Native What Month 2.

thanksgiving-thankstealing-marty-two-bulls

© Marty Two Bulls.

And it continues. If you don’t know about the latest atrocities, learn. All that because fucking white people want their cake and to eat it, too. Yeah, yeah, I know, lotsa good white people out there. I know. Lots of them on the front lines, I know. And it really is appreciated, know that. It’s just that it’s not helping right now, because even all the white people who signed on, who woke up, who joined the fight, you’re in the minority with us, against all the racist, greedy white people who simply do not give a fuck. They’ll be busy with their holiday, and pretending to be thankful for fuck knows what, perhaps the fact that oppressing minorities just got a whole lot easier. I can see them thanking their idiotic, bloodthirsty god for that one.

Every year, the irony of November being named “National American Indian Heritage Month” kills me a bit more (First instituted in 1990, by Bush). This year more than most, with the criminal atrocities being committed at Standing Rock. There was a demented, malign genius to choosing November, what with most people being occupied with that grand holiday, “thanksgiving”, and preoccupied with Xmas. The majority of Americans don’t have the slightest idea of there even being an NDN heritage month, and if they do, there’s a bit of lip service perhaps, but not much more. As for learning, dive into the Standing Rock Syllabus.

High Cost of Human Rights Corrodes DAPL Financing:

Government scientists have just identified the largest deposit of oil in the United States. Newsflash: It is nowhere near the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). On November 15, the U.S. Geological Survey released the largest estimate of continuous (unconventional) oil that USGS has ever assessed in the United States. The site is the Wolfcamp Shale formation in the Permian Basin of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. USGS estimates the Wolfcamp play at 20 billion barrels.

There are two bits of significance for the fight against DAPL, the Black Snake, rooted in two theories of what the DAPL might be able to move if and when it is finished. The investment banks funding the Black Snake bought into the project based the state of the oil market at the time and expert projections for production over the life of the pipeline.

The oil market has shifted in many ways since the first round of DAPL financing was anticipating rising demand and more expensive supplies.

Hey America, I’m Taking Back Thanksgiving.

Standing Rock: Native What Month?

https://www.facebook.com/john.bravebullbaker/posts/10211164522099066

I don’t have much to say. Too fucking sick at heart. What have we ever done to merit this ongoing treatment from colonial america? In John BraveBull’s account above, he mentions Charlie Plenty Wolf. It was Charlie who welcomed us to the camp our first time there. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. FUCK. It’s just a grand Native American Heritage Month, with all the people who just don’t give a shit, the continued efforts at genocide, and everyone else being all chucklefuck happy over thankstealing and good shopping deals!

Elder in Critical Condition after Going into Cardiac Arrest at Scene of DAPL Barricade Clash.

https://www.facebook.com/josuefoto/videos/1395596380452239/

I was privileged to meet Josué at the Oceti Sakowin camp, he gave me my first press pass.

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Water Cannons Fired at Water Protectors in Freezing Temperatures Injure Hundreds.

#nodapl, Simon-Moya Smith, Ruth Hopkins.

Yes, the cops are yelling “riot!” and claiming the protectors set fires. That is not true. It was another peaceful prayer circle, and some of the protectors went to move one of the burned out vehicles out of the way, when they were hit with gas grenades, batons, and water cannons.

Mainstream Media MIA as DAPL Action Is Met With Water Cannons and Mace.

“They want to kill people for clearing a road,” questioned Tara Houska, referencing police spraying people with water cannons in 26-degree weather. The national campaigns director of Honor the Earth reminded her friends and followers that November is Native American Heritage Month.

“When will our cries be heard?”

 

George Takei: We Can’t Go Back.

1-aneepxqjrjtc9f3plz1lig

My mother was born in Sacramento, the daughter of Japanese immigrants, and my father grew up in San Francisco. They met and married in Los Angeles, where I was born in 1937, and where we lived happily until December 7, 1941.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, life changed for our family and thousands of other families like us. Suddenly we were presumed to be the enemy. We were questioned, followed, suspected, and accused of being spies or saboteurs simply because of our ancestry. The government that was supposed to protect us against mob rule suddenly had become the mob. It is hard to describe a more gripping, more pervasive sense of terror.

