Meitheal

From the Ruins

2011-08-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

Over the last five hundred years, wealthy Europeans devastated the original societies of the Americas. Of course, they had a lot of enthusiastic help from less than wealthy Europeans, but by and large they grew rich while the rest of us muddled by.

Now that they have cannibalized the system that supplanted the indigenous one, many are left wondering how we got into this mess, and how we can get out of it. The answer is simpler than it might seem.

Correcting the moral flaw that enabled such colossal theft does not require intellectual genius or vast sums; what it does require is political engagement and moral commitment. As we rebuild our society from the ruins demolished by Wall Street, Congress and the White House, we now know that moral leadership cannot be found in any of these corrupted institutions. As we fight to defeat the predatory mindset from which they operate, we will simultaneously instruct and hopefully inoculate the young against this aggressive disease.

Dreams of Humanity

2011-06-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

The success of the rule of law depends on who is making the law, or breaking it. The failure of the rule of law occurs when those people are one and the same.

The failure, dramatized in the WTO Ministerial in Seattle and numerous gatherings by lawless milieux since, demonstrate only a continuity of the rule of force--the underpinning of the distribution of power in most domestic and international institutions today. Changing the relationships between forceful and peaceful peoples, especially between indigenous nations and industrial states, can thus not be accomplished through existing venues.

In order to reconcile current conflicts and achieve meaningful resolution of power imbalance requires new methods, new attitudes, and new ideas. Naturally, those ideas will not come from those who rule by force; to accomplish the dreams of humanity, they will have to step aside.

Consuming Consciousness

2011-06-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California, I've had occasion to encounter enlightenment as entertainment, where vicarious visions are a perpetual part of consuming consciousness. Harmless heureux, perhaps, except for the problem of reneging on reciprocity.

As an industry, their gatherings are growing in popularity, possibly in response to the collapse of globalization. As an act of desperate consumption, compelled by moral panic, these portals to awareness are unfortunately hampered by process.

If one is merely a celebrity, tourist or missionary, then you probably won't notice.

Multiculturalism

2011-05-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

Toronto's model schools promote multiculturalism by including aboriginal curricula and Ojibwe language classes.

Unelecting Obama

2011-05-11T10:23:00.000-07:00

Paying lip service to popular messages might be enough to hoodwink white progressives, but Obama's disingenuous promises to Latinos is going to be a tough sell after the escalated raids and deportations by his administration. Black Agenda Report examines why they may be more than willing to unelect Obama in 2012.

Free Market Violence

2011-04-25T13:54:00.000-07:00

As a species, community is integral to our health and well-being. The disintegration of community -- especially among indigenous peoples -- due to Free Market violence, poses a significant obstacle to healing from previous traumas. As we seek means of reintegrating community, we will simultaneously be dealing with new traumas associated with ongoing Free Market violence. Unless we end this violence, we will not be able to cope with these disorders.

A Sacred Undertaking

2011-03-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

The failure of the modern state to meet our needs is structural--an inherent design flaw that renders essential reform of this structure impossible. Having relegated local and regional participation in setting social policy meaningless, the plenary powers of state-centric institutions are an open invitation to tyranny. Indeed, the voluntary confederation that respected regional autonomy at the outset of the American governance experiment was abolished by a tyranny of the majority of colonies, which set the stage for a tyranny of the minority composed of the inherently wealthy and their sycophants.

As societies rooted in ancient territorial homelands, First Nations are locally and regionally oriented, and as such are ecologically conscious and economically generous. As a practice, indigenous culture is inclusive, conserving community resources and sharing the wealth. Bolstering their cultures through cooperation with their non-indigenous neighbors is only logical.

With the breakdown of modern states as tools of the powerful and corrupt, Fourth World peoples and their civil society friends have begun to unite around local and regional autonomy, thereby starting the shift from dominant hierarchies to power-sharing democracies. Part of that shift includes finding ways to prevent looting of communal wealth -- whether from state treasuries or local landscapes -- by the private equity tyrannies which have usurped governance of most modern states.

Weathering the hardships ahead in a post-tyranny environment will challenge us to the core of our being, but that challenge is an inclusive one. In order to take back what is rightfully ours, we will have to work together or be hopelessly lost.

Whatever the outcome of our united efforts, the coming together itself will restore some of the human dignity sacrificed by tyrants on their altar of greed. Indeed, the process of working together -- meitheal in Irish -- is a sacred undertaking.

Class Struggle

2011-03-08T12:38:00.000-08:00

Watching filmmaker Michael Moore address the throngs of union workers in Wisconsin this morning made me think about class struggle in the United States. While some union leadership of my father's generation sold out the struggle in return for power and influence, those who fought to establish unions in my grandfather's generation understood the importance of solidarity.

When my generation rejected the American Dream of consumerism, it wasn't so different from my grandfather's generations' rejection of the American nightmare. We both supported the socialist values reflected in Social Security, workplace safety, and environmental protection.

But between the 1930s, when my grandfather's generation was beaten by soldiers and police for organizing against the aristocracy, and the 1960s, when the same was done to my generation, my father's generation was pacified by the promise of shared wealth. When that promise was broken, union leadership had by and large been co-opted.

Notable exceptions include the California nurses, Chicago teachers, and the international longshore workers, but for the generation that came of age in the 1990s, union leadership on critical social issues was almost non-existent. Like the warmongers of the 1960s, the national union leadership betrayed solidarity even to the point of supporting free trade.

So it should be no surprise that there is some anti-union resentment in the country beyond the fundamentalist Christians and the aristocracy. If the union movement wants to recover their influence and respect, they will need to promote to national leadership people who are strong enough to stand against the aristocracy, and smart enough to organize public support for that stand. And that's going to take a lot more than the occasional rally with celebrities like Michael Moore.

Full Spectrum Dominance

2011-02-28T14:08:00.000-08:00

The attitude of dominance undergirds many institutions, from the Pentagon to the Vatican to the New York Stock Exchange. As a belligerent attitude, those who subscribe to it are programmed to seek out and destroy all challenges to its philosophy. Peace societies, indigenous spiritual practices, and collective economic ventures have all fallen prey to the vindictive acts of dominant institutions and their free market brethren.

Ending dominance as a way of life, especially in the United States, is an undertaking that takes courage and commitment. Organizing effective resistance to dominance requires analysis of dominance as a system, with a focus on its vulnerabilities.

If dominance is to be sufficiently uprooted in order for Americans to keep their society from falling apart entirely, resistance will need to take on a degree of sophistication beyond protest, voting and lobbying. It will, in fact, require a new perspective on our governance, and the role dominance plays in it.

Federal Faith Funding

2011-02-25T09:15:00.000-08:00

Bruce Wilson examines the federally-funded missionaries teaching in Florida public schools. Established under the Clinton administration faith-based initiatives, evangelizing against unions, gays, and Native Americans continues to be subsidized by the federal government.

Patriots 6 Traitors 0

2011-01-08T19:27:00.000-08:00

Frederick Clarkson reminds us that when Christian Patriot friends of Sarah Palin do things like murder federal judges or attempt to assassinate members of Congress, there's a reason. Part of that is brain damage, but the catalyst for Constitution Party members and other vigilantes is demonizing by right-wing demagogues, especially Christian Reconstructionist preachers.

