Britain: Human Rights, Just Vexatious Claims.

British Prime Minister Theresa May. AFP.

British Prime Minister Theresa May. AFP.

London (dpa) – The British government on Tuesday announced measures to end “vexatious” claims against its troops, saying it planned to remove the application of European human rights law to future conflicts.

“Over the past decade a series of court judgments have extended the extra-territorial jurisdiction of the European Convention on Human Rights to the battlefield,” the government said in a statement.

Exempting British troops from the human rights convention will protect them “from the kind of persistent legal claims that have followed recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on an industrial scale,” it said.

“It will help to protect our troops from vexatious claims, ensuring they can confidently take difficult decisions on the battlefield,” Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said.

Fallon said the change will allow Britain “to spend more of our growing defence budget on equipment for them rather than fees for lawyers.”

“Combined with the biggest defence budget in Europe, the action we are laying out today means we will continue to play our part on the world stage, protecting UK interests across the globe,” Prime Minister Theresa May said.

Opting out of human rights during war. Why is this an “opt out” situation? Soldiers, regardless of what side of anything they find themselves on, often commit despicable acts, that’s hardly any sort of secret. There has to be some way to stop full scale despicable acts, at the very least, acknowledging that everyone on a field is human, and has fundamental rights is one small way to keep people accountable, but now it’s opt out. I am appalled.

Via Raw Story.

Ride Against the Current of the Oil.

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Honorearth.org

Honorearth.org

Ride for Our Sacred Water – STOP Dakota Access!

From October 8-13, Honor the Earth is proud to join forces with the Wounded Knee Memorial Riders, the Dakota 38 and Big Foot riders, and many horse nation societies, in a spiritual horse ride to protect our sacred waters from the Dakota Access pipeline and all the black snakes that threaten our lands.

Thousands have come together in a historic gathering of tribes at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers, where Dakota Access threatens a concentration sacred sites and the water source of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, as well as the 18 million people downstream.

This is our moment. Tribes and First Nations are standing up and standing together to demand an end to the desecration of our lands and the poisoning of our sacred waters…to demand a better future for our people. We are the river, and the river is us.

On October 8th we will gather at the Standing Rock encampment, and ride against the current of the oil.

Please stand with us. We need your support.  For more info, visit www.honorearth.org/mniwiconi

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about that Standing Rock to Tioga, it means Tioga, ND, which styles itself as ‘The Oil Capital of North Dakota’.

This reminds me of another embarrassing white person moment at the camps last week. The Dakota 38 were expected, and we were hoping to see them. A white woman laughed and shrugged, saying “I mean, I don’t even know what that is. What is the Dakota 38.” Yeah, okay, I know the ‘history’ taught in uStates is a whitewashed mess, but still…

Even if you’re just a solidarity tourist, try to not only be respectful, but try to learn. Aaaand, this is the internet age, how hard is it? The Dakota 38, the largest mass execution in the history of the United States. A criminal injustice, perpetrated in Mankato, Minnesota.

20101222_dakota-hanging1_33

Tipi-hdo-niche, Forbids His Dwelling

Wyata-tonwan, His People

Taju-xa, Red Otter

Hinhan-shoon-koyag-mani, Walks Clothed in an Owl’s Tail

Maza-bomidu, Iron Blower

Wapa-duta, Scarlet Leaf

Wahena, translation unknown

Sna-mani, Tinkling Walker

Radapinyanke, Rattling Runner

Dowan niye, The Singer

Xunka ska, White Dog

Hepan, family name for a second son

Tunkan icha ta mani, Walks With His Grandfather

Ite duta, Scarlet Face

Amdacha, Broken to Pieces

Hepidan, family name for a third son

Marpiya te najin, Stands on a Cloud (Cut Nose)

Henry Milord (French mixed-blood)

Dan Little, Chaska dan, family name for a first son (this may be We-chank-wash-ta-don-pee, who had been pardoned and was mistakenly executed when he answered to a call for “Chaska,” reference to a first son; fabric artist Gwen Westerman did a quilt called “Caske’s Pardon” based on him.

