TiyospayeNow

On Adornment and Female Beauty and International Women's Day

2008-03-07T17:54:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to write more about politics, but I find myself waiting for something to happen. Some resolution on the campaign trail . . . some result. So, while I hold my political breath, an article "Do not go gentle into that Eileen Fisher" caught my eye on Salon.com the other day about a book called "How Not to Look Old". The book and the reaction were somewhat interesting. I like to see how women are responding and addressing the issues of beauty and female objectification. What really interested me, and so often does in these days of blogging and news articles with comment sections, were the responses from the readers. Most of the women hated the idea of the book. One woman pointed with pride that it was her financial resources built up over a lifetime of work and a healthy retirement fund as the thing that made her feel good about herself--not a facelift. One woman lamented the author's demand that women throw out "grandchildren" necklaces because it made a woman look old. These necklaces she pointed out are generally given to the woman by her family and represents the love and esteem they have for her. I found the book's focus on youth predictable and really just missing the point. This commercialized, "Madison Avenue" attitude towards beauty is so at odds with the Navajo concept of the intrinsic sacredness of the human act of self-adornment that I had to comment on it myself. A Navajo prayer kept coming back to me as I read through the women's responses.

I am half-Navajo through my mother. The Navajo or Dineh people, as they call themselves, are matrilineal, so I have a clan, Kinyaani or the Towering House people. My mother would often talk to me about Navajo concepts of beauty or Hozhoni. She had under her bed a treasure-load of turquoise jewelry and old family photos. On days when we children were stuck inside because it was too hot to go out and play she would take these out and let us look at the old photos of her family. Elders in their traditional garb, she and her siblings in 1960's and 1970's fashions. Then we would get to look at the jewelry and she would let us wear some of it. She would tell us what meaning the turquoise, the red coral, the white shell had--even the humble cedar bead that could ward off ghosts. We would sit there on her bed and look at the pictures then look at ourselves reflected in her mirrored closet doors. Our small, brown faces and black hair dripping in strands of turquoise and red coral, silver and cedar. To us, little girls, this act of adornment by our mother would make us feel special and, yes, sacred in those afternoons in the cool, air-conditioned house with the sweltering desert heat outside kept at bay.

When the Navajo goddess Changing Woman, Adzaa Nadleehe was given her home, a hooghan, by her husband the Sun, he adorned it in this way with all the sacred things and in this way made it a beautiful and good place to live. In this way, I saw the older woman in my family, my grandmother and great-aunts, adorn themselves. They were lovely women until the day they died. Upright and strong after years of herding sheep and weaving rugs, their hair long and hardly touched with gray. They wore their long beautiful hair tied back with white carded wool in knots called tsiilyeel and adorned themselves everyday with elaborate turquoise jewelry and clothing made of velvet and satin. They were very elegant-looking, perhaps, more so than my mom and her generation in their utilitarian t-shirts and jeans and sneakers. Traditional people all over the world take personal adornment very seriously. Adornment is a defining aspect of humanness. Sometimes, I find the take on beauty in this culture is so different that it is difficult to make the connection between the two. I am beginning to realize that in some ways as a multi-cultural person, I have this Navajo lense and use it exclusively in some cases, despite my American upbringing--despite, even Madison Avenue and all the money they spent trying to make me see it another way. It is this alternate space inside me that was given to me by my mother and my grandmothers that I find myself retreating to almost reflexively. It is is hozho, beautiful. Just what I'm thinking about with International Women's Day coming up tomorrow.

Children Are Forty Percent of Cluster Bomb Casualties

2008-02-22T13:13:00.000-08:00

I had noted in an earlier post, Senator Clinton's vote against a ban on cluster bombs (and Senator Obama's vote for the ban) has grave repercussions for children around the world. This new report given in New Zealand at a conference to draft language for an international treaty banning the use of these weapons came out on Tuesday.

Opening the conference, Disarmament Minister Phil Goff said a strong declaration on cluster bombs at the conference would mark a pivotal step in getting the weapons banned.

More than half of the 76 states in the world that stockpile cluster munitions are taking part in the negotiations, along with a majority of the weapon producers.

However, major producers such as the US, Russia, China and Pakistan have not joined the process and have no observers at the conference.

Cluster bombs are built to explode above the ground, releasing thousands of bomblets primed to detonate on impact. But combat statistics show between 10 percent and 40 percent fail to go off and lie primed in the target area to kill and injure civilians.

UNICEF deputy executive director Hilde Frafjord Johnson, speaking on behalf of 14 United Nations entities that form the United Nations Mine Action Team, said the UN wanted cluster bombs banned.

She said the weapons had a horrendous humanitarian, development and human rights impact.

Ms Johnson said the extensive use of cluster munitions in southern Lebanon in 2006 was a tragic reminder of how they caused death and serious injury of civilians.

“Sometimes, the presence of unexploded sub-munitions forced populations out of their homes and prevented those already displaced from returning home to rebuild their lives and communities.”

Ms Johnson spoke of 12-year-old Hassan Hemadi, who in 2006 picked up an object outside his home in southern Lebanon while he was watering the family garden.

“‘I saw a metal object,”‘ Johnson said, quoting Hemadi.

“‘I did not know what it was and so I picked it up. I started playing with the ribbon on the end, twirling it around. Then I don’t know what happened, it exploded. Now I have lost the fingers on my hand.”

Senate to Apologize to Indians?

2008-02-15T16:42:00.000-08:00

I read today on the AP an article titled, "Indian Apology Close to Senate Passage". The resolution sponsored by Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback hasn't passed, but it's close. About time. This follows the Australian government's apology to the Aborigines. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that the Bush Administration is presently proposing a federal budget for fiscal year 2009 that would eliminate the Urban Indian Health Program which is budgeted at $35 million for this year. This, despite the fact that some 70% of American Indians live off of the reservation and the budget violates the terms that the land was originally ceded to the United States by tribes in the first place. Of course, if the U.S. government can't afford the payments (the Iraq war, according to National Priorities.org is costing us $275 million per day) it can always give the land back! That would include large chunks of Red States--I wonder how that would play on election day?

Steinem & Jong vs. me & Paglia?

2008-02-13T16:20:00.001-08:00

I read a post today on Women's Space about Gloria Steinem's support of Carol Moseley Braun's run for President of the United States during the 2004 election. I finally read Steinem's op/ed piece that was in the New York Times in January on the sexism Senator Clinton faces in the media compared to the (relatively) free pass Senator Obama is given regarding race. I found her piece, "Women are Never Front-Runners" disappointing in its reasoning, particularly, from a woman I admire so much. The generation gap has never felt so painful to me or so inexplicable. I heard the same things from my mom when I told her I was voting for Obama. If she wrote an article for the New York Times, it probably would have said the same thing. Suddenly, my mom--who had raised me up and trained me in a powerful sense of womanhood and feminism--and I were on opposite sides of the fence. Being the good daughter, I have found that hard to take. I also read Camille Paglia's recent Salon.com column on the election, which is fairly hilarious and, strangely enough, encapsulated so many of my feelings on the issue:

This disarray among Republicans, which may depress voter turnout or even spawn a protest splinter party, offers a fantastic opening to Democrats, if the party can only seize it. The galvanizing energy aroused by Barack Obama's thrilling coast-to-coast victories gives Democrats a clear shot at regaining the White House. However, the three-faced Hillary, that queen of triangulation, would be a nice big gift to Republicans, who are itching to romp all over the Clintons' 20-volume encyclopedia of tawdry scandals.

But, I am left rolling my eyes when she writes:

The old-guard feminist establishment has also rushed out of cold storage to embrace Hillary Clinton via tremulous manifestoes of gal power that have startlingly exposed the sentimental slackness of thought that made Gloria Steinem and company wear out their welcome in the first place. Hillary's gonads must be sending out sci-fi rays that paralyze the paleo-feminist mind -- because her career, attached to her husband's flapping coattails, has sure been heavy on striking pious attitudes but ultra-light on concrete achievements.