As Chip Berlet observes, there's also a history.

Lock Step

2010-12-22T14:12:00.000-08:00

One thing corporate fascists like Hillary Clinton and theocratic ideologues like Sarah Palin agree on is authoritarianism; they just disagree on who that authority should be. But despite this petty disagreement, they both firmly support the need for government to keep its dirty secrets from the citizenry. Transparent government, particularly an empire with tendrils in almost every tyranny on the planet, is from their anti-democratic viewpoint, a recipe for disaster.

Hillary and Sarah may never become fast friends, or run on a political ticket together, but in their pathological political beliefs, they are emphatically in lock step.

Faded From View

2010-12-19T22:50:00.001-08:00

Americans by and large are immune to outrage over petty lying and graft. Slush funds, tax evasion and conspiracy to defraud—ordinary stuff.

Then Wikileaks shined a light on the pathogens that had managed to reinfect the ideoscape after Watergate and Iran-Contra had faded from view. Hillary Clinton caught spying on UN officials, Barack Obama funding death squads in West Papua, both carrying water for Goldman Sachs and the carbon cartel in Copenhagen and Cancun.

Neither very sophisticated. Certainly not as sophisticated as their supporters would like to believe; they just have all the resources to threaten and bribe, and think that is enough to cover their hide.

Following on the heels of the Wikileaks exposure of dirty tricks by State under Secretary Clinton vis-a-vis Copenhagen, Cancun and the Indigenous Peoples Forum, it may be a good time for the National Congress of American Indians to follow the Assembly of First Nations example in pressing more forcefully for implementation of UNDRIP in domestic policy and law.

Real News has been dogging Cablegate, and Indian Country Today has covered the fraud of Copenhagen and Cancun. I am wondering how long until these alternative media discussions about the collusion between State, the UN and others to prevent indigenous participation in climate change talks becomes common knowledge.

Out of Control

2010-12-16T19:20:00.000-08:00

Monica Alonzo of the San Francisco Weekly reports on the abuses of Mexican immigrants by the US Border Patrol. Documenting the beatings, sexual assaults and attempted murders is difficult with the Homeland Security agency mired in secrecy, but the evidence available suggests Customs is rampant with agents ill-suited to the task. Reading Alonzo's account of the murder of Hernandez Rojas, an immigrant kicked and tasered while handcuffed, facedown on the ground, in custody, one has to wonder what is going on. The fact that despite almost impenetrable secrecy, 103 agents of US Customs have been arrested since 2004 for smuggling, money-laundering and conspiracy, speaks for itself.

Vicarious Vitality

2010-12-05T21:08:00.000-08:00

A while back, I wrote about Zuni Pueblo protector societies that maintain barriers against unhealthy influences on their people. More recently I came across another metaphor in the Apache Mountain Spirit People -- protectors, teachers, role models -- who, like the mountains, serve, look over, inform, and provide inspiration to those below.

Recently, I was thinking about the threats we face as a multicultural society in battling political violence, racism, and social exclusion, and how our collective understanding and institutional memory expressed and explored in gatherings and discussions propels social transformation. Which reminded me of the Zuni Pueblo protector societies that meet regularly to discuss threats to their social harmony and well-being and develop means of guarding against poisonous ideas, be they economic, emotional, intellectual, medicinal, physical, political, or spiritual.

And I thought about the Zuni means of preservation of memory of these tools of survival recorded in their architecture, food, pottery, and regalia, and how through five centuries they've managed to adapt and endure without sacrificing their core values. Which is instructive in the need to develop our storytelling through art, ceremony, dance, oratory, and ritual, if we, too, hope our values will someday triumph.

One story about such values is Zuni and the American Imagination by Eliza McFeely, from which I quote:

At the heart of evolutionary anthropology lay the assumption that the human mind was guided by universal, not culturally specific, impulses...This assumption had two important methodological implications. First, it allowed ethnologists to reason by analogy, and to do so with the same certainty with which they reasoned deductively from observation.

Because they believed that all societies evolved through similar stages, developing similar or at least comparable technologies and social institutions along the way, they were perfectly comfortable studying ancient Native American cultures by proxy, deducing their histories from the present lives of people who occupied the same rung on the evolutionary ladder.

The conviction that ancient and contemporary aboriginal peoples might be considered virtually identical allowed the scientists to call their work an empirical science despite the absence of the actual subject matter they claimed to be analyzing.

Read David Farber's review to learn more about McFeely's book.

Canada's Endorsement

2010-11-17T13:12:00.000-08:00

As Cultural Survival notes, Canada's "endorsement" of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples specifically objects to most of the rights contained in the landmark international law. In plain language, Canada's endorsement is fraudulent. In the age of public relations as a substitute for governance, Canada could take a lesson from the ultimate con artist, Barack Obama. Lie, stall, hold phony consultations, but don't come right out and say what you really think.

Demon Possession

2010-10-28T11:08:00.000-07:00

Bruce Wilson examines Teen Challenge addiction recovery centers in Colorado, where exorcism is used to cure people of homosexuality. As noted by recovery center staff, demon possession is a common problem.

Dissipation

2010-10-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

Keeping focused on major spectacles of global issues or national plebiscites channels concerned citizens into ineffective venues where their energies can be dissipated without posing a threat to the established order. When people become involved in political activities where they live, there is always the chance they might change things, and set an example of independence that could be replicated elsewhere. Nipping these autonomous zones in the bud, be it in Chiapas or Clayoquot, is the role of corporate political parties, corporate media, and other anti-democratic institutions.

Cashing in on Hate

2010-10-22T08:37:00.000-07:00

One of the ironies of the current US military expansion in Central Africa, is that while homosexuals fight for their constitutional rights in our armed forces, the armed forces of America's proxy army in Uganda may soon be legally authorized to murder homosexuals under Ugandan law. Another irony in the resource rich heart of the African continent, is that the charismatic pentecostal network behind lethal homophobia and other forms of Christian bigotry there was promoted in part by Rick Warren, the right-wing preacher President Obama propelled into international prominence by selecting him to preside at his inaugural.

As the Ugandan troops prepare to attack opponents of US aggression in the region, religion will no doubt play a large role, albeit not as large as the insatiable transnational corporations pulling Obama's strings in order to plunder the minerals and forests of Africa's heathen natives. Joseph Conrad couldn't have written a more bloodthirsty script.

Handmaid's Tale

2010-10-19T11:13:00.001-07:00

For anyone who has read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, the image of Christian theocracy is a terrifying prospect. With candidates like Christine O'Donnell, James Aiona and Sarah Palin, the likelihood of Christian fascism spreading like wildfire is enough to challenge our taken-for-granted values like diversity and multiculturalism. Bruce Wilson examines Hawaii gubernatorial candidate James Aiona's relationship with the homophobic Christian theocracy movement known as International Transformation Network.

Red Power

2010-10-14T09:16:00.000-07:00

Lorraine Jessepe interviews Madonna Thunder Hawk about the Red Power movement, a global indigenous initiative that is on the move.

