Category: Uncategorized

By Greg Moses

To try to remember a dream. What could such an effort be worth? In
the end one would only have a memory of a dream to show for it. And so
what? Could the time taken to remember a dream be better spent
forgetting it?

So we forget our dreams right away. Up in the morning and after it
— after something anything more solid than a memory of a dream could
be.

But something curious happens to memories and dreams when locked
into thick prison walls. In prison, dreams never dare to escape. Humans
spirits deprived of any spiritual refreshment from paint chipped blocks
and bars will have their fountains, so up through the night come the
dreams.

In the spiritual landscape of the order of things, prisons
therefore are a society’s dream reservoirs. If the walls aren’t built
thick enough, dreams would come flooding out like a tsunami and drown
every bullshit idea in the way. That’s why we have so many thick prison
walls in America.

According to statistics released on Sunday (why Sunday?) the USA
once again ranks top in the world for the dream dams we call prisons.
More than 2.1 million folks jammed into a system that includes federal
prisons (139 percent full); state prisons (116 percent full); and jails
(94 percent full). Nearly 100,000 of those prisoners serve time in
prisons that have been privatized to make some profit which just goes
to show you there is nothing that money will refuse to buy.

In the dream of April 16 that we copy below, Ramsey Muniz is visited
by memory of ancient land, imaginary kingdom Aztlan, where the Aztec
dance unconquered, and every step they take is upon land they never
have to apologize for walking.

We read the dream of Ramsey Muniz in the context of April 11, when
Harvard Professor of Divinty David Carrasco, as the 19th Annual Americo
Paredes Lecturer speaking to a full house in the Santa Rita Room on
Guadalupe St. showed slides of some of the dreams of Aztlan painted during 16th Century land negotiations. As the dreams of Muniz remind us, those negotiations are still under way:

‘We are One’

Enclosed are words received in a dream…

4/17/05
10:45 PM

Mi Citlalmina y mi gente de Aztlan:

As I shared with you on the telephone, I had
a dream – was it a dream, or was it reality of life
and heart, which only seeks justice, love, and the
freedom of all humanity? It is written in our ancient
Mexicano history that dreams, visions, and appearances
of our ancient council of elders would be recorded
for our future. The writings, dreams, and visions
were all so powerful and connected to nature, that
even modern day scholars cannot comprehend. From
the beginning of our creation we have been in tune
with universal nature, stars, moon, sun, and Mother
Earth.

During the last eleven years confined in the
prisons of America, as a Mexicano political prisoner
in exile, I have prayed extensively in the steel,
cold darkness of oppression – not for myself, but for
a symbol, a sign, a message of enlightenment of hearts
in order to share the journey and direction that we
must take as a race, as a people, in order to obtain
justice, liberation, and in due time, land.

Before I proceed any further, I will share with everyone in
Aztlan and the Holy Land of Mexico that on
April 16, 2005, I awoke from a dream within the midst
of our ancient past. Immediately I sat on the chair
next to my writing table, and wrote an entire
page — with such foresight — then returned to
bed and immediately fell asleep. When I awoke in
the morning, after more than thirty minutes, I
glanced at the page that I had written. I will share
the first part of what came from my dreams:

Cultura/Nuestra Cultura Espiritual Primero
"The Mexicano cultural ancient beginning and/or its
creation will eternally and ultimately bequeath the
manifestation of us to fulfill our spiritual prophesy
of once more becoming one. Nosotros somos uno. This
is the beginning of our ancient cultural Mexicano
spiritual mandate for the 21st century."

Tezcatlipoca (Ramsey Muniz)
April 16, 2005
U.S.P. Leavenworth

"Nosotros somos uno" is a phrase that should
become part of our daily lives, conversations,
participation, and at the end of the night it should
be a part of our spiritual message to Topan (heaven).
We are one! Regardless of where we find ourselves
this very night, we are all one! To be one from
within thousands of miles going south, east, west
or north is power.

Oppression in our past has managed
to divide our people and eventually conquer all
schools of thought or philosophies, providing
a scheme of labeling us with different names
and brands. It is for these reasons that America
has labeled our people into the 21st century.
American now wishes for all of us to become
Hispanics or Latinos for the sole purpose of
becoming different from our Mexicano sisters and
brothers who have journeyed from the Holy Land
of Mexico into the United State of America. We
should embrace our sisters and brothers who have
given their lives by the thousands in the hot
deserts and in the strong currents of the Rio
Grande River, rather than separating them from
our own heritage and generations.

To argue that we are different is to permit oppression by those who wish to divide and conquer our lives with
false illusions, and control the lives of nuestra
gente in general. For the last thirty years or
more, we have embraced and shared with the masses
of nuestra raza in the barrios, our communities,
our schools, and in state and federal prisons our
cultural revolution in all Aztlan.

