Sacred Gifts

Mohawk: A racist doctrine ensures racist behavior
by John Mohawk /
Indian Country Today
March 24, 2006

No one dares say anything negative about Jewish people, even if the comment is true or partly true. When Steven Spielberg directed a movie on the reaction to the murders of Israeli athletes in Munich more than 30 years ago, commentators like neo-conservative ideologue Charles Krauthammer complained that Spielberg had sided with the Palestinians, which is a no-no.

Spielberg was criticized even though his movie is not remotely racist. Others have had their careers destroyed, and recently a historian who denied the reality of the Holocaust (a bigoted position, no doubt) actually went to jail. And no one dares say anything negative about black people, lest they face (often legitimate) charges of racism. And check out Larry Summers, the obnoxious president of Harvard who ended up resigning following, among other ill-fated remarks, expressions of female biological limitations regarding certain academic disciplines.

OK, so you have to be careful when talking about women, blacks and people of Jewish heritage. There is, for those bigots who need a cause and would like to vent some racist venom, one group upon which it is perpetually open season: indigenous peoples, aka Indians! You can, apparently, make racist remarks about them at will and there will be little or no outcry. This tendency is so ingrained in the culture that people don't even recognize racist remarks when they are directed at Indians! They're a freebie! There are at least two reasons for this. The first is a stain on the American culture. Racist remarks about American Indians are part of the American consensus about Indians, a consensus which is at the center of the fabric of American culture but which today is inadequately challenged.

The first has to do with the mythology, the founding myth, of America. Long ago, American historians generally reached a consensus by which they promoted as fact stories that were both inaccurate and mythological in purpose. The myth goes all the way back to the debates in the Spanish colonies between Juan Gines de Sepulveda and Bartolome de las Casas.

Sepulveda is the ''father of modern racism'' who claimed that the Spanish were entitled to benefit from colonization of the Indians because of the supposed virtues of the Spanish and the sins and other deficiencies of the Indians. The first was that the Spanish offered to the Indians the benefits of Spanish ''civilization,'' a term which those who used it assumed that those who heard it would understand to designate an entitlement. The Spanish adorned themselves with the mantle of ''civilization.'' (Forget about the origins of the word and its connection to cities: ''civilization'' is now completely associated with something approaching utopia, an entitlement of Christian society.)

In land-claim cases in American case law, the lawyers and judges often find the origins of America's claim to Indian land in the ''doctrine of discovery'' and trace it from there. The doctrine was a claim that God had given all the lands of the Earth to Christendom (later, when the state system was adopted, the Christian nations); that whenever these Christian peoples encountered other peoples on previously unknown (to them) lands, they had ''discovered'' them and therefore had a right to ''pre-emption,'' the first right to divest the indigenous of their land because it wasn't really their land - they were just occupying it until the Christians arrived.

It's a fantastic claim: Since the beginning of time, past the Ice Ages and centuries before the Bible appeared, the Christians ''owned'' North America and the Indians possessed a mere ''right of occupancy'' which they could exercise until the Christians ''discovered'' them and found a way to divest them of it.

Sepulveda's racism was deeply ingrained with the rhetoric of civilization, his evidence of Spanish superiority predicated on the Indians' lack of Spanish culture. The message: You are not us (white Christians) and therefore you have no real rights. You were born inferior to us; your cultures are inferior to ours; God gave us rights to all that is yours. Racism is about culture.

''Civilized'' people claim qualities of personality that are nowhere evident in the Spanish leadership of the conquest. They claimed to be gentle, cultivated, devoted to the arts. In Christian civilization, the civilized represent the best assumed qualities of Jesus, including compassion, generosity, justice and righteousness. Even as Sepulveda was ascribing these qualities to the Spanish conquerors of his day, the Inquisition was torturing and murdering innocent people, taking their property and using the powers of government to achieve robbery, fraud and a great litany of criminal behavior.

Civilization's children were, upon examination, given to behaviors that were barbarous. All that talk about superior civilizations, God's will and ''discovery'' is just so much racist drivel.

Fast-forward to 18th-century North America. The early English colonists embraced the Spanish model of superiority due to ''civilization.'' To this was added the idea of the empty land (terra nullius), including the idea that Indians were nomads, that they were barbarous, that they lacked attributes which were imaged to be positive traits of the English. (As a matter of fact, the historic English lacked exactly those qualities: honesty, a nobility of purpose and so forth. About the only thing they could claim is that they mostly stayed in one place most of the year. But so did many Indians; and anyway, there's nothing wrong with being nomadic.)

Racism in the Sepulveda model involved a false and hypocritical claim to virtues of Christendom on the one hand, and an absence of virtues among all others as a group. We know today that the claims to virtue by the English are unsupported in the historic and contemporary records. In the same way that the contemporary record does not support that people with strong Christian beliefs have more stable marriages (''red'' states have higher divorce rates than ''blue'' states), it is also true that Christians do not have a history of less violence than other populations. Christian populations are not virtuous because they are Christian. Like other peoples, they have to work at it to achieve virtue.

Indian peoples continue to suffer under the pall of racist ideas that are centuries old. Just last year, the Supreme Court re-affirmed its belief in the racist ''doctrine of discovery'' in a land-claim case. In a recent book, Robert Williams Jr. detailed the use of such language and sources by the court's former chief justice, William Rehnquist. The book, ''Like a Loaded Weapon: The Rehnquist Court, Indian Rights, and the Legal History of Racism in America,'' is interesting reading. If Rehnquist had made those kinds of statements about other peoples, there would have been a hue and cry. But because it was directed at Indians, the racism beat goes on unchallenged.

© Indian Country Today
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John C. Mohawk, Ph.D., columnist for Indian Country Today, is a noted author and historian. He is an associate professor of American studies and director of Indigenous studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo

From URL: http://indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412730

Don't Impeach; Impale
By Will Durst / AlterNet
March 15, 2006

I don't know about you guys, but I am so sick and tired of these lying, thieving, holier-than-thou, right-wing, cruel, crude, rude, gauche, coarse, crass, cocky, corrupt, dishonest, debauched, degenerate, dissolute, swaggering, lawyer shooting, bullhorn shouting, infrastructure destroying, hysterical, history defying, finger- pointing, puppy stomping, roommate appointing, pretzel choking, collateral damaging, aspersion casting, wedding party bombing, clear cutting, torturing, jobs outsourcing, torture outsourcing, "so-called" compassionate-conservative, women's rights eradicating, Medicare cutting, uncouth, spiteful, boorish, vengeful, noxious, homophobic, xenophobic, xylophonic, racist, sexist, ageist, fascist, cashist, audaciously stupid, brazenly selfish, lethally ignorant, journalist purchasing, genocide ignoring, corporation kissing, poverty inducing, crooked, coercive, autocratic, primitive, uppity, high-handed, domineering, arrogant, inhuman, inhumane, insolent, know-it-all, snotty, pompous, contemptuous, supercilious, gutless, spineless, shameless, avaricious, poisonous, imperious, merciless, graceless, tactless, brutish, brutal, Karl Roving, backward thinking, persistent vegetative state grandstanding, nuclear option threatening, evolution denying, irony deprived, depraved, insincere, conceited, perverted, pre-emptory invading of a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, 35-day-vacation taking, bribe soliciting, incapable, inbred, hellish, proud for no apparent reason, smarty pants, loudmouth, bullying, swell-headed, ethnic cleansing, ethics-eluding, domestic spying, medical marijuana-busting, kick-backing, Halliburtoning, New Deal disintegrating, narcissistic, undiplomatic, blustering, malevolent, demonizing, baby seal-clubbing, Duke Cunninghamming, hectoring, verbally flatulent, pro-bad- anti-good, Moslem-baiting, photo-op arranging, hurricane disregarding, oil company hugging, judge packing, science disputing, faith based mathematics advocating, armament selling, nonsense spewing, education ravaging, whiny, unscrupulous, greedy exponential factor fifteen, fraudulent, CIA outing, redistricting, anybody who disagrees with them slandering, fact twisting, ally alienating, betraying, god and flag waving, scare mongering, Cindy Sheehan libeling, phony question asking, just won't get off the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling, two- faced, inept, callous, menacing, your hand under a rock- the maggoty remains of a marsupial, oppressive, vulgar, antagonistic, brush clearing suck- up, showboating, tyrannizing, peace hating, water and air and ground and media polluting which is pretty much all the polluting you can get, deadly, illegal, pernicious, lethal, haughty, venomous, virulent, ineffectual, mephitic, egotistic, bloodthirsty, incompetent, hypocritical, did I say evil, I'm not sure if I said evil, because I want to make sure I say evil…

EVIL, cretinous, fool, toad, buttwipe, lizardstick, cowardly, lackey imperialistic tool slime buckets in the Bush Administration that I could just spit.
Impeachment? Hell no. Impalement. Upon the sharp and righteous sword of the people's justice.
-----
Listen to Will Durst's Will & Willie Show, Monday through Friday, 7-10am PST, on KQKE, 960 AM. Or listen long distance at quakeradio.com.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute
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URL: http://www.alternet.org/story/33598/

To the first person who can prove that Our Federal government has jurisdiction
over all marijuana manufactured or possessed in the United States.
U.S. Supreme Court case law cite with page and quote required.
The famous Wickard v. Filburn case, relied on by Federal prosecutors and judges to claim jurisdiction under the interstate commerce clause, actually says quite the opposite:
It is of the essence of regulation that it lays a restraining hand on the self-interest of the regulated and that advantages from the regulation commonly fall to others. … the Government gave the farmer a choice…. It is hardly lack of due process for the Government to regulate that which it subsidizes.- Wickard (317 US 111,129-131)
Because Filburn was accepting benefits (subsidy prices for his wheat), he was liable for the agency’s civil penalties imposed by the program regulations.
In 2004 Attorney Allison Margolin challenged Federal jurisdiction with a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction (U.S. v. Landa).
The precedent upon which the federal government’s ability to govern interstate commerce, Wickard v. Filburn, is premised upon the fact that the plaintiff in that case registered in a federal program. …the Wickard basis of jurisdiction is inapplicable here.
Similar motions by others are currently in our Federal District Courts, our Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and in our Supreme Court. These defendants are also non-registrants, not accepting benefit from FDA, DEA or any Federal agency or program for marijuana.
Still, no Federal judge has ruled on these motions or even addressed this issue, never mind citing an authority establishing Federal jurisdiction over non-registrants. The People’s right to due process can only be upheld through a court ruling; failure to rule is a deprivation of our right to due process of law.
Pretending there is an authority establishing jurisdiction is a deprivat! ion of rights under color of law (US Criminal Code, Section 242, calls for prison sentences for violators, including judges and attorneys).
Contact: www.commonsenselaw.com or commonsenselaw@yahoo.com
The Reward is held by Common Sense Law and Associates in trust. As contributions by interested individuals
continue, the Reward Amount has exceeded $5,000. The Panel of Judges will be announced shortly.
Common Sense Law Reward Rules
The purpose of the Reward is to uphold the People’s right to Due Process of Law. The application for the Reward consists of two parts:
1. Name and mailing address;
2. Cite of the U.S. Supreme Court, with page and quote, which directly affirms the U. S. Government’s and its agencies’ jurisdiction over non-registrants of its agencies, regarding mari! juana or other substances.
Submit applications to:
Common Sense Law
P.O. Box 6528
Santa Rosa, CA 95406
Or by email: commonsenselaw@yahoo.com
The Reward money ($5,000 to date) is held in trust by Common Sense Law and Associates. A bank draft will be sent to the Name and Address of the successful applicant within 3 days of verification.
The Reward will remain in effect until published notification a minimum of 30 days in advance of withdrawal of the offer at our website www.commonsenselaw.com. That should allow ample time for anybody to submit their claim. The Reward has been posted at www.commonsenselaw.com since February 21, 2005.
Joe Fortt said his motion on l! ack of agency jurisdiction may be heard at his next hearing on March 20, 2005 at 9:30 AM at the Fresno Federal Building. To date, no court has ruled on similar motions. I would be good for supporters of Joe to display "Due Process" on their apparell and witness the hearing. Violation of due process under color of law is a crime at Section 242 of the U.S. Criminal Code (Title 18).
Allison Margolin (US v. Landa) has this motion pending at the 9th Circuit (Judge Alsup told her in front of us witnesses: "Take that to the 9th Circuit!")
Keith Alden (US v. Alden) has this issue in his Petition for Certiorari before the US Supreme Court.
We are still awaiting a court ruling on this issue.
----------
Dear Federal Prisoner:
We are offering this Wanted Poster that you may have an opportunity to claim the reward. If you cannot! find the government’s jurisdiction, you might want to send a copy of the poster to:
* your Attorney,
* your prosecuting attorney, and
* your Judge
and see if they can find the authority establishing Federal jurisdiction over non-registrants.
There are only three possibilities. Either
* they cite the authority and step up to claim the reward;
* they agree that there is no federal jurisdiction over non-registrants; or
* they don’t respond, which can only indicate their continued participation in this fraud, which is a deprivation of your right to due process of law. Pretending there is a law that justifies the violation of your rights is a crime at 18 USC Section 242. This crime has a victim with injuries and damages. If you are a victim, it is up to you to respond in an appropriate manner, or do and say nothing, and continue suffering the deprivation of your rights.
We hope you will pass this on to others who have had their rights violated.
Questions, comments, feedback:
Common Sense Law
P.O. Box 6528
Santa Rosa, CA 95406
United States Code
Title 18--Crimes and Criminal Procedure
Chapter 13 - Civil Rights
Statute 242. Deprivation of rights under color of law
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State … to the deprivation of any rights, … secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and… if such acts include the use, … or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, … shall be fined … or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed … or if such acts include kidnapping …, shal! l be fined … or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentence to death.

On Thin Ice
by Brian Payton
February 11, 2006

ONE AUTUMN NIGHT, I fell asleep near a pair of hungry polar bears. I was out on the tundra in a mobile lodge on the shore of Hudson Bay, spending some time with the world's largest land predators. My bunk had a small window by it with a view onto a patch of snow illuminated by a large spotlight. After an unforgettable afternoon photographing bears at rest and play, I stretched out in my sleeping bag as they took turns sitting up on their haunches, peering back at me.

The largest member of the bear family, adult male polar bears (Ursus maritimus) weigh between 770 and 1,500 pounds. The skin of a large male specimen could cover a small car. Incredibly, most polar bears are born weighing just over a pound.

They are the newest bear species, evolutionarily speaking. Polar bears are thought to have evolved into a distinct species between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. Previously, seals were able to haul themselves onto the ice pack and nurse their young in peace — until a brown bear (Ursus arctos) noticed and decided to investigate. The descendants of that bear came to depend on seals and developed into the white bears we know today.

Polar bears spend the winter and spring on the ice and are forced ashore in summer to await its return. Because there isn't much for them to do in summer, they spend a lot of time wrestling and watching the tourists and scientists who have come to watch them.

These days, however, it's becoming increasingly difficult to look them in the eye.

Life at the top of the Arctic food chain means polar bears' bodies concentrate many of the chemicals that waft up from our activities in the industrial south. For years, scientists have been tracking increasing levels of toxins (including DDT and PCBs) in polar bear flesh, organs and milk. And now, with polluted bodies, they are faced with an even bigger threat.

Polar bears rely on ice that forms fresh each year adjacent to land. They hunt seals at the ice's edge, at breathing holes in the ice and in snow-covered hollows on top of the ice where seals hide their pups. For polar bears, it's all about ice. Unfortunately, the ice is disappearing.

Arctic temperatures are rising twice as fast as the rest of the globe — and there has already been a dramatic reduction in the Arctic Ocean's summer ice pack, which is 20% smaller than it was in the 1970s. Scientists expect it will continue its precipitous decline, resulting in dramatic effects throughout the Arctic ecosystem. In their 2004 "Arctic climate impact assessment," the world's foremost climate and Arctic scientists predicted that, by the end of this century, the changes in the north because of global warming may be so profound that the entire species (estimated at 22,000 to 27,000 polar bears) could vanish — along with the environment that shaped them.

Watching those bears outside my window, I couldn't help but wonder: How will their end come? Will a few stragglers lie down on the shore of Hudson Bay, waiting for the ice that never forms? Or will they head for the nearby town of Churchill, in Manitoba province, and make their last stand at the dump? In Inuit legends, polar bears are actually people when inside their dens and transform into bears only when they don their hides to go out into the cold. Perhaps polar bears will have to leave their fur coats at home.

Or will we take the necessary steps to save them and their environment? Will urbanites forgo their SUVs in favor of public transit? Will voters stop electing politicians who are contemptuous of science and international cooperation? Even as we contemplate these questions, our window of opportunity to save the polar bear is closing.

As I returned their gaze that cold, autumn night, I wanted to believe that awareness fosters change. Then the generator shut down, and I watched my companions fade to black.
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BRIAN PAYTON is author of the forthcoming "Shadow of the Bear: Travels in Vanishing Wilderness."
from: the Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-oe-payton11feb11,0,1728432.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california

Indigenous Human Rights
Negotiations Progress
by: Valerie Taliman
December 30, 2005

GENEVA - Native delegations at the United Nations are making progress in negotiations toward the eventual adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, an unprecedented set of standards that would define and protect the international human rights of indigenous peoples.

The Indian Law Resource Center, Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Navajo Nation and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) are among the lead advocates for creating strong rights for self-determination and self-governance as consultations continued through mid-December in the U.N. Working Group on the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

''The Navajo Nation is here to help the world community understand that First Nations have the right to sovereignty over its lands and territories. It's important for them to understand that our rights as indigenous peoples were not granted by any country. They are inherent,'' said Navajo Nation Council Delegate Ervin Keeswood.

Debate has been sharp - particularly on land and natural resources - as member countries of the U.N. and indigenous peoples work toward building understanding and consensus on specific issues affecting the territorial, political, economic, legal, social and cultural rights of the world's 360 million indigenous peoples.

''There have been huge divisions and passionate debates in crafting language for articles that can reach consensus,'' said attorney Tim Coulter, executive director of the Indian Law Resource Center in Helena, Mont. and Washington, D.C., who has been extensively involved in drafting the declaration for 29 years.

''Slowly we are overcoming tremendous differences despite the fact that there are indigenous peoples from literally all over the world - Africa, Asia, Pacific Islands, Mexico, South America, the Arctic - with different backgrounds and different situations to consider. What we have in common is our work defending our rights to determine our own futures, our own laws, our own development.''

Indigenous delegates have been educating countries about indigenous positions on self-determination, the preservation of cultural and spiritual traditions, collective land and natural resource rights, border-crossing, and their right to exist as distinct nations and tribes.

''The process is advancing and we are having some notable success in discussions,'' said Darwin Hill, a representative of the Haudenosaunee. ''We have been telling the U.S. delegates they need to be more flexible in their positions. By providing them with a steady dialogue and education on our issues over the years, they are gaining greater understanding of our concerns.''

Consensus in the U.N. Working Group is forming around a land rights article that states: ''Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired.''

The declaration would call on countries to give full legal recognition and protection to these lands and resources in accordance with the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned.

''In light of many unfortunate developments in Indian country regarding relationships with countries, the Navajo Nation is exercising its sovereignty at the international level and actively engaging in making international laws,'' said Rex Lee Jim, Navajo Council delegate from Rock Point who also serves on the Navajo Judiciary Committee.

''We know that laws made in Geneva eventually become laws in nations. It may take years, but these laws eventually will impact the Navajo Nation. It is in our best interest in the long run that we are involved in making laws that affect us.''

Some countries have tried to limit jurisdiction and control over land and resources. Much of the world's remaining natural resources are on lands owned by indigenous peoples, who often suffer severe negative impacts from development projects undertaken without their informed consent or appropriate compensation.

Indigenous delegates are also seeking redress for lands and resources taken in the past. One article of the declaration provides for claims for return of land or compensation.

Armand MacKenzie, attorney for the mineral-rich Innu Nation in northern Quebec and Labrador, repeatedly argued for just and fair compensation for Native people who have been relocated from their homelands and deprived of their traditional hunting and gathering territories.

MacKenzie, who is involved in a major land claim for his people, said that while significant progress has occurred in negotiations over the last year, it is fundamental that the declaration contain provisions for Native people to retain as much control as possible over their homelands.

''There are some difficult areas concerning land and resource rights that have taken years to resolve, but we are committed to negotiating in the best interest of our people back home. It's their land and way of life that we are fighting for,'' he said.

Another area that remains a point of contention is the spiritual and cultural relationships Native peoples have with their homelands.

Current language in the declaration would require countries to give legal respect to the lands that indigenous peoples hold collectively, including their aboriginal lands, and to ensure access to areas with spiritual and cultural significance that are no longer owned by indigenous peoples.

Coulter said there is an unusual flexibility and good will on the part of a number of countries - including Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, Spain and Brazil, in particular - to recognize collective rights and rights to self-determination that have in the past presented a great many problems.

''One topic that has not been easily understood is [that of the] collective rights that indigenous peoples have to land and culture,'' he said. ''In most countries, the emphasis is on individual rights. They have had to learn about our cultures and traditions to understand the importance of collective rights. A few years ago, they would not even talk about it. Now they are agreeing to collective rights, which is something new in international law.''

As the second week came to a close, 23 of the 67 draft provisions have been agreed upon.

''I think these should be provisionally adopted when the Working Group reconvenes in January. This is very encouraging,'' Coulter said. The U.N. Working Group will have a five-day session in Geneva beginning Jan. 30.

Ambassador Tyge Lehmann from Denmark urged all delegations to move forward with compromise in order to push for adoption by the U.N. General Assembly as early as next year.

''At the United Nations in September, 191 nation-states talked extensively about advancing the world's indigenous peoples. Governments were urged to consider adopting the declaration as soon as possible,'' he said. ''For the first time ever, we have a very positive signal indicating an expectation that we will see adoption of these rights very soon.''

The declaration contains 20 introductory paragraphs and 47 articles covering a wide range of human rights, spanning spiritual beliefs, language, lands, natural resources, education, and economic and social issues. If adopted, it will be the most comprehensive statement on the rights of indigenous peoples ever developed.

The declaration must reach consensus in the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations before being adopted by the General Assembly, a process that many hope will be completed within the next year if negotiations continue well.
© 1998 - 2006 Indian Country Today.
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Valerie Taliman, Navajo, is director of communications for the Indian Law Resource Center. For more information, visit www.indianlaw.org or call (406) 449-2006.

from URL: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412130

Congress petitioned for return
of Geronimo's remains
by: Brenda Norrell
From: Indian Country Today
December 25, 2005

SAN CARLOS, Ariz. - American Indians are petitioning Congress to investigate the elite Skull and Bones society at Yale University and return the remains of Chiricahua Apache warrior Geronimo to Apaches for reburial.

The online petition describes the desecration of Geronimo's grave in 1918 by members of the society, including President George W. Bush's grandfather, Sen. Prescott Bush. The men removed Geronimo's head and a prized silver bridle, which had been buried with him.

''Using acid and amid laughter, they stripped Geronimo's head of hair and flesh. They then took their 'trophies' back to Yale University and put them on display in the clubhouse of the secret fraternity 'Skull and Bones,''' states the petition.

Outraged American Indian tribal members from across the nation and indigenous people from around the world are signing the petition with plans to pressure Congress to act.

Apache leaders want Geronimo to be buried, as he requested, in tribal lands in the mountains of San Carlos.

''Geronimo left his rifle and peace pipe here when they took him away,'' Thompson said. ''When Geronimo was taken from this land, he wanted to come back and be buried on San Carlos in the Triplet Mountains.''

Skull and Bones admitted to San Carlos Apache leaders almost 20 years ago that it was in possession of a skull it called Geronimo's in its secret ''museum'' in New Haven, Conn.

Raleigh Thompson, who served as San Carlos Apache tribal councilman for 16 years, told Indian Country Today that he was among the Apache tribal leaders with whom Skull and Bones officials met in New York in a series of meetings beginning in 1986. He said the society, of which Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, are members, admitted that it held Geronimo's remains.

San Carlos Apache Chairman Ned Anderson and tribal attorney Joe Sparks were also members of the Apache delegation that met with the society in New York. Anderson and Thompson said the delegation met with Skull and Bones officials and Jonathan Bush, brother of George H.W. Bush.

Thompson said Prescott Bush was among a group of six Army soldiers who dug up Geronimo's remains at Fort Sill, Okla., in 1918. The San Carlos Apache Tribe received a copy of a logbook describing the graverobbing and a photograph of a skull on display before meeting with the board in New York.

Thompson said the society attempted to return a skull - that of a child - which the Apache delegation rejected. Skull and Bones members subsequently threatened legal action if the photograph were not returned.

Attorney Endicott Davison, representing Skull and Bones, denied that the society had Geronimo's skull. He claimed the logbook was a hoax.

Alexandra Robbins, a former staff member of The New Yorker magazine and author of ''Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League and the Hidden Paths of Power,'' told ICT that her research supports the Apache leaders' statements. Robbins believes that Geronimo's skull is in the society's tomb.

The petition for the return and reburial of Geronimo's skull states that Skull and Bones is a secret society founded at Yale in 1832. Its history is intertwined with that of the German Illuminati and the Nazi Party, according to the petition.
''They maintain a windowless building called 'The Tomb' at 64 High Street, New Haven, Connecticut. The club's assets are controlled by a front company, The Russell Trust Association Inc. Every year, 15 Yale juniors are 'tapped' for Skull & Bones membership. They are indoctrinated into the cultish society with elaborate rituals steeped in satanic theatricism and latent homosexuality.

''The goal of this fraternity is to create the ultimate network of 'good ole boys' around the world. Their alumni include Prescott Bush's son [George H.W.] and grandson [George W.] as well as heads of state and leaders of numerous intelligence agencies, trading companies, business empires and law firms,'' according to the petition.

Since the initial leak of information to the Apache leaders, other sources have confirmed that Geronimo's skull is, as asserted in the petition, indeed on display in The Tomb and considered the ''mascot'' of this ''club'' on High Street.

The petition further states that the ''undersigned are horrified with this display of elitist, racist witchcraft'' and asks Congress, with the assistance of whatever law enforcement necessary, to launch an immediate investigation into the theft and possession of human remains by Skull and Bones, Russell Trust Association Inc. and any members of the U.S. government involved, past or present.

Stephen Flute, Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, signed the petition and said, ''If the situation were reversed, someone would be in jail or would have been executed. It wouldn't even matter to them if the right person were in jail, as long as one of 'us' paid the price.''

Sheri Big Back Bement, Northern Cheyenne/Apache, said Geronimo remains respected. ''You will never see an Indian dig up the bones of the dead. We know what respect is. Their ignorance and stupidity will come back on them and their families.''

Mohawk Sakaronhiotane Ricky Diabo signed with this message: ''When you mess with the spirits you shall be punished by the spirits.''

View the petition and signatures online at www.petitiononline.com/Geronimo/petition.html.
© Indian Country Today
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URL: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412153

Maine tribes meet with Venezuela
for low-cost heating oil
by: Brenda Norrell / Indian Country Today
December 16, 2005

PORTLAND, Maine - American Indian leaders from four tribes in Maine met with representatives of the Venezuelan Embassy and became the first tribes in the nation to begin working out details for the delivery of low-cost heating oil to tribal members.

Aroostook Band of Micmacs Chief Bill Phillips praised Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for his offer to bring discounted heating oil to the United States, and Venezuelan Embassy officials for following through on Chavez's offer.

''We appreciate Chavez trying to bring low-cost heating oil for our elderly. We're thinking: He is a fellow Native from the Americas, and we appreciate his taking the time and effort to do some good,'' Phillips told Indian Country Today.

Venezuelan Embassy officials met Dec. 13 with representatives of four tribes: the Aroostook Micmacs, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point and the Penobscot Indian Nation.

Phillips said Venezuelan Embassy officials held two separate meetings at the Portland International Jetport concerning the delivery of low-cost heating oil, one with Indian tribal leaders and another with Maine Gov. John Baldacci.

''It's just the beginning steps; it will be a great help for our people. We are very encouraged. If this goes the way they say, it will be a godsend to our people,'' Phillips said, pointing out that four tribal council members of the 1,000-member Aroostook Band met with Venezuelan and tribal representatives.

Calling it a ''simple act of generosity,'' Chavez earlier promised heating oil at a 40 percent discount to nonprofits, nursing homes and schools.

''We are set up as a nonprofit,'' Phillips said of the tribe, which will work out the details for supply and delivery with the Venezuelan government.

Phillips said the Venezuelan Embassy has scheduled a meeting for Indian tribes to meet with the embassy in Washington, D.C. Jan. 18 - 19 and further discuss the delivery of low-cost heating oil to Northeast tribes.