Fighting Fire

2010-10-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

Them sons-of-bitches was Mennonites and wouldn't fight in the last war -- said they wasn't afraid to work or die for their country but wouldn't kill anybody, so somebody, maybe for this somebody's idea of a joke, had them sent to the Smokejumpers. It turned out them sons-of-bitches was farm boys and, what's more, didn't believe in using machines no way -- working was just for their hands and their horses, and them sons-of-bitches took them shovels and saws and Pulaskis and put a hump in their backs and never straightened up until morning when they had a fire-line around the whole damn fire.

Them sons-of-bitches was the world's champion firefighters. The rest of us bastards was dead by midnight.

--Hal Samsel, United States Forest Service

From Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean

America's Brown Shirts

2010-10-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

Recent news about the Pentagon recruiting Mexicans to join the U.S. military in exchange for green cards reminded me of a post by Juli Meanwhile five years ago, in which she so eloquently critiqued the Pentagon sponsorship of the Boy Scouts. Evidently, all that mass marketing and hot air by the top brass was for not, as the boys in brown opted for playing at home rather than fighting abroad.

Human Migration

2010-10-08T09:05:00.000-07:00

As one of the inevitable consequences of the global crises generated by globalization, human migration is a growing aspect of life in the 21st century. Given the projected disruptions from climate change, widescale migration is perhaps a permanent social phenomenon. At the Fourth World Social Forum on Migration held in Quito, activist scholars will discuss such things as human mobility and refugees, as well as the intersection of displaced rural residents, indigenous peoples, and migrants worldwide. Mapping out this aspect of the likely future for humankind, they will address the core issues of diversity, coexistence, and sociocultural transformations now taxing our resourcefulness.

In Awe of the Corporate State

2010-09-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

One of the distinctions between working in agriculture and meatpacking, as opposed to working as mercenaries in the US military, is that immigrants and migrant workers from economies destroyed by agribusiness and the military industry might soon be able to acquire new citizenship in the land of so-called opportunity. Not that risking one's life for the benefit of Bechtel, Boeing or Raytheon is more personally rewarding than sacrificing one's life for the profit of Archer Daniels Midland or Monsanto, but murdering other misfortunates around the globe on behalf of Shell and Chevron at least bestows one with the esteem of those still in awe of the corporate state.

Not much consolation to those maimed and traumatized by participating in atrocities and other normal activities associated with wars of aggression, but desperate people often fail to think of the consequences ahead when making poor choices in the present.

Church and State

2010-09-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

Frederick Clarkson discusses the evolution of conservative political infrastructure in the US.

Poverty

2010-09-24T08:34:00.000-07:00

Stephen Lendman does the numbers on record-breaking US poverty.

Israel In Security

2010-09-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

Mondoweiss looks at how Israeli intelligence has infiltrated American academia and corrupted US homeland security.

What Goes Around

2010-08-14T15:36:00.000-07:00

Four years ago, when the liberal left was still making its bones red-baiting anti-war activists, their rising star in the DNC was exposed by Harper's magazine for having sold his soul to Wall Street two years previous. Two years ago, when this Black Messiah became their candidate for the Oval Office, they went into high gear as professional progressives, providing cover for his commitment to warmongering.

What I remember in particular during this period was blogging liberals expressing admiration for warmongering racists like Richard Nixon, Billy Graham, and Teddy Roosevelt, in order to prove how tough liberals are. Then when President Obama started going after unions and public benefits in order to finance globalized warfare, some of these self-identified progressives established themselves as the loyal opposition; still Democrats, still imperial, but angry about being cut out of the militarized gravy train.

Now that it has dawned on them that Goldman Sachs' golden boy has betrayed them, they get in a fit over such things as being marginalized by the White House press secretary. Maybe someday they'll discover that what goes around comes around.

Getting Organized

2010-08-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

The Unitarians offer advice on activism.

Gallows and Guillotine

2010-08-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

Taxing the wealthy is a good solution to public shortfalls brought on by systematic fraud in government and business, but as a deterrent to sociopathic, criminal behavior on the part of the privileged, it falls far short. When we view greed and the obscenity of vast wealth as a crime against humanity, the cure requires something much stronger than token taxation and phony philanthropy.

The gallows and the guillotine come to mind.

Top Three

2010-08-03T15:44:00.000-07:00

After posting some of my short essays on Scribd over the past year, the top three read documents are:
Tribalism
Prepared to Lead
Walking Around Ideas

Core Values

2010-07-14T19:55:00.000-07:00

Leonard Zeskind discusses the Tea Party factions within the overall phenomenon of what he describes as a white nationalist political mobilization against civil rights law.

SAR

2010-07-07T16:15:00.000-07:00

The Department of Homeland Security's Suspicious Activity Reporting initiative has been so successful in protecting airlines, DHS Secretary Napolitano has decided to extend it to Amtrak. Although not one criminal, let alone terrorist, has been spotted by the civilian snitching program, the millions spent on SAR has managed to nab several people of color speaking foreign languages in the New York Metro, as well as ruin the travel plans of Muslim Americans removed from airline flights for praying before takeoff. Who says racial profiling doesn't work?

Against Their Will

2010-06-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

Prostitution is a much misunderstood topic, and as such, attitudes about the proper social response to it vary greatly. Unfortunately, the happy Hollywood hooker fantasy is not the reality of an industry where 85% of prostitutes are violently coerced into selling their bodies, and 100,000 underage girls held in bondage are pimped online in the Adult Services section of Craigslist.

Ideologies and fantasies aside, if we are going to walk the talk of freedom, we cannot allow women and children to be trafficked for sex and held in slave conditions against their will.

While it is wrong to blame the victims of this modern slavery, it is equally wrong to perpetuate this crime against humanity with our silence. We can start by taking the time to become informed; after all, it's possible our perceptions are skewed.

A Dissonant Experience

2010-06-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

Overcoming indoctrination from school and TV requires an inquisitive mind. Sometimes that happens as a result of a dissonant experience, sometimes by hearing someone else relate theirs. Showing others by example is best.

Before the Internet, I occasionally walked down to city hall and the county courthouse to gather evidence from public records, which my friends and I would then use to make flyers, ads, and articles to influence elections and public policy. People were astounded by how effective this was.

Decades later, we put the lessons we learned online.

Bypassing the Gatekeepers

2010-06-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

Over the last decade, millions of Americans have found ways to inform themselves unmediated by institutions or markets. Indeed, online communication through ad hoc networks has led to the formation of such things as media co-ops, indigenous news digests, and weblogs offering independent analysis and expose.

As hundreds of millions worldwide are now able to share information, despite institutional censorship and market retaliation, controlling what we know and think has become an impossible task for bureaucracies and enterprises designed for that purpose.

As more and more wean themselves from the soothing bromides of broadcast TV, and seek to learn what is really going on, society, politics, and global consciousness are bound to evolve in ways the previous gatekeepers of information cannot imagine. But then, imagination is not something usually found within the confines of market madness and military intelligence milieus.

Rapacious Revival Roadshow

2010-06-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

As Shamus Cooke observes, the bipartisan fiscal future fanfare is nothing less than a rapacious revival. Sponsored by the inheritors of unearned wealth, this latest roadshow is not surprisingly designed to rip off those of us who will depend on Medicare and Social Security in our senior years. For the privileged elites who hollowed out our economy and public treasury through private equity manipulations, Social Security is their final foray in re-establishing a feudal society.

As Mr. Cooke notes, the foregone conclusions of stacked studies, crony commissions and phony philanthropy are that the rich are endlessly worthy, while the rest of us are undeserving.

