John Redhouse: Hate crimes and uranium mining

John Redhouse: Hate crimes and uranium mining 

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

 http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/ 

When longtime Navajo activist John Redhouse speaks of the hate crimes against American Indians in northwest New Mexico, he knows what he is talking about. He has lived it. Redhouse, who has lived with the racism in the Navajo bordertown of Farmington, N.M., writes about the recent hate crimes by non-Indians against homeless Indians in Grants. 

Redhouse said the recent racially motivated beatings began after Mount Taylor was designated as a Traditional Cultural Property. As Native Americans prepare for the Indigenous Uranium Forum at Sky City on Acoma Pueblo to battle new uranium mining in Indian country, Oct. 22-24, Redhouse points out that the new wave of hate crimes in the Uranium Belt of Grants, west of Albuquerque, is not the first. "

As an old civil rights activist and veteran of the bordertown wars in Gallup and Farmington in the early 1970s, I don't think these beatings are an isolated incident. I think they are directly related to a non-Indian backlash against the TCP designation and what it means in terms of protecting and defending our sacred mountain from more uranium mining and milling," Redhouse said. 

When Redhouse was on the New Mexico State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in the late 1970s, the Commission made a similar connection with the rise of anti-Indian groups in Grants and northwestern New Mexico and growing Indian resistance. At that time, leading the resistance in the Grants Mineral Belt were the American Indian Environmental Council, First Mount Taylor Gathering and Mt. Taylor Alliance.

Now, American Indians are taking action to halt more uranium mining and destruction to their sacred mountains and homelands. The Ninth Circuit Court first took action to protect sacred San Francisco Peaks from snowmaking from sewage water for tourists, then the Ninth Circuit reversed its decision, allowing the defilement of the places and plants used by medicine people of at least thirteen Indian Nations for ceremonies. At the same time, Navajo, Pueblo, Ute, Hopi, Hualapai, Havasupai, Yavapai and Apache, in this region of northern Arizona and New Mexico, are beaten and killed in hate crimes. Redhouse remembers Clint John, Navajo, shot and killed by a Farmington police officer in a Wal-Mart parking lot in 2006. Farmington police officer Shawn Scott was exonerated by the police department and found not guilty of using excessive force in court. Redhouse said it is time for action. "

And now in light of the recent outcomes of the Clint John and San Francisco Peaks cases, I think we need to put these recent anti-Indian developments in context and start a regional intertribal movement to deal with all this shit because it is getting more violent and deadly as we are still fighting the continuing Indian Wars as we have since 1492." "We need another Pueblo Revolt, a Navajo revolt, a general uprising among our people and nations." Redhouse's words are more in demand now than ever. Within minutes of Redhouse's comments appearing online, other Navajos responded.

Navajo filmmaker Arlene Bowman questioned why other media are not covering the issues on Censored News. Bahe Katenay of Big Mountain, publisher of Sheep Dog Nation Rocks, said it was good to hear from his friend John Redhouse. "It is so nice and uplifting to hear from John. He may call himself an 'old activist' but only if we, the current indigenous movements, can truly rely on 'old' wise activism, we can all be so empowered.

Yes, Viva Pueblo / Dineh Revolt! Hokahey! Thanks." Redhouse wrote back, "Bahe, Roberta Blackgoat, and other youth and grandmother warriors were at the First Mount Taylor Gathering. They walked all the way from Big Mountain." Read more by John Redhouse at http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/10/john-redhouse-hate-crimes-against.html Sheep Dog Nation Rocks: http://www.sheepdognationrocks.blogspot.com/

Yaqui, Peace and Dignity Run

Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras (Indigenous Alliance without Borders) strongly supports the efforts and event of our Yaqui Youth!! Join them in this effort -- Jose Matus

HIAKI HIGH SCHOOL PEACE AND DIGNITY UNITY RUN
Agenda
October 12, 2009
9:00-9:15 Hiaki HS students arrive at school
Visiting Groups please meet at the Dirt Field at 9:15
9:15-9:30 Depart from school to dirt field (students will walk to field)
9:30-10:00 Opening Prayers
10:00-10:30 Peace and Dignity Run Begins- Walk as a group from dirt field to Camino Benem
10:30-12:00 Runners will start the running route there are 19 drop off and pick up stops.
Runners will dropped off at designated stops and picked up again and dropped off throughout the run. Vans will be provided and water at designated route for runners.
…Group walkers will continue their walk to Language and Culture Department where they will take a water break and continue walking on Benem to Los Reales. The walkers will wait for runners at Los Reales and Benem where they will join together to finish the run by walking passing through Tribal Administration and ending at Hiaki HS.
12:00-12:30 Closing circle of Peace and Dignity Unity Run. All participants will participate in a talking circle and express their feeling of the run.
12:30-2:30 Lunch break and Cultural presentations to perform their spiritual dances of blessings.
The run will be 3.33 miles the walk will be significantly shorter, if you have any questions please feel free to call 883-5051.

Click image of map to enlarge.