Just a few weeks after my 5th birthday, the military forcibly removed us from our home. Two soldiers with bayonets marched upon our driveway on Garnet Street, pounded on the front door, and demanded we vacate immediately. We took only what we could carry. My younger brother and I both held a suitcase; my mother, tears streaming down her face, held my baby sister with one arm and a duffle bag with another. We lost our home, our car, my father’s book collection.

I will never forget that day.

George Takei’s full article is here, and it’s one everyone should take to heart.

Standing Rock Syllabus: Learn, Teach.

Credit: C. Ford.

Credit: C. Ford.

The New York City Stands with Standing Rock Collective then met again and we talked at length about the syllabus and how to curate emergent sections. We want our readers and future teachers to understand that we take Sioux notions of history seriously but came to impasses with certain materials that we wanted to include, but felt inadequate to interpret. So we direct educators and students to the crucial archives of Lakota Winter Counts. One of the founders of the resistance camps at Standing Rock, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, has devoted her life to the interpretation of these counts and any responsible curriculum will point to them and invite students to think about and with them. Recognizing then, our limitations, we volunteered to work with our strengths and to curate specific sections of the syllabus, to take charge of, so to speak, the content and the form. Matthew Chrisler managed the group and ordered the text with Jaskiran Dhillon, New School Assistant Professor of Global Studies and Anthropology who stepped in at certain points to read over entries. Along with Matthew Chrisler, Sheehan Moore, a doctoral student in anthropology at CUNY, organized all of the PDFs to attach to our website for syllabus readers to view and download. In this way, there were multiple eyes on each section as it took shape. We also asked curators to narrow their selections to book chapters and specific articles to further focus the syllabus and keep it accessible for people who would read and download it in short amounts of time. We wanted people to read the syllabus and teach the material, but also to have access to the readings for themselves and their students and/or community members.

Although a “work in progress,” the current #StandingRockSyllabus places what is happening now in a broader historical, political, economic, and social context going back over 500 years to the first expeditions of Columbus, the founding of the United States on institutionalized slavery, private property, and dispossession, and the rise of global carbon supply and demand. Indigenous peoples around the world have been on the frontlines of conflicts like Standing Rock for centuries. The syllabus foregrounds the work of Indigenous and allied activists and scholars: anthropologists, historians, environmental scientists, and legal scholars, all of whom contribute important insights into the conflicts between Indigenous sovereignty and resource extraction. It can be taught in its entirety, or in sections depending on the pedagogic needs. We hope that it will be used in K-12 school settings, community centers, social justice agencies training organizers, university classrooms, legal defense campaigns, social movement and political education workshops, and in the resistance camps at Standing Rock and other similar standoffs across the globe. As we move forward, we anticipate posting lesson plans on our website that will be derived from individuals and communities using the syllabus in their respective locales.

While our primary goal is to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, we recognize that Standing Rock is one frontline of many around the world. This syllabus can be a tool to access research usually kept behind paywalls, or a resource package for those unfamiliar with Indigenous histories and politics. Please share, add, and discuss using the hashtag #StandingRockSyllabus on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media. Like those on the frontlines, we are here for as long as it takes.

The #StandingRockSyllabus and accompanying PDFs can be found here.

The full story on the syllabus is here.  #StandingRockSyllabus. As Peter D’Errico says:

True to the purpose of digging to the roots of events, “#StandingRockSyllabus places what is happening now in a broader historical, political, economic, and social context going back over 500 years to the first expeditions of Columbus, the founding of the United States on institutionalized slavery, private property, and dispossession, and the rise of global carbon supply and demand. Indigenous peoples around the world have been on the frontlines of conflicts like Standing Rock for centuries.”