Battling the Power Elite

2010-05-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

In my previous post, I didn't mean to give the impression that our achievements were without a human cost. Some of us were in the position of protectors who did battle with the community's power elite that wanted to run us all out of town. A few became journalists, a few became elected officials, some started alternative schools. Many remained committed to an alternative economy and lifestyle, and started businesses that reflected that.

As time went on, this network of individuals -- nurtured in the hippie temporary autonomous zone -- participated in such projects as sanctuary for refugees and human rights for indigenous peoples. A handful went so far as to do field research on vigilante groups and crooked cops.

This harder variety was and remains a small minority undeterred by conflict, but their base of support in the legal, religious, and political milieus -- comprised of individuals who'd internalized the hippie values in earlier years -- was vital to their success. Indeed, this support solidified the credibility of the fighters, who would otherwise have been easily marginalized or destroyed by the power elite. Without a constituency, their heroism would have been largely tragic.

Cooperative Attitude

2010-05-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

As hippies in the early 1970s, we established cooperatives to meet our needs without ordinary jobs. Over time, the food cooperative, flour mill, housing trust, and community gardens we started grew and were replicated elsewhere. All were assisted by our alternative newspaper in reaching others sympathetic to our world view.

As some of us became community leaders, elected and otherwise, this cooperative foundation enabled us to be more effective in pressing for public investment in programs of communal benefit.

The point I'm trying to make is there is a place for everyone to contribute if you begin with a cooperative attitude.

Law and Disorder

2010-05-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

Justifiably, there's been a lot of crankiness of late regarding the dissembling of American society under the Obama regime. As noted by Jack Crow,

the dismantling of the welfare state must either proceed at an increasing pace, so that the state can return to direct management of populations through isolation and violence, thus safeguarding the accumulated assets of the ruling class, or it risks collapsing before those same ruling classes can properly corral subject and captive populations into new zones of control, buffer and instability.

But crankiness is only worthwhile if it propels one to do something useful toward subverting the law and disorder of the two-party, single-owner, corporate state. (Writing and discussing are a good first step.)

As a tool of thievery, this state has perfected privatization on behalf of the aristocracy, private equity in this case being the enemy of social welfare. Since the individuals comprising the private equity elite are known, it only makes sense to channel our crankiness in ways that hold them accountable for stealing our livelihoods--ways that force them to return our money.

Given the absolute failure of our government to do this, it befalls us to find ways to protect ourselves.

Whole New World

2010-05-14T21:25:00.000-07:00

The problem is that in a mediated, audiovisual communications culture, the price of broadcast communication access is prohibitive to popular participation. Once dazed by this overwhelming medium, consumers are so pulverized they need to go through a cultural rehab in order to even imagine an alternative translation. As usual, creativity and resourcefulness, such as that seen in independent blogging, contribute to the process of rerouting our collective imagination.

Were video podcast to eclipse corporate broadcast, it would be a whole new world.

My Money

2010-05-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

Social Security is the largest source of income for most elderly Americans today, but Social Security was never intended to be your only source of income when you retire. You will also need other savings, investments, pensions or retirement accounts to make sure you have enough money to live comfortably when you retire.

Saving and investing wisely are important not only for you and your family, but for the entire country. If you want to learn more about how and why to save, you should visit www.mymoney.gov, a federal government website dedicated to teaching all Americans the basics of financial management.

--from What Social Security Means To You, an SSA publication

Coming Together

2010-03-18T12:10:00.001-07:00

I was just reading a casual exchange between some British and Portuguese bloggers, and they mentioned how every town and village in their respective countries has citizen's advice centres, where for free people can get help in dealing with government agencies, utilities providers, landlords, and other aspects of life. All done by volunteers with special expertise, this civil society institution seems to fit well with what I've been yammering about here.

They were surprised that I had to ask them what an advice center was.

Working together, or in Irish, meitheal, is something rarely seen in the US. We compete rather than cooperate. We consume rather than create. We exclude rather than include others.

Some of us, though, realize this is not something that can long continue. Indeed, things are rapidly falling apart.

For myself, finding inspiration and guidance among the peoples indigenous to this continent, as well as in the sacred traditions of indigenous diaspora, is both a challenge and obligation. In these reflections, I hope what you find here will help you in making a connection to something authentic and engaging.

Disheartening as our absence of communal relations is in America, it does help to explain our persistent affection toward institutions, as well as our attachment to their recognition and acknowledgment in validating our self-worth--indeed, in bestowing on us the right to exist.

Unhealthy as this institutionalized relationship is for us, both individually and socially, it is understandable; institutions--for better or for worse--are presently the only enduring loci of collective memories for our rootless society, disconnected from the land and lives that surround us. Until we construct more functional alternatives, institutions--despite their repeated betrayals and systematic exploitation of every aspect of our daily lives--will maintain their grasp on our lonely psyches in this perverted exchange for a sense of belonging.

If communication in its myriad forms of expression is what comprises a culture, then the particular architecture or design of communicating is what determines that culture's level of human consciousness. An emphasis on beauty in art, song, dance, and storytelling will produce a very different consciousness than one inclined toward ugliness.

It almost seems trite to say so, but when one's primary input is from mass media, it's hard to imagine a beautiful mind.

I have often marveled at writers who could create beautiful stories from adversity--powerful works of art exhibiting the dignity of creativity under duress. I have also often wondered if guardians of this sacred space, those who protect it from wrathful oblivion, can ever fully enter it without the sense of an outsider observing from a nearby plateau. I suspect the protectors would do well to accept their fate, taking satisfaction in the space created for art, and knowing the artists and their work.

As a guardian, I can see the beauty in the choreography and narrative of creating this space, yet fail to see how to express this other than in the acts of doing so. Some are more gifted than I.

As Carlos Fuentes notes in A New Time for Mexico, “Exclusionary modernity, drawn from Western models, banishes all that it does not understand. Inclusive modernity understands, especially after the Chiapas rebellion, that there are many ways of being "modern," of being contemporaneous with one's own values.”

Yet, the patterns and relationships that emerge from collaborations in protecting sacred space reflect a harmonious arrangement of vital if not visible dimensions. Depending on awareness, this visibility of the symbiotic relation between useful art and its protectors can be preserved in archival creations often unimagined outside sacred societies. Communicating this story is not easy.

As Maya Lin once remarked, “It is sometimes good to understand what's been lost, what is irrecoverable, what is valuable to us and what we would like to repair.”

One of my colleague's students asked if I found my indigenous associates to have a different philosophical perspective. I responded by noting that their cosmology and epistemology was in sharp contrast with dominant society views, and mentioned an interview with Richard Atleo they might find helpful.

Making a connection with philosophies indigenous to the landscape we inhabit could be exciting to students and others feeling adrift in the modern world. Looking at methods of curating social knowledge over long time frames gives one a sense of adaptation and evolution of such things as morality -- processes that apply to the European diaspora as well as Native Americans.

This is perhaps a way of introducing non-indigenous Americans to researching sacred dimensions of their own ancient cultures that have much in common with American Indians.