Meanwhile, Steinem writes in her piece:

I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule. I’m not opposing Mr. Obama; if he’s the nominee, I’ll volunteer. Indeed, if you look at votes during their two-year overlap in the Senate, they were the same more than 90 percent of the time. Besides, to clean up the mess left by President Bush, we may need two terms of President Clinton and two of President Obama.

But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.

What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.

What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.

What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.

What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.

Then I read on the Huffpo Erica Jong's take on the sexism in the election. To her, the issue of gender trumps all others.

Or Oprah who forgets she wasn't always Oprah -- I knew her when she had two names. She was always really smart, but she used to identify with women. And now she's joined the Obamarama. I get it. I understand. People want their own color in the White House (pun intended). And nobody said Barack wasn't brilliant.

But the truth is, we have no idea what he stands for. At least I don't. All we have are soundbites and attacks on "the" Clintons. But I guess the great American Amnesiate prefers it that way.

I'd have to disagree with Steinem on the voting record. The vote yesterday on FISA is a case in point. As one reader responding to Erica Jong's op/ed said:

As a young graduate of your alma mater, it pained me to not to cast my primary vote for the first female presidential candidate in my voting lifetime. Unfortunately (that was sarcasm, absolutely fortunately), because my education taught me think for myself and take reasoned, educated stances on issues important to me, I decided not to vote for Sen. Clinton.

Sen. Clinton voted against Senate Amendment No. 4882 last year, which would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas. While Sen. Clinton voted against the ban, Sen. Obama voted for the ban, acknowledging that cluster bombs are an antiquated form of collective punishment primarily impacting civilians and serving as a long-term impediment to reconciliation. Although the ban did not pass, this is one of the few Senate voting record differences between the two. It speaks loudly to me.

Another divergence between the senators appeared this week: I don't know definitively where Sen. Clinton stands on retroactive telecom immunity because- even though she was in the Potomac triangle when it occurred- she did not attend the relevant Senate session to cast her vote. Sen. Obama attended; he voted against retroactive telecom immunity.

I'm glad you write about the sexism this race reveals and I absolutely agree that in calling Sen. Clinton "Hillary" and Sen. Obama "Obama" we reveal the patriarchal, misogynistic tendencies underlying American society; however, I don't think this is an adequate argument for voting for Sen. Clinton. Does that make me a "Hillary Hater" worthy of your vitriolic language? I don't think so. I don't even think it makes me a woman-hater.

Addressing the issue of calling Senator Clinton "Hillary", I would point out that is exactly what her signs said at the Washington Caucus I attended on Saturday. Here is what they look like and here is what the Obama sign looks like:

Other commentators took Jong to task for invoking the memory of Bella Abzug, a renowned anti-war and women's rights leader to support a candidate that voted for war in Iraq and cluster bombing villages with children.

The statements of Steinem and Jong brought to mind the fight that occurred when it appeared that the 15th amendment would give black men the right to vote but not women. When Frederick Douglas announced that he would support the amendment without woman's suffrage included, Susan B. Anthony declared, "I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman."

By the way, here is a great video from the Google Employee Q & A series that shows (to answer Jong's request for more specifics) quite clearly what Obama stands for:

Obama Mama

2008-02-11T13:10:00.000-08:00

It was quite inspirational to go to the caucus. I was a precinct captain for Camas, Washington and the turnout was amazing. There were all these Hillary signs and Hillary campaign workers who were very in-the-know and Junior League-ish with pearls and suits and nice flip hairdos. Us Oregonian Obama volunteers were mostly new to the political process and a bit more of the people, if I may say that. But when they counted the votes I was shocked. My precinct went 8-2 for Obama! The Clintonian ladies had given speeches about sexism, etc. and when the Obama voters spoke (some gave short speeches to run for delegates, it was my job to encourage a group of voters to stay and do that) they all spoke of the desire for change and that it was time to end the Bush/Clinton/Bush ruling of our country and that it was okay to have hope.

I am writing an essay on "The Political Education of an Obama Voter," right now. In it, I trace my coming of age during Reagan and my first election in New Hampshire and my disappointment with the Clintons (NAFTA, WTO, Welfare Moms to Work, Don't Ask Don't Tell, the Thong thing). Also, my activism in the Green Party and the Bush regime confirming every thing Noam Chomsky taught me. So many teachers. It's been a bit of joy to go through all that, listening to the Dead Kennedy's again and John Trudell and realizing that those truths they spoke about that enriched my perspective then still apply now.

February 27th is the 35th anniversary of the stand-off at Wounded Knee. I'm thinking about how my parents' generation stood up for Civil Rights in this country even if meant being hit on the head with a baton or being gunned down by the FBI in their houses on the reservation. I owe them a lot. They made my life so much better than it would have been under Jim Crow America.

I saw this post at the Huffington Post. It features Obama's mother and her struggle with cancer. It also includes some audio from "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance". Just think on it she was a white woman who married a black man in the early 60's! It's people like her who are real Americans to me and embody everything that is possible and makes this country great.

Here is the audio from Obama's book "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance":

Alice Walker Endorses Obama

2008-02-08T18:27:00.000-08:00

Heart at Women's Space posted this video endorsement by Alice Walker for Obama yesterday. She says:

What Alice Walker says on this video is beautiful, hopeful, and well worth watching no matter what candidate you support. I love what she says about writers. I love what she says about needing a President who is in touch with the real world. I love what she says about the importance of having a President who has known and loved and walked alongside many, many people in many different circumstances, people of all different backgrounds, races, ethnicities.

I love how Walker says, "we need someone now who is literary. Good writing matters for the deeper realization of self" and "we need to have leadership that is strong. Compassionate leadership actually is strong leadership, strong enough to care and to act in defense of people like the people after Katrina." She contrast this with "weak people [who] get us into nightmares because they lack self-confidence." I am reminded of the Clintons when she says, "the other people have had so much experience in misleading us and disappointing us, in never telling us hardly ever the truth of about why they are doing things." She points out that Obama's background and the places around the world that he has lived makes him see the world as "complicated but workable and I feel we desperately need people in leadership that have more of an idea of the real world than any of the people we have had before."

Here's the video:

Mixed-blood, like me

2008-02-06T19:22:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to pinpoint what it is about Obama that strikes a chord with me. Many Clinton supporters have accused Obama-ites of not being politically astute and of supporting a candidate based on feel-good rhetoric and not the experience that the candidate brings to the presidency. For me, this does not address the Clintons' past betrayals of my political support. I saw then-President Clinton sign NAFTA, put welfare mothers to work, support "don't ask, don't tell", and become embroiled in Republican mud-slinging (mostly self-inflicted, I mean come on a thong!) that brought the Clinton administration to a stand-still for nearly two years.

On top of this, in 1996 President Clinton signed the Relocation Bill that evicted traditional Navajo families (including some of my relatives) living at Big Mountain, Arizona from their land to strip mine the coal that lies just beneath the surface. Strip mining is so environmentally destructive that the land will not inhabitable for several generations. The bill proposed relocating these traditional Dineh to the site of the United States' largest radiation spill called--in an Orwellian touch--"New Lands". I have no faith that things have changed. In the past several years, Senator Clinton has stood by and supported the Bush administration march to war. I believe her vote on the war was a politically pragmatic decision made to pander to the Republican base--with little or no concern for me or other concerned Democrats who opposed it.

But my interest in Obama is not simply a by-product of my distrust of the Clintons' political choices. I began to realize that it is after all the candidates' very attitudes towards public service that lead me to favor Obama . If elected, Obama, born in 1961, will be the first person from my generation to be elected to the Presidency. 1960 is considered the beginning of Generation X, which corresponds with the bottoming out of the birthrate that occurred between 1960-1980. Obama's election would mark the end of the Boomer generation's hold on political leadership and the passing of that mantle onto my own. I was born in the middle of the spread of years that define Generation X, but I recognize in Obama some of the approaches to race and identity that are the marks of a mixed-blood person born in the era following the Civil Rights movement. There has been much discussion about President Clinton's racist postcard that he sent to his grandmother in the midst of the Civil Rights movement. I see this card sent by law student Clinton to his grandmother in the deep South as predictive of his future political maneuvering as our President. He was willing in 1966 to bend to the expected social mores that may have been common at the time (I don't know, I was not alive then) but his actions were lacking in personal integrity and choice of someone coming of age in the midst of change.

