Saturday, January 31, 2009

 

World Disservice

Wampum hosts the Gaza humanitarian appeal video the BBC won't air.

Friday, January 30, 2009

 

The Big Ponzi

As Ken Silverstein at Harper's notes, the Goldman Sachs president has been busy installing big money boys in key positions of his administration. What does this have to do with democracy, human rights, or the environment? Just wait and see what they propose in terms of climate change Ponzi schemes, like carbon market trading and other devious means of looting public treasuries and extinguishing indigenous title to communally-held inherent properties.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

 

Refugee Nightmare

With the government and Tamil rebels running amok, the Red Cross and UN are completely unable to deal with the refugee nightmare in Northern Sri Lanka. 300,000 natives are caught in the crossfire of the current chaos.

 

Milk:

Ya gotta give 'em hope.
A timeless movie with a timeless message.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

 

First Hundred Hours

It took a whole three days for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to renege on her campaign promise to enact National Health Care. But then, what's the hurry? She's got hers.

Monday, January 26, 2009

 

New Times Old Times

Even the New York Times, with its extreme bias toward state militarism, white supremacy and market mania, cannot deny the human rights issues raised by Bolivia's liberation from the 500-year-old colonial aristocracy. While the Times does its best to belittle the indigenous struggle through democratic initiatives, all the Harvard hacks and fascist Catholics in the world can't obscure the authenticity of the World Indigenous Peoples' Movement. May the Times choke on its derogatory remarks.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

 

Failure of Imagination

The mentoring and education in social change that takes place online is not yet popular nor widespread. Due to the circumstances of state-sponsored education and mass marketing, reality has too difficult a time penetrating the closed loop worldview imposed by this mediated culture. Basically a failure of imagination.

To break through the mesmerizing effect of spectacle society, one needs to lead the curious out of their comfort zone using familiar platforms. Blogs and YouTubes help, but this only reaches those who already suspect that things are not what they seem.

To break down the social barriers to authentic education, one needs resources to produce things like cinematic documentaries, curricula, and speakers bureaus. Until people can imagine a different world, they are not going to support those who are prepared to lead the way.

Friday, January 23, 2009

 

Good Negroes

When President Obama said, "We don't apologize for our way of life", he wasn't talking about you and me. He was talking about himself, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, and the masters they serve at Goldman-Sachs, Chevron, and Halliburton.

Reminiscent of the Southern plantation mansions, where the masters of the era of slavery resided with their black servants, the palatial White House is a reminder to the working class in America that the aristocracy has always controlled our way of life. The fact they have promoted some of today's black servants into the halls of power and seats of government, does not change that reality.

As evidence of who President Obama serves, he gave his word to the previous administration that no one would be prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He didn't promise pardons; he promised not to even pursue prosecution. Good Negroes know their place.

 

Times Change

The rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

--FDR 1933 Inaugural Speech

Thursday, January 22, 2009

 

Fair Deal

Owen Paine suggests the way to get things rolling is to rebate 2008 payroll taxes to wage earners rather than give away the treasury to Wall Street. This, notes Paine, would enable working stiffs to clear their consumer debt with the banks, and simultaneously help banks avoid bankruptcy. Sounds like a win-win proposition to us.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

 

Friends of Apartheid

Glen Ford, executive editor of The Black Agenda Report, reports on the Congressional Black Caucus' betrayal of King's legacy. Noting their overwhelming support for the Israeli invasion of Gaza, Ford suggests black members of Congress have sold their soul to the friends of apartheid.

 

Great White Hope

Real News looks at the rhetoric and reality of change under President Obama. In today's segments, The Real News Network examines the emerging imperial doctrine of the Obama Administration, the new alliance against freedom in the Global War On Terror, and the heresy of criticizing America's "great white hope".

 

Lack of Judgment

Chris Rodda writes about the corrosive influence of Christian fundamentalism on US armed forces personnel, and how Obama's lack of judgment in choosing Pastor Rick Warren for his inauguration emboldened Christian bigots in positions of command to bully young recruits.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

 

War Criminals Still At Large

Veterans For Peace distributed the first edition of the War Crimes Times in Washington today. As veterans who have already done two tours in Iraq early in the war are now (due to falling enlistments), facing involuntary activation, Veterans For Peace is calling for Obama to end the war now. As VFP notes, it is the duty of the new president to defend the Constitution, and part of that defense is restoring the rule of law. Restoring the rule of law requires the prosecution of war criminals still at large in the US.

 

Black Messiah

Today, as Barack Obama absolves white America for its sins, some will ask what is the price? Tomorrow, as President Obama begins his rein, the price of absolution will begin to be paid.