After centuries of diaspora and displacement, identities are increasingly complex. For those whose tribal identity has been extinguished -- as in most Europeans of North America -- what's left of this essential human function is often a confused mixing of inherent cultures, combined with a vague and transitory identification with place. For settler societies, states, provinces, regions, and watersheds provide a shallow-rooted attachment to landscape and sometimes historical notions of belonging, but circumstances outside our control can easily diminish these bonds.

The synthetic modern cultures that have replaced ancient, more holistic ones are thus poor substitutes for the integrated social systems that once nurtured all humanity. Finding meaningful and purposeful alternatives outside this systematized social support has been attempted many times, but absent the political autonomy required to pursue a more coherent agenda, most gains are never institutionalized.

Resistance to the prevention or destruction of a holistic identity, without an appreciation of what has been lost, is usually futile. Understanding tribal systems and the history of cultural development helps.

In the words of Bernadette Devlin, “To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.”

Progressive Mandarin Couture

2010-03-05T11:19:00.000-08:00

Alan Smithee examines progressive mandarin couture 2010.

A Racial Framework

2010-02-19T14:33:00.000-08:00

International conventions and domestic legal prohibitions against discrimination based on perceived racial difference are arguably useful tools in promoting equality, even if academia and the moral theatrics industry sometimes mischaracterize social conflict within a racial framework. The danger comes when this mischaracterization leads policy makers and activists to believe that oppressive relationships like those between Indigenous nations and corporate states can be resolved by equal opportunity within a capitalist system.

While not all states employ race as a criteria in exercising oppression, many utilize the colonial model developed by racially-biased European powers, and have adapted to the assimilationist structures for denying human rights to Indigenous peoples, regardless of skin color. In the end, it is this authentic distinction between ways of life that is most crucial to the survival of humankind, rather than superficial constructs like race.

Okay to be Gay

2010-02-12T15:27:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Dead Horse for this article about America's charming illiteracy.

Sabotaging Obama

2010-02-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

As the Obama Administration begins pouring what's left of the US Treasury into a nuclear arms buildup, the only option left for people of conscience is civil disobedience. Anything else is child's play.

The Predatory Pyramid

2010-01-26T09:49:00.000-08:00

If you take a sheet of paper and write American Civics Lesson #1 at the top of the page, then draw a large triangle and divide the triangle into five horizontal layers, you can portray American society in a framework that elucidates the distribution of power. You can choose your own labels, but the ones I have chosen are as follows:

1. Aristocracy
2. Wall Street, U.S. Treasury
3. Political Parties, Media, Universities
4. Churches, Schools, Unions, Associations
5. Wage Slaves, Prisoners, Homeless, Veterans

The Advent of Netwar

2010-01-24T17:59:00.000-08:00

In the years ahead, the possibility should not be overlooked that a major new global peace and disarmament movement may eventually arise from a grand alliance among diverse NGOs and other civil-society actors who are attuned to the doctrinal elements of netwar. They will increasingly have the organizational, technological, and social infrastructures to fight against recalcitrant governments, as well as to operate in tandem with governments and supranational bodies that may favor the movement.

--The Advent of Netwar by John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt

Shameless Audacity

2010-01-18T17:06:00.000-08:00

From the White House Open Government Blog:

Americans chose Barack Obama to be President of the United States to change the way Washington works. To do just that, on his first full day in office, the President signed two critical documents that have shaped the Administration: the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government and the Executive Order on Ethics. As a result of the Memorandum on Transparency, we have since Day One, worked to empower the public – through greater openness and new technologies – to influence the decisions that affect their lives. And as a result of the Ethics Order, we have since that same day worked to reduce special interest and lobbyist influence in Washington so the voices of the American people can be heard.

Law of Conquest

2010-01-11T10:16:00.000-08:00

Indian Country Today examines how Christian dominion is interwoven into U.S. law and policy used against the spiritual traditions of indigenous nations and peoples.

Breathless Buffoonery

2009-12-22T13:02:00.000-08:00

As the progressives' avant garde, futurists like Sara Robinson supply expertise in superficial semantics. In the leadup to Copenhagen, Ms. Robinson not only predicted the planetary prognosis, but also rewrote the past. All in a swoop, she asserts our carbon society has been cranking for 2,500 years and is thus the basis of all civilized humanity, which serves double duty in marginalizing indigenous peoples past and present, especially those who came to Copenhagen with solutions. She then proceeded to reassure those of us not blessed with her exceptional foresight, that the magical process she has discovered is already on auto pilot thanks to her heroic efforts. Breathless buffoonery at its best.

AMA On Cannabis

2009-12-11T16:16:00.000-08:00

The American Medical Association thinks that maybe the federal controlled substance statutes are out of whack on marijuana. They'd like to see some clinical studies on its medicinal use before they take a position for or against legalization. Given that pot is classified by the feds as more dangerous than cocaine or methamphetamine, we'd say that's a reasonable request.

Turning Things Around

2009-12-03T13:59:00.000-08:00

Renowned filmmaker David Lynch talks about consciousness, creativity and the brain.

Easier Said Than Done

2009-11-19T13:52:00.000-08:00

As things unravel, it won't be whether or not atrocities are exposed so much as whether people any longer care. When so many are experiencing malign neglect from markets and institutions, building solidarity or even empathy with those who suffer the most becomes an increasingly greater challenge. Calling on essential moral values during calamitous times requires tuning out the noisemakers--something easier said than done.

Cheap Food Cheap Lives

2009-11-10T14:28:00.000-08:00

Human Trafficking Report looks at agricultural child labor in the US, what makes those blueberries at Wal Mart so cheap.

Kentucky Cello

2009-11-08T10:24:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to remember if the Beatles used a cello in their tune Eleanor Rigby. I forgot to mention that to a doc filmmaker who interviewed me on the plaza yesterday afternoon. She left me her card, thankfully, and her film about a cello player looks interesting--especially since the unusual musician comes from Kentucky, where my dad's side is from.

Race Residuals

2009-10-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

I've been a supporter of The Real News Network since its inception, and am grateful there is at least one place where perspectives excluded by dominant society's mainstream media can be heard. Interviews with Black Agenda Report senior editor Glen Ford and Aymara Bolivian President Evo Morales stand out as unique. Yet, when I look at the media links featured on TRNN, media produced by African Americans and Native Americans is absent. I'm not sure how to interpret that.

Keeping Connected

2009-10-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

I live in one of the few counties in California that has a medical program for the uninsured. One of the benefits I receive is physical therapy for my chronic back condition, a condition that prevents me from working, as well as causes me considerable pain.

An added benefit of being able to see my doctor for a checkup, which I previously neglected as I was unable to afford the office call, is that I now have a more holistic view of my health, and can manage my disability more effectively. It sounds common sense, but what do people do where no help is available?

Leaving the Marin General Hospital outpatient physical therapy unit the other day, I thought about how good it feels to be doing normal things, like going to the doctor or therapist for treatment, and recalled how excluded I felt before these services were provided. As more people become unemployed and dislocated, social inclusion programs, like county medical services, help keep them connected. Without them, we are no longer a society.

US Failed State?

2009-10-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

Read this.

St. Hillary

2009-10-02T21:14:00.000-07:00

St. Hillary calls for an end to sexual violence in conflict zones. How pious. Maybe someone can explain to her eminence that creating conflict for the benefit of profiteering is the problem, and when that abomination is eliminated, then the symptoms will also disappear.