I recently read a great article on Salon.com written by Gary Kamiya called "Bi-racial, but not like me" on the subject. Kamiya's analysis of his support for Obama is the best I've read on the subject. He quotes from Obama's autobiography "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance":

One of those transformative moments comes during Obama's undergraduate days, after he had given a well-received speech urging the university to divest from South Africa. A black friend, Regina, praised his talk, but Obama cynically denied that it had any meaning, saying he just did it for the applause and that it wouldn't change anything. Regina retorted that he was selfish and shallow -- "It's not just about you" -- and angrily left. Left alone, Obama suddenly realized she was right. His mother had told him the same thing, but he had rejected it, putting it down as "white" truths. "Who told you that being honest was a white thing? ... You've lost your way, brother. Your ideas about yourself -- about who you are and who you might become -- have grown stunted and narrow and small.

"How had that happened? I started to ask myself, but before the question had even formed in my mind, I already knew the answer. Fear ... The constant, crippling fear that I didn't belong somehow ... that I would always remain an outsider, with the rest of the world, black and white, always standing in judgment."

Then Obama modulates into something like a vision, at once real and transcendent. He imagines the face of Regina's grandmother, "her back bent, the flesh of her arms shaking as she scrubs an endless floor. Slowly, the old woman lifted her head to look straight at me, and in her sagging face I saw that what bound us together went beyond anger or despair or pity. What was she asking of me, then? Determination, mostly. The determination to push ahead against whatever power kept her stooped instead of standing straight."

And then, an even larger vision. "The old woman's face dissolved from my mind, only to be replaced by a series of others. The copper-skinned face of the Mexican maid, straining as she carries out the garbage. The face of Lolo's mother [Lolo was Obama's Indonesian stepfather] drawn with grief as she watches the Dutch burn down her house. The tight-lipped, chalk-colored face of Toots [Obama's white grandmother] as she boards the six-thirty bus that will take her to work. Only a lack of imagination, a failure of nerve, had made me think that I had to choose between them. They all asked the same thing of me, all these grandmothers of mine."

Finally, the lesson, to be carried forward: "My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't, end there. At least that's what I would choose to believe." Through a long and arduous search for blackness, Obama arrived at humanity.

In a certain way, Obama's odyssey in "Dreams From My Father" mirrors that of the boy hero of the greatest novel America has produced -- a book that is also about race, and the terrible wound that slavery left on this country and all its people. Huck Finn has been abandoned by his father, a bitter, drunken racist, and has to make his way through the world alone. But actually, he is not alone: a fugitive, he drifts down the Mississippi River, the river that runs through America's heart, with Jim, a runaway slave. And in the course of their journey, the wise and kindly Jim becomes Huck's father -- and, by implication, the father of every American. The pathos of Twain's masterpiece is it redeems our nation's dark history by allowing the despised slave to raise, and ultimately teach the meaning of life to, the lost and innocent boy.

Obama's quest is identical, except the colors are reversed. In search of an absent black father, he tries to become authentically black. And it is only when he learns that his father is all too human that he finally comes to understand that he is the child of both black and white, and ultimately of everyone, of all colors. "All these grandmothers of mine."

The man who emerges from this book has the integrity, the wisdom, the "dogged strength," to fight for a reborn America. And he also represents something larger than himself: He embodies hope. But that hope will only become real if the American people make it real. For hope is just a vessel. You have to fill it.

Obama and Tribes

2008-02-05T17:29:00.000-08:00

Senator Obama answers a question from a tribal leader while in Albuquerque, New Mexico earlier this week and says that he will not only work with tribes through the BIA if elected President, but also meet annually with tribal leaders in a joint summit. This may not sound like much, but it's more than we've ever been promised before. I got this from the site First Americans for Obama.

Yes We Can - Si Se Puede!

2008-02-04T11:22:00.001-08:00

I've been a fan of Senator Barack Obama since we lived in the Chicago area and my husband and I got to vote for him for Senator. I had signs for him and Kerry in my front yard. They got stolen three times (we were in the only red suburb in a very blue state) and each time, I drove to the Democratic office and replaced them right away! Well, here's my plug for Obama. Yeah, my mom is voting for Clinton and there's really nothing I can say to change her mind. For her, the very idea that a woman is running for president is the culmination of her generation of women's dreams. In this case, my family falls within the demographic lines of voters. Women over 45 like Clinton, women under favor Obama.

I am glad we have the choice between two such qualified and intelligent candidates. It really is an embarrassment of riches for the Democratic party, but I think Obama signals the future. And as a woman whose entire voting life has been dominated by the Clinton/Bush ruling families, I wonder if our country doesn't start to feel uncomfortably like a banana republic? Certainly, women in countries with far less rights have been elected to highest office (I'm thinking of the late former PM of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto), but these women ran on the legacy of their male relatives and political power of their families, not because women have equal rights.

I'd like to see a new start. I'm sick of the polemics of hatred and division in this country. The idea of TiyospayeNow has always been about finding a better way for our children, our community and Obama's message of unity as a country, as a people--as diverse as we are-- gives me hope. So, here's a video that speaks to that.

Update: Here's also a link to a post by Will.i.am at the Huffington Post on why he made the video.

Thanksgiving, Hope and the Hidden Heart of Evil

2007-11-20T18:22:00.000-08:00

This is a piece I wrote. When a writer begins writing they don't necessarily know what is going to come out. On that day, in a kitchen in Berkeley, this is what came out of me. I'd like to say "I wrote that" or "these are my thoughts", but in some way writing to me is like alchemy. It is a mix of stuff you don't always know consciously. The magic that is family stories, heritage, experience are what come out. What does it mean to be a "Native American"? Well, I feel this piece went some way in finding that answer for me.

Happy Thanksgiving, enjoy.
- JK

I celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving.

This may surprise those people who wonder what Native Americans think of this official U.S. celebration of the survival of early arrivals in a European invasion that culminated in the death of 10 to 30 million native people.

Thanksgiving to me has never been about Pilgrims. When I was six, my mother, a woman of the Dineh nation, told my sister and me not to sing "Land of the Pilgrim's pride" in "America the Beautiful." Our people, she said, had been here much longer and taken much better care of the land. We were to sing "Land of the Indian's pride" instead.

I was proud to sing the new lyrics in school, but I sang softly. It was enough for me to know the difference. At six, I felt I had learned something very important. As a child of a Native American family, you are part of a very select group of survivors, and I learned that my family possessed some "inside" knowledge of what really happened when those poor, tired masses came to our homes.

When the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock, they were poor and hungry -- half of them died within a few months from disease and hunger. When Squanto, a Wampanoag man, found them, they were in a pitiful state. He spoke English, having traveled to Europe, and took pity on them. Their English crops had failed. The native people fed them through the winter and taught them how to grow their food.

These were not merely "friendly Indians." They had already experienced European slave traders raiding their villages for a hundred years or so, and they were wary -- but it was their way to give freely to those who had nothing. Among many of our peoples, showing that you can give without holding back is the way to earn respect. Among the Dakota, my father's people, they say, when asked to give, "Are we not Dakota and alive?" It was believed that by giving there would be enough for all -- the exact opposite of the system we live in now, which is based on selling, not giving.

To the Pilgrims, and most English and European peoples, the Wampanoags were heathens, and of the Devil. They saw Squanto not as an equal but as an instrument of their God to help his chosen people, themselves.

Since that initial sharing, Native American food has spread around the world. Nearly 70 percent of all crops grown today were originally cultivated by Native American peoples. I sometimes wonder what they ate in Europe before they met us. Spaghetti without tomatoes? Meat and potatoes without potatoes? And at the "first Thanksgiving" the Wampanoags provided most of the food -- and signed a treaty granting Pilgrims the right to the land at Plymouth, the real reason for the first Thanksgiving.

