“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” Mrs. Clinton said when asked about Mr. Obama’s rejoinder by Fox’s Major Garrett after her speech in Dover. “It took a president to get it done.”

I think, essentially, in the mind of many, traditional white liberals, the politicking required to pass contentious bills requires white insiders, since they are the axis of all power.  They could be correct.  We can argue this point, but the point that I’m trying to make is that passing bills that stir up white resentment, requires ugly, ugly politics.  There are various examples where Johnson called the Civil Rights Bill “the nigger bill” in order to sell it to white racists:

Desegregation is a fine example. Johnson was a Southerner who could talk comfortably to other Southerners in the vernacular. “Sam, why don’t you-all let this nigger bill pass?” he asked Sam Rayburn during the congressional debate on the 1957 civil rights bill. Even as late as 1965, when, as President, he appointed the first black associate justice to the United States Supreme Court, he privately used the same pejorative term to describe his appointee. When a young Texas attorney joining his staff suggested a fine but obscure black federal judge for the position, Johnson said, “Son, when I appoint a nigger to the Court, I want everyone to know he’s a nigger.” The attorney never heard him speak about blacks that way again and believed that Johnson was playing a part and trying to create a kind of rapport between two “good old Southern boys” at their first meeting.

This posturing aside, Johnson, according to the White House aide Harry McPherson, was “your typical Southern liberal who would have done a lot more in the field of civil rights early in his career had it been possible; but the very naked reality was that if you did take a position … it was almost certain that you would be defeated … by a bigot.… But Johnson was one of those men early on who disbelieved in the Southern racial system and who thought that the salvation for the South lay through economic progress for everybody.”

He epitomized Malcolm’s caricature of the white liberal who grins in your face and has secret interests as soon as he turns his back.  So we can extrapolate as to what sort of language Clinton would have used to pass her agenda, considering that she painted herself as an heir to Johnson’s legacy. Anyway, back to the issue at hand.

It is doubtful that Dems will come around to CIR soon, but if they do, the language being used and the results might be something different than what many Democratic voters had hoped for. Politico.com writes about the get-tough strategy that many Dems are adopting:

Long pilloried for being soft on illegal immigration, top Democratic officials have concluded there’s only one way they can hope to pass a comprehensive immigration bill:

Talk more like Republicans….

The 12 million people who unlawfully reside the country? Call them “illegal immigrants,” not “undocumented workers,” the pollsters say.

Strip out the empathy, too. Democrats used to offer immigrants “an earned path to citizenship” so hardworking people trying to support their families could “come out of the shadows.” To voters, that sounded like a gift, the operatives concluded…

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), author of the Democratic immigration plan, scolds advocates who refer to illegal immigrants as “undocumented workers.”

The article doesn’t say what term Schumer prefers. I assume that it’s “illegals,” but I wouldn’t be surprised if the term “wetback” has slipped in here and there in private meetings.  I’m sure we’ll find out in ten or fifteen years about these “indiscretions,” when someone figures out that they can make millions off of a book deal.

So there are our white saviors in all their glory. They can save us, but they might have to jack us around and dehumanize us in the process. God Bless America.  Am I making too much semantics?  Perhaps, but more importantly than politico.com’s article: I see where this is headed.

The lesson that can be learned by this comparison, can be learned by asking where black America gone since desegregation.

Granted, it has created an upwardly mobile class of power brokers; bourgeois careerists and a class of bureaucrats. Oh yeah, and blacks can use the same toilets as whites.  It definitely quelled the mission of black nationalists to seek independent forms of development, investment and power structures steeped in revolutionary values.  Instead of developing the ghettos and developing the infrastructure for blacks to employ blacks, the Civil Rights Act provided an avenue for black white flight and corporatism.  Was this a step forward?  For some, but not for many.  I don’t think that’s what the masses were fighting for. I really, really don’t.

However, these sort of politics, of give and take, of backroom details, create the sort of policy that effectively quiets the movement leadership via tokenism. It does the very minimum to get the leadership out of the beast’s face by providing jobs and titles TO THE TOKENS.