Progressive Fascist Alliance

2009-09-09T17:58:00.000-07:00

As early as 2006, the milieu that would become the bamababies began marginalizing those who fight for social inclusion, while simultaneously reaching out to those who fight for social exclusion. As this milieu was comprised of progressive Democrats, it came as no surprise that Obama would follow suit. The Far Right may be the enemy of democracy, but so is the Democratic Party. The GOP and the DNC thus constitute a progressive/fascist alliance, if you will.

LGBT Civil Rights

2009-09-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

Equality seems like a reasonable demand. Hopefully, it's going to become the law of the land. Join the National Equality March this October 10-11, and support equal protection under the law.

Making Peace

2009-08-12T19:03:00.000-07:00

It's a commonly accepted truism that America doesn't make anything anymore, but that is anything but true. America, in fact, makes a lot of weaponry and armaments; more than anyone else. It also makes a lot of wars--again, more than anyone else.

As President Obama prepares to expand US military aggression into Central Africa, Central Asia, and South America -- all in the pursuit of oil -- the American arms industry will be busy. As will the mainstream media, in support of this global aggression.

The one thing America won't be making, though, is amends to all the people of the world thrown into turmoil by America's insatiable greed. That would first require making peace, something America is not about to stand for.

Rock Paper Scissors

2009-08-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

GOP-sponsored vigilantism has happened before. It is an integral part of domestic terrorism aimed at ethnic minorities and other sub-populations targeted by White Nationalism and Christian Fundamentalism. Catholics, Jews, Blacks, and Native Americans have all been targets of vigilante violence. So have immigrants, feminists, and environmentalists.

Inciting mob behavior to threaten its political opponents has repeatedly been used by the GOP to prevent discussion on issues of social importance. War, abortion, guns, Gay rights, elections, even health care are topics for which vigilantes can be recruited.

Vigilantism, however, is not synonymous with protest, demonstration, or dissent. It is not a legitimate expression of grievances; rather it is an expression of hostility toward the perceived loss of power or privileges. The threshold level is to intimidate opponents through implied threats, followed by vigilante violence, succeeded by paramilitary operations.

On occasion, right-wing terrorism in the US has resorted to using weapons of mass destruction. Their networks and movements have even been profiled.

None of this is new.

That Worth Having

2009-07-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.

--Bernadette Devlin

Just Another Yuppie

2009-06-16T13:32:00.000-07:00

Pro-war, anti-gay; is there anything a peace and freedom activist can find to support in President Obama? Looks like Black Messiah is just another yuppie.

The Real Thing

2009-06-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

As President Obama turns out to be closer to Clarence Thomas than to Bob Marley, the prophetic words of Matt Gonzalez should be taken to heart. Is there really any reason for anyone desiring peace and freedom to vote Democrat? Why not join and support the real thing?

Liberation Party

2009-06-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

Watching Sinn Fein climb from an outlawed party in the final colony of Great Britain, to the strongest party in Northern Ireland, gives me hope that a party of liberation may yet emerge across America to defeat the corrupt bipartisan military state.

Shadow of Knowledge

2009-05-24T21:38:00.000-07:00

I recently had a chance to observe firsthand how knowledge is passed on between old and young professionals in the hospital. Older nurses shadowing younger ones with tips on care, and older surgeons shadowing younger ones in the OR to make sure they learn the techniques well.

Since I was the one on the operating table, it was comforting to know that the shadowing surgeon had done thousands of these procedures.

Now that I'm home recovering, I was thinking what a waste it is in our society that the skills and knowledge of all experienced people are not so valued. Were we not wasting so much money on pointless wars, we could employ every senior or elder in the country to help younger people prepare themselves to become more expert in their chosen field.

What Has Been Lost

2009-05-11T17:14:00.000-07:00

After centuries of diaspora and displacement, identities are increasingly complex. For those whose tribal identity has been extinguished -- as in most Europeans of North America -- what's left of this essential human function is often a confused mixing of inherent cultures, combined with a vague and transitory identification with place. For settler societies, states, provinces, regions, and watersheds provide a shallow-rooted attachment to landscape and sometimes historical notions of belonging, but circumstances outside our control can easily diminish these bonds.

The synthetic modern cultures that have replaced ancient, more holistic ones are thus poor substitutes for the integrated social systems that once nurtured all humanity. Finding meaningful and purposeful alternatives outside this systematized social support has been attempted many times, but absent the political autonomy required to pursue a more coherent agenda, most gains are never institutionalized.

Resistance to the prevention or destruction of a holistic identity, without an appreciation of what has been lost, is usually futile. Understanding tribal systems and the history of cultural development helps.

First Hundred Days

2009-04-23T12:40:00.000-07:00

If there's a lesson in the much-hyped first hundred days of the Obama Administration, it is that change does not happen by hope; it happens by taking control of our lives. Taking control of our lives does not happen through the ritual of voting; it happens through research, education, organizing, and action by communities protecting themselves from corrupt institutions and corrosive markets. Protecting ourselves from corruption does not happen by suspending our disbelief in charlatans; it happens by becoming politically literate, supporting and joining others in attacking frauds.

Burning Obama

2009-04-16T18:15:00.000-07:00

As more and more Americans get burned by Obama's betrayal of democracy, maybe it's time he got burned back. At the rate Obama is selling out working Americans, the only friends he'll be able to count on by summer will be the billionaires that bought him his job. As a gesture of defiance, bring a photo of our new tyrant to your Fourth of July BBQ, and toss it on the fire.

Eyes on the Prize

2009-04-07T10:47:00.000-07:00

Attacking the corruption of the two-party collusion that excludes most Americans from sharing in the proceeds of taxation is not enough. The excluded have to organize their own political machinery if they ever expect to get a fair share of what is rightfully theirs. Whatever form this machinery takes, it must have sufficient strength and resources to endure retaliation by the two dominant parties, while at the same time recruiting and nurturing its own organizational leadership.

Until the day a pro-democracy movement has sufficient power to influence the selection of judges and the setting of agendas, American fascists will continue to consolidate their control over US institutions--the main bipartisan project.

At present, the only significant influence outside the bipartisan collusion is the Christian theocracy movement, a subversive coalition that keeps its eyes on the prize--something that progressives have yet to learn.

Tribalism

2009-03-01T11:17:00.000-08:00

One of the constants in national security circles is discussion on how to defeat tribalism, the assumption being that it is morally inferior to capitalism.

But tribalism cannot be defeated morally. As political entities of governance, tribal nations are founded on conservation, cooperation, and reciprocity. Modern states, on the other hand, were created by capitalists to steal the wealth of these nations.

Another progressive assumption is that tribalism is more conducive to violent crime. This has a lot to do with viewing state violence as exempt from moral criteria.

Criminal networks arising out of tribal societies, much like criminal networks arising from modern states and markets, can be defeated. Positing tribalism itself -- a system that provides a place for everything and everyone -- as something to be defeated, however, is by definition an immoral endeavor.

In order to ground this discussion in reality, imagine someone speaking to the National Congress of American Indians or the Assembly of First Nations (Canada) when they say tribalism must be defeated. The tribes would understandably take that proposition to be a fascist initiative.