What did the Europeans give in return? Within 20 years European disease and treachery had decimated the Wampanoags. Most diseases then came from animals that Europeans had domesticated. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, one of the great killers of our people, spread through gifts of blankets used by infected Europeans. Some estimate that diseases accounted for a death toll reaching 90 percent in some Native American communities. By 1623, Mather the elder, a Pilgrim leader, was giving thanks to his God for destroying the heathen savages to make way "for a better growth," meaning his people.

In stories told by the Dakota people, an evil person always keeps his or her heart in a secret place separate from the body. The hero must find that secret place and destroy the heart in order to stop the evil.

I see, in the "First Thanksgiving" story, a hidden Pilgrim heart. The story of that heart is the real tale than needs to be told. What did it hold? Bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness? We have seen the evil that it caused in the 350 years since. Genocide, environmental devastation, poverty, world wars, racism.

Where is the hero who will destroy that heart of evil? I believe it must be each of us. Indeed, when I give thanks this Thursday and I cook my native food, I will be thinking of this hidden heart and how my ancestors survived the evil it caused.

Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle.

And the healing can begin.

Busy Writing!

2007-01-30T09:39:00.000-08:00

Sorry, I haven't posted to this blog in some time. I have been busy writing. Writing fiction. I sat down and counted last night and have accumulated 5 short stories, 1 novella and made very good headway on a novel, plus, have two old ones that I am finally up to revising and finishing. So, I can't stop now. Thanks for all the encouraging comments on TiyospayeNow. Perhaps, they inspired this rush of words and worlds?

I will once again write non-fiction essays and political commentary. Right now, fiction is my baby.

Jacqueline

Delusional Leadership?

2006-12-04T20:42:00.000-08:00

At AntiWar.com, Paul Craig Roberts asks the question Is President Bush Sane? I'm beginning to notice a theme here. Because not only does Roberts ask the question, but there is a totally unrelated Salon.com Table Talk forum that asks: Is the President Mentally Ill? At the Table Talk forum, Ed. S lays his case as follows:

I think it is time to bring this out in the open. From Wikipedia

Although non-specific concepts of madness have been around for several thousand years, the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers was the first to define the three main criteria for a belief to be considered delusional in his book General Psychopathology. These criteria are:

* certainty (held with absolute conviction)

* incorrigibility (not changeable by compelling counterargument or proof to the contrary)

* impossibility or falsity of content (implausible, bizarre or patently untrue)

These criteria still live on in modern psychiatric diagnosis. In the most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a delusion is defined as:

A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everybody else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture (e.g. it is not an article of religious faith).

And Roberts notes the same, but within the context of Impeachment:

Tens of millions of Americans want President George W. Bush to be impeached for the lies and deceit he used to launch an illegal war and for violating his oath of office to uphold the US Constitution. Millions of other Americans want Bush turned over to the war crimes tribunal at the Hague. The true fate that awaits Bush is psychiatric incarceration.

The president of the United States is so deep into denial that he is no longer among the sane.

Delusion still rules Bush three weeks after the American people repudiated him and his catastrophic war in elections that delivered both House and Senate to the Democrats in the hope that control over Congress would give the opposition party the strength to oppose the mad occupant of the White House.

On November 28 Bush insisted that US troops would not be withdrawn from Iraq until he had completed his mission of building a stable Iraqi democracy capable of spreading democratic change in the Middle East.

Bush made this astonishing statement the day after NBC News, a major television network, declared Iraq to be in the midst of a civil war, a judgment with which former Secretary of State Colin Powell concurs.

The same day that Bush reaffirmed his commitment to building a stable Iraqi democracy, a secret US Marine Corps intelligence report was leaked. According to the Washington Post, the report concludes: "the social and political situation has deteriorated to a point that US and Iraqi troops are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar province."

The Marine Corps intelligence report says that al-Qaeda is the "dominant organization of influence" in Anbar province, and is more important than local authorities, the Iraqi government and US troops "in its ability to control the day-to-day life of the average Sunni."

Bush’s astonishing determination to deny Iraq reality was made the same day that the US-installed Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and US puppet King Abdullah II of Jordan abruptly cancelled a meeting with Bush after Bush was already in route to Jordan on Air Force One. Bush could not meet with Maliki in Iraq, because violence in Baghdad is out of control. For security reasons, the US Secret Service would not allow President Bush to go to Iraq, where he is "building a stable democracy."

Bush made his astonishing statement in the face of news leaks of the Iraq Study Group’s call for a withdrawal of all US combat forces from Iraq. The Iraq Study Group is led by Bush family operative James A. Baker, a former White House chief of staff, former Secretary of the Treasury, and former Secretary of State. Baker was tasked by father Bush to save the son. Apparently, son Bush hasn’t enough sanity to allow himself to be saved.

Bush’s denial of Iraqi reality was made even as one of the most influential Iraqi Shi'ite leaders, Moqtada al-Sadr, is building an anti-US parliamentary alliance to demand the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

Maliki himself appears on the verge of desertion by his American sponsors. The White House has reportedly "lost confidence" in Maliki’s "ability to control violence." Fox "News" disinformation agency immediately began blaming Maliki for the defeat the US has suffered in Iraq. NY Governor Pataki told Fox "News" that "Maliki is not doing his job." Pataki claimed that US troops were doing "a great job."

A number of other politicians and talking heads joined in the scapegoating of Maliki. No one explained how Maliki can be expected to save Iraq when US troops cannot provide enough security for the Iraqi government to go outside the heavily fortified "green zone" that occupies a small area of Baghdad. If the US Marines cannot control Anbar province, what chance is there for Maliki? What can Maliki do if the security provided by US troops is so bad that the president of the US cannot even visit the country?

Meanwhile, of course, The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a complaint in Germany against Donald Rumsfield for war crimes under the Code of Crimes against International Law (CCIL) which allows for the prosecution of foreigners engaged in war crimes or crimes against humanity in other foreign countries. The complaints are being filed in Germany because the United States refuses to join the International Criminal Court and Iraq does not have the authority to prosecute. Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski will testify against Rumsfield.

The Buddha on Traditionalism

2006-11-28T12:30:00.000-08:00

I found this quote from the Buddha at the Liberty Fellowship Center site. Even an unbeliever like myself can agree with the Buddha on a great many things.

"'Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in your religious books. Do not believe anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason, and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.'"

Thanksgiving, Hope and the Hidden Heart of Evil

2006-11-22T17:59:00.000-08:00

This is a piece I wrote some years ago before I had children. I did, however, feel I was writing it for them as I sat with my editor pestering me with calls to get it done. Typing away at my laptop on our kitchen table in Berkeley I could feel myself addressing my unborn children. Strange, I know. Now that I have children, I am faced with the question, how does one explain these things to a child? My mother had taken the route in the consciousness-raising 1970's of filling me with stories about what had happened and allowing the chips fall where they may. I experienced as a child of five or so the first true feelings of political outrage. Outrage on behalf of a people, the poli. A feeling beyond my normal childish outrage at the loss of a toy or the singular attention of a parent. Outrage at not just the past, but the continued injustice of the basic fact of the invasion and the additional burden of living under the myth of American moral superiority. And I was filled with a desire to change that when I was just five. I think we forget, sometimes, the great wells of desire to do good that each of us are born with. I see this in my children all the time. My mother lit that fire in me as she talked to me about the stolen land, the Long Walk and smaller injustices as we washed dishes together over the kitchen sink in Denver. And those feelings have never been assuaged or lessened-- as I wish they might have been by now. Now, when I tell my daughter who is six, as I am in this piece, and who looks and talks so much like me at that age, I see the same tightening of the tiny fists and that same look of determination coming over her young, bright eyes. And I wonder, is it right to tell her? But how long could I keep up the lie?

So, here it is, my ode to the holiday. Enjoy.

I celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving.

This may surprise those people who wonder what Native Americans think of this official U.S. celebration of the survival of early arrivals in a European invasion that culminated in the death of 10 to 30 million native people.

