Friday, December 31, 2010

 

Serious Surrender

Glenn Morris, a scholar from the Fourth World Center for the Study of International Law and Politics, observes that the State Department report — documenting the conditional US endorsement of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples — seeks to “persuade indigenous peoples that we’ve lost our international legal personality–and that is a very serious surrender.” Professor Morris goes on to say that the US statement regarding its qualified endorsement of UNDRIP amounts to domesticating an international document, and “rejects its major principles and ideals.” The consistent historical US opposition to indigenous peoples’ human rights, says Morris, reflects the current US strategy to protect its ill-gotten gains through such chicanery.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

 

Shining a Light

In 2009, Amnesty International presented its New Media Award to Wikileaks. In 2010, we learned why.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

 

Obama v Peace

The Obama justice department continues its harassment of the anti-war movement, in particular opponents of US policy in Colombia and Palestine. Serving subpoenas on anti-war organizers and media editors critical of US–funded state terror in South America and the Middle East, the Department of Justice under Attorney General Holder escalates the Obama administration’s war on dissent initiated by FBI raids in September. Peace activists like FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley and former special agent Mike German condemn Obama’s mobilization of federal agencies against free speech.

Friday, December 24, 2010

 

Out of Control

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.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

 

Uncensored Narratives

In the wake of Cablegate, Listening Post examines the info war mounted by governments and corporations against freedom of information. As governments afraid of exposure by organizations like Wikileaks attempt to censor the Internet, citizen journalists play a vital role in creating uncensored narratives.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

 

Mission Accomplished

When candidate Barack Obama said his mission was to privatize public assets, the only people who knew how far he was willing to go for his friends on Wall Street were the Democratic Leadership Council and his friends on Wall Street. With schools, libraries, and government office buildings now being sold to investors and rented back by states suffering from the federal bank bailout scam, it seems Obama’s mission is on track to being accomplished in his first term. Such colossal thievery won’t get him impeached by a Congress itself deeply involved in double dealing, but it may get him booted from the White House in 2012. Maybe then he will join former president Clinton in selling his services to tyrants elsewhere.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

 

Mafia's Main Man

The Council of Europe report on the Prime Minister of Kosovo and his involvement with smuggling arms, narcotics and human body parts challenges the international community's integrity as well. Meanwhile, Wikileaks documents related to Cablegate reveal that his criminal network was at one point on the payroll of the US, NATO, the UN, and al-Qaeda all at the same time.

Monday, December 20, 2010

 

Barack and Hillary's Lies

Readers who aren’t scholars of propaganda might be unaware that Secretary Clinton and President Obama have blogs. The official State Department blog, Dipnote, is Hillary’s cute and cuddly distortion of world events, while Barack’s phony representation of reality is called simply White House. Lying in the Obama Administration has taken advantage of technology, as well as the colossal level of gullibility of Americans. Luckily, with independent Internet news growing daily, there will soon be no excuse for believing these lies.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

 

Big Trouble

In this post, Deputy Special Envoy Jonathan Pershing of the US State Department says that balance is the key to making progress on climate change. He also lauds transparency as essential to the effort. Progress and balance though, as determined by the carbon cartel and promoted by the United States, make a mockery of the international human rights regime. If scheming to exclude indigenous peoples while bribing and threatening states to go along with the Copenhagen Accord (itself a back room deal) is an example of transparency, then we’re in big trouble.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

 

Brooking No Criticism

Tom Goldtooth, director of the Indigenous Environmental Network and spokesman for the indigenous peoples’ caucus at the UN climate change talks last year in Copenhagen, had his credentials revoked at the UN conference in Cancun last week for publicly describing the UN gathering as “a trade show for promoting false solutions”. Goldtooth and others were ejected by the UN for drawing media attention to the fact that a major agenda item of the international discussion in Cancun, as in Copenhagen, was to silence indigenous peoples.

 

Worst Ever

Stephen Lendman comments on the December 15 International Committee of the Red Cross press release noting the dire conditions in Afghanistan, where, despite being the largest ICRC humanitarian effort in the world, is the worst ever since the US invasion began.

