Category: Ramsey Muniz

Dear Friends:

This message is sent to family members and friends
to provide an update on the medical status of my husband,
Ramsey Muniz. In a previous message I stated that he had
shown improvement, but since that time he has again become
ill. His abdomen area has filled with bile. He has
infection which is accompanied by fever. Tomorrow
morning (Monday, September 19) Ramsey will undergo surgery
which will give doctors a new opportunity to fix the
source of his illness. We welcome everyone’s prayers,
and ask God that Ramsey be granted a long awaited recovery.

Thursday, September 8: Ramsey undergoes an ERCP procedure for
the 3rd time. The doctor removes two stents previously inserted, and
replaces them with a larger one. He expresses confidence that this will
solve the problem. When I visit with Ramsey, he is heavily sedated.
Friday, September 9: For the first time Ramsey has eaten an entire cup of cream of wheat. Under the circumstances, this is
tremendous progress. His face alone reflects improved health.

Saturday, September 10: Early in the morning Ramsey has
problems breathing and he is given oxygen. In the morning he is taken
to walk because of the long amount of time that he has spent in bed. I
visit with him later and he is very weak. He hardly speaks. Because he
has remained in a lying position for so long, he has developed a very
painful bed sore.

Sunday, September 11: Ramsey’s abdomen is again filled with
fluid. He forces himself to walk , in an effort to rid himself of the
fluid. His liver enzymes are down, which is positive.

Monday, September 12: Ramsey is taken for another paracentesis
procedure to drain around the stomach area. They remove about
2 1/2 liters of what appears to be bile. They attempt to do
hemodialysis, but his catheter is clogged, so dialysis is postponed,
and they instead repair the catheter.

Tuesday, September 13: Ramsey is given hemodialysis again, as
his kidneys need to improve. It seems that the antibiotics are
effective, as his white blood cell count is lowering.

The physician has ordered a consultation with a surgeon to
determine if surgery will help.

Wednesday, September 14: Ramsey begins to eat solid food,
though he remains very ill. His stomach has again filled with bile, but
the amount seems less. The doctor does not want to resort to surgery,
and instead wants to wait to see if the fluid can be fought through the
body’s normal functions. He feels that the stent is just taking longer
to be effective.

Thursday, September 15: I called the nurse’s station at 5:45
AM for an update on Ramsey’s status. He has not been feeling well and
his stomach is bloated but he is sitting up in a chair, in an attempt
to fight the illness through mobility. His body is extremely tired.


Friday, September 16: I visit with Ramsey and he remains
very weak. I do everything possible to impart faith, spirituality,
hope, and strength. He has been told that surgery has been scheduled on
Monday morning or during the noon hour.

Saturday, September 17: Ramsey remains very weak.

Sunday, September 18: Ramsey remains very weak. We welcome
prayers from family members and friends, and ask God that Ramsey be
granted a long awaited recovery.

Our sincerest gratitude goes to all who have expressed
compassion, love, and concern, and more importantly to
those who have said prayers on behalf of my husband.

Irma Muniz

Received via email Sept. 18

Dear Friends:

After having been through surgery, Ramsey was taken to ICU, and I believe that he is still there. He is doing better. He is able to converse and reflect on family, friends, and the grave illness that he has experienced for the past several weeks.

The surgical procedure consisted of cleaning his intestines, as they had a tremendous amount of infected fluids. Doctors did not see a bile leak.

Ramsey still has infected fluids that doctors continue to suction out. He has a tube inserted through his nose and four other tubes inserted through small incisions on his stomach. They continue to give him antibiotics in hopes that they will minimize the infection so that his body begins to fight on its own. His kidneys are functioning normally and his will to survive is strong. God willing, he will overcome this illness.

Again we thank many families and friends who have prayed for Ramsey, expressing hopes that God restore his health. Love and positive energy are powerful forces that can bring about profound change.

With gratitude and love,

Irma Muniz

Enclosed is a memorandum sent to Ramsey Muniz
regarding his legal case. Know that we are
very encouraged about this information, and
remain optimistic. Please distribute.
==Irma L. Muniz, via Sixth Sun Mailing List

July 28, 2005

According to the court, under the sentencing
guidelines, the offensive level applicable to your
case was 37, category VI. With this in mind, the court
found that the punishment in your case was mandatory
life imprisonment. Under the guidelines (see sentencing
transcript at p. 29) it appears that this finding is
incorrect. Level 37 with 9 criminal history points is
not category 6. It is category 4. (See sentencing table).
Thus, under category 4, the punishment required by the
guidelines is not life. It is 292-365 months [24-30 years]. The court
did it wrong. While this error appears to be harmless, under the
section 841 enhancement (with 2 prior convictions), the
contrary is the true. The record does not show that the
government followed the proper section 851 procedure.
To apply the section 841 enhancement, the government must
file a section 851 "notice" before trial (selection of
the jury). Here, the court’s docket does not show such
filing. The only "notice" concerning section 851 was
given at sentencing hearing concerning the enhancement.
(See sentencing transcript, at page 3). If this is
true, the government followed the wrong procedure and
there is law to support this fact. Your sentence of
life is void because by not filing the section 851
notice (before the jury selection), the government did
not give proper jurisdiction to the court. It has no
jurisdiction over the enhanced penalty of section 841.