Phillips said the Aroostook Micmacs, located in northern Maine, are the northernmost tribe in the United States. The area's unpredictable weather can bring severe winters.

''We have our ups and downs; you can never tell what the weather will do,'' Phillips said, adding that temperatures are regularly in the single digits and can dip below zero. With the wind chill, temperatures have plunged to 65 to 70 degrees below zero.

Phillips said the area already has a number of CITGO gas stations that are owned by Venezuela.

As for the other gas companies in the area, Phillips said the efforts are about keeping the people warm and stretching dollars, not politics.

''People may be taken back by it a little bit, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

''Hopefully, on January 18 and 19 we'll begin something that will work for years to come.''

Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said low-cost heating oil pilot projects in Boston and the Bronx began in November with 12 million gallons of heating oil. Ramirez said the cost to Venezuelan-owned CITGO Petroleum Corp. was $200 million.

Phillips said Venezuelan leaders have also invited Indian tribes to participate in a cultural exchange.

''I would happily go down to pay a visit,'' said Phillips.

Robert Free Galvan, an American Indian activist in Seattle known for pitching his tipi on Alcatraz during the takeover of the island in the 1960s, organized efforts between Indian tribes and the government of Venezuela.

''The people of the United States should be very thankful to President Hugo Chavez for this offer. Chavez was the first to offer oil and gas after Hurricane Katrina struck,'' Galvan said.

Galvan urged Indian tribes to assess their energy usage and try to determine who could distribute low-cost oil and gas on tribal lands and where. Further, he said tribes should inventory their ability to store and deliver oil and gas.

Galvan is now organizing an indigenous delegation to the World Social Forum in Venezuela, to be held during the third week of January. Western Shoshone, Lakota, Gwich'in and Ponca tribal members plan to attend if sponsors are located.

© Indian Country Today
For more information, e-mail robtfree@earthlink.net.
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URL: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?feature=yes&id=1096412127

The Emissary
What if your decision alone
determined the fate of humanity?

by John Kaminski
skylax@comcast.net
11-29-5

One night long ago - back in the days when I was an 80-hour-per-week hack journalist and living in snow country - I had this strange dream.

This night was cold and clear and I was bundled up with my wife under several quilts in a drafty farmhouse.

In my dream I was standing before a group of white apparitions that appeared to be human and bore a faint resemblance to Snow White's Seven Dwarfs. They were seated at a long table apparently waiting for my testimony with an annoyed degree of impatience.

Dressed in a dark blue robe with a peaked hat and a broom, a white-haired woman whose name my memory recalls now as Bibbitybobbityboo blessed me with stardust from her magic wand and told me that I would always work for my mother, because she was the real vehicle that brought me into this world, and that I should strive to maintain that awesomely lovely purpose in any and all endeavors I chose.

Yet the white misty images of robed men seated behind the long table covered by a white tablecloth seemed to snicker at her remarks, and quickly began their own interrogation.

"You fancy yourself a young and intrepid explorer, ay?" one gnomelike curmudgeon bellowed from the far end of the table. "Tell me then, what would you do if you discovered that the collective life force of the human species was a lethal menace to all other life in the universe, and had to be extinguished in order to preserve the greater galactic civilization? Which side would you choose, knowing that your species could go instantly extinct upon the mere whimsy of your own addled perceptions, and yours alone?"

Operating on the principle of never being afraid of something you absolutely may not avoid, I responded: "First I'd ask to see the evidence .... "

And with a teeth rattling roar a gigantic voice that sounded like Zeus himself rumbled over the assembled fog scene.

"Because the human race, quivering in its own existential fear, has betrayed its own consciousness by letting fear of the unknown metastasize into a devil's chorus of diseased songs by which humans are killing off all life on their own planet.

"And worse, from our point of view, this plague of fearful murderers is already creeping outward into its own solar system. The infestation must be stopped for the safety of many others."

Terrified, I instantly began to think, do I trust what I know? The umpire in me asked: "How do I make this call?"

Why don't I trust what I know? Because I believe in double-checking, checking back to see if important decisions have been right, and fixing correctible errors. I've gained more from just that psychological maneuver than any other thing in life. Be sure of what you're doing. And every time I've checked back, I've corrected errors that I hadn't previously realized were harming me.

But to decide the fate of humanity with a single yes-or-no answer requires an examination much bigger than poor old nobody me can calculate. That's why my secret weapon has always been to ask somebody else for their opinion, because we can't live without the herd, and besides the real beauty in our lives always derives from our love for other people. Only certain types whom you know all too well spend their lives doing nothing but taking.

But in this situation, the best I could do was recall from memory what the masters taught me. I hoped to use the power of the world's classic sources - especially those which are not taught in schools (which always try to blunt out independent thought with an acceptable retinue of opinions which all support the positions of the well-monied status quo which profits from the master/slave paradigm) - to out argue these heavenly heavies who I now confronted in my dream.

So I answered his question as best I could.

"Stand securely in your own truth, and be an example of hospitality and judgment to others. Assuage the fear but don't forget to hear the message. In this way you may perceive clearly and judge fairly. In this way could humans yet become a shining example of fairness and hospitality, a beacon of liberty and love that shone throughout our solar system and beyond."

A huge wraith possessed of some kind of mechanical recording device (oh wait, that was an eight-track boom box) snarled from the opposite end of the table: "Don't be disingenuous with us, you glib fool! We're talking about the human race, the one that slaughters itself and everything else over and over and feasts on the gore. Vampirism is the human religion, as you drink the blood of your savior and proudly wallow in the waving flags that cover the bodies of your obliterated children. Your vaunted United States of America develops plagues that it sends to Africa to exterminate tribe after tribe, and now even these same demons send diseases from airplanes over all the cities of America.

"The human species is now spreading deadly radioactivity in probes exploring your solar system, and the Galactic Council has decided to determine the fate of your world and your species based on the opinion of a single human soul. Since you've made so much superficial noise advocating a society based on peace, justice, and honesty, you're it!

"Time's up. What's the answer?"

It was, I reflected, like entering the bardo plane. First choice? Go to the light. Everyone's automatically eligible. Everyone in the world has a free pass to heaven the minute they check out. Of course that's not what the priests tell you. If they did, they wouldn't have jobs.

But that reflexive step into the light is not as easy as you think, because after a few years on this delightful earth plane you get entangled with ties that even after death you can't let go of. I mean, when you tell the perfect person that you'll love them forever, that stands. That's, as a matter of fact, the strongest force in the universe. Not even the power of a million suns can wipe that out.

A small, diplomatic voice from near the center of the table spoke softly: "Humans have not learned the lesson that there is only one life and it is shared by all, and each only for a time. The real reason you pile up trinkets is that you hide behind your false belief that you are immortal, when science has proven beyond all doubt that nothing is immortal, not even the universe itself, which was likely calved from yet another universe in the form of a white hole."

Pray all you want, I said silently. Nothing lasts forever, not even the clumsy and diseased human perception of God. Then when your forever is gone, you'll have a better view of all the people you're killing. It might even horrify you, if you're human.

A tall white wraith with a menacing female voice interrupted impatiently. "The point, fellow gentle spirits, is to determine whether human life is an untenable threat to all other life in the universe, and therefore must be exterminated as the primitive and thoughtless vermin they are."

"It seems clear to all here assembled that the human failure to have genuine faith in the goodness and fairness of the archetypal processes of the universe has resulted in this twisted fear that death is some mysterious place you must take magic potions and utter pious phrases to avoid. The insanity is caused by trying to avoid something that nothing in the universe can avoid."

At that point, I took control.

"Humans are animals frightened of their own shadows because they cannot explain who they are or where they came from. It's almost if we stepped out of a dream and into history, which - don't forget - all these creatures are just metaphorical constructions of projections from our own imaginations.

"In the struggle for survival, savage reflexes are good. But what we hoped to establish was a flowery sanctuary for our well being. That's not what we have, because we deny we are hungry animals at a certain point on the food chain. At the top, mostly."

Another voice spoke from the among the white apparitions at the table.

"So you're saying that for humans, justice is secondary to survival. It is that way for all animals on planet Earth, in fact. So this is exactly the same question we asked you: Once you know that humanity is a pox to countless trillions of other beings, simply because of its thoughtlessness wrapped in fearful symmetry, what alternative is there to a functional eradication program."

I responded:

"Then the only possible chance to save our species from the collective wrath of all the higher civilizations in our region of our galaxy is to consciously realize the effects we have on things we don't even know about. And we can only do that with a philosophy that is truly everything we should be: loving, discerning, and competent."

A misty white voice quickly answered:

"Precisely what humans have never done and seem incapable of doing. You can't do that before you realize that all tribes, all nations, and all worlds must seek peace, justice and honesty. Humans are known as a species that squanders life because it is so afraid of death. They clearly don't have the courage, realism or forthrightness to be actualized members of greater galactic society. So the decision should be easy for you. Pull the plug."

And there I stood, wanting to defend the human race but realizing there was a larger, more important life force in the universe that was the automatic owner of all our possessions and the creator of all we have ever had. It saddens me to know we must throw away all this beautiful potential as our human family on planet Earth continues its slide into madness, disease, and extinction.

"You are the emissary," barked a voice from the table. "Time is short. Tell them that."

"I promise I will," I said.
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John Kaminski is a writer who lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida whose Internet essays are seen on hundreds of websites around the world. http://www.johnkaminski.com/

Tony Black Feather:
The Most Controversial Statement of Our Time?
By Brenda Norrell

STRONGHOLD TABLE, S.D. - Lakota elder Tony Black Feather told the United Nations that the American flag represents a racist nation that violates natural and spiritual laws, dishonors treaties and engages in a game plan of corporate greed.

In his statement delivered to the United Nations and distributed here on Stronghold Table, Black Feather pressed for disarmament and peace as President Bush pressed for war in Iraq.

Urging America to "come clean in the eyes of the world," Black Feather said people often ask him about the red, white and blue of the American flag

"I tell them that the aboriginal Lakota people of this country look at this flag as a piece of red, white and blue cloth that stands for the foreign racist system that has oppressed Indigenous peoples for centuries.

"For traditional Lakota people, that piece of red, white and blue cloth stands for a system and a country that does not honor it's own word."

Black Feather, in his statement to the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, said the flag represents a nation of dishonor.

"If it stood for honor and truth, it would remember our treaties and give them the appropriate place under international law. But it doesn't. It dishonors its own word and violates its treaties, that piece of red, white and blue cloth."

On the Stronghold, Black Feather distributed his written statement, which was delivered to the United Nations in July, as he challenged the National Park Service in the Badlands. Ignoring demands from the tribe, the Park Service plans to excavate fossils in the burial grounds of the Ghost Dancers massacred here after they survived the massacre of Wounded Knee.

"America is a world problem," Black Feather told National Park Service officials leading a tour in the Badlands of the proposed excavation site on Oglala Sioux tribal land.

Lakota gathered here say the bones of the Ghost Dancers, who danced here to bring back the buffalo and the old ways, are revealing themselves at this time for a reason.

With a message for humanity and calling for disarmament around the world, Black Feather chastised the Park Service for entering sacred grounds in the Badlands with armed park rangers.

At the resistance camp manned by the Tokala Warrior Society, the traditional Grey Eagle Society, Russell Means and others chastised National Park Service officials.

Pointing out violations of federal laws, Lakota said the arrogance and racism is indicative of federal Indian policy and a nation that is spiritually bankrupt.

Black Feather's comments on deception and the flag were representative of the situation here.

Black Feather said of the American flag, "This colorful cloth represents imperialism with the professed Christian duty to destroy many races of peoples throughout the world, to illegally confiscate their possessions, property and even their lives when U.S. interests need to be served.

"It is their intention to establish one world government, based solely on the American system of corporate greed.

"The cloth represents a political language that is designated to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. This piece of red, white and blue cloth represents a political system that is contrary to the principles of Natural Law and the moral principles, which govern a diversified humanity.

"This piece of cloth misrepresents the human race.

"As Lakota people, we engage in different actions to remember the Natural Law and to assert our rights."

Black Feather said the takeover of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council offices and the current resistance on Stronghold Table asserts the rights of the Lakota people.

"As the aboriginal people of this land, we must understand and assert that it is under our care. The continents of the world belong to its aboriginal peoples.

"Someday somebody will have to account for these violations of the Natural Law and violations against Creation that the piece of cloth has been responsible for.

"The United States needs to come clean to cleanse its conscience in the eyes of the world.
Only then will we have justice and balance in this world."
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Black Feather's statement was among those of the Tetuwan Oyate Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council, delivered to the XXth Session of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations in July and on Stronghold Table in August.

Brenda Norrell writes about Indian affairs and the American west.
http://www.dlncoalition.org/related_issues/most_controversial_statement_of_our_time.htm

I am posting this as a word of caution. I don't know to what degree I feel this is a pausible scenario, but in some part, I have been expecting it too. There are more messages to follow as the tribal elders gather. All I can say is that daily, the message of the eleventh hour is at hand. Life is a delicate balance and these are turbulent times. Use discernment.

October 17, 2005
By Sidney Has No Horses:

DEYO NOTE: This is posted exactly as received, typing errors and all.

Retyped Transcript of the Council Proceedings Held in Eagle Butte, South Dakota on October 4, 2005, Regular October Session.

ROBERT WALTERS: Mr. Chairman, thank you and Council, with us is Sidney Has No Horses. He is a medicine man from Oglala and Mr. Chariman, he has a message that he's going to all the tribes, all the reservations with that came out of a ceremony and I feel it's a good message. I visited Mr. Has No Horses and so at this time, I'd like to get the floor for him.

SIDNEY HAS NO HORSES: Mitakuye Oyasin. All my relatives. I'd like to get in the middle if I could, I really don't like to use the mic. My name is Sidney Has No Horses. I'm from the Pine Ridge Reservation. You probably know my father, his name was Dawson Has No Horses. He was a yuwipi man, a powerful medicine man. My grandfather's name is Frank Fools Crow. He was also a powerful medicine man. Six months ago, we had a ceremony, in this ceremony, two angels came to me and they talked to me and they told us of the devastation that would happen to the islands and the Indian Ocean.

They told us of the earthquakes that would hit Japan. They told us of the earthquakes that will hit South American and the they also told us of the Tsunami that wiped out all the people and they told us of the hurricanes that came to Florida, the one that came to New Orleans and the one that went to Texas.

There's one more hurricane coming to wipe out another city. Two weeks ago, we has a cermony, Sitting Bull came in and he talked to me; Crazy Horse, he talked to me; Chief Big Foot talked to me and they asked me to go to the Seven Council Fires and to the Council People and to warn all of these Fires, within six months. There's going to be a tidal wave that's going to wipe out Los Angeles. Within six months, there 's going to be an eruption in the northwest with the volcanoes. Two eruptions within six months. They say from the eruptions of theses volcanoes, the ash is coming, the Missouri River will be destroyed. They say the water that we drink from the ground is going to be no longer drinkable.

These hardships are coming because God is bringing this. Whether you believe in Christianity, Native American Church or the traditional way, if you read the Bible, we are going into the fourth seal. There's diseases coming that are going to wipe out our children and like this man said here, meth -methaphetamine on our rez is very bad too. If we don't stop that, it's going to destroy the next generation. Many vegetables are going to be born into our tribes. When I'm done here, I am going to Standing Rock and I am going to stand in front of them, their council and tell them the same thing I am telling you now.

This winter is going to be very cold for a long time. Ranchers are going to lose their horses and cows because it is not going to warm up. The price of propane is going to skyrocket and sometimes they are not going to be able to deliver the propane to our families. This food issue in the Bible, it says one day there will be no food in the store's shelves. If you look at the hurricane, a lot of the stores, there's no food on the shelves. These people lost their homes. They can't drink the water and so I come because of the mighty chiefs that talked to me and because of who I am. They tell me, I need to warn the tribes.

Today, I came here without announcement, but to see you all gathered like this, I know God is on my side to see you gathered. The Sisseton-Wahpeton tomorrow will be gathered at 10o'clock and they will hear what I have to hear. The Flandreau people are gling to be waiting for me tomorrow evening. I 'm going up to Fort Yates here, I'm going to talk to them even if it's after hours and so I thank you very much for letting me come in and I'm thankful that I got all of you together at the same time. I offer you all a handshake. My name is Sidney Has No Horses. I'm from Batesland, South Dakota. You might want to write this down. My phone number is XXX-XXX-XXXX. We incorporated ourselves through the State of South Dakota to let you know that we are serious.

Within six months, we are going to be living in hell of a world and these chiefs have talked to me, and my cousins. If you ever want a ceremony, you get ahold of us and we will bring you a ceremony t let you believe. But the chiefs tell me, some of you have good hearts. Some of you have good mind. Some of you have spirituality. You are the people that will take heed on the words I bring and there's a lot of people that didn't believe us when everything we told them has happened and my President, Cecilia Fire Thunder, I talked to her yesterday and she supports because everything I told her would happen to our tribe has happened. The power of God, he knows what he's bringing to us and in three years, as the keepers of Mother Earth, if the Seven Fires do not come together, there's going to be a meteorite that will be coming and it's going to hit off of San Francisco and they told us that the Seven Council Fires,, theses Seven Fires never has hate and jealousy toward each other.

I've been trying to get the medicine men of Oglala to be in unity, but they can't and now God asked me to come and get all the Tribal Councils together and all the tribes together. That's a very hard job that he's giving me. I'm very nervous as I stand here in front of you, but I tried to look you all in the eye to let you know thatI'm for real and so at this time, there are food for thought, things you can think about in the next six month and this little time you have given me.

I thank you. Now I'm going to Standing Rock. I will be going to every reservation.. Maybe the tribal members will get together and at least the tribal presidents will have a ceremony for all you to hear and believe in God. All my relatives.

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URL:
http://2012.tribe.net/thread/77dff0f6-fdaa-4e98-809a-bbd3df8c9f9c?threads=true&r=10535#1899feef-c05a-4013-804a-9473b0fa9d44

If You Believe in What You Are Doing,
Give Me Your Stiffest Sentence.
If You Don't, Then Resign.
by Cindy Sheehan
October 27, 2005
From - CommonDreams.org

"If you believe in what you are doing, give me your stiffest sentence. If you don't, then resign."
-- Gandhi

Yesterday, started off with a "bang" when we went to Arlington Cemetery to lay a wreath in the section where the Iraq War dead are buried. In our group yesterday morning were 3 other members of Gold Star Families for Peace. Juan Torres was with us and his son, Juan, was murdered in Afghanistan.

First of all, I was followed all morning by the Park Police. I guess because I am a very dangerous subversive. I would never hurt a flea, but what I am dangerous to is the lies and corruption of our government.

Secondly, Juan, Beatriz Saldivar, and Julie Cuniglio who have all had loved ones killed in this war had brought pictures of their dead loved ones with them to Arlington. We were told by the administration of the cemetery that they couldn't take the pictures into the cemetery because they were "political statements!!" We were stunned that pictures of our children that have been killed for lies and betrayals and for purely political reasons can't be shown in a cemetery that supposedly honors those who have served, some making the ultimate sacrifice in war. We are living in a state that kills our children then calls them political statements. That speaks volumes to the chicken hawks who we are allowing to ruin our country.

After Arlington, I met with Sen. Carl Levin from Michigan who has been a strong and outspoken critic against the war. The mess that George Bush has unleashed on our country and on the innocent world weighs heavily on his shoulders. He knows something needs to be done. Let's support him in doing so. Today, I will meet with Sen. Stabenow from the same state.

We headed to the vigil at the White House for our hours long wait in the freezing cold. There was a man there who had several signs which among them said: "Saddam loves Cindy." This man didn't care that Rumsfeld (or Rumsfailed as I accidentally called him on an interview yesterday) was buddy, buddy with Saddam and gave him or sold him tons of WMDs before he became our enemy. I told this man that he didn't bother me, and he told me I don't bother him either. Well, if I don't bother him, why did he come down and make signs and march for hours screaming that I kill our soldiers? We found out why. He was making 60 dollars an hour to do so from some non-profit, right wing group. He said he would switch signs if we gave him more money.

At 7:30 PM about 100 patriots symbolically died in front of the White House. Then 26 of us refused to get up and were arrested. As usual, the Park Police were very polite and efficient and many whisper words of support and encouragement to us. We are planning another die-in tonight at 7 PM. We need more Americans to come out and symbolically die with us here in DC…or do it in your own communities at relevant places, like a federal building, congressperson or senator's office.

When I was being processed out the Lieutenant warned me if I got arrested again that I may have to stay in jail until January since this was my second arrest and I already have one under my belt that hasn't been resolved (which I plan on going to court for anyway). The Lt went to bat for me, he said, so the judge wouldn't keep me until my November court date this time.

I appreciate the warning of the Lt., but I plan on doing Civil Disobedience again this evening. I cannot live freely in a country where people are allowed to commit murder and roam free to commit more mayhem while other people who are exercising their first amendment rights to free speech are locked up in jail. I cannot live freely in a country where others are allowed to lie to retaliate against a person who had the temerity to challenge previous lies. I cannot live freely in a country where bereaved family members aren't allowed to carry pictures of their murdered loved ones into a national cemetery.

If I go before a magistrate tonight or tomorrow after my next arrest, I will tell him/her: If you believe in what you are doing, give me the stiffest sentence possible. If you don't, then resign.

Peace soon.
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From: Common Dreams. Org http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1027-20.ht

Paper beats rock and the spoken word
by: Suzan Shown Harjo / Indian Country Today
October 20, 2005

In traditional Native cultures, a person's word is sacred and history told by one generation to the next is trusted.

Increasingly in modern American society, Native oral history accounts are disbelieved until and unless they can be substantiated by documents from non-Native sources. Some of these sources seem to have full-time jobs coming up with documents to undercut Native oral history, especially involving ongoing court cases.

One of the many ''Indian experts'' on the federal payroll - a Smithsonian linguist - recently produced a sketchy paper to support his claim that Indians dreamed up the term ''redskins'' and that it wasn't insulting at the outset. He cited other white men from the 1800s who wrote that Indian men used that term to describe themselves.

Of course, the words of the Indian men were translated by white men, but the linguist's paper does not make that point; and there is no record of what Native-language words the Native men actually used. Another white man - a reporter for The Washington Post - made the linguist's paper a news story, without making any of these linguistic points.

Native oral history relates that ''redskins'' originated in the days when white officials paid white bounty hunters monies for proof of ''Indian kill.''

One bounty proclamation from the Massachusetts Bay Province in 1755 required ''pursuing, captivating, killing and Destroying all and every of the [Penobscot] Indians.'' It promised to pay 50 pounds for male prisoners; 25 pounds for female or boy prisoners; and 40 pounds for scalps of males and 20 pounds for scalps of females and boys ''that shall be killed and brought in as Evidence of their being killed.''

Since bounties were paid on a sliding scale for Indian men, women and children, the bounty hunters had to produce either the whole bodies or the skinned genitalia in order to authenticate their claim. Scalps from the heads alone would not provide the required proof of adulthood or gender.

Before Native people located documentation of bounty hunting, that heinous practice was denied by most non-Native historians and government officials. Because Native people have not found the documents spelling out that the bloody custom of skinning Indians resulted in the term ''redskins,'' many non-Indians deny there is a connection at all. When and if such documentation is found, their response is likely to be ''so what.''

More and more, the recording of Native history has become a game of catch-me-if-you-can. In the decades leading up to enactment of repatriation laws, officials of most federal, state and private museums and universities vehemently denied that their Indian collections contained Indian human remains. When that lie was exposed, they tried to downplay the vast numbers involved, denying that they held more dead Indians than there were living Indians at the time.

The same ''Indian experts'' who studied the Native human remains in these institutions were the very voices of authority that challenged Native peoples' claims about the nature of these collections.

American Indian oral histories relate myriad specific instances of Euro-Americans beheading Native people. But the ''experts'' and collectors denied that Native people were decapitated until documents were produced on the federal ''Indian Crania Study'' of the 1800s and until the Smithsonian revealed its collection of 4,500 Indian skulls.

Similarly, the existence of the federal ''Civilization Regulations'' that criminalized Indian religions and languages from the 1880s to the 1930s was denied until a bound copy surfaced in the 1980s.

There was even a white lawyer who was supposed to be on the Native side of the campaign for repatriation laws who questioned the existence of the ''Civilization Regulations,'' telling a mutual friend: ''I don't have a copy of them. How do I know they exist?''

There used to be a debate about which diseases the Europeans spread to Native people in this hemisphere. In the ramp-up period to the Columbus Quincentenary, Newsweek devoted an edition of its magazine to the history and legacy of the 1492 invasion.

I wrote the ''My Turn'' column for that issue. Unbeknownst to me, the Smithsonian Institution was deeply involved in the project and one of its ''Indian experts'' reviewed my piece, resulting in a number of changes, including the deletion of syphilis from the list of foreign diseases.

The ''expert'' claimed that Indians infected Europeans with syphilis, even though there is no evidence to support that theory. I was asked if I had any evidence to support my contention. There are myriad oral history accounts of syphilis being brought here by the Europeans, but that didn't satisfy the ''expert'' or the editors, and syphilis was deleted.

Not too long after the magazine went to print, there was an announcement that evidence of syphilis was found in Greece, millennia before Europeans arrived here.

Tribal oral history was not believed in the Kennewick Man case, either. One of the ways that federally-paid scientists ''proved'' in court that the ancient one was not legally an American Indian under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was to discount the oral history of his Northwest Native relatives.

The 9th Circuit stated: ''Because oral accounts have been inevitably changed in context of transmission, because the traditions include myths that cannot be considered as if factual histories, because the value of such accounts is limited by concerns of authenticity, reliability, and accuracy, and because the record as a whole does not show where historical fact ends and mythic tale begins, we do not think that the oral traditions ... were adequate to show the required significant relationship of the Kennewick Man's remains to the Tribal Claimants.''

Many Native people are picking up the lazy habit of denigrating Native histories as ''legends,'' ''myths'' and ''stories,'' and are relying on non-Native ''experts'' to record and validate tribal histories. These practices may adversely affect the outcome of future court cases, as well as the very way family and tribal history unfolds.
© Indian Country Today
************************************************************
Suzan Shown Harjo, Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, is the president of the
Morning Star Institute in Washington, D.C. and a columnist for Indian Country Today.
From: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411772

Coulter: Equal justice under law - except for Indians?
by: Robert Coulter and John D. B. Lewis
October 20, 2005

The Cayuga Indian Nation had to wait more than 185 years to be allowed to bring its historic land claim lawsuit, and for 25 years thereafter litigated to gain some redress for the illegal taking of its lands by the state of New York. Last month, the full bench of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals effectively upheld the dismissal of that lawsuit by a divided three-judge panel.

Unless the Supreme Court reverses this determination, other Indian nations may forever lose their rights to sue for the illegal takings of their lands, and the country will have lost an historic opportunity to provide justice to indigenous people who have experienced centuries of oppression and discrimination.

Over one judge's strong dissent, the two judges in the majority in the Cayuga case said that the Cayuga Indian Nation had delayed too long in bringing its lawsuit and, citing that alleged delay, threw out the $248 million judgment that the Cayugas had won in the District Court. To reach this result, the majority was obliged to overrule two 2nd Circuit precedents and vastly extend a recent Supreme Court decision.

The Cayuga are one of the Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations, that were dispossessed of most of their lands in New York state between 1790 and 1850 in violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790. That legislation, enacted by Congress to stop the plundering of Indian nations, is still on the books. The law declared transactions that violate the act to be of ''no validity in law or equity'' and forbade all transfers of Indian land without the federal government's approval. Nevertheless, the state made many deals to get Indian land, almost of them without federal approval. This history of fraud, deceit and dishonorable conduct by New York left the Cayuga Nation entirely landless, and other Indian nations lost all but tiny remnants of their homelands.

The federal government did nothing to stop the lawlessness, even though the United States had repeatedly promised the Six Nations in formal treaties to respect and protect Indian lands. President George Washington, for instance, acknowledging the illegal takings, assured Indian leaders: ''But ... these evils arose before the present government of the United States was established ... [Now] the General Government only has the power to treat with the Indian Nations, and any treaty formed and held without its authority will not be binding. Here then is the security for the remainder of your lands.''

But Indian lands continued to be sold away by unauthorized individuals in nefarious transactions; and the Six Nations, weakened by the economic desperation and political oppression that followed the Revolutionary War, were unable to resist the greed for their lands.

In the 1920s, the Indian nations in New York secured legal counsel willing to test whether a lawsuit based on the Trade and Intercourse Act could be brought. But the 2nd Circuit held that the federal courts were closed to Indian nations seeking a remedy for the violation of federal laws protecting their lands. Not until 1974 did the Supreme Court hold that Indian nations could bring claims for damages for the taking of their lands in violation of the Trade and Intercourse Act. Just six years later, the Cayuga Nation filed its lawsuit.