Thanksgiving to me has never been about Pilgrims. When I was six, my mother, a woman of the Dineh nation, told my sister and me not to sing "Land of the Pilgrim's pride" in "America the Beautiful." Our people, she said, had been here much longer and taken much better care of the land. We were to sing "Land of the Indian's pride" instead.

I was proud to sing the new lyrics in school, but I sang softly. It was enough for me to know the difference. At six, I felt I had learned something very important. As a child of a Native American family, you are part of a very select group of survivors, and I learned that my family possessed some "inside" knowledge of what really happened when those poor, tired masses came to our homes.

When the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock, they were poor and hungry -- half of them died within a few months from disease and hunger. When Squanto, a Wampanoag man, found them, they were in a pitiful state. He spoke English, having traveled to Europe, and took pity on them. Their English crops had failed. The native people fed them through the winter and taught them how to grow their food.

These were not merely "friendly Indians." They had already experienced European slave traders raiding their villages for a hundred years or so, and they were wary -- but it was their way to give freely to those who had nothing. Among many of our peoples, showing that you can give without holding back is the way to earn respect. Among the Dakota, my father's people, they say, when asked to give, "Are we not Dakota and alive?" It was believed that by giving there would be enough for all -- the exact opposite of the system we live in now, which is based on selling, not giving.

To the Pilgrims, and most English and European peoples, the Wampanoags were heathens, and of the Devil. They saw Squanto not as an equal but as an instrument of their God to help his chosen people, themselves.

Since that initial sharing, Native American food has spread around the world. Nearly 70 percent of all crops grown today were originally cultivated by Native American peoples. I sometimes wonder what they ate in Europe before they met us. Spaghetti without tomatoes? Meat and potatoes without potatoes? And at the "first Thanksgiving" the Wampanoags provided most of the food -- and signed a treaty granting Pilgrims the right to the land at Plymouth, the real reason for the first Thanksgiving.

What did the Europeans give in return? Within 20 years European disease and treachery had decimated the Wampanoags. Most diseases then came from animals that Europeans had domesticated. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, one of the great killers of our people, spread through gifts of blankets used by infected Europeans. Some estimate that diseases accounted for a death toll reaching 90 percent in some Native American communities. By 1623, Mather the elder, a Puritan leader, was giving thanks to his God for destroying the heathen savages to make way "for a better growth," meaning his people.

In stories told by the Dakota people, an evil person always keeps his or her heart in a secret place separate from the body. The hero must find that secret place and destroy the heart in order to stop the evil.

I see, in the "First Thanksgiving" story, a hidden Pilgrim heart. The story of that heart is the real tale than needs to be told. What did it hold? Bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness? We have seen the evil that it caused in the 350 years since. Genocide, environmental devastation, poverty, world wars, racism.

Where is the hero who will destroy that heart of evil? I believe it must be each of us. Indeed, when I give thanks this Thursday and I cook my native food, I will be thinking of this hidden heart and how my ancestors survived the evil it caused.

Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle.

And the healing can begin.

Bush stance on al-Qaida suspects is morally wrong, says Colin Powell

2006-09-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

Well, this made the front page of even The Oregonian today. Finally, Powell is speaking out. I hope he does more of that if he has any integrity at all. It was disappointing to see him kowtowing to the Bush Administration line on Iraq. One sensed (and later read) that as a seasoned soldier he knew better. Of course, it brings up the oft repeated line about good people doing nothing.

He should listen to another soldier Lt. Watada and rethink his past loyalties and use what is left of his reputation to truly defend the people of this country.

Remembering Anne Mae and the Terrible Price of a Movement

2006-09-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

Indian Country Today had this interview with John Trudell about the death of Anne Mae Aquash, a young, idealistic Micmac woman from Nova Scotia who came to the Pine Ridge reservation in the 1970's to help the people and was murdered. It is believed that she was murdered for being "jacketed" by the FBI as an informant. In other words, they painted this big-hearted woman and mother as an informant in order to protect their real informant which led to her death at the hands of the people she tried to help.

I still remember as a young girl in Denver at the Indian Center when they did a dance for her and everyone stood up and honored her memory. They also did that for all the Wounded Knee participants. Her death and the decline of AIM and the movement for human rights for all indigenous people has always been linked in my heart since then. She is in our movement history canon of saints. Of people who tried to make a difference. I will always honor her spirit in my heart as I look at the pictures of her always young face full of purpose and meaning and hope. Aren't these the sort of people we should be trying to grow? Like beautiful grass that grows long like the hair on our mother's head. So Anna Mae is reborn from the land where she last laid her head every spring on the Great Plains. In those endless fields of tall sweet grass waving, filling the air with sweetness, reminding us that life is meant for so much more. And it is sweet.

"Theory of the planted operative: 'A jacket was created for Annie Mae'
Part two
Editors' note: In a running conversation with Indian Country Today's Senior Editor Jose Barreiro, John Trudell seeks to address lingering issues in the dissolution of the early American Indian Movement leadership and to comment on the case of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, the Micmac activist murdered in South Dakota during the winter of 1975 - '76. Part two of the series covers Trudell's perspective on the issues of violence in the activist movement. The renowned poet-apostle of Indian activism proposes his theory of a government operative deeply embedded to discredit the movement, during a time of rogue government infiltration programs that sometimes stimulated violence in social and political organizing. Trudell discussed the shootout at Oglala, S.D., in 1975 that resulted in the deaths of one Indian activist and two FBI agents, and other incidents from those tempestuous times. Next week, Trudell addresses his own shift from direct political activities to musical poetics of stage and film."

Gloria Steinem Forming All-Female Talk Radio Network

2006-09-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

Cheers! Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda are helping to launch GreenStone Media, an all-female, all-talk radio network. Finally, some one to take on The View. Can't wait to hear what the shows will cover. Here's a link to the New York Times Sunday magazine interview with her this past Sunday. It's nice to hear someone so refreshingly direct. Here she is answering the first ridiculous question lobbed by Deborah Solomon to the tune of "Why, in this day and age, do women need a radio show?"

The radio has become overbalanced toward the ultraright. AM talk radio does not reflect the fact that only 30 percent of the country, at the most, is anywhere near Rush Limbaugh.

But women, too, can be noisy right-wingers. Look at Ann Coulter.

If you create a movement, you create jobs and profits for someone to sell it out. That's true of Phyllis Schlafly. It's true of Ann Coulter; with both of them, I couldn't invent a better adversary.

Who do you see as an ally? What about Hillary Clinton?

I disagree with her very much on the war. I feel otherwise she's good on issues. But the war is huge.

Is Condoleezza Rice an ally of women?

I wish someone would write an article called 'How Did Condoleezza Rice Get That Way?' She's so separate from the welfare of the majority of Americans and especially the female and African-American communities to which she belongs."

I must admit, I've asked myself that very question about Condi many a time. Never really heard it articulated in the mass media, though. I'd have to disagree with Gloria on one item, Ann Coulter is not a worthy adversary for Steinem. She is propped up by the media and given every advantage in pushing her venom at the American people. As shown on Hannity Colmes as featured in Truthdig.

When conservative hate mistress Ann Coulter told two Democratic strategists on Fox News that Afghanistan was “going swimmingly,” they went to town on her, and Coulter cut her interview short.

And the same scene as recounted by Crooks and Liars:

Whenever Ann is faced with the reality that Osama hasn’t been caught yet by this administration–well–Poor Ann. Kirsten Powers actually responds to Coulter’s ridiculous line that Afghanistan is going swimmingly and brings up the fact that Osama is still alive and well. Coulter then plays her usual Clinton card and freaks. "Sean, help me–Sean, where are you? Sean, these mean people are talking…I can’t get my 10,000 words of Liberal hate speech in…I’m melting." Michael Brown didn’t mind that Hannity talked over him during the segment..

Watch the video here: Crooks and Liars - Ann Coulter gets her freak on.