As a staunch supporter of state militarism used to crush indigenous peoples' aspirations for freedom, President Obama sold his soul long ago. The absolved will be asked to forgive his sin. As a puppet of Wall Street, President Obama will finish the shredding of our social safety net begun by Reagan, furthered by Clinton and Bush. The absolved will be forced to suffer for this sin.

The grand theft Obama has been a part of in making his political career has served him and his masters well; accountability for their sins is officially off the table. So where does that leave us and the Black Messiah?

Monday, January 19, 2009

 

Manufactured to Mollify

While the theatre of presidential pageantry is manufactured to mesmerize an infantile audience, the cult of personality that precedes this pageantry is manufactured to mollify. Within this mediation of culture, citizens-as-consumers are raised on a daily diet of pablum like The Man from Hope (Clinton) or The Candidate of Hope (Obama), never once pausing from the spectacle to recognize the blatantly obvious pattern of repetition used in soothing their anxieties. By the time they have been stuffed with bromides ad nauseam, the helpless have become so hopeless, that fleecing them is like taking candy from babies.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

 

Already a Failure

The Obama presidency is already a failure. Three days before he takes the reins of office, he announces his plan to cut Social Security and Medicare. Obama has not said one word about cutting the bloated American military that consumes half of the US budget. He had no problem supporting the largest giveaway in our 200-year history to his Wall Street friends. But seniors and the disabled must, according to the new president, suck it up.

This is hope and change?

 

Broken Record

Fanatical Christians are as much of a problem in Bolivia as elsewhere, fascist Catholics in particular. Not that the pentecostals don't support repressive measures against Indians, but the Catholic aristocracy is on the verge of losing its stolen privileges, now 500 years old.

Both might support the global Christian crusade that currently plagues such powerful institutions as the United States armed forces, but for now the concern of Bolivia's landed aristocracy is the indigenous peoples' wealth they've plundered and would like to continue plundering. Their idea of autonomy has nothing to do with freedom, and everything to do with white supremacy--an unfortunate position for elements of the Catholic church to back.

We saw what religious hysteria combined with economic panic did in the 14th century; we don't need to repeat that nightmare in the 21st.

Friday, January 16, 2009

 

Above the Law

While Obama and Pelosi plan to let Bush officials off for admitted war crimes, Real News reporter Pepe Escobar looks at the ways public officials with more integrity can bring these criminals to justice.

 

Whatever It Takes

Bruce Wilson, the researcher who helped expose the dark side of Sarah Palin, now has a video up on Rick Warren, the self-described fanatical evangelical pastor selected by Barack Obama for his inauguration.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

 

Scourge of Dominion

In a post from two years ago on our blog annex, we discussed the task of negotiating dominion as the keystone of American mythology. Today, as we witness this phenomenon playing out in Israel -- another fundamentally disoriented national psyche -- we wanted to encourage anyone struggling to deal with epidemic pathologies of state to take a look at the offerings housed at Skookum Index.

While the psychopathic eruptions of the past in places like Selma, Belfast and Capetown fit a pattern of myopic mania, the pattern emerging today in Gaza, Baghdad and Beirut forewarns us of a potential pandemic of state tirades playing out across the globe. As the tired social order of dominion collapses worldwide, the pathologies once deemed aberrations are now becoming commonplace on all continents.

Dominion -- whether ideological, racial or religious -- is contrary to the spirit of humanity. Defeating this scourge that plagues humankind, before it devours us entirely, is our most important task. Everything else depends on it.

 

The Dark Side

American News Project lifts the lid on LDS and the hidden money spent on Prop 8. ANP shines a light on the dark side of secret church influence on public affairs.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

 

Fascists Advance on Gaza

As mainstream media marginalizes Venezuela and Bolivia for severing diplomatic relations with Israel over the Gaza invasion, Wampum continues its preeminent coverage of the massacre with posts like the one linked here. Reading such dispatches, free of the ideological bias inextricably embedded in corporate news, one gets a feel for the situation that is reminiscent of the Nazis advancing on Paris.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

 

Fool's Mission

The key to perpetuating pyramid schemes is keeping dissenting voices out. Those who question the framework of the plan itself cannot be allowed to warn the gullible.

Pulling off such a heist in publicly-traded securities and other investments requires, among other things, convincing media moguls that what once was widely-recognized as criminal, is now exemplary conduct. With media complicity, cons can become visionaries, frauds philanthropists.

Wrecking communities, destroying economies, and ruining lives, however, is still relatively minor to the planetary suicide proposed through carbon market trading. That is a pyramid scheme of unrivaled stature.

Exposing the scheme, though, is a difficult task. Questioning market theology is not allowed under the state and market regime; neither the US, the UN or CNN will willingly entertain such heresy.