Importantly, #StandingRockSyllabus aims for audiences beyond the standard academic world: The authors built it for use “in K-12 school settings, community centers, social justice agencies training organizers, university classrooms, legal defense campaigns, social movement and political education workshops, and in the resistance camps at Standing Rock and other similar standoffs across the globe.”

This is an invaluable opportunity for teachers, please take advantage of it. This is also an invaluable resource and opportunity for those who wish to understand. As this is supposedly Native American Heritage Month (more on that later), spreading this everywhere would be be a great gesture. Lila wopila to all who do. (Many Thanks).

Pence: “Who Cares?”

An Indian man reads news of Trump’s election. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.

An Indian man reads news of Trump’s election. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.

Donald Trump may not be taking his $400,000 presidential salary, but his business meeting this week with Indian real estate developers suggests his company will profit far more just because he’s the president. Asked about this unprecedented conflict of interest Sunday morning on Fox News Sunday, Vice President-Elect Mike Pence shrugged it off, quoting Trump, “Who cares?”

Pence insisted that there would be a “legal” separation between the presidency and the Trump business, but host Chris Wallace pressed that it was more than a legal question. There was no response regarding that conflict. “The President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, is completely focused on the people’s business,” Pence said, “and I promise you and I can assure the public that they’ll have the proper separation from their business enterprise.”

The exact opposite seems to be true. Trump’s meeting with three Indian executives to discuss their partnership with the Trump Organization had nothing to do with the transition. It was not about advancing the American people, but advancing Trump’s profits.

According to interviews some of those execs gave in Indian papers, it had to do with how much more the Trump name is worth now that he’s been elected president. Many of the buildings that bear Trump’s name internationally are not actually owned by his businesses. Generally, his name is licensed by others to inflate their property value. As president, his name is worth more, so Trump stands to make more money from these licensing deals.

[…]

The line between his business and his duties as president is further blurred by the prospect that foreign diplomats might stay at the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C. They could brag to Trump that they stayed there and fed into his profits in an attempt to literally buy his favor and the ability to influence him.

There have been many promises that there will be a separation between Trump’s presidency and his business holdings, but it’s essentially too late for any such promises to be reassuring. He’s continuing to hold meetings related to his business, and his kids, who were supposedly going to run the business without his involvement, are already participating in meetings related to his administration. Given the people in these business meetings already know he’s about to be president, the conflict of interest is already playing out. Trump is leveraging his election to make his company money across the world, and his administration literally doesn’t care.

Full story at Think Progress.

The Trump Investigative Fund.

Resist.

Resist.

There are journalists who are determined to report facts and make a constant effort to disclose the truth. That’s very important right now. Think Progress has started a fund, and if you are able to drop a few pennies, this is a good place to do so.

[Read more…]

Double Plus Ungood News.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.

If you are young, you might not know what “double plus ungood” means. It’s Newspeak, from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It means terrible; very bad. I first read Orwell’s novel when I was in my early teens (I think, it’s all a bit fuzzy these days), and by the time the actual 1984 rolled around, I was 26 years old, and everyone was having fun with jokes about Big Brother and all the rest. Magazine covers all did plays on the novel. People were still optimistic then, and relieved, I think, that Orwell’s novel hadn’t come true. It hadn’t come true in 1984, but it rather looks like we’re heading that way in 2016. Today, I’m 59 years old, and the gift I’d like the most is to have that optimism back.

Friday evening, the Washington Post reported that about 100 foreign diplomats gathered at President-elect Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington, DC to “to sip Trump-branded champagne, dine on sliders and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. president-elect’s newest hotel.” The tour included a look at the hotel’s $20,000 a night “town house” suite. The Post also quoted some of the diplomats saying they intended to stay at the hotel in order to ingratiate themselves to the incoming president.

[…]

The incoming president, in other words, is actively soliciting business from agents of foreign governments. Many of these agents, in turn, said that they will accept the president-elect’s offer to do business because they want to win favor with the new leader of the United States.

In an exclusive exchange with ThinkProgress, Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who previously served as chief ethics counsel to President George W. Bush, says that Trump’s efforts to do business with these diplomats is at odds with a provision of the Constitution intended to prevent foreign states from effectively buying influence with federal officials.

