February 11, 2010
Dine' Medicine Men's Association halts bill to regulate ceremonies
Dine' Medicine Men's Association said Arizona legislation could open the door to state control of Native American ceremonies
Statement from Sen. Albert Hale, Navajo, regarding Native American practices bill
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
STATE CAPITOL, Phoenix – A bill to regulate the use of traditional Native American practices off of Indian Nation lands will not be heard Thursday, Feb. 11 by the Senate Committee on Government Institutions at the request of Sen. Albert Hale, Dist. 2, the sponsor of the bill.
"I asked to have the bill held at the request of the Diné Medicine Men Association. After a lengthy discussion with the Association it appears that they still have significant questions about the bill. I explained to the Association that the bill intends to direct the Arizona Department of Health Services, in conjunction with the Arizona Commission on Indian Affairs, to develop rules to regulate the off-reservation practice of Native American traditional ceremonies by non-Indians or others, and did not apply to ceremonial practices on Indian reservations.
“The state does not have jurisdiction to regulate or apply its laws on Indian reservations. I further assured them that an amendment was to be considered to make clarifications. The amendment would clarify that the bill did not apply to ceremonies performed by enrolled members of an Indian tribe for another enrolled member on or off Indian Nation lands.
“The Diné Medicine Men Association were opposed to the bill in its present form and wanted further discussion of the bill. I understand and appreciate the fear that these regulations may open the door to state regulations of Native American ceremonies. Pursuant to the Association's request, I request the bill to be held and it was subsequently removed."
Media Contact:
Jeanette Tejeda de Gomez, Director of Communication
Senate Democratic Caucus
602-926-4477, jtejeda@azleg.gov
With courage, they walk into that dark night
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Over the years I've had the bounty of meeting many incredibly brave people. People who face off with the military in Chiapas and look down the barrels of AK47s. People who step softly and assuredly into prison time and time again to expose the US reign of terror and torture. People who live on the backroads alone and centered, facing the rangers and herding their sheep, facing the border patrol and tribal police. They are Mayan, Maori, O'odham, Mohawk, Yaqui, Pueblo and Navajo. They are Indigenous, Australian, Canadian and European. They come from all walks of life, rich and poor, young and old.
Still, there are times when the courage of these people stops me into stillness. I am spellbound by their courage. Here is one of these, an invitation and a poster, from a delegation going to El Salvador. It is from the School of Americas Watch, struggling for closure of the US military's training school of assassins in Fort Benning, Ga.:
"Join Fr. Roy in events commemorating the 30th anniversary of Monseñor Romero´s assassination at the hands of SOA graduates. Walk in the footsteps of martyrs Ita Ford, Maura Clark, Fr. Ignacio Ellacuria, Celia Ramos and others. Accompany SOA Watch's Partnership America Latina (PAL) Coordinator Lisa Sullivan in visiting high level Salvadoran government officials in asking that El Salvador send no more soldiers to this school of assassins."
Dalai Lama, pack a lunch
Dalai Lama, pack a lunch
By Brenda Norrell
By Brenda Norrell
Narcosphere
Hopefully President Obama's meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama will go better than Obama's meeting with American Indian leaders. Although Obama invited Native American leaders to the White House, in the end, they had to stand in line to get into the Interior Building, without even a handshake from the president.
The Dalai Lama won't have to worry about a row of white Interior officials staring down at him from the podium, the way American Indian leaders did.
The meeting between Obama and the Dalai Lama will probably go well, if it happens on Feb. 18. After all, Obama is not likely to chit chat with the emblem of peace about his new funding focus on wars, drones and the development of nuclear energy.
Obama will probably keep it light, a smile about his Nobel Peace Prize and that sort of thing. There's not likely to be talk about how US soldiers sit safely at their computers in Nevada and direct drones which kill women and children in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama isn't likely to mention how his friends over at General Dynamics will financially benefit from war dollars. There won't be any need to be sad over photographs of dead US soldiers or their coffins, since there aren't any photos. Obama probably won't discuss the fact that no one in the US seems to know why the US is at war in Afghanistan or mention the messy US business with narcotics there.