Applying this to CIR: I have always maintained that CIR is not enough; it is only a starting point. My own instinct is to go the other direction: to seek independence, but I know that is not on the minds of the people. So I support CIR because I believe it can be a good first step to something greater. It’s what the people, the vast majority of the people, want right now. Perhaps, once drawn out of the shadows, the people will be more open to understanding the greater problems and greater solutions. I say this because more than one of our supporters has dropped out due to problems over immigration. I fully understand that you have a much smaller interest in learning about the historical impact of colonialism on ourselves today, when you are afraid you won’t be able to keep a roof over your family’s head.  As a father, and as a husband, I understand that position.

So was the Civil Rights Act worth it?  Is CIR worth this sort of dirty politics?  There are at least two classes of people working and writing about the issue. 

There are those who will go to the table kicking and screaming, claiming that what is on the table is not enough.  We do this, because we really believe that it is not enough.  It will never be enough.  But we also do this because we don’t want to participate in those backroom deals because of what it produces. 

Inadvertantly, we aid the other class of people involved in the struggle: the power brokers, the Andy Sterns, the establishment non-profits, etc., the people who just increase their usefulness to the corporate and political masters.  They wrestle the community into whatever will disturb the establishment the least, but only when the establishment is ready, when they attune their media machine and say”go.”  They set the parameters of the debate.  They give us the choice between X or Y,  and this class of participants sell whichever they think is better and call it “political realism.”

If political realism is slapping us in our face to save us, I’ll pass.  No Wetback Bill for me:  I’ll go to the grave talking shit and fighting, rather than to become a salesman for the system, and these sorts of politics.  I realize that I will normally lose the battle, but I hope to plant seeds for a project that might bloom in generations.  My great-great grandfather, Ignacio Balli Tijerina III, wrote extensively of the Anglo Incursion.  He writes sarcastically:

“I don’t dare risk the importance of of those miserable insolent people of superior race who have wrongly acquired these Mexican land grants. ”

He continues:

“They are lured by a magnet taking our properties.  So we won’t cry, they pay us a days work, like when someone takes a jewel of value from a young boy and gives him a toy made of clay.  This is what happens in Texas!  I repeat I don’t deceive myself…the injustice of these ill-bred octopi with lucrative power and ambition.”

Since the time he wrote this, my family has conceded many things, sometimes by force, sometimes by necessity, and sometimes just because we knew better.  We have conceded to this system land, taxes, our children to war etc.  But we have not conceded our dignity nor our principles. 

To clarify, I do want CIR, but I will not support anything less than what we deserve, and much less the product of something that makes us out to be aliens.  So don’t look for me to support a bill, a party or a president if they go off the deep end with enforcement and “touch backs” or whatever they have up their sleeves.

The day that I lay down my principles for political expediency, is the day that I stop being me.

The lack of wealth (assets) in our community is a great contributory factor to us being unable to be proactive (nation building) in our approach to Our Restoration (O/R).  Young “Latinas”: stop buying Coach purses before you own any assets.  Twenty-year-old “Latinos”: stop buying forty thousand dollar cars before you own a home (I think even Scarface said this on one of his albums, The Resurrection?).  Such purchases are foolishness revealed.

You might well “deserve” the luxury items that gringos flaunt, but that doesn’t mean it is the best thing for you.  Apparently, when gringos buy these items, generally they can afford it.

Our community will never rise as long as we are controlled by the wage-payers.  As long as we are controlled by gringo wage-payers we will be too scared to break the chains of colonization.

I break from the pure leftists here, who refuse to criticize our colonized behavior, in favor of blaming only the system.  It is true that the wealth gap is not only due to our poor spending habits.  There are huge social factors which contribute to it.  But we must begin to focus on our individual behaviors as well. Many luxury items that we are hooked on end up being worth nothing within the span of five years.

In the meantime, those items could have produced a lesser dependence on the system. This is an ethical battle between the materialism that we are taught is necessary in order to define our masculinity and femininity and what is best for ourselves, our family and our community.

Un discurso en español elaborado por Hector A. Chavana Jr.

Haz cliq para escuchar.

He asked me to include his contact information:
(323)830-7479
zemazatzin @ hotmail.com
www.aztekayolokalli.com

Happy New Year to all, in this European colonial calendar count. It is a new year because we are measuring it from exactly 365.25 days before…so it is definitely a new year cycle.

