Juventud Rebelde 221
Teachers Demand Raises and Funding
Thousands of teachers in the U.S. demand better salaries and more funding for public schools
Several hundred public schools remained closed this Monday, either because of spring break, or because many teachers decided to leave and their districts allowed them to participate in the mobilization.
Published: Tuesday 03 April 2018 | 09:36:27 AM
By Juventud Rebelde
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Teachers march in the United States Author: Internet Published: 03/04/2018 | 09:35 am
WASHINGTON, April 3. Tens of thousands of teachers in Kentucky and Oklahoma came together yesterday in their state capitals to demand more funding for education, salary and pension improvements.
According to USA Today, 120 public schools in the first of those territories remained closed on Monday, either because of spring break, because many teachers decided to leave or because their districts allowed them to participate in the mobilization.
“Stop the war on public education!” and “Enough is enough,” the Kentucky teachers shouted outside the state capitol in Frankfort, where they protested against a change to their pension system and cuts to education funding.
Teachers oppose a bill passed by the state legislature last Thursday and demand that Governor Matt Bevin veto it.
If the Republican politician signs the legislation, it will phase out defined benefit teacher pensions and replace them with hybrid retirement plans that combine the characteristics of a traditional pension with the 401(k) accounts used in the private sector.
In addition, retired teachers in Kentucky do not receive Social Security benefits, so any freezing of their pensions affects their total retirement income.
State teachers also demand the necessary funding for the public school system.
“Today we notify you that if you don’t pass a budget that protects Kentucky’s public services, provides adequate funding for schools, then we will vote to remove them from office,” Stephanie Winkler, president of the Kentucky Education Association, told the crowd.
According to ABC News, members of other public employee unions, including those representing firefighters, police, plumbers and pipe fitters, joined the teachers in a show of solidarity.
In Oklahoma, meanwhile, protesters demanded a higher wage increase for teachers and support staff and an increase in funding for education, which plummeted 28 percent in the last decade, according to the state teachers’ union.
The Oklahoma protest comes despite Republican Gov. Mary Fallin signed a law last Thursday that gives educators – currently at $45,000 a year – an average wage increase of $6,100.
Even with that increase, Oklahoma’s teachers would earn below the national average for public school teachers, which is $58,950 a year, and only surpasses those in Mississippi and South Dakota.
“Finance education”, “They are starving our schools” and “Mourning for public schools”, was read on the posters carried by those attending the protest.
Parkland Survivors on TIME magazine cover
Parkland Survivors on TIME magazine cover
In a recent issue of Time magazine, five Parkland high school students look at the reader cry of ENOUGH to demand that their legislators take action to make schools and streets safe across the country.
Posted: Monday 02 April 2018 | 10:34:06 PM
Author: juana@juventudrebelde.cu
By Juana Carrasco Martin
juana@juventudrebelde.cu
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
A recent issue of Time magazine, one of the most important American publications, has a very special cover: five teenagers – students at Parkland High School, where 17 of their classmates were shot dead by another young man who was also a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – look straight ahead with a word that crosses not only that cover, but also the claim of a majority of the concerned population: Enough, a term that can also be translated as Enough is Enough.
Among the young people are Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg and Cameron Kasky, who have become spokespersons and advocates for control over guns in private hands in the United States. They are activists against armed violence, which is almost an epidemic in the northern nation, and they demand measures from their legislators to make the country’s schools and streets safe.
However, their demand does not have many receptive ears in the political class, where many of its members are tied to the National Rifle Association that thrives on this business. But the young people persist. A month after the shooting, many U.S. schools held 17 minutes of silence in honor of the 17 massacred in Parkland. A march went through Washington, the nation’s capital, with sibling marches in cities and towns across the country. They called for a change in the permissive and enabling rules and laws for these irrational crimes. It was the largest demonstration ever held in the United States for this purpose.
A recent AP-NORC survey emphasizes that national support for arms control is currently at its highest level in five years. About seven out of 10 adults favor stronger laws on the issue, representing 69 percent of respondents, The Hill said.
So, what does the president do? He calls for states in the Union to hand over weapons to teachers and school employees to answer Fire! with Fire!, a simple lesson in insanity….
When They Ask for Their Lives
When They Ask for Their Lives
Many demonstrations have shaken the United States. More than a million people of all ages, tired of school shootings and massacres, took to the streets of Washington and other cities across the country to demand tighter controls on access to firearms.