Baptiste Campbell, (French mixed-blood)

Tate kage, Wind Maker

Hapinkpa, Tip of the Horn

Hypolite Auge (French mixed-blood)

Nape shuha, Does Not Flee

Wakan tanka, Great Spirit

Tunkan koyag I najin, Stands Clothed with His Grandfather

Maka te najin, Stands Upon Earth

Pazi kuta mani, Walks Prepared to Shoot

Tate hdo dan, Wind Comes Back

Waxicun na, Little Whiteman (this young white man, adopted by the Dakota at an early age and who was acquitted, was hanged, according to the Minnesota Historical Society U.S.-Dakota War website).

Aichaga, To Grow Upon

Ho tan inku, Voice Heard in Returning

Cetan hunka, The Parent Hawk

Had hin hda, To Make a Rattling Noise

Chanka hdo, Near the Woods

Oyate tonwan, The Coming People

Mehu we mea, He Comes for Me

Wakinyan na, Little Thunder

Wakanozanzan and Shakopee: These two chiefs who fled north after the war, were kidnapped from Canada in January 1864 and were tried and convicted in November that year and their executions were approved by President Andrew Johnson (after Lincoln’s assassination) and they were hanged November 11, 1865.

You can read more about the Dakota 38 + 2 here and here. Also, here.

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Ronald Reagan. Whitehouse.gov

Ronald Reagan. Whitehouse.gov

With just eight months to go before the end of his two-term presidency, Ronald Wilson Reagan declared that the United States might have “made a mistake” in humoring the Indians.

His audience was a group of students and faculty at Moscow State University in May 1988. His speech was delivered nearly 5,000 miles from Washington, D.C., yet a group of Native Americans reportedly had traveled to the Soviet Union for a chance to bend the President’s ear.

When questioned about his failure to connect with the Indians on home soil, Reagan opined about the state of Indian affairs—and in the process revealed a gaping hole in his own understanding.

“Let me tell you just a little something about the American Indian in our land,” he began. “We have provided millions of acres of land” for reservations, and “they, from the beginning, announced that they wanted to maintain their way of life.”

The government set up reservations, established a Bureau of Indian Affairs and provided education for the Indians, Reagan said. Yet some still preferred “that early way of life” over becoming mainstream American citizens.

“We’ve done everything we can to meet their demands as to how they want to live,” he said. “Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we should not have humored them in that wanting to stay in that kind of primitive lifestyle. Maybe we should have said, no, come join us; be citizens along with the rest of us.”

[Read more…]

Stand with Standing Rock.

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Winona LaDuke has an excellent column up at ICTMN, and an excellent article in Yes! too, What Would Sitting Bull Do? 

Excerpts here, please, click and read the full stories.

[…] There is more than just a $3.9 billion pipeline at stake here. This is about constitutional rights, and human rights. This time, instead of the Seventh Cavalry, or Indian police dispatched to assassinate Sitting Bull, Governor Dalrymple seeks to spend over $7.8 million militarizing the state to put down the Lakota and their allies. This is not going to happen. We are a strong and principled people. As of today, 69 people have been arrested, including Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II and Councilmember Dana Yellowfat. The people have physically stopped construction for weeks. And the battle is just beginning. I am watching history repeat itself, and wondering how badly Dalrymple really wants that pipeline.

[…]

This is our plan: Three of Honor the Earth’s primary staff have essentially moved to Standing Rock to support the frontlines and ensure a multi-dimensional campaign. We continue to provide legal strategies and counsel, and campaign coordination. And we continue to work on the future. This tribe does not need a new pipeline, they need energy infrastructure that actually serves its people. After all, three years ago Debbie Dogskin, a Standing Rock resident, froze to death because she could not pay her propane bill. That is the reality here.

With an 85% drop in active oil rigs in the Bakken oil fields, there is no need for this pipeline. It is a pipeline from nowhere. Here’s what true energy independence would look like: With $3.9 billion equally divided, we could install 65,000 typical 5kw residential rooftop PV systems, each supplying about half of the home’s electricity needs; install 325 2MW utility scale wind towers that would generate over 3.5 billion kwh per year; and provide 160,000 homes with $8000 efficiency retrofit packages, saving $300/yr/home. That would produce jobs, most of them local.

We are supporting Standing Rock as they fight this pipeline, but we are also helping to create a new future. We plan to install 20 solar thermal panels on tribal houses at Standing Rock, beginning to address fuel poverty on the reservation.

Via ICTMN.