Pattern of Theft

2009-02-23T15:24:00.001-08:00

Using public funds to deal in stolen property, something George Washington himself was not averse to, has been the American system since, well, 1787. As the guarantor of ethnic cleansing, land grants and subdivision of a continent, the United States of America is a hedge fund, so to speak. While my expertise in real estate speculation as an industry is limited, the pattern of theft is hard to miss.

Welcome to Clinton III

2009-01-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

In August 1996, President Clinton --seeking a second term -- announced his intention to sign a GOP welfare bill abolishing Aid to Families with Dependent Children, cutting billions annually from food stamps and other social services. In January 2009, President-Elect Obama announced his intention to push for cuts in Social Security and Medicare. Both these darlings of Wall Street, while robbing the working poor and disabled, served up billions to the already rich and criminally insane; welcome to Clinton III.

What Did You Expect?

2008-12-17T19:08:00.000-08:00

Selling out his supporters is something at which Barack Obama is setting new records. His choice of the homophobic, anti-abortion pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his presidential inauguration is only the latest in a string of betrayals since election day.

Having already reneged on his promise to poor Americans struggling with energy bills, Obama is now spitting in the face of gays, lesbians and feminists. We expect he will soon denounce Native Americans in favor of the banks and energy companies robbing Indian trust funds blind.

Well, what did you expect from a guy who built his career sucking up to Wall Street?

Markets Are the Problem

2008-12-10T12:18:00.000-08:00

Present focus on rescuing markets is wrongheaded. Markets are the problem. Promoting a just economy, democratic political life, and responsible citizenship through the democratization of capital ownership is the only solution to our woes.

Freedom Frame

2008-11-28T10:41:00.000-08:00

Innocence Project provides resources for those wrongfully incarcerated in the United States.

Reservoir of Moral Authority

2008-11-22T10:36:00.001-08:00

The indigenous movement around the world is the reservoir of moral authority.

--President Evo Morales

Social Disruption

2008-11-20T10:24:00.001-08:00

A human rights plan for our country would have to begin with dismantling the national security apparatus. Secret government, secret budgets and secret agendas -- since Truman signed it into law in 1948 -- have destroyed all vestiges of democracy in the US. Politicians, no matter how noble, are not likely to take this on without significant social disruption of the status quo.

Only the Betrayed

2008-11-08T09:57:00.000-08:00

The innocent cannot be recruited, only the betrayed. The pious, however, are part of the landscape, and must be taken into account, as they will inevitably endeavor to make matters worse. But while their naivete can lead them astray, they are a relatively minor nuisance compared to the right-wing milieu.

Of course, there are always those career progressives who intentionally sabotage the pro-democracy movement in some kind of perverted sense of social competition, but for the most part do-gooders are merely adults saddled with adolescent fantasies and infantile emotions acted out in the public arena.

Yet, our primary targets are those who have the resources and organization and commitment to closing society down. This, too, happens in daily life as well as politics. Foreclosing discussion, excluding voices that disagree, arresting those who dissent from the agenda of those in power, these are the enemies of democracy. And they are not limited to one party or one political point of view.

November 5

2008-11-05T11:03:00.000-08:00

Nader/Gonzalez launch the November 5th movement.

Dog Faces Always Lose

2008-10-19T15:18:00.000-07:00

The United States isn't the first country to have to confront homegrown fascism, nor will it be the last. As the natural outgrowth of industrial economies with imperial ambitions, totalitarian regimes wedded to authoritarian religions are simply something we have to deal with.

While prevention is preferred over cure, we don't always have the luxury of a choice in the matter. And while non-violent subversion of fascist states is the ideal, sometimes things get so out of hand that violence is the only remedy.

This may not sit well with progressives and pacifists, but then they probably won't be the ones who have to do the dirty work. The dog faces always lose.

Buying Bigotry

2008-10-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

Cox Publishing Ohio, a recipient of advertising revenue from the Clarion Fund in promoting the anti-Muslim DVD, has now scrubbed the hate crimes stories by its own reporters. We saw this type of cover-up by Gannett Corporation in the 1990s to protect white collar businessmen who were funding racist vigilantes in Puget Sound. Evidently with Cox, where bigotry doesn't pre-exist, it can be bought.

Fending for Themselves

2008-10-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Tragic as the present is, the future will be worse, precisely because the progressive philanthropic sector has neglected to invest in research, education and organizing for power.

Instead, at a time when there are more young people looking for a way to be effectively and meaningfully involved in our society than ever before, the only funding is for pious posturing. None of the lessons they could be learning about social change are available in any significant way, because those who could mentor them are for the most part excluded from academia, media and NGOs.

Leaving another generation to fend for themselves in this hostile environment, created by market economics and party politics, is a travesty of immense proportions.

Politics of Bigotry

2008-09-19T16:16:00.000-07:00

Why mince words when it comes to the politics of bigotry? The religious right, of which vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is an active participant, is committed to depriving homosexuals of equal protection under the law. Anyone who doesn't believe as these religious zealots do are considered agents of Satan, and thus their enemy.

Palin isn't distantly related to these and other intolerant beliefs, she built her entire political career on bigotry and bullying at the behest of cults founded on the psychological abuse of children and political violence against non-believers. McCain's use of her as a titillating sex kitten for right-wing pundits, and as a poster girl for recruiting religious right fanatics known to harass and intimidate political opponents, was a tactical electoral decision.

We've seen this type of political violence before in the anti-immigrant campaign the GOP mounted in 2005, as well as in the GOP-supported violence against American Indians and other environmental activists in the 1990s. As the core constituency comprising US domestic terrorism, the violent religious right is America's greatest threat to democracy and human rights. What's to negotiate with people like that?

A Sacred Mission

2008-09-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

Poverty and pollution are not acts of god; they are acts of man. God provided enough water, air and food for everyone to prosper; only by theft are billions deprived.

The fact the United States has a military presence in 90% of the countries on earth is not an accident; theft requires force. Theft also induces resentment and revenge, thus perpetuating the use of force against the many for the prosperity of a few.

Opposing poverty and pollution may be inspired by god, but it is an act of man; as an act of gratitude, it is thus a sacred mission.

Restoring Democracy

2008-09-01T13:21:00.000-07:00

Courage is not something often witnessed in America. I thought about that when watching Pakistani lawyers standing up against militarized police protecting the recently resigned tyrant of their country. Can you imagine American lawyers doing that?

Chronicling America's tyranny is good as far as it goes, but bearing witness only does so much. Removing tyranny requires refusing to go along; refusing to participate in criminal enterprise as government, refusing to benefit from militarism.

Everyone has a role to play in restoring democracy to America. All it takes is courage.

Putting Trauma Behind

2008-08-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

If it's what one does about injustice that counts, then self-reliance and independence are important aspects of remedying past and present wrongs. If reconciliation is a goal, then truth -- whole and nothing but -- is an essential objective. If healing relationships is vital to mutual survival, then collective memory must be preserved, no matter how painful it may be.

Putting trauma behind us does not mean forgetting, but merely using our intelligence to rule our emotions.