Obama will likely shy away from details of US torture at the current CIA torture site in Afghanistan, while visiting with the Tibetan spiritual leader. There won't be talk of how the US has decided it can kill US citizens abroad who are suspects, never charged or prosecuted. Likely, there won't be a mention of how the secret renditions are continuing under the Obama administration or how the Obama administration approved oil drilling in the Arctic. There's not much chance Obama will debate his decision to appoint George W. Bush to raise funds for Haiti disaster relief.
After all, this is a bourgeois presidency, not one with the thunder and voice of Martin Luther King, Jr.
OK, so President Obama did already cancel one meeting with the Dalai Lama, choosing instead to meet with the Chinese president first.
Still, the meeting with the Dalai Lama will probably go better than the meeting with Indian Nation leaders.
After all, there's only one of him.
Hopefully President Obama's meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama will go better than Obama's meeting with American Indian leaders. Although Obama invited Native American leaders to the White House, in the end, they had to stand in line to get into the Interior Building, without even a handshake from the president.
The Dalai Lama won't have to worry about a row of white Interior officials staring down at him from the podium, the way American Indian leaders did.
The meeting between Obama and the Dalai Lama will probably go well, if it happens on Feb. 18. After all, Obama is not likely to chit chat with the emblem of peace about his new funding focus on wars, drones and the development of nuclear energy.
Obama will probably keep it light, a smile about his Nobel Peace Prize and that sort of thing. There's not likely to be talk about how US soldiers sit safely at their computers in Nevada and direct drones which kill women and children in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama isn't likely to mention how his friends over at General Dynamics will financially benefit from war dollars. There won't be any need to be sad over photographs of dead US soldiers or their coffins, since there aren't any photos. Obama probably won't discuss the fact that no one in the US seems to know why the US is at war in Afghanistan or mention the messy US business with narcotics there.
Obama will likely shy away from details of US torture at the current CIA torture site in Afghanistan, while visiting with the Tibetan spiritual leader. There won't be talk of how the US has decided it can kill US citizens abroad who are suspects, never charged or prosecuted. Likely, there won't be a mention of how the secret renditions are continuing under the Obama administration or how the Obama administration approved oil drilling in the Arctic. There's not much chance Obama will debate his decision to appoint George W. Bush to raise funds for Haiti disaster relief.
After all, this is a bourgeois presidency, not one with the thunder and voice of Martin Luther King, Jr.
OK, so President Obama did already cancel one meeting with the Dalai Lama, choosing instead to meet with the Chinese president first.
Still, the meeting with the Dalai Lama will probably go better than the meeting with Indian Nation leaders.
After all, there's only one of him.
Tabloid television: A new circus in town
Tabloid television: A new circus in town
While attempting to portray border agents as heroes, the media exposes buffoons
Narcosphere
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2010/02/tabloid-television-new-circus-town
By Brenda Norrell
Photo: Border patrol costume sold online for children
TUCSON -- The human rights activists on the US/Mexico border have done their work well. Their labors of love have brought new attention to the xenophobia and profiteering behind the border migration hysteria. They have put human faces on the hundreds who die each year in the Sonoran desert, including women and children, as the US criminalizes giving a cup of water or aid to the dying.
Activists on the border have exposed the murders, rapes, beatings and drug running of the US Border Patrol and other border agents. Activists have also exposed the billion dollar profiteering on the border from imprisoning migrants, including women and children, in private prisons and the Apartheid security produced by the same company, Elbit Systems, on the border of Palestine. Activists have brought attention to the drones, unmanned aircraft, above which are also used in Iraq and Afghanistan by the US for rogue assassinations and the killing of civilians.
In light of all this, it is nauseating to watch the new tabloid TV journalism which attempts to portray border agents as heroes and grand trackers. In the sensationalized coverage of narco trafficking at the border, both television and print media, including the New York Times, fail to investigate deeper. They fail to expose the crimes of the border agents and the US clandestine role in the ongoing drug smuggling at the border. They fail to report the murders, rapes, beatings and drug smuggling by border agents and the US military. They fail to expose the fact that the deadliest of the narco traffickers, the Zetas, now controlling the drug war in northern Mexico, were trained by US special forces of the US military.