Arguably the most censored story of 2008, was the challenge to the UN by the World Indigenous Peoples' Forum on Climate Change -- one of the most profound challenges in recorded history -- blacked out by world media. Keeping indigenous peoples invisible -- perhaps corporate media's greatest challenge to date -- is a fool's mission, but that never prevents them from trying.

Monday, January 12, 2009

 

Wampum Bonanza

Wampum has so many worthwhile posts on Israel today, it would be a shame to highlight only one, so I'm posting the link for you to browse the stories. Included in these offerings is a post on plans for lethal force to be used against Jewish and Arab Israeli anti-war protestors, an interpretive map of the State of Israel, further coverage of the dire medical situation as Palestinian hospitals are bombed, and a list of the members of Congress lacking the courage to oppose Israeli genocide.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

 

Affront to Humanity

In the December 12, 2008 closing statement from the International Indigenous Peoples' Forum on Climate Change to the UN Framework Conference on Climate Change, indigenous spokesman Tom Goldtooth noted the affront to indigenous delegates prohibited from participating in the climate change talks. No doubt responding to the hostile posture of the US government toward indigenous human rights, the UN body followed suit in denying indigenous peoples the very human rights the UN General Assembly a year earlier declared sacrosanct. No matter how one views the threat to humankind posed by issues like climate change, the perpetuation of colonial postures toward indigenous peoples in the 21st century is an affront to humanity.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

 

Defeating Democracy

Over the last half century, the United States has conducted proxy coups d'etat of democratically-elected governments from Iran to Chile. Key to that program of backing puppet heads of state has been the provision of arms and training to defeat democracy where ever it arises. As the Christian Science Monitor revealed two years ago, Palestine was no exception to the rule.

 

Paying Attention

Reading Harper's account of the economic chaos in the US yesterday, I was reminded of comments made recently by the Hopi cultural preservation officer, that turmoil and disharmony is inevitable when a people neglect their spiritual essence. In a society that values secular achievement to the detriment of any sense of community obligation, it is no wonder that things continually fall apart. The challenge for Americans is to pursue that ancient essence that made us human before the disorienting distractions of church, state, and market diverted our collective attention.

Friday, January 09, 2009

 

Spirit of Learning

The World Indigenous Peoples' Conference on Education held last month in Melbourne was a big success. The 2011 conference will be hosted by the Quechua Nation of Peru.

 

Price of Autonomy

As part of the vast Indonesian colonial archipelago, West Papua and East Timor have suffered horrendous abuse at the hands of the Indonesian military--a military supported by both the United States and Australia. As two of the four self-declared opponents of human rights for indigenous peoples, the US and Australia work hand in hand with transnational corporations plundering Papuan and Timorese resources for North American and European markets. As ETAN reports, autonomy for West Papua and East Timor comes at a horrible price.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

 

Unequal Protection

Equal protection under the law is generally considered to fall under the realm of civil rights: protection might vary greatly from country to country, but within each state everybody gets the same deal. Human rights, however, are by definition universal.

Where these two legal precepts intersect is often where one class of people is deprived by another of the ability to maintain control of its intellectual, territorial, or economic properties as a matter of public policy. The states of Canada, Australia, Indonesia, and Israel are good examples of this.

Unequal protection, in almost every circumstance, is the result of colonial control and the derivative power to exploit when colonies become states. A lot of the world fits this description.

Law, unfortunately, protects those with more property more vigorously than those with less; those who have the gold make the rules. And since most wealth was generated initially by theft, it is stolen properties that get the most protection.

So when it is pointed out by First Nations in places like Canada, that most of the territory now controlled by the federal government is not legally theirs to dispose of (and all the official documents of that government support the indigenous claim), what we have is a violation of both civil rights under national law, and human rights under international law. There is simply no other way to put it.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

 

San Francisco's Shame

The Bay Guardian explains why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Dianne Feinstein can be expected to block any accountability or reform efforts in Congress. Much as these two ambitious women might benefit from their powerful positions, at the end of the day, together they comprise San Francisco's shame.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

 

A Country Under Lockdown

In Fire Inside, Marilyn Krisyl writes about Tamil refugees in Sri Lanka. The Guernica article recounts Krysl's experience as a volunteer bodyguard for Peace Brigade International in the 1990s. Learn what "a country under lockdown" means to a refugee camp mother who slowly loses her children to a war between Aryans and Arabs, Sinhalese and Tamil, Hindu and Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu.

 

Seeking Justice

If indigenous peoples have the right to exist as equal partners with the rest of humanity, then they have the right to seek resolution of their grievances in international courts where they have a reasonable expectation of justice. International courts established by UN member states, however, are inherently biased by the politics of the judicial systems from which they sprung; First Nations cannot expect a fair hearing in them any more than they can in the supreme courts of Canada or the United States.

