Ruben Salazar Memorialized on Stamp

Our brother will be receiving an honor for his martyrdom

The U.S. Postal Service next year will issue a commemorative stamp in honor of slain Los Angeles Times reporter and columnist Reuben Salazar, the Times reported. “He was a groundbreaker for Latinos in this country, but his work spoke to all Americans,” Postmaster Gen. John E. Potter told the Times in a story by staff writer Louis Sahagun. “By giving voice to those who didn’t have one, Ruben Salazar worked to improve life for everybody. His reporting of the Latino experience in this country set a standard that’s rarely met even today.” Salazar was killed in 1970 at age 42 while covering a riot in East Los Angeles. He was hit in the head by a tear gas projectile fired by a sheriff’s deputy.

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Ruben’s story is one that echoes many Xicanos/Mexicanos in the United States. Our very identity does not recognize borders – nuestra cultura lives within the wind. Although born in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, the Salazar family ended up in El Paso, where Ruben grew up and eventually worked his way through the U.S. educational system as well as serving in the military.

Wielding a journalism degree from the University of Texas – El Paso, Ruben Salazar covered stories that very few to none dare expose – the mistreatment of Xicanos in the justice system. From prisons to police brutality in the barrios, his intrepid journalism shined a spotlight on the corruption that faces our people through this present day.

Since his murder at a 1970 Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de Porciúncula, Ruben Salazar has had numerous tributes named in his honor, including scholarships, journalism awards, libraries, the park near where he was murdered, a bilingual center y un corrido por el Padre de Chicano Music, Lalo Guerrero.

29 de agosto

Cuando vino la policía
violencia se desató;
el coraje de mi raza
luego se desenlazó
por los años de injusticia
el odio se derramó;
y como huracán furioso
su barrio lo destrozó.
En un edificio cercano
desgracia vino a caer
un gran hombre y buen humano:
periodista mexicano
de fama interancional;
fino padre de familia
voz de la comunidad.

When the police arrived
violence was unleashed;
the wrath of my people
uncoiled from within;
against years of injustice
hate spilled out;
and like a ferocious hurricane
its barrio it destroyed.
In a nearby building
misfortune came to fall
a great man and human being
él fue Rubén Salazar,
he was Rubén Salazar,
Mexican newspaperman
of international fame;
a fine father and husband
spokesman for the community.

Many thanks to Olga Briseño of the University of Arizona’s College of Humanities, as well as Latino/Xicano advocates across the U.S. for uniting to make this honor a reality.

Más información:

• Wikipedia
• La Voz de Aztlan
• La Voz de Aztlan2
• Sonoma State University
• Democracy Now!
• UC Calisphere Photos
• UC Calisphere Photos2
• UTEP

Crossposted at ¡Para Justicia y Libertad! where Nezua and I are guestposting while XicanoPwr tends to his familia

 

Translation of Bush Bomshell

La gente buena over at European Tribune have compiled a side-by-side translation of the latest incident that confirms many peoples’ bedrock belief that George Bush intended to attack Iraq with or without UN approval.

Here’s a key section

Sadam Husein no cambiará y seguirá jugando. Ha llegado el momento de deshacerse de él. Es así. Yo, por mi parte, procuraré a partir de ahora utilizar una retórica lo más sutil posible, mientras buscamos la aprobación de la resolución. Si alguien veta [Rusia, China y Francia poseen junto a EE UU y Reino Unido derecho a veto en el Consejo de Seguridad en su calidad de miembros permanentes], nosotros iremos. Sadam Hussein no se está desarmando. Le tenemos que coger ahora mismo. Hemos mostrado un grado increíble de paciencia hasta ahora. Quedan dos semanas. En dos semanas estaremos militarmente listos. Creo que conseguiremos la segunda resolución. En el Consejo de Seguridad tenemos a los tres africanos [Camerún, Angola y Guinea], a los chilenos, a los mexicanos. Hablaré con todos ellos, también con Putin, naturalmente. Estaremos en Bagdad a finales de marzo.

