On the discourse between latinos, hispanos, chicanos, or whatever you have chosen to call us, and the rest of the people in the United States of America.

First of all, let me explain to you that America is not a country. This is a fight that I have been engaged in since I first came to the US and was told by a racist parent in my elementary school in Florida, that America didn't want me here, and that I should go back to my country. I explained to her as politely as I could that I had been born in America, as Cuba was a part of the American continent, and she promptly spit on my face. It was not a wonderful beginning to my residence here. In my next year I won the school spelling bee, but the week before I had been told by my homeroom teacher that I would never succeed because a) I spoke a second-rate language and b) I came from a third-rate culture. These two experiences, the first of many, made me decide that I would never lose my original language and culture. So when I taught Spanish at the elementary, high school and college level, when I shared my knowledge of history and geography with my students, when I practiced law and represented clients, whether Spanish-speaking or Haitians or people who spoke other languages, I always provided translations. There were no automatic translators in those days, and although I acknowledge that they serve as a tool, as a professional translator and interpreter I find their use by companies and government agencies as the sole means to address my people to be lazy and offensive. We speak a beautiful language, as all languages are beautiful; don't relegate it to an automatic robotic construct for the sake of expediency. Yes, you are the current seat of Empire, but all things, good and bad, come to an end. In my work as an advocate in the courts helping immigrants and people of color and all of the voiceless in this country, including homeless brothers and sisters and the elderly (and I suppose, having turned 67 last month, I could start adding myself to that group), I have always insisted on what Flaubert called 'le mot juste,' the exact, appropriate, perfect word. My paternal Sephardic grandfather, who spoke eight languages perfectly, always told me to keep studying languages because I would find the word I needed to express a feeling or concept, 'le mot juste,' in one of those languages. He was completely correct. We are engaged in a terrible fight to the death in these current elections that constantly bring back to me the words of Abraham Lincoln in his address at Gettysburg. "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war." These elections are, to me, a great civil war. The discourse among us all is harsh and divisive, except for one candidate, who has refused and continues to refuse to engage in the low tactics of his adversaries. I don't know that we will be able to endure; as we have seen with candidate Trump's casual rhetoric of violence, violence only begets more violence; only love trumps violence. And that brings me back to my point: the general attitude in these United States, or US America for short, that the only opinions that matter are those of white, English-speaking people. That those of us (latinos, hispanic, chicanos) who will soon constitute a majority in the United States are not worthy of equal representation. That the language we speak, and the cultures we bring to the pot, are less important. I say all cultures are important, and the first nations here did not speak English, were not white, and had to undergo genocide, depredation, violence and abuse that continue to the present time; their languages and cultures are important and worthy of equal representation. That the original languages and cultures of the African slave ancestors, who also continue to experience rape, state and individual violence, are important and worthy of equal representation. All of us bring our special flavors and cultures to the pot; we are all important and worthy of equal representation. I am using the word America during my work to elect Bernie Sanders because it would take too long to change your understanding of how offensive your use of that word is to the rest of us, the Guatemalans and Bolivians, the Canadians and the Mexicans, the Cubans and Puerto Ricans and Dominicans and Colombians and Salvadoreans and Honduras, to name just a few of us Americans. But when the electoral process is over, I will continue to demand of all people of good will, and my experience has been that there are many of you out there, willing to learn, willing to take back this nation from the hands of those who would destroy it, that they give up the appellation of America and American, unless you mean to include the rest of us in the discourse, by proper respect and equal representation.

God bless the whole world, no exceptions.

Rachel Corrie

Last week (March 16th) was the 7th anniversary of the murder of Rachel Corrie, a 23 year-old peace activist crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer while she was protecting a Palestinian home from demolition. The Caterpillar bulldozer just ran over her; no action has ever been taken to compensate the girl's parents or to condemn her cold-blooded murder.

I met relatives of Rachel at one of the many peace marches I attended a few years ago, either in DC or Boston. They spoke about Rachel's work, about the family's unsuccessful attempts to get vindication...

On the anniversary of her death, this year, there was a street-naming ceremony in a West Bank street in Ramallah. Although I am sure she always believed, in her heart, that the bulldozer would stop, she made that final sacrifice for her beliefs. And her family had sued Israel and was attending a trial that same week... but in the meantime, her killers have gone free, and even though she was a citizen of the United States, entitled to all the protections under the law, we remain silent.

Today I found an interview she gave two days before her murder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3JI-axaRF4

The Golden Rule

The Golden Rule
“That which is hateful to you do not do to another ... the rest (of the Torah) is all commentary, now go study.”

- Rabbi Hillel

If you want to revisit the demolition of whole cities by the Führer, just watch the Israelis tear down homes in the occupied territories. Watch people killed, wounded, jailed for marching for peace. Watch wholesale terror by the State of Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a recent AIPAC conference waxed eloquent about Jerusalem, and about the building that was going on there 3000 years ago. If this is acceptable reasoning, then we need to give back all the land we took over from the native inhabitants, both in the US and throughout the world. We need to give back California, Nevada, Florida, Arizona, etc. etc. ad infinitum and most certainly ad nauseam, to the Mexicans, and give back Guantánamo to the Cubans.

In the meantime, we make harsh noises and then take them back, looking like nothing better than cheap whores before the master pimp. How dare the US and the EU stand behind the continuing outrages going on in the occupied territory? (But then again, we are occupying territories all over the planet, Iraq and Afghanistan being the latest on the list...)

The UN Human Rights Council passed 3 resolutions condemning Israel, but of course, they were opposed by the US and the EU. Oh, for an end to pusillanimous hypocrisy.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1158708.html

Back at the ranch, the right wing basket-case gun-toting crew is threatening anyone that does not agree with their view of the world... One 'gentleman' is urging folks to break windows, to throw bricks through them, and further urging his listeners to clean their rifles... So people who voted for health care reform have been threatened, their families have been threatened, but no one is picking these guys up and putting them away...

O brave new world that has such people in it...

The US and Israel, rogue terrorist states... Go pack that in your peace pipe and smoke it.

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