America which we shared for the sake of our liberation and justice for
our people. Magon constantly
spoke of the past. Near the end of his life in 1921, he wrote to a
friend in our Holy Land of Mexico and stated:

"They are rich, famous and powerful, while I am poor, unknown, sick,
almost blind, with a number for a name, marked as a felon, rotting in
this human herd, whose crime has been to be so ignorant and so stupid
as to have stolen a piece of bread, when it is a virtue to steal
millions. But my old comrades are practical men, while I’m only a
dreamer, that that is my fault."

Eighty-four years later I find myself also a dreamer, in the same cell,
in solitary confinement, recreating our purpose of existence on this
earth for the creation of our liberation and for the purpose of
demanding the return of our history, cultura, spirituality, and most
important of all, the return of our land (Aztlan). Is it time?

Those that left us are coming back. Those who came are leaving again.
Say welcome, then farewell.
Our time has come! How can we as a people, as a raza of the 21st
century ever forget the spoken spiritual words of our last Emperor,
Cuauhtemoc as he stated for the last time before his death:

"Now we mandate our children also not to forget to transmit to their
children how it will be, how we will reunite, how we will rise again,
how we will reach out, and how we will fulfill the great destiny of our
race."

And here we are tonight confined in the dungeons of America stating to
her that we of the Sixth Sun, los Mexicanos de Aztlan, will carry forth
the destinies of our emperors, of Citlalmina, of Padre Hidalgo, of
Guerrero, Juarez, Flores-Magon, Zapata, Villa, Lucio, Chavez, Marcos,
and all our revolutionary Mexicanos/Mexicanas of the 21st century.

Our sisters and brothers from the Holy Land of Mexico continue to die
at the borders of America as if we were not human at all. As families
of all families, we must begin to take care of each other. We are no
longer strangers or enemies of each other, for we are all Mexicanos.
Some prefer to call themselves Hispanics, Latinos, etc., and that is
fine for now, because soon we will all return to who we are from the
birth of our own creation as a race, as a nation, and as a people.

Our time has come and many are aware of what we will discover about the
past, atrocities committed against us, as we cross into the land that
calls for our return.

The key to understanding ourselves as a people today remains in
discovering and living our Mexicano cultura! We are building our temple
in Aztlan by working together and helping each other for the new
millennium by growing in love, building character and awareness,
learning Mexicayotl, and by sharing this knowledge.

Our time has come to rediscover our most precious ancient spiritual and
cultural past. We will plan the foundation through our
spiritual/cultural temple and school, and it will be based on love,
truth, acceptance, dignity, respect, and honor.

In exile,
Tezcatlipoca

www.freeramsey.com

Received via email from Irma L. Muniz 10 July 2005.

This Week on TV: The ACLU Freedom Files: Drug Wars

The latest episode of The ACLU Freedom Files, “Drug Wars,” takes you to Hearne, Texas, where 27 young African Americans were arrested in a drug bust, based on the word of one unreliable informant. You will also see three sisters describe the devastating impact of mandatory minimum sentences on their family.
America’s “war on drugs” has done nothing to reduce drug abuse, despite massive spending on law enforcement. Instead, it has diverted resources from fighting other crimes, fostered racial profiling and put millions behind bars. Meanwhile, people with serious illnesses are cruelly prevented from accessing medications that could help them.

The “war on drugs” is a failure. Why? Because the problem is not that drugs are bad—it’s that drugs are great. Comedian John Fugelsang lays it all out in The Freedom Files: Drug Wars, saying all the things no one else is willing to say. You can watch a preview of the episode at the ACLU website:

http://www.aclu.tv/episodes/drugwars