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In other words, we have another Downing Street Memo incident to garner a collective yawn from the U.S. media. Just in time for the same script to be used against another country!

GO TEAM!

 

Midweek Meta Open Thread

• I’ve been working on tweaks to the template again (does that make me a tweaker? heh). Still trying to resolve the problem with the way the site displays in Internet Explorer using 800 x 600 resolution (switch to Firefox, people!) I know there’s a way to get the center column to automatically squish, but for the life of me, can’t figure out where to put the code. Soooooo, if any coding gurus would like to help with that, please email me at the link to the left.

• My buddy James, who’s a Plática Starter here, has renamed his site to The Mahatma X Files – please update your blogrolls (it was formerly “The Left End of the Dial”)

• You’ll notice at the top of the right column on this page, there’s a new widget courtesy of the Rock the Vote peeps. Clicking on it will open up a Voter Registration page that makes it easy for a person to get fully engaged on the civic level. If you’re a blogger and would like to add the widget to your site, the link is here.

• Finally. A logo that I love unconditionally. Hope you like it.

• Pumpkin Cheesecake, anyone? It’s autumn!

 

Concentration Camp Slated for Virginia

All due to the conquistador mentality rearing its ugly head after a car accident.

A panel studying illegal immigration in Virginia wants to build a 1,000-bed state jail solely for people arrested for being in the United States illegally. The Illegal Immigration Task Force agreed to 11 recommendations Monday in an effort to tighten enforcement of immigration laws. The new jail was one of them.

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Since the current detention program in the U.S. for undocumented migrants has been so successful, it’s no wonder that locales are interested in expanding its scope. Perhaps the shiny barbed-wire and polished concrete will make a suitable environment for the children.

 

Torture Lawyer Withdraws Nomination

I guess he didn’t have the ganas to undergo an interrogation himself, after admitting that he was one of the people who gave approval to the United States’ torture policies.

At the hearing in June, Rizzo said he did not object to the 2002 memo that said for an interrogation technique to be considered torture, it must inflict pain “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” He said he later deemed the document an “aggressive, expansive” reading of U.S. law.

Human rights groups had urged the Senate to reject Rizzo’s nomination because of his stated views on torture. In a letter to the intelligence panel, a coalition of advocacy groups cited Rizzo’s June testimony, in which he had not objected to the so-called “torture memo” the Justice Department prepared in 2002.

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Now if only the Congress will undo the damage done by Rizzo, Yoo, Gonzalez, Rummy, Cheney, Bush, etc. etc. etc.

 

Nicaragua’s President Takes U.S. to Task

Not surprising, as Daniel Ortega has a long history of opposition to imperialist conquests in Latin America by corporate boardrooms.

“The presidents of the U.S. change. And they may come to office with the greatest of intentions and they may feel that they are doing good for humanity, but they fail to understand that they are no more than instruments of one more empire in a long list of empires that have been imposed on our planet,” Ortega said, waving his arms.

Ortega had started off addressing the central theme of this year’s General Assembly meeting — climate change — but he quickly launched into a tirade against global capitalism, meandering from his notes and speaking well beyond his allotted 15 minutes.

The world is under “the most impressive, huge dictatorship that has existed — the empire of North America,” he said. An “imperialist minority is imposing global capitalism to impoverish us all and impose apartheid against Latin American immigrants and against African immigrants.”

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Cue the U.S. media’s yearly lament about the dangerous leftward tilt of Latin American politics. Last year, they were appalled at the suggestion that George Bush was el diablo (he’s at least a minion, c’mon…admit your true feelings on this).

It’s all so predictable.