After a federal district judge found that New York state had acquired Cayuga Indian Nation lands unlawfully and awarded money damages, New York appealed. Before the appeal was decided, the Supreme Court, in another Indian case, ruled that land parcels illegally taken by New York from the Oneida Indian Nation, but thereafter purchased by the Oneidas, could not be returned to the tax-exempt status that typically applies to Indian land throughout the United States. The Supreme Court based its decision on various supposed facts - the Oneida Nation had long ago sold the land in question; most of the Oneidas had moved away; and the Oneida Nation had not protested the loss of its land and, in any event, had delayed in seeking to reclaim it.

To grant the Oneidas tax-exempt status, the court concluded, would be ''disruptive.'' However, not one of these assertions had been litigated in the lower courts and most of the ''facts'' leading to the court's conclusion are incorrect.

Although the Oneida Nation lost its suit for tax-exempt status, the Supreme Court explicitly stated that its taxation decision did not affect the court's 1985 ruling that the Oneidas have title to lands lost in violation of the Trade and Intercourse Act and the Oneida Nation has a cause of action for damages for such dispossession.

Notwithstanding the court's stance on these two key issues at the time of its decision in the Oneida case, the 2nd Circuit reached diametrically opposite conclusions barely three months later in the Cayuga case.

The two judges in the Cayuga case's majority read the Supreme Court's taxation opinion as deciding that a delay in initiating a land claim could bar Indians from proceeding, even when such a claim is legally viable and within legal time limits. Viewing the Supreme Court's core concern as the ''disruptive'' nature of reasserting Indian jurisdiction and tax exemption over land purchased by the Oneida Indian Nation, the two 2nd Circuit judges found the Cayuga Nation claim similarly ''disruptive'' and therefore barred due to the Cayugas' supposed delay in bringing their claim.

This determination was in direct opposition to a previous 2nd Circuit decision that delay does not bar Indian land claims under the Trade and Intercourse Act. The majority's conclusion that even an award of money damages against the state was ''disruptive'' underscored its evident stance that any remedy at all for the concededly illegal takings would be ''disruptive.''

One of the most startling aspects of the Cayuga decision is that it reversed the district court's judgment and entered judgment for New York without sending the case back to the district court for a determination of any factual issue relating to the alleged delay, such as the length of any delay, the reasonableness of any delay, the extent of any prejudice to New York, and whether the state, given its historic misconduct, should be permitted to avoid all the consequences thereof.

It is difficult to ignore the extent to which the panel majority made new law and disregarded long-established rules about delay in initiating lawsuits. Either the panel made sweeping changes in the law respecting such delay or it made law that applies only to Indian cases. Either way, the result is disturbing.

History attests that Indian nations and peoples have long been denied the even-handed application of the law. In the case of the Cayuga Indian Nation, where a straightforward application of the law would have benefited the Indians, the law was changed - or ignored - to their extreme detriment.
© Indian Country Today October 20, 2005. All Rights Reserved
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Robert T. Coulter, president of the Indian Law Resource Center, has practiced in the field of Indian Law for more than 30 years.
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John D.B. Lewis is an attorney and member of the Indian Law Resource Center's board of directors.
For more information, please go to http://www.indianlaw.org/

Missionaries Ordered to Leave Venezuela
Venezuela's Chavez Orders U.S. Missionary Group Working With Indigenous Tribes to Leave Country
By Ian James
The Associated Press

BARRANCO YOPAL, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered a U.S.-based Christian missionary group working with indigenous tribes to leave the country Wednesday, accusing the organization of "imperialist infiltration" and links to the CIA.

Chavez said missionaries of the New Tribes Mission, based in Sanford, Fla., were no longer welcome during a ceremony in a remote Indian village where he presented property titles to several indigenous groups.

"The New Tribes are leaving Venezuela. This is an irreversible decision that I have made," Chavez said. "We don't want the New Tribes here. Enough colonialism!"

He accused the missionaries of building luxurious camps next to poor Indian villages and circumventing Venezuelan customs authorities as they freely flew in and out on private planes.

The group is involved in "true imperialist infiltration, the CIA, they take away sensitive, strategic information," Chavez said, without elaborating. "And on top of that, exploiting the Indians."

"We don't want to abuse them, we're simply going to give them a period of time (to) pack up their things because they are leaving," Chavez said to applause from hundreds of Indians who sat under tents in Barranco Yopal, a remote village on Venezuela's southern plains.

Nita Zelenak, a New Tribes representative reached by phone, declined to comment on Venezuela's decision or say how many missionaries are working in the country.

The New Tribes Mission specializes in evangelism among indigenous groups in the world's remotest places. The organization says it has 3,200 workers and operations in 17 nations across Latin America, Southeast Asia and West Africa.

During the ceremony, Chavez granted 15 property titles for more than 1.65 million acres to the Cuiba, Yuaruro, Warao and Karina tribes. The documents recognize collective ownership of ancestral lands by communities with some 3,000 people.

"Previously, the indigenous people of Venezuela were removed from our lands. This is historic. It is a joyful day," said Librado Moraleda, a 52-year-old Warao from a remote village in the Orinoco River Delta.

Moraleda received a land title and government pledges of $27,000 to build homes and plant cassava and plantains.

Chavez says he is leading a "revolution" for the poor and that defending the rights of Venezuelan's 300,000 indigenous people is a priority.

But poverty remains severe in many Indian communities, and some said they need more help beyond land titles.

"We want the government to help us with hunger, with credit," said Yuaruro Indian Pedro Mendez, 26. He said his community had asked for an electrical generator and loans to help plant more crops.

Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures

From: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1208444&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
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Communities Without Borders
By David Bacon

The Nation / October 2005 Issue

In 1982 Guatemalan army troops filled the roads through the highlands above Huehuetenango. As part of the country's civil war, soldiers, carrying Armalite rifles supplied by US President Ronald Reagan, swept into the small indigenous villages of Santa Eulalia and San Miguel Acatan. Accusing the towns of using church youth groups to recruit guerrillas, they began killing political activists. Finally, after the army shot down San Miguel teenagers in front of the church, many families fled. Helicopters chased and bombed them through the mountains, all the way to the Mexican border. For those who stayed behind, there was no work-just devastation.

That same year indigenous farm workers from Oaxaca, living in Sinaloa's migrant labor camps in northern Mexico, began to rise up against filthy living conditions and backbreaking labor. Radical young Mixtec organizers launched strikes and, together with left-wing students from the local university in Culiacan, faced down growers, police, armed guards and, ultimately, Mexican troops.

Oaxaca's Mixtec, Zapotec and Triqui laborers were recent arrivals in Sinaloa, but they had already been migrating within Mexico for two decades. Starting in the late 1950s, when Mexican policies of rural development and credit began to fail, the inhabitants of small Oaxacan villages traveled first to nearby Veracruz. There they found work unavailable in their home state, cutting sugar cane and picking coffee for the rich planters of the coast.

Then Sinaloa's new factory farms a thousand miles north, growing tomatoes and strawberries for US supermarkets, needed workers too. Soon growers began recruiting the south's indigenous migrants, and before long, trains were packed with Oaxacan families every spring.

Over the next twenty years, Guatemala's Qan-jobal and Mam refugees, and Oaxaca's indigenous farm workers, moved north through Mexico. Eventually they began crossing the border into the United States. Today, both of these migrant streams have developed well-established- communities thousands of miles from their hometowns. In Nebraska, Los Angeles and Florida, Huehuetenango highlanders affectionately call their neighborhoods Little San Miguel. Triquis, living just below the border in Baja California, named their settlements Nuevo San Juan Copala in honor of their Oaxacan hometown. In Fresno and Madera, California, the Mixtec community is so large that signs in grocery stores list sale items not just in Spanish but in a tongue that predates the Spaniards' arrival by centuries.

Indigenous migrant streams have created communities all along the northern road. Their experience defies common US preconceptions about immigrants. In Washington, DC, discussions of immigration are filled with false assumptions. US policy treats migrants as individual workers, ignoring the social pressures that force whole communities to move, and the networks of families and hometowns that sustain migrants on their journeys. Government policy often requires the deportation of parents caught without papers, who have to leave behind their children born in the United States. Sometimes, in this arbitrary Alice in Wonderland world, the opposite happens, and undocumented youth find themselves forced to move back to a place they don't even remember.

Policy-makers see migration simply as a journey from point A to point B. They assume that people make decisions about when to leave home, where to go and how to live based simply on economics-the need for a job. There is no denying the importance of the universal human need for work. But the dislocation of communities worldwide, forced to migrate in search of it, has never been a voluntary process. In Washington, dislocation is a dirty, unmentionable secret of the global economy.

What US immigration policy does not take into account is how the drive for community motivates migration. Current proposals for guest workers are the latest form of this denial. Corporate interests have successfully made them the centerpiece of almost all current immigration reform proposals, whether made by Republicans or Democrats. By definition, guest workers are admitted on a temporary basis, contracted to employers. They have no right to settle in communities, send their children to school, practice their culture and religion or speak their language. They can't vote or exercise fundamental political or labor rights. They can come only if an employer or a gang boss recruiter offers them a job. Without constant employment, they have to leave. The assumption is that they are here to work, and only to work.

Sergio Sosa, a Guatemalan organizer of Omaha Together One Community in Nebraska, emphasizes that "Mams and Qanjobales face poverty and isolation, even the possible disappearance of their identity. But they didn't choose this. People from Europe and the United States crossed our borders to come to Guatemala, and took over our land and economy. Migration is a form of fighting back. Now it's our turn to cross borders."

When they do, though, they confront a second dirty secret of globalization-inequality. Inequality is the most important product of US immigration policy, and a conscious one. The current spate of guest-worker proposals all assume that immigrants should not be treated as the equals of the people around them, or have the same rights. Among the crucial rights denied to them is the right to community-both to live in communities of their own creation and to be part of the broader community around them.

Nonetheless, migrants can and do carry community with them, along with traditions of social rights and organization. While living in a settlement of bamboo and plastic tents, for instance, in the reeds beside California's Russian River, Fausto Lopez, a Triqui migrant farm worker, became president of the Sonoma County chapter of the Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations (FIOB). He brought fellow Triquis from their impromptu encampment to marches and demonstrations in California's state capitol[-al?], demanding drivers' licenses and amnesty for undocumented immigrants. Living in conditions most Americans equate with extreme poverty, they see themselves not as victims but social actors with a right to acceptance both in Mexico and the United States.

"Indigenous Oaxaqueños understand the need for community and organization," says Rufino Dominguez, who coordinates the FIOB. "When people migrate from a community in Oaxaca, in the new places where they settle they form a committee comprised of people from their home town. This is a tradition they don't lose, wherever they go."

Indigenous migrants from Mexico and Central America overwhelmingly belong to transnational communities like those of Oaxaca's Mixtecs and Triquis, or Guatemala's Mams and Qanjobales. Mixtec scholar Gaspar Rivera-Salgado and Jonathan Fox, an authority on Oaxacan migration at the University of California in Santa Cruz, refer to "Oaxacalifornia" as a "space in which migrants bring together their lives in California with their communities of origin more than 2,500 miles away." They might have equally referred to Pueblayork, the title bestowed on New York by a similar flow of indigenous migration from the Mexican state of Puebla. Migrants from Guatemala's Santa Eulalia don't yet call their Midwest community Nebraskamala, but there are enough of them living in Omaha and surrounding meatpacking towns to justify such a nickname. These migrants retain ties to their communities of origin and establish new communities as they migrate in search of work. They move back and forth through these networks, at least to the extent the difficult passage across borders allows. Their ties to one another are so strong, and the movement of people so great, that in many ways people belong to a single community that exists in different locations, on both sides of the border that formally divides their countries.

For Oaxacans, the formation of communities outside their home state began back when they became the workforce for industrial agriculture in the northern Mexican states of Sinaloa and Baja California. In 1984, as a young man, Dominguez was one of those who left Oaxaca. In Sinaloa, responding to conditions for migrants that were the scandal of Mexico, he formed the Organization of Exploited and Oppressed People. The strikes he helped organize put their abuse into the public eye.

"Often we went into the fields barefoot," remembers Jorge Giron, from the Mixtec town of Santa Maria Tindu, who now lives in Fresno. His wife, Margarita, recalls that in the labor camp "the rooms were made of cardboard, and you could see other families through the holes. When you had to relieve yourself, you went in public because there were no bathrooms. You would go behind a tree or tall grass and squat. People bathed in the river, and further down others would wash their clothes and drink. A lot of people came down with diarrhea and vomiting." The strikes, they say, forced improvements.

While bad conditions kept the cost of tomatoes low in Los Angeles, they were also a factor motivating people to keep moving north. Dominguez followed the migrant trail to San Quintin on the Baja California peninsula, where he and his friends organized more strikes. Finally he crossed the border, winding up in California's San Joaquin Valley. There he again found Mixtec farm workers from his home state. "I felt like I was in my hometown," he recalls. And just as they had in northern Mexico, Oaxacan migrants formed the Frente, using the network of relationships created by common language, culture and origin.

Labor organizing was part of the mix here too. In 1993 FIOB began a collaboration with the United Farm Workers. "We recognized the UFW was a strong union representing agricultural workers," Dominguez explains. "They recognized us as an organization fighting for the rights for indigenous migrants." But it was an uneasy relationship. Mixtec activists felt that UFW members often exhibited the same discriminatory attitudes common among Mexicans back home toward indigenous people. Fighting racism in Mexico, however, had prepared them for this. According to Rivera Salgado, "the experience of racism enforces a search for cultural identity to resist [and] creates the possibility of new forms of organization and action."

Even among other organizations of Mexican immigrants, the FIOB is unique. It is a truly binational organization, with chapters all along the migrant trail. Members adopt one overall political program every two years, while chapters address the distinct problems of indigenous communities in each location. In Oaxaca in the mid-1990s, the Frente began to help women organize weaving cooperatives and development projects to sustain families in small depopulated towns, left behind by migrating men. Taking advantage of its chapters in the United States, the Frente began selling their clothes, textiles and other artisan work in the north, to support the communities in the south. This activity was an embarrassment to the Oaxacan state government, however, which is still run by Mexico's old ruling party, the PRI. Government hostility grew even sharper because FIOB leaders, like high school teacher Juan Romualdo Gutierrez, not only voiced outspoken criticism but allied themselves with Mexico's left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Last year Gutierrez was arrested and held in jail on bogus charges of misappropriating a computer until a binational campaign of telegrams and demonstrations won his release.

"You can't tell a child to study to be a doctor if there is no work for doctors in Mexico," Gutierrez says. "It is a very daunting task for a Mexican teacher to convince students to get an education and stay in the country. If a student sees his older brother migrate to the United States, build a house and buy a car, he will follow. The money brought in by immigrants is Mexico's number-one source of income, but the state government only recognizes the immigrant community when it is convenient." Like many others on the Mexican left, Gutierrez accuses authorities of relying on remittances from workers to finance social services and public works, which are really the government's responsibility.

In Baja California, south of the border, FIOB activists fight for housing for indigenous migrants. They seek to enforce the old Constitutional right of people to settle and build housing on vacant land, a right largely eliminated by the neoliberal economic reforms of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Militants like Triqui activist Julio Sandoval have led land invasions in the state's agricultural valleys. Large growers are so threatened that Sandoval was locked up for three years in an Ensenada prison. At FIOB's binational congress in Oaxaca in March, Sandoval declared that "as Mexicans, we have a right to housing, and we will force the government to respect us." Binational pressure was indispensable to winning his release as well.

The FIOB started in California as an organization of Mixtecs and Zapotecs, and then broadened to include all Oaxacan indigenous groups. At this year's assembly in Oaxaca, members voted to expand its reach again, to include indigenous organizations from Puebla, Guerrero and Michoacan.

Mexican indigenous communities in the United States live at the social margin, and FIOB's activity confronts that fact. It is an organization of cultural activists, mounting an annual celebration of Oaxacan dance, the Guelagetza, every year. Its organizers work for California Rural Legal Assistance, advising farm workers of their rights in indigenous languages. In fact, FIOB has won the right to Mixtec translation in California courts, a right still not recognized in Mexico. It knits different communities together through basketball tournaments (unlike most Mexicans, Oaxacans prefer this sport to soccer) and leadership training groups for women.

FIOB's organizing strategy grows out of indigenous culture, particularly an institution called the tequio. "This is the concept of collective work to support our community," Dominguez says. "Wherever we go, we go united. Even though 509 years have passed since the Spanish conquest, we still speak our language. We want to live our culture and to insure that it won't die."

Part of this culture is participatory democracy, with roots in indigenous village life. The organization's binational assemblies discuss bylaws and political positions. In one of the Frente's defining moments, the 2002 Tijuana assembly removed a longtime leader who was no longer accountable to FIOB's members. A woman, Centolia Maldonado, played the central role in this difficult process-a recognition of new sex roles that are a product of the migration experience, which is changing some of the migrating communities' old, patriarchal traditions. FIOB's political platform, adopted at the same assembly, maintains a focus on the problems faced by transnational communities. It condemns US guest-worker proposals, and calls for an extension of the rights of citizenship by implementing the decision made in 1995 by the Mexican government to allow its citizens in the United States to vote in Mexican elections.

Discrimination in Mexico is not the only obstacle to preserving indigenous culture. It's not easy for Mixtec and Triqui parents in Fresno to convince their children, born in the United States, to hold fast to language and traditions light-years removed from California schools and movie theaters. The state's ban on bilingual education, and discrimination from local school authorities, make cultural preservation even harder. But even as some cultural adaptation is inevitable and sometimes even desirable, the experience of forty years of migration argues that economic and social survival depends on maintaining the identity, language and traditions that hold a community together.

Ruben Puentes, director of the transnational communities program at the Rockefeller Foundation, which has supported cultural development among Mexican indigenous migrants (and a photo-documentary project by this author), asks, "Is there today a growing culture of migration itself, a kind of cultural capital that helps communities survive?" He argues that this developing transnational culture does not get adequate consideration in the debate around immigration policy.

Transnational communities play a growing role in the political life of their home countries, changing the very definition of citizenship and residence. This year, for instance, Jesus Martinez, a professor at California State University in Fresno, was elected by Michoacan residents to their state legislature. His mandate is to represent the interests of the state's citizens living in the United States. Transnational migrants insist that they have important political and social rights, both in their communities of origin and in their communities abroad.

Today's migrants often come with experience in the radical social movements of their homelands. When Qanjobales and Mams came to Nebraska, their experience dovetailed with efforts to organize meatpacking workers already underway in the church parishes of South Omaha. "Using social networks to organize people is part of our culture," Sergio Sosa says. "The art is to transform these networks and connect them with African-Americans and Anglo-Saxons. Latinos can do many things, and this is our moment. But we can't do them alone."

Transnational communities, while often founded around a single indigenous ethnic identity, don't exist in isolation from one another. In Omaha's organizing ferment, the organizing styles of Guatemalans and Mexicans blend together, as people reinterpret various traditions of collective action. The alliance between South Omaha's immigrants, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and Omaha Together One Community, an organizing project started by the Industrial Areas Foundation, successfully organized one of the city's main meatpacking plants.

Sosa and another activist from Santa Eulalia, Francisco Lorenzo, then started Grupo Ixim with local Guatemalans. "Ixim" is the word meaning corn in each of Guatemala's twenty-three indigenous languages. "It also means the common good-the way that inside an ear of corn all the grains are together," Sosa says.

Like many immigrant groups, it first gelled around practical goals. "For example if a fellow countryman were to pass away, we would quickly mobilize to gather money and send the body to Guatemala," explains Jesus Martinez, a meatpacking worker. Ixim groups have also been organized in Chicago, Los Angeles and other US cities. In the Nebraska group, tension surfaced last year between those who see its function mainly as cultural preservation and others who want more politics. Last year Rodolfo Bobadilla, bishop of Huehuetenango and a former disciple of assassinated Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, visited his parishioners living in Omaha. A heated debate broke out in a back room at the welcoming fiesta. Martinez, Sosa and their allies proposed to give the bishop a letter to take home, expressing the sentiment of Guatemalans in the United States about the country's national election. Former General Efrain Rios Montt, the president who ordered the bloodiest massacres of the 1980s, was once again a candidate. Ixim's activists wanted to remind their countrymen about this terrible past, which has much to do with the fact that so many Guatemalans now live in exile. In the end, they voted to send the letter.

Emigration has complicated social costs and benefits in communities of origin. It threatens cultural practices and indigenous languages. It exacerbates social and economic divisions in small rural towns, as families with access to remittances sent home by relatives bid up land prices beyond the reach of families without that access. San Miguel now boasts a number of large modern houses, owned by refugees of 1982 who live in the United States. With no economic development at home, migration has become a necessity. The ability to emigrate increasingly determines social and economic status in communities of origin. The creation of transnational communities is a global phenomenon. They exist at different stages of development in the flow of migrants from developing to developed countries worldwide. According to Migrant Rights International, more than 130 million people live outside the countries in which they were born-a permanent feature of life on the planet.

Immigration policy in almost all developed, industrial countries is institutionalizing this global flow of migration, as well as the roles of countries that employ it (like the United States) and those that produce the migrants (like Mexico and Guatemala). The main mechanism are guest-worker programs, which assign the migrants' communities of origin the function of providing a labor pool for the production of future workers, while offering no support in return. Instead, home communities depend on remittances from migrants. Mexican President Vicente Fox boasts that some of the world's most impoverished workers send home more than $18 billion annually-a contribution to the economy approaching those of oil and tourism.

FIOB's Los Angeles coordinator, Ofelia Romero, predicts that "expanded guest-worker programs will lead to the wholesale violation of migrants' rights." In previous periods, when US immigration policy valued immigrants only for their labor power, it produced extremely abusive systems. The memory of the bracero program, which ran from 1942 to 1964, is so bitter that even today defenders of guest-worker schemes avoid association with the name. But before the braceros came, Filipinos were treated the same way-as a mobile, vulnerable workforce, circulated from labor camp to labor camp for more than half a century. And before them the Japanese and Chinese, all the way back to slavery.

Today, guest workers are brought from tiny Guatemalan towns to the pine forests of the American East and South. Their experience is remarkably similar [see "Be Our Guests," September 27, 2004]. US immigration policy doesn't deter the flow of migrants across the border. Its basic function is defining the status of people once they're here. Guest-worker programs undermine both workplace and community rights, affecting non-immigrants as well. They inhibit the development of families and culture, denying everyone what newcomers can offer.

The alternative is a policy that recognizes and values transnational communities. A pro-people, anticorporate immigration policy sees the creation and support of communities as a desirable goal. It reinforces indigenous culture and language, protects the rights of everyone and seeks to integrate immigrants into the broader US society.

The United Nations' International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families proposes this kind of framework, establishing equality of treatment with citizens of the host country. Both sending and receiving countries are responsible for protecting migrants and retain the right to determine who is admitted to their territories and who has the right to work. Predictably, the countries that have ratified it are the sending countries. Those countries most interested in guest worker schemes, like the United States, have not.

"Another amnesty is part of the alternative also," Sosa adds, "but ten years from now we're going to face the same situation again, if we don't change the way we treat other countries. Treaties like CAFTA insure that this will happen." Today working people of all countries are asked to accept continuing globalization, in which capital is free to go wherever it can earn the highest profits. He argues that migrants must have the same freedom, with rights and status equal to those of anyone else. "I come from a faith tradition," he concludes. "Faith crosses borders. It says, This world is our world, for all of us."

From: TruthOut.org http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/101605E.shtml

All My Relations: Indigenous Vision
By John Mohawk, PhD.
Excerpted from the 2003 Bioneers Conference

The most foolish thing that the United States government has ever done was to launch a centuries-long campaign to eradicate indigenous cultures. A great deal of profound knowledge and wisdom was lost - wisdom we could desperately use - today.

About 30 years ago, I was attending a meeting at the Onondaga longhouse in New York, and the guests at that longhouse were from Hopi country in Arizona. One of them, Thomas Banyaca, who was a translator for some of the elders who had journeyed to us had a story to tell from the elders. Hisstory was that the world had more or less come to an end a few times, but that some native people had survived, and they'd come to be aware that it was an inattention to and a disrespect for nature that had been at the root of their problems. Life on earth had been threatened and certainly civilization had been threatened because people had abandoned a respect for nature. And now this was happening again.

The elders had sent Thomas forward to try to explain this to the world, to give us all a warning. (At one point he even addressed the United Nations.) The elders also said we should look at the white men's written records to find evidence to support what they were saying. I took that job on and began to do research. I discovered that the anthropologists who looked at the Maya civilization and its very curious collapse in the ninth century have been puzzled. It doesn't seem that the Maya were overwhelmed by invaders or had a devastating internal civil war. It looks as though there had been a huge population, especially living around Tikal, and that suddenly in the space of 100 years, around 900 AD, their civilization collapsed and the people disappeared. There's no evidence that they migrated, because there's no corresponding evidence of increased populations in some surrounding area. It looks as if they simply vanished.

One intriguing hypothesis suggested that sudden climate change might have been to blame. Scientists looked at ice cores from Greenland corresponding to the period around 900 AD and discovered that that century had been extremely cold, far colder than usual. They used computer simulations to look at what the global climate would likely have been under those conditions of extreme cold in the northern latitudes. Drought in Central America was one predicted outcome. It turns out that one of the symbols that comes up a lot in Maya inscriptions at this time of collapse is the symbol for drought. Then core samples of deep layers of mud from lakes in Mexico confirmed that a severe drought had indeed occurred at that time.

When we come to the desert Southwest, we find a lot of evidence of civilizations there that became quite sophisticated in the use of irrigation. They dug canals, made holding ponds, and so on. But there too, several civilizations, simply vanished, leaving behind impressive buildings such as the Mesa Verde complex. Something happened. The Hopi and the other pueblos indeed have stories that say something awful happened that caused their ancient ancestors to go back into the earth and emerge later in a different world.

In South America in Bolivia and Peru, agriculture found its way into the most extreme environments in which humans ever grew plants. For some reason, those people grew food higher up the mountains, further into the desert and deeper into the rainforests than any other human populations ever did. Not only that, but they discovered, cultivated, transformed and changed more species of plants into cultivars [food crops] than any other complex of cultures in the history of the world. Those Andean cultures created more than 3000 varieties of cultivated plants. That is an almost mind-boggling achievement.

These agricultural innovators did amazing research and development. They took a number of plants and adapted them so that they could grow higher and higher up in the mountains in drier and colder conditions. Incan society organized itself to be able to grow food in very different ecosystems under very different conditions to make sure that in the years when food supplies failed in one place, the people in that place didn't starve because someplace else people had a successful growing season. They understood that reciprocity was a survival strategy, and they carried this practice on for centuries. In fact, they were growing more and better food in the Andes then than they are now.

Starting around about the fourth century AD, it seems that the area we now call Central Asia, those huge steppes then populated mostly by nomadic herding cultures, also suffered severe climate changes including droughts and extreme cold weather that began to cause some of these tribes of herdsmen to move en masse, eventually pushing some groups to sweep down from Central Asia into Europe. These massive population movements and invasions ultimately pushed the tribes living north of the Roman Empire (Goths, Visigoths, and Vandals) into Italy to topple Rome. There were other factors in the decline and fall of Rome, but this climate change most likely played a crucial role.

These past episodes may offer us clues about the future of our civilization. They show us, at the very least, that civilizations can be very fragile in the face of climate change.

Later, in the late Middle Ages and beyond, an overcrowded, filthy and highly unsanitary Europe was having to contend constantly with the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" - disease, war, famine and death - while in America the problems were different. The climate kept changing and civilizations were collapsing. But the Indians were learning how to cope with it, discovering how to plant plants that survived through droughts and cold weather. They were creating a version of what some people today call "permaculture," but a permaculture for the ages that understood climate wouldn't necessarily remain stable.

That's why I say the stupidest thing the colonists and their governments ever did was to suppress Indian culture, because guess what? Climate change is coming again, and those cultures had a lot of very practical knowledge about how to adjust and survive in the face of major climate change.

I believe that what is coming will pose a major challenge to world civilization. A high-tech civilization that depends on running water, electricity, bridges and so on is far more fragile than we realize. I think the Hopi were right: Western civilization will face the same kind of challenges the ancient civilizations of this continent faced, but we're not ready to deal with them. The Hopi had some important messages for us, but, so far, we're not listening.
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John Mohawk, a legendary Native American journalist, activist, scholar, farmer (and Bioneers board member), is a Turtle Clan Seneca from Cattaraugus, and also a Professor of American Studies at the State University of New York in Buffalo.

