Category: Uncategorized

Email from Jay Johnson-Castro

Afternoon Freedom Ambassadors…

When Hutto Vigil IX was announced…for June 23rd…

…another group headed up by Antonio Diaz of the Texas Indigenous Council was in the planning stages of a June 9th vigil at Hutto. While this was not done to confuse anyone…there seems to be a little confusion. Let’s try to clarify it this way.

Hutto Vigil IX. This is a Hutto Vigil. It is headed up by Antonio Diaz and his group. We will therefore identify it as Hutto Vigil IX. It will be held on June 9th. We applaud the initiative and encourage all who can to support it. We encourage you to call Antonio to get the specifics. For info call (210)396=9805. E-mail: texasindigenouscouncil@yahoo.com.

Hutto Vigil X. This is the vigil sponsored by Amnesty International. Many organizations have committed to support that vigil, including LULAC. This vigil will be held on June 23rd. Amnesty International will make the public announcement with the exact details at a future date. The Hutto Vigil X date of June 23rd was selected because it falls on the weekend of the International Day of the Refugee. Folks will be coming from around the country to attend Hutto Vigil X.

Here’s a brief yet special update from Freedom Ambassadors…Gloria Benacci and two daughters…who came up with the coveted “No Child Left Behind Bars” buttons. Gloria says:

“We have T-shirts…logo, white with black/red printing front and back…Spanish and English. (see attached) Only need a better estimate on how many we need. The T-shirts are high quality and our printer does an incredible job.”

These T-shirts will be available for a suggested donation. For more information on the buttons and T-shirts…we invite y’all to visit Free the Children at MySpace where we are approaching 2000 friends…and according to Gloria…going on 10,000.

Regarding the Hutto vigils…we cannot have too many. If anything…we should try to have more. We should all try to muster up all of the expressed outrage that we can…against the imprisonment of innocent little children…and those who would profit off of them.

Hutto is like an ugly boil that has come to the head. It is so in your face. It violates everything we believe as a people. Unless we put a stop to this kind of abuse of democracy…such atrocities will go from ugly to uglier. Why do we say that? In May of last year…for the Hutto dedication…the proud architect of imprisoning innocent children…Chertoff, himself…bragged about Hutto being the prototype for future prison camps for families.

We the people happen to disagree with this demented concept and we are letting Chertoff, Bush, Congress, the U.N….and the world community know…that in no uncertain terms…we will not tolerate such conduct that defies all universal laws. Americans with a conscience will keep growing in numbers and massing together…to free the innocent children of the world. Taking down their prize razor wire, after months of protest, does not change the fact that the tender lives of little ones are being abused by the world’s biggest bullies.

In solidarity…we come to their rescue. We come to demand their freedom…and the freedom of their mothers. We come to defend our family and our race. The human family and the human race.

No Child Left Behind Bars

Free the Children

Jay

“If you make peaceful change impossible….. you make violent revolution inevitable.” President John F Kennedy

A Sunday Sermon

OpEdNews

By Greg Moses

Studying recent Congressional debates over the Department of Homeland Security reminds us why we much prefer covering activists and social issues rather than policymakers and policy. But clearly, activism meets policy somewhere. And the better we understand where policy is coming from, the better activists we can be. So we work through the eye burn.

As a basic set of working hypotheses, we first like what the Kelleher report says about Homeland Security leadership — that the department is run by a cadre of Bush appointees who will soon find themselves out of power.

Next we add the survey showing DHS employees to be the most demoralized workers in federal employ — telling us that the cadre of Bush appointees won’t find their doors hitting them fast enough on the way out, insofar as the rank and file are concerned.

On top of these happy hypotheses we note that the agency of 200,000 employees exceeds the recent ability of Congress to comprehend it. The authorization bill for 2006 never passed the Senate, while the 2007 bill never even passed the House.

Without authorization bills, Congress has funded the agency by a process that Rep. Farr of California calls a “hold your nose and vote” approach. Which has only, we assume, increased the demoralizing power of Bush appointees to issue orders as they please.