 

Daily Show Hosts Bolivian President Tonight

Bolivia’s President, and first indigenous leader of that country (in its current form, that is), will be on the Daily Show tonight

Political satirist Jon Stewart, host of the popular mock cable TV newscast “The Daily Show,” will interview Bolivian President Evo Morales on the program on Tuesday, the show’s network announced on Monday.

The guest spot by Morales will mark only the second appearance on the Emmy-winning show by a sitting head of state, following Stewart’s interview a year ago of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan and a key U.S. ally. – linkage

(h/t to The Latin Americanist)

At the time of his inauguration, the Native Press wrote

From the late 1990s onwards, the cocaleros have fought an intense war against the U.S.-sponsored “coca zero” program in Chapare. Intended to uproot and destroy all coca plants, the United States militarized the region, setting up four military bases while training and advising special Bolivian battalions. According to Pedro Rocha, a small coca grower interviewed while tending his plants, “nothing was sacred. Our homes were invaded and even burnt, our belonging were stolen or tossed into the fields and many of us were beaten and arrested.” Subsistence crops along with coca plants, Rocha said, were trampled and destroyed.

The cocaleros, led by Morales, organized massive resistance to the eradication program, reaching out to other national unions and to international human rights organizations. Roads were blockaded in the Chapare for more than a month at a time as the local unions rotated their members, women and men, day and night, to stop all traffic through the center of the country.

At least the U.S. is consistent…

[UPDATE] Here’s the video:

 

The Eleven Percent Set Speaks

Congress has an appoval rating of 11% – it’s no wonder. Speaking for me, I’m disgusted that they are endorsing a de facto resurgence of Operation Wetback. Even though legislators that are supposedly on the side of human rights are in control of the Hill, they’ve done nothing to enact policies that will allow people and families ensnared in the current/broken immigration system to come out of the shadows.

Instead, the suits and pearls are acting in a bipartisan fashion to urge things like this

Already, half of the 6,000 National Guard troops sent to help secure the border with Mexico are gone with the rest leaving next summer, as planned.

“Americans could rightly question why the administration has dedicated 160,000 National Guardsmen to maintain order and security in Iraq, while eliminating the less than 6,000 Guardsmen performing an important task on our own southern border, which most agree is in a state of crisis,” Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., wrote in July to President Bush. Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., also signed the letter.

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More militarization with no talk of addressing economic/trade policies that have created the magnet of migration is worthless blather. Get moving, Senators!

 

More Nooses in the News

This time in North Carolina…

HIGH POINT, N.C. — Police are investigating an incident in which students and faculty said four nooses were hung from a tree at the school.

The finding occurred Friday morning at Andrews High School.

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The Principal’s letter to the community says the following

Counseling will be available to students as needed by GCS. Additionally, the City of High Point has worked collaboratively with the school since 2004 through the High Point Human Relations Commission to establish a school-based student commission. These students are trained and ready to assist as needed. Please make sure your children are aware that threatening acts are not acceptable. Should your child observe inappropriate behavior or have any information regarding this incident, please ask him/her to immediately notify a teacher, staff member or our school’s resource officer.

I think this is a healthy way of dealing with such a charged act of hate – build coalitions with local human rights’ organizations, remind everyone their shared responsibility in talking to others living in their household, and put the onus on everyone to summon the courage to inform an authority figure if they see something illegal occurring.

It’s unfortunate and unacceptable that we are seeing nooses spring out of trees like putrid blooms of hate. It can end today, but only if we look inward and work outward for change.

 

Solidarity with the United Auto Workers

This blog proudly supports the decision by the United Auto Workers to declare a national strike as of this morning.

Healthcare and pensions are at the center of this face-off between the workers and the corporate decision-makers. It is a problem that has been ignored and often made worse by political machinations that do not have the peoples’ best interests as their foundation.

Profit margins over the wellbeing of workers will never move a society forward in harmony. It’s time for us to say, “Enough!” and support unions and movements like this that can serve as a catalyst for greater non-violent revolution against the unethical elite.

SOLIDARITY!