El Maestro

On march 12, 2010, when the Sun first appears on the horizon the new year on the Ancient Mexika Chronological System will begin, and it will travel in 20 day cycles, 18 of them, giving us 360 days, then a small period of 5 1/4 days will complete the Solar year. The ancient ones used the last 5 and 1/4 days in a special way, setting them aside to dedicate for Reflection, Balance and Adjustment in reviewing the previous year and planning the new one.

They developed this system by learning to respect everything and everybody that surrounded them, and learning by patient obeservation and careful study that they were at once a great duality as an individual and as Cosmos. They not only developed the most precise system ever invented to measure and record time and space but they also incorporated that knowledge into their lives and their daily living obeying this law of duality, not in a superstitious way but in a scientific sense.

In essence what our most ancient ancestors found was that time was the most common denominator and that each individual living being had a right to as much of it as he could adequately use and enjoy, particularly if it represented use and enjoyment for the whole. They treated every day (actually every piece of time) with respect, knowing that every day presented an attitude, a priviledge and a warning.

This kind of thinking probably sounds a little too strange or Utopia…like…too good to be true…but there is proof and evidence, traces, and more importantly it is still practiced today, and can be taught and relearned. But it is very important to know that this type of thinking and life ways are not “indian” ways…these are human life ways that existed here, and probably all over the earth, long before anybody decided to call all the original peoples of this western hemisphere “indians”. This is simply a human story and their relationship with nature at the rhythm of the Cosmos.

None of this story is found in history.

Today on the first day of school at CCSF in the History of Mexico class the first lecture stated the fact that is supposed to lay without rebuttal or challenge “…everybody thought that the maya were very peaceful people, but now we know they were bloody too, because we can read the maya glyphs..and everyone knows that the Azteks based their society on warefare and sacrifice”, etc…etc… casting thousands of years and lives dedicated to finding that balance and taking their responsibility serious into the black hole of his-story.

On this day, 11 Jaguar, Matlaktli ze Ozelotl, my son looked at me and we smiled, fortunately on the way to the class we were discussing the day and all the possibilities it presented for us…so, like a Jaguar we used those qualities of being audacious and did not let anything bother us, then we used those tenacious qualities of the Jaguar to make our move, and we stayed after the class and waited patiently to meet the teacher and begin our new relationship with him as an ally in this mission to regain that equilibrium.

In our personal experience with original peoples from Onondaga in “canada” to Machu Picchu in “peru” we have found that the thread of time and the respect thereof runs throughout uniting one people, one culture, one continent with a multitude of customs and traditions. All original peoples life ways were based on the most simple yet profound acknowledgement and respect of the elements that give life, and their personal relationship with nature. Very interesting also was the fact that the original names of the peoples all refer to humans… people.

In conclusion, I submit this thought; a great big part of our lack of identity and progress as a people (hue-mans) comes from continuing to use and demanding that other original peoples use the term “indian” to define ourselves and our millenial life stories. When this happens we have no inheritance to offer our children, in short denying them their birth right.

The big problem with americans is that they don’t behave like humans.

Que Viva La Revolucion

About one million teenage girls in the United States, or one in three, gets pregnant before they turn 20.

More than 80 percent of those pregnancies are unintended and unintentional, and one quarter of the girls who have babies have another one within two years.

Hispanic girls have the highest teen birth rate at 83 out of 1,000 girls.

For  many reasons, activistas have never really touched on the subject teenage preganancy in our comunidad. This, along with other issues like health, have traditionally been seen as a personal issue, and traditional activism has always been about fighting the system. It seems that activists draw the line at the canton’s door.

There are complex reasons why activistas won’t touch the subject. Those on the far, far left have traditionally seen family values as a construct of capitalism, and some proponents of communism really believe that the family is an enemy to the state or at least an impedimet to the creation of the new human, which should see all humanity as his brother/sister, and not just his family. They see this as slightly elevated individualism. Addressing teenage pregnancy properly also requires a talk about personal responisbility. Many would rather focus on defeating the system.

There is also the feminista challenge. Some feminists resent the implication that children require a man to have a “proper” upbringing or that gay couples can’t do an explary job in rearing children.  Point taken.  I have seen very strong women and men grow up without a father, and I have seen others grow up in a situation in which a father has done more harm than good.