Friday, December 17, 2010

 

Implementing UNDRIP

Robert T. Coulter of the Indian Law Resource Center discusses the agenda of implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as it pertains to laws, policies and actions of the United States government.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

 

A Voice for the Voiceless

Laura Flanders reminds us why Wikileaks matters.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

 

Manifest Injustice

As a participant in the Modern Indian Identity series of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado, Walter Echo-Hawk of the Native American Rights Fund spoke recently about the manifest injustice in the American court system, observing that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples — an instrument of international human rights law opposed by the US — is the Magna Carta of our time.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

 

Full Disclosure

The story of Wikileaks, the media, and those who have something to hide.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

 

An Unseemly Tradition

Last month, in the runup to COP 16, the National Congress of American Indians called upon the US State Department and the UN to create a new category of Indigenous Nation Governmental Representative so US Tribal Nations will have a right to participate as governmental representatives in UN activities such as the Framework Convention on Climate Change and Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. While it is obvious that excluding indigenous governments from international conferences is anti-democratic, anti-indigenous states like the US still absurdly demand that tribal governments be treated as non-governmental organizations.

Coming from the United States, such nonsense is at least consistent with its current position as the only country in the world to officially oppose the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. What many may not understand is that the United States, despite playing host to the original UN gathering, has from the outset opposed the establishment of human rights in international law. Fighting their extension to indigenous peoples is merely carrying on an unseemly tradition.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

 

Lackey Journalism

Reading yesterday's IPS report on COP 16, I am reminded of earlier conferences, where the European forces of globalization divided up other peoples' lands by international agreement. Not having transcripts from those 16th-19th century proceedings, I can only imagine the invocation of church, state and market interests that combined in setting forth those self-congratulatory plans.

Watching the privileged and powerful last week in Cancun, religious bigotry took a back seat to state and market propaganda, but the contempt for indigenous peoples and their sense of the sacred was front and center. With only the state of Bolivia dissenting from the state and market narrative, the concept of saving the planet or extending human rights through this international forum was trampled by hoards of self-congratulatory bureaucrats and career activists whose funding depends on maintaining this progressive hoax.

While expecting such behavior from craven opportunists like BINGO delegates, I am surprised to see progressive media falling so quickly into line. Perhaps they are simply playing up to their social milieu; maybe they are hoping to get a NED grant for covering the back of US Secretary of State Clinton. Whatever the reason, it is a sorry display of lackey journalism; my only response is that if they're not with us, then they're against us.

Today's Mother Jones article reads like a press release from the US State Department. After successfully undermining Kyoto and setting the stage for the REDD Ponzi scheme, the only task left in the climate charade was to marginalize the indigenous nations whose lands are to be recolonized by the UN.

With all the current notoriety from Cablegate, I'm sure that Secretary Clinton appreciates the progressive media support.

Friday, December 10, 2010

 

Crime Pays

The Center for Public Integrity examines the stimulus funding grants awarded by the Obama Administration to some of America’s worst polluters. As billions of dollars from the US Treasury are being funneled to energy and chemical corporations with the worst environmental compliance records, federal officers in charge have waived environmental review of 90% of the funded projects.

While the track record of grant recipients might seem logical, federal administrators state that violation records are irrelevant in exempting them from review.

While federal stimulus funds undoubtedly do some good, categorical exclusions for known violators sends a clear message. As in the banking bailout, that message is that crime pays.

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

 

Killing Navajo

Uranium mining on Navajo land over the last seventy years has caused widespread cancer among Navajo communities, so much so that the Navajo Nation has banned all uranium mining. Yet, despite the horrendous hazards from earlier mining operations, American corporations continue to mine nearby. Recently, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the Navajo appeal of the 10th Circuit Court's decision to allow uranium leach mining in an aquifer adjacent to Navajo territory.

Unlike accidental spills or tailing waste negligently left to kill Navajo through inhalation of radioactive dust, leach mining injects chemicals into the ground to dissolve uranium, which is then pumped out. In the process, the chemicals and uranium simultaneously contaminate the surrounding aquifers, thereby creating nuclear waste from pure drinking water.