The Constitution’s “Emoluments Clause,” provides that “no person holding any office of profit or trust under” the United States “shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”

The diplomats’ efforts in seek Trump’s favor by staying in his hotel “looks like a gift,” Painter told ThinkProgress in an email, and thus is the very kind of favor the Constitution seeks to prevent.

Emolument. There’s a new one for the vocabulary.

…Assuming that Trump does not divest from his hotel, however, it may prove difficult to enforce the Constitution against him. There are few court cases dealing with the Emoluments Clause. Typically, the country has relied on internal safeguards within the executive branch and fear of political embarrassment to prevent violations by the president. […] There is, however, at least one remedy under the Constitution for such a violation of the public trust by the president: impeachment.

I think we can rule out any fear of political embarrassment on the part of Trump or his appointees. They don’t seem to be capable of such a sense. The possibility of impeachment might get through to one of them, but whether or not it gets through to Trump is a different story, as right now it appears as though he doesn’t understand the slightest thing about politics or government. As I noted in a previous post, It’s becoming increasingly clear that Trump does not plan to work as a president, or to treat the presidency as an actual political office. The full story is at Think Progress, well worth reading. Also see: Government watchdogs demand Trump put business holdings in ‘blind trust’.

[Read more…]

Have Fun, but Don’t Get Lost in Distraction.

1-xbhie71k8cn0qrodgh83dgLike most people, I’ve been having a bit of fun with Trump’s stupidity over Pence’s appearance at Hamilton, but it’s important to not get overwhelmed with this little distraction. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Trump does not plan to work as a president, or to treat the presidency as an actual political office. It would be more to point to change the name of this country to The Corporate Interests of the White One Percent, because that’s what is happening right under our collective nose. He plans to install his relatives into his “team” in spite of nepotism laws; he refuses to deal with his personal assets in the permitted ways; he’s more focused on the shoring up of his failing enterprises than anything else. Trump keeps handing key positions to very frightening people, who are more than willing to commit evil acts. So, sorry for the downer, but it’s important to keep up with what’s happening, rather than allow ourselves to be deluded by the idea that this presidency will just be a silly circus for the next four years. It may well be a silly circus, but it’s going to be a damn dangerous one, too.

Trump has decided on Sessions for Attorney General. Might as well change that to Inquisitor General, it’s much more suitable to Sessions’ inclinations and beliefs, which are frightening as all hells. Back when there was still some sanity in the republican party, they turned Sessions down for a federal judgeship as being too racist and extreme. That happened during the Reagan years. Yep. Starting to get an idea of what life might be like for everyone who is not pasty white? Combine Sessions being AG with Trump’s vow to reinstate stop and frisk. Do your homework on Sessions, because this news is every bit as bad as Bannon being appointed, perhaps worse. Sessions One. Sessions Two. Sessions Three. Sessions thinks anyone who smokes weed should not only be in prison, he thinks they shouldn’t get out. He’s also dead against the commutations of drug sentences President Obama recently signed.

Getting back to the President-elect for a bit, the kissing up is right on schedule, because you just don’t want to offend someone with all that money, right? We’re also marching straight into Kleptocracy, barely got to see Democracy leaving the building.

[Read more…]

Another Standing Rock Waits in the Wings.

Tohono O’odham Elder, second to last on the right in gray shirt. Credit: C. Ford.

Tohono O’odham Elder, second to last on the left in gray shirt. Credit: C. Ford.

Some of you might remember this from one of the many camp posts:

The Tonoho O’odham elder spoke again, about the loss of much of their way of life when they lost the Gila River. He spoke of Roosevelt’s “offer” to move them to Oklahoma (translation: you walk there), and how the people refused, wanting to stay on their own land, and how so many of them died. He spoke of Sihasin, saguaro, who are guardians. He spoke about the insanity of imposed borders where he lives, and the rabid people trying to keep people out. He spoke of a time when there were no artificial borders, and of how often he crosses this border himself, to get water or medicine. He said he is always stopped, but he speaks to people in his language, which they do not understand, and they always let him go. Other people had also spoken of the imposed borders, in the attempt to keep primarily Mexicans out, and pleaded with all tribes to offer people sanctuary, as these borders are not ours.