Even so, when speaking about the ideal situation for our children, I still believe that family is important.  Setting aside the requirement of a straight man, I believe that a positive family is a requirement for the strong nation that we shall build in Our New Anahuac. 

I accept that families can come with a variety of gender relations and that a traditional marriage might not be necessary.  But a positive family is required for us to be a strong people.  I don’t think that a movement promising a new tomorrow can ignore it.  If those of us who concern ourselves with flowering the pilosophy of Mexicayotl do not pay attention the the values of our community, then who will?

The Catholic Church has failed, as it was destined to when forced on us.  The schools won’t touch the issue.  Planned Parenthood has promoted women’s rights, but has no place in promoting our people’s culture.  Those of us who see our people as a nation have the responsibility to make sure that the nation is built upon values that will sustain our nation.  If a nation has no values, it will fall.

Do not confuse the ideas of this post with the Christian ideal of marriage being an intractable covenant with Jesus. 

I am not suggesting that we promote the idea of trying to force unhealthy marriages (I remember a pamphlet about 15 years ago.  I think it was from the Chicano Moratorium Committee which suggested 50 actions, and it included dissuading people from divorce).  I have seen single fathers be more involved than some fathers who live in the child’s home.  My ideal  would discourage the behaviors which lead to divorce, such as alcohol and spousal abuse, infidelity and materialism.

I’m not suggesting that the problem is “unwed mothers.”  This phenomenon is a symptom of the problem, and blaming mothers frees the young man of his responsibilities.

I’m not saying that gay couples can’t raise healthy families.

What I am saying is that we must promote the idea of a healthy family in our community.  Our sacred ancestors called their community their extended home (kalpulli).  Our best friends are honored by attaching them to our home: nonchantlaka, literally means homeboy in Nahuatl.  Places of worship, teokalli, is literally translated at spirit home.  All of this speaks to the important place that the home and family plays in our traditions. 

Our nations were build on the foundations of families, and exteneded families, and our nation must be re-built on families.  So what does the ideal Anahuac family look like, if traditional Christian marriage is not needed, if gay couples are not condemned to hell, and if we recognize the importance of extended families.  I have my own ideas, but I will leave it up to you to comment.  Please share your thoughts below.

Last Fridayish, Attorney General Eric Holder held a press conference in which he explained why some of the 9-11 criminals would be tried in civilian courts…but just some. The rest, would be tried by military tribunals. In essence, he implied that the criminals that would be tried in civilian courts were sure-fire convictions. The evidence was overwhelmingly in favor of the prosecution in the cases that are going to civilian courts. The reason, of course, that some criminals would be tried in civilian courts is, according to Holder, that true justice requires due process and a fair trial.

I was surprised when, a few questions later, a reporter took the words right out of my mouth. He asked, “you say this is being done in the name of justice, but it seems that you are choosing which cases you can win and sending those into civilian courts. How is that just?”

As soon as he posed the question that I had wondered about, I recalled an article, Nuremburg: A Fair Trial? by Charles E. Wyzanski, Jr. in which the liberal author argued that the Nuremburg Trials were simply a propaganda show for the Allies after World War II. He argued that the Nazi prisoners should simply have been executed by military tribunals. He argued this, not in the name of revanchist reaction, but so that the supposed purity of the jurisprudence system not be corrupted and manipulated by populist politics.

Obviously this guy was not familiar with the tradition of Southern/Frontier Justice, but he brought to light a good point. He went through a litany of reasons as to why the Nazi defendants did not receive an actual “trial.” He explained that Nuremburg was really a dog and pony show for the international stage. The article taught me a great deal about the motivations of powers to hold public trials.

I hold no romantic notions about the soundness of the justice system, as might Wyzanski, but recalling his article did open my eyes, and soon pundits began raising the point about the Obama administration’s high priority of reestablishing credit abroad.

My point in all this, besides the fact that I figured it out first and that, therefore, I am brilliant, is that I agree with many conservatives on the idea that these defendants should be tried by military tribunal.

I believe this not for the hate that conservatives feel toward the criminals, nor for the romantic feelings toward the (in)justice system that Wyzanski espouses. I believe that they should be tried by the military because we all know that they have already been convicted, and I believe that no life should be sacrificed to the God of US Imperialism with the added benefit of strengthening Uncle Sam’s credibility abroad and increasing his capacity to further invade, kill and maim civilians. They will be put to death anyway, let’s not use a show-trial to increase US hegemony.