Influence of Anxiety

2008-08-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Influence of Anxiety

by Jay Taber

Phil Williams is a sober, well-informed guy. So when he discusses the chaos likely to envelop the world as modern states collapse and morph into criminal enterprises, I take him seriously. In his recently-published paper From the New Middle Ages to a New Dark Age, Professor Williams examines the key factors, any one of which could bring on widespread panic, and proceeds to show how the nexus of multiple crises already well underway could literally change the world as we know it. Anticipating such man made disasters in advance may not allow us to avoid them all together, but they can make it possible for us to prepare while some of us still have cool heads. Under these conditions, capitalizing on social anxiety by perpetuating fear as part of consumer advocacy campaigns becomes all the more unconscionable.

Society, as some suggest, is an ongoing experiment: try what seems to work; abandon what doesn't. Of course, what works for some is often detrimental to others. Especially in a winner-take-all capitalist system. The European experiment in the Americas -- beginning with slavery, murder, and theft, and, in many respects, still in that mode of relationships -- is presently foundering on the indigenous resurgence and moral challenges posed by their culturally creative companeros.

Liberals -- like conservatives -- also fear the unknown, fear fundamental change, and fear the loss of privileges ingrained in our society for half a millenium. Their anxiety -- based on a sense of security that is bound up with the existing system of inequality -- places them in a juxtaposition between letting their conscience be their guide, and siding with those who would maintain such inequities. For myself, the challenge -- or experiment, if you will -- is whether we can surmount the communicative barriers of the status quo in order to begin to discuss our hopes for the future.

William Vega, an American public health researcher at Rutgers -- published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in 1998 -- observed that Mexican immigrants have roughly half the incidence of psychological dysfunction as Americans. After 13 years, though, these immigrants develop depression, anxiety and drug problems at the same level as the general population (32%). Additional studies have extended these findings to other ethnic groups, leading to the conclusion, that "socialization into American culture and society increase susceptibility to psychiatric disorders."

In The only thing we have to fear is the 'culture of fear' itself, author Frank Furedi discusses how fear is transmitted by cultural scripts which inform people of emotional and behavioural formulae which have come to be part of their everyday behaviour and thought. But the transformation of anxious responses into fear, he observes, also requires the intervention of social forces, of what he has labelled 'fear entrepreneurs.'

In my memoir Reign of Terror, I wrote about the influence of anxiety and fear inflamed by some of these entrepreneurs in 1990s Puget Sound, and how traumatic that systematic disruption of social institutions was for those involved. Today, given the multitude of world calamities leading toward widespread social collapse, generating panic is a rather simple matter. Creating spaces of calm, on the other hand, is a colossal challenge.

(Jay Taber -- recipient of the Defender of Democracy award -- is an

author, columnist, and research analyst at Public Good Project.)

CWIS

2008-08-12T12:45:00.001-07:00

In the present era of networks and netwars, think tanks like the Center for World Indigenous Studies function much like tribal protector societies, only on a global scale. Guarding against toxic ideas that can lead humanity astray, associations of scholars affiliated with these intellectual repositories and networks of activists relying on these learning centers serve to inoculate societies against panic and despair.

Without the foundational knowledge and ancient understanding mediated by such independent research organizations, communities worldwide are at the mercy of the relentless onslaught of destructive concepts deployed by anti-democratic markets and institutions.

The Center for World Indigenous Studies was founded in 1984 by Dr. Rudolph C. Ryser and Chief George Manuel as an independent research and education organization. It began earlier as an unincorporated research and documentation clearing house in 1979 in response to calls by the Conference of Tribal Governments in the United States.

George Manuel, former chief of the National Indian Brotherhood/Assembly of First Nations in Canada, was first to initiate global communication amongst indigenous peoples emerging from colonialism. Through their formation of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples, he and Dr. Ryser laid the groundwork for indigenous fora and working groups within the UN.

Joe DelaCruz, chair of public policy at CWIS and former president of the National Congress of American Indians, was once called the greatest American Indian leader of the twentieth century.

CWIS today is considered the premier indigenous think tank and archival repository serving the Fourth World.

Two Books

2008-08-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

Here’s a couple of books recommended by CWIS:

The Distorted Past by Josep Fontana
The Primal Mind by Jamake Highwater

New World Order

2008-08-08T14:17:00.000-07:00

The UN indigenous resources page has some useful links. Check it out.

Traditional Knowledge

2008-07-29T19:46:00.000-07:00

As with all Native American cultures, traditional knowledge is central to Hopi culture. There is no more rewarding method of learning than the original "interactive method," speaking and listening. For the Hopi, traditional knowledge explains not only the origin of all peoples but provides lessons for how to live today.

Multi-level learning

Most of us know at least one children's fairy tale that has a moral lesson in it. Although the story is meant to be entertaining, it is also supposed to be educational. Hopi traditional knowledge is encoded in this way and contains messages on many different levels. In this way, listeners learn new and important lessons as their own understanding deepens. The strength of traditional knowledge lies in its ability to convey a deeper truth. Seen in this light, traditional knowledge is more than just the retelling of events, names, and dates. In this way, traditional knowledge differs from written historical accounts in style and purpose.

The Emergence Story

Hopi traditional knowledge begins with the emergence story. The world we live in now is the fourth way of life that the Hopi have lived. Different Hopi clans and animals emerged from the third into this fourth way of life. Hopis tell how the people of the world were offered ears of corn by Ma'saw. Many jumped in ahead of the Hopi and picked large ears of corn and left Hopis the smallest ear. This symbolizes the difficult but enduring life the Hopi live in the arid Southwest. Along with each ear of corn, the various peoples of the world inherited homelands, cultures, and responsibilities from the rest of creation. The Hopi fulfill their responsibilities through their daily life and ceremonies. Hopi life revolves around agriculture, in particular, corn. The Hopi way of life is the corn -- humility, cooperation, respect, and universal earth stewardship.

Privacy

Because each story contains information meant specifically for one group of Hopi people, the Hopi learn only the story of their clan. The oral tradition entrusted to each Hopi is more than enough to consider and meditate upon during a lifetime. By pursuing their own understanding, it is natural that the Hopi respect the privacy and sacred nature of the traditions entrusted to other Hopi, as well as other cultures. For more about privacy and other issues affecting the Hopi today, visit our Current Issues page.

(Thank you to the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office for making this available.)

Intelligence Useful

2008-07-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

Anger drives passion, but intelligence makes it useful.

--Jay Taber

Overcoming Social Exclusion

2008-07-08T13:15:00.000-07:00

Learning the skills and developing the tools of effective organizing like investigative research, grassroots communication, and principles of psychological warfare (my hedge school idea) should not be conflated with progressive opportunism or liberal elitism. Progressive careerists posing as community activists are as much a hindrance to democracy as their authoritarian brethren known as neo-conservatives.

Pedagogy (the science of teaching), developed by and for the marginalized themselves, is the only means of overcoming social exclusion.

Native American tribal schools are one example of this. These and other hedge schools both change and preserve consciousness, as well as build political autonomy and economic independence.

Essential and Urgent

2008-07-06T07:41:00.000-07:00

As indigenous peoples worldwide look to Bolivia's elected president Evo Morales as guarantor to the world indigenous movement, it is indeed a task requiring the combined efforts and support of millions. With the morphing of the global colonial project into the institutional globalization initiative backed by the US, EU, and UN, indigenous leaders know they have more on their hands than they can handle alone.

For those who want to see a more sane and humane element remain a part of our planetary society, assisting indigenous civilizations in their fight against extermination by these institutions is both essential and urgent.