The Tonoho O’odham elder who was the head of their runners, those of their nation who ran all the way from Arizona to the Oceti Sakowin camp in nDakota, often spoke about the imposed borders his people had to put up with. Their peoples’ land extends past the artificial borders, and they feel free to ignore such impositions, especially when they need to get certain plants, or visit sacred sites. As far as they are concerned, wašichu borders are stupid and meaningless. Now there’s Trump, who plans to build a big old fucking wall, to keep everyone in. Oh, I mean out. The Tonoho O’odham have a different idea.

President-elect Donald Trump says that he will build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. It will stop undocumented immigrants from entering the country. It will stop drugs from entering the country. It will be 50 feet tall. It will be nearly a thousand miles long. And it will cut the traditional lands of the Tohono O’odham Nation of Arizona in half.

The Tohono O’odham reservation is one of the largest in the nation, and occupies area that includes 76 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. However, the tribe’s traditional lands extend deep into Mexico, and tribal members live on both sides of the border: With tribal identification, they cross regularly to visit family, receive medical services, and participate in ceremonial or religious services.

The prospect of slicing their homelands in two? Not welcome.

“Over my dead body will a wall be built,” says Verlon Jose, vice chairperson of the Tohono O’odham Nation. “If he decides to build a wall, he’s going to need to come talk to us, unless he wants to see another Standing Rock.”

In other words, to build the wall, Mr. Trump will have to fight for every single mile of Tohono O’odham land—legally, and possibly even physically.

And they’re not the only tribal nation that would be impacted by the wall.

Robert Holden, deputy director of the National Congress of American Indians, points to the Ysleta Del Sur in Texas and tribes in California, such as the Kumeyaay, who have relatives in Mexico. “There’s significant tribal sovereignty at stake here,” Holden says.

[…]

This doesn’t mean things are peachy down on the Tohono O’odham reservation, though: Tribal members say they are routinely harassed by Border Patrol; cultural and religious items are frequently confiscated; and detentions and deportations of tribal citizens are not uncommon. In 2014, two tribal members were hospitalized after being shot by a Border Patrol agent. The situation has often been compared to a Berlin Wall-like scenario, but the tribe has fought for and maintained the ability to enjoy its traditional homelands—at least more than if a wall were running through the middle of it.

“Let me come into your home and build a wall directly in the middle of your house and tell me what impacts that would have on you?” says Jose. “This land is our grocery store; this land is our medical facility, where we get our medicinal remedies from; this land is our college and university. Our sacred sites are in Mexico; our ceremonies are in what is now Mexico. The border is an imaginary line to us.”

Full story is at YES! Magazine. Also of interest: Norway’s Largest Bank Divests From Dakota Access, Launches Own Investigation and What the Trump Victory Means for Standing Rock.

The White Nationalist Administration.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), talks with reporters as he arrives at Trump Tower, Monday, Nov. 14, 2016, in New York. CREDIT: AP Photo/ Evan Vucci.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), talks with reporters as he arrives at Trump Tower, Monday, Nov. 14, 2016, in New York. CREDIT: AP Photo/ Evan Vucci.

It took a week and a half following the election, but President-elect Donald Trump has finally begun selecting cabinet members. On Friday, he announced that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is his choice for Attorney General. Former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn will be his National Security Adviser.

Jeff Sessions has referred to the 1965 Voting Rights Act as a “piece of intrusive legislation” and reportedly suggested that a white lawyer might be a “disgrace to his race” because he represented black clients. The NAACP routinely gives him an “F” on its congressional scorecard.