By Juventud Rebelde digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Posted: Tuesday 27 March 2018 | 08:41:45 PM
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
This is not normal, warns a girl in front of the White House. Author: Reuters Published: 27/03/2018 | 08:16 pm
Many see the National Rifle Association (NRA) as a major culprit. Photo: AFP
Singer Paul McCartney is confident that they can stop the violence caused by firearms. Photo: AFP
Martin Luther King’s granddaughter, Renee, also has a dream: enough is enough. Photo: Reuters
Don’t shoot, another one of the demands. Photo: Reuters
Our blood is on your hands. Photo: The Tenneseen
591,260 people have died from firearms in the United States since 1999. Photo: AFP
Marielle Franco, A Victim who died twice
Marielle Franco, A Victim who died twice
The mourning after the murder of the Brazilian councilor is followed by the spread of fake news on social networks
By Caroline Amaral Coutinho digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Posted: Saturday 24 March 2018 | 11:09:24 PM
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
In addition to being a councilor for Rio de Janeiro, Marielle Franco was also an activist for the safety of police and residents of the Favelas. Author: Midia Ninja Published: 24/03/2018 | 10:50 pm
A black, bisexual woman, born in one of the poorest slums in Rio de Janeiro, Marielle Franco became a symbol of the social struggle in the country after her brutal and mysterious murder on March 14.
Her second death – that of her honor, her principles, and her struggles – was caused by the dissemination of news in the social media, which tries to minimize the importance of the crime against the human rights activist.
One of the so-called fake news defamation stories against Marielle alleges that she married a well-known drug trafficker in the country, Marcinho VP. Others claimed that the counselor was using drugs or that she had had her daughter when she was 16 years old – all fake, as evidenced by several Brazilian data-checking websites.
On an even more sinister occasion, a federal judge at the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice caused controversy by criticizing Marielle based on the false news that the councilor was voted for by members of the Comando Vermelho faction. The judge said in response to a Facebook post: “The point is that Marielle was not just a fighter”; she was engaged to bandits! She was elected by the Vermelho Command and failed to meet “commitments” made to her supporters.
The Free Brazil Movement, a right-wing opposition group known for disseminating sensationalist information, used the news about the judge’s baseless accusation in a web publication entitled “Federal judge breaks with the PSOL (Marielle’s party) narrative and claims that Marielle was involved with bandits and is a “common corpse”,” with more than 40,000 “likes” before she was killed.
Other representatives of the extreme right also mobilized to spread lies about the representative of the PSOL party (Partido Socialismo y Libertad). Among them, Alberto Fraga, deputy of the “Bancada da Bala” (parliamentary front for the right of access of civilians to bear arms), published last Friday on Twitter an image of defamation with false information about Marielle’s alleged relationship with criminals to question the action of the police in crime. As a result of the criticism, the Member had to withdraw the publication.
But the online lying machine could not contain the manifestations of pain and solidarity with Marielle. The day after her murder, tens of thousands of people from different parts of Brazil, as well as from Portugal and New York, took to the streets in repudiation of what had happened, according to G1 data.
In addition, around 50 members of the European Union’s Human Rights Council requested the suspension of negotiations with the Mercosur economic bloc. and 100 UN entities denounced Brazil for violence against social activists in the country.
Marielle Franco received the fifth most votes as a candidate in the city of Rio de Janeiro from the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL). She was also a sociologist and political leader in the defense of human rights. The councilor was shot dead on the night of Wednesday, March 14, leaving an event on the role of black women in politics.
Many demonstrations in the United States
Many demonstrations in the United States
Students and youth join a massive march for our lives against gun violence
By Juventud Rebelde digital@juventudrebelde.cu
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
WASHINGTON, March 24.- Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Washington and 800 other U.S. cities on Saturday in a massive protest called the March for Our Lives, in protest against continued acts of armed violence in schools and public places across the country.
The New York Times emphasized that the protesters marched “outraged by a recent massacre in a South Florida school and energized by the students who survived… demanding action against armed violence.
The largest and most influential marches took place in Washington, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, and Houston.
In Parkland, Florida, where a former student killed 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with a firearm, the tragedy that triggered the march, less than a mile from where the shooting occurred, participants chanted, “Enough is enough! and “Stop it!».
In Washington, many posters called for “Never again!”. “Books, not guns,” said one of the banners in New York’s Central Park, where Paul McCartney remembered his friend John Lennon, who died in that city, a victim of gun violence.
Participants in the March for Our Lives call for changes in laws that up until now allow for the relatively easy purchase of weapons, as well as a ban on the sale of automatic rifles and increased security controls in schools.
The influential National Rifle Association (NRA) has a great weight on U.S. lawmakers who have refused to change the laws.
