balderas

Hastily curated stuff from the interwebs that I feel like sharing

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[irockthehardest]

A 12-Year-Old’s Trek of Despair Ends in a Noose at the Border

On Friday, March 7, in Ciudad Juárez, police saw Domingo Fermas Uves, 52, urinating outside a pickup truck, according to Alejandro Maldonado, a police spokesman. Inside was Noemi. In the official account, Mr. Fermas told officers that he was part of a network of smugglers hired by the girl’s family to take her to the United States. The man gave false details about the girl, saying she was 8 years old and from an inland state in Mexico. The police recorded her name as Noemi Álvarez Astorga.

Noemi was taken to Casa de la Esperanza, a shelter for Mexican minors whose name means “House of Hope.” Over that weekend, she was questioned by a prosecutor. After that, a doctor described Noemi as being “terrified,” according to a report in El Diario of Juarez.

On March 11, when called to eat, Noemi instead went into the bathroom. Another girl could not get in. The doctor, Alicia Soria Espino, and others broke open the door and found Noemi hanging by the cloth shower curtain.

The next day, her parents in the Bronx received a phone call from a woman who told them that Noemi had safely crossed the border. Later that day, they received a second call saying that she had died, according to Ecuadorean consular officials.

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19 Reasons Latin Americans Come To The U.S. That Have Nothing To Do With The American Dream

The conventional wisdom says that most Latin American migrants who come to the United States are looking for a better life, inspired by the "American Dream." And it's hard to deny that there's a lot of truth in that.

But there's another side to the story -- people leave Latin America because life there can be very hard. Poverty, political instability and recurring financial crises often conspire to make Latin American life more challenging than in the U.S., a wealthy country with lots of job opportunities.

Living on the northern side of the U.S.-Mexico border, it's easy to view Latin America as another world, isolated from the United States. But the truth is that the U.S. government has historically made life in Latin America harder by overthrowing democratically elected governments, financing atrocities and pushing trade policies that undermine Latin American industries, dealing blows to local economies. Perhaps instead of building walls, the United States should focus on being a better neighbor.

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The movement on the ground is beginning to foment community based forms of alternative self-governance and self-determination, which are not only directly challenging the cartel but also the government itself and the military, political, economic system that has lead to this situation.

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X-Men + Zapatistas = Digna Rabia Perfecta

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The Magical World of Snails

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Pentagon's top three threats in the 'deep future'

What sorts of threats will the US military face in the 'deep future'? Here is a list of the top three picks.

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How Israel's war industry profits from violent US immigration "reform"

Proposed legislation guarantees more US-Mexico border deaths and huge payouts to Israeli contractors.

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Radical Cartography

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Liberando Aguacates en Peribán from Tejemedios

Community self-defense against the cartels continues in Peribán, Michoacán, Mexico with the support of the local community.

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When women and men understand that working to eradicate patriarchal domination is a struggle rooted in the longing to make a world where everyone can live fully and freely, then we know our work to be a gesture of love…Let us draw upon that love to heighten our awareness, deepen our compassion, intensify our courage, and strengthen our commitment.

-bell hooks quoted in Twenty Tools For Men to Further A Feminist Revolution, by Chris Crass

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Hunger

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"If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven’t even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won’t even admit the knife is there."

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Zapatista Escuelita Textbooks

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Where is My Birthright?

Artists Against Apartheid

Electronic Intifada

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The Choctaw Gift to the Starving Irish