The United States has been in wars and/or conflicts in all
the world for the last thirty years. During that
period of time, our sisters and brothers came like
never before in our history into America. They
crossed the borders after 9/11, and homeland security
came into existence. After several census taken
of our raza, they became alarmed by the number of
Mexicanos who came to join the pursuit of justice
and liberation. We will no longer be the minority
in the Southwest of the United States. We will
become the majority and will continue to grow
in numbers. It is written that we will never
stop growing in numbers until the land also
becomes a part of us.

Vigilantes, conservative groups and others have become so alarmed of the number of raza crossing the borders that now
they too guard the borders, which will be crossed
by our people.

The dream and its relationship to the human
crisis at the borders clearly reveals that we
Mexicanos must begin to express how proud we are
to be Mexicanos once more after many hundreds of
years of oppression and imprisonment. We were
one from the beginning of our creation. We must
reach into our cultural past as if were only
yesterday. Our teachings, our philosophies,
our ideals, and our spirituality must all relate
to nuestra cultura.

The time has come to make a
definite commitment to the life of our Mexicano
cultura. A race and/or nation without cultura
will never come into existence. The more that
we reach for nuestra cultura Mexicana the more
spiritual our hearts and minds will become. To
all of our raza in Aztlan I share the following
words of wisdom:

We want only to show you something
we have seen and tell you something
we have heard…that here and there
in the world and now and then in ourselves
is a new spiritual Mexicano creation…

Tezcatlipoca (Ramsey Muñiz)

Yes, without question or doubt, throughout
all Aztlan there is a new spiritual Mexicano
creation. We will now become what we were from
the beginning – a free race, a free nation, a
free land.

Immigration will become the national issue
which United States politicians will use to
blame for all negative results in America. Our
sisters and brothers will be trea

ted as if they
were responsible for the oppression of America.
We must immediately take the political position
that our sisters and brothers from the Holy Land
of Mexico, who find themselves in the United
States, be granted full amnesty.

We will take a strong political position against the
United States trying to pass oppressive procedures
against nuestra raza on the issue of immigration.
Besides, if we were to study history in terms of
to who was here first, we would win immediately.
Our sisters and brothers from the Holy Land will
be blamed for all economical and financial
downfalls. But at the end it doesn’t matter,
because we have more compassion in our hearts
for humanity.

We are one! We must be proud of who
we are. Our history is one of pride, heart,
and intelligence. We must let the world know who
we are, and that we are proud to be Mexicanos. As
a group we must also begin to communicate directly
with other Mexicanos who are in tune with our
cultura and historia.

No longer will our raza hold their heads down
in shame. No longer will we be afraid or fear the
sacrifice for liberation. We will no longer be oppressed.

In exile,
Tezcatlipoca
Mexicano political prisoner

www.freeramsey.com

Note: letter from Ramsey Muniz conveyed via email April 24 from Irma L. Muniz.

Group Solutions RJW presented its recommendations resulting from meetings concerning African American quality of life in Austin to the Austin City Council during its Thursday, May 26, 2005 meeting.

The report will serve as a framework for an action plan to address quality of life issues that were raised during the meetings and in the City’s “African American Community Scorecard,” which identified disparities between African Americans when compared to other ethnic groups.

Six forums were conducted in April as a follow-up to that scorecard report. More than 700 individuals attended the public forums. Group Solutions’ recommendation also are based on hundreds of written comments received from the public last month.

Link to City of Austin website.

But Project Manager Still Predicts Jan. Rollout

By Greg Moses

A project to develop a statewide database for voter registration is running behind schedule, but the state’s manager of the project predicts it will be completed in time to meet a federal deadline of Jan. 1.

“It has taken a little while to get the project on its feet,” says Bob Futrell, who oversees the project for the Texas Secretary of State, “but it’s okay now.”

A mandate to create the Texas Voter Registration/Election Management System (TEAMS) originates in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 which requires all states to have centralized databases by Jan. 1.

“Meeting the January deadline will be a challenge,” said Futrell, speaking by telephone Thursday from his Austin office, “but in my experience these things are always a challenge up front.” Futrell is an expert in the management of software development, holding academic positions at the University of Texas and at Austin Community College. He has also co-authored a textbook in the field.

With an estimated 36,000 hours of work going into the project at an initial cost of $9.5 million, winning bidders IBM and Hart InterCivic promise to deliver a statewide voter registration database, election management, ballot definition, election night reporting, and a jury management system, too.

According to a thick contract that we reviewed earlier this week at the capitol, the state will also pay at least $600,000 per year in Annual Maintenance Fees for five years.