Bigotry and Violence: Hey, It’s for the Laughs!

via WCPO.

via WCPO.

he small town of Aurora, Indiana is in an uproar after a local man entered a float in the annual Farmers Fair Parade depicting Hillary Clinton sitting in an electric chair with rival Donald Trump about to pull the switch.

According the creator of the float, which also featured a grim reaper and an Easter Island moai head in blackface labeled “Obama,” he entered it in an effort to get laughs, reports WCPO.

“It definitely was all for laughter. We’ve always had floats for laughter,” explained 76-year-old Frank Linkmeyer. “There’s never been anything else but that,” while denying there was anything racist about his creation.

Okay, fine, leave the racism out, Mr. Linkmeyer. The violence and misogyny, that’s funny? I’m amazed you made it to 76 years old without learning one damn thing.

According to one woman who was marching in the parade with her daughter’s Girl Scout group, she didn’t find anything about it funny.

“For us to be in 2016 and have our president depicted as an Easter Island statue in blackface, which doesn’t even make any sense, but it’s just racist as can be,” explained Jackie Reynolds. ““But knowing that we are marching alongside displays like this really makes me question whether or not we will be participating next year.”

Said local Penny Britton, who didn’t attend the parade but saw pictures of the float after they were posted to Facebook, it was “disgusting.”

“It instantly turned my stomach,” Britton stated. “One of the pictures shows children seeing the float go by and staring at it.”

In a statement from the Lions Club, which approves the floats, officials kept their distance stating, “the parade is a public venue which does not reflect the views of the Aurora Lions Club. As a member of a worldwide service organization, we are proud and standby our record of service to this community.”

As for float designer Linkmeyer, he said he could have reversed Trump and Clinton, saying, “I could’ve taken and put Donald Trump in that float and had Hillary pull the handle. Nevertheless, I would have never pleased everybody and it was definitely all for laughter.”

Linkmeyer did not explain how that would have meshed with the Trump/Pence or hand-written signs listing so-called Clinton “scandals.”

As for the Obama statue in blackface, “We were getting ready to get in that parade and this thing was sittin’ in front of this gentleman’s building down there and they said, ‘Let’s put that on there,’ and I didn’t give it a thought,” he attempted to explain.

Didn’t give it any thought. Gee, I think we’ve diagnosed your problem, you vile bigot – you don’t think.

The float was part of the Aurora Farmers Fair Parade Saturday morning in the small Ohio River town 35 miles west of Cincinnati. It’s sponsored by the Aurora Lions Club, according to its website, and touted as Indiana’s oldest street festival. The theme of the parade was “Celebrating the Past, Embracing the Future.”

According to the Rules & Regulation on the website, Fair officials “reserve the right to reject or evict any entry from the parade line-up that they deem unsuitable.”

So, this inhumanity float got by everyone as suitable. For someone who commented (See WCPO) that it was no big deal, there are good and bad people, and as long as you don’t hang out with racists, it’s all good. To that person, I’m just going to point out that you are hanging out with racists. Another person wanted to know where the racism and sexism was in the picture. Some days, I just don’t have much hope.

Via WCPO and Raw Story.

A Look at the U.S. Claim to Oceti Sakowin.

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© Marty Two Bulls.

Steven Newcomb has an excellent column up at ICTMN, examining the claim to Očeti Sakowiŋ.

We are able to think back to a time when our ancestors were living entirely free from and independent of ideas developed across the Atlantic Ocean in a place called Christendom. We know that our Native ancestors were in no way subject to Christian ideas before the Christians sailed across that ocean to our part of the world, which many of us know as Turtle Island. Because the Christian Europeans were not physically here on Turtle Island, their concepts, ideas, and arguments were not here either. This leaves us with a mystery. On what basis did the invading colonizers first assume that our free nations and our ancestors were subject to the ideas and arguments of the Christian world? To what extent are those ideas still being used today centuries later by the United States?

In his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, published in 1833, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story asked a related question. He asked how the British Colonies got title to the soil of the North American continent. His question not only assumed that the British colonies had title to the soil of the continent, it also assumed, as Story said, that the colonizing powers obtained a “title” by their own “assertion” that they had a “complete title” to and “absolute dominion” over the soil of what from our ancestors’ perspective was the soil of our national territories. Story traced those ideas back to a papal bull of the fifteenth century and to royal charters of England and Great Britain.