Michael Flynn has repeatedly made it clear that he draws no distinction between organizations like ISIS and Islam as a religion. In the past, he has tweeted that fear of Muslims is “RATIONAL” (emphasis his) and that “Arab & Persian world ‘leaders’” must renounce “Islamic ideology.”

There’s much more at Think Progress. Right here is the reason that I think the disparate efforts to oust Bannon fail. Yes, Bannon is bad, seriously bad news. If Bannon was the only problem, I’d be more comfortable with the various attempts to get him out of the cabinet. The problem which needs to be tackled however, is Trump. There is one very slim possibility of seeing him kicked out, and that’s with the electoral college. See here. This is all the more crucial when you pay attention to what’s happening. Trump has one of his children sitting in on a meeting, which is a serious no on more than one level. He’s refused to deal with his assets in the correct way, hand-waving any inquiry to his obvious conflict of interests. He appears to not understand the nepotism laws, but it’s more to point assuming he’s simply choosing to flout them. On top of all that, Trump has appointed the five horsemen of the climate apocalypse.  Here’s a bit from that last article:

Trump, on the other hand, does not believe in the scientific consensus on climate change. He has called climate change a “hoax,” and has vowed to roll back nearly every single climate policy enacted under the Obama administration, from the Clean Power Plan to the Paris climate agreement.

So it should be no surprise that, when it comes to climate change, Trump’s first five advisers also reject the scientific consensus, as well as national security community’s warnings, regarding the dangers of global warming.

[Read more…]

Mni Wiconi: The Stand at Standing Rock.

Courtesy Standing Rock In the midst of federal government deliberations over the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe has released a short film titled “Mni Wiconi: The Stand at Standing Rock.”

Courtesy Standing Rock
In the midst of federal government deliberations over the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe has released a short film titled “Mni Wiconi: The Stand at Standing Rock.”

In the midst of federal government deliberations over the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe has released a short film titled “Mni Wiconi: The Stand at Standing Rock,” a new, eight-minute film exploring the nearly eight-month battle to stop construction of the pipeline on sacred tribal lands.

The short documentary can be viewed on Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Facebook page or website.

[…]

The Standing Rock’s Facebook page states the following requests:

We are asking dozens of individuals and groups to share a new short film, found here:Facebook or website.

Please share with all your followers – Facebook or website – so people around the world understand the gross injustice taking place against the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota.

We need to keep the pressure on President Obama. He might be our last hope.

Here are a series of potential social media posts the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is suggesting readers share:

#StandwithStandingRock – Watch and share this new short film – Facebook or website– about the tribe’s fight against energy development and injustice. #NoDAPL

Ask President @BarackObama to deny the easement! Call Obama at 202-456-1111. #StandwithStandingRock #NoDAPL

Mni Wiconi, Water is life. Tell Obama DENY the easement by calling 202-456-1111. #StandwithStandingRock

Watch this story about why it’s critical we #StandwithStandingRock. Obama MUST deny the easement now. #NoDAPL

We all #StandWithStandingRock. The time is NOW to say #NoDAPL. Call Obama at 202-456-1111.

No more delays, no more excuses. Get on the right side of history and say #NoDAPL. Deny the easement! #WaterIsLife

Here are links to share:

https://www.facebook.com/Standing-Rock-Sioux-Tribe-402298239798452/?fref=nf

http://standwithstandingrock.net/mni-wiconi/

Learn more about the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe at standwithstandingrock.net. For ongoing updates, please follow our Facebook page at Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Full story at ICTMN.

Highly recommended reading: To Brave White People: Be Braver. * A Few Thoughts on The Election and What President Trump Means for Indian Country.

Ur-Facism.

Ground Zero Media.

Ground Zero Media.

Dave Futrelle has an excellent post about our current state of fascism. It’s based on Umberto Eco’s essay on Ur-fascism, or Eternal Fascism. In the essay, Eco writes about the 14 point checklist of fascism, and it’s rather obvious we can tick them all off. If you want the short form, click over to Dave’s post, complete with examples from Trump and his followers, or you can go straight to Umberto Eco’s essay. They both need to be read, and taken seriously.