The legal system of the United States has made clear its bias in this case, and signals the start of battles across Indian country over energy resource extraction. As these battles intensify, the police powers of the United States could conceivably be used to once again crush Native American opposition to the insane environmental and energy policies of a corporate America.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

 

Aryan Nation

When outgoing governor Schwarzenegger first took office, he publicly attacked California's tribes, scapegoating them for state budget shortfalls. This was subsequent to his quashing the California attorney general's suit against Enron.

Today, as California awaits the swearing in as governor, attorney general Jerry Brown, Schwarzenegger is attempting to renege on the recent deal made with North Coast tribes, fishermen and environmentalists over marine life protection. After negotiating a compact recognizing tribal resource rights in accord with fishing and environmental interests, Schwarzenegger is trying to amend the deal on behalf of waterfront real estate developers by again attacking the tribes.

Governor Brown is unlikely to tolerate such nonsense, but Schwarzenegger is now positioned to become a national spokesman in the Anti-Indian Movement, which, after its embarrassing history, could use a new figurehead. An Aryan action figure might just suit the bill.

Monday, December 06, 2010

 

Arrest Obama

Obama’s death squads in West Papua, the Indonesian military special forces known as Kopassus, are now targeting indigenous religious leaders for assassination. In July, Barack Obama lifted the restrictions on funding the notorious death squads responsible for innumerable murders in West Papua and East Timor. Perhaps some day international jurists will no longer turn a blind eye to this violation of human rights law; what better time to bring charges against a United States president in an international court.

 

Confronting Control

In his post Wikileaks, Julian Assange and Modern Anarchist Praxis, Nihilo Zero discusses confronting control, anarchistic ideals, and how Cablegate might impact militaristic consumerism.

Sunday, December 05, 2010

 

Facing Reality

Five years ago, Paul Jay spoke about his vision for The Real News: giving people hope by facing reality.

Friday, December 03, 2010

 

Surmounting Servility

As we await Hillary's hysteria and Barack's bromides over Cablegate, it might be an opportune moment to consider the mindset that fosters their rise to power despite their intellectual incompetence. In his 2006 essay Conspiracy as Governance, Julian Assange examines the primary methodology of authoritarian regimes, as well as ways of attacking their conspiratorial cognitive ability.

Thursday, December 02, 2010

 

Front Lines

When the American company Bechtel tried to privatize water in Bolivia, they helped to foment an indigenous peoples' rebellion. That rebellion, in turn, established an indigenous head of state who has led them in revising their constitution to respect the rights of Mother Earth, enabling Bolivia to act as guarantor of the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples worldwide. In Aracaunia, toward the tip of the southern cone of South America, the Mapuche are rebelling against the Chilean government that is abetting a Japanese company intent on stealing their water. As water becomes more precious due to wasteful habits, pollution and climate change, corporations with an eye to profit will continue looking for locations to steal; as proprietors of much of that water, indigenous nations are, as usual, on the front lines.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

 

Julian's Blog

Before Julian Assange became the most famous advocate for whistleblowers in the world, he had a blog.

The WikiLeaks disclosure has revealed not only numerous government secrets, but also the driving mentality of major factions in our political and media class. Simply put, there are few countries in the world with citizenries and especially media outlets more devoted to serving, protecting and venerating government authorities than the U.S. Indeed, I don't quite recall any entity producing as much bipartisan contempt across the American political spectrum as WikiLeaks has: as usual, for authoritarian minds, those who expose secrets are far more hated than those in power who commit heinous acts using secrecy as their principal weapon.

And the fact that this mindset is so widespread and mainstream is quite a reflection of how degraded America's political culture is. When WikiLeaks critics devote a fraction of their rage to this form of mainstream American thinking -- which, unlike anything WikiLeaks has done, has actually resulted in piles upon piles of corpses -- then their anti-WikiLeaks protestations should be taken more seriously, but not until then.

--Glenn Greenwald

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