ozelotl May 16th, 2007
via City on a Hill Press
By Matthew Sommer
Inspired by activists like Che Guevara and Malcolm X and modeled after the Black Panther Party, the Brown Berets are giving power back to the people.
The Watsonville chapter of the Brown Berets is now the lone faction of what was once a national organization and movement that rallied around issues of Chicano (Mexican-American) rights.
Today’s Brown Berets helped to found Migrawatch, a project that warns the Watsonville community about immigration raids, and are working on a bike repair clinic to provide volunteer services to anyone who wants a bike. Their objective is to promote the safety and advancement of the Chicano community. “The Brown Berets is an organization that brings together and promotes the community,” said Jay Palmer, a local activist who works with the Brown Berets.
The Brown Berets develop projects that are angled at empowering the Chicano community.
Evelyn Sanchez, a Brown Beret member, said that the Brown Berets is a grassroots organization. Sanchez described a grassroots organization as one that forms in order to solve the neglected issues of society.
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ozelotl April 19th, 2007
The Watsonville Community Bike Shack will begin our weekly sessions every Friday from 3-7PM at the Brown Beret Headquarters (406 Main St., Suite 408A — Behind Ritmo Latino). We will be fixing bikes at a very low cost (no one turned away for lack of funds). Bring your bike and learn how to fix it with our tools and space! We will also very soon start a campaign to give away bicycles to students and farmworkers. The Watsonville Community Bike Shack is for the people, by the people. We are a collective of different community members who have teamed up with the Santa Cruz Bike Church. If you would like more info or would like to get involved, write to brownberets [at] msn.com.
tomas April 6th, 2007
By Tekolote
In the influential and time-honored book The Art of War, Sun Tzu instructs that one of the most effective methods used to defeat an enemy is to �cause division among them.� The book further instructs, �Seduce them with the prospects of gain, send interlopers in among them, have rhetoricians use fast talk to ingratiate themselves with their leaders and followers, and divide up their organization and power.� It is when the enemy is divided that it is at its weakest and susceptible to attack and defeat.
Ensuing the Second World War, Europe was left in economic and geographic devastation. As a result, the United States became the world�s dominant super power and set forth to gain control of the world�s economies through military power and neo-liberal arrangements. Competing ideologies, such as communism and socialism, was seen as a threat to American interest. Yet, while American corporations prospered, third-world countries were ravaged by rampant capitalism and years of Western colonial rule. In the United States, the working class, especially blacks and Latinos, became unemployed and marginalized due to shifting economies and institutional racism.
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