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)

Italian Cristoforo Colombo; Spanish Cristoval Colon. Born at Genoa, or on Genoese territory, probably 1451; died at Valladolid, Spain, 20 May 1506. His family was respectable, but of limited means, so that the early education of Columbus was defective. Up to his arrival in Spain (1485) only one date has been preserved. His son Fernando, quoting from his father's writings says that in February, 1467, he navigated the seas about "Tile" (probably Iceland). Columbus himself in a letter to King Ferdinand says that he began to navigate at the age of fourteen, though in the journal of his first voyage (no longer in existence), in 1493, he was said to have been on the sea twenty-three years, which would make him nineteen when he first became a mariner.

The early age at which he began his career as a sailor is not surprising for a native of Genoa, as the Genoese were most enterprising and daring seamen. Certain it is that while quite young he became a thorough and practical navigator, and later acquired a fair knowledge of astronomy. He also gained a wide acquaintance with works on cosmography such as Ptolemy and the "Imago Mundi" of Cardinal d'Ailly, besides entering into communication with the cosmographers of his time. The fragment of a treatise written by him and called by his son Fernando "The Five Habitable Zones of the Earth" shows a degree of information unusual for a sailor of his day. As in the case of most of the documents relating to the life of Columbus the genuineness of the letters written in 1474 by Paolo Toscanelli, a renowned physicist of Florence, to Columbus and a member of the household of King Alfonso V of Portugal, has been attacked on the ground of the youth of Columbus, although they bears signs of authenticity. The experiences and researches referred to fit in satisfactorily with the subsequent achievements of Columbus. For the rest, the early part of Columbus's life is interwoven with incidents, most of which are unsupported by evidence, though quite possible. His marriage about 1475 to a Portuguese lady whose name is given sometimes as Doña Felipa Moniz and sometimes as Doña Felipa Perestrella seems certain.

Columbus seems to have arrived in Portugal about 1471, although 1474 is also mentioned and supported by certain indications. He vainly tried to obtain the support of the King of Portugal for his scheme to discover the Far East by sailing westward, a scheme supposed to have been suggested by his brother Bartholomew, who is said to have been earning a livelihood at Lisbon by designing marine charts. Columbus went to Spain in 1485, and probably the first assistance he obtained there was from the Duke of Medina Celi, Don Luis de la Cerda, for whom he performed some services that brought him a compensation of 3000 maravedis in May, 1487. He lived about two years at the home of the duke and made unsuccessful endeavors to interest him in his scheme of maritime exploration. His attempts to secure the help of the Duke of Medina Sidonia were equally unproductive of results. No blame attaches to the noblemen for declining to undertake an enterprise which only rulers of nations could properly carry out. Between 1485 and 1488 Columbus began his relations with Doña Beatriz Enriquez de Arana, or Harana, of a good family of the city of Cordova, from which sprang his much beloved son Fernando, next to Christopher and his brother Bartholomew the most gifted of the Colombos.

Late in 1485 or early in 1486, Columbus appeared twice before the court to submit his plans and while the Duke of Medina Celi may have assisted him to some extent, the chief support came from the royal treasurer, Alonzo de Quintanilla, Friar Antonio de Marchena (confounded by Irving with Father Perez of La Rábida), and Diego de Deza, Bishop of Placencia. Columbus himself declared that these two priests were always his faithful friends. Marchena also obtained for him the valuable sympathy of Cardinal Gonzalez de Mendoza. Through the influence of these men the Government appointed a junta or commission of ecclesiastics that met at Salamanca late in 1486 or early in 1487, in the Dominicanconvent of San Esteban to investigate the scheme, which they finally rejected. The commission had no connection with the celebrated University of Salamanca, but was under the guidance of the prior of Prado. It seems that Columbus gave but scant and unsatisfactory information to the commission, probably through fear that his ideas might be improperly made use of and he be robbed of the glory and advantages that he expected to derive from his project. This may account for the rejection of his proposals. The prior of Prado was a Hieronymite, while Columbus was under the especial protection of the Dominicans. Among his early friends in Spain was Luis de Santangel, whom Irving calls "receiver of the ecclesiastical revenues of Aragon", and who afterwards advanced to the queen the funds necessary for the first voyage. If Santangel was receiver of the church revenues and probably treasurer and administrator, it was the Church that furnished the means (17,000 ducats) for the admiral's first voyage.

It would be unjust to blame King Ferdinand for declining the proposals of Columbus after the adverse report of the Salamanca commission, which was based upon objections drawn from Seneca and Ptolemy rather than upon the opinion of St. Augustine in the "De Civitate Dei". The king was then preparing to deal the final blow to Moorish domination in Spain after the struggle of seven centuries, and his financial resources were taxed to the utmost. Moreover, he was not easily carried away by enthusiasm and, though we now recognize the practical value of the plans of Columbus, at the close of the fifteenth century it seemed dubious, to say the least, to a cool-headed ruler, wont to attend first to immediate necessities. The crushing of the Moorish power in the peninsula was then of greater moment than the search after distant lands for which, furthermore, there were not the means in the royal treasury. Under these conditions Columbus, always in financial straits himself and supported by the liberality of friends, bethought himself of the rulers of France and England. In 1488 his brother Bartholomew, as faithful as sagacious, tried to induce one or the other of them to accept the plans of Christopher, but failed. The idea was too novel to appeal to either. Henry VII of England was too cautious to entertain proposals from a comparatively unknown seafarer of a foreign nation, and Charles VIII of France was too much involved in Italian affairs. The prospect was disheartening. Nevertheless, Columbus, with the assistance of his friends, concluded to make another attempt in Spain. He proceeded to court again in 1491, taking with him his son Diego. The court being then in camp before Granada, the last Moorish stronghold, the time could not have been more inopportune. Another junta was called before Granada while the siege was going on, but the commission again reported unfavourably. This is not surprising, as Ferdinand of Aragon could not undertake schemes that would involve a great outlay, and divert his attention from the momentous task he was engaged in. Columbus always directed his proposals to the king and as yet the queen had taken no official notice of them, as she too was heart and soul in the enterprise destined to restore Spain wholly to Christian rule.

The junta before Granada took place towards the end of 1491, and its decision was such a blow to Columbus that he left the court and wandered away with his boy. Before leaving, however, he witnessed the fall of Granada, 2 January, 1492. His intention was to return to Cordova and then, perhaps, to go to France. On foot and reduced almost to beggary, he reached the Dominicanconvent of La Rábida probably in January, 1492. The prior was Father Juan Perez, the confessor of the queen, frequently confounded with Fray Antonio Marchena by historians of the nineteenth century, who also erroneously place the arrival of Columbus at La Rábida in the early part of his sojourn in Spain. Columbus begged the friar who acted as door-keeper to let his tired son rest at the convent over night. While he was pleading his cause the prior was standing near by and listening. Something struck him in the appearance of this man, with a foreign accent, who appeared to be superior to his actual condition. After providing for his immediate wants Father Perez took him to his cell, where Columbus told him all his aspirations and blighted hopes. The result was that Columbus and his son stayed at the convent as guests and Father Perez hurried to Santa Fe near Granada, for the purpose of inducing the queen to take a personal interest in the proposed undertaking of the Italian navigator.

Circumstances had changed with the fall of Granada, and the Dominican's appeal was favourably received by Isabella who, in turn, influenced her husband. Columbus was called to court at once, and 20,000 maravedis were assigned him out of the queen's private resources that he might appear in proper condition before the monarch. Some historians assert that Luis de Santangel decided the queen to espouse the cause of Columbus, but the credit seems rather to belong to the prior of La Rábida. The way had been well prepared by the other steadfast friends of Columbus, not improbably Cardinal Mendoza among others. At all events negotiations progressed so rapidly that on 17 April the first agreement with the Crown was signed, and on 30 April the second. Both show an unwise liberality on the part of the monarchs, who made the highest office in what was afterwards the West Indies hereditary in the family of Columbus. Preparations were immediately begun for the equipment of the expedition. The squadron with which Columbus set out on his first voyage consisted of three vessels--the Santa Maria, completely decked, which carried the flag of Columbus as admiral, the Pinta, and the Niña, both caravels, i.e. undecked, with cabins and forecastles. These three ships carried altogether 120 men. Two seamen of repute, Martín Alonso Pinzon and his brother Vicente Yanez Pinzon, well-to-do-residents of Palos commanded, the former the Pinta. the latter the Niña, and experienced pilots were placed on both ships. Before leaving, Columbus received the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Eucharist, at the hands (it is stated) of Father Juan Perez, the officers and crews of the little squadron following his example. On 3 August, 1492, the people of Palos with heavy hearts saw them depart on an expedition regarded by many as foolhardy.

Las Casas claims to have used the journal of Columbus' first voyage, but he admits that he made an abridged copy of it. What and how much he left out, of course, is not known. But it is well to bear in mind that the journal, as published, is not the original in its entirety. The vessels touched at the Canaries, and then proceeded on the voyage. Conditions were most favourable. Hardly a wind ruffled the waters of the ocean. The dramatic incident of the mutiny, in which the discouragement of the crews is said to have culminated before land was discovered, is a pure invention. That there was dissatisfaction and grumbling at the failure to reach land seems to be certain, but no acts of insubordination are mentioned either by Columbus, his commentator Las Casas, or his son Fernando. Perhaps the most important event during the voyage was the observation, 17 September, by Columbus himself, of the declination of the magnetic needle, which Las Casas attributes to a motion of the polar star. The same author intimates that two distinct journals were kept by the admiral, "because he always represented [feigned] to the people that he was making little headway in order that the voyage should not seem long to them, so that he kept a record by two routes, the shorter being the fictitious one, and the longer the true one". He must therefore either have kept two log-books, or he must have made two different entries in the same book. At any rate Las Casas seems to have had at his command both sets of data, since he gives them almost from day to day. This precautionary measure indicates that Columbus feared insubordination and even revolt on the part of the crews, but there is no evidence that any mutiny really broke out. Finally, at ten o'clock, p.m., 11 October, Columbus himself described a light which indicated land and was so recognized by the crew of his vessel. It reappeared several times, and Columbus felt sure that the shores so eagerly expected were near. At 2 a.m. on 12 October the land was seen plainly by one of the Pinta's crew, and in the forenoon Columbus landed on what is now called Watling's Island in the Bahama group, West Indies. The discoverers named the island San Salvador. The Indians inhabiting it belonged to the widespread Arawak stock and are said to have called the island Guanahani. Immediately after landing Columbus took possession of the island for the Spanish sovereigns.

The results of the first voyage, aside from the discovery of what the admiral regarded as being approaches to India and China, may be summed up as follows: partial recognition of the Bahamas; the discovery and exploration of a part of Cuba, and the establishment of a Spanish settlement on the coast of what is now the Island of Haiti or Santo Domingo. Cuba Columbus named Juana, and Santo Domingo, Hispaniola.

It was on the northern coast of the large island of Santo Domingo that Columbus met with the only serious mishap of the first voyage. Having established the nucleus of the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Indies, he left about three score men to hold it. The vicinity was comparatively well peopled by natives, Arawaks like those of the Bahamas, but slightly more advanced in culture. A few days previous to the foundation Martin Alonso Pinzon disappeared with the caravel Pinta which he commanded and only rejoined the admiral on 6 January, 1493, an act, to say the least, of disobedience, if not of treachery. The first settlement was officially established on Christmas Day, 1492, and hence christened "La Navidad". On the same day the admiral's ship ran aground. It was a total loss, and Columbus was reduced for the time being to the Niña, as the Pinta had temporarily deserted. Happily the natives were friendly. After ensuring, as well as he might, the safety of the little colony by the establishment of friendly relations with the Indians, Columbus left for Spain, where, after weathering a frightful storm during which he was again separated from the Pinta, he arrived at Palos, 15 March, 1493.

From the journal mentioned we also gather (what is not stated in the letters of Columbus) that while on the northern shores of Santo Domingo (Hispaniola) the admiral "learned that behind the Island Juana [Cuba] towards the South, there is another large island in which there is much more gold. They call that island Yamaye. . . .
And that the island Española or the other island Yamaye was near the mainland, ten days distant by canoe, which might be sixty or seventy leagues, and that there the people were clothed [dressed]". Yamaye is Jamaica, and the mainland alluded to as sixty or seventy leagues distant to the south (by south the west is meant), or 150 to 175 English miles (the league, at that time, being counted at four millas of 3000 Spanish feet), was either Yucatan or Honduras. Hence the admiral brought the news of the existence of the American continent to Europe as early as 1493. That he believed the continent to be Eastern Asia does not diminish the importance of his information.

Columbus had been careful to load his ship with all manner of products of the newly discovered countries and he also took some of the natives. Whether, among the samples of the vegetable kingdom, tobacco was included, is not yet satisfactorily ascertained. Nor is it certain that, when upon his return he presented himself to the monarchs at Barcelona, an imposing public demonstration took place in his honour. That he was received with due distinction at court and that he displayed the proofs of his discovery can not be doubted. The best evidence of the high appreciation of the King and Queen of Spain is the fact, that the prerogatives granted to him were confirmed, and everything possible was done to enable him to continue his explorations. The fact that Columbus had found a country that appeared to be rich in precious metals was of the utmost importance. Spain was poor, having been robbed, ages before, of its metallic wealth by the Romans. As gold was needed the discovery of a new source of that precious metal made a strong impression on the people of Spain, and a rush to the new regions was inevitable.

Columbus started on his second voyage to the Indies from Cadiz, 25 September, 1493, with three large vessels and thirteen caravels, carrying in all about 1500 men. On his first trip, he had heard about other, smaller islands lying some distance south of Hispaniola, and said to be inhabited by ferocious tribes who had the advantage over the Arawaks of being intrepid seafarers, and who made constant war upon the inhabitants of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas, carrying off women and children into captivity. They were believed to practice cannibalism. These were the Caribs and the reports about them were true, outside of some exaggerations and fables like the story of the Amazons. Previous to the arrival of Columbus the Caribs had driven the Arawaks steadily north, depopulated some of the smaller islands, and were sorely pressing the people of Hispaniola, parts of Cuba, Porto Rico, and even Jamaica. Columbus wished to learn more about these people. The helpless condition of the Arawaks made him eager to protect them against their enemies. The first land sighted, 3 November, was the island now known as Dominica, and almost at the same time that of Marie Galante was discovered. Geographically the second voyage resulted in the discovery of the Caribbean Islands (including the French Antilles), Jamaica, and minor groups. Columbus having obtained conclusive evidence of the ferocious customs of the Caribs, regarded them as dangerous to the settlements he proposed to make among the Arawaks and as obstacles to the Christianization and civilization of these Indians. The latter he intended to make use of as labourers, as he soon perceived that for some time to come European settlers would be too few in numbers and too new to the climate to take advantage of the resources of the island. The Caribs he purposed to convert eventually, but for the time being they must be considered as enemies, and according to the customs of the age, their captors had the right to reduce them to slavery. The Arawaks were to be treated in a conciliatory manner, as long as they did not show open hostility.

After a rapid survey of Jamaica, Columbus hastened to the northern coast of Haiti, where he had planted the colony of La Navidad. To his surprise the little fort had disappeared. There were to be seen only smouldering ruins and some corpses which were identified as Spanish. The natives, previously so friendly, were shy, and upon being questioned were either mute or contradictory in their replies. It was finally ascertained that another tribe, living farther inland and hostile to those on the coast, had fallen upon the fort, killed most of the inmates, and burnt most of the buildings. Those who escaped had perished in their flight. But it also transpired that the coast people themselves had taken part in the massacre. Columbus, while outwardly on good terms with them, was on his guard and, in consequence of the aversion of his people to a site where only disaster had befallen them, moved some distance farther east and established on the coast the larger settlement of Isabella. This stood ten leagues to the east of Cape Monte Cristo, where the ruins are still to be seen.

The existence of gold on Haiti having been amply demonstrated on the first voyage, Columbus inaugurated a diligent search for places where it might be found. The gold trinkets worn by the Indians were washings or placeres, but mention is also made, on the first voyage, of quartz rock containing the precious metal. But it is likely that the yellow mineral was iron pyrites, probably gold-bearing but, in the backward state of metallurgy, worthless at the time. Soon after the settlement was made at Isabella the colonists began to complain that the mineral wealth of the newly discovered lands had been vastly exaggerated and one, who accompanied the expedition as expert in metallurgy, claimed that the larger nuggets held by the natives had been accumulated in the course of a long period of time. This very sensible supposition was unjustly criticized by Irving, for since Irving's time it has been clearly proved that pieces of metal of unusual size and shape were often kept for generations by the Indians as fetishes.

A more important factor which disturbed the Spanish was the unhealthiness of the climate. The settlers had to go through the slow and often fatal process of acclimatization. Columbus himself suffered considerably from ill-health. Again, the island was not well provided with food suitable for the newcomers. The population, notwithstanding the exaggerations of Las Casas and others, was sparse. Isabella with its fifteen hundred Spanish immigrants was certainly the most populous settlement. At first there was no clash with the natives, but parties sent by Columbus into the interior came in contact with hostile tribes. For the protection of the colonists Columbus built in the interior a little fort called Santo Tomas. He also sent West Indian products and some Carib prisoners back to Spain in a vessel under the command of Antonio de Torres, and the prisoners were treated as kindly in Spain as the friendly Arawaks who had been sent over.

The condition of affairs on Hispaniola (Haiti) was not promising. At Isabella and on the coast there was grumbling against the admiral, in which the Benedictine Father Buil (Boil) and the other priests joined, or which, at least, they did not discourage. In the interior there was trouble with the natives. The commander at Santo Tomas, Pedro Margarite, is usually accused of cruelty to the Indians, but Columbus himself in his Memorial of 30 January, 1494, commends the conduct of that officer. However, he had to send him reinforcements, which were commanded by Alonzo de Ojeda.

Anxiously following up his theory that the newly discovered islands were but outlying posts of Eastern Asia and that further explorations would soon lead him to the coast of China or to the Moluccas, Columbus, notwithstanding the precarious condition of the colony, left it in charge of his brother Diego and four counsellors (one of whom was Father Buil), and with three vessels set sail towards Cuba. During his absence of five months he explored parts of Cuba, discovered the Isle of Pines and several groups of smaller islands, and made the circuit of Jamaica, landing there almost every day. When he returned to Isabella (29 September, 1494), he was dangerously ill and in a stupor. Meanwhile his brother Bartholomew had arrived from Spain with a small squadron and supplies. He proved a welcome auxiliary to the weak Diego, but could not prevent serious trouble. Margarite, angered by interference with his administration in the interior, returned to the coast, and there was joined by Father Buil and other malcontents. They seized the three caravels that had arrived under the command of Bartholomew Columbus, and set sail in them for Spain to lay before the Government what they considered their grievances against Columbus and his administration.

That there was cause for complaint there seems to be no doubt, but it is almost impossible now to determine who was most at fault, Columbus or his accusers. He was certainly not as able an administrator as he was a navigator. Still, taking into consideration the difficulties, the novelty of the conditions, and the class of men Columbus had to handle, and placing over against this what he had already achieved on Haiti, there is not so much ground for criticism. The charges of cruelty against the natives are based upon rather suspicious authority, Las Casas being the principal source. There were errors and misdeeds on both sides, which, however, might not have brought about a crisis had not disappointment angered the settlers, who had based their expectations on the glowing reports of Columbus himself, and disposed them to attribute all their troubles to their opponents.

Before the return of Columbus to Isabella, Ojeda had repulsed an attempt of the natives to surprise Santo Tomas. Thereupon the Indians of various tribes of the interior now formed a confederation and threatened Isabella. Columbus, however, on his return, easily broke up the Indian league. Ojeda captured the leader, and ccording to the customs of the times the prisoners of war were regarded as rebels, reduced to slavery, and five hundred of these were sent to Spain to be sold. It is certain that the condition of the Indians became much worse thereafter, that they were forced into unaccustomed labours,

While the Spanish monarchs in their dispatches to Columbus continued to show the same confidence and friendliness they could not help hearing the accusations made against him by Father Buil, Pedro Margarite, and the other malcontents, upon their return to Spain. It was clear that there were two factions among the Spaniards in Haiti, one headed by the admiral, the other composed of perhaps a majority of the settlers including ecclesiastics. Still the monarchs enjoined the colonists by letter to obey Columbus in everything and confirmed his authority and privileges. The incriminations, however, continued, and charges were made of nepotism and spoliation if royal revenue. There was probably some foundation for these charges, though also much wilful misrepresentation. Unable to ascertain the true condition of affairs, the sovereigns finally decided to send to the Indies a special commissioner to investigate and report. Their choice fell upon Juan de Aguado who had gone with Columbus on his first voyage and with whom he had always been on friendly terms. Aguado arrived at Isabella in October, 1495, while Columbus was absent on a journey of exploration across the island. No clash appears to have occurred between Aguado and Bartholomew Columbus, who was in charge of the colony during his brother's absence, much less with the admiral himself upon the latter's return. Soon after, reports of important gold discoveries came from a remote quarter of the island accompanied by specimens. The arrival of Aguado convinced Columbus of the necessity for his appearance in Spain and that new discoveries of gold would strengthen his position there. So he fitted out two ships, one for himself and one for Aguado, placing in them two hundred dissatisfied colonists, a captive Indian chief (who died on the voyage), and thirty Indian prisoners, and set sail for Spain on 10 March, 1496, leaving his brother Bartholomew at Isabella as temporary governor. As intercourse between Spain and the Indies was now carried on at almost regular intervals. Bartholomew was in communication with the mother country and was at least tacitly recognized as his brother's substitute in the government of the Indies. Columbus reached Cadiz 11 June, 1496.

The story of his landing is quite dramatic. He is reported to have gone ashore, clothed in the Franciscan garb, and to have manifested a dejection which was wholly uncalled for. His health, it is true, was greatly impaired, and his companions bore the marks of great physical suffering. The impression created by their appearance was of course not favourable and tended to confirm the reports of the opponents of Columbus about the nature of the new country. This, as well as the disappointing results of the search for precious metals, did not fail to have its influence. The monarchs saw that the first enthusiastic reports had been exaggerated, and that the enterprise while possibly lucrative in the end, would entail large expenditures for some time to come. Bishop Fonseca, who was at the head of colonial affairs, urged that great caution should be exercised. What was imputed to Bishop Fonseca as jealousy was only the sincere desire of an honest functionary to guard the interests of the Crown without blocking the way of an enthusiastic but somewhat visionary genius who had been unsuccessful as an administrator. Later expressions (1505) of Columbus indicate that the personal relations to Fonseca were at the time far from unfriendly. But the fact that Columbus had proposed the enslaving of American natives and actually sent a number of them over to Spain had alienated the sympathy of the queen to a certain degree, and thus weakened his position at court.

Nevertheless, it was not difficult for Columbus to organize a third expedition. Columbus started on his third voyage from Seville with six vessels on 30 May, 1498. He directed his course more southward than before, owing to reports of a great land lying west and south of the Antilles and his belief that it was the continent of Asia. He touched at the Island of Madeira, and later at Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, whence he sent to Haiti three vessels. Sailing southward, he went to the Cape Verde Islands and, turning thence almost due west, arrived on 31 July 1498, in sight of what is now the Island of Trinidad which was so named by him. Opposite, on the other side of a turbulent channel, lay the lowlands of north-eastern South America. Alarmed by the turmoil caused by the meeting of the waters of the Orinoco (which empties through several channels into the Atlantic opposite Trinidad) with the Guiana current, Columbus kept close to the southern shore of Trinidad as far as its south-western extremity, where he found the water still more turbulent. He therefore gave that place the name of Boca del Drago, or Dragon's Mouth. Before venturing into the seething waters Columbus crossed over to the mainland and cast anchor. He was under the impression that this was an island, but a vast stream of fresh water gave evidence of a continent. Columbus landed, he and his crew being thus the first Europeans to set foot on South American soil. The natives were friendly and gladly exchanged pearls for European trinkets. The discovery of pearls in American waters was important and very welcome.

A few days later, the admiral, setting sail again, was borne by the currents safely to the Island of Margarita, where he found the natives fishing for pearls, of which he obtained three bags by barter.

Some of the letters of Columbus concerning his third voyage are written in a tone of despondency. Owing to his physical condition, he viewed things with a discontent far from justifiable. And, as already said, his views of the geographical situation were somewhat fanciful. The great outpour opposite Trinidad he justly attributed to the emptying of a mighty river coming from the west, a river, so large that only a continent could afford its space. In this he was right, but in his eyes that continent was Asia, and the sources of that river must be on the highest point of the globe. He was confirmed in this idea by his belief that Trinidad was nearer the Equator than it actually is and that near the Equator the highest land on earth should be found. He thought also that the sources of the Orinoco lay in the Earthly Paradise and that the great river was one of the four streams that according to Scripture flowed from the Garden of Eden. He had no accurate knowledge of the form of the earth, and conjectured that it was pear-shaped.

On 15 August, fearing a lack of supplies, and suffering severely from what his biographers call gout and from impaired eyesight, he left his new discoveries and steered for Haiti. On 19 August he sighted that island some distance west of where the present capital of the Republic of Santo Domingo now stands. During his absence his brother Bartholomew had abandoned Isabella and established his head-quarters at Santo Domingo so called after his father Domenico. During the absence of Columbus events on Haiti had been far from satisfactory. His brother Bartholomew, who was then known as the adelantado, had to contend with several Indian outbreaks, which he subdued partly by force, partly by wise temporizing. These outbreaks were, at least in part, due to a change in the class of settlers by whom the colony was reinforced. The results of the first settlement far from justified the buoyant hopes based on the exaggerated reports of the first voyage, and the pendulum of public opinion swung back to the opposite extreme. The clamour of opposition to Columbus in the colonies and the discouraging reports greatly increased in Spain the disappointment with the new territorial acquisitions. That the climate was not healthful seemed proved by the appearance of Columbus and his companions on his return from the second voyage. Hence no one was willing to go to the newly discovered country, and convicts, suspects, and doubtful characters in general who were glad to escape the regulations of justice were the only reinforcements that could be obtained for the colony on Hispaniola. As a result there were conflicts with the aborigines, sedition in the colony, and finally open rebellion against the authority of the adelantado and his brother Diego. Columbus and his brothers were Italians, and this fact told against them among the malcontents and lower officials, but that it influenced the monarchs and the court authorities is a gratuitous charge.

As long as they had not a common leader Bartholomew had little to fear from the malcontents, who separated from the rest of the colony, and formed a settlement apart. They abused the Indians, thus causing almost uninterrupted trouble. However, they soon found a leader in the person of one Roldan, to whom the admiral had entrusted a prominent office in the colony. There must have been some cause for complaint against the government of Bartholomew and Diego, else Roldan could not have so increased the number of his followers as to make himself formidable to the brothers, undermining their authority at their own head-quarters and even among the garrison of Santo Domingo. Bartholomew was forced to compromise on unfavourable terms. So, when the admiral arrived from Spain he found the Spanish settlers on Haiti divided into two camps, the stronger of which, headed by Roldan, was hostile to his authority. That Roldan was an utterly unprincipled man, but energetic and above all, shrewd and artful, appears from the following incident. Soon after the arrival of Columbus the three caravels he had sent from Gomera with stores and ammunition struck the Haitian coast where Roldan had established himself. The latter represented to the commanders of the vessels that he was there by Columbus's authority and easily obtained from them military stores as well as reinforcements in men. On their arrival shortly afterward at Santo Domingo the caravels were sent back to Spain by Columbus. Alarmed at the condition of affairs and his own importance, he informed the monarchs of his critical situation and asked for immediate help. Then he entered into negotiations with Roldan. The latter not only held full control in the settlement which he commanded, but had the sympathy of most of the military garrisons that Columbus and his brothers relied upon as well as the majority of the colonists. How Columbus and his brother could have made themselves so unpopular is explained in various ways. There was certainly much unjustifiable ill will against them, but there was also legitimate cause for discontent, which was adroitly exploited by Roldan and his followers.

Seeing himself almost powerless against his opponents on the island, the admiral stooped to a compromise. Roldan finally imposed his own conditions. He was reinstated in his office and all offenders were pardoned; and a number of them returned to Santo Domingo. Columbus also freed many of the Indian tribes from tribute, but in order still further to appease the former mutineers, he instituted the system of repartimientos, by which not only grants of land were made to the whites, but the Indians holding these lands or living on them were made perpetual serfs to the new owners, and full jurisdiction over life and property of these Indians became vested in the white settlers. This measure had the most disastrous effect on the aborigines, and Columbus has been severely blamed for it, but he was then in such straits that he had to go to any extreme to pacify his opponents until assistance could reach him from Spain. By the middle of the year 1500 peace apparently reigned again in the colony, though largely at the expense of the prestige and authority of Columbus.