In Washington, protesters marched with photographs of students and teachers killed in school shootings and chanted slogans like “No more guns! and “No more NRA!” reported the British BBC.
About 69 percent of Americans believe firearms laws should be tightened, according to a new Associated Press and Public Affairs Research Center poll.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
Mobile App to Combat Sexual Abuse
Mobile App Created in Belgium to Combat Sexual Abuse
Under the name “Don’t touch my friend”, the initiative allows women to anonymously report by pressing a button.
By Juventud Rebelde
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Mobile app to combat sexual abuse Author: Internet Published: 16/03/2018 | 03:41 pm
BRUSSELS, Belgium, March 16.- The Belgian authorities announced today that the new mobile application (app), created to enable women to report cases of sexual harassment, is now available.
Under the name “Don’t touch my friend”, the initiative allows women who are harassed on the street or in the subway to anonymously report the harassment at the touch of a button, according to PL.
This way, other people who are registered in the app and are nearby will receive a warning and can help the victim. These “street angels”, as they are called, can be either men or women.
As a result of the data collected by the application, city officials can take immediate action.
A civil society organization and Brussels official Bianca Debaets developed the app based on a similar one used in France since October 2016.
Several territories also implement apps to fight sexual harassment. One of the most relevant cases is “Safecity”, which is used in 50 cities in India, Kenya and some other countries.
Superabuela
The super grandmother who fell in love with Gardel
A unique personality, known in Holguín as the Super Grandmother, weaves stories that make her a living legend. But the most striking is how she overcame loneliness and sadness to become a community artist.
By Liudmila Peña Herrera
digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Posted: Saturday 17th March 2018 | 09:38:34 PM
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Horseback riding was one of her favorite activities, until her doctor told her not to. Author: Liudmila Peña Herrera Published: 17/03/2018 | 09:12 pm
BÁGUANOS, Holguín: There’s no one who can turn ripe cherries into quince jelly that can be stored almost all year round like she does. She knows the secret of the rarest natural juices and the properties of each of the fruits as thoroughly as she knows laughter and friendship.
If you’re ever introduced to her, she never forgets you. And if you offer her your phone number, even if she doesn’t have enough money to pay for long-distance calls, she will manage to stay on the phone on all special dates and even those that may seem inconsequential to more earthly beings.
And I say earthly, because this artist of happiness, named Norma Bárbara Peña Sánchez, has a spirit only comparable to that of the angels. In the Holguin municipality of Báguanos – and far beyond its borders – everyone knows her as the Super Grandmother, because, even in her 80s, the old, cheerful and vivacious woman was still able to ride a horse (although her doctor had forbidden her to), climb up a ladder to the roof of her house and slide down the TV antenna tube (for fun and laughs), jump rope or do the “bicycle” exercise with her legs up.
She was 87 years old when I heard her sing for the first time, with her very delicate soprano voice and a passion for Carlos Gardel that overflowed her chest. It turned her, once again, into the 15-year-old girl who made her debut in the Supreme Court of Art with the songs Estrellita de Ponce and Silencio en la noche.
“Gonzalo Roig himself told me that I would win the competition, but I had no money to pay for applause, and the other two who were fighting for the prize were better off. Regretful about that, he gave me a role recommending me for the National Conservatory, where I was awarded a scholarship. I couldn’t study because I didn’t have any clothes and the classes were in Havana. Besides, one of my brothers got sick and I came to take care of him until he died,” Norma told me about seven years ago. That was when I went into the shrine of her room, where she venerated an image of Jesus Christ and another of the author of The Day When You Love Me on the same altar.
Friends say that in her house there has always been a space ready for any visitor, a sweet dish held for dessert and an unconditional refuge for art. And, Super-grandmother did not give her her own grandchildren, because life or destiny – she does not explain it very well – she was not given her the privilege of her own children. In the home where she spends her old age, she has never lacked the warmth of a hug and the tenderness of affection.
This very simple and funny woman has been tested by life on many occasions. The joy of her youth was struck by the final departure of many of her loved ones, including her young husband, whose death left her in deepest sorrow.
For a long time she visited the cemetery daily to remain motionless, with her little body curled up behind a cypress tree, waiting…. When she could no longer see anyone around her, she would lie face down on the tombstone. Night after night she did the same, and even slept over “to be near my dead”.