With the available record, it is possible to assume
that this conclusion is correct. Nevertheless, we must
be 100 percent sure that this fact is accurate. Send
this letter, the sentencing transcripts, and the court’s
docket to Jesse Gamez for corroboration.

We have a jurisdictional argument for any court, at
any time, because a jurisdictional issue is never waived
or restringed by the AedpA’s 1 year time limitation.

www.freeramsey.com For background on Ramsey Muniz, see TCRR special report: Narco Politics vs. Civil Rights.

By Greg Moses

To try to remember a dream. What could such an effort be worth? In
the end one would only have a memory of a dream to show for it. And so
what? Could the time taken to remember a dream be better spent
forgetting it?

So we forget our dreams right away. Up in the morning and after it
— after something anything more solid than a memory of a dream could
be.

But something curious happens to memories and dreams when locked
into thick prison walls. In prison, dreams never dare to escape. Humans
spirits deprived of any spiritual refreshment from paint chipped blocks
and bars will have their fountains, so up through the night come the
dreams.

In the spiritual landscape of the order of things, prisons
therefore are a society’s dream reservoirs. If the walls aren’t built
thick enough, dreams would come flooding out like a tsunami and drown
every bullshit idea in the way. That’s why we have so many thick prison
walls in America.

According to statistics released on Sunday (why Sunday?) the USA
once again ranks top in the world for the dream dams we call prisons.
More than 2.1 million folks jammed into a system that includes federal
prisons (139 percent full); state prisons (116 percent full); and jails
(94 percent full). Nearly 100,000 of those prisoners serve time in
prisons that have been privatized to make some profit which just goes
to show you there is nothing that money will refuse to buy.

In the dream of April 16 that we copy below, Ramsey Muniz is visited
by memory of ancient land, imaginary kingdom Aztlan, where the Aztec
dance unconquered, and every step they take is upon land they never
have to apologize for walking.

We read the dream of Ramsey Muniz in the context of April 11, when
Harvard Professor of Divinty David Carrasco, as the 19th Annual Americo
Paredes Lecturer speaking to a full house in the Santa Rita Room on
Guadalupe St. showed slides of some of the dreams of Aztlan painted during 16th Century land negotiations. As the dreams of Muniz remind us, those negotiations are still under way:

‘We are One’

Enclosed are words received in a dream…

4/17/05
10:45 PM

Mi Citlalmina y mi gente de Aztlan:

As I shared with you on the telephone, I had
a dream – was it a dream, or was it reality of life
and heart, which only seeks justice, love, and the
freedom of all humanity? It is written in our ancient
Mexicano history that dreams, visions, and appearances
of our ancient council of elders would be recorded
for our future. The writings, dreams, and visions
were all so powerful and connected to nature, that
even modern day scholars cannot comprehend. From
the beginning of our creation we have been in tune
with universal nature, stars, moon, sun, and Mother
Earth.

During the last eleven years confined in the
prisons of America, as a Mexicano political prisoner
in exile, I have prayed extensively in the steel,
cold darkness of oppression – not for myself, but for
a symbol, a sign, a message of enlightenment of hearts
in order to share the journey and direction that we
must take as a race, as a people, in order to obtain
justice, liberation, and in due time, land.

Before I proceed any further, I will share with everyone in
Aztlan and the Holy Land of Mexico that on
April 16, 2005, I awoke from a dream within the midst
of our ancient past. Immediately I sat on the chair
next to my writing table, and wrote an entire
page — with such foresight — then returned to
bed and immediately fell asleep. When I awoke in
the morning, after more than thirty minutes, I
glanced at the page that I had written. I will share
the first part of what came from my dreams:

Cultura/Nuestra Cultura Espiritual Primero
"The Mexicano cultural ancient beginning and/or its
creation will eternally and ultimately bequeath the
manifestation of us to fulfill our spiritual prophesy
of once more becoming one. Nosotros somos uno. This
is the beginning of our ancient cultural Mexicano
spiritual mandate for the 21st century."