Meanwhile reports and accusations had reached the court of Spain from both parties in Haiti. It became constantly more evident that Columbus was no longer master of the situation in the Indies, and that some steps were necessary to save the situation. It might be said that the Court had merely to support Columbus whether right or wrong. But the West Indian colony had grown, and its settlers had their connections and supporters in Spain, who claimed some attention and prudent consideration. The clergy who were familiar with the circumstances through personal experience for the most part disapproved of the management of affairs by Columbus and his brothers. Queen Isabella's irritation at the sending of Indian captives for sale as slaves had by this time been allayed by a reminder of the custom then in vogue of enslaving captive rebels or prisoners of war addicted to specially inhuman customs, as was the case with the Caribs. Anxious to be just, the monarchs decided upon sending to Haiti an officer to investigate and to punish all offenders. This visitador was invested with full power, and was to have the same authority as the monarchs themselves for the time being, superseding Columbus himself, though the latter was the Viceroy of the Indies. The visita was a mode of procedure employed by the Spanish monarchs for the adjustment of critical matters, chiefly in the colonies. The visitador was selected irrespective of rank or office, solely from the standpoint of fitness, and not infrequently his mission was kept secret from the viceroy or other high official whose conduct he was sent to investigate; there are indications that sometimes he had summary power over life and death. A visita was a much dreaded measure, and for very good reasons.

The investigation in the West Indies was not called a visita at the time, but such it was in fact. The visitador chosen was Francisco de Bobadilla, of whom both Las Casas and Oviedo (friends and admirers of Columbus) speak in favourable terms. His instructions were, as his office required, general and his faculties, of course, discretionary; there is no need of supposing secret orders inimical to Columbus to explain what afterwards happened. The admiral was directed, in a letter addressed to him and entrusted to Bobadilla, to turn over to the latter, at least temporarily, the forts and all public property on the island. No blame can be attached to the monarchs for this measure. After an experiment of five years the administrative capacity of Columbus had failed to prove satisfactory. Yet, the vice-regal power had been vested in him as an hereditary right. To continue adhering to that clause of the original contract was impracticable, since the colony refused to pay heed to Columbus and his orders. Hence the suspension of the viceregal authority of Columbus was indefinitely prolonged, so that the office was reduced to a mere title and finally fell into disuse. The curtailment of revenue resulting from it was comparatively small, as all the emoluments proceeding from his other titles and prerogatives were left untouched. The tale of his being reduced to indigence is a baseless fabrication.

A man suddenly clothed with unusual and discretionary faculties is liable to be led astray by unexpected circumstances and tempted to go to extremes. Bobadilla had a right to expect implicit obedience to royal orders on the part of all and, above all, from Columbus as the chief servant of the Crown. When on 24 August, 1500, Bobadilla landed at Santo Domingo and demanded of Diego Columbus compliance with the royal orders, the latter declined to obey until directed by the admiral who was then absent. Bobadilla, possibly predisposed against Columbus and his brothers by the reports of others and by the sight of the bodies of Spaniards dangling from gibbets in full view of the port, considered the refusal of Diego as an act of direct insubordination. The action of Diego was certainly unwise and gave colour to an assumption that Columbus and his brothers considered themselves masters of the country. This implied rebellion and furnished a pretext to Bobadilla for measures unjustifiably harsh. As visitador he had absolute authority to do as he thought best, especially against the rebels, of whom Columbus appeared in his eyes as the chief.

Within a few days after the landing of Bobadilla, Diego and Bartholomew Columbus were imprisoned and put in irons. The admiral himself, who returned with the greatest possible speed, shared their fate. The three brothers were separated and kept in close confinement, but they could hear from their cells the imprecations of the people against their rule. Bobadilla charged them with being rebellious subjects and seized their private property to pay their personal debts. He liberated prisoners, reduced or abolished imposts, in short did all he could to place the new order of things in favourable contrast to the previous management. No explanation was offered to Columbus for the harsh treatment to which he was subjected, for a visitador had only to render account to the king or according to his special orders. Early in October, 1500, the three brothers, still in fetters, were placed on board ship, and sent to Spain, arriving at Cadiz at the end of the month. Their treatment while aboard seems to have been considerate; Villejo, the commander, offered to remove the manacles from Columbus's hands and relieve him from the chains, an offer, however, which Columbus refused to accept. It seems, nevertheless, that he did not remain manacled, else he could not have written the long and piteous letter to the nurse of Prince Juan, recounting his misfortunes on the vessel. He dispatched this letter to the court at Granada before the reports of Bobadilla were sent.

The news of the arrival of Columbus as a prisoner was received with unfeigned indignation by the monarchs, who saw that their agent Bobadilla had abused the trust placed in him. The people also saw the injustice, and everything was done to relieve Columbus from his humiliating condition and assure him of the royal favour, that is, everything except to reinstate him as Governor of the Indies. This fact is mainly responsible for the accusation of duplicity and treachery which is made against King Ferdinand. Critics overlook the fact that in addition to the reasons already mentioned no new colonists could be obtained from Spain, if Columbus were to continue in office, and that the expedient of sending convicts to Haiti had failed disastrously. Moreover, the removal of Columbus was practically implied in the instructions and powers given to Bobadilla, and the conduct of the admiral during Aguado's mission left no room for doubt that he would submit to the second investigation. He would have done so, but Bobadilla, anxious to make a display and angered at the delay of Diego Columbus, exceeded the spirit of his instructions, expecting thereby to rise in royal as well as in popular favour.

In regard to the former he soon found out his mistake. His successor in the governorship of Haiti was soon appointed in the person of Nicolas de Ovando. Bobadilla was condemned to restore to Columbus the property he had sequestered, and was recalled. The largest fleet sent to the Indies up to that time sailed under Ovando on 13 February, 1502. It is not without significance that 2500 people, some of high rank, flocked to the vessels that were to transport the new governor to the Indies. This shows that with the change in the administration of the colony faith in its future was restored among the Spanish people. By this time the mental condition of Columbus had become greatly impaired. While at court for eighteen months vainly attempting to obtain the restoration to a position for which he was becoming more and more unfitted, he was planning new schemes. Convinced that his third voyage had brought him nearer to Asia, he proposed to the monarchs a project to recover the Holy Sepulchre by the western route, that would have led him across South America to the Pacific Ocean. He fancied that the large river he had discovered west of Trinidad flowed in a direction opposite to its real course, and thought that by following it he could reach the Red Sea and thence cross over to Jerusalem. So preoccupied was he with these ideas that he made arrangements for depositing part of his revenue with the bank of Genoa to be used in the reconquest of the Holy Land. This alone disposes of the allegations that Columbus was left without resources after his liberation from captivity. He was enabled to maintain a position at court corresponding to his exalted rank, and favours and privileges were bestowed on both of his sons. The project of testing the views of Columbus in regard to direct communication with Asia was seriously considered, and finally a fourth voyage of exploration at the expense of the Spanish Government was conceded to Columbus. That there were some misgivings in regard to his physical and mental condition is intimated by the fact that he was given as companions his brother Bartholomew, who had great influence with him, and his favourite son Fernando. Four vessels carrying, besides these three and a representative of the Crown to receive any treasure that might be found, about 150 men, set sail from San Lucar early in May, 1502. Columbus was enjoined not to stop at Haiti, a wise measure, for had the admiral landed there so soon after the arrival of Ovando, there would have been danger of new disturbances. Disobeying these instructions, Columbus attempted to enter the port of Santo Domingo, but was refused admission. He gave proof of his knowledge and experience as a mariner by warning Ovando of an approaching hurricane, but was not listened to. He himself sheltered his vessels at some distance from the harbour. The punishment for disregarding the friendly warning came swiftly; the large fleet which had brought Ovando over was, on sailing for Spain, overtaken by the tempest, and twenty ships were lost, with them Bobadillo, Roldan, and the gold destined for the Crown. The admiral's share of the gold obtained on Haiti, four thousand pieces directly sent to him by his representative on the island, was not lost, and on being delivered in Spain, was not confiscated. Hence it is difficult to see how Columbus could have been in need during the last years of his life.

The vessels of Columbus having suffered comparatively little from the tempest, he left the coast of Haiti in July, 1502, and was carried by wind and current to the coast of Honduras. From 30 July, 1502, to the end of the following April he coasted Central America beyond Colon to Cape Tiburon on the South American Continent. On his frequent landings he found traces of gold, heard reports of more civilized tribes of natives farther inland, and persistent statements about another ocean lying west and south of the land he was coasting, the latter being represented to him as a narrow strip dividing two vast seas. The mental condition of Columbus, coupled with his physical disabilities, prevented him from interpreting these important indications otherwise than as confirmations of his vague theories and fatal visions. Instead of sending an exploring party across the isthmus to satisfy himself of the truth of these reports, he accepted this testimony to the existence of a sea beyond, which he firmly believed to be the Indian Ocean, basing his confidence on a dream in which he had seen a strait he supposed to be the Strait of Malacca. As his crews were exasperated by the hardships and deceptions, his ships worn-eaten, and he himself emaciated, he turned back towards Haiti with what he thought to be the tidings of a near approach to the Asiatic continent. It had been a disastrous voyage; violent storms continually harassed the little squadron, two ships had been lost, and the treasure obtained far from compensated for the toil and the suffering endured. This was all the more exasperating when it became evident that a much richer reward could be obtained by penetrating inland, to which, however, Columbus would not or perhaps could not consent.

On 23 June, 1503, Columbus and his men, crowded on two almost sinking caravels, finally landed on the inhospitable coast of Jamaica. After dismantling his useless craft, and using the material for temporary shelter, he sent a boat to Haiti to ask for assistance and to dispatch thence to Spain a vessel with a pitiful letter giving a fantastic account of his sufferings which in itself gave evidence of an over-excited and disordered mind.

Ovando to whom Columbus's request for help was delivered at Jaragua (Haiti) cannot be acquitted of unjustifiable delay in sending assistance to the shipwrecked and forsaken admiral. There is no foundation for assuming that he acted under the orders or in accordance with the wishes of the sovereigns. Columbus had become useless, the colonists in Haiti would not tolerate his presence there. The only practical course was to take him back to Spain directly and remove him forever from the lands the discovery of which had made him immortal. In spite of his many sufferings, Columbus was not utterly helpless. His greatest trouble came from the mutinous spirit of his men who roamed about, plundering and maltreating the natives, who, in consequence, became hostile and refused to furnish supplies. An eclipse of the moon predicted by Columbus finally brought them to terms and thus prevented starvation. Ovando, though informed of the admiral's critical condition, did nothing for his relief except to permit Columbus's representative in Haiti to fit out a caravel with stores at the admiral's expense and send it to Jamaica; but even this tardy relief did not reach Columbus until June, 1504. He also permitted Mendez, who had been the chief messenger of Columbus to Haiti, to take passage for Spain, where he was to inform the sovereigns of the admiral's forlorn condition. There seems to be no excuse for the conduct of Ovando on this occasion. The relief expedition finally organized in Haiti, after a tedious and somewhat dangerous voyage, landed the admiral and his companions in Spain, 7 November, 1504.

A few weeks later Queen Isabella died, and grave difficulties beset the king. Columbus, now in very feeble health, remained at Seville until May, 1505, when he was at last able to attend court at Valladolid. His reception by the king was decorous, but without warmth. His importunities to be restored to his position as governor were put off with future promises of redress, but no immediate steps were taken. The story of the utter destitution in which the admiral is said to have died is one of the many legends with which his biography has been distorted. Columbus is said to have been buried at Valladolid. His son Diego is authority for the statement that his remains were buried in the CarthusianConvent of Las Cuevas, Seville, within three years after his death. According to the records of the convent, the remains were given up for transportation to Haiti in 1536, though other documents placed this event in 1537. It is conjectured, however, that the removal did not take place till 1541, when the Cathedral of Santo Domingo was completed, though there are no records of this entombment. When, in 1795, Haiti passed under French control, Spanish authorities removed the supposed remains of Columbus to Havana. On the occupation of Cuba by the United States they were once more removed to Seville (1898).

Columbus was unquestionably a man of genius. He was a bold, skilful navigator, better acquainted with the principles of cosmography and astronomy than the average skipper of his time, a man of original ideas, fertile in his plans, and persistent in carrying them into execution. The impression he made on those with whom he came in contact even in the days of his poverty, such as Fray Juan Perez, the treasurer Luis de Santangel, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and Queen Isabella herself, shows that he had great powers of persuasion and was possessed of personal magnetism. His success in overcoming the obstacles to his expeditions and surmounting the difficulties of his voyages exhibit him as a man of unusual resources and of unflinching determination.

Columbus was also of a deeply religious nature. Whatever influence scientific theories and the ambition for fame and wealth may have had over him, in advocating his enterprise he never failed to insist on the conversion of the pagan peoples that he would discover as one of the primary objects of his undertaking. Even when clouds had settled over his career, after his return as a prisoner from the lands he had discovered, he was ready to devote all his possessions and the remaining years of his life to set sail again for the purpose of rescuing Christ's Sepulchro from the hands of the infidel.

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Apocalypse Now
How Mankind Is Sleepwalking to the End of the Earth
by Maria Gilardin
www.dissidentvoice.org/
September 21, 2005

This headline appeared in the London Independent in early February of 2005, following a conference at the Hadley Centre in Exeter, England, where 200 of the world’s leading scientists issued the most urgent warning to date: that dangerous climate change is taking place today, and not the day after tomorrow.

Floods, storms, and droughts. Melting polar ice, shrinking glaciers, oceans turning to acid. Scientists from the fields of glaciology, biology, meteorology, oceanography, and ecology reported seeing a dramatic rise over the last 50 years of all the indicators of climate change: increase in average world temperatures, extreme weather events, in the levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and in the level of the oceans.

The award winning environmental writer Geoffrey Lean wrote: “Future historians, looking back from a much hotter and less hospitable world . . . will puzzle over how a whole generation could have sleepwalked into disaster -- destroying the climate that has allowed human civilization to flourish over the past 11,000 years.”

The overwhelming majority of scientists and international climate monitoring bodies now agree that climate change is taking place, that humans are responsible, and that time is running out. In fact, we could reach “the point of no return” in a decade, reported Lean.

Melting glaciers all across the world include: the Broggi in the Peruvian Andes, Glacier Ururashraju in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru, the Pasterze in Austria, Portage Glacier near Anchorage, Alaska, Mount Hood in Oregon, Mount Kilimanjaro in northeastern Tanzania, the Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park, and the Rhone Glacier in Switzerland.

The earth is getting warmer. While average warming is just under 1 degree Celsius worldwide, the Polar Regions show warming of 2 to 3 degrees Celsius, due to feedback effects. With the melt of white snow, that previously reflected some of the heat back into the atmosphere (albedo effect), newly exposed darker surfaces absorb heat, and accelerate melting of more ice and snow.

A world average warming of under 1 degree Celsius may seem small. However, historically, the difference between warm periods and an ice age has been only 5 to 6 degrees Celsius. The transformation from the last ice age to the present climate resulted from a slow rise in temperature, which took 5,000 years to fully complete, allowing life on Earth to adapt to the changes. We could bring about a 5- to 6- degree change in only 150 years if we don’t start constraining the use of fossil fuels.

It is not only the fundamental change in the composition of air, water, and soil that we need to consider. The speed at which these changes are forced upon the planet already leads to high extinction rates.

Scientists at the Exeter meeting agreed that warming over 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures would be dangerous -- and we are almost half way there. To burn up the world’s remaining coal reserves, they estimated, would raise the average temperature by 3 to 8 degrees C in less than 150 years.

Quite a few climate “skeptics”, fossil fuel executives, and members of the Bush administration are still denying that there is such a thing as human-caused global warming. Many of them claim that the sun has just grown hotter. However, a warmer sun would have heated the stratosphere as well. In contrast, the stratosphere is cooling -- suggesting a blanket of greenhouse gases that prevents the earth’s heat from radiating back into space.

We know how the greenhouse effect works. Venus, with a thick greenhouse cover is hot; Mars, with a thin greenhouse is cold. Earth’s blanket of greenhouse gases is made up of the byproducts of the industrial age and an outdated Victorian technology. Even though methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas, it is CO2 that makes up over 80% of the greenhouse gas mix. Ice core studies show that CO2 concentrations on this planet had been stable for the last millennium, never rising or falling more than 10 ppm, and fluctuating between 275 and 285 ppm. Now CO2 concentrations are beginning to exceed 370 ppm, and are rising from year to year. Other greenhouse gases show the same dramatic increase -- mainly in the past 40 to 50 years. We are already living under a dome of air that no one has breathed in a million years.

Ocean Warming and Acidification

The average temperature of the surface waters of the oceans, extending to a depth of several hundred meters, has risen by a 1/2 degree Celsius. This has occurred in just the past 40 years. The oceans have also become more acidic, due to the uptake of anthropogenic CO2. The Plymouth Marine Laboratory in England estimates that 48% of fossil-fuel CO2, or 400 billion tons, have been absorbed by the oceans, making them the largest reservoir of carbon, a load greater than that borne by the atmosphere or the earth. CO2, while more inert in the atmosphere, becomes highly reactive in oceans, leading to physical, biological, and geological changes.

Carol Turley, head of science at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, warns that no such ph changes in oceans have occurred in the past 20 million years, and that the capacity of oceans to take up CO2 is limited.

What might the consequences of such changes in the oceans be? An August 2005 article in the Globe and Mail, on starving sea birds washing up on Pacific coast beaches from California to British Columbia, reports that scientists believe that, at least for this year, the “bottom has fallen out of the coastal food chain.” Off the Oregon coast, the waters near the shore are 5 to 7 degrees warmer than normal. A layer of warm water along the whole Pacific coastline prevents the usual upwelling of cool water rich in phytoplankton, the base of the food web for all marine life.

Zooplankton, such as krill, depend on phytoplankton. The disappearance of zooplankton in turn affects seabirds and fish from sardines to whales. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found a 20 to 30 per cent drop in juvenile salmon off the coasts of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia; and monitoring in Central and Northern California shows the lowest number of juvenile rockfish in more than 20 years.

The world has not yet felt the real impact of global warming since the oceans have absorbed so much heat and CO2. The US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) put out two studies in March 2005. They suggest that due to the thermal inertia of the oceans global temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise for the next 100 years - even if greenhouse gas emissions come under control.

First Signs of a Gulf Stream Collapse

The opening presentations at the Exeter, UK conference gave the most comprehensive assessment of so-called “wild cards”, climate change events that risk feedback loops no longer responsive to human intervention. The run-away events, or ecological landslides include accelerated melting of the enormous ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, as well as the decline and possible reversal of the Gulf Stream that conveys heat from the tropics to Europe.

In the Hollywood movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” the Gulf Stream stops flowing in a matter of days, creating an instant ice age on the Atlantic coast and Western Europe. Scientists at Exeter said it would take at least ten years for such an event to unfold and a few hundred years to set up the conditions. But they warned that the Thermohaline Circulation, as they call the Gulf Stream, has stopped flowing before -- and that we have already a greater than 50% likelihood of a shutdown if we do not enact strict climate policies.

The amount of heat transported North by the Gulf Stream, which keeps Western Europe 5 to 10 degrees Celsius warmer than it would normally be at its latitude, equals one million billion watts -- sufficient to satisfy the energy needs of 100 Earths. Even a partial failure of the Gulf Stream would have huge consequences.

The Gulf Stream picks up heat from the equatorial sun. Driven by warmth, the stream flows northeast towards Europe and the Greenland ice sheets, where the water cools and sinks. The cooler and saltier the water, the stronger the sinking motion. Dense cool and salty water from the Gulf Stream then flows back to the tropics at a deeper ocean level.

As the Polar Regions and the oceans are warming, melt-water from ice sheets and glaciers is changing the salinity of the ocean. A combination of the rising ocean surface temperature, and the decreasing salinity, already visibly changes the movement of sea currents that depend on differences in warmth and coolness, and the weight that higher salinity adds to the water as the driving force.

Large-scale salinity changes in the Arctic and sub-Arctic Seas were reported in June 2005, in the journal Science. Ruth Curry from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, analyzed temperature, salinity, and density data, collected in the North Atlantic Ocean over the last 55 years. Curry warned that excessive amounts of freshwater dumped into the North Atlantic could affect the flow of the Gulf Stream.

We know, from ice-core data, when the Gulf Stream has stopped flowing before. The most recent collapse, 15,000 years ago during the Younger Dryas, was caused by the sweetening of the North Atlantic Ocean, when glaciers covering North America melted and began flowing through the St. Lawrence waterway into the Atlantic, instead of into the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi. Today’s accelerated melting of the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets may recreate these conditions, not just for the Gulf Stream but also for other parts of the global ocean circulation.

In May of this year, the London Times reported that first signs of a slow down of the Gulf Stream had been detected by a Cambridge University researcher, who hitches rides on a Royal Navy submarine to one of the three areas where the Gulf Stream reverses its course. Peter Wadhams said that “until recently we could find giant ‘chimneys’ in the sea where columns of cold, dense water were sinking from the surface to the seabed 3,000 meters below, but now they have almost disappeared.”

Off the coast of Greenland, the Odden Ice Shelf once grew out into the Greenland Sea every winter, and receded in the summer. The Odden triggered the annual formation of sinking water columns in that area. However, since 1997, the shelf has ceased to form. Where Wadhams had once observed 12 giant columns of sinking water under the ice, he now found only two -- and they were so weak that they were unable to reach the seabed.

Wadhams also predicts complete summer melting of the Arctic ice cap by as early as 2020. On his submarine journeys, using sonar to survey the ice cap from underneath, he has observed a 46% thinning over the past 20 years.

The Greenland Ice Sheet is Melting

The biggest danger to the Gulf Stream comes from melt-water off the Greenland ice sheet, the second largest store of fresh water on this planet. If all of it were to melt, sea levels around the world would rise by 7 meters -- over 20 feet. However even a partial meltdown would affect the Gulf Stream, by diluting the salt water right at the crucial point where the Gulf Stream sinks and returns to the tropics.

Prof. Michael Schlesinger from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, whose climate model already predicts a 50% chance of Gulf Stream shutdown if we do not enact climate policies, and a 25% shutdown even if we limit greenhouse gases, based his estimate only on increased rainfall, due to global warming. He now says he will have to include additional melt-water from the Greenland ice sheet into his next set of data, because it appears that the melt has begun.

Observations on the Greenland ice sheet are done by G.P.S. (global positioning systems) and radar and laser via satellites and airplanes. G.P.S. data of the past 5 years show accelerated melting, and even the beginning of a possible feedback effect: the more the ice sheet melts the faster it starts to move. The reason for this acceleration, it is believed, is that melt-water from the surface of the ice sheet makes its way down to the bedrock below, where it acts as a lubricant, further speeding up the slippage and disintegration.

The question now is, when does this feedback process reach the point of no return? James Hansen, head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says that if greenhouse-gas emissions are not controlled now, the total disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet could be set in motion in a matter of decades. Although it could take hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years to fully play out, once begun the process would become self-reinforcing and cannot be halted.

The Gulf Stream is just one part of a complex global system of ocean currents that affect temperatures, winds, and rain across the whole planet. We now have charts of these powerful currents driven by heat and coolness, traversing all oceans, - Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian. And they are all interconnected via the huge circumpolar current flowing around the Antarctic. Changes at the South Pole therefore would have an even larger effect than those in the Arctic.

Ice Shelf Collapses and the Melting of Antarctica

The Antarctic is the 5th largest continent. It holds 90% of the world’s fresh water. A comparison in scale to the Greenland ice sheet shows that if all Antarctic ice were to melt, sea levels would rise by over 169 feet. The Antarctic has had a permanent ice sheet for the last 30 million years.
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge now reports rapid warming on the West Antarctic Peninsula and the WAIS, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Of the 224 glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula, over 87% are in retreat. Major ice shelves have collapsed. BAS scientists believe disappearing ice shelves are now contributing to more rapid melting of glaciers formerly protected by the floating ice shelf at their base.

Antarctica’s huge Larsen B ice shelf collapsed in just 35 days after a NASA satellite detected the first ruptures at the end of January 2002; it was roughly the size of Luxembourg. Soil sediments from that ice shelf reveal that Larsen B had been intact for 20,000 years - since the peak of the last ice age. No collapse of this size has happened since the end of the last Ice Age.

Larsen B's smaller neighbor, Larsen A, broke off in 1995. According to studies by the BAS, other much bigger ice shelves nearby, such as the Ross and Ronne, each larger than France, are also considered at risk of disintegrating.

Another troubling development in the Antarctic, according to the director of the BAS, Chris Rapley, is the accelerated flow of melt streams underneath the Antarctic ice sheet. Until recently, scientists were unable to explain the 20th century’s world-wide sea-level rises of between 1 and 2 mm per year, by the amount of ice that has melted from glaciers and ice sheets. Even after taking into account thermal expansion, they wondered where the extra water was coming from.

Recent discoveries show a major hidden source of water comes from polar ice sheets. In the Antarctic, ice streams, and a newly discovered network of tributaries underneath the ice sheets, drain 33 major basins. Flow rates are much faster than previously assumed. Ice streams, from the feed glaciers behind the collapsed Larsen A and B ice shelves, also show accelerated flows. The BAS calls this a “cork out of the bottle” effect.

These “wild cards,” the melting of the polar ice caps and the acidification of the oceans, were only the most dramatic events on the agenda of the Exeter, UK, meeting on the dangers of climate-change. The number of scientific papers, recording changes in ecosystems due to global warming, escalated in five years, from 14 to more than a thousand. In one presentation after another, scientists described a crisis they had dedicated their lives to avoid.

Geoffrey Lean, who attended the conference, wrote that there were few in the room that did not sense their children or grandchildren standing invisibly at their shoulders. The formal conclusion of the meeting, that climate change was “already occurring” and that “in many cases the risks are more serious than previously thought,” appeared in the press all over the world -- except in the United States. However even in the European press, very few writers took on the scientific details of this story, without which political action and organizing are impossible. Geoffrey Lean wrote: “Mankind is Sleepwalking to the End of the Earth.”

Bush-Wars on Climate Science

After the Exeter meeting, in an interview for TUC Radio, the director of BAS, Chris Rapley, spoke about how, in public appearances, he bridges the gap between science, and popular understanding of these dramatic changes.

He said he always refers to the picture of Earth in space taken by Apollo 17: the small blue planet, tilted back to show the Antarctic, surrounded by inky blackness. The image, he says, shows that this is all there is, no other life-support system trails behind; and, that on the planet all is interconnected.

Earth is the most complex and complicated object in the universe that we know of, says Rapley, a radio astronomer by training. Only Earth has an ocean and clouds. Only Earth has physics, biology, geology, chemistry, and anthropology.

Humans have transformed the earth in a dramatic way, especially in the last 50 years. Not only have we drastically changed the carbon cycle by the burning of fossil fuel and coal, and by increasing forest fires; we have also changed the nitrogen cycle worldwide by the amount of nitrogen being fixed by industrial agriculture and fertilizer use.

We have transformed more than half the land surface through agriculture, deforestation, mining, industry, paving, and ever-growing cities. These changes have altered the climate systems by the way moisture is exchanged between Earth and the atmosphere.

We have destroyed biodiversity by shifting plants and animals into places and conditions where they cannot survive. Our own survival, as humans, is only slightly more secure. We are seeing the most basic of our needs -- air, water, housing, and energy -- disappear before our eyes. Rapley concluded that there is no way to imagine that humans could do all these things without an effect.

The demise of our common life-support system is accelerated by even more energy-intensive activities, by which a privileged group of people attempts to secure its survival.

The meeting in Exeter was held explicitly to convince the Bush administration to join the rest of the industrialized world, and to use the July 2005 G8 meeting to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The United States and Australia, the world’s two largest polluters, are -- to this day -- refusing to be part of any global agreement to limit CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

The G8 meeting came and went. The US, with 42% of global fossil fuel CO2, and 34% of combined greenhouse gas emissions, not only remained outside the climate- stabilization effort but also fought vigorously to prevent any progress in setting limits. Given the extraordinary amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the US, this country alone can dramatically slow climate change, or bring the planet to the boiling point.

Three weeks before the G8 summit, The Observer (UK) printed a set of leaked documents revealing how the Bush White House derailed attempts to address global warming. These submissions to the G8 action plan show that Washington officials deleted even the suggestion that global warming has already started.

Among the key sentences removed were: “Our world is warming. Climate change is a serious threat that has the potential to affect every part of the globe. And we know that ... mankind's activities are contributing to this warming. This is an issue we must address urgently.”

At the Exeter conference the International Climate Change Task Force, UK, said that if we do nothing the climate system will collapse. Stephen Byers, the co-chair of that task force and an advisor to Tony Blair, said the point of no return could be reached in a decade. The Bush delegation to the July 2005 G8 summit in Scotland, probably even George Bush himself, is aware of that deadline.