Most people fail to realize that men such as Joseph Story and John Marshall spent a great deal of their time thinking about such matters. They did so because they had to develop a rationale for asserting that the Christian colonizers from Europe had a right to the soil of the continent that was superior to whatever right our original nations and our ancestors thought they had. Men of ideas such as Story and Marshall, whose job it was to persuade, undoubtedly knew there was a slight chance that someday in the distant future, we, the descendants of our Native ancestors, might try to go back through the record of the ideas of the colonizers and trace their mental “steps.”

A few of us have been working for decades on that retrospective with the goal in mind of not only understanding but of also now at long last directly challenging the ideas and arguments that were “laid down” by the ancestors of the colonizing society who sailed to Turtle Island from Western Christendom.

Based on decades of intensive and diligent research, we now know that the Christian European thinkers dreamed up out of their heads the idea that the representatives of Christendom could enter someone else’s country and mentally, verbally, and ceremonially make the assertion that the monarch they represented had an “absolute dominion” over the country they had located by ship. They further assumed that their mental, verbal, and ceremonial assertion would become “true” because the Christian thinkers dreamed it up in their minds and treated it as “true” thereby sustaining it over time.

The idea that they as colonizers had a complete title to and absolute dominion over the soil of the territories of our Original Nations, a point that Story, Marshall, and other white men claimed on behalf of the United States, became “true” and a “reality” for the colonizers and for the United States simply because those ideas were collectively treated as “true” and as a “reality.” Since this was all happening in the colonizers’ own language at the time, when such assertions were initially made, our ancestors had no understanding of the specific nature of the colonizers’ bizarre views. Some of our ancestors such as Tecumseh did try to challenge the colonizers’ thinking based on the original free existence of our nations.

The recent controversy over the Dakota Access Pipeline traces back to that process of reality-construction and the ability of the United States government to simply declare a given reality into existence. But there is something rather surprising in the historical record that most people know nothing about. It is surprising because it is language that still ought to be benefiting Native nations. …

The full column is here, and it’s excellent reading.

Trump: Oh, Poor Churches, So Mistreated!

Cult-of-Trump-4Well, Trump continues to find ways to dig even deeper into the very worst things that could possibly happen to the States. Separation of church and state? Nonsense! It’s beyond fucking irritating how much these clowns hold up the constitution as if it were holy writ, then turn right around and plan to gut it at their convenience.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested on Monday that he would end the IRS prohibition on churches participating in partisan political campaigns.

While speaking to veterans in Herndon, Virginia, an attendee complained that military officials had been banned from evangelizing Christianity.

“The Obama administration had deliberately set out to take the Christian religion out of the military,” the man told Trump. “How will you and your administration combat these attacks on military religious freedom of expression?”

Agreeing with the questioner, Trump expanded his answer to include the so-called “Johnson Amendment,” a law which prevents churches with tax-exempt status from promoting partisan political agendas.

The candidate griped that the law prevented a group of 50 conservative pastors from endorsing him from the pulpit.

“We’re going to get rid of the Johnson Amendment,” Trump promised. “Because they are stopping you and our great people from talking.”

Event moderator Tony Perkins noted that he recently sent one of his political sermons to the IRS “because it would be good for them to hear the gospel.”

“That is a terrible situation,” Trump replied. “They can say, ‘We don’t like the way you’re speaking about Christianity or about God. We don’t like what you just said and we’re going to take away your tax-exempt status.’”

“It’s a very sad thing,” he concluded.

I think Trump and Christian assholes who have a driving need to control everyone else are sad. Pathetic. And I seriously wish they would all retire to their gilded rooms and mind their own damn business.

Via Raw Story.

Charles Blow Gets Blunt.

Charles Blow.

Charles Blow.

Charles Blow has something to say about Donald Trump, and I don’t think one word could possibly be said better. Just a bit here, click over the full, glorious read.

Donald Trump is a domestic terrorist; only his form of terror doesn’t boil down to blowing things up. He’s the 70-year-old toddler who knows nearly nothing, hurls insults, has simplistic solutions for complex problems and is quick to throw a tantrum. Also, in case you didn’t know it, this toddler is mean to girls and is a bit of a bigot.

It isn’t so much that he is a strict disciple of radical ideology, but rather that he is devoid of fixed principles, willing to do anything and everything to gain fame, fortune and power. He has an endless, consuming need for perpetual affirmation. This is a bully who just wants to be liked, a man-boy nursing a nagging internal emptiness.