Tezcatlipoca (Ramsey Muniz)
April 16, 2005
U.S.P. Leavenworth

"Nosotros somos uno" is a phrase that should
become part of our daily lives, conversations,
participation, and at the end of the night it should
be a part of our spiritual message to Topan (heaven).
We are one! Regardless of where we find ourselves
this very night, we are all one! To be one from
within thousands of miles going south, east, west
or north is power.

Oppression in our past has managed
to divide our people and eventually conquer all
schools of thought or philosophies, providing
a scheme of labeling us with different names
and brands. It is for these reasons that America
has labeled our people into the 21st century.
American now wishes for all of us to become
Hispanics or Latinos for the sole purpose of
becoming different from our Mexicano sisters and
brothers who have journeyed from the Holy Land
of Mexico into the United State of America. We
should embrace our sisters and brothers who have
given their lives by the thousands in the hot
deserts and in the strong currents of the Rio
Grande River, rather than separating them from
our own heritage and generations.

To argue that we are different is to permit oppression by those who wish to divide and conquer our lives with
false illusions, and control the lives of nuestra
gente in general. For the last thirty years or
more, we have embraced and shared with the masses
of nuestra raza in the barrios, our communities,
our schools, and in state and federal prisons our
cultural revolution in all Aztlan.

The United States has been in wars and/or conflicts in all
the world for the last thirty years. During that
period of time, our sisters and brothers came like
never before in our history into America. They
crossed the borders after 9/11, and homeland security
came into existence. After several census taken
of our raza, they became alarmed by the number of
Mexicanos who came to join the pursuit of justice
and liberation. We will no longer be the minority
in the Southwest of the United States. We will
become the majority and will continue to grow
in numbers. It is written that we will never
stop growing in numbers until the land also
becomes a part of us.

Vigilantes, conservative groups and others have become so alarmed of the number of raza crossing the borders that now
they too guard the borders, which will be crossed
by our people.

The dream and its relationship to the human
crisis at the borders clearly reveals that we
Mexicanos must begin to express how proud we are
to be Mexicanos once more after many hundreds of
years of oppression and imprisonment. We were
one from the beginning of our creation. We must
reach into our cultural past as if were only
yesterday. Our teachings, our philosophies,
our ideals, and our spirituality must all relate
to nuestra cultura.

The time has come to make a
definite commitment to the life of our Mexicano
cultura. A race and/or nation without cultura
will never come into existence. The more that
we reach for nuestra cultura Mexicana the more
spiritual our hearts and minds will become. To
all of our raza in Aztlan I share the following
words of wisdom:

We want only to show you something
we have seen and tell you something
we have heard…that here and there
in the world and now and then in ourselves
is a new spiritual Mexicano creation…

Tezcatlipoca (Ramsey Muñiz)

Yes, without question or doubt, throughout
all Aztlan there is a new spiritual Mexicano
creation. We will now become what we were from
the beginning – a free race, a free nation, a
free land.

Immigration will become the national issue
which United States politicians will use to
blame for all negative results in America. Our
sisters and brothers will be trea

ted as if they
were responsible for the oppression of America.
We must immediately take the political position
that our sisters and brothers from the Holy Land
of Mexico, who find themselves in the United
States, be granted full amnesty.

We will take a strong political position against the
United States trying to pass oppressive procedures
against nuestra raza on the issue of immigration.
Besides, if we were to study history in terms of
to who was here first, we would win immediately.
Our sisters and brothers from the Holy Land will
be blamed for all economical and financial
downfalls. But at the end it doesn’t matter,
because we have more compassion in our hearts
for humanity.

We are one! We must be proud of who
we are. Our history is one of pride, heart,
and intelligence. We must let the world know who
we are, and that we are proud to be Mexicanos. As
a group we must also begin to communicate directly
with other Mexicanos who are in tune with our
cultura and historia.

No longer will our raza hold their heads down
in shame. No longer will we be afraid or fear the
sacrifice for liberation. We will no longer be oppressed.

In exile,
Tezcatlipoca
Mexicano political prisoner

www.freeramsey.com

Note: letter from Ramsey Muniz conveyed via email April 24 from Irma L. Muniz.

Note: Sunday evening in the second-to-last episode of Pioneer House
on PBS a tiny colonial enclave was visited by native peoples who
presented themselves as living witness to history made whole. For the
second time in the show’s season, modern-day colonists discarded an
opportunity to radically re-evaluate their re-enactment. The first
opportunity was the early morning departure of an African American
freeman who became deeply disturbed at the experience of colonial
economy. He could feel the natural birth of slavenomics coming, so he
left. In both cases, neither the departure of an African American nor
the arrival of Native Americans posed anything more than a brief
distraction from the main game. Soon enough colonists get back to work
for the company. Every night the colonists return to their beds. We
know they sleep, but do they ever dream?—gm

* * *

The following letter from Ramsey Muniz was received via email from Irma L. Muniz on May 19.