However the warning disappeared under the same blanket of denial and outright lies produced by industry, their paid scientists, and the Bush administration. Among all official documents that deny climate change, only one sends a different message: the report on “Climate Change as a National Security Concern,” commissioned for Donald Rumsfeld by Pentagon defense adviser Andrew Marshall, and made public in February 2004.

The Global Business Network wrote for the Pentagon: “the focus in climate research has slowly been shifting from gradual to rapid change. In 2002, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report concluding that human activities could trigger abrupt change. A year later, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, included a session at which Robert Gagosian, director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, urged policymakers to consider the implications of possible abrupt climate change within two decades.”

Whether in a decade as the UK scientists say, or two as the Pentagon study says, a consensus is developing that we are reaching a phase of dangerous, abrupt, and irreversible climate shifts. However, for the Bush administration, this is not an ecological or humanitarian, but only a military issue. They question only how to protect US borders from environmental refugees, how to overpower nations collapsing under the environmental pressures, how to keep access to food, water, and energy as other parts of the world go hungry and thirsty; how to keep nuclear pre-eminence, while those weapons in other countries fall into the hands of insurgents.

The eerie similarity of these goals and methods, with those of the so-called war on terrorism, raises the question of whether that war on terrorism is not really already a war on the Earth. And, as in the war on terrorism, the already occurring ecological disasters -- like the Osama bin Ladens -- are needed and promoted. And the religious fundamentalists are driving this forward because God has given them dominion over the planet to do as they wish.

And, as irrecoverable time passes, more bad news of ecological landslides emerges: In early August 2005, the New Scientist reported that, in Western Siberia, a permafrost area, the size of France and Germany combined, is thawing for the first time since the ice age, 11,000 years ago. What was until recently an expanse of frozen peat is turning into a broken landscape of mud and lakes, some more than a kilometer across. The area’s peat bog contains an estimated 70 billion tons of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than CO2, which, if released, could dramatically increase the rate of global warming.

Even in a best-case scenario, were the methane to be released slowly over a period of 100 years, it would effectively double atmospheric levels of the gas, leading to a 10% to 25% increase in global warming, said scientists at the Hadley Centre in Exeter, UK. The scientists from Tomsk State University and Oxford, who discovered the melt, said that this was yet another feedback effect, an “ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming.”

There may be some, cynical enough to think that climate change is an interesting science fiction experiment, or greedy enough to want to extract the last drop of oil from the dying Earth for a profit.

But what about the rest of us: not cynical, not greedy and arrogant? It is pretty clear that there need to be BIG changes in the way we live -- and that is frightening for many, since we have become so dependent on this technological civilization. However scientists tell us that the extreme weather events to come, such as floods, hurricanes, sea-level rise, and unprecedented heat waves, are more frightening than any change in the way we choose to live now.

There is a set of figures that is both deeply depressing and hopeful. The last published World Bank data for CO2 emissions per capita indicate that, while every man, woman, and child in the US puts out 20 metric tons of CO2 per annum, those in the European Union put out 8 per person per year; China 2; and the output of Nigerians, who supply us with much of the oil that we burn into CO2, is zero -- below scale. In 2002, US-Americans used over 12,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per person; Europeans used less than half the amount, while the use in China is 987 kilowatt-hours per person. The US per-capita use of oil is twice that of the European Union, and more than 8 times that of China.

What if China aspires to our standard of living? And why not, if we are not willing to cut back? Europe gets by with so much less CO2-output and energy-input, while already planning for further cuts. Where is the measure of global justice, between those who cause no harm and those whose extravagant use of fossil fuels harms everybody else?

Regardless of who is driving this: industry, the military, religious fundamentalists, or any permutation of government, be it red or blue, responsibility for the approaching climate collapse will fall overwhelmingly on the United States. Since the US government and corporations not only refuse to cut back but are driving eco-collapse forward, it is up to ordinary people to refuse collaboration and to control the perpetrators. For us living in the US, the opportunity and time to make a difference that will affect the entire planet is now.

*************
Maria Gilardin produces TUC Radio, a weekly half-hour radio program that is distributed for free to all radio stations via Pacifica Radio's KU Band, and as an mp3 file on TUC Radio's web site: www.tucradio.org. She may be reached at: tuc@tucradio.org

Related Links and Resources:

* Hadley Centre
* Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
* British Antarctic Survey
* Plymouth Marine Laboratory
* "As the World Burns," by Bill McKibben, Chris Mooney, & Ross Gelbspan, Mother Jones, May/June 2005.
* The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare
* Arctic Sea Ice Changes
* Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: Abrupt Climate Change
* Ice Core drilling on the Greenland Ice Sheet
* Siberian permafrost melting
* Carol Turley on Marine Snow
* Photos of Global Warming, Glacier Melting
* Douglas Quin recorded the sounds of breaking ice in the Antarctic

In important ways, war and flood are connected
September 08, 2005
by: John Mohawk / Indian Country Today

At the beginning of the current war in Iraq, President Bush was adamant that Americans would be asked to make no sacrifices, pay no price, for the war. Indeed, the war would go forward along with tax relief (mostly for the wealthy). He didn't talk much about plans for reductions in domestic spending, and there was an inadequate ring of information that somebody, someday, was going to pay.

In fact, it is future generations who will pay because the war is being fought with borrowed money, and the debt will come due for today's children and grandchildren. And now we have Hurricane Katrina, the second disaster during the Bush administration. It has thus far been met with the same lack of planning as characterized the invasion of Baghdad, and this time the American people will pay. The death toll is unknown at this time but certain to be high. The dollar toll is going to be immense.

The hurricane dealt two blows to New Orleans. The initial blow, the storm, was a near-miss and the city survived it largely intact. The second blow happened when the levee walls were breached and water spilled into the basin that is the city, which meant, in important ways, that the event was man-made. It could turn out to be the greatest disaster in U.S. history.

The local newspapers had long complained that the levees needed strengthening, yet the Bush administration was spent less and less money protecting New Orleans from the water. Some complained that the war in Iraq had left the area with fewer National Guardsmen, and that a lot of equipment that could have been used in the rescue was overseas. Others complained that the guardsmen and the equipment that were available were not deployed due to a lack of leadership. People waited days for help. It was an experience they will not forget.

As the water rose, a man calling in to National Public Radio offered an opinion. The people trapped in the city, he said, had only themselves to blame for their problems. What about those too poor to flee, and too sick, and too disabled, he was asked.

It's their personal responsibility, he said.

There have always been cold-hearted people in America, but the idea that personal responsibility cancels collective rights has grown in recent years. The flood has revealed to the world a dark side of American life, a spiritual flaw.

America is the most self-professed Christian nation in the world, but the message in the New Testament that urges compassion for the poor and powerless is unpopular. Among industrialized nations, America ranks near the bottom in all categories on how it treats its most needy. Things are such that just a week earlier, a national religious icon called for the assassination of a head of state. The message in the New Testament warning against false prophets is drowned out too.

More than one-quarter (28 percent) of New Orleans residents live in poverty, and 84 percent of those are black. Most of the white people escaped. Most of those left behind were black.

The last great flood, in 1927, was on the Mississippi and it left about a million people - 1 percent of the population - homeless. The next year, Congress passed the Flood Control Act, and the federal government assumed full responsibility for protecting its citizens along the river. The Army Corps of Engineers is coming under intense criticism for its management of flood control - which has, by some accounts, been doing more harm than good.

People in Holland, much of which is below sea level, were astonished at the pictures of the puny wall that protected New Orleans from the water. The technology exists to do the job, but the administration has had other spending priorities. It turns out that shoring up those levees would have been money well spent. The argument that other administrations also failed to fix it doesn't wash.

There have been strong feelings among the black community that the reason the money wasn't spent to protect them and the reason for the slow rescue response was racism. There was some of that, as well as discrimination against poor people generally, but racism and classism don't explain everything.

One can gauge the quality of leadership by how a leader wields his or her authority, by measuring outcomes. A person who manages an institution does so to benefit himself and his group, or to benefit the whole of society and even the future generations. In the same week that New Orleans was filling with water, a woman who blew the whistle on no-bid contracts awarded to Halliburton was demoted. Bush/Cheney associates enjoy plunder, and their critics are demoted and otherwise punished because in their view the main purpose of government is to protect the properties and privileges of the wealthy. This administration sees to the interests of the few at the expense of the many.

Poor planning has also characterized the presidency of the man who takes five-week vacations in Crawford and whose disastrous war is getting expensive. About 14,500 U.S. troops have suffered injuries in the war that was supposed to be a cakewalk, and the projected cost of treating those injuries is $7 billion a year for the next 45 years. The Iraq war itself is costing $6 billion per month and, if it lasts five more years, could cost about $1.5 trillion.

The Bush administration, along with its allies in Congress, has facilitated the most massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich in history. They had plenty of warning that the levees could be breached by a big hurricane; but they rolled the dice, hoping it wouldn't happen on their watch, and didn't bother to spend the money to protect people. Instead, they carried on with their war agenda which was accompanied by a ''starve the beast'' strategy to defund needed public works projects, medicines and food for the poor, and other previous commitments.

It's the federal government's responsibility to build levees that do not breach. No one wanted the flood, but flood control was their responsibility and they failed at it. War and flood are connected disasters with their epicenter in the Oval Office. And now, today's Americans are going to pay in the form of a mountain of corpses and a population of displaced people, huge property losses and higher energy bills, and the very real possibility of recession.
© Indian Country Today
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Hopi prophecy pointed to climate change
November 05, 2004
by: John Mohawk / Indian Country Today

Beginning about 70 years ago, some traditional Hopi formulated a message to the rest of the world that there was a rising danger that humankind's lack of spiritual attention to the world was going to lead to disaster. The form this disaster would take was that there would be violent storms and all kinds of disruption that would eventually threaten human beings around the world. It had happened before, they said, and all signs, including ancient prophecies, are that it will happen again. The individual who emerged as spokesperson for this was Thomas Banyacya. A very interesting element to the message was that proof of their message was to be found in the American's own libraries and scientific papers.

There is every evidence that this is happening, just as the traditional Hopi predicted, and the major leadership of the world is not acting in an effective way to meet the threat. This August, the Bush administration finally issued a statement acknowledging that human activity may be contributing to global warming. If you think that radical Islamic terrorism is scary, wait until you see global warming.

Scientists are certain that greenhouse gasses, especially CO2, have a history of altering global climate patterns, a history that goes back perhaps at least 900 million years. A dramatic but widely-held theory is that 600 million years ago the earth was an ice ball trapped in a glacial period and that it escaped this seemingly permanent condition when volcanoes released enough CO2 into the atmosphere to create a greenhouse effect which warmed things up to perhaps an average temperature of 120 F, causing hundreds of thousands of years of rain which trapped the CO2 and put it back in the earth. Eventually the earth stabilized. That was when the dramatic proliferation of life forms, including multi-cellular animals, appeared. There is pretty good evidence to support this theory. The ice may have been a kilometer thick. Greenhouse gases do cause climate change.

The earth is getting warmer and its average temperature has risen about one degree Fahrenheit since 1830 - at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The last 20 years have been the warmest in 12,000 years and the warming trend is worldwide. People who study tree rings find evidence that in the last 20 years there has been an unprecedented rate of change in the climate and among the best evidence for the effect of this change is that glaciers, worldwide, are receding and disappearing. There are glaciers in the Central Andes. Even there, glaciers have been retreating dramatically. Some are retreating at the rate of almost 100 feet per year. They could be gone entirely in 50 years. Forty percent of the ice has disappeared in some places. In others, numerous glaciers have already disappeared. For thousands of years, glaciers have maintained a record of what has happened over the centuries. Scientists collect ice cores from the tropics and the polar regions. They contain the history of climate going back to a half million years. Ice cores record that CO2 never got higher than 300 parts per million. Today, we find 360 ppm, strong (even irrefutable) evidence that humans are contributing to dramatic changes in the composition of the atmosphere. Scientists suspect there is a threshold beyond which dramatic and irreversible and unpredictable climate change could be triggered.

The impact of the climate change we have already can be seen in Alaska. In just 30 years, Alaska's temperature has risen an average of five degrees and glaciers there are melting. Since 1995 some have receded 10 to 20 feet a year. And the rate of change may be accelerating. Climatologists are alarmed. In 50 years there may be no glaciers in Glacier National Park. Fossil fuels are changing the chemistry of the atmosphere. It is the northern areas that will experience this warming first. In Alaska, the first thing is the melting of the permafrost. This thawing could spread in just five years. Already telephone poles are leaning and the ground is opening up in places, leaving holes in the land. The Alaska pipeline was built on the permafrost, but there was no planning for the possibility the permafrost might melt and the pipeline is threatened.

But the most devastating short-term impact may be from the unexpected. There are 120 million acres of forest in Alaska, and these forests are beginning to die on millions of acres. The destruction has been rapid and devastating and trees on three million acres have already been killed by insect infestation. Some species which threaten forests thrive in warmer weather, like the spruce bark beetle, which eats the bark. These beetles arrived with the onset of warmer weather and in some places there are so many beetles that people have been forced to abandoned their homes and cabins. In southern Alaska, more trees have died in a few years than in the previous 70 years.

In East Africa it rained excessively in traditionally arid lands and this led to extensive flooding which overwhelmed the water management systems. One result was a cholera epidemic from contaminated water. The mosquito population exploded and a malaria epidemic ensued in places in Kenya where mosquitoes were previously rare or unknown. People blamed El Nino, but global warming probably had a hand in the disasters. The problems didn't end there. As the earth heats up, the land dries up. Moisture is released through evaporation into the atmosphere, making it available for weather events. Thus there is flooding, record rainfalls and sometimes storms stronger than previously. While one place is experiencing flooding, other places experience drought. California is flooded, while Indonesia experiences drought. It is just like the Hopi warned.

The natural climate system can change rapidly. If it happened rapidly in the past, it could happen in the future. Temperature records are being broken. It seems inevitable that we will reach four times the CO2 levels in the atmosphere from a century ago and maybe soon. Of all the emissions sent up today, fully half will still be in the atmosphere 100 years from now. By the time we can prove beyond a doubt that human activity is causing the warming, it will be far too late to do anything about it. American politicians, who compete among themselves selling visions of wishful thinking from everything from the economy to terrorism have not performed well in facing this threat. Earlier this year a movie, ''The Day After Tomorrow'', dramatized (and action-adventurized) sudden global freezing (an after effect of warming), but even if the climate changes are much less dramatic than depicted in this movie, the question arises: what about the day after the day after tomorrow? The U.S. government does see climate change as a national security threat, but it's actually much greater than that. It is a threat to species survival. Ours, and many others.
© Indian Country Today
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John C. Mohawk Ph.D., columnist for Indian Country Today, is an associate professor of American Studies and director of Indigenous Studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

EDITOR'S NOTE: URGENT=>Please read the breaking news story at the end...

Wake Up
by Cindy Sheehan

t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 19 September 2005

So we have come to cash this check - a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
-- Martin Luther King Jr., August 28, 1963, "I Have a Dream" speech

What Bush's Katrina shows once again is that my son died for nothing. If you listen to Bush - and fewer and fewer are, thank goodness - we are in Iraq in part due to 9/11. All our president has been talking about has been protecting this country since 9/11. That's why people voted for him in the last election. Katrina shows it's all as sham, a fraud, a disaster as large as Katrina itself.
Hundreds of billions and tens of thousands of innocent lives wasted later, what have we achieved? Nothing. Casey died for nothing and Bush says others have to die for those that have died already.
Enough, George! What is disgusting is not, as the first lady says, criticism of you, but rather the crimes you've committed against this country and our sons and daughters. Stop hiding behind your twisted idea of God and stop destroying this country.
This week I arrive in Washington DC to begin my Vigil at the White House just like I did in Texas. But this time I'll be joined by Katrina victims as well. In your America we are all victims. The failed bookends of your Presidency are Iraq and Katrina.
It is time for all of us to stand up and be counted: to show the media, Congress, and this inept, corrupt, and criminal administration that we mean business. It is time to get off of our collective behinds to show the people who are running our country into oblivion that we will stand for it no longer. That we want our country back and we want our nation's young people back home, safe and sound, on our shores to help protect America. That it is time for a change in our country's "leadership." That we will never go away until our dreams are reality.
We have so-called leaders in our country who are waiting for the correct "politically expedient" time to speak up and out against the occupation of Iraq. It is no sweat for our politicos to wait for the right time, because not one of them has a child in harm's way. I don't care if the politician is a Democrat or a Republican, this is not about politics. Being a strong leader to guide our country out of the quagmire and mistake of Iraq will require people of courage and determination to stand up and say: "I don't care if I win the next election, people are dying in Iraq every day and families are being decimated." We, as the 62% of Americans who want our troops to begin coming home, will follow such a leader down the difficult but oh-so-rewarding path of peace with justice.
It is no longer time for the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. It never has been the time for that. Our "now" is so fiercely urgent. Like my daughter, Carly, wrote in the last verse of her poem:

"A Nation Rocked to Sleep"
Have you ever heard the sound of a Nation Being Rocked to Sleep?
Our leaders want to keep us numb so the pain won't be too deep,
But if we the people allow them to continue, another mother will weep,
Have you heard the sound of a Nation Being Rocked to Sleep?

Wake up: See you in DC on the 24th.

For more information on September 24th go to:
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
*********************************************************
Source: TruthOut.org http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091905Z.shtml

URGENT PLEASE NOTE: This recent communique.....

Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE):
Free Americans Resisting the Fourth Reich on Behalf of All Species.
******************************************************************

http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2005/09/57261.html
September 19, 2005 03:49PM EDT

Police Forcibly Break Up Cindy Sheehan Rally
By Pete Dolack

The New York City Police Department forcibly broke up this afternoon's rally for Cindy Sheehan, moving in as Cindy was speaking at about 3 p.m. in Union Square. The rally had been underway for about an hour, and was about to conclude as Cindy spoke following several other speakers, including a few who are traveling with her on her caravan.

As Cindy was speaking, a large platoon of police massed behind from the interior of the park, then formed a circle behind her, the speakers' area and a few dozen people who were deployed in an arc behind her. Overall, about 200 people were in attendance, with the crowd steadily increasing in size as the rally progressed. As the police formed their arc just behind, the men and women immediately behind Cindy linked arms. A captain made a cutting motion at his throat, signalling he wanted no more free speech. He waited about 30 seconds, then the police moved in. They didn't dare arrest Cindy, but they immediately moved in and grabbed zool, the event's organizer and one of the main organizers of Camp Casey-NYC, pulling him away and arresting him. I do not believe anyone else was arrested; at least I didn't see any other arrests. I was nearby, and there was no hesitation on the part of the police in specifically targetting zool.

The police also took the microphone and sound system. The crowd shouted "Shame! Shame!" at the police and asked what they were so afraid of, but made no response. There was a moderate press presence, even a bit of corporate media there, although the only television crew covering the rally was RTV from Russia.

No warning of any kind was given, and this was a permitted rally. Other than the captain making his cut motion, 30 seconds before forcibly breaking up the rally, there was no warning, verbal or in any other fashion. The police had massed perhaps three or four minutes before moving in. Until then, the rally had gone smoothly, starting just after 2 p.m. as scheduled. Cindy and the rest of the caravan arrived sometime after 2:30; the rest of the rally was comprised of speakers from the caravan. Many groups were in attendence besides Camp Casey-NYC, including Military Families Speak Out, Gold Star Families for Peace, the Troops Out Now Coalition, the No Police State Coalition and the Green Party, among others.

As several people confronted the police in the minutes following the arrest of zool and the stealing of the sound equipment, a woman from the caravan said they had done more than 100 events in 51 cities, and nothing like this had ever happened to them. There is no free speech in Crawford, Texas -- Camp Casey has been under attack there -- and there is no free speech in New York City. The police have attacked Camp Casey-NYC on at least two previous Mondays, have taken the camp's tents, confiscated banners and made arrests. This is merely the latest example of Bloomberg's contempt for opinions that challenge the authorities, particularly Republican Party authorities. And where are our supposed political leaders? Nothing but silence.

Free zool now! Defend free speech in New York City!

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imc-nyc at lists.indymedia.org | (212) 684-8112
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==================================================================

From: "Graham Jukes"
Date: September 20, 2005 6:32:20 AM PDT
Subject: Cindy Sheehan arrested in Manhattan -- Sounds Like The First Amendment!

OUR PURPOSE IS TO EXPOSE CONSPIRATORS.
NOT TO EXAGGERATE THEIR CONSPIRACIES!

Update: BREAKING (Manhattan): Cindy Sheehan ushered away and rally organizer arrested by police
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mparent7777/2923056.html

BREAKING (Manhattan): Cindy Sheehan ushered away and rally organizer arrested by police.
by Five of Diamonds
Mon Sep 19th, 2005 at 12:42:39 PDT

I witnessed this with my own eyes. Here is my account. Other accounts are popping up elsewhere on the blogosphere. For example, Here Here. These other sources clarify that Cindy was rushed away and an event organizer was arrested (things I couldn't see through the crowd).

Please "unrecommend" this diary and continue conversation in the new thread in the "recent diaries" section. This thread is too long and bogs down the system.

A small group of police began to congregate around 2:00 on the southeast corner of Union Square. Cindy and her peace entourage were slightly late to the event, contending with public transportation.

Upon her arrival, applause and cheers filled the crowd awaiting her speech. A few other members of the tour movement spoke. Afterward, about 2:50, Cindy began her speech. It was friendly and empowering. She was grateful for the support and urged everyone to go to Washington DC on the 24th of September for a march on Washington.

At the conclusion of her speech, from my perspective, a few loud and impassioned boos erupted, then I saw a hand come from behind Cindy and grab her shoulder-strap on her backpack. The arm jerked her backwards, with such force as to snap her head forward, and she fell from my view.

The crowd erupted in booing and jeering. The crowd rushed the elevated park where she once stood, not to fight but to witness what was happening. People crowded the police, who had formed a semi-circle around what was happening to Cindy (which I could not witness from my vantage point).

"Nazis," "Gestapo," "free speech," "burn the constitution," "traitors," "you can't have her," could be heard from all sides of the angry crowd. The police stood shoulder-to-shoulder with emotionless looks on their faces. One woman from the tour, I did not see who, urged everyone to that it is a waste of energy to yell at the police, we can't stop it from happening, but what we can do is trumpet this event to the rest of the United States.

Many media cameras were there. One New York Times (cameraless) reporter was also there (at least), and she was moving around the crowd asking questions. Upon the arrest, she inserted herself into the middle of the screaming, recording it all with her mini-voice-recorder.

I'm not sure the details of the permit situation. The announcer said they sought a permit for weeks with no response from the city government.

Spread the word Kossaks! More as it unfolds.

UPDATE: Details prompted by comments: There was no violence, no violent rhetoric, and the spirit of the event was positive and strong. She was only there for about 10 minutes before she spoke, and spoke for about 5 minutes. The crowd was respectful and peaceful. Cindy and the other speakers were using a microphone and speakers, which may have caused the problem with the permits. The announcer told the crowd that they had been officially warned before Cindy got there. I'm trying to find out the permit stuff right now. She was speaking at "Camp Casey NYC" in Union Square. It was a planned event, advertised in the newspaper. And from what I heard (Union Square is a noisy place), they tried to get a permit but did not get a response from city government after many messages were left. My view was not the best, so I did not see if it was a cop behind her that jerked her away. The immediate booing and rushing of the "stage" (a large part of the park raised by about 3 steps) made me believe it was the police. I could not see if she resisted or not. Sorry for the bad view...I wish I had more. Watch the wires, this will be out soon.

President Chavez's Speech to the United Nations
by: President Hugo Chavez
09/16/05 "ICH" -- --

Your Excellencies, friends, good afternoon:

The original purpose of this meeting has been completely distorted. The imposed center of debate has been a so-called reform process that overshadows the most urgent issues, what the peoples of the world claim with urgency: the adoption of measures that deal with the real problems that block and sabotage the efforts made by our countries for real development and life.

Five years after the Millennium Summit, the harsh reality is that the great majority of estimated goals- which were very modest indeed- will not be met.

We pretended reducing by half the 842 million hungry people by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be achieved by the year 2215. Who in this audience will be there to celebrate it? That is only if the human race is able to survive the destruction that threats our natural environment.

We had claimed the aspiration of achieving universal primary education by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be reached after the year 2100. Let us prepare, then, to celebrate it.

Friends of the world, this takes us to a sad conclusion: The United Nations has exhausted its model, and it is not all about reform. The XXI century claims deep changes that will only be possible if a new organization is founded. This UN does not work. We have to say it. It is the truth. These transformations – the ones Venezuela is referring to- have, according to us, two phases: The immediate phase and the aspiration phase, a utopia. The first is framed by the agreements that were signed in the old system. We do not run away from them. We even bring concrete proposals in that model for the short term. But the dream of an ever-lasting world peace, the dream of a world not ashamed by hunger, disease, illiteracy, extreme necessity, needs-apart from roots- to spread its wings to fly. We need to spread our wings and fly. We are aware of a frightening neoliberal globalization, but there is also the reality of an interconnected world that we have to face not as a problem but as a challenge. We could, on the basis of national realities, exchange knowledge, integrate markets, interconnect, but at the same time we must understand that there are problems that do not have a national solution: radioactive clouds, world oil prices, diseases, warming of the planet or the hole in the ozone layer. These are not domestic problems. As we stride toward a new United Nations model that includes all of us when they talk about the people, we are bringing four indispensable and urgent reform proposals to this Assembly: the first; the expansion of the Security Council in its permanent categories as well as the non permanent categories, thus allowing new developed and developing countries as new permanent and non permanent categories. The second; we need to assure the necessary improvement of the work methodology in order to increase transparency, not to diminish it. The third; we need to immediately suppress- we have said this repeatedly in Venezuela for the past six years- the veto in the decisions taken by the Security Council, that elitist trace is incompatible with democracy, incompatible with the principles of equality and democracy.
And the fourth; we need to strengthen the role of the Secretary General; his/her political functions regarding preventive diplomacy, that role must be consolidated. The seriousness of all problems calls for deep transformations. Mere reforms are not enough to recover that “we” all the peoples of the world are waiting for. More than just reforms we in Venezuela call for the foundation of a new United Nations, or as the teacher of Simón Bolívar, Simón Rodríguez said: “Either we invent or we err.”

At the Porto Alegre World Social Forum last January different personalities asked for the United Nations to move outside the United States if the repeated violations to international rule of law continue. Today we know that there were never any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The people of the United States have always been very rigorous in demanding the truth to their leaders; the people of the world demand the same thing. There were never any weapons of mass destruction; however, Iraq was bombed, occupied and it is still occupied. All this happened over the United Nations. That is why we propose this Assembly that the United Nations should leave a country that does not respect the resolutions taken by this same Assembly. Some proposals have pointed out to Jerusalem as an international city as an alternative. The proposal is generous enough to propose an answer to the current conflict affecting Palestine. Nonetheless, it may have some characteristics that could make it very difficult to become a reality. That is why we are bringing a proposal made by Simón Bolívar, the great Liberator of the South, in 1815. Bolívar proposed then the creation of an international city that would host the idea of unity.

We believe it is time to think about the creation of an international city with its own sovereignty, with its own strength and morality to represent all nations of the world. Such international city has to balance five centuries of unbalance. The headquarters of the United Nations must be in the South.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are facing an unprecedented energy crisis in which an unstoppable increase of energy is perilously reaching record highs, as well as the incapacity of increase oil supply and the perspective of a decline in the proven reserves of fuel worldwide. Oil is starting to become exhausted.

For the year 2020 the daily demand for oil will be 120 million barrels. Such demand, even without counting future increments- would consume in 20 years what humanity has used up to now. This means that more carbon dioxide will inevitably be increased, thus warming our planet even more.

Hurricane Katrina has been a painful example of the cost of ignoring such realities. The warming of the oceans is the fundamental factor behind the demolishing increase in the strength of the hurricanes we have witnessed in the last years. Let this occasion be an outlet to send our deepest condolences to the people of the United States. Their people are brothers and sisters of all of us in the Americas and the rest of the world.

It is unpractical and unethical to sacrifice the human race by appealing in an insane manner the validity of a socioeconomic model that has a galloping destructive capacity. It would be suicidal to spread it and impose it as an infallible remedy for the evils which are caused precisely by them.

Not too long ago the President of the United States went to an Organization of American States’ meeting to propose Latin America and the Caribbean to increase market-oriented policies, open market policies-that is neoliberalism- when it is precisely the fundamental cause of the great evils and the great tragedies currently suffered by our people. : The neoliberal capitalism, the Washington Consensus. All this has generated is a high degree of misery, inequality and infinite tragedy for all the peoples on his continent.