Labor Day & U. Utah Phillips

2006-09-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

I wanted to do a post honoring our Labor history. I got my first clue of what that past was like when I was given a tape of some labor union songs by my friend Jane Blume's husband, Phil. The songs "Joe Hill" and "Pie in the Sky" with lyrics like "don't mourn-- organize!"-- and "Work all day, live on hay, you'll get pie in the sky when you die-- now, that's a lie," opened my eyes to a past of workers who gave everything, their lives, their bodies to fight for better working conditions in this country. Things that we take for granted, the eight-hour day, the forty-hour work week, even weekends were fought for, not given by the powers that be.

This "American way" was fought for by immigrants, men and women, who faced off policemen with billy clubs, deportation and imprisonment and violent death. The Blumes didn't have to tell me any history, because it was all right there in the songs. That's why I recommend this Labor Day to take some time from hitting the sales, or the bbq and go out and buy this album, Fellow Workers featuring the storytelling and songs of the labor movement and sung by U. Utah Phillips and Ani DiFranco. I was fortunate to get to know and listen to the stories of U. Utah Phillips when I lived in Nevada City, California, where he lives. It was an amazing education about our history.

In a review by Blogcritics.org, reviewer Richard Marcus says:

They are the stories of the men and women who fought for the right to work only eight hours a day, for safe working conditions, and for the dignity of working men and women across the United States. From the textile mills of Laurence Maine to the lumber camps of Spokane Washington the strikes and personal stories are recounted with reverence and dignity.

He tells us of Mother Jones, who at 83 was named the most dangerous woman in America by Teddy Roosevelt. She spent her whole life agitating for a better life for the miners of Kentucky and all the other coal producing states. We hear how when the Governor of Colorado sent out the militia to disburse the miners she went out on her own to face them down and won.

We learn about the young women who were sold into near slavery in the textile mills of Laurence; girls shipped over from France and the low countries in Europe who could speak no English and who were wedded to the looms. How that during an awful strike they had to send their children away to homes as far off as New York to ensure that they would be fed. That during the walk to the train station they were attacked by the militia in an attempt to break their spirit.

We are told of the attempts to silence Union organizers in the logging camps out in Washington by passing ordinances prohibiting public speaking. And how in response the unions gathered all the workers and lined them up for blocks and each one would climb up a soap box and start to speak only to be arrested. The cost of feeding four thousand workers proved too great so they had to rescind the law.

Utah's story telling is magnificent, his enthusiasm for the subject matter combined with an imposing gift for narrative make this collection both entertainment and an education. At times the musical accompaniment is appropriate, during the occasional song for instance("Pie In The Sky" is a hilarious send up of "The Sweet Bye and Bye" and the version on this c.d. is particularly good) but I'd have preferred they had left Utah's stories to stand on their own.

Although, Loafer's Glory, his old radio show on KVMR, the local community radio station in Nevada City is no more-- it lost it's sponsorship, you can order copies of his tapes from his website.

Here is an excerpt from a recent interview with Unlikely 2.0 in 2005:

"GR: Anyone familiar with your work is aware of the wealth of knowledge you possesses about the history of this country. The stuff that isn't taught in any high school textbook. What compelled you to seek out this information, collect it, and share it with other people?
UP: The world that I inhabit, the one that I have created for myself, is built out of speakers and listeners. I'm more comfortable in that world. I learn more easily from sitting in front of somebody and asking them questions and listening to what their answers than I do from books. I respect books. I have many of them around me. But I keep them in their place. The people that I've sought out lived extraordinary lives that just can't be lived again. And most of my great teachers were born in the century before last. I met many of them when they were my age now, seventy. Those were the immigrant workers, the industrial workers. They were the people working down at the bottom, in the forest, in the mines, in the wheat harvest. Old Jack Miller, who ran the Citizen's Center up in Seattle, Washington, once said, 'When we started in the forest, we spoke two different languages, and most of us had never been to school, and we couldn't read or write. We lived in our emotions, and we were comfortable there. We made decisions in our lives for which there is no language. We made commitments to change, to struggle for which there are no words. But those commitments carried us through fifty or sixty years of struggle. You show me people who make the same commitments intellectually, and I don't know where they'll be next week.' And then he added to that hardest of all things, he said that, 'We, speaking all those languages, hardly speak to each other. Armed only with our degradation as human beings, we came together and changed the conditions of our labor and the conditions of our lives. You young people, with all you've got, why can't you do that?' Now, that's a very serious charge to lay at our feet."

In Navajo country, racism rides again

2006-09-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

I was surprised to see this article as the lead piece on Salon.com. It was nice to see a Navajo face in a fairly white on-line publication. The story however was not so great. Apparently, in Farmington, the "Selma, Ala. of the Southwest" more hate crimes against Navajos are occuring.

This all started with a beating in Farmington in June. A 47-year-old Navajo man who was offered a ride by three white teenagers in Farmington was driven to the outskirts of town, beaten with a stick and punched and kicked. He said they used racial slurs as they pummeled him.

The beating reminded everyone of the 1970s, the heyday of "Injun rollin'," where white youths in the border towns beat up Navajos (usually sleeping alcoholics they could easily "roll" around) as a rite of passage. In April 1974, when three white Farmington youths tortured, mutilated and bludgeoned three Navajo men, tossing their burned and broken bodies into a canyon, the Navajo Nation organized weeks of peaceful protests in Farmington. When marchers were denied a permit the day after the murderers were sentenced to reform school, clashes with police led to dozens of arrests.

The June beating could hardly compare to the torture murders of years ago. But six days after the beating, a 21-year-old Navajo man was killed by a police officer responding to a call about a domestic dispute at a Wal-Mart parking lot. When Farmington police declared the shooting a justifiable homicide and the FBI declined to investigate -- the agency is now reconsidering its decision -- Navajo leaders announced they would set aside $300,000 for the man's family to file a wrongful death suit against Farmington, and for an investigation of border-town racism.

Whether or not things will change or not is unknown. Navajos are planning more peaceful protest led by Shiprock Chapter President Duane "Chili" Yazzie, who lost his right arm to racist violence. He picked up a white hitchhiker in 1978 who shot off his arm and then got only five years in prison for it.

Since the latest incidents, white leaders in Farmington, a plain little city (population 40,000) that is 63 percent white, 17 percent Native American and 17 percent Hispanic, have repeatedly denied that Navajos are singled out. They've also pointed out that the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, in a 2005 report examining Farmington 30 years after the torture murders, noted marked improvements in attitudes toward the Navajo.

But that report also concluded that major challenges remain. This summer's incidents are the latest in a long string of border-town attacks on Navajos since the infamous murders. To name a few, in 2001, a 16-year-old Navajo youth was murdered in Colorado by a Farmington man in what police called either a gay hate crime or an Indian hate crime, or both. In 2000, a 36-year-old Navajo woman, Betty Lee, was bludgeoned to death by two Farmington men who were also charged with killing a Navajo man. One of the suspects, Robert Fry (now on death row for Lee's murder), remains a suspect in at least three other brutal Navajo murders and has been implicated in the disappearance of a tribal man.

Navajos keep disappearing, tribal members say. The tribe does not have the numbers, but organizers of the peace walk are hoping relatives of the missing will come out so that they could be counted. Many people here believe that the missing must be victims of Indian rolling whose bodies are somewhere in the vast canyons of the desert, yet -- or never -- to be found.

Fire Thunder Running For President Again

2006-08-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

Tom Giago, founder of Indian Country Today wrote a strong response to the present situation on the Pine Ridge Reservation where the tribal president was impeached for taking a stand against the state of South Dakota's new strigent anti-abortion law. He is himself an Oglala tribal member.

"Hopefully some candidates fed up with the hypocrisy and lethargy of the present tribal council will prevail and bring some semblance of order back to a once proud tribal council. At a time when the Lakota people of the Oglala Sioux Tribe needed, nay demanded, strong, honest and decent leadership, this council became so enamored of its own power that it threw out all of the rules of good conduct and sank into a mud puddle of indecision and a viciousness unseen since the 1970s.

By first suspending and then impeaching the first woman ever elected to serve as President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Cecilia Fire Thunder, and doing these dirty deeds while she was not even present or was never given the opportunity to face her accusers, this tribal council has brought great shame upon itself and tarnished those members of this same council that did not go along with its shameful acts of self-indulgence.