Deconstructing borders with a cello bow and a smile

By No More Deaths

TUCSON -- No More Deaths has recently entered into a very exciting collaborative project with avant-guard musician Glenn Weyant. Weyant plays border security infrastructure as string and percussion instruments in an effort to transform this divisive structure. He has recorded his border soundscapes and will produce a 2-disc set to benefit No More Deaths! You can learn more about this intriguing effort and receive fun goodies by participating in our effort to support the border humanitarian work of No More Deaths.
"In 2006, I (Glenn Weyant) set out to play the U.S./Mexico border wall with a cello bow and implements of mass percussion.
"At the time my intentions were simple: To transform this symbol of fear and loathing into an instrument capable of promoting unity, dialogue and compassion through sound and performance.
I called this work The Anta Project."
Read more:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1106560155/deconstructing-borders-with-a-cello-bow-and-a-smil
Thank you,
No More Deaths

IEN Power Shift, North Dakota

Indigenous Environmental Network
Northern Plains Power Shift!
WHERE: Fargo, North Dakota
WHEN: October 23-25, 2009
Hello Everyone! On behalf of the Energy Action Coalition the Indigenous Environmental Network would like to invite you to the Northern Plains Regional Power Shift! Join us October 23-25th in Fargo, North Dakota to take part in the regions biggest youth event on climate change of the year! Youth around the country are taking action on climate change and you can too! Take a look at what youth across the country and around the world are saying:
WE WILL REBUILD OUR ECONOMY AND RECLAIM OUR FUTURE
We can create millions of jobs that put Americans back to work.
We can repower America with 100% clean energy and end our dependence on dirty, polluting fossil fuels and nuclear power.
2009 IS OUR YEAR! This is the first year where both houses of Congress will consider climate and energy legislation. Young people catapulted into political power with a massive voter turnout in 2008, and now we need to use that same power to fight for the strongest legislation possible and rally to make our vision a reality.
BUILD THE POWER SHIFT MOVEMENT
For More Information and to Register Visit Us At:
www.northernplains.powershift09.org

Laugh out loud: James and Ernie

TODAY: Phoenix, Oct. 9, 2009, Click image to enlarge.

Rodriquez: Health, war-peace, hypocrisy and taxes

Column of the Americas
Health, War-Peace, Hypocrisy & Taxes
By Roberto Rodriguez

Over the past several months, conservatives seemingly made headway
convincing a good portion of the U.S. public that Congress may not be
able to produce a national health care plan that will not bust the
budget – something that president Barack Obama has promised not to
sign. And then came Afghanistan.

Conservatives almost had the nation convinced that despite the
laudable goal of improving the overall health of the nation, insuring
everyone is simply too costly. There’s no money to save lives, to
prolong life or to heal those who would otherwise die or live in
deteriorating health, but out of the blue, there will be money for
Afghanistan just as every year our brave and courageous political
leaders of both parties manage to find hundreds of billions for the
wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

So here’s the equation: Money to save lives? NO! Money to kill? YES!

As is well-known, in this recession and in this economy, the biggest
losers are the young because the similar equation is at work: No money
for education, but plenty of money for war and more war. Plenty of
money for bombs, but not books.

How did the values of this nation get this skewered? The truth is,
more than oil, the nation’s leaders are spiritually addicted to war.
Always have been, i.e. Providence, Manifest Destiny and Divine
Mission. However, war in this country has always also had its secular
counterpart – the idea of U.S. exceptionalism and its need to spread
"democracy." It has also always been aided by linguistic jujitsu: war
is actually peace. This is not a page from former president George W.
Bush warped lexicon. Truthfully, all of history’s despots have made
the same claim; the more war, the more peace. Thus the nation inherits
not simply an insatiable thirst for war, but a spiritual imprimatur to
go with it.

At the core of this ideology is dehumanization. As long as U.S. lives
are kept to a minimum, the nation’s leaders do not have to account for
the killing of hundreds of thousands of the “enemy.” The loss of life
is irrelevant – especially with the use of drone technology – as long
as leaders employ the use of phrases such as peace, democracy and
national security.

But dehumanization is old news. Back to the economic argument about
the nation being too broke to afford health care or it being a crime
to saddle the next generation with permanent debt because of Obama’s
intent to impose a government-run socialized and rationed health care
system.

As tempting as it is to call it Bush-logic or Bush-Math or the world
according to Bush-Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice, the truth is, we are now
long-past that era. Yet, under president Obama – and despite his Nobel
Peace Prize – we continue to live under the same nonsensical policies
that have brought us to the brink of bankruptcy. Worse, this
administration continues to support virtually all of the Bush-Cheney
war policies. This includes defending the unchecked right of the
executive to trample upon the Constitution – all under the guise of
national security and “keeping the nation safe.” This also includes
shirking from his Constitutional responsibilities in terms of holding
the former administration legally accountable for foisting upon the
world a clearly illegal war.

It defies logic how the nation’s political class manages to discuss
the war(s) and health care reform as though they were unrelated. The
actual price tag (more than a trillion dollars) on both wars has
already far exceeded the projected cost of the president’s health care
reform. That does not take into account all the added costs from the
tens of thousands of veterans who are returning with permanent
physical and psychological injuries that in many cases will require
lifetime medical care.

Beyond the moral and political arguments, it makes perfect economic
sense to stop both wars. It would be nice if the same politicians who
invoke economic arguments regarding the un-affordability of health
care reform used the same logic for fighting wars. Perhaps a fiscally
conservative Congressional bill is in order: the United States shall
not engage in war unless it is fully paid for; the United States shall
not engage in war if it contributes to the nation’s deficit.

Regardless of what the insurance and pharmaceutical industries have to
say in regards to health care reform, the majority of the U.S. public
still wants the Democrats to find their backbones. The majority will
now also hope [push] that president Obama use the moral power of his
Nobel to actually end both wars.

Rodriguez can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com