Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Shoring Up Showboating
Michael J. Smith covers the attack on science by Democratic Party "think tanks" covering for the party's failure to effectively address climate change. Reminiscent of the Republican purges of honest scientists from the previous administration, the present frauds perpetrated by the Democratic Congress are a sad reminder they both work for the same boss. Unfortunately, that boss lives on Wall Street, not main street.
Psychic Sacrilege
As icons of the American experience, the tribes that defeated the Seventh Cavalry still play a central role in our mythology and psychic evolution. Attacked by the US Army for demanding illegal settlers and other thieves after gold in the Black Hills leave their reservation, the Sioux tribes have fought many battles to survive the ongoing American onslaught. Long after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the indigenous plains warriors are still reviled by American society, not so much for killing Custer, but for maintaining devotion to spiritual over commercial values. In the consumer nation of America, nothing is more sacrilegious than authentic religion.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Out of Bondage
In her article Out of Bondage, attorney Martina E. Vandenberg discusses the participation in human trafficking by Defense Department and State Department contractors. Engaged as support personnel in international peace-keeping operations such as Bosnia, US contractors have been documented as end users in the slave trade for sex and forced labor. To date, no prosecutions have taken place for this violation of US law.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Getting Real
As dominant society venues for participation in UN climate change talks go virtual, indigenous peoples are getting real. Jay Taber, Rudolph Ryser and Renee Davis provide historical perspective on the anticipated conflict between indigenous and industrial values at the upcoming UN conference in Copenhagen this December.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Discursive Democracy
If democracy is a discursive process, we need more interactive media. Some activist organizations now have blogs where readers and writers can interact, discuss and share ideas, yet most thought-leading organizations still broadcast but don't receive. Given the exclusivity of mainstream media, we desperately need venues for challenging and improving our points of view; otherwise we retreat to insular comfort zones, which in the end subvert solidarity.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Taking Down the System
Writing in Orion magazine, Derrick Jensen argues that piety is a dead end. Saving the planet, he says, requires taking down the system.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Fighting Obama
Massachusetts Attorney General takes on Obama Administration for continuing discrimination against gays.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Anti-Indigenous Axis
The crackdown on Uyghurs in China, like the systematic brutality of Israel toward Palestinians, betrays the promise of universal human rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948. More recently, subsuming freedom to power betrays the specific extension of human rights to indigenous peoples by the UN in 2007.
While international law is on their side, indigenous peoples only hope in surmounting the anti-indigenous axis of state institutions, markets, and transnational criminal enterprise, is pan-tribal global solidarity, with support from civil society.
As the leading member of the anti-indigenous axis, the United States has already sided with China and Israel in crushing self-determination. As conflicts over resources related to energy and climate change escalate, murderous regimes like Colombia, Nigeria and Indonesia can count on the US for money and arms to continue the genocide of indigenous peoples.
While international law is on their side, indigenous peoples only hope in surmounting the anti-indigenous axis of state institutions, markets, and transnational criminal enterprise, is pan-tribal global solidarity, with support from civil society.
As the leading member of the anti-indigenous axis, the United States has already sided with China and Israel in crushing self-determination. As conflicts over resources related to energy and climate change escalate, murderous regimes like Colombia, Nigeria and Indonesia can count on the US for money and arms to continue the genocide of indigenous peoples.