The list of presidential candidates includes a few members of this disgraced council apparently hoping to win the presidency in order to carry on their chicanery on a higher level. "

He goes on to note that Cecelia Fire Thunder, knowing that she will not get a fair hearing about the legality of the impeachment proceedings is concentrating her efforts on getting re-elected. It is a shame that she has not been allowed to represent the people who elected her as president due to the machinations of the council. "Shameful acts of self-indulgence?" I could think of stronger words . . .

And one wonders, if the democratically-elected leader of a nation could be so easily sidelined, how strong is the democratic process? I mean, Clinton endured impeachment proceedings, but they were not done behind his back and with no recourse through the courts. And his presidency was not put into deep freeze until the next election. The Republicans tried to subvert the electoral process, but failed. Now they focus on fixing the elections through tampering with Diabold electronic voting machines. Will Peters and his crew won't have to do that, since the Oglala tribal democratic system is heavily weighted in their favor. And the similarity of their tactics to that of the neoconservative Republicans is striking as they have received so much support from the religious right in their anti-abortion/pro-life stance.

The judicial committee is made up of council members who initiated impeachment proceedings against her. They have yet to appoint a tribal judge for her case and it seems, will not before the elections in November. There are only two judges on the Oglala reservation and one has already recused herself from the case. So, the appointment should be obvious, but has not been done. The conflict of interest of some of the judicial committee members calls into question the undue influence of the council on the tribal courts.

Now, acting tribal president and presidential candidate Alex White Plume, a traditionalist, has proposed a law that would forbid members of the tribe from running for president who do not speak their language. His take on the tug of war between the council and the president that landed him in the presidency is as follows:

I know. I came to a realization that we created all these problems by using the English language because that's the general rule of thumb; now we are trying to solve the problems using the same language, and it's not working. So my feelings have to use a different language to solve those problems, this is the only way this can happen.

Someone tell White Plume (someone fluent in Lakota) that corruption and the venality of politicians is the same in any language. So how will they enforce the rule? Not many fluent in Lakota anymore-- how to explain the disenfranchisement of such a large number of Oglala? There are about 18,000 Oglala, 3,000 self-identified as Lakota-speaking. In the entire hemisphere there are only 14,000 Lakota speakers (that's including Canada). In a previous post I noted that the latest census numbers for Sioux was 120,000 (not including Canada, but including Nakota and Dakota). In Pine Ridge, that leaves about 16 per cent of the population to rule the rest. Probably less than that since the number is self-reported and of various abilities. Who knows how many would pass a Lakota fluency test if required for the Presidency?

I'm all for learning the language. I've actually made more headway learning Nakota than Navajo, but the price the tribe would pay in a dearth of qualified candidates makes the trade-off unreasonable. Or is White Plume using a cultural issue that should unify the people to divide the electorate and eliminate the competition? If so, it is a politically clumsy move and solves nothing. Take for example the Navajo tribe, which has had president after president who speaks Navajo fluently. I have not seen one that seems uniquely gifted to deal with the issues at hand. If it were not for the political necessity to give speeches in Navajo (most of the elderly electorate does not speak English and they vote at very high rates), I don't know if it would be absolutely necessary. I mean it's preferable, but good leadership is a combination of many things. Mainly the ability to form coalitions, a working governmental structure, the power to negotiate relationships with foreign entities, economic policy planning, management of social services and education, planning and, of course, "the vision thing". If a Lakota speaker shows signs of being a particularly promising leader people will notice. It doesn't matter if non-Lakota speaking Oglala are running against her.

In a perfect world, all Oglala would speak Lakota, but today, here and now, I think the Oglala people need the very best leadership and need to spread the net as wide as they can to find those leaders. Even 18,000 is not a lot to choose from. And that may require considering some off reservation-raised, non-Lakota speaking Oglala. I mean, you can learn a language, but the qualities that make a great leader are nebulous and rare-- as history has shown us over and over again. I suppose a lot of Lakota male traditionalists cloaked in the superiority of their purity are probably choking on their tunspina, oh, I mean tunspila right now.

Anyway, the problem in Pine Ridge at hand is not language. Language is something we can agree upon. The problem is a crisis in ethics and civil rights. I think White Plume's analysis of the situation is frighteningly flawed. Strengthen the separation of powers and a recommitment to civil rights and law. These are the answers in any language.

In his article entitled "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" Giago goes on to say,

Former Principle Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Wilma Mankiller, told Fire Thunder two weeks ago to forget trying to get a fair hearing from the present tribal council and judiciary, but instead to concentrate on her efforts to get re-elected. I agree. There is an old saying that is senseless to kick a dead horse and that is where Fire Thunder’s efforts to get re-instated now rest. With only two months left to campaign it will take all of her will power and persuasion to re-enforce minds and to clear her good name.

Every member of the tribe who cast ballots for the current members of the tribal council should re-examine the reasons they supported those candidates. They should be asking themselves the following question: What did those people now serving on the tribal council accomplish for them and their districts in the past two years? And more important, what did they accomplish for the good of the Oglala Sioux Tribe?

If this sounds like I am supporting any single candidate it is not intended that way. I am a strong believer in justice and the way this council used its power to defraud the legal president of the OST, Ms. Fire Thunder, draws my ire. She did nothing that was deserving of this harsh and unfair treatment. As I said in a previous column, she was punished for her thoughts instead of her deeds.

But if every member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe would take an open-minded look at the things she did accomplish while under siege, I think they would be sufficiently impressed to re-consider her position as president.

I agree!

Watada Speech

2006-08-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

This is an excerpt from a speech given by Lt. Watada at the Veterans For Peace National Convention last month. Watada is facing a court martial for refusing to serve in Iraq and for speaking out politically. Yes, you can face court martial for making political statements-- he is facing five counts on that alone. As he gave this speech 50 members of Iraq Veterans Against the War stood behind him giving their support.

"Though the American soldier wants to do right, the illegitimacy of the occupation itself, the policies of this administration, and rules of engagement of desperate field commanders will ultimately force them to be party to war crimes. They must know some of these facts, if not all, in order to act.

Mark Twain once remarked, 'Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country.' By this, each and every American soldier, marine, airman, and sailor is responsible for their choices and their actions. The freedom to choose is only one that we can deny ourselves.

The oath we take swears allegiance not to one man but to a document of principles and laws designed to protect the people. Enlisting in the military does not relinquish one's right to seek the truth - neither does it excuse one from rational thought nor the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. 'I was only following orders' is never an excuse.

The Nuremburg Trials showed America and the world that citizenry as well as soldiers have the unrelinquishable obligation to refuse complicity in war crimes perpetrated by their government. Widespread torture and inhumane treatment of detainees is a war crime. A war of aggression born through an unofficial policy of prevention is a crime against the peace. An occupation violating the very essence of international humanitarian law and sovereignty is a crime against humanity. These crimes are funded by our tax dollars.

Should citizens choose to remain silent through self-imposed ignorance or choice, it makes them as culpable as the soldier in these crimes. The Constitution is no mere document - neither is it old, out-dated, or irrelevant. It is the embodiment of all that Americans hold dear: truth, justice, and equality for all. It is the formula for a government of the people and by the people. It is a government that is transparent and accountable to whom they serve. It dictates a system of checks and balances and separation of powers to prevent the evil that is tyranny."

To read the rest of his speech check out the article. He also notes the Catch-22 situation defined by the modern army's strict military obedience:

The American soldier is not a mercenary. He or she does not simply fight wars for payment. Indeed, the state of the American soldier is worse than that of a mercenary. For a soldier-for-hire can walk away if they are disgusted by their employer's actions. Instead, especially when it comes to war, American soldiers become indentured servants whether they volunteer out of patriotism or are drafted through economic desperation. Does it matter what the soldier believes is morally right? If this is a war of necessity, why force men and women to fight? When it comes to a war of ideology, the lines between right and wrong are blurred. How tragic it is when the term Catch-22 defines the modern American military.