Yes, corporate welfare recipients should have to take drug tests as well. The way they were running the banks, there is no other way to tell what they were smoking. All of those CEOs should be marched down to the clinic and have to give a “sample.” Food welfare is a human right and many innocent children benefit. We should not punish children over their parents’ choice to use drugs.

I guess the discussion turned more into one about welfare rather than drug testing for welfare:

I have been to the welfare office lately, for the person who asked. I acutally office literally across the street. I do not envy our people who have to go there. I have interviewed many of them and spent time with them. The vast majority need the assistance. I work hard myself, and it is irksome to see people abuse the system for their own materialism. When that money could go back to the people.

I have had close people mention how some welfare and medicaid recipients drive better cars than do I. I think that if you take the time to find out the truth only a minority of people abuse the system for material gain.

I won’t believe otherwise until some of the people making these generalizations spend the same time that I have with welfare recipients. In fact, I invite you to come with me and find all of these supposed ballers with all these gold chains and rims at the welfare office, because you won’t find them.

When we go together and find them, then I’ll listen to you. Otherwise, you are simply having an emotional reaction to something that you saw one time in a store, but back to the original question:

No, we shouldn’t keep it simple and test all welfare recipients. If the perpetrators of the Nazi Holocaust were fed while they were imprisoned, why should some children go without food over their parents’ choice to use drugs. Underfed children create underdevelped adults and underdeveloped communities. Food is a human right.

Remember, welfare is one of the last ways that the rich keep the poor from revolting. Do you really want to take it away?

Muertos Altar

Every year, Macario Ramirez shares his knowledge of building a Dia De Los Muertos altar.  Every October Saturday at 10AM at his Heights art shop, Casa Ramirez, he teaches for an hour what he has learned during his life about making our ancestors feel welcomed back in our midst. 

My daughter and have been keeping an altar for some time and we were happy to learn from someone with so much experience and notoriety around town.  I last saw Macario at a rally against 287(g) in Moody Park, and I am glad mija and I stopped by today.

I don’t think that he would disagree that his class covers the basics on how to construct an altar, the elements present and some of the experiences that go along with building an altar.

Mr. Ramirez takes a universalised approach to his altars in that he seems comfortable integrating the tradition with differing faiths and customs, at least to a certain extent.  There are limits, says Mr. Ramirez.

“I liked that he taught us what we can do, and that including a little bit of negatives is ok,” said Citlali, my little girl.  “My favorite part would be when he told us about his father, and I liked when he passed around the pictures of all the beautiful altars,” she continued.

Macario shows the shoebox altars, while the class looks at photos of other altars

“The marigolds represent the sun,” said Macario, “which is an important part of the Aztec tradition.  This comes from old times.”  Macario taught that there were three levels of a proper altar, plus the madre tierra/Tonantzin/Our Sacred Mother Earth (which I count as four total levels!).

I was most inspired by his willingness to teach publicly about these traditions, especially when he recounted that as he was growing up, his mother decided not to continue his grandmother’s altar tradition for fear of being branded a witch.  He said it was time to bring the traditions out into the open, a sentiment that I consider him brave for expressing.  His openness has inspired me to be more open about my spiritual practices and beliefs with the movement Mexicayotl.

My understanding of the altar is that in our traditions, we keep the altar year round.  The altar is not compartmentalized as part of a season or event.  The altar and Muertos in general is part of a larger belief system which is constant and ongoing.  This is why I keep the Azteca Day Count on the top level of the altar, because we recognize our loved ones and we recognize death as part of daily life. 

We have a pact with death.  This pact is that one day we will meet her.  She is as much a part of life as life is a part of death.  Just as every good is a part of a bad, and just as Mother Earth can be as destructive as constructive.  Those who lived through Hurricane Ike may attest to this.

The altar is only a home version of a teokalli, spirit house, known shallowly as a pyramid.  At the bottom sits Mother Earth, at the top, the sky, the entrance to the sun.  The four elements (earth, water, wind and sun) are present.  Both the teokalli and altar are used to venerate.