As a big-picture assumption, therefore, we shall say that the Department of Homeland Security deserves as much respect as one would give to any cadre of Bush appointees who have broken free of civil service and Congressional traditions.

In recent Congressional debates over the 2008 program at DHS, we see that at least the House has passed an authorization bill, and that minimally, House leadership has attempted to restore the checks and balances of civil service and Congressional oversight, to some degree.

We are not distracted, therefore, by Republican denunciations regarding “earmarks”. Yes, we would like to see more transparency, but on balance the current trend of Democratic leadership appears to be perforating a cuticle that was only thickening under Republican rule.

Republicans complain that Democratic leadership is acting like the new machine in town, as if that old cadre of Bush appointees weren’t trying to rumble like the old one.

Republicans also complain (with some apparent Democrat collaboration) that the xenophobic border barriers are being bogged down in committee. To which we say, oh, no kidding?

And so, on the basis of these very general and hasty hypotheses, we have a few hopes to share.

With respect to the workings of DHS in the Dallas area, we would like to see Congressional powers and civil service forces stiffen their civil resistance against the demoralizing effects of Bush appointees, boldly treating them like the lame ducks they are.

But what about Homeland Security, is it not a national concern?

Here we find the Congressional debates helpful. If we think of Homeland Security as hometown security, as suggested by California Congressman Sam Farr, then it becomes obvious to observers of the Texas scene — especially lately in Dallas — that the effective priorities of the Bush cadre appear to have little to do with making our neighborhoods more comfortable places for people to live.

Email from Riad Hamad

Dear Friends,

Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund is pleased to announce that our volunteers and friends in Palestine have been able to send us several videos from Palestine showing the joy and pain of living in Palestine under the occupation. Please click on the link below

http://www.marhabafrompalestine.com
and walk the streets of the city of Hebron, the city under siege due to the presence of more than 500 Zionist settlers. You can also see the images of a Palestinian farmer tilling the land to feed his family and keep the ancient Palestinian tradition and connection to the land.

Our friends in Beitlehm sent the images of the Church of Nativity and the Manger Square, surrounded by the apartheid wall and deprived of their basic human rights to live with dignity, to work and share their homes and lives with the rest of humanity.

The children of Gaza celebrated Mother’s Day two weeks ago and enjoyed gifts and meals provided by PCWF to give them hope and a sense of pride in a world that forgot them and abandoned them long time ago. Please take few minutes and see several pieces of artwork made by the prisoners in the Israeli jail submitted by our friends from Alfaraa who collected the images from an event held in Alfaraa refugee camp last month.

The Israeli soldiers provided us with ample images of their brutality in Bi’ilin that you can see under the section. You can also bookmark the page and you come back every few days to see more videos and more crimes documented till the conscience of the world wakes up and the Israeli government and its armed forces are put on trial for war crimes.

We hope that you will spend some time viewing the videos, learning about Palestine, sharing the stories and the videos with your friends and ask them to support the children and the farmers in Palestine. If you have given up on Palestine and the Palestinians, the videos and the stories on the website will tell you lout clear, that the heroes inside Palestine are ready and willing to continue the struggle.

THANKS for your patience, work and support

Salamat
Riad Elsolh Hamad,
Coordinator,
Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund
http://www.pcwf.org
http://www.marhabafrompalestine.com

Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund. 201 W. Stassney # 201, Austin, Texas 78745 Support the children of Palestine by buying Palestinian arts and crafts. Sustain the Palestinian economy and provide jobs for the men, women and farmers in Palestine to live with pride and dignity TILL WE RETURN.

Dear Editor,

The Coppell Citizen’s Advocate lists the Texas Civil Rights Review website as a place to find more information regarding the Charanias.
However, it looks as if all of that information has been deleted and the articles are not on the website. This worries me as people are asking me where they are. If the articles cannot be put back on the website, is there an alternative place to go to find information?

Thank you,
Ashley Pitala

Dear Reader,

Yesterday I received a request from the Charania family to promptly remove all items pertaining to their case from the Texas Civil Rights Review website. Let us hope this means that the end to their ordeal is near.

Sincerely,
Greg Moses
Editor
Texas Civil Rights Review