He’s fickle and spoiled and rotten.

So, when he loses at something, anything, he lashes out. When someone chastises him for bad behavior, he chafes. This is the kind of silver-spoon scion quick to yell at those he views as less privileged, and therefore less-than, “Do you know who I am?”

We do now, sir.

[…]

This is the kind of childish person who, when losing, flips over the board and yells insults at his family, rather than learning from the loss so that he can get better and be in a stronger position to win the next time.

This man is a brat whose money has stunted his maturation.

He shouldn’t be ushered into the White House; he should be laughed into hiding. His querulous nature shouldn’t be coddled; it should be crushed.

America is in need of a leader, not a puerile, sophomoric sniveler who is too easily baited and grossly ill-behaved.

Go to your gilded room, Donald. The adults need to pick a president.

Whew. Full column at The NY Times.

Black Lives Matter.

A Black Lives Matter demonstrator (Shuttershock)

A Black Lives Matter demonstrator (Shuttershock)

Have a wander over to http://blacklivesmatter1.com/ – you can keep up with the latest news, and help out a bit by becoming a member, donating, or just spreading the word. And don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter. Everyone who reads here should know the importance of signal boosting, can’t stop the signal!

Solidarity from the South.

Left to Right: Eriberto Gualinga (Sarayaku), Franco Viteri (Sarayaku), Kandi Mossett (IEN), David Archambault II (Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman), Nina Gualinga (Sarayaku), and Leo Cerda (Kichwa, on Amazon Watch staff). Courtesy Josue Rivas/Indigenous Rising.

Left to Right: Eriberto Gualinga (Sarayaku), Franco Viteri (Sarayaku), Kandi Mossett (IEN), David Archambault II (Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman), Nina Gualinga (Sarayaku), and Leo Cerda (Kichwa, on Amazon Watch staff). Courtesy Josue Rivas/Indigenous Rising.

Indigenous leaders from Ecuador joined the protectors at Standing Rock recently to show solidarity and share information, as their community has had some victories against oil companies and politicians in the past few years.

[…]

In an interview on September 14, Viteri explained the reasons for the visit and outlined the connections between indigenous communities in the north and south. News of the struggle at Standing Rock had reached them, and Viteri and his group had been selected by the Sarayaku communities to “stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters,” the veteran activist and leader said.

“We came from the Amazon jungle with a message of strength and solidarity for the Sioux,” Viteri said. “My people are very conscious, because of our history and our tradition, just like the tribes here, of our connection with nature, with Mother Earth; we know that this is what gives balance to life here on Earth. The transnational corporations, like those trying to build this oil pipeline, are blind because they don’t understand the language of nature.”

Viteri noted that his Kichwa community had been in contact with other tribes in the U.S. before, but not with the Standing Rock Sioux. He also pointed out that he had seen other indigenous people from Latin America at the camp, and recalled that he had spoken with a few from Honduras, Peru and El Salvador. Another Amazonian indigenous community from Ecuador will be coming, Viteri said. He closed the interview with a message for the protectors at Standing Rock and others throughout North America.

“In the name of all the children, elders, women, the birds, the large and small animals that depend on water to survive, the Kichwa people extend a greeting,” he said, “a sacred greeting of respect for nature and for the life of all the peoples of the North, because we know that if water is destroyed, life on Earth will end.”

Rick Kearns at ICTMN has the full story.

Standing Rock Camp: The Bad.

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Okay, this is the 2nd part of being back at Očeti Sakowiŋ camp on Wednesday, the 28th September. First part is here. The photos are full size, click for readability. It took a considerable amount of restraint to stop myself from titling this post: White People, Please, Sit Down and Shut Up. As I have mentioned before, many times, you’d never know I was any part Indian going by looks. I’m quite white, and and right now, I’d be happier if I dyed myself purple or something, anything to be dissociated from the behaviour on the part of some white people at the camp. Standard Disclaimer: there are a lot of white folks at the camps who are terrific people, helping out, and being a good and important part of the community. Unfortunately, this does not mitigate the behaviour of other white people.

The rules, detailed above, have been in place, but they are now written out and emphasised throughout the camps, and still, white people are managing to be utterly oblivious, and continue to break them, because, well, those rules, they can’t mean me, right? Yes, they mean you, oh great white crunchy saviours.