Death, time, spirits and elements are all interrelated on the altar.  Without an understanding of the cycle of time,  without an understanding of the elements, without an understanding of death and spirits, and its proper place among the people of Anahuac, the altar and Muertos is reduced to a cultural event, like mariachi music or ballet folklorico. 

This is not a critique of Macario Ramirez’s excellent and heartfelt work.  Culture is where it starts.  His workshop spoke of sensitivity toward different religious and spiritual elements in the altar, and I only share a small glimpse into these spiritual beliefs, the Beliefs of Our New Anahuac.

I fully believe that only a holistic approach to improving our gente will ultimately lead to our liberation and to Our Restoration (O/R).  However, dealing with our community holistically is a gigantic task.  As a nationalist, I see our pueblo as a nation, and a nation is much more than current events and proposed laws.

Healthy eating habits, and health in general, have been seen in this country as a private issue.  We have been trained to be private “consumers” of food and health “services.” 

History teaches us that our traditional diet was a very healthy diet, and that we pioneered agricultural techniques to make it so.  The growth of beans, squash, amaranth and corn and many other staples were perfected by our ancestors.  The function of the agricultural economy was not the production of wealth, but self (individual or family) determination, according to Bonfil Batalla in Mexico Profundo.  The objective of the agricultural economy was health and self sustenance, not wealth.

Rates of obesity and diabetes in our community are extreme, and as people of conciencia, I believe that we need to address the issue of health for our people.  Colonization, apart from divesting us of our wealth, divested us of our wealth of knowledge, particularly with respect to health, medicine and diet.

We have forgotten how to eat healthily, and this is something that we must learn for ourselves and pass on as part of the collective wealth of knowledge.  I say this as a participant in the health struggle, as I have lost around 30 pounds at two points in my life, once in middle school and once about two years ago.  In the first case I kept if off 10-15 years, and a happy marriage helped me to put it back on!

I know that a blog post might not revolutionize our community’s eating habits, but this is the avenue that I have so here it goes.  I have given these tips to a couple who asked me about my own weight loss, and they did lose weight.  Tips alone usually doesn’t cut it, but if you want the whole program, e-mail me and let me know.  These are general tips that have worked for me.  Everyone is different and has different needs.

-Healthy eating is much more key to weight loss than is exercise, though exercise provides other benefits that diets do not.

-Do not diet.  Diets come and go, and so will the weight.  Be prepared to permanently change your eating habits.

-Portion control is the key.  Do not fall into the trap of never eating a particular type of food or dessert, as this is generally unsustainable and may even be unhealthy:

-For the first three weeks of your new eating habits, eat: 3-4 servings of lean protein (chicken breast), 3 servings of carbs, 2 servings of lean dairy (skim milk etc), 1 serving of fat (oil to cook food or low fat margarine) etc, an unlimited amount of, but no less than, four green or non-starchy vegetables (corn and potatoes are counted with carbs not veggies), 3-5 fruits and six-eight glasses of water.  You will be very hungry for the first 3-15 days, depending on how overweight you are.  Be mentally prepared for the hunger, and be aware that it will pass.  Drink water or eat a fruit or vegetable to deal with it.  You will not get over the hunger during the initial phase, but you can manage it.  After the initial phase, your body will be re-trained to get the sensation of being full by eating veggies or fruits.  To accomplish this, you will have to weigh and measure everything that you eat.

-Starting on week 3, you can choose to add one extra serving of carbs, fats, dairy and proteins.  Plus you can add perhaps three to five servings of non-lean proteins per week.

-Once you have attained your ideal weight, you can add desserts from Panaderia La Unica once or twice a week max.  You can try other panaderias, but I can’t vouch for them.

Anyway, just sharing my own experience here.  I am in the process of teaching my daughter better eating habits, not to impose it on her, but just so that she’ll know later that I tried to share a little of what I have learned with her.

By the way, to add a little practice of Mexicayotl to your eating habits, we separate a little pinch of each item on our plate as a symbolic remembrance-offering to our ancestors.  It keeps them present in our everyday life.  My daughter is excellent at reminding me of this at almost every meal.  I understand that traditionally the offering was not eaten, but I encourage my daughter to eat it if she is hungry, considering the worldwide food shortage.  I am sure that this could be a point of reprimand, but…