But that last time she did not hear the squawking of the doomsday bird, nor the crackling of the grass under the coarse boots of the spy. She only felt a big, bony hand holding her tightly over her shoulder:”Norma, come with me,” a familiar voice demanded. It was psychologist Fernando Martinez, who took her out of the cemetery to help her get rid of loneliness and depression through singing. Thanks to him – and many other friends – before she became his great-grandmother, Norma Peña became a community artist.
“I had no one else in the world, so I talked to her a lot and invited her to rehearse some songs to perform in front of a small group of people. Afterwards, we opened the doors to a wider audience and there was Báguanos in one piece, welcoming her with its applause,” recalls Fernando Martínez.
On the eve of her 95th birthday, this architect of joy no longer has the vitality of the past. Some ailments try to mortify her smile from time to time. Although her face is embroidered with the marks of the love and sorrow of the time she has lived to the fullest, Norma retains her soul as a dreamy girl. And for the children of the neighborhood, even without being able to throw cherries off the roof or slide down the antenna, she’s already a living legend. That must be why when they see her appear on the porth they tell themselves:”Look, there’s the Super Grandmother!”
Norma Peña became a community artist to overcome depression and nostalgia. Photo: Liudmila Peña Herrera
At the age of 87, Norma Peña did acrobatics such as jumping jacks and cycling. Photo: Liudmila Peña Herrera
One of the jokes that made her unforgettable was her mischievous way of sliding down the TV antenna to entertain the children. Photo: Liudmila Peña Herrera
17 Minutes of Silence, 7000 Empty Shoes
17 Minutes of Silence, 7000 Empty Shoes
Symbolism in tribute to the fallen in shootings in U. S. schools precedes March 24 March Against Gun Violence in the country.
By Juventud Rebelde digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Published: Wednesday, March 14, 2018 | 09:14:07 PM
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The students are asking their government to protect them and not the weapons. Author: Reuters Published: 14/03/2018 | 07:39 pm
WASHINGTON, March 14. – A month after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students from across the country left their classrooms for 17 minutes to commemorate the 17 victims who lost their lives in the incident.
Thousands of U.S. students on Wednesday honored those fallen in the latest massacre inside a school in the northern nation and joined demands for greater gun control.
“When students protest, our school staff will respond appropriately and allow them to express themselves,” Robert Runcie, superintendent of Broward County, Florida, where Marjory Stoneman High School is located, told Reuters.
In Washington, D. C., Pennsylvania Avenue became a giant silent space for exactly 17 minutes, while hundreds of young people stood on the road with signs demanding urgent action against gun violence, Notimex said.
“Enough, no more deaths “,” Make our schools safe again ” and “Protect the boys, no more guns” were some of the messages written on the posters waved by high school students, who marched to the Capitol to demand, among others, reinstatement of the ban on assault weapons, raising the minimum age for purchasing rifles from 18 to 21 years old, and to apply the background check to the police.
During their tour, the young people chanted slogans against the National Rifle Association, which opposes greater regulations for the purchase of arms.
This day’s protest was a foretaste of the massive mobilization that will take place in Washington on March 24.
A day earlier, activists and volunteers placed 7,000 pairs of empty shoes in front of the capitol, representing the 7,000 children and young people who have died in school shootings since the success of Sandy Hook in 2012.
The shoes, which come from relatives of victims, celebrities and citizens across the country, were placed in front of Congress to demonstrate their protests against legislators’ inaction in the face of frequent school shootings, HispanTV reported.
This is trying to portray, at the legislators’ own door, the cost in human lives of refusing to pass a gun control law,” said Emma Ruby-Sachs, deputy director of Avaaz, the organization that planned the protest in Washington, Reuters reported.
17 Minutes of Silence, 7000 Empty Shoes
17 Minutes of Silence, 7000 Empty Shoes
Symbolism in tribute to the fallen in shootings in U. S. schools precedes March 24 March Against Gun Violence in the country
By Juventud Rebelde digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Published: Wednesday, March 14, 2018 | 09:14:07 PM
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The students are asking their government to protect them and not the weapons. Author: Reuters Published: 14/03/2018 | 07:39 pm
WASHINGTON, March 14. – A month after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students from across the country left their classrooms for 17 minutes to commemorate the 17 victims who lost their lives in the incident.
Thousands of U.S. students on Wednesday honored those fallen in the latest massacre inside a school in the northern nation and joined demands for greater gun control.
“When students protest, our school staff will respond appropriately and allow them to express themselves,” Robert Runcie, superintendent of Broward County, Florida, where Marjory Stoneman High School is located, told Reuters.
In Washington, D. C., Pennsylvania Avenue became a giant silent space for exactly 17 minutes, while hundreds of young people stood on the road with signs demanding urgent action against gun violence, Notimex said.