It’s no secret that a good amount of young white people flocked to the Red Warrior camp early on, months ago. That’s fine, but white people, you really, seriously need to sit down, shut the fuck up, listen, learn, pay attention, and figure out how respect works. Respect is not something which is owed only to white people.

There were even more young blonde women in camp, sporting dreadlocks. Perhaps that’s some sort of attempted connection to Celtic roots, I don’t know, but many of these young women were waltzing about the communal area in full privilege blindness, seeming to think this was a crunchy white person nature camp. It isn’t. It’s not considered terribly respectful to walk around the communal area with one breast exposed because your two year old child might want a drink, either. A tiny bit of sense can go a very long way. A lot of young white people are duly fired up about issues, and that’s fine, but where is your respect for doing things the Indigenous way? These same young white people are continually advocating for going out to the DA work sites and protesting in a decidedly non-Indigenous manner. They talk constantly about going up to “the front lines”.

That happened while we were there on Wednesday morning. Much agitation about going out to the “front lines”. A whole lot of young people went out, and they didn’t come back. They were all arrested, with one exception. One of the very crunchy, “nature camp” young women, white, took the open mic and was trying to explain the arrests, and what happened, then backtracked to why she was there, speaking. She had taken her toddler with her, and said she was about to be arrested when she brought her child out, and asked what would happen to her. The cops decided to let her go, rather than place her child in the system, since she’s not from here. As she was saying all this, a furious young Native woman, standing by the rule boards in the first photo, slammed her hand down on the appropriate place on the board, and yelled at her for taking her small child, and not paying attention to the rules. The young crunchy woman muttered something, dropped the mic and took off. To say that white people need a lesson in figuring out respect is an understatement, to say the least. This is not your nature camp, and any retaliation won’t land on you, it will land on the people who live here. We don’t need white leaders, we don’t need white saviours, and we don’t need the damn near impenetrable shield of obliviousness so many white people walk around with.

After the arrests, Phyllis Young had something to say. She started out by saying she was going to go easy this time, apparently, the day before, she had been absolutely infuriated by all the front line talk and more. In particular, she seriously dislikes front lines. I agree with her, front lines is a term of war. Ms. Young talked about understanding warmongering, she was a warmonger in her youth, she was at Wounded Knee in the ’70s. That’s not what is happening here and now though, or at least, it’s not what is supposed to be happening here and now. Ms. Young talked about white people playing saviour, and that in doing so, they had only one frame of reference, that of war. The collective memory of white America is nothing but war. There’s nothing else. This is not in any way helpful to all the people at the camps, it is not in any way helpful to all those who actually live here, and who will have to live with the consequences of stupid actions. Ms. Young wanted to know who was going to come up with the bail money, who was going to get everyone out of jail. Who was going to pay the court costs, the fines that will be imposed. I’m willing to bet it won’t be the wannabe white saviours. There’s also the issue of young Native people ending up with a criminal record. White people might consider that some sort of badge of honour, but need to remember they are white. A record won’t impact them nearly to the same extent it will affect a person of colour, especially a person of colour living on a reservation. FFS, is it all that much to ask white people to bloody think?

There have also been pro-pipeline infiltrators in the camps, white people, natch. Again, there’s some young white person agitating, talking about needing to go out to the “front lines” and setting up a time and place. A second person sits up on a hill with a telescope, and informs the cops of the destination. The cops get there first, everyone gets arrested, and no one makes it back to camp. As I mentioned in the first part, the presence of cops has been seriously amped up, and they have a monster mobile command center just past the turn off to Sacred Stone Camp. They have militarized vehicles, SWAT, and are running around with assault rifles. Indigenous people know we cannot afford to make this a war, cops and others are just waiting for an excuse. White people may see all that as a challenge, but that’s entirely the wrong point of view to have at the camp.

In conclusion, white people, please, I fucking beg of you, stop. Just fucking stop. Sit down. Listen. Learn. Pay attention to the rules. Understand that you are an ally, but also understand that you have no particular stake in what happens at Standing Rock. After this, you get to go home and pat yourself on the back for being a “good” white person. Before you deliver that pat, it would be useful to figure out what constitutes a good white person, a good ally. Understand that it is not your camp. Understand that this is not a war, and it’s certainly not up to you to make it one. Understand that you are not a saviour of any kind, nor are saviours being sought. Understand that you are still thinking in a completely colonial way. Understand that colonialism got us into this situation, it won’t help get us out. Learn respect. And please, stop being so damn embarrassing.