Seeking justice for indigenous peoples must thus entail establishing indigenous international courts where human rights, civil rights, and property rights claims of the Fourth World are heard, considered, and treated respectfully. Resolution of these claims can then be negotiated in special forums mutually agreed on between First Nations and modern states.

Establishing indigenous international courts is a natural corollary to establishing self-governance, economic and educational autonomy. Conflicts inevitably arise between philosophically, culturally and spiritually diverse peoples; provision of trustworthy venues and reliable methods for their resolution is essential in preventing the violence that stems from the frustration of justice.

Given the present system of international law favors the states that deliberately deprived indigenous peoples of justice for the last two centuries, it is only logical that First Nations establish a system consistent with their own values. At a time when indigenous peoples still cannot even get a hearing, let alone justice for their claims, it is time for these ancient political entities to appoint indigenous jurists to a body of their own making.

After all, is there any element of legitimacy more essential than that those appointed to serve justice give a fair hearing to the people who come before them?

Monday, January 05, 2009

 

Renouncing the Great Lie

Fifteen years ago, our associate Rudolph C. Ryser wrote about the Great Lie fostered by colonial societies in order to subdue, exploit and exterminate indigenous peoples. Today, the Great Lie is still told in classrooms and the media in every country around the world, wherever there is indigenous land or resources yet to steal.

Ugly as this truth is, it is not nearly as repugnant as the deliberate destruction of indigenous communities through the subjugation, subversion, and murder of traditional indigenous leaders that continues to this day. As the seed of mankind, the remaining indigenous nations that retain the ancient wisdom we need for a spiritually and ecologically sustainable way of life, are all that stands between us and disaster.

While we cannot undo all the destruction that modern states have wrought, we can resolve not to participate in continuing on this suicidal path. But that first requires renouncing the Great Lie, and replacing it with truth in our daily lives.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

 

Reinventing Canada

Kevin Annett examines the structurally criminal regime of Canada, and proposes a program for ending genocide by decolonizing the state. Reflecting on the successful indictment of the Canadian social order by indigenous testimonies in the last couple years, Annett says the historical reckoning now underway holds the promise of reinventing Canada as a democratic federation of sovereign nations. As a model for the likewise structurally criminal regime to its immediate south, I hope they succeed.

 

Gaza Ghetto

Joseph Massad discusses the irony of US support for Israel's crushing of Hamas, the only democratically elected government in the Arab world.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

 

Becoming Human

Established to perpetuate poverty as a system of social control, modern states have, in some circumstances, found it necessary to devolve some of their powers to autonomous regions or ancient nations that precede present state federations. Citizens of modern states, however, are still mostly indoctrinated by state educational systems in the mythology of progress--modern states being the pinnacle of human political evolution.

As modern states break down, though, the foundational components of civil society tend to revert to non-state values, like conservation, cooperation, and sharing. The cognitive dissonance created by the devolution of powers, inevitably sets more citizens on a path in opposition to state-centric systems of control; eventually, things -- as constructed through state violence -- fall apart. What some might call chaos or anarchy.

Solving our own problems, however chaotic that might be, is still preferable to many than being deprived of any say in how we are governed or employed. Exercising our influence, by taking control of decisions denied us by modern states, is the beginning of building new relationships oriented toward meeting our needs rather than ceding our responsibility. An essential part of becoming human.

Thursday, January 01, 2009

 

Unity and Visibility

Depending on the circumstances, the Anti-Indigenous Movement -- led by the government of the United States -- deploys lethal force, as well as malicious harassment and psychological warfare against tribal peoples. F-16s used by the Israeli Air Force against Palestinians, M-16s used by the Colombian Army against Caucans, and Apache helicopters used by the Indonesian military against West Papuans, are all gifts from the United States Congress for the purpose of suppressing Indigenous peoples.

As the acknowledged head of the group of four voting against the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the United States also has the wherewithal to ensure that campaigns for indigenous freedom are met with both overt and covert opposition. The three declared US partners in opposing indigenous liberation -- Canada, Australia, and New Zealand -- may at present limit themselves to police harassment and judicial corruption in forcefully subverting international laws protecting indigenous peoples, but their militaries and intelligence agencies are nonetheless actively engaged in undermining indigenous sovereignty.

Under the rubric of the Global War on Terror, many governments around the world threaten, assault and murder indigenous leaders. As resource wars intensify between the First and the Fourth World, indigenous peoples' unity and visibility becomes an essential survival strategy; strategically countering the propaganda of the Anti-Indigenous Movement remains a key element of that cohesion.

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