Please distribute the enclosed message regarding our ancient past and spirituality.

"As I embrace our ancient sacred indigenous spirituality, I’m
transformed by a passion I have only heard in our past; confined in
these prisons now I feel it in my own Mexika soul. I have been given
access to a great and universal profound secret. Now I know the
suffering, sadness, sorrow, and sacrifices of my ancestors, and now it
has become my own."–Tezcatlipoca (Ramsey Muñiz)

It gives me great honor and pride to share with nuestra gente the
second part of what I wrote late into the night, after awakening from
an ancient Mexika dream. These are the exact words I wrote: "It is
evident from our ancient Mexika writings, symbols, and manuscripts that
eventually the primary principle of our cultural realization was the
power of spirituality of the hearts of the masses of our people –
spirituality in the sense of its liberation, teachings of justice, and
the universal philosophy of a free humanity."

Our most profound and challenging ancient history is like no other
history on this earth. The vision, the intelligence and cosmic power
within the creation of our existence, is like no other in the past
present, and/or future. Even before the invasion of our Mexika Empire,
our wise council of elders was preparing for this disaster.

Our ancient history reveals and teaches us our creation, our
foundation, philosophy of life, cultural structures, constantly
demonstrating the power of our spirituality. It is this hidden
spirituality that has provided the power and pride of resistance
against oppression and atrocities. It doesn’t matter what policies
and/or criminal penalties America brings upon the lives of our sisters
and brothers who came to join us here in Aztlan. It is done! We are
only following the direction and teachings of our ancient Mexika past
into our present world of today. We are not just anybody. We are a
universal cosmic people who lay claim to our spiritual culture from our
past to rehabilitate ourselves, and to begin justifying the
presentation of our national cultural existence.

Perhaps we have not sufficiently demonstrated that present American
colonialism is simply not content to impose its rule upon the present
and futures of a dominated country. American 21st century colonialism
is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip, and emptying
the Mexicano/Mexicana brain of all form and content. By a kind of
perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people and
distorts, disfigures, and destroys it. This work of devaluating our
pre-colonial history takes on a dialectic significance today. When we
consider the efforts of the colonial epoch to carry out our spiritual
cultural estrangement, we realize that nothing was left to chance, and
that the total result looked for by colonial domination was indeed to
convince Mexicanos that colonialism came to lighten their darkness.

The effect consciously sought by America was to drive into
Mexicanos’ minds the idea that if the settlers were to leave, they
would at once fall back into barbarism, degradation, and bestiality. On
the unconscious plane, colonialism, therefore, was considered by the
Mexicanos as a mother who restrained her fundamentally perverse
offspring from its evil instincts. She protected her child from itself
– its ego – its physiology – its biology, and its own unhappiness,
which became its very essence.

We must teach and share with the youth of today the importance of
our ancient Mexika history. How sad to be poor, sad to be chained and
shackled by the injustices of the oppressor. But nothing is sadder than
to witness the fact that our raza does not even know who we truly are.
Our history teaches that we would pass through these periods of
cultural/spiritual uncertainties. It also reveals that certain destined
Mexicanos/Mexicanas would rise within the era of our Sixth Sun. It is
written and destined that our raza will return to its creation and
construct the means of once more becoming a free race, a free land, a
free nation, a free spiritual/cultural Aztlan of today.

Our sisters and brothers from Mexico who had the heart and courage
to cross the borders into the United States will also one day return to
Mexico and share the truth of the fact that we are one. That the
Mexicanos living in the United States have the same roots as the Holy
Land of Mexico. We are finally learning and accepting the truth of our
ancient spirituality. We must have the courage, pride, and honor to
free ourselves and provide the assistance to free our people as well.
We must be a proud and respectful race once again. We must begin in our
preschools, teaching our history, cultura, and spirituality. We must
reunite once again! Our children, our youth, and the masses of our
people must feel proud once again.

We will soon be the majority of the population throughout the entire
southwest of the United States. If we have been able to accomplish
this, then the time has come for us to rise again, to reach out, and
share with the masses of nuestra raza how we will fulfill the great
destiny of our race.

We of our Sixth Sun will continue to strongly advocate the
implementation and existence of our own political party in Aztlan. It
will happen! Our Holy Land of Mexico is also experiencing political and
cultural changes among the masses. The time has come and many of us
continue to suffer, but destiny will eventually remove the sacrifice,
suffering, and imprisonment. No one can change what history brings to
our lives and creation. We are a people who constantly live in the life
of history.

"We are Indian, blood and soul; the language and civilization are Spanish."–Jose Vasconcelos

In exile,
Tezcatlipoca
freeramsey.com