For all you wonderful people who are making things or have things to send, this is where:

For those of you who have things to send, this is where:

SHIP TO:

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
attn: Johnelle Leingang
North Standing Rock Ave
Fort Yates, North Dakota, 58538

Much, much, much love, thanks, and appreciation. It might be a small thing to you, but it’s in no way small at all, your generosity and love shines through.

Indigenous News Round-up.

plastic

The Immortal Mr. Plastic.

Excerpts only, click links for full articles.

barack_obama On My Final White House Tribal Nations Conference, by President Barack Obama:

This week, I hosted my eighth and final White House Tribal Nations Conference as President, a tradition we started in 2009 to create a platform for people across many tribes to be heard. It was a remarkable testament to how far we’ve come.

It was just eight years ago when I visited the Crow Nation in Montana and made a promise to Indian country to be a partner in a true nation-to-nation relationship, so that we could give all of our children the future they deserve.

winonaladuke-e1336873224811  Slow, Clean, Good Food, by Winona LaDuke:

In an impressive fossil fuels travel day, I left the Standing Rock reservation and flew to Italy for the International Slow Food gathering known as Terra Madre. A world congress of harvesters, farmers, chefs and political leaders, this is basically the World Food Olympics. This is my fifth trip to Italy for Slow Food. I first went with Margaret Smith, when the White Earth Land Recovery Project won the Slow Food Award for Biodiversity in 2003, for our work to protect wild rice from genetic engineering. This year, I went as a part of the Turtle Island Slow Food Association- the first Indigenous Slow Food members in the world, a delegation over 30 representing Indigenous people from North American and the Pacific. We have some remarkable leaders, they are young and committed.

It is a moment in history for food, as we watch the largest corporate merger in history- Bayer Chemical’s purchase of Monsanto for $66 billion; with “crop protection chemicals” that kill weeds, bugs and fungus, seeds, and (likely to be banned in Europe) glyphosate, aka Roundup. Sometimes I just have to ask: ‘Just how big do you all need to be, to be happy?’

tribal_chairman_jeff_l-_grubbe_agua_caliente_band_of_cahuilla_indians_main_0  Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Donates $250,000 to Standing Rock Legal Fund:

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians is donating $250,000 to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s legal fund, citing the need to keep pushing for proper consultation even after the Dakota Access oil pipeline issue is decided.

“We support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s effort to ensure the United States Army Corps of Engineers, or any other agency or department of the United States, strictly adheres to federal environmental review and tribal consultation requirements prior to authorizing any projects that may damage the environment or any sites that are of historic, religious, and cultural significance to any Indian tribe,” said Agua Caliente Chairman Jeff L. Grubbe in a statement on September 27, calling on President Barack Obama to make sure consultation is thorough.

3-fiesta-protest-woman-with-sign_dsc0508_widea  Natives Speak Out Against the Santa Fe Fiesta – The Bloodless Reconquest:

A loud group of about 50 mostly Native protesters disrupted the Entrada kickoff event of the Fiestas de Santa Fe. This is the annual reenactment of Don Diego de Vargas’s “peaceful reconquest” of Santa Fe in 1692 as produced by Caballeros de Vargas, a group which is a member of the Fiesta Council, and several current and past City of Santa Fe Councilors are members of the Fiesta Council or played parts in the Entrada over the years. So these are layers you must wade through when people ask questions and protesters demand changes. And changes or outright abolishment of The Entrada are what the groups “The Red Nation” and “In The Spirit of Popay” are asking for.

climate_news_network-binoculars-flickr-aniket_suryavanshi  Dire Climate Impacts Go Unheeded:

The social and economic impacts of climate change have already begun to take their toll—but most people do not yet know this.

Politicians and economists have yet to work out how and when it would be best to adapt to change. And biologists say they cannot even begin to measure climate change’s effect on biodiversity because there is not enough information.