Sadly, while trying to perpetuate the hype of grand border trackers, the TV media exposes the fact that most of these trackers can't even follow basic tracks and are too out-of-shape to climb a hill or even chase a suspect. It is obvious that what they spend most of their time doing is riding around in air-conditioned vehicles or on off road vehicles that tear up the desert.
Some of the media now attempt to give voice to the oppression that the Tohono O'odham people live with, the militarization of their land and the corruption of their elected tribal government. Still, it is more often than not tokenism, a little splash of truth without taking the risk to investigate deeper into the root causes. The media takes the safe route, focuses on drug trafficking, without examining who is doing it and how and why they are getting away with it.
There is little mention of the displacement and homelessness, assassinations and terror, caused by US and Canadian mining and energy companies in Mexico, Central and South America. As more Indigenous Peoples are made homeless by the US reign of terror -- the US and Canadian governments working in concert with corporations -- more come on foot in search of survival. Many, including women and children, die in the Sonoran Desert or are imprisoned in private prisons where they are abused and voiceless.
The borderzone is Indigenous territory. Even with the tribal governments coopted by Homeland Security, it is Indian land. They were the original occupants. Non-native border agents are johnny come latelies, white immigrants descending from the oppressors of Indigenous peoples.
Narcosphere
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2010/02/tabloid-television-new-circus-town
By Brenda Norrell
Photo: Border patrol costume sold online for children
TUCSON -- The human rights activists on the US/Mexico border have done their work well. Their labors of love have brought new attention to the xenophobia and profiteering behind the border migration hysteria. They have put human faces on the hundreds who die each year in the Sonoran desert, including women and children, as the US criminalizes giving a cup of water or aid to the dying.
Activists on the border have exposed the murders, rapes, beatings and drug running of the US Border Patrol and other border agents. Activists have also exposed the billion dollar profiteering on the border from imprisoning migrants, including women and children, in private prisons and the Apartheid security produced by the same company, Elbit Systems, on the border of Palestine. Activists have brought attention to the drones, unmanned aircraft, above which are also used in Iraq and Afghanistan by the US for rogue assassinations and the killing of civilians.
In light of all this, it is nauseating to watch the new tabloid TV journalism which attempts to portray border agents as heroes and grand trackers. In the sensationalized coverage of narco trafficking at the border, both television and print media, including the New York Times, fail to investigate deeper. They fail to expose the crimes of the border agents and the US clandestine role in the ongoing drug smuggling at the border. They fail to report the murders, rapes, beatings and drug smuggling by border agents and the US military. They fail to expose the fact that the deadliest of the narco traffickers, the Zetas, now controlling the drug war in northern Mexico, were trained by US special forces of the US military.
Sadly, while trying to perpetuate the hype of grand border trackers, the TV media exposes the fact that most of these trackers can't even follow basic tracks and are too out-of-shape to climb a hill or even chase a suspect. It is obvious that what they spend most of their time doing is riding around in air-conditioned vehicles or on off road vehicles that tear up the desert.
Some of the media now attempt to give voice to the oppression that the Tohono O'odham people live with, the militarization of their land and the corruption of their elected tribal government. Still, it is more often than not tokenism, a little splash of truth without taking the risk to investigate deeper into the root causes. The media takes the safe route, focuses on drug trafficking, without examining who is doing it and how and why they are getting away with it.
There is little mention of the displacement and homelessness, assassinations and terror, caused by US and Canadian mining and energy companies in Mexico, Central and South America. As more Indigenous Peoples are made homeless by the US reign of terror -- the US and Canadian governments working in concert with corporations -- more come on foot in search of survival. Many, including women and children, die in the Sonoran Desert or are imprisoned in private prisons where they are abused and voiceless.
The borderzone is Indigenous territory. Even with the tribal governments coopted by Homeland Security, it is Indian land. They were the original occupants. Non-native border agents are johnny come latelies, white immigrants descending from the oppressors of Indigenous peoples.
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