“Enough, no more deaths “,” Make our schools safe again ” and “Protect the boys, no more guns” were some of the messages written on the posters waved by high school students, who marched to the Capitol to demand, among others, reinstatement of the ban on assault weapons, raising the minimum age for purchasing rifles from 18 to 21 years old, and to apply the background check to the police.
During their tour, the young people chanted slogans against the National Rifle Association, which opposes greater regulations for the purchase of arms.
This day’s protest was a foretaste of the massive mobilization that will take place in Washington on March 24.
A day earlier, activists and volunteers placed 7,000 pairs of empty shoes in front of the capitol, representing the 7,000 children and young people who have died in school shootings since the success of Sandy Hook in 2012.
The shoes, which come from relatives of victims, celebrities and citizens across the country, were placed in front of Congress to demonstrate their protests against legislators’ inaction in the face of frequent school shootings, HispanTV reported.
This is trying to portray, at the legislators’ own door, the cost in human lives of refusing to pass a gun control law,” said Emma Ruby-Sachs, deputy director of Avaaz, the organization that planned the protest in Washington, Reuters reported.
Constant Violence in the USA, Part II
Constant Violence in the USA, Part II
By Lázaro Fariñas
Cuban journalist living in Miami.
Monday 12 March 2018 | 06:56:50 PM
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The controversy over gun control in the United States has been red-hot. The numerous and repeated massacres that have been going on for many years are leaving the millions of citizens without arguments and against the wall who, in this country, support the Second Amendment of the Constitution, that which gives the right to all the people who live here to possess a firearm.
The National Rifle Association is a very powerful organization with hundreds of thousands of members and immense financial resources. It is the main advocate of the famous Second Amendment. It is the NRA that provides millions of dollars to politicians in this country to maintain strong support for the upholding of that constitutional right. By direct or indirect means, they channel all that money to members of Congress to avoid any legal changes regarding firearms.
So far, no bill of any kind aimed at controlling, changing or eliminating the Second Amendment has been able to prosper. Some presidents have tried to pressure senators and representatives, but none of them have been successful, even though some congressmen have been victims of attacks. Several presidents have been murdered in the course of this country’s history. Nine have survived attacks, but four did not survive. These were Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy.
At the moment, America has been creating a state of opinion in favor of doing something about how easy it is for citizens to acquire such deadly equipment. They are likely to make some sort of change, but I doubt that they will be able to get the amendment protecting gun ownership completely removed.
It is estimated that there are currently more than 300 million firearms in the possession of the population. This indicates that, if a law banning the sale of firearms in all states of the Union were to be enacted tomorrow morning, it would be totally impossible to remove all that arsenal from the hands of the inhabitants of this nation. To think that this was possible would be like daydreaming, rather, as an impossible mission.
But it seems that the number of weapons on the streets and in the fields is not enough. Now, President Donald Trump has come up with the brilliant idea that, in order to prevent further killings from occurring in schools, ten to 20 percent of school teachers should be armed. If we estimate that there should be about seven million of these at the primary and secondary levels, with only about ten percent being armed, it would be roughly 700,000, and almost one and a half million more if it were 20%. What do you think? Mr. Trump wants to create an entire army of armed teachers. It’s as if to say,”We were few and far between and Catana gave birth.”
The problems of this society are getting more complicated every day. As I said in a previous commentary, I do not believe that the problem of violence in this country will be solved only by the elimination of the aforementioned amendment. We must try to reverse a whole way of thinking and acting in this society. We must create a social consciousness for the citizens that is different from the one that has prevailed until now. That is not easy to do. Violence is so deeply rooted in the lives of the people of the United States that I find it almost impossible, over the years, to achieve, not eliminate, or even mitigate it.
This state of opinion, which I spoke of in previous paragraphs, has gradually been created by citizens who are aware that something has to be done. Different organizations and groups have been forming, but all in all, there are many ways to walk and little time to avoid new massacres.
Thousands of heavily armed and trained militias are scattered around the country. Hundreds of thousands of deranged militias roam the streets of cities without medical treatment, thousands of lone wolves are locked up in their homes waiting to claw their way out. Tens of thousands of war veterans wander traumatized by clinics, alcoholised and psychologically destroyed, drug addicts, murderers, drug addicts and drug addicts alike.
I know I am showing a dark and terrible panorama in this commentary, but it is not pessimism on my part, it is the reality that surrounds us. For the good of this country, where I have lived almost all my life, where I have made a family and to whom I sincerely wish the best, I wish things were not as I am painting them.
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