Two studies in Science journal address the future. The first points out that historical temperature increases depress maize crop yields in the U.S. by 48 percent and have already driven up the rates of civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa by 11 percent.

big-pix-rick-bartow-counting-the-hours ‘Counting the Hours’ By Rick Bartow:

Rick Bartow, a member of the Mad River Band of Wiyot, walked on April 2, 2016, and had suffered two strokes before he passed. The IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts reports that those events affected his work, and it can be seen in his collection as “exciting examples of Bartow’s production since his stroke… that evidence a new freedom of scale and expression.”

Born in Oregon in 1946, Bartow was never formally trained in the arts, though his artistic nature was encouraged and he did graduate from Western Oregon University with a degree in secondary arts education in 1969. Right after that he served in Vietnam from 1969-1971, and it was demons from that war that he spent his early years in art exorcising. He says he was “twisted” after Vietnam and his art can be described as disturbing, surreal, intense, and visionary; even transformative.

harney_peak_renamed_black_hills_peak_-_ap_photo  Celebration of Forgiveness at Black Elk Peak:

On a recent Autumn Saturday in the Black Hills, a handful of men and women gathered at around 9 a.m. at the Sylvan Lake trailhead just below Black Elk Peak. By 10 a.m., they numbered close to 80.

“The focal point of our gathering was to have family members of General Harney have an opportunity to apologize to members of the Little Thunder family,” said Basil Brave Heart, Oglala Lakota, an organizer of the event. Brave Heart initiated and led the effort to change the name of this highest peak east of the Rocky Mountains from Harney Peak to Black Elk Peak.

Among those standing in a circle that morning was Paul Stover Soderman, a seventh-generation descendant of General William Harney, known as The Butcher of Ash Hollow, and to the Lakota as the architect of the same conflict, known to them as the Massacre at Blue Water Creek. Soderman had come to apologize to Sicangu descendants of Chief Little Thunder, the Brule leader of those murdered in that conflict, and to seek forgiveness and healing.

All this and much more at ICTMN.

Facebook, Oh Facebook X.

Dan Johnson (WDRB).

Dan Johnson (WDRB).

The claims of “I’m not a racist, I’m not!” are emanating from yet another white politician, who seems to think that monkey jokes about the President and the First Lady are just knee smackin’ hilarious. These are being defended as “scrutiny”. There’s a near fatal eyeroll. I think this asspimple should be scrutinized right out of office and into obscurity.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A candidate for Kentucky’s state House is making no apologies for shocking images found on his Facebook page.

Dan Johnson is a Republican challenging an incumbent Democrat in the 49th district, which includes much of Bullitt County.

He is also bishop of the Heart of Fire Church in southeast Louisville.

“I love America. I love people. I believe red, yellow, black and white, all are precious in God’s sight. I’m not a racist,” Johnson told WDRB News.

His church sign reads, “Jesus and this church are not politically correct.”

As WDRB found, neither is Johnson’s Facebook page.

“Well, I’d like to know first off, what images that are being considered offensive,” Johnson said.

WDRB’s Lawrence Smith showed him printouts of images he’s either posted or shared, such as a photo of a chimpanzee, labeled as a baby picture of President Barack Obama.

Another image had ape-like features photo-shopped onto pictures of the Obama family.

“It wasn’t meant to be racist. I can tell you that. My history’s good there. I can see how people would be offended in that. I wasn’t trying to offend anybody, but, I think Facebook’s entertaining,” Johnson said.

When pressed, Johnson would not acknowledge that the images crossed the line. He calls it satire.

“I looked this up. There has been no president that hasn’t had that scrutiny. Not one. I think it would be racist not to do the same for President Obama as we’ve done for every other president.”

Johnson’s Facebook page also contains numerous images of the confederate flag.

“That flag was for state rights. The reason it is under attack now is we’re being attacked as state rights and constitutionalists. We are being attacked,” Johnson said.

There are also a number of anti-Islam posts, such as one calling for states to ban Islam.

“My thing for Islam, if you want to be in America, be an American. The thing about all religions in America, they don’t oppose America or want to destroy America, or some way or another get us to take on another law, like Sharia law. I hate that,” he said.

Johnson says if the Facebook images cost him votes in November, so be it. He is not apologetic.

“I want to be myself. I would rather be myself than be elected as state representative of the 49th.

Let’s examine this remarkable case of non-racism:

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Looks like the poisonous output of a repellent bigot to me.

Via WDRB.