What we need now more than ever Mr. President is a new international order. Let us recall the United Nations General assembly in its sixth extraordinary session period in 1974, 31 years ago, where a new International Economic Order action plan was adopted, as well as the States Economic Rights and Duties Charter by an overwhelming majority, 120 votes for the motion, 6 against and 10 abstentions. This was the period when voting was possible at the United Nations. Now it is impossible to vote. Now they approve documents such as this one which I denounce on behalf of Venezuela as null, void and illegitimate. This document was approved violating the current laws of the United Nations. This document is invalid! This document should be discussed; the Venezuelan government will make it public. We cannot accept an open and shameless dictatorship in the United Nations. These matters should be discussed and that is why I petition my colleagues, heads of states and heads of governments, to discuss it.

I just came from a meeting with President Néstor Kirchner and well, I was pulling this document out; this document was handed out five minutes before- and only in English- to our delegation. This document was approved by a dictatorial hammer which I am here denouncing as illegal, null, void and illegitimate.

Hear this, Mr. President: if we accept this, we are indeed lost. Let us turn off the lights, close all doors and windows! That would be unbelievable: us accepting a dictatorship here in this hall.

Now more than ever- we were saying- we need to retake ideas that were left on the road such as the proposal approved at this Assembly in 1974 regarding a New Economic International Order. Article 2 of that text confirms the right of states to nationalizing the property and natural resources that belonged to foreign investors. It also proposed to create cartels of raw material producers. In the Resolution 3021, May, 1974, the Assembly expressed its will to work with utmost urgency in the creation of a New Economic International Order based on- listen carefully, please- “the equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest and cooperation among all states regardless of their economic and social systems, correcting the inequalities and repairing the injustices among developed and developing countries, thus assuring present and future generations, peace, justice and a social and economic development that grows at a sustainable rate.”

The main goal of the New Economic International Order was to modify the old economic order conceived at Breton Woods.

We the people now claim- this is the case of Venezuela- a new international economic order. But it is also urgent a new international political order. Let us not permit that a few countries try to reinterpret the principles of International Law in order to impose new doctrines such as “pre-emptive warfare.” Oh do they threaten us with that pre-emptive war! And what about the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine? We need to ask ourselves. Who is going to protect us? How are they going to protect us?

I believe one of the countries that require protection is precisely the United States. That was shown painfully with the tragedy caused by Hurricane Katrina; they do not have a government that protects them from the announced nature disasters, if we are going to talk about protecting each other; these are very dangerous concepts that shape imperialism, interventionism as they try to legalize the violation of the national sovereignty. The full respect towards the principles of International Law and the United Nations Charter must be, Mr. President, the keystone for international relations in today’s world and the base for the new order we are currently proposing.

It is urgent to fight, in an efficient manner, international terrorism. Nonetheless, we must not use it as an excuse to launch unjustified military aggressions which violate international law. Such has been the doctrine following September 11. Only a true and close cooperation and the end of the double discourse that some countries of the North apply regarding terrorism, could end this terrible calamity.

In just seven years of Bolivarian Revolution, the people of Venezuela can claim important social and economic advances.

One million four hundred and six thousand Venezuelans learned to read and write. We are 25 million total. And the country will-in a few days- be declared illiteracy-free territory. And three million Venezuelans, who had always been excluded because of poverty, are now part of primary, secondary and higher studies.

Seventeen million Venezuelans-almost 70% of the population- are receiving, and for the first time, universal healthcare, including the medicine, and in a few years, all Venezuelans will have free access to an excellent healthcare service. More thatn a million seven hundred tons of food are channeled to over 12 million people at subsidized prices, almost half the population. One million gets them completely free, as they are in a transition period. More than 700 thousand new jobs have been created, thus reducing unemployment by 9 points. All of this amid internal and external aggressions, including a coup d’etat and an oil industry shutdown organized by Washington. Regardless of the conspiracies, the lies spread by powerful media outlets, and the permanent threat of the empire and its allies, they even call for the assassination of a president. The only country where a person is able to call for the assassination of a head of state is the United States. Such was the case of a Reverend called Pat Robertson, very close to the White House: He called for my assassination and he is a free person. That is international terrorism!

We will fight for Venezuela, for Latin American integration and the world. We reaffirm our infinite faith in humankind. We are thirsty for peace and justice in order to survive as species. Simón Bolívar, founding father of our country and guide of our revolution swore to never allow his hands to be idle or his soul to rest until he had broken the shackles which bound us to the empire. Now is the time to not allow our hands to be idle or our souls to rest until we save humanity.
*****************************************************************
Source: Information Cleaing House http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10315.htm

We're Making A Difference
And The Police State Knows It
Or...Getting Off The Picket Fence

by Ted Twietmeyer
tedtw@frontiernet.net
9-16-5

Before we get started, let's briefly define where people are at by defining the three kinds of people in America today. The picket fence is an analogy for the pain induced in a previously asleep person, when they awaken and realize the world of hurt they are really in.

* Those that still subscribe to the party line, that often do so mainly out of fear or ignorance.

* There are those who are undecided, and sit painfully on the top of a picket fence.

* Those who are awakened, fighting the good fight and are aware of the serious situation America is in.

To move from the top category to the bottom category often requires a short stop atop the picket fence. Millions of people are in transition toward the latter category. The intentional criminal actions of handling Katrina are a great wakeup call that even deaf people can hear, and blind people can see. Any American that can't see what's happened there is numb from the neck up. I will not dwell upon this, as other writers have eloquently described what happened.

It wasn't a question of FEMA competency, but reaches far beyond that to using disasters for social engineering. The social engineering effort was notched up another level in the past, on that terrible day in 2001. Martial law was declared four days later when the nine month old dictator signed a "State of Emergency" executive order. He kept the martial law section secret to prevent crashing the economy. How many other presidents do we know of that have asked for, and received, every single thing they demanded without concessions? That's a clear sign of martial law and fear by Congress. The treasonous patriot acts and it's associated expansion are just one of many other signs of martial law. New Orleans is a martial law microcosm, nestled inside a bigger martial law country. The government is painfully forced to tolerate pro-American articles such as this one, since active censoring would let the proverbial cat out of the bag.

It is highly unlikely that awakened people will back-slide toward the party line, as long as they are aware of the tactics always at work upon them. There are interesting parallels of government actions today, compared to the basic principals of Christianity. Christians are constantly aware that satan is always working on them to become evil people. In the same way, the dictator and his evil droids are always looking for ways to pull people back who are slipping away from their party line. They are also working feverishly to stop the bleeding, as more of their unwilling constituents become aware daily of the plight laid out before them.

FEAR AS A TOOL FOR OBEDIENCE

All dictators use fear as their main tool of obedience. Perhaps this is why he waves a Bible around in the Whitehouse, as an attempt to put fear of his version of God into staffers and force them to comply. If he would shut up long enough to read any one page out of that book he professes to believe in, he would realize his administration is in a lose-lose situation. Only then will he stop polishing the silver on his new version of the Titanic. Or perhaps he's just an anti-Christ paying us a visit and trying to gain control.

In either case, the efforts of true American patriots are making a difference. The brown shirts (disguised wearing business suits) are greatly concerned about our efforts, too. Like a steer running out on the open prairie, there is nowhere for them to hide from public scrutiny. Fear has been their only tool, and that tool is now worn out. As one analyst put it, "you can't keep adrenaline flowing in Americans day after day, year after year. It just won't work after a short time." For four years the dictator and his droids have reminded everyone daily about the elevated alert level. Controlled news networks keep reminding you with crawlers across the bottom of your television screen showing the alert level.

"We're going to be attacked" has been their mantra. As predicted several years ago by myself and others, this is all nothing more than a smoke screen to keep everyone's adrenaline pumping. The expression is indeed true that time proves all things. The true reality is, there is NO WAY to prevent an attack no matter what anyone does, or whatever police state measures are in place. Consider London, which has more than 2 million cameras (British government statement.) Yet three bombs go off at the same time? Proof positive cameras do NOT work. It proves that cameras serve only to spy on citizens, and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.

THE ULTIMATE FEAR IS THE ULTIMATE LIE

Many fall for the party line that "terrorists" (fake terrorists) will detonate nuclear devices on American soil in several major cities. If so-called real terrorists exist, it would have happened long ago. Under the sanitizing light of day and under close scrutiny, we can see several reasons they won't do it:

1. Radioactivity will make any city completely useless for thousands of years, and make cleanup virtually impossible. It will also spread around the globe. What's directly east of NY city? Europe of course - the world seat of globalism. Think they want radioactive rain?

2. Destroying buildings social engineers can use for their own plans is counter-productive. Rebuilding a destroyed city costing hundreds of billions of dollars amid terrible social and economic depression from such an attack would be impossible.

3. A nuclear attack would seriously hamper their "back to nature" philosophy and other "protect the earth policies" (such as UN Agenda 21) causing permanent harm.

4. Globalists are money-driven people. Such an event is incredibly expensive in many different ways, since THEY would ultimately have to pay to clean it up and contain it - out of THEIR pocket. If you have ever dealt with the ultra-rich as I have, rest assured that EVERYTHING they do is money-oriented. That philosophy flows through their bloodstream, and the world's richest are exactly who the globalists are. EVERYTHING they come in contact with or consider doing is always analyzed as a profit or loss. Yet another reason why martial law was kept secret was because these people are heavily invested in the stock market and they stand to lose everything when a major crash occurs.

5. If high-tech neutron devices are used, their plans for controlling America will be exposed and the entire world will know that the globalists did it themselves, using more fake terrorism. There will still be massive damage to buildings, and perhaps a million bodies to collect and dispose of along with cholera and other disease issues. Again, this entire cleanup costs money and the globalists don't want to pay for it.

6. We can be assured that all of these factors and many more were evaluated before they decided to stage September 2001. The globalists didn't have to pay to clean that one up, or the anthrax letters whose DNA traced back to the US Army at Ft. Dietrich, MD. (No explanation of how that material left a top high level biowarfare facility was ever given, and the attention-deficit public never cared either.) And the billions the dictator promised to the families and businesses to help them rebuild? It never came through. Compared to a real nuclear event, 2001 was a minor act of genocide.

A nuclear detonation would cause a boil-over in the military, and they would revolt against the administration. Like the plane and anthrax attacks, those on the inside such as Edmonds will start to talk. It's not possible to shut everyone up. Statistically no matter what city they decide to use thousands of people in the military will lose family, friends and loved ones. Instead of just going AWOL as soldiers do today, a large percentage of these thousands of angry soldiers will attack Washington, using the government's own weapons against them.

History has shown that any government can only push their people only so far. I'm not suggesting this should happen, but one well aimed missile fired by an angry soldier could be the end of the dictatorship. But there will be more than just one angry soldier. It will only take one such soldier to begin a military coup. Most likely they would hit Crawford Texas, Kennebunkport Maine, at 1600 PA. Ave. and all the other places the self-appointed dictator hangs out at the same time. And if any of them are caught, there won't be a jury that would find them guilty.

A new race car driver recently told me that he did not do well in his last race. When I asked him why, he explained that his street-driving sense kept kicking in, causing him to slow down on turns. He explained that In racing, you have to allow tire slip on corners to perform about 10% of the steering. Essentially, its like "riding the edge" of losing control. Governments "ride the edge" all the time, pushing their people just as far as they can. Now our government has pushed too far in too many ways.

Americans must never forget that our great country was founded by men who lived under the iron boot of brainwashing English tyranny. The English have a clear history of enjoying being peons and slaves. Today if you live there and earn more than 50,000 a year they actually tax you at 110%. That's not a typo - it really is 110%. This philosophy was expanded with the "European Union." Now "European" truly means "you're a peon" - just ask anyone from Europe about the terrible inflation store prices have there. America's founding fathers demanded true freedom and they made it happen. These great men were keenly aware that tyranny could take root in our land, and they warned future generations of that possibility in many documents. And we were warned by America's founding fathers that "no good thing would come of meddling in the affairs of other countries." And that has been proven true.

The entire structure of government in America was designed 230 years ago with built-in checks and balances, all designed to prevent consolidation of power in any one branch. Structure of American government was defined by honorable men. That structure both requires, and depends upon, honorable leaders to sustain and nurture it. Jefferson was one of many who knew what America's future could be, simply from seeing the British tyranny of his time he had lived under. He stated that "every 20 years or so, the tree of freedom would need to be watered with the blood of patriots." Here in 2005, it looks like we're long overdue. Watering fake trees of freedom in foreign lands with American blood, was definitely NOT what Jefferson had in mind.

It is interesting that Hogan's Heroes, one of the biggest hit shows of all time that ran for many years in the 1960s has disappeared from the airwaves. That television show about a prison camp, has striking parallels to life in America today. Could it be that our dictator does not want us to even think about prison camps being activated? American life today is now the same genre, just on a much larger scale. Today invisible barbed wire stretches from sea to shining sea. Every American has a pair of wire cutters in their pocket, yet few realize it. They just need to pull them out and put them to use, removing whatever obstacles are in their way.

On a slightly different note, you can be sure that when New Orleans is rebuilt the first wiring to be installed along with new power lines will be thousands of camera and microphone cables. Why? Federal money is rebuilding the city, and they can,t miss the chance to show their police state mindset. The city will eventually resemble London, UK, which authorities bragged has more than 2 MILLION cameras - not just one but several on every street corner. Visitors to London have confirmed this is true. Globalist police state mentality will be dominant throughout the new city. And one can be certain the authorities will be bragging how low their crime rate is, in years to come.

But what happens to a camera signal when a pin is shoved into a coax cable shorting it out and clipped off by some freedom loving patriot that is later buried in concrete, or pulled through a conduit? Heaven forbid such a thing would happen. Perhaps the New Orleans gun ban will be permanent, as a way to protect the cameras. But will they also ban paint guns, too? If so, you know cameras are in the rebuilding plans. It will also be like London in the subways, where all the pertinent cameras "malfunctioned" during a government sponsored attack.

The plan for installing cameras in every city is already underway and they are being installed. Printing presses are churning out money around the clock to pay for these and many other measures, in a last ditch effort to get a police state in place before an economic crash worse than 1929 finally takes place. Everyone is told the cameras are there for "fighting terrorism" and most people willingly believe it. Logic and history clearly have illustrated that any camera can only record the past, not the future. And that's if it isn't "malfunctioning." Considering how the administration has in years past directly stated or implied that the average American can be considered an enemy combatant at any time - it's quite clear they already think that all Americans are the enemy.

What the government droids do not realize is that THEY are also a part of that "enemy combatant" group too. Tyranny they help to create daily becomes a part of THEIR LIFE as well. And, also a part of their family and friend's lives. Government droid actions to help the police state move forward are like that of a mad doctor. The doctor makes an incision on an unwilling patient, and simultaneously makes the same incision on himself and all his family members standing around him. Yet assures himself nothing is wrong with this.

Anyone working in the government participating in actions to destroy freedom, should realize they are in a lose-lose situation just like that of the self-appointed dictator.

Construction of police state infrastructure shows that the government now fears the people because of all the things they have done to America. Even more terrible things are planned such as chip implants. When you are swimming and see someone drowning, do you let them drown or try to rescue them? Clearly government philosophy today is to let them drown, as they literally did in New Orleans.

BUSINESSES - BACKUP VIDEO TAPES IN REAL TIME FROM SECURITY CAMERAS

If you have a business that has a security camera which takes in a government building, add a SECOND VCR to record the camera to a backup tape in a hidden location. Don't put the signal splitter on the back of the VCR they will remove the tape from. They may inspect the back of the machine for a second video cable when removing the tape from it. Put the splitter in a hidden location such as up above in the ceiling or down in the basement, so only ONE cable is attached to the back of the VCR the feds will touch. Not even where employees should know about the backup machine. They may be intimidated by federal badges and talk about it. When the next attack comes and the feds show up to take your tape? Give them just ONE of them, and give the other COPY of the backup tape to everyone in the press.

Do NOT use a wireless connection to the backup VCR, as this is easily detected with equipment the government has.

The backup machine should be setup to record automatically, and upon reaching the end of the tape rewind and start over again automatically. It will function like a flight recorder, keeping only the previous several hours of video leading up to the next attack. After the next attack, just remove the tape and put it away for safe keeping.

If backup VCRs were in place before September 200 in gas stations and hotels, the confiscated tapes the government will never release would no longer be a mystery - and the dictator would be history.

There is nothing whatsoever to lose by fighting back, and every freedom and liberty to gain. Those that don't speak out, sit on the fence indefinitely or whine and shrink away from their MANDATORY REQUIREMENT as citizens to educate others and stop the loss of freedom, are no longer Americans and should pack up and leave. They don't deserve to be here. Period.

It is NEVER too late for anyone to stand up for freedom and scream NO WAY! The line in the sand has been drawn.

Ted Twietmeyer
tedtw@frontiernet.net
******************************
From: rense.com

A Woman in Tucson is Screaming, Crying, and Very Pissed Off!

By Saretta Wool

April 18, 2004

In my 56 years on this beautiful planet; our home and mother, I have never seen the ravages of male recklessness, violence, oppression, and war so predominant and frightening as now. Gentlemen, and I use the term loosely, you have gone too far! You are destroying our food, water, and safety on the planet! Enough!

George Bush and his mafia of thugs and criminals are the first to be indicted. (And let’s throw in the Bush Women). I’ve had it with all of them! They are like festering boils on the ass of our nation. They are bad children turned into disturbed adults. They are dangerous and are endangering everyone on the planet. I don’t want to hear anymore whining and sniveling about God, Jesus, Allah, or whatever big boss they say they are serving. They are serving themselves at our expense. When one seeks to dominate others the result is oppression and it is clear by the uprising and revolt world-wide that domination by any means is not going to work anymore. Thus the bloodbath in Iraq. The Bushies can take all their religious dogma and fanaticism and throw it on the pyre with the corpses they create.

Since 1947, the US has invaded, bombed, intervened with military, or declared sanctions against at least 45 countries: France, Italy, Philippines, Peru, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Greece, Egypt, Lebanon, Japan, Cuba, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Zaire, and Haiti, to name a few. Since 1948 the US has slaughtered over 8,913,744 (eight million nine hundred thirteen thousand seven hundred forty-four) civilians on this planet, with no remorse. This does not include up to 11,000 Iraqi civilians killed in the past year. Along the trail of US invasion, during the last ten years, is depleted uranium which no one wants to talk about until they see the images of the deformed American babies and the American troops suffering with and who will likely die from radiation poisoning. Depleted uranium destroys the genetic structure (DNA) and the immune system. (Of course the soil and water, too) This answers the universal question of “Why do they hate us?” It sure as hell isn’t about freedom.

Now, in defense of the American people, before we’re attacked again. During the past twenty-five years (maybe longer) the US government has been deliberately and methodically “dumbing-down” America through a controlled media/blackouts, constant slashes to education and state infrastructures, cutting of veteran benefits, loss of jobs, and social programs. Most Americans do not know of the atrocities committed in their name, mentioned above.

Basic needs are not met for thousands of Americans. There is no health care program. The introduction of tons of corporation (not farm) produced junk food (solid and liquid) for purchase and consumption at fast food joints and gas stations has filled American bodies with sugar, preservatives, hormones, and chemicals. And yes, world, Americans are stupid. We have been stupefied by the “dumbing down” process. Some of us even believe that arrogance is a substitute for intelligence. Some believe that war is peace. A lesson from our “leaders”. And of course, the television and media, the mainstay of our existence, owned and controlled by the friends of the master fascists, add numbing to the dumbing.

We languish on our sofas, satisfied, pacified by state sponsored TV, swallowing lies, becoming obese and complacent. Thus we do not have to think. A fine set up for the overall perpetration of massive mind control, manipulation, and use of propaganda and misinformation by the US government. And, oh yes, we have become a police state on top of that, thanks to AshCroft. So just in case any one of us gets out of hand, speaks to our neighbor, or just plain wants to rant about old dickhead Cheney, the cops will jump right on us, press pepper spray in our eyes, and haul us off somewhere to be detained indefinitely or maybe beat us to death with a black hood on our heads and our hands bound behind our backs.

When the world wonders why Americans aren’t standing up for their rights, furious, outraged, and forcing the fascists out, part of the answer is that many are unable to take action because they have become the walking dead, led to that condition by government induced fear over may years. Sheep to the slaughter.

There are also millions of us in the US who are fighting these bastards, in the ways that we are able. We are writing, reading, meeting, talking, protesting, and making international connections. Some of us are armed and are preparing for local rebellion. We could try some basic self-defense techniques on them such as the eye gouge, or kicking them in the balls. We could catch them with their pants down. Some of us may even vote. But as others around the planet in tribunals and social forum come together; perhaps they’ll have different solutions. I hope so because we need support here. I still cling to my life-long commitment to the non-violent resolution of conflict.

Mandela was right about Bush though: Bush (and his mean and nasty gang) is the greatest threat to world peace on the planet. Bush’s claims to fame are lying, cheating, stealing, murder, wanton destruction of the planet, and treason. There may be more.

We are dealing with psychopaths. They must be restrained. They must be indicted, confined, expatriated, and incarcerated. They have betrayed the trust of the people of this country and the global community.

----

Saretta Wool is an artist, activist & member of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Tucson, AZ – Email: desertspiritwool@earthlink.net

The mysterious miracle worker
By Alexandra Gill
Globeandmail.com
November 27, 2004

At 19, he is said to have cured a rock star and an astronaut and everyone wants a piece of this private young healer. But as ALEXANDRA GILL reports, nobody really understands what he does.

Vancouver — I am sitting in the dark, on a green leather sofa, my feet firmly planted on polished hardwood. This spacious but sparely furnished family room is on the main floor of a detached suburban home just outside Vancouver. A 19-year-old ''energy healer'' who calls himself Adam is standing about three metres in front of me.

"Just relax," says Adam, twisting his body with arms spread out, as if he were warming up to throw a discus. From the dim light in the kitchen, I see him in the shadows looking down at his feet. Then his head suddenly jerks up, but he's clearly not in the same space any more. He looks off into the distance, as though he's fallen into a trance, and starts manipulating the air in front of his face with his palms spread flat.

As Adam will later explain, he is visualizing a hologram of my immune system. He describes these visions as layers of 3-D images in which he sees organs moving, hearts pumping -- and sometimes, bright green masses that can indicate tumours.

You may have heard about this boy with the so-called magic touch. I first met and wrote about him 18 months ago. Since then, he has been profiled in numerous television documentaries and magazine articles, including a splashy feature in Rolling Stone magazine.

At the time, this completely normal-looking teenager had just self-published a book called Dreamhealer: His Name is Adam. The book, which has since sold more than 20,000 copies, attempted to explain what he does, diagnosing and treating illnesses from a distance, and included a testimonial from Ronnie Hawkins, the rock 'n' roll legend Adam allegedly cured of terminal pancreatic cancer by staring at a colour photo and connecting to the Hawk's energy field from 5,000 kilometres away.

Today, the Hawk is still kicking, has remained cancer-free and is getting ready for his big 70th-birthday bash. "I was brought up in the South, where you ain't supposed to believe in this stuff," He told Rolling Stone. "Jesus healed, but I never read anything where it was long-distance. There's a lot of shit out there, and I don't believe none of it. But I'm telling you exactly what happened to me. This wasn't no coincidence. I don't know how Adam did it. But, my God, if that's what he can do, in two years he'll be able to buy Jimmy Swaggart."

For now, Adam is just trying to concentrate on his first-year midterms at university now that his second book, Dreamhealer 2: Guide to Self-Empowerment, is back from the printers. He still has a website (http://www.dreamhealer.com).

Adam is studying general sciences and plans to become a naturopathic doctor. Some day, he would like to open a centre where alternative and Western medicine can be combined.

Because of his intense study schedule, and overwhelming demand for his help, he no longer performs one-on-one sessions. "There are just too many people out there who want my help," he say. "Sometimes it's so difficult turning people away, especially when they have little kids with cancer spread all over their body."

Adam remains anonymous to protect his family's privacy, while keeping the seekers and skeptics at bay. "I've received thousands of e-mails from people who want help. I've been asked to quit school, and give up my friends or sports. One guy even suggested I sleep less. But even if I were doing this 24/7, there still wouldn't be enough time to help everyone.

"And a lot of people that come to me aren't even willing to help themselves. That's why I've written this book. Everyone has the ability to heal themselves. It's just a matter of understanding that the mind does affect the immune system. And you also have to be willing to adopt a healthier and positive attitude. Intention counts for a lot."

For a lot of people, Adam says, books aren't motivation enough. So, as well as his alternative individual therapy, he has begun offering group-healing sessions, which he says can be far more powerful anyway. More than 2,000 have already attended his workshops. The next workshop takes places in Vancouver in January. With 450 participants, it's the largest yet, and has already sold out.

The workshops function by joining everyone's aura and allowing the group's combined energy, including Adam's, to flow together in a master hologram. He describes the energy field as being similar to two bubbles in a bath that suddenly burst into one large bubble.

Adam prefers to do workshops with groups of people who suffer from the same illness, but says anyone can benefit.

"If you are doing your own visualizations to direct your energy to a specific problem, the group healings are even more powerful than the individual healings," he says. Back in the family room, I feel a slight pressure on my neck as Adam shifts his gaze down and starts knitting his hands as if he's trying to dig at something or push it out of the way.

Then his whole body slams backward and he nearly falls to the floor. He sits down and cups his hands in front of his eyes to shield his dilated pupils. "It's like coming out from a cave into a very bright light," he explains as he catches his breath.

"I saw a blob," Adam says. "It's actually a little deeper than it looks from your aura. It's just below your ribs, on the right side."

A blob?

"It sort of looks like the lymph nodes, but the source is deeper than that. It's kind of thick and pasty. It's actually quite concentrated. And it's constantly pulsing, almost the same as your heartbeat. It's not something I see very often."

Is it cancer?

"I don't see anything hard there. I wouldn't be too, too concerned, but I think it's something to check relatively soon. I'm more concerned about your lungs. There's a general haze over the whole area, and it looks kind of scarred. It's not a huge problem, but they look pretty weak."

My mind reels. Unidentifiable blobs? Hazy lungs? How soon can I get an MRI scan?

"Don't worry about it too much or it will manifest into a physical problem," Adam says. "You know, the pulsating is not something I see very often, but it can sometimes be an emotional block. Maybe that's where you store your emotions."

Emotional block? Whew. How about writer's block? I suffer from that quite often. Either way, at least we're finally talking about concepts I can almost understand.

No one can explain what exactly Adam does. Edgar Mitchell, however, says this sort of healing is firmly rooted in science -- or at least its fringes.

Mr. Mitchell, a former NASA astronaut and the sixth man to walk on the moon in 1971 as part of the Apollo 14 mission, has been a mentor to Adam for several years. He is also a former patient who credits this young man with making a tumour on his kidney disappear.

"Understand, I have been studying these things for 30 years or more," Mr. Mitchell, now 74, says over the phone from his home in Florida.

On his return journey to Earth, he says, he experienced a life-changing epiphany, one he describes as a spiritual awakening that made him instantly aware that we are all one with the universe. Soon after, he founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences, now based in Northern California, and has since spent his entire life trying to understand how mind reading, telekinesis and seemingly unexplained paranormal phenomena might be integrated with science theory.

Mr. Mitchell and his peers argue that the world cannot be explained through cause-and-effect Newtonian physics. They believe that quantum mechanics, a much less understood science, will one day show that energy is not restricted to time or location, but is connected to a parallel or universal field of energy that we can affect through our minds or conscious intent.

Adam, so the theory goes, is one of the rare individuals who can apparently jump into this alternate field much more easily than most and manipulate the energy.

"The problem of how intentionality can be modelled within science is a very difficult one," Mr. Mitchell says. "I won't say it's intractable. We have clues, but no solid answers. Watching folk like this operate will help get us closer."

Last December, during a routine physical exam, Mr. Mitchell's doctor found a mass on his kidney that was consistent with renal carcinoma. He asked for a second opinion from Adam, who thought it might be "hot," and they went to work.

Adam says that once a week he would connect with Mr. Mitchell's energy field and visualize the tumour being wrung dry until it crumbled like sand. A month later, Mr. Mitchell went to a radiologist, who told him the mass was getting smaller and to keep doing whatever he was doing. By June, it had disappeared.

"I've worked with some good healers," Mr. Mitchell says. "I think Adam will be up there among the best. He just needs experience. It wouldn't hurt if he had more education in anatomy. "

At home in Vancouver, with his first-term finals looming, Adam doesn't disagree.

"I'm learning a lot in my classes that are helping me make sense of what I've experienced. In chemistry, we're learning about the quantum mechanics of atoms and the zero-point field. In biology, well, we're learning about all the things we don't know. Basically, half the textbook is made up of things we don't know. I find that very interesting. I think a lot of the things I'm working with might be the missing link."