I had quoted my ancestor Chief White Swan in a previous post who had noted that the servitude of the soldier is very different from the freedom to choose that a warrior in our tribe had. He gave a speech to a General (whom he called a "monster") saying that our warriors could leave the field of battle if they chose and others would say, "Maybe he will be braver next time." If a U.S. soldier fled his superiors would have him shot. Meanwhile, the officers sat on the fastest horses on a hill, watching the battle through a spyglass. He was basically describing a form of servitude that was alien and in his mind, wrong. How can one be a warrior if one is in the end, a soldier? There is in American society the desire to limit choice, to enforce loyalties and to impose strict hierarchies that is very feudal in nature. I call it a "serf mentality". Hard to shake, that.

If you would like to support Lt. Watada, please check out the website:
Thank You Lt. Ehren Watada

He needs all the support you can give. Even Sen. Inouye, a long-time supporter of Native issues, has recommended that Watada be court-martialed. Watada's father will be touring Oregon raising support for his son and money for his defense. Here are his speaking dates:

Eugene, Oregon - Tuesday, August 29, Noon - Rally at the Federal Building, 7th and Pearl Streets.
Eugene, Oregon - Tuesday, August 29, 7PM - Event at First United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive Street.
Salem, Oregon - Wednesday, August 30 - Meet Bob at the Lt. Watada/peace both at the Oregon State Fair (near the enterance).

Jimmy Carter Calls Out Blair

2006-08-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

I saw this article this weekend in the British press. Carter takes Blair to task.

"I have been surprised and extremely disappointed by Tony Blair's behaviour," he told The Sunday Telegraph.

"I think that more than any other person in the world the Prime Minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington - and he has not. I really thought that Tony Blair, who I know personally to some degree, would be a constraint on President Bush's policies towards Iraq."

He's probably right about that. I've never understood the Labor Party leader's (sort of the British version of the Dems) standing by Bush all these years. To the point of being labeled "Bush's poodle" in the press. The only way I can understand his support of Bush's illegal pre-emptive war on Iraq is that the United Kingdom has had a long time interest in the area, since before WW1. I mean, remember Lawrence of Arabia? They've been wanting that oil for a good, long time and probably don't want to lose out now to the Yanks. They gambled their empire on their Mid-East policy and well, lost their empire. So, now that the area is up for grabs again and they want a piece of it. I'm sure Blaire's financial backers made that perfectly clear to him.

At 81, Mr Carter - the 39th American president, from 1977 to 1981, and the winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize - plainly has no intention of sitting on his porch and nodding quietly away as the sun goes down over his peanut farm. He has just published a book, Faith and Freedom, in which he savages the American administration for leading the country into insularity and intolerance.

"We've never before had an administration that would endorse pre-emptive war - that is a basic policy of going to war against another country even though our own security was not directly threatened," he said. In his book, President Carter writes: "I have been sorely tempted to launch a military attack on foreigners."

But had he still been president, he says that he would never have considered invading Iraq in 2003.

"No," he said, "I would never have ordered it. However, I wouldn't have excluded going into Afghanistan, because I think we had to strike at al-Qaeda and its leadership. But then, to a major degree, we abandoned the anti-terrorist effort and went almost unilaterally with Great Britain into Iraq."

This, Mr Carter believes, subverted the effectiveness of anti-terrorist efforts. Far from achieving peace and stability, the result has been a disaster on all fronts. "My own personal opinion is that the Iraqi people are not better off as a result of the invasion and people in America and Great Britain are not safer."

I'm glad he's speaking up. I wonder what the fallout will be? The right-wing seem to think they have so discredited Carter as a person that there will be none. Carter may be Christian, Southern, white, and well-heeled Greatest Generationite, but he does not speak to their base and that is the only way they would view him as a threat. Hopefully, he represents a large segment of the Christian moderates who are finally getting outraged enough by the excesses of the religious right to get organized to reclaim their religion and our political system from the neoconservative agenda. Remember what a big help they were and what a force of positive change when they joined the Civil Rights movement. Even for the American Indian Movement, it was the National Council of Churches that helped pay the legal fees of many AIM leaders. Now, religious right groups fund Lakota traditionalists to pass anti-abortion laws and remove female leaders from power.

War Widow To Bush: "You're Here To Serve The People. And The People Are Not Being Served With This War."

2006-08-26T15:29:00.000-07:00

I just saw this at TPMCafe by Greg Sargent:

I just got off the phone with Hildi Halley, a woman from Maine whose husband is a fallen soldier. Yesterday President Bush met with her privately, and news of their meeting was reported in a local Maine paper, the Kennebec Journal. The paper shared few details of the meeting, saying simply that Halley objected to Bush's policies and that she said Bush responded that there was no point in them having a 'philosophical discussion about the pros and cons of the war.'

But Halley has just given me a much more detailed account of her meeting with Bush. She told me that she went much farther in her criticism of the President, telling him directly that he was 'responsible' for the deaths of American soldiers and that as a 'Christian man,' he should recognize that he's 'made a mistake' and that it was his 'responsibility to end this.' She recounted to me that she was 'very direct,' telling Bush: 'As President, you're here to serve the people. And the people are not being served with this war.'

Sargent goes on to say that she was actually sitting knee to knee with Bush and he actually cried with her and appeared moved. Although Halley says, "I feel he responded to me emotionally. I don't know if that's going to change policy."

The Top 10 Corporate Democrats-For-Hire

2006-08-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

AlterNet has this article by Russ Baker who founded the The Real News Project. A great website I highly recommend checking it out. It is a "non-profit, noncommercial investigative reporting outfit." He gives a great take on the Lieberman loss, one that the press has ignored:

The media like a simple story line -- and Joe Lieberman's defeat in the Connecticut Senate primary fits the bill: Pro-war senator goes down. Anti-war progressives ascendant, Republicans gleeful, and so forth. But Lieberman is more than an ally in the Bush administration's dissembling on Iraq. He is yet another example of someone who came to Washington as a purported idealist and turned into a creature of the capital's big-money culture. Lieberman's loss is a loss for Cheney and Rumsfeld to be sure, but it's also a loss for an army of sleazy political operatives and consultants.

While Lieberman is best known outside of Washington for his neocon views, he's famous in the capital for his undying support for corporate causes. There are countless examples: Remember Lieberman's role in blocking the reforms of stock option accounting that former SEC chair Arthur Levitt was trying to enact? This was a question of honest accounting that became part and parcel of the corporate corruption scandals of recent years, and Lieberman was a champion of the wrong side.

Beyond that, Lieberman happily has done the bidding of the pharmaceutical companies, the insurance companies and many others, thus establishing an unsavory underside to his more admirable record on environmental and other issues. And of course, his support of and continued rationalization of the Iraq invasion, like many of Lieberman's other stances, has served chiefly to benefit large corporations, in this case the "national security/homeland defense" industry that got a huge boost from Bush's reckless military adventurism. It's no great surprise to learn that Karl Rove called Lieberman the other day after his loss, and described him as a "friend."

Lieberman and his defenders have tried to portray his brand of politics as "centrism." But it has little to do with mainstream voters and much to do with the money culture of Washington of which many Democrats have become a part. And yet, Ralph Nader is wrong in his blanket condemnations of Democrats: You still are more likely to find someone willing to stand up to the big money boys among Democrats than Republicans. But the gap is narrowing. Voters sense it.

There is more at the website. It's a sad picture, but knowledge is power. It is why the Democratic Party never seems to take a stand and never live up to its obligations as the "loyal opposition".

Lovejoy picks Phelps; VP candidates introduced

2006-08-23T08:32:00.000-07:00

In the Gallup Independent they reported that Lynda Lovejoy, the first Navajo woman to run for the Presidency has picked her running mate, Walter Phelps, a member of Congressman Rick Renzi's staff. The congressman's district in Arizona has the largest number of Native American voters of any district in the country. Renzi has shown a desire to work with tribes by opening Congressional offices in the capitals of the Navajo Nation, White Moutain Apache, and San Carlos Apache Reservations. A first for a Congressman from this district.

I checked out Lovejoy's website. It's pretty simple. Can anyone out there help her develop a better one? She deserves something more than this!