Petition for Clemency for Peltier

Current signers include
Russell Means, Noam Chomsky, Peter Matthiessen, James Messerschidt, Matt Rothschild (Progressive magazine), Jeffrey St. Clair/Alexander Cockburn (Counterpunch) and Eric Seitz
President Obama: Free Leonard Peltier
We, the undersigned, call on President Obama to extend immediate and unconditional clemency to Leonard Peltier, an American Indian Movement activist wrongfully imprisoned for more than 33 years. We call further for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission based on the South African model to investigate the respective roles of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the American Indian Movement in the violence that ravaged the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the 1970s, as well as examine the historical context in which the conflict occurred.1 Dozens of Native activists and Lakota traditionalists were murdered on the reservation between 1973 and 1976, most of them at the hands of death squads created by a corrupt tribal dictatorship with the complicity of the BIA and the FBI.2 The United States Senate's recent apology to Native Americans rings particularly hollow in light of Peltier's Aug. 20 federal parole denial, which the respected indigenous activist and artist views as tantamount to a death sentence. In light of the fact that Leonard Peltier has been the subject of government misconduct from the time of his extradition from Canada in1976 to the present-day suppression of FBI documents, has already served more time than the presumptive maximum federal sentence, and has an impeccable prison disciplinary record, his continued imprisonment is unjustifiable on any grounds3. By freeing Peltier and ordering the release of all documents related to the case, President Obama would send a strong message to Indian Country and the world that his administration is serious about fulfilling his campaign commitments to human rights and transparency.
Name_____________________________________

Organizational Affiliations/Occupation (for identification purposes)
________________________________________________________________________
Please sign and return to: 701-235-5045 (fax) or mail to: LPDOC
PO Box 7488
Fargo, ND 58106

Watch Power Paths tonight on PBS

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/power-paths/index.html

We need to create a way of life where a community is not forced to cannibalize their mother in order to live.”
—Winona LaDuke, Anishinaabe activist

POWER PATHS offers a unique glimpse into the global energy crisis from the perspective of a culture pledged to protect the planet, historically exploited by corporate interests and neglected by public policy makers.

The film follows an intertribal coalition as they fight to transform their local economies by replacing coal mines and smog-belching power plants with renewable energy technologies. This transition would honor their heritage and support future generations by protecting their sacred land, providing electricity to their homes and creating jobs for their communities.

Their story is a parable for our time, when the planet as a whole hungers for alternatives to fossil fuels. For environmental trailblazers, it’s proof that going green is not only possible—it’s the only choice we have.
The POWER PATHS story begins in the 1960s, when two massive coal mines open on Navajo and Hopi reservations in Arizona. Between them, they produce enough coal to satisfy the unquenchable energy thirsts of Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. They also comprise the single largest strip-mining complex in the world. For more than 30 years, the mines—and the Mohave Generating Station they supply—scar sacred native land, drain the natural aquifers and pollute the Southwestern skies.
Meanwhile, beneath the high-tension power lines that carry electricity to the neon-saturated Vegas Strip, Native American reservation dwellers have no electricity or running water.
Sickened by the economic disparity and the mounting toll on their land and health, some Navajo and Hopi tribe members begin pressuring their tribal governments not to renew the mining leases, but to no avail. As a result, a handful of grassroots organizers from both tribes join forces with The Sierra Club, the Grand Canyon Trust and the National Parks and Conservation Association to fight back. Calling themselves the Just Transition Coalition, they take on wealthy and entrenched adversaries from Peabody to Southern California Edison.
They succeed in closing the power plant (and subsequently the mines) in 2005. But the ecological and moral victory comes at a cost: About half of the adults on the reservations had worked for the mines, and are now unemployed.
Undeterred, the Just Transition Coalition shifts gears and heads for California, where they win a legal battle to use the shuttered Mohave plant’s cap-and-trade pollution credits to finance investment in solar panels and wind turbines for their reservations.
In one scene, a Navajo mother screws a light bulb into a kitchen socket for the first time and sees it light up, enabling her children to stop depending on sunlight or dangerous kerosene lanterns in order to do their homework. She weeps in relief and gratitude.
Today, more tribes are seeking investments and partnerships to create green-energy economies on the reservation, with hopes that one day, renewable energy will replace casinos as a primary means for economic development and tribal self-sufficiency.
As the nation at large struggles to disengage itself from the chains of a fossil-fuel-based economy, POWER PATHS signals cause for hope that an alternative is not somewhere in the future, but possible right now. And Native Americans are leading the way.

Update

In June 2009, the 21st Navajo Nation Council voted 62 to 1 to establish a Navajo Green Economy Commission, according to the Sierra Club. The legislation, which is designed to take advantage of federal stimulus funds for green jobs, is intended to stimulate the economy by developing a sustainable energy infrastructure on the Navajo reservation.
P.O. Box 613 Flagstaff, AZ 86002 US

Censored News Third Birthday

Censored News celebrates three years of publishing. Photo collage by Brenda Norrell

Censored News 2007 -- 2009

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Censored 2006

http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/

Carlos Marentes:

"Congratulations to Brenda Norrell and Censored News for bringing the news that the system will not publish to protect the interests of the rich and privileged class."

The Sanctuary Movement and Manzo

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Photo: Dia de los Muertos at San Xavier on Tohono O'odham land on Oct. 31, 2009. Crosses in memorial for those who died crossing the Sonoran Desert. Photo Brenda Norrell

TUCSON -- In the heart of the barrios of Tucson, there lives and breathes the inexplicable truth that it is possible to do great works with one's life, saving the lives of countless peoples who face torture and death.
Before the Sanctuary Movement's Central American underground railroad, there was the former Manzo Area Council. Indigenous Peoples were among those who found shelter in this country because of the heroic acts of the people in these movements. Following the birth of Manzo, the Rev. John Fife and co-founder James Corbett, the late Quaker rancher who died in 2001, announced the existence of the Central American underground railroad. At a recent dinner honoring Manzo, Fife said the credit for the Sanctuary Movement should go to Manzo, comprised of a small group of women from Tucson's west side. Those include Manzo's Margo Cowan and Lupe Castillo. Fife and the Asylum Program of Arizona, honored Cowan, Cathy Montaño Gamez, Margie Ramirez Atkins and Sister Ann Gabriel Marciacq of the St. Joseph Carondelet order for their work, which led to saving the lives and sheltering those who fled torture and death in their own countries.
Listen to this program, recorded by Amanda Shauger at KXCI Tucson and read more at:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kxci/arts.artsmain?action=viewArticle&id=1572700&pid=218&sid=14

Read Mother Tongue: Demetria Martinez' award-winning book Mother Tongue is based in part upon Martinez's 1988 trial for conspiracy against the United States government in connection with smuggling Salvadoran refugees into the country, a charge that with others carried a 25 -year prison sentence. A religion reporter at the time, covering the faith-based Sanctuary Movement, Martinez was found not guilty on First Amendment Grounds.