We return to the family room and turn off the lights. As Adam does his twitching thing, my head starts getting very heavy and falls back on the couch. Before my eyes close, I feel my chest puffing up like a balloon. When he finishes, I'm totally pumped and feel like I've just run 10 miles.

"Uh, I think you should stop smoking now, while your body can still recover from it," Adam advises. "It's okay now, but it won't be in 10 or 15 years. Why don't you try chewing gum?"

Alexandra Gill is a member of The Globe and Mail's B.C. bureau.
© 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc.

Indian Nations, The United States & Citizenship

By John Mohawk -- Seneca Nation

In the beginning, the question of how to view Indian

nationhood and citizenship wasn't a question at all. We are

reminded that how things came to be the way they are evolved in a

history entirely outside the control, and indeed outside the view,

of the indigenous peoples of the world, and that the evolution of

the idea of citizenship and its application to indigenous peoples

is an idea which has been created and molded to suit the needs of

people other than the subjects.

In some areas of Indian Country, the concept stirs deep

passions. There are many among the Haudenosaunee who deny that

they are citizens of any country other than their own, while some,

notably Oklahoma Indians, assert dual citizenship regularly. Still

others are confused about their citizenship, and regularly reply

that they are United States citizens without thought of their

indigenous nation.

The reason for this state of confusion lies not so much in

the absence of information as in the fact of vagueness about how

and why indigenous peoples of the Americas were confronted with

the idea of citizenship. Citizenship was, and for many Indian

peoples remains, an alien idea, and for good reason.

Lawyers can argue about the exact legal definitions which

cloud the term. Social historians can affirm that at the time of

the Columbian encounter at the end of the fifteenth century,

citizenship was practiced on the European continent was

predictably different from the concept as used today. The world's

indigenous peoples are, of course, a special case, even though

indigenous peoples worldwide suffer similar problems coping with

the intrusions of states. As the history of the European

expansion and subsequent invasions of the Americas, Asia and

Africa (as well as numerous places such as Australia and islands

without number) they encountered peoples all over the globe.

It is extremely enlightening, for the purpose of determining

the identity of the Indigenous nations (as opposed to the extent

of the rights and obligations of *citizenship*), that we begin our

tale at the beginning. The most interesting work on the subject

of European law as it existed during the centuries leading to the

Columbian era is a work by Harold J. Berman entitled _Law and

Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition_ (1983).

This work covers a lot of territory but, on the subject of

citizenship, Berman points out that during the centuries prior to

Columbus legal customs had arisen on the continents which spoke to

the issue of citizenship.

In feudal Europe, there arose a peculiar way of viewing the

land. In some sense, land and country were indistinguishable.

England was, in the custom of the day, the sum of its parts, and

its parts were Sussex, Essex, etc.. The people who represented

those parts were the aristocracy, thus York was not only a

geographic area, but also a person. When the king ordered, as he

sometimes did, "Go and fetch York," everyone in the kingdom knew

who he was talking to about. Feudal relationships define humans

as assets which belong to the land, or *go* with the land. The

centuries have blurred our ability to understand that in 12th

century France a person was born to a place, that place was ruled

by an aristocrat and the aristocrat was, at least in theory,

beholden to a sovereign.

Thus, the sovereign owned the kingdom, it was his to do with

as he pleased in theory or as he could get away with in practice.

A serf born to a district was perceived as a person who *went*

with the property. He was, in effect, little better than a

chattel slave, a person owned by a military aristocracy which,

during some periods, held unlimited sway over his life and

property. Beginning about the eleventh century, this began to

change in some parts of Europe.

One of the elements of change was the rise in Europe during

these centuries of cities. The cities were unlike the rural

subdivisions of the kingdom in that gradually they obtained a

degree of autonomy from the system of feudal lords. In time, the

cities came to be, in practice, havens from the arbitrary and

sometimes brutal rule of the aristocrats. A practice arose which

enabled a person who found his way into the confines of a city and

who was able to survive for a year and a day became a *citizen*

(literally from the Greek, meaning a person who lives in a city),

and in time citizenship meant that the city state guaranteed that

person certain rights. Predictably, the first right was against

capture and forced reenslavement at the hands of his former

master. [*This is a very general treatment of this somewhat

complex and highly variable subject, but then this is a short

paper. Berman goes into it at length.*]

Thus far in this story, there are no indigenous peoples.

Although there are numerous distinct peoples on the European

continent, and although at one time in European history it can be

successfully argued that some of these peoples were indigenous in

the sense they occupied the land as a distinct people prior to

some colonization, for our purposes there were no peoples who were

*indigenous* in the modern sense of that word on the European

continent following the Crusades. "Indigenous peoples" is really

a term we were forced to invent to distinguish the peoples which

occupy a land mass at the time of the European invasion from other

peoples, some of whom do not exist at the beginning of that

invasion.

The first modern indigenous peoples were the Gaunches of the

Canary Islands. The Gaunches are almost forgotten in American

history, but certainly belong in the introduction to any history

of the invasion of the Americas. When the Spanish (with some

French assistance) first landed on the Canary Islands in 1402,

there was a population of about 80,000 Gaunches. The wars to

conquer them lasted until 1496 when their final stronghold fell.

They were as much victim to the epidemic diseases of Europe as to

the Spanish arms, but they were unquestionably victims. Some

historians have argued that their descendants can be found on the

Canary Islands and the Azores Islands, but the Gaunches are

extinct as a distinct people. The Gaunches, it can be said, had

no rights.

The history of the indigenous peoples of the Canary Islands

is a very neat package. It has a beginning, a middle, and, for

all practical purposes, an end. The Portuguese discovered an

uninhabited island they named Madieras because it was covered

with forest. They colonized it with some volunteer settlers. Within

a short time they cleared the island by burning it to the ground and

a few years later were raising enough sugar cane to become the

number one exporter of refined sugar in the world. Money flowed

to the Portuguese crown and a very profitable investment called

*colonization* had been born. Before long it became clear that to

make this investment truly profitable there needed to be a source

of cheap labor. The cheapest labor at the time was slave labor

and that's where the Gaunches came into the picture.

The Gaunches were attacked because they possessed islands

which were thought to be potentially profitable possessions and

because they were a source of slave labor. The attack on the

Gaunches was pure theft and slavery. No one, not even the

Spanish, bothered to explain it in terms of advancing Christianity

or bringing the benefits of Civilization to the benighted. In

that regard the history of the Canary Islands is as refreshingly

blunt as in the fact of their conquest and annihilation was brutal.

Christopher Columbus was married to the daughter of one of

the governors of one of the Azores Islands and is rumored to have

engaged in the slave trade. The Gaunches, as was mentioned

earlier, mostly succumbed to diseases like smallpox and like

indigenous peoples to follow, didn't make satisfactory slaves

because of the death rate. The Spanish quickly adjusted by

importing slaves from Africa where smallpox, chicken pox and a

score of other *childhood* diseases were already known and where

the peoples had developed some immunity to them. A fairly

thorough discussion of the Spanish behavior in these eastern

Atlantic islands is found in Alfred W. Crosby's excellent book,

_Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-

1900_ (1986).

From the Canary Islands and the Azores Columbus set sail for

the Asia mainland and landed, instead, on the islands of the

Caribbean where he encountered, we all know, a people he

mistakenly dubbed Indians. A pattern of behavior which had been

established during the war against the Gaunches was then

initiated by the Spanish against first the peoples of the

Caribbean and then the indigenous peoples of the mainland. The

results were, of course, devastating. On some of the islands, the

entire population was wiped out, or at least virtually wiped out,

by the twin demons of European-introduced epidemic diseases and

Spanish cruelty. A pretty good account of that story is found in

Karl Sauer's _The Early Spanish Main_.

The Indians presented an interesting dilemma when a dispute

between the clergy and the military arose around the identity of

the Indians. Bartolome de Las Casas, a priest, circulated

accounts of Spanish cruelty which were published in Western Europe

and eventually became a source of embarrassment to the Spanish

crown. The crowns then ordered a debate before the Council of the

Indies to settle the question whether the American Indians were

indeed human beings possessed of a soul, and therefore, rightfully

the charges of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, or, as some

conquistadors asserted, sub-humans who had no rights whatever.

The conquistadors hired Gines de Sepulveda as their attorney.

He argued forcefully that Indians are sub-humans. Las Casas

argued they had souls and intelligence and can be socialized to be

servants of both the crown and the church. (The best short

telling of this story is found in _Aristotle and the American

Indian_, by Lewis Hanke.) No one argued the Indians are distinct

peoples possessed of rights against both church and crowns, and no

one questioned to whom the lands belonged. All understood under

the doctrines of that time that the land was Spanish land.

Somewhat consistently with this line of thinking, centuries later

when Spanish colonies became states, most of them included the

indigenous peoples as their citizens immediately, in their first

constitution.

The English colonization had a slightly different history

from the Spanish in both flavor and on the subject of citizenship.

The English were watching and envious of Spanish success at

plunder in what they called the "New World." English adventures

across the Atlantic had to wait. By 1565, Spain was the most

powerful country on the Atlantic, commanding an empire greater

than Rome at its zenith. When a French colony was attempted in

Florida, the Spanish arrived and massacred everyone.

The English were undaunted. Beginning about 1565,

entrepreneurs sold stock in London to finance a venture to invade

Ireland. The source of wealth in Ireland was to be the forest

products said to be in abundance there, and the lure to some of

England's landless poor (victims of a growing process known as

enclosure) to an adventure in a foreign land. In Ireland, the

English encountered their first indigenous people. The rural

Irish were Catholic, a folk who continued to possess a number of

cultural traits of their ancestors. Before long the invading

English discovered that the indigenes were seriously flawed in

their national character. They were, according to reports flowing

into London, pagans in spirit, probably not Christians at all, and

rumored to be cannibals.

The purpose of these slanders against the Irish was to

provide an excuse to do violence to them in order to drive them

from their lands. One of the complaints against the Irish was

that they do not improve the land as Englishmen do, and therefore,

of not have as much right to it. If the Gaunches were to provide

Spain with practice in their treatment of the Indians of Latin

America, the Irish provided the English with practice in their

treatment of the Indians of North America. An excellent history

is by Nichoas P. Canny, _The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: A

Pattern Established 1565 -1576_.

The English arrived in what they called New England a

generation or so after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

They immediately proceeded to take the land in a way which was,

at that point, wholly English. Instead of arguing about whether

Indians were human or not, they concentrated on the land itself.

Indians were basically unfortunately in the way of English

possession of the land. Every conceivable excuse was mustered to

dispossess the Indian of this land, excuses which had worked

during the enclosures in England and the wars in Ireland. Acre by

acre the Indians were driven from the land just as the poor in

England had been (and continued to be) and the Irish had been (and

still are). There was not much discussion in this early phase of

history about citizenship, pro or con. An excellent account of

the English in early New England is found in William Cronon's

_Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and Ecology of New

England_.

The invasion of North America is told almost entirely from

the eyes of the invader. During the early years, when the English

and Dutch and Swedes and French were weak the Indians insisted

on treaty relationships, on a separation of law and territory. Thus,

the earliest agreements have the air of treaties, and the earliest

treaties reflect Indian thinking about cultural diversity and the

right to continue as distinct peoples. An early treaty is the now-

famous Two Row Treaty between the Dutch and the Haudenosaunee

(Iroquois) and the original Silver Covenant Chain, both of which

declare that the relationships are equal to equal or, in modern

terms, state to state.

The Europeans were pragmatists. If treaties served to cement

relations, then treaties were to be made. Although it took nearly

two centuries for the colonies to become established enough to

challenge the Indians, English colonists doggedly coveted the

land. Unlike the Spanish, who coveted Indian labor and

subservience, the English coveted mostly land. There are

exceptions, but generally this was the flow. The Spanish debated

whether the Indians were human. The English simply accepted that

the Indians were not English.

Thus, the Indians were not only not seen as citizens, the

idea never really gained much currency among the colonists that

the Indians would ever by English citizens. The Indians belonged

to America, not to England. America was not England, not its land

and not its people. That ideological underpinning of British

governmental organization and ethnocentrism was to be a major

factor which would stimulate the American Revolution.

Pragmatism ruled the day, however, and the English were

pristinely pragmatic when it came to doing whatever was necessary

to liberate the Indian from land. An excellent account of the

transmigration of European thinking to the Americas, especially

North America, is found in Francis Jennings' _The Invasion of

America -- Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest_.

It has been argued (see Jennings' early trilogy) that the

Seven Years War was the first world war. Jennings argues that the

English crown claimed France had invaded British territory by

building a fort at Duquesne because the land in question was part

of an Iroquois empire, and the Iroquois empire was British

territory. The crown never claims the Iroquois are British

citizens, however. Land and citizenship are clearly separate

under the conditions created by overseas empires and an evolving

theory of law which finds the states coming to ownership of the

idea of citizenship for their own purposes.

At the time of the American Revolution, there is no question

the Americans viewed the Indians as distinct peoples, and that

they, at least, viewed the Indian nations as distinct nations.

Both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the

United States reflect this reality. The new Constitution was

sought and organized primarily to advance imperialism. It was, on

the one hand, a reaction to tax revolts and to organize an

effective army which could deal with issues surrounding what it

euphemistically calls the "western lands." The Western Lands, let

us be clear, was Indian Country. The first major American

military engagements were against Indians by armies invading

Indian nations.

The history of U.S. treatment of Indian nations during the

19th century is long and complicated because of the number of

different Indian peoples involved, but fundamentally simple in

terms of the process which was repeated hundreds of times across

the United States. The U.S. government deployed military

garrisons on the edge of Indian territories and encouraged

frontiersmen to enter and start conflict with the Indians. When

the conflict arose, the army reacted by attacking the Indians.

The best account of this process I know is found in _A History of

the Indians and the Untied States_ by Angie Debo. The Indians

were attacked and killed, enslaved and abused, their land seized

and their children forced into alien schools solely because they

possessed land other people wanted.

The U.S. Constitution treats Indians as non-citizens, and

Indians remained non-citizens until 1924. From the time of

formation of the United States to the present, the issue of

citizenship for Indians has been dealt with by the U.S. government

entirely to its own interest. With the possible exception of

early court decisions, later ignored, that Indian nations were

legitimate in the eyes of the law, the United States has generally

acted as though Indian nationhood is simply an inconvenient

anachronism of history. Indian nationhood is inconvenient

because, if the Indian nations are legitimate, U.S. designs for

Indian land and labor are not legitimate. Thus, U.S. Indian

policy has ignored Indian nationhood whenever possible, even to

the point of simply declaring Indian nations no longer exist

during the Termination Era.

During the nineteenth century, when the problem of how to

steal Indian land without appearing to steal it was a major

consideration, the United States passed laws which enabled non-

Indians to sue Indian nations for damages arising out of acts of

violence during these conflicts, but denied Indians the standing

to sue non-Indians. Indians were clearly non-citizens during this

century and, so long as an Indian continued to maintain his rights

as an Indian, he was considered a non-person in the eyes of U.S.

law. It was possible for an Indian to become a person. He need

only take an allotment of land and renounce his Indian

citizenship. Once a citizen of the United States, an Indian was no

longer considered an incompetent because he was no longer an

Indian!

The U.S. government even constructed a legal concept that

Indians, as Indians, are incompetent to manage their own affairs

and the federal government has a responsibility to manage their

affairs for them. This insult had the practical application that

it allowed the government to transfer the use of significant

amounts of Indian assets to non-Indian hands. It became the much

vaunted "trust responsibility" theory which some Indian lawyers

seized upon as a way to channel federal dollars to Indians (and

Indian lawyers)during the 1970s and which was put to rest during

the Reagan years. The *trust* responsibility is really an insult.

To benefit from it, Indians are forced to plead diminished

capacity on the basis of race.

Indian nations, on the other hand, have become mystified

about their own legitimacy. Most Indian leaders act unaware that

over the centuries a few states (about 177 at last count) now

claim to own the entire globe. They have a conspiracy among them

that whatever goes on inside the territories they claim is

nobody's business but their own. Thus, Brazil claims as citizens

Indians who have never heard a word of Portuguese and have never

heard of Brazil. Other countries of the world such as Indonesia

and India have been recruited into the scheme of things. Thus

indigenous peoples have no rights in the world because nation

states simply have declared them to be illegitimate and thus have

declared all the theft, murder, dispossession, oppression, cruelty

and coercion directed against indigenous peoples, past and

present, to be legitimate, actions which are wholly the internal

affairs of the state and not a cause for complaint at the

international level.

In addition, citizenship has become the excuse these criminal

states have used to justify their actions. Just as Sepulveda

argued it was acceptable behavior to enslave Indians because

enslavement also brought the benefits of civilization, states

today argue it is acceptable to take Indian land without due

process of law, to deny recognition to an Indian nation as a

nation, and to do whatever it wants, in the name of plenary power

and in the name of international law which effectively bares

Indian nations from bringing actions in international forums for

even the most outrageous crimes. Although the idea of citizenship

may have started as a limitation on the powers of an aristocracy

to seize persons and force them to servitude, by the nineteenth

century the idea of citizenship became solely owned by the states

which were in an international conspiracy to possess the planet at

the expense of all the indigenous peoples.

The question is probably incorrectly drawn when framed around

whether Indians are citizens. The question should not be whether

Indians enjoy the rights under U.S. law, but whether and when

Indians enjoy rights under their Indian nationhood. Indian

nations are denied legitimacy solely because they committed the

crime of owning land somebody else wanted and surviving after the

land was taken. Having failed to physically disappear, the Indian

nation is now urged to disappear legally, culturally, and

psychologically.

The question about citizenship should center around the

rights the Indian nations and citizens (if that's the proper term)

had prior to the colonization and subsequent reservation period.

Certainly Indians enjoyed standing as persons in their

relationships with all peoples prior to that time. Certainly

Indian individuals were viewed as full adults in the eyes of

whatever decision making process they engaged, and even peoples of

different cultures never discriminated against each other in the

fundamental ways Indians suffered discrimination and racism at the

hands of the United States.

The law around Indian citizenship came at a time when the

empires of the world were at their zenith. When the League of

Nations was formed, imperial states were faced with the enormous

problem that they had militarily occupied most of the world's

population, but had not defined membership or nationhood in a

satisfactory way. It became popular to declare that everyone born

in the world is entitled to *citizenship* in some country or

other, an idea embraced by the Wilson administration.

Subsequently, the people of Puerto Rico were granted U.S.

citizenship in 1917. The Indians were even more problematic,

being neither a colony nor a territory from which the United

States had any intention of ever evacuating or withdrawing from

and comprised of peoples who held a potential claim for very large

portions of the claimed U.S. territory.

The obvious answer satisfied both the Indians and the

liberals who wanted to see *better* treatment of the Indians.

Making the Indians citizens opened the road to correcting a long

list of injustices around standing in court and civil rights and

also opened the door to the forced assimilation policy which came

to be known as Termination. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 is

worded in such a way it can be construed to confer on Indians the

*RIGHTS* of U.S. citizenship -- specifically rights against

unlawful seizure, the right to due process, habaeus corpus, to

travel overseas, to be a person in the eyes of the law -- but

does not diminish the Indian's individual rights under his Indian

citizenship.

Those rights are not well defended by the Indian leadership

in recent years, and have not been clearly defined as a political

agenda. International forums have debated the issue with very

little input from the legitimate Indians. Indeed, pretenders have

represented themselves as Indian leadership while the legitimate

Indian leadership stayed home. Indians logically have a right to

all the rights and privileges they enjoyed prior to the armed

robbery which characterizes U.S./Indian relations of the past, and

Indian leadership should move to identify those rights and press

for them. Indian leadership needs to understand that when they

stand as Indians for Indian rights they are in direct conflict

with U.S. aspirations, and that an Indian allegiance to the United

States is secondary to their allegiance to their own nations

because the former by nature seeks to eliminate the latter.

****

John Mohawk is a leading journalist and founder and former

editor of Akwasasne Notes. He is the author of numerous articles

on the Six Nations Confederacy, government, journalism, economics

and politics. He is a member of the Seneca Nation which is a

member of the Six Nations Confederacy.

Copyright 1983 Center For World Indigenous Studies.

Inventing Thanksgiving
By Brian Awehali / LiP Magazine
From=> November 25, 2002

"On Thanksgiving Day all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same moment – halftime!”
-- Auther Unknown

Every year, as Thanksgiving approaches, I am filled with profound ambivalence. Even as a child, the standard Thanksgiving story always seemed too simple, too wholesome, and too peaceful to be true or truly American. Finally, past the faux-historicism of school textbook-styled Pilgrims and Indians, I was able to delve into the actual construction of the story of Thanksgiving. And, in this way, I learned just how fabricated and utterly bizarre this American "holiday" really is.
In 1621, at Plymouth Plantation on Massachusetts Bay, 50 Pilgrim settlers joined with at least 90 Native guests in a three-day feast which is now traditionally cited as the "First Thanksgiving."
In reality, this seasonal, quasi-secular New England harvest celebration was not repeated in Plymouth and was in fact forgotten until a reference to it was discovered almost 200 years later, in a contemporary book known as "Mourt's Relation."
Contrary to the widely accepted, idyllic account of two cultures sitting down to share a meal in harmony, most 17th-century colonial images relating to Native Americans depict violent confrontation. It was only around 1900, when the western Indian wars had largely subsided due to a shortage of Indians left to kill--and when it was safe for Euroamericans to supplant fear with nostalgia--that the romantic Thanksgiving narrative most Americans today are familiar with took hold.
Thanksgiving Day provides an ideal opportunity to consider the formation of national identity and the concept of a civil religion. It's also a living metaphor of the prevailing American model for immigrant assimilation and the ways in which history can be reinterpreted, and indeed wholly reinvented, to serve competing ethnic, patriotic, religious, and commercial ends.
A Host of Victory Thanksgivings
An overview of historical documents reveals the many uses to which various thanksgivings have been put. The Continental Congress declared the first national day of thanksgiving on November 1, 1777, to celebrate an American victory over British general John Burgoyne:
Forasmuch as it is the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with Gratitude their Obligation to him for benefits received, and to implore such further Blessings as they stand in Need of: And it having pleased him in his abundant Mercy, not only to continue to us the innumerable Bounties of his common providence; but also to smile upon us in the Prosecution of a just and necessary War, for the Defence and Establishment of our inalienable Rights and Liberties... It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these UNITED STATES, to set apart THURSDAY, the eighteenth Day of December next, for the Solemn Thanksgiving and Praise: That at one Time and with one voice, the good People may express themselves to the Service of their Divine Benefactor.
Did such a weighty declaration to the Divine Benefactor cement the basic contours of the holiday? Hardly. Then as now, political struggles (electoral and military) were often interpreted as theaters for the enactment of divine will, and so victories great and small led to a rush of thanksgiving declarations. The Confederate Congress proclaimed separate thanksgiving observations in July 1861 and again in September 1862, after the First and Second Battles of Bull Run. And it wasn't just the South. President Lincoln similarly set aside days of thanksgiving in April 1862 and August 1863 to commemorate the important Union victories at Shiloh and Gettysburg. These ad hoc decrees fell in some cases on Sundays (a common day for religious observance) and in other cases on Thursdays. Lincoln declared yet another Thanksgiving Day in 1863, for the last Thursday in November--and it has been celebrated annually in late November ever since. In his proclamation he drew attention to affairs both national and international:
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
It was not until 1931, when President Herbert Hoover made his proclamation, that any of the presidential declarations of thanksgiving mentioned the Plymouth Pilgrims and the 1621 harvest festival as a precursor to the modern holiday. By this time, yet another willfully amnesiac reinvention of Thanksgiving was under way.
Industrialization, Commercialization, Assimilation
The general anxieties of the 1920s and 1930s provide telling insights into the creation of Thanksgiving Day as it is generally practiced and taught in the present-day United States. Elizabeth Pleck, writing in the Journal of Social History, asks why it's historically important that "domestic occasions" like Thanksgiving be old-fashioned:
Thanksgiving eased the social dislocations of the industrial and commercial revolutions... The growth of commerce, industry, and urban life created a radical break between past and present, a gap that could be bridged by threshold reunions at the family manse. Nostalgia at Thanksgiving was a yearning for a simpler, more virtuous, more public-spirited and wholesome past, located in the countryside, not the city. In gaining wealth, the family and nation, it was believed, had lost its sense of spiritual mission. Perhaps celebrating one special day might help restore the religious morality of an earlier generation.
In the aftermath of World War I, at a time when many Americans were concerned both with preserving and promoting (in Pleck's words) a "close-knit, religiously inspired [Protestant] community," and, not coincidentally, with the "Americanization" of Northern and Eastern European immigrants, Thanksgiving Day provided a compelling occasion for emphasizing civil religion, the quasi-religious belief in national institutions, purposes, and destiny. Furthermore, the model of the Pilgrim as the archetypal "good" immigrant, peacefully coexisting in prosperity with other ethnic communities, proved all but irresistible. The ideal of the "melting pot" in the United States -- often less about relishing a diverse mix of ethnic elements than about reducing ethnic culture to an assimilated national identity -- also exerted a powerful influence. By the time of Hoover's 1931 proclamation, the codification of Thanksgiving as the fundamental American holiday was essentially complete.
Which is not to say that Americans were done tinkering. One noteworthy and almost quintessentially American reformulation was ushered in by the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. This commercial pageant began in 1924 as the Macy's Christmas Parade because, as Elizabeth Pleck observes, "The department store wanted to stage a parade as a prelude to the Christmas shopping season." Pleck also notes that even in the 1920s, the parade did not exist in the shadow of the family feast or the church service, but in very real competition with another Thanksgiving tradition: the afternoon football game.
Football was clearly the more significant of the two forms of out-of-home entertainment, as changes in the timing of Macy's parade in the 1920s indicate. Initially, Macy's parade offended patriotic groups, who decried a spectacle on "a national and essentially religious holiday." Macy's hired a public relations man, who decided the critics could be placated if the parade in the morning was postponed until at least after church services had ended. The parade, pushed to the afternoon, began at the same time as the kickoff for most football games. Customers and football fans complained. By the late 1920s, Macy's had returned to an early morning parade, presumably so as not to compete with afternoon football games.
The parade featured different groups of immigrants demonstrating their American cultural fluency with floats that echoed and reinforced the core Thanksgiving origin myth. At about the same time, schoolchildren were being exposed to similar ideas about celebration, national history, customs, and cultural symbols, all of which came together to form the narrative that persists more or less intact to this day.
Lies, Half-Truths, and What a Nation Will Tell Itself
Perhaps, given the patent falsehood of the Story of Thanksgiving, one of the better questions to ask as the holiday approaches is what, in fact, it really stands for. As a Cherokee, I have never felt much like celebrating an event that essentially commemorates one of several stages in the genocide of Native Americans by European settlers, a process which continues to this day in the form of environmental racism, structural poverty, and lack of educational resources. There were times, to be sure, when I appreciated sitting with my family and devouring an embarrassment of culinary riches. But those I hold separate from the holiday itself.
For me, this now agreed upon Thanksgiving symbolizes first and foremost the alarmingly subjective nature of history, which, as Howard Zinn reminds us, is almost always written by the winners. It symbolizes the triumph of football over religion, and of American commercialism over virtually everything standing in its wasteful path. And perhaps most importantly, it symbolizes the lies and half-truths on which a profoundly diverse country must depend in order to prop up the specious concept of a broadly shared civil religion or national identity.
Thanksgiving, then, symbolizes that there is still great work to be done before a nation that readily prides itself in its goodness, honesty, and wholesome relationship with Divine Grace will actually resemble the stories it tells itself.

Brian Awehali is the publisher and co-editor of LiP Magazine.
****

=> Please Note the site listed at the end...

Masters of War
by Bob Dylan

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.

The words of H.I.M as sung by Bob Marley

WAR

Until the philosophy which holds one race
Superior and another inferior
Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
Everywhere is war, me say war

That until there is no longer first class
And second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man's skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes
Me say war

That until the basic human rights are equally
Guaranteed to all, without regard to race
Dis a war
That until that day
The dream of lasting peace, world citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion
To be pursued, but never attained

Now everywhere is war, war
And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
That hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique,
South Africa sub-human bondage
Have been toppled, utterly destroyed
Well, everywhere is war, me say war

War in the east, war in the west
War up north, war down south
War, war, rumours of war

And until that day, the African continent
Will not know peace, we Africans will fight
We find it necessary and we know we shall win
As we are confident in the victory
Of good over evil, good over evil, good over evil
Good over evil, good over evil, good over evil.

PEACE On Earth NOW
=warning very graffic photograghic site:

http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/