“I can’t stress enough how different this is from an election system,” advised a well-placed source who answered questions about the contract earlier in the week. One way to understand the difference between election system and election management in a Texas context is to contrast the role of the County Clerk who runs the election and the Tax Assessor who manages the voter database.

Hart InterCivic is well known to election activists as the manufacturer of the proprietary eSlate voting terminal and the election system software that goes with it. Election systems take the votes from voters and tabulate them.

The statewide election management system for Texas also begins with proprietary software from Hart InterCivic known as eRegistry. Of the $9.5 million that the state is paying in startup costs for the project, $4.0 million is dedicated to license fees for eRegistry.

“At the time the project began, the Hart software was not fully developed,” says project manager Futrell. “On the one hand, that means there were really a lot of unknowns; on the other hand, we get to shape it.”

A list of about 2,800 detailed requirements for the TEAMS project are nearly ready for approval by the state, says Futrell. That part of the project had been scheduled for approval Feb. 3.

Another significant milestone — a software release known as “Hart One” — is also pending approval. Original plans called for Hart One to be completed by March 15. Futrell says that was the day when Hart provided a URL to access the software, followed in the next several days by a CD, source code to be escrowed, and user manuals. Hart will be paid $975,000 for Hart One when it is finally accepted by the state.

Futrell says the project is still in the first phase or “Prepare Phase” and that the whole project team has recently completed a two-day review of the project. According to early plans, Prepare Phase was scheduled for completion in late January or early February. But Futrell says “unfortunate timing” plays a role in the delays.

In one “unfortunate” conflict, the state had originally scheduled normal work during the November elections of 2004. In another, training of statewide users will fall during the holiday season of 2005.

Futrell predicts the state will close the gap in deadlines during the next two phases of the project, known as “Design” and “Configure” phases. The Design Phase originally scheduled to be completed on April 8 will be pushed back to June 27. But the Configure Phase originally scheduled for completion in mid-December will only be pushed back about a week.

“We still believe that we will have the voter registration part completed in time for the HAVA deadline,” says Futrell. Some of the other election management features may come later.

For some time, the Secretary of State has already been managing voter rolls for 164 counties, says another source with the Secretary of State. HAVA will allow the remaining 90 counties to maintain their own systems, so long as they upload data to the statewide database on a timely basis. The Secretary of State will try to build a system so impressive that all counties will sign up for “real time” service, eliminating themselves as middle managers.

A two-page brochure posted at the Hart website says that eRegistry’s functionality includes:

Voter Registration: Complete Registration Functionality; Validation against Agency Data; Voter Address, Event and Voting Histories; Suppression of Confidential Voter Information; Automated Mass Voter Updates and Mailings; Voter Address; District and Precinct Maintenance; and Redistricting.

Comprehensive Reporting: NVRA reporting; Standard, Ad Hoc, Statistical and Performance-based Reporting.

Election Management: Absentee Balloting n Early Voting; Poll Worker Recruitment, Assignment and Training; Polling Place Management; Poll Book Printing; Candidate Filing; Petition Management; Canvass; Election Results Reporting; Ballot Generation / Definition Capabilities; Public Information Generation, Tracking and Billing.

Imports/Exports in XML Format: Imports agency data and exports voter registration information to other states in XML format for standardized election data exchange.

Imaging: Voter signatures, applications and correspondence; petition pages; poll book pages; voter IDs; provisional ballot applications. Utilizes off-the-shelf scanners.

Automated Processing: Bar Codes for voter correspondence, voting history, updates from poll books, absentee ballot returns, voter sign-in, precinct equipment, supplies, ballot boxes, OCR/ICR for voter application processing

Great care is taken in the Hart portion of the contract to maintain Hart’s ownership, control, and confidentiality over this powerful and comprehensive software technology. The state of Texas, says the contract, “agrees to treat the Source Code and other deposit materials as exceptionally valuable trade secrets.”

For example, the contract prohibits, “adaptation, conversion, reverse engineering, disassembly or de-compilation” of the eRegistry software without Hart’s permission. The state is not even allowed to publish “results of benchmark tests run on the Software” without Hart’s approval. And in the event that Hart determines such results “contain confidential or proprietary information” the contract binds the state to “seek confidential treatment” of the information.

Hart’s intellectual property will include improvements and upgrades made to eRegistry during the contract, but the state has a fifth-year option to buy the whole package “as is” at fair market value.

Part of the complexity of the TEAMS project, says project manager Futrell, is determining which of the 2,800 required functions are already part of the Hart software and which will require customization. Then designers will have to figure out how to “wrap” the custom features around the existing Hart core.

Note: First version posted Mar. 30 with substantial updates following the Futrell interview Mar. 31. The Texas Civil Rights Review has scheduled another contract viewing for the week of Apr. 4.

* * *

Note: following careful review of project documents, this story was corrected on Apr. 17 to reflect that the Hart product of Mar
ch 15 is called “Hart One.”

Please notice in the following rant how the writer takes the ‘white usage’ of racism and runs with it. There is no evidence in the email that the writer bothered to consider the ‘black usage’ for racism suggested by the article under fire. No doubt, experience with this sort of Cape Codder is what motivates Mr. Gonsalves to advise his black readers not to use the r-word in white company.

Dear Sir,

Read your article on Cape Cod “racism” problem.What a pathetic example of race baiting jibberish and unmitigated BS.

I happen to live in the area and if you knew what you were talking about you would know that Cape Cod is well represented by many black people of good character who are treated with dignity and respect. The town of Onset Mass has and has had a very large, possibly majority, black population, mostly Cape Verdeans, one of whom I would bet is Mr.Gonsalves. These people are hard working good citizens who have always enjoyed the acceptence of the rest of the population in the area. It has always been a given that with minor exceptions people are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin or the movies that they prefer.

Until now I was not aware that there were “black”movies or”white” movies although I have seen “black and white” movies in the past. You have the distinction of trying to popularise a newly perceived or concocted schism between blacks and whites, for what purpose I can’t imagine, maybe just to stir up some conflict where it doesn’t exist. Would it be your purpose to force theater owners to show predominantly unpopular movies to empty theaters for the sake of political correctness or reparitions for slavery? I would like to know how you derived your assessment of the theater owners “intent”as other than making a living by selling tickets.

One of the most significant factors in keeping any dissention going between black and white is people like you and your absurd contentions continually harping on their differences real or as in this case imagined. This article is really a stretch in an attempt to do so and you do a disservice to your fellow blacks. This article has “pity poor me I’m black and everyone shares my self loathing” in every line,except where Mr Gonsalves is quoted.

Previous to the Civil rights Act of 1963 if you referred to a Cape Verdean as Black they would be very quick to correct you and insist that they were Cape Verdean and not black or negro (an acceptable term then). Now everybody is black and proud and taking their place at the front of the line for set asides and affirmative action preference. That is affirmative action at work.

Cape Verdeans (blacks) are now a protected class where before they were just like everyone else in town, a person. I guess they signed on to your philosophy of “Whitey” owes me. Where before they were just “folks”as you so quaintly label them now the citizens of Cape Cod are “black folks” and “white folks”and “Whitey won’t give them the movies they want. None of them would ever think or believe that they were getting the short end of the movie biz if you didn’t concoct this pathetic exercise in race baiting.You should be ashamed.

I have an idea that most proud Cape Cod blacks would agree with me and disavow your racist screed about such a pathetic issue as what movies are being shown. You see racism everywhere and if it stopped you would just be like everyone else.Heaven forbid that racism is eliminated and you lose your “special” victimhood status. Not much chance of that happening with an outlook like yours. You are part of the problem not the soloution.Smarten up.

With lowest of regards,

PS. No need to reply you don’t have anything to say that will redeem yourself from this slur on the good people of Cape Codfish.

Honestly, I think the reader above did not take much time to think about the article. Not only does he (she?) neglect the article’s attention to two quite different meanings of racism, but he also seems not to have read the phrase “existential courage” (something quite different from “pity me”).

But quite aside from ideas that were explicitly treated in the article, the writer above plays innocent on the question of audience demographics. He would blame me first for practices that have long been embedded in the funding, marketing, and casting decisions of motion pictures in the USA.

Affirmative action? Oh no. There’s that, too? Yes, and a classic case of defacto segregation to go right along with it.

On the other hand, here is a reader who found in the Cape Cod article a new way to think about the difficulties of our common lives.

Sir:

An excellent, delicate elucidation of a problem that many might well not even see exists; I didn’t really grasp it myself until I read your article. I sensed that there was a dichotomy between the views of whites and people of color I know, but your essay clarified for me the precise nature of that difference.

How fatiguing it is to be always thinking of skin color. Your article brought that home to me as well. We need explanations such as yours, yet I can’t help wishing people would simply grow up and forget about it. But then I’m so mixed (1/4 Native American, 1/4 Creole, 1/4 Welsh, 1/16 African American, 1/16 French) I hardly even know where I fit on your continuum of “intent” versus “effect”, though I recognize the existence and influence of both.

At any rate, this is one of the most useful things I’ve read in a long time. You expanded my thinking and I value that above everything.

Most sincerely,

Note to pissed off Cape Codders: readers who find the article useful